Reality Check! The Virgin Mary in the Present Day

Part 1:
Even in my late days as a theist I was annoyed by nativity scenes. They were unreal... in a similar way to the world in the move The Stepford Wives, complete with weird plastic smiles.


Time for a dose of reality.
First of all, let me make this clear from the beginning, I DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE NATIVITY STORY!! THIS IS ALL HYPOTHETICAL!

Now that that is out of the way, let's continue...
There are so many things wrong with this picture that I hardly know where to start.
But I guess I'll start here...
Notice the race of the people in the scene? White right?
I hate to burst your bubble but NONE of them would have been white. Most likely they would have been Arabs. I was astounded by how surprised the catholic public seemed to be by the "Arab face" revealed a few weeks ago on the "Shroud of Turin." Most likely that Shroud is yet another medieval fake relic, but that is beside the point. Why should they be surprised at all? Honestly! What were they expecting?

Second, the Mary in the photo has always bothered me. As a woman, it's almost offensive that they portray Mary as they do. First, she shows NO sign of recently given birth in the picture AT ALL!! There's no mess of blood and amniotic fluid, not that I was expecting that. But the least they could have done was portray Mary as many women are after giving birth, exhausted, covered in sweat, in pain, and still swollen from their recent pregnancy. Notice the most disturbing part, Mary has a flat belly. NO woman's belly goes flat right after birth.

A second thing, Mary always looks like an adult in these pictures. Here's another reality check for my Christian readers, she wasn't an adult [at least not by today's standards - which is the way she is portrayed in nativity scenes]. According to the traditional interpretation, Mary was 14 when she gave birth.
That means that if she lived in todays world she would be a freshmen in high school [at the most].

Let's project this whole scene into the 21st century. The reason I'm doing this is to show just how rediculous the story of the nativity is! Please use proper logic for the way you analyze this! Be honest with yourself!
So...
There is a young teenage girl who became pregnant [anyone who has gone to a public high school has seen the occasional pregnant teenager]. She's 14 years old and not yet married. And she claims that she is a virgin and still pregnant. Tell me, if it was your friend that had made this claim, would you believe her? Would ANYONE believe her?

And also, most likely if Mary lived in the present day, she would have looked something like this:


So, this message goes out to all Christians but especially Catholics!
MARY WAS A PREGNANT TEENAGER!!

Also, remember the point I made, if your friend was pregnant and told you she "never had sex" would you believe her? There's a short answer to that question, no.

The nearly certain truth is, Mary was NOT a virgin.
In her time, it would have been understandable for her to claim "virgin pregnancy." Her life was on the line! If you Christians scrutinize the Bible you would understand why she lied. What did they do to fornicators and adultresses in 1st century Israel? They were stoned.

So, the virgin thing was probably her own attempt to save her life.

There is no doubt that Mary was either a fornicator or an adultress [by the standards of her time].
There are several circulating theories about this...
1. She was raped by a Roman Soldier [which would have been adultery in her time]
2. She had an affair with a Roman Soldier [definitely adulter]
3. She and Joseph had sex before marriage. [Fornication]

Don't say that I'm draggin the virgin madonna through the mud!
That's not my intent!
My intent is to point out the screaming hypocracy of the church!
The church advocates ONLY abstinence until marriage AND the vatican's official doctrine is that contraception is evil...
what does this mean...
that there are a LOT of "virgin" Marys out there that are being persecuted because they have broken "church ideals" for a woman. What hypocracy when the church's most holy woman is an unwed pregnant teenager!!

"Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Hitler were atheists, therefore all atheists are wrong/ evil"

This argument is one I have heard at least once or twice, although it appears to be less common than the popular "design argument," "argument from ignorance," and "argument from personal experience." However, it is no less filled with enormous logical fallacies than these more common arguments.

Unfortunately for theists, the "argument from evil" (which is what they are attemptiong to use) doesn't work for them. In fact, it works against their argument against atheists! Why?
READ ON!!

