No, I Will Not Buy You A Bible

I'm one of those weirdos who actually kind of skims my junk emails before I delete them. I don't open them, but I do read the titles and the first few lines of the emails that get displayed as they're listed in my junk folder. The religious ones catch my attention specifically because every once in a while I get a bit of hate mail because of the blog. This email ended up being a pretty common scam, and it's long and very poorly written, but I enjoyed it enough to want to share. -

Greetings in Jesus name and may this letter finds you blessed in Christ. I am writing you from West Africa and it is a blessing getting to you in the other part of the world. It is my prayer that you become a friend of me and the Local church here.

By His grace I am a believer bought and washed by the blood of Jesus Christ. I am married with one child. I am a pastor of a small Local church non denominational or affiliated to anybody. The church was founded in 2005 and now has about 40 members. I gave my life to Christ in 1989 when I was in the high in at Jos. A campus fellowship student by name osahon was my room mate at school and his life of faithfulness unto Christ and his prayer and teaching me the Bible led me to Christ. This brother told me then that he sense that God was going to use me for His cause. I was never ready to hear that because my dream was never in the ministry but to finish my studies and get a nice job.

Five years after school and already working I started having the stronger urge and sensing that God was calling me but I kept on putting it off my heart because my job and life was so sweet to me and I felt I needed nothing else. One day a guest speaker was ministering in our church and he singled me out in a crowd of over one thousand and told me that God has called me to the ministry and cannot hide.

After he left I told my pastor that I have accepted and my pastor and other elders of the church prayed with me. I immediately joined and headed the evangelical team of the church and I saw many coming to Christ in the team. I let go off my job in 2004 and returned to Edo state my state. I joined a small Local church and was assisting the pastor.

In June 18 2004, a pastor of a little church of about six families in my area walked up to me telling me that he is leaving the state where the Lord had asked him to go and start the work. He said that he has been praying over a month that the Lord has asked him to tell me to take over the little church. I had not had any relationship with this pastor before now so it amazed me. He asked me to pray to ask the Lord. I did prayed and also told my pastor of this development. He prayed with me and three days later he confirmed that God has asked me to take over the church. That was how I became the Pastor of Full Gospel Church. I have been a pastor here two years ago. The church is a growing church and we meet at a temporary rented building.

Matt.5:16"Let your Light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven".I am writing to appeal for assistance in the area of study Bible which will be of help to me in my research and studies as well as lesson preparation as a pastor. These Bibles are very expensive here. I need a Dakes Annotated Reference Bible or Thompson Chain reference Bible either one of the two. If you cannot get any of these please send me any study Bible which you know has study aids. I would prefer a King James Version. Bibles cost much here as they are imported not printed here.

There are many in our Local church who do not have bibles and cannot afford to buy. I want to specifically make a request for five elderly couples who cannot work and earn money to buy for themselves. They are very devoted. Please on their behalf. I request that you send them 10 bibles the very big letters or super large print would be preferable for them because of their sight. Please used bibles would be appreciated if that is what you can afford. Thank for considering this request. And as you help to meet this kingdom need the Lord will bless your finance abundantly. You can send the bibles through the post office a registered postage of EMS the bibles will get to us safely Ecclesiastes 11:1"Cast the bread upon the waters, for thou shall find it after many days".

The Lord bless you and keep you in His perfect love
In His Service
Brother J***** I*****

Nigeria

First of all, consider the bold bits - it would seem a pastor of a small church in 2004 had this guy take over his congregation - the same congregation he said was founded in 2005. Also, he became pastor in 2004 or six years ago, but has been the pastor for two years.

Also, if this guy really has a special relationship with the Christian god, why did he email me - a jerkwad atheist - who would ultimately post this email online and make fun of its inconsistency and impotency?

Lastly - Those elderly folks sound like they could use something more productive for their survival than a big print bible. This kind of use of the destitute in order to garner sympathy and ultimately donation really bothers me and religious institutions seem to have no problem whatsoever using their saddest cases to the church's benefit. And that little bit about 'And as you help to meet this kingdom need the Lord will bless your finance abundantly' - Yeah, this sounds more like one of those annoying facebook chain letters than an appeal to help out a small, isolated church somewhere in Africa.

