Televangelist is all smiles as he takes ownership of a brand new 3 million dollar private plane.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:  

Controversial televangelist Kenneth Copeland was all smiles on the tarmac near his Fort Worth, Texas mega church as he took delivery of his new $3million Gulfstream V private jet. 

'This is a big deal, this is a big plane' he says in a video posted on his ministry's website, before grinning into the lens and asking viewers, 'do you see this? do you see this? I hope so, you bought it. You and Jesus.' 

Copeland, who is the head of the Kenneth Copeland Ministries and has his own TV show, bought the jet off Tyler Perry.

Kenneth Copeland isn't the first mega minister to ask his flock to pay for a private plane. 

In 2015, Reverend Creflo Dollar raised funds to buy a $70million G650. At first his request for $300 donation from each follower was met with outrage. Later the church decided that the plane was necessary for Creflo's ministry work. 

And in 2016, Copeland and fellow televangelist Jesse Duplantis defended their use of private planes on Copeland's TV show 'Believer's Voice of Victory'. 

On that show Copeland called flying commercial getting in 'a long tube with a bunch of demons'. 

"Hey, are you looking at this? Do you see this?  I hope so, you bought it. Ha ha ha."

Any rational person would see this asshole giddily making those remarks and think he was mocking his supporters for allowing him to waste their hard earned money on a private plane, but the people who send him money will just keep right on sending him money.

I sometimes get a little blowback for suggesting that faith in religion is what helps people like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump gain influence and power, but right here you have exhibit A.

Here is a guy, at least as full of shit as Donald Trump, and he has convinced low information TV viewers that he talks directly to God, and that God wants him to live a life of luxury on their dime.

You can safely bet any amount money that the people who bought him this plane, also pulled the lever for Donald Trump in 2016, and will eagerly vote for him again in 2020.

The Pope denounces climate change deniers. "I denounce thee, I denounce thee, I denounce thee."

Courtesy of CBS News: 

Pope Francis denounced those who deny global warming and urged negotiators at climate talks in Germany to avoid falling prey to such "perverse attitudes" and instead accelerate efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. 

Francis issued a message Thursday to the Bonn meeting, which is working to implement the 2015 Paris accord aimed at capping global emissions. 

In the message, Francis called climate change "one of the most worrisome phenomena that humanity is facing," and urged negotiators to ignore special interests and political or economic pressures and instead engage in an honest dialogue about the future of the planet. 

He denounced that such efforts are often frustrated by those who deny climate change, are indifferent to it, or think it can only be solved by technical solutions. 

Well good for the Pope!

I do not always agree with this Pope, but he is dead right to call these people out for clinging to a belief that is not backed up by the facts, and for which the opposite point of view is held by the smartest, most knowledgeable people on the planet.

Oh...wait.

P.S. Sorry, that may have seemed like a cheap shot, but let's face it faith that exists despite evidence to the contrary is the very foundation of both climate change deniers and religious folks.

They are kissing cousins at the very least, and at the very most one is a parasitic entity which could not exist without the other.

20 year old woman wants parents prosecuted for treating the hole in her heart at birth with faith instead of getting her the medical help that she needed.

Courtesy of The Friendly Atheist:  

Mariah Walton, a 20-year-old woman awaiting a heart and lung transplant, said she thinks her parents and other faith healers should face criminal charges for “treating” her with prayer instead of medicine.

It’s a tale as old as time: girl is born with a small hole in her heart, her parents refuse to get it fixed and instead ask God to oversee her well-being, girl is now permanently disabled due to years of being refused care. The twist, however, is that Walton — unlike many faith healing victims — lived on to call for her parents’ prosecution and to condemn the practice in general. 

“It would have been solved. If I had a surgery when I was one year old, I would have been just fine,” Walton said in an interview with KTVB News. She said she can’t run, misses a lot of school, and gets sick easily because of her weakened immune system.

Instead of getting her the simple medical procedure that she needed Mariah's parents subjected her to "alternative medicines" and faith healing which allowed her condition to worsen until it was life threatening. 

Oddly enough her parents did not "trust" modern medicine, but had no problem trusting that God existed and would heal their child if only they had enough faith.

Fortunate this young woman survived, and now those same parents can pray that they do not end up in jail for condemning their daughter to a lifetime of unnecessary suffering.

Neil deGrasse Tyson explains how the evidence fails to support the existence of God.

Courtesy of DeadState:  

“The more I look at the universe, the less convinced I am that there is something benevolent going on,” Tyson said. 

