T&Atheism

Raelian women march topless to protest "the repressive myth of God." Story and headline shamelessly lifted from Jeff Patterson.

Comments

[Pavel]

A woman's inherent sensuality and femininity are as crucial to her personal well being as they are to society as a whole because they are the very antidotes to war invariably waged by men.

Uhm?

I think Homer (not the cartoon character) would disagree.

War, while not always necessary, is a purging of the sins of both sexes.

[Warren]

"The Raelian Revolution, the world's largest Atheist, non-profit UFO related organisation"

Some things speak for themselves.

[zymurgist]

2004 is the international year of atheism?

Why was I never informed of this?

[Jeff]

The odds of God existing are now at 67%. Place your bets.
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/sciences/story/0,12243,1164894,00.html

[Jeff]

The odds of God existing are now at 67%. Place your bets.
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/sciences/story/0,12243,1164894,00.html

[Jennifer]

I read the article, and there is a 99% chance that the scientist is a twit.

Serious question: if God truly exists, then why has there never been a case of two societies, developing independently of each other, coming up with the same conclusion about God? All societies came to the same conclusions about gravity (things fall down, not up), cyanide (you eat it and you die), pregnant women (they've had sex at least once in the past nine months); yet attitudes about God are as varied as attitudes about clothing styles, tastes in music, et cetera. This more than anything else proves that God, and religion in general, is a cultural rather than factual phenomenon.

[Shawn Smith]

"...women represent 55% of the world's population..."

What population are they refering to? Humans in industrialized societies over 50 years old?

Shawn S.

[Jennifer]

Shawn--
They are referring to the world population in general. In industrialized nations where childbirth is no longer a life-threatening event, women tend to live 5-7 years longer than men. On average, the boy:girl infant birth ratio is something like 103:100; however, although slightly more male infants are born, the males are also slightly more likely to die in infancy than girls.

Of course, in places like China the ratio is screwed up due to the one-child policy where females are aborted to ensure that the One Child is a son, but overall, when reproduction is left to natural forces, there's usually slightly more women than men on Earth at any given time. This was likely true even before industrialization.

And there is a valid biological reason why we produce slightly more girls than boys--when it comes to reproductive matters, one man can in theory make billions of babies in a year, whereas one woman can only make one baby. Thus you need an extra-big backup supply of females, in case of a population bottleneck.

[tom wright]

'Thus you need an extra-big backup supply of females, in case of a population bottleneck.'

OK, where do I sign up?

Tom

[kwais]

Jennifer,
Not that this is biology 101 or anything, but why is the birth ratio 103:100 instead of equal?

[Sir Real]

Kwais-

While not Jennifer here, the best explanation I've heard comes down to good old fashioned physics. The "Y" chromosome is smaller than the "X" chromosome. Hence, "Y" sperm will be lighter, and thus swim faster.

[JD]

Jennifer - actually, in one of my anthropology classes, we discussed a society with some interesting ideas about pregnancy. (I can't remember where it was now, unfortunately.) These people believed that a woman became pregnant when an ancestor spirit returned to their island. An anthropologist who wondered how they could be unaware of the physical origin of babies decided to approach the issue indirectly, by asking them where piglets came from, and they gave a perfect explanation: the pigs mate, and the female pig gets pregnant, etc. But asked if it might work the same way with humans, they were shocked and loudly denied the possibility. Seems strange, but if humans are good at one thing, it's keeping themselves blind to their own inconsistencies.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Actually, the important question here is whether or not there is a God but whether or not there are enough good-looking athiest chicks to make this worth a look.

[Jennifer]

JD-
I remember hearing about that society or one similar. But there is another possibility, too, as Carl Sagan once pointed out: if some weird-looking, weirdly-dressed stranger came to my village and asked me a bunch of patronizing questions like "Do you know where babies come from?" I would be very tempted to look him right in the eye and talk about cabbage patches and storks.

Even if these folks do believe this, they can manage anyway; obviously they're stil having sex enoughb to have the necessary kids. My point concerning atheism is that there have NEVER been two societies who independently discovered the same God.

[The Lonewacko Blog]

"why has there never been a case of two societies, developing independently of each other, coming up with the same conclusion about God?"

One problem with this question is that very few societies have developed independently. The various Nordic, Greek, Roman, and Indian gods were derived from early IE gods. In some cases those gods were influenced by non-IE gods.

[Mark S.]

Thank you Raelian goof balls! Thank you so very much for giving critics of atheism the ammunition they need. We can take being written off as "blasphemers", but it's going to be hard to live down a "kook" label.

[Mark S.]

"...the very antidotes to war invariably waged by men."

So Margaret Thatcher and Elizabeth I were really men?

[Mo]

Jennifer,
Until modern times, when we could essentially watch a solar system form, there were zillions of theories on how the stars in the sky were formed and how the solar sytem came about. No two societies came up with the same answer and if they did, none came up with hot, flaming gasses spun, coalesced and formed stars and planets. That is the right answer (as far as we know) and only technology allowed us to discover the truth. Also, plenty of societies independently "knew" the world was flat, they just weren't right. Of course creation stories are going to vary, we don't have any way to observe it, unlike gravity, pregnancy and cyanide.

[Isaac Bartram]

Mark S.

"So Margaret Thatcher and Elizabeth I were really men?"

Must have been. Indira Ghandi and Golda Meir too.

[Ruthless]

Any discreet Raelian women in the Cincinnati area are cordially invited to petition me by e-mail for an interview... possibly leading toward a tiny tutorial in anarchy.
Yeah anarchy. That's the ticket.

[Jennifer]

Mo-

I am not talking about creation stories. I am talking about the existence of God. Is he mortal or immortal? Different societies have disagreed. Powerful or weak? Male or female? Interested in Humanity or aloof?

Different cultures had different religious (creative, cultural, invented) ideas about the sun god, but all cultures agreed on the basic scientific facts: the sun is yellow, hot, and invisible at night. For all the variety in cultures, there has never been one which believed that the sun was a cold purple night-dweller instead.

So I ask: if God exists, what are his basic characteristics that all humans have noticed? Some say God is immortal. Some have gods who die. Some gods are omnipotent, some stupid. some all-powerful, some all-limited. . .some believe in an afterlife, some don't, and no two Afterlifes are alike.

Sounds like invention, not discovery.

[heh2k]

this thread is worthless without pics!!!! 8)

[Jeff]

But are they cloned breasts?

[Jennifer]

Kwais--

If the book of Leviticus is any indication, God wants us to worship him because he has the same emotional maturity I had when I was four years old and unwillingly starting to face the fact that I was NOT the center of the Universe, and I would NOT always get my way in life.

"Whaddaya mean I can't have anything I want anytime I want it? WAAAA! I hate you and I hope you die! You're the meanest mommy in the WHOLE WORLD!!!"

Only instead, we get:
"Whaddaya mean you're not gonna worship me? WAAAA! I hate you and I hope you go to Hell! And I mean that literally!"