Women, children, property and the things you can buy at Target

Looks like a ton of innocent women and children are about to start dying...because their owners (men) are fighting over what is going to happen to their women and children when they die.

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/25/147370689/in-egypt-christian-muslim-tension-is-on-the-rise

Allah forbid your property doesn’t make it to heaven with you so they can’t watch you bang a bunch of virgins all day.

HEY! For anyone who thinks it is okay to act out violence in the name of a God.

I bought that for you at target.  It was on sale.

Mocking and Ridicule of Fundies

I'm a frequent contributor to news-site comment pages. Namely, news-sites who post stories on subjects I care about. Here is a recent one I've flogged in several places: FCKH8

When I first started patrolling comment boxes looking for the latest bigot or intellectually dishonest person to correct, I would try my best to remain civil, to state my case in a solid manner hoping they would see the "light" or, in the least, to show a different side and give rise to an honest discussion.

This never really works... ever.

A holocaust denier bringing up his views in a job interview would be a really bad idea. This is because, not only will they not be taken seriously, but they will open themselves to harsh ridicule. Statements based on blind religious fundamentalism should be held to the same critical standard. When people say stupid shit because of their religion, I now feel the need to point out that their unfounded claims are going to encounter serious scrutiny. And, if I can find a spot, I'm going to let the jabs fly.

From my most recent exchange:
Dave - "It isn't surprising that gays are intolerant & hateful."
Me - "It isn't surprising that Christians are intolerant & hateful."
See what I did there? Your just spouting silly retoric without justification.
Where did you get your incredibly bad reasoning skills? ... They were making FUN of christian bigotry and closemindednes... The only intolerant & hateful people in this argument are those who spread lies and hate in order to press their own beliefs on others."
Dave -"By your actions, you're supporting what I've said.
Me - "Umm, nothing [I] said proved your above statement. You said "hateful & intolerant" and your point is still dumb and unfounded. What you can assert however, is that we are resorting to mockery and ridicule which, anti gay groups deserve when they spout their bigotry. Half the fun is making points the other half is mocking you small minded fundies while having a good laugh at your expense. Just like we do against racists or sexists, yes we compare you to them."

Now, I don't know if this guy was a Christian or not. But I didn't care. He had said "homos" are hateful for w/e the fuck reason and I felt like laying into him. I personally didn't care if I changed his mind. Asking someone such as this to change their minds is like asking my dog to do the dishes... They will approach it with the exact same level of comprehension. Mostly I am aiming to change the minds of others reading our exchange. Hopefully, some other fundie read it and it altered their point of view or made them think.  Hopefully? Maybe that one person was going to post something similar, but now sees that it will only lead to people like me mocking their stupid beliefs. I can only hope it did.

Who Died and Made the Church King?

Recently NY Legalized Gay Unions.
Also recently, to no one's surprise, the Catholic Church had a thing or two to say about it.

"This is a further erosion of the real understanding of marriage,"
No, it is not an erosion. If anything, it's an addition. But neither of these verbs is appropriate in describing changes to marital bonds; and your understanding of marriage, between a man and woman, is based on misinformation, lies, or the Bible (Actually, the bible is Both of those things, but I digress).


"The state should not be concerned about regulating affection."
DiMarzio is a fucking idiot. (You can tell they don't go to "real" college.)

First off, he uses the word affection in what seems to be an attempt to pry some sort of extra emotion from people, but the phrase "regulating affection" makes no sense. You can't control how much people care for each other on any level and it's silly to say that everyone who is in a Civil Union is affectionate to what-ever-the-fuck degree.

Secondly, the State WAS concerned about regulating things by telling people with whom they can and can not legally be together. Now they have simply taken a neutral stance. I don't like asparagus. I think it is gross and an abomination, however just because the government doesn't stop people from growing it because of my deeply held beliefs about it doesn't mean there is some vegetable regulation racket. This assumption of his is so incredibly silly I can't believe that anyone would take it seriously.

Thirdly, who died and made the Church king of all things needing to be regulated? I would also say that a celibate priest is not an expert in relationships. Maybe the real reason priests are so angry is because we won't redefine "affection regulation" so that grown men can marry 12 year old boys.

I have Found the Mecca of Religious Debates

So, with all the blogs and research sites I visit there are times when my eyes come across the name of an apologist, or a scientist, or an atheist, or a citation for a debate that I want to know more about. LukeProg over at Common Sense Atheism created a one stop page on his blog for those times when you want to look up debates for any person you have become interested in researching more. I have used it a couple of times and would like to give it the proper recognition it deserves on my site!

500+ Religious Debates:
http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=50#latest

PZ Meyers and Aron Ra Take on Some Islam Creationists

Fast-forward to 10:50 and listen to Aron Ra back them into admitting that "you can't be punished for being a non-believer unless you are told about Allah"...the whole audience pipes in.

Offending Religious Sentiment

Here in America you can be charged with a crime if you impersonate a government official.  And It matters weather or not you were just making fun of the type of official, (that would be a freedom of speech violation) unless you tried to get special treatment to attempt illegal shit while doing so. Which makes sense, and its purpose has nothing to do with possibly offending any officials. But for some reason in Maltese Nine people might be charge with a crime. The same type of charge we have here...but it extends to church and religious officials. Why? Seriously, why?

the behavior was “not simply a case of people dressing up as Christ or the saints” but more a question of public indecency and offending religious sentiment.

