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)

Spread the outrage

Remember these wackos? A few weeks ago, The International House of Prayer and their fearless leader Mike Bickle, made headlines after accusing Operah Winfreyof being the Anti-Christ. These people are not to be underestimated. Since it’s humble beginnings, the church has grown by leaps and bounds. It’s recently opened a four-year Bible collage, and plans of building a massive 100 million dollar church complex (which will undoubtedly be a gaudy monstrosity).

Their whole shtick involves a 24/hour, 7 day a week prayer session that never stops. It’s supposedly been going on for 12 years (I have my doubts about this claim), and in order to accomplish this, young volunteers pledge to spend a minimum of 25 hours a week at the church, often in late night shifts. They’ve been praying for gay marriage and abortion to be made illegal. Fortunately, they’re talking to their imaginary friend the whole time, so all of this prayin’ has done precisely shit in actually changing anything. Of course, this whole effort probably feels inspiring to the members, which explains why they’ve been growing so fast. They have vision, and regardless of how frightening it is (they subscribe to the “Seven Mountain Dominionism” scary bullshit), that’s what these kinds of people want from their church these days: a clear idea of how to change society to fit their narrow worldview.

Spread the outrage

I’ve written in the past on the danges of having fetal homocide laws. While originally intended to help prosecute any man whose violent assaultcauses a still birth. As you might have guessed, the law has yet to actually be used on any guys. Only one dude was ever facing charges, and they were dropped. Meanwhile, hundreds of women have been charged, including a 15 year old whose coke habit is being blamed on a stillbirth. She’s facing fucking LIFE IN PRISON for the crime of being a stupid teenager.

…anti-abortion groups were trying to amend the Mississippi constitution by setting up a state referendum, or ballot initiative, that would widen the definition of a person under the state’s bill of rights to include a fetus from the day of conception.

In Alabama, a women is facing jail time after her Down Syndrome baby died only 20 minutes after being born. The prosecutor charged her with “chemical endangerment”, even though she flatly denies taking anything leading up to the delivery.

This type of behavior isn’t at all surprising. The Religious Right has a pretty big issue with the fact that abortion is legal, and they’ve found a clever way to bypass the legality of it by prosecuting the women they feel need to be punished. What’s surprising is how cozy people are with this law. It seems totally irrelevant that we’re relegating women to the roles of baby ovens, and not much else. Their rights apparently end as soon as you impregnate them.

Ladies, if you need another reason for you to move the fuck out of this bat-shit insane country of yours, how about the fact that in at least 38 states, if anything happens during your pregnancy you could go to jail for the rest of your natural life. Does that sound reasonable to you?

(via)

Spread the outrage

I love conservative double-speak. While they extol the principles of human rights, liberty and freedom from oppression, they issue orders to incarcerate others without due process; often using extreme methods of interrogation. How could anyone pretend to respect the ideals of the Constitution when they fail to play by those same rules?

According to Michele -who promises to end a conflict without shape, form or substance- the key to winning the “War on Terror” involves the following 5 fold plan:

1. Re-open Guantanamo Bay and allow people to be held without charge indefinately.
2. Eliminate Miranda rights for all suspected terrorists. If possible, eliminate all human rights for these “people”.
3. Destroy Iran.
4. Make abortion illegal.
5. Stop taxing the rich.

Her statements about “only God grants you the rights to life, and government can’t take it away” would almost seem to suggest that capital punishment is wrong, but you would be a fool if you thought “consistency” was a priority with opportunists like her.

By the way Michele, some of us are already fighting to end the ideology of terrorism. The way we figure it, if everyone just stops believing that their imaginary friend wants them to kill others for him, and we should be well on our way…

Spread the outrage

Whenever I hear the words Vatican and “reform”, I can’t help but laugh. Here’s an institution that, for a greater part of the history of the West, has benefited from unchecked powers. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the Papal States were annexed, and even then, fascist dictator Mussolini allowed the organization “statehood” in exchange for their cooperation in his new government. Now, this archaic and evil organization gets all kinds of perks, like a seat in the UN.