Human beings are fallible and definitely not all good! This fact is recognized by theists and atheists alike. I have often met theists who deny that people of their faith who commit atrocities are "not real Christians/ Muslims/ Jews/ Hindus/ etc." However, I have yet to meet an atheist that denies that atheists who committed atrocities, ex. Moe Zedong and Stalin, were "not really atheists."
YES!! ABSOLUTELY THEY WERE ATHEISTS!!
BUT! This is IRRELEVANT to the legitimacy of atheism!

So why does this argument from evil not work against atheists? We don't doubt the existence of evil, and the majority of us don't believe in an entity [natural or otherwise] that is "omni-benevolent" [i.e. All-good]. Nor do we deny that there are evil and/ or illogical atheists among us that occasionally stain our midst, there are.

Yet, the presence of evil among atheists does not destroy the legitimacy of atheism! REMEMBER! Atheism is simply a lack of belief in God/ Gods. Nothing else is universal among us. So, the argument that there are evil atheists is as harmless to the idea of atheism as being hit by a water balloon.

*Also, a little side note: Although Stalin and Mao were definitely atheists, the idea that Hitler was one is up for debate.

It is confirmed that Hitler was raised in the Austro-Hungarian Empire as a young boy and that his mother was a highly religious Christian. I believe I heard that Hitler was raised as a Catholic, but whatever type of Christian he was, he was not an atheist. To my knowledge there is no documentation of Hitler renouncing his faith. [However, some have suggested that he had an interest in the occult - whih still doesn't prove that he wasn't a Christian, btw.]

Back to the argument from evil, we have covered the ground of the harmlessness of using the argument against evil against atheists, but why is that argument beneficial to atheists and detrimental to theists who believe in the Abrahamic God?

There is a simple answer to this:

The traditional and most commonly accepted idea of God is that he/ she is "all-powerful," "all-good," and "all-knowing." [At the same time] The essence of the argument from evil is that there is a TITANIC problem with this notion from the start!

I'll spell it out simply for you:

The three combating notions of the Judao-Christian-Islamic God with regards to evil:

1. God is all powerful

This means that he can do anything, including stop evil and create it.

2. God is All-Good

This means that God would never commit evil.

3. God is Omnicient

This means that God knows everything.

Are we on the same page here? I'm sure many of you Christians and Muslims, etc. would agree with these ideas.

ANY TWO OF THESE NOTIONS CAN WORK TOGETHER IF THEY DISCOUNT THE THIRD! HOWEVER IF ALL THREE ARE ACCEPTED AT ONCE, THEY CONTRADICT EACHOTHER!!

To illustrate my point I will combine 2 at a time and show how the third cannot work with the existence of evil:

1. God is all powerful and God is all good:


AND



Okay, no contradiction here, maybe this God DOESN'T KNOW that evil exists? Sure, that works.

2. God is all good and God knows everything:


AND



Okay, this works too, assuming God can't do anything about the evil that exists.

3. God knows everything and God is all-powerful:


AND



Sure! This works as well, maybe God desn't care about evil? Or maybe God IS evil himself? Evil Gods and Goddesses DID exist in past religions [esp. Polytheistic ones].

But! God is all Good + All Powerful + All Knowing?
THAT DOESN'T WORK!!
Why would evil exist with a god like that?! No matter which way you turn you have to take away one of these qualities to make your god fit.

You don't think so?
Okay! I challenge you, theists, to present me with evidence for why a god with all three qualities could exist with evil! BUT! Be prepared for me to critique your argument and call you out if you omit one of the three qualities!

Chronic Guilt Disorder - A Religious Psychiatric Pathology

I remember many things of being a young theist child. Some of these things are nice memories, others are not nice, and some I thought were nice at the time.

One of the memories that falls into the latter is my Chronic Guilt as a young Christian. I am a psychology undergraduate major, and I made up the term "Chronic Guilt Disorder" [You will not find it in any medical or psychiatric dictionary] to define a phenomena quite common among religious people, but especially prevalent and severe among Christians. Although, among Christians, the length they will go to make up for their Chronic Guilt, which in turn will often lead to an inferiority complex, varies in extremity.

With Easter coming up in just 2 days, I thought the timing for writing this blog post was perfect. Easter is a "holiday" which symbolizes the PINNACLE of Christian Chronic Guilt Disorder. In fact, the whole holiday is based on the idea that God was killed by a sinful world to take away their sins. And that because of God's perfection, no one is worthy of this salvation.

