Category Archives: Blog

Mother gets probation for imprisoning and torturing daugter

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What do you do when your uppity, independent minded 19 year old daughter has the gall to refuse an arranged marriage with a stranger twice her age? Why, you burn her with a hot spoon, that’s what! What better way to preserve your cultural heritage than by torturing your loved ones into submission. Hey, isn’t that what Islam means?

Yusra Farhan won’t be winning any “Mother of the Year” awards, especially considering this isn’t the first time she’s been caught abusing her daughter. In Feb 8th, the whole troop was arrested after they tied the poor girl (who has not been named) to a bed and beat her mercilessly after she was caught talking to a boy. Since this violates their “Iraqi culture”, they decided that the best way to solve the problem was through ritualistic abuse. You know what they say: families that commit felonies together, stay together.

Christians use data-mining to rally voters

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Are you starting to feel as though we’re losing this war of ideas? Sure, we keep growing day by day, but when push comes to shove, we can’t hold a candle to our religious counterparts when it comes to getting organized. Take, Bill Dallas for example. After spending half of his 5 year sentence for embezzlement, Bill was “born-again” while in prison. Rather than try and defraud people out of their money through real-estate, Bill has decided instead to get into politics (next logical step, right?) He managed to convince a bunch of rich Silicon Valley executives to fund a company that data-mines the internet looking for unregistered voters with a religious bent. The company, called “United In Purpose“, awards “points” for individuals in their massive database which strongly indicate conservative values. If you’ve ever watched Nascar, gone fishing, or subscribed to any anti-abortion newsletter, odds are you’ve scored high on their system, and you might just get a call.

The company buys lists to build a profile of each citizen, and then assigns points for certain characteristics. You get points if you’re on an anti-abortion list or a traditional marriage list. You get a point if you regularly attend church or home-school your kids. You get points if you like NASCAR or fishing.

So far, UIP claims their database comprises some 180 million adults, and that number continues to grow as UIP keeps buying up mailing lists from anyone willing to sell information. They then compare anyone with high scores on their close-minded scale and then attempt to get these people to register to vote, sometimes even showing up at their door.

Can you even imagine something of that scope happening on our side? How are we supposed to compete with companies who get set up specifically to find morons and get them to vote ultra-conservative on everything? How can we hope to win this war if we’re still acting like a bunch of unherdable cats? Fuck me these guys are organized…

Miley Ray Cyrus angers fans over “atheist” tweet

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I’ve been trying very hard to not like Miley Cyrus, but it’s starting to look like this may be impossible. Maybe it’s the fact that she keeps smoking pot even when the LA times gets all preachy about it. To top it all off, she recently re-tweeted an atheist meme on her twitter courtesy of Laurence Krauss:

Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics. You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded. Because the elements, the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars. And the only way they could get into your body is if the stars were kind enough to explode. So forget Jesus. The stars died so you could be here today.

Now, while the important message is actually the fact that we are made of stars, her Christian fans were quick to jump on the “forget Jesus” line in there. She’s been getting tons of negative comments from these douchebags. These assholes even managed to “flag” the image as inappropriate in an effort to suppress it (hey, it’s their M.O. after all), so if you’re trying to view the image she tweeted, you won’t be able to (although can head on over to Friendly Atheist if you’re that curious). Did you expect anything different from these people? That’s what happens when a significant portion of your fanbase believes in fairy-tale nonsense: as soon as you call them on it, they lose their fucking minds.

Judge dismisses sectarian assault on Atheist, blames him instead

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Imagine you get physically assaulted for speaking your mind, and when it was time for your attacker to face justice, he’s sent merrily on his way by a Judge who shares his specific religious convictions. Would you not regard this as a gross miscarriage of justice?

Well, that’s exactly what happened to fellow non-believer Ernest Perce, who was assaulted last October during a parade. Representing the Pennsylvania Non-Believers, Perce donned a zombie Mohammed costume intent on making a statement about Islam. Talaag Elbayomy (a recent immigrant to the US) saw Perce and immediately began attacking him, convinced that this blasphemy was actually a crime. The incident was caught on tape, and the police officer at the scene reported that Elbayomy had indeed admitted to the assaults. Perce pressed charges, and what should have been an open and shut case instead turned into a farce when the judge threw the case out. District Judge Mark Martin, a Lutheran, refused to allow the video as evidence. He even had the audacity of lecturing the plaintiff on what constitutes an appropriate use of his First Amendment Rights:

Here in our society, we have a constitution that gives us many rights, specifically, First Amendment rights. It’s unfortunate that some people use the First Amendment to deliberately provoke others. I don’t think that’s what our forefathers really intended. I think our forefathers intended that we use the First Amendment so that we can speak our mind, not to piss off other people and other cultures, which is what you did.

