Prophecy!

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Passion of the Wii

I am totally getting this game.

THE PASSION OF THE Wii from Serious Lunch on Vimeo.

Kosher Milk and Darwinism

Zvi Shkedi, an observant superstitionist and creationist of the Jewish variety, has posted a knol about evolution, and boy is it a bad one.

I believe I came up with a fair offer in response to his knol. I left this comment for him to read:

A knol about evolution, written by an observant Jew who has previously posted a knol about kosher milk. In that kosher milk knol, the first sentence says, "Only milk that was milked in the presence of a supervising Jew is kosher."

Zvi Shkedi believes that the nearby presence of a human who happens to practice one particular brand of magic/superstition (Judaism) will somehow affect that milk's composition.

I'm wondering if Zvi Shkedi can devise an experiment to distinguish kosher milk from non-kosher milk. Perhaps some chemical analysis? Or would rune stones of some type have to be consulted?

Perhaps enough bobbing of one's head back and forth in front of an ancient stone wall could be the mechanism by which the kosher milk could be distinguished from its non-kosher heathen milky peers?

The reason I bring this up is this: If Zve Shkedi succeeds in quantifying, testing, and demonstrating falsifiability of his kosher milk assertions, then I will renounce my atheism, convert to his particular brand of Jewish superstition immediately, believe every word he wrote in this article, and implore all my fellow Darwinist-atheists to follow suit.

MAZEL TOV!

Dawkins on Anti-Dogmatism

Iraq War: A Biblical Event

According to some French guy, in early 2003 President Bush called President Chirac and said that God wanted him to invade Iraq to defeat Gog and Magog, two Satanic forces mentioned in the Bible.

Holy fuck. I suspected something Biblical (not oil/energy or money) in Bush's Iraq invasion all along. And now a Frenchie interviews (former) president of France Chirac, and the truth comes out.

I wonder why the US mainstream media isn't covering this story? Oh, that's right, it's because they are all shills and puppets for the Christeo-Satanic forces that run our government. How could I have forgotten?

Here is the article:

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.

Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing” to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”

After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn’t comply with Bush’s request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal. Dr. Romer explained that the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains two chapters (38 and 39) in which God rages against Gog and Magog, sinister and mysterious forces menacing Israel. Jehovah vows to smite them savagely, to “turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,” and slaughter them ruthlessly. In the New Testament, the mystical book of Revelation envisions Gog and Magog gathering nations for battle, “and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”

In 2007, Dr. Romer recounted Bush’s strange behavior in Lausanne University’s review, Allez Savoir. A French-language Swiss newspaper, Le Matin Dimanche, printed a sarcastic account titled: “When President George W. Bush Saw the Prophesies of the Bible Coming to Pass.” France’s La Liberte likewise spoofed it under the headline “A Small Scoop on Bush, Chirac, God, Gog and Magog.” But other news media missed the amazing report.

Subsequently, ex-President Chirac confirmed the nutty event in a long interview with French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice, who tells the tale in his new book, Si Vous le Répétez, Je Démentirai (If You Repeat it, I Will Deny), released in March by the publisher Plon.

Oddly, mainstream media are ignoring this alarming revelation that Bush may have been half-cracked when he started his Iraq war. My own paper, The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, is the only U.S. newspaper to report it so far. Canada’s Toronto Star recounted the story, calling it a “stranger-than-fiction disclosure … which suggests that apocalyptic fervor may have held sway within the walls of the White House.” Fortunately, online commentary sites are spreading the news, filling the press void.

The French revelation jibes with other known aspects of Bush’s renowned evangelical certitude. For example, a few months after his phone call to Chirac, Bush attended a 2003 summit in Egypt. The Palestinian foreign minister later said the American president told him he was “on a mission from God” to defeat Iraq. At that time, the White House called this claim “absurd.”

Recently, GQ magazine revealed that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld attached warlike Bible verses and Iraq battle photos to war reports he hand-delivered to Bush. One declared: “Put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.”

It’s awkward to say openly, but now-departed President Bush is a religious crackpot, an ex-drunk of small intellect who “got saved.” He never should have been entrusted with the power to start wars.

For six years, Americans really haven’t known why he launched the unnecessary Iraq attack. Official pretexts turned out to be baseless. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction after all, and wasn’t in league with terrorists, as the White House alleged. Collapse of his asserted reasons led to speculation about hidden motives: Was the invasion loosed to gain control of Iraq’s oil—or to protect Israel—or to complete Bush’s father’s vendetta against the late dictator Saddam Hussein? Nobody ever found an answer.

Now, added to the other suspicions, comes the goofy possibility that abstruse, supernatural, idiotic, laughable Bible prophecies were a factor. This casts an ominous pall over the needless war that has killed more than four thousand young Americans and cost U.S. taxpayers perhaps $1 trillion.

The Onion: Weakling President Asks Imaginary Man In Sky To Bless Nation

The Onion is the only non-satire news source I read.

