Bligbi » Atheism

German Bishop blames atheists for Nazism

Karen — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:39:02 +0000

The bishop of Augsburg had a special message to share with his flock this past Sunday. It was atheists who were behind the killing machine known to the world as Nazi Germany.

From Spiegel Online:

A Catholic German bishop has come under fire for his remarks condemning atheists. In a sermon given on Easter Sunday, the bishop of Augsburg, Walter Mixa, warned of rising atheism in Germany. “Wherever God is denied or fought against, there people and their dignity will soon be denied and held in disregard,” he said in the sermon. He also said that “a society without God is hell on earth” and quoted the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky: “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.”

Most controversially, he linked the Nazi and Communist crimes to atheism. “In the last century, the godless regimes of Nazism and Communism, with their penal camps, their secret police and their mass murder, proved in a terrible way the inhumanity of atheism in practice.” Christians and the Church were always the subject of “special persecution” under these systems, he said.

This isn’t the first time the bishop has caused a ruckus. He’s went after the Jews (ironic, yes?) by comparing what Nazi Germany did to them to abortion and Palestine. He also appears to like calling anyone who criticizes him Nazis.

Possibly Related Posts

E-Harmony: Atheists are Cheaters

Karen — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:16:24 +0000

According to an E-Harmony advice piece, these are the people most likely to cheat on their significant others:

Those who crave excitement

Those who are not religious

Those who have a history of divorce, sexual abuse or such psychological problems as depression or bipolar disorder.

I bore pretty easily and happen to be an atheist on my second marriage with a history of abuse dating back to early childhood. Yet, I’ve somehow managed to never cheat on any of my partners over the years.

I have, however, about laughed myself silly at a man who swore his pastor had given him permission to cheat on his wife after I dropped his ass upon discovering he was married.

Possibly Related Posts

Rise of the Godless

Karen — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:13:06 +0000

We various kinds of nontheists have went and garnered some great attention by the National Journal.

We’re not just written about in it, but appear on the cover itself.

The Secular Coalition has the entire article in PDF over at it’s site and you should really go read it.

I especially liked how the author of the piece wrote about the civil rights aspect of godless organizing. As he points out, despite our size as a group discrimination against us is accepted as normal by a large swath of Americans.

Possibly Related Posts

Atheists up, everyone else down

Karen — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:11:27 +0000

Nearly every religious group in America has lost members, but the number of atheists has increased in the last 20 years from 8 to 15 percent of the population (source):

So many Americans claim no religion at all (15%, up from 8% in 1990), that this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists. In a nation that has long been mostly Christian, "the challenge to Christianity … does not come from other religions but from a rejection of all forms of organized religion," the report concludes.

Personally, I’m not sure the increase is due exclusively to an increase in the number of atheists. I think the increase can be attributed, in part, to it being a bit easier to identify as an atheist now than in the past.

Possibly Related Posts

Evangelism 101 for Atheists

Karen — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:44:54 +0000

Here’s part one of an interesting series on how atheists can be effective evangelists by the Atheist Experience:

Possibly Related Posts

Dole staffer explains Godless ad

Karen — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:20:07 +0000

Back in October of last year then senator of North Carolina Elizabeth Dole was behind in the polls and did what any Republican politician would do in her spot. She went on the attack.

Her method of attack was to ‘expose’ the fact that she had caught her challenger Kay Hagan not just associating with atheists, but taking money from atheists. After a press release failed to garner much, if any, attention, she and her crew decided to release what’s become known as the Godless ad (viewable here).

Now after months of silence one of her henchmen has decided to explain why they decided to release the ad. And once again atheism as a slur rears it’s head.

In late August, Shulman discovered an invitation to attend a Sept. 15 fundraiser in Kay Hagan’s honor at the home of Wendy Kaminer and Woody Kaplan—both well-known atheists—posted on the liberal Act Blue website. McLagan attempted to interest media outlets in the potential story but was rebuffed. A press release exposing the fundraiser also failed to generate much interest among the state media.

Imagine that the bolded words were “both well-known Jews”, “both well-known Catholics”, “both well-known Democrats”, “both well-known feminists” or “both well-known homosexuals”. Now those kind of statements would be hateful, rude and more than a little bigoted, yes?

What I found amusing though is this:

Hagan’s response [to the initial press release] was to attack Dole for attending a fundraiser in Florida at the home of one of President Bush’s biggest fundraisers. You would never believe how many atheist blogs there are out there, but they all went rabid overnight attacking us. We dropped the issue at that point, because we didn’t want to drive Hagan to cancel the event. We all felt that she probably would; why go through that PR ?asco for a few bucks?

Poor little Republican. I guess he didn’t get the memo that attacking atheists these days is a good way to get one’s ass chewed right down to the bone.

