Religulous Is Fucking Hilarious

I know that this documentary came out a while ago but I didn't get to see it until today. Bill Maher's got balls. The things he says can be downright insulting, but he doesn't care and that's why I love him. He's brutally honest and doesn't shy away from any topic. He's the best when it comes to stumping religious leaders. I can't remember the name of that priest Bill interviewed in front of the Vatican but that priest should really consider doing stand-up. I find it reassuring when people of opposing views can actually take a joke and laugh together. Whatever your beliefs are, sticking to every single one dogmatically over and over and over again kinda makes you dull. Loosen up a little bit, allow for the possibility that you may be wrong. I'll say right here and right now that there is a chance that I am wrong and God exists. I'm not dogmatic. And if it happens to be true that God exists and that hell and heaven exist too, I'll concede. I'll believe in God's existence if it's proven. I'll even stop calling myself an atheist but I won't be religious because religion has caused too much misery. The bottom line is I don't like how religion discourages questioning and rational thought.

I wish there were more people like Bill Maher out there. Maybe there are and they're just scared to speak out. I don't blame them. Religion is fucking scary. Seriously. Have you ever heard the noises coming out of hopped up religious people; seen the way they move and shake their bodies all around? Aren't those the signs of demonic possession? Contortion and speaking in tongues? I thought I read that somewhere. Ah, well.

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An Atheist Video Game

The objective of a new computer game that hasn't been released yet, will be to stop the spread of Christianity and Islam. Players try to stop the spread of these two religions by killing the Bible's authors and the prophet, Muhammad. While I strongly believe in free speech and expressing oneself freely, I am a bit worried about the consequences for the creator. (He obviously is too, since he didn't want to reveal his name fearing his safety.) Most everyone knows what happened when that Danish cartoon of the Islamic prophet came out. That's what sucks in our society. Religious fundies get so fucking worked up that it's not unimaginable to resort to violence when it comes to their religions. But it's alright to attack the faithless and nonreligious. That really pisses me off. And while not all atheists are cool and collected, at least there is no history of suicide bombings and mass killings in the name of Atheism.

I just hope religious people don't overreact and see this as a threat to their beliefs. It's just an expression of someone else's beliefs. Namely, that the world would be a better place without Christianity and Islam. You don't have to agree with it but you also don't have a right to tell others how they can express themselves either.

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YouTube Atheism Video

I found this video, 'Atheist Statistics 2008' yesterday on, well duh, YouTube and I thought it was pretty cool. Here is the gist of the video. It's mostly statistics and I'll reproduce the relevant ones below.

World Statistics

1990 - 7.5% of the population were nonreligious
2001 - 13.2% of the population were nonreligious
2008 - 16.1% of the population were nonreligious

I wanted to know the exact increase over the decades and since the population in 1990 was the not the same as the population in 2001 or 2008, I consulted the US Census Bureau for these numbers.

Between 1990 and 2000, world population had increased from 5.2 billion to nearly 6.1 billion. That's an increase of 13.2% in just one decade. The nonreligious population, on the other hand, increased by some 49% from 1990 to 2000. In actual population numbers, that means that in 1990, 400 million people identified themselves as nonreligious and by 2000 that number had grown to just over 800 million.

The current world population, according to GeoHive, is 6,671,202,855. So in the last seven or eight years, the nonreligious population has grown from 800 million to nearly 1.1 billion. Very Impressive. Christians are way ahead of us at over 2 billion and Islam has a couple hundred million more adherents than there are nonbelievers. I think that's very impressive.

Some other statistics mentioned in the video include:

Twenty-five percent of Americans between the ages of 18-29, have no affiliation with religion.

In Europe, 48% of the population does not believe in God, while 74% of Britons do not believe in a personal God. Also, among the young in Europe (ages 15-24), 56% do not believe in God. This makes me very happy since I was born in Europe. North America is still far too Christian for me.

And before I forget, divorce statistics are also included. Here are the percentages of divorces by religion/non religion (Atheism is not a religion, by the way):

Jews - 30%
Born-Again Christians - 27%
Other Christians - 24%
Atheists, Agnostics - 21%

Most importantly, a bunch of studies by someone (can't remember now), found a negative correlation between intelligence and religious belief. That is, the more intelligent one is and the more education one has, the less likely they are to hold religious beliefs. Well that makes sense. Intelligent people are harder to manipulate. No wonder religious people indoctrinate their kids while they're young.

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