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.

Michael Patrick Leahy in plain English

You may have heard about the recent flap over the Coca Cola commercial that so enraged the right wing ideologues. Of particular interest was a blog post by Michael Patrick Leahy (at Breitbart.com, so you know this will be entertaining) who is upset that America the Beautiful might be sung in a language other than English. However, since he only speaks ideologue, I found that ironic. I’ve decided to help out and translate his blog post into plain English so that we can all benefit from his wisdom.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/02/02/Why-Coca-Cola-America-The-Beautiful-Ad-Was-Offensive?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

“Executives at Coca Cola thought it was a good idea to run a 60 second Super Bowl ad featuring children singing "America the Beautiful" – a deeply Christian patriotic anthem whose theme is unity – in several foreign languages. The ad also prominently features a gay couple.”

Executives are bad when they make decisions I don’t like. When they pay me to push their point of view though, they’re awesome. America the Beautiful mentions God therefore the entire song is about God, not America. I’ve never actually listened to the words. There were two men in a shot together for a half second therefore they must be gay because I’m a bigot and hate gay people.

Conservatives instantly lit up social media with objections, with many vowing to boycott the soda company's products.

Haters gonna hate. That’s us. We’re the haters. We must object to this message of tolerance and acceptance. There’s no money in that shit.

“If we cannot be proud enough as a country to sing 'American the Beautiful' in English in a commercial during the Super Bowl, by a company as American as they come — doggone we are on the road to perdition," said former GOP Rep. Allen West.

I know a black man, therefore I’m not racist. I wonder if his ancestors loved America enough to learn the language within five years when they got here…

The lyrics of the song, written in 1893 by Wellesley College Professor Katherine Lee Bates, ask God to grant America “brotherhood / From sea to shining sea.”
As far as the executives at Coca Cola are concerned, however, the United States of America is no longer a nation ruled by the Constitution and American traditions in which English is the language of government. It is not a nation governed in the Anglo-American tradition of liberty. It is instead a nation governed by some all inclusive multi-cultural synthesis of the various forms of government in the world, as expressed by the multiple languages used in the Super Bowl ad to sing a uniquely American hymn that celebrates our heritage.

America is for white people. I really only know white people. I get scared when I see people with dark skin. It’s ok if they’re cleaning floors and stuff, but mostly I only want to see white people because people who aren’t like me scare me. Also, something or other about the Constitution. Actually I’ve never read the thing and I don’t have the first clue why the Constitution has anything to do with this, but you’ll think I’m smart if I act like I know what the Constitution says. Actually I’m just an uninformed bigot but you morons will buy anything I say.

“We don't get to pick and chose whether America should be diverse or not,” says one of the women featured in the ad on a behind-the-scenes video posted by Coca Cola, “It is diverse.....We need to celebrate all the different diversities.”

If I close my eyes and cover my ears and shout “LA LA LA” I can actually make myself believe that America is populated entirely by English speaking white people. Diversity is bad. Everybody should be like me.

The old “America the Beautiful” is beautiful because of the blessings God had heaped on it and because its government offers “liberty in law,” while aspiring for togetherness. Coca Cola's America is beautiful because of the differences in its people. When the company used such an iconic song, one often sung in churches on the 4th of July that represents the old “E Pluribus Unum” view of how American society is integrated, to push multiculturalism down our throats, it's no wonder conservatives were outraged.

I don’t actually understand patriotism, just religion. I spew hate and intolerance and call it patriotism. You people believe me. Actually America was built on diversity and acceptance and that’s true patriotism, but what’s really going on here is I’m bitching about the free market at work. I preach the free market all the time but don’t actually understand that either. I’m going to complain when it doesn’t work the way I want it to and try to twist something more enlightened than I am into some kind of threat. We neo-conservatives thrive on fear, so we spend a lot of time trying to make you afraid. We’ve actually figured out how to make money off of it. Thanks, morons!

9/11/2013

It’s become a little bit of a tradition, I suppose, for me to evaluate where we are every September 11th. I thought about this earlier today and realized, I don’t have anything very profound to say this year, the 12th anniversary of the worst attack the United States has suffered in my lifetime. Not that anything I ever say is all that profound.

However…

The day before, President Barack Hussein Obama addressed the nation on the current Syrian crisis. I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about this.

The Syrian crisis is complex (as any international conflict is) and I’ve only taken a cursory look into what’s happening. The only thing the government and the media have really focused on is the fact that the Syrian government appears to have used sarin gas in a suburban area killing something on the order of 1400 Syrian citizens. I don’t know all that much about sarin gas either, but it’s apparently quite nasty. Foaming at the mouth, bleeding from places you should never bleed from, altogether a quite horrible death.

The United Nations has outlawed the use of chemical weapons and for very good reason. Some have made the argument that dead is dead and we don’t get that worked up when thousands are hacked to death with machetes. We should, in fairness, but chemical weapons are especially nasty.

But strangely the U.N. seems reluctant to enforce this law when it comes to Syria. The reasons for this, too, are complex. Syria is a Russian ally, and Russia is boycotting any action to be taken as a result. It seems odd to me that Russia is single handedly powerful enough to prevent the U.N. from enforcing international law, but I don’t pretend to understand all of the complexities here.

