Review of Kirk Cameron's films

I was really not interested or in the mood to watch this film, let alone write about it. But when you have time on your hands, and when your masochistic side of you wants attention, you browse through online looking for good facepalm material. Now, I have been dealing with Ray Comfort a lot lately, and more to come, but when I saw Kirk Cameron make an ass of himself on Facebook and on Fox, I remembered that he made some movies lately. Saving Christmas just came out, but he made two more: Unstoppable and Monumental. So I figured, might as well review these as a warm up.

For the following review, I will write down what Kirk says and does on the films in italic, while my responses to each point will be in normal font.

Unstoppable

Basically this film is all about addressing suffering and death. Kirk shares stories about friends dying, him and his wife helping at cancer summer camps, and there's a whole lot of pulling at heart strings. This is one of the main reasons why religious propaganda are despicable.

Kirk basically starts off with the premise that there is a God (no surprises there). He does not make any attempt to prove there is one (again, no surprises there). So, with that premise, he asks why does God allow suffering? Kirk says this leads most people to atheism. 
Completely ignoring there are many reasons why people become atheists. I did not become an atheist because of suffering, I became an atheist purely out of critical thinking.

So how does Kirk attempt to explain why there is suffering in the world: Kirk starts off by sharing the creation of man according to Genesis. He says God created the first man literally from dirt and breathed life into him. Kirk says this man was Adam and was created in the image of God, given authority over the land and all it's animals. 

And here's the real kicker: they show a bald white guy covered in mud, who later cleans himself by a small waterfall. Already SOOOOO much wrong with this. For starters, it's common knowledge by now that the first humans originated in Africa, and the cradle of civilization started Sumeria where modern day Iraq is located.

Second of all, as biologists will inform you that the FEMALE is the foundation of a species, not the male. This is one of the many things that Western religions got horribly wrong. Have you ever wondered why males of mammalian species have nipples?

Third, again, as any biologist will tell you, a new species of animals does not start with one person. You need a group of creatures, not one pair.

Back to the movie, Kirk says Adam "named" each animal, and Kirk notes that when you "name" something that means you have authority over it. But he wondered where was his female? Kirk says "this was the only thing that was not good in creation." Kirk says Adam could not provide for himself to make it good, he had to rely on someone else to make it good. So God put Adam to sleep and made a female out of his "side" and made something Adam had never "seen before"... a woman. And Kirk says they are both "beautifully and perfectly designed to complement each other.... and he names her." 
Remember when Kirk said when you "name" something that means you have authority over it? So following Kirk's logic, man has authority over woman because man named woman.

This is straight out of Kirk Cameron's mouth, and I didn't twist the movie script. Kirk Cameron just basically said that man has authority over woman. (and yet Kirk Cameron and his partner Ray Comfort have the gal to diss atheists who point out that the Bible says men have authority over women.)

Also, it's very strange that creationist like Kirk Cameron and his partner Ray Comfort, always declare "creation was good" and yet Kirk here just admitted something wasn't good with creation before Sin. This comes to show how Kirk and his creationist ilk haven't been hones with us.

Kirk then says that man and women were given "dominion" over the Earth and all it's animals. 
This is one of the most damaging parts of religion, thinking man is above nature like a god. All this is is some religious-inspired anthropomorphic-centric thinking, similar to making us believe that humans are the center of the universe. 

Besides, it is not even accurate. If there is one species that has dominion over the world, my vote goes to bacteria. They have by far dominated the globe, even in the air.


Kirk says that Adam was put in charge to tend to the land and make it beautiful, but to also protect it. Protect it from what? Kirk says a serpent entered the garden, and Adam should have "smelled it a mile a way, ran to it and and crushed it." 
But what Kirk fails to share with his audience is where the serpent came from and who made it?....oh that's right, God made the serpent. In Genesis 3, it says God himself made the serpent, and made it as the most cunning of all animals.

So here's the story so far: God makes an world that is not entirely good, makes a single man and a woman from his rib. Next, the two humans are tricked by a serpent created by God and bring Sin into the world, and that is the reason why evil exists and why all suffering imaginable exists. What the actual f**k? Does nobody else see the big problem here?

For starters, remember the creationist position that when "God created the world, it was good"? So if the world was "good" before the Fall, and evil and suffering did not exist yet until man sinned.... but the very serpent destroys this entire scenario. The serpent itself shows an agent of evil existed before the Fall, so already we can tell evil was not created by the Fall because evil existed prior to the Fall, therefore the existence of evil is not the fault of humans. And who created this evil? God created it! And God, being the all-knowing Creator of the universe with his grand divine plan, must have planned this entire thing to crash and fail, resulting in a world of pain. If Christians think this wasn't part of the plan, then they admit that a mere creature like a single snake can thwart the grand divine plan of the infinite creator of the cosmos. How fucking embarrassing. 

Second of all, if you were the infinite creator of the cosmos, and you wanted to created a "good" world, why would you place a cursed tree on your beloved planet and why would you hold one species out of a billion species to be held morally accountable? That would make you the ultimate speciesist. And why would you hold these ape creatures morally accountable if you did not create them with the knowledge or understanding of right and wrong, thereby knowing the dire importance of not eating a cursed fruit? And if you wanted this world to remain "good" why put this cursed tree within walking distance of these humans who apparently don't know any better? If you were so smart that you could create vast galaxies of billions of huge stars, why couldn't you have figured out to put the "cursed fruit tree" on a high unclimbable mountain far away from humans, or on a far away unreachable island, or even plant it on Venus for fucks sake?! Somewhere where humans can't reach it and screw up your plan for a good creation. How hard is that to figure out? Or why not creating the cursed fruit tree to begin with?

Consider this, if you heard that a single father was watching over his two children, both under the age of three, left the house while he deliberately left his two children locked in a closet with nothing in it except for a opened can filled to the top with rat poison... and all he did was say "be good children and don't drink or touch that poison" and closed the door on them....would you call that parent "loving"? Of course not, you would call that parent a monster and call Child Services because that father is insane and clearly not fit to look after children. If either of the children died or became ill, we would not blame them in the slightest. Why? Because they're infants, they did not understand right or wrong, or understand the danger of rat poison. All the blame would go directly to the father, and rightfully so, because he knew better and created the certain conditions he put his children in.

