Pierre A Renaud is on Facebook.
To connect with Pierre, sign up for Facebook today.
Log In
or
Sign Up

About Pierre A Renaud

Work
Education
Current City and Hometown
About Pierre
  • I'm an atheist+. Furthermore, I'm a satirically, heterosexually inclined 44yo male carbon-based bag of mostly water living on a speck of iron-silicate dust around a boring dwarf star in a minor galaxy in an underpopulated local group of galaxies in an unfashionable suburb of the Laniakea supercluster (thanks to Douglas Adams for the help), fluent in French, English and Expletives. I stand for freedom of expression framed by critical thinking, democracy & state/church separation. I abhor tyrannies, absolutisms, unquestioned traditions, unhinged skepticism & complacent ethical relativisms.

    ---

    Old https://apps.facebook.com/extendedinfo :

    AKA: PAR, PAR1138, Dude, Hey you, Chose

    I love: Chocolate milk, half & half, biogenesis experiments in the refrigerator, crazy yellow cats, whisky, pipe smoking, keeping puritans at bay with english blends, cigars, coffee, sleepless nights, rainy days, rainy nights, film noir, reason, unreason in moderate doses

    I hate: Tolerance of intolerance, outdated feudal parasitic hereditary institutions (aka monarchies), outrageously irrational and abusive institutions (aka religions), hip-hop, rap, mondays, waking up, going to sleep, prejudice, fuschia (what is that, anyway?), death, country music, elevator music, shopping centers' music, shopping centers, shopping, foaming true believers, fundies, puritans, eternity (especially toward the end)

    I boycott: religious institutions, theoconservatives, Invisible Children (funded by the antigay, creationist christian right), halal & kosher foods

    I'm nonplussed by: Xenu, god, allah, and thousands other so-called divinities. How can you hate or love non-existing entities? It's their followers that can be creepy and dangerous.

    Disappointments: Bill Maher's incomprehensible antivax stance, Jon Stewart's fierce anti-unionism

    Favorite quotes: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/list/4660203 (damn, http://www.quotiki.com/user.aspx?user=par1138 doesn't compute anymore)

    Heroes: Ida http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/19/fossil-ida-missing-link, Lucy http://elucy.org/, James Randi, Richard Phillips Feynman, Henry Morgentaler, Lenny Bruce, Bill Maher, Penn Jillette, Charles Darwin, Jane Goodall, Moby, Taslima Nasreen, Gene Roddenberry, Carl Sagan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Isaac Asimov, Richard Dawkins, Gerald Durrell, Theo Van Gogh, Peter Falk, George Carlin, Bernard Werber, Pierre Foglia

    I boycott: Neil Gaiman (listed in Scientology's Cornerstone Newsletter 2009 as having contributed $35,000), Chuck Norris (christian bigot), Dieudonné (négationniste et antisémite), Louis Farrakhan, Bill O'Reilly, Stephen Harper, Orson Scott Card (homophobe), Ben Stein, Joseph "Pope Rat" Ratzinger, Michael Moore, Claude Vorilhon (aka Raël aka Captain Cosmos), Marshall "Eminem" Mathers III (misogynist and homophobic), Orenthal J Simpson, Thomas Cruise Mapover IV (scientologist), Robert Mugabe, Ted Nugent, Steve "the varmint hunter" Irwin, Michael Jackson, Lafayette Ron Hubbard (scammer and scientology founder), Osama Bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, and —it goes without saying— those too numerous criminals of history (stalin, hitler, pol pot, etc.) who transformed their political ideologies into religiously fanatical, murderous instruments of repression and destruction.

    Zodiac sign: Primate ascendant protozoan
    http://www.jokes2go.com/lists/list6.html
    http://skepdic.com/astrolgy.html

    Recommended churches and cults:
    • The Church of Trek, the sci-fi religion that doesn't take all your money http://theinfosphere.org/Church_of_Trek
    • Frisbeetarianism: when you die, your soul flies upward and gets stuck on the roof (George Carlin)
    • Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
    http://www.venganza.org/
    • Church of the Latter-Day Dude
    http://www.dudeism.com/
    • The Way of Yo
    http://www.yoism.org/
    • The Church of Google
    http://www.thechurchofgoogle.org/
    • Church of the Subgenius
    http://www.subgenius.com/
    • And for shits and giggles - any Cargo Cult of your choice
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
    http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/cargocul.htm

    I just can't wait for:
    • The week-end
    • Lunch
    • International Blasphemy Day - each July 30th (or any day of my life for that matter)
    http://blasphemyday.com/
    • Maya End of the World Prophecy 2012/12/21 http://www.slate.com/id/2218841/
    • Aliens' spaceships' descent on Earth, july 5th, 8661 at 7 am as predicted by Bob of the Church of the SubGenius (his previous 1998 prediction was revised after it was realized he had read the date upside down)

    Favorite books: All my patients are under the bed: memoirs of a cat doctor (Louis J. Camuti), Flowers for Algernon, The God Delusion, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Lord of the Rings, Le Guide Raisonné des Jurons, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, The Tribe of Tiger (Elizabeth Marshall Thomas), http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4660203?shelf=favorites

    Favorite magazines: Le Québec Sceptique, Québec Science, Foreign Affairs, NewScientist, Wired, Skeptical Inquirer, National Geographic, Science & Vie, Le Sécrétion de lectures indigestes (bin quoi?)

