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!
Author Archives: Jacob Fortin
Defiant priests think their freedoms are being curtailed
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
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
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”
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
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
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?
Dude, you have no Koran
This fucking song is stuck in my head, and now it’s stuck in yours, sucka!
Vatican wants Christians to “Get it on”
A senior official at the Vatican is urging Christians to have more children, in light of the fact Muslims have, on average, more kids than their Catholic counterparts. They are visibly nervous over the prospect of the religion overtaking Christians in terms of sheer numbers, and they believe more warm bodies are needed to counter this.
I actually have a simpler idea that will help everyone. It’s a well known fact if you want to stop people from breeding, you need to educate them; in other words, to get people to stop fucking, put a damn book in their hands. It’s not rocket science, people.
If the church is serious about this, I think they should offer some financial incentives to their flock. Give them a bunch of money for having kids, or offer some sweet prizes, like the finger of Francis of Assisi for anyone that has 20 kids or more! If you want people to face more poverty and strife just so your numbers look more impressive, you’re going to have to be creative!
So close, yet so far away…
Can you imagine being so right and still reaching the wrong conclusion? He’s absolutely correct in pointing out the fact Heaven and Hell (and religion) is merely a social construct made to control people. So if he gets it, why the hell does he still choose to believe in God? Why can he not see the concept itself as the construct, and not merely the institutions built around this idea? If he also felt churches keep people in a child-like state, why was he part of this tradition if it keeps mankind from growing up? And why am I so fucking mad right now?!
UNCG Atheists debate “Does the Christian God exist”
The guys over at the University of North Carolina Greensboro just finished having a debate on whether the “Christian God exists”, and it’s available online if you want to watch this. Needless to say their opponents get a nice trouncing. You can check out the rest of the debate here.
Irony, thy name is religion
So let me get this straight: this movie is claiming secular institutions are “indoctrinating” young people through the process of NOT forcing them to participate in mandatory religious service…Yeah, sounds like the proper definition there. Also according to some of these nutjobs, the “Fear of God” is what leads ultimately to wisdom. In other words, if you fear burning in Hell for eternity, you’re supposedly going to be a better person for constantly worrying about the threat of eternal damnation. Oh religion, will you ever stop being so fucking wacky?
Dr. Shook Has his facts wrong
The slander doesn’t seem to want to go away. If we aren’t being accused of dogmatically disbelieving, then we’re being mean or belligerent, and every other imaginable insult, all because we don’t share the notion a magical sky-man made the world. Now it looks as though organizations that were traditionally on our side have started taking potshots at us. Check out this article written by Dr. John Shook, who is the Director of Education and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Inquiry. He claims many atheists are ignorant of religions and should do more study before berating them (this, by the way, is his strategy for selling his new book).
I’ll ignore for a moment the fact I see no reason why anyone should be an expert in nonsense in order to disbelieve (the burden of proof is on believers, not atheists). It seems that Dr. Shook is unaware atheists on average seem to know just as much, if not more about religion than believers do. How about this little survey from the New York Times? Atheists scored the highest of all the demographics. Is that not at least a partial clue perhaps we aren’t all as ignorant as Shook thinks?
The “know-nothing” wing of the so-called New Atheism really lives up to that label. Nonbelievers reveling in their ignorance are an embarrassing betrayal of the free-thought legacy.
A large portion of atheists I’ve met over the years had formerly been believers, and committed ones at that. They poured over the Bible hoping to find something compelling that could solidify their shaky belief, to no avail. The accusation we’re ignorant of fantasy is a slap to the face of every earnest atheist who came to their disbelief through study, careful thought, and intellectual integrity. Sure, there are plenty of loud, ignorant people who refuse to acknowledge the intellectual traditions of religion, but so what? If there was a “Higher Criticism” of the Santa Claus myth, would you need to be an expert theologian to argue the story is mere fantasy?
