Posts from — October 2009

Kimberly Daniels wrote an article on Christian Broadcasting Network’s website on why Halloween is evil and why it will convert your kids to Satanism that they recently pulled down.  I guess they’re ashamed of Kimberly Daniels’ views on Halloween.

Good thing for us, Americans United for Separation of Church and State reviewed and quoted the laughingstock of an article before it was pulled down.

“[M]ost of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches,” Daniels wrote. “I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.”

[…]

Daniels asserts that far from being harmless fun, Halloween is a veritable doorway to hell, full of literal monsters.

“Halloween is much more than a holiday filled with fun and tricks or treats,” she wrote. “It is a time for the gathering of evil that masquerades behind the fictitious characters of Dracula, werewolves, mummies and witches on brooms. The truth is that these demons that have been presented as scary cartoons actually exist. I have prayed for witches who are addicted to drinking blood and howling at the moon.”

This isn’t the first time CBN has flipped the fuck out over witches and Halloween.  Linked are some fun pointers on raising teenage witches, calls for Christians to abduct African witch children, and verses to lob at your children to, “counter the evil influence of Halloween.”

Fr. Barron, some fruitcake in a frock, thinks the modern vampire craze comes from a need in young people to believe in something supernatural and being pushed away from Christianity [video].  Apparently he believes that kids believe shows like True Blood and Buffy, movies like Twilight and The Vampire’s Assistant,  and books like Salem’s Lot and Anne Rice’s terrible Vampire Chronicles are true.

In response to Fr. Barron, the idiots over at my favourite trolling spot, Holy Innocents Catholic Church, Long Beach, went on a barely intelligible rant about Anne Rice:

One caveat: I, for one, remain a bit puzzled about the nature of Anne Rice’s beliefs, especially since she has not, as far as I know, renounced her open support of "gay marriage" and the supposedly implicit goodness of homosexual relations, as well as her vocal support of women’s ordination. And then (on a different level) there was her bizarre claim that the Democratic Party was not only the true "pro-life party," but that it offered the best way to eliminate abortion. It doesn’t follow, of course, that her novels about Jesus aren’t worth reading; folks such as Peter Kreeft have praised them highly (I’ve not read them). But, based on her public statements, I have to conclude that Anne Rice’s path to the truth is still a work very much in progress.

Well, that’s about it for Christians Ruin Everything: Halloween Edition, I’m going to get into costume now.

Yeah… I’m going to a party as zombie Billy Mays.  How did you guess?

Not being allowed to hate people is a hindrance to the free exercise of religion. Every time a revision to hate crimes laws in discussed, the Christians whine and whine and whine about their “right” to scream hateful and violent things (under the guise of religious expression) being taken away.

In the above video Pat Robertson asks the question, “What’s gonna happen if someone preaches a sermon: ‘Homosexuality is a sin. Here’s what the Bible says. Here’s chapter and verse.’  And all of a sudden, somebody leaves that congregation and goes up, beats up on somebody who is a homosexual.  Does that kick back on the pastor?  Is he now guilty of a hate crime?”

Well, depending on the chapter and verse, yes.  If the pastor spends a Sunday screaming about Leviticus 20:13 (“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”) and then one of the congregation slips out to the nearest gay bar and opens fire on the patrons, the pastor’s hate speech is a direct influence and a direct cause of the attack.  And now there is the legal power to prosecute the pastor for his part in the attack.

In this country, that situation would never happen.  No judge would rule against a pastor for an anti-gay sermon, but that is simply an instance where the judiciary needs to catch up to the legislature.  Is it really a bad thing that now pastors have to watch what they say to their flock?  Pastors haven’t always had to deal with the real world consequences of their words, but now they do.  I don’t see how this is a bad thing.

