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God’s brother Mikey
by Noah Lugeons
Not many people know the story of Mikey. The less ambitious of the two brothers, Mikey was gifted with the same omnipotence as Jehovah but found himself less inclined to direct it in any meaningful way.
On the first day, Mikey was playing a video game. His omniscience had already seen all the video game consoles that the future had to offer and despite the vastly superior graphics of later systems, he still preferred the old school gameplay of the Nintendo Entertainment System. At the time that God interrupted, he was playing Ghosts and Goblins, a game that required omnipotence to beat.
“What the fuck is that?!” Mikey asked, shielding his eyes as the door swung open.
“I call it light,” Jehovah said excitedly, “I’ve got a whole plan… heavens, seas, animals… it’s gonna be crazy.”
Mikey reluctantly paused his game and followed his brother outside. A pair of sunglasses (the first pair, to be exact) phenomenized in his hands and he donned them as he glanced up at God’s creation. “Whatever,” he said dismissively, “I’m going to bed.”
On the following morning, Mikey awoke violently as water splashed onto his face. “Now what?!” he grumbled as he stormed outside through knee-deep liquid. “What the fuck are you doing?” he called out as he swung open the door.
“I call it water. Don’t worry,” God said with a passive wave, “I’m going to create solid ground next.”
“Well can you hurry the hell up? It’s kinda hard to sleep with all this churning and rolling.”
“Yeah, I should be done with the ground tomorrow sometime.”
“Tomorrow! Why tomorrow?”
God waved his arms in a sweeping gesture, as though to convey the enormity of the project at hand. “I promise… I’ll get to it as soon as I can. I’m still separating all these seas.”
Mikey rolled his eyes and a canoe (the first canoe, to be exact) phenomenized before him as he made his way back to his bed. He tried creating a stable platform on which to sleep, but it churned with the waters and he was ripped back to consciousness each time a splash of the cold liquid splattered onto his skin. He tried a few more constructs before eventually settling on a large enclosed space that would roll comfortably amongst the new waves.
He slept through the day and awoke on the following morning with his enclosed structure blissfully beached on steady ground. He stretched and a cup of coffee appeared in his throat. He considered seeing how Jehovah was doing, but he almost feared whatever monstrosity might await him outside so he remained inside his boat and played a few games of Mario Kart. Later he phenomenized a pizza and a bong and before he knew it, he was asleep again.
On the fourth day he finally came forth from his protective encapsulation. He stepped on to the upper deck of his refuge and glanced down. “Yo, Joey!” he said, calling to his brother.
“My name’s Jehovah,” he muttered.
“Digging that big orange ball of flame… it’s nice. I’d have put it a little higher up, but hey, that’s just me.”
“It actually rises and falls back over on that side. It moves kind of slow. I’m trying to get it to exactly 24 hours but it’s a pain in the ass.”
“How close are you?”
“I’m within a minute.”
Mikey shrugged. “Close enough.”
That was often Mikey’s solution to a conundrum, but God decided that in this instance he was probably right. “I like your ark,” he remarked as he took in his brother’s improvised shelter. “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”
“Loving what you did with the sky, little bro,” he said as he climbed down from his perch. By the time he reached the sandy shores a beer had appeared in his hand. “Little white patches floating by… nice touch.”
“Clouds, I call ’em. You should see it at night. I did stars and everything.”
“Nice,” he said as he cracked open the beer. “So what are you planning with this whole thing?”
God smiled and Mikey could tell by his expression that his brother had been dying to lay the plan out since this whole thing started. It had taken a few days for Mikey to take the bait and he could tell immediately he was in for a long story. He phenomenized a chair and sat back as he drank.
“Well… I still gotta finish the moon, but then the next couple days I’m working on animals.”
“What the fuck are animals?”
“Little living, sentient things that’ll eat each other and compete for limited resources. It’ll be fun to watch.”
Mikey wrinkled his nose. “Sounds like a pain in the ass. Are you gonna take care of all those things? You know… take ’em for walks and stuff?”
“Nope. They’re on their own in a cruel world, bro. But hold on, I haven’t told you the…”
“Wait… a cruel world? Why would you create a cruel world?”
