See this cute little puppy here?

Apparently it’s the latest source of Muslim outrage. No, I’m not joking:

A postcard featuring a cute puppy sitting in a policeman’s hat advertising a Scottish police force’s new telephone number has sparked outrage from Muslims. 

Tayside Police’s new non-emergency phone number has prompted complaints from members of the Islamic community.

The choice of image on the Tayside Police cards - a black dog sitting in a police officer’s hat - has now been raised with Chief Constable John Vine.

If you’re anything like me I’m sure your first thought is: What the fuck? You might think that there’s got to be a rational and sensible explanation for this. You’d be wrong:

The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert.

Dundee councillor Mohammed Asif said: ‘My concern was that it’s not welcomed by all communities, with the dog on the cards.

So far there’s been no reports of rioting over the advert, but I imagine it’s only a matter of time as word spreads of this horrible offense. The police have handled the situation better than I would have, I would’ve laughed the first time they told me they were offended by the dog, saying:

‘Trainee police dog Rebel has proved extremely popular with children and adults since being introduced to the public, aged six weeks old, as Tayside Police’s newest canine recruit.

‘His incredible world-wide popularity - he has attracted record visitor numbers to our website - led us to believe Rebel could play a starring role in the promotion of our non-emergency number.

‘We did not seek advice from the force’s diversity adviser prior to publishing and distributing the postcards. That was an oversight and we apologise for any offence caused.’

Give me a fucking break. Just more proof that many Muslims are just as irrational and delusional, if not more so, as many Christians.

Update: As requested, DOF graces us with the following:

Awww! He’s so cute!

Somehow I had a feeling Obama was too good to be true. There had to be something about him that was eventually going to disappoint me. And now I know what it is:

CHICAGO - Reaching out to religious voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush’s program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and — in a move sure to cause controversy — support some ability to hire and fire based on faith.

[...] Obama does not support requiring religious tests for recipients of aid nor using federal money to proselytize, according to a campaign fact sheet. He also only supports letting religious institutions hire and fire based on faith in the non-taxypayer funded portions of their activities, said a senior adviser to the campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe the new policy.

I suppose so long as he’s including more than just the Right Wing Nutsacks Evangelicals in handing out government money that’d be at least somewhat of an improvement over Bush’s plan, but I’ll believe it when I see Muslims or, even better, Wiccans getting a grant. The Right Wingers, of course, are going to have a hissy fit when they’re suddenly no longer the only ones sucking on the taxpayer teat. Expanding the program, however, is not the ideal solution:

Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized Obama’s proposed expansion of a program he said has undermined civil rights and civil liberties.

“I am disappointed that any presidential candidate would want to continue a failed policy of the Bush administration,” he said. “It ought to be shut down, not continued.”

Agreed. The government has no business being involved with the funding of religious organizations of any kind. Looks like it will continue to do so, however, even if the Republicans aren’t in control.

Or so says a prominent Christian theology professor:

Bruce Ware, professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said women desire to have their own way instead of submitting to their husbands because of sin.

“And husbands on their parts, because they’re sinners, now respond to that threat to their authority either by being abusive, which is of course one of the ways men can respond when their authority is challenged--or, more commonly, to become passive, acquiescent, and simply not asserting the leadership they ought to as men in their homes and in churches,” Ware said from the pulpit of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas.

See? It’s not your husband’s fault that he has to beat you senseless. He’s merely enforcing God’s vision of the role woman are to play in the relationship. Don’t think of it so much as a brutal pounding than as helpful love taps to knock you back onto the path of righteousness in hopes of saving your worthless ass from an eternity of hellfire which we all know would be way worse than the couple of black eyes and the broken arm your husband inflicted upon you. A little pain now will save you from a whole lotta burnin’ later.

So sayest professor Ware at least.

Jesus’ self-portraits have been going downhill for awhile now, but this is just sad. I mean just look at the pathetic excuse for art he’s trying to pass off:

DALLAS (CBS 11 News) ― Workers at a marble company in Dallas say they have a slab of natural granite that has the image of Jesus in it.

[...] Those who look at the 6x10 foot slab say they can see the head and arms of Jesus, along with either a belt, sword or glowing book.

