Put a gun to an atheist's head...

(Cross-posted to Skeptic Freethought)


My fellow Skeptic Freethought blogger Astrid drew attention to this heartwarming tweet this afternoon:

Sorry, kiddo. That's not God I'd be talking to. I'd be talking to the psychopath holding the gun. Though, hey, I'm pragmatic. I might say just about anything to get you to put the gun down.

If the only way you can get an atheist to pay lip service to your God is with a gun to their head, you might want to seriously reconsider the merits of your faith.

Horrific violence in the name of superstition

A couple of gruesome stories graced my Twitter feed this evening. It seems that violent religious extremists are starting off the year strong.

In Nigeria, Islamists are mercilessly gunning down Christians for praying to the wrong imaginary god:

"It was around 7:30 pm (1830 GMT)," Pastor John Jauro told AFP news agency of Thursday's attack in the city of Gombe.

"I was leading the congregation in prayers. Our eyes were closed when some gunmen stormed the church and opened fire on the congregation. Six people were killed in the attack and 10 others were wounded."

He said there was confusion as worshippers sought to flee at the Deeper Life Christian Ministry Church.

Local police spokesman Ahmed Muhammad confirmed the attack, but declined to say how many people the gunmen killed and wounded.

The attack comes after a purported spokesman for Islamist group Boko Haram on Sunday issued a three-day ultimatum for Christians living in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north to leave the region or they would be killed.

There was, however, no claim of responsibility for the attack.

(via Ophelia Benson)


Meanwhile in London, we have the ongoing murder trial of a woman and her partner, both Congolese immigrants, who tortured and drowned her teenage brother last Christmas because they believed he was a witch:

On Christmas Day 2010 the defendants, who both deny murder, allegedly forced the boy and his siblings into a bath, submerging him in water. Pathologist reports revealed he suffered 101 injuries, and died as a result of drowning and the injuries.

When Kristy was found by paramedics in the eighth-floor flat in Forest Gate, his head, face, back and arms were covered in deep cuts and bruises, and several of his teeth were missing.

Kristy and four siblings were sent by their parents, from their home in Paris, to see their sister and his partner on 16 December. A few days passed "pleasantly enough", then Bikubi said some of the children were possessed by spirits and were having an evil influence on a younger child in the house, it is claimed.

(via PZ Myers)


Belief in the supernatural isn't the root of all evil, but it certainly serves as an excuse for some.

I get email... from "family" "values" advocates, again!

Our good friend Eugene Delgaudio decided to grace my inbox with another one of his infamous anti-gay diatribes.  I thought that I had unsubscribed from his mailing list, but perhaps he doesn't understand that no means no.

In case you missed the last episode, you can read the first email here and my play-by-play rebuttal mockery of it here.

I was going to do another sarcastic play-by-play of this one, but LazyJay over at A Different Music beat me to the punch.  Instead, I'll give you an executive summary of what's wrong with Eugene's latest drivel, and you can read the original email (rendered in purple Comic Sans for my amusement) below.

Image credit: Austin Cline

This time, Eugene is trying to warn me of the dangers of HR 998 and S 555, a pair of bills that would prohibit discrimination against LGBT students in public schools that receive federal funding, including a requirement that they not tolerate gender- or sexuality-based bullying.  A reasonable request, though some may debate the federal government's role in policing this.

From Eugene's delusional point of view, this somehow entails requiring teachers to encourage heterosexual students to engage in homosexual acts (huh?), as well as giving students impunity for sexual assault if the victim is a member of the same sex (what?!?).  I'm not sure where he gets this special knowledge about the "gay agenda", but I do wish he'd share his sources.

He also expresses alarm at the fact that students in California will be required by state law to read about positive role models who happen to not be heterosexual.  The horror!

Eugene also has special knowledge he'd like to share about Kevin Jennings' evil plan to teach kindergarteners at private schools to have gay sex, a claim which he supports using a handful of unsourced quotations with no context given.  It should be noted that these quotations are only linked to the issue of homosexuality by Eugene's own paraphrasing.

Finally, Eugene asks for money, and offers a few suggested donation denominations.  It saddens me to know that there actually are plenty of people in this country who don't have anything better to spend it on.

The email text is below the jump.

2011 Rapture Redux and skepticism of religion

The now-infamous Harold Camping's latest predicted date for the End of All Things is tomorrow.  I'm personally looking forward to a relaxing weekend.

When the Rapture failed to occur five months ago, Camping backpedaled and said that it was obviously just a "spiritual" Rapture; the real fulfillment of the Book of Revelation wasn't due until October 21st.

It seems like the skeptic community and mainstream media alike made a bigger deal about his May 21st Armageddon prediction - granted, this is because Camping himself made a bigger deal about it.  I haven't seen much advertising from Family Radio regarding tomorrow's apocalypse, but the Freedom From Religion Foundation is wasting no time in capitalizing on it:

 

 (via Friendly Atheist)

The aim of their new billboard campaign is rather straightforward: promote skepticism of religion by drawing attention to the sheer lunacy of doomsday predictions.  Is the truly absurd thing here that Camping picked a specific date?  Or is it that he uses a madman's ramblings as the basis for not only his life, but his eighty million dollar business?

To borrow an analogy from Greta Christina: suppose an old man tells you that his electric hairdryer confided in him that the world is going to end on October 21st.  Which is the more appropriate response?

• That's silly.  Nobody knows when the world is going to end!
• That's silly.  Hairdryers can't talk!

Perhaps as more doomsday prophecies propagate in the public consciousness and are summarily and mercilessly debunked for the world to see, more people will start to question the belief systems that generated these prophecies in the first place.

My response to Eugene Delgaudio's email

Yesterday I received an email from Eugene Delgaudio, President of anti-gay group Public Advocate.  Here's what I sent as a response:

I get email... from "family" "values" organizations!

As a birthday present from the blog fodder gods, I found this piece of rubbish in my inbox yesterday morning: an email from Public Advocate President Eugene Delgaudio.  At first I was confused as to why I received it, but then I remembered that I took a survey hosted by his organization that PZ Myers had selected for Pharyngulation.  Apparently my votes in favor of the so-called "gay agenda" constitute signing his petition.

I'll post the email in its entirety below the jump, along with some choice illustrations I've added in.  I'll post my response in a separate entry due to length.