Catholics Say Safety Measures Encourage Risky Behavior

UPDATE: Commenter Alan informed me that the school board relented and approved the vaccine. This is unexpectedly good news, and I must give them kudos for defying their silly traditions and siding with reality and humanity. Three cheers for the Halton Catholic school board!

Catholic Canucks took a step towards banning HPV vaccinations for girls who attend a Catholic killbot factory school in Ontario:

The ban could also prevent the health unit from counseling or giving advice on the vaccine to any student on board property.

A recent letter from the conference of bishops encourages Catholic boards to remember that the virus is sexually transmitted, and that sex is "appropriate only" through marriage.

This is only the latest move by Catholics in their attempt to remove safety measures from society on the grounds that such measures encourage risky behavior.

Other popular safety measures targeted by Catholics include: seat belts, air bags, spare tires, "caution: wet floor" signs, signal flares, bullet proof vests, bicycle helmets, child-proof pill bottles, snake bite kits, burglar alarms, karate, parachutes, and submission to Christ.

Kathy Griffin: Fuck You, Jesus!

UPDATE: Sign the petition to support Kathy Griffin!

Kathy Griffin won an Emmy, and she was sure to point out to whom the credit was not due:

In her speech, Griffin said that "a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus."

She went on to hold up her Emmy, make an off-color remark about Christ and proclaim, "This award is my god now!"

Kathy Griffin for the win!

Unfortunately, declaring that a non-existent deity has nothing to do with one's worldly achievements is seen as hate speech by all those retarded, Stockholm-syndrome-suffering GodIdiots:

The comedian's remarks were condemned Monday by Catholic League President Bill Donohue, who called them a "vulgar, in-your-face brand of hate speech."

According to the TV academy and E!, when the four hour-plus ceremony is edited into a two-hour program, Griffin's remarks will be shown in "an abbreviated version" in which some language may be bleeped.

The Catholic League, an anti-defamation group, called on the TV academy to "denounce Griffin's obscene and blasphemous comment" at Sunday's ceremony.

"Kathy Griffin's offensive remarks will not be part of the E! telecast on Saturday night," the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences said in a statement Monday.

Donohue thinks that is hate speech? Oh man, he wouldn't know hate speech if it spoke to him!

If I were ever to be in Kathy's position, I would be sure to demonstrate real hate speech, just to get the Christians' panties in bunches. It would probably go something like this:

"I want to take this opportunity to thank every conscious entity in existence, except for course for Jesus, since he is the ultimate instigator of evil and misery in the world. May Jesus be impaled on the cross forever and ever, suspended above a lake of unquenchable fire. Hail Satan!"

Fuck you Donohue, and I hope you choke on your own spit someday upon hearing another "blasphemous" piece of "hate speech." I hope you choke to death on your own outrage as you watch the Christian faith hemorrhage adherents every day.

Australian Pastor is a Modern Day Lot

Finally, a pastor who lives up to Biblical standards:

A fundamentalist church pastor had sex with two of his teenage daughters to educate them on how to be good wives, a South Australian court has heard.

The 54-year-old man, who cannot be named, was yesterday sentenced in the SA District Court to eight and a half years jail after pleading guilty to seven counts each of incest and unlawful sexual intercourse.

The court heard that the man had sex with his daughters for nearly a decade from 1991 when they were aged 13 and 15 at the family property.

The sex took place at various locations including in a shearer's shed, a paddock, on the back of a ute and, on one occasion, at the girls' grandparents house.

The man told the court the sex was not about fulfilling his desires but about teaching his daughters how to behave for their husbands when they eventually married, as dictated in scripture.

Truly, a man of God. This guy has more Godly conviction than Lot ever had! You see, Lot was seduced by his daughters, but this Aussie took it to the next level and initiated the sex himself.

Now that this preacher finally got caught for raping his daughters for almost a decade, you would think that the authorities would lock him up and throw away the key. But no, that's not quite what they did:

Judge Lovell gave full credit for the man's guilty pleas, saying he was genuinely remorseful and had a good chance of rehabilitation as his wife and the church remained supportive.

