Larry & Mr. Deity 03: Eye For An Eye

Larry asks Mr. Deity about "an eye for an eye."

Every Atheist is justified in dismissing the miraculous historicity of Jesus~! (PART 2 )

Every Atheist is justified in dismissing the miraculous historicity of Jesus~! (PART 1 )

(via Dhorpatan)
This video-graphic work renders a presentation
on why those that adhere to an Atheist
perspective are justified in dismissing or
disregarding the veracity of the
Jesus Christ story.

It gives two powerful reasons why
Atheists have a justification for such
a position as dismissing
the deeds, miracles, and even life
of Jesus out of hand, if they wish.

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The Virus of Faith - Richard Dawkins

The Super Virus Known As Catholicisim.

Don’t blame the Catholic Priest's for spreading the false news of Christ. Nor for the spreading the myth that mankind is depraved and in need of a blood sacrifice for salvation.

No don’t blame the priests for spreading the good word, for passing the torch down to the next generation. For the Priest, is just as much a victim of delusion as the Christian Worshipers who fill the Church pews. The Priest is a patsy, trapped in a web of lies from an organic being, known as Mother Church.

Proposed by Richard Dawkins, The Virus Of Faith, and I am in agreement, that religions can very much be seen as very real viruses, that not only infect individuals, but entire communities. I look upon Catholicism, fundamentalist Islam, Evangelical Christianity and what Dawkins calls, ' Militant Faith', as the ultimate in super Viruses.

I hold in disdain both the institution of the Catholic Church and pillars that keep up right, the insidious spread of evangelical Protestantism. You may wish to conclude that I would automatically hold in disdain, any person working for these places of worship, but you’d be wrong.

There most certainly are good men and women, who dedicate their lives to a religious vocation. Just as there are good and very selfless Priests, there are also Priests who are selfish and could be best described, as downright predatory and evil.

Don’t be alarmed that the Church’s have these evil men in positions of trust, for that is a fact that runs straight across the board of human experience. When you have any organization, no matter it’s raison d’etre, you will have more good people, than bad. The problem with Christianity, is that these evil men, get to enjoy and locate positions within the Church’s, where they are immediately trusted and respected from the Christian worshipers.

Unfortunately, the Catholic Church and all other Christian Church’s give their troubled and untrustworthy Holy men, the same positions of trust and power, that they freely give to the majority of good men.

I will give a Christian Minister the benefit of the doubt, that they are the same as the majority of the population, in that they do not possess any horrific faults or predatory tendencies.

Although I extend the benefit of the doubt to the clergy, like most people I meet, I do not automatically give them my trust.

You see, most Priests are just as much victims of religious fraud, as they are responsible for it’s spread. You see, the Priests have been fed the same Christian myths that the lay worshipers have been given. The Virus of religion has deluded their minds, has weakened their ability to think critically and has persuaded them and to give their entire lives in support of Christianity.

The Roman Catholic Church, should really be seen as a powerful, living, breathing organism, whose very survival depends upon cementing the myths and supernatural events of Christianity within the minds of believers. Of convincing each generation, that the institution of the Catholic Church ( or pick your brand of religion), is necessary for a persons eternal salvation.

The institution of the Catholic Church is the real predator, looking for fresh victims to convince that without the Catholic Church at your side, the lay Christian runs the risk of eternal damnation.

Likewise for Protestant Christianity, only Protestantism is traditionally less organized and lacks the clout of the Catholic Church. What the Catholic Church does at the national and international level, the Protestant denominations are content to infect its population at the local level.

Of course, there are different levels of infection and one need only look at the 75% of Christians who do not go to Church weekly. Liberal western secularism has given them some immunity from the virus of religion, yet the virus of Christianity, still remains within them. This virus lays in wait, for the moments in their lives when they are vulnerable and most susceptible to a full and very viral religious infection.

The virus of religion is a curious beast, not easily beaten back and from what I can tell, the virus’s most formidable enemy is, liberal Western Secularism.

On some strange level, I feel sorry for Catholic Priests, in that they are very lonely men, lacking in genuine human relationships. They give their lives to that which is not even real. They cut themselves off from the real world and are told that their energies are to be focused on the otherworldly.

A good man or woman, who are members of the Christian clergy or any religious vocation, they are not to be despised. For they have the most serious case of religious infection, and their minds have been polluted by the virus of religion.

So, don’t despise them, rather, pity the plight in which they find themselves and hope that they can overcome the delusion which has trapped them.

Richard Dawkins - The Virus Of Faith.

