| March 19, 2009 | ||
| 6:30 pm |
Thursday, March 19th 2009 at 6:30 PM, Normal Bob Smith will be presenting his own movie, Bob Smith USA, at Arizona State University in room 174 of the Coor building.
| March 19, 2009 | ||
| 6:30 pm |
Thursday, March 19th 2009 at 6:30 PM, Normal Bob Smith will be presenting his own movie, Bob Smith USA, at Arizona State University in room 174 of the Coor building.
The Mill Avenue Resistance reports are written by Kyt Dotson as an extension of anthropological research on the population of Mill Avenue in Tempe, Arizona. Since the Resistance does their protests Friday and Saturday there are two reports a week. The supporting material not related to the Resistance reports can be found on the Under the Hills blog.
The group with Jonathan brought with them one of the loudest amps that anyone has yet brought, almost as loud as Shawn Holes and Jeff Rose (if not in the same ballpark.) The cone-of-sound manages to compete with the louder buskers on Mill Ave. Accusations of its misuse have been mentioned as well including last Friday someone holding it against Rocco’s ear, and this weekend—directly witnessed—having it pointed directly into Omar’s face. The outcome of pointing it at Omar created a nearly 90 second feedback fencing match.
This activity is becoming more unacceptable as Jonathan, and his group, has moved from simply ignoring respondents to being part of assaults. They are failing fundamental civil responsibility by acting as bad neighbors to the Ave, causing injury, breaking the commons, and not engaging in actual discourse with the community. They should really clean up their act.
Jonathan appears to have modified his behavior to mollify would-be anger by other street practitioners who are out there to do their thing and make money by offering pale conciliatory gestures in his deafening speeches: “Buy some hotdogs, they’re $3, and they’re excellent,” and “Check out these paintings over here, some of them are $6 and they’re wonderful paintings.” This probably emanated from an earlier experience when James, owner of Bun Devils, became angry with Jonathan and his crew for stopping up the corner he sat at and thus caused fear that customers were being chased away.
A cameraman appears to have come along this time—well a camera at least—since multiple people carried the camera during the night. It was a large, heavy, shoulder-carried television camera with a huge fuzzy microphone.
Around 10:30pm the night really calmed down as the amplification went away and the groups broke up into smaller discussions.
I spoke for a while with Michael who came out to support his “Brothers in Christ,” as they did their thing on Mill Ave. He couldn’t stay long—as he had to take the light rail—but seemed to be around with Jonathan and Phil’s group. Our conversation was short, but he had a fairly decent affect; although, it was difficult for me to hold a conversation because my ears were still ringing from the earlier extreme noise.
Rocco, Omar, Isaac, Jim, and Vocab managed a long winded, winding conversation about almost everything from the historicity of Jesus, linguistics, anthropological evidence for the origins of Christianity (from neat stuff like ancient manuscripts) and … even a weird little passage from the Book of Matthew about an indeterminate number of Jewish scholars coming back from the grave and returning to their lifetime posts and jobs.
Kazz met with a pair of young women who stopped to look at some of the signs. One tall and overweight, the other small and quiet; the more vocal of the two professed her Christianity while discussing some of the tracts with him. Although, the conversation got a little bit strange when she admitted that she didn’t believe in dinosaurs because the Bible doesn’t mention them—problematically, I don’t think the Bible mentions microbes either, but we demonstrably have those. The conversation did eventually digress and dissolve and they went on their way.
Also, another one of Kazz’s signs from the speaker has also been stolen. One of the “MURDERER / MISSING” posters that hangs on the sides of the Resistance speaker has been taken.
| March 16, 2009 | ||
| 10:00 am | to | 4:00 pm |
| March 17, 2009 | ||
| 10:00 am | to | 4:00 pm |
| March 18, 2009 | ||
| 10:00 am | to | 4:00 pm |
| March 19, 2009 | ||
| 10:00 am | to | 4:00 pm |
| March 20, 2009 | ||
| 10:00 am | to | 4:00 pm |
| March 23, 2009 | ||
| 10:00 am | to | 4:00 pm |
3 years ago this month, as Brother Jed made his annual visit to ASU, the Secular Freethought Society invited Normal Bob Smith to provide some amusing opposition for Jed. The event was fun and successful enough that Bob and the SFTS decided to do it again!
