And What Is The Catholic Cee Whinging On About This Time? Only The Usual Suspects…

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis
This is a constant complaint of the religious: WE’RE BEING PERSECUTED! WE HAVE RIGHTS! etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum. And what is it really all about? Why, the ass-clown  Catholics are up in arms about…contraceptive services?!?!? It’s like these nitwits are still living in the 50’s.

Fortnight for Freedom sees religious freedom in peril

Church bells will ring across Rapid City at noon on the Fourth of July, tolling a threat to religious freedom that Bishop Robert Gruss and others see in the 2010 Affordable Care Act and elsewhere.

Churches of all denominations are asked to ring their bells for five minutes that day in support of the Fortnight for Freedom campaign being waged through Wednesday, July 4, by U.S. Catholic bishops. The campaign is designed to promote religious liberty by enlisting opposition to the contraceptive services mandate that's part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

So…just what are these contraceptive services, exactly?

With the exception of churches and houses of worship, the Act's contraceptive coverage mandate applies to all employers and educational institutions. The mandate applies to all new health insurance plans effective August 2012. It controversially includes Christian hospitals, Christian charities, Catholic universities, and other enterprises owned or controlled by religious organizations that oppose contraception on doctrinal grounds. Regulations made under the act rely on the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine, which concluded that birth control is medically necessary "to ensure women's health and well-being."

Current Department of Health and Human Services regulations that govern ACA require employers — even Catholic hospitals, charities and universities —  to offer contraceptive services at no cost in their employee health care plans. It has generated outrage by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who say it violates Catholic religious teaching against artificial contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs.

Which is horse dung, because these things didn’t exist over 100 years ago.

Gruss, head of the Catholic Diocese of Rapid City, has promoted the two-week national campaign against the HHS mandates as an issue of religious freedom that goes far beyond the contraception question, affecting all Americans, not just Catholic Americans.

"This is not just a Catholic issue. It's not a Democrat or Republican issue. It's not a contraceptive issue. It's an American issue. It's a religious freedom issue," Gruss said June 19 during a panel discussion on how the mandate would affect Catholic schools and charities in Rapid City.

It is an American issue – but if this so-called ‘religious freedom’ is going to have a massive impact on women’s reproductive health, then I say, screw the religious. I’ll take the real over the surreal any day.

Gruss said religious freedom is more than "the right to go to Mass on Sunday or to pray the rosary at home."

I’d say that as the religious are posturing themselves as the arbiters of all they survey, it’s getting to the point that maybe that’s the limit we should impose on them.

"The current climate is reducing religion in the public domain to a private matter ... but it is also the right to engage in the broader society," he said. The HHS mandate on contraception coverage, with its narrow exemption for certain religious groups, would force Catholics institutions to either violate the teachings of the church or to stop engaging in the Gospel's call to serve others — through its hospitals, schools and charitable organizations, he said.

  Then they can abstain. Isn’t that what Catholics are famous for, after all?

To be exempt from the contraception mandate, a religious employer would have to meet four narrowly defined criteria, including that it employ and provide services "primarily to persons who share its religious tenets."

That actually sounds…reasonable. But of course, Sour Gruss won’t have that:

Gruss called the current religious exemption "far too narrow" and repeated the frequent observation that "not even Jesus would be included in it," since Christ ministered to both Christians and non-Christians while on earth.

Uh-huh – then again, the mythical man-child didn’t really provide anything resembling reproductive services, did he?

In Rapid City, Catholic Social Services would be forced to comply with the mandate or risk steep fines of $100 per day, per employee, for not providing health insurance to its employees. Neither is an acceptable option, since the costs would cripple the small social services agency, director Jim Kinyon said. "But our mandate comes from some place a little more important than Washington," he said.

Which translates to forcing it onto the rest of us.

CSS's mission is to serve people of all faiths, and Catholics are a minority on its staff. "There's no doubt Catholic Social Services would not meet the exemption. This is not about CSS, it's about the 23,000 people we serve each year," Kinyon said. 

Which means, when you are in Rapid City and in dire need of this sort of help, give these control freaks a wide berth.

Kinyon criticized contraceptive pills as a "failed experiment" in sexual morality and said that forcing employers with a moral objection to abortion to provide insurance benefits that cover abortifacients is akin to "participating in the shedding of the blood of innocents."

As one of the tags for this post states, ‘Boo-fucking-hoo’.

