Fox News: Westboro Baptist Church is Left-Wing Cult

Fox News doesn’t now their left from their right.

"No Gay Students" at Patrick Henry College?

"That is not entirely correct."

Surprise! Military Grade Weapons at Gun Buyback

The right to bear RPGs?

31/12 CNBC Anchor Completely Flips Out Over Fiscal Cliff

Scream doesn't add weight to a bad argument. Overly emotive appeals smell of deception, especially when the argument for someone to not contribute to the public good when they are eminently capable of make a significant contribution.

Atheist Group For Seniors At La Costa Glen Targeted

Age doesn't mean feeble minded, nor does it mean you can think your way out the biggest scam in human history. A group of senior citizens is copping flak for their unbelief in the greatest fraud on earth.
It is noted that the retirement community administration doesn't normally allow flyers and advertisements for meetings of religious groups The group is not a religious group, it's philosophical group. Those who saw Bill O'Reilly’s recent war on Christmas skit with Dave Silverman, may laugh, but atheism has no dogmas, rituals, no holy books and Bill Maher observed it takes up "so little of your time".
My message to the folks at Atheist Anonymous - Good on you folks and stick to your guns.

23/12 "That'll never happen"

Well, it did, V for Vendetta, has aired on state television in China. The film was never screened in cinemas, for it anti censorship and anti totalitarianism messages.
A new leader of the Communist party, has said that he would like to see new reforms, perhaps this is for show, and perhaps there may be real reforms coming.

Source: The Young Turks.

Funerial gate-crasher: "Wake up Harold!"

A 22 year old man has been taken into police custody after gate crashing a funeral, slamming the coffin and demanding its occupant awake. It took a while for people to realize that he was not known to anyone present, and it is said that people were shocked to realize he had no connection to participants at the funeral. The man is being held for psychiatric assessment.
It appears he tried to invoke bible magic to resurrect the deceased.
He explained to guests at the funeral that he had come to "spread God's words".
Later, on Wednesday he asked the deceased's family to allow him the "raise the body".

Source
   3news.co.nz

Happy Solstice

In this time of celebration, celebrate reason this season for it has brought and continues to bring mankind together in peace and understanding. Be charitable to your neighbor, loving to your family, understanding to all others and always kind.
Today is the December Solstice and while the exact date is not known (and may in fact be quite meaningless), we celebrate the birth of our merciful Pastafari Prime for he saw this universe, sees that it has no gravity and chose to save us with us with his noodly appendage to keep us firmly on the ground instead of letting centrifugal force throw us instantly into the vacuum of space. So called skeptics and historians will claim the Flying Spaghetti monster was created as parody in a letter to a Kansas school district considering introducing the concepts of intelligent design into the science curriculum. Do not be fooled by these lies and falsehoods, The origins of Flying Spaghetti Monster are clear and easily understood.
Many know of his life in this universe, yet many also, do not understand how the great Pastafari Prime came to be.
Deep in the multi-verse, a universe there was. And in this universe were many galaxies, each with many stars, and some of these stars were accompanied by worlds, a few of these worlds were fertile, and full of wondrous plants and creatures. Some had dramatic and violent geology, some of these were the same worlds.
On one of these worlds, there was field of wheat, on the foot hills of a mountain. One day after heavy rain, an enormous landslide slid from high on the mountain, scraping the wheat field from the foot hills into the valley below, as animals came to the stream of the valley to drink, they too were washed down stream to the volcanic lake. As the landslide moved, it ground wheat into flour, and the animals to mince reforming them as meatballs. Herbs growing by the edges of the stream and salts in the lake seasoned the brew.
After many days of geothermal cooking there rose the one true Flying Spaghetti Monster, R'amen.

Through his great mercy no small effort on his part including a fair amount of haggling and pork-barrel politics, today's apocalypse has been cancelled.

May you be touched by his noodly appendage,
Go with pasta, R'amen

Why do atheists laugh at Religion?

Some of my first thoughts on this question today, were satirical, and primarily aimed at Christians.

"We thought about it, then we realized these things, running an inquisition was going to be a lot of work; none of us want to put up with the all the screaming, and Christians tend to make a meal out false martyrdom and we didn't want to be faced with what they could do with genuine martyrdom, too many of us had seen the Jaws movies."

A few things come to mind, about religion past and present that naturally lend themselves to laughter.

• Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron and the banana, selectively bred from plantains in the 19th Century, this miraculous fruit is perfect example of intelligent design and outrageous buffoonery that even Ray Comfort now uses as comedy.
• The compassionate omniscient God who is Jesus, curses a barren fig tree that is out of season. to make matters worse authors cannot decide if the try died immediately or over the course of a night.
• God talks to himself, perhaps suffering dissociative personality disorder, and this is the guy who is supposed to be in charge? Gen 1:26
• If you want striped goats, just put mummy and daddy goat in stripped tent Gen 30:37-39.
• The almighty powerful one needs a rest after six days.
• God needs to workout more, while brawling Jacob, he resorts to cheating by dislocating Jacobs leg 32:25
• On marriage equality, it seems to be their right to discriminate against the LGBTQ community, and no one else's right not to discriminate, huh?
• You get pregnant before conception in Arizona? Thanks pro-lifers. Abortion clinic bombers et al are not terrorists? Wow, Sarah Palin, you should be on SNL.
• Grand Canyon created in five minutes in an event that would have flash sterilized the planet. Eric Hovind continuing the family clowning business, eh?
• T-Rex a vegetarian, yeah pull the other one Ken Ham.
• Irish non-catholic churches aren't real religions. Nice one, Cardinal.
• "Infidels are jealous of Islamic magic". LOL.

As I sat down to write I realized that laughing at religious absurdity is easy, and a relief from the darkness of various religious behaviours and atrocities, too numerous name them all, but lets take a look at a few of the highlights or low-lights would be a better description.

• The persecution of children as young as 5yo as witches. Children tortured and murdered or abandoned by their families after accusations witchery or demon possession. Including one case where a girl hung by her leg on electrical cable for days in order extract confession of complicity in witchcraft leaving a permanent mark on her body. This is a growing practise in West Africa among protestant churches even though Nigeria has criminalize witch persecution the corruption of police officials makes prosecution rare. One prominent case centres around the Liberty Foundation Church lead by Lady Apostle Helen Ukpabio - one prominant member of this church officiated a confirmation ceremony for Sarah Palin.
• Persecution of the LGBTQ community. State constitutional amendments and various other laws prohibiting marriage among non-heterosexual couples is mild compared to Uganda's "Kill the Gays" law set make "Aggravated Homosexuality" a capital offence which applies to long term monogamous relationships, and raising children while gay. The bill also includes some other things that have nothing to do with being gay namely paedophilia.
• HIV/AIDS in Africa, the protestant church not have all the fun. The Catholic churches decades old obstruction to barrier contraception has finally broken down this year, given the virus plenty of opportunity to devastate communities, and leaving orphans to be raise by often elderly extended family in poor health and abject poverty, because the sexually active population are also the working population.
• Bombings and poison gas attacks on schools, the shooting of Malala Yusafsi, yesterday's coordinated attacks on polio vaccination volunteers.
• Human sacrifice for a good harvest. While government officials and police in northern India are trying to standout this practise there still are a few cases each year.
• 22 children stabbed in a Chinese school.  It turn out the man who committed this particular atrocity is connected with a dooms day Christian cult.
• The Holocaust was a natural consequence of Catholic religious epithets against Jews. To quote life long Catholic Adolf Hitler in the conclusion of chapter 2 of his 1922 best seller "And so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord."

The war on Saturnalia

The following transcript was taken from a recent episode of The Orilius Factor aired at the public speaking forums in the Rome.

B.O.: "Beowulf news your source for for non-news, I'm Bilius Orilius.
Its Dec 21, 289 and tonight. Atheists following deceased cult leader Jesus Christ, are miserable and want you to be miserable too, which is why they want to destroy Saturnlia says Patius Son of Robertus. We have with us tonight Maria Constantine, thank you for joining us this evening Maria. and Davidius Agentum-hominem."
M.C.: "Glad to be here Bilius. "
D.A.: "Good to be here, Thank you, for welcoming me to the show."
B.O.: "Maria, what is it with you atheists, why do you want to destroy Saturnalia?"
M.C.: "We are not atheists we are Christian, we follow our lord and saviour Jesus. We don't want to destroy Saturnalia, we just don't celebrate it, we celebrate the birth of Jesus. "
B.O.: "But this Jesus guy, is not a god is he? What religion is associated with Saturnalia?"
M.C.: "Oh, yes he is. What religion is associated with Saturnalia? Most people would agree that would be Paganism."
B.O.: "Paganism is not a religion it is a philosophy."
M.C.: "Really?!"
D.A.: "Paganism has a philosophical component, but with the worship of deities and idols along with traditional practices it meets the definition of a religion. But if we ignore that, to say Paganism is not a religion is offensive to many Romans and others throughout the Empire, even perhaps the emperor. I'm atheist and I can clearly say these Christians you call atheists are clear engaging in a religion complete with mythical legends and supernatural agents. Despite it all being very implausible."
M.C. and B.O.: "WHAT!?!"
D.A: "Slaves for a country that didn't keep slaves, Water into wine walking on water, magical berries, Two men learning latin from a she-wolf, it's a bit far fetched." 
M.C. and B.O. :"Damned Atheists!"
B.O: "And how about the trouble these Christians have been giving merchants. Get an ear full of this guy here:"
Mercent: "They are a lot of trouble, some ask for Christmas trees, don't know what they want, we've asked our wholesalers and they look at us like us have two heads. Some of the Christians settle for a Saturnalia tree, Then their holly men come and harass us for selling to these people. they are all too much trouble."
B.O.: "Can you see any way a round these problems?"
Merchant: "I don't know maybe we could repackage some Saturnalia trees as Christmas Trees, but we have to check with advertising standards."
M.C: "Christians shound't be Celebrating Pagan rituals, they are not Pagans."

