Friday, January 30, 2009

The Inner Workings of the DNA

501c3, dna, marriage, prop 8, traditional, homophobia, homosexual, gay, religion, conservative, family, values

If you've been paying attention, I spend a lot of my time chipping away at the Digital Network Army- the online portion of the traditional marriage crowd. (It's the bigotry, but it's also the abuse of irony, sarcasm, science and logic. I get it, you hate Teh Gay, but what did irony every do to you?)

Through careful detective work (I clicked on a link*), I learned a bit about how the Digital Network Army is organized.

(1) Their Team Captains' profiles are hidden. Hmmmm.

(2) Said Team Captains send out viral emails- marching orders for the unhidden foot soldiers, which no doubt explains why the same post ends up on so many blogs.

(3) If a member receives a comment that can't be moderated away for profanity (they want to look all fair and stuff), but can't be easily dismissed, they can alert the Team Captain, who will email the rest of the Digital Network Army, and they will then swoop in and carpet bomb comment: post so many happy comments that the offending comment disappears in the mix.

Here is a recent viral email assignment from the mysterious Team Captain:

Hello, my fellow traditional marriage supporters!My colleagues in the Digital Network Army (DNA) and I want you to join in our letter-writing campaign today to the editor of the New York Times, following up to the article that ran today about the H8 maps.

NY Times instructions for submitting:Letters for publication should be no longer than 150 words, must refer to an article that has appeared within the last seven days, and must include the writer's address and phone numbers. No attachments, please.

Send a letter to the editor by e-mailing letters@nytimes.com.

Go viral, my dear ones! Thanks for standing up for marriage and for the donors' right to privacy!

So, there you have it: organized bigotry in the new millenium.

*a note on the link: you will have to wade through some serious sycophantery, but there is some very interesting information to be had. including the comment by thejournalistachronicle in which she outs at least one church for violating the rules of the 501(c)3.

Yes, We are in the 21st Century- and Yes, She Was Suspended for Being a Witch

persecution, wicca, religion, christian, aclu, civil rights, stupid, pagan, atheism, atheist, theocracy, bible, god, jesus,

A 15 year old Wiccan in Oklahoma was suspended from school for 15 days for casting a hex on a teacher and making him ill. Yes, this happened in the US. No, it did not happen during the Salem witch trials. Unfuckingbelievable.

From the ACLU's website: In its legal complaint filed today in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, the ACLU said that school officials not only suspended Blackbear for 15 days in December 1999 for allegedly casting spells, but also violated her religious freedom when they told her that she could not wear or draw in school any symbols related to the Wicca religion.

The ACLU lawsuit also accuses school officials of violating the young woman's due process rights when, in the spring of 1999, they suspended her for 19 days over the content of private writings taken from her book bag. Officials had searched her possessions based on a rumor that Blackbear was carrying a gun, although no weapon of any sort was ever found. To date, school officials have not returned Blackbear's writings to her.

Hey, why doesn't some oh-so-earnest christian tell me all about how the world hates you and how persecuted you are?

This Is Just Silly

religion, fundamentalism, fundamentalist, fundy, christian, evangelical, evangelism, atheism, atheist, atheophobia, witness, witnessing, barber

Atheistic Barber by SoundingtheAlarm:

Does God Exist?

This is one of the best explanations of why God allows pain andsuffering that I have seen. oh, dear, you just know this is going to unintentionally hi-larious. fish, barrel, sawed-off shotgun. It's an explanation other people will understand. "you can't miss it!"

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. or to buy a lawn mower. As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many things and various subjects. how much hair did this guy have? i'm a woman, and i have my hair washed, cut, blow dried and styled, and it doesn't take that long.

When they eventually touched on the subject of God and this came up why?, the barber said:"I don't believe that God exists." yeah, right. atheist barbers in religious communities, barbers who depend on these christians to willingly frequent their establishments, often just come right out with their atheism. uh-huh.

"Why do you say that?" asked the customer.

"Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist. took a little more than that for me, but some people are just natural born deciders. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. or god's a sadistic voyeur. or god doesn't give a shit. neither one is a particularly pleasant thought. I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things. me either"

The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't want to start an argument. who does want to start an argument with a guy using razor sharp scissors, or an actual razor, on your head? The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop. Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. homeless guy? hippy? librul? He looked dirty and unkempt! the horror!

The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber: "You know what? Barbers do not exist." fish, barrel, cruise missile

"How can you say that?" asked the surprised barber. "I am here, and I am a barber and I just worked on you!" duh!

"No!" the customer exclaimed. "Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside." because barbers just wave their hands and make everyone in the world kempt? seriously? we just established that haircut and beard trim took approximately 3 hours. this particular barber couldn't make more than 2.5 people kempt in any given work day.

"Ah, but barbers DO exist! What happens is, people do not come to me." yeah, homeless people usually don't focus on their split ends. odd, that.

"Exactly!" affirmed the customer. "That's the point! God, too, DOES exist! What happens, unnecessary comma is, people don't go to Him and do not look for Him. That's why there's so much pain and suffering in the world."

this has got to be a ray comfort witnessing technique. it screams of ray's abuse of logic.

so, how do we know the barber exists? we can see the barber, we can hear the barber, we can smell the barber, we could even, depending on how friendly the barber is, feel and taste the barber. how many people the barber plys his trade on is irrelevant. In fact, the barber could not cut anyone's hair ever, we still know he exists.

god, on the other hand, cannot be heard, seen, smelled, tasted, or felt. if i could in any way perceive god with any one of my senses, i would totally worship him. i'm not being deliberately difficult here, i just want some damn proof.

besides that, the argument that we are responsible for our own suffering, that we cause our own suffering by not worshipping the sky-daddy enough, is remarkably offensive. what about children? is this asshat trying to tell me that a 3 month old that is shaken to the point of brain damage and blindness caused his own suffering by not worshipping the right way? what about a 6 year old sex slave? Is she being raped 15, 20 times a day because she didn't pray enough?

What the fuck is wrong with people? that idea is better than the idea that god doesn't exist? really? wow.

Anal Sex is Godly?

The fact is, fundamentalist christianity satirizes itself so effectively, that sometimes I can't tell satire from sincere belief. (see: Landover Baptist)

I'm finding it hard to tell if Anal Sex in Accordance with Christ's Will is snark or sincere. If it's snark, it's fucking brilliant. In fact, it's entirely possible that a piece of snark could be encouraging "abstinence only" freaks to be having oral and anal sex, which would be . . . well, that wins right there. My snark doesn't encourage Teh Butt Seks.

On the other hand, if this is sincere, then people are having anal sex under the belief that as long as a penis doesn't get inside a vagina, there's no sex. For the record: anal sex is not chastity. It's freakin' sex. And, how does one encourage anal sex as not sex between a man and a woman, but the greatest of all evuls if it's between a man and a man? (I apologize, clearly the religious right would be capable of that sort of doublethink. They do it every day.)

The War on Logic Continues

religion, fundamentalism, evangelical, evangelism, evolution, dispensationalism, premillenial, conservative, stupid

Wow. Just wow. These people vote! These people have children!

(From the Rapture Ready message boards)

Cindy S.:

al,
I am just now reading through the bible. I just have to know, how did you come to embrace premillenial dispensationalism without ever having read the bible once . . . oh, wait, questions that answer themselves. I am now in the book of Exodus.What stood out to me today is our courts are modeled after the laws described in the book of Exodus. yeah, look, legal systems the world over (at least in democratic societies) are strikingly similar, aren't they? Why would our world which some like to believe came to being with a bang, develop a court system right out of the bible? ummm . . . what? when the justice system was designed in the US (based largely on the legal system existent in the British Empire) the big bang theory was hundreds of years away from being discovered. does she think that the US legal system is less than 50 years old? at the time our legal system was being founded, everyone was a creationist It's because there is no evolution. can I just say WHAT?! how does the legal system has a basis in biblical tort law equal "evolution is a lie"? A + B = C therefore B=Q? It's absolutely amazing what the Lord reveals to me. oh, yes, it is.

Gay Rights Activists (might possibly in another dimension somewhat like our own) Are Terrorists!

irony, hypocrisy, constitution, intimidation, torture, interrogation, intolerance, prop 8, homosexual, gay, homophobia, marriage, traditional, conservative,

No, seriously. Well, that's what pearlybum says in her latest piece in the war on logical reasoning.

