We are all familiar with the story from the Bible where God tells Abraham to kill his son, and Abraham is willing to follow through with it. This is no story with any good morals to it, as Don Baker and Matt Dillanunty from The Atheist Experience discuss. It is a story of blind obedience to a god of evilness, and illustrates just how cruel this god of Christian mythology is.
LINK: God’s Moral Lesson In The Story Of Abraham – The Atheist Experience #557

Just read this story, another example of how the god these people follow never shows up to protect them. Putting aside the god crap, this is downright disturbing.

Ugandan rebels kill 400 in DR Congo: charity

KINSHASA (AFP) – Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army rebels killed more than 400 people in Christmas massacres in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the Caritas aid charity said Tuesday.

The rebels denied any responsibility and accused troops from DR Congo, Uganda and South Sudan of “bombing” the victims.

The LRA targeted a town where a Christmas Day concert was being held and a Roman Catholic church, and attacks were going on along the Sudanese border, the Catholic charity said in a statement.

Caritas workers say that “over 400 people have been killed in the attacks in an area of northern Congo including Faradje, Duru, Gurba, Doruma, and Province Orientale,” it added.

The archbishop of Dungu-Doruma, Monsignor Richard Domba, told AFP that at least 150 people had been killed at a Christmas Day service at Faradje and later, 80 at Duru and at least 200 others at Doruma and in the surrounding villages.

“It is a dramatic situation that we are living through here,” he said. “They (the rebels) are indescribably barbarous and savage.

“They kill with machetes, axes and clubs. They burn people alive with their property in their homes.”

The article states “The rebellion began in northern Uganda in 1986 after Yoweri Museveni came to power and blends a form of Christianity with traditional beliefs and extreme cruelty and brutality.” It’s just what we were talking about over here.

This just came down the pipeline…

I’ve always thought that Professors should have at least some intellectual integrity. I mean, if you’re going to try to find it, I’d like to think it could be found on a college campus. You’re at the front of the room, for chrissake…

But the more I see idiots like this, the more my skin crawls, because it makes me think that something’s gotten into the water supply. (Not that I don’t feel like that normally.) I’m also constantly reminded that knowledge and skill in one area has nothing to do with knowledge and skill in another.

Just check out these highlights from Sparky here:

The atheists predictably demanded a display themselves. Their wish was granted when city officials caved, but rather than being a statement of their nonreligious, unbelieving “faith,” they chose to denigrate and insult my religious beliefs. I, and many other Christians, simply won’t sit still for this behavior. I know I have friends who are either self-proclaimed or silent atheists, and this column is not about them (even though I can’t understand their decision and know they are making the biggest mistake possible). [...] Why are you so afraid of religion, and Christianity in particular? What do you fear? It’s easy to declare yourself an atheist, especially out of laziness, since I’m sure very few of you ever attempted to give religion a serious chance through exploration and introspection. Isn’t it also quite egocentric to not acknowledge a supreme being greater than yourself? Instead of proudly proclaiming your stance and backing it up with research that led you to your ultimate decision, you choose to exhibit nastiness and hate toward my religious faith.

Ad nauseum…

Yes, tonight on America’s Funniest Videos: CPA’s doing Philosophy…

To his credit, The Atheist Jew gives a nice bitch-slap to this idiot.

Turns out that the guy can’t even spell. Hartwick College must be very proud.

I just saw this over at Pharyngula, and I’ve always had a soft spot for that good poetry-slam shit. And this stuff’s awesome. (This particular piece, for some reason, reminds me of Tom Lehrer — but that’s just me.)

I’ll admit, the audio is awful — but the audio with the text provided should suffice…

(Hat tip to Pharyngula)

So it seems there was an Xmas re-conversion recently – a well-known blogging atheist was ‘born again’.

I have always found this phenomenon fascinating. In fact (have I mentioned this before? If so, apologies), I’ve always rather fancied the personal visitation these folks have. But in the years of dropping psychotropic drugs (back in the days of my wastrel youth, I hasten to add), not once did I ever encounter an external manifestation (read: embodied hallucination). I saw the walls breathe, the colors dance, and caught my hands, but no seraphim serenaded me, no booming voice from above, not even a sweet whispered nothing in my ears.

Now granted, I used to hear voices in my head, but again, these were all internal, and so I don’t count those.

I am sufficiently versed in the wholly bibble, so it can’t just be the written rhetoric, can it? Or is it simple overexposure?

This siren’s song of madness calls, and minds dash against the rocks of the psyche’s Scylla…

A funny video from the UK can be found here. (The embedding was intentionally disabled.)

Some cool links for your time off during the holidays (if you have any)…

Secularists’ vital war on religion: As long as religion is a danger to the lives and liberties of others, secular liberals will never relent in their protests

…[A] few reminders might be in order. Secularism is the view that religious outlooks, though perfectly entitled to exist and have their say, are not entitled to a bigger slice of the public pie than any other self-constituted, self-appointed, self-selected and self-serving civil society organisation. Yet the religious persistently ask for special treatment: public money for their “faith-based” schools, seats in the House of Lords, exemption from laws inconvenient to their prejudices, and so endlessly on. They even have the cheek to ask for “respect” for their silly and antiquated beliefs; and in Geneva at the Human Rights Council the Islamic countries are trying to subvert the Universal Declaration of Human Rights because it is inconvenient to their medieval, sexist, intolerant outlook.

A much longer (but still good and informative) piece can be found here…

God: Philosophers weigh in

If a persuasive argument for the existence of God is wanted, then philosophy has come up empty. The traditional arguments have much to teach us, but concentrating on them can disguise a simple but important point. As Anselm and Paley both recognized, the devout are not exactly holding their collective breath. For the most part, they do not believe that God exists on the basis of any argument. How they know that God exists, if they do, is itself unknown—the devout do not know that God exists in the way it is known that dinosaurs existed, or that there exist infinitely many prime numbers. The funny thing about arguments for the existence of God is that, if they succeed, they were never needed in the first place.

Here’s something I thought would be interesting to discuss and hear your viewpoints on this story published today at Times Online.

Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa’s biggest problem – the crushing passivity of the people’s mindset

Considering the recent murdering of people for committing witchcraft, I don’t think I can agree with confirmed atheist, Matthew Parris who says:

Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

I cannot see how instilling delusion in people to replace disillusionment can be a good thing. Consider the Cargo Cults that were formed when missionaries brought their religion into the culture and traditions of various tribes of people. This doesn’t usually mix very well.

While I agree that religious missionaries do much good in the way they bring hospitals and schools, I loathe the catch that goes along with accepting their help. It’s not a no-strings-attached deal. In return for health care and education, they must learn about and accept to believe in the magical sky daddy and to depend on magical incantations to make their lives better when in fact they should be learning to believe in themselves. Just getting the help they need with health and education the same results would transpire.

Parris disagrees and believe that the only way to rescue Africa and bring them into the 21st century is to teach them to believe in lies and an imaginary Sky Boss. It will be interesting to hear what you all think about this.

Then right next to this article are links to this story,

Congo’s maverick warlord who kills in the name of Christianity

and this:

British missionaries plead guilty to sedition in Gambia