Gruss also complained that the HHS mandate doesn't protect private employers who object to providing contraceptive coverage. Numerous Catholic dioceses and institutions, as well as non-Catholic organizations, have filed 23 lawsuits against federal officials, including HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, challenging the contraceptive mandate. The Rapid City diocese is not among those plaintiffs, but Gruss said the lawsuits are an "opportunity to direct the conversation on freedom of religion" in America today.

Well then, it looks like the criterion for employees is going to be stricter – such as 40 year old virgins who live with their mom, Jehovah’s Witless…oh wait, that’s discriminatory, so they can’t do it.

"We didn't pick this fight; we've been forced into it," Gruss said. 

Another litigant challenging the HHS mandate, the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, said Thursday those lawsuits will continue in light of the June 28 Supreme Court decision upholding the ACA's individual mandate. That decision left untouched the HHS mandates.

The BFRL is one of those institutions who go to bat for ridiculous religious stubbornness, AKA ‘we wanna say the Pledge with the words “Under God” in it!’

“The court’s opinion today did not decide the issues in our cases,” said Hannah Smith, senior counsel.

Of course it didn’t.

Some non-Catholic churches will add their bells to the noon ring on July 4, but at First Congregational United Church of Christ, the Rev. Susan Huffman said she declined the invitation as "too specific an issue for us."

"Although we believe in the concept of religious freedom ... we feel like this is not our issue," Huffman said. 

The reasonable among them are few and far between.

The Fortnight for Freedom campaign closes on July 4 with a special Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Archbishop Charles Chaput, formerly bishop of Rapid City, will give the homily focusing on religious liberty in America. In Rapid City, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help will hold an 8 a.m. Mass.

This still not an attack on religious liberties in the slightest: the medicinal facts say otherwise. Of course, these idiots believe in an ‘immaculate conception’, which means they have little real clue how biology actually works.

Catholic churches in Rapid City have sponsored a variety of gatherings and religious services from June 21 to July 4 to pray that religious liberty be protected and fostered in America. Those events included a showing of the movie, "A Man for All Seasons," which tells the story of St. Thomas More's martyrdom at the hands of King Henry VIII. Several "patriotic rosaries" at local Catholic churches offering special prayers for the presidency, the Supreme Court and Congress have been held. 

Thomas More was a fuckhead. He went around actually persecuting the Protestants, so he wasn’t quite the martyr he was made out to be. And prayer doing anything at all? Don’t make me laugh. 

"The Patriotic Rosary is different in that with each decade there is a reading from a Founding Father or historical document, singing of a patriotic song, and each Hail Mary is said for a state and all the people in that state," said Marcia Williamson, an organizer of the Fortnight For Freedom. "It really is very inspiring."

I’d bet the rent they won’t be reading from Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason any time soon. Or at all.

People wonder why atheists detest religion – this is a perfect example of why. They claim exemption from common sense based on superstition. They want to supersede human health issues by blathering on about ‘moral imperatives’ that they say come from on high. And they claim they answer to a ‘higher power’ or bear witness in a ‘higher court’. Which means the rest of us will be screwed. 

As religion takes more and more of a back seat in our lives, their whiny little voices will metaphorically be advising humanity on how to drive. Better then, to turn the music up to drown them out.

Till the next post, then.

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Homophobia Gone Wild: The Worthless Words Of Worden

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

Oh, we won't give in,
We'll keep living in the past. – Jethro Tull, Living in the Past

Recently, I’ve been visiting blog of someone named the ‘Warrioress’ – a misled single mother who deems us ‘militants’ because atheists are not polite, friendly, or willing to respect ridiculous superstitions. She came by a few times to lecture us on our tone and attitude. While seemingly pleasant enough, she is wildly misinformed on a number of topics.

One of her current followers is someone who is one of those ‘gawd is great!’ survivalist/militia types (yes, I can hear the collective groans and face-palms from here). She quoted some fellow I’d never heard before, here, which led me to perhaps one of the stupidest ‘editorials’ on homosexuality I’ve ever had the misfortune to read. It’s nicely written, in a kindly-statesman-giving-good-advice kind of way, but utterly epically fails with the simple application of sense of any sort.

And this clown has the audacity to entitle this, of all things, The Truth About Homosexuality. Bear with me while I fisk this bad boy to the ground:

I am going to address the issue of homosexuality and it's effects because I worked very closely with over 300 homosexual men in the late 60s and early 70s, which was just before gay rights groups began to organize into the political power base they represent today.

Doing what exactly? He doesn’t say. And do the observations of some 40-odd years still apply? I’m old enough to know better: he should be as well.

I considered most of these "gay" men to be at least close business associates, and a number of them would definitely fall into the category of being close personal friends, so any attempt to categorize my comments here as "homophobic" would be in vain.

