Category Archives: Blog

Texas Wants to Make the Bible Mandatory in Schools

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Will religion ever tire of their quest for power? For all our sakes, I wish they would. It’s not enough that they benefit from our largess by paying no taxes. Some of these organizations own property in key locations, depriving municipalities of much needed income. Their clergy constantly lobbies the government for more money. Even the Supreme Court has allowed loopholes that churches exploit to get the state to pay for vouchers so they get public money for teaching utter nonsense to their followers. Need I even mention the attack on women’s bodies? The fight is endless.

TGA recently reported on Louisiana mandating the 10 commandments in classrooms. This is merely the opening act, for now Texas wants in on the shenanigans. The Republicans lead house is passing a massive bill that includes over 50 insane provisions. Some include rules to further gerrymander their districts to avoid any hope of Democrats making headway. However, others are far more radical, like forcing public schools to teach the Bible.

The platform also takes a step further some of the party’s previous calls for more Christianity in public life. The 2022 platform proclaimed that the United States was “founded on Judeo-Christian principles,” for instance, and demanded the repeal of federal prohibitions on political activity by churches.

The 2024 platform goes significantly further: It urges lawmakers and the State Board of Education to “require instruction on the Bible, servant leadership and Christian self-governance,” and supports the use of religious chaplains in schools — which was made legal under a law passed by the state Legislature last year.

This is just the beginning for these guys. The right has become more radicalized, and the rule of law, the Constitution, and anything that does not serve the unification of the church with the state is an obstacle that they plan on destroying.

I think it’s getting clear that the fight is going to get tougher moving forward. The church’s overstepping it’s boundaries has alienated people, which is why the percentage of religiously affiliated people continue to drop, but atheism stagnates. The people are disassociating religiously, but they are not actively fighting or rejecting the rise of Christo-fascism. They are simply disengaging politically, and this has opened the door wide open for the next generation of extremists that wish to transform their country into a “Christian Nation”.

It’s also terrifyingly vague just what kind of Christianity this is at the end of the day. Let us remember that there are thousands of denominations and variations, and that the conflicts that often punctuated these schisms were only finally put to bed when the state became neutral on the subject of all religions. All religious states are constantly engrossed in miniature Inquisitions, with religious minorities often being harassed, isolated, and even killed. The situation in Gaza is the perfect example: religious states are the most unstable, dangerous states on earth. For the world’s largest superpower, with the most powerful military in the history of mankind, to become a Christian nation would unleash generations of never ending conflict and strife. All of this danger, just so they can try and further shove this so-called loving God in our faces.

It’s frustrating, and exhausting fighting these guys with endless money, legions of unthinking drones, and increasingly more political power. What do we have? A bunch of podcasts and blogs. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic.

Dead Influencer to be Canonized

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In a desperate attempt to appeal to more young people, the Vatican has announced that a young man by the name of Carlo Acutis, who died recently due to complications with Lukemia, will become a saint after a so-called miracle attributed to the youth.

The Vatican has been on a canonizing tear recently. Only a few years ago, 10 new saints were added. Some had been dead for a while. One such person, an Indian man who had converted to Christianity in 1745, was subsequently tortured and killed for trying to spread his faith. Another, born in the 1500’sm, was a party boy that eventually dedicated his life to spreading the church’s lies. He died in 1607.

It appears that these old stuffy saints were doing little to attract new converts. It’s why they must have thanked their lucky stars when Acutis began to make social media posts about the faith. Although his parents were not particularly religious, when the family immigrated to Italy, the young man began to take an immediate interest. As is pretty typical in these situations, the “miracle” is pretty mundane stuff:

On July 8, 2022, Liliana prayed at Blessed Carlo’s tomb in Assisi, leaving a letter describing her plea. Six days earlier, on July 2, her daughter Valeria had fallen from her bicycle in Florence, where she was attending university. She had suffered severe head trauma, and required craniotomy surgery and the removal of the right occipital bone to reduce pressure on her brain, with what her doctors said was a very low chance of survival. Liliana’s secretary began praying immediately to Blessed Carlo Acutis, and on July 8, Liliana made her pilgrimage to his tomb in Assisi. That same day, the hospital informed her that Valeria had begun to breath spontaneously. The next day, she began to move and partially regain her speech.