David Eagleman is confused
I have to imagine the confusion is caused by the mistaken idea religion has anything to contribute to the conversation about our existence and our place in the Universe. They’ve been making the claim for so long it’s considered “normal” to believe in God. They have it easy: they can make an infinite amount of baseless claims, and we’re seen as the bad guys for calling them on their bullshit. So when a group of individuals reject these claims as being entirely without merit, we’re the ones painted as dogmatic and close minded. “Science hasn’t yet found all the answers, and my God lives in the margins!”
How many pointless articles are going to be written about how “New Atheism” is dogmatic? I feel like the same old tired arguments are always being carelessly tossed around. “How can atheists claim with certainty there is no God? It’s more intellectually congruous to be an agnostic!”. Have any of these people actually bothered to think about what they’re saying before they say it?
It’s not just dumb religious people chiming in their two cents, accusing us non-believers of being dogmatic. Smart people can also be profoundly confused as to the nature of disbelief. Take this article written by David Eagleman. He seems to think we’re being intellectually disingenuous, and he feels being a “possibilian” (possibly the dumbest new word I’ve heard all year) is the better position. But I have to wonder what’s to be done with the millions of people who simply don’t find the argument for God compelling? Are they dogmatic for having never been convinced something supernatural created the natural world? Should we all sit them down and berate them for being dogmatic?
So it seems we know too little to commit to strict atheism, and too much to commit to any religion. Given this, I am often surprised by the number of people who seem to possess total certainty about their position.
How many times do we have to clarify our position the absence of evidence for God is our only real conviction? If there was suddenly compelling evidence to suggest “He” was real (I still giggle at religionists giving their God a sex), do you think the majority of atheists would continue to be disbelievers? It demonstrates only a profound ignorance of the concept of atheism. We are all, to some degree, agnostics, and open to evidence about the supernatural. We’re just fucking sick and tired of people telling us atheists are the ones in the wrong. Last time I checked, the most “compelling” evidence for God was we hadn’t found him yet. Wow, I’m totally convinced now! I’ll have to sell all my atheist related books and get on this whole “possibilian” bandwagon! Yeah, I’ll get right on that…
Being Black and Gay sucks
If you’re black and gay, you have my pity. I can’t imagine a minority group so vehemently opposed to homosexuality. They often make the sermons of white Alabama preachers seem almost tame by comparison. It’s no secret as a group, African Americans are more religiously conservative than the average American. Since many believe in the literal word of God, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for tolerance and understanding when it comes to homosexuality.
I read an interesting article on CNN discussing the issues of religious gay men who happen to have a darker skin pigmentation, and it made me sad for all those men and women who continue to live in the closet, convinced they have somehow been cursed and God can cure them of their same-sex attraction. But they can no more change this than they can their own skin color, or their height. The resulting theological conflict causes anxiety, fear, self-hatred and self-loathing, as well as completely retarding their sexual and emotional development. While they should be out enjoying themselves and finding loving same-sex partners to share their lives with, they often isolate themselves from others, terrified people in their community might find out about their secret.
It’s no secret a significant portion of African Americans voted yes on Prop 8 in California, and while they only make 10% of the population, it was enough to pass the law by a narrow margin (70% of them ended up voting for the amendment). On the eve of the historic vote that would see the first black president, the rights that gays and lesbians had fought so hard to gain were taken away. California became the first state to alter its constitution specifically to take away rights that had previously been granted. What I find tragic is the open bigotry of black preachers is no different than the open bigotry that had previously been preached from white pulpits some 50 years ago, warning of the dangers of interracial marriages. These “value voters” created special laws which prevented these unions. In their own way, they too were trying to preserve the “sanctity of marriage”. It’s only a historical accident this has fallen out of vogue with most people, due in no small part to the tireless effort of individuals who believe in the value of equal rights rather than skin pigmentation.
All of this nonsense and heartache can be avoided by simply declaring the principles espoused by a Bronze Age manuscript are dangerously out of date with modern society. Why any black man should be ashamed or angry over something as trivial as his sexuality is ludicrous. Only something as stupid as religion could cause such pointless misery.
NOTE: Here’s a confused article saying that Gay is not the “new black”. The author argues gays really haven’t had it as bad as black people, being only oppressed for a paltry 40 years. Even if this were true (which it isn’t), does it make their struggle for equal rights not as “worthy”?