godisimaginary.com

This is a hysterical “Best of craigslist” post:

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/ksc/725674463.html

[...]

Have you ever thought about what will happen to your pets after Jesus comes back to claim the souls of the saved during the Rapture and deliver them to heaven to enjoy ever lasting life? The Bible clearly teaches that only those that have accepted Jesus as their savior will enter heaven (John 14:6, Romans 3:23), and we all know that pets do not have the cognitive ability to do this, so what will happen to your beloved pets? Surely without you there, they would be stuck inside your empty house, starving to death with no one to feed them, let them out to potty, or clean their litter box. This is probably not what you envision for your pets after you are gone. This is where I come in.

I am here to offer you pet care service for after the rapture. As an atheist, I will surely still be here on this earth post rapture and would love to look after your pets for a small fee and make sure they are still well taken care of after you and your family have been raptured. You will be able to look down on them from heaven and see them being well cared for by me and living happy, healthy lives. Do not let my atheism scare you! I am a moral and loving pet owner and would never do harm to any animal.

For a small deposit of only $50, you can be assured that your pets will be well cared for from the time that you are raptured until the end of their natural life. They will get adequate amounts of food, water, and shelter as well as plenty of exercise and socialization as I would imagine there will be a lot of pets that will be abandoned by Jesus the pet hater that will need to be cared for.

If interested, please email me for my PayPal address (you can also send me a check if you prefer) so you can assure that your pets will be taken care of after Jesus comes to take your soul to heaven. $50 is only a small price to pay to know that while you are enjoying everlasting bliss, your pets will be cared for until their end days. Thanks and have a great day!

Please do not flag this ad. It is very serious.

http://charterforcompassion.com/

From an e-mail sent by TED.com:

What we’re doing, starting today, is to begin writing the Charter for Compassion that Karen Armstrong called for earlier this year when she made her TED Prize wish. And the exhilarating twist here is that the writing won’t be done behind closed doors. It will be done by you… and perhaps millions of others around the world. Because we’re using special collaborative web tools created by the geniuses at Kluster to enable this be truly a charter “created by the world for the world”.

Later this week millions of Muslims, Christians, and Jews will be sent an email inviting them to come to the site and offer their choice of words, in their own language, to help create a charter capable of inspiring the world to focus on what the great religions share, as opposed to what divides them.

“What the great religions share”... belief in imaginary crap.

Really, does each of those leaders believe that they (and only they) are right, and all the other leaders are wrong, on a myriad of unprovable topics? Is it not far more likely that they are ALL wrong?

For Pete’s sake, don’t they realize how pointless it is to agree to disagree on issues such as whether an animal is kosher to eat or not, or which direction you should face when you pray?

Does it not emerge that what they share are basic human values, which – surprise – have NOTHING to do with any God, but simply make up what’s called Humanism?

I came across the bumper sticker in the picture, and, naturally, I wanted to check how accurate it was. After a quick websearch, I found this site quoting well-referenced research:

Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes—one child every five seconds.

The ironic fact is that the site in question is Hunger Facts: International, “A Christian Voice for Ending Hunger”.

_{Note: the study quoted was conducted in 2003. As of 2007, the number of children who die daily of hunger is 18,000 and the number of children who die every day of all causes is 26,500}

This is perhaps the most serious religious parody I’ve ever seen. The article itself is inspired from a snope, but the comments are juicily delicious and the blogger is a SERIOUSLY TRUE believer ;)

Very few commentators get it. The whole comment thread is ROTFLMAO.

Man has invented enough Gods already, but never really wondered if they made any sense.

But hey, maybe your God makes sense. Why not put Him to the test:

http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/whatisgod.htm

Pray-in at S.F. gas station asks God to lower prices

[...]
Twyman – a community organizer, church choir director and public relations consultant from the Washington, D.C., suburbs – staged a pray-in at a San Francisco Chevron station on Friday, asking God for cheaper gas. He did the same thing in the nation’s Capitol on Wednesday, with volunteers from a soup kitchen joining in. Today he will lead members of an Oakland church in prayer.

Yes, it’s come to that.

“God is the only one we can turn to at this point,” said Twyman, 59. “Our leaders don’t seem to be able to do anything about it. The prices keep soaring and soaring.”

New sins everyone: hurting the environment, and anything bioethically arguable. Courtesy of the Vatican:
Vatican lists ‘new sins’, including pollution.

The meta-lesson here is that we can see, right under our eyes, religion in the making. Why did the Church have to make these amendments? Why wasn’t the Bible/Jesus smart enough to foresee environmental issues and warn us way ahead of time? Would’ve also helped improve Bible’s impressive failed prophecies record.

Times changed, and the Church invented these new sins, with the obvious motive of gaining popularity in the midst of a “green” trend in the civilized world. But what if they invented a few sins before these, for other motives, such as self-preservation, or increased obedience of the populace? What if they had invented a few others even earlier in history? What if THEY MADE IT ALL UP?

From San Diego CityBeat:

Heath Ledger is in Hell and has
begun serving his eternal sentence.

That was a quote from the leaders of the Westboro Baptist Church, who, among others, are claiming that God killed Heath Ledger for portraying a homosexual in a big-time Hollywood movie.

While it is true that this particular church is wildly extreme, there have been plenty of other God-worshipper types who have made similarly despicable comments.

Like when local Christian crusader James Hartline said God started the San Diego County wildfires because he was mad at us for being hospitable to gays. Like when Pat Robertson said Hurricane Katrina was God punishing New Orleans for being gay-friendly. Like when Jerry Falwell – may he Rot In Purgatory (RIP) – said 9/11 happened because America’s got the ACLU, the pro-choicers and, of course, the gays.

To me, the saddest part about you hardcore God-worshipper types isn’t that you actually believe The Almighty is capable of this sort of behavior but, rather, that you believe it and continue to worship him.

