Author Archives: Jacob Fortin

Quackery claims another victim

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If you’re a regular podcast listener, you might remember a show I did a few weeks back on The Lorne Trottier Science Symposium, and I talked at length about one speaker, Dr. David Gorski (who looks a lot like the guy with glasses from ER) who’s busy fighting superstition on his blog, Science-Based Medicine. David specializes in breast cancer, and over the years has constantly battled the dangers of pseudoscience and quackery. He sees the direct consequence of people listening to “The Secret” and other junk ideas rather than medical doctors.

The latest victim of this terrible and tragic new phenomenon of trying to use “positive thinking” to fight malignant tumors is a woman by the name of Kim Tinkham. She was diagnosed in February 2007 with stage 3 breast cancer, and every doctor she talked to gave her the same diagnosis: surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. It’s not a pleasant process, but the odds of survival were still relatively good.

Instead of opting for surgery (I still like David’s “nothing heals like surgical steel” line), Kim watched the movie “The Secret”, and fell for their pathetic “think positive and you can have shit” shtick: she even appeared on Oprah to explain her decision:

I watched The Secret for the first time back in 2006. Shortly after The Secret aired on Oprah, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was shocked, but most of all, I became mad. Not because I had cancer, but because most of the doctors that I’ve spoken to -three so far- have all said that surgery was absolutely necessary within the next month. I would have to undergo a partial radical mastectomy of the right breast, followed by treatment. After much thought, I’ve decided to heal myself.

To be fair, Oprah did try to convince her to seek real medical treatment, but backed down a little when Kim suggested this was a life affirming decision on her part. Besides, “The Secret” was a movie that Oprah had recommended to her female zombies, and once the genie was out of the bottle, it’s kind of hard to put it back.

The problem here is Kim didn’t like the reality of her diagnosis, and was particularly afraid of surgery. Instead of accepting the reality of her illness, she chose to believe the fantasies that were presented to her as facts. When countless doctors gave her the same medical advice, she searched on the fringes of alternative “medicines” until she found some opportunist piece of shit (a dick by the name of Robert Young) who made her believe diet and wishful thinking would be enough to cure her.

I don’t think I need to tell you what happened next: as the cancer continued to spread, it was eventually too much, and according to her Facebook account, she recently died. While Kim had a good change to survive her cancer had she listened to her doctors, the trendy “alternative” treatments offered by quacks and charlatans gave her the idea cures can be found in your head rather than with science based medicine. Since it’s unlikely either Oprah or Robert Young will be held accountable for their culpability in this woman making such poor life choices, it’s up to us to keep fighting the forces of irrationality and pseudoscience.

Military Chaplains worry about inability to discriminate

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Evangelical chaplains in the military are suffering! They’re worried the eventual repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” will jeopardize their ability to openly discriminate against gays and lesbians who might come to them seeking spiritual help. Now while I generally feel homosexuality and religion mix about as well as oil and water, you can’t deny the fact statistically, gays are actually more religious than their straight counterparts. I blame this on their tendency for self-hatred.

A group of about 60 chaplains sent a letter to President Obama asking him not to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell”, framing this as a huge contentious issue of theirs:

Put most simply, if the government normalizes homosexual behavior in the armed forces, many (if not most) chaplains will confront a profoundly difficult moral choice: whether they are to obey God or to obey men. This forced choice must be faced, since orthodox Christianity—which represents a significant percentage of religious belief in the armed forces—does not affirm homosexual behavior. Imposing this conflict by normalizing homosexual behavior within the armed forces seems to have two likely—and equally undesirable—results.

In other words, they are claiming they wouldn’t be able to preach hatred for homosexuality from their pulpits anymore. Since this kind of activity is quite common for evangelicals to engage in (here’s a random example), it must feel like this “right” is being threatened! Rather than face the possibility of evolving and getting over their fear and loathing of gays, they want homosexuals to stay in the closet and stay ashamed of who they are, just like the Bible says they should!

