Oh, the blessings of Islam!

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The parties of God can always be counted on for a steady stream of aggression, force, and violence against undeserving people (usually the weaker victim the becomes their target of choice) but I think that Islam has become the new front-runner in terms of reliability and stupidity. Christians have had their murderous and immoral tendencies chilled by secular/enlightenment values, but Islam isn't having any of the "growing up" crap: they childishly hold that their vile brand of magic men and wish thinking is really true. And if you don't believe it, they'll kill you.

Luckily that wasn't the case for 64 year old Lars Vilks, a brave and wise Danish artist. Lars exercised his right to free expression and cartooned the image of the Islamic prophet, and in return he was met with the predictable violent reaction we've come to expect from those who believe in gods. They didn't manage to get the kill though, Lars survived the attack thanks to the intervention of the authorities. Yet another example of how religion poisons 'everything'. Can we not have simple cartoons? They want to ruin cartoons as well? Grow a backbone, are you really this delicate?

These kinds of religiously inspired attacks are commonplace, and I mention it not because it's a new occurrence, or even because it's incredibly noteworthy. I mention it for two reasons: firstly to call attention to the courage and fortitude of this 64 year old bro, and secondly so I can call more attention to this illogical notion that if you speak against Islam you're speaking racism.

The fallacious assertion that insulting Islam means you're also insulting a group of people based on their race is nothing more than another dishonest tactic employed by the faithful to give additional cover to their lethal doctrines and dogmas. This illogical and shifty insistence that criticizing Islam is equatable to the bigoted and practice of racism is something that must be rejected and denounced for every time it rears it's ugly head. When I insult christianity by calling it what it is -- as I frequently and dutifully do -- I don't insult the people based on their race, the same goes for insulting christians themselves. The ridicule is not aimed at them because they're white or any other color, it's aimed at them because they believe things my five year old nephew knows are idiotic, it has nothing to do with their race. At all. Not even kinda.

Islam plays by the same rules: when I condemn their illiterate and pedophilic prophet as a disgusting pig (yeah I said it) that shamefully married and raped a defenseless nine year old girl I'm insulting the faith, not the race of those who believe this garbage. To say otherwise is simply illogical, and I have zero tolerance for irrational people wasting my time with trumped up charges. I no more insult the ethnicity of the believers than I insult their preferences between cake or pie -- the two subjects are unrelated. I hope we resist this meme, and expose it for the dishonest rubbish that it is.

Thanks for reading!

Don't read this post, I'm going megaton.

I'm in a bit of a grumpy mood today, so I'm going to tee off on theism/religion and some of the laughable things that come out of the mouths of their participants. This is going to get bumpy, you've been warned.

“We can agree to disagree.”

It's true, we can agree to not see eye-to-eye on this subject, but don't think for one minute that this puts both of our arguments on equal footing; one argument is clearly not as logical or reasonable as the other. Don't get it twisted, the theist world view is founded on myths that shouldn't survive elementary school, so if we agree to disagree don't mistake it as a nod of respect for your views or argument. The idea of gods is idiotic at best, and destructive to humanity at worst. I'll respect the person, but I steadfastly refuse to respect their cult, or their creepy beliefs. They get only a cold tolerance based on my respect for the freedom of religion, don't count on conversational tolerance if you start yammering about magic men in the sky and how real they are.

“God X is immaterial, and outside space and time.”

I don't have to waste time pointing out how silly this belief is, the theist does all that work for me. But as soon as they assert their god is undetectable, the opposition wins. Removing all the criteria we use to validate a claim doesn't somehow magically make it true, since we now have no way to determine it's existence we have to disregard its possibility of being true. The theist will literally argue their god into non-existence all the while thinking they're pulling a fast one – I don't think so scooter, try again.

“But it's true for me!”

If the god exists only inside your head – only inside your consciousness – then fine, have at it. But when you say it exists outside of your imagination, if you say it's actually true, that becomes a whole new ball game. If you want to say your god is real, that it exists in the outside world, you adopt a burden of proof to demonstrate your claim as being true, just like everyone else. Can't muster the proof? Tough shit, try again when you can. It's arrogant and childish to think the world outside your mind has any obligation to fit your demands – reality has zero responsibility to change itself to fit your idea of what it should be. If the burden of proof is too much for theists to handle, then they need to go stand in the back of the room with the rest of the cultists.

Sarah Palin shows her ability to reason

I never fail to laugh at Sarah Palin's latest antics. It seems like every time I see her in the news for something it's because she's lying or misleading people; which is par for the course in terms of christianity, but I was hoping that since she thinks herself worthy of leadership roles she would be just a cut above average in things like honesty, knowledge, wisdom, or virtue -- no such luck. She's a walking disaster, a talking train wreck.

