Category: Religion

Spreading the love

The following post comes verbatim from Hyperham and Andy’s “Family v2.1” blog. I’m posting it as part of the point of it is to spread the names of certain hate-filled individuals who have taken it upon themselves to harass a young girl for daring to report her school for displaying a religious banner – against the rules laid down in the US. These so-called Christians (whatever happened to “forgiveness”) have been quite happy to post their names detailing what they’d like to do to her before someone pointed out how stupid that was and they’ve removes a lot of the posts from Twitter and facebook.

The joy of the internet – and a point I made to some of my classes this very week – is that what you put up there is up there forever. Even if you take it off, someone else could have grabbed a copy, even someone like Google who archive many web pages.

I gather many of the hate-filled individuals are finding themselves directly related to these comments right at the top of a Google search. I hope this remains the case when they go seeking work.

Anyway – the post:

In addition to being a multiracial family, we are also a multi-faith family. Baby was christened in a Lutheran ceremony, but still says goodnight to the household gods before bed. We (Monkey and I) are both very open and accepting of others’ faiths (or lack of), and so this works for us. It works so well that when I am presented with people not like us (eg, nutters), it is a bit of a shock.

In Cranston, Rhode Island, a 16 year old atheist took exception to the wall hanging in her school which had a prayer. Now, anyone with an 8th grade understanding of civics knows why this is unconstitutional, and it was eventually taken down. However, some ‘Christians’ of the school and community took offense, and decided to ruin her life. Here is the link to most of the screengrabs before the little cowards went private. Below, in plain text, are the words that these feral little monsters used in describing 16 year old Jessica Ahlquist and the case. (And of course, all spelling, punctuation, and syntax mistakes are theirs, not mine).

Jenn Gould: I hope people start complaining about this one particular person and how ugly they are, maybe they can get them removed.

Matt Starchild: May that little, evil, atheist teenage girl and that judge BURN IN HELL!

Donna Higgins: Well, I want the immediate removal of all atheist from the school, how about that?

Amanda Aldridge: she just destroyed a piece of cranston west’s history. hope you’re happy #stupidbitch

@MichaelRebl_ (Michael Martin Jr): to the girl who had the prayer taken off at cranston west – why the **** does it matter? its basically history. just don’t look at it. #bitch

Elijah Kilbane: If this banner comes down, hell I hope the school burns down with it!

Wes Wyatt: I HOPE SOMEDAY YOU, WILL NEED GOD IN YOUR LIFE.

@Margaret538: U little brainless idiot, hope u will be punished, you have not win sh..t! Stupid little brainless skunk!

@Crotchsnot (Mike Oxbig): How does it feel to be the most hated person in RI right now? Your a puke and disgrace to the human race.

Destiny Marcello: This girl must be so unloved to get negative attention from everyone. Yeah everyone talks about you because you’re psycho @Ry_Simoneau: “But for real somebody should jump this girl” lmao let’s do it! hmm jess is in my bio class, she’s gonna get some **** thrown at her.

@Ry_Simoneau (Ryan A Simoneau): But for real somebody should jump this girl I want to punch the girl in the face that made west take down the school prayer… #Honestly

Joseph Vezina: I hope there’s lots of banners in hell when your rotting in there you atheist **** #TeamJesus (this tweet was also promoted by @REK Rachel Knight)

Sydney Magner: Honestly I think the juniors are most mad about the banner thing because all of us actually know the psycho bitch. literally that girl is insane. and the best part is she already transferred schools because shes knows someone will jump her #ahaha

Taylor Crocker: shes not human shes garbage (to jessica) youre wrong the state had no choice like i hope you go to hell i honestly do youre a shitty person omg she almost as bad as blacks everyone is going to beat you up now prob gods going to **** your ass with that banner scumbag

@xxx_carys (C. Morgan): When I take over the world I’m going to do a holocaust on all the atheists

@Gab_Zacccaria (Gabriella Zaccaria): I think everyone should just fight this girl

@zachthedogg: **** Jessica alquist I’ll drop anchor on her face

Caleb McDevitt: definelty laying it down on this athiest tommorow anyone else? im sabotaging her site on fb lets just say its going to be nuts you need in on dat dawg?

