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Comment by TNT666 on September 23, 2011 at 5:12pm

...in addition to atheists being a major force in the Lebanese parliament.

I think that warrants a complete discussion/conversation :)

Comment by Shadi A. Mokdad on September 23, 2011 at 5:06pm

It's funny you know the term "Natural Born athiest" I don't even know if I count as one.Let's see I was born in beirut lebanon among a muslim-christian society and as you may know wars especially political-religious ones tend to either strengthen ones religion or completely decimate it(parents lived through 3 major wars one lasted 21 years and countless conflicts),add to that electricity and water rationing every day not to mention religious hatred among lebanon's diverse citizens.so all in all a shity life is the hard way of becoming an athiest.our previous generation knew that religion will screw everything up for us so they decided not to introduce us to religion in the first place and gave us the choice to wether we would accept god or not but guess what,most didn't.only a few who did ended up with these war junkies you hear about on the TV(not to call names of coarse).now lebanon is slowly returning to it's former glory with electricity projects being developed. internet speeding up a bit and moving away from the third slowest internet in the world to the 96th,in addition to athiests being a major force in the lebanese parlament.And this isn't even half of it but it's too much to talk about here.so what do you think do I count or what?

Comment by Rick on August 24, 2011 at 10:43pm

I'm Runing for the Office of the President. Do you like My Hair?

     I was reading online the other day what Republican Party presidential candidate hopeful would like to do.  Reading it I was surprised that the man would even consider doing such things.  But then again, this shows you just how far the so called “Republican Party” has gone to the right.

     Now I grew up in Houston in the only congressional district in Texas, if not the country that carried Berry Goldwater in the 1964 Presidential campaign.  In fact, I remember when Daddy Bush was a local congressman.  Just FYI, Ellington Field was where his son’s Air National Guard unit was stationed, which by the way, was in his congressional district.  Daddy was all for stopping communism, but only if other sons of less influential and non-politically connected families would and could do it.  I have a cousin who has a lovely Purple Heart he got in South Vietnam because it was “expected” that he serve, as his father had during WWII.

     Well, besides that sore point with me…

     Perry would like to do away with having WE THE PEOPLE VOTE WHO WE WANT TO REPRESENT US IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE.  Now originally, US Senators were chosen by the individual states government.  This was done away with in the late 1800’s.  They were in short, political appointees. 

     But due to various things, like, oh corruption and the like, an amendment to the Constitution was made, and passed.  The people, not the likes of Tammany Hall, would choose their Senators.

     Also Perry would like to see that any ruling by the US Supreme Court could be overturned by 2/3 of the Congress.  So much for the “Checks and Balances” in our form of government.  So many things, like citizens’ RIGHTS would be so easily taken away.  A woman’s right to abortion, Rights Warning statements to those being arrested, trial by jury, access to the courts, the right to vote even.

     If you think I’m off base here…just go scan the Patriot Act.  Warrantless searches….yup….check it out.  Just like they use to have in the former USSR.  Searches without warrants…..and ya know…it was all due to the needs of “NATOINAL SECURITY” too….

   Then there is the balanced budget he’d like have made part of the Constitution.  Well, here in Texas it is part of the Texas Constitution.  And every year, it has to be balanced.  Now mind you a couple of years ago it wasn’t.  But it did get balanced.  You see, what the Texas State government does is shift a lot of things down to the counties to handle.  Therefore, people are still taxed for these things, but on the county level and not the state. 

     Oh, by the way, with the end of Reconstruction back in the 1800s, after the Civil War, Texas wrote a new state Constitution.  In there was the Balanced Budget part.  This hasn’t changed in about 140 years.  Rick Perry had nothing to do with it.  Sorry Ricky.

     But this isn’t the first time we’ve had this attempt….let’s hop into our time machine and go back to the 1980’s…….

The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (99th Congress, S.1702, Pub.L. 99-177, title II, December 12, 1985, 99 Stat. 1038, 2 U.S.C. § 900) and Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Reaffirmation Act of 1987 (Pub.L. 100-119, title I, Sept. 29, 1987, 101 Stat. 754, 2 U.S.C. § 900) (both often known as Gramm-Rudman) were, according to U.S. Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, "the first binding constraint imposed on federal spending, and its spending caps have become part of every subsequent U.S. budget. Together with a rapidly growing economy it produced the first balanced federal budget in a quarter of a century.”

President Reagan signed the bill on August 21, 1986.

The Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 supplanted the fixed deficit targets.

Balanced budgets did not actually emerge until the late 1990s when budget surpluses (not accounting for liabilities to the Social Security Trust Fund) emerged.

….now what is not being brought up is that the Republican Party controlled the Congress and Senate from 1994 until 2006.  With G. W. Bush in the White House, the Republican Party controlled all three from 2001 until 2006.

     Now while I do hold the Democrats as responsible for the unbridled spending, the Republicans were in control and charge.

     So this idea of a balanced budget amendment kind of throws me.  And when I would mention this in chat room and on bulletin boards online, I was told that my “tin foil hat” was on too tight.  Or that with inflation, the cost will be reduced…..