I mean, it seems like this is more of a testament to the young woman’s doctors. Let’s not forget that she was also in the prime of her life, so making a dramatic recovery was not an impossibility.

I have to wonder just how many people troll hospitals praying to random dead people for a miracle. If the prayer fails, do they get deducted a point? Seems as though they are only interested in the hits rather than the misses. They also never seem to lose any points when people pray to saints and fail to make a recovery. If people were keeping score, it would be a different matter I’m sure. Still, what else do you expect from a cult that dresses up in weird outfits and claims to speak to their imaginary friend?

 

Church Volunteer Arrested for Sexually Abusing Kids

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A woman named Angela Marie Klickner has been arrested by the Mesa County Sherri’s Office over allegations that she sexually assaulted several children. Klickner was a church volunteer, and as such, she had a great deal of access and power over the kids she was responsible for.

The details are scant, and no doubt as the investigation continues, more details will be forthcoming during her trial. We do not yet know how many children were affected by this, or the extent of the abuse.

One has to wonder just how many of these abusers are employed by the church. Judging by how often these kinds of incidents get exposed, its terrifying to consider just how many horrible people there are out there, patiently waiting to pounce on the innocent. I wouldn’t be surprised if the problem only gets worse: churches need volunteers, and the fewer candidates they have, the more likely they are to hire someone with deep psychological issues. Coupled with the fact that religion often masks mental illness, and you have a recipe for disaster.

When more details of this becomes public, TGA will report on it, so stay tuned.

Doomsday Cult Prophet’s Wild Murder Plot

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If you’ve ever read Jon Krakauer’s excellent book, “Under the Banner of Heaven”, you may already be aware of the apocalyptic sects that exists within Mormonism. When you think of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, usually what comes to mind is the rather silly elements of the faith: their weird obsession with magic underwear, the idea that Jesus came from another planet, and their prohibitionism on everything from alcohol to caffeine. What Krakauer discussed in his book is the fundamentalist aspect of Mormonism, which tends to bring out the worst in people.

Chad Daybell was such a fundamentalist. He began his career by writing religious fiction, which at first allowed him to quit his job working as a grave digger. His earnings were modest, and so, to avoid having to continue to work in a job he obviously hated, his writings began to take on a far darker and more apocalyptic tone. This found him a larger audience, and he started getting more popular among Mormon extremists.

Chad’s stories echoed the worrisome changes that were happening in his mind. He spoke of God talking directly to him, specifically telling him about the end times. He claimed later to have experienced several near death experiences, and that the result was that he could now receive supernatural visions. His fiction was beginning to merge with his real life.

Things really started to turn when he met a woman named Lori Cox, a former contestant in the Miss Texas beauty pageant. Cox was on her fourth marriage by then, one of which had produced a son named Joshua (although everyone called him J.J.). She quickly became obsessed with Daybell and his strange sermons. By 2019, the two had convinced one another that they had been married previous lives, but both refused to get a divorce from their current spouses. They wished to find “other means” to be together.

Cox’s husband, Charles Vallow, began to suspect that his life was in danger. He started off by getting a protective order, and changing his life insurance policy so that the beneficiary would be his sister. Eventually, he decided that he wanted to make the marriage work, and so the order was rescinded. Then, a few months later, Charles was shot by Lori’s brother Alex, who claimed that it was self defense. Later that day, neighbors reported that Lori had a party not long after. No charges were filled for the killing.

In September of that year, Lori told J.J.’s school that he was being pulled out of classes, and that she would be homeschooling him. No one had seen either him, or his adoptive sister Tylee for quite some time. They were both dead, though no one knew this yet.

