Fist Of Jesus!

This is quite possibly the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuKV2Z3eYTY

God’s Not Dead II: Electric Boogaloo

So according to The Friendly Atheist, God’s not dead is getting a sequel. That’s right, a motherfucking sequel.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/10/20/gods-not-dead-2-will-be-out-next-year-says-studio-head/

I find this hilarious. Apparently people are hungry for atheist stereotype poor logic defense of irrational beliefs. Go at it then. At the end of the post, Hemant issued a challenge to commenters:

So let’s have a contest! In the comment section, leave your idea for what the plot of God’s Not Dead 2 will look like. I’ll pick a winner at random in a few days and you’ll receive a free shirt from Hypatia, Ltd., a new company started by an ex-Muslim. 10% of all sales from now through the end of the year will go to the Malala Fund.

Challenge accepted.

I posted the following proposal for the plot of God’s Not Dead II:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/10/20/gods-not-dead-2-will-be-out-next-year-says-studio-head/#comment-1647683150

God's Not Dead II: Electric Boogaloo.

A hell hound defiles Kevin Sorbo's grave, and he returns to unholy life. Filled with atheist rage, he assumes commands over all of the world's governments and passes a law that all citizens must be tattooed with the number 666 to show property citizenship. All Christians mysteriously disappear before the holocaust begins. Except for our hero, the recent college graduate, who must don the mantle of warrior once again and battle his way through hordes of satanic zombies to get to the source of evil, the anti-christ Kevin Sorbo and pave the way for the second coming of Jesus. To be continued...

Seriously, is that not the most fucking awesome Christian movie plot ever??? Apocalypse? Zombies? Massacres? Giant presses filled with people squishing the blood out of them? Explosions? Total Michael Bay shit! Go vote for me right the fuck now. I need more T-shirts and shit.

This? Again?

So this happened:

(I’m having a little trouble with the link in my blogging software, so I’ll post it here just in case it goes horribly wrong).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNl_1gQqrWI

First of all, I like Russell Brand. I do. I don’t exactly think he’s any kind of bastion of intellectual thought, but his heart is in the right place. But here, like with Ben Affleck, he’s adopted this mainline liberal idea that Muslims are this big giant group of peace loving hippies and there’s just a couple of bad apples who run around blowing up buildings trying to make Islam look bad.

So I find my self in the uncomfortable position of actually agreeing with Fox News. Yes, they got something right. There are scores of human rights abuses in Islamic countries ruled by Sharia Law. However, Fox is right but for the wrong reasons, and they get the point wrong as usual.

You see, Fox has an agenda. They target a Christian conservative audience and play on their fears to increase viewership. To a conservative Christians, Muslims are fuckin’ scary. We sort of ran out of bad guys with the fall of the (godless communist) Soviet Union in the early 90s, and 9/11 gave us a new one: Muslims!

In this case, the facts fit Fox’s narrative beautifully, as long as you don’t back up and look at the bigger picture. The Quran does endorse subjugation of women. It does call for killing infidels and apostates. Fox says that you can be killed for “sins” but it’s actually a bit more specific than that. Only certain sins will merit the death penalty, and leaving Islam is right up there. I can only assume they dodge that one because *gasp!* it makes atheists look persecuted. Fox hates atheists too, so they can’t go there. But back up a little, take the 40,000 foot view, and you can say that Islam commands death for the commission of (certain) sins. See how easy it was to twist that little fact to fit a narrative?

So lets take Brand’s claims into account here. There’s 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, and the vast majority of them aren’t running around blowing up buildings. Yes, true. But Fox was actually talking about human rights abuses, and these occur at an alarming rate in many Muslim theocracies. The problem, of course, is more complex than anything that can be summed up in a simple sentence and plastered on a picture of Morgan Freeman for circulation around the internet.

What Fox is missing is the fact that any criticism that can be leveled against Islam can also (and should be) leveled against Christianity. Christianity had Theocracies with human rights abuses a while ago too. We call them the dark ages now. Islam is currently in it’s own dark age.

You see, the problem isn’t Islam, it’s Theocracies. It’s following bronze age religions in the information age. But you have to love the irony of Fox News decrying a Theocracy, considering how much time they’ve spent suggesting that we become one.

