[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/oNW-xmxAZEM?wmode=transparent

(from reddit.com/r/atheism - by CiderDrinker)

Ok, a few answers to this:

(1) America was settled, at least initially, by religious fundamentalists who wanted to set up a sort of theocratic republic (before anyone jumps down my throat and says, “The founding fathers were not Christians” – yes, I know, I’m not talking about Jefferson or Paine or Franklin, the people who signed the Declaration of Independence and wrote the US Constitution – I’m talking about the people who went to America in the 1600s. This left a DEEP cultural idea in the American people that they were a ‘chosen people’ living in a ‘promised land’ etc. God loves America; so for an American not to love God back is seen as a sort of treason.

(2) The popular religion that developed in the USA, especially along the frontier and in the South, was anti-intellectual. Unlike in Italy, where the Catholics have a hierarchy and a trained priesthood, the dominant form of Christianity in the USA comes out of evangelical traditions and ‘revivalism’, where anyone with a spattering of Bible knowledge and a good shouting voice could start a church. This led to a very simplistic, literalist, bible-based theology. The broader education and humanist philosophy of the priests in catholic (and anglican and lutheran) churches in Europe mitigated against this trend and produced a religion which is in some ways more ‘porous’.

(3) More generally, the USA has an anti-intellectual culture. In most of continental Europe people look up to and respect ‘book learning’ and being a civilised, cultured human being. In the USA (in most parts) this would be looked down on – it’s what you DO that matters, how much money you make. This anti-intellectualism means that those who have a rational, scientific view of existence can easily be criticised as being ‘out of touch’ with ‘good honest god-fearing Americans’. (Read in redneck voice): ‘Them danged atheists thinks they is better than us folks, just cos they done got themselves a college edjikatishion’. It’s like the horrible reverse parody of the democratic ethos.

(4) Being part of a protestant church is a major commitment. It’s not something you just do as a social ritual, like catholicism can be. You have to make a choice, profess Jesus, get baptised by immersion, sign the members’ roll, turn up to meetings, sit on committees. This tends to harden the edges of the ‘in-group’ and the ‘out-group’. In a catholic country, everyone (or nearly so) is culturally catholic, even if they do not believe in god or go to church; you can’t be a ‘cultural baptist’ – you are either In or Out (and, according to the Ins, everything Out is evil).

(5) After the second world war, the USA had a massive internal propaganda system designed to attack socialism and the left. Communists were ‘atheists’, Communists were bad and anti-American, ergo atheists were bad and anti-American.

(6) The USA does not have a good welfare system. Indeed, the whole country is based on a sort of individualist myth, where the only reason that one guy is working 70 hours a week and struggling to get by with two minimum wage jobs and no healthcare, while someone sits by their pool and has a private jet, is that the first one is ‘lazy’ (i.e. unfavoured by God – remember, Protestant God Wants You to Work Hard) and the second is ‘hardworking’ (i.e. Blessed by God). This means that: (i) there is a lot of fear – fear of sickness, fear of unemployment, fear of annoying the boss, fear of random economic actions outside your control. Fear drives people into fearful, nasty, exclusive versions of religion – a ‘hunker down’ against ‘the world’; (ii) people need the social network and support provided by a church, because the state provides so little – thus atheists are a threat to people because people are terrified of being convinced by them, having to leave the church, and thus losing their social network and support system.

(7) This is the crucial one – it draws on 1 and 5, but goes beyond them and is vitally relevant today: There is, in the USA, a thing called ‘Christianity’ that has little to do with Christianity as it is generally understood in Europe, or in the longer view of the Christian tradition. It is a heavily nationalistic, militaristic, masculine, authoritarian cult, with Jesus as the Cadillac-Driving All-American Hero who has come to save his Chosen People from Gayness, Socialised Medicine, Arabs and Long Haired Hippies. This might best be called, “Amerireligion”. This was deliberately created after the 1960s by the American right, who wanted a way to stop the changes begun by the Progressive Era and the New Deal and to restore the dominance of the old ruling class. The civil rights and anti-vietnam war era brought it to a head. The right saw an opportunity to appeal to the gut-instincts of the white working class blue collar American male by playing on his prejudices – particularly on matters such as race, alternative lifestyles and the sexual revolution. So there was a deliberate demonisation and vilification of those who were seen as ‘different’ from that red-blooded white-skinned American male ideal – they were ‘liberal hippy tree hugging dirty commie atheist bastards’ – not to be trusted, because they were ‘anti-American’ (when ‘American’ is defined by the hard right). So, basically, American christians hate atheists because their religion is really a sort of tribal nationalism, and they’ve been played for fools by right-wing politicians.