If I said on this blog, “All Christians are evil, according to The Atheist Bible (Damnations 12:32-33), so they must be killed.  Their blood will be upon themselves and no one else, because they have it coming,” and then Jessica Sideways goes on a massive killing spree, shooting her way through dozens of churches, I would be held accountable for my hateful speech in court.  So why should it be any different when the warring parties are reversed?  If one day in Colorado, some douchebag pastor preaches from Leviticus that all gays must die, and I wake up to find that Jessica Sideways and Bryan Kaufman, my two authors in Colorado, were ruthlessly slaughtered by one of the members of that church, why would I not be able to seek justice against the pastor and hold him accountable for his words?

Pat then goes on to spout, “And so this will be a law to muzzle speech and create a climate of fear on those who would speak out against this issue in terms of what the Bible says.  The Bible will not matter anymore as a question of, ‘what does the hate crimes law say.’”

When has the Bible mattered in court?  The Bible’s ancient ramblings have nothing to do with the judiciary in this country.  You can’t be sentenced to death for going to work on Sunday.  No judge will put you away for wearing a cotton/poly blend sweater.  No jury would ever convict you of not being a virgin on your wedding night.  So why would we go to the Bible to see what is and isn’t a hate crime?  The Bible is wholly irrelevant in court.  Would you use the Bible to justify the actions of a man who murdered his daughter for having sex before marriage?  Why, then, would you use it to justify hatred against gays?  We’ve moved on in the past several thousand years, and we no longer get our governance from the ancient laws of the Jews.

Pat says later, after talking down the importance of what happened to Matthew Shepard, “We shouldn’t be a nation that hates people, no matter what they do.”  This, from the man who calls Hinduism “devil worship,” calls liberalism “Nazism,” prayed that more SCOTUS justices would die before the Bush administration ended, blamed 9/11 on feminists, gays and the ACLU, preaches that women were put here to serve men and called for the nuclear obliteration of the US State Department.

Then, Pat Robertson became intentionally offensive, by referring to the expansion of hate crimes laws as, “the noose has tightened around the necks of Christians.”

What the fuck, Pat?!  A noose?  Really?  The reason we even have hate crimes laws is because of the hateful acts against black people perpetrated by WASPs like him.  And the most hateful of those acts involved a noose.  How dare he refer to laws that protect minorities from the ignorant horde as the weapon the ignorant horde used against minorities!

The show then goes on to whine about LGBT people getting, “extra protection.”  I’m sorry, folks, but not everyone needs the same protection.  (Anyone who has ever purchased sunscreen, condoms or tampons knows that!)  The majority needs only a little protection from the minority while the minority needs more protection against the majority.  If you can’t see that, let me demonstrate:

You are the ruler of Ye Olde Kingdom of Wartopia.  Your kingdom is divided into two groups who don’t like each other.  The larger group consists of 30,000 people who wear grey, brown and flesh-tone shirts and believe in The Old GQ Testament where it says that earth tone fabrics make better clothing.  Between them, they have 60,000 swords (one and a spare for each person), 25 catapults, 2,000 spears and control of 95% of the kingdom’s blacksmith shoppes and 98% of the police forces.

The smaller group consists of 3,000 people who wear pink, lilac and rainbow-coloured shirts and believe in The New GQ Testament where it says that colourful, shiny and glittery fabrics make better clothing.  Between them, they have 1,500 swords (one every two people), 2 catapults, 50 spears and control of 5% of the kingdom’s blacksmith shoppes and 2% of the police forced.  They are outnumbered 10 to 1.

Your duty as king is to keep all of your subjects safe from outside forces and from each other.  If you fail at your duty and your subjects start kill each other, it will sow distrust in your rule and lead to a revolution in which you are stripped of your power and assassinated, and worse, you will be made fun of by other kings for your inability to lead.

Who would you put more emphasis on protecting?

It is not a bad thing to give special or extra protection to minorities when the majority is hostile to them.  If you are complaining that minority groups are getting more protection than you under the law, the odds are that you don’t need extra protection.

Pat Robertson, you’re a douche.

CrooksAndLiars.com calls Pat out on a few other lies from this episode of 700 Club that I didn’t cover.

