Here’s something I’ve learned in all my years of blogging: if you look for something hard enough, you’ll find it. In my case, it’s examples of religious stupidity that I zero in on. I realize that cheap laughs and easy jokes may not give the complete picture of a particular religion (usually Christianity or Islam), but if I was trying to be fair I wouldn’t be having any fun.

I want you to keep this in mind, as it might help clarify some of the frustration you might be feeling if you read Rebecca Watson’s new tirade on the evils of secular sexism entitled “Reddit makes me hate atheists“. The post focuses on the story of a 15 year old girl who received a barage of innapropriate comments after posting a picture of herself with a copy of Carl Sagan’s “Demon Haunted World”. I think this opening paragraph will help set the tone of the piece:

…R/atheism is very large, and so it is jam packed with assholes. And yet! I continue to read it every day. I read it even though I usually learn nothing new from it and it only serves to create and foster inside me an intense hatred of my fellow atheists.

While there are a variety of explinations as to why some of comments were so disparaging (her post made it to the front page of reddit, which extends far beyond the confines of r/atheism), her obsession with gender issues makes it seem as though the atheist reddit forums are a cesspool of misogyny. I couldn’t disagree more.

I’ve been trolling the site for years now, watching the group grow from humble numbers to over 300,000 strong. While a great number of posts are usually rage comics, occasionally hilarious facebook threads and funny pictures, a significant portion of them are personal tales of individuals “coming out” to family members (I even remember one post from a redditor claiming to be Michel Behe’s atheit son). The support these people receive from their fellow redditors is almost universally positive. I’m constantly surprised by the patience, understanding and intelligence on display from members. Then again, I’m usually on the lookout for positive examples of human kindness on the site, so I’m not entirely surprised when I find what I’m looking for.

This, in a nutshell, is Rebecca’s problem; she’s actively looking for examples of mysoginy in the scene to justify her claim that sexism is rampant in the atheist community. While I don’t believe that our group is guiltless, I think the problem has been severely overstated. Do we have studies to show atheists are more sexist than believers? Is there any proof beyond a couple of anecdotal stories of misogyny? Seems to me like there’s a lot of speculation based on some extremely limited samples, colored by emotion and marred with anecdotal evidence. Sounds like a fucking nightmare to me.

I don’t want to claim to have more “journalistic credibility” than Rebecca, or anything equally silly (I’m more of a curmudgeon than a serious writer). Still, I think it’s important to recognize how much of your own perception is influenced by your pre-existing beliefs. Is the world as sexist as you think, or is there a chance that your preconceptions might be blinding you? I certainly wonder how anyone could visit r/atheism and develop an “intense hatred” of your fellow atheists (unless you hate rage comics, of course). Seems far more likely that this intense hatred might have been there all along…

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Mobalizing 10,000 people to pray! Wow, how amazing. Think of all the good you can do by sitting in a dark room and talking to yourself all day.

So, if you want God to interfer with human affairs (and apparently throw this whole “free will” idea out the window when it’s inconvenient), you just need to stop eating for several days, followed by inperceptibly mumbling to yourself. Sounds good to me!

“Imagine with me half a million people praying for a nation.”

Praying for what? The economy to recouperate? For the poor and indigent to finally get their due? Nope. She just wants to get rid of abortion and gay marriage. That’s the kind of priorities you can expect from someone who sits very still and begs their imaginary friend for shit they want.

(via Christian Nightmares)

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I love the way this video is put together: it combines sharp visuals with brilliant satire. Be sure to read some of the captions at the bottom. My favorite so far is “Paper Just a Fad says Scribe.” Classic.

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Oh twitter, sometimes you sap away the only remaining hope I have for humanity. The unfiltered garbage that’s excreted out of the mouths of cretins is enough to drive you mad. Eventually, you reach a threshold of tolerance where it all sounds eeirly similar to bees buzzing around. Once in a while, you find a few hot topics that really make our species truly shine, in both verbosity and compassion that one is forced to dig deeper inside of this noise to find out what the fuss is all about. Today’s inanity comes as a reaction to hot hashtag #GodIsNotGreat trending, and some ignorant Christians losing their shit over it. The following is a sample of some of my favorites, with grammar left intact:

Whoever started dis #GodIsNotGreat I will personally beat yu da fuck asswhole…I jus prayed for yu thp

What a nice fellow. I wonder if he’ll also pray to his imaginary friend when he sends some poor kid to the hospital for having a different belief than him.

Whoever made this TT #GodIsNotGreat should burn in hell and yo whole family

So even if this person’s family is religious, this guy still wants them to burn in hell forever because someone dared to talk smack his skydaddy. Totally reasonable.

#GodIsNotGreat who ever created that trending topic MUST die today!!wt sort of human beings r in here?geeeez

Geeeez, I was thinking the very same thing.

#GodIsNotGreat<——anybody this hateful got to have aids

Anybody that profoundly ignorant has to be a bigot

WHO EVA MADE THIS A TRENIN TOPIC…ILL PERSONALLY KILL EM MYSELF…GOD IS THE BEST THANG EVA MANE…AMEN

God is the best thing ever, therefore I’m going to kill someone in cold blood in his name. Amen!

