What I hate about [CENSORED]

You've all heard about [CENSORED] before, and most of you have probably thought the same thing. A lot of people have tried to call out the followers of [CENSORED], only to be met with death threats (and occasionally, those threats have been acted upon.) People have been censored for even trying to talk about [CENSORED] without actually talking about it. Don't even think about talking about [CENSORED]'s prophet, The Prophet [CENSORED], may [CENSORED] be upon [CENSORED]. To quote an extremist [CENSORED] website on the subject; "You could end up dead."

This post isn't going to be about the specific things within the religion that I hate. I'm not going to talk about how the Prophet [CENSORED] was a child molester and a violent psychopath without a single redeeming quality. I'm not going to talk about how [CENSORED]'s followers belong to an incredibly violent, backwards civilization which has slowly but surely stripped themseves of all respect in the eyes of the global community through their own actions. I'm not going to write more than a few words about how any faith that supports violence against anybody has no place in the world today. I've read through the the [CENSORED], their holy book.

“When you meet the unbelievers, strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives”

"When the sacred months are over, slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them."

It should be noted that quotes like this are plentiful within the [CENSORED], but most of them mention [CENSORED] or the Prophet [CENSORED], and I didn't want to take the value of the quote away by pasting my little "[CENSORED]" in there. Any time I've seen quotes like these brought up in discussion, there are two replies. One type of reply brings up other quotes from the [CENSORED] that call against violence, saying things like "[CENSORED] is with those who restrain themselves." The second type of reply is basically "Take this down now!" or "You deserve to die!" [CENSORED], right? Yeah, fuck [CENSORED].

To the former group, while I applaud you on arguing on a level fitting the 21st century, I don't need to point out that your holy [CENSORED] calls for violence against non believers, and for restraint against fellow [CENSORED]s. I'm a non believer, an infidel, and your [CENSORED] says to kill me. I take issue with that. To the latter group, you are the face and the voice of your religion. As the loudest, the angriest, and the craziest fucking [CENSORED]s out there, you are what non-[CENSORED]s see, hear, and think about whenever [CENSORED] or the Prophet [CENSORED] is brought up. Congratulations, you're destroying your own religion.


Wait, didn't I say I wasn't going to talk about the [CENSORED] religion itself... right. Oops! I'm not going to mention any of those things beyond this point because I think that anybody reading this already knows it. Fuck [CENSORED].

What I want to talk about is how [CENSORED] has been treated by the media. How buckling to the demands of a small radical bunch of [CENSORED] morons not only destroys what we believe in as far as free speech, but it also promotes the kind of hateful filth that [CENSORED] militants scream about. Every time we censor the word [CENSORED], or refuse to mention the Prophet [CENSORED], we slowly but surely give them ground. These violent [CENSORED]s see it happen, and they see themselves winning a battle that shouldn't exist in the first place. The western world, with all of it's freedoms and all of it's strength, bullied into submission by a group of idiotic blind [CENSORED] followers.

People are following suit, though. It seems that this type of censorship is making headlines more and more often. The [CENSORED]s are learning that with a few threats, they can get whatever they want. The more we cave into these rediculous threats, the greater the rift between our two cultures becomes. We say something about [CENSORED], [CENSORED]s demand that it be removed, we remove it. Their children see us apologize and believe that we're afraid. Our children see them threaten us and believe that they're dangerous. I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I certainly missed the part of the Charter (Or the Constitution) under Freedom of Speech that said (Except for [CENSORED]).

Once we've agreed that [CENSORED] is not available for discussion, that the Prophet [CENSORED] should never be mentioned, where do we stop? Will [CENSORED]s and [CENSORED]s demand the same treatment? Will [CENSORED]s threaten violence if we mention the crucifiction of [CENSORED]? What about [CENSORED]? I'll bet [CENSORED] will be unavailable for comment while his lawyers sue [CENSORED] into [CENSORED] for mentioning [CENSORED]. People with [CENSORED]s will start asking for [CENSORED] too, because something offended [CENSORED] and they [CENSORED] want to look different. [CENSORED], what's happening to [CENSORED], are we really doing [CENSORED]? Is it so [CENSORED] to give in on [CENSORED] one small issue, so that we don't sacrifice [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED]. Or am I just [CENSORED]?

Man, fuck Islam.

Arrest the Pope!

