Texas Wants to Make the Bible Mandatory in Schools

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.

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.

Bible Museum Closes Due to Lack of Interest

Do you ever get tired of religious conservatives telling you that the Bible is the most popular book in the world? Sure, it’s the most “sold” book in history, but considering how illiterate most Christians are about the “good book”, it seems as though religious people are not really big fans of the Bible. I Speak from experience here on this matter: no one gives a shit about it. Sure, people say they do, but in the same way someone might say that if someone was having car troubles on the road, they would stop to help. The stats on that don’t lie: must of us wouldn’t. We just like to think we would.

This would explain why in Philadelphia, the American Bible Society’s “Faith and Liberty Discovery Center” is closing after only 3 years of operation. The “museum”, if we can generously call it that, costs roughly 60 million dollars to build. The ABS was convinced that they would attract a flood of tourists, but predictably, no one showed up. It might have something to do with the pathetic attempt at scholarship, or the boring attractions. In any case, this monument to failure is on its way out, and no one in Philly gives a shit. It’s beautiful.

You can judge for yourself if their sales pitch has any mustard to it:

“We’ve created a massive digital platform, disguised as a museum,” said Pat Murdock, the center’s former executive director. “It feels like a museum — we’ve got artifacts and all that, but really it’s a digital platform that is ripe for the way people are learning today. They want to learn from the media. They want to learn from a story. And they also want to collect things, and they want to create. That’s why we created the maker space.”

Wow, I’m convinced.

Anyone with a head on their shoulders could have told them it was a bad idea. Would they have even listened? When you build your whole life and identify on a lie, it’s hard to know what the truth is. These clowns thought huge crowds of people would rush to a museum where they are told that they are sinners, because that’s what they were told by people trying to be polite, or nice. In reality, they received 2% of their projected visitors. They didn’t even come close to meeting any of their projections, no matter how many times they prayed to their sky daddy.

If you’re worried that the 60 million dollar price tag of this monstrosity was paid for by taxpayers, I can at least confirm that this ode to the worst book in history was actually paid for by the ABS, who had sold their New York building for a cool 300 million, and moved to Philly because it was cheaper there. So cheap, in fact, that no one had the money to go visit this bloated establishment. If these morons want to keep wasting money building exhibits no one wants to see, I’m all for it. Just don’t expect anyone to give a shit, that’s all.

Please take your medication, buddy

There are a few articles on TGA that invariably attract the kinds of crazy comments that have to be read to be believed. Sometimes you have to spend some time trying to decipher through their insanity, and attempt to understand exactly what these deranged individuals are trying to communicate. This recent comment seems especially difficult to make out (which I haven’t altered in any way):

Clearly The Science Has Become A Religion On Its On And Facts Is Its Bible.
Science Spends Alot Of Time Trying To Prove The Bible Wrong Instead Of Trying To Prove It Right.
The Bible Is A History Book And We Cant Rewrite History. We Cant Add Something New To It.
Its Like We All Try To Find Something To Dissagree About.
Why Cant We Find A Common Balance. Stop Placing Ourselves In Groups, They Tear Us Apart.
Find A Constant, Something We Can All Agree On. Cause I Think That’s What This Movie Is Actually About.
Even Atheists Have Their Beliefs,
They Believe Something Caused All This And That May Not Be God But That Cause Is The Constant That We Seek.
Hence We Should Build From That Not Completely Tear Down.
Cause As Christians That Doesn’t Make Us Very Good In God’s Eyes When We Destroy And As Scientists We Live To Better The World But What Good Is It To Kill The Hope That’s Governing Your Friends Life, Maybe Even Keeping Them Alive.
We Are Only As Strong As Our Weakest Link.
We Should Looking For A Bond Not A Broken Bridge…!!i!

So, the Bible is history, and every scientist’s job is to try and prove the Bible is right. Well, that’s easy: all you need to do is ignore everything we know about biology, paleontology, geology, genetics, astronomy, astrophysics, physics, and just about every other scientific discipline that’s decimated the ludicrous claims of the Bible. I’ll bet getting a degree in pseudoscience is real easy and cheap!