Not somewhere - Nigeria. Why does it seem like a good chunk of stupid obvious internet scams are coming out of Nigeria?

Jesus Loves Stuff

Jesus is supposed to be love. So, it stands to reason, Jesus loves stuff. Which is exactly what this website strives to illustrate. Nothing more, nothing less. And I like that.

A few of my favorites:

And of course -

Republicans Launch Site - Internet LOLs

I don't do a lot of political or non-atheist posts, but sometimes I just have to step out of the box because sometimes, the universe just makes me happy. And I want to share.

While I was consumed in something random, my fiancé decided to watch what ended up being a commercial for this truly amazing new Republican-launched and endorsed website called America Speaking Out.

Zomg, this website is amazing.

The funniest thing about the site, of course, is that the Republicans who launched it seemed to think that they were somehow crafting some new, more dignified chunk of the internet out of some barren unclaimed digital land. They seemed to really believe that because they were the ones to launch this open to anyone who registers site, that it would be mainly used by Republicans and thus, reflect Republican ideals. They seemed to think that the rest of the internet was going to - for not reason at all - respect the fact that they were looking for earnest contributions and serious behavior.

Evidently in this case, the internet is serious business.

But of course it's not! I can't believe anyone is even trying to claim that at this point. What are you, new?

The commercial my fiancé was watching seemed to convey the message of - 'Hey, we found something really cool called 'The Internet'. We made a page! Come leave a comment! Republicans are awesome!'

Please tell me how that is essentially any different than, oh, every teenage goth and and self proclaimed 'poet' who has ever started a blog or website ever? Change the word 'Republicans' to the name of a school mascot and change the 'leave a comment' to 'sign my dreambook' and you have any given Geocities site ever made. Do you remember Geocities? Yeah, that was like 1995.

Pretty innovative, guys.

If the point of this failure of an experiment was to show, without a doubt, that the current political leaders within the Republican party are pathetically out of touch with reality - bravo! The guy on the commercial (Rep. Mike Spence) If I were a Republican, I would be embarrassed by this most recent failure to stay politically relevant. Of course, if I were a Republican, I would probably be used to the feeling by now.

Here are some of my favorite posts. I seriously encourage everyone to go take a peek. It's at least as awesome as LOLcats.

Aramaic as the Official Language of the US. We do this to respect two facts: this is a Christian Nation and Jesus spoke Aramaic, therefore, that should be our language as well. Anyone who refuses to speak the language of our Lord should be deported back to where they came from. This includes the Native Americans.

Gays are horrible, horrible people, but we can't pick and choose parts of Leviticus, so let's deny equal rights to all people who fall into the following group: Men who shave, anyone who touches a menstruating woman, people who eat pork, people who eat shellfish, people who work on Sundays. They're all horrible, horrible people.

Attach an electric dog collar to Glen Beck's neck, and deliver a powerful shock every time he tries to associate health care to Fascist Germany. THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SYSTEMATIC EXTERMINATION OF MILLIONS OF JEWS AND PROVIDING PEOPLE WITH AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE.

And I actually suport this last one:

We should pass a law that makes politicians replace their flag pins with the logo of their corporate sponsors.. It would make it much easier to determine who they are really representing

Christian Congratulates A Fellow Believer For Ignoring Christ

I try to read up on what non atheists are saying about atheists, and a lot of the time I find some really cool blogs and comments and the like, written by people who are at least trying to make sense of the atheist point of view. I should spend some time focused on them, but I found this crazy book review and felt like I just had to share it. The reviewer really hits the ground running with the characterization of atheists as some kind of malevolent, possibly military force coming to rape the minds of the Facebook generation!!

Thank their god they have some lady who isn't afraid to tell Jesus to grow a pair and stop turning the other cheek like a pussy.

The new atheists are on the march. They’re in bookstores. They’re on television. They’re everywhere.

Chilling! We sound super scary!

But nowhere is their effect being felt more than on college campuses and by young people. So invasive is the new atheist movement that in many ways their outlook has become the default mainstream culture.

I don't know how I feel about someone who sees a widely accepted point of view as invasive simply because it's becoming recognized by the younger generations. Isn't that pretty standard social progress? I'd say 'social evolution' but I know how scary the 'E' word is for some religious people.

