Category Archives: Blog

Baby boy dies after botched circumcision

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Ok, here’s the deal, folks; before you read this article, I have to warn you that you’re not going to like reading some of the details of this story. I’ve written a lot about male genital mutilation (colloquially known as ‘circumcision’) in the past, but for some reason, this one story sent visuals in my head that I can’t shake off. So, you’ve officially been warned.

The story begins in Manchester, where a young and naïve couple from Nigeria -having recently given birth to a baby boy – hired a nurse by the name of Grace Adeleye for the sum of 100 pounds to circumcise their infant son. Adeleye arrived with her own ‘medical instruments’: an ordinary pair of scissors and a bottle of olive oil. After asking for a bowl of hot water (an antiseptic in her eyes), she cut the foreskin without any anesthetic or disinfectant, and the resulting wound eventually led to enough blood loss that the baby died shortly after.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated event:

The court heard up to three children a month are admitted to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital because of bleeding after home-based circumcisions – a danger the nurse should have been aware of.

Adeleye denies her negligence, but it’s obvious this idiot knew less than nothing about medicine. This kind of tragedy happens all the time to countless other children living in countries where their death is just another statistic, all in the name of religious traditions that have no place in the modern world.

The Salvation Army exec who stole Christmas

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I hate the Salvation Army. First off, they aren’t a charitable organization. They are registered as a church, which means while some of the money and goods people give to them do go to the needy, they still run it like it is a business, buying expensive real estate, and more importantly, being exempt from needing to show where it uses its money and for what. Don’t believe me? Take a look at their mission statement:

“the advancement of the Christian religion… of education, the relief of poverty, and other charitable objects beneficial to society or the community of mankind as a whole.”

It’s that “and other charitable objects” which make us think these guys are a charity, but while they do offer some helpful services, it’s more of combination of a church/business than anything else. For instance, did you know they own a real estate portfolio worth in excess of 4 billion dollars? It’s difficult to know how much of their money goes to charity, since as a registered church, they’re exempt from financial scrutiny. Basically, the Salvation Army is like a gigantic mystery box filled with money, goods, and massive financing from the government.

If you were still thinking of donating money or goods after having been told how shitty they are, consider what happened in Toronto recently. Former CEO of the Toronto branch, David Rennie, recently surrendered to police after investigators found 2 million dollars in stolen merchandise he was hoarding in a warehouse. The search began after an anonymous tipster noticed there were over 100k in toys missing from inventory over the period of two years (I ran a warehouse, and I have to tell you, that’s a ridiculous amount of time for things to go missing, and a ridiculous amount of goods to go unnoticed).

The organization now claims it will work to avoid any further problems with the help of accounting firm KPMG. You might remember them for the brilliant audit they did of Bernie Maddoff’s ponzi scheme. Perhaps the Olympic bribery scandal is more familiar to you. How about something more recent, like their failed due diligence in the Hewlett Packard / Autonomy that cost the company 5 billion dollars in losses?

Yeah, I’m sure they’ll do a fantastic job of ensuring an organization that has no real accountability is doing right by us…

Answers in Genesis writes hilarious letter to atheists

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For some odd reason, I love the idea that there are religious believers out there who try to convert atheists back to religion. I can’t imagine a more pointless exercise. They really think there must be some magical argument to ‘win us’ back to the fold. They can’t understand our decision not to believe in God is the result of years of slow and gradual change, ultimately leading to the conclusion that the provincialism of supernatural entities is a guarantee of their falsehood.

The most hopeless of these bunch of jokers has to be the Answers in Genesis folks. As the name implies, these deluded morons think everything in the Bible must be believed, despite the gargantuan effort it takes to reconcile reality with fantasy (they usually just end up ignoring most of the former). If you really want to know just how profoundly ignorant they are about non belief, take a gander at this open letter to atheists they recently wrote:

Are you tired of all the evil associated with the philosophy of atheism—Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and so on? After all, most murderers, tyrants, and rapists are not biblical Christians, and most have rejected the God of the Bible. Even if they claim to believe in the God of the Bible, they are not really living like a true Christ follower (who strives to follow God’s Word), are they?

