It’s become pretty clear that the West’s concept of Free speech is in direct opposition to Islam’s powerful insecurities about itself. The whole point of the exercise was to show exactly how intolerant, stupid, and violent this religion is. So far, it’s succeeded brilliantly.

If you think I’m making this shit up, just check out Pakistan’s Section 295-C of  their penal code:

Use of derogatory remark etc, in respect of the Holy Prophet, whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable for fine.

Wait, they kill you AND fine you for disparaging their prophet? Are they going to come and collect the money posthumously, or are you expected to pay for your own execution? That’s cold, man!

It’s equally ironic/tragic that the woman responsible for the whole thing also retracted and issued a sincere apology (even going so far as claiming she never intended to get this thing off the ground, even though a radio interview with her says otherwise). I guess she couldn’t stand the idea that when people practice free speech, you invariably have some of the disagreeable kind in there as well. Hey folks, if you want speech to be safe, there’s no better safeguard against hurt feelings than good old fashion censorship. Of course, you might also not be allowed to say some important things as well in the process, so it’s best that you get over your little ego and just accept the fact that some people will always say shit you don’t like. The flip-side is that no one is FORCING you to listen. If you don’t like it, do what the rest of us do every time some religious douche-bag starts spewing nonsense: ignore the fuckers.

**NOTE** It would appear that the page is, in fact, quite alive and well. In any case, even if the page had been taken down, someone else would have started up another in no time flat. The truth is that blasphemous drawings of the prophet will continue until Muslmis learn that not one of them is protected against getting their feelings hurt.

This story is generally debated as to it’s relative allegorical meaning, but I don’t think you have to look too hard to figure out what’s going on here: it’s not uncommon for jealous and ancient Gods to demand human sacrifice to appease their “anger” . In modern, civilized society this kind of act is exceedingly rare, but thanks to the delusion of religion, every so often, religious nutjobs kill their own children thinking that God commanded them to do so. The latest case of religious infanticide comes all the way from Kitale, Kenya, where a father, convinced that God was speaking directly to him, killed his own son as a blood sacrifice. He then sprinkled his blood around the house in some ludicrous and macabre ceremony. Your “what-the-fuck-o-meter” should be going off right about now.

He’s being held in custody and the locals have asked that the “Ingrafted Fellowship Church”, which he’s been a member of for less than a month, be investigate to see if they are a cult (newsflash guys: all religions are cults, although admittedly, some are crazier than others).

Another sad tale of woe and misery brought to you by the “power” of religion! Isn’t it grand?

Here’s Answers in Genesis douche Ken Ham doing his best to misinform children about objective reality. We’re all aware of his refusal to accept Evolution, and he’s quite clear about exactly why that is: he think the idea was invented in an effort to undermine God. That’s what’s so great about it. Ken, unlike his more “moderate” counterparts, understands correctly the conclusion that we are to draw from Evolutionary Theory; that there is no master plan to life, and that it arises simply as a function of natural laws. By admitting this, he shows the simple truth that all deeply religious people often try to deny; that there are fundamental incompatibilities between religious dogma and scientific facts. The only difference is that he’s open about what he’s doing, while people like Ben Stein and his creationist ilk masquerade their theism as science. I ask you, which one do you find more contemptuous and subversive?

Before you flip your lid and worry that Ken is causing irreparable damage to their minds, I’d rather you focus on the fact that there’s really little way to reach these children with the facts “out there” anyways. As schools across the country continue to try and throw evolutionary science out the window, the ability to counter programs like the one in the video is starting to look impossible.

It’s not the 39% of the US population who refuse to believe in evolution that scares me, it’s the fact that 36% of them just “aren’t sure”. You’ll always have crusty die hard God peddlers like Ham pushing their idiot stories down all of our throats, and they’ll always be a large percentage of the population that just wants to bury their head in the sands and wait for the Rapture. You won’t convince them of anything they didn’t rigidly decide to believe long ago, and there’s really no point in trying. The evidence is out there, and if they want to accept reality, they are free to do so at any time. But the fact that a third of the country “isn’t sure” about a fundamental theory of science is the result of the subversive efforts of the religious right to undermine its teaching on a local levels. Let’s face it; if there is something religious people are good at doing it ORGANIZING themselves. They tend to do that pretty well, surprisingly enough. It’s also the reason that people generally have any fucking power to begin with.

So the solution to this kind of problem requires a little bit more than shitting on easy targets like Ken, we can’t forget the more pressing issue that these dogmatic robots are good at something it seems non-believers are not: getting organized. Fail at that, and you get fucked by the people who are.