Imagine for a moment that a tiny country (with a population of less than 1000) was systematically protecting child rapists for decades. Not only that, but their powerful influence was also making people have riskier sex, forcing young rape victims to have back-alley abortions, and placed women under the dictatorship of men. Who would allow such a dangerous and vile state a voice in world affairs?

Pope Benedict has promised to clean up his organization, but considering the fact that this same man who, when heading the renamed Inquisition (now called Covenant of the Doctrine of the Faith), sent out a memo telling archbishops not to divulge information to the cops. Clearly, the man has no interest in actually doing anything about this abuse. Still don’t believe me? How about yet another scandal involving his right hand man?

The latest sex-abuse case to rock the Catholic Church is unfolding in the archdiocese of an influential Italian Cardinal who has been working with Pope Benedict XVI on reforms to respond to prior scandals of pedophile priests.

Investigators say that in tapped mobile-phone conversations, Seppia asked a Moroccan drug dealer to arrange sexual encounters with young and vulnerable boys. “I do not want 16-year-old boys but younger. Fourteen-year-olds are O.K. Look for needy boys who have family issues,” he allegedly said. Genoa Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, who is the head of the Italian Bishops Conference, had been working with Benedict to establish a tough new worldwide policy, released this week, on how bishops should handle accusations of priestly sex abuse.

See, you can tell that Father Seppia is an old hand at this whole “abuse racket”. He wants his boys young, needy, and in a difficult and vulnerable family situation.

According to investigators, Seppia told a friend — a former seminarian and barman who is currently under investigation — that the town’s malls were the best places to entice minors. In tapped phone conversations the two cursed and swore against God.

Need any more proof that none of these clowns actually believe in the shit they profess to preach? It’s simple really: the power of their institution has, for hundreds of years, allowed these douche-bags to do anything they wanted. Turns out a significant portion of these sick bastards actually desire the innocent flesh of young children to satiate their perverse sexual needs. It’s only been a few decades since their power has wanned enough for us to expose their sick and twisted shit. Look what we find when we look under a few rocks. Can you even imagine what kind of twisted shit we aren’t hearing about?

Spread the outrage

After Christina Anderson was raped by fellow congregationalist Ernest Willis and got pregnant as a result, the pastor of her fundy Baptist church forced her to move to Colorado and read an apology letter aloud to her congregation before she left. Classy.

Ernest Willis is charged with forcibly raping Christina Anderson twice during the summer of 1997, when she was his children’s baby sitter and he was 39. Lawyers for Willis, now 52, say in court documents that he will admit having sex with the girl once but maintains it was consensual.

Ah, the old Polanski defense. Wonder how well it’ll work for him considering Willis’ defence team is also trying to bar Anderson’s testimony that he tried to offer to drive her to get an out of state abortion, and that he also offered a “code 3“, effectively a punch to the stomach in the hopes of causing a spontaneous abortion. Why, those sound like the actions of a man engaged in a consensual affair, doesn’t it?

Pastor Phelps claims he helped the police investigation, but he’s obviously a liar since the cops only discovered where Christina was after friends tipped them off that she was living under a different name in Arizona, where she was being home-schooled by other fundy yahoos.

It’s a proud tradition in all Abrahamic religions that girls are always to blame for everything. In the Bible, when Aaron and Miriam both complain that Moses’ new wife if a foreign chick, only Miriam gets leprosy for her questioning the prophet. How many females have been tortured, beaten to death, or immolated under the watchful gaze of the Church? Too many to count I imagine…

Spread the outrage

This is so stupid I felt like ignoring it, but since today is “make fun of ignorant Catholics Day”, I had to include it. You’re all intimately aware of the demise of bin Laden, but did you know that it was John Paul II that was responsible? That’s what the dumb-ass leader of Peru thinks:

Peruvian President Alan Garcia says Pope John Paul II should get credit for the death of Osama bin Laden.”His first miracle was to remove from the world the incarnation of evil, the demonic incarnation of crime and hatred, giving us the news that the person who blew up towers and buildings is no longer.”