Alyssa Pingitore: Jessica Ahlquist may have won her case, but she is going straight to hell. #Godoveranything

AJ St.Angelo: Let’s all jump the girl who did that banner #fuckthatho lol what a little bitch I wanna snuff her lol I wanna stick that bitch lol brb ima go drown that atheist in holy water We can make so many jokes about this dumb bitch, but who cares #thatbitchisgoingtohell and Satan is gonna rape her.

Dante Smith: hail Mary full of grace jessica is gonna get punched in the face

@zombiecamera: your home address posted online i cant wait to hear about you getting curb stomped you ******* worthless ****

Eric Rosa: wen the atheist dies, they believe they will become a tree. so we shld chop her down, turn her into paper then PRINT THE BIBLE ON HER. nail her to a cross

Gabriella Cimarelli: yeah well she’s definitely got it coming to her

Alexandra Vachon: if I wasn’t 18 and wouldn’t go to jail I’d beat the **** out of her idk how she got away with not being beat up yet this girl honestly needs to be punched in the face #justsaying whoever the bitch is that is continuing to fight for the school prayer at west to come down deserves to be punched in the mouth #tobadim18

Chris Lawton: i’ve decided that i’m going to eat her family

Kam Sadiq: LMAO everyone’s harassing her, but then again whose she gonna report it too? West? Lmao the administrators probably hate her haha

(Editor’s note: If you have any screengrabs, please feel free to put them on dropbox, flickr, etc, and send me a link, and I’ll add them on this wall of shame.)

So, to Kam Sadiq, Chris Lawton, Alexandra Vachon, Gabriella Cimarelli, Eric Rosa, Dante Smith, AJ St.Angelo, Alyssa Pingitore, Caleb McDevitt, Gabriella Zaccaria, Carys Morgan, Taylor Crocker, Sydney Magner, Joseph Vezina, Ryan A Simoneau, Destiny Marcello, Mike Oxbig, Wes Wyatt, Elijah Kilbane, Michael Martin Jr, Amanda Aldridge, Donna Higgins, Matt Starchild, and Jenn Gould:

For those of you who hate Jessica because her belief system is different that yours – I’m unsure if your priest/pastor/vicar/rabbi/holyman/etc ever filled you in on what Jesus said about those with different beliefs, but he was actually fine with different faiths. So, while you think you may be standing up for Christianity, you are actually a blight on the very concept of love and acceptance. Frankly, if losing a 50 year old banner (while ignoring the 250 year old document that forbids it in the first place) somehow ruins your faith, might I suggest your faith is pretty damned weak.

And for those of you who hate that your school has lost part of its charm from a banner coming down – based on your massive spelling mistakes, I would recommend you spend a little more time in your wonderful institution learning English and the 1st Amendment, and less tweeting and facebooking. In either case, your parents obviously failed spectacularly in raising you to be decent human beings, so now the Internet will have to take over. Your names and words will be indexed on search engines, and the next time a job recruiter or admissions officer from your dream college Googles you, they will find your hatred and vitriol. They will see exactly how much of a feral animal you are, and they will (God willing) run in the other direction. Because society didn’t teach you to be a decent human being, the rest of us will show you that your actions have consequences.

And a special slow clap for the parents of these creatures: I’m not sure where you were when your kids were raising themselves “Lord of the Flies” style, but WELL DONE on raising your little sociopaths. Truly. Fantastic job.

Our son may grow up and decide to become Protestant, the faith I was raised in. He may decide to follow the path of his father’s ancestors. He may become pagan. He may become an atheist. As long as he doesn’t use his belief system as an excuse to bully, belittle, threaten, or harm another person, have at it.

Until then, we’ll always have Google.

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Drugs and holy rollers

Cocaine powder
Go on - sniff your brain out

Two news stories caught my ear today, both of which made me once again question the sanity of some of the idiots I’m forced to share this planet with.

First up was a revelation that Britain’s cocaine, heroin and so on is at an all time low purity level, often times as low as 20% actual drugs and 80% “filler”. This can be anything from talcum to rat poison to ground glass. You know something? I don’t care.

Much as I believe in a person’s right to do what they want as long as it’s behind closed doors and doesn’t affect anyone else, I’m still rather anti-drugs. Whatever your legal stance on it, class A drugs are addictive and potentially deadly at the best of times. I’ve heard of enough cases of children being left to fend for themselves while parents tend to their smack addiction to know that drugs are pretty much a filthy thing that should be expunged from society.

The fact that people are complaining that their additive brain-destroying chemical is being mixed with something that might make their tummy bleed really is madness.