As a christian child I believed that I was an unworthy human being, a guilty evil sinner who deserved to be punished. In fact, unbeknownst to my parents, I would practice a mild form of self-injury [A REAL DOCUMENTED PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDER, more commonly known as "cutting yourself"] as a way to show my repentance to Jesus, and I always did it around Easter. The self-injury was light, I would merely scratch myself or pick at scabs, just to induce slight pain. Then I would feel "cleansed of sin." I look back now as an atheist and shake my head at the insanity of this. I was only a child, but I was already practicing self-destructive habits in the name of God!

However, my "scratching for Christ" is really only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to religious self-destructive behaviors due to Chronic Guilt Disorder.

In fact, it seems that not only does religion create self-destructive behaviors and attitudes, it PURPOSELY attempts to force them upon it's followers by using the weapon of SIN. In a VERY well done attack on the evils perpetuated by Christianity, George H. Smith hits this issue on the nail when he writes,

"The notion of the sin is perhaps the most effective sanction ever invented. For a Christian, to sin is the worst thing imaginable, and the thought of committing a sin can cause intense guilt. [...] Sin represents something metaphysically monstrous, something that directly undercuts a man's [or woman's] sense of self-esteem, and this adds to its effectiveness as a manipulative device." - p. 301 of "Atheism: The Case Agains God" - By George H. Smith.

I remember that as a Christian child I would feel horribly guilty for things that were completely out of porportion to the amount of guilt that should be displayed. When I would lie or backsass my parents one day, on Sunday in church, I would be silently crying and begging God for forgiveness, terrified of God's wrath.

You see... fear IS a powerful weapon of Christendom, but GUILT is MUCH MORE potent of a weapon!!
If you can make someone believe they are worthless, you can break them.

As I said, though, the examples of religious self-destruction go far beyond "scratching yourself." People harm their bodies and their psyches in the name of repentence to God. Sometimes they do very serious harm.

Although severe physical self-punishment was far more common in past centuries, it remains today!
The bible gives us GREAT role models as to how to act when God is "angry with you." Over and over it speaks of the people weeping and tearing their hair and putting on "sack cloth."

In the middle ages, a priest who wished to get on God's good side wore a "hair shirt" for a great portion of his life without ever taking it off. A hair shirt is a very uncomfortable and unsanitary garment made entirely of human hair.

When lice infested his hair shirt, you would have thought he would have taken it off, right? WRONG!! He took his suffering from the parasites to be an even greater way to show repentence to God. So he tortured himself for years wearing a dirty, uncomfortable, unsanitary, and infested garment to be "good for God." [What kind of insane god would sanction that?!]

Think extreme forms of self-punishment for God exist only in the past? You're wrong!

In some modern Christian sects it is common to go through the EXCRUCIATING practice of LITERALLY reinacting the crucifiction on a LIVING person!! The person who is the "crucified" is revered for his/ her "piousness."
This picture is from the Phillipines and is typical of such practices.


More common forms of Self-Punishment are, Fasting, Self-Mutilation or Self Beating, and the Self-Deprivation practices common during Lent among Catholics. ["What are you going to give up for Lent?"]

These may be seen on first glance as harmless, but they are not. The main problem with the self-deprivation practice of Lent, is that it causes emotional distress and temptation and possibly depression among those who fail to hold to their "vows." You may object that it is no worse than dieting. However, dieting is done out of medical NECESSITY!! Dieting has a progressive PURPOSE!! It is not simply about deprivation!! Dieting is about changing your lifestyle and becoming a healthy person! And, dieting should ALWAYS be done only under the supervision of a medical doctor!

