Author Archives: Jacob Fortin

100 lashes for pre-marital sex sounds reasonable

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A couple working in The United Arab Emirates were sentenced in a Sharia Court to 100 lashes for having “unlawful sex“. Because these two lovebirds were on a work visa, both will also eventually be deported for their crime. The man, a Bangladeshi Muslim, faces an extra year in jail for the offense of having sex with someone he liked outside of wedlock. Fun times.

How bad is 100 lashes? Well, it could have been a lot worse, considering the fact that the crime of “fornication” (called “Zina” in Arabic) can often mean a death sentence to women having sexual encounters, even if they are raped.

This reminds me of the ridiculous article I read in HuffPo where a Muslim woman was defending Sharia Law, claiming any abuse was actually the result of politics rather than religion. Yeah, cuz you know, the two are very distinct in the Middle East, am I right?

Richard Dawkins answers Reddit questions

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Reddit, that preferred social news website of godless heathens, got members to ask questions and some were answered by Richard Dawkins. How cool is that? If I could have asked a question, it would have been “how often do fine ladies hit on you at conferences?”

Biocentrism is creationism for hippies

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I’m so sick and tired of the argument that because Earth sits in a “Goldilocks” zone, this must somehow mean something significant. What are the odds, some like to speculate, all of this could be the product of chance? The answer, I would argue, is the same as every single hand you’ve ever been dealt in poker. If you try and work backwards to calculate the odds of whatever arbitrary hand you have being dealt in the same order, you would discover the odds are impossibly small. Does that mean you were never playing poker to begin with?

There’s a tendency for human beings to believe our existence means something special. We still think, for some fucking reason, the Universe was tailor made for us, rather than the other way around. I expect this type of fallacy from self centered apes, and yet every time I hear some new crackpot idea about the origin of the Universe involving us in some way, I generally feel embarrassed for humanity. If there is intelligent life out there in the Universe, I don’t want them thinking we all think the Cosmos revolves around our existence.

A recent article in The Huffington Post had me fuming this morning. It was written by Robert Lanza, who pioneered a theory called Biocentrism. If you aren’t familiar with it, in a nutshell, the idea is our consciousness creates the physical reality we see around us. Without someone to observe the Universe, it simply doesn’t exist. What’s used to prove this fucking nonsense? Why, it’s quantum mechanics, of course!

Here’s the deal: if your wacky theory is based on the strangeness of Quantum physics, you’ve already lost the debate. This is a metaphysical black hole where crackpot theories go to die in obscurity. In the tiny world of atoms, subatomic particles often act in surprising, and sometimes counter-intuitive ways. Electrons, for instance, don’t orbit around the nucleus of an atom the same way a planet orbits around a star (that’s just a model we use to visualize it); instead, it exists in a kind of “probability wave”, which collapses whenever it encounters an “observer” (when we try to measure its position and momentum we end up determining both).

This strange and wonderful quality of quantum physics makes the theory open to every would-be theorist. Enter Biocentrism: since we are technically observers, then it must mean the simple act of being conscious “creates” the reality around us. The basic principles are as follows:

1. Reality is the product of our consciousness.
2. Time doesn’t exist outside our own perception
3. The structure of the universe can only be understood through “biocentrism”. The Universe is fine-tuned for our existence, ergo it must have been created through our perception.

Like any good bullshit theory, it offers nothing in the way of falsifiability. Why should it? According to it’s founder, Robert Lanza, it’s far more irrational to think that our existence, and that of the Universe, is due to simple “chance”.

A. africanus, A. garhi, A. sediba, A. aethiopicus, A. robustus, A. boisei, Homo habilis, H. georgicus, and H. erectus — among other hominid species — all went extinct. Even the Neanderthals went extinct. But alas, not us! Indeed, we happen to be the only species of Hominina that made it… The story of evolution reads just like “The Story of the Three Bears,” In the nursery tale, a little girl named Goldilocks enters a home occupied by three bears and tries different bowls of porridge; some are too hot, some are too cold. She also tries different chairs and beds, and every time, the third is “just right.” For 13.7 billion years we, too, have had chronic good luck. Virtually everything has been “just right.”

