Category Archives: Religion

Known Unknowns

Posted on by

One thing surely is funny. When you meet a believer, they always profess to know exactly what their god wants. They not only are absolutely sure that god exists, they also know what and how he or she thinks. By strange coincidence, what god wants is also always exactly what the believer wants. The believer can tell you this on good authority because, having a personal relationship with god, they have gained insight into how god thinks.

But when you ask a reasonable, perhaps even obvious, question, the narrative changes dramatically. Ask, for example, why so many children starve today, and god suddenly becomes mysterious. At that point, the believer doesn’t know what god wants or why he does it, and flatly states that no-one could ever know.

Yet that changes nothing.

You still should do what the believer wants you to do

Commie Constitution

Posted on by

Everyone’s favorite right-wingnut Rick Santorum, on his way to establish a christian theocracy in the USA, went on record in a conference call with this:

The word ‘separation of church and state’ is not in the U.S. Constitution, but it was in the constitution of the former Soviet Union.

Oh, those godless commie bastards! First, separation of church and state is not one, but five words. But that’s immaterial. In truly Monty Pythonesque manner Rick has proven before that he can’t be trusted to be able to count to three, much less above that exalted number. Five is right out.

Surprisingly, Rick, you are right – to a point: the US Constitution uses the words ‘wall of separation between church and state’ instead – in the First Amendment. For someone who allegedly wants to protect the Constitution, Santorum shows a remarkable lack of knowledge about what’s actually in it.

Well, in that he’s on par with most of his fellow devout Christians who profess to live by the Bible, yet have no idea of what it contains.

Christian Love

Posted on by

Muslims will tell you that their’s is the religion of peace. And Christians state that Christianity is the religion of love. In both cases, we’ll have to take their claims with a few rather large grains of salt.

Since it’s currently no challenge to disprove the ‘peace’ thing, let’s look at Christian ‘love’:

Many devout christians tell me that I have to let Jesus into my heart – by which they mean that I have to believe their preposterous claptrap and behave in their homophobic, misogynic ways. If I believe in Jesus, so they say, I’ll be saved and go to heaven when I die. If I don’t, I’ll go to hell.

Now, let’s look at the endgame. Let’s say you accept Jesus, I don’t. You are now in heaven, I’m in hell. You’ll experience bliss and happiness, I’ll be eternally tortured. Now what does that tell us about your moral standard if you can be happy in heaven, fully knowing that I’m suffering in hell?

Pretty much the same that it tells us about Christianity.

Stone-age dumb?

Posted on by

Every once in a while, I hear someone off-handedly making a disparaging comment, referring to someone who seems to behave stupidly as a ‘cave man’. It regularly comes up in a heated debate between believers and non-believers, when the non-believer, losing their cool, tells the religious person she is a ‘bronze age person’.

In this context, the intention is clear: the atheist believes the other person to be stupid, hence the bronze age epithet. However, I think that is phenomenally unjust – to the bronze age people. People at that time were as intelligent and smart as we were today. They lacked knowledge, so some of the things they did may seem stupid to us, but were actually results of brilliant reasoning. If you somehow could time-travel a toddler from 12’000 years ago into present day, and she then grew up with modern kids, you wouldn’t be able to a difference between the teen- and the stone-ager.

What infuriates the atheist to the point they resort to ad-hominems is that in stark contrast to the people who lived twelve thousand years ago, modern people have access to knowledge. Religious people choose to be ignorant; some of their actions are willfully stupid. Calling them cave-men is a complete uncalled-for insult to the memory of those brave hunter-gatherers.

Christian Taliban

Posted on by

After praying for the death of President Obama, faithful Christian Pastor Steven Anderson is openly calling for the death of all gay people. In his tiny, hate-filled mind, and supported by the Old Testament (Levicitus 20:18), which, according to Christians all around the world has been superseded by Jesus, Anderson thinks that murdering all gays cures AIDS. In his sermon titled AIDS: the Judgement of God, Anderson pontificates:

And that, my friends, is the cure for AIDS. It was right there in the Bible all along — and they’re out spending billions of dollars in research and testing. It’s curable — right there. Because if you executed the homos like God recommends, you wouldn’t have all this AIDS running rampant.

Well, except of course for the heteros who also suffer from AIDS and who outnumber gays 10:1. But don’t mind them. Because – reasons! And God! Anyway, Anderson’s messages of love are legend. Besides praying for President Obama’s death, Anderson has also railed against women speaking in churches (Anderson is leaving money on the table – the New Testament forbids women to teach), lectured his parish on the lying ways of Jews (he may have channeled Martin Luther’s On the jew and his lies here), and stated that all LGBT people are pedophiles.

I’ve encountered this amount of raging, rampant homophobia only in repressed, closet gays. Let’s hope Anderson recognizes the wrong in his ways and comes out of the closet before he kills himself.

