Why do we even have to ask this question? And at a university?
Â
Yes
 49%
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No
 45%
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I’m not sure
 6%
Get over there. This is a question for which the answer ought to be nearly unanimous, rather than split.
This is Ali, a six month old baby in Southern Russia.
It’s a miracle! Every Monday and Thursday, fresh quotations from the Quran ‘magically’ appear on his legs, belly, or arms when he’s home alone with his mommy and daddy, and then the pilgrims show up in the thousands to give the happy family lots and lots of attention. I simply can’t imagine how red marks might appear on the delicate skin of a young baby while under the care of doting, attentive parents, or why anyone might cheat and fake a miracle…can you? The only possible explanation is that the omnipotent, omniscient master of the entire cosmos occasionally gets bored overseeing the fusion of hydrogen in stars, and just has to come down to visit Ali and dickishly inflame small regions of his epidermis. I can understand that; if I had the power to end a wasteful war in the Kizlyar region, I’m sure I’d just use it to torment babies instead. But hey, I’m an atheist. What’s God’s excuse?
As testimony to the importance of this miracle, the site has not one, but two online polls. Journalists are going all out on this story, I can tell!
Do you believe in miracles?
Yes 64%
I’m open to the possibility 21%
No 15%
Do you consider yourself religious?
Yes 70%
No 30%
Watch out, though. God is plainly a bit bored right now — he might take a break from getting fancy with rashes on babies and instead start doing something more appropriate to his vast power and glory…like playing games with internet polls.
Nah, who am I kidding? Nothing could be more fun for God than abusing babies! That never gets old!
I already sent you off to vote on this German poll that would have awarded homeopaths a prize…and you all did good, giving the good guys, SOZIALHELDEN (Social Heroes), a solid lead over the dangerous crackpots, Homöopathen ohne Grenzen (Homeopaths without borders).
Unfortunately, the poll didn’t end then. It’s been going on all this time, and the quacks have been creeping up, and are actually getting close to winning. So I must send you off again: go vote, or “Stimme abgeben”!
Lately, all the polls people have been sending me are already going in the right direction — have I become superfluous? Are atheists everywhere already gleefully clicking buttons in polls without my prompting?
Oh, well, here’s another one. An ambitious priest gets assigned to Brighton, which he calls “the most Godless city in Britain”. He has declared that it is now his intention to transform the place into a sanctuary for unctuous old farts with their brains scrambled by nonsense (uh, those are my words, not his, if you couldn’t tell.) So the local newspaper ran a poll to see what people thought of that.
Is Reverend Archie Coates right to repeat the description of Brighton as “Godless”?
yes, and it’s good he intends to help change this:
14%no, it has its troubles but it is generally a good place:
14%being described as Godless is a compliment:
72%
Those secularists in Britain are just having a good time giving Archie the raspberry, aren’t they?
One more quote from Rev Archie:
Rev Coates last night said: “Since I moved to Brighton six weeks ago I have realised that it is a lot more godly than I imagined. If you look around you see the creativity, the vibrancy and the life of the city.”
Twit. Those are symptoms of godlessness, not godliness.
Remember that ridiculous pro-faith Alpha Course that had the transit ads that looked like a poll? Now they’ve actually put up an online poll. Best thing about it: look at the results already.
Yes 20%
No 74%
Probably 6%
Heh. How about making it look even worse?
Hey, they locked out votes from Pharyngula! Try this link instead.
It’s a poll. A poll with a stupid question.
Do psychics have a role to play in criminal investigations?
Yes: 31%
No: 69%
What role is that? To generate red herrings to keep the mystery alive?
Come on, New Zealanders. I have a higher opinion of you than that only 69% would find that question ludicrous.
There is a poll in Germany that will determine who will win a “Dedication Award” for service to the community. You can vote on it! In fact, you better vote on it! Here are the top 5 leaders in the votes right now.
Elisabeth von Wedel, Homöopathen ohne Grenzen e.V.
1514 Stimmen
Raul Krauthausen, SOZIALHELDEN e.V.
1208 Stimmen
Jürgen Dangl, Hofgut Himmelreich gGmbH
634 Stimmen
Dr. Stefanie Christmann, Esel-Initiative e.V.
510 Stimmen
Margit Adamski, Zweites Leben e.V.
344 Stimmen
Notice the leader with 1514 stimmen, or votes? To translate, that’s “Homeopathy without borders,” a team of quacks that travels the world treating the sick and dying with tiny ampules of water.
I suggest that everyone get over there and vote for the current second place group, SOZIALHELDEN, or “Social Heroes”. Once they’ve got a solid lead, we should work on bringing up all the other nominees. Just click on the “Stimme abgeben” beneath their name to vote for them. To see how the voting is going, click on the “Jetzt Ranking Anzeigen” button at the top right of the page.
Homeopaths. <spit>. Worthless frauds and snake-oil salesmen who don’t even have the guts to squeeze a snake.
The town of Lockland, Ohio is another of those places that worships a graven idol, an ugly stone block with the ridiculous 10 commandments on it . They never read it, though, or they’d notice that Commandment #2 says they shouldn’t worship graven idols…and actually, if they read them at all, they’d know that the only two that even come close to real laws in our nation are the ones that say don’t kill and don’t steal. The rest? Dross and superstition.
The town is being sued to have the nonsense removed, and of course the newspaper has to run a poll. Do you think that if we run this up to a good strong majority for removal that the city will send out a crew to dynamite the monstrosity?
Should Lockland be forced to remove the 10 Commandments from its town hall?
Yes 25.48%
No 74.52%
OK, who got to this poll before me? The answers are all going the way I want them to, and that’s just unnatural.
71.57% It’s a good thing
20.3% It’s a troubling trend
8.12% It doesn’t matter
Well, I guess you can all go over there and nudge them up a little further.
Yet another secular government wants to increase religious meddling in civic life — some Brazilians want to incorporate more religion into the public schools. I wonder if getting input from the rest of the world would be helpful?
Você é favorável ao ensino religioso facultativo nas escolas públicas? (Are you favorable to optional religious teachings in
public school?)Sim (yes) – 73%
Não (no) – 27%
