It doesn’t happen often. It’s a very rare event. But yes, there is a new article on The Hittman Chronicle. It’s titled “Insulting Islam,” and has the audacity to suggest that when it comes to Islamic demands on Western Society we need less tolerance, not more.
It’s also available as a podcast.
This post is to provide a place for public comments. E-Mails are also welcome, of course.
Aw, the pope is deeply ashamed that his church spent decades shuffling pedophile priests to new congregations in search of fresh meet. Gee, that makes it all better.
Where 
was the Vatican’s outrage when this story first broke a decade or so ago? The Church could have taken the high road and immediately started cooperating with the cops, turning in not only their perverted priests but the cardinals who participated in the pedo-shuffle. They could have used it as an opportunity to portray themselves as a moral authority. Instead, they showed their true colors, and displayed to the world they are a dishonest, corrupt, hypocritical and useless organization. First they tried ignoring the story. Then they tried covering it up. Then they promoted some of the guilty cardinals.
And now, years and years later, the current pope thinks crocodile tears will make it all better. He said “We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry.” Ooo, good plan. I wonder how long they worked on it.
Well, at least they put out a coloring book warning kids about their clergy.
Imagine that the parents of an 11 year old child refused to give her medical treatment because they believed the ancient god Moloch would save her. They prayed to Moloch for a month, convinced that he would cure her ills, while the child got sicker and sicker. But alas, the child died of juvenile diabetes. Now imagine that the couple has three other children, and the authorities said it’s just fine and dandy for the kids to stay with their parents. “They are still in the home,” the police chief said. “There is no reason to remove them. There is no abuse or signs of abuse that we can see.”
Stop imagining. It happened, except they prayed to a different god. And since their abuse was religious, they get to keep their other three kids, because, what the hell, their belief was sincere.
What the hell is wrong with the police chief? No signs of abuse? How about one dead kid? Isn’t that abusive enough?
Fortunately, this is fairly uncommon, but it happens several times a year in the US, and almost every time the authorities not only let the parents get away with it, but allow them to keep any of their other kids who have been lucky enough to stay healthy.
While researching this story I came across this blog post, which lead to this link showing Jehovah’s Witnesses celebrating the death of their children.
JW’s use most medical care, but refuse blood transfusions. And now they’ve got the gall to present us with the happy, smiling faces of the children they’ve killed. How about showing their lifeless corpses laid out in coffins, you sick bastards?
I am not a big fan of Child Protective Services, whose goal seems to be breaking up healthy families and keeping violent dysfunctional ones together. In these situations they could actually do some good for a change. Once a parent demonstrates that they are too stupid to provide medical care for a child, their other kids need to be rescued from them immediately. The cause of the stupidity doesn’t matter.
And then, of course, the parents need to spend some time in prison. It doesn’t matter how sincere they were. It doesn’t matter which god they believed in. They killed their kid. They deserve severe punishment.
Although I disagree with a lot of his positions and ideas, I’ve always liked Ben Stein. His nasal “Bueller, Bueller, Bueller” is now part of our language. He continued the persona as a science teacher in “The Wonder Years,” where he’d drone on about horrible events with no trace of emotion. And “Win Ben Stein’s Money” was great fun.
A few months ago I stumbled on this, and shook my head. Ben’s movie “Expelled” is a documentary that claims teachers, professors, and “scientists” who subscribe to “Intelligent Design” proponents are not with the respect they deserve.
Now that the film is getting close to release a lot of unsavory details are becoming public. Ben misrepresented the theme and intent of the movie to get several prominent biologists to participate.
(Note: I haven’t seen the film yet, so this is all third hand.) The movie documents discrimination against people who pretend to be scientists yet subscribe to creationism/ID. They aren’t promoted, published, or treated wonderfully by the colleagues.
That’s hardly surprising. It is, in fact, a good thing.
Imagine a physics professor claimed that there was no such thing as friction, and so perpetual motion machines were not only possible, but could solve all our energy problems. How about a history teacher that included the evil galactic ruler Xenu in his curriculum? How often would they get promoted? How much respect would they get from their peers?
Approximately none, and that’s exactly how much they deserve. The same goes for anyone insisting on creationism/ID.
Ben is trying to make this a free speech issue and is insistent that real scientists are closed minded because they won’t entertain his superstitions. This is beyond pathetic - it’s just sad. It has nothing to do with free speech. Creationists are free to spew their ignorant spew all they want but no one is obligated to provide them with a platform. It has nothing to do with suppressing ideas; their ideas have been checked and discussed and explored ad nauseum, and none of them have been found to have even a trace of validity. (Unlike real science ideas, they haven’t been tested, because they are not testable.) The only point this movie really makes that that scientists accept reality and reject ridiculous fantasies.
