Since Drumpf was elected as our next President I’ve used the #NotMyPresident hashtag a few times. I realize that this hashtag, in the wake of the Portland and Oakland protests that turned violent and resulted in property damage and at least one life lost, has become somewhat marred with irrationality, “cry-baby” entitlement, and unjustified anger. This is obviously not representative of my views on #NotMyPresident as an idea. This post is intended to clarify why I still use #NotMyPresident.
As egregious as Donald Drumpf’s missteps in this election have been, few people have really drawn any real attention to the following fact: Mike Pence is worse. Sure, Drumpf may be the one spouting all of his nonsense, inciting fear and hatred, and generally being a bigoted asshat but Mike Pence is still his Vice Presidential running mate who waves away, justifies, or adopts Drumpf’s harmful rhetoric. It’s one thing to “just be yourself” and be an outwardly awful person but another thing entirely to pretend to be a man of principle while refusing to take a stand and distance yourself from the awful person. You’ve always heard that you’re judged by the company you keep and, in this case, Pence is an awful person.
Pence has had ample opportunity to stand on American values and make what would be an enormously historic statement in American politics by simply saying, “I cannot in good conscience back a man who would undermine American democracy with abandon” and formally remove himself as Drumpf’s running mate. Think of how Pence would be remembered for decades – maybe centuries – just by making a single gesture of patriotism and moral fortitude! He could be one of the most famous politicians of all time!
On Friday, October 7, 2016 the Washington Post released audio of Donald Drumpf on an open mic bragging to Billy Bush about his rich, white privilege in relation to his sexual behavior toward women. Drumpf said that he could grope and kiss women whenever he wanted because when you’re famous “they’ll let you do anything.” The release of this recording fueled a national debate on social media and television in what seemed to me a surreal division of people who thought it was “no big deal” and those who were deeply troubled by it. I fall into the latter category, not because I’m offended by words but because I look at the bigger picture and evaluate the environment in which this occurred.
If this were simply about words I would most likely say, “Well, that’s not very Presidential. It seems to me that someone running for office should conduct him/herself in a more professional, adult manner.” I would then move on and worry about actual issues that will affect the country, both short- and long-term. As previously stated, though, this isn’t about words.
Honestly, what the hell? I can understand the “God created me” mentality. I can tolerate the “God loves me” attitude. But what in the bloody shit is this?
“God’s 24/7 Plumbing Service. Your wait time is approximately 3 days.”
There’s no way I could not comment on something like this! It makes me want to punch a kitten (although because I dislike cats, this isn’t a huge stretch). Have we really gotten this far removed from reality that we attribute unclogged toilets to GOD’S FAVOR? Please quit it, people. Please!
Something’s really bugging me. It’s the blatant disregard for the sanctity of life displayed by religious people. I’m not talking about the sanctity of their family’s or their friends’ lives. I’m talking about everyone else. Take, for example, the fine, upstanding Republican Christian military wife and mother’s view of how to handle immigration (the checked answer is mine, not hers). Is this what Jesus would do?
Fuck no! What the barnacles is going on here??!! You know how many other people answered the same way? 3,700! That’s right, there are almost four thousand blood-thirsty motherfuckers out there who would much rather set Mexico up as a human shooting gallery than really try to figure out a solution to a legal and social problem. As if shooting people isn’t a social problem in itself.
This is not an isolated incident. I see things like this all the time from the I’m-more-moral-because-I-know-god-personally crowd. Topics like welfare, immigration, war, poverty, and women’s rights are dominated by the inane, mind-numbing garbage spewing from the mouths of people who proudly wave around their “WWJD” banners. Am I an angry atheist? When I see shit like this, hell yeah I am. What would Jesus do, my ass.
For the record, I’m currently in a discussion with this same person who is arguing that religion doesn’t amplify insanity and promote anti-social behavior. Huh.
A Web site named Eternal Earthbound Pets claims to offer a service for the pets of Christians who will be raptured. For a fee, these people (atheists) will come and get your pet and care for it in the event of your rapture to Heaven. Kind and caring, right?
NO!
Indifferent cats are indifferent.
These atheists are preying on credulous believers who have been convinced they’ll be whisked away to Heaven and are concerned for the safety of their pets. It’s akin to trading someone a nickel for their hundred dollar bill because you can convince the other person that metal is worth more than paper. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
I’m seriously upset at these people and would love nothing more than to have their customers victims’ money refunded in full with an accompanying written apology. One of the big problems I have with this con is that, as atheists, these people have no reason whatsoever to believe that anybody will ever be raptured and are therefore selling a service that they fully intend never to have to provide. That’s dishonest. I could probably sell crocosaurus insurance to someone gullible but I wouldn’t. You know why? Because I have ethics!
