Pseudo Religions?

  As any regular reader of this blog knows, I'm no fan of religion. I had the great fortune of being raised by parents that weren't very religious and, to the best of my knowledge, never went to church during my lifetime. Thus I was allowed to grow up free of religious indoctrination. As a result of this, I am an atheist. That being said you'll probably find it surprising that I'm an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. Here's the story behind my ordination. Back in early 1998, I sent in my $30.00 and became a SubGenius minister. The Church of the SubGenius is a parody church created by Rev. Ivan Stang and Overman Philo U. Drummond. In an FAQ file on the site, they said that the SubGenius church wasn't recognized by the government and as a result, ministers ordained by the church couldn't legally perform such priestly duties as weddings. But the ULC believes that no government should stand in the way of a person's religious beliefs. Because of this, they will ordain anyone online, for free, no matter what religious beliefs an individual might have. I've been an ordained ULC minister since Feb. 1st, 1998.

  Some time later, I found out about the Jedi Church. Based on the Star Wars universe, this religion bases its beliefs on the Force and the code of the Jedi. As I recall, it started either in New Zealand or Australia. This church has been seeking official government recognition in several countries. Joining the church is free, but you can order a Certificate of Ordainment from them. I've been an ordained Jedi minister for a few years now.

  And last, but not least, we have Pastafarianism a.k.a. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This church was formed in response to the Kansas school board trying to teach creationism in their public schools. Sometime last year, the church began selling ordination certificates and wallets cards on their site. I joined this past December.

  It should also be noted that, according to the Principia Discordia, everyone on Earth is a Discordian Pope. You can get your free Pope card here.

  So why would a dyed in the wool atheist get ordained in three different religions? I mainly did it as a form of protest against the major religions of the world. As far as I'm concerned, these religions are just as valid as they are. Just because Christianity, Islam and Judaism have very large followings doesn't make them any truer than SubGenius, Jediism, Pastafarianism or Discordian beliefs.

Islam: Religion of Peace?

  In Kabul, Afghanistan, a woman named Farkhunda was beaten to death when a peddler in Kabul's Shah-Do Shamshira mosque accused her of burning a Quran when the two of them had an argument because he was selling amulets to childless women. Details as to what the mob did to her are in this Journal Times article. No evidence was ever put forth that she had burned a Quran. She was not arrested, tried and found guilty of burning a Quran. The mob simply beat her to death based on what the peddler said. The police officers present at the time either ignored the situation or took an active part in her death. Muslims say that Islam is a religion of peace. How can they say that when incidences like this occur? This is what I truly hate about religion. A crowd of people went homicidal because they thought someone had burned a copy of their holy book. I don't care what you think about the Quran, it's just a fucking book. Millions of copies of it exist and millions of copies have likely been destroyed in various manners. And the Quran, like every other "holy" book written before or since, was written by man. Not God, man. And because man wrote it, it contains not only man's wisdom but also man's hatred and prejudices as well. We're flawed therefore our "holy" books are flawed as well. We, as a species, have a nasty tendency to elevate things and regard them as being above question or reproach. Religion is one of those things. Some people believe that no one is allowed to criticize, question or insult it. This is complete and utter fucking bullshit. Religion isn't holy. It's merely a bunch of superstitions that WAY too many people believe to be true. We, as a species, need to stop drinking the poisoned Kool Aid of religious belief and start letting reason and logic enlighten us instead.

Atheist Hate Crime?

  As some of you may know, Craig Hicks has been accused of killing three Muslim students in North Carolina. Some reports say that the killings were over a parking space dispute. Other reports say that Craig, a self professed "gun toting" atheist, murdered the three Muslims because of a deep seated hatred of religion. Whatever the reason, what Craig Hicks did was wrong and if he's convicted, he must pay the penalty. What worries me is that he might actually have committed a hate crime. We atheists must stay out of the hate crime business. Let the religionists slaughter each other over differing religious beliefs. It only demonstrates to the world how truly fucked up they are. Atheists have to remain above this level of genocidal idiocy. Craig Hicks is hurting the atheist cause.

War on Christmas Redux pt. 2: Elitist Christian Zealot Assholes

  An article in Happenings magazine tells of a Phoenix Salvation Army bell ringer being assaulted by a woman outside of a Walmart because she said "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". Can you believe the unmitigated gall of this elitist Christian cunt? Every year at this time, the fascists fucks at Fox News whine about people not kissing their religion's ass, with tongue, because they say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". They act like saying "Happy Holidays" to them is the equivalent of skull fucking the baby Jesus in front of a bunch of preschoolers. These people, who rant and rave that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia law upon everyone, think nothing of imposing their religious views on everyone. They really need to get over themselves and realize they're not the center of the universe.

Islam and Porn

"Data collected by Alexa, a subsidiary of Amazon.com that tracks Web traffic around the world, revealed that pornographic sites were among the most visited Internet destinations in Egypt, Tunisia and Lebanon. Five porn sites in Egypt and Lebanon, and seven in Tunisia, broke the list of the top 100 most visited sites in each country, according to Al Arabiya. Two pornographic sites ranked in the top 25 most visited in Egypt. Pornography is forbidden in much of the Islamic world, and Egypt banned online porn last week. Yet some critics said that people will find ways to get their porn fix regardless of government prohibitions." The above quote is from the Huffington Post web site. Don't you just love religious hypocrisy? It seems that when it comes to porn, many followers of Islam are like the followers of Christ. They rant and rave about how porn is evil and that only the morally lax would ever indulge in it then they go home and spend all kinds of time viewing it. Jimmy Swaggart got caught not once, but twice, with porno mags in his possession. Osama bin Laden had porn in his compound. I have nothing against most porn. The only types of porn that should be banned are child porn, necrophilia related porn and bestiality related porn. That stuff is just fucking sick. Most of the rest of it falls into one of two categories, stuff I really like and stuff I don't really get but consider harmless. Despite our delusions of grandeur, we're just animals and like the other animals we have sexual urges. However, being intellectually sophisticated animals, our sexual urges get linked to a wide variety of fetishes and the like. We try to distance ourselves from the other animals but we're not much better than they are and in many ways we're far, far worse. Religionists are especially guilty of delusions of grandeur. They think that they're better than everyone else because they follow such and such religion, but the reality is most are simply hypocrites. Look hard enough and you'll find they're not so squeaky clean.