::::::we interrupt this post to make a point about irony:::::::

(it will help you to read the comments on this post, though I warn you, the stupid, it burns)

The fact that one high-ranking Nazi probably was gay does not make gay rights activists' references to Nazi ideology or tactics by the religious right irony. Unless you consider the fact that Hitler had Jewish heritage and he killed all those Jews to be ironic. In which case, I just can't help you.

::::::::we return to our regularly scheduled posting::::::::

from Mercury News

U.S. District Judge Morrison England Jr. ruled against the ProtectMarriage.com - Yes on 8 committee, which sought to protect the identities of about 1,600 donors who have contributed between $100 and $999 since Oct. 18.

A report including the names of those donors is scheduled to be released Monday on the Secretary of State's Web site. (yes that's a government site. it is standard that donors to PACs do not enjoy confidentiality- for very good reason. if they were guaranteed confidentiality, then you would never know if a political candidate were being supported by neoNazis or domestic terrorist organizations or organized crime.)

Now, do I feel that people who voted yes on 8 should be assaulted or have their home vandalized? Of course not, that's just not polite. However, as the pro8 crowd is so very fond of pointing out, actions have consequences. If you voted yes on 8, than you should have known that people would be angry about that. If you donated money to a PAC, you should have known that your information would not be confidential. (If the PAC did not make that clear, then shame on them.)

The shit is hitting the fan, and now those brave crusaders for life, liberty and the heteronormative pursuit of happiness have nothing left to hide behind. Nice screen names, guys, but if you were good little social warriors, I bet your names and addresses are on that list. Good luck with that.

So, pearlybum is all upset cause Obama is closing down Gitmo (he's letting terrorists go free! in fact, as a parting gift, he's giving them all cruise missiles and the coordinates to Disneyland!), but a District Court Judge in California is allowing a law to be enforced. A preexisting law, mind you. That applies to everyone.

I am not surprised. In more ways than one our government has ceased to fulfill its proper role of protecting life and promoting safety and security. Indeed, while our new president calls for the cessation of the use of intimidation tactics in the interrogation of terrorists it's called torture, pearlybum. watch this video, pearlybum, and then tell me that waterboarding is "intimidation" and not torture. or doesn't it matter if the victim is brown?

no, wait, i'm still pissed off about the use of the phrase "intimidation tactics" to describe torture. TORTURE. Let's review:

yelling at someone- intimidation

whipping someone with a barbed metal lash- torture

standing very close to someone specifically to make them uncomfortable- intimidation

repeatedly dunking someone's head underwater so they can just barely get enough air- torture

staring at someone specifically to make them uncomfortable- intimidation

strapping a person to an inclined board, with his feet raised and his head lowered. The interrogators bind the person's arms and legs so he can't move at all, and they cover his face. In some descriptions, the person is gagged, and some sort of cloth covers his nose and mouth; in others, his face is wrapped in cellophane. The interrogator then repeatedly pours water onto the person's face. Depending on the exact setup, the water may or may not actually get into the person's mouth and nose; but the physical experience of being underneath a wave of water seems to be secondary to the psychological experience. The person's mind believes he is drowning, and his gag reflex kicks in as if he were choking on all that water falling on his face. torture

, our own citizens are being left high and dry by their own government and living subject to regular intimidation techniques waterboarding or being called on your own bullshit? and violations of privacy privacy that you had no reason to expect that are threatening their physical safety, liberties, families, and democratic rights. the right to a free press, the right to refuse to quarter soldiers in your homes, or the right to a speedy trial?

How does it feel, California? how does it feel to be as bigoted as the midwest? you used to be such a bastion of freethinking. oh, how the mighty have fallen. How does it feel to be second tier to terrorists, murderers, haters of the United States of America? okay, pearlybum, I explained the difference between intimidation and torture. now, try to defend your ridiculous viewpoint. How does it feel? (anyone know what song i'm hearing here?)

Obama, Arnold, anybody, wake up! BWAHAHAHAHAHA Turn around. Were they asleep, or just not looking? pick one. Take a look at the people you have vowed to preserve actually, obama didn't vow to preserve people, he vowed to defend the Constitution

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States (source: the Constitution of the United States of America)

and put a stop to the intimidation within the United States weren't you against no name calling week? oh, that's right, intimidation against you, not gays or blacks or jews. just as you have done with the intimidation without the United States. huh? Please. End the hypocrisy. first we have a problem with irony, now we're abusing hypocrisy. stop that.

Assisted Suicide and a Very Honest Moment

assisted, suicide, ethics, morality, immoral, murder, euthanasia, euthenasia

You've been getting a lot of honest moment's out of me recently, and here's another one. In fact, the honesty here might be a little bit much, just so's you know.

cschande has an article up about proposed assisted suicide in Hawaii. (Naturally, it's Teh Evul.) I will say this: the vast majority of people whom you think would want to commit suicide (terminal cancer patients, for example) don't want to. I will also say this: assisted suicide happens in the US every day. It's illegal, so the doctors involved are risking their licenses and livelihoods, but it still happens. Why?

Let me give you an example. I knew a man whose wife collapsed one day unexpectedly. She hadn't said a word about feeling sicker and sicker and sicker for an entire year. She was too busy, she was scared of doctors, and she was probably afraid of having confirmed what she already suspected: she had cancer. Liver cancer, to be exact, that had metastesized all over her body, including to her brain.

Within 3 weeks, this previously kind, funny young woman became a raging maniac as the cancer ate away her brain. Her husband sent her to hospice, but she was sent back home because she kept assaulting the aides with whatever objects were handy. Once she was home, their daughter had to be sent to live with relatives, because mommy tried to kill her. Then came the pain. The cancer got into the nociception centers of her brain, causing unimaginable pain throughout her entire body. Painkillers can't work once that's happened. There is nothing to do about the pain at that point except feel every bit of it, with no relief, not even for a moment.

She screamed in agony no narcotic could touch for 36 hours straight before her husband called her doctor and begged him to do something, anything. Her doctor brought over an extra vial of morphine. The husband was enraged: morphine didn't work at all, what was this idiot doctor thinking?

"Too much morphine and she won't be able to breathe," the doctor said. "It would be an accident, anyone could understand how easy it would be to give too much morphine to a woman screaming in agony for days."

"There's no other way, is there?" the husband asked.

"She's dying," said the doctor. "You know that. It could be an hour from now or weeks from now, but that pain's not going away. She's not getting better. I'm sorry, but there's nothing more to be done."

I think you can guess what happened next. What would you do? (If it takes you less than 30 seconds to come up with the answer, you didn't think hard enough.)

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Militant Atheism and Mendacity

atheism, atheist, atheophobia, liar, pride, sin, lying, lie, christian, jewish, judeo-christian, values, morality, religion, fundamentalism

Can I just say "militant atheism"? Was I in the bathroom when they were handing out jackboots to the atheists?



And, mendacity, in case you don't know, means given to or characterized by deception or falsehood or divergence from absolute truth. (From Mirriam Webster online.)



Militant Atheism and Mendacity: How the Rise of Atheism is Destroying Truth

by Bruce Walker (if you start voting republican and talking about the superiority of trickle down economics after viewing that site, don't blame me.)



Public opinion polls show faith in a Blessed Creator um, blessed by whom? who blesses the blessor? melting it's melting! (you know what voice i'm hearing here.) in Europe, in other English speaking democracies, in Japan are the Japanese especially christian, and I missed it? nope: shinto and buddhism are the major religions in Japan. a significant portion of buddhists are atheists, and always have been – just about everywhere but America that counts. everywhere that counts? really? oh, that's right, those damn Ay-rabs don't count! (very religious, but not the right one.) and forget about those brown people in africa- who cares about them? (well, not many people apparently, but that's a different discussion.) Even in America, the most religious nation on Earth i think most muslim nations are far more religious, at least officially. and what about israel, aren't they pretty darn religious? oh, that's right, muslims and jews don't count., the percentage of the American people who believe in a Blessed Creator is declining. true, though not by much.


Atheism is not the advocacy of murder or rapine or any other particular social vice wow, that is so true . . . this isn't going to last is it?, so is the decline of faith in God a serious social problem? i'd say it's the solution to a serious social problem, but i'm usually wrong . . . It is. yup, i'm wrong. It is a problem for the same reason that science and the systematic study of knowledge arose precisely once in human history: the Christian medieval university. what? that didn't even make any sense. i can't even imagine what asshat is trying to say. It is. It is for the same reason that the Jewish people have not only survived the Diaspora but thrived and made Israel a living nation again. again, i can't see the comparison/similarity/point here.


