The 138th Carnival of the Godless

As I explained earlier today, there was some kind of problem that prevented me from receiving any of the submissions but Mr. Braden and I got it all worked out. That is why this Carnival was a little late. For that I apologize. I had written out my introduction beforehand and I guess I jinxed myself. :- ) Originally, to keep the Carnival going I was going to find some other posts to show until I could get the posts that were actually submitted and add them in later when I received them, but I've decided to keep the posts I added anyway though I'll leave those for the end so those who submitted theirs will be seen first.

Hi folks, and welcome to the 138th Carnival of the Godless! I'm your first time host Ken, also known as Arizona Atheist. This is my first time hosting this so I hope I get things right for my first time. If not, my sincerest apologies! I hope you enjoy this edition and it was a lot of fun reading all of the submissions. Without further adieu, let's get this Carnival rolling!

First up is blogger and author John Loftus whose post, The Trouble With Natural Theology takes a look at why Biblical criticism destroys many theists' beliefs in Natural Theology.

Next, Chris Hallquist, author of UFOs, Ghosts, and a Rising God: Debunking the Resurrection of Jesus, presents Individualistic atheism posted at The Uncredible Hallq. In this post Hallq gives his thoughts about many atheists' curious need to "replace" religion with "something" and why this isn't necessary. I completely agree.

JesusFetusFajitaFishsticks wrote a commentary titled Shit on the minority! and is posted at JesusFetusFajitaFishsticks. In it, the author gives their opinions about the video clip showing a Fox and Friends segment where the ACLU is getting involved in a dispute over a vote made by a majority of students to include prayer into the graduation ceremony.

Next up is Eric Michael Johnson's post titled Why I Am Not A Humanist at The Primate Diaries where he explains why Humanists should not be afraid to acknowledge the relationship between man and our animal relatives.

Ashley Merusi presents Who’s That Deity? posted at Online Colleges.net. This is an interesting quiz that has you try to guess which religious founder is represented in a series of twenty pictures.

Steve Snyder presents Abortion: It happens in the animal world too posted at SocraticGadfly. This is a very interesting article and indeed it threatens the idea of intelligent design if abortion can be found in the natural world.

BroadSnark presents Are Atheist "Evangelizers" Feminists? posted at BroadSnark. This is a very interesting article discussing religions' views on abortion as attacks upon the very real power women have over their lives. Their very own natural rights.

Kylie Sturgess presents Presenting, Minorities And The Token Skeptic At #AtheistCon posted at PodBlack Cat.

Xamuel presents Simulationism posted at Xamuel.com.

Travis Morgan presents Children Good Without God posted at Travis Morgan. This is a very good opinion piece in response to a father asking the author how to teach children right from wrong without reference to any religious belief.

Gina Liggett presents Shari'a Law in the West?! posted at Politics without God. This article is a scary article explaining how Muslims immigrating to the West wish to create a parallel legal system of Shari'a law based on Islamic religious and tribal traditions alongside Western law. This sounds very dangerous for women, and in a place where womens' rights are valued by most it would be a shame for them to pass such legislation.

Eric Michael Johnson presents The Unseen And Unknowable Has No Place In Science posted at Eric Michael Johnson. This is an excellent article about the incomparability of science and religion and explaining the author's religious teachings and his questioning attitude which eventually lead him away from his faith.

Next, is a very good piece by vjack, author of Atheist Revolution, in answer to some of the nonsensical comments us atheists often get from christians in the post Common Absurdities Atheists Hear From Christians.

Nicholas Covington, author of Atheism and Naturalism and the excellent Answers in Genesis BUSTED! blog, has written a very good piece arguing why he feels the existence of god is very highly improbable in A Simple Case for the Nonexistence of God.

Ebonmuse, the author of Daylight Atheism writes an interesting piece about atheism, gender, and race, and asking fellow atheists to not forget the women and minorities who are also brilliant freethinkers, and become more sensitive to the issues they personally face, in Atheism, Race and Gender.

