With no more problems plaguing America, politicians have decided that making the motto “In God We Trust” emblazoned in every public school is the best use of their time. Forget about trying to stem the tide of ignorance and the degradation of their educational system: everything will be fixed once we please this creator God by telling him we trust him.

The agenda for the House of Representatives contains a bill, recently reported out of the Judiciary Committee, that asks our elected officials to reaffirm “In God We Trust” as our national motto. News reports indicate the bill’s supporters appear particularly keen on having public school classrooms display the motto, so that children can spend their days gazing upon it.

Never mind the phrase is an obvious violation of the Establishment Clause; it seems as though no one gives a shit about that anymore. Legislators must see the writing on the wall. As religion begins to lose its foothold on society, desperate religionists will do everything they can to prop up their given belief system. While Texas is busy trying to pass a bill to make it illegal to discriminate against creationist idiots, you can expect more of this kind of theocratic legislation to rear its hideous head.

If you need more proof your government is at the service of God-pimps, I suggest you get your fucking head out of the sand.

Apparently legislators in Arkansas are convinced the ills of society can be fixed if they ensure students are brainwashed into Christianity. In order to do so, they’ve passed a Bill that would lay out “guidelines” for public schools who want to offer elective classes on the Bible.

Republican Rep. Denny Altes called the Bible the most accurate history book and says students could learn about its influence on literature, culture and politics in a nonreligious setting.

It’s highly doubtful these electives will be critical of the Bible, and the fact that Denny-boy thinks this book of mythology is the most accurate history book indicates he’s never actually bothered to study any other texts. He’s seeing the world through his “faith goggles”, and like their beer counterpart, they severely affect judgement.

The Bill now heads for the House to be voted on, and it’s my hope that people there have their heads screwed on right. This kind of indoctrination has no place in public schools. I’m not too hopeful for any sanity from equally moronic politicians, but a man can hope, can’t he?

Texas is in trouble. They are having a budget crisis, and like every other moronic state in the union, they’re mulling over reducing teacher salaries and generally decreasing the quality of their education. I liken it to a sinking ship throwing their precious cargo overboard rather than actually plugging the hole. They seem to have no concept of what actually stimulating an economy is all about, but luckily a group of atheist picketers have the right idea. They’re asking the state to grow some balls and tax the over 190 megachurches in the state:

“If just the 1% most profitable megachurches and televangelists in Texas paid just 1% of the amount of tax they’d have to pay if they were taxed like the for-profits they are, we could not only avoid laying off teachers and closing schools, we could hire more teachers, and build more schools,” he says. “We don’t expect this wild idea to fly anytime soon. It’s not a new idea, but it needs to be stated again and again. Religion earns it.”

It would be awesome if churches would finally start contributing to society rather than bamboozling its citizens. Imagine the delicious irony of these institutions actually promoting education rather than stifling it (not sure if it actually qualifies as irony, but just go with it).

This being Texas, it has about as much chance of success as Sus domestica spontaneously achieving lift…

In light of your economy slowly going down the toilet, a few enlightened politicians are asking the question that’s been on my mind since I’ve started this website: “why are churches tax exempt”? Enter Senator Chuck Grassley, who seems to think that churches are benefiting from tax exemption in a way that is patently unfair:

“THE constitution does not require the government to exempt churches from federal income taxation or from filing tax and information returns.” The potential implications of this comment, in a report earlier this month by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, are starting to dawn on a large chunk of America’s charitable sector, which has until now taken for granted that it is exempt from tax.

The salient point is abuse is fairly rampant, since unlike charitable organizations, churches aren’t required to open their books to the public, and employees of these organizations often benefit from tax free monies to pay for their mortgages, cars, and other expenses. Worse still, many churches have side businesses such as coffee shops, books stores, and in some cases, even selling oil and gas.

By not paying any taxes, every citizen is in effect subsidizing religion, and I don’t recall ever being consulted on this matter. I don’t mind paying for roads, health services, firefighters and police officers, but I draw the line at indoctrination. If you want to teach your children about bullshit fairy tales, do it on your own fucking dime.

Oh Texas, can you possibly go one day without embarrassing yourself? It wasn’t enough that your governor is trying to prevent women from having abortions: now one of your counties has erected a monument to the Ten Commandments in the courthouse square of Oldham County.

The constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments in public squares and buildings has been tested elsewhere with varying results.

“The laws are very convoluted,” said Manuel Quinto-Pozos, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. “Does it represent the government’s endorsement or seal of approval for a religion?” Quinto-Pozos said he knows of no current court challenges in Texas. How and where the commandments are displayed makes a difference.

“In short, it depends — on context, history and motive,” Charles Haynes, a First Amendment Center senior scholar, wrote in 2005

Yeah, I wonder what the “context” of this gigantic monument to the Abrahamic God of the Bible is. Could it possibly be the endorsement of a specific religion?

I’m doubtful anyone in this tiny county is going to dispute the constitutionality of the monument, mostly because it’s a gigantic waste of time and money to do so. Another victory for the religious, and another defeat for those who maintain the notion America is a secular nation.

It bothers me to no end religious people are convinced the only way to cope with difficult situations and circumstances is to believe in a higher power. It’s just something they claim without any real evidence to suggest it’s true. It merely sounds good to their deluded ears.