Without God, everything is permitted. nothing is true, everything is permitted are supposedly the last words of the founder of the Order of the Assassins, Hassan-i Sabbah. probably not true, but cool nonetheless. That literary maxim of the Nineteenth Century is quite true no, but it somewhat misses the mark. or just entirely misses the mark. The wilted lettuce rusty spoons? moldy bread? sprouting potatoes? of atheism in Europe and America is not about to set up a Gulag or a system of death camps yeah, we're just too wilted for that. Atheists are not championing the cause of ghastly criminals whose horrors haunt our television news. does this guy have multiple personalities or something? Indeed, militant atheism jackboots! in modern industrial democracies masquerades as compassion, “Secular Humanism,” as Bill O’Reilly oh dear, he's quoting O'Liely. and that's not even the person who came up with the phrase. That phrase became popular after it was used in a 1961 Supreme Court decision, Torcaso v. Watkins. Bill was born in 1949, which would have made him all of 12 in 1961. likes to call it.



It is true that the denial of objective moral absolutes which is atheism no, we don't deny objective moral absolutes, we simply don't believe in god. why, oh why, is that so hard to understand? inevitably leads toward more and more members of society becoming self-absorbed monsters what?! there is absolutely no evidence that atheists commit more crimes. in fact, atheists commit less crimes., but that is not the biggest social problem of atheism rampant. Atheist Soviet Russia like atheist Nazi Germany had a degree of social order. please stop blaming us for fascim and communism. i'll have to bring up the crusades and witch trials, and then the discussion really goes downhill. Crimes like murder and rape and burglarly, when not perpetrated by the state, were punished. you mean like capital punishment and eminent domain in the US today? Life is unpredictable, death is certain, and the best grounded system of objective moral absolutes will not prevent tragedy or keep creeps from winning lotteries. Does this asshat agree with me, or not? it's really rather confusing.

oh, and just as a reminder to my atheist and pagan readers, good things are god, bad things are free will.

The hidden horror of atheism oh my! is a greater loss than just the grave which faces us all, and the loss of God i didn't lose god (how does one lose an omnipotent, noncorporeal being, anyway?), i just don't believe in god. involves a loss greater than just chastity, charity and security. that's just odd. atheists are incapable of being chaste, charitable and secure? i'm personally incapable of being chaste, but i am charitable and secure. (not financially, but i'm secure in some things.) The loss of God involves the loss of the possibility of truth. what? Why? do tell. If there are no absolute objective moral virtues, then honesty is not an absolute moral virtue.

As far as that argument goes, it's true. If there are no absolute objective moral virtues, then honesty is not an absolute moral virtue. However, asshat has not established that there are no absolute objective moral virtues, nor has he established that godbotherers have absolute objective moral virtues and atheists do not. This is called the logical fallacy of the unasked question. you assume the answer to a question, and then assert your argument based on that answer. For example: have you stopped shooting heroin yet? This assumes that you ever were shooting heroin, and it's awfully hard to continue a debate until you deal with that.

The Judeo-Christian tradition, what I have sometimes simply called “The Great Faith,” making up your own names for things, huh? godbotherer. demands the absolute moral virtue of honesty isn't that number 9 on the list?, and it shows this demand it ways that surprise unbelievers. really? okay, shock the unbelief right out of me, asshat.


The Hebrew prophets, for example, never once told their audience “The Blessed Creator says everything you are doing is great. Don’t change a thing.” ummm . . . why is this surprising? prophets never say nice things. it's always the fire and the brimstone. On the contrary, that part of the Tanach which deals with the major and minor prophets is a litany of complaints from God to the Hebrew nations. god's whiny? besides, it's not just a "litany of complaints", it's also a litany of really awful things god did to the Israelites as a result of his anger: killing, plagues, killing, snakes, killing, floods, killing and killing. Critically, when the Tanach was canonized, all of these embarrassing and serious complaints from God were kept in, while “feel good” books, like Esther, were almost kept out. it is surprisingly hard to keep one's station as a powerful religious leader when the gospel is "hey, good enough for you, good enough for god."


Likewise, the Church Fathers did not try to reconcile inconsistencies in the Gospel. wow, is this guy a secret atheist? you rarely hear the word "inconsistencies" attached to "gospel" out of a christian. usually, it's either "inconsistencies" and "evolution" or "there are no inconsistencies in the gospel- see this overly complicated explanation that involves facts i can't possibly prove?" Quite the contrary, the different versions of the ministry of Jesus are deliberately kept in. all four of them. out of twelve. for further explanation, see the Council of Nicea. Things hard to grasp and harder to explain are left in the Gospels. Did Jesus have siblings? Why does He pray to His Father on the Cross, like an abandoned child? These very difficulties, like the difficulties of the prophets or the anomalies of Genesis have been kept for thousands of years precisely because serious Jews and serious Christians believe in honesty and believe that honesty is the path to truth and to God. or because changing the gospels every time somebody notices a problem is basically admitting that the gospels are not the direct word of yhwh?

Atheism, like Allahism (or Sinisterist Radical Islam) what?! i bet this guy believes the Illuminati, or some similar group of jewy jewish conspiring conspirators are involved in a conspiracy to control the world, by contrast, has no objective moral absolute against lying. lying is wrong. lying is wrong because when you lie to people, you don't treat them with respect. lying is wrong because if everyone lies, and you can't trust anyone, society falls apart within 0.5 seconds. People of faith, like everyone, lies sometimes slightly less than atheists and Sinisterist Radical Islamists?, but they realize that lying is a sin so, it's okay to lie, as long as you realize it's a sin? does that in any way affect the fact that you have lied, or the damage lying does? no. can we say "rationalization"?. Atheists simply realize that lying is the easiest way of accomplishing your objective yes, it is. if your objective happens to be making certain no one trusts you. This does not just mean self-enrichment or self-aggrandizement, but it also means achieving goals which, to an atheist, are “noble.” you know, like equal rights for everyone, food for starving children, health care for everyone, saving the environment. we're an evil, evil people. and godbotherers never lie to achieve an objective which they might consider noble. (see: Ray Comfort)


So, when religion came under its most serious attack in the early Nineteenth Century, religion or christianity? I find it hard to believe that in all the history of the world, that atheism (and I think he's really referencing evolution, which is science, which is not atheism) is the most serious attack on religion. i mean, what about the lions? the professors who launched the attack first began to lie. They pronounced as fact things like Christians had believed the Earth was flat before Columbus actually, at one point, christians did believe the world was flat. so did most people. these people still do. or that the complaints about Galileo’s heliocentrism were theological they were. stop rewriting history, asshat., rather than scientific, even though they knew this was not true.

Because these professors did not believe in the Judeo-Christian God, they saw no ethical problem with destroying the idea of God with lies. really? all professors (i think he means scientists, too) are atheists? this just isn't true. nor are all people who recognize the irrefutable fact that the church's position on heliocentrism is a fact atheists. Serious Christians and Jews, by contrast, could not do that. why yes, christians and jews would not try to disprove the existence of yhwh with lies. that's true. Dishonesty is a sin. or it's just wrong for rather obvious reasons.


The consequence is that a marketplace of ideas filled with atheists quickly produces a lot of counterfeit intellectual currency. BWAHAHAHAHAHA that was great! that's right- atheists lie and lie and lie. it's all we do. we don't have little things called facts and evidence and logic behind our assertions. Why be even-handed in research if you know that you are right and there is no God to worry about? why be even-handed in research if you know that you are right and god is behind it all? Indeed, why worry about even being right? cause it's science, asshat? if atheists/scientists didn't worry about being right, that computer you typed this on, and the internet you display it on, wouldn't fucking work. neither would your car. or the lights in your house. If you fancy a theory, fabricate findings to “prove” it and then move on

(much like Margaret Mead did when she invented findings about Samoa, because it described a reality she preferred.