It’s sad that Jack’s words have since fallen on deaf ears as Christians work tirelessly to erode the wall separating church and state. This one act is the reason why your own country has enjoyed such unprecedented freedom (which isn’t what it used to be, honestly). All religions seek power and control, and are therefore antithetical to freedom, and great men like John F. Kennedy recognized this fact not so long ago. It’s a damn shame that everyone seems to have forgotten it since then…

The article in question provides a good overview for those of us disinclined to give Ken Ham and his ilk our hard earned money. He’s not pulling any punches here; he considers the “museum” to be complete and utter cheese. To the author, this gigantic effort to marry the literal interpritation of the Bible into a messy and childish science seems like utter insanity, but it may be because he has so little experience actually interacting with these people. If he did, he wouldn’t be so confused; rather he would be horrified with what Ham and Answers in Genesis are doing to young minds curious about ancient things like dinosaurs. The Museum is nothing more than a poisonous mix of ignorance and supreme arrogance; in thinking that myth should be translated into reality, they may appeal to their sheepish and uneducated base, but for the rest of the world they remain a 27 million dollars embarrassment to America.

Anyways, it’s an entertaining read, and if you have some time to kill I strongly urge you to check it out!

10. Pro-life Pastor Reverend Walter Hoye of Oakland, CA was jailed for exercising peaceful, pro-life speech.

9. Rev. Fred Winters was murdered while preaching in his pulpit in Maryville, Illinois.

8. HBO’s program “Curb Your Enthusiasm” aired an episode where the main actor urinates on painting of Jesus. When confronted HBO would not apologize.

7. The overt homosexual participation in Obama’s presidential inaugural events by “Bishop” Vickie Eugene Robinson, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington D. C., and a homosexual marching band.

6. Police called to East Jessamine Middle School in Lexington, Kentucky to stop 8th graders from praying during their lunch break for a student whose mother was tragically killed.

5. Pro-life activist Jim Pullion was murdered in front of his granddaughter’s high school for showing the truth about abortion.

4. An activist judge ordered a home school mom in New Hampshire to stop home schooling her daughter because the little girl “reflected too strongly” her mother’s Christian faith.

3. The Federal Department of Homeland Security issued a report entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate” that labeled conservative Christians extremists and potential terrorists.

2. President Obama’s appointment of radical anti-Christians like homosexual activist Kevin Jennings as the “safe school czar;” pro-abortion advocate Kathleen Seblius made Secretary of Human and Health Services, and Chai Feldblum, pro-homosexual and anti-religious liberty judge nominated for Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

1. The Federal Hate Crimes Bill that attacks religious liberty and freedom of speech. For the first time in our history ministers are vulnerable to investigation and prosecution for telling the truth about homosexuality.

Classically Liberal does a great job of boiling down every single point to show how none of these are the result of any specific anger or hatred against Christianity. Sufficed to say that Christians have it pretty damn good, and this list is probably the weakest shit I’ve ever seen. It just confirms my beliefs that Christians are a bunch of fucking crybabies that can’t stand the idea of not being “in charge” anymore. Grow a pair, guys.

Kurt is thankfully alive, since he managed to flee inside his panic room and set off the alarm (guess he planned ahead). His axe wielding assailant (interesting choice of weapons I suppose) tried to then escape, attacking a police squad that later shot him in the shoulder and knee to bring him down.

I imagine that Islamic appologists will say that Kurt brought this kind of thing on himself by “insulting” their precious religion. Moderates may try and condemn the attack, but they still claim the cartoons are sacrilegious. It’s like an open invitation the more radical segment of their own faith to take drastic and murderous action against “offenders”;  think of it as a bullshit “bad cop, good coop” routine where one guy beats the shit out of you while his partner begs you to confess for your own safety.

Westergaard was taken to a secret location while things cool off, but his defiance in light of threats on his life leads me to believe that it’s only a matter of time before he gets iced by some radical Islamic madman for the crime of blasphemy. Isn’t religion grand?

The AG is trying to argue that references to God isn’t particularly religious, which is like trying to claim that water isn’t wet. It’s quite obviously Unconstitutional, but as usual that doesn’t seem to stop many Christians from fighting tooth and nail to get God to be a vital part of government.

You’d think that all of these public resources could be devoted towards, oh I don’t know, something useful rather than this annoying bullshit. The US is the only country so far that hasn’t been able to get their economy back on track, and I blame these kinds of stupid distraction as the main reason. Hey guys, stop fighting amongst yourselves and get your country back in order. With your economy in the shitter, it’s making it hard for guys like me to make a living here!

