Jesus disrupts Operation American Spring

BREAKING NEWS WASHINGTON, DC Tens of millions of American patriots advanced on the nation’s capital today with the goal of overthrowing the current regime and installing an overtly Christian conservative government, by force if necessary. The intended overthrow was disrupted, however, when the Lord Jesus Christ Himself appeared in the skies over Washington and Raptured away all but a few of the protesters, in accordance with the prophecies of I Thessalonians 4:15-17, before any TV news crews could capture the awesome spectacle. The remaining protesters, apparently insufficiently pleasing to God, have vowed to dedicate themselves to becoming even more irrational and intolerant, in hopes of weaning their way back into God’s good graces.  Further bulletins as events warrant.

(I mean, that HAS to be it, right?)

Senator seeks to “protect” churches

Oh, hey, there’s a cute story in TheBlaze.com.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) plans to introduce a bill Wednesday that would prevent the Obama administration from pressuring churches into recognizing gay marriage.

Yes, it’s very important to “protect” churches from having the president violate the First Amendment in ways he has no intention of doing. And while we’re passing frivolous, grandstanding laws, why not also pass a law protecting women and babies from Republican cannibalism? Yes, I know that doesn’t exist either, but you do oppose allowing Republicans to commit cannibalism right? If we’re going to protect things that aren’t in any danger, let’s at least be comprehensive.

American Bible Society Sends 525 ‘Poverty and Justice’ Bibles to Congress Following Government Shutdown

The Christian Post reports that a bunch of believers are trying to meddle in politics again.

Fulfilling a promise they made during the government shutdown, members of the anti-poverty coalition “Circle of Protection,” are delivering 535 “Poverty and Justice” Bibles into the hands of senators and representatives this week.

Over the course of the 16-day-long government shutdown last month, members of the 65 denominations and relief and development agencies composing the coalition, publicly read the nearly 2,100 Bible verses pertaining to poverty and justice and vowed to reinforce the Scripture’s messages to their Congressmen and women.

Goddamn liberal Christians and their goddamn liberal Bible, always trying to shove that socialist “care for widows, orphans and the poor” religion down everyone’s throat, eh? It’s just not American. And I don’t care how many thousands of Bible verses preach it. It’s downright humanism. Haven’t they heard that whoever has the gold makes the rules?

Faith-based global warming insurance

One of the consequences of global warming is an increase in the number and severity of major storms such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards. Forgive me for indulging in a bit of rational thought, but since religious conservatives are among the most vocal deniers of climate change, wouldn’t it be nice if we could tax churches to raise funds for federal disaster relief to pay for repairs in the aftermath of such “acts of God”? Base the tax rate on the total damage done by storms, and grant an exemption to any church willing to sign a waiver stating that their god has no control over the weather and thus should not be held accountable for the resulting damages. If believers want lower taxes, they either get their god to do a better job managing the weather, or they sign the waiver.

Yeah, dumb idea. But still…

The agnostic believer

Those who sincerely attempt to reconcile Christianity with fact and reason eventually discover, if they persist, that the Gospel is not consistent with unbiased objective truth, as I can testify from personal experience. The unfortunate believer who encounters this problem has a couple of choices. One choice—the choice I made—would be to allow the true facts of reality to lead me out of the ignorant and superstitious traditions of Bible and Church. Call this the Truth Trumps Traditions choice.

The alternative would have been for me to turn my back on truth, closing my eyes to it and deciding that truth cannot (and should not) be known by man. My own search for truth led me only to the brink of apostasy, and what good is that, right? To stay faithful, I would have to decide that knowledge of the truth must be the enemy of faith, and would need to reject this knowledge as something that all faithful believers should oppose.

Believers who choose this latter path become the world’s most agnostic philosophers, denying that we can know even part of the truth. Faith turns into a kind of communal solipsism, where each believer has only his or her subjective beliefs to cling to, unsupported by any knowable truth, unverified and unverifiable. It’s a worldview founded on dogma, of which the cornerstone is the denial of the idea that real-world truth can be known by any mortal. It’s the ultimate in agnosticism.

