Category Archives: Blog

Malawi gay couple faces jail sentence for engagement

Posted on by

I’m still amazed any rational, intelligent person can doubt as to whether or not religion still causes all sorts of harm in this world. I think the problem is few people actually bother to find out what is going on in parts of the world where religious fundamentalism is still prominent. There are countries around the world where the toxic effects of religion are being felt by innocent men and women. The latest story of misery and dread comes from Malawi, where two men were arrested after they took part in an engagement ceremony.

For their crime of loving one another, they face about a decade of hard labor, and considering they refuse to apologize or back down, they’ll probably end up serving the full sentence. Why are they taking a stand? Because the plight of other gays is at stake, and when countries like Uganda try and pass “kill the gays” legislation, there are some with the moral fortitude to put the wellbeing of others ahead of their own:

Gay sex is still illegal in 37 countries in Africa. A recent poll by the Pew Research Centre found that 98% of people in Cameroon, Kenya and Zambia disapprove of homosexuality. But encouraged by legal advances in South Africa, a new wave of activist movements are making a stand and pushing the boundaries in Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, Zimbabwe and other countries in ways unthinkable a generation ago. Gay and lesbian lifestyles are also much more visible.

This assertiveness is apparently being met by a ferocious backlash from religious fundamentalists and politicians determined to preserve the status quo. It has been described as a proxy war between US liberals and Christian evangelicals, both of which pour in funding and support to further their cause.

As far as religious fundies are concerned, homosexuality is an abomination, and no amount of broken lives (or in some cases, deaths) will stop them from continuing to advocate their seething hatred of gays. As far as they are concerned, their invisible sky-daddy has commanded same sex attractions are morally wrong. It doesn’t matter if someone is born that way; why would they worry about something as inconvenient as reality interfering with their beliefs? It’s never been a problem before.

Kenyan man sacrifices own son for God

Posted on by

Probably one of the scariest and most disturbing stories in the Bible (yeah, I know it’s hard to find one which isn’t fucked up) is of Abraham and Isaac. Commanded by God to kill his son, Abraham ties up the boy and is about to plunge his dagger in his chest when he is stopped at the last minute by Metatron (that’s a real angel name) and instead sacrifices an innocent animal in his stead. It’s some dark shit, people.

This story is generally debated as to it’s relative allegorical meaning, but I don’t think you have to look too hard to figure out what’s going on here: it’s not uncommon for jealous and ancient Gods to demand human sacrifice to appease their “anger” . In modern, civilized society this kind of act is exceedingly rare, but thanks to the delusion of religion, every so often, religious nutjobs kill their own children thinking God commanded them to do so. The latest case of religious infanticide comes all the way from Kitale, Kenya, where a father, convinced God was speaking directly to him, killed his own son as a blood sacrifice. He then sprinkled his blood around the house in some ludicrous and macabre ceremony. Your “what-the-fuck-o-meter” should be going off right about now.

He’s being held in custody and the locals have asked the “Ingrafted Fellowship Church”, which he’s been a member of for less than a month, be investigated to see if they are a cult (newsflash guys: all religions are cults, although admittedly, some are crazier than others).

Another sad tale of woe and misery brought to you by the “power” of religion! Isn’t it grand?

Greensboro mayor adds prayer to council meetings

Posted on by

It seems as though the concept of the separation of church and state, made abundantly clear by the Establishment Clause of the constitution, is still something some Christians just can’t seem to wrap their head around. The latest bonehead is Mayor Bill Knight of the city of Greensboro, North Carolina. If that city sounds a little familiar to you, it’s because only a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being invited by the UNCG Atheist/Agnostic/Skeptic group to give a lecture at their school. Imagine my surprise to find them in the news trying to push back against the inclusion of prayer during city council meetings.

As is typical with this kind of story, a lot of ignorant, right wing conservatives are “angry” secularists are trying to prevent this kind of activity (just read the comments in the article I linked if you want to pull your hair out). They naively think this is some kind of attempt to prevent them from praying to their sky-daddy. In truth, all we want is for government to get out of the business of telling people when to pray. This very separation is what allows religious folks to have the freedom to pursue their superstitious rituals without fear or reprisal. The Establishment Clause is specifically designed to prevent religion and government from becoming intertwined. Why is this so fucking hard for some people to understand? If you want to pray, do it on your own damn time, and leave the business of religion to the private lives of citizens. It has no business in government, period.

