Motley Moose – Archive

Just a heads up about some news here in the UK which should give those campaigning for equal same sex marriage rights some hope. (I’ll quote from my impending Daily Beast piece and link when the whole thing is published early tomorrow)

By a resounding majority of 400 votes to 175 the House of Commons voted on Tuesday night for the second reading of a bill according equal rights same sex couples.  The government sponsored bill represented an overwhelming victory for those campaigning for gay marriage – a victory many didn’t expect to see in their lifetime. But how did the UK, which often lags behind the US on civil liberties, manage to steal another march on gay rights?

UPDATE: link to the Full Daily Beast article

apparently, to the very religious, freedom of speech works, but only in one direction.  They have the right to speechify to YOU, you do NOT have the right to reply.    this has become a fundamental problem in the dialogue between the fundamentalist religionists and those of us who are free from religion.

A lot of people think of the United States as a religious country, but really, it’s just a religious world out there. The US simply happens to have a lot of Christians. If you go hunting statistics, you’ll generally find estimates between about 12 and 17% for the “nonreligious” (atheist, agnostic, secular humanist, etc.) world population. From my personal heathen perspective, the religiosity in America and around the world is a bit puzzling. I doubt I will ever truly understand the need people seem to have for religion, though some of what I read indicates that it may increase life expectancy in some places and for various reasons. (But then again, so does owning a pet, so I figured I’d skip the religion bit and adopt four cats.)

This season tends to annoy me a tad, primarily due to the “in your face” attitude of so many southern Christians. Most of them mean well, of course, so it’s hardly something I feel comfortable directly criticizing; it still makes for many moments of slight vexation and exasperation, however, which I do my best to cover with a polite smile.  

see Sarah Palin pictures

A great story from The New Scientist. Apparently the more religious or ‘red’ the state, the more online porn they were likely to consume…

Though this does go down on Sundays apparently.

My conversations with louisprandtl have forced me to try and organize my own thoughts on Pakistan.  The current state of affairs in Pakistan can best be described by stating that Pakistan is not a religious state, or a democratic state… it is, quite simply, a state of denial.  It is a state that simultaneously denies it’s glorious history (and it does have a most glorious history), and the less-than glorious events of recent years.

In my previous diary , I presented the obvious contradiction between the secular words of an overtly secular lawyer, and his deed (that of separating people on the basis of religion).  In this diary, I will simultaneously try to grasp the problem, and to offer a solution.

Even after decades of self-inspection, I can still be surprised by a sudden insight. I would venture that I’m not alone in this. Bear with me as I re-enact the twisted path I took to my latest discovery.

This most recent breakthrough came about in the usual, very roundabout way. It started with an article in the Atlantic that posited the behavior of man’s best friend is entirely driven by genetics. I found little in that article to make me rethink my knowledge of canine behavior, but it provoked further thought.

The article really pushed the idea that humans mistake a dog’s instinctive behavior as a form of love between dogs and humans. What the article didn’t mention is that science is beginning to show that many, perhaps all, forms of love are driven by brain chemistry. One study found a chemical basis for the love demonstrated by elephant mothers towards their young and another study showed a real bond between human couples that share the sex act.