Richard Carrier, author of Not the Impossible Faith and Sense & Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism, wrote a very interesting piece about the relationship between christianity and science, and dispels some popular misconceptions in his blog post Science and Medieval Christianity. Even though it's from 2006 I consider it an oldie but a goodie.

When discussing the issue about how many wars, violence, and injustice christianity has brought upon the world almost all theists will no doubt chime in with the same old, confused question: "Well, what about Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot? Weren't they atheists, and didn't they kill more people than all of the wars of christianity put together?" Robert, from Making My Way writes an excellent post exposing the historical inaccuracies of christian apologists about the Communists and Hitler. This article should not simply be swept under the rug by apologists since Robert obtained his MA in Russian Studies at Georgetown University and can speak with authority on such matters.

At The Secular Web, Chris Hallquist has written a very good critique of William Lane Craig's 1994 book Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. I also found an interesting blog post about Lee Strobel at his personal blog, The Uncredible Hallq, which attempts to expose Strobel's emotional, rather than intellectual, reasons for becoming a christian, unlike how he often presents his journey from non-belief to belief.

Finally, I found a fantastic article by Dr. Hector Avalos at the website for the book The Christian Delusion titled Darwin and Hitler where Avalos demolishes the arguments made by Discovery Institute fellow Dr. Richard Weikart which were used by the propaganda film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed and Weikart's book From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Carnival of the Godless! The next one on Apr 11, 2010 will be hosted by godless blogger.

The 138th Carnival of the Godless

Carnival of the Godless? Today?

Today is supposed to be the day I post all of the submissions I receive for this week's Carnival of the Godless, though I've only received one submission. Being a host of this was a little nerve racking for me because I am a planner. I feel most comfortable having a plan and knowing, at least to a small degree, the sequence of events so I can better plan what I'm going to do and when. But I haven't heard anything from the CoG organizer so I'm not sure what to do. So far, as it's been explained to me from the last hostess, you're emailed automatically as submissions come in (if I understood her right). If that's not what happens, perhaps all of the submissions get collected by the organizer and the night before they all get emailed to the current host. Well, I haven't gotten anything like that yet either. Taking this on, I wanted to make it run like clock work for the creator of it, because I don't want to botch his idea. I'll keep you updated and post it whenever I get the submissions. If there are none, I'll just post it myself with articles I think might be of interest to atheist readers.

If anyone has any information I'd greatly appreciate it.

12:00 - Noon - Update: Well I emailed J. Braden, as far as I know the current organizer, and I haven't heard back from him yet. As I said before, I am collecting posts to create my own CoG for everyone. If I receive the submissions sometime today or tomorrow because of some unknown delay I will add them. Hopefully I hear back from Mr. Braden soon.

3:00 pm - Update: I still haven't heard back from Mr. Braden but I went ahead and found a handful of posts for your viewing pleasure until I am able to get this mess sorted out. In six hours, which will be 9:00 pm Arizona time, I will post the Carnival as is until I get some feedback from Mr. Braden. I'm sorry this Carnival isn't running very smoothly. I'll keep everyone posted.

6:20 pm - Update: OK, Mr. Braden emailed me and he gave me an extension, so I'll be hosting the Carnival next Sunday, the 4th. He forwarded to me all of the submissions; the automatic system that was supposed to forward submissions to me failed to work for some reason. I'm glad we got all that straightened out. So, you can forget the last update.

9:20 pm -Update: I've freed up some time this evening so I will start work on the Carnival now. I should be done in maybe two hours or so. I'm a night owl so it shouldn't be too late for me. To all who submitted your articles I'm very sorry about the delay.

Carnival of the Godless? Today?

The U.S. Military "Spreading the Message of Jesus Christ"

Yes, from the mouth of former Congressman Robin Hayes (R-NC), he said that "stability in Iraq ultimately depended on 'spreading the message of Jesus Christ, the message of peace on earth, good will towards men. ...Everything depends on everyone learning about the birth of the Savior.'"

