Evil Atheist Conspiracy

Jeff Mullin is a "Senior Writer" for the Enid, Oklahoma News & Eagle newspaper. A few years ago he wrote an article "poking fun" at atheists for having the unmitigated gall to suggest that traditional god-belief was exactly the same as belief in an Invisible Pink Unicorn (blessed be Her unseen curly mane.) He subsequently received a letter from an atheist who asked him what gave him the right to ridicule atheists for their lack of belief?

Nothing, apparently. He just likes to ridicule atheists. So, nice Christian guy that he is, he decided to do it again. This time in a column dripping with insincere pity for the poor, deluded atheists.

How very thoughtful of him.

More below the fold...

Illinois state Rep. Monique Davis has apologized to Rob Sherman, who has graciously accepted her apology, for attempting to deny him his civil rights in a public hearing that he was invited to testify before last week.

Apparently it's OK to be a bigoted, unconstitutional, theocratic asshole if you're having a bad day.

One of our favorite guys, Rob Sherman, testified before the Illinois House State Government Administration Committee on Wednesday related to Gov. Rod Blagojevich's proposed $1 million grant intended for Pilgrim Baptist Church, and was blindsided by wackjob theocrat Rep. Monique Davis who seems to think that atheists don't have any right to exist, and that we are "dangerous to children".

[link] Davis: I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy -- it’s tragic -- when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school.

I don’t see you (Sherman) fighting guns in school. You know?

I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous--

Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?

Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!

Sherman: Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I’m sure that if this matter does go to court---

Davis: You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.

You can listen to the whole sordid thing here.

(Tip of the ballcap to Twitter and Hemant!)

I hate April Fools Day. I'm cynical and skeptical enough as it is, and when 4/1 rolls around, I tend to dismiss almost *everything* I hear or read in the news.

Combine that with never quite being sure when some religion is real or some kind of elaborate hoax (I mean, Scientology? Mormonism? Raelism? It's a joke, right?), and when someone sends me something like this, I really wonder:

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to step into two free speech cases, one involving a church that wants to place a religious monument in a park and the other on payroll deductions for labor union political activity.

Officials in Pleasant Grove City, Utah, asked the court to step into the lawsuit brought by the religious group known as Summum, saying that if the group prevails, governments would be inundated with demands to display donated monuments.

Father Raniero Cantalamessa, writing a "Gospel Commentary for Palm Sunday" in Zenit, the Catholic news service from Rome, Italy, has redefined atheism so that it means, well, theism.

How incredibly convenient!

[link] Jesus on the cross has become an atheist, one without God. There are two forms of atheism: the active or voluntary atheism of those who reject God, and the passive or suffered atheism of those who are rejected (or feel rejected) by God. In both forms there are those who are "without God." The former is an atheism of fault, and the latter is an atheism of suffering and expiation. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, about whom there was much discussion when her personal writings were published, belongs to this latter category.

On the cross Jesus expiated in anticipation all the atheism that exists in the world, not only that of declared atheists, but also that of practical atheists, the atheism of those who live "as if God did not exist," relegating him to the last place in their life. It is "our" atheism, because, in this sense, we are all atheists -- some more, some less -- those who do not care about God. God too is one of the "marginalized" today; he has been pushed to the margins of the lives of the majority of men.

So, as you can see, all atheists really do know that God exists, but they either choose to "reject" Him, or they are going through so much suffering that they lose sight of Him. Mother Theresa's atheism is a good thing, you see? It means that God was heaping on extra punishments and torment for no reason - because she was so saintly and good. Obviously she needed to be tortured her entire life. And this is proof that He exists! Hallelujah!

And God Himself is "marginalized"! The horror! The poor, put-upon, all-powerful Universal Creator of everything is sad because every time He punishes one of his most faithful creatures over the course of years, then refuses to provide any evidence that He actually exists in any real sense, they stop believing in Him. It makes me weep, really.

That means that all of us atheists who make the simple claim that god-belief of any kind is absent within us are delusional liars.

I see.

Thank you Father, for your enlightened Palm Sunday commentary in which you attempt to marginalize and demonize 12 to 15% of the world's population. But that seems to be one of the things the Catholic church does best. Create the illusion that a group of fellow human beings are somehow sub-human, then use that perception to get the upper hand politically

Great job! Mission accomplished! I am SO looking forward to your God making me suffer. Maybe I can be as big an atheist/theist as Mother Theresa if He keeps me alive long enough, and I get painfully tortured enough!