This time she's lying through her teeth about the religious beliefs of our founders (as if that is relevant in some way...) and pushing more of this "Christian Nation" myth. I really don't understand the illogical nature of those who buy into this myth; but I'm not surprised to see someone of Palin's quality throwing in with them. She's a sort of perfect storm for the modern conservative: hopelessly under-informed about important things, thinks her opinion is synonymous with fact or reality, feels entitlement as if she's accomplished something significant on the national level, and feels it's her job to force her religion on others -- unconstitutionally -- through the power of the state.

Sarah, thanks for the laughs doll!

Rightists and double standards about religion

There seems to be a few logical errors in the ideology and message work of the religious right, the same folks that want to force their views of God into your home and into your life. The topic of church/state separation illustrates one of their more revealing double standards, and sources of embarrassment. There's a forehead slapping contradiction in their ideologies and their propaganda of how Washington is supposed to interact with their lives: when it comes to their health-care, they say 'hell no' but when it comes to their personal beliefs about religion they resound with an approving 'hell yes'! So on one hand they tell us government is not the solution, but then they turn around and say how it most certainly and emphatically is the solution – to forcing their religion on others.

They want the gubment out of our homes, unless that gubment is pushing a goal that falls in line with the personal beliefs of the conservative movement – then they want the state in everyone's house. This is leftist thinking, isn't it? Are they not doing the very same thing they decry progressives and democrats for doing? If you're paying attention the answer is obvious.

They actually mean to say they welcome that bumbling, idiotic, wasteful government (they remind us of those qualities daily in their media don't they?) into their highly personal beliefs about God? They trust those 'crooks' in government with their God, but not their wallets, or their health-care? What does this observation say about their capriciousness in deciding what the state is allowed, or not allowed, to participate in? What can they offer against the argument that conservatives have a private agenda for the direction of government, just the same as progressives do, and are criticized by the right for having?

So, when these hypocritical and ideologically misguided rightists beg for help and handouts from those of us they routinely patronize and denigrate as “enemies of freedom in Washington” – why should those (now insulted) people in Washington not reply by first addressing their insulter's rude and contradictory behaviour? What kind of nonsense are religious conservatives trying to sell by pushing these shameful double standards on the rest of us? Are we supposed to accept that they should be the only ones to have access to the powers of the state? And thereby, would they not be usurping democracy as all of history has know it? What an embarrassingly stinky aroma to have to wear in public; a stench that warns of the deeper corruption that's reliably found in those people (authoritarians) who foolishly maintain double standards, and those that are also guilty of basic hypocrisy and special pleading.

I'd instead suggest that those in favor of using the state to spread their personal religious views correct these positions and messages before demanding by force and violence (read: using the powers of the state) that others should have to follow their rules, or accept those conservative views as reality. I submit that if you're a small government conservative that also believes in establishing an official religion for our secular state, you have an ideological tenant that isn't paying its logical rent.

National Prayer Day

So even after all the work has been put in, after we've wrestled time and time again, the parties of God (or those working on their behalf) will still use the levers of the state to advance their religious ideas. Obama doesn't care about the Lemon Test? I can't say I'm surprised to see this coming from him.

What happened to the beautiful liberal spirit of freedom we were founded on? You could worship your divine dictator and I could go undisturbed; is that too much freedom for the faithful to handle? Of course we know the answer; spreading their religion is required and encouraged at the cost of your freedom from it -- though if you confront one of them on their infraction they may very well retreat behind the "it's a personal belief" card, thus negating criticism or further debate about it.

Not anymore, at least not with me.

If our government is doing things like a national prayer day, I think I'm entitled to return conversational fire; to mercilessly grill anyone who's trespassing on my/your freedoms. Want to tell me the good news? Then I want to tell you about the shocking and revolting immorality of your God and religion -- sounds reasonable to me. If the parties of God don't want a verbal water-boarding session about their disgusting beliefs, then they'd do well to stop knocking on other people's doors.

Mexico has Catholic pedophilia problems too?!

Child rape inside the catholic church is spinning madly past the zone of WTF and straight into the twilight zone of "can this really be happening?"

Another predatory preacher in the land that tries to sell itself as something like a constitutional republic has come forward and admitted to molesting over 200 kids, including two of his own children!

Words don't describe the depth of this kind of crime. Maybe if these child raping pigs had a faith that actually held them accountable for their own actions, they'd act like civilized people.

Just sayin'

Spring cleaning

I want to touch on a few misconceptions that are floating around. Since we know that progress relies on knowledge, and knowledge relies on clarity, I think it'd be beneficial to strip away some of the false notions that have attached themselves to ideas we trade in religious debate. By scrubbing these ideas under warm soapy water we can clear away the muck that has been allowed to gather on them, and by doing so we help move the conversation along since we'll all be armed with a higher grade of ideas. So here we go!

