OH – IGNORANT IMBECILE

I was reading my latest newsletter from FFRF.org – Freethought Today and made it to page 14 where the “Crank Mail” was placed.  It’s one of my favorite features of this fine publication.  Crank Mail a sampling of the recent emails or contacts made by those most faithful Christians to call out and/or to “warn” FFRF of their impending doom.  Education is the cure for ignorance but for now the ignorance is entertaining.

Always a joy to read but this most recent edition sampled some of the best I’ve ever read.

“Whats wrong you assclown afraid of Islam?  You screwwbals have nothing to say or do to that fucked up piece of pig shit so called religion that teaches to kill everyone thats not like them. Where you fucks at on them hum. you bunch of chicken shits” - David Lupton

As with most of these short but sweet rants, they all appear to lack basic vocabulary skills.  Their spellcheck systems are useless and to hell with punctuation.  I often imagine the man or women behind the keyboard, typing feverishly, their mind whirling with anger as they describe how we are “screwwbals”, “assclowns” and “chicken shits” – and usually they include what they and/or their god is going to do to us.

I imagine as they type, that as the colored line appears below a misspelled word; “Oh look Mary Beth, even gmail knows that I mean bizness, it’s underlining all the impotant wurds.”

WEALTHY FUCKTARDS

“We are a group of Wealthy citizens of South Dakota, and many who not reside outside of South Dakota.  We have informed certain Rapid City politicians that we stand ready to provide significant financial support to defend their religious practices, views and opinions.  Please feel free to pursue any and all legal action you feel is necessary to attack the citizens of Rapid City, but be prepared for a lengthy and expensive legal costs, as we will fund any and all state court action, as well as federal court action.  God Bless Freedom of Religion!” – Our Lord Jesus Christ

Apparently from Jesus himself.  In response, I might say:

Dear Jesus Christ, I see that you now reside in Rapid City amongst other wealthy citizens.  I think that is a great move, it’s more believable than this “heaven” thing you spoke of and it means that you now can enjoy the U.S. Postal Service and actually get that money that so many have been collecting for you.

Your letter states that your group contains citizens of South Dakota and “many who not reside outside of South Dakota”.  Wouldn’t those be the same as the citizens residing in South Dakota?   I appreciate your permission for us to pursue legal action, we were hoping to get your blessing but couldn’t find your address.  I see that your group members are wealthy and wanted to ask, before this most recent commitment to defend your politicians, what were you doing with this wealth accumulated?  Have you been giving all to the poor and needy as you demand of your followers in the bible?

Can you imagine what this person was thinking?  I imagine a middle aged person, almost finished the 10th grade before having her second child and being forced to pick potatoes for a living.  I imagine she actually gave this some thought, she sat down and after much deliberation, decided that her best method of attack would be a threat using reverse psychology.  ”I’ll give them permission to sue as if we don’t mind but I’ll warn them of our wealth and how costly this might be, as if I care about their finances.”

I may be too kind, it may actually be a 5th grade alter boy who overheard his parents discussing the legal issue and figured while the internet was down would draft up a letter to threaten the FFRF.

NRA SUPPORTER

“Dear Mrs., Annie Laurie Gaylor, I just read this article about you proposing to the government to rename Christmas to “Family day”.  This nation was founded and started on Christian principles found in the Holy Bible.  I am a very strong, and powerful man, I can take on anyone in a fight, and win.  I have taken on people bigger than you and won.  Good day, God bless you.” - Jaye Sanders. Child of God, Brother to Jesus, American Patriot, NRA Supporter

Here we have one zealous Glen Beckistan citizen who thought it prudent to draft a letter in response to the FFRF’s Co-President, Annie Laurie Gaylor’s OP-ED piece about renaming the Christmas Holiday.  Not just any letter, but a threatening letter.  He’s fought and won, he can fight anyone and win.  This from a peace- loving Christ-tard and Brother to Jesus?