In October, Chad’s wife Tammy had been shot at in her driveway by a masked man. The gun, which had either jammed or had not been loaded properly, did not work. When she reported it to the police, they thought the whole thing was a prank, until 10 days later, when they found her dead body. Chad claimed it was from natural causes, and refused an autopsy. The incompetent police obliged him, until some time later when it was finally exhumed when all of the suspicious deaths began to be properly investigated.

Finally, in July of 2020, the bodies of Joshua and Tylee were discovered on Chad’s property. Forensic reports indicated that he had been asphyxiated. Tylee’s cause of death could not be determined, but evidence did suggest that they had attempted to dismember her.

The trials are still ongoing. Both have turned on each other, and claimed that they were emotionally manipulated by the other. It’s rather typical for these kinds of trials: both murderers are unwilling to take responsibility for their crimes. Two children are dead, as well as both of their spouses, and yet they cannot even fathom that all of this was the results of their actions. Instead, these delusional killers would rather blame outside forces than their own decisions. This is the true danger of faith: it transforms people into mindless robots, who think that their actions are mandated by an all powerful being. It’s truly terrifying.

Louisiana Forces Schools to Display 10 Commandments

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Christians and their god damn 10 Commandments. You would think that these 10 laws are the most important rules on earth. In reality, with the exception of its prohibition against murder and theft, the rest of the laws are useless. Three of them are all about God wanting to be recognized, and not to celebrate other deities. Then, there’s the warning to listen to your parents, which sounds great until you realize that it also says that kids who disobey need to be stoned to death. There’s mention of not cheating on your spouse, but realistically this is the most busted of all the commandments.

So, while the 10 Commandments are fine for those of us that have not taken a modern civics class, one thing is for sure, is that it does not belong in public schools. Well, that’s something the State of Louisiana and I seem to disagree about. You see, schools across the state are now being forced to display the 10 Commandments in classrooms, presumably to continue to shove Christianity in our faces.

“The purpose is not solely religious,” Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe, told the Senate. Rather, it is the Ten Commandments’ “historical significance, which is simply one of many documents that display the history of our country and foundation of our legal system.”

The foundation of your legal system? Hardly. You wouldn’t be able to govern a group of people, let alone a country, with such a limited document. In reality, it’s nothing more than poorly disguised sectarianism, pretending to be education.

All of this is only going to initiate countless lawsuits, which is going to cost the state a pretty penny.

“We’re going to spend valuable state resources defending the law when we really need to be teaching our kids how to read and write,” Duplessis (a practicing Catholic Senator) said. “I don’t think this is appropriate for us to mandate.”

And now you know where the priorities of Senators like Jay Morris have: spend countless resources trying to pretend that Christianity is integral to the nation when it’s nothing more than a major hindrance. Enjoy the lawsuits, morons.

Creepy Abstinence Speaker to Give All Girl School a Visit

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A School in Australia is about to host an abstinence speaker for an all girl Catholic school, and as a result, they are getting pushback from parents, who rightly feel that a grown man telling little girls not to have sex is the height of creepiness.

The speaker, a man by the name of Jason Evert, is an old hand when it comes to telling people to stop touching themselves, and others. Some of his events have been cancelled: for instance, when he was recently invited to Ireland to give the same weird lecture, the parents shut that down before it even started.

A petition is now circulating, but the school still plans to invite this creep to tell young girls that they shouldn’t have sex. The way they are defending the decision is quite hilariously stupid:

A representative for the students at St Joseph’s, who did not want to be named, said the session was not appropriate, especially “in light of the recent speech given at a Catholic university in America, where a man said the degrees are useless because women should be housewives”.

He’s referring to the football player Harrison Butker, the obviously closeted kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs that has made headlines for his 1950’s era speech where he told women were better off as homemakers. Somehow, this seems to prove that there is an appetite for this kind of meddling in the affairs of women.

