Some Holiday and New Years Wishes from the Camel

Whether you are observing Sol Invictus; the birth of the gods Tammuz or Mithras; Saturnalia; the winter solstice; Yule tree worship; a purely secular Xmas, or (dog forbid) a tradition Xmas, I trust all of my readers are having an enjoyable time with friends and family. Nothing brings us together, or says remembrance of mythical man-god made up birthdates or the celebration of natural cosmological events, like December 25.


As we approach the end of 2012 I have a few wishes for the New Year:

- Health, happiness and prosperity for us all.

- A healthy and happy new baby for my eldest and his wife next April, my first grandchild.

- A wonderful new life together for my youngest son and his new bride.

- An accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan.

- Another year of erosion of religion here and abroad

- A year with fewer declarations of divinely inspired and supported hatred and inane madness from religious shaman and their mindless followers

- Less child abuse cases, murders and destruction in the name of their nonexistent god.

- More exposure and prosecutions of clergy and church hierarchy misdeeds.

- More legal victories by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and other Freethinker orgs against religionists who spit on the Constitution and equate godliness to patriotism.

- More activism and visibility by secularists around the nation and the world to inspire closeted freethinkers to come out and speak up.

- The televised celebrations of Fred Phelps, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, and Terry Jones funerals narrated by Ricky Gervais, with the tune “Don’t Let the Door to the Outhouse Hit You in the Ass on the Way Out.” playing in the back ground.

- A pair of baby camels delivered to the Camel Ranch, free of charge - freight prepaid - one male one female.

That’s it. I’m easily satisfied. I don’t ask for much.
Have a happy New Years , be safe, and keep practicing Faithicide.

A few words on the Newtown, Connecticut horror

Like you and the rest of the nation I am distraught beyond words at the massacre in Connecticut. The horror, the very scope of destruction, is almost more than I can wrap my head around. I find a tear coming to my eye with every story about the victims and the many expressions of sympathy from around the world. I'm in mourning for those children and their teachers.


But now the media coverage has become obsessive, almost circus like in it's repetition and desperate grasps at new angles and obscure interviews. It is verging on becoming a morbid dance of death. We've heard everything we need to hear, and I wish it would stop.

Perhaps you, like me, are disgusted with the grotesque references to prayer, god, heaven, angels, jesus and all the predictable platitudes that the religious drag out whenever a tragedy happens. Religious bloggers and their sheeple who hallelujah their exhortation to prayer (for what I wonder); the crazed pastors and televangelists with their insipid and sickening declarations of why this happened, ranging from the ever popular "God called them home," to it being attributed to god's vengeance for his "not being allowed in school"; and the simply religiously infected need to espouse their religious beliefs publicly and wallow in a kind of breast beating and self flagellation... it all disgusts me.

It is the religious' trained response to inexplicable, and unfathomable acts of natural destruction and insanely driven acts of "evil." It's what they do in reaction to their impotence to do anything meaningful. It's what they've been indoctrinated or paid, to do. I despise the religious all the more for it.

But, I won't judge the parents and families of those victims the same way. They have entered a real hell, the hell no parent should ever experience. Let them express their grief and relieve their pain anyway they can...they will, sadly, have a life time of it. If their exhorting a god to explain, or imploring it to give it meaning, or praising it for taking their child to an imagined Candyland (instead of interceding on the child's behalf and averting the horror in the first place) is what they need to do to assuage their grief, then so be it.

Let them find what comfort where they can. I hope they find some measure of it, for there - but for the finger of fate - go us all.

Onward Atheist Soldiers: Let’s fight to preserve Christmas

I’m told by conservative news outlets that it tis the season for me to become engaged in a war. Seems that we, the godless heathen masses that makeup 8% to 15% of this nation’s populous, are once again rallying our massive collective power and influence in an effort to eliminate one of the most important holidays that the 76% majority hold so dear. Who knew?

Actually, they have it all wrong. The holiday shopping season is a veritable “God send” to our economy. It is expected to generate $590 billion in retail sales, a 6% increase over last year. Approximately 600,000 temporary jobs are created to service this sales volume; jobs that will help people pay their rent, buy gifts for their loved ones, and like wise stimulate the economy. Never mind the billions spent on Xmas trees, postage for holiday greeting cards, UPS/Fed Ex delivery costs and holiday food. As a capitalist I love Christmas. "The chief business of the American people is business," as Calvin Coolidge said. The last thing I’d want to see is the disappearance of Christmas. One has to wonder how much stronger China’s GDP would be if their 1.3 billion population were 76% Xtian instead of the roughly 7-10% it is now. I’m glad it isn’t.

I’d defend to the death Frosty the Snowman’s right to melt; Charlie Brown’s annual disappointing trip to the Xmas tree lot; George Bailey’s suicidal trip to that snow covered bridge; the Grinch’s efforts to mess with the heads of the denizens of Whoville; and Natalie Wood’s right to doubt Santa. These TV shows generate millions more in advertising that add to the nation’s financial stability and growth. After all, that’s what Xmas is all about… well, that and sharing fun, food and a warm fireplace on a snowy night with your family.

War on Xmas? Nope…I love Xmas. All people who want to see a strong economy should love Xmas. I fully endorse every man, woman, child and family pet being designated as each families personal diety upon whom gifts are heaped. If there were an organized effort to eliminate Xmas I’d strap on my body armor, lock and load my AR, man the barricades and willingly shoot the first ” Kill Kristmas” banner waving anarchist, anti-capitalist, agrarian society proposing low life that ventures into my crosshairs.

There is, however, a more covert and insidious movement a foot to kill Christmas. It comes from extremists who think Rudolph and Santa aren’t the true harbingers of Xmas – declaring them a perversion of the season; who deride the national spending frenzy as antithetical to the meaning of Christmas.

These are fanatics who believe that men dressed in golden finery, waving smoke pots, chanting mumbo-jumbo and staring into the plaster eyes of the bloody effigy of a corpse is what is important. Or that erecting make-believe scenes involving plastic non-existent wise men, virgins, camels and baby man-gods on public property is what’s really important. Organizations that use this time of year to ring bells and beg for money to do good works, which they also use promote delusion and oppose equal rights for everyone. These are the real warriors against Christmas. Fortunately those minions of cultist delusion are a small minority and growing smaller all the time. Eventually they will simply fade into obscurity taking their absurd interpretation of the holiday with them.

Warrior against Xmas? Not here. On Xmas Eve I plan to hang my dead Jewish man-god piñata from the rafters, hand out bats, and let the good times roll.

What’s behind this fascination with Jesus’ erection?

Back in the 50’s the Knights Of Columbus (a fraternal organization of  Catholic nutters who wear funny hats and carry ceremonial swords) erected a statue of Jesus on federal property in Montana. Painted in flesh tones, with a blue robe, the life size idol stands adjacent to a ski trail on a national park.  It is an obvious and blatant violation of the 1st amendment, as its presence on federal land is tantamount to the government’s endorsement of a specific religion. Christianity. Its continued existence is being challenged by the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Today the courts agreed the suit can go forward.

