I am the newest contributor to A-News Reports!

Through a series of chance encounters and sheer luck, even though I don’t believe in luck, I have become the latest contributor to A-News Reports!

ANR is a news and blog site founded by Lee Moore and Brian Allen of the A-News Podcast, which I have also become a co-host of through even more series of chance encounters, even though they initially wanted just Shayrah as a co-host. It has tons of great writers and journalists, and it is a privilege to be able to work with them.

Since I’m working there now, you should totally check out my first ever post as a contributor for their site. It’s about the woman in Oklahoma that said on live television that she’s an atheist when Wolf Blitzer asked her if she thanked God for leaving her home in time to miss a tornado.

Even MORE Stupid Things That Ray Comfort Says

I can’t help myself. Ray Comfort’s page is so full of ignorance and arrogance, I just can’t help myself.

Like with the last times, I don’t think that I need to say much about these posts. They tend to speak for themselves, but I will respond when I see fit.

What Ray Comfort is doing right now is known as Hoyle’s Fallacy, also known as the Boeing 747 Argument or the “junkyard tornado,” named after Fred Hoyle, an English astronomer.

Ray is just making it into a story made to lead people on instead of just coming out and saying, “Life starting spontaneously is highly improbable and is as improbable as a tornado going through a junkyard and making a Boeing 747.”

The problem with this argument is that no biologist has ever stated that life just sprung up into existence in one step. It probably took hundreds-of-millions of years to create – and I bite my tongue when using that word – what we might consider life, let alone the first eukaryote.

It seems to be running theme with Ray. When asked something difficult, he’s very good at skirting around the question. He would be a very good politician.

Whales did not become walking amphibians. You know nothing of our evolutionary timeline or the phylogenetic tree.

“…give me one example of observable evidence for it (the Scientific Method). Not hundreds of rabbit trail link, not videos to watch–just one example that can be observed here and now–not over millions of years.” For dinosaurs to evolve into modern-day birds, it took millions of generations slightly changing with each generation over millions of years. That’s how evolution works.

You can’t just look outside your window and see a bird transform in front of your eyes into a new species. If you understood evolution, you would know that, Ray, but you obviously don’t. You just want to make it look ridiculous in the eyes of equally uneducated and willfully ignorant sheeple.

Unlike with Christianity though, I can see evidence for tornadoes almost every day. I can see pictures and videos of them on the internet and television. I can see radar footage of them and the storms that they were formed from. I can see the destruction that is left in their wake.

We don’t see any evidence for a god, let alone the Christian god. If you have any, please show it to us. And no, tornadoes are not evidence for your god. Neither are the wonders or perceived complexities of the Universe.

Here’s a nice link about the contradictions in the Bible when it comes to God lying. I love the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible.

Just ugh…

“The tragedy of any human grief doesn’t shake the Christian’s faith in God.” Really? It shook my faith. My maternal grandmother, my paternal grandmother, and then my father all dying within three years of each other really shook my faith.

It wasn’t the main cause, but it led me to read the Bible from cover-to-cover for the first time (and it wouldn’t be the last). I wasn’t angry at God. Quite the opposite. I was in search of God.

Nonetheless, to say that children had to die from tornadoes over the past few days, all because a woman ate from a tree, is completely immoral. We didn’t Fall. God did.

The desire to live and the aversion to death is not something God put in us. If He did, then He put the same will in all animals. How are we special then?

Yes, great things. Like all of the Israelite campaigns where they slaughtered men, women, children, infants, and animals.

See, but we have evidence for our claims, as ridiculous as you may find them. Your talking donkeys and snakes have none.

“For every one who has your experience there are 10,000 who come to know God through the reading of His amazing Word.” Then why has Christianity been decreasing around the world and atheism increasing?

But God doesn’t punish the thought crime of wanting to kill the President. No, God punishes those who simply think about having sex. Those kinds of crimes are punishable in Christianity. Thinking differently or “immorally” are the crimes of Christianity.

Asked to prove the Bible correct, uses the Bible.

Ray, you have no idea what science is, how it works, or how it is used. The fact that you passed high school, I’m assuming, is astonishing to me.

I just realised that I only got through about five days of posts. It felt like a lifetime of stupid.

Be sure to check out all of the other stupid things that Ray Comfort has said that I have posted.

