According to one of the Duggars favorite pastors "sex belongs to Christians."

So this guy, John Piper, wrote this bit of brilliance on something called Charisma News: 

We might be tempted to think that, since sex is so sinfully misused and is so universally undermining to the all-satisfying beauty of Christ's holiness, maybe we Christians should have nothing to do with it. 

Paul says the opposite. It is the world that has stolen what belongs to believers. Sex belongs to Christians. Because sex belongs to God. "God created it to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth." If it is used by those who do not believe and know the truth, it is prostituted. They have exchanged the glory of God for images. They have torn sex from its God-appointed place in the orbit of marriage. But they do not know what they are doing. And the price they will pay in this life and the next is incalculable. 

The pleasures of sex are meant for believers. They are designed for their greatest expression by the children of God.

So this might come as some surprise to all of the Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Pagans, Heathens, Atheists, animals, fish, birds, etc. in the world who apparently have been having unsanctioned by God sex for thousands of years now.

You know it's bad enough that the Christians are trying to take over politics, education, and the definition of morality in this country, but when they start trying to claim dibs on sex, then we are going to have a serious problem.

And if you think that first part was weird get a load of Pastor Piper's definition of sex:

And the pleasures of sex are themselves an overflow of God's own goodness. This pleasure is less than what we will know fully in Him at His right hand. And in it, we taste something of His very exquisiteness.

Yeah you know I have had me a whole lot of sex in my life, much of it probably illegal in some states, but at no time did I ever consider tasting God's "exquisiteness."

And I feel dirty just typing that. Plus I'm not really sure what that is.

Pastor Picked a Peck of Pickled Pipers just so you know is also one of the Duggars favorite Christian bullshit artists. In fact future reality star Jessa Duggar Seewald recently quoted him on her Facebook page.

So I would assume that Piper also provided hot piping preaching to Josh Duggar at one time or another. Which leaves me wondering if incest, child molestation, and paying porn stars for rough sex is also just for Christians.

Because if so, I'm kind of alright with that.

Recent Gallup polling shows that Americans are moving left on a whole slew of issues.

Courtesy of Gallup: 

Americans are more likely now than in the early 2000s to find a variety of behaviors morally acceptable, including gay and lesbian relations, having a baby outside of marriage and sex between an unmarried man and woman. Moral acceptability of many of these issues is now at a record-high level. 

The upward progression in the percentage of Americans seeing these issues as morally acceptable has varied from year to year, but the overall trend clearly points toward a higher level of acceptance of a number of behaviors. In fact, the moral acceptability ratings for 10 of the issues measured since the early 2000s are at record highs.

Of course as you can see from the graphic Americans are not becoming more accepting of EVERYTHING.

Americans have become less likely to say that two issues are morally acceptable: the death penalty and medical testing on animals. But Americans' decreased acceptance of these practices actually moves them in a more liberal direction.

This change may have much to do with the fact that fewer and fewer Americans self identify as religious and are no longer accepting the definitions of morality forced upon them by their local church, temple, or synagogue.

And in another recent study researchers found that one of the main driving forces behind this new morality, the millenials, are not simply embracing the left due to their age:

"Unlike previous studies, ours is able to show that millennials' lower religious involvement is due to cultural change, not to millennials being young and unsettled."

In other words Americans are becoming freethinkers, and with that comes a less judgmental attitude towards others, a more personal sense of morality, and far less shaming for what happens between two consenting adults in the bedroom.

Damn, it is a good time to be alive!

Bill Maher trashes the story of Noah's Ark on Real Time last night.

In reference to the Christian backlash against the upcoming movie "Noah":

"But get this, what the Christians who are now protesting this movie are upset about, is that it doesn't take the Biblical story literally enough. They're mad because this made up story does not stay true to their made up story."

It seems to me that I said much the same thing just last week.

Oprah Winfrey refuses to accept that long distance swimmer Diana Nyad is an Atheist because she experiences "awe." WTF?

Courtesy of Raw Story:

In a conversation with Nyad on the Oprah Winfrey Network’s Super Soul Sunday, Winfrey seemed baffled that the 64-year-old swimmer could be an atheist and “a person who is deeply in awe.” 

“I can stand at the beach’s edge with the most devout Christian, Jew, Buddhist, go on down the line, and weep with the beauty of this universe and be moved by all of humanity — all the billions of people who have lived before us, who have loved and hurt,” Nyad, who recently completed a swim from Cuba to Florida explained. “So to me, my definition of God is humanity and is the love of humanity.” 