Which brings us to the next "supposedly harmless" practice - Fasting. Fasting is the practice [for religious or other reasons] of depriving yourself of food for a certain amount of time [usually only a day]. In moderation, fasting CAN be harmless. However, if taken to an extreme, fasting is DANGEROUS!! Since a person is depriving themselves of all food, if fasting is done for more than a day, it becomes purposeful starvation. If you fast for more time than your doctor would recommend, you are risking PERMANENT damage to your body and your overall physical health!! Depriving yourself of food will wreck havoc with your electrolytes, essential chemicals in your blood that regulate hydration, and are critical for nerve and muscle function. You will set your blood sugar out of wack, causing weakness, nausea and fatigue. Prolonged deprivation [when your body goes into starvation mode] will cause your body to start [literally] EATING ITSELF!! Your body will attempt to keep you alive by first absorbing your muscles, and then absorbing your fats. Then your vital organs will start to shut down. [But if you get to that point, the point at which death can happen, you're a dumbass because you had more than enough time to save yourself from your PURPOSEFUL starvation]. You see, you may see it as a religious practice, but your body doesn't see that. It just sees you as starving and will act exactly as it does when you are starving of other causes.

Self- Beating - In the time of the Black Death, a group of zealot Christians [who were scorned by the organized church] would go from town to town in ragged clothing, beating themselves unmercifully with whips and sticks to try to get God to lift the plague from the "good Christian people." They were called, the Flagellants.
Even today some christians practice this archaic abuse on themselves!
An Image of Flagellant actors in a film about the Black Death:



Although all of this seems horrible... perhaps what is more horrible is the effect of EMOTIONAL self-punishment! What I mean by that is that Chronic Guilt [which is characterized by guilt that far exceeds the level of the crime or guilt without a crime] does emotional damage.

A person who believes that they constantly commit evil acts, will come to believe that they ARE evil, and [in the minds of any good person] thus they are worthless.

In this case the bully that lowers the victim's self-esteem, is not a person, but a poisonous ideology which is [in essense] a never-ending guilt trip.

The Danger of the Occult and New Age Medicine - The Atheist Goddess rails on the Occult. [See! Atheists aren't just critical of Christianity!]

From time to time, a news article surfaces in which pseudoscience and the occult are responsible [yet again] for the death of an innocent person through "harmless alternative medicine" and the like. A famous example would be the young girl [Candace Newmaker] who was killed in 2001 in a session of "rebirthing therapy," a dangerous pseudoscience that runs on the dubious assumption that being psychologically "reborn" will "cure a child of behavor problems." FYI, the scientific community has condemned rebirthing therapy as "dangerous pseudoscience." The girl's death was more than a tragedy, it fulfilled the criteria of NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE!! The child's parents could find no solution to their little girl's behavior problems in legitimate medical science so they made the decision that would seal Candace's doom, they contacted pseudo-medical "therapists" that practiced rebirthing therapy in a desperate hope that it would cure their child. They were most likely unaware that rebirthing therapy is ineffective [as demonstrated in experiments using the scientific method that proved that it was as effective as a placebo - a placebo is a non-treatment that causes some alieviation of symptoms because the subject simply BELIEVES that they will be healed, yet these effects are usually only mild and temporary, if a treatment is no more effective than a placebo, then it is not a legitament medical practice]. The child was given standard rebirthing therapy. In otherwords her entire body was wrapped very tightly in a blanket while a 4 adults SAT on her!
Poor Candice REPEATEDLY screamed through her blanket prison that she couldn't breathe and pleaded and then begged to be let out. Not far into the therapy the 10 year old little girl began to emit hysterical shrieks, screaming that she was going to die. All the while she was being crushed by the four adults under a total weight of 673 lbs [305.9 kg]. Her desperate screams were interpreted by the "therapists" as normal behavior during rebirthing therapy.
The whole treatment lasted only seven minutes, yet by the end the end of this horrifying ritual, the girl was dead. The therapists didn't believe her cries that she was dying until finally Candace went silent. 30 minutes later interpreting the therapy as a sucess, the therapists unwrapped the girl. Only to find that she had vomited on herself and died of suffocation at some point during the "therapy."
The dangers of "New age medicine" the "Occult" and other popular pseudosciences are VERY REAL and if you engage in them, please know that you are RISKING YOUR LIFE!!!

Poor Candace. Victim of the horrors of pseudoscience. May your death serve as a lesson to others that science goes through peer review for a reason and that to reject science is to risk everything. May you rest in peace sweetheart.