As usual the religious are up in arms at the godless’ attempt to have Jesus displaced.  Oh, they know it’s blatant a violation of the constitution, or at least their legal council knows it, but that doesn't matter to them. Evidently after fifty years they figure Jesus is beyond some imagined statute of limitations.  Their argument makes as much sense as finding out a hypothetical county in Alabama forbids blacks from voting, but defending continuation of said violation because it’s been that way since reconstruction.

Similar violations of religious statues and symbols on public lands have been the subject of ongoing challenges. In some cases they've been removed, or encapsulated with plywood pending court decisions.  In others the public land where the icon stands has  been sold to sectarian organizations to circumvent the law.  The battle goes on.

What’s behind this Xtian fixation with erecting graven images and execution devises on land your and my tax dollars paid for and support? Does their scripture demand idol worship on public property? Has Jesus now declared that what is Caesar’s should be encroached upon and possessed by Jesus, in direct contrast to his admonishment to keep Caesar’s and God’s property / tribute separate [Mark 12:17] ? Is the faith of Christians so weak they need to have public reminders that they are superstitious throwbacks? Is their private property or church holdings so sparse that they are insufficient to contain their grotesque religious renderings of death devises and Jewish zombies?  Doubtful.

What it comes down to is promoting the faith and using the government as co-conspirators in their proselytizing scheme.  No innocent trespass of the law, this is a full fledged frontal attack on separation of church and state, and clear intent to promote their religion as the preferred belief. 

They’ll deny this, of course. But it doesn’t take Nostradamus to predict their response if adjacent to their statues the government was pressured to provide equal recognition for all other beliefs.  In fact, that may be the best tact the FFRF could take.  For every Christian symbol on public property demand equal space for the Pastafarian’s noodley god, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, complete with meatball eyes and bright red marinara sauce.  Insist that a Wicca goddess, a Satanist effigy of Satan, a Muslim crescent, and a full color life size rendering of Ganesh, the four armed elephant god of the Hindus in all his colorfully hued skin tones, keep Jesus company.

One of two things would have to happen. Either the government would be forced to remove all the offending Xtian symbols thus resolving this issue once and for all; or they would be forced to provide equal space and prominence to these competing religious symbols to avoid the endorsement of one religion.

Frankly, I wouldn't care which one it lead to. Either would satisfy me as long as the erections of Jesus and Satan were the same size. 

The “New Atheist!!” pejorative: An activist’s badge of honor

Chris Stedman is a “Humanist Chaplain” at Harvard University - an oxymoron in my opinion. He purports to provide guidance (non-spiritual I assume) to secular students, akin to the guidance a Catholic, Protestant or Jewish chaplain might provide to their spiritual flock.

Mr. Stedman is a self described “faithist.” He wrote a book by the same name.   That’s a pejorative term he claims some atheists use to describe non-believers who feel a kinship toward believers, seeing them as people whose beliefs are worthy of respect; down playing the differences between non-believers and believers; ignoring for all he’s worth the uglier side of religion that historically has been and currently is a blight on humanity, instead preferring to focus on issues we have in common.  I never heard the term “faithist,” but if my synopsis holds water, then “faithist” equates to “Uncle Tom atheist.”in my parlance. I prefer the latter as a more succinct descriptor.

Mr. Stedman eschews the attitude and activism of  “New Atheists.”  Apparently that term, which I have heard bandied about by religionists as well, is meant to describe any atheist who decries religion inspired injustice or religious intrusion into our lives; or combats believers efforts to breakdown the “wall of separation” or claim it to be a fraudulent concept.  It includes any atheist who doesn't sit still in the face of attempts to impose Creationism into public schools or a religious test to be a science teacher; or who initiates a law suit when the school permits the name Jesus to be invoked in prayer or on school banners, or the ten commandments enshrined on a public building; or who pushes for equal space when a nativity scene is erected on public property.  Any atheist who thinks the world would be a better place with the demise of religion.

To Stedman (is it Reverend Stedman? Father Stedman?) these things make atheists unlikable because it points out our differences with those religionists who feel compelled to promote blatant attempts at history revisionism, the dumbing-down of our schools, and out right proselytizing for a “Christian Nation.”  It makes us look bad to the Christian majority. It irks them.  He doesn't like that.

In short the “New Atheist” is different from the plain old atheist because we won’t step off the curb and cast our eyes down when confronted by religious violations of the constitution and common sense. 

We won’t shuck and jive and shuffle our feet when the Christian Taliban passes laws declaring non-belief in god’s role in ensuring the security of our nation a crime punishable by imprisonment (Google “Kentucky God Security Law). 

We won’t stay quietly in the closet anymore when believers proffer their scripturally supported belief in non-science, reproductive rights, or who can marry who in a secular nation.  You know... like the “New Blacks” (AKA “Those Uppity Nigras”) who wouldn't ride on the back of the bus.  Or the “New Gays,” (AKA “Militant Faggots") who won’t sit still for being the target of  homophobes.  Or the “New Feminists” (AKA “Femin-Nazis" according to Rush Limbaugh) who won’t have their reproductive rights dictated to them by misogynistic old Christian white men.

But there’s nothing new about atheism. What’s new is the dwindling power and influence of the Church over thinking people.  What’s new is we no longer have to fear Inquisition, torture, imprisonment, execution or expulsion from the community.  We no longer have to pretend to be believers to earn a livelihood, or stay alive. What’s new isn't so much the atheist activism, as it is the loss of power, influence, and threat of retribution that religion and religionists have enjoyed for 1700 years or so.

Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899), Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), Madelyn O’Hare (1919-1995) , Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011),  Dawkins, Harris, along with thousands of other open and in your face atheists past and present who refused to roll over - all were, it seems, “New Atheists” to Stedman and those who wield the term at atheists like an exorcist wields a bottle of holy water at his victim  

Never mind that the very people decried by Stedman  are the very people to whom he owes his open non-belief and his very position at Harvard.  Without their activism he’d still be in his closet and wouldn't be pandering his “I’m not like THEM, I’m one of the good heathens” to his believer bedfellows. 

There’s nothing new about me being an atheist...been one since my late teens.  But if you want to tag me with this inventive term coined by religionist’s in fear of their dwindling influence and numbers, and picked up by accommodationist non-believers to ingratiate themselves to those who’d happily enslave him to their belief system, then feel free.

I’ll wear “New Atheist” with the same pride I do “Godless Hell Bound Heathen” -  as a badge of honor, a symbol of strength of conviction, a testament to my reason.

A Thanksgiving Story: There is a limit to my hospitality.

