Wrath Via “Natural” Disasters

I know that Chick Tracts aren’t exactly a sterling representation of Christianity, but every once in a while I find one that I could never see anyone believing. I know, “Christians believing in weird stuff and taking crudely-presented information at face value.” Not a realistic concept.

And Chick Tracts? Who can’t take seriously little cartoon booklets left in public restrooms for innocent (yet doomed to Hell) passers-by. Chick even redrew one of their famous anti-Islam cartoons to better suit black audiences. They aren’t just trying to save souls with their crude and predictable story lines, they are targeting specific market segments. Even the most popular tract, This Was Your Life, has been redrawn to include black angels and a black god.

The tract I want to focus on here is one that attempts to equate natural disasters caused by God’s wrath. What incurred God’s wrath, you say? Why America turning its back on Israel is what!

J. T. Chick reminds us that the Jewish people are untouchable and any nation that turns their back on them is doomed to fall apart. Blah blah blah.

Note the shifty Arab in the last cartoon telling who I can only assume is George W. Bush that Israel has too much land. Imagine that — religious people trying to tangle themselves with politics.

There are more than 750 tornadoes and more than 1oo tornado-related fatalities every year. There have been more than 270 hurricanes that have struck th United States since 1851 that have caused countless fatalities and countless millions of dollars in property damage.

Are we to believe that each and every occurence of bad weather in the world is a direct result of God’s intervention? More specifically, are we to believe that each hurricane and tornado is a punishment for poor relations with the nation of Israel?

I smell bullshit.

Kentucky Calls Upon God to Protect Homeland

A 2006 piece of homeland security legislation passed by the Kentucky legislature stressed God’s role in protecting the state from evil-doers. The legislation contains a clause the dictates that a plaque be posted in the Office of Homeland Security that states that the state’s safety “cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.”

American Atheists has filed a lawsuit seeking to remove the offending verbiage. I don’t really care to discuss the actual legislation. What bothers me more are some of the comments posted by viewers of the WKYT website on this particular story.

Check out some of the bits of wisdom from the loving citizens of Kentucky:

This is Proposition 8 all over again. It isn’t a matter of 10% controlling the laws. It’s about 90% remembering that the 10% does, in fact, EXIST. We’ll work on respect for the 10% later. I’ll be satisfied with a recognition of existence for now. (Odd, huh? An atheist seeking recognition of existence.)

I don’t even have words.

Will it?

That’s interesting. I have a quote from Thomas Jefferson that says, “Shake off all fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.” What about one by James Madison that asks and answers an important question, “What has been Christianity’s fruits? Superstition, Bigotry and Persecution.”

I’ll leave you with that one. Please visit the site and read some more of the comments. Feel free to post a comment with your favorite reader nonsense.

Republicans Think They Are So Funny

I found the following joke while searching the interwebs. The little snippet that Google showed me on the results page was pretty telling, but I had to click through to check it out. It should come as no surprise that the site is titled “Republican Operative.”

FLORIDA COURT SETS ATHEIST HOLY DAY : In Florida , an atheist created a case against the Easter & Passover holy days. He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination case against Christians, Jews & observances of their holy days. The argument was it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized day.

The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring, “Case dismissed.”

The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the ruling saying, “Your honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter & others. The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur & Hanukkah. Yet my client & all other atheists have no such holidays.”

The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, “But you do. Counsel, your client is woefully ignorant.” The lawyer said, “Your Honor, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists.”

The judge said, “The calendar says April 1st is ‘April Fools Day.’ Psalm 14:1 states ‘The fool says in his heart, there is no God.’ Thus, it is the opinion of this court, that if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned.”

Is it even really worth the time to pick apart all of the things that are wrong with this? No? Well I’m doing it anyway.

• What atheist would be lobbying for a holiday? I know there are some crazy atheists out there, because atheists are human after all, despite what people who thought this joke was funny might think. I don’t think the main point on any atheist’s agenda is to petition for an officially recognized atheist holiday.
• Quite possibly the most disturbing part of this is that the judge used scripture in his decision, and no one is outraged!

If these “Republican Operatives” found themselves awake in a jail cell in the Middle East, how happy would they be if the judge cited the Quran in his decision? My guess is that they would not be very happy. However, Christians rarely take a moment and examine these sorts of things before turning an important issue, like atheists seeking a fair and secular society in which to live freely, and turning it into unfunny tripe to forward to their entire email address book.

War on Christmas: Back in Style!

I received the following email a few days ago. I do not know the person who sent it to me, and I can only assume that we were in contact years ago in an email that I have long since purged from my Gmail account. I get forwarded messages every once in a while; Gmail is pretty good about halting most of them. This one was a little different though. It almost seems that Gmail let this one through, so that I could deliver a retributive bitch slap. It was titled “The Grinch”.

Today, November 12th, 2008, I read in the news that the “American Humanist Association” has launched a “Why Believe in a God?” campaign, starting on buses in Washington DC next week. According to their spokesman, athiests, agnostics and non-theists “feel a little alone during the holidays, because of its association with traditional religion”.

