This is NOT a spoof…it’s a real video by the Westboro Baptist Church fucktards…

(Link sent to us by friend in disbelief, Trent)
God Hates the World

Image: Drunkenness of Noah. c. 1515. Oil on canvas, 103 x 157 cm. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon.

This post was inspired by the opening of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky. (which seems at $20 a person to be another great way to make money off of religious fundies). It’s mind-boggling that in the year 2007, and with all of scientific evidences accumulated over the centuries by highly intelligent and dedicated scientists, explorers, educators, etc. that there are so many who choose to believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old, and that dinosaurs and people co-existed…and that dinosaurs drowned in “the flood” but people survived despite the fact that no vegetation would have survived, and nothing would be left for them to eat after the floodwaters subsided, and nothing for the animals to eat to survive (if they survived such a long time confined to a wooden ark.) The whole story is so obviously absurd mythology, yet there are those who choose to hold onto ignorant beliefs of ancient folks who knew nothing about science, biology, geology, geography, meteorology, etc. And if getting rid of sin and evilness was the goal, this God sure picked a real loser to head up his “mission” to “cleanse the world.”

How can people actually take the story of Noah to be real? Have any Bible literalists ever asked themselves why, if an omnipotent God had the ability to create humans and all things in the first place, why the need to go through having an old drunken pervert build an ark, gather two of all the millions and millions of life forms all over the planet, when this God could have just wiped his imperfect creations out in one click of his fingers, and then with the blink of an eye re-create them all over again just as “in the beginning”? If one can look at the Bible with a critical eye, as with other ancient world mythologies, the absurdity of the stories contained therein are at the same level of absurdity.

The Flood myth absurdity doesn’t just end with the floodwaters subsiding. As Steve from Oak Park, Illinois on the website Straight Dope Science Advisory Board writes,

“Genesis 9:20-25 seems to be one of the strangest stories in the Bible. Noah lands the ark, plants a vineyard, gets drunk off its wine, lays around naked in his tent and is seen by his son Ham who reports it to his two brothers. Noah sobers up knowing what Ham did and curses his grandson Canaan who apparently was not even there. What is even stranger is when I started researching this mystery I discovered the story was once used to support slavery. Further there are theories floating around concerning castration and incest. What is the real story? Is there a deeper meaning to this than Noah having a case of misdirected anger while hung over? Or are we only hearing the watered-down version in our modern day Bible?”

SDSTAFF Dex replies:

“we examined the story of drunken Noah putting a curse on his grandson Canaan. This story came to be used as the biblical justification for slavery in pre-Civil War America, and for racial segregation after the war. The justification wasn’t purely an invention of plantation owners, either–its roots go back more than 1,500 years. That seems remarkable, since the story itself doesn’t mention race at all. Tracking the development of the slavery interpretation is an object lesson in the use of scripture to justify man’s inhumanity to man.“

Link to What’s up with the biblical story of drunken Noah? Part I & II: The Straight Dope

New Image: Hubble Captures Carina Nebula – Planetary News | The Planetary Society (For the large image, without the science article, click here.)

Here is proof for Gord: he is broad-shouldered and appears to be naked (at least, to the waist); he wears a turban; he may have a moustache (or is just grinning hugely – he loves to kick up the dust!); and he has either spit out a cigar butt…or just spit.

And does it look like Gord has a “familiar” on his left shoulder? Is it a peccary or a large black cat (look for “Sooty”, the last image on the post), facing away from its stogie-spitting owner?

I was unable, no matter how hard I squinted, to see a woman. Dang! I wanted so badly for Gord to be a female – mostly because it would piss off most of the religionists; Gord forbid they would accept a female “Creator”…

No, Ron, I haven’t returned to “belief”, or “gone fundie again”; I wasn’t even fundie, back in the day. My mind just gathered random shapes and colors together and “recognized” a human form in a Hubble image. According to Carl Sagan,

…human beings are, as a survival technique, “hard-wired” from birth to identify the human face. This allows people to use only minimal details to recognize faces from a distance and in poor visibility, but can also lead them to interpret random images or patterns of light and shade as being faces.

And, no, there was no photoshop involved (although I did use Picasa to crop the image). If you don’t believe me, please use either opening link.

It’s just an amazing Hubble image, as most of them have been. I would much rather have my tax dollars spent on Science!

(Watch out for this: it could go “viral”. Time will tell… And it should be interesting if fundies get hold of it!)

I’m back! Did ya’ll miss me?