Candace Newmaker:


I could give many more examples of tragic and preventable deaths through pseudoscience, but I will give only 1 more.

Reading through the March/ April 2010 issue of Skeptical Inquirer, I came across an article that was baffling, horrifying, and unbelievable at the same time. It was entitled "James Arthur Ray: New Age Guru and Sweat Lodge Culprit." Well... I had no idea what a "Sweat Lodge" was but the article detailed a scandal that looked quite interesting. So I searched the internet for further details.



Heaven knows WHAT inspired 60 people to pay Ray nearly $10,000 to spend a session in a crammed, superheated tent, but they did. And, typical of the insantiy of the "new age occult" the "sweat lodge treatment" didn't end until 3 people were dead and 17- 20 people had to be sent to the hospital.



I am anxiously awaiting to see if the multi-millionaire new age fraud will take responsibility for the harm he inflicted upon these people and their families. But, I don't have very high hopes. Given the fact that most "psychics" and "new age gurus" are cowardly and unaccredited scam artists, I seriously doubt he will take the blame, like he should. [Since according to the SI article, he guarded the door of the "Sweat Lodge" to make sure "no one got out until the treatment was over."]

For more information on this tragedy please consult this CBS article:




http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-5378668-504083.html

The Bible Revealed Episode 1: Battle of the Babies

Okay. Skycomet is embarking on a quest she never was able to complete as a christian, reading the whole bible. Strangely, when reading the bible as a non-believer, i.e. without preconcieved notions about the book being holy, the stories become entirely different from how they are portrayed in church. During this quest, which will probably last for a year or more, I will occassionally post a story and comentary about it on my blog when a certain story strikes me as either absurd, scandalous [to the point of being worthy of coverage in trashy tabloids], horrifying, or wierd.

This is the first story. And after reading the story in it's entirity, I have come to the conclusion that it fits into the scandalous AND wierd categories. I can just imagine this story being on an episode of the Jerry Springer Show or on the cover of a trashy tabloid like "Globe" or "Star" or "The National Enquirer." O.o Since Christians would NEVER allow this story to be criticized in the mainstream media, I will do the honors here. Welcome to The Bible Revealed. Today's episode is entitled "Battle of the Babies" and features a scadalous marriage and breeding war in the book of Genesis that is TRULY worthy of a spot on the Jerry Springer show! Before I introduce our guests, I will go over the story briefly for those of you unfamiliar with it.

This is the story of a man with 2 wives who have way too many children to try and one up eachother.

First thing first... to introduce the guests to be on our show... I will read their histories from the bible.

Genesis 28: 1-2
"So Isaac called for Jacob, blessed him, and said, 'You must not marry any of these Canaanite women. Instead go at once to Paddan-aram, to the house of your grandfather Bethuel, and marry one of your uncle Laban's daughters." - Okay... first a comment on this... please not that Jacob is to marry one of his first cousins.... ewww.

Genesis 29:14 - 30
"After Jacob had stayed with Laban for about a month, Labain said to him, 'You shouldn't work for me without pay just because we are relatives. Tell me how much your wages should be.

Now Laban [Jacob's uncle] had two daughters. The older daughter was named Leah, and the younger one was Rachel. There was no sparkle in Leah's eyes, but Rachel had a beautiful figure and a lovely face. Since Jacob was in love with Rachel, he told her father, 'I'll work for you for seven years if you'll give me Rachel, your younger daughter, as my wife.'

'Agreed!' Laban replied. 'I'd rather give her to you than to anyone else. Stay and work with me.' So Jacob worked seven years to pay for Rachel. But his love for her was so strong that it seemed to him but a few days.

Finally the time came for him to marry her. 'I have fulfilled my agreement,' Jacob said to Laban. 'Now give me my wife so I can marry her.'

So Laban invited everyone in the neighborhood aand prepared a wedding feast. But that night, when it was dark, Laban took Leah to Jacob, and he slept with her. (Laban had given Leah a sevant, Zilpah, to be her maid.)

But when Jacob woke up in the morning - it was Leah! 'What have you done to me?' Jacob raged at Laban. 'I worked seven years for Rachel! Why have you tricked me?'

