Well as David Mitchell says, I believe on death the body should revert to the state. To have its organs harvested, be turned into animal feed, whatever's most practical.

When I see a funeral procession go by I can't help feeling that I've witnessed some creepingly bizarre, atavistic rite. And the resources these superstitious, corpse-fondling indulgences consume! It's enormously and criminally wasteful.

Yahweh has NEVER given evidence of his existence. No more so than any other god anyhow. They all answer prayer equally and randomly well. They all claim to have made the universe/world, they all claim to be the true one... Near death experiences differ by culture expectations of that culture and don't all conform to the supposed Christian expectation... he has done nothing to make himself stand out from the rest of the gods that Christians dismiss. Heck, I've never seen a Frost Giant or evidence they ever existed, so clearly Odin has one up on Yahweh.

In the 4,000 years or so from Adam and Eve's time in the Garden to Jesus, Yahweh couldn't or wouldn't make himself known to the other races. He didn't reveal himself to those in Africa, Asia, the Americas or Europe, just to one tiny specific group of people in the Middle East. If couldn't then he's not the omnipotent, omnipresent god he claims, if he wouldn't that makes him a racist ass not worthy of following by picking one people to be his chosen people.

The only reason Europe became Christian was forced conversion when the Christian armies of Rome forced them to, which setup a tradition of most Europeans and later Americans being born into a faith. Were the exact same people born in Saudi Arabia they "would know that they know" that Islam is the true religion, or same in India but applying to Hinduism.

And saying that atheists have had supernatural experiences and can change to theism when talking about it, ignores the whole point of the video, especially the part when he talks about the linked Darren Brown video, which demonstrates that it is easy to make a spiritual experience happen that has no basis on any real god.

By way of example: I used to be a heavy evangelical Christian, I watched TBN and Fox News religiously (pun intended, see this old post of mine here on the sift from an old account that I couldn't recover http://videosift.com/usercomments/Charon... heck see my Revelations from the Word posts on my blog, http://www.brianathomas.com/archives/category/religion/revelations-from-the-word/ or more embarrassing my older political posts http://www.brianathomas.com/archives/category/politics/ which while progressive now, go to page 4 or so around June 2008 and back and you see a Libertarian and further back Republican with some crazy anti-vaccine paranoia , climate change denialism, science denaillism and other things I'm deeply ashamed of now)... I've had deep and meaningful spiritual experiences with god. After Republicans ruined Christianity for me (as the Republican party is clearly 100% against every teaching of Jesus... and yeah we can tick that off as being humans, but god does nothing to correct them, he may have spoke to my heart or whatever one wants to say to have more empathy, but over half the Christians in this nation still vote for a party 100% devoid of the teachings of the Jesus of the Bible while claiming to do it for Christian reasons) and I eventually lost faith (while Republicans are the reason I initially lost faith, they aren't the reason I stayed away, god is a dick is why I stayed away). After I lost faith in the Christian god, I gave paganism a try, and I've had just a meaningful spiritual experiences while worshiping at a Druid rite as I have at any Christian church. This is why people pick a religion, first by accident of birth (most people are Christian in the US because their parents were, and back to Europe where going back further they were forced to convert by invading Christian armies), second by choosing one that connects more personally with them... for many they see the hypocrisy of Christianity (and its general lack of empathy) but do connect with some form of paganism, and pagans generally have a patron god they serve above most others, and that god is the one they have a deep connection to, the same deep connection that Christians claim to have with Jesus/Yahweh... One doesn't drive a plane into a building killing 3,000 plus people without a deep and meaningful relationship with their god, and to dismiss t hat relationship as being deceived is naive and demonstrates a lack of empathy.

Now, I will allow the possibility that god does exist, but not in the form Christians propose, but perhaps closer to what the US Founding Fathers believed, but perhaps expanded a bit with more modern knowledge. A Deist like view. That this god somehow this god, created the energy and set into motion the laws of this physical universe that spun out from the big bang, but he's had nothing to do with anything since then. Perhaps all religions actually worship the same god but with their own culture's expectations and interpretations. However this would mean that all religions and lack there of are equally valid, which most faiths (aside from most modern paganism) doesn't allow for as their claim rests on being the true one.

