Author Archives: Jacob Fortin

Brisbane man gets charged for wearing offensive t-shirt

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A couple of months ago, Alexsei Vladmir Nikola was walking down the street with his “Jesus is a Cunt” t-shirt and was spotted by police officers, who immediately took offense to the hot masturbating nun on the front. He’s been charged with public nuisance, and faces up to six months in jail if found guilty.

How exactly is wearing a t-shirt public nuisance? Well you see, old Christian ladies might get all worked up over their favorite deity getting mocked, and that just won’t do. Better to lock his ass up in jail and teach him expressing your opinions in shirt form is a serious crime, especially if it hurts the feelings of religious rubes! Keep locking up your citizens for speaking their minds, Australia; you truly are a bastion of freedom.

The Best of Hitchens

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In case you haven’t seen this video floating around the webs, check out this highlight of Christopher Hitchen’s best verbal bitch-slaps. It fills me with sadness we may soon lose this intellectual giant.

The AAI Montreal Conference in a nutshell

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A few fans asked me if I could share my thoughts about the Atheist Alliance International Conference that took place last weekend. As some of you know (and most of you will once you listen to the last podcast), we were asked to do the live podcast for the event. Considering there was no valid excuse NOT to do it, I accepted, even though I had never actually stepped foot in a conference before, let alone an atheist one.

Luckily, I had my trusty co-hosts Ryan and Jeff along for the fun, which eased the stress of doing a show in front of a live audience. We knew going in we’d be relative unknowns, but considering the usual tone of the podcast, I was nervous the reaction from the crowd might be utter shock or dismay. The average age of that audience was about 50, but luckily, everyone seemed to have a good sense of humor and the show went a lot better than I had imagined (or was it feared?), with Ryan overhearing positive comments from some of the attendees.

After the show I was approached by Larry over at Sandwalk who invited all of us to have diner with PZ Myers and a couple from the Center for Inquiry Ottawa. The hotel bar, which had already stolen 40 dollars from us with their overpriced beers (at 10 bucks a pop), managed to take more of our money, although this time we ordered the cheapest thing we could on the menu. The meal was completely ordinary, although the service itself was probably even more atrocious than their prices. It took forever to get our damn bills.


Daniel Dennet was speaking the next morning at 8, but we were all too zonked to make it. Instead we headed out after lunch, catching the tail end of the day’s talks. Jeff and I stuck around waiting for the big dinner, which was supposed to play parts of my interview with Susan Jacoby, but due to technical difficulties it ended up being scrapped. They then showed a movie, “The Evangelist” which cleared the room faster than a dirty-bomb scare, and by the time of the dance party, everyone had vamoosed. I tried doing a few break-dancing moves for laughs, and Jonathan Jerry (the AAI’s photographer) took a few pictures of us striking a pose. After working up a sweat, we headed out with some patrons from Saskatoon and drank till the wee hours of the morning. I was so hung over I missed the entire Sunday lineup. Yep, I suck something fierce.

All in all, it was a great first experience, but I have to say something in the format left me with the impression conferences aren’t really designed to attract a younger crowd. I could count on one hand the amount of people who were in their early 20′s. It made me realize if we’re going to make an impact on the next generation, we have to find a way to entice young people. The hard-core supporters aren’t getting any younger, and we need new blood!

Gullible woman sees Jesus in MRI

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Sure, it looks like Jesus, if he had his face re-arranged by a crowbar. Hey, I don’t want to seem like a bummer for pointing out blurry images are hardly proof of the existence of a deity, but shit this dumb makes my head hurt. Why does the media ALWAYS answer the call every time some gullible idiot claims to see their chosen god in a taco, grill-cheese sandwich or a dog’s butt-hole? Surely there are more interesting stories than “highly impressionable rube is tricked by pareidolia“.

Shoot the Devil in the face, and you’ll stop being afraid

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I’ve never been able to fully appreciate the kind of fear mongering religions are well known for, mostly because I was never influenced by their terrifying dogma. It’s easy for many of us non-believers to scoff at the claims devils casually walk the earth, looking for souls to devour. But for millions of impressionable children, these kinds of messages often create fear and panic over the thought of being possessed or even destroyed by supernatural forces.