You blew it big time, Ben. You’ve spent a lifetime building a reputation as the smartest guy in the room, and now you’ve blown it all on something really, really stupid.
You’ll find lots of links about this story here. Best article title on the list: Ridiculous Demented Right-Wing Wackaloon Theocratic Douchemonkeys Fuck Up Big Time
I’m very well acquainted with the seven deadly sins,
I keep a busy schedule, trying to fit them in.
- Warren Zevon
Because Catholics don’t feel guilty enough, the Vatican has issued a list of seven new mortal sins: taking drugs, genetic modification, carrying out experiments on humans, polluting the environment, causing social injustice, causing poverty and becoming obscenely wealthy. There was no mention of diddling children for personal pleasure.
This proclamation was made from the 100+ acre Vatican City, which is full of opulent buildings decorated with gold and jewels and priceless paintings, and populated by people wearing clothes and jewelry that are worth three times as much as most of their followers make in a year.
What will it take for people to wake up and realize that all this religious foolishness is the largest scam in history?
Tacky religious items are always amusing, especially to us heathen nonbelievers, but this is just plain wrong:
This is evidently a Catholic item. The little girl is frightened and appalled, while the boy, admiring the Jesus Junk, is obviously considering a future in the priesthood.
The internet is abuzz with the tales of Anon/Anonymous, a group of hackers who promise to drive Scientology from the internet. They’ve been going after Xenu’s sites with Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, and in the process managed to take a site belonging to a Dutch school.
There’s a lot of conversation in lots of forums debating the morality of their approach. Most discussions include tiresome dictionary arguments about whether Scientology is a cult or not.
Let me answer the last question first. It is. If you don’t think so, then you’re too damn stupid to appreciate this blog, so go away.
Is it right or wrong for some to fight the science fiction religion with illegal, underhanded, sneaky, vigilante-style attacks? I’ve thought about this quite a bit. I pondered it for at least ten minutes (well, maybe eight) before forming my opinion. A few points I considered:
The government has had a very long time to deal with Scientology, and has failed miserably, mostly because they’ve ignored the problem. Given Scientology’s published polices and their history of using civil litigation for the sole purpose of harassment, they should have been ruled as Vexatious Litigants decades ago, and bared from bringing lawsuits without special permission. When the government refuses to hand out justice the job falls to the citizens.
The best way to deal with a bully, the only way to deal with a bully, is to fight back. For the best results, beat the shit out of him. If that’s not possible, just fighting back will usually do the trick.
In the game “The Prisoner’s Dilemma” the best strategy is tit for tat: Do unto others what they did unto you the last time. It doesn’t matter if your opponent is aggressive, passive, friendly, nasty or random - over time tit for tat always gets the most favorable results.
I disagree with Voltaire. I may not believe what you way, but will defend to the death your right to say it, unless you are trying to silence me. In that case I’ll sit back and smile while you get what you deserve.
Considering the violent and filthy history of these evil people, they deserve not only be driven from the internet, but destroyed in the real world as well. They deserve to be harassed and spit at and derided and attacked, but for phase one, driving them from the internet would be a good start.
But if these vigilantes really want to have an effect, they’ve got to do more than flood their web sites with DoS attacks. That will annoy them and piss them off, but it won’t cripple them. Anon needs to do some real damage. They need to hit them where it matters - in their wallets. Shutting down their web sites is briefly satisfying and somewhat entertaining. Emptying their bank accounts would be a real accomplishment.
A good start would be to hack their servers and gather all their financial information. Then they should remove all the money they can find in every one of their bank accounts. Let the Xenu lovers suffer the bankruptcy they’ve visited on so many of their followers.
The next step would be to extend this courtesy to anyone promoting them. “Sorry, Mr. Cruse, your credit card has been declined.” “Sorry Miss Alley, you’ll have to pay cash.” “Mr. Hayes, management has requested that I your money before serving your dinner.” I’d leave Travolta alone, at first, became I haven’t seen him shilling for them except for a blurb on their site. But the moment he says anything about them that could be construed as a plug, bankrupt him. Imagine the headlines. Imagine the sense of accomplishment.
L. Ron Hubbard said, “The purpose of [a lawsuit] is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.”
His organization deserves no better. Best wishes, Anonymous, whoever you are. I very much doubt you’ll succeed, (at the moment, Scientology’s primary site is up and operating fine) but I applaud your noble cause.
No matter what the problem is, sooner or later someone will Blame The Jews. In yet another example why it’s so difficult to write satire in this world, a group calling themselves “Green Hanukkah” is calling on Jews to combat global warming by lighting one less Hanukkah candle. Each unburned candle will save a whopping fifteen grams of CO2.