Gay choice

Posted on by

There are some (usually religious homophobes) who maintain that ‘homosexuality is a choice’. Anyone who has ever tried that knows that it’s really not. Your sexual orientation is about as much a choice as your ‘decision’ to breathe. Those to whom sexual orientation is a choice are usually either bisexual (lucky bastards!) or sadly repressed homosexuals who are afraid to live their true self.

But let us, for the sake of discussion, imagine sexual orientation was a choice. Now what?

Well, homophobes do not really say ‘homosexuality is a choice’ – they say ‘homosexuality is immoral, and if you choose to be attracted to your own sex, you are being immoral’.

But would choosing to be gay really be immoral? Why exactly? Are you telling me that loving someone is immoral? What exactly is immoral about loving someone? Wait – are you saying that another person’s attributes decide the morality of what I do? Does that even make sense?

Let’s face it: saying that loving someone of your own sex is immoral really only tells us one thing: you mustn’t be asked for moral advice.

Nuclear Blasphemy

Posted on by

There is this recurring pipe dream many liberals have (and this did include me) that most muslims are peaceful people (which is true) and that only a tiny minority harbors dangerous ideas. People who say differently are often denounced as bigots, racist (really?) or ‘Islamophobes’. Now, there doubtlessly are people who deserve to be denounced for irrational hatred of Islam or religion. Others have unfairly been accused of being anti-Islam for merely pointing out a provable fact.

While I agree that the majority of muslims are peaceful, it is also a provable fact that the absolute majority of muslims today harbor dangerous ideas: that blasphemy and apostasy are punishable offenses. This is definitely not something that only a few lost causes believe: a few days ago, the Lahore Supreme Court confirmed the death penalty for Asia Bibi, the woman whose only crime is an alleged unkind word about Allah. She is to be put to death because of something she said – and the majority of her country agrees that this is justified. The same is true for most (perhaps even all) muslim dominated countries; it would be foolish to argue otherwise, as that fact was established via polls multiple times over the past three years. So while most of these muslims are indeed peaceful and loving people, a dangerous flaw in their ideology will prevent them from stopping grave injustice. That is the indisputable result when a majority harbors dangerous ideas, and Asia Bibi will pay the ultimate price.

Now, you may think that this is tragic on an individual level, but should have no significant consequences for the world. Until you realize that the same country that sentences a woman to die for uttering a word, also has an arsenal of nuclear weapons.

What do you think will happen if this nation felt that another country has insulted their god? Do you really think that in this case suddenly the majority will realize that blasphemy is not an offense punishable by death? Phrased drastically:

Do you really want someone who thinks insulting his imaginary fried is a capital offense have their hands on a nuclear trigger ?

Of course above question is much too simplistic, as there are (hopefully) more checks in place that control the release of nuclear weapons. I don’t think that Pakistan is on the verge to nuke another country.

But people should not be punished for pointing out the truth, even if that truth does not meet what we wish was true: that only a few bad apples spoil the batch. Currently, a substantial portion of the muslim society is tainted by ideas that can cause immense suffering. This doesn’t mean that it makes people behave immoral, but it can – and does – prevent them from becoming more ethical. Being ethical means to never intentionally harm someone and to prevent people from making others suffer. It’s the latter part that is more important – because it’s what makes us a society. If prevent harm to others is somehow subverted, the whole society suffers, dragging their ethical standard down. If your religion or some other ideology stays your hand while a human is made to suffer – because they are gay, blaspheme, changed their religion or have a different skin color – you and the society you live in is ethically deeply flawed.

I should be able to point out this basic fact without being branded as an immoral, irrational bigot.

Or be put to death for blasphemy.

Islamsplainin’

Posted on by

Sigh. If the cause weren’t so tragic, it would be high comedy: in the UK, Christian politicians are sniping at each other over the question who is the better Muslim. It’s like men explaining what women really think. So we have a veritable feast of Islamsplainin’ going on.

This particular incident, it seems, began when devout Christian and UK Premier David Cameron officially stated that the grisly murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby by fanatical muslims was a betrayal of Islam and of Britain’s Muslim communities.

Strangely, no-one cared about the fact that Cameron’s statement blatantly missed the point: the murder of anyone is a crass betrayal of human values; anything after that is only small fry; nobody gives a dam if it also betrays the values of the spotted owl society, or, for that matter, those of a religion.

Showing little wisdom (and no taste at all by trying to make political hay out of a murder), Lord Pearson of Rannoch took exception with Cameron’s silly statement – of course for all the wrong reasons. As the Guardian reports, the Lord thundered in feigned reighteousness

My lords, are the government aware that Fusilier Rigby’s murderers quoted 22 verses of the Qur’an to justify their atrocity? Therefore, is the prime minister accurate or helpful when he describes it as a betrayal of Islam?

