Any Catholics out there want to field this one? Despite my reputation, I’m not specifically anti-Catholic, just generally anti-religion, and these weirdly reactionary old school Catholics with their exceeding narrow interpretations of dogma just creep me out. This one comes from some guy who is absolutely convinced that the only true Christian is a Catholic, but at the same time, he argues that the current Pope is the anti-Christ, etc. I’m guessing he’s going to be lonely in heaven as the only True Catholic ever.

Hello

Pope Eugenius IV in His infallible Bull ‘Cantate Domino’ at the Council of Florence (1441) declared the Dogma: “The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and teaches that none of those who are not within the Catholic Church can ever be partakers of eternal life, but are to go into the eternal fire “prepared for the devil and his angels” unless before the close of their lives they shall have entered into that Church.”

See the following:

https://www.youtube.com/user/mhfm1

Unless a person becomes a Catholic before they die: they will never save their soul.

Right now you are in rebellion against the Truth. According to Theological writings Americans (generally speaking) are hyper-allergic to Christianity, spirituality, and to spiritual truth; but if you managed to overcome that initial hurdle you could discover the beauty of Truth. You will need to say many Hail Marys though. “American identity” is just not compatible with Christianity. Followers of the USA think themselves an exception to the Law of Water Baptism and indeed to all the moral Laws of God for which there are no exceptions. Well you are not “exceptional” and this is what makes you angry at Christianity.

Sadly the USA flag like the Confederacy flag is an anti-Christian symbol whose tricolore (red, white, and blue) represents the slogan “liberty, equality, fraternity” according to the World Atlas website. That revolutionary masonic slogan has been repeatedly condemned as heresy by Christianity because it represents man against God and the overthrow of Christian order and Monarchy which uphold inequality. Millions of Christians were murdered under that slogan (which you venerate via the flag). To learn true compassion and fairness for everyone please see www.mhfm1.com which has many fantastic videos and articles. Many have converted from the American religion to the Christian Faith.

Sincerely
Alexander Emerick

I’ve never said a “hail mary” in my life, and couldn’t if I tried. There’s some words? Do I need to make any mystical gestures?

The bizarre claims about flags at the end is just the ludicrous icing on a fusty old cake made of cobwebs and rotting parchment. No thanks.

Leo Igwe writes about the contribution of Christianity and Islam to modernizing Africa. Against the background of African superstitions, does adding European and Middle Eastern superstitions help?

You will be shocked to learn that no, it does not.

These two religions do not, in any way, constitute ‘modernising forces’ in Africa. They render it increasing difficult to question and challenge supernatural and paranormal claims. Christianity and Islam only add to the existing superstitions, substituting or rebranding magical narratives that already apply in African societies. The skeptics’ movement should make it part of its program to subject Christian and Islamic faith claims to critical evaluation, even at the risk of being accused of racism or islamophobia.

I don’t think bringing in Scientology or Buddhism would counter irrationality either. Let’s criticize all religions.

Yeah, I’m trying to reach YouTube atheists, so I guess that means I need to use their preferred medium, as unsuited as I am to it. So here I am, expressing my views about the awful people in my movement by staring uncomfortably into a camera.

Sargon of Akkad “won” his interview with Thomas Smith. I’ve only seen a few short clips (the con organizers are going to be selling the videos, so they were limiting recording), and it was deplorable. Carl Benjamin aka Sargon sat there with a smirk; Smith would try to confront him with something, like the time Benjamin dismissed a victim of sexual assault by declaring “I wouldn’t even rape you”; then Benjamin would say “Yeah!”, turn to the audience and wave his hand, and the place would erupt with cheers and laughter. He didn’t need to reply, he had a claque on hand to howl approval no matter what vileness was brought up, who would howl the louder the more vile the Sargon quote was.

The speakers/attendees who backed out before they got on stage were wise. This was a theater packed with giggling misogynists.

I also saw a small bit of the “Armoured Skeptic”. He stood on the stage reading from a handful of papers, and made absurd declarations, such as that adding social justice to atheism made it a religion, that there was a god of SJWs, etc., etc., etc. It was unprofessional and ridiculous.

I pity the well-meaning people who stuck it out. Sargon won by being more disgusting than reasonable people could tolerate. Remember that next time Mythicist Milwaukee puts on a conference — it will be only for the dregs of atheism.

Robin Ince has a few words about political correctness.

Political correctness means different things to different racists homophobes misogynists concerned citizens. For some, it is a mindless removal of offensive words based purely on doctrine, they are cancelling the racist jokes for no other reason than statue 8 paragraph C. Some people cannot believe you may not make homophobic jokes and quips about rapes because you’re playing it safe rather than because you’ve thought it through and, via a combination of empathy and reason, you’ve decided it may be a better night without those jokes. You haven’t banned those jokes, you’ve just come up with other ones.

This is why I think PC can be good for comedy. It makes you think about what you are saying and why you are saying it. You still have the freedom to say it, you just might have spent a little more time thinking why you are. The cost of free speech when well-used is to think about its value and what you want to use it for.

So true, not just for comedy, but for any kind of communication. If you aren’t thinking about your audience, you aren’t being effective. You can spit on a Bible in front of an audience of atheists, but if you’re trying to talk to a group of creationists, you’ll lose them immediately and they won’t bother listening to you. “Political correctness” is a bullshit term used to disparage something important: thoughtfulness and honest discussion. Complaining about political correctness just means you’re admitting that you have zero interest in listening to the other side.

Callie Wright interviews the guys who are putting on Mythcon. They’re terrible. Here’s the reason they justify inviting Carl Benjamin aka Sargon of Akkad to be a speaker there: he’s an entertainer. Atheist conferences need to bring in new, exciting speakers.

I’m just wondering what is entertaining about Carl Benjamin? They compare him to George Carlin and Sarah Silverman.

They also point out that attendance at atheist conferences is down, and we need to spark new interest, so they’re looking for novel voices in the entertainment industry. If they’re dredging the bottom of the barrel to find people, I don’t think that’s going to help stimulate interest.

Jesus. Benjamin is an “entertainer” now. Gosh. Let’s bring in “entertaining” Nazis to conferences, too.

I’m glad some people are skeptical about the so-called “sonic attacks” on the American embassy in Cuba. It’s absurd.

It’s also easily tested. If bad guys are pumping energy into embassy rooms with some kind of mysterious device, that’s testable. We’ve got wackaloons running around claiming they can detect non-existent ghosts with simple electronic gadgets — real physicists could easily place real recording devices that are sensitive to a wide range of frequencies in these rooms and get concrete evidence of a real phenomenon, if it exists. Why haven’t they? You’d think the first thing they would do, on suspecting that they’re getting zapped by sonic rays, is call up the NSA or the signal corps, and they’d stick a few widgets around and detect any anomalous signals.

Have they? If they have, we’d know and have specific measurements to pin the fault on something. If they haven’t, it means they’ve got nothing but ghosts. And ghosts don’t exist.