As for the accusation that it’s better to believe in a comforting lie than the hard truth (something I’ve heard endlessly), I’d like to point out that human beings are resilient creatures, and we can come to accept the truth no matter how tough it is. In fact, doing so builds fucking character. It’s the people who believe in what’s comforting who lack courage, and if someone is so weak as to be holding onto life only through religion, then I would venture to guess this sheltered individual is fragile precisely because they have never learned to face the truth.

Besides, reality isn’t all that bad. It’s composed of billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars. It’s filled with black holes and quasars, planets and asteroids; so much to discover that one could get lost for eternity trying to find all the answers to the mysteries of life. All you can offer is a tired old tale of a dead Jew and his entourage. Boring!

Charlton Heston freaks your kids out

Working on the Bible Stories book has made me realize it’s categorically impossible to gloss the horror out of these stories. The proof? Just watch this kid’s Bible cartoon, and just how creepy it is. For the love of their provincial god Yahweh, they wrote a song about Isaac being bound up and prepared to be killed for some imaginary friend. Yeah, I’d imagine a kid having some pretty serious nightmare and trust issues after watching that horror unfold.

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?

The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 228

This week, we talk about Evangelical charities, CFI Canada and their weird shake-up, and finally we review a hilarious pamphlet entitled: “Defending Christianity and the Bible in 10 Easy Steps”

The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 228
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A New Book on the Bible and Sex

Yes, it’s true that like most men my age, I occasionally obsess about sex. I can’t help it really; it’s encoded in my genes. Try as I might, anytime a book comes out with the word sex in the title, I feel compelled to read it (well, at least the opening chapter usually).

So imagine my delight when a fan sent me a link to this article in NPR which featured a new book called “Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire”. It’s got everything a growing boy needs: it exposes the hypocrisy of the Bible, AND it dissects the naughty parts of the “Good Book”. What more could you ask for?

If you’re reading the Hebrew Bible, we might have polygamy again. We might have not only polygamy with wives, we might have polygamy with concubines and slaves,” she says. “And if we’re reading the New Testament, we would avoid marriage. The overwhelming opinion of New Testament writers is that marriage is a waste of time and that we shouldn’t be doing it because we should be spreading the Gospel. … If you’re married, you’re totally distracted and not focusing on God. If we took the New Testament seriously, we would all stop being married.

We’ve been saying the same thing here at TGA; any Christian telling you that “God” commands that marriage be a union between only one man and one woman has obviously never bothered to read the Bible. How many concubines and slave girls get raped by the patriarchs of the Hebrews? You don’t even want to know, brother!

The story of Lot

The messed up thing in all of this seems to me to be the fact that rather than head to the nearest town to find some eligible guys (non-Jews), Lot and his daughters decided to “keep it in the family”. Oh, Biblical incest: you have so much to teach the world!

The Bible is fireproof!

I love how religious rubes cling to anything that has the hint of a miracle as proof of the solvency of their belief. So much for blind faith!

A family living in a mobile home had an electric fire that destroyed everything inside about out, but while sifting through the ashes, they found this burnt out Bible, and immediately thought something miraculous had happened.

The family didn’t want to go on camera Sunday, but one member says, “The Bible is proof that God’s word can’t be destroyed.”

I think the “miracle” would have been your mobile shack not bursting into flame and destroying what crappy possessions you already owned. Now the only thing you have is a Bible that’s burned to shit, and a re-enforced belief God is so powerful he can prevent his “word” from getting 100% torched. Bask in the works of this omnipotent deity and his endlessly impressive parlor tricks!

The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 150

After a week taking time off, we’re back and better than ever! This week, we talk about Prop 8 being ‘defeated’, why I’m addicted to gaming, and we choose your favorite and most hilarious quotes from the Bible.

The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 150
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Your favorite Bible passages

I’m back from taking a week off, and we’ll be recording a podcast tonight, and I thought it might be fun to get you guys to submit your favorite Bible passages; the ones you think best convey just how ancient, out of touch and barbaric it really is!

(Update: Here are the results below)

Gordon

Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Matt

But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:
And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,
And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.
Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (KJV)

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

Rimon

Deuteronomy 25:11-19

“When men fight with one another, and the wife of one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall have no pity.”

Simon Campbell

Man asks God to send two bears to maul 42 children to death because they mocked his bald head. God delivers.

