I’m beginning to think it’s totally impossible to do anything secular in America without some religious jackass accusing us of waging a “War on Christmas”. This pathetic attempt to make Christians appear marginalized has the effect of making them all look like old fools, if you ask me. When there’s any kind of story that exploits this fear mongering, the media will trip over themselves to cover a make believe war while totally ignoring the reality of a present one.

One such annoying tale of over-reaction involves a simple complaint made by a parent at Terry Elementary School in Little Rock, Arkansas. She complained to the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers that the school was showing a screening of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” -effectively displaying, with taxpayer monies – a religious movie sponsored by a public institution. Worried there might be a backlash against her daughter if she removed her from the event, the parent in question asked that the children pay 2 bucks to cover the cost so the school wouldn’t flip the bill. Sounds like a non-story, right? Well, you obviously don’t troll conservative sites like I do:

The Daily Mail’s headline says it all, don’t you think?

Atheist group attacks elementary school over field trip to see ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ at local church claiming it ‘violates religious freedoms’

The problem, of course, is that no such attack took place. The parent who complained still allowed her child to go. She merely highlighted the fact A Charlie Brown Christmas still has a religious theme to it, and schools should not be in the business of endorsing any religion. The fact conservative ass-hats take these kinds of non-stories and blow them out of proportion goes to show it really doesn’t matter how politely you try to bring your objections to Christian privilege: we’ll always be accused of trying to destroy the hopes and dreams of people who want total religious homogeny in America.

I dislike religious historians. I can’t for the life of me fathom how any of these men and women can take their profession seriously when they have so much invested in their beliefs. Who among them is willing to question the historicity of their own God? Even if they are, can we trust the blinders of faith won’t simply make it impossible for them to be objective?

For an example of what I’m talking about, take this recent finding from Harvard professor Karen L. King: she claims to have found a 4th century note from Coptic (Egyptian) Christians that make mention of Jesus having a wife. There’s yet to be any actual testing on the piece of papyrus, but already King and her team are convinced of its authenticity.

Even if it did originate from that time period, so what? This is yet another example of third, fourth accounts being taken as fact. If you’ve ever spent 5 minutes analyzing human behavior, you quickly realize most of us aren’t really interested in facts or truth. We’re all too busy trying to make the world fit into OUR vision, and that means the inconvenience of reality often means it’s entirely left out of our conversations. I don’t see much scholarly debate over whether or not Amon Ra had a wife, and he too came to Earth to help the poor and oppressed. There’s a trend to all legends, you see, and the fact that people try to inject this Jesus guy into real history only proves how poor their scholarship actually is.

What I find frustrating in all of this is even people skeptical of this new ‘finding’ fail to apply the same level of skepticism to everything else. Take a quote from this Christian who seems entirely confused abut what ‘attested historical figure’ actually means:

Jesus may be one of the best attested figures in the ancient world, but we still know hardly anything about him. And because he is the key figure in the largest religion in the world, we are keen to fill in the blanks…

The truth of the matter is that we don’t know what Jesus looked like. We don’t know where he was or what he was doing when he turned 18. And we don’t know if he was ever married or divorced.

What he looked like or if he had a wife is only the tip of this ignorance iceberg. When was this supposed messiah born? When did people start writing about him? Does it not seem suspicious to these folks that even many early Christians believed he was simply an allegory? The author admits there were plenty of religious frauds all too happy to fabricate evidence. Why is it so difficult to think the same is true for his historicity?

How many more times do we have to read dubious articles about finding Jesus’ tomb or some supposed piece of his actual cross. You might as well claim you found Hercules’ resting place as far as I’m concerned.