‘Real Women Don’t Wear Revealing Clothing’

I recently shared a photo from a Facebook page called Islam vs Atheism (intelligent discussion).

“Real Men Don’t Rape. Real Women Don’t Wear Revealing Clothes.”

So I posted a quick, tweet sized response to it on my page where I said, “Real women wear whatever they want and should not be slut-shamed and then blamed for being raped.”

I was confused as to why a page that is supposedly about discussion between Muslims and atheists was posting something that didn’t really seem to be promoting discussion and instead having inflammatory, misogynistic, and sex-negative statements.

Then I started looking at their page and realised that they don’t really promote discussion at all. It just seems to be a page about promoting Islam and bashing atheists, secularism, and the West.

I also looked at the very long description that is given to the photo by the page after I posted my response.

Just skimming it for five seconds made me realise that this was just another post that was promoting Islam. More so, this post was bashing Western society and blaming them for the high rates of rape and other sexual abuse that happens in the West.

They start off by asking the question, “Why is Sexual Abuse so Rampant in Western societies?”

When you look at just the numbers, countries like Sweden and Australia have some of the highest rates of rape in the world and almost top the charts for the Western world, while countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa have almost nonexistent rape statistics.

When you look at the various reasons as to why, then it starts to make sense. According to the Times of India, “[The] definition of rape differs from country to country and that, coupled with how well the crime is reported and recorded, determines what the numbers are finally going to look like.”

In certain countries in the Middle East, a woman being raped may not be considered rape and instead as premarital sex, which they will eventually be imprisoned for. And because of this, women in these countries will probably avoid reporting their rapes for fear of being imprisoned, beaten, lashed, or even executed.

There is no universal standard that countries use for classifying and reporting rape. It is all completely subjective based on the country and culture. What may be considered rape in Europe may not be considered rape in the Middle East or even in the United States.

Then there is the issue of under reporting rape in the first place. As touched on just a second ago, women in the Middle East are hardly ever going to report being raped, and if they do, then it probably is not considered rape by the police.

In the United States and Europe, it is taken more seriously and more is done about it. Women are very afraid to report their rapes even there (then there is the issue of men being raped and hardly ever reporting that), but countries that don’t imprison women for being raped are probably going to report rape cases more.

Now that I’ve addressed that. Let’s move onto their actual arguments.

(1) The secular, liberal way of life defines the purpose of life as pursuing the maximum enjoyments of the here and now and living life to the max. Happiness is therefore viewed as fulfilling sensual pleasures and actions are decided based upon the desires of individuals.

No. It does not define the purpose of life that way. Secularism does not define the purpose of life. Even secular humanism does not give a purpose or meaning to life. It gives us goals and morals, but not a purpose.

Consequently, personal whims become the basis of deciding right, and wrong.

No, they aren’t.

Essentially this means that every individual in society is free to dress and pursue any relationship they wish and decide for themselves how to satisfy their sexual instinct in whatever way is pleasurable to them.

While I disagree with the premises you are using to come to this conclusion, I essentially agree with this particular point. Every individual should be free to dress however they want and pursue any relationship they want, as long as everyone is consenting.

Anyone reading this for the first time should be able to easily see where you are going with this. That because “personal whims” are how we decide right and wrong and that we are free to satisfy our sexual instincts, then people should be free to rape by the strawman of secular liberalism that you have erected.

Securing liberal freedoms such as personal and sexual freedom is therefore set as the priority of liberal societies up and above family and community wellbeing. All this nurtures a dangerous environment within society.

You are right. This kind of mentality would nurture a dangerous environment within society, but your argument is simply a strawman and not an accurate representation of “secular, liberal,” which is a strawman term in it of itself.

(2) This harmful view towards the satisfaction of the sexual instinct has ramifications on society. Open relationships, promiscuity, and the sexualisation of men and women in advertisement, films, TV, music, magazines, books, pornography, and the beauty industry has become the norm in the UK and other secular liberal states.

I’m in an open relationship, more so polyamorous. I don’t think that me having two partners has caused any harm for society.

Promiscuity is not causing harm to society. Having unsafe sex, with anyone, can cause problems with the possible spread of STDs. Hence why I emphasised unsafe sex. If we taught people about their bodies and how to protect themselves, then that would not be a problem.

Even children have been sexualised – their clothes, music they listen to, the TV shows they watch, and even the computer games and toys they play with have become increasingly sexually provocative.