Just look at his record:

1. Your God is a Jerk: This is the most obvious reason not to worship the kind of god you Hardcore God Worshippers worship. Among countless other transgressions, killing gays and sending them to Hell seems the sort of thing only a jerk would do.
2. Your God is Stupid: So, the Hardcore Worshippers believe The Heavenly Father smote Heath Ledger because he portrayed a homosexual in a big-time Hollywood movie. Does The Heavenly Father think movies are real? Does He not know that Heath Ledger was an, um, actor? It seems to me that an important quality of the ruler of the universe – creator of all things, all-powerful, all-knowing – is to not be a dimwit.
3. Your God is Inconsistent: If God’s policy is to exterminate celebrities who portray homosexuals in Hollywood movies, then why is Gary Oldman still alive? Harry Hamlin? Patrice Donnelly? John Leguizamo? Why the hell is Matthew Broderick not dead yet, or at least suffering a Hell on Earth? The movie Torch Song Trilogy, in which Broderick acted gay, could easily be the poster film of the so-called homosexual agenda: It highlighted the injustices perpetrated amid an inhospitable culture. It delivered an awareness of and disgust for gay bashing. It testified to the rewards and benefits of gay adoption. Torch Song Trilogy has all the content a homophobic god would detest, yet Broderick’s life is far from hellish. He’s married to Sarah Sexica Parker, for crying out loud. It’s just not consistent to allow him a life of bliss while worms burrow into Heath Ledger’s eyeballs.
4. Your God Has Bad Aim: Even if the ridiculous were true, that God targets gays and people who act gay in movies, well, his collateral damage is unacceptable. Even a blindfolded Dick Cheney in a room full of 100 old white guys and one quail has better aim than Your God.
   How many heterosexuals who never acted gay in any Hollywood movies died on 9/11? How many hetero homes and lives were destroyed by Katrina and the wildfires? And what about the hetero babies, Lord?! How many straight babies must suffer before you consider subcontracting your hits to a pro!?
   I could never worship a deity with bad aim. I need a sure-shot god who can put a bullet between the eyes of an actor who portrayed a homosexual in a Hollywood movie without getting so much as a speck of blood on any heterosexual infants who never played a homosexual baby in a movie.
5. Your God is Bad at PR: Waiting until now to whack Heath Ledger is a weak PR move. God could have garnered way more press had he exacted his vengeance at the time of Brokeback Mountain’s release. You know, like at the world premiere – on the red carpet – maybe drop an anvil on his head with a thousand shutterbugs recording it for the world to see and heed.
   PR prowess is a profoundly important skill for a deity to have. Even Zeus knew that. All his smitings made front-page news – like when he chained Ixion to a wheel and cooked him slowly over the fires of Tartaras. That’s how to get a message across.

I know what you’re thinking, Hardcore God Worshippers. You’re thinking The Lord’s actions don’t seem logical to us because “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

Well, sorry, but you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say God works in a manner unknowable to man and then presume to know why he makes gay-acting actors overdose on pills. Besides, who wants to worship a mysterious deity? “Ooooh, you’re so mysterious God. Spooky spooky. We don’t know what you’re doing or why, but we love you soooo much.”

To hell with that noise. I need a god that works in transparent ways, a god I can keep tabs on – a real god would want that because a real god’s got nothing to hide.

You know, for thousands of years, humans have argued, fought and killed one another over which is the one true Lord. It seems to me, there’s no way any person can know this. It seems to me, the best we can do is just choose a deity that’s worth worshipping. Then, if we’re wrong, at least we aren’t wrong and worshipping a stupid jerk.
It’s simple, really: All we have to do is look at our all our god options, scrutinize their manifests and the commandments until we find one we can get behind – a kind and wise god; a reasonable god; a common-sense kind of god that understands that movies are make-believe; a god who does not say, “Burn in Hell, queer,” but, rather, says, “I made you as you are, child, so go forth and be the best damn gay you can be!”; a god who loves all the people he creates, unconditionally, unless they are total losers – like rapists, murderers and Patriot fans – each of which The Almighty will deliver a thousand lightning bolts unto their faces, with sure-shot aim, so as not to hurt others. Anything less deserves our contempt, not devotion.

Math: Gift from God or Work of Man (thanks v43t)

Students will examine the nature of God as they progress in their understanding of mathematics. Students will understand the absolute consistency of mathematical principles and know that God was the inventor of that consistency. They will see God’s nature revealed in the order and precision they review foundational concepts while being able to demonstrate geometric thinking and spatial reasoning. The study of the basics of geometry through making and testing conjectures regarding mathematical and real-world patterns will allow the students to understand the absolute consistency of God as seen in the geometric principles he created.

And one of the comments:

And of course, mankind will never know the exact value of pi, since, by definition, the laws of math prohibit the knowing, I am a firm believer in Math, and a firm believer in God. Let’s be honest – Both science and religion are based on propositions which cannot be proven, but must be accepted on faith. See Godel’s incompleteness theorem.

The original curriculum can be found at Castle Hills First Baptist School. There you go, believers, another reason why religion merits outright hostility: because it teaches defenseless children patent LIES.

Based on a careful assessment of the most recent survey data available, we find that somewhere between 500,000,000 and 750,000,000 humans currently do not believe in God. Such figures render any suggestion that theism is innate or neurologically based untenable. [...] High levels of organic atheism are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such as low homicide rates, low poverty rates, low infant mortality rates, and low illiteracy rates, as well as high levels of educational attainment, per capita income, and gender equality. Most nations characterized by high degrees of individual and societal security have the highest rates of organic atheism, and conversely, nations characterized by low degrees of individual and societal security have the lowest rates of organic atheism.

—http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/atheism.html