Ballpoint Adventures for March 19, 2006: There's still plenty for Barbie to be afraid of...

FDR was right--be afraid of fear, first... or else you might find yourself performing oral sex on someone who claims to be keeping you safe.

Ballpoint Adventures for March 18, 2006: Barbie has had enough "divine" sex from Billy--er--God...

Sorry for the break in posting classic BPA strips--read the last few leading up to this one here: thepete.com/tag/ballpoint-adventures/

The gist of it is that Billy convinced Barbie he was God so he could have sex with her. Silly Billy! Pretending to be God takes so much usually people only pretend *to talk* to him.

Ballpoint Adventures for March 17, 2006: God loves Skinny Chicks (OK, Billy Does)

Do most women like it when men talk dirty to them? I've always wondered if and why...

Ballpoint Adventures for March 16, 2006: Is a Penis Required for Divine Sex?

I've always wondered if God had a penis.

Ballpoint Adventures for March 15, 2006: Might sex with God be not so great?

When reality strikes religious sex! Well, kinda...

Ballpoint Adventures for March 14, 2006: Billy shows Barbie how good Divine Sex can be...

Oh yeah, like religion hasn't been used to get busy with Believers plenty of times.

Ballpoint Adventures for March 12, 2006: Religious sex, Making Mom's Proud for 2000 years!

What? You don't think Mary's mom was proud God chose her to have sex with?

Ballpoint Adventures for March 11, 2006: Barbie proves she is a Holy Child.

OK, sex and religion have been going together forever, so get ready for some serious religion-skewering in the next huge stack of BPA strips...

Ballpoint Adventures for March 10, 2006: Barbie doesn't remember sex in Church...

Sex in the Bible?? It's there! Noah had sex with his daughters, if I'm remembering right.

Ballpoint Adventures for March 9, 2006: It turns out Billy is the Messiah!

Isn't this true of all people claiming to be a messiah?

Ballpoint Adventures for March 8, 2006: Why atheists believe in hell...

Tell me this isn't true... my fellow atheists, back me up on this!!

I agree with the sentiment of this “Words that Christians Misuse” but I think this graphic utterly full of crap.

“Study” saying what they really do at “Bible Study” is really “Bible Worship” is semantics. Most people who study something usually revere that thing or else they wouldn’t be studying it.  You might as well call Neil deGrasse Tyson a “Science Worshipper” (and you’d be accurate).

“Truth” this is NOT the “conformity with fact or reality.”  I’m not sure where this definition even comes from.  Merriam-Webster defines truth as the following (important part emboldened/italicized by me):

a archaic : fidelity, constancyb : sincerity in action, character, and utterance 2a (1) : the state of being the case : fact (2) : the body of real things, events, and facts : actuality (3) often capitalized: a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality b : a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true <truths of thermodynamics >c : the body of true statements and propositions3a : the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality b chiefly British : true 2c : fidelity to an original or to a standard 4capitalized Christian Science : god— in truth: in accordance with fact : actually

So, in other words, one of the official definitions of the truth fits pretty much with the way Christians use it.  Sad that language, itself, seems to be biased toward religion.  But again, Christians aren’t really misusing the word “truth.”

“Morality” is NOT what causes the least amount of harm to others.  That’s the most absurd definition of “morality” I’ve ever read.  Morality is doing what is right (though it’s definition is more involved than just that). Sometimes we define “right” as doing more harm for the greater good.  Like going to war, or killing in self-defense, or euthanasia.  Morality is a big fat gray zone of debate since so often the very definition of what is “right” changes based on one’s mood.  So, if you believe what God says is right and someone tells you God said that it’s OK to slaughter the Canaanites, then wiping out all of the people of Canaan is a moral thing to do.

“Freewill” is not a word.  Well, not a noun, anyway.  It’s an adjective. It means “voluntary” or, oddly, “spontaneous”.  What Christians say God gave us is “Free Will”.  In other words, the ability to be free with our will. Of all the problems I have with religion, I think this is the part I have the least trouble with.  But the above graphic says “In the Bible God only gave us the ability to choose what we want to do (will), but not the freedom to act upon those choices.” This makes no sense. The Bible says we are free to exercise our will. Which part of “free will” stops you from “acting upon those choices”?  The reality, for both Believers and non-believers, is that there are consequences to your actions.  Christianity dreams up all sorts of scary shit to keep Believers in line, but there’s nothing in Christianity that forces Believers to be a certain way—they just scare you into it.  That’s still free will since it is your choice to do something that will result in punishment.

“Adultery” does not mean “having sex with a person who is married to another.”  I’ll paraphrase the correct definition and say that adultery is having sex with someone other than one’s spouse.  As for the part where Jesus says adultery and lust are the same thing, I think, from a certain point of view, that’s an accurate statement.  The idea is to keep all of your love for your spouse and when you feel amorous toward someone who isn’t your spouse without acting on those feelings, in a way, you’re cheating.  Of course, you’re also giving into your genetics, which aren’t really programmed for monogamy, so whatever.

“Love” is the second of two words that is properly defined by this graphic.  Though it is incomplete.  The complete definition is “strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties.”  It is standard Christian propaganda to say that God has a personal relationship with all of us and that “He” “loves” us.  This is obviously not true since there is no God.  However, this is not an example of Christians misusing words.  They say that “God is love” because they are good at marketing.

Wow, I’m really starting to wonder about my fellow atheists.  When you make up a whole graphic that claims to describe how Christians misuse certain words, you might want to consult a dictionary, first.

