Nominations for Illuminated Spokesperson (since Hitch is gone)

It might come as a surprise to churchgoers that five of the ten largest mega-christian churches in the world are in South Korea. These five aided by five in the U.S. are seen by this reporter as the greatest organized threats to world peace ever known.

Clearly, an American member of any one of these ten monster money machine churches would be wide-eyed with surprise at this little known fact.  "Surely," some would say, with a Judas kiss on their Pastor's head, "the Islamic Jihad is bent on destroying western society, but not I."

But the fact remains that these "christians," the followers of the mythical Jesus, blinded by the greed of their leaders and the bleating anti-constitution media hounds taunting their unrest, join with the Islamic Jihad who are praying for the Messiah to come soon, even now, in the midst of a nuclear apocolyptic event that would likely extinguish all life on Planet Earth for the following millions of years.   

On a megachurch database updated by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, Second Baptist in Houston is listed as the second-largest based on average weekly attendance. (No. 1 is Lakewood Church, five miles from Second Baptist. And rounding out the top 10 are North Point Community Church, near Atlanta; Willow Creek Community Church, near Chicago; LifeChurch.tv, of Edmond, Okla.; West Angeles Church of God in Christ, Los Angeles; Fellowship Church, of Grapevine, Texas; Saddleback Valley Community Church of Lake Forest, Calif.; Calvary Chapel, of Ft. Lauderdale; and The Potter's House, of Dallas.)

Start your own megachurch: http://www.nbc.edu/information/pastor/index.php?

TO BE CONTINUED ..........



 

PSYCHIC POWERS? EARN BIG BUCKS.

How much money does Silvia Browne get per day from readings? (Click)

BE A PSYCHIC STAGE PERFORMER in a few easy lessons. Learn the ropes. Develop the lingo. Be the life of the party or go on tour.

Go to PSYCHIC TRICKS to open the door and open your mind. Fame and fortune may await you.

International stage and tv performer, Derren Brown, gives enough information on this series of free videos to start out. Psychics are in demand at nightclubs and conventions all over the world. Carnival Cruse Lines hires them for stage performances on their biggest luxury liners, and one drive down the strip in Las Vegas will give you an idea of the endless possibilities as a working psychic.

Use this BACKSTAGE PASS for the largest luxury cruise ship in the world (click) and begin packing your suitcases.

Catholics aren't fascists, are they?

"When the Christian majority takes over this country, there will be no satanic churches, no more free distribution of pornography, no more talk of rights for homosexuals. After the Christian majority takes control, pluralism will be seen as immoral and evil and the state will not permit anybody the right to practice evil."
Gary Potter (Catholics for Christian Political Action)

http://catholicism.org/author/garypotter

Isolating fundamentalist Mormon women from the world

This video from the TODAY SHOW reveals the fundamentalist Mormon practice of isolating women from the real world, "keeping women in their place" even in the year 2012.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Catholic religious radicalism now clearly attacking the U.S. Constitution

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Vatican's fanatical 5-Star General 

More than the Muslims, it's the Roman Catholic Church that is trying to impose its religion on America by infiltrating the U.S. government and two-party political system in its effort to dissolve the U.S. Constitution's requirement that no church may have power in matters of state.

With one eye on becoming the first American Pope upon the death of Joseph Ratzinger, currently the aging Pope Benedictus XVI, Cardinal Dolan sees his own power growing in both ultra-conservative Vatican and U.S. far-right political circles.

 “It is a freedom of religion battle. It is not about contraception. It is not about women’s health. We’re talking about an unwarranted, unprecedented, radical intrusion” into“ a church’s ability to teach, serve and sanctify on its own," said Cardinal Dolan in a recent speech in the U.S. 


Getting their foot in the door by trying to influence the U.S. Health Care Reform policies, the Vatican is just one step closer to watering down the Constitution's strength. 


Of course religious fundamentalists, both Catholic and Muslim have already made inroads in their quest for political power in the U.S.  Americans pay taxes which are used, in part, to support Catholic and Muslim religious education here. And Dolan, former Archbishop of New York City fully intends to throw his weight around to influence millions of faithful catholics all over America.  