Well, I don’t think 99% of all the species who have ever existed and got bitch-slapped by evolution would agree with you there Robby. And sure, most other Hominid species have gone extinct, but what’s to say we won’t either? Will anyone care about your dumb ideas when this hairless ape eventually goes the way of the dodo? Will the Universe end because we aren’t in it anymore? I feel like a fucking moron even asking these pointless questions!

A&E support pseudoscience

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I don’t watch cable television. It’s an expensive way to rot and deteriorate your mind, especially when shows like “Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal” make their way to the youtube. The show is set to air on A&E, the same channel which has that awful “Paranormal State” show where morons run around pretending to be scientists while they attempt to scare the crap out of each other.

Speaking of Paranormal State, the main “psychic” on the show is the same latent gay dude who runs around supposedly haunted houses and says spooky things like “someone died in a lot of pain here”. It must take supernatural abilities to know something that amazing, am I right? As you can see from the above video, Chip Coffey is on a mission to “help” these kids deal with their “abilities”. And by helping,  I mean this fraudulent sack of shit is deliberately deceiving people for the purpose of making money (be sure to check out his website. It looks like the 90’s threw up all over it).

If these kids are genuinely hearing voices, the last thing you want is a psychic fraud convincing them the voices they hear are really dead people trying to talk to them. They either need therapy, medication, or maybe both. Instead of actually bothering to care about the well being of these children, A&E has decided this mess makes good television.

It looks like the Skepchicks are trying to start a letter writing campaign, but I don’t see how A&E would change their minds about catering to New Agers who desperately want this kind of fantasy to be real. You can try joining them if you like; I’m just one of those pessimists who realizes the only thing that matters to TV stations are ratings, not integrity. There was a time when specialty channels like A&E, TLC and the Discovery Channel used to try and provide some educational merit, but those efforts were abandoned when it was discovered that you can’t get good ratings that way. Turns out America is full of dummies who hate it when shows make them feel stupid. Keep it dumb, and then no one feels bad about themselves! How else can you explain this kind of garbage TV?

Palestinian Authorities use Facebook to track down blasphemer

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We often joke about the “big brotherism” of Facebook and other social media, but it’s no laughing matter when these websites are used to track down apostates of Islam whose only “crime” is speaking their damn minds. Walid Husayin, a 26 year old barber in the West Bank, has been arrested and faces life imprisonment for insulting Muhammad. His friends and family are shocked he led a double life online, where thanks to his perceived anonymity, he blogged about his frustration over the terrible religion that is Islam.

Husayin used a fake name on his English and Arabic-language blogs and Facebook pages. After his mother discovered articles on atheism on his computer, she canceled his Internet connection in hopes that he would change his mind.

Instead, he began going to an Internet cafe — a move that turned out to be a costly mistake. The owner, Ahmed Abu-Asal, said the blogger aroused suspicion by spending up to seven hours a day in a corner booth. After several months, a café worker supplied captured snapshots of his Facebook pages to Palestinian intelligence officials.

Authorities used Facebook to uncover his identity, and now the local ignorant townsfolk want him “burned to death”. Yes, truly this is a religion of peace, a fucking beacon of tolerance!

What’s hilarious is while Muslims feel as though their faith is being attacked by the West, in truth the barbarism, intolerance to criticism and violent rhetoric of Islam is merely being exposed as a real threat to the civilized world. The problem is Islam cannot stand criticism, no matter how justified it is. It isn’t just fundamentalists who wish to murder apostates (or anyone for that matter who speaks ill of their founder); a significant portion of believers have a murderous commitment to their faith. They are like a petulant child carrying a loaded gun, and their dangerous outrage has no place in the modern world. Despite jailing or obliterating anyone who speaks ill of their religion, this pathetic faith continues to argue that they are a religion of peace. The proof is in the pudding, and they’re serving up Blutwurst, people.

