How to fish for atheists

It’s easy. Bait your hook with stupid.

It’s true, we’re a sucker for that stuff, although it does have a downside. We’ll come up, swallow the bait, follow the line to its source, devour the poor fool holding the pole, and then waddle off, all fat and smug. It’s our nature, we can’t help it.

So, for instance, an Indiana politician who is considered a potential presidential candidate, Mitch Daniels, talks about atheism.

People who reject the idea of a God — who think that we’re just accidental protoplasm — have always been with us. What bothers me is the implications — which not all such folks have thought through — because really, if we are just accidental, if this life is all there is, if there is no eternal standard of right and wrong, then all that matters is power.

And atheism leads to brutality. All the horrific crimes of the last century were committed by atheists — Stalin and Hitler and Mao and so forth — because it flows very naturally from an idea that there is no judgment and there is nothing other than the brief time we spend on this Earth.

You should read the rest of that interview, especially the part where he talks about not being ostentatious with his faith. It’s so precious.

The projection is strong in this one. I don’t know if I’d want a president who thought the world was divided into people who thought the only two possible purposes in life were to glorify God or a brutal drive to power.

Daniels is an example of a Christian considered smart enough to be president. You should see what the brain-damaged masses believe. It’s always fun to be lectured about what I believe by a marginally literate kook. Did you know that atheists believe in these six things?

  1. Satan.
  2. Ghosts.
  3. Tarot cards.
  4. Astrology.
  5. Veganism.
  6. Saying OMG.

She even made a video about it!

But wait! You haven’t seen the scariest part! Who is this person?

Jellooo I’m Bev, I’m a health care provider, I work in a hospital and nursing home. I also earn my degree in Bachelor of Science major in Management, I teach academic program to toddlers, children and young adults, I also teach speech to foreign student.

If only she’d move to Indiana, she could run for president someday.

Annoying libertarians

Ah, the funny cartoon yesterday rankled the libertarian contingent again. I’ll explain a few things that will get them fired up even more.

  • Get over yourselves. Mocking libertarians does not bring me a swarm of traffic — you’re like a tiny swarm of self-important rodents who will natter on endlessly in protest, but most normal people laugh once, shrug, and move on. The major traffic-getter on my site yesterday was a post inviting women to express themselves. If all I cared about was sucking in clicks, I’d do that more often; women matter, libertarians are a negligible blip.

  • The funniest thing to me is how quickly libertarians get indignant and demonstrate an absence of a sense of humor. It never fails. Make a joke about libertarians, and they don’t get it, but they will sit there and explain how the joke doesn’t work, endlessly, becoming a new variant of the joke themselves. Please, get some self-awareness!

  • There were the typical claims that government would be at the mercy of whatever rascal we elect to the presidency. I would like more government. A well-regulated civil service would be an excellent buffer against the whims of the executive. Why do you anti-government guys always think so simplistically, assuming that big government means concentrating more power in the hands of an autocratic individual? You do realize that we live in a representative democracy with more than one person at the top, and that non-partisan institutions within government can function without an overlord?

  • The alternative to regulation of basic services by the government is privatizing them and giving more power to corporations — whose goal is to increase profits. Personally, I like to see the Invisible Hand shackled and restricted to doing useful work, rather than picking pockets.

  • I actually do like civil libertarians very much. The rights of the individual to think and speak as he or she pleases should not be compromised. However, the social machinery that maximizes civil liberties is very much the product of cooperation and secular social institutions. Most of the oblivious libertarians — the ones who can’t get the joke — don’t realize that their advocacy of mindless laissez-faire capitalism and unfettered industry is about destroying the social fabric that allows each of us to be something more than a serf. Freedom is worth paying taxes for, unless all you think freedom is about is gathering money.

My apologies for the link to the malware site in that post, too, and I’ve removed it for now. I hope the bad stuff gets fixed soon; Barry Deutsch at leftycartoons.com (right now, go there at your peril) actually has page after page of absolutely marvelous cartoons that will make pro-union, pro-equality, pro-socialism, pro-goodness and light people feel all happy and warm.

Julia Gillard inspires a lot of polls

The godless Australian PM, Julia Gillard, has sure riled up the pollsters. Here’s three polls at once to slam. Start clicking!

Do you care at all about Julia Gillard’s lack of religious faith?