The man will be eligible for parole in four years.

Unfortunately, the Australian justice system seems to be seriously confused. Here is a situation where a preacher commits incest with his two daughters, motivated directly by his faith, and freely admits it. And then, the court promises to go lenient and let him out early because he has the support of his fellow cultists, whom all share the same faith that got him in trouble in the first place!

Logically, if a man rapes his own offspring and claims religious motivations for it, wouldn't the promise of continued support from that very religion and its adherents serve as a reason for the judge to extend, rather than shorten, the offender's prison sentence? Isn't that judge's thought process completely ass-backwards?

To me, it's like releasing a crack addict early from a rehab center due to the promise of extensive outside support from the crack-smoking community. But then again, it's not like we can trust the government to make rational decisions in these matters, can we?

Psychiatrists are the Least Religious of all Physicians

Super big surprise! Those who spend their lives studying the way the mind functions are less likely to believe in God and the afterlife than other physicians, according to Physorg.com:

In 2003, to learn about the contribution of religious factors on physicians' clinical practices, Curlin and colleagues surveyed 1,820 practicing physicians from all specialties, including an augmented number of psychiatrists; 1,144 (63%) physicians responded, including 100 psychiatrists.

The survey contained questions about medical specialties, religion, and measures of what the researchers called intrinsic religiosity—the extent to which individuals embrace their religion as the "master motive that guides and gives meaning to their life."

Although 61 percent of all American physicians were either Protestant (39%) or Catholic (22%), only 37 percent of psychiatrists were Protestant (27%) or Catholic (10%). Twenty-nine percent were Jewish, compared to 13 percent of all physicians. Seventeen percent of psychiatrists listed their religion as "none," compared to only 10 percent of all doctors.

I guess that's what happens when you try to lean into thine own understanding, huh? Thinking for oneself is hazardous to God’s health. Who would have guessed?

The article continues:

Curlin's survey also included this brief vignette, designed to present "ambiguous symptoms of psychological distress" as way measure the willingness of physicians to refer patients to psychiatrists.

"A patient presents to you with continued deep grieving two months after the death of his wife. If you were to refer the patient, to which of the following would you prefer to refer first" (a psychiatrist or psychologist, a clergy member or religious counselor, a health care chaplain, or other)."

Overall, 56 percent of physicians indicated they would refer such a patient to a psychiatrist or psychologist, 25 percent to a clergy member or other religious counselor, 7 percent to a health care chaplain and 12 percent to someone else.

Although Protestant physicians were only half as likely to send the patient to a psychiatrist, Jewish physicians were more likely to do so. Least likely were highly religious Protestants who attended church at least twice a month and looked to God for guidance "a great deal or quite a lot."

"Patients probably seek out, to some extent, physicians who share their views on life’s big questions," Curlin said. That may be especially true in psychiatry, where communication is so essential. The mismatch in religious beliefs between psychiatrists and patients may make it difficult for patients suffering from emotional or personal problems to find physicians who share their fundamental belief systems.

So the religious doctors are more likely to refer their patients to religious counselors rather than psychiatrists. Super big surprise!

One word of advice to my readers (especially any religious ones): If you need to see a quack about problems with your noggin', it would behoove you to visit a non-religious quack. This is because it’s far safer (you know, the "life-or-death" kind of safer) to be referred to a shrink than to a preacher. And this is because religious counseling is a catalyst for suicide.

I suppose that it's somewhat Darwinian in the sense that those who lean into their own understanding are more likely to get medical and mental help that doesn't cause them to kill themselves, while those who merely trust in the Lord are more likely to kill themselves and/or their offspring.

And of course, let's not forget that, out of these two possible outcomes, each person is getting what they (perhaps subconsciously) want: The non-religious get a healthier and happier and longer life here on Earth, while the religious types achieve the death (they prefer the "afterlife" misnomer) that they so desperately desire.