I actually agree. That is wrong. The sexualisation of children is wrong.

That would also make the burka wrong. It is sexualising girls by saying that everything they do in public is sexual and shameful, therefore they must be covered head to toe.

(3) Within such a society where the sexual instinct is constantly urged and triggered, and the mindset of satisfying desires dominates over the mindset of doing what is right, it is inevitable that many men and women will seek to fulfil their sexual desires in any manner they see fit and through whatever means that is available to them if they feel that they can get away with it, even if that means abusing children, or vulnerable young girls and women.

That was just one sentence.

No, “…the mindset of satisfying desires…” does not dominate over doing what is right. Where are you getting this? Oh, that’s right. Your strawman premises.

As I predicted, you’re saying that because in Western society we are so open about our sexuality, are okay with people being sexual and expressing their sexuality, and don’t punish people for it, sometimes with death, then that will lead to raping people.

(4) In addition, under the Capitalist system as implemented in the UK, US, and most secular liberal states, the pursuit of profit reigns supreme.

I agree with that. I don’t think this has anything to do with rape or sexual abuse, but in a capitalist system the underlying point is to solely make the most money.

Consequently businesses are permitted to encourage the sexualisation of society in order to increase sales, regardless of the detrimental impact on individuals and society. For example, although David Cameron has talked a lot about the harmful effects of the sexualisation of children, the UK government has not banned the sexualisation of children’s clothes or entertainment, choosing to secure profit over the welfare of children. And despite 1 in 5 women being victims of a sexual offence in the UK, there has been no ban on the exploitation, objectification, and sexualisation of women in advertisement and the media that devalues their status and hence exacerbates sexual crimes against them, for capitalism places financial gain over protecting the dignity of women. Indeed, it is the degrading of women and girls for profit that creates an environment that is ripe for the exploitation of children, girls and women in trafficking, prostitution and grooming rings.

Models, advertisements, actors, etc. have nothing to do with rape. Nothing. Yes, the capitalist system may increase the objectification of women, but it does not lead to rape.

Rape is not about sex in the first place. Rape is about power. It is about controlling and dominating the victim. That is what it’s about, so you’re premises are strawmen, and your conclusions are complete horseshit.

So yes, real men don’t rape, but again, real women wear whatever they want, even if that be nothing at all. and should not be slut-shamed for wearing what they want and controlling their own bodies and then blamed if that control is taken away from them by a rapist.

More of the Stupid Things Ray Comfort Says

A little more than two months ago, I posted a series of screencaps from the Timeline of Ray Comfort’s Facebook page. I’ve decided to return to that, and I have taken it upon myself to brave the Wall of Comfort again and trek through his Swamp of Stupid. Yes, I’m trying to make it sound like an epic quest. What can I say, I like World of Warcraft. For the Alliance!

Anyway…

To refresh our memories, here is probably my favourite one from the last post.

Yeah.

I can’t wait for what we’re in store for next. Here are just a couple of the most recent stupid things that Ray Comfort has said.

Yes, use Scripture to prove that Scripture is correct.

But I can twist that around at you, Ray. I probably should never spend any time trying to convince you that your god isn’t real, because you know it intuitively. You know, deep down inside, that there is no such thing as a god. You suppress the truth in order to make money off of willfully ignorant sheeple.

You didn’t really respond to his points. If someone says something about the immorality of the Bible, Christian teachings, or the actions taken by some Christians in the name of Christianity, then the only response that the Christian can have is, “Well, now why do you think that is immoral? Because God gave you a sense of morality.”

They can’t admit that the things God does or commands in the Bible are immoral. It betrays the very concept that the god of the Bible gave us a sense of good and evil that he himself does not follow. There response to that, I guess, would be that God can do what he likes, because he’s God. That is not a good enough answer and it never will be.

Ah, the good ol’ Kalam Cosmological Argument. How I missed you.

Ray is making the mistake of presupposing and interjecting God into the equation. William Lane Craig, who popularised this argument, never says “God,” but he does say that whatever caused the Universe must have been “causeless” and “beginningless,” which must obviously be a “god.” He also interjects “personal” to try and connect this thing, which is really a deistic god at best, to a more a more theistic grounding, specifically Christianity (even though the Kalam was first forumlated by a Muslim).