Long story short, since this isn’t really a post about Syria, is that John Kerry seems to have accidently stumbled across a possible diplomatic solution, and Russia and Syria so far seem to be on board. I hope that pans out, but I find it slightly amusing that John Kerry, former Vietnam war protester, who in 2013 seems to be all for bombing the fuck out of Syria, accidentally found a possible peaceful solution. Again, this isn’t really about Syria, so I’ll leave it at that.

The reason I bring up Syria, and more importantly president Obama’s speech, is because as I was watching it, I was uncomfortably reminded of President Bush and his administration’s arguments for the invasion of Iraq. We all know how that turned out.

As I said, the Syrian conflict is complex. The Syrian government seems to be tyrannical and despotic, but from what little I’ve learned about the rebels, we really don’t want those assholes to replace this guy. I read a story just yesterday about how one of their leaders shut a boy in the face in front of his mother for supposedly blaspheming Mohammed. By the way, if any Syrian rebel leaders happen to be reading this FUCK MOHAMMED AND FUCK YOU YOU SICK FUCKERS. TAKE YOUR FUCKASS BLASPHEMY SENSITIVITIES AND STICK THEM SO FAR UP YOUR ASS IT COMES BACK OUT YOUR SHITTY EARS.

Sorry. That kind of shit pisses me off.

The point was, I hope history isn’t repeating itself. I hope we’ve learned something from the past 12 years. I feel for the Syrian people, but at some point we have stop going to war.

There’s a shit storm a-brewin…

The atheist/skeptic community is busy tearing itself apart again.

I walked away from the organized atheist/skeptic community a while ago over the Atheism+ thing. The reasons I did so were complex, as usual. It’s not that I disagreed with the ideals of Atheism+. I agree with them 100%. I think perhaps it was poorly named, but that’s another story. I think I may have already blogged about that too. What turned me off was the vitriol which came so easily from both sides of the argument. Those opposed to Atheism+ demonized those who supported it. Those who supported it seemed to become instantly intolerant of any dissenting opinion. I’m not talking about the hate mail that Jenny McCreight received, that was despicable and she has my sympathy for what she’s endured. But I saw exchanges where one person was mocked, ridiculed, called disgusting names, and ultimately banned by a popular Atheist speaker that I normally respect simply for asking a (reasonable) question. Had somebody told me about that incident second hand, I would not have probably believed it, but I read the exchange myself. Like any good skeptic.

Rather than take sides, I walked away.

That entire incident came on the heels of a scandal where another popular atheist blogger was propositioned in an elevator at a conference. A huge shit storm ensued as soon as Richard Dawkins chimed in. I’ve already made my stance on that incident clear in a previous post, but that reason for bringing it up again is thus: The court of public opinion tried, convicted and sentenced Dawkins within a day because he dissented. Do you see a pattern emerging yet? Let me give you one more example.

A few days ago, PZ Meyers posted a bombshell. So far I haven’t posted any links to back up anything I’m saying (I don’t have to, it’s a fucking blog, so chill the fuck out) but I’ll go ahead and look this one up.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/08/08/what-do-you-do-when-someone-pulls-the-pin-and-hands-you-a-grenade/

In case you didn’t bother to read it, PZ was made aware of an accusation of rape against Dr. Michael Shermer of Skeptic magazine.

I’m going to have to choose my words carefully here, because the court of public opinion in the atheist community is fast and vicious.

First, let me say this: Rape is serious. Rape is never not-serious. *Every *Single *Accusation *Of *Rape *Should *Be *Taken *Seriously. Every one. I feel very strongly about that. Something like 1 in 3 women get raped, if I recall correctly. I know several victims personally, and some of their stories are the worst kind of horrific rapes you can possibly imagine. Stories that make you lose hope in humanity.

But….

False accusations do happen. There is a difference between taking an accusation of rape seriously and just believing it blindly. Belief without evidence is called faith. That’s what the religious do. We’re skeptics. We need evidence.

The result of PZ’s little hand grenade is that the atheist community seems to largely have already convicted Dr. Shermer. To be honest, I’ve avoided this so far. Dr. Shermer is one of my favorite writers and speakers. I have an immense amount of respect for Dr. Shermer. On the other hand, I’m fully aware than whenever you set someone on a pedestal and make a hero out of them, they invariably disappoint you because they are, after all, merely humans just like you. 

So let’s get this out of the way first. Did he do it? I don’t know. I truly don’t. To be honest, there’s only two people who do. One of them is Michael Shermer and the other one is anonymous. That’s because we don’t know all the facts here. In the American Judicial System (I can’t believe I’m about to defend that collection of clowns after what I’ve just been through, but…) you are (supposed to be) innocent until proven guilty. This is a good thing.

However…

In the court of public opinion, the atheist community at large, and the most especially the Internet, You’re guilty. Period. One accusation and you’re done.

I just got done reading a post by a guy who managed to piss of Shermer via e-mail and proudly posted all the exchanges while mocking him. A slew of comments talked about what a scumbag Shermer is.

Really?

I think this is wrong. I want desperately for this accusation to be false. But it might not be. But I can’t go condemning Dr. Shermer until it is shown to at least likely be true. I don’t think that has been done yet.

