I'm a practicing atheist.

 I had to work my way up to not believing in god, or as I would put it "Everybody's Imaginary Friend".

 I started out small, with comic books.

Then I moved onto demigods like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

And then I finally tackled the big one, Thor.

I went after Jehovah next, I just hope nobody witnessed it.

I even joined an Irish atheist group...Cathoholics Anonymous.

Some people ridicule my lack of beliefs, they call me names like Reason Freak or Bible Doorstopper.

I might be an atheist, but I don't judge other religions, no matter how full of shit they are.

Unless you're an agnostic, because agnostics are fucking posers.

JERUSALEM - The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed "Mexican" influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday.

Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and "we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu," he [said]. 

How desperate does a Jew have to be to look for common ground with his killers -- by picking on a pig?

In response, however, a Muslim health official agreed, saying that the name "swine flu" is indeed offensive to Muslims, particularly since Jews are descended from pigs.

Meanwhile, as a Jew/pig, I consider the name suggested by Minister Litzman -- Mexican flu -- equally offensive, since I don't eat Mexicans.

Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders is being prosecuted by a Dutch court for pointing out the same thing that many imams remind parishioners of every day: that Islam and the Koran provide the basis for attacks on, and undermining of, Western democracy and values.

If Wilders is jailed for speaking out against fascist religions, I’ve got only one question: Are conjugal visits allowed?

SOME FEAR NEW RELIGIOUS CULT AS VIRGIN LIZARD GIVES BIRTH TO QUINTS

MANCHESTER, England. Chester Zoo officials have confirmed that Flora, an eight-year-old Komodo Dragon, has produced five offspring without ever having a male partner, a virgin birth that is causing concern at Canterbury Cathedral.

Virgin, my foot.

"We can't have reptiles becoming figures of idolatry among the lower orders," said Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury. "It eats into our market share."

Archbishop of Canterbury:  "It smacks of papistry."

The Komodo Dragon is the world's largest species of lizard, and Flora's girth expanded to record-setting dimensions during her pregnancy with quintuplets. "I pity the poor girl," said Effie Tuthill, who works at the tea shop in the House of Fraser department store here. "When I was preggers with me three-year old I couldn't find nothing to wear but a Hawaiian muu-muu." Flora apparently reproduced by a process known as parthenogenesis, which you would understand if you had paid attention in high school biology class.

"Merry Komodomas to us all!"

World religions such as Christianity are often founded following miraculous events such as virgin births, but zoo officials say they intend to steer clear of controversy by emphasizing scientific rather than supernatural aspects of the historic occasion. "We are going to put up a Komodomas tree with all the trimmings and have an after-Komodomas sale in the gift shop," said Kevin Buley, the zoo's curator of lower vertebrates and invertebrates. "Otherwise we're treating this the same as any other reptilian birth--slimy and disgusting."

"You got my lizard pregnant--now you're gonna marry her."

Scientists questioned whether the zoo had monitored Flora closely enough to be certain that she had not had sexual intercourse given the rarity of virginal conception. "I mean, did they go with her to all the nightclubs and parties?" asked Bernal Rojas, a reptilologist. "If you're going to take her word for it, you might as well throw up your hands when your teenage daughter tells you the same thing."

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman

PERSECUTION OF AGNOSTICS ON RISE DURING HOLIDAY SEASON

ARLINGTON, Virginia. The month of December is a time of peace and goodwill for members of several world religions, but for Alan Macy, it's a nightmare. "Everybody gangs up on me--Christians, Jews and Muslims," he says, as he watches firemen put out a blaze on his front lawn. "I feel so isolated."

Macy is an agnostic--a person who believes that it is impossible for humans to know whether there is a supreme being. As such, he is the target of persecution throughout the year both by religious believers and by atheists, who accuse his type of being wishy-washy.

What he found on his lawn that night.

Last night, a group of masked men came to Macy's house and burned a question mark in front of his house, ridiculing his indifference to cosmic questions and religious strife. "Make up your freakin' mind!" someone spray-painted across his door.

"What's it gonna be?  Yes or no to divinity!"