You’re mixing up descriptive and prescriptive laws, Ray. Gravity is a descriptive “law,” while something like the Ten Commandments or the Constitution are prescriptive laws. Law is the word used, in cases like gravity, for people to understand it better, but people like you instead use word games to “prove” their religious thinking as accurate.

Even though literally over 200,000 scientific and peer-reviewed papers have confirmed the validity of evolution. There are more papers validating evolution than there are for gravity, which I believe stands at around 85,000 papers. And gravity is not even all that accurate in certain instances, especially when you get up to the speed of light. That’s why we have Einstein’s General Relativity and then Quantum Mechanics and then String Theory.

Do I have to say anything? I don’t think I really do.

By your own logic, Ray, you would have to be omniscient to know that there is a god. But let me ask you this: do you believe that Leprechauns, fairies, Santa Claus, or other fantastical creatures that are the stuff of legends exist? If yes, then all I can do is laugh at you. If no, then do you need to be omniscient to know that Leprechauns, fairies, Santa Claus, or other fantastical creatures don’t exist?

I could easily say that everyone has “intuitive knowledge” that Leprechauns do exist, but people suppress the truth within them, because they are rebelling against Leprechauns.

Again, I could say that everyone has “intuitive knowledge” that there isn’t a god. Intuition is not proof of anything in the realm of science though. Feelings and personal experiences are not proof, especially of such an extraordinary claim.

But if God can give us “intuitive knowledge” of His existence and not affect our free will, then why could He not just come down and prove His existence to us definitively? According to your logic, people still rebel against Him who know He truly exists, so this wouldn’t affect our free will. Why not just do that?

You misunderstand what “pro-choice” means. A woman has the right to choose whether or not she has an abortion, not have one forced on her by a kidnapper. Murdering fetuses without the consent of the mother is not an abortion. You cannot compare the two.

You’re not even comparing apples and oranges at this point. You’re comparing apples and bricks.

Let me reemphasise that part:

So if you presuppose, which is just a fancy word for “preconceived notion” and “assume,” that the Gospels don’t contradict each other, then they don’t? But if an atheist were to presuppose, which we don’t, that the Gospels and Bible are wrong and your god isn’t real, then we’re close-minded people that are just rebelling against God.

I remember as a Christian reading through the Gospels and finding contradictions within them. I guess, I didn’t presuppose hard enough though.

I don’t even know how to respond to this…

If you want a great rebuttal to the “kinds” argument that many Creationists throw out there, read this great piece from Rachel Brown of Dogma Debate Radio.

So you’re saying that sin is sinful? No shit!

Then what about Jesus?

As you can see, I only got through ten days worth of posts. After that I just could not take the stupid anymore.

Proof People are Stupid: Condom Snorting Challenge

A while back, I posted about a “challenge” that teens were doing called the “Salt and Ice” challenge.

This game, which has become a teen fad and going around middle and high schools, is where kids mix salt and ice and put it on their skins to see how long they can stand the pain.

I called the post “Proof People are Stupid: The Salt and Ice Challenge,” and I joked about how I was going to make a series of just stupid shit that people are doing.

That was almost a year ago.

Now, I think I finally have something that is worthy of this series. It is called the “Condom Challenge.”

Basically, someone will take a condom and snort it up their nose and pull it out their mouth, as you can see from this lovely photo of a teenage girl attempting the challenge.

You can see more of this challenge at the Huffington Post.

Creationist 4th grade science quiz makes Christian school infamous, Answers in Genesis responds

You guys remember that 4th grade science quiz called “Dinosaurs: Genesis and the Gospels” that was making its way around the internet recently? You know, the one that asked questions like “True or False: The earth is billions of years old” and “True or False: Dinosaurs lived with people.”

Yeah, this one.

Well, it seems that this particular quiz came from a private K-12 Christian academy from South Carolina that was using resources from the creationist organisation Answers in Genesis.

AIG responded to the “hate” that the school was receiving from the “intolerant atheists” who were “viciously” attacking the school in a piece that is just full of fundie goodness.

They start off with the story of a German family that was trying to seek asylum within the United States so that they could homeschool their children.

Yesterday on this website, we highlighted the plight of the Romeikes, a German Christian family who is seeking asylum in America because the German government forbids their homeschool instruction. The Obama Administration is siding with the German government and its view of homeschooling, and they are seeking to deport this family who wants to educate their children in accord with God’s Word. If the U.S. Attorney General succeeds in denying their asylum, it may have chilling ramifications for religious and educational liberties in the United States.

