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.

New Jersey teacher fired for handing out Bible

Walt Tutka, a substitute teacher from the Phillipsburg School District in western New Jersey, has filed a formal complaint against the school district, claiming religious discrimination. He was supposedly fired for quoting verses from the Bible and giving a Bible to a student.

The story goes that Tutka was teaching in October of 2012 at the Phillipsburg Middle School, when he told a student, who was last in line for something, “The first shall be the last, and the last shall be the first,” which is reference to Mark 10:31. The student, curious, began asking questions about the verse, which prompted Tutka to give the student a pocket Bible that he had on him.

The school board voted to fire Tutka in mid-January of this year.

According to Yahoo News, the “Texas-based Liberty Institute, a conservative Christian legal defense organization, is representing Tutka.”

Hiram Sasser, the director of litigation at the Liberty Institute, said, “It is shocking that the school district has forced Walt to file a complaint with the EEOC for religious discrimination.”

Yes, when the law is being broken by someone, it is discrimination to follow the law and take appropriate measures by dismissing the person who broke the law.

I wonder if the Liberty Institute would rush to the defense of a teacher who passed out a Koran in class to a student, or would they be there defending the religious freedom of the student, claiming that the liberal academia was trying to shove their Shariah Law onto students?

Proving the existence of Spider-Man through Christian logic

I’m going to do it. I’m going to come out and be proud of who I really am, no matter the hate I may get for it!

I am a nerd!

Yes, I am a nerd. I like nerdy things like RPGs, video games, and much more. What really makes me a nerd though is that I love superheroes and comic books (fuck DC though, Marvel all the way).

By far my favourite superhero is Spider-Man.

The reason I love Spider-Man is because when I was growing up, I could really relate to him. Peter Parker was this nerdy, awkward kid that did not have many friends, but he led this secret life where he could do these truly amazing things and help people that were in need.

Spider-Man was also always the youngest of the Avengers (excluding maybe some really young X-Men), and I was always the youngest of my friends. I still am to this day.

However, I know that Spider-Man is not real. He is just a fictional character that was made up years ago by Marvel to sell comic books (and eventually toys, movies, and television shows, all of which I absolutely loved).

But I know that I can prove that Spider-Man is real through Christian logic.

Many Christians will use the Bible to prove the existence of God. This is like me using Spider-Man comics to prove that Spider-Man is real.

When that fallacious reasoning is exposed, Christians will then point to certain stories and events in the Bible as proof that the Bible is the Word of God, because these events really did happen and are backed up by independent historical evidence. These places, which are real, are talked about in the stories of the Bible.

Yes, certain events detailed in the Bible did happen (most did not or are depicted inaccurately, but let’s ignore that fact). Yes, the Bible does talk about real places and people in history. That does not mean the Bible is historically accurate though, let alone the supposed message and commandments of some deity.

Put it this way: Spider-Man is set in New York City. That’s a real place, and real people live there. Real people are talked about in Spider-Man comics, including President Barack Obama.

Not only that, but Spider-Man has real events talked about in the comics too. The September 11th terrorist attacks are depicted in one.

Real places. Real people. Real events.

By the same logic used by Christians, Spider-Man should be just as real as the god of the Bible.

The only difference between the god of the Bible and Spider-Man though is that Spider-Man is actually a moral character that children should model themselves after.

Spider-Man didn’t order people to kill babies (1st Samuel 15:3). Spider-Man isn’t a fearful, hateful bigot that wants people to kill homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13), witches (Exodus 22:17), adulterers (Leviticus 20:10), people who like other superheroes more (Exodus 22:19), etc.

In a couple hundred years comic books might start being taken a little too seriously, and Spider-Man comics will be seen as divine revelation and turned into the next great religion that tramples the globe and causes people to kill each other over nothing.

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.”

God: I create darkness and evil

I don’t know why I do it, but I keep tuning into 91.3 FM KDKR, one of the local Christian radio stations in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

The stuff that is said infuriates me to the point where I feel the need to bash my head up against the steering wheel. Luckily, I have not yet.

I don’t remember what exactly was being said, but I do remember when I was recently listening to it, the host of the show was talking about how people blame God for all of the bad things that happen to them.

The host just kept saying that it was the Devil’s fault, that it was Adam and Eve’s fault for eating from that damn tree, that it was the fault of humanity’s free will (that God gave us no less).

He specifically said that these things are not the fault of God.