I've rambled on far too long already so I'll leave it at that.

The first link is about China. Do they use the same vaccination schedule as we do? Do they use the same vaccine? How good is their record-keeping? Were there 1000 randomly sampled people from all over China, or from one specific place in the province?

They furthermore only mention that that one province has the mandatory vaccinations. Do the others? Are there a lot of unvaccinated people coming through the area that could disrupt the herd immunity effect? Like, say, a few tens of unvaccinated people at Disney?

The second link is someone trying to sell a DVD. There is absolutely no information there, just claims that have been refuted to the end of the universe and back. And some fearmongery correlation/causation conflation. Did you know that the Internet was getting built up at the same time as the skyrocketing Autism rate? I bet the Internet causes autism.

Third link: It is entirely believable that RIGHT NOW the measles vaccine causes more complications than the measles does. Because there are only a couple hundred cases of the measles in the US per year. It is all but eradicated, because of the vaccine, which means that it kills very few people.

If you go back before the vaccine, though, around 500,000 people had the measles a year (and this is probably a low guess, per the link). Around 20% of those had to be hospitalized. About four times more people died from it than now have fatal complications due to the vaccine.

No vaccine: (Possibly much) more than 500,000 people sick. 100,000 people hospitalized. 1,000-10,000 brain damaged. A few hundred dead (not a super fatal disease). Thousands more get liver damage, hearing damage, eye damage, other complications.

Vaccine: Assuming we're at a 90% vaccination rate, around 3,500,000 kids vaccinated a year. ~100 dead, per your link. 1000 with dangerously high fever. Deafness/seizure/brain-damage: So rare that a link to the vaccine can not be established. Autism: Completely fabricated and discredited.

This has a good chart comparing the relative danger, for equal numbers infected/vaccinated. If we stopped vaccinating, it would not take long to get back to where dealing with the measles was a dangerous rite of passage for almost every kid.

Okay, those eyes would just freak me the hell out, I'd feel like I should be calling in a priest for last rites or an exorcism.

Idk, I'm picking up a strong "dumb blonde is easily tricked and manipulated by her cheating husband" vibe tho. Fucking sexists rite?

Yo man, birthday cheer (goin' for the gold!)-Also born on April 8, one of my fav-o-rite architects Richard Neutra (flat-slate roofs, lotsa glass, check his shit it's uber-retro-hip)-Also, this wonderful woman, one of the high priestesses of Jazz, Dame Carmen McCrae-Yer in hip company....

Happy Birthday Jake! I have a cat named Jake so you must be aw'rite

People hear that the flicker fusion threshold is about 16hz, and that movies play at 24hz so they assume that there must be no benefit to higher framerates. Ofc, movies have a lot of motion blur to make the movement appear more smooth and quite often a TV will have sophisticated tech to make the lower framerates on TV shows appear smoother than they actually are. Computer monitors, for the most part, show sharp images and we sit closer to them so low frame rates are much more noticeable. The rods and cones in our eyes might have a "fresh rate" of 16hz (I think rods actually respond much faster, but w.e) but they aren't synchronised like a camera. Our eyes will detect light, or any changes in it pretty much instantaneously. You don't have to wait for the next refresh. At what point our brain, or the variance in latency of the optic nerve, become the limiting factors I don't know. I'd like to think we wouldn't have evolved such advanced optical receptors only to be bottle necked by our brains. In short: 120hz ftw.

My absolute greatest peeve with console ports is mouse settings though. The number of times I've had to delve into the .ini to disable mouse acceleration or set my sensitivity to something sensible. Sometimes even the .ini doesn't have the answer. I fucking hate it when you get a sensitivity slider with 10 arbitrary notches. "Don't worry gamers, I'm sure you'll find a setting you like. As long as your preference is for a mm of mouse movement to spin you between 360 and 720 degrees. Ps. you do have a gamepad rite?"