'It's not our custom here to marry off a younger daughter ahead of the first born,' Laban replied. 'But wait until the bridal week is over, then we'll give you Rachel too - provided you promise to work another seven years for me.'

So Jacob agreed to work seven more years. A week after Jacob married Leah, Laban gave him Rachel, too. (Laban gave Rachel a servant, Bilhah, to be her maid.) So Jacob slept with Rachel, too, and he loved her much more than Leah. He then stayed and worked for Laban the additional seven years."

Genesis 29: 31 - 35
"When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he enabled her to have children, but Rachel could not conceive. So Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, 'The Lord has noticed my misery, and now my husband will love me.'

She soon became pregnant again and gave birth to another son. She named him Simeon for she said, 'The Lord heard that I was unloved and has given me another son.'

Then she became pregnant a third time and gave birth to another son. She named him Levi, for she said, 'Surely this time my husband will feel affection for me, since I have given him three sons.'

Once again Leah became pregnant and gave birth to another son. She named him Judah for she said, 'Now I will praise the Lord!' And then she stopped having children.

Genesis 30: 1 - 24
When Rachel saw that she wasn't having any children for Jacob, she became jealous of her sister. She pleaded with Jacob, 'Give me children, or I'll die!'

Then Jacob became furious with Rachel. 'Am I God?' he asked. 'He's the one who has kept you from having children!' Then Rachel Told him, 'Take my maid, Bihah, and sleep with her. She will bear children for me, and through her I can have a family too.' So Rachel gave her servant, Bilhah, to Jacob as a wife, and he slept with her. Bilhah became pregnant and presented him with a son. Rachel named him Dan, for she said, 'God has vindicated me! He has heard my request and given me a son.' Then Bilhah became pregnant again, and gave Jacob a second son. Rachel named him Naphtali, for she said, 'I have struggled hard with my sister, and I'm winning!'

Meanwhile, Leah realized that she wasn't getting pregnant anymore, so she took her servant, Zilpah, and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Soon Zilpah presented him with a son. Leah named him Gad, for she said, 'How fortunate I am!' Then Zipah gave Jacob a second son. And Leah named him Asher, for she said, 'What joy is mine! Now the other women will celebrate with me!'

... So that evening as Jacob was coming home from the fields, Leah went out to meet him. 'You must come and sleep with me tonight!' she said. ... So that night he slept with Leah. And God answered Leah's prayers. She became pregnant again and gave birth to a fifth son for Jacob. She named him Issachar, for she said, 'God has rewarded me for giving my servant to my husband as a wife.' Then Leah became pregnant again and gave birth to a sixth son for Jacob. She named him Zebulun, for she said, 'God has given me a good reward. Now my husband will treat me with respect, for I have given him six sons.' Later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah.

Then God remembered Rachel's plight and answered her prayers by enabling her to have children. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son. 'God has removed my disgrace,' she said. And she named him Joseph, for she saqid, 'May the Lord add yet another son to my family.'"

Okay! And now on with our show!
Would all of you please give a warm welcome for our special guests tonight! Jacob and his first wife Leah, and their children Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Dinah! And Leah's servant Zilpah, and her children, Gad and Asher.


Let us also welcome Jacob's second wife, Rachel, and her son Joseph. And let us welcome Rachel's Servant, Bilhah and her children Dan and Naphtali!




So... without further or do!
Host: Jacob!
Jacob: Yes.
Host: You seem to be getting a LOT of action in your marital life, eh?
Jacob: Ha! Ha! Well... I guess you could say that. But then again, it's only obvious because in my time there was no such thing as birth control.
Host: Well you certainly should be on the list for father of the year, Jacob! I mean you've got, what? 11 children?! That's pretty damn good for being in an incestious family!
Jacob: Well thanks.
Host: But, I have an important question for you Jacob.
Jacob: Sure. What?
Host: You said that you loved your wife Rachel but not your wife Leah. Is that right?
Jacob: Yes, that's right.
Host: If you didn't love your wife Leah, then why did you have more children [through single births mind you] with her, than with your other wife Rachel and both of your servant?
Jacob: Well... umm... you see...
Host: You must have gotten something out of your relationship with Leah, I mean you had to have had a TON of sex with that woman to have 7 children with her! Maybe the sex was good?
Jacob: Well, uh, Rachel was barren... and...
Host: Nevermind... it's clear that you're contradicting yourself.

