Author Archives: Jacob Fortin

North Carolina city councilman has atheist controversy

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Last podcast I talked about Cecil Bothwell, a North Carolina city councilman who is center of the latest effort by religious jackasses to impose their beliefs on others. Bothwell is an atheist, and his political opponents have seized on this to try and get him fired. You see, the NC constitution says no one shall hold office if “they deny the being of Almighty God”.

The whole thing should be a non story. There’s a Supremacy Clause in US Constitution that basically says that if there’s a conflict between a state constitution, it automatically wins. Since the US Constitution strictly forbids the kind of clause present in the North Carolina Constitution barring non-religious people from holding office, it’s basically unenforceable.

The only reason this clause is still in there is because no one wants to bother actually reforming it. Every state has a bunch of laws it can’t possible enforce, all mainstays from a time when things were a little different (who wants to arrest people in NC for spitting on the ground?). Lawmakers feel that their time can be better spent focusing on making new laws rather than bothering to get rid of old ones. I tend to agree with them.

Fox News, being the infinitely wise and bipartisan media outlet that it is, put up a poll asking people if he should stay or resign. I find it actually kind of insulting that they would even bother with this bullshit, but hey, it’s Fox; they have a knack for pissing me off. If you have some time, feel free to crash the fuck out of this bullshit poll. As for Bothwell, he doesn’t seem nervous at all, and I even think he might invite his opponents to try their luck. It could force North Carolina to make an amendment to their obviously flawed constitution, and bring to light the fact atheists are still a reviled minority.

Sam Harris lambasts liberals for excusing fundamentalists

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You’ve got to love Sam Harris. He’s not afraid to speak his mind. On his radar screen these days are the liberal apologists who try and excuse Islamic fundamentalism on economic and social disparity. Is it so hard to believe a religion can entice its followers to hate others for very little cause? I love how he mentions the religious nutbags in America are better suited to understand the danger of Fundamentalist Islam; takes one to know one, I guess.

Chuck Norris is insane

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Before he can become “President of Texas”, Chuck Norris is on an anti-abortion campaign. He regularly blogs for the ultra conservative World Net Daily, and reading his posts is an exercise in both patience and a form of torture in some countries.

In his latest opus, Chucky takes on health care reform, lambasting Democrats for trying to provide abortion services to women in need. He’s not cool with that idea, since he argues if the Virgin Mary had access to such a system, baby Jesus would have never been born:

Lastly, as we sit on the eve of another Christmas, I wonder: What would have happened if Mother Mary were covered by Obamacare? What if that young, poor uninsured teenaged[sic] woman were provided the federal funds (via Obamacare) and facilities (via Planned Parenthood, etc.) to avoid the ridicule, ostracizing, persecution and possible stoning because of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy?

Actually, I rather like this question: here Chuck is introducing us to a moral dilemma that he seems blindly unaware of: what should a woman do if her life is threatened by a pregnancy (this being the fucking Bronze Age, the penalty was indeed stoning for being pregnant out of wedlock. Wow, what a moral bunch)? In Chuck’s world, you have the baby, no matter how dangerous such a propositions is for the both of you. Don’t like it? Too fucking bad.

Norris isn’t a particularly educated man, so I have to believe he has no idea the human body regularly aborts pregnancies if complications arise. It’s why until month three of your pregnancy, it’s best to be cautiously optimistic about the whole thing. But hey, if you’re not convinced all abortions are bad, that’s because you haven’t heard the best part of his wishy-washy philosophy of the consequences of legalized abortion:

Imagine all the great souls who could have been erased from history and the influence of mankind, if only they too would have been as progressive as Washington’s wise men and women!

If you can use that stupid reasoning, couldn’t this world also have been spared a few headaches if Stalin or Hitler had been operated on? Just sayin’.

Scientology is creepy

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So apparently Scientology is trying to secretly raise money to begin their “Crusade” (their choice of words, not mine) to build a ton of their creepy “Orgs” around the country. They made a video, and it was recently leaked (man, do I love the Internet), so now you get to have a first hand look into their weird and distorted picture of the world. These delusional idiots really believe that the world needs to be “clear” and alien engrams are causing them all kinds of problems. One woman in the video admitted to waking up one day and hating her husband. I guess the thought her hatred wasn’t the result of alien soul interference might have made her feel like a pretty shitty person, no?

