The Right to death

Dr Phillip Nitschke, AKA Dr Death, arrives in New Zealand soon to hold a series of seminars giving tips and tricks and 'how-tos' on the subject of Euthanasia, and the right to die peacefully, when and where you like.

This is one of those areas where I think "Why is this so stupidly complicated?"

There are some truly horrendous ways to die naturally, such as complications due to bowel cancer for example (the details of which I will spare you from), and surely it is these poor people's right to side-step these horrific and often painful last days.

The only reasonable and valid objections I can think of are;

1) That the person is not of sound mind or mood when they make the decision, or

2) That someone could use the process to get away with murdering someone - using a legitimate means for nefarious purposes.

But these two scenarios already exist in society! The first one is called suicide, whereby anyone who is mentally unstable enough can simply throw themselves off the nearest high place, or step in front of a locomotive (which, for both is hugely traumatic for all parties), and the second is called (you guessed it) Murder!

So it seems really that we already have these potential problems in society, and enacting legislation which legalises the right to a peaceful death would not have any effect other than what already exists.

I suspect that the current block to the required legal amendments is a symptom of our staunch Anglican and catholic history in New Zealand. The countries that tend to be most secular tend to have legalised ethanasia already, like Switzerland or the Netherlands.

Why is it that religions are so obsessed with the creation of life, but so adverse to it's inverse relation... Death? It's like they are in denial of the natural and predictable course that everyone must take. This could relate to my previous post regarding the recent statistics that the more religious people are the more likely they are to try extreme and invasive procedures to desperately stay alive. Which seems at odds with the idea that heaven actually exists and it is a nice place to be.

I'd like to think that if was ever unfortunate enough to become terminally ill later in life that there was an option to gracefully depart stage-left, instead of suffering indefinitely. But it is a right that is beyond the reach of those currently faced with the situation. And I believe it is unfair.

New Canterbury Atheists blog

www.canterburyatheists.org.nz - Pretty Huh?

Hope you like the new design. Now you can follow all your favourite ranty atheist blogs from Canterbury!
email me if you'd like to be included... thepositiveatheist@gmail.com

NZ atheist bus campaign

I'd really like to continue what has been started overseas and try to organise an atheist bus ad campaign. Wouldn't that be great?

As over 40% of the population I still feel there is Little debate on the topic of atheism and that we are under represented in most discussions on religion.
I noticed on this story about how teaching primary school kids about their own bodies, that the only opinions sought were those of the proponents and the objectors. They didn't include the rational voice of the majority of the country who would support this kind of reasonable approach.

I hope that this is due to the fact that the story is really a bit of a comedy piece on how ridiculous and desperate the religious right lobby groups are becoming, and that the directors of health and education are the voice of common sense.

If you are interested in collaborating to get some ads on buses - get in touch! I'd like to do a campaign before the next census to get the non-religious quota more reflecting reality!

Skeptics in the pub

Great meeting of the Skeptics in the pub in Christchurch tonight at The Twisted Hop. Great beer, good conversation and nice people.

To all who I talked to there who haven't come across Tim Minchin's skeptical musical comedy genius... Enjoy this





I'm keen to start video and discussion evenings. Messages of time and place will be organised through the Skeptics in the pub group HERE. Or email thepositiveatheist@gmail.com

'A christian act'

I was disappointed at 3news tonight. Introducing this story like this;

(paraphrased)"A man who performed a very christian act turned out to be a Muslim"

The story was about a corner-store owner in the US who, when approached by a would-be thief armed with a baseball bat, pulled out a 9mm automatic rifle on the robber and threatened him with it. The robber dropped to his knees and started begging for his life, so the owner took pity on him, giving him $40 and a loaf of bread to support his starving family (the apparent motive for the crime).

Now this is pretty much universally offensive and it insults people of a different or absent religious persuasion to Christianity.
Shame on you TV3 for an introduction to a news item to be so glaringly biased in favour of a particular faith.
Are they stating that that typified the behaviour of Christians as opposed to Hindus, or atheists, scientologists, or zoroastrianists?

I am forced to quote Christopher Hitchens in his moral wager;

"State a good deed that a religious person could perform that a person of no faith could not...
Now state an act of evil that a religious person could carry out that a person of no faith would not be capable of"

Following on from this;
In the media recently has been the case of the 'Makutu' killing of Janet Moses. (Full story here)
This case involved a person being literally 'drowned' by her family as part of a bizarre and completely misunderstood cultural ritual.
This is a great example of how religion has hijacked a cultural practice with devastating results.

Janet Moses, 22, drowned during the ceremony that lasted several days in Wainuiomata on Friday, October 12, 2007, when water was forced in her mouth and eyes to flush out a "demon".