Read more on this subject at:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/03/07/its-not-muslims-who-are-trying-to-impose-their-religion-on-everyone-its-the-catholic-church/

Forcing churches not to lie

According to a BBC story, Great Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority concluded that a certain downloadable leaflet was misleading. Healing on the Streets (HOTS), the group distributing the misleading message, was banned from spreading it.

The claim?

God can heal you.

Need Healing? God can heal today! Do you suffer from Back Pain, Arthritis, MS, Addiction … Ulcers, Depression, Allergies, Fibromyalgia, Asthma, Paralysis, Crippling Disease, Phobias, Sleeping disorders or any other sickness?

Such fairly standard religious adverts, according to the government office, “could encourage false hope and were irresponsible.”

Oh, papa, how far we have come. Now they’re actually forcing perfectly respectable churches not to lie.

Hey, any God *I* might be willing to believe in would have to be able to heal stupidity, flatulence, baldness, 98-pound-weakling syndrome, pork belly, Cambrian explosion, pulled mussel, open sowers, French cuffs, the Oxford comma, rusted quarter panels, Rin-Tin-Tin-itis, and the tendency to become a Republican presidential candidate.

My rewrite from http://freethoughtblogs.com

Movies You May Have Missed

One of our fans on the BB Comedy Channel came up with some video suggestions for a rainy day: 

The population of atheists...is going through the roof http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP9JWdJs55Q

 Retired Episcopal Bishop says Hell is an invention of the Church.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF6I5VSZVqc

Atheist Calls Religious People 'Idiots' On British Debate Show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyA9f-rs1-M

Is the Bible still relevant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfDJbi5gfC0

Christianity Harms Society.  http://www.youtube.com/user/CultOfDusty?feature=watch#p/search/0/IlXkjrluq_4

I Am Proud To Be An Atheist http://www.youtube.com/user/CultOfDusty#p/search/0/VAro-d4y2Mw

Who Wrote the Bible? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2061773048178434620#

Lamp In The Dark: Untold History of the Biblehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNZ-sOzXWEk

The Secret Files of the Inquisition - Part 1http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4457635096048290491#

Salem Witch Trials http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqjX-9UNB7s

Low I.Q. and Conservatives

Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To 

Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism

Too important not to reprint straight out of the Huffington Post:

Dr. Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology at the university and the study's lead author, said the finding represented evidence of a vicious cycle: People of low intelligence gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, which stress resistance to change and, in turn, prejudice, he told LiveScience.

Why might less intelligent people be drawn to conservative ideologies? Because such ideologies feature "structure and order" that make it easier to comprehend a complicated world, Dodson said. "Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice," he added.

Dr. Brian Nosek, a University of Virginia psychologist, echoed those sentiments.

"Reality is complicated and messy," he told The Huffington Post in an email. "Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simpler solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies."

But Nosek said less intelligent types might be attracted to liberal "simplifying ideologies" as well as conservative ones.

In any case, the study has taken the Internet by storm, with some outspoken liberals saying that it validates their suspicions about conservatives and conservatives arguing thatthe research has been misinterpreted.

What do you think? Do conservatives tend to be less intelligent? Or is this just political opinion masquerading as science?

Read the entire article.

Busting Scientology ........ again

I think sometimes that Scientology moguls must love self-inflicted pain. They've shot themselves in the foot again.

Tony Ortega's keen insights, again busted some serious baloney that Scientology was putting out. There's no doubt that Mr. Ortega, editor-in-chief at The Village Voice had to go into some dark places to get the goods for this bright January 27th article in The Voice Voice.





http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/01/scientology_vs_marty_rathbun.php

Happy Christians preach the good news :-)

TV Preacher Benny Hinn - MUTE YOUR SOUND and wonder,

is he preaching about the love of God??

Bishop T.D. Jakes, TV Evangelist

With your sound muted, watch this man's pained facial expressions and gestures, then tell me, is he talking about the love of God??

Here's a fascinating mix of the infamous Jimmy Swaggert Affair

just for your entertainment 

FACTS & FIGURES

under construction

I had to look it up

I was sent this curious photo, and of course I had to look up the Bible verse.

And here’s Isaiah 14:
¹²How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

¹³For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

¹⁴I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

¹⁵Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

No dinosaurs, no genetics. I was so disappointed. The believers always oversell their story.