Ah, the No True Scotsman fallacy  Never gets old, right? If someone does something you don’t agree with, it’s easy just to claim they aren’t true believers. I could try this same tactic to try and ‘defend’ atheism, but there’s really no point. People do all sorts of nasty things to one another, even when they don’t have the extra justification of thinking their actions are sanctioned by their private gods. As Stalin and Mao have shown, one does not need religion to start a cult: you just need the same uncritical thinking religious people are so fond of.

In fact, why would an atheist care to live one moment longer in a broken universe where one is merely rearranged pond scum and all you have to look forward to is . . . death, which can be around any corner? And in 467 trillion years, no one will care one iota about what you did or who you were or how and when you died—because death is the ultimate “hero” in an atheistic, evolutionary worldview. Of course, as a Christian I disagree, and I have a basis to see you as having value.

Lovely. The “atheists don’t believe in the afterlife and therefore don’t take it as seriously as we do” nonsense. It’s actually shocking how much they don’t understand what not believing in Disneyland in the clouds is really all about. While many former believers do express the initial grief and sorrow they feel from losing a love one, no one can claim atheists don’t have a full appreciation for this life. Unlike Christians, who think this life is merely a pit-stop in an otherwise lengthy vacation to magical Wally World in the sky where all your deceased loved ones are breathlessly anticipating your return. Why should one even bother with the hardships of this world if the next one, supposedly lasting an eternity, is so wonderful?

For professing atheists, these questions can be overwhelming to make sense of within their worldview. And further, within an atheistic worldview, atheists must view themselves as God. Essentially, atheists are claiming to be God. Instead of saying there may not be a God, they say there is no God. To make such a statement, they must claim to be omniscient

While there might be a few nonbelievers who make the positive claim that there can be no God, most of us instead chose to merely reject a claim made with no evidence whatsoever. In a sense, all religious people use this same method to reject the gods of other religions. No one would accuse them of omniscience for refusing to believe in Thor, Zeus, or Mithras. Atheism is merely the lack of belief in these and all other forms of religious superstition. It does not take omniscience to reject a bad premise.

Are you weary of looking for evidence that contradicts the Bible’s account of creation and finding none? Do the assumptions and inconsistencies of dating methods weigh on your conscience when they are misrepresented as fact? Where do you suppose those missing links have gone into hiding? Surely the atheist sees the folly and hopelessness of believing that everything came from nothing.

Yeah, it’s so hard to find examples of contradictions in the Bible…It must be easy not to see them when you’ve chosen to ignore the real world, right?

Where atheists have no basis for logic and reason (or even for truth, since truth is immaterial), Bible believers can understand that mankind is made in the image of a logical and reasoning God who is the truth…Christians also have a basis to explain why people sometimes don’t think logically due to the Fall of mankind in Genesis

I guess the reason we can’t think logically is because Eve ate a magical fruit and the first humans were cast out of Adventureland, only to have a bunch of inbred, fratricidal children. See, it has nothing to do with our evolved mammalian brain! God is a gigantic, omniscient Ape who made you in his image, and in return, you need to give him all your money. Wow, sure sounds like I should eliminate the foundation of my beliefs and just go for the nonsense. I couldn’t possibly believe in anything logical if I didn’t!

Don’t believe in God in Kentucky? Get ready for jail time!

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It’s not enough that religious folks are always shoving their religion down our throats; they also now want to enforce the ‘crime’ of not believing in their invisible friend. If you can believe this (and trust me, I’m still in shock), the state of Kentucky has effectively declared war on non-believers, threatening jail time for anyone who fails to “recognize the primacy of the Christian God”:

In Kentucky, a homeland security law requires the state’s citizens to acknowledge the security provided by the Almighty God–or risk 12 months in prison.