All next week, and the Monday after, Brother Jed will be at ASU, and Normal Bob will also be there from Tuesday through Friday of next week. It should be a lot of fun, so if you have time to come out and see us next week, it would be a great time to do it.
We’ve already introduced Brother Jed, but Normal Bob Smith is something completely different.
Creator of such fun and infamous sites as Jesus Dress Up where you can dress a crucified Jesus in various funny costumes, Normal Bob has been dropping the hammer of humor on religion for nearly a decade.
Among other things, he dresses up as Satan and goes out to talk to people, as seen in his movie Bob Smith USA.
Bob will be out from 10 AM to 4 PM or later, Tuesday through Friday, and he will be showing his movie at ASU on Thursday night at 6:30, and in downtown Phoenix at the Anarchist Library on Monday night. The exact time will be posted when available.
In case of schedule changes (which have been a problem with Jed this year), check back here or look at Bob’s schedule and Jed’s schedule directly before you show up, and then just look for a leathery old preacher and Satan.
Those of you who have read the Bible, particularly the “Old Testament”, should be familiar with the character of its jealous, vengeful, cruel god. Even if you have never read the Bible though, you are most likely familiar with some of the more despicable actions supposedly taken by Yahweh, the god of the Bible.
Just to refresh your memory though, here are a few of Yahweh’s most infamous misdeeds.
Oh yeah, and he also drowned the entire world (except for 2 of each unclean animal, 7 of each clean one and 8 humans…how kind of him to spare them).
All of this is just scratching the surface of the malevolence of this spiteful monster, and because of this and so much more the Bible’s god is supposed to have done, I say Yahweh? No way!
On Tuesday someone stumbled on our Let’s Get Hammered shirt and decided to unleash it on the social media site, Reddit. Their post was titled Even I don’t have the nerve to wear this! and so far, despite nearly 10,000 visitors, few have shown the sense of humor and balls to actually wear it.
Might it provoke a drunken Christian to take a swing at you? Sure, but if he doesn’t black out this is an image he won’t soon forget! Images like this may seem mean or distasteful, but they are meant to be taken as twisted humor, and if there’s anything that needs its more humorous side poked, it’s religion.
Today is the last day of our Saint Patrick’s Day sale (17% off $25 or more with coupon code MARCH19), and probably the last day to get a shirt before the holiday without rushing the shipping, so if you think you’re brave enough for Leprechaun Jesus, now is the time to show it.
For those of you considering purchasing multiple items to qualify for the sale, here are a few recommendations:
If you want something funny and you don’t care if you piss people off, we have the brand new design Yahweh? No way!, Pwned Jesus, and of course Let’s Get Hammered.
Those of you who want something more friendly that shouldn’t land you in hot water in most places might want to try Smile, There is no Hell.
If you’re not sure which way you want to go, Faith: Is there anything it can’t do? or Give up God for Lent may help you decide whether you’ve got the nerve for the more offensive end of the spectrum or not without being quite as blatantly offensive to Christians.
If you’re brave enough to face drunken Christians while wearing the crucified LepreChrist though, there really is no better shirt for Saint Patty’s Day.
In their attempts to pretend that the species homo sapiens (human) is somehow not part of the animal kingdom, and is instead uniquely created very different from and above all other life on Earth, creationists often go to great lengths to convince themselves that all other animals are essentially automatons working purely on instinct. I’ve even heard some of them claim that animals do not think or make any decisions at all.
That is why recent observations of the actions of Santino, a 31 year old male chimpanzee at the Furuvik zoo in Sweden, are so exciting. It is not that he is by any means alone in displaying the ability to think deeply, but his actions are very clear and easily identifiable, and most importantly well observed and documented.
So what did he do that was so special? During the season that the zoo was open, and only during that season, he collected stones while the zoo was closed and made piles of them around the side of the enclosure where tourists would gather to watch him. Later, when the zoo was open and people came to stare at him and annoy him, he would go back to his caches of stones and hurl them at the visitors!
