Author Archives: Jacob Fortin

The price of free speech

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Whenever I hear some stupid rhetoric about soldiers dying in a foreign land for our “freedom”, I’m reminded that we really aren’t accustomed to the kind of actual sacrifices we have to make to maintain our liberties. In truth, freedom isn’t about the kind of conflicts that involve bombs and bullets: it’s about the right to say what you want, even when it happens to be horribly offensive.

The Supreme Count recently ruled in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church’s right to picket the funerals of men and women that die in combat. You may remember these tasteless fuckwads who show up with signs so vile they normally get censored by TV stations covering their exploits.

The court ruled 8-1 in favor of Phelps, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing the opinion. Roberts said that despite the pain the protests can inflict upon families and friends, “On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker.”

A lot of people are outraged by the decision, which is why the rights of individuals aren’t decided democratically. If we could, most of us would vote our fundamental rights away. As much as I hate the WBC, I’m glad the Supreme Court isn’t catering to the whims of easily offended citizens. If you have a problem with free speech, and all that entails, I suggest you try one of the countries where such options are more in tune with your precious sensibilities.

Peter Popoff is at it again

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There are few men with the batting record of Peter Popoff. The man seems to have an innate ability to scam people out of their hard-earned money, and does so without breaking a sweat. He’s been largely free to bamboozle people out of their hard earned money using the best shield against rationality, responsibility and accountability: religion.

He began in the 70’s as a faith healer, racking up millions of dollars by making eerily accurate and dramatic “revelations” about his audience’s illnesses, until James Randi exposed him on Johnny Carson in 1986. Turns out Popoff was using a hidden ear-piece and his wife’s rather unprophetic reading of pre-filled prayer cards to make his convincing “miracles” happen. Shortly after, Popoff’s ministry went bankrupt, and he disappeared.

But much like the plague, which lies dormant until our collective immune system is once again primed for infection, Popoff has had a number of resurrections. He first started popping up in Canada in the late 90’s selling holy water he claimed could work miracles (he also said the water came from a magic source near Chernobyl where animals had no diseases).

Apart from selling snake oil, he’s now turned his sights to those in need of debt relief. His latest scam, which he heavily advertises on BET (black entertainment television), is to ask people to make donations, and in exchange promises to ask God to relieve their debt.

When asked to answer critics who say he takes advantage of desperate people, Popoff issued a written response.

“As for religious leaders calling me a fraud, that places me in good company,” Popoff said. “The religious leaders of Christ’s day called him a fake and a demon-possessed fraud. They went so far as to crucify Him. I have no time for my critics, I have a job to do and I’m doing it for God’s glory.”

God’s glory, so far, has netted his ministry roughly 24 million dollars a year, and allowed him to command a salary of more than half a million dollars.

It would be easy to stop this man were it not for the fact he is part of a whole industry of deceit and unaccountability. Prosperity gospels do very much the same thing he does, and the fact all of this is considered a form of religious expression means they aren’t doing anything illegal by lying to people in order to make money. After all, if you prosecuted every single preacher who took money from gullible people in exchange for some improvable supernatural blessing, every single God-pimp would be broke or behind bars.

So long as people continue to believe in absurdities without any critical thought, scumbags like Peter Popoff will enjoy all the luxuries afforded to them by such profound ignorance. You want to make people scam-proof? Start by teaching them enough critical thinking skills to see through the deception of religion. Otherwise, someone like Popoff will always be waiting to pounce on the weak minded and gullible.

Christian morality in all its glory

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Man, talk about a spanking…No wonder Christians think we’re all terrible sinners: they keep attracting scumbags to their organizations!

Bigot Couple denied right to adopt

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A couple in their mid 60′s was recently denied the right to adopt children by a High Court in England because of their anti-homosexuality views.

…Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson ruled that laws protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation “should take precedence” over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds.