So what exactly does this law entail? Well, every Homeland Security office is obliged to have a plaque clearly displaying their preference for a specific, state endorsed deity with the following words on it:

The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God as set forth in the public speeches and proclamations of American Presidents. These include Abraham Lincoln’s historic March 30, 1863, presidential proclamation urging Americans to pray and fast during one of the most dangerous hours in American history, and the text of President John F. Kennedy’s November 22, 1963, national security speech which concluded: “For as was written long ago: ‘Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’”

The specifics of this strange and pointless proclamation is this: all Homeland Security offices in Kentucky must display a plaque admitting the US needs God to protect it against scary terrorists. Anyone failing to display these monstrosities faces up to a year of jail time. It’s patently ridiculous.

The law was drafted by a state rep/Baptist minister named Tom Riner who takes his job as a pastor way more seriously than he does his civic one. He’s also found a way past the pesky problem of trying to pressure your state rep into enacting grossly unconstitutional laws that oblige everyone to acknowledge their insecure deity. The big problem is while the ACLU has been fighting this in the courts to have it declared unconstitutional – achieving some success in the Circuit Court – it’s currently sitting in limbo after the State Court of Appeals reversed it while they try to bring it before the Supreme court (so many courts, so little time).

Effectively, this ridiculous law makes it mandatory to ‘recognize’ the primacy of someone’s make believe friend. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting fed up with the fact that you can’t even pretend there’s a dividing line between religion in politics. Religion has been dipping its toe in the government pool for so long, it’s permanently wrinkled.

 

Teen sentenced to 10 years of hard church

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f there’s a time in one’s life fraught with tragedy, it’s probably the hormone saturated period in our lives known as our ‘teen years’. How many of us have done something so incredibly stupid it still haunts us today? Tyler Alred will need to live with the fact his drunk driving took the life of his friend and passenger, 16-year-old John Luke Dum. He’ll also need to spend the next decade going to church regularly, lest he break the conditions of his sentence:

An Oklahoma teen convicted of manslaughter has sentenced to 10 years of probation, with requirements that include regularly attending church….In deferring the sentence, the judge not only ordered Alred to a decade of church attendance, but also required him to finish high school and welding school.

Alred’s attorney and the victim’s family agreed to the terms of the sentence.

Now I know the family has actually agreed to it (mostly because it seems to oblige their son NOT to become a high school dropout loser), but it doesn’t change the fact even the judge realized how unconstitutional the whole thing was. Nevertheless, he thought it wise to include a sentence forcing the young man to attend church services for at least 10 years of his life. This sentence is obviously meant to give him structure and discipline, but it’s frustrating people still think religion helps you act more moral. It’s simply not true. In fact, religious can often make you act totally immoral, with the added ‘bonus’ of feeling simultaneously morally superior and thinking your invisible friend is on your side (killing others in his supposed name comes to mind). If anything, he should have ordered the kid to read The God Delusion, since the atheist prison population is disproportionately small. Could you imagine the outrage if he did? Fox News would have a fucking meltdown.

What a textbook in Louisiana looks like

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You all know by now that the educational system in Louisiana is rapidly deteriorating thanks to Governor Bobby Jindal and his relentless crusade to institute voucher programs that end up benefiting religiously run schools. He may have come out recently begging for the GOP not to become the ‘stupid party’, but he’s actively working to ensure his constituents are ever more ignorant about the real world.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. So let’s take a look at a sample curriculum that someone going to school in this state is exposed to. Let’s start with facts about evolution and creationism:

Fact or Theory?