I’m sure the Founding Fathers, a bunch of rebellious intellectuals who decided to overthrow their government to form their own, didn’t intend for people to be offended by free speech. The only form of effective revolution is to politely keep your opinions to yourself, right?

Some of the more dramatic headlines suggested that the Martin had used “Sharia Law” to reach a verdict. I wouldn’t go that far, although I am glad that other serious professionals are calling out this moron for showing a complete lack of understanding of basic principles of free speech. I think this clown allowed his religion to cloud his already shitty judgement, and I believe that despite a miscarriage of justice, we’ve at least succeeded in showcasing how disturbing it is when sectarianism creeps its way into the courts. Thanks for taking one for the team, Ernest!

NOTE: The judge is in fact a Lutheran. The statement he made in court saying “I am a Muslim” was not meant to be taken literally. Thanks Alex for pointing that out.

Creationist Alert!

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It’s only been a few days since it’s been up, but already the forums* are lighting up like the fourth of July. One topic that immediately caught my eye came courtesy of user DexM felt too important not to promote:

The Christian club at my high school has invited creationist Bill Morgan from http://www.fishdontwalk.com/ to speak at one of their meetings. Needless to say I’m organizing a rapid response team to kick his ass with words – including trying to get one of my school’s biology teachers in on the action – but I really have no idea on how to go about doing it. There’s no shortage of atheists and skeptics on campus but getting them organized well enough to go toe-to-toe with a seasoned creationist debater is pretty dangerous. Any thoughts or advice?

Taking on a creationist, eh? I like your moxie, kid. Just understand that debating creationists can be a tricky business. Many intelligent individuals have been caught totally off guard in these kinds of debates, and looked foolish as a result. Academics are often unprepared for the kinds of tactics creationists employ to try and win arguments. One of these include what I like to call “The Seed of Doubt”. This strategy usually involves undermining some scientific theory they poorly understand. By focusing on some tiny minutia of a theory that isn’t very well understood, they try to convince the audience that “science doesn’t really know what it’s talking about”. Rather than attempt to construct an argument based on evidence of their own, creationists instead try to exploit uncertainty, masquerading their obvious disdain for scientific discovery as skepticism. And because science invites this process on itself, we must be honest when admitting that there are many unknowns and a great deal of uncertainty when it comes to human knowledge. These are not concepts a religiously minded person like Bill Morgan is willing to accept.

A a quick glance at Bill’s website, hilariously named “Fish don’t Walk” (a quick youtube search easily destroys that false statement) reveals that the guy doesn’t seem to have any real clue as to how evolution actually works. Here he is explaining the supposed difficulty of sexual reproduction in nature:

if the theory of evolution is true, the male and female would have to evolve their reproductive systems at the same TIME. Imagine the female is fully evolved, but the male is not. Does she start hen pecking him by telling him “hurry up and evolve, we are going to be dead in a few years?”…Creationists believe in “instant chickens.” Creationists believe a Creator with a lot of power and intelligence instantly made males and females at the same time, and put them at the same place.

As you can see, he’s got a rather weak grasp on the sexual theory. He’s apparently completely unaware that sex is a relatively recent “invention” in the history of life. So his “bombshells” are really just indicative of poor education on his part, most likely the result of his religious upbringing (surprised?). Remember, Bill’s “dude with a lot of power and smarts” explains everything he doesn’t understand, and that seems to encompass quite a bit.

My prediction is that if he’s shown his ignorance on the matter, he will turn to the remaining scientific mysteries that we haven’t yet solved as a final means of sowing doubt in scientific theories. I wouldn’t attempt to try and explain these. I would merely point out that he’s creating a false dichotomy; he’s attempting to reason that because we don’t know the answer to A, B must be true.

Time is not a scientific explanation, it is blind faith. I call it “the magic wand of time” When I ask an Evolutionist “how did birds evolve from reptiles?” I imagine them waving a magic wand as they say “It took millions of years!”
Believe whatever you want to on Creation vs. Evolution, but base your belief on observation (Science) not blind faith (time).