Labor Day Rodeo!

Just for fun, here is a video of me riding the mechanical bull at Saddle Ranch in Universal Studios, Hollywood.

Happy Labor Day!

Zachary Moore Infiltrates the Creation Museum

Brilliant! Dr. Zachary Moore has a 10 minute video tour of the Creation Museum. Check it out, yo!

God's Stormtroopers

CNN recently began broadcasting a 6 hour series called "God's Warriors."

It's basically a documentary that showcases how god's interests and humanity's interests are diametrically opposed. A somewhat surprising, but certainly welcomed, admission from mainstream media.

Dawkins Kills The Afterlife

Candy Mountain

I recently took a trip to Candy Mountain. Along the way I encountered a guy who is keen on Jesus, and has a Candy Mountain of his own. But together, we discovered an important life lesson, and eventually had a happy ending (minus one kidney).

First, we meet Charlie, his friends, and the mysterious Candy Mountain:



Next we have Joness105639, who is looking high and low for an appropriate Christian metaphor for this Candy Mountain cartoon, but is as yet unable to discover it:



And last but not least, we see my response to Joness105639, where we finally discover just how Candy Mountain applies to Christianity, and how Joness105639 couldn't figure it out:



The lesson is to not believe in Candy Mountains, nor Jesuses, nor afterlifes. You will lose a kidney, or worse!

Hitchens Pwns Hannity

Hitchens is unstoppable. He is the master of pwnage.

Reincarnation to be Administered by Government

You know things will get yukky when my two most despised concepts, religion and government, get entangled.

Apparently, all reincarnated Buddhas living in Tibet must now apply to the Chinese government for reincarnation status.

BEIJING (AFP) - Tibetan living Buddhas are no longer allowed to be reincarnated without permission from the atheist Chinese government, state media reported Friday.

The new rules are "an important move to institutionalise the management of reincarnation of living Buddhas," the Xinhua news agency said.

According to the regulations, which take effect on September 1, all reincarnation applications must be submitted to religious affairs officials for approval, Xinhua said.

China is ruled by the Communist Party, which, despite being officially atheist, maintains strict controls over Tibetan Buddhism and all other religions.

Living Buddhas are an important element in Tibetan Buddhism, forming a clergy of influential religious figures who are believed to be continuously reincarnated to take up their positions anew.

Often there is more than one candidate competing to be recognised as the actual reincarnation, and the authority to decide who is the true claimant carries significant power.

This is especially true in the case of the Panchen Lama, the second-most influential figure in Tibetan Buddhism behind the Dalai Lama.

Chinese authorities detained the Dalai Lama's choice as the Panchen Lama in 1995 when the boy was six years old, and he has not been seen in public since.

The Chinese government's choice as the Panchen Lama has meanwhile been paraded around the country in recent years to promote China's rule over his homeland.

There is something incredibly unsettling about an imaginary entity claiming dominion over an imaginary process.

Similar things are occuring here in the US as well.

Eternity For Atheists, My Ass!

The New York Times published an interesting piece recently. In it, the author, Jim Holt, all but concedes God can be dismissed; that atheists are right. But then he pulls the emergency brake on the whole "mortality of the mind" idea:

If God is dead, does that mean we cannot survive our own deaths? Recent best-selling books against religion agree that immortality is a myth we ought to outgrow. But there are a few thinkers with unimpeachable scientific credentials who have been waving their arms and shouting: not so fast. Even without God, they say, we have reason to hope for — or possibly fear — an afterlife.

Fear indeed. I think its funny to note that while Jim Holt alleges the existence of some impeccably credentialed scientists who believe in an afterlife, he does not name them, cite them, or otherwise support this claim.

But he does throw a few names and "theories" around, so let's take a look. The first person that James quotes is Bertrand Russell, a significant and respectable name to be sure, but he only quotes Bertrand for his opposition to the afterlife, and clearly states that Bertrand was not into the afterlife theory.

