I happen to be male. I found myself unable to read the following story without feeling an urge to double over and cup my crotch, which was really awkward when sitting in a public coffee shop. So stop here if you are prone to sympathetic pains.
A man in British Columbia decided that he and his four year old son needed to be circumcised.
Already, half my readership has decided to flee to less cringe-inducing websites. That’s OK, just leave quietly, and close the door behind you.
There’s one thing that could make this video funnier.
It would be Bill Donohue waxing apoplectic over that video.
Hallelujah! My prayers are answered!
Comedian Sarah Silverman appeared on Bill Maher’s HBO show on October 9 attacking the Vatican. She began her monologue bemoaning the plight of world hunger, and then found a solution: “What is the Vatican worth, like 500 billion dollars? This is great, sell the Vatican, take a big chunk of the money, build a gorgeous condominium for you and all your friends to live in…and with the money left over, feed the whole f—ing world.”
Speaking of the pope, Silverman continued, “You preach to live humbly, and I totally agree. So, now maybe it’s time for you to move out of your house that is a city. On an ego level alone, you will be the biggest hero in the history of ever. And by the way, any involvement in the Holocaust, bygones….”
Silverman closed by saying, “If you sell the Vatican, and you take that money, and you use it to feed every single human being on the planet, you will get crazy p—y. All the p—y.”
Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds as follows:
Silverman’s assault on Catholicism is just another example of HBO’s corporate irresponsibility. Time and again, if it’s not Bill Maher thrashing the Catholic Church, it’s one of his guests. There is obviously something pathological going on there: Silverman’s filthy diatribe would never be allowed if the chosen target were the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and the state of Israel.
Here’s a reality check for Silverman: the Catholic Church operates more hospitals and feeds more of the poor than any private institution in the world. It also saved more Jews during the Holocaust than any other institution in the world.
Factcheck time, Bill!
In America, as of 1999, 13% of all hospitals were religious (totaling 18% of all hospital beds); that’s 604 out of 4,573 hospitals. [6] Despite the presence of organized religion in America, the Church has managed to scrape together only a few hospitals. Of these 604 hospitals many are a product of mergers with public, non-sectarian hospitals. Not all of these 604 hospitals are Catholic; many are Baptist, Methodist, Shriner (Masonic), Jewish, etc.
Despite the religious label, these so-called religious hospitals are more public than public hospitals. Religious hospitals get 36% of all their revenue from Medicare; public hospitals get only 27%. In addition to that 36% of public funding they get 12% of their funding from Medicaid. Of the remaining 44% of funding, 31% comes from county appropriations, 30% comes from investments, and only 5% comes from charitable contributions (not necessarily religious). The percentage of Church funding for Church-run hospitals comes to a grand total of 0.0015 percent.
Oh, and Catholics and the Holocaust? It was complicated. The Vatican dragged its feet for years; they could have done so much more.
Surely this was misaddressed! I am not the right person to contact about pseudo-scientific ‘spiritual’ evolutionary seminars.
Dear Evolutionary,
I am happy to invite you to two free teleseminars–one with spiritual teacher and founder of EnlightenNext Andrew Cohen, and another with EnlightenNext magazine executive editor, Carter Phipps. These calls offer not only valuable content but also a fully interactive experience on MaestroConference, a new technology platform that allows you to engage the speaker and other participants as if it’s an in-person workshop, with breakout groups and more. Here are the details:
Awakening to the Evolutionary Impulse
FREE Conference Call with Andrew Cohen
Thursday, October 8, 2009; 5:00 pm (Pacific Time, US)How does higher spiritual and psychological development translate into the demonstrable evolution of our personal attitudes and cultural values? In this dynamic virtual seminar, Cohen will guide participants into a direct experience and understanding of the life-transforming power and perspective of Evolutionary Enlightenment. Always teaching within the context of an Integral framework, Cohen will help us to see in clear and simple terms how our experience of higher consciousness can lead not only to our own personal liberation but also to the evolution of our shared beliefs and cultural values.
Evolution Changes Everything:
How the Discovery of Progress Is Transforming the Spiritual Path
FREE Conference Call with Carter Phipps
Thursday, October 15, 2009; 3:30 pm (Pacific Time, US)Once upon a time, there was only the cycle of birth, life, and death. Then God created Darwin, whose theory of evolution transformed a static wheel of existence into a great arc of change, with bacteria, beast, biosphere and even human consciousness caught up in the currents of an evolutionary universe. This still radical revelation poses a fundamental challenge to some of our most cherished spiritual beliefs. In this teleseminar, Carter Phipps will upend traditional concepts of enlightenment and spiritual awakening, showing how the latest insights in science, philosophy, and spirituality are destined to transform our relationship to life, God, and…well, everything!
Oh, no, that’s insane. Darwin is now a messianic prophet who changed the universe? Sorry, but he was just a guy with a smart idea.
Of course, to two very dumb con artists like Andrew Cohen and Carter Phipps, that might seem god-like. After all, Darwin made it possible for them to bilk gullible people out of their money.