The Escapist has an interesting article about how a young man found the courage to face his fear of the Devil by playing Doom and Diablo II. Since his church filled his head with vague stories of demons waiting around every corner without shape or substance, he found shooting their physical manifestations, even if they were in video game form, was therapeutic. For the first time in his life he was able to confront the imagery that had so terrified him:

Satan, as presented in my religious indoctrination, haunted me because I could never truly perceive him. He was an invisible being that could strike at any time and turn me into the head-spinning, bile spitting torture victim from The Exorcist. In Doom, supernatural evil had corporeal bodies, ones that I could puncture with a full arsenal of weaponry found lying around like discarded trash. They had the ability to return the hurt, sure, but that’s what picking up med kits and new suits of armor were for.

It kind of makes me wonder if that isn’t the best way to get young people to stop being so afraid of the “monsters under their beds”. Preachers are often notorious when it comes to drumming up fear to terrify their flock, but they can’t contend with the entertainment value of a good video game. And rather than being a passive observer, the player is an integral part of the story, leading the charge against demon hordes. Have video games helped more kids get over their fear of the supernatural? Maybe not, but would you stop playing them even if they didn’t?

American Family Association Boycotts “Homo Depot”

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If you’re planning on renovating your home and wonder where to buy your lumber, I recommend that you might give Home Depot a try. Why? Well, the company has a very pro-gay attitude, so much so that the American Family Association has pledged to boycott them, “Homo-Depot”.

Never heard of these guys? Here’s a short description from their website:

The AFA is a non-profit organization that advocates traditional family values and the reform of American culture “to reflect Biblical truth on which it was founded.”

That’s a pretty nice way to describe them. I would argue that my description, however, is a little more accurate:

The AFA is a non-profit organization that advocates bigotry and close-mindedness, and the erosion of American values of democracy and equal rights in order to reflect their Bronze Age book of mythology.

What specifically is Home Depot doing that so outrages these douchebags? The AFA objects to the fact that the company insurance plan covers sex change operations and offers extended insurance to same-sex partners, thereby promoting the “lifestyle” of homosexuality, rather than making these human beings feel ashamed of being gay.

You could argue the company is only trying to attract the immense purchasing power of gays (who tend to be well educated and middle class), but so what? In exchange for this pandering they are going above and beyond what other companies are doing, and that’s not something one should ignore. The AFA sure isn’t, and we shouldn’t either.

“Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” founder goes into hiding

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The immortal words of Adlai Stevenson still carry with them the poignant reminder that there is more to life than merely fighting for what you believe; you also have to live by those principles, even when it seems impossibly hard to do so.

You might recall a few months ago, cartoonist Molly Norris gained a great deal of media attention after declaring May 20th 2010 “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day“, her response to Comedy Central censoring an episode featuring the prophet. Although she was enthusiastic about the project at first,  it soon spiraled beyond her control and she suddenly found herself desperately trying to disassociate herself from the “holiday”. By then it was way too late, and the day came to have a life of its own.

Fast-forward to today, where Molly has been forced to go into hiding after she became the target of a fatwa by the Radical American-Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki back in July.

A soul that is so debased, as to enjoy the ridicule of the Messenger of Allah, the mercy to mankind; a soul that is so ungrateful towards its lord that it defames the Prophet of the religion Allah has chosen for his creation does not deserve life, does not deserve to breathe the air.

Since the threat, Molly has changed her name and gone into hiding at the insistence of the FBI. Her life has forever been changed simply because she tried to fight for principles she believed in. The fear, anxiety and isolation she now feels is the direct consequence of those principles conflicting with the dogmatic and violent insistence from fellow humans who take their ridiculous books of mythology way too seriously. Just remember when you’re fighting against irrationality and fear-mongering, living up to the principles of free speech can tax the resolve of even the noblest individual.

NOTE: Here’s an interesting article written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali talking about the need to take a more serious stance against death threats. By doing what she suggests (seriously prosecuting individuals who issue them), do we erode the very idea of freedom of speech, or are we protecting it?

Ray Comfort is hilariously dumb

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A few days ago I wrote an article about a crusty old religious white dude who claimed to know more about the Universe than Stephen Hawking, presumably because a dusty old book of myths told him so. Because Stephen had the “audacity” to postulate the Universe created itself, religious rubes have been tripping over one another trying to voice their objections to one of history’s greatest minds smacking down their God myths. A number of irrational voices are making themselves heard, including my favorite mustachioed clown, Ray Comfort.

