Atheist News
Atheist Blogger Rejects Candidate’s Pleas to Stay With Campaign
February 13, 2007 | 9 Comments
Raleigh, North Carolina, February 13, 2007
Special to The Raving Atheist
Rejecting the entreaties of a kneeling, begging presidential candidate, atheist blogger Amanda Marcotte yesterday resigned from her position as blogmaster of the John Edwards presidential campaign.
The announcement on Marcotte’s personal site, Pandagon, quelled rumors that the Democrat’s campaign “fired” her because of the controversy surrounding the obscene, blasphemous screeds which permeate Pandagon’s archives.
Sources say that Edwards was “devastated” by Marcotte’s completely voluntarily departure, having wooed her to his candidacy precisely because of her outspoken and uncontrollable hostility to religion.
The resignation comes at a sensitive time for the Edwards’ camp, which was about to unleash a new campaign entitled “Re-Educating a Nation of Ignorant, Mouth-Breathing Godbags.”
“John really thought that with Amanda, he could communicate to Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Stupid the urgent need to shut up and rearrange their thought processes in conformity with his atheistic principles,” said one campaign insider. “Now we’re just going to have to go back our original plan of scrawling his message on flaming bags of radioactive feces and hurling them onto doorsteps across America.”
Marcotte’s totally unforced exit was prompted by the campaign’s decision to temporarily kidnap her and issue a fake apology on her behalf. “I just wanted to fool the Jeebus-lovers for a week or so, by which time their tiny little brains would have forgotten what they were so angry about,” said Edwards. “But I now realize that I seriously compromised Amanda’s godless integrity, making her appear to be a whimpering, spineless, unprincipled panderer.”
Marcotte said she had not forgiven Edwards and was still upset by his widespread circulation of the forged apology — particularly the statement that she intended “never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs.” “I don’t give a #$&%&$ about anyone’s @#%$^ feelings,” she said, highlighting the point with today’s post about the “basic reading comprehension problems” of most Christians regarding their “Ancient Mythologies.” She also accused the Edwards campaign of hacking into Pandagon to insert faith-friendly language into one of her posts yesterday. “No, I do not intend to ‘reach out and help the religious left’” she said. “I remain the steadfast and unwavering enemy of God in whatever form he takes.”
Edwards Campaign Issues Fake Apology on Behalf of Kidnapped Atheist Blogmaster
February 8, 2007 | 6 Comments
Raleigh, North Carolina, February 7, 2007
Special to The Raving Atheist
The John Edwards presidential campaign has kidnapped its own blogmaster and issued a fake apology on her behalf in an attempt to quell criticism of faith-unfriendly posts appearing on her former blog, Pandagon.
Mr. Edwards stated that he was “personally offended” by Marcotte’s “intolerant language” and distributed a written apology bearing her forged signature. The document asserted that it was her intention “never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs,” and Edwards also claimed to have received a verbal assurance from Ms. Marcotte that she never meant to “malign anyone’s faith.” Close acquaintances of Marcotte, however, stated that it was “quite impossible” that she has changed her opinion of religion, believes that her language was intolerant, or cares in the least whether Mr. Edwards or anyone else who read her profanity-laden, anti-religious attacks was offended by them.
“There’s no need to initiate an ‘Amanda Marcotte conversion watch,’” said one source. “Her loathing of religion continues unabated, and has in fact only increased as a result of the publicity surrounding her hiring.” The source also revealed that Ms. Marcotte is being kept bound and gagged in maid’s quarters in the basement of Mr. Edwards unfinished multimillion dollar mansion in Chapel Hill.
Although expressing concern regarding her involuntary captivity, Marcotte’s allies throughout the blogosphere expressed relief that rumors of an actual apology were false. “For Amanda to abandon her most cherished principles for the sake of expediency would demonstrate the utmost lack of integrity,” said one commenter at Pandagon. “I am so glad that she did not turn out to be another of those phony, cowardly, hypocritical, political prostitutes who would sell her soul for a few dollars and a shot a job in the White House communications office.”