“I look at disasters that afflict Earth, and life on Earth: volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, disease, pestilence, congenital birth defects — you look at this list of ways that life is made miserable on Earth by natural causes, and I just ask, ‘How do you deal with that?'” 

Tyson said that if science and inquiry someday leads to evidence of a creator, then that’s “not a problem.” But that’s not where we’re at now. 

“There’s just no evidence of it.” 

“And this is why religions are called ‘faiths’ collectively,” he continued. “Because you believe something in the absence of evidence. That’s what it is. That’s why it’s called ‘faith.’ Otherwise we would call all religions ‘evidence,’ but we don’t for exactly that reason.”

It seems like I rarely get to touch on another of my favorite topics, which is religion and the existence of God these days.

This is STILL in my opinion an incredibly important topic, as religious faith continues to have a significant impact on our politics, foreign relations, and social interactions.

If I believe in anything, it is that what is very important to the survival of our species is that we stop looking for differences which allow us to hate and war against each other, and instead focus on what we have in common, which would then allow us to focus on solving the very real problems we face together.

It is my opinion that one of the main filters we use to find differences with each other in 2017 is still differing religious faiths, and that the very fact that it remains so indicates that we are allowing primitive superstitions to actively interfere in our ability to grow closer together as a community.

That is why I feel it is important to raise awareness about the lack of evidence to support any and all religious faiths, as well as how religion is used to separate and manipulate us into doing things that are ultimately not in our best interests.

I think this interview with NDT, helps to move us a little further in that direction.

For years congregants of the Word of Faith Fellowship suffered terrible physical abuse to "purify" them and rid them of demons.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:

From all over the world, they flocked to this tiny town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, lured by promises of inner peace and eternal life. What many found instead: years of terror — waged in the name of the Lord. 

Congregants of the Word of Faith Fellowship were regularly punched, smacked, choked, slammed to the floor or thrown through walls in a violent form of deliverance meant to "purify" sinners by beating out devils, 43 former members told The Associated Press in separate, exclusive interviews. 

Victims of the violence included pre-teens and toddlers — even crying babies, who were vigorously shaken, screamed at and sometimes smacked to banish demons. 

"I saw so many people beaten over the years. Little kids punched in the face, called Satanists," said Katherine Fetachu, 27, who spent nearly 17 years in the church. 

Word of Faith Fellowship, an evangelical church with hundreds of members in North Carolina and branches in other countries, also subjected members to a practice called "blasting" — an ear-piercing verbal onslaught often conducted in hours-long sessions meant to cast out devils. 

Apparently this constant assault was directed by the church's controlling leader, Jane Whaley, who appointed herself a kind of dictator, controlling every aspect of her congregant's lives. Including whether they could have children or not.

And oh yes there was of course sexual assault on some of the children as well.

Once again this is another reminder that even seemingly intelligent people can allow themselves to suffer incredible abuse and manipulation after surrendering their critical thinking skills and accepting everything on faith alone.

I think that the majority of us would have left this "church" the minute that somebody put their hands on us, or we witnessed them putting their hands on others.

And yet many of these people stayed for years of physical and mental abuse, why?

Faith, that's why. Good old fashioned, superstitious, barbaric, faith.

Yep, that's about right.

I always find it somewhat amazing that conservatives refuse to believe in science they cannot see with their own two eyes and yet seem to accept Christianity without a shred of doubt.

The difference between Trump supporters and Clinton supporters all in one graphic.

Courtesy of Inside Same Grain: 

Trump supporters are more likely to believe in most paranormal phenomena - angels, ghosts, alien visits, conspiracy theories, and Big Foot. Clinton supporters are only more likely to believe in psychics. The biggest difference between Trump and Clinton is with a belief in Big Foot; Trump supporters are 28% more likely to believe in the mythological ape-like creature. Clinton supporters' stronger belief in psychics is likely due to to the fact that women, from whom she enjoys strong support, are more likely to believe in psychics. Note also that Clinton supporters are nearly 40% more likely to have no paranormal beliefs. 

If you get right down to it this is really the thing.

The thing that separates the rational from the irrational.

The less intelligent superstitious are easily convinced to put critical thinking aside in favor of feelings, or intuition, or even faith. All of which are easily manipulated to lead them down the path toward making choices that are harmful to them personally or harmful to all of us as a nation.

These are people that Donald Trump, a rabid consumer of conspiracy theories, understands on a fundamental level. And in turn they also feel a connection to him.