We’ll address that a little bit later.

I'm going to write the truth here, and because of the nature of the subject, that truth will be graphic and make some of you very uncomfortable reading it. However, all but perhaps one of those healthy young men I knew 25 years ago is dead, and nearly all of them died from an AIDS-related illness, so this is not the time to sugar-coat the reality of what the homosexual lifestyle is, and what it does to it's willing participants.

No name dropping, no real ‘AIDS-related’ illness is mentioned. Is he aware things have changed?

Articles written with a critical eye toward homosexuality are all too often based upon emotion, and include biblical references which condemn the practice. I wrote the original version of this article back in 1999 with a reference to the religious view, and a reader asked me to modify it to exclude any mention of God or religion. I gave it some thought, and the reader had a good point: Christians don't have to be reminded of the biblical view toward homosexuality, but one mention of it to non-believers and you can hear their minds slam shut. So this is my very dispassionate, non-religious tale of a terrible tragedy I personally witnessed.

Trust me, he’s doing no favors to us non-believers.

Now, I warned you I'd have to get graphic here, and it is time to bluntly remind everyone just what this horrendous, perverted, septic and medically dangerous practice really is. To refer to this physically revolting act as something flowery, like "Gay Love" is like referring to an execution by disembowelment as mere "euthanasia".

Really, talk about talking out both sides of your mouth here. Does that sound dispassionate to you?

We all need to go back to square one, before the desensitization of the media lulled us away from the reality of what a homosexual act is.

Oh, because this guy knows, and we don’t?

We need to go back to that time when the initial thought, that impression we envisioned when we first heard about this act filled us with revulsion. That revulsion and nausea you felt wasn't borne of ignorance, but of a spontaneous and instinctive rejection of what you immediately recognized as an abhorrent, disgusting and wholly unnatural thing to do. There's nothing whatsoever to be ashamed for admitting this, because it just happens to be the natural response.

Firstly, that’s the naturalistic fallacy, AKA the ‘appeal to nature’. Secondly, it can be successfully argued that those ‘impressions’ are hammered into us at an early age. Thirdly, human beings can be revolted by some of the most frankly silly things around, say like, envisioning your parents having sex, etc. So the ‘EEWWWW!’ argument isn’t even an argument, unless you’re in middle school.

As I mentioned earlier, gay rights groups didn't really exist until around 1975, and even then, they were very disorganized at best. That was before they got together and agreed on the fat lie that they were somehow born into homosexuality.

And again, we find the simpler folk more willing to buy the easier lie. The wiki on the topic states:

Biology and sexual orientation is the subject of research into the role of biology in the development of human sexual orientation. No simple, single cause for sexual orientation has been conclusively demonstrated. Various studies point to different, even conflicting positions, such as a combination of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences, with biological factors involving a complex interplay of genetic factors and the early uterine environment, or no genetic influence. Biological factors which may be related to the development of a heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or asexual orientation include genes, prenatal hormones, and brain structure.

I'll never buy that nonsense, and I'll tell you why: Not one of my friends ever told me they thought they were born into homosexuality. Not one of them. They would tell me why, and their stories were often similar, but not one of them ever told me they believed they were born that way. In every case of the men I knew, they had made homosexuality a choice, and many of those men had been married prior to adopting that lifestyle.

I like how he doesn’t name drop, cite scientific studies of any sort, or even relate a single ‘story’.

Let's clear something up right now: Homosexuality, including Lesbianism, are fetishes.

Which explains why so many teenage homosexuals are bullied into suicide.

They are not biological conditions people are born with.

Mr. Ph.D says so!

Anne Heche is a celebrity lesbian one minute, and goes heterosexual the next. Go figure.

Obviously this guy thinks that the exception makes the rule.

In many cases, today's homosexuals were molested at a very young age by another man, and experienced their very first orgasm that way. That experience can and does warp a young man's sexual orientation, no doubt about it, and helps explain why we hear young homosexuals relate the same story that they just felt different sexually than their friends. Of course they do, and understandably so, when we remember their very first imprinted sexual climactic experience came from the hands, mouth (or worse) of another man.

Does that include the ‘family men’ who ‘adopted’ the lifestyle?

In recent years there has been a rather predictable development that has been very carefully hidden from the public:
Organizations of "recovering homosexuals" have sprung up all over this nation, made up of both men and women who have escaped the homosexual lifestyle and have taken up successful heterosexual relationships. In some cases, former lesbians have met and married former gay men and are now raising families. You will find it interesting to note that Anna Freud, Sigmund's daughter, reported the "recovery" of three homosexuals in her writings in the 1940's. If homosexuality is so natural and people are born into it, how can this be? Answer: It can't be.