“It takes more faith to be an Atheist.”

This idea is both wrong and strange, I'll start with showing why it's wrong. Atheism is not a faith position. At all. Not even kinda. It's simply the disbelief in one or more deities, or the supernatural. And since we don't have any evidence for believing in any of the near 10,000 Gods that humans have put forward over the years, the act of not believing in any one of them doesn't require any faith at all. Gods have never met their burden of proof and so they can be safely dismissed as a non-truth. (as one man puts it: that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.)

If I told you that there was a square-circle on your head right now, and you didn't believe me, would you say that it requires faith to disbelieve? Of course not, since you know that a square-circle can't exist, it requires no faith at all to dismiss my assertion. Now If I would've said something rational, like: “broseph, you have some hair on your head” – that would've been a different story since you know hair can exist on heads.

“Atheism can't tell me how we got here, so I'm sticking with God.”

This is like your boss telling you that since you can't breath acidic fluids, he's going to replace you with a square-circle that claims it can. The first problem with your boss's thinking is pretty obvious: humans aren't meant to breathe acidic fluids, so to criticize them for not being able to is really illogical. Atheism isn't a scientific discipline, it isn't an answer factory – it's a reply to claims of the supernatural. If you don't require Atheism to bake you a delicious cake, then why would you expect it to do any other task it's not meant to do? Should we not believe in Judaism simply because it can't explain what's occupying the galactic center?

The second problem with this scenario is the choice of “replacement”. Again, a square-circle cannot exist; so when a person comes to any conclusion that requires the existence of one, we know the conclusion will fail since it relies on an impossibility. Think of it like this: if you submit a mathematical proof that starts off by stating “this proof assumes that 1+1=Bacon”, we don't have to continue past the start since we know the proof will fail. Saying that God explains how we got here is not much different than saying 1+1=Bacon – they're both wrong. As a side-note, at least Bacon can deliver eternal life and unending bliss, can your God do that?

“Well, Hitler and Stalin were Atheists, so belief is better than unbelief!”

Wow, really? First I'd point out that Atheism was not the cause for what those two did. Stop the internal dialogue, that wasn't the reason. Hitler and Stalin are great examples of authoritarian style of rule, and what it produces. Secondly, to say Hitler was an Atheist is to be pretty dishonest, he never once denounced his catholicism, as a matter of fact he said he was doing “the lord's work” in his book. He rallied against secular schools demanding religion be taught, and the first deal he cut as the new leader was with the catholic church, a church that liked him enough to celebrate his birthday every year! He talked about not only God, but about Jesus, in his speeches and in private; and he went so far as to have “God with us” put on the belts of his soldiers. I think the religious right is trying to pull a fast one on us, trying to pin the mess of their creation on other people like Atheists and socialists.

Lastly, this argument really fails and here's why: if we grant the dishonest tweaking of causation to make Atheism the cause of what those two did, the religious really screw themselves – their body count can then be measured not in millions, or tens of millions, not even in hundreds of millions – but we soar all the way up to the one billion mark (some say more). So it seems that after some really... creative... tactics the arguer only manages to present a rod for his own back. If I had the evils of religion weighing heavily on my shoulders I'd be very humble with any talk about force and violence; but in the highly compartmentalized mind of the average monotheist no such need exists, since their religion is only the one in their head, and things outside of their construct, like reason and evidence, often fail to penetrate.

Violence is the tool of the immoral

With the increasing violence from the political right we're faced with more examples of why we need philosophy / critical thinking taught to our young people. I would argue that if people had a better grasp on clear thinking we wouldn't see so much of this American political violence, we would begin to find ways of enacting change without having to drop our morals and pick up guns. Anytime someone calls for thug violence (I'm looking directly at you tea-party brothers) in response to non-violent issues they tip their hand, and reveal to all of us that they're clearly not serious about freedom or solutions. When you reduce your political methods to threats and violence, you excuse yourself from normal and healthy debate; you literally move yourself to the margin – in the same fashion an angry child moves himself (with the teacher's help) to the corner when he destructively acts on his emotions.

If you think that real political change can come from threatening our politicians like a bunch of gangsters or Ku Klux Klan members, you're wrong. If you think that your guns will somehow help us maintain freedom and liberty, you're wrong. If you think that force and violence can bring about peace and liberty, you have only to look around the world and see the failure of your beliefs. Let's see how well force and violence are helping those in Africa, or the Middle East, or Palestine. No luck there? Okay, let's look at Ireland, Burma, and Columbia. Still having problems in finding a working example?

