Get 'Hug an Atheist' movie to festivals!

A short note from Sylvia Broeckx alerted me this morning to the existence of this fundraiser, and I thought you might be interested yourselves.

We’ve made a film about atheists in the USA and it’s from the perspective of everyday atheists, dealing with the aspects of life where religions provide solace and guidance such as morality, raising a family, and coping with tragedy.

But, what’s the point of making a film that presents atheism in a positive light, if it doesn’t get seen by lots of people that aren’t already atheists?

We have less than 48 hours to raise the funds to help get this film to into festivals and reach a wider, non-atheist, audience. We are getting close, but could really do with your help to spread the word about the campaign. It can really help make quite the difference.

Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/l/4AQFgLytCAQGFaAawhvRzRDM6lOjdjo8rNBIiWxfmgklJ3Q/www.indiegogo.com/projects/get-hug-an-atheist-to-festivals

Thank you!

Sylvia

The teaser trailer should tell you everything you need to know about this effort:

The Indiegogo fundraiser is at $2696, having met its original goal of $2500. But submitting the film to most film festivals costs a lot of money and there’s no guarantee it’ll get accepted thereafter, so I’d encourage that if you have spare cash to throw at such an effort, please do keep submitting!

Get 'Hug an Atheist' movie to festivals!
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What Does the Donkey Say

Some Christians just can’t leave well enough alone, apparently. They have to Jesusify even weird meme songs like What Does The Fox Say. The River Christian Reformed Church is responsible for this particular mess.

Wow. Really, wow. May your god have mercy on your souls and not throw you in the pits of eternal suffering for making bad things worse.

If you want to see the equally ridiculous but less offensively Christified version, go here instead. Hat tip to Christian Nightmares.

Happy holidays, everyone!

What Does the Donkey Say

A Dynasty Falls

And good riddance.

Phil Robertson, the patriarch of the Duck Dynasty reality television show, recently did an interview in GQ — yes, Gentlemen’s Quarterly — wherein he described how his evangelical Christian beliefs come into conflict with the idea that some people might be gay in an absolutely offensive display of what many Christians really do believe. His TV show on A&E about his family of conservative rednecks — who became rich after he built an empire on the Duck Commander duck lures — now faces the terrible wrath of public opinion.

When my sister heard the news that he’d given his interview in GQ, and that GLAAD had publicly denounced his words, she posted a link on her Facebook wall. One of her friends — an ex co-worker apparently — swanned in to drop this steaming pile of opinion on her wall about how terrible it was… that anyone was asking A&E to reconsider hosting this douchenozzle’s opinion.
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A Dynasty Falls

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

Ascension of the Jackdaw

So, Assassin’s Creed 4. You’re a pirate. It’s kinda awesome, though I’ve mostly so far only watched Ben play it rather than playing it myself. But like all games, there are glitches.

This one was amazing.

Yes, the choral music was added as a joke.

I love glitches like these in games because they illustrate a topic I always find interesting: emergent behaviour. These actions were not specifically programmed, but came out of something askew being input in some variable in all the existing equations that under normal circumstances worked perfectly sanely. It’s like how Newtonian physics works in most cases, until you get into cases near light-speed or around black holes, where you need special relativity because something wacky happens to the calculations. This was something very wacky happening to the calculations despite all the calculations working perfectly elsewhere.

The whole damn universe is a set of emergent properties for a very simple and very fundamental ruleset that probably is itself a result of some other extradimensional brane-collision or fold in the fabric of the multiverse. Time itself is an emergent property of the existence of our universe. Physics and chemistry and life, all emergent. This sort of complexity emerging from simpler rulesets is exactly why people are so frequently inclined to assume Goddidit.
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Ascension of the Jackdaw

Intactivists overstate the case

I am absolutely against circumcision of males, except where medically necessary or where it has a net-positive effect in curtailing sexually transmitted diseases in high-risk populations. But when I see some “intactivists” — activists protesting circumcision of males — making the case in such a hyperbolic and emotive manner, I can’t help but shake my head.

In a “colorful protest” by Brother K and his “bloodstained men”, men in white jumpsuits protest with large red spots on their crotches.

“The destruction to the male genitals is absolute,” says Brother K. “Total. You’re left with a fraction of what God and nature intended. It’s appalling.”

Continue reading “Intactivists overstate the case”

Intactivists overstate the case

Skepticon 6 video: Sex and Violence in the Bible

The first video by Hambone Productions of Skepticon is up, of David Fitzgerald’s comedic analysis of the Bible’s naughtier bits.

Trigger warning: the Bible is very, very rapey.

I mostly enjoyed this talk, though there were a few bits that were problematic.

Many of the jokes are visual or are punctuated with visual aids, with people in the audience who are vision-impaired (Rebecca Watson made a point of narrating her slides for the benefit of these folks), and so they’re not going to get these jokes in this video either. Apologies to my readers. Also, I haven’t rewatched this, so I can’t remember exactly what was said, but I have a recollection of wincing a few times at some problematic language, too. “Bitch”, most likely.

Skepticon 6 video: Sex and Violence in the Bible

Mock The Movie: The Cloth transcript

Imagine Castlevania in movie form, combined with The Exorcist and a smattering of Blade. Then take away all the awesome bits, waste your CG budget on the least-interesting and least-useful bits of the movie, and make sure your action scenes are nigh unfollowable. Dip it repeatedly in Jesus until well saturated. Ensure all the bad guys are easily killed, even — and especially — the Big Bad. Cast the one guy with acting chops in a supporting character role, and make him do ridiculous quasi-Anime things like building in having to make an X sign when using special weapons. And there you have it — The Cloth.
Continue reading “Mock The Movie: The Cloth transcript”

Mock The Movie: The Cloth transcript