Louisiana dummies shocked that kids are learning Evolution

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Ah, creationism; no matter how you dress it up, it’s still a steaming pile of horse shit. Every year it’s the same thing: a group of ignorant and highly religious parents become upset their children are actually receiving an education as to how life adapts and changes over time, and their reaction is to try and insert their creationist materials (which they hilariously call “intelligent design”) into classrooms. Once they start doing that, it becomes necessary to get the courts involved, and school boards with small budgets spend huge sums of money in the ensuing legal battles (remember the Dover trial? It cost 2 million bucks, and I’m sure lots of schools would be dying for that kind of money).

Now while big states like Texas get all the attention, Louisiana has decided it too wants to join in on all the fun. A number of citizens, backed by the Louisiana Family Forum (hey look, another conservative org with the word “family” in it), are attacking the state’s biology textbooks because they are teaching “too much evolution”.

Darrell White also told the Advocate that the textbooks don’t comply with the anti-evolution law known as the “Louisiana Science Education Act,” which the Family Forum helped write and successfully lobbied for in 2008. The LSEA instructs educators to promote “critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.” It also allows teachers and school districts to use “supplemental textbooks,” which are just code words for creationist and pro-intelligent design materials.

The losers in this whole thing are the kids, who as a consequence of all this nonsense end up having a shitty education. While Americans continue to wrestle with the incompatibility of their religion and objective reality, the rest of the world is passing them by at the speed of light. It’s hard to imagine what influence all of this “debate” will have on these students as they enter the global marketplace, but it’s not likely to be very good. How can you survive in a knowledge-based economy when your citizens keep filling their heads with superstitious bullshit?

Tim Minchin learns a valuable lesson

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Some of you might already be aware Tim Minchin wrote an atheist Christmas song for a charity CD, and the proceeds went to the Salvation Army. He decided not to make a big deal of it, and the whole thing would have gone unnoticed…if not for the fact the organization lambasted him, saying they did not “approve” of his message.

Even the Salvation Army itself said it was disappointed with the track, with spokesman Neil Venables saying: ‘We do not in any way support the statements made in this song.’

Minchin in return has slated his critics. On Twitter he wrote: “I gave my song for free, putting aside my philosophical objection to the Salvation Army for the sake of beneficiaries. Imbeciles…I think the Salvos are idiots. I didn’t know they would benefit from the CD, but by the time I found out I didn’t want to make too much of a fuss. So I gave my song free, then they turn around and say that they don’t agree with the sentiment of the song. Part of me is hugely outraged by what imbeciles they are, to bite the hand that feeds them and put their proselytizing above charity. I won’t make this mistake again. I tweeted that if people want to buy my version of the song independently, I’ll give the proceeds away to a non-proselytizing charity.”

So the lesson here is simple: don’t give to charities that can’t appreciate the generosity of others who don’t share their fanciful notions about the supernatural.

Richard Dawkins documentary on Faith Schools

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With 1/3 of all British schools being faith based, Dawkins released this doc examining why they exist, and how their rebirth has forced parents to change their behavior in order to give their kids the best access to education. Faith has about as much place in a state run school as prayer does; which is to say none. If you aren’t British, odds are you haven’t seen this, so enjoy.

The Bible is fireproof!

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I love how religious rubes cling to anything that has the hint of a miracle as proof of the solvency of their belief. So much for blind faith!

A family living in a mobile home had an electric fire that destroyed everything inside about out, but while sifting through the ashes, they found this burnt out Bible, and immediately thought something miraculous had happened.

The family didn’t want to go on camera Sunday, but one member says, “The Bible is proof that God’s word can’t be destroyed.”

I think the “miracle” would have been your mobile shack not bursting into flame and destroying what crappy possessions you already owned. Now the only thing you have is a Bible that’s burned to shit, and a re-enforced belief God is so powerful he can prevent his “word” from getting 100% torched. Bask in the works of this omnipotent deity and his endlessly impressive parlor tricks!

If humans built computers, it means God created the Universe!

