Common sense from CAIR?

I’m shocked. I’m actually shocked. CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, issued the following statement in a press release: CAIR Urges Responsible Media Coverage of Fla. 'Burn a Koran Day'

"Just as all Muslims should not be blamed for the actions of a few extremists, neither should all Christians or all Americans be blamed for the intentionally offensive actions of the Dove World Outreach Center," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. "Pastor Terry Jones represents nothing but an extremist fringe."

I could have written that statement. That gives me the chills. Where is the normal doublespeak and veiled threats?

I am encouraged by the response for other religious leaders.

Twenty-four interfaith leaders in the Gainesville area have planned activities as a positive response to Dove World's planned Quran burning. In a statement announcing their plans, the leaders said, "We state clearly the act of burning the sacred scripture of Islam has no place in our faith, our religious communities, our town, or in our nation."

I plan to burn a Koran, bible, and maybe a Jack Chick tract or two on September 11, as a protest against religious nutters and their propensity toward violence, and the frequency by which they knock on my door. But the event will not be televised. Anaheim, with its large local Muslim community, is all of 3 miles from my home.

I could just be saying I will burn holy things for the press coverage. Everybody knows I like seeing my name in the press. Right pastor Terry Jones?

Yep, or I could just burn some ribs. Pork ribs… that sounds like more fun. I’ll use the Jack Chick tracts as kindling. He’s unlikely to seek revenge.

Related articles by Zemanta

• That dove is hater (mojoey.blogspot.com)
• Interview with Pastor Terry Jones, the Man Behind "International Burn A Koran Day" (friendlyatheist.com)

Technorati Tags: Islam,Koran Burning,Terry Jones

The enemy never sleeps

Chuck Norris, a man who should have no fame, pushes the bible on our public schools because he thinks it will save our nation. Christians will never stop pushing. We must push back. We must fight teaching the bible in public schools, even as an elective. Don’t compromise on allowing entry of the Christian message, our default position should be no teaching the bible in public schools. Our fall back should be teaching about Christianity in a comparative religion course.

Did he ever really learn to act? He was a punching bag for Bruce Lee and for some reason kept his career alive on pseudo heroics and macho bullshit. Now he prostitutes himself for the cause. I have no respect for the man. Some of this has to do with a visit he paid to my grandfather’s gas station in Lynwood back in the late 60s. The name Chuck Norris has been associated with wrongdoing since I was a child, so yes, some of this is personal.

Technorati Tags: Christians,YouTube,Evangelicals,Chuck Norris

The gay agenda. I knew it!

Hat Tip Unreasonable Faith.

Visit the blog, Read the comments. Laugh with the rest of us.

Technorati Tags: Focus on the Family,Christian,homosexual,gay,homophobia,CitizenLink,Candi Cushman,Stuart Shepard,gay agenda,intolerance,anti-homosexual,anti-gay

Nutball Alert: Sharron Angle

Sharron Angle is a Nevada senatorial candidate running as a Republican. Apparently, Angle is a fundie nutball. Back in the the 90s while she was running for a local school board seat, she took a position against high school football jerseys based on her biblical interpretation of evil. Black is evil.

"I cannot quote scripture as they did to justify their point but the gist of their argument was that black as a color was thoroughly evil, invoking the supernatural and especially the devil," Roberts reports. "Whichever argument prevailed, school administrators caved in and prohibited the Muckers from wearing the black apparel."

Original Source: Bill Roberts – Angle Strove religiously against black jerseys.

We don’t need another fundie nutball in the Senate. Please Nevadans, just say no to Sharron Angle.

If you doubt she’s a fundie, then why call her campaign a calling from God?

Reid’s supporters have put a spotlight on Angle’s emphasizing religion in her campaign. Specifically, her statements that she is running as a “calling from God” and fighting the forces of evil who seek “to make government our God.”

If you doubt she’s a nutball, then why does she align her campaign with the Tea Party?

"I am the tea party," said Angle, a 60-year-old former Nevada lawmaker.

Technorati Tags: Nutball Alert,Sharron Angle,US Senate,Nevada,Religion,Fundies

Love beats hate

Watched this as I ate my breakfast. It made me smile.

When the Kansas Hate group known at the Westboro Baptist Church announced it would picket Bay Area Schools and Jewish Institutions, students at Gunn High School decided they could not sit quiet .

Technorati Tags: Activism,Gay Rights,Westboro Baptist,YouTube

They fall, I laugh

What else can I do but laugh? An important Republic governor disappears for a leisurely tryst in Argentina while leaving America to wonder what he’s up to? What kind of intensely delusional power trip is this homophobic fundie governor on? It’s like a watching a Monty Python skit sans the intelligent edge. Gov. Mark Sanford is a nutball if he thinks flying down to Argentina for a quickie is rational behavior for a pillar of the Republican moral elite. Ha ha ha ha, oh man, Sanford’s going to pay.