B.O.: "Davidius, what is your view."
D.A: "Have all the Saturnalia, or Christmas you want, just keep off public land and out of the senate."

B.O: "Thank you, Davidius and Maria.
Next up,  we have Odious Pilicus, and his report on the centurion pay negations: Are liberals demanding too much salt and are barbarians really a threat to the empire?

18/12 Gays Aren't Human – WTF

A US Christian Radio Host, Linda Harvey, has claimed human's aren't naturally homosexual, aren't human and shouldn't be protected by the US constitution. Research shows that highly religious people are less compassionate. It appears this woman can't even fake compassion, enough to not use a favourite liable of Nazis against Jews, Blacks and Gays. She Argues “Why should the equal protection argument be made in favour of homosexual behaviour, which is changeable? People are not naturally homosexual, so the definition of person in the Fourteenth Amendment is being twisted to make this assumption.” Of course her comments fly in the face of science. And is absurd on its face, as we can observe, Why should the equal protection argument be made in favour of clothes wearing behaviour? People don't wear clothes naturally(while it is a common practise enforced by social convention and the need for protection from the elements), which is changeable, so the definition of person in the Fourteenth Amendment is being twisted to make this assumption. She continues “One thing our culture does not want if it wants to survive is to have its youth corrupted and this is happening in oh so many ways now, and homosexuality is one more. And here’s how it works with homosexuality: since no pregnancy threat exists, some people think there’s no reason to prohibit behaviour in the young, even the very young.” Young people aren't indoctrinated into being gay and the suggestion that they are amounts to an unfounded accusation of paedophilia. Long before the current wider acceptance of gay people and even today, gay youth today struggle to come to terms with knowing that they have little attraction to the opposite sex when their environment is hostile to gay people, for many if they could be not gay they would. Which is which so many outwardly homophobic preachers and politicians end up being force out of the closet in some outrageous sex scandal, Ted Haggard anyone? To hear Harvey's rant see the article at addictinginfo.org.

More recently Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association claimed that being gay is the “result of a birth defect” citing research published in the Quarterly review of Biology. This misrepresentation of science stems from a study that demonstrated that homosexuality runs in families, passing from mothers to sons and from fathers to daughters, and adding weight to the genetic disposition hypothesis of homosexuality. Fischer hit the headlines previously for claiming that there should be a new underground railway for children of same sex couple so they could be raise in heterosexual homes.

Sources: Pink News – Linda Harvey Bryan Fischer

Addictinginfo.org Rightwingwatch.org

17/12 Gun control

As the effects of lax gun control lax continue to produce atrocities an ever increasing rate, Americans are coming to grips with the need for more effective gun control and the return of restrictions on assault rifles.
Is last week's atrocities are just the last in a long line of acceptable losses or are they the turning point for pushing back against the morally vacuous gun lobby?

Someone is still missing the point

10/12 Son Beaten to Death For not Memorizing Koran

I'm reminded of Hitchen's challenge: Think of a moral action cannot be accomplished without religion and count the immoral actions that can only be accomplished with religion.

This weekend we commemorate the loss of writer, journalist, and contrarian Christopher Hitchens (RIP 13/Apr/1949-15/Nov/2011) who observed that good people will do good things, bad people will do bad things, but to get good people to do bad things you need religion.

CHARITY: WATER -- The Amazing Atheist's Pledge