It's been a while since I've read any of Chris Rodda's articles online; I just haven't kept up with them. I was emailed a recent piece she wrote about Rep. Paul Broun's (R-GA) resolution proclaiming the first weekend of May "Ten Commandments Weekend" while making use of lies spread by christian history revisionists to support said resolution. This spurned me to read all of Rodda's Huffington Post articles and I have been shocked and shitting myself for about the last hour. I was under the ignorant impression that since the election of Obama much of these christian nationalists have been neutralized to some degree. Not in the slightest!

Here is part of an older piece Chris Rodda wrote from September 18, 2009. The above picture is also from the article. To see more pictures and examples of the infractions of military policy see the original article, linked to above.

Top Ten Ways to Convince the Muslims We're On a Crusade

10. Have top U.S. military officers, Defense Department officials, and politicians say we're in a religious war.

9. Have top U.S. military officers appear in a video showing just how Christian the Pentagon is.

8. Plant crosses in Muslim lands and make sure they're big enough to be visible from really far away.

7. Paint crosses and Christian messages on military vehicles and drive them through Iraq.

6. Make sure that our Christian soldiers and chaplains see the war as a way to fulfill the Great Commission.

5. Post photos on the internet of U.S. soldiers with their rifles and Bibles.

4. Invite virulently anti-Muslim speakers to lecture at our military colleges and service. academies.

3. Have a Christian TV network broadcast to the world that the military is helping missionaries convert Muslims.

2. Make sure Bibles and evangelizing materials sent to Muslim lands have official U.S. military emblems on them.

1. Send lots of Arabic, Dari, and Pashtu language Bibles to convert the Muslims.


Oh... and let's not forget the encoded bible verses secretly inscribed on military rifles discovered in January of 2010! Of course, those have since been removed, though it took a lot of effort to get the government do so.

Last but not least is a statement made by Lt. Carey Cash, the chaplain at Camp David:

"First we get the military, then we get the nation."





This information is fucking scary!

The U.S. Military "Spreading the Message of Jesus Christ"

War Against the Weak: A Talk by Edwin Black

Most people know about Hitler and the Nazi's campaign against "feebleminded" people and other "undesirables" but how many know that eugenics was actually started right here in the good 'ol US of A? Hitler corresponded with several U.S. scientists and copied the eugenics program that was begun here in the U.S. in 1904. Here, Edwin Black, the author of War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race and Nazi Nexus: America's Corporate Connections to Hitler's Holocaust, talks about his book War Against the Weak and answers questions from the audience. I apologize for the very poor picture quality. It's the only copy I was able to find. On the plus side the sound is very good!

I hope you enjoy this interesting but horribly sad part of american history.







Part 1



Part 2



Part 3

War Against the Weak: A Talk by Edwin Black

Police Can Be Very Stupid Sometimes

I read a story about Tempe, AZ police officer Jared Blanchard who "used his position as an officer to set up dates and have sexual intercourse with women." Because of this he was set to be fired, but resigned before such action could take place. See a copy of the story below.

OK, so let me get this straight: a cop murders a man: good (in fact better than good, the man pig is promoted!); sleeping with women: bad. Slamming a handcuffed man's head into a car and a fence, kicking a surrendering prone man's head, and putting an innocent man in a coma: good; sleeping with women: bad.

Now that we got that straight, how many people think this makes any sense at all? A cop will cause all kinds of harm to people and nothing will be done with them (in most cases they are only temporarily suspended but not fired or disciplined). They go around and use their status to meet and sleep with women and they are fired! Apparently, sexual morality is more important to police than murder, and other abuses. I think they have their priorities severely backwards and upside down! I agree that it was wrong for the cop to do such a thing (and why a woman would want to lower her standards and sleep with a cop I don't know...) but for the management to fire him over it while the bosses did nothing (or in some cases praising such barbaric behavior) about many of these other cases is just despicable.

