Category Archives: Blog

Texas doesn’t grasp “separation of church and state” concept

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Oh Texas, can you possibly go one day without embarrassing yourself? It wasn’t enough that your governor is trying to prevent women from having abortions: now one of your counties has erected a monument to the Ten Commandments in the courthouse square of Oldham County.

The constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments in public squares and buildings has been tested elsewhere with varying results.

“The laws are very convoluted,” said Manuel Quinto-Pozos, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. “Does it represent the government’s endorsement or seal of approval for a religion?” Quinto-Pozos said he knows of no current court challenges in Texas. How and where the commandments are displayed makes a difference.

“In short, it depends — on context, history and motive,” Charles Haynes, a First Amendment Center senior scholar, wrote in 2005

Yeah, I wonder what the “context” of this gigantic monument to the Abrahamic God of the Bible is. Could it possibly be the endorsement of a specific religion?

I’m doubtful anyone in this tiny county is going to dispute the constitutionality of the monument, mostly because it’s a gigantic waste of time and money to do so. Another victory for the religious, and another defeat for those who maintain the notion America is a secular nation.

Christian hate group attempts to burn gay man alive

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What’s more Christian than a good old fashioned burning? Why, it’s homicidal rage against homosexuals, of course. And what better way to show your love for a 2000 year old failed Jewish prophet than by combining these two activities?

Chris Staples, a citizen of Carroll County GA, woke up with his home set a blaze after receiving a threatening anti-gay note. Staples gives the account of a rock with the threatening note being thrown through his window as he was watching TV and finishing a cigarette. He said the note read “We know you’re gay. And God hates gays. You won’t be raping anybody in the county and God’s going to make sure that you burn in hell.’ And something about my daddy… my daddy will make sure you burn in hell.” Several [hours] later Staples woke up with his house burning to the ground, and was lucky to barely escape.

If you thought that violence against gays and lesbian was subsiding, I’m sad to report you live in a sheltered world and need to wake the fuck up. Homophobia is very real, and the incendiary rhetoric of Christian hate groups (for there’s always a strong religious element to them) has escalated the conflict beyond simple name-calling.

Texas Governor wants to make abortion more of a pain

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If you’re a pregnant woman faced with the difficult decision of aborting your child, Gov. Rick Perry has a few words for you:

“When you consider the magnitude of the decision to have an abortion, ensuring that the patient understands what’s truly at stake seems a small step to take,” Gov. Perry said. “When someone has all the information, the right choice – the choice of life – becomes clear. Now our legislature can take fast action on this important bill because we all know when it comes to saving lives, every second counts.”

This was his speech during a “Rally for Life” where he declared his efforts to pass through legislation that would make it mandatory for women seeking an abortion to have a sonogram.

It’s pretty obvious what he’s trying to do here: he wants to discourage abortion, and he figures having to look your baby “in the face” will change more than a few minds. Ignoring the fact this kind of thing completely violates their rights as a patient, I find it more than a little ironic a state that executes more criminals than almost every other state combined would pride itself on “choosing life”. I guess life only counts when it’s in amniotic fluid, cuz once it’s out of the womb, it better not ask for any financial assistance, am I right?

Mom kills infant son, claims he was possessed

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Now I’m aware reading the news can give you a false perspective about the world, since they typically report unusual and shocking news. With that in mind, it’s hard to not feel like you’re surrounded by religious nutjobs when one of them kills her son by asphyxiating him because she thought he was possessed. It kind of makes you feel like the whole world is a little messed up.

Prosecutors formally filed charges Tuesday against 31-year-old Latisha Lawson including two counts of battery and three counts of neglecting a dependent for the alleged abuse of her two children in November 2009…

On December 21, authorities interviewed Lawson’s daughter, who confirmed she and her brother had been given the olive oil and vinegar because their mother thought they were possessed. The 10-year-old reportedly said that she immediately vomited afterward but that Jeziah King died as he was spitting out the mixture. She also alleged that Lawson put his body on a bed and had her pray over him before moving the body to a closet. According to her, Lawson placed the body in a plastic tote when they moved out of that apartment and kept him with them.

How do some people get this creepy? Moving your decomposing dead 3 year old son around in a plastic tote bag has got to be one of the most gruesome moves in the history of bad moves.

I’ve got 10 bucks that says that no one was quite aware of just how crazy and demented this woman was specifically because of how devoted and religious she appeared to be. I’ve lost count of how many times mental illness has been covered up by religion. If believing in an invisible imaginary friend isn’t considered insanity, what hope do we have to properly identify it?

