POST # 8: SAYING GRACE AT THANKSGIVING

If asked to give a blessing or say grace at Thanksgiving this year, this is what I will say:

"Instead of bowing our heads in submission to thank the One who cannot be seen, I'd like us all to turn and face the generous person/people who prepared this meal for us. Thank YOU for this bountiful feast, for your hard work and your time. And more broadly, let us thank all the others who contributed to this meal: the scientists who developed the crops in labs and fields over the centuries, the farmers who raised this food, the workers who picked, packed and shipped the food, and those who sold it to the people who prepared this food for us today. To all of you, we express a most sincere "Thank You" this Thanksgiving season. Now, let's all enjoy this wonderful meal!"

How about something like that?

POST # 7: A COUPLE CLASSIC VIDEOS

I love these two videos.

First, the late, great Christopher Hitchens on the historical offenses of the Catholic Church.  Give 'em hell, Hitch.

Second, this woman is my hero: Maryam Namazie on the retrograde nature of Islam and religion.  Per Google, Maryam Namazie is an Iranian-born activist, commentator and broadcaster. Namazie was born in Tehran but left with her family in 1980 after the 1979 Iranian Revolution was suppressed by the Islamic movement.

*****************************************************

"Science works, bitches."  -- Richard Dawkins (paraphrased)

POST # 6: FOX NEWS SAYS ATHEISTS SHOULD LEAVE

Today I caught wind of this little gem from Dana Perino (link), one of the many intellectual abortions over at Fox "News".  Seems Ms. Perino is "tired" of atheists, and is further of the opinion that if atheists don't like "under God" in the American pledge of allegiance, they should just leave the country.  

Isn't that special.  Here's a little note I dashed off to Ms. Perino this afternoon:

You may want to actually READ the First Amendment sometime, Perino, and contemplate that not everyone believes in the same mythical sky wizard that you do. That amendment protects your right to believe whatever religious nonsense you want.  However, realize that there are also millions of patriotic Americans who have no belief in gods whose rights are equally protected by the Establishment Clause.

Non-believers pay taxes, vote, and have as much right to live in this remarkable country as you do.

If you do not support the First Amendment of our secular U.S. Constitution and its Establishment Clause, then I suggest YOU leave the country and find yourself a nice theocracy in which to live.  Just remember to bring your burka, though, and realize that you'll have to leave the political pontificiating to the men-folk.

The fine folks over at "The Young Turks", and in particular host Cenk Uygur, put her in her place nicely here.  

Couldn't have said it better myself.  Keep doing gods work, Turks!  And to the folks at Faux News who think atheists should just leave the country - after you, ladies.

POST # 5: FACEPALM

So, I decided to see what would happen if I Google'd this blog, to see if I could actually "find" myself out there among the interwebs.  I plugged "Reality Based Life Form" into Google, hit enter, and saw that yes indeed, this blog shows up out there - the miracle of the Inter-connected Networks!

(Didn't you always wonder where the word "Internet" came from?)

However, also listed by the Lords of Google were a couple other, un-related entries.  It appears there is (was) another Blogger site floating around out there with a similar name, called "Reality-Based Lifeform" - note that this other title is hyphenated (mine is not) and that it is a singular 'Lifeform' (mine is plural). The beauty part is that this blog appears to be inactive - its last post was in 2005, so I doubt much traffic is going there these days that might be confused by my existence here under an unfortunately similar name.

If that isn't bad enough, however, there is also an older (2003) predecessor of the blog above, entitled "Reality-Based Lifeform" on the Angelfire platform.  

Do you think it woulda been smart for me to do this BEFORE I named my new blog?

FACEPALM.... <------shakes head.

Total rookie blogger mistake.  I will apologize right now for anyone who WANTED to go here who ends up there (and even more so for those who wanted to go THERE but landed HERE instead).  Apologies also to the creator(s) of those other blogs for stepping on their toes with my clumsy name choice.

The author of the Blogger site above is listed as "The Reality Based Lifeform", but I cannot see a more detailed profile of that user while in Internet Explorer or Google Chrome.  However, on the mobile version of the Blogger site the author is listed (also unhelpfully) as "RBLF" - which is, of course, the abbreviation I use in my blog's URL. Grrrrrrrr! I cannot see a user profile or author listed for the Angelfire blog, but it clearly appears to be the same person.