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'Exorcism on teenager': policeman stood down

'Exorcism on teenager': policeman stood down

'Exorcism on teenager': policeman stood down
July 7, 2009 - 6:43AM

A South Australian police officer has been charged with trying to perform an exorcism on a teenager at a church youth camp.

The 28-year-old off-duty senior constable and two other adults have been charged following a camp run by the Lutheran church in the Barossa Valley in April, Adelaide's The Advertiser reports on Tuesday.

It's alleged the three restrained the boy after he complained of stomach pains in an incident that allegedly went for about 12 hours.

The police officer has been charged with false imprisonment and aggravated assault, and suspended pending the outcome of the charges.

All three have been released on bail to appear in Adelaide Magistrates' Court on a date to be set.

The police officer was arrested and charged on Thursday 2 July, but the details of the exorcism allegations were revealed in The Advertiser on Tuesday.

AAP

Arizona is 6000 years old?

Arizona is 6000 years old? | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Arizona is 6000 years old?

Ian O’Neill at Astroengine posted this stunning bit of video featuring Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen.

It’s not that she says the Earth is 6000 years old — twice, just to make sure — that floors me. It’s the casual way she said it, as if she said "I had a cup of coffee today." From her manner, it’s clear that not only does she believe this complete and utter nonsense, but this is a simple fact woven into her mind just like the Sun is bright or chocolate is tasty.

To her, the Earth being 6000 years old just is.

Now, to be fair, this video is without context, and so we can’t be absolutely sure she’s a creationist. But it sure as heck sounds that way, and given her voting record it fits right in.

The irony, of course — and there’s always irony when creationism is involved — is that she’s talking about uranium mining, and it’s through the radioactive decay of uranium that we know the Earth is billions of years old. And she also praises technological achievements!

AIIIIiiiiieeee!

So while you soak that up I leave you, of course, with this:

End Times: A set of prophecies or a set of hallucinations?

By Valerie Tarico

Image by J. Mark Bertrand via Flickr

Real Christians are going to disappear abruptly someday soon. The world is going to descend into a bloodbath while someone known as the antichrist attempts to seize control of the planet. That is what some of your neighbors think—and some of your politicians. Many of them even relish the thought. Is Revelation, the last book in the Bible, a set of prophecies or a set of hallucinations? Neither, says Reverend Rich Lang of Trinity United Methodist in Ballard, Washington.

If the Book of Revelation isn’t a blueprint that tells us what is coming in the End Times, what the heck is it?

Like any book in the Bible, Revelation was written from the perspective of faith for the purpose of giving faith. It was written in the early days of the Jesus movement to a persecuted minority that was fearing worse persecution.

As the Jesus movement started in Jerusalem and Jesus was crucified, and there was this experience of resurrection, at the same time, there was a simultaneous political movement within Judaism of rebellion against the Roman Empire. It peaked in the 60’s and 70’s. It culminated finally—horrifically-- in the Roman legions marching into the country, destroying Jerusalem and burning down the temple. These two factors – the young Jesus movement and the brutally crushed rebellion–intersect in the writings we now call Revelation

But Revelation doesn’t talk about Jerusalem being destroyed. It talks about a beast with many heads and a dragon and the four horsemen. . .

That poetic language which sounds so strange to us was actually familiar to ancient readers. The author was writing a dramatic script in a form of popular media. Today we all recognize different modes or “genres” of writing—the detective novel, the love sonnet, manga. . Each has its own familiar structure and images. The same was true in the past.

The book of Revelation belongs to a then popular genre of literature called apocalyptic. The term apocalypse means “unveiling.” There were lots of apocalypses, each a graphic poetic vision of some radically transformed future in which the good guys win. This genre began around 200 BC and went out of style around 150 AD. The book of Revelation is also called the Apocalypse of John, and it is one of several explicitly Christian apocalypses that still exist today. In each, metaphoric language was used to communicate something that, experientially, felt too big for words. It was a way of trying to speak the unspeakable—and to inspire endurance and hope.

So what was the author of Revelation unveiling?

Revelation was written about twenty years after the fall of Jerusalem. The author, who we know only as John, had lived through the horrors that accompanied fall of the city. Imagine: the Roman Empire is surrounding Jerusalem. At the same time, civil war is raging within the walls. People are literally starving to death. As the siege continues, the Romans capture 20,000 Jews and crucify them on the walls of the city—while the city still is under siege.

20,000! We think of the crucifixion being unique.
No. Crucifixions happened all the time. There were thousands and thousands of crucifixions. The Jews wanted freedom. To them it was a blasphemy to have the Romans in their land. Many of them rebelled, and they lost. Eventually, the city fell, and the people were slaughtered. Those remaining were expelled from the land. This is the time of the Diaspora—the scattering of the Jews, who were dispersed around the Mediterranean—Asia Minor, Greece, Northern Africa and Europe.