Man makes judgments about the evidence of fossils based on his beliefs. A man who believes God’s record of Creation and history will look at fossils one way. A man who believes in evolution will view fossils in a different way…

Creationist Viewpoint: God created the heavens and the Earth
Evolutionist Viewpoint: Earth and space were the result of a sudden explosion

Magic man done it, as most of you are aware, is not actually a theory. It’s a claim without proof, made by people who are convinced the book of fairy-tales they call the Bible is a factual account of the history of the world. Yeah, and the Iliad is totally true too…

Creationist Viewpoint: The Earth is thousands of years old
Evolutionist Viewpoint: The Earth is millions of years old

It’s pretty sad when creationists can’t even be bothered to learn the actual arguments. No, ‘evolutionists’ don’t think the Earth is millions of years old. Maybe Lord Kelvin thought so in the 19th century, but since then, we’ve learned it’s actually BILLIONS of years old. Get your fucking facts straight if you’re going to try and disprove one of the most tested scientific theories ever devised, morons.

Creationist Viewpoint: Fossils are probably the result of the great flood in the Bible
Evolutionist Viewpoint: Fossils show the great geological ages of the earth

If I was a creationist, I would try to avoid fossils altogether. You can’t really help but create suspicion in your own worldview when your explanation for weird and alien bones in the ground is a catastrophic flood that happened only a few thousand years ago. Eventually people will start to ask why there’s a predictable pattern of where specific bones are buried in distinct strata (their answer is usually “Satan put them there to trick people”). In any case, fossils show geological ages, but more than that, they consistently show different animals buried in successive layers of rock, pointing to a pretty obvious succession of transitional forms over time (besides, if you want to know more about geological ages, you look at rocks for that, not fossils). It’s like a gigantic puzzle that only requires a little bit of thought to put together.

Creationist Viewpoint: God created all kinds of animals in the beginning
Evolutionist Viewpoint: Different kinds of life have gradually evolved over long periods of time

So here at least the choice is simple: either all the animals were created magically in the span of a few days by Super-Dad, or organisms gradually evolved over time to better adapt to their environment and the struggle for survival. One you have proof for, the other is stated plainly in a boring book most people can’t even finish reading through. What a tough choice!

Creationist Viewpoint: Man is God’s special creation. He is different from the animals because he is created in God’s image
Evolutionist Viewpoint: Man is the highest level of animal.

I don’t know what shitty scientists the authors of this joke of a textbook met, but I can tell you anyone worth his salt wouldn’t dare say something that dumb. No, man is not the “highest level of animal”. We may be smart and a dominant predator, but we pale in comparison to the awesome power of bacteria. Without these little power factories, we wouldn’t be able to digest food, or even have a functional ecosystem. I won’t deny that we certainly are the smartest, but when a bunch of us write this kind of stupid drivel in the Age of Information, it doesn’t make a strong case for it.

Pakistan sentences man to death for blasphemy

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The bravery of religion is yet again on display, this time in Pakistan where a man has been sentence to death for supposedly insulting the prophet Mohammed. There’s a familiar pattern that arises in these parts: the predominately Muslim population has a few altercations with other religious groups that are Christian, and suddenly the lone person is accused of blasphemy and is usually beaten, followed by the customary kangaroo court.

Hazrat Ali Shah, 25, was convicted of blaspheming against the Muslim Prophet Mohammed and the Koran during a quarrel in his village in northern Pakistan in March 2011.

Despite the fact that many in government are actually afraid of this law, no one has the balls to repeal it, since fundamentalists can easily stir up their violence base in order to execute anyone who opposes them. While it’s true that no one has actually been executed under this law (enacted in 1986), those sentenced are usually imprisoned and then forgotten about, only to be left in the hands of their Islamic fellow prisoners. It’s an invitation to daily beating and an unceremonious prison death.

Eric Hovind gets his ass kicked by 6th grader

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So, what’s more embarrassing: not being able to properly answer the challenges of a 11 year old, or needing to try and bully your way out of answering his question? Here is Hovind’s argument in a nutshell:

1) If you don’t know everything, you can’t be sure of anything
2) God knows everything and tells me things
3) Therefore all true knowledge comes from God.

