Title 4 of the United States Code, which outlines the role of flag of the United States, specifies occasions on which all government buildings, offices, public schools, and military bases are to fly their flags at half-staff, occasions which include the deaths of presidents, vice presidents, members of Congress, justices of the Supreme Court, and state governors. As well, the President of the United States may issue proclamations directing U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff on other occasions, as was done in recent years for the death of Pope John Paul II,the interment of Frank Buckles (the last surviving American World War I veteran), the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia's final mission (who died when the ship disintegrated during re-entry), the funeral of astronaut Neil Armstrong, and the shootings at Fort Hood, Virginia Tech, the Century Aurora theater, and Sandy Hook Elementary School.

State governors may also direct all U.S. and state flags in their jurisdictions flown at half-staff to mark the death of state officials and

state residents who died on active duty as members of the armed forces. In some cases governors may also direct that flags be lowered to half-staff to honor the passing of other state residents prominent outside the areas of government and the military.

Christopher Scott "Chris" Kyle was a U.S. Navy SEAL who was known as "the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History" (a phrase which was used in the title of his autobiography). Kyle, a Texas native and resident, was shot and killed on 2 February 2013 at a Texas shooting range, and he was buried in the state capital of Austin. Texas governor Rick Perry issued a Press Release statement expressing his condolences to Chris Kyle's family "and the thousands of service members that were his extended family," but despite a good deal of public support for the gesture, Governor Perry did not issue a proclamation directing flags to be flown at half-staff statewide on the occasion of either Chris Kyle's memorial service or his funeral. (As noted above, that honor is a traditional one for those who have died while active duty members of the armed forces, but Kyle did not die on active duty, having left the U.S. Navy in 2009.) 

Pop singer Whitney Houston passed away on 11 February 2012 from an accidental drowning in a bathtub, an event which the Los Angeles County coroner's office reported was due to the "effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use." Houston, a New Jerseynative, was also buried in that state, and New Jersey governor Chris Christie made a somewhat controversial decision in directing all New Jersey state flags to be flown at half-staff in her honor; critics contended that such a gesture should be reserved for members of the military, first responders, and state officials, and also that "it was wrong to honor a drug addict." Governor Christie defended his decision, saying: "I am disturbed by people who believe that because of her history of substance abuse that somehow she's forfeited the good things that she did in her life." (The previous year, Governor Christie had also directed flags to be flown at half-staff to mark the passing of Clarence Clemons, the saxophonist for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, with little public outcry.)

Although the White House issued a statement through press secretary Jay Carney after Whitney Houston's death noting that President Obama's "thoughts and prayers are with Whitney Houston's family, especially her daughter," as far as we know President Obama has made no public expression of condolence or mourning to mark the passing of Chris Kyle. It is not true that President Obama ordered flags throughout the country flown at half-staff to honor Whitney Houston; as noted above, that action was undertaken only at a state level by the governor of New Jersey.

Get classy as fuck

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1 of the fiercest penalties in the Old Testament is the 1 exacted for blasphemy. It is still in force in certain countries. Section 295-c of the Pakistan penal code prescribes the death penalty for this 'crime'. On 18 August 2001, Dr Younis Shaikh, a medical doctor and let your, was sentenced to death for blasphemy. Is particular crime was to tell students that the Prophet Muhammad was not a Muslim before he invented the relation at the age of 40. 11 of his students with ported him to the thirty's for thus 'offense'. the blasphemy law in Pakistan is more usually in Boca against Christians, such as Augustine Ashiq 'Kingri' Masih, who was sentenced to death in Faisalabad in 2000. Masih, as a Christian, was not allowed to marry his sweetheart because she was a Muslim and - incredibly- Pakistani (and Islamic) law does not allow a Muslim woman to marry a non Muslim man. so he tried to convert to Islam and was then accused of doing so for bass motives. It is not clear from the report I have read whether this is in itself was the capital crime, or whether it was something he is alleged to have said about the profits on morals. either way, it certainly was not the kind of offense that would warrant a death sentence in any country whose laws are free of religious bigotry.

in 2006 in Afghanistan, Abdul Rahman was sentenced to death for converting to Christianity. Did he kill anyone, hurt anybody, steal anything, damage anything? No. all he did was change his mind. Internally and privately, he changed his mind. He entertains certain spots which were not to the lighting of the ruling party at his country. And this, remember, is not the Afghanistan of the Taliban but the 'liberated' Afghanistan of Hamid Karzai, set up by the American Led coalition. Mr Rahman finally escaped execution, but only on a plea of insanity, and only after intense internal pressure. He has now sought asylum in Italy, to avoid being murdered by the cell it's easier to do there is slimy duty. It is still an article of the constitution of 'liberated' Afghanistan that the penalty for apostasy is death. apostasy, remember, doesn't mean actual harm to persons with property. It is pure thoughtcrime, to use George Orwell's 1984 terminology, and the official punishment for it under Islamic law is death. on the third of September 1992, to take 1 example where it was actually carried out, Sadiq Abdul Karim Malallah was publicly be headed in Saudi Arabia after being lawfully convicted of apostasy and blasphemy.