But the author, John, is a Christian.

Remember, the earliest members of the Jesus movement were Jews, and so the early Christians scattered with the rest of the Jewish people. During the Diaspora, Christianity began to be adopted more widely by gentiles and at that point it began to grow rapidly throughout the Mediterranean. John is writing to Pauline (gentile) churches, but they are very rooted in Judaism and the Hebrew scriptures.

At the time Revelation is written, about twenty years after these devastating events, the young scattered Christian movement is being persecuted. They are treated like Blacks in the South during the ‘30s and ‘40s. A Christian carpenter might not be able to get work. Some are lynched. John, himself, is writing from exile, so whatever he was preaching was viewed by the Roman Empire as a threat to law and order.

Why was the message so threatening?

Clearly, part of his message was “Stop participating in the imperial cult. Stop participating in the patriotic way of life of the Roman Empire which requires paying homage to the gods of the Empire and in particular the emperor as an incarnation of God.” The Early Christian movement was an alternative to the way of empire. You know, Jesus is called “Lord and Savior”. If you ask where did that language came from, that language came from Caesar. Caesar was “Lord and Savior.” Christians celebrate the birthday of Jesus on December 25, which was when Roman celebrated the birthday of the Unconquered Sun. The pagans believed that if they didn’t take care of the gods, the gods wouldn’t take care of them. By forbidding the cult of the gods, the Christians threatened this balance.

One thing confuses me. Is John writing about events in his past or events in his future?

First of all, he is writing from a lived experience of what Empire can do. That is the key to understanding his perspective. He is writing a book that combines familiar political images. The dragons, for example, are much like our political cartoons. When you see an eagle and a bear you know it means the United States and the Soviet Union. For him, he is using images largely out of Hebrew scripture to convey what the Roman Empire is, and what he believes will happen to the early Christian movement. John’s primary message comes in Chapter 18: Empire will fall. Rome cannot last. This power structure that seems so big and is so crushing of the people will crumble, and God will re-create out of the ruins a new Jerusalem. John continually counsels the movement to hold fast: Those who endure to the end will be saved. This is a book of hope: The empire is going to fall. God is going to make a way where there is no way.

But had he—lost it? With all of the bizarre images, I’ve heard Revelation called “John on Acid.”

No. Almost all the imagery in the book of Revelation is rooted in the Hebrew scriptures, and some comes from Greek myths. In Chapter 12, you have the woman clothed in the sun and Satan falls out of the sky and there is this dragon that chases the woman. Well, that is the birth of Apollo. Dominion, who is the emperor at that time, he likens himself to Apollo. He is the sun god. So John is taking this known story and writing a counter-myth. He is saying that Dominion is not so important as he thinks. The birth of the child, Jesus, that’s the real big story.

The religious impulse easily gets perverted into a quest for secret knowledge because it makes me more than you. The images of Jesus himself are rooted in Hebrew stories. They simply cannot be understood unless you know that they are coming from the book of Daniel and Ezekiel and Zachariah. The narrative, the story line is rooted in the Exodus story in which God liberates the Jews from Pharaoh’s empire – walks them through the Red Sea and the wilderness and sends them to a promised land. Revelation is a recapitulation, a re-telling of the same story. God is the god who frees us from empire, whether Pharaoh or Dominion. We will come out of this into a land flowing with milk and honey. One of the big exhortations of the book is: “Come out of her.”—Come out of Roman Empire (as the Jews came out of Egypt).

What you are saying helps me to understand why people who are immersed in this theology are so fearful of empire – the League of Nations, the Soviet Union, the United Nations—any form of internationalism. Among the “Left Behind” crowd, people who are bridge builders or peacemakers are seen as evil and to be mistrusted. That is what John was talking about, that was his experience, even if people take it out of context.

From the very beginnings, part of the Christian message was the notion of an end time. God is going to clean up the world –which is a messy awful a place with a lot of violence and evil. After all, the central hero of the Christian story is tortured and crucified-- put to death by an empire! How is God going to clean up the world? Jesus is going to come back and rule the world and shepherd the nations.

The Hebrew understanding of history is that it is going somewhere. It is linear, not cyclical, which is a break with the agriculture-based earth religions. Christianity, which is a child of Judaism, picks up the Hebrew storyline: History is linear. But –and this is really important-- in the Bible the end is never the end of the physical world. It is the end of an age. It’s the end, for example, of the Roman empire, and then what happens is not that everyone is whisked off to heaven but that on earth there is a renewal , a renewal of the earth itself, of culture, of the nations ,peace and justice, everyone has their own vineyard and fig tree.