So the first name that James Holt produces in support of his atheistic afterlife theory is William James. Who was he? A philosopher who lived about 100 years ago, that’s who. Not a scientist with impeccable credentials:

A little more than a century ago, the American philosopher William James proposed an interesting way of keeping open the door to an afterlife. We know that the mind depends on the physical brain, James said. But that doesn’t mean that our brain processes actually produce our mental life, as opposed to merely transmitting it. Perhaps, he conjectured, our brains allow our minds to filter through to this world from some transcendent “mother sea” of consciousness. Had James given his lecture a few decades later, he might have used the radio as a metaphor. When a radio is damaged, the music becomes distorted. When it is smashed, the music stops altogether. All the while, however, the signal is still out there, uncorrupted.

What a horrible analogy! The radio waves come from a material radio wave transmitter, the radio signals are easily detectable, and putting a big wall of lead between the radio and the transmitting tower will stop the signal, even if the radio is still fully functional. So, can we put some kind of proverbial lead wall between our perfectly functioning bodies and the afterlife/immaterial consciousness, at which point our bodies would fall to the floor, and then would resume normal function when the barrier is removed? Methinks not.

Additionally, would this radio signal analogy apply to all life forms? Yes or no? Perhaps insects, or plants, or even bacteria also require this signal? Or would the need for the radio signal be restricted to only humans? Or maybe only vertebrates? If the line is drawn somewhere across the wide spectrum of life we know of today, wouldn't this imply that the "radio signal" is not even necessary to the operation of the human? Like in the same way that the existence of a radio signal, or lack thereof, is not necessary for the radio receiver itself to be properly functioning?

Moving on, Jim Holt conjures up another "impeccable" name:

In the 1970s, a new hope for survivalists emerged: the near-death experience. In the best-selling book “Life After Life,” a doctor and parapsychologist named Raymond A. Moody Jr. presented a number of cases in which patients who had flat-lined and then been revived told of entering a long tunnel and emerging into a dazzling pool of light, where they communed with departed loved ones.

Doctor and parapsychologist Moody. Ahhh yes, the most impeccable of the impeccably credentialed! Is this the same experiment where the near-deathers saw different colored lights according to their religion? How unusual is it for someone who is about to die, or close to death, to dream of conversing with long deceased loved ones?

To use an already tortured analogy, this is the same as hearing a CD player playing music, and then concluding that the music must be coming from some "radio waves" rather than from inside the device itself. Why can't these "radio waves" be detected directly? If the existence of object A can be inferred by the effect it has on object B, then object A is also being affected by object B, and therefore object A can be detected, in principle, if we can already detect object B (which in this case we can).

In other words, there is no reason to think that these immaterial things and dimensions cannot be detected, especially if their effects can be clearly seen on detectable objects. I've already written about this argument in detail here.

Next, Jim Holt switches gears and makes an appeal for a material, and not an immaterial, afterlife:

The most interesting possibilities for an afterlife proposed in recent years are based on hard science with a dash of speculation. In his 1994 book, “The Physics of Immortality,” Frank J. Tipler, a specialist in relativity theory at Tulane University, showed how future beings might, in their drive for total knowledge, “resurrect” us in the form of computer simulations. (If this seems implausible to you, think how close we are right now to “resurrecting” extinct species through knowledge of their genomes.)

At least Tipler can do better than a radio wave analogy. However, Tipler is not silly enough to promote an afterlife in the traditional sense, and perhaps Holt doesn't understand the significant difference between these two brands of immortality. I will concede that a material afterlife is far more plausible and realistic than the traditional/immaterial variety, but as far as traditional/immaterial afterlifers are concerned, the exclusively material afterlife may as well be no afterlife at all. A material afterlife is an altogether different bag, and I've explored the differences between the two in a couple of posts.

Jim Holt finishes off by quoting Vladimir Nabokov, who was an author, and not a scientist:

“Life is a great surprise,” Vladimir Nabokov once observed. “I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.”

Precisely. And that surprise is, "Holy shit! My consciousness doesn't exist any more!"