First, a picture.

I used to work down in the neighborhood, not far from Wall Street; it’s not uncommon to see people rubbing the Charging Bull for luck. In fact, so many people rub the bull that its testicles are quite burnished. Still, this seems like an unusually larger crowd than normal.

What could possible be going on? Oh.

It would seem that in January, God singled out one Cindy Jacobs and tasked her with this mission. Cindy, a “respected prophet who travels the world ministering not only to crowds of people, but to heads of nations’ of course had to adhere to the word of her Lord. So speaketh the prophet:

“We are going to intercede at the site of the statue of the bull on Wall Street to ask God to begin a shift from the bull and bear markets to what we feel will be the ‘Lion’s Market,’ or God’s control over the economic systems,” she said.  “While we do not have the full revelation of all this will entail, we do know that without intercession, economies will crumble.”

Wonkette provides some great coverage of this event (with additional photos and even a video) here and here.

Now, I’m not a regular reader of the Holy Bible but I sort of recall reading a similar tale within that tome; thankfully, PZ Myers has provided the tale for us, complete with picture!

The saddest part is that these folks seemingly do not even realize the irony in their actions; and while those who quote the bible are often not familiar with the work as a whole, cherry picking their quotes to support their arguments, the Golden Calf story is one tale I’d assume was fairly well known.

I’m really at a loss of words, sometimes, when I read articles like this one on The New York Times website. Really, with quotes like this it’s difficult to believe that were are in the year 2008:

“He’s neither-nor,” said Ricky Thompson, a pipe fitter who works at a factory north of Mobile, while standing in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store just north of here. “He’s other. It’s in the Bible. Come as one. Don’t create other breeds.”

Or this:

“I would think of him as I would of another of mixed race,” said Glenn Reynolds, 74, a retired textile worker in Martinsdale, Va., and a former supervisor at a Goodyear plant. “God taught the children of Israel not to intermarry. You should be proud of what you are, and not intermarry.”

Or even this:

“He’s going to tear up the rose bushes and plant a watermelon patch,” said James Halsey, chuckling, while standing in the Wal-Mart parking lot with fellow workers in the environmental cleanup business. “I just don’t think we’ll ever have a black president.”

Why does it not shock me that these people were all found in a Wal-Mart parking lot? At least I know now that my fears of that mega-goliath shopping mecca are well founded.

One of the troubles I’ve had with reconciling religion, specifically Christianity, are its inherent contradictions. The Christian bible tells us that Jesus preached to “Love Thy Neighbor” — are the quotes above truly indicative of the love Jesus told his followers to exhibit?

Or have we simply regressed to earlier part of the 19th Century where prejudice was the norm and not only expected, but encouraged and fostered by our Judeo-Christian moral belief system?

This post is part of a semi-regular series of posts called Things Atheists Hate focusing on things atheists face each and every day that frustrate them, that anger them, and that cause them all sorts of annoyance.

….Al?

Is it wrong that I want this car to be driven by Weird Al?

(picture provided by my friend C. — Thanks!)

I’ve been known to stubbornly remain steadfast to principles I adhere to, sometimes even to my own detriment; it thusly makes me glad to see others who do the same.

Hank Fox was a copy-editor for a newspaper; he left when the paper printed something that offended him:

Tonight an interesting story rolled across my desk. It was about a World War II pilot and his experience in the B-17 military plane, also called the Flying Fortress. The final anecdote of the article was about his plane getting shot down, and one quote the reporter used was him saying something like “My co-pilot was an atheist before, but he’s been a good Christian ever since.”

Why would this offend him? Partly because Fox is an atheist himself, but moreso it offended his journalistic integrity. Were the words “atheist” and “good Christian” replaced with any other demographic terms, he would still want the comment stricken from an article. Chance are that they would be.

Fox compares the discrimination of atheists to that faced by other minorities in this country; he notes:

Atheists today face discrimination so subtle, so pervasive, that it doesn’t even have a name.

And it’s true. Yet another thing atheists should be angry about. Atheists need to speak out against such nonsense, even if we get pegged as being “angry” or “stubborn” — if we don’t, it will simply continue.

Hank Fox worked at a place where the managing editors had something offensive brought to their attention; they chose to leave it, he chose to leave.