Put a warning label on the quran

Religious books especially Quran contains violent and hateful passages. For example, consider chapter 5 verse 33 in Quran.

"Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] Fasad(mischief) is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment"

This is not just the only one. More violent and hateful verses can be found in Quran. For example 5:30, 8:55, 98:6, 4:139, 9:29 and many other. Read a collection of such verses by Sam Harris from the Koran. We, the sane, rational and free thinking folks should actively propose the law to put a warning label on the cover of Quran and Bible so that general public gets better information about the nature of the content of these hate filled religious "holy" books.

The Pope and the Moulana

A nice joke I found on internet. ENJOY!

Many many years ago, the Pope decreed that all Muslims had to convert to Catholicism or leave Italy. There was a huge outcry from the Muslim community, so the Pope offered a deal. He declared that a religious debate will be held with the leader of the Muslim community. If the Muslim leader won, muslims could stay in Italy; and if the Pope won, the Muslims will either convert or leave. The Muslims met and picked an aged and wise Moulana to represent them in the debate. However, as the Moulana spoke no Italian, and the Pope spoke no Arabic, they agreed that it would be a "silent (signs)" debate.

On the chosen day the Pope and the Moulana sat opposite each other.

The difference between rationalist and theist

How does the rational, skeptic minded person and the religious theist react when they are presented with the same evidence for a mysterious event or a new previously unknown phenomenon? Some of you guys might say, Ah! Its a no brainer! But just to clear things up, I'm going to elaborate this a bit.

The rational thinker and the religious theist responds in quite the different way.

The difference between a rational thinker and the religious believer.

Is this Atheism?

I'm sure most of you have seen this image on web mocking atheists for "believing" something that is obviously not true at all.

First atheists do not share a common set of ideology. The only thing common between all the atheists is that they lack belief in all gods but not necessarily in other irrational ideas. We know the names of many man made gods. A list can be found here. All these gods are false according to atheist point of view because they have no evidence of existence.

Second problem is, Atheism is not an ideology of any kind. It is actually lack of theist ideology. Does that mean, atheists believe in nothing? No. Atheists can adopt a range of different ideologies or views. Some of them can be logical and science based (as it should be) or illogical and purely based on emotional response. The former is called a rationalist, free thinker or a skeptic. I like these words. Particularly the word Skeptic as you might have noticed already. ;)

The third problem i think is solved by the second image. It gives a rational and scientific answer to the allegation of believing in nothing. And the response is pretty good:



Although lack of belief in gods itself is not an ideology, it certainly forces a godless person to inquire scientific and rational answers.

A tiny bit of clarification: Although previously I've argued the Universe COULD come from nothing, it must be remembered that scientists are still unable to prove one way or the other due to lack of experimental verification. It is also worth noting, the continuous effort of scientists to come up with a theory of quantum gravity. Our existing laws of physics breaks down in an extremly "zoomed in" space.

There are several theories (quantum fluctuation is one of them) for the origin of the universe. Among them Membrane theory proposes the universe came from something (collision of branes). It is based on string theory. Other models such as Ekpyrotic model based on cyclic theory.

Finally...the real meaning of atheism is...

I would recommend this atheism.about.com link for anyone who is interested to have the correct concept of Atheism.

....And finally something for the religious folks too .

Evidence of Evolution

There are many evidences of evolution. Some people think fossils are the only evidence of evolution and because they are so rear, they don't prove evolution strongly. But the matter of fact it, we don't need fossils to prove evolution. We can do that without those fossils. Scientists have discovered plenty of fossils to further confirm the Fact of Evolution.

Here are some evidences of evolution to use in any debate with the ID proponents. (Wikipedia links)

• Atavism
• Recurrent laryngeal nerve
• Chromosome 2
• Antibiotic Resistance
• Human Vestigiality
• Teeth of Baleen whale

Take a concise look at evolution resources collected by Bradyn. Mukto Mona Evolution page for Bangali readers and some excellent articles in english on evolution as well as other science topics here.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

There are many versions of KCA. Most common is this one:

1. Everything that begins to exist have a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, Universe has a cause.

Funny thing is that, it doesn't establish any specific cause of the Universe. It doesn't argue for any god.
We can take it a bit further...

1. God is the uncaused cause of the Universe.
2. Therefore god didn't begin to exist.

(a)
From postulate (a) we conclude that either god doesn't exist or always existed. So, basically the argument proves nothing at all!

Must read books for atheists

Books that an Atheist must read:

• The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris.
• The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.
• God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.
• The End OF Faith by Sam Harris.
• God - The Failed Hypothesis By Victor Stenger.

(click on the link to download)