And it's the same with the God character of the Bible. Kirk's beloved book says that God created the world and created man without knowledge of good and evil. And yet this God put them in a garden and deliberately placed the cursed tree (equivalent to the rat poison) in the garden, and even worse God deliberately created a middle-man to convince the humans (who didn't know any better) to eat the cursed fruit. God is just as bad, actually worse, than the father in my alternate scenario.

Of course Christians and creationists like to over look this factor, usually by saying "it's not that God punished Adam and Eve for not knowing better, it is simply because they disobeyed God" which entirely overlooks the problem of creating a cursed fruit tree to begin with, within walking distance of the garden, and deliberately creating a mischievous middle-man to get the humans (who still didn't know better) to disobey. But even still, we never call a infant (who doesn't know better) for drawing on the wall with a crayon as "immoral" or blame them for being "disobedient." You make take their crayons away, but would you get a shot and then inject these kids with a deadly virus? No, that would be monstrous. You may think that is overboard comparison, but it is not. In fact, it low-balls it. Yahweh decided to go beyond creating and unleashing viruses unto his children for misbehaving, and created every single deadly disease and every horrible thing imaginable. (Cancer, ebola, small pox, polio, whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus, mumps, rubella, venom, heart disease, and the list can go on and on)

Back to the movie, Kirk says when Adam and Eve first sinned, God clothed them in the skins of beasts. Kirk says this is because if you are going to act like beasts, you are going to look like beasts. 
Then God is an idiot. He already created humans as beasts, for humans are animals by definition. So either God or Kirk Cameron was unaware of that fact.... who am I kidding, it's ONLY Kirk Cameron's fault for not knowing that fact, after all he never has proven the existence of his god, so that only leaves Kirk.

Next we see a reenactment of Cain and Abel story, but only the ending part where Cain kills Abel. Jump back to Kirk, Kirk says Adam and Eve had only two sons, and one killed the other, and Abel was the good child who did the "right thing" and then God protects Cain with a mark and says "if you go after Cain, I [God] will come after you."

I wonder if anyone else paused this video at the moment where Kirk says "Adam and Eve had only two sons" and asked out loud, so how did Cain and Abel have children? This is a hot topic that creationists hate to address. Because it points out the only way that Cain and Abel, the only children of the first humans, needed to engage in incest with their own mother or with a sister in order to have children. And what does the Bible say about incest? Oh yeah, it's forbidden and bad.

It is often times hysterical how creationists try to rationalize this problem. Look at Kirk Cameron's ministry partner Ray Comfort try to explain this away:

There you have it people, that is the farthest reach of Ray Comfort's feeble intellect.

Before I move on to the rest of the movie, there is another thing I want to address with the Cain and Abel story. But before I go there, let's walk through something first.

Imagine a father watching from a distance as his baby son grow up and develop. Though absent, the parent has strict rules on how that child should behave, rules the parents admits he told the child. He watches indifference as the child unwittingly starts to break those rules. Only when the child has become so naughty and so troublesome does the parent act. And what is that action? The parent does not communicate with the naughty child, instead he has a quiet word with his favorite child (yes the parent has a favorite child, and throughout the time that he has watched through indifference as he watched the naughty child grow up, he has been very attentive of his favorite child). So the action the parent takes is commanding his favorite child to commit fratricide. "Go and kill your brother" the parent says, "your brother is just too naughty to live anymore." What would you say about such a parent if they were to act in that way?

Why bring this up? After the Jews left Egypt in the Exodus story, God took them into the Promise Land, but the land was already cultivated. So God told the Jews (his favorite children) to eliminate all the Amalakites and Canaanites. Kinda refutes the idea of a "all-loving" god if you ask me. And before anyone can speak of that the Amalakites were "too evil and too far gone" let me remind them of the biblical story of Nineveh. God sent Jonah to the city of Nineveh to warn them of their bad behavior that has made God angry and that they were leading down a path that could lead to their destruction. There seems little difference in the naughtiness of the people of Nineveh and that of the Amalakites, but God sends the people of Nineveha lifeline and not do the same for the others.

Why do I bring this up? If killing your brother is biblically wrong, as Kirk Cameron is strongly making it to seem is the case, then why would God command fratricide? All humans, of all shapes and sizes and of all geographical locations, are all related and we all belong to the same species.

So the Cain murdering Abel is portrayed as horrendous in this film, but nobody talks about God commanding that the Jews commit genocide on their family. Or how about when Moses commands the sons of Levi to slaughter their own family in their own camp in Exodus 32. In Exodus 32, when Moses did not return from Mt. Sinai, thousands of the Jews started worshiping another god. Moses comes down later, see's what they are doing, gets angry, and God says "kill them all." So Moses rallies the sons of Levi, and they go throughout the camp and kill 3,000 of their own. Brothers killing brothers, sisters, and other family members and friends.

I am surer my readers get my point. Biblical stories are just one huge clusterf**k, there's no real direct moral lessons here. If God knew that brothers killing brothers was "a bad thing" (so much that he cursed the bad brother), then that would mean fratricide is just simply bad. But then, numerous times throughout the Old Testament, God commands people to commit fratricide. That means God is commanding a bad thing, and he knows it. What do you call an entity that commands a bad thing and knows it's a bad thing, and does it not just once but numerous times? I have a handful of appropriate words: evil, monster, tyrant, murderer, criminal, etc.