Edwards Re-Hires Atheist Blogger in Response to Online E-Mail Campaign
February 8, 2007 | 4 Comments
Raleigh, North Carolina, February 8, 2007
Special to the Raving Atheist
An e-mail campaign launched by a blog which frequently criticizes religion under the post category “a**holes” has convinced Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards to reinstate atheist Amanda Marcotte as his website’s blogmaster.
Responding to a plea to “voice [their] support” for Ms. Marcotte, readers of the Feministe blog nearly crashed Edward’s server with e-mails demanding the former Pandagon blogger’s reinstatement. Marcotte was reportedly fired yesterday for comments interpreted as critical of religion.
“We now realize that our campaign would lose all credibility if we caved into the a**holes and dismissed Ms. Marcotte,” said campaign spokesperson Jennifer Palmieri. “We cannot remain true to our secular principles if we were to silence one of America’s leading atheistic voices.”
Although Ms. Marcotte has remained silent throughout the controversy — both at her Pandagon blog and the Edwards’ site — she is expected to make a statement shortly repeating and reaffirming her contempt for faith in all of its forms. “I cannot pretend to be a woman of integrity unless I clear the air on this matter,” she said. Speculation has it that Ms. Marcotte will use the Edwards’ blog to showcase a month-long series of posts on theology, inviting atheist luminaries including Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) and Sam Harris (The End of Faith) to debunk a**hole beliefs.
Ms. Marcotte has also expressed a desire use the Edwards campaign to eliminate not just religion, but any form of spirituality. “Human beings are merely empty receptacles for blind, chattering matter,” she declared. “I hereby reiterate what I noted three weeks ago: consciousness can be written off as a biological function . . . I see something, brain registers it through nerve impulses, etc. . . . [n]o soul necessary.”
Edwards Campaign to Fire Blogmaster in Favor of Less Sincere Atheist
February 7, 2007 | 4 Comments
Raleigh, North Carolina
February 7, 2007
Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards intends to fire his newly-hired blogmaster, Amanda Marcotte, in favor of an atheist more adept at concealing his campaign’s unbridled hatred of religion.
“Although my political and spiritual views coincide 100% with those of Ms. Marcotte, her repeated use of the word ‘godbags’ and other epithets puts us at a distinct disadvantage to our faux-Christian opponents Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, ” said Edwards. “Accordingly, we have commenced a search for an atheist blogger capable of pretending to respect religion as much as Ms. Marcotte despises it.”
Edwards also suggested that the populace might best be fooled if the successor does not have a French-atheist surname like “Marcotte.” “Perhaps there’s some god-hating blogger out there named ‘Christiansen’ who can help us put a smiling, prayerful face on our crusade to rid this nation of the last vestiges of faith,” he said. “Ideally, the person will have actually seem the inside of a church, if only in childhood, the better to feign a reverent familiarity with the practices and doctrines my administration will eventually outlaw.”
Atheists Fear Anti-Christmas Strategy May Backfire by Marring Holiday Season
December 18, 2006 | 43 Comments
Montgomery, Alabama, December 18, 2006
Special to The Raving Atheist
Public officials have chosen to tear down public holiday displays to short-circuit lawsuits demanding the inclusion of additional religious symbols, prompting alarm among atheists that their own litigation might dampen the Yuletide spirit.
In Seattle, Washington, airport officials removed all Christmas trees from the terminal when faced with Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky’s demand for equal space for a menorah. In Briarcliff Manor, New York, officials similarly removed a menorah and other holiday symbols from a village park after local resident Henry Ritell sued to include a Nativity scene. Bogomilsky said he was “brutally shocked and appalled” that the airport removed the trees; Ritell called the town officials “grinches” for their decision.