Apparently, this guy doesn’t know his own Bible. Isaiah 45:7 says explicitly, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”

So tornadoes (something the Christian radio host brought up), hurricanes, earthquakes, rape, disease, famine, murder, war, genocide, and every other evil thing in the world are actually God’s fault, so we can blame God for these things.

AFA’s Buster Wilson: “We Didn’t Have School Gun Shootings” When We Had God in Schools

Buster Wilson, pastor and former law enforcement officer, is one of the many radio hosts for American Family Radio, which is the radio show/podcast for the American Family Association (you know, that extremely anti-gay organisation), and on the December 21st show (source Right Wing Watch) he had an interesting take on the place religion used to have in our public schools and the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting that took place recently.

After a caller on the show finished up his paranoid rant about how he was stockpiling guns and ammunition, such as his AR-15 assault rifle and 5.56 NATO rounds, just in case the American government decides to all of a sudden become the tyrannical dictatorship many Republicans think it is already becoming, Wilson tried to make the delusional caller seem like a rational, sensible person by saying that’s how many Americans feel, which doesn’t make me feel any better.

He then went on to say (emphasis mine), “Back when we had prayer and the Bible read in our schools, we didn’t have school gun shootings. Back in the day when faith had a prominent place in the life of Americans and American families, we didn’t have this kind of rampage in our country. We have gotten away from it. We used to have the Ten Commandments posted in our school rooms, so that every day our students could see where God Almighty has said, ‘Thou shalt not murder.’ But we’ve deemed that as illegal now, according to the Constitution. We’ve taken that out of our classrooms. We’ve taken prayer out of the classrooms. We’ve taken faith and morality out of our nation’s…population. Listen, the lack of knowing the Lord and living godly lives is what’s caused this problem. It is not the presence of guns.”

These are just the school shootings (source Wikipedia) in the United States in the Twentieth Century up until 1962 (there were many more before then), when the Supreme Court ruled in Engel v. Vitale that teachers nor administrators could instruct or lead prayer or have any endorsement of religion in public schools.