Scumbag priest wants to keep his job

Posted on by

In 1975, when Father Brendan Smyth was accused of molesting two young boys, Cardinal Sean Brady was present when the victims were coerced into signing oaths of silence. All told, Smyth went on to have a “prolific” career as a child rapist, abusing an estimated 100 kids. He died of a heart attack in 1997, after serving only one month in jail for his crimes. His victims were able to have the title “Reverend” removed from his gravestone, but apart from that, justice was never truly served.

Now, Cardinal Brady, the man who claims he did not have the authority to turn Smyth in to police, has refused to step down from his position even with mounting pressure from the public due to the rash of abuse scandals plaguing the Catholic Church. He seems to be under the impression he did nothing wrong, and he desperately wants to “maintain the momentum towards better child safeguarding” (cause it’s been working out great so far, buddy).

If you can’t even dismiss a guy who did nothing to stop a known child molester, how exactly is the Catholic Church on their way to help “purge” the plight of sexual predators from among their midst? It’s quite obvious no one is really taking this issue seriously. Brady should be in jail for what he did (or more specifically, what he didn’t do), but he won’t even do something as basic as stepping down as Cardinal. What makes people believe this corrupt institution will do anything to prevent these kinds of tragedies from happening in the future?

Missionaries in Haiti get off with time served

Posted on by

Remember a few months ago, when people still cared about the plight of Haiti (you know, before the world lost interest and turned their attention to something else), and a group of missionaries were facing charges of child kidnapping? Well, it looks like despite breaking the law, they’ve been sentenced to time served (which amounts to roughly 3 months and 8 days), and they’ve been released.

Despite strong evidence she knew the children she took all had at least one parent, and despite repeated warnings she received concerning the legality of what she was about to do, it seems as though the fact that she was motivated by religious charity has somehow absolved her and her group of this serious crime. Personally, I think they should have spent a lot more time in jail for it, but I’m sure the country just wants to move on and put this whole thing behind them (they are also probably still busy trying to rebuilt their shattered capital).

In a predictable fashion, Laura Silsby, the “brains” of the group praised God for the ruling. Was this the same God who commanded you to go down to a foreign country and kidnap children to whisk them away to “white people land” to save them from the evils of Haiti (who according to Pat Robertson made a pact with the devil)?

You have to wonder what kind of message the Haitian government sent with this weaksauce ruling. For a country which has a serious problem with children being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery, this doesn’t make them look very strong on the issue of child endangerment. You also have to wonder: if the people who had done this weren’t religious missionaries, would the court have been so lenient?

Top American in Vatican implicated in abuse scandal

Posted on by

So let me get this straight: the Vatican’s top American cleric was exposed in an abuse scandal, and they punished the guy who ousted him by canning him? Yeah, there is not conspiracy to conceal and protect child rapists in the Catholic Church… In other news, up is down, and wet is dry!

Homeopathy gets spanked by British Medical Association

Posted on by

It looks like science is finally pushing back hard against the pseudoscience that is homeopathy. The British Medical Association has come out publicly and stated it’s nothing more than “witchcraft”, and the National Health Service should cease to fund this quackery.

Homeopathy is witchcraft. It is a disgrace that nestling between the National Hospital for Neurology and Great Ormond Street [in London] there is a National Hospital for Homeopathy which is paid for by the NHS”.

Already strapped for cash, the NHS is looking for ways to trim the fat, and there’s no bigger dead weight than the ineffectual vials of water that pass as medicine. Of course, there’s always some idiot trying to argue even if homeopathy is no different than a placebo, the mental health of patients is vastly improved by its consumption. This, homeopaths argue, somehow justifies the public paying for it, even when no measurable effect has ever been demonstrated.

