Sim-O

politic.co.uk:

A pro-Christian advert that claims a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer in young women increases teenage infertility has been banned by the advertising watchdog.

Paid for by fundamentalist group Christian Voice, the advert in the New Statesman entitled, ‘Violent crime – sowing and reaping’, condemned government health policies, including giving a key cancer vaccine on the NHS, for focusing on curbing teenage pregnancy at the expense, the advert claimed, of teenage fertility.

“Every government initiative, including the HPV [Human papillomavirus] vaccine, will increase [teenage infertility], but as all the targets revolve around pregnancy, no-one in power knows how many young people they are making sterile and nobody cares”, it read.

But after receiving complaints that claims linking the HPV vaccine to teenage infertility could not be substantiated, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) ruled the advert broke advertising rules and could not be republished

Try making ads that have a modicom of truth in it, instead of reasoning like…

Mr Green, national director of Christian Voice, said the availability of the vaccine “encourages people to just keep on fornicating, increasing promiscuity”, which he claims will then lead to an increase in teenage infertility.

Erm. It’s a vaccine against cervical cancer. It is not a contraceptive. It doesn’t protect against the clap or crabs, or stop a baby from being made.
In light of this new information, what is your problem with this vaccine? Or is your problem with two people doing what comes natural?

Mr Green said the ruling against Christian Voice represented “double standards.”

“On matters of faith and morality the ASA seems to make up the rules as it goes along,” he said.

Oh, boo hoo! It’s so unfair!

Remember this?

The Fisher-Price Little Mommy Cuddle ‘n Coo is meant to make realistic baby sounds and occasionally cry out for its “mama”.

But some parents claim that one of its noises sounds just like “Islam is the Light”, and have complained to Mattel, which owns Fisher-Price.

Well, them eeeeviiil muslims must be desperate to turn young girls to the dark side cos they’re at it again, apparently…

KNIGHTSVILLE, Ind. (WTHI) – Months ago, Rachel Jones was shocked to discover her 4-year-old’s baby doll seemed to have a hidden message: Islam is the light.

Imagine her surprise when a game for her 8-year-old daughter’s Nintendo DS had the same message.

Best start checking the spaces vacated by the Reds.

The Advertising Standards Agency has decided on whether the ‘Athiest Bus’ has broken any rules.

And I would like to paraphrase here…

Fuck off you witless god-bothering cocks.

Oh, alright. Here’s what they really said

But the body concluded the adverts were unlikely to mislead or cause widespread offence and closed the case.

But

[ASA] said it assessed 326 complaints. Some claimed the wording was offensive to people who followed a religion.

326 people are offended by someone asking them if they’ve ever thought that there might not be a god. That’s what that line is saying

While some of the complaints claimed the adverts were offensive and denigrated people of faith, others challenged whether they were misleading because the advertiser would not be able to substantiate its claim that God “probably” did not exist.

What about all the ads and posters about god and church and stuff? According to their logic, they would have to substantiate the claim that there is probably a god. Which is just as hard.

And if one person can satisfactorily prove to me that there is a god beyond doubt, I will eat my blog.

Via

BBC:

A Christian bus driver has refused to drive a bus with an atheist slogan proclaiming “There’s probably no God”.

Ron Heather, from Southampton, Hampshire, responded with “shock” and “horror” at the message and walked out of his shift on Saturday in protest.

You small minded, petty, shit stirring little fucker.
How the fuck did you, Mr Heather, get through to the ripe old age that you have by being shocked and horrorfied by statements that differ from your opinion?

“I felt that I could not drive that bus, I told my managers and they said they haven’t got another one and I thought I better go home, so I did.
Mr Heather said he was shocked at the “starkness” of the advert

“I think it was the starkness of this advert which implied there was no God.”

Starkness? Fucking Starkness? You Ron, I can call you Ron, can’t I? I feel I know you so well already, are a twat. That is not a stark message. It’s not even asserting for definate that there isn’t a god. It’s saying that there’s a possibility there is no god. If that message was said to you by a person, that person would be looking at their feet, shuffling nervously and mumbling under their breath.

Do you stop non-christians from travelling on your bus, incase they turn believers away from the one true faith? Do you think that the anti-god message is going to leave you a sitting duck for the anti-christ? Once you’ve left the bus station the evil sprirts will think you’re one of them and take control? You’ll lose you sense of moral decency and stop buying the Mail for the Guardian and start voting LibDem?

Let me reassure you, Ronny, about what will happen if you drive that bus:
You will drive it out of the bus station, some people will get on, some people will get off. Some people will see the advert and think “heh”. Others will think “hrumph”. Most others will not even notice it. You will return the bus to the station and go home to await the next thing to offend you. The world will carry on as it was before, not having had Lucifer unleashed on us all.

I am just flabbergasted that someone can be so fucking precious that a statement so unsure of itself can give theman excuse to fuck off home in a sulk.

You’re not offended, Ron. You’re just workshy, aren’t you.

via

NHS Blog Doctor:

There is no more culpable protector of paedophiles than the appalling Joe Ratzinger. He should be in jail. Sadly, he is not. He is Pope. He is therefore infallible. Comes with the job. His latest outrage is a gratuitous attack on homosexuality.

Daily Mail:

The Pope has declared that saving the world from homosexual behaviour is as important as saving the rainforests.

Tim Almond:

how well are practising homosexuals doing at “destroying man”? Post-1950 europe (largely tolerant) has seen it’s population rise only 50%

Me:

How are practising homosexuals destroying man? Do they emit large amounts of greenhouse gases or summat?

Tim Almond:

Dunno. I think Ratzy somehow hasn’t worked through the “not outbreeding straight people” part of his theory.