• February 26, 1902: Camargo, Illinois teacher Fletcher R. Barnett shot and killed another teacher, Eva C. Wiseman, in front of her class at a school near Camargo, Illinois. After shooting at a pupil who came to help Miss Wiseman and wounding himself in a failed suicide attempt he waited in the classroom until a group of farmers came to lynch him. He then ran out of the school building, grabbed a shotgun from one of the farmers and shot himself, before running away and leaping into a well where he finally drowned. The incident was likely sparked by Wiseman’s refusal to marry Barnett.
• February 24, 1903: Inman, South Carolina Edward Foster, a 17-year-old student at Inman High school, was shot and fatally wounded by his teacher Reuben Pitts after he had jerked a rod from Pitts’ hands to resist punishment. According to the teacher, Foster struck the pistol Pitts had drawn to defend himself, thus causing its discharge. Pitts was later acquitted of murder.
• October 10, 1906: Cleveland, Ohio Harry Smith shot and killed 22-year-old teacher Mary Shepard at South Euclid School after she had rejected him. Smith escaped and committed suicide in a barn near his home two hours later.
• March 23, 1907: Carmi, Illinois George Nicholson shot and killed John Kurd at a schoolhouse outside of Carmi, Illinois during a school rehearsal. The motive for the shooting was Kurd making a disparaging remark about Nicholson’s daughter during her recital.
• March 11, 1908: Boston, Massachusetts Elizabeth Bailey Hardee was shot to death by Sarah Chamberlain Weed at the Laurens School, a finishing school in Boston. Weed then turned the gun on herself and committed suicide.
• April 15, 1908: Asheville, North Carolina Dr. C. O. Swinney shot and fatally wounded his 16-year-old daughter Nellie in a reception room at Normal and Collegiate Institute. He then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
• February 12, 1909: San Francisco, California 10-year-old Dorothy Malakanoff was shot and killed by 49-year-old Demetri Tereaschinko as she arrived at her school in San Francisco. Tereaschinko then shot himself in a failed suicide attempt. Tereaschinko was reportedly upset that Malakanoff refused to elope with him.
• January 10, 1912: Warrenville, Illinois Sylvester E. Adams shot and killed teacher Edith Smith after she rejected his advances. Adams then shot and killed himself. The incident took place in a schoolhouse about a mile outside of Warrenville after the students had been dismissed for the day.
• March 27, 1919: Lodi Township, Michigan 19-year-old teacher Irma Casler was shot and killed in her classroom at Rentschler school in Lodi Township, Michigan by Robert Warner, apparently because she had rejected his advances.
• April 2, 1921: Syracuse, New York Professor Holmes Beckwith shot and killed dean J. Herman Wharton in his office at Syracuse University before committing suicide.
• February 15, 1927: Hempstead, New York James O’Donnell, 18-year-old senior at Hempstead High School, shot himself to death on the stage in the school’s auditorium. A suicide note stated that O’Donnell killed himself to lessen the financial burden on his family.
• May 18, 1927: Bath, Michigan School treasurer Andrew Kehoe, after killing his wife and destroying his house and farm, blew up the Bath Consolidated School by detonating dynamite in the basement of the school, killing 38 people, mostly children. He then pulled up to the school in his Ford car, then set off a truck bomb, killing himself and four others. Only one shot was fired in order to detonate dynamite in the car. This was the deadliest act of mass murder at a school in the United States.
• May 22, 1930: Ringe, Minnesota Margaret Wegman, 20-year-old teacher at the local rural school, was shot and killed in the school by 24-year-old Douglas Petersen.
• May 28, 1931: Duluth, Minnesota Katherine McMillen, 24-year-old teacher at the Howard Gensen rural school near Duluth, was accidentally shot and killed by a revolver brought to school by a pupil.
• February 15, 1933: Downey, California Dr. Vernon Blythe shot and killed his wife Eleanor, as well as his 8-year old son Robert at Gallatin grammar school and committed suicide after firing three more shots at his other son Vernon. His wife, who had been a teacher at the school, had filed for divorce the week before.
• September 14, 1934: Gill, Massachusetts. Headmaster Elliott Speer was murdered by a shotgun blast through the window of his study at Northfield Mount Hermon School. The crime was never solved.
• March 27, 1935: Medora, North Dakota Emily Hartl, 24-year-old teacher at the Manlon school northwest of Medora, was shot and killed at the school by 28-year-old Harry McGill, a former suitor.
• December 12, 1935: New York City, New York, Victor Koussow, a Russian laboratory worker at the School of Dental and Oral Surgery, shot Prof. Arthur Taylor Rowe, Prof. Paul B. Wiberg, and wounded Dr. William H. Crawford at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, before committing suicide.
• April 27, 1936: Lincoln, Nebraska, Prof. John Weller shot and wounded Prof. Harry Kurz in a corridor of the University of Nebraska, apparently because of his impending dismissal at the end of the semester. After shooting Kurz Weller tried to escape, but was surrounded by police on the campus, whereupon he killed himself with a shot in the chest.
• June 4, 1936: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Wesley Crow shot and killed his Lehigh University English instructor, C. Wesley Phy. Crow went to Phy’s office and demanded that Mr. Phy change his grade to a passing mark. Crow committed suicide after shooting Phy.
• September 24, 1937: Toledo, Ohio 12-year-old Robert Snyder shot and wounded his principal, June Mapes, in her office at Arlington public school when she declined his request to call a classmate. He then fled the school grounds and shot and wounded himself.
• May 6, 1940: South Pasadena, California. After being removed as principal of South Pasadena Junior High School, Verlin Spencer shot six school officials, killing five, before attempting to commit suicide by shooting himself in the stomach.
• May 23, 1940: New York City, New York Infuriated by a grievance, Matthew Gillespie, 62-year-old janitor at the junior school of the Dwight School for Girls, shot and critically wounded Mrs. Marshall Coxe, secretary of the junior school.
• July 4, 1940: Valhalla, New York Angered by the refusal of his daughter, Melba, 15 years old, to leave a boarding school and return to his home, Joseph Moshell, 47, visited the school and shot and killed the girl.
• September 12, 1940: Uniontown, Pennsylvania, 29-year-old teacher Carolyn Dellamea is shot to death inside her third grade classroom by 35-year-old William Kuhns. Kuhns then shot himself in the chest in a failed suicide attempt. Kuhns had reportedly been courting Dellamea for over a year but the relationship was ended when Dellamea discovered that Kuhns was already married.
• October 2, 1942: New York City, New York Irwin Goodman, 36-year-old mathematics teacher at William J. Gaynor Junior High School, was shot and killed in the school corridor by a youth.
• February 23, 1943: Port Chester, New York Harry Wyman, 13-year-old, shot himself dead at the Harvey School, a boys’ preparatory school.