After a week in Virginia, I feel like I need to be “sanitized” and to go through some kind of quarantine process even though I took regular showers while there. Don’t get me wrong…Virginia is a beautiful state, full of magnolia trees which fill the air with a perfumy scent that makes me wish I could have one or two of them right in my own backyard. The surroundings are green and lush with flowers everywhere and colorful songbirds flying all around. Settlers who arrived from the Old World in the midst of springtime must have initially thought they had found paradise. But I wonder what the founding fathers, who fought so hard to establish and uphold our freedoms and the separation of church and state would think about their grand state of Virginia turning into the “fundie Vatican” and headquarters of some of the most intolerant religious fundamentalists on Earth.

My sympathies go out to all of you atheists and secular humanists who must live in these areas surrounded by the self-righteous horde. Around the D.C. area, Virginia didn’t seem much different than Chicagoland, but as we drove farther into Virginia, I began to feel like I was back in Little Rock, Arkansas once again . . . only back in the mid 70s, I was still a Xian so was easier to deal with fundies, though I did still feel like an outsider because I was not considered to be a “True Xian”. As we were driving down the interstate, every so many miles we would come upon these sets of three crosses on a hillside with the center one painted a yellow-gold, the two on either side were white. We also saw a lot of these going through West Virginia (West Virginia needs a whole post of it’s own. It’s a whole other world.)

We stopped at Mt. Vernon first, which is a beautiful mansion and plantation nestled on the hills overlooking the Potomac River. George Washington was a man of many interests and abilities, and he valued knowledge and reason. Not many religious references were to be found amongst the many, many artifacts which remain from the Washington family, except for a family Bible (which belonged to his wife Martha from her first marriage), and a few references in writings by Washington about “Divine Providence”, but nothing about Jesus or Christianity.

As noted by Franklin Steiner in “The Religious Beliefs Of Our Presidents” (1936), Washington commented on sermons only twice. In his writings, he never referred to “Jesus Christ.” He attended church rarely, and did not take communion – though Martha did, requiring the family carriage to return back to the church to get her later.

Washington was, at most, a deist, however fundies are determined to rewrite Washington’s beliefs and his stance on religion. In the museum that is on the grounds of Mt Vernon, there is a mini-sanctuary with pews to throw in a bit of a religious fiction to the whole “educational” experience, trying to make Washington seem like he was a Christian man when he was not. As his writings show evidence of, and as I said before . . . at most, he was a deist. [George Washington and Religion] The experience at the end of the tour was also quite irritating. At the entrance to Washington’s tomb there is a live prayer reading every twenty minutes, a prayer that was delivered by a Rev. Thomas Davis, Rector of Christ Church at his entombment. When the guide called everyone to the area in front of the tomb for the prayer, the sheeple dressed in their “John 3:16” and “Jesus Loves Me” t-shirts all herded in a huddle with eyes closed and faces squinched as if constipated as the guide read the prayer. Some of us kept walking around irreverantly taking pictures and ignoring the whole oogie boogie recitation. After it was over, I scooted in the out gate and took my photos of the tomb and sarcophagus.

Monticello was similar in the way the preservationists try to highlight Jefferson’s brief references to God, however I was glad to see that they did place emphasis on Jefferson’s adament stance that knowledge was the key to success and happiness. While Washington kept his beliefs concerning religion private, Jefferson was more outspoken about where he stood, and therefore a bit more difficult to make shit up about his beliefs. However, Jefferson’s true beliefs were downplayed, while anything remotely “godly” he might have said was taken out of context, highlighted and prominently displayed. This following video contains quotes by Jefferson that SHOULD have been displayed, but weren’t.

Gift shops at the Williamsburg tourist trap information center were playing a steady stream of religious music . . . “and he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own” . . .and in most shops and restaurants we stopped at, church music permeated these places.

During this trip, I came to realize how fine the line is drawn between church and state in the south, and in the same way they do their Bible, fundamentalist Christians choose to interpret and rewrite history to their own liking in order to force their beliefs upon the rest of us.

Good video in response by Dr. Michael Newdow on separation of church and state:

Going back to our hotel room one evening, there was a woman who scared me. She was standing at the railing of the balcony where our second floor room was located, and she was telling another woman how the “power of the Lawd shot down through her arms” and how she could “feel the heat and tingling as the power of the Lawd” went through her and “traveled out of her fingertips” and into the back of her little dog and healed it! I told my husband to hurry up and get inside our room and barricade the door!

University of Discovery Institute – Covington Kentucky (U.D.I.C.K. Campus)

Professor Ken Ham, Shamthropologist-Emeritus

INTRODUCTION: This course is an introduction to the field of shamthropology, a discipline concerned with what it is to be a human who believes in a Young Earth. As a result, practically anything you can imagine may fall within our sphere of study!

