“Calling universal healthcare, or more progressively geared tax rates, or really pretty much any meek reform to an industrial capitalist economy “marxism” or “communism” is approximately as rational, and historically educated, as pointing at a bicycle and calling it a unicorn. Ignore it.” ~Rik Pilskalns

“No it is not “time to attack Iran”! Neither the USA nor Israel should attack Iran. Iran should have no right to have nuclear weapons or any other civilian killing WMD. No one should…not the USA, not Israel, not Russia, not France, not India, not Pakistan, not China, not North Korea. The regime in Iran is oppressing it’s own people and should be opposed on those grounds by all liberals and leftis…ts around the world, but the same is true of many governments for whom the drums of war are not currently beating. The US helped Iran’s nuclear program many times in the past. The US helped Pakistan and India’s nuclear programs. Don’t trust the USA Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, or Russia….liars all…putting the world in harms way. May the Green Revolution succeed one day soon. Fuck Ahmadinejad!” – Abel Ashes

” I oppose both Israeli Zionism and Palestinian Islamism in equal measure and have zero tolerance for Hamas who, like Israel, are also oppressing the people of Gaza, at least those who don’t conform to the insane far-rightwing religious fanaticism of Hama’s sickening charter, which looks a lot like the charter of the Zionist terrorist group Lehi. I stand with the secularists in both lands in opposition to the Jewish and Muslim and Christian leaders who see the conflict as a fight over “Holy Land”. I shit on everything that is ‘Holy’ in the name of peace, stability, equality of Jews and Arabs, freedom of religion, freedom from religion, equal rights for all women, science based education, opposition to all anti-Arab and anti-Jew bigotry, and cutting off funds to the religious fanatics and arms dealers who want this stupid conflict to continue.” – Abel Ashes

“As an atheist who personally disagrees with all religion and a secularist who supports freedom of religion and from religion (when one so chooses) and separation of religion and state, I oppose both the pro-Islamist Left and the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim Right. Many Leftwing, liberal, libertarian, socialist, and human rights groups have sold-out to far-Rightwing fascist Islamism. Much of the opposition to such far-Rightwing fascist Islamism is coming from far-Rightwing fascist racists, neo-Nazis, Christian theocrats, and Zionist extremists who all have more in common with Islamists than they do with those of us who support freedom of religion, separation of religion and state, equal rights for all, and a secular legal system. I support a global secular humanist movement against all theocracy, all racism, all fascism.” – Abel Ashes

“I blame the United States, Pakistan, Iran, the U.S.S.R. before it’s demise, Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and to some extent Israel and China (among other nations) for the past 30 years of war and terrorism and murder and despotism inflicted up the people of Afghanistan in the 1970s was one of the more liberal and free countries in the region.” – Abel Ashes

“The thugs of Maliki prove again that they are the enemies of women. They persist in establishing a despotic rule in Iraq with the blessings of the forces of occupation.
If not for the occupation, people of Iraq would have ousted Sadam through the struggles of Tahrir square. Nevertheless, the US troops empower and protect the new Sadamists of the so called democracy who repress dissent with detainments and torture.
The US government and CNN bless the uprisings of Libya and Syria, while ignoring Iraqi struggles, as they had told the whole world that we prosper in their democracy. Scenes of 100,000 Iraqi rebels on February 25 still echo in our minds. Youth such as Aya led those demonstrations, and may still bring about a final uprising and ousting of a corrupt and oppressive government and a never-ending occupation.”
- Yanar Mohammed, President of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI)

“That’s why what’s needed are political and not economic sanctions if you are to hurt the regime and not the people of Iran. Expel the regime; boycott it. Shut down their embassies everywhere; stop giving them the red carpet treatment and voting them on UN Human Rights Committees… Oh and by the way, don’t even think of intervening militarily or otherwise. The people in Iran will get rid of them – just you wait and see…” – Maryam Namazie on the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from the UK in December 2011

“There is no such thing as a “Muslim country” or a “Christian country” or a “Jewish country” or a “Buddhist country” or a “Hindu country”. Everyone, everywhere on Earth has the right to control their own mind, their own thoughts. No one has the right to force anyone to believe in their “god”. Anyone who claims such a “right” to force religion on others is an enemy of all humanity.” – Abel Ashes

“Praise Jesus! Praise Allah! Praise Yahweh! Praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Praise all manifestations of the one true universalist Grod! (I don’t believe in “God” but I do believe in “Grod”!) , for without his infinite wisdom and wonderful mercy and compassion this world would not have dog’s butts and without dog’s butts we would have no dog poop! Praise Jebus!” – Abel Ashes

“Soon after news of the fatwa broke, Ginsberg and his assistant climbed into the back seat of a taxi in Manhattan. After a glance at the cab driver’s name, Ginsberg politely inquired if he was a Muslim. When the cabbie replied that he was, Ginsberg asked him what he thought about the death sentence on Rushdie. The cabbie answered that he thought that Rushdie’s book was disrespectful of Islam, and that the Ayatollah had every right to do what he had done. At this point, according to his assistant, Ginsberg, one of the gentlest men ever to walk the planet, flew into a rage, screaming at the cabbie as he continued to drive, “Then I shit on your religion! Do you hear me? I shit on Islam! I shit on Muhammad! Do you hear? I shit on Muhammad!” Ginsberg demanded that the cabbie pull over. The cabbie complied, and, without paying the fare, Ginsberg and his assistant climbed out. He was still screaming at the cabbie as the car drove off.” – from “The Poet Versus the Prophet” by Mark Goldblatt, Reason Magazine, May 14, 2010

“Government per se is not the root of problem in the USA. The private corporate sector and the religious establishments are the problem. They have corrupted government. The US political system is well designed. It’s greatest flaw is that it is difficult to police the police, so-to-speak. Contrary to the common assumption that “power corrupts”, I would say that it is in the very nature of power, whether political, corporate, financial, or religious, that it will tend to attract those who seek to abuse it. In other words power does not make people corrupt. They are already corrupt before they obtain power.” – Abel Ashes

“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”- Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life.

“Praying to an omnipotent deity to change his mind would insult his intelligence, and praying to a non-existent one just insults your own. Be skeptical.”– Unknown

“As long as all of the religious people keep their beliefs out of the realm of law and order and politics and we can all work together on universal, secular principles of justice and fairness and practicality then everything is fine. As soon as someone says a voice from beyond said “blah, blah, blah” and I’m making a law based on that…we have a problem. I don’t want to change anyone’s mind and I will not respect anyone’s beliefs. I will, however respect people despite their beliefs, but I will not respect their beliefs.” – Abel Ashes

“Defend Islamists if you must but don’t play the trick of making it seem like it’s people’s right to religion. religion in political power has nothing to do with beliefs. It is oppressive, medieval, brutal and barbaric. Take a look around you to see what Islamists do to mainly Muslims everyday and be ashamed for supporting them!” – Maryam Namazie

“All 171 countries that don’t currently ban the practice of female genital mutilation must do so immediately! Anyone caught committing this attrocity should have all of their property seized and given to their victims and then spend the rest of their lives in prison for sex crimes, torture, and brutal assault! And fake “liberals” and “leftists” who make excuses for such evil practices under the bullshit guise of “cultural tolerance” should quit being ridiculous and realise that they have become tools of the most far-rightwing, reactionary, ultraconservative, anti-woman, anti-equality, anti-freedom, anti-justice, anti-progressive assholes on the face of the Earth.” – Abel Ashes

