Religious Bullshit

When Atheists Attack, Religious Nuts Whimper

Take the time to absorb Sam Harris' brilliant article in the new issue of Newsweek, wherein he dissects the dreadful implications of Palin's political viability.  Marvel at his lucid arguments and lapidary prose.  Then ask yourself: why did Newsweek title the article, "When Atheists Attack--a noted provocateur rips Sarah Palin—and defends elitism."

Because even when an atheist's argument is rational, impersonal and empirically inarguable, it's cruel.  Vicious.  Predatory.  An animalistic attack on innocent creatures. 

The poor zealots.  Always trying to be good little sheep--just like God's Lamb himself--and they end up getting sacrificed every time.  Sniff. 

That brutish, soulless monster Harris just couldn't stop himself from sinking those razor-sharp teeth into the soft, ignorant flesh of God's unthinking flock. 

The next time a powerful coalition of religious fucking nut jobs attacks the Constitution, I'll try to remind myself of how cruel we've been to these innocent and well-meaning creatures.

Bill Maher 9-19-2008: Yes, We Can Fault You. Yes, We Can Insult You.

Fantastic Bill Maher last night.  The first several minutes of this clip deal with the Palin debacle, but the last three or four dive into religion.  Bill eventually gives up with the "magical thinking" of Andrew Sullivan and Will.i.am.  Sullivan fulminates about Bill's "bigotry," (one might ask how Sullivan defines that term, but assuming it's intolerance for people of faith, well, yeah....) and argues the virtues of being rational a lot of the time, but just not when it comes to the "different category" of religion.  He says we can't insult people for that.  (Um, can too!)  Then comes Will.i.am with New Orleans/Katrina as an example for why you can't fault people for--yes, I'm saying it--clinging to religion when, after all, their government has let them down. 

This irrationality is simply too deeply wired into some people.  See for yourself.

A love so deep, you just want to kill

A few days ago, the non-blinking, non-thinking Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin sent her son off to Iraq to kill people who had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.  "You'll be there to defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the deaths of thousands of Americans," she lied.  What's more, this insufferable zealot (I hereby dub her: W--with a clit) predictably invoked God, calling this mindless crusade a "righteous cause." This is what we must expect from adherents to a religion that perfected the notion of murder in the name of love.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16.  Arguably the single most-quoted verse to explain the "majesty" of Christianity.  In fact no other verse could quite so neatly sum up why, even if the Christian God existed--which of course no rational person can conclude--he is one sadistic, Jew-hating mother-fucker.

My wife and I were discussing my lack of faith the other day.  She's witnessed my steady progression, just in the short time I've been writing this blog, from an agnostic more "anti-religion" than "anti-spiritual," to an atheist.  (For fans of Dawkins and his belief scale, from a 5 to a strong 6.  Probably destined to land firmly in 7.  Any day now.)

As we talked, I had a bit of a flashback to my adolescence.  A time when I still regularly attended church with my family, never yet questioning the existence of God or the veracity of Christianity.  But nonetheless, the first doubt I ever had remains perhaps the single most important reason to doubt--and in any case, reject--Christianity. 

Just why, exactly, did Jesus have to die? 

That some poor Jew in Israel 2,000 years ago needed to die in order to save the "souls" of all humans past, present and future who "believe" in him, is at best incompatible with the notion of an all-loving, all-powerful God.  At worst, it's sadistic and depraved and stands as the single most insidious idea ever perpetrated on humanity.  (Nutjobs, please, comment away if you must.  I've read it all.  I've heard it all.  And don't tell me, Oh, it but wasn't God's plan, it was our sin.  Just stop.)

I have spent a lot of time agreeing vociferously with Dawkins and Hitchens that faith itself is a rottenness at the core of all religions.  To teach our children to believe in fantastical things that cannot be proved, to turn off their brains--and to honor and respect this quality--is malignant. 

But Christianity's core contains something far more immoral than the lie of faith.  Christianity is alone atop the heap of the world's many fraudulent religions, not just for conflating love and murder, but for making it the very foundation upon which all of its lies are built. 

So why rail against Sarah, after all?  Her boy Track is just the latest foot soldier sent off to kill innocents in the name of God.  After all, if it's good enough for Him, certainly we can do it.  If you love enough (your country, for example), you kill.  In His name.

ARTL: God Calls You Again!

American Right to Life Action members: billions more unborn need you!  Your courageous and divinely-inspired fight to protect all human life (including the precious, eternal souls of the uni-cellular zygotes!) must now be expanded.  From the Zebrafish to the Skink to the common Bullfrog--we must protect all of the unborn.  For the Lord God has revealed to me that even the least among these could develop into His children.

