Category Archives: Blog

Preachers continue to pray for Obama’s death

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I find it strange that Christians believe their religion gives them moral superiority over others. In their deluded minds, they believe the Bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ are the foundations of our modern (ethical) society. Never mind the fact the same book was used to justify all kinds of atrocities, from genocides to slavery; that was ages ago! Those people weren’t real Christians, and there’s no way anyone reading the Bible could possibly get it wrong, right?

Here’s an interesting article from a person of faith deriding the slew of preachers who have prayed publicly for the death of President Obama. The author believes these acts of barbarism set a dangerous and deadly precedent, and their religion is vulnerable to manipulation of the few relative extremists who use their pulpit to promote their bigotry and racism.

I agree that these kinds of preachers need to be stopped, but her solution to this problem, prayer, is quite literally the most useless thing anyone can do. I understand her frustration. It’s quite impossible for Christians to properly put their extremist factions in their place; after all, fundamentalists rely on a literal approach to reading the Bible. Theological arguments can’t be settled because they aren’t based on anything real or objective. While it’s nice to know there are plenty of Christians who find this kind of hate speech aberrant, we seriously need them to do more than just pray. You people are aware that it doesn’t do shit, right?

Pakistan is still messed up

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I got some good news and some bad news. I’ll give you the good news first; according to the latest Pew Poll, Pakistani support of the Taliban and al Qaeda has been declining over the past few years, and more and more people are concerned over extremism in the country. They also are beginning to see that educating women is important. All of this sounds pretty encouraging, right?

Ok, now that we’ve covered the good stuff, it’s time for the bad news. It seems that Pakistanis are increasingly supporting severe laws; roughly 83% of the population supports stoning adulterers, while 78% of them want the death penalty to be applied to apostates. An overwhelming majority also support giving judicial power to religious judges, which is essentially the same thing as handing over the keys to your house to a raving fucking lunatic.

The majority of Pakistanis also believe India is a major threat to their security, mainly due to the fucking depressing quagmire that is Kashmir. Considering both of these countries are nuclear powers, the threat of armed conflict should scare the living shit out of everyone. Pakistan is a damn mess, and I have great fears the situation there is not improving. What’s the solution? I’m not sure, but I can tell you one thing; if anyone has any doubts religion isn’t the main source of these problems, kindly jump off a bridge please.

Teen rejects HPV vaccine on moral grounds

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If you want to be a citizen of the US, you have to get vaccinated for a variety of diseases. It makes sense, but something as simple as a shot never seems to go very smoothly in that country. Take the example of Simone, a young woman from the UK trying to get an American citizenship. The government wants her to be vaccinated for HPV, but she has refused saying as a devout Christian, she will not be having sex, and therefore doesn’t need the vaccine. She’s essentially refused to take it purely on moral grounds.

I’m not even going to use the argument that good christian girls are actually more likely to engage in risky sexual activity; for all I know, maybe she is serious about this (and she might also be a minger; I don’t know). That’s not the damn point. The point is statistically she has a very good chance of contracting it (roughly 80% of women risk contracting it by the time they turn 50), and cervical cancer is no fucking joke, and yet her backwards religious belief is making her take a stance against protecting her own health.

The grandmother and teen make it sound as though getting a vaccination is equivalent to being waterboarded; it’s well within the right of the US government to want prospective citizens to take the necessary precautions to ensure their good health, and the health of others. Worldwide, cervical cancer still kills nearly half a million people a year. Does that seem like a small number to you?

This same kind of protest is happening all the time with this vaccine, which is not only annoying but also discouraging. How many women will die or lose the ability to have children all because of their stupid conviction that the vaccine somehow “encourages” promiscuity. No offense people, but one hardly needs an excuse to want to fuck all the time. We’re kind of engineered that way.

Proud Atheist gets a death threat

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When you blog about atheism, the occasional death threat or hateful message is inevitable. I’ve been fortunate enough to have avoided such unpleasantries, though I credit my low profile more than anything overly friendly about me. New to the list of victims is Mark from Proud Atheist. He put up a post a few days ago celebrating his 1st year anniversary (my how time flies, no?), and this was one of the comments he received:

Yes, happy first and LAST anniversary.