So imagine my complete lack of surprise when I heard the US Army has devised a survey designed to test the relative spiritual “fitness level” of soldiers in an effort to avoid mental breakdown of their employees. It turns out a bunch of soldiers have started killing themselves or having mental breakdowns during and after their tours, and rather than taking care of the core problem (namely that they are embroiled in a pointless war that sucks donkey dick), the top brass has decided a person’s spiritual beliefs is of paramount concern when determining their combat fitness.

As you might have guessed, a number of non-religious soldiers are outraged they are being judged based on their lack of belief in fairy tales. Justin Griffith, a self described “foxhole atheist” had to take a survey, and since he answered a hearty “no” when asked if he prayed or meditated during times of stress, he was told his “spiritual fitness may be an area of difficulty” (I would say that religionists have an “area of difficulty” when it comes to accepting reality, but I digress).

It continued: “You may lack a sense of meaning and purpose in your life. At times, it is hard for you to make sense of what is happening to you and to others around you. You may not feel connected to something larger than yourself. You may question your beliefs, principles and values.”

It concluded: “Improving your spiritual fitness should be an important goal.”

I’m so sick of this nonsense. Believing in religious bullshit doesn’t make one a better soldier; it just means you’ve made the conscious decision to favor spiritual gobbledygook over hard fact. No, I don’t feel disconnected to what is happening to others around me; I’m just sick and tired of them pushing their fucking nonsense in my face.

Griffith and others are convinced this is merely a way to discriminate against non-believers in an attempt to populate the army entirely with religious zombies, and I’m inclined to agree. For every testimony I’ve heard (yes, I’m aware this kind of evidence is flawed), the Army is extremely evangelizing when it comes to Christianity, and this fact alone scares the shit out of me. When you combine the toxicity of religion with the machinery of war, terrible things are bound to happen.

I can’t imagine the kind of terror I would experience if I was a woman and suddenly was faced with a complication in my pregnancy at a Catholic Hospital. The Church’s dogma concerning abortion is one that causes the misery and death of countless women, all because they’re convinced babies are all miracles of a male God, and conclude abortionists are worse than child molesters (you can’t rape what doesn’t exist, right?). Scientifically though, a pregnancy is similar to being invaded by a parasite, and there are often cases where the life of the mother is in imminent peril.

In 2009, St. Joseph hospital was faced with a rapidly dying pregnant woman, and they did the only thing they could do to save her: they aborted the 11 week-old fetus:

The woman who underwent the procedure is in her 20s and had a history of abnormally high blood pressure when she learned of her pregnancy. After she was admitted to the hospital with worsening symptoms, doctors determined her risk of death was nearly 100 percent.

As a consequence, they were stripped of their “Catholic” status by their local Dungeon Master Bishop, and now the hospital is not allowed to celebrate Mass and other useless religious rituals.

That’s actually great news, since it means one more hospital won’t be making any decisions based on some ancient, ridiculous dogma. The fact there are even medical facilities run by experts in nonsense is disturbing: a hospital is a place of science, not superstition. The fact the staff was punished for doing what any other medical establishment would do is telling, isn’t it?

If you still think the Tea Party is a socially conservative, libertarian movement, then you need to pull your head out of your ass and actually pay attention to the shit they are pulling. The latest “so bigoted you’d think this was the 1950′s” move involves Tea Party activists sending robo-calls to warn Texans about their new House Speaker being a Jew.

John Cook is a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, which, as you may have guessed from the title, is comprised of fundie Christians who believe America is a “Christian Nation”.

When I got involved in politics, I told people I wanted to put Christian conservatives in leadership positions,” he told me, explaining that he only supports Christian conservative candidates in Republican primary races.

“I want to make sure that a person I’m supporting is going to have my values. It’s not anything about Jews and whether I think their religion is right or Muslims and whether I think their religion is right. … I got into politics to put Christian conservatives into office. They’re the people that do the best jobs over all

Don’t worry though; he’s totally not an anti-Semite according to himself:

“They’re some of my best friends,” he said of Jews, naming two friends of his. “I’m not bigoted at all; I’m not racist.”

Bigots don’t know they’re bigots because people like you and me don’t spend enough time shaming them for having such obviously racist views. When someone tells you “some of my best friends are [fill in the blanks]“, then you know some racist shit is just about to spew from their ignorant mouths. Don’t ever let that stuff fly under the radar, people!

Seems like every other day, the UN proves just how much it’s willing to cater to the demands of irrational and prejudiced nations. The latest scandal involves 79 countries that have taken upon that have taken upon themselves the task of “eradicating” homosexuality. The step backwards in human rights was the amendment of a resolution against unlawful executions that removed gays from this prohibition.

…this year, the new version was passed minus the reference to gay rights. This was because a group of mostly African and Asian countries, voted to remove it. 79 countries that voted to remove the reference to sexual orientation from the resolution, including Uganda, Afghanistan, China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Most Western countries, including the US, voted in favor of keeping the reference to sexual orientation in place. The US abstained from the final vote to approve the resolution, with American diplomats telling the UN that the US was “dismayed” at the decision.

I feel like the world is currently experiencing a slide when it comes to gay rights, and I place the blame squarely on religion. Is it a coincidence the majority of the countries who voted for this bullshit resolution happen to be extremely religious? Not in the slightest.