Author Archives: Jacob Fortin

Islam is a religion of peace, right?

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You can’t make this kind of news up; a Muslim man who has been organizing protests lambasting fundamentalists and accusing them of ruining the religion of Islam recently received a threat on his life. Majed Moughni, an attorney from Dearborn, Michigan, was the main organizer for a rally protesting the actions of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the failed “Underwear bomber“. As a result, he now appears to be the target of threats from other Muslims who don’t feel as he does.

During the phone call, the caller spoke in Arabic while quoting a verse from the holy Qur’an that suggests Muslims should not be friends with some Jews and Christians, Moughni said. The caller also used the word, kufar, or nonbeliever, during the conversation to describe Moughni, who is Muslim.

Although I’m sure plenty of Muslims are convinced theirs is a religion of peace, it’s quite obvious to the rest of us this is simply not the case. The radical element of the faith is growing, and anyone with a vendetta against “kufar” (Arabic for unbelievers) can find plenty of justification for violence in the Qur’an. This is the basic problem of all religions; they foster hatred and violence against others through their exclusionary nature. Rather than identifying themselves in the broader human family, religionists believe their convictions about the supernatural separates them from others who don’t share the same views. It’s absolute insanity, and only once we abandon these childish and foolish beliefs will we finally mature as a species.

Creationists confound with their stupidity

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It amazes me at just how arrogant creationists are in light of the fact they believe quite literally in a fairy tale explanation as to the origin of species. Here they parody the “Mac vs PC” commercials in an attempt to be both funny and relevant. It’s neither.

Hey morons, if you want to try and “debate” evolution, maybe it’s time you did a little bit of research in the following fields: biology, genetics, geology, physics, cosmology, and paleontology, to name a few. You’ll find there is so much overwhelming evidence in favor of evolution that people in the know are simply confounded by the depths of your ignorance. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get off the computer before I smash my head against the wall…

Stephen Baldwin continues to entertain

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I’ll give him this: Stephen is willing to stand up for his belief in God, even if the life of his child were at risk. His presence on Big Brother is a goldmine of insanity so far, and it’s only getting better. He recently told one of his roommates that if a gun wielding maniac threatened to kill his daughter with a machine gun, he would force her to not renounce Jesus even if it meant saving her life.

I can’t even imagine a situation where this would ever happen, and I certainly hope no one tries to test Stephen on this issue. It just reminds me how fucked up people’s priorities are. I don’t care how much you love the invisible man in the fucking sky; don’t put your faith before your own children. Baldwin naively believes he would see his daughter up in Heaven, but if he could break out of the fog of faith he’s in for a second, he’d realize “magical sky playland” is merely the invention of clever people trying to comfort scared monkeys who contemplate their own death. Life is far more cruel than we can imagine, and there’s no reward after you die. You just need to deal with that shit and make the most of your time here. I choose not to spend it on one bended knee, and it’s fucking fantastic.

Isn’t religion great?

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I seriously hope this was totally scripted, otherwise it’s pretty messed up. I didn’t find it particularly funny; I was more sad and angry no one on this stupid radio show commented on the fact this girl’s parents are a bunch of xenophobic jackasses. I’ve heard from some of my Jewish friends about the way some parents pressure their kids to marry within their religion, often saying crazy shit like “if you don’t marry a Jew you’re finishing Hitler’s work” or other such nonsense. In the age of cultural and ethnic diversity, such a strong reaction could only be possible through the divisive power of religion. Thanks for proving once again why your archaic beliefs are completely incompatible with modern society; you make a better case than I ever could.

World Vision sucks

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Here’s an interesting article calling on President Obama to revise the terms of funding for World Vision, the largest Christian charity in the world, for its failure to abide by the First Amendment (that pesky separation of church and state portion of your Constitution). You see, since they receive approximately 250 million dollars from federal monies, the organization would technically be required to allow non-Christians the opportunity to work for them, especially when they fail to hire qualified persons due to this idiotic religious restriction.

Their first mission is to promote Christianity, and charitable work is only their secondary mandate. I’m not saying they don’t do good work, but a significant portion of their efforts is devoted to teaching people a dead 2000 year old Jew was a God, and the care they provide can often seem like extortion (tell me you love Jesus and I’ll give you fresh water!). If their religion is the only truth, why are they so scared to allow people of other faiths to work with them? Seems pretty cowardly to me.

