Category Archives: Blog

It’s not my law; it’s God’s!

Posted on by

I think what upsets me the most about many Christians is their incessant need to remind non-believers we are going to burn in eternal fire for not subscribing to their religion. Personally, I find it a most repulsive idea, and the tragedy is most of these individuals are convinced that by reminding us our ‘souls’ are facing eternal torture, they are actually doing us a big favor.

The problem here is not their proselytizing; I actually don’t mind when people try to change my opinion about a subject. It allows me to ‘preach’ my atheism back to them, so at least there’s an implicit understanding there. My problem is how easily these people seem to gloss over the fact fundamentally, they have no moral objection to seeing me eternally tortured. They believe since the rulebook wasn’t written by them, it isn’t their responsibility as to what happens when non-believers die; that’s all God’s doing.

There are plenty of terrible examples of the kind of horror humans inflict on one another when they are simply ‘following orders’. The Millgram experiments in the 60s showed so long as human beings are told by a person of authority what to do, over half of the test subjects were willing to kill someone if ultimately the responsibility wasn’t theirs. It was a chilling reminder that even the nicest people can do evil things given the right circumstances.

My message to Christians is fairly straightforward; you shouldn’t accept the poisonous idea non-believers are condemned to hell. If your God really is all loving, there’s no reason to punish those who simply fail to accept his existence. Besides, there are so many religions out there the odds are stacked AGAINST anyone actually getting the right one, so it’s likely that we’d all end up in Hell anyways. What a terrible thing to think, is it not?

So, please stop trying to pass the buck and claim it isn’t your choice that I go to Hell. If you are a good person, how could you accept that your Buddhist, Hindu, Atheist, or Jewish friend will be burning in brimstone and ash while you enjoy the comforts of paradise? Could you eat a great meal if you had to consume it in front of a bunch of starving African children? If you could, then shame on you.

Helen Ukpabio is a monster

Posted on by

I’ve written many times on the issue of child witches in Africa. Every year, thousands of kids are abandoned, beaten or killed because their parents or family members suspect them of being witches. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that in Nigeria alone, over 930,000 children are orphaned by HIV/AIDS, and often their remaining family members believe these children were responsible for their parents’ death.

One name keeps popping up I can no longer ignore: Helen Ukpabio. Helen has been producing movies capitalizing on the fear of witchcraft for some time. The Nigerian film board has repeatedly tried to censor her dangerous and violent rhetoric, but because of their corruption and general ineptitude, these videos are allowed to circulate to the surrounding populace, creating fear, violence and hatred as a result.

Helen has done quite well for herself fanning the flames of fear. She boasts over 50,000 members in her church, and the future seems bright for her. The proliferation of her movies and her massive church attendance has made Helen a rich and powerful woman in Nigeria. With her obsession with child witches growing, it’s difficult to imagine how this practice can be stopped.

If you want to know what the face of evil is, then look no further than this woman, who profits from the death and torture of little children. Nigeria is the most dangerous place to be a child, and it’s because of people like Ukpabio and her ilk. This is the true danger of superstition: it makes otherwise peaceful humans into fearful monsters who would murder their own children. Women like Helen Ukpabio are shielded from responsibility for their crime by a bubble of religious delusion. No doubt she must think WE are the ones who are monsters for allowing witches to run free. What a sad and ignorant world we live in.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews keep protesting

Posted on by

Seems like every other day Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel are protesting something. This week it’s the arrest of an Orthodox woman who was slowly starving her child to death. It’s believed she has a form of Munchausen syndrome, keeping her child sick in order to gain sympathy from others. Ultra-Orthodox Jews are extreme isolationists, and consider any governmental interference in their affairs worthy of protest. In this case, they’ve taken the side of the mother, despite the fact the mother had even tried to disconnect her child’s feeding tubes at the hospital.

The hilarious thing about this situation is it embodies the major problem of religious belief; that it’s often impossible to differentiate between serious mental illness and strong religiosity. The two carry the same symptoms: intense paranoia, irrational behavior, and feelings of prosecution. Rather than be horrified by the neglect of a child, the protesters are outraged because the government became involved in ‘their affairs’. These are the same assholes who threw dirty dippers and stones at police for opening a parking structure on a Saturday. Clearly, they are a reasonable bunch.

I’m sick and tired of trying to pretend I respect the idiotic beliefs of deeply delusional humans. It’s one thing to hold your beliefs privately, but quite another to enforce your beliefs on others. I would ask them kindly to fuck off, but these morons are too far up their own asses to notice the rest of the world does not give a shit about their backwards ideology.

