Author Archives: Jacob Fortin

Study finds women are more religious than men

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A couple months ago, I recorded a podcast explaining that women were far more superstitious than men. I cited Michael Shermer, author of the book The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule, and his study that found while men try to rationalize their beliefs, women use emotions to justify theirs. This, in turn, makes women far more susceptible to the lure of religion.

I got a few emails from fans criticizing these statements, accusing me of generalizing. Well, for those of you who doubted me the first time, check out this latest study that supports everything I had previously said.

If you’ll recall the show, I also admitted women were less likely to attack, kill, or steal from you, but no one accused me then of “generalizing”. Here’s the thing I want everyone to understand; when you’re talking about people in a broad sense (like whether or not men are more violent than women), you HAVE to generalize. If you tried to incorporate every single exception in your model, you’ve learned absolutely nothing about the subject matter you are studying. It’s also stupid to assume such studies are sexist; women are more religious than men on average. Get over it.

Obviously it doesn’t mean that if you’re a woman, you automatically believe in God. This is why I find atheist women so damn attractive; statistically they should be more likely to believe, but their own critical faculties, intelligence and independent mindedness has allowed them to break free of the bubble of religious delusion. How wonderful that these women have chosen to cast off the often repressive and submissive role religion had in store for them. It’s hot I tells you!

In your face

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This is why you have to LOVE Hitchens. Putting to rest the tired old argument that Nazism was a “secular” movement. What a load of bullshit. Everything Hitler and Mussolini did was with the fucking blessing of the Church. The Religious Right wants all of us to forget that messy affair, but luckily guys like Christopher Hitchens are around to kindly repudiate their lies.

Cthulhu and the Constitution

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After seeing the travesty that was the original, it’s nice to know people with Photoshop skills can still make fun of wacky Christians. I personally find it puts everything in perspective; why isn’t it as likely that the constitution was “inspired” by Cthulhu rather than Jesus? If you think it’s because the Founding Fathers were Christians, you need to read a fucking history book that wasn’t written by a Baptist Minister, son!

Tony Blair is a scumbag

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There are lots of reasons to dislike Tony Blair. The fact he supported and participated in the War in Iraq already qualifies him as downright dastardly, and his growing religiosity is becoming a matter of serious concern. He’s made no bones about trying to be President of the European Council, and considering Europe is largely secular, his recent statements should alarm any atheist or agnostic living there:

We face the challenge of relevance – showing how faith can be a force for the future, for progress, that it will not fade as science, technology and material prosperity alters the way we live. We face an aggressive secular attack from without. We face the threat of extremism from within.

Those who scorn God and those who do violence in God’s name, both represent views of religion. But both offer no hope for faith in the twenty first century.

What the fuck is this asshole talking about? Is he equating sectarian violence with peaceful secular protest? Does he really believe atheism is the root of evil? This is the same man who followed religious nutbag George W. Bush into Babylon, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis; and for what? Oil? Yeah, the secular left who opposed this tragedy of a war must be the bad guys. Can’t you just see us strapping ourselves to explosives and murdering innocent civilians all in the name of no God? I wonder what that would look like…

Jesus and the Constitution

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I feel like this painting is like one of those hilarious “spot the fallacy” kind of games, so I thought it might be fun to try and point out as many hilarious flaws present in this shitty painting. Feel free to add to the list in the comments:

#1. Jesus did not invent the Constitution. It’s no small irony that most of the Founding Fathers were deists.
#2. Supreme Court Judges are apparently crybabies.
#3. The painter has a huge boner for soldiers. There are over 8 different types of military personnel.
#4. Ronald Regan gets more face time than the majority of the founding fathers.
#5. They included Thomas Paine in there, despite the fact that he wrote a book destroying Christianity.
#6. No visible signs of slavery or racism here. All the black people look pretty happy about the fact that these same dutiful Christians enslaved them for a few hundred years, all inspired by the Bible!
#7. Satan is hanging out with the University Professor, “Mr. Hollywood”, the Liberal Media, and Lawyers (ok, that one is more fair). Also, Alexander Hamilton appears to be the only founding father to spot Satan, and he looks pretty calm about the whole thing.
#8. The only visible immigrant (Chinese perhaps) is cowering before the shiny head of Jesus
#9. Even a little kid can see that Jesus’ name does not appear in the Constitution, nor is his signature there.