    NOT.

     And of course, there is the “abortion” issue.  Mr. Perry wants to stop all abortion.  This broken record has been the battle cry for the so called Republican Party since the 1992.  When the Republicans saw that the Christian Coalition had Political Action Committees (PAC) which could generate more money the “god”, and the preachers would tell their followers who to vote for, thus giving them a “block” vote, they quickly rolled onto their back, spread their legs and cried, “TAKE ME!”

     Prior to this the idea of a women not having access to birth control, weather prescription or through medical procedures was not acceptable nor taken lightly.  I watched older women who grew up when birth control pills were only a day dream, and abortions were done in backrooms fight tooth and nail to protect their rights to have control over their bodies.  My mother was one of them.

     So when I look at Perry, I just see a slick politician who plays the religious card BIG TIME.   And what is so sad, these religious people just don’t see or want to see how they are being played.  Sad.  It’s really sad.

     But like the old Wobbly union song use to go, “work all day and live on hay, and when you die there will be pie in the sky…”

    I think I’d like to have my pie now, thank you.

Comment by Rick on May 22, 2011 at 5:19pm

  I’m really ticked off now…..BIG TIME!

Last night I expected all the “rapture”  yahoo’s to be gone.  All I expected to find was a bunch

of clothes, empty house, apartments, mobile homes and the like.  Cars just left on the street with the keys in them.

I had planned to go out looting. I was gonna clean up with the cash they left behind, their valuables, jewels, precious metals, silverware, electronics and the such.

BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I even had a SHOPPING LIST!

And I had a list of things my friends wanted…..  Of course, there were some prescription meds certain friends wanted me to get for them…. And some things that weren’t prescription as well….

It only goes to show you, you can’t trust these “rapture” clowns….

Sigh……..back to clipping coupons….

Comment by Jack Ryan on May 22, 2011 at 4:30am

I'm using the term NBA (Natural Born Atheist) for more than 16 years now to describe myself. Finally I made Badges since the term alone nearly disapears in an large amount of letters. So here they are (free to use) for everyone else who likes them. Intentionally I used the National Basketball Association Logo as pattern.

 

Comment by Ava Williamson on February 10, 2011 at 3:47pm

I've never been religious. My mother is pretty much a non-theist, and my dad is as well (except for the time he made us watch the Jesus Story at Christmas one year).

I've been to church a handful of times, I even went to a church run Kindergarten (I got kicked out for arguing with the teacher about the stories they were teaching. I suppose I thought it was a load of bullshit even then).

I clearly remember being 5, 6, 7 years old sitting in church for whatever reason and thinking that these people were completely nuts and that nothing that was being said made a damn bit of sense! My parents stopped trying to get me to church about the time I started school (it had always been more for the socialization that anything) when they realized I thought it was nonsense and was unable or unwilling to keep my mouth shut on the subject.

Comment by TNT666 on February 10, 2011 at 2:27am

@Jack... hmm, catching up on an old post. I really like the sound of that Natural Born Atheist. Yep, I think I'll be using that. For me, god and religion have always been the antithesis of biological sciences, hence god and religion are the antithesis of nature and antithetical to the basic concept of life on earth. I've always viewed faith as a mental affliction that happened to humanity a few thousand years ago and has been our nemesis ever since.

Comment by C Watson on February 9, 2011 at 10:50pm

I've never really thought of myself in this perspective but I guess I am an atheist since birth.  My dad was an atheist and my mom was a lapsed catholic. 

Religion was not a part of my childhood.  I had friends who went to Sunday school but I never thought much about it.  I think I dismissed the whole God/Jesus myth even before I gave up on the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. 

I've never really understood how other people could actually believe such crap.  Having not been raised in a religious household, I guess I never realized how much indoctrination occurs in the home environment. 

My significant other for the last four years is from a Christian home.  I still struggle with my inner voice when they say grace and thank "gawd" for the things they themselves have achieved. 

One question I'll never be able to answer is whether or not I would have maintained my skepticism had I been raised in a religious home.

 

BTW my older sister and brother were required to attend services when they were young but they are still natural born atheists as well.  Neither of them even understood what church was all about.

Comment by Jack Ryan on August 7, 2010 at 2:15pm

All my family and known distant relatives are atheists, even though most of them don't call themselves that. Until the age of 12 I thought churches are buildings left over from an older no more existing society our ancestors developed. Kinda naive, isn't it? Well, since I gained more and more facts about the history behind those buildings, since I learned about the mostly negative effects of religious beliefs, since I read the bible and the Qur'an, and after I realized that there are still people around who believe that kind of stuff, I became an antitheist (yet I call myself an atheist).

Of course my family background comprised that I've never been baptised. That's why I call myself an NBA (Natural Born Atheist).

Comment by Gary Connolly on August 7, 2010 at 1:03pm

I wrote a blog just yesterday about feeling left out when most atheists share their deconversion stories. Good to know there are more of us innate atheists out there! :)

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