1. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #232529 by millsm on August 18, 2008 at 9:22 am

The qualification by the OMA is that recognized medical procedures needed by a patient cannot be refused by a physician...this does not require that a physician fulfill medically unnecessary demands or to perform illegal procedures such as female genital mutilation. The danger of religious dogma overriding medical need was graphically demonstrated when I was a RN in a Roman Catholic hospital in Canada. This hospital is in the center of downtown Vancouver where there is a high HIV incidence. The hospital administration issued a letter to all physicians practicing in the hospital informing them that if they prescribed or recommended the use of condoms to HIV infected patients, they would lose their privileges to practice in the hospital. This outrageous, lethal prohibition was placed upon physicians who had patients in a publicly funded primary care facility. The lying hypocrisy of religious control is a clear and present danger to public health and wellbeing.

2. Court Claim: Chimps Are People, Too

Comment #191174 by millsm on June 10, 2008 at 10:15 am

This appeal to the courts is an attempt to use the blunt instrument of the binary legal process to redefine biological categories. Whenever a group of chimps organize and file a petition to the courts for the protection of other species than their own (a moral act) or begin applying to enter graduate school to study anthropology (a cognitive act) or create interculturally appreciated art, music and literature, there would be a case for considering them "human". The "only" 96% sharing of their DNA sequence with humans is a major distinction that has definitive consequences. There must be legal protection for non-human life, but to ignore distinct DNA differences is to ignore a major and consequential difference between life forms.

3. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #190641 by millsm on June 9, 2008 at 10:15 am

This sucks so much oxygen that I get a headache trying to get through it. The giving by "The Creator" of the Torah in front of "millions" of people is a peculiar claim when,in fact the story is that Moses received it alone on the top of a mountain from a god who allowed him to see only his behind and, when he brought it down to the people gathered below, it was felt necessary to massacre thousands of them because they had alternate religious ideas; thus became the pattern of the killing off of "free thinkers' which continues as a religious imperative from then to the present day in the Mosaic traditions. This ignorant, uninformed verbiage is stunning (and literally breath-taking) in its vacuity...

4. The New Theology

Comment #113305 by millsm on January 19, 2008 at 8:50 am

re: jamienewman
The Unitarian Universalist denomination is the final gasp of watered-down Christian belief that, as a religion, makes no sense without its foil (Christianity in all its forms). Many UUs are liberal Christians, many others find a "church" home without any dogma except possibly libertarianism which has kept it, as an institution, reluctant to take unpopular social stands. Its history is to expel radical social reformers. The Quakers are divided between socially liberal and socially conservative groups; one supporting such progressive concepts as same-sex marriage and desertion from the military behemoth in all its manifestations, the other opposing such behaviour. Generally, atheists are not encouraged in either group. Remember, Richard Nixon was a Quaker... Quakers also anchor their beliefs on an ethereal "inner light" which is understood as the spirit of Jesus Christ to be found in silent sitting and listening for its mystical direction. I submit that the world would be better without these theistic remnants and that the resources used to keep them alive be put into building humane communities and excellent educational resources.