While discussing Beit Shemesh mayor’s raging homophobic outburst, someone noted:
“It’s always depressing and sobering when our extremists prove to be as ridiculous as their extremists.”
Actually, no. It confirms what we already suspect: they all suffer the same delusion. They are all the same.
In a way, that’s not depressing – it’s reassuring.
The Catholic organization “Rosaries For Life” has been charitable:
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said the prolife movement, Rosaries for Life, sent an initial 3,000 rosaries “to fill the spiritual necessities” of those affected by the killer typhoon in Tacloban City.
How kind. Now the victims can thank God.
No word on what for.
But if you have been without water and food for two weeks, and the rosary in your care pack has replaced the water purification pills, you can probably thank him for sending you an implement to strangle someone.
If you want to help, send money.
Prayers won’t help here.
Some believers argue that religion is far superior to a rational worldview. Science, they say, has repeatedly admitted to being wrong, while religious values and morals have always stayed the same.
Is that really a good thing?
(Image credit: source unknown)
Showing an innate aptitude for picking lose-lose situations, the American Humanist Association (AHA) has threatened legal action against public schools that participate in an evangelical Christian charity called ‘Operation Christmas Child’ that delivers Christmas toys to poor children.
Unfortunately, everyone involved looks stupid or loses:
Of course AHA has an important point:
“The toys collected by Operation Christmas Child come with pledges to Christianity for its recipients to sign.”
This is the most reprehensible (albeit common) form of proselytizing: taking advantage of another person’s plight. How charitable is that? So AHA’s cause is just. It’s just that – like so often – I see fellow atheists wielding a broadsword where a scalpel should have sufficed.
If I were of a superstitious belief, I’d now spout some metaphors about roads to unpleasantness being greased with goodwill.
Alas, I don’t want to come off as an ass myself.
At least no more than AHA.
Proving that ultra-orthodox Jews won’t be outdone by fanatical Moslems or fundamental Christians, Beit Shemesh (city of 75’000) Mayor Moshe Abutbul took to the airwaves and asserted that his belief was just as homophobic as the rest:
In a Friday interview on Channel 10, Abutbul, when asked about the presence of homosexuals in the city, said that “we have no such things…Thank God this city is holy and pure.” The mayor said that […] it was up to the Health Ministry and the police to “take care of them.”
Rabbi Yitzhak Hagar, a Beit Shemesh resident, agrees: as far as homosexuals are concerned,
“the central problem is a psychological problem, which needs treatment”
So, Moshe, Yitzhak — have you already contacted Dr. Mengele?
In Turkey, the lover of a local politician was fined more than USD 30’000 because she broke up the marriage of the politician and his wife. The politician was found not guilty – because he was only doing what men do.
This is reminiscent of Sharia law that knows only two verdicts: ‘not guilty’ and ‘woman’.
A School Bus driver was allegedly fired for leading the kids he transported into prayer.
After receiving a complaint from the district about the prayers, the bus company, Durham School Services, gave Nathaniel a warning and assigned him two new bus routes serving Edward D. Neill Elementary School and Metcalf Junior High School in Burnsville, he said.
That didn’t dissuade Nathaniel. “I let them know I am a pastor and I am going to pray,” he said.
Quite. He wasn’t fired for leading the kids into prayer. He was fired for being an idiot.
I once heard someone telling his friend the story of the Boy who cried Wolf!, with the obvious conclusions about lying. In a surprising twist, his friend disagreed – the moral of the story, he countered, was obviously a different one: never to be caught in the same lie twice.
Instead of re-interpreting a known tale, I sometimes think how much better a tale could be if it ended differently.
The bible recounts the story where God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son. Priests praise this story as an example of complete Faith in the moral superiority of God.
What an opportunity missed. In a morally superior version of this story, Abraham would have told God to screw himself.
An allegedly highly devout believer travels on a plane, covering himself in a plastic bag:
Douche in a bag (Image: Reddit)
According to this article the man covered “himself in a plastic bag for the whole of his journey because his religion forbids him to fly over cemeteries.”
Because? That’s like writing “Cars are black because Frank is a nice tree.” Conventionally, the word because is followed by an explanation. Like religion, this explains exactly nothing. What is going on here?
his religion forbids him to fly over cemeteries – Says who? I’m the first to admit that my knowledge of what’s written in Talmud and Torah is spotty at best, but I’m quite sure that commercial air travel isn’t covered in either. Air travel at that time usually consisted of either being thrown off a cliff, or being hurled bodily by a catapult. In both cases crossing a graveyard during transit would not have ranked high on anyone’s list of priorities, as it also was the foreseeable endpoint of the journey.
So this is already quite insane. But the ‘explanation’ gets even weirder:
The plastic bag creates a kind of barrier between the Kohein and the surrounding tumah, or impurity – Yeah, right! Because a 0.0005 inch plastic film covering the Kohein is so much better than the airtight sheet metal surrounding all passengers. It can’t be protection from ‘impure’ air – the man is breathing aircraft air; the oxygen in his bag wouldn’t last 15 minutes, causing him to suffocate even before take-off.
And – plastic? That isn’t covered in scripture either. Where do these guys get their guidance from?
If it’s plastic because it’s convenient – well, isn’t it even more convenient to just not do it? Or is it just holier-than-thou theatrics? His ‘purity’ certainly seems about as natural as the plastic bag
This looks suspiciously like some douche grandstanding his piousness. Never mind the fact that if this plane crashed, he would obstruct his seat neighbor’s escape route, ensuring that he, too, would end up in a body bag.
Bravo.
Just why again should we respect this?
In Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett writes
“Juliet’s version of cleanliness was next to godliness, which was to say it was erratic, past all understanding and was seldom seen.”
It’s difficult to describe how funny I think this quote is. It’s even more difficult to describe how funny I think it is that believers can laugh along with me.
Chutzpah, I guess.