Religion & Money – Where does the $$ come from, and where does it go?

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Belief is a very powerful tool for gathering wealth, and because of this some of the wealthiest organisations around are religious groups that also often attract followers that are quite poor. Here now are some interesting statistics that list where some of the main players get their wealth from, how much they have, and what they spend it on. I confess that some of this was a surprise to me.

Looking down the list, if I was to vote which were the slimiest scumbags around, its really difficult to decide between Scientology, Catholicism, and Televangelism.

  • The catholics have spent over half a billion in compensation to abuse victims and also kept a pile of plundered Nazi gold for themselves
  • The scientologists have simply scammed all their loot
  • The Televangelists use all donations for ‘God’s work’ to maintain a life of luxury

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Fraudlent Islamic Claim – Professor Kroner confirms Qu’ran is scientific

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kroner

kronerThere exists a modern claim that the Qu’ran contains verses that describe things known only to modern science, but since it was all written 1400 years ago when such things were unknown then “Allah did it”. Challenge this and ask for the best example and you usually are given a poetical phrase which has been quote-mined and twisted out of context to enable some modern thinking to be retro fitted in.

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Perry

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If you know me, then you will know that I’m a staunch supporter of the concept called “Freedom of Thought”, which basically distills down into “you can believe whatever you wish” – fairies, unicorns, jesus and other similar myths. However, there comes a point at which you truly do need to raise your voice of … Read more

Atheism Debunked by Muslims – You know this will be silly, right?

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For the past week I’ve had a bit of free time on my hands, so for fun (and perhaps also for a bit of Critical Thinking practice), I’ve been hanging out in a couple of Facebook groups where Muslims attempt to debunk Atheism.

It has been exactly what you might expect …

  • Number of silly utterly insane arguments presented – lots
  • Amount of credible evidence presented – zero.

I must confess to being a bit naive, for I truly had no idea just how loopy things would get. Purely for your entertainment and amusement, here now are some examples (I’ll not be providing any names).

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Paranormal Investigator Joe Nickell Reveals the Truth Behind Modern Cryptozoological Myths

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IO9 has a great interview with, Paranormal investigator and cryptozoologist , Joe Nickell (picture here is mine, not theirs). Please do not allow words such as, Paranormal investigator,  fool you, for while indeed many practitioners of woo claim such titles, Joe is 100% solid skeptic. When I saw him myself a few weeks ago, he explained that he once worked for a well-known detective agency, but since he is not permitted to utilize their name for publicity purposes, lets just say that their name starts with ‘P’ and they went after Jessy James. The point is this, he now applies the rigor you would use  at a crime scene to paranormal and monster claims. In other words he is on a quest for the truth, and is not after evidence to prove his specific beliefs.

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“There are no Genuine Atheists” claims an Astrophysicist

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Yep, a real Astrophysicist has made this claim … but we are deeply into kook territory here.

Before we get into details, I think I better first introduce you to the claimant. This comes from a chap called David Klinghoffer. He works for the Discovery Institute as a … well, that does not really matter, because knowing that it is the Discovery Institute tells you all you really need to know; its basically kook central for the Intelligent Design movement.

Since it is indeed “them” you know in your heart of hearts this is going to be truly silly (it is), so here we go. He starts out with …

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