You’re not my brother, pal

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I can accept the fact that some people are just going to flat out detest people who don’t believe exactly what they do. It’s well within someone’s right to be a selfish dick, but I draw the line when the person in question has a job that requires requires them to forgo their petty, xenophobic tendencies.

I’m fairly confident you’ll agree a governor should be someone who places the good of the voting public above his private beliefs, but unfortunately it seems as though not everyone shares this attitude. In Alabama, the new Republican governor Robert Bentley had a special message to those who didn’t believe in his bearded hippie God:

“I was elected as a Republican candidate. But once I became governor … I became the governor of all the people. I intend to live up to that. I am color blind.”

“But if you have been adopted in God’s family like I have, and like you have if you’re a Christian and if you’re saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister.”

Bentley added, “Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother”.

Wow, you’re color blind, Robby? How enlightened! It must almost feel like you’re a good person when you claim not to judge people based on the color of their skin. Too bad you don’t seem to take the same attitude regarding their beliefs, you close-minded prick.

Fundie Mormons use water torture on babies

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I’ve said many times I think the word “fundamentalist” is misplaced; not because it’s inaccurate, but because it misses the point when talking about adherents. The word “originalist” seems more apt, since the people who qualify as fundamentalists are merely those who have taken the old school approach to their religion. The rest of the world behaves in a sane matter because they have ignored passages of their holy books generally regarded as unacceptable or down-right insane.

Take the obsession of “Originalist” Mormons when it comes to the fear of God. They believe submission to God begins with mental conditioning including torturing babies to get them to fear authority. I wish I was making this shit up:

Water torture of babies is one way some members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints instill fear of authority, a former member testified Wednesday.

“It’s quite common,” Carolyn Blackmore Jessop said. She was a witness for the B.C. government in the constitutional reference case to determine whether Canada’s polygamy law is valid.

“They spank the baby and when it cries, they hold the baby face up under the tap with running water. When they stop crying, they spank it again and the cycle is repeated until they are exhausted.”

It’s typically done by fathers and it’s called “breaking in.”

Yes, you read right: these religious nutbags are using waterboarding on babies. Babies for fuck sakes!

The story came out during a trial to determine the legal status of polygamy in Canada. Now I’m actually of the opinion it should be legal (why the fuck should the government decides what constitutes marriage anyway), but it’s tricky when you’re taking about Fundamentalist Mormons who force young women to marry older men against their will. The truth is for the most part, polygamy is used by members of the FLDS churches as a way of controlling and subjugating women.

Don’t you just love religion?

Bigot Psychotherapist to be fired

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Britain is starting to drop the hammer on homophobic counselors and psychotherapists. For starters, there was the counselor Gary McFarlane who was sacked after he refused to service a gay couple, and now it looks like another mental help professional is getting the boot:

A psychotherapist faces being struck off after trying to ‘convert’ a homosexual man.

Lesley Pilkington, 60, a therapist for 20 years, is accused of ‘praying to God’ to ‘heal’ the patient .

Mrs Pilkington, will appear at a landmark disciplinary hearing this week where she faces being stripped of her accreditation to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.

One of her clients recorded her therapy session, which included her suggesting that homosexuality was a mental illness and a “anti-religious phenomenon”.

Of course, she’s trying to argue the whole thing is entrapment, and she had made it clear to her client she used a “Biblical framework” for her therapy. That’s simple Christian-speak for “I use select passages of the Bible to accuse gay men of being abominations”. Luckily, the Royal College of Psychiatrists says this kind of “therapy” is complete shit, and it’s very likely that she’ll be sacked.

What’s really sad is Pilkington’s own son is gay, and she refuses to acknowledge it’s anything but a “lifestyle choice”. Man, can you imagine having this close-minded bitch for a mother?

Army wants to assess “Spiritual Fitness”

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It bothers me to no end religious people are convinced the only way to cope with difficult situations and circumstances is to believe in a higher power. It’s just something they claim without any real evidence to suggest it’s true. It merely sounds good to their deluded ears.

So imagine my complete lack of surprise when I heard the US Army has devised a survey designed to test the relative spiritual “fitness level” of soldiers in an effort to avoid mental breakdown of their employees. It turns out a bunch of soldiers have started killing themselves or having mental breakdowns during and after their tours, and rather than taking care of the core problem (namely that they are embroiled in a pointless war that sucks donkey dick), the top brass has decided a person’s spiritual beliefs is of paramount concern when determining their combat fitness.