Yes! Religion is so great! And Catholicism is the best religion ever!

Update: D'oh! The Manka Bros punked me with this one. Nicely done satire!

Dammit. I missed the obvious "white Christian teen rapper" angle when I was looking for my multi-million dollar record deal.

I strongly encourage all you pagan atheists to have a stiff drink before watching this delightfully insane video. (I'm 100% serious here. Have a drink of something before clicking the Play button. Make sure you swallow first.)

And yes, I am well aware that more exposure for this tweener singing/rapping dynamic duo means that they will probably sell more records - and I am perfectly OK with that. More power to 'em. Fleece the sheep for all they can bear, seems to be their father/producer/manager's motto. It's a textbook lesson in exactly how one can indeed worship God and mammon, contrary to what their holy book says.

Enjoy.

Ah, I see. Being confident, and writing books that disagree with your magical happy-land fantasy world is now considered "ferocious". Thereby it follows that those awful atheists that write books must also be "militant".

I get it now.

[link] As more atheist-centered books and movies make their way to mainstream culture, two best-selling Christian apologists are encouraging churches to better equip their congregation to respond to what they call a more outspoken and "confident" atheism.

"The arguments are not really new but the ferociousness" with which atheists are lobbing their attacks "are coming much stronger," Mark Mittelberg, primary author of Becoming a Contagious Christian, said in a teleconference on Tuesday.

Be sure and catch the new Fox television series "When Atheists Attack!"

The Christian Taliban are at it again. Yesterday, there was a protest held in front of ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut. The kooks are upset over Dana Jacobson's jokes at a roast and anchor Chris Berman's use of the words "Jesus Christ" and "goddamn" in the workplace.

The Christian Defense Coalition accuses ESPN of having a "lack of sensitivity to persons of faith and a culture of religious intolerance." Un-freakin-believable. They want to sensor my speech now?

The latest attempt to drum up outrage centers around another video, of course. It's a video of Chris Berman going ballistic over incompetent co-workers in the studio. An important thing to note is that this is not part of a broadcast. It's a video of what happened before a show actually started. Berman might be a bit of jerk, but in all fairness, we don't know the circumstances and this is besides the point.

So, here's the challenge: convince me that Christianity isn't just about making a buck.

Specific venue: bible publishing.

My example: Today's NYT article

The Bible as Graphic Novel, With a Samurai Stranger Called Christ

From that article:

Publishers with an eye for evangelism and for markets have long profited by directing Bibles at niche markets: just-married couples, teenage boys, teenage girls, recovering addicts. Often the lure is cosmetic, like a jazzy new cover.

Sales of graphic novels, too, have grown by double digits in recent years. So it makes sense that a convergence is under way, as graphic novels take up stories from the Bible, often in startling ways. In the last year, several major religious and secular publishing houses have announced or released manga religious stories.

***

The Manga Bible sold 30,000 copies in Great Britain, according to Doubleday. The print run in this country is 15,000, and it sells for $12.95.

And:

I understand it was horrible. Andy Rooney's fangs speared from his demonic slash of a mouth, ripping the Christian flesh off of poor, poor evangelist Tony Didlo's throat, spilling his blood in the street like a fountain. Then Andy Rooney howled like a wolf and started rooting around in Didlo's guts while he cried for mercy from the curmudgeonly old atheist. Random atheists on the street - you know, because there's so many of us - cheered as Rooney smeared blood all over his face and swung a loop of intestine around and around, smacking the whimpering, dying Christian witness repeatedly in the face.

Then he went to the Super Bowl and enjoyed the game, leaving the evangelist dead in the streets of Phoenix, like us atheists always do when we come across defenseless Christians.

[Baptist Press] PHOENIX (BP)--As thousands of people thronged Phoenix for the Super Bowl, a small contingent of Christians spread out across the metropolitan area to share their faith in Christ.

One of them had a chance to talk with Andy Rooney, the commentator whose curmudgeonly complaints wrap up the weekly "60 Minutes" program on CBS.

"I was standing on a corner and turned around and there was this little old man walking across the street," said Tony Didlo, a member of Grace Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Des Moines, Iowa. "I knew right away it was Andy Rooney."

Didlo held out a Gospel tract and asked Rooney if he had received one yet.

"Yeah, I've got one of those," Rooney replied, according to Didlo's account of the Jan. 31 encounter.

"Sir, do you believe in God?" Didlo asked.

"No, I'm an atheist," Rooney said. "I think it's sad you people believe in that stuff."