I love in the first few minutes how they start ranting about how messed up the world is today: Oh no, there’s tons of scary things out there in the world, and it’s so FUBAR that only a religion started by a terrible science fiction writer can possibly save us! These Scientologist scumbags have the audacity to claim no one except for them have any decency and morality. These are the same individuals that actually charge you money to “cure” you of your self doubt. So here we have a cult of greed pretending they are a charity. Incredible.

Best line of this whole mess of a video: “Without us actually doing something and changing the course of [the]future, with us like…ARRGG…getting in there, it’s a no go, and I don’t want to live like that for the rest of my eternity”. The runner up: “Every eternity to come starts with a single step”

I think after watching this video, you can come to two very simple conclusions: #1, Scientologists are obsessed about the thought of living forever, and #2, they are incredibly creepy regarding this singular obsession.

I knew it: Pokemon IS evil!

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If there’s any doubt as to the Satanic nature of Pokemon, I’d sure like to hear it. I’m just glad I was too old to fall into that “collect them all” insanity every kid was going nuts about. Of course, I don’t think I ever hated it as much as this fucking guy. You’d think the cartoon was forged in the fires of Hades with the vitriol he reserves for it!

Dairy farmer easily impressed by “Holy Cow”

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If you aren’t feeling particularly embarrassed at the state of human gullibility and stupidity today, that’s because you haven’t heard about this “story” in the news: Moses the calf (as he’s been dubbed by the local kids) was born with a birthmark on his head that vaguely looks like a cross. His owner, being a gullible idiot, thinks that it must be a sign from his all powerful God, who appears to want to communicate very mysteriously and indirectly. If it was my cow, I would have simply called him “Mr. T” and that would have been the end of it.

So now I have to wonder if they are ever going to slaughter this thing for meat eventually. Will Moses die for our sins and our hunger? I’m thinking when he becomes burger meat, it’ll be sacralicious.

Interview with a suicide bomber

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Can you believe how insane this guy is? Such is life when you live your life by some insane and murderous dogma. This fucker doesn’t even care if his family is killed as a direct result of his actions. This is precisely why I find the concept of the “afterlife” so corrosive; assholes like this suicide bomber make decisions based on the stupid assumption there is life after death.

I also love how the interviewer argues that jihad is only OK if you have permission from the Islamic State. What the fuck is that about? Way to look civilized, moron.

Hasidic Jews are annoying

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You would think biking is so common these days no one would even think twice about it. But it turns out New York Hasidic Jews had the city sandblast cycling lanes in their Brooklyn neighborhood because they considered it a “religious hazard”. The problem, you see, is female cyclists are usually scantily clad in the summer, and Hasidic men are too sexually frustrated to deal with that shit. The city caved to their ludicrous demands, but a group of vigilantes have actually repainted the bike lanes in (can you still call yourself that when police see you do it and do nothing?.

Apparently it’s OK to be a segregationist when you’re religious, and like anyone trying to live by some insane orthodoxy, they often demand the rest of the world accommodate their ridiculous beliefs. I remember the Hasidic community in my city tried to force the YWCA to paint their windows in, claiming it was hard for their male members to avoid staring through them. I had a simple answer to this problem; how about not letting a bunch of delusional wackjobs tell everyone else how to live? Just a crazy idea, I know, but I think it might be a good one.

Science is cool!

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Evolution is so fucking cool. Check out this article and marvel at the power of natural selection in all its glory. For those of you interested in only the short version, it basically talks about how wide spread use of bird feeders in Britain has created evolutionary changes in the blackcap bird. These include more rounded wings and a smaller beak. What surprised scientists was how quickly the changes started to occur. Before the advent of bird feeders to provide them valuable calories in the winter, these blackcaps would have died out, but now they no longer travel to Spain to breed. Over time these new birds are adapting to take advantage of no longer having to migrate south. Is that awesome, or what?

It geeks me out to this day we can actually see evolution at work, but it also boggles my mind how some people still choose to deny reality in favor of the non-explanation that “God did it”. Why don’t you read a few books other than the Bible and marvel at the power of the natural world for a change. Trust me, it’s a lot cooler.

Absolve yourself through prostitution

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I love whenever a new church appears that includes sex as one of their primary rituals. There was the awesome Madonna of Orgasm church, which rightly put the female climax in its place as sacred and holy (what can I say, everyone has that thing they “covet”), and now there’s a new one that goes even further, by helping men absolve themselves of sin by having sex with a high priestesses, and giving them money.