For too long Christians have been a punch line for militant secularists.

The 'militant atheist' meme has been done to death, hasn't it? What constitutes militant behavior Expressing a point of view? Standing up for equal rights and representation?

It’s time somebody punched back. And Mary Eberstadt’s new book “The Loser Letters” is an unexpected roundhouse to the new atheist movement. I read it last week and urge you to pick it up. (You can click on amazon.com)

“Christians are always at a moral disadvantage because we’re told to turn the other cheek,” said Eberstadt. “So there’s been a lot of playing defense. I’m trying to go on offense.”

Yeah! Damn that Jesus wuss for his lame ass pacifist position! Why were we listening to that huggy hippie in the first place? Oh, wait...

She calls her book “apologetics for the Facebook generation.” And they need it.

The term 'apologetics' and the fact that some religious people feel completely comfortable using the term has baffled me for a while. In fact, when I was first looking into religion and ran across this term, I thought it was an insult until I noticed that it was a term religious people proudly used to label their way of explaining away the crazy and often glaringly obvious fallacies and inconsistencies in their religions. Did they 'take it back' or something?

Anyway, the book the guy is reviewing looks like a lame recycling of the same arguments we've been hearing for years, dressed up in (what must pass for clever in the religious circles) satire. I didn't really pay much attention to the rest of the review, I just thought the beginning was so ridiculous, it was worth repeating for the sake of a giggle. I did go to amazon.com and read the pages available with the 'look inside' feature, which was enough for me to both get the joke and find myself utterly unimpressed.

You go, Christian apologists. Though I hardly see how encouraging one another to proudly shuffle off your Christian values is going to help you make a case for Christianity.

Scientists Can Design Bacteria, Therefore The Universe Was Designed?

Hopefully everyone has heard at least a little bit by now about the first "synthetic bacterium", a copy of an existing bacteria which was created with synthetic DNA. Pretty exciting stuff. What I'm finding interesting is the negative response to the experiment, of course being led by religious institutions and ethics committees. PZ Myers was kind enough to compile a quick reference list of the most ridiculous responses here, but I wanted to write specifically about one response which I felt was exceptionally ridiculous.

Given the effort that went into the synthesis of the total M. genitalium genome, it's hard to envision how unintelligent, undirected processes could have generated life from a prebiotic soup. Though not their intention, Venter's team unwittingly provided empirical evidence that life's components, and consequently, life itself must stem from the work of an Intelligent Designer.

Yes, that popping sound was my head exploding. I hate creationist arguments, mainly because they're often so convoluted that they become difficult for me to argue against. Not because they contain even a small measure of validity, but rather it's hard for me to fathom their position enough to rouse a response. So let me break this down to it's simplest form - the bacterium was designed, which is proof that the universe is designed.

Not...really.

One thing being designed is not proof of everything being designed. I don't understand why people even believe this argument, let alone feel confident sharing the position with others, it seems so blatantly illogical. If a building is painted, is that proof that anything with color is also painted? I hesitate to believe that even my own analogy is accurate, that's how baffling this kind of logic is to me.

In a forum I frequent, someone is trying to argue the same position, only their argument isn't the the bacteria is man made, therefore the universe was also designed, their argument seems even more rudimentary and absurd - Anyone can tell just by looking at it that Stonehenge was designed, therefore the universe, being obviously far more impressive, was also designed.

Obviously, if you didn't know that Stonehenge was man made, it might occur to you that it might have been, but you would be making an assumption. There are plenty of occurrence in nature that are just as, if not far more, wondrous that are not man made. The whole argument is based on a huge, simplistic assumption - that one instance or even a million instances of design is proof of everything in the universe being designed.

This argument boils down to a kind of pleading. "Of course the universe is designed! Just LOOK at it!!" I spend a little time being sad every time I'm reminded that people who confidently argue with this kind of thinking exist. I guess that's why we have warning labels on lighters telling us they can cause burns.

Mmm...Sacrilicious

Ever since Homer Simpson first ate that holy waffle, exclaiming "Mmmm sacrilicious", sacrilege has been hilarious to me. I also enjoy me a simple flash game or two. Do those two sentences seem awkwardly unrelated? Not so! I want to share with you guys the games I play that are both rad and sacrilegious. Dare I say - radcrilegious?












