Firefox is practically dying, with all the links I’ve kept in tabs over the past two weeks for my next Random Crap post. It’s about time I put one up! This week’s Cool Atheist of the Week is Eddie Izzard.

HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm is one of those shows I’ve always meant to watch, but never gotten around to. Well, it turns out I probably should have, since they’ve stirred up so much ire amongst the theists with Larry David’s accidental peeing on a graven image of portrait of Jesus, resulting in one of the other characters believing a miracle has occurred. Of course, the religious are up in arms over this.

Which leads directly into my next link: discussing how theists are being awfully big crybabies lately, not just about perceived “affronts on their faith”, but also about the “New Atheists” who will not politely stay in the closet and shut up about their godlessness.

A Planned Parenthood facility in Central Pennsylvania has been accosted by protesters lately — one of whom, Rev. Virgil Bradley Tetherow, turns out to be a convicted felon, having been charged with ten counts of possessing child porn, and ten concurrent counts of criminal use of a communication facility. He pled guilty to one count of the latter. The DA dropped the other charges. And this is the guy screaming that the Planned Parenthood clinicians are going to hell. If only there really WAS a hell… this “reverend” surely deserves to go there.

Meanwhile, in Newark Valley, a Habitat for Humanity chapter was defrauded to the tune of $50,000… by Pastor David L. Heckman, Jr., resulting in several projects being put on hold, including one where a family was due to move in shortly, but cannot because there’s no heating in the household. Way to help the least among us, jerk.

The Christian director of the American Family Association, in the wake of the Fort Hood shooting, declares that the American military should ban Muslims from joining. Because polarizing that issue even further, making the existing wars even more of a holy war than they already are, is sure to help matters.

In Tampa Bay, a Marine reservist and testosterone-poisoned nutbar went after a Greek Orthodox priest with a lead pipe, thinking he was some sort of terrorist. The excuses he made to the police were priceless — that the much smaller man had tried to rob him, that he’d grabbed his crotch and made sexual advances, and that he’d shouted “Allahu Akbar”. As though any of those would excuse the actions shown on the tapes the police referred to later — the reservist chased around the much, MUCH smaller man and hit him at least four times with the pipe.

Friendly Atheist put up a compilation of atheist billboards, some of which are so terrible that they say “there’s probably no god”. SHOCKING! Especially when compared to the perfectly civil and morally pure religious billboards that have gone up in recent years.

The Avangelism Blog exhorts “online atheist assholes” to come out in meatspace as well. I’m not a fan of the “balls” metaphor they used, but whatever. They’re right otherwise. If you’re able to talk about your atheism online, and you’re not doing your part to make atheism normal, so to speak, out there in your real life, then you’re doing yourself and other atheists a grave injustice.

And finally, I found this most excellent blog yesterday: the Church of Jesus Christ Atheist. It is an attempt at providing a “compatibility layer” for atheists that still want to participate in their churches, e.g. those people born into the faith that have since realized there’s probably no god, and if there was it’s most assuredly not Yahweh, but want to continue participating in the social structure and moral teachings of the church. One would think this would be a blow to those people that think that one must believe in God to be moral and good, considering that this proves one can disbelieve in their specific god while following the moral lessons of the religion itself.

That’s it for this week. My Firefox tabs are looking better already. Have an unblessed Sunday, everyone!