Charlie is the county transsexual. Fact is he is also the county drunk, ex-con, and meth addict.  Disowned by his parents as a teenager, he dropped out of school, lived on the streets of Keene, ran afoul of the law, dabbled in unsavory social behaviors, and was incarcerated for five years.  Somehow he got the state to pay for his sex reassignment surgery.  Charlie is now Charelene. (That's not Charelene above, but the resemblance is close enough for it to be her brother/sister).

Charelene’s new persona hasn't improved her social graces.  Unemployed, unhygienic,   homeless; sporting a perennial five o’clock shadow owing to her lacking the funds to maintain her hormone treatments; under nourished, and devoid of any sense of fashion or make-up artistry, Charelene is the poster girl for destitute.  She is a veritable pariah to the community; the kind of person that would prompt a stray dog to cross the street to avoid contact with her. 

Thanksgiving afternoon, as my wife was doing her thing in the kitchen, and I and my younger son, up for the traditional feast with his fiancée, watched football on TV there was a knock at the back door.  Shit, unannounced company on Thanksgiving. This can’t be good.  I padded to the back door.

There in all her glory was Charelene looking her Thanksgiving worst. She was accompanied by a tallish, blue eyed, long haired guy with a soft countenance in a pristine white robe. His entire being had a glowing radiance emanating from his body.  I recognized Him immediately from the traditional 19^th century white Anglo Saxon image  of the non-Jewish concept of Jesus. 

“We’re here for Thanksgiving, my son.” Jesus spoke with an upbeat lilt to his voice.

I looked the pair up and down for a nanosecond.  “YOU’RE welcome to join us for dinner, but we don’t serve HIS kind here.”  I snarled.

My reply caused a pained expression to come over Jesus’ calm demeanor. I could tell I was in for a sermon.

“My son, I know you to be a non-believer.  I understand that you reject all manner of superstition and gods, me included, as being imaginary; that the cause of faith is rooted in man’s inability to divest himself from ancient myth devised as societal control and to answer that which his unscientific mind could not answer.

 Yes, I know that you know religion and belief have been the cause of great injustice and suffering.  I accept that you can cite centuries of acts of brutality, intolerance, genocide, and irrational obstacles to science, reason, and people’s pursuit of happiness perpetrated by my blind faith zombie like followers. And even as I stand before you, I know that you are rational enough to know you’re dreaming my presence, or that it’s the result of celebratory liquid refreshment hallucination.

But I have always perceived you to be a man of compassion, a person of ethics; someone who has been non-judgmental when it comes to being charitable to those in need. For often you have said morality and goodness towards ones fellow man does not depend on a boogie man’s dictates or threat of eternal punishment.  That the thinking can be good without God because empathy is a byproduct of evolution and that the suffering of others does not serve society but diminishes it.”

At about this point in his soliloquy Jesus was getting himself worked up. He took on the persona of God the Father made popular in Michelangelo’s painting.  His voice rose to a thundering crescendo as he lifted his right hand above his head, index finger pointed skyward.
 
“Thus, verily I say unto you that by turning away this poor soul, this ‘least among us,’  this  homeless,  downtrodden, rejected and dejected,  impoverished, and put upon denizen of society it gives lie to your oft  touted  goodness without God.”   His last three words were accentuated by dark and stormy eyes that glared at me below a knitted brow , exuding condemnation and accusation of hypocrisy.

I glared back:  “I was TALKING to Charlene, asshole!”  

Pro-Gay Rights and Virulent Homophobe: The many faces of God

A gay activist and columnist, who is also the Christian son of his minister father,  wrote the following as part of his attempt to reconcile why some Christians seek to suppress and condemn his lifestyle/sexuality as a sin against God, while others accept him. 

"... we have tons of Christian denominations and even more unaffiliated belief sets being forged every day. Maybe it's because God wants them all to be able to reach such a diverse humanity. Maybe it's because God's love is greater than any of us can understand.”

Or maybe it's because there is no God. Of course, this most simple and obvious answer is never on the menu of options among the religiously afflicted.

No, gay pastor’s kid, you didn't chose to be gay...any person whose mind isn't clouded by religious fundamentalism knows this. You also didn't choose to be a religious believer, nor is it a biologically determined trait.  You acquired it through early and often indoctrination by your shaman parent. 

Being gay is no "sin" (whatever that means). But being a grown up and still believing in fairy tales sold to you by your parents, the same fairy tale that justifies your Christian neighbor's discrediting and demeaning you, and denying you full the rights he enjoys - THAT’S your "sin." .  That you don't understand the paradox of your own belief system is your trespass against modernity, your crime against reason.

One man’s god of compassion is another man's god of homophobia. Gods are created in man’s likeness, his character, only more so ... to the ultimate degree.  Gods are ultimately more jealous; ultimately more loving; ultimately more punishing, more forgiving, more murderous, more torturous, more magnanimous, more benevolent, more powerful, more judgmental, more egotistical, more genocidal, more destructive, more accepting, more intolerant than those who created him. Look at man's palate of traits, and God/gods will have them in spades.  A god’s magnified human traits, its excesses, its lack of moderation, give grounds for its creators to do good or do bad.   

So why shouldn't some religious invoke God's angry wrath against gays who are condemned by the Old Testament? And why wouldn't other religious invoke "We're all God's creations and he made us this way and loves us."?  One embraces the god of ones own liking.  

A god will wear whatever faces a cult, a sect, a denomination, a gay rights activist, a gangster, a liberal, a conservative, a hater, a fanatic, or a maniac believer wants it to wear. That is both the beauty and the horror of imaginary friends. 

Just a few post election thank you notes (with apologies to Jimmy Fallon)

I hope you don’t mind, but I have to get these thank you notes out.  I’ll just be a moment or two. Cue the soft piano music ...


THANK YOU Billy Graham, for backing Romney as the champion of “Biblical Values” in spite of having previously declared Mormonism a cult on your web site, then subsequently quietly purging said condemnation, thus proving to the world ...again... what a phony and hypocrite you are.

THANK YOU failed GOP candidates Todd Akin (MO)and Richard Mourdock (Indiana), for professing your devout religiosity and brilliant medical knowledge, thus enlightening your state’s electorate - and the rest of a disgusted nation - about rape, it’s relation to god’s will, and the varying degrees of acceptable sexual assault.  Most elucidating.

THANK YOU Catholic Bishops, for indirectly threatening your flock with opposing god’s will if they vote for Obama, thus demonstrating the dwindling credibility and impotency of the Church over American Catholics who voted Obama over Romney  by 50 versus 48 percent.

THANK YOU  Paul Ryan, for your last minute election eve attempt to paint Obama as the anti- “Judeo-Christian Values” candidate.  It proved to all of us that the majority of the country are smart enough not  to share your idiotic obsession with the bible’s demand for valuing the killing of witches, homosexuals, or those who glean the fields on the Sabbath. 