Creation museum claims “undeniable proof” of creationism

Posted on by

I’ve written extensively about the Creation Museum because it represents the ‘peak’ of creation ‘science’. Here is a museum that takes a serious stance as to the value of scientific understanding; which is to say they see little to no value in the principle. It’s ironic, of course, that the museum uses the latest in robotics and animatronics technology (itself a product of our scientific endeavors) to support their literal interpretation of the Bible.

Modern creationists don’t even realize the debt they owe to science. During the time when the Bible was written, simple infections that are routinely treated today would have been deadly. The child mortality rate was about 300 deaths for every 1,000 births, meaning that the odds were good that if you had three kids, one of them would not live past the age of 5. Modern germ theory has given us the tools to bring the number of child death down to a tiny 6 every thousand, making child mortality a rare (though still tragic) occurrence.

You cannot fully grasp modern germ theory without first understanding the process of evolution. Deadly pathogens, bacteria and other small invaders evolve far more rapidly than any other organism due to their speed of reproduction. Luckily, as we learn more, we create potent vaccines that prepare our bodies for the onslaught of these tiny intruders. In developing countries, measles, a disease which can be eradicated with a successful vaccination campaign, still kills an estimated 500,000 people a year, many of them children.

The very fact modern Christians have the luxury to teach nonsense to their own children is due entirely to the tireless efforts of scientists to improve our understanding of the natural world, which in turn allows us to develop new and better ways to protect ourselves from its onslaught. Nature may be cruel, but as our scientific understanding grows, we have increasingly softened it.

Atheist PZ Myers is planning a visit to the museum with his posse, and in response, director Ken Ham says he has a surprise for them; a supposedly irrefutable argument that supports their literal interpretation of the Bible. It’s a chestnut we’ve heard often from Ken, and it’s always met with dismal failure. Why would this time be any different? Ken and his ilk don’t understand the first thing about science; they don’t realize that the cars they drive to work, the tap water they drink, and the tools they used to build their temple to ignorance are only possible because of our growing scientific sophistication and understanding. They prefer to live in the bliss of their own ignorance, and their aim is to drag us all down to their level. I like the view from up here just fine, Ken.

Ireland is messed up

Posted on by

With the country still feeling the impact of the Ryan report, which chronicled decades of mental and sexual abuse by the Catholic Church, the government has acted swiftly in light of these events and passed a new “blasphemy law”, which would make disparaging religion a criminal offence. The law seeks to punish offenders with a fine of up to €25,000.

The law is surely going to blow up in their faces. By trying to defend the church with this poorly conceived blasphemy law, the government now has to enforce an edict that will turn out to be a political quagmire. To be fair, a blasphemy law was already in effect, but the changes were made to avoid a costly referendum to remove this unpleasant piece of legislature. Still, it only enforces the perception that the Catholic Church has far too much power in Ireland, and this law at the very least gives the growing secular movement in the country more fodder in calling for the separation of Church and State. How can any country consider themselves modern and ‘free’ when they seek to punish their own citizens for simply refusing to respect ancient superstitions? It’s downright pathetic.

The government claims the law is meant also to protect other faiths. Does Reiki, astral projection and other moronic belief systems qualify as well? Why don’t we also make it illegal to make fun of people who think Friday the 13th is unlucky? If the whole purpose of this law is to demonstrate how weak the church has become by involving the government in their petty disputes, then they’ve succeeded brilliantly.

Human beings embarrass me

Posted on by

I will never get over the fact human beings worship inanimate objects. Here is a bunch of sad idiots who think a tree stump is an apparition of the Virgin Mary. You can see from this video how impressed everyone is by what is obviously just a fucking tree stump.

How sad that we live in a world where we know why people have a tendency to see shapes and patterns in things (it’s called pareidolia), and yet we can’t seem to convince the deluded masses that a barely recognizable face-like pattern in a tree is anything other than a ‘divine miracle’.

I can only weep for humanity as we continue to look so goddamn foolish. Has no one there pointed out the fact this is just a stupid tree stump that they are worshiping? Even their own church has the good sense to be skeptical about it.

Reports of clerical abuse keep pouring in

Posted on by

One of my favorite movie moments from childhood is the scene from Rocky 4 where Rocky Balboa keeps getting repeatedly punched in the face by Ivan Drago (perhaps Doulph Lundgren’s greatest role), until finally, exhausted from punching, Drago is defeated. Rocky 4 was a true 80s cheese movie, complete with endless montages, pointless moralizing about steroid use, and of course, America winning the day. Despite its obvious flaws, the movie tries to covey the idea that no matter how many blows you take, you can still come back as long as you have enough sheer determination.