DAMN YOU TO HELL

“All of ypu people are going STRAIGHT to hell.  The sooner the better you FREAKS. FUCK OFF” – Tonya Haas

“u say this country is not christian or goddly. you all are full of shit are four father left england so they could worship god without all politics. its funny christianity is the only religion that is be tooking out of stuff. and for your info, the women so many years ago that started all thisso long ago.  ended up getting her head cut of and was a athist and her son turns into a preacher and that carma.  and now theres a muslim run the country in the ground and you all are try to hurt any one you can but carma get u alive or dad.and i am not christian and believe in christianity so go bit one” - Adam Phillip, Greenville, South Carolina

One of the funniest I’ve ever read.  Now do you see why I love this part of the newsletter so much?  Poor little non-Christian feller, folks trying to tooking his Christianity out of stuff.

IT’S ME – JESUS

“Why can’t you mind your own business and stayed your evil asses in WI Who do you think you are??? You are nothing but the scum of Hell.  You are nothing but COWARDS!  If you don’t love it then leave it! – Jesus Christ, Pickens, South Carolina

“i hope there is a god and he gives all your members and their families cancer”  (anonymous but apparently a true Christian)

“Get A FUCKING LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!: YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKERS.  IF YOU DON”T LIKE IT THE FUCK OUT!!! IT”S VERY SIMPLE HAVE SOMEBODY WITH BRAINS EXPLAIN IT TO YOU!” – Mike Griffin, Avon, Indiana

Awwww Mike, why don’t you try to explain it to us.  Surely you didn’t write that gibberish without a brain.  Are you saying that if only you had a brain you would explain it?  I’ll pray for you Mike.

Education is the cure for ignorance

There are many others quoted as well.  Be sure to check out www.ffrf.org and consider joining.  Your membership and support helps tooking religion out of government.  Education is the cure for ignorance.  It’s those like Phil Ferguson and Skeptic.org that recognize this, lending support to groups like the Secular Student Alliance , Junior Skeptic and Camp Quest.  We must offer our support as well, we must help educate children to be more skeptical, to use reason and to question everything.

This news is so hot that it is not even on the SSA home page yet.

I got this from a blog post created by Dave Muscato.

The Secular Student Alliance, with whom I’m interning this summer, received a very generous challenge match offer from Jeff Hawkins (inventor of the Palm Pilot & Palm Treo) and Janet Strauss. We intended to meet this challenge by August 1st. As of 6:40 PM today, July 20th, a final donation of pushed us to $250,015.39, meaning the SSA will receive the $250,000 doubling!

I can’t begin to tell you what amazing news this is for skepticism and the secular movement as a whole.

Congratulations to the SSA!

Back in May Lyz Liddell wrote a great piece called The Unstoppable Secular Students.  I asked her to write it after I saw her give a presentation at the Madison Freethought Festival.

This image is one of the main points of the presentation….

Well it turns out that William Lane Craig has his undies in a bunch.

via The Examiner.

Craig says that statistics of group growth published on the Campus Crusade for Christ’s website contained a typo which makes the Secular Student Alliance’s claim of Campus Crusade for Christ groups ‘stalling out’ to be “completely inaccurate.”

So Craig is upset that the SSA used the numbers that the CRU put on their web site.  How sad.  Well, as soon as the “Typo” was pointed pointed out, Lyz went and fixed her slide.  You can see the difference in the video versus the image above.  However, Craig can’t let it go.

The Secular Student Alliance, Craig says, has made corrections on their website, but they “still are trying to put the same spin on the situation” by saying that the number of Secular Student Alliance groups grew by 116% while Campus Crusade for Christ groups grew by 16%.

