xxxchurch

Every time you masturbate God kills a kitten. Frankly, I don't really like cats.

I can't find this...

I've been thumbing through my bible (a lie) and I can't find the section where is says I should write hate mail to elderly nature program presenters who don't believe in God.

Sir David Attenborough recieves hate mail from Christians who disagree with his position on evolution. Is this Christian love in action? If this is Christian love or the loving spirit of Jesus operating via these misguided lunatics, I don't want any part of it.

If you want to get power from threatening and harrasing other people Christianity is your gig.

Correlation does not prove causality.

So much of religion's authority comes from ideas like: lack of religion causes immorality, sex out of wedlock causes social problems or homosexuality causes floods. Again and again religion has last it's authority on such issues. Psychotherapy has replaced demonic possession and exorcism. Weather science has replaced God. Thor is not the god of thunder any more.

The response to this is that correlation does not prove causality.

Christians still have their heads in the sand. Christian News says that God does control the weather. Weather like: "storms, floods and earthquakes".

The Trumpet describes God's stick and carrot attitude towards weather.

These causality claims make as much sense as phocks.org's comparitive study between the dietary health of the Japanese and the French or the correlation between pirate decline to global warming.

A can of Mercy Ministries worms

After my last post I was reading SeanTheBlogonaut's AtheistNexes posts on MM. This lead me to this Nashville News story that ran after the SMH broke the Australian MM story. It is very interesting. It has lies, love afairs, demons corrupting people... the usual nonsense Christians just can't seem to stay away from.

Sean the Blogonaut - MM posts. Sean has followed this story closely. His posts are much more detailed than mine so head on over there if you want to know more.

A blog by an ex captive of MM.

The Perth Voice ran a story on Naomi Johnson's experience with MM.

When you try to discuss MM on youtube the video is taken down because MM slaps a copyright claim on you... because they have nothing to hide. But never fear. There are still plenty of videos on youtube about MM's treatment of young people in need of help.

Mercy Ministries again... well, they keep it up.

This blog is not a search and destroy mission against Mercy Ministries, however, they persist so I persist in attacking them.

Live News ran a story not unlike previous stories telling of Mercy Ministries' treatment of medical conditions with prayer and exorcism.

The difference is that there is a video of Mercy Ministries boss Peter Irvine. Mr Irvine is also CEO of Gloria Jean Coffee. During the video footage he says that there is no use of exorcism in the Mercy Ministries program. They also have photocopies of the Mercy Ministries handbook that explains how to do exorcisms. Put the two together and something doesn't match.

Now, as every dogmatic christian will tell you, Mr Irvine cannot be lying because he is a christian. I'm not buying that assessment. My experience of Christians is that they will lie through their teeth and they will believe almost anything to forward their ridiculous belief system.

The problem with credulity:

A goat is being held in custody for attempted armed robbery. Apparently this goat, who is really a person who transformed himself using witchcraft was seen trying to steal a car before running into an alley. His persuers came around the corner and there he was standing there looking sheepish.

Two issues here:
. witchcraft is a belief held by christians. They think that Harry Potter is bringing evil into the world and that witches get tehir power from satan. If you'll believe in religion, what will you believe next?
. as Hitchens says, mob opinion is wrong by definition.

Go Jean-Luc

I'm gonna call it:

I 'm gonna call it. I bet these nutbags were Christians.

It's got all the signs of dumb-arses taking their queues from the bible. Infanticide, incest, obedient and silent wife, obeying your father, not seeking medical help, Americans... it's got it all. I think the story will be in Bible 3.0.

This call is made with as much evidence as people with the opposite view, that they must have been Atheists, have for their stance.

Mercy Ministries

An opinion piece on Hillong and Mercy Ministies.

Previous article linking Hillsong to Mercy Ministries.

And an opinion piece.

Atheist Bus Campaign again

Facebook has groups for and against the Atheist Bus Campaign. A lot more people have joined the for than the against.

If an Atheist did this...

If an atheist felt strongly that they couldn't drive a bus that carried a religious advertisement they would be accused of being anti-christian. The label anti-christian feeds straight into accusations of being immoral, Nazi, communists... and all that crap.

Ten Commandments again.

What's wrong with the ten commandments?
The real ten commandments.
The ten commandments are no longer valid.

Links from OzAtheist.