So, where did the notion of everyone being lifted out of their clothes and cars and cockpits come from?

That comes from the 19th Century. An Anglo-Irish theologian called John Darby created a new interpretive lens for the Bible. It’s called Dispensationalism, because in this system, history is divided into seven “dispensations” or ages within an age. In this system, the Rapture leads to the Millennium when Jesus reigns on Earth for 1000 years but before the Millennium is the reign of the antichrist. At different historical junctures different bad buys are picked as the antichrist. In the 1970’s, thanks to Hal Lindsey’s book, The Late Great Planet Earth, it was all about Russia. And the ten nations, the European Union would become part of the Beast. Today dire warnings about Barack Obama being the antichrist are scattered about the internet. Or Osama Bin Ladin.

Believe me—I’ve seen plenty of both—even Chavez and Bono. But come back, for a moment, to the Rapture itself. What about that verse in Thessalonians (1 Thess. 4:16). There’s the Lord descending with a trumpet, and the dead in Christ rising and then “we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.”

That is wonderful graphical mythical language which, when written, had very little to do with the plot of Left Behind.

Thessalonians is Paul talking with an early church in southern Europe, and he faces a specific challenge: Christians have died. We had expected Jesus to come back before that happened. Now what do we do? Paul thought he was living at the end of an age. He thought he would see the day that God would come back, clean up the earth and restore Paradise. But it hasn’t happened within the timeframe he expected, so he offers an explanation that integrates the existing facts—instead of Christ returning before any Christians have died, the dead and the living are united with Jesus together.

Flash forward a little bit. When you study very early church history, if you study the art of the early church you don’t see a lot of images of the crucifix or scenes of the crucifixion; you see images of paradise. And there was a proclamation of the early church that had an optimistic view – that where we were headed --on earth as in heaven, was a paradise. This was the expectation of many in the early Jesus movement.

There was a historical process, and over time this expectation changed for some. This process, which I don’t have time to go into, was wrapped around when Constantine became emperor and absorbed Christianity as the state religion. Rather than being a minority faith it became the dominant faith.. Once it became the dominant faith Christianity radically changed because it became about politics and power and control of the nations.

You have this book that is all about how evil empires can be because he has this horrifying experience and now all of a sudden Christianity is in power; empire is on the side of Christianity. That’s a little awkward.

Yes. And, the book of Revelation was dormant for many many years because of this. In our time the book of Revelation has come back with a vengeance because the imagery is made to order for wild interpretation. You’ve got an entire generation of children being raised in these fundamentalist end-times churches, being told they are the last generation.

You obviously think this is a bad thing.

Well, thankfully these families don’t live as if what they say is true is really true. They are still stashing away money to send their kids to college and for their own retirement. If they really believed you would see a hardening of the faith. There is a far right segment of Christian in which you do see this hardening—churches focused on “spiritual warfare” building walls rather than bridges, organizing services to celebrate gun rights, praying public prayers for the death of abortion providers or Barack Obama or judges. This kind of far right hardening comes out of the misuse of apocalyptic literature. Christianity gets translated into a quest for purity and righteousness that will bring these prophesies to fruition.

You said earlier that there were lots of apocalypses. It was a popular medium. How did this particular book get into the Bible?
Well, there was controversy about that. Many Christians didn’t want it in the Bible, and even Martin Luther question the decision of the Catholic councils to include it. Revelation got into the Bible because the church fathers chose to believe that the same John who knew Jesus in person was the author of this and several other texts. Their primary criterion was “apostolic authority.” What we now know – this is just the evolution of our own knowledge—is that the authors who wrote the Gospel of John, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Letters of John, and the Apocalypse of John, were not the same person. The script is very different. The same phrases are not used. One is written by a highly educated Greek author, the other written by a person whose primary language is Semitic.

These books that the counsels thought were written by John, the companion of Jesus, they were written by two or three people?

The people who actually knew Jesus, the twelve, none of them left writings for us. All of these writings are written well after the death of Jesus. The Church was looking for authority, and so they tried to choose writings that fit a hierarchical form of Christianity and that traced their lineage through the apostles back to Jesus. The Bible is the book for the church and it was compiled by the Church for the purpose of helping the Church advance faith. The books didn’t become finalized as scripture till 300 years after Jesus lived and died.

I was taught as a child that the Bible was essentially dictated by God to the authors. I was never taught about which books were chosen and how. But I would assume that Catholics believe God gave perfect insight to the councils that made the decisions?