I seriously wanna kill whoever started the #GodIsNotGreat”

I seriously want to call the fucking police right now

why the fuk is #GodIsNotGreat teending?! GOD IS EVERYTHING YOU SATANIC BITCHES, HE’S THE REASON YOUR BREATHING #ilovegod

If god is everything, does that mean he’s also this extremely hateful tweet? What are the rules in this strange cult of yours?

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It’s terrible shows like this that give me hope that not every child is being indoctrinated particularly well. The damage done by these kinds of yahoos seems relatively easy to fix, especially since these clowns can’t manage to keep a bunch of kids interested in their shtick for more than 15 seconds.

If you’re trying to indoctrinate children in your cult, might I suggest the trying the following:

#1: Be prepared
Just because they’re kids doesn’t mean they are easy to entertain. Typically there’s a “tone” you have to strike to get their attention. Loud, wacky, animated, and “alive” tend to spring into mind. While this show was plenty noisy, it lacked a coherence that can only come from having actually bothered to write a proper show.
#2: Be animated
It can’t be easy entertaining kids when you’re a million years old. It’s why most pros are young enough to handle all the coke you need to stay energized. If you’ve already got a foot in the grave, this gig may not be right for you.
#3 avoid creating comic characters with shrill, annoying voices.
Kids are people too, which means they equally hate shrill voices that sound like nails across a chalkboard. Try a friendly, reassuring voice instead of your best Wicked Witch impression.

(via ChristianNightmares)

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Things I find hilaro-tragic about this video:

1. Bolling assuming that the group, which was founded out of state, is intent on forcing their agenda on Texans, despite the fact that he’s told several times that the group responded to complaints from residents of the town.
2. No one on the program seems to understand the difference between free speech and government sanctioned religion.
3. Fox News crew making snarky remarks (that’s my job) in the style of “here we go again”, even though this whole affair is a RESPONSE to Christians shoving their baby Jesus in everyone’s face.
4. The town deputy’s brilliant argument against allowing others the same right to free speech as ‘garbage”.
5. Bolling getting upset when Barker (who wrote a book that stole my bloody name) calls the Jesus parable “insulting to humans” and pulling the whole “this is my fucking show” act before kicking him off.
6. Calling the guy who got kicked out of a show for being honest a “hate monger’.
7. Claiming that the greatest symbol of love is the ritualistic sacrificial blood offering of one’s son with a straight face.
8. Trying to get Ben Franklin on their religious fundy side, despite having said this:

..As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity

(via NCRM)

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We all knew it was coming, but somehow we had managed to ignore the cruelty of reality for a little while. For a moment there, it almost seemed as though Hitch had managed to defeat his cancer. Unfortunately, life is a cruel bitch that kills your heroes prematurely (it’s true that Jack Daniels and Phillip Morris had done most of the damage, but still). Now, the world is a little duller, a little dumber, and a lot less interesting as a result.

Truthfully, I would be more upset if I hadn’t read his last article. In it, he mentioned that had he known of the pain he would have had to endure to survive the cancer, he would have opted against it. It may sound trite, but there is some evidence to suggest that a person having a REASON to live is often a significant indicator of health. I think it wasn’t the cancer but the pain of the treatment that ended him. That’s the sad truth about cancer; the cure is sometimes worse than the disease.

Don’t plan on being sad for very long though. Your grief will soon turn into anger once you read the inane tweets of men like Rick Warren:

My friend Christopher Hitchens has died. I loved & prayed for him constantly & grieve his loss. He knows the Truth now.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, folks. That tweets comes from an actual friend (despite their obvious differences, they seemed to have gotten along well). How many times are you going to overhear some religious jackass gloating that Hitch is burning in Hell for not believing in their specific nonsense?

Even more frustrating is the fact that there is no simple way to demonstrate the obvious stupidity of their assertion. The specter of death haunts us all equally, but our mortality is the only solid proof Christians need of their sadistic fantasies. It’s like arguing with children.

On a selfish note, I never got to cross “having a conversation with Christopher Hitchens” off my bucket list. I hoped perhaps that some of his brilliance might rub off on me. Now the unique arrangement of neurons that comprised his mind have ceased to function, and this pattern is lost forever. Damn you entropy. Why must you rob us of everything we love?

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Hi Gang,

You may have noticed that the show hasn’t gone up this week (or last one for that matter). I’m actually trying to fight the flu, which has been travelling from host to host only to find its latest victim: yours truly. I’ll be spending the time this week finishing up my taxes, but I promise to do at least 2 more shows before the Christmas Holiday, if nothing else to ensure that none of you die of loneliness.

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The Thinking Atheist is doing their part in helping you fire back at annoying Christians trying to make it seem as though they invented people celebrating the Winter Solstice. Normally, I don’t really care to correct them, but it seems that this whole “War on Christmas” just keeps getting more annoying. There is a point where you have to send them back to schools with a few facts.

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