Remember the “Miss USA” interviews? What happens when you substitute the word “evolution” with “gravity” on the embarrassment that was the Miss USA “Let’s Ask These Bimbos if they think proper science should be taught in school” video? You get something funny enough to make you shart a little…Enjoy the weekend!
NOTE: Miss Washington is still awesome. I love facts too, baby!
Firstly, I’d just like to point out my general dislike of news programs. I hate the way they present the news. At the beginning of this particular broadcast, I practically turned it off once I heard their ridiculous “let’s ask a question so we can pretend to be objective” routine”
“Is it possible that potentially fatal diseases can be stopped in their tracks by allowing a healer to channel thought and prayer into our brains?”
No, it’s not. The best fucking minds in the world keep telling you this, and yet you keep asking the question as though it’s still open for debate. It isn’t. We’ve tested these kinds of claims for decades, and the only thing we’ve found is that people often lose their hard earned money, if not their lives, to charlatans who pretend to have healing powers.
I know that the program eventually exposes faith healers, but why the hell did they chose to present the news in such a distorted way? You’re not presenting it fairly if you take their claims at face value at the beginning of your program. I can’t tell you how angry that shit makes me…
I can understand why the guy at the 4 minute mark wanted to remain anonymous. He was tricked out of over 1000 pounds of his own money. But he was probably desperate, and very afraid. Those are the kinds of vulnerabilities Faith Healers exploit. Trust me, when you’re sick and desperate for a cure, you don’t tend to make very smart decisions.
Also scary is how the founder of this nonsense, Vienna Stibal*, claims her bullshit can also cure AIDS? I agree with the idea she should be criminally libel for those kinds of dangerous statements. When are we going to start realizing how dangerous fuckwads like Vienna are?
*(Update: THer website no longer exists)
After the article I posted a few days ago making fun of Flat-Earthers, there might still be a few of them lurking about, so I thought they might be excited to find out that the Library of Congress was just the recipient of a flat-earth map designed by one of the fathers of “modern geocentrism“, Orlando Ferguson! The map dates back to 1893, and looks a hell of a lot like a roulette table, doesn’t it?
It looks as though the Netherlands is split down the middle over the courts decision that Geert Wilders did not incite hatred against Muslims.
Judge Marcel van Oosten ruled that some of Mr. Wilders’ comments may have been “crude and denigrating” but they did not amount to inciting hatred against Muslims and remained within the boundaries of free speech.
Even Mr. Wilders’ most inflammatory statements, including the remark that “the core of the problem is the fascist Islam, the sick ideology of Allah and Mohammed as laid down in the Islamic Mein Kampf: the Koran”, amounted to criticism of a religion and therefore were not illegal, the court decided.
I’ve never hidden the fact Wilders is a bit of a rogue, and I consider some of his opinions to be extremely fascist in nature. It doesn’t change the fact, however, that he still just uses words rather than violence to achieve his goals. This, at the very least, makes him better than most of his enemies, who would gladly kill for their beliefs.
Hey, Geert may not be one of the good guys, but he isn’t a baddie either.
What better way to celebrate the majesty of the uber-exploitive parade of vapidity that is the Miss American Pagent than to feature a video with contestants telling people about their “thoughts” on evolution. Most of these airheads tow the “teach the controversy” line, as though “students” deciding between fantasy bullshit and rigorous science isn’t a total waste of time.
Thankfully, a few actually believe, but the general feeling I get is that even those that do probably have no idea why it’s true. So which one of these geniuses does the best job of embarrassing the rest of humanity?
When you’re busy fighting against the forces of superstition, dogma and pseudoscience, you can often forget about the smaller doses of idiocy that go almost completely ignored. Take Flat-Earthers. I mean, no one even bothers to debunk these clowns anymore. It’s gotten so bad that they end up doing most of the hard work of calling them on their retarded shit for you.
Take the FAQ for the Flat Earth Society. It attempts to lay out all the arguments against their wacky belief, and by doing so, instantly arms anyone with the ability to debunk this garbage. Take a look at these hilarious claims:
Where does one even begin? The antimoon? Government conspiracies to prevent people from realizing they’re are living on a constantly accelerating disk orbited (somehow) by a 32 mile wide spotlight and its glowing cousin? Yes, it all makes sense now! America is going bankrupt trying to pay off everyone to keep the Icewall a secret. Can you imagine what’ll happen if it melts away?
I posted this a while ago, but after rewatching it this morning, I couldn’t help but think there might be a few people who’ve never seen this parody. My favorite is still “Scary Mary“, although “Shining” is a close second.
I learned two things today. The first is that some Orthodox Jews believe in reincarnation. The second is these same Jews actually believe these reincarnated souls can seek revenge on their previous tormentors. That’s what a group of Rabbis thought when a stray dog entered their religious “court” and refused to leave. They were convinced it must have been the re-birthed soul of one of their “secular” enemies that had since passed away.
One of the sitting judges then recalled a curse the court had passed down upon a secular lawyer who had insulted the judges two decades previously.