It seems the only person talking some kind of sense was Tainui senior kaumatua Tui Adams, who, because of his position as senior lecturer at Te Wananga o Aotearoa in Hamilton, was comfortable to probe the details of the crazy cultural practice - the media seemed to shy away, desperately trying to avoid being labelled racist or causing cultural offence.

Dr Adams said there was no specific water cleansing process in Maori culture.
He had never encountered parts of the ceremony performed on Ms Moses before, which he described as "extreme".
Alien aspects included the use of force, not allowing anyone to leave the house, not allowing them to sleep or close their eyes, using a crutch as a taiaha and pouring water in the eyes.

In summing up, he hit the nail right on the head;

"I believe the whanau have mistakenly tried to rid her of evil spirits as opposed to the real issue, which was Janet herself,"

Religion and sexism

I've been debating with a theist on a facebook group called 100,000 Atheist face bookers against religious nut cases and thought my answer was interesting enough to post here - I hope you find it interesting!

Kimberly:
How is Odin portrayed, Shermon ?
How is Zeus portrayed ?
And how is GOD portrayed ?

All of the above are portrayed the same, or very similar: A man, with a long white beard.

God made man the image of Himself... so if He had a 'form', 'twoud be similar to that of humans.
Such as that of Zeus, and that of Odin....

Positive Atheist:
I think it more likely that man made god in his image...♠

Aren't you insuted as a woman that women are supposed to have been made from man (when exactly the opposite is true? Men are born from women?)

Kimberly:
An interesting thought.
Please, explain?

Positive Atheist:
I thrive in interesting discussion...

It has been my observance that the traits which man attributes to god are usually the traits of man himself. I think that the reason that Christianity has started to trend downward and atheism has grown is the growing incompatibility between traditional christian teachings and modern society's moral zeitgeist.

The bible is fiercely patriarchal, in that men are the rulers and women are a sub-class. This has always been accepted for the vast majority of history until the 60s of last century. Feminism is a drastic and completely new idea in the scale of history. The bible is incompatible with feminism, or even women's rights.

If that weren't enough, as I said before, women were apparently made from Adam's rib - therefore not even comparable to men in terms of their worthiness (woman came second to man - god did not create women - man did)
Whereas in reality, men cannot be born without their mothers. Patriarchs may have found this particularly threatening therefore subdued women using a variety of means, most notably the Bible - your gods word, apparently.

Arrogant atheists...

Of the many things levelled at Atheists by Christians, the one that crops up far more than the law of averages would naturally suggest, is that of 'You Atheists are just arrogant'.

It may seem to people of 'faith' that we Atheists are arrogant because we question and argue against the god figure which they have already succumbed to and pathetically devoted themselves to as required by the religion. I find, however, that for most Atheists this is opposite to the truth.

I'll illustrate my point;

I'm an Atheist. I believe that I am a carbon-based life form, living with 6 billion others on a spinning planet in a very sparse expanse of space. I can observe that those in my species evolved from a long line of descendants, getting hugely more complex over a vast stretch of time, and that I'm not favoured exclusively, rather I am here because the events previous to me, eventuated in my being here. I have nothing to prove, and I don't owe my existence to anyone, except my mother and father (thanks guys).
At the end of my life, I will cease to exist as I know life now. There may be something else but there is no reliable indication of what that might be.

Compare this to even a moderate Christian's point of view;

I'm a Christian. I believe that god created me. I believe that he crafted all the events previous to allow me to exist. I believe he created this world just for me and my fellow humans because god made us in his image - I look just like him! I believe all of the animals and resources god created on this earth were put here for us to use and consume - he is providing for his children. Since god allowed me to exist I am at his mercy and pray to him that I can be worthy of his greatness. There are people who have the wrong idea about god or don't believe in him at all and it is my job to change their minds and make them think what I think.When I pray to god he listens to me and considers my requests personally - even the creator of the world isn't to busy to listen to me.
At the end of my life I will be transported into a paradise where I can be with god and sit with him. I'm so glad I'm right and that I'M going to heaven.


Now, who do you think is arrogant?

Atheism is a philosophy of observation.

If nothing is observed, then nothing is believed! That doesn't sound arrogant to me!


Post Script -

We'll soon be joining with another blog and forming canterburyatheists.org.nz an aggregated blog of canterbury religious opinion.
Also, if you are in the Canterbury region there is a meet up of rational, skeptical, and atheist types happening in early June. For more info go here: http://www.meetup.com/Christchurch-Skeptics-in-the-Pub/
Nice! - thanks for all the comments and feedback - it really makes my day!