Imagine for a moment a non-religious organization was only hiring unbelievers, and refused any qualified persons of faith; everyone would fucking lose their minds over that shit. The most frustrating part of this is by limiting their hiring policy, it’s sometimes impossible for them to find qualified individuals to help out, and it’s the people they are trying to help who end up suffering as a result (suffering is a Christian virtue, so I’m sure no one is losing sleep over it). Don’t you just love how religion poisons everything?

Witch doctors make me sick

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If you live in a poor country and have no skills whatsoever, you should consider becoming a witch doctor. Rather than contribute something to society, which takes time and effort, you’ll enjoy the benefits of making shit up and still get paid. It’s like being a priest without a weighty institution holding you down; you get to be your own boss, and you set your own rules (sweet, eh?).

Of course, if you’re predisposed towards empathy or hate the idea of misleading your fellow man for profit, this job might not be for you. It takes some brass cojones to pull some of this shit off; just look at the story of this couple, who were told by a local witch doctor that by sacrificing their 3 month old daughter, they would suddenly become very wealthy. If you’re unfortunate enough to have a conscience, you should probably consider another line of work.

If we can accept the fact we are all simply naked apes with underdeveloped brains, it’s easy to accept how fantastically stupid we are sometimes. Still, although people do some tremendously dumb things pretty damn often, it would probably not be so bad if we stopped listening to fuckfaces who are quite literally experts in nonsense.

Another death due to “Faith Healing”

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Faith Healing is an oxymoron; you might as well combine other contradictory words together for fun, like “tall midget” or “logical religion”. To heal someone, you actually need to do something; anything really other than praying to your invisible friend. If I told you my kid was really sick and my imaginary buddy was her only doctor, you’d toss me in jail and take my child away from me forever. Unfortunately, because a majority of the population actually believes in the existence of this imaginary man, no one stopped Jeff and Marci Beagley when they refused to treat their 16 year old son’s urinary tract infection. He died of this extremely treatable condition.

The Beagleys are members of the “Followers of Christ Church”, and if that name sounds familiar to you, it should. Remember Ava Worthington, the 15 month old baby girl that died choking on a common cyst? Her parents were also members of this wackjob church.

Can these morons not see the writing on the wall? So far their God is 0-2. Considering the Worthingtons got off scot-free, I’m not very hopeful that these neglectful idiots will face any jail time for failing to properly care for their son. For fuck’s sake, it’s not like these kids are dying of mysterious and untreatable diseases; they’re letting their own children die from conditions that could be cured in an afternoon!

Even 2000 years ago people were trying to find cures for diseases. They knew better back than to wait for their gods to heal them. I think around the time of the Black Plague (which killed roughly 1/3 of the population), everyone realized there really isn’t anyone looking out for us, and when it comes to our health, we’re on our own. Remember stupid shit like bloodletting (the same thing that killed your beloved George Washington)? We got it wrong for a while there, but since then we’ve invented a little thing called science, and it’s been pretty fucking sweet. It’s a lot more effective than talking to yourself, and better yet, your kids won’t die if you take advantage of it.

Malaysian Muslims attack Christians for saying “Allah”

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You know what I love about atheism? We don’t confer words with special powers. This gives us an advantage; you won’t see angry atheists taking to the streets because the word “evolution” is being misused (even though we might get tempted when jackasses like Kirk Cameron spew their anti-evolutionary nonsense around), and when’s the last time an atheist firebombed a building to punish the sacrilegious use of a beloved name? Never. The same can’t be said of the religious, and the latest story of insanity comes all the way from Malaysia, where Muslims are going ape-shit after their own courts respected the rights of Christians to use the word “Allah” in reference to their own God.

Now, because Allah is Arabic for God, that should have been the end of any dispute, but because of the tendency of Muslims to lose their minds over every little detail, angry men with very brain matter have begun firebombing churches in retaliation for this new found freedom. I’m no friend of Christianity, but the violent actions over use of the word “God” is completely unreasonable. It just goes to show how utterly incompatible religions are with a free society; the fact Malaysia can barely contain the violence of their own citizens over the use of a sacred word makes you wonder just how far some people will take their own superstitious and ridiculous beliefs.