As you say, "Fuck you" indeed.

Skyclad
Historically, Witches worked Naked, and there are many references to naked Witches standing on their clothes. In a few illustrations, the Witches are clothed in the clothing of their time, but examination of the drawings indicates that the artist rarely knew a real Witch.
Gardner introduced the term Skyclad into the Craft in the 1950's with the reference to "Witches worship naked which is called in the East (Indonesia), 'Skyclad'" and the term stuck as a poetic way to refer to ritual nudity. Witches worshipped Skyclad in 1950's and today, but in the 70s, the Welsh and American Celtic Witches began to wear robes, which became the standard way to worship for years. By the late '70s, the Feminist Witches began to experiment with Skyclad worship, so by the late 80’s about half of the American and European Witches worship Skyclad.
There are a number of reasons for nudity, the first being that in the Charge, which was written by Doreen Valiente from older sources, The Goddess said,
"And as a sign that ye be truly free, ye shall be naked in your rites."

This Charge is so beautiful that many Witches who reject the Gardnerian Traditions, retain the Charge as one of the few declamations that, if not directly from the Goddess, was unquestionably inspired by Her. Thus, the argument follows that we MUST worship naked because it is the will of the Goddess whom we love.

This argument is countered by a later version of the Charge that says,
"as a sign that ye be really free, ye shall be equal in your rites."
However, this is a later American version not as originally written.
A more convincing counter to the Charge is simply to reject the Charge outright.
Reject all Traditional and Gardnerian ideas, so it is then easy reject nudity as well.

A second reason for ritual nudity is the practical one. Witches all over the world often report that naked is safer.
In rites where I have been robed there have been accidents, incidents where a person stepping on the hem of another’s robe, and causes them to trip. In a nine-foot Circle, if one person goes down, usually all follow.  

Naked people are more aware of their surroundings, so you step more carefully and bang into the Altar and others less than clothed Witches.
You feel the heat of candles, as opposed to not detecting the heat until after your robe is in flames, so it is simply safer to be naked.
At Sabbat where we had three Covens worshipping together in Circle, some were from our Outer Court, so wore robes. During the rite, one woman stood too close to the West candle and set her robe on fire. She did manage to extinguish the flames with little disruption, but I did hear about the accident after the rite ended.

