Author Archives: Jacob Fortin

Papacy finally OKs condom use

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It was only a matter of time before the millions of African men, women, and children slowly dying of AIDS would shame the Catholic Church into changing its stance on condom use. In a new book set to be released, based on conversations with the Pope, Benedict said in some cases, using a piece of rubber on your dick would not make God angry.

When he was asked if his church was against condom use, he said:

“It of course does not see it as a real and moral solution. In certain cases, where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection, it can nevertheless be a first step on the way to another, more humane sexuality.”

If you’re wondering why a sexless adult should have anything to say about sexuality, remember that the ‘humane’ interpretation of sexuality usually involves not having any. St. Paul was famous for his hatred of sexuality. As far as he was concerned, it was far better never to have sex than procreate. He saw celibacy as more pure, more divine. This sick attitude towards sex has since infested our world and made masturbation, one of life’s few enjoyments, a sin.

All of this is coming way too late. The majority of Catholics have been pro-birth control for a while now, and as usual, it’s the top brass who are late to the reform party. How many millions of people died needlessly because of some bullshit interpretation of Onan jizzing on the ground? How many unwanted babies were aborted, with their mothers bleeding to death in back alleys because of the church’s stance on contraception? Fucking ridiculous.

But wait, there’s more!

His language in attacking the use of recreational drugs in the West and its impact on the rest of the world is particularly striking.

Do they have to ruin everything that’s fun?

Christian calls atheist “mean” on Reddit

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Here’s another “hey, atheists are being mean and should stop” article from someone clearly annoyed that people on Reddit have less than kind things to say about religion.

If you want to find out why I call these guys Reddit Atheists, take a brief dip into the atheism subreddit. It is a place entirely defined by bitter, faux-enlightened young people sharing “thought-provoking” images about the horrific evils of religion (in practice, pretty much just Christianity) and congratulating each other for being “enlightened.” The site was originally intended to be a place where people talk about atheistic ideas, but as is Reddit’s depressing trend, it soon devolved into a swampy mess of endless, banal clichés, memes, and general anti-intellectualism. It actually rivals Creationism in terms of having a narrow worldview.

Trying to lump us in the same category as these morons, eh? While I agree Reddit isn’t usually more than rage comics, memes and infographics, I really don’t think the online conversation about non belief is being dictated by it. It’s just a bunch of frustrated (usually) young people who have no other outlet other than an online content aggregator.

Defining your life by volatile antitheism—in other words, clinging to something you don’t believe in—isn’t just annoying, it’s actually pretty backward, and, in some cases, culturally malignant. For a demographic that spits a lot of game about equality and mobility, they sure love lording their “intellect” over anyone who dares to think differently. The atheism subreddit gets off on feeling superior to other people; it’s not about ideas or truth, they’d rather thrive on that faux-scholar buzz.

How is this culturally malignant to expose the superstition of others? Well, if your culture relies on superstition, perhaps it would. But in a world dependent on the explanatory power of science, it’s culturally malignant to hold on to Bronze Age ideas, not to debate them.

Also, this guy was so busy busy focusing on the shit he didn’t like, he forgot to read all the personal, touching shit people DO talk about. The number of times I’ve read heartbreaking stories of young kids being kicked out of their homes (one of them was Ray Comfort’s kid, BTW), or kids psychologically abused by religious parents and family members is honestly impossible to tell. The hundreds of positive comments, and support these people get is nothing short of extraordinary compared to the isolation these people would normally be faced with.

The author asked if people practicing Christianity was really that horrible for non-believers. Judging by his own story, I would say his opinion is tainted by the fact that he never lived in a religiously oppressive home. The same can not be said of many redditors. Living under the thumb of religion would make anyone frustrated, and if the worst they do is mock religion, are you honestly going to compare that to the campaigns of hatred normally directed at us?

What the article should read is simply “I don’t like Reddit”. That’s fine, it’s not for everyone. But writing an article telling people to shut up not only stinks of a kind of irony, it sends the wrong message about how conflict should be resolved: you don’t talk less, you talk more!