Homeopathy helps thousands of people who are not helped by conventional care. We don’t want it to be a substitute for mainstream care, but when people are thinking about making cuts to funding, I think they need to consider public satisfaction, and see that homeopathy has a place in medicine

“Public satisfaction” is not the way you measure the relative success of medical treatment. It either works or it doesn’t, and if it doesn’t, it has no business calling itself “medicine” in the first place. I’m sick and tired of the argument because helpless morons feel better after consuming sugar pills, that somehow “alternative medicine” is just as effective as conventional treatments (did I mention how ridiculously expensive nonsense can be?).

If you want to call yourself “medicine”, you have to pass the rigors of the scientific method, and since homeopathy has utterly failed every single attempt to show a demonstrable effect, it should be tossed aside like so many of its quack predecessors, like phrenology, iridology, and crystal healing. Would any other of these failed treatments be considered effective if people claimed it helped them?

Pope calls Gay Marriage “Insidious and Dangerous”

Posted on by

In an attempt to try and divert attention away from the fact he knowingly conspired to protect child rapists from prosecution, Pope Benedict XVI called out abortion and same sex marriage as being “insidious and dangerous”, two adjectives which actually effectively describe his OWN organization (but of course that’s a different rant altogether).

He came close to admitting some sort of culpability for the actions of the church (admitting to “sins within the church), but he was smart enough not to be specific about what that entailed exactly. Actually, Ratzinger, there was more than just “sinning” going on; child rape is actually a crime, which is why the rest of the world who doesn’t buy into your bullshit religion is so angry at you. If you were the CEO of any other institution, you’d be on the receiving end of a beating in a “pound me in the ass” style prison. But because millions of delusional idiots think you’re God’s special little avatar, the rest of the world is reluctant to do what’s right.

I’m looking forward to the day when needlessly blaming gays for society’s problems will be correctly seen as blatantly bigoted and wrong. Until then, these cross-dressing, reality denying fuck-faces will continue to fill our airwaves and newspapers with their evil rhetoric. Isn’t life grand?

Ted Haggard is back in the preaching business

Posted on by

I feel sorry for Ted Haggard. After being exposed as a crystal meth smokin’ closeted homo, the church he helped build forced him out of the state, and totally disowned him. With his friends and support network having abandoned him, he’s spent the last few years trying to figure out what to do with his life. Turns out being a preacher doesn’t give you a lot of marketable skills, so he’s gone back to his bread and butter, opening a small church in his home he calls “St. James” (a nod to a Book of James passage that says “faith without works is dead”).

Rather than accept the fact he’s hungry for rock hard man cock, he’s come back to the religious fold to continue preaching a gospel that quite clearly states that these feelings are an abomination. It reminds me how people can often create their own private kind of Hell by refusing to accept reality. If Haggard is deluded enough to think this is the life he wants, he’s forgotten his constant craving for man-sausage will cause him an unbelievable amount of internal conflict and pain.

Why don’t you stop living a fucking lie and just succumb to your biological urge to have sex with other men? There’s really nothing wrong with it; the only reason you feel this way is because of a primitive book that was written long ago by a bunch of primitive, ignorant sheep fuckers who thought the earth was flat and diseases were caused by demons. Do you really want to base your life on their bullshit “insights”?

Religion makes old fart act like a child

Posted on by

Is it just me or does this guy look like he took a couple “poppers” before heading off to his tiny hole-in-the-wall church? How is this any different than a 4 year old child having a little freak-out with their imaginary friend? You need to stop giving this guy sugar in the morning!

Tweet

Ontario teachers desperate for work “fake” being Catholic

Posted on by

In the province of Ontario, it seems like teachers are having a hard time finding work. Some are so desperate they’ve started “faking” religious belief in order to find work. The Globe and Mail is reporting a number of out of work teachers have been pretending to be Catholic in order to teach in private Catholic Schools. In Ontario, there is actually a law which allows these private schools to discriminate against employees who are not of the same faith, and to get in, you need a pastoral letter confirming the fact you believe in zombie Jesus.

Hey, I don’t blame these teachers for lying, especially considering the fact thousands of educators can’t seem to find work in the province. Still, it does seem pretty shitty that otherwise qualified individuals have to pass a religious “purity” test just to have a fucking job. How would you like having to lick the boots of religion just to make ends meet?

