left biblioblography: January 2016

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Allegories Gone Wild: Bye Bye To Beck, Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish


Hey guess what people? Glen Beck, rhetorical idiot extraordinaire, is deporting himself!


  Beck says he’s getting ready to flee to Israel for end times


  Glenn Beck hosted a studio audience on his television program last night, where he revealed that he has ordered his staff to find a location outside of the United States from which he can continue to broadcast his programs once American society collapses and the government shuts down his network.


What a surprise he’s in for: ain’t gonna happen.



  Beck fielded a question from a woman who had relocated her family from California to Texas based upon Beck's warnings of a coming social collapse and wanted Beck's advice on how best to prepare her children for what is to come, to which Beck responded that he and his wife are going to start reading the apocalyptic "Left Behind" series to their own children in preparation for the End Times.


Talk about the blind leading the blind! And they’ll probably praise the ditch and claim that it’s a sign from their imaginary friend.



  Beck revealed that he recently had conversations with two different people who warned that the American economy and social structure are on the verge of total collapse, which prompted him to tell his staff to get to work finding a location in Israel to which they can flee when it happens.


Which two people? Don’t these assclowns love name-dropping?



  "We have to pick up our pace on finding another place to broadcast," Beck told his staff. "I need to know if I can get to Jerusalem, where they won't shut this down and we can be able to broadcast into the United States. This could end quickly."


Or, to quote Malcolm from Firefly, “That’s a long wait for a train that ain’t comin’.”



  Beck's young daughter happened to be in the room when he made that declaration and was understandably upset by it, but Beck said that we cannot shield our children from the realities of the world because "they're the giants that are going to fix this, they have to know."


Newflash: your supernatural rubbish has absolutely no basis in the real world.



  As such, Beck and his wife are going to be reading the "Left Behind" series to their children because "they have to know that this might be the time ... You have an army on earth now that says they are the army of the Antichrist, they are the army of Armageddon."


Shee-it, even an atheist like me knows that the ‘Rapture’ is just another made-up story cobbled together from other disjointed fables. That’s okay: if his family is normal (supposition), they’ll likely be telling how their dad thought the world was gonna end when it didn’t, and rub his stupid nose into it. That is if they’re normal.



  Beck, of course, is doing all that he can to prevent this from happening, which is why he has endorsed Ted Cruz for president.


It’s like a bad movie. According to the Christians, it’s going to happen. And their imaginary pal would likely be somewhat upset that his ‘plans’ were thwarted. But then, we know the delusional make a point of changing goal posts at a moment’s notice.



  "This is why I'm endorsing Ted Cruz and I'm going out this weekend" to Iowa, he said. "If I could change one mind, I am not going to sit at home because I know what the consequences are."


Yeah Beck, the only minds you’re going to change are feeble ones.


But, to butcher a saying by old Billy Shakespeare, “Nothing became his country but his leaving of it.”


It’s always hard to separate the histrionics from the publicity stunts. I’m guessing the former here, and will gleefully laugh when again, Glen Blecch!, proves what an idiot he is. Which isn’t hard to do.


What would be fun, is if Congress passed a bill banning this blithering loudmouth from coming back from Israel. Hell yeah!


Till the next post then.

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Sunday, January 24, 2016

Allegories Gone Wild: Stick To Fucking Pancakes, Bickle, Hitler Was A Monster

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis


It is the year of frustration – when the Republican clown car spews yet another assclown. Assclown this week? Ted Cruz.


I call him an assclown, because the religious right have their metaphorical hand so far up his ass, he may as well be Charlie McCarthy sans the monocle. Also, he has another wingnut popping out of some other orifice.



  IHOP Head Mike Bickle Predicts Coming "Prison Camps" For Jews


  According to Kansas City-based International House of Prayer founder and evangelist Mike Bickle--who played a major role in the August 6th "The Response" prayer event that served as the de facto kickoff event for Rick Perry's presidential bid--in the near future Jews who refuse to convert to Christianity and move to Israel will be pursued by "hunters" sent by God and can expect to be thrown into "prison camps" and "death camps" (see embedded video footage, from Bickle sermons)


  IHOP Kansas head Bickle says that "the most famous [heaven-sent] hunter in recent history is a man named Adolf Hitler", and has claimed that Jews collectively are "under the discipline of God because of... perversion and sin."  


  In Mike Bickle's view, a lucky one third of the world's Jewish population to survive the apocalyptic persecution he predicts will "get radically saved and become lovesick worshipers of Jesus." Bickle has expounded these prophecies, which he claims are clearly described in Biblical scripture, in multiple sermons from 2004 through 2009.