Twentieth century North American Shamthropology is typically conducted in relation to four subdisciplines or fields of study. These include:

Human origins:

• Genesis and beyond.

Prehistoric past, or those periods in human history that lack extensive written archives or require the analysis of material evidence:

• analyzing fossils and destroying those that are more than 6,000 years old;
• construction of dioramas to show “descent of man” that is in strict accord with the Bible;
• constructing life-like dinosaurs from kitchen ingredients.

Ways that people live, know, and organize themselves in the present or recent past:

• shaming;
• picketing GLBT;
• smearing liberals and anti-Christian politicians;
• reflexive mass contacting of politicians before critical Christian legislation;
• shredding the Bill of Rights;
• bombing abortion clinics;
• campaigning against condoms, birth control and masturbation;
• supporting the Theocratic movement);

Ways that people communicate with one another or organize their worlds linguistically:

• bumper stickers;
• crosses and crucifixes;
• fish magnets;
• biblical scripture;
• use of Christian radio and television empires;
• elevate rural Bible colleges to university level and how to gain Federal funding;
• supplying government with employees who dedicate their work to Christ;
• how to eliminate Ethics programs by replacing with Bible-study and prayer;
• how to apply “The Flintstones” to everyday life).

Final Exam: Debunking Darwin, Dawkins and Hawking

Internships available: US Departments of State, Commerce, Education, Energy, NSA, HHS, NIH, CDC, NASA and select Congressional offices.

(Sincere apologies to Covington KY – I needed a “C” to make a “dick” out of Ken Ham’s “educational facility”. Petersberg wasn’t helping, although it is funny!)

The words that spark very real fear in many men…

I’ll speak from a woman’s perspective (surprise!): This is going to turn entire worlds upside-down! For men, women, religions (orthodox Jew, for instance), tampon and pad manufacturers…

Lybrell, a newly-FDA-approved birth control pill, will allow for the temporary cessation of menstruation, something that is unecessary if you aren’t trying to conceive. Lybrell is reported to be safe. From MedicalNewsToday:

A European trial found that the drug prevented pregnancy in all 323 women who took it, according to Wyeth (Los Angeles Times, 5/23).

The drug has received mixed reviews from women and health experts. In a study conducted by Wyeth, nearly two-thirds of women expressed an interest in eliminating their menstrual periods. However, Wyeth research also found that nearly 50% of the women surveyed welcomed their periods as a sign that they were not pregnant and nearly 25% said they were attached to their periods as a natural part of womanhood. Available medical research shows that the side effects of pills that suppress menstruation are similar to those of other birth control pills. The most significant risk of the pills is cardiovascular complications in women who smoke (Kaiser Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, 5/22).

I, too, have mixed feelings about this. Before my hysterectomy, in 1990, I might have welcomed this option, although I had had my tubes tied in 1972, thus negating the need for birth control that would stop my periods! That’s crazy!

I wonder if anyone still owns stock in companies that manufacture “feminine products”…

At Crooks&Liars, check out the video from FoxNoise. In the post, “I want more babies. More babies. We love babies.” , you can see what happens when birth control is discussed by religious conservatives (Cavuto and Unruh) and a NARAL spokesperson (Carr). Cavuto and Unruh are certifiably insane! “It allows them to play god!” “This is a war on women and a war on children…” and something-something foolish about “feminine women who are fertile”… Faghhh! And don’t forget about the 13-year-old girls who will start turning tricks on street corners!!!

At Pandagon, we get a more rational view:

The “controversy” over the FDA approving the pill Lybrel, which is just a non-stop birth control pill that stops your period, speaks volumes about Americans’ general back-assedness. Women in other countries have been using pills to stop the inconvenience of having periods for something like decades now, but Americans, we have to freak the fuck out over this. A nation of techno-lovers can turn into a nation of Luddites at the very hint of women benefitting from technology in any way. At Feministing, Ann found that ABC News is already running with the “bitches are out of control” angle. This is the titular sentence that diagnoses our collective insanity:

It’s unclear whether women will embrace this new pill, which contains the same formulations of estrogen and progestin used for birth control pills for decades, but its arrival marks yet another step toward the blurring of the genders.

Did Tampex pay for this article or something? “First, women quit having periods and next thing you know, they’ll start peeing standing up. Before you know it, men will be cleaning toilets on their hands and knees!”

Not that this should surprise me. This is a nation that harbors a distressingly large number of fundamentalists, many of whom take “the curse” as just more evidence that god hates women and put them on earth to wait on men.