An open letter to Sam Harris

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Perhaps I’m not the best person to offer advice on how to deal with trolls. My site gets relatively light traffic, and the people who visit tend to be way too polite, nice, or otherwise supportive. My lack of popularity in a sense has shielded me from the kind of criticism you’re regularly subjected to. Still, I feel I understand why your positions have been so vilified, and why you often find yourself outside of what the ‘atheist mainstream’ believes.

First, while I think you’re a great writer and I endlessly enjoy your prose, you don’t exactly speak the way regular people do online. Your style is more reminiscent of newspaper editorials than blogs, and in a sense, it lacks a feeling of genuineness. It almost makes one feel as though you’ve been too careful with your words. A little candidness goes a long way online, especially when you’re trying to express frustration.

Second, your controversial position on things is so nuanced, it’s difficult to actually represent it well, especially when one considers the short attention span of the Internet (I bet only a fraction of my readers will even bother to read this entire article). Even when you provide resources to properly analyze your belief, (like the link you said justifying torture that I’m still wrestling with) you’re asking what is essentially the laziest generation in the history of the planet to studiously research your position. That ain’t gonna happen.

Third, you must chose your battles. While you are undoubtedly more recognized than PZ Myers, the man has established a large online following; one that I wouldn’t dare anger. This is not a place I normally expect civil debate (and I don’t actually think it’s the intent of the site anyways). Holding PZ responsible for the things his fans say suggests the solution would be either censorship or policing, neither of which I think is a good idea.

Fourth, your experiences with a psychedelic drugs will always make you an outsider. America is so afraid of drugs, it would rather jail a huge segment of its population than allow adults to make their own decisions about their bodies. You and I both know a prohibitionist attitude is religious in nature, but it has been ingrained long enough in American culture that the default stance on recreational drugs is “drugs are bad, m’kay?”, regardless of religious affiliation.

Last but not least, your criticism of Islam will always be mistaken for racism. I know, because I get the same look from people when I say something. This vile religion has managed to convince everyone that belonging to their group somehow makes one part of a ‘race’, and criticism of this misogynist, violent culture amounts to being a modern day bigot. That’s not a label anyone enjoys, and people are willing to ignore reality if it means they won’t look bad, even at their own detriment.

I know the Internet can be a harsh place, and it lobs criticism far more than praise. Just remember that so much of the Internet is the raw, unfiltered thoughts of people who have no responsibility for the words they say. Take it with a grain of salt, man.

Where was God at the Aurora shooting?

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There’s a predictable pattern to the way religious people deal with tragedy. Undoubtedly, this kind of horrific thing makes them question the dogma they’ve been spoon fed their entire life – that an omnipotent being cares for their well being, especially when it seems so senseless; the evils of the world throw this ‘loving god’ thing back in their face, and they don’t like it.

Then come the rationalizations:

Let’s be clear: there are no easy answers to the deepest questions of suffering. Libraries overflow with the volumes that have been written to address these questions. Centuries of philosophers, pundits and preachers have reflected on the existence of evil, the meaning of pain and the role of God in suffering.

Centuries? More like millennia. In fact, some 300 years before the supposed birth of Jesus, a Greek philosopher by the name of Epicurus essentially laid out the most compelling argument regarding the notion of God’s relationship to evil ever made. His argument has yet to be refuted:

Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?

Your answer, sir?

The capacity to choose God and goodness came with the commensurate ability to choose evil. Is it loving to force his creation to follow his order, or to teach it and leave the creature to choose? It would seem that God came to the same conclusion that America’s founders did many millennia later: compulsory virtue is no virtue at all.

Ah yes, the old free will argument. God could eliminate all evil, but in doing so he would be subjugating us, and we wouldn’t have the ‘option’ to turn away from him. That’s all fine and good for the god of the Old Testament, who simply obliterates the unbeliever’s soul. The Christian god, unfortunately, has a rather unpleasant fate for anyone who exercises their own free will and chooses not to love an invisible tyrant. In his view, it is more moral to allow a person the right to choose their actions for a lifetime (however brief) than to torture that person forever for making the wrong ones. Sorry, your god sucks.