Richard Dawkins was ‘interviewed’ by that awful little peabrain, Bill O’Reilly. It was a horrible spectacle, but Dawkins kept his cool. Look at O’Reilly’s arguments:
Hmm, let’s see. O’Reilly claims we don’t know everything, which is entirely true, so somehow this justifies his belief in Jesus. Dawkins had a great answer to that: “It’s a most of extraordinary piece of warped logic to say because science can’t fill in a particular gap you’re going throw in your lot with Christianity.” Another point I like to toss in against that line of nonsense is that science at least has the integrity to say that we don’t know yet what happened in a particular gap (but we may be working on it, and have a more useful strategy than waiting for a holy man to have a vision), while the religious wackaloons will instead fill that gap with pious certainty…a kind of clot of myth that we’re eventually going to have to rip out in the face of great resistance.
Then we got the usual arguments: science provides no moral framework, but Jesus does. If that’s the case, why have Christians always been such a warring, nasty, oppressive lot? They’ve got this ideal of a self-sacrificing man of peace at their center, but Christianity itself seems to drive in the opposite direction. Please explain to me the opulence of the Vatican, the Thirty Years War, and the Prosperity Gospel, just as a preliminary exercise.
O’Reilly is committing a stupid logical fallacy when he trots out the old “there are more Christians than atheists” argument.
And finally, we get the usual O’Reilly tactic of shouting at his guest that he’s a fascist.
It wasn’t a very enlightening interview, except in that it confirms that O’Reilly is a blustering moron while Dawkins is an intelligent gentleman.
The news that Obama has won a Nobel peace prize was weird — and don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he has done badly at promoting peace, I just don’t think he’s made the kind of exceptional effort that something with the prestige of the Nobel ought to reward — but here’s something much, much crazier: WhirledNutDaily has begun a campaign to impeach Obama. You might be wondering on what grounds they would commit this act…but they don’t seem to have anything specific. I just got email from WND begging for donations for their little crusade, and here’s the best reason they offer, from some wingnut radio personality, Tammy Bruce.
“… ultimately, it comes down to… the fact that he seems to have, it seems to me, some malevolence toward this country, which is unabated.”
That ranks right up there with the “he looked at me funny” excuse for starting a fight.
The whole piece is a detestable incitement to take any action necessary to bring down Obama. Look at their ‘reasoning’:
Make no mistake. We’re now in the middle of a bloodless coup –
the takeover of an entire nation by the hate-America crowd – a cold-blooded gang that despises American’s
prosperity, our standing in the world, our trust in God and our generosity and goodness.
America is a monument to the triumph of freedom. When Barack Hussein Obama thinks about freedom… he sees a world in which some people, due
to personal initiative and good fortune, will do better than others… live better than others.
And in that regard, he is right. But Barack Obama sees that as unfair. Where you see freedom, liberty and the opportunity for
any American to be all that he or she can be, Obama sees greed and bigotry.
And, like so many on the far-left before him, going all the way back to Karl Marx, he believes that it’s his mission to promote
“equality of outcome” over
“equality of opportunity”
even if Americans must learn to live in chains to make it happen
(in fact, servitude to the iron will of government will be required).
That worldview makes Barack Hussein Obama a very dangerous man and one of the greatest threats to your personal liberty today.
That dangerous worldview also explains why he has already gobbled-up major banks and why the government now controls more and
more of our money – yours and mine.
And if you wake up one day to discover you’re broke… don’t be surprised…
and while you’re at it, don’t feel bad either because at least everyone will be broke…
destitute… under the iron yoke of government… but everything will be fair
and equal… that’s what extremists, like Obama, mean when they use
the term… "social justice."
And he’ll make it happen… he can make it happen… he’s already started to
make it happen. Barack Hussein Obama is Bernie Madoff with the political power of the presidency at
his disposal.
That dangerous worldview explains the sudden and shocking erosion of your freedom to make a living, to run your own business,
whether a Mom-and-Pop grocery store or General Motors.
That dangerous worldview explains why his Attorney General, Eric Holder, despises the 2nd Amendment… why, if he had his way,
he would take away our guns, leaving us defenseless against gangs and hoods – and, more to the point, against Obama’s own
shock-troops from
ACORN or SEIU. Remember, it was the healthy and rational fear of government that led to the inclusion of the
2nd Amendment in the Constitution of the United States.
And that dangerous worldview explains why Obama intends to take away your freedom to choose your own doctor… your own
treatment. Wherever government controls health care, bureaucrats decide who gets treatments… who gets transplants…
who gets dialysis… who gets costly medication… and who needs to die for the common good.
What can we do to stop this monomaniac… this American dictator? There’s only one answer.
Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution reads: “The President, Vice President and all civil
officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery,
or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
It goes on and on like that — you can just picture the authors frothing at the mouth.
So I guess I’d have to say that maybe a Nobel was a useful counterbalance to the lunacy going on here.
The far right wing has long rested their authority on Biblical truth — how can you possibly question them if they speak for God, after all? There is one little problem, however.
The Bible is suffused with liberal bias. A lot of the Old Testament isn’t bad, but the New Testament, when Jesus makes the scene, suddenly takes a turn into commie-land, with it’s talk of helping the poor and camels and needles and so forth. Jesus was obviously misquoted all over the place.
