As you may, or may not, be aware, today is International Blasphemy Day, and to that end, here is my little bit of Blasphemy… (edit: and dreadful comma abuse, sorry)

I deny the existence of Agdistis or Angdistis
I deny the existence of Ah Puch
I deny the existence of Ahura Mazda
I deny the existence of Alberich
I deny the existence of Allah
I deny the existence of Amaterasu
I deny the existence of An
I deny the existence of Anansi
I deny the existence of Anat
I deny the existence of Andvari
I deny the existence of Anshar
I deny the existence of Anu
I deny the existence of Aphrodite
I deny the existence of Apollo
I deny the existence of Apsu
I deny the existence of Ares
I deny the existence of Artemis
I deny the existence of Asclepius
I deny the existence of Athena
I deny the existence of Athirat
I deny the existence of Athtart
I deny the existence of Atlas
I deny the existence of Baal
I deny the existence of Ba Xian
I deny the existence of Bacchus
I deny the existence of Balder
I deny the existence of Bast
I deny the existence of Bellona
I deny the existence of Bergelmir
I deny the existence of Bes
I deny the existence of Bixia Yuanjin
I deny the existence of Bragi
I deny the existence of Brahma
I deny the existence of Brigit
I deny the existence of Camaxtli
I deny the existence of Ceres
I deny the existence of Ceridwen
I deny the existence of Cernunnos
I deny the existence of Chac
I deny the existence of Chalchiuhtlicue
I deny the existence of Charun
I deny the existence of Chemosh
I deny the existence of Cheng-huang
I deny the existence of Cybele
I deny the existence of Dagon
I deny the existence of Damkina (Dumkina)
I deny the existence of Davlin
I deny the existence of Dawn
I deny the existence of Demeter
I deny the existence of Diana
I deny the existence of Di Cang
I deny the existence of Dionysus
I deny the existence of Ea
I deny the existence of El
I deny the existence of Enki
I deny the existence of Enlil
I deny the existence of Eos
I deny the existence of Epona
I deny the existence of Ereskigal
I deny the existence of Farbauti
I deny the existence of Fenrir
I deny the existence of Forseti
I deny the existence of Freya
I deny the existence of Freyr
I deny the existence of Frigg
I deny the existence of Gaia
I deny the existence of Ganesha
I deny the existence of Ganga
I deny the existence of Garuda
I deny the existence of Gauri
I deny the existence of Geb
I deny the existence of Geong Si
I deny the existence of Hades
I deny the existence of Hanuman
I deny the existence of Hathor
I deny the existence of Hecate (Hekate)
I deny the existence of Helios
I deny the existence of Heng-o (Chang-o)
I deny the existence of Hephaestus
I deny the existence of Hera
I deny the existence of Hermes
I deny the existence of Hestia
I deny the existence of Hod
I deny the existence of Hoderi
I deny the existence of Hoori
I deny the existence of Horus
I deny the existence of Hotei
I deny the existence of Huitzilopochtli
I deny the existence of Hsi-Wang-Mu
I deny the existence of Hygeia
I deny the existence of Inanna
I deny the existence of Inti
I deny the existence of Iris
I deny the existence of Ishtar
I deny the existence of Isis
I deny the existence of Ixtab
I deny the existence of Izanaki
I deny the existence of Izanami
I deny the existence of Jesus
I deny the existence of Juno
I deny the existence of Jupiter
I deny the existence of Juturna
I deny the existence of Kagutsuchi
I deny the existence of Kartikeya
I deny the existence of Khepri
I deny the existence of Ki
I deny the existence of Kingu
I deny the existence of Kinich Ahau
I deny the existence of Kishar
I deny the existence of Krishna
I deny the existence of Kukulcan
I deny the existence of Lakshmi
I deny the existence of Liza
I deny the existence of Loki
I deny the existence of Lugh
I deny the existence of Luna
I deny the existence of Magna Mater
I deny the existence of Maia
I deny the existence of Marduk
I deny the existence of Mars
I deny the existence of Medb
I deny the existence of Mercury
I deny the existence of Mimir
I deny the existence of Minerva
I deny the existence of Mithras
I deny the existence of Morrigan
I deny the existence of Mot
I deny the existence of Mummu
I deny the existence of Muses
I deny the existence of Nammu
I deny the existence of Nanna
I deny the existence of Nanna (Norse)
I deny the existence of Nanse
I deny the existence of Neith
I deny the existence of Nemesis
I deny the existence of Nephthys
I deny the existence of Neptune
I deny the existence of Nergal
I deny the existence of Ninazu
I deny the existence of Ninhurzag
I deny the existence of Nintu
I deny the existence of Ninurta
I deny the existence of Njord
I deny the existence of Nut
I deny the existence of Odin
I deny the existence of Ohkuninushi
I deny the existence of Ohyamatsumi
I deny the existence of Orgelmir
I deny the existence of Osiris
I deny the existence of Ostara
I deny the existence of Pan
I deny the existence of Parvati
I deny the existence of Phaethon
I deny the existence of Phoebe
I deny the existence of Phoebus Apollo
I deny the existence of Pilumnus
I deny the existence of Poseidon
I deny the existence of Quetzalcoatl
I deny the existence of Rama
I deny the existence of Re
I deny the existence of Rhea
I deny the existence of Sabazius
I deny the existence of Sarasvati
I deny the existence of Selene
I deny the existence of Shiva
I deny the existence of Seshat
I deny the existence of Seti (Set)
I deny the existence of Shamash
I deny the existence of Shapsu
I deny the existence of Shen Yi
I deny the existence of Shiva
I deny the existence of Shu
I deny the existence of Si-Wang-Mu
I deny the existence of Sin
I deny the existence of Sirona
I deny the existence of Sol
I deny the existence of Surya
I deny the existence of Susanoh
I deny the existence of Tawaret
I deny the existence of Tefnut
I deny the existence of Tezcatlipoca
I deny the existence of Thanatos
I deny the existence of Thor
I deny the existence of Thoth
I deny the existence of Tiamat
I deny the existence of Tlaloc
I deny the existence of Tonatiuh
I deny the existence of Toyo-Uke-Bime
I deny the existence of Tyche
I deny the existence of Tyr
I deny the existence of Utu
I deny the existence of Uzume
I deny the existence of Venus
I deny the existence of Vesta
I deny the existence of Vishnu
I deny the existence of Volturnus
I deny the existence of Vulcan
I deny the existence of Xipe
I deny the existence of Xi Wang-mu
I deny the existence of Xochipilli
I deny the existence of Xochiquetzal
I deny the existence of Yam
I deny the existence of Yarikh
I deny the existence of Yhwh
I deny the existence of Ymir
I deny the existence of Yu-huang
I deny the existence of Yum Kimil
I deny the existence of Zeus