This is what skepticism is all about, folks. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That’s how we work. Let’s all calm down on the judgmentalness until the facts are in. Keep in mind that Dr. Shermer’s reputation has all ready taken a serious hit whether the accusation is true or not.

We’re better than this, people.

What I wanted to say…

What I wanted to say:

You suddenly decided (on no less than Christmas Eve) that you can no longer keep my son’s dog, and that unless I immediately take him you’re going to put him in a (non-no kill) shelter. I not only offered to drive out to your house to get him but did, where you refused to answer the door. I gave you the option of leaving him at my parent’s house, but you ignored all of that and informed me that you were leaving him in a house that neither of us have any legal right to enter anymore due to your refusal to pay the mortgage and the house being repossessed, forcing me into a situation whereupon I must commit criminal trespass in order to prevent my son’s dog from starving to death even though I warned you beforehand not to do that. My only resolution possible was to call the local police and report the situation to them, whereupon they allowed me to retrieve my son’s dog. On Christmas Eve.

Explain to me again how I’m the one being unreasonable here.

What I actually said:

[…]

 

You can’t argue with batshit crazy.

Gun Control

I’ve been very disappointed in Americans and in particular my friends recently. In response to the recent tragedy everybody is spouting the same old tired clichés. 

• “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”
• “Cars kill people too, but we don’t ban cars”
• “This violence is because we took God out of schools”

The stupid, it burns.

Guns kill people. Period. Yes, a human has to pull the trigger and point it, but the gun is what kills them. This argument is bullshit.

Yes, cars kill people too, but there is a significant difference here: cars are a tool designed to transport people from one place to another. They are not designed to kill people, and only do so when used incorrectly. Guns are a tool designed with one purpose and one purpose only in mind: to kill people. That is what they were made to do. The killer in Connecticut killed 26 people using a tool EXACTLY AS IT WAS DESIGNED TO BE USED.

I can give you a valid reason I need a car: to get somewhere. I can give you valid reason I need hammer: to build something. I cannot give you a single valid reason for needing to own an assault rifle. It is not legal, nor do I have any need of murdering large numbers of people. That is what assault rifles are for, killing large numbers of people. It has no other use.

And taking God out of schools is also bullshit. Nobody took God out of schools. Nobody is preventing children from praying to whatever God they believe in, they’ve only removed people’s ability to force children to pray to a particular God. That’s all. If your children were forced to pray to Allah in the morning at school and study the accomplishments of Mohammed, the outcry would be enormous. Yet these people see no hypocrisy in forcing Muslim children to pray to the Christian god.

Furthermore, implying that your god allowed children to be murdered out of spite due to the enforcement of the freedom of religion clause in the constitution should be offensive to all Christians. This is making the claim that your god is an asshole. I’m astounded that no Christians are offended by this implication.

I’m a what???

I find that sometimes people assume that because I unabashedly and vocally support gay marriage and homosexual equality, that I must be gay. I find this incredibly amusing. That is similar to saying that if I support racial equality, I must be black. Or if I support gender equality, I must be a woman. Or if I support animal rights, I must be a dog.

I am a white heterosexual middle class [human] male. I am privileged in every conceivable way with the exception of my lack of religion. I have nothing tangible to gain by supporting equal rights. I do so because it is right. I reasoned myself into this viewpoint, because I can find no logical reason that any human because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or any other method by which we arbitrarily segregate ourselves should be denied any rights that are given to others, including myself.

I support equal rights with no expectation of a reward in an afterlife, but ironically those who do believe in an afterlife tend to be those who do not support equal rights. By accident of birth I receive that which should be given to every human regardless of the genetics of their own birth.

If you do not support equality in any of the forms in which it has had to be fought for, why?

Humans is dumb

To be honest, I don’t blog here for you, I blog here for me. I enjoy getting a little attention just like everyone else, but if I never got another page hit, I’d still keep blogging. It’s like therapy. I put the innermost thoughts and feelings out here for the world to read, knowing that nobody (or at least mostly nobody) I know reads this shit.

That said, every so often I’m a little curious if anybody is reading it, and if so, how they got here. One of the nice things about a blogger account is the fact that they give you those stats for free.

But then, of course, I’m inevitably disappointed, as life is wont to do. How do most people find my blog? One of three ways.

1. That stupid metaphysical post from a couple of years ago. I fucking hate that post. I’m tempted daily to delete the fucker.  That one seems to get the most hits.
2. You may have noticed that many of my pictures from older posts are missing. That is, unfortunately, permanent, and the reasons are complex. Well, not that complex, but I’m not going into it today anyway. Even so, I seem to get a lot of hits on my Religion series of posts, where I made a series of demotivational posters titled “Religion: I’m not afraid of gods, I’m afraid of their followers” and put several images of religious abuse including the twin towers. One of them gets a lot of hits. Which one? the stack of naked men from Guantanamo. Seriously? You sick fuckers.
3. I get a lot of hits for some combination of the words “Lindsey Lohan nude”. Because a while ago I put up a joke post titled that which had basically no content. Yep, I get the guys looking for nude pictures of Lindsey Lohan. You sick fuckers.

I was hoping to get a mild following of people with similar issues, possibly people who want to engage in dialogue. As you can see, I have almost no comments whatsoever. It’s not the kind of thing to drive me off from writing this blog, like I said, I don’t do this for you people, but I was hoping for a little reassurance that the rest of the human race isn’t made up of a bunch of sick fuckers. Still waiting.