WASHINGTON—In a display of weakness unbecoming a head of state, President Barack Obama concluded remarks to his nation Tuesday by asking a pretend man who lives in the clouds to watch over and guide the United States.
"Thank you, and may God bless America," said the clearly insecure president, who, by seeking the aid of an imaginary being who is neither his ancestor nor someone with whom he shares a tangible harmonious relationship, freely admitted that he has little faith in himself and his inept team of jester advisers.
Even more incomprehensible, sources said, is that hundreds of millions of Americans openly worship the all-knowing invisible man—who apparently observes the world's events from atop his perch in outer space—without fear of mockery, shame, or violent government reprisal.
According to sources, citizens of the U.S. depend on the fanciful grandfather of magic to take care of everything for them, from aiding their tiny overseas army, to curing their illnesses, to helping their sports teams achieve victory, to providing little Jimmy McDonalds with his silly toys.
Mindless spirituality reportedly inhibits progress and remains a bulwark against government rule.

When God and Government Mix

I don't see how this could possibly go wrong:

Irish atheists are horrified by new legislation making blasphemy illegal, and punishable by a 25,000-Euro fine. Christians of all stripes should be, too.

As part of a revision to defamation legislation, the Dail (Irish Parliament) passed legislation creating a new crime of blasphemy. This attack on free speech, debated for several months in Europe, has gone largely unnoticed in the American press.

The text of the legislation is provided at the end of this post.

How does this impact free speech? Just don’t be rude.

* Atheists can be prosecuted for saying that God is imaginary. That causes outrage.
* Pagans can be prosecuted for saying they left Christianity because God is violent and bloodthirsty, promotes genocide, and permits slavery.
* Christians can be prosecuted for saying that Allah is a moon god, or for drawing a picture of Mohammed, or for saying that Islam is a violent religion which breeds terrorists.
* Jews can be prosecuted for saying Jesus isn’t the Messiah.

Is it really THAT big a deal?

Ireland’s Blasphemy Bill not only criminalizes free speech, it also gives the police the authority to confiscate anything deemed “blasphemous”. They may enter and search any premises, with force if needed, upon “reasonable suspicion” that such materials are present.

* The local Freethinkers society, with its copies of Hitchens’ God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
* The video store, with copies of The God Who Wasn’t There.
* The history teacher, who uses The Dark Side of Christian History to teach her class.
* The library, with its collection of books deemed blasphemous.
* Even the homeowner who lets the wrong person know he has a copy of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses could find his door broken in by the Thought Police, his bookshelves ransacked, and his books burning in the front yard!

Satirizing religion in any way, shape, or form, if it “causes outrage”, is now a prosecutable offense in Ireland. Saying anything negative about a religion, if it “causes outrage”, can now be prosecuted as a crime. Just like in Muslim countries.

Witness the return of the Dark Ages.

The text of the legislation:

36. Publication or utterance of blasphemous matter.

(1) A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €100,000. [Amended to €25,000]

(2) For the purposes of this section, a person publishes or utters blasphemous matter if (a) he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion, and (b) he or she intends, by the publication or utterance of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage.

(3) It shall be a defence to proceedings for an offence under this section for the defendant to prove that a reasonable person would find genuine literary, artistic, political, scientific, or academic value in the matter to which the offence relates.

37. Seizure of copies of blasphemous statements.

(1) Where a person is convicted of an offence under section 36, the court may issue a warrant (a) authorising any member of the Garda Siochana to enter (if necessary by the use of reasonable force) at all reasonable times any premises (including a dwelling) at which he or she has reasonable grounds for believing that copies of the statement to which the offence related are to be found, and to search those premises and seize and remove all copies of the statement found therein, (b) directing the seizure and removal by any member of the Garda Siochana of all copies of the statement to which the offence related that are in the possession of any person, © specifying the manner in which copies so seized and removed shall be detained and stored by the Garda Siochana.

(2) A member of the Garda Siochana may (a) enter and search any premises, (b) seize, remove and detain any copy of a statement to which an offence under section 36 relates found therein or in the possession of any person, in accordance with a warrant under subsection (1).

(3) Upon final judgment being given in proceedings for an offence under section 36, anything seized and removed under subsection (2) shall be disposed of in accordance with such directions as the court may give upon an application by a member of the Garda Siochana in that behalf.

Dane Cook on Atheism

This video made me LOL.

The Data is in: Afterlife Belief Makes People More Bloodthirsty

Via Epiphenom

Gay Porn in Christian College

Some guy attending a Christian College appeared in a gay porn flick, and subsequently got suspended from school.

How did his crime of queerdom get discovered? Because another student at the same school saw him in it and snitched! Did the one who saw the film also get suspended? The article doesn't say, but I doubt it.

But the question arises: just how many queers are there in that Christian College? And I'm also wondering if the homo percentage of that school is higher or lower than the national average? I'm putting my money on the former.

The Dog Delusion

Who You Gonna Call?