Daniel Blomberg, an attorney for the conservative legal group Alliance Defense Fund, wonders: What if a soldier confides to a chaplain that he’s gay?
“What happens when the chaplain responds according to the dictates of his faith and says that type of behavior — like other types of sexual sins — is not in accordance with God’s will?” he says.

That’s kind of a funny question, Danny. I think I can answer it in a way which might make some sense to you: If a chaplain argued he couldn’t serve his religious duties because he couldn’t, in good conscience, work with a Jew (since they killed the Messiah) or blacks (who are the cursed sons of Ham), he’d get the same pink slip these bigoted douchebags will get. Pretty fucking simple, eh?

12 year old girl on why abortion is wrong

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What if I told you, little girl, thousands of women get abortions due to the fact nature is a cruel ass bitch who doesn’t behave like a Disney fairy tale where every pregnancy has no complications, and everything is hunky-dory?

Abortions are being performed on 5 month old fetuses all the time

Really? You have any stats to back that up, kid? Here’s a thought: what do you think we should do with women who get illegal abortions if you make it against the law (which happens all the fucking time in places where it’s illegal)? Yeah, I doubt you have a clever little prepared answer for that one.

You’ve got a lot of growing up to do, little girl. Just because your obviously religious parents brainwashed you into thinking abortion is morally equivalent to murder doesn’t make it so. I got 10 bucks which says your folks don’t have a problem with people getting executed by the state. Isn’t pro-life awesome like that?

The Universe is just like a hand bag

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It’s hard to quantify exactly how stupid Elisabeth Hasselbeck is. Let’s spend 2 seconds talking about the eye, and why it isn’t perfect. For starters, how many people have to wear glasses because of oblong or misshapen eyeballs? How about the fact we see upside down, and our brain literally has to flip it 180 degrees? Now the Octopus has an eye we should all be jealous of:

A unique characteristic of the cephalopod eye is its ability to rotate and maintain a constant orientation with respect to gravity. Using its statocyst, a balance organ common to many invertebrates, an octopus can always keep its slit-shaped pupils in a horizontal position. Consequently, the brain can always safely interpret visual information on the basis that the eyes are horizontally aligned, though the body may be at any angle.

Also, since when are babies “perfect”? I recall that most of the time, these screaming poop machines have deformed heads, chronic acid reflux, and are in constant pain as their little bodies sprout out. Also, their heads are so large they can often cause fatal hemorrhaging during childbirth. Fucking great design, am I right?

When the screaming hens at “The View” try to talk about evolution and religion, we all lose.

More Tea Party bigotry

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If you still think the Tea Party is a socially conservative, libertarian movement, then you need to pull your head out of your ass and actually pay attention to the shit they are pulling. The latest “so bigoted you’d think this was the 1950′s” move involves Tea Party activists sending robo-calls to warn Texans about their new House Speaker being a Jew.

John Cook is a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, which, as you may have guessed from the title, is comprised of fundie Christians who believe America is a “Christian Nation”.

When I got involved in politics, I told people I wanted to put Christian conservatives in leadership positions,” he told me, explaining that he only supports Christian conservative candidates in Republican primary races.

“I want to make sure that a person I’m supporting is going to have my values. It’s not anything about Jews and whether I think their religion is right or Muslims and whether I think their religion is right. … I got into politics to put Christian conservatives into office. They’re the people that do the best jobs over all

Don’t worry though; he’s totally not an anti-Semite according to himself:

“They’re some of my best friends,” he said of Jews, naming two friends of his. “I’m not bigoted at all; I’m not racist.”

Bigots don’t know they’re bigots because people like you and me don’t spend enough time shaming them for having such obviously racist views. When someone tells you “some of my best friends are [fill in the blanks]“, then you know some racist shit is just about to spew from their ignorant mouths. Don’t ever let that stuff fly under the radar, people!

Christians: “We’re not going to take this anymore!”