Let me suggest simply that God, in his sovereignty, has chosen to make our decisions meaningful. Consequently, much of what happens on earth neither conforms to, nor results from, his preference. There are at least four influences on human events: God’s will, to be sure; but also the will of Satan, our adversary; peoples’ choices, for better or for worse; and natural law (gravity, collision, combustion, and the like).

What a confusing mess of influences here. Why does Satan even exist? Sure, we make him out to be the bad guy, but it seems to me he’s simply the ‘bad cop’ to God’s ‘good cop’ routine. Without Satan there to look like the bad guy, you realize that by failing to rid the universe of this loathsome entity, he is in fact endorsing evil. Like Epicurus pointed out: if God is all powerful, and there is still evil, it is by his choice alone. One cannot condone evil without being part of it.

You don’t get nearly the same consternation in Burundi or Burma, because suffering is normal to them. God and hard times coexist intuitively there.

God likes to be where the action is, and there’s no greater place of suffering than Africa. And because tragedies are a regular occurrence there, Aurora isn’t a big deal. See, isn’t that a satisfying answer to the problem of evil? It isn’t?

The God of the Bible promises no exemption from suffering. In fact, he all but promises suffering. He does not suggest that his followers won’t go through fire, but rather that we won’t burn up.

What a deal! Sign me up for this omnipotent god who spends his time ‘grieving’ with me when my infant son dies of a highly treatable illness. Hopefully I got him baptized in time, or he’ll burn in hell!

Where was God in Aurora? He was on the lawn in front of the Civic Building as thousands gathered in solidarity, hope, and love at a packed prayer vigil last Sunday.

God was with those people who, powerless as they are, could do nothing but grieve. Sounds like the all powerful creator of the universe, doesn’t it?

Redemption has only begun in Aurora, and already God is everywhere. There will be beauty once this story is written that overshadows and transcends the ashes.

It’s doubtful any of this supposed beauty would make up for the innocent lives lost at something as peaceful and enjoyable as a movie. I would rather none of this happened rather than see an opportunity for human solidarity in the face of tragedy.

This is what a Creationist ‘argument’ looks like

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There’s a part of me (a rather small and insignificant part) who admires the time and effort creationists employ trying to refute evolution. Think of how much time and effort these morons put into trying to prove that their invisible friend is in fact responsible for all the diversity of life on Earth. It’s an ambitious goal to say the least, but do you know what makes it easier? Inventing shit!

If Evolution is truly occurring, vestigial organs would not only exist, but they would greatly outnumber the fully functional ones…Since Evolution is a random, chance process, there must be numerous trial and error combinations until a functional organ or appendage is produced. Any of these “vestigial” organs would still be in existence in a multitude of species and individuals and there would be no doubt that Evolution is fact.

Why would vestigial organs outnumber functional ones? Because this guy thinks entire organs spontaneously appear due to random mutation! Forget the fact that his little ‘diagram’ seems to indicate a rather strong propensity for phalluses (just how many vestigial dicks can one man have?), why is ‘Evolution Man’ so damn wide? Are those eyeballs for nipples? Is it just me or would that be fucking awesome?

However, in the late 1800′s there were an estimated 150 vestigial parts in the human body. Supposedly anyone can claim that something is vestigial because it serves no apparent purpose and the individual can survive without it. Today there are no vestigial organs claimed for the human body! That is because in the last 100 years, medical science has found that there is indeed a purpose to everything in the human body.

Ummm, no it hasn’t. Of course, this moron has no real obligation to tell anyone the truth, but this idea that every human organ serves a purpose can quickly be disproven if you’ve ever had to go to the dentist to remove your ‘wisdom’ teeth. The reason they exist is once upon a time, your ancestors had bigger jaws, but thanks to the genius of evolution, there was no evolutionary pressure to loose these painful molars, and so every year, dentists pull out millions of those little suckers.

Creation says there will be zero vestigial organs while Evolution requires millions of them.

Creation also says the Earth is 6000 years old, about a few millenia after the invention of agriculture and the domestication of the dog. Now, it’s time to set up a straw man and knock that sucker down, baby!

