Hence, I have decided to refocus my efforts on my book and music projects. This blog and my sexy Bible readings have in reality been a huge distraction from these projects, and have delayed them considerably. The thing is, I really wanted to keep engaging with my fans on the internet, as I really enjoy it, and you’ve been so incredibly supportive of me. I may not have the most fans of any model, but I think I have the best fans—I don’t think any other model’s blog can compare with the level of discourse here. But the fact of the matter is, if I can make my outside projects successful, it will eventually mean I will be able to devote much more time to my internet activities than I can now. But to get there, I have to wind them back for now.

I probably won’t be able to stop myself posting articles here every now and again, as there’s just so much I want to say about what’s going on in the world, and I will continue to respond to everyone’s comments. But my pace of posting will probably slow down; indeed, you’ve probably noticed that it already has to a degree. I have every intention of returning to my sexy Bible readings when the time is right—I basically just need to find a way for me to reach a wider audience. If by some miracle they suddenly become an internet hit for some reason (even without a public channel on YouTube), I will restart them as soon as possible. I still strongly believe that the approach I use in these videos is one of the most effective ways of dealing with this issue, and I really think I can make a significant impact if I can just reach a wide enough audience.

In fact, a recent study of religious knowledge in the US has further reinforced my belief that the best way to tackle religion is to give people more knowledge of it. It is very hard to fight religious faith with scientific facts and ideas alone, because faith by its very nature ignores logical analysis, and encourages blind belief in spite of the facts. But when people learn more about what they think they believe in, they start to see the problems with it, which plants the seeds of doubt—and that in turn makes them open to accepting the facts. A common misconception among theists is that atheists “don’t care”, but in reality, most of us care very much. Most of us have arrived at our position by studying all the alternative belief systems very carefully, rather than just blindly sticking with what we were brought up with (the most reliable indicator of a person’s religion is what culture they were born into). This is borne out by this study, which shows that atheists have the greatest knowledge of religion in the US, while those from the “Bible Belt” know the least. Surprise surprise surprise…

Well it seems we’ve managed to avoid a Koran burning, but we still had Christians ripping pages out of the Koran at the White House to protest “the charade that Islam is a peaceful religion”—what a shame these hypocrites don’t give the outrageous violence and intolerance in their own Bible the same scrutiny. The huge controversy surrounding the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” (which will actually be two blocks away and will be more of a Muslim community centre than what most people think of as a mosque) has only been inflamed by this year’s anniversary of September 11, however.

My own views on this issue are expressed very well by the video above—opposing this mosque is tantamount to equating all Muslims with Islamic extremist terrorists, which is the same as equating all Christians with Christian extremist terrorists. As critical as I am of the extreme violence and intolerance written into the both the Koran and the Bible, it is not reflective of how most Muslims practice their religion, just as it isn’t reflective of how most Christians practice theirs. And while it may seem strange for an outspoken atheist to preach religious tolerance, the fact of the matter is, without freedom of religion, there wouldn’t be freedom of no religion. Freedom of religion is one of the key things that makes us better than the terrorists—to deny this only brings us down to their level.

Having said that though, I can sympathise with Obama’s apparent attempt to have it both ways on this issue. I, like him, absolutely support their legal and constitutional right to build this mosque at this site. On the other hand though, it will be the subject of ongoing controversy, and will no doubt be the target of Christian extremist terrorism, which could have repercussions for the whole world. So I can also sympathise with Obama’s implication that building a mosque at this site may not be wise, and that the backers of this project should really consider building it elsewhere—for their own sake as much as (indeed more than) anybody else’s.

As they always do with this sort of issue, the conservatives have cynically tried to use it as a wedge against Obama, and have shamelessly tried to fan the flames by openly speaking out against this mosque with some very inflammatory language. This is in spite of their stated devotion (and that of their supporters) to the US constitution—which absolutely protects the right of Muslims to build a mosque at this site. Of course, this is really the same as their supposed devotion to freedom of speech—the conservatives only want freedom of speech and religion for themselves, and not for anybody else. I fear Obama could lose his presidency over what should really be a non-issue, just as the labour party very nearly just lost power in Australia, in part because of the complete non-issue of “boat people”. I will have more to say on the recent Australian election in my next post.

Since YouTube suspended my original Sexy Bible Readings channel, we’ve been considering our options for re-posting them. We decided the safest thing to do was to upload streaming versions of the videos directly to this blog, as neither YouTube nor anybody else could censor them here. To do this, my webmaster Lee decided to upload them to an unlisted YouTube channel and download the YouTube video files, as their compression is very efficient and they use our preferred video format (H264 MPEG4). However, seeing as we had to create a new YouTube channel anyway, we figured we might as well save ourselves some bandwidth and try using it—given that the channel and videos aren’t publicly accessible or searchable on the YouTube web site, hopefully they won’t censor them again. And even if they do, we can immediately switch over to our locally hosted versions anyway.

