Author Archives: Jacob Fortin

Labeling atheism as a thought crime

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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?

This makes atheists look bad

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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.

The Dutch say no to kosher

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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!

What Churches are all about

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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!

Pray your problems away, Rick Perry!

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America is in crisis. Debt is spiraling out of control, and citizens have become consumed by deficit, of both the credit card and student loan variety. Many social programs, brought to their knees by conservative administrations, are being overtaxed by an increasingly aged population. As the average American begins to comprehend the grim situation, many are feeling desperate and afraid. So, as you can image, this is the kind of climate where religions thrive, and where naïve rubes are convinced the best way to solve everything is by asking help from a magical man in the sky (who happens to be a few thousand years late arriving). This, by the way, is the same dude who promised to come back and behead the majority of people on this planet in the worst bloodbath in human history. Who wouldn’t be excited?

The particular offender today is the new governor of Texas, Rick Perry. Now, the job of governor of the great state of Texas requires that the candidate have an overly developed religious muscle and a severely atrophied brain. Ricky has managed to outdo himself with his latest idea to solve the financial crisis in America: he wants to fill up a stadium full of Christians and have them all pray for the bad news to go away.

America is in crisis: we have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters. As a nation, we must come together and call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles, and thank Him for the blessings of freedom we so richly enjoy.” The Texas Governor called on Americans to join him in asking for “God’s forgiveness, wisdom and provision for our state and nation. There is hope for America. It lies in heaven, and we will find it on our knees.

If America’s only hope is to pray to their imaginary friend for their debt to magically disappear, I’ve got some pretty grim news for them. You’re totally fucked. And considering how the average “IQ” of your government officials continues to plummet as your financial debt skyrockets, I’m surprised most of you haven’t just thrown your hands in the air and said “fuck this shit, I’m out of here”. If guys like Perry keep coming up with such brilliant plans to solve your problems, then it’s probably only a matter of time before you do.

God Said Song

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From the songwriter’s own words:

I wrote a song called GOD SAID after watching Pat Robertson declare that the earthquake in Haiti was because of a curse from God. After hearing A man named Rev Wiley say that he was praying for President Obama’s death during the election (the prayer didn’t work BTW). After hearing people fiddle around with the idea of a curse on Japan after their recent disaster. After hearing about Koran burnings and battles that seem to have people’s interpretations of religious texts at the foundation of them all.

I’m not one of those who claims that religion is the ONLY thing that causes all of the wars and bloodshed, but it has caused many. But not necessarily even the religion but the interpretation of a few dangerous minds put into the wrong position of power or influence. I figured it was time to have a conversation with extremists like this, and put that kind of thinking in its proper perspective.

I’m sure there will be some disagreements. I put some of my more radical ideas in there, and there will probably be some disagreement about a few things here and there. That’s ok with me, I’m all for civil discussion and people having their own ideas. I don’t mean any harm, but they’re my ideas (and the directors – we all pitched in). There will be places to have these discussions, but mostly, I tried to stick to the unifying point, which is anti extremism and fundamentalism. I mean well by it. I encourage THOUGHT, REASON, LOVE, and RESPECT. I hope that comes across at the very least.

It’s a great song with a powerful message. I don’t think we could ask for anything better.

Scientology’s Sex Scandals

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You know, with all the sex scandals within the Catholic Church, we sometimes forget there are plenty of other religious organizations who have a similar disregard for the wellbeing of their congregation. The latest incident involves the Church of Scientology, where a senior member of their Australian branch is accused of trying to intimidate an 11 year old girl into providing a false statement regarding her step father’s abuse.

Ms. Rainer has alleged that Ms. Eastgate, who was then head of the church’s citizens’ commission on human rights in Australia, told her she should deny any charges of the sexual abuse or she and her brother would be taken away by social services.

Ms. Rainer’s mother Phoebe has also admitted Ms. Eastgate told both of them what to say and to lie to police and in an interview with the Department of Community Services. Ms Eastgate previously called the allegations “egregiously false”.

What’s the easiest way to coerce one of your flock? Just use your stupid nonsense against them!

Ms Rainer had previously said that she was told by senior Scientology members that abuse was punishment for being bad in a previous life.

“She said, ‘Just say no, keep repeating that’,” Ms. Rainer told the ABC in an interview last year.

“They told me it was my fault because I’d been bad in a past life. I believed them.”

Man, people who spew bullshit for a living sure have a wealth of techniques to get their sheep to fall into line, don’t they? How often do you think this, or some other similar lie, compelled a victim to remain silent in the face of abuse?

Hilariously enough, Jan Eastgate had recently been the recipient of a humanitarian award by her own sinister organization, proving just how dedicated these clowns are the the “betterment” of mankind.

