So I took the Humanist Test today. It’s broken. I only scored 33%, even though I know I’m a caring, emphatic humanist. Impossible. If I ever meet the idiot author, I’ll kill him.
Monthly Archives: November 2013
Legislator tragically misspells ‘Underdog’
Senator in hot water over misspelling ‘Underdog’
Tragically dyslexic Pennsylvania legislator John McGinnis has accidentally landed himself in hot water when he suggested that a touch of reality was added to the ‘Pledge of Alliance’. Intended as a tongue in cheek comment on the fact that the US is currently the Underdog in the world, he texted his assistant to draft a memo to this effect.
Unfortunately, and due to his spelling disability, this was misinterpreted as an endorsement for keeping ‘Under God’ in the Pledge.
His personal aide also pointed to the republican auto-correcting feature in the Senator’s smartphone as a contributing factor.
Operation Christmas Grinch
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:
- The AHA (who usually inspires me) looks like a cross (ha!) between Ebenezer Scrooge and The Grinch, wanting to spoil a child’s Christmas on a technicality.
- The people collecting gifts look stupid because they allow themselves be roped into a missionary drive.
- The missionaries are exposed for using Christmas to force children into a superstition.
- World-class Stoopid: The parent who “was not aware of the Christian nature (of Operation Christmas Child)” — I mean come on! What do they think ‘Operation Christmas Child’ is? A pregnancy drive?
- Most of all: the impoverished children.
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.
Paging Dr. Mengele
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?
Absurd
Human Rights are universal. Unless, of course, they don’t fit your agenda. At the U.N. Third Millennium Summit, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz defended Saudi Arabia’s position on human rights. To quote the King: “It is absurd to impose on an individual or a society rights that are alien to its beliefs or principles.”
He is talking about the right to live, freedom of speech, religion, and the right not be tortured or enslaved. It makes my skin crawl when a human being tells me that these rights are alien to him.
This is the Saudi version of ‘stop making so much noise about your innocence’ from Kafka’s The Trial.
Absurd has reached a new level in Saudi Arabia.
Is Humor a Human Right?
The United Nations have added new members to the Human Rights Council. Among them are China, Russia and Saudi Arabia. This is noteworthy because a) these countries have refused UNHR inspections, and b) Tibet, treatment of homosexuals, systematic subjugation of women – and frigging Tiananmen Square???
Regrettably, neither the EU nor the US have so much as raised an eyebrow at the new elections.
It’s therefore probably just a matter of time until North Korea will also take their ‘well deserved’ seat at the same table.
This leaves only one conclusion: Making cruel jokes on the backs of the weak and defenseless is also a Human Right.
Men being men
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’.
Schooling a Bus Driver
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.
A missed opportunity
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.
Plastic purity
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?