“It is embarrassingly unscientific to speak of anything creating itself from nothing…Common sense says that if something possessed the ability to create itself from nothing, then that something wasn’t nothing; it was something – a very intelligent creative power of some sort”

The only person here who should be embarrassed over such a dumb statement should be Comfort himself. This is the same man who argued the banana was proof of God’s designing genius . You may also recall a few months ago, this moron released a highly edited version of the Origin of Species with a 50 page foreword trying to undermine what is arguably one of the most important books in the history of our species. He might as well have tried doing the same with Newton’s Principia, but since gravity doesn’t actually interfere with his narrow belief system (he lives in an age where most Christians have begrudgingly accepted the Earth is not the center of the Universe), he desperately needed to diminish the brilliance of evolution any way he can.

As for his statement “common sense” can tell us something about the world, it only further proves he has no idea what he’s talking about. Our powers of perceptions may be useful to us when trying to navigate this cooling ball of rock we call home, but they are completely inadequate when trying to understand the nature of the Universe. Take quantum mechanics as an example: anyone who aspires to comprehend the world of atoms using common sense is bound to lose their minds. The Universe does not conform to our senses; rather we must conform to it.

Comfort isn’t the only fool trying to tackle the magnitude of Professor Hawking’s genius. Religionists all over the world probably felt a mixture of confusion and frustration over the fact the best minds in the world continue to deny the supremacy of their God. They are convinced only a dogmatic belief like theirs could make such pronunciations, and science has become a new religion. Comfort and his ignorant brethren fail to realize if the evidence was pointing towards a God, science would be fully endorsing the notion of a creator. Unlike religion, which begins with a set of beliefs and tries to find ways to justify them any way possible, science is about direct observation, experimentation, and falsifiability, all things which are antithetical to religion. That the search of the truth about our world and our existence has revealed religion to be the make-believe nonsense it is must be a painful pill to swallow. Of course, there’s no law that states a person has to accept reality, is there?

Don’t mess with Baldy

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Another great video from The Thinking Atheist. I think the artist actually used a picture of the actor who played Elisha in another video about the very same story. I don’t know who the guy’s name is, but he should probably get some royalties or something!

Defiant priests think their freedoms are being curtailed

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Religions have it pretty sweet in America. Not only do they enjoy a special status in society; they also get to benefit from generous tax exemptions. This privileged status comes at a price however; churches are not allowed by law to interfere with the political process. It’s a rule that’s never been strongly enforced in my opinion, with plenty of  instances where religious institutions have openly or secretly participated in the political process (like the Mormon church paying millions of dollars to get Prop 8 passed, or preachers telling their congregation they had to vote for Bush). Still, it hasn’t stopped a bunch of pastors from feeling as though their right to free speech is being unfairly censored.

The pastors, along with the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based nonprofit Alliance Defense Fund, are reacting to a law stating that churches are not allowed to support politicians from the pulpit…”We believe that a pastor has a right to speak whatever he believes without fearing the government will somehow censor what he says or threaten to take away his tax exemption,” ADF spokesman Erik Stanley said.

But are their rights really being infringed? A pastor has every right to express his political opinion in public; it’s merely the rules of the game state that he is expressly forbidden to do so from his pulpit. In other words, a church leader isn’t allowed to use his considerable priestly power to influence the political choice of his “flock”. This is precisely why the separation of church and state exists; religions exert so much control and influence they can interfere with the way a government works. We all recognize the dangers of sectarianism in subverting democracy, and we shouldn’t be too surprised when religious leaders try and usurp power to further their own ends. In this case, these pastors who evidently wish to endorse conservative candidates cannot continue to be allowed special privileges if they refuse to play by the rules.

If they want to preach from their pulpit, they should submit to the same duties all citizens share: the need to pay taxes. I’d have no problem with them pressuring their own already conservative sheep into voting Republican if it meant state coffers were being filled with millions of dollars of tax revenue. Of course because they’ve been enjoying their tax exempt status for so long, it’s doubtful any of them would accept this compromise, so they’ll continue to have their cake and eat it too so long as we’re too chicken-shit to do anything about it.

