Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1862

Atheist Billboards in Religious Cities Say: “Dear Santa, All I Want for Christmas is to Skip Church!”

A new billboard campaign from American Atheists shows a little girl writing a letter with the (very blunt) message: “Dear Santa, All I want for Christmas is to skip church! I’m too old for fairy tales.”

The billboards are located in Memphis; Nashville; St. Louis; and Fort Smith, Arkansas. A fifth billboard in Milwaukee is co-sponsored by the Southeast Wisconsin Freethinkers (SWIFT). While previous billboards have been located in urban settings such as Times Square, these billboards are located in more residential areas to be near schools and churches.

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“Even children know churches spew absurdity, which is why they don’t want to attend services. Enjoy the time with your family and friends instead,” said American Atheists President David Silverman. “Today’s adults have no obligation to pretend to believe the lies their parents believed. It’s OK to admit that your parents were wrong about God, and it’s definitely OK to tell your children the truth.”

Well, the billboards are a lot cheaper in residential areas than in Times Square, too, and I’m sure that was a consideration.

For the billboards to make sense, though, you have to let a couple of things slide.

Like: if the girl is too old for fairy tales, then why is she writing to Santa Claus…?

And does it really makes sense for a budding atheist to be celebrating Christmas?

I’m sure no one will notice.

Interestingly enough, one of the billboards AA wanted to put up in Jackson, Mississippi was rejected by multiple vendors because of the content:

“The fact that billboard companies would turn away business because they are so concerned about the reaction by the community to a simple message that not everyone goes to church and not everyone believes in gods shows just how much education and activism on behalf of atheists is needed in the South,” said Public Relations Director Danielle Muscato.

The billboards, which also serve as promotion for AA’s upcoming conference in Memphis, will be up through Christmas Eve.

In case you need a reminder of AA’s previous holiday billboards, last year, they had a 15-second digital billboard in Times Square with the main message reading: “Who needs Christ during Christmas? Nobody.”

In 2012, they had a monster ad in Times Square saying “Keep the merry! Dump the myth!”

In 2011, they had two different digital billboards near the foot of the Lincoln Tunnel:

And in 2010, they began their holiday advertising campaign with a message reading “You KNOW it’s a Myth”:

Churches Are Great at Creating Rules (Seriously)

The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, discusses how churches are great at creating rules (seriously):

This is an excerpt from a longer video, which can be seen here.

A rough transcript of the video can be found on the YouTube page in the “About” section.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the project — more videos will be posted soon — and we’d also appreciate your suggestions as to which questions we ought to tackle next!

And if you like what you’re seeing, please consider supporting this site on Patreon.

Exodus: Gods and Kings Star Christian Bale Speaks of the “Sadistic in the Extreme” Details of Moses’ Story

Last month I wrote about some interesting comments made by Exodus: Gods and Kings star Christian Bale (below), who plays Moses in the film. At the time, Bale had said of Moses that he was “likely schizophrenic and was one of the most barbaric individuals that I ever read about in my life.”

In recent interviews, Bale has been expounding on those thoughts. In an interview with Nightline, he noted that Moses was

… absolutely seen as a freedom fighter for the Hebrews, but a terrorist in terms of the Egyptian empire.

It’s a valid point, as terror was quite literally the tactic the Abrahamic faiths attribute to Moses’ (and God’s) campaign of pestilences, death, and catastrophe; but, as the story goes, it was a campaign of terror to free an enslaved people. So, as is often the case, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, contingent on perspective; atrocities that in principle are deplored, but in practice can be excused, provided they benefit the side doing the excusing. Or, in this case, are not merely excused, but written into and revered in religious text as examples of the triumphs of God.

It wasn’t the only time Bale would invoke the terrorist analogy, either. During the same interview, he wondered

What would happen to Moses if he arrived today? Drones would be sent out after him, right?