• June 26, 1946: Brooklyn, New York A 15-year-old schoolboy who balked at turning over his pocket money to a gang of seven youths was shot in the chest at 11:30 A.M. in the basement of the Public School 147 annex of the Brooklyn High School for Automotive Trades.
• November 24, 1946: New York City A 13-year-old student at St. Benedict’s Parochial School, shot and fatally wounded himself while sitting in an audience watching a school play.
• February 5, 1947: Madill, Oklahoma 1st grade teacher Jessie Laird, 40-years-old, was shot to death in her classroom, during recess, by her estranged husband, Ellis Laird, 62-years-old. Laird then fatally shot himself.
• December 1, 1947: Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania Donald Peabody Sargent, 14, shot himself to death in his junior high school classroom.
• December 24, 1948: New York City A 14-year-old boy was wounded fatally by an accidental shot from the .22-caliber rifle of a fellow-student … the youth was shot in the head when he chanced into range where Robert Ross, 17, of Brooklyn, was shooting at a target near a lake on the school property.
• March 11, 1949: New York City A 16-year-old student at Stuyvesant High School was accidentally shot in the arm by a fellow student who was ‘showing off’ with a pistol in a classroom.
• November 13, 1949: Columbus, Ohio, Ohio State University freshman James Heer grabbed a .45 caliber handgun from the room of a Delta Tau Delta fraternity brother and shot and killed his fraternity brother Jack McKeown, 21, an Ohio State senior.
• April 25, 1950: Peru, Nebraska Dr. William Nicholas, 48, president of Peru State College and Dr. Paul Maxwell, 56, education department head, were shot to death at their desks by Dr. Barney Baker, 54-year-old psychology professor. Baker was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot at his home on campus.
• July 22, 1950: New York City, New York A 16-year-old boy was shot in the wrist and abdomen at the Public School 141 dance… during an argument with a former classmate.
• March 12, 1951: Union Mills, North Carolina Professor W. E. Sweatt, superintendent and teacher at the Alexander school, was shot to death by students Billy Ray Powell, 16, and Hugh Justice, 19. The assailants had been reprimanded by Sweatt, and they waited for him as he locked his office door.
• June 4, 1951: New York City, New York Carl Arch, a 50-year-old intruder to a girl’s gym class, was shot and killed by a police officer, at Manhattan’s Central Commercial High School.
• November 27, 1951: New York City, New York David Brooks, a 15-year-old student, was fatally shot as fellow-pupils looked on in a grade school.
• April 9, 1952: New York City, New York A 15-year-old boarding-school student shot a dean rather than relinquish pin-up pictures of girls in bathing suits.
• July 14, 1952: New York City, New York Bayard Peakes walked in to the offices of the American Physical Society at Columbia University and shot and killed secretary Eileen Fahey with a .22 caliber pistol. Peakes was reportedly upset that the APS had rejected a pamphlet he had written.
• September 3, 1952: in Lawrenceville, Illinois After 25-year-old Georgine Lyon ended her engagement with Charles Petrach, Petrach shot and killed Lyon in a classroom at Lawrenceville High School where she worked as a librarian.
• November 20, 1952: New York City, New York “Rear Admiral E. E. Herrmann, 56 years old, superintendent of the Naval Postgraduate School, was found dead in his office with a bullet in his head. A service revolver was found by his side.
• October 2, 1953: Chicago, Illinois 14-year-old Patrick Colletta was shot to death by 14-year-old Bernice Turner in a classroom of Kelly High School in Chicago. It was reported that after Turner refused to date Colletta he handed her the gun and dared her to pull the trigger, telling her that the gun was “only a toy.” A coroner’s jury later ruled that the shooting was an accident.
• October 8, 1953: New York City, New York Larry Licitra, 17-year-old student at the Machine and Metal Trades High School, was shot and slightly wounded in the right shoulder in the lobby of the school while inspecting a handmade pistol owned by one of several students.
• March 31, 1954: Newton, Massachusetts John Frankenberger, 14, was accidentally shot to death in a classroom at Day Junior High School, when a pistol being held by a classmate discharged.
• May 15, 1954: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Putnam Davis Jr. was shot and killed during a fraternity house carnival at the Phi Delta Theta house at the University of North Carolina. William Joyner and Allen Long were shot and wounded during the exchange of gunfire in their fraternity bedroom. The incident took place after an all-night beer party. Mr. Long reported to the police that, while the three were drinking beer at 7 a.m., Davis pulled out a gun and started shooting with a gun he had obtained from the car of a former roommate.
• January 11, 1955: Swarthmore, Pennsylvania After some of his dorm mates urinated on his mattress Bob Bechtel, a 20-year-old student at Swarthmore College, returned to his dorm with a shotgun and used it to shoot and kill fellow student Holmes Strozier.
• May 4, 1956: in Prince George’s County, Maryland, 15-year-old student Billy Prevatte fatally shot one teacher and injured two others at Maryland Park Junior High School in Prince George’s County after he had been reprimanded from the school.
• October 20, 1956: New York City, New York A junior high school student was wounded in the forearm by another student armed with a home-made weapon at Booker T. Washington Junior High School.
• October 2, 1957: New York City, New York “A 16-year old student was shot in the leg by a 15-year old classmate at a city high school.”
• March 4, 1958: New York City, New York “A 17-year-old student shot a boy in the Manual Training High School.”
• May 1, 1958: Massapequa, New York A 15-year-old high school freshman was shot and killed by a classmate in a washroom of the Massapequa High School.
• September 24, 1959: New York City, New York Twenty-seven men and boys and an arsenal were seized in the Bronx as the police headed off a gang war resulting from the fatal shooting of a teenager Monday at Morris High School.
• February 2, 1960: Hartford City, Indiana Principal Leonard Redden shot and killed two teachers with a shotgun at William Reed Elementary School in Hartford City, Indiana, before fleeing into a remote forest, where he committed suicide.
• March 30, 1960 Alice, Texas Donna Dvorak, 14, brought a .22 target pistol to Dubose Junior High School, and fatally shot Bobby Whitford, 15, in their 9th grade science class. Dvorak believed Whitford posed a threat to one of her girlfriends.
• June 7, 1960: Blaine, Minnesota Lester Betts, a 40-year-old mail-carrier, walked into the office of 33-year-old principal Carson Hammond and shot him to death with a 12-gauge shotgun.
• January 4, 1961: Delmont, South Dakota Donald Kurtz, 17-year-old senior at Delmont High School, was fatally wounded by a .22 caliber bullet from a rifle. The shot, intended as a sound effect for a school play, hit him in the chest during a rehearsal just minutes before the play was to take place.
• October 17, 1961: Denver, Colorado Tennyson Beard, 14, got into an argument with William Hachmeister, 15, at Morey Junior High School. During the argument Beard pulled out a .38 caliber revolver and shot at Hachmeister, wounding him. A stray bullet also struck Deborah Faith Humphrey, 14, who died from her gunshot wound.

