I’m not sure if homosexuality is actually a genetic trait. I tend to agree that it might actually be caused instead by embryological  development (the best explanation I’ve heard has to do with birth order and how the brain may be masculinized or feminized depending on the level of testosterone exposer in the womb, but I’m no scientist). Either way, I think it’s a pretty interesting study, especially in light of how they conducted it. They studied a relatively small tribe in the Pacific called the Samoa, who don’t seem to share our intense bigotry, openly accepting and identifying their gays. Because of their close kinship, they hoped to examine what our more primitive ancestors lived like (we tend to be way too independent in North America). Homosexual men were more likely to help take care of their nieces and nephews, and the consensus is that these “super uncles” helped the fitness of their kin, and therefore could help pass on their genes (albeit a smaller portion of them) by being good helpers.

You can read all about it here; that is, unless you have a ridiculous religious reason to hate people who have same-sex attraction. In that case, please refer to an ancient book of mythology for your answers…

Take the example of Harry Taylor, who left sexually explicit images of religious figures in the prayer room of John Lennon Airport (the irony, it burns!). He’s been  recently convicted of “aggravated intentional harassment” (is there any other kind of harassment other than intentional?). Although it might sound like a pretty mild charge, it carries with it a maximum penalty of seven years in prison. Yes, you heard right, Mr. Taylor could go to jail for almost a decade for offending a priest in an airport named after a guy who’s most popular song extols the joys of living in a world without religion. My head is officially about to explode.

The Crown Prosecution is trying to defend this draconian law, saying it looks at each case based on it’s own merits. What fucking merit is convicting a man for offending someone? No one has a right to “not be offended”. You live in a world where people have different opinions and ideas, and it’s inevitable that some of those will offend you. Fucking deal with it.

The British government is cowardly for allowing such a law to exists, and it’s citizens should be ashamed that such a case was even prosecuted. For a so-called “secular” country, you’ve got a lot of house cleaning to do…

Here our old friend Christopher Hitchens breaks down the 10 commandments and issues 10 of his own. Which ones do you prefer?

Now, due to the fact that they are a private school, they can pretty much do whatever they like, and that means that there are no reprisals for what essentially amounts to some pretty serious discrimination. If you think that’s acceptable, how would people react if the kid was kicked out of the school because her parents were black? We surely wouldn’t take it as lightly, and we’d be calling them on their racist shit. But because it’s just homos here, we barely skip a beat. It’s just sad how quick people are to defend the rights of a private institution and so slow to defend the rights of individuals not to be discriminated against. Sad, just sad…

Recently, a woman named Christine Taylor was arrested in Iowa for falling down a flight of stairs in her own home, and during her hospital visit, she confiding with her doctor that she had serious reservations about keeping the child. This sent alarm bells for the medical staff, who contact the authorities.

Prosecutors chose not to go to trial because the fetus was still in the second trimester, and the draconian feticide law applies only in the final stages of pregnancy. If you don’t think this is outrageous, I don’t know what to tell you.

You can thank religious wackos for enacting these kinds of insane laws. The recognition of a fetus as a living entity entitled to the same rights as a sentient human being is a pretty spurious idea; how can an abortion be legal, but an illegal one be considered murder? These laws were originally intended to prosecute offenders (typically men who had no desire to become fathers) who would attempt to terminate pregnancies by assaulting women, but it’s now being used against women themselves. The religious right is working diligently to make all abortion illegal, but in the meantime, overzealous religious prosecutors (for these people are always motivated by their ridiculous religious convictions) with a distaste for abortion are using feticide laws to punish women who wish to terminate their pregnancies or have serious reservation of being pregnant. This whole thing feels a lot like 1984, and any American even slightly interested in their personal freedom should be concerned.

Their goal is to have the government follow the recommendation of all major scientific institutions that argue that the so-called effectiveness of homeopathy can be explained entirely by the placebo effect, and nothing more. If people want to consume water or sugar pills thinking it cures their ailments, they should do so without any public monies supporting this bullshit industry.

So to all you UK fans, get active and let the government know how you feel!

White people seem to be pretty goddamn scared of black people in other countries, especially those with strange ancient rituals. They assume that voodoo and other religious practices are simply the work of demons. It’s quite alien to them that their own religious rituals might seem pretty gruesome and savage to others; communion, for instance, is the supposed to be the literal consumption of the body and flesh of their God. Is cannibalism acceptable in this one instance?

So here we have a movie with white people trying to convert other cultures to their monotheistic/triune deity, all in the name of “love” (hey, were the Crusades also about love?). Well, if you’re hearts are filled with so much affection, how about fucking off and letting people live their own lives in peace? If your God is so powerful, why does he always need some pasty face representative to spread his word?

(props to Shaun for the find)

Chalk another death up to animal rights insanity and to the ongoing failure of the West to take counsel on practical matters from the Scripture. [...] Says the ancient civil code of Israel, “When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable.” (Exodus 21:28) So, your animal kills somebody, your moral responsibility is to put that animal to death. You have no moral culpability in the death, because you didn’t know the animal was going to go postal on somebody. But, the Scripture soberly warns, if one of your animals kills a second time because you didn’t kill it after it claimed its first human victim, this time you die right along with your animal. To use the example from Exodus, if your ox kills a second time, “the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.” (Exodus 21:29)

You hear that? The owners of SeaWorld should have been stoned to death, along with Tilikum for their sins! Of course, the logistics of stoning an underwater animal is a bit unclear (I guess they would have to string her up and fetch some pretty damn big boulders to get the job done). They would also have had to sacrifice his fat and bone to the Lord, since he desires the burnt flesh of sinful animal murderers (he loves his blood and sinew, don’t you know?)

