For those who might be interested, here are some oldies-but-goodies…

Definitely check out the Easter version of Jesus Dress Up. Hours of fun there.

Also check out the Easter Quiz for those who like to think about stuff.

5. The first visitor(s) was/were greeted by
a. an angel (Matt. 28:2-5)
b. a young man (Mark 16:5)
c. two men (Luke 24:4)
d. no one (John 20:1-2)

Man, that quiz always cracks me up. That shit just never gets old.

(For those who don’t like to think, you won’t like that site.)

And Ron reminds us what Lenny Bruce said about the cross:

If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.

“If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Yep, it’s that time of year again, old friends: when we renew our voices, and raise our fists to the sky, and tell the world that we will not knuckle under to the harsh rule of religious tyranny. That all people under the blue sky are entitled only to their particular brand of ideology, but not entitled to force others to bow, or kowtow to them.

I submit to you, dear readers, that we at one time as a nation, had some theocratic elements. The so-called ‘Blue Laws’ are a perfect example of this, some of which still exist to this day (admittedly, it’s mostly the restriction of liquor in certain counties, but I haven’t checked recently).

The ongoing battle for homosexual rights is another such example. The arguments against gay marriage (of which I am a supporter of, albeit my activism is of the online variety), the vacuous arguments against gay parenthood, or even opposition to the actual treatment of homosexuals as peers.

Symbols of ‘the theocracy that was’ are all around us. Even to this day, the theocrats have inserted key personnel into the current administration. We still have ‘In God We Trust’ on our currency. We have missionaries preaching to the appointees in power. We even have a mercenary equivalent of the Praetorian Guard with a theocratic agenda. There are at least three states in the Union who pretty much qualify for theocracy, anyways: Oklahoma, Texas, and Indiana.

For those readers who accuse me of ‘ panic-mongering’, they are cordially invited to investigate for themselves.

There are those who proclaim ‘Original Intent’ , that the founders indeed intended to make this a Christian nation. But Jefferson coined the phrase ‘Separation of Church and State‘ (Madison spoke of it as a line between the two). Madison was very much for taxing churches if they should interfere with a political campaign (a remarkable Founder, but not so good as a President, or so I’ve read). In fact, I once proved that of five of the Founding Fathers, none of them would be suitable for election in this century.

It is time, people. To address the government with our redress of grievances, as is our constitutional right.

1. That we will not enter into a war based on some addled ‘vision from God‘
2. That no judge will suborn the First Amendment based on his own beliefs.
3. That the civil as well as constitutional rights of all citizens, regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, are adhered to and observed.
4. That religion be kept out of the schools, because due to the rich cultural diversity of our country, to err on the side of the majority is to denigrate the needs of the minority.
5. Because this government is based first on the individual, and then on the will of the masses, a balance must be found.

And foremost, this: that a ’small’ theocracy will become a theocracy writ large. And any theocracy will have the high priests of such, who will go about silencing the dissenters, the pariahs, the infidels, any of those who are significantly other than themselves. Who will systematically stifle any and all outcry against the ‘good news’ of their ascension and rule. This is not vain hyperbole: history will bear me out on this.

And I, as a moral, law-abiding, tax-paying, secular citizen, am just as entitled to the same rights as any religious citizen.

So let freedom ring.  And let no god(s) tell me otherwise. Because they can plant their non-existent lips on my gluteus maximus.

This is the Apostate, signing off.

Activists Gather At Theaters In 25 Cities To Put Church-State Separation On National Agenda During 2008 Election

The March 26 simulcast is being produced by Progressive Media Agency, a Portland, Ore.-based firm led by Adam Klugman and Enrique Arias.

Actors, musicians and comedians will join church-state activists from across the country March 26 to put church-state separation on the national agenda during the 2008 election season.

In movie theatres in 25 cities across the nation, interested citizens will gather to learn about the threats to church-state separation and to demand that presidential hopefuls and candidates for other offices answer questions about key issues dealing with individual freedom. A list of 10 great questions to ask candidates will be featured.

Titled “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about the Separation of Church and State … but Were Afraid to Ask!,” the high-definition program is being hosted by First Freedom First (FFF), a joint project of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and The Interfaith Alliance Foundation.

Peter Coyote, a celebrated Hollywood actor and filmmaker, will emcee the program, which is to include a performance by special guests, The Bacon Brothers. Actor Kevin Bacon and his brother Michael formed the band more than 10 years ago and continue touring nationwide.

Other actors and celebrities scheduled to participate include Michael J. Fox (“Family Ties” and “Spin City”), Jack Klugman (“The Odd Couple” and “Quincy, M.E.”), James Whitmore (“The Shawshank Redemption”), Wendie Malick (“Just Shoot Me!”), Dan Lauria (“The Wonder Years”), Catherine Dent (“The Shield”), stand-up comedian and Air America host Marc Maron, singer/songwriter Catie Curtis and singer/satirist Roy Zimmerman.

