If you're offering, I'd be honored if you'd link to my blog.

http://defiantskeptic.wordpress.com/

Can we please stop legitimizing the racist lunatic fringe by acting like their idiocy is worthy of consideration or attention? They don't deserve a platform or any kind of credibility, real or imagined, and while I don't mean to suggest that vjack means to legitimize them in any way, giving them this kind of attention presents the illusion that they have something valid and worthy of consideration to say. They don't. They're just racist morons.

That's the original format? Blue text and everything?

I actually got some discussion on my blog when I posted about this. This one Catholic woman has taken it on herself to insist that, while she thinks child abuse is horrible and protecting child molesters is even worse, she gives her money and time to the Church because... because of Jesus? I don't know.

http://defiantskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/ca...

When I was a Catholic, there was this tendency of the people around me to equate the Church with Jesus, believing (apparently this is a big Catholic thing?) that Jesus had founded the Roman Catholic Church. So apparently even if the Church is transparently evil and corrupt, it's not that bad because Jesus started it all. That's the impression I'm getting. Ugh.

While bigotry is always disgusting, it's even more disturbing from people who claim to be intelligent and independent thinkers.

Me too. I'm listening to John Lennon's "Imagine" and I am smiling like a fool.

I feel a need to clarify that I am not in any way defending Karen McCarron's actions, nor am I justifying the senseless death of a little girl. It should also be noted that her motivations for killing her daughter may be up for debate, but testimony was given in court to the effect that she was overcome with guilt regarding her child's autism - I will cover in a later entry why there is no reason to feel guilty about a child being autistic.

I believe she was seriously disturbed by the idea that she had caused her daughter's autism. It should also be pointed out that this was not a "mercy killing" and that the very idea of mercy killings is a fallacy.

http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=179 Read this.

Also read this: http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=248

Killing autistic children (or any children) is NEVER justifiable. Please do not misconstrue my comments about Karen McCarron having suffered as justification for or defense of what she did.

"Forum general secretary Joseph Dias, in a press release, said homosexuality was unnatural even among animals."

WRONG.

While I've often found myself with more questions than answers, I'm content to know that any answers I do settle on will be supported by evidence and reason, not myths.

I'm a couple days late on this but this story made me smile, because I know the feeling. For me, the reason I 'graduated' was that I eventually became completely dissatisfied with the answers that religion offered.