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Christians are always feeling persecuted (it’s kind of their “thing”). If you bother to have a conversation with one and mention you think his beliefs are about as consistent with objective reality as Greek mythology, there’s no end to the huffing and puffing that will ensue. You’ll be accused of anything from intolerance to persecution. How dare you tell them their beliefs are unsubstantiated? How dare you be proud of your lack of belief in the supernatural?

Reverend Kyev Tatum of the Friendship Rock Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas has called on his obviously broke-ass parishioners to boycott public transport in protest of atheists putting up “Millions of Americans are Good Without God” ads on buses in Dallas. They seem to take offense at our message of “indifference”.

Although there are many who say they will partake in this 30 day boycott, in reality, they will probably have no choice. I mean, these people are poor, not terribly educated, and public transit is essentially their lifeblood.

Now they know how atheists feel every time we’ve had to ride a bus with one of their annoying ads on it. We acted like adults, let shit slide, and when we finally decide to grow a pair and put up our own, Christians flip out. So not only do we get to reach millions of “in the closet” atheists, we also get to expose the childishness of believers at the same time. Can you say win-win?

Pedophile priest told victims assaults weren’t against “God’s word”

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Need further proof human beings use religions to justify their own sick desires and fantasies? Take Simon Antony Jacobs, in North Sydney, who was recently arrested after it became known he sexually assaulted 2 boys repeatedly during the 1970′s and 80′s. One of the victims, 11 years of age at the time, confronted Jacobs during the abuse, saying the Bible seemed to take offense with the whole “man lying with another man” passage (that’s the “hate gays” one). Jacobs assured him since they weren’t trying to make babies, it was all good in the hood.

Were there any signs Jacobs may have been acting inappropriately? Well, his church shuffled him around a few times, which makes me think they knew exactly what was going on:

A spokesman for the Anglican Church said Jacobs had worked as a CEBS leader at Christ Church, St Ives, ”in various roles” from 1971 to 1981. In 1982 he moved to CEBS at St Swithuns in Pymble but left in 1984.

”The record is unclear, but at some point, possibly after leaving Pymble, a note was made that he was not to be issued with a leaders warrant, which he would have required in order to move to leadership in any CEBS group in another parish,” the spokesman said.

That doesn’t sound suspicious at all, does it? Yes, religion is truly the moral framework of society, don’t you agree?

NOTE: It says in the article that he’s being accused of “buggery“. Is that just simply sodomy? Can any of you Aussie fans clarify this for me?

Man assaulted for protesting prayer at Hawaii State Capitol

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Two activists, Mitch Kahle and Kevin Hughes, were assaulted and thrown out of the Hawaii State Capitol building for objecting to the morning’s prayer. After being thoroughly brutalized by security forces, Mitch was arrested for “disorderly conduct”. Luckily, there are still a few people with their heads screwed on right, and at his trial Judge Leslie Hayashi needed less than an hour to find Mitch not guilty.

“Number one, there was no disorderly conduct. Number two, he has a first amendment right to speak in a public forum such as he did. And number three, the legislature was violating our U.S. Constitution as well as the Hawaii constitution by having these invocations”

Harrison [Kahle’s lawyer] thinks this case may be enough to convince law makers to stop saying prayers during official state business.

“They make the law for the state, so they should recognize and understand what our constitution says. And in fact the court did express very much her (Hayashi’s) concerns with regards to invocations in this public forum. And so the legislature, the city council, any other public entity on public property should be concerned and should heed the warning of this court in its ruling”

Feels like a tiny victory, doesn’t it?

Only 169 days until Jesus returns

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Boy, am I excited. After nearly 2000 years of being a complete fucking no-show, Jesus has announced his glorious return on May 21st, 2011. This is according to a Nashville billboard paid for by fans of Family Radio Inc, which according to their website has the correct calculation for the return of the Lord:

Thus Holy God is showing us by the words of 2 Peter 3:8 that He wants us to know that exactly 7,000 years after He destroyed the world with water in Noah’s day, He plans to destroy the entire world forever. Because the year 2011 A.D. is exactly 7,000 years after 4990 B.C. when the flood began, the Bible has given us absolute proof that the year 2011 is the end of the world during the Day of Judgment, which will come on the last day of the Day of Judgment.