“The corporate media keeps censoring the real Occupy Wall Street story which is that a bunch of conmen in the financial sector of the US economy deliberately cheated the American people out of trillions of dollars and sent the world into a recession making themselves even richer in the process. Many people, including myself, would like to see such men taken out of the boardrooms, taken out of the stockmarket, and taken out of the regulatory agencies they are deliberately handicapping and led away to prison in handcuffs just like Bernie Madoff!” – Abel Ashes

“All gods are false gods. To kill/murder/execute someone for believing in the wrong god, the ‘crime’ of apostasy or blasphemy that exists in some ‘Muslim countries’ is pure evil, pure stupidity, pure ignorance, pure wickedness, pure insanity, pure delusion, pure sickness, pure lunacy, pure tyranny, pure savagery, completely inhumane and unhuman!” – Abel Ashes

“There is not now, nor will there ever be any way to ‘balance’ any form of Islamic rule, or rule by any other religious faith, with a free society. Religion has no business in politics, education, or science and should be kept as far away from children as drugs, guns, pornography, and members of the Catholic clergy.” – Abel Ashes

“‘What would Jesus do?’ Well supposing he was a real person that actually existed in historical fact…he would get the death penalty for physically attacking and vandalizing the property of corrupt money changing pro-Roman Empire Temple Rabbis and for blasphemy for claiming to be ‘The Messiah’ as though such a thing exists…and then his followers would say ‘he died for our sins’ meaning he died because of the shortcomings of his contemporary followers. This would later be misinterpreted as meaning that he was a sadisticly bizarre ‘holy’ human sacrifice and that we should pretend to eat his flesh and drink his blood.”
- Abel Ashes

“Charity and political action are both necessary. Poor people can’t really do much charity because how can you feed others when you are having trouble feeding yourself? Charity is needed absolutely but it only treats the symptoms to get to the root and cure the disease of poverty is just as necessary and requires changing political, economic/ecological, and judicial systems.” – Abel Ashes

“I’m sorry if my atheism offends you. But guess what? Your religious wars, jihads, crusades, inquisitions, censoring of free speech, brainwashing of children, murdering of albinos, forcing girls into underage marriages, genital mutilation, stoning, pederasty, homophobia, and rejection of science and reason offends me. So I guess we’re even.”- Mike Treder

“In my opinion Christopher Hitchens is one of greatest living voices of moral truth and unfortunately he has stage 4 cancer. We need millions of people like him. We already have billions that are nothing like him… completely morally subjective, little to no concern for actuality, reality, facts or the consequences of their actions and beliefs. Perhaps more people to make such arguments in a kinder way would also be good. But it must be said that teaching that an all powerful god either makes or allows event s such as the tsunami that hit Japan or the earthquake that devastated Haiti is to teach that evil is good and justifiable if it comes from the most powerful. It is the most immoral teaching imaginable. He is my favorite intellectual on the concept of “god” because he doesn’t just oppose “god” based upon science, lack of proof, the lack of necessity of the concept, but because of the moral relativism inherent in the belief in a being that is simultaneously “all powerful”. “all loving”, and responsible for either allowing or causing the most unimaginably horrific of events from rape to genocide to natural disasters to war to terrorism to disease to famine to…” – Abel Ashes

“As a general rule diplomacy and peacemaking is the right way to go in most situations, but to make peace with the Taliban in Afghanistan would be to sell the people of much of Afghanistan into a draconian theocratic dictatorial hell for the hollow promise of “stability”. It would be an act of unspeakable evil mascuerading as “peace”. Unfortunately this is being proposed by Karzai and Obama. If this is the way they choose to make peace they will have the blood of Afghanistan’s women, children, liberals, seculars, religious minorities, and more on their hands for a long, long time to come.” – Abel Ashes

“The people of Gaza deserve to live in a secular, pluralist state equal in every way with Israel including militarily, in peace, free from foreign interference whether Israeli, Iranian, American or Saudi and free of theocracy and corruption. Down with Likud, down with Hamas.” – Abel Ashes

“The devastation in Japan from the recent tsunami is unbelievably sad. It is also unbelievably sad and disgusting that billions of people all over the world believe that our world is controlled by an all powerful god that either makes these things happen or allows them to happen. The idea is as corny as Bigfoot in a Santa Cluas costume, but I think it says something about how far we have to go as moral/ethical creatures. If such a god existed he/she/it would be infinitely more evil than the most evil human that ever lived and to worship such evil would be comparable to worshipping serial killers or ethnic cleansers. No one did this. This is just unfortunate. We are fragile organisms living in a physical universe that is unaware that it even exists. ” – Abel Ashes

“The problem, it would seem is that unlike most of my fellow Americans who are either zombie-like slaves to Palestinian propaganda or else they are brainwashed drones for Israeli bullshit, I can detect propaganda coming from both si…des. Why is it that everyone on both sides of this issue is so brainwashed that they can’t see that the leaders in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories are lying, bigoted hate criminals? It is the pro-peace, pro-two state solution, pro-human rights, pro-secular people on both sides of this nationalistic conflict that I side with and the bigots and fanatics on both sides which I oppose.” – Abel Ashes

“The reality is that Islam and Judaism at their inceptions were basically hateful delusional cults that got popular. Israel should ban groups such as the Likud party and the Judeo-fascists that create illegal settlements in the name of god. The Palestinian Authority should ban Hamas and all other Islamo-fascists hate groups. Murdering and otherwise oppressing innocent people is inexcusable. I for one support getting aid to needy Palestinians and oppose anyone helping Hamas with anything. Of course there is a purely secular side to the conflict and a big part of it can only be solved by cost effective desalination of sea water. The water shortage is the real reason why Israel targets Palestinian orchards, for instance.” – Abel Ashes

“We should oppose warmongering in the name of humanitarian causes while also opposing humanitarian abuses. The problem during the Cold War was that opposition to pro-capitalist violence often linked itself with pro-communist violence and neither one was pro-human. There should have been military intervention in Rwanda. The reason there wasn’t is simple, yet complex and it’s all about the Vatican. We must strive to “End War” yes, but not by giving power over to warlords. Peace without justice and liberty is not really peace at all.” – Abel Ashes

“Parallel legal systems are what the fanatics want next. London has them in certain neighborhoods. In Pakistan, which is a backwards Islamic theocracy, there are certain areas where the government allows jihadists to have their own brutal ‘legal system’ that contradicts the actual Pakistani legal system and is much more brutal and archaic…all so sick men can treat women and children like crap and force their fanatical delusions on everyone else via an ever present threat of ‘holy’ murder.” – Abel Ashes

“Unregulated capitalism is about as ethical and practical as legalizing rape and shitting in your own food” – Abel Ashes

“Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.”
- Thomas Jefferson

“The only way we, as the human species, can all agree on anything about the fundamental nature of our universe is to have our common ground rest on those things which we do know about. When everything becomes subjective and unknowable, even though it really isn’t, we lose our ability to relate to each other and our world. If our own personal, subjective, intuitive, instinctual, fantasy based worlds overwhelm what we can measure and demonstrate to be true, sadly we are devolving.
That’s why I’m more offended by religious/spiritual/esoteric/superstitious/supernature beliefs that contradict what we already know (such as the laws of physics) than I am by those that attempt to the explain the as-yet-unknown.” – Abel Ashes

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” – Howard Zinn

“The Dome of the Rock/Al-Aqsa Mosque should off limits to Christians, Muslims, and Jews until they can learn to quit killing over something as stupid as religion” – Abel Ashes