“Cruelty will act as a lesson about the vastness of my power. I’ll creating suffering so that they can enjoy bounty in its absence.”
“That doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
“No… it does. See, you can’t have good without evil.”
“Yes you can,” Mikey said, finishing the last swallow from his beer, “You’re omnipotent, remember? You can have anything you want.”
“Anyway, don’t worry about it. That’s not even the best part. I haven’t told you about ‘man’ yet.”
Mikey caused his sunglasses to reappear just so that he could slide them down his nose and glance skeptically from behind them. “What are mans?”
“Men.”
“Okay, what are mens?”
“No, man, but when you pluralize it, you say ‘men’.”
“See, that doesn’t make any sense either.”
“I work in mysterious ways, Mikey.”
“Whatever… fine. So what are ‘men’?” he asked, forcing an overly sarcastic emphasis onto the word.
“Okay… this is so cool… They’ll be like little versions of us. My own image and everything. And I’ll give them free will and I’ll stick them in a garden paradise…”
“Well that’s nice of you…” Mikey started, but Jehovah wasn’t finished and simply spoke over him.
“… but I’ll put a tree in there with really delicious fruit on it and I’ll tell them not to eat it and when they do… and you know they will… anyway, when they do, I’ll curse them for all of eternity.”
Mikey offered only a glacial blink.
“And then I’ll fuck with ’em for a few centuries and totally remove myself from their world. And if they don’t believe I exist after that, I’ll condemn them to spend eternity burning in a fiery pit.”
“What’s a fiery pit?”
“It’s something I’m going to create just to be a miserable ass place to spend eternity in.”
A long moment passed as Mikey tried to absorb all this information. Several times he started to speak and then realized he lacked sufficient words to express his disbelief. He looked into his brother’s eyes and saw the hint of madness he’d always suspected was there.
Finally, he responded with a single syllable, the only syllable that seemed remotely appropriate under the circumstances: “Why?”
“Because I want them to see how awesome I am,” he answered with a straight face. “They’ll love me or they’ll burn in hell in an unending orgy of tragic pain for all of time. It’ll be great!”
“Dude… you’ve lost your fucking mind. I’m sorry to just lay it out there like that, but you’re fucking crazy. That’s the weirdest shit I’ve ever heard. Seriously… I should create mental asylums just so I could lock you in one.”
“Go ahead. See if you ever figure out how the tides work, dick.”
God turned his back on his brother and Mikey retreated to his ark to play some more video games. It would be centuries before he came out again and by then, his brother had so irrevocably fucked up his experiment that he’d simply given up on it and moved on to a new project.
Mikey shrugged and went back inside to play some Gears of War.
Thus ends the gospel of Mikey.
90% of Americans Believe in Space Fairies
by Noah Lugeons
In surveying the national tenor, one could be forgiven for believing that the atheists are gaining ground. While it might seem in some areas that reason is outweighing superstition and secularism is encroaching on stupidity, the numbers would like to respectfully disagree.
In a recent Gallup Poll, more than 90% of Americans still believe in god despite the fact that in the same survey, 100% of them had no evidence upon which to base this asinine assumption. What’s worse is that among the remaining 9% or so, only about a third were willing to go as far as to say they were “convinced that god did not exist”. 4% of the total took the fence-riding position of an agnostic atheist (“I don’t believe in god but I don’t have the guts to own it”) and 2 % actually said they had “no opinion” on the existence of god.
Gallup has been running these religion surveys for upwards of 70 years now and the total number of non-believers has been remarkably flat in that time. It looked for a time like atheists were gaining ground, but in truth this was a surveying error. When Gallup recently amended their survey to include a question about belief in a “universal spirit”, a solid eighth of all Americans are willing to sign on to that option.
So is this good news or bad news?
Well, the trend lines are a bit tricky but one thing is certain: organized religion is losing ground. The number of people who express an actual “belief in god” has been in steady decline for more than a decade. But not all of these gains are going to the atheist camp. Many choose to reject bullshit specifically but not in general. This growth of the “spiritual” movement has been rapid enough to all but wipe out any gains atheists might have seen in the past 50 years. In fact, as recently as 2008, Gallup’s research showed a reversing trend line. The number of professed atheists actually dropped by almost a full percent which, perhaps coincidentally, was almost exactly the same percent gained by the more Unitarian belief.