Girl Tortured By Parents Because “The Bible Says”

Two Georgia parents were released on bond on Thursday after being charged with multiple counts of false imprisonment and cruelty to a child for allegedly holding their fifteen-year-old daughter in a chicken coop and outhouse for several days at a time and electrocuting her with a remote shock collar made for dogs.

The girl, who is currently being held for protective custody by the Department of Family and Child Services, was being home-schooled by her adopted parents Samuel and Diana Franklin and was being punished for supposedly not finishing her schoolwork. Diana Franklin told a neighbour that she was “doing what the Bible says” by feeding the girl only bread and water for days on end, imprisoning her in an outhouse and chicken coop, and forcing her to wear a shock collar.

Children in America are denied life-saving medical treatments, beaten and murdered, and now being electrocuted and imprisoned by their parents, all in the name of their god and holy books. I seriously question the idea of freedom of religion because of these stories.

Homosexuality Just as Bad as Holocaust, Atheism Even Worse

There is a website called boundless.org, which is a website (including a blog and podcast) about young adults (by adults) and how they should live their lives according to Jesus. Their About Us section goes like this:

The transition through young adulthood is a time of adventure, discovery and excitement; but also loneliness, longing and uncertainty.

With encouragement and advice for navigating relationships, career, culture, faith and more, Boundless helps you mature in Christ as a foundation for marriage and family. That requires living intentionally with purpose by bringing your gifts, talents and Christian worldview to bear on your whole life.

The host for the Boundless podcast, Lisa Anderson, is also the “program director for young adults at Focus on the Family.” Now we can see what kind of angle they are getting, trying to brainwash confused and desperate teenagers and the like into thinking everything will be okay as long as they follow Jesus. This is not a dissection of the entire website. Just some background information which puts this all into context.

