Tag Archives: christianity

Walmart greeter tells you about burning in hellfire

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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?

Christian calls atheist “mean” on Reddit

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Here’s another “hey, atheists are being mean and should stop” article from someone clearly annoyed that people on Reddit have less than kind things to say about religion.

If you want to find out why I call these guys Reddit Atheists, take a brief dip into the atheism subreddit. It is a place entirely defined by bitter, faux-enlightened young people sharing “thought-provoking” images about the horrific evils of religion (in practice, pretty much just Christianity) and congratulating each other for being “enlightened.” The site was originally intended to be a place where people talk about atheistic ideas, but as is Reddit’s depressing trend, it soon devolved into a swampy mess of endless, banal clichés, memes, and general anti-intellectualism. It actually rivals Creationism in terms of having a narrow worldview.

Trying to lump us in the same category as these morons, eh? While I agree Reddit isn’t usually more than rage comics, memes and infographics, I really don’t think the online conversation about non belief is being dictated by it. It’s just a bunch of frustrated (usually) young people who have no other outlet other than an online content aggregator.

Defining your life by volatile antitheism—in other words, clinging to something you don’t believe in—isn’t just annoying, it’s actually pretty backward, and, in some cases, culturally malignant. For a demographic that spits a lot of game about equality and mobility, they sure love lording their “intellect” over anyone who dares to think differently. The atheism subreddit gets off on feeling superior to other people; it’s not about ideas or truth, they’d rather thrive on that faux-scholar buzz.

How is this culturally malignant to expose the superstition of others? Well, if your culture relies on superstition, perhaps it would. But in a world dependent on the explanatory power of science, it’s culturally malignant to hold on to Bronze Age ideas, not to debate them.

Also, this guy was so busy busy focusing on the shit he didn’t like, he forgot to read all the personal, touching shit people DO talk about. The number of times I’ve read heartbreaking stories of young kids being kicked out of their homes (one of them was Ray Comfort’s kid, BTW), or kids psychologically abused by religious parents and family members is honestly impossible to tell. The hundreds of positive comments, and support these people get is nothing short of extraordinary compared to the isolation these people would normally be faced with.

The author asked if people practicing Christianity was really that horrible for non-believers. Judging by his own story, I would say his opinion is tainted by the fact that he never lived in a religiously oppressive home. The same can not be said of many redditors. Living under the thumb of religion would make anyone frustrated, and if the worst they do is mock religion, are you honestly going to compare that to the campaigns of hatred normally directed at us?

What the article should read is simply “I don’t like Reddit”. That’s fine, it’s not for everyone. But writing an article telling people to shut up not only stinks of a kind of irony, it sends the wrong message about how conflict should be resolved: you don’t talk less, you talk more!

Dinosaurs are Satan’s way of deceiving us!

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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.

10 pieces of advice young people should ignore

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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.

Exposing the bigotry of religion makes us bullies

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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.

We’re the ones with magical thinking?

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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?

Church stages kidnapping, facing charges

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When your main weapon in the war of ideas is fairy-tale nonsense, I can see how some religionists might feel a little intimidated with reality. Unlike those ‘heady’ days in the past when any old idea passed muster so long as a man of the cloth gave it a thumbs up (like the 17th century edict that declared the beaver a fish), our modern understanding of the natural world has only served to further marginalize faith. As church attendance continues to fall throughout the Western World (32% of us are faithless, according to this recent Gallop poll), desperation is beginning to set in. How else can you explain this story: a Church in Pennsylvania, called ‘Glad Tidings Assembly of God Church’, is facing charges after members staged an elaborate kidnapping hoax in an effort to ‘inform’ kids of the dangers of ‘religious persecution’.

Adults, including an off-duty cop, brandished weapons and put bags over the heads of the children, ages 13 through 18, and forced them into a church van. The group was driven to the home of an assistant pastor, who was presented before the group with a seemingly bloodied and bruised face, according to Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo.

One of the adults used a real AK-47, though the gun was unloaded, Chardo said.

One of the teens, who can’t be identified, seems to be genuinely messed up from the experience (that’s religion for you). If you’re wondering exactly what these morons hoped to accomplish by brandishing weapons and threatening physical harm to children, the explanation from the pastor Pastor John Lanza won’t do much to enlighten you. He tries to justify it by claiming this staged kidnapping would…

secure the shock value of it and to make it much more real because those who are threatened don’t have a warning. It was a youth event to illustrate what others have encountered on a regular basis.”

Well, considering that holding a minor without their consent is a crime punishable by 10 years in jail, perhaps these adults should be given a taste of things to come by staging an elaborate ‘prison’ scenario so they can benefit from illustrating what they can expect on a regular basis in the big house.

The Genesis Code looks awful

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Movie premise: a Christian girl finds her faith and her budding career as a scientist conflicting. A young hockey player, who has lost his belief in non-sense, will find his way back to magic when a group of students discover that The Bible doesn’t conflict with science (even though it fucking obviously does). Liberal academics attempt to erode their faith, but luckily God wins and an old woman is disallowed from having her brain-dead body terminated. So much drama!

I love the whole premise of the movie: What if both science and faith were true? Well, then we would live in an extremely confusing world that would make no sense, of course! Miracles would regularly challenge the known laws of nature, making any attempt to measure them effectively useless. It would also mean that our ancestors were the result of multiple instances of inbreeding, a sure fire way for any species to book a ticket to Extinction-Ville. It would also mean that diseases were the result of evil spirits and not germs, that witchcraft is real (remember, even Moses’ brother Aaron did some magic), and that the sky is a giant ocean (remember how God parted the waters?). Yeah, not so much.

Here’s a great article debunking this crappy movie and any pathetic claims they make. Worth the read!