Amazingly, May 21, 2011 is the 17th day of the 2nd month of the Biblical calendar of our day. Remember, the flood waters also began on the 17th day of the 2nd month, in the year 4990 B.C.

How could we forget? Yes, the story of Noah proves the loving God of the Old Testament likes to roll around and basically annihilate his creation every time he’s unhappy with the outcome. I know how he feels: when I play SimCity and figure out halfway through my city just simply can’t support itself, I usually send a few natural disasters to “cleanse” the place, and allow me to start over. I’ve been waiting for the expansion pack that would include the crazy mouth-sword killer Jesus of Revelation, but so far it hasn’t come out yet.

So mark your calendars, people! Jesus is coming back, and he’s bringing a death sickle!

(Update: The site Family Radio has since been discontinued)

How to spank a creationist

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I like Ken, and I appreciate the hard work he does to fight creationism, despite sharing many of their beliefs. The saddest thing about him, however, is he still tries to reconcile his ludicrous superstitious beliefs with science. By the end of his book, Finding Darwin’s God, I had to shake my head in disbelief as he tried to use quantum indeterminacy as a mechanism with which God influences evolution. Fucking embarrassing to say the least.

Kentucky Gov. announces $150 mil creationism theme park

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The creation museum is apparently only the tip of the iceberg for Answers in Genesis, which is partnering with Ark Encounters LLC to create a gargantuan 500 foot “replica” of Noah’s Ark which will contain live animals, as well as a Tower of Babel, and a Middle Eastern village.

The for-profit company wants to receive a tax incentive from the state, and it sounds to me like they have good changes of getting it. If they do, it means taxpayers will be shelling out almost 40 million dollars worth of incentives to these morons.

They claim the theme park will generate roughly 250 million dollars worth of revenue, and create 900 jobs. Considering how well the Creation Museum has been doing, they might not actually be off the mark on this (ignorant rednecks still have a bit of money left it seems). Kentucky will have the distinction of having not one, but two ghastly locations where humans and animals are living in “Flintstones-like” harmony.

The folks behind this play-land of ignorance want to try and build the most authentic ark possible. I have to imagine once they actually start trying to fill it with live animals, it might be hard for people to ignore the fact it’ll be significantly overcrowded with just a few species in there. Odds are if they try to make it authentic, it won’t be very well ventilated, and it’s sure to stink like shit after just a few hours.

So nicely done, Kentucky, and for working so diligently, I award you the title of “most embarrassing state in America”. Competition is fierce, I know, but you always manage to find some way to outshine them. Congratulations!

How empathy works

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I talk about how humans grow and become moral through experiences of empathy. I contend it’s these “mirror neurons” behind this. We feel what others do (by virtue of how we are built), and so to be more moral and empathic, we need to ensure we are not completely separated from the process of communicating and interacting with one another. I’m talking to all of you Internet junkies out there watching this awesome video!

How to respond to religious ignorance

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Someone posted this on Reddit/r/atheism (for those of you unaware of the existence of this site, go there immediately), and I thought I might take a few seconds to respond to his request:

I went to a Catholic high school and kept the fact that I was atheist a secret most of the time because I wanted to avoid any religion debates. My closer friends knew and didn’t care but mentioned it once when we were eating lunch with some other of our class mates. The response I immediately received from one of the guys was basically “How stupid are you? You’re atheist? Why don’t you go home right now and kill yourself. You already have nothing to live for.” I did not know how to respond and I let him just ramble on. I never tried to defend myself and I regret not saying anything. I still don’t know how I’m supposed to respond to another “Go kill yourself” type statement. I’ve always struggled with depression and I honestly don’t know why I shouldn’t kill myself. Does anyone have a reasonable response to say to that kind of person if that were to ever happen again? This happened a few years ago, I’m in university now and probably won’t ever encounter that kind of person again but it still makes me nervous thinking about it.

