Einstein's Morality

"Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends."
- Albert Einstein

Without thinking about how genes/natural selection explain morality of any being (human or not), I feel this is a nice way to think about it. Pretty easily disables the religious argument of the satan-worshipping (probably dumbest thing I heard here: "So, you don't believe in god... do you believe in satan?" - "No, actually you believe in satan because you believe in god. I do in neither."), evil-doing atheist that does not have any moral guidelines, because he doesn't have god.
It should be more questioned how good moral guidelines are that tell me to keep slaves and that women are inferior beings. Or talking about less extreme examples (which doesn't make them less dumb):

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... from Jack Black

"You pick and choose!"
Can't get it out of my head.
"You pick and choose!"

Religion-forming on steroids.

Dawkins devotes a couple of his pages to these little interesting movements.

They really made me smile, and I just had to share. 

It sounds like such a plausible way of how any (yeah, any) religion has been formed at one point:

"We don't know what the fuck is going on! It's probably god(s) doing some work... lets worship 'em! Maybe we will be in their favor then, too/more often!? Praise the Cargo/Trinity/Buddha/Allah/Flying Spaghetti Monster/iPhone/Tim Lincecum!" 

And it goes on, and on, and ooooon...

And again the Vatican celebrates not punishing rapists.

Disgusting.

Apologies, no penalties

So, as we know some priests around the world keep raping boys. The church (catholic that is) has to act. But again, as it does act, it acts without penalties, but merely with words.

As the catholic church constantly has to deal with this openly in the media (being one of the largest), I don't even want to know what can be assumed that is going on behind closed doors of any church.

“It’s all about protecting the institution and, above all, its wealth. The greatest contribution the pope could have made was to stop the abuse of victims, and he’s not even done that.”
Word up, victims' group founder.

“I know some of you find it difficult even to enter the doors of a church after all that has occurred.”

Yipp, Pope Daddy.

ManBearPig, where are you?

We are having snow in late March. And a bunch of it, too.

Makes me think back to the good ol' days of this blog.

Come on!

This is going to explode!

OMG... What is!?


This Blog, at least I think so. At least for a couple of weeks.

For a religion class I am currently reading Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion". And I have to say I love it quite a bit. Everyone in the world should read it.

For now I will just quote something he quotes, that I think is very double-quotable.

Talking about the whole Muhammed-cartoon issue in 2005/2006 he quotes journalist Andrew Mueller talking about the assumptions of religion/Islam:

"the values of Islam trump anyone else's - which is what any follower of Islam does assume, just as any follower of any religion believes that theirs is the sole way, truth and light. If people wish to love a 7th century preacher more than their own families, that's up to them, but nobody else is obliged to take it seriously..."

... Or a 0th century preacher...?

Here are some interesting stories I never heard about before:

Religion as a legitimization for drug use -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._O_Centro_Espirita_Beneficente_Uniao_do_Vegetal

Tolerating religious values taken a little too far -
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,474629,00.html

More passages and interesting thoughts will follow.