Aye caramba? Does this idiot know that these organizations fail regularly – that these are religious organizations that are laughed outta town by actual psychologists and psychiatrists? Nothing fails like prayer.

There are those who keep telling the persistent lie that homosexuality occurs naturally in animals, so therefore it occurs naturally in man. So where are the photos? Have you ever seen a photograph of two male animals completing an act of anal intercourse?

No, the actuality is that homosexual acts are persistent in nature.

Think about it: We've all seen photographs of Big Foot and flying saucers, right?

Bad choice, bringing up known hoaxes.

And I know you've seen male dogs mounting one another as well and other animals like elk and deer doing it too, but you have never seen photographic proof of a completed act of penetrating anal intercourse in animals, because it simply does not exist in nature, and if it did, we'd damn-sure have photographs of it.

This guy obviously doesn’t cruise the Internet very much – but most smug nimbulbs are like that.

Does that little revelation trouble you? It should. It should make you question all the other "truths" you've accepted over the years, like "Prohibition was a mistake, but the War On Drugs isn't", but that's another subject altogether.

Oh great – another conspiracy wacko.

Now let me tell you about my very dead friends.

You mean the friends that filled you with revulsion at their ‘unnatural acts’?

This saga took place in the San Francisco Bay Area, before HIV infections caused the San Francisco Health Department to shut down the public "bath houses" where these men would go to "meet" each other. Okay, so I'm getting all flowery. The men would go there to engage other men in anal intercourse.

Sometimes these men would have 4, 5, 6 or more sexual liaisons with complete strangers in one night. Some of these acts would take place through plywood walls with penis-sized holes cut in them to secure the anonymity between the participants, and sometimes they would take place through holes cut in cloth sheets.

This sort of thing is not exclusive to the gay lifestyle: and in the case of a lifestyle that has been oppressed by ignorant Christians since Theodosius the II, small wonder anyone would revel in it once the barriers are bridged. Also, there was the Sexual Revolution, where taking a pill would cure the STD’s that have plagued humanity since the dawn of time – STD’s like syphilis, gonorrhea, you know, all those HETEROSEXUAL diseases.

If you thought the "gay lifestyle" was just about two guys playing house, you've bought into just another of the many lies they want you to believe.

Four decades later, it does play out that way.

Brutal acts of sado-masochism between homosexuals are often played out, sometimes resulting in injury and even death, and the physical beatings between homosexual and lesbian "lovers" are legend within the law enforcement community as well as with emergency health care professionals -- which is another fact you won't see reported in the mainstream media. If there ever was a misnomer, it is the term "gay" when referring to these pitiful creatures.

This again, isn’t exclusive to the gay lifestyle. There are plenty of heteros who abuse spouses, engage in sado-masochism. I’d be willing to bet the rent that they actually outnumber the gay community in this regard.

My friends would get totally wasted on alcohol and drugs, often coming in on Monday morning looking like they were at death's door after a typical weekend orgy, and it came as no surprise to learn recently that both male homosexuals as well as lesbians have a life span roughly 40% shorter than heterosexuals.

People can be stupid, regardless of sexuality. I’ve had plenty of hetero friends do this very same thing.

Dr. Paul Cameron holds a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, and his work has been published in the medical journal Omega. This is what he reported: For heterosexuals, the average man lives to be 73; women 77.

Oh don’t even get me STARTED on this asshole.

For homosexuals, the average AIDS caused death is 39 and non-AIDS caused death is a remarkable age 42! For lesbians the average age of death is 44 because the rate of AIDS among lesbians is not a significant factor.

First off, these aren’t official – he whipped up those figures from cutting out obituaries in the paper. His own Wiki entry states:

For the most part, official scientific organisations have paid very little attention to Cameron's studies, and thus extensive scientific analysis of his claims have not been widely available. However Cameron's research, public statements and legal testimony have received criticism from researchers and organizations over methodologies they view as academically dishonest and misleading.

Dr. William Bennet, who authored the book "The Death of Outrage", commented that the Clinton administration has made such a big deal about tobacco use shaving 6-7 years off one's life, while openly supporting the gay death style that is known to shave off over 30 years from the average life span.

If the author is referring to this asshole, Bennet is NOT A DOCTOR.