Even the simple-minds of Kirk Cameron and other Christians and creationists should be able to grasp this. For example, Kirk Cameron has used an argument constructed by his ministry partner, Ray Comfort. Ray Comfort's go-to argument, his Are You a Good Person? tactic, basically does like this: if you've told even ONE lie, you are a liar. If you have stolen ONE thing in your life, regardless of value, you are a thief. I've already written a blog refuting this crap, but I'd like to apply Ray Comfort's logic in this argument to his God. If God has done one bad thing (in this case fratricide) then that would make him bad. It's simple logic. Though Christians like Kirk Cameron will never openly admit this, they would rather hide behind calling their god "holy" or "righteous." It's sick and twisted. Like a Muslim calling their beloved Prophet "good" despite the number of people he murdered. Even Nazi's praised Hitler in very high regards, but their labels of Hitler do not eliminate the fact that Hitler was pure evil.

Kirk says the Bible says God "created the universe out of nothing and then created man from dirt." Kirk says "we can buy that" and then talks about God flooding "the whole world." But then he suddenly talks about how hard it would be to sell this story to a room full of directors, because the hero becomes the villain. 
Whatever happened to "we can buy that"?



But let's back up a bit, can we buy that? WHO CAN BUY THAT?


I know millions of people do, and they tell their kids that they [the adults] have solved the questions to the universe by the time the kids first learn to tie their shoelaces. But all they have done was solve a mystery with another mystery... which ultimately answers absolutely nothing.





Kirk then revisits the Adam and Eve story, and says the details make the story less bad. 
This ought to be good.

When Adam ate the fruit and sinned, God showed his mercy by not killing him and still having hope for him.
That didn't take long. *wink*

If Adolf Hitler, at the height of his regime, held a gun to your head and then at the last moment decide to spare your life, would you look up to him as a good person?

Let's not forget a crucial point in this story: humanity was set up. It was God who created the first humans, who were made unaware of sin or unaware of the concept of punishment or right and wrong, and it was God who created the serpent/agent-of-evil to convince the humans to do something naughty, and it was God who created the cursed fruit tree right in the humans special garden. And God, being the all-knowing universe Planner, knew that man would fail and allowed it to happen. And yet, Kirk expects us to think that the Yahweh character in his book is somehow the "good guy"?

God provides them with clothes and food, he gives them more children and sends angels to watch over them. 
How does that excuse the entity (which has yet to be proven real) that screw up everything?

Where were these angels when the serpent entered the garden, ever think about that???

If God had agents to watch over his creation, where were they when the serpent decided to meet Eve for the first time? The Bible says that angels can interfere with humans (one even stopped a father from killing his son), so the angels could've done something to stop Eve from listening to the serpent. The same book, the Bible, says a human's faith can "move mountains," but surely the power of Yahweh is greater. So why couldn't he move a mountain and bury the wicked serpent under it? The Greek god Zeus was capable of this feat, where he literally buried the horrid monster Typhon under a mountain (the fiery lava of volcanoes is Typhon's spit).

And then God makes a promise that should give them hope, that a descendant of Eve will come and crush that serpents head and "fix all of this." 
If you already knew what was good for them (a world without suffering), why not create a world without suffering to start with? Kirk thinks that God already did that, but Kirk ignores the part of the story where God deliberately creates the cursed fruit tree and the serpent.

Kirk says God showed his grace and kindness when he did not kill humanity after what Adam or Cain did. Abel's death wasn't ignored, he would be forever remembered like a Hall of Famer who approached God "the right way by faith." 
So God is a good guy for not killing the only three humans in the world when one killed the fourth?

And God put a stop to evil by flooding it and allowing a piece of the world to float on the waters to start a new world. "A new and better world is being birthed through tragedy. The world is born again." 
So a while ago, God showed "grace and kindness" for not killing a guy who murdered his brother, now he is a hero for wiping out the billions of species, even children and the unborn?

And how is committing global slaughter a "stop to evil"? This is just another religious attempt to twist everything backwards by calling the one committing world genocide as the "good guy" for stopping evil, even though the "good guy" was the one responsible for creating the evil to begin with.

Was Heaven, the realm of eternal bliss and happiness that's free of pain and suffering, made whole without tragedy? If so, then there would not be any need to create a world that requires tragedy, especially if you are omnibenevolent creator. If not, then you suck as a creator god and Heaven is a lie.

Kirk says then God used a rainbow as a sign of a promise to never flood/Judge the world again. Kirk says the Bible does not use the word rainbow, just a bow. And God hung that bow in the clouds, putting away his "war bow." The bow is pointing to the sky, arrows pointing to God. And then God becomes a man as Jesus and takes the punishment of sin, so Kirk says the bow (i.e. wrath of god) pointing upward was God's wrath towards himself that he accepted on the cross to save humanity.
When you "hang up a bow" on a wall.... do you leave an arrow nocked in it's string? I hope not.
It's just a bow on a wall.  
But Kirk says everything goes back to usual, and man moves away from God. At the Tower of Babel, all men come together "under one language" and a "one world government" makes a Tower so they wouldn't be "scattered across the Earth" when that was what God told them to do. 
Again, creationist Kirk Cameron taking a fictional myth as if it really happened. Not surprising, because creationist have to lie to make their case (there is no other way), after all they are in the business of infiltrating school textbooks with lies such as the "Loch Ness Monster" was actually real and that which proves "dinosaurs coexisted with man." (no exaggeration, no bullshit)



After talking about the Tower of Babel, Kirk says the Israelites were surrounded by savage cultures. He literally says that the Romans (and several others) were a culture of death. 
Funny how Kirk accuses the Assyrians and Babylonians and Greeks and Romans as a culture of death when the Israelites were the ones stoning their own people for crimes like picking up sticks on Saturday.

The Israelites believe that Yahweh gave them 613 strict laws, and guess what the punishment for breaking the majority of them are? DEATH. Say what you want about the Romans, Greeks, or Babylonians, but it is unfair to label them a "culture of death" and exclude the Israelites.

Then we get into Jesus, the guy who would come to crush the serpents head. Kirk says that Jesus fulfilled all the Law and prophecies. 
First off all, the historical evidence of there ever being a Jesus Christ is severely lacking. Like King Arthur, Jesus appears to be just a myth.