Yes, cops can be very stupid at times...



I thought this only happened in movies! I guess the cops are that stupid after all...



Here is a copy of the story for future reference:

Tempe officer resigns after using his position to sleep with women
by Alicia E. Barrón
Posted on March 17, 2010 at 2:25 PM
Updated today at 2:48 PM

TEMPE – A Tempe police officer has resigned after allegedly having romantic relationships with women he met while on duty.

Jared Blanchard, 26, decided to resign instead of being fired after police say he used his position as an officer to set up dates and have sexual intercourse with women.

An internal investigation by Tempe police determined that Blanchard had abused his position for personal gain.

Further details on this case will be provided as they become available.

UPDATE - 3-18-10

I've recently been able to find at azcentral.com more information about this case:

Tempe officer resigns; had sex with women he met on duty
by Megan Boehnke - Mar. 17, 2010 11:24 AM
The Arizona Republic

Within minutes of pulling over a 21-year-old single mother near Tempe Marketplace and citing her for expired registration and no proof of insurance, then-Tempe Police Officer Jared Blanchard got her number from the citation and texted her.

"You are the prettiest girl I've ever pulled over," he told her.

Blanchard said he later had sex with the woman and pursued romantic relationships with at least three others he encountered while on duty, some of whom were victims of crimes, according to an internal investigation conducted by the Tempe Police Department.

Blanchard, 26, and a sworn police officer since March 2007, resigned in lieu of termination in August.

Details of the incidents are contained in Tempe Police investigative reports obtained this week by The Arizona Republic through a Freedom of Information Act request.

"Obviously we take these incidents very seriously," said Sgt. Steve Carbajal, a spokesman for the Tempe Police Department. "It's totally inappropriate to and unacceptable to meet women on duty or men on duty and cultivate relationships on duty."

In one case, while flirting with a friend of a suspect, Blanchard did not notice the woman he was about to arrest on a misdemeanor probation violation warrant had run away.

Blanchard told the suspect that he was going to arrest her after she removed her belongings from an apartment where she was being evicted in October 2008.

While exchanging phone numbers with a married friend of the suspect, he realized that he had not seen the woman return and that she was no longer inside the residence. Blanchard waited nearly 20 minutes to call his sergeant and request back up because he was "embarrassed." The woman was never located.

Blanchard went on to call the suspect's friend later that evening, had lunch with her in Tempe and had sex with her once in his apartment, an investigative report says. In interview with detectives, she denied having sex, but said she was flattered by the attention.

Blanchard was placed on desk duty in February 2009 after his neighbor called Mesa Police to report that Blanchard, while off duty, was harassing her and had grabbed her breast while in her apartment in May 2008.

An anonymous tip revealed that Blanchard had also slept with women he met on duty. When investigators confronted him, he admitted to the affairs, one of which took place while he was still married.

The neighbor who initiated the investigation told a Mesa officer she was dressing in her bedroom when he came in and reached out, squeezed her breast and then tried to kiss her. Blanchard insisted it happened while the two were playfully touching and slapping each other.

She reported another incident in the complex's hot tub, when she said Blanchard suggested she take off her top while giving her a massage. That prompted the neighbor to end the friendship, she said. She also reported that she was smoking marijuana and had drugs in her apartment when Blanchard was there, though he never used any with her. Officers are obligated to act when a crime is taking place.

During an interview into the incident with the neighbor, Tempe Police asked Blanchard if he had had any relationships with women he met on the job.

Without hesitation, Blanchard said, "Yes."

That opened the second investigation. Blanchard was found to have violated the police department's policy of abusing his position for his personal gain, receiving gifts or favors because of his status as an officer, violating the department's code of conduct, and engaging in conduct unbecoming of an officer.

He was also investigated for sexual abuse relating to the incident with his neighbor, but Mesa Police did not have enough evidence to move forward.