So what to do? When your claim of godly authority rests on your interpretation of God’s holy word, but God’s holy words contradict your desired ends, you’re in a bit of a pickle. There is a solution, though: rewrite the Bible and change the liberal bits! For this reason some of the deranged editors at Conservapædia have launched The Conservative Bible Project, which will purge the wimpy stuff and return it to it’s authentic roots, as a book that could have been written by a dumb-as-a-stick American Republican NRA member who wants to kill communists and A-rabs.
I’m not joking. They cite as reasons for a rewrite the fact that the Bible uses the term “comrade” three times, and acknowledges the existence of laborers thirteen times. It’s practically a Marxist/Leninist tract.
They conveniently give an example of the kind of thing that needs to be fixed.
The earliest, most authentic manuscripts lack this verse set forth at Luke 23:34:
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Is this a liberal corruption of the original? This does not appear in any other Gospel, and the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesus did know what they were doing. This quotation is a favorite of liberals but should not appear in a conservative Bible.
As we all know, after all, Jesus really wasn’t into that “forgiveness” thing.
There will be some little problems with commenting on this article (besides the usual boneheaded glitches in the Sb commenting system). A while back, we had some serious problems with spamming by the Conservapædia cretins, and I had to put the word “conservapedia” into the filter file. You can’t use that word or your comment will get blocked! That means you won’t be able to link directly to Conservapædia, and that you’ll need to use the Pharyngula-approved spelling of their name, which includes that foreign, European ligature — just type Conservapædia. It also infuriates them, making the little work-around well worth doing.
Do I really need to add anything to this buffoon’s own words? Get the rubber room ready.
(via Below the Beltway)
30 September is going to be International Blasphemy Day, and I suspect Donohue will be turning purple while his head twirls around on his neck. It should be entertaining: he’s already sending out press releases to complain.
BLASPHEMY DAY TARGETS CHRISTIANITY
The Center for Inquiry will launch the first International Blasphemy Day on September 30, the anniversary of the 2005 publication of the Danish cartoons that so inflamed Muslims worldwide. Billed as a free speech event designed to oppose such things as a Muslim-sponsored U.N. resolution banning criticism of religion, the day has drawn the support of people like PZ Myers. Myers, a professor at the University of Minnesota known for intentionally desecrating a consecrated Host, says the day was established to “mock and insult religion without fear of murder, violence, and reprisal”; he wants every day to be Blasphemy Day.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue spoke to this event today:
The Center for Inquiry is factually incorrect to say that “Free speech is the foundation on which other liberties rest.” Freedom of conscience is the first liberty, and it is inextricably linked to freedom of religion. Moreover, the whole concept of inalienable rights presupposes a belief in the Creator. In other words, atheists have the right to mock religion because our Christian Founding Fathers afforded them human rights.
They are all such phonies. The stated purpose of Blasphemy Day has nothing to do with any religion but Islam, yet there is not one scheduled event insulting Muslims. We can only guess why. So who have they chosen to mock? You guessed it–Christians.
Artist Dana Ellyn will wander to Washington, D.C. to show her masterpiece, “Jesus Does His Nails,” a portrait of Jesus polishing a nail jammed into his hand. In Los Angeles, there will be a film about a gay molesting priest and another about a boy who is so angry about being sent to bed that he asks God to kill his parents. Oh, yes, American Atheists will conduct “De-Baptisms” in New Jersey.
Nice to know that even the atheists know that Christians can be counted on to react to their antics like good Christians. Which is why there will be no violence.
Ol’ Bill really doesn’t get it. The purpose of the day is to jeer at religion, not to do his dirty work of attacking just one sectarian slice of the whole pie of absurdity. In the US, we’ll tend to poke fun at Christianity more than Islam because it’s Christianity that’s in our faces every day of the year. Islam also lacks a histrionic spokesman like Donohue to make entertaining facial spasms for us.
I’m hoping there will be no violence, but I can’t say the same for those “good Christians.” I get a lot of threats from those people, inflamed by affronted polemicists like Donohue, and I can also count on the Catholic League to pine for opportunities to turn Muslims loose on atheists.
Yesterday, I disagreed with Phil Plait — I didn’t think the suggestion by Texas educators to remove a requirement to mention Neil Armstrong was that bad. However, that was because I presumed that they were making a reasonable pedagogical argument, that the state board shouldn’t micromanage how the details of social studies were taught.
I was wrong. I was very wrong. They’re suggesting this change and others because they’re batshagging mad.
On day one of hearings in Austin, disagreements flare over the importance that should be given to civil rights leaders including Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall.
On the other side some members are looking at adding mentions of people like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh to the curriculum.
Neil Armstrong is being defenestrated, but they want to stuff in Rush Limbaugh? Never mind my unjustified assumption that the Texas BOE discussions were academic conversations about what was the best and most useful material for their children to learn — it’s insanity, instead.
Remember Glenn Moon, the strange candidate for city council of Livonia, MI? The primary election is over, and he finished dead last. He did get 301 votes out of 6,432, though, which is a little accomplishment, and we now that 4½% of the population of the town is stark raving bonkers, which isn’t too bad.