Can you all go find a fucking cave in the the middle of nowhere to live in and leave the rest of us civilized people alone please?

Stephen Baldwin is an embarrassment to humanity

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I hate reality shows, and I especially hate D-list celebrity ones. That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t occasionally enjoy watching the train wreck of stupidity that often ensues, and this latest gem of ignorance comes from our old friend Stephen Baldwin. Stephen is a born again evangelical, a fact you can’t help but notice 5 seconds after meeting him. He’s as passionate about his religion as he is uneducated, and here we have him attempting to convince his celebrity buddies on Big Brother that evolution is false. Hey jackass, we don’t “descend” from apes; we ARE apes! As for chimpanzees (which are also apes and not monkeys), we shared an ancestor roughly 6 million years ago, which explains why we have some minor differences (we have roughly 96% of the same DNA in common). My little cousin knows this, and he’s just a kid. You might try reading a book that has facts instead of stories, idiot. You embarrass me and the rest of humanity with your stupidity.

Uganda is messed up

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Do you have annoying friends who try to argue there’s no harm in superstitious beliefs? If they have kids, you may want to send them to this article on BBCNews detailing how human sacrifices, particularly of young children, are on the increase. As prosperity increases in Uganda, witch doctors are making a killing (pun intended) from gullible idiots who hope to increase their own fortune with some black magic.

There’s a whole racket of witch doctors, and as more money flows into their coffers, desperate people are kidnapping kids to have them killed in elaborate rituals. One former witch doctor claimed to have sacrificed over 70 people (including his own son), although he now works to persuade others to stop this cruel and barbaric practice. I guess he’s too important to the movement to jail, which only shows how seriously messed up this whole situation is.

We live in a privileged time in history; such primitive and dangerous superstitions cause many of us to feel shame and disgust. Sadly, this cannot be said for everyone. Though not all superstitions are as deadly, our failure to defend the virtues of skepticism and scientific inquiry in Africa (a continent saturated by religiosity) has made this region a terrible and frightening place to live.

Surprise: Christians feel persecuted

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The Christian Anti-Defamation League has just released their “Top 10 Instances of Christian Bashing” for 2009, and as you’ll see, most of them are centered around homosexuality:

10. Pro-life Pastor Reverend Walter Hoye of Oakland, CA was jailed for exercising peaceful, pro-life speech.

9. Rev. Fred Winters was murdered while preaching in his pulpit in Maryville, Illinois.

8. HBO’s program “Curb Your Enthusiasm” aired an episode where the main actor urinates on painting of Jesus. When confronted HBO would not apologize.

7. The overt homosexual participation in Obama’s presidential inaugural events by “Bishop” Vickie Eugene Robinson, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington D. C., and a homosexual marching band.

6. Police called to East Jessamine Middle School in Lexington, Kentucky to stop 8th graders from praying during their lunch break for a student whose mother was tragically killed.

5. Pro-life activist Jim Pullion was murdered in front of his granddaughter’s high school for showing the truth about abortion.

4. An activist judge ordered a home school mom in New Hampshire to stop home schooling her daughter because the little girl “reflected too strongly” her mother’s Christian faith.

3. The Federal Department of Homeland Security issued a report entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate” that labeled conservative Christians extremists and potential terrorists.

2. President Obama’s appointment of radical anti-Christians like homosexual activist Kevin Jennings as the “safe school czar;” pro-abortion advocate Kathleen Seblius made Secretary of Human and Health Services, and Chai Feldblum, pro-homosexual and anti-religious liberty judge nominated for Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

1. The Federal Hate Crimes Bill that attacks religious liberty and freedom of speech. For the first time in our history ministers are vulnerable to investigation and prosecution for telling the truth about homosexuality.

Classically Liberal does a great job of boiling down every single point to show how none of these are the result of any specific anger or hatred against Christianity. Suffice it to say Christians have it pretty damn good, and this list is probably the weakest shit I’ve ever seen. It just confirms my beliefs that Christians are a bunch of fucking crybabies who can’t stand the idea of not being “in charge” anymore. Grow a pair, guys.

