The Good Atheist

Here’s another study that homophobic bigots can casually ignore; Two evolutionary psychologists (yes, these guys are making the news a lot recently) have offered a unique explanation as to the evolutionary value of homosexuality. You see, since gays tend to not breed, the basic question of “why would homosexuality persist if the genes for it would be selected out” hasn’t yet been answered definitively.

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…

If religionists offend us by calling atheists “immoral”, “scummy” or just plain “evil”, we do what any rational and confident person of sound judgement does: we ignore them (or if you’re like me, you write steamy vitriol in your pathetic blog). That’s usually the extent of our outrage, but for religious folks, who benefit from the tyranny of their majority, the inverse reaction to being offended is not so muted.

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…

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For those of you tuning in now, TGA fan Isaac has a charity he’s trying to raise money for (he wants to continue to build houses for low income families around the world). If you’re into the goody two-shoes stuff, visit http://www.justgiving.com/Building-Houses and help out!

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

It still amazes me that gays and lesbians can still cling to their bigoted religion, even when these institutions have made it quite clear that they aren’t welcomed. In Boulder, Colorado, a preschooler was booted from a private Catholic school because his/her parents were lesbians, and this violates the Church’s firm belief that homosexuality is an abomination.

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…

A few days ago, Carisa and I recorded a podcast about a rather disturbing law being proposed in Utah that would make “recklessness” during pregnancy a criminal offense, with a possibility of life imprisonment for feticide. Imagine my surprise to find these kinds of laws acually exist in 35 different states in the US.

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.

I received an email from the 10:23 team today asking for people in the UK to join their struggle to end the government’s subsidization of homeopathy. You might remember the group hilarious “mass suicide” protest just a few weeks back.

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)

A few days ago, an orca named Tilikum dragged trainer Dawn Brancheau down into the water, drowning her before a crowd of spectators. This wasn’t the first time the killer whale was involved in a deadly incident, and this has galvanized the American Family Association into action. They released a statement saying this tragedy could have been avoided had the owners of SeaWorld simply followed scripture:

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)