In addition, Americans who have fought for individual freedom will tell their stories. Invited guests include Bryan and Christy Rehm (who fought creationism in Dover, Pa. science classes), Matthew LaClair (a New Jersey high schooler who exposed religious indoctrination at his school), Roberta Stewart (an Afghanistan War widow who fought for equal rights for Wiccan veterans), Dr. Susan Wicklund (who wears a bullet-proof vest to provide reproductive services in underserved areas) the Rev. Madison Shockley (pastor and reproductive rights advocate) David and Ryan Altoon (who oppose fundamentalist proselytism at U.S. military academies) Melinda “Lindy” Maddox (who successfully sued Alabama “Commandments” Judge Roy Moore) and Susan Jacoby (author of The Age of American Unreason).

First Freedom First was launched in 2006 to mobilize Americans from all walks of life in defense of church-state separation. Recently FFF ran television ads in several presidential primary states urging citizens to ask the candidates to elaborate on their understanding of religious liberty.

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, and the Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of The Interfaith Alliance Foundation, will also participate in the simulcast.

Said Lynn, “This is a unique event that brings together celebrity commitment, civic engagement and the latest technology. Presidential candidates have been asked what their favorite Bible verse is and what sins they have committed. I want to know where they stand on key issues of individual freedom. This simulcast will tell us how to find out that information — and give us an entertaining evening to boot.”

Said Gaddy, “We are thrilled that so many American icons we have welcomed into our living rooms over the years have graciously agreed to lend their star-power to focus attention on religious liberty and some of its heroes. This gathering should prove to be a lively and much-deserved celebration of the diversity of belief systems in this country and some of the citizens who have boldly taken public stands to protect the boundaries between religion and government.”

LINKS TO FIND LOCATIONS NEAR YOU

Yes, it’s that time of year again to make fun of the self-flagellators and masochists for Jeebus. Every year on Good Friday, Christian believers in the Philippines undergo crucifixion as a sign of their faith (stupidity) and desire for penitence (desire to perpetuate their stupidity). These acts of insanity don’t only occur in the Philippines, but also Mexico, Italy, parts of the Middle East and other places around the globe. Crazy that people are still doing this in the year 2008!

And now we don’t have to settle for just reading about it, but we can also watch the stupid people in action on You Tube!

Jimmer was going to write about the article he saw at Pharyngula that was the idea for this post, titled “Department of Duh!”, but he still doesn’t have computer service at home yet and timed out before he could post about it. So, I told him I would post it for him. Apparently from THIS NEWS STORY, health officials in the Philippines have issued a warning to people taking part in Easter crucifixion rituals.

They have urged them to get tetanus vaccinations before they flagellate themselves and are nailed to crosses, and to practise good hygiene.

As PZ points out, “People are flagellating themselves and nailing themselves to sticks in a public spectacle of stupidity, and health officials are warning them to get a tetanus shot? How about “Stop doing that,” instead, or alternatively, “Please use rusty nails and whips clotted with rotting gore so that you’ll die sooner and we won’t have to worry about you idiots anymore”?

And now for a little self-flagellation entertainment from a Sick Friday procession in Taxco, Mexico! Aye Carumba!!

Ah, the joys of living in a pseudo-democracy…

On the fifth anniversary of President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, President Bush said he has no doubts about waging the unpopular war despite the “high cost in lives and treasure.”

Vice President Dick Cheney had a different message. Informed during a Good Morning America interview broadcast Wednesday that two-thirds of Americans now think the war was not worth fighting, Cheney said: “So?”

“So you don’t care what the American people think?” ABC’s Martha Raddatz asked.

He added: “I think we cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations of the public opinion polls. There has in fact been fundamental change and transformation and improvement for the better. That’s a huge accomplishment.”

And when you think about all the wonderful people who just can’t give enough love to this man, it brings a tear…

I found this little piece on Yahoo News about a preacher man who goes traveling to university campuses around the eastern United States, shouting warnings of fire and brimstone to students despite a steady stream of mockery from bystanders.

You’re going to hell if you drink beer, he says. You’re going to hell if you curse. You’re going to hell if you smoke dope, masturbate, fornicate, watch a Hollywood movie, listen to rap, read Harry Potter books or attend most Protestant churches, Armstrong says.

Homosexuals are hellbound, too, he says. So are women with low-cut tops, short hair, pants or jobs.

“Women have two places: In front of the sink and behind the vacuum,” Armstrong proclaims.

“Ooooh,” moans the crowd, now swelled to at least 250 people.

This dude has everybody going to Hell.

RE the comment about women: I don’t think even most Christian women would want to go that far back in time. We’ve come to far. But if you look at the Bible in a literal sense, women are no better than slaves. Homosexuals are a weary target for Christian fundamentalists, and so is Harry Potter. This guy must be related to the Jesus Camp bitch.

Responses from crowd members were quite amusing:

“Brother Micah, can God microwave a burrito so hot he can’t eat it?” a student with dreadlocks called from the crowd.

“Chuck Norris can!” someone screeched, prompting a roar.

Micah just kept preaching.

“You say sorority girls are whores,” another guy called from the throng. “Is there one in particular I could go to?”

Armstrong paused, rubbed his face and kept preaching.

Critics say Brother Micah claims to be sinless and is so focused on scaring hell out of people that he has forgotten the things they see in God — love, forgiveness, charity.

