The Good Atheist

I love British comedy. You may not be controlling the world anymore, but at least you can make us laugh. It’s good karma for all the years you wankers were telling everyone what to do!

Turkey is a secular country the same way America is; they try to divide church and state, but in the end the two get mixed up in each others business all the time. Both countries rank similarily low in percentage of people who believe in evolution, which is not a possitive sign. With Turkey under heavy scrutiny since their bid to become part of the European Union, what better way to show everyone you aren’t a religious wacko country than by creating a TV show where you convert atheists to God?

With atheism on the rise worldwide, producers for Kanal T in Istambul want to cash in, and have decided to make a gameshow where they try to covert 10 atheists to some kind of religion. They will feature a Muslim imam, a Christian priest, a Buddhist monk, and finally a Jewish Rabbi, with the “winners” getting a payed trip to their new religion’s holy site.

Personally I find the show pretty insulting, but I’m actually a little worried that the vetting process will favor those “atheists” that are already believers that want to get a free trip (how can we really be sure they are non-believers?). With that said, however, I would love for a smart and educated atheist to completely destroy the arguments of the show’s religious figures. Of course, the problem is that many unstable people still feel that atheism is a sin, and I worry for the safety of any atheist on the show who “fails” to covert. They would effectively be painting bulleyes on their backs.

All told it’s a pretty lame idea, and I don’t doubt that everyone is going to be offended at the end of the day. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens!

Some classic comedy from the legendary Kids in the Hall show. If you’ve never seen them before, then you need to go and watch all their stuff right now!

You know what I like about the guys who wrote the “Left Behind” series? They aren’t afraid to admit that they fucking love making money. These guys have made millions off their terrible books and movies (staring none other than everyone’s favorite “ex-atheist”, Kirk Cameron), selling to the easiest demographic in the world: gullible evangelical Christians.

They’ve already released 16 books, with no real plan of stopping the flow of moneys and book signing/selling tours that follow. There’s no real information out there about just how rich Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins have become since putting pen to paper, but I don’t doubt it’s very substantial.

They have also made a video game, which they released in 2006. It didn’t do so well, but that hasn’t detracted them. They are now creating an affiliate network to get churches to sell an average of 50 games a year. They are courting some 3000 churches, so if they sell the game for even 30 bucks a pop, that would rake them a cool 4.5 million dollars in revenue a year. Who wants to play a game that your pastor forced down your throat? Beats me. I doubt anyone even cares whether it gets played or not. The key here is the continuation of the money train that is the Left Behid Series.

I find it interesting that the self proclaimed experts on Rapture bother to accumulate wealth, since the End Days, according to these deluded fools, is coming any day now. I seem to recall their own beloved man-God, Jesus, saying that it was harder for a rich man to enter heaven than to fit a camel through the eye of a needle. It’s probably the part of church they always skipped. Besides, they’ve learned the most important lesson of all from being lifelong Christians: there’s a sucker baptized ever minute!

I love intelligence in all it’s forms. Here we have ill doctrine, a hip-hop video blog that I must honestly say is a huge does of fresh air in an otherwise suffocating sea of ignorance (maybe it’s the stories I read, but you can sometimes go a little nuts out there on “the webs”). I may not be too hard core a fan of the genre of music, but I do enjoy his opinions. His Bill O’Reily rap is also something to beholden.

Surprisingly enough, Ali-G has probably the best answer the the question of our primate ancestry: Have you ever eaten a banana? I did, and I fucking LOVED it.

So, this women is on chemotherapy and has surgery to remove her tumors. They luckily don’t come back, and she is cured. While her doctors were busy using science to save her life, she’s given a disgusting old finger bone of some obscure dead priest by friend, and suddenly, we’re supposed to forget the fact that she was being treated for cancer and that a divine miracle is what saved her. So while the real story is that we have another victory for science, these morons focus on the fact that she is wearing a creepy necklace. Surely her survival must be the work of God! After all, he wouldn’t want this obviously brilliant woman to join Him in his magical Funland just yet.

Great job Fox News in proving once again that you have no journalistic credibility whatsoever.

For those of you deluded enough to think that religion is the greatest thing in the world, and that faith, prayer and well wishing has any real effect on the natural world, allow me to point you in the direction of science. If you’re sick, you need science. If you’re hurt, injured, or have an infection, you need science. Hell, if you want something as simple as clean drinking water and the ability to have it on tap, you need science!

Most of us don’t even think about the number of times our lives have been saved by advances in scientific understanding. Most of it is invisible and automatic; from innoculations to ward off deadly diseases (smallpox and polio, anyone?), to antibiotics to help get rid of otherwise deadly infections; the fact that the average age has jumped from 40 to 75 is entirely because of the steady march forward of the most powerful and progressive contribution to our understanding of the natural world: science.

Still, plenty of morons aren’t convinced that it does anything. These people actively choose to reject it, fearful of its powerful influence on society. They prefer the comfort and certainty of religion, even though they enjoy the benefits of a greater quality and longevity of life because of it. Here is yet another tragic example of parental ignorance based entirely on religious belief. Brent and Raylene Worthington believe in “Christian science”, a fancy way of saying they reject modern science in favor of prayer. When their 18 month old baby contracted pneumonia and had an infection in her blood, they chose not to call a doctor and instead try to use their religion to cure her. For months while she was horribly ill they refused to seek medical help, and predictably, little Ava didn’t make it. Of course, they did have the intelligence to immediately called a lawyer after her death, so we’ll presume that although they are ignorant of the power of science, they certainly are aware of the power of the law.

Now this tragedy wasn’t a quick death. The details are pretty gruesome, including the fact that a lump had started growing on her neck for months, and was probably impaired her breathing. Both parents insist that they were raising their children according to their Christian beliefs, and we are supposed to be sympathetic that they don’t believe in medical treatment, enough to acquit them of child neglect and manslaughter, presumably.

Saving little Ava would have been as simple as draining the cyst and giving her a few doses of antibiotics to cure her blood infection. Instead, we have a dead little girl and her two idiot parents to punish. Their inaction lead directly to her death, and the treatments availible that could have saved her life would have taken less than an hour to complete. That, my friends, is the power of science. While they prayed for months with no effect, a simple visit to the doctors would have saved her life.

What a fucking waste.