I just thought I'd send out a salute to the genius who grabbed the url jesusallaboutlife.com. For those who haven't been past a church in NSW or WA in the last couple of months, there's a campaign with the slogan "Jesus: All about life" and a great many churches have a large poster out the front with that slogan.
The parody site is brilliant and comes up #4 on a google search. I'm sure this campaign will afford us many opportunities for slander and enturbulation
I wonder if it's got something to do with "Collect '09"?
UPDATE
I've also found out that the url allaboutlife.com has been linked to Secular Thinking.com
In a new equal opportunity bill to be introduced next year, Victorian religious groups will no longer be allowed to discriminate based on the grounds of race, disability, age, physical features, political belief or breastfeeding. Sure, that sounds great, but it's interesting that two of the major sources of discrimination amongst religious communities, sexuality and marital status, will not be included in the new bill.
The gut reaction is likely to be something along the lines of "well great, if the churches are going to discriminate, it'll just drive people away from them, aiding in the secularisation of Victoria", but what is often forgotten is the role that religious communities play in community support, employment and social services. This means that religious schools will be able to deny employment to adequately trained people if they are homosexual, a single parent or even living with a de-facto partner, if their religion supports it. It means that welfare could be denied to single parents. It is a disgrace.
More interestingly, many of the religious communities who will be selectively discriminating against these groups will still be recieving tax benefits which are compensated for by the taxes paid, in part, by the very groups that they are discriminating against!
I was sent this news story today, and was asked to comment on it.
My response was:
I don't support the idea that a parent has the right to mutilate their children's bodies without a solid reason for doing so.
From what I have heard and read (podcasts, books etc) the health claims made about circumcision are all either false, or negligable when compared to the possible defecits.
If a person chooses to get a circumcision for cosmetic or cultural reasons, I believe that they should be able to choose when they are capable of doing so, with all the relevant information at their disposal.
At the heart of it, circumcision is a cultural/religious practice which may have come from many ancient sources, including health, identifying races, and spiritual beliefs. The modern medical claims seem to be an attempt to justify the practice post hoc, and to me, that's not good enough.
I believe that laws protecting male children from circumcision are a good move, and may help to break down an outdated, irrational practice.
You can read a much better response to the circumcision debate by Harriet Hall, the Skepdoc here: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=269
During Richard Dawkins' American tour in March 2009, he gave a talk titled "The Purpose of Purpose". I travelled with Richard to these cities and filmed the talks, which I've edited together here. The content of the talk remains intact, while the editing moves between the different locations and Richard's Keynote presentation. (From Richard Dawkins.net via Atheist Media Blog).
Well, I've got too many links open than I know what to do with, so I'm going to excrete them all through the blog. Here goes!
Top 8 levels of Scientology- Find out some details about everyone's favorite brainwashing cult! Sarah Palin "God told me to sue the internet"- "Alaskan soccer mom politician receives message from her invisible friend prompting her to take legal action against an abstract entity" God hates fags- Westborough aren't the only religious group with this message. Hell, even Kevin Rudd is going to vote against gay marriage in Australia, presumably on religious grounds. PaleontologistspwnCreation museum- HeeHee. I'd love to visit this stupid museum. Great quote "It's sort of a monument to scientific illiteracy, isn't it?" Video game clinic- Get well by playing video games. Atchoo! 'Sir, I think you need two days of Left For Dead, bed-rest and beer."! If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!- "For men with fertility problems, some doctors are prescribing a very conventional way to have a baby: more sex" seems sensible to me... Dead baby Christians- Failure to provide adequate medical care to your children= child abuse via neglect. Good Parenting: You're doing it wrong! Plastinated punks- A dissection of the human body. Quite pretty actually, in a morbid kinda way. Aura believers get a new study to quotemine- Wait till they see this research! The next MB$ festival should be interesting! The Mighty Boosh are going to America!- Boosh, Boosh, Stronger than a moose. Don't lock your doors or we'll come through your roof top. Stop look around take your mind off the floor. Because The Boosh is loose and we're a little bit RAW! Learning=good- Gaining new knowledge stimulates some of the same areas activated by hunger and thirst, suggesting it is a basic human need. Friday prayers for democracy in Tehran- Sometimes it is a mad, mad world. America loves drugs- Zippers, ploppers, whizzers and shiners. Whatever they're called, America wants them, and HOW! Pro lifers are douchebags- But I guess it's all in the perspective. Are you pro the mother's choice do do what she wants in her life, or are you pro the life of an unborn fetus? David Eggers' chats to Salon- I really like this author. I would even compare him to a modern James Joyce (kinda). I got his second (?) book "You shall know our velocity!" from Target for 50c and it blew me away. I bought copies for everyone I knew for that Xmas to share it around. He's a monkey genius! Animals with old-newtech- Seems the animals beet us to the punch on some of our recent inventions. Dog heroes- One day Zachie will be on this list. Symbolic science- Videos about the various symbols in science, physics and astronomy. Science is a dead dog's head- Russian scientists kept a severed dog's head alive! (with Videos!) Art is a drain- Las Vegas drains flickr set. Very arty. Pushbike the envelope- Cool new designs for bikes. Extreme people- Guinness world records on human traits. I welcome our ant overlords- Argentine ants have taken over the world, and we didn't even know it! A single colony stretches from the Americas to Europe and Japan!
Darren Brown said about this video: PLEASE – do yourself a favour and turn the sound OFF – NOW. I’m almost willing to throw the towel in admit that creationists are right when I hear it. However the video is just brilliant (if you ignore the silly text as well)... Here’s 500 generations every SECOND backed up by actual fossil evidence – shoved in to a computer and animated together. It’s fantastic to watch.