As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, Reed made it easier to share the blog posts on the inter-blag-o-sphere-o-boom. I would like to take this moment to encourage all of our readers to upvote these stories on the various sites to bring in more readers. More readers means more talking, and a more interesting blog to read. Thank you all in advance. Also, if you don’t, I’m going to go biblical and eat your firstborn child. Or several million potential children in the case of our more attractive male readers.

I’m going to post this video without comment and let you fume angrily in the comments.

If this video made you angry, you can donate to Planned Parenthood here.

As you could probably tell from my very informative title, Cassie, of Teen Skepchick fame, just posted her first blog post on The Gaytheists!  Yay!  Now we have a lesbian, four gay guys and a transsexual woman (also, technically a lesbian) on board!

First of all, I apologize for not blogging at all but I have had some family issues that have pulled me away from my usual blogging schedule. However the drug addict is out of my house and the rest of the family is just sitting around waiting for my uncle to buy the farm. So, it’s all quiet on my front, and that means I need to make some noise. That said…

There is hope! So there is this amazing website that I am sure you guys have heard of called Conservapedia. Anyway, I found out from this website, that is supposed to be “the trustworthy encyclopedia,” that I don’t have to be gay! Since it’s a choice I am going to be straight riiiggghhht NOW!

…

*Concentrates really hard on being straight, but the thought is eventually overpowered by this.*

Well, I am still gay… So now what? I know! I will check Conservapedia! They will tell me what to do!

*vigorously reads the ferociously biased, homophobic, ignorant website.*

Ahhh! I found of a list of things to do as a young gay person! Actually, it’s more like an agenda…

1. Destroying Christian morals.

Changing the definition of marriage, even if doing so infringes on the religious rights of Christians not to recognize it as anything other than sin.

2. Promote pseudoscience that legitimizes homosexuality, such as claims of a never-identified gay gene. (2. “promoting real science that indicates that sexual orientation is not a choice.”)

Censoring evidence that the “gay gene” is a hoax.

3. Censoring speech against homosexuality by branding it to possibly be “hate-speech”

Censoring biblical statements condemning homosexuality.

4. Establishing affirmative action for homosexuals

5. Expand hate crimes legislation to include sexual orientation.

6. Ending the military’s and Boy Scout’s restrictions on homosexuality.

7. Stopping children as young as 5 years old from attending therapy to repair their sexual preference.

8. Promote homosexuality in schools.

In places like Massachusetts and California, where the gay lobby is the strongest, it starts as early as pre-school. They tell seven- or eight-year-old boys, “If you only like boys, there’s a chance you may be homosexual,” or “If you only like girls, maybe you are lesbian.” Well, at that age, all members of the opposite sex “have cooties.”

You’re planting a seed that can totally mess up the normal development process later, when at 12 or 14, kids enter the age of sexual confusion and discovering the opposite sex.

9. Force businesses to accommodate their lifestyle

Suing an online dating website for discrimination

10. Undermining the resolve of latent homosexuals so that their will becomes too weak to resist the temptations of homosexuality.

11. Pushing for legalized adoption by gay individuals and couples.

So… Any of you guys want to help me with any of this? It looks hard and time consuming. But, I am crossing out number one because I feel that people have the right to believe I am a sinner. And I am going to go ahead and change number two to “promoting real science that indicates that sexual orientation is not a choice.” Also, I don’t know what number four means. Affirmative action? Does that mean sex? If so I’m on it! In fact, we should all go do that one first…

I just looked at the list for upcoming hosts of The Carnival of the Godless and no one seems to be scheduled to host!  If any of you have blogs, you totally should look into hosting.  It’s incredibly easy and fun to do, plus you’ll increase your traffic by tons if you can entertain the thousands of godless heathens that drop by on the day you host.

Also, whether or not you host, you should submit your best blog posts to Carnival of the Godless every couple of weeks.  It helps your future long-time readers find you and gives you an opportunity to be published in the greatest bi-weekly compilation of the best of Atheist blogging.

