What would Stephen Fry say if he were confronted by God at the pearly gates?

This is two minutes and 24 seconds worth watching:

"Bone cancer in children? What's that about? How dare you?"

"...no faith teaches people to massacre innocents." Has Barack Obama read the Bible?

President Obama was perfectly correct today to condemn the Islamic State murderers who executed American journalist James Foley, but I have to take exception to some lines in his remarks:

... They [the group known as ISIS, ISIL, or The Islamic State] have murdered Muslims -- both Sunni and Shia -- by the thousands. They target Christians and religious minorities, driving them from their homes, murdering them when they can for no other reason than they practice a different religion. They declared their ambition to commit genocide against an ancient people. So ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents. No just God would stand for what they did yesterday, and for what they do every single day. ...
--Barack Obama, 20 August 2014 [emphasis added]

We don't have to search further than the unread books sitting in every American hotel room to find a "faith that teaches people to massacre innocents":

Deuteronomy 13:6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;

7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;

8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:

9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

10 And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

11 And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.

12 If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the Lord thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying,

13 Certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known;

14 Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you;

15 Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword.

16 And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the Lord thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again.

17 And there shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand: that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers;

18 When thou shalt hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the Lord thy God.
--King James Version [emphasis added]

We have to stop paying lip service to this god of the three Abrahamic faiths as if he were nothing but a benign and peaceful poltergeist.

How do we atheists worship on Easter weekend?

I'll start by watching and photographing the wildlife in my backyard.  

This guy visited me earlier this week on his way to steal some eggs. I'm sure that he's hard boiling and coloring them now and preparing to hide them behind trees and in downspouts and birdbaths of Christian homes (this traditional and ancient leporine curse has been misinterpreted by Christians as a blessing for centuries).

"... beliefs that would shame even a gorilla ..." The Bible Belt is voting today.

In honor of the GOP primaries taking place tonight in Alabama and Mississippi where up to 81% of the voters are self-described "White Evangelical Christians" and  45-52% of the voters are stupid enough to think that President Obama is a Muslim and only 12-14% believe he's a Christian (a triumph of white-flight Christian schools and home schooling lazily reinforcing treasured prejudices and stereotypes), the quote of this minor election night comes from the mouth of a young Alexander Portnoy, recording his first impressions of a visit to the home of Christian:

"Tacked above the Girardi sink is a picture of Jesus Christ floating up to Heaven in a pink nightgown. How disgusting can human beings be! The Jews I despise for their narrow-mindedness, their self-righteousness, the incredibly bizarre sense that these cave men who are my parents and relatives have somehow gotten of their superiority -- but when it comes to tawdriness and cheapness, to beliefs that would shame even a gorilla, you simply cannot top the goyim. What kind of base and brainless schmucks are these people to worship somebody who, number one, never existed, and number two, if he did, looking as he does in that picture, was without a doubt The Pansy of Palestine. In a pageboy haircut, with a Palmolive complexion -- and wearing a gown that I realize today must have come from Fredericks of Hollywood. Enough of God and the rest of that garbage! Down with religion and human groveling! Up with socialism and the dignity of man! [...]"

--Philip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint

(p. 168 of 1969 hardcover)

I hope I offended somebody.

Once again, George Carlin sums up everything, in this case the difference between a Romney and a Santorum (and the bullshit that goes by the name of religion)

George Carlin sums up the battle between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum in the first sentence of this 10-minute video, but watch the whole thing.

"In the bullshit department, the businessman can't hold a candle to a clergyman..."
-- George Carlin

Happy Chanukah my true blue liberalites!

If I ever were to throw off my atheism for a set of beliefs in the irrational, I might very well choose to be led by Matisyahu.
If you don't know these two live versions of  "King Without a Crown," you're in for a treat (and I hope they lead you to look for others on YouTube).  These sure beat one more repetition of Adam Sandler's "Hanukkah Song".
Enjoy!

Like a King without his Crown 
You keep fallin' down 
You really want to live but can't get rid of your frown 
You're tryin' to reach unto the heights and wind up down on the ground 
Givin' up your pride - then ya heard a sound 
Out of night comes day, out of day comes light 
Nullified to the One like sunlight in a ray, 
Makin' room for his love for a fire gonna blaze,
Make room for his love and a fire gonna blaze. 

Happy Chanukah!
And to all my Christian brethren out there? Season's Greetings!

Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

"The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more."
– Christopher Hitchens (The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer, 2007)

With attacks on everyone from Saddam Hussein to Mother Teresa, Christopher Hitchens was able to make enemies everywhere he went. I considered him an enemy starting in 2002 and 2003 and as long as the Iraq War raged.  He was one of the most dangerous supporters of the war because of his background in literature and the Left and he seemed to have given the subject of attacking Iraq more than a second's thought. Leaders in the US and the UK were able to point to his arguments as justifications for their aggression. Maybe only Judith Miller and the New York Times are more guilty of providing 'liberal' intellectual cover for war criminals. 
I would comment on the significance of the fact that he died on the day that the US was formally ending the war in Iraq, but we know (and he would agree) that such juxtapositions are purely random and coincidental.

"How can I trust you with power if you don't pray?"

Newt Gingrich finally gets his five inches of fame on TrueBlueLiberal dot org while he's basking in his Warholian fifteen minutes at the top of the GOP Presidential polls. The short video here from which the quote in the post title was taken comes from a month ago in Las Vegas

But I was prompted to run this video now because of a disgusting spectacle this evening called the Thanksgiving Family Forum hosted by Frank Luntz and attended by all the non-Mormon GOP candidates (I don't know if Huntsman and Romney were disqualified by their non-traditional form of Christianity, or if they just saw this as a trap that would force candidates to express their batshit craziest ideas before a rabid audience whose biggest cheers were for banning gay marriage and nuking Iran). The intolerant ideas expressed by Gingrich last month were only the starting point tonight in the general agreement of Santorum, Gingrich, Bachmann, Cain, Paul, and Rick Perry that Jesus Christ was their true leader. It made me immediately change my profile on Twitter so that the first word of description after my name is "Atheist". Those of us who aren't using myths to guide our lives need to come out of the closet. This is a secular nation, but it's under attack by Christianist extremists who want to enshrine their religious beliefs in the laws that govern the rest of us.

If we let our fellow citizens know that we can live our lives without following Jesus or Zeus or Thor, it may be that sometime in our lifetimes, we'll even see an openly rational President living in the White House.

Wedge Issue Update: Reaffirming A National Motto That Divides Us.

When I wrote 10 days ago "Which Wedge Will Win the 2012 GOP Primary?" I never thought that the wedges would start showing up so early in the race.  I mentioned "Birtherism" as my Wedge 1 as a joke, because I never thought any of the 2012 candidates would bring it up.  So, of course, in last Sunday's Parade magazine with Rick Perry on the cover, the Texas Governor did exactly that, with a wink, but brought up Barack Obama's birth certificate nonetheless, knowing full well which constituency he was speaking to.

But Wedge number 3 on my list, "In God We Trust", has also reared its divisive head.  This UPI article today, "GOP to Pass Bill to Affirm 'In God We Trust'" gives some details about the effort, led by Virginia Representative Randy Forbes (R) to reaffirm IGWT as the national motto and "supporting and encouraging the public display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools and other government institutions."  The vote should take place this coming Tuesday, taking precedence over mere jobs bills. The following video tells a little more about Congressional Prayer Caucus leader Randy Forbes and the GOP effort to strengthen this sad relic of the McCarthy years.


Our longtime unofficial motto mentioned in the video above, E pluribus unum  (Out of the many, one) was put on the seal of the United States by Act of Congress in 1782, but it was never made the official "National Motto" so that left the door open to declare another, less inclusive, official motto in the McCarthy era.
IGWT was first put on a few coins in another divisive period, the Civil War, but the era of 1950s intolerance saw "god" rammed down America's throat officially with the words "under god" added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, the phrase IGWT ordered  on all coins and currency in the mid fifties, and IGWT finally made The National Motto in the US Code in 1956.  The new official motto -- forced through Congress in the time of the second Red Scare -- is not even as old as I am, so I'll go with E pluribus unum, which has served the nation well since the 18th century, rather than the recent one that excludes a significant percentage of our population that no longer trusts in old myths.
But causing conflict and excluding people who are unlike him is exactly what Randy Forbes is doing, isn't it?

Knowledge Defeats Blind Faith (once again)

It would be interesting to know which came first for most of the respondents, their knowledge about religions or their atheism/agnosticism, but as reported around the web today, atheists and agnostics are more knowledgeable about the world's religions than those who practice one of those religions. Click here for more details from today's LA Times.

A collection of ten of the questions from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life are posted at CNN.com. TBL had no trouble getting 10 of 10 correct, but it does seem like they must have chosen the 10 easiest questions (or I am very advanced on the atheistic scale). Take it yourself by clicking here.