The company has pulled the slab from its inventory and put it on display.

[...] The company owners say they feel blessed to have the piece and hope to sell it and donate the proceeds to a struggling church in Madill, Oklahoma.

It looks to me like Jesus is trying for the “Han Solo Frozen in Carbonite” look. One of the worst pareidolias of the year. But at least they’re going to donate the money they get from selling this thing. Too bad it’s going to a church and not something useful like curing cancer.

Apparently worried that Evangelical Christians were hogging the Creationist Wackadoo spotlight too much, a Muslim creationist by the name of Harun Yahya is pushing books touting the Islamic version of creationism to various scientists and academics around the world. He’s also predicting that Jesus will return “really soon now”, but it not as a Christian:

Oktar said Koran verses and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed about the end of the world revealed Jesus would return soon as a Muslim to help Islam’s savior, the Mahdi, defeat the Dajjal or Islamic Anti-Christ and establish Islam around the world.

“Our biggest project right now is to lay the grounds for the coming of Jesus Christ,” he said. “We understand this is going to be in the next 20 to 25 years.”

The idea of Jesus returning as a Muslim is standard Islamic teaching about the end of times. But Muslims normally stress the end times less than evangelical Christians do, and Oktar’s focus on this has prompted rumors he thinks he is the Mahdi.

“I do not make such a claim,” he said. “Because of parallels in what I have written and the hadith (sayings) of the Prophet Mohammad, some people have thought I could be him… but in Islam it is forbidden for me to make such a claim.”

Well, if nothing else, it’s refreshing to get a new take on the same old story I suppose. Though I imagine if it actually comes to pass there will be a lot of very disillusioned Christians out there. It’d almost be worth it just to see the looks on their faces.

God just can’t seem to stay out of trouble. First he gets arrested for breaking and entering and now he’s caught selling cocaine:

Authorities began investigating God Lucky Howard in April, and he was arrested on Saturday. Police say he sold the cocaine to undercover detectives in his neighborhood. When officers searched his home, they reported finding another 22 grams of cocaine and a scale.

Jail records show Howard was charged with several counts drug possession and distribution, which include increased charges for being within 1,000 feet of a church, a school and public housing.

Who knew God was such a trouble maker?

16-year-old Neil Beagley died of heart failure thanks to an untreated urinary tract blockage:

He probably had a congenital condition that constricted his urinary tract where the bladder empties into the urethra, and the condition of his organs indicates that he had multiple blockages during his life, said Dr. Clifford Nelson, deputy state medical examiner for Clackamas County.

“You just build up so much urea in your bloodstream that it begins to poison your organs, and the heart is particularly susceptible,” Nelson said.

Nelson said a catheter would have saved the boy’s life. If the condition had been dealt with earlier, a urologist could easily have removed the blockage and avoided the kidney damage that came with the repeated illnesses, Nelson said.

In short, the kid died because he couldn’t piss and reports have it he refused medical treatment in favor of prayer. It probably won’t be prosecuted as a crime because in Oregon the law allows anyone 14 years or older to refuse medical treatment. The same can’t be said of the boy’s cousin, though, who has also fallen victim to people who think prayer actually does something:

In March, the boy’s 15-month-old cousin Ava Worthington died at home from bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection.

Her parents, Carl and Raylene Worthington, also belong to the church. They have pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and criminal mistreatment, and their defense attorneys have indicated that they will use a religious freedom defense.

I find it odd that so many True Believers™ will protest abortion because every life is sacred, but apparently not sacred enough for some to seek simple medical treatment for their kids. Abortion is murder, but not getting your kid a catheter is just God’s way of saying his time has come.

One of the stories making the rounds of various atheist blogs recently was about attempts in some southern states to pass legislation for new vanity plates for True Believers™. The plates would have the words “I BELIEVE” with a picture of a cross on a stained glass window. Needless to say, the imagery raises some church/state concerns. South Carolina is the first state to actually pass the legislation to make these plates possible and it’s already resulted in a lawsuit by the folks at Americans United:

COLUMBIA, South Carolina — A group that advocates separation of church and state filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to prevent South Carolina from becoming the first state to create “I Believe” license plates.