What’s that sound? Is it the end of another political career, or do just have gas? It’s so hard to tell the difference. I hope Sanford takes Bobby Jindal with him when he goes.

Technorati tags: Mark Sanford, Republicans, Hypocrisy

Fundie calls for Atheist holocaust

I normally get these nutball comments in emails. This one was less a personal attack and more a call for... well, he wants to kill all of us.

David posted:

I think it's time for another holocaust. This time, instead of Jews, how about atheists. We urgently need to round up all atheists in the world and lead them to the chambers. Our world would be such a better place.

This comment is number 17 on a post titled, Dad links son’s suicide to “The God Delusion”.

I meet all kinds of Christians. Some good, some bad. Only a very few sink to this level of depravity. Is this really what Christianity is all about? Go ahead, tell me David is not a real Christian.

Technorati tags: Atheism, Hate

Dad links son's suicide to 'The God Delusion'

Book cover via Amazon

I don't normally link to the World Nut Daily, but I could not resist this story. 22-year-old Jesse Kilgore killed himself. His family and friends blame a college biology course and the Richard Dawkins book 'The God Delusion'. They claim Kilgore was an passionate Christian apologist who lost his faith. They point to his blogging as proof of his faith.

"Three people told us he had taken a biology class and was doing well in it, but other students

and the professor were really challenging my son, his faith. They didn't like him as a Republican, as a Christian, and as a conservative who believed in intelligent design," the grief-stricken father, Keith Kilgore, told WND about his son, Jesse.

According to a witness, the ‘only other Christian’ at Jefferson Community College suggested that the biology course and The God Delusion were enough to cause Kilgore to loose his faith, which ultimately lead to his suicide.

Kilgore’s father places the blame on the public school system. He suggests that the only rational course of action for Christians is to abandon public schools. Of course, the father does not accept any responsibility for the influence he might have had on his son. What… with his being a fundie nutball retired military chaplain, and apparently is completely steeped in the ‘Christian are under attack”  rhetoric so common to fundies these days.

How about this instead. Jesse Kilgore killed himself because of, mental illness, depression, drugs, girls or maybe boys, guilt, poor grades, or… maybe  because he just woke up one day without faith and realized he could not confront his overbearing father. Perhaps the environment in which he was raised was not welcoming to rational thought…

And one last thing, The God Delusion put me to sleep. Why would anyone kill themself over a book.?

Hat Tip:  StopTheMormons

Technorati tags: Atheism, WND, Fundies

Fundie Sticker #2

I am pretty sure Sarah Palin was driving this van. Or... maybe it was Todd?

Technorati tags: Photography, Bumper Stickers, Fundies, Christians

Banning books in not only for fundies

Image by mojoey via Flickr

Sometimes people with no sense of humor get in on the act. Take Taffey Anderson of Portland, Or. She wants to ban The Book of Bunny Suicides. Why you ask? She does not think it's funny. Apparently she is a thief and a vandal as well.

...In fact, she reportedly plans to burn the book.

Two weeks after students at the school discussed the First Amendment as part of Banned Book Week, Principal Julie Knoedler said Anderson’s challenge is timely if not frustrating.

“I understand her feeling very strongly about her rights, values and responsibility as a parent,” Knoedler said. “But I’m disappointed that she is forcing us to buy another copy before we can review the book.”

Source: Mom wants to ban, burn 'Book of Bunny Suicides'

When people try to push their beliefs off on me or my children I get mad. This is exactly why when fundies do the same thing I start writing blog posts and emails. It is simply wrong. There are so many other things to worry about.

Technorati tags: Book Burning, Culture

Blogroll Update - Forte Étude

It is my pleasure to introduce our newest Atheist blogroll member, Forte Étude. She's even provided a video with her introduction, which is a first.

In her own words:

Hi! I'm Candace, Writer, Atheist, Pet lover, Left-of-center Boomer, Occasional person of interest. Welcome to Forte Étude, Study of the Strongest Point. This name came about because the theme of my stories (and my life) is fortitude. This was unconscious at first. Heh. Sneaky subconscious.

 

Atheism is truly the last closet. More and more of us are coming out, heeding the call of "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" to keep silent no longer after 9/11. I feel I've been too quiet for too long. The election's coming in just over a month, with polls showing an extremely tight race. It is conceivable that a foaming-at-the-mouth Fundie could wind up being President of the United States sometime in the next four years, and she could be far worse than Dumbya, the dry drunk who switched from booze to Jesus endorphins.

 

My blog won't change a thing one way or another about the election, but at least it's a place where I can express myself more fully.

"I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world." - Bertrand Russell

(Of course, this was a pre-9/11 observation.)