THANK YOU  Mike Huckabee, ex-preacher, failed presidential wanna be, and impotent purveyor of religious imbecility, for telling folks that voting for Obama  will result in their damnation.  Evidently the only people that seemed to effect were your inbred, semi-literate Southern brethren who would have voted for a Republican talking mule; thus further underscoring the declining impact of religion and supernatural threats on a majority of the nation’s voters.

THANK YOU  Evangelical Fundamentalist Born Again Far Right Religious Fanatics, Christian Nation zealots,  Talk Radio Fascists, and Tea Baggers, for exposing your loss of influence,  proving that you are 19^th century emperors with no clothes in a 21^st century America.  Your failing may well encourage the GOP toward a more inclusive and less strident social platform, lest they become forever irrelevant.  Thank ya Cheezus.

Finally, but most importantly ...

THANK YOU  women, moderate/liberal Christians, gays, freethinkers, Latinos, and Americans of intellect, reason, modernity, equality, civility and humanity for once again reminding me that this nation is better than I had given it credit for.  I've never been happier to be proven wrong.    

Yours truly,
D. Hump

Election Day!!

Hurricane! Let the Blame Game and Prayer Fest Begin!

“God of the Universe, at the dawn of creation, your Spirit breathed on the waters, making them the wellspring of all holiness. You created the oceans and rivers, and all that dwell within them, and at your word the wind and the waves were born. ... Creator God, we ask you to calm the wind and the waves of the approaching hurricane, and spare those in its path from harm.” 

So read a couple of sentences from a rather extensive prayer offered by a Catholic priest columnist on the Huffington Post in advance of hurricane Sandy’s land fall.  It could have as well been offered by a 4th century Finnish pagan priest invoking Thor.

Over the past few days thousands of prayers were posted to online news services and blogs by priests, pastors, televangelists, the pope, as well as devout layman, all in an effort to influence their god’s action and have him intercede, or refrain. “Oh sweet Jesus, as you calmed the waters of Galilee, so too send Sandy back from whence she came...” was a particularly memorable appeal by a woman on the HuffPost at the height of the storm. I guess she hadn't considered what the impact would be if “she”/Sandy were to reverse course. (I suppose finding a way to use the word “whence” was of greater import).

In addition, and as expected, some religious purveyors of ignorance offered their explanation for why god was venting his wrath via Sandy ... those darn homosexuals, of course. God it seems is incapable of expressing itself except by dispensing death and disaster.

So, how'd all that praying pay off now that the storm has come and gone? Eighty plus dead.  An estimated twenty-billion dollars in damage. People suffering and homeless.  We can imagine the faithful will respond that without prayer god wouldn't have finally intervened and the number of dead would have been higher, the financial losses greater.   Do, tell ... how does one measure the net death/loss avoidance attributable to prayer and god’s reconsideration and reversal of course?  I guess we will have to take it on faith that their god’s blood lust was satiated with just a few dozen deaths thanks to the prayers of the faithful.  

This mindlessness that creeps out of the woodwork every time there is a natural disaster is the most grotesque example of religionists' refusal to accept modernity and their need to throw gasoline on the embers of superstition. It invariably follows the same predictable path: Blaming it on god’s dissatisfaction with gay unions;  praying for the storm to subside (as though it wouldn't otherwise); praying for the victims that invariably die anyway; then claiming that prayers were answered and actually accomplished something meaningful and measurable. 

Three hundred years into the scientific age - even though science knows and explains what causes storms and can accurately predict their path and duration- still the mindless sooth saying shaman of, and slaves to religion babble their ignorance and invoke a spirit to deliver them like bronze age / pre-scientific pagans praying to the gods of wind, rain, thunder, lightning and chaos. 

Religionists disgust me with their willingness to exemplify the basest example of self imposed delusion and not even be embarrassed by it. It frightens me that they can vote, hold public office, and actually breed. I’m horrified that they can so readily find a public platform to spew their prejudice and foolishness.

If a million baaing sheep offer their prayers in lieu of a single $10 contribution to the Red Cross, they do less than nothing other than gain some self satisfaction by resting on the laurels of their good but useless intentions. And if only two hateful shamans can grab the media spotlight to profess god’s murderous disgust with homosexuality, it fans the fires of hate and reinforces blame in the mini-minds of the religiously unbalanced.

The most religious who infest this nation are the scary clowns of the modern era, and thus provide some comic relief. But the harm done far outweighs the entertainment value.  The best we can hope for is that their hackneyed prayers and rhetoric help drive some of their borderline brethren toward reason.  We’ll never know, we can only hope.   

Christians, Politicians and Rape: The Holy Trinity

I never thought so much about rape as I have in the past month.  I had always perceived it as an aggression perpetrated by men who would dominate, demean and dehumanize their victims with sexual violence. 

But now I realize that rape is more than that.  Rape, or at least proffering one’s perspective on rape, is now of political importance.  Invoking it is almost a prerequisite to establish a politician’s credentials as an under-educated  God fearing Christian fanatic misogynist expert of misinformation, and cheerleader for bad science and insensitivity.

Rape has evolved beyond a heinous crime and mutated into a political sport. Rape now has its self appointed referees, expert analysts, apologists, technical directors, color commentators, and quacks. 

I've learned a lot about rape from these amateur religious rape enthusiasts.  I've learned that there is “legitimate rape”, thus presumably illegitimate rape.  I've discovered that men who would control a woman’s right to reproductive self determination have no problem espousing the fable of long discredited non-science that rape itself is a veritable contraceptive, thus rape victims rarely become pregnant. 

I've discovered that a rape is “God’s will,” or if it’s not then certainly the pregnancy of that attack is God’s blessing to that woman. I've learned that when a sperm enters an egg it is a human being and that doing anything to prevent the full term development of that two celled, four celled, eight celled, etc., product of rape is tantamount to “contract murder.”

I've come to appreciate the magnanimity of the enlightened self appointed male keepers of the uterus who declare that they have taken the maverick stance and parted ways with the party platform - condescending  not to seek to make abortion for rape victims illegal.  

Yes, I've been schooled about rape. More accurately, I've been enlightened as to the shallowness and grotesqueness of the minds of the Republican Party in general and the Religious Right Tea Baggers in particular. How it perceives women.  How it demeans women. How it seeks to control them. How it diminishes their very humanness by espousing false science and holier-than-thou-male dominated-penis waving-sperm worshiping- God invoking ignorance.  

I keep waiting for a Democratic candidate, or an Independent, or one of their supporters; or an atheist, or an agnostic to stumble blindly into this morass of rape rating declaration and Fallopian introspection. But I won’t hold my breath.  Fortunately it seems the obsessive verbal diarrhea over rape is uniquely the purview of the GOP politicians and their supporters. 

What else would we expect from Americans who get their talking points from a god, and their ability to reason from their anus?

Voting GOP this Election? Super! Here take one of these ...