(1) Margaret Mead was never discredited. As Boas and Mead expected, this book upset many Westerners when it first appeared in 1928. Many American readers felt shocked by her observation that young Samoan women deferred marriage for many years while enjoying casual sex but eventually married, settled down, and successfully reared their own children.
In 1983, five years after Mead had died, anthropologist Derek Freeman
published Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, in which he challenged Mead's major findings about sexuality in Samoan society, claiming evidence that her informants had misled her. After years of discussion, many anthropologists concluded that the truth would probably never be known, although most published accounts of the debate have also raised serious questions about Freeman's critique. His obituary concludes that "many anthropologists have agreed to disagree over the findings of one of the science's founding mothers, acknowledging both Mead's pioneering research and the fact that she may have been mistaken on details."

(2) look, it's one discredited scientist. all scientists are liars. you don't want to play that game- ted haggard, anyone?)


This all falls from the prime sin of pride. oh, now we're prideful and liars. and, since when is pride the prime sin? according to the Ten Commandments, the prime sin is holding another god before yhwh- which atheists do not do. Pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins which are not listed in the bible. In fact: The Seven Deadly Sins are really attitudes that underlie sins . . . first identified by St. John Cassian (360-435) and refined by Pope St. Gregory the Great (540-604).

Atheists like Margaret Mead margaret mead was an anglican. in fact, she was a A committed Anglican who took a considerable part in the drafting of the 1979 American Episcopal Book of Common Prayer wanted to be a god (or goddess) and create a reality to her liking. This theory is just so silly. I don't believe in god. I don't believe gods are even possible. How freakin' delusional would I have to be to want to become a god, and more, to believe that by lying I could become one? (About as delusional as the author of this article, probably.)

Atheists like Rachel Carson included, in her “masterpiece,” Silent Spring, a dedication to Albert Schweitzer (who strongly support the use of DDT which she sought to ban oh, for nothing at all's sake, Schweitzer supported the use of DDT before he knew the damage it did. so did a lot of people. changing your mind because new facts have become available is not flip-flopping, it's good thinking.), and at least another twenty-seven outright lies from her source materials. give me a link, asshat. She, however, made herself a goddess she had the power to create universes? really? and the fact that banning DDT caused unimaginable suffering and millions of deaths in the tropical parts of the Third World did not bother her at all. that is entirely irrelevant. DDT is extremely hazardous to all kinds of birds and fish. it is unacceptable to destroy entire species in an effort to prevent malaria. you would only find this acceptable if you believe that humans are more important than say, everything else on earth. and, honestly, mesquito netting. doesn't kill birds, prevents malaria.

The dialogue which can produce truth in sociology or environmentalism can only nudge us toward that truth if based upon a holy belief in honesty. how on earth could you possibly provide scientific truth if you base science on a book written thousands of years ago by bronze age desert nomads? Atheists, believing nothing holy but the playthings of their minds and whims what?, will always allow pride to trump integrity no, but apparently you will, given the complete disregard for facts and evidence represented in this article, self-interest to stand above honor repeat after me: Jesus does not make you better than anyone else. Atheists will always be tugged toward counterfeiting reality prove it. really. just one link, one study, one shred of evidence, asshat. and then taking that counterfeit currency enough with the "marketplace of ideas" analogy and using it to buy fame, wealth, power, adulation yup, that's me, swimming in fame, wealth, power and adulation- not unlike your average TV preacher, for example (especially the adulation of popularity – because they believe everyone is as hollow as they are ad hom attacks are not logic or reasoning. try again.)


The answer to rampant lying in our culture can you prove that more people lie than before, or in other cultures? can you prove that religious people lie less and atheists more? if so, why haven't you done so?, the need for a user id and password for everything, what? because not all people should have access to all information? because without a username, how would we prevent every person from getting everyone's email? it would be a little tedious sorting through billions of emails a day to find yours. the doubt in our children’s eyes about everything that must be you, because the children in my family are fine is not because God is not dead i think you mean "god is dead", but because atheists have done their best to try to murder consciousness of God how does one murder the consciousness of an omnipotent being? and how powerful must the average atheist be to achieve this?. The first social victim of this attempted homicide is truth itself, "homicide" refers to killing a human, hence "hom". the truth is not a human being, nor can it be killed but after truth dies TRUTH CANNOT DIE then those who murdered truth STOP IT or rejoiced in its convenient death NO MORE descend into an infinite maelstrom really? uh-huh,, an eternal descent you pretty much covered that with "infinite maelstrom", to a place devoid of purpose or of hope. i have both purpose and hope, as do all atheists i am acquainted with, so, your point is . . . totally invalid?

Atheists Can't Run for Office

atheism, democracy, atheist, atheophobia, theocracy, religion, public, office, conservative, liberal, united, states

You know, every now and then I think, "maybe I'm being a little harsh about the whole religious thing. Maybe I should back off on it all." Then I see things like this. Atheists are specifically forbidden from running for public office in Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Maryland and Mississippi.

Nice.

On Haggard, Lohan and the Price of Pretending

pretend, gay, homophobia, homosexual, agenda, conservative, prop 8, marriage, haggard, hate, lohan, gender

You know, for years I pretended to be someone I wasn't. (I was reading Rise and Fall of the Third Reich at age 12; normal is not a word that can be applied to me.) I pretended my way through high school, pretended my way through college, and continue to pretend at work.

Why? Well, for all the reasons anyone pretends: to make life easier (work pretend), because I thought it was wrong to be me (reactions people had to me being me), because I thought I would be happy if I weren't me (see: the media), lessons I internalized at home (want a good look at my father? read something by pearlyboo [happy, dearheart?], the condescension, it burns!).

Admittedly, everything about me isn't flowers and sunshine. Some things I have worked on; some things I have learned to accept; some things I flaunt, because, in the end, I'm the only person I can be.

Learning to be me was a painful process, but it gave me peace and wonderful gifts: my hubby, my friends ([censored] and my pagan sister wouldn't have happened if I were still pretending), and my own self respect. That last one is the gift that keeps on giving- and no one else can give it to you. There is almost limitless wisdom in the adage that no one will love you, and you can't love anyone, until you love yourself.

So, how does this relate to Ted Haggard and Lindsey Lohan? They are two excellent examples of people who hurt themselves, and everyone around them, by pretending to be something they are not- in both these cases, straight.

I admit, I got all judgey about the Lohan. (Mostly because my niece used to idolize Lohan, and that led to very uncomfortable discussions about why her idol drank to excess and did drugs. It led to nice discussion about how being rich and famous only makes you rich and famous, not happy, but still.) When I found out that Lohan is a lesbian, however, it all made sense. Being a gay Disney star must be hard. Really hard. Drown your sorrows hard. Which is sad, because it was much easier to explain Lohan being gay than trying to explain addiction to a 7 year old.

"She likes to kiss girls?"
"Yup."
"She doesn't want to kiss boys?"
"Apparently not."
"Why?"
"Some people are like that."
"Oh. You want to play Sorry?" (7 year olds don't really care more than 2" in front of their own faces.)

Ted Haggard is more complicated. He was a preacher, the leader of a congregation. He has a wife and children. He hurt a lot more people with his lies, some of them complete innocents who will forever be scarred by his deception. But, I feel tremendous sympathy for him, because if he lived in a society where gay was okay, he would not have felt the need to pretend to be straight, to marry, to father children, to use meth, to hire hookers.

How desperate must Haggard have been? What level of self-loathing do you have to reach to do those things? How much must you fear the truth to think that meth and hookers are better than honesty?

The best part is, the Prop 8 crowd regularly recommends this to gays: stop being childish and selfish and stupid, get with the program, marry a member of the opposite sex, have children and drag everyone into a life of pretend. Why does that seem like a good idea to anyone?

Try to imagine the opposite, if you will, and you happen to be straight. (It's okay, pearlyboo, the gay panic subsides after a moment.) Imagine spending your entire life pretending to be gay. Imagine only having sex with members of your own gender. Imagine hiding, even from yourself, your attraction to members of the opposite sex. Imagine being terrified, every moment of the day, that someone will figure out that you are straight.

I have only felt the tiniest portion of that in my life of pretend. After all, I was only afraid that people wouldn't like me, not that I would lose my job or be publicly humiliated or assaulted or murdered. And my experience led me to places of despair.

So, in conclusion, stop shaming yourself for being you, and stop shaming others for being them. Life's better all around that way.

(and let the tolerance bashing begin . . . but think about the children!)