Look at the size of them snappers!
To make things worse, their FAQ page touts their morality:
Q: How can we trust that you’ll honor your service agreement, afterall, you ARE atheists. A: Being an atheist does not mean we lack morals or ethics. It just means we don’t believe in God or gods. All of our representatives are normal folks who love and live for their family, are gainfully employed, and have friends of varying beliefs. Some of us are married to believers. Many of us volunteer our time at food banks, animal shelters, meals on wheels organizations, etc. We fully endorse the “Rule of Reciprocity”, also known as “The Golden Rule.” We just happen not to believe in God(s). Belief in God does not ensure righteousness, nor does non-belief imply immorality. Jesus understood this. Please reference Luke 10, re “The Good Samaritan.”
ORLY??
So, as moral and ethical atheists who believe in the Golden Rule, you not only endorse but personally practice taking people’s money for services you’ll never provide and preying on their insecurities and irrational beliefs? How nice of you. I’m sure that given the opportunity to be someone else’s victim you’d jump on it, right? Do you even know what the Golden Rule is?
Another big hole in your scheme is that not even the vast, overwhelming majority of Christians believe that the rapture will be occurring on the 21st of this month – or anytime in the next 10 years. Nearly every Christian knows that this numerological woo-woo is the raving of a mentally deficient individual and you know it. Since you know that, offering this service also means that your entire business model is based on a false premise and cannot be considered anything other than fraudulent.
Regardless of how transparent this scam is, they appear to have at least 250 victims so far. At $135 each, these assholes have collected $33,750 (not to mention that people with multiple pets will pay an additional $20 each). While I feel that the people who have paid for this service are idiots and undeserving of respect I have even less respect (read: none) for the atheists running this site.
I’ve got an idea for you guys: go fuck yourselves. I actually am a moral atheist with ethics. You’re giving atheists a bad name.
OK, this is going to be a little bit controversial but I want to assure everyone that my opinion wouldn’t change even if the subject of the story were a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or Martian. It has less to do with being an atheist and more to do with being an American and a human.
That’s Wachs, yo!
Ellenbeth Wachs is weird. However, she has the right to be. She had apparently just come home from having chemotherapy and was trying to rest while a neighborhood boy (10) was playing basketball outside of her house. She asked the boy to stop. When the boy refused to quit, Wachs allegedly made moaning noises simulating sex, calling out, “Oh John!” from inside her home and was arrested on a charge of simulating a sex act in front of a child.
Now, I’m no expert but noises from inside a person’s home – even if the windows are open – shouldn’t count as a sex offense. What gets me about this is the precedent it sets. If Wachs can be convicted on this charge, then virtually every parent in the world could be arrested as sex offenders and have their children taken away for the same thing. I know my kids have heard my wife and me having sex before. Think about it, you put them to bed and tuck them in and you close their door. They don’t really want to go to sleep so they lie awake for a while. You close your door, get naked and it’s business time (I mean, come on, when you’re married you have to seize opportunity by the gonads)! I don’t care of what material your doors and walls are made – if you make a peep or your bed frame squeaks, you’ve just become an offender. Hell, a large portion of kids have walked in on their parents having sex. Not only is that traumatic to everyone involved but it raises the bar on the type of offense!
Mommy, daddy, make it stop!
Secondly, bringing this back to atheism, I feel that things like this are a setback in our campaign for acceptance. A lot of religious people already think atheists eat babies, dance naked in the woods, are addicted to pr0n, do lots of drugs and might be child molesters since we don’t have that Moral Compass™ their deities give them. A story like this only gives these people more fuel for their fire, allowing them to wag their fingers at us and say, “See? We told you so!” I don’t like it. The problem with prominent atheists being involved with something like this as compared to prominent Christians is that there are relatively so few outspoken, prominent, public atheists that one of them getting nabbed represents a significant percentage. When a Christian trips up, there are 4 billion more to minimize the effect.
Watch that first step!
What do you think? Do charges like this make sense? Is Wachs a sex offender now? Should you be able to do whatever you want in your own home?
A lot of people have probably already seen the Focus on the Family’s new Web site, truetolerance.org. This site appears to be a response to public schools’ anti-bullying programs where children are presented with the idea that different lifestyles are not evil. The way they present the information, it’s positioned as though implementing anti-bullying laws against sexual orientation is exactly identical in every way to not-so-subtly suggesting that everybody should choose that sexual orientation. They’re trying to turn kids gay!
