Author Archives: Jacob Fortin

New Bible calls Jesus “The Human One”

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In an effort to make the Bible more accessible to people, the United Methodist Church has released the Common English Bible. One of the major differences from the KJV is a new nickname: rather than calling him the “Son of Man” (which I guess was getting a little old), they chose instead to call him “The Human One“. I can’t figure out how this is supposed to be more accessible, but then again, I’m also not the kind of guy that bends down on one knee for his invisible friend. Perhaps they want to make him seem more like you and me. Take the word “God” out of it, and perhaps he seems less threatening or something. As far as I’m concerned, the new nickname makes me think they’re trying to make a statement about everyone else’s humanity. “Only Jesus was the Human One. You’re just a sinning piece of shit as far as we’re concerned”.

Why am I not the Human One? Is there something wrong with me?

Cult leader shoots 4 year old because he “might be gay”

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What do you get when you take a violent, homophobic young man and combine it with the power of religion? You get two deaths, a slam dunk for the prosecution, and the feeling that all of this could have been prevented if people stopped being such gigantic suckers. The murderer in question, Peter Lucas Moses, had his followers call him Lord, and used fear and isolation to control them.

Prosecutors said the case came to police’s attention in February when a young woman escaped from a house at 2109 Pear Tree Lane house, where she had lived with McKoy, Jadon, eight other children and three women charged in connection with the two slayings – Jadon’s mother, Vania Rae Sisk, 25, Lavada Quinzetta Harris, 40, and Larhonda Renee Smith, 40.

One of the two deaths was a 4 year old child, killed because Moses was convinced he was gay. An incident where young Jadon “slapped” another child in the buttocks was all the gusto Moses needed. He made his “wives” set up sound equipment in the garage, and with the music blasting in the background, he shot poor Jadon in the head.

He snuffed the life out of Antoinetta Yvonne McKoy a few months later for an equally arbitrary and stupid reason: she apparently lacked the ability to conceive, and expressed a desire to leave. At first, he tried to strangle her to death with an extension cord, but once that failed, he used the same gun he shot Jadon with to finish the job.

What’s even more messed up about this story is Antoinetta had managed to escape to a neighbor at first, who didn’t call the police because she thought the woman may have been mentally deranged. How I pity the false hope McKoy must have had as she was dragged (literally) back into the house. I bet she was really hoping the police would show up. They did, but months later after an escaped cult member told them about the murders. It kind of makes you wonder how many cults out there have similar skeletons in their closet, eh?

Michele Bachmann vows to stay crazy

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The election may be far away, but American politicians seeking the highest office usually spend months, sometimes years trying to get the support and (more importantly) the funding to make it happen. Michele, aware that the list of presidential candidates is weak enough to allow her a chance of victory, is busy making pledges she hopes will attract that massive segment of the American population that still hates gay people.

To facilitate this, she’s signed a pledge by an ultra-conservative organization called “The Family Leader” to fight against the “evils” of man on man love.

Here’s a breakdown of her pledges.

  1. Slavery was bad, but at least those black kids born back then were raised in two parents homes [NOTE: are they suggesting things were better for black kids back then?].
  2. Kids of single parents are more likely to be criminals [NOTE: Especially in Michele’s safety-net free future].
  3. Divorces are on the rise, and all those shattered families are costing make-believe number 112 billion dollars
  4. The social safety net of women and children is eroding due to homosexuality [NOTE: Isn’t this the party that wants to destroy all social programs?].

So as a result of these “facts”, Michele has vowed to do the following if the American people collectively lose their minds and elect her president. Those vows include:

  1. She vows to be faithful to her husband.
  2. She promises to respect the marriages of others, so long as it’s heterosexual [NOTE: She didn’t before?].
  3. She vows to be faithful to her own unique interpretation of the Constitution.
  4. She vows to oppose gay marriage and other non-traditional unions.
  5. She promises to get rid of marriage benefits to “quicky” divorces.
  6. She vows to protect soldiers from the unwanted advances and potential raping by their fellow gay soldiers.
  7. She wants all married heteros to have as many kids as possible.
  8. She rejects Sharia Law.
  9. Make all porn ILLEGAL [NOTE: She must be destroyed…].
  10. She promises to “downsize” government where it suits her to save money, but makes no mention of reducing the nearly 1 trillion dollars spent annually on defense [NOTE: Say goodbye to any social program of merit if she’s elected].
  11. She promises to “fiercely” defend a person’s religious freedom against “attack” [NOTE: She probably means criticism].