(Update: The organization does not seem to have maintained their site)

Sam Harris spanks Karen Armstrong

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Religious apologists have a powerful ally in Karen Armstrong. If you recall some of the articles I’ve written about her, Karen is the founder of Charter for Compassion, a rather naïve attempt to create a dialog between people of various faiths.

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves.

Karen is a smart woman, but this statement is both false and misleading; compassion may occasionally be part of a religious institution, but it certainly is not its heart. If it was, the Crusades, the Inquisitions, and the modern Jihadist movement would never have been possible. How can a religion be based on compassion when it’s so violently opposed to any foreign system of belief?

Karen has often accused the “new atheist” of not knowing enough about religion, a statement I find both insulting and ludicrous (I would wager Christopher Hitchens knows more about Christianity than most Bishops). Sam Harris agrees with me, and he’s written a short article deriding Karen’s foolish opinion that all atheists need is to do is study a little bit more religion to see how compassionate it is. Here’s an excerpt:

And how could we have been so foolish as to connect the apparently inexhaustible supply of martyrs in the Muslim world to the Islamic doctrine of martyrdom? In my own defense, let me say that I do get spooked whenever Western Muslims advocate the murder of apostates (as 36 percent of Muslim young adults do in Britain). But I now know that these freedom-loving people just “want to see God reflected more clearly in public life.”

Brit Hume is a dick

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I guess to some Christians, believing in God is a bit like bargaining for a used car; you want to make sure you’re getting a good deal. Brit Hume, a FOX News regular, seems to think Buddhism offers too little in the way of redemption, and that Tiger Woods needs to convert to Christianity to feel better. It’s this kind of “wheeling and dealing” that I can’t fucking stand about this religion; it’s also why it’s a very popular choice for mobsters, criminals, and other moral deviants who are attracted to the “redemption no matter what terrible shit you’ve done” aspect of the faith. Jesus is the perfect “get out of jail free” card to people who most definitely don’t deserve it.

What Tiger needs to do is lay low and wait until some other celebrity makes an ass out of themselves.

Irish Atheists go on the offensive

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Remember Ireland’s blasphemy law “reform”? A few months ago I reported that the Irish government had proposed changing their existing Defamation Bill (which made blasphemy a crime punishable by jail time) into something a little more profitable. Irish atheists have decided to challenge this new law, which states that any blasphemy can be punished with a fine of up to €25,000. They published a number of quotes from notable artists Bjork, Salman Rushdie and Mark Twain. They hope by baiting the government, they can force them to repeal this insane law.

A person breaks the law by saying or publishing anything “grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion.”

It’s a pretty badass move on their part, and I sincerely hope the government takes the bait. There’s no better way to expose this cowardly law for the free speech killer it is. If religions are so convinced they have the unalterable truth, why the fuck are they so scared of dissent? If they really do have the truth, wouldn’t they benefit from us challenging them if we’re so wrong?

Get ready for the Rapture!

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I take it for granted that every annoying Christian Evangelical believes the Rapture will somehow happen within their lifetime. It’s so pervasive I usually ignore anyone who claims this event is real and inevitable, but for once someone has come up with a date for it, and it’s too funny not to post.

Harold Camping is a civil engineer and amateur Biblical scholar who claims to have found a mathematical formula to allow him to work out “hidden” prophecies within the Bible, and he claims the world will end on May 21st, 2011. Better cancel your summer vacation plans people, since you’ll all be burning in Hell!

Back in September of 1994, this delusional idiot predicted Jesus would return on the 6th, and he had plenty of gullible fools who believed him. They all patiently waited, and when nothing happened, Camping went back to the drawing board.

You would think his “followers” would have learned their lesson the first time, but because they lack any critical thinking skills, many actually have more faith in his predictions than before:

Rick LaCasse, who attended the September 1994 service in Alameda, said that 15 years later, his faith in Camping has only strengthened. “Evidently, he was wrong,” LaCasse allowed, “but this time it is going to happen. There was some doubt last time, but we didn’t have any proofs. This time we do.”

I’m not sure this idiot understands what proof really means. Has Camping not proven how full of shit he is? What else do you need to stop believing in bullshit, moron?