Another advantage to having locally hosted copies is that the people who can’t access YouTube in their country can now view them right here—we will now be linking to the locally hosted version in each sexy Bible reading post. Also, as it is now nearly a month since we tried to post my last Bible reading, we’re also posting my latest reading—click on the link to view the locally hosted version. And as always, there’s an extended, super high quality fully nude version for my web site members.

Possibly my favourite article on this blog so far is the Religion and Morality post. I was originally intending to conclude that article with some statistics on how atheists and theists compare on the sorts of issues people normally use to judge morality, but as the article was very lengthy already, I thought I should save it for another post. So here it is.

Before theists trot out their usual arguments that the greatest mass murderers in history were atheists—or that the communism is an example of how atheism leads to unhealthy societies—please read my Religion and Morality article, which covers these misconceptions thoroughly. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, check out the results of Vision of Humanity’s Global Peace Index. As is graphically represented in this Epiphenom article, the most atheist countries are the most peaceful—and the most religious countries are the most violent. These results may not mean religion makes people more violent though—it could mean violence makes people more religious. So to make these comparisons as meaningful as possible, we have to eliminate socio-economic factors as much as possible. Hence, it is most instructive to compare the US—which is by far the most religious western country—with other western countries. As can be seen when we do this, the US rates alongside such countries as China, and is behind (often well behind) other western countries.

What’s more, there’s just no escaping the fact that all the most peaceful countries are the most atheist, and the most violent countries are also the most religious (unless we falsely consider the Russian Federation to be atheist, which would make it the lone exception anyway). Even if we accept that violence makes people more religious, clearly atheism does not make people less moral as theists often assume—otherwise, it simply wouldn’t be possible for the most atheist countries to be the most peaceful. We may be able to overlook the religiosity of the most violent countries on socio-economic grounds, but it is impossible to ignore the peacefulness of the most atheist countries.

Okay, so what about other measures of morality, such as the abortion rate? As atheists generally do not even consider abortion to be immoral in the first place, surely this one would work out in favour of more religious countries? Curiously though, exactly the opposite is true! Why is that? Because along with resisting abortion, most religions also resist sex education and contraception. By far the best way to avoid abortion is to avoid conception—most religions say the best way to do this is through abstinence, but as the statistics show, that simply doesn’t work in practice. People will always have sex, and it seems they will nearly always abort any unwanted pregnancies that may result as well, regardless of how religious they are. The only difference is how willing they are to use contraception. So religion not only leads to higher abortion rates, but higher rates of STDs as well—as is so tragically the case in many third world countries.

Okay, okay, but surely it would be even more instructive to look at the statistics within just one given country? That way we can largely eliminate all the socio-economic, political and historical complications altogether. In that case, how about the percentage of atheists in US prisons relative to the general population? It just so happens that the US Federal Bureau of Prisons has detailed statistics on the religious affiliations of inmates. Depending on who you ask, atheists represent between 8-16% of the US population, and given the unwillingness of many atheists in the US to admit to their lack of beliefs, it is entirely possible that the real figure may be as high as 20% or more. Yet atheists represent only 0.2% of the US prison population. That means atheists are up to 100 times less likely to go to jail than theists in the US! This statistic is even more stunning when you consider the fact that most Americans view atheists with suspicion, so one would imagine that US juries would be far more inclined to convict atheists than theists, all other things being equal.

Even many atheists fear social anarchy should all theists accept that God doesn’t exist. Happily though, the statistics unambiguously show the opposite.

While I ponder what to do about YouTube censoring all my sexy Bible reading videos, I thought you might enjoy some comic relief. As ever, DarkMatter2525 has posted some great videos since I last featured him, such as the one above, which I think is a truly brilliant illustration of the absurdity and immorality of the central concept of Christianity (Jesus dying for our sins). I also love its absolutely hilarious sequel, Everyone’s a Sinner—I’m sure I’ve provoked this kind of sin many times in my life!

I also recently discovered a great new video series, Messed-Up Bible Stories, which are some of the funniest Bible satires I’ve seen yet, and demonstrate the absurdity and cruelty of the Bible superbly.

As today is my birthday, I thought I should post my latest Bible reading, as the members’ version features me playing a brand new piano piece—in only my birthday suit! I am currently working on several piano pieces for… well, hopefully you will see soon enough! Oh, and if you would like to send me a birthday present, check out my Amazon wish list.

UPDATE: YouTube has decided to wish me a happy birthday by suspending my YouTube account, even though my videos did not breach their guidelines at all (this is similar to what they did to my Blasphemy Challenge video). This is totally outrageous censorship of atheists’ right to free speech!

I’ve now updated this post as well as the other sexy Bible reading posts to display the videos from my new, unlisted YouTube channel—together with links to locally hosted versions for all the people who can’t access YouTube, and to give us backups just in case YouTube censors my channel again.