Atheism and Arrogance

atheism, atheist, atheophobia, christian, religion, evangelical, witness, jesus, bible, god, arrogant, debunking

Valerie Tarico at Debunking Christianity has written an amazing article about the atheist experience, atheist frustration and the arrogant atheist. Well worth a read whether you are an atheist, a christian, or anything. (I think pagans would relate to most of it, too, since pagans are in much the same position as atheists when it comes to being "out".)

No Uterus, No Opinion

martin luther, children, gay, nazis, abortion, prochoice, prolife, choice, women, feminism, feminist, stupid

[censored] and I have the same opinion on the abortion debate: if you don't have a uterus, shut up. A man is never going to have to make that choice, is he? So why do so many men think they know exactly how a woman feels, exactly what the choices are, how they feel to make, or anything else about pregnancy? I won't try to tell you what erections feel like, you stop trying to tell me what having a uterus is like.

Emissary gives us this gem today, comparing abortion to slavery.

Yeah, I know, what the fuck?

One of the main arguments for abortion concerns the woman's body. The fetus grows within her, so it's technically considered "part of her" during development. yes, it is a part of her. fetuses cannot survive on their own. as they are inside of the woman's uterus, they are inside her body, and therefore, a "part of her". are we having trouble with the complexities of the english language again? And since it's "part of her body", she gets to choose what happens to it; termination or birth. yeah, pretty much. is there some sort of third option i am unaware of?

I thought a lot about this argument today not long enough, apparently, trying to determine what status a fetus has under this "pro-choice" logic. It is obviously not considered to be a human child because it's not a child. it's a fetus. children are capable of, I dunno, breathing. It has no right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness how precisely would a fetus make use of liberty or pursue happiness? it's in placenta in a uterus. where is it going in its pursuit of happiness?. In fact, it's not even considered to be "alive" by the pro-abortion populace. That would make it even less than a pet. my dog is not living inside my uterus, and, i can put my dog to sleep any time i want, so what was your point again? So what would it be? a fetus, asshat!According to the argument, it seems that a woman in essence owns the fetus. in the same way she "owns" her kidneys, i suppose. That would make the fetus her property.

stop it! right now! fetuses are not slaves. you know what a fetus really resembles the most? a parasite. no really, in a scientific sense, a fetus bears every resemblence to a parasite. See how ugly these sorts of comparisons can get?

i am really getting tired of false analogies, people. religion is not a cultural phenomenon like sports, homosexuals are not like nazis and fetuses are not like slaves. if you can't come up with a real argument, SHUT.THE.FUCK.UP.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Lady Liberty is Made of Win

atheism, atheist, witness, witnessing, evangelical, evangelism, evangelist, religion, christian, fundamentalism, fundamentalist, fundy, bible, jesus, heaven, hell,

Lady Liberty winz the interwebs!

I Just Can't Believe This Works

ray, comfort, fundamentalism, fundamentalist, fundy, evangelical, evangelism, evangelist, evolution, religion, atheism, atheist, atheophobia, christian, god, bible, jesus

So, Ray Comfort changed his sidebar. (BTW, Ray posted about me today. He could have spelled out my name.) I think he's getting stupider.

Cold Comfort For Budding Atheists
• An atheist is someone who believes that nothing made everything.
no, we don't. you can say that all you want, Ray, but we do understand thermodynamics, for one thing. i don't know why you insist on this. He will deny that through gritted teeth, because it is an intellectual embarrassment. no, my teeth aren't gritted. it just isn't true. But if he says of his Toyota that he has no belief that there was a maker, then he thinks that nothing made it (it just happened), which is a scientific impossibility. false dichotomy, ray. you think the universe was created by god. i don't. that doesn't mean i think nothing made the universe, just not god. So, to remain credible, he falls back on something made everything, but he just doesn’t know what that something was. i don't claim to know everything, ray, that's your line. So he’s not an atheist--he believes in an initial cause. atheism is a lack of belief in god, not a lack of belief in initial causes. stop redefining words to suit your arguments. we can all play that game. i will now prove you are a muslim by redefining muslim as "follower of christ". see how ridiculous that is?

• An atheist is someone who pretends that there is no God. no, i just don't believe in god. stop calling me a liar. i really don't believe in god.

• The freedom to be an atheist is the God-given right of every American. stop that. the freedom to be an atheist is a right permitted under the First Amendment, not god. god demands that I believe in him, and according to you will condemn me to an eternity of suffering if i don't. isn't he nice?

• Atheism is the epitome of the sin of ingratitude. when did "ingratitude" become a sin? it's not one of the ten commandments. it's not one of the seven deadly sins. it's nowhere in Leviticus. are you just making up sins now, ray?

• An atheist plays Russian roulette with fully loaded gun. only on tuesdays, ray.

• Atheism is intellectual suicide. ummmm . . . what? what does that even mean. at least i'm not making up sins.

• Evolutionists have done to science, what hypocrites have done to Christianity. they've studied paleontological records to test hypothesis and written peer-reviewed papers discussing their findings?

• The human propensity to gullibility is evidenced by evolution’s many believers. now replace "evolution" with "religion" and see how much fun pointy-on-both-ends logic really is.

• An atheist has no scientific creditably, because his "nothing created everything" violates the basic laws of science. actually, creationism violates so many laws of science i'm surprised heads don't explode on a regular basis at research centers and universities.

• An atheist is like a fish in the ocean saying that there’s no evidence that there’s an ocean. what? the fish can see the ocean, smell the ocean (do fish smell? i have no idea), feel the ocean, taste the ocean and hear the ocean. i can do none of these things with god. if i could, I would believe.

• It is impossible for a Christian to convert to atheism because a Christian is someone who knows God. no true scotsman.

• The atheist says that he doesn’t believe God exists, but he uses His name as a cuss word. Go figure. ummmm . . . what? cuss words are cultural, they don't reflect belief or nonbelief. do abstinence only proponents not use the word "fuck" on occasion?

• That nagging doubt: "Why there almost certainly is no God." Richard Dawkins see, this is where Ray can't get out of his own head. Ray HAS TO have the answers for everything. Atheists don't. we understand there are things we don't know and can't explain and we're fine with that. 200 years ago, nobody knew about bacteria. we know now.

• School children should have evolution explained to them, so that they can see how unscientific and crazy it is. should we also explain every other thing you find crazy, ray? maybe attempt to convert them to Islam just so we can show them how crazy muslism are? that doesn't make sense. See PullThePlugOnAtheism.com oh my, ray has another website. the internet is just full of wonder, isn't it?

Dov Charney needs a Megadose of STFU

domestic, violence, women, misogyny, feminism, feminist, charney, stupid

Dov Charney, owner of American Apparel attempts to sell us on more than t-shirts: he told a reporter that women initiate almost all domestic violence, and that only in 1 out of 1000 cases are men involved.

Sorry, no. Now Shut The Fuck Up.

Stimulus Package- How Spending Works

economy, depression, recession, stimulus, economic, conservative, liberal, acorn, national, mall, nea, john galt, libertarian

Okay, so I'm not an economist, and if you are, feel free to correct/educate me. (No, really, I learn a lot from people who take the time to correct me in my comments. It's pretty cool.)

First of all, Democrats are pushing spending as a way to help the economy, and Republicans are pushing tax cuts. Ideologically, this pretty much defines Democrats and Republicans. Here's the thing: both spending and tax cuts do stimulate an economy, the questions is how much and how quickly. For every dollar of spending, you get a $1.50 of stimulus, and it's quick. (Think about it: if Jack isn't working, he isn't paying bills or buying food or renting movies. Give Jack a job, and that's exactly what he'll do.) For every dollar of tax cuts, on the other hand, you get $0.75 of stimulus. Why? Anyone affected by a tax cut already has a job. They're already paying bills and buying food and renting movies. Give them a tax cut, and they might spend more, but maybe not. They might just put more money in their 401k, which doesn't help the economy right now.

So, let's take a look at the evul librul stimulus package, shall we?

$2.4 billion carbon capture products... that's clean coal technology ( i had to look it up.). That $2.4 billion will give people jobs: jobs in development, jobs in actually building the products, jobs in transporting the products, jobs in advertising the products. Jobs are good! (And a cleaner environment doesn't hurt, either. Please don't excoriate me on whether or not clean coal actually works, I don't know. Feel free to educate me, just don't yell.)