Other agnostics say they suffer little indignities throughout the holiday season. "I bought a birthday present at Hecht's," a Washington-area department store, "and I dropped my American Agnostics Association membership card on the counter when I went to pay," says Ellen Sherman. "The shopgirl said 'Why don't you people get your own damn holiday', and refused to gift-wrap it for me."

"I'm sorry--you don't get the after-Christmas discount unless you believe in Christmas."

Leaders of religious groups say they caution adherents to practice tolerance towards those who have lost their faith and don't know where to find it. "I tell my parishioners to share God's love with those who don't believe in him, since we may be able to convert them someday," says Father Francis Kaloff of St. Columbkill's parish in Brighton, Massachusetts. "At this holiest time of the year, I urge my faithful to save their anger for members of competing sects who cut into our revenues."

Copyright 2006, Con Chapman

Pope Benedict XVI began his first visit to a Muslim country with a message of dialogue and brotherhood between Christians and Muslims in an attempt to ease anger over his perceived criticism of Islam.  Visiting Turkey, the Pope said, “Let us focus on what our two great religions share.  Namely, we all hate the Jews.”

With the recent electoral victory of the Democrats in both houses of Congress, one would think that the partisan rhetoric that has divided this nation in twain for well over a decade would cease to inundate us all.

Unfortunately, though the election is over, the holidays are nearly upon us. And you know what that means. Once again, Christmas and Hanukkah are starting in on their own smear campaigns against one another, vying for the hearts and minds of Americans young and old. Luckily for you, we managed to obtain copies of both sides' campaign ads by posing as a small NBC affiliate in the midwest. They fell for the ruse and sent us their tapes, and now we're going to post them for you our beloved audience weeks before they will even air.

But be warned, you're not going to believe what you're about to see, the level of raw ugliness and the willingness to sink to unthinkable moral depths simply to make a point. It's all there, in spades. This sort of behavior is pronounced enough in tightly run political battles, but compared to America's two most prominent religions, the Swift Boat Veteran ads look like a dissertation AGAINST factual relativism.

While we here at Drink At Work don't espouse this sort of defamatory tone in getting out a message of any kind, we must admit that these verbally violent spots, which were created by several faith-based PAC groups, at least properly reflects the essentially volatile nature of most major Western religions which all believe in the exclusivity of their own people's ability to reach heaven and at the same time the inherently doomed nature of those not born under the same religious star.

So, like the good Christians and Jews that we never really were, we will forgive them their nature and simply try to listen to the messages hidden underneath all the mean words and hostile images. We hope you can too.

Leading up to the holidays we will be releasing about one ad and one response ad each week. Stay tuned for Hanukkah's response to this first ad on behalf of Christmas.

Yours,
DAW

With the recent electoral victory of the Democrats in both houses of Congress, one would think that the partisan rhetoric that has divided this nation in twain for well over a decade would cease to inundate us all.

Unfortunately, though the election is over, the holidays are nearly upon us. And you know what that means. Once again, Christmas and Hanukkah are starting in on their own smear campaigns against one another, vying for the hearts and minds of Americans young and old. Luckily for you, we managed to obtain copies of both sides' campaign ads by posing as a small NBC affiliate in the midwest. They fell for the ruse and sent us their tapes, and now we're going to post them for you our beloved audience weeks before they will even air.

But be warned, you're not going to believe what you're about to see, the level of raw ugliness and the willingness to sink to unthinkable moral depths simply to make a point. It's all there, in spades. This sort of behavior is pronounced enough in tightly run political battles, but compared to America's two most prominent religions, the Swift Boat Veteran ads look like a dissertation AGAINST factual relativism.

While we here at Drink At Work don't espouse this sort of defamatory tone in getting out a message of any kind, we must admit that these verbally violent spots, which were created by several faith-based PAC groups, at least properly reflects the essentially volatile nature of most major Western religions which all believe in the exclusivity of their own people's ability to reach heaven and at the same time the inherently doomed nature of those not born under the same religious star.

So, like the good Christians and Jews that we never really were, we will forgive them their nature and simply try to listen to the messages hidden underneath all the mean words and hostile images. We hope you can too.

Leading up to the holidays we will be releasing about one ad and one response ad each week. Stay tuned for Hanukkah's response to this first ad on behalf of Christmas.

Yours,
DAW