Your sins are too mighty to repent for, our Father will send you all to hell when you die! I will hack into this website and destroy it; and find your personal information too, so I can blow up your house—but your destiny is so fucked up that I don’t know why I would bother! I may, however, hunt down your friends and family and slaughter them—that would cause you great pain, would it not? I have gotten signs from God that approve of doing this to all fucking atheists! Someday you may find a gun at your head, or cyanide in your drink, or a grenade in your home—but I will kill you, make no mistake! The sooner you go to your eternal punishment, the better!

This guy is an obvious lunatic, and here’s hoping Gabriel Tanejo is just another hateful coward.

(Note: The site no longer exists)

New Archbishop of Nigeria causes controversy

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There’s always an uneasy truce in Africa when it comes to religion. The combination of desperation and ignorance is attractive to mainstream religions, who send missionaries and monies to convert Africans to their side. In doing so, they have begun to carve apart communities. Take Nigeria as a good example; the Archbishop recently accused Muslims of “mass-producing” children in an attempt to take over communities by sheer numbers. He claims money from the Arab world is being funneled down and used to build hospitals and schools that encourage people to convert.

“They come to Africans and say, ‘Christianity is asking you to marry only one wife. We will give you four!’ ” Archbishop Okoh described this as “evangelism by mass-production”.

He’s not saying this because he believes these tactics are wrong. How could he? The Catholic Church has employed the same M.O. for quite some time now. If anything, it sounds to me like he’s jealous rather than angry. Still, the effect of such a statement cannot be underestimated, especially in a country where religious tensions are on the rise.

This is why religion poisons everything; with the election of this obviously antagonistic Archbishop, the uneasy peace building process that has been going on between Muslims and Christians may well evaporate, and we can all imagine what that would be like. This is the same country where they torture and kill children who are suspected of being witches. Do I really need to spell out what will happen here if this kind of shit keeps happening?

Tony Blair wants religion to save the world

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If you’re not British, you might not really care what Tony Blair is up to. After all, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, we regard the man as nothing more than a puppet of the Bush administration (Nelson Mandela famously described him as “the US foreign minister“). Most Brits tend to believe that his actions and policies granted more police powers and eroded their civil liberties. Everyone I’ve ever talked to unanimously agreed that he’s a giant dick.

Like most retired politicians, he’s in legacy mode, and wants people to remember him as more than just Dubya’s puppet. He’s started an organization called “The Tony Blair Faith Foundation”, whose mandate is to:

…promote respect and understanding about the world’s major religions and show how faith is a powerful force for good in the modern world.

Even if Tony has good intentions with this foundation, he’s completely out of his depth here. All he can do is attract religious institutions that are already interested in peaceful dialog, and nothing more. Blair’s history in the Middle East is a liability more than it’s an asset. How are Muslims in Bagdad supposed to react to Blair’s words of peace when they have tasted so much of his sword?

In any case, if they truly want peace they will have to do more than appeal to people’s “faith”. Not every religion takes a kind attitude of tolerance towards other teachings. Most religions tend to have bloody conflicts over even the most minute doctrinal differences.

The National Secular Society seems to agree with me, and stated Blair is “profoundly wrong” in imagining religion is a peacemaking tool. If it was, we’d have a very different type of world right now. If we want human beings to see one another in the same way, we need to discourage people from believing in things without evidence. We live in a world with so many interesting and fascinating answers, and yet there are still people who kill one another over their genocidal mythologies.

Tony, the best thing you can do for world peace is to find a place to lay low for the next 30-40 years. Is there any nice way to tell this douche to get the fuck out of our faces?

Suck it, God!

