God’s greatest gift…an empty box

Can you imagine hiring these lamers for your kid’s birthday party? I’m not sure they realize this, but tantalizing kids with the prospect of puppies, ice cream or sports memorabilia, only to show them an empty box that turns into a cross is the mother of all lame finales. “Look kids, the greatest gift God has ever given us is invisible!”.

All opposed to religion in politics, say “Nay” and be ignored

It doesn’t matter how loud you scream in your opposition to religion being intertwined with politics. The decision has already been made. For those of you who thought perhaps the Democratic party had finally woken up to the idea that us ‘nones’ are an important enough minority that our desire to have a true separation of church and state would influence their policy. We were tantalized with the possibility of a political platform that made no unnecessary mention of God, but this was all a smoke screen. Democrats had already shown their spinelessness by including a passage about the important of faith, and reaffirmed their commitment to fund, with taxpayer money, the spread of all that fucking nonsense.

This, I could have stomached. It was already an unbearable intrusion, but I understood where it came from: Democrats are always pushed to religious extremes when conservatives shake their tree a little by claiming they’re a bunch of godless commies hell bent on destroying America. So in an effort to try and double down on crazy, they caved and decided the best way to lead a nation is to look like weak, spineless cowards.

The decision to include God or Israel in their platform was put to a false vote in an effort to pretend the majority of attendees agreed with the motion. The prompter was already telling you what the verdict was, but their inability to convincingly pass this shit through only goes to demonstrate the fact that us ‘nones’ have no real political party. It clarifies the fact it matters little how much we bother to scream and shout our discontent: we will be ignored. The decision to include religion in government (and sending a big gigantic finger to Palestine) had already been made, and fuck anyone who disagreed. Anyone hoping Obama had nothing to do with it would be disappointed to know the request was apparently his. So much for being on our side.

That’s what I find so terrifying about America. Making progress is impossible when it’s so easy to be dragged down into the mud. You can’t even honor the very first amendment in your own constitution, for pasta’s sake!

It wasn’t always like this. Back in the day, Presidents like James Garfield were gutsy enough to say the separation of church and state should be absolute. He even called on churches to be taxed. This obviously popular idea might perhaps explain why he was assassinated after less than a year in office, shot by – you guessed it – a crazy preacher.

So what do we do? We’re obviously powerless to stop it in our current form, and the system has shown itself as essentially corrupt. How can we hope to make change if this is true?

I believe the problem has to the systematic dismantling of religion from all OTHER aspects of our lives before we can hope to get it out of politics. That system is old, controlled by old people, who frankly don’t have the interest of future generations in mind. They are slow to act, and quick to condemn. Religion has infiltrated itself in government in almost every form (in the military, in office, and in the Supreme Court), and expunging it now seems almost impossible. With so much financially at stake (faith based organizations get more than simply tax cuts) you can bet that money will go a long way to protect their own interests. Is there a solution to this madness? Will we ever be able to make headway against this entrenched enemy?

Walmart greeter tells you about burning in hellfire

Don’t you love it when Christians make creepy videos telling you the ‘good news’ that you’re a sinning piece of filth who doesn’t even deserve God’s awesome love? Here’s a Walmart greeter to tell you that you don’t have to spend forever in torment if you just accept that a 2000 year old Palestinian Jew of questionable historical merit was the creator of the cosmos. Oh, the catch is, if you don’t, you’ll burn in hell forever. Sounds a bit harsh you say?

“Now I know that may seem a bit harsh ([being thrown in a lake of fire for all eternity] but ask yourself: what does a good judge do to a guilty criminal? In other words, if you do the crime, you do the time. You see, God isn’t willing for any of us to parish [sic] in spite of the fact that we’ve all sinned and we all fall short of the glory of God.”

Either Christians fail to understand the moral repugnance of an eternity of torment as punishment, or they believe that every tiny offense (of which there are countless in their religion) merits a judgement that no living person would even dare hand out. How long, for instance, would it be morally justified to torture Adolf Hitler in hell? I admit a part of me does want to seek revenge, but eternity is a long time. In fact, eternity never ends, which means there would never be respite for anyone who had committed even the most repugnant crime.

Besides, with the Christian God, being a ‘criminal’ is often the result of ‘thought crime’. The authors of the Bible are quick to point out that even lusting after someone is committing a mortal sin. You can’t even masturbate to thoughts of your neighbor’s wife without risking spending forever bathing in a lake of fire. Yeah, you’re right buddy. That does sound pretty fucking harsh.

“But here’s the good news: Proving he was God, Jesus came to this earth; performed many miracles. He raised the dead, he healed the sick, the lame, the blind, and then he did something even more miraculous: he proved he was god by fulfilling all the prophesies that were written about the coming of the Messiah who would take away the sins of the world.”