Bible fight

Bible fight is the fighting game Joe Lieberman would have wanted to replace Mortal Kombat with if that ancient fuddy duddy had his way back in the 90s. It even follows the biblical tradition of unabashed misogyny considering Eve is the WORST CHARACTER EVER.











Jesus Dress Up!

Oh, many a wasted night in my youth was spent at my friend's fridge rearrainging George Bush's outlandish outfits on his magnetic paper doll set. This online Jesus version is just as fun, and because Jesus was most likely a fictional character, I don't get sad every once in a while as I did by having to stair at GW's stupid monkey face.














Homeless or Jesus?

This is a simple guessing game where you get a square of a picture, usually a close up of a sweet beard, and you are made to guess if it's a picture of a homeless guy or a picture of Jesus.

Declaring Religion Isn't Taboo But Responding Sure Is

My dad told me once that it's generally known that it's impolite to talk about politics or religion with people you don't know very well. When I asked why, he told me that people have strong opinions about those subjects, so it's better to not talk about them at all to avoid an argument.

The internet has changed a lot of social rules, and politics has become a pretty open topic of conversation. People root for politicians the way people root for sports teams and you'll see the full range of opinions, emotions, and passions attached to those declarations of support. I hardly ever hear anyone complaining, online or off, about someone being 'too political' or bringing up politics as if it's a taboo subject.

Religion, however...

Well, it's gotten a bit better but it's still considered an inappropriate topic to talk about.

Let me clarify - it's inappropriate for ME to talk about. Because I'm an atheist.

Religious people feel comfortable plastering their worship/praise/general ass-kissery of god all over the place - on facebook status messages, in chain emails, in forums, wherever. The religious are becoming more and more free with their expression, but it seems when an atheist friend or associate responds to such a declaration, they're still seen as being invasive and rude.

So it's OK to post "God is so awesome! I feel bad for anyone who closes their heart to feeling how loved I feel!" - that is no longer taboo.

However, if you were to respond and say, for instance "That's crazy, because I think living without god is awesome and I wish you could feel how it feels to be free of religion!" - YOU ARE A TOTAL ASSHOLE.

...Ok, maybe that's a tad dramatic, but my point remains.

Making ANY subject taboo to talk about creates problems for people and communication between different groups. A chunk of religious people have a ton of misconceptions, sometimes bazaar and sometimes pretty insulting, about non religious folks and to a degree non religious folks tend to guess the possible 'believer category' that the person their dealing with falls into, at times incorrectly assuming things about the person that aren't exactly true when discussing religious topics. This leads to a hell of a lot of bullshit fights that would be reduced by quite a bit if we could all just drop the whole 'not supposed to talk about it' attitude.

So this is my new vow - if I run across someone who is saying anything about religion and I feel like commenting, I am going to. Not to be rude, not to be obnoxious, but because if they're going to talk about it, I'm going to talk about it too. I figure if someone feels compelled to email me a story about Noah's Ark, they're showing that they are rejecting the taboo of not talking about religion and are open for a conversation.

Best case scenario - we both learn something more about what the other person believes. Worst case - they quit bothering me and I no longer have to delete annoying mass emails filled with Family Circus and Love Is... comics and clip art from Windows 95.

Christian Anti-Porn Add-On FTW!

The Christian Anti-porn add-on! Is this old news? I just found this today via a post on Think Atheist and installed it on my Firefox to test it out. It's pretty amazing.

The description for the add-on says it all -

Flee sexual immorality (1Co 6:18). Christian Anti-Porn will filter links and alert the user if any porn websites are clicked. This will not block but warn every Christian that he is going to crucify Jesus Christ again if he proceeds to such websites.

When you go to a site that this add-on deems unholy, a wonderful image above pops up.


I can already tell this add-on is pretty terribly made. I went to IMDB and looked up the movie 'Red Dawn' and my screen was an epileptic seizure of crucifixion. Which is unfortunate because I would gleefully keep this add-on if it wasn't so easily triggered - it's effng hilarious. As it is, the add-on is way too intrusive. I haven't visited a single porn site since I installed it and I've already been warned about killing Jesus over a dozen times.

And no, the humor of that is not lost on me. :D