Some silly person tried to protest Rock Beyond Belief by creating a poll at the Fort Bragg site…when will they learn? You do not use internet polls to try and counter atheists. We charge in and destroy them.
Even before I got word of it, various atheist sites hit this one hard. Nothing wrong with piling on, though, right? Let’s remind them of the futility of opposing us in this medium by making it even more lopsided.
Will you support the atheist concert venue on post this month?
Yes 93%
No 6%
This Martin Pribble fellow has gained a whole 1% on me in the Readers' Choice Awards – Favorite Agnostic / Atheist Blog of 2011. Now I’m only crushing him by 60 points, and this will not do. Go vote again (you can vote once a day). He’s getting cocky, and we simply can’t have that.
It’s a survey on gay marriage: they want to know if they ought to legalize it, not require a priest to ordain it, and recognize same sex marriages from other countries. I’m happy to throw the international opinion into the mix, and you Australians ought to speak out.
Those crazy Catholics still don’t get it.
Asked what he would say to a gay Catholic couple who approached him for marriage within the Church, the Archbishop said: “I would want to say to them that I understand their desires, that I understand their experience of love is vitally important in their lives, but I would want to say to them that they are called in my view, in the Church’s view, to a very profound friendship in life.
“I would want them to be respected, but I would want them to have a vision in themselves that what they are called to is not marriage but a very profound and lifelong friendship.”
Oh, friendship. Wink wink, nudge nudge, knowwhatImean, right? Like what I’ve got with my wife, a “profound and lifelong friendship”, not at all like those fleeting non-consensual tickle-and-poke sessions with en endless series of altar boys.
Wait a minute…isn’t that exactly what a successful and happy marriage is? A profound and lifelong friendship, a deeper relationship than anything some arrogant celibate social failure like a priest could possibly understand? Why is anyone paying any attention at all to this smug gomer’s advice?
Yeah, there’s a poll.
Should gay couples be allowed to marry?
Yes, anyone regardless of sexual orientation should be allowed to marry 36.35%
Yes, but not in church 10.97%
No, marriage should be kept between a man and a woman 52.67%
The guy keeps yammering on twitter that he’s catching up to me in this online poll. I’ve got 62% of the vote, he’s got 12%, and he isn’t even in second place. I’ve been idling along, not worrying about it, but apparently I need to now langorously stretch out my tentacles, enfold his paltry percentage in their toothy embrace, and crush and rend.
I urge you all to go vote and teach Martin S Pribble a lesson.
He’s Australian, so you know he deserves it. I’ve already warned him that there will be a hug-off at the GAC, in which he shall be totally crushed even further.
A continuing education program — which ought to be renamed as a continuing miseducation program — is offering a course on Vedic Astrology. I guess they needed some affirmation of their dedication to nonsense, so they’re running a poll:
Absolutely! 15%
To a certain degree 25%
Not at all 60%
Now this ought to inflame some local rivalries: Calgary gets me, Edmonton gets astrology.
Is it still 1961 in South Africa? Here’s a poll about evolution that includes a dismissal as “just a theory” option. Slap that baby hard and make it cry.
Do you believe science teachers should avoid teaching evolution?
Yes, it’s still just a theory 29%
No, students should learn all science 62%
Let parents decide at individual schools 9%
One thing never changes: the ability of Catholic leaders to say incredibly tone-deaf stupid things. The latest comes from Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who compared gay marriage to slavery. Yes, because entering into a mutual partnership based on love and respect is exactly like being shackled at gunpoint in a noxious overcrowded boat and being forced into a perilous and often lethal journey far away from your home, your family, and your friends, and then spending the rest of your life in backbreaking menial labor under the threat of the whip. I don’t think Mr Keith has any kind of reasonable understanding of “marriage” in the first place.
He also claimed that homosexuality is against “natural law”. Natural law seems to be very poorly enforced in this case, then, and besides, you want to know what really defies natural law? Celibacy.
Anyway, it’s in the Telegraph, the compost heap of stupid stories, and it’s also got a poll — a poll cunningly designed to split our votes, those wretched rascals. I think we should aspire to get both of the last two answers to dominate.
Do you think gay marriage should be legalised?
No – It would be too offensive for many religious people 12.94%
No – And I think that even civil partnerships go too far 16.72%
Yes – Gay people should have the same rights as everyone else 45.48%
Yes – Religious considerations have no place in a modern society 24.85%
The world is changing. For one thing, American Atheists are doing a better and better job of making billboards — less cluttered, cleaner, with a simpler message appropriate to a billboard, yet still wonderfully provocative (This is also, by the way, a great example of how pointed internal criticism can lead to improvements). These are also good examples of targeting the message, to the Jewish and Islamic communities.
Another way the world is changing is that more and more people are pointing these silly online polls out to me, and they’re already skewed in a favorable direction by the time I arrive. Really, it’s weird: 5 years ago, we’d find some mainstream poll and it would initially be insanely anti-atheist, and nowadays they’re usually more closely split. Like this one:
Do you think these billboards are appropriate?
Yes. American Atheists have every right to express their views and do outreach. 55%
No. It’s unnecessary provocation to put the billboards up in religious communities. 43%
Not sure. 2%
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make it more insanely biased in favor of the reasonable answer, of course.
Apparently, someone decided 27 February-4 March is Acupuncture Awareness Week. I’m happy to help out.
You should be aware that acupuncture is total bollocks.
There. Is that enough? No, it is not. We must also crash a stupid online poll. Devastate it, please. It’s on a site run by dishonest quacks, so I think we have the potential to smash their poll so thoroughly that either they a) shut it down in embarrassment, or b) start faking the numbers.
Do you think acupuncture should be made more widely available on the NHS?
Yes 79.3%
No 20.7%
Somebody tell me why they have a gigantic picture of a happy family that totally dwarfs their tiny three line poll on the page?