This car engine [picture of a car] also has no vestigial parts because, like the human body, it too had a Creator! If something so complex as the human body could evolve by chance, then even more so could this automobile evolve by chance.

Evolution isn’t real because man invented a car! My logic is infallible! If that wasn’t enough to convince you, this bombshell will!

If you don’t believe God created all living things, male and female, in 6 days….
How many millions of years was it between the first male and the first female?

See, isn’t it easier to assume that magical daddy-man in the sky did it all over the span of a long work-week than the hard-to-understand process of evolution?

Dinosaurs are Satan’s way of deceiving us!

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I know this question wasn’t asked of me, but I want to answer it anyway:

I’m a little shocked. She says she is a Christian, but the Bible doesn’t say anything about dinosaurs. Should I let him keep them, as long as he understands that dinosaurs aren’t real? Even the PBS shows that he watches talk about dinosaurs and evolution, and how the scientists found these “bones” but the Bible doesn’t say that God ever created them, and the earth is only 6000 years old, not old enough to have ‘bones” that they say are millions of years old! I know that Satan tries to trick us in many ways, and this is one way he tries to fool man into believing that there isn’t a God who created the universe. How can they be bones when they made out of ROCKS? I told my son that dinosaurs are one of Satan’s many ways of tricking man, and he must talk to God before he plays with them. Am I handling this right? My first 3 were girls, and I adopted boys, and lots of mothers tell me that boys are often attracted to these dinosaurs. So I don’t know what to do. Is this just harmless fantasy play for him, or should I be worried that he may go on believing in things like evolution?

Dear concerned idiot,

Since you posted this question on the Internet, let me answer by saying first there is almost no chance your pathetic, antiquated worldview will be inculcated on your infant son. It’s too late. Maybe if you totally disconnected from the World Wide Web and lived in a cave for a while, you might be able to halt the assault of information that we call the Internet. Unfettered access to information is the reason your religion is slowly dying off. It can’t possibly compete with the wealth of ideas the rest of the world has to offer.

If it’s any consolation, though, your relationship will face the inevitable strain your dogmatic belief entails, so rest assured that your son’s interest in dinosaurs is a positive sign of his intelligence and curiosity of the world beyond the confines of your limited schema. A wealth of experience and knowledge awaits him, if he’s lucky enough to receive even a basic education, which I’m sure you’ll do your best to prevent.

By the time you’re dead and he’s finally able to live his life free of your religious tyranny, he may have a few positive memories of you, though they will be clouded by your intense ignorance. In the meantime, I suggest you stop blaming your imaginary friend (or enemy) for everything you despise. Odds are, it’ll only drive a wedge between you and everyone else not living in your delusion.

A game show based on the Bible

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Are you familiar with the Bible and still mysteriously think it’s the word of God? Well, there’s a new trivia game for you hosted by the King of Rednecks himself, Jeff Foxworthy, called “American Bible Challenge“. Fresh off his last terrible game show (you may remember it was all about humiliating adults by proving a 6th grader knew more trivia), this new one aims to pit teams of believers against one another to test who has more Biblical knowledge.

Since I’m writing a book about the Bible, I’m wondering if they would accept me on their crappy show. Atheists are, after all, statistically more educated about the Bible than our religious counterparts. Perhaps the potential embarrassment of non-believers spanking Christians with their Bible knowledge might not be too thrilling of an idea for the producers. Besides, I’m sure the topics and trivia they pick will be carefully selected to avoid the inevitable revulsion that results in reading this book: you wouldn’t want to mention Lot being raped by his daughters, or Onan being killed by God for refusing to jizz inside his brother’s widow on live TV, right?

Checkmate, atheists!

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If you’re like me, you get a kick out of reading articles by religious people who claim to have the perfectly crafted argument which will finally win us over to the side of superstitious nonsense. Barring the serious amount of head trauma needed for such a conversion, I read these articles because they’re a small window into the tortured logic of believers. Perhaps there’s a part of me still waiting for someone to actually come up with a compelling argument, just for the fun of having to think about it for a few days. So far, it’s nothing but disappointment.

