Sam is a great speaker, and it’s very hard to argue with his logic. He’s the main reason I do this atheist thing (his book, The End of Faith, was like getting hit in the face with a brick. Once you read it, you change). My favorite quote from the videos is “Rationalizing the barbarism we find in the Old Testament merely renders it irrelevant, it doesn’t render these books morally wise. It is faint praise indeed if the best that can be said of scirpture is that it can be now safely ignored” You’re goddamn right, Sam.
Author Archives: Jacob Fortin
Nerdcore!
Ok, so this might not have much to do with atheism, but I still can’t help but post it up with the feeling that any country where the President can give someone a Vulcan salute, perhaps there is hope for humanity yet!
Old school Bill Maher smacks down religion
Here’s an old clip from way back before the mainstream bitch slapped Maher back to cable television. I love how Joe Scarborough can’t seem to find any answers to Bill’s tough criticism of religion. It is all pretty fucking arbitrary, isn’t it?
Movie about Darwin doesn’t have U.S. distributor
One of the crown jewels at the Toronto Film Festival this year was Creation, a movie depicting the life and struggles of Charles Darwin. The film focuses specifically on his family life, and the destruction of his faith with the death of his beloved daughter Annie. The film stars Paul Bettany (you might remember him as the albino monk in The DaVinci Code) and his real life smoking hot wife, Jennifer Connelly. So far a bunch of countries have already picked it up except the big one: America
US distributors fear that the film is too controversial for American audiences, which is to say that they are worried any involvement in the film may end up costing them dearly. There are no companies willing to take the risk of pissing off hard core Christians who blame Darwin for the Holocaust, eugenics, and just about any other atrocity you can imagine. It’s never dawned on them this gentle and thoughtful man was one of the greatest minds in the history of our species.
I think that an online distributor should pick it up and offer the movie on the web. If you can’t play it in theatres, people should still have a right to be exposed to ideas, even if they aren’t popular among the uneducated. In any case, most of the people who would end up watching it belong to the Internet generation, and we’ll just end up downloading it anyway. Why not make it easy for us?
Madonna blamed for boating accident
There aren’t many beheadings that are celebrated around the world. It’s generally not a very positive thing to have a day dedicated to, but that hasn’t stopped morbid Orthodox Church in Bulgaria from marking the day John the Baptist was decapitated , which they celebrate on August 29th.
That’s also the date that Madonna, queen of controversy, chose to hold her concert there. Everyone had a great time, but it turns out by coincidence, a boat capsized on Lake Ohrid, killing 15 people. The Church has since blamed Madonna for the incident, saying her defiance is what caused God to kill a bunch of innocents in protest.
Anybody else get a warm and fuzzy feeling from the God character? No, I didn’t think so. I guess the Orthodox Church has never really stopped believing in the cruel despot of the Old Testament, who can’t help but express his dissatisfaction with humanity by causing endless disasters. Blaming an entertainer for what was actually the fault of the operators, (who greedily tried to fit more people on their tour boat than what was allowed) is not only low; it’s entirely pointless.
Hijacking for Jesus
A few days ago, I celebrated September 9th, 2009 by recording a second bonus podcast (since the original one was lost forever), and spent most of the day reading for new material to talk about for future shows. The date had no real significance to the vast majority of the planet, but for Jose Marc Flores Pereira, it was a special day. He had received a revelation from God that Mexico would suffer from a terrible earthquake, so he did the only thing he could think of: he made a fake bomb with a bunch of juice cans and hijacked an Boeing 737.
Father Pereira was convinced the date, 09/09/09 would signify the presence of the devil (since upside down the numbers would read 666), and he wanted to hijack the plane in order to get an audience with the Mexican president to urge him to preach the gospel from Mexico City’s central square.
Pereira’s wife admits the dude has “psychological problems”, which at least explains why this former singer and drug addict is allowed to go around preaching insane stories of virgin births, resurrections, and worldwide floods.
His family doesn’t sound like they are very helpful. His mother was aware of his plans, and because he claimed to be divinely ordained by God to do this, she let him go with her blessing. So an insane lunatic was allowed to carry out his plan with the full compliance of his family because his religion masked his deep psychological issues. The amount of times mental illness goes unreported because of religion is too numerous to count, and until we admit such beliefs are indicative of psychological disorders, these kinds of stories will keep happening. This guy needs help, not religion.
Harlan Ellison on God
A fan of the site sent me this video, and I had to educate myself a little bit to find out exactly who Harlan Ellison is. Because he hates the Internet and still does all his writing on an old Olympia typewriter (the supposed Mercedes Benz of typewriters!), most of you are probably like me and have to admit almost complete ignorance about his life and works. Of course, after listening to his speech, I will be picking up a bunch of his short stories and novels to see what he’s all about.
1 in 33 women pressured to have sex by clergymen
Having never been religious in my life, I sometimes forget the degree of power and reverence preachers tend to have. These men (for they are almost always all male) are seen by many as being a direct link to God, and it’s a position of power few humans seem to be able to handle very well. It turns out roughly 1 in every 33 women attending church services are approached by priests and are pressured into having sexual relations with them.
I don’t see why anyone is really that surprised. Why do most men crave power? The more power you have, the better breeding possibilities at your disposal. I don’t even think most men in positions of influence even realize this is their true intent. They probably just think it’s a sweet perk or something. Why would it be any different simply because these guys are “men of the cloth”?
Priests shaking up their female congregants is enough of a problem that states like Texas and Minnesota have made it illegal to:
[cause] the other person to submit or participate by exploiting the other person’s emotional dependency on the clergyman in the clergyman’s professional character as spiritual adviser.