Texas wants to expunge “pro-Islamic” textbooks from classrooms

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The Texas Board of Education, an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one, continues to display its utter ignorance and xenophobia as it continues to try to edit out of their schoolbooks any elements they see as “pro-Islamic” and “anti-Christian”. If you’re wondering exactly what that means, don’t worry: it just implies anything involving a favorable mention of the accomplishments of Middle Orient cultures will be excluded from the curriculum — all in an effort to ensure their own narrow view of history is preserved. I think all of this is utterly pointless. It incorrectly assumes people in Texas are even bothering to read, which, judging by the low-test scores and general lack of intellectualism, is certainly not the case.

What I find hilarious about this travesty is how telling it is of religion in general, that believers would be so frightened of other cultures and ideologies they would do anything in their power to prevent their own progeny from actually benefiting from an education. If they are so self-assured of the primacy of their beliefs, why are they so frightened of other views? It doesn’t take long to realize the much-extolled confidence of world religions is merely a façade. They are obviously aware of how tenuous their grasp on their own followers are; they need only to look at the long list of defunct religions for inspiration and compare it to the knowledge and understanding we’ve gained in more fruitful intellectual pursuits.

Keep being the backwards, loser state that you are, Texas! I can’t wait to see what you come up with next…

Fear of God is a poor defense

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A gay couple in the North West Territories, the frozen butthole of Canada, was recently awarded $13,000 in a ruling involving a landlord who tried to evict them, simply because they were gay. The landlord contended the legal arrangement he made with the couple was null since he genuinely feared God would smite him. Naturally, he quoted the King James Bible as proof God hates sodomites, but the arbitrator in the case found there was insufficient evidence to suggest God would punish anyone for harboring homosexuals. Personally, I think it’s all a bunch of bigoted bullshit that shouldn’t even be humored with a response. If any ignorant idiot tells you the Bible condemns homosexuality you should kindly point out that, in the same book where it claims it’s an abomination for people of the same sex to lay together, it also says one should stone to death disobedient children. Talk about a guide to higher moral values, eh?

Old white guy thinks atheism is “a joke”

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I’ll never grow tired of old, conservative gas-bags going on about how atheism is either dead, on it’s way out, or, as this crusty old white dude said, “a joke”. Because he’s convinced only an invisible male patriarchal God is the proper explanation as to the existence of the Universe, columnist William Murchison believes the recent remarks of Stephen Hawking, claiming the Universe did not need a supernatural origin, displays a kind of cosmic ignorance. Yes, a Christian dogmatist is calling Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest scientific minds of the last century, a dolt.

Who is likely to grow mute in the face of a bald claim that the universe more or less invented itself? Was Hawking there with his camera? That would be the first question. Soon other questions would follow. The vast variety of life — that was spontaneous, too? The human organism — the brain, the eye, the ear, the digestive tract — just sort of, you know, happened? The sky, the seas, the seasons, not to mention human reproduction–those things just happened too? And the greatest minds of history failed to catch on, century after God-fearing century? That, or they practiced denial? Uhhhh … yeah.

So this idiot’s first question to Hawking would be, “dude, did you have a camera with you?” Yeah, sounds like an insanely brilliant question. Can the same burden of proof be placed in the hands of Christians who claim Jesus resurrected and was born of a virgin? I guess before the invention of the video camera, we couldn’t actually know anything.

As for the rest of his dimwitted statements, is he trying to suggest  scientists are somehow in “denial” about the case for God? Our species wasn’t in denial regarding our understanding of the natural world; we were, unsurprisingly, simply ignorant and lacked the proper tools to unravel the mysteries of the Cosmos. That tool is science itself, and this marvelous methodology has spoken volumes on the evidence of the age of the Universe, the nature and history of life, and the evolution of things like eyes, ears, brains and digestive tracts. Denial is now a recent phenomenon as human beings, who should know better, still cling to the fanciful and infantile claims of religion. What’s your explanation, moron — that some bearded entity made it all appear in 6 days?

Wait, he’s just getting warmed up:

Many of them are technically intelligent, Hawking is routinely labeled “brilliant”, but they swallow with satisfied smiles the intellectual bilge called atheism.