I deny the existence of any god or gods that I’ve missed out on that list.

I consider anyone that follows any of them to be at best deluded, and at worst psychotic.

I hold the religions that have sprouted up around any and all gods in contempt.

I consider those that try to force their religion on others are morally bankrupt.

I consider those that deny the evidence of science in favour of faith as idiots.

I consider any laws that attempt to promote any religion, religious belief, or any religious leaders above any other or at the expense of any other as being unjust.

There, that should cover most of it.

Just to add a note of fairness…

I respect the rights of the individual to freedom of thought, and freedom of expression.

So, when do the excuses start?

Apocalypse or STFU!

About a week ago he did an interview with the Beast, you can list to it here. This is the first time I have actually heard Harold rambling on, and he sounds exactly like he looks. He also sounds like a typical fundamentalist loon, especially when he talks about not even entertaining the idea that he might be wrong.

I get the suspicion that one way or another we won’t have a Harold Camping on May 22nd. That would be a shame as I am really looking forward to the back-pedalling and excuses that are inevitably due.

http://dmd2011tf.net/

It seems that occasionally the embedded stream flakes out a little. In which case just click through to the website liked above and view it there.

Buddy Muhammed in a Burqa

It’s May 20th in case you’d forgotten. In fact, it’s the day before the rapture. Hmm, surely that can’t be just a coincidence?

Firstly, lets accept the premise of the article, that it turns out that the Abrahamic religions are correct and God/Yahweh does exist, and shortly after we die we find ourselves confronted by God and needing to give an account of our lives.

The questioner in the article asks:

Will you say the magic words and suddenly I’ll understand how a child being raped, murdered, and left in a ditch fits in with you infinite benevolence? Will starvation and disease make sense?

It’s at this point that my mind wandered a little, and I tried to see if I could figure out a way that an apparently all powerful supreme being could be so callous as to allow things like rape, murder, disease and general suffering to exist when they could wipe them out in an instant. A moments cogitation, and the answer hit me.

We’re irrelevant!

Just as we think nothing of killing an ant on the sidewalk as we walk to work, or taking antibiotics when we’re ill and wiping out whole colonies of bacteria, God just doesn’t care about us.