Their preferred divine retribution was for the lawyer’s spirit to move into the body of a dog, an animal considered impure by traditional Judaism.
Clearly still offended, one of the judges sentenced the animal to death by stoning by local children
Don’t worry: the dog actually escaped. When an animal rights group tried to take action, the Rabbis did the right thing: they totally lied about it, and tried to sweep the whole affair under the rug. Luckily, one of the court’s managers actually has a conscience, and confirmed that Rabbi Ynet is both a liar and a coward. Let’s hope he doesn’t get away with this kind of sick and twisted shit.
I love getting these kinds of letters:
Jacob,
Just wanted to drop a quick line to share an encounter I just had with a Jehovah’s Witness while walking my dog. She stopped to ask me about my religious views and I told her I was an atheist. Then she asked if I believed in evolution and I said “Of course, but I don’t have to believe in it, it’s a scientific fact.” She replied with “Well, it’s only a theory.” Of course I had to explain to her what the word theory meant and bring up the example gravity, etc. Then she tried to go into the intelligent design stuff. I won’t bore you with the details, but I was calm and genial with her and at the end she kept trying to excuse herself as I was answering her points and bringing up new ones. After five minutes she literally had nothing else to say other than there was a ‘publication’ about creation vs. evolution that I should read. So sad, these people. I know I won’t convert someone like that but it was satisfying for her to realize there are people who aren’t gullible idiots who can trump her mythology with reason every time. Love the show. Keep up the good fight!
You really can’t “convert” anyone over night. It’s a slow process, but trust me when I say it’s experiences like this that chip away at the certainty people have in regards to their faith. The more we challenge these bozos, the better. You keep up the good work, Joel!
I found this hilariously offensive letter to the editor from an Irish newspaper, and I just had to include it. It’s a complaint regarding a show called “Liveline” that happened to have featured an atheist upset at a law that was passed in 2009 that would fine blasphemers thousands of dollars for “offending” religious rubes (I admit it’s a bit old, but it’s totally hilarious):
Why in the name of God (oops sorry, didn’t mean to be so insensitive/offensive), does RTE give an entire ‘Liveline’ over to a tiny rump of deranged atheists to spout their puerile propaganda? Just what is their gripe?
Well, it turns out they are annoyed at the prospect that proposed legislation will make it an offence to gratuitously offend religion: in reality, Catholicism (their big bogeyman). The big question is, though, what kind of ideology gets its kicks out of gratuitously offending the sincerely held views of others? It seems both immature and vulgar.
Perhaps the best critique of this ideology is provided in the recently published ‘The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens’, by Vox Day.
This brilliant critique clearly demonstrates why a mere anti-blasphemy law is not sufficient. In the interests of rationality and common sense, the legislation should go further and label atheism a thought crime.
Also, why is the publicly-funded state broadcaster giving these airheads a platform for their dangerous juvenalia?
Eric Conway
Navan, Co Meath
How dare atheists be annoyed that Catholics are attempting to use the long arm of the law to silence dissent? In the interest of rationality, we should ban all form of thought that denies the evidence for God! Can you think of a better way to encourage independent thought than by protecting those that hold magical views from criticism using legislation to do so?
And while we’re at it, we should also make thinking about fucking your neighbors wife into a thought crime as well. After all, according to their messiah, any Christian that has a fantasy about someone other than their wife has already done something evil and sinister.
Can you believe these clowns?
Another persuasive and well thought out video. This dude is awesome.
I think many of you will agree that while TGA isn’t exactly the friendliest atheist site, I’ve never condoned acts of vandalism or violence against religion. I oppose it precisely because I think we need fewer religious martyrs, and there’s no better way to create sympathy for someone that to commit an egregious wrong. That’s why the news of a Church being vandalized in the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has me seeing red. Is this the fucking best we can do?
“Praise the FSM”: These are the words written, spray-painted and tagged across not one, but two churches on opposite sides of Bend Sunday night.
When Pastor John Bluebaugh of Christian Life Center got the news Monday morning, his first thought was, “Not again.”
“Really, what went through my mind was, about six months we were tagged as well,” said Bluebaugh. “It was the same kind of deal — different symbols, different sayings, but the exact same places.”
The Friendly Atheist is putting together a posse of generous donors to correct this injustice. Hey, if anyone pushes the boundary too far, it’s up to the rest of us to make it right. Yes, I know that technically we aren’t really a group, and the actions of a few shouldn’t represent the majority, but how often do we throw the immoral actions of believers in their faces? Let’s not add hypocrisy to the list of “sins”, shall we?
I’d like to send a little message to the “artists” who defaced the church: did you think that was a good fucking idea, morons? Did you really imagine your fellow non-believers would be impressed with such a juvenile stunt? We’re having enough of a hard time getting people to stop thinking we’re evil incarnate. This kind of bad press only strengthens people’s prejudice against us. Do we really need to fuel their misconceptions with vandalism? Does that accomplish our goals?
Next time you think about doing something this stupid, please, take a moment to check yourself. The last thing the movement needs is a bunch of idiots running around with spray paint thinking they’re hilarious. In times like these, we all look bad.
