Review: “Star Trek Into Darkness”

  By The Atheist Geek | May 24, 2013 - 8:41 AM | ,
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Star Trek Into Darkness memeStar Trek Into Darkness is the latest offering by sci-fi god, J.J. Abrams. To me, the funny thing about Paramount choosing Abrams to reboot the Star Trek franchise is that he seems like a Star Wars guy, not a Star Trek guy. (In case you didn’t know, Abrams is also directing the next Star Wars movie.) I totally believe he’s the right guy for Star Wars, but I never saw Abrams as an obvious choice for Star Trek. Trek is deeper, smarter, and wastes valuable screen time by sitting its main characters around a conference table for hours on end. Star Wars is simplicity itself and focuses on special effects and things going boom. That’s the sort of thing Abrams is good at.

Despite this, I liked the previous Star Trek movie. It could have used some of the smarts that went into the TV shows that came before it, but it was totally enjoyable. And, most importantly, the characters felt right.

Can the same be said for Star Trek Into Darkness? Or should we set phasers to kill?

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Review: “Iron Man 3″

  By The Atheist Geek | May 23, 2013 - 8:42 AM | ,
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Iron Man 3Despite its flaws, I really enjoyed the first Iron Man movie and even thought Iron Man 2 wasn’t bad. So there was no way I wasn’t going to check out Iron Man 3. I was especially curious how the movie was going to handle the Mandarin, who I remember as Iron Man’s arch-enemy from the old comic books. So far, Marvel has taken a real-world approach to its superhero movies, but the Mandarin isn’t a real-world kinda guy. The question: how would Marvel handle a character whose powers are based on magic rather than the natural world in one of its movies?

Metacritic gave Iron Man 3 a 62% approval rating, while Rotten Tomatoes gave it a freshness rating of 78%. So more critics liked the movie than didn’t like the movie. What did I think? Clink the link to find out.

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News And Links For Atheists and Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses: Why I Left Mormonism Video

  By The Atheist Geek | May 20, 2013 - 9:23 AM | , , ,
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VIDEO: 6.0 – Why I left Mormonism – Gaining Perspective

The person who created the video above is a former Mormon. Back when he still believed in Mormonism, he noticed the similarities of Jehovah’s Witnesses to Mormons. He saw that Jehovah’s Witnesses were a cult and was forced to admit that his own faith must be a cult, too. Good times. ;-)

My Life as a Jehovah’s Witness Child

I was part of the fourth generation of Jehovah’s Witnesses in my family. Legend has it that my great-grandmother ran into some Russelites who were out street witnessing one day and brought home a Zion’s Watchtower. The rest, as they say, is history.

Shunning

The Watchtower instructs Jehovah’s Witnesses to disfellowship and shun members deemed “wicked.”

Why do Atheists “pick on” Christianity?

A study contributes to the deceptive rebranding of naturopathy as “lifestyle counseling”

Yes, you read it right. Weeks is using this study to argue that naturopaths should function as primary care physicians, despite how well documented it is that they are completely unsuited to such a role, as well demonstrated by Peter Lipson in his primary care challenge (also here and here and here). The study, of course, provides support for nothing of the sort, although unfortunately even physicians seem to be taken in by it, as evidenced by the very editorial that Weeks touts, with the cringe-inducing title, Can naturopaths administer complementary preventative care? More on that later. Let’s start with the study by Dugald Seely et al., for which most of the authors were from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. A finer example of the strategy of naturopaths to try to represent diet and lifestyle counseling as being somehow unique to naturopaths I have not seen in a long time.

Mailbag: When Can Opinions Be Mocked?

Austin Cline gets hate mail!

Subject: NO mockery is excusable

Mockery is frankly a sign of an inhuman person, and therefore is unbecoming of any intelligent person (regardless of religious position, political position, whatever). A civilized person should simply express their belief in a non-patronizing manner, not to mention good manners in general.

Golly. I wonder what Austin has to say about this one?

Have you tried these hilarious Jehovah’s Witness Chat-up lines?

Okay then guys and gals, it’s district convention time again and so I thought we’d spice some things up for you and your potential partner/marriage mate/divorcee.

Will Smith must be stopped

He has a new movie coming out this summer, After Earth. It looks awful, but then, that’s what I’ve come to expect from Will Smith’s Sci-Fi outings.

That one’s from P.Z. Myers!

News And Links For Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses And Atheists: Operation E-Shunning – AAWA Goes After The Watchtower In New Campaign

  By The Atheist Geek | May 9, 2013 - 4:58 PM | , , ,
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VIDEO: Operation: e-Shunning – AAWA goes after Watchtower over its destructive practice

Check out AAWA2013 – AAWA’s New YouTube Channel!

Punished for Choosing to Live

Twenty-two years ago a registered letter changed the course of my life. The letter stated that I had been judged guilty of “conduct unbecoming a Christian” and had been disfellowshipped from the Christian congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. What did that mean? What it meant was that unless I repented of my perceived sins in an acceptable way before a tribunal of church elders, I would forevermore be subjected to a life of shunning and ostracism by all of my church friends and four generations of family.

The webmaster of Emily Has Books is a friend, and so is the author! Check it out.

KU Hospital doctor delivers infusion of hope to Jehovah’s Witness

The cause was unknown. Maybe it was a ruptured vessel or a bleeding ulcer, which he had suffered before. But without oxygen-rich blood, his body was suffocating. He needed surgery. He needed to be stabilized. He needed blood. The problem: Watkins is a Jehovah’s Witness.

An Open Letter to Christians trying to “Convert” Atheists

Every time I get witnessed I have the same reaction, “Yeah, and?”. I’m completely baffled as to why you like to do this all the time. Sure it’s a great story. I liked Harry Potter too, but that had a better epilogue. The reason why this doesn’t work is simple. I and the atheist community, don’t believe you.

Hear ye hear ye!

Grandmother Says She is Persecuted if She is Not Allowed to Convert Grandson

One persistent sore point for me as a Heathen and even more, as a father, is the self-martyrdom of my mother-in-law…. She is my son’s only living grandmother, and as such occupies (or should occupy) a rather special place in his life. Not surprisingly he loves his grandmother and wants to spend time with her. I don’t begrudge him that. And I know she loves him and wants to spend time with him. Indeed, we, as parents, want them to spend time together.

So it breaks our heart when her insistence on some imagined right to proselytize our son gets in the way of what should be a wonderful relationship. I have cherished memories of my maternal grandmother and the time I spent with her and with her sisters. I know what my son is missing, what he has missed, and what he will miss in the years to come. And it breaks my heart. Grandma’s visits, if visits there are, should not have to be supervised. And they should not carry with them the prerequisite of conversion.

Notre Dame Professor Debunks Christian Myth of Persecution

She goes to lengths to argue that Christians were prosecuted, not persecuted. With true government persecution, victims have no room to negotiate when trying to convince the government to stop targeting them, Moss said. But when the government’s laws inadvertently lead to the persecution of Christians, there remains room for dialogue and debate over changing those laws.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Panorama | Secret database protects paedophiles

Pain of ostracism can be deep, long-lasting

Dangerous message for Domestic Violence from JWs

Paris Jackson stands up against her grandmother’s Jehovah’s Witness beliefs and ‘refuses to preach door-to-door’

Oh, and don’t tell anybody, but AAWA (newly renamed to Advocates For Awareness of Watchtower Abuses) has been dealing with a slew of cyber attacks at their website. From where?