One place where you won’t find any serious arguments whatsoever is News24, a South African online news resource that appears to have a resident Christian troll on the site named Charles Dumbwin. His latest genius musing is called The Deathblow to Atheism, a kind of ‘science can’t explain everything therefore God did it’ argument so poorly crated, it’s hilarious watching this train wreck:

Atheists believe that an unknown mass of approximately 10kg of floating nothing/something, suddenly exploded/expanded rapidly, and that same 10kg of nothing miraculously became the organized universe that we have today. Of course, they have to factor in a guesstimated 13 to 20 billion years in order for this absurd notion to sound plausible.

If you’re wondering where he got this ’10kg’ number from, you aren’t the only one. It would seem our friend here thinks the universe, when still only a singularity, had a mass of 3 human brains and was ‘floating around’ in space. There’s so much wrong here, it’s difficult where to start. The universe weighed 10kg? It was floating around? And this is what this clown thinks we believe. Yeah, I’d hit the science books a little harder if you’re trying to craft an argument, buddy. Of course, you could always try to argue from ignorance:

So okay then, let’s assume the latter, and let’s agree that the laws of science only applied to our universe instantly AFTER the Big Bang occurred. Would it be fair to say then, that no laws of science could ever be used to understand/measure what happened before the Big Bang? That’s fair right? Because we also know that scientists, cosmologists and astrophysicists the world over agree on this point; that trying to understand what happened prior to the Big Bang would just be mere speculation. We all accept that.

The laws of science? Science is a process, not a ‘thing’, man. Scientific ‘laws’ are simplifications of observed phenomenon that apply to specific relationships (like thermodynamics), and not divinely crafted rules for the universe. And while it’s true our current model of the Cosmos breaks down a few nanoseconds after the Big Bang, it certainly doesn’t mean that magic man is the fucking answer.

So if the laws of science cannot be used to measure/test/prove anything prior to the Big Bang, then it’s accurate to say that whatever/Whoever existed before the Big Bang, cannot be measured/found by using manmade physical instrumentation or through any scientific method.

Science isn’t only about making measurements, although that is an aspect of it. This guy seems to think  because our instrumentation is physical that it cannot possible ‘measure’ (whatever that means) the Origin of the Universe. His conclusion, therefore, is to suggest his supernatural entity fits this particular description quite well. God in the gaps, anyone?

So what we are left with? Only more questions about our origins.

The only true moment of insight comes right near the end, although I doubt the author actually has any real questions about our origins. His religious stance informs me that he’s already chosen an answer despite the fact there is no compelling reason, outside of his own shocking ignorance, to believe what he does. Sad.

Ray Comfort is hilarious

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Someone on r/atheism found this Ray Comfort flyer entitled Scientific Facts in the Bible: 100 Reasons to believe the Bible is Supernatural in Origin. The ironic title demonstrates the true stupidity at work here. Check out these awesome excerpts:

Try to think of any explosion that has produced order. Does a terrorist bomb create harmony? Big bangs cause chaos. How could a big bang produce a rose, apple tree, fish, sunsets, the seasons, hummingbirds, polar bears – thousands of birds and animals, each with its own eyes, nose, and mouth?

See, a terrorist explosion can’t make a polar bear. Checkmate!

Try this interesting experiment: Empty your garage of every piece of metal, wood, paint, rubber and plastic. Make sure there is nothing there. Nothing. Then wait for ten years and see if a Mercedes evolves. Try it. If it doesn’t appear, leave it for 20 years. It that doesn’t work, try it for 100 years. Then try it for 10,000 years. Admittedly, it is pretty hard to believe that it could appear. However, here’s what will produce the necessary blind faith to make the evolutionary process believable: 250 million years.

I love his stupid, try-this-at-home experiment that no one in their right mind would even attempt. As far as Ray is concerned, evolution is a magic force that assembles inanimate objects together given enough time. While this has nothing to do with the actual science of what he’s trying to denigrate, it does speak to the level of ‘research’ this moron has been conducting.

If you are of the opinion that there is scientific evidence for the theory of evolution, go to our website at www.raycomfort.com. There you will find a link to the website of Dr. Kent Hovind, an authority on evolution. He will give 250,000 to anyone who can present any scientific proof of evolution. If you have some, take him to court. Become famous. Make this another Scopes trial. But you can’t, because there isn’t any evidence.