The founder of “Green Hanukkah” says, “”the campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won’t need another miracle.”
Over the yeas I’ve heard several Jewish friends admit that Hanukkah is so dull they usually make it to the forth or fifth day before they say “screw it” and stop bothering with the ritual. Little did they know they were saving the world.
It’s becoming more and more difficult to write satire in this increasingly bizarre world. As an example, how can you possibly make this headline any funnier:
Catholic coloring book warns US kids of pedophile priests
At least, someone on Fark noted, it’s not a pop-up book.
You may already be following the story of Gillian Gibbons, the school teacher who asked her class of seven year olds to name the class teddy bear. They picked the name Mohamed. She was promptly arrested, thrown in jail, and told that she could get 40 lashes for such a heinous crime.
She was trying to teach the kids about animals and their habitats. Instead, she showed the world about animals and their religion.
She was found guilty of insulting religion and sentenced to 15 days, without a beating, and that’s where most news coverage ends. But there’s more to the story - a thousand Muslims, with hate in their eyes and swords in their hands, protested, demanding that she be executed. Over a teddy bear.
And yet, we are told, Islam is a religion of peace.
Meanwhile, we haven’t heard much about the Saudi woman who was raped by seven men and sentenced to 90 lashes for being out with a male who wasn’t related. When she complained about it publicly her sentence was raised to 200 lashes and six months in jail.
She should have just run away. Then she’d only be getting 60 lashes to go with her six months.
And still we are told that Islam is a religion of peace that highly respects women. So respectful that they’ve published a guide that shows the proper way to beat your women.
Why do so many of them despise women? Because those evil women distract men from their prayers. A spiritual leader in Malaysia says men are “abused” by seeing them. “We always [hear about] the abuse of children and wives in households, which is easily perceived by the eye, but the emotional abuse of men cannot be seen,” Nik Abdul Aziz said. “Our prayers become unfocused and our sleep is often disturbed.”
If their faith is so fragile it can be damaged by a glimpse of a woman wearing something sexy, we may have a new, cheap weapon in the war on terror.
Victoria’s Secret will send free soft core porn to anyone requesting it. Let’s have them print up a few hundred million extra copies every month and air drop them over Muslim countries and communities. Over time Muslim males will collect a secret stash to enjoy over and over. It will take a while, but maybe, just maybe, it will cure them of their insanity.
(Thanks to Dr. Atlantis at the Skepticality forum for the picture.)
The AP reported that Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter earmarked $100,000 of our tax money for the Louisiana Family Forum, which is headed by former political cronies. And what does this fine group do? They push creationism.
That’s right, our tax money is being used to finance an organization devoted to making kids stupid. And even these mouth breathers fail they’ll force educators to fight them, using resources and energy that could be better spent elsewhere.
A few years ago I saw a distinguished British actor expressing concern over Muslim the birth rates in the UK. The general population is having fewer and fewer children, to the point where they’re not even replacing their own population. The fundamentalist Muslims, however, are breeding at a prodigious rate – three times as fast as other Europeans.
I more or less forgot about it until I saw this link on the excellent Nobody’s Business blog. The most popular name for newborn boys in England is John. The second most popular – Mohamed. It is expected to be #1 next year.
This is happening all over Europe. Think of the implications if Muslims succeed in becoming a majority. Anti-Semitism is rampant in Europe, especially in France, another country where Fundy Muslims are breeding their way toward being a majority. Does anyone hate the Jews more than Muslims? While they deny the holocaust, isn’t likely that they’d stage another one? And while Europe’s military power has been on the wane for a long time, what would happen if Muslims were to take control of just a few European governments?
Just a few years ago the Taliban destroyed two 2000 year old giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan, because any depiction of humans is sinful. Imagine if they gain enough power to do the same thing to the great art throughout Europe, the cradle of western civilzation.
No wonder they feel the need to breed so voraciously. When your culture demands that you blow up your sons and murder your daughters you need a steady supply of replacements.
Most immigrants assimilate to their new country within a generation or two. Here in America, even if the parents don’t speak English, their children do, usually without an accent. Their grandchildren not only speak English perfectly, they usually loose any fluency in their grandparent’s native tongue. In other words, they become Americans.
This seldom happens with fundamentalist Muslims. The cloister themselves in their own little (but continually expanding) communities. They insulate their children from the “evil” outside influences of the country they’re infesting. And if the kids wise up, leave, and decide to become reasonable human beings, they murder them. It’s an honor thing.
We’ve seen the results first hand with the London bombings. It wasn’t carried out by outside forces, but by home-grown Muslim terrorists.