Previous Carnival editions I liked:

The latest edition by State of Protest (#128)

Accostherwilde’s cat, Chimbley (#104)

My secret lover, Adrian (#111)

A spooky edition by Greta Christina (#78)

Think you can do better?  Or do it at all?  HOST!

The mother of one of my former church friends—we’ll call the mother Sandra, because that is her name—sent me an invitation over Facebook to join the Facebook cause Allow God in School.

Obviously, Sandra isn’t a close friend of mine.  If she had even enough interest in my life to click through to my Facebook profile, let alone have a conversation with me in the past 4 years, she would know that I have no interest in supporting a cause to reinstate mandatory Christian prayers and Bible readings in public schools.

However, I saw an opportunity for lulz and I took it.  I accepted Sandra’s invitation and posted this on their wall:

John Reed Braden about 3 hours ago

Religion IS allowed in schools. Kids can pray whenever they want to in school. What isn’t allowed is evangelising to students. If you want to preach to my (future) children in their science class, I’m going to teach Evolution in your church. Public schools are for secular education. Churches are for religious education. Not all families want their kids exposed to your doctrines in school, and those of us who are not Christians appreciate Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s contributions to making secular education secular again.

God is allowed in American public schools, as the next few paragraphs will show.

Only in a few rare cases has a public school student ever been chastised for bringing a Bible to school and reading it.  The few times this has happened, the student was either evangelising in the lunch room or the class room (proselytising religious, political or personal views outside of a proper forum is against most schools’ policies), handing out Bibles in school (most schools forbid students from handing out any tracts, books or films to groups of their peers, no matter the content), or reading the Bible at an inappropriate time (it doesn’t matter what book it is, you can’t read it while you’re taking your algebra exam).  Of course, no matter what the student did to have the Bible taken from them, the media loves turning the non-story into a goddamn circus.  However, if a student wants to read his or her Bible after finishing an assignment, between classes or during lunch or during a study hall period (depending on the rules regarding study hall work and school relevance), that is perfectly fine and no one will punish the kid for reading the Bible.  I did it all the time, except I usually snickered loudly when I did it.

Many literature textbooks include entire books of the Old and New Testaments for their historical and literary significance.  My world literature textbook in high school included the King James Bible version of Psalms and Proverbs in their ancient literature sections and thoroughly discussed the translation processes of the Wycliffe, Tyndale and King James versions in the British literature section.  School kids are often instructed to read large portions of the Bible for an understanding of ancient literature and to better grasp many idioms and phrases in use in English literature from Chaucer to Grisham.

Before kids start their day of classes, they often sing patriotic songs such as The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which begins, “Mine eyes hath seen the Glory of the coming of the Lord,” and then goes on to lick Jesus’ bunghole for a full six verses without a single mention of the United States, but is seen as a patriotic song because of its use of the word Republic in the title.  Other songs I learned in elementary school that were piped over the intercom and we were forced to sing included the original four verses of My Country, ‘Tis of Thee whose fourth verse begins, “Our Father God, to Thee,/Author of liberty;” the entirety of our national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, whose fourth verse proudly proclaims, “And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust;” America the Beautiful whose chorus presumptuously boasts, “America! America!/God shed his grace on thee,” as if God wanted anything to do with us ingrates; and God Bless America whose religious content I don’t think I need to explain.  Our principal was a stickler for every graduate of her (public) school knowing, in full, every classic American patriotic song by heart.  This was not contested by anyone on the school board or any parents, that I know of, of any of the students.  After she retired, the new principal continued the tradition, but only with the national anthem.

Even in schools where mindless patriotic songs aren’t mandatory to start the day, almost all schools begin the day with a moment (usually one to two minutes) of silence for silent prayer and meditation.  This is no different than the school prayer that O’Hair had removed from public schools except that it gives the students the option to pray to whatever god they choose or not pray at all, but it is clearly time set aside for students to pray.  Then the students begin the pledge to the flag, which includes the line, “One nation, Under God.”  This is mandatory in most schools and students (including myself) have been punished for not saying the pledge or noticeably omitting the religious line of the pledge.