Host: Now... Rachel.... you said that the reason you had only one child was because "God made you sterile for a long time as a punishment for Jacob only loving you?"
Rachel: That's right.
Host: I find that a little hard to believe Rachel. I think the more likely reason is that you have low fertility due to the epidemic of inbreeding in your family. Afterall inbreeding can do that to families. I mean... let's look at this. You're Great Uncle and your husband's grandfather, Abraham, married his sister! And then your uncle and your husband's father, Issac married his first cousin. And now your husband has followed in his fathers footsteps and married TWO of his first cousins! You AND your sister Leah! Which means, that all your children are both half-siblings and cousins at the same time. Don't you think that's kinda sick?
Rachel: Not really. My husband loves me. So what if he's my first cousin?
Host: And what about the fact that your husband has TWO wives! I thought that was illegal for moral and hygenic reasons!
Rachel: It's perfectly legal under God!
Host: Whatever! So, another question, why were you so jealous of your sister being a mother that you whored out your maid to your husband?
Rachel: I wanted to show my slut of a sister that I'm just as good as she is!
Leah: YOU TAKE THAT BACK, RACHEL! YOU BITCH!!
Rachel: YOU'RE A WHORE LEAH AND YOU KNOW IT!! YOU JUST CAN'T STOP HAVING SEX WITH JACOB!! YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO ONE UP ME!!
Leah: Rachel... you're a bitch who can't even produce more than one kid! You're a pre-pubescent bitch!
Rachel: ARGHHH!!! *Rachel and Leah get into a cat fight and Jacob, the servants, and the Host look nervous*

Host: Okay... that's all the time we have now! Thanks for tuning in and, goodnight!

Omnibenevolent, The All Good God

One of the biggest contradictions of the Christian God that turned me AWAY from Christianity was the inability to make God "all-good." It didn't matter what argument I tried. They ALL fell to pieces in front of me. I could name a million examples of the HORROR that is the fault of an "all-good God," yet... as I sat waiting in the light of a dying sun in the far Western sky for a ride to come. I remembered a particularly horrific atrocity committed by this "good God." I remembered Her... Sophie Rose. It had been a couple months since I had thought about her. But the horror of the way in which she died brings her back to my mind from time to time. And I KNOW it was "God's fault" [if he existed that is] because his "intelligent design," his "perfect creation..." brought a tiny baby into the world with a horrible defect that would make it impossible for her to live past infancy. A defect that no one knew about, until it was too late.

SOPHIE ROSE

She was a beautiful little puppy...
and she was mine... my first and only dog belonged solely to me. You can argue [if you wish] that her death was a curse upon me by God for being an atheist, but I would argue... why would a good God sacrifice an innocent life just to watch me suffer?

SOPHIE ROSE... I have no pictures of her... only a memory. But I did find a picture that resembles her a lot on the internet. I could tell, because to this day, her tiny image is burned into my memory.

This Post is a Pet Owner's Memorial to a Young Life Lost in Dreadful Way:



SOPHIE ROSE was born in spring of 2007. She was a little mischievous girl full of spirit. I only saw the true her once, about 2 weeks before I brought my puppy home.

She recieved a vaccination for Canine Distemper about a week or so before we picked her up. That, it would seem, turned out to be the nail in her coffin.
Unknown to us... my little puppy had a severe immune deficiency disorder. It was like she was a dog born with HIV. When we picked her up, we all attributed her lethargy and quiet behavior to the trauma of being brought to a new home.... we were wrong.

It's amazing how quickly a life can impact your own. I only knew my dog for 3 days... yet... I have a host of memories to look back on.

I remember watching her sleep on a couch pillow that I brought upstairs for her while I took a shower, and the attempt she made to play when we brought her home, despite how sick she was.

We knew something was wrong by day 2 and she was running a fever. We took her to the vet where she was diagnosed with the devastating and fatal disease CANINE DISTEMPTER.