There you have it folks: for a segment of your population, this bigot is the next president. Does it matter that she represents everything that is wrong with America [poor understanding of history, extreme religiosity, latent bigotry, racism, jingoism, and hyper conservative]?

It’s all about sex, baby!

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Here’s some cool news: scientists are a little closer to understanding how sex evolved. Apparently, the answer “because it feels fucking awesome” wasn’t good enough for a few eggheads, and they decided to try and figure out some clever experiments to test out a few theories. A group of researchers at the University of Indiana found if they manipulated the sex of the round worm Caenorhabditis elegans, those that reproduced asexually were less likely to be resilient to parasites, and therefore less likely to pass on their genes.

It may come as a shock to most of you, but the development of sex as a reproductive strategy is still a little bit of a mystery. We know it’s incredibly useful, but until now we’ve lacked solid evidence demonstrating effectively why such a survival strategy is beneficial.

Of course this doesn’t prove anything just yet; like all good science, we will need to wait and see if the experiments, once repeated, have the same outcome. Still, it’s encouraging to know we might be a lot closer to answering the mystery that is sex.

Nothing is new

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For those of us not living in the Bronze Age, homosexuals and gender-benders aren’t really a big deal. You kind of expect it, actually. I mean, sexual variability is to be expected in nature, and sex is such a subtle thing with humans I’m beginning to think that the words are adjectives rather than nouns. In any case, we know same sex attraction has been around for a long time, even though I’m sure most religious folks are convinced it’s the work of some evil and nefarious intelligence. So I doubt any of them will care about the recent discovery of a “gay caveman“.

The guy was found with all the accouterments normally reserved for women, and considering how meticulous our ancestors were about burying people, archeologists are convinced it’s evidence of a possible ancient transsexual male.

Women would be buried with necklaces made from teeth, pets, and copper earrings, as well as jugs and an egg-shaped pot placed near the feet.

“What we see here doesn’t add up to traditional Corded Ware cultural norms…None of the objects that usually accompany male burials -such as weapons, stone battle axes and flint knives- were found in the grave.

“We believe this is one of the earliest cases of what could be described as a ‘transsexual’ or ‘third gender grave’ in the Czech Republic,” archaeologist Katerina Semradova told a press conference on Tuesday.

Sometimes a dude just wants to be a lady, even when he lives in a moldy cave, and there ain’t nothin’ wrong with it!

Man shot over Rapture teasing

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You never know how some religious nutjobs are going to react. That’s a life lesson Jerry Andrews is still pondering about, having recently been shot by his co-worker Dale O’Callaghan. Seems as though Dale may not have had much of a sense of humor about his faith. His sore spot happened to be a certain Harold Camping failed Rapture prediction that was greatly anticipated (and like with most believers, probably continually mentioned). No doubt the inevitable failure presented Jerry with the opportunity for a good laugh. Instead he got a bullet in the shoulder.

After being wounded, Andrews recalls being called “one of those Satanic people” by O’Callaghan. I’m inclined to believe that he may have in fact been referring to us, the non-believers. The concept is probably so shocking to his fragile, child-like understanding of the Universe that he thinks we’re all tools of the devil or something. If you think I might be exaggerating, take a look at this recent Pew poll. It found the #1 fear of Evangelical Christians is the growing influence of secularism. Is it a stretch to imagine perhaps some of them might characterize us as literal agents of Satan?

Scary to think eventually, this bozo is going to be out on the street again. And you know, if he’s there for at least ten years, there’s going to be a whole lot more of those “Satanic people” around, that’s for sure. He and his Evangelical ilk better start getting used to it.

Feticide laws used to prosecute women, not men

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I’ve written in the past on the dangers of having fetal homicide laws. While originally intended to help prosecute any man whose violent assault causes a still birth. As you might have guessed, the law has yet to actually be used on any guys. Only one dude was ever facing charges, and they were dropped. Meanwhile, hundreds of women have been charged, including a 15 year old whose coke habit is being blamed on a stillbirth. She’s facing fucking LIFE IN PRISON for the crime of being a stupid teenager.

…anti-abortion groups were trying to amend the Mississippi constitution by setting up a state referendum, or ballot initiative, that would widen the definition of a person under the state’s bill of rights to include a fetus from the day of conception.

In Alabama, a women is facing jail time after her Downs Syndrome baby died only 20 minutes after birth. The prosecutor charged her with “chemical endangerment”, even though she flatly denies taking anything leading up to the delivery.