The Catholic Church must feel like Rocky right now. Every other day, some new allegation of clerical abuse is made, and you have to wonder how many more blows they can take to the face before they finally fall. The latest punch in the mouth comes from this article in the Independent, which deals with an abuse scandal of The Legion of Christ, an ultra-conservative, ultra-secretive sect of the church run by Father Marcial Maciel Degollado. A well connected and charismatic figure, Maciel was close to Pope Jean Paul II, and many considered him a saintly man beyond all reproach. As usual, this smokescreen belied his seemingly insatiable thirst for young boys:

A year after Nuestro Padre’s death in 2008, the Vatican announced an investigation into the Legion. An unnamed official told America’s National Catholic Reporter newspaper that the total number of Maciel’s abuse victims was “more than 20 and less than 100″. As a team of cardinals opens the locked cupboards of an organization that prided itself on secrecy – all new recruits had to take a unique private vow (abolished by Benedict in 2007) never to speak ill of the founder and to report to superiors anyone who did – the Catholic Church is once more mired in a scandal about the sexual abuse of minors, and the abuse of power.

When reports of abuse started coming in, the church did what they do best. They ignored it completely:

Then, in 1976, Father Juan Vaca…formally reported Maciel to his bishop for sexually abusing him from the age of 12. This was a time before the sexual abuse of minors by priests had been exposed. In 1978, fearing that his accusations had been swept under the carpet, Vaca sent a long statement about what had happened to him direct to the Vatican, and even received an acknowledgement. And then, nothing.

They story goes on to detail the restrictive and suffocating control Maciel has had on his followers. The Legion of Christ was no small institution; it had an annual budget of more than 435 million pounds, and ‘Our Father, or Nuestro Padre’ (as he was called by his followers) enjoyed a multitude of personal luxuries, including private suites, cars, and anything he desired to eat. Truly, here was a child molester living in paradise, able to control and manipulate his victims using the power of their faith to bend them to his will.

I’m not surprised this kind of stuff happens so often; the Church’s long policy of silence and secrecy makes it the perfect place for child molesters to hide. I’m not suggesting that all priests abuse children; but their beloved institution is corrupt to the core, with abusers at the highest levels of power. What I find surprising is how dismissive Catholics seem about this. No matter how many scandals come out, people still bring their children into the fold. Scary.

Iranian singer gets 5 years in jail for blasphemy

Posted on by

You can always tell how confident a religion is by the amount of laws they throw around to ‘protect’ their faith. Blasphemy laws represent perhaps the most obvious example of the cowardly nature of organized religion: they are created specifically to punish anyone who questions the power of these organizations and their masters. The latest casualty in the fight against religious tyranny is Iranian singer Mohsen Namjoo, who recorded (privately, according to him) a song disparaging the Koran. It was leaked on the Internet, and so a judge has sentenced him in absentia to 5 years in jail.

Mohsen lent his voice in condemning the June 12th Iranian election results, so I’m suspicious the main reason for such a harsh sentence is political. So long as religions and governments are intertwined, unjust blasphemy laws will continue to jail people for the ‘crime’ of being skeptical. How can any human being truly be free when they cannot even express their opinions on religion? If the truth of Islam is so overwhelming, why are they so afraid of dissent?

The Earth is 6000 years old, older than any environmental law!

Posted on by

I think the greatest tragedy in the US is how ignorant people are of science. Here, this Arizona State senator wants uranium to be mined and thus exploited for the purpose of generating power. Nuclear power plants are incredibly sophisticated, and while I agree nuclear energy is one of the ways to help humans lower their dependence on oil and other natural gases for fuel, it certainly isn’t a permanent solution (by the best estimates I’ve heard, with the current supply of uranium, there is enough to last some 150 years).

How can a person hold the view the earth was created by God 6000 years ago while simultaneously encouraging the use of an element with a half life of roughly 4.4 billion years? Simple: just ignore the science and leave that to ‘professionals’ while you go around telling everyone they are going to hell for not believing as you do! Here’s an idea for you, senator: if you want people to support initiatives promoting new technology to solve the problems of tomorrow, learn a little bit more about how it works, moron.

Irish Catholics defecting online

Posted on by

With Ireland still reeling over the Ryan report, many Catholics are simply tired of the lies, the abuse, and the hypocrisy of the church. For those ready to leave the fold, countmeout.ie offers a way for people to officially leave the Church.

Their mission statement is clear: they want to send a loud message to both the Catholic Church and the government that religion has no place in government. According to the site, most primary schools and hospitals are being run by the Church, despite being state-funded. In light of the fact this organization can’t seem to stop molesting young boys, I wouldn’t even let them run a hot dog stand.

So far about 551 people have defected, although I’m sure the number will increase in a few weeks when another abuse report (this time on the Archdioceses) comes out. If any of you know people who are teetering on the edge, maybe this is the push they need to send a clear message to this corrupt and vile institution.

