Derrick Martin Wins Right To Bring His Boyfriend to the Prom But His Parents Spoil the Victory!

Derrick Martin an 18 year old senior at Bleckley County High School in Cochran Georgia has won approval to bring his boyfriend to the school prom.  Something worth celebrating right?  Well, not so fast.  Apparently his parents embarrassed by the publicity and the  "SIN"  of their sons homosexuality have now thrown young Derrick Martin out of their house.

Supporters have rallied around Derrick, and are offering to help pay for everything from boutonnieres to a stretch limo for Derrick and his boyfriend, but so far there has been no word on anyone helping him find a new place to live, although he is temporarily staying with a friend.

Derrick says he first sought permission in January to bring his date to the April 17 dance at the school. Bleckley High requires approval in advance for bringing a prom date from outside the county.  Since there is no official school policy covering the subject of same-sex dates.  Principal Michelle Masters approved the request. 

You might remember a similar request by a female student in Mississippi to bring her girlfriend to the senior dance led to the prom at her school being cancelled. 

That's not the case here though, Derrick's School Actually Did Right by Him.  It Was His Parents and their Religion that Let Him down!

Agnostic Thinking...

Please feel free to comment below, ( just click on the word comments if the panel is not open) or you can e-mail me direct at eddieoreilly@hotmail.com and your comment will be posted.

And don't forget to check out my original blog
  Just Thinking 

Bill Maher Does Buddhism!

In Friday night's edition of  "New Rules".  Bill Maher covers a host of topics as usual, but my favorites was when he discusses Tiger Woods Buddhist Faith. The last few minutes of this video are the best, check it out...

Update 4/1/2010: HBO has apparently decided to remove some of my favorite Bill Maher videos from YouTube.  This doesn't seem to be an April fools joke either.  I fully recognize that it's HBO's right to do so, but it's still very regrettable.  So I guess I'll just have to quote bill Maher, instead...

"Now usually, when famous cheaters are looking for public redemption, they go to Jesus, but Tiger went old school, and claimed that sleeping with 2/3 of the waitresses in America had made him a failure as a Buddhist. He said Buddhism teaches you the way to inner peace is letting go of desire - and if that doesn't sound like marriage, I don't know what does.

Personally, if I was a golfer, I'd go with Jesus - because he's a Trinity, so when you walk with him, you've got a foursome. Christianity is for rubes. Buddhism is for actors.


And it really is outdated in some ways - the "Life sucks, and then you die" philosophy was useful when Buddha came up with it around 500 B.C., because back then life pretty much sucked, and then you died - but now we have medicine, and plenty of food, and iPhones, and James Cameron movies - our life isn't all about suffering anymore. And when we do suffer, instead of accepting it we try to alleviate it.


Tiger said, "Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves" makes us unhappy, which confirms something I've long suspected about Eastern religions: they're a crock, too.


Craving for things outside ourselves is what makes life life - I don't want to learn to not want, that's what people in prison have to do. Buddhism teaches suffering is inevitable. The only thing that's inevitable is that if you have fake boobs and hair extensions, Tiger Woods will try to fuck you.


And reincarnation? Really? If that were real, wouldn't there be some proof by now? A raccoon spelling out in acorns, "My name is Herb Zoller and I'm an accountant." ...something?


People are always debating, is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy: it's a religion. You're a religion if you do something as weird as when the Buddhist monks scrutinize two-year-olds to find the reincarnation of the dude who just died, and then choose one of the toddlers as the sacred Lama: "His poop is royal!" Sorry, but thinking you can look at a babbling, barely-housebroken, uneducated being and say, "That's our leader" doesn't make you enlightened. It makes you a Sarah Palin supporter."


Please Feel Free to Comment below:  ( just click on the word comment if the panel is not open) or you can e-mail me direct at  EddieOReilly@hotmail.com  and your comment will be posted. And don't forget to check out my original blog Just Thinking... 
  Just Thinking 

The Texas School Book Massacre!

Last week, the Texas Board of Education, with a seven vote margin, ratified a series of controversial new, right-wing fundamentalist christian textbook standards.  Standards that would not only change History and Science, but could pollute the minds of young students nationwide. 

Since Texas purchases the same books for the entire state (unlike most school districts, which make the decision locally) Texans, therefore have the largest schoolbook market in the country.  Which tends to have a great influence on how textbooks are written and produced  across the United States. 

Among other things, these new Texas standards would force students to study the Creationist Philosophy of Pro-Life,  Christian Fundamentalists, like Phyllis Schafly, but would delete the Enlightened Thinking of founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

That's right.  Thomas Jefferson (author of the Declaration of Independence) Would Be Out!  But Phyllis Schafly and Conservative Christian Philosophers like Thomas Aquinas Would Be In!  -Well That Sounds Fair and Balanced.

Students would further be indoctrinated with the thinking of the Tea Party Movement, the National Rifle Association, the Contract with America people, the Christian Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority,  and the widely discredited economic theories of the Libertarian, German-Austrian Economist Frederic von Hayek.  All of this without benefit of any dissenting or opposing points of view.

Now, perhaps it doesn't bother you that we would be raising a generation of morons.  School kids that believe in the inerrancy of Bible Fairy Tales.  That the Earth is the Center of the Universe and our Sun revolves around us.  That man walked with the dinosaurs because the world is only 5,000 years old.

Maybe you don't care that this could lead to the birth of a New Christian Theocracy where there would be No Freedom of Religion or Thought.  No Bill of Rights, Constitution or Declaration of Independence, just the in-errant philosophy of Bible texts to guide us.

But I suspect, if you really think about it, you do care.  And if you do, then it's time - To Mess With Texas!


Please feel free to comment below, ( just click on the word comment if the panel is not open) or you can e-mail me direct at eddieoreilly@hotmail.com and your comment will be posted. And don't forget to check out my original blog Just Thinking...
  Just Thinking 

Liberals and Atheists Have Above Average IQs!

Don't You Love It!
When this story first broke Yesterday in all of the Major News Outlets. Well, needless to say, I was Pleased as Punch!

I was even more Delighted this Morning when I opened an e-mail from my Niece Irene, who lives in the Pacific Northwest. She was sending me a CNN News link to this very story. In it, she gleefully explained. Eddie, I thought you might appreciate this. - And You Bet I Do.

My Niece is so Bright, Beautiful and Perceptive! I just can't help but wonder where she gets it from? :)
In case you haven't seen it yet. Here's the basic report...

Liberalism, Atheism, Male Sexual Exclusivity Linked to IQ

(CNN) -- Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds.

Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.

Thank You for Sending Me This Irene - You Made My Day!

Of course this story should be no great surprise, since we have always known...

Most of the Great Minds in Math, Science and Philosophy, Have Been Liberals, Agnostics, Atheists, Non-Theists and Secular Humanists.

Please feel free to comment below, ( just click on the word comment if the panel is not open) or you can e-mail me direct at eddieoreilly@hotmail.com and your comment will be posted. And don't forget to check out my original blog Just Thinking...
     Just Thinking