The group contends that South Carolina’s government is endorsing Christianity by allowing the plates, which would include a cross superimposed on a stained glass window.

You just know the conservative Christians are going to have a field day over this lawsuit claiming it’s us nasty atheists trying to push God out of the public square once again, but as it turns out there’s no atheists involved in the lawsuit:

Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Christian pastors, a humanist pastor and a rabbi in South Carolina, along with the Hindu American Foundation.

Not that that’ll stop them from claiming it’s anti-religious sentiment that’s prompting the lawsuit:

Republican House Speaker Bobby Harrell said residents asked for a way to express their beliefs, and legislators responded.

He disputed Lynn’s accusation that they were pandering to constituents in an election year.

“That’s what critics always say when they see something they don’t like,” Harrell said. “I think this has less to do with the First Amendment and more to do with their disdain for religion generally.”

An argument that’s obviously flawed due to the fact that religious leaders are the ones involved in the suit:

But a Methodist pastor who joined the lawsuit, the retired Rev. Thomas Summers of Columbia, said the plate provokes discrimination.

“I think this license plate really is divisive and creates the type of religious discord I’ve devoted my life to healing,” he said.

Another of the ministers, the Rev. Robert Knight of Charleston, said the plates cheapen the Christian message.

“As an evangelical Christian, I don’t think civil religion enhances the Christian religion. It compromises it,” Knight said. “That’s the fundamental irony. It’s very shallow from a Christian standpoint.”

Get ready to cue the gnashing of teeth and whines about us atheists at Wing Nut Daily in 5… 4… 3…

God has finally returned to Earth after 2000 or so years and has already gotten in trouble with the authorities by trying to claim the vacant home of a couple in prison for tax evasion to be used as his new church:

A bearded man dressed in white and identifying himself as “Son of Man” and “Son of Israel” was arrested at the Browns’ home Sunday night after he broke into the home to claim it for his religion, the House of Israel, according to court documents.

The man, who resembles descriptions of a mysterious spiritual adviser who visited the Browns last year during their eight-month standoff with authorities, was arraigned yesterday in Claremont District Court, where he refused to enter pleas, talk to his court-appointed attorney or recognize the judge’s authority. Instead, he insisted on the absolute power of God’s word before being led back to the Sullivan County House of Corrections, where he will stay until a psychiatrist evaluates him. A hearing was scheduled for August.

You’d think God would have learned his lesson the last time he came down here and tried to start a new church when he ended up nailed to a tree. Looks like it still hasn’t sunk in even after all this time.

Police ID father killed as he beat son to death ‘to get demons out’ - USATODAY.com

The California man killed by police as he calmly beat his 2-year-old son to death Saturday night told motorists who tried to intervene that he had “to get the demons out” of the boy because he was “trash,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Sergio Casian Aguilar, 27, from Turlock ("The City of God"), was shot to death by a Modesto police officer as he punched and stomped his son on a country road in Stanislaus County. The child, who has not been identified, was beaten beyond recognition.

Police don’t know what prompted the killing. Toxicology reports from Aguilar’s autopsy won’t be available for several weeks. He had no criminal record, the sheriff’s department said.

Aguilar continued to beat his son as the police officer arrived in a helicopter and ordered him at gunpoint to stop. Aguilar was killed with a single shot.

“He wasn’t acting like a crazy person, running around or screaming,” said witness Lisa Mota. “He said, ‘I’ve just got to get the demons out of him.’ He was very calm.’ ”

It’s possible this guy was just nuts and that’s that, but it sounds like a religious fueled delusion to me. Either way it amazes me what people can do to their own children.

That’s what the folks over at IO9 are saying about it.

Note, the following discussion pretty much spoils the whole movie so if you think you might want to see it then don’t read any further. I’ll put it below the fold just in case.

So the world didn’t end on June 12th as predicted by Yisrayl Hawkins of the House of Yahweh cult though something bad did befall Mr. Hawkins:

CLYDE, Texas—The founder of the House of Yahweh religious sect remained jailed Wednesday on four counts of bigamy, officials said.

Yisrayl Hawkins was being held at the Taylor County Jail, with bail set at $10 million.

[...] Hawkins, who founded the sect in 1980 after leaving the Abilene Police Department, was arrested in Callahan County on Tuesday afternoon.