ISIS

Institution for the Secularization of Islamic Society made the St. Petersburg Declaration starting thus:

We are secular Muslims, and secular persons of Muslim societies. We are believers, doubters, and unbelievers, brought together by a great struggle, not between the West and Islam, but between the free and the unfree.

It goes on to call for secular rights and responsibilities in Islamic societies.

Another Fundy Nutbag

This guy's magic larva lamp created a sculpture of The Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus (characters from a popular local religion). Having strong abstract thought I can see the resembelance... also, it looks a little like a spagetti western cactus but no-one prays to them so we'll overlook that inconvenient resembelance.

Churchies more likely to cheat.

Church goers are more likely to steal a paper from a self serve booth. They feel that, as they are generally more moral and righteous, that things that they think of doing are right. Like a spoilt child who does anything that pops into his or her mind because the parents never defined and applied proper boundries.

Now this is one of their Ten Commandments (and under Greed in the 7 deadly sins) so why would theists be doing this. This really is a problem with religion. It tells people they are good if they make the correct tythe to their church and attend weekly to repent. As a humanist all I see is a dirty little theif.

Clean your own dirty laundry first before you start accusing me of being bad, theist scum.

Humanism

The Victorian State Government education accreditation body has been given a Humanist Ethical Lesson plan to be taught to children who's parents do not want their children to be given religion lessons in Victorian primary schools. Previously they were given no activities or lessons, they were left to their own devises for the period.

Religion claims to be able to teach people how to be good. Humanism, equally, claims to teach an ethical system. Humanism offers a workable ethical system based on tested, proven concepts. Just because it lacks a supernatural punishment for non-compliance that doesn't render it invalid.

Religion is quite right to be afraid of this movement. It is staring down the barrel of extinction. One of the few claims it is still allowed to make by agnostics and soft atheists is that it teaches morality. If a system without supernatural threat is found to be just as valid people on the middle ground will see one more of religion's lies.

Humanist Society of Victoria
Ethical Education Site
Age Article with comments on Richard Dawkins' site.

The Large Hadron Collider

Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?

Theists, with all of their superstition, are convinced that the Large Hadron Collider will destroy the earth. Their big problem, as illustrated by their faith, is that they will believe almost any peice of nonsense put to them by anyone standing near a pulpit.

Snoopygirl illustrates this hysterical credulity well.

Fortunately there are sensible, thoughtful atheists like larianlequella out there too. Larian is brave enough to engage with these lunatics.

Speaking of Lunatics:
George W has finally left the building. This illustrates how much he will be missed. Another theocractic dictator brought down. :))

Christian challenges atheist bus advert

Stephen Green of Christian Voice saw a trap and thought he'd quickly run into it.

Story here:

Mr Green could not have done more to promote the bus campaign.

Sex Education

Abstinence only sex education doesn't stop adolecents from having sex.

Credulity Problems

The Saudi legal system has sentenced a woman to death for witchcraft. WTF!? This is an old story. I don't know if the sentence was carried out.

Boy Scout Association

BSA has asked Obama to be their honourary president. A coalition of secular organizations in the United States have requested that he reject the request on the basis that the BSA discriminates against non-theists and homosexuals.

Their submission says: "Accepting the title and role of honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America would thus send the message that institutional discrimination against people who don’t happen to believe in a god is acceptable."

Mercy Ministries, Hillsong Church and Gloria Jean Coffee make the news again:

As usual this trio have made the news for all the wrong reasons again. Their use of exorcism for the treatment of eating disorders makes me wonder if we've slipped back to the 1400s. It seems that some of us have.

Creation Museum

On 15 November 2008, the Secular Alliance of IU took a road trip to Petersburg, Kentucky to visit the Creation Museum. They were shocked, puzzled and amused by what they saw.

Here's the video.

It would be funnier if you didn't know that people actually believe this stuff.

The Amsterdam Declaration (2002)

Again, getting away from the dogmatic 10 commandments the International Humanist and Ethical Union updated and adopted The Amsterdam Declaration (2002) as the official defining statement of World Humanism.

Secular Affirmation

This is a 10 commandments killer if ever I saw one. Reading through this affirmation makes me feel warm all over. Again, we haven't thrown 3 commandments down the toilet protecting God's position.

When religion gets too much power.

When religious dogma over rules human rights you end up with people who think they have the right to oppress whoever their religious leaders tell them to oppress. Islam wants women oppressed at the moment.

This is the spirit of god moving in people.