$4.19 billion for ACORN and other bogus "community organizing" groups... Yes, I know, the barely there scandal with ACORN. What does ACORN do, anyway? Well, for one thing, THEY EMPLOY PEOPLE. Again, jobs are good. ACORN employees help poor people, which is good, too. (I think that's what sets the bigotsphere off. How dare they help poor people! We all know poor people are immoral and lazy and promiscuous. How do you think they got poor in the first place?) They help with housing, they fight to end predatory lending, they're helping with the Gulf recovery, they help poor children get good educations, they fight for paid sick days and a living wage . . . ACORN is Teh Evul!

$650 million digital tv conversion... I don't really understand the whole conversion thing, but I'm guessing somebody will get a job out of this.

$79 billion to bail out the state education system...god knows we wouldn't want somebody teaching evilution or gay sex to 4 year olds!

Hundreds of millions for family planning...what, no number? damn those poor people wanting to control their fertility! how dare married poor people want to have Teh Seks! how dare poor women want pap smears! (i shouldn't have read that sinner's prayer. i think it worked.)

$400 million global warming research...scientists need jobs, too! (oh, and i'm pretty sure we all need air to breathe- unless Who Is John Galt? has gills.)

$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts...$12 billion dollars A MONTH for the war in Iraq, and this asshat is angry about a onetime payment of $50 million for art? artists need to eat, too, buddy!

$200 million to refurbish the National Mall..does asshat think we will be refurbishing the National Mall by taping $200 million in ones over every surface? Hello, construction workers REALLY need jobs right now. And, George W. Bush's reign of terror allowed the National Mall, a symbol of our history, to turn into a national disgrace. It should have been refurbished years ago. Shameful.

so, true to his name, Who is John Galt? is against people having jobs. Good for you. See how well it works out for you when we hit depressionland. Asshat.

The Wisdom of Cliches

prop 8, conservative, religion, fundamentalism, bible, jesus, christian, traditional, homophobia, homosexual,

You ever head of the expression "the pot calling the kettle black"? How about "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"?

This latest post on the "Gay Mafia" by beetlebabee is an object lesson in the wisdom of cliches.

Essentially, beetlebabee accuses gay rights activist (pearl, feel free to call him whatever ridiculous classless thing comes to mind) Tim Gill of fucking up the electoral process by bringing in out of area money into various cities and states in order to pass laws and elect officials that will bring equality to gays.

So, how did Prop 8 get passed in California? By traditional marriage advocates from all over the country bringing in volunteers and money from outside California to influence voting.

Glass houses indeed.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Post #200: Drinking the Kool-Aid(tm)

atheism, atheist, atheophobia, theocracy, religion, fundamentalism, evangelical, evangelism, evil, stupid, ten commandments, crime

Well, I got a good one for Forever in Hell's celebratory 200th post!

Lately, the atheosphere has taken notice of all the xtians who say "I used to be an atheist like you". First of all, atheists number less than 5% of the population of the US, so exactly how many exatheists can there be? Secondly, does reciting the sinner's prayer actually cause involuntary conversion? That would explain a lot.

Anyways, The Society for the Practical Establishment and Perpetuation of the Ten Commandments, SFTPEAPOTTC, gives us Exposing the Atheist. It was written by an exatheist! (Doesn't say which exatheist.)

The following articles are samplings of principles that demonstrate that atheism is pure heathenism and error. To be fair, Mirriam Webster defines a heathen as a person who does not accept the god of the bible, but heathenism includes atheism and paganism and islam and hindu and buddhism, which are all entirely different belief systems. They present some of the reasons why you should turned turn away from atheism and nonbelief - to a staunch belief in the Almighty GOD. I ask you to examine these articles very carefully. don't worry about that, buddy.

The best way to understand the nature of atheism is to understand its author. satan is its author. yeah. we're not satanists, we're atheists. and there is no author. we don't have a holy book. (no, we do not worship The Origin of the Species. stop it.)

It's important to remain conscious of the fact that satan had his origin in heaven, and is thoroughly familiar with the fact of the existence of God, heaven, the angels, hell and etc. and this pertains to atheism how? we don't believe in god, satan, heaven, hell or angels. if a police officer pulls you over and asks you if you know why you were pulled over, do you start talking about that episode of House where they nearly cut off that girl's arm? just as relevant. Thus despite what you have been previously deceptively taught nobody taught me atheism. i was actually raised a good catholic. (this guy probably thinks catholics are devil worshippers, too, but that's a different story.) and despite the deceptive dictionary's is there a nondeceptive dictionary? we're all in on the conspiracy, including the dictionary! meaning of atheism, atheism is properly defined as a denial of the existence of God in the midst of full knowledge that the true God does indeed exist.

Yeah, isn't it fun to win an argument by redefining commonly understood words? I can prove that you're actually muslim if I redefine "muslim" as "follower of christ". wasn't that fun? if you have to redefine commonly understood words, you don't have an argument. sit down and shut up.

Atheism knows God exists atheism is a belief system, it doesn't know anything.; it is quite familiar with that fact, but it says "under no circumstance or situation will I admit to God's existence." i don't believe in god. do not. sorry to burst your bubble, but i don't. and if the person who wrote this always secretly did believe in god, then they weren't an atheist, they were an agnostic. totally different thing.


Atheism clearly perceives the fingerprints of God on all of creation, but refuses to admit He is the Creator. no. Atheism perceives the divine authorship of the TEN COMMANDMENTS no., but refuses to admit that God is their Author. no. Atheism perceives the decorousness and perfection of the TEN COMMANDMENTS, no. but refuses to admit they are superior to all other laws. the stupid, it burns! Atheism clearly perceives the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, but refuses to admit His divinity. no, i freakin' don't. If an atheist could see the wounds in the body of Christ and actually feel them with his hands, he would deny that the wounds are there. first of all, EW! second of all, no, I wouldn't. trust me, if god gave me an indisputable sign of his existence, i'd get down on my knees and worship in an instant. i'm an atheist, not an idiot. Atheism is deliberate effort to never admit the existence of God. no, just a lack of belief in god. what is so hard about that?


Atheism is the ultimate of satanism. no, satanism would be the ultimate in satanism. Ask satan does God exist and he will deny it. do you often speak to satan? Ask him does satan exist and he will deny his own existence even while in your presence. this is getting a little scary. i've met satanists, and even they don't claim to talk to satan. Atheism holds the Bible in one hand, but deny its existence by denying its truth with the other. first of all, my hands don't deny truth, and no, i am currently not holding a bible, though i do frequently read it.


In order to properly understand the nature of atheism, one must understand the natures of righteousness and sin. why? atheism is the lack of belief in a supreme being. one need not understand righteousness or sin to understand that. The two principles are antithetical to one another. Since sin is antithetical to righteousness, its very antithetical nature seeks to nullify righteousness. the second antithetical was totally unnecessary. Since it is an antithetical what's with him and this word? principle to righteousness, it must remain true to its nature even in the most insane instances. what? a + b =c therefore b=29,876,275,49.12? Therefore it must hate God even though God is righteous and has given it no just cause for its hatred. i'm guessing you don't understand the meaning of antithetical, huh? It is this antithetical principle, called "the law of sin" show your work! which is at work in the hearts of atheists causing them to reject God. i like to think it's my logical, rational nature. or, i'm just not good at the worshipping. meh. The law of sin is none other than the law that governs satan's kingdom. so it's like the opposite of the ten commandments?


Below are articles I've presented in effort to expose the true satanic nature of atheism, true satanic nature of atheism is the most stupidest thing i've seen in a while. the great harm it is doing to the american society and the world community SHOW.YOUR.WORK. and to prove and demonstrate that atheists and all other nonbelievers in the true God are the actual criminals of the world community. felony or misdemeanor? there is no proof, anywhere, that atheists commit more crimes than anyone else. in fact, the parts of the US associated with high rates of religious activity, the South, for example, have higher rates of crime. (do i think religion causes crime? no. I think the socioeconomic factors associated with higher rates of fundamentalism are also associated with higher rates of crime.). I hope these articles will enable people to see that atheists are extremely dangerous people. yeah, i'm just a triple homicide waiting to happen. (as soon as someone replaces every joint from the shoulder down in order to allow me to fire a gun.) Therefore laws should be made against them by all the governments of the world community. see, this is what atheists have to deal with. we don't hate jesus, we just hate asshats like this.