Fundamentalist religion it's hell-bent on ruining the scientific education of countless thousands of innocent, well-meaning, either young minds. Non-fundamentalist, 'sensible' religion may not be doing that. But it is making the world safe for fundamentalism by teaching children, from they're earliest years, that unquestioning faith is a virtue.

I am no more fundamentalist what I say evolution is true then when I say it is true that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere. We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence a rose to disprove it. No real fundamentalist would ever say anything like that.

it is all too easy to confuse fundamentalism with passion. I may well appear passionate when I defend evolution against a fundamentalist creationist, but this is not because they Weible fundamentalism of my own. It is because the evidence for evolution is overwhelmingly strong and I am passionately distressed that my opponent can't see it - or, more usually refuses to look at it because it contradicts his holy book.

I do not deny that humanity's powerful tendencies towards in-group loyalties and out-group histories would exist even in the absence of religion. Fans of rival football teams are an example of the phenomenon whit small. Even football supporters sometimes divide a long religious lines, as in the case of Glasgow Rangers and Glasgow Celtic. Languages (as in Belgium), races and tribes (especially in Africa) can be important divisive tokens. But religion amplifies and exacerbates the damage in at least three ways:

-Labeling of children. Children are described as 'Catholic Children' or 'Protestant Children' etc. from an early age, and certainly far too early for them to have made up their minds on what they think about religion.

-Segregated schools. Children are educated, again off in from a very early age, with members of a religious in group and separately from children his family is here to other religions. It is not an exaggeration to say that the troubles in Northern Ireland would disappear in a generation of segregated schooling were abolished.

-Taboos against 'marrying out'. This perpetuates hereditary fueds and vendettas by preventing the mingling of feuding groups. Intermarriage, if it were permitted, would naturally tend to mollify enmities.

The Bible is a blueprint of in-group morality, complete with instructions for genocide, enslavement of out-groups, and world domination. But the Bible is not evil by virtue of its objectives or even it's glorification of murder, cruelty, and rape. Many ancient works do that - The Iliad, the Icelandic Sagas, the tales of ancient Syrians and the inscriptions of the ancient Mayans, for example. But no one is selling the Iliad as a foundation of morality. Therein lies the problem. The Bible is sold, and bought, as a guide to how people should live their lives. And it is, by far, the world's all-time best seller.

Novel Prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg said, "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."

Blaise Pascal said, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

"Historic Mecca, the cradle of Islam, is being buried in an unprecedented onslaught by religious zealots. Almost all of the rich and multi layered history of the holy city is gone... Now the actual birthday place of the Prophet Muhammad is facing the bulldozers, with the connivance of Saudi religious authorities who's hardline interpretation of Islam is compelling them to wipe out their own heritage... The motive behind the destruction is the Wahhabist' fanatical fear that places of historical and religious interest could give rise to idolatry or polytheism, the worship of multiple and potentially equal gods. The practice of idolatry in Saudi Arabia remains, in principle, punishable by beheading.

I do not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca - or Chartres, York Minster or Notre Dame, the Shwe Dagon, or, of course, the Buddhas of Bamiyan.

Why not all Allah's omnipotent power? Or Lord Brahmas? Or even Yahwehs?

Why, I can't help wondering, is God thought to need such ferocious defense? One might have supposed to him amply capable of looking after himself.


Freedom From Religion Foundation, FFRF, which campaigns peacefully against the undermining of the Constitutional separation of church and state.

"God and Country make an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and blood shed."

~Luis Bunuel

Gregory S. Paul, in the Journal of Religion and Society (2005), systematically compared 17 economically developed nations, and reach the devastating conclusion that ' higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies'.

Many of our human ailments, from lower back pain to hernias, prolapsed uteruses and our susceptibility to sinus infections, result directly from the fact that we now walk upright with a body that was shaped over hundreds of millions of years to walk on all fours.

"Why is God considered an explanation for anything? It's not- it's failure to explain, a shrug of the shoulders, an 'I dunno' dressed up in spirituality and ritual. If someone credits something to God, generally what it means is that they haven't a clue, so they're attributing it to an unreachable, unknowable sky-fairy. Ask for an explanation of where that bloke came from, and odds were you'll get a vague, psuedo-philosophical reply about having always existed, or being outside nature. Which, of course, explains nothing."