* Yes 33.71%
* No 66.29%

Hey, what’s the difference between “No” and “Don’t care” in this poll? And what does it mean that it will affect their vote? This is a remarkably meaningless and uninterpretable poll.

Will your vote be swayed by Julia Gillard’s stance on religion?

* Yes, it will affect my vote 29.35%
* No, I’ll still vote the same 45.21%
* Don’t care 25.45%

This one is the only interesting one — does godlessness influence you in a positive way? Too bad it’s an internet poll, because we can’t tell from these kind of data.

Are you more or less likely to vote for Julia Gillard given she is an atheist?

More likely 39%
Less likely 34%
It’s not important 27%

I guess I won’t ever be visiting the Maldives

It’s a tiny little island nation in the Indian Ocean, and it sounds like an interesting place. Unfortunately, the people there make it a hellhole.

In the Muslim-majority nation of Maldives, a man stunned an audience during questions and answers period in a lecture given by an Islamic cleric, by stating that he had chosen freedom of conscience not to follow Islam. The man, Mohamed Nazim, was promptly attacked, taken into custody, and has been threatened with death and beheading, or other punishments for choosing his freedom of conscience. Maldives media are reporting that it is the first time in many hundreds of years that a Maldivian has publicly renounced Islam, since Sultan King Hassan IX converted to Christianity in 1552 and was deposed.

Religion is an evil mind-rot with varying degrees of infection, but I think the worst of them all has to be Islam. What a nasty little superstition it is.

Here’s a real twist, though: The Maldives is on the UN Human Rights Council. I like the idea of an international tribunal like the UN, but this is the kind of insanity that makes it a joke.

Nazim was taken into police custody for expressing his conscience, where he received “Islamic counseling” and threatened with execution. The fact that he has now reverted to Islam in the face of such dire oppression does not change the fact that he’s got to be the bravest atheist alive.

Here’s a video of the odious Zakir Naik addressing Mohamed Nazim’s question. Theologians are all the same: he tries to turn it into an argument that god must exist, because otherwise there is no reason to have morality. Naik is a moron.

He does back off from insisting that Nazim be put to death, saying that there’s a difference between leaving the faith and advocating against the faith; the latter warrants killing the apostate, but not necessarily the first.

Congratulations, Australia!

Australia has a non-religious woman as prime minister! This is nominally promising, but we’ll have to wait and see if she actually follows through with some kind of commitment to secularism (the former PM, Kevin Rudd, was known for recruiting god to his party’s side).

Also, unfortunately, in all the hullabaloo about having two X chromosomes, red hair, no husband or children, and making a secular affirmation instead of a religious oath of office, I’m not hearing much about her politics, other than that she’s more or less expected to continue current Labor Party policies. Is that good or bad? I don’t know. Maybe some Australians can explain in the comments.

I wouldn’t care if she were a red-haired Hindu if she were doing good work, but the last thing we need is a godless prime minister who is also incompetent — and yes, that could happen!

I don’t know that I like this song

Roy Zimmerman released this one today as appropriate to the dissent at the top in the conduct of the war in Afghanistan.

I have to applaud Rolling Stone for exposing the chaos in leadership in the war.

The Rolling Stone article highlights how President Obama has long had an even bigger decision to make. His Afghan team is widely regarded as dysfunctional. There is an astonishing web of animosities and rivalries between key civilian and military players.

McChrystal comes off as an honest — too honest — jerk who is so arrogant that he doesn’t care that the follies of the conduct of war are being exposed. It’s the kind of incompetence at diplomacy that make his firing righteous…but still, I’m so tired of our government lying about the state of the war in Afghanistan.

More worrying for American readers will be a passage in the article where Gen McChrystal visits a detachment of US soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan.

One of their number has been killed by a booby-trap bomb in an old house.

The local commander had asked permission several times to demolish the house to eradicate the risk to his men, but Gen McChrystal’s own rules of engagement mean that permission was denied.

When the general asks the soldiers if they think they are losing, one of them tells him that some of them do.

I really don’t like that song because one of my boys has elected to join the army, and is in basic training right now; he might well end up in this wretched war. I don’t want him or anyone to be the last man; I don’t want any Afghan citizens harmed in this futile exercise which isn’t likely to end happily for anyone. I don’t need reminders that we’re going to be heartsick with worry for a few years.

At least the song is protesting the war. I look at our leadership and feel only disappointment that Obama has increased our commitment to this nightmare, along with his pathetic efforts on domestic issues, and the only thing keeping me from disgust at having voted for him is the fact that our alternative was far, far worse.