Got a problem with it? Don’t bloody use drugs, then you ******* idiot. It’s pretty simple. But then, anyone daft enough to snort Columbian marching powder for a hobby probably isn’t intelligent enough to see that.

OK, rant number two: some numpty somewhere (I think the US, but I only caught the end of the story on the radio) has announced that on September 11th they’re going to broadcast themselves burning the Koran. Well, that’s just great. Why not just insult a billion Muslims just to protest the actions of a couple of dozen. Who are already dead.

The high command in Afghanistan have begged them not to do it as the repercussions against troops posted there could be horrendous.

Seriously, does nobody think about the consequences of their actions any more?

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Two great adverts for denying religion

I’m not a religious person. At all. I haven’t been for very many years. Today, two news reports make me stand even sturdier in my belief. Or lack of it.

Frankly I’m just staggered that senior religious people can try to pass the buck for things that happen. In the first story, a Mexican bishop says that priests abuse children because of porn on the TV and the internet.

So its not the lifestyle of celibacy or the position of responsibility they’re put in where other people aren’t “allowed” to complain about them? The temptation isn’t an issue either? And the fact that TV and the internet have been around for decades when priests have been abusing the vulnerable for centuries is neither here nor there.

Just when I thought religious claptrap couldn’t get any worse, out comes an Iranian cleric who effectively says that women showing their ankles cause earthquakes.

I shake my head in disbelief and utter the phrase “what a crock of ****”. Seriously, how on earth can people follow idiots like these?

I’m all for people being allowed to believe what they want. But when one bunch are trying to blame society for their own (criminally disgusting) failings and another are attempting to use a natural disaster to persecute women it makes it very difficult for me to find any justification.

As ever, I can’t tar every follower of these faiths with the same “you are an idiot” brush. It’s simply not fair. But I seriously have to wonder why anyone reading these stories can justify believing the same things these senior officials are spouting.

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Get out the placards!

OK, folks. Time for a protest. Well, time to think of witty slogans and to start picking up cheap flimsy cardboard and wood to make signs with. Empire is reporting that Paramount Pictures are considering making a 3D version of the Book of Genesis (story here).

So why the protests? Well, if Catholics and other Christian denominations can feel justified in protesting outside of the likes of Jerry Springer: The Musical, Dogma and Life of Brian then surely those of other religious backgrounds (or no religious background) should be free to protest a film based on a book that contradicts their beliefs? Or, indeed, lack of them.

Having said that, I don’t know if I can picture crowds of atheists surrounding the Odeon, getting a bit hot under the collar about a film that insinuates that the Earth didn’t come into being 10 billion years ago. I think this may be because, unlike mad religious people, they’re generally happier to let other people live their own lives and make their own choices rather than force theirs on everyone else.

[Note – I’m not painting all religious people with one brush, here. But, come on, there are some nutjobs out there]

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Blasphemer! That’ll be €25,000 please

Icon for censorship
Thou shalt not have an opinion

Ireland has just, as of Jan 1st, put into place a law that the UK effectively ditched in 2008. It is now illegal to blaspheme against any religion on penalty of a very painful direct debit from your bank account. Up to €25,000. Ouchies.

Freedom of expression? Nope, no more. In fact, this “law” is just setting itself up to be repealed. It’s difficult to practice some religions without defaming (and therefore blaspheming) against others as their beliefs are at odds with each other. Who decides what classes as a religion in Ireland? If someone writes bad press about Scientology will they be fined? And how about the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

The Irish Atheists have put up a web page containing 26 blasphemous quotes (at the time of writing, their server was down but Google have a cached copy of the page or there’s a re-published version on their blog) by people such as Jesus Christ, the Pope, Salman Rushdie, Bjork and – oh – the Irish Minister For Justice who put this law into force in the first place.

This law protects religions, but criminalises any body who isn’t religious if they voice their own opinions. Some may even argue that school textbooks containing information on evolution could, technically, be blasphemy. Are they going to take all the publishers to court? As a couple of the quotes on that page mention, Jesus himself blasphemed against the Jews. The quote itself is in the Bible. So they should all be removed from public reach and the printers fined appropriately.

Am I being over-reactive? I don’t think so. I’m purely saying that if you’re going to act on the law then it has to be a level playing field. Everyone must be treated equally regardless of why they’re blaspheming.

After all, why should some people be protected for having religious views at the detriment of a completely harmless group who now face prosecution simply for not having a belief at all?

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