I know this question wasn’t asked of me, but I want to answer it anyway:

I’m a little shocked. She says she is a Christian, but the Bible doesn’t say anything about dinosaurs. Should I let him keep them, as long as he understands that dinosaurs aren’t real? Even the PBS shows that he watches talk about dinosaurs and evolution, and how the scientists found these “bones” but the Bible doesn’t say that God ever created them, and the earth is only 6000 years old, not old enough to have ‘bones” that they say are millions of years old! I know that Satan tries to trick us in many ways, and this is one way he tries to fool man into believing that there isn’t a God who created the universe. How can they be bones when they made out of ROCKS? I told my son that dinosaurs are one of Satan’s many ways of tricking man, and he must talk to God before he plays with them. Am I handling this right? My first 3 were girls, and I adopted boys, and lots of mothers tell me that boys are often attracted to these dinosaurs. So I don’t know what to do. Is this just harmless fantasy play for him, or should I be worried that he may go on believing in things like evolution?

Dear concerned idiot,

Since you posted this question on the Internet, let me answer by saying first there is almost no chance your pathetic, antiquated worldview will be inculcated on your infant son. It’s too late. Maybe if you totally disconnected from the World Wide Web and lived in a cave for a while, you might be able to halt the assault of information that we call the Internet. Unfettered access to information is the reason your religion is slowly dying off. It can’t possibly compete with the wealth of ideas the rest of the world has to offer.

If it’s any consolation, though, your relationship will face the inevitable strain your dogmatic belief entails, so rest assured that your son’s interest in dinosaurs is a positive sign of his intelligence and curiosity of the world beyond the confines of your limited schema. A wealth of experience and knowledge awaits him, if he’s lucky enough to receive even a basic education, which I’m sure you’ll do your best to prevent.

By the time you’re dead and he’s finally able to live his life free of your religious tyranny, he may have a few positive memories of you, though they will be clouded by your intense ignorance. In the meantime, I suggest you stop blaming your imaginary friend (or enemy) for everything you despise. Odds are, it’ll only drive a wedge between you and everyone else not living in your delusion.

Are you suffering from confusing relationship issues that can’t be solved with prayer? Don’t worry about a thing: The Gospel Coalition has the answers you’re looking for! Just read these insightful tips to ensure your marriage is a successful testament to the power of Christ, and not your own personal desires!

1. It’s not bad to want to have sex with your significant other. It’d be another sort of worry if you didn’t. The key is to want to glorify Christ more than you want to have sex with each other.

See, your first mistake was assuming your relationship is about you! It isn’t. It’s about a dead Jewish guy.

2. The key to glorifying Christ more than you want to have sex with each other is that it is a decision to be made over and over again.

Translation: bringing a deified virgin into the mix should prevent those lusty thoughts.

3. Persons in a dating or courting relationship are on their best behavior. So however they are now, you can expect, over time, for them to get “worse.” As familiarity grows, people let their guards down. Marriage does not fix bad behavior; it often gives it freer reign. Ladies, this means if your boyfriend is controlling, suspicious, verbally condescending or manipulative, he will get worse, not better the longer your relationship goes on. Whatever you are making excuses for or overlooking now, will get harder to ignore and more prominent the longer your relationship goes on. You can’t fix him, and marriage won’t straighten him out.

Hey, that’s actually good advice right there. Good thing it has nothing to do with religion! Except for this sounds rather sexist. Is it always the dude who needs to be straightened out?

4. Nearly every Christian I know who is married to an unbeliever loves their spouse and does not necessarily regret marrying them, but has experienced deep pain and discontent in their marriage because of this unequal yoking and would now never advise a believer to marry an unbeliever.

That’s cool, I usually tell my readers they should avoid marrying people who have not come to their senses.

5. Assuming you’re special and you’re different and their experiences won’t reflect yours is shortsighted, unwise, and arrogant. The people who love you and are warning/advising you against your relationship might be ignorant fools. Those sorts of people do exist. But odds are better that your parents, your pastor, your older married friends are wiser than you think.

This is pretty strange advice. It seems to suggest the best people to judge your relationship are other people. I assume a sexless priest came up with that brilliant notion.

6. Living together before marriage is a marriage killer.

If it can’t work because living together first was hard, why do couples think not living together first will somehow solve the problem?

7. Premarital sex de-incentivizes a young man to grow up, take responsibility, and lead his home and family.

You know what de-incentivizes me? Having cobwebs on my dick until I can pay for a wedding ceremony, that’s what. And what the hell does ‘lead his family’ mean? Are we building a house together or something?