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Genesis Chapter 3, verse 14

And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this [tricked Eve into eating the apple] thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field;upon thy belly shalt thoug go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

Crawl on their bellies forever, huh? Evolution might have something to say about that. Doesn’t it kind of look like this snake is giving us all “the finger” in this picture? Also, how often has anyone commented on the fact the Bible hilariously thinks that snakes eat dirt? Perhaps the snake got a raw deal, and it was really the earthworm that told Eve to eat the apple. After all, I’m pretty sure they eat that shit too…

Movie about Darwin doesn’t have U.S. distributor

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One of the crown jewels at the Toronto Film Festival this year was Creation, a movie depicting the life and struggles of Charles Darwin. The film focuses specifically on his family life, and the destruction of his faith with the death of his beloved daughter Annie. The film stars Paul Bettany (you might remember him as the albino monk in The DaVinci Code) and his real life smoking hot wife, Jennifer Connelly. So far a bunch of countries have already picked it up except the big one: America

US distributors fear that the film is too controversial for American audiences, which is to say that they are worried any involvement in the film may end up costing them dearly. There are no companies willing to take the risk of pissing off hard core Christians who blame Darwin for the Holocaust, eugenics, and just about any other atrocity you can imagine. It’s never dawned on them this gentle and thoughtful man was one of the greatest minds in the history of our species.

I think that an online distributor should pick it up and offer the movie on the web. If you can’t play it in theatres, people should still have a right to be exposed to ideas, even if they aren’t popular among the uneducated. In any case, most of the people who would end up watching it belong to the Internet generation, and we’ll just end up downloading it anyway. Why not make it easy for us?

Madonna blamed for boating accident

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There aren’t many beheadings that are celebrated around the world. It’s generally not a very positive thing to have a day dedicated to, but that hasn’t stopped morbid Orthodox Church in Bulgaria from marking the day John the Baptist was decapitated , which they celebrate on August 29th.

That’s also the date that Madonna, queen of controversy, chose to hold her concert there. Everyone had a great time, but it turns out by coincidence, a boat capsized on Lake Ohrid, killing 15 people. The Church has since blamed Madonna for the incident, saying her defiance is what caused God to kill a bunch of innocents in protest.

Anybody else get a warm and fuzzy feeling from the God character? No, I didn’t think so. I guess the Orthodox Church has never really stopped believing in the cruel despot of the Old Testament, who can’t help but express his dissatisfaction with humanity by causing endless disasters. Blaming an entertainer for what was actually the fault of the operators, (who greedily tried to fit more people on their tour boat than what was allowed) is not only low; it’s entirely pointless.

Hijacking for Jesus

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A few days ago, I celebrated September 9th, 2009 by recording a second bonus podcast (since the original one was lost forever), and spent most of the day reading for new material to talk about for future shows. The date had no real significance to the vast majority of the planet, but for Jose Marc Flores Pereira, it was a special day. He had received a revelation from God that Mexico would suffer from a terrible earthquake, so he did the only thing he could think of: he made a fake bomb with a bunch of juice cans and hijacked an Boeing 737.

Father Pereira was convinced the date, 09/09/09 would signify the presence of the devil (since upside down the numbers would read 666), and he wanted to hijack the plane in order to get an audience with the Mexican president to urge him to preach the gospel from Mexico City’s central square.

Pereira’s wife admits the dude has “psychological problems”, which at least explains why this former singer and drug addict is allowed to go around preaching insane stories of virgin births, resurrections, and worldwide floods.

His family doesn’t sound like they are very helpful. His mother was aware of his plans, and because he claimed to be divinely ordained by God to do this, she let him go with her blessing. So an insane lunatic was allowed to carry out his plan with the full compliance of his family because his religion masked his deep psychological issues. The amount of times mental illness goes unreported because of religion is too numerous to count, and until we admit such beliefs are indicative of psychological disorders, these kinds of stories will keep happening. This guy needs help, not religion.

Harlan Ellison on God

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A fan of the site sent me this video, and I had to educate myself a little bit to find out exactly who Harlan Ellison is. Because he hates the Internet and still does all his writing on an old Olympia typewriter (the supposed Mercedes Benz of typewriters!), most of you are probably like me and have to admit almost complete ignorance about his life and works. Of course, after listening to his speech, I will be picking up a bunch of his short stories and novels to see what he’s all about.

1 in 33 women pressured to have sex by clergymen

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Having never been religious in my life, I sometimes forget the degree of power and reverence preachers tend to have. These men (for they are almost always all male) are seen by many as being a direct link to God, and it’s a position of power few humans seem to be able to handle very well. It turns out roughly 1 in every 33 women attending church services are approached by priests and are pressured into having sexual relations with them.