Well, glad at least we measure high on this guy’s scale of “technically intelligent”. Perhaps if he actually bothered to research exactly WHY Hawking is considered brilliant, he might not be so self-satisfied with his own obviously dwindled mental capacities. Now, I know I might be accused of name calling, but it’s only a consequence of this guy’s incessant need to remind his readers we’re a bunch of unpleasant a-holes. He even throws in Robert Ingersol for good measure, suggesting this man was an unpleasant jerk. Take 5 minutes to educate yourself on this guy and you’ll quickly realize he was precisely the opposite of this. Of course we would all seem like a bunch of annoying douche-bags to him; we’re attempting to show the world what utter superstitious nonsense religion really is. Did you expect in the process a bunch of grumpy old white dudes wouldn’t get a little upset?

The one thing that continually grates me is how casually authors like William Murchison and his ilk do their best to besmirch us. They seem to be unaware that if their speeches were slightly altered, and the word “atheist” was replaced with any other minority, there wouldn’t be one single respectable media outlet that would allow them the opportunity to spew such ludicrous vitriol. Imagine for a moment if this same article had said “I imagine there have been, here and there, pleasant JEWS. If so, one rarely runs across them”. Then again, that does sound like something a Christian would have said a few decades ago, doesn’t it?

Christine O’Donnell’s greatest hits

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You know how I occasionally post videos that just make you want to pull your hair out? I wouldn’t be surprised if you were all bald by the end of this one…Watch at your own risk! If you’re unaware of who this woman is, I apologize in advance for making you aware of her.

Religious Freedom is a Paradox

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If there’s one thing you have to credit religion with, it’s their ability to insert themselves into things, often painfully and occasionally in a way that merits jail time, but mysteriously enough results in no real punishment. Religion is so skilled at doing this they manage to convince throngs of people to believe without them, the fabric of their lives would fall apart. Take marriage for instance, how many Christians in North America believe with absolute certainty the legal contract of marriage is bound to their religion? They are convinced that the union of minorities they revile, formerly other skin pigmentation and now sexual orientation, ought to be restricted, if not outright banned.

“From the beginning, the church has taught that marriage is a lifetime relationship between one man and one woman,” the bishop wrote in his diocese’s newspaper The Courier. “It is a sacrament, instituted by Jesus Christ to provide the special graces that are needed to live according to God’s law and to give birth to the next generation”

In Montana, there are serious legislative attempts to make homosexuality a crime, a reminder bigotry can remain veiled for only so long. The fact this is happening on the eve of a new decade in the 21st century should be a rude wakeup call for anyone still slumbering in America. Your country is being systematically dismantled by religious conservatives intent on creating a hybrid of theocracy and democracy. As you can imagine, these two elements are completely incompatible with one another, and it’s precisely this reason that the very founding document of your nation forbade this. The Founding Fathers knew first hand the M.O. of theocrats intent on suppressing the rights of not only those they disagreed with, but also of their own flock.

Marriage isn’t a religious institution. It’s a contract a person enters according to the rules of our society, not those of Rome nor those of the local mullahs. Meanwhile, religions proclaim they can dictate for others, who don’t share their delusions, what their own rights are. How then are we supposed to react to the free exercise of religion when it interferes with the freedom of others? It reminds me of the asinine utterances of Christian fundamentalists who interpret the Constitution as meaning: “you have freedom of religion, not freedom FROM religion”.

How can I pretend to be surprised when religion itself is antithetical to freedom? What has historically been the punishment for the crime of apostasy in Christianity? The Old Testament makes no bones about it: kill anyone who tries to turn you away from Yahweh, your God. Islam may still take the notion of deserters very seriously indeed, but it’s only been recently that the crimes of heresy haven’t been investigated by Christian Inquisitions.

There’s a reason “free-thought” is associated with atheism and agnosticism; it is only by the virtue of being free to contemplate a Universe without a creator we can come to be fully liberated. Perhaps a person who does so will still continue to believe in a God, but the ability to contemplate otherwise, even for a brief moment, is not something our ancestors benefited from. In many parts of the world that have abandoned their murderous campaigns against apostates, it is the fear of persecution, death and alienation that prevents so many others from coming forward and announcing they too have nothing one would characterize as belief. What then, do we make of freedom when these institutions are in positions of power?