He would even smash the concrete to get more good throwing stones, which became more important once the zoo keepers started confiscating his piles of rocks. Santino’s rock throwing may not seem nice, and we may be tempted to think it’s beneath us, but what would a human prisoner who wanted to look tough and get rid of the gawkers do in his situation? Probably the same thing.
The reason that this particular behavior was so important was that Santino was showing a very clear ability to remember and think about what had happened in the past, and then anticipate and plan for future events. This is an ability which had been widely thought to be exclusively human, but it’s time to either start calling chimpanzees human or admit that other animals may have much greater mental capabilities than we once believed.
Or maybe this is all a mistake and God was just using this poor dumb animal like a robot to stone the horrible sinners at the zoo for him, but more likely Santino just wanted them to leave him alone, and the stones were the best ammunition he had to encourage them with.
Sadly, if it was God using him, and if God had big plans for his future, those plans are probably doomed to failure now because Santino is no longer eligible to enter into the congregation of the lord since he has been castrated (Deuteronomy 23:1). It has curtailed his anger, but what a price to pay!
What’s the matter with you, Hat? is a song by Pink Munky which is basically just a bunch of samples of recordings of L. Ron Hubbard, creator of Scientology saying crazy, racist and just plain stupid things.
Did you know that not smoking enough causes lung cancer? I guess either Scientologists haven’t heard the more crazy things Hubbard said or they’re just so brainwashed that they have to try to explain away the most ridiculous parts rather than recognizing them for what they are and seeing the whole tapestry start to unravel. That seems to be the way it goes with a lot of religions/cults though…
I just watched a segment of Lou Dobbs Tonight talking about the decline in religious belief over the past decade or more, and I am very annoyed with the guests who were chosen and what they said.
Neither of them was anywhere close to speaking for the 15% of people who explicitly stated in the American Religious Identification Survey that they were not Christians and not religious. Apparently 15% isn’t enough to get a voice on television. There are enough of us to get religious people on to talk about us and dismiss us, but I guess it’s too much to ask to have someone who even remotely represents our views there to defend us.
Essentially both of the guests tried to downplay the loss of faith, attempting to claim the large number of non-religious people who aren’t ready yet to say that there is no “higher power” as their own, and claiming that due to the bad economy, terrorism and other problems, people are going to come crawling back to them.
Bibles don’t stop bullets
Where are the miracles? Really, on the same show I saw that a man in Illinois had walked into a church, talked to the pastor and then shot and killed him.
The pastor tried to block the shot with his Bible, but of course it failed. If God’s most devoted servants can’t hope for his protection in His own house of worship, then where can we hope to see a miracle?
Maybe we can’t expect to see them because they just don’t happen.
It’s sad that that point is somewhat true, but the fact that they not only admit that this kind of suffering and hopelessness is what brings people to their business but seem to be proud and smug about it is disgusting. It’s like an undertaker rubbing his hands with glee as he hears about a horrible disaster because it will bring him business.
Most personally annoying to me was the fact that they basically dismissed atheists and even agnostics as inconsequential, and they could do it because none of us were there to defend ourselves.
They may not admit it, but they must know that the people who have fallen away from religion may very well end up as atheists or permanent agnostics, especially if we are brave and open enough to present our side, and they should know that there are many of us out there.
If you are an atheist or agnostic, or if you have any other minority view on gods and the supernatural, please don’t keep it to yourself. The majority needs to be challenged, and the people who are on the fence need to be informed about the serious debate on these subjects, not just indoctrinated by a new church without ever knowing another way is out there.
Let’s show people like Bill Donahue and Tony Perkins that we actually are out here, and that we will not be ignored and stepped on by them and their ultra-conservative religious agendas anymore.
These notes mostly apply to the preacher posse; the ones who are out there specifically to convert people to Christianity. They call this “street fishing”, witnessing, evangelizing, spreading the good word/Gospel; these are all different words for proselytizing.
Usually, the believers have unique reasons why they believe, or they openly admit they aren’t looking to change their worldview any time soon. We always try to wish them well and thank them for speaking to us.