Many parents are already planning on pulling their daughters from school when this judgmental asshole shows up. Luckily, it was only after the complained that the school decided to reverse it’s policy that the talk be mandatory.

Here’s hoping that this clown shows up to an empty auditorium.

Canadian School Board Cancels ISIS Survivor Talk over Islamophobia Fears

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In Iraq, there is a religious minority that is constantly being persecuted. Although they speak Kurdish, there is some disagreement as to whether or not they are distinct subgroup of Kurds. What is clear is that the faith is ancient, predating Zoroastrianism. They are a monotheistic faith that has a strong affinity to nature, believing that the elements should remain free of pollution. Some call them “sun worshippers”, for they face the sun whenever they pray. They only marry within their faith, which is what has kept them separate from others for the last 900 years.

As you might imagine, a non-Islamic religious group is not very welcome in both countries with strong Islamic presence. Its members are regularly attacked, and one of the more popular ways to do so is to sexually assault young women. They are often kidnapped and sold in an endless cycle of sexual slavery whenever their rapists tire of them. In light of these atrocities, the Canadian government began to take in refugees. Among them was a young woman named Nadia Murad, who recently won a (shared) Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.

All of this sounds wonderful, until you realize that the same government who allowed these refugees in the country have no interest in them sharing their story. You see, a couple of days ago, a Canadian School Board had invited Murad to speak about her experiences. The event was cancelled, for fear that her talk would cause “hurt feelings” and Islamophobia.

[S]chool board superintendent Helen Fisher pulled the plug on Murad’s visit, saying she would not let students attend because the book would be offensive to Muslims and “foster Islamophobia,” the Telegraph reported.

Let’s recap here: the school was worried that actually learning more about Islam’s crimes against humanity might make some students critical of the religion. What else are we supposed to do with survivors? Ask them to quietly go away so that they stop exposing the evils of this religion? The West continues to bury its head in the sand at its own peril. You cannot ignore the dangers of Islam, wishing to avoid revealing the truth about the faith in order to protect the feelings of a religion that craves world domination.

Truth is often upsetting to people who live in a world of lies. Let’s also not ignore the fact that when Islam feels insulted, people often die. The religion is so insecure that countless adherents are more than willing to hurt, or even kill anyone who dares to insult it. These wackos need to learn that free expression in the price you pay for living in a democracy. If they dislike it, there are plenty of hellhole theocracies they can move to. Catering to these deadly temper tantrums will do nothing but undermine the very values we stand for.

Here’s hoping that this move actually backfires, and Murad is invited to more schools to share her experiences. I can dream, can’t I?

Football Dummy Tells Graduating Women to Stay in the Kitchen

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I’ve always found it a useful exercise to put myself in the shoes of others. As a writer, there are immense advantages to doing so. I am not a young woman graduating from college, but I know that if I were, I would have been fuming if the Commencement speaker was telling me that I would be better off barefoot and preggers, rather than starting a career with the degree I worked so hard for.

That’s the situation the women at  Benedictine College, a catholic school located in Texas, found themselves in. The speaker was a pro athlete named Harrison Butker, who is a kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, and has been an outspoken homophobe for quite some time. Given the mood in Catholic spheres, this seemed like a perfect person to invite to inspire the next generation of graduates.

After making a swipe at gays for having the gall of having Pride Month, he went on to tell all of the ladies in the audience this gem:

“I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and a mother. I’m on this stage, and able to be the man I am, because I have a wife who leans into her vocation. I’m beyond blessed with the many talents god has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.”

Butker seemed genuinely choked up by this, as though this was some great revelatory thing that required bravery. The audience cheered, though I would have loved to see the faces of the members there. To the ladies who clapped, I have to wonder what you were doing there in the first place. What is the point of a degree when it never gets puts to use?

Keep in mind the Butker can actually afford to live on one income, thanks to the fact that a professional sports team pays him millions of dollars for occasionally kicking a football. This kind of privilege is so rare that only a handful of people on earth have this luxury. The rest of us who have to work for a living often have to compromise, and two working parents is not needed to put food on the table.