A culture of child brides

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Child brides are a reality in the Middle East. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when this tradition started gaining wide acceptance, but one thing is for sure: Most Islamic countries (especially poorer ones) regard this practice as normal, even beneficial. Why wouldn’t they? Their own prophet, Mohammad, consummated his marriage with his favorite bride, Aisha, when she was only 9 years old (there’s considerable whitewashing when it comes to the issue of her age. In fact, even Wikipedia avoids mentioning it, an obvious pandering to Islamic apologetics). The story is either generally not discussed in the Islamic community, or if it is, it’s used as justification for this disgusting tradition.

CNN has the touching and painful story of little Nujood Ali, a 10 year old Yemeni girl who recently had to fight to divorce her much older abusive “husband”. She’s become somewhat of a celebrity, and her parents (the same people who basically sold her away to a pervert) are angry that her fame has not resulted in any money for them.

The most disturbing element in this story is under Sharia law, the husband had to be compensated financially for the divorce. So rather than go to jail for beating and raping this child, the courts have ordered Nujood to pay her husband more than 200 dollars. That’s a massive sum in a country where a significant portion of the population live off less than $1 a day.

Finally, (some) justice for little Kara Neuman

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Remember the tragic story of Kara Neumann? She was the 11 year old girl who died of complications due to diabetes while her Christian Science parents prayed for her. What was a highly treatable condition thanks to today’s modern medicine turned into second degree reckless homicide.

If you were hoping the judge was going to throw the book at them, get ready to be severely disappointed. All they got was 10 years probation, and they have to spend one month in jail every year for 6 years. It’s like going to camp for the summer, except rather than cooking marshmallows by the roaring fire, you’re trying to avoid getting corn-holed in the shower.

I’m glad the case is finally over and the parents are going to be punished, but in the end a little girl still died because of her parents’ ignorant beliefs. It’s frustrating this kind of thing keeps happening all the time, but until we stop believing in primitive superstitions, these types of tragedies will continue to be fairly common.

Bible Redux

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So apparently the Bible is way too liberal for some. The Conservative Bible Project is the inspired project of Conservapedia, that great resource of idiocy, backwardness, and general ignorance. They’ve decided the Bible needed to be expunged of the socialist elements, such as the use of: comrade, labor, and volunteer. They also want it to reflect their free market ideals:

Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.

Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning

Obviously no one can stop these psychos from taking an already scary tome and editing all the peaceful and beneficial elements out of it. What we should do, on the other hand, is use this opportunity to show just how often religious manuals are manipulated and changed to fit the particular mores of the times. Conservatives have a gigantic hard-on for two things: Jesus and money, and so their Bible will be an eclectic mix of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and Rush Limbaugh’s The Way Things Ought to Be.

Do we need to remind these guys that Jesus did not invent capitalism? I know they want to make greed their religion, but that shit is just getting totally out of control here. Can we all collectively agree these people are insane?

Religious Conservatives are desperate

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It’s a good thing prayer does absolutely nothing (other than waste people’s time I suppose). If it did, can you imagine the kind of world we’d be living in? How many times have people prayed for terrible, deadly, or awful things to happen to other human beings, or for entire civilizations to decline and fall prey to the sword of the Lord? Sure, most of the time people pray for fairly harmless or even unselfish things, but if it did indeed work, the world would be subject to random whims of the faithful. Luckily, the power of prayer is an oxymoron, but that hasn’t stopped Conservative Christians from adopting it in a last ditch effort to get liberals to “change their minds” about things.