And here's the video that is linked from the "god demands evolution" link in the previous vid.
This is a really good video that exposes how psychics really get information about the spirits they contact... google! and amazingly it works even when the people are just made up!
I hate ads. If i want something, i'll look for it myself thankyouverruhmuch! And for the most part, ads are just stupid blah blah blah... our product is great because it's shinier than our competetor and you get a free turtle... blah blah blah...
But every now and then there is an ad so insanely avant garde that you just have to tell everyone about it.
I don't know how i've got through life so far without y-fronts on my hands!
Sunglasses that brighten the world, and give it HD clarity.
First of all, there are already horrible, plastic, cheap, crappy sunnies you put over your prescription glasses. You never see them on anyone under 90 because they are terrible! I will agree that the world looks better through polarised lenses though... especially window tint, which goes all LSD trippy and is likely to distract you while youre driving.
A vibrator for your Head.
I can just imagine the woman in the meeting saying "Can you just excuse me for five minutes while i apply a strap-on vibrator to my brain. I find it much better than medically supported tablets which would allow me to continue the meeting without issue... bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"
And now it starts to get a little weird...
Crossdressing pest control
I admire this guy's commitment, but he's obviously a drag queen imposter. All the drag queens I've ever seen can keep in tune when they sing. I will not purchase services from an imposter. Good day sir!
Dead babies enjoying a milk shower
This is why I no longer consume dairy. I usually tell people some nonsence about ethics and how it's wrong to treat animals the way that they do on intensive factory farems, but the truth is that I once saw this going on in a paddock and have never been the same since.
Amazing acting skills despite a developmentally delayed eagle crapping on their roof
I don't know what to say about that. I just wish I was that brochure...
David Lynch's Sprite commercial
It's like speaking in tongues for your eyes!
Jungle porn juice
And I guess that's a good place to end. Using sex to sell a product has been around ever since the first wheel was being marketed, but what are we selling here? It seems like a subliminial advertisement for bestiality dressed up as a juice commercial! And seriously... the juice is called 'orangina'. I mean, c'mon... if your product is so bad you have to call it 'genital-pop' to sell it, you should probably rethink your objectives.
I always thought that levitation would take some kind of mystical super sub-quantum amazing godlike powers, but now I've seen this, it all makes sense!
Thgis has to be one of the best Mr Deity episodes yet. From Lucy reading the God Delusion, to the Penn and Teller references and all of the analogies to closed mindedness. Through and through this is epic!
If you've never seen Mr Deity before this is a great place to start. If you have seen Mr Deity before, you'll LOVE this!
and the Penn and Teller trick they are talking about
If there was a proof that truly did disprove God's existence, would the theist be able to accept it, given that his presuppositions are in opposition to the non-existence of God? In other words, given that the theist has a presuppositional base that there is a God, in order for him to accept a proof for God's non-existence, he would have to change his presuppositional base. This is not easy to do, and would involve a major paradigm shift in the belief structure of the theist. Therefore, a theist is presuppositionally hostile to any proofs for God's non-existence, and is less likely to be objective about such attempted proofs.
After reading how he is depicted in the bible, Mr Deity decides that the christians (yeah, he knows some jews were also responsible, but they have it hard enough already) need to pay. He smites them with the inability to dance, curses their leaders with bad hair and all sorts of terrible afflictions.
Great one liners include "they do that to kids?". "How about we get the pope to kill a bunch of them [xstains] off, he's good at that".
Captain Disillusion, superhero/digital hoaxbuster comes up against a brick wall. Finding no digital trickery in the panrty ghost video, he almost hangs up his coat, but he is magically transported into the Isaac Asimov library at the James Randi Educational Foundation, where Randi shows CD that spurious videos don't always have to be digitally manipulated. Trap doors, air pressure and good old fashion humbug set CD back on the right path.
There's also quite a hat-tip to 'The Amazing Meeting', a 3 day skeptic conference in Las Vegas. We won't be going this year, but we have sent some minions to spread the aussie charm.
Professor Richard Dawkins delivered this year's Open University lecture at the Natural History Museum on Tuesday 17th March 2009. Dawkins presented to an invited audience and investigated if Darwin was the most revolutionary scientist ever, and examined the evolutionary theories of his contemporaries. Dawkins suggests that there are four "bridges to evolutionary understanding" and illustrates this with four claimants to the evolution of natural selection: Edward Blyth, Patrick Matthew, Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin. The fifth bridge of evolutionary understanding is identified as modern genetics which he terms digital Darwinism.
I am proud to say that this is perhaps the greatest title for a blog post I have ever written. It has everything! And they say atheists eat babies, peh! From E-merl.com
Shocking account of exorcism rituals in African evangelical churches where children are convicted of practicing witchcraft.
This is what is wrong with religion.
This will happen when people believe.
The happy-clappy church around the corner from you is giving legitimacy to this kind of horrible belief system. The churches should all be up in arms against this kind of thing and do what they can to abolish it.
But even in Western Sydney, Mercy Ministries have been performing exorcisms on young women with mental health problems and eating disorders. Is that so different?
Please be advised, these videos contain footage of child abuse and disturbing imagery.
Betty Bowers, America's best Christian, does her best to straighten out some of the misconceptions and mistaken beliefs about traditional bible-based marriage.
I just thought I'd send out a salute to the genius who grabbed the url jesusallaboutlife.com. For those who haven't been past a church in NSW or WA in the last couple of months, there's a campaign with the slogan "Jesus: All about life" and a great many churches have a large poster out the front with that slogan.
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