In response to these allegations, a senior government official by the name of Nick Xenophon (yes, that’s a real name) is calling for the Church to lose their tax exempt status. Now if only we could do the same thing for the Catholic Church and every other institution that tries to cover up sexual abuse, then we’d be cookin’!

Jerusalem Day is terrible

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Here we see a glorious display of nationalism, xenophobia and religious division. There’s nothing like showing up to your neighbor’s house, chanting “Death to Arabs” while waving a gigantic Israeli flag. Is it any fucking wonder why the Middle East is still a gigantic shit-hole? Maybe it has something to do with all these assholes about.

Muslim Heaven and other similar nonsense

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I love whenever people start making specific claims about their magical play-land in the sky. Did you know you’ll be able to finally drink all that wine your local mullah told you was forbidden? Good thing you never bothered to actually try the stuff when you were alive…better to wait until you’re dead to enjoy the little pleasures in life.

I think the Muslim concept of Heaven is by far the most provincial. It’s quite obvious that a group of repressed desert people made it up. The rest of us couldn’t give a rat’s ass about rivers of honey and wine that doesn’t make you drunk (what is it, Synthohol?). And if there’s no such thing as jealousy in heaven, why the fuck do you need all your women to be virgins? Sounds like some pretty serious sexual insecurity there…

Did anyone like the sexy lady who called believers “idiots”? What did you think of the religionists trying to argue that belief in God is the same as our trust in currency? Hilarious.

The “Dangers” of Crusading Atheism

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Could this guy be more wrong? Here are a couple of choice passages I couldn’t help but comment on (as I’m sure most of you will dissect the rest).

As crusading atheism is sort of a cause today, it is popular, I don’t want to say among scientists, I mean that’s too general and it isn’t so.

Is it ironic for a Christian to use the word “Crusade” when talking about atheism? I sometimes wish these clowns would study their own history. It would make them abandon such a word. The Crusades were one of the bloodiest, savage and murderous campaigns in human history. To compare men like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris to Crusaders is a false equivalence. Comparing professional sectarian murderers with academic debaters is not only insulting; it’s just plain stupid.

I think human beings have faced hard challenges. The Second World War was a difficult a crisis as mankind ever will face. Fifty million people died, humanity teetered on the edge.

Actually, Steven Pinker has a fantastic presentation on the myth of violence, in particular this idea the Second World War was the bloodiest and most savage conflict in human history. Yes, many people did die, but compared to the mortality rates of other ancient conflicts, the odds of being killed by your fellow man in WWII was much lower. We are living in the most peaceful time in the history of mankind, and yet we’re constantly thinking the opposite.

State paganism was preached aggressively by Hitler-ite Germany, which despised Christianity as much as it hated Jews; didn’t hate Christians as people, but it hated Christianity.

Yeah, the Reichskonkordat seems to contradict your retarded statement, Dave. For anyone unfamiliar with this treaty, it was signed only 6 months after Hitler took power, and it’s still technically valid today. The Concordat made the Holy See of Rome the only official religion of Germany. Hardly sounds like paganism, does it?

The trial of Geert Wilders

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If you aren’t from the Netherlands, odds are you’ve never heard of Geert Wilders. In the fight against sectarian ideologies, Wilders is a bit of a wild card. While I applaud his efforts to combat the rising tide of irrationality and superstition in his country, this “champion of free speech” is the same man who wanted to ban the Koran. Let’s just say he’s a hard man to love.

He’s currently on trial for inciting hatred and discrimination against the Muslim religion and Moroccan immigrants. The judges overhearing his cases refused to allow Geert 15 of his 18 witnesses (which included the man who murdered Theo Van Gogh), arguing that fundamentalists would not adequately represent the religion.

Yeah, that sounds like a fucking fair trial to me. Be sure not to include anyone that actually takes their religion too seriously, otherwise you might frighten people!

I may not agree with everything that man has to say, but I can spot a bullshit trial when I see one. Hey, is anyone holding the fundamentalists accountable for inciting hatred of non-believers, honor killings, violence against women, and the host of other barbarities associated with this primitive faith? Why are the Dutch so afraid of someone speaking his mind?

UK secularists need to grow a pair

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As the UK continues to fund sectarian institutions, some politicians are beginning to warn officials that this trend will ultimately do more harm than good. Grassroots Liberal Democrats are “pressing” (whatever the fuck that means) the government to stop funding religious organizations, lest they be used as proselytizing tools.