Thanks to http://freethoughtblogs.org

Children raped by Catholic priests: They asked for it

Bishop Bernard Alvarez

The Bishop of Tenerife provided an interesting explanation for the vast numbers of children raped by Catholic priests: They asked for it.

In 2007, when the American Catholic Church was reeling from sex abuse scandals but not so much Europe, the Bishop of Tenerife, Bernardo Álvarez, made some interesting Christmas holiday comments.

In a Christmas Eve interview with La Opinión de Tenerife, Bishop Alvarez said that there are children who want to be abused:

Bishop Alvarez said:

There are 13 year old adolescents who are under age and who are perfectly in agreement with, and what’s more wanting it, and if you are careless they will even provoke you.

 http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2010/04/07/catholic-bishop-children-want-to-be-sexually-abused/

This post is NO BALONEY!

What if we had a 12-Step Program for World Peace? 

Lets start a global 12 Step Anonymous Fellowship for Peace: Let's collectively utilize Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Step program as a guide. It has been used and modified to help millions of people around the world to recover from all sorts of compulsions such as drinking, overeating, smoking, gambling, etc. We can adapt it on a global level so we can sooth our hearts, put our dukes down and put our weapons down so we can begin saving our own lives striving 4 nonviolent interactions between any two people.
We may :
1) Admit we were powerless over conflict, fighting, war, greed, power, control etc and that our lives became unmanageable.
2) Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3) Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God/Higher Power as we understood Him.
4) Made a Searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5) Admitted to God/Higher Power, to ourselves and to another Human Being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6) Were entirely ready to have God/Higher Power remove all these defects of character.
7) Humbly ask God/ Higher Power to remove our shortcomings.
8) Made a list of all the persons we have harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9) Make direct amends to such people when ever possible except when to do so would injure them or others.
10) Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11) Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God/Higher Power as we understand Him.
12) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive fighters/warriors and to practice these principals in all our affairs.

Serenity Prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things  I can not change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference! 

  Dr Susan Smith McKinney Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. http://ted.com

How to explain God to a kid

It is important not be confused. God did not create Jesus. Jesus is God, and he has always existed...He created Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, in his image. He is the Creator of the universe...The exciting truth is that Jesus is now also a man...Today, he lives in Heaven.
You are still confused? Go ask your mother.
http://christiananswers.net/kids/ednk-jesusgodorman.html

Best video ever of Hitchens & Fry MUST SEE

Taking it to the Grave

Deceased Connecticut woman faces exhumation amid religious and racial issues. When Juliet Steer finally succumbed to lymphoma, her brother dutifully and loving carried our Juliet’s final wishes. She had been a devoted Christian in life but wanted to be buried in the Jewish manner, under the same traditions that Jesus had been buried with. She had even found a Jewish cemetery with an interfaith section separated by a road from the Jewish section that would accommodate those wishes. When she passed, her brother, Paul, arranged the ceremony and tearfully said good bye to a family member. Despite the cemetery’s 2009 policy on interfaith burials, one cemetery board member has taken issue with Juliet’s presence on the grounds. Maria Balaban has sued both Paul Steer and her own congregation on the grounds that Juliet had no ties to Judaism. Maria claims that Juliet’s burial violates the spirit of the board’s ruling, to allow persons of different faith with ties to Judaism and the nearby synagogue to be buried with their families. She contests that since no one in the congregation knew Juliet, she did not belong. However, the Steer family believes the real reason for the objection is because Juliet is black. Four other plots in the interfaith section have been reserved but have not seen Mrs. Balaban take similar legal action. The owners of those plots are white. The resulting controversy has divided the congregation. It is terribly sad that such petty arguments can befall a grieving family and that human bias, be it religious or racial can inflict so much emotional damage to the Steers even after Juliet’s death. As an Atheist, I believe Juliet was incorrect in her faith. But, I do respect her final wishes. Some things are best left undisturbed. This story from my friends at http://freethoughtblogs.com

Vatican Official announces 7 MORE deadly sins

Vatican Bishop Gianfranco Girotti

1. You are a sinner. Admit it.  When creating the earth and all, God set it up for you to be born in sin. He loved you so much that he made you a sinner even before you were born. So don't fight it. You were born in sin. Romans 3:23 