8. Pre-marital sex wounds a young woman’s heart, perhaps imperceptibly at first but undeniably over time, as she trades in covenant benefits without covenant security. This is not the way God designed sex to fulfill us. Never give your body to a man who has not pledged to God his faithfulness to you in covenant marriage, which presupposes an accountability to a local church. In short, don’t give your heart to a man who is not accountable to anybody who provides godly discipline.

Well, occasionally something soft and pink will get damaged a little, but that’s nothing a little rest and relaxation can’t heal. As for this notion that God has a profound interest in who you’re fucking, it sounds more like the earthly concern of celibate dudes trying to tell everyone else how to live.

9. All of your relationships, including your romantic relationship, is meant to make Jesus look big more than it is meant to provide you personal fulfillment. When we make personal fulfillment our ultimate priority in our relationships, ironically enough, we find ourselves frustratingly unfulfilled.

You hear that? If your relationship doesn’t make JC look like the ‘Big Dog’, then you’re doing it wrong. Don’t you know you’re an insignificant ant compared to his largeness? Isn’t it ironic that when you don’t give your whole relationship to your imaginary friend, you feel unfulfilled? Oh wait, that’s not actually ironic. It’s just sad, really.

10. You are loved by God with abundant grace in Christ’s atoning work, and an embrace of this love by faith in Jesus provides Holy Spiritual power and satisfaction to pursue relationships that honor God and thereby maximize your joy.

I seriously doubt that the same people who are always forcing you to keep it in your pants are actually worried about maximizing your joy. More likely, they want to maximize your tithing, so they can continue to make sure that no one has a satisfying sex life, least of all you.

Still having issues with your significant other? How is that even possible with such life altering advice? It must be you. You’re the problem, sinner.

When trying to defend your religion, you’ve to pick your battles. In today’s modern world, defending the Bible is a full time job. If you aren’t busy arguing that the supposed genocide of the Canaanites or Hittites was justified because a bearded sky-deity told the Jews to do it, you’re hopelessly defending things like homophobia and slavery. What else can you expect from a series of books written thousands of years ago by ignorant herdsmen?

Take Mark Shea. He’s a new writer for the National Catholic Register, and if this article of his entitled New Atheist Magical Thinking is any indication, we’re bound to get more hilarious gems out of this clown. He’s trying to argue that the recent tactic of American Atheist to quote immoral Bible verses is leading us inextricably towards ‘magical thinking’. Here he is answering a letter from a fellow Christian upset that he can’t find a biblical passage declaring slavery to be evil. His response is worth a laugh.

I think that atheists like your friend really need to break free of fundamentalist magical thinking and learn to read books written by and for grownups.

Yeah, you silly atheists! Your books are full of unbelievable magic, like a talking snake or donkey, or bits of food that fall down from heaven to feed hungry Jews. Oh wait, that’s not our books…

People who read the Bible looking for more than Selected Ammunition Verses, would realize that contained within the New Testament is, ultimately, the only thing that succeeded in finally extirpating slavery: namely, the insistence that man is made in the image and likeness of God and that Christ loves the slave as much as the master…Of course, the New Atheists are stone blind to this in their deep ignorance and arrogance and so fail to realize that the first result of extirpating Christianity is the return of slavery

Never mind the fact the Southern Baptist Church fought tooth and nail to keep segregation for as long as it could (arguing that forcing civil rights on them violated their religious freedom…sound familiar?): if you eliminate Christianity, according to this moron, people will be enslaved again. Never mind the fact the Bible specifically condones slavery, and was one of the main tools used by preachers to fight abolition. Like every Christian before him, Mark has chosen to interpret his religion to match his pre-existing belief structure. Facts or history are irrelevant to him, so long as they contradict his specially formed Christianity.

As for the accusation that atheists engage in ‘magical thinking’, how can you convince someone who believes without question that his imaginary friend is real he’s the one living in a delusion? All we can do is shake our heads, impolitely tell these idiots they are wrong, and remind them that accusing us of ‘arrogance’ is not really an insult. We understand reality better than they do, and that merits a little pride, don’t you think?