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Outside the American Atheists Convention in Des Moines, Iowa last weekend.
(Via - Good As You)
Census researchers say there are nine countries around the world where religion may be "headed for extinction."
The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland. [snip] Dr Wiener continued: "In a large number of modern secular democracies, there's been a trend that folk are identifying themselves as non-affiliated with religion; in the Netherlands the number was 40%, and the highest we saw was in the Czech Republic, where the number was 60%." The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the "non-religious" category. They found, in a study published online, that those parameters were similar across all the countries studied, suggesting that similar behaviour drives the mathematics in all of them. And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
The young woman whose "God Punished Japan" video rocketed around the world yesterday, has confessed that she is actually an atheist troll.
The woman, with the username TamTamPamela, uploaded a video in the days after last week's massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami, claiming the disaster was "God literally waking people up and saying "You are going to hell" However, she was met with such a hostile response - including threats of death and rape (and even had her phone number and address published in some forums) - that she has gone into hiding. Other, less hard-line, wits decided to wage a war of food on her - getting non-stop pizzas delivered to her home. And well-known atheist Richard Dawkins even posted the original video on his website, but did so without providing a comment. A follow-up video in which tamtampamela admits she is a maker of troll videos did nothing to stem the flow of invective directed at her - one blogger encouraged people to "send her a turd" in the mail.Aside from her superb acting skills, which took in almost everybody unaware of her YouTube history (myself included), TamTamPamela vividly demonstrated Poe's Law, which states that no satire of religious fundamentalism, no matter how offensive or outrageous, can be distinguished from the actual whackadoodles who believe such nonsense.
This young Christian woman gets positively orgasmic with glee over God's punishment of Japan for having so many doomed atheists.
RELATED: Christian missionaries are seizing upon the opportunity offered by the earthquake to convert Japan's heathens.
"Pray for the church in Japan -- the little, tiny church in Japan -- that we know how to witness in this difficult time and can use our resources," he requests. "Lots of churches in America [want to help]. Our mission wants to send teams -- and of course I said, come. It can only help to give people a vision for this rich, but poor, country that needs the love of Christ so much. And people coming to help shows that as well."
"It is very sad that this dark chapter in Australia’s history is led by an atheist Prime Minister in Julia Gillard and an openly homosexual Greens leader, both who have no regard for God nor prayer. Now we have a new crisis brewing in the seas of Australia with Cyclone Bianca in WA just passing through, and Cyclone Yasi in QLD. How many more disasters will it take before our nation, starting from the Prime Minister, would fall on our knees and ask for God’s protection and turn back to Him?" - Pastor Daniel Nalliah, who also blames Australia's recent wildfires on abortion and claims to have ended a 2007 drought through the power of his prayers.
Ireland's leading atheist group is asking former Catholics to be truthful on the upcoming census form. The "Be Honest To Godless" campaign is being supported on Facebook.
Think before you tick your answer to the religion question, and give an answer that matches your actual religious affiliation. If you still believe in God but you are no longer truly a Roman Catholic, please say so. If you are an atheist or agnostic or humanist and you have no religion, please tick the ‘No Religion’ box. Atheist Ireland wants to see accurate answers to the question on religion. The last Census showed 3.7 million Roman Catholics (that’s about 87% of the population) and 186,000 people with no religion (that’s about 4% of the population). We believe the true figure for Roman Catholics is much lower than 87%, and the true figure for people with no religion is much higher than 4%.Atheist Ireland notes: "Careless answers to the question of religion will have an impact on the allocation of State resources, and on the political lobbying power of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. If you want a fair future based on accurate statistics, please answer this question honestly."
Via Atheist Media Blog, watch Bill O'Reilly tangle with the head of the American Atheists over their billboard campaign. "You get on your knees and pray to an invisible man in the sky and you DON'T think that's a scam?" This is good.
The latest installation in the American Atheists' national billboard campaign has gone up in Huntsville, Alabama declaring that "You KNOW they're all SCAMS." The sign contains symbols for five of the world's major faiths and promotes the group's regional conference, which takes place later this month. The group's last billboard, "You KNOW it's a MYTH," went up over the holidays at the entrance to NYC's Holland Tunnel and resulted in an answering billboard from the Catholic League at the exit of the tunnel.
