Category Archives: Religion

Oklahoma Mike and the Temple of Doom

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Meet Indiana Jones’ smaller, slower sibling: Dr. Mike Ritze from Oklahoma.

Dr. Mike (R-Broken Arrow, no joke) was instrumental in setting up a privately funded monument depicting the Ten Commandments on the lawn outside Oklahoma’s Capitol building. Quite illegally so, by the way, because the US Constitution strictly forbids this. But it seems that Oklahoma Mike and his fellow legislators thought a little well-intentioned disregard of law was not going to ruffle anyones feathers.

Of course it did.

Enter Satanic Temple, a recognized religion in the US. They want a share of the action, and notified the state’s Capitol Preservation Commission that they intend to donate a monument as well.

Now cue clown shoes and slide whistle as Oklahoma politicians manage to collectively put their feet in their mouths. Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma:

“The New York [Satanic Temple] group is trying to place a monument on the Capitol grounds for religious purposes and will be unsuccessful. The Ten Commandments monument, on the other hand, was put up for historical purposes”

That’s already weapons-grade stupid. But they can do even better:

“This is a faith-based nation and a faith-based state,”

said Rep. Earl Sears, R-Bartlesville. Ho boy, can you be more wrong? Being a political representative in the US you can’t – unless you go nuclear with One nation under god (pledge) or In god we trust (dollar bills).

These clowns really delivered the funny here. And that’s even without the spelling errors on the monument.

It’s not as if the satanists don’t know it. You can see their grin even here, across the pond. Lucien Graeves, Satanic Temple spokesman, managed to get out the following – without bursting into flames of pure Schadenfreude:

“He [Dr. Mike Ritze] is helping a satanic agenda grow more than any of us possibly could.”

And when asked what he’d do to make people less afraid of Satanists, he replied with delightful darkness:

“Some people will be put off by Satanism no matter how it is practiced. […] What we can do, however, is educate people so that they fear us for the right reasons.”

Quite.

Well, Dr. Ritze, didn’t you read the one about the road to hell being paved with good intentions? Looks like this time it is more literal than even the hardiest of the bible belt buckle believers could have imagined.

Or as we say: Karma is a bitch.

Mainly because we don’t believe in her.

Shove over, Islam – Christians can be racist without you!

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FOX ‘News’ had some real news for a change. Not the factual kind of news, but still something new in a sense that it’s new information.

Adding unwanted proof to the ‘Blonde Bimbo’ stereotype (law degree notwithstanding), FOX anchor Megyn ‘Dyslexic Parents’ Kelly asserted that not only was Santa Claus a white man, but so was Jesus. Well, given the fact that the currently most popular image of the mythical winter solstice hero Santa Claus was invented by the Coca Cola company in 1930, and that the Santa myth itself originates with the Northmen, plus the fact that we are indeed talking about a fantasy figure, I don’t have an issue with ‘White Santa’. It also fits with the snow theme.

But… Jesus? If the historical figure existed, he was born in Galilee 2000 years ago. And that would mean that there’s no way he’d be white-skinned. If he’d been an albino, the Bible would have mentioned that as yet another miracle. It doesn’t. So there’s a greater than 99.99% probability that he was dark-skinned. Not that it should matter. But it tells you a lot about FOX ‘News’-country Christians, and the way they ‘think’.

Plus it goes to show that Christians can be racists without ever needing to tell the Muslims they need to stop beating their women.

So how dangerous is saying ‘Merry Christmas’?

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A group of hysteric bible-thumpers recently tried to make everyone aware of the ‘War on Christmas’, and pointed to new Texas legislation that made it legal to say ‘Merry Christmas’. I laughed. Then I saw this worried cleric. He states that saying ‘Merry Christmas’ is ‘worse than killing someone’. Well, that at least explains Texas gun laws.

Actually, the full quote is:

“This [saying Merry Christmas] is worse than fornication, and drinking alcohol, and killing someone”

Now, I don’t want to be a spoil-sport, but above sentence looks a bit like like the religious version of ‘spot the looney‘.

Newsflash: Gender segregation is stupid!

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So the UK Universities really, actually, truly, no-joking-about-it, you-gotta-be-kidding-me did consider segregating sexes during lectures. And now they are taking a well-deserved beating for this stupidity.

What had happened? In a fit of decidedly non-egalitarian, but drop-dead stupidity, they considered segregating classes in UK’s universities to accommodate deeply religious muslims who may feel offended by non-segregated classes. It seems that UKU thinks that everyone should relinquish personal freedom so that a tiny minority of deeply religious people don’t have to relinquish their sexist custom. Enabling these inflexible people to attend all lectures must be important. Because everyone knows that it was close adherence to religion that has contributed most to our sciences in the past millennium.

I can just imagine the vista of such a lecture; the professor details the importance of equality, personal freedom and sexual non-discrimination. The class before her: divided by sex. Oh, and a deeply religious christian faction in the back protesting the sex of their professor by holding up a sign: ‘Tim 2:12 – I do not permit a woman to teach’

Bravo, UKU. [cue extremely unimpressed slow-clap]

It is stupidity like this that universities should battle, instead of supporting it.

Obedience for security

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Someone once said that one of the advantages of religion is that it offers security in return for obedience.

That is true.

Whoever said it forgot to mention that the adage only applies to the priests of that religion, not the poor saps who tithe. Those merely give up freedom in return for promises of security.

Someone else once said that those who are willing to sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.