This past summer I staffed a Boy Scout summer camp. I just wanted to share some of my experiences.Before every meal shift, since a scout is “reverent,” we had a volunteer say a “non-denominational” grace. They usually were just speeches and went like this:

Dear God,
Thank you for letting us come to camp this week.
Thank you for the food which we are about to eat.
Please help us complete all of our merit badges.
Please help us have fun during free time.
Please keep everyone safe this week.
In Jesus’ name we pray,
Amen.

All I got from grace was the impression that Christians are ungrateful. I doubt that anyone thanked their parents for working hard every day to earn enough money for them to come to camp, or thanked their adult leaders for taking a week off from work to spend it with them in the middle of the woods. Very few of them thanked the staff for getting up at 5 AM to unload a food truck, or the kitchen staff who worked all day to prepare it for them. I didn’t feel divinely inspired when I was teaching my class and probably wouldn’t mark off requirements just because God told me to. Most of the scouts took it for granted that we would show up and babysit them for the hour and a half of free time so they could break every possible rule just to have fun. I can’t imagine how many people would have gotten hurt during the week if the staff were godless atheists, except that most of us were. We spent a whole week learning CPR, first aid, and every safety precaution that needed to be taken; God didn’t have anything to do with it. I didn’t know that Hindus, Muslims, or Jews believed in Jesus; so much for non-denominational.

One night two staffers and myself were walking back from campsite visits on a dark trail. One of them remarked, “Aren’t you guys scared, their could be ghosts and stuff.” The other one called him stupid for believing in superstitions; I asked him, “Don’t you believe in God?” Neither of them could figure out what that had to do with anything…

One of my better friends while I was their happened to be a home-schooled Catholic. He is really intelligent, he’s writing a 5 act full orchestra musical while in college, and it made me sad to see such a great mind go to waste. Anyways, he had to fill in for the chaplain’s aid one week and give a chapel service. It was supposed to be non-denominational, but he decided it would be better if he became a preacher. At the end of the week, a group of Hindus complained that they didn’t receive a proper chapel service and that it reflected badly on the camp. The camp director, who i was pretty sure was an atheist, had a talk with him. Afterward, I tried to convince him that it was his fault for giving a denominational church service and he should take the punishment for his actions. He wouldn’t accept the fact that he was wrong and went on a tirade against all religions that weren’t Christianity, pointing out that they weren’t real because only his religion was real.

One week I had a student in my class who was slow. He came in during his free time to finish soldering on his electronics kit. While I was talking to him I learned that he was from a local town and considered eating at Whataburger [Jake's note: I didn't know what that was, but now I want one] a rare privilege. His favorite movie was Mary Poppins because that was one of the newest movies they had. Somehow we got onto the topic of religion and he mentioned that he didn’t see how anyone could be an atheist, and didn’t think they counted as people. I asked him why he though that; the only reason he could come up with was that his pastor told him so. When I asked him if he liked me, he told me I was his favorite counselor. It’s really sad how the church is taking advantage of his disability and economic status by brainwashing him into thinking that his religion can do no wrong and that all the others were and unforgivable sin.

It’s sad, but I’m not entirely surprised. They are accustomed to making anyone who doesn’t believe in their theology the “bad guys”. It’s a shame that the Boy Scouts are such a religiously motivated organization, because I actually think learning about survival skills, being in the woods with their peers, and sharing positive experiences with others is a great thing for kids. Considering you have to keep your identity secret, I’m sure you feel the same way.

Yale University Press announced last week that it would go ahead with the publication of the book, but it would remove from it the 12 caricatures that originated the controversy. Not content with this, it is also removing other historic illustrations of the likeness of the Prophet, including one by Gustave Doré of the passage in Dante’s Inferno that shows Mohammed being disemboweled in hell. (These same Dantean stanzas have also been depicted by William Blake, Sandro Botticelli, Salvador Dalí, and Auguste Rodin, so there’s a lot of artistic censorship in our future if this sort of thing is allowed to set a precedent.)

More pandering to religious extremism. When are we going to stop being so gutless when it comes to [updated] threats of violence for expressing our freedom of speech?

Ken commissioned a study recently. Turns out that young Evangelicals are abandoning their faith by the droves, and Ken thinks he knows why. He believes that Christians are allowing secular values to poison the minds of children, and that the only solution is a literal interpretation of the Bible. If kids are rigidly taught that the Earth is only 6000 years old, then they are less likely to be negatively influenced by pesky things like science and logic.