It’s weird how the word kosher, which typically means “proper” or “legitimate”, has become such an important part of our vernacular. It’s especially weird that the concept of kosher is really a series of arbitrary rules that make little to no sense. For instance, according to Leviticus, animals that have clove hooves and chew cud are clean, but animals that have only one of these qualities are not. Jews also have a prohibition against consuming blood, which is about as impossible as you can get when eating meat.
The Dutch aren’t particularly fond of the ritualized slaughtering process either. Kosher forbids the animal from being unconscious when it gets slaughtered, which means that the suffering is much greater. The government has decided to take action and ban the practice. Cue the outrage!
For Mr. Rosenzweig, it is the latest sign of rising religious intolerance in a country where broad-mindedness has been a defining value since the 17th century.
“The country has changed. They’re not friendly any more to any religious needs people may have,” says Mr. Rosenzweig.
If your idea of a religious need just happens to be a set of arbitrary rules on how to kill animals, I’ve got some bad news for you. It looks like you might actually have to buy your food like everyone else. Oh, the horror!
As for the perceived intolerance, it’s less directed at Jews and more about the needless suffering of animals. Yes, we’re gigantic pussies now, but that’s a good thing: we’re no longer interested in causing the unnecessary suffering of our food. It almost feels progressive. Of course, that’s not the way everyone sees it.
There’s some serious debate on the science of the kindest way to kill an animal (Rosenzweig assures everyone that his knife is so sharp, they barely feel a thing), but it sounds to me like the Dutch have just about reached their tolerance limit. Perhaps it has something to do with the failure of religious minorities to properly integrate themselves into society. While I admit to being against laws that take away the rights of individuals, the slaughter of an animal is not a real concern of mine. If some religious rubes are upset that they can’t eat some ritualized consumables, I’m not really going to lose much sleep over this.
To be fair, there is a point when all of this can go too far. I’ve made a few “slippery slope” statements I’ve come to regret in the past, many of which seem embarrassing in hindsight, and I don’t want to use this line of argument here. Perhaps this is a masked attempt to make religious minorities feel less welcome. That is a strong possibility. But the Dutch are well within their rights to decide how they want animals to be killed for consumption.
In some ways the conflict has brought Jews and Muslims together; the Amsterdam Jewish-Moroccan Council has carried out protests against the new law, with imams and rabbis marching together. Kosher slaughter experts have attended Mr. Altuntas’s conferences to advise halal slaughterers on how to bring standardization to their system.
“I understand that the emotions run high,” says Ms. Thieme, “because you think that your religious community has been doing things the best possible way for thousands of years, and it’s painful to be confronted with scientific facts that show otherwise.”
Yeah, religions usually don’t have the greatest relationship with science, especially when it contradicts their bullshit. Welcome to the fucking 21st century, guys!
If you’re a small church in the West, odds are attendance is at an all time low, tithing is way down, and desperate vicars are looking for ways to attract people into their nonsense. With profits dwindling away, any bit of parlor magic or cheap holy relic is bound to seem like a boon. Of course, it’s important to capitalize on these opportunities while your congregation is still shockingly ignorant and impressionable. Such was the hope for the now defunct “Wax Jesus” in a small church in Wiltshire.
An “image of Jesus” seen in dripped wax by worshippers at a church in Wiltshire has been removed by a cleaner. Created over a four-month period, the wax image was apparently removed by a diligent cleaner last week, although nobody has owned up.
Owned up to what? Doing their fucking job? If cleaners had to keep every stain that looked like someone’s extremely blurry messiah, then no cleaning would ever get done. Remember Christians have been “Waiting for Godot” for over 2000 years, and that’s bound to make anyone restless. They want him to return so badly they’ll start worshiping toast if it looks even faintly like someone in their supernatural pantheon. How do you tell someone in such denial of reality their God is no more real than Santa Claus?
I find the response of the church warden especially revealing:
“I felt really disappointed actually and I wished I’d done more about preserving it,” admitted Mrs. Irwin.
“The Church of England is not very good at this sort of thing and if I’d done something sooner it could have been a bit of a money spinner.”
There you go. Thanks for finally being honest with us! Rather than be upset that their false idol is now gone, the Church regrets that they aren’t as organized and efficient as the other faiths when it comes to exploiting opportunities to scam gullible people out of their hard earned cash. I mean, who wouldn’t want to pay premium monies to stare at a bunch of wax that looks like Cat Stevens?
I will say this for their congregation: most had not been fully convinced of its divinity, and so the loss of Wax Jesus is no big loss to them. I’d say for people who are superstitious and cling to anything that might resemble their hippy messiah, they show a remarkable amount of skepticism when it came to the sighting. It’s a fucking miracle!
Isn’t that sweet? I mean here I was, worried that Rick Perry’s “The Response” would be “Christians Only”. Luckily, his spokesperson assures us all will be free to join them in worshiping a 2000 year old no-show, regardless of their own personal convictions. What else could a person ask for?