Lastly, I also stumbled across an active "Reality Based Lifeform" user profile on TheBlaze.com.  

So again, apologies for all this confusion.  Should it ever actually cause anyone any REAL confusion, then please let me know via comment below, and if it becomes enough of an issue, I will consider changing my title.

POST # 4: HASIDIC D*CK SUCKERS and RITUAL PEDOPHILIC FELLATIO

Joshie Berger, on a recent "Atheist Nomads" podcast, discussed the Jewish practice of metzitzah b'peh, i.e., "sanitizing" the circumcision wound during a bris by having the mohel place his mouth directly on the boy's penis (!) and sucking out the blood. Yes, you read that correctly - you cannot make this sh*t up. This vile practice is frequently performed by the Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities of New York City (among other places).

This bizarre, archaic and frankly disgusting tradition sometimes results in the transmission to the baby of severe and even fatal infections, including the Herp.  Due to their poorly-developed immune systems, babies are unable to fight off the multitude of microbes found in the human mouth. The City of New York has been fighting to require Jewish parents to sign a "consent form" before metzitzah b'peh is practiced, stating that they have been informed of the risks inherent in the practice and are ok with proceeding. To date, New York has faced tremendous pressure from supporters of the practice and the city has been unable to implement a consent form requirement.

Here's an idea: since babies are catching serious diseases (and even dying) from this practice, how about we freaking outlaw it on public health grounds? Hell, we ought to outlaw it on moral grounds.

It's not bad enough that the god cults insist on carving up the genitals of little boys (and girls) - this particular cult has to follow that up with a some good old-fashioned ritual pedophilic fellatio.  Nice work, degenerates!

You can read more about this grotesque ceremony on this Wiki page, and on New York's efforts health concerns and the consent form here.

"It's just religion, what's the harm?"

POST # 3: IN HONOR or MEMORY

I would like to take a moment here at the very beginning to honor some of the millions of people who have suffered and/or died due to religious-inspired stupidity and bigotry.  The list that follows includes mostly women, whom I highlight as the traditional target of religious persecution.  Clearly, the three Abrahamic religions were invented by Men.

Though it goes without saying, the list below is FAAAAR from an exhaustive catalog of those persecuted and/or killed in the name of superstitious nonsense.  I hope to make updates to this list a regular feature of this blog.

Episode 1: The Salem Witch Trials, 1692

Hanged on June 10
Bridget Bishop, Salem

Hanged on July 19
Sarah Good, Salem Village
Rebecca Nurse, Salem Village
Susannah Martin, Amesbury
Elizabeth How, Ipswich
Sarah Wilds, Topsfield

Hanged on August 19
George Burroughs, Wells, Maine
John Proctor, Salem Village
John Willard, Salem Village
George Jacobs, Sr., Salem Town
Martha Carrier, Andover

September 19
Giles Corey, Salem Farms (pressed to death)

Hanged on September 22
Martha Corey, Salem Farms
Mary Eastey, Topsfield
Alice Parker, Salem Town
Ann Pudeator, Salem Town
Margaret Scott, Rowley
Wilmot Reed, Marblehead
Samuel Wardwell, Andover
Mary Parker, Andover

Other accused witches that were not hanged, but died in prison:
Sarah Osborne, Salem Village
Roger Toothaker, Billerica
Lyndia Dustin, Reading
Ann Foster, Andover

For a much more comprehensive list of victims, including many who escaped, were acquitted, etc., go to Wikipedia at this link.


Episode 2:   Recent victims of religious persecution

• Alia Al-Mahdi (nude Egyptian blogger)
• Sila Sahin (Turkish Playboy model)
• Lama Al-Ghamdi (5 year old girl raped and murdered by her Saudi cleric father)
• Malala Yousafzai (Pakistani girl shot by Taliban)
• Amina Tyler (topless protester in Tunisia who provoked the ire of Islamists when she posted pictures of herself online with the words “My body belongs to me, it doesn’t represent anyone’s honour,” and “F*** your morals” emblazoned across her bare breasts.)
• Asmaa Mahfouz (Egyptian video blogger, helped spark revolution)
• FEMEN (international women's rights group)
• Pragaash (all girl rock group in Kashmir, disbanded after fatwa declared)

POST # 2: WHO IS ANTHONY REAL?

