Taliban Kills Gay Man, Sends Video to Family

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The Taliban is perhaps one of the most vile organization on Earth. Although the name is derived from the Pashtun word for “student”, the only thing that these monsters are students of are the worst aspects of humanity: its cruelty and stupidity. While they were at war with the Soviet government, they were trained and armed by America, only to later go to war with them a few decades later. Then, when the US withdrew from Afghanistan, they made a deal with the devil in return for assurances that they would help them fight their greater enemy, Al Qaeda. The results were predictable. The agreement wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.

The goals of the group are simple: they want women to stay in the home and be constantly barefoot and preggers, ban all forms of entertainment, and destroy any other religious or ethnic minorities that they dislike. Among those that get their goat are gay people. With such fundamentalists in power, it’s not surprising that people of the LGBT community are in constant danger.

Just a few days ago, a gay man was murdered, and the whole affair was videotaped. With the deed done, the tape was then sent to family members as a chilling reminder that no one is safe:

Hamed Sabouri of Kabul, Afghanistan, died on August 5, activists said. The news of the 22-year-old’s death only became public this week after his former boyfriend informed the media. Graphic video footage of a murder, which Insider has viewed, appears to show a man resembling Sabouri being shot in the neck and head at least 12 times. Days later, the Taliban sent the disturbing execution video to Sabouri’s relatives and friends, who, in turn, forwarded it to the Afghan LGBTQ+ group Roshaniya.

His boyfriend is now in hiding, afraid that he will soon suffer the same fate. The chilling message was received: gays are living in constant fear, with danger lurking at every corner. My heart hurts at the idea of my fellow human beings being hunted simply because of how they feel inside. The Taliban, and all fundamentalist Islam is a bane on mankind, one that I can only hope will someday be in the dustbin of history.

Southern Baptist Church Can’t Be Trusted

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Religions are always protecting their own. There is an unspoken rule in sectarian circles (or in the case of some churches, actual memos): you don’t rat out your fellow Christian, no matter the crime. You see, to hard-core believers, it is the outside secular world that is to be feared. The fact that there are countless wolves in sheep’s clothing amongst their ranks is less terrifying to them than the prospect of the secular world interfering with their affairs.

Still, news often leaks of the countless instances of child rapes, and other horrid crimes. In order to try and pretend that they are doing something about it, The Southern Baptist Church had pledge a few years ago to create a website meant to track individual abusers within the church. With hundreds of cases, it should have been a breeze. Instead, they’ve been stalling so bad that not one single name is on their pathetic excuse for a website.

To date, no names appear on the Ministry Check website designed to track abusive pastors, despite a mandate from Southern Baptists to create the database. The committee has also found no permanent home or funding for abuse reforms, meaning that two of the task force’s chief tasks remain unfinished…Instead, she said, SBC leaders do just enough to make it look like they care, without any real progress.

Do you mean to say that a religious organization, which had previously done everything in it’s power to either ignore abuse or protect abusers, would only offer empty platitudes instead of solutions? What a shocker! Next thing you’ll try and tell me is that water is wet, and that fire burns. So, what’s behind the veil of secrecy, you may wonder? Why, it’s the most important thing to any church of course: money!

SBC leaders have long sought to shield the denomination and especially the hundreds of millions of dollars given to Southern Baptist mission boards and other entities from liability for sexual abuse. The 12.9 million-member denomination has no direct oversight of its churches or entities, which are governed by trustees, making it a billion-dollar institution that, for all intents and purposes, does not exist outside of a few days in June when the SBC annual meeting is in session.

There’s more employee oversight for Uber than there is for Southern Baptists pastors. Pathetic. The SBC even tried to stop an independent couple from posting their own list, sending them a threatening email. Luckily, because the names they publish are for convicted felons, they are immune from being sued for essentially telling the truth.

Anyone who still thinks that billion dollar evil organizations give an iota of care for their flock, beyond the ability to fleece them, is officially a moron. Thanks for helping these clowns make the world a worst and less safe place to live!

Russian Government Promise Soldiers Resurrection

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The war in Ukraine is a modern tragedy. With the ambition of Russia to be once more a superpower, this can only come at the expense of it’s former republic states, such as Georgia and Ukraine. Once upon a time, these were the pride and joy of the Soviet Union. Now they are (as of today) countries that had long wished to no longer be under the yoke of their Soviet masters.

The rights of other countries to decide their own fate is not a proposition that a man like Vladamir Putin respects. After years of fomenting mistrust and rebellion in the young republic, by 2014 they were in open war, after the capture of Crimea. The rest of the world was slow to act, and it was only after their official invasion, which they hilariously called a “Special Military Operation”, that the West decided to actually get involved.

We are now 10 years into this conflict, which really only got seriously bloody in the last 3 years. So far, Russia has lost an estimated half a million soldiers due to death or injury. Not since the Second World War have we seen a major country have such high casualties, with some days seeing over a thousand dead.

There are so many dead, in fact, that Russia is now trying to convince their soldiers that they will be guaranteed to be resurrected, declaring that the conflict is now a “holy war”. This is partially due to the fact that Ukraine has firmly rejected their Russian Orthodox connections, which was one of the ways that the Kremlin could exercise unofficial power over the region. The creation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (based somewhere in Canada now) sent Russia on a crusade to force them back into the fold.

