Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1980

Rep. Louie Gohmert, Who Thinks Climate Change is a Hoax, Explains Why Atheists are Intellectual Inferior

Rep. Louie Gohmert, who makes Sarah Palin sound like she has a Ph.D., went to a Christian revival event last night and told the audience that atheists just don’t get it:

There was an old gentleman from Texas, from Nacogdoches, and Bob Murphy used to say, “You know, I feel so sorry for atheists! I do!” He said, “You don’t think about it! No matter how smart they think they are, an atheist has to admit that he believes the equation: Nobody plus nothing equals everything.” He says, “How embarrassing for an intellectual to have to say ‘Yeah, I believe that.’ Nobody plus nothing equals everything.”

Well, you couldn’t get everything unless there was something that was the creator of everything. And that’s the Lord we know.

Gohmert, of course, believes that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 and that it’s perfectly logical to believe God has just always been here without a creator of His own…

Anyway, that line about how atheists believe something came from nothing is a gross oversimplification. It’s a philosophical trick. Arguing that the Big Bang came from nothing makes no sense because there is no “before” the Big Bang. (Austin Cline has a nice explanation here.) It might mess with your head at first, but it’s really an unanswerable question.

So where did stuff come from? It’s been said before, but atheists answer “I don’t know.” Christians answer “I don’t know, therefore God.”

For Gohmert to suggest atheists are intellectual inferiors for not making up a Creation myth of our own says far more about his own academic abilities than ours.

(via Right Wing Watch)

Pro Tip: Don’t Make Nazi References in Your Vacation Bible School Promo Video

I know Vacation Bible School organizers aren’t looking to me for advice, but I’ll give it to them anyway:

Don’t make Nazi references in your promotional videos.

I don’t care if you’re against the Nazis. Just don’t bring it up. No swastikas. No Hitler. No imagery of military attacks. Just don’t do it. (And don’t bother with references to a TV show that’s more than 40 years old, either.)

Thankfully, the Tabernacle Baptist Church in New Mexico didn’t get the memo, so they left us with this gem. Let me walk you through it.

It’s for the church’s Vacation Bible School, which I guess takes place somewhere in mid-twentieth century war-ravaged Europe:

As we can see, the swastika in Jesusland is like the Nazi Bat Signal, floating in the night sky:

And what are the VBS students going to destroy in this war they’re about to be recruited for?! The worst scourge of them all:

How will they win? Lots of parabolic violence from God’s Air Force (which, I assume, refused to name a plane Enola Gay):

I don’t even know what this is supposed to be, but I guess Hitler’s cousin worshiped Cthulhu:

Enlist! The Crusades are back, dammit, and they need warriors!

This is the least creepy part of the whole video:

Ugh… just watch the whole thing for yourself:

(via Stuff Fundies Like)

Saying Hello from TAM 2014 and an Interview with James Randi

Hi all! This is Jessica. I’m back in Vegas at The Amazing Meeting 2014 to interview some amazing skeptics for your listening pleasure!

I’ll be live-blogging as many of the speakers as I can in between interviews. If you are at TAM, come say hello (I’ll be at the press table and/or wandering around like a lost puppy) and if you have any suggestions of people you’d love to hear on the podcast, you can tweet at me @blueburie!

In the mean time, here is a never-before-seen interview I did with James Randi from TAM 2013:

We had a great talk about Randi’s career in magic, fighting fraudsters, and his relationship with Johnny Carson. [Hemant's note: The portion beginning at the 11:30 mark is just beautiful.]

Enjoy!

The (Actual) Runner-Up Religion of America

Last month, the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies released a map showing the second-largest religious group in every state (after Christianity):

That surprised a lot of people — Islam? Buddhist? Baha’i? Who knew those were so popular?

There’s just one problem. That map completely ignores people without religion.

So, using the data from the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, I created a new version of that map, this time including “Nones”:

Turns out people who don’t believe in God or (more likely) who just don’t use a religious label are pretty popular.

(I would actually love to see how people who are atheists/Agnostics stack up against the minority faith groups, but that information doesn’t seem to be publicly available.)

Sex Offender Pastor, Supposedly Forgiven by God, Rapes Another Child

There’s a reason we need secular laws in this country; because religious groups don’t know how to police themselves. And the latest example involves Roy Neal Yoakem, pastor of New Gospel Outreach Church in Kentucky. He was arrested on Monday on statutory rape charges:

According to police, Yoakem sexually assaulted the [14-year-old] teenager on two occasions last month, once at New Gospel Outreach Church in Scottsville where he was the pastor and once at his Gallatin residence on Edgewood Drive.

