Ballsy-Mitzvah

This kid is badass.

glumbert - Ballsy Bar Mitzvah Speech

Godless Internets Tubes

There is no God on the Internets Tubes. Even sixty percent of US Internet users says there is no God. Throw a vote in and have your say!

Atheist Sees Big Bang in Piece of Toast

I wonder how much it will sell for on eBay?

"I was just about to spread the butter when I noticed a fairly typical small hole in the bread surrounded by a burnt black ring. however the direction and splatter patterns of the crumbs as well as the changing shades emanating outwards from this black hole were very clearly similar to the chaotic-dynamic non-linear patterns that one would expect following the big bang". "It's the beginning of the world" he added excitedly.

Ever since news of the discovery made national headlines, local hoteliers have been overwhelmed by an influx of atheists from all over the country who have flocked to Huddlesfield to catch a glimpse of the scientific relic. "I have always been an Atheist and to see my life choices validated on a piece of toast is truly astounding" said one guest at the Huddlesfield arms hotel.

A Vain Motherfucker

A retailer in Singapore recently bowed to pressure from the Catholic Cult Church to stop selling 'Jesus' cosmetics:

SINGAPORE - A cosmetics range with cheeky taglines that extolled the virtues of "Looking Good for Jesus" has been pulled from stores in Singapore after some Roman Catholics complained the items were disrespectful, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Promising to "Redeem your reputation and more," the product line included a "virtuous vanilla"-flavored lip balm and a "Get Tight with Christ" hand and body cream, as well as bags and other items sold by British retailer Topshop and produced by Blue Q, The Straits Times said.

Since when did looking good for Jesus become disrespectful? Don't we always want to look our best in church?

Anyway, some 24-year-old Catholic pipsqueak piped in and said:

"Why would anyone use religious figures to promote vanity products? It's very disrespectful and distasteful,"

But of course! Everyone knows that Jesus/God, who fucked his own mother to father himself, abhors vanity in every form. The last thing Jesus would ever do is exhibit vanity!

We now continue with our regularly scheduled and mandated-by-God worship of Jesus already in progress...

Fuck Celibacy, Not Children

And no, I'm not talking about pregnancy issues here. I'm talking about vows to celibacy. They don't work, even when the person who vows celibacy is a female:

MILWAUKEE -- A Roman Catholic nun who pleaded no contest to sexually abusing two Milwaukee boys years ago will spend a year in jail.

In the late 1960s, St. Patrick's church and school was ruled by Giannini. It's still not clear how many boys she used that power to take advantage of at the school, but two of them -- now in their 50s -- finally had their day in court at her sentencing.

Giannini has admitted to a church panel that she also molested a Chicago boy and at least three other minors.

This is sad on so many levels. It's sad that this woman made the mistake of vowing to repress her biological needs, and it's sad that these young boys were victimized as a result. This woman was not allowed to express her natural urges in a healthy and productive manner. And as I've noted before, repression leads to compulsion, and she ended up losing control and taking out her urges in an unhealthy, coercive manner on young defenseless children.

Fuck celibacy, not children.

Scientology vs. Anonymous

I never liked Scientology. And neither does anonymous. Who is anonymous, you ask? Let the video explain it to you:



Anonymous is basically those who populate the internet. Anonymous considers themselves to have power in numbers, and power in anonymity. I tend to agree, more or less.

But what I really agree with is the war being declared on one of the most notorious modern-day pro-afterlife cults, Scientology. These people suck. I've had a few run-ins with Scientologists before, and it wasn't pretty (in one encounter, the auditor angrily snatched the Dianetics book out of my hand after I politely told him that I don't believe in the afterlife). These people are nasty, and they deserve to have their beliefs ridiculed.

What will come of this? Nobody knows yet. The war doesn't officially start until February 10th. I'm not getting my hopes too high up, as anonymous is notoriously fickle and elusive. But I hope anonymous does something of significance, for the benefit of all the other anonymouses out there.

Hat tip to BlackSun Journal.

Prayer-Powered Permanent Purge of Paedophile Priests

The task? To rid the Catholic Church of pedophiles.

The weapon? Perpetual prayer.

Pope Benedict XVI has instructed Roman Catholics to pray “in perpetuity” to cleanse the Church of paedophile clergy. All dioceses, parishes, monasteries, convents and seminaries will be expected to organise continuous daily prayers to express penitence and to purify the clergy.