A blog post that came out Monday by the name of “Why We Fight” by Andres Hess, who works on the “broadcast production, content development and research teams at Focus on the Family. He teaches Bible and psychology classes at Colorado Christian University…”

The post starts off by talking about the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, which “tells the powerful story of a group of paratroopers who fought in World War II.” Hess talks about the shock the soldiers received when they stumbled across one of the Nazi Concentration Camps. When I first read this article, I had no prior knowledge of what the post was about or the site it was hosted on. I was not sure what to expect, until I read this part (emphasis mine):

Watching this scene, two things struck me. First, these soldiers endured extraordinary hardships fighting in World War II, and second, their sacrifices were worth the lives of the many they were able to save. The world saw the terrible carnage that results when God’s commands are disregarded.

My initial response:

Yes, the world is a terrible place when God’s commands are disregarded, even though Adolph Hitler believed he was doing the work of God by exterminating the Jews. This is directly from Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography (emphasis mine):

I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.

The Bible commands that believers kill nonbelievers and those of other faiths, among many more people for many more reasons. Before anyone says it does not, please read this. God’s commandments were not being ignored, quite the opposite, they were being carried out by a faithful follower. I wonder if Hess thinks that Hitler was an atheist. He probably does, and then if pointed out all of the evidence for Hitler’s Christianity, he would probably use the classic “No True Scotsman Fallacy” that Hitler “wasn’t a true Christian.”

Hess goes on to say, “Sometimes people ask why we engage on controversial family issues like cohabitation, homosexuality and abortion.” He goes from Holocaust to homosexuality. I cannot wait to see how this one turns out.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just let everyone do what they want? Why can’t we just do our own thing and leave others to do theirs? Well, yes, that would definitely be easier. It would be much simpler to tolerate and to avoid the seemingly endless debates. So why not just leave it alone?

Yes. It would be easier, so please, as a bisexual, pro-choice atheist that is currently in a “cohabitation” with someone I care for very deeply, leave us alone and stop trying to take away our rights.

We can’t and won’t disengage on these issues because we love people and hate things that destroy people.

That old “hate the sin, love the sinner” nonsense. His entire blog post seems to be an elongated version of that overdone message, mixed in with some “we’re going to keep doing this, even if the world hates us for it, because we love Jesus and Jesus loved people, so we love people.”

These next bits are just… I really do not know how to describe it. Just read (emphasis mine):

Some may not see the connection between the evil of the Nazi war machine and the evil of abortion and sexual sin, but biblically, they are analogous. It’s sobering to consider all sin is a serious offense against a holy God and reaps punishment from Him. The Bible is clear. All sin offends God and deserves eternal punishment away from His presence.

Yes, he is comparing the Holocaust, one of the worst tragedies in history that killed ten million innocent men, women, and children, to gays and people living together who are not married.

How do Christians reconcile the idea that murder is just as bad as homosexuality? I have always wondered how they manage to think that loving someone deserves the same kind of punishment as murdering someone. “All sin offends God and deserves eternal punishment” is how they seem to do it. The punishment given to gay people who love each other is the same punishment as murderers. How is that “holy”? How is that moral?

Hitler’s sin and my sin both evoke God’s righteous wrath. The holocaust was one of the worst eruptions of evil in the history of the world, but what awaits those who reject God is worse, far worse.

Not only are homosexuality and cohabitation just as bad, according to Hess’ god, as the Holocaust, but rejecting his god, being an atheist like myself, is “worse, far worse” than systematically slaughtering entire races of people. Seriously?! How is it moral to think that not worshipping something, which has no evidence for its existence, is worse than killing countless numbers of people?

This is the kind of religious garbage that is passed off as just and fair morality to children who do not know any better. The website itself is aimed at teenagers who will grasp onto anything that will throw them a raft when they feel that they are drowning. These are taught as good and moral values to have. How are these things considered good? How is it moral to think like this? These thoughts and beliefs are immoral and dangerous.

If anyone who was not religious thought these things and expressed them on a daily basis, everyone would believe they are disgusting people who need to be locked away before they hurt anyone. However, once we tack on “God told me to,” wrapped in a bundle of nicely worded bigotry, then they are moral, righteous people, and we should respect their viewpoints, even if their viewpoints say that many people should have their rights taken away.