It’s not too surprising when you really think about it either. He apparently created this unimaginably immense universe, that according to currently observable evidence is 93,000,000,000 light years wide. Given that our minds can’t properly understand even the size of our own solar system that’s just mind bogglingly big. There must be so much stuff going on in that whole universe that we’re not even a blip on a blip on a blip on his radar.

When you’ve got the ability to observe stunning galaxies coalesce, grow, merge, and die, and you’re a being for whom galaxy forming time is no more than a few minutes is to us then the entirety of human existence (even if you accept Creationists assertion of 6-10 thousand years) is nothing.

Source: Hubblesite.org

The Sombrero Galaxy. Quite possibly my favourite galaxy.

When you have the ability to watch things like that, why would you care what is happening to Joe Smith?

From:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-12598896

Apparently this all kicked off because a social worker expressed concerns that the couple might not be able to be fully supportive of a gay child. As you might expect the usual tropes have been trotted out, they’re just good Christians with an orthodox view. This is just promoting an anti Christian view point. It won’t be possible for Christians to foster kids in future etc. It’s all BS of course.

This ruling is simply saying that bigoted people shouldn’t be allowed to influence young minds in their care. If you are accepting and nurturing to all (isn’t that the Christian view that Jesus himself supposedly espoused???) then there will be no issue, and there will be no discrimination.

I loved this quote from the end of the BBC article from the Christian Legal Centre:

The organisation said the judgment "sends out the clear message that orthodox Christian ethical beliefs are potentially harmful to children and that Christian parents with mainstream Christian views are not suitable to be considered as potential foster parents".

Yes, if the orthodox beliefs in question are bigoted, divisory, and discriminatory then I have to completely agree.

Oh, and the couple that lost the case are black. There is a certain amount of irony there.

[Who knows how long the overly sensitive types at YouTube will let that last?]

OK, these lads are idiots. They are also apparently racists. But as far as I can tell they’re perfectly within their rights to burn the Koran. It was (it seems anyway) their own book that they had paid for. So no big deal huh?

Except Northumbria police have arrested the six men for ‘Inciting Racial Hatred’. Bollocks! Islam/Muslim is not a race, it is a religion. One is a choice, one is not – I’ll give you three guesses which is which, and the first two don’t count.

In a joint statement, Northumbria Police and Gateshead Council said:

The kind of behaviour displayed in this video is not representative of our community as a whole.
Our community is one of mutual respect and we continue to work together with community leaders, residents and people of all faiths and beliefs to maintain good community relations.

Mutual respect? How about respect for the individual, and their rights to freedom of speech and expression? How about their rights to do what they want with their own possessions – so long as they don’t endanger life and property of others?

I sincerely hope that these men are not convicted of any crimes. If they are then I suspect that there will be civil uprising against such state stupidity.

ATHEISTS MUST APOLOGIZE FOR HITLER

September 16, 2010

Catholic League president Bill Donohue reacts to the way British atheists are handling Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to their homeland:

The pope cited Hitler today, asking everyone to “reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century.” Immediately, the British Humanist Association got its back up, accusing the pope of “a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God.”

The pope did not go far enough. Radical atheists like the British Humanist Association should apologize for Hitler. But they should not stop there. They also need to issue an apology for the 67 million innocent men, women and children murdered under Stalin, and the 77 million innocent Chinese killed by Mao. Hitler, Stalin and Mao were all driven by a radical atheism, a militant and fundamentally dogmatic brand of secular extremism. It was this anti-religious impulse that allowed them to become mass murderers. By contrast, a grand total of 1,394 were killed during the 250 years of the Inquisition, most all of whom were murdered by secular authorities.

Why should atheists today apologize for the crimes of others? At one level, it makes no sense: apologies should only be given by the guilty. But on the other hand, since the fanatically anti-Catholic secularists in Britain, and elsewhere, demand that the pope—who is entirely innocent of any misconduct—apologize for the sins of others, let the atheists take some of their own medicine and start apologizing for all the crimes committed in their name. It might prove alembic.

[Quoted just in case it magically disappears]

OK, here goes.

I, the quietAtheist, do hereby issue an apology to the human race for that abomination of the 20th Century – Adolf Hitler, who was after all another human being.

As human beings we must shoulder some of the blame (apparently, according to Christian Doctrine anyway) for the actions of other human beings no matter what they believe, why they believe it, or even how long ago they believed it. Despite the fact that he died some 25 years before I was born, the burden of his utterly evil acts lies with myself – and all the rest of humanity.