Oh yes, nothing works like prayer! Vatican officials reportedly expect to see their power of failure taken to new heights.

Vatican watchers said that there was no known precedent for global prayer on a specific issue of this kind. There are about one billion Roman Catholics worldwide.

Damn, if only they had done this for world war, disease, sin, and atheists, things would have been so much better! I fully expect this perpetual prayer plan to succeed, and quickly. Following this prayer-powered permanent purge of paedophile priests, I expect the Pope to apply it to all other areas of social ill, with equal success.

George H. Smith Endorses Ron Paul

George H. Smith, author of Atheism: The Case Against God, gives his endorsement for Ron Paul.

Imaginary Assault

This kid has balls of solid brass:

"This boy got up and his visual aid was a Bible and a book. And he got up and started his speech by saying 'Now, this piece of crap' and pointed to the Bible."

...

"He took the Bible and he said, 'I'm going to do this because I can. I'm going to do something that your stupid, little minds aren't going to be able to comprehend and he took the Bible and started ripping out pages."

A kid in school gets up in front of his class, throws a few insults at Christianity, and proceeds to rip pages out of a Bible. I've done it before, it's no big deal. But of course, the Stokholm Syndrome sufferers in the classroom had to take the action as a threat directed against them personally, and the kid is most likely suspended.

The next time some theist insults evolution, or so much as looks at a Dawkins book crosseyed, I'm gonna file assault and battery charges against him. No, not really, as that would be ludicrous. To rip pages from a Dawkins book (pardon my ripoff of Jefferson) neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. But these poor brainwashed children in the classroom felt that the destruction of a holy book was a personal assault against them.

Officials said that ripping up a Bible is constitutionally protected, adding the punishment has nothing to do with the student's Freedom of Speech demonstration.

"Any actions that were taken in this case were because of behavior separate from the Bible," said Parker High Principal Dale Carlson.

Yea right.

What Your Brain Looks Like on Faith

Sam Harris, Neuroscience researcher and author of "The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation," recently co-authored a study entitled "Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief and Uncertainty." And Time.com has an interesting article about it:

Harris tested how the brain responded to assertions in seven categories: mathematical, geographic, semantic, factual, autobiographical, ethical and religious. All seven provided some useful data, but only the ones relating to math and ethics produced results clear enough to give a vivid picture of the way the simple and the complex, the subjective and the objective intertwine. Regardless of their content, statements that the subjects believed lit up the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a location in the brain best known for processing reward, emotion and taste. Equally "primitive" areas associated with taste, pain perception and disgust determined disbelief. "False propositions may actually disgust us," Harris writes.

Is there a practical application here? He speculates that if belief brain scanning were sufficiently refined it could act as an accurate lie detector and help control for the placebo effect in drug design.

Harris says there is no critique of faith hidden somewhere in his brief paper. But his next neurological enterprise may be another matter. He is planning an fMRI run that will concentrate specifically on religious faith, which Harris thinks he now knows how to plumb more deeply. He also plans to set up two different subject groups — the faithful and non-believers. "That way," among other things, he says, "you can ask, 'Do believers believe that Jesus was born of a virgin the same way that nonbelievers believe that Chevrolet makes cars and trucks?'" It may turn out that the brain treats religious faith as its own special category of belief unlike ethics and math.

But that is not what Harris expects to find. He suspects the machines will show that "belief is belief is belief." And that conclusion, he admits, may put him at loggerheads with familiar foes. No one, he says, could accuse him or anyone else of trying to disprove God's existence on the basis of an fMRI. But faith is more vulnerable. "People who feel that religious faith is a singular operation of the brain — if they admit that it's an operation of the brain at all — would object to what I'm doing, since it may show that faith is essentially the same as other kinds of knowing or thinking. The whole thing will seem fishy to anyone who thinks we have immaterial souls running around in our bodies."

Tea Party, Los Angeles Style

I don't only kill afterlifes one believer at a time. I also abolish states one brick at a time.

Daniel Dennett Demolishes Dinesh D'Souza

Good old Daniel Dennett debated Dinesh D'Souza, and it went pretty well in Dennett's favor in my somewhat biased opinion.

I've corresponded with Dinesh before, and I wasn't too impressed. Why the guy is so popular is beyond me. But incredibly stupid things do tend to be popular, don't they?