" If the history of science shows us anything, it is that we get nowhere by labeling our ignorance 'God'".

~Jerry Coyne

The human appendix:

In plant-eating vertebrates, the appendix is much larger and its main function is to help digest a largely herbivorous diet. The human appendix is a small pouch attached to the large intestine where it joins the small intestine and does not directly assist digestion. Biologists believe it is a vestigial organ left behind from a plant-eating ancestor. Interestingly, it has been noted by paleontologist Alfred Sherwood Romer in his text The Vertebrate Body (1949) that the major importance of the appendix "would appear to be financial support of the surgical profession", referring to, of course, the large number of appendectomies performed annually. In 2000, in fact, there were nearly 300,000 appendectomies performed in the United States, and 371 deaths from appendicitis. Any secondary function that the appendix might perform certainly is not missed in those who had it removed before it might have ruptured.

Male breast tissue and nipple:

The subject of male nipples is a sensitive, and maybe confusing, topic to many. Those who wish to invalidate evolutionary theory might pose the question, "Was man descended from woman?" The answer, of course, is no. Both men and women have nipples because in early stages of fetal development, an unborn child is effectively sexless. Nipples are present in both males and females; it is only in a later stage of fetal development that testosterone causes sex differentiation in a fetus. All mammals, male and female, have mammary glands. Male nipples are vestigial; they may perform a small role in sexual stimulation and a small number of men have been able to lactate. However, they are not fully functional and, because cancer can grow in male or female breast tissue, the tissue can be dangerous.

Wisdom Teeth:

With all of the pain, time, and money that are put into dealing with wisdom teeth, humans have become just a little more than tired of these remnants from their large jawed ancestors. But regardless of how much they are despised, the wisdom teeth remain, and force their way into mouths regardless of the pain inflicted. There are two possible reasons why the wisdom teeth have become vestigial. The first is that the human jaw has become smaller than its ancestors -and the wisdom teeth are trying to grow into a jaw that is much too small. The second reason may have to do with dental hygiene. A few thousand years ago, it might be common for an 18 year old man to have lost several, probably most, of his teeth, and the incoming wisdom teeth would prove useful. Now that humans brush their teeth twice a day, it's possible to keep one's teeth for a lifetime. The drawback is that the wisdom teeth still want to come in, and when they do, they usually need to be extracted to prevent any serious pain.

The coccyx or Human Tailbone:

These fused vertebrae are the only vestiges that are left of the tail that other mammals still use for balance, communication, and in some primates, as a prehensile limb. As our ancestors were learning to walk upright, their tail became useless, and it slowly disappeared. It has been suggested that the coccyx helps to anchor minor muscles and may support pelvic organs. However, there have been many well documented medical cases where the tailbone has been surgically removed with little or no adverse effects. There have been documented cases of infants born with tails, an extended version of the tailbone that is composed of extra vertebrae. There are no adverse health effects of such a tail, unless perhaps the child was born in the Dark Ages. In that case, the child and the mother, now considered witches, would've been killed instantly.

Erector Pili and Body Hair:

The erector pili are smooth muscle fibers that give humans "goose bumps". If the erector pili are activated, the hairs that come out of the nearby follicles stand up and give an animal a larger appearance that might scare off potential enemies and a coat that is thicker and warmer. Humans, though, don't have thick furs like their ancestors did, and our strategy for several thousand years has been to take the fur off other warm looking animals to stay warm. It's ironic actually that an animal, sensing danger is near, would puff up its coat to look scarier, but the human hunter would see the puffier coat as a warm prize, leaving the thinner haired weaker looking animals alone. Of course, some body hair is helpful to humans; eye brows can keep sweat out of the eyes and facial hair might influence a woman's choice of sexual partner. All the rest of that hair, though, is essentially useless.

"But we are made in his image!"

And yet God gave you a bunch of spare parts, some of which will kill you or cause severe pain and discomfort.

Yes, we were 'designed' broken. Brilliance.

David Hume : " No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that it's also it would be more miraculous than the fact which is endeavors to establish."

Jim Watson : " Well I don't think we're for anything. We're just product of evolution. You can say, "Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don't think there's a purpose." but I'm anticipating having a good lunch."

Another argument I detest it's the Ultimate Boeing 747, the premise that the likelihood of life originating on earth without God is no greater than the chance that a hurricane, sweeping 3 scrap yard, would have the luck to assemble a Boeing 747. others have borrow the metaphor to refer to the leader evolution of complex living bodies, where it has spurious plausibility. the odds against assembling a fully functioning horse, bill or ostrich by randomly shopping its parts are up there in 747 territory. This, in a nutshell, is the creationist' favorite argument- an argument that could be made only by somebody who doesn't understand the first thing about natural selection: somebody who thinks natural selection is a theory of chance whereas- in the relevant sense of chance- it is the opposite.

however statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the ultimate Boeing 747.

