October 29 2008 was apparently “The Day of Prayer for the World’s Economies”. WTF:
“We are going to intercede at the site of the statue of the bull on Wall Street to ask God to begin a shift from the bull and bear markets to what we feel will be the ‘Lion’s Market,’ or God’s control over the economic systems.”
See also: more photos from the prayer, a video, The Charging Bull statue
[via:Pharyngula]
PS3 game soundtrack with Qur’an reference causes massive recall
The combination of religious pigfuckers and corporate censorship is such great fun. Also: fuck multiculturalism.
[via:LOLtheist]
Italian museum displays crucified frog despite accusations of blasphemy
“The wooden sculpture by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger depicts a frog about one metre 30 centimetres high nailed to brown cross and holding a beer mug in one outstretched hand and an egg in another.”
Photo from Ecopolis.
[via:mummila]
Swedish pedestrian signs carry message from God
“Anyone living in Sweden or the Nordic countries will almost certainly have seen the image of a hand pointing upwards to encourage pedestrians to press the button before crossing the road. Prisma Teknik AB, the Swedish company behind the pedestrian signals, has now admitted that the hand is meant as a hidden symbol for God. [...] ‘We want to show that there is only one way to reach God and that is up and through Jesus”, CEO Jan Lund told The Local.’”
See also: Prisma Teknik AB
The cover of the supposedly offensive book, 'Uncle Bobby's Wedding' by Sarah S. Brannen.
[via:Kottke]
62-year-old Catholic monk and heavy metal rocker
“62-year-old Friar Cesare Bonizzi is a Roman Catholic monk by day and heavy metal crooner by night. Known by the stage name, “Fratello Metallo,” he and his band just released their second album.”
The above news story has a video attached to it. A terrible sounding handheld bootleg live recording can be found on Youtube.
[via:About Altreligion]
Time: Was Jesus’ Resurrection a Sequel?
“A 3-ft.-high tablet romantically dubbed “Gabriel’s Revelation” could challenge the uniqueness of the idea of the Christian Resurrection. The tablet appears to date authentically to the years just before the birth of Jesus and yet — at least according to one Israeli scholar — it announces the raising of a messiah after three days in the grave. If true, this could mean that Jesus’ followers had access to a well-established paradigm when they decreed that Christ himself rose on the third day”
[via:About: Altreligion]
Man electrocutes pickle, demonstrates power of Christianity
Electric tomfoolery provided by Grandpa John. Poor pickled cucumber.
[via:BoingBoing]
Sequel to Zeitgeist conspiracy movie coming in October
The followup will be titled “Zeitgeist - Addendum” (watch trailer).
I most definitely recommend watching the original movie, last year’s big hit among Internet natives. Ingested with the appropriate amount of grains of salt, Zeitgeist is, despite its length and other problems an interesting intellectual challenge and raiser of questions concerning the world we live in.
Zeitgeist, the Movie can be watched on Google Video or downloaded via bittorrent.
All-Time Classic Creationist Pwnage
Richard Lenski is a biologist who recently found evidence for the emergence of new traits among E.coli bacteria, in a fascinating experiment which he has described in a paper in PNAS (best lay coverage here). His results look a bit like evolution. You will note that his paper includes the original data.
Andrew Schlafly is a startlingly predictable right wing christian activist who runs Conservapedia. I highly recommend a look around there if you’ve not already had the pleasure, because even the people who run Conservapedia find it hard to tell whether the edits are being made by god-fearing americans or naughty satirists.
Schlafly read Lenski. He got angry. He demanded the original data. It was pointed out to him that the original data was in the paper. He demanded the original data again. With menaces.
The following exchange is mirrored humbly and verbatim in case of disappearance. It represents pwnage on a scale most of us can only dream of.
“It is not doubted that Satanists want what is best for their children the same as other parents probably do. Unlike many religious groups, however, there is no pressure for any religious involvement for the child. Quite the opposite, I have found many Satanists are more concerned about indoctrination (even by accident by themselves) of their child by any religious group, including the Satanists’ own beliefs.”
Right-wing news site autoreplaces “Tyson Gay” with “Tyson Homosexual”
American Family Association, a well known promoter of ridiculously conservative “family values” in the USA, choses to automatically replace the word “Gay” with “Homosexual” in stories syndicated from Associated Press on the news section on their web site. Anyone with any common sense whatsoever should know that auto replacement of words will cause some interesting effects in the long run. This time, it was a report on sprinter Tyson Gay’s achievements that bit them.
Funny Cthulhu tract parodies religious propaganda
Fred Van Lente has a great pamphlet that attempts to convince the reader that Cthulhu and the hideous Old Ones, the ancient masters of the earth in H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos, will return to enslave humankind. In response to learning this, any sensible person is expected to go insane and kill any loved ones and herself to be safe from the horrors of the Universe.
For some examples of what is being made fun of here, take a look at the works of e.g. Chick Publications (example) and Truth For Youth Ministries (example).