“It seems thinkable that he truly believed his own mad propaganda, often adumbrated on tapes and videos, especially after the American scuttle from Somalia. The West, he maintained, was rotten with corruption and run by cabals of Jews and homosexuals. It had no will to resist. It had become feminized and cowardly. One devastating psychological blow and the rest of the edifice would gradually follow the Twin Towers in a shower of dust. Well, he and his fellow psychopaths did succeed in killing thousands in North America and Western Europe, but in the past few years, their main military triumphs have been against such targets as Afghan schoolgirls, Shiite Muslim civilians, and defenseless synagogues in Tunisia and Turkey. Has there ever been a more contemptible leader from behind, or a commander who authorized more blanket death sentences on bystanders?
Theocratic irrationality is not so uncommon that defeats like this are enough to render it unattractive. No doubt some braggarts will continue to tell instant opinion polls in the region that they regard him as a holy sheik or some such drivel. (Funny how those polls never picked up the local appetite for constitutional democracy.) With any luck, there will even be demented rumors that Bin Laden is not “really” dead. Fine: He’d probably already done the worst damage he was going to do. In anything describable as the real world, his tactics were creating antibodies and antagonists, or no longer matched observable conditions, or had at least hit diminishing returns. From Baghdad to Bali, it has been conclusively demonstrated that Bin-Ladenism is the cause of poverty, misery, and unemployment and not—as some know-nothings used to claim—a response to it.” – Christopher Hitchens on the death of Osama Bin Laden

“I’d place both Reagan and Truman very high on my worst US Presidents list (a list on which almost all of them would occupy space). Reagan campaigning for Truman is ironic to me in more ways than one. I often say that one of the few things I do admire about what Reagan did while in office was his work on nuclear weapons de-escalation with Gorbechev and I think that one of the worst decisions a US President ever made was Truman’s authorization of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” – Abel Ashes

“Yes the 1993 WTC bombing should be taught in school history classes. They should talk about Emad Salem, the hero who almost stopped the bombing and Ramzi Yousef, the bomb maker who was the originator of the plot to fly planes into buildings which became the 9/11 attacks and which the US knew about since 1995 and which were carried out by Yousef’s uncle KSM in plain sight of US, Israeli, Saudi, and Pakistani intelligence. The WTC bombing of 1993 and the Oklahoma City bombing were both at the very least sting operations gone bad… so what about 9/11… ?” – Abel Ashes

“IFC (Iraq Freedom Congress) is the real force for democracy in Iraq: secular, nonviolent, anti-occupation, anti-Salafist, anti-Khomenist, anti-sectarian, anti-terrorist, anti-US defense contractor, pro-Iraqi control of Iraqi oil, pro-women’s equality, anti-corruption, pro-civil society, pro-infrastructure and responsible development.” – Abel Ashes

“Tax the churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and other cult compounds. Tax exemption should only be given to charities based upon not-for-profit work not based upon superstitious belief and certainly not based upon the forcing of ones superstitious beliefs upon others via the political system. I agree with Frank Zappa when he sang, ‘Tax the churches. Tax the businesses owned by the churches.’” – Abel Ashes

“Isn’t it time for religious institutions to be held to the same legal standards as the rest of society. If secular leaders molest kids they go to prison. Why are people still complaining to the Catholic Church about this instead of complaining to local, state, national, and international law enforcement that they do their job and make some arrests and put some of these rapists in prison… and while I’m on the subject; We could pay of the deficit in no time if we started to tax the churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and other cult compounds like what many of them are… for profit businesses” – Abel Ashes

“the US isn’t primarily interested in democracy in the Middle East, at least not the majority of the US power structure as a whole. The US and Pakistan have much in common in that their political agencies are not ideologically unified, but rather full of people that hold very different views. There is always much infighting within both governments much of which takes the shape of clandestine and covert activities where one official or branch of government is doing something that contradicts what another sector is doing. This is often overlooked. But if our government was really working for democracy in the Middle East there is no way we would have set up Islamic Republics in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead we would have helped secular democratic groups in both countries to draw up constitutions that separate church and state and insure freedom of religion. And of course we would never let mercenary contractors like Halliburton, Blackwater (Xe), Dyncorps, Monsanto have anything to do with these new governments. The US government is often just a cut-out for the business interests of US corporations, but there are some decent people in power who do get some good done amidst all of the evil, which is both difficult bordering on impossible at times and commendable.” – Abel Ashes

“Far-right-wing, ultra-conservative, violent, anti-democracy jihadist theocrat shit-heads make a great excuse for US corporations to exploit chaos for profit.” – Abel Ashes

“It can’t be done without any violence and ‘evil’ can never truly be eliminated, only reduced and then reduced further and further. I see it all as a process of psychological and sociological evolution combined with an improvement in governance which would involve strengthening enforcement of existing laws that are beneficial, repeal of oppressive laws, prosecution of corrupt officials, support for those who are not corrupt that venture into the sea of corruption that is the political process, and yes the sometimes the use of violence. I prefer non-violence but I am not a pacifist. People have the right to defend themselves AND each other. I think the invisible line between state and sub-state actors, when it comes to human rights abuses should be erased. No individual whether a government official, corporate official, terrorist, revolutionary, profiteer, mercenary, or just plain common criminal sociopath should have immunity from prosecution for human rights abuses or be treated with kid gloves. How to make it happen, I don’t know. It’s a slow process of political and philosophical evolution that we are a part of everyday. I think that legislative and judicial integrity is the key. No laws and bad laws both lead to enormous human suffering.”
- Abel Ashes

“I condemn the Taliban. I condemn al-Qaeda. I condemn Dick Cheney. I condemn the Saudi Royal Family. I condemn the assholes formerly known as Black Water. But I do not condemn myself. I do not condemn the USA. I do not condemn Afghanistan or Iraq or the people of Saudi Arabia or Israel or Palestine or Great Britain. I am a human first. Liberals, paleo-conservatives, libertarians, leftists, anti-establishment types, anarchists, socialists, communists, democrats, republicans, who-gives-a-shit should all comdemn human rights abuses by anyone at anytime anywhere on Earth, always and forever without consideration for politics, religion, national sovereignty, sovereign immunity, diplomacy, political correctness, tradition, propriety, bullshit, nonsense, excuses, excuses… otherwise they are all full of shit.” – Abel Ashes

“… The ideological battle between Socialism and Capitalism during the twentieth century distorted the view and created alliances for one economic doctrine against the other. In their quest to win the ideological war, political movements resorted to every possible tactic including the exploitation of religious ideologies which eventually led to the resurgence of political groups with strong religious reference. Religion and theology then were introduced to the school in order to silence critical thinking among young people and facilitate their subjugation by traditional and religious approaches and also to avoid revolutionary uprisings like the one seen in 1969, which was based on critical thinking that spread during the post-WWII era.
From here, religious curricula at school started to breed and spread. Religious classes were created at secondary schools and universities. Scholarships were created to encourage students and researchers in this field. Murshidates (Religious female guides) and Imams were trained. This plan succeeded in eliminating the liberal movement, and has created armies of young extremists who do not tolerate difference and tend to ignite sedition and inspire hatred against non religious minorities.” – Kacem El Ghazzali