The Mosaic Law is Still in Place

It’s one of the oldest lines in the book (I’m not referring to the Bible), that Jesus, upon his coming to Earth as the son of God and eventual crucifixion, created a New Covenant for Christians (then the Jews) to live by, thereby abolishing the Old Covenant of Moses and the laws of the Old Testament, referred to as the Mosaic Law.

This is why certain Christians today claim that they do not have to follow the laws where God commands the stoning of gays (Lev. 20:13), supposed witches (Exo. 22:17), adulterers (Lev. 20:10), fornicators (Lev. 21:9), people of other faiths (Exo. 22:19), disobedient children (Lev. 20:9), entire towns of nonbelievers, including their women, children, infants, and livestock (Deut. 13:13-19), women who aren’t virgins on their wedding nights (Deut. 22:20-21), people who work on the Sabbath (Exo. 31:12-15), blasphemers/infidels (Lev. 24:10-16), and many more.

There are, however, many Christians who would gladly quote these verses and say that we are still bound by these laws, such as the extremely homophobic Kansas and North Carolina pastors that have been in the news recently. Which is it then?

By today’s standards, this is barbaric and disgusting. If someone today tried to kill someone else for any of these reasons, they would be considered a murderous psychopath, not someone who is doing good by carrying out the will of some god, even if those might be their intentions.

This rightfully so should be considered such, because it is barbaric; it is evil and backwards. If God is so loving, how can he ask this of his people? Even if these aren’t in effect right now, which I will get to in a second, what kind of “loving father” would command at any point in time his children to kill others, God’s other children, for just happening to be born in a different nation, for being born into a family of a differing religion, or for being born gay? “God is love,” I guess.

The claim made by Christians is that Jesus abolished these laws. This may be true, and let’s assume that it is for a minute. Now, I’m not going to argue if there is a new covenant. There is. It is laid out in the Old and New Testaments that God was going to create such a thing. In fact, here is a Christian explanation for the New Covenant. My only contention is when people say that since the Old Covenant was abolished, they no longer have to kill sinners, such as gays, supposed witches, adulterers, etc.

One Christian apologist blog claims that it has been abolished in one of their posts “Has the Mosaic Law Been Abolished?“

Since it was fulfilled, its requirements no longer apply. Thus practically, it has been abolished. As such, we are not required to follow it.

The author of the post gives numerous biblical verses that support the idea that the Mosaic Law has been abolished, or at least that we are no longer required to follow it. I suggest reading them all. If this is so, then what are the laws that people should follow? One of the people in the comments had this very same problem, except they were a Christian. They claimed, “According to [the author], we can now have sex with animals, commit incest…” and do all sorts of other things that were forbidden in the Old Testament.

A different Christian apologist site called Truth on the Web, has a different perspective on the matter. Emphasis his, not mine.

The apostle John taught throughout his writings that the law is still to be observed by God’s people.  You could read in John 5:14 & 8:11 where Jesus told people to “sin no more”. WHAT IS SIN? I John 3:4 states, ” …sin is the transgression of the law”. SIN IS THE BREAKING OF GOD’S COMMANDMENTS!  Jesus said not to break them anymore!

More disagreements between Christians on their own scripture and Messiah. Fun.

From what I’ve gathered from the latter of the two apologists, the Ten Commandments are still in effect, because Jesus, the Apostles, and others cite them throughout the New Testament, but the author says nothing of the 600 or so other commandments of God.

Are they the laws that were abolished upon Jesus’ crucifixion? If it is true that we are supposed to follow the Ten Commandments alone, then what are the punishments for breaking them? The Old Testament says to stone and kill people who break them. It is suggested in the New Testament that the same punishment be dealt when Jesus quotes the laws of Moses in Mark 7:9-13.

And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

So even if the laws I mentioned at the beginning were abolished, the Ten Commandments were not and are still commanded of Christians to this day. Do not forget too, the punishment for breaking the Ten Commandments “is to be put to death.” Hey, Jesus’ words, not mine (well, technically Moses, but Jesus is quoting him).

Now, God (Jesus’ daddy…who is also him…who is also a part…that is still separate from him…and…what?) did not seem to change his mind about the laws and commandments I have mentioned when they moved into the New Testament, as is abundantly clear in Romans 1:26-32.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

I’m going to ignore the part where God just made people gay, fully knowing that they would be punished for what he made them do.