The kid’s response cuts through his second and third point and just re-iterates the first broken assumption:

1)If you can’t know anything without knowing everything, how do you know God exists

And what’s Eric’s response? Rolling up his sleeves and basically dodging the question to avoid answering it, belittling the kid for not being very old (making himself look even more pathetic), and shuffling around hoping this embarrassing moment will soon be over. The lesson here folks is creationists can be brought down easily. You just need to call them out on their dumb shit and watch them squirm.

Marco Rubio doesn’t know how dumb he is

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f you weren’t already sick of the race to the White House, you’re going to hate the next 4 years of your life, as the media can’t help but trip over themselves trying to predict the possible candidates for 2016. One prospect for Republicans is a Hispanic Florida Senator by the name of Marco Rubio. He’s made the new recently for saying some profoundly dumb shit:

I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.

It’s a great mystery how in the age of science someone could still be so profoundly ignorant about the age of the Earth. Maybe a few decades ago, before everyone had the Library of Alexandria in their fucking pocket, it would have been understandable not to know. Hell, we’ve only really known about the age of the universe for a few generations, and it can take time for something to really be known. But by now, not knowing is really an active choice one has to make. That ignorance must be embraced, since I doubt Rubio has never been confronted with the factual age of the Cosmos at some point in his life.

Sure, there are multiple ‘theories’ of how old the earth is, but only one of them is actually a scientific theory and not the dumb invention of ignorant sheep herders (keep in mind both definitions are entirely different as well). As for whether or not economies depend on knowing the age of the Earth, I would argue that a man who sits on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee should know by now you can’t actually have an economy without science, or its baby sister, technology. Knowing how old the Earth is should be a requirement if you’re on a committee with the fucking word ‘science’ in it, don’t you think?

Either two things are at play here: either Rubio is trying to a appeal to his science hating base, or he’s a fucking moron. And while all of this science denial is a part of the modern electoral strategy one has to employ, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rubio didn’t actually believe the evidence that the Earth is over 4.5 billion years old. That’s because this concept alone is terrifying to the provincialism of religious myths. How insignificant are humans if we represent but a blip in the history of Earth and the Cosmos, and what does it say about their unimpressive dead Jew?

Irish PM doesn’t want to feel rushed into changing abortion law

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Since I first blogged about this a few days ago, the death of Savita Halappanavar has caused a lot of understandable outrage in Ireland. It seems her highly avoidable passing has rudely awakened a generation of young people who are shocked their own health could be threatened due to the persistence of religious dogma.

Even more shocking, they’re about to realize change is impossibly slow, given the ones holding the reins of power have no interest in making necessary change, lest it upset the old guard:

“This is a matter that has divided Irish society now for a great number of years, and I am not going to be rushed into a situation by force of numbers on any side,” Prime Minister Enda Kenny told state broadcaster RTE.

I don’t give a damn if you feel abortion is wrong. That’s your own personal opinion, and as uninformed as it is, it doesn’t for one second change the fact they need to happen. Making them illegal or inaccessible places the lives of actual sentient beings at risk, whether it be from botched street abortions, or from countless medical complications caused by pregnancies. I don’t have to bring up the fact women were dying all the time before abortion was legal in America, do I?

Like drug prohibitionism, making something illegal doesn’t actually solve anything: it in fact compounds both the risk and the cost to society by making them the realm of black markets and underground economies. These are the real consequences of a confused sense of moral responsibility towards unborn fetuses (which tragically seems to end once they’ve taken their very first breath of air), and should not be ignored. Unlike our religious counterparts, it’s the material world we are concerned with, and the individuals who make up that physical realm. The supposed concerns of a make believe troll or bearded entity in the sky has absolutely no bearing on the procedures we undertake to save the lives of other human beings.

If there is any debate, it boils down to this: medical decisions should be pretty obvious considering one is based on simple logic, the other is based on the interpretation of a fairy tale about a guy pulling out on her brother’s widow, and getting killed by a vengeful deity.