Second of all, assuming that there was a Jesus, we already know he didn't fulfill any of the prophecies set for the messiah. The fact that Christians say that Jesus will "fulfill the prophecies upon his return" is an admission that Jesus failed in his task, and nothing in the Torah says that the messiah comes around on his second term.

But then Jesus dies, and resurrects, comes back for 40 days, then he leaves. He leaves his followers to be killed, fed to the lions, crucified upside down. 
First of all, there is no evidence that Jesus died and was resurrected.

Second, his followers did not die as reported. For starters, we do not have any contemporary evidence that Peter was crucified upside down. This was a story made up almost 200 years after Peter died.

Finally, even if his followers did die for their faith, so what? Does conviction mean truth? People die for their beliefs all the time. That does not mean the beliefs are any more true or real.

Kirk says that Jesus flipped death on its head, and used his death to change the world by allowing his enemies to kill him and thus died for his enemies. Kirk mentions that Jesus was nailed to cross and was "alone."
Alone? I recall the story saying that Jesus was crucified next to two other criminals. 


So why is there suffering? Kirk says he has hope that God brought salvation unto humanity and will use those tragedies "for his greater glory and for our good, because that is what he has been doing all along." For every death, God is pushing his purpose and commitment unto you. 

Kirk says pain and suffering no longer becomes a question mark, but now pain and suffering becomes a exclamation mark that declares "God is good."
Right.......... God is so good that he either sends rapists to rape children (like pastors and church boys) because it is all part of his all-knowing plan OR he merely does nothing and watches and says "when you are done, I'm going to punish you, unless you pray then I'll forgive you."




All this talk of pain and suffering, if I had the power to stop a rapist from raping someone, I would. That is the difference between me and Kirk Cameron's god (that and the fact that I exist). And already I have demonstrated that I am more moral than Kirk Cameron's god.

 If you saw a person horribly abusing a child, would you intervene? Would you think that it is your moral duty to stop it and protect the child?


If you have answered "yes" then you too have demonstrated that you are more moral than the god of the Bible.... which means it's followers worship something that doesn't share your sense of morality who planned to for the child to be abused in the first place.


Final point; the question of suffering still remains a big question mark, and all Christianity has done was attempt to mask it with empty promises of goodies for the "saved."


To sum up this film: HORRIBLE. I wouldn't even give this film half a star.

Not only was this entire video based on the unproven premise that there is a god, and that god happens to be the Bible god of Abraham, but the arguments it makes to justify why there is suffering in the world are completely illogical and twisted inside-out.

All this film does is try to make the bad guy look like the good guy, which may be easy to get away with for those who are not familiar with the stories of Christianity. But unfortunately, the atheist the Godless Wolf here knows much more about Kirk's Bible than he ever has.

If that wasn't bad enough, it's full of creationist bullshit. The garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, Noah's Flood, Tower of Babel... all fictional stories that never happened (and we KNOW they never happened), all used to justify why there is suffering. With these fables with a sprinkle of cute words, all presented in a matter-of-fact way to make grieving parents and suffering people smile by feeding them big piles of smelly lies.

I don't wish Kirk Cameron to feel suffering, but I do wish he could feel shame.

Monumental

Starts off with some guys chattering, then appears Kirk Cameron. Kirk says that people say the country is going to Hell. 15 Trillion dollars in debt, families are getting divorced, teen pregnancy is a problem, drugs and alcohol. 
Let's see, 15 trillion dollars in debt. I recall the U.S. doing very well under the surplus thanks to Pres. Clinton. Where is that surplus now? You can start by thanking Pres. George W. Bush for starting two wars on a credit card and money borrowed from China, as well as cutting taxes for the rich and the collapse of teh stock market. Granted the GOP have the worse job creation record since Herbert Hover.

Families are getting divorced... failed to mention that the Evangelical Christians (which is what Kirk Cameron is) have the highest divorce rate.

Teen pregnancy... look no further than the failed policies for abstinence-only programs. Seriously. Compare California and Texas. California boosted it's sex education in schools, teen pregnancy then hits an all-time low. Texas still boosts abstinence-only programs, now Texas leads the nation in repeat teen-pregnancy. That shows what a demonstrable failure the policies of the religious-right are.

Drugs and alcohol... first of all, alcohol is thee drug in this country. Presidents drink it, parents drink it, clergy drink it, this beverage is served and sold to all Americans of the appropriate age who are free to consume and get as piss-stinking drunk as they want.... and that is the way it should be for any country that calls itself "free." And I would argue that the War on Drugs is an absolute failure and we ought to stop it right now.

Kirk says when you go to a local high school, what used to be shameful is not celebrated. 
No examples given.
Not even I have any idea what he's talking about.
The only guess I have is sex. I guess sex way back in the day "shameful"... in the Dark Ages.
High schoolers in the fifties were having sex and liking it, as were the high schoolers in the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, all the way to the millenials. Back when Kirk Cameron was a high schooler, kids in school were having sex and they liked it and celebrated it.

So I do not know what high schoolers must be doing now that used to be considered "shameful" but is now being "celebrated."

Kirk says we used to be proud of our motto "in God We Trust" now teachers are afraid by the law if they say it in schools. 
Americans have mixed feelings on the "in God We Trust" motto, but let it be known it was not America's motto. America's motto was "Out of Many, One." Frankly, I for one think we should absolutely get rid of the "in God We Trust" motto, it was a BS motto that a handful Americans convinced the government to adopt in the 1950's when America was competing with the Soviet Union. In other words, the United States sold itself out to appear to be as opposite as the Soviets in almost every way possible.

Kirk says that if you let a country go bad, tyrants rise up (showing Pol Pot, Hitler, Franco)
Not going to even bother.

Kirk says people in church don't worry about it, because the bad is a sign that Jesus is coming. Kirk is not on board with that, because it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For once, Kirk Cameron and I agree on something, but I have my sincerest doubts that Kirk actually believes that himself.