I don’t know much about this case, but I’m pretty sure US is not denying them asylum, because they are trying to educate their children themselves.

Anyway.

The atheist buzz about the dinosaur-and-Bible quiz, however, is not really all that surprising. Over the past few years, we have seen atheists becoming more aggressive and intolerant towards Christians. (See the sidebar for just a few of the many examples we could cite.) They are attempting to impose their belief system (yes, their religion) on the culture.

Do you know how to say “projection,” kids?

It seems that since the last presidential election, atheists have grown more confident about having something of a license to go after Christians. These secularists want to impose their anti-God religion on the culture. They are simply not content using legislatures and courts to protect the dogmatic teaching of their atheistic religion of evolution and millions of years in public schools. There is something else on their agenda: they are increasingly going after Christians and Christian institutions that teach God’s Word beginning in Genesis.

I’m sorry, could you repeat that, please. “…their atheistic religion of evolution and millions of years…”? What?

I can slightly understand them saying “atheistic religion of evolution,” because that is usual creationist rhetoric, but “millions of years”?

The quiz’s posting to the internet resulted in a number of atheist websites reposting the questions and answers, and many of them responded in rage and vehement attacks on the school.

Oh noes! Something stupid was called out as stupid!

The school administrator, relatively new as the head of the academy, was shocked to find her school becoming the target of atheist attacks and even some threats. Articles on mainstream websites (like a Seattle TV station over 2,500 miles away), a UK website, and other places on the internet made the controversy grow even larger.

No links to screenshots or news articles or anything at all to show that these alleged “threats” actually happened. Nothing whatsoever. But there are mentions of how that evil, liberal media was bringing attention to the school!

Now, this Christian academy is not a large school. Yet the atheists went after it with incredible fervor. The school administrator informed us she knew that the school would be involved in a spiritual battle after the quiz went public, but she was not expecting such ferocity. She told us she was shocked at the level of hate that the atheists poured down upon her, the teacher, and the school in general.

Now, assuming the threats and “hate that the atheists poured down upon her” did happen, which there is no evidence to suggest that anyone was actually harassed or even contacted, then the people committing the threats are not good people, and we do not support what they were doing. Simple as that.

For the next two years, our special theme for the Answers in Genesis ministry is “Standing our Ground, Rescuing our Kids” (Galatians 1:4). We, too, have experienced recent increased attacks by atheists, especially whenever they discover we are influencing children with the truth of God’s Word. These anti-God people hate the fact that Christians are teaching children to stand on the authority of the Bible; they want to be the ones teaching children and indoctrinating them into atheism. Even children’s TV host Bill Nye has recently made many harsh statements against those of us who teach creation to children.

That’s because Bill Nye actually knows what he is talking about, unlike you, Ken Ham.

Atheists don’t “hate the fact that Christians are teaching children to stand on the authority of the Bible.” You have the Constitutional right to do so. No one is taking that right away from you, even if you would say otherwise with your anecdotal story about the German family.

However, we have the right to say that the way that you are educating children is just flat out wrong. You are teaching them lies and falsehoods. You are teaching them to ignore the evidence if it conflicts with your dogma. You are also teaching them how to respond to people who might try to teach them the facts with nice little apologist talking points like (see the last question on the quiz’s back), “The next time someone says the earth is billions (or millions) of years old, what can you say? Were you there?”

But you are still projecting, Ken.

It is you who are attacking atheists, secularists, and public education, especially when you discover that public schools are teaching children about reality. You anti-science people hate the fact that public schools are teaching children to stand on reason, rationality, and evidence and turn away from stubborn dogmatism and willful ignorance. You want to be the ones teaching children and indoctrinating them into Young-Earth Creationism and other pseudosciences. You, more so the Creation Truth Foundation, have even gone so far as to invade public schools.

My favourite line from Ham’s piece (emphasis mine):

In a way, what is happening to this Christian school and also to the Romeike family should be a warning to all Christians: the atheists want your children. They are aggressively trying to demonize and marginalize Christians in their attempts to recruit your children for atheism or secularism.

Even more projection!

This next part is kind of scary.

Though we praise God for the minority of Christian “missionaries” who work as teachers in the public school system (and who need our prayers), government schools have increasingly become, in essence, churches of atheism.