It was unclear if Hawkins had an attorney. A message could not be left at the House of Yaweh’s office in Abilene on Wednesday morning.

Arrested two days before the world was supposed to end. You have to wonder if he saw this coming and made his prediction as a desperate form of wishful thinking. 

This poor bastard got into a tussle with some nasty bees and lived to tell about it:

James Dunsworth was clearing away cedar trees with his bulldozer on Monday when the 72-year-old hit a bee hive deep inside one of the trees. “Just about one o’clock,” he said, “I hit that tree that had all the bees in it, and those bees came up just like smoke out of that tree.”

The bees attacked Dunsworth, knocking him from the tractor and onto the ground. “They come right under the hood of that dozer, right in on me,” he explained. “I just laid there and thought, I’m going to have to do something or I’m going to die right here.

As Dunsworth rolled down a nearby hill, the bees climbed inside his mouth and ears, stinging his face and arms. “They stung in my mouth, my ears, all over my head and on my arms. I had a pair of overalls on, or it probably would have got worse,” he said.

Then, “I just happened to think about my cell phone,” Dunsworth said. He dialed 911.

Dunsworth: These bees are covering me up! Killer bees!
Dispatcher: Have you been stung?
Dunsworth: All over! They’re all over me!

Yeah, that’s a bad day to be sure. What’s weird is that the article doesn’t actually say in what way Mr. Dunsworth feels that God helped him survive the attack, though it does say:

According to Dunsworth, one thought kept him alive during these two hours of waiting for help. He had to take care of his daughter with cerebral palsy. “I got to thinking about my little daughter, and I thought, I’m going to try to fight it out if I can. That’s what I done,” he said.

“It was a terrible experience,” Dunsworth said of the torturous attack. “I wouldn’t want to see anybody go through that. That’s the worst punishment I ever had.”

Dunsworth is now recovering at JPS Hospital in Fort Worth. His muscles are still stiff, and doctors intend to watch him for a couple more days. Still, he is lucky to be alive. “I know I wouldn’t have been here today if I hadn’t had that little cell phone,” he said.

You’d think that God could do something a bit more impressive such as, say, put a protective anti-bee bubble around Dunsworth while he hauled ass across the countryside trying to get away or perhaps kick up a strong wind that blows all the bees onto a busy highway where they splatter into the windshields of passing cars in huge amounts resulting in a deadly pile up of unrepentant sinners bound for Hell. No, all God does is remind Dunsworth that he has a cell phone and a daughter that needs him.

Thanks for that big hand there, God. Must have left you dead tired from all that effort you put in.

You can’t make this shit up:

Calif. mine owner wants to build world’s tallest statue of Jesus | ScrippsNews

Ted Arman has big plans for his Iron Mountain Mine and the acidic water that seeps from the federal Superfund site.

They include a return to mineral mining at the location nine miles northwest of Redding, Calif., and a 200-foot Italian marble statue of Jesus Christ atop the 3,500-foot mountain that Arman says would be the largest in the world. Next to the steel-framed Christ would stand a 100-foot crucifix. Arman said the cross also would be lit up at night.

“I hope to make the property a Garden of Eden,” Arman said.

But a federal official says that none of Arman’s changes are in the works at the mine, home to what scientists have called the world’s worst water and whose iron-red scar is visible from much of Redding.

“He has always had a number of plans for the mine,” said Rick Sugarek, project manager for the Environmental Protection Agency’s cleanup of Iron Mountain.

Sugarek said Arman hasn’t made any proposals to the EPA detailing how he would extract minerals—such as copper, zinc and cadmium—from the mines’ acidic water or for erecting the massive statue.

As long as the statue doesn’t interfere with the cleanup effort at the mine, Sugarek said Arman should be free to build it. After all, it is his property.

Not sure how that’ll turn a Supderfund site into a garden of Eden, but then I tend to live in reality and not La La Land. Estimates are that it’ll take three years to complete the statue at a cost of between $40 and $60 million, which Arman hopes to secure funding for from unnamed people around the world who apparently want nothing more than to have a really big statue of Jesus sitting on top of a toxic mining operation. Perhaps it’s an allegory to how Jesus used to hang out with the lepers and such.