I don’t know which ‘bible’ he’s referring to, but he is obviously a futurist, as opposed to a preterist or historicist. He’s also a fucking lunatic – really? Your god sent Hitler to punish the chosen people? Lay off the crack pipe buddy.


Oh, and get this: Oprah is the false prophet? I never cared for her psychobabble bullshit, but this is way too much. Listen to what else Herr Assclown says:



  Ted Cruz Welcomes Endorsement Of Mike Bickle, Who Believes Oprah Is A Forerunner To The Antichrist


  Back in 2011, when Texas governor Rick Perry was planning his first run for the presidency, he kicked off his campaign with a massive prayer rally in Houston called "The Response." The event was the source of considerable controversy because Perry organized it in partnership with a whole host of radical Religious Right activists, including several members of the New Apostolic Reformation, a collection of self-proclaimed modern day apostles and prophets who believe that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, they are capable of performing greater miracles than even Jesus himself.


  One of the key leaders in the NAR movement is Mike Bickle, who also played a central role in organizing Perry's prayer rally. Bickle is the founder of the International House of Prayer, a controversial missionary organization in Kansas City, Missouri, that some critics have labeled a cult and which is best known for engaging in nonstop 24-hour-a-day prayer in preparation for the End Times and for its anti-gay activism in Uganda.


  Bickle, unsurprisingly is a demon-fighting radical who believes that gay marriage is "rooted in the depths of hell," that homosexuality "opens the door to the demonic realm" and that Oprah Winfrey is a forerunner of the Antichrist.


Ta-DAH! Yet another right-wing wacko who would force his religion down our throat.


Really, if this fucknut were touting Zoroastrianism or Manichaeism, or the Popul Voh, then everyone would be dismissing this madman. Due to the ubiquity of religion in our culture, these bozos not only get a free pass for their obnoxious delusions, they get followers and applause.


Priests, rabbis, imams, ministers – all these people are parasites, unable to get and hold down any real jobs or contribute to the world at large unless their respective delusions are engaged. Bickle included.


The time of frothing madmen spewing their garbage to the gullible will soon be at end. Maybe not, but one can hope.


Till the next post then.
 

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Sunday, January 17, 2016

More On The Madness Of Muslims: Because When You’re An Animal All That Counts Is Blood And Guts

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis


These sort of atrocities deserve to be denounced, and the perpetrators deserve to be put down like the rabid dogs they are:


  Syria says IS group killed 300 in attacks in country's east


  BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's government said Sunday that Islamic State militants slaughtered 300 people in an "appalling massacre" committed in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour in daylong attacks that saw the extremists make significant advances in the contested region.
   

  The state-run SANA news agency said that most of those killed in Saturday's attacks were elderly people, women and children while opposition activists said many of the victims were Syrian soldiers and pro-government militiamen and their families.


  The killings are some of the worst carried out by the extremist group, which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq and has killed thousands of people in both countries.


  The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which documents all sides of the Syria conflict through activists on the ground, said late Saturday that at least 135 people were killed. It said around 80 of them were soldiers and pro-government militiamen and the rest civilians.


  It added that many of them were shot dead or beheaded.


  The Islamic State group controls most of Deir el-Zour province and much of the capital with the same name, while the government controls several districts in the northern part of the city and the adjacent military airport. Most of the casualties took place in the area of Baghaliyeh near the city.


  The Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen TV, which is close to the Syrian government, also reported a massacre and said IS killed dozens of people, including women and children, and threw their bodies in the Euphrates River. It said the group took more than 400 civilians hostage.


  The reports could not be independently confirmed.


  The IS-affiliated Aamaq news agency had reported a large-scale multi-pronged attack on Deir el-Zour that began with a suicide bombing. On Sunday, it reported that the group expanded its control of areas west and northwest of Deir el-Zour, adding that around 110 Syrian government forces were killed and at least five others captured.


  It said the group seized control of Baghaliyeh and surrounding areas during the fighting.


There will be those who declare that ‘radical Islam’ must go. But the issue is, how to separate the moderates from the extremists? On one hand we have a religion that seems to enable psychotic assholes, on the other, it is nigh impossible to dictate to other humans what they should think, believe, or behave in matters ordinary or spectacular.


All religion will have to be proclaimed and proven obsolete. People who flip out and start sputtering fanatical foam will need medication. Yet we cannot medicate the entire species – it draws far too close to fascism for peace of mind.