The wowsers continue to make inroads

Just because you don't like something it doesn't mean that you have a God given right to slap a ban on it. I don't like idiot theists coming to my door telling my I'm a bad person because I don't tythe to their church but I don't try to ban them. I tell them they are idiots and enjoy it.

So, the wowser parade marches on:

Fred Nile - who votes for this guy and what are you thinking?

Is topless sun bathing even mentioned in the bible? I doubt that it is but I'm sure the wowsers are holding their bible up and saying it is mentioned. It doesn't matter whether it is mentioned or not, bible types don't need it to actually be mentioned in the bible for them to find something that they can pretend means don't topless sunbathe.
Does Nile wear a mankini when he swims? That would be a funny pic! Does he want Australian women to wear a buhkah?

The owners of the boobs get to decide. If a woman doesn't care about it why should Nile? WTF!? If he doesn't want to see them (and I think the problem is that he really does) then don't look. I saw topless sunbathing when I was a kid and it hasn't destroyed my life. They were, are and will always be: only boobs! Get over it churchy!

Go and do some sort of good work. It says to do that in the bible too but that sounds hard. It's easier to moralise about stupid crap than actually do something. If Christianity is such a powerful force for change and good then you should be able to show me some sort of good coming from its application instead of this pointless browbeating... actual good, not implied good like: 'If only we could cover every boob in the world we would win the fight against evil.' Get a grip!

Good on Sally Betts for being aghast at just the right moment! She knows they are only boobs and there are bigger fish to fry in public life.

So we move to the Caribbean:

Why would one go to the Caribbean if not to wear a bikini (we are not talking about going topless, just being in a bikini) or budgie smugglers? They're throwing away their only asset here. Who would live their if they didn't like seeing people in bikinis. Now this story doesn't specify that their are religious zealot behind the fining of people for wearing a bikini off the beach but when it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck there is a strong possibility that it is a duck.

Now to Bali:
Bali is seeing the problem with giving too much power to religious nutjobs. They are classifying anything that looks like... anything as pornography. Well, I have to say: if Hindu penis carvings float your boat then go to it but don't take your fantasies out of the rest of us.

Fortunately Bali seems like it might get an exemption from these Koran based laws. Bali is predominantly Hindu anyway. At least they know which side their bread is buttered on.

So, on to Italy:

The Italians have handed more law making powers down to local government. If Italian local government attracts the same caliber of law maker as in Australia it is no wonder that they have come up with petty, stupid laws. For example: a public display of affection in a car in Eboli will cost you EUR500. WTF!? How affectionate are we talking? Is giving flowers a capital crime now? This will only drive jewellers underground you know. It's probably for shagging in a car which, I admit, would be unseemly unless you had curtains in your panel van... or a motor home.

So, to my point, mind your own business and get your dusty old books out of my life.

Atheist Nexus

The working group for the Atheist Nexus submission to Australia's review on the Freedom of Religion and Belief in the 21st Century

Atheist Bus Campaign

The UK's Atheist Bus Campaign is up and running. As blogged the other day, the Australian version was shot down by APN's refusal to run the campaigns

Marriage

The church has been working hard to support families here. This is the problem with rigid beliefs about what makes a family.

And before the moderate christians start crying foul I say that they are christians and you should clean your own dirty laundry before you criticise mine.

Ten Commandments

"But the 10 commandments are a good moral guide", said Bruce... well, are they?
George Carlin disagrees. Anyone as excellent (Whoa. Rufus, duude.) as Carlin needs to be listened to:



So, because Atheists, Humanists... etc are a mixed bag they wont be pinned down to a common set of rules. That said, there are common threads. Most importantly, they don't want to kill each other over the differences.

Dawkins offered an alternative 10 commandments in The God Delusion. Really, given that you don't throw 3 of them away sucking up to god you get more bang for your buck with the Dawkins version. That page shows a few other versions too.

A discussion on the same:

This is a better list without the baggage of thousands of years of bloodshed:

Ted Turner's 10 Commandments. Mr Turner received the 1990 recipient of Humanist of the Year award from the American Humanism Association.

Or, perhaps, some golden rules:

Positive Atheism's list with detailed explainations:

That'll do for now...

Revisiting Hitchens

Hitchens' call to war just doesn't sit well with me. He says that the Iraqi war will eliminate all of the muslim extremists. If this was ever gonna work it would have worked in Israel by now.