As you might have guessed, a number of non-religious soldiers are outraged they are being judged based on their lack of belief in fairy tales. Justin Griffith, a self described “foxhole atheist” had to take a survey, and since he answered a hearty “no” when asked if he prayed or meditated during times of stress, he was told his “spiritual fitness may be an area of difficulty” (I would say that religionists have an “area of difficulty” when it comes to accepting reality, but I digress).

It continued: “You may lack a sense of meaning and purpose in your life. At times, it is hard for you to make sense of what is happening to you and to others around you. You may not feel connected to something larger than yourself. You may question your beliefs, principles and values.”

It concluded: “Improving your spiritual fitness should be an important goal.”

I’m so sick of this nonsense. Believing in religious bullshit doesn’t make one a better soldier; it just means you’ve made the conscious decision to favor spiritual gobbledygook over hard fact. No, I don’t feel disconnected to what is happening to others around me; I’m just sick and tired of them pushing their fucking nonsense in my face.

Griffith and others are convinced this is merely a way to discriminate against non-believers in an attempt to populate the army entirely with religious zombies, and I’m inclined to agree. For every testimony I’ve heard (yes, I’m aware this kind of evidence is flawed), the Army is extremely evangelizing when it comes to Christianity, and this fact alone scares the shit out of me. When you combine the toxicity of religion with the machinery of war, terrible things are bound to happen.

Interfaith dialog at its finest

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It’s pretty rare I agree with the Pope, but he’s recently been calling on Pakistan to repeal their insane blasphemy laws, and I’m behind him on this one. His calls were met, unsurprisingly, with a friendly “mind your own fucking business”:

The pope has given a statement today that has not only offended the 180 million Muslims in Pakistan, it has also hurt the sentiments of the entire Islamic world,” said Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a senior leader of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam.

Man, Muslims are the most overly sensitive annoying jackasses, aren’t they? As soon as you tell them “hey guys, could you turn down the barbarism a notch?” they start flipping the fuck out. It kind of reminds me of a petulant and spoiled child that’s allowed to get away with everything because their parents are divorced. The difference is these childish idiots sentence people to death for talking smack about their dead prophet.

The problem isn’t just the government though: the whole country is pretty messed up, and as soon as a politician tried to open the blasphemy law for debate, he was gunned down while his guards stood by watching.

“There would be an unprecedented reaction in Pakistan if any attempt was made to amend or repeal the law,” Hussain Ahmed said, Reuters reported.

No shit. Remember how religious apologists say it’s politics and not religion itself responsible for all the violence? If the majority of your population thinks murdering individuals who don’t share your faith sensibilities, and slaughter any politician who tries to change the status quo, how can anyone make the claim the problem is with the politics rather than the faith itself?

Rabbi claims “Gentile” Sperm is Barbaric

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I love it whenever experts in nonsense start ranting about the immorality of others. It’s especially pleasant whenever these idiots make incredibly racist remarks without actually understanding the ramifications of what they say. It’s like having an embarrassingly racist grandpa make totally inappropriate remarks to the cashiers at the local Burger King: you’d try and say something, but the old man is way beyond salvation.

The latest hyper-racist-but-doesn’t-even-know-it old fool is Rabbi Dov Lior, who issued statements claiming all “Gentile” sperm contains “adverse traits” inherent to the “race”, and that Jewish couples should avoid using their love seed for artificial insemination:

“Sefer HaChinuch (a book of Jewish law) states that the character traits of the father pass on to the son,” he said in the lecture. “If the father in not Jewish, what character traits could he have? Traits of cruelty, of barbarism! These are not traits that characterize the people of Israel.”

Lior added identified Jews as merciful, shy and charitable – qualities that he claimed could be inherited. “A person born to Jewish parents, even if they weren’t raised on the Torah – there are things that are passed on (to him) in the blood, it’s genetic,” he explained. “If the father is a gentile, then the child is deprived of these things.

Is this moron pretending he understands anything about genes, while simultaneously using his ludicrous fantasy novel as proof? Firstly, I think it’s relatively important to stipulate Jews aren’t genetically a “people” to begin with? It’s merely a religious belief, and a xenophobic one at that.

Not only are non-Jews sinister, but children of single mothers are hell bound hooligans:

“If a child is born without a father, he cannot be 100% normal.” He stated that rabbinical literature defines these kids as “criminals and subjects of other negative phenomena.”

Forget about modern parenting techniques: you should put all your trust in a book of fairy tales written at a time when children who talked back to their parents would be stoned to death. Nowadays we’re too afraid to even spank them. We need to get back to the fundamentals, people!