David Foster, a former homosexual and author, found that the rate of injury and death from domestic violence among homosexuals is at least five times that of heterosexuals, and when it comes to lesbian relationships, the rate goes right off the scale. Apparently, lesbians beat the hell out of each other, and often. He also points to a very high incidence of drug and alcohol abuse as another strong factor in reducing the life spans of homosexuals and lesbians so drastically.

Wait – which David Foster? This guy? Or this guy?

Nothing I personally witnessed falls in dispute with the above published findings, and I have over 300 dead bodies as evidence to back them.

From what he’s demonstrated thus far – he has diddly squat. Anecdotal evidence? Doesn’t count. Cameron’s a kook, Bennet’s a conservative talking-head, and who knows who Foster is?

Now that you are aware of these facts -- and they are facts indeed -- how could any parent of one of these hapless, errant children join a support group like Parents And Friends of Gays And Lesbians which openly defends the gay lifestyle -- and even promotes it? How could any parent encourage their child to continue a lifestyle known to lead to an early death? Why would any parent tolerate a public school that teaches their children that homosexuality and lesbianism are naturally occurring sexual orientations? They are those who refuse to learn the truth, or worse; those who refuse to accept the truth.

All of this crap is based on anecdotal hearsay four decades old, and extremely poorly studies by some nincompoops. Hardly the sweeping condemnation when one addresses these seriously in less than an hour.

When I tell an openly gay person to seek help in order to save them from an early death, is that an act of hate? They will tell you it is. Not only are we to accept the gay lifestyle, but these individuals and groups also insist we embrace their lifestyle in our schools where it can be painted as "normal". Normal?

It actually WAS normal, until the Christians decided to be the final arbiters of who can do what with their naughty bits.

Let me ask you something: What is normal about a young man with a herniated sphincter who must wear diapers due to fecal incontinence from having submitted to so many acts of anal intercourse? I knew several young men who had that disgusting problem. What's natural and normal about that? What's so natural and normal about your child dying before you? What's so natural and normal about having to get an AIDS test every three months? I don't have to, and I'll bet the average reader doesn't have to either.

I actually looked up fecal incontinence – and guess what? A lot assholes claiming this happens, zero studies proving this happens regularly. As for getting an AIDS test every three months: anyone who’s the least bit sexually active should be tested regularly. For all the possible STD’s. And AIDS isn’t exclusively a gay disease anymore.

Perhaps I am more sensitive to this issue than most, but whenever I hear someone describe themselves as openly gay, I automatically visualize them engaged with another man in a revolting act of anal intercourse, ruining my appetite.

Mr. ‘Dispassionate’ my homesick ass.

Yet few people understand that nothing turns gay men on more than the idea you'd be both shocked and disgusted by their behavior.

Wait – ALL gay men? Are you smoking crack, or what?

You see, all the homosexual men I knew were psychological exhibitionists as well, and they were absolutely thrilled to see "straight" people recoil at the sight of them prancing around, lisping almost every word.

It’s called ‘rebellion’ – but then again, I doubt that an isolated militianist (correct term?) is conversant with anything resembling a knowledge of human behavior.

As bizarre as it sounds, the homosexual community wants what it knows will rob the savor from their salt. The more we "accept" openly homosexual behavior, the more repugnant and bizarre their behavior becomes in order to garner the same level of shock and disgust. So when a gay rights supporter asks that frequently heard question, "Would a person deliberately place themselves in a position to be hated and reviled?", the answer is an unequivocal "Yes, they would!". And in fact, they do.

Obviously not, yet of course pretentious pundits offer up their pseudo-intellectual analyses.

The fact is, the homosexual lifestyle contributes nothing of a positive nature to society. If anything, the homosexual lifestyle has proven to be destructive to it's participants, and because of the septic nature of anal intercourse, the homosexual lifestyle has proven to quickly spread HIV as well as that most recent and perhaps even deadlier threat, Hepatitis C.

Talk about speaking out one’s ass:

Whether hepatitis C can be transmitted through sexual activity is controversial. While there is an association between high-risk sexual activity and hepatitis C, it is not known whether transmission of the disease is due to drug use that has not been admitted to or sex as a risk factor.

The public health costs imposed by the gay community on the rest of society have been costly indeed -- and no one can dispute that.

Mostly due to lack of sexual education, ignorance, and the overbearing religious objections of the past 1600 years, yeah.

And also consider this: Can you recall any invention, any life-saving vaccine or any improvement to society by any individual because he was gay? Did his "gay-ness" contribute anything at all, or did he achieve his accomplishments in spite of it? We all know the answer.