First off, he isn't really "real".  'Anthony Real' is a pseudonym I have developed  in order to freely write  my thoughts on religious nonsense (and other associated political or social nonsense).  I have decided to keep my identity a secret, for now, like Batman.

So who am I, really?  I am a 40-something male, raised in the Baptist tradition in the rural American South.  I have lived and worked in several states on the U.S. Atlantic coast for nearly two decades, after a brief stint working overseas.  I was blessed with enough of a brain to be able to attend one of America's finest undergraduate institutions, and to follow that with an MBA from a respected  university in the Northeast.  I am divorced once and remarried, with an adopted child.  While I have been non-religious my entire adult life (despite occasional church attendance with family), I have only identified as an Atheist since December 2012.  That means I missed entirely the life of the late, great Christopher Hitchens, whom I admire as much as any human being currently living or deceased.

My less-cerebral interests include college sports, especially football and basketball, but also lacrosse and baseball.  My more-cerebral interests include European history, Eastern European cultures and languages, current events, issues of gender equality and reproductive rights.  And of course, I am very interested in bolstering and maintaining the separation of church and state, as well as diminishing the destructive impacts of religion on the lives of real, actual human beings.  Hence this blog.

I am an Atheist, as I have no belief in any gods.  I am Agnostic, in that I believe we cannot truly KNOW whether or not there is a god - though I am thoroughly convinced that if any deity DOES exist, it looks nothing like those described in the "holy" texts of the Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, etc., etc.  I am a Humanist, as I have a firm belief in things that are real - Humans actually exist on this planet and we all must learn to live together.  I am a Freethinker and a Rationalist - I believe that the application of science and reason is the most efficient path to solving problems and living better lives.  And I am a Secularist, in that the one thing for which I would fight and die is the separation of church and state - life without that necessary precondition is truly not worth living (just ask an Iranian or Afghan woman - if her male "handlers" will let her speak with you, that is).

Therefore, I am also an Anti-Theist, as I intend to spend the rest of my life speaking out against the evils of the fraudulent cults referred to deferentially as "religions."

POST # 1: WELCOME and INTRODUCTIONS

Welcome to my new blog, Reality Based Life Forms, in which I will share with you my personal relationship with Reality.  That means that I see no proof whatsoever for the existence of gods or other supernatural phenomena. I do see anecdotal stories and feelings to which our human minds have assigned all kinds of meaning (the mind has been described as a "meaning-making machine").  We see patterns everywhere - even when they are not there.  Hence, religion.

Institutionalized religion, IMO, is nothing but a tool contrived to control people, in particular women and in particular regarding sexual and reproductive issues.  I view religion as an example of the mind inventing things to fill the gaps in our knowledge (where religion came from in the first place).  As science progresses, including our understanding of our own minds, and as humanity's sense of ethics evolves, the need for gods shrinks ever smaller.  I can believe the universe is an amazing, beautiful thing - and I do - but I see no need to attribute its existence to any omnipotent being(s).  Reality just IS - we should embrace it and make the most of our lives in the here and now.  Because that is all there is, folks - THIS ONE LIFE, right here, right now.

Let's start with a few guiding principles...

Rules of the Blog - None.  I will write what I want, when I want.  Thank the non-existent gods for the First Amendment to our secular U.S. Constitution. Read my thoughts if you want.

Language - Foul at times, perhaps.  Deal with it.

Sacred Cows, or Oxen to be Spared a Goring - None.

Things I Hate - Religion, Guns and Bigots (therefore, often, Republicans)

Organizations I Like:
Camp Quest
Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFrF)
Foundation Beyond Belief

Podcasts I Like:
The Thinking Atheist
Cognitive Dissonance
Freethought Radio
Ardent Atheist
Skeptically Yours
Ask An Atheist
The Atheist Experience
The Geologic Podcast

Join me for a journey through this thing called Life, my fellow reality-based life forms!