REALLY? People who deny there is a God -they get bummed when other people celebrate God? Why is that? They are totally welcome to believe in God! Nothing stops them but themselves! I believe in God. I’m not sad, nor do I feel left out, when athiests sit around not believing!

We have become a nation of whiners…and apparently, a nation of Godless whiners! Will you please join me in making a phone call to the American Humanist Association? Assure them “Don’t be so sad! We’ll share our God with you!” Cheer them up! It will just take a moment, it will tie up their phone lines, and THEY pay for the toll free call!

They can be reached at (800) 837-3792. Call now!!! Call often!!! And send this email to EVERYONE you know. Maybe we can be the Grinch who stops their $40,000 ad campaign - by sending them a big phone bill!

How Christ-like.

“We don’t agree with you, so instead of responding with a logically-sound argument, we’ll prank call you a bunch of times and run up your phone bill!” What’s next? Having a bunch of pizzas delivered to their headquarters?

This email had 476 recipients, including myself, and they were listed alphabetically and cut off early into the D’s. I don’t even want to guess how many people got this email from this lady. Oh yeah, did I mention that she’s a lady. And that I have her name, address, and phone number? Thanks to my good friend, the internet, I do!

Her name is Linda Creviston, and she lives near Chicago. I won’t give her full address, but since I was able to find her information easily online I’m sure any interested parties could do the same. I was originally going to post her phone number, but again, I think I am better than that. But… for anyone who wants to do some internet digging, I’ll give you a hint: her area code is 630.

I’d love to say, “Call Linda up and harass her!”, but I’m not going to. In fact, I hope no one calls her. She leads a sheltered existence inside a set of medieval beliefs surrounded by a toddler’s maturity for debate. There is not a single thing any one of of us could offer Linda to change this.

That is the sad reality of the world in which we live. We are outnumbered by people who resort to an appeal to popularity all to often to justify their childish, strong arm techniques.

The Most Ignorant Discussion EVER

While scouring the internet one day for odd religious content, I came upon a religious argument (of sorts) embedded in a racist discussion about the evolution of black people. It begins with one of the most fallacious refutations of the theory of evolution, so I can’t say I expected much from the get go.

Humans did not come from apes because apes still exist.

And the Black people who believe in the White man’s evolution theories are subconsiously saying to themselves: “I am a descendant of monkeys.”

Caucasians are atheists, and they make stuff up as they go on in life and any other colored that follows their beliefs will fall into the ditch along with them.

They are wanderers also known as “vagabonds.” They will continue to wander to “parts unknown” just like they’re doing in the space program, they have no rest.

Lucifer said he will ascend above the stars to be like the Most High. And right now they dream of colonizing on the moon when their human bodies isn’t capable of living out there. That’s how pompous minded these people are, they think they own this entire universe.

They constantly send out signals through these huge satellites pointing upwards into outerspace to try to contact intelligent life beings to make friends with them while being completely ignorant to the fact that they are putting themselves and earth life in danger.

After reading this and wiping the drool from my chin, I delved deeper into the thread to find some logical response to this madness. (Though considering the original topic regarded the evolution of black people, again, I didn’t expect much.)

I soon came upon this very logical response to the above reply:

“finish **ucking your mama trailer park hero, you lice having, tobacco chewing, child molesting maggot. You will never understand us but you try so hard to be like us it’s sick.”

As I said, I didn’t expect much from this entire conversation, but I came across someone for whom this subject struck close to home:

“wait,your an idiot,am black,from east africa,and i am 100% that black people started as humans,and not as monkeys as you suggest. :S,wtf is wrong with you comparing humans to animals. just makes me angry”

I love the internet. I love that I have the world’s information at my fingertips. What disturbs me though, is that people who would have once had their insane opinions either kept to themselves or circulated among a small group through newsletters, self-published zines, or coffee clatches now have a host of outlets through which to clutter the information superhighway.

I suppose some might say that I’m not better, doing what I do. It is interesting to get a cross section of some of society’s more fun-loving members’ personalities though. You’d think this new outlet would expand the marketplace of argumentative discourse, and selective pressue would be placed on those that lack the knowledge, logic, and grammar to form a coherent sentence. You’d be wrong though.

The internet provides a breeding ground for ignorance, much like churches, mosques, and synagogues have done for centuries. Happy Internet Day! (I just made that up.)

An Exchange on Gay Marriage

The following text was posted on Facebook.com. I stumbled upon it through a friend of a friend, and commented appropriately. I know it is a bit lengthy, but I wanted to leave the text intact to give you the whole package. I’ve added emphasis in some of the parts that I touch on in my reply.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we all know it’s coming: the day that you either walk down that aisle or watch that woman walk towards you. The world today has so many opinions about how to ‘officially’ define marriage (we know what the definition is) these days: gay, bi, poly, mono, etc. (it is truly rediculous). I’d like to share some ideas on this subject.

First of all, as I have stated in earlier notes, marriage is ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN– this is the definition according to God and the Holy Scriptures comprised into One Holy Bible, consisting of an Old and New Testament. Anyhow, this union is under constant attacks increasing in power and ability, as well as tactfulness. We need to stand up against these and defend what marriage is and testify that all other so called definitions are wrong.