The saddest finding is under a category where Gallup asks respondents about the certitude with which they accept god. They allow for 5 potential answers:
- Convinced that god exists
- God probably exists, but I have some doubt
- God probably exists, but I have a lot of doubt
- God probably doesn’t exist, but I’m not sure
- Convinced God doesn’t exist.
In the results of this question we find that as many as three-quarters of Americans are unwilling to even entertain doubt that god exists. Officially, 73% were counted in that 1st category with only 3% selecting the correct answer offered at the bottom.
Of course, our perception of this is often colored by where in the country we live. Those in the West (where atheism and “spiritualism” are at their highest) might be tempted to dismiss the findings altogether while those in the South are likely shocked to find so much rationality in the country.
The issue, of course, is a lack of devangelism. Atheists are too damn nice and too willing to pretend to be “agnostic” about the existence of god. Hell, 2% of respondents were so on the fence that they couldn’t even call themselves agnostic and instead chose “no opinion”. It’s hard for me to imagine that anyone more sentient than a potato could have no opinion on the existence of god, but nobody ever went broke overestimating the vacuousness of Americans.
…But I’m Not That Crazy…
by Noah Lugeons
It never fails to amaze me the way one religious person can look at the beliefs of an alternate faith and say, “well, that’s just silly” without realizing that the same is true of their own sacred cow.
I’m reminded of my freshman anthropology class. The professor was talking about the early signs of religion in human history and he spoke at length about the tribal magic of ancient cultures. A girl who was in the process of learning that college was for smart people looked puzzled and asked, “how could they believe in magic if it didn’t work?”
I glanced back at the crucifix hanging around her neck and then back to the prof to see how he would handle the question. I could see him biting the words “why do you pray?” back as they tried to escape. He was nicer than me. So I said it.
“People still believe in prayer and that doesn’t work,” I offered, much to the disgust of the inquisitor.
But somehow people can switch to a different set of eyes when they are looking at what is considered holy by the other guy. They can see how untenable and silly any religion is but their own. Even within their faith they can point to one belief of another and say, “well, I don’t believe in that, but I believe in this”. They offer it up as though clearly believing that a talking snake is silly, but a man sacrificing himself to himself to appease himself is quite defensible.
Poor Mitt Romney is finding this out the hard way. As he desperately seeks the republican presidential nomination he finds himself constantly butting up against the common prejudice that Christians have against other Christians. Of course, his liberal history as Massachusetts governor isn’t helping him either, but a number of reports overlook his support of jesus-ish policies like universal healthcare and go straight for his faith.
He’s a Mormon, of course, and those people are just weird. They believe that a magical space man came to America to teach people the ways of heaven. Of course, all the thinking folks understand that magical space men only go to the Middle East to reveal such things. Mormons think that God lives on some planet out in space when all the critical minds know that he lives in a different dimension paved in streets of gold. Mormons believe that special underwear can protect them from harm when smart people know that it takes water blessed by an ancient incantation to truly keep you safe.
It always strikes me odd that we atheists are often the only defense that small religions have against big ones. The general rule is that everyone is in favor of separation of church and state except the nation’s largest church. When the “ground zero mosque” was in the news it was largely the secular institutions (and, at the very least the secular community) that stood up and said, “hey, their stupidity is no more stupid than your stupidity.”
Evangelical journalist and general fucktard Warren Cole Smith was recently quoted as saying:
“You can’t say that his religious beliefs don’t matter but his ‘values’ do. If beliefs are false, then behavior will eventually–but inevitably–be warped.”
Smith, of course, would not tolerate this type of blatant and inexcusable bigotry if it was directed at his sacred cow. Interestingly enough, he accidentally pinpoints the source of his hypocrisy within that brief statements. His beliefs are false and his behavior is warped.