It’s divided society alright: one side thinks people should have the ability to be treated for a medical condition based on science, and not religion. The fact some people are mad that abortions happen is irrelevant to their actual real need. And the victims of all this stupidity are women. Now, I wonder how a society still under the spell of a misogynistic, male dominated cult will react to the news there’s no real rush to ensure their well being is preserved so the feelings of superstitious ignoramuses can be spared?

“This is something that has to be dealt with rationally, and openly and truthfully and that is what will happen,” said Kenny.

Dealt with rationally? Do you honestly think the reason for these insane restrictions are logical and reasonable to begin with?

FFRF sues IRS for failing to enforce tax-exempt rules

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Now that the election is over and President Obama no longer has to be afraid of Evangelicals bent on his destruction, it’s time to put aside petty politics and enforce the law in regards to religious institutions and their supposed neutrality when it comes to politics.

We all know countless religious organizations have been violating the rules of their tax-exempt status, which stipulates pastors are not allowed to specifically endorse a political candidate. The logic behind this rule is simple: religions hold a lot of sway and power, and the last thing you want is for that power to be used to dictate who their followers should vote for. It makes an implicit statement about the role of church in politics: kindly stay the fuck out of it, or we’ll take away your privileges.

Unfortunately, the IRS has gone out of its way to ignore any attempts to challenge it, even when over 1500 pastors openly defied them in the hopes they could then turn around and take this issue to the courts (and ultimately end up costing everyone a lot of money to determine they don’t have a legal leg to stand on). If you thought there might be some kind of reasonable explanation from the IRS as to why they’ve so consistently failed to uphold the law, you’ll be shocked by how much they are tripping over one another trying to get their bullshit story straight:

“We are holding any potential church audits in abeyance,” IRS official Russell Renwicks said.

The IRS later disavowed the statement, insisting the agency intended to investigate the many complaints it had received once it revised its regulations.

“The IRS continues to run a balanced program that follows up on potential non-compliance, while ensuring the appropriate oversight and review to determine that compliance activities are necessary and appropriate,” IRS spokesman Dean Patterson clarified.

Talk about backtracking; in the past three years, there hasn’t been one single investigation, despite the fact thousands of pastors continually violated this law like it was Jodie Foster in The Accused.

Dissatisfied by the lack of balls in the organization, the Freedom From Religion Foundation is suing the IRS for its failure to comply with their own law. If you think this is a worthy cause and want to support them (hint: I think we all should), then go to their site and make a donation. Let’s hit these religious fuckers where it hurts the most: the pocketbook!

Religious whacko stabs husband because Jesus told her to

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A few days ago, I debated two religious dudes on a show called “Faith and Skepticism” (they might as well call the show oil and water considering how incompatible those two things are), and the one thing they couldn’t seem to grasp is the idea that “hearing the voice of God” is usually a sign of insanity. Obviously, the degree of this insanity can be measured by analyzing what is being communicated. If the little voice inside your head is telling you that you’re a good person and need to donate more money to whatever religious institution you’re part of, we would rank this as fairly low on the nut-job scale (though medical treatment should still be sought). If the voice tells you to stab your husband because Jesus and Mary told you he’s Satan spawn, you’ve probably reached the point where serious medication is your only “salvation”

A woman who allegedly stabbed her husband said she did it after, “Jesus and Mary told me to kill him because he is Satan’s spawn!” according to a police report… Horry County Police deputies were called to [Tammy] Estep’s residence at approximately 6:45 a.m. on the day of the incident. When they arrived, Estep told officers that “She was sent to save the world,” according to a police report.