“….trying to put the same spin…”?   The first report was that the number of groups was going down and then it was corrected when CRU fixed their “typo”.  How is this the same?  The SSA can adjust to new information and report the facts.  Maybe someone should tell Mr. Craig that the group he is trying to protect is is no longer called “Campus Crusade for Christ”.  They changed their name to “Cru”  because they thought that crusade may have negative connotations.  So, in the world of christian logic – CRU does not bring up the image of CRUsade.

Below is part of his show where he talks about the SSA. (you can listen to the whole thing if you like torture).

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

After he complains about how the SSA is growing so slow he then says it IS a big deal….

I do not want to diminish peoples’ concern about the activities of secular student groups and the growth of secularism on our campuses. This is a concern that needs to be addressed and we need to be very very worried about this even if their claims are overblown. The fact is that there are organized atheistic groups whose aim is to evangelize their university campuses for atheism or non-theism.

The man is a walking contradiction.

Here is a photo of the SSA summer convention and I was so happy to have been there.  Hey William…. We are unstoppable.

As you may know ISSA is the world’s best Secular Student Group.  Last year the won the official tittle at the SSA conference.  This year they scored big again.

“Illini SSA is receiving special recognition this year for Best Service for their support of a secular adoption agency following the Catholic adoption debacle. They participated in an interfaith program to bring holiday gifts to children, a blood drive to raise awareness about the MSM-ban which resulted in a donation of 33 units. They also helped to clean up a homeless housing & meal center alongside a Catholic center, and helped set up a Service Project Network on their campus.”

They are not afraid to say that religion is wrong and they will step forward and help when a religion is doing the right thing.  A noble goal for all of us to try and achieve.

Congratulations ISSA!

I am a little late on this story but, I have been so busy.

It is a perfect time for it because, I just spent the weekend at the annual SSA Leadership Conference.

via The Washington Post.

High school kids can join the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the Jewish Student Union, the Muslim Students Association and, in some schools, a Hindu or a Buddhist club.

Now they can join the young atheists club, too.

Yeah!

In another sign of the emergence of nonbelievers in American society, the Secular Student Alliance, a national organization of more than 300 college-based clubs for atheists, humanists, agnostics and other “freethinkers,” is helping to establish clubs for high school students to hang out with other teens who share their skepticism about the supernatural.

“I am hoping that atheist students having their clubs and religious students having their clubs will promote dialogue,” said JT Eberhard, director of SSA’s high school program. “I also hope it will let the atheist students know that you can be an atheist and its okay. You are still a good person. We want to say: Here is a place where you can feel that.”

There were about a dozen such clubs at the beginning of the 2011-2012 academic school year, a figure that rose to 39 in 17 states by summer break. The clubs are student-led, with SSA providing information and guidance only upon a student’s request.

Some clubs are in states with high levels of “nones” — people who claim no religious affiliation — such as New York, Washington and California. But some are in the buckle of the Bible Belt: North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas all have at least one high school with a club for atheists.

And more are forming. Students at 73 different high schools have requested “starter kits” since January of this year, according to SSA.

Eberhard attributes the growing interest in atheism among high school students to several factors, including disenchantment with organized religion amid recent scandals and the rise of the Internet, which gives young doubters a safe forum to ask questions.

Two recent studies show religious doubt rising among “Millennials,” those Americans born after 1980. In April, the Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life reported 68 percent of Millennials “never doubt the existence of God,” down 15 points since 2007. And in June, the Public Religion Research Institute found that one in four Millennials report no religious affiliation.

Still, launching an atheist club is not always a smooth process. Some sail through a school’s approval process once they have met the school’s criteria, which usually means obtaining a faculty sponsor and demonstrating student interest.

Trevor Lynn, 17, said he faced no administrative resistance when he started an atheist club at his Eureka, Calif., high school in 2010.

“The administration of our school really prides itself on being able to have a club for everybody,” Lynn said. “They saw no reason to stop us.”

Now, his group — about seven members — meets to discuss philosophy and ethics and stage special events. In September, the club will host joint lectures on evolution and creationism by a prominent freethought author and a local pastor.