Category: Beating Back the St00pid

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It's Been a Very Bad Week in Wingnuttia

And I couldn't be more delighted.

First it was upholding "Obamacare."

Then it was the Confederate Flag.

And the icing on their fucking big cake of sadz was Marriage Equality in all 50 States.

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." ~Martin Luther King Jr.

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An Open Letter to Christians

Dear Christians,

No disrespect, but…

How could you possibly believe in Christianity?

Forget about the woman from a rib, the walking-talking snake, the burning bush, the man trapped in a whale, Noah's Ark, and the tower of Babel. I get that not everyone believes that. After all, that is obviously ridiculous. But what about the virgin birth, water to wine, zombies, resurrections, ancient prophecies, and eternal paradise and/or torture? Are those things any less ridiculous?

I mean, what kind of God needs this kind of elaborate scheme to "save" humanity. Do you really believe God sent his holy sperm – I mean spirit – to impregnate a virgin, wait 33 years and then allow his only "begotten" son (whatever that means) to be tortured and die for three days so that he could resurrect him and then demand through the words of flawed humans over the course of 66 poorly written books that people worship him or be tortured for all eternity? What is God's obsession with blood all about?

Think about it for a minute. If I told you that story you would laugh your ass off and send me to a mental institute. Look, I get that our culture reinforces your belief and that you were taught this stuff all your life from before you could walk and talk, but you were also taught about Santa Claus and now we can all admit that is just a make-believe story. I mean flying reindeer, right? Only a five-year-old would buy that shit — but a virgin woman popping out the son of God? Totally legit.

I'm not talking about belief in a god in general here. I get why someone might find the concept of some vague higher power alluring despite the complete lack of evidence, but when we are talking about the specific beliefs and claims of Christianity, we have to take a moment and really think about just how ridiculous those beliefs are.

Can we all just admit that the Bible is fiction and move on with our lives?

I mean, how is it that we are entertaining a serious debate about whether there was a historical magic man/deity? We might as well be debating the historicity of Hercules or Darth Vader.

I'm not angry at you or your imaginary deity; I'm just confused and maybe even a little frustrated. Just imagine one day waking up in a world where everyone worshiped Voldemort and quoted the Harry Potter books as if they were historical and inerrant. One might point out that they are obviously fictional books written by J.K. Rawling, but believers would be quick to claim that she wrote them while under Harry Potter's spell and that these books were absolutely true. The Ministry of Magic just made her think that she was writing fiction in order to hide the world of magic from Muggles. Whatever criticism, plot hole, argument, or point against the "Truth" of the Harry Potter books one come up with, the believers will have some sort of rationalization for them.

If you met one person who believed that, you could easily dismiss them as crazy but when millions or billions of people believe it, then what? Does it make it any less crazy? I don't think it does.

This is the case with Christianity. It is a crazy belief system that simply does not match up with the evidence we see every day. If the God of the Bible existed, he wouldn't need you to tell everyone about him. He could do his own damn dirty work. There would be no need for threats of eternal Hell or promises of eternal paradise. God wouldn't need to sacrifice his own son or anyone else. If God wanted people "saved" from himself, then poof… done. There would be no need to shed holy blood or for any elaborate schemes.

There would be no hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, or diseases. And if they did exist, they would only affect those God wanted to punish. We certainly wouldn't see believers and non-believers affected at exactly the same rate. Please face reality, your religion isn't true, the Bible is fiction, and God is imaginary. Then we can move past all this ancient superstition and start working toward making a brighter future for everyone. Just think about it. Thanks.

Source.

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Hey, Remember That Time…

I work with several anti-vaxxers, and there are days I just want to bitchslap them back to the 19th century…which is obviously where they belong. I cannot believe the stupidity of these people!

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Quote of the Day

"We see a connection to the world around us… Ham sees only sin. Turns out you can learn a lot when your library consists of more than just a single book." ~ Hemant Mehta, The Friendly Atheist, in response to Ken Ham of the Creationist Museum blowing a gasket over Carnival Cruise Lines embracing evolution in their Super Bowl ad.

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A Banner Year for the Prince of Darkness

My snark meter is off the charts. This is great!

From RAWSTORY:

2014 was a banner year for the Prince of Darkness. When he wasn't personally bedeviling Christians, his minions were erecting statues in his honor or forcing themselves upon innocent city council meetings. Lord of Lies — this was your year!

January witnessed the unveiling of a 7-foot tall likeness of his lieutenant Baphomet that will be placed in front of the Oklahoma Statehouse. Decent Christians responded by drafting an "unlettered little bill" that would have allowed cities to erect similar monuments to Mein Kampf.

In February, Satan's plans to destroy the economy went awry, but that didn't stop the Dark Lord from having some big gay fun, both here and abroad. He was, however, disappointed that his scenes in The Bible ended up on the cutting room floor.

But his disappointment was short-lived, as March saw Lucifer reach new heights in the entertainment world as his film, Frozen, successfully created the next generation of lesbians. He was also able to stymie the Kickstarter campaign for Bible Chronicles: The Call of Abraham, not because he "perceived it to be a threat to his kingdom," as the Christian extremists claimed, but just because it looked God-awful.