I would assume so. And that is a wonderful mask for authority. When religion becomes a pursuit of power—a system to keep people in control, you are always going to have those games that are being played. Against religion, you have the message of Jesus, which is a spiritual message – a message of freedom.

Part of what this comes down to is: What is the Bible? When you are dealing with an end times fundamentalist Christian, you are dealing with a person who believes that the Bible was written by God– God writes it and there is a secret code and if you are in the know you will know the code and the elect will know the code. The Bible itself becomes a magical book, a secret script. If you just know how to read the script, you’ll know where the world is going. And so people begin to live this script as if they live in the end times.

We’re so into that secret knowledge thing, aren’t we? You see it many places: Gnosticism, the Knights Templar, Freemasonry, the Mormon temple, childhood clubs, Skull and Bones . . . .

Yes, and I think you see it in all religions. I think that part of the religious impulse easily gets perverted into a quest for secret knowledge because it makes me more than you. I am special, I am elect, I am closer to God, I know the truth. The reality is that we are all schmucks trying to muddle through as best we can.

This article is adapted from an interview conducted by Valerie Tarico on Moral Politics Television, Seattle, June 12, 2009. Special thanks to Producer Bill Alford.

Genesis Chapter 1 Revised Reality Version

If God authored Genesis, chapter 1, this is how it should have read...

Mr. Deity and the Magic

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Turin Shroud is face of Leonardo da Vinci - Telegraph

Turin Shroud is face of Leonardo da Vinci - Telegraph

Was Turin Shroud faked by Leonardo da Vinci?

The Turin Shroud was faked by Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci using pioneering photographic techniques and a sculpture of his own head, a television documentary claims.

A study of facial features suggests the image on the relic is actually da Vinci's own face which could have been projected into the cloth.

The artefact has been regarded by generations of believers as the face of the crucified Jesus who was wrapped in it, but carbon-dating by scientists points to its creation in the Middle Ages.

American artist Lillian Schwartz, a graphic consultant at the School of Visual Arts in New York who came to prominence in the 1980s when she matched the face of the Mona Lisa to a Leonardo self-portrait, used computer scans to show that the face on the Shroud has the same dimensions to that of da Vinci.

“It matched. I'm excited about this,” she said. “There is no doubt in my mind that the proportions that Leonardo wrote about were used in creating this Shroud's face.”

The claims is made in a Channel Five documentary, to be shown on Wednesday night, that describes how da Vinci could have scorched his facial features on to the linen of the Shroud using a sculpture of his face and a camera obscura – an early photographic device.

The programme says the fabric could have been hung over a frame in a blacked-out room and coated it with silver sulphate, a substance readily available in 15th century Italy which would have made it light-sensitive.

When the sun's rays passed through a lens in one of the walls, da Vinci’s facial shape would have been projected on to the material, creating a permanent image.

Lynn Picknett, a Shroud researcher and author, said: “The faker of the shroud had to be a heretic, someone with no fear of faking Jesus’ holy redemptive blood.

“He had to have a grasp of anatomy and he had to have at his fingertips a technology which would completely fool everyone until the 20th century.

"He had a hunger to leave something for the future, to make his mark for the future, not just for the sake of art or science but for his ego."

Art historian Professor Nicholas Allen, of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa, has called for more tests on the Shroud for the presence of silver sulphate, which causes a reaction with the sun's UV rays.

He said: "If you look at the Shroud of Turin as it appears to the naked eye, you see a negative image of a human being, and if you take a photograph of that you produce a positive image of that human being, which means the shroud is acting as a negative.

"That in itself is a very good clue that it was made photographically."

Radiocarbon dating in 1988 showed the cloth was made between 1260 and 1390.

The programme explains the theory that da Vinci's forgery was commissioned to replace an earlier version that was exposed as a poor fake, which had been bought by the powerful Savoy family in 1453 only to disappear for 50 years. When it returned to public view, it was hailed as a genuine relic, and experts say it was actually the artist's convincing replica.

American Professor Larissa Tracy, of Longwood University in Virginia, told the programme: "Da Vinci had the necessary skills. He knew enough about anatomy and about the physical muscular structure of the body. Da Vinci had all the skills to create an image like the shroud. If anybody had the capacity to work with camera obscura or early photographic technique, it was Leonardo Da Vinci."

However Professor John Jackson, director of the Turin Shroud Centre of Colorado, who believes the item dates from the time of Jesus's crucifixion, dismissed the programme’s findings and said the earliest known record of the Shroud appears on a commemorative medallion struck in the mid-14th century and on display at the Cluny Museum Paris, he added.

