You can do it! There’s a petition asking President Obama to speak out on behalf of jailed Indonesian atheist Alexander Aan. It needs 25,000 signatures by mid-August to get a response from the White House. Easy, right?
Tennessee’s governor, Bill Haslam, recently appointed a well-qualified resident of the state to be the new international director of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. Her name is Samar Ali. And you can guess where this is going.
The state tea-partiers and Republicans are hysterical. SHE’S A MOOOSLIIIIM!
They bought ads in the newspaper decrying the hiring of Ali because she’s Muslim. Various county leaders are outraged and are passing resolutions condemning Haslam because he hired a Muslim. Oh, and as long as the bigots are emboldened, they’re also tossing in complaints about the fact that Haslam hasn’t fired enough homosexuals.
You know, this is why government is supposed to be secular. As long as the people doing the work of administration keep their religion out of their work, as long as they are responsible to everyone in their state, as long as they are competent, I don’t care whether they’re Christian or Muslim or atheist. Unfortunately, our privileged, selfish Christian conservatives have this mistaken notion that the purpose of government is to act as an arm of the Christian church, and that evangelical fervor is an adequate substitute for competence, and that is doing us great harm.
I approve this message: write in Jesus’ name for president in the November elections.
It’s the only principled choice you can make!
I suppose if you’re Catholic you could write the Pope’s name in. I have no problem with that, either. The Supreme Court would probably approve that, as well, given its current constitution.
It’s amazing how many rules Fundagelicals can dredge up out of a few Bible verses. This one organization has taken all of TWO verses from the book of Genesis to determine all kinds of stuff.
27So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
28God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
There it is, 3 whole sentences. And what do they mean?
They tell us why:
• Abortion and euthanasia are immoral.
• Marriage is between one man and one woman.
• Sexual promiscuity and homosexuality destroy individuals, families, and society.
• Overpopulation is a myth, and population control is dangerous.
• Earth stewardship, not radical environmentalism, is the path to the flourishing of humanity and all life on Earth.
• People are the greatest natural resource of all.
And best of all, these verses open the door to explaining to a lost generation how we can be restored to true image-bearing through salvation in Jesus Christ.
Also, Obamacare is bad.
Man, that Bible covers everything. I understand that there’s a sentence in Acts that condemns the Smoot-Hawley tariff act, Revelation has a very informative section on gene regulation by Hedgehog, and surprisingly, Job is all about increasing subsidies to the beef industry. You have to learn to read between the lines!
You better watch out, though. I got a fortune cookie — “A warm smile is testimony of a generous nature” — that contains a complete set of engineering instructions for a doomsday device, and the philosophical underpinnings for a new unscrupulous morality that will allow me to use it.
You know, if I violated tax law and then flaunted the fact to the IRS, it’s pretty much guaranteed that I’ll get slammed down hard and fast. So why do churches get a free pass?
Since 2008, pastors of some churches have openly supported and advocated specific political candidates in sermons to members in early October in an event referred to as "Pulpit Freedom Sunday". According to Reuters, videos of these sermons are sent to the offices of the IRS.
According to section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, the provision of the tax code from which these churches derive their tax-exempt status, a compliant organization must not "participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of … any candidate for public office."
The IRS has failed to remove the tax-exempt status of these churches despite their violations of tax code. This must change, and the law must be applied equally to everyone.
Don’t you suspect that many of the officers obligated to enforce the law are also members of these same kinds of churches, and are motivated to neglect their duties by a conflict of interest?
Maybe there should be a requirement that all IRS agents be atheists. That would certainly improve the popularity of atheism!
I’ll show you bullying. Laci Green has been hounded off tumblr by some very confused and evil people — they are threatening her and sending her pictures of where she lives.
You can see why I say confused: they’re accusing her of being transphobic and anti-islamic; I wonder if they even know what the first word means. She’s neither — she writes a sex blog — but it wouldn’t matter if she were. Trying to frighten people off the internet with physical threats is inexcusable, and I hope the police are on this case.
Some people are just sick, demented little bastards. And when they’re in a sick, demented church, it just magnifies the problem. And really, you can’t get much sicker than the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints — the church of Warren Jeffs, the abusers of women and children, the mega-patriarchal colony of polygamous parasites.
Like most cults, they’re very protective of their own and hate apostates passionately. They must send a message to anyone who dares leave the church, as Isaac Wyler discovered. He found a kitten on his property: a kitten half-encased in concrete, which suffered for a little while before it died.
Local authorities, also members of this inbred nasty sect, just laughed at the dying animal.
I just want to see that cult demolished and its members sent off to make an honest living on their own, the men without women to dominate.
You want a lesson in bullying, take it from the Catholic church. Sanal Edamaruku is being hunted by the police at the behest of the Catholic church in India, all for the terrible crime of exposing a Catholic icon as nothing more than a leaking pipe. The latest news is that the police are actively trying to arrest him, at which time they will throw him into prison for an indeterminate length of time…probably just long enough for the church to organize a kangaroo court.
If you haven’t already, sign the petition. It is a travesty that exposing religious fraud is considered a crime anywhere in the world.
I gave a talk in Madison in April. They recorded it! Now you can watch it too!
