Angry Atheists

Proof that religion doesn't have a monopoly on trailer trash pundits.

New Atheists.  The new face of non-believers.  Old white guys telling both believers and more tolerant non-believers what they are supposed to believe.  Quite of a few of them are fairly nice people, just a bit obsessed with forcing everyone to their standard or "rationality".  But there are a few who are really just angry, broken men with axes to grind who pontificate from their paid by welfare trailers in the middle of nowhere.  Not in anyway unlike Christian fringe nutcases who do the same thing.

Greg Laden is one of them.  Now, Mr Laden and I have not had any interaction since I unfriended and blocked him on Facebook last June.  But I was going through my portable hard drive and found a screenshot of one of the last things he ever said to me.  And I decided I would talk about him, as I'm certain he's still a scruffy controlling angry atheist pundit spewing filth and abuse all day, since he can't get a real job.  Here's the screenshot.

And there you see exactly how these men react to any disagreement.  Abuse, ridicule and insult.  Hostility.  In response to a sane comment. One of his syncophants continued to insult and attack and threaten me via personal messages.  And all my comments to him had been sane.  I could back my stand, which is that gun control is ineffective in dealing with violence, with statistics and research.  But, as is often the case with the fundy bible thumper, angry atheist dudes are unable to accept any but the data that supports their position.  Global warming was another issue we used to disagree on.  He used cherry picked data from the last few hundred years to "prove" that humans are the sole cause of global warming.  Anytime I offered data from millions of years or talked about how we are still working our way to the next glacial minimum, he either ignored me or insulted me . . calling me names.

Which led me to come to the conclusion that some atheists are just as delusional as their religious cultist counterparts.  From the New Atheist site: Delusions are irrational beliefs, held with a high level of conviction, that are highly resistant to change even when the delusional person is exposed to forms of proof that contradict the belief. 

Okay, now that is out of my system.  I am unsure if he is so controlling that he Googles himself constantly, so I am unsure if he will ever know that one lone voice of reason is telling the world he's an angry, abusive atheist with delusions of importance and he's dead wrong.  But it makes me feel better to put this out in the blogsphere.

Catholic church gives blessing to iPhone app

The Catholic Church has approved an iPhone app that helps guide worshippers through confession.

The Confession program has gone on sale through iTunes for £1.19 ($1.99).

Described as "the perfect aid for every penitent", it offers users tips and guidelines to help them with the sacrament.

Now senior church officials in both the UK and US have given it their seal of approval, in what is thought to be a first.

Read more . . .

America's True History of Religious Tolerance

Wading into the controversy surrounding an Islamic center planned for a site near New York City’s Ground Zero memorial this past August, President Obama declared: “This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are.” In doing so, he paid homage to a vision that politicians and preachers have extolled for more than two centuries—that America historically has been a place of religious tolerance. It was a sentiment George Washington voiced shortly after taking the oath of office just a few blocks from Ground Zero.

But is it so?

Read more . . .

A good look at the actual history of religious tolerance. 

Gay Suicide Link Dump

Just wanted to put this out here.  Homosexuality is a "sin" that most religions hate.  The attitudes of parents and the filth spewed by ministers, far too many of which are secretly gay or sexually abuse boys, is to blame. 

Teenager Justin Aaberg Killed Himself Over Gay Bullying.
Parents say bullies drove their son to take his life 
Bullied Tehachapi gay teen Seth Walsh dies after suicide attempt
Rutgers student Tyler Clementi's suicide spurs action across U.S.
Gay 19-yr-old kills self after anti-gay city council meeting   (Probably a coincidence: 4.3 magnitude earthquake shakes Oklahoma

Haters gonna hate

Library card protest over witchcraft 

A Wairarapa Christian minister is crusading against what he says is Masonic paganism by renouncing his library card.

John Cromarty, of St David's Church in Carterton, objects to a Masonic Lodge being used as a temporary library because he says the group is connected to witchcraft, the Wairarapa Times-Age reports.

In a letter to Carterton Mayor Gary McPhee, Mr Cromarty said he and his wife had handed in their library cards and were asking their friends not to visit the lodge, which was housing the town's books while a new events centre was built.

He said while Freemasonry did some good in the community and portrayed a facade of being compatible with Christianity, its foundations were rooted in witchcraft and paganism.

A past master and a Freemason of the lodge, Warwick Cashmore, said Mr Cromarty's attitude was extremely disappointing.