You do not have the right to not be offended.

Facebook is always an interesting place, where an eclectic assortment of ideas tent to bubble around the surface. I just saw a picture go by of a woman holding a sign (it’s a popular meme) which read something to the effect of

I’m an American, but I would never make a video that mocks your faith. I am offended by that. Yadda yadda, don’t remember the exact words.

So my initial gut reaction is

Yeah, let them know how kind and understanding and tolerant Americans are.

Then I think

The fuck we are…

Then I think

The fuck! I don’t agree with that sentiment at all.

Call me an asshole. I am. But I haven’t been following the events that have occurred in the middle east recently too closely, but as I understand it, it goes a little something like this. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on any of this.

1. Some yahoo makes a video that mocks Islam.
2. Muslims across the middle east are mortally offended by it.
3. Said “peaceful” Muslims riot in response to their offense at the video.
4. People die.
5. Video maker is now a bad guy, Americans everywhere condemn him

I have a slight problem with this. To illustrate my point, let’s take this same scenario but turn it on it’s side a little bit. Let’s say it went a little like this:

1. Some religious yahoo makes a video mocking Atheists, or makes false claims about them. Say, something like this:
   
2. Atheists across the country are mortally offended by it.
3. Atheist riots occur across the country in response to the offensive video.
4. People die.
5. Who is/are the bad guy(s) now?

Bill O’Reilly would shit himself with pleasure if that happened. His “War on Christianity” would hit non-stop status.

The point is this: You do NOT have the right to not be offended.

I don’t care who you are or where you live or what bronze age myths you believe or choose not to believe. You do not have the right to kill because you’re offended by something. A few years ago I condemned a nutjob pastor from Florida for threatening to burn a stack of Korans which set off a set of riots in the middle east which put American lives at risk. I was wrong. I take that back. While I still think he’s a dipshit and should not have done it, the blame for this was put squarely on the wrong shoulders. It should have gone on the shoulders of the people actually doing the killing, not the fuckwad who pissed them off enough to do it.

I don’t know what the content of this video is, and I don’t care. It could show Muhammed being prison raped for all I care, that’s not the point. The point is that no video gives anybody the right to kill. And only religion seems to get a pass on this. Only religion could inspire someone to be offended enough to kill. Only the assault of someone’s precious religious beliefs make us sympathize with murderers. I don’t give a fuck what was in that video, those people who killed others are murderers, period.

Sure, Let Me Debase Myself And Lie Down In This Puddle So You Can Walk Over Me My Dear.

This is going to be another post about my relationship issues. If you don’t like those kind of posts, feel free to go somewhere else. You know what, fuck you. This is my fucking blog, and I’ll blog whatever the fuck I want.

So basically I had a really shitty day today. I found out that not only had the short sale on my house fallen through, but that today was auction day. In other words, I found out exactly too late to do anything about it. Even if I could have done anything about it. So I am no longer a home owner. In fairness, I hadn’t lived there in two years anyway. The worst part about it is the major hit my credit rating is going to take. Foreclosures stay on for ten years, not seven. My ex wife fucked me pretty good on this one. She did it intentionally, I’m sure, but the best part of the whole thing is where she says it’s my fault. No, I’m not kidding. She refused to find any kind of work whatsoever, or to support herself or her children in any way whatsoever, stopped paying the mortgage, and made sure the house went to foreclosure. And it’s my fault. You seriously can’t make this shit up.

Add to that the fact that she wants to move out of district so that she can move somewhere she can afford to. The unbelievable injustice of the fact that a father who wanted his children and was perfectly capable of supporting them and could have easily kept them in the good school district in which they live lost them to a mother who refuses to support herself or her children in any way shape or form and cannot afford to keep them in the school district, but wants to move them to a poorer school district. Somehow she has been determined to be the better parent. Again, you can’t make this shit up. If somebody put this in a book it would be deemed implausible. But yet, it happened.

And just for good measure, I found out my copay for my therapist is so high that I can’t afford it. So not only am I dealing with a ridiculous divorce, an insane financial situation as a result, and a difficult breakup with my ex girlfriend, but I can’t even afford therapy anymore. At times like this I start to wonder if there is a god, because if there is, she hates me. It seems implausible that all of this could happen to one, basically good person. Yet, it did.

So moving on, my ex girlfriend and I are occasionally talking again. Yesterday she had some crap happen, so being the good friend that I am, I stopped what I was doing and made time to listen. Because that’s what I do. It actually wasn’t all that convenient for me to do so, but I did anyway. And not just because some part of me still hopes that I can salvage a relationship out of this. I would do this for pretty much any friend.

Then today all of this happens, and I need someone to talk to. Guess how many people were available for me? Yep. Nobody. Not even my therapist, because… well… fuck you republicans and your fucked up privatized health care. This system only works for the wealthy. Fuck you. And if you’re not wealthy and support these fuckers, fuck you too. You’re fucking me as well as yourself, and that makes you a fucking moron. Fuck you.

