Friday Funnies: Darwin according to South Park

Just a bit of fun for today... And you thought Darwin was hard to understand! A creationist makes it easy...

The Liar's Club: Vaccines, Creationism and Global Warming

I hate liars. Why can't people have an honest debate about the things that are important?

Here is a liar on my list: Anti-vaccine crusader Dr. Andrew Wakefield. Doc Andy believed autism was caused by childhood vaccines, but the evidence was against him. Instead of giving up his beloved theory, he lied – he did bad experiments that biased the results in favor of his beliefs. Tragically, his lies fooled millions of parents, they refused to get their children vaccinated, and dozens, maybe hundreds of children are dead. Thanks, doc, good work.

There's nothing wrong with making a mistake, but the reason Dr. Wakefield is on my list is because he knew he was doing bad science. He deliberately misled the world, and caused true misery and death, all because of his ego.

Here's another liar on my list: Kent Hovind, the famous creationist.

Icelandic Volcano: It's the Gays Fault!

I'm sorry to say I have it on good authority that the Icelandic volcano's eruption was caused by gays. OK, it wasn't all their fault, the neopaganists share the blame. According to the Association of Orthodox Experts in Moscow,

Is it possible that Europe further abandoning its Christian heritage does not to see that eruption of the Iceland volcano with its ash cloud that paralyzed life of the "most progressive" society is a menacing sign of God? ... [Iceland] has recently become a center of European neo-paganism ... European deputies propose that all states of the Council of Europe should introduce a subject on peculiarities of homosexual behavior in the school curriculum."

Gosh, why can't all the gays and pagans just straighten out and become good, heterosexual Christians? Katrina, the Haitian earthquake, the Icelandic volcano ... why, I wouldn't be surprised if the BP oil spill was somehow their fault too!

Craig James, the famous atheist juggler!

I just have a moment today, so here's something to amuse all of my faithful subscribers! And you thought I was just an author. I'm a multi-talented guy!

Pope: Abortion, Gay Marriage are "Most Insidious" Problems Facing the World

What worries the Pope the most?

Could it be the AIDS crisis in Africa, for which he is partly to blame, that will kill tens of millions of people? Nah, that doesn't bother the Pope much.

Maybe he's worried about global warming, which threatens hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people with starvation, flooding and disease? No, that's not it either.

What about the fact that North Korea and Iran are developing nuclear weapons, and so many other countries like Israel, Pakistan and India already have them? No, wrong again.

Or maybe the Pope is concerned about terrorism? Does the Pope worry that terrorists could kill thousands, and maybe trigger another war like Iraq in which another 150,000 innocent civilians will be killed? No, that doesn't seem to worry the Pope.

Then it must be the pedophilia crisis, where the Pope's own priests and bishops molested tens of thousands of little kids? Surely that's top on the Popes list of horrible things. Right? Wrong!

The biggest crisis in the world is homosexual marriage and abortion! Got that?? According to Pope Benedict XVI, gay marriage and abortion are among the most "insidious and dangerous" threats in the world today.

The Pope worries that terminating a pregnancy when the fetus has no brain, not even any nerve cells, is a crime equivalent to terrorism. Can he truly believe that a young, desperate unmarried woman who has made a terrible mistake and seeks an abortion to prevent an even greater tragedy is a "more insidious" danger to the world than Osama bin Laden?

If two men or two women love each other and want to make a life together as a committed couple, the Pope says that their love is a threat to society.

Justice Kennedy Disgraced by Simple Soldier: Mojave Desert Cross Story Continues

It's a disgrace. A simple veteran, living somewhere out in California's desert, has put Supreme Court Justice Kennedy's legal reasoning to shame. Kennedy and the other justices who sided with him can use all the convoluted legal contortions they like to justify keeping a Christian cross on public land, but a veteran's simple, honest and heartfelt words have made mincemeat of Kennedy's legal reasoning.

The Desert News received a letter from a guy I'll call "Joe Veteran." Read for yourself.

5. The cross was erected illegally on public land in 1998 by a private individual named Henry Sandoz. Since then the government has actively worked to promote the continued existence of the cross, even as it excluded other monuments from differing religions. This favoritism and exclusion clearly violates the establishment clause of the US Constitution.

6. Anthony Kennedy desecrated and marginalized the memory and sacrifice of all those non-Christians that died in WWI when he wrote: 'Here one Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles — battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten.' The irony and tragedy of that statement is unique.

7. Justice Kennedy’s words in particular and others like them from the other Justices caused me to act.

8. At the time of its removal there was nothing to identify the cross as a memorial of any kind, and the simple fact of the matter is that the only thing it represented was an oddly placed tribute to Christ. This cross evoked nothing of the sort that Justice Kennedy writes of, it was in the end simply a cross in the desert.

9. Discrimination in any form is intolerable, as is hatred.

10. Discrimination or hatred based upon religion should be despised by all Americans, and offering that this event was caused by hatred or malice is simply ignorance of the actual intent.

11. Despite what many people are saying, this act was definitively not anti-Christian. It was instead anti-discrimination. If this act was anti-Christian, the cross would not have been cared for so reverently. An anti-Christian response would have been to simply destroy the cross and leave the pieces in the desert.

12. We as a nation need to change the dialogue and stop pretending that this is about a war memorial. If it is a memorial, then we need to stop arguing about the cross and instead place a proper memorial on that site, one that respects Christians and non-Christians alike, and one that is actually recognizable as a war memorial.

Could anything be more clearly reasoned?

Fantastic Organization: Secular Coalition for America

Last night I had the great pleasure of meeting Sean Faircloth, president of the Secular Coalition for America.

It's easy to be apathetic about religion and secularism. Most of us secularists and agnostics have pretty good lives. Religion can be annoying but it rarely causes us real harm. So why worry? Why be activists?

Because it matters. Sean gave an electrifying talk about some of the awful things that are being done in the name of religion.

• A number of children have been killed by incompetent day-care workers because church-run day-care centers are exempt from state inspections and regulations.
• Numerous children have died horrible, agonizing deaths from simple, curable diseases, because of their parents' religious beliefs.
• Our soldiers face terrible discrimination and hostility from fellow soldiers if they happen to be atheist, agnostic, Jewish or Islamic
• Science in our schools is being gutted and diluted with creationism which, if allowed to continue, will turn America into a technological backwater in the next twenty years.

The list goes on and on, story after story of how the religious right is trampling on the rights of secularists, Jews, Muslims, agnostics, and even liberal Christians and damaging our society's future.

The Secular Coalition of America is out there fighting for us. And not just for secularists, but for the religious freedom of all Americans.

But they need your vote. As Sean put it, when a lobbyist comes into a congressman's office, the congressman looks for two things: A bag of money on one shoulder, and a bag of votes on the other shoulder. If you're inclined to donate money, great! But if nothing else, add your vote to that "bag of votes" on the shoulders of the Secular Coalition of America by joining their mailing list today. Here's how:

Sign up for Action Alerts by email from the Atheist Coalition of America

Do it today! Make a difference!