Showing posts with label bible. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bible. Show all posts

Smart as a FOX: Mr. Gainor, Your Bias is Showing

Posted by Unknown | Posted in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Posted on Thursday, February 09, 2012

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There's one thing that every "news" team has gotten right: there's a lot of bullshit in the news. What they all fail to realize, however, is that it's spread around on all sides. Left-wing, right-wing, and everything in between. Today, I had a delightful reminder of all of this and an incredible look into irony and complete jackassery.

A close friend of mine had pointed out VP of Business and Culture for Media Research Center Dan Gainor's Twitter account. The MRC is an organization founded by conservative activist L. Brent Bozell III. Its goal is to "prove — through sound scientific research — that liberal bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values, but also to neutralize its impact on the American political scene."

You can click on his name above to get the full scoop on Mr. Gainor from the MRC's site, but it does state that he has had almost two decades of experience in print and online media editing for multiple papers and magazines as well as contributing to the Fox Business Network and the Fox Forum.

At the time my friend brought him to my attention, though, he was lashing out at a gay individual who happened to be a Christian. Apparently, in Mr. Gainor's eyes, this made the individual a "pretend" Christian.




Seeing as how Mr. Gainor's remarks seemed a bit un-Christian, I reminded him of Matthew 7:1-5. There must be some hidden meaning behind the words of that particular section of the Bible to Atheists. When I woke in the morning, I found this reply:


Interesting considering that I had not even mentioned abortion (this, I assume, is what Gainor means by murdering "babies") and was simply defending the other person who Mr. Gainor said was "violating basic tenants of the Christian faith". Again, I fail to see how Mr. Gainor was adhering to the basic tenants by vehemently judging another individual, but maybe it's just my blackened, soulless self who is blind. I also fail to see how the gay individual was a baby murderer considering he never has nor ever will have an abortion.

So began my conversation with Mr. Gainor throughout the day. And he displayed hypocrisy and abundant idiocy splendidly. 

The individual who Mr. Gainor was bashing had brought up the recent firestorm over the Susan G. Komen foundation's decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood. Mr. Gainor contests that Planned Parenthood is the "number one abortion operation in the U.S.". When I reminded him that less than 3% of Planned Parenthood's services were abortion related and that countless lives have been saved due to their breast cancer and STD screening services:


OK. I'll bite, Mr. Gainor. How and why is that statistic bogus?


I wasn't quite sure how this response answered my question considering 1) he was offering a single number and doing math with a single number is rather pointless and 2) that his un-cited statistic proved nothing contrary to my own statistic that only 3% of their services were abortion related. 

What I was looking for was some supporting evidence that his "1,000 daily abortions" comment was, in fact, correct. Again I asked him to provide a citation for his statistic, at which point he furnished me with this link: Planned Parenthood Releases Annual Report: Abortions top 329,000.

Convenient that Mr. Gainor provides a link to an "article" written by the very news corporation which he contributes to. Also convenient that the article doesn't actually link to the annual report, but to other articles referencing Planned Parenthood. All, of course, portraying the organization in a negative light. This is a common practice, I've noticed, of many "news" organizations online. There are very few references to the actual reports and, when there are, there are even fewer links to them.

The casual reader, and especially those who are die-hard fans of one bias over the other and who obtain their news from a single source, would more than likely take what Mr. Gainor sent me as proof and believe what he said. And, judging by his response while I was looking for the information ("Hmmm, you appear to not have liked that stat") he more than likely assumed I had done just that and felt "beat" by his spin and omission of all the facts.

Taking some initiative and Google searching the report, I came to find this (link):

Planned Parenthood 2009-2010 Annual Report

According to the statistics, Mr. Gainor's stat of approximately 1,000 abortions per day was correct. Let's look at the rest of the chart, though. I notice that, in 2010, "Total Services" equaled 11,003,366 while "Abortion Services" totaled 329,449. 

Mr. Gainor suggested that I "do some math", so I'll try that now. Keep in mind that I was never spectacular at math, but I believe I remember how to figure percentages. Also keep in mind that these are the numbers which Mr. Gainor provided himself and used to refute my claim that only 3% of Planned Parenthood's services were abortion related.

329,449 / 11,003,366 =  0.0299407...
Abortion Services / Total Services = 3%

Planned Parenthood 2009-2010 Annual Report

Mr. Gainor has yet to explain to me just how my statistic was, as he states, "bogus" while his statistic, which uses the same set of numbers and he claims is undeniable truth, is not. He presented his case and his own data and, in doing so, supported the very argument that I had made. Yet, somehow, my claims are "bogus". Unfounded. 