The rest of his speech is the kind of unhinged religious nonsense you’ve come to expect from the religious right. The sad truth is that this mentality still resonates with a good portion of people out there who long for a perceived “simpler” time, depicted in fantasy TV shows as the model of living. This would have been the same time America was at war, segregation was at its height, and the poverty rate was around 22% (its now closer to around 9%). So you know, the good old days!

GOP Rep claims Teachers are Censoring Creationism

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It drives me crazy every time religious fundies talk about evolution. The only thing they seem to understand about it is that it threatens their view that their creator god made the world as it is today. So, rather than actually try to bother to grasp the fundamentals of the most tested and verified scientific theory of all time, they instead argue that their “version” of cosmic events is being suppressed.

The latest dummy to chime in is Minnesota state Representative Glenn Greunhagen. Fresh off an ethics complaint for sending a video of graphic videos of gender-affirming surgery, he’s now arguing that creationism is being undermined by the big meanies in the sciences. And because the man has absolutely no idea what the Scientific Method is, he says dumb shit like this:

“In science, I find a lot of censorship, lies, and deceit. You know, there’s lots of scientific evidence that points to a creator or God and I’ll just give you two. One is the law of cause and effect. For every effect, there’s a greater cause… You have the Earth. Somebody made it. You have the universe. Somebody created it. That is a repeatable, observable, scientific fact. And yet we censor that from our students.”

Let’s quickly deal with his first argument. We’ve all gotten pretty tired of the “First Cause” argument, since it never actually solves the problem. Claiming that God is the first cause only opens up a larger problem of what caused “God”. The classic response that offers no answer at all is always the same: God doesn’t need a first cause. The problem with this pathetic answer is that it destroys the very premise of the argument: that all effects need a cause. Clearly, that isn’t true for at least one part of the Universe, so why should it be for the rest? Answers that only lead to more questions do a poor job of proving anything. In any case, this type of argument belongs in a philosophy class, and not in a biology one.

As for his other comments about censorship, creationists fail to realize that in order to teach something, you need to actually have a working theory. The “God did it” answer is just about the laziest, and least satisfying thing a person can “learn”. There’s a huge difference between discussing a scientific theory like evolution, and arguing that sky-daddy made everything. A Theory (with a capital “T”) is falsifiable, testable, and can be demonstrated using multiple different threads of evidence. Creationism, on the other hand, is unfalsifiable, unprovable, and worst of all, makes absolutely zero predictions. That means that research into genetic diseases, anti-biotic resistance, and other vital discoveries would all be useless if we spent even an iota of time on the ridiculousness that is creationism.

Of course, Glenn is not a scientist. There is no test measuring the intelligence of US senators or congressmen. I have a feeling if there were, half of their members would test no better than a cocker spaniel would. Intelligence is in short supply in government, and Greunhagen is yet another poster child for why it’s so important to actually teach people reality rather than fantasy.

Iranian Filmmaker Flees Country to Avoid Prison

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Iran has problems. Following the takeover of the Ayatollah in the end of the 70’s, the country has been ruled by a theocracy ever since, and this has meant that anyone not following their edicts have been victimized by the regime. In the last several years, the killing of women for failing to wear their hijab has caused mass demonstrations, but has failed to yield any political change as of yet.

Recently, a filmmaker by the name of Mohammad Rasoulof has fled to Europe after being handed a bullshit 8 year prison sentence. His crime? Rasoulof makes films that are critical of the government, and this has made him enemy #1 in their eyes.

Last week, Rasoulof’s lawyer told The Associated Press that the director had been sentenced to eight years in prison, flogging and confiscation of property by the Islamic Republic. Rasoulof’s attorney, Babak Paknia, said the filmmaker was being punished for making films and signing statements…“Knowing that the news of my new film would be revealed very soon, I knew that without a doubt, a new sentence would be added to these eight years,” said Rasoulof. “I didn’t have much time to make a decision. I had to choose between prison and leaving Iran. With a heavy heart, I chose exile. The Islamic Republic confiscated my passport in September 2017. Therefore, I had to leave Iran secretly.”