Mind you, at least I personally haven’t been involved in the cover-up of heinous crimes against  humanity. Maybe I have driven down the motorway a tad fast once or twice but I don’t think that really counts.

So, yet again I apologise for Hitler. And Stalin. Oh, Pol Pot, better do him as well. I’m sure I’m forgetting someone.

So Bill, your turn?

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/518808-pope-s-holyroodhouse-speech-transcript?page=1

So …

Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live.

Erm, they would be the Nazis with “Got Mitt Uns” – “God With Us” enscribed on their belts huh? Lets also not forget that Ratzi was a member of the Hitler Youth, and thus part of the Nazi tyranny that Britain et al fought against. (I’ll concede that he was young at the time, and may well have been pushed into joining by his parents). It was also the Catholic Church that had for centuries riled against the Jews, and inspired the hatred that Hitler took to such terrible conclusions.

As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his destiny” (Caritas in Veritate, 29).

Um, what? Is he equating us atheists with the Nazis? What about the religious extremism huh? You know, the one that lead to planes flying into buildings? The one that lead to many years of bloody violence in Northern Ireland? The one that denies science and tells people that condoms actually lead to AIDS? That has systematically covered up the repeated sexual abuse and rape of young children in their care?

Today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multicultural society. In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate. Let it not obscure the Christian foundation that underpins its freedoms;

Would they be the christian freedoms that promote slavery, demote women to second class citizens, and attempt to deny basic freedoms like Freedom of Speech? And when has any secularist ever not tolerated the religious. All we ask for is that the religious don’t enjoy any special privilege over society. The religious are free to practise their religion and traditional values all they want as long as they don’t impinge on my freedom to ignore their traditional values (and vice-versa).

Pope Ratzi, you are an odious little toad. Please don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.

It made me smile.

I was happy that the DJs felt they could treat the matter with such irreverence that they could joke about it. It made me happy to think that there might be some religious nit-wit getting his knickers all in a twist because a joke was made against his Popiness. It made me happy that this could happen on one of the highest rated independent radio stations in Britain.

Go Britain.

Go home Ratzinger.

OK, facts first. The proposed mosque is not on ground zero. It’s a few blocks away. It’s not even really a mosque, it’s a muslim community centre that also includes a prayer room.

So, should such a building be built? Well, in my opinion, no. But not for the reasons most people don’t want it built (i.e. it’s insensitive, it’s too close, it’s too contentious). I don’t want it built because I don’t want any religious buildings built. However, given that religious buildings do get built and that I have no right to stop them then yes it’s perfectly fine to build it. If you want to argue that it’s too close to ground zero, then you also need to say what the minimum distance should be, and then explain why other religions are allowed to build closer than that (there are several christian churches the same distance or closer away) and how your position isn’t discriminatory.

Until then, stop worrying about it.

I’d just like to take a moment to comment on what I feel this day is about, and what I want to bring to the discussion. As you are probably aware Muslims have a rule that you cannot depict images of their prophet Muhammad (although as I understand it the wording in the Koran could be interpreted to say that only Muslims may not depict images of Muhammad), and they take great offence when others, particularly westerners, do. In particular the incidence a few years ago of the Dutch newspaper Jyllands-Posten led to widespread outrage and death threats against the artists, the papers, and even westerners in general. This shows yet again radical Muslims inability to live peaceably with long established western ideals and rights – principally Freedom of Speech. These are rights that many of us hold very dear to our hearts, and will defend whenever possible.

Some argue that Freedom of Speech comes with restrictions. Some would argue that you do not have the freedom to offend or insult another person or their beliefs. I would argue that that is exactly the sort of thing that the right of Freedom of Speech is designed to protect – the right to say things that others may find offensive. You have every right to be offended, but you have no right to stop me from saying something that you personally feel offensive.

Just because you hold yourself to an ideal dictated to you in a book written by a bunch of backward desert dwelling goatherds does not mean that the rest of us feel the need to be held to that same standard. In fact we are perfectly within our rights to completely ignore that standard, and even hold it up to ridicule. And you may do the same about some of our beliefs – that’s the beauty of the sort of free society that we here in the west promote. You certainly do not have the right to threat us with violence and even death just because you don’t like something we said.

Just to quickly explain why I included Jesus and Dumbledore in the picture. I felt it necessary to point our that this doesn’t just apply to Muslims, it applies to others of other belief systems too, be it factual or fictional.

I wasn’t disappointed.

Oh, it might contain a swear word or two, so listen appropriately.