If you can’t Stand the Heat…

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Internet fame is not always desirable. Take these two: they just released a little song about how great it is that Rick Santorum despises gay people and abortions (cheerfully dubbed “doing what’s right”), and they received so many “dislikes” (about 10k) that they had to remove that feature entirely. The comments are also moderated, so as to avoid any discontent that isn’t to their liking. How brave!

You can read the whole story here.

Jesus, Don’t Let Me Die Before I’ve Had Sex

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When’s the last time you saw any boobs in a movie? They used to be everywhere in the 80′s. You could always count on some no-name Hollywood actress with top knockers to walk across the screen and remind your penis that it was still alive. That’s changed recently. While the instances of violence have gone up in movies, nudity and sexuality has declined. America, it seems, is getting more stuck up when it comes to sex, and to find the culprit, you needn’t look very far:

It’s why this documentary, “Jesus, Don’t Let Me Die Before I’ve Had Sex“, sounds so fascinating. Billing itself as an honest, non-judgmental look at Evangelical Christianity, the movie aims to mix interviews and stop motion animation to tell the story of young Americans and their quest to find their own sexuality among the confusing messages of their faith. The movie is currently looking for funding on kickstarter, so if you have a few bucks lying around, I suggest heading over to their page pronto: in a little over a week, their fundraising campaign will come to a close. Please be generous if the project sounds interesting to you.

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Nintendo rejects game due to “questionable religious content”

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According to the game’s developer, Edmund McMillen, Nintendo has rejected his game, “The binding of Isaac”, due to what they called “questionable religious content”. Luckily, this awesome little game (which I would honestly buy if I wasn’t such a broke-ass) is available on Steam for you PC lovers. I’m curious about the story behind the making of this game, and I’ve asked the developers if they would be interested in an interview. For those of you interested in playing the demo, simply click here.

Muslims in Afghanistan going nuts over Koran Burning

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Remember last year when 24 people died because a US pastor made a public display of burning the Koran? Despite President Obama begging the guy not to do it, Pastor Terry Jones held a mock trial for the book, found it guilty of 3 crimes against humanity and set it on fire. Huge protests erupted in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and like every crazy protest in these countries, a bunch of people got killed.

So despite everyone on Earth knowing how insane Muslims are regarding their fucking book, a bunch of NATO soldiers were discovered burning a few copies themselves. Admittedly, there was no malice in the burning; just the regular disposal of garbage. Of course, nothing done over there is ever simple, and when the locals discovered the fact that their shitty little book was getting cooked, they collectively lost it. Religious fundies were quick to stoke the flames, and the protest has spilled over to Pakistan (always looking for an excuse to burn American effigies, I suppose). So far, 2 foreign advisers have been killed (both by a armed Afghan police officer) and a number of protesters who tried to bomb a UN compound.

President Obama publicly apologized for what happened, but I have to wonder when we’ll stop feeding their insanity. The Koran is just a book; and like all religious tomes, it’s nothing but a collection of falsehoods and pointless platitudes. The fact that we continue to condemn any destruction of this book furthers their assumption that the Muslim faith is superior. Why else would the most powerful man on earth apologize for a few having been singed?

Cindy Jacobs “mobilizing” thousands of morons to do nothing

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Mobilizing 10,000 people to pray! Wow, how amazing. Think of all the good you can do by sitting in a dark room and talking to yourself all day.

So, if you want God to interfere with human affairs (and apparently throw this whole “free will” idea out the window when it’s inconvenient), you just need to stop eating for several days, followed by imperceptibly mumbling to yourself. Sounds good to me!

“Imagine with me half a million people praying for a nation.”

Praying for what? The economy to recuperate? For the poor and indigent to finally get their due? Nope. She just wants to get rid of abortion and gay marriage. That’s the kind of priorities you can expect from someone who sits very still and begs their imaginary friend for shit they want.

Good show, guys…

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It’s terrible shows like this that give me hope that not every child is being indoctrinated particularly well. The damage done by these kinds of yahoos seems relatively easy to fix, especially since these clowns can’t manage to keep a bunch of kids interested in their shtick for more than 15 seconds.

If you’re trying to indoctrinate children in your cult, might I suggest the trying the following:

#1: Be prepared
Just because they’re kids doesn’t mean they are easy to entertain. Typically there’s a “tone” you have to strike to get their attention. Loud, wacky, animated, and “alive” tend to spring into mind. While this show was plenty noisy, it lacked a coherence that can only come from having actually bothered to write a proper show.
#2: Be animated
It can’t be easy entertaining kids when you’re a million years old. It’s why most pros are young enough to handle all the coke you need to stay energized. If you’ve already got a foot in the grave, this gig may not be right for you.
#3 Avoid creating comic characters with shrill, annoying voices.
Kids are people too, which means they equally hate shrill voices that sound like nails across a chalkboard. Try a friendly, reassuring voice instead of your best Wicked Witch impression.

The Muppets are brainwashing your kids!

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Can you believe the nerve of these Hollywood people? They dare to brainwash our kids with movies depicting oil executives as evil people. Why, that’s just not true! Did you know all oil executives are cuddly teddy-bears that care deeply for the environment and for the future of children? Sure, you might think that these people are leveraging our future in order to make record profits, or that corporations like Shell aren’t afraid of getting mixed up with brutal military juntas that kill anyone that gets in the way of the oil flowing. Those are just nasty rumors propagated by bearded hippies who make sock puppets in an attempt to moralize to our youth.

I love this idea that the Hollywood movie industry “hates” big corporations, despite the fact that the place is run by some of the largest companies on the planet. These are the same people that want to stifle the creativity of the Internet because they are afraid of people downloading their shitty movies for free. Yeah, clearly these guys hate money.