What an utter ass. Alan Turing revolutionized the technological advances of the Twentieth century, not to mention helping to win WORLD WAR II by cracking the Nazi codes. And yes, he was gay. And treated horribly because of it.

So should we be more compassionate for these people, or should we adopt a tough love kind of response? Should we allow our young children to be taught something is normal, when we know that not even the animals will engage in it?

Backwards idiots often repeat themselves.

What about when those children might be tempted to experiment with it and thus become its' unwitting victims as well? Would any parent want their children to experience the degradation and early death I've described here? I hope not.

Dude, your descriptions here lack any kind of authority, intelligence, or study citations whatsoever.

However tempted I am to end on that note, let us all refocus on the problems of society in general, and not those imposed only by the homosexual community. I'm addressing those of the "straight" community now; those who are actively engaged in unmarried sexual relationships and adultery.

‘Imposed’? Dude, get a clue.

It was just reported that over 50% of all children are now born to unwed mothers. Divorce and good old fornication are proving to be the most long-term, destructive elements of behavior existent in our society today, and it is costing the taxpayers dearly for looking the other way for so long. When it gets right down to it, you have no right to take the chance of bringing an unwanted baby into this world in exchange for the fleeting pleasure of an orgasm. Fornication is just about the most selfish and self-serving act you can possibly commit, yet you'd think we were back in the early stages of the sexual revolution by the way people are conducting themselves. When you engage in a sexual liaison with someone you are not married to, and probably have no intention of marrying, you are rolling the dice on the life of any child born as a result, and you all know that, short of sterilization, no form of birth control is 100% effective.

And he rolls out the old party line again: never mind that hetero marriages are 50% likely to end, mostly ignominiously or acrimoniously. I keep hearing Jethro Tull’s ‘Living in the Past’ in my head. It’s the 21st century – try to join us in it. You want to strip sexual freedom of choice from adults because it doesn’t mirror the ‘good old daze’ of your sheltered Ozzie and Harriet youth? Too fucking bad. And…wait, ‘no form of birth control is 100% effective’? Are you kidding me? There’s absolutely NOTHING in this life that is 100%, except death and taxes.

The act of fornication is shamefully selfish and self-centered, and without any regard whatsoever to how it may effect the entire life of another innocent human being whose mother might just decide to kill it while it's still "legal" to do so.

Dude, the 14th amendment specifically states that only persons BORN (or naturalized) in the US are entitled to rights. Ergo a fetus (yes, not a BABY, a FETUS) has no rights.

So, while it is important to tell the truth about homosexuality, the fact is that today's "straight" fornicators and adulterers are responsible for far more of society's ills, in terms of both fiscal impact and moral decline, than the homosexual community could ever hope to achieve.

‘Moral decline’. Oh joy – if I had a nickel for every one of these yobbos spouted off about ‘moral decline’, I’d have a whole lotta nickels. What moral decline? Just about every nation on this earth (including the USA) has been guilty of moral crimes, from inception to end. The world is filled to the brim with people that want to guard our loins and gird their own.

And thus far, I’ve not encountered one that was not a prattling idiot. Including this one.

Till the next post, then.

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Wrestling For Rights: Predators And Prey Lovers Battle For Animals

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

This more an indictment of religion than a petition for animal rights: but I detest extremists of all kinds.

How PETA twists religion to push animal "rights."

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has been widely criticized for its campaign comparing Nazi Holocaust victims to farm animals, its blind insistence that Jesus was a vegetarian, and it callous attempts to cheapen the symbols and rituals of Roman Catholicism. But a new report from the Center for Consumer Freedom indicates that these offensive gestures are just the tip of a larger iceberg.

I’m pretty much in favor for most of that, with the exception of comparing the Holocaust to farm animals. I’m a speciesist: so I tend to favor my species over others.

This eye-opening report includes an inventory of scripture contradicting PETA's claim that only vegetarians can be observant Christians, Jews, Mormons, and Muslims.

At this juncture, I’m rolling my eyes: religion, as always, muddies waters to invisibility.

A limited number of bound, printed copies are available to religious leaders and credentialed journalists.

No attributions? Interesting.

Introduction

"[H]owever sympathetically you interpret the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, it puts animals in a fundamentally different category from human beings ... I think in the end we have, reluctantly, to recognize that the Judeo-Christian religious tradition is our foe."
- Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation and PETA's philosophical godfather

At the "Animal Rights 2002" national convention, Animal Liberation author and avowed atheist Peter Singer lamented that "mainstream Christianity has been a problem for the animal movement." Two days later at the same event, a program director with the Fund for Animals issued a warning: "If we are not able to bring the churches, the synagogues, and the mosques around to the animal rights view," he cautioned, "we will never make large-scale progress for animal rights in the United States."