The Liberty Council (I love how Conservative institutions have such Orwellian names) is a nonprofit organization lead by a man called Mat Staver. In their desperation, the Liberty Council has decided to launch an intense campaign of prayer they call “Adopt a Liberal”. The idea is simple: people choose a left leaning politician and pray for them to become conservative until your hands are raw. On the list is Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nancy Pelosi, and openly homosexual congressman Barney Frank. They even made special cards for people who don’t actually follow politics closely enough to know the names and details of their own representatives. In other words, it’s like some kind of weird trading card shtick.

For his part, Staver says he won’t hold his breath [about whether or not it will have any effect]. But he does think one thing is on his side: “God is the ultimate trump card, there’s no question about that.”

Maybe you don’t question it Mat, but we sure do.

Ray Comfort vs Evolution

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This comic is dedicated to Ray’s blog “Atheist Central“, where he recently responded to the discovery of Ardipithecus ramidus. As usual, Ray is busy accusing scientists of making shit up. He’s so deluded the fool doesn’t even realize the irony of him calling Evolution “faith based” (does he think that’s a good or a bad thing also? I’m confused).

I’m no longer surprised when idiots like Ray Comfort flatly deny the evidence for evolution, but I draw the line when these same jerkoffs say science is somehow “faith based”, while simultaneously claiming their own convoluted belief system is supposedly supported by evidence. What evidence? What the hell is this fucking moron talking about?

You know, for the most part scientists are too busy actually doing science to even bother paying attention to these guys. In the old days, we used to think all we needed to do was ignore these morons and they would somehow magically go away. That didn’t work out so well. Then we tried to debate them, appearing on various news programs trying to defend what is perhaps the most widely tested scientific theory of all time. So far, that hasn’t worked either.

These people aren’t interested in the truth, and they certainly aren’t interested in any real debate. Ray Comfort and his ilk are either deliberately lying (which is what I suspect), or consciously trying to ignore anything that conflicts with their predetermined world view. You can’t win a debate with someone who refuses to accept the rules of logic, so why are we so busy abiding by them when they don’t?

If you want to want to keep wasting your time trying to argue with intellectual midgets, be my guest. Personally I’m done playing Mr. Nice Guy. If it’s war they want, it’s war they’ll get!

(NOTE: Ray has since discontinued the blog and removed the article)

God might be all powerful, but his wallet isn’t

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I’ve always been both repulsed and annoyed at the way religious organizations exploit the poor. How many times have I seen or read of preachers pressuring their flock to give when their own cupboards are empty? Too many to count I imagine.  Elder Lynn G. Robbins is a businessman and high ranking member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints. He wrote an article a while back calling on the destitute to obey the “law of  tithing”. If you’re not aware what tithing means, it’s basically 10% of your income that goes automatically to the church.

Lynn ironically enough begins with Charles Dickens’ immortal A Christmas Carol, citing how men like Scrooge find it inconvenient to be charitable. It should be noted that Lynn is the founder and owner of a company called FranklinCovey, which specializes in time management training. In 2005, their revenue was over 280 million dollars. No word on how much he sacrifices to the church in terms of his own income, but I’m willing to bet it isn’t anywhere near what he recommends others give:

When serving a meal, it is much easier to set one more plate at the beginning of the meal than it is to find food for a latecomer once the meal is over and the food has been served. Likewise, isn’t it actually easier to give the Lord the firstlings or the first fruits than it is to hope that there are sufficient “leftovers” for Him? As the founder of our feast, shouldn’t He be the guest of honor, the first to be served?

Since when does a supposedly All Powerful Entity need fucking money? Is he broke or something? Does he need to refinance his debt? Maybe they want to build yet another gigantic castle. They already have 3 (mega castles), and over 100 regular sized ones, but I guess that’s not really enough, is it? The end paragraph really sums it up nicely:

I am so grateful for the Savior, who was the perfect example of obedience through sacrifice

That’s what any successful religion needs these days: complete obedience and submission from its members, especially the poor (who always seem to give more of their share than the rest, usually out of  desperation). Am I the only one who sees this as completely unappealing? When has submission ever been an admirable trait?

