But he sure does have a hankerin’ for a hunk of strawman argumentation.

His characterizations of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris - the most vocal among the New Atheists - read as if he got his ideas about them from a James Dobson faith retreat where he drank deep of Kool-Aid.

And that’s just in the prologue to his book I Don’t Believe in Atheists.

Could the rest of the book be any better? I have my doubts, but perhaps I will press on with it.

Fools and their money:

FLORENCE, Italy, April 3 (UPI) — Prosecutors in Florence, Italy, accuse a Roman Catholic priest in the city of committing fraud by collecting $6 million through staging phony exorcisms.

The Rev. Francesco Saverio Bazzoffi is alleged to have used an organization he founded, the House of the Sainted Archangels, to collect donations from spectators at public exorcisms he performed at his organization’s headquarters, The Telegraph, a British newspaper, reported.

If I weren’t as kind and caring as I happen to be (see post below), I might fully support taking money from the willingly stupid.

Alas, I’m far too nice. Like pie. A big slice of nice pie. In the hands of a giant monkey.

At long last!

Update: Well, it seems like Florida’s WFTV has pulled the article from their website.

The original article dealt with someone in Orange County putting up a billboard that said “All Religions Are Fairy Tales,” complete with pretty princess fairy floating alongside. Naturally, this did not sit well with those who actually spend their lives believing in fairy tales.

I wonder if they badgered the station into dropping the article and photo from their site… seems a likely explanation. Truth hurts and all, you know.

Update 2: And - as if by the magical hand of God! - the article has returned to the site (thanks for letting me know, commenter!).

Perhaps Ban Ki-Moon is just scared “someone” will level another UN compound.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today strongly condemned the Internet broadcast of a video made by the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, describing it as “offensively anti-Islamic,” while he also called on those upset by the film to remain calm.

Hello, Mr. Secretary-General, these are people who get upset about cartoons. They are as likely to remain calm as they are to be rational.

In a statement issued by his spokesperson after last night’s airing of the film, entitled Fitna, Mr. Ban said “there is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence. The right of free expression is not at stake here.”

This is only an incitement to violence among a set of people who are already irrational and violent. I can’t comment on the “hate speech” aspect of it, as I have yet to view the video (but I will try this weekend).

I’ll take this speech seriously when Ban Ki-Moon takes the world stage to protest Ben Stein’s cinematic idiocy, in which atheists / evolutionists are regularly juxtaposed with Nazi imagery. I’ll still think the UN should find better things to do though. As ill-informed and dishonest as the hacks behind “Expelled” happen to be, I have no desire to blow them up, cut off their heads, or ask for a fatwa.

Freedom of speech is exactly what is at stake here. No one is frightened of the words and images that Mr. Wilders is putting forth; they are frightened that a crazy, killin’ subset of Islam will go ape-shit about it and take out some civilians to show Allah how much they love him.

Is the Secretary General dishonest or stupid?

“I acknowledge the efforts of the Dutch Government to stop the broadcast of this film and appeal for calm to those understandably offended by it. Freedom must always be accompanied by social responsibility.”

I agree completely.

When someone says something with which you disagree, something that even offends your sensibilities, you have a social responsibility to not kill them for it.

Man, that’s hard to get your head around, isn’t it?

Also, this is not the same as yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. Hurrying to escape from a burning building is a rational action, so it is understandable that people might get injured. Blowing yourself or others up because they drew a picture of or talked smack about your Prophet is, to put it mildly, absolutely insane.

It’s bad enough that so many people in the world embrace religious myths; it’s worse that they will happily kill because of them.

Why couldn’t he just skip town instead?

Autopsies show that five members of an Iowa City family found dead in their home were beaten to death…

Police believe former bank executive Steven Sueppel killed his wife and children sometime Sunday night or Monday. He had been charged with embezzlement, and his body was found in the wreckage of a car crash Monday morning…

Sueppel left a long note in the family’s kitchen addressed to no one in particular. He also left voice mail messages at the family’s home, at the bank where he once worked and at the law office of his father and brother.

One of the messages indicated Sueppel believed his family was in heaven, Steffen said.

See, he was doing them a favor, sending them to a better place, rather than having to live in shame because of his crimes. He took the burden of his sins fully upon himself, sacrificing his soul for all eternity in the hope that his loved ones would be in Heaven as a result.

What’s so wrong with that, oh ye of little faith?

I’m positively shocked about the outcome of this:

WESTON, Wis. (AP) — Police are investigating an 11-year-old girl’s death from an undiagnosed, treatable form of diabetes after her parents chose to pray for her rather than take her to a doctor.

An autopsy showed Madeline Neumann died Sunday from diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that left too little insulin in her body, Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said.

She had probably been ill for about a month, suffering symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness, the chief said Wednesday, noting that he expects to complete the investigation by Friday and forward the results to the district attorney.