Many outspoken Atheists—most notably, Professor Richard Dawkins—have shown an incredible amount support for teaching comparative religion in public schools as a method of getting schoolchildren to explore different ideologies and learn about other cultures as well as teaching about the Bible and other religious texts in literature and history classes.  No one—no one sane, at least—is calling for a whitewashing of history, literature and philosophy to remove all mention of religion.  Religion and the concept of gods are two ideas that have influenced the overwhelming majority of human affairs over the course of religious history.  The only thing those of us who refrain from practising the Christian religion are asking is that you teach religion, not preach religion, which are two entirely different things.  Teaching belongs in public schools, not preaching.

God (and by God, I mean the opportunity to practise and display one’s religious views) is already in the public schools and his place there is not threatened in any real way, for better or for worse.

My comment expressed politely that the public school system allows for people of all religious backgrounds to learn and experience the world, but it does not punish the free, undisruptive practise thereof.

Then, an hour later, I got a reply:

Yvonne about 2 hours ago

Mr. Braden why did you post a comment? You obviously have hatred in your persona for others with opposing views to yours. Allowing prayer back in school is not preaching religion – it’s allowing the opportunity to express faith in a higher power – or a moment of quiet reflection – rather you do or not. This cause is not to advocate "teaching religion in public schools" just the opportunity to express for a few very brief moments. You have such a hard determination no one here attacked you.

Oh dear… my persona has hatred in it, whatever that means!

She seems to misunderstand what the group stands for.  The people fighting the “Return God to the public schools” cause aren’t calling for a moment of silence.  We already have that, and no one sane fights to gain something that they already have.  These people are fighting to regain the “God in schools” that we had in the 1950s and before:  School prayer and Bible readings at the start of each day.  I know.  I used to be one of that crowd.  Evangelical “musicians” like Carman, “comedians” like Mark Lowry and pastors like Billy Graham provided me with all the vitriolic mis-education about Madalyn Murray O’Hair that I could ever need.  And these people—the provocateurs of the movement to reinstate school prayer—all believe that a moment of silence is not enough:  They want specific religious prayers to be recited in the classroom.

One of the most common pre-Madalyn prayers in school was:

“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee and pray for Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country.”

That seems short and innocuous enough, right?  There’s no mention of a specific religion, so it’s acceptable for everyone, right?

Well, here’s a short list of people whose children might be offended by this prayer:

• People who do not believe in gods (Atheists, Humanists, Agnostics)
• People who believe in no gods (Atheists, Humanists)
• People who have a religion but no gods (Buddhists, Pantheists, Mystics, Wiccans)
• People who have a god but don’t believe in intercessory prayer (Pantheists, Buddhists, Deists, Jains)
• People who have more than one god (Pagans, Hindus, many Buddhists)
• People who believe that their god or gods have no preference of one nation over another (Many people of all different faiths)

And the list goes on.  These are all of the students whose beliefs and lack of beliefs are marginalised by this seemingly innocent prayer.  Only people who believe that there is one God who listens to prayers and acknowledges requests for his blessing would be comfortable having to recite this prayer every morning.

And if school prayer was made mandatory, what about those denominations that believe only certain pre-scripted prayers can be heard by God without the presence of a priest or pastor?  Would we use one of their prayers?  And what about denominations who require paraphernalia to pray?  Will tasselled shawls be given to orthodox Jews?  Will there be prayer mats available for Muslim students?  Will Atheist students be given test tubes and DNA sequencing equipment for prayer time?

Students have different belief systems and to target a prayer at the majority of the students will marginalise a percentage of the rest of the school population.  If all students can’t be made comfortable at school, how can we expect them to learn?  How can we protect the students who, for whatever reason, refuse to recite the monotheistic prayer from being singled out and taunted during school, affecting their performance in class?

Will there be a prayer that encompasses all belief systems?