What better way to save the world than by stabbing your partner repeatedly? My question is how long had she been over the deep end, and were there any other signs people ignored up until that point, convinced that her scary nonsense was just religious fervor. It’s kind of hard to tell sometimes, isn’t it? Yeah, that’s not a coincidence…

Pedophile priest blames God for making him this way

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I’ve heard a lot of tortured explanations from the Catholic Church over the years as to why so many priests are sexually abusing children. Pope Benedict XVI claimed it was increased secularization that somehow made their theists behave so immorally. Homosexuality has also been blamed, despite the fact that as many female children are abused as males. Finally, though, one pedophile priest by the name of David Edwin Rapson in Australia has finally used a novel defense I think makes a bit more sense: He blamed God for making him that way:

A former Catholic priest accused of molesting boys at a Victorian school said, “God made us this way and it’s his fault” when a fellow priest urged him to resist

When he was finally confronted by a fellow priest, he responded to his accuser with “You’re one to talk. You’re the same as me….You know what we do here”, prompting me to think this must be yet another way these bastards get away with abuse for so long. Who’s going to report them? Their fellow molesters? Yeah, that fucking seems likely.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has recently OK’d a royal commission to look into the abuse after a police detective named Peter Fox wrote a letter to his premier begging him to open up an investigation. Fox felt both the police department and the Church had actively sabotaged any investigation into the matter, and an independent body needed to look into the matter. Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for the government to spring into action (yeah, I know how weird it is to even write that down). Now we only need to sit back and watch the horror unfold before our eyes. I hope you have a strong stomach, Aussies, because you’re about to be put to the test in the coming months.

Doctors refused abortion because “it’s a Catholic country”

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Ireland may be quickly de-converting to atheism faster than any other country, but that certainly doesn’t mean the fight against superstition and religious indoctrination is over. If anything, the stakes have gotten higher, especially when it comes to certain key issues which don’t seem to go away. A young woman by the name of Savita Halappanavar was told she was miscarrying, and after one day in severe pain, asked for a medical termination. This was refused, her husband says, because the fetal heartbeat was still present and they were told, “this is a Catholic country”.

She spent a further 2½ days “in agony” until the fetal heartbeat stopped.

By the time the fetus’ heart had finally stopped, many of Savita’s organs had already begun to shut down. When they began operating on her, it was already too late, and she died.

the hospital extended its sympathy to the family and friends of Ms. Halappanavar but could not discuss the details of any individual case.

Somehow, a “sorry your wife died because our bullshit doctors think life begins at conception” doesn’t cut it. How about a “we’ll make sure no other woman has to die needlessly because we still think we’re living in the 18th century”. Ireland, I think it’s time for you to clean house and prove why you’re in the Top 10 atheist countries. Do it for the future Savitas’ of the world.

Shocking: Atheist kids dare to express themselves

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If you’ve never heard of The Blaze (like probably 99% of the population), it’s a creation of Glenn Beck and his conservative production company, Mercury Radio Arts (the irony of naming your production company after a metal that makes one insane is probably lost on these people). If the site isn’t regularly scaring people into buying gold, it feeds them pseudo information that plays into people’s fears and prejudices. Their latest fear mongering article is about the American Humanist Association’s new website, KidswithoutGod.com, which they think aims at “converting kids over to the secular religion of atheism“

The atheist activist community in America has taken an increasingly-active role in trying to convince citizens with doubts about their faith to fully evolve into non-believers and to “come out,” publicly proclaiming their anti-theism. Think of it as a form of secular evangelism. Already, non-believers have attempted to reach clergy who are in doubt through The Clergy Project. Additionally, there’s a humanist church service each week in Tulsa, Oklahoma (and these are only two examples). Now, in addition to reaching adults, atheist activists have their eyes set on converting kids and teens.

The website, which dares to encourage kids to be nice to other people, eat well, tell the truth, take responsibility for one’s actions, to take care of the environment, and to think for themselves, probably seems to ignorant theists as some kind of effort to ‘indoctrinate’ kids (funny how they don’t seem to mind at all when it’s their shit they are trying to inculcate). In reality, it’s merely a place for kids who weren’t brainwashed at an early age to realize they aren’t the only disbelievers out there. One article is even entitled “No Name Calling” when referring to believers. You can’t get more milk-toast than that, folks.

Their over-reaction is kind of hilarious, don’t you think?