I just dug this excellent article up via the Richard Dawkins Website. It proposes, much in the vein of 'The Brights', a new label for rationalist, non-religious thinking people. You know, those of us that don't believe in all that unsupportable superstitious claptrap.
My particular favourite sentence is this:
“...if there is an interventionist God then there would be continuing demonstrable evidence of such, which there most certainly is not, and if there is a creator God who is non-interventionist then he neither requires nor merits worship, and if there is no God at all then so be it. ”
Which kinda captures things nicely. Would I refer to myself as Enlightenist? probably not. To me it sounds as smug as 'Bright'. I'm an Atheist, or Rationalist, plain and simple.
While on the religion rant, I've been holding back on blogging about John Howard's looney-tunes plan to spend AU$90 million on providing religious counsellors for publicly-funded schools, but I might as well drop in a note now; Quite apart from this being an utterly ridiculous plan once more harkening back to the dark ages, how is little Johnny going to defend this from complaints of discrimination? Most likely the religious nuts will take it down from within by their own divisive tendencies, but I'm pretty sure a solid challenge could be brought on a number of other grounds, not least of which is the fact that non-religious kids are not being offered similar 'benefits', thus unfairly discriminating against them. He really has crossed the line with this batshit-insane proposal and I really would love to see him turfed out next election.
I've also held back on blogging about the current hoo-ha over islamic leaders' pronouncements on rape. These people don't dignify comment, other than to call them utterly bucket-of-frogs mental and to get on with one's life. Fuck 'em - they're mad, plain and simple. If you equate religion with mental ilness, as I do, you'll see these people as the worst cases - straight jacket material, dribbling into their own beards, beyond help and in need of confinement for the sake of their own and society's safety.
posted @ Wednesday, November 1, 2006 10:29 AM