Offending your religious sentiment? What about your religion offending and completely disregarding gay sentiment? What about verses in your bible calling for the death of homosexuals? What about unequal rights for women all over the world? What about its advocation of slavery, stoning, genocide and technological deceleration? No, you don't deserve a "don't pick on me" card. As long as you get your morals from a book that leads to and advocates beliefs that keep society from evolving and making itself better you will be mocked...and I will laugh.

P.S. Tim Minchin doesn't like the Pope.

Bastrop High Gets A Letter In The Mail

www.bastropenterprise.com/archive/x2085346315/file
So yeah, I was waiting for this letter to be sent. I really feel for the kid who got this ball rolling, and I hope he sues the pants off the school district for being a bunch of ignorant jebus-twats thinking they are the only people in the world.

Oh, here is a Christian explaining why everyone should be against ritual prayer in schools.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46828
"I would say in love to my Christian brothers and sisters, before you yearn for the imposition of prayer and similar rituals in your public schools, you might consider attending a football game at Wahiawa High School. Because unless you're ready to endure the unwilling exposure of yourself and your children to those beliefs and practices that your own faith forswears, you have no right to insist that others sit in silence and complicity while you do the same to them."

Faith is not a virtue and Harold Camping used it to be a douche'

First off, it's important to point out what the hell faith is. It's a word that's been twisted and shat upon by various groups of people to help get convoluted points across. "But when I talk about my faith I mean my religion" Well then you're just replacing the word religion with another word. I could say "My faith is Muslim" or "My cantology(art of singing) is Muslim" and it's equally as silly. Just because a religion encompasses various forms of cantology and faith, it doesn't mean you should be word shuffling to make your voodoo sound accurate.

Well then what is faith? Simply put, it is believing something without evidence. But it's even more philosophically honest to say that faith is a belief held on bad evidence or no evidence at all, bad evidence being an important distinction later on. Also important to note is the fact that beliefs and faith are not mutually exclusive. Anyone is free to believe anything their mind can come up with. It's what you base that belief on that dictates whether or not other people on Facebook are going to mock you with impunity. Basing your beliefs on solid grounds is good and basing your beliefs on bad or no evidence is bad. Making important decisions based on hunches and faith is an irresponsible way to live your life.

Which leads me to the main point.

Harold Camping (Lets call him H.C.) and his campaign of bullshit slinging needs very little introduction. But what does need explaining is how hundreds of thousands of people could be conned into believing something so fucking stupid, not to mention the fact that the manner in which he "derived" the date itself is so very asinine.

In addition, the very book he used his woo-woo math on tells him he is wrong and any serious claim to know is considered "testing Yahweh". What H.C. did, was make a claim and asserted a belief, based on BAD evidence on some points and NO evidence on others. The equation he pulled out of his ass was bad evidence and the claim of it being on the anniversary of the great flood was a claim with NO evidence at all. (Genesis is such complete bullshit that I consider it non-evidence). With so many things working against H.C. on his claim, he is reduced to telling his mindless followers "Have Faith".

Well, that turned out well.

With people giving their entire life savings, kids' college funds, vehicles, homes and any other number of monetarily valuable things under the guise of: WTF do we need money for? Jebus is coming back. Or old scripture like Malachi 3:10 and crap in the new testament praising being poor.

No matter how much you try to fluff up shitty old sayings like "Blessed be the meek" or "The poor man is rich in spirit", it does not make them true! Monetary based happiness claims are WAY more complicated than trying to sum them up in a single sentence or "the old saying" (topic for another day).

H.C. played these people like a bunch of flutes. Are they complete idiots for believing him? Not necessarily, but I will still make fun of them. Also, what happened to these people to allow them to be so duped? Well, I can answer that. The same reason and logic they use every day, when driving their car, making a big purchase, offering non-religious advice to a friend and trashing other gods they don't worship, was not used when presented with outlandish rapture claims. Yeah, I think we can call them idiots. I think we can call H.C. a fucking douche' bag. Above all, I think faith isn't something to be used...Ever.

Childish Critical Thinking

(picture from Klepsacovic's site)

I find myself of the opinion that we should all be more critical, than less, of children. This also means paying more attention to what they say. All too often I see adults pretty much just shaking their heads all the silly things their children say.
Responding to, "Mommy I wanna fly on the lawn mower when daddy gets home," with something like, "Thats nice honey," as a reply. This could amount to some lazyness or being too indulgent.

When what should be happening is a critical analysis and breakdown of the statement. In this case, lawnmowers don't fly and you might get asked why. Be prepared to give and explanation of your answers to their questions. "Because I said so," is a bullshit answer (I heard this the other day at lunch). Its very surprising how much a 2 or 3 year-old can understand, and even more so at 5 or 6 if critical thinking is taught from the very point they can put together more than one word.

Now, I'm not saying that we should never let our children imagine crazy shit. But, we are not helping them along in their educational development by letting them completely immerse themselves in bull-crap.

Not that I know anything about raising children... I just had this one my mind after browsing some blogs this morning. And a quick google check gave me tons of sites dedicated to this stuff.