In other words, if you’re a “Holy Man”, your clout with God makes the ladies vulnerable to your advances. It’s another piece of revelation that leads me to believe I’ve chosen the wrong profession. I should just quit this atheist gig and start my own harem church!
Why we believe in Gods
If you’ve got a good hour, I recommend listening to this presentation. You can play it in the background without really needing to watch it, so don’t feel like you need to burn your eyes out staring at his blue screen (why do people still use that color in their presentations anyways?). Make sure this is part of your “must watch” list.
OMG, best Pledge of Allegiance ever!
Ok, this is just about the cutest little atheist I’ve seen. “Under Nobody” should be the official addition to the pledge, which would finally make it no longer violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (if you’re tired of me linking to it, too fucking bad! You guys need to pay attention to it). Considering how the pledge is itself kind of a violation of everything the Founding Fathers believed in, it’ll at least be a good compromise.
Convicted child rapist to become ordained minister
Have you ever wondered if there aren’t some churches that are a bit too inclusive? Sure, it might first seem like a good idea to accept anyone regardless of their past, but once in a while you have to know where to draw the line. Take the City of Refuge Worship Center, which plans to ordain a registered sex offender.
Mark Hourigan was convicted of raping an 11 year old boy, but ended up serving his prison term. No doubt in prison he did what most convicts do: he found religion.
If it’s any comfort (trust me, there isn’t any), officials claim that he won’t be ministering to children. They even got him to sign an agreement that he wouldn’t preach to children, which seems to me about as binding as the old “pinky swear”. Some of the (smarter) congregants have left as a result, which goes to show not everyone is deluded enough to think that a child rapist can be rehabilitated with only the power of the Lord.
I could be wrong of course, and Mark could have totally repented for his crimes. Call me close minded, but I’ve yet to hear about this kind of thing working out for everyone in the end. The Catholic Church tried the whole “use the Lord to fight off your sinful temptation” before, and it only made the abuse worse. My advice to these guys is pretty simple: don’t bring anybody that’s ever abused any kids in your organization, period. Is that really so hard to understand?
Why is no one listening to this man?
If there’s one thing you can credit to fundamentalist Islam, it’s their ability to control their flock. There aren’t many Islamic fundamentalists that apostatized, and anytime there is, it offers us a unique opportunity to understand the scope of terrorism that shouldn’t be ignored. Ed Husain was a radical, brought into this culture in college by other British born Muslims, and it wasn’t until he witnessed the cold blooded murder of an innocent man that he was able to walk away. Now, he’s trying to warn other Brits of the growing dangers of fundamentalism, and his message is simple: the UK needs to do a better job at integrating their Muslim population in British society.
He correctly points out one of the main problem lies in Muslim ghettos, where anyone living there can practically spend their entire lives without ever leaving the confines of the group; you can send your kids to a Muslim state school, go to a Muslim NHS doctor, and even do business entirely within the Muslim community there.
Of all the countries in Europe, Britain has had the most trouble properly integrating this minority in their culture (and stories like this don’t help). This in turn is creating a dangerous situation, as their own citizens are slowly becoming their worst enemies. Worst still, British prisons are becoming recruiting centers, a situation that only exacerbates an already serious problem.
I don’t want to sound alarmist here, but when former fundamentalists are telling people they need to act now before it’s too late, is it really a good idea to ignore them? It’s not as though Britain hasn’t been the target of attacks before. The solution seems relatively simple; don’t allow a segment of your population to become dangerously isolated, especially one with a tendency towards fundamentalism. Is that really hard to understand?
No atheists in birthing centers?
Man, people get gushy when kids are involved. It seems as though the mere sight of these little creatures is enough to send us into irrational fits. How else can you explain this ridiculous article which claims there are no atheists in birthing centers. The author, Peter Heck, is your run of the mill conservative who believes the usual “America is a Christian nation” rhetoric that is so popular nowadays.
Now Peter seems to me to be a kind of educated idiot; a person who devotes all of his time and energy trying in vain to defend ideas and opinions that have no basis in reality. His article is the standard “life is so amazing it must be designed by God” fare, and he isn’t saying anything new in his shitty article.
The reason I thought it was so hilarious is he’s quite obviously wrong; there are plenty of atheists in birthing centers. If he bothered to talk to a few of them, he would discover there is no need to believe in a God to be in awe over the whole process. I’m glad Peter is so happy to have kids, but it certainly doesn’t mean his ideological convictions are correct.
The Independent fights the good fight
Now I’ve often linked from the newspaper on many occasions, but today is a special honor. In January of last year, a young Afghan journalist was sentenced to death for distributing a report criticizing the treatment of women under Islamic Law. Sayed Pervez Kambaksh was sentenced in a 4 minute trial that was closed to the public, but luckily, the Independent got wind of the story and thanks to their efforts and a lot of international pressure, Sayed has been released.
Of course, not all is well in Afghanistan, and conservative clerics are reacting with anger over what they see as Western interference in their domestic policy. They want him punished for his blasphemy, and only death will appease them.
Luckily, not everyone in the country is out for blood. Many young citizens are happy that the situation has been resolved peacefully, and if there’s any hope for the future of this nation, it lies with the new generation.
So if you aren’t yet a fan of the Independent (I’ll admit that there is a bit too much fucking gossip on this damn site), you should at least give them props for helping to save this man’s life.
The Book of Job explained!
The only lesson I can gather from the story of Job is he was a pawn in a cosmic pissing match between God and the Devil. Had this actually happened, I would have been disgusted, but luckily it’s just your typical desert people myth. Man with lots of wealth gets fucked over but keeps on believing in God. The lesson: don’t expect to have a good life even if you are devout. What a fair deal, no?