How do you get poor and middle class people to vote for tax cuts for billionaires, constant war, erosion of civil liberties, and destruction of public services? Easy, tell them that if they don’t American Jesus will cry – and then the Gays and the Foreigners and the Nasty Atheists – and all who don’t Love American Jesus will continue to shaft them. Why are they unemployed? Not because NAFTA killed the jobs, but because God angry with America for teaching evolution. It’s the ultimate ‘bait-n-switch’. So what’s the answer to the current economic crisis – the worst in American history since the Great Depression? Is it a massive public investment and job-creation programme like FDR did? No, that would be Communistic Atheism. Instead, we must appease the All-Blessing God of America – by banning pornography!

The level of cognitive dissonance must be overwhelming. Faced with that, no wonder so many American Christians act with rage and hostility to the mere presence of atheists.

It’s sad.

“Jesus was a peaceful radical revolutionary, who was anti-capitalism, anti-death penalty, anti-public prayer, never anti-gay, didn’t mention abortion, long-haired, homeless, middle-eastern, brownskinned jew.  You think the average fundamentalist knows that?”

~John Fugelsang

Look here.

Stop.

Breathe. Please. Just breathe.

Make sure you’re alone at the computer so you can sort of meditate, just you and I and r/atheism in a room with you.

Close your eyes and imagine yourself, just your physical self, sitting where you are for five seconds and then open your eyes. I want you to notice something; you’re a human being.

I want you to look at your right or left hand, whichever is dominant. You can bring it to your face so you can see better. Look at the tiny little wrinkles in your hand and in your knuckles, every little fold of skin, every tiny minute detail. Look from the hairs on your wrist to the tips of the nails on your fingers. Just observe them. Imagine all the little cells and substances that make up your hand; the components of the bones, the skin, the muscles, tendons, and ligaments, the nerves, the keratin in your nails, and the other tissues that make up your hand.

I want you to think about your hand. Then I want you to realize something; at this moment, you are thinking. You are reading what I’m writing and comprehending and analyzing what I say. You are consciously and unconsciously evaluating the information I am giving to you. Your computer can’t do what you are doing at this point in time.

Think about your parents. Don’t dwell on anything negative, just a neutral image if you have to. Just the fact that someone, another human being gave birth to you. Think about the fact that someone gave birth to her many years ago, and someone else also gave birth to the person who gave birth to her. Think about how far back this chain goes. Great-great-great-great grandmothers, back to ancestors far in the past, back to common ancestors of the great apes, back to common ancestors among mammals, and chordates, and animals, and plants, and all living creatures. Think about how throughout that long lineage, you are carrying many of the same genes that all those ancestors before you had. Perhaps not a lot, but some at the very least, or at least some derivatives of those genes. Think about the genes that make up your body and how they differ from your relatives’ genes and your friends’ genes. You are a unique individual, statistically speaking. And there’s something else you should realize.

Here is a fact: You are a product of nearly 5 billion years of biological evolution and adaptation. You are here because you are a success, and you exist because you deserve to exist. Every cell in your hand is operating under that principle, and is trying its best to make you survive, to make you into the best human being you can be. Every cell in your body knows that you have a tremendous potential to become great and do good things. Think about how incredible it is to have a brain. Imagine how strikingly powerful and capable it is in its abstract processing abilities, despite its flaws and limitations. It’s staggering, isn’t it? That’s you, and that’s your own capacity. As a human being, you can use your own brain and your own two hands to improve your own and everyone else’s life by thinking, solving problems, constructing solutions, arguing for rationality, and helping those around you. You have some tremendous goddamn potential.

We at r/atheism don’t believe in a god or gods. We don’t need to study catechisms out of fear, regret, guilt, hatred, jealousy, deference, pity, or any other reason. We don’t need to confess every transgression against our fellow men and abuse our psyches trying to reconcile imperfection with ideals. The reason: we realize that we are human beings. We are the product of five billion years of evolution out of harsh, unfriendly environments and limited resources. As a result, while we are incredibly powerful creatures, we are also very fallible. But we don’t have to be defined by these fallibilities. We make mistakes, but here’s another fact: We are designed to make mistakes because we are a product of an imperfect process. That doesn’t make us worthless or pointless. That gives us a challenge to overcome. And we will succeed no matter what because we are goddamn brilliant and our genome is brilliant and our cells are brilliant. Extensively flawed, yes, but also brilliant, and if I wasn’t already clear enough, our existence has enormous potential.