“It clearly shows clerics holding up the shroud and is dated to around 100 years before Leonardo was born. There is no evidence whatsoever that Leonardo was involved in the shroud.”

The professor believes the radiocarbon dating of the shroud was wrong because the sample was contaminated.

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Atheism in America (It can be tough)

Stossell talks to a girl who was mistreated for being a non-theist

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Cartoon

From Atheist

The Argument from Quantum Mechanics, for the Non-Existence of the Christian God

This is another original Atheological argument
I innovated, that shows how Quantum Mechanics proves the Christian God does not exist.

The importance of disproving God cannot be
stressed enough:

God, and the God concept, subsist upon
the invalid metaphysical Ontology of
the Primacy of Consciousness, over the
Primacy of Existence. Because of that, if God
were real, this would have disastrous
consequences for the Uniformity
of Nature, the Intelligibility of the
Universe, and would mean there could
be no truth or factuality to existence.

Lewis Black on Politics and Religion

Lewis Black on Televangelists

Dylan Rhymer - Televangelists

Proud to be an American?

Throughout small town America today, one will see flags, fireworks, and junk food on display. A common sentiment you'll encounter is pride, and many find it necessary to express their pride in being Americans. I'd like to make two small additions to this conversation, neither of which are original and one of which is presented in video form.

First, please consider the following from "10 Things Every Adult Should Know" written by f*cking c*nts:

America is not #1. Well, not unless you count military spending and handgun related deaths. We’re shit at public education. Our health care system is both the most expensive and the least effective in the developed world. Literacy, infant mortality, per capita living below the poverty line and/or without any health insurance … etc., etc. We’re kind of horrible at a whole lot of things, if you want to be honest about it. We’re also, on average, fat as fuck.

Second, consider the absurdity of being proud over something that one did not do and had no control over (i.e., being born in America). But don't take my word for it. Instead, see what George Carlin had to say on the subject:

Have a good day, stay safe, and enjoy spending time with family and friends. Take pride in what you have accomplished (e.g., managing to break free from religious delusion), but don't get sucked into the mire of blind patriotism. I'll try to do the same.

H/T to toomanytribbles

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Lewis Black Talks Faith & Comedy

Video Games - E3 2009 - Attack of the Show

Comedy and religion don't always go hand in hand. Kevin Pereira talks
to comedian Lewis Black to set the record straight with his new book, Me Of Little Faith.

http://g4tv.com/attackoftheshow/theloop/67527/Lewis-Black-Talks-Faith--Comedy.html#ixzz0KJAg6JP8&D

Stand-Up Comedy Atheist Ricky Gervais

Coexist Comedy at SF Comedy College

An Atheist Reads the Bible - 10 - The Genealogy of Jesus

An Atheist Reads the Bible - 9 - Ride Jesus Ride!

An Atheist Reads the Bible - 8 - The Empty Tomb

An Atheist Reads the Bible - 7 - Wet Dreams May Come

An Atheist Reads the Bible - 6 - CSI: Old Testament

An Atheist Reads the Bible - 5 - David's "Sinsus"

An Atheist Reads the Bible - 4 - Slavery

An Atheist Reads the Bible - 3 - Jephthah

An Atheist Reads the Bible - 2 - Sticks & Stones

An Atheist finds God ordering the vicious death of a man who was picking up some sticks.


CREDITS:

WRITTEN, EDITED & POORLY ANIMATED by 43alley

AUDIO: The classical audio recording of the Holy Bible by Alexander Scourby - all utilized under the Fair Use Doctrine, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994), etc. This narration is available for free at http://www.audio-bible.com/bible/bibl...

MUSIC: Taken from various royalty-free websites across the web.

TEXT: The Book of Number, Chapter 15 Verse 32 through Verse 41.

An Atheist Reads the Bible - 1 - Lot's Daughters

Text taken from video info

An atheist opens the Bible, and in the very first book he finds a horrific story that the religious wish wasn't in there ... if they even know about it.


**** EDIT **** I see some Christians, with a full thrust of irony, have flagged this video as inappropriate for children. Why? It's straight out of the Bible, complete with a verbatim reading!!!

The whole point of this video is to point out the stories in the Bible that get swept under the rug, to bring to light the tales the religious tend to forget when they heap praise on "The Good Book."

The Bible is full of horrible stories where innocents are slaughtered, women are treated inhumanely and men are praised as righteous for their monstrous actions. The worse part? God sits back with folded arms and watches (and that's only when he's not raining down the wrath himself from on high).

If the religious want to praise their Book, they need to know what's in it.