As 21st century women dominate the universities and continue to climb the executive ladder, and metro-sexual men explore their feminine side, it’s harder to define what it means to be a woman.

Between having rights and not having periods, how will you ever know you’re a woman? If only there was some other way to tell, perhaps different organs than men or something.

More…

On the other hand, there’s the fundamentalist view. from Wikipedia:

The traditional Islamic interpretation of the Qur’an forbids intercourse, but not physical intimacy, during a woman’s menstrual period. During menstrual period, women are not required to perform prayers and fasting. Some scholars believe that women are not authorised to enter mosque during this period. And, after the period, a spiritual bath is required to be able to perform prayers, fasting, and to enter the mosque – the same type of bath required of both men and women after sexual intercourse.

In Judaism, a ritual exclusion called niddah applies to a woman while menstruating and for about a week thereafter, until she immerses herself in a mikvah (ritual bath). During this time, a married couple must avoid sexual intercourse and physical intimacy. Certain Jewish groups forbid women and men from even touching or passing things to each other during this period. While Orthodox Jews follow this exclusion, many Jews in other branches of the religion do not.

And then there are “old wives’ tales”:

Attitudes toward Menstruation; International Committee on Applied Research in Population, by Elizabeth M. Whelan (view one page at JSTOR):

Some late 19th century and early 20th century reports continued to reflect historical beliefs about the malign influence of menstruating women. In 1878, the British Medical Journal carried a series of letters that claimed menstruating women could cause bacon to putrefy. And in 1915, the comments of the 1st century Roman, Pliny, on the harmful effects of menstruating women, were recalled by a medical doctor who stated:

With reference to Pliny’s remark on the dulling of the surface of a mirror, there may be an element of truth in it. Roman mirrors were made of silver or silvered-bronze, and I have known a patient…to leave off wearing silver ornaments during menstruation on account of the rapid tarnishing which occured at that time. (Crawfurd, 1915)

…Dr.David I Macht of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine followed up Dr. Schick’s observations and concluded that these menotoxins “…contaminate by contact to such an extent that they retard development and even kill plants”…

As a woman who cursed “the curse” for many years, I guess I’d come down on the side of “hell, yeah!”. But since it’s only an academic issue for me, tell me what you think.

Sometimes I read things like this…

“I think this movement is, at its heart, a religious one, not in the narrow “my line to God gives me all the right answers on lots of issues” sense, but in a powerful, converging and unifying sense. Perhaps the time of claiming exclusive religious certainty that polarizes and vilifies is waning, finally, and a new movement stirs — a recognition that at the heart of our faith (and, much to our surprise, we find it at the heart of virtually all faiths) is the simple claim that God is gently but surely guiding us to live lives of compassion and solidarity.”
ELCA Bishop Peter Rogness

…and think, “Looks like change is coming!”

But then, I read things like this…

Science knows a lot. What it DOESN’T know, it does not fake an answer for.
Martian.Anthropologist

…and remember that religion is about the lies, obfuscation, manipulation, mental slavery, obstreperous defense. and CA$H&POWER!

Does anyone else see religion mirroring every cultural referent? Megachurches now look like concert venues. Or suburban malls. Or casino hotels! Services are now crossed with concert productions. A parallel education-system beyond just parochial schools; bobble-colleges have become universities. Television and radio newscasts; movies and video games; spin-offs from, for example, Left Behind. Conservapedia and Qube. Fake museums. Publishing, food and beverage, clothing and jewelry, toys…even medicine! And, lest we forget: Politics!

What the fuck would their parthogenic savior think, if he came back, AT LAST? And if he chastised them and they killed him again, could they still call themselves “christian”? Or would they be “the New Jews”?

Religion finally left “faith, hope and charity” in the dust almost 35 years ago…

Feel free to add any endeavor that they have perverted or taken as their own.

Much ado about the invisible man who wasn’t there:

• Bill Maher and Borat director Larry Charles are finishing up a snarky documentary about the state of world religion. From what I can tell, it’s not very good. The state of religion, that is. Given Maher’s and Charles’s irreverence, the movie should be awesome. No U.S. distributor as of yet.
• God has told a prophet who will win the next Jamaican election. Kind of takes all the mystery out of it.
  
• A look at Esalen and “the religion of no religion“
• Utahns use religion to fleece the flock
• Must-see video from Bill Moyers about Pat Robertson’s Regent University, where they improve on the law by vomiting Biblical “truth” all over it. Home of fifth-amendment patriot Monica Goodling, RU is not to be confused with Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, home of the guy who brings bombs to a funeral.