"The basic tenants of freemasonry are brotherly love, relief, and truth," he said.

From Stuff.co.nz

How silly is this?  First of all, the roots of Freemasonry are in Catholicism.  Second, hasn't he read his damned book?  A tree will be known by its fruit.  I guess at least he isn't trying to ban books or burn the Masonic Hall down.

Religion in the News March 27

More public servants could join detox regimen Taxpayer dollars going to pay for Scientology treatments of LEOs exposed to methamphetamine.
U.S. courts allow sex abuse cases against Vatican to proceed in rare legal move We can only hope.
Catholic Order Admits Its Founder Abused Boys Over Decades This is obscene.

Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus have a sword fight

Usually I post pretty grim stuff here. But this is just so funny I have to share:

While preaching is not allowed in Australian public schools, it is apparently fine to replace school counsellors with 'Christian Volunteers' such as Darryl.

A few years ago, the government realised that they could hand over school counselling roles to a willing Christian church without having to pay for the privilege. Now almost half of Australian public schools have a Christian volunteer as a full time member of the school community with parents having no direct control of how much their children are exposed to.

Read more . . .

Be sure to read all of the emails, they are hysterical.

Watch: survivors of abuse point the finger of blame directly at Benedict

The victims are not going to be silenced; it's a house of cards collapsing. Statement by David Clohessy, executive director, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, on the NYT expose of Benedict's involvement in the cover up of pedophile predator priests.

Read more at Pam's Houseblend . . .

We need a world court that can try these people and lock them away forever. The Pope is NOT above the law. If you subscribe to the collection of myths called the Bible, both Christ and Paul are clear that EVERYONE is answerable to secular law while alive. It's in situations like this that I wish religion were real and these baby f***ers would roast in a hell of their own making for eternity.

Church Meeting Sparks Controversy

BARABOO, Wis. -- A church meeting where women weren't allowed to speak is drawing controversy in Baraboo.

Women from St. John's Lutheran Church said they want basic rights and that the lack of those rights is what led to the firing of the school's principal.

The Lutheran school's principal, John Hartwig, was fired on Sunday, mainly because of his beliefs that women should be respected more in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Church, WISC-TV reported.

Read more . . .

Voodoo practitioners shrug off blame for Haitian quake

"Kaaaa! Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka," she screams and stutters, her right arm bent in front of her.

Around her, the other Voodoo worshippers look on, unsurprised but expectant as their ceremony reaches its climactic mid-point. Someone ties a red cloth to her arm, which stops shaking.

In their eyes, she is possessed by a spirit of the dead - one of the 220,000 estimated to have perished in Haiti's January quake perhaps - and is thus, in a way, blessed.

When she picks up a rusty knife and swings clockwise around the room, gulping from a bottle of cherry-flavored alcohol, they do not draw away.

Instead they embrace her, even kiss her. And in that way they are blessed, too.

But for all the fervor and favor being shared in this back-alley corner of Cite Soleil, a Port-au-Prince slum that was badly smashed in the quake, the practitioners of Voodoo are feeling under seige.

Read more . . .

Catholic Church 'sect' attack

Lay Catholics have claimed the Pope is "ruining" a Church which is now a corrupt "sect".

Herbert Kohlmaier, the head of the Catholic lay initiative, today (Tues) launched a stinging attack on the Church following controversial comments by ultra-conservative Pastor Gerhard Maria Wagner over the Haiti earthquake which have caused public outrage.

In an interview in Oberösterreichische Nachrichten he said that the Wagner affair was only the tip of the iceberg and that Pope Benedict XVI was "ruining" the Church by trying to lead it back into the past.

Read more . . .

Police: Church hid teen

It's a tale as old as time: A teen defies parents, plots an escape and runs away from home.

The parents of a 14-year-old girl from Brecknock Township experienced all of that last month.

Except their daughter didn't want to walk on the wild side, as many teens do.

She wanted to join a strict, splinter group of the Mennonite church.

Three church members were arrested Wednesday for allegedly concealing the girl from her parents and from police after she ran away from home, with plans to ultimately take her to Kentucky.

In arrest warrant affidavits filed in the case, an unusual tale unfolds of escape plans that were to be burned or destroyed, a middle-of-the-night getaway, a change from modern clothes into Mennonite garb, a hiding place in a chicken coop and a stubborn refusal by church members to hand over the girl.

