More Christian Evil; Why Religion is Child Abuse Reason #1,340,230,000

• State authorities have responded to at least 165 allegations of abuse and neglect in the past decade, but homes have remained open even after the state found evidence of sex abuse and physical injury.
  
• The religious exemption has for decades allowed homes to avoid state restrictions on corporal punishment. Homes have pinned children to the ground for hours, confined them in seclusion for days, made them stand until they wet themselves and exercised them until they vomited.
  
• Children have been bruised, bloodied and choked to unconsciousness in the name of Christian discipline. A few barely escaped with their lives. In addition, in two settled lawsuits, a mother said her son was forced to hike on broken feet; a father said his son was handcuffed, bound at the feet, locked away for three days and struck by other boys at the instruction of the home.
  
• Adults have ordered children to participate in the punishment, requiring them to act as jailers, to bully troublemakers or to chase, tackle and sit on their peers.
  
• Teens have been denounced as sinners, called "faggots" and "whores," and humiliated in front of their peers for menstrual stains and suspicions of masturbation.
  
• Parents share the blame. Some sign away their children for a year or more without first visiting a home or checking credentials. But state officials bear some responsibility because they have not warned the public about programs they believe are abusive.
  
• Florida taxpayers have supported some unlicensed homes with hundreds of thousands of dollars in McKay scholarships — a government program to help special needs students pay tuition at private schools.

Smaller government; YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK! Christan Love! Can you feel it, or do we have to HIT YOU HARDER? Fucking monsters, every last one.

Things That Piss Me Off About Fiction

This is just a quick list of the things that get under my skin about fiction these days. For those wondering where I've been, I'm up to my eyeballs in work (they cut back my hours, but holy fuck if I couldn't tell given they've got me pulling several 9 hour days a week now), and I'm working on three separate project: The Second Blue Pimpernel novel; a transhuman novel called Terra Firma, which concerns itself with politics, journalism, and the ethics of terraforming Venus; and a perennial favorite of mine, White Rabbit, Black Swan, I book I can't describe without you thinking I'm on some kind of narcotic.

And... To Restore It

Here - 21 pictures that will restore your faith in humanity.

I almost cried at 18 and 19.

Just Incase You Felt Faith In Humanity This Week...

I actually don't like that statement, because it reeks too much of the whole "people totally depraved" that Calvinism and other extreme branches of Christian philosophy teach. But there are days when I'm shocked by the wanton cruelty, and I can't help but reach for the phrase because of how callous people are capable of being.

Anyway, If you haven't heard about the story of Amanda Todd, this will be a little out of the blue. I haven't read the entire story yet - to be honest, I'm not sure that I could - but I know the general gist of it. It's a horrifying example of the downside of social networking and the internet, and it's enough to turn anyone into a neo-luddite until you remember that shit like this has been with us from the days of lynching post-cards in the Great American Halcyon Age (Circa Nineteen-Fifty-Didnotexist to Ninteen-Fifty-Neverwill) that Right wing hucksters and self-aggregating fraudsters are working so hard to take us back to.

I won't repeat the story here, simply because that'd be rehashing the wheel and right now I'm not entirely sure I'd be capable of doing it anyway: Jason Thibeault has an excellent summation of it here, and really, the whole thing is so upsetting that it makes you question why you bothered getting out of bed.

So naturally, the positive, upbeat, and upstanding corners of the Atheist community, who certainly are not jackasses in the slightest and are pinnacle of upright citizens, are out and about and gleefully sharing their pitiful little opinions about this. This was a young girl who committed suicide; who cried for help, and gets all the wonderful wisdom of Youtube heaped on her in return.

And to make matters worse, the Amazing Atheist (seriously, there's nothing at all amazing about this fucker unless you take into consideration his ego, the self-entitlement issues, or any other negative traits, in which case the moniker is very deserved) Asshole TJ Kincade of Louisana just had to give his opinion, because anymore, it means so much to the Internet, you know. According to one of the commentators on this thread, it's " “I am the other hundreds of thousands of people who died today OTHER than Amanda Fucking Todd.” I've not seen the video. I have no intention of seeing the video. I have, however, seen the picture over at Manboobz.

Right there: that's proof religion is not the cause of all the evil in the world. That's proof any moral argument his type of atheist had made against religion is little more than thin veneer; an excuse to try and feel "superior" to believers, because they haz Teh Lahjickz!

One of the major reasons I don't mock all people with religion is because it's not polite, and at any given time, 90% of my friends on FB are Christian (I have, at most, 4 or 5 atheist friends. Of over 280 friends; I knew fewer Jewish people, but I know 1 or 2), and I respect them. Another reason is that, as TJ up there proves, it doesn't matter whether you have religion or not: assholes are gonna be assholes, regardless what they do or don't believe in.

My guess is that this is his attempt a "moral argument." And while there's a whole hell of a lot wrong with that - just because someone else has a broken arm doesn't mean your sprained wrist stops hurting, to use an analogy, or to be more apt, just because someone is suffering doesn't take away from the fact that you're still hurting, too - one of the bigger, unseen issues here is this: It's hard to make a moral argument when you don't have any morals yourself.

Her loss is a horrifying and sad reminder of just how broken we are as a society and as a species. His reaction is proof we have a very hard fight if we're going to give the appearance of improving.

Want An Idea of Why Our Science Scores Are Crap?

Paul Broun is a Representative from Georgia. Now, it goes without saying that he's got an R in front of his name; this is Georgia we're talking about here. If I saw traces of the 20th century from that State I'd be shocked. He's a Congresscritter, so my expectations of his knowledge weren't very high, and being a republican, I'm pretty sure someone stole that low bar and buried it somewhere in the Dead Sea.

But here's something else interesting about Paul Broun.

You see, this man was appointed on congress to set on the House Science Committee. So really, I'd sort of expect something better than this:

"God's word is true. I've come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell," said Broun, who is an MD. "It's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior."

"You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I've found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don't believe that the earth's but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That's what the Bible says."

You've seen a lot of scientific data. Show it to me, you fucking lair.

Don't ask me why I'd expect something better than that from a Republican elected official from Georgia, but being on the House Science Committee... I dunno. No, really, I don't know why he's even there. Him sitting on that committee is fucking stupid even by congressional standards.