One of the madmen claiming that soldiers serving in the army are coming back to life is a man named Artemiy Vladimirov. This archpriest has made it his mission to convince men fighting a pointless war that death is not real:

“In war, there are no unbelievers! When you are facing physical death, every fiber of your soul comes alive. Right now, there are many wonderful testimonies of Christ’s victory over death. My wife sends me many military testimonies and video clips. Before Lent, I watched a video about one Chinese man who participated in the special military operation. A bullet hit him in the stomach, destroying all of his insides. He died from this and then was resurrected… Saint Luke of Crimea appeared to him and completely healed him, his insides were fully restored. He was baptized along with his relatives, all of them are photographed together, dressed in white clothes, baptized into our Orthodox Church.”

We’re supposed to take this lunatic as his word that people are coming back to life. How amazing that a nameless Chinese man was brought back to life! It must have happened, since this bearded weirdo that colludes with his evil government to send men to their deaths told me so! Let’s not forget that this is the same man who claims the ghost of Charles Darwin visited him and renounced his theory of evolution to him. What a guy!

Ohio Pastors Threaten Pride Event

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If there’s one provision in their faith that Christians cannot seem to abide by, it’s the “love thy neighbor” part. I can understand the confusion. When your god tells you to love your neighbor as yourself, and then simultaneously commands that you kill all the males and non-virgin women to take over a piece of land, it can all seem hard to follow at the end of the day. It would certainly explain their schizophrenia behavior when it comes to getting along with others.

In the city of Ashtabula in Ohio, pride parade organizers have declared that, despite the implicit threats made by many of the clergy there, they will be going through with their planned event. The city had allowed the parade to take part at the local beach, and it didn’t take long for religious assholes to start making threats during a city council meeting:

David Lettau, pastor of Country Gospel Church, read a passage from Romans 1 about “uncleanness” and then related it to the Pride Festival. “What they’re doing is teaching perversion to our children,” Lettau said. “We as a city are responsible for making sure that no decadent and perverse things go on… It’s worthy of death, it says in the Bible.”

Naturally, the gutless council did nothing to point out that this was a fairly explicit threat. In Christian communities, we call that a Tuesday. It didn’t take long for yet another pastor named James Combs to make his own threats, shortly after saying that he was being mischaracterized, and that he had a gay friend. Here’s the quote that he thinks is innocent:

“It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck,” Combs said. “So watch yourselves. We are called to watch over our children.”

How neighborly! I’m getting all chocked up thinking about it. In any case, the brave organizers of the event are undeterred by these fearful people. The problem, however, is that pastors like Combs are simply the linchpin to a greater evil. Their flock can be composed of twisted vigilantes that think they are protecting children. Their minds have been filled with hateful lies, and these typical underachievers have the same messiah complex that deluded suicide bombers have.

Even if nothing happens in this event, the fact that a city council did nothing to stop or counter the hateful rhetoric of these religious nutballs only emboldens them. Their political cowardice is going to cost some innocent lives eventually. There is a powder keg brewing in America, fueled by the antiliteralism of the religious right. We should all be deeply troubled, and equally worried by their animosity towards their fellow man.

Russell Brand’s Grift is Pathetic and Sad

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There’s a fairly predictable trajectory for fading movie stars: when no one wants to put you in a mainstream movie, it’s time to start sucking at the teat of Christianity. Actors like Melissa Joan Hart, Kevin Sorbo, and Kirk Cameron have all found limited success by becoming Christian shills. Jesus lovers are always eager to separate themselves from their money anytime someone strokes their ego.

You can now add conspiracy theorist and general douchebag Russell Brand to that rather undistinguished list of hucksters. For the last few years, Russell has found success in conspiracy theories, which tend to attract fringe Christian groups. He’s now made the transition to full on Jesus huckster. I’m sure his pocketbook is thanking him, since no one with half a brain cell ever tunes in to his pathetic attempts to be relevant.

During his early youtube career, Brand was making videos about the importance of meditation, mindfulness, and other topics that attracted very little attention. It was only when he started making dangerously misinformed videos where he questioned the COVID-19 vaccine did he start to gain any traction. This got him roughly 20 times the views, and his channel was finally making him money. He learned quickly that if you want to make bank on the internet, you need to give the people what they want: stoke their fears, speak to their irrationality, and then pretend that all you are doing is for some higher power.

Recently, he’s been accused of sexual assault, and this has spurred him into religious action. The cover of faith is a powerful one, especially when you need a way to wash away all of your sins. It’s a pretty standard M.O. for Americans when they get in trouble. Did you cheat on your wife, or embezzled a bunch of money? Just say you’ve found Jesus and your peers will fall over themselves in order to forgive you. It’s practically a “don’t do jail because religious people are rubes” card, and trust me when I say that grifters like Brand will do just about anything to survive.

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.

The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 356

This episode, TGA talks about blasphemy causing mob violence, a teacher fired for having a gay wedding, and a US Senator that thinks not teaching creationism is “censorship”. All that an more, so don’t forget to tune in!

The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 356
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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.