Monthly Archives: March 2015

Atheism IS Nihilism. – Video

Posted: March 2, 2015 at 6:49 pm


Atheism IS Nihilism.
My response to the commonly asked (but ill-formed) question. Intro featuring "Spirituality" by Strapping Young Lad. I don #39;t own it. Duh.

By: Mytheology

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Atheism IS Nihilism. - Video

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Atheism by Narasingha Prabhu – Video

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Atheism by Narasingha Prabhu
Atheism by Narasingha Prabhu [To watch more interviews of devotee, visit - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhtmKWc6vRTB1-urEnxSDI0_dDdUgCOr8%5D

By: ISKCON Desire Tree

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Atheism by Narasingha Prabhu - Video

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Unsure? Call the crisis in faith hotline

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Considering atheism? Unsure about your faith? Call 1-184-I-DOUBT-IT.

The 24-hour crisis hotline for those considering leaving their faith is operated byRecovering From Religion, a Kansas City, Mo.-based nonprofit that aids those transitioning out of faith.

When people are reconsidering the role religion plays in their lives, they risk losing their families, their spouses, their jobs, said Sarah Morehead,executive director of Recovering From Religion. These people are isolated, excluded, shunned. It rocks these people to the bottom of their hearts. It is heartbreaking.

Hotline volunteers will not advocate leaving religion for atheism, Kimberly Winston writes for the Religion News Service, but will offer support and resources.

The hotline's motto is: When faith is on the line, so are we.

Read the rest of Winston's story here:http://bit.ly/1GbuBkQ

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Unsure? Call the crisis in faith hotline

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1-800-DOUBTS: A new helpline for troubled atheists

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Story highlights A new helpline is believed to be the first for people suffering from a loss of faith Founded by the group Recovering From Religion, 1-84-I-DOUBT-IT launched on Friday.

Find out what it means to be an atheist -- and why you should care -- in a one-hour special airing March 24 at 9 p.m. ET on CNN.

He's been a Christian for 20 years but can't believe in the Bible anymore. He hasn't told his friends or family and still sits, uneasy, in church each Sunday.

"I feel like I'm lying," he tells the woman on the other end of the phone. "I'm pretending to be a person that I'm not.

"But what if I'm wrong?" he asks. "Will I go to hell?"

"Hmmm..." the woman says, after stumbling through an awkward answer. "I thought you weren't going to make this hard."

If this call had been real, the woman says, she would have dissuaded the man from falling for Pascal's Wager, the argument that it's better to believe in God because -- well, hell is an awfully hot place to spend eternity.

But the call wasn't real. The man and woman are volunteers training for 1-84-I-DOUBT-IT, believed to be the country's first helpline for people wrestling with religion, suffering from a loss of faith, or confused about why their son or wife seems to have suddenly embraced atheism.

Founded by the group Recovering From Religion and cobbled together with a small budget, the helpline launched on Friday. Nearly 100 volunteers are ready to field calls 24/7 on the weekends and from 6-12 Central Time on weeknights.

Calls will be kept confidential and the callers can remain anonymous, said Sarah Morehead, Recovering From Religion's executive director. There's no physical call center; instead volunteers and callers are connected through a virtual private network

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Bangladeshis arrest suspect in killing of American atheist blogger

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Bangladeshi security officials arrested a suspect Monday in the killing of an American writer who was a prominent critic of extremist Islam and was hacked to death last week as he walked with his wife in Dhaka, a government spokesman said.

The arrest of Farabi Shafiur Rahman came four days after attackers wielding meat cleavers killed Avijit Roy, an outspoken atheist and critic of the intertwining of religion and politics, on a crowded sidewalk in the capital, said Mufti Mahmud Khan, a spokesman for the anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion.

Roy, a Bangladesh-born engineer with American citizenship, was killed on a visit from Georgia in the United States to attend Dhakas main book fair. He and his wife, Rafida Ahmed, were attacked after leaving the fair. Ahmed was seriously injured.

Rahman, a Muslim blogger who denounced atheism, had threatened Roy in Facebook postings, Khan said, quoting him as writing: Avijit Roy lives in America, so its not possible to kill him right now. But he will be killed when he comes back.

Rahman had been arrested previously for threatening an imam who performed funeral prayers for another atheist Bangladeshi blogger killed in 2013. He was released on bail after six months in jail.

While Rahman acknowledged making the threats, Khan said, authorities refused to say if they believed he was one of the attackers.

He has admitted that he threatened Avijit but we are not sharing more information with you for the sake of the investigation. We need to ask him more, Khan said.

The Bangladesh government has accepted a U.S. offer of FBI help in the investigation of the killing, according to Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali.

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Will The Kurds Join In Freeing Turkey From NATO – Sheikh Imran Hosein HQ 2015 – Video

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Will The Kurds Join In Freeing Turkey From NATO - Sheikh Imran Hosein HQ 2015
LINK : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imran_N._Hosein Imran Hosein was born on the Caribbean island of Trinidad in 1942 from parents whose ancestors had migrated as indentured labourers from...

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Will The Kurds Join In Freeing Turkey From NATO - Sheikh Imran Hosein HQ 2015 - Video

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Nato, Zionists & the Obama Victory- Sheikh Imran Hosein’s (Full) Interview By Morris HQ 2015 – Video

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Nato, Zionists the Obama Victory- Sheikh Imran Hosein #39;s (Full) Interview By Morris HQ 2015
LINK : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imran_N._Hosein Imran Hosein was born on the Caribbean island of Trinidad in 1942 from parents whose ancestors had migrated as indentured labourers from...