More on this topic

Blanchard investigation

Aug. 26, 2007: While still married to his wife, Officer Jared Blanchard took a phone report from a woman whose credit card had been stolen and used in Tempe. Blanchard called the victim on his personal cell phone and while taking the report, asked about her physical attributes. She began asking his.

He told her about himself "because we were talking and I felt like I wanted to," he said to investigators.

The two continued to talk on the phone for the next week while Blanchard was on duty and in-between calls for service, chatting for up to 20 minutes at a time about hobbies and sex. They later had sex in the pool at her parents' house in Chandler and dated for about three weeks.

Sept. 13, 2008: Blanchard made a vehicle stop near Tempe Marketplace. When he found out the woman was driving her father's vehicle and that he was out of town on a campout with scouts from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, he began talking to her about their mutual religion and then their children. The woman told police in an interview that she had given him her number for the citation and about a minute after she left, he texted her.

The woman said the pair met up periodically for about a week and he began getting "touchy, feely" with her. He also told her that he had sex with a woman whose house he responded to during a call. She said he then appeared to become paranoid that she would tell the department and he would lose his job.

She also said Blanchard attempted to have sex with her, but she became uncomfortable and left. In his interview, Blanchard said the pair did sleep together.

Oct. 6, 2008: The investigative report said Blanchard was flirting with one woman outside a Tempe apartment complex while trying to arrest another, who eventually got away. Blanchard had responded to a call from a landlord trying to evict a female tenant. He ran a check on three tenants and found that the one being evicted had a misdemeanor probation violation warrant. He allowed her to re-enter the home to retrieve her belongings, though he didn't request back-up after learning about the warrant. Blanchard began speaking with a friend of the tenants who had come to help them move.

During the conversation, they talked about the LDS church and exchanged phone numbers. Blanchard then realized he had not seen the woman with the warrant come back out of the apartment. When he looked inside, she was gone. Blanchard requested that another officer respond, though he didn't explain why. He then called his sergeant about 20 minutes after the suspect was last seen, though he told the sergeant that it had only been a few minutes. Three units were dispatched, but the suspect was never found.

Later that evening, Blanchard called the woman he had been talking to outside the apartments. The two talked some more, had lunch and eventually, he said, had sex at his apartment.

Feb. 23, 2009: Blanchard responded to a call at My Big Fat Greek Restaurant on Mill Avenue after a patron threw a drink at another patron during a fight that involved about 12 people. A woman approached him, introduced herself, and told him he was "pretty cute for a cop." He then asked for his phone number because she wanted to go out with him. He declined, but told her he could reach him at the police department by leaving a voicemail. She told him he had her number, referring to the report he was taking, if he wanted to reach her.

Either later that evening or the next day, Blanchard texted the woman with his number and the two went on a date a short time later. The relationship did not last more than a few days, he told police, because he didn't want to date outside his religion.

Source: Tempe police investigative reports

Police Can Be Very Stupid Sometimes

My Review of The Truth Behind the New Atheism is Featured in the 137th Carnival of the Godless

Over at Melliferax the 137th Carnival of the Godless is being hosted and my review of David Marshall's apologetic work The Truth Behind the New Atheism is posted. She mentioned how it was too long for her to read but she's "sure it’s great." I found that humorous, though I don't blame her. It is a very long post and would take a while to read. When and if she does read it I hope she enjoys it.

I really liked Ron Britton's post about the pledge of allegiance at Bay of Fundie.

FYI: I'll be hosting the 138th Carnival of the Godless right here on March 28th!

My Review of The Truth Behind the New Atheism is Featured in the 137th Carnival of the Godless

My Love of Books

I've been collecting books since I was a child; mostly childrens' story books. I did get a Picture Bible once as a gift, I believe from an aunt and uncle, which I actually still have! And yes, they leave out most of the more nasty stories...though the murder of Abel is there, but it's not illustrated; only implied and shows Cain being punished for it after the fact.