Yoakem is also a convicted sex offender, according to the release. In 2005 he was convicted in Kentucky of second degree sexual abuse of an 8-year-old boy and is currently registered in Tennessee as a violent sex offender.

So here’s the question: How did a convicted sex offender get a job at a church, where he was able to rape again?

Let’s ask the current interim pastor at the church, Stephen Bratcher:

“We’re firm believers in the Bible so if God’s forgiven you, then we’re in no position to treat you otherwise,” Bratcher said.

Ah. Yoakem said God forgave him, and that was apparently enough for the church.

Either God needs to be less forgiving or the church needs to do a better job vetting its leaders.

“With these kind of things, it does look negatively on the church. We ask the community not to view the church or its members negatively,” Bratcher said.

Damn right it makes you look bad. And we should be horrified by how irresponsible these church leaders were to give a violent sex offender access to even more children.

At some point, forgiveness stops being a virtue and turns into naïveté.

(Thanks to Terry for the link)

Evangelicals Pose As Gay Pride Volunteers To Trick People Into Converting

It’s not unusual anymore to see Christian groups at gay pride parades. Members of the Mormon Church have freely marched at Pride in Salt Lake City. Members of the Chicago-based Marin Foundation attend pride festivals every year with signs reading “I’m sorry” to apologize for Christians’ hateful actions against LGBT people. Gay-affirming churches attend by the dozens.

That’s why it wasn’t shocking for passersby at Twin Cities Pride in Minnesota last month to see a Christian group called Trinity Works talking with people at the parade. Most thought it was a sanctioned Pride activity.

Not so much.

Trinity Works is an Evangelical group that claims it can heal HIV/AIDS through Jesus. And when it set up a “corn feed” at Pride to offer people corn, water and conversation, they were actually setting up a bait-and-switch operation to try to shame LGBT people into “surrendering” to Jesus.

Trinity Works volunteer Josh Gillespie boasts about the number of “conversions” his group achieved through deception and harassment

The “Humility Outreach,” as they called it, didn’t come out of nowhere. Word got out late last month that they were planning to “infiltrate” Twin Cities Pride believing they could “cure” people of HIV/AIDS. According to Andy Birkey at TheColu.mn, they went as far as to deliberately imitate Pride workers and medics to trick people into talking to them.

Birkey writes:

Some of the outreach workers posed as medics and evangelized to people who sought assistance.

The Trinity Works group created fliers to mimic those being handed out by OutFront to warn the community about the groups efforts to evangelize.

Outfront also notes that Trinity Works’ outreach workers appeared to have started wearing coral colored shirts to mimic OutFront Minnesota support team members in an attempt to confuse Pride attendees.

On the left is the flyer distributed by Outfront warning Pridegoers about Trinity Works. On the right is a flyer distributed by Trinity Works meant to replace the official Pride announcement.

Trinity Works members coaxed Pridegoers into their corn feed station wearing shirts that read “What’s Your Story?” When people wandered in for food and small talk, outreach workers sat down with them and began interrogating them about Christianity and being LGBT.

Trinity Works held a corn feed at 11th Street and Hennepin Avenue along the Pride parade route. According to OutFront, the support team had to counsel dozens who mistakenly thought it was part of Pride activities. “Pride-goers who went in, assuming it was LGBTQ-friendly, were surrounded by Trinity works people who said they would burn in hell because of their sexual orientation,” OutFront’s Monica Meyer said in a statement. “Our support team counseled more than a dozen people who unknowingly went in and left the corn feed shaken, crying and traumatized.”

Members of the group have since bragged on Facebook and elsewhere about how many poor gay souls they “saved.” Josh Gillespie posted publicly, “80 people surrendered or recommitted their lives to Jesus!!!! 40 healings!! 14 baptized in the Holy Spirit!” Others posted pictures of the church members posing innocently with the people they’d preyed on.

The caption reads, “Miranda, Danielle and Kaylee gave their hearts to Jesus today!! Please pray with us for them!!”