Kent might have a hard time paying you, since he’s currently serving a jail sentence of failing to pay his taxes (he claims he owed the money only to God, and not the U.S. government). His doctorate, by the way, comes from a shitty diploma farm. You too can be as credible as Hovind for the low price of 100 dollars! This ‘evolutionary expert’, convinced that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, believes dinosaurs lived with Humans and the Earth was surrounded by a gigantic ring of water (his explanation of the fairy tale of Noah’s Flood and why the antediluvian patriarchs lived so long). If you want to waste your time trying to get money from a stone, be my guest.

Evolution is really a religion. The Funk & Wagnall dictionary defines “religion” as “a set of beliefs concerned with explaining the origins and purposes of the Universe.” That sums up the religion of evlution. It even has its own religious language: “We believe, perhaps, maybe, probably, could’ve, possibly.” The founding father of the faith is Charles Darwin. The god of the religion of evolution is ‘nature”, often referred to by the faithful as ‘Mother Nature’.

I’ve never heard of this Funk & Wagnall, although if that is indeed their description for ‘religion’, then I can see why I haven’t used them as a reliable reference. A religion is not really about trying to explain the origins and purpose of the universe. It’s more a collection of ancient stories and superstitions that – while occasionally offering pathetic cosmogonies – are really primarily interested in people (and more importantly, their money). They have implacable dogmas and ‘articles of faith’ which is a nice way to say “no proof for believing in this bullshit”.

Evolution, on the other hand, is interested in the mechanism that drives life to change and adapt to its environment over time. Sexual reproduction, for example, is one such mechanism. To hear Ray talk about this science, you would think that evolutionary biologists wear funny hats trying to get everyone to stop masturbating.

I’ve always found it funny how profoundly ignorant people like Ray, while espousing their own religions, suddenly turn on the concept when it applies to others. Science is a religion, they say. Well, even if that was true (which it most certainly isn’t), don’t they think religion is a good thing? Don’t they praise ‘blind faith’ as being above reproach? It’s funny the kind of schizophrenic relationship they have with their own belief system, isn’t it?

Racism disguised as piety

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When you believe in a dogma without question, odds are you’ve managed to find fertile ground for your racist, sexist, or bigoted ideas. Like this South African man who apparently forgot apartheid wasn’t quite over:

A Muslim police officer in Johannesburg says his religion does not allow him to share a toilet with black colleagues, according to a report on Wednesday.

“I am a Muslim and they need to consider my religion. I have to sit when I urinate and I cannot use a dirty toilet. People are narrow-minded and I am a committed Muslim.”

While I’m not a fan of Islam, there isn’t even a theological justification for what this man is saying. He’s just simply a racist d-bag who happens to think everything Mohammad said was the word of God (except for the times when Satan was talking to him), and he wants validation for his shitty behavior through religion.

Don’t you also find it telling the way he tries to turn it around and accuse everyone else of prejudice? This strategy is pretty common in religious circles. These clowns think their beliefs make them a ‘race’, and it’s therefore racist to speak out against their unverifiable claims about the universe (Jews and Muslims make this accusation so often, it’s lost all meaning anyway). It takes guts to tell someone that they have no true understanding of what the word ‘race’ even means. What do you expect when you believe in things without evidence (or even in direct conflict with it)?

FLDS Church sends ex-member kitten encased in concrete

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If you’re a religious fundie, odds are your level of respect for other living creatures not gifted with ‘a soul’ is not very high. Most fundamentalists see violence and cruelty towards animals as just a normal part of everyday life. God, in their deluded eyes, gave them total dominion over animals, and that means you can treat them like shit if you want.

How else can you explain this bit of cruelty? Ex FLDS member Isaac Wyler – who left cult leader Warren Jeffs’ little coven a number of years ago – woke up to find a kitten encased in concrete in his back yard. Still alive but terrified, the poor creature was buried to its neck, and left inside a metal tube in his back yard. The kitten was intended to be a warning for Isaac to stop speaking out against the church, and Warren Jeffs in particular. Jeffs is currently serving a life sentence for having forced himself on so many underage girls (the man took a page right out of Joseph Smith’s playbook), but he still appears to have enough power and connections in jail he’s even managed to stop all but 15 of his thousands of followers from having sex (well, I doubt the veracity of this claim, but I digress).