This is why fact checking and in depth reporting has no impact on his support.

They BELIEVE they know him, and no facts to the contrary will shake their faith. 

Ken Ham has no idea what Atheists think.

The atheist religion -& that’s what is a RELIGION - is intolerant of Christianity as they worship nature & shake their fist at God

— Ken Ham (@aigkenham) March 19, 2016

For the zillionth time Atheism is NOT a religion.

We have no rituals, no holy books, and really no consensus on anything except for the fact that there is not enough evidence to convince us to accept the existence of any the gods worshiped by our fellow humans. 

As for shaking our fist at God, we do that exactly as often as we chase Leprechauns, shoo unicorns off of our lawns, and get into fistfights with Bigfoot.

You'd think he'd at least grade on a curve.

Source

A little perspective.

My mother spent the night at my house the other night, because she did not want to drive back to Palmer in the dark.

While here she brought up the topic of religion and we had a long talk about my atheism and her very basic brand of faith.

I played for her Professor Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Most Astounding Fact, and explained how understanding that the entire universe, and everything in it, shared the same DNA if you will was both humbling and exhilarating, and how I saw the fables of religion as interfering with our understanding and acceptance of that simply truth.

She seemed to understand but also said that her faith gave her comfort, and she was worried that I would strip her of it just to make an intellectual point.

I said that I had no intention of doing that, and that at her age there was no reason for her to abandon her faith, so long as she was on guard against those who would use it to manipulate her or take advantage of her.

In the end it seemed that she understood me a little bit better, and that I certainly have no intention of doing anything that takes something away which gives her comfort and a sense of peace.

As I come to the end of this post it suddenly dawns on me that what I have written has virtually nothing in common with what is printed on that image up above.

Oh well it's my blog, and if think a story about a conversation with my mother about religion, and a Carl Sagan quote about the insignificance of human conflict are connected in some way, well so be it.

Well you can't argue with "logic" like this. Or can you?

I remember studying Descartes in high school and being extremely excited about the simple statement that we can know nothing other than "I think, therefore I am."

However in the next chapter Descartes completely undermined the brilliance of his argument, by succumbing to his own weakness and need to believe.

Descartes seemed unable, or unwilling, to recognize that the concept of a perfect God was not born out of whole cloth, but rather an evolving perception that went through multiple stages before settling on what for him was an undeniable truth.

I think that was the first time that I was completely aware of how dangerous self deception could be even to those with a powerful intellect.

Producer suggests that rash of new TV shows featuring the devil, Antichrist or demonic possession is because people think we are entering the End Times.

Courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter:

So why is the devil suddenly so sexy again for the small screen? 

"The devil has always been very sexy," Mazzara told THR following his time in front of the press Wednesday at the Television Critics Association's winter press tour. "There's something in the air that people feel like these are the end times, in some way. There's an anxiety about what's happening all around the world and some of these shows — like Lucifer may take a comic approach — we're taking a hopefully more thoughtful, thematic approach to that material. There has been a lot of post-apocalyptic shows out there now and we're the show that's about the question: "Can you stop it?"

Glen Mazzara is a producer on an A&E show called "Damien" that explores the life of the Antichrist.

Similarly themed programs are also coming from Fox and Cinemax.

Of course stories featuring the devil or Antichrist are nothing new. From Schwarzenegger's "End of Days," Keanu Reeves in "Constatine,"  to Al Pacino's scenery shredding performance in "The Devils' Advocate," these movies have been around essentially since movies have been around.

However these days there really MIGHT be more Americans who believe that the biblical prophesies are about to come true, especially for those one in four Americans who think that President Obama IS the Antichrist.

Yeah, I wonder who we have to blame for that?

All I can say is that I hope I live long enough to see the country move away from these crippling superstitious beliefs into an enlightened age where ghost stories, movies about demonic possession, and music inspired by Satanism are seen as purely entertainment and not some harbinger of terrifying things to come.

Justice Antonin Scalia believes that the government should favor the religious over the non-religious.

Courtesy of NOLA: 

Government support for religion is not only justified by the Constitution, it was the norm for hundreds of years and it helped the United States become a free and prosperous nation, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Saturday in Metairie. 

Speaking before a small crowd at Archbishop Rummel High School, Scalia delivered a short but provocative speech on religious freedom that saw the conservative Catholic take aim at those who confuse freedom of religion for freedom from it. 