According to this, things like homosexuality and other sins mentioned are to be punished by killing the sinner. Remember, this is not the Old Testament. Romans is in the New Testament, so there is no getting around it. God is telling us in the New Testament that homosexuality, among other things, is still a sin that must be punished with death according to “God’s righteous decree.” God wants us to kill gays (Leviticus 20:13), but we’ve been “released from the law” (Romans 7:6), so we don’t have to, but God still wants us to, because gays “deserve death” (Romans 1:32).

Some verses point towards a New Covenant being established, but there are also verses where Jesus himself is quoting Mosaic Laws, such as stoning disobedient children. Then there are laws and commandments in the New Testament that are identical to those in the Old. This further proves that 1) the Bible can be interpreted and cherry-picked however one sees fit in order to justify their beliefs and actions, and that 2) there are contradictions upon contradictions contained within the Bible.

Jehovah’s Witness Parents Ordered By Court to Give Daughter With Cancer Blood Transfusions

Justice Richard White of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Australia ordered the parents of a four-year-old girl to allow the doctors to perform blood transfusions on the girl, who had been diagnosed just very recently with cancer of the blood and bone marrow, despite the objections of her parents, who are both Jehovah’s Witnesses.

According to the Witness faith, which I used to belong to, blood transfusions are not allowed because of commandments from Jehovah (God) that consuming blood is forbidden in several verses, including Leviticus 17:10-14, Acts 15:19-29, Genesis 9:4, and Deuteronomy 12:16. The verses never say that blood transfusions themselves are not allowed, because they did not exist back in the days of the Bible, but the consuming and drinking of blood is forbidden, which the Watch Tower Society applied to blood transfusions.

Many different Christian denominations consider this, among other Witness practices and beliefs, to be outrageous and similar to a cult. It’s not really. The Bible never said gays couldn’t get married, just that people who lie with others of the same sex should be killed. The Bible also never said that you shouldn’t get blood transfusions, just that you shouldn’t drink it. It’s applying two-thousand year old dogma to modern day situations. It’s no different than any other Christian interpretation and implementation of the Bible.

The girl was diagnosed with leukemia, and the pediatric oncologist treating her said that without treatment she “will die . . . I would say in weeks.” The doctor also said that she had an extremely good chance of survival if she underwent treatment immediately. The parents refused to let her daughter receive possibly life-saving blood transfusions on the grounds of religious objections. They did, however, allow the doctors to do any other kind of treatment that is recommended for a leukemia patient.

After the parents refused to give their daughter the blood transfusions, the hospital petitioned the courts, saying that the transfusions would save the girl’s life.

In the courtroom, the parents gave very emotional addresses to the court about how they love their daughter very much and do not want her to die, just that they object to blood transfusions because of their faith. Justice White, who only two years prior heard a similar case of a ten-year-old boy, came down in favour of the hospital and the girl, saying that, “The court is to act in the best interest of the child,” and that, “Without a blood transfusion, there is a very high prospect that (she) will die.”

This is especially good news, because the doctors said that even if they could save the girl without the blood transfusions, which is highly unlikely, she could have severe brain and kidney damage.

Parents should be forced to treat their children, not pray over them and wish that everything gets better. If a child’s life is at risk, I don’t care what a parent’s religion is or what it teaches. A child living is better than appeasing some sky daddy who let her get sick in the first place.

People who deny their children safe and proven to work medicine because their religion says to are disgusting and should have their children taken away from them, at the very least. Nobody give me that “It’s Darwinism! It’s natural selection!” haha bullshit. It’s not funny. Children are being killed by their parents over delusional, superstitious nonsense. There are 30 states today in America that allow exemption from prosecution of parents who deny their children medical treatment on the grounds of religious objections. This is the government condoning and shielding child abuse.

This is just another reason that religion is dangerous to society. It’s stories like this that luckily ended up okay (or worse, the stories where the children die because of their neglectful parents) that make me question the idea of freedom of religion. So many children would still be alive today if not for their parents denying them insulin, or when a baby is denied medical treatment that could prevent her from going blind, or any of these horrific cases, all because of the parents’ religion. Better yet, when a thirteen-year-old boy refuses his own cancer treatment because of the influence from his parents’ religion.

Since we’re here complaining about children dying from diseases, let’s actually do something about it. Here’s a link to the donations page of Have a Heart: Children’s Cancer Society. Donate what you can. Please. I know, I’m such an evil, misanthropic atheist for wanting people to donate to a children’s cancer charity.