Most people, with regards to the Pope, probably believe he's a pretty good guy. After all, he's the Pope, right? Such a position within the church surely demands a benevolent person with a high personal moral standard! No Pope in history could ever have done anything wrong, many of them are now Saints themselves! I mean, it's not as though we have records of political murders, church funded wars, the spanish inquistion, the genocide of non-conformist christian sects, deals with and support for the Nazis, complete denial of the holocaust, or the excommunication of "sexual deviants," including pregnant teens, homosexuals, and even rape victims seeking an abortion.... right? That's all just silly-talk.

Oh, wait. Oops.

Thomas Ratzinger, the man we call Pope Benedict XVI has left a new stain on the record of the catholic church to be added to that list. I've brought this up with a few friends from time to time, and the reaction is always the same - "I don't know if I believe that." This is always what they say. So, in an attempt to quell any doubts that may be floating around out there that this actually happened, I've provided links! Beautiful, glorious links! Included are a documentary produced by BBC, several news articles, and even the actual document written by Ratzinger himself.

A BBC documentary on the subject:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Here are a few articles further describing the Pope's involvement:
The London Standard
Guardian.co.uk
BSAlert.com
BBC.com
ABC News
Dialog International

This is a link to the document itself, provided by The Guardian.
The Vatican Document written by Ratzinger

And finally, a move to have the Pope arrested and charged: CNSNews.com

Now, while I personally support the move to have Ratzinger arrested and tried for his crimes, I don't think it's going to work out. I think that his diplomatic immunity as the head of a sovereign nation will get him off the hook. I don't think he'll spend a single day in prison, and I don't think he'll ever be forced to pay for what he's done.

I do, however, think that all of the disgusting skeletons in this man's closet will be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the light. I think that this will, at the very least, bring this pile of inhuman filth and his crimes to the eyes and ears of all of his followers, supporters, and faithful subjects all over the world. I think that at least some of the people who hear about it will have the common sense to think, "I will never support a system like that ever again." And I think that the fewer supporters a corrupt, immoral system like this has, the better.

Baby steps.

Religiots!

It's been a couple months since I've posted anything, and it feels like forever. I intend to start adding stuff to the blog regularily again, lately I've been unable to do so due to medical issues.

I've been fighting cancer, actually. Testicular cancer. It's not the kind of thing that you want to start making funeral arrangements over - 99% of the time it's treatable - but it was still a stressful time.

Throughout the entire ordeal, I've had numerous people say things like
"Thank God it wasn't worse!"
or...
"Someone's looking out for you!"
I've always just laughed and nodded, said something like
"Yeah, I guess so."
These people are trying to offer sympathy or condolences, you can't go on telling them
"Actually, you can't evaluate the existence of God on a case-by-case basis, what about the thousands of people who die from cancer every year?"
No, you can't tell them that. That would be rude.

That's it for now, but I'll be posting on a weekly basis again from here on out.
(For real this time.)

On the Subject of Hate Crimes...

After reading this article, I've been pretty angry. The story talks about the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, an act working to include violent crimes committed based on someone's sexual orientation to be added to the list of hate-crimes in the states. Matthew Shepard was a man in Wyoming who was tied to a fencepost and beaten to death because he was gay - the bill is named after him. Good idea, right? I think we can all agree that tying anyone to a post and beating them to death is generally a dick move, and doing so because of their nationality, gender, race, or sexual orientation is most definitely a hate crime, right? Can we all agree on that?

No, we can't, apparently.

A christian group in the states is claiming that new hate crime legislation is "an effort to eradicate religious beliefs opposing the homosexual agenda from the marketplace of ideas by demonizing, vilifying, and criminalizing such beliefs as a matter of federal law and policy."

Agenda? What? Did I miss something? Is there a greater plan involved here, is the gay community meeting in secret - planning something? Does it involve short-shorts or assless chaps? Saying something like "the homosexual agenda," in my opinion, is tantamount to saying "I'm a big moron, and nobody should ever listen to me." It's an absolutely rediculous statement, and there aren't enough words in the english language to describe the baffling ignorance behind it.

The group believes that because their religion says that it's A-O-K to hate homosexuality, that any bill opposing that belief is an attack on the religion itself.

They're idiots. There's really no other way I can put it, they're idiots. Most people who read about them will probably come to the same conclusion; theists and atheists, hetero and homosexual alike.