Unfortunately, a lot of the preacher types (those that are compelled to “share their faith” instead of exchanging ideas) appear to be exactly the same, spouting the same stolid lines and “arguments” that have little affect on people. Apparently, the Way of the Master camp tries to break out of this dowdy tack by their the use of fake million dollar bills and “The Good Person Test”. Clever.
This group also repeated their “Are you a good person?” quiz so often over the few hours I was there, I think I’ve memorized it:
“Do you think you are a good person? Have you ever said a lie? You’re a liar. Have you ever stolen something? It doesn’t matter how small, God will send you to hell for this sin. Have you ever used God’s name as a curse word? That’s called blasphemy. Have you ever looked at someone with lust? Jesus says that’s the same as adultery. Do you know the 10 commandments? Most people don’t even know…”
Hm, how much does a preaching job pay?
Despite the constant litany next to us, mostly ignored and occasionally challenged by the passersby, there were some people who did actually engage us (mostly Kazz) to show us the error of our ways and how we should believe in Jesus Christ Lord.
So here are 5 things that struck me as I listened to them.
#1 Labeling “my people”
One of the preacher-types actually referred to all atheists as Kazz’s “people”. It’s kind of a low blow to use the “you people” label. We all fall victim to this sort of generalization. I’m doing it now with this post, but this is because many preachers ascribe themselves to groups like Way of the Master or The Door or other groups of “True Christians”.
Etymologically speaking, you’d think that a Christian is anyone who believes in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. There are certain sublayers that must go along with this, such as the historical existence of Jesus, his death, and his resurrection. Otherwise, what’s the point? Apparently the jury is still out on this one. Most fundamentalists believe that you still have to believe in the Old Testament and pretty much everything that happened after Jesus that is documented in the New Testament of the Bible. Except for the parts that you don’t. That’s where it all gets tricky.
My point here is that there’s more to Christianity than Jesus – that’s what makes it a religion. Atheism is simply, only, solely, wholly, nothing but a lack of belief in a god or gods. We therefor don’t adhere to any principles of behavior or other specific beliefs. We have no leader who dictates what’s right and what’s wrong. Atheists are also not always complete skeptics. Not all of us believe in Science as the one true path. Sure, you’ll find all this and more, but that’s because we’re allowed to be different people with diverse beliefs. The only thing in common is that we do not believe in any form of gods.
This leads to my next observation…
#2 A Creator doesn’t automatically mean your god is real
Generally the first question that people have after you explain atheism to them is “Where did we come from?” Because every logical 5 year old knows that something comes from something. Without getting into the explanation of where the universe came from, know that this argument is used a lot by preachers who are unwittingly opening up the door to countless gods who can claim the honor of creating our world. Most cultures didn’t have a concept of “universe” so we usually are talking about where the world came from. The moon, sun and other stars play a really minor role in comparison to the Earth. Think of them as the aquarium background of your fish tank.
Say one of the preachers has brow-beaten you to accept that yes, there is a Creator. But which one? Luckily for us, Wikipedia has a list of 99 creator gods. So pick your favorite. Mine’s the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but Pangu is also cool: Tell them that they worship a false god, because that big hairy giant awoke from the cosmic egg to create the world with the aid of animal friends.
They will fall back on the Bible. Show them the Wikipedia article.
Modern Christians will talk about the universe somewhat but they are usually unprepared for knowledgeable exchanges on the age of the universe. They will more than likely talk about some bullshit “scientist” who discovered how the accepted laws of the universe worked differently back in Biblical times. Usually, however, the answer to any inconsistency between science and the Bible is Satan.
This argument often leads to …
#3 Ignorance of science, misunderstanding of statistics
Most of the preacher’s information about science doesn’t come from actual scientists. It’s collected (or made up) and disseminated through websites like the Way of the Master, Living Waters, Ray Comfort’s blog and others. Honestly, I don’t think that the preacher possse knows much about science and they have no resources to refute what they read. The preacher sites may know better but I think that they are more concerned about converting the masses than actual scientific exchange.