“The religious fanatics and bigots on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict have dominated the issue for long enough. It is time for the moderates and secularists and pluralists to rise and demand separation of church and state in both lands and a commitment to the sanctity of all civilian life Palestinian and Israeli. From Irgun to Hamas the conflict has always been about bigotry and hatred on both sides. It is right to criticize the murder of innocent people on both sides and it is wrong to make excuses for murder. Many Israelis want peace. Many Palestinians want peace. We seldom get to hear their voices because of the pro-conflict lobbies.” – Abel Ashes 10/4/2010

“I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people… Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.”
—Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists

“In both Colombia and Israel/Palestine both sides are wrong when they kill the innocent and they always change the subject when you bring it up. They say the other side does it too, so turn your head and look away. Anyone who supports any violent action taken against the civilian population anywhere for any cause, no matter how noble or just or important it may seem, harms those who are not responsible for their grievances while hurting their own cause simultaneously. The crimes of the Colombian government do not excuse the crimes of the FARC and visa versa. The crimes on both sides are very well documented and it is only by viewing the world through the rose-colored glasses of revolutionary and/or counterrevolutionary propaganda nonsense that anyone could be unable to see this.” – Abel Ashes 9/25/2010

“No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever…All men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion.” – from Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom of 1777

“I’ve never joined any organization, not even the ones I’ve organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it’s Christianity or Marxism. One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as ‘that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you’re right.’ If you don’t have that, if you think you’ve got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.”
- Saul Alinsky

“It’s strange that the phrase ‘respect for religion’ has come to mean that religious beliefs should be exempt from the close scrutiny that other beliefs are subjected to. Such an attitude infantilizes religious believers, suggesting that their views cannot be defended and can be preserved only by silencing those who disagree.”
- Mano Singham

“Its absurd that people are dying over such a miserable piece of real estate. Israel has a right to exist and the Palestinians are entitled to their own state.”
- Frank Zappa

” I oppose both Israeli Zionism and Palestinian Islamism in equal measure and have zero tolerance for Hamas who, like Israel, are also oppressing the people of Gaza, at least those who don’t conform to the insane far-rightwing religious fanaticism of Hama’s sickening charter, which looks a lot like the charter of the Zionist terrorist group Lehi. I stand with the secularists in both lands in opposition to the Jewish and Muslim and Christian leaders who see the conflict as a fight over “Holy Land”. I shit on everything that is ‘Holy’ in the name of peace, stability, equality of Jews and Arabs, freedom of religion, freedom from religion, equal rights for all women, science based education, opposition to all anti-Arab and anti-Jew bigotry, and cutting off funds to the religious fanatics and arms dealers who want this stupid conflict to continue.” – Abel Ashes

“As an atheist who personally disagrees with all religion and a secularist who supports freedom of religion and from religion (when one so chooses) and separation of religion and state, I oppose both the pro-Islamist Left and the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim Right. Many Leftwing, liberal, libertarian, socialist, and human rights groups have sold-out to far-Rightwing fascist Islamism. Much of the opposition to such far-Rightwing fascist Islamism is coming from far-Rightwing fascist racists, neo-Nazis, Christian theocrats, and Zionist extremists who all have more in common with Islamists than they do with those of us who support freedom of religion, separation of religion and state, equal rights for all, and a secular legal system. I support a global secular humanist movement against all theocracy, all racism, all fascism.” – Abel Ashes

“I blame the United States, Pakistan, Iran, the U.S.S.R. before it’s demise, Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and to some extent Israel and China (among other nations) for the past 30 years of war and terrorism and murder and despotism inflicted up the people of Afghanistan in the 1970s was one of the more liberal and free countries in the region.” – Abel Ashes

“The thugs of Maliki prove again that they are the enemies of women. They persist in establishing a despotic rule in Iraq with the blessings of the forces of occupation.
If not for the occupation, people of Iraq would have ousted Sadam through the struggles of Tahrir square. Nevertheless, the US troops empower and protect the new Sadamists of the so called democracy who repress dissent with detainments and torture.
The US government and CNN bless the uprisings of Libya and Syria, while ignoring Iraqi struggles, as they had told the whole world that we prosper in their democracy. Scenes of 100,000 Iraqi rebels on February 25 still echo in our minds. Youth such as Aya led those demonstrations, and may still bring about a final uprising and ousting of a corrupt and oppressive government and a never-ending occupation.”
- Yanar Mohammed, President of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI)

“That’s why what’s needed are political and not economic sanctions if you are to hurt the regime and not the people of Iran. Expel the regime; boycott it. Shut down their embassies everywhere; stop giving them the red carpet treatment and voting them on UN Human Rights Committees… Oh and by the way, don’t even think of intervening militarily or otherwise. The people in Iran will get rid of them – just you wait and see…” – Maryam Namazie on the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from the UK in December 2011

“There is no such thing as a “Muslim country” or a “Christian country” or a “Jewish country” or a “Buddhist country” or a “Hindu country”. Everyone, everywhere on Earth has the right to control their own mind, their own thoughts. No one has the right to force anyone to believe in their “god”. Anyone who claims such a “right” to force religion on others is an enemy of all humanity.” – Abel Ashes

“Praise Jesus! Praise Allah! Praise Yahweh! Praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Praise all manifestations of the one true universalist Grod! (I don’t believe in “God” but I do believe in “Grod”!) , for without his infinite wisdom and wonderful mercy and compassion this world would not have dog’s butts and without dog’s butts we would have no dog poop! Praise Jebus!” – Abel Ashes

“Soon after news of the fatwa broke, Ginsberg and his assistant climbed into the back seat of a taxi in Manhattan. After a glance at the cab driver’s name, Ginsberg politely inquired if he was a Muslim. When the cabbie replied that he was, Ginsberg asked him what he thought about the death sentence on Rushdie. The cabbie answered that he thought that Rushdie’s book was disrespectful of Islam, and that the Ayatollah had every right to do what he had done. At this point, according to his assistant, Ginsberg, one of the gentlest men ever to walk the planet, flew into a rage, screaming at the cabbie as he continued to drive, “Then I shit on your religion! Do you hear me? I shit on Islam! I shit on Muhammad! Do you hear? I shit on Muhammad!” Ginsberg demanded that the cabbie pull over. The cabbie complied, and, without paying the fare, Ginsberg and his assistant climbed out. He was still screaming at the cabbie as the car drove off.” – from “The Poet Versus the Prophet” by Mark Goldblatt, Reason Magazine, May 14, 2010

“Government per se is not the root of problem in the USA. The private corporate sector and the religious establishments are the problem. They have corrupted government. The US political system is well designed. It’s greatest flaw is that it is difficult to police the police, so-to-speak. Contrary to the common assumption that “power corrupts”, I would say that it is in the very nature of power, whether political, corporate, financial, or religious, that it will tend to attract those who seek to abuse it. In other words power does not make people corrupt. They are already corrupt before they obtain power.” – Abel Ashes

“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”- Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life.