Mississippi’s “Conceived in Rape” Tour
by Noah Lugeons
Since my childhood, abortion has been the very definition of a “hot button” topic. Throughout my memory it has been the singular issue which has spurned the most disagreement and has been debated with the most ferocity. Religion ran a close second, of course, but too few atheists bring the subject up for it to be a true contender.
But through it all there was at least some sense of civility. Even in the most vehement disputes some exception was made for the more extreme circumstances. Even most ardent opposers of abortion rights would agree to exceptions in cases of rape or incest or in instances when the health of the mother was in danger.
No more. The “personhood” movement that is sweeping through the bible belt seeks to do away with that last vestige of civility by offering up amendments to state constitutions that would give full legal rights to zygotes. To put to rest and lingering doubts that they might have any sliver of compassion, the group “Mississippi Personhood” is sponsoring a “Conceived in Rape” tour.
The tour will feature one Rebecca Kiessling who was, predictably, conceived in rape.
Despite having never met her and having very little familiarity with her work, I feel confident in saying that Kiessling is a revolting bitch. If you doubt my assessment, a quick trip to her website should convince you. She is a dedicated anti-abortion activist and her whole shtick seems to be cashing in on the traumatic circumstance of her conception.
On her home page she announces:
Have you ever considered how really insulting it is to say to someone, “I think your mother should have been able to abort you.”? It’s like saying, “If I had my way, you’d be dead right now.”
Yes. Of course that is what they’re saying. Thus, those of us who believe that every woman should have the right to get an abortion are clearly saying “If I had my way, everyone would be dead right now”, which laudably sums up the goals of the pro-choice lobby.
But again, Kiessling is a rampaging bitch. I suppose that when people say they wish her mother had been able to abort her it is truly because they wish she had personally been aborted. I shouldn’t be so quick to label her conclusion as bullshit.
She continues:
And that is the reality with which I live every time someone says they are pro-choice or pro-life “except in cases of rape” because I absolutely would have been aborted if it had been legal in Michigan when I was an unborn child, and I can tell you that it hurts.
I’m not sure how many people I’ve met that are “Pro-Choice” except in cases of rape, but let’s continue on as though that part of her statement made sense.
Note that she says she “absolutely” would have been aborted if it had been legal in Michigan at the time. Her mother was raped and did not want to carry the child to term. Of course, with an over-inflated sense of self-worth, Kiessling assumes that her inherent worth makes it clear that the world is better off with her than it would be without her. She assumes that earth was one babbling Christian extremist shy of perfection at the time.
But there’s also a pretty deep insult to logic in this whole notion. We can’t go back in time and replay how the world might have gone if Kiessling’s mother had been allowed to abort her unborn child. Of course, I don’t know the first thing about the situation, but we’re not really talking about this one situation. She says herself that she wants to “put a face” on this phenomenon. So realistically, we shouldn’t be weighing a world with or without Rebecca Kiessling, but rather we should explore a world with or without baby X, conceived in rape.
Perhaps a mother who was otherwise destined to finish school, get a degree and cure some disease was thrown off the path to success when a brutal assault left her with a child she did not want and could not care for. Little matter in Kiessling’s world. Perhaps a mother who was raped at a young age might have been a great mother at an older age but because of the financial difficulties of her first (forced) child, she was unwilling to have another.
I could break out a thousand more examples and the opposition could break out a thousand theoreticals in the other direction. In the end we would be no closer to solving anything. The very exercise is insane. Rebecca Kiessling believes that people who believe a woman should be able to abort a child in cases of rape would change their mind if we only put a face on the “victim”.
I propose she take a dose of her own medicine. How about if and when Mississippi ever enacts their medieval law, she can have the job telling all the underage rape victims that they can’t have abortions. Perhaps she should meet the real victims before trying to cash in on her mother’s personal tragedy.
If you’re in Mississippi and you’d like to remind this abortion that should have happened what a foul and despicable person she is, you might be able to get tickets to one of her stops. But get your tickets quick. Events at the Trinity Baptist Church in Southhaven (on Swinnea just north of Goodman) tend to sell out fast.
Fred Phelps vs the KKK
by Noah Lugeons
Raise your hand if you liked “Freddy vs. Jason” (and yes, the people dumb enough to have liked that movie just raised their hands).