Dear God, gods, universe, something else, nothing at all, myself or any other possible worshipped entity,

If you don’t listen to prayers, I’m sorry for wasting your and my time, however, on the off chance that you do listen to prayers, please, if you would feel comfortable doing so, don’t hit the school with an asteroid today, assuming you have control over that and asking that favour of you isn’t too much to ask for.

Best of regards to you and yours, if you have anyone to call “yours”.  You’re really a nice guy, girl, creature, non-corporeal form, everything or nothing at all.

Toodles

Or, simpler:

To whatever, if anything, is out there:  If you can understand what we’re asking, please don’t kill us.  Sincerely, the humans.

I don’t think that bastardised amalgamation of religious ideas will go over well with anyone, but at least it’ll offend everyone equally.

What also struck me as odd was the accusation that I was being hateful.  I was stating my point of view that religion already has a place in public schools, and pushing it to any more prominence would be offensive to many students, parents and faculty.  I thought it would help start discussion about what the Facebook cause was really about and cause some people to really stop and think about why they were joining the cause in the first place.  Instead, I’m asked indignantly why I even bothered to voice my unpopular opinion and told to stop being hateful (whereas hateful equals “not like us”).

To ask that schools be kept a safe place for people of all beliefs and to illustrate the difference between church (preaching) and school (teaching) is not hate.  If anything, it’s the opposite of hate.  It’s not hateful to ask that public schools be inclusive of all peoples.

This absurd argument that anything that goes against mainstream Christian ideology is “hateful” is often thrown in my face and it never fails to leave me dumbfounded.

It’s not hateful to force an Atheist student pray, but it’s hateful for the Atheist to ask not to be forced to pray?

It’s not hateful to marginalise everyone who does not believe in your religion, but it’s hateful to ask for all individuals to be treated equally?

It’s not hateful to teach unscientific dogma in biology class, but it’s hateful for biologists to insist that nothing but biology be taught in biology class?

It’s not hateful to shout with 110% certainty that your God is real and everyone who disagrees with you will be tortured forever, but it’s hateful to doubt that claim and ask for evidence to back up that certainty?

Sometimes, I just don’t understand religious people.

The Matthew Shepard Act, adding anti-LGBT discrimination to the list of acts of hatred that qualify as a federal hate crime, finally passed in the Senate today and President Obama is scheduled to sign it into law tomorrow!

Yay!

Now back to my reading and moving furniture.

I’m a smoker, and one of the most regretful moments of my life was when I picked up my first cigarette and forced myself to smoke it.

California LGBT Tobacco Education Partnership:

Did You Know?

• Tobacco Industry advertising has openly targeted gays and lesbians since 1992, when Philip Morris began running ads in Genre magazine. ¹
• Smoking prevalence for men in the LGBT community is about 50% higher than that of men in the general community.   (27.4% vs. 19.1%)  ²
• Smoking prevalence for women in the LGBT community is
  almost triple that of women in the general community.   (32.5% vs. 11.9%)  ³
• Within the LGBT community, young adults 18-24 have the highest smoking prevalence (43.7%). ⁴
• Estrogen use in women who smoke has demonstrated a relationship to conditions such as pulmonary embolism, heart disease, stroke and adverse liver effects. It is likely that these effects are also present in transsexual women. ⁵

References

1. Goebel K., Lesbians and Gays Face Tobacco Targeting.  Tobacco Control 1994;3: 65-67.
2. LGBT smoking prevalence is from California Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Tobacco Use Study, 2004; General population smoking prevalence is from California Tobacco Survey, 2002.
3. LGBT smoking prevalence is from California Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Tobacco Use Study, 2004;  General population smoking prevalence is from California Tobacco Survey, 2002.
4. LGBT smoking prevalence is from California Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Tobacco Use Study, 2004 Moore, E; Wisniewski, A. (2003).
5. Endocrine Treatment of Transsexual People: A Review of Treatment Regimens, Outcomes and Adverse Effects.  Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.  88, 3467-3473.