Roger

Tony Robbins

‘The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides with the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and good will shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon those with great vengeance and with furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know that my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.’

Tom

Exodus 31:15

“Whosoever shall work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death”

Exodus 21:17

“And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death”.

Leviticus 20:10

“And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death”.

J. N. Hudson

Happy [shall he be], that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

Roxanne R

Malachai 2:3

Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.

Tyson

Matthew 10: 34- 37

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Caveman73

I love this freakin’ guy!

Just because you’re old, doesn’t mean you don’t have any fight left in you. Take Jose Saramago, (who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1998) for instance; he’s recently written a book entitled “Cain”, which is an ironic retelling of the story of Cain in the Bible. At 86 years of age, he’s still able to cause a media frenzy, especially after stating publicly the Bible itself is a “handbook of bad morals“. I officially love this crusty old SOB.

Saramago attacked “a cruel, jealous and unbearable God (who) exists only in our heads” and said he did not think his book would cause problems for the Catholic Church “because Catholics do not read the Bible.

Oh Snap! Until this day I was completely unaware of this guy, or the fact that he wrote a book in 1992 called “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ“. In it, God uses Jesus to try and control the world. Sounds like a fucking hoot! Looks like I need to add this author to my “must read their books” pile,  which seems to keep growing even as my pocketbook shrinks…

Read your damn Bible, atheists!

It’s not often I’m in agreement with believers regarding religious education, but I have to admit that I found myself partial to the arguments of one William Ingram. In this article, he argues atheist should be carefully studying the Bible. It’s also extremely necessarily to have Bible literacy, as Ingram points out, to understand the narratives fundamentalists subscribe to.

So much of our society is awash in Biblical parables and metaphors that a proper scholarly pursuit of the Bible is highly desirable. The difference between Ingram and I, obviously, is I approach this book the same way I do the Iliad, or the Koran. All of these texts are nothing more than mythological and allegorical, and many of their moral tales are antiquated and even cruel by today’s standards. It does not mean, however, they have no value. They are a window into a different world, and the very fact the Bible still has so much sway in society is a testament (pun intended) to the reverence we place on traditions or anything that’s “really old”.

So if you haven’t yet read your Bible, but want to have a great analysis along the way, try reading the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. It almost makes the job bearable.

This Valentine’s Day, submit to your husbands, ladies!

What better way to show your love than by submitting to your husbands? Rev. Angus MacLeay, a member of the General Synod of the Church of England recently sent out a pamphlet in time for Valentine’s Day containing the not-so-subtle message the Bible specifically outlines a need for women to be subservient to their superior male counterparts. MacLeay, who is fighting against all the reforms in his church, is a hopeless romantic:

Wives are to submit to their husbands in everything in recognition of the fact that husbands are head of the family as Christ is head of the church. This is the way God has ordered their relationships with each other and Christian marriage cannot function well without it.

It would seem that women should remain silent….if their questions could legitimately be answered by their husbands at home.

Not every woman listening to his sermon was impressed by his loving respect of the Bible:

One disenchanted female parishioner said she was “disgusted” by the sermon.
“How can they talk that way in the 21st century?” she said. “No wonder the Church is losing touch if this is the kind of gobbledygook they want us to believe in”.

Gobbledygook? Is this how modern women feel about the Bible? What sacrilege! The word of God is quite clear about the role of women in society, and the fact some seem disgusted by the sermon only goes to show what little attention people actually pay to their own holy scriptures. God doesn’t mince words when it comes to the ladies:

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I don’t permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner”
(I Timothy 2:11-14).

…[F]or man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head” (I Corinthians 11:3-10).

What’s wrong ladies? Can’t stomach the fact God’s infallible word makes you a second class citizen? If you want to be a good Christian, don’t you think it’s time you put aside all influence of modern society and live according to the word of the Lord? Or, you could join the rest of us who recognize the inherent misogyny of the Bible is further proof of its entirely terrestrial origins.

The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 112

Hey guys, as promised we are right on schedule for another great episode of the TGA podcast. This week Ryan and I talk about the distressing news that rifle sights in the US military have secret Bible codes on them, and we also talk about Richard Dawkin’s ‘Non Believers Giving Aid’ charity, and how some religious folks don’t seem to understand you can be good without God!

The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 112
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