Gay couple handcuffed by Mormons for “inappropriate behavior”

Posted on by

The universe is a wondrous place, filled with gigantic exploding supernovas, galaxies that collide into other galaxies, and immense black holes even light cannot escape from. And yet, in this amazing place buzzing with activity, we are supposed to believe an all powerful being is interested in what holes are being used for sexual intercourse.

I’ve always felt that religion’s paltry and pathetic answers to the questions of the universe failed to meet anything resembling a reasonable and satisfying explanation to why the cosmos is the way it is. I understand, however, that for some the comfort of believing a benevolent caretaker is behind the wheel brings a certain peace of mind in an otherwise random existence. What annoys me is when they feel it’s their responsibility to tell everyone else how to live, and in particular, how to have sex.

Two gay men were arrested and humiliated yesterday for kissing and hugging one another on a plaza owned by the Mormon Church. The couple was handcuffed and charged with a misdemeanor for failing to obey the commands of the security guards who asked them to behave ‘appropriately’ (in other words, ‘not gay’).

I’m anxious for the day when human beings will stop being so obsessed about what private parts go in what holes. It seems so pathetically petty to be so caught up in what is essentially humans showing affection and sexual interest for one another. Personally, I think we should all be fucking more, not less. If a supposedly omni-benevolent deity can’t deal with the fact some human beings prefer the company of the same sex, is that really a God anyone should be interested in worshiping?

Muslim extremist jailed for arson

Posted on by

You might remember a few months ago, I wrote a story about the book, The Jewel of Medina, and the subsequent firebombing of her publisher’s home by Muslim extremists. It seems now the case has gone to trial, with Ali Beheshti  and his two accomplices sentenced to four and a half years behind bars. The judge issued this statement, which I strongly agree with:

“If you choose to live in this country, you live by its rules. There is no such thing as ‘a la carte citizenship’ and, in your case, there is no such thing as ‘a la carte obedience’ to the law”

The book that caused the conflict in the first place is a historical fiction novel centered on Muhammad’s child bride, Aisha. It’s a part of his history many Muslims like to whitewash; they don’t like the idea that their prophet was involved sexually with such a young child, and any reference to Aisha is usually met with swift violence.

For future reference, when you commit a violent crime, it’s usually a good idea not to have a bunch of pictures of you holding a gun. That tends to send a pretty clear message that you aren’t right in the head. Just saying…

Pedophile priest blames Holy Spirit for abuse

Posted on by

You know what’s sad? I’m not shocked or surprised by terrible stories of priests molesting children. It’s so rampant there are weeks when I simply refuse to post these depressing stories simply because there isn’t much left to say about it. It’s a profession that seems to invite pedophiles, not only because of the unprecedented access to children, but also because of the ability to ‘spiritually’ bully them into silence. It’s a tactic that’s employed so often, I think it’s about time we stop giving these kinds of powers to anyone at all.

Our latest piece of shit pervert is Benito Catello, who ran a ‘church’ from his home, and catered almost exclusively to minors. Although the guy was in a wheelchair and had an oxygen tank, he was still able to coerce and force kids to have sex with him, threatening them with eternal hell fire if they talked. He’s being charged with 27 counts of sexual assault, and he’s already confessed the allegations are true. He claims the Holy Spirit made him sexually abuse those kids. I guess in his deluded mind, that’s how he justified it.

I’m not about to suggest every single priest out there is a child molester, but does it have to be so many of them? In the US alone, roughly 4% of Catholic priests have been suspected at some time of being pedophiles . That’s 4,392 men who were accused of sexual abuse. Of those, only 6% were ever convicted. Considering how difficult it is to get victims to come forward to report abuse, those are not encouraging numbers.

The Catholic Church has attempted to prevent such high rates of abuse by educating children to watch out for signs of pedophilia (like avoiding being alone with priests), but all this does is put the responsibility on children, and not on the institution. Hey parents, if you really want to protect your kids, try avoiding church altogether. That’s the simpler way to prevent abuse.

Harry Potter is an atheist

Posted on by

Hard core Christians hate Harry Potter. They detest any form of witchcraft, which they consider to be the tool of the devil. Evangelicals are not only forbidden from seeing the movies; they usually actively campaign against them, discouraging other more moderate Christians from going. I can only imagine their reaction now that Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) has come out as an atheist.

Radcliffe describes himself as a big fan of Professor Richard Dawkins, so the kid is alright in my book. I hate to admit it, but I’m also a fan of the movies (although I don’t read much fiction, so the books aren’t really of any interest to me), and I’m looking forward to watching the latest one. I think it’ll be even more fun now that I know Daniel doesn’t believe in God.

(props Atheist Revolution for the find)