The truth is, because of the risk they might foster a gay son or daughter, the court decided the well being of the child was more important than the dogmatic, nonsensical belief that same-sex attraction is considered a bad thing by sky-daddy. The couple, oblivious to the fact society has stopped accepting bigotry outright, is confused society is still making a big deal about “all them homos”:

“We are prepared to love and accept any child. All we were not willing to do was to tell a small child that the practice of homosexuality was a good thing.”

Is there a small tinge of irony these people are of African decent, and only a few decades ago their skin pigmentation would have made them subject to similar discrimination? Perhaps. It makes me sad an otherwise nice couple seems to be completely unaware of just how poisonous their views actually are. You can thank the power of religion for that, folks!

Sam Harris doesn’t want you to identify yourself as an atheist

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What’s the solution to not accepting the label of atheist, Sam? What does “fly under the radar” mean exactly? I assume it’s not something anyone gets paid massive lecturing fees to do, quite honestly.

I’d love it if we could all somehow agree non-belief isn’t a “thing” either, but so long as we’re clearly identified as atheists simply for refusing to believe in the norm, the name has a purpose. We don’t get to choose what we call ourselves, since the religious have already decided we should have an identification label.

Prince tried the whole “I’m a name but not a name” shit and everyone realized it was ridiculous.

Annoying Pastor is actually secret pervert

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You know, I’ve always believed people who claim to want to stop debauchery, sin and vice were secretly engaging in these same activities. It explains why they think whatever they are railing against is a bigger deal than it actually is.

One such hypocrite is Pastor Grant Storms, a man who’s been fighting against the “debauchery” of New Orleans for nearly a decade:

A self-styled “Christian patriot,” Storms led a small West Bank congregation called The Reformer Church and for 10 years hosted “The Reformer Radio Show” on WSHO. Storms has railed against the Roman Catholic church, calling it “satanic” and “demonic.”

His merry band of assholes have been disrupting the festival for years, shouting hateful obscenities and forcing the city to issue an ordinance against bullhorns at the event (takes only a few people to ruin something, doesn’t it?).

He might have a bit of a harder time attracting his group back after he was caught masturbating in a van near a kid’s park by two female witnesses. When the police showed up to arrest him, he claimed that he was in fact trying to urinate in a beer bottle. Nice defense, dude.

Illinois school board backs creationism

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Illinois’s 95th District school board has just joined a distinguished group of ignoramuses who continue to undermine the educational futures of their progeny. The members of the board are all up for re-election, and all 4 candidates have said they support creationism being taught alongside evolution in science classrooms.

One even claimed it was evolution, and not his stupid Judeo-Christian based belief, that was “just a theory”.

Pietro [one of the candidates] believes creationism should be taught in science class to give students “as much information as possible” about the origins of life.

“I think we can say this is a theory,” he said Thursday. “None of us were here when man was created.”

I guess we can assume from his highly scientific “roundup” he’s the best person to dictate what students should be learning about biology here…

Creationism isn’t a theory. It makes no predictions, has no way of being tested, and is believed DESPITE the evidence. It’s a faith-based belief, and nothing more, and it deserves to be in science class as much as Holocaust denial deserves to be in a history class. Teach the controversy, people!

Think I’m being overly dramatic? If you lower the criteria of “theory” to the point where anyone with a bullshit crackpot idea is allowed to “teach the controversy”, how can we hope the education of our children has any fucking integrity?

Philippines joins Dark Ages

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Thanks to the progressive beliefs of Christianity, citizens in the small suburb of Alabang will need a prescription to buy birth control pills or condoms.

Violators of the ordinance’s provisions will be fined an amount no less than P1,000 but not exceeding P5,000 for the first offense. A second offense will be fined not less than P5,000 and will merit imprisonment for not less than one month but not exceeding six months. Violators will also be held civilly liable to the offended party.

So you risk jail time and getting sued because you put a piece of rubber over your penis? That seems totally reasonable.

According to the ordinance, the barangay views contraceptive pills, hormonal contraceptives, and IUDs as products that can kill children and injure the health of women who use them.