Concerned about homosexual advocacy in your child’s school? You’ve come to the right place. TrueTolerance.org helps you respond in a loving and fact-based way. Click the links below for tips on communicating with your school officials.
In the video on the front page the woman explains that in some classes they even present sexually graphic material to the children. Now, I’m not personally involved in the school systems but I have to seriously doubt the veracity of this statement – unless the “sexually graphic” material being presented is akin to the “sexually graphic” content of sex ed classes. In that case, I’d suspect that it’s presented in a clinical manner to educate, not to indoctrinate. I have a hard time believing that our schools are trying their damnedest to convert the entire school to homosexuality. What would be the point??
Welcome to sex ed, m’kay?
I ran into a similar argument when I was talking to my father some time ago about homosexuality. He told me that homosexuals are recruiting and that they try to get kids as young as possible so they can mold them and turn them gay. I was appalled and felt nauseated. All I could do is tell him that I knew nothing of any homosexual recruiting campaign. I added that since his religion pretty much perfected and perpetuates this sort of tactic, he’s really just projecting. I mean, apart from the church(es), what group of people can you name who starts indoctrinating children straight out of the womb?
Get ’em while they’re young!
Anyway, Focus on the Family sickens me to no end. My parents idolize James Dobson and his hate-filled views on the world, transparently disguised as “family values.” They want to retain their rights to persecute and marginalize groups of people and are attempting to organize their lackeys to petition school districts and governmental representatives with their boilerplate e-mails and “educational materials” so that these anti-bullying laws will be repealed. Just what, do you suppose, Jesus would freaking do?!
[EDIT] I timestamped this because I added an awesome picture of O’Reilly explaining the Beck situation at the bottom. Scroll down, pinheads!
Glenn Beck’s show is going away. For most reasonably intelligent people this would be a “who cares” kind of moment. However, seeing the poll on the NY Times story, I can’t help but lose that much more faith in America. An overwhelming majority of idiots Americans are sad that Beck is leaving Fox.
Beck compares himself to Paul Revere in a completely inane, nonsense comment about how Revere didn’t want to make a career out of riding his horse and yelling about lobsterbacks. Glenn Beck, the true patriot:
“When I took this job I didn’t take it because it was going to be a career for me,” Beck said.
“Paul Revere did not get up on the horse and say, ‘I’m going to do this for the rest of my life.’ He didn’t do it. He got off the horse at some point and fought in the Revolution, and then he went back to silversmithing.”
And this guy has a huge audience (his show was 3rd in the rankings) that thinks he was insightful and smart? I’m moving to the moon.
I’ve been involved in some discussion about circumcision and recently read a review of a TV show on “Praying the Gay Away.” Discussion on either of these topics can get pretty heated but there’s kind of a theme to it all. In either case there’s this strange kind of admission by theists that god made a mistake when he made you. That is, you either have more penis than he wanted you to have or you’re attracted to people to whom he’d rather you not be attracted. Doesn’t anybody find this odd?
In the Old Testament god laid out his provision for slicing up infants’ penises for some reason even though god supposedly creates each male in the womb and adds the foreskin to the little guy. If god finds the foreskin to be such a problematic piece of anatomy why didn’t he just omit it in the design? What’s with the genital mutilation? And why has our society come to accept that it’s anything other than an archaic, barbaric, religious practice and made up lame excuses as to the usefulness of circumcision in hygiene, AIDS prevention, and fertility? How come none of these people making these excuses would advocate elective cosmetic surgery of any other type on infants? That’s what circumcision is, after all.
The struggles of a homosexual in resolving his/her identity with his/her religion seem to be illustrative of the most painful mental torture one could undergo. You realize that your attraction to the same sex is not a conscious decision so you must have been made that way but you realize that your god hates it when you entertain your natural desires. In order not to displease your god you must deny your nature – which, presumably, he instilled in you when you were created. Yet there are religious homosexuals out there struggling on a daily basis to suppress their true selves in favor of pleasing an intolerant deity. Why??
When you say that god needs you to remove your foreskin or that he’s not OK with you being attracted to the same sex, you’re admitting that god makes mistakes! Not just one or two mistakes, but millions and billions of them! Is your god perfect or not? Is your god loving or not? Seems to me the best way to resolve this conflict is to admit that it’s your own personal bias causing these dilemmas and that your god is imaginary. Get on that, m’kay? Thanks.
Actually, consider this: instead of your god having made you wrong…maybe you made your god wrong.