... because your daughter, or grand daughter may someday need an abortion. Oh, and you’ll want to be sure to remind her to boil it first. 

You may want to stock pile a few dozen of these, because your grandson or daughter could be born gay, be persecuted, permitted by schools to be bullied by offended Xtians, and denied the happiness of a life long loving union that the rest of us are guaranteed. It’s okay, he’ll go peacefully. It’s worked for lots of kids.

And be sure to study up on this, because when the kids or grand kids need help with their science homework, you don’t want to confuse them or appear too intelligent. 

Don’t forget, Friday nights- when your local high school cheerleaders unfurl that state endorsed Christian banner - stand up and cheer with the rest of them. It may be unwise to call attention to yourself.  It’ll probably become a natural reflex after a while.

It’s all good. The God fearing Republicans have a plan to lower your tax rate, whip the world into shape, kick Iran's ass, beat China into submission, shrink the deficit, increase military spending, have gasoline flowing like Kool Aid, and fix everything once and for all.   Trust them, and trust God.   

Free Business Advice to the Incurably Religious: Inquire Within

The first few years after retiring, my old firm asked me to do consulting work in my specialty of direct to consumer operations until they had a comfort level with my successor.   Mostly I conferenced with company execs, and other consultants, offering my input and recommendations on fulfillment services for our national retail catalogs and internet websites. 

I was paid handsomely for my time ... triple digits per hour including travel time and phone time; plus all expenses paid. Great gig if you can get it.

Today I am offering a piece of consulting advice to the religiously afflicted - pro bono, gratis, complimentary, absolutely free.  If you’re a business person, an author of a secular themed book, an ebay merchant, a contestant on a talent show, or any endeavor where religion has zero to do with what you are selling, then  this info may well increase your potential, boost your earnings, or save your job.  Pay close attention...I’m only going to type this once.

The other day I was searching ebay for a new leather belt.  I thought I found exactly the one I was looking for:  1 ¼” width, nice basket weave stamping, subtle buckle, tasteful, and inexpensive.  I was about to do a “buy now” until I scrolled to the bottom to confirm the return privileges, and there it was:  a scene with three crucifixes against a stormy sky, dead dudes dangling from each.  Lovely. Thanks ... I’ll pass.

This morning I was watching the Today show with Mrs. Hump. A pair of Kennedys came on touting their new book. Dressed in black, the gold cross on one of them stood out so big it looked like a gold tablespoon sized coke spoon with wings.  Yeah....we get it, you’re Catholic. What, that dead guy hanging around your neck has an aversion to nestling quietly and discretely in your cleavage?  (Strangely, their devoutness and blatant flaunting of their religion never seems to be enough to keep Kennedys from crashing airplanes, skis, and cars with disastrous results for themselves and innocent people around them.)   Her talisman was so distracting, I don’t have the vaguest idea what the book was about. 

Finally, I went shopping for a new wristwatch today.  The young woman behind the showcase took out a tray of Swiss Army watches. As she placed them on the counter I noticed a tattoo on her wrist. It was about the size of four postage stamps - a full color rendering of a tortured looking face wearing a rather uncomfortable looking thorny crown dripping blood. The guy’s upturned eyes seemed to be screaming “For ME sake, get me off this idiot’s wrist!”  On her other wrist was a weeping woman in black with a cross behind her.  No corpse. 

I casually inquired: “I guess you’re pretty religious, huh?”
“Huh?  Oh!  Yeah!  I’ve had them for about two years. Do you like them?” she lifted her full color corpse tattoo closer to my face. 
“Frankly, no. In fact, as long as you’re asking I find them a little off putting.” I flatly replied as I inspected one of the watches. She was silent after that. There was one watch I liked, but not in love with.  I may have been convinced but I just wasn’t motivated at this point.   I ended up in another jewelers buying from a lovely woman; no corpses hanging from her neck or a visible tattoos of a mythical man-god emblazoned forever in living (or dead) color on her wrist.  $175, less 25%, good deal.

Which brings me back to the title of this essay:  Attention religionists! I don’t care what fable you embrace or god you worship.  I don’t have any interest in how devout you are, or how holy your bodily adornments make you feel.  If you aren’t working in the Vatican, or a Christian book shop your prospective clientele doesn’t necessarily share your enthusiasm for your delusion.

So, tuck in your execution devise jewelry, and cover your bleeding corpse tattoo because these days, north of the Mason Dixon Line at least, you’ve a better chance of alienating prospective customers or clients than you do sealing a deal because of the display. 

Here, let’s try this, because I sense your  Christian-centric mindset is causing a blockage:  if I worked in a shop and wore a sign around my neck or displayed a tattoo on my forehead that said “Jesus is a myth, kill it once and for all” you may feel a tad put upon and not want to do business with me either. In fact, it may even prompt you to complain to management, demand I cover up the imposition, or threaten never to patronize that business again.

I doubt your man-god will be offended. Besides it’s not like his tattooed likeness or gold corpse can’t magically see through your blouse sleeve or sweater top. Plus you’ll piss off fewer people, thus earn more sales, more commissions, maybe sell more books, even keep your job. Sounds like a win win for you AND your deity.  OK, that's my advice. Take it or leave it.   

Take the National Quiz of Shame

The past week has been rife with some interesting political developments. I’m not talking about the presidential election necessarily, but statements and proposals from politicians around the nation that should give thinking people pause.

Unfortunately, much as devout Christians will hang tight to their beliefs even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, so too will some otherwise thinking people turn a blind eye, or deny, or just dismiss as a one off the madness that spews from the mouths of religious fanatic politicians. 

So, I offer the following short quiz to my readers to prompt some introspection and aid some of their friends and relatives in assessing their own readiness to ride the band wagon of the  insanely religious.  Get ready, this won’t be pretty:

1.  Name the Gubernatorial candidate and his party, who has declared his support for  introducing Creationism into his state’s public schools if elected, and will refuse all federal aid for education for his state.

2.  Name the state representative & his party who in the past two years introduced a bill that would require Creationism be discussed in science classes; and who supported a religious test for public school science teachers to keep atheist teachers out of the class room.

3. Name the state representative candidate & his party who declared that rebellious children should be put to death, per the Old Testament directive.

4. Name the state rep and his party, who proclaimed that slavery was “a blessing” to black people. And from the same state, the representative who proclaimed slavery couldn’t have been so bad since Jesus and Paul never condemned it.

5. Name the Congressman and his party who sits on the Science Committee who announced that evolutionary theory is “a lie from the pit of hell.” He also declared manmade global warming a conspiracy by certain members of the scientific community.

6. Name the pro-life, family values congressman and medical doctor, and his party, who opposes abortion even to save the life of the mother, but who insisted his mistress have an abortion to “save his marriage.”.