I made it quite evident in 2009 how I felt about Singer and his utilitarianism: my verdict still stands in that regard.

In the hope of converting Planet Earth's religious majority into vegetarians, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has taken these challenges seriously. The group regularly searches for "faith-based campaigners" to spread the gospel of vegetarianism. And like Peter Singer, acknowledged by PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk as her life's inspiration, the group's own odd evangelism actively seeks to confront and challenge the beliefs of Jews, Catholics, Protestant Christians, Mormons, and Muslims -- often in deliberate defiance of their respective scriptures.

The whole problem here, is that when you fight fire with fire, you end up with nothing but ash. In those imaginary worlds flooded with allegorical whimsy, no two interpretations will agree.

We’re better off convincing the believers they believe in crap, than trying to reason with them on their own terms.

PETA generally avoids alienating Hindus, whose "bad karma" prohibitions against killing most animals have endeared them to animal rightists. But Hindu law expressly permits eating meat. Similarly, the Buddhist world has (so far) been spared PETA's impious tantrums, although many Buddhists eat meat -- including the Dalai Lama.

‘Impious’? Well, the article was written to try to ‘bridge’ the gaps.

In its religious outreach, as with everything else the group attempts, PETA has blindly pursued offensive strategies without regard for the consequences. Instead of earning a reputation for "kindness," "compassion," and other qualities associated with religious faithfulness, PETA pursues campaigns that offend, provoke, and otherwise show contempt for the faithful.

Shit, what playbook is the author reading? Religious faithfulness usually lacks any real kindness or compassion: it’s the temperament of the people. Or as I like to say, it’s about biology, not ideology.

PETA claims -- despite ample evidence to the contrary -- that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian. (The six-volume, 7,000-page Anchor Bible Dictionary doesn't even include an entry for "vegetarianism.") A PETA website urges Muslims to eat no meat, in open contradiction to the Qur'an.

There’s ample evidence that Jebus didn’t exist – but that’s a glosser.

PETA holds protests at houses of worship, even suing one church that tried to protect its members from Sunday-morning harassment. Its billboards and advertisements taunt Christians with the message that livestock (not Jesus) died for their sins.

That’s somewhat overboard – what people do with their own time is nobody’s business.

PETA declares, contrary to a wealth of rabbinical teaching, that ritual kosher slaughter is inherently cruel and barbarous. It directs its Jewish members (and any other Jews who will listen) to abstain from eating lamb during the Passover seder. And the group's infamous "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign crassly compares the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide with farm animals.

Way overboard – also a non sequitor.

Along the way, PETA has considered "Thou Shalt Not Steal" a commandment of convenience, lifting copyrighted materials without permission from a Catholic religious order, a popular television show, and even the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. PETA's mission to bring carnivores under the tofu tent routinely ignores prohibitions against "taking the Lord's name in vain." And the group's official endorsement of arson and other violence against animal-rights targets comes most often from its leading parsnip pulpitarian, a man who publicly holds himself up as an example of "Christian mercy" while privately advocating "blowing stuff up and smashing windows" and "burning meat trucks."

I spent half an hour googling, trying to find somewhere where somebody got killed. With no luck. There are crazy extremist in every group: we even find them sometimes in the ranks of atheists (though not very often: usually it’s some raging anti-Semitic nutcase, or a conspiracy loon. Sigh.).

Because of PETA's obnoxious and often hateful rhetoric (and its brazen association with the violent underbelly of the animal rights movement), its voice is frequently condemned by mainstream religious leaders and increasingly unwelcome among worshippers.

It’s always a mistake to play on a level field with ‘believers’: they will almost always assume that they are on a higher moral ground than others, and rationality will likely never prevail.

Life will someday be easier, when the barbaric anachronism of religion is gone. It will make rational debate simpler, and the blind adherence to outdated rules irrelevant.

As to the other topic? Medical studies tell us that humans should eat a balanced diet – an excess of one food group over another is usually not healthy. Should we treat livestock better? Of course we should – they taste better that way.

But inflicting pain and terror on lesser species? That’s bad news. It shows a callous side to the human condition that we need to change.

Till the next post, then.

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And The Good News Is…Genocide Is Okay, As Long As It’s Been Divinely Rubber-Stamped?

Cross-posted @ the Atheist Oasis
I’m sure we’ve all heard of the Good News Club – those purveyors of putrid purloined mythology. It’s enough to gag the more rational among us.