I’d like to tell you rescue workers were able to save the poor cat, but the trauma of being both encased and released from a concrete prison was too much for the little guy. The town sheriff, when made aware of this stunning bit of cruelty, simply laughed it off, and suggested ‘throwing dirt’ on the animal to fix the situation. The fact a police officer won’t take animal cruelty seriously (usually a sign of escalating violence) is itself a consequence of the level of religiosity of the town. What else do you expect, folks? Religion poisons everything, including police work!

Scientology wants to fight the Internet

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Man, I never realized Katie Holmes marrying Tom Cruise would be such a blessing in disguise. While I figured she would eventually break away from the cult, I never realized it was going to turn into a Lifetime movie version of Not Without My Daughter. Tom’s carefully crafted public image is crumbling under increased media pressure, curious about Scientology and increasingly unafraid of the consequences of criticism. This is a fairly recent phenomenon. There was a time when their army of lawyers could crush any tiny article or TV report which cast a critical eye on their organization or their messiah, L.Ron Hubbard (don’t be fooled: he is indeed revered in a way usually reserved for gods).

Part of the reason they are so weakened is Scientology has been unable to fully grasp the power of the Internet, and as such they have failed to contain the perpetual tide of information leaks that seem to be escalating. The latest is a series of emails between members effectively freaking out over the split, and attempting to do some damage control. One email, from the ‘Office of Special Affairs’ (they’re in James Bond villain territory with that one) details how church members are to hit the Internet and try to suppress any negative bit of trolling the Internet is shouting. Because most major websites have a Code of Conduct (their version of laws), and because Scientologists love to use rules to squash resistance, it’s a strategy perfectly matched to their M.O.

Of course, the general rule about the Internet is when you try to control it, you flirt with the possibility of becoming the target of some very powerful people who navigate this cyberspace as effortlessly as an eel navigates the currents. Do not awaken the God of the Internet, for they will crush you!

Nice going, New Zealand!

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Well, finally a bit of good news this week. It seems as though a New Zealand Primary school is no longer offering Bible studies, as no one is actually interested in reading the damn thing. Hey, I speak from experience here: I am, after all, writing a book on the Bible, and trust me when I say it’s often a big snooze fest. It’s certainly not the kind of material I would recommend to kids (how can you even tell the story of Lot and not freak them out?).

What’s also relevant about this article is attendance really started to drop once a small group of about 50 kids started to opt out. This caused a snowball effect, and before you could say ‘bullshit’, the school was forced to pull this unpopular program. I figure this is a small microcosm of what we’re going to see in the coming decades. As more people opt-out of all this religious bullshit, they’ll be quickly followed by everyone else who doesn’t want to be bothered with any of this superstitious nonsense. Trust me, that’s a hell of a lot of people.

Remember these whackos?

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Remember these guys? The Heaven’s Gate people had a penchant for Nikes and a pretty unhealthy obsession with the Hale-Bopp Comet. In total, 39 poor saps took their own lives, convinced that doing so would ensure their safe passage aboard a spaceship trailing the comet. After they purchased alien abduction insurance (the logic of this still baffles me) from Lloyd’s of London, they prepared a weird mixture of pudding, applesauce, arsenic and cyanide, and finally washed it all down with vodka. It took days before their bloated corpses were found. Hey, at least their insurance worked!

The cult leaders, Marshall Applewhite (above) and his partner Bonnie Nettles, had spent years feeding into each other’s delusion that they were celestial beings. But when they first started their cult, they only managed to convince one person, and it was like that for several years. I have to wonder if there was a moment, back in the mid seventies, where Bo and Bonnie started to wonder if they weren’t just nutbags, given the lukewarm response of potential followers. Was there a time of brief sanity when they might have popped out of their delusion and seen the truth? Well, judging by the video above, I’d say he had checked out from reality long ago.