Read more . . .

Americans Were There to Help, Not Kidnap Haitian Children, Pastor Said

Baptist group members are charged with the trafficking of children.

The U.S. pastor of five of the 10 Americans who are scheduled to appear in a Haitian court today to face child trafficking charges said the missionaries were there to help children, not kidnap them.

"I can assure you that the intent of our group going down there had absolutely nothing to do with kidnapping and everything to do with helping a desperate situation in Haiti," the Rev. Clint Henry, from the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, said on "Good Morning America" today.

The 10 Baptist missionaries said they were attempting to bring 33 Haitian children to an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic when they were arrested Friday night at a border crossing.

Read more . . .

Yeah, they would have given them a really good lives and solid lifetime careers as sex workers. Wonder if Swaggart was one of their buyers? Maybe I'm a bit biased. It was Baptists who were serving as foster parents whose son molested my children while I was desperately ill. We'll never know how many of the handicapped children they fostered got the opportunity to service him.

It’s as if they want me executed, says culture chief enduring hate campaign

The letters and emails come in a daily tide. “Filth!” they cry. “Shame on you”; “You are a very sick person”; “The soul that sinneth shall DIE”. For the past six months, the head of Glasgow’s museums and art has been under siege from Christian fundamentalists, who have vowed to oust her from her job.

Dr Bridget McConnell, head of Culture and Sport Glasgow (CSG), the £100 million charity in charge of the city’s culture, says she is alarmed by what she describes as a “personal witchhunt” against her.

“It is almost like being phsyically abused,” she said. “You get knocked down by it every day and you pick yourself up, but then you come in the next morning and it happens all over again. It’s attrition.”

Read more . . .

Rabbis hold prayers in besieged Gaza

Four rabbis held the Sabbath prayers in a hotel in Gaza city on Saturday evening to express solidarity with people stranded in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The four rabbis are members of Neturei Karta movement, a Jewish group that doesn't believe in Zionism and insists that Israel doesn't represent Jews.

"I understand the opinions of Palestinians towards Jews," Rabbi Yisrael David Weiss, an American citizen, told Xinhua, adding that "Judaism rejects Zionism and its approach."

It is important to realize that there are many Jews world wide who believe the State of Israel is an abomination.

Uganda Catholic Priests Form New Church

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) -- Twenty renegade Catholic priests who are either married or want to marry have broken from the mainstream Roman Catholic Church here and formed a new church where celibacy is not required, members said.

The Ugandan government said Thursday it was investigating the breakaway Catholic Apostolic National Church in Uganda and would ban it if found to be illegal. Vatican officials said the priests were now considered ''outside'' the Catholic Church and would likely be excommunicated.

The creation of the splinter church underscored the increasingly vexing problem of enforcing celibacy for Roman Catholic priests in Africa, which has the world's fastest-growing Catholic population but where there have been several cases of priests living openly with women and fathering children.

The Catholic Church really needs to take a serious look at its tradition of celibacy. There is very little Biblical support for, other than the misogynist Saul, and certainly Yeshua never said anything about it. It's no leap to attribute the forced celibacy of the priests to the perversions that are practiced by them.

Israel settlements: rabbis say soldiers' loyalty to God trumps army orders

In Israel, a standoff is escalating between the Israeli defense establishment and religious nationalists over the possible evacuation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. On Thursday, a group of rabbis published a letter saying a soldiers' loyalty to the divine takes precedence over their commanders.
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The declaration was signed by dozens of teachers in government-affiliated religious seminaries – known as "hesder'' yeshivas – after Defense Minister Ehud Barak took the unprecedented step earlier this week of cutting ties with a hesder yeshiva because its dean, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, openly advocates refusing of orders in case of an evacuation.

Read more at Christian Science Monitor.

Fort Hood attack unrelated to Islam, local Muslim leaders say

Just more evidence Muslim is the new "black" . . . one Muslim commits a crime and all Muslims are to blame. Even though many other soldiers have committed murder, their ethc/religious
Leaders of Metro Detroit's Muslim community gathered this morning to urge all Americans to view the Fort Hood shooting as a criminal act and unrelated to the faith of Islam.

"Islam opposes such actions as committed by Maj. (Nidal Malik) Hasan. The Qur'an considers human life sacred," Imam Steve Elturk of the Islamic Association of North America said Friday morning at a press conference called by the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan.