This type of behavior isn’t at all surprising. The Religious Right has a pretty big issue with the fact that abortion is legal, and they’ve found a clever way to bypass the legality of it by prosecuting women they feel need to be punished. What’s surprising is how cozy people are with this law. It seems totally irrelevant that we’re relegating women to the roles of baby ovens, and not much else. Their rights apparently end as soon as you impregnate them.

Ladies, if you need another reason for you to move the fuck out of this bat-shit insane country of yours, how about the fact that in at least 38 states, if anything happens during your pregnancy you could go to jail for the rest of your natural life. Does that sound reasonable to you?

Woman left handicapped after exorcism

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In the slums of Khanewal, Pakistan, the poor and indigent who suffer from treatable illnesses are sent, often by physicians wishing to unload their patients, to the Islamic equivalent of exorcists. They are called Pirs (or Peers), meaning “old man”, and these “saints” often perform barbaric torture rituals they believe can clean people of djinns, or demons.

One victim of their archaic stupidity was a woman suffering from asthma by the name of Zakia. She was taken to a famous local Pir called Safdar Khan, who proceeded to tie her up, sticking a hot poker through her wrists and feet while she howled in agony. He then beat her mercilessly until she stopped moving. This, to Safdar, was proof that the demon had been driven out.

Zakia is now bed ridden and can no longer walk. Her brother Zain – outraged that his superstitious idiot parents would take her to such a charlatan – knows that the police will do nothing to help him. As far as everyone is concerned, Safdar is a respected holy man whose words carry much weight. Zain, on the other hand, is just another unimportant peasant whose story will be forgotten in a few days.

The police know there was no other way which is why they haven’t said anything and the doctors come to us regularly for such things,” he said. Shani said that Safdar often ‘treated’ patients who had been referred to him by hospital officials.

“They always send us the cases that they know are for us. The possessed people are treated here. That is why the doctors will never go against us. Safdar is one of the most famous healers in this city,” he said.

Of course, if you think that’s the worst thing that can happen to you when going to get “exorcised”, you’re in for a horrible surprise:

In Notak Nasheb Sainghar, Pir Javed Shah broke into Shehzadi Bibi’s house late at on Friday night and told her that her house was haunted by ‘evil’ djinns who were causing her daughters to fall sick.

Shah gave Shehzadi and her daughters glasses of water that had been drugged and the family fell unconscious. Javed Shah repeatedly raped Shehzadi the entire night. When the family woke up the next day and went to the hospital doctors refused to treat her for fear of the djinns.

What a fucking shithole of ignorance, all thanks to the power of faith.

Kent Hovind gets spanked

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If you don’t remember Kent Hovind, it might be because you’ve come into the atheism scene a little late. He’s currently in jail for failing to pay taxes on a number of his enterprises, including a religiously themed amusement park called “Dinosaur Adventure Playland“. This bastion to ignorance features not only depictions of humans and dinosaurs co-existing, but also a replica of the Loch Ness Monster. It’s to be expected when your “scientific” claim is these animals lived during the dawn of man some 6 millennia ago, and a few are still alive today.

Kent’s “education” includes a doctorate from a diploma farm that fancies itself a University. His hilariously unoriginal, grammatical nightmare dissertation has been the subject of some scrutiny. When Wikileaks obtained a copy of it from Patriot Bible University, they denied it was the completed version, and since then neither Patriot or Hovind have responded to critics demanding to see his thesis. I suspect some of this zeal may have partially to do with the fact that he insists on being listed as “Dr. Hovind” in the phone book. I imagine it’s insulting to anyone who actually bothered to get the real deal.

If you’re wondering about his conviction, it was a result of his fringe beliefs taxes are unconstitutional and therefore wrong. It didn’t even seem to matter to him that all he needed to do was “play ball” and bother to register as a church, thereby avoiding this pesky tax nonsense. Nope, he chose instead to declare total autonomy from the United States, and when the government came knocking on the door asking where their cut of the bread was, Hovind claimed the various enterprises were the property of God, and therefore exempt. This novel defense would later secure the guy 10 years in jail.

What I find hilarious about the whole thing is even in creationism circles, Hovind is considered a total hack. Answers in Genesis – the same brilliant minds that brought you the Creation Museum – thinks his arguments are so bad they’re actually harmful to “the cause”. It’s a nice reminder that creationism nonsense – mainly fueled by religious evangelicals – still comes loaded with all the divisive trappings of theology. There’s no unity there. Even Ken Ham, who started AIG in the US, was forced out of the parent organization in Australia. These Young-Earth Creationists are similarly vilified by Old-Earth Creationists who feel “the cause” is disservice by such literal interpretations of scripture. See the trend here?