Now you might be confusing this ancient practice with prostitution, as is everyone else. Judge W. Matthew Byrne has allowed Wilbur Tracy and his wife, Mary Ellen Tracy a chance to demonstrate that the Church of the Most High Goddess really does worship Isis “legitimately”.

It seems a little unfair that they have to prove they legitimately qualify as a religion; after all, if the Catholic Church had simply popped into existence yesterday, it’s doubtful anyone would take their insane claims very seriously (turning wine into blood, what’s that about?). It seems religions have an instant advantage if they can prove ancient gullible idiots believed in it too. At least with this church, you know the high priestesses had to think about whether or not they wanted the job, since you can’t even qualify unless you’ve slept with over 1,000 men.

Ok, so the truth is you could argue this couple is trying to use religion to basically sell sex, but how is that different from any other “spiritual” institution? All churches crave power and money, and yet no one is suspicious about their motivation. This hideous couple is just trying to make a living doing the only thing they seem capable of doing: fucking. I really don’t see anything wrong with that, and as long as Isis also encourages her followers to wear a goddamn rubber, they can go around trying to “absolve” as many dudes as they want as far as I’m concerned.

Mother starves kids waiting for God to provide

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Man, am I glad neither of my parents were religious. We were quite poor when I was young, and it wasn’t always easy to make ends meet; luckily, unlike this woman, my parents worked hard to provide for me rather than wait around for some invisible friend in the sky to fix their problems.

Estelle Walker is facing a total of 40 years in prison for child endangerment. It seems Walker had been staying at a cabin owned by a local church and refused to leave, find work, or do anything other than just pray for God to fix everything. At one point, her kids went 11 days without eating. When they were rescued, they apparently looked gaunt, malnourished and weak. Should she win Mother of the year, or of the century?

She’s even refusing to participate in her own defense. The prosecution offered her a pretty sweet deal: if she agreed to get psychiatric help, she would serve no additional time in jail. She refused, saying “God is my defense”. If this is the same God who failed to provide her with a job or food, I wouldn’t exactly hold my breath for him to swoop down during the court proceedings to whisk her away to magic land.

I detest how obviously mentally deranged people can so easily refuse psychiatric help when they mask their illness behind the protective veil of religion. This woman is quite obviously a loon, but because of her conviction even a judge found her competent enough to stand trail. This woman should be in an institute, not prison. When are people going to realize a belief like that is a sign of mental illness, not religious piety?

(Update: Estelle was eventually convicted and sentenced to an anemic 8 years)

Stop staring at the sun, morons

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In 1879, a housekeeper named Mary McLoughlin was walking past her church in Knock, Ireland when she suddenly saw an apparition. The images, like any bullshit visual trick our eyes play with us, took on a shape she was familiar with: the Virgin Mary (and would have probably looked like Vishnu had she been a Hindu, but I digress). A number of other people saw it, and because human beings blindly believe the testimony of eyewitnesses over more rational interpretations,  the Catholic Church decided that it was indeed a miracle, and since then the site has been a regular pilgrimage for believers hoping in some kind of desperate miracle.

Recently, a crazy fucker named Joe Coleman has claimed since having a near death experience in 1986, he’s been in regular contact with the Virgin Mary, and he’s told pilgrims coming to the site they would be able to catch a glance of her by staring directly at the sun. To be fair, the Bishop of Killaloe and the Archbishop of Tuam have both tried to warn Catholics not to attend the event, but it wasn’t enough to stop a bunch of people from getting serious eye injury.

The problem with even these religious leaders telling people not to stare at the sun is they seem to have as much authority as anyone else who claims to have divine visions. How can you mandate and control the imaginary (I suppose this is what religious institutions wrestle with all the time)? This is coupled with the problem the so called visions people are having are actually being caused by solar retinopathy, which is to say the slow damage to their retina is mistaken as a vision of the divine.

So far many people have been hospitalized, and it’s only bound to get worse, since Coleman is claiming there are more apparitions to come. While he should be put in a lunatic asylum, he’s instead free to tell other gullible idiots to stare directly at the sun for extended periods of time. Meanwhile, his more reasonable but equally deluded counterparts can’t even convince their own flock to stop listening to the rantings and ravings of a loony. Don’t you just love religion?