7. Name the ex-president and his party who proclaimed atheists “... aren’t patriots and maybe not even be Americans.”

8. Name the state representative and his party that has called for the death of homosexuals.

9 Name the national candidate and his party who believes that god and his wives lives on the planet Kolob;  wears special underwear that protects him from evil;  will himself someday be a god of his own planet; and who believes almost half the nation’s citizens are un-motivated self declared victims entitled to free food and free everything.
10. What do each of these politicians have in common?


Answers:
1. Ovid Lamontagne  (R- New Hampshire) Catholic
2.Gary Hopper (R- Weare, New Hampshire) Protestant
3.Charles Fuqua (R – Arkansas) Baptist 

4 Jon Hubbard (R- Arkansas) Baptist; and Loy Mauch (R- Arkansas) Baptist
5 Paul Broun (R- Georgia) Southern Baptist
6 Scott DesJarlais (R- Tennessee) Episcopalian
7 George H.W. Bush ( R )  Episcopalian
8 Rep. Andy Gipson (R-Mississippi)  Christian
9 Willard “Mitt” Romney ( R ) Mormon
10. They are all Republicans and Christians, and represent only a very few of the many GOP politicians who share their perspectives.

 I’m sure you were able to answer a few of these correctly. Certainly you could have guessed the party affiliations.  But your score isn’t important. What’s important is your answer to the final two part question... and here it is:

11: A) How can any thinking person ignore these realities, which are just the tip of the madness iceberg, and cast their vote for the party that virtually exclusively  attracts this kind of madness, this degree of incivility, these expressions of hate, hypocrisy and religious fanaticism that is counter to everything America stands for...then goes so far as to fund those campaigns and candidates?
11: B) How can any person of reason and reality vote for a party that attracts like a magnet the support of the least educated, most religiously deluded, homo-phobics, misogynists, and racists - in the hopes that this party has a magic bullet that will lift this nation magically out of its financial doldrums?

Answer:
11:A&B-  Because some unholy blend of self interest, cognitive dissonance, denial, and racism is not exclusively the purview of ignorant religious fanatics.  And that’s the real national shame.   

My guess is you got that last one right   

An uninvited guest: Guess who came to dinner?

I hate having unannounced out of town guests.  I mean, it’s just rude.  Forget about the fact that I have to hustle and put on pants, what if I had something important planned...like, I dunno -  purging my dog’s anal gland?

Last night the driveway alarm sounded, the security lights came on, the automated Claymore mine system armed, and my spidey sense started to tingle, the latter only happening when religionists have breached the Camel Ranch compound perimeter.

Being the closest one to it, Mrs. Hump heaved me the Marlin 1898 12 gauge pump I keep loaded over the side door.  I racked one of the 00 buck shot shells into the chamber and waited. Seconds later there was a knock at the back door. 

“Who the hell is it?” I barked.  It’s my normal greeting to unexpected night intruders.
“Don’t you mean ‘Who the heaven is it?’ my son?” was the soft spoken reply in an accent reminiscent of a cross between Yassar Arafat and a Hassidic rabbi from Brooklyn.

Leveling my shotgun about waist high, I swung the door open.  There stood the scruffiest looking, bearded, snaggle toothed, slightly emaciated, schlub I’ve ever seen outside of a Walmart. 

“Hi I’m Jesus.”
“I don’t need my lawn mowed, I do it myself...besides it’s late. ”
“No, not THAT kind of Jesus the ORIGINAL one; you know, JESUS! Can I come in?”
“Lemme see some ID.”
       
He cautiously reached into his cheap crumpled Sears suit jacket and fumbled around for his wallet... eventually producing a New Hampshire driver’s license which he held up at arms length for me to read. 

I read it out loud :  “Jesus Christ, AKA Son of God, AKA Prince of Peace, AKA Jebus; AKA Jeezus H. Fuckin’ Christ;  DOB: approx. 4 BCE.; Current address: Men’s Shelter, Manchester, NH; Corrective lenses required, motorcycle certified.”

I compared the photo to the specter standing before me, looking back and forth between the two just to be sure.  Yup..it was him...or Him.  

“Ok, com’on in, but keep those hands where I can see them, don’t drip any blood on the floor, and let’s make this quick... The X-Factor comes on in ten minutes. ”   I noticed some nasty infected holes in his hands.  I assumed he had them in his feet too, but since he was wearing a pair of Nikes I wasn't concerned.  I showed him to the kitchen and had him sit down at the table.  If he was carrying fleas, the last thing I needed was an infestation in the living room carpeting.

“I guess you’re wondering what I’m doing here, I mean what with your being a freethinker, an anti-theist activist, and something of a hump to people who believe in me.”

I surmised that the stench of cheap sweet wine on his breath was Manischewitz Concord Grape, vintage of last Tuesday.  The crumbs of matzo in his beard did not exactly endorse the old “cleanliness is next to godliness” bromide. 

“Yeah, you might say that.  Get on with it, Captain Obvious.”
“Well, I’m here to apologize for all the crap my followers did over the centuries and still do.  All the problems they caused and still cause.”
“Uh huh..go on”  
“And the fact that they eschew education, deny scientific reality, make up fake history, treat women like chattel, are so damn gullible, support Romney who’s a real douche, and despise homosexuals.  You know I’m a little light in the sandals my self.”  That last phrase was accompanied by an embarrassed smile that made me a little uncomfortable.

“Ok, fine.  So what are you going to do about it?  When are you going to divulge to your sheeple that  you and those other two guys You also call You,  are Paul's total fabrication at worst; or a composite figure drawn from pagan gods, Cynic preachers, and 1^st century Jewish nationalist professors of  independence from Rome at best? ”

“Oh ... I couldn't do that.  Much like Tinkerbell from Peter Pan (one of my personal favorite god-like myths, by the way), unless people believe in me I would totally disappear. It would be tantamount to suicide for me to out myself. And according to my myth, I already did the suicide thing once.  If I did it again it would look, well... like a cry for attention.”

“AND SO....?” I was growing impatient. I already missed the first five minutes of X-Factor. “You’re here to apologize and that’s it?  You came all the way from Manchester ... on foot evidently ... just for that?!”

“No No... I came to thank you for what you’re doing.  I mean just look at me!  You see any halo?  No!  Any beams of light emanating from my being?  No!  I had to fricken walk here, don’t even have my Mercedes C class anymore...repossessed.  Hey, this is a $40 suit, ‘buy one, get the shirt and tie free.’  No more Brooks Brothers, no more Barney’s NY, no more hand sewn Italian shoes.  I came to tell you to keep up the good work. Your exposing me as a myth and invention is having its effect, and it’s long over due. Won't belong before my whole crappy story is laid to rest. Me along with it.”

I was struck by two emotions:  the first was an inclination to lower the shotgun, as this guy was obviously no longer a threat.  The other was one of enormous pride.