Does this guy have any proof of what he’s saying? Of course not. He’s just making shit up at this point. If your chosen religion was still harbouring child rapists, preventing rape victims from getting abortions, and contributing to millions of people dying of AIDS, then you’d be looking for any amount of good news as well. It’s just that when you’re as evil as the Catholic Church, it turns out you have to make up crazy shit to justify your existence. That’s what they’ve always done to survive.

Spread the outrage

Wow, I never knew that non belief was responsible for all the world’s problems! That’s according to the mayor of Suwannee, a county in Florida that still enforces prohibition (progressive, no?). He thinks that the biggest issue facing the world is the lack of belief in God:

There are those that don’t acknowledge the existence of God. Their souls are in mortal danger of being lost for eternity. These atheists, agnostics or non believers point to the injustices and tribulations that befall man. These are things of man’s doing, not God. The main point is that if people around the world truly had God in their lives, there would not be any of the things that atheists point to in order to discredit a belief in the Almighty. God is caring and loving. He is not a mean God. If people were to turn toward God and not away from Him, there would be a heaven on earth. God bless us all.

Yep, if everyone were to believe in the SAME god, a process that appears to require regular sectarian massacres, and internal inquisitions to discourage the religion from reforming, then the whole world would be a paradise! Except of course for women who are raped and need an abortion, or for people who just can’t seem to believe that all of the suffering in the world is really the result of man’s actions and not the cruelty of nature. Except for the terrible ignorance, bigotry and xenophobia that is characteristic of religion, Mayor Fuckface assures us that God will make a personal appearance once we’ve stopped praying to the myriad of entities that aren’t quite the right one.
(via)

Spread the outrage

A fan of the show sent me this letter:

I recently observed a “lunch-table” debate regarding religion, which I thought had a slightly different twist on morals. The debate quickly heated between a Muslim woman and a Christian man over why hard alcohol cannot be purchased on Sundays. The Muslim women, seeming a lot more level-headed, asked how this was not an affront to the separation of church and state. This was followed by several back-and-forth comments, but one of the comments made by the Christian man really intrigued me and I thought I would see what you thought. In defense of this absurd law, he said that all politicians bring in their own morals that are based on their own world views. He continued that whether you are an atheist, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, or anything else, that you have certain beliefs that make up your worldview. Thus, because these individuals are being elected, means that people want them to govern with their world view. It isn’t about separation of church and state to him because he views it as just another alternative background for moral teaching. I think he was trying to separate laws that are specifically indicative of the religion, like posting the 10 commandments at public buildings, or prayer in school, and those that are more disguised like, no alcohol on Sundays, no gay marriage, no abortions, etc. Not wanting to inject myself into a conversation with several colleagues, I sat back and listened.

Do you have any insights on how to address the Christian man’s assertions, or how to address the moral authority of the religious in general, specifically in a quick, succinct argument?

First of all, I have to fundamentally disagree with the Christian man’s opinion. In most countries, politicians are usually elected because they belong to a specific party, or because their political platform appeals to voters. It’s mostly in America that you find “value voters”, and these are merely religious folks masking their theological ambitions. The rest of us take a much more pragmatic view of politics.

Once they are elected, politicians have a duty to serve the interests of all their electorate, not just the people that voted them in office. Politics is about compromise; the ability to get the best results for the most people. Ideologues are the dangerous ones. The already fragile gears of bureaucracy can quickly come to a grinding halt if people refuse to play ball because of their “convictions”. That’s why your government has effectively stopped functioning. Rather than try and reach a consensus, the portion of american politicians who were voted in based on their “values” continue to undermine the system trying to square off their beliefs with the way politics works. As a way of leading, it’s an unmitigated failure.

If you’re engaged in an argument about religion “as an integral part of morality”, you’ll simple get caught in a different discussion altogether. It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain and a proper education in history that religion has NOTHING to do with morality. If it did, witch burnings, genocides, pogroms, infanticides et all would never have been a problem at all. How many religions can claim to have no blood on their hands? Why have they failed to provide the answer to such a simple question?

The simple fact is that the separation of church and state is the only way that our society can work for the good of more than the people in charge. What is their alternative to secularism? How would they feel if a religious minority dissimilar to them was suddenly in power? I bet you then that they would be much less excited about their “moral views” then…

Spread the outrage