Translation: I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, so God did it

Finally I would end by trying to make it clear what degree of acceptance in any given theory is acceptable. It should be contingent on how much evidence each one relies on. The more lines of evidence which converge, the more likely it is to be true. Genetics, geology, paleontology and a host of other sciences are all consistent with Evolution. The important thing for people to remember is that science is a set of tools we use to decode the laws of nature. It allows us to construct models to help explain how objective reality behaves. Creationism is merely poor rhetoric meant to substantiate baseless supernatural claims. It has no predictive powers, and any statements it does make about nature contradict all the observations we’ve already made. If this clown is trying to argue that he’s only trying to “make people decide for themselves” what is true and what isn’t, then I would instruct him to continue to educate himself: he’s obviously not done.

(Update: The forums no longer exist)

Gingrich tells evangelicals “we need to defend ourselves”

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In a continued effort to try and still be relevant, Newt Gingrich recently spoke to a modestly sized crowd in Cumming, Georgia assuring them of his (false) piety, and warning his dwindling support base that it was time for evangelicals to “defend themselves”:

“The other side will fight back and they will fight back on two fronts. You will have radical Islamists who want to kill us and you will have secularists who want to coerce us, and that’s why, for example, recently you saw the Obama administration trying to coerce the Catholic Church because it is the inevitable nature of the left to use government to impose on us their values,” said Gingrich.

Imposing values is uniquely left, you say? I suppose if we ignore governmental legislation trying to ban abortion, draconian anti-immigration laws that treat Hispanics as second class citizens, or the myriad of ways that religious douchebags use the government to impose their own values, then yes, you could claim that with a straight face.

As for this paranoid assumption that secularists “coerce” people, what he really means is that we’ll effectively change people’s minds and make them abandon their foolhardy beliefs. I do love, however, how we’re on the opposite spectrum of Islamic fundamentalism. I take that with a badge of pride.

Muslims in Afghanistan going nuts over Koran Burning

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Remember last year when 24 people died because a US pastor made a public display of burning the Koran? Despite President Obama begging the guy not to do it, Pastor Terry Jones held a mock trial for the book, found it guilty of 3 crimes against humanity and set it on fire. Huge protests erupted in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and like every crazy protest in these countries, a bunch of people got killed.

So despite everyone on Earth knowing how insane Muslims are regarding their fucking book, a bunch of NATO soldiers were discovered burning a few copies themselves. Admittedly, there was no malice in the burning; just the regular disposal of garbage. Of course, nothing done over there is ever simple, and when the locals discovered the fact that their shitty little book was getting cooked, they collectively lost it. Religious fundies were quick to stoke the flames, and the protest has spilled over to Pakistan (always looking for an excuse to burn American effigies, I suppose). So far, 2 foreign advisers have been killed (both by a armed Afghan police officer) and a number of protesters who tried to bomb a UN compound.

President Obama publicly apologized for what happened, but I have to wonder when we’ll stop feeding their insanity. The Koran is just a book; and like all religious tomes, it’s nothing but a collection of falsehoods and pointless platitudes. The fact that we continue to condemn any destruction of this book furthers their assumption that the Muslim faith is superior. Why else would the most powerful man on earth apologize for a few having been singed?

A place for Atheists to grieve

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Death is hard on those who accept its terminal reality. There’s no magical playland in the sky, there’s no transference or retention of our thought patterns, and there’s no evidence whatsoever that the mind is anything more than the brain. Materialism may not be appealing to the majority of the population, but it’s undeniably the only reality so far to manifest itself. These supernatural fairy-tales we’ve constructed during the infancy of our species – a time when the tools for understanding the world had not yet been invented – should be treated with contempt, and yet we languish in ignorance in favor of comforting thoughts.

One of the hardest transitions into atheism is the acceptance that death is final, and this can be a powerful blow for those still partially wrapped up in the bubble of religious delusion. In many cases, dealing with the non-reality of Heaven (or some analogue) is like losing your deceased loved ones all over again. I can only imagine my reaction if this was compounded by trite, childish words meant for comfort. How can we convey the sorrow of reality to someone still living (quite literally) in a fantasy land?