That applies to everyone.

My Religious Freedom – at the cost of yours?

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Tomorrow, a group of muslims are planning to march through London’s Brick Lane, protesting the sale of alcohol. They are against it because they say it is un-islamic and causes social problems (presumably the drinking, not selling of booze – but with religious people you are never sure). While alcohol consumption can (and does) cause social problems, you can bet your last cent that the real reason for their protest is that it’s not allowed for a muslim to drink alcohol. So it’s a religious thing, not a social concern.

If you don’t want to drink alcohol, that’s your prerogative. But here is the problem: The goal of the protesters is to strong-arm shop owners into not selling alcohol. The protesters don’t just want people to stop drinking by their own volition: just like the gang of muslim thugs a few weeks earlier that tried to enforce homophobic sharia law in the streets of London, the protesters want to outlaw the sale and consumption of alcohol for all. If you don’t want me to sell or drink alcohol, well, go and get stuffed. That’s my decision, not yours. Citing religious freedom to impose your views on me means not understanding what the word freedom actually means.

Can you steal from God?

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Yesterday, a priest in Germany discovered that thieves had stolen a 200 years old bible and a gold plated cross from his church.

To me, this is theft, plain and simple. Interestingly, so it is to the priest. I say interestingly because, theologically speaking, it’s impossible to steal from God. He either allows it, and then the ‘thief’ is merely fulfilling His will. If God doesn’t want you to steal from him, he could intercede any time. That’s where his omnipotence comes in. Knowing all this, and praising his Boss’ almighty powers, the priest still reported this as a theft.

Obviously, the police also doesn’t believe that this supposedly almighty god is able to intercede on his own behalf: they weren’t looking for, nor questioning, victims of recent lightning strikes, earth quakes or plagues. They are looking for a decidedly un-smitten perpetrator.

So is it really that far fetched to argue that not even priests believe in the might of their god?

The War on Christmas rages on!

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Aaaand here we go again. The Christmas Nuts are decidedly mixed this year. Claiming that secular governments have declared a ‘war on Christmas’, religiously conservatives sound the klaxon and urge everyone to come to their defense. It’s even shriller than their normal ‘persecution of Christianity’ routine.

Honestly, I’m not sure what they are talking about. Atheists surely don’t want to abolish Christmas – heck it’s where we make most of our business, and we get a few days of vacation. It’s not the other religions either. The biggest Santa Claus figure I’ve seen was in a predominantly Buddhistic region – a shopping mall in Singapore. So they have no interest in abolishing Christmas either.

So what’s their beef this year? They point to Texas to alert you to the fact that Texas had to pass a bill to allow everyone to say ‘Merry Christmas’ (presumably also on non-Christmas days). This, according to the conservative’s siege mentality, proves that before the bill was passed, it was illegal. Not really – and it seems that the legislation was a stunt just to elicit this response: When asked for specific examples, the bill’s sponsor, Texas Rep. Dwayne Bohac (R-Houston) couldn’t point to any.

All we are seeing here is someone who tries to stop out-of-control politically correctness with a wall of stupid. It never was illegal to say ‘Merry Christmas’. Just like is wasn’t illegal to live before the day the UN passed the Human Right to live. The idiots are just too frightened of being perceived as politically incorrect when say say ‘Merry Christmas’ – so they give you ‘Season’s Greetings’. Wussies. Heck, I don’t believe – but I still wish my religious friends Merry Christmas.

Even my jewish friends.

Homophobic Homilies against Human Rights

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Tomorrow is International Human Rights Day. In other words, another perfect opportunity for the Catholic Church to publicly disgrace itself, this time with yet another homophobic homily.

Chur Bishop Vitus Huonders published (warning: in german) his official letter for Human Rights Day. In it, he denounces what he calls ‘Genderism’ – his thinly veiled ersatz for homosexuality. True to christian form, he calls homosexual behavior immoral, and demands that gay people must not marry nor be allowed to adopt children. He complains that the rights these gays ‘allegedly’ have would corrupt our impressionable young, and will invariably lead to the downfall of civilization. In short, he went full-on Goebbels. Denying essential rights on International Human Rights day is an interesting way to assert moral superiority.

In a somewhat confused middle segment Huonders also seems to cite scientific ‘evidence’ that homosexuality isn’t natural. Since he is a scientific ignoramus (a.k.a. ‘deeply religious’), we can forgive him that stupidity, although I fear the irony of that is lost on this cleric.

Professor Strangelove

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The bible tells the story where the Israelites, after vanquishing the Medianites, murder all male children, and all non-virgin women. They then take all virgins (Numeri 31:35 boasts that their number was 32’000) as their (sex) slaves. A little later, after again being victorious – this time against the Canaanites – the Israelites kill all survivors: women, boys, girls, even infants.

No-one in their right mind would argue today that these are morally defensible acts.

Enter Professor William Lane Craig. He argues – in writing – that the wholesale slaughter of infants, women and children was essentially their salvation, not murder. Not content with spouting this horrifyingly twisted madness, he then goes on to argue that the massacre was hardest on the Israelites who had to murder all these defenseless, terrorized people.

This is, by the way, the same professor who argues that without a god there would be no objective morals. Color me immoral, but I want nothing of this celestial morality.

What bothers me most, though, is that Craig is by no means stupid. In fact, he’s much more intelligent than you and me combined. If someone this smart can rationalize away religious terror, mayhem and murder, we don’t need to explain why stupid people do it.