The girl’s mother, Leilani Neumann, said the family believes in the Bible and that healing comes from God, but she said they do not belong to an organized religion or faith, are not fanatics and have nothing against doctors.

Dear Mrs. Neumann, when you put the Bible and faith healing ahead of modern medicine, I have news for you: you’re a fanatic. Not to mention really, really stupid. And dumb.

Really dumb.

So dumb it actually hurts (or, in this case, kills).

Evidence that medicine and doctors work? Volumes upon volumes written on the subject. Medical records documenting people getting better. Properly designed experiments, peer-reviewed and published.

Evidence that prayer works? One dusty old tome written two-thousand years ago that can’t even keep straight a simple story like nailing a guy to a cross, combined with a lot of anecdotal stories lacking proof and crooked televangelists lacking morals.

But, wait! It gets worse!

“We are remaining strong for our children,” Leilani Neumann said. “Only our faith in God is giving us strength at this time.”

Yes, because that whole “faith” angle sure turned out great last time, didn’t it?

Have I mentioned how absolutely, unbelievably, and painfully dumb you are?

Leilani Neumann said she and her husband are not worried about the investigation because “our lives are in God’s hands. We know we did not do anything criminal. We know we did the best for our daughter we knew how to do.”

May you have many decades of prayer behind bars for completely failing your children, failing as a parent, and failing as a human being.

If their daughter was drowning, would they have stood at the water’s edge praying she learned how to do a little Jesus act?

I’m not sure I want to know the answer, although I doubt my opinion of these nitwits could go any lower. They should have their other children removed from the home immediately, and then they should stand trial for negligent homicide.

Sometimes I think it’s a shame that being stupid isn’t a crime.

Update: The image in this post just about sums up the purpose of prayer.

…this site was, in some circles, known as one of the more or less prominent atheist blogs. Ah, those were the (short-lived) days.

Now there are hundreds upon hundreds of us (which is nice to know, truth be told, strength in numbers and surely I can outrun at least 25-30% of those folks when the Vatican Death Squads come for us).

So, I’ve recently added an atheist blogroll over in the right sidebar.

Enjoy the godlessness, won’t you?

…the patron saint of extraterrestrials*:

Would you believe aliens have landed in North America?

Well, neither did Global television station CICT in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

The station got word that alien images had shown up on the exterior wall of a home in the southwest part of town. So they went to check it out…

There’s no doubt why people are so puzzled and shocked by the out of this world discovery. The image looks like the heads of two aliens.

There’s no doubt why people are so puzzled and shocked because people are not puzzled and shocked…

Most everyone believes the images are not real aliens but the sun’s reflection off a nearby window.

…which would explain why there are no science nerds holding candlelight vigils around the house, all the while chanting equations dealing with planetary orbits, re-entry temperatures, and the speed of light.

Had this looked even remotely like a bearded man of indeterminate ethnic origin, there’d be Catholics lined up around the block, crying for their chance to touch the miracle wall.

Maybe he could market it as “Space-Faring Jesus and Friend” and then make a buck or two.

* Or the Martian variety, at least.

Christian homeschoolers take their kids to tour the Denver Museum of Nature & Science:

We have a membership to the museum and I have heard, on the odd visit, some creationist muttering to a companion about how wrong the museum is. That’s fine; they were adults, supposedly capable of thinking for themselves (despite all evidence to the contrary). This, however, is simply wrong. Children rely on authority figures to help them interpret the world, and teaching them that man’s knowledge of science, acquired through centuries of observation and experimentation, is inferior to a internally-inconsistent book of demonstrably false fairy tales is sickening.

At least when I take the wee Fi to the museum, she expresses real interest in learning about the exhibits, rather than regurgitating some idiocy spouted by a cretin from BC Tours, lest she be set upon by the Devil himself (because, surely, if there be devils, they’d call a science museum home).

(found via Ben Stein’s Enemy #1, PZ Myers)

PZ Myers goes to the movies and hilarity ensues.

You have to read it to believe it.

Unless you’re an intelligent design advocate, in which case it just makes y’all look kind of dumb and dishonest (which, truth be told…).

Note: When you’re done laughing at the ceaseless stupidity of the yahoos behind the “Expelled” movie, you can also marvel at their rampant dishonesty. I wonder, does a cock crow when creationist Kevin Miller lies?

Someone should get that poor bird a throat lozenge.

Note 2: It’s hard to be sure, but I’m thinking that Richard Dawkins didn’t like “Expelled” either.

The whole tone of the film is whiny, paranoid — pathetic really….

What a shoddy, second-rate piece of work….

Quite apart from anything else, it is drearily boring, the tedium exacerbated by the grating monotony of Stein’s voice….

And those were the high points.