Were it not for the fact that we occupy the same physical space, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad. Luckily, the Internet is exactly the kind of place where you don’t have to. There, grieving atheists like Rebecca Hensler have a place where they can express their sorrow. After her 3 month old child Jude died in 2009, Rebecca created a Facebook group called “Grief Beyond Belief“, a place where atheists can share their grief in an environment not populated by delusional idiots sharing their thoughtless platitudes. The story of this has since been picked up by the mainstream media and so far, there are a few trolls on both sides (a non-believer attempting to debate about some finer point of atheism, and a few Christian douchebags spewing hateful shit), so I strongly urge you to participate in shaming these morons. Also, there’s something beautifully melancholic of reading the stories of lost loved ones. Makes you appreciate what you do have, doesn’t it?

Quebec gets a “thumbs up”

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There aren’t a lot of opportunities to be proud of your government these days. As a beleaguered young(ish) male anxious to blame others for his failures, I see every incompetent bureaucratic farce (of which there really are too many to name) and forget that occasionally, they get something right. In this case, it was refusing the appeal of two unnamed parents who wanted their children pulled from a religious diversity class. Claiming that the education of their young ones would crumble their fragile belief structure (they called it “protecting their religious freedom”, a common tactic of today’s fundamentalists), the Catholic parents managed to make it all the way to the Quebec Supreme Court before someone finally called them on their shit: religious freedom has nothing to do with isolating people from other world views. Period.

With everyone’s heads screwed back on, these kids have a chance of actually learning something that isn’t founded on principles set out by a bunch of weird dudes dressed in overly elaborate robes. Who knows, maybe these kids have a chance in a province where 68% of the population believes in Evolution (compared to the national average of 59%).

Who was Cain’s Wife?

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Although he’s one of the most infamous characters in fiction, Cain is still a relatively obscure figure. The Bible seems to make him out as a whiner, jealous and petty, so unworthy of any love that he’s blamed for making crops so damn hard to grow. Once he’s given the infamous “mark” for having committed the first murder, he’s told that he will become a nomad, and like any bad-boy, he does exactly the opposite and settles down in the land of Nod (which is about as real a place as that sounds).

The story doesn’t technically end there, depending on who you ask. There are tons of stories outside the bible that attempt to describe Cain and Abel’s relationship in more detail. This kind of material is called pseudepigrapha, texts which are regarded as false or unverifiable works. It’s basically the first century equivalent of fan-fiction. One of these books is called The Book of Jubilees, sometimes referred to as “Lesser Genesis”. It further elaborates on the sexual relationships between Cain and his sister Awan, and between Seth and his sister Azura. It sounds as enjoyable to read as the many erotic adventures of Kirk and Spock

The story of Cain doesn’t end there. Mormons believe that he made a secret pact with the devil to kill Abel. In the Book of Moses, they form a secret alliance, which helps explain why Genesis specifically mentions Cain’s son Lamech murdering one of his enemies (I just think the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree).

Regardless of which particular fairy tale you subscribe to (if you tend to favor this nonsense), Cain’s limited choice of mating partners isn’t a subject most people are comfortable talking about. Incest has largely fallen out of favor, and defending this particular aspect of the dogma is a thankless job. Luckily, Answers in Genesis is always happy to fight the good fight, and they aren’t afraid to try and inject some science in there!

Now it is true that children produced in a union between brother and sister have a greater chance to be deformed. As a matter of fact, the closer the couple are in relationship, the more likely it is that any offspring will be deformed. It is very easy to understand this without going into all the technical details.

Yeah, it’s a good thing they try to avoid the “technical details”, since a gene pool consisting of only two organisms is on the fast track to Extinction-Ville (with a stop-over at Mongoloid-Bay). Don’t let that bother you too much though, since you can always claim some magical mumbo-jumbo helped.

Speaking of mumbo-jumbo, you might like they way they try and explain how these first humans survived the first onslaught of genetic catastrophe: It’s all about sin, you see:

When the first two people were created, they were perfect. Everything God made was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). That means their genes were perfect—no mistakes. But when sin entered the world because of Adam (Genesis 3:6), God cursed the world so that the perfect creation then began to degenerate, that is, suffer death and decay (Romans 8:22). Over a long period of time, this degeneration would have resulted in all sorts of mistakes occurring in the genetic material of living things.

By long they mean around 2,500 years (or about 125 generations), a tiny blip in evolutionary time for such a complex species. Still, you have to admire their attempt to try and maintain their idiotic beliefs in the light of modern genetic evidence. They are sticking with their incest guns, and they are proud of it. “Hell yes, Cain fucked his sister! Didn’t you know that was the thing to do at the time?”

