Reason Rally Videos

Boy howdy did we miss a good time!  Right after the Reason Rally I saw some of the speeches online, but there was a a lot of good stuff happening in the crowd too.  There were professional videographers, uppity would-be videographers hired by uppity creationists, and a bunch of people with off-the shelf Best Buy cameras recording all the goings-on.  Here are a few that I found on Youtube.

Brilliant take-down.  Best line:  (Q: What is your name?) A: "All I know is Jesus died for your sins." 




Aron Ra vs Christian dumbass. Best line:  "Abra Fucking Cadabra"

Aron Ra vs another Christian dumbass: 

Best lines:  "Gullibility is the ONLY criteria" (to get into Heaven)  and "If you don't believe that monkeys MIGHT fly out of my ass can I consider you irrational?"

Idiot who thinks the King James Bible is the best version of the Bible vs. ordinary atheist who knows the Bible chapter & verse, and knows that if a servant is considered "property" that's called SLAVERY: 





Atheist in the military: 



Fox News interview and the story they ran on O'Reilly later: 

Reason TV: What We Saw at the Reason Rally: 

Best sign: "Freedom requires freethinking."

Thunderf00t and ...?  vs. preacher who claimed it was okay for God to kill babies in Noah's Flood. Best line: "The Bible is clearly a borderline incoherent [inaudible] series of stories"  The best part of this video is the audio.  The rain sounds like the crackling flames of Hell!

Thunderf00t vs Eric Hovind, with Thunderf00t's commentary:  http://thunderf00tdotorg.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/eric-hovind-confesses-to-being-an-atheist/  or more briefly http://youtu.be/ZiqTU7N9EY8 with commentary/review.

Hovind tries to bait PZ Myers too:


(Cheesy "Creation Today" commercial begins @ 2:35)

He also stalked James Randi: 

(cheesy commercial begins at 5:20)

Randi shuts him down.  Hovind's pal is even lamer.  They were way out of their league.  Best line: "This is very juvenile and I don't get involved in juvenile arguments."

The cameraman couldn't resist flipping the bird in this one: 

Best line:  "If I wanted to walk around dressed as a pink unicorn all day... it would be no different in 100 years than if I stared at a blank wall and died of starvation."  


That's supposed to be some kind of argument for Christian morality.  Well, if he believes that making idols to false gods is immoral, and he dressed like the invisible pink unicorn, making it therefore visible and an idol, then uhh yeah he'd still be immoral according to his code.  I'd like to see him explain that to the fellow inmates in Hell.  "Why are you here?  I'm here for fucking 10-year-old boys up the ass."  "Oh, well I'm here for dressing up like a pink unicorn."  "Is that a metaphor?  *wink wink*"

No Reason Rally would be complete without the Westboro Baptist Church and their hateful signs:



Photo slideshow with rather good atheist rap soundtrack:

March 16 Links

 

Ancient mummies had hardening of the arteries. 

Woman sues Catholic Church to have headstone with sports logos
"the council determined the monument wasn't acceptable because of its secular nature. He said he informed Carr of the decision."  Secular?  NASCAR and the NFL are religions!

Freedom from Religion Foundation and 19 other plaintiffs are suing to take In God We Trust off of U.S. currency.

Study finds that atheists become emotionally aroused when imagining God doing something horrible.   I'm too cheap to pay $37.00 to read the article, but there's a summary here.

I've had some memory problems ever since a bad contrecoup concussion years ago.  Now studies show that this is not uncommon.

Inside the peepal conclave.

Ex-Westboro member outs Fred Phelps as racial bigot.

Fellow woman atheist blogger cuts to the chase about patriarchal atheist communities.  (found via Pharyngula, where another woman called me an asshole).  In response to her responses she's offered some advice to atheist men.

Baptists didn't get the answers they'd hoped for when they polled Americans on their attitude toward gays.

Christian missionaries in China promise practice learning English but are really trying to convert... to bring about Armageddon:  "radical evangelists believe in the biblical notion of the “Great Commission” — that Jesus can only return when preaching in every tongue and to every tribe and nation on earth is complete."


40 freethinkers protest a Good News Club's deceptive practices.

Homeschoolers want their kids to learn evolution, no really -- learn EVOLUTION, not learn about the evils thereof.

If Darth Vader had become an Evangelical Christian...

Did you know there are Jews in Iran?  I know one who left and now lives in Indiana.  I should ask him how he feels being surrounded by fundy Christians here.

A mother and her two kids are found dead in a creek... with a Bible nearby.  How many more religious nutters have to take children's lives before we stop saying religion is "beneficial?"

Bart Ehrman Lecture on the King James Bible

Fundies believe the KJB is the definitive text, which of course it's not.  But don't take my word for it, skip to 9:30 (unless you want to hear a lot of speechifying) and check out what Bart Ehrman has to say about it:

March 9 Links, a rather motley assortment

 Texas Christians teach the Bible in public schools, but they teach it objectively and they're inclusive.  Uhhh yeah right.

The Scarlet S:  Getting Branded for Being Single.  I didn't write it, but I could have.

Evolution in action:  one invasive species of ants seems to be doing better than another invasive species of ants.

I think the woman who got killed by a lion deserves a Darwin award.   Seriously.  Look at these pictures.  Just because you love big cats doesn't mean big cats love you!

Make your own fossils!  (shhh don't show this to creationists!)

Kansas Republicans pass an anti-abortion bill that includes a provision preventing employees of clinics that provide abortions from bringing cupcakes to their children's schools.  Yes.  Really.

Amnesty International calls on Bangladesh to protect minority Hindu population

Meanwhile, in India, Hindu radicals are reportedly attacking minority Christians.  They claim they only do "moral policing" and speak up for their gods and goddesses. 