Once in a while we like to see our villains mixed together. All of us (of a certain level of geekery) have wondered which supervillain would beat which other supervillain in a fight and the media corporations have been happy to sell us those musings from time to time.
Well, something kind of like that played out in real life yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery. According to a report today by CNN, members of the Westboro Baptist Church were counter-protested by the KKK before Obama’s Memorial Day address. The anti-gay firebrands of Fred Phelps’ church had apparently given bigotry a bad name and the KKK sent a few guys round to let them know.
This likely marks the first time that the KKK has ever been on the correct side of anything so I’m not sure I’m ready to get behind their counter protest. For all I know they’re just protesting the fact that the WBC doesn’t protest at more black and Jewish funerals. But the groups were separated and cops were everywhere keeping the peace so there was likely no direct interaction between any of them. And no… the KKK guys weren’t wearing their sheets, despite the fact that laws of fashion allow the wearing of white as of that day.
But it did bring to mind a pretty cool death match. All the members of the WBC taking on the KKK in a hand to hand battle royal in some kind of coliseum with electrified barbed wire and random patches of spikes. The WBC could fight with razor sharp “God Hates Fags” signs and the KKK would (obviously) use flaming crosses. We could broadcast the whole thing live; we could have sponsors and cheerleaders.
Obviously, the KKK would win out pretty quickly. They have a lot more members and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that more KKK members are veterans.
Alas, instead we get an awkward sound clip from CNN of an admitted Ku Klux Klan member saying “those guys are just being dicks” (That’s a paraphrase, by the way).
I don’t want to spend too much time pinning Fred Phelps to Christianity as a whole, but if I was a member of your club, I wouldn’t be satisfied until there were thousands of dedicated Christians that showed up to shout down Phelps message everywhere he went. It shouldn’t be hard to find a few thousand Christians in any area that vehemently oppose his message, should it?
Until you speak loudly against him, this diabolical asshole is speaking for your whole faith. It leads us atheists to believe that far too many of you are against his tactics rather than his message.
Chirstian Couple Neglect Medical Treatment for Their Child
by Noah Lugeons
If you follow these things closely, you’ve probably heard of the “Followers of Christ”. This extreme sect of medicine-denying faith healers has made news several times in the past few years over their policy of neglecting the medical needs of their children up to the point of death.
As far back as 98, authorities were citing statistics that suggested as many as 21 children within their sect had died from treatable and easily-survivable diseases. Laws were passed in Oregon to combat the clear danger that such a group presented, but apparently the laws weren’t enough to stop them.
Timothy and Rebecca Wyland were recently charged with criminal neglect and child abuse for choosing to treat their infant daughter’s tumor with prayers and the laying on of hands instead of genuine medicine. By the time authorities became aware of the situation, the six month old child had a tumor the size of a baseball on her face. It had grown to the point that it threatened her eyesight by dislodging one of her eyeballs.
Like many of the stories that we cover on this blog, this is a tragedy that does not remotely reflect the average religious believer. No doubt I will be accused of needlessly dredging up the worst examples of religion and ignoring the best. But that misses the point altogether.
Altruism can be obtained through simple observation. Charity is, ultimately, in one’s own best interest. The “good” side effects of religion can easily come from secular sources. But only faith can convince you to ignore a tumor that threatens the life of your child.
Is Neil deGrasse Tyson an Atheist?
by Noah Lugeons
If you have even the most passing interest in astronomy or astrophysics, you’re likely familiar with the works of Neil deGrasse Tyson. The director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium,Tyson is part of the minority of scientists who can express his passion for science without boring the hell out of the general public. He hosts science programs on PBS, he appears frequently on programs like the Daily Show and the Colbert Report and he has a number of books that are comfortable reads for the uninitiated.
And he’s definitely not an atheist.
But he doesn’t believe in god.
Curious how that works? Well, if you go to Tyson’s Wikipedia page, you’ll see that Tyson describes himself as a “passionate agnostic”. In a recent interview with Christopher Thielen of the American Atheist Podcast, he explained that he’d repeatedly had to go back in and edit it when people wikied him to an atheist.