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Remember Kent Hovind? He was probably the most famous and prolific of all the travelling creationists, going from county to county saying silly shit like “Noah’s flood really happened”, and “dinosaurs and man lived together in harmony” before Adam and Eve eventually pissed off God. In 2007 he was thrown in jail for various tax offenses, and he claimed his money belonged to God, not the government. Since his incarceration, his idiot son has taken up the mantle, and like his old man, Eric is convinced his quaint book of mythology is a literal historical account of Earth’s history.

It looks like jail isn’t enough to stop Kent from occasionally writing blog posts from the slammer, and the latest gem is his air-tight argument because things like computers need human designers, the Universe had to come from God.

Physicist and author Stephen Hawking says that no God was required to make the universe. Stephen, please give a scientific explanation for how your computer came to be without referring to any outside source of power or design such as “man.”

Your answer must be confined to natural causes within the elements of the machine. You can refer to physical forces like inertia, gravity, centrifugal force, etc., even though it could be argued that even they need a designer! If you choose to involve long time periods for your explanation, then also please factor in the disintegration and natural decomposition of the various materials in the computer as well.

Isn’t it awesome when you can built your own pathetic strawman arguments and then effortlessly knock them down? Sure Kent, we have to invoke designers when talking about computers, but so what? It’s simply just a semantic argument at the end of the day. We see the world through the eyes of designers (since that’s what we are) and assume because we build complex stuff, something amazingly complex like a Universe must also be designed. Although this pathetic argument sounds convincing to morons like Kent who have already made up their minds about whether or not God exists (and in turn what this bearded sky man wants from you), the rest of us see through it like grandpa’s underpants.

(Update: The blog has since been taken down)

Here’s a crazy thought: atheism needs more money

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Do you remember the Daniel Dennet lecture a few months ago regarding a pilot study he was conducting about atheist priests still giving sermons? If you never watched it and have an hour to kill, I highly recommend going back and checking it out. If you want the short version of what the hell that must be like, check out this article:  The main theme seems to be: “I can’t quit my job because I’m an expert in nonsense and have no marketable skills.”

If you think about it, the reason these guys can’t leave their shitty jobs is they have bills to pay, and apparently duping people with supernatural nonsense is still where it’s at. I joke around about the fact preachers are experts at fairy tales, but when the reality of that hits home, and in particular threatens your wallet, I’m sure we’d probably do the same thing.

I had a thought while reading the article however; are their skills not marketable at all outside preaching? If they were so effective convincing people  God exists, why couldn’t they do something similar to show people that “He” doesn’t for a living?

Sure, you could say the real problem is there’s really no money in it. Fair enough. But why not? We’ve seen time and time again that religionists have deep pockets, while our measly track record isn’t even in the same league. We’re goddamn amateurs when it comes to this stuff, and I think it’s time we started changing that fact. We’ve got to get in the habit of supporting more organizations, or if you aren’t personally satisfied with the ones existing today, maybe start your own. We need clear, concise goals. We need dedicated and smart people to make them happen, and most of all, we need some fucking money.

Am I alone in thinking it might be time for atheists to start thinking about really doing more to help the cause?

New study finds American adults are dumb

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What’s got me riled up today? It could be this recent survey by the Pew forum on Religion and Public life found over two thirds of the adult population of the US believes in angels. And when I say angels, I don’t mean dudes like Metatron who only show up when a deranged father is about to kill his youngest son. No, I’m talking about the kinds that are all over the place, supposedly protecting people. I guess some of them just suck at their jobs more than others.

The article in question goes on to list a number of random, lucky circumstances the people involved have attributed to “miracles”. This one in particular seemed to jump out in terms of stupidity:

He [Hipp] was riding with his wife Penny when he got in a terrible accident.

“Shot the motorcycle up five feet in the air, and catapulted me about 20 feet over in the grass. But Penny was lying in the asphalt,” said Hipp. “By the time I got to her, she had no feeling from the waist down.”

At the hospital, the doctor delivered some terrible news.

“He said, ‘I don’t know if your wife will ever walk again. Her spine seems to be very mangled,’” Hipp said.

