All individuals – both those who express faith in various deities and those choosing to adhere to no religion – should have the freedom to debate, criticize, and yes, joke and satirize all forms of ideology, including economic, political, and yes, religious.

The United States of America is founded upon this fundamental principle – the freedom of expression – as well as the freedom to worship or not worship any god we so choose. Freedom of expression lies at the heart of any free society. To exempt religion from this free expression, and to demand that no religious figure ever be criticized, rejected, satirized, or even questioned is little more than an attempt to exploit this horrific tragedy – the murder of American diplomats by Islamic protestors resulting from their anger over an insulting film on YouTube – to elevate Islam to a state that stands above criticism.

As a scholar and a professor of religious studies, I reject any attempt to quell the critical inquiry of any religion, including Christianity and Islam. While the parody of a religious figure may be considered an insult to some and a foolish act in poor taste to others, the solution is never, ever violence coupled with a call for the criminalization of the critique of religion.

Simply put, truly free citizens of any state should have the freedom to practice and profess the religion of their choice, but should not have the power to criminalize those who do not profess their religious faith.

I finally figured out how to get domain names to work! Time to start registering random ones. What should I get next?

Scientists at CERN say they’ve found a new particle consistent with the Standard Model Higgs boson with 5-sigma certainty — a false positive probability of about 1 in 9 trillion. Evidence of the particle’s existence in the 126GeV mass range was gleaned from the CMS (video below) and ATLAS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva. CMS spokesperson Joe Incandela explains, “this is indeed a new particle. We know it must be a boson and it’s the heaviest boson ever found.”

(via TheVerge)

Researchers have invented a mind-reading system that, for the first time in history, allows any person to type words and phrases letter by letter, just by thinking. It all occurs in real time, without moving a single muscle or uttering a single word. This is an amazing invention. Not only it will help anyone with serious motor disabilities, but it could potentially affect all of us in an amazing way.

(via Gizmodo)

The good news for nonbelievers is that, for the first time ever, more than half the American population would vote for a qualified, open atheist for president.  A recent Gallup poll shows that 54 percent of Americans would not consider a candidate’s atheism to be a disqualification for holding the nation’s highest office.

So a high ranking official within the Australian branch of the Salvation Army has gone on radio saying that the Christian belief (and official belief of the salvos) is that gays should be put to death. Something to keep in mind at the next red shield door knock appeal.

frezned:

Gay marriage debate going on in Australian federal parliament today.

One of the anti-gay speakers just used the opportunity to wish his wife a happy anniversary. What the fuck.

I am so glad that this is all on record. This guy’s idiocy and intolerance is now a part of the official transcript forever and people in the future can look back

and see what this guy said

hundreds of years from now I mean most people will have forgotten him

but anyone in 2112 who wants to look him up will be able to see he was a sack of shit.

It has always struck me how funny Australia is; one moment we’re celebrated for being a progressive socially liberal nation, the next we have politicians being openly bigoted or discriminatory (asylum seekers anyone?).