As the UK continues to fund sectarian institutions, some politicians are beginning to warn officials that this trend will ultimately do more harm than good. Grassroots Liberal Democrats are “pressing” (whatever the fuck that means) the government to stop funding religious organizations, lest they be used as proselytizing tools.

In east London, a new website aiming to promote sex education for young people “using a faith sensitive approach” has been launched after receiving funding from health authorities. It follows a recent controversy in south-west London over Richmond council’s awarding of a £89,000 contract to the Catholic Children’s Society, which will be involved in advising pupils on issues including contraception and teenage pregnancy.

The government spent over 100,000 dollars spent on this bullshit? That’s insane! Don’t worry though, they totally got their money’s worth: just check out their website‘s pregnancy page for proof (it’s hilariously empty). Maybe they’re still trying to figure out how to gently tell expecting young mothers wishing to terminate their pregnancies that they’ll burn in Hell for eternity. Is there even a nice way to say that?

If you dig a little deeper, you’ll also find some false facts meant to persuade individuals that absitnence teaching is effective. For instance, they claim that:

1. Teens living in two-parent homes are less likely to have sex earlier than teens living in single-parent or step-parent homes [Me: "see, you shouldn't have divorced your abusive husband. Now your daughter is a whore!"].
2. -Perceived parental disapproval of sex has a strong delaying factor throughout adolescence.[Me: "yes, because no one likes to rebel against their parents"]
3. Teens who are more religious are more likely to delay sex. [Me: "while the average religious person may wait longer to have sex, it usually leads to more pregnancy and STI's than their secular counterparts]
4. The combination of academic achievement and sports participation (for girls only) have the strongest delay effect in early and middle adolescence. [Me: "yeah, it's pretty much the opposite for guys, so how is this helpful for half the population?"]
5. In late adolescence, girls with high self-esteem are less likely to engage in premarital sex than girls with low self-esteem. [Me: "what better to teach a girl self-esteem than inculcating her with a faith that considers all women sinners and the ruin of mankind?"]
6. The more religious the teen and their family, the less likely they were to start having sex early. [Me: "and the more likely she'll have an STI or a baby on the way!"]

Isn’t it great when you can cherry pick facts to make your side sound soo much better? I will admit that at the very least, this site does encourage people to use contraception (bad Catholic alert). This, however, is their “last resort” in case you happen to be a human being and love getting shagged.

Here’s the problem in a nutshell: kids are going to fuck each other whether or not you want them to. If fact, the less you want them to, the hotter it is. The last thing we need is a bunch of religious rubes confusing kids with dumb messages about sin and how their invisible friend only wants sanctioned sex. What’s worse, it also seems as though the result of their “sex education” is an adult with a less enjoyable sex life. Do religions ever get anything right?

The point is, religions are scarred by the misogynistic, ignorant, barbaric and primitive mores of the people who wrote their holy texts. Sure, some of their cults have embraced the values of the Enlightenment rather than follow their own code, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the basis of their beliefs are still predicated on utter nonsense. In other words, foundationally, they poison the very notion of intellectual integrity and reason. This, at the very least, must bar them from sharing or overtaking secular programs.

So what’s next? I guess we’ll continue to act like pussies and complain about this while money is slowly diverted away from secular programs and into the pockets of proselytizing organizations. At a time when the government is slashing spending, do you really think putting a bit of “pressure” is going to do anything at all? Religions are going to find ways to siphon money to themselves unless you expunge them all from your government. Get rid of the House of Lords. No more faith schools. Get your fucking secularist act together, England. It’s beginning to be an embarrassment.

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It’s interesting to listen back to old shows featuring scientists like Carl Sagan attempting to educate people on the latest science, which included at the time the growing evidence that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a cometary collision. We can take this knowledge for granted now, but the history of our understanding of the natural world is often so brief that it’s captured on celluloid.

When was the last time any late night prime time TV show had a guest as educated and informative as Carl Sagan? Usually it’s some vapid celebrity and their idiotic life stories I’m supposed to care about. It used to be that guys like Carson elevated the discourse. His replacement, a man known more for his obsession with cars than anything else, is still continuing his crusade to entertain senior citizens. It’s not even good background noise anymore.

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Here’s a good breakdown of how “Fox News” does their thing.

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Gary Smith was a friendly and popular religion teacher with a promising career, until four thugs, incensed by their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, decided to beat him to within an inch of his life for having the audacity to teach him a “lesson” for educating women about their nonsense religion.

Gary Smith, 38, was beaten as he walked to Central Foundation Girls’ School in Bow, east London, last July.

The gang left him unconscious after attacking him with a metal rod and a brick, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

The attackers, Azad Hussain, Akmol Hussein, Sheikh Rashid, and Simon Alam were each given a mandatory 5 year jail sentence for the attack. The Judge was also quick to reprimand these psychos for having been motivated by religious dogma, believing (not unreasonably) that they would continue their life of crime if they continued down this path.

The court heard how the men were only caught because Hussein’s car was being bugged on an unrelated matter.

Normally I might be a little freaked out at the idea of citizens being “bugged”, but it looks as though this was the right call with these psychos. If you read the amount of emotional and physical trauma the victim had to go through, you realize that these guys weren’t fucking around. Turns out they were terrorism suspects, and considering the fact that they were willing to attack an innocent man guilty only of educating young women, that doesn’t seem too far fetched.

The Security Service had placed a listening device in a car driven by one of the men as part of an investigation into a suspected terrorist network in East London, sources told the Daily Telegraph.

Evidently these morons have a problem living in a society where women are treated as equals. Luckily for them, they’ll be in an environment of only men now. Wonder how that’ll work out…

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I have to admit I’ve always wanted to write this headline, but do you have any idea how long I had to wait before a super hot nun got fired? But boy, was this girl worth the wait. Turns out that a former lap-dancer turned dancing Nun was a bit too much for the Vatican to handle, and so Benedict XVI shut it down.