It’s gotta be tough to be a Texan

Ophelia Benson is having a giggle over the Texas Republican Party Platform, which you can download, too. It’s the usual: guns, US out of the UN, immigrants must be controlled, etc. They really don’t like homosexuals.

We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle in our public education and policy, nor should “family” be redefined to include homosexual “couples.” We are opposed to any granting of special legal entitlements, refuse to recognize, or grant special privileges including, but not limited to: marriage between persons of the same sex (regardless of state of origin), custody of children by homosexuals, homosexual partner insurance or retirement benefits. We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.

They don’t like heterosexuals, either, since they want to arrest a bunch of them.

We oppose the legalization of sodomy. We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.

I wonder if they’re going to go high tech and install surveillance cameras in everyone’s bedroom, or if they’re satisfied with the old school system of spot checks and bashing in bedroom doors?

Probably low tech, since Texas Republicans don’t care much for that sciencey stuff.

We oppose any legislation that would allow for the creation and/or killing of human embryos for medical research. We encourage stem cell research using cells from umbilical cords, from adults, and from any other means which does not kill human embryos. We oppose any state funding of research that destroys/kills human embryos. We encourage the adoption of existing embryos. We call for legislation to withhold state and/or federal funding from institutions that engage in scientific research involving the killing of human embryos or human cloning.

Evolution gets a mention, too — it’s one of those suspicious theories, along with global warming and “political philosophies”…I guess there are no such things as “political philosophies”, only the one true absolute political reality of Ronald Reagan.

Realizing that conflict and debate is a proven learning tool in classrooms, we support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories, including evolution, Intelligent Design, global warming, political philosophies, and others. We believe theories of life origins and environmental theories should be taught as challengeable scientific theory subject to change as new data is produced, not scientific law. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.

Hang on, though, let’s not just laugh at Texas: they also did something right recently. A Texas federal court has refused the Institute of Creation Research’s plea to be allowed to hand out science degrees. That’s got to sting, after the ICR left California to settle in Texas, hoping for a more lenient, accommodating atmosphere for lunacy. Even Texas has limits.

Now if only Texas’s limits weren’t so slack as to tolerate the Republicans down there…

Mormons guilty of ethical failure

The good news, first: the Mormon church has been found guilty on 13 counts of lying about their involvement with California’s proposition 8. Mormonism is now officially a faith of convicted liars.

Now the bad news, or more accurately, the pathetic news. The church lied about spending only $2078 on campaigning in California, when they’d actually raised over $30 million, but admitted to spending $190,000, and certainly spent much more than that to influence the election. The penalty for this ethics violation was…

$5538.

The lesson learned, I’m sure, is that when evil religious masterminds are plotting to commit serious ethical violations, they should plan ahead and budget 0.02% of their investment to paying off slap-of-the-wrist penalties.

Republican welfare

Guess who has been the recipient of state funds for their superstition scam? Michele Bachmann and her husband!

Bachmann and Associates, Inc., a counseling center that receives state funds and is owned by Rep. Michele Bachmann and her husband, Dr. Marcus Bachmann, uses counseling methods steeped in fundamentalist Christianity, raising questions about its use of taxpayer money.

Founded in 2003, Bachmann’s clinic has taken in nearly $30,000 in state funds since 2007. Dr. Bachmann has said publicly that God heals people at his clinic and that Jesus Christ is the “Almighty Counselor.”

“We are distinctly a Christian counseling agency here in the Twin Cities,” he told KKMS radio in 2008. “We have 27 Christian counselors, Christ-centered, very strong in our understanding of who the Almighty Counselor is, and as we rely on God’s word and the Almighty Counselor, we have the opportunity to change people’s lives.”

Here’s how the quacks at this place describe their work:

“Jesus as the Son of God is the Savior, Healer, and intimate Lover of my soul,” said one therapist on the clinic’s Web site. “He invites those He calls to join Him on a personal journey to the Cross. Our entire being is healed and restored (body, soul, and spirit) as we surrender ‘our way’ for ‘His way.'”

So this ‘organization’, basically a front for the Bachmann family con game, is getting state money…and on top of that, it’s flamboyantly religious, little more than a church masquerading as therapy.

It’s corruption, plain and simple. But then, that’s what these Republicans do best.

(via Religion Clause)