“Hey, thanks, I appreciate that!  I mean, I knew I was making a difference, but I didn’t realize I was ALL THAT, ya know? I mean, that I was single-handedly responsible for your gradual demise and ultimate consignment to the shit can of dead man-gods and fables.”

“Uh ... oh.  Yeah.  Well, truth be told,   I’m making the rounds to all thinking people with the drive and will to speak out. You’re like number 835,701. Hey, you wouldn't happen to have a spare ham sandwich would ya?”

Bastard!  

Voting for “Judeo-Christian values” – A Freethinker’s worst nightmare

In an effort to down play the perception of Mormonism as a cult and non-Christian society of blaspheming scum among Evangelicals, Romney has avoided use of the term Mormon this election cycle and  now has taken up the tact of  appealing to the Religious Right with the more generic “shared Judeo-Christian values.”  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/29/romney-evangelicals-judeo-christian-values_n_1924587.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

Ah!!  Judeo-Christian values!  Well, that’s more like it.

Let's see: the Old Testament, the Jewish bible - the Tanakh - values genocide (except for the female virgins) for tribes who are non-believers in the god of Abraham; demands the cutting off of a woman's hand for grabbing the genitals of her husband's attacker; requires the killing of one's unruly children; endorses stoning homosexuals to death; and absolutely expects killing people for working on the Sabbath (that would be Saturday, not Sunday, by the way). 

On the other hand, "traditional" Christian values include the murder of indigenous peoples and the utter eradication of their culture to spread "the Word" and save them from themselves; torturous Inquisition against heretics; Holy wars; witch burning; intra-sect wars; 1700 years of anti-Semitism; stealing donkeys; causing the mass killing of pigs and destruction of fig trees; and turning father against son and mother against daughter. 

More recently, their values have expanded to include willful violation of the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings by promoting prayer in school and installing Judeo-Christian symbols on government property; persecuting American born children of illegal immigrants; denying scientific fact like global warming and evolutionary theory; opposing advancement in medical research; and promoting anger in the Middle East by broadcasting Xtian proselytizing satellite TV insulting Muslims on their own soil. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-satellite-20120928,0,6912233.story

Yes - I can see how shared Judeo-Christian values would make Romney attractive to the extreme religious right; evangelicals; homophobes; Christian nationalists; anti-feminists; those who endorse torture and public school corporal punishment; promoters of the  imposition of Xtian beliefs; hawks for more war in the Middle East; and those bent on tearing down the Wall of Separation. 

Yes, professing Judeo-Christian values was a shrewd move by Willard. It should turn out the vote rather nicely in the Bible Belt, and among Creationists, Survivalists, Skin-heads, the KKK, the Minute Men, and those who see a Christian Taliban controlled Christian Nation in our future. 

Yes, a vote for Romney is a vote for Judeo-Christian values.  I’m glad he cleared that up.    

And now a political message from our sponsor: Reason.

 Election day is only a few weeks away.  I imagine some of you may be considering voting for a change.  After all, with all the opportunities we've had contending with the “greatest economic down turn since the Great Depression” over the past 80 years, you’d think we’d have had everything all fixed by now.

When you go to the polls and prepare to vote I don’t want you to be concerned with incidentals – those little things that might dissuade you from voting for Mitt.

Don’t worry about women’s reproductive rights and the potential of a Supreme Court nominee being one vote away from reversing Roe V. Wade, as is the Republican platform’s objective. It’s not like anyone in your family will be raped. Besides, if a back alley abortion with a wire hanger was good enough for grandma, it should be good enough for your grand children.

You can justify how it is right and proper for Viagra to be covered with medical insurance to treat male impotence; but that women’s contraception is simply against god’s will, thus not justified.

You’re probably ok that the majority of the Republican party perceive freethinkers/atheists to be less qualified to hold public office than a gay or a Muslim; and isn’t patriotic, or “possibly not even American” as George H.W. Bush so succinctly stated. They’ll tolerate us in their “Christian Nation,” for the time being.

It shouldn’t be a concern that the GOP plainly stated in 2010 that its first priority was not restoring the nation’s economy, or improving the unemployment situation, or even reducing the deficit.  It was to prevent that Negro in the White House from attaining a second term. Their congressional obstructionism is just good politics.

Don’t give lower income women’s health a second thought. Planned Parenthood is obviously a hideous waste of 0.008% of our federal budget. Besides, why would poor women need breast cancer screening...or even breasts? 

Forget about Romney’s peculiar inclination to get the US embroiled in the Syrian conflict, and his readiness to go to war with Iran.  Mitt  needs those initiatives to gain some military experience since his was limited to a tour of duty in Paris selling Mormonism to the French during the Vietnam war.

Pay no mind to the fact that the stock market is 7,000 points higher than it was four years ago, unemployment is lower, housing prices are recovering, banks are lending again, and the car industry is stronger than it ever was. Mitt says you’re fucked compared to 2008. Strangely, he doesn’t seem to be starving.

Assume that Romney has a secret plan to restore unemployment to under 4%. Anything else is just details. After all, he was a CEO.

Ignore the fact that he declared Russia our greatest enemy, or that on his first trip abroad as a presidential candidate he insulted our closest ally and belittled Palestinian culture as the cause for their economic strife. A veritable diplomatic genius.

Trust that maintaining tax breaks for the wealthy, and eliminating those pesky tax deduction “loopholes” for the middle class -  like mortgage interest, tuition costs, and health care expenses – while increasing military spending by $1 Trillion more than the Joint Chiefs of Staff asked for, will all somehow work out to improve the economy and reduce the deficit.  Chances are your mortgage is all paid up, and your kids are done with college, and you are self insured anyway.

No, don’t worry about any of this stuff. Give it not a second thought.  But when you reach up to pull that lever, or place that “X” in the box, or punch out that “chad”... I want you to remember this:   

Then remember this is the man who will guide the nation for the next four years, and have his finger on the button of the most advanced nuclear arsenal and strongest military force on the planet.  If you can sleep with that then indeed, vote for the Creationist in the magic Mormon underwear.
Am I preaching to the choir?  Then send this link to someone who could use a touch of reason. 

Sam Harris is Wrong...Again.

Sam Harris is an icon of the atheist movement. We owe him much for his outspoken opposition to religious intrusion into our lives and the damage it does to society. I respect him immensely.   But Sam is not an icon of international diplomacy, nor is he infallible.  We’ll leave infallibility to the pope.

The same can be said for Chris Hitchens. He was and remains a hero of mine, but he was a misguided rabid supporter of the war in Iraq.  

I disagree with Sam Harris on a few things, not the least of which is his demonization of liberal Xtians.  You’d think a man of letters who firmly accepts evolutionary theory, would see liberal Xtians as part of, a stage in, the evolution of religion - leading ultimately to reason and the demise of religion over the long haul.  Sam, it seems, isn’t satisfied with that. 