It’s some pretty gruesome shit if you ask me. If the American Family Association had their way, we’d all be following the edicts of a Bronze Age manuscript with some pretty fucked up rituals and rules. We’d have to stone to death adulterers, homosexuals, kids that talk back to their parents, college students that work the weekend shift at the local 7-11 and tarot card readers (ok, maybe that one’s not so bad). Does that sound like something we want to do as a civilized society?

If you think the AFA (formally know as the dubiously named “National Federation for Decency”) is fringe; think again. They have over half a million members, and some include influential politicians and policy makers, like senators Jim DeMint (R-SC), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and Sam Brownback (R-KS) to name a few. If things keep looking this good, we’ll all be invited to stoning parties, which is a lot more fun than watching a bunch of whales doing flips and drowning trainers, don’t you agree?

(props to Think Progress for the find)

Here’s further proof that no one at Fox News has actually ever bothered to read the damn Bible. If they did, they might have noticed that much of it is pure insanity, coupled with stories of genocide, infanticide, incest, rape, and everyone’s favorite, the threat of eternal damnation. A little bit of porn never hurt anyone; hell, one of the hosts seems to be all to familiar with the very “smut” they seem so outraged about.

The world would be a much more peaceful place if every religious text was replaced by porn, don’t you agree?

(via Atheist Media Blog)

What I find fascinating is just how adamant religionists are in arguing that the act of believing requires no proof, even when they themselves try to justify their own beliefs. Their mental gymnastics never ceases to amaze me; take this hilarious article written by a well meaning Christian trying in vain to defend his belief in God:

Non-believers say they need PROOF that God exists and without it they cannot subject themselves to believing in what they call a “fictional” God. My argument for this is Love. We have no proof that love exists yet we think very highly of it. People live their entire lives looking and searching for love yet it is a feeling that cannot be proven to be concrete… There are a lot of things in life that can’t be proven but we still believe in them.

Uh, actually, we do know that the emotion “love” is entirely a product of the brain; it’s not some ethereal emotion that can’t be explained by science. But wait, there’s more:

But for those people who need some sort of proof, here you go. First of all let’s look at the Bible. The Bible speaks of and passes on stories about God, his deeds, and his son. Why would a group of real people choose to make up elaborate and extensive stories of a fictional character? [Jake's notes: "Do we really need to answer this question??!!"] They have made no financial profit off of their works and have no other reason to make up these stories. Not only can most of these characters in the Bible be proven and are known to be true but the most influential and important person in the Bible, Jesus, God’s son, is known to be a real person. So most of the Bible can be proven and thus agreed with…

So you don’t need proof at all to believe in God, but the Bible still proves it’s all true! Right. It rather inconsequential that he’s completely mistaken about the supposed historical reliability of the Old and New Testament; this is exactly the kind of weird “talking out of both sides of their mouths” responses that have become a stable of religious apologetics. One minute they are telling you that proof is unnecessary, and the next they’re trying to convince you of the historical and even scientific accuracy of their beliefs. It’s further evidence that we ALL need to have some form of proof to believe in something, even if we don’t all have the same standard for just how accurate it has to be.

You’ve got to love the way Hitchens can plainly and effectively explain why supposed miracles are not only unlikely, but also totally improbable. If you need to believe that Jesus was a God, so be it; just don’t try to pretend there’s any science supporting your bogus claims.

Although details of what was discussed are piecemeal at best, that didn’t stop religious leaders from complaining that the Administration was essentially meeting with “hate groups”. Religious jackass Bill Donohue couldn’t stop himself from opening his ignorant mouth:

People of faith, especially Christians, have good reason to wonder exactly where their interests lie with the Obama administration. Now we have the definitive answer. In an unprecedented move, leaders of a presidential administration are hosting some of the biggest anti-religious zealots in the nation.

This from the same man who said that the victims of child abuse that sued the Catholic Church were “gold diggers“. Yeah, he’s a real swell guy.

Apparently, it’s ok for scumbags like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson to visit the White House, but as soon as atheists try to seek some form of representation in government, we’re instantly labelled as anti-religious zealots. Don’t you just love religion?

Kanazawa believes that the reason this is true it that human beings are designed by natural selection to be more conservative (and therefore more religious) and care only for our kin. Intelligence itself was a  fairly recent development meant to help us solve complex problems, but because the changes happen gradually over time, there were some that possessed more raw brain power than others, who tend to take on values such as liberalism, atheism, and monogamy (which actually might explain why religious folks have a higher divorce rate than atheists).

I read his book: “Why Beautiful People Leave More Daughters“, and although it was interesting and offered some pretty unique explanations to human behavior through the lens of evolutionary psychology, it’s important to note that this is also the same man who believed that poor health was the result of lower IQ. This study was criticized for failing to take into account the fact that people with lower IQ also tend to live in poorer neighborhoods, and that their intelligence is more a sign of poor education rather than anything inherent about their brain power.

If you want to cling to the study to make yourself feel good, I’m not going to stop you. Intelligence is notoriously hard to measure, but as far as I’m concerned, the correlation is a lot simpler; atheists, agnostics and non-theists are more likely to have been exposed to a larger variety of ideas in the course of their lives (since they aren’t afraid to read the religious and philosophical materials of other cultures), and that in itself may account for the difference in intelligence Kanazawa measured.  Let’s not all pat ourselves on the backs just yet; one study doesn’t prove shit; besides, do you really need some excuse to feel smarter than your religious counterpart?