But our potential is locked inside, and there’s really only two keys that unleash it: complete luck and hard work, and you’re better off placing your bets on the second choice. Your grades are slipping, man, and its not entirely your fault. But the blame game is irrelevant here, the point is that it’s a problem that needs fixing. You need to make high grades if that’s your priority. Take another 5 seconds to close your eyes and imagine what you want to be when you grow up. If you don’t know what you want to be, then pick something cool and draw on that just for the moment, like an astrophysicist or a professional tennis player. Your grades are probably going to need to be high in order to achieve what you want, even for an athletic goal (it’s easier and more secure this way in the long run). You want something, and low grades are in the way. That’s a problem, because you’re a human being. But you also have a solution, because you’re a human being. You’ve got hands and brains, and you can employ them however you want; let’s use them for constructive ends, like bettering your grades. You just have to exert willpower to stay away from unproductive activities on the computer and make yourself put in time and energy toward studying, and there are people who can help you do that better than I can. And at the same time, we can use your resources to improve your physical health, and then your mental health and self esteem. Because we are a goddamn civilization, and we can cooperate with others to solve problems we can’t solve entirely on our own. Because the payoff will be vastly worth the input effort, even if it takes time. And the best part is that you don’t need to condemn yourself with destructive religious zeals that were forced into you to do it. You can live happily as an agnostic atheist, as much of r/atheism can demonstrate, and you will certainly be more fulfilled if you appreciate yourself for what your evolutionary success and your intrinsic capacity are worth. And if you ever doubt that you are worth anything to a society, read this again and just think about what it means to be an evolutionary success, and what it means that you are alive while literally quintillions of potential possible human beings weren’t.

Don’t waste your opportunity to live and do something great. You can never make a mistake so terrible that it warrants punishing yourself by giving up the one thing we must cherish most: our humanity. Because you’re pretty goddamn brilliant for a chimpanzee, and I think that with proper guidance and some support, you can accomplish a lot of great things, with or without a religion if you need or don’t need one; that’s your choice.

As life forms in an otherwise empty universe as far as we have seen, we need to preserve the things that we have in our advantage in order to enjoy the limited time we have in this world as much as possible, and I think r/atheism, some good, dependable friends you can rely on, and a little bit of courage and persistence will let you do just that.

-sincerely, the rational human race.

~ President Barack Obama, January 23rd, 2012

http://i.imgur.com/Bkv23.jpg

Sandor Feher, 1973-2012. A violinist who loved to teach and a genuine hero who, instead of saving himself, helped to place life jackets on scared, crying children on the Concordia.

INTERNETS, 18th of January 2012. PRESS RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.

Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would “do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear”. He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture.

Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent. There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them – like Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever.

So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: “stole”) other peoples creative works, without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they’re all successful and most of the studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations – it’s all based on being able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create. If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing other peoples rules.

The reason they are always complainting about “pirates” today is simple. We’ve done what they did. We circumvented the rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them). It’s all based on the fact that we’re competition. We’ve proven that their existance in their current form is no longer needed. We’re just better than they are.

And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech. We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations.

The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe – but we’ve stayed out of the USA. We have Swedish roots and a swedish friend said this: The word SOPA means “trash” in Swedish. The word PIPA means “a pipe” in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence. They want to make the internet inte a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the rest of us obedient consumers. The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you’ll learn that noone wants to be fed with trash. Why the US government want the american people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that you will stop them, before we all drown.

SOPA can’t do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we’ll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really. To fix the “problem of piracy” one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they’re creating “culture” but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching movies and tv shows that make them think that they’re fat.

In the great Sid Meiers computer game Civilization you can build Wonders of the world. One of the most powerful ones is Hollywood. With that you control all culture and media in the world. Rupert Murdoch was happy with MySpace and had no problems with their own piracy until it failed. Now he’s complainting that Google is the biggest source of piracy in the world – because he’s jealous. He wants to retain his mind control over people and clearly you’d get a more honest view of things on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News.

Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can’t access this information when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We’re sorry for that.

THE PIRATE BAY, (K)2012