The Ten Commandments

conservative, religion, christian, fundamentalism, democracy, ten commandments

Let's examine the Ten Commandments, shall we?

We'll start with the Society for the Practical Establishment and Perpetuation of the Ten Commandments (SFTPEAPOTTC for short). I'm not even sure what the name of the organization means. "Practical Establishment"? Aren't the Ten Commandments already established?

And, here's the big one, which Ten Commandments? There are three sets. No, really, three. Here, we'll go over them in case you need a refresher:

1.

Protestant: Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Catholic: I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.
Hebrew: I am the Lord they God, who brough thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

2.

Protestant: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing this is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Catholic: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Hebrew: Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing this is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

3.

Protestant: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Catholic: Remember thou keep the Sabbath Day.
Hebrew: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

4.

Protestant: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Catholic: Honor thy Father and thy Mother.
Hebrew: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

5.

Protestant: Honor thy Father and thy Mother.
Catholic: Thou shalt not kill
Hebrew: Honor thy Father and thy Mother

6.

Protestant: Thou shalt not kill
Catholic: Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Hebrew: Thou shalt not kill

7.

Protestant: Thou shalt not commit adultery
Catholic: Thou shalt not steal
Hebrew: Thou shalt not commit adultery

8.

Protestant: Thou shalt not steal
Catholic: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
Hebrew: Thou shalt not steal

9.

Protestant: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
Catholic: Thou shal not covet thy neighbor's wife
Hebrew: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor

10.

Protestant: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house or wife
Catholic: Thou shal not covet thy neighbor's goods
Hebrew: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house or wife

So, let's all follow the Ten Commandments, shall we? Just as soon as we can agree on what they are, that is.

Asshat is using the Hebrew version, which at least makes the most historical sense, as it was the ancient Israelites who wrote the Ten Commandments. Now let's see his suggestion for government, which is inexplicably accompanied by a picture of the Capitol Building. (We are still a representative democracy, in case you were wondering.)

Contrary to what is generally thought, no nation or people should be in the business of endeavoring to govern themselves. Yes, I know, in the bible, god was in the habit of actually hanging out with the Israelites (well, sort of, he more or less glowed above the Ark of the Covenant.), but he doesn't seem to be in the habit anymore, so who will be governing us? Any asshat who has a "personal relationship" with god, I suppose. Oh, that will work out well.

No people of any color of skin, of any tongue, of any nation, of any tribe, of any ancestry or of any generation has been or will ever be capable of properly governing themselves. All who have endeavored to perform such a momentous task have erred terribly; and all who shall seek to do so shall do the same. Care to show your work? We're governing ourselves in the US, and that affords you the right to say all these ridiculous things, so I think it's working out pretty well for you.

A diligent study and remembrance of history will not truthfully enable the present or future generations to properly govern themselves. Nor will any development of any manmade wisdom or any so-called technology enable a people to achieve the same.
why do people who hate science always use the internet (science!) to talk about how much they hate science? If you really hate science that much, go live with wolves. Seriously. Science is what allows your house to stay together. Science is what makes the lights go on when you flip the switch, and the water run when you turn the handle on the faucet. Science was involved in manufacturing your clothes and growning your food. So, if you really hate science that much, go live in the woods, naked, and forage for food. Just mail me the deed to your house and your car keys before you leave.

Here lies the fundamental reason for all the ills that exist in America (or any society). we're just not praying enough. if you pray enough, nothing bad ever happens to you. i dare this asshat to go find someone who's child just died of cancer and say this to their face. (not really, we shouldn't torment the grieving, but you get my point.) Despite what blind patriots and Bill of Rights quoters think, America has failed to legislate itself in strict accord to the moral laws of God. mmm-hmmm. and what about property transfers and drunk driving and copyright laws? what does god have to say about those? In fact, the first amendment to its manmade constitution reveals that America has always been forbidden from doing so. freedom of speech is bad! If the government of America would officially embrace the true moral laws of God, it would be espousing a particular "religion". which one are we picking? he's using the hebrew version, so I assume he wants us to all convert to judaism, posthaste? I somehow doubt that, but points for originality.

The following argument is awesome in its stupidity:

As a result, all of us have heard of and are even experiencing the curses that are resulting from America seeking to govern itself. Katrina? 9/11? I love people who blame the victim for their suffering. We have heard of and are experiencing its unfairness, inequities, injustices, its shortsightedness, biases and blindness; we see how its laws are so limited in scope and how they cannot cover every action a person can perform, and therefore we see the foolish loopholes of its imperfect laws and vain, endless efforts of legislators seeking to make laws;

yeah. first of all, no normal person can accurately predict what sick, twisted morons will do with their time. if you asked me to write the penal code from scratch 200 years ago, i doubt it would have occurred to me to say anything about pedophilia or necrophilia. it wouldn't occur to me that anyone would want to do that.

also, as technology advances and changes, new laws become necessary. after all, the founding fathers could hardly be blamed for not foreseeing the internet, or cars or planes, now could they? of course laws change with time. society changes with time. which bring me to my next point: as society changes, some laws become obsolete or even immoral. 200 years ago, slavery was okay, now it is not. the laws had to change. and that's a good thing.

we have seen how its laws cannot stand the test of time and how they must periodically be amended; see above we see how its laws foolishly vary from state to state on matters of morality i think he's talking about Teh Evul Gayz; we see the power of the rich and special interest groups who sway foolish legislators to their corners trust me, even in a theocracy, the rich will prevail; we have seen the utter backwardness of the ruling majority what?; we have seen the utter blindness and total depravity of presidents, legislators and judges i kinda do feel that way about bush, but i'm little surprised to hear it from this asshat. i guess he doesn't like either side.; and we have seen how America has attempted to govern itself out of whim or expediency. These are just a few indisputable witnesses which speak loudly to the fact that America is not capable of properly governing itself and it will never be capable. Every effort it makes amounts to nothing more than vanity

trust me, buddy, it's not perfect, but it's better than the alternative.

Fundies Say the Darndest Things!

Fundies Say the Darndest Things! is so much fun, it's probably illegal!

What Concerns Me

religion, christian, witness, evangelical, evangelism, evil, bible, creation, stupid, atheism, atheist

In this case, grammar.


Seriously, people, pick one: a period, a question mark or an exclamation point. Stylistically, I will accept the occasional "?!", but that's purple prose and should be used only in extreme cases.


Zach goes for the gusto with WHAT CONCERNS YOU?!!?!?!?!?!!!!?! Hey buddy, you already went with the all caps, the excess punctuation is unnecessary.


Full disclosure: this post contains no paragraph breaks. I put them in myself. Everything else is exactly as I found it.


Yes, at some point this does arrive at why atheists suck for not worshipping the sky-daddy.



Does it concern you what they wear? whom? Does it concern you what they say? whom? Does it concern you where they go? okay, now this is just pissing me off. Does it concern you what they hear? Does it concern you where you are?Does it concern you what you are doing?Where is your concern? FOR WHOM?Do you lay in bed at night thinking of them, whoever they may be? you don't even know who? the stupid, it burns like bengay on an open sore (thank you, [censored]) Are you awoken awakened by the morning sun with thoughts of "it" upon your mind? Stephen King's "IT" certainly kept me up at night, let me tell you. of course, I read it when I was 10. Can you barely sit through your lunch without your mind wandering off into some pointles pointless thought about whatever is the new thing, most advanced, most entertaining, most productive, most et cetera? what? does he assume that I am worrying what iPhone's have to say and wear? is this guy insane?



Do you find yourself so caught up with life that you are losing it? what? iPhones? Because you are I am what? an iPhone, losing the iPhone, what?...10/10 people die, scary statistic, but it seems to go over looked one word, and no, I don't think anyone over the age of 20 is unaware of the fact that we're all going to die at some point. we're not obssessing over it, but we're aware.Why? Because you think you know or because you dont apostrophe care? think i know what? and no, obssessing over my eventual end is not healthy. I have heard it so many times, "it is what I believe that matters to me, it is, I am a good person nothing like starting a conversation with "you're a lying, murdering, blaspheming adulterer"!, I dont believe in heaven or hell that's me, I dont know what to believe agnostics, science is against it against what? science doesn't give a shit about god. creationism, maybe?, blah blah blah" do you perhaps think that your amazing inability to complete a thought is going to convert me?