What really gets to me in situations like this, however, are the "moderates," the people who say things like "That's not how Christianity is." The fact is, this is exactly how your religion is. These people are in the spotlight, talking about all the dirty little secrets involved in your religion, preaching it to the masses.

You can try to sugar-coat it, and say that it's not part of what you believe, but it's there. It's part of the faith, part of the religion that you endorse - that you hold up. The radicals and the crazies are screaming hate and vitriol at the top of their lungs, and they're doing so while riding on your backs. By supporting their religion, you are inadvertently supporting them.

Aaaaaaand /end rant.

I Heart Matt Dillahunty

I've been busy with a few things lately, and haven't had time to write anything. I would like to share this with you, though. It's a response given by Matt Dillahunty to an email he received. The email basically said "I have a friend who's a Christian who claims that his religion lives up to a standard of evidence sufficient to be considered historically accurate, both through the bible and through extra-biblical references. Is this true?" This was Dillahunty's reply.

The short answer to your question is no. The long answer is that he's like millions of other christians who are completely ignorant about what their bible says, about the history of the biblical canon, about the history of their religion, about what evidence actually exists, about what historians have to say, about what sort of evidence historians consider sufficient to justify claims of existance, and about what sort of evidence one would need to have in order to rationally justifiably believe that a miracle has occurred.
The facts are these; there are no contemporary extrabiblical accounts of any events specific to the life of Jesus. that means no independant sources from any eye witnesses with regards to his birth, life, miracles, ministry, death, or proposed resurrection.
The gospels are anonymous, we have no original manuscripts, they do not agree on details, they do not agree with recorded history, and the consensus of new testament scholarship is that none of them were written by eye witnesses. The bible has stories about eye witnesses but we don't have a single comment from anyone claiming to be an eye witness.
The process of canonization included books that doctrinally agreed with those in power, and eliminated and attempted to destroy books that were considered heretical by those in power... Yet those same books were considered [divinely] inspired by other sects. Books like Revelation barely made it into the bible, as many considered them to be uninspired, books like the Shephard of Hermas and the Apocalypse of Peter which had traditionally been considered divinely inspired were excluded. Paul's epistles, some of which are of questionable authorship were the first books of the new testament to be written, and that was decades after the purported life of Jesus. The gospels were written many years later, perhaps many decades later, by unknown authors. Historians from the late first and second century do mention christians, and some refer to Jesus, but none of these were eye witnesses, and most of them couldn't even have spoken to someone who could have claimed to be an eye witness.
So, we have the bible. a collection of stories by largely unknown authors who are unlikely to be eyewitnesses and we don't have originals of their work. We have copies of copies of copies of translations of copies of copies. Anonymous books recording an oral tradition passed down decades or centuries after the purported events in a time when myths, superstitions, and god-men claims were plentiful. During a time when fact-checking and literacy were rare, and when doctrinal wars prompted forged documents (paul even mentions this in the bible,) in order to prop up competing theoligies as unorthodox or heretical.
For my money, that means none of it is believable. Contrast this, for example, with claims of alien abductions. You can, if you like, actually speak to people who claim to have been abducted by aliens. If you look around, you'll find groups of people who tell consistant stories and might even claim to have been abducted together. There are countless reports of UFO sightings, often by groups of people or in rare cases by dozens or hundreds in a particular town or area. These reports have been ongoing for decades, reported by countless new sources, in addition to specialized periodicals. Many of these people sincerely believe their story. Do you? Does your friend?
I don't, because there isn't sufficient evidence, yet the quantity and quality of evidence for these claims is vastly superior to any miracle claims reported in the bible. We have more evidence and we're not 2000 years removed from the events, and we still don't believe, and we find the most fervent believers to be a little crazy. Yet somehow, millions of largely ignorant, well meaning, nice people sincerely believe third-hand reports of miracles from thousands of years ago, and they don't just believe - they strongly believe. They consider it not only absurd for others to disbelieve, but also their sacred duty to convince others at a minimum, and legislate their beliefs on others - or worse. and yet we somehow don't consider these people to be a little crazy. Instead, we give them special treatment, and their majority status shifts the public perception about those of us who actually embrace reality, to the point where we are the ones denegrated. Your friend's probably read Josh Mcdowell and Lee Strobel, and has never actually studied what real historians, scholars, philosophers, scientists, or any other critical examiner has to say about their religion. That's... the longer answer.