Through the conversation, Mr. Gainor kept asserting that he was "pro-life" and for the protection of innocent lives. The fact is, Planned Parenthood helps to save innocent lives by offering affordable services to those in need. By offering STI/STD treatments and screenings, Cancer screenings, and various other services, the organization helps to prevent the loss of innocent life.

Yes, they do provide abortion services and yes those abortions work out to be approximately 1,000 per day, but that is a fraction of what Planned Parenthood does. That is a fact. And until Roe v. Wade is overturned within the Supreme Court, these abortions are legal and safe regardless of your religious or moral stance.

Mr. Gainor exemplifies what is wrong with "news" and the spread of disinformation in this country today. A huckster who sells you his biased and altered perception of the world through spin and hysteria. Do not swallow what he or any of his kind, be it Right or Left, have presented to you as the "truth". 

The truth does not up ratings. The truth does not feed the machine. And to find it, you need to dig and wade through the muck and shit that is presented to us every day by smiling, raving, talking heads.





Your move, Mr. Gainor.



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Constitution Becomes Harrisburg's Doormat

Posted by Unknown | Posted in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Posted on Monday, January 30, 2012

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"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." 
~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814


Originally, I had thoughts of composing a post concerning the issue heating up in Rhode Island over atheist Jessica Ahlquist and the removal of a "school prayer" from Cranston High School West's auditorium. I'd read the stories and the judicially dry, but incredibly well-written, 40-page document outlining the court's ruling. Visited Ms. Ahlquist's blog. Read the rude, often hate-filled comments hurled at the young woman in the name of Christianity. 

This is what I was going to write about until I began researching more stories on infractions of the separation of Church and State. There were more stories of religion, making its way into public classroom. Indiana state Senate passed a bill which would grant permission to teach Creationism in its schools. As my gears turned, forming the words I'd write within my head, I was alerted of a new story. One in my own state of Pennsylvania.


That is the headline which leaped from my laptop screen and smacked me in the face. Surely, this was some hoax. An Onion headline of sorts. With a few keystrokes, a click of the "Enter" button, and a split-second later, my hopes for hilarity were dashed. This was not a spoof. This, my friends, is real. The General Assembly of Pennsylvania "unanimously" passed House Resolution No. 535 (text here) declaring 2012 as the "Year of the Bible" in Pennsylvania.

The shear fact that my tax dollars, and the tax dollars of every other Pennsylvanian regardless of religious denomination or absolute lack of belief, went into paying for the time to draft and consider this resolution is an insult in and of itself. 

During a time when the burdens of their constituents and lack of jobs in the state should be at the front of the docket, this is what they're doing in Harrisburg. The educational system is being reduced to shambles. While a multi-billion dollar industry is spilling over our hills and clogging our roads, transforming the landscape, and life as we know it here in Pennsylvania, with little oversight, possible environmental impact, and health issues, our legislature is spending time naming the year on our dime. And this is simply the tip of the iceberg when it comes to House Resolution No. 535.

It is a blatant disregard to the separation of church and state as outlined in the U.S. Constitution. Many representatives, not only in Pennsylvania but across the nation, have been touting their love, adoration, and undying allegiance to this document with renewed gusto over the past few years as evident by movements like the Tea Party. 

However, in the same breath, the Constitution and the original framework of the founding fathers has been trampled and spit upon. They invoke the Constitution, but only in name. They use it to justify an agenda which completely opposes that of the Constitution. 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...

Nuts to that, apparently.

No, the resolution is not law. However, the resolution does promote a singular religion. It stands for the progression of Christianity and, in the same light, denounces all other religions that may be represented within the state by way of alienation. The "Year of the Bible"? Without even asking which version of the Bible they're speaking of, what about the Tanakh or the Bhagavad Gita? What of the Qur'an or, for the sake of diversity, Dianetics? 