The Constitution's First Amendment protects the free practice of religion and forbids the government from playing favorites among the various sects, Scalia said, but that doesn't mean the government can't favor religion over nonreligion.

 Scalia goes on to suggest that when Thomas Jefferson first invoked the idea of the "wall of separation between church and state," that he did not intend for it to be taken literally since he also mentioned God in the Declaration of Independence, and penned Virginia's religious freedom law.

However it is within that Virginia religious freedom law that Jefferson wrote the following:

That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.

That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right.

You know to me that sounds very much like a man who absolutely does not want special privilege provided to those who profess a faith in any god or adherence to any particular religion.

And that is even before taking into account the Jefferson Bible, where he methodically removed all mentions of miracles and left only the words ascribed to Jesus that he felt reflected his moral teachings.

No Scalia is wrong, dead wrong.

But even if he is right about the "common practice" of Christianity during the time when the country was formed, that time is long past and if we as a nation to not progress past the superstitions and ignorance of our forefathers we will find ourselves left in the dust by the rest of the world.

In fact in many ways, we already have.

Creationist Ken Hovind believes that the contradictions in the Bible were put there by God to "weed out those who are really serious." Uh huh.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

In a YouTube video posted on Monday, the Christian fundamentalist responds to a follower who is troubled by a contradiction in the book of Acts. 

“If I was God,” Hovind explains, “I would write the book in such a way that those who don’t want to believe in me anyway would think they found something. ‘Aha, here’s why I don’t believe.'” 

“And then they could go on with their own life because they don’t want to believe God anyways,” he continues. “I would put things in there that would appear without digging to be contradictions. I don’t think that’s deceptive, I think that’s wise for the Heavenly Father to weed out those who are really serious.” 

Hovind says that he made a choice to “believe the Bible until it’s proven wrong.”

Believing in something until it is proven wrong is of course the exact opposite of the scientific method and a waste of critical thinking skills. 

The actual correct answer here is that the Bible is an incredibly poorly written anthology of religious stories that were compiled by a committee, and the book has been repeatedly translated and revised over the years by even more committees of "religious scholars."

Committees make mistakes, of course men make mistakes, and therefore the book is riddled with mistakes, contradictions, and nonsense.

Only a self delusional, intellectually dishonest, cretin would force themselves to believe in something contradicted by such vast amounts of evidence.

Texas woman believes she prayed a tornado away. I wonder what happens if I pray for Texas to go away?

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

A Texas woman says her Christian faith gave her the power to redirect a tornado away from her home. 

Sabrina Lowe, of Rowlett, said 10 family members were visiting her apartment Saturday when they heard the distinctive train noise of the approaching tornado, reported NPR. 

“We actually went outside and started commanding the winds, because God had given us authority over the winds, the airways,” Lowe said. “And we just began to command this storm not to hit our area. We spoke to the storm and said, ‘Go to unpopulated places.’ It did exactly what we said to do, because God gave us the authority to do that.”

Yes weather patterns are controlled by prayer and faith, said every primitive culture since the beginning of time.

It should be pointed out however that though the tornado did NOT hit the apartment that housed Ms. Lowe and her family, tornadoes from that extreme weather system DID kill eleven people and damaged up to 1,000 buildings.

So I guess if somebody wanted to take Ms. Rowe at her word the accusation could be made that she diverted a tornado from her location and sent it along with others to kill eleven people.

Hardly a Christian thing to do in my book.

In America young people are helping Evolution finally overcome Creationism as the accepted explanation for life on this planet.

Courtesy of Slate:  

Few issues have divided the American public as bitterly as Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Since On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, it has driven a wedge between those who accept that humans and this planet’s other inhabitants have evolved over time, and those who believe that our species was created in its current form with no alterations. While the majority of people in Europe and in many other parts of the world accept evolution, the United States lags behind. Today, 4 in 10 adults in America believe that humans have existed in our present form since the beginning of time, and in many religious groups, that number is even higher. This is woeful. 

Now, at long last, there seems to be hope: National polls show that creationism is beginning to falter, and Americans are finally starting to move in favor of evolution. After decades of legal battles, resistance to science education, and a deeply rooted cultural divide, evolution may be poised to win out once and for all. 

The people responsible for this shift are the young. According to a recent Pew Research Center report, 73 percent of American adults younger than 30 expressed some sort of belief in evolution, a jump from 61 percent in 2009, the first year in which the question was asked. The number who believed in purely secular evolution (that is, not directed by any divine power) jumped from 40 percent to a majority of 51 percent. In other words, if you ask a younger American how humans arose, you’re likely to get an answer that has nothing to do with God.