This is why I’m voting for Obama and not McCain:

Blatantly stolen from DOF who found it first.

You’re probably thinking I was checking out the nutbags over at The True Bible Code and Lord’s Witnesses again, but not this time. Those guys have already announced that the world has ended, judicially (whatever that means), last April 20th and are expecting a nuclear bomb in New York on June 11th.

No, this is an entirely new bunch of nutbags:

An elusive group just outside of Abilene, Texas is claiming the end of the world is coming in less than a week.

The House of Yahweh recently gave ABC reporter Brian Ross access to their west Texas compound. Yahweh leader Yisrayl Hawkins says a nuclear holocaust will come June 12th and only members of his group will be saved.

All group members change their last names to Hawkins and live in the compound.

These guys are MUCH more credible than the True Bible guys cause they’ve only been wrong twice before and not a hundred-gazillion times like the TB dudes. Plus these House of Yahweh dudes were actually on ABC’s 20/20 news program. Something the TB guys can only dream of:

Nuclear war will begin next Thursday, June 12, or sooner, according to the latest prediction of self-proclaimed prophet Yisrayl “Buffalo Bill” Hawkins, the founder of a religious sect in Abilene, Texas.

“It could be turned loose before then,” Hawkins told 20/20 for a report to be broadcast tonight. “You’re going to see this very soon, really soon,” he said.

Hundreds of truck trailers have been loaded with food and water on the group’s 44-acre compound, in preparation for the coming war.

Unfortunately for Hawkins, it is not the first time he predicted the outbreak of nuclear war.

Most recently, Hawkins set Sept. 12, 2006 as the beginning of the end.

His followers produced an on-line video with a countdown to doomsday.

In Kenya, hundreds of his followers actually hid in basement bomb shelters and donned gas masks on the date.

They went home in humiliation when there was no war.

Oopsie! That predictin’ shit is hard! Still there’s no harm in trying, right? Especially if you can make a few bucks along the way:

“He’s been saying just give me two more years, we’re right at the end,” said former member Miriam Martin who left in 2004.

“Why would you give up now? That’s how he controls people, is through fear,” Martin said.

Other former members say they are required to buy doomsday food and supplies from a company that Hawkins owns personally, Life Nutrition Products.

“Everything that he preaches has to do with people buying something,” said former House of Yahweh elder David Als of New York City. 

Get ‘em scared and then soak them for all their worth. Oh if only I didn’t have any scruples. Some of his followers, however, are showing signs of having critical thinking skills in the long run:

Like many of the his followers, Als actually legally changed his last name to Hawkins because he became convinced that only those named Hawkins would be saved.

“I’m a Black man from New York city. We’re supposed to be slick and wise to the street and he had me hook, line and sinker,” Als told 20/20.

Just a shame some of them have to learn how to use their brains the hard way…

Considering how rough things have been at work as of late, this bit of news cheered me considerably:

Declining membership, baptisms worry Southern Baptists - USATODAY.com

For most of four decades, Southern Baptists could boast of rising membership even as more moderate and liberal Protestant denominations lost members in droves.

But with membership slightly down last year, and flat for the past five, Southern Baptists face a growing anxiety about their future as they gather for their annual meeting Tuesday in Indianapolis.

“We have peaked,” Southern Baptist statistician Ed Stetzer wrote in an online commentary on the latest statistics from 2007. “...For now, Southern Baptists are a denomination in decline.”

What worries Southern Baptist leaders even more than the membership numbers is a steady decline in the conversion ritual that gave their denomination its name — baptisms.

Annual rates of baptisms have steadily declined not only in recent years, but also during the past 35 years. In 2007, Southern Baptist churches reported 345,941 baptisms. That’s down 12% from 2002 and 22% from 1972.

It goes without saying that the Southern Baptists are a long way from becoming extinct, but anytime their numbers shrink is cause for optimism in my book. It’s enough of a decline that church leaders are starting to get worried so that’s reason enough to hope.

I have already written about this previously, but it takes on a new dimension when you actually see the man saying the words himself:

The man sounds like Billy Graham on Valium. I’m at the point that I’m expecting him to start claiming that God wants him to be President.

Found via ***Dave.