Monthly Archives: December 2013

Hitler, Mao and Stalin went into a bar…

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Of course, some devout Christians have nothing better to do than bring up Stalin, Mao and Hitler when they corner an atheist at an impromptu new years eve party.

“You know, no religion killed more people in the past century than atheism: Hitler, Stalin and Mao killed more than 100 Million”

[that thumping sound in the background are a million atheists collectively banging their head against the wall]

So stupid – and that’s after disregarding the ‘Atheism is a religion’ blunder.

Interestingly, a religious friend who overheard the remark intervened with the following observation:

“That’s like saying since 98% of all criminals in Europe are religious, 98% of all crimes are committed because of religion.”

Halleluhja!

A belated christmas miracle. And a not-so-subtle reminder to me that not all religious people are stupid.

Happy new year everyone, and may the facts be ever in your favor!

The man who claims to be god

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Imagine: one day you meet someone who tells you he is god. He doesn’t look special nor does he seem to possess any supernatural abilities. Of course you don’t believe him.

‘You shouldn’t doubt me’, he counters.

You demand proof. He declines, saying that although he is quite capable of doing so, any proof he presents would coerce you into believing and therefore destroy your free will. You ask him things only a god would now, and he just smiles and says ‘if I answered, that would give away my true self’.

So here are the questions:

  • would you believe him?
  • if not, what would change your mind?
  • if you do – why do you think he told you in the first place?

The human right to be welcome

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Swiss national Abdel Azziz Qaasim Illi (a.k.a . Abu Nusaybah, birth name Patric Jerome Illi), leading member of the ‘Islamischer Zentralrat Schweiz’ (IZRS) was barred from entering Canada where he wanted to attend the ‘Reviving the Islamic Spirit’ conference. Why wasn’t he allowed to travel to Toronto? Well, details are still sketchy, but it’s a safe bet that being a member of the fundamental islamic IZRS has something to do with it, along with the fact that some countries (USA, New Zealand) regard him as a hate preacher.

According to Swiss News, Illi was ‘surprised’ to find himself declared persona non grata in Canada. Furthermore, Illi feels that

not being allowed to travel to any North American destination [Illi is also barred from entering the USA] is a violation of the basic human right of freedom to travel

As with other interesting interpretations of human rights, Illi offers up a very peculiar view of what that human right means – a view that almost perfectly mirrors his interpretation of religious freedom: that he may go wherever he wants. But that is not what freedom to travel is about. Just like freedom of religion means that people have the right to refuse your religion, freedom to travel means that although you have the right to travel, it does not give you the automatic right to be welcome everywhere, nor the right to impose your presence upon others. Although you may depart whenever you like, your destination has the right to refuse you. You can travel – but only to destinations where people want you.

There is no human right to be welcome.

If you have overstayed your welcome before you arrive you may be doing something wrong.

Effing Elfing Idiots!

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In a brilliant move to show how silly superstition can have real, tangible impact on everyone, a prankster group calling themselves ‘Friends of Lava’ and posing as ‘Elf advocates’ prevented a highway project in Iceland. They successfully argued that the proposed highway would

disturb the elf habitat, including an elf church.

Sheer brilliance. Can you imagine a more absurd reason to prevent new infrastructure? And using Elves – nicely played! They have a big role every Christmas – as everyone knows they build the toys in Santa’s Workshop. But it’s the Elf Church that really sells it.

This article almost wrote itself, and I was thoroughly enjoying myself – until I found out that the Friends of Lava weren’t joking.

Christmas is when we celebrate trust

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Some time ago when I was still believing, I had the rare pleasure of attending an inspiring sermon that actually made sense.

It was Christmas Eve, and I attended the afternoon Christmas Service. In his sermon, the priest told us that Christmas is not just a day of cheer, but also a day to celebrate trust. He demonstrated this by pointing to the Christmas story; the story of pregnant Mary and Joseph, and the fact that Joseph never once doubted her.

I was thunderstruck – I knew the story by heart, but this had never occurred to me. I was deeply impressed.

The priest, unfortunately, was fired.

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.