This week’s gem is about…advocating genocide

The Good News Club, an after-school club sponsored by a group called the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), is offering bible lessons to public school children that include the biblical story of God telling Saul to kill the godless Amalekites.

In the bible, 1 Samuel (15:3) says: "Now go, attack the Amalekites, and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys."

So it’s not enough to wipe out everyone down to the last infant, but their livestock is also under suspicion of…what? ‘Godlessness?’.

However, some people are concerned that this story will teach genocide to children, as various faiths have tried to use it to justify violent acts, reports the U.K. Guardian.

Insert ‘Abramanic’ in between ‘various’ and ‘faiths’. Oh, but wait: we can’t offend the little weirdoes, can we?

On their web site, the CEF says: "As with all CEF ministries, the purpose of Good News Club is to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living."

Polluting their brains, you mean.

There over 3,000 clubs in public schools, since a 2001 Supreme Court ruling, which said that the Good News Clubs can meet in public schools in the United States after school hours on the same terms as other community groups. The kids are not required to go to the Good News Clubs and need parental permission to attend.

One can only hope that decent intelligent parents will say ‘no’.

Beyond the biblical teaching, are follow up questions that disturb critics.

‘Beyond the biblical teaching’? This is the problem with accommodating these throwbacks: the bible is a load of shit, plain and simple.

The CEF instruction manual reportedly states: "The Amalekites had heard about Israel's true and living God many years before, but they refused to believe in him. The Amalekites refused to believe in God and God had promised punishment."

Translation: the head priests made some shit up, and stoked up the rabble to go after the malcontents. The Amalekites were Semitic, after all.

"If you are asked to do something, how much of it do you need to do before you can say, 'I did it!'? If only Saul had been willing to seek God for strength to obey!"

Translation: if only old Saul had been a teeny weeny more psychotic!

A review question in the text adds: "How did King Saul only partly obey God when he attacked the Amalekites? [He did not completely destroy as God had commanded, he kept the king and some of the animals alive.]"

This is one of those items that I find truly frightening about religious people. Many many years ago (when I was studying the bible, and was giving some thought to actually ‘converting, another long story in and of itself), I started having some serious ethical doubts about the ‘holy’ book, specifically about the slaughter of the Canaanites. So I called my BAC buddy, and asked him. “Oh,” he tossed off casually, “that’s easy. The Canaanites were people of loose morality – they had too much sex with complete strangers.” (That’s not verbatim, loose paraphrase, but close enough.) I got off the phone, thought about it, and recoiled inwardly in horror. Because it’s a lousy excuse.

In the case of the Amalekites, the Talmud/Torah talks about this tribe constantly attacking and assaulting the Israelites on a regular basis. So this ‘hey gawd told us to’ is just a cover for exterminating the bad guys.

If they really were, that is. Historical analysis and comparisons between the facts and the fables show that the Talmud is a load of shit. Almost everything in it is wrong. It’s a chronicle of a bunch of barbarians patting themselves on their collective backs and making up a lot of fish stories.

Or to put it in context: it’s all mishegas.

Till the next post, then.

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Pennsylvania Joins The Freakshow Frenzy: More Misogynistic Mumbo Jumbo

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

Well, now Pennsylvania is joining the ranks of the truly demented: perhaps it should secede along with Oklahoma, Texas, and Indiana.

Biased counseling and mandatory delay

Counseling Ban/Gag Rule

Insurance Prohibition for Abortion

Other Anti-Choice Law

Refusal to Provide Medical Services

Restrictions on Low-Income Women's Access to Abortion

The rest can be read here.

Here, embedded in the state code, is where Pennsylvania stands:

"In every relevant civil or criminal proceeding in which it is possible to do so without violating the Federal Constitution, the common and statutory law of Pennsylvania shall be construed so as to extend to the unborn the equal protection of the laws and to further the public policy of this commonwealth encouraging childbirth over abortion."

When in actuality, this is in direct violation of the 14th amendment, which states unambiguously:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Until the child leaves the mother’s womb, it is unborn – it has no rights. So much for the lip-service of ‘what the Founding Fathers wanted’.

And who is at the heart of these nonsenses? Who else but Republicans. And what are their grounds for restricting the reproductive rights of women? Why, religious of course.

I for one am sick unto death of these people legislating based on their beliefs. If your beliefs are going to dictate your actions in office, then you should not be in office. Because as history shows us, religious people make the worst leaders. And the least capable of being able to weigh all options objectively and decide properly for the greater  good.

Till the next post, then.

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