Okay, so I’m not entirely sure what “refudiate” means (as the word doesn’t exist), but as it seems she meant repudiate, I’m pretty sure I’m using it correctly! Sarah Palin’s difficulties with the English language are of course now legendary, and a favourite subject for commedians. It is however very disturbing that some one whose native language is English can be considered a credible presidential candidate, when they have so much difficulty speaking it correctly. I am far from a perfect English speaker myself, as I learned it as an adult—I would never dare to publish my unedited text here. But Sarah clearly has no problem with doing this, and even likens herself to Shakespeare! Still, a native English speaker who is a potential president should be able to publish their unedited text—the fact that she can’t should be an embarrassment to all American conservatives. The fact that it isn’t says just as much about them as it does about her, and is deeply disturbing. In essence, they celebrate poor education, stupidity and ignorance. This isn’t about right or left—this is about right and wrong.

The other thing the far right celebrates, of course, is bigotry, which as this video says, should be getting as much attention as Sarah’s choice of words. The outrage over the building of a mosque two blocks away from “ground zero” effectively equates all Muslims with the perpetrators of September 11, as that is the only way a simple mosque can be considered “stabbing the heart” of the American heartland. Yet at the same time, they claim not to be anti-Muslim, and Palin even calls on peaceful Muslims to support her! Why should they? If they are peaceful, then there is nothing wrong with this mosque (or rather, there isn’t anything more wrong with it than any other place of religious worship).

We’ve been performing some major updates to my blog over the past week, so as I haven’t been able to post for so long, this post will be a bit of a grab bag. First of all, I’ve just posted my latest Bible reading (as always, along with an extended, super high quality fully nude version for my web site members). Secondly, as I mentioned we’ve performed some major updates to our blog software to bring it up to date, and we’ve made a few refinements to the design of the site at the same time—we want it to be the cleanest and most elegant blog on the net! And last, but certainly not least, I want to bring your attention to GodBlock (thanks to Joe Miller for the tip!). It has always amused me how hysterical people get about “protecting” children from pornography, when I am not aware of a single scientific study that shows it harms children at all—certainly, it is very difficult to understand how nudity could do any harm to children anyway. It seems to me that this widely held assumption is yet another form of sexual suppression brought to us by religion—which ironically, actually has been shown to have done serious psychological damage to children in many cases. So GodBlock turns the usual internet filter on its head, by protecting children from what could really harm them: religion.

When I read about this story, I just had to do a post on it! The infamous 62-foot tall statue of Jesus outside Solid Rock Church (yes, that really is the name of the church!) in Monroe, Ohio has burned to the ground—after being struck by lightning! The statue is known by the amusing nicknames “big butter Jesus” (apparently a reference to its colour) or more commonly “touchdown Jesus” (referring to its rather absurd pose, which looks a lot like the touchdown signal given by referees in American football). Although it was destroyed—in the words of the insurance company—by an “act of God”, a giant Hustler Hollywood store across the road was untouched! Yes, the humour in this story may be endless, but this kind of incident really does pose some very serious questions for theists, such as:

Why would God destroy a statue of his own son, while leaving a shop selling pornography completely unharmed? Could it be that Christians are actually worshipping the wrong God? Perhaps they should be worshipping Thor (the Norse God of thunder) instead? (Seeing as Scandinavians are so sexually open, I guess it makes sense that their God would like porn.) Or maybe this is how God enforces the second commandment (no “graven images”)? But if that’s the case, then why doesn’t he destroy all statues and images of himself and Jesus? Indeed, why the hell are Christians so fond of statues and images of God and (especially) Jesus anyway, when the second commandment expressly forbids it?

And this is not an isolated incident: in fact, religious statues are among the objects most commonly struck by lightning. In 2008, lightning singed the fingers and eyebrows of Christ the Redeemer, the 130-foot statue of Jesus that stands over Rio de Janeiro. In 2007, lighting struck the 33-foot Jesus statue at Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden, Colorado, making one of Jesus’ arms fall off. And believe it or not, actor James Caviezel was struck by lightning in 2003, while playing Jesus in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ! None of this makes any sense from a religious perspective: God ought to destroy all graven images, or protect objects of worship (and those who worship them). Greater than normal lightning strikes on religious statues (but not all of them) is not what you’d expect from God.

However, if you take religion out of the equation and instead turn to science for an explanation, all of this makes perfect sense. The statues that are struck by lightning are large structures placed at the highest available location: they’re the tallest objects in their immediate vicinity, for maximum visual impact. And lo and behold, the first object lightning will strike in a given place is the tallest one. In the case of touchdown Jesus, it was made of highly flammable materials, apart from its metal frame—and metal attracts lightning. So as the tallest object in its immediate area and with a metal frame, it’s no wonder it was struck by lightning; and as it was made mostly from highly flammable materials, it’s no wonder that it rapidly burned to the ground when lightning did strike it. As is usually the case, trying to explain things as the work of God requires extreme contortions of logic, whereas science explains everything simply, clearly and accurately—intervention from God only complicates things.

The video above from my old favourite Darkmatter2525 makes another important point: if lightning struck some well known atheist figure such as Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens, you can be absolutely sure some theists would claim it was the work of God. Well I’m sorry, but you can’t have it both ways: you may try to pick and choose what you want to attribute to God, but it’s all or nothing.

Here’s my latest Bible reading video. And to go with it, we’ve also posted an extended, super high quality fully nude version for my web site members.