Much of this “knowledge” is based on what “sounds” true and really ignores a lot of the mysteries that make science alive and vibrant. They work with half-truths and they make scientists (and policy makers that support them) sound like the evil dictators of the scholarly realm. The movie “Expelled” comes to mind. Ultimately, they care about what supports their faith in the Bible. So they will read what is appealing to them and they will misinterpret most attempts that anyone makes, or has made, to educate them.
That’s why you get grossly inaccurate statements like the ones we heard on Roosevelt at the Art Walk:
Scientists say 2 rocks collided and made the world.
Scientists say a rock killed the dinosaurs and made cavemen
Life can’t create itself
How does life come from rocks?
Why Christian creationists have an obsession with rocks is beyond me. Their own mythos says that people were made from dust and a rib bone. LITERALLY.
We also encountered a strange misuse of statistics. This is found usually in the percentages and in the meaning behind what the numbers. One preacher alternatively praised high numbers while similarly dismissing them. “Most people will tell you there’s a God. It’s innate.” That line (paraphrased) was used to tell us that we have no hope of convincing people there are no gods. So his point was that the majority is right in this. However, later on the same man said “98% of Americans call themselves Christians.” This is probably wrong in the %, and it usually comes from conflating high numbers and percentages: There are a lot of so-called Christians, and 98% is a high number so let’s roll with it. In this case, a majority of people is a bad thing – they aren’t REALLY Christians. So he gets to appeal to the will of the masses and decry them at the same time!
Additionally, he believes that the evil gays also manipulate their statistics – he doesn’t believe that it’s 10% and that they over inflate their numbers so that people will be more inclined to accept them. Since there’s no reliable “test” for Christianity or homosexuality, I guess all of us unbelievers will have to rely on taking people at their word.
#4 Refusal to exchange
As Amerist reported in the Roosevelt Resistance Report for Friday, two of the preachers who appeared deeply offended by our ideas (or possibly just the Jesus Pwned shirt) refused to take or even LOOK AT one of our tracts. It explained what atheism is, and I handed it to them after they expressed confusion – “I don’t understand” – over the concept of atheism. One of them snapped, “You wouldn’t take one of our tracts since you don’t believe in God.” I said that I would, because I liked the exchange of information and open communication between people. They still refused the atheism tract but they seemed to think the one on the Nephilim (angel-human hybrids) was perfectly fine. It’s in the Bible, after all. However, one of their group who was a little more engaging was skeptical that it was in the Bible.
I’m glad they finally started looking at some of our stuff, but initially they refused to look at anything that might challenge their faith. I think this tendency, unfortunately, is what reinforces the other observations listed here.
#5 A story
Most preachers have a personal story of why they believe. Something that convinced them and continues to keep them tied to their beliefs. One man had his “scarred” eyes “cured” by God, and another woman had claimed that she should have “died several times” without the intervention of deity.
I suppose that this is the main reason they find their belief so powerful: it appears the only explanation for “miracles” such as being healed or rescued from harm. Many people truly feel this way. It’s not up to me to say such things didn’t happen, because everyone has a different way of interpreting things that happen in their life. However, I think that unbridled and unchecked belief in miracles further removes them from rationality and encourages a distrust of science and self-imposed ignorance regarding coincidences, albeit strange ones.
If you believe doctors are wrong and God will heal you if you pray hard enough, I hope you never get cancer. If you believe that only the power of God can save you if you are in a desperate situation, I hope you don’t give up if he doesn’t appear.
There are more dimensions to the preacher posse than this brief list. Their worldview seems unnecessarily narrowed by their beliefs. To me, it seems that despite their scorn of scientists, they are the ones that need an explanation for everything – right now. And so their explanation for life, the universe and everything is the God/Satan duality. And I think that’s unfortunate.
The Mill Avenue Resistance reports are written by Kyt Dotson as an extension of anthropological research on the population of Mill Avenue in Tempe, Arizona. Since the Resistance does their protests Friday and Saturday there are two reports a week. The supporting material not related to the Resistance reports can be found on the Under the Hills blog.