“Praying to an omnipotent deity to change his mind would insult his intelligence, and praying to a non-existent one just insults your own. Be skeptical.”– Unknown

“As long as all of the religious people keep their beliefs out of the realm of law and order and politics and we can all work together on universal, secular principles of justice and fairness and practicality then everything is fine. As soon as someone says a voice from beyond said “blah, blah, blah” and I’m making a law based on that…we have a problem. I don’t want to change anyone’s mind and I will not respect anyone’s beliefs. I will, however respect people despite their beliefs, but I will not respect their beliefs.” – Abel Ashes

“Defend Islamists if you must but don’t play the trick of making it seem like it’s people’s right to religion. religion in political power has nothing to do with beliefs. It is oppressive, medieval, brutal and barbaric. Take a look around you to see what Islamists do to mainly Muslims everyday and be ashamed for supporting them!” – Maryam Namazie

“All 171 countries that don’t currently ban the practice of female genital mutilation must do so immediately! Anyone caught committing this attrocity should have all of their property seized and given to their victims and then spend the rest of their lives in prison for sex crimes, torture, and brutal assault! And fake “liberals” and “leftists” who make excuses for such evil practices under the bullshit guise of “cultural tolerance” should quit being ridiculous and realise that they have become tools of the most far-rightwing, reactionary, ultraconservative, anti-woman, anti-equality, anti-freedom, anti-justice, anti-progressive assholes on the face of the Earth.” – Abel Ashes

“The corporate media keeps censoring the real Occupy Wall Street story which is that a bunch of conmen in the financial sector of the US economy deliberately cheated the American people out of trillions of dollars and sent the world into a recession making themselves even richer in the process. Many people, including myself, would like to see such men taken out of the boardrooms, taken out of the stockmarket, and taken out of the regulatory agencies they are deliberately handicapping and led away to prison in handcuffs just like Bernie Madoff!” – Abel Ashes

“All gods are false gods. To kill/murder/execute someone for believing in the wrong god, the ‘crime’ of apostasy or blasphemy that exists in some ‘Muslim countries’ is pure evil, pure stupidity, pure ignorance, pure wickedness, pure insanity, pure delusion, pure sickness, pure lunacy, pure tyranny, pure savagery, completely inhumane and unhuman!” – Abel Ashes

“There is not now, nor will there ever be any way to ‘balance’ any form of Islamic rule, or rule by any other religious faith, with a free society. Religion has no business in politics, education, or science and should be kept as far away from children as drugs, guns, pornography, and members of the Catholic clergy.” – Abel Ashes

“‘What would Jesus do?’ Well supposing he was a real person that actually existed in historical fact…he would get the death penalty for physically attacking and vandalizing the property of corrupt money changing pro-Roman Empire Temple Rabbis and for blasphemy for claiming to be ‘The Messiah’ as though such a thing exists…and then his followers would say ‘he died for our sins’ meaning he died because of the shortcomings of his contemporary followers. This would later be misinterpreted as meaning that he was a sadisticly bizarre ‘holy’ human sacrifice and that we should pretend to eat his flesh and drink his blood.”
- Abel Ashes

“Charity and political action are both necessary. Poor people can’t really do much charity because how can you feed others when you are having trouble feeding yourself? Charity is needed absolutely but it only treats the symptoms to get to the root and cure the disease of poverty is just as necessary and requires changing political, economic/ecological, and judicial systems.” – Abel Ashes

“I’m sorry if my atheism offends you. But guess what? Your religious wars, jihads, crusades, inquisitions, censoring of free speech, brainwashing of children, murdering of albinos, forcing girls into underage marriages, genital mutilation, stoning, pederasty, homophobia, and rejection of science and reason offends me. So I guess we’re even.”- Mike Treder

“In my opinion Christopher Hitchens is one of greatest living voices of moral truth and unfortunately he has stage 4 cancer. We need millions of people like him. We already have billions that are nothing like him… completely morally subjective, little to no concern for actuality, reality, facts or the consequences of their actions and beliefs. Perhaps more people to make such arguments in a kinder way would also be good. But it must be said that teaching that an all powerful god either makes or allows event s such as the tsunami that hit Japan or the earthquake that devastated Haiti is to teach that evil is good and justifiable if it comes from the most powerful. It is the most immoral teaching imaginable. He is my favorite intellectual on the concept of “god” because he doesn’t just oppose “god” based upon science, lack of proof, the lack of necessity of the concept, but because of the moral relativism inherent in the belief in a being that is simultaneously “all powerful”. “all loving”, and responsible for either allowing or causing the most unimaginably horrific of events from rape to genocide to natural disasters to war to terrorism to disease to famine to…” – Abel Ashes

“As a general rule diplomacy and peacemaking is the right way to go in most situations, but to make peace with the Taliban in Afghanistan would be to sell the people of much of Afghanistan into a draconian theocratic dictatorial hell for the hollow promise of “stability”. It would be an act of unspeakable evil mascuerading as “peace”. Unfortunately this is being proposed by Karzai and Obama. If this is the way they choose to make peace they will have the blood of Afghanistan’s women, children, liberals, seculars, religious minorities, and more on their hands for a long, long time to come.” – Abel Ashes

“The people of Gaza deserve to live in a secular, pluralist state equal in every way with Israel including militarily, in peace, free from foreign interference whether Israeli, Iranian, American or Saudi and free of theocracy and corruption. Down with Likud, down with Hamas.” – Abel Ashes

“The devastation in Japan from the recent tsunami is unbelievably sad. It is also unbelievably sad and disgusting that billions of people all over the world believe that our world is controlled by an all powerful god that either makes these things happen or allows them to happen. The idea is as corny as Bigfoot in a Santa Cluas costume, but I think it says something about how far we have to go as moral/ethical creatures. If such a god existed he/she/it would be infinitely more evil than the most evil human that ever lived and to worship such evil would be comparable to worshipping serial killers or ethnic cleansers. No one did this. This is just unfortunate. We are fragile organisms living in a physical universe that is unaware that it even exists. ” – Abel Ashes

“The problem, it would seem is that unlike most of my fellow Americans who are either zombie-like slaves to Palestinian propaganda or else they are brainwashed drones for Israeli bullshit, I can detect propaganda coming from both si…des. Why is it that everyone on both sides of this issue is so brainwashed that they can’t see that the leaders in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories are lying, bigoted hate criminals? It is the pro-peace, pro-two state solution, pro-human rights, pro-secular people on both sides of this nationalistic conflict that I side with and the bigots and fanatics on both sides which I oppose.” – Abel Ashes

“The reality is that Islam and Judaism at their inceptions were basically hateful delusional cults that got popular. Israel should ban groups such as the Likud party and the Judeo-fascists that create illegal settlements in the name of god. The Palestinian Authority should ban Hamas and all other Islamo-fascists hate groups. Murdering and otherwise oppressing innocent people is inexcusable. I for one support getting aid to needy Palestinians and oppose anyone helping Hamas with anything. Of course there is a purely secular side to the conflict and a big part of it can only be solved by cost effective desalination of sea water. The water shortage is the real reason why Israel targets Palestinian orchards, for instance.” – Abel Ashes

“We should oppose warmongering in the name of humanitarian causes while also opposing humanitarian abuses. The problem during the Cold War was that opposition to pro-capitalist violence often linked itself with pro-communist violence and neither one was pro-human. There should have been military intervention in Rwanda. The reason there wasn’t is simple, yet complex and it’s all about the Vatican. We must strive to “End War” yes, but not by giving power over to warlords. Peace without justice and liberty is not really peace at all.” – Abel Ashes

“Parallel legal systems are what the fanatics want next. London has them in certain neighborhoods. In Pakistan, which is a backwards Islamic theocracy, there are certain areas where the government allows jihadists to have their own brutal ‘legal system’ that contradicts the actual Pakistani legal system and is much more brutal and archaic…all so sick men can treat women and children like crap and force their fanatical delusions on everyone else via an ever present threat of ‘holy’ murder.” – Abel Ashes

“Unregulated capitalism is about as ethical and practical as legalizing rape and shitting in your own food” – Abel Ashes

“Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.”
- Thomas Jefferson

“The only way we, as the human species, can all agree on anything about the fundamental nature of our universe is to have our common ground rest on those things which we do know about. When everything becomes subjective and unknowable, even though it really isn’t, we lose our ability to relate to each other and our world. If our own personal, subjective, intuitive, instinctual, fantasy based worlds overwhelm what we can measure and demonstrate to be true, sadly we are devolving.
That’s why I’m more offended by religious/spiritual/esoteric/superstitious/supernature beliefs that contradict what we already know (such as the laws of physics) than I am by those that attempt to the explain the as-yet-unknown.” – Abel Ashes

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” – Howard Zinn

“The Dome of the Rock/Al-Aqsa Mosque should off limits to Christians, Muslims, and Jews until they can learn to quit killing over something as stupid as religion” – Abel Ashes

“It seems thinkable that he truly believed his own mad propaganda, often adumbrated on tapes and videos, especially after the American scuttle from Somalia. The West, he maintained, was rotten with corruption and run by cabals of Jews and homosexuals. It had no will to resist. It had become feminized and cowardly. One devastating psychological blow and the rest of the edifice would gradually follow the Twin Towers in a shower of dust. Well, he and his fellow psychopaths did succeed in killing thousands in North America and Western Europe, but in the past few years, their main military triumphs have been against such targets as Afghan schoolgirls, Shiite Muslim civilians, and defenseless synagogues in Tunisia and Turkey. Has there ever been a more contemptible leader from behind, or a commander who authorized more blanket death sentences on bystanders?
Theocratic irrationality is not so uncommon that defeats like this are enough to render it unattractive. No doubt some braggarts will continue to tell instant opinion polls in the region that they regard him as a holy sheik or some such drivel. (Funny how those polls never picked up the local appetite for constitutional democracy.) With any luck, there will even be demented rumors that Bin Laden is not “really” dead. Fine: He’d probably already done the worst damage he was going to do. In anything describable as the real world, his tactics were creating antibodies and antagonists, or no longer matched observable conditions, or had at least hit diminishing returns. From Baghdad to Bali, it has been conclusively demonstrated that Bin-Ladenism is the cause of poverty, misery, and unemployment and not—as some know-nothings used to claim—a response to it.” – Christopher Hitchens on the death of Osama Bin Laden

“I’d place both Reagan and Truman very high on my worst US Presidents list (a list on which almost all of them would occupy space). Reagan campaigning for Truman is ironic to me in more ways than one. I often say that one of the few things I do admire about what Reagan did while in office was his work on nuclear weapons de-escalation with Gorbechev and I think that one of the worst decisions a US President ever made was Truman’s authorization of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” – Abel Ashes

“Yes the 1993 WTC bombing should be taught in school history classes. They should talk about Emad Salem, the hero who almost stopped the bombing and Ramzi Yousef, the bomb maker who was the originator of the plot to fly planes into buildings which became the 9/11 attacks and which the US knew about since 1995 and which were carried out by Yousef’s uncle KSM in plain sight of US, Israeli, Saudi, and Pakistani intelligence. The WTC bombing of 1993 and the Oklahoma City bombing were both at the very least sting operations gone bad… so what about 9/11… ?” – Abel Ashes

“IFC (Iraq Freedom Congress) is the real force for democracy in Iraq: secular, nonviolent, anti-occupation, anti-Salafist, anti-Khomenist, anti-sectarian, anti-terrorist, anti-US defense contractor, pro-Iraqi control of Iraqi oil, pro-women’s equality, anti-corruption, pro-civil society, pro-infrastructure and responsible development.” – Abel Ashes

“Tax the churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and other cult compounds. Tax exemption should only be given to charities based upon not-for-profit work not based upon superstitious belief and certainly not based upon the forcing of ones superstitious beliefs upon others via the political system. I agree with Frank Zappa when he sang, ‘Tax the churches. Tax the businesses owned by the churches.’” – Abel Ashes

“Isn’t it time for religious institutions to be held to the same legal standards as the rest of society. If secular leaders molest kids they go to prison. Why are people still complaining to the Catholic Church about this instead of complaining to local, state, national, and international law enforcement that they do their job and make some arrests and put some of these rapists in prison… and while I’m on the subject; We could pay of the deficit in no time if we started to tax the churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and other cult compounds like what many of them are… for profit businesses” – Abel Ashes

“the US isn’t primarily interested in democracy in the Middle East, at least not the majority of the US power structure as a whole. The US and Pakistan have much in common in that their political agencies are not ideologically unified, but rather full of people that hold very different views. There is always much infighting within both governments much of which takes the shape of clandestine and covert activities where one official or branch of government is doing something that contradicts what another sector is doing. This is often overlooked. But if our government was really working for democracy in the Middle East there is no way we would have set up Islamic Republics in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead we would have helped secular democratic groups in both countries to draw up constitutions that separate church and state and insure freedom of religion. And of course we would never let mercenary contractors like Halliburton, Blackwater (Xe), Dyncorps, Monsanto have anything to do with these new governments. The US government is often just a cut-out for the business interests of US corporations, but there are some decent people in power who do get some good done amidst all of the evil, which is both difficult bordering on impossible at times and commendable.” – Abel Ashes

“Far-right-wing, ultra-conservative, violent, anti-democracy jihadist theocrat shit-heads make a great excuse for US corporations to exploit chaos for profit.” – Abel Ashes

“It can’t be done without any violence and ‘evil’ can never truly be eliminated, only reduced and then reduced further and further. I see it all as a process of psychological and sociological evolution combined with an improvement in governance which would involve strengthening enforcement of existing laws that are beneficial, repeal of oppressive laws, prosecution of corrupt officials, support for those who are not corrupt that venture into the sea of corruption that is the political process, and yes the sometimes the use of violence. I prefer non-violence but I am not a pacifist. People have the right to defend themselves AND each other. I think the invisible line between state and sub-state actors, when it comes to human rights abuses should be erased. No individual whether a government official, corporate official, terrorist, revolutionary, profiteer, mercenary, or just plain common criminal sociopath should have immunity from prosecution for human rights abuses or be treated with kid gloves. How to make it happen, I don’t know. It’s a slow process of political and philosophical evolution that we are a part of everyday. I think that legislative and judicial integrity is the key. No laws and bad laws both lead to enormous human suffering.”
- Abel Ashes

“I condemn the Taliban. I condemn al-Qaeda. I condemn Dick Cheney. I condemn the Saudi Royal Family. I condemn the assholes formerly known as Black Water. But I do not condemn myself. I do not condemn the USA. I do not condemn Afghanistan or Iraq or the people of Saudi Arabia or Israel or Palestine or Great Britain. I am a human first. Liberals, paleo-conservatives, libertarians, leftists, anti-establishment types, anarchists, socialists, communists, democrats, republicans, who-gives-a-shit should all comdemn human rights abuses by anyone at anytime anywhere on Earth, always and forever without consideration for politics, religion, national sovereignty, sovereign immunity, diplomacy, political correctness, tradition, propriety, bullshit, nonsense, excuses, excuses… otherwise they are all full of shit.” – Abel Ashes