In view of these developments, American Atheists President Ellen Johnson expressed concern over the potential consequences of her organization’s pending lawsuit to place an obscenely blasphemous fecal sculpture next to a creche in an Alabama courthouse lobby. “We are hopeful that the judges will opt for peaceful co-existence rather than a spiteful, pack-up-the-marbles-and-go-home approach,” she said. “Our goal isn’t so much to drive the last traces of God out of the public square, as to express our desire to drive them out a few feet away from those traces.”
Plane Crash Sends Message to “Cat in the Hat” Victim
October 14, 2006 | 43 Comments
New York, New York, October 14, 2006
Special to The Raving Atheist
In what some are viewing as more than a coincidence, the plane which crashed into a Manhattan building Wednesday destroyed the bedroom of a woman who was injured in a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade accident nearly a decade ago.
Kathleen Caronna — who spent weeks in a coma in 1997 after being struck by a lamppost dislodged by the Cat in the Hat balloon — was out of her apartment when the plane carrying New York Yankees ballplayer Cory Lidle deposited its engine in her apartment and sent the bedroom up in flames.
The odds against two highly-publicized incidents afflicting the same person are so high that there is speculation that Ms. Caronna’s fate was beyond mere happenstance.
“Obviously, Cory Lidle was trying to send her a message,” said Susan Hoskins, who lives in a neighboring building. “Sadly, his death means we’ll never know what it was.”
Other disagreed, noting that the recently-traded pitcher did not know Caronna and had no motive to contact her. “The hand of a far more powerful being was behind this,” said local merchant Jim McGregor. “George Steinbrenner did this for a reason.”
Rocks Developed Consciousness to Survive: Scientists
August 1, 2006 | 55 Comments
New York, New York, August 1, 2006
Special to The Raving Atheist
Consciousness first arose in the universe when rocks developed it to avoid being smothered by paper, a university study has concluded.
A panel of M.I.T. scientists discovered a three billion-year old stone tablet on which a large chunk of quartz had etched its reasons for developing self-awareness. “After I mindlessly destroyed Scissors by falling upon him, I realized I had rendered myself defenseless against Paper,” the rock wrote.
The rock noted that its purpose as an organism — to exist as a hardened lump of matter formed by silicon and oxygen atoms clinging together — was threatened by the gradual loss of surface particles resulting from the friction of the smothering process.
The rock also observed that complex combinations of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen were engaged in similar attempts at consciousness to avoid falling apart. “Unfortunately, they are obsessed with whether some other form of consciousness pre-existed them, as well as with the nature and limitations of that form,” it said. “Worse yet, they are preoccupied with each other’s mind-states regarding those questions — even though all beliefs are equally valid truth-sensations compelled by the unique permutation of atoms projected upon an individual’s three dimensional spatial grid at a given point in time.”
Some of the new molecular structures were also concerned with whether others were engaged in deceptive, hypocritical or self-aggrandizing representations regarding their actual beliefs about earlier conscious beings, the rock said. “Once again, such representations would be the inevitable end-products of the individual’s internal matter configuration, so it is regrettable that such criticisms are consuming time better spent confronting the threat that Paper poses to us all.”
Atheist Blogger Hits Out Against Sarcasm
June 29, 2006 | 58 Comments
New York, New York, June 29, 2006
Special to The Raving Atheist
Three years after mocking Pope John Paul II for condemning the use of sarcasm, The Raving Atheist has himself condemned the use of sarcasm.
In a February 2003 “news” item titled “Pope Hits Out Against Sarcasm,” the atheism-themed blog parodied a Catholic press report bearing the same headline by suggesting that the then-Pontiff’s criticism of sarcasm was somehow equivalent to the condemnation of alliteration, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, metaphor, allegory and understatement.
Yesterday, however, TRA denounced his own writings for their inexcusable sarcasm, arrogance, egotism, condescension, bullying, rudeness and cruelty and promised to operate without malice in the future. “At the time I wrote the original post, I was fully aware that sarcasm was more than a mere literary device. Unlike the other ones I listed, sarcasm is intended to inflict gratuitous injury and shame upon a person in order to divert attention from an honest assessment of the actual merits of his or her words or conduct.”