And Muslims – the extreme ones – advocate slavery, slaughter, behave no better than any barbarians from history, show no signs of ‘enlightenment’ (none that would fit in any 21st century civilization), declare themselves the sole inheritors of the ‘truth’, and take whatever they want by force. No surprise there – it’s what the Christians used to do, and still try to do, even in this day and age.


All ‘western’ religions are bullies by nature. The proponents of such will (at any early opportunity) force their ‘truth’ on others by sword or bullet or torture, where applicable.


It is both saddening and maddening, that the mad dogs are at it again.


Till the next post then.

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Sunday, January 10, 2016

And The World Changes, One Mind At A Time

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis


Lately my web searches have been more…gratifying. Topics that I’ve been carrying on about for years seem to occur to others more often. No, not trying to infer that I’ve inspired others: it’s just some of these subjects are obviously flawed and stupid, and other people are figuring it out. The only thing I know I can take credit for on the interwebs is the use of the word ‘decalogue’. Back in the year 2005, a search for that single word generated zero hits. Now? Google it yourself. That’s not to say I invented the word; it was in usage long before that. It was uncommon back then is all, not common usage. But I know I was the first (back in the days of reluctantatheist.com, which has long been defunct). Can’t prove it. Not a huge milestone either (for me or anyone else).


But I digress.


It warms the cockles of me heart, though, to see so many of my prior points mirrored somewhere else.


For your edification:



  The religious have gone insane: The separation of church and state — and Scalia from his mind


  The headline on the News Nerd was almost too good to be true: “American Psychological Association to Classify Belief in God As a Mental Illness.”  A study, the story beneath it read, had led the APA to conclude that “a strong and passionate belief in a deity or higher power, to the point where it impairs one’s ability to make conscientious decisions about common sense matters, will now be classified as a mental illness.”  Faith’s recurrent lethality was adduced: “Every year thousands of people die after refusing life-saving treatment on religious grounds.”  Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, said the article, refuse lifesaving transfusions (on account of biblical prohibitions against the drinking of blood).


  Most gratifyingly, for a rationalist, the author quoted a certain Dr. Lillian Andrews, who opined that, “Religious belief and the angry God phenomenon has caused chaos, destruction, death, and wars for centuries.  The time for evolving into a modern society and classifying these archaic beliefs as a mental disorder has been long overdue.”


  Finally, I thought, the educated elite is beginning to awaken to the threat that accepting, without evidence, the truth of comprehensive propositions about our cosmos (that is, religion, in all its inglorious  permutations), poses to the mental health of our society!


  A “strong and passionate belief” in a (nonexistent) God does our world immeasurable harm: look no further than ISIS or al-Qaida.  In fact, look no further than the damage religion causes to progressive causes of every sort (and thus to our psychological well-being) in the United States, from women’s reproductive rights to same-sex marriage to teaching science in schools to depriving federal coffers of $82.5 billion a year (in tax exemptions).  Consider the enrichment of all sorts of faith-charlatans who thrive off the gullibility of millions of Americans.  Recall the sick “purity movements” that allow meddlesome parents to ruin the lives of their daughters.


  I could go on.  In any case, it was to be expected that sooner or later psychologists would catch on to the quasi-psychotic elements (including detachment from reality, belief in spirits, hearing “the voice of the Lord, and so on) inherent in religion.


  But no!  I was wrong!  The fine-print disclaimer at the foot of the News Nerd’s page ruthlessly dispelled my elation: The story, like the others the site publishes, was “for entertainment purposes only,” and “purely satirical.”  In other words, a spoof.  The hour was not nigh; psychologists were not yet ready to diagnose firm belief in God as what it is: an unhealthy delusion.  Men in white jumpsuits won’t be forcing the faithful into straightjackets any time soon.


  (Yet would that it were so!  Imagine, so many Supreme Court justices and Republican politicians, from Antonin Scalia to Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, disqualified in one fell swoop on mental health grounds from holding public office!)


  In fact, religion, so potentially dangerous that the Founding Fathers established a “wall of separation” to keep it clear of our affairs of state, continues to enjoy an entirely unmerited imprimatur of respectability.  Yet the satire in the News Nerd’s piece derives its efficacy from an obvious truth: belief in a deity motivates people to behave in all sorts of ways — some childish and pathetic, others harmful, a few outright criminal — most of which, to the nonbeliever at least, mimic symptoms of an all-encompassing mental illness, if of widely varying severity.