Birkey went a step further and spoke to Trinity Works members to try to get them to come clean about their real intentions during Pride, and the resulting video is cringeworthy:

It goes without saying that this “church” did something despicable. Pride is meant to be a safe space. There are always angry proselytizers set up behind fences, yelling Bible verses that are hardly audible over music and cheering, but we’ve learned to ignore them (or, better yet, mock them). This stunt, though, is a whole new level of messed up.

On the role of religious or non-religious groups at Pride events, P.Z. Myers adds:

Every year, Minnesota Atheists participate in the gay pride event in Minneapolis – they don’t go in to make “conversions,” but to show support for our fellow citizens. There is no flaunting of trophies afterwards, no singling out of gay folk who Suddenly! Turned! Atheist! because of our godless proselytizing, because that’s not what it’s all about. In particular, the purpose isn’t to steal attention from the real goals of the event, which are all about equality and rights for same sex couples.

People like the members of Trinity Works are why the LGBT movement cannot bring itself to trust Christian allies. Nobody who was tricked into that corn feed will remember the pro-queer church groups who marched at Twin Cities Pride; they’ll remember this. I’d bet money that none of them will seek the arms of an affirming church to get over this experience; they’ll turn to their queer brothers and sisters and probably never set foot in a church again. (And with good reason!) Acts like this destroy the slow and barely perceptible progress that has been made in closing the gaps between LGBT people and the religious groups who systematically oppress, demean, and harass them.

I’m sorry, Twin Cities, that you had to go through this. And I’m sorrier for the countless LGBT Christians who feel just a little less safe now, just a little more hesitant to be themselves, knowing that some of their “brothers and sisters in Christ” would go to such great lengths to shame them.

Did I Win Your Contest, Ken Ham?

Creationist Ken Ham has announced a contest: All you have to do is cut out this image of him and “take him on an adventure”!

Winners receive a prize package (estimated value: $1,000) of Answers in Genesis propaganda and Creation Museum admission passes.

I’m pretty sure I won’t win the contest — nor do I really want to — but I couldn’t help but document our adventures together as we visited places I’m positive he’s never been to before!

I hope Flat Ken had a good time! I know I did.

The Woman Saudi Arabia Tried to Shut Up: An Interview with Josephine Macintosh

Last month, I wrote about the remarkable events at the UN Human Rights Council, where Saudi Arabia attempted to shout down Josephine Macintosh, a representative of my employer the Center for Inquiry, as she delivered a forceful statement condemning Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses, specifically the persecution and imprisonment of Raif Badawi and Waleed Abu al-Khair (who just this week was sentenced to 15 years in prison).

Josephine Macintosh

The Saudi representative was desperate to quiet her, demanding that the council president “shut that woman up!”, but delegations from the U.S., Ireland, Canada, and France stood up for Josephine’s right to deliver her statement. (You can read my full writeup here.)

I finally managed to actually make contact with the hero of the whole story, Josephine herself, who’s been busy traveling and without regular Internet access. I took the opportunity to ask her about the whole episode and to learn a little about what motivates her, too. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation. I’ve emphasized some key portions.

* * *

Paul Fidalgo: Josephine, how did you come to be involved with CFI and the Human Rights Council?

Josephine Macintosh: I started working as an intern, and subsequently became a representative, for the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) two years ago. CFI and IHEU have been working together in Geneva, which led to my appointment to CFI as their representative at the UN this year. I do this in my spare time from work and university.

PF: What’s important to you personally about raising awareness of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, particularly in regard to Badawi and al-Khair?

JM: It is first and foremost a question of freedom of expression, a fundamental right that is integral to our lives as human beings. It is painful to see individuals having these rights abrogated, whatever their country of origin, background, physical condition.

I am deeply convinced that societies should allow for a plurality of voices and opinions to be voiced, whether people or a government agrees or disagrees with these. Badawi and al-Khair represent the minority that undertake the courageous step of speaking up and defending their fundamental rights despite dangerous consequences. We cannot have any kind of development without people like them doing what oppressive systems fear most: on-the-ground dissent. In a sense it is an expression of their dignity. It is important to keep their voices and actions heard within the hallowed halls of the UN.

Beyond the fact that it is contentious for it to maintain a position on the Human Rights Council, the fact that Saudi Arabia has a seat at the human rights table means it has also agreed to have its human rights record examined. For it to dare to censor within the council as it does on its own soil is unacceptable.

My time at the UN has inevitably made me feel disillusioned by the system in place that deals with these human right violations and it seems that these issues have visibility globally yet little action taken regarding them. But this is not a reason to quieten ourselves. I feel that my contribution, despite being small, does open a window of opportunity by raising awareness and we can still learn from these experiences to rethink our organizations fundamentally.

