In USA Today’s Faith and Reason (faith yes, reason hardly) column, journalist Cathy Lynn Grossman pokes fun at the Atheist Alliance International National Convention – and atheism and freethought in general. In addition to her own failed attempt at reason, Grossman quotes from Rice University’s Anthony Pinn who makes several false claims and ridiculous statements. Using someone like Pinn as a source illustrates Grossman’s ignorance of a subject she claims to be qualified to comment on.

Grossman compares Oxford Evolutionary Biologist Professor Richard Dawkins to singer Mick Jager and award winning Journalist Christopher Hitchens to guitar player Keith Richards both from the English rock band the Rolling Stones. Her point is to show that scientists, intellectuals, etc are no more than performers. Besides her silly and immature analogy, she misses her mark completely. Perhaps if Grossman would have not made fun of the convention and its participants and tried to form some intelligent criticisms, I might not be so disgusted with her unfounded attacks.

As Grossman points out, Pinn calls himself a humanist. But there are religious humanists and Secular Humanists – the latter calling for holding religion accountable for all of the superstition and dogma that they proliferate as part of their existence. Pimm supports religious dogma and states,

“… Theism, at its core, is about the making of meaning and the establishment of stories and practices related to how and why we occupy time and space.”

–Anthony Pinn

In the above statement, the word “making” should be replaced with “making up.” Theism invents fictions and has absolutely no claim on reality. Grossman also paraphrases Pinn as saying “…religion is never going away.” Oh yes it is. All recent religious surveys confirm that it is declining everywhere and the ranks of non-believers are growing in staggering proportions.

The biggest joke is the closing question that Grossman asks,

“Pinn would like to see atheists, humanists and believers, retaining their distinctions, focus on shared ethical commitments. What are the chances?”

None.

Atheism is not just the absence of god, but the intolerance for harmful and hurtful superstitions and dogmas which cripple societies. Secular Humanism is about removing the harmful and hurtful influences of religion and replacing them with universally recognized humane and ethical worldviews. How can any religious person even understand moral commitments when most religions label actions like murder, rape, incest and just about every immoral act conceivable as acceptable? The horrific god of the Old Testament is brilliant at devising ways to torture people for his own perverted amusement. His devotees have always followed that example with like actions. Where there is a malicious god and subservient followers, there can not be any moral behavior. Until theists can stop burning children alive (see earlier post), stop hijacking airplanes and bombing subway stations, stop lying to people about made up mythical afterlives, and start treating all people with the respect and kindness they deserve, there will be no “shared ethical” endeavors.

Grossman needs to remove the word “Reason” from the title of her column. She obviously does not understand the meaning of it.

Amazon.com screwed up! They have mixed the reviews from the bastardised Ray Comfort 150 Anniversary Edition of Origin of Species (see earlier post) with the actual 150th Anniversary Edition of Origin of Species. So, when people leave negative reviews for the Ray Comfort version, it also shows up on the “real” version as well. When you leave positive reviews for the actual Origin of  Species it shows up on the Ray Comfort version too. I started a discussion yesterday on each book explaining this on the Amazon.com website and sent an email to them.

Amazon.com did try to fix this last night, but it is messed up again today. What is worse, is the that when you do a search Origin of Species, the Ray Comfort version comes up first. The actual 150 Anniversary Edition does not even come up at all!

I need everyone to send an email to Amazon.com customer service and complain.  Do NOT leave a review – either positive or negative because it will go to both books. The more reviews that are left, the worse the problem gets. You see, both books have the exact same title and the same author (Darwin). You would think that Amazon.com would sort the books by their ISBN numbers rather than the titles, but apparently they are not that smart.

If you feel you must leave a review, make sure you clarify which book you are leaving it for.

The Ray Comfort “fake” Origin of Species is ISBN-13: 978-0882709192

The “real” Origin of Species is ISBN-13: 978-0451529060

Perhaps Comfort and Cameron planned this all along. Their own website goes to great lengths explaining how it is their plan to get their version of Origin of Species into as many schools as possible. Tricking people is the only way these slime-balls could ever get anyone to buy their drivel.

This needs to be fixed now. If Amazon.com gets overwhelmed with complaints perhaps they will try in earnest to fix it.

Below is a link to Amazon’s customer service page.

Amazon.com Customer Service

Murdering and torturing innocent children is nothing new to Christianity. Pope Innocent the IV encouraged it over 700 years ago. Thomas Aquinas later justified it by claiming that evil (heresy) must be destroyed in the name of Christ and condoned all of the murders during the Medieval Inquisition. Today that message is apparently being resurrected in Africa.

In cowardly acts that would do Christian mass-murders like Thomas Aquinas proud, pastors in Nigeria have murdered some one thousand children and tortured many more for allegedly being witches.

Evangelical Christianity is on the rise in Africa in general. And many evangelical pastors are preaching that children are witches and must be exorcised or brutally murdered. At least 15,000 children have been targeted in Nigeria alone.

Fortunately the United Nations Children’s Fund and others are making these facts known. Murdering innocent children is wrong period. But, murdering them for Christianity is just more proof of the horrors of religion. Let’s see, defame the profit (Mohammad) and Islam demands your head. Allow yourself to be called a witch and Christianity will burn you alive. Islam is a peaceful religion; aspire to be a good Christian. Somehow it just doesn’t sound right, does it?

Click the link below to read a Los Angels Times report on the subject.

Churches involved in torture, murder of thousands of African children denounced as witches