As for all this business about sin being a mechanism of evolutionary pressure, it sounds like a testable theory to me. Under this model of genetic, the more you sin, the crappier your genes. Hey, I wonder what kind of fucked up experimental conditions you would need to test this moronic idea out. I’m laughing just thinking about ’em.

Another reason to love Daniel Radcliffe

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I generally dislike when celebrities try and participate in the political discourse. Sure, I might not mind if someone famous agrees with me on every issue (which has yet to happen), but most of the time, celebrities use the spotlight to demonstrate how little they know about important topics. Such cause célèbre also tend to make them look foolish. Remember Brad and Angelina’s attempt to re-invigorate Louisiana with unusual architecture? After spending millions of dollars, these monstrosities may house people, but they do little to inspire anyone to go back to the Big Easy.

James Dart, a Manhattan-based architect who was born and raised in The Big Easy, labels the houses as “Alien, sometimes even insulting,” adding, “the biggest problem is that they are not grounded in the history of New Orleans architecture,”

It’s great to have your heart in the right place, and Pitt’s foundation Make it Right has built over 70 houses. Was this the best use of these resources however? Would they have done more with the money if Brad didn’t have a love of ghastly architecture?

In light of the fact that I’m just about to contradict myself, I can’t help but find yet another reason to love Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe (apart from him being a fellow “Mega Brow”). His outspoken atheism not-notwithstanding, he’s now come out publicly that he’s changing his political support. He claims that Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrat government is placating the religious right, especially when it comes to ‘faith schools”.

Radcliffe said that he wished more educational establishments, especially in the US, were not in thrall to religion, stating: “I’m not religious, I’m an atheist, and a militant atheist when religion starts impacting on legislation. We need sex education in schools.

I like the way he doesn’t fear the word militant. I know we hate being compared with our religious counterpart, but I’m far more afraid of how organized and effective the religious right is. So, now you have a few more reasons to like Danny-boy. Do I like him enough to go see his new movie? I may not love him enough…

Connecticut gays are going to need lots of Courage

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When you think of the word courage, what’s the first thing to cross your mind? If you happen to be gay and a Catholic living in Connecticut, that word is about to take on a disturbing new meaning:

The Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, this month is beginning a program that ministers to gays and lesbians…The Vatican-endorsed program, called Courage…was started in 1980 by the late Terence Cardinal Cooke in Manhattan “to form a spiritual support system which would assist men and women with same-sex attractions in living chaste lives in fellowship, truth and love.”

It’s basically an organization that emotionally tortures gays and lesbians into giving up their joy of sex and intimacy because it doesn’t conform with what the Vatican wants.

“These are people in the Roman Catholic Church who need our care and love,” Deacon Robert Pallotti, director of the Office of the Diaconate, told the Hartford TV station. “In some cases, they have been rejected by society. They need to be accepted, affirmed and supported as Roman Catholics trying to remain faithful to church teachings.

Rejected by society, eh? Could that have anything to do with the fact that your organization continues to support the bigoted idea that what they are doing is inherently bad? Remaining “faithful” to Roman Catholic teachings is just a nice way of saying that they don’t want gay dudes fucking each other in the ass anymore.

Honestly, there is no one on this planet that needs the Vatican getting involved in their sex life. They’ve already proven that their sexual philosophies are diseased. While they condemn homosexuality, the Vatican has provided an unprecedented level of financial, legal and emotional support to child rapists. This alone should bar them from the conversation.

The program, ironically called “Courage”, is just another way for a bunch of creepy celibate dudes in robes to try and tell everyone else how to live. I’ll tell you what Courage is: it’s not putting up with deluded assholes who care more about their money, power and interests than they care about human suffering (remember, they actually think that suffering makes you closer to God). Courage is rejecting old dogmas in favor of scientific truth, even when everyone around you still cling to these ancient superstitions. And above all else, Courage is staying true to yourself, no matter what.

Thanks for giving these morons a voice, Internet

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Oh Twitter, sometimes you sap away the only remaining hope I have for humanity. The unfiltered garbage that’s excreted out of the mouths of cretins is enough to drive you mad. Eventually, you reach a threshold of tolerance where it all sounds eerily similar to bees buzzing around. Once in a while, you find a few hot topics that really make our species truly shine, in both verbosity and compassion that one is forced to dig deeper inside of this noise to find out what the fuss is all about. Today’s inanity comes as a reaction to hot hashtag #GodIsNotGreat trending, and some ignorant Christians losing their shit over it. The following is a sample of some of my favorites, with grammar left intact:

Whoever started dis #GodIsNotGreat I will personally beat yu da fuck asswhole…I jus prayed for yu thp

What a nice fellow. I wonder if he’ll also pray to his imaginary friend when he sends some poor kid to the hospital for having a different belief than him.