Wait, what? So you’re admitting to the fact that some public school teachers are only there to indoctrinate children into Christianity? Where the fuck is the ACLU when you need them?!

The rest of the article is trying to get people to donate to the academy and to stand “unashamedly for the authority of His Word,” because us evil secularists and atheists are just so evil by trying to indoctrinate children into our “atheistic religion of evolution and millions of years” and are persecuting the poor Christians that are nearly 80% of this country. Play the victim card all you want, Ken. It won’t matter.

Canadian woman detained and interrogated by US officials for carrying condoms

I cannot express how outraged I am by this story.

In a blog post from the Canadian HuffingtonPost section on travel, Clay Nikiforuk recently wrote about her ordeal with several US officials at several different locations in the span of two weeks while conducting research for a book on the psychology of sexual assault.

She was first stopped by border patrol in Vermont.

They searched my bags at least five times. I could not help but notice how often my lingerie and “sexy underwear” were mentioned, how often the condoms they found were looked upon scathingly, and how most of the four male officers’ questions pertained to both.
I was baffled as to why this was any of their business and unsure of what their objective was, other than fondling lady’s undergarments. In the end, having nothing to go on, they gave me a limited stay visa of two weeks and let me go — at 3 a.m. in the middle of nowhere. I missed my bus and my plane, had to pay for a $90 taxi to the nearest airport and then book a new flight the next morning.

Then when she was at the Montreal Airport.

After scanning my passport, without being asked a single question, I was immediately led to a back waiting room. When I was summoned into an office, the officer cut to the chase: “How much is he paying you to go on this trip?” He was referring to the man I was travelling with.

Because, of course, travelling with a man means that you are having sex with him. Not just any kind of sex though, sex for money. Obviously.

After then being asked if he was married and if they will be sharing a hotel bed with him, both of which are yes, she answers honestly. Big mistake there.

The US official asks what she plans to do in bed with a married man. Because that is apparently this man’s business to know what an adult woman is going to be doing in bed with another adult.

That didn’t stop this person though. He then makes the outright false claim that adultery is a crime, I guess we live in Saudi Arabia now, a crime that he could arrest her and completely ban her from the United States for. According to her, he said, “I could have you charged with being a working girl! The proof is right here!”

Yes, simply possessing condoms is proof that you’re a prostitute. I must be a prostitute then. I must be a bad prostitute though, because I keep forgetting to ask for payment afterwards (or is it beforehand?).

With nothing else, he threatens to tell the man’s wife. Her response was, “She knows.”

Whether these two people are having sex or not is not anyone’s business. Whether these two people are married to other people or not is also not anyone’s business. It is none of anyone’s damn business what two consenting adults do with their own damn genitals, whether or not they are married or if there is an exchange of money.

On her way back to Canada, she decided to leave the condoms behind in hopes of not having to go through a similar experience. Unfortunately, it did not help.

According to her, “But it was too late — there was a detailed profile of me, in which my nefarious condom-carrying behaviour was noted.”

Again, I was told to sit and wait for further questioning.
I watched as my entire flight’s passengers whizzed through customs in front of me. I was shaking. By the time someone got around to questioning me, I was told my flight was leaving.
I was detained, yelled at, patted down, fingerprinted, interrogated, searched, moved from room to room and person to person without food, water or being told what was going on for what seemed like forever.

I, myself, have never been detained or interrogated at the airport for anything. The most I have experienced is a full body scan from those cancer causing machines that see through to your junk. Even then, I went right on my way immediately afterwards.

I cannot imagine having to wait for hours and hours, being repeatedly yelled at and searched as if I were a terrorist about to blow something up (no blow job puns intended), just for carrying a couple of condoms.

Are condoms now more dangerous than a gun or knife on a plane? Are they really worth TSA time (and our tax dollars) to spend several hours interrogating a random Canadian woman that wants to practice safe sex, whether or not with someone who is married or for money?

This entire story is infuriating. It makes me so freaking pissed that certain people, often motivated by puritanical religious views of sex and sexuality, will behave this way towards others that are doing what is necessary and smart to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies and STDs.

Being smart about your sexuality is bad, mmkay. Sex is only for procreation and should only be done in certain positions that God approves of, mmkay.