Kirk wonders what happened to this country, and says the answer has got to be "simple" and maybe that is to look back and see what made this country "successful, healthy, prosperous, and secure in the first place."
Simple? The very fact that Kirk Cameron thinks that the answer is simple is one of the very things that is wrong with the U.S.A. 

As John Stewart once said, "what is wrong with this country is not that we face haven't faced these problems before, we face a deficiency in our problem solving mechanism. And the reason why we face a problem in our problem solving mechanism is that a good portion of this country has created an alternate universe on which the issues that we face... where our problems are amplified and our solutions simplified, and that's why they won't work."  

And was America a "successful, healthy, prosperous, and secure"? Perhaps, but there are many other words to describe it, but if you want to focus on the nice words, then you have to take in consideration the dark part of history as well as the good.

What made America prosperous? You can say that there was a lot of land and opportunity... but you also have to take into account how they got the land. Spoiler alert, it involved a lot of bloodshed and the removal of the natives who were there first.

So what does Kirk do? Kirk goes to England, meets Sue Allen and they talk about the pilgrims. They talk about the time when it was forbidden to own a Bible in English, because as they discuss, if they had a Bible in their own language they could start studying it and think for themselves. Sue says that the State, the queen, and the monarch controlled the clergy as their mouthpiece to control the people. Kirk says when the government tries to control the church, it leads to tyranny and oppression. Sue says that if you separated yourself from the church, you step away from the monarchs to like treason, and the word "Puritan" was given a bad name. Kirk then says King James was a tyrant on steroids who tripled the debt and hunted the most devout believers. That's why the pilgrims had to meet in secret to study the Bible, but they planned to escape.
Here's something left out of their talk. This was around the time when the Catholic Church held a lot of power in Europe, including England. Thomas Moore was one of the many men in London who was killed for owning a Bible in English. Last century Thomas Moore was made a saint, and it was only in the year 2000 that Pope Paul made Moore was made the patron saint of politicians. But the main point is this: the idea that the church exists to desecrate the "word of god" is nonsense, the church is the only owners of the truth.

Sue retells a tale of the Pilgrim men on a Dutch ship headed into the the mother of all storms, that pushed them toward Norway. And they prayed to God to save them. She says "hundreds and hundreds" of vessels were lost in that storm, and yet this ship with the Pilgrims survived and made it to Holland. She asks "how miraculous is that?"

I'll answer that for you Sue.... it's simply not.

A miracle would be if the Pilgrim ship flew into the sky. A lone ship surviving a storm while others don't is not a miracle.

Kirk then goes to Leiden, Holland to learn about John Robertson. Kirk meets with Dr. Marshall Foster of the World History Institute. Foster says the Pilgrims could not go anywhere else (France, Germany, Scotland) because millions of people were being persecuted and dying. Later on, Foster says "400 years later, the liberty that the world now enjoys is because these people had the faith to lay their lives down in the wilderness 400 years ago."
This guy is resting the freedom and liberty of Western society on a handful of Pilgrims from Holland who never got involved in government?

The scene then shifts to Plymouth, Massachusetts, where we see the Mayflower II, the modern reproduction of the ship that carried the Pilgrims across the Atlantic. Dr. Foster vividly describes conditions on the Mayflower. Foster goes on to relate the hardships faced by the Pilgrims during their first winter. He notes how none of them chose to return to England when the captain of the Mayflower gave them the opportunity to do so, even though nearly half of their group had died. Cameron’s next interview is with Dr. Paul Jehle of the Plymouth Rock Foundation, who tells about the writing and significance of the Mayflower Compact. The Mayflower Compact was a government/civil charter signed at sea by all the Pilgrims and crew members and brought to American colonies at Jamestown in 1620.

What I fail to see is how a charter signed at sea brought to a colony that no longer exists has any real significance. When the United States were formed, they were no longer "colonies", they set up their own committees and meetings and they formed a new government, a secular government, and passed their own laws. They didn't consult with the Mayflower Compact.

Kirk hears about the Pilgrims dying in their new settlement, but choosing to stay. Kirk keeps thinking about what he learned in school, that the "white man" came over to America and abused the Native Americans and threw them into reservations. What Kirk learns that did happen, but also "abuse was going both directions." Kirk notes that conquistadors were coming in and pillaging the land, "but the Pilgrims were not apart of that." Kirk says the Pilgrims came with their families and were not looking for a fight. But Kirk says the relationship with the Pilgrims and Native Americans was not "perfect" and things went wrong, but Kirk says unlike other people the Pilgrims treated the Native Americans as equals, not as animals. Kirk says according to William Bradford, the Pilgrims killed one of their own under the testimony of two Native Americans... Kirk says that shows that they had a system were all are equal under the law.
Does Kirk Cameron really think that this is the first time in human history were a group of people take the word of outsiders against one of their own? Like the Pilgrims were the first to consider outsiders testimonies?

"There is nothing like bones to remind you of your heritage." - Marshall Foster

I'm pretty sure those words uttered by Foster flew right over Kirk Cameron's head. After all, Cameron is a creationist who does not believe bones reveal anything about the heritages of species, including his own.

As more of the story of the Pilgrims is told we also see the Pilgrim Hall museum, scenes from the recreated Pilgrim village at Plimouth Plantation and the grave marker for Governor William Bradford. The film also gives an extended analysis of the symbolism of the National Monument to the Forefathers in Plymouth, which was dedicated in 1889. Foster says that the monument was built to teach the people if they lost their liberty, it would show them how to regain it. Foster says what the monument shows us is the only successful way to find liberty in the world. The top of the monument is a lady named Faith pointing to Heaven. "They knew that the only Faith that could be true liberty was a faith in the one true god and his Bible." Foster says that the other statues were tied to faith "because without faith it falls apart." The next statue is Morality (the internal liberty) who has the Ten Commandments in her left hand and the Scroll of Revelation in the right (signifying the Bible); there's a small statue called the Evangelist; another statue is Law, Foster says the principles of God's law are put into civil law; next is Education, who is opening the Book of God or the Book of Knowledge, Foster says it was the parents job to educate the next generation (Kirk notes that these people did not send their kids to a government school) and there is a small statue by her side of an old man (grandfather) pointing to the Ten Commandments and a Bible, he is Wisdom, and there is a globe right next to him (because he is teaching his grandchildren how the world works from a Biblical perspective); finally we get to the statue Liberty. Foster says throughout history, of all the ways were liberty was attempted to be reached, only this one was successful.