To Harris liberal Xtians are cherry picking doctrine (and they are); accommodating myth with reality (which they do); creating a hybrid or bastardization of Christianity which prolongs religious belief (and it does) and enables fundies.  It seems that to Sam anything short of the immediate self extinction of fundamentalist belief, with no stage between total belief in myth and fable and complete atheism, is unacceptable and unworthy of nurturing or acceptance, but worthy only of disdain.  This is my summary interpretation of his perspective, not his precise words.

To me this is tantamount to despising Australopithecus for standing between his arboreal ancestors and the development of Homo sapiens. Heck, Australo was just delaying the inevitable.

Sam’s not much of a pragmatist in that regard, nor is he a diplomat nor politician if his latest screed is any indication. 
  

Today Sam Harris came out and accused the Obama administration of practicing “quivering lip diplomacy” based on the tweet issued by the US embassy in Egypt before the Libyan murders occurred, and based on subsequent government statements that seek to distance the US government from the act of a private US individual.
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/on-the-freedom-to-offend-an-imaginary-god

 But where Sam sees this as weakness I see it as diplomacy, civility, and an attempt to establish credible arms length distance between government involvement and private citizen's action; not at all indicative of an offer to relinquish our rights and freedoms or an admonishment against free speech by anyone of any kind.

Unfortunately, some Americans, Sam included, seem not to understand that every Muslim who lives in the Middle East lives in a culture where all media must be approved and sanctioned by their ruling government. It is unheard of for a private individual, under decades of autocratic / despotic rule, to be able to produce and air a film without government approval and blessing.  This then feeds the Muslim world’s assumption that this policy / reality extends to foreign countries because they know nothing else.  The failure to recognize this is symptomatic of the Western-centric mindset, and a failed educational system, or just a preference to remain ignorant of other cultural realities.  Mercifully, unlike Romney, McCain, Palin, my neighbor up the street and Sam Harris, the Obama administration understands this. 

If establishing that the US government does not endorse specific speech antagonistic to a billion or so foreigners, and seeks to maintain an arms length between a private citizen’s inflammatory speech and our body’s politic is some how weakness, it is only so in the minds of those who fail to understand this difference (or prefer to reject the difference ).  It speaks more to those Americans' knee jerk ethno-centric ignorance, or political agenda,  than to an administration kowtowing to Muslim indignation.

No...the private citizen does not speak for the US government.  His words and actions do not necessarily reflect our nation’s policy or perspective. While blasphemy, insult, and hate speech are our right, the government has no obligation to imply it endorses what is said, only to endorse our right to say it.   I'm glad we have an administration that knows the difference and did just that.  

That said:  Phuque the Profit Muhammad. 

(Note:  I was criticized by a fb friend for referring to Christopher Hitchens as "Chris" in this article, an abbreviated name Hitch despised.  A thoughtless oversight on my part. But I doubt "Hitch" is going to object. After all,  I've never received a complaint from Chuck Darwin)   

Busy week among the religiously moronic, and it's only Thursday

I usually pick one theme for my blog articles- whatever catches my attention as being particularly worthy of my ire.  But this week has been so chocked full of religiously related idiocy I just couldn’t pick one. So let me send a few shout outs and see if I can at least provoke a fatwa against me.

Attention Muslims:
Evidently your pampers are all in a twist over a 3^rd rate movie by one of your fellow countrymen of Xtian belief.  Seems to have caused you to run into the streets, attack, burn, destroy and otherwise commit mayhem in the name of the Religion of Peace.  Look, let me say this so even your backward minds can understand it: “Sticks and stones can break your bones, but calling your imbecilic pedophile militant fiend of a prophet what he was will never hurt you.” 

If your prophet Muhammad (piss be upon him, pictured above) is offended, and is as powerful and as close to Allah as you say, let him do his own burning, destruction and ranting. Calm your ignorant medieval asses down.  Free speech trumps your feelings, even though you have zero idea what free speech is since freedom of anything is alien to your religion and culture.  
(PS: Word has it you people can sniff a camel out from 100 miles away.  I live in NH. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a dromedary among the population here, so few New Hampshirites actually have humps in spite of what you may have heard. But we all have heavy weaponry.)

Attention Mormon Presidential Candidates:
I don’t care that you think you’re going to be the god of your own planet when you croak.  I don’t care that you wear magic underwear, or that your kids are forced to wear them.  I don’t even care that you have a charlatan, liar, and convicted felon as your preferred religious prophet. That’s your cross to bear.

What I do care about is your taking advantage of a tragedy on foreign soil and using it for political attack purposes and making idiotic accusations about embassy issued statements before you even know when it was issued, in what context , and WTF is going on.

Not only is it proof of your cult addled brain being devoid of any concept of diplomacy, timing, dignity or intellect...it is proof positive, once again, that you’re not presidential material.  Now go sacrifice a chicken to Joseph Smith, or whatever it is your cult does.

.Attention NASA Administrator Charles Bolden: 

 I understand Neil Armstrong was religious.  I understand the importance for people like you to mumble your praiseand acknowledgement to gawd; reference Neil up in heaven looking down; and do your Holy Holy Holy routine.  But the statement you made that:
“... [technological and scientific] achievements are made possible through God's grace and guiding hand," while I’m sure is a sentiment that was received well by the religiously devoid of reason, it is beneath the position of  an administrator of the nation’s premier scientific exploration government entity. 

Yes...I get that you are a Southerner, a Christian, a Marine aviator, test pilot and that your science degree is in “science administration,” thus you’re not a genuine scientist.  Therefore we have no right to expect you to understand the difference between science and myth.  But at least feign some sense of reality and respect for human achievement.

Before you offer up a platitude that betrays your intellectual short comings, at least reflect upon the fact that if Gawd’s guiding hand determines discovery, that the psychopathic imaginary deity you worship and give credit to for the moon landing took a few hundred thousand years to inform humanity what causes illness...you know, simple  things like germs, bacteria, how to prevent and cure their infections- like telling them to wash their hands after they  wipe their butts.   Some super grace your god’s got there.

and finally...

Attention Pat Robertson:

Hey Pat, your latest suggestion that a man become a Muslim and move to Saudi so he can beat his wife into submitting to him as the ruler of the house, as women are meant to do by Gawd’s law was classic Pat Idiocy.  We all got a good laugh out of just another in an endless list of biblically driven misogyny, unthinking statements, and reinforcement of violence toward women (along with your well documented hatred of gays, liberals, feminists, atheists and anyone who embraces reason over fable).

But here’s the thing, Pat.  We can’t tell anymore when you’re tossing out a bad joke, and when you’re being dead serious. Which brings us to your health and the concept of “dead.”   Please, do the gracious thing and take that long over due dirt nap.  You give humans a bad name and exponentially increase the stupid Xtian quotient..

No shortage of religious stupid this week, and the week is only 5/7^th over.  Reason have mercy!