The Atheist Blogger

I honestly didn’t want to cover this story, not because so many others had already done so, but because it literally chilled me to the bone, and I find myself sickened whenever I read it. However, Evan over at the Debunking Christianity blog wrote an investigative story on the subject, which I couldn’t ignore.

For those who are unaware of the story (which is probably a minority), I will give a brief description. 11 year old Madeline Kara Neumann (pictured above) died from diabetic ketoacidosis, a perfectly treatable condition, and one which the majority of people do not die from. I’d like to say that her illness was the primary cause of death, but sadly that is not the case. Madeline Neumann was murdered by her parents, who were so ignorant of the situation around them, they decided that the power of prayer, not medicine would save their daughter.

Madeline saw a doctor at age 3, and would not see another until her body was examined at the local hospital, a good few hours after she died. She had been off her medication for most of her life, but when her illness became too great, she fell unconscious and died. All the while her murderers refused to take her to hopsital, and in fact a 911 call that eventually alerted the hospital came from a relation outside the immediate family.

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Just a short post to inform people of the upgrade to WordPress 2.5, which occurred just under and hour ago. If you were on the blog during the upgrade, you no doubt saw a lot of error messages, which were caused by me messing around trying to get all my modifications working.

The upgrade really only affected the back-end of the site, so only registered members will see anything different, but I thought I might as well tell people why the site was down.

WordPress 2.5 had some radical changes to the back-end, making it much easier to use and great posts. So it means that now you have even more reasons to join The Atheist Blogger and start writing! *hint hint*

If anyone finds anything wrong with the site (bug wise) then please report it using the Contact Form.

Whilst I’m on a subject non related to atheism, I thought I might interest you in some site statistics:

Top Operating Systems

Top Browsers

Top Referrers

As it stands, StumbleUpon is by far the top referrer (no surprise really), but Reddit and Del.icio.us are also referring their fair share.

I was planning to watch the controversial movie “Fitna” on LiveLeak.com and write a summary / report on it, but as I settled down to do so, I found a lot of reports from various other blogs saying that the film had been removed from quite a few places on the web. On LiveLeak itself (on the homepage itself) the following message is displayed:

Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, Liveleak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers.
This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else. We would like to thank the thousands of people, from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us their support. They realized LiveLeak.com is a vehicle for many opinions and not just for the support of one.
Perhaps there is still hope that this situation may produce a discussion that could benefit and educate all of us as to how we can accept one anothers culture.
We stood for what we believe in, the ability to be heard, but in the end the price was too high.

I haven’t watched the movie yet (although I plan to after I write this), but if it’s anything like what I have heard about it, I’m honestly not that surprised. After the whole fiasco over one image of Muhammad with a bomb for a turban, I dread to think what repercussions will occur for a film that is purposefully against Islam.

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I wrote this paper for an English class defining the term “atheism” and figured it would be appropriate here.

Atheism: Belief in Nature and Humanity

I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

said George H.W. Bush to a reporter in 1998 (O’Hair). Although the veracity of this quote is somewhat in doubt, this quote illustrates the view held by many about atheists and the importance of addressing the issue.  Largely misunderstood, atheists are often happy, joyful people who live fulfilled, moral, humanitarian lives.  Unfortunately however, it seems that few in American society really understand what it means to be atheist.  Some people believe that atheism is actually an anti-religious position, and some would go as far as to say that atheists hate god or even America.  George Smith comments on the situation, noting that

The atheist is pitted against morality itself, and the struggle between belief in a god and godlessness is viewed as a struggle between good and evil.

Others believe that atheism is a misnomer and that atheists should correctly call themselves agnostics.  The truth is that atheism is the absence of a belief in the supernatural or the rejection of the notion of using a deity to explain natural phenomenon.  More specifically, atheism is the belief that all observations ever made by man have a natural cause and will ultimately be explained by scientific principles.  Atheism is not the same as agnosticism and is not an anti-religious persuasion, but rather a belief in humanity and our ability to ultimately understand our universe.  By understanding the real meaning of the terms “atheist” or “atheism,” one is better equipped to engage in meaningful discourse with atheists and to deal with any prejudices one might have toward those of different belief systems.

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From: http://www.stargazing.com/atheism/creationismfun.html

10) You can say that a great worldwide flood happened, and explain why there is no scientific evidence to back it up.

9) When raising a question of religious dogma, you can whine about being pointed to a comparative religion class.

8) Whenever presented with evidence of a transitional species, claim that it’s not, and ask for another transitional species between it and the other species.

7) You can ignore Richard Dawkin’s book, “The Blind Watchmaker,” and write your own book, “The Blind Fundamentalist.”

6) You can refer to magazines like National Geographic as rags that fabricate fossil evidence.

5) If in need of some spare cash, create a foundation for studying Creationism, and use the research money.

4) You get to cross out “I don’t know” or “as yet unknown” and print “God” in research papers.

3) You get to recieve your Ph.D. from an unaccredited institution, and then call yourself a scientist.

2) To convince the public of the wrongness of Darwinism, you put claims, such as “men came from monkeys,” in Darwin’s mouth.

And the number one cool thing about being a creationist is:

1) You don’t have to make any distinction between fact and religious doctrine.

Sounds good! Where do I sign up?