Many Christians, like some in the video below, may only want to see their God as love, forgiveness and charity, but anyone who has read the Bible who doesn’t merely blow off the bad parts knows that what Brother Micah spews out of his mouth comes right from his awful mythology book.

Here’s the full story:

Hellfire preacher stirs up campuses

And a little video of Brother Micah in action

There’s been some discussion on the internets about a paper by Simon Blackburn, arguing against respecting religious believers. I first found out about it in a post by Harry Brighouse, a philosophy professor at Madison. It seems to have been kicked off at Regardant les Nuages. There’ve been good posts on it by Richard Chapell and Jason Rosenhouse, which I won’t be discussing here, so go read them.

The key passage, I think, is here:

We can respect, in the minimal sense of tolerating, those who hold false beliefs. We can pass by on the other side. We need not be concerned to change them, and in a liberal society we do not seek to suppress them or silence them. But once we are convinced that a belief is false, or even just that it is irrational, we cannot respect in any thicker sense those who hold it—not on account of their holding it. We may respect them for all sorts of other qualities, but not that one. We would prefer them to change their minds.

Though it is worth keeping in mind that this is not all there is to the paper. Blackburn deals, for example, with the idea of sincerity deserving respect, and discusses how people with false beliefs can be more or less at fault for those beliefs. (Incidental remark on the last point: Blackburn thinks cults and mainstream religions are very different, but what I’ve read about cults makes me think the psychology isn’t much different than that of mainstream religions.) There’s also material on liberal theology which nobody is discussing, but which is worth reading.

Okay, silliest criticism first: Mixing Memory argues that we shouldn’t worry too much about whether a belief is true, because hey, isn’t it all perception? What really matters, according to this post, is whether a belief lines up with the MM blogger’s political views. (Among other things, this objection runs aground on the question of whether the blogger’s political views are mere perception.

Brighouse deserves to be taken somewhat more seriously, as he is right to emphasize that truth is different from rationality. Blackburn acknowledges this, but failed to take the step of pointing out that there are occasionally rational false beliefs (perhaps the Babylonians were rational to think the Earth flat). Even Brighouse’s post, though, gets weird when he proposes that the key thing is realizing you’re not infallible even when very nearly certain–a point which could be used to argue for respect for any belief, and Brighouse admits there are beliefs he doesn’t respect. He accuses unnamed militant atheists of believing themselves infallible, and though I don’t know who he had in mind (why won’t he say?), applied to the best-known representatives of atheism to day it’s a silly, almost willful, misreading.

Chalk this up, I guess, as another example of a weird resistance to criticism of religion, even among those who you would expect to be thinking clearly.

“The struggle for religious and intellectual liberty is evidently not over. And in this struggle, the influence of science is surely one of our greatest aids. This is not because of the certainty of scientific knowledge, but precisely because of its uncertainty. Seeing scientists change their minds again and again about matters that are accessible to experiment and mathematical analysis, we are warned against giving the power of criminal jurisdiction to any religous authority that claims to speak with certainty about matters that are beyond human experience.”

From the book “Facing Up” By Steven Weinberg Professor of Physics and Astronomy University of Texas and Nobel Prize in Physics 1979.

You can find more about all of the Nobel Prize winners here:

I began reading the writings of some of the Nobel Laureates recently and have come to find that their consise and clear thinking is so much better for me than any thing else I have read.

What really gets me more and more is how we have been swindled by the media who continue to cover the stupid Huckabees and Drollingers and give them time to advance their own brand of ignorance. Huckabee added his name and political mojo to a bill in Colorado that would give a fertilyzed embryo the same status as being Human. Drollinger is one of many ministers who cater to the state legislatures around the country as reported on this blog previously.

In this the 21st century we have a media that is ignorant of the most basic of scientific standards. They make room for people who can’t reason out that the earth is not 6,000 years old but much older. When all the evidence is against them. As if they have a right to their stupid opinion. But then again it’s just facts and evidence. All of these people have maybe an 8th grade understanding of science and the principals that govern the universe. Who actually think that their belief is sufficient to inform them of what is real and what isn’t. What they lack in discipline to educate themselves they make up for in imagination and conformity to a bad idea whose time has come and is no longer applicable.

We have the ability at our fingertips to expand our own understanding of all things that will make our lives better. We can be informed as to some of the latest scientific progress. Yet unless we seek out this information then we are in many ways like these retarded believers. My hope in humankind has always been in our ability to solve problems. To find new ways and workable solutions to the problems that face us all. Many of those problems come directly from superstitious beliefs and dogmatic reverence in myths. Problems that many of us have found to be part of an acceptance of faulty religious reasoning. Although religious reasoning might be considered an oxymoron.

It will be a great day when all the “Faithful” quit their grovelling on their knees and stand up. When they face up to being adults in the 21st century. And they become informed as to the facts and truth that are readily available to them. St. Paddy’s day is a case in point. as Bob poits out about the reltionship between the Druids and The murderous Xtians. And to whit they (Xtians, Muslims etc.) are still at it.

Stardust, I see Mormons. (snicker snicker)