Here is something Kirk forgot to mention about Plymouth’s National Monument, which was built in 1910 under the leadership of Freemasons, though from just watching Cameron’s documentary you would think the Pilgrims themselves helped construct it 300 or so years ago. They didn't. Hell, even the Statue of Liberty is older than the Plymouth monument. 

Maybe that's why Kirk never heard of this monument in history classes when covering the history of the Pilgrims. 

And if misleading the audience wasn't shameful enough, Cameron used the part about education to bemoan how parents can send their children to “government schools” where they are trained to be “slaves to the state,” generating an entitlement culture that breeds government dependence rather than reliance on faith

Cameron, in seeking to find out how America went from a country of Liberty Men to a fallen people, glosses over how the mythical country of Liberty Men considered African Americans, Native Americans and women to be inferior and endorsed slavery, racism, and discriminatory and violent treatment of women. He also neglects to mention that in Plymouth religious liberty was nonexistent and religious dissenters were mercilessly persecuted. For instance, people were not allowed to become Quakers or even give aide Quakers and Quakers were even executed by the colony’s government. So much for liberty right?

Just as damning, Cameron conflates the Pilgrims with the Founders: the film gives the impression that the Founders had the same religious convictions and beliefs in the role of religion in government as the Pilgrims. Never mind that more than a few of the Founders were members of the Church of England, the very same church that Cameron noted persecuted the Pilgrims.

For the rest of the rest of the Founding Fathers, Kirk wants to know if the Founding Fathers were a bunch of Deists, agnostics, atheists, and such as people say they were. So who does Kirk talk to? The "leading expert in the country" Cameron consults to give information about the faith of the Founding Fathers is David Barton.
That's right, Kirk Cameron consulted a pseudo-historian, and the rest of this section of the film is Barton and Kirk propagating that the US Congress bought, printed, and distributed Bibles (called "Congress Bible") to schools because they wanted the children to learn it, thus proving they were not a bunch of ungodly lot or wanted religion out of schools.

Chris Rodda already debunked this whole “Congress’s Bible” crap, noting that Congress simply passed a resolution on the accuracy of the edition of the Bible of printer Robert Aiken and did not purchases or print copies of the Bible, pay for the printing or print the Bible for use in schools. “The words ‘a neat edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools’ are taken from a letter written by Aitken, not the resolution of Congress,” Rodda writes, “The only help Aitken ever got from Congress was the resolution endorsing the accuracy of his work.”

I've addressed this Aitken Bible lie many times before -- in blog posts, in a YouTube video after Barton trashed me on his radio show last year, and, of course, in my book, Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History. In fact, because the lies about Congress and the Bible are the most popular of all the Christian nationalist history lies, I made this subject the very first chapter of the book. The chapter, titled "Congress and the Bible," debunks all the myths and lies regarding the printing, financing, distribution, or recommending of Bibles by our early congresses, most of which are variations of the same three stories -- two involving the Continental Congress, and one an act signed by James Madison. The chapter also includes some related lies that have, quite disturbingly, made it into the opinions of Supreme Court justices in a few First Amendment cases.

She also notes that the Aitken Bible was first called “The Bible of the Revolution” not during the American Revolution but in 1930 by people who were trying to sell copies of it, and Aitken himself “ended up losing over £3,000 on the 10,000 Bibles he printed.”

This is one of Barton’s many false tales [1] [2] about American history and it should come as no one’s surprise that he will be prominently featured in Cameron’s documentary about American history, even though Christian academics have emerged as some of Barton’s leading critics.

Some far-right Christian commentators are also upset with Cameron, with one claiming that he is misrepresenting America’s “pagan” history as Christian.

Next Kirk goes to Boston and meet Herb Titus who says that "separation of church and state" was not the goal in this country. His proof, he takes Kirk to Harvard and shares that the "founders of Harvard" did not exercise separation of church and state, and cites a writing on a wall near the entry to the front yard at Harvard University that is about the coming to this land and setting up a civil government. Titus says this plank says if you want a civil government it has to be based on a certain morality, and that morality comes from the church. Titus says a nation that tries to build itself not on God's law will ultimately self-destruct. Titus says we live in God's world, "not in Darwin's imagination" where we are held accountable to laws like don't murder or steal.

This Titus guys sounds less informed than a Holocaust denier.

In what world did Titus or Cameron expect us to believe that the founders of a school in Massachussetts had anything to do with the Founders of the United States.

Harvard was set up by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636, over a hundred years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence or the drafting of the Constitution and the Amendments, including the one that established a wall of separation of church and state.

So what Titus is trying to do is make it seem that one school in Massachusetts that first taught Congregationalists and Unitarians, somehow shows that those who came to the colonies were trying to make a religious country. Even if that where the case for the colonies themselves, it still completely ignores the core issue: when the representatives of the colonists gathered to form a new, independent country from Great Britain, they had a secular government in mind -- and that is the truth, even if Titus chooses to ignore it.

Another truth that Titus may ignore is that morality is not based on the Christian faith. Not at all. If you want to set up a moral government, as the plank on the Harvard wall implies, you use ethics not fairy tale books. On top of that, Christianity itself does not teach us to be held accountable for things like "don't murder or steal" because Christianity is a cult of the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free-card. According to Christianity, you can literally break every law on the books, but you can still escape and cheat punishment if you take advantage of a loophole and repent.