Jesus Christ: Moral Failure

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I could tell this video was inspired by Hitchens. The “Jesus meek and mild” was the dead giveaway. Still, this video series stands on it’s own as a comprehensive, attractive and well written treatise against the so-called “Prince of Peace”. It’s the first video of what I hope will be a fruitful series. Of course, I think you all know the drill here: watch this video, tell your friends about it, and most importantly, subscribe to their feed!

Blasphemy dismissed

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When Behemoth front-man Adam “Nergal” Darski tore up the Bible during his show, calling Christianity the deadliest cult in human history, he did more than offend his fellow Poles. He was also facing charges of blasphemy in his own country, but luckily, the charges appear to have been dropped.

I was actually surprised by the comments of one Christian who was relieved by this:

Common sense prevails – he tore up a book, good job it wasn’t the Koran! I’m a Catholic and wouldn’t tear up a bible, but he was making a personal comment and someone chose to make political mileage from it. I don’t agree with what he did, but prosecution is going too far.

If Christians were all like this guy, the world would be a lot less shitty…

Gullibility Flash-Mob

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If you aren’t familiar with “flash-mobs“, they’re essentially spontaneous gatherings of people who perform some kind of pointless or silly act. They then vamoose as quickly as they assembled. Here, we have a Franciscan looking dude with some shiny chalice-like object. Notice everyone around suddenly kneeling to show their love of some dead make-believe guy. Sad.

If you actually bother to pay close attention to what the audio is saying (which I actually don’t recommend you do unless you’re a sucker for punishment), you’ll notice they try and squeeze Jesus in books in which he’s clearly not a part. Judges, Numbers, Deuteronomy? I don’t recall seeing the name Jesus anywhere in those books…

Hey, isn’t it considered plagiarism to claim a work as your own? Just sayin’!

This is a travesty of justice!

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Anytime you come out as an atheist, you run the risk of your life becoming more difficult. That’s what EllenBeth Wachs of Florida found out. She was arrested earlier this month by her fundamentalist local Sheriff who didn’t like her activism. What was her crime, you wonder?

EllenBeth Wachs was arrested Sunday [May 1] accused of making noises in her home that sounded as though she was having sex.

The arrest warrant says she made noise in her home on March 13 that “sounded like a woman experiencing sexual gratification in an extremely loud fashion.”

Yes, you read correctly. SHE WAS IN HER OWN HOME GETTING LAID. Somehow, the Sheriff’s office has nothing better to do than harass its own citizens. EllenBeth has put up a donation bar, and as you can expect, it’s barely past the 300 mark. Congratulations my fellow atheists, we’ve proved yet again how cheap we are. Makes me sad we can’t rally together and fight this injustice. They want to arrest an atheist woman for having orgasms in her own home. Is there no justice left in this world?

Conservapedia tries to call out Penn Jillette

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This is just plain weird: convinced of the superiority of their “argument” (mainly that their super-dad made everything so a few white people can enjoy it), they’ve decided to specifically target Penn Jillette to a debate on evolution. Firstly, they want him to answer their “15 questions evolutionists can’t answer”, a grab-bag collection of old creationist canards they think has merit. I’ll summarize them here:

  1. How did life originate?
  2. How did the DNA code originate?
  3. How could mutations create the variety of life we have?
  4. Why is natural selection taught to explain the diversity of life?
  5. How did biochemical pathways originate?
  6. We think it looks designed. Why don’t you agree?
  7. How did multi-cellular life originate?
  8. How did sex originate?
  9. Why are transitional fossils “missing”?
  10. Why hasn’t evolution transformed everything into something super-smart?
  11. How did evolution create morality?
  12. Why does society “tolerate” the teaching of evolution?
  13. Where are all the scientific breakthroughs due to evolution?
  14. Evolution deals with history. Why is it a science?
  15. We think evolution is a religion. Why is it taught in science class?

I recommend you actually read the fully phrased version. It’s fucking hilarious. Anyways, they also make a few stabs at his weight, which has become their new obsession as of late. They wrote an article recently suggesting the despair of abandoning God, or being angry at him, creates depression which leads eventually to obesity. It’s rather deranged logic, especially since there’s actually data to suggest the opposite. Regardless, it seems like a ploy to try and piss him off. I’m willing to bet it doesn’t work.

Penn has nothing to gain from engaging these bozos, since they’re so caught up in their little delusion they actually think the “evidence” of evolution points to their creator God. It makes me wonder how anyone can accept “God did it” as a satisfactory answer to all 15 of their little questions.