Religion showing us how to be good

An 8 year old girl has been ordered to stay married to a 58 year old man in Saudi Arabia. This is a loving god at work. Picture an 8 year old you know. Imagine a 58 year old. Imagine them married. If this doesn't make your skin crawl you need to have a long, hard look at yourself. How can this girl not be harmed by this arrangement? What is religion teaching fathers if he thinks this is the best thing for his daughter? Why isn't this marriage being objected to in the strongest language by moderate Muslims?

Simply, if Islam allows this so Islam has no place in this modern world.

Brisbane Times article:

APN Outdoor flexes its religious muscle

APN Outdoor has rejected a commercial request for advertising space on buses from the Atheist Foundation of Australia.

SMH article:

The Koran hasn't copped it for a while

While I was looking at the previous stuff there was a link to the Sceptics Annotated Quran. Looks like it would be good for a giggle.

The Bible

The nice people at wikimedia have popped a bible online. Because it's online it can be searched! Yay! Facts and cross referencing. That should be handy.

The over the road fundies wandered by today. After some pro-porn banter I decided to claim that the bible allowed slavery so sexual slavery was probably permitted too. Anyway, having no idea I decided to look it up. Christians were holding the bible up saying it allowed the keeping of slaves before the American civil war... were they right? It, like so much of the Bible, is ambiguous. If you are ambiguous you are not infallible you just have never committed to a position.


Evil Bible runs through a few points:

Celebrity Atheists

Celebrity Atheists lists famous people with naturalistic world views - because what celebrities think is really important.

There are interviews with well know but still useful people like Linus Torvalds and Billy Connolly.

Hitchens again.

This is the first part of Christopher Hitchens' talk at the Freedom From Religion Foundation - 30th Annual Convention on October 13th 2007. Hitchens received the "Emperor Has No Clothes" Award.

I can't agree with Hitchens' call to war. I wont go to war. I wont go and kill people because they disagree with me. His ideas on this suprised me.



First of 7 videos.

Evil Atheist Conspiracy

The problem of theists and their porn hysteria.

Julie Amero, substitute teacher, was found guilty of endangering children and threatened with 40 years in gaol as a result of her laptop, which was riddled with spyware and trojans, displayed ads for porn sites to some kids.

Now, obviously it is preferable that kids aren't exposed to porn but we are talking about an accident. If computer end users were able to stop trojans and popups the porn industry would stop using them.

This is wowsering gone insane. Do Christians who accidently let their children read about Lot and his daughters get threatened with life in gaol?

Born without a brain!

This tele-vangelist claims that people had faith after being told that their "baby was born without a brain" and now she can count to five and cross her legs (not sure why crossing your legs is such an acheivement. Maybe that's something I'll ask the next inbred yokle I see, just to make conversation.)

Wikipedia

I reference wikipedia before the bible every time. At least when there is a disagreement over wikipedia's text it doesn't end in being burnt at the stake, a war, being stoned to death, or even so much as a fight.

An alternative Genesis explanation

Creationists want science to give equal time to Intelligent Design or to at least teach the controversy between Evolution Theory and Intelligent design. What about the creation story of Ngiyaampaa country, Australia. It strikes me as an equally valid creation story. It neatly explains our existence here without being too difficult to understand like nasty old Evolution Theory.

Censor the Bible

Christians are all for censorship of violent or adult materials. Maybe they should have a long hard look at their dusty old book before they start bashing others over the head with it. If you want violence, rape and porn look no further than the dusty old book.

The Australian Sex Party

A new political party in Australia. They need 500 members to form a party.

Now this is funny:

Hong Kong's anti-porn watchdog recieves 200 complaints about passages in the bible.

The Secular Party of Australia

The Secular Party of Australia want's to keep dusty old books out of our modern, secular society. There is a gap in Australian politics. Major parties are continuing to align with churches. The secular party wants to point out the flaws in allowing one group to have too much political power.

In the news:

Religion really improved family life for this family. The controlling husband wouldn't let the wife seek medical help for a sick child. The child died of pneumonia and a kidney infection. Fortunately the husband's continued faith that his god would heal all ills lead to his death from heart failure. I think a Darwin Award is in order.

To George W: He's been spruking on about people's right to change religion. Changing is OK but claiming no religion is less popular, I think.

Bad Religion's Atheist Peace

Vic Stenger appears in a debate on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Fora program.

This embed will play if you give it time to load up. If it doesn't work go here.

The topic of the debate is "We would be better off without religion".