Over the weekend, the Pope arrived in Germany on a tour designed to try and recruit Protestants and other estranged Christians who have grown tired of their religion’s increasing acceptance of homosexual marriage.

Knowing, too, the value of family and marriage, we as Christians attach great importance to defending the integrity and the uniqueness of marriage between one man and one woman from any kind of misinterpretation,” he said, according to the Associated Press. “Here the common engagement of Christians, including many Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Christians, makes a valuable contribution to building up a society equipped for the future.”

You wouldn’t want marriage to be “misinterpreted” by allowing your fellow human beings to enjoy the same rights as everyone else, right?. This could send a dangerous message of acceptance and tolerance that the Catholic Church has vowed to combat.

A society equipped for the future – according to these assholes- is one where gays and lesbians are marginalized and clearly not worthy of the same rights as heterosexuals. The Bible tells them so, and even though they’ve chosen to ignore all the other laws that make it a sin to eat bacon or to wear clothing made of two different fabrics, the ones they focus on tend to provide theological justification for whatever ignorant bullshit they’re trying to peddle.

I find it hilarotragic (my new word for anything both tragic and hilarious) that an organization that shelters thousands of child rapists has the audacity to claim to have society’s best interest in mind. I think their long history of repression, abuse and murder severely undermines this idea. I encourage the Catholic Church to keep fighting against the civil rights of gay people; it’ll be just one more reason for people to abandon their fucking nonsense.

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About 40% of adults in America believe that Adam and Eve existed. This means that almost half of your population is functionally retarded. And you wonder why your economy is tanking…

In an effort not to ignore scientific truth forever, some evangelicals are starting to question the existence of Adam and Eve in order to finally catch up to the rest of us who have embraced the methodology of science. They naively believe -as Francis Collins does- that science and faith are compatible. I’m sure it appears to them this way, but only so long as their cognitive dissonance is in full swing. The twisted logic at work trying to rectify religious believe and the evidence of our evolution is astounding. It’s a step in the right direction, perhaps:

[Brian] Venema is part of a growing cadre of Christian scholars who say they want their faith to come into the 21st century. Another one is John Schneider, who taught theology at Calvin College in Michigan until recently. He says it’s time to face facts: There was no historical Adam and Eve, no serpent, no apple, no fall that toppled man from a state of innocence.

Yeah, if you do that, you have a major problem: without the fall, Jesus’ sacrifice is pointless (well, it was always pointless, but now more so). Original sin is of paramount importance to the faith. Don’t get me wrong; I love the idea of these people starting to accept that our species evolved from other primates. The problem is that they’ve simply refused to accept the conclusion of evolution. Of course, most evangelicals realize that abandoning this dogma would have serious repercussions to their belief:

Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, says that rebellious choice infected all of humankind.

“When Adam sinned, he sinned for us,” Mohler says. “And it’s that very sinfulness that sets up our understanding of our need for a savior.”

Humanity “infected” by sin? That’s the Christianity we know and despise. As far as Jesus-lovers are concerned, humanity is a filthy pile of sin that’s barely worthy of God’s love. Only those slavish enough in their devotion to ignore reality can enter super-magic-fun-playland-in-the-clouds when they die. The rest, those unbelievers, will be tortured forever in a lake of fire for denying the divinity of someone who, if they existed today, would be put in a sanatorium. Christianity isn’t really a “people first” doctrine. As far as they are concerned, we’re all pieces of shit that disobeyed God at one time or another and have been punished ever since.

Let me put this another way: if Adam and Eve didn’t exist, then according to a bunch of very sexist Bible-belt assholes, there would be no justification for men ruling over the lives of women. That means that ladies would be able to control not only their own lives, but their reproductive cycles as well. Do you have any idea how terrifying that prospect is for an old white guy?

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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…

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It’s funny that whenever a non-believer states plainly that no evidence exists that would satisfy the “God question”, we’re accused of being snobs, elitists, mean, or even fundamentalists. Have you noticed that no one seems to accuse us of of having the weaker argument or of being wrong. Instead, we’re vilified as being “spiritual buzzkills”.

I’ve long had doubts about S.E. Cupps atheism, if only because she seems to lack the kind of insight and critique one would expect of a true non-believers. She continues to hold that the religious are somehow morally superior in their unsubstantiated beliefs. It’s not entirely surprising: her audience tends to lean heavily to the right. What bothers me is that she tends to jump on the same weak arguments her theological colleagues rely on to slander us:

Which brings me to the problem with modern atheism, embodied by the likes of Harris and Hitchens, authors of “The End of Faith” and “God Is Not Great,” respectively. So often it seems like a conversation ender, not a conversation starter. And the loudest voices of today’s militant atheism, for all their talk of rational thought, don’t seem to want to do too much thinking at all.