So morality does not matter. The believer can be the most vile person in the world, it doesn't matter because they are still going to Heaven. The atheist can be the most saintly altruistic nicest person ever, it doesn't matter because God is still going to damn them for the crime of non-belief. A convicted criminal can get into a Heaven, but non-belief is worse than any other crime there is. That is why in the New Testament when Jesus was crucified next to two criminals, only the one of the two who accepted Christ as their Savior went to Heaven when they died on their crosses. So that is Christianity for you, nothing is worse than non-belief, it does not matter what you have done or how horrible you were, the only criteria into escaping Hell and getting into Heaven is gullibility. That's it.

The final truth that Titus may ignore is the demonstrable reality we live in where evolution is a fact. Just as gravity is real and not part of "Newton's imagination" the same is true with evolution. It is real, not part of "Darwin's imagination" it's part of reality.

In the last section of the film, various leaders in Washington give their views on how the spiritual legacy of the Pilgrims and the Founding Fathers might be recovered and how Christianity came in and created the greatest country on Earth and allow them to be industrious and prosperous. 
And as I already showed, the film conjures up a connection with the Pilgrims and the Founding Fathers. The Founding Fathers made a secular Constitution based on ideals of freedom, not spiritualism.

The movie also ended with warnings about secular government and democracy run amok, with one guest repeating the myth that Adolf Hitler was a democratically elected dictator.

But did Christianity contribute to this country being industrious and prosperous?

My views towards Feminism -- you can call me one if you like

Opening

I honestly find it deeply annoying that I have to write about this, simply because I can't believe this is still an issue. The reason I feel compelled to do so because a minority of atheists I've encountered on social medias have some twisted outlook towards women and equality, and it's causing a stir. And this stir frustrates me. Atheists are butting heads together over this, while thousands of Megachurches continue to swell with tens of thousands of people twice a week in their ongoing mission to infiltrate governments, militaries and schools. Atheists, agnostics, and infidels are outsourced, out-financed, and way out numbered, and we should be focusing our efforts to countering those who wish to keep humanity drowning under the waters of delusion.

Now that is not to say that I think Feminism, sexism and misogyny are light topics that we should ignore. They are definitely not. I only express my annoyance because I am shocked that the atheist movement is being divided by something which, I think, we ought to know better because we understand intolerance better than most. Susan B. Anthony, an atheist, knew what intolerance was, and she made history trying to right the wrong. Bear in mind, I was not surprised about non-theists disagreeing with each other, I was just taken aback a bit on this subject. As a movement, the atheist/secular community should understand the importance of gender equality and sexism in society. Frankly, I expected a freethinker to be well above this. But life can be odd at times, especially when you find a freethinker who believes in bloody Homeopathy.

I am one to speak my mind, and people say keeping quiet is the same as giving permission. Well, all that is going on these days, such as GamerGate, I think it is important that another voice speaks up now. I usually take to the streets to make my voice heard on political issues, such as my opposition to war and the NSA. I rarely have the free time to blog, and sometimes when I post a blog it is something I intended to write about a long time ago. And this is one of those times. I have been thinking and intending to voice my views on the issue, but rarely had the time for it. But as the days went on, more new things kept popping up that I could add to my piece. Unfortunately, there's a lot to talk about, and I don't plan to address them all. I might as well write about it now before the chance slips away.

I should also mention that this blog may be odd to follow. I thought best if I start off with a background of myself and then jump to what seems to be the hype in the present day.

Background

In life, I would hope that all humans be more consistent with their worldviews. Growing up, even as a child, before the turn of the 21st century, I was curious why there was even a debate on gender equality.

I sometimes heard that women were deemed the "weaker sex" but I knew right away that was horseshit. Women were competitors in sports and the Olympics, they could be more than physically qualified to do certain jobs deemed for men. There were female martial artists and cage fighters, who could mop the floor with your ass – don't tell me that being a woman means you are somehow weak. Having some Norwegian in my family, I was aware that women fought side by side with Viking men. As a kid, I knew perfectly well that there was not a job that a woman could do as well as a man. I knew there were female doctors, female police officers, female lawyers, female Senators, female teachers, female plumbers, female pilots, and so on and so on and so on. (actually, the only job I knew that a woman did not have at the time was being President of the USA, but I knew since I was a kid that would change sometime in the future, perhaps in my lifetime) And it seemed like a joke at first when I heard that women are not paid as equally as men for doing the same job. I thought "that's ludicrous! Why should women be paid less for the same job as a man?"

I also knew rape wasn't just a woman's issue, it is a human's issue that EVERYONE should passionately care about. Men get raped, as do little boys. And sometimes the rapist could be a woman. It may seem unimaginable to some, but it's true. And I knew the excuse "she was wearing revealing clothing, so it's her fault" was a nonsensical argument. Like I said, men and boys get raped, were their clothes revealing their tits or too much thigh? No! Doesn't matter how much skin is revealed or concealed, rapists will still have their way if and when they get the chance. So clothing is not the central issue, the issue that should be focused on is the rapist, not the victim.

Speaking of clothing, I also support the right for women to walk topless in public, if they so choose to. Believe it or not, it was once illegal for men to be topless at the beach, now they can if they so choose to. Why can't women do the same? Women once could be fined or punished for revealing an ankle, now they can wear bikinis with no problem. I think we as society are on our way to growing up and just letting women go topless like men already can. Though I've heard people object to it by bringing up children and rapists. I've heard others say "I don't want to see a fat or old woman's breasts." Well hey brother, ever notice those fat topless dudes at the beach, with their triple D man titties? Or what about topless grandpa with his foot-long white chest hair jogging down the road while listening to his iPod? I am sure you don't like looking at their man-boobs, I don't either -- but let's be consistent, we don't object to them and tell them to put on a shirt, we simply just don't pay them any mind and we're over it. So there is no reason why we should object to all women having the right to be topless. In regards to the "rapist objection" like I already said, the problem regarding rapists are the rapists. It doesn't matter what the woman (or man) is wearing or not wearing, rapists will still commit the crime. And what about the kids? How can a kid seeing female nipples be harmful? Aren't breasts family friendly, don't they feed and nourish babies? (that's another thing I don't really get these days, it is perfectly okay for a PG-13 film to show violence and death, but they cant show a single female nipple? It's ridiculous!)