Seriously, this stupid graphic is one of the most moronic things I’ve read in weeks—and I’ve been reading a lot about Rick Perry, so that’s saying something!

The next time someone talks about Obama's Birth Certificate, ask if Jesus had one.

I CAN’T BELIEVE I didn’t think of this sooner.  

A bunch of years ago, I saw a fun little docu called “The God that Wasn’t There.”  It basically sets out to debunk that Jesus was a real person and it does a pretty good job.  Memories of that movie always come back to me whenever I see people refer to Jesus as a person who really existed.  I just saw someone quoting a witness to the recent execution of Troy Davis as saying ”Jesus was killed on the cross not because he was guilty, but because we all were.”

My first thought was: “He was a fictional character.  He was only fictionally killed on the cross.  There’s no proof he ever really lived, no birth certificate… HEEEEYYYY!!!”

It’s a weird day.

thereisnogod:christiannightmares:Christian heckler calls Obama the Antichrist (For a related post, click here http://christiannightmares.tumblr.com/post/995097248/tea-party-sign-the-antichrist-is-living-in-the)Fuck your god.While I didn’t hear in there the specific accusation that Obama is the anti-Christ, I’d like to just come out and say it:I’m anti-Christ.…But I’m not THE anti-Christ. I feel that while some of his alleged teachings sound great, I think you’d be better off reading the words of Superman or Spider-Man to look for wisdom. They’re just as reality-based as Jesus, in fact, I think modern super-heroes are more relavant than some ancient super-hero who fictionally lived 2000 years ago. It’s sort of like when people tell me I’m going to go to hell or that I won’t get into heaven both because I’m an atheist. I usually respond “Ok, I guess.”“But aren’t you afraid?”“Um, of something that doesn’t appear to exist? No.”

thereisnogod reports:

ONLY 3 DAYS TILL THE RETURN OF MY LORD AND SAVOR!

Are you prepared? Listen to this week’s 666cast and get tips on what to do at your Rapture Party!

Guns for Gods (via ColbertReport.com)

Saw this on last Thursday’s ep of Colbert Report and knew I had to cap it and post it.  Great stuff :)

contrararian:

If you don’t sin, Jesus died for nothing

(via sjswa2179)

Luckily, it’s easy to sin in the eyes of the Church.

How I (don't) Celebrate Easter (as an Atheist)

OK, I hadn't planned on blogging anything special on Easter this year but a Christian friend of mine replied to a microblog post I put up earlier today and it got me thinking about a few things:

1) The majority of Americans are Christian.

2) A tiny fraction of Americans are atheists.

3) Atheists don't get holidays.

4) When we get snarky in the face of quite a few public displays of affection for God, Jesus, etc, why aren't we just ignored like we usually are?

It seems disingenuous, to me, that the majority feels the need to defend itself against the minority. As an average atheist, it seems like I should have the right to be exponentially louder than the average Christian since there are so many of them out there. I need to speak up in order to be heard over the voices of all those believers.

Yet, I feel like I get lectured when I do speak up for myself and my beliefs.

I don't need to be told about how there's a God, or how Jesus died for my sins or whatever else. I've heard it all before. None of it is enough for me--not that I'm saying anything against you.

My friend explained that he felt the need to defend the intelligence of believers despite me not saying anything about the intelligence of believers in the first place. Really, it's not about how smart or dumb you are--it's about what you choose to believe and what you choose to do with that belief.

If it helps you to believe that there is a benevolent being watching over us that can be appealed to for help, by all means, believe in Him. Personally, I'd rather assume that there is no God and behave according to my own morals.

What bothers me is when people who normally talk about politics, current events, or other non-God-related things start talking about how "He is Risen". Suddenly, I'm wondering why they felt the need to say such a thing to me. Yes, OK, you're Christian, Happy Easter, enjoy the chocolate.

Then I see it again and again and I'm suddenly feeling like a freak for not believing that Jesus even existed. But whatever, man--people believe what they want and I'm fine with that. But on days like today, it's hard to move on, so I joke about how I'm going to take a moment to marvel at how the seasons work at keeping us alive and then watch "The God That Wasn't There" again.

Of course, my snarkiness is taken as disrespectful, or, at the very least, in need of a reply/counter-argument/etc. It seems like the majority can't leave the minority to it's whinyness. And that's ultimately, fine, too--I mean, it's the Internet, right? The majority of the web is porn and what isn't porn is divided up between illegal file sharing and useless arguments (it would seem).

What bothers me is when a belief in something un-provable replaces the known facts of a situation.

I could die of an aneurysm before I finish typing up this post. However, some of you would suggest "well, say a prayer, make sure God is happy with you and He won't let that happen."

Right, or I could just understand that I could die and move forward with the idea that I should live my life to the fullest because I could die at any time.

See? It's up to personal choice.

No right or wrong answer. Both sides can't prove they are right.

So, if you're a "believer" please, the next time you see one of us "non-believers" commenting about how we don't believe or are annoyed by religious holidays or whatever, keep your opinion to yourself. You're the majority. Anything you say is going to sound just as pompous, self-righteous and insulting as what we said in the first place. The difference is, we've already heard what you have to say and that's why we're atheists.

It might serve you to listen to our opinions since you may not have heard them before--it's not like we atheist have dramatically influenced culture for centuries the way y'all have.

The 5 Minute Show: Post-Easter Special

Checking in with Jesus!

In this episode of The 5 Minute Show, we check in with our Lord and Saviour, Jesus (yes, THAT Jesus) to see what he's been up to since His Resurrection. As a special bonus, Jesus helps us with the cooking segment!