In my early teens I began collecting books on a wide range of topics having to do with martial arts, from the history of martial arts to healing, self-defense, military combat, and weapons combat. However, the last six years or so I've been collecting books about science, religion, politics, government, philosophy, and history. This new collection crowded my old martial arts collection so to make room I sold about half of my books on martial arts. I believe I had somewhere in the neighborhood of five-hundred books at one time just on martial arts alone.

I mostly concentrate on books dealing with skepticism, history, philosophy, or religion now a days, though. I found an interesting website called LibraryThing where you can create lists of books that you own, are reading, etc. I thought it would be interesting to sign up and find other book lovers and see what kinds of books others have. Well, I decided to list every book I own that's related to religion, philosophy, history, etc.

If anyone is interested in my vast book collection go here to check it out:

PrimeTruth's Account

My Love of Books

Defending the New Atheism

When the so called New Atheists began writing their books about religion in late 2005 and going into 2006 and 2007 atheism officially hit mainstream and the countless "closet atheists" finally had public voices of reason allowing them to feel less afraid of "coming out" to their friends and family. These atheist authors also did their best to defend science from the misguided attacks of the ignorant and superstitious. This large publishing campaign hasn't failed to rustle some feathers of some well-known, and not so well-known, defenders of irrationality the faith, however.

After seeing more and more of these books attempting to refute the New Atheists I began to wonder when and if any of the New Atheists would write future books rebutting the counter-arguments of the many theists that came out of the woodwork to cash in on the popularity of the New Atheist movement.

I still find it amazing that a total of only five books (Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion; Sam Harris' The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation; Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great; and Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell) could create such a publishing frenzy by christians and other theists! As of this writing I was able to find with just a quick search on Amazon.com 30 (and I know I've seen several more titles in the past) books arguing against, insulting, and just plain misunderstanding, and misquoting the New Atheist authors.

Can anyone say insecure (in their personal beliefs that is)?

Even though the New Atheists themselves haven't written responses directly to these many individuals there have been several online bloggers and authors who have come to the aid of the New Atheists. To date, I only know of one book that has been written in direct response to the critics of the New Atheists: The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason, by Victor J. Stenger. I've read this book and it is excellent. He clearly shows why these critics are wrong about the New Atheists and refutes their counter-arguments.


I'm going to list as many websites as I can find (and I shall modestly include my own as well) that have come out swinging against these misguided christians with their misguided responses. If you have found any others please write to me and tell me about them and I will add them to this list.

1. Deluding Who About What?, by Dan J. Bye - A short critique of Alister McGrath’s The Dawkins Delusion? - accessed 3-10-10

2. My partial review of The Irrational Atheist, by Vox Day -accessed 3-10-10 My newly completed review of The Irrational Atheist, by Vox Day - 2-25-11 - The most thorough one to date on the net!

3. The author of the Evangelical Realism blog had posted a series of posts about Vox Day's The Irrational Atheist. - accessed 6-4-10

4. My refutation of Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker's Answering the New Atheism - accessed 3-10-10

5. My extensive review of David Marshall's The Truth Behind the New Atheism - accssed 3-10-10

6. My review of David Aikman's The Delusion of Disbelief - accessed 3-10-10

7. Burk Braun's review of Eric Reitan's Is God a delusion? - accessed 3-10-10

8. While Sam Harris hasn't written any book length treatments on arguments against his books he has written a response to various claims and misunderstandings at his website. - accessed 3-10-10

9. Richard Dawkins has also written a response to various arguments and misunderstandings about his book The God Delusion in the preface to the second edition. - accessed 3-11-10

10. Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion is criticized by Jason Giannetti in the Journal of Liberal Religion. However, William R. Patterson responds to Giannetti in another article in the Journal: In Defense of Dawkins: A Response to Jason Giannetti - accessed 3-13-10