CREDITS:

WRITTEN, EDITED & POORLY ANIMATED by 43alley

AUDIO: The classical audio recording of the Holy Bible by Alexander Scourby - all utilized under the Fair Use Doctrine, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994), etc. This narration is available for free at http://www.audio-bible.com/bible/bible.html



MUSIC: Taken from various royalty-free websites across the web.

TEXT: Genesis, Chapter 19
The following verses were omitted because either they were boring, added nothing to the story, or both:
9 - The angles telling Lot to stand back so they could blind the posse.
12- The angles asking if anyone else was in the house.
14 - Lot going to tell his sons-in-law to leave (I thought his daughters were virgins!)
18-23- Lot went to a different town first.
27-29- Abraham saw the destruction from a distance.
Please feel to disagree about the decision to leave these out. As long as you read the original, I'm happy. Don't take my word for it.

MISC: The children voices were likewise taken from a free sound-effect website.

Rediscovering Secular America

Rediscovering Secular America - The Nation.

Rediscovering Secular America
posted by Katrina vanden Heuvel on 07/03/2009 @ 8:36pm

This Fourth of July, those who identify themselves as non-believers, or humanists, or atheists -- or a whole host of other names which signify a nontheistic worldview -- have much cause for celebration. After eight years in the Bush wilderness -- and an even longer period of ostracism by the Washington political establishment -- a rising demographic of like-minded Americans and a new president are guiding us back to our roots as a secular nation.

"We have generally been a pariah group in America," says Woody Kaplan, Advisory Board Chair of the Secular Coalition for America. "Pretty much unrecognized by the political establishment. Yet there's almost no religious group in America as large as us…. We were that third rail that politicians failed to touch."

Indeed when the Obama Administration invited the Coalition to the White House for a meeting in May it marked a stark departure from recent history.

"Joe Lieberman famously talked about the constitution providing for freedom of religion but not freedom from religion -- and questioned the possibility of non-believers to be ethical human beings," Kaplan says. "Suffice it to say we were never invited as an identity group into the Bush White House. But interestingly enough… we were only invited into the Clinton White House under the rubric of core civil rights or civil liberties interests, and not as an identity group of nontheists."

Things began to change shortly after then-Senator Obama announced his candidacy for president.

"He was on one of those talking head shows," Kaplan says. "And he was talking about Dr. King's arc of the moral universe bending towards justice. He followed that with ‘no matter what your belief system' -- and he made a list, a litany -- ‘whether you're Christian or Jewish or Muslim or have no religion at all.'"

Within a week the Coalition approached Obama. They let him know they had never been part of that "list" before -- never had had a seat at the table -- and they would appreciate it if he would continue to include them whenever appropriate.

As Herb Silverman, the Coalition's President says, "Lip service is better than no service at all."

"It's helpful in bringing us out of the closet," Kaplan says.

Obama agreed and remained true to his word. And then came the moment approximately 50 million Americans-- who identify themselves with terms like agnostic, atheist, materialist, humanist, nontheist, skeptic, bright, freethinker, agnostic, naturalist, or non-believer -- will never forget. In his inauguration speech, Obama said, "…Our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers." Two weeks later he talked about "non-believers" and "humanists" at the National Prayer Breakfast.

Kaplan gives a sense of both the historical and personal significance of Obama's words.

"The shock came at the inaugural speech -- arguably the biggest speech a President ever makes -- and he listed us there" he says. "And he's continued to do that -- he mentioned us twice at Notre Dame. And then he did it [this month] in Normandy. I can't tell you what a pariah group feels about those statements. For the first time we have a seat at the table. We're not thought of, evidently, as automatically unethical."

After meetings with the Obama transition team in coalition with other groups interested in church-state issues, the Secular Coalition for America was invited to the White House for its own meeting with Associate Director of Public Engagement Paul Monteiro. Kaplan, Silverman, Legislative Director Sasha Bartolf, and Associate Director Ron Millar all attended.

"It was the first time a nontheistic group met privately with the White House," Silverman says. "So in large part we just got to know each other… to have them learn more about our constituency, how many people we represent."

The Coalition described the "full spectrum of nontheists it represents" within its nine member organizations. (Now ten, with the recent addition of American Atheists). Among those organizations are the Society for Humanistic Judaism, Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, and the American Humanist Association. The Obama Administration expressed particular interest in reaching out to the Secular Student Alliance. The Coalition also addressed some of the issues of greatest concern to nontheists, including coercive religious proselytizing in the military, faith-based initiatives, and employment discrimination.

"We also pointed out that we are much more unified than we used to be, and so we hope our needs will be taken into account," Silverman says. "And that we watch legislation, we watch what politicians say. And we think that it could be beneficial to the Administration for them to take our point of view into account, just like they do for other interest groups. I think they did get the message in the White House…. We're hoping now to become players in all three branches of government."