Polish pop star faces 2 years in jail for blasphemy

Posted on by

Looks like Poland is joining the list of gutless countries that want to jail people for speaking their minds about religion. The latest victim of this witch hunt is pop star Dorota Rabczewska (known as Doda), who was charged for an interview she did a year ago saying she believed in dinosaurs more than a book written by “people who drank too much wine and smoked herbal cigarettes”. For saying something so innocuous, this Polish goddess is facing up to two years in the slammer.

I know there are still a lot of atheists who find my “in your face” faithlessness a little disturbing, even abrasive at times. But we don’t live in a world where we are free to speak our minds just yet; religious institutions still want to silence our objections, our questions, and our anger. They do this by helping to fashion laws to scare us into silence, and because we are still so poorly represented in most of the world’s government, there’s little we can do to fight this kind of oppression.

Oh, and if you think this smokin’ hot mama is just another bimbo who doesn’t know her ass from her elbow, keep in mind that she is a card carrying member of Mensa (yeah, I know they are useless, but maybe they just want to hang out and feel smart). I’ve never believed in standard intelligence tests, but at the very least it means she isn’t a complete moron. Oh, and if you’re like me and suddenly in love, you’ll have to get through this scary guy to talk to her.

(Update: Her conviction was eventually overturned by EU courts, but it was a tough battle)

Jehovah Witness family abandons child after blood transfusion

Posted on by

I’m not a parent, so it’s difficult for me to comprehend what it feels like to actually have to take care of one of these screaming whelps. As far as I can tell, they smell, they cry and jump around a lot, and when they get older, they get all “angsty” and totally hate your guts. I’ve been told, however, the experience is rewarding enough to put up with the mega hassle.

One thing I do know for certain is your own brain is changed when you have a kid, and your affection for said child can border on scary. I know a lot of parents would jump in front of a speeding bus filled with rabies infested tigers to preserve their genetic legacy, so it surprises me whenever someone disavows their own progeny for obscure religious reasons.

Last Tuesday, a 5 year old child was admitted into the Eduibiase Government Hospital in Ghana, and was in desperate need for a blood transfusion. Despite the parent’s protest, the doctors decided to save Jepheth’s life, and as a result, the family has disowned the boy.

There are those that refuse to believe parents could disown their children over such a seemingly trivial thing, but this kind of tragedy happens all the time. Some parents can even try extreme measures to prevent their kids from receiving any treatment.

The root cause of all this brouhaha is the archaic belief blood should only be reserved for atonement (the rather disgusting idea people need to be sacrificed to appease gods is something we’ve been stuck with for a long time, unfortunately). Silly me; I actually thought the primary purpose of blood was to carry oxygen and nutrients to all the cells in your body!

Another tragic example of the divisive power of religion, tearing families apart over their stupid fucking theological dogma bullshit.

Catholic Church says it’s society that’s full of pedophiles

Posted on by

Typically if you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar (a rather generous metaphor considering these pederast pieces of shit were raping kids), it’s not a good idea to blame someone else for your crime. Not only does it give everyone the impression you are incapable of admitting to your guilt; it totally undermines people’s future trust in you. That’s why I find the continued denial of the Church regarding sexual abuse scandals so baffling; surely they must secretly want the public to slowly turn on them or something.

How else can you explain the baffling shit they keep on saying? Take the latest statement from Archbishop Dadeus Grings; he claims adolescents are “spontaneously gay”, and society at large is pedophile, not their institution.

“When sexuality is trivialized, it’s clear that this is going to affect all cases. Homosexuality is such a case. Before, the homosexual wasn’t spoken of. He was discriminated against.
“When we begin to say they have rights, rights to demonstrate publicly, pretty soon, we’ll find the rights of pedophiles,” he said.

Today’s scapegoats have pink triangles on their shoulder rather than stars of David, but the idea is still the same: blame all of your problems on someone else so no one has time to realize you’re really the one who is corrupt, evil, and twisted. If you think I’m painting with too broad a brush, consider the fact this douche also claimed the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust has been grossly exaggerated, and more Catholics were actually killed in the whole affair. Yeah, these guys are really interested in being factual and truthful, don’t you find?