“… The ideological battle between Socialism and Capitalism during the twentieth century distorted the view and created alliances for one economic doctrine against the other. In their quest to win the ideological war, political movements resorted to every possible tactic including the exploitation of religious ideologies which eventually led to the resurgence of political groups with strong religious reference. Religion and theology then were introduced to the school in order to silence critical thinking among young people and facilitate their subjugation by traditional and religious approaches and also to avoid revolutionary uprisings like the one seen in 1969, which was based on critical thinking that spread during the post-WWII era.
From here, religious curricula at school started to breed and spread. Religious classes were created at secondary schools and universities. Scholarships were created to encourage students and researchers in this field. Murshidates (Religious female guides) and Imams were trained. This plan succeeded in eliminating the liberal movement, and has created armies of young extremists who do not tolerate difference and tend to ignite sedition and inspire hatred against non religious minorities.” – Kacem El Ghazzali

“The religious fanatics and bigots on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict have dominated the issue for long enough. It is time for the moderates and secularists and pluralists to rise and demand separation of church and state in both lands and a commitment to the sanctity of all civilian life Palestinian and Israeli. From Irgun to Hamas the conflict has always been about bigotry and hatred on both sides. It is right to criticize the murder of innocent people on both sides and it is wrong to make excuses for murder. Many Israelis want peace. Many Palestinians want peace. We seldom get to hear their voices because of the pro-conflict lobbies.” – Abel Ashes 10/4/2010

“I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people… Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.”
—Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists

“In both Colombia and Israel/Palestine both sides are wrong when they kill the innocent and they always change the subject when you bring it up. They say the other side does it too, so turn your head and look away. Anyone who supports any violent action taken against the civilian population anywhere for any cause, no matter how noble or just or important it may seem, harms those who are not responsible for their grievances while hurting their own cause simultaneously. The crimes of the Colombian government do not excuse the crimes of the FARC and visa versa. The crimes on both sides are very well documented and it is only by viewing the world through the rose-colored glasses of revolutionary and/or counterrevolutionary propaganda nonsense that anyone could be unable to see this.” – Abel Ashes 9/25/2010

“No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever…All men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion.” – from Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom of 1777

“I’ve never joined any organization, not even the ones I’ve organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it’s Christianity or Marxism. One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as ‘that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you’re right.’ If you don’t have that, if you think you’ve got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.”
- Saul Alinsky

“It’s strange that the phrase ‘respect for religion’ has come to mean that religious beliefs should be exempt from the close scrutiny that other beliefs are subjected to. Such an attitude infantilizes religious believers, suggesting that their views cannot be defended and can be preserved only by silencing those who disagree.”
- Mano Singham

“Its absurd that people are dying over such a miserable piece of real estate. Israel has a right to exist and the Palestinians are entitled to their own state.”
- Frank Zappa

http://www.africaontheblog.com/the-politics-of-coltan/

Subjective reasoning and the dogma of cultural sensitivity lead to human subjugation and other unfortunate outcomes. A currently relevant example would be the way in which “respect” for “culture”, religion, and tradition are often given more value than protection of the rights of human beings. An example would be feminist progressives excusing the abuses committed against women in traditional Islam for fear of being branded “Islamophobic”. Misguided memes mislead societies into granting rights to “cultures” and religions and nationalities rather than the people who may not have a choice as to how such culture is applied to them by family, society, or religion.

Christian Scientists are often held legally liable if their refusal of medical treatment for their children leads to the death or serious illness of their children. Such consistency in thought and action as applied to reason and compassion should be applicable to other issues as well. If the burqa exists as a tool to keep women shielded from society and reinforce that a woman’s place is under the boot of her husband than it follows that the burqa is not merely a symbol of the subjugation of women but a tool in the actual subjugation of women, thus making the banning of the burqa even more of a favorable outcome than even the banning of pro-Nazi symbology in post-war Germany.

When corporations are given legal rights granting them “personhood” in matters pertaining to political campaign contributions, labor contracts, and legal disputes the rights of the individual consumer, worker, shareholder, voter, and citizen are often diminished as a consequence. The same can be said for when we excuse human rights abuses on the grounds of not interfering in other cultures or in the interests of “multiculturalism”. Such twisted logic can be seen in the mindsets of most Westerners with regard to people of non-Western origin, when for example, scholars and laymen alike refer to all people in any given Muslim dominated society as “Muslims” failing to grasp the concept that as human beings each and every one of them is free to decide otherwise regardless of the absurd dictates of their families, societies, “cultures”, and religions.

All cultures have much to offer all of us in knowledge, art, music, cuisine, history, literature, and philosophy and such beautiful diversity can and must be embraced concurrent with criticisms of backwards, immoral, unethical, inhumane practices that were it not for the camouflage provided by cultural sensitivities would have rightfully died out long ago. Fortunately American progressives do not have any problem criticizing Catholicism for its opposition to birth control or it’s protection of child rapist priests. Unfortunately, on the other hand, American progressives often would be all too happy to leave those of less familiar, less “Western” cultures to the sadistic whims of their theocratic abusers on the grounds that it is supposedly “none of our business”.

If we examine abuse within families rather than societies, cultures, or religions, the mindset changes instantly from one of “embrace of differences” to one of, shall we say, “This is not right! I won’t stand for this!” or “I’m calling the cops!” or “Somebody is gonna get their ass kicked!”. For example, if a white progressive, liberal, or libertarian American witnessed a fellow white liberal, progressive or libertarian American beating his wife or molesting his child they would be much more likely to interfere because of the inability of the culprit to falsely claim discrimination, as if discrimination against wife-beating or child molestation would be a bad thing.

On the other hand some so-called intellectuals have given up their own liberty to exercise good judgement and their duty to exercise good morals so much so that all rights become subjective the moment tyrants, misogynists, and other abusers assert their “cultural freedom” to subjugate “their own people”. Is not the undercurrent of such thinking a patronizing relegation of other cultures to mere curiosities and fetishes, a relegation of other Peoples to the demeaning position of being somehow undeserving of the free choices and personal freedoms that others hold to be unalienable?

Democracy is not the best form of government, but rather one element that if cautiously applied with checks and balances against its abuse by tyrannical, delusional, impractical, and ignorant majorities against minorities, should be but one part of a good government. Democracy did not free the slaves from bondage or give women the right to vote or grant civil rights protections to African-Americans. Controversial and unpopular revisions to our the framework of our constitutional republic did, changes that were viewed by white southerners, Christian men, and caucasian America as being culturally insensitive and offensive at the time. I for one stand firmly opposed to the tyranny of subjective multiculturalism and conversely firmly in the camp of global human rights equality.

Every time I am asked, “Do you believe in an afterlife?” I can’t help but think that the question should honestly be rephrased as, “Do you believe that death is real?”, the answer to which would be a unequivocal, “yes”. As unfortunate as it may seem, and it is unfortunate, death is very real and all evidence indicates that when the brain dies the so-called “soul” or “consciousness” dies as well.

To “believe in an afterlife”, whether it be heaven, hell, purgatory, reincarnation, or spirits that haunt our houses or forests, in actuality is to believe that death does not exist, for death is by definition the end of life.

In times past we knew much less of our own human condition or the nature of life itself which gave rise to myths to placate our curiosities and anxieties about our origins, the essential nature of our existence, and our ultimate and unfortunate final date with oblivion and/or relegation to the status of a nostalgic memory within the collective consciousness of subsequent descendant members of our species.

The fear of death is perhaps the greatest force within humans driving us toward religious, spiritual, and superstitious belief. As with all problems in life, the first step toward conquering this fear and rising above it is accepting the reality of the situation. The reality is that there is no verifiable evidence in all of human history for the existence of any form of “life after death” whatsoever.

There are millions of stories, fables, myths, dogmas, and heart-felt beliefs, but there is no evidence, let alone proof. However we can know with certainty that when an animal’s brain dies, so too does the animal, and humans are nothing more than the most advanced animal on Earth and the most advanced animal we can currently know to exist throughout the cosmos.