Creationist teacher will finally get the boot

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If you’re a long-time reader of the site, you might remember a guy by the name of John Freshwater. I wrote about him in 2009 after he was facing dismissal for 1) teaching creationism in his science class, 2) telling his students gays are evil sinners, and 3) burning crosses in the arms of some of his students. A shittier science teacher, there is not.

Well, it finally looks like the lengthy process of firing him is almost over. After a bunch of appeals and sporadic hearings, a report issued by the state has recommended Freshwater should be fired:

“(Freshwater) persisted in his attempts to make eighth grade science what he thought it should be – an examination of accepted scientific curriculum with the discerning eye of Christian doctrine,” Shepherd wrote. “He used his classroom as a means of sowing the seeds of doubt and confusion in the minds of impressionable students as they searched for meaning in the subject of science.”

Freshwater had for years asked the school board to consider allowing a curriculum that includes arguments against evolution. Shepherd wrote that after no changes were made, Freshwater took it upon himself to hand out Christian materials and push creationism.

I can see removing shitty teachers who push their ridiculous dogma on others is going to be an uphill battle if each one takes almost 2 years to dismiss. What does a person need to do to get the boot right away if burning a cross with a electrical laboratory instrument doesn’t do it?

Cindy Jacobs is an bigot

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Do you remember all those thousands of birds that dropped dead a little while ago? Scientists are still trying to figure out what happened (I’m willing to bet money it has something to do with Climate Change, but I’m no expert). While serious folks with brains are busy solving this mystery, religious nutjobs are jumping on this story as proof “God” is mad about something, and sending us a message by annihilating a bunch of innocent birds.

The craziest so far is a woman by the name of Cindy Jacobs (of the friendly sounding “Ministry of Generals“). As your typical crazy evangelical, she thinks this tragedy is because of – wait for it – teh gays!

According to biblical principles, marriage is between a man and a woman , so we have to say “what happens when a nation makes a decision that’s against God’s principles?” Well, often what happens is that nature itself will begin to talk to us – for instance, violent storms, flooding. And you know there are actually some patterns that you can see where a nation will make a decision that is contrary to the principles of God and after that there is some kind of answer that God gives, being the God of creation, the God who created nature, but we don’t always understand what He’s saying.

Well, there’s something interesting we have been watching – let’s talk about this Arkansas pattern and say, could it be a pattern? We’re going to watch and see. But the blackbirds fell to the ground in Beebe, Arkansas, well the Governor of Arkansas’ name is Beebe. And also, there was something put out of Arkansas called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell by a former Governor, this was proposed, Bill Clinton. As so, could there be a connection between this passage [Hosea 4] and now that we’ve had the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell where people now legally in the United States have broken restraints with the Scripture because the Scripture says in Romans 1 that homosexuality is not allowed.

It could be because we have said it’s okay for people who commit these kinds of acts to be recognized in our military for the first time in our history, there is a potential that there is something that actually happened in the land where a hundred thousand drum fish died and also where these birds just fell out of the air.

Mystery solved, everyone! Yes, God wants the US military not to encourage gays and lesbians to serve openly, and as revenge, he slaughtered a bunch of blackbirds to teach us a lesson. If we’re not careful, other natural disasters could continue to happen.

The good news is as soon as we stop letting men fudge-pack one another, there will be no more disasters and we’ll all be living in a perfect world where everyone has the common courtesy to be miserable and hate themselves for having same sex attractions. The future looks bright, people!

Catholic School Board Chair compares LGBT group to Nazis

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I’m exhausted with all the crazy bigotry and homophobia coming out of every conceivable Catholic institution. They simply refuse to accept the fact some human beings have a sexual attraction to members of the same gender. Of course, they all deny their obvious homophobia and assume it’s society that has the problem, not them. Clearly, these aren’t the kind of folks who are accustomed to accepting objective reality.

So imagine my utter disgust when I read a Catholic school in Ontario, Canada not only refused to allow a Gay-Straight Alliance club to exist on school grounds, but had one of the board chairs (an ignorant and spiteful woman named Alice Anne LeMay) compare LGBT students to Nazis:

We don’t have Nazi groups either,” she mused in an interview with Canadian LGBT publication Xtra!. “Gay-straight alliances are banned because they are not within the teachings of the Catholic Church.”

To be fair, had there been a Nazi group, they might have had more luck getting sanctioned; let’s not forget the Vatican signed an agreement with Hitler’s regime that made them the official religion of Germany. So technically speaking, I guess Nazism is more in line with the teaching of Catholicism than tolerance, compassion and understanding.