The Way of the Master preachers set up on the same corner and also across the street closer to 4th and Roosevelt. In attendance we had Valerie, Al, Lee, John, Edwin, among other notable faces. Passing out tracts and using their amplification. Both the position on the triangle and across the street used amplification; and later into the night two positions were set up on the triangle on opposite when Edwin came from across the street to the triangle.
Omar spent most of the night talking to John2 from Streetfishing. He is the large male with a heavy face and loud voice who generally sets up on the opposite side of 4th and Roosevelt. He also brings two young girls with him ages ranging possibly between 8 and 10 years old, who he uses as an excuse to tell people to “Watch their language,” and also uses to pass out tracts. The girls are polite and quiet, clean up after themselves and attempt to avoid people littering tracts by simply dropping them on the ground—it’s not uncommon to see them darting out from where they’ve huddled near John2 to hand one out.
During Omar’s stay John2 switched out once or twice with another preacher. They compose themselves of a behavior where they totally ignore Omar and other passersby who he offers his amplification to. No actual conversations happen. They spend a lot of time claiming the attention of members of the general public and then make broad claims about respecting them when others who are in the cone of the amplification want to also ask and answer questions.
At one point Omar began playing EBM music in between his questions and John2 approached him.
“I appreciate the discourse,” John2 said to Omar, “but the music is beneath you.”
“We don’t really have a discourse, though, you just ignore me the entire time,” Omar replied.
And there certainly was none the entire time that I observed.
Amid those who took up Omar’s offer of amplification—he would switch to his megaphone—were a few young ladies, a passing man, and Nicky, a bespectacled, outspoken young woman who had joined him last First Friday when speaking to John3. As always, the Streetfishing preachers spent most of their time totally ignoring them, using mirror-speech, and expectedly ordinary rhetoric on anyone who stopped to talk to them. Ignoring Omar and Nicky also managed to produce something of a cacophony on that corner very similar to what happened to the WoTM preachers on Mill when they wouldn’t reply to the Resistance early on.
The crew from Rocky Horror Picture Show passing out pamphlets also came to visit the WoTM preachers on the triangle at 3rd and became embroiled in some sort of strange siege, with black fishnets, lace, and eyeliner—oh and golden underwear (as per an overweight Rocky with a friendly face and red fliers for all.) After a small discussion they dispersed, took over the corner there, and handed out their fliers by pronouncing ecumenical acceptance of everyone using talking points counter to common Christian fundamentalist rhetoric. “At RHPS we accept you even if you’re gay! We don’t care. Bi? Come with us! Boy. Girl. Whatever. RHPS is the place for you.” Their position and the verbiage certainly increased the number of people who took pamphlets from them.
The WoTM and Streetfishing preachers finally left the area around 10pm—slowly filtering out as that witching our rolled around.
The night wound down with a few groups of Christians stopping to talk to Issac, Rocco, and Kazz. At last one of them had an alpha who promised to pray for Kazz, and another promised to pray for Omar. To which he stated that it wouldn’t have any effect, she said she was going to pray anyway.
During one encounter, Spyral stood by handing out various tracts as Kazz was speaking as the conversation necessarily wended between common points from the Nephilim. When Spy attempted to give one of the atheist tracts to one of that group she was roundly refused.
“Why won’t you take it?” Spyral asked.
“Would you take a tract from me?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you take one if you don’t believe in God?”
This went around a few times where Spyral pointed out—like I would—that we do actually read all of the material we take. That, in fact, taking a tract is precisely like giving someone else time to speak to us, time to listen to their words. It is extremely common that tract bearers will refuse literature from us after we accept it from them; it is also common for them to not want to listen to us while at the same time proselytizing. This group managed to both listen and speak, but that fell down when it came to exchanging tracts.
One of the members of the group mentioned that this was her first time at First Friday but she had not been able to take any time to enjoy the booths and artists because she had come out to hand out tracts. Notably, a similar thing happened to Spyral because she kept to the Resistance speaker and didn’t manage to spend time around the various artists and music.
Hopefully next time both can have a much better experience by being able to be part of the celebratory atmosphere, the art, and the glimmering amazement that is the Art Walk.