2.  Understand that you deserve death for your sin. Yikes! That's one hellofaway to treat a baby. But that's a basic Catholic tenant. Re: Romans 6:23

3.  While you may think there are only 7 deadly sins, lust, gluttony, avarice,  sloth, anger, envy and pride, not so. According to the Catholic News Agency, a Vatican official, Bishop Gianfranco Girotti announced there are 7 more MORTAL SINS, called "social sins." These were listed by the Bishop, as 

1. polluting

2. genetic engineering

3. being obscenely rich

4. drug dealing

5. abortion

6. pedophilia, and

7. social injustice

The Vatican official's list was formalized as

1. Bioethical" violations such as birth control

2. "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research

       3. Drug abuse

       4. Polluting the environment

       

       5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor

       6. Excessive wealth 

       7. Creating poverty

Now that you know these additional MORTAL SINS you can probably make a list on the back of your hand of the ways you are now busted for one or more of these.

Howabout me? Let's do a quick little moral inventory of myself.

1. "Such as birth control." I definitely do not want to make more babies.

2. "Stem cell research," I've googled stem cell research, does that count?

3. "Drug abuse," guilty. I swallowed 6 grams of vitamin C recently when I thought I was coming down with a cold. Later regretted this sin.

4. "Polluting?" I drive a car.

5. "Widening the gap," you betcha. I'm one of the 99%.

6. "Excessive wealth," probably, considering I'm a U.S. citizen.

7. "Creating poverty," is something like number 6 I think. So, yes. It's a good thing I'm not a Catholic or I would be in real trouble.

Now, the rest of the story. Bishop Gianfranco Girotti is probably looking for a new job. After the media spread this news around the world, the Vatican News Agency said it was all a mistake and that this was not what the Bishop had intended to say. He really intended to say .....nothing.

Is God necessary?

Is God necessary? As this question has customarily been stated throughout long centuries of philosophical and theological debate, I am compelled to answer in the negative: God is not necessary!

There are several reasons why the answer is negative, and they stem from the fact that the classical idea of God is both an intellectual error and an illusion. God, in this conception, is understood to be outside of space, outside of time, outside of the events which constitute our daily and enduring life. If there were such a God, he/she/it would be utterly unknown and unknowable, for the only intelligible assumption for modern people, who live in a world of time-space events, is that any supposed reality outside of actual and possible events in space-time is sheer nothingness. And even if we assume that there is such a reality. It can be of no significance to us earth dwellers, us time- and space- bound creatures, for the simple, common sense reason that we are so constituted as to have no means of apprehending such an other-worldly, utterly static deity. Such a God is, at best, an oblong blur-- hardly the appropriate object of our complete devotion. Read more...

IMAGINE ... no hell below you

Photo courtesy of CloseHell.com

"With respect to the doctrine of hell, two thousand years is far more than enough. The damage this horrific and contemptible fantasy has done cannot be estimated. Surely torturers and inquisitors through the centuries justified their own atrocities with reference to hell ... Cruel dogmas make cruel people. Humans have made some progress through the ages.

We no longer think of the deranged as demoniacs and we do not respond to a sudden outbreak of illness by burning old women. Perhaps even conservative Christians will part from the doctrine, but I fear there will always be those ... who will insist that if you deny Hell you must deny Christianity as well. If that is our only choice, we should toss Christianity--and hell--into history's landfill.”

Reposted from facebook.com/gaytheist, originally from Christopher Hitchens?

East Coast West Coast

Billboard in Orange County

"It is hard for people who are indoctrinated in a religious belief with many superstitions to look at their beliefs as myths," said Bruce Gleason, Backyard Skeptics founder and fearless leader. "but it's amazing that the same people look at other religions and call them superstitions and myths. This seems like a perfect case of confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance.

"The billboard is meant to have others who believe to compare others myths to their own beliefs and to reflect on how myths can be thought of as real," he said.

Below the billboard are the web addresses for the Fountain Valley-based group, BackyardSkeptics.com and Cranford, NJ-based AmericalAtheists.org.

This text from friends at http://backyardskeptics.com/wordpress/january-2012-what-do-you-see-billboard/
and
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2012/01/jesus_myth_atheist_billboard_o.php

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