In an interview with The Australian, Bale referenced some of the crueler and more troubling aspects of the Moses story and how they would be handled nowadays. Interviewer Michael Bodey wrote:

He [Bale] describes Moses’s slaughter of 3000 of his own people, some by pouring down their throats the melted gold from the golden calf, as “sadistic in the extreme”. Then he killed prisoners of war but kept virgin girls so they could be used by his soldiers, Bale continues.

“Right, I’m putting him in the International Criminal Court straight away, right?” he notes. “If he hasn’t been taken out by drone strikes immediately.”

This is very similar to the message director Ridley Scott gave Bodey, saying,

In today’s world, he [Moses]’d be pursued by missiles and jets and creamed. Or not. He was very clever, a very good leader.

Bale also acknowledged that the story is regarded by most scholars as fiction or symbolism, and that his interpretation would likely be different was he religious.

… if I had been religious I would be putting a slant on it [the Moses story] instead of just seeing it at face value.

It will be interesting, I think, to see what a “face value” telling looks like, and how the religious community reacts if the religious slant is as limited as Scott and Bale seem to indicate.

(Image via Featureflash / Shutterstock.com)

Real Madrid Drops Christian Cross in Logo to Appease Muslims in Abu Dhabi

Spanish soccer team Real Madrid — the world’s most valuable sports team with superstar players Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale — has used the same logo for decades now:

If you look at the very top of that logo, you’ll notice a tiny cross, which is there for a reason:

The symbol holds significance in the history of Real Madrid as it signifies the team’s relationship with Spain’s royal family. The symbol was introduced in the 1920s as part of the emblem of the Spanish crown, when the club was given the title Real (Royal) by King Alfonso XIII and represented the Spanish royal house.

But now that the team is doing business with the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, a major bank in the Muslim-majority United Arab Emirates, they’re making a slight change to the logo…

Rest assured people have noticed the missing cross:

A new National Bank of Abu Dhabi credit card that doubles as a Real Madrid membership card shows the new crest without its cross.

Florentino Perez said in September that “our links with the UAE are constantly growing stronger. This agreement will help the club to keep conquering the hearts of followers in the United Arab Emirates.”

The Spanish sports newspaper Marca adds: “And from the looks of things, the club is willing to compromise on aspects of its identity in pursuit of these new fans.”

To be fair, the club doesn’t really have any religious ties, so it’s not like dropping the cross in their logo is necessarily the same thing as hiding their faith for the sake of money. They are first and foremost a business, and this is a practical decision. The rebuke, if you want to call it that, isn’t even against Christ; it’s against the Spanish royal family… and as far as I can tell, they haven’t complained one bit.

I also suspect some of the people feigning outrage over this didn’t even know the cross was in the logo until just now.

(Top image via Wikipedia)

Hope Your Thanksgiving Dinner Was Better Than This…

Jesse Ridgway filmed his Thanksgiving dinner and it turned from bad (an atheist not wanting to pray) to worse (dad saying a very pointed and awkward prayer) to holy-shit-what-just-happened:

In case you’re wondering, all signs point to fake — there are plenty of similar videos on his YouTube channel — but props to everyone for playing along. Definitely fooled a lot of people.

(via McJuggerNuggets)

Shh… Let’s See What He’ll Do…

(via Benjamin Schwartz at the New Yorker)

Pope Benedict XVI: “Charity Without Faith is Useless”

Caritas in Veritate International, a Catholic group that specializes in charity and proselytizing, recently held a meeting in Rome for its leaders. And they met with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who had some strong words of support for them:

… Henry Cappello, the president of CiVI… told LifeSiteNews on Wednesday that the pope emeritus was healthy and able to visit with them for 25 minutes. Benedict also summed up neatly the point of his encyclicals and of CiVI: “He told us, ‘Faith without charity is useless. And charity without faith is useless.’”

