The Daily Profaner: Putting Snark First, Myths Last!

It seems some of you aren’t too happy with our recent, nearly non-existent posting schedule. No, we are not leaving you all alone with the big, bad interwebs - but we do indeed have other shit to do. To help you understand this, I will provide a list of other shit we have been doing instead of blogging:

• Packing up all the crap in my house.

• Moving all said crap to a new house.

• Drinking (what can we say, It’s just sale after sale over at BevMo)

• Hanging out with godless peeps who are more important than you - now give them your money. Your donation comes with a bunch of nifty swag - including a member’s card and a small bag of fetus jerky!

• Organizing teacher union crap/doing shots with teachers on the way to this obscenely gigantic march.

Expect us to resume our normal schedule in the near future. Now shut the hell up.

[Atheists United] [UTLA]

It looks like the atheist bus ad campaign in Barcelona will be getting a new, theistic friend soon. The group E-Christians wants to throw their hat (ads) into the ring and is trying to raise the money to buy space on Barcelona buses. E-Christians says they “like the idea of putting the debate on God in the public square, and in this sense we want to make our own contribution.” They have not yet revealed what the planned signs are going to say. We suspect they might go with the traditional shame/piety-inducing standby “god watches you masturbate”.

[Catholic News Agency]

Michael Newdow’s fun party lawsuit that invited every atheist ever along to sue to demand a secular inauguration ceremony for Barack Obama will be getting a hearing in front of a person in a big black dress. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will hear the case on Jan. 15th.

This means you will have five whole days on the edge of your seat while the case is thrown out, there isn’t enough time to appeal it, and nothing happens. On the day of the inauguration you can get all your crying out when Rick Warren gives his bigot-o-rific invocation so you don’t embarrass yourself weeping when Obama gives his speech.

[Friendly Atheist]

After raising £140,000, the advertising campaign backed by the British Humanist Association and Richard Dawkins is going nationwide in England. The campaign was cooked up by comedy writer Ariane Sherine and focuses on buying bus ads that say, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Sherine is proud of Briton’s for supporting the campaign:

“This is a great day for freedom of speech in Britain and I’m really excited and thrilled that the adverts have been approved and I hope that they will make people smile on their way to work.”

The ads kicked off a wave of similar ads in America, Australia, and now, in Spain. While they might make some godless folks smile on the way to work, the ads will certainly make many theists frown. Richard Dawkins hopes that these frowns will turn to tears, tears Dawkins will harvest to quench his godless thirst.

[The Guardian]

While our old buddy Pete Stark is still the only, lonely, out Atheist in Congress, the LA Times reports that the Secular Coalition was able to root out 22 other godless members…who are scared shitless to be identified.

Then in fall 2006, the secular coalition embarked on a quest for the highest-ranking non-theist public official in America. It offered a $1,000 prize to whoever identified the winner.

Nearly 60 members of Congress were nominated. The coalition sent them surveys, and Kaplan said that when he interviewed the lawmakers, 22 confided that they did not believe in a god. Fearful of exposure, all but Stark told the group to keep quiet.

I think by now we have all seen the 2007 poll showing that we will see a gay president long before we will see an Atheist president, so it can be no mystery to us why these lawmakers prefer to stay closeted. How do we change this? By getting out about our godlessness - every last one of us.

You can send congressman Pete Stark a short email here to remind him he has your support and thank him for having the courage to be out.

[The OUT Campaign] [The LA Times] [US House of Representatives] [Gallup] [Secular Coalition]

It’s time for a refreshing glass of inauguration scandal lite - now with less Rick Warren; it’s less filling and better for you! Everyone’s favorite lawsuit atheist, Michael Newdow, is leading a whole gaggle of organizations and individuals in a lawsuit calling for the inaugural prayers and the phrase “so help me god” to be deep sixed from the inauguration.

Nedow filed a virtually identical lawsuit in 2005 that was kicked the hell out of the courts. The problem is that the inauguration is a privately-funded event, not a branch of the government that can violate the establishment clause. Also, “so help me god” isn’t part of the legal oath, it’s just a tradition - one you aren’t obliged to follow, at all.

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Have you ever noticed how bookstores stock every anti-godless book they have on the lonely little shelf in the philosophy section dedicated to atheist literature? You’ll never find The God Delusion or Letters to a Christian Nation in the Christian Inspiration section, yet you will always find anti-godless/apologetics books like The Devil’s Delusion and I Don’t Believe in Atheists on the Atheism shelf. These books have absolutly no place in the Atheism section; we should be able to go and buy our heretical books without hate leering at us from the shelves. We’re tired of it and we’re doing something about it - starting with a little creative re-stocking. Pic Gallery after the break.

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Those funky Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) signs sure have an impact on some people; a few individuals seem so struck that they want a sign of their very own - at least that’s why we assume they keep stealing them. The FFRF’s sign in Springfield is the second sign to suffer ‘8th commandment murder’ at the hands of an anonymous individual. The sign was stolen from the Illinois Capitol building sometime between 9:45 pm Monday and 7:00 am Tuesday, as reported by the custodial crew. The Capitol Police (who guard the Capitol 24 hours a day) oddly enough, saw nothing.  The theft is being treated as a criminal matter; the thief will face a criminal charge if they are found.

As always, the Freedom From Religion Foundation will replace the sign, probably held down by more tape this time, and add in a note quoting the 8th commandment of “thou shalt not steal”. The real question has to do with this “thou shalt not steal” sign- how dare the FFRF put up a blatantly religious display?

[The State Journal-Register]

Chuck Norris is mad. Not normal roundhouse kick some stereotyped Arab terrorist guy while jerking off into an American flag in an 80’s action movie mad - he’s the sort of sad and confused mad that you can only get when the things you believe don’t make sense when you put them together. Norris is trying to speak out on the spate of new Atheist advertising that are making their way round the world. While he says he believes in free speech he desperately wants someone to shut them down:

“Please don’t misunderstand me. I am a patriot, and I believe that atheists are free to believe, speak and post whatever they want. This is America – and that’s their First Amendment right. But, to do so with harassment and hatred under the guise of free speech is despicable. An anti-religious poster filled with spite is in no way equated with a religious symbol like a nativity. Where are the politically correct police when Christians are the victims?”

Well Chuck, if you’re a patriot and love the free speech, we’re all cool then, right? Ha! To Norris, free speech is only cool when you want to hear it - if it isn’t, you try to passive-aggressively bait other people into silencing it. Besides it’s not like they’re exactly victims here; they pushed the state to allow a religious display in the capitol. In order to make that situation tenable, the state couldn’t discriminate between holiday displays. When they put the Creche in the capitol they made their manger, now they have to lie in it.

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Michael Jacobson of Las Vegas is the sort of sadist that likes to put people into shackles join couples in matrimony; he would, but Nevada won’t let him do so because he is an atheist.  Like many other states Nevada requires that licensed officiants who can marry people belong to a religious congregation of some kind.  While some atheists are happy to pretend that they’re part of a religious group by joining The Humanist Society, which has tax exemption like that of a church, Jacobson isn’t willing to lie:

“I’m not going to do it by saying I belong to a religious organization… That’s a sham, because atheists are not religious.”

With the support of the American Humanist Association and the Center for Inquiry Jacobson is lobbying Nevada lawmakers to change the laws and allow the godless to preform weddings.  If that fails they will sue the State to ensure that all the non-religious Vampires, King Tuts, Liberaces, and Obsessive Star Trek Fans can get their cut of Las Vegas’ 24 hour marriage industry. 

[Los Angeles Times via Friendly Atheist]