Tag Archives: secularism

Stupidity Challenge

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Steve Neumann, in a Salon article, challenges all atheists to

refrain from posting disparaging commentary about Christian newsmakers on Facebook and other social media sites — including blogs — for one month.

Why? Because Neuman, himself an atheist, believes that atheists are too negative, and should refrain from ridiculing believers, lest they are offended and cast atheism in a bad light. As bad examples of too-aggressive atheists, Neumann cites Bill Maher, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins.

Which makes you wonder what Neumann is smoking. Maher’s one-liner ‘I don’t need a mandate – sounds gay to me’ exposes homophobia and political ignorance with just nine words better than the entirety of Neumann’s article.

The single biggest reason atheism exists is because religious exponents, based on their own misguided morality, try to force their worldview on others. Foremost on the mind of everyone this week are black-hooded religious monsters that kill, torture and mutilate for Allah. This is not the time to dial down the rhetoric.

Belief in false gods has real, tangible result for many. And it is the exponents of religion – those who are targeted by atheists – who contribute most to the problem. It’s called leverage – if you expose the stupidity of one leader, his followers may start to think. When Archbishop John Nienstedt preaches hate, it’s much better to attack and ridicule him than to try to point out his idiocy to each individual member of Nienstedt’s parish.

Plus, Maher is God.

Rick Insanetorum

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US Presidential Wannabe Rick Santorum appeared on fundamentalist Christian TV yesterday to give his ideas of what he thinks are sane propositions once his party assumes power:

Freedom of religion is not freedom from religion

You know, strangely enough, it is. In unrelated news, one plus one equals two! Is America reverting to ‘W’-era stupidity? Can we expect Americans again to be proud of their ignorance, confidently holding up signs yelling “Get a brain! Morans”?

He then went on saying that removing the Bible from the classroom isn’t neutral, but the promotion of a different worldview. Yeah, like forcing a boxer to remove his knife before he enters the ring is promoting his opponent.

But Ricky didn’t leave it at that. Brace yourself, this one’s going to make you spell Moron with an ‘a’:

[They say that] the absence of religion is not a religion in itself – which it is!

Moran!

Like being dead is a way to live or being bald is a hair color.

Rick: Unfortunately, the absence of intelligence is not a form of genius.

Well, you’ve got to hand it to Santorum. It’s 79 seconds of concentrated stupid, so dense that it’s on par with Archbishop John Nienstedt – and that guy is a pro!

Sharia’s bad rap

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There is no doubt that the word ‘sharia’ carries huge challenges in relation to public relations,

declares UK’s Minister of Silly Thought (a.k.a. Minister of Faith), Baroness Warsi. Indeed. So do ‘Spanish Inquisition’ and ‘Apartheid’. All for good reason. She then goes on to make a couple of important points:

I am a British minister in the British cabinet […]. I am not elected[…]. I therefore don’t represent a constituency and I certainly don’t represent the British Muslim community.

Correct on all accounts – which rather does raise the question what the hell (pardon the pun) her role is. Except being a Baroness, which in the UK can be a job unto itself – see Queen (not the music group). If there is one thing she does it’s opposing ‘secular fundamentalists’ like Richard Dawkins.

The most aggressive post I get is from people who are secular fundamentalists,

she complains. She defines secular fundamentalists as people who say that there should be no public space for faith. It’s not entirely clear what her complaint is, but looking at other fundamentalists, she may complain about the complete absence of violence, calls for murder, or similar paraphernalia of standard fundamentalism that can be righteously denounced or talked away as being done by people who are ‘not true believers’.

It does not occur to her that the obvious opposite, someone who advocates faith in the public space, or, not to put too fine a point on this, holds public office for faith, must be a religious fundamentalist. Then again, reason never was the faithful’s strong suit, and she’s currently UK’s Queen of Faith.

It’s obvious that not only Sharia’s bad rap is well deserved.