I love how endlessly impressed Christians are by second hand accounts of a series of lousy magic tricks. Surely an all powerful creator of the universe can do more than replicate a few loaves of bread and fish, or curse a bunch of pigs to die. Besides, how ‘miraculous’ is it when you fulfill prophesies you were already aware of? And what about the whole prophesy of the Messiah NOT dying and re-establishing the make believe kingdom of Judea? Seems like a rather big one right there. I remember the Jews feeling like his candidacy was severely threatened by this obvious failure.

“Why would God send his one and only son to take the punishment for your sin and for mine? Because he loves you.”

Yeah, I don’t want that kind of creepy love. Besides, if Jesus rose again, then he never really sacrificed anything more than a weekend of being beaten like a dog, all for his/his dad’s amusement. And with all that fucked up love, the deal is that if you don’t accept this pathetic charity, this very act merits your eternity in that lake of fire God so lovingly crafted for us. Man, with a friend like that, who needs enemies?

Yep, this is for real

Get ready to shit your pants laughing. Hey, how are these ‘actors’ going to feel in 10 years when they realize they were in such a bigoted ad? Could you imagine starring in a commercial in the 60s condemning interracial marriages? Hey, I know times are tough, but surely paying the mortgage isn’t worth that fucking stain on your character.

Paid for by this mysterious entity.

Heal yourself with bullshit

What’s the fastest way to make a buck? How about exploiting desperate people afflicted with incurable diseases? Judging by the video above, it seems like they are ready to believe any promise of improved health, regardless of whether or not it has any solid merit. Desperate people make the greatest suckers, don’t they?

Enter Advance Cell Training, a program that claims to help you beat even treatable illnesses using the power of positive thinking. Now, if you’re worried some folks might make terrible life decisions based on some scam, don’t worry: they totally have this helpful ‘disclaimer’ that helps explain their therapy doesn’t actually do anything medical.

It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. We are not doctors. The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research of Advanced Cell Training. We encourage you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified doctor or health care professional.

Sharing knowledge, huh? That normally involves actual information that isn’t simply pulled out of your ass. So, what kind of therapy are these scammers trying to pull? The usual “stress is bad, makes you sick” shit that every New Age guru tries to pretend is an insight. It’s great when you pretend to cure something as ill defined as ‘stress’, since no one can really call you out on it.

Regardless of the diagnoses, four common instigators of chronic disease are stress, pathogens, allergy and autoimmune. Sick people store stress and it builds up while healthy people’s bodies eliminate it. Sick people’s bodies allow virus and bacteria to live, while healthy people’s bodies kill them. Sick people’s bodies may fight foods, pollens, smells (allergy) – while healthy people’s bodies react properly and it doesn’t contribute to illness. Sick people’s bodies may attack its own organs and tissues (autoimmune) while healthy people’s bodies nourish and protect. We seek to help the ill retrain their bodies to function like those who don’t get ill. Restore proper bodily function at the cellular level restores homeostasis, and often, quality of life for the chronically ill..

The scary thing is Lyme disease is actually treatable with antibiotics, but because of scamming pieces of shit like the ACT people (who have done a great job at remaining mostly anonymous), I’ve read countless forum threads of people who stopped taking their antibiotics before it was safe to do so. These people not only put their own lives at risk, but their irresponsible use of antibiotics could make treating the disease much more difficult.

If anyone can find me a copy of this scam (without giving these jackasses one red cent), I’d love to tear it to pieces.

Pat Robertson hates free speech

I know he’s a bit of an easy target, since every second word out of this man’s mouth is something horribly offensive and totally out of date. We all have that racist, misogynist grandpa we’re embarrassed by, except we don’t normally have to listen to his hateful rhetoric on TV. Pat has a massive audience of gullible idiots who continue to pay for his lavish lifestyle, and it’s with his network that he’s now decided to attack atheist billboards, which displease him so much, he ironically demands that atheists should not be allowed to speak freely, and all this ‘first amendment’ stuff doesn’t mean jack shit.

I don’t know about you, but I like that he’s feeling rattled. I hope he continues to say shit like that, because if I know Americans, if there’s one thing they can’t stand, it’s anyone telling them to shut the fuck up.

A game show based on the Bible

Are you familiar with the Bible and still mysteriously think it’s the word of God? Well, there’s a new trivia game for you hosted by the King of Rednecks himself, Jeff Foxworthy, called “American Bible Challenge“. Fresh off his last terrible game show (you may remember it was all about humiliating adults by proving a 6th grader knew more trivia), this new one aims to pit teams of believers against one another to test who has more Biblical knowledge.