On the idea that vaccines cause autism

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I ran across this video recently, and I thought you guys would really appreciate hearing from a real scientist what the evidence tells us about the supposed correlation between the MMR vaccine and autism. The videos (part 2 after the jump) are well written, well illustrated, and well narrated. If there are any doubters left (aka Bill Maher), let them watch this video and be done with this nonsense!

Another missing link found

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es, I well aware there is no such thing as the “missing link”, which is precisely why I put it in quotations. Evolution isn’t like a chain; rather it’s more like a very big tree with a many branches stretching out in different directions. Now, thanks to an international researcher team (doesn’t that just sound so damn cool?), we have an even better glimpse as to what one of those “branches” may have looked like. The species, known as Ardipithecus ramidus, is roughly 4.4 million years old, and it’s providing scientists with a glimpse of light on a stage of human evolution about which little was previously known.

The bones were actually discovered in 1992, but it took almost 20 years to piece everything together. Yes, science takes that long sometimes, but hey, you need time to get it right! Ardi is like a snapshot in time; we can tell from her bone structure that her features were very similar to ours (contrary to what we used to believe). Neither chimp or human, Ardi sits somewhere in the middle, a reminder that not so long ago, we looked very different than we do today.

So, which creationist wants to explain away this fucking fossil? Are they going to ask for yet another transitional form? How much more evidence do they need before they stop believing in a book of fairy tales? My guess: never.

Happy Blasphemy Day

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The Center for Inquiry has decreed that the 30th of September is now Blasphemy Day International to commemorate those Danish cartoons that set the Muslim world on fire.  Which means, of course, that it will be celebrated by dozens of people worldwide…

OK, now I’m being a little cruel, but I’m not entirely sure this holiday will catch on. It’s cool and all that it falls on my Dad’s birthday, especially considering the fact he loves to blaspheme (every single swear word in French is an offense to the Catholic Church). Still, I think I have to agree with Hemant over at Friendly Atheist in saying although I do love the idea, how it gets implemented worries me a little.

I think the problem lies in where we draw the line. The truth is we all probably have many religious friends who would be terribly hurt if we went out of our way to offend and shock them. There’s also the danger that some might take things too far, and if they do, it’ll be impossible to disassociate ourselves from the few atheists who cause real trouble. The same way Fundamentalists dictate the image we have of Islam, so too can a few bad apples spoil our image of being rational, logical people. It’s not something I feel we should discard so carelessly just to annoy the hell out of religious folks. If it was up to me, I would have made it Apostasy Day instead!

Glenn Beck blames gang violence on atheism

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In the above video, a young man is tragically beaten and killed. In Beck’s eyes, he sees too few tears in the eyes of witnesses, something he blames on the fact young people are less religious than they used to be. Even Beck admits he has no idea what’s happening in this video, but it certainly doesn’t stop him from having an opinion on the subject. He goes on a long tirade about how the fact people can’t pray in school, and that therefore the sanctity of human life is compromised.

I love how serious he is about this accusation. Ignore the fact it has no basis in reality for a moment; he’s talking to the same demographic that doesn’t mind the death penalty, or thinks that killing abortion doctors isn’t a crime. Belief in God certainly doesn’t make a person respect human life anymore than unbelief does. At the end of the day, are you really sure you want to play that card, Beck? How many staggeringly cruel acts of violence are perpetrated specifically in the name of religion?

It’s also interesting to note that he also ties in Barack Obama in there, as though the President is somehow responsible for this happening. Conservatives can’t stop sucking Reagan’s dick, but as soon as a “colored man” is in the highest office of the land, any positive mention of the guy and they all collectively lose their minds. It’s telling, really.