So I’m thinking tonight, because, well, the only person I have to talk to is myself. So if you say I’m crazy for talking to myself, fuck you. You weren’t here for me either, fuck wad. And I realize something: that was my whole relationship with her. She would get frequent headaches, I would rush over there and give her a long backrub. Number of backrubs received: 0. Even my ex wife had a better record than that. Every time she had something going on, I would patiently sit there and listen to her. When I felt the need to unload about  something, I got some variation of “shit or get off the pot”. If I got irritated about that, her feelings got hurt.

And then I think “Exactly what about this relationship am I missing?” It was a little one sided. Actually it was a lot one sided. Yet, I still miss her and would probably go back if I could. Fucking why? What about this woman am I missing? Why am I so drawn to her? These are questions I can’t answer. My only guess is that there was more to it than that for me. She was at least an intellectual equal, and probably an intellectual superior. She had her own career and life. She was independent and strong. She made a difference in peoples lives. She was good at what she does. And something about her is magic. Her voice, her mannerisms, everything. I can’t explain it. Basically it’s not a good relationship for me. I know this intellectually. My heart will catch up eventually, I just have to be strong for now. That’s the real trick though. I’m not strong.

Anyway, just random thoughts. I had nobody to share this with, so of course it goes out to the world  on my blog. I suppose it’s all part of learning to be alone. Being alone sucks ass, by the way.

Atheism+: What the F*** is it???

During one of my frequent twitter rants that I’ve come to be known for, I ran across a tag that kept coming up in the tweets of others that I follow: AtheismPlus. I was intrigued. I started asking around, doing searches, and eventually ran across a blog post by Richard Carrier with seems to have started the whole movement. I believe it was this one: http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/2207/. Feel free to read it for yourself. It’s ok, I’ll wait.

Did you read it? It’s ok, I’ll wait, I don’t mind, you should go read it first. It’s not the last blog post link I’m going to send you to. Go ahead.

Ok, I’ll take your word for it. So my take on it was: Hm, sounds like they’re taking Humanism and rebranding it as AtheismPlus. But there’s more to it than that. The whole idea seems to be about taking these people and saying we don’t want these other people so we’re going to have a new movement that’s just the people who believe what we like.

Don’t get me wrong, the beliefs they espouse are good ones, and I could easily join the AtheismPlus movement without cognitive dissonance. Richard Carrier is also a writer and speaker that I greatly respect. I saw him at Skepticon IV last year, and really liked his talks. But what bothered me is this: this is exactly what happened to religion. I don’t mean Hindus vs. Muslims vs. Christians vs. Mormons, but Lutherans vs. Baptists vs. Methodists vs. [about 600 other denominations here]. I don’t think this is going to work out the way they want it to. If the atheist movement goes down this path of splintering into smaller and smaller groups, the atheist movement as we know it will falter and die. We are more effective now than we have ever been because we are united, and the religious can no longer ignore us. If we become a bunch of small denominations of atheism, they can ignore us again.

Not to mention the fact that when you add a belief system to atheism, you take one of the more ridiculous arguments of the theists, that atheism is just another religion, and make it suddenly true. I kinda have a problem with that. Humanism starts out with the precept that it’s a belief system, and atheism is one of the ideas that it is based on, but it doesn’t try to rebrand atheism. It’s something else entirely. I consider myself to be a humanist, even though I’m not very involved with them.

So, basically I said all this shit, and a shitstorm came back at me. One side coopted me as an ally, another side told me I just didn’t get it. I managed to avoid some of the hatefulness that seems to be going around out there, but it still freaked me the fuck out.

Many well known personas whom I normally respect in the atheism movement seem to be into this and promoting it. A handful of others seem to be opposing it. Apparently I’m supposed to hate Thunderf00t now. Fuck that.

A brilliant, well thought out blog post by someone I consider a twitter friend is here on the subject: http://evolutionchild.com/2012/08/25/a-take-me-to-your-leader/

You didn’t read that, go back and read it now. It’s one of the best posts on the topic I’ve seen yet, and largely sums up how I feel as well. I’ll wait.

I was a little freaked out by all of this, and I don’t like where it’s going, but it seems to be happening all the same. So here’s my final say on the matter. Please don’t come to me with any more AtheismPlus crap after this.

I quit.

I want out of the atheism movement all together. I am not going to pick “sides”. I am not going to pick a denomination of atheism. That’s bullshit. I was on my own before I found the atheism movement, and I can be on my own again. Atheism was already rather disorganized before this and now I apparently have to pick a new denomination. Fuck no. I’m the Cowboy. That’s what I am, and that’s all I need to be. I’m an atheist, I’m a liberal (well, not exactly but just roll with me here a minute), I’m a musician, I’m a lover, I’m a writer, I’m a geek. I’ll watch you guys from a distance and see where things go before I decide if I want back in.

You’re a closed minded bigoted Atheist!

A friend recently blogged about a t-shirt she had seen that read “Fuck God”. An interesting discussion ensued in the comments and me being the opinionated asshole I am couldn’t resist but to jump in. The original post is here: http://yesweexist.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/fuck-god/ It’s worth your time to go read the whole thing.

Another friend once told me that sometimes my comments are better than my blog posts. I read the comment again I kindof agreed with her, so instead of the post I had planned next, I’m just simply posting the comment I put over there more or less verbatim (with an occasional spelling correction).