11. Bart Klink, at infidels.org, reviews John F. Haught's 2007 book God and the New Atheism - accessed 3-15-10

12. James S. Spiegel has written a book titled The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief which seeks to take a round-about approach to refuting the New Atheists. Spiegel attempts to "show that atheism is not ultimately about arguments and evidence" but is "a scholarly veneer masking the real causes of their unbelief - causes that are moral and psychological in nature." I refute his arguments in my review of his book here. - accessed 5-28-10

13. The girl who went MIA on the Rational Response Squad, Kelly, had also written a series of posts rebutting Vox Day's book. You can find her series of posts reproduced on my blog. Easiest way to find it is to click the Vox Day tag (which I just linked to) and find all the posts.

14. A Slave to Incompetence: The Truth Behind David Marshall’s Research on Slavery by Dr. Hector Avalos - accessed 7-15-10

15. The Irrational Atheist - a review from zarbi.livejournal.com - accessed 2-12-11

16. The Irrational Atheist - a review from x-eleven.livejournal.com - accessed 2-12-11

17. Chris Hallquist reviews Edward Feser’s The Last Superstition - accessed 5-18-11

18. Chris Hallquist reviews Dinesh D’Souza’s What’s So Great about Christianity? - accessed 5-28-11

19. Chris Hallquist reviews David Berlinski’s The Devil’s Delusion - accessed 5-28-11

20. ADD YOURS HERE! OR IF YOU FIND ONE, PLEASE NOTIFY ME

Defending the New Atheism

My Essay at Religious Tolerance

 The other day I sent in my review of Answering The New Atheism to ReligiousTolerance.org for inclusion into their guest post section of their website. I got an email back today saying how they have posted it already and linked to my website. Awesome! As a show of appreciation I have added their website to my list of recommended websites located on the right side of my blog.

I feel flattered that the individual who wrote me back said that my review was "absolutely superb" and the only editing I was told they felt needed to be done was capitalizing the word Deist in two places and broke up the first sentence into two.

My essay at Religious Tolerance can be found here. Please visit Religious Tolerance and show them your support!

The essay looks very nice on the site, my only gripe is that they didn't include the links in the footnotes for easy access to the works I cited. But if anyone is interested those resources are on my blog and the links are available at the review there. It also seems some of the block quotes do not contain the entirety of a quote where I quoted the authors, and the quote continues at the next paragraph. But these are very minor things and I'm not worried about it.

My Essay at Religious Tolerance

Does Religion Cause Sex Crimes?

From the blog Epiphenom the author, Tom Rees, wrote an interesting post about the devoutly religious and sex crimes.


Should we entrust children to the care of the devoutly religious?

The Catholic Church is in the news again - this time in Germany - as a result paedophile priests being outed after years of cover-ups. Traditionally, we have entrusted vulnerable children to the care of the devoutly religious, on the grounds that, of all people, they can be relied upon not to abuse those in their care. Does that assumption hold up? We can't extrapolate too wildly from the particular problems of the Catholic Church, but there are other data out there.

So I took a look at the evidence for religion and sexual crime. Now, there is a negative correlation between religion and crime in general, especially in the USA (although the devil is in the detail). Broadly speaking, the relationship seems to hold best for property crime, rather than violent crime. But most studies don't look at sexual crime.

However, here's an interesting fact from the UK. Although disproportionately few crooks in the prison population report having a religious faith, that's not the case when you just look at felons who are in for sex crimes. According to the Times.

The proportion of all prisoners declaring any faith compared with those with none is about 2:1 but among those convicted of sex crime it rises to 3:1. The trend is marked across many faiths, including Buddhism, Anglicanism, Free Church Christianity and Judaism.

That's pretty unscientific, but I have found a few studies that have looked into this in a more rigorous way, and they both found something similar.

Donna Eshuys and Stephen Smallbone of Griffith University in Australia assessed 111 incarcerated adult male sexual offenders. They categorised them as either atheists, religious dropouts, new converts, and lifelong religious stayers.