Now, Lord Pearson, himself a Christian, deliberately overlooks the fact that his own scripture is overflowing with blood. I hate to quote your own book, Pearson:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

(and when is say hate I mean I really enjoy doing that)

Of course, it only took little time for the discussion to deteriorate into mud-slinging. Hilarity ensued when both sides of the house started calling each other the non-word of the century: Islamophobe. That word’s definition still is

A word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons

as it was so aptly summarized by Andrew Cummins. It’s a sure sign that you have lost the argument if you need to resort to that term.

The absurdity of the discussion is highlighted by the following megaton of stupidity, delivered free of charge by a UKIP spokesman:

Lord Pearson […] is talking about how Islamic scholars are constrained by the comprehension that the Qur’an is the perfect word of God unencumbered by human frailty, unlike the Bible. In contrast the apostles are human and like all human things are prone to error.

Which is of course news to the majority of Christians to whom the bible is the perfect word of God, not to mention believe in the pope’s inerrancy. Yeah, ‘my scripture beats your scripture’ has always been the most convincing argument evah!

The biggest joke: these Bozos run your country.

It’s his nature

Posted on by

After retroactively discovering the Americas for the glory of Islam, Turkey’s number one nutcase has again said something profound. Profoundly stupid, that is.

Never one who runs the risk of being mistaken for a feminist, Erdoğan took the opportunity to prove once and for all that he’s a world-class jerk when it comes to women’s rights. Slapping his international audience for women’s rights and freedom across the face, the premier intoned rather tone-deaf:

“You cannot make women and men equal; this is against nature. […] What women need is to be able to be equivalent, rather than equal.”

Now that is not only jaw-droppingly stupid, it’s also on par for what we expect from a fundamental religionist. His sophistry betrays the immoral thinking many religions are built upon. Bible, Torah and Quran already have woman’s equivalency with men: In the Quran, four women are equivalent to one man, in the Torah and Bible, she is equivalent to 3/5 of a man. Equivalency is not Equality. This is taught in elementary school nowadays. It’s inconceivable that Erdoğan doesn’t know this.

Now, hidden deep down in his speech, the premier does say that women should have the same rights as men. But it’s buried under a veritable landslide of patriarchic unreason, stone-age mentality, and long stretches of void that elaborate the obvious: yes, women and men are physically different. Bravo. It’s good to know that Turkey’s leadership has clued in to this surprising fact.

Instead of saying things that are obvious yet can easily be misrepresented by misogynists to justify their actions, Erdogan should stop being an ass and acknowledge openly, and in a straightforward manner what should be front and center to every ethical being: that even though men and woman are different, they must have the same rights and freedoms.

Then again, Erdoğan can’t help himself. Saying something intelligent, so it would seem, is against his nature.

Pagan Robertson

Posted on by

Scotsman, priest, and designated head of the Free Church of Scotland, Reverend David Robertson, like so many of his profession, ventured out onto the thin ice of reasoning, only to promptly slip and slide.

Worried about the children at school, the good Minister contends that the SSS (Scottish Secular Society, an acronym that can be delightfully enunciated like the hiss of a serpent, no doubt) wants nothing less than

impose an atheistic philosophy on children

Well, perhaps. Others may say that they merely want to remove hate-filled ideology from classrooms, but let’s not quibble over semantics. After breaking through the ice of reason, Robertson is delving deep into the abyss of stupidity:

Could we not have a more tolerant and Christian view of science? And could we not encourage children to think about the issues for themselves, rather than just tell them what to think?

Wow. Don’t let this guy near a school board. There is only one view of science, and religion does not have a say in this. There’s no Hindu Science, nor Buddhistic Science. Facts aren’t subject to religion. Nobody, neither child nor adult, gets to decide what a fact is. Facts aren’t democratic. Didn’t you watch Penn & Teller’s routine [at the 10:25 mark] where they tried to decide the sex of a white rabbit by voting? No matter what they voted, that vote did not change the rodent’s sex. It’s the addled-minded condition that priesthood and too much burned incense induce that makes you believe that you can impose facts. Everyone else knows that facts are not up to vote nor personal decision.

Worse, Robertson – obviously not a man to read much outside the bible – also overlooks the problem of practicability. If we really were to teach creation myth alongside science, the year would not be long enough to teach the 1200 historic creation myths known in Eurasia alone – not to mention those from Australia nor the Americas. So I suspect that Robertson doesn’t really want children to choose from a broad range of myths. He wants their intellect to be drowned in the Abrahamic blood-fest called ‘Old Testament’.

Robertson indignantly continues:

It is desperately disappointing that secularists believe the key danger in 21st-century Scotland is apparently creationism, not the 20% of Scottish children who live in poverty, nor the many thousands who have faced the ravages of sexual abuse and drug addiction.

Perhaps. But why is the Reverend wasting his time on this issue rather than helping the impoverished 20 percent? His ways, it seems, are as mysterious as those of his god. And please note that I refrained from an all too obvious snark involving the church and child abuse… ah, bugger it.

Robertson’s distress and disappointment may also have been heightened by a speech the day before from his Vatican competitor, astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno, who went on record likening creationism to ‘a kind of paganism’.

Ouch.