Ironically, I think the reasons so many Evangelicals are leaving their faith is actually BECAUSE of all the deception on the part of evangelical ministers. Once young adults realize that they have been lied to and deceived, why would they stick around? The truth is, Ken, with today’s modern technology people are becoming more and more informed, and it’s almost impossible to keep kids ignorant. Don’t you think they’ll be bitter when they realize that your creationist “science” is a bunch of bullshit nonsense?

Thanks for the study though, Ken. You confirmed something I’ve always believed; that Evangelism is on it’s way down. The future looks bright, Ken; just not for you and your ilk.

Modern creationists don’t even realize the debt they owe to science. During the time when the Bible was written, simple infections that are routinely treated today would have been deadly. The child mortality rate was about 300 death for every 1,000 births, meaning that the odds were good that if you had three kids, one of them would not live past the age of 5. Modern germ theory has given us the tools to bring the number of child death down to a tiny 6 every thousand, making child mortality a rare (though still tragic) occurrence.

You cannot fully grasp modern Germ theory without first understanding the process of evolution. Deadly pathogens, bacteria and other small invaders evolve far more rapidly than any other organism due to their speed of reproduction. Luckily, as we learn more, we create potent vaccines that prepare our bodies for the onslaught of these tiny intruders. In developing countries, the measles, a disease which can be eradicated with a successful vaccination campaign, still kills an estimated 500,000 people a year, many of them children.

The very fact that modern Christians have the luxury to teach nonsense to their own children is due entirely to the tireless efforts of scientists to improve our understanding of the natural world, which in turn allows us to develop new and better ways to protect ourselves from its onslaught. Nature may be cruel, but as our scientific understanding grows, we have increasingly softened it.

Atheist superstar PZ Myers is planning a visit to the museum with his posse, and in response, director Ken Ham says he has a surprise for them; a supposedly irrefutable argument that supports their literal interpretation of the Bible. It’s a chestnut we’ve heard often from Ken, and it’s always met with dismal failure. Why would this time be any different? Ken and his ilk don’t understand the first thing about science; they don’t realize that the cars they drive to work, the tap water they drink, and the tools they used to build their temple to ignorance are only possible because of our growing scientific sophistication and understanding. They prefer to live in the bliss of their own ignorance, and their aim is to drag us all down to their level. I like the view from up here just fine, Ken.

Anyone who claimed to be a believer, but didn’t subscribe to my father’s interpretation of the scriptures, was quickly declared to be excluded from god’s grace for any number of flaws in their doctrine. For example, the Lord’s Supper was to be performed with unleavened bread and wine only. If you used grape juice, you were going to hell. If the loaf wasn’t a single loaf, unleavened, broken by hand, you were guilty of desecrating the body of Christ. If you had ever divorced, had sex outside marriage, married a divorced person, felt empathy for a gay person — or simply crossed Fred — you were the enemy…

I must admit, there are few careers more suited to my father’s temperament and abilities than the legal profession. His intellect and fiery oratorical skills compel people to stand up and take notice. Early on in his legal career he discovered an untapped gold mine in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This new federal act was basically an empty shell waiting to be filled. He was up to that challenge. Filing an unprecedented number of civil rights suits earned him a reputation in the region for championing the rights of the black man. In spite of his personal and theologically based disdain for the black community he was able to sway juries, with his passionate rhetoric, to pay large judgments and even convinced the NAACP to honor him with several awards.

I always wondered how Fred Phelps went from being a Civil rights lawyer to a religious nut. Now I know that he just did it for the money while obviously secretly hating blacks. Talk about a hate filled man!

Here’s a way to kill an afternoon and simultaneously engage in delicious blasphemy: play Faith Fighter, a web based fighting game featuring prophets and gods of different faiths. Your selection includes Jesus, Old Testament God, Ganesha, Buddha and if you pass it at least once, Xenu, the intergalactic tyrant.

The game has stirred the usually controversy, with some people saying it should be taken down because it’s offensive, and of course, the Muslim population feels hurt and targeted because of the depiction of Muhammad. There’s a hilarious option to play the censored version, which just puts a black dot over Muhammad’s face.

The creator of the game has attracted media attention before with his controversial game “Operation: Pedopriest“, where your task is to prevent priests from going to jail for molesting kids. You can do this be either intimidating the parents, or by airlifting the molesters with a helicopter.

Did I mention how much I love crazy creative people before?