In closing here are the people who apparently helped the author of the above article bring this attack into being (they are named in the article):

Dave Sackatt of the Tarrance Group
Fred Davis & Bill Kenyon of Strategic Perception
Mark Stephens, former director of the NRSC
Ron Butler of Creative Direct
Brian Nick, Dole’s chief of staff

A nice bunch of assholes, yes?

Possibly Related Posts

Obama’s talk is good, but his walk is crooked

Karen — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:25:44 +0000

Much ado was made about President Obama’s mentioning of non-believers in his inaugural speech, but now that the rubber has hit the road, Obama has decided to accept the title of Honorary President of the Boy Scouts:

Obama was meeting with a delegation of the Boy Scouts in the Oval Office on Tuesday afternoon, at which time he was to accept the group’s 2008 Report to the Nation.

A Boy Scouts spokesman said Obama has indicated he will accept the title of honorary president.

“We believe one of our greatest strengths as a nation is that we can disagree on a number of issues while agreeing to support the common good,” Deron Smith, a spokesman for BSA, told FOXNews.com.

“We’re a voluntary, private organization for families that share our values,” he added. “While many may disagree with our policies, there’s no question that we’re part of the common good and have been for 100 years.”

And one of those values is continued discrimination against non-believers and gay people. I’m not surprised, but I am sick of the hypocrisy when it comes to dealing with bigotry against atheists and gay people.

Possibly Related Posts

Ray Comfort says atheists doctored video

Karen — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:09:10 +0000

Ray Comfort is still trying to harass Dawkins into either debating him or chewing his ass out. And par for the course, Comfort has decided to lie. This time it’s about the banana video. Comfort is now stating that “atheists” doctored the video in order to misrepresent him and his argument:

Comfort says, “For years I have held a coke can in one hand and a banana in the other, and compared the two. Both have a tab at the top. The banana has a wrapper with perforations, is biodegradable, etc. It was a parody–the point being, if someone designed the coke can then obviously Someone designed the banana.

In the mid 1990′s I published the parody in booklet form called “The Atheist Test” and sold over a million copies. When we put it into our TV program, atheists removed the coke can, and sent the clip all over the Internet, saying ‘Ray Comfort believes that the banana is proof of God’s existence.’ I guess atheists don’t appreciate parody.”

No one removed the soda can. It’s still there (video ) and it wasn’t sent around for the reason Comfort says it was sent around. It was sent around because Comfort held up a banana and said atheists were afraid of it. He quite literally called it our ‘nightmare’.

Why do we fear bananas? Because how can we can explain the banana’s appearance if there isn’t a magic man in the sky who designed it for our culinary pleasure? No God means No Bananas in The World of Ray.

It’s kind of simple and it goes like this:

The banana he fawned over doesn’t grow in the wild. It grows on plantations. It is the product of selective breeding by humans for at least seven thousand years. A natural, non-engineered, banana is tough, bitter and is full of large seeds.

In other words, Comfort used a product of evolution in an argument against evolution without appearing to know it. Hilarious, yes?

Possibly Related Posts

Who called dibs on “coward”?

Karen — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:18:14 +0000

Last Saturday I posted about Ray Comfort offering Richard Dawkins $10K to ‘debate’ him. Dawkins has since responded by saying that he would do it – if the banana king made a $100K donation to his foundation.

Comfort’s response to the counteroffer? Why to claim that Dawkins is a coward as well as an embarrassment to atheists.

Richard Dawkins told a news reporter that he will debate me for $100,000 per hour. He is afraid, and he thinks he’s safe because I won’t pay that much money for an hour of his time.

There’s an army of atheists hiding behind Mr. Dawkins waiting for him to feed me to the birds, and he is proving to be nothing but hot air.

What an embarrassment to the atheist community.

What a surprise, eh? I so didn’t see that coming at all. How about you?

Possibly Related Posts

Lock up your Mastercard, the atheists are coming!

Karen — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:39:52 +0000

We atheists get accused of a lot of things. Usually it’s just the same tripe repeated over and over again ad nauseum. Every now and then though a religious group has an original thought. It’s a stupid thought, but it is original.

The religious group this time is the Free Market Foundation here in Texas. According to the Texas Freedom Network, this group sent out an email with the subject of “Atheists Attack in Texas” listing things we atheists here in Texas are allegedly doing. Somewhere in it was this accusation of sorts:

Another big issue is taxes. We’re all tired of our property taxes being raised each year without being allowed to vote on this issue. We are working hard to support legislation to cap raising appraisal taxes more than 5% unless approved by local citizens. These tax increases must stop!

What in bloody hell does that have to do with atheists? Beats the shit out of me, but as I said above, it is an original thought. Surely that’s worth a smile or two?