Just Some of the Stupid Things Ray Comfort Says

DISCLAIMER: I am not trying to insult Christians with this. I am trying to insult Ray Comfort though.

If you have been paying attention to Facebook, you might have noticed the attention given recently to Ray Comfort (a.k.a. the Banana Man) and his Facebook page for just all the hilariously stupid stuff that he says.

I decided to go through his Timeline and take screencaps of the most bizarre and stupid. Unfortunately, that seems to be pretty much everything that he says.

For the vast majority of these, I don’t think I have to say much of anything. I think they speak for themselves.

We will start with the most recent and just work our way backwards.

I’m just not going to say anything…

This actually makes me a little scared to be around you, Ray. Kind of sounds like martyrdom.

With a lot of these posts, he seems to be taking the usual atheist talking points and just adding a little Christian twist.

Then how come Europe is trying to ban porn? No seriously. They are trying to have a continent wide ban on porn.

A little homoerotic there. I think Ray has the hots for Jesus.

Coincidentally, one of my middle names is Thomas.

So you’re admitting there is a bunch of dirt in the Bible then, Ray?

Just… ugh…

Let’s see what Numbers 3-4 actually say.

Numbers 3 starts off with God telling Moses to essentially make the tribe of Levi the slaves of the Israelites (Numbers 3:5-10).

The chapter then ends by God ordering Moses to take a census of the different clans of the Levites, such as Gershonite, Kohathite, and Merarite, and then the entire tribe of Israelites. I don’t know why God would need to take a census, since He is supposedly omniscient, but whatever.

Numbers 4 is entirely about taking specific censuses of the able-bodied men of the clans of the Levites (again, why would God need to know this?) and assigning them different work to carry important religious artifacts and other things for the Israelites, just further insinuating that they are slaves.

Unnecessary censuses and slavery. Why does this make you smile, Ray?

I actually completely agree with you, Ray (except for the part about trying to sell us an “eternal life”).

This statement seems entirely contradictory. God has “everlasting love and mercy” and yet a “terrible wrath” too? Seems like an abusive husband. Loving you one moment, beating you the next.

Yes, I’m going to use the Bible to prove the Bible is correct!

As you can see, I only got to the 21st of February before I finally just gave up trying to find anymore.

I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I hated it. And Ray, I hope you keep doing what you’re doing, because you are the biggest advertisement for godless liberalism since former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum said conservatives will never have “smart people on [their] side.”

The Christian Guide to Atheists: Satan Worshipers

This will be the first post of many in the series The Christian Guide to Atheists. Be sure to read Alise’s blog entry and thank her for starting this series (and for letting me be a part of it).

I hope that this will help build bridges and understanding between the atheist and Christian communities and allow for us to have respectful, intellectual conversations with each other that enable us to learn from one another and become better individuals that can live and work together.

The first installment of the The Christian Guide to Atheists is the myth that atheists are worshipers of Satan, specifically the Satan or evil-doer of Christianity (as opposed to those of Islam and other faiths).

This is probably one of, if not, the most common misconception about atheists and/or the  most common insult that is thrown at us.

Let me first start this off by distinguishing “Satan worship” (also known as theistic Satanism, Devil Worship, Luciferianism) from Satanism (also known as LeVeyan Satanism), which is what we generally think of when we are talking about Satanists. Many people, Christian and atheist alike, can get these easily confused, but they are not the same thing.

“Satan worship” is just that. The being known as Satan/Lucifer/the Devil/etc., as defined by the Christian faith, is to be worshiped just as a Christian would worship Yahweh/Jehovah/Elohim/etc.

Those who partake in Satan worship do believe in the existence of Satan, and of the Christian god too, but choose to worship Satan instead, for whatever reason that may be.

LeVeyan Satanism is different from “Satan worship” and theistic Satanism. LeVeyan Satanists are those consisting of the actual Church of Satan. This is more of a counterculture philosophy and lifestyle, which makes Satanism very…interesting.

Satanists do not believe in Satan, despite the name. They, for lack of better words, believe in and worship themselves, but not as if they themselves are gods.

The main objective of Satanism is about building morality around yourself, instead of having morals and values dictated upon you by society, and to make people rethink the things that they consider taboo, especially sex. They do not let people tell them what they should and should not do, and they do not let guilt and fear dictate their lives.