People have a pretty fucked up idea of what “children” means. If by kids you mean gametes that have half of the necessary chromosomes to even make a functional human, then yes, you’re “killing babies”.

Another great example of religion imposing stupid beliefs and making the world less safe as a result.

Sectarian peace in all its glory

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Nigeria is currently the battleground between Christianity and Islam. Since last year, over 2000 people have died fighting. Despite communities trying to sign various peace treaties with one another, every once in a while they just start attacking one another again. It’s a perfect example of the kind of division and strife that mutually incompatible beliefs cause.

The latest incident involves 18 Christians who were killed, and 12 were injured after being attacks by a roving gang armed with guns, cutlasses, and arrows (that’s pretty damn old school).

I can only imagine the situation getting worse, especially considering revenge killings are just a fact of life. All hail the religions of peace, and their uncanny ability to civilize mankind!

(update: That figure has since jumped to over 43,000 christians killed)

Hebrew concept of the earth

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Wow, it’s so close to the real thing, isn’t it? If this is the best God can do in terms of informing his “children” on the technical specifications of the Universe, it certainly explains why he did such a piss-poor job teaching other things, like morality and civics. Fail.

Trading hatred for love

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Homophobic crime is on the rise in England, and as you might have already guessed, the culprits are hiding behind a veil of religion to justify their bigotry.

The backlash is due to the growing recognition of gay rights, both to marry and adopt, and this has prompted groups motivated by improvable dogma to retaliate. One unidentified group is putting up stickers that say “gay free zone” along with a quote from the Koran.

In response to this, gay rights activists have gone on a campaign of “defacing” the stickers with the word “love” in an effort to combat this vile hatred.

Actor Wendy Richardson explained the rationale behind the group’s response.

“Rather than get angry with the people who did it, we decided to counter it with some love. We’re a cross section of people, of all races and sexualities – gay, straight and bisexual – saying it’s just not appropriate.

“But we thought – you know what? We’re not going to hate you back. It sounds a bit wet, but takes a lot of courage.”

It’s nicer than the tactic I would have employed, but then again I’m a crusty bastard with little tolerance for stupidity and blind bigotry. Good for them for taking the high road!

The New Tithe

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I can’t imagine a bigger waste of money than giving it to churches. Seriously. It would actually be more productive if you threw it away in the garbage, since at least in this instance some poor homeless guy might actually find some of it.

The image we have in our head of where the money goes (like homeless shelters, adoption agencies, etc) doesn’t match the reality. Even if it did, do you honestly want a bunch of nonsense mixed in with such essential services? I sure don’t.

Legislation considering ending protection for faith-based healing

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Oregon has finally started coming to its senses, and all it took was a bunch of kids dying of highly preventable deaths. The State is introducing a bill that would end religious immunity for parents who rely solely on “faith” to heal their children.

I’ve written about the “Followers of Christ” on many occasions; it’s a church that so far has an appalling death toll, all from illnesses that were extremely treatable. The parents, who had previously been able to get off scot-free or with an extremely light sentence, would no longer be able to hide behind their stupid dogma to defend their parental failure.

Legislators and prosecutors hope the threat of long prison sentences will cause church members to reconsider their tradition of rejecting medical treatment in favor of faith healing.

“This will level the playing field so all parents will be operating under the same rules,” said Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote. “It’s going to make it easier to hold parents accountable who don’t protect their children.”

What I like about this proposed bill is it finally recognizes the lives of children supersede improvable and dangerous dogma. Now, if we could only make people realize religion is itself a form of child abuse, we’d be halfway there.

Ted Olson schools Chris Wallace

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It doesn’t get simpler than that, does it folks? Gay marriage isn’t about creating new laws; it’s about upholding the Constitution, and granting the same rights to every citizen in the Republic. Christian Evangelicals and Catholics like to dance around the fact this segment of society is still second class citizens. They try to play on our prejudices, but this tactic will ultimately fail, and splinter their own churches. If there’s an issue that can destroy the power of these churches, it’s definitely gay rights.