Surprisingly, they found that this last group (those who maintained religious involvement from childhood to adulthood) had more sexual offence convictions, more victims, and younger victims, than other groups. This relationship persisted after controlling for other factors that might explain it.

A similar study comes from Israel, and looked at Jewish male prisoners. As in the UK, religious individuals were rarer in prison than in wider society (by religious they mean orthodox observant Jews, who made up 3.75% of the prison population, compared with 20% of the general population). However, those religious Jews who were in prison were more likely to be in for sex crimes.

Lastly, Ruth Stout-Miller and colleagues interviewed freshman at a Southern University, and found that those who had been sexually abused by a relative were much more likely to be affiliated with fundamental Protestant religions (while those abused by a non-relative were more likely to be non-religious).

Well, it's not much. But it is interesting that the same pattern seems to crop up in the UK, Australia Israel and the USA. There does seem to be a link between religion and sex crimes, and it seems to be particularly a problem for the more devoutly religious individuals.

We can speculate why this might be (sexual repression, perhaps) although the reasons aren't altogether clear. But I think what is clear is that we should be cautious when entrusting children into the care of devout believers.

Does Religion Cause Sex Crimes?

Man Sues Taser International for Injuries

I read a story today about a man who was tasered by police and now suffers from medical problems. He seeks to sue Taser International, the company that makes the tasers the police used. See also the video below.

From azfamily.com:

Taser Int. named as sole defendant in injury case for first time ever
by Alicia E. Barrón
Posted on March 8, 2010 at 8:58 PM

SCOTTSDALE - A man taken down and permanently disabled by police in California is filing a lawsuit claiming a company in Arizona is to blame.

Doctors say Steve Butler has almost no short-term memory after police gave him the "taser treatment" in 2006 for being drunk and belligerent onboard a California bus.

Butler went into cardiac arrest. In a new lawsuit his family claims Scottsdale-based Taser International should be held responsible because data shows tasers fired at the chest can cause fatal heart injuries.

John Burton explains, “We can prove that by early 2006, but we suspect they had all the necessary data since 2005, since they were funding the study."

A spokesperson with Taser International says the stun guns have repeatedly passed medical studies and are safe to use.

The company did, however, put out a directive last year instructing police officers to no longer aim for the chest area.






This is more proof that tasers are not the safe alternative to beating a belligerent suspect's head in, or shooting him. These devices are constantly portrayed to be safe but the evidence speaks for itself. These devices are not any safer than most of the other potentially lethal weapons police use. Tasers should not be used unless an individual is clearly a danger to someone, and in the above case, with nothing but an annoying drunken man, this was clearly a case of police brutality. Someone who is simply being an annoyance should not have 50,000 volts shot through them! Following that logic teachers should begin tasering disruptive teens in school classrooms!

Man Sues Taser International for Injuries

The Lucifer Effect - March 2010

This month I've collected a few videos that are pretty shocking. Regarding the final video with pig Mike Scopa I was unable to find any updates on the investigation about him or if there were ever any actions taken against him.

This first video shows more actions by Pittsburgh police from another video I posted showing unnecessary riot police actions. This scene reminds me of an army preparing to overtake a peaceful people - which is exactly what it is. Is it or is it not one of the founding principles of this government that peaceful demonstrations can take place? It seems our rulers are getting ever increasingly intolerant of our natural right to peaceably assemble since this isn't an isolated incident. Just for the hell of it, here is another example.





Next, we have completely ass-backward situation in which a town's mayor decides to cheat the people out of their money with bullshit parking tickets. Not to mention the very law the jerk used to issue the tickets in the first place! Don't even get me started on the stupidity of that law! Even if it were somehow "just" the social contract still stands firm.





Finally, here is a news story about a cop who feels he is "above the law" and seems to think he can do whatever the hell he wants. A real asshole...

The Lucifer Effect - March 2010