Rasoulof is now in an undisclosed location for his own safety. Even Europe isn’t safe with the amount of fundamentalists living anonymously among the populous. He hopes to be able to show his latest film called “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”, which he describes as “how insidiously the Iranian dictatorship creeps into families”. Considering many of the actors in the film have also fled the country, Rasoulof fears for their safety.

If Iran ever hopes to change, it’s going to need more men like Rasoulof and his peers, bravely taking on their government at the risk of their own lives. That, my friend, is true bravery.

FFRF Shuts Down Elementary School Christian Club

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Christians will do just about anything to get religion back into schools. As TGA has reported in the past, organizations like LifeWise Academy are just one form of coercion that exists. There are also more sneaky ways this is accomplished. For instance, in Florida, the Freedom From Religion Foundation was able to shut down a supposed “Christian Club” in Hamilton County Elementary School. The group claimed that it was a spontaneous club started by students there. A cursory investigation showed that this was not the case.

The complainant was told that there were no records of the Fellowship or an affiliated group renting space at Hamilton Elementary. The response made it clear that the school was allowing a religious club for children at an elementary school during the school day.

The club, called the “Fellowship of Christian Athletes” has since been shut down, and this has upset uneducated Christians who think that it’s an unfair ruling.

“Banning students from having a religious club at a school while permitting other, secular clubs is a travesty that teaches children their faith is unwelcome and must be hidden,” First Liberty Institute Deputy General Counsel Justin Butterfield told The Christian Post.

Of course religious folks want to inculcate their crap into kids as young as possible, and see any attempt to stop this as discrimination. What these clowns fail to realize is that any school club must be the result of the students organizing themselves. Outside influence is not welcome. Parents are still free to brainwash their kids at home. The rest of us taxpayers, however, are uninterested in public schools becoming religious indoctrination centers. Keep your religion to yourself, and there won’t be a problem. I’m guessing it’ll be a cold day in hell when Christians start respecting the rest of us that don’t share in their little delusions.

Courts OK Catholic School Firing Gay Teacher

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It’s moments like this that remind me why I always feel a bitter taste in my mouth every time Christians complain about being persecuted. Imagine making an announcement of your upcoming nuptials, only to then be fired when they found out that the couple was the same sex. How would conservative outlets react if a private school had fired someone for being Christian?

By all accounts, Lonnie Billard was a good employee. He has worked for Charlotte Catholic High School as a teacher for over a decade. He obviously loved his job, but when he announced that he was getting married to a man, the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina decided that he would no longer be welcome there. Naturally, Billard sued the school with the help of the ACLU, but unfortunately, he lost due to the American legal system now being a branch of the Catholic Church. Never mind that it’s a gross violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prevents people from being fired for discriminatory reasons. Apparently, though, the courts have a neat little loophole for something that inconvenient:

But Circuit Judge Pamela Harris, writing Wednesday’s prevailing opinion, said that Billard fell under a “ministerial exception” to Title VII that courts have derived from the First Amendment that protects religious institutions in how they treat employees “who perform tasks so central to their religious missions — even if the tasks themselves do not advertise their religious nature.”

So, you’re a “minister” even when your not even discussing your own beliefs. What a load of bullshit. This is nothing but thinly vailed discrimination, under the guise that this is some form of religious exemption. Frankly, it’s disgusting. Is America still a country that understands the separation of Church and state? I think we can firmly say: No.

 

Mentally Challenged Teenager Killed for “Sacrilege” in India

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Voltaire famously said “Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities”. Rarely has there been a more perfect encapsulation of the dangers of belief. In India, a young disabled man named Bakshish Singh was beaten to death when a rumor had spread that he had torn pages out of Guru Granth Sahib, which is the holy text of Sikhism.