How great is His wisdom, how profound His sense of irony, that it would be none other than the great satanist Charles Darwin who noted the striking--nay, the miraculous--similarity between the embryos of various complex creatures?  That embryos only begin to take on the characteristics of their species later in development?

God's word came to me this morning as I picked up a dozen deliciously sinful Caramel Pecanbons for my Sunday school class.  The yummy nuts were curved  (almost cashew-like!), plump in the middle, some tapering to vulnerable little "tails" at their ends.  God's children, I gasped! Praise God!

As the cascading tears began to moisten the artery-hardening glaze of my luscious, high-fructose corn syrup-laden breakfast cakes, the deeper message hit me: these tiny and vulnerable candied pecans could be any of God's embryos!  Our heavenly Father gives them all human souls, deciding only later whether they will ultimately become God's children (or, whether he is going to rip their souls from their growing bodies and make them His Fish, etc.)

Let no one doubt His greatness or His grace!  For if God can create the heavens and earth in seven days...if  a virgin woman can bear God's only Son...if He can reveal himself in pecans and grilled cheese sandwiches, and help all of those football players score all of those touchdowns on Sundays....Then let no one doubt that we must protect God's children--pecan, gecko and human alike!

ARTL Action members--you of the righteous cause (and awe-inspiring, modern logo! View this photo)--join me! 

Praise God!!

God's Plan for Sarah Palin: Shake Your MoneyMaker, Bitch

Today's New York Times sheds more light on the religious fundamentalism of Sarah Palin.  The article--In Palin's Life and Politics, Goal to Follow God's Will--we are confronted with another candidate for high office who believes in the literal word of a book of ancient myths.  (Myths that revere a fictional god with a penchant for murder, rape, genocide, infanticide and human sacrifice.)

More frightening still is the Times passing reference to Palin's former pastor and his advice for Palin when she comes asking for biblical examples of great leaders.  He refers her to the Book of Esther, which the NYT characterizes as "the story of Esther, a beauty queen who became a real one, gaining the king’s ear to avert the slaughter of the Jews and vanquish their enemies. When Esther is called to serve, God grants her a strength she never knew she had." 

The "liberal media" is giving the conservative Bible thumpers a big break with that interpretation.  I just read the entire Book of Esther, and I'll agree on one point: she discovers her strength, all right.  It's called the pubococcygeus muscle.  (Who knew Kegel exercises go back millennia?)

Allow me to elaborate.  Here's my more learned and accurate accounting of the Book of Esther:

The story opens in the court of a Persian king named Ahasuerus (we'll call him King Ass, for short).  King Ass is rich, powerful and used to getting his way.  He throws a big party where the wine is flowing free.  After several days of binge drinking with his homeys, he orders his main bitch to come in and show off her fine ass to his subjects.  The Queen, however, was apparently a little ahead of her time.  She refuses to submit to King Ass's drunken, sexist commands (don't Palin and her supporters hate sexism, by the way?).  King Ass strips her of her title (and in some accounts, kills the uppity bitch) and issues a decree: Chicks everywhere, obey your husbands or there will be hell to pay. 

This is when the story gets really good.  He then rounds up a bunch of virgins from across the land.  Esther is one of them, and when the King sees her, he pretty much pops a royal woodie.  He makes her Queen and forces his smelly persian prick on her at his whim.  Esther, she figures shit, it's a living.  This goes on for a while, until the King's sycophantic Prime Minister Haman (let's call him Hymen, for fun) gets all worked up that Esther's Uncle Mordecai (aka, Mordy) won't bow down to him.  Hymen gets King Ass to issue an order that all Jews are to be killed in an official "killing spree" to be held really soon.

Esther to the rescue!  Esther calls a special few dinners with the King Ass and Hymen.  Though it's not explicitly spelled out, you can pretty easily infer that she gives his Highness a few Special, Royal Fuckings.  (Probably some reverse cowboy stuff with some teasingly torturous blowjobs, delayed ejaculation/edging, followed by some explosive cumming.  Just some educated guessing on my part.) 

As you might imagine, after King Ass wakes up from what must have been a hell of a great night's sleep, he's seeing the world pretty differently.  He hangs Hymen, reverses his decree, and it's the Jews who get to go on a killing spree, annihilating their enemies in a biblically-typical orgy of violence and depravity.

As the old saw goes, she who has the pussy holds the power. 

Yes, this is the story that might very well be the single most important piece of inspiration and guidance for the next Vice President of the United States.  It's worth noting that her pastor thinks Sarah "had lived out the advice as governor, and would now do so again as the Republic Party's vice-presidential nominee."  (emphasis added). 

Wow.  One can only conclude that should--God forbid--John McCain die in office, he's likely to die with a smile on his face that a crow bar won't be ably to pry off.