When pressed on this issue in the interview, Tyson provided a defense that was so intellectually clever that it almost makes sense. But it doesn’t.
Paraphrasing Tyson, he argued that dictionary definitions to not dictate the cultural meaning of words, but rather that the cultural meaning dictates the dictionary definition. He explains that as he looks around the country and sees people who call themselves “atheists”, he does not feel that they accurately reflect his views.
There is a pertinent back story here, of course. Like many scientists, Tyson has expressed strong concerns about creationism and intelligent design. Like many scientists, he’s publicly expressed the dangers of stopping an intellectual pursuit at “well I guess god did it”. If you take a few minutes searching the name on YouTube, you’ll quickly find a number of lectures where he speaks out against the encroachment of faith on science.
But of course, when he refers to “people who call themselves atheists”, he is referring to the four horsemen. He is talking about unapologetic bloggers like the intrepid PZ Myers. And even though he doesn’t know it, he’s also talking about me. He’s talking about the antagonistic way that the gnu atheists combat the dangers of faith.
To borrow a Thoreau analogy from the Tea-Partiers, Tyson hacks at the branches while Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Hitchins and Myers work on the roots.
But is it fair for Tyson to back away from the very term? Phil Plait, another noted “passionate agnostic” admits freely that there is no functional difference between his agnosticism and my atheism. He does not consider the possibility of god existing in his day-to-day life if at all. I’m sure the same is true of Tyson. When Tyson covets his neighbor’s ass, I’m sure that he doesn’t spend a moment wondering if god minds.
It is in Tyson’s professional and personal interest to distance himself from foul-mouthed and bitter atheists like myself, but should one do so by trying to redefine language? Why claim oneself an agnostic if you aren’t truly on the fence? Couldn’t we offer up a new term like “atheish” for folks like Tyson?
Atheists are in short supply in this country. For that reason we love to try to claim people whenever possible. Many an atheist will make the argument that Obama is part of our club simply because he’s intelligent, scientifically literate and doesn’t talk about Jesus with the incessant fervor that Bush did. It may be true that Obama is an atheist. Political reality would not allow him to admit as much, but there is also no direct evidence to suggest that he is. When we try to claim him we’re really not doing much better than the folks who try to claim him a Muslim.
But when actual, genuine, dictionary definition atheists are fleeing from the camp, I think that is a real cause for concern.
In my experience, it seems that two broad and imperfect categories can be described to illustrate the cause of this schism; “Atheist by way of science” and “Science by way of atheism”. I would count myself among the latter, as I’d rejected faith long before I developed any real understanding of the scientific explanations for those questions that religion purports to answer. Many others were only gradually led from faith as their knowledge of the universe grew and they came to understand that god was not necessary to make a universe or to make it work.
This difference largely defines which side of the schism one will fall into. While it is certainly true that not every gnu atheist got there without a gentle push from science, for people like Tyson and Plait, antagonizing religion is counterproductive. For people like me, it’s the whole point.
So fine, Neil deGrasse Tyson is not an atheist. I can’t exactly argue with someone about their own religious affiliation (or lack thereof). But if he gets to redefine words to distance himself from groups he doesn’t want to embrace, I’d like to claim the same privilege. Henceforth I am no longer white, as I’ve seen many people who call themselves “white” and I don’t agree with a lot of the shit they do. From now on, I will be ambiguous on my race and call myself an agnozoid. I would also like to disavow my species in general, as I’ve seen people who call themselves “human” and I don’t agree with them either. Thus I now choose to belong to my own new hominid species, homo incognitus.
Tyson, I love your work and I have your books sitting on my shelf. I understand why one would not want to choose sides in a dispute that is so often marked my hatred and vicious personal attacks. But not wanting to draw fire from religious nut-jobs is no excuse to go redefining words.
Atheist Converts to Christianity for $1 Million
by Noah Lugeons
In the past, I’ve often been asked what it would take to make me believe in god. Normally I simply answer “a shred of objective evidence would help”, but from now on I’m going to add to that “a million dollars of Jesus’ money”.