Now for the main topic of this note (aka the title), I want to talk about the beauty of this concept of marriage. People talk about a ‘One and Only’ concept that says that there is one person that is out there for you. Agreed, the goal is to marry one man/woman and live with him/her for your entire life. I would like to disavow the ‘one and only one person for me and all other people are out of luck’ theory, which says that the person you will marry is there and no matter what you do, you will marry this person (I have to be careful when talking about this because a very thin line separates truth from fiction).

I say that the beauty of marriage is that it is a CHOICE: a CHOICE as to whom you will marry, a CHOICE to stay with them and devote yourself to them, a CHOICE to love them, etc. I will now expound on this.

The beauty of marriage is that you get to CHOOSE to marry one person and devote yourself to them for all of life. The beauty comes from “(Insert your man or woman’s name here), out of everyone on this planet God has made, I CHOOSE to marry you and to live this ONE life with YOU and YOU ALONE! I DEVOTE myself ONLY TO YOU, in sickness, health, sadness, joy, rich, poor, on the mountain tops, in the valleys, NO MATTER WHAT!!! I do not have the ‘cheat sheet’ for life; I do not know where He will lead us. I will do my best to believe in, cherish, appreciate, always make time for, and always love with the love God gives me to give to you.”

God WILL provide IF WE ASK HIM TO AND LET HIM people! So, I challenge everyone to ask of Him who gives and see where He leads you (Trust me: He can open doors which you NEVER thought possible (all you have to do is TRUST Him). I will admit, I do not know where He wants me to be or whom He wishes me to be with at this time, but that does not mean that I stop building relationships, because one of these He will allow to flourish despite ALL obstacles into a lifelong happiness.

Go forth and be blessed!

My Response:

“I say that the beauty of marriage is that it is a CHOICE: a CHOICE as to whom you will marry, a CHOICE to stay with them and devote yourself to them, a CHOICE to love them, etc.”

How can you exalt choice when you seek to deny loving couples the option to marry because it defies a 2000+ year old definition? Let us not forget that the same book of the Bible that frowns on “man laying with man as with a woman” also condemns the wearing of blended fabrics and the eating of shellfish.

The human genome has shown us where our hair color, eye color, etc is developed, and as more research is done on the X/Y chromosome, I believe that you will see that gender identity and sexual orientation are not a conscious act of abomination, but a pattern no more changeable than hair or eye color.

By urging the fight against same-sex unions, you do nothing but create a culture of fear and anger against homosexuals and create division in a world that is already full of hostility.

His Private Reply:

First off, I would like to thank you for posting on my note (I do apprecate all resonses and discussions). Can I make something clear to you please? As we know, the Bible condemns homosexual actions; it does not, however, condemn the homosexual himself or herself. We are supposed to love one another as He loves us (He does not hate you or anyone - He hates the sins). So, I do not hate people for the sins they commit (trust me man, I got a list of my own daily). I just wanted to make it clear that even though I do not advocate homosexual marriage (it is not marriage after all - I was making the point that marriage is a choice within God’s laws and the way He designed it), I do not condemn anyone, ok? Some find that hard to believe (and sometimes my human nature gets the better of me), but I try my best to not judge someone for their sins because, if I do, I am judged by the same measure which I was using to judge (aka if I judge you for your sins, then God is going to judge me for mine - I sin daily, so I would not be able to withstand judgment without the blood of Christ, which covers and erases ALL transgressions). I do apologize if I came across like I hate homosexuals (this was not the intention); I was making it clear where I personally stand on the issue and making it known what I believe. Thanks again for responding to my note and have a great weekend.

My rebuttal:

Thank you for responding. I realize the note was old and did not know if you would even see my comment.

I think where we differ is that the definition of marriage given by the Bible and the legal institution of marriage in the United States are not the same thing. While many marriages are sanctioned by and overseen by churches, other marriages take place in front of a judge or justice of the peace not for the fancy thrills, but so that the legal benefits of marriage will be recognized.

Death benefits, tax benefits, custody issues, and other legal quandaries currently present greater frustration to homosexual couples than heterosexual couples because their union is not legally recognized. Love should conquer tradition in this situation and let willing couples join in a legally binding union.

If you sin daily and Christ’s blood covers all of your transgressions, then will it not cover the daily transgressions of homosexuals? The fact that someone defines themselves as “saved” does not infer that they will cease sinning, as most would agree. How then do the transgressions of homosexuals (i.e. their acts) differ from the daily trangressions of you or I?

In 2006, there were over 2.2 million marriages. Also, since the 1980’s there have been approximately 1.2 million couples file for divorce per year. With these staggering statistics, and this large of a percentage of God-supported marriages ending in divorce, should love and the bond between humans not count for a little more than just the sex of the two people involved?

No further response from the fundie…

You see, life was all good when he had only his ancient text to refer to. Clinging to the quotes of people whose bones have long since disintegrated is a weak defense. When presented with statistics, which are easily verifiable, reproduceable, and FACTITIOUS, and logical arguments like “love > ancient scripts”, today’s sound-bite Christian has little to say.