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Nato, Zionists & the Obama Victory- Sheikh Imran Hosein's (Full) Interview By Morris HQ 2015 - Video

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Estonia's pro-NATO Reform party wins vote

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TALLINN: Estonia's governing pro-NATO Reform party came top in parliamentary elections on Sunday (Mar 1), fought amid concerns over a militarily resurgent Russia, but analysts warned that forging a coalition would be challenging.

President Toomas Hendrik Ilves is expected to ask Reform chief, outgoing Prime Minister Taavi Roivas, to build a coalition on the basis of the 30 seats his party won in the 101-member parliament.

The centrist Reform party lost three seats, according to the official results. Meanwhile the opposition pro-Kremlin Centre party was up one seat to 27 and the outgoing Social Democrat junior coalition partners down four to 15.

"Reform will be able to form a government ... (but) coalition talks might be complicated," leading Estonian political commentator Ahto Lobjakas told AFP, noting increased volatility with six parties now in parliament, up from the previous four.

The parliamentary newcomers are a free-market liberal party and an anti-immigration conservative party, who secured 15 seats between them.

"In terms of Estonia's pro-Western orientation, commitment to EU, NATO, all this will remain and possibly become more pronounced," he added, describing the entry of the two newcomers as a swing to the right.

Moscow's annexation of Crimea last year and its meddling in eastern Ukraine have galvanised the European Union, including eurozone member Estonia where a quarter of the 1.3 million population are ethnic Russian.

Military manoeuvres by Moscow on Estonia's border just days ahead of the vote further stoked deep concerns in Europe that the Kremlin could attempt to destabilise countries that were in its orbit during Soviet times.

NATO is countering the moves by boosting defences on Europe's eastern flank with a spearhead force of 5,000 troops and command centres in six formerly communist members of the alliance, including one in Estonia.

"If they (the Russians) come in here, Estonia can't do anything ... I'm not sure NATO will help us out," Pyotr Sirotkin, a 25-year-old student at Tallinn University, told AFP as he cast his ballot in the capital.

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NATO spending down despite Russia tensions: think-tank

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Thursday, 26 February 2015 18:49

BRUSSELS: Many NATO member countries are spending less on defence despite promises to boost their budgets in the face of growing tensions with Russia, a think-tank said Thursday.

The European Leadership Network looked at figures for 2015 from 14 NATO members to see if they meet pledges made at a summit of the US-led military alliance last September.

All 28 NATO nations vowed to reverse a steady decline in defence spending and increase expenditure levels to two percent of annual economic output within 10 years.

"Despite concerns over Russian aggression in Ukraine and political commitments made at the NATO Wales Summit in September 2014... many are failing to live up to the commitments made," the think-tank said.

The tiny Baltic state of Estonia was the only country expected to spend 2.0 percent of gross domestic product on defence this year, London-based ELN said.

Six countries -- Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, the Netherlands and Romania -- are due to increase military expenditure but will not meet the target, while France is on course for a flat defence budget between 2014 and 2015.

Britain, Germany, Canada, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria are all set to cut defence spending, the think-tank said.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has repeatedly urged cash-strapped member nations to boost funding to meet increases in defence spending by Russia.

Russia's alleged involvement in Ukraine -- which the Kremlin has denied -- has sparked fears in NATO that Moscow could target the alliance's eastern European members.

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NSA authorization to collect bulk phone data extended to June 1

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The approval will be the last before the relevant statute in the Patriot Act comes up for renewal

A U.S. secret court has extended until June 1 the controversial bulk collection of private phone records of Americans by the National Security Agency.

The government said it had asked for reauthorization of the program as reform legislation, called the USA Freedom Act, was stalled in Congress. The bill would require telecommunications companies rather than the NSA to hold the bulk data, besides placing restrictions on the search terms used to retrieve the records.

An added urgency for Congress to act comes from the upcoming expiry on June 1 of the relevant part of the Patriot Act that provides the legal framework for the bulk data collections. Under a so-called "sunset" clause, the provision will lapse unless it is reauthorized in some form or the other by legislation.

Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which relates to business records, was used by the government to vacuum telephone metadata from customers of Verizon, according to revelations in 2013 by former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden. The section comes bundled with "gag orders" that prohibit service providers from making such information demands public.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had previously extended in December the authorization for the program by 90 days after the USA Freedom Act, backed by the administration of President Barack Obama, failed to pass in the Senate. A version of the bill had passed the House of Representatives.

The government has now sought renewal of the current program up to June 1 in order to align its expiry date with the sunset on the same day of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, according to a joint statement by the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Friday.

In March last year, as part of his reform program for the NSA, Obama had proposed that the data should remain with the telephone companies, and government would have access to that data only through individual court orders. The president, however, said there was need for new legislation to put these changes into effect.

With Section 215 and two other key rules set to lapse on June 1, Congress "has a limited window" before the sunset to enact new legislation "that would implement the President's proposed path forward for the telephony metadata program, while preserving key intelligence authorities," according to a statement by the White House press secretary.

A number of civil rights and privacy groups have asked Congress to oppose reauthorization of Section 215, one of several provisions in U.S. law that have provided the legal backing for NSA surveillance of people both in the country and abroad. The sunset of section 215 may not end bulk records collection, particularly of investigations that started before the expiry, according to some interpretations. Government could also use other statutes for domestic bulk data collection.

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