Liberal Pseudo-Intellectual Arrogant Shitheads

In case you’ve been living under a rock, you may have missed the little spat between Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Reza Aslan, and Ben Affleck.

That’s right. Ben. Fucking. Affleck. Because his opinion is somehow important.

So let’s recap to bring you up to speed.

First this happened:

Then this happened:

Then this happened:

Just in case you didn’t take the time to watch those (or they’ve been taken down since I posted this) I’ll recap:

Bill Maher: You liberals who defend Islam suck. Islam is bad. Rih rih bad. They kill you n shit. Liberals who don’t speak out against the violence of Islam suck.

Reza Aslan: Oh no you didn’t! Bill Maher is wrong because he’s dumb. I’m smart. Listen to me. Islam fucking rulez, beeches! BTW I’m smart and he’s dumb!

(Spoiler alert: that’s called the ad hominem attack and is a way for pseudo-intellectual assholes to assert their superiority without actually making good factually based arguments. I kinda hate that shit)

Bill Maher: Huh? Islam kills you n shit for not being Islamic. Or leaving Islam. Or drawing Muhammad. Or basically doing fucking anything that isn’t sucking Allah’s imaginary motherfucking dick.

Ben Affleck: Whatever. Islam is awesome.

Bill Maher: WTF? Here’s some facts. They’ll fucking kill your ass!

Ben Affleck: Whatever you motherfucking racist!

Bill Maher: Racist? Islam isn’t a race, it’s a motherfucking religion, bitches! WTF are you talking about?

Ben Affleck: I’m right because I’M MOTHERFUCKING BEN AFFLECK BITCHES!

Bill Maher: But… but… facts?

Ben Affleck: FUCK YOUR FACTS BITCH! I’M MOTHERFUCKING BEN FUCKING AFFLECK AND I SAY ISLAM IS FUCKING GREAT N SHIT! MEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! COME SUCK IT BITCH!!!!

Sam Harris: Ok, I’ll concede this one point to you…

Ben Affleck: FUCK YOU BITCH! WHO’S YOU DADDY?!? ME!!! I’M YOU MOTHERFUCKING DADDY! CUZ I DID UR MOM! LIKE THIS!! OOOOOH YEAH!!! SMACK THAT ASS BABY!!! WOOOOO!!!!!

Okay, full disclosure: I’m drinking while I write this, so my synopsis of the exchange might be slightly off, but I think I got the general gist of it. Basically I’m the Mr. Cranky of the liberal atheist blogosphere. Except people actually read Mr. Cranky.

So as you might have surmised, I have a slight problem with this. I’ll give you the right answer in advance: Bill Maher was right.

It goes like this. When you say “black people be like” you’re a fucking racist. There’s no African-American manual where you can glean what they think from. They’re people. If you generalize them, you’re a bigot. End of story.

When you say “White people be like” you’re the same fucking thing. To get to the point slightly faster, you can put any race or gender in there and you get the same thing. Bigot. 

But religion is different. When you criticize Christians, they have a manual. They’re more than happy to wave it in your face and quote from it. They get pissed off if you know more about it than they do and point out the bad parts. But some of them actually read the bad parts, and dutifully try to apply them. We call those assholes extremists. Islam is the same. You’ll find plenty of “moderate” Muslims who don’t go killing atheists or Christians or former Muslims or beheading cartoonists or filmmakers who have the audacity to tell the stories of abuse from the Muslim world, but they’re not exactly speaking up either. And the bad shit is in their holy book too, same as the extremists. So you can paint Muslims and Christians (and most other religions) with the same brush, because they actually have a source they’re getting this shit from. And we can go right to the source and criticize it, and we should, because there’s a lot of bad shit in there.

You see, the difference is that religion is an idea, not a set of physical attributes. And as an idea, like any human idea, it is open to criticism. And it should be. Religion is a terrible idea.

I’ve never identified myself as a liberal, even though most people consider me to be so. Most of my political leanings are to the left, because I believe that people are more important than things. That’s right, you don’t have to have a holy book to think morally like that. But these pseudo intellectual shitheads like Affleck and Aslan piss me right the fuck off. They’re liberal because they think it’s cool. They don’t give a fuck about facts, they take whatever they think they’re supposed to think and run with it.

Fuck that shit. Islam deserves criticism.