The promotion of any singular religion by any level of government is unconstitutional. Period. The Forefathers had the knowledge of history and the foresight to lay out the separation of the state from the church to avoid imposing upon the rights of individuals regardless of religion. In the seminal case of Engel v. Vitale in 1962, which outlawed prayer in schools, the court had this to say of the Forefathers' beliefs:

By the time of the adoption of the Constitution, our history shows that there was widespread awareness among many Americans of the dangers of a union of Church and State. These people knew, some of them from bitter personal experience, that one of the greatest dangers to the freedom of the individual to worship in his own way lay in the Government’s placing its official stamp of approval upon one particular kind of prayer or one particular form of religious services... The Constitution was intended to avert a part of this danger by leaving the government of this country in the hands of the people rather than in the hands of any monarch. But this safeguard was not enough. Our Founders were no more willing to let the content of their prayers and their privilege of praying whenever they pleased be influenced by the ballot box than they were to let these vital matters of personal conscience depend upon the succession of monarchs. (source)

We are not, as many seem to believe with searing intensity, a "Christian" nation. Even if the Forefathers were Christian themselves (This is hotly debated. Many were believed to be, at best, Deists. Much of the evidence in their writing and lives suggests this.), it would not make this nation a "Christian" nation anymore than a meal prepared by Richard Dawkins would be an Atheistic dinner.

We are a nation of many beliefs or lack there of. And we all are granted the right, by our Constitution, to practice whichever beliefs we hold free of persecution. It's one of the main reasons we came to this hunk of land in the first place.

The representatives in Harrisburg have crossed a line. They have committed a crime against the U.S. Constitution and against their constituents. There is no reason for this to be taken lightly. Regardless of your religious beliefs, the Constitution and all of the rights it guarantees to the citizens of this country must be upheld. House Resolution No. 535 is a slippery and sickening glimpse into the thought process of those in Harrisburg and it should not go unnoticed.

Religion is a personal choice and an individual's concern alone. And when government dips their pens into the inkwell of faith and personal belief, they breach a wall constructed to keep them out of it for their own good and for our own personal safety. This is not the "Year of the Bible". And this is not the time for any of you sitting in Harrisburg or in Washington to be concerning yourselves with topics that, constitutionally, do not concern you.

The U.S. is hungry. We want to work. We want proper educational systems for our children. We want safety. And we want to know that you're doing everything possible to provide these things for this country using our tax dollars that we fork over every paycheck. The Church does not pay your salary, we do.

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Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to 
Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802


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Prepare the tinfoil hats

Posted by Unknown | Posted in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Posted on Friday, May 20, 2011

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Harold Camping predicts the end is here.
Tomorrow is the end of the world. It has been prophesied by the great Harold Camping. This man has never been wrong about anything pertaining to religion in his long career at Family Radio. He has studied the Bible from cover to cover. Word for word. He's crunched the numbers and he's predicted that tomorrow is it. On May 21st at 6:00 p.m. in each time zone, the rapture will occur. Good, God-fearing Christians will be beamed into heaven like holy Batsignals.

Families have been divided. Some have budgeted their savings to have absolutely nothing left come tomorrow. Evangelists are preaching from their piles of cash to save the world and atheists are cashing in on post-rapture pet care. No need to empty the shelves at the local grocery stores. This isn't Y2K. This is the god damn (pun slightly intended) rapture. Tomorrow, the man with the wavy hair, carefully crafted beard and birkenstocks will be knocking on your door and telling you whether you've been naughty or nice. Hint: if you suddenly end up near the largest bonfire you've ever seen, chances are you weren't nice. Or, at the very least, you didn't put enough folding money in the basket when it was passed around during mass. Pearly gates aren't cheap.

After all the pious folk are shot up into their sky-condos, we immoral, corrupted, non-believing blasphemers will have to endure Hell on Earth until October 21st. I could have sworn we've already been experiencing a bit of it here, but this will be the time when God turns it up to 11. It's going to be a vacation created from the pages of Dante. At least people will have no use for spray-tans anymore. Their flesh will be a lovely shade of charcoal. And, on October 21st, God will play Freebird and pull the plug. Lights out. Earth done. Humanity gone.

Or, on Sunday, we'll all sit back and watch Mr. Camping backpedal for the second time. He'll say he must have missed something in the Bible. Families who've torn themselves apart over this ridiculous concept will, at the very least, share awkward moments or be completely torn apart forever. People who've quit their jobs will be scrambling to find another, in an economy where it's nearly impossible to find anything decent, since more level-headed individuals scooped their old positions up the moment they left. And those who've budgeted themselves to have nothing left will be filing for bankruptcy or applying for loans to keep themselves from living on the streets.

Either Camping is right and tomorrow is the end of days. Or, he's simply another religious lunatic who's ruined the lives of many as he sits comfortably upon his cash. Either way, I plan on lounging around on Sunday (towering infernos or not), sipping a beer and probably caring about the passing "apocalypse" as much as an atheist can. Maybe I'll try to buy a house on the post-rapture market.

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