The fear of death drives humans to give their life savings over to spiritual charlatans, dedicate their lives to pointless activities such as prayer, abuse their children according to their religion’s particular delusional dogma, and even murder those who believe in a different “life after death” myth than their own. There is in modern neuroscience further confirmation of the finite and rather brief nature of human life, which should, if we are indeed an intelligent species lead us cherish life more rather than less. It is not the belief that life is short and finite that drives the suicide bomber, but rather the belief that “this life” (the only one the suicide bomber will ever have) is merely a short stop on the path to a greater eternal life in a “heaven” or “paradise”.

When we realise how finite life is every human and animal life becomes more valuable, not less. Every moment of our real lives becomes more valuable, not less. We should live our lives as if they are the only lives we will ever have, because all evidence confirms that this is the case. Perhaps the proper response when confronted with that incredulous question, “You mean you don’t believe in an afterlife?” is to ask the questioner, “You mean you don’t believe that death is real?”

Hamas are the religious fanatic shitheads who murder Palestinian kids for making out in cars like teenagers are prone to do, because it’s not okay under their shithead Islamic religious law.

The particular “Stay Human” page I refer to: http://www.facebook.com/LetsRemainHuman

The picture glorifying mass murderer of non-combatant civilians Ahlam Tamimi: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=238715719481621&set=a.217859698233890.62480.209769055709621&type=1&theater

Wikipedia page on the Sbarro restaurant bombing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sbarro_restaurant_suicide_bombing

Article on the pro-Palestinian Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni killed in Gaza by pro-al-Qaeda Palestinians: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/16/world/middleeast/16gaza.html

Wikipedia page on Vittorio Arrigoni: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittorio_Arrigoni

Vittorio Arrigoni on Hamas (from Wikipedia with references):

Arrigoni criticised Muslim extremists for trying to impose a hardline version of Islam in Gaza.[10] In an interview with PeaceReporter, he said: “Personally, as an activist for human rights, I don’t like Hamas at all. I have something to say to them too: they have deeply limited human rights since they have won the elections.”[11]

The religious fanatics that murdered Arrigoni are enemies of Hamas as Hamas views them as being too extreme, but both groups are enemies of a free, secular, pluralist Palestinian state living in peace and equality alongside Israel.

The people of Gaza deserve to live in a secular, pluralist state equal in every way with Israel including militarily, in peace, free from foreign interference whether Israeli, Iranian, American or Saudi and free of theocracy and corruption. Down with Likud, down with Hamas.

For millenia religious leaders and self-proclaimed mystics have perpetuated factually inaccurate mythical doomsday scenarios that have scared flocks of naive humans into the philosophical prisons of their warped ideologies, while simultaneously stroking the egos of said human sheep with the “knowledge” (not real, but rather imagined) that each and every one of them may just be more significant than they otherwise would assume themselves to be. After all, when most humans die and have died in the past, they have left behind a vibrant living world that went on just fine without them, that in most cases completely forgot that they had ever existed, and carried on as though they had not.

However things are different for those who believe they are living in “The End Times” or some variation thereof. Just imagine a little voice in the back of your head say, “When I die I’m taking the rest of you losers with me!” Then imagine feeling much better about your pitiful existence as a temporary organism among billions of temporary organisms most likely to be forgotten in the vast oceans of time.

Fortunately, at least for those of us who care more about the good of humanity as a whole than our own puny lives, nearly all doomsday prophecies are 100% bullshit. There are few things that have the potential to erase humanity from existence. All of them are scenarios that involve the planet’s environment undergoing changes, man-made or natural, that render the planet uninhabitable.

A massive meteor strike is one such possibility, but we have no scientific knowledge that such a thing will happen, only that it could happen and the chances are high that someone would survive. Humanity could evolve out of existence and most likely will, to be replaced over millions of years by what will hopefully be an intellectually and morally superior species. We could kill ourselves off of course by destroying our own environment, leaving only lower species to repopulate the planet.

But the only sure thing doomsday scenario that we can really know to be on the celestial schedule is the death of our Sun in about 5 billion years. Now imagine the slow motion destruction as the planet slowly loses all life as the Sun approaches it’s sad and morbid crescendo obliterating once and for all everything that ever existed in our world and obliterating it for all time.

Every brilliant human being not only dead but all traces of their memory now erased, along with all music, all history, all scientific knowledge, all lessons, all love, all hope gone forever. All majestic mammals, and birds, and fish, and insects, and reptiles erased for all time in an extinction so complete that not even a memory will remain, for there will be no one to remember. All plants, all foods, all cultures, and yes all religions too would be extinct and gone without a trace forever.

But wait, there is still time to stop this calamity and it does not involve selling your soul to a non-existent entity or believing in mystical, un-observable and unnamable “energy” properties. No faith is required, but hope and resolve and most of all reason and skepticism are. In fact if our collective humanity and all of our brilliant creations do not survive (at least in memory) beyond the next 5 billion years it will most likely be because of faith and not in spite of it.

Religion teaches us to believe that which contradicts our own knowledge, basically to distrust our own senses and the very hard work of those among us who have dedicated themselves to unbiased and extensive examination of the nature of our universe and instead suppose that those without such knowledge in fact “know” more because, well because they say they do.

5 billion years is a long time and maybe many or most of humanity doesn’t really care what happens that long after they themselves have died, but I sure as fuck do and perhaps that can be taken as anecdotal evidence for fundamental differences in human brain chemistry from person to person or perhaps we all choose through either careful, thoughtful deliberation or through naive intuitional animal instinct that which we value.

I value humanity even more than I value myself. I don’t think there is a single human being whose existence outshines the brilliance of the species. After all we are the most advanced species that we know of in existence anywhere in the cosmos. We know with the closest thing to certainty that we can approximate, the vigorous and repetitive application of scientific method (at least those of us who have bothered to do our homework) that it took billions of years for humans to evolve and that had random events gone differently we would not have existed at all, perhaps another advanced species, perhaps not, but not humans.

We know with the same near certainty that due to basic analysis of probabilities, most planets everywhere that planets exists are not inhabitable and therefore are not inhabited by anyone or anything living at all. We know that the probability is that of those out there in the cosmos yet to be found that may be able to support life most would more likely (again probabilities) support less evolved life than humans, not more evolved as our religiously inspired science fiction tends to portray.

The time and distance between our Earth and other galaxies is so immense as to be measured in millions of light years making space travel to such places completely out of the realm of human or humanoid possibility. And yet wouldn’t we as humans like to further our species on another planet rather than die off with ours? Or alternately, at minimum preserve our most impressive and beautiful history and culture to share with whatever intelligent life may outlive us?

We don’t know a great many things. Will humans even exist in 5 billions years? Probably not, hopefully we will have evolved into a more superior species rather than died off leaving only non-linguistic species in our place, but at this point we cannot know nor hardly even intelligently guess. What would a more advanced species evolved from humans be like? How would they view us and our millions of years of unrelenting cruelty, ignorance, and superstition? How far can technology advance in 5 billion years? The mind boggles!

One thing is certain, wishful thinking will not prevent the sun from running low on nuclear fuel and becoming a red giant then a planetary nebula then a white dwarf then a black dwarf. If there is a solution to our species’ and/our future descendant species’ (singular or plural?) dilemma it will only be through understanding our universe as it is rather than clinging to mythical stories of gods and heavens and hells.