Moving on, to when I got a bit older and first learned about Feminism. I wasn't even aware of the word "Feminist" until I was in my mid-teens. At first, I did not know that a man could be labeled a feminist. It wasn't until my college years when I had my first discussion with a self-described feminist woman. Based on our talk, she concluded even I was a feminist. And that didn't bother me at all. Still doesn't bother me. I know that the word "Feminist" kinda has a weird stigma attached to it, but so does "atheist"! I know that some atheists don't even want to call themselves atheist, but not me. I don't believe in a god, and therefore by definition I am an atheist. I should not have to hide that, or shy away from that label, even if society in general puts a bad attachment to the word.

But I leave it up to my readers to judge if I am a Feminist, for objectivity. As you read through the rest of this blog, I will leave it up to you in my views mirror that of Feminism.

When I first heard of Feminism, I thought "Feminist" was just another word for "equality" (which I am all for). I've considered myself a Humanist for a long time, because simply being an "atheist" only declares what you don't believe in, it doesn't say what you do believe in. And everyone needs a social and moral code, and the one that made the most sense to me was Secular Humanism. All humans have value, so treat all humans as equal as you would want them to treat you. The Golden Rule is as simple as I can make it.

But when I did my own research on what Feminism means, in every definition that I am aware of, Feminism only means the advocacy of equal rights and treatment for women. Or in other words, women are people too.

Just based on that alone, I find absolutely nothing wrong with that, and I would fully support it with no hesitation. And by extension, I think there's no arguing that if you are not for equal rights and treatment for women (or simply Feminism), then you are for the opposite: you are not in favor of granting equal rights and treatment for women. And by all accounts that I am aware of, that is what Sexism is.

Anyway, we talked for quite a bit. Her views seemed to match my own, even on topics where I had the preconceived notion that we would deeply disagree, like on prostitution and pornography. The opposite happened. We found a lot of common ground. We had no problems with prostitution and pornography, if it is handled in a careful and common sense manner. Now I know that this one person did not embody everything about feminism and she was only expressing her personal views. I get that. But it seemed like no accident when I met other self-proclaimed feminists later on who shared the same views. I was slowly beginning to see a trend of agreement. Basically, if a person (male or female) wishes to engage and partake in selling their bodies for sex, or filming themselves during sex, they are more than welcome to do so. More power to them. My only advice to them is, "be safe and take care of yourself."

Views on abortion and sex education

I'm pro-choice and perfectly satisfied with that. It's not my child, it's not my woman, it's not my family, it's none of my freakin' business. I support laws that keeps abortion clinics open. Because even if they all close, that would not end abortions. Abortions will still happen, but they will be unsafe and the mother will likely die. So I say keep the clinics open to all, and provide safe abortions. I am not saying that I "like" abortions, I don't. It's not pretty, but I cannot overlook the fact that it is sometimes unavoidable. For instance, ectopic pregnancies will kill the mother, and abortion is the only solution. I think that it is better to lose one than lose two, especially considering that the mother may already have children. So better to save the mother's life than leave her children motherless. Or she could have future children. Like my best friend in the world, he and his brother would not be here unless his mother had an abortion during an ectopic pregnancy many years before she met my friends father.

I also think women should have complete access to birth control. If insurance companies can cover Viagra for men, it should be a no brainer to cover women's birth control. I also don't like abstinence-only programs. I think the jury is out, abstinence programs just don't work. They may postpone teens from having sex, but you cannot erase the biology of the human body. Teens are developing, and you can't halt their biology and their drive to satisfaction. That's why statistically abstinence programs postpone teen sex on average for 18 months. And then when two teens decide to have sex, thanks to the abstinence-only programs robbing them of a proper sex education, teens are more willing to practice unsafe sex, catch an STD, or get pregnant.Take a look at Texas, where those conservatives are high in abstinence-only programs, and yet the State is ranked as the highest in repeat teen pregnancy. American teenagers engages in about as much sex as teenagers in the rest of the developed world, but American girls are four to five times more likely to become pregnant, to have a baby, or to get an abortion. Young Americans are also far more likely to be infected by HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The rate of gonorrhea among American teens is seventy times higher than it is among their peers in France and in the Netherlands.

The MRA - Men's Rights Activists

However, a couple months later from my talk with a feminist, I heard of a group called MRA, Men's Right's Activists, my first thought was "WHAT?! Men's Rights? Don't men ALREADY have all the rights?" 

But that aside, when we talk about Feminism, we are talking about equal rights for both genders, not equal rights just for women and equal rights just for men. Equal rights for both genders, that's what "equal" means. It seemed the MRA wanted to be more equal than women. And I should make this clear, if there was ever a woman or a women's group demanding more equal rights then men (which is a form of supremacy) then those women would not be Feminists either.

At first, I heard the MRA were concerned with divorced parents and how women seem to always get the children. I didn't really get it. As a child of divorced parents, even now as a adult, I would've came to the same conclusion that my mother was a better choice to raise me over my own father. I will not share why, for I don't owe anyone a reason to explain. My point is that sometimes, if not a lot of the time, it is far better for the mother to gain full custody of the children. And in some cases, the father may be the ideal choice, to which I say go for it, and I am sure that happens quite a lot. But I am not going to sit here and drum up some conspiracy that there is a bias towards mothers always getting the upper hand.

My uncle got divorced twice. But he only had children in his second marriage. In that case, his wife made the choice to leave him, and when they got divorced, they got shared custody but the children were mostly left with their father. Sounds fair to me, she is the one after all who decide to leave them out of the blue. My point is that I don't think these divorce cases are biased towards the wife. I think they these cases are treated individually.

"Some Feminists go too far!"

I've heard this one plenty of times. And guess what, I could find that agreeable sometimes. But before I go into any details, I must express something clearly: one over the top feminist or a handful of feminists do not define what Feminism is. It's the same way that we as atheists understand that Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church does not dictate what Christianity is as a whole. We know