I wonder exactly what she considers “thought” to mean. Apparently, thinking means having emotions and then using those emotions to justify your beliefs about the natural world:

I wonder what they’d say to someone like Immaculee Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide who says that her faith in Jesus Christ got her through 91 days of hiding in a 3×4 foot bathroom while her family was murdered outside. Would they tell her she was crazy? Delusional? To just deal with it? I would hope not – but I am not sure.

Actually, they would have simply pointed out that the Catholic priests who held the very machetes that cut down their fellow countrymen may have equally been comforted by their religious beliefs. The Catholic hierarchy is well known to have had close ties with the extremists who committed the genocide in the first place. Had Cupp bothered to do a little research, she might have chosen a different example altogether (or am I being arrogant pointing out how stupid that example was?).

It’s these snarky and condescending rejections, not of faith itself but of those who profess it, that reflect a total unwillingness to learn something new about human nature, the world around us and even of science itself. While the neoatheists pay only cursory attention to dismantling arguments for God, they spend most of their time painting his followers as uncultured rubes. The fact that religion has inexplicably persisted, even despite Copernicus, Darwin and the Enlightenment, doesn’t seem to have much sociological meaning for them.

Religion persists the same way ignorance does, and often for the same reasons. Simply because the majority of humans believe in absurdities certainly means nothing about how true it is, does it?

When the esteemed theologian David Martyn Lloyd-Jones asked C.S. Lewis when he would write another book, Lewis responded, “When I understand the meaning of prayer.” It was an acknowledgment that he – a thinker with a much sharper mind than, say, Maher’s – didn’t know everything. I implore my fellow atheists to take this humility to heart. There’s still a lot to learn, but only if you’re not too busy being a know-it-all.

Are we really the arrogant ones? It’s ironic that people convinced of the certainty of their impossible beliefs think that we’re the ones who could use some humility. How exactly is the dogmatic faith of religion anything but the most abrasive arrogance in the world?

**NOTE** One of the comments in the article hit the nail on the head better than I did:

The word “faith” means: acceptance without benefit of knowledge. By declaring that one has “faith”, one has already admitted that one is ignorant. There should be no shame in being ignorant. Ignorance is simply a lack of knowledge. But, stupidity is the willful rejection of knowledge that is available. If religion is the glorification of “faith”, then religion is the glorification of ignorance. And, since there is a preponderance of actual knowledge available to remedy one’s ignorance, and since religion instructs the “faithful” to willfully reject knowledge, one is forced to conclude that religion promotes stupidity. And this is the paradigm that “people of faith” wants the general public to accept as a standard for civil law and the electability of political candidates? Hmmmm….

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If you’re black and gay, you have my pity. I can’t imagine a minority group so vehemently opposed to homosexuality. They often make the sermons of white Alabama preachers seem almost tame by comparison. It’s no secret that as a group, African Americans are more religiously conservative than the average American. Since many believe in the literal word of God, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for tolerance and understanding when it comes to homosexuality.

I read an interesting article on CNN discussing the issues of religious gay men who happen to have a darker skin pigmentation, and it made me sad for all those men and women who continue to live in the closet, convinced that they have somehow been cursed and that God can cure them of their same-sex attraction. But they can no more change this than they can their own skin color, or their height. The resulting theological conflict causes anxiety, fear, self-hatred and self-loathing, as well as completely retarding their sexual and emotional development. While they should be out enjoying themselves and finding loving same-sex partners to share their lives with, they often isolate themselves from others, terrified that people in their community might find out about their secret.

It’s no secret that a significant portion of African Americans voted yes on Prop 8 in California, and while they only make 10% of the population, it was enough to pass the law by a narrow margin (70% of them ended up voting for the amendment). On the eve of the historic vote that would see the first black president, the rights that gays and lesbians had fought so hard to gain were taken away. California became the first state to alter its constitution specifically to take away rights that had previously been allowed. What I find tragic is that the open bigotry of black preachers is no different than the open bigotry that had previously been preached from white pulpits some 50 years ago, warning of the dangers of interracial marriages. These “value voters” created special laws that prevented these unions. In their own way, they too were trying to preserve the “sanctity of marriage”. It’s only a historical accident that this has fallen out of vogue with most people, due in no small part to the tireless effort of individuals who believe in the value of equal rights rather than skin pigmentation.

All of this nonsense and heartache can be avoided by simply declaring that the principles espoused by a Bronze Age manuscript are dangerously out of date with modern society. Why any black man should be ashamed or angry over something as trivial as his sexuality is ludicrous. Only something as stupid as religion could cause such pointless misery.

NOTE: Here’s a confused article saying that Gay is not the “new black”. The author argues that gays really haven’t had it as bad as black people, being only oppressed for a paltry 40 years. Even if this were true (which it isn’t), does it make their struggle for equal rights not as “worthy”?

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I’m not a parent, so it’s difficult for me to comprehend what it feels like to actually have to take care of one of these screaming whelps. As far as I can tell, they smell, they cry and jump around a lot, and when they get older, they get all “angsty” and totally hate your guts. I’ve been told, however, that the experience is rewarding enough to put up with the mega hassle.