Army officials have said they believe Hasan acted alone when he jumped on a table with two handguns, shouted, "Allahu akbar," a common Arabic expression meaning "God is the greatest," and opened fire inside a building at Fort Hood, Texas.

Read more . . .

Ultra-Orthodox Jews target Intel over Sabbath work

And more conservative religionists attempting to force their will on a company . . .

Intel, the world's biggest chipmaker, has become the latest target of protests by Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox community.

On Saturday, a day before the inauguration of Intel's new plant in an industrial area of west Jerusalem, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrated against it operating on the Jewish Sabbath, which runs from Friday night to Saturday night.

The protesters, dressed in traditional black hats and long black coats, repeatedly chanted "Shabbes ", the Yiddish word for the Sabbath, and tried to break into the compound before being dispersed by police. Some of them also shoved and threw stones at journalists and attacked an ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem deputy mayor who arrived at the site, claiming he had not done enough to stop the plant's operation on the Jewish day of rest.

Read more at the BBC . . .

Who is Doris Rotolo?

She's a racist. I offer you her "petition" to force Muslims to leave the United States:

I am a Democrat, and I am in support of my President. That being said....I am as you are today very hurt, angry, and I want all Muslims out of my country. Having said that I doubt I will ever see that. However there should not be people serving in the Military who have a belief that we are to be killed by them and they will be rewarded.

There is no real way to identify a person who is a true American, but by country origin, and faith, and belief system of the people who embrace those philosophies. They must not be permitted to be in service to America ,because they do not serve the same ideas and honor life as we do...these people should not be accepted in the Armed forces.

I personally have the right to feel as I do be it Bigot , or whatever name you wish to call me....but I assure you I am a true American and as an American I am speaking my mind.

This is not a Bush or Obama problem, it is too easy to put it on the shoulders of one person. It is time that we as Americans stand together and sign one huge petition to be heard....set a precedent to let our Federal Government and all it's leaders know that we do not accept traitors or killers into our armed services.

That not as Democrats or Republicans , but as Citizens we are joined together and we do not want Muslims who do not share our beliefs about human life to serve in any capacity in our armed forces.

We do not reject people but we do reject a whole philosophy that permits, encourages, and approves of death as a means to promote a faith based idea that killing in some way is an honorable way to attain any entrance to any after death privilege.or honor. This is counter productive and does not serve the purpose of a military entity solely carried forth for the purpose of protecting life.

If you do agree , please use this or any of my words combined with yours to form a petition and circulate it in any way it can be done for the sole purpose of forbidding the entrance into any Armed Forces Branch to serve in the the United States of American Armed Forces or Federal Civil Services if of any Faith contrary to the Constitution of the United States of America, and all definitions of the laws of the Land known as The United States of America, all of its people and it's Government.

We the people propose that no sect, group, religion, or belief that accepts that to die in anyway, shape or form to promote an after death position in any faith is barred from entrance or service to this country alongside those who are not in agreement with the concepts afore mentioned.

I do not possess the computer skills...or legal ability to compose a document to suffice I am sure...... I don't know how to reach from here to where it needs to be.... I will however be the first to sign my name...and affiliation. I am willing to sign if presented to me as a true and honest document to be presented for edification and consideration by the President of the Untied States of America as a unique and personal and serious desire to be heard and acted upon in our behalf under a Constitution that professes a Government to and for the people of the United States of America. ....similar to but not limited to the election process that confirmed his or her Presidency.

We request as a unique and official request with respect of the lay people of America to be heard and acknowledged as part of the promise we would be all inclusive as a part of our Freedom to choose the administration of our counties Government, and all of it's entities, and not limited to this issue.

We wish to be heard as to wishes of the signed citizenry of this country.

Doris Rotolo Democrat

She has the temerity to say we shouldn't allow Muslims in the military because "You wouldn't have sex offender baby sit...or a robber guard the jewels."

That's right. The ignorant git actually is comparing millions of Americans to pedophiles and thieves based ONLY on their religion. Nevermind that all the worst murderers, baby rapers and immoral politicians in US history have been white Christian men. That the vast majority of violence committed by returning soldiers has been committed by white men but no one is saying the white Christians should be tossed out. No, but one Muslim man commits a crime, and suddenly an entire people should be ejected from our nation.

Let Ms. bottom feeder know what you think, email her at her publicly searchable email address. And join me in asking the President to find a new homeland for racists.