Whoever made this TT #GodIsNotGreat should burn in hell and yo whole family

So even if this person’s family is religious, this guy still wants them to burn in hell forever because someone dared to talk smack his to sky daddy. Totally reasonable.

#GodIsNotGreat who ever created that trending topic MUST die today!!wt sort of human beings r in here?geeeez

Geeeez, I was thinking the very same thing.

#GodIsNotGreat<——anybody this hateful got to have aids

Anybody that profoundly ignorant has to be a bigot

WHO EVA MADE THIS A TRENIN TOPIC…ILL PERSONALLY KILL EM MYSELF…GOD IS THE BEST THANG EVA MANE…AMEN

God is the best thing ever, therefore I’m going to kill someone in cold blood in his name. Amen!

I seriously wanna kill whoever started the #GodIsNotGreat”

I seriously want to call the fucking police right now

why the fuk is #GodIsNotGreat teending?! GOD IS EVERYTHING YOU SATANIC BITCHES, HE’S THE REASON YOUR BREATHING #ilovegod

If God is everything, does that mean he’s also this extremely hateful tweet? What are the rules in this strange cult of yours?

Christopher Hitchens, we will miss you

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We all knew it was coming, but somehow we had managed to ignore the cruelty of reality for a little while. For a moment there, it almost seemed as though Hitch had managed to defeat his cancer. Unfortunately, life is a cruel bitch that kills your heroes prematurely (it’s true that Jack Daniels and Phillip Morris had done most of the damage, but still). Now, the world is a little duller, a little dumber, and a lot less interesting as a result.

Truthfully, I would be more upset if I hadn’t read his last article. In it, he mentioned that had he known of the pain he would have had to endure to survive the cancer, he would have opted against it. It may sound trite, but there is some evidence to suggest that a person having a REASON to live is often a significant indicator of health. I think it wasn’t the cancer but the pain of the treatment that ended him. That’s the sad truth about cancer; the cure is sometimes worse than the disease.

Don’t plan on being sad for very long though. Your grief will soon turn into anger once you read the inane tweets of men like Rick Warren:

My friend Christopher Hitchens has died. I loved & prayed for him constantly & grieve his loss. He knows the Truth now.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, folks. That tweets comes from an actual friend (despite their obvious differences, they seemed to have gotten along well). How many times are you going to overhear some religious jackass gloating that Hitch is burning in Hell for not believing in their specific nonsense?

Even more frustrating is the fact that there is no simple way to demonstrate the obvious stupidity of their assertion. The specter of death haunts us all equally, but our mortality is the only solid proof Christians need of their sadistic fantasies. It’s like arguing with children.

On a selfish note, I never got to cross “having a conversation with Christopher Hitchens” off my bucket list. I hoped perhaps that some of his brilliance might rub off on me. Now the unique arrangement of neurons that comprised his mind have ceased to function, and this pattern is lost forever. Damn you entropy. Why must you rob us of everything we love?

Atheists on Reddit get it done

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Most of you know that I’m often critical of our community in terms of our charitably, as I’ve complained in the past that many of us are not willing to compete with financially supported organized religions yet. I’m convinced that the only way to fight the evils of religion is to play their game, to some degree. Part of that includes giving money to organizations that make an actual difference rather than offer food, comfort and medical services with strings attached.

Over the years, the Atheism sub-reddit has been growing by leaps and bounds (outnumbering many of the religious sub-reddits many times over), and are over 300,000 subscribers and counting. Compare that to the Christian sub-reddit that has a paltry 19k, and you realize the strong secular leaning of the site. Anyone who visits TGA realizes that I often troll these forums, looking for the latest happenings, rage cartoons and funny pictures from the web (that’s putting it mildly; I’m practically a content thief).

The group will probably grow even more after knocking one out of the park:

Atheist bloggers have shown their charitable side by swarming to donate money to Doctors Without Borders…Thousands more clicked through from the atheism sub-reddit, a site normally given over to finding holes in religions and picking fights with creationists, and headed for a dedicated site at firstgiving.com, where they have so far given $180,000.

Sure makes me look like a jackass for claiming we’re a bunch of cheapskates! I’ve never been so happy to be wrong in my life.