In east London, a new website aiming to promote sex education for young people “using a faith sensitive approach” has been launched after receiving funding from health authorities. It follows a recent controversy in south-west London over Richmond council’s awarding of a £89,000 contract to the Catholic Children’s Society, which will be involved in advising pupils on issues including contraception and teenage pregnancy.

The government spent over 100,000 dollars spent on this bullshit? That’s insane! Don’t worry though, they totally got their money’s worth: just check out their website‘s pregnancy page for proof (it’s hilariously empty). Maybe they’re still trying to figure out how to gently tell expecting young mothers wishing to terminate their pregnancies that they’ll burn in Hell for eternity. Is there even a nice way to say that?

If you dig a little deeper, you’ll also find some false facts meant to persuade individuals abstinence teaching is effective. For instance, they claim that:

  1. Teens living in two-parent homes are less likely to have sex earlier than teens living in single-parent or step-parent homes [Me: “see, you shouldn’t have divorced your abusive husband. Now your daughter is a whore!”].
  2. Perceived parental disapproval of sex has a strong delaying factor throughout adolescence.[Me: “yes, because no one likes to rebel against their parents”].
  3. Teens who are more religious are more likely to delay sex. [Me: “while the average religious person may wait longer to have sex, it usually leads to more pregnancy and STI’s than their secular counterparts].
  4. The combination of academic achievement and sports participation (for girls only) have the strongest delay effect in early and middle adolescence. [Me: “yeah, it’s pretty much the opposite for guys, so how is this helpful for half the population?”].
  5. In late adolescence, girls with high self-esteem are less likely to engage in premarital sex than girls with low self-esteem. [Me: “what better to teach a girl self-esteem than inculcating her with a faith that considers all women sinners and the ruin of mankind?”].
  6. The more religious the teen and their family, the less likely they were to start having sex early. [Me: “and the more likely she’ll have an STI or a baby on the way!”].

Isn’t it great when you can cherry pick facts to make your side sound so much better? I will admit that at the very least, this site does encourage people to use contraception (bad Catholic alert). This, however, is their “last resort” in case you happen to be a human being and love getting shagged.

Here’s the problem in a nutshell: kids are going to fuck each other whether or not you want them to. If fact, the less you want them to, the hotter it is. The last thing we need is a bunch of religious rubes confusing kids with dumb messages about sin and how their invisible friend only wants sanctioned sex. What’s worse, it also seems as though the result of their “sex education” is an adult with a less enjoyable sex life. Do religions ever get anything right?

The point is, religions are scarred by the misogynistic, ignorant, barbaric and primitive mores of the people who wrote their holy texts. Sure, some of their cults have embraced the values of the Enlightenment rather than follow their own code, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the basis of their beliefs are still predicated on utter nonsense. In other words, foundationally, they poison the very notion of intellectual integrity and reason. This, at the very least, must bar them from sharing or overtaking secular programs.

So what’s next? I guess we’ll continue to act like pussies and complain about this while money is slowly diverted away from secular programs and into the pockets of proselytizing organizations. At a time when the government is slashing spending, do you really think putting a bit of “pressure” is going to do anything at all? Religions are going to find ways to siphon money to themselves unless you expunge them all from your government. Get rid of the House of Lords. No more faith schools. Get your fucking secularist act together, England. It’s beginning to be an embarrassment.

Muslim men jailed for religiously motivated attack

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Gary Smith was a friendly and popular religion teacher with a promising career, until four thugs, incensed by their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, decided to beat him to within an inch of his life to teach him a “lesson” for educating women about their nonsense religion.

Gary Smith, 38, was beaten as he walked to Central Foundation Girls’ School in Bow, east London, last July.

The gang left him unconscious after attacking him with a metal rod and a brick, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

The attackers, Azad Hussain, Akmol Hussein, Sheikh Rashid, and Simon Alam were each given a mandatory 5 year jail sentence for the attack. The Judge was also quick to reprimand these psychos for having been motivated by religious dogma, believing (not unreasonably) that they would continue their life of crime if they continued down this path.

The court heard how the men were only caught because Hussein’s car was being bugged on an unrelated matter.

Normally I might be a little freaked out at the idea of citizens being “bugged”, but it looks as though this was the right call with these psychos. If you read the amount of emotional and physical trauma the victim had to go through, you realize these guys weren’t fucking around. Turns out they were terrorism suspects, and considering the fact they were willing to attack an innocent man guilty only of educating young women, that doesn’t seem too far fetched.

The Security Service had placed a listening device in a car driven by one of the men as part of an investigation into a suspected terrorist network in East London, sources told the Daily Telegraph.

Evidently these morons have a problem living in a society where women are treated as equals. Luckily for them, they’ll be in an environment of only men now. Wonder how that’ll work out…