b u z z k i l l e d

“My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was the greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice . . . And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.”

-Adolf Hitler via 1922 speach.

Religion predisposes a bit of random draw – for a majority of people are religious due to either their parent’s religion or the geographical location of which they were born. A Jew will pass their religion onto their child and a person born in say, India is much more likely to be Hindu than Catholic. Two problems arise from this scenario. First, if god is omnipotent and omniscient, why would he leave it up to chance whether or not you believed in him? Why would it be a luck-of-the-draw type scenario? Secondly, say you were born a Christian in the United States and into a particularly religious household (which, is chance in and of itself) – how do you explain why your god would let someone be born somewhere else and therefore into another religion? If you believe those other gods exist and those Hindus aren’t just a bunch of rambling heretics – then you resolve to believe in the existence of other gods. While you may not worship them the same way (or at all) you do your god the mere fact you acknowledge their existences admits you “believe” in more than one god and are already in violation of one of the ten commandments (not to mention the subscription to a polytheistic point of view). If you choose not to believe in other gods from other religions and chose to believe that your god is the only god and the most important god – then comes rise to the paradox above. If god is omnipotent and omniscient why would he allow for people (in fact a vast majority of people on this planet) not to believe in him?

-Daniel Calderon via buzzkilled.com

Housemate astrological profile breakdown:

• Josie: Aquarius, Air
• Steve: Cancer, Water
• Ben: Taurus, Earth
• Rachael: Aquarius, Air [Evicted Week 1]
• Nathan: Taurus, Earth
• Dave: Gemini, Air
• Caoimhe: Capricorn, Earth
• Govan: Pisces, Water
• Shabby: Taurus, Earth
• Ife: Virgo, Earth
• John James: Virgo, Earth
• Sunshine:Vigro, Earth
• Corin: Aries, Fire
• Mario: Unsure. Website says Pisces but he said on the show he was a Libra. So I will count him as a Libra, Air

Breakdown By Sign:

• Virgo: 3
• Taurus: 3
• Aquarius: 2/1 (only one remains in the house)
• Gemini, Libra, Cancer, Capricorn, Aries, Pisces: 1

Breakdown by Element:

• Earth: 6
• Air: 5/4 (only 4 remain in the house)
• Water: 2
• Fire: 1

“While political party affliliation in the United States is not a perfect indicator of religiosity, it is no secret that the ‘red [Republican] states’ are primarily red due to the over-whelming political influence of conservative Christians. If there were a strong correlation between Christian conservatism and societal health, we might expect to see some sign of it in red-state America. We don’t. Of the twenty-five cities with the lowest rates of violent crime, 62 percent are in ‘blue’ [Democrat] states, and 38 percent are in ‘red’ [Republican] states. Of the twenty-five most dangerous cities, 76 percent are in red states, and 24 percent are in blue states. In fact, three of the five most dangerous cities in the U.S. are in the pious state of Texas. The twelve states with the highest rates of burglary are red. Twenty-four of the twenty-nine states with the highest rates of theft are red. Of the twenty-two states with the highest rates of murder, seventeen are red.”

-Sam Harris via Letters to a Christian Nation

::write your own caption::

[click on the picture for the animated gif]

George Bush Senior (via interview with Robert I. Sherman as published in Free Inquiry):

“No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.”

George Washington and signed by John Adams (via The Treaty with Tripoli circa 1796/1797):

“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

George Bush Junior (via The Guardian):

“I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did. And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, ‘Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East’. And, by God, I’m gonna do it.”

I wonder what today’s North American Christians would say, especially those that encompass what is widely referred to as ‘the Bible belt’ – and of whom are vastly Republican in association that all those Bible stories they’ve told each other over the years actually originated (at best) from the very land they are currently bombing and incessantly raping for oil? Do they actually think that the story of Adam & Eve happened on the American soil they so vehemently defend in the name of GOD?

“Of 43 studies carried out since 1927 on the relationship between religious belief and one’s intelligence and/or educational level, all but four found an inverse connection. That is, the higher one’s intelligence or educational level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold “beliefs” or any kind.” -Mensa Magazine, 2002

Another study shows, breaking it down by country instead, the direct correlation between a nations median IQ and a nations importance of religion. The results are astounding.

It is important to remember that astrology is the story of myth as told through our perception of the movement of the cosmos as it relates to ourselves. Thousands of years ago previous civilizations were busy personifying the heavens by tracking their movements, general characteristics and patterns and naming them accordingly. As we begin our journey through the planets and their symbolization as it relates to astrology it is important to learn the myth behind each one.  It is that myth that will eventually go on to shape your views of how it defines a person in direct correlation to their birth chart. For centuries now modern day man has been busy tracking how planets, their movements, angular alignments and such have impacted instances on Earth. At first it sounds like a bit of a farce. How can something going on millions of light years away affect anything that happens on Earth let alone something that affects my being? Eventually the inevitable question arrives, “Doesn’t that mean I’m not free to be the person I actually am?” While I’m not sure about the right answer to that question I do remember a night I came home from work and came to the wondering realization that perhaps that is exactly what it is telling us. Perhaps, much like the late Edgar Cayce believed, life is predestined and free will isn’t so free after all. I understand that this topic begins to tread on very delicate and personal areas in ones belief about life and religion but so long as I’m led to believe that I have a choice and so long as I’m unaware of what’s going to happen “free will” will always appear as an illusion. Astrology, like science and religion, requires you to make very important decisions about your life and this planets relation to the universe. This is why I often believe that astrology isn’t something that can be learned but is rather something that has to be lived. Which is why it’s appropriate we begin with the sun, the very thing that gives us life.

Art by Michael Paukner

Writing by Daniel Calderon

“I am a deeply religious non-believer. This is a somewhat new kind of religion.

I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.

The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and it seems quite naive.”

-Albert Einstein

“Professor Einstein, I believe that every Christian in America will answer you, ‘We will not give up our belief in our God and his son Jesus Christ, but we invite you, if you do not believe in God of the people of this nation, to go back where you came from.’ I have done everything in my power to be a blessing to Israel, and then you come along and with one statement from your blasphemous tongue, do more to hurt the cause of your people than all the efforts of the Christians who love Israel can do to stamp out anti-Semitism in our land. Professor Einstein, every Christian in America will immediately reply to you, ‘Take your crazy, fallacious theory of evolution and go back to Germany where you came from, or stop trying to break down the faith of a people who gave you a welcome when you were forced to flee your native land.’”

-Founder of the Calvary Tabernacle Association of Oklahoma in response to Einstein’s views of God