As the Coalition continues to carry out its mission of increasing the visibility of -- and respect for -- nontheistic viewpoints, and protecting the secular character of our government, it seems to be moving forward with great confidence. This comes as no surprise, given the fact that there are now more nontheists in America than Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Mormons and Jews combined, and the organization itself has made huge strides.

Kaplan describes the Coalition's transformation from its founding in 2002 with a sole employee and "half a year's money in the bank", to having a full-time lobby shop. That shop includes newly hired Executive Director Sean Faircloth.

Faircloth brings with him ten years of legislative service in Maine, including as the House Majority Whip. He also taught law at the University of Maine. In addition to advocating for the separation of church and state, he was active on children's issues, and founded and managed the Maine Discovery Museum, the largest children's museum in New England outside of Boston.

Faircloth says that the Coalition is "very pleased" with the recognition it has received from President Obama. But he adds, "I think we still have some important issues to address."

Perhaps foremost among those issues is the Obama Administration's continuation of President Bush's faith-based initiative. In a campaign speech in Zanesville, Ohio, then-candidate Obama declared, "First, if you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them – or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion."

But Bush's policy remains in place while the program is under review, so under current law religious organizations can receive funding to provide social services, discriminate in hiring for those programs, and proselytize. The Coalition is advocating to end this clear violation of the separation of church and state.

"The President deserves great kudos for making his Zanesville statement. We would like him to [now] implement it," Faircloth says.

The Coalition is also pleased that the Obama Administration has ended the global gag rule, allowed stem cell funding, and largely ended funding for abstinence-only education programs. (There are some loopholes the Coalition is still working to address.) On the other hand, the nomination of Republican Congressman John McHugh as Secretary of the Army is a real concern. McHugh has one of the worst records of anyone in Congress on church-state issues. In fact, he voted against an amendment that would have required the Secretary of Defense to present Congress with a plan to prevent coercive and abusive proselytizing at the Air Force Academy.

Faircloth says the importance of the Coalition's advocacy extends beyond the specific issues themselves.

"I want to be involved in those lobbying issues," Faircloth says. "But also in terms of allowing people the comfort level and the opportunity to say, ‘Yeah, that's what I happen to believe. I happen to agree with Mark Twain. I happen to agree with Clarence Darrow.' And allow those people to feel comfortable joining an organization, whether it's a humanistic association, chapter, whatever the case may be -- saying, ‘I care about these values because I view them as moral values, and they connect to these policies….'"

Faircloth also sees the rise in the nontheistic demographic as an opportunity to reconnect with our nation's heritage.

"I see historical trends coming together that bring us back to our nation's heritage," he says. "Think if a presidential candidate were to say as Jefferson did, ‘Religions are all alike, founded on fables and mythology'…. Madison said, ‘In no instance have churches been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for everyone noble enterprise.' Abraham Lincoln said, ‘The bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession.' These tremendously valuable leaders, I question whether were they to be a candidate for public office today… would they be [elected]? And that would be a great loss to the nation…. I think something has gone haywire when it seems that they were more free to speak their individual perspective -- in some cases 200 years ago -- than elected officials might feel today. We want to address that issue."

Indeed when the Coalition ran a contest to find the highest ranking official who identifies as a nontheist (or one of the terms within the nontheist nomenclature), 60 members of the House and Senate were nominated. The Coalition spoke to each of them, and 22 admitted it but refused to go public. Only Congressman Pete Stark was willing to be identified.

Kaplan notes that the sample was skewed and that the number of nontheists in Congress is significantly larger. The legislators who were nominated were more likely to articulate their belief system than others, and some of the 60 nominees didn't admit to their belief system for fear it would be leaked.

"But we see at the very least there are 22 people who think that honestly admitting their worldview would cause them not to get reelected," Kaplan says. "That's an awful commentary on a pluralistic, liberal America."

Nevertheless, with its constituency growing -- and growing more visible, assertive, and respected -- the Coalition is optimistic about the future.

"All that terminology has meaning, but to me what is of greater meaning is our shared set of values," Faircloth says. "We think that [our constituency] is a quiet, thoughtful, moral group that is significantly growing in our society and it's time to let that blossom…. The Founding Fathers specifically addressed the issues that the Secular Coalition for America raises, and they specifically took our side on these issues. So, we're very proud of the civil rights movement we're involved with and we feel its heritage goes back to the founding of this nation."

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the kids in the hall - Dr. Seuss Bible

This is really funny, got to love the kids in the hall

Rise of the Godless