April was another big month for Satan — not only did he gay up some graham cracker commercials, his minions started a campaign to ban corporal punishment in schools.

May wasn't looking so good after the Supreme Court ruled that Christians could open town hall and city council meetings with prayers — but Satanists exploited the equal-is-as-equal-does loophole in Court's logic and flipped it to the Father of Lies' favor. He did, however, suffer one minor legal setback, but it involved ice cream and that fellow wasn't a true unbeliever anyway.

All things considered, though, May slots in the win column, what with getting those wily Benham boys fired from HGTV and helping his buddy Chuck Darwin grab a "toehold" on young minds.

Satan mostly took June off, only stopping by to welcome some shunned homosexuals into his flock after their Christian parents abandoned them.

But July was business as usual, as the Great Deceiver was officially recognized by everybody's favorite Pope. He and ol' Chuck stormed some more classrooms, then he and some secularists crashed a few weddings. More importantly, the whole ice cream fiasco was forgotten after those in his thrall twisted the Hobby Lobby decision against its original intent — after which Satan reportedly said, "Suck on that, Scalia!"

After that, August was bound to be a little bit of a letdown — and it outside of a some minor chicanery about a "black mass," it was.

Everything was gangbusters again in September, though, starting with an old-fashioned witch hunt at the Naughty Girls Donut Shop. "Naughty girls burn in Hell!" the townsfolk shouted to no avail, for the power of Satan sustained the future Culinary Institute of America graduate against the doughnut-hating hordes.

After cornering the small-town doughnut market, the Dark Lord scored perhaps his greatest victory — a legal avenue to despoil the minds of Florida's children with his Satanic activity book. Next to that, yet another city council invocation barely merits mention.

October opened with battle plans being drawn for this year's War on Christmas, but Satan spent most of the month toying with tiny Christian brains. He convinced Kirk Cameron that Halloween was really a Christian holiday, then convinced another one of those Benham boys that it'd be a good idea to bust in and break up some lawful wedding ceremonies.

Contrary to popular reports, however, he had nothing at all to do with knocking down the monument to the Other Guy's laws.

In November, the Son of Perdition hawked his new energy drink, and he would need it — what with all those activity books to deliver and the War on Christmas around the corner.

Because what a war it would be! Hobby Lobby continued blowing up in Christianist faces, Satanic holiday displays were being erected both hither and thither — even Santa defected!

Which is not to say there were no casualties — one self-styled "Catholic Warrior" got a lick in, but who would even notice after the year Satan had?

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Oh Sah-NAP!"

Stolen from the ever-fabulous Towleroad:

The change.org petition asking The Learning Channel to cancel 19 Kids and Counting over the Duggars' "LGBT fear mongering" that caught fire on the internet earlier this week also managed to catch the attention of right-wing Christian activists who are concerned with (but don't actually understand) first amendment protections. 

American Family Association, Alliance Defending Freedom, and other anti-LGBT organizations and websites helped spearhead a #DefendtheDuggars tweetfest today. But like NOM's Twitter warning last month that marriage equality would lead to people marrying themselves, the campaign quickly started backfiring in spectacular fashion.

Here are just a few highlights of what's rolling in over on Twitter:

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Wingers Go Ghandi

Josh Marshall, at Talking Points Memo:

Yesterday, Sen. Tom Coburn suggested that President Obama's immigration executive order might lead to "civil disobedience", "anarchy," or even political "violence." I asked just what that civil disobedience might look like and TPM Reader FS has an idea of what anti-immigrant forces might have in mind …

My suggestion for what civil disobedience should look like is to move to Phoenix, trade their imitation Army rifles for shovels, and do a protest march through the residential subdivisions, pulling weeds as they go.

They should march into restaurant kitchens, offering to wash dishes for free. Or volunteer to man the drive through at any of a hundred fast food joints. Maybe ask a California cabbage farmer if they have anything needs harvesting. Those are the jobs illegal immigrants might be taking away.

A little background. I lived in Phoenix for 13 years, the last eight as a homeowner. Ours was the fourth house completed in our neighborhood and I'd often sit on the porch drinking beer and watching Hispanic workers build our neighbors' houses. For a few bottles of Pacifico, I learned most of the workers were from Mexico or Guatemala, and none were employed directly by the builder.

For all the anti immigrant bluster for which Sheriff Joe Arpaio is famous today, he could've effortlessly rounded up 100 immigrants a day in any new subdivision being built anywhere in Maricopa county, from about 2000 to 2007. But that would've really inconvenienced the real estate developers, so Sheriff Joe found other stunts like making prisoners wear pink underwear. He didn't come to hypocritically discover anti immigration fever until the bubble burst and people turned on each other.

My time in Arizona made it really hard for me to get mad at a man who wants to work in 110 degree heat, for cash. But those are the jobs in question. Anyone who wants to protest should start there.