I don’t see why anyone is really that surprised. Why do most men crave power? The more power you have, the better breeding possibilities at your disposal. I don’t even think most men in positions of influence even realize this is their true intent. They probably just think it’s a sweet perk or something. Why would it be any different simply because these guys are “men of the cloth”?

Priests shaking up their female congregants is enough of a problem that states like Texas and Minnesota have made it illegal to:

[cause] the other person to submit or participate by exploiting the other person’s emotional dependency on the clergyman in the clergyman’s professional character as spiritual adviser.

In other words, if you’re a “Holy Man”, your clout with God makes the ladies vulnerable to your advances. It’s another piece of revelation that leads me to believe I’ve chosen the wrong profession. I should just quit this atheist gig and start my own harem church!

Convicted child rapist to become ordained minister

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Have you ever wondered if there aren’t some churches that are a bit too inclusive? Sure, it might first seem like a good idea to accept anyone regardless of their past, but once in a while you have to know where to draw the line. Take the City of Refuge Worship Center, which plans to ordain a registered sex offender.

Mark Hourigan was convicted of raping an 11 year old boy, but ended up serving his prison term. No doubt in prison he did what most convicts do: he found religion.

If it’s any comfort (trust me, there isn’t any), officials claim that he won’t be ministering to children. They even got him to sign an agreement that he wouldn’t preach to children, which seems to me about as binding as the old “pinky swear”. Some of the (smarter) congregants have left as a result, which goes to show not everyone is deluded enough to think that a child rapist can be rehabilitated with only the power of the Lord.

I could be wrong of course, and Mark could have totally repented for his crimes. Call me close minded, but I’ve yet to hear about this kind of thing working out for everyone in the end. The Catholic Church tried the whole “use the Lord to fight off your sinful temptation” before, and it only made the abuse worse. My advice to these guys is pretty simple: don’t bring anybody that’s ever abused any kids in your organization, period. Is that really so hard to understand?

Why is no one listening to this man?

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If there’s one thing you can credit to fundamentalist Islam, it’s their ability to control their flock. There aren’t many Islamic fundamentalists that apostatized, and anytime there is, it offers us a unique opportunity to understand the scope of terrorism that shouldn’t be ignored. Ed Husain was a radical, brought into this culture in college by other British born Muslims, and it wasn’t until he witnessed the cold blooded murder of an innocent man that he was able to walk away. Now, he’s trying to warn other Brits of the growing dangers of fundamentalism, and his message is simple: the UK needs to do a better job at integrating their Muslim population in British society.

He correctly points out one of the main problem lies in Muslim ghettos, where anyone living there can practically spend their entire lives without ever leaving the confines of the group; you can send your kids to a Muslim state school, go to a Muslim NHS doctor, and even do business entirely within the Muslim community there.

Of all the countries in Europe, Britain has had the most trouble properly integrating this minority in their culture (and stories like this don’t help). This in turn is creating a dangerous situation, as their own citizens are slowly becoming their worst enemies. Worst still, British prisons are becoming recruiting centers, a situation that only exacerbates an already serious problem.

I don’t want to sound alarmist here, but when former fundamentalists are telling people they need to act now before it’s too late, is it really a good idea to ignore them? It’s not as though Britain hasn’t been the target of attacks before. The solution seems relatively simple; don’t allow a segment of your population to become dangerously isolated, especially one with a tendency towards fundamentalism. Is that really hard to understand?

No atheists in birthing centers?

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Man, people get gushy when kids are involved. It seems as though the mere sight of these little creatures is enough to send us into irrational fits. How else can you explain this ridiculous article which claims there are no atheists in birthing centers. The author, Peter Heck, is your run of the mill conservative who believes the usual “America is a Christian nation” rhetoric that is so popular nowadays.

Now Peter seems to me to be a kind of educated idiot; a person who devotes all of his time and energy trying in vain to defend ideas and opinions that have no basis in reality. His article is the standard “life is so amazing it must be designed by God” fare, and he isn’t saying anything new in his shitty article.

The reason I thought it was so hilarious is he’s quite obviously wrong; there are plenty of atheists in birthing centers. If he bothered to talk to a few of them, he would discover there is no need to believe in a God to be in awe over the whole process. I’m glad Peter is so happy to have kids, but it certainly doesn’t mean his ideological convictions are correct.