Eugenie Scott fights the good fight

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If you want to know what kind of fight you have to put up against creationists, let veteran of the game Eugenie Scott tell you all about it. It’s rather scary when you think about it, really. It already seems incredibly difficult and painful just pushing back against the irrationality of these very vocal and stupid people. It also doesn’t help when clowns like Kirk Cameron keep showing up telling everyone they are wrong.

Creationists are confused about science

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Here’s a little comic from the creationist hub that is Answers in Genesis, and as you can see, the cartoonist seems deeply confused as to what believing in science actually means. He seems to think so long as you use technology in your every day life, you must somehow be a strong believer in the principles of science. By that logic, even a caveman using a lighter is “pro science”.

For most modern creationists, science is a relationship of convenience; they like things like antibiotics, automobiles, lasers, and computers, even though they reject any scientific findings which contradict their pre-supposed conclusions. As soon as they hear something they don’t like, or that puts their paper thin arguments to the test, they instantly reject/ignore  it. This is precisely WHY they are accused of not believing in science, they pick and choose what they like, and attack any findings that question their stupid beliefs about the origins of the Universe.

This comic highlights the serious difficulty secularists face when trying to argue the merits of science with creationists: they have absolutely no idea the science needed to create things such as antibiotics or microwaves instantly disproves their childish idea God created the Earth and all the animals some 6000 years ago.

Meanwhile, these people enjoy the luxuries of our ever increasing scientific understanding of the natural world while simultaneously undermining it with the annoying insistence that only the supernatural can explain the complexity of life. It’s not necessary to “believe” in science to benefit from it; after all, the vaccines I got as a child to protect me from measles and other deadly viruses worked, despite my ignorance.

So don’t pat yourselves on the back for benefiting from the advances in science, dear creationists, and don’t start thinking simply because you live in the information age, you’re automatically well informed. You aren’t, and it shows.

Lesson 9 is driving California bigots crazy

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I’m going to make no bones about this; if you find homosexuality repulsive, wrong, unnatural, weird, disgusting, freakish or sinful, you are a bigot. Now, the good news is all of us are a little bigoted in a bunch of usually unconscious ways, so you’re not alone. In all honesty, before my buddy Jeff came out of the closet, I have to admit to having been a bit of a bigot myself. As is often the case with us stubborn apes, it takes someone you care about to experience something in order for you to empathize with their struggle. I felt that after his coming out, it was time to do a little self auditing. Once I got over how awkward it was to admit some of my homophobic attitudes, the rest was actually kind of easy.

So imagine how impossible it must be for this fucking guy to realize just what a piece of shit human being he really is: Terry L. Brown is the proud owner of a website called “Whispers of the Spirit” (you’re kind of revealing your cards here, sport), and he’s written a deliciously bigoted article*  that I think is worth a look, if not to ponder the merit of our ancestors bothering to breed at all.

The whole thing revolves around Lesson 9, an initiative by the State of California to include a 45 minute lesson once a year designed to stop anti-gay bullying. More specifically, some narrow minded parents were fighting for their right to pull their kids out of health education classes (it’s actually pretty fucked up that they can already do that), but now a judge ruled that this lesson isn’t a health class. Now parents can’t say no, and they are freaking the fuck out. Meanwhile, guys like Terry are making sure everyone believes this whole catastrophe is government indoctrination.

It’s funny the use of that word, indoctrination, don’t you think? I mean, it’s fine when they do it to impressionable kids (usually scaring the shit out of them in the process), but the minute you try and teach something as basic as biology or civil rights they get all uppity, and basically accuse you of the worst offense imaginable: being just like them.

Terry and his ilk NEED homosexuality to be a lifestyle choice; the logic of their belief system is mired in Bronze Age views of sexual appropriateness (with their vaunted appreciation for monogamy being added as a new component), and there is no room for modern ethics. People like Terry frame their arguments indirectly, arguing for something rather than against it. So, he fights FOR his perceived liberties rather than AGAINST the liberties of others. Makes it pretty easy for some to justify their own intolerant behavior by believing in some grander goal, even if they are chasing windmills.

I’m sick of the way guys like Terry mask their obvious bigotry under the guise of individual freedom. Lesson 9 is like any other government program you’ve ever experienced as a child; long, tedious, and of zero consequence. The only thing of note is how paranoid parents are that their children won’t share the same prejudice they do. Truth is, like most children, they will reject the values you have that no longer fit with accepted norms (homosexuality is now one of these norms we understand very well now). Welcome to the future, morons.

* (the article has since been take down)