The magickal reason for nudity is that anything worn upon the body will interfere with and change the energy given off by the body. This includes clothes, make-up, perfumes, jewelry, glasses, contact lenses and so on.
This argument is quite logically countered by stating, “energy that can pass through a wall, cover miles of distance, and influence another person would not be stopped by a layer of cloth. “ Consider the greater awareness of your surroundings, being closer emotionally and physicality to the others in the circle. Being able to raise energy without the distraction of avoiding stepping on robes or pulling your sleeve up to keep in out of the candle flame.
Think of the Coven body, mind, and spirit that must generate a tremendous amount of power to send that spell over that distance. Once the Cone of Power is sent the spell won’t be deflected, but it can be deflected at the source by a relatively little. In other words, wearing clothing or non-craft jewelry or non-consecrated materials can easily deflect or alter the power that leaves the Circle. The spell, when it reaches its target, may be different or it may even reach a different target.
Nudity is rarely sexual, after ten minutes the naked Witch becomes bored with seeing bare breasts and genitals and is then free to work. A woman wearing a robe that cuts low in the front and is slit up the side to her hips will introduce into the Coven an attitude of sexual desire to the men as they try to see a nipple or thigh that, by being hidden, is desirable but when revealed by nudity is simply another body part. The men, in this situation, may have difficulty concentrating on the work in an effort to see what is barely hidden. Similar things occur in the female mind when the situation is reversed, though women are often trained to deny these thoughts to others and even to themselves.
There are Psychological factors to Nudity are that the people must accept themselves as they are or change themselves. It is difficult to put on a facade when you are denied a girdle, bra, wig, make-up, deodorant, aftershave, codpiece or other enhancements to your image. Once naked, the individual with their sags, and bulges shines and, becomes themselves and not a mask. 
When working magik, it is vital to know yourself and accept your own good and ill, for to attempt the path with false illusions will cause trouble when your subconscious rebels and forces your work to conform to a hidden truth.
To be naked indicates freedom from conventional mundane thought. When clothed in a suit or dress, you conform to societies expectations and become what they wish you to become. Your style of dress and hairstyle are a reflection, not of your own desires, but of what your peers wish you to be.
Equality between class and gender is assured when naked, as the rich no longer have jewels to show their class worth, and Women must face men as equals, both showing their inadequacies and realizing that the other sex is just as physically imperfect as you are. With this barrier down, men and women can accept each other as equals.
Once naked, you are free to place your mind into a sphere of magickal thought. A place between the worlds where the God and Goddess are not symbols hanging on a wall but REAL DIVINITIES, where all is possible.
It is necessary to be clothed at times; in public or when outdoors in winter it may be necessary to be clothed to allow the mind to concentrate on the goal and not to be thinking that the body is slowly freezing to death.
When this is necessary to wear a robe, it should be one that interferes with magik and mind as little as possible. It is best to wear a plain robe that is exactly the same as all others. To make a personal robe will introduce ego and class or sexual differences into the rite.
There are some uses to wearing robes. The simple act of putting on a robe that is reserved only for Ritual use causes the inner mind to awaken and to develop the attitude that "Now the mundane world is behind me, it is time for the magickal world to appear." This can be very effective to your working and will counter some of the physical drawbacks of wearing robes. If all are wearing identical robes, the attitude of equality within, 'the group' is enhanced, for there is nothing different between the people or sexes.
The robe must also be of a natural material such as cotton or wool since synthetics cause a great deal of interference with the power. A simple list of materials which will interfere with magickal power when worn from the least to the greatest effect is as follows: cotton, wool, conductive metals from silver, gold, copper, iron, synthetic materials such as nylon, or rayon, and Silk though a natural material is a strong magickal insulator.
In today’s world, you will find Witches who work Skyclad, robed, in costumes and even in their street clothes. Street clothes however; bring into the Circle all the influences that have become attached to those clothes over the day. These influences will affect your workings as well as your mind because the subconscious will see no difference between the mundane and the magickal, and as we spend most of our time in the mundane world, it is easy to see which will win.


"Nudity establishes a closeness and honesty among conveners and 'is a sign that a witches loyalty is to the truth before any ideology or any comforting illusions.” Starhawk.

Women...am i rite guys?

I disagree completely. Labling him a criminal before a trial is perhaps a little premature - whether or not he broke the law is the question that should be asked at the trial...only it seems that the answer would likely be yes because his whistle blower status, or lack thereof, sure as hell isnt going to protect him.

I'm not sure why supporters of what he did would demand he martyr himself further. Do you really put so much trust in the justice system? You saw what they did to Manning. You think that is justice? How selfish of him to want to avoid that same fate rite? If it was me I would sacrifice myself to their little ritual in a flash and then sit in a cell for god knows how long hoping that the American people can pull themselves away from MTV and fastfood long enough to give a fuck about me. Lol nop. US citizens don't seem to need a trial to decide his guilt or not. Is anybody actually thinking to themselves "gee, I wonder if that snowdon guy had a point. Too bad I won't know until he hands himself in!". No, everybody made up their minds long ago and I don't think I need him to publically crucified to get mad as hell.

Saints in hell pace the fucking gorge of everlasting fire for the hope surely wasted of one taste again of the nectar of the Russian god, Smetana...Beef Stroganovs' one 'o th' all-time fav-o-rite shinizzles!!!

Yes. Being forced to leave your own country due to your sexual orientation truly is "no problem".

OHHHH rite. You meant no problem for you. I get it now. Sorry, forgive my earlier sarcasm. Misunderstanding.