Somalian Town bans opposite sex handshakes

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You’d think a town in Somalia would have more important things to deal with than the explosive sexual danger of inter-gender handshakes…apparently not:

Men and women have been banned from shaking hands in a district of Somalia controlled by the Islamist group al-Shabab. Under the ban imposed in the southern town of Jowhar, men and women who are not related are also barred from walking together or chatting in public.

It is the first time such social restrictions have been introduced.

The al-Shabab administration said those who disobeyed the new rules would be punished according to Sharia law. The BBC’s Mohamed Moalimuu in Mogadishu says the penalty would probably be a public flogging.

Being Arrogant doesn’t mean you’re wrong

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I’ve recently been enjoying Greta Christina’s rather elaborate and lengthy blog posts over at Alternet.org, and I’ve been REALLY enjoying the debate her articles seem to generate in the comment section. Unlike our safe atheist-only environment we’re accustomed to, Alternet seems to be populated by an eclectic mix of believers, atheists and agnostics.

I was particularly fascinated with some of the comments generated in her recent article entitled “Why Are Believers So Hostile Toward Atheists?”. While Greta argued atheists are damned if we do, and damned if we don’t, her readers appear to have jumped on the “atheists are arrogant” argument as a way of sidestepping the issues:

Atheists (of the herd variety) are typically condescending and arrogant. They often cite ways in which non-atheists are ill-educated, stupid, irrational or misinformed. All based on the implicit paradoxical faith of the herd-atheist’s belief in no god. Of course this is sensed as a hostile stance. Which, of course, induces a hostile response.
There’s something strange and paradoxical about atheism. It’s a faith system who’s sole purpose is to deny something that isn’t defined. It’s a faith system rather than a rational system because, the thing that is denied isn’t defined. If it’s not defined, then it can’t be subject to logic. For the sake of logic, “god” is just a meaningless sound until it’s defined. And there are uncountable definitions that could be made for “god”. And not all those possible definitions can be subject to logic (naturally, considering the scope of what the word “god” suggests). So, atheism is just another kind of religion.

So this person is arguing because a proper definition of God doesn’t exist, it’s irrational not to believe in it? See, this might be a clue to why people are condescending to you, buddy. Terrible arguments don’t make you a lot of friends on the Internet.

Whilst I am a non-believer, I actually find myself partly in agreement with you:

1. I have observed many Atheists in this place to be “condescending and arrogant”, and I’d add even darn right hostile and rude towards Theists.
2. I agree Atheism is a kind of “faith” in as much as it is a position that defies any hard evidence to support their oft claimed scientific position, only that those who support it have not witnessed anything that suggests to them there is a God.

Well, at least this guy is proof not every nonbeliever knows what the fuck they’re talking about. While I agree to the charge of hostility, I think the reader missed the point Greta was trying to make; mainly that our anger is directed at the way religionists treat their fellow believers, and not ourselves. As for the argument it’s “faith” to have a healthy skepticism towards an unfalsifiable and improvable God, I don’t know what will convince someone this profoundly confused that rejecting a poor hypothesis is NOT tantamount to faith.

I have been verbally assaulted on several forums by atheists who are offended by my faith. My response is always kind. It doesn’t seem to soften up their anger. I really don’t understand why the atheists are so afraid of Christians.

The simple answer to this question would include things like: The Inquisition, the Crusades, the Reconquista, and the French Wars of Religion to name a few. The more complex answer would be we fear anyone who bases their entire lives on The Bible or any other violent, misogynistic and xenophobic book. Beliefs can be scary things.

Greta, why are you making sweeping generalizations about a group of people? I would have thought that you of all people would know that sweeping generalizations are almost always false. I’ve met very happy, kind Christians and Believers who could care less about Atheists, and even those who are perfectly happy to socialize with their Atheist friends. And of course, I’ve met many rabid Atheists who are Hostile Toward Believers. Your arguments are getting worse all the time. Now you’ve degenerated into making sweeping generalizations about a group of people as an easy, simplistic way of portraying them in a bad light. I wonder: Why is Greta Christina so Hostile Toward Believers?

I know we treat the word “generalizing” as some kind of pariah, but it’s often really the only way to make statements about the world that have any merit. If I say “most human beings are friendly”, it’s a pretty broad generalization, and there are plenty of examples why this isn’t true. Still, we expect there to be exceptions to the rule. There are theists who aren’t hostile towards atheists and nonbelievers, but so what? Does it suddenly mean there’s no hostility to speak of?

You know, after reading all the comments on her blog posts, I hope she’s getting paid decently for this gig. The amount of baseless criticism for her innocuous article would test my fucking patience to its limits. What do you guys think?