The verdict is in: violence only begets violence. If you still cling to fantasies of a Red Dawn style attack, or a repeat of the Revolutionary War you need to wake up and look around. Let go of your childish wishes and realize what the rest of us already know: this isn't the 18th century anymore, we have other solutions. These pro-violence types seem to think pointing a gun is somehow going to fix our problems, what they don't see is that every time we use the gun, we invalidate our own morality and message by using force to enact change we failed to produce through rational means – the gun signifies failure and should be a point of embarrassment by all those involved.

Meat rampage!

This is just too strange to let pass without comment. Some bro in Indiana goes on an anti-meat rampage at a local super-market, in the name of protecting young girls from getting fat, and also because -- you guessed it -- God wanted him to.

Isn't it strange how people's Gods share the same views they do? Anti-choice people have Gods that are also anti-choice, advocates of state violence have Gods that favor murder and violence, peaceful and open-minded people have peaceful and open-minded Gods -- you see what I'm saying.

Have the faithful not noticed this pattern? Have they noticed, but try not to think about it? Most of us heard about the study that reveals when we think about what God would want, we actually use the same parts of the brain that we'd use to think about what we want, this further supports the view that Gods are a projection, and some of the content projected is our own world view or opinions about certain topics. This is the same process by which we project our consciousness onto inanimate objects: we think that hammer meant to hit our thumb, we stub our toe and think "stupid end-table!" and we believe there's a magic man in the sky that just coincidently happens to share our personal views on hot topics.

I don't really believe that the faithful have failed to notice that their Gods hate the same people they do; I think they have observed that when they kill, rape, or torture people, God is just fine with it, or has commanded it. It would be really hard to not see this phenomena, and I wonder what the faithful think about it. I'll ask around and see what explanations I get.

Christian militia violence

Though I share some of their views on the government and the current state of freedoms in America, I have to denounce the Hutaree for their choice to enact violence (or planing to use violence) against others to achieve goals that are ideological, political, or religious in nature (the army field manual definition of terrorism). No matter what your views are, picking up a rifle to drive the point home is flat-out immoral. More over, If you keep force and violence in your toolbox, you can't decry others for having those same tools in theirs – unless you want to dismissed as a run of the mill hypocrite and not be taken seriously by anyone with a pulse.

The willingness to evaluate information and come to a judgement on political topics is important, but looking at only slanted information and coming to false conclusions is just the opposite; and I'm afraid our body politic lacks honesty in a big way, we've replaced it with hyper-partisanship, fallacious arguments, smear tactics, and other destructive practices. What's even worse is when a group of extremists like this get together and decide to use lethal force to push their ideas onto others – those clowns must have learned better. If not, they really should have by now, and so they get condemned as just another thug with a gun. If they can't handle democracy and freedom of ideas, they should spend some time in a dictatorship to see the differences.

But, they make another mistake by using their God to justify your gang violence, since every time they do they validate what detractors of religion have been saying for so long: God is a gun.

More Catholic crime

More Catholic priests raping and torturing children and covering it up? Of course you expect this kind of stuff from that crowd, who have time and time again shown not only to be capable of destroying children's mental health, but to be people who institutionalize the practice of supporting those who do this terrible act. When a father is found to be raping kids, they simply move the predator pedophile around and work hard to make sure justice cannot be served, and that the depraved man can find a new batch of children to break. Maybe they think they are above the law, or above even morality.

When you're this close to the point of no return, when you've shown the world that you're morally bankrupt and hopelessly hypocritical, you should have brushed past a moment of clarity; a sudden jolt should have rocked you and shaken you free from your corrupted ways – there should have been realization that you cannot stop the madness, and so you have to resign, unless you want to see this pattern of destructive behavior continue. If our pedophile priests ever had this moment of clarity, they have chosen to ignore it in favor of continuing the sexual conquest of young boys that trusted them to do what's right. The parents made the mistake of trusting religious leaders, and their children suffered the consequences. These young children pay too high a price for being forced by their parents to meet with rapists and sadists.

What will happen? Something must be done here, right? Surely the parties of God will do the right thing and do what they can to set the wrong things right! Surely parents across the world will learn from the mistakes of other heart broken guardians and keep their children away from this organization that has embraces and protects child rape...

Don't count on it.

The Vatican will continue to kill, rape, lie, and steal as it sees fit, and no country will arrest them -- like the common criminals they are -- when they land on foreign soil. They will continue to be called a benchmark of morality, justice, and ethics, even as they commit the most disgusting crime of all, and fight tooth and nail to avoid bringing the guilty to justice.

It's been said before, and it's worth repeating: the Vatican is a rogue state that harbors the most vile kind of criminals and legitimizes the practice of child rape. I think we could all agree that this kind of habit within the ranks of the Catholics is something that needs to end, unless we want to see more of our young people violated by those that are beyond the law.