Didlo tried to pursue the conversation, asking if the existence of creation didn't imply a creator, but Rooney's cameraman stepped in between them and said, "We've got to go."

"He wouldn't let me go any further with it," Didlo said. "I was surprised he thinks people are totally off their rockers for believing in God."

Hello All,

This is my review of Vox Day's new book called "The Irrational Atheist". I'd like to make some things perfectly clear before I proceed with this review. I am still, and barring some pretty convincing evidence that I find personally credible, will most likely always be an atheist. What I mean by "atheist", as I have written volumes about in the past, is someone in whom god-belief of any kind is absent.

I have lately (within the last few years) come to the conclusion that the entire social and political "atheist movement" is a big, fat exercise in futility. Atheists are not, in any way, shape, or form, a "group" in the same sense that Methodists, Shriners, or Republicans are a group. The atheists who blog and organize activist marches and identify themselves as part of this "atheist movement" group are lying to themselves. There is no "atheist group". Rather, a movement has emerged and become politically active lately that has co-opted the perfectly reasonable descriptive word "atheist" and has twisted its meaning into something that I do not agree with, endorse, or really even recognize any longer. Ellen Johnson telling all of us atheists to "Vote your atheism first..." was the last straw for me. I mean, what in the heck does that even mean? I am not a member of your little club, Ellen.

I have my own opinions, political views, and values. I have my own, personal rationale for being a person in whom god-belief is absent (an atheist). I recognize no "atheist leaders" or spokesmen, and I endorse no one who claims to speak for me, or insinuates that they speak for me in any way.

I speak for myself, and myself alone.

I find it troubling that one of the recent trends in the "atheist blogger" community is to label someone who does not seem to toe the party line as an "appeaser" or as a "concern troll". It's complete crap. I didn't sign a fucking "atheist loyalty oath", and my lack of belief in a god isn't dependent on kowtowing to the self-anointed leaders of this misguided abortion of a political movement, whether or not they exist. If after this review someone uses the "no true Scotsman" fallacy on me in this fashion, they can go fuck themselves. With a jagged stick. Sideways. The political and social issues that concern me - personal liberty, civil liberties, honesty, personal responsibility, fiscal responsibility, freedom, justice, the American Way, all of that, don't require my allegiance to some new political movement. I was concerned with those things before I started calling myself an atheist, and I still am today. Atheism has nothing at all to do with any of that stuff. (See my first paragraph above.) Nether does "theism" for that matter.

I evaluate the books I read, the beliefs I come across, and the philosophies I examine fully, and with an eye towards the facts. I have a highly-sensitive bullshit meter, honed through 20-plus years of discussion, research, study, debate, and arguments with theists (that is, folks in which god-belief of any kind is present.) So, when you read the review below, keep in mind that I was really, really trying hard to find something that I could latch onto and argue intelligently and forcefully against. I was positive that it had to be there. I had my BS meter cranked up to 11 as I read through the book twice in an attempt to sniff out something that I could use - and the damned thing only went off a couple of times, and only when Day was explicitly talking about God and/or Jesus and his personal belief in the Christian mythology.

Shit. Double shit.

Ah, well. I am ethically and morally bound to review TIA honestly, and that is what I will do - regardless of how much it hurts me to do so. Heh. ;)

So, hang on to your hats and join me below the fold.

Although I'm late to this game, I didn't feel like I could contribute to the argument without having seen the movie or read the book. I bought the trilogy recently, finished the first and have started into the second book.

Minor non plot spoilers ahead

As has been said other places, the people objecting to this movie have completely missed the boat. In Pullman's fantasy world there are multiple dimensions and, as is clearly explained in the books, no god. There is a being that calls itself god but it was simply the first self aware being. It's all there in print. The first being didn't create the universes and thus is not god. Their objections about "killing God" are not only silly, but entirely baseless.

Reading comprehension people. It works.

Dawn Sherman, the 14 year old student in Buffalo Grove High School in Illinois who is fighting a mandatory moment of silence law, is getting hammered by the incredibly intolerant, misinformed, "persecuted" Christians who are willing to throw away their civil rights because they happen to be in the majority at this moment.

Stop by the comment area over there and show Dawn some support.

Romney's exclusion of secular and atheist Americans from his rose-colored vision of a happily religious "Stepford wives" America was despicable, to say the least. Now the Huckabee camp in the person of Huckabee aide Ed Rollins gets in on a little atheist-bashing action by using the term as an epithet against Romney aide Ron Kaufman on the Chris Matthews show Hardball. And they all have a laugh at how ridiculous it was to call Kaufman an atheist.