For those of you that don't know, distemper has 3 stages:
1. Gastrointestinal - the dog vomits and has diareah and won't eat.
2. Respiratory - the dog develops pnemonia like symptoms and can be heard wheazing
3. Neurological - the Last stage... the one in which death happens... the dog has severe pain and seizure after seizure.

My dog went through all of these as we tried desperately to save her life. I remember sobbing as we rushed the poor little baby to the emergency pet hospital on the 3rd day after we got her. She was so sick by then that she was running a high fever and wouldn't respond to much... and she wasn't walking anymore.
They kept her overnight and did everything they could... but they couldn't save her
by the next morning we were brought in to sign the papers to put the 8 week old puppy down.

I will remember my last look at her forever. In the arms of the technition who would euthanize her. I couldn't bear to watch the procedure so I bolted out of the room.
I will remember that last glance forever...
and from time to time...
I remember a little puppy that changed my life in 3 days.

But to be honest... I cannot say that a omnibenevolent god would do such a thing to a little baby dog. So I say... it was a freak of nature... there was no god to kill her... it just happened.

Why No Woman Should EVER Be A Christian!

I am a woman myself, thus my nickname, "the Atheist Goddess." As a woman, I am APPALLED by the percentage of American women who are Christians, even devout Christians. The fact is that there are fewer Atheist women than men out there, which makes ABSOLUTELY no sense to me. The percentage of nonreligious women versus men is this: 70% of Atheists are men, 30% of Atheists are women, 75% of self-proclaimed agnostics are men, only 25% women.

These statistics are very sad and demonstrate a lack of will to rise above the strait jacket and shackles religion has put us in as women.
It makes no sense to me for a woman to continue being religious when ALL monotheistic religions, and a lot of polytheistic religious, are SCREAMING HATE at women!

I hate to break it to you women of Christendom, but GOD AND JESUS HATE YOU!
It's true!
Don't believe me? Let the "word of God" speak for itself!

First... God has sentenced us to be punished FOREVER because Eve took the "fruit from the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil!" - Try to reconcile that with a god who "loves you!" - Newsflash: YOU CAN'T!
No "loving god" would sentence half the population of the world to eternal suffering and slavery because of one woman's "mistake." That's WORSE than the death penalty or life imprisonment!

Here's another little keeper from "god's holy word!" If you, as a woman, sing or EVEN speak in church... you are a sinner!

"1 Corinthians 14:34 - 35*
34. Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but [they are commanded] to be under obedience, as also saith the law.
35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church."

Still not convinced?

I have a MILLION more reasons why women should NEVER be Christians!

1. No matter whether you do good deeds or not you are EVIL... that's what God said... so if you worship God, you must believe it!
"No wickedness comes anywhere near the wickedness of a woman.....Sin began with a woman and thanks to her we all must die" (Ecclesiasticus 25:19,24).

- So APPARENTLY we're responsible for death too.

2. God believes you are WORTHLESS!
"The birth of a daughter is a loss" (Ecclesiasticus 22:3).

3. It's okay to rape US just not okay to rape MEN!
"Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof." - Genesis 19:8

4. If you are unmarried and raped by a man, then God commands you to marry your rapist and "to death do us part."
"If a man finds a woman who is a virgin who is not married, and he forces her down and has intercourse with her, and they are found, then the man that had sex with her shall give her father 50 shekels of silver and she shall be his wife because he has humbled her." - Deuteronomy 22: 28-29





WOMEN OF AMERICA!! TURN AWAY FROM THE GOD THAT HATES YOU!! DEMAND THAT HE GIVE YOU THE FREEDOM AND DIGNITY THAT YOU DESERVE!! SCREAM AT HIM THAT HE'S A SEXIST BASTARD!! TURN AWAY FROM GOD AND BE FREE AT LAST! FOR IF YOU STAY WITH RELIGION, THEN BY THE WORD OF GOD HIMSELF, YOU ARE WORTHLESS SKUM THAT DESERVED TO BE PUNISHED UNJUSTLY FOREVER!!!

PS... Watch these wonderful youtube videos! ^_^