“Well, I don’t call you an atheist then,” Winfrey replied. “I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery that that is what God is. That is what God is. It’s not a bearded guy in the sky.” 

“It’s not bearded but I guess there is inference with God that there is presence, there is a — either a creator or an overseer,” Nyad pointed out. “I don’t criticize anybody. Because you know what? The definition of life is, we will never know.” 

She added that she saw no contradiction in being an atheist and being a spiritual person. 

“I think you can be an atheist who doesn’t believe in an overarching being who created all of this and sees over it,” Nyad said. “But there’s spirituality because we human beings, and we animals, and maybe even we plants, but certainly the ocean and the moon and the stars, we all live with something that is cherished and we feel the treasure of it.” 

Winfrey agreed: “Well, I believe that and feel that so deeply. It’s why every time I enter my yard or leave, I say, ‘Hello trees!’”

This may seem a minor thing but it REALLY irritates me.

And the reason why is because it is an example of this constant subliminal prejudice that people of faith have for those of us who are unwilling to suspend out disbelief long enough to accept the existence of ANY deity.

Now I consider Oprah Winfrey to be a relatively reasonable and intelligent woman, however there is not doubt that she sees the world from a very narrow perspective, and is unable to recognize that somebody who does not believe in God can feel awe, or amazement, or joy.

The reason I named this blog "The Immoral Minority" is because THAT was the label given to me by the Religious Right, and then I set out to prove that not only was that assumption incorrect, but also that many of those Fundamentalists who lay claim to a superior morality are anything but moral.

I think I have had some great success in that endeavor.

However the other important thing I wish to convey is that those of us who are non-deists are just as moral, or immoral, as those who hide behind the veil of Christianity.

I want to establish that a religious label is no indicator of the type of person who wears it. And further I want to point out that those who constantly tout their religiosity should be the FIRST to fall under suspicion.

"For no man is less moral than he who wears it like a badge upon his chest and consistently draws it to the attention of all who cross his path."

 Let me state for the record that I was overcome with awe the day my daughter first entered this world, that I have often been caught watching clouds lazy drift across a pale blue sky, and that there have been sunsets and sunrises that literally took my breath away.

I have lived, and loved, and sacrificed for others, just like all of those humans, both religious and nonreligious, who came before me. And I have done all of that as a proud, ethical, and deeply moral Atheist.

Blogger files Freedom of Information Act request to finally determine how many Atheists are in the prison system. Answer will blow your mind.

Courtesy of The Friendly Atheist: 

Earlier this month, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Federal Bureau of Prisons asking them about the religious makeup of prisoners. Over the weekend, to my surprise, I received a response. 

Not only did they have the information, they gave me a faith-by-faith breakdown. 

So… what do we learn from that information? 

Of the prisoners willing to give their religious affiliations (and that’s an important caveat), atheists make up 0.07% of the prison population. 

Not 1%. 

Not even the 0.2% we’ve been using for so long. 

Atheists constitute an even smaller percentage of the prison population than we ever imagined. (That includes prisoners whose affiliations were unknown. If I used Golumbaski’s method, the number would be 0.09%.) 

In addition to that, Protestants make up 28.7% of the prison population; Catholics, 24%; Muslims, 5.5%; American Indians, 3.1%. 

Okay now of course we all know that there is such a thing as prison conversion, so some of the people identified as one religion or another  may have come in unaffiliated or without muhc religious instruction to speak of.

However I will go on record as saying that I don't believe that too many of those converted started out as Atheists, for the simple fact that being an Atheist usually requires a great deal of research and self evaluation.

It is not something that a person would casually identify themselves as, esepcially in America.

So while I am not willing to say that it never happens that an Atheist is converted to religion in prison, I am fairly confident that it is not the most common of conversions to occur.

Having said that I would simply add that with the number of Atheists being so incredibly low it would seem to indicate that either there are fewer Atheists breaking the law than those who claim to be religious, regardless of which religion, or that there are just as many Atheists breaking the law, but they are too intelligent to get caught.

I tend to think that it is the first.

And remember these are people who do the right thing, NOT for fear of punishment of eternal damnation, but because doing the right thing, is the right thing to do.

Immoral minority my ass!