    Favorite cartoons: We The Robots http://www.wetherobots.com/, Gary Larson, Cectic, The Trek Life, Dinosaur Comics http://www.qwantz.com/, Calvin & Hobbes, Le Concombre Masqué, Manu Larcenet, Le Chat de Philippe Geluck, Corto Maltese, Philémon, Dilbert, Tintin, Gaston Lagaffe

    Favorite tv series: The Wild Wild West, Follyfoot, La Pierre Blanche, Columbo, Star Trek, Babylon 5, La chaperonnette à pois, Cosmos (by Carl Sagan), Cosmos 1999, Black Adder, Bullshit!, Mr Bean

    Favorite films: Religulous, V for Vendetta, Watership Down, Blade Runner, Microcosmos, The thirteenth Floor, Once upon a time in the West, The Matrix, Brazil, The Green Mile, La soupe aux choux, The Holy Grail, Silent Running, Shawn of the Dead, The Life of Brian, Jacob's Ladder, Smoke

    Favorite documentaries: The Nazis: A Warning From History (Laurence Rees)

    Desert island albums or songs:
    • Hello Cruel World (Bad Religion)
    • Automatic for the People (R.E.M.)
    • Crises (Mike Oldfield)
    • Breathe (Midnight Oil)
    • Dehors Novembre (Les Colocs)
    • Yeld (Pearl Jam)
    • Furious Angels (Rob Dougan)
    • Breakfast in America (Supertramp)
    • Grand Turismo (The Cardigans)
    • Secret Story (Pat Metheny)
    • Every Day (The Cinematic Orchestra)
    • Faithless (Rush)

    Favorite colors: I like most of what my visual ventral stream perceives. Except brown. And pink. Oh, and fuchsia (whatever that is).

    Sites I recommend:
    http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/
    http://atheism.about.com/
    http://www.richarddawkins.net/
    http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula
    http://badastronomy.com/
    http://www.bay-of-fundie.com/
    http://www.sceptiques.qc.ca/
    http://libresansdieu.org/

    Favorite sports: Full contact chess, outwitting cats (not always successfully), walking, procrastination. Former judoka, long distance runner and backpacker.

    Music that partially defines me: We are made of stars, Hyenas (Moby), La fete triste (Trisomie 21), Thousands are sailing (The Pogues), Do you believe (The Cardigans), Faithless (Rush)

    -30-
Favorite Quotes
  • New quotes now curated on https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/list/4660203

    --
    Some of my archived quotes from defunct site Quotiki:
    http://www.quotiki.com/users/par1138#tab=1
    http://www.quotiki.com/users/par1138#tab=2

    "If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." « Si le savoir peut créer des problèmes, ce n’est pas l’ignorance qui les résoudra.» —Isaac Asimov

    Q. Once you get rid of religion, what do you replace it with ? A. Once you get rid of cancer, what do you replace that with ? (Dennis, The Matt Dillahunty Show)

    "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society... then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them... We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant." - Karl R. Popper

    How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. - Anne Frank

    “The reason religious beliefs need protection from ridicule is that they are ridiculous.” (Michael Nugent)

    The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. - Richard Dawkins

    "We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing, all-powerful God who creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes."
    — Gene Roddenberry

    " Il n'y a pas trente six façons de penser; penser, c'est considérer la mort et prendre une décision." (Jacques Rigaut)

    " There is not enough love and goodness in the world for us to be permitted to give any of it away to imaginary things." (Friedrich Nietzsche)

    " I believe in goodness for goodness’ sake, not because you’re getting some reward in the afterlife. If you’re being good for an award, then what sort of person are you anyway?" (Bill Maher)

    " You have not converted a man because you have silenced him." (John Morley)

    " Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." (C.S. Lewis)

    " Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion." (Steven Weinberg)

    " Whereas you can believe as many stupid things as you like, you are not free to act on those beliefs in ways that harm others." (A. C. Grayling)

    "It's the human desire to believe lies that keep us socially and morally primitive. I'm persuaded that a lie burrowed in human desire is too powerful to be destroyed." (Author unknown)

    "You can not convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it is based on a deep-seated need to believe." ~ Carl Sagan

    " The Truth will set you free... But first it will piss you off." (Gloria Steinem, women's rights activist)

    " Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. There would never be another. It changed the future and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, because if we don't, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places. Mostly, though, I think it gave us hope, that there can always be new beginnings. Even for people like us." (Susan Ivanova, character from Michael J. Straczynski's tv series Babylon 5)

    -30-

Favorites

Photos

Image may contain: 3 people
No automatic alt text available.
Image may contain: 3 people
No automatic alt text available.
No automatic alt text available.
+1,589
See More Photos

Others With a Similar Name