The Good Atheist

Fans of the site will know that I absolutely abhor the pathetic and anemic argument that is “Pascal’s Wager”. Here Hitchens compares it to a pathetic used car salesman trying to get you to buy his junker. Who wants a God who can so easily be fooled by the gambler?

It still surprises me how some people still think that Arizona’s draconian Anti-Immigration laws aren’t racist. I hear the same cavalcade of pathetic explanation trying to justify the blatantly immoral actions of the state to essentially criminalize being a darker skin color. If you still don’t believe me, then allow me to show you exhibit A, a school in Prescott, Arizona that is at the center of another race related controversy. The principle at Miller Valley Elementary School wants a mural depicting children taking environmentally friendly transportation to be “lightened”, since the most prominent children in the picture are not in fact white.

[Principle] Lane said that he received only three complaints about the mural and that his request for a touch-up had nothing to do with political pressure. “We asked them to fix the shading on the children’s faces,” he said. “We were looking at it from an artistic view. Nothing at all to do with race.”

City Councilman Steve Blair spearheaded a public campaign on his talk show at Prescott radio station KYCA-AM (1490) to remove the mural.

In a broadcast last month, according to the Daily Courier in Prescott, Blair mistakenly complained that the most prominent child in the painting is African-American, saying: “To depict the biggest picture on the building as a Black person, I would have to ask the question: Why?”

The children in the mural were actually selected from real students who go to the school, and the parents and children all loved it. Unfortunately for them, racism and bigotry are alive and well in Arizona. The artists who made the mural report that during its creation, they were subject to hecklers who screamed racial slurs at them. It looks like most people aren’t even bothering to cover up their obvious hatred of anyone who doesn’t have white skin. Congratulations Arizona state on once again making me want to vomit with rage!

Hey guys, Jeff and I just finished putting the finishing touches on the first Episode of our new side project, A Winner is Me. and it’s up now! If you love video games like we do and you’ve ever spent an evening shit-talking to your friends while playing together, this show is for you. Remember to sign up to our youtube channel while we work on developing a kick ass website for it in the near future. Enjoy!

The UNCG Atheists/Agnostics/Skeptics are still fighting the good fight and trying to get the city council of Greensboro to remove their official prayer curing meetings. These are the same guys that flew me down to do my first lecture entitled “Holy Shit I’m an Ape“. Nice job fighting the power Phil! Keep it up.

In possibly one of the most ironic cases of life imitating art ever, Christians are now saying that because Mohammad can’t be made fun of on Comedy Central, Jesus should be off limits too.

A coalition of religious and conservative leaders is trying to stop a proposed Comedy Central cartoon that puts Jesus Christ in a modern-day context – before it even gets started.

The newly formed Citizens Against Religious Bigotry said Thursday that it believes the “JC” series would be offensive. They accuse Comedy Central of a double standard in mocking Christian figures and beliefs while recently refusing to let “South Park” depict the Prophet Muhammad for fear of offending Muslims.

“You don’t have to be a Christian to be offended by this,” said Brent Bozell, head of the watchdog Media Research Center.

Yeah, you really do. Newsflash, retards: every day, people are doing stuff that you may not approve of or personally agree with. But they’re still allowed to do it because we live in a free society. Here’s a novel concept for you douchebags: if you don’t like a TV show, then don’t fucking watch it.

Another teacher has been fired from her job as a math teacher at a Catholic school after being outed as an atheist. What makes this story interesting is how they found out about her lack of faith:

Abby Nurre said she was called into the principal’s office just before winter break and asked about Atheist Nexus, a social network that bills itself as site for “nontheists.”

She said she registered on the site on her personal computer at home. She noted a New York Times’ article reporting the government had spent $2.3 million on prayer research since 2000 and added the link.

“I never thought something like that would jeopardize my job,” she said Friday from Phoenix, Ariz., where she was applying for teaching jobs.

Nurre was suspended by Monsignor Kevin McCoy and later fired by the school board for violating a policy that prohibits employees from advocating “principles contrary” to the teachings of the church.

After snooping around long enough, the schoolboard also found that Nurre had once filled out a Facebook poll where she answered ‘No’ to a question about whether she beleived in God. SUCH HERESY! What’s saddest about this situation is that Nurre has basically been forced to renounce her non-belief:

Nurre said when she was hired at St. Edmonds, she was asked if she was a Catholic. She said she wasn’t. At school, she attended Mass and participated in prayer.

“I was fine with that. I’ve always done that,” she said. “I’m not an atheist. I’m not a Catholic. I’m not a Christian. I’m somewhere in between.”

Hmmm. Doesn’t beleive in God. Made posts on Atheist Nexus criticizing religion. Sounds pretty atheist to me. I’m not trying to criticize Abby Nurre here about this because Zeus knows she’s already out of a job at a very shitty time – I just think it’s disgusting that atheists have to hide and denounce their beleifs or be discriminated against. Go Christian tolerance! You guys are the best. Wait, no you aren’t. You suck.

We know that the Family Research Council are a bunch of lying bigots who hate homosexuals, but they’ve really been taking it up a notch lately. Just last week they released a bogus ’study’ claiming that if Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed, straight soldiers would be at a heightened risk of being raped by gay soldiers. Now comes word that the FRC didn’t only lobby Congress against DADT legislature and same sex marriage, but against a bill voicing America’s disgust at Uganda’s death penalty for homosexuals.

It’s time for the Southern Poverty Law Center to reclassify the Family Research Council as an official hate group, not merely anti-gay as they are now listed. According to the FRC’s official lobbying report for the first quarter of 2010, they paid two of their henchmen $25,000 to lobby Congress against approving a resolution denouncing Uganda’s plan to execute homosexuals. The resolution passed in the Senate on April 13th, but remains languishing in the House almost four months after being referred to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Did the FRC’s lobbying kill it? As we learned last week with Malawi, international pressure CAN sway even the most virulently anti-gay government.

Below are three screencaps of the 20-page Family Research Council lobbying report supplied to me by Duncan Osbourne at Gay City News. Among the other items they lobbied against are the overturn of DADT and DOMA, which is to be expected. But it’s almost astounding, almost, that they would lobby the members of Congress against denouncing the death penalty for LGBT people.

Maybe if Christians would just leave everyone the fuck alone, I wouldn’t piss on them so much. But stuff like this just highlights how involved fundamentalists are in the political process and how they’ll do whatever it takes to force their exclusionary and divisive beliefs on everyone. Honestly, I just don’t understand why religious people are so obsessed about who’s sticking what in which hole. There’s a great documentary out there I recommend everyone watch called Outrage which basically makes the argument that a lot of the most vicious opponents of homosexuality are closeted men. Considering how many people fighting this stuff have been caught with their members in the chocolate cookie jar, it doesn’t surprise me.

Is it really that easy to bamboozle religious people out of their hard earned money? What the fuck am I doing catering to atheists? We’re all fucking cheapskates! I chose the wrong line of work to get rich, that’s for sure…

Indexed, masters of the ven diagram, share this diagram of why Baby Jesus cries.

…check out the stuff going on in this Christian church in Ukraine. There’s a ton more where that came from too. I’d probably react the same way if I were there, but it’d be in response to the music rather than Jesus hitting me with his retard ray.