Atheist Sal Bentivegna claims that he offered a mock prayer to Jesus that his mother would win a million dollars in the lottery. According to a widely disseminated report, on the following day she did. This was all the proof Sal needed and now he’s a Christian. Or so we’re supposed to believe.
Now, I won’t trip into the “no true Scotsman” fallacy here. It’s entirely possible that this story went down just as it was reported and it’s entirely possibly that Sal was a genuine atheist. But clearly he was no skeptic. And if he was, he was a really crappy one.
Skeptics learn early on that anecdotes like this are a dime a dozen. They’re unprovable so they have to be taken entirely on faith (something we atheists tend to lack), they’re not repeatable and most importantly, there is no measurement of success. Let’s suppose that mom had won only $10,000 on her scratch off ticket. Would Sal remain unconvinced? What if she’d still won the million but it wasn’t for another 3 days. Would Sal remain loyal to the ranks of the non-believers?
Now don’t get me wrong. If the report is to be trusted, the odds of his mom getting $1 million the day after he mock-prayed for it are pretty damned remote. I don’t know exactly how remote it was, of course, since we have no idea how much money mom’s pissed into the New York lottery up to this point. The report says she’d purchased a “Lottery Tree”, not a ticket, so it’s not like Jesus was only getting one crack at this.
For those not familiar with the term, this is a lottery tree:
Not to be too speculative, but I’m guessing that a woman who was talking about the lottery with her son the night before (to the point that he was belittling her faith over it) and then purchased a testament to poor math skills like the one shown above probably plays more than her fair share of lottery. So what were the odds that she would have won a million dollars at some point? Remote to be sure, but she might have narrowed them down to 1 in 1200 if she flushed enough of her income away on the things over the years.
This is one of those stories Christians love to trot out. Man prays for million dollars, man gets million dollars, ergo, Jesus. It’s a win-win argument for them because for some reason the people who pray for a million dollars and don’t get it aren’t counted in the “god is bullshit” column of their ledger. Remember the hits, forget the misses and ignore the fact that while Jesus was busy acquiescing to the greedy prayer of an atheist he was also ignoring a devout mother who was begging for the health of her child.
It would be pretty easy to test the claim scientifically, of course. Sal could just pray that mom wins another million tomorrow. If she doesn’t, he knows the first million was a fluke and there is no god.
There is an alternative theory, though, and I don’t want to be too quick to dismiss old Sal. When mom wins a million bucks in her will-writing years, it might be best to believe whatever the hell she wants you to believe.
Sunday School
by Noah Lugeons
Starting a tradition today. I’ll do you the service of scouring YouTube each week and bring you the best that unapologetic atheism has to offer. This is a video that’s been around for quite some time but it still gives me a thrill. I was recently reminded of it and thought it would be a perfect first installment in our Sunday School video library.
The Scathing Atheist 
The Bots Cometh
by Noah Lugeons
WordPress has a pretty solid spam filter for comments. They pretty much catch all the mass commenting and tuck it away in a spam folder that I never have to look at if I don’t want to.
So the spammers had to get a little more clever. See, if I want, I can go into the spam folder and check out these comments to see if they are, indeed, spam. Knowing this, the bots are programmed to have these really generic messages that might fool somebody into saying “hey, what’s this doing in with the spam?”
Usually they’re extremely complimentary so they’re attacking the ego first. You’ll see a lot of comments like “You are a very talented writer. I am interested in your subject and have been looking for a quality blog like this for some time.” And of course, I’m supposed to be overcome with flattery and say, “well with an honest and accurate assessment like that, this must be a real human… and one with discriminating tastes in blog quality no less.”
Of course, some of the bots are more clever and toss in a generic piece of advice to make things a little more realistic so you’ll get something like “your blog is very good but it could be better.” This is what we call “second level trickery”. For those people too clever to be taken in by the effusive reviews. “Ah, this person couldn’t be a bot since it has clearly offered a specific criticism,” I’m supposed to respond, “surely I should approve the comment of this vaguely critical human being.”
But the best ones are the ones that have gotten a little love from Google-Translate. The only reason I’m checking the spam folder at all is in hopes of finding gems like this one:
(Keep in mind that this blog came into existence about a week ago):