----------------------

First of all, you do not have the right to not be offended. While I would never wear a Fuck God shirt, my only objection to wearing it in public is the word “Fuck”, which would be awkward to explain to my kids. As far a Christian’s right to not see that, you don’t have that right. I drive by at least five churches no matter where I go, and I don’t get to object to that. I don’t get to object to the Christian dogma displayed at the Seventh Day Adventist based hospital where my mom went for surgery, because that’s where her insurance is good at. I just have to deal with it. If a Christian has to do the same, I’m not going to get upset about that.

I have found no Christians coming to my defense. Indeed, I find myself needing defense against Christians. No Christians objected when George H. W. Bush said Atheists were neither citizens nor patriots. This is the former president of the United States saying this, not a crazy pastor from Florida. An elected leader of the country of which I’m a citizen thinks I have no worth to this country because I don’t subscribe to your dogma.

Do Christians come to my defense when I’m fighting against the teaching of Intelligent Design in the public school system? No, they’re the ones I’m fighting. They see no problem with teaching Christian dogma in the public schools in direct opposition to proven science.

Did Christians come to my defense when I lost everything to my ex-wife joining cults? No, they’re running the cults.

Did Christians come to my defense when I was fired for not hiding my atheism in the workplace? No, they’re the ones who fired me.

Did Christians come to the defense of the Atheist who lost custody of his/her children for being an Atheist?

Did Christians stand up against the blatant violation of church and state that occurred by placing “In God We Trust” on our money in 1956? Or “Under God” in the pledge of allegiance in 1954?

Could you even imagine an open Atheist being elected President? Or to any public office? Did you know religious tests for public office are explicitly forbidden by the constitution, but we have to pass them anyway, don’t we? One of the crazy claims leveled against Obama is that he’s a Muslim or even worse (gasp!) an Atheist. How is that not a religious test? You have to be Christian to get elected. Period.

If you want to know what upsets Atheists, this would be a great place to start.

If you want to call it closed minded and prejudice, that’s your right. I call it real world experience. Christians are in politics fighting climate science, fighting evolution, fighting health care reform, fighting NPR, fighting Planned Parenthood, and running our country into the ground with debt from needless wars. I’m perfectly willing to accept other information, and I’m quite aware that these behaviors and actions do not represent all Christians, but it’s the vast majority. And I don’t see the moderate or liberal Christians fighting back, I see the Atheists fighting back, and for that we’re labeled “Angry” and “Militant” or “Combative” because we’re standing up against this bullshit. Fuck God? If he’s out there and lets these things happen, Yes.

If you want to present evidence for Christians who do not behave like this, I’m open to it, but your definition of “Closed Minded” is a little off. You seem to be saying “I should agree with you or I’m closed minded” and that’s bullshit. Religious groups CAN be painted with the same brush to a certain degree. Ethnic groups cannot, because the color of your skin does not determine your behavior. Your gender does not determine your behavior. BUT YOUR RELIGION DOES. You have a holy book that tells you what to do and how to behave. Sure, people interpret it differently BUT IT’S THE SAME BOOK.

Atheists, on the other hand, only have one thing in common, we reject superstition. That’s it. We can’t be painted with the “Evolution is a religion” brush or whatever other brush they like to paint us with, because Atheism is not about a set of beliefs, it’s about a lack of certain beliefs. Past that, it’s fair game. Atheists are liberal, conservative, libertarian, and every other variety of political orientation that you can think of. We’re scientists, artists, writers, every day working Joes, whatever. Not all of us study evolution. Some of us just don’t care.

But we get painted with the Atheist brush all the time, and if you run across a blog entry by an Atheist who’s pissed off about that, are you really surprised? You just did it yourself. She said “we get treated differently” and you said “you’re closed minded and prejudiced”. I would say if you only find angry atheists but no bigoted Christians, you’re either A) doing it wrong or B) falling victim to confirmation bias. In which case it would be YOU who is closed minded.

Let me leave you with another video about what being closed minded really means.

Gelatogate

I got back from Skepticon IV late last night and it was a blast. I loved every talk I was able to attend. Sprint sucks ass, by the way.

But something happened while I was there, and I’m going to address this first. You may have heard of what became known as “Gelatogate”. Saturday evening, a gelato store just down the street from the theatre where Skepticon was being held put this sign up in the window.

I heard about this Sunday morning via the twitterverse. As soon as lunch hit I ran down to the store to see the sign for myself, but it was gone and Gelato Mio was closed (they’re not open on Sundays, fancy that).

We were pissed. I’m not sure how many attendees knew about this, but those of us who did were pissed. Some nastiness was said over twitter, and I was right in the middle of it. We ate lunch across the street at a place called Trolley’s who normally doesn’t open until 3pm on Sunday, but had opened early just for us and gave us an express menu so we could eat quickly and get back for the next talk. Restaurants being overwhelmed by us and lunch/dinner taking too long had become a bit of a problem, so this was appreciated, especially in light of the stupidity from across the street.

Let me be clear, this crap is not universal. We were, of course, in Springfield Missouri, capital of Jesusland, but most everyone was quite nice to us. I told our waiter at Trolley’s about the sign from the previous evening, and his response was “Jackasses!”. Yeah, he got a good tip.

Later that day, the owner apologized for the sign on the official website.