He reportedly tried to run away after committing the sacrilege and was caught by locals. As the news of the alleged incident spread, villagers gathered at the gurdwara and beat him.

Ah yes, the good old fashion mob beatings. You know that it didn’t take long for people to mercilessly pound a young man for the made-up crime of sacrilege. The real crime is the snuffing out of a youth with a history of mental illness. Rather than show compassion, which religious people continue to pretend to have, they showed only the darkest aspect of the human animal.

I think it’s telling just how brutal religion can be when the veneer of civilization is stretched thin. In rural India, the old ways still dominate, and it’s terrifying. How many other countless lives have been lost to the madness of the crowd, drunk of revenge for grievances against their imaginary friends? It all makes me sad, especially when I still overhear talk that we need more religion in our lives. I assure you, we do not.

Priest Embezzled Church Funds for Mobile Game Addiction

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As a gamer, I can relate to people who get wrapped up in a game. This hobby can often be detrimental to our mental health, and out wallets. Mobile games are especially manipulative, and there are countless stories of people spending thousands on “free” software with microtransactions.

What I’m less forgiving of is people who commit crimes to pay for their addiction. So when Rev. Lawrence Kozak was caught having spent over 40k in microtransactions in games such as Candy Crush and Mario Cart, he was quick to blame his addiction:

When interviewed by detectives in 2022, Kozak said he was seeking counseling for his addiction to playing and spending money on online games, according to the affidavit. He said the money was not spent on gambling, but rather to “power up” — gain an advantage in the games he was playing.

It sounds pretty far fetch that this isn’t gambling, but I can speak with authority that people have spent more than that on bullshit cosmetics and other useless crap in these manipulative mobile games. Still, it doesn’t excuse the fact that this man embezzled church funds for his own personal gain. Now, he faces the legal consequences of this. I have some doubts about whether or not he will be properly punished: religious wrongdoers have a habit of getting off easy.

Is it really too much to ask that justice be served? Come on Pennsylvania: make sure you do the right thing and send his ass to jail!

New Orleans Archdiocese Gets Special Treatment

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Man, it’s gotta be pretty sweet to be a Catholic Priest. You can commit serious crimes and still be protected by your employer. There aren’t many organizations in the world that will go to bat for you the way the Catholic Church will. Now, you might be wondering exactly why the church is so generous when it comes to their defense of criminals. Well, the answer is simple: laws are man-made, and as far as they are concerned, the only one they need to answer to is their imaginary friend in the sky.

As we reported a few days ago, the Archdiocese in New Orleans is under investigation for child trafficking. What we didn’t know until now is just how much support the offenders were receiving:

The affidavit alleges that documents obtained during the Father Hecker investigation show that “previous archbishops … not only knew of the [widespread] sexual abuse and failed to report all the claims to law enforcement, but [also] spent archdiocese funding to support the accused.”…One document cited in the affidavit states that one specific archbishop “was aware of rampant sexual abuse throughout the archdiocese,” but the affidavit leaves out the archbishop’s name.

Talk about privilege. Can you imagine any other organization that was found to have provided money and support to men who were sexually torturing children for decades? Would the police fail to name the people responsible for covering up the crime? If this was a Walmart, you can bet that the entire management staff would be indicted, and the RICO charges would have come around so fast, it would have made everyone’s head spins. Not so for a rich and powerful religious organization. They can sexually abuse countless kids, and still be allowed to operate. If we treated them like other criminals, their organization which facilitated the abuse would be gone; it’s assets used to compensate the families, and the men responsible for failing to stop it would all be getting their heads smashed in prison. Instead, we have this weak-ass response from the cops, who look like they are walking on eggshells to avoid getting anyone in trouble.

Personally, if you aren’t disgusted by this, you’re part of the problem. Let us stop this special treatment of religious rapists, and treat them the same we would any sorry excuse for a human being.