Alabama Atheist billboard controvery

Huntsville Alabama has a new billboard that reads:

You KNOW they're all SCAMS. Southeast Regional Atheist Meet. January 29-30. atheists.org/huntsville.

Here's a photo of the billboard. Here's what you will find if you follow the link to American Atheists:

Is All Religion a SCAM?

SCAM: 1. A ploy by a shyster to raise money. 2., A fraudulent business scheme. To scam means to victimize: deprive of by deceit; "He swindled me out of my inheritance"; "She defrauded the customers who trusted her"; "the cashier gypped me when he gave me too little change" 3. A confidence trick, confidence game, or con for short (also known as a scam) is an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons (known as the mark) usually with the goal of financial or other gain. The confidence trickster, con man, scam artist or con artist often works with an accomplice called the shill, who tries to encourage the mark by pretending to believe the trickster. Let's examine some truth: Truth 1) All religions make money and power from their flock. Truth 2) All religions* promise life after death, AND they promise that members of the flock will benefit in that afterlife from their association with the church/synagogue/mosque. Whether it's an amorphous "closeness to God", or eternity in Heaven, or 72 virgins, they make lots of promises about an afterlife that doesn't exist. They appeal to wishful thinking, egos, and love of life to insent the parishioners to follow and give. Let's face it: religion tells a good story. All you need to do is follow the preacher and good things will happen. You will never really die, and due to your involvement in (insert religion here) you will benefit for eternity. Yes, it pleases the invisible man-in-the-sky that you follow your preacher -- just ask your preacher and he will tell you. Sometimes, religions ask for money directly, and sometimes it's more indirect, but there is always money involved, and there is always a promise that will never be kept. Money and power in exchange for something that will never be recieved, and you can't even ask for a refund! This is a SCAM. Billions of adherents, many of whom are preachers themselves, all victims of this Great Scam. Some know it's a scam, yet defend religion because they like the lies. They like the fraud. They like the false sense of security. Unfortunately, no matter how much you like a lie, it doesn't make it truth. It DOES make religion a great scam if victims are willing to defend it, even in the face of truth. SO -- if you know it's a scam: * Why do you give it money? Why to you follow? Do you like being scammed? * Why do you allow your loved ones to follow? Why not raise their awareness so they can keep their money and their dignity?Because they like being scammed? * Why are you silent? Because the scam-artist preachers want you to be? American Atheists doesn't think religion deserves respect for lying or scamming people. Religion is a major conduit of wealth and power in this country, and this all comes at the expense of well-meaning intelligent victims of the greatest con-job ever. We urge you to get off your knees, keep you money, and regain your dignity. If you can read this (if you are human), you are the top of the food-chain. There are no beings on Earth greater than humans. Yes -- eventually, you will die, and wishing it weren't true won't change that, but at least you can live a full and meaningful life here and now, instead of wasting it following a god you know is a myth, and a religion you know is a scam. * Some secular philosophies, including Secular Judaism, Secular Islam, and Secular Buddhism, call themselves religions. We respectfully disagree with their definitions and do not allege they are scams, as they do not promise an afterlife or promote any deity.
Hmmm. I would put this billboard at about a "6" on my tolerance of religion scale. And I would put the website text at about a "5." [More . . . ]

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The Irresistible Lord Ralph

It is the first Sunday of 2011. I woke feeling a bit uneasy; somewhat queasy. As though someone were calling to me, deep inside. As a good igtheist, I ignore calls from the invisible beyond, even on Sunday. But as the day progressed, I divined that it was Lord Ralph calling to me. Loud. After another hour, it became distressing. I tried to placate him with a wintergreen pink tablet made with compounds of Bismuth (the element between toxic lead and radioactive Polonium). But he continued calling louder. I huddled under my blankets and moaned. This helps for a short periods, repeated over a couple of hours. Finally his call became not just clear, but imminent. Lord Ralph was demanding immediate supplication. I threw a wrap around my shivering shoulders and bolted for the room of his shrine. As I knelt before his porcelain altar, I gazed up through at shimmering ceiling to see if his ethereal chariot was nigh. It was. Forcefully I hailed the Holy Buick. The stars then did shimmer around me. The chariot was passing. I hailed it again, slightly weaker. It receded, even though I did loyally call after it a few more times in breathlessly quick succession. Lord Ralph must have been pleased. He set peace upon my wracked body, and allowed me go return to my covers and lie in serenity for a while. Then my wife came to offer us a bile-colored, caffeinated, fizzy, syrup solution over ice, called Mountain something-or-other. This, sipped with great respect, did placate this irresistible lord.

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Good without God, believers and otherwise

At Daylight Atheism, Ebonmuse has posted on the struggles of non-believers to put their simple messages in public places that invite traditional religious messages. Examples are these inflammatory messages: "Millions of Americans are Good without God," and "Don't Believe in God? You Are Not Alone." In another recent post, Ebonmuse points out that many Americans lie about going to church. The actual numbers of people who attend church regularly are much lower than self-reports. His analysis includes strategies for severing the alleged link between religiosity and morality. These are two of the highly relevant posts that you'll find at Daylight Atheism, an excellent site that explores religion and atheism.

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What 2010 Meant

The Lame Duck Congress has ended the year with a Marathon of Epic Legislation.  I can't help being impressed.  Obama said he wanted Congress to do with Don't Ask Don't Tell, to repeal it legislatively, and not have it end up as a court-mandated order.  I can understand this, especially given the rightward shift of the judiciary.  But the way in which he went about it seemed doomed and certainly angered a lot of people who thought he was breaking a campaign promise.  (The puzzling lunacy of his own justice department challenging a court-led effort must have looked like one more instance of Obama backing off from what he'd said he was going to do.)  I am a bit astonished that he got his way. A great deal of the apparent confusion over Obama's actions could stem from his seeming insistence that Congress do the heavy lifting for much of his agenda.  And while there's a lot to be said for going this route, what's troubling is his failure to effectively use the bully pulpit in his own causes.  And the fact that he has fallen short on much.   It would be, perhaps, reassuring to think that his strategy is something well-considered, that things the public knows little about will come to fruition by, say, his second term. (Will he have a second term?  Unless Republicans can front someone with more brains and less novelty than a Sarah Palin and more weight than a Mitt Romney, probably.  I have seen no one among the GOP ranks who looks even remotely electable.  The thing that might snuff Obama's chances would be a challenge from the Democrats themselves, but that would require a show of conviction the party has been unwilling overall to muster.) The Crash of 2008 caused a panic of identity.  Unemployment had been creeping upward prior to that due to a number of factors, not least of which is the chronic outsourcing that has become, hand-in-glove, as derided a practice as CEO compensation packages and "golden parachutes," and just as protected in practice by a persistent nostalgia that refuses to consider practical solutions that might result in actual interventions in the way we do business.  No one wants the jobs to go overseas but no one wants to impose protectionist policies on companies that outsource.  Just as no one likes the fact that top management is absurdly paid for jobs apparently done better 40 years ago by people drawing a tenth the amount, but no one wants to impose corrective policies that might curtail what amounts to corporate pillage.  It is the nostalgia for an America everyone believes once existed that functioned by the good will of its custodians and did not require laws to force people to do the morally right thing.  After a couple decades of hearing the refrain "You can't legislate morality" it has finally sunk in but for the wrong segment of social practice. [More . . . ]

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