Bulgaria "expresses regret" for deportation of 11,000 Jews during the Holocaust.  Better late than never?  Fortunately for 45,000 other Jews, the public didn't want them to be deported.

Muslim teens in the Netherlands think Hitler didn't go far enough.

At least the Jews of Venezuela can breathe easier now that Chavez is dead.... or can they?  If they are descendents of the Sephardic Jews who were kicked out of Spain in 1492, they are now welcome to come back.  Better late than never?

Turn off your irony meters!  The ambassador attending a ceremony to honor a French woman who saved Jews during the Holocaust is named "Bigot."  Really.  Looky here.

Bill O'Reilly sows a tiny seed of accommodation in an interview with creationist Jeffress.  Ken Ham fries his bacon.  Hilarity ensues.  Pop the popcorn this hatefest is just heating up.

"Club Beyond" is beyond the pale in prosletyzing to military youth.

How Trustworthy is the Bible?

Can anything in the Bible be considered well.... gospel truth?  Christianity is based on the factual truth of most of the New Testament, leaving aside the parts that are inconvenient to one's prejudices, of course. 

People who want to take the Bible literally should be aware of some well-known facts about their favorite book: 

• No part of the Bible survives in manuscript sources from the time they were supposedly written.
• None survive in copies that agree 100%
• None are error-free in any copy
• There are many, many contradictions in the Bible, even in the most "recent" parts
• The New Testament wasn't codified until 325 C.E.
•  The Torah (First Five books) took final form ca. 900 - 450 BCE
•  The Talmud was completed ca. 200 CE & 500 CE (two parts)
• The Old Testament was codified after the New Testament was
• Writings that were widely believed to be legitimate were not selected for inclusion
• Writings that have proved to be forgeries were selected for inclusion
• The Synoptic gospels were written at least 50 years after the death of Christ
• The Book of John was written almost 100 years after the death of Christ
• Mark, the earliest Gospel, says Christ will return before the apostles' demise, but he didn't
• Mark, Mathew, Luke and John didn't actually write the books named for them, nor do they have any connection to them whatsoever
• Paul went against Jewish law, insisting on Baptism rather than circumcision, in order to appeal to gentiles.
• Paul was not the undisputed leader of early Christians
• Paul never met Christ in person, and he was at odds with people who did
• Many of the letters attributed to Paul are forgeries
• The Gnostic Christian theology was suppressed because it disagreed with the idea that Jesus could be both God-spirit and human (they thought he was God-spirit only)
• The Ebionites were suppressed because they disagreed with the idea that Jesus could be both God-spirit and human (they believed he was human only)
• The places mentioned in Exodus were only settled at the same time during the 7th Century B.C., not during the supposed time of the Exodus
• Old Testament stories made Israel look bad because the final editors were residents of Judah and were trying to establish Judah as the true heart of the Jewish faith
• The New Testament's anti-Jewish bias dates each part - the more anti-Semitic, the later the book was written, because the earliest Christians considered themselves Jewish
•  Old Testament law was only thrown out so that gentiles didn't have to get circumcised or change their diets to become Christians, i.e., the O.T. laws were inconvenient
• Mathew & Luke are based on Mark, with some embellishments that seem to have specific agendas.

If your history textbook had this many problems, you would throw it out!

The Bible, on The "History" Channel

I was hoping for a history of the Bible, but no, it's a depiction of the Biblical stories.  Phooey.

Here's the Huffpo write-up:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/01/the-bible-history-channel-miniseries_n_2767706.html

Part entertainment, part evangelism, "The Bible" is accompanied by a tremendous commercial push, with trailers in movie theaters and ads across A+E Networks channels, including Lifetime. There are also three books based on the series and a DVD study kit....The series' website includes lesson plans for pastors who want to incorporate the show into Sunday sermons and study groups.

I think I'll pass.

Links for March 2

Just a few somewhat random links:

Take-down of William Lane Craig's position on morality.   (WLC doesn't participate and why should he? He phones in the same tired "answers" in every debate anyway)

William Lane Craig is organizing a Roots of Christian Civilization Cruise.   Israel is not on the tour.  Really.

Indiana drunk arrested after calling 911 (repeatedly) for a cheeseburger.  Funny but pathetic.

Woman sues prior employer, whom she says fired her because she voted for Obama.

Procrastination is not laziness.  It's neurosis.  So the blog author will get started working on it... on Monday.  Sheesh. Hey, whether you're a loser because you're lazy because you're neurotic, you're still a loser!

After losing his court case for assisted suicide, This man stopped eating and died.  He should have been helped to die with dignity.  h/t Naturalistic Atheism

National Geographic looks at the decimation of the African elephant due to poaching for Chinese purchase.  They interview a Buddhist art dealer who tells himself that the elephant died to donate its tusk to statues honoring Buddha, and that they are happy in the afterlife because of this.  (PBS page here)  Buy the DVD here.

A new book says the early Christians were not persecuted, at least to the extent they claim to have been.  Early Christians were liars?  Say it ain't so!

8 Reasons the Duggars are a creepy cult.  Brilliant breakdown of the "family" values in that crazy baby-factory family.  I found them creepy from the start, but I admit I couldn't stand to watch them enough to deconstruct their Godspeak.

Things are not looking good for private corporations suing to deny birth control to employees.

Ignorant Christian thinks he has "unanswerable" (scientific) questions for atheists.  And they call us arrogant!

David Barton got his quotation about 19th Century schools being defended by gun-toting students FROM A LOUIS LAMOUR NOVEL!!!!  Argh!  What a tool.

Ten "Cardinal" Sins Taint Pope Vote  And these are only the dirty child-raping rapist-protecting scum that we know about in the College of Cardinals.

Scientology reports on people who report on Scientology.

Edited to add:
Check out the comments for this post from the Why Evolution is True blog!