Hah hah hah! Chuckle chuckle, elbow in the ribs. Isn't it so silly to say that a top aide to one of the Presidential campaign's front-runner candidates is a dirty, stinking, filthy godless atheist? Why, what could be more far-fetched? Everyone knows that atheists can't be in powerful political positions!

Silly Ed Rollins - what a merry jokester you are!

Oh wait - I mean bigoted asshole. Yeah, that's what I meant.

Mitt Romney appeared on Meet The Press with Tim Russert, and immediately Russert hammered him with the atheist/atheism question. Romney stumbled a bit, but managed not to wedge his foot too firmly in his mouth, I thought.

But what in the heck is this "common bond of humanity" he says that he shares with atheists? Is the Mittster a Humanist now? He's trying too hard. He seems to be trying to be all things to all people, and that's just a recipe for disaster.

Transcript below the fold...

So, in clearing out a drawer full of religious junk that my mother-in-law had accumulated over the decades, my wife and her sister came across a series of little booklets put out in the 50's and 60's by the "Back to the Bible" organization. Most of it just got tossed, but one title which caught my eye was this little gem: How to Win your Husband to Christ. As noted on the title page:

(An exposition of I Peter 3:1-6, given over the Network of the "Back to the Bible Broadcast" - September, 1943)

Oh baby! That's that whole "wives, be in subjection to your husbands" bit! I figured that it would be good for a laugh. I'd hoped for something that seemed really antiquated, at odds with modern thoughts on equality and marriage.

Florida State Board Of Education member Donna Callaway gets it so wrong that it's painful to read.

[link] Donna Callaway, a former middle school principal from Tallahassee, told the Florida Baptist Witness that evolution "should not be taught to the exclusion of other theories of origins of life."

She also said she hoped Christians would pray over the issue. "As a SBOE member, I want those prayers," Callaway said. "I want God to be part of this."

Evolution is not a "theory of origins of life", number one, and number two, the Christian God cannot, by law, "be a part of" the Florida State Board Of Education - unless you rescind the United States Constitution, or secede from the union.

But you've all heard this before, time and time again. It's been said, over and over, a thousand times or more. The facts are always the same; ignorant Christian creationist who does not understand what evolution is, or what science is gets elected to the school board. Then they convince other ignorant Christian creationists on the school board to "teach the (nonexistent) controversy" by reading the religious tracts put out by the Discovery Institute, WoTM, or Dr. Dino. Overworked civil-rights defenders like the ACLU and FFRF take the school board to court and win. Many indignant news stories and op-ed columns are written about the evil atheist plot to persecute innocent Christians by teaching science instead of Christian mythology in - ahem - science classes. Overwrought email chain letters get forwarded to everyone and their grandmother shouting about the nasty atheists and their evil plan to barbecue all the Christian children in the public school system for the crime of being Christian.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Things like this make me tired. It feels like we're bailing out a leaky boat with plastic beer cups. I mean, were doing something, going through the motions, making a lot of noise and fuss, but the reality of the situation is that the boat is filling up too fast. I fear that we are sinking, and that there is not a lot we can do to prevent it.

Still, we'll keep on bailing because what else can we do?

Very funny mockumentary about a "born again atheist preacher" and his "Church of Nothing" from Goodiebag.tv.

(Tip of the Stetson to Kirby over at Goodiebag.tv. Good stuff Kirby! Keep 'em coming!)

Here at UTI we have done this countless times before, but it is always very effective. I only had to change "atheist" into "Jew" twice, and one phrase "no evidence for the existence of God" into "no evidence that Jesus was the messiah."

What if Philip Pullman were a Jew? Would the book banning and movie hysteria make sense then? Would it be acceptable?

You decide.

[link] Board agrees to review British Jew's novels
Panel will evaluate literary, not religious, merits of Pullman book, educator says

JAMES RUSK

November 23, 2007

After a complaint that The Golden Compass, a popular children's fantasy book, was written by a professed Jew, the Halton Catholic District School Board is taking the book off shelves in school libraries while it reviews its suitability for students.

But the religious opinions of award-winning British author Philip Pullman will not be an issue when the book is read and reviewed by a committee of 15 people, who will pass their assessment on to the board for a decision, said Rick MacDonald, the board superintendent of education in charge of curriculum.

"It is the book we look at, not the aut