I personally do test the declaration of," I admit that there's no evidence of God. There's a reason why it's called faith." this last sentence uttered with almost truculent conviction, and no hint of apology or defensiveness. I'm sorry, but in today's day and age of the free exchange of information and ideas, remaining ignorant is a choice. how pretentious, how weak, and unbearably pathetic.

why, in any case, do we so readily accept the idea that the 1 thing you must do you if you want to please God is believing him? what's so special about believing? isn't it just as likely that God will reward kindness, or generosity, or humility? Or sincerity? What if God is a scientist who regards honest seeking after truth as the supreme virtue? Indeed, with the designer the universe have to be a scientist? Bertrand Russell I was asked what he would say he died and found himself confronted by God, demanding to know why Russell have not believe in Him. ' not enough evidence, god, not enough evidence.' was Russell's reply. Might be God respect Russell for is courageous skepticism far more than he will respect Pascal's cowardly hedge-betting?

Pascal's Wager holds that however long the odds against God's existence might be, there is an even larger asymmetry the penalty for guessing wrong. You better believe in God, because you're right you stand to gain eternal bliss and if you're wrong it won't make any difference anyway. On the other hand, if you don't believe in God you turn out to be wrong you get a turtle damnation, where as if you're right it makes the difference. On the face of it, the decision is no brainer. however, there is something distinctly on about the argument. believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy. Pascal's wager could only ever be an argument for feeding believe in God. And the guy that you claim to believe in had better not be the on Mission kind or heat see through the deception.

"An amusing, if rather pathetic, case study, in miracles is the Great Prayer Experiment: does praying for patients help them recover? Prayers are commonly offered for sick people, both privately and in formal places of worship. Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton was the first to analyse scientifically whether praying for people is efficacious. He noted that every Sunday, in churches throughout Britain, entire congregations prayed publicly for the health of the royal family. Shouldn't they, therefore, be unusually fit, compared with the rest of us, who are prayed for only by our nearest and dearest? Galton looked into it, and found no statistical differentiation. His intention may, in any case, have been satirical, as also when he prayed over randomized plots of land to see if the plants would grow any faster (they didn't).

More recently, the physicist Russell Stannard (one of three well-known religious scientists...) has thrown his weight behind an initiative, funded by - of course - the Templeton Foundation, to test experimentally the proposition that praying for sick patients improves their health.

Such experiments, if done properly, have to be double blind, and this standard was strictly observed. The patients were assigned, strictly at random, to an experimental group (received prayers), or a control (received no prayers). Neither the patients, nor their doctors or caregivers, nor the experimenters were allowed to know which patients were being prayed for and which patients were the controls. Those who did the experimental praying had to know the names of the individuals for whom they were praying - otherwise, in what sense would be praying for them rather than for somebody else? But care was taken to tell them only the first name and initial letter of the surname. Apparently, that would be enough to enable God to pinpoint the right hospital bed.

...

Valiantly shouldering aside all mockery, the team of researchers soldiered on, spending $2.4 million in Templeton money under the leadership of Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist at the Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston. Dr. Benson was earlier quoted in a Templeton press release as 'believing that evidence for the efficacy of intercessory prayer in medicinal settings is mounting'. Reassuringly, then, the research was in good hands, unlikely to be spoiled by sceptical vibrations. Dr. Benson and his team monitored 1,802 patients at six hospitals, all of whom received coronary bypass surgery. The patients were divided into three groups. Group 1 received prayers and didn't know it. Group 2 (the control group) received no prayers and didn't know it. Group 3 received prayers and did know it. The comparison between Groups 1 and 2 tests for the efficacy of intercessory prayer. Group 3 tests for possible psychosomatic effects of knowing that one is being prayed for.

Prayers were delivered by the congregations of three churches, one in Minnesota, one in Massachusetts, and one in Missouri, all distant from the three hospitals. The praying individuals, as explained, were given only the first name and initial letter of the surname of each patient for whom they were to pray. It is good experimental practice to standardize as far as possible, and they were all, accordingly, told to include in their prayers the phrase, 'for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications.'

The results, reported in the American Heart Journal of April 2006, were clear cut. There was no difference between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not. What a surprise. There was a difference between those who KNEW they had been prayed for and those who did not know one way or another; but it went in the wrong direction. Those who knew they had been the beneficiaries of prayer suffered significantly more complications than those who did not. Was God doing some smiting, to show his disapproval of the whole barmy enterprise? It seems more probable that those patients who knew they were being prayed for suffered additional stress in consequence: 'Performance anxiety', as the experimenters put it."

~Excerpt from Richard Dawkin's book The God Delusion