We've already seen the "morality" of Dumbya's reign, and boy did the Fundies eat it up. McCain's scary enough, but imagine what could happen if Palin took the highest office.

 

Oh wait; someone has:

Welcome to the Atheist Blogroll Forte Étude. I hope some of our members will drop in and welcome our 809th blog to the team.

Technorati tags: Atheism, The Atheist Blogroll, Blogging

Moral Judgements

A friend send me a link to this story with the tag line "I'm sure the guard was an overzealous Buddhist." He's close. I'm betting the guard is a redneck fundie minimum wage California transplant.

VAN NUYS - A routine trip to the Social Security office Monday turned into 30 minutes of shock, disbelief and irritation for Lapriss Gilbert, who was forced to leave the federal building by a guard who objected to her "lesbian.com" T-shirt.

As she headed for a line to pick up a Social Security card for her son, Gilbert was stopped by a guard who said her T-shirt, naming an educational and resource Web site for gay women, was offensive.

She said the guard, who works for a private company hired by the Department of Homeland Security, demanded that she leave the building or face arrest.

Source: T-shirt gets Van Nuys woman kicked out of federal building

Drunk with power and backed up by Homeland Security - this security guard picked on the wrong woman. She's going to own them when this gets to court.

Border guards told to stop U.S. church fanatics

This is hilarious. Canada will ban nutball Fred Phelps and his hate filled Westboro Baptist Church from crossing the border. They've serious about it too. They've already stopped Shirley Phelps-Roper and a small group of protesters.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of church’s founder, Fred Phelps, said a small group of protesters was stopped at the Canada-U.S. border Thursday afternoon.

“They won’t let us in, but we have a group that will cross in another spot,” she said. “They’ll have to strip search everyone who crosses that border or they won’t know who we are. They’ll have to see the WBC (Westboro Baptist Church) tattoo on our butts.”

Go get them Canada. And don't be afraid to use your billy clubs.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Fundies, Nutballs, Fred Phelps

John Freshwater is back in news

My favorite fundie teacher made the news in the UK. He's got a review coming up on August 26 that could determine if he ever is allowed to teach in the Mr. Vernon school district again. If you recall, Freshwater is accused of branding his students with a cross, teaching Intelligent design, and proselytizing among his students while at school. Oh, and he kept a personal bible on his desk. Freshwater was fired in June.

The article has a couple of choice quotes.

"I don't think he meant to burn anybody. He got some bad counsel to make this all about the Bible and God. All he needed to do was say he was sorry, but he wouldn't do that," Murdock said.

and...

One yard sign read, "The student goes. We Support Mr Freshwater. The Bible stays!"

my fav...

"Nobody's ever told me to remove my Bible or to remove the other religious material hanging on my walls," Miller said. Freshwater is teaching children to ask questions "and not just to take what a teacher said as a fact."

Say what? I'd raise holy hell if a teacher displayed religious material on the wall of his or her classroom here in California. We have standards. The story is different in Central Ohio.

Technorati tags: Fundies, nutballs, John Freshwater, Christians, Ohio, ID, Education, Science

Oopsbama and the Joshua Generation Project

Barack Obama should do his homework before committing to a major new effort to attract young evangelical voters. His Joshua Generation Project ran afoul of fundie copyright infringement. Generation Joshua already represents a bunch of home schooled politically active fundies.

The campaign for Sen. Barack Obama in June revealed plans to launch a major new program to woo younger evangelicals and Catholics voters. The effort went by the name "Joshua Generation Project" and involved reaching out to young faith voters on issues such as poverty, Darfur, climate change and the Iraq war, Christian Broadcasting Network’s The Brody File had reported.

But upon learning of the project, lawyers with the Home School Legal Defense Association – an advocate group for home schooling rights – sent a letter asking the Obama campaign to stop usage of the name. The 83,000-strong organization pointed out that it owns trademark rights to both "Generation Joshua" and "Generation Joshua & Design."

Source: Obama's Joshua Generation Project Hits Legal Rift with Homeschoolers| Christianpost.com

The Obama campaign needs a new name for its program. How about the Pandering to Fundies Project? I'll let you have it for free.

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Politics, 2008 Elections, Religion

Pastor takes plea deal

Fundie snake handling pastor Gregory Coots gets a slap on the wrist. At least he is now a convicted criminal. I hold little hope that his followers will somehow come to their senses now.

Gregory Coots entered a guilty plea in a Bell County courtroom Tuesday morning to seven counts of buying, selling or transporting protected wildlife .. as well as another count of holding protected wildlife. He will have to pay $6,400 in fines and will be on probation for 2 years.

Oh well, better luck next time.

Related Post:

• Give the pastor his snake

Technorati tags: Snakes, Fundamentalist, Fundies, Gregory Coots, Kentucky

Marines push Christianity in Fallujah

And so the Crusades continue...