In other news of the “Religion of Peace:”
Hamas said they’ve stopped broadcasting a children’s show where an ersatz Mickey Mouse teaches kids to drink their milk, say their prayers, and hate Jews. They lied; it’s still being broadcast.
In England, a Muslim man was shown a photo of his daughter kissing an unbeliever. The boyfriend was a Muslim too, but the wrong flavor of Muslim, so when beating her for two weeks didn’t work he hired a gang of thugs to murder her. Father’s day must be a blast at their house.
This is a well written account of a western reporter spending time in Saudi Arabia covered from head to foot. (Requires a free registration.)
Iran has declared that porn stars should be killed.
An group of Iranian thugs went on a murder spree, killing people they decided weren’t Muslim enough. They killed 18 people but were only tried for five murders. Some were convicted by lower courts, but repeatedly exonerated by Iran’s supreme court on the grounds that their victims were all morally corrupt.
In Germany, a Muslim woman tried to live life as a normal person, so her brothers killed her. This is not an isolated incident; it’s happened six times in the past four months in Germany.
Pew did a comprehensive survey of Muslim attitudes and beliefs. In the US only 40% believed that Arabs had anything to do with 9/11. Only 58% have an unfavorable view of Al-Qaeda; over a quarter of those surveyed refused to answer the question. Among the Muslim males of prime terrorist age – 18-30 – 26% said terrorism was just fine and dandy with them. Here’s an article that analyzes the results. You can probably find a few thousand more, spinning the information in various directions.
Aren’t we lucky they’re a peaceful religion? Imagine what would happen if they were to get violent.
In Denver a 22 foot statue of Jesus was struck by lightening. The bolt from heaven blew off its right arm and, for good measure, its left hand.
“Don’t look for any religious symbolism here - it was only a freak act of Mother Nature, says Sister Ilaria.”
Really? I’d be willing to bet a life size milk chocolate Jesus that if the lightening had missed the statue she’s be crowing about how it proves the mercy of God, so some other such nonsense.
Which, like many news stories, reminds me of a Very Old Joke.
A golfer is about eight feet from the hole, and takes his shot. For some unexplained reason, there is a nun on the green with him. He overshoots the hole by four feet and says “Jesus Christ, I Missed.”
The nun is appalled and says “It is a sin to use the name of The Lord in vain. Please do not do that again.
Ignoring her, the golfer makes his putt and the ball stops two inches from the hole. “Jesus Christ, I missed!”
Now the nun is getting angry. “I’ve warned you. Now I’m going to pray for God to strike you dead on this spot if you use his name in vain again.”
The man, also fuming, ignores the nun and taps the ball toward the cup. It hits the rim, rolls around it once, twice, then out.
Now the golfer is furious! He slams down his putter and screams “Jesus H. Christ on a bike, I don’t believe I missed that! Jesus Christ, I missed!”
Suddenly a dark cloud forms over his head. He hears a rumble of thunder and looks up. A bolt of lightening flashes to earth, hitting the nun and killing her instantly.
From the heavens he hears a deep voice: “Jesus Christ, I missed.”
Too bad no one was around when the lightening hit the statue. They might have heard the same thing.
Those wacky fundies are at it again. This time they’ve got a board game parents can use to reduce the IQ of their children. Or, as they describe it:
At last, a board game that reveals the insanity of perhaps the greatest hoax of our times — the unscientific “theory of evolution.”
“Intelligent Design vs Evolution” is unique in that the playing pieces are small rubber brains and each team plays for “brain” cards. Each player uses his or her brains to get more brains, and the team with the most brains wins.
So he prize for winning this game is, literally, tiny brains.
Perfect.
Finally, after 73 years, Jerry Falwell made the world a better place, by leaving it. With his passing there is a little less evil and hatred in the world.
You can’t polish a turd, but you can put it in a two thousand dollar suit, slap a smarmy smile on it’s skull, and watch in horror as millions of moronic minions do obeisance to it. Legitimate religious leaders try to appeal to our finer qualities and inspire us to be better than we are. Falwell appealed to his follower’s worst, most base emotions, encouraging their ignorance, intolerance, and downright stupidity.
His goal in life was to tear down the wall between church and state, and he was remarkably successful. We can see his legacy as The White House, Congress, and The Supremes continue eviscerate the constitution, especially the Bill of Rights.
This is one of those very rare times when I envy the faithful, because it would be comforting, and appeal to my sense if justice, to believe that Jerry is in one of the deepest and darkest places in hell. A special a place reserved for his ilk, where the most vile and disgusting tortures are carried out, for eternity, on the most vile and disgusting creatures who have ever infested the human race.