EXCUSES! EXCUSES! EXCUSES!WHAT IS IT YOU ARE AFRAID OF!? your lack of writing skills? Try this: Excuses, excuses, excuses. What is it you're afraid of?



I know, IT IS THAT YOU ARENT AFRAID OF ANYTHING! oh, I may not be ascared of the sky-daddy, but i am afraid of heights, spiders and swimming. got a belief system for that?You lack that conviction what?, oh no, on the contrary, YOU IGNORE IT ignore what? stop it!. That thing you do late at night how do you know about that? seriously, i'm not up all not worrying about god. late at night, i'm either sleeping, or getting up to pee., that you think noone knows about? is he talking about masturbation? Those thoughts you have about him, her, or yourself? oh, wait, maybe it is mastur- no, nobody masturbates to thoughts of themselves . . . do they? That website you visit on a regular basis because it makes you "feel good" friendly atheist?and "everyone does it" i'm not sure if we're discussing drugs, atheism, masturbation or something else entirely. because its "no big deal." hijacking shipments of pastrami?



Oh no, you dont lack anything! except pastrami Its written accross your heart p-a-s-t-r-a-m-i, stop ignoring it who can ignore pastrami, stop dulling it hmmm?, you know its wrong. what's wrong with pastrami?



okay, moving past my pastrami obsession, what asshat is saying is that atheists secretly long for the sky-daddy. we may deny it, but we're all just sitting up at night wishing we could just believe. nope, sorry, we're not. we're also not rebelling against god or following a trend. get over it.



If you begin to recognize it, you will begin to recognize more and more until you see what you do with your life. yes, i'm sure one day i'll just wake up and be overcome with the evil of it all. hehehehehehe If evil in the sight of God was so distasteful to man of course it would be easy to avoid! are any of these thoughts in any way related? But PEOPLE LOVE THEIR DARKNESS! WHERE THEY CAN HIDE FROM THE EYES OF MEN god? what? what is up with the random all caps? and think they are hiding from the eyes of Almighty God. i don't think i am hiding from god any more than i think i am hiding from tiny pink unicorns. (yeah, i will feel pretty silly when somebody finds the secret lair of the tiny pink unicorns.) But there will come a day, 10/10 of people, is there some reason he couldn't just write out "ten out of ten people" or maybe "all people" or "100% of people"? when you will take your last breathe breath. the verb has the "e" at the end, the noun does not., when you will sing your last song does he imagine atheists like to go out singing or something? hear that, sweetie? it's a dying atheist!, when you will hear your last sound, oh yes, there will come a day. oh, yes!

On this day, the day of your death on this day, the day of my daughter's wedding . . . , will you lie? i dunno, is somebody planning on asking me about those pants that make their butt look fat? Will you just lie in rot? um, what? does he mean do I believe in an afterlife or do I believe our corpses just rot? i don't think there is an afterlife, but i don't know. how much rotting do corpses do after they go to the mortuary? Why should you? rot? ummm . . . i dunno, bacteria? Where is there justice in that? there isn't. why should there be? Is there justice in the man who rapes and murders his whole life and gets away with it to die at a ripe old age of 80 to just lie and rot? no, but again, justice is a function of the legal system, not bacteria. nor does length of life have anything to do with how good a person you were. some good people die young, some bad people die at 100, so what? life is like that.

That would be the same sentence you are getting, and yet you were suuuuuuuch sarcastic abuse of the letter "u". a "good person." Dont you feel cheated? no, i just don't expect death, or life, to dispense justice. everybody dies. life, and death, are not indicators of anything about the person living or dying. unless this is some sort of awkward stab at calvinism? Betrayed? By your own outlook on life? how could my outlook on life betray me? I know I would, I am a rational being. no, you're not. your complete inability to form one rational thought naturally precludes you from the title of "rational being." I understand cause and effect god did it!, entropy, i highly doubt that and right and wrong god said it!. I see lines where? what kind of lines? what are you talking about? and I see black, white, and gray. that's sad, because I see colours. they're really beautiful.

There is absolutes and there is moral absolutes. no, there ARE absolutes and there ARE moral absolutes. and, i agree with you, i just don't think they come from god. Take this to heart because I am speaking directly to you! to me! wow! Know this friend yeah, McCain just totally killed "friend" for me., you may die at the end of this sentence AAAAHHH!, paragraph AAAAAHHHHH!!!! it's like the ring, you read this post and then, 7 days later, you get an email and you die! unless I show it to someone else . . . , whatever, and then what? i'm dead, and being dead, i won't care. You have no promise of tomorrow! neither does anyone else. death, the great equalizer. So what then? nothing, we went over this. Forsake tomorrow and live for today? no, i have a 401k. (although I find it indescribably odd that rapture freaks save for the future. if you're so convinced you're going to be raptured away any second, why save at all?) So you can just rot like the murderous rapists? but unlike nonmurderous rapists?

Sounds aweful! awful and well, being dead, i won't know the difference. that's why i'm not too worried about it. If that where the worse of it. that's not a sentence. at all. But if you rationally observe, creation is all around, I cant make a tree, can you?

and here we go with "creation proves the creator". this is one of those arguments that seems logical, but isn't. there is a third option: no, i can't "create" a tree, but that doesn't mean god did.

So obviously something of higher intelligence did no, it's not obvious at all., and maybe He dictates reality and morality so, you went from higher intelligences are necessary for trees to dictating reality and morality with no points in between. you are definitely not a rational being..

AND JUST MAYBE! HE HAS A MORAL LAW!? PERHAPS!? AND JUST MAYBE YOU HAVE VIOLATED IT!!??!??!!??!?! PERHAPS!?!?!?!?!?!? please stop abusing the english language. it's completely innocent. you need to stop.

Have you told a lie? who hasn't told someone that haircut looks great? Have you stolen anything? no, what, do all christians steal or something? they're always on about this. no, i have never stolen anything.

Have you late at night gazed with desire at pornagraphic images defiling yourself?
i do love a good confessional. what we accuse others of is most often what we ourselves do or wish to do.

Dishonoring your parents? Dishonoring God? can't dishonor what doesn't exist. Maybe when you die, you wont look so good when side by side to this Law..nobody ever said death makes you pretty maybe just maybe you arent as good as you have been repeating to yourself over and over as your read this. hone your psychic powers a little more, zach. i'm thinking that you're a huge tool.

I know the mantras, "I am a good person, I am nice to people, I dont try to harm anyone, I give to charity, Heck! I havent murdered anyone atleast!" is there anyone ever who has said, "well, yeah, i like to torture nurses in my basement, but i haven't killed any of them, that makes me a good person, right?"

Ohhh how you have! what, been nice to people and given to charity? How you have murdered and destroyed! no, i have not. We humans are 100 feet wide and 1 foot deep! i'm like 1.5 feet, maybe 2 feet wide at the shoulders. i probably am 1 foot deep. We are such horrible controls of what? i think he means have such terrible controls, but, no, i haven't killed anyone. it seems like i'd remember that, we think we can define morality! one way or the other, we do. we can call it "god" or whatever, but it's still us in the end. How foolish of an attempt, we cant even define existance!!!!!!!!!!!! what? and, felony overuse of an exclamation point- or ten. So thankful am I however that that intelligent being who created the tree did just that. created a tree? i like trees, too! He defined morality. or bronze age desert nomads created the exact same rules for their society that all other societies do. is there any society anywhere in the history of the planet that allows lying and stealing and murdering? He set the standard.He created it all for His Glory megalomaniac much?, for His Praise, for His Honor, for us to Love Him, for us to Enjoy Him, for us to Obey HIM!

And oh how we fall soooooooooooo oand now he's used up his entire year's supply of "o"s. the rest represent next year's. ooooooooooooo short. We dont even come with in one word, and what does this guy have against apostrophes? visual distance of the mark. what?If this makes any sense to you no, it doesn't, please message me! Message me with a note, a note that you have a new relationship with sin! BWAHAHAHAHAHA That the pornography what is zach's obsession with porn?, the hate, the deceit, the lies, whatever it may be that you once loved you now HATE! who loves hatred, deceit, lies . . . . oh, wait, i got it. God bless to to? you faithful brothers and sisters. but not me! In this life we have but One God, One Savior, One Messiah, One Redeemer, One King, One LORD.JESUS CHRIST IS RISEN! oh, i thought that was shiva!
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Forever in Hell by Personal Failure is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at foreverinhell.blogspot.com.