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Religion and gun control

So I was browsing around the Internet (again), and I found this story:

Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence, a coalition of over 45 religious leaders and clergy have signed a letter addressed to the members of Congress, urging them to take immediate action to prevent more gun violence.

The group is calling for three things: criminal background checks for gun buyers, a ban on high-capacity weapons and ammo magazines, and a federal law against gun trafficking. Sounds like a good idea, right? I thought so too. Then I read the headline on the article: Religious Leaders’ Godless Letter to Congress on Gun Violence. Here’s the author’s analysis.

When I read through their website and the letter they sent to Congress, I saw nothing that addressed the real reason for the increase in gun violence, which is the removal of God and the Bible from all aspects of life, public and private.  Once they were gone, so were the standards used for all morals and values…

The response of the religious leaders that signed the letter to Congress have all fallen victim to the secularization that has corrupted the rest of American society.  They aren’t turning to God and Bible for their answers, but to manmade devices that are totally devoid of anything to do with God.

Which sounds all pious and shit, but here’s my question: If you’re a Christian, and you believe that society has become all evil and immoral and wicked and stuff, why are you trying to make sure that you’re outnumbered, not just by evildoers, but by evildoers with high-powered, high-capacity weaponry?

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Jesus and Santa

Christmas is all about traditions, which means doing the same thing year after year. And so, in the true spirit of Christmas, I am posting my annual list of the Top Ten Reasons why Santa is Better than Jesus.

10. Santa does not endorse any political candidates or parties.

9. If you’re bad, Santa gives you a lump of coal, he doesn’t try to turn you into one.

8. Santa comes to town riding a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer; Jesus comes to town riding someone else’s ass (which seems to have become a tradition among some of his followers, by the way).

7. Jesus says he loves little kids, but Santa actually lets them sit in his lap.

6. Santa doesn’t spend all his time obsessing over how other people have sex.

5. Santa can run his whole enterprise, year after year, without begging for donations.

4. Some of history’s worst atrocities and injustices have been committed by people who believe in Jesus, but NONE of them have been committed by people who believe in Santa.

3. Santa is satisfied if you’re just reasonably good most of the time—he doesn’t demand the death penalty for everyone who fails to be absolutely perfect.

2. Santa cares enough to come back every year.

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AiG’s outreach to atheists

I actually got this off a friend, but it’s kind of fun. You know how Answers In Genesis likes to target most of their material at weak and wavering Christians (especially if they have too much cash on their hands)? Well, now they’re extending that same hand of duplicity fellowship to atheists as well, in the form of a post entitled “Dear Atheists,” by Bodie Hodge. And believe me, it’s everything you’d expect from a ministry like AiG.

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God’s love

Just have time for a quick one today.

So I saw this bumper sticker that said “God’s love never fails,” as though that were some kind of supernatural, awe-inspiring power. But really there’s nothing to it. The reason God’s love never “fails” is because nothing that happens ever counts as a failure on His part. Sure, He allegedly knew all about the 9/11 attacks before they happened, and could easily have warned somebody in time to prevent them, save thousands of lives, and prevent at least two wars—but His failure to do so isn’t officially failure. Children starve to death every day, but His failure to feed them (when He could easily do so) doesn’t count as failure. The world is full of cripples and disabled people and people dying of horrible diseases, whom He could all easily heal, but His failure to do so has to be blamed on someone or something else, because it’s not His failure, by definition.

So you can count on God’s love: when God loves you, the worst that can happen is, well, literally the worst that can happen. But at least it won’t be His fault when it does. Comforting thought, eh?

Circumcision makes sexual promiscuity healthier

The American Association of Pediatrics has released a report that favors male circumcision on the grounds that it reduces the spread of sexually-transmitted disease among promiscuous heterosexuals.

Perhaps the most powerful evidence in favour of circumcision comes from randomized controlled trials in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda. These found that, for men who have sex with women, circumcision reduced the risk of infection with HIV. (No protection was observed for men who have sex with men.) The South African and Ugandan trials also found that circumcision reduced infection rates for human papillomavirus (HPV) and herpes.

So if you have a sexually-active infant, you should talk to your pediatrician about getting him circumcised.