When I looked at this on Sunday, the second and third paragraphs were not there, they were added later. Here was my response

At some point during the day, the blog posts began showing up. First was JT Eberhard, one of the original founders of Skepticon.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/wwjtd/2011/11/20/boy-he-sure-showed-skepticon/

Later came this one from @emilyhasbooks

http://pixelstampede.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/gelatogate/

Earlier today, The Friendly Atheist added his analysis of the same.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/11/21/lessons-learned-from-the-gelato-mio-sign/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

These are all good treatments, but something is missing. As a roughly middle aged white guy I don’t usually get discriminated against much. As a rule I oppose bigotry and discrimination in whatever forms I encounter it in, but aside from occasionally being treated less preferentially than thinner more attractive people, I don’t usually get to see the ugliness from the receiving end. It’s an eye opening experience.

One of the first things I noticed about Skepticon was that it almost seemed hidden. The Gilloz Theatre where it was held had no mention of a large 1100 person conference being held there on it’s website. When we arrived there, the sign above the theatre was advertising a John Wayne movie that would be shown there a couple of weeks from now. The first Skepticon sign I saw was inside the theatre.

On Saturday over lunch I was hard up for some foo foo coffee, and went in search of a Starbucks like coffee house. I found one not too far away. The friendly (and kinda hot) barista, who had to have noticed the “atheist” pin I was wearing, asked me if there was some kind of conference going on, because she had noticed a lot of people with nametags on. I told her about Skepticon, which was being held a mere block and a half away from her store. She was still friendly and smiled, but I was surprised that she didn’t know about a huge conference practically next door.

Lastly, on Sunday evening before we drove home, we ate dinner at a local restaurant. Some ugly glances came our way and somebody was overheard saying “yeah, they’re atheists”. 

Seriously?

All of these things combined to show me the ugly side of bigotry first hand. We were bothering no one, we were boosting the local economy, and yet we were hidden as much as possible, told not to come to a local store, and by (admittedly a minority) made to feel unwelcome.

It makes me feel ugly. Dirty. Violated. It makes me want to scream.

I argue with Christians, but only when they want to. I oppose religion in schools, but they Christians are the ones trying to bring it in. I respond to their internet hate, but it’s in response. I don’t go to their churches and protest. I don’t carry signs that read “God Hates Westboro” (even though that would be kinda funny). I want to live in a rational world. I don’t begrudge the religious their right to be religious, and I would certainly never ban them all from a restaurant.

This is bigotry, plain and simple. This is little different than how people with dark skin have been treated for years. Or Jews, or women, or any number of groups who have been discriminated against.

This is kind of new to me. There’s no real response for it except to make it known, which the community has. Gelato Mio’s ratings have taken a serious hit since Saturday. They also ought to know that we will be back, and most likely nobody will patronize their store next time, most certainly not me. The record profits shared by other local businesses will not be theirs. This is sad since they were apparently a sponsor of Skepticon initially. Perhaps they didn’t know that nearly all skeptics are also atheists.

But most importantly, it shows how far we still have to go.

Stupid Round Up #1

Someone said I haven’t been posting. She’s right, but I’ll be honest, I don’t have much to say. The stupid coming from the religious right is really the same stupid it’s always been. They don’t really come up with new stuff much. On the crazy psycho ex wife bitch front, more of the same crazy there.

The problem is that while there’s still an assload of crazy out there, it’s the same old shit. There’s just more of it lately.

So just for fun I went perusing YouTube and found a handful of videos that were so stupid I laughed. Some of them might be parodies, but Poe’s Law makes it hard to tell. Here they are.

The answer couldn’t possibly be “3000 year old goat herders with no concept of modern science.”

This is why Logic and Critical Thinking should be required classes in public education. I would bet money that the religious right would fight it if someone tried.

I really hope that one is a spoof.

Actually this one was more painful that funny. The stupid actually truly does burn. Help me…. I want to rebut this one so badly, but I have to remind myself of the futility of such action.

Ok, the only political entry. The spin is high but the insanity is low. The main thing that caught my eye was… well, two things. Damn. I mean DAMN! Does the fact that I’m not really sure what she was saying make me a sexist? It’s weird how she actually kinda makes me want to vote Perry.  Almost.

Ok, it’s Family Guy, but it’s funny anyway and fits the theme.

Feature = Related

A production with a little money to it. Yet the stupid is thicker than ever. OW OW OW OW OW BURNING OW OW MAKE IT STOP!!!

Ah, the classic Ray Comfort banana argument. If, by chance, this one is new to you, I’ll clue you into the answer. Bananas don’t occur naturally.

Ok, this one isn’t stupid, it’s smart. It’s well produced. It’s by one of my favorite speakers, The Thinking Atheist. Let’s say I put it here for balance, if you can call it that.

Well, that’s enough for me, I’m driving.

Dear ex,

Suck it, bitch!

Because I Can

Fuckin bitch fuckin goddamn how the fuckin fuck fuck what? Seriously, what? FUCK! I mean, what the fuck? Seriously. Did I really fuckin FUCK! I really did not fuckin realize how fucking sick fucking humans could fucking be. I mean, FUCK! I fucking married that? FUCK! What the fuck was I fucking thinking? I’m fucking sick! That’s fucking sick. Fuckin’ seriously. I mean, who the fuck fuckin’ stays married to a fucking fuck like that for fucking HOW many fuckin’ years? Fuck. Fuck Fuck Fuck.