Satanists are, for the most part, atheists, but not all atheists are Satanists. To put this in perspective, the vast majority of Arabs are Muslim, but not all Muslims are Arab. This analogy can be a little misleading though too. To be clear, Satanism is a very small minority in atheism.

Now, I could go on and on about Satanism, as it is a very fascinating phenomenon to learn about (not that I have ever taken part in it), but before I get too far off track, I will get back to the issue at hand.

The idea that all or most atheists are worshipers of Satan, or Satanists for that matter, stems from the belief amongst some Christians that atheists hate Christians, hate God, and are actively anti-God (which is another part of the series we will get to later), and what is more anti-God in the eyes of Christians than Satan? So atheists must obviously believe in and/or worship Satan (or that they are followers of Satan and just don’t know it, because Satan has corrupted them).

As Alise pointed out, these kinds of statements “[do] not show a willingness to understand what atheism is, at its core.” Atheism is simply the belief that there are no gods. It is not the belief in and/or worship of anything supernatural, let alone the Christian Devil.

And these statements can be very hurtful and harm the efforts of Christians, like Alise, who are genuinely trying to build relations with atheists. If these are not asked as legitimate questions about atheism, which I have run into before, then they are usually meant as slurs and insults to make us look and feel like evil, immoral people, which we are not. We simply don’t believe in the god(s) and other supernatural beings of the Christian religion or any other religion.

It is a very good tactic of demonisation, I must admit. What better way to discredit someone than by setting up a false dichotomy that puts them in the camp of the angel that rebelled against God and caused the fall of humanity?

Yes, atheists might be opposed to the idea of a god (because we do not see any evidence for their existence) and the ideals and values we see purported in Christianity (i.e. homophobia, misogyny, nationalism, etc.), but that does not mean we believe in or are worshipping that specific god’s counterpart. There are many evil-doers who are equivalent to the Christian Devil in other religions around the world (the first that comes to mind is Hades/Pluto in the Greek/Roman pantheon). We do not believe in or worship them either, just as much as any Christian.

In conclusion, atheism is not Satan worship or even Satanism (even though Satanists can be atheists). Atheism is merely a belief that gods do not exist, and this belief usually comes about because of the lack of evidence we find for the existence of these beings. Christians have the exact same belief, only about every other god that has ever existed in human history.

The next installment, which will be out next Monday, of The Christian Guide to Atheists will be “Deconverted Atheists Were Never True Believers.” I’m sure many of us atheists have heard this one before too.
Again, I wish to extend my sincerest thank you to Alise for starting this series and for letting me be a part of it.

The Christian Guide to Atheists

I like to read Christian blogs. Not because I’m masochistic or anything. I just like to know what Christians and theists in general are saying about atheism, evolution, etc. It provides me with a kind of inspiration.

There is a particular blog that I have been reading for some time now called Alise Write. It’s a great blog by a great and very articulate woman.

In response to the blatant stereotyping of atheists (and she is married to an atheist), she is starting a new series called The Christian Guide to Atheists. It’s about…well, I’ll let her say it (emphasis mine).

Something that I have discovered in the past three years is that Christians can have of a skewed view of what it means to be an atheist. Until Jason came out, I had almost no interaction with atheists at all, so my perceptions about what it meant to be an atheist were not always accurate. I don’t want you to have those same misunderstandings, so each week, I will be writing a short post for The Christian Guide to Atheists. Because who better to talk to you about atheists and atheism than a Christian, right?

To help her along, I sent her a PowerPoint presentation that I made a long time ago, one of the many talks I can give for the Secular Student Alliance’s Speakers Bureau, with the many misconceptions that I and many other atheists have experienced.

I think this is a great opportunity for atheists to get someone to be an emissary to the Christian community who is not an atheist. Many Christians are simply not going listen an atheist, let alone to another atheist, talking about how we’re not worshipers of Satan, which actually will be the first installment of her series that begins on Monday. They may be more willing to listen to one of their own clear up these misconceptions.

Not only that, but many atheists have a hard time communicating with theists (and vice versa), and I admit, I have a hard time in doing that too. I try to remain as calm and respectful as possible, but sometimes this can be difficult with someone who refuses to do the same or says things that are just completely absurd (*cough cough* Ray Comfort *cough cough*).

I hope that you all will read and enjoy Alise’s series. I will also be doing responses of my own to each of her installments as they go along so that there is a Christian and atheist response to all of these. I look forward to the coming months.