 

At the western entrance to the Iraqi city of Fallujah Tuesday, Muamar Anad handed his residence badge to the U.S. Marines guarding the city. They checked to be sure that he was a city resident, and when they were done, Anad said, a Marine slipped a coin out of his pocket and put it in his hand.

Out of fear, he accepted it, Anad said. When he was inside the city, the college student said, he looked at one side of the coin. "Where will you spend eternity?" it asked.

He flipped it over, and on the other side it read, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16."

Source: Iraqis claim Marines are pushing Christianity in Fallujah

How is this even possible? How utterly stupid are the people running the war? We don't win the hearts and minds of a nation by trying to convert its people. We make them enemies instead. What's next? Convert or Die?

Proselytizing like this should be an illegal act. Marines are agent of the state. Their actions spread religion in the name of the United States of America. It would be like getting a visit from the FBI while they carried a bibles. It's not supposed to happen like this. Our government is secular. Our armed services should be neutral on the subject. And when we invade and occupy a nation, our armed services should be not be allowed to proselytize, even when off duty. This is a human rights issue. It's coercive conversion with an implied threat of violence. A Marine holds a gun with one hand and gives you John 3:16 with the other...  Convert of die Muslim scum. What have we become?

Geez - this is just dumb. Please tell me this is a hoax.

How long until Obama is president?

Technorati tags: Iraq, Fallujah, Christians, Marines, Proselytizing. fundies

Give the pastor his snake

Natural selection should not be messed with. If a pastor wants to kiss a cobra during a church service, then let him. If he dies from snake bite, it is his own damn fault and the gene pool is better off without him. In the case of Gregory Coots, i just shake my head in wonder at the sheer stupidity of his actions.

Most [snakes] were taken from the Middlesboro home of Gregory James Coots, including 42 copperheads, 11 timber rattlesnakes, three cottonmouth water moccasins, a western diamondback rattlesnake, two cobras and a puff adder.

Handling snakes is practiced in a handful of fundamentalist churches across Appalachia, based on the interpretation of Bible verses saying true believers can take up serpents without being harmed. The practice is illegal in most states, including Kentucky.

Marrying your cousin is illegal in Kentucky too, but that does not stop them from getting hitched. If these nutballs what to kiss snakes to prove their devotion to god, then let them. They will die off eventually.

On the other hand, selling cobras for $450 on the internet is just dumb. It's also another example of religious hypocrisy. Pastor Coots sees these dangerous reptiles as a way to make a buck without regard for the social impact of his actions. He cares only for his own pocketbook. When a cobra escapes and bites little Johnny, Pastor Coots is culpable, not to mention dangerously irresponsible. Coots can claim his work with snakes is a religious obligation. If he does, we should call a spade a spade. His church is a cult and deserves no protection under the law.

Pet snake escapes are a problem. They happen all the time. I own non-venomnous snakes. Even though I am careful, my California Kingsnake manages an escape once each year. He also manages to bite me whenever he can. it is simply irresponsible to house poisonous reptiles in an urban setting. What a dumbass.

Technorati Tags: Snakes, Fundamentalist, Fundies, Gregory Coots, Kentucky

A post on James Dobson

I planned to write a post on James Dobson's response to Obama's Call to Renewal speech. The Christian blog Hackman's Musings beat me to it with Dobson has the "fruitcake" view. Dobson distorts the truth to fit his politics. It is easy to see when you compare Dobson's interpretation of Obama's speech to what Obama actually said.

It has never ceased to amaze me (though no longer surprise me) how Dobson and Focus on the Family will twist, distort, and exaggerate. Listening to Dobson's comment yesterday, I had to choose between: Is Dobson that unashamedly devious or pathetically ignorant?

Read more...

I think Dobson is mad with power. Uses religion to push his social agenda. Is unqualified to speak authoritatively on the bible or as a Christian theologian. And, he feeds on a perverse style of hate common to fundies and evangelicals. Thankfully, his influence is waning.

Technorati Tags: Politics, Evangelicals, James Dobson, Fundies, Barak Obama

I'm watching you Bobby Jindal

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is on my watch list. HIs asinine approval of a bill supporting Intelligent design is what caught my attention. I like to be fair though. I will report the good with the bad. Jindal signed hate crime legislation. I'll count this as a step in the right direction.

House Bill 726, which makes intimidation in the form of a publicly displayed noose a crime punishable by a year in prison.

The bill stems from the Jena 6 uproar in which the hanging of a noose sparked a fight between white and black high school students. One of the black teens was held in jail, leading to a march and international attention.

Note to white supremacists: You can still hang your noose in the privacy of your own home. "Publicly" means hanging the noose where other people can see it; around your own necks would be a start.

I wonder if displaying a noose is a free speech issue? Any lawyers out there?

Technorati Tags: Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, Jena 6, Free Speech, Hate Crime