I’m sure he was just going for a rhetorical flourish there, but the last part of his statement is really damaging. It suggests that charity alone — without religious faith — means nothing. Which is complete bullshit, when there are plenty of Humanist charities out there who aren’t looking for a divine reward and who aren’t guided by the dictates of religion. They just want to make the world a better place.

Charity is great, with and without faith. What we should be concerned about is charity that comes with strings attached, which is often the case when you have a group that wants to spread the Gospel as much as (if not more than) they want to provide services of real value.

(Image via Philip Chidell / Shutterstock.com. Thanks to Brian for the link)

Ready to Supersize Your Salvation? How About a McMass?

In what is either brilliant parody or desperate marketing (or quite possibly a mix of the two), Lux Dei design is promoting a new church that combines McDonalds with, well, Jesus.

A group of three friends calling themselves “The McMass Project” has launched an IndieGoGo page trying to raise $1 million to build a McDonald’s franchise in a church, possibly in New Jersey or the Philadelphia area.

Citing declining church attendance, the group declares that “it’s time for churches to innovate” and “pray different.” Which brings us, somehow, to fast food. “McDonalds restaurants serve 70 million people EACH DAY,” the McMass website states.

Furthermore,

Churches are community centers, but need to attract people and support themselves financially. McDonald’s are profitable, and draw constant crowds, but need great, centrally-located, spaces.

Together, a McDonald’s Church will support itself and become increasingly active in its community.

Based on this foolproof business plan, the McMass project is soliciting donations. Like I said, it reads like parody. But group creative director Paul Di Lucca insists that it’s very serious:

“Christianity is unable to capture modern audiences,” he argues. And, as the project’s website states, McDonald’s restaurants “bring communities together.”

McMass, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be uniting folks as the creators had hoped. As of this writing, the project has amassed only $105 in support. It runs until mid-January, though, so unless the group turns up a McMiracle, it might awhile before you can get value menu theology with your Big Mac.

German Pastafarians Now Have Official Signs Directing People to the Nearest Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Germany, which doesn’t have the kind of church/state separation that we do in the U.S., has signs right as you enter some cities telling you when local churches gather. The local Catholic Church, for example, meets at 10:30a on Sunday.

So what happened when a group of Pastafarians requested signs of their own in the city of Templin?

City officials said, sure, why not?

Church sign in Templin (via Rüdiger Weida)

A rough translation of a German article explains:

The evangelical pastor Ralf-Günther Schein leaves no doubt that he does not think much of the activities of the church critics… What bothers him most is the offensive anti-ecclesiastical nature of the group. “It’s not worship what they do; it’s the circus.” Now that their church is advertised the same way as his, it is very disturbing. “As the city could have been more sensitive.”

According to Pastafarian Rüdiger Weida, the request was made in September but took a couple of months to get fully processed. Now, however, there are four such signs around the city. They will still have to pay for the signs’ maintenance, but they’re happy to cover those costs.

Weida added that “The screw [to put up the signs] was almost harder to get than… permission.”

(Thanks to @GrewiGreg for the link)

Frustrated with the Mother Who “Audited” a Museum’s Evolution Exhibit? There’s a Way You Can Undo Her Damage

The other day, I posted about a Creationist mother who laughably “audited” an evolution exhibit at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History and posted the video on YouTube.

I also mentioned that this mother, Megan Fox, has been going after my local library for the past year because they don’t censor their Internet and Fox saw that as sanctioning “taxpayer funded access to child porn.” Her actions, which have already cost the library more than $125,000, have effectively taken money away from educational purposes (which I’m sure doesn’t matter to her, since she gave up on learning a long time ago).

If her video made you cringe, then I wrote that you could help out by making a donation to the library.

I posted a link to that fundraiser, but many of you told me you didn’t see the link (which was a flash image).

So I’m posting it here once more. If you can chip in anything at all, it would help make up for that loss of funding, even if only a little bit.

You can make a donation right here or just click on the graphic below:

We’re already halfway to the goal — but the more we can raise, the better!

Thanks for your help!