The reason for the season: persecution complexes

Everything Is Terrible found a video about the persecution complex Christians have about Christmas, and they want you all to watch it.

Let’s count up the implausibilities. First, that anyone would make laws forbidding Christmas or Christian personal effects under any circumstances. Second, that someone would actually get fired for violating the Establishment Clause in a country that seems to love having public figures flout it publicly. Third, that anyone is actually attacking Christmas as a public holiday. Fourth, that a biker gang would be necessary to help lift a cardboard cross up to a building, or that lifting a five foot cross up the side of a building is even the best way of getting it to the top. Fifth, that a video ending with the main subject of the video getting blown up, and the cameraman too, would somehow be considered acceptable to display unscreened at a nativity play. Sixth, that Aron Ra would play God.

Okay, that last one, he might do it tongue-in-cheek.

You poor Christians, making up the majority of your country, are being persecuted, just by being forced to acknowledge that you don’t make up the ENTIRETY of your country and that forcing your religion on the rest undermines the whole reason your country was founded? Hah.

Nobody’s preventing you from worshipping privately however you want. The Establishment Clause just means you can’t do it on government grounds, using government taxpayer-derived funds, or in a way that encourages your religion over any others while doing work that nets you government pay, to steal Crip Dyke’s wording in comments. That’s not an abrogation of your rights — it’s a protection of them. And I know you get this, viscerally, because you absolutely hate the idea of a Muslim or, heavens forbid, an atheist in office. If you try to allow your government to enshrine your religion within it, that’s when you risk losing the most should some other person of some other religion comes into power.

The reason for the season: persecution complexes
{advertisement}

God's America: weep for it. WEEP I SAY.

I’m pretty inured by now to blatant religious proselytization, bad acting, campy premises, and contrived patriotism, what with Mock the Movie and all, but this video almost made me gag, it was simply so syrupy.

Yes. Because a DOUBLE X porno watched with friends, or being intoxicated in public, is the END OF AMERICA. There is no hyperbole there. Just by doing things that are enjoyable to you and do no damage to others, you will destroy the very fabric of your country, setting flags ablaze nationwide. Just a second, I’m going to go pour myself a drink so I can end America. I guess that makes me a foreign terrorist, being that I’m a Canadian citizen and having a beer, amirite?

Hat tip to Christian Nightmares.

Unrelated note: Blogging about news events et cetera will be on pause for a bit, as tomorrow I’ll be flying out to DC. Remember that one big conference that’s happening there this weekend? You know, Women In Secularism 2? Well, you should, because you helped send me there. And in return, I’ll be live-blogging the living crap outta it, along with Miri Mogilevski of Brute Reason, and Kate Donovan, co-blogger at… um… everywhere. Seriously. Including over at Ashley Miller’s.

Look for the posts starting tomorrow.

God's America: weep for it. WEEP I SAY.

My life in upheaval, but in a good way

In February 2010, Jodi and I got married. In June, we spent our honeymoon in Minnesota, going to CONvergence in Minneapolis. (My wife is every bit as much a geek as me.)

Little did I know that that visit would plant the seeds for what’s been happening over the past few months in my life.
Continue reading “My life in upheaval, but in a good way”

My life in upheaval, but in a good way

Memo to Americans: Canadians exist, Bigfoot doesn’t

A shocking and horrible poll published by Angus Reid declares, “Americans more likely to believe in Bigfoot than Canadians”.

I know you folks might never see us very often — we haven’t had a war with you in a very long time, and I can understand why you might be inclined to forget about us given our cultural contributions have included Celine Dion and Justin Bieber. But I’m telling you, we exist. We don’t even have flip-top heads, like your Sunday night educational programming “South Park” might lead you to believe. Hockey was invented here. We make good beer.

Wait, what? That’s not what the survey says? Hang on. Knew I shoulda read it before starting this post. *grumble grumble*
Continue reading “Memo to Americans: Canadians exist, Bigfoot doesn’t”

Memo to Americans: Canadians exist, Bigfoot doesn’t

Justin Griffith covered by Fox News and BBC: an exercise in compare/contrast

I could not ask for a more perfect bit of compare/contrast. The mainstream American media is stone-silent about Sergeant Justin Griffith of Rock Beyond Belief fame, with the obvious exception of Fox News. The only news you’ll get about this atheist-in-a-foxhole Stateside is the fact that one of the acts for Rock Beyond Belief once did a music video that included images of a church burning, in a song denouncing sectarian religious violence, and Fox News spun it all to hell and back as though it was military-sanctioned encouragement of violence against religions.

Meanwhile, across the Pond, the BBC has covered Justin and our shared fight asking if the US army can embrace atheists. Their answer is significantly more reality-based than Fox’s, of course.
Continue reading “Justin Griffith covered by Fox News and BBC: an exercise in compare/contrast”

Justin Griffith covered by Fox News and BBC: an exercise in compare/contrast

America’s 2012 election: vote for Canada

Meet the Canada Party. They offer an alternative to the ridiculous offerings the Republican Party has on display, and the “guy who gave a drunk Congress the keys to the country”.

Seriously, it’s the best choice for all of us, even if our present Prime Minister is a Muppet version of George W. Bush. I mean, just look at your other options.

America’s 2012 election: vote for Canada

US, China in solar power throwdown

This is not quite the kind of international friction I like to see, especially with regard to technology with such promise and in such infancy.

Upon an appeal filed by SolarWorld Industries America and six other undisclosed firms, the US Department of Commerce (DOC) said on 8 November that it would conduct an investigation to determine whether Chinese firms have been selling solar panels in the US at unfair discounts and receiving illegal government subsidies, China Daily states.
[…]

Continue reading “US, China in solar power throwdown”

US, China in solar power throwdown