  Why childish?  A majority of adults in one of the most developed countries on Earth believe, in all seriousness, that an invisible, inaudible, undetectable “father” exercises parental supervision over them, protecting them from evil (except when he doesn’t), and, for the mere price of surrendering their faculty of reason and behaving in ways spelled out in various magic books, will ensure their postmortem survival.  Wishful thinking characterizes childhood, yes, but, where the religious are concerned, not only.  That is childish.


  True, belief, say the polls, is waning, but that it persists at all, given the advances of science in the past couple of centuries, and especially since Darwin published “The Origin of Species” in 1859, does nothing if not lead a rationalist to despair.  Americans, by and large, cling to their religion (and, yes, their guns).  To have all the resources to begin reliably fathoming the mysteries of the universe, and yet to cast them aside for slavish fidelity to primitive fables (most of which deserve no more “reverence” than tales from the Brothers Grimm) that no one past the age of six or seven should believe . . .   well, such is the very definition of pathetic.


  Harmful?  Let’s leave aside the mass-market megachurch “God of Love” finding little or no textual support in the Old or New Testament, and take the terrifying deity as the sacred canon depicts Him.  One Bible verse alone (Nahum 1:2) describes Him as vengeful, jealous, wrathful, and furious. Or let’s take His supposedly more clement son, who orders us (says Matthew 25:41) cast into everlasting hellfire for trivial transgressions.  Who benefits from the misconception that a permanent, inescapable, unimpeachable tyrant oversees our thoughts and deeds, including those of a most intimate nature?  The life- and society-damaging neuroses generated by this crazed delusion afflict many of those around us.  That is harmful.


  But the harm is greater than that.  All in all, the most pernicious constellation of rubbish misbeliefs forming the core of the Abrahamic faiths concerns women, blamed for sin itself (the “original sin”), and the Fall of all mankind.  Every mainstream misogynistic superstition stems from the rotten old myth of Genesis: woman as made not in God’s image, but from one of Adam’s spare parts, and thus inferior to man.  Woman as temptress, woman as unreliable, woman as “unclean.”  The rest of the Old and New Testaments inculcate an array of injurious ideas: that women depreciate after their initial sexual encounter, and serve only to bear children and satisfy the lust of their mates.  That they must submit to their husbands “as unto the Lord,” keep silent in church, cover their (shameful) bodies and heads, and never have authority over men.  It goes without saying that none of this fosters mental health.


It goes at length, in a similar vein.


And it is ridiculous, it is rubbish. A slave-master mentality is fostered in all of the Big 3 Abrahamic religions of the West. Whatever your imaginary friend dictates to you, that is law. No argument. The trio of rubbish emphasizes this – even Islam pushes complete submission. To whom? A bunch of words in a book written by a violent pedophile. Just name your imaginary friend something better than ‘Bob’ or ‘Harvey’ – an esoteric nonsense name like allah or yaweh, and all is well! Clean bill of mental health automatically.


The Age Of Crazy is nearly at an end. Let reason dictate our course.


Of course stone-cold crazies like Scalia (hey, you say there’s no proof of evolution, you’re a fucknut plain & simple, don’t care how over-educated you think you are) or Cruz, or Ryan will be wailing and whining about how this (or that, or whatever) doesn’t count not because it doesn’t, it’s because they say it doesn’t. Hoo-boy, can anyone say confirmation bias?


Religion is and should be consider a lunatic fringe, kept around for comic relief, because it is extremely amusing once you’ve shed the shackles of religious psychoses.


So keep laughing, keep pointing, keep ridiculing, keep criticizing. It’s still a long way off and uphill, but it’s looking less Sisyphean each year.


Till the next post then.


 

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Sunday, January 03, 2016

One Year Closer To A Better World


Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis
It’s another year past, the inevitability of entropy that nibbles away at the fringes of our existence.


The world has improved in many ways. The stigma of being an atheist is fading, as more flock to our worldview. Religion is diminishing slowly, rationalism chipping away at the fairy-tale façade. The wholly bibble is taken
a lot less seriously these days, as its obnoxious a-historicity, constant and egregious contradictions, and otherwise obsolete nonsenses are continuously called out.


The sexual shackles of the slave-master relationship that is religion are now loosening as well. Gay marriage in America has changed the landscape of loving for years to come.


Perhaps before I die, I will get to see:


1. Creationists being treated like the nutters they are,


2. The Catholic Church becomes a distant, unpleasant memory,


3. All 3 of the Big 3 (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) are reduced to the sad little jokes they really are, and


4. All peoples are treated equally.


All of them are nice dreams – well worth striving for. Keep fighting the good fight, folks: there is a light at the end of the tunnel.


Happy New Year, and here’s to another year closer to closing down religion.


Till the next post then.

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