It’s like a parasite that you can’t remove. That’s it’s name now. The fuckin’ parasite. What a waste of oxygen.

Aw fuck.

End rant.

And… we’ve reached a new level of crazy.

Michele Bachman has gone Anti-vax.

Yep, she went there.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/professors-offer-more-10-000-proof-bachmann-story-132647843.html

Seriously, if she wanted to adopt a left wing cause, why not one like health care reform or ending war? Why the nutty one? Because she needs to adopt as many causes that represent stupidity and death?

Excepting Jon Huntsman, all the Republican candidates seem to be anti-evolution and anti-climate science. Now Michele “Pray the Gay Away” Bachmann has upped the ante and gone anti-vaccination. This woman has a very real possibility of being the next president of the United States. Anybody with half a mind or more should be quaking in their boots. If elected, she could push this agenda through with help of the crazy Tea Party douchebags being elected by nutjobs like the ones who shouted during Ron Paul’s debate.

Kill the poor! Kill the poor! Kill the poor!

Honestly, John McCain is starting to look pretty fucking good right now. I’d take Nixon back over these people.

A president like these people could turn the United States into a laughing stock (more than it already is), but not a very funny one. These are people that if given their way would turn the United States into a backwards Theocracy (like Iran), but it would be a backwards Theocracy with the world’s most powerful military and largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. 

Think about that. This is not a game. Putting these people in to positions of authority (like they already are) has real consequences and affects real lives. Are we so in love with the dark ages that we want to recreate them?

Once again our choices seem to be between scary shit like this and Barack “Give the Republicans What They Want And Call It Compromise” Obama. The world may not end in 2012, but I’ve got a bad feeling about 2013.

Screwy Logic

I just ran across this article from beliefnet on the “insanity” of Mayor Bloomberg and his decision to not have a prayer at the 9/11 memorial service.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/news/2011/09/no-thanks-to-god-or-first-responders-at-mayors-secular-911-ceremonies.php

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants Sunday’s 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks to focus on the victims and their families — not on God or the heroes who rushed into the burning towers to save as many as they could.

Let’s forget that there are more than just Christians in the United States. Let’s forget that the first amendment of the constitution establishes a separation of church and state making it inappropriate for an elected official to engage in a religious activity as part of his duties as an elected official. Let’s forget Congress’s blatant refusal to help the “heroes who rushed into the burning towers” when they needed our help, not our thanks.

The statement here is we should be thankful to God. For what? For helping the heroes of 9/11 save over 20,000 lives? So I should be so condescending and arrogant as to say that they could not have done that themselves, that they required intervention from a supernatural deity to accomplish what they did? No. I will not do that. They were heroes, they put their own lives at risk. They ran into the buildings everyone else was running out of. And many of them were still there when the buildings collapsed. Many did not come back. I will not dishonor them that way.

So what else should we thank God for in regards to 9/11? The 3,000 victims? Surely not. The author, despite his irrational convictions about the supernatural, could not possibly be that insane.

Perhaps what he is trying to say is that God was present and helping out on 9/11. Nobody saw him, of course, but why not. 

So,  why  didn’t  God  stop  the  planes?

Perhaps the almighty supernatural creator of everything helped save lives that day. Why did he allow 3,000 others to die? Why did he not prevent the disaster in the first place? Surely that would have been trivial for him. The firefighters and rescue personnel on the ground could not have stopped the planes from hitting the building so they did everything else they could to save as many lives as they could. But God could have stopped the planes, couldn’t he?

So what answers might a theist give in response to this?

1) God works in mysterious ways/We cannot know God’s purpose/etc.

I hate this one. It’s probably the most common response of all, too. It’s a cop out. It’s a way of saying (and rationalizing) “Something bad happened and God did not stop it, so he must have had some greater purpose in mind that I just don’t understand.” Replace “God” with “Zeus” and the sentence means just as much. Muslims worship the same God, the God of Abraham, and on that day certain Muslims were rejoicing because God had struck a blow against the evil west.

2) God allowed it to happen to bring people back to God. There was a resurgence of religion in the intervening years.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Replace God with a man’s name and see if the sentence still sounds great. “George allowed 3,000 people to die in flames and horrible crushing death so that people all over the world would worship him and proclaim his glory.”  George sounds like a sick bastard to me. A god that allows thousands of people to die a horrible death so that I might love him? Pass.

3) God works subtly. He could not work overtly because we must have faith.

The “God can’t tip his hand” argument. If he stopped the planes in midair and placed them gently on the ground, we would have definitive proof that he exists, and we are required to love God without proof. This one never made sense to me. If it has to be my decision to “love God” of my own free will, what does that have to do with being given proof that he exists? I have no more proof that Yahweh exists than I do of Zeus. Who do I pick? Do I convert to all religions just to be safe? They all have equal validity.

This is the kind of warped logic we use to attack each other politically these days. We are in grave danger of becoming a Theocracy. Every day we behave more and more like the Christians of the 14th century, or like the Muslims of today. 9/11 was not about God except to the Muslim terrorists. Whether you believe in a God or not, he wasn’t there that day.