PF: Did you know before you gave your statement that Saudi Arabia would put up a fight? If so, did you prepare at all for that eventuality?

JM: No, I actually did not expect them to interrupt me and did not prepare for it. I spoke on Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship system in March during the Saudi UPR [Universal Periodic Review] and was more concerned then but was not interrupted.

PF: How did the constant interruptions make you feel?

JM: The interruptions this time did not worry me too much as it is best to simply wait for the meeting’s chair (the Vice-President in this case) to make the decision. Additionally, I was aware that the statement was in line with the remit of the agenda item and, as can be seen in the recording of the event, the Saudi representative did not have a valid point of order in any of the three interruptions (this was highlighted by the U.S., Irish, French and Canadian representatives’ support). Luckily I did not feel shaken by the interruptions… It’s actually tedious stuff to be interrupted three times in the space of a two-minute speech! And ironically the interruptions backfired on Saudi Arabia as it meant the Council paid extra attention to what I was saying. I am however shocked to hear that the Saudi representative was so rude in Arabic (the interpreter toned it down), incredible that such expressions came out of the mouth of a UN diplomat.

PF: Did you expect the immediate backing from the representatives from the other countries? How did it feel to hear them speak up in support of you and CFI?

JM: I assumed some states might speak up as they sometimes do when points of orders are made and during attempts to silence NGOs [non-governmental organizations], but I was certainly not expecting such emphatic and widespread support. It was heart-warming to experience and I was particularly happy with the clear way they supported the statement by upholding the values the HRC is built on: freedom of expression and the important role NGOs play there.

PF: What kind of interactions, if any, have you had with the Saudi representatives before or after Monday’s meeting?

JM: I have not had any interactions with the Saudi representatives prior to or following the statement. They did not use the right to reply as was advised by the Vice-President (which in itself shows that they were only keen to stop the statement and not to address nor acknowledge its content). I delivered a statement for the Saudi UPR in March that called for the abolition of the male guardianship system in the country and it was replied to tangentially by the Ambassador during his right to reply address.

* * *

After our initial conversation, I remembered to ask her something that had been weighing on many of our minds at CFI. After angering the Saudis, is Josephine safe? She assured me that indeed she is “completely safe” and is getting ready for law school.

And we’re lucky to have her. Never having met her in person, I’m proud to work alongside her both as part of CFI and as part of a wider movement for free expression.

My sincere thanks to Josephine to talking with me for this post, and for all she’s done and will do for the cause.

It’s Basic Christianity, People!

I guess conservative Christians really are following the Bible…

Cartoonist Matt Bors has plenty more of what Jesus said at Medium.

This Atheist Provides a Constant Rebuttal to Local Street Preachers

Ben McCanna, writing for The Forecaster, has a wonderful article about an atheist in Portland, Maine who offers a daily counterpoint to local street preachers:

Point, counter-point: Free speech thrives in Portland's Congress Square Park | The Forecaster http://t.co/AZdfKeDfEC pic.twitter.com/e99gXruIlg

— The Forecaster (@The_Forecaster) July 8, 2014

Each day since May, weather permitting, Tracy wields his attention-grabbing, hand-painted protest signs: “Atheists don’t need to shout,” “I mock all religion,” and “Thank God for atheism,” among others.

“I’m too rational to believe in God,” Tracy said on a recent evening. “My body’s crippled, not my mind.”

…

[Pastor Stephen] Reynolds sees Tracy’s presence as an example of the city’s dissolution from civility to combativeness, while others say the church is responsible for causing trouble.

It really makes no sense for anyone to blame Tracy for “combativeness” when all he does is hold up signs. It’s the preachers who are causing a ruckus and annoying the hell out of people (literally, as they’d say).

While Tracy’s received some pushback, the response has been overwhelmingly positive:

People laugh, honk their horns and stop to take pictures. One such picture-taker was Portland resident Sam Peisner.

Peisner said he snapped a picture because the juxtaposition of the preachers and Tracy’s “WTF???” sign was compelling.

“He sums it up rather succinctly, the opinions of most,” Peisner said of Tracy.

It’s a terrific story with a lot of details about the people involved — including the answer to whether Tracy’s atheism has any connection to his accident. Be sure to read the whole thing.