#christian surber

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Two musk oxen face off in Dovrefjell–Sunndalsfjella National Park in Norway. The males go head to head to measure their strengths against one another

Photograph: Christain Surber/Solent News & Photo Agency/Solent News

[vague-humanoid]

Police recruits join the force to help others and fight crime. Research confirms it. But priorities changed when sheriff’s deputies detained Eh Wah in Muskogee County, Oklahoma, and found more than $53,000 in his car.

Law enforcement training kicked in, and the purpose of the traffic stop switched from public safety to raising revenue. The deputies seized the cash and spent the next six hours interrogating Eh Wah, looking for any excuse to justify civil forfeiture, a process that allows the government to take and keep cash, cars and other assets without a criminal conviction.

Oklahoma agencies normally keep quiet about civil forfeiture, which is why the state ranks among the worst in the nation for civil forfeiture transparency. Oklahoma publishes no statewide reports, conducts no regular audits, and tracks only limited metrics.

The silence is strategic. The more people learn about civil forfeiture, the less they like it. But Oklahoma police and prosecutors have voiced opposition in recent weeks to H.R. 1525, the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act (FAIR), a bill that would reform federal civil forfeiture.

Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics Deputy Director Brian Surber says the measure would take money from state and local agencies, making it harder to fight drug cartels and other criminal enterprises.

What happened to Eh Wah undercuts this narrative. He was not a drug lord or even a low-level dealer. He was a volunteer manager for a Christian rock band, raising money for Thai orphans and Burmese refugees. Some of the cash belonged to Eh Wah and the band members, following a monthslong tour across several states. The rest came from concert donations and belonged to the orphans and refugees.

Carrying cash is legal. The money in the car was legitimate. And none of it related to a broken taillight — the reason for the 2016 traffic stop on U.S. Route 69. Eh Wah, who neither smokes nor drinks, had nothing illegal in his vehicle. Other than driving with a burned out bulb, he did nothing wrong.

The deputies pounced anyway, putting civil forfeiture in motion.

@chrisdornerfanclub

[atheistassessment]

Misunderstanding Atheism . . . Again

Many Christians and religious believers have a hard time understanding what is atheism. The most common misconceptions are that it’s a belief system in and of itself, or that it is the assertion that there are no gods.

  Despite repeated attempts of atheists to rebut these misconceptions, they still remain.

  Case in point: Rev. Dr. Chris Surber’s opinion piece in the Suffolk News-Herald, “Modern Atheism is Not a Thing,” makes several mistakes in regard to what is atheism.

  Surber begins by referencing the 18th-centrury philosopher David Hume and claims Hume’s lack of belief in miracles as a root cause of his atheism. Surber paints Hume’s atheism as logic-based and rooted in skepticism. I’m not too familiar with Hume’s work, but I mention this because Surber uses Hume to make a distinction between historical atheism and modern atheism, which is his first mistake.

  Surber goes on to say, “Hume’s atheism was skepticism rooted in logic . . .but today’s atheism is something else altogether. It is above all else an active belief in the non-existence of God. It has passed from passive skepticism to active non-belief. It has become a belief itself. It is the belief that there is no God.”

  Well, that couldn’t be more wrong. And while I’m sure there are some atheists who make the claim that no gods exist, the overwhelming majority of the atheists I read and follow make no such claim.

  One can be reasonably certain the character Yahweh as described in the Bible doesn’t exist, but I’d be skeptical of someone who asserts with certainty that no gods exist anywhere now or ever.

  The error — I think — Surber is making is equating outspokenness of many atheists with “active non-belief.”

  He goes on to add — somewhat correctly — that “ . . . today’s atheism is really just a dislike, disapproval and denunciation of religious belief. It’s not atheism. It’s anti-theism, and that is a whole other thing.”

  Well, yes and no. Many outspoken atheists like myself are indeed anti-theists. We see the harm religious belief causes and we refuse to remain silent. We stand up for separation of church and state and aggressively promote a worldview based in science, logic, reason and secularism.

  But this isn’t a “new atheism.” It’s the same atheism, but one that’s more vocal — and possibly more aggressive — and that is what I think rubs people like Surber the wrong way.

  Atheism in the past and in the present has always been the lack of belief in gods based on evidence provided. Full stop, end of story.

The Atheist Pig Read more at http://ift.tt/2qlUAC3 Twitter: http://twitter.com/AtheistAssess Facebook: http://ift.tt/1VMOHGR Atheism merchandise: http://ift.tt/12PrbzT