Hipp began to pray, then took a leap of faith.

“I probably shouldn’t have done it,” said Hipp. “It wasn’t advisable to do it, but I wanted to see my wife walk.”

He pulled her out of the bed.

“Something supernatural happened when I pulled her off that bed and her foot hit the floor, something happened. She said it was like fire started in her feet, went all the way up her legs, up her back, up her spine, and God healed her,” he said.

This idiot is lucky he didn’t make things worse. The doctors weren’t sure if she could walk, and yet Einstein here (who had already sent her in the hospital in the first place) made her stand up because a fucking voice in his head told him to do it. Would he have thought it was a miracle if his actions had actually prevented her from ever walking again? What about all the people who are stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of their lives? Did their guardian angels fail them, or is it simply some people are just lucky, and others aren’t?

Wait, it gets even lamer than the motorcycle story. Apparently, angels don’t just protect people: they also act as messengers for even the most banal moments:

Years ago, before the age of cell phones, Sue was on her way to a Friday night Bible study. She was going to pick up a young woman in her 20s who just moved into town. The woman lived in a nice area where many rich singles lived. Unfortunately, Sue was running late.

“I said a prayer saying, ‘Please reassure her I’m coming,’” Werner recalled. The woman later recounted that she thought Werner forgot about her. The woman was about to leave but something interesting happened.

“Just at that moment, a brand new, super shiny silver Corvette pulled up with a very tall good looking man got out, walked straight up to her and said, ‘Don’t worry, she’s coming. She’ll be here in a few moments,’” Werner said.

The woman later described that the man and the car simply vanished just as Werner pulled up.

“He didn’t come up and try to pick her up or say ‘Hey, can I help you?’ He didn’t. How did he know I’d be there in a few moments and I was?” Werner asked.

Wow, how inspired! I’m totally convinced now, and it’s a miracle; I’ve lost all desire to make fun of these obviously incorrect fools. Hallelujah!

Look folks, the world would be a weird place if there were NO coincidences or strange occurrences happening at all. I know these experiences can be overwhelming, especially if you’ve been fed stupid ideas like “angels exist” and “God is a bearded old man who loves you”, but you have to stop looking to the supernatural for explanations about the real world. Every time you do, the rest of us feel embarrassed for humanity.

Carl Sagan’s last interview

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It’s awesome to watch this interview, but watching him with his hair falling out kind of makes me think about losing him, and even worse, it makes me think about the fading of Christopher Hitchens as well. Damn you to Hell, cancer!

My Jesus statue is bigger than yours!

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The first sign someone is a dangerous dictator usually comes when gigantic statues supposedly commemorating the fact these people are our lords and masters start popping up all over the place. It’s a pretty old tactic which is as old as civilization itself. I would have hoped with the death of theocratic tyrants, we would be done with this dangerous tradition. Apparently not.

A small town in Poland decided to build the biggest and evidently tackiest of all the Jesus statues in the world. It stands at over 170 feet tall, a reminder the “king of kings” left specific instructions in the New Testament to build huge structures to let everyone know who is really in charge (yeah, too bad he actually didn’t say anything remotely close to that).

You could argue this tacky monstrosity is intended to attract tourists, but if a giant statue of Jesus is enough to make you travel to this dank hell-hole, you deserve all the shitty food and service you get.

I wouldn’t even have much of an issue with this huge waste of money if not for the fact this beast has a gigantic, golden crown on its head, a clear indication this dude is supposed to be “the ruler of mankind”. Are you not tired of this antiquated and dangerous symbol? Humanity only started tasting a bit of freedom when we said “fuck off” to the whole concept of kings. The last thing we need is a new dictator, especially one who died 2000 years ago (well, supposedly).

On the plus side, you can look at this statue as a testament to the insecurity of the faithful. After all, their God is invisible, and a total no-show so far. The only way “He” can feel real to these deluded apes is by having a gigantic, 170 foot avatar to “remind” them he’s not just a figment of their imagination. Besides, I’m sure by now you’ve all heard the old saying: “the bigger they are, the harder they fall”.