From D-Notice.

Yahoo News:

Christian campaigners have lost their High Court challenge over university researchers being allowed to create human-animal embryos for research purposes. Skip related content

The Christian Legal Centre (CLC) and Comment on Reproductive Ethics (Core) were refused permission to bring a test case application for judicial review. Mrs Justice Dobbs, sitting at the High Court in London, ruled that the application was “totally without merit”.

The campaigners wanted to overturn a decision of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) in January this year, granting research licences to scientists at Newcastle University and King’s College London.

Heh.

From D-Notice:

From Daily Kos, on the on-going fallout from the passing of the homophobic Mormon-supported and funded Proposition 8 in California:

As you know, Mormons have a practice of converting dead people from other religions into Mormons through a practice known as posthumous baptism. Ordinarily, this might just seem a silly act of disrespect towards the individual’s personal beliefs and convictions.

However, the Mormons have made an overt effort to posthumously baptize Jewish Holocaust victims. That is not merely silly and disrespectful, that is superfluously offensive. An agreement between Jews and Mormons limited the practice thirteen years ago. But the Mormons returned to the practice recently.

Well, then of course, many of us rightly took offense for the heavy Mormon influence during the Prop 8 vote in California. Well, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I am converting dead Mormons into homosexuals.

My first Conversion is Joseph Smith.

That’s a fantastic idea!

No other argument against Obama can fundamentally change the way people feel about him deep down inside, EXCEPT, proof that precisely the way they feel about him deep down inside is because of Obama’s own deception and use of hidden hypnosis.

source

Laugh? I nearly shat!

Via

A City of London Reverend has suggested that gay people should have a health warning tattooed on their arses.
Apparently it was satirical.
BBC:

[The Rev Peter] Mullen said: “I certainly have nothing against homosexuals. Many of my dear friends have been and are of that persuasion.

“What I have got against them is the militant preaching of homosexuality.”

What I have against vicars is the militant preaching of religion especially around Christmas when you get stigmatised for being a miserable bastard (or you could say, seen through the bullshit), forced to endure fucking carol singers whenever a sortie into town is needed or encourage to give up something for lent or countless other occasions the god botherers use to shove the almighty down your throat.

I’m not exactly a fan of the Pride marches, myself. But if the organisers get the relevant permissions etc, go for it. I don’t need to shout about my heterosexuality, but then I’m not being told I’m not normal all the time. At least not because of my sexuality.

Via

I’ve just read this post by Dave Cross about the Royal Society’s ex-Director of Education, Michael Reiss , being labelled a creationist and hounded out of his position within the Royal Society because of his comments regarding the need for teachers to be given better training to be able to discuss and counter creationist arguments in the classroom.

And now, three weeks later, a national newspaper is calling him a creationist.

The article in question is this one by Harry Kroto. I didn’t read the article as, well I couldn’t be bothered really, but went straight to the comments.
That is where I found this little nugget of wisdom:
JK47 (a CiF commentor):

The plethora of more-or-less incompatible religious concepts that mankind has invented from Creationism and intelligent design to Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Mormonism, Scientology, Hinduism, Shinto, Shamanism etc, are all basically indistinguishable, from the freethinkers perspective.

You forget Atheism, as it is also another concept of mankind (for how can it be a natural state?) that is also indistinguishable from all those ideologies. It has a militant belief that there is no God, an organised following and the acceptance of a set of values that cannot be questioned.

Wrong!
I do not who wrote the bit AJ47 is quoting but I don’t reckon atheism got forgotten.
Atheism is not a concept of mankind, it the natural state. God and everything that surrounds the myth of god is manmade. If believing in god was how the human mind starts off, then why do ‘we’ have to teach about religion? Why do we have to introduce the idea of a god or superior being to our offspring? Why do children have so much trouble grasping the idea of a being or beings (thousands in the case of Hinduism) that are everywhere, controlling everything yet cannot themselves be seen or heard? Why do children have so many questions when, if religion is so natural, it shoudl be an easy concept to pick up?

The natural state is to be inquisitive, to want to find out, learn more. About everything.
Religion is shut off to finding the truth, even if it proved god existed.

“I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”

“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. Q.E.D.”

“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

No matter how open or comfortable a particular brand of god is with science looking into atoms or buggering about with genes, there will always be a point where it will not go beyond. Not because of any reasoned arguement, although one may be put forward as a proxy or as well as, but because of dogma. Either because the holy book explicitly forbids it, or because it will insult god or because the men of cloth will lose their authority and their income. That will be it.
On the other hand, science will keep going. Every now and then a particular path of research may slow or stop for a little while because of the precautionary principle or the uncomfortable subject matter, but only until a compromise that is acceptable to both the scientists and the wider community on how to proceed is reached. The point is, nothing is taboo.

There are atheists that will catagorically state that god doesn’t exist, but what do they know? They are just the flip side to the religious people who catgorically state that there is. But most athiests, and that is pure conjecture as I have nothing to back it up, are of the ‘middle ground’, that they don’t believe in god, but if there was proof that god existed then they would accept it (what other option is there?).

The last bit of AJ47s’ comment is just complete rubbish, “an organised following” with a set of values “that cannot be questioned”.
What utter bollocks.
Where is this Church of the Unbeliever, where do we go to praise the microscope? How many people do you know that gather together on a weekly basis to sing songs of thanks to the LHC?
What is this set of values that all atheists’ adhere to? Are they listed somewhere? Who says atheists must follow them? The Grand Council of Atheists, I presume?
Questioning stuff is the whole point of atheism. Asking why, and not taking anyones word for it unless they have proof.

Of course, that is just my view, other atheist may differ. That’s the beauty of it.