First off I would like to correct the author of this piece that people do not have a "belief" in Evolution, but rather they come to accept the facts of Evolution.  

Belief is only required for things without a factual basis.

However it is great news that our young people are throwing off the fears and superstitions of their parents and grandparents and embracing the reality of the world as it is, rather than as ancient mythologies would represent it.

Just one more reason to be hopeful for our future, and those who will someday assume the mantle of power.

Pastafarians of the world unite! Another small step for the non-theists.

Courtesy of the Immortal News: 

Just over the border from New Hampshire in the Massachusetts city of Lowell, a woman identifying herself as a follower of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), otherwise known as Pastafarianism, has been approved by the state’s Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) to wear a spaghetti strainer on top of her head in her state issued driver’s ID. 

The approval to wear the helmet was initially denied. However, citing religious grounds, Lowell resident Lindsay Miller filed an appeal. Following intervention by the American Humanist Association’s Appignani Humanist Legal Center, the RMV reversed their decision and allowed her to put on her colander and get her driver’s license picture taken. 

Silly? Absolutely.

But is it really any more silly than than wearing a Burqa, or a Jewish yarmulka, or even a cross around your neck?

I think not.

And I for one am glad that this clearly very dedicated congregant of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster did not have her constitutionally protected religious rights trampled on by the non-believers. 

New study finds that not only are the non-religious numbers growing, but they are becoming even MORE secular over time.

Courtesy Pew Research Center:  

Religious “nones” are not only growing as a share of the U.S. population, but they are becoming more secular over time by a variety of measures, a fact that also is helping to make the U.S. public overall somewhat less religious, according to surveys done as part of our Religious Landscape Study.

The “nones,” a category that includes people who self-identify as atheists or agnostics, as well as those who say their religion is “nothing in particular,” now make up 23% of U.S. adults, up from 16% in 2007. But there is more to the story. To begin with, this group is not uniformly nonreligious. Most of them say they believe in God, and about a third say religion is at least somewhat important in their lives. 

At the same time, between the Pew Research Center’s two Religious Landscape Studies – conducted in 2007 and 2014 – we also see consistent evidence that the “nones” are becoming less religious. For example, the share of religious “nones” who say they believe in God, while still a majority, has fallen from 70% to 61% over that seven-year period. Only 27% of “nones” are absolutely certain about God’s existence, down from 36% in 2007. And fully a third of religiously unaffiliated Americans (33%) now say they do not believe in God, up 11 percentage points over that time.

To all my religious friends questioning their faith out there let me just say, "Come join us, we open and eager to welcome you to the family."

Life without religion is a wondrous and exhilarating existence.

It's like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute but still knowing that the trip to the end will be worth the moments of uncertainty and possibly terror.

You might be surprised to learn I have no problem with this.

Church pamphlet

Despite what you may have heard Bibles are totally welcome in school so long as the students are not reading them during instruction time or instead of their textbooks.

In fact public school is a great place for young people to share their points of view about the world, current events, and religion with their peers.

However I would also encourage Muslims to bring their Koran, Hindus to bring the Vidas, and Atheists to bring "The God Delusion."

I think that would start a very interesting, and potentially lengthy discussion, that could last the entire school year.

Study finds that belief is easier on the brain, and therefore favored by many in the population, than disbelief which requires the brain to work harder.

Courtesy of The Daily Beast:

While in an fMRI scanner, participants were asked whether or not they believed in a number of statements. Sentences ranged from the very simple and fact-based (California is larger than Rhode Island), to the abstract and highly subjective (God probably does not exist). The data revealed activation of distinct but sometimes overlapping brain areas during belief versus disbelief conditions. 

Additionally, the scans clearly showed something that was more straightforward. Brain activation, overall, was much greater and persisted longer during states of disbelief. This is important because neuroscience has long shown that greater brain activity requires more mental resources, of which there is a limited supply. A cognitive process that demands little mental resources, such as believing, is less work for the brain and therefore favored. This concept was summed up nicely in a 2015 NewScientist cover story on the science of beliefs, which stated, “Harris’ results were widely interpreted as further confirmation that the default state of the human brain is to accept. Belief comes easily; doubt takes effort.”

Well that makes sense.

I favor cognitive thinking and skepticism because I have an active intellect, while those who simply accept things on faith are intellectually lazy.

Makes pretty good sense actually.