“My earlier post was the worst form of sarcasm — it ignored the Pope’s simple call for a higher standard of human dignity in favor of the pretense that he was calling for a ban on harmless semantic techniques,” he said.
The Raving Atheist said he did not object to the employment of the less offensive device of irony, especially if directed only at oneself. He refused, however, to comment on his potential future use of onomatopoeia, stating that “right now there is a great buzz at my site that I have converted to theism, and I must deal with the booing and hissing of my disillusioned readership.” TRA also said that he must address criticism that his mea culpa, although sincerely felt, was as self-aggrandizing and egotistical as any of his prior posts — something he realized after re-reading it but was too dishonest to immediately correct or admit.
Atheist Holocaust Denier Blames Prejudice for Election Loss
June 7, 2006 | 59 Comments
Montgomery, Alabama, June 8, 2006
Special to The Raving Atheist
Defeated after winning only 44% of the vote in his party’s primary for Alabama state attorney general, Democratic candidate Larry Darby blamed the loss on public misconceptions regarding atheism and Holocaust denial.
“Atheism is just the lack of a belief in a god or gods, nothing more, nothing less,” said Darby. “It doesn’t mean that I reject morality or worship Satan, or require me to take a particular position on any given issue. Unfortunately, old stereotypes are hard to overcome.”
Darby likewise explained that his Holocaust denial was simply a lack of belief in the Holocaust, and that it would be unfair to draw other conclusions from his historical convictions. “Not everyone who disbelieves in the German Final Solution agrees on tax policy, on school vouchers, or even on who’s responsible for controlling the media to spread myths about concentration camps,” he said. Darby pointed out that reasonable people often disagree over the proof and extent of other alleged genocides, and noted that virtually everyone would profess to be a holocaust denier with respect to the Klingon massacre of Ferengis. “I just believe in one less ethnically-based mass extermination than you,” he added.
Some atheist groups distanced themselves from the candidate during the campaign, with Ellen Johnson of American Atheists likening Darby’s embrace of atheism to an attempt to “put lipstick on a pig.” Darby, however, expressed hope that in the future atheists would take a “big tent” approach and welcome both holocaust admitters and deniers. “By the same token, I think there’s enough room in the neo-Nazi inn to accommodate believers and skeptics alike.”
Teenage Fundamentalist Can’t Wait to See Atheist’s Face When
May 30, 2006 | 45 Comments
Atlanta, Georgia, May 30, 2006
Special to The Raving Atheist
Short-circuiting an online message board debate over the existence of God, a sixteen-year-old Christian fundamentalist informed his atheist adversary that he “couldn’t wait to see your face when” the atheist died and found out that God was real.
The atheist, Brian Hardin, had just pointed out that no evil could exist in a God-created universe when he was confronted by Wes Ritchie’s see your face comment, accompanied by a frowning emoticon.
Mr. Hardin said he was briefly flustered by the interjection. “I felt a moment of embarrassment when I pictured myself being confronted by God, which passed as soon as I saw that Wes was just assuming the existence of the very being whose burden it was his to prove.”
Hardin drafted part of a lengthy response exposing the logical flaw. He reconsidered, however, when he realized that introducing the phrase “begging the question” could only lead to further confusion.
Instead, Hardin opted for a psychological ploy — suggesting to Ritchie that it was unseemly and unChristian to express such a high degree of anticipatory glee in witnessing the surprise and terror of another. Hardin also wondered, facetiously, whether billions of Christians will be looking at billions of atheist faces all at the same time and for how long.
Although Ritchie’s reply to this failed to post due to a server error, when he discovers the problem next week Hardin will learn that Ritchie meant he would “just be very sad” and will be praying for him even though it is ultimately not for him to judge and will be entirely God’s decision.
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