The Santa Croce in Gerusalemme church is being closed because of rumours of a lack of liturgical, financial and moral discipline, La Stampa reports.

“An inquiry found evidence of liturgical and financial irregularities as well as lifestyles that were probably not in keeping with that of a monk,” Father Ciro Benedettini, a Vatican spokesman, is reported as telling the Guardian newspaper.

So, on the same day where one of their own Cardinals is accused of trying to get a Moroccan drug dealer to find him some young boys to rape, the Vatican decides that the real problem is a bunch of hot nuns getting their groove on. Look, I’m no fan of their stupid bullshit, but what the fuck is the danger in just letting people have some good old clean fun? Just because Sister Nobili used to lap dance doesn’t mean she’s an immoral person. Last time I checked, lap-dancers don’t rape underaged children, so they’re OK in my books! My laps need some lovin’ too, you know!

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Whenever I hear the words Vatican and “reform”, I can’t help but laugh. Here’s an institution that, for a greater part of the history of the West, has benefited from unchecked powers. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the Papal States were annexed, and even then, fascist dictator Mussolini allowed the organization “statehood” in exchange for their cooperation in his new government. Now, this archaic and evil organization gets all kinds of perks, like a seat in the UN.

Imagine for a moment that a tiny country (with a population of less than 1000) was systematically protecting child rapists for decades. Not only that, but their powerful influence was also making people have riskier sex, forcing young rape victims to have back-alley abortions, and placed women under the dictatorship of men. Who would allow such a dangerous and vile state a voice in world affairs?

Pope Benedict has promised to clean up his organization, but considering the fact that this same man who, when heading the renamed Inquisition (now called Covenant of the Doctrine of the Faith), sent out a memo telling archbishops not to divulge information to the cops. Clearly, the man has no interest in actually doing anything about this abuse. Still don’t believe me? How about yet another scandal involving his right hand man?

The latest sex-abuse case to rock the Catholic Church is unfolding in the archdiocese of an influential Italian Cardinal who has been working with Pope Benedict XVI on reforms to respond to prior scandals of pedophile priests.

Investigators say that in tapped mobile-phone conversations, Seppia asked a Moroccan drug dealer to arrange sexual encounters with young and vulnerable boys. “I do not want 16-year-old boys but younger. Fourteen-year-olds are O.K. Look for needy boys who have family issues,” he allegedly said. Genoa Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, who is the head of the Italian Bishops Conference, had been working with Benedict to establish a tough new worldwide policy, released this week, on how bishops should handle accusations of priestly sex abuse.

See, you can tell that Father Seppia is an old hand at this whole “abuse racket”. He wants his boys young, needy, and in a difficult and vulnerable family situation.

According to investigators, Seppia told a friend — a former seminarian and barman who is currently under investigation — that the town’s malls were the best places to entice minors. In tapped phone conversations the two cursed and swore against God.

Need any more proof that none of these clowns actually believe in the shit they profess to preach? It’s simple really: the power of their institution has, for hundreds of years, allowed these douche-bags to do anything they wanted. Turns out a significant portion of these sick bastards actually desire the innocent flesh of young children to satiate their perverse sexual needs. It’s only been a few decades since their power has wanned enough for us to expose their sick and twisted shit. Look what we find when we look under a few rocks. Can you even imagine what kind of twisted shit we aren’t hearing about?

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I will not deny the fact that the letter had my eyes shed a few hard fought tears. Despite the fact that both he and I have different world views (the supposed godhood of a 2000 year old Jew), we both agree that speaking up when others don’t is the right thing to do. The act is so moving because as beautiful as his words were, he is one of us; the ordinary folks, just sitting at a deli having breakfast.

I also think that the more we speak up, the more we begin to realize that the good really does out-way the bad. It’s just that so many of us are in a coma, too afraid to rock the boat in fear of capsizing ourselves. It’s hard to be brave, especially when there is every reason for you to ignore it.

But when it really hits you how compassionate such an action is, how can anyone still think that the misplaced fear and anger of bigotry is admirable? It’s easy to make our hearts hard and ignore the plight of others. But in so doing we miss the opportunity to experience the ecstasy of compassion that comes from helping your fellow man. This kind of rush sometimes makes the whole act of giving feel a little selfish over time (NOTE: there’s a “I’m too selfless to give anyone anything” joke in there somewhere).

So don’t watch this video if you have a propensity for empathy, because it’s going to hit your face muscles hard when you try to be all “tough” to the people around you. As for the rest of you heartless bastards, can you explain what horrible life scar made you so cold?

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What do you get when you mix the backwardness of theocracy with the progressiveness of modern technology? Why, you get Saudi Arabia, of course!

Authorities detained a Saudi woman on Saturday after she launched a campaign against the driving ban for women in the ultraconservative kingdom and posted a video of herself behind the wheel on Facebook and YouTube to encourage others to copy her.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world to ban women – both Saudi and foreign – from driving. The prohibition forces families to hire live-in drivers, and those who cannot afford the $300 to $400 a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them to work, school, shopping or the doctor.

Women are also barred from voting, except for chamber of commerce elections in two cities in recent years, and no woman can sit on the kingdom’s Cabinet. Women also cannot travel without permission from a male guardian and shouldn’t mingle with males who are not their husbands or brothers.

Honestly, I’m counting the days before this women either gets gang-raped or somebody throws acid in her face. A few years ago, when one of the Saudi princes tried to reform their sexist laws a little, there were riots. Clearly this country isn’t ready to join the rest of humanity at the grown-up table…

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