One thing I do know for certain is that your own brain is changed when you have a kid, and your affection for said child can border on scary. I know a lot of parents that would jump in front of a speeding bus filled with rabies infested tigers to preserve their genetic legacy, so it surprises me whenever someone disavows their own progeny for obscure religious reasons.

Last Tuesday, a 5 year old child was admitted into the Eduibiase Government Hospital in Ghana, and was in desperate need for a blood transfusion. Despite the parent’s protest, the doctors decided to save Jepheth’s life, and as a result, the family has disowned the boy.

There are those that refuse to believe that parents could disown their children over such a seemingly trivial thing, but this kind of tragedy happens all the time. Some parents can even try extreme measures to prevent their kids from receiving any treatment.

The root cause of all this brouhaha is the archaic belief that blood should only be reserved for atonement (the rather disgusting idea that people need to be sacrificed to appease gods is something we’ve been stuck with for a long time, unfortunately). Silly me; I actually thought the primary purpose of blood was to carry oxygen and nutrients to all the cells in your body!

Another tragic example of the divisive power of religion, tearing families apart over their stupid fucking theological dogma bullshit.

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In the 1920′s, an Anglican minister left a translated Bible on the small and remote Belcher Islands, located in Hudson Bay, Canada. The islands are fairly remote, and the local Inuit population rarely interacted with the rest of the northern population. In the 1940′s, a string of murders occured, and when the police investigated further, they learned that the otherwise peaceful island had been swamped with religiously inspired killings.

One woman, believeing herself to be God, sent several children on a deadly walk across the frozen Hudson Bay (they were forced to do so naked), while a woman was murdered because some of the other town folks believed she was Satan; another grizzly murder involved a dispute between two men who thought they were both Jesus.

When the Toronto Star interviewed the Archbishop of the Arctic (this is an actual position I’m told), he stated that he had not been able to visit the island, and as a result, could not help solve their obvious theological disputes. In other words, without someone actually trying to control how the Bible is interpreted, all kinds of crazy shit happens. This is their supposed Holy Book, the same tome that has “all the answers”. Seriously, I’d rather use the Iliad as a moral compass than the brutal, xenophobic and vile book that is the Bible. Has anyone who believes in this shit ever actually bother to read it? Then again, considering what happened in the Belcher Islands, maybe it’s better if no one does…

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Australia, be warned! It seems as though the latest efforts of your country’s atheists has attracted the attention of theologically minded hackers. The Global Atheist Convention’s website has been flooded, and the Atheist Foundation of Australia’s site was attacked also.

It’s not known who is doing this exactly, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some religious nutbag hoping to prevent people from attending this year’s atheist convention. It’s the type of typical, “it’s not wrong if I do it for Jesus” tactic that fundamentalists seem so fond of employing.

As usual this kind of thing only galvanizes people even more, so I imagine this probably won’t stop people from going; if anything, I’m willing to bet the event will be an even bigger success. In your face, religion!

*NOTE* The site is back up, so if you’re an Aussie and you are looking to meet up with some like minded atheists, think about going, will ya?

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How many of you believers out there are tired of not being able to have anal sex or a hot threesome with your wife because she’s a Christian? Well, have no fear you poor sexually frustrated bastard, a theological solution is here. Just go to SexinChrist.com to know everything you need to know about how God permits that kind of wonderful sodomy.

Now I know what you’re going to say: “Jake, surely it’s too good to be true. Are you sure I can have my chastity and my orgiastic parties at the same time?” Who fucking cares? This is probably the only way you can finally convince your spouse that God commands his followers to shave their bikini zones.

Honestly, my favorite chapter was the one on how strong erections are a gift from God, which therefore makes Viagra a gift from God. You hear that, ladies? When I take this pill invented by a bunch of scientists, my penis gets harder than granite because God wills it. Hallelujah!

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I find it strange that Christians believe that their religion gives them moral superiority over others. In their deluded minds, they believe that the Bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ are the foundations of our modern (ethical) society. Never mind the fact that the same book was used to justify all kinds of atrocities, from genocides to slavery; that was ages ago! Those people weren’t real Christians, and there’s no way anyone reading the Bible could possibly get it wrong, right?

Here’s an interesting article from a person of faith deriding the slew of preachers that have prayed publicly for the death of President Obama. The author believes that these acts of barbarism set a dangerous and deadly precedent, and that their religion is vulnerable to the manipulation of the few relative extremists that use their pulpit to promote their bigotry and racism.

I agree that these kinds of preachers need to be stopped, but her solution to this problem, prayer, is quite literally the most useless thing anyone can do. I understand her frustration. It’s quite impossible for Christians to properly put their extremist factions in their place; after all, fundamentalists rely on a literal approach to reading the Bible. Theological arguments can’t be settled because they aren’t based on anything real or objective. While it’s nice to know there are plenty of Christians that find this kind of hate speech aberrant, we seriously need them to do more than just pray. You people are aware that it doesn’t do shit, right?

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