What’s a good way to respond to a religious person telling you to kill yourself because you are atheist?

My first instinct would have been to tell him to go fuck himself, but it seems as though you might be a bit more sensitive than me, so that probably wouldn’t have worked out.

I’m constantly surprised by how cold and callous Christians can be in regards to the wellbeing of others (despite their assertion they are somehow morally superior). Sure, I’ve made fun of plenty of religious people in my day, but I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone to take their own lives for what they believed or didn’t believe. I would have lambasted this ignorant bastard for making light of what is still a huge problem with today’s teenagers. Suicide is no fucking joke. Too many talented, promising and sensitive young men (for it’s still mostly men) extricate themselves from this adventure we call life before they fully bloom.

I would have also asked him how his belief in fairy tales makes him an “expert” on the subject of “purpose”. No doubt he’s young, not terribly educated, and completely unaware of the world beyond his tiny purview. Has he even bothered to find out the majority of the world does not believe what he does, or lives how he lives?

When you’re young and inexperienced, it’s easy to have tunnel vision. You feel depressed and admittedly have perhaps seriously contemplated suicide. That’s not unusual as the chemistry of your brain is undergoing some radical changes. Atheists don’t have any sanctions against taking one’s own life, but I think the realization we only get one kick at the can should inspire all of us to live it to its fullest. Remember life is about having new experiences, and sharing those with people who care about you, and because you don’t live in a world controlled by religious dogma, you really can explore it in any way you deem fit.

Perhaps the real lesson here is there’s nothing you can really say to ignoramuses that will make them change their minds, but why would you want to? I feel sorry for anyone who thinks believing in magic is the best way to appreciate the beauty of this incredible Universe we live in.

British Christians feel marginalized

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Do you hear that? It’s the sound of a million Christians crying in agony as society increasingly becomes secular and grows out of its infantile need to believe in fairy-tales. As Christmas rolls around, believers are upset it has been “re-branded” to no longer have much liturgy associated with the holiday:

Even Christmas is being “re-branded” as a secular festival because councils, politicians and businesses are “ashamed” of its true religious meaning, he said.
Lord Carey’s remarks came as he launched a national campaign to promote the right of Christians to express their beliefs in public and at work.
“This attempt to ‘air-brush’ the Christian faith out of the picture is especially obvious as Christmas approaches,” Lord Carey said. “The local council switches on ‘winter lights’ in place of Christmas decorations. Even Christmas has become something of which some are ashamed.”

Do you not feel this whole complaint is insanely ironic, considering the fact the winter solstice was hijacked by desperate Christians trying to stop this pagan holiday. Now that society has re-appropriated it and made it more inclusive, they are literally losing their shit over it.

Lord Carey was launching national “Not-Ashamed Day” today (Weds 1 Dec), under which Christians are encouraged to wear crucifixes and demonstrate their pride in their religious beliefs.

Yes, you should totally wear your crosses so that we can identify which members of society still cling in desperation to primitive myths. Just accept the possibility guys like me might just rip you a new asshole for being so superstitiously ignorant.

Pakistan woman sentenced for blasphemy

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A few podcasts ago, Ryan and I discussed the case of the world famous “blasphemer”, Asia Bibi of Pakistan, who faces the death penalty for insulting Islam. She’s recently been trying to get a Presidential pardon, which was just rejected by a Pakistani “court” yesterday. The high court barred the President from even attempting to let her off the hook for having supposedly said some hurtful things about a man who’s been dead for over 14 centuries.

There you have it, people: justice is served! It looks like they really want this woman to pay severely for hurting the feelings of those poor defenseless Muslims. Sure, you could argue she has a family, and all of this boils down to over-sensitive religious ass-hats who care more about their imaginary friend than the misery of this poor woman, but if they don’t do something radical now, none of them will get to enjoy all those delicious virgins up in heaven!