Since I’m writing a book about the Bible, I’m wondering if they would accept me on their crappy show. Atheists are, after all, statistically more educated about the Bible than our religious counterparts. Perhaps the potential embarrassment of non-believers spanking Christians with their Bible knowledge might not be too thrilling of an idea for the producers. Besides, I’m sure the topics and trivia they pick will be carefully selected to avoid the inevitable revulsion that results in reading this book: you wouldn’t want to mention Lot being raped by his daughters, or Onan being killed by God for refusing to jizz inside his brother’s widow on live TV, right?

Remember these whackos?

Remember these guys? The Heaven’s Gate people had a penchant for Nikes and a pretty unhealthy obsession with the Hale-Bopp Comet. In total, 39 poor saps took their own lives, convinced that doing so would ensure their safe passage aboard a spaceship trailing the comet. After they purchased alien abduction insurance (the logic of this still baffles me) from Lloyd’s of London, they prepared a weird mixture of pudding, applesauce, arsenic and cyanide, and finally washed it all down with vodka. It took days before their bloated corpses were found. Hey, at least their insurance worked!

The cult leaders, Marshall Applewhite (above) and his partner Bonnie Nettles, had spent years feeding into each other’s delusion that they were celestial beings. But when they first started their cult, they only managed to convince one person, and it was like that for several years. I have to wonder if there was a moment, back in the mid seventies, where Bo and Bonnie started to wonder if they weren’t just nutbags, given the lukewarm response of potential followers. Was there a time of brief sanity when they might have popped out of their delusion and seen the truth? Well, judging by the video above, I’d say he had checked out from reality long ago.

Joe the Plumber thinks science changing is bad

First off, never trust a man who gives you a false name. His name is not Joe, he has never been a plumber, and because he said things stupid conservative people like, he’s been allowed to keep this ludicrous moniker. Like any quasi-celebrity looking for attention, he believes his limited understanding of everything gives him a shot at winning an election. What’s his platform? That the Bible is good because it’s never been changed, or that science is bad because it does!

Get this man in Congress now, he’ll fit right in.

Susan Jacoby vs Dinesh D’Souza debate

Got a bunch of spare time to listen to a debate? Odds are if you’re trolling TGA, you have plenty of free time on your hands. You may appreciate this debate “Is Christianity Good for America?” While you probably already know the answer to this question, it’s always important to know what “the enemy” (I say this in the least vitriolic of terms) is thinking.

Exposing the bigotry of religion makes us bullies

What happens when your privileged place in society begins to erode? Well, like a spoiled child, you relentlessly accuse others of being mean bullies for not letting them have their way. It takes time to become an adult, but expecting religion to mature is unrealistic. Take Matt Barber: He’s accusing secularists of being “bullies”, and his solution is playground fare: punch them in the mouth, Christians!

How are we bullies, you might wonder? It must have something to do with the fact we’re done taking their shit sitting down. When these “culture warriors” try to dictate the reproductive rights of women, prevent gays from enjoying the same rights as the straight counter-parts, and stop stem cell research, fighting back makes us seem like we’re the bad guys. Good. Just try to punch me in the fucking mouth, Matt. See what happens.

Living Waters still using “Croc-O-Duck” argument

Despite the fact the whole world makes fun of Ray Comfort and his lapdog Kirk Cameron over their “croc-o-duck” idea, it seems though the pair has decided this argument still holds water. If this is news to you, let me summarize the “theory”: because animals evolve slowly over time, Ray believes the process of transmutation would create strange hybrids. One such creature he nicknamed the “Croc-o-duck”, and because this animal doesn’t exist, it must mean that evolution doesn’t exist either! See how easy it is to knock a strawman down?

Despite the fact my 12 year old cousin could figure out the flaw in that logic, Ray has learned over the years if you repeat a lie often enough, someone will believe you. How else can you explain them using what is arguably the stupidest “rebuttal” in the world? Do they not realize it’s a fucking joke?

The “Homosexual Agenda”

Actually, the odds of the Titanic hitting that iceberg were astronomically small; as it turns out, it was a series of poor decisions by the crew that led to the disaster. Had the ship actually crashed head on into the iceberg, it would have survived the impact. Ironically, it was their attempt to navigate around it that ultimately led to the ship sinking. So, if I can use their stupid metaphor against them for a moment, I would say that like all icebergs, the majority of it is hidden underwater. And like all icebergs, there is a ton of stored energy just waiting to be released. Am I done now? Can I stop comparing gay rights to a gigantic floating block of ice? It’s fucking ridiculous!

Pay the tithe and tell your wife to get back in the kitchen

You hear that fellas? You’re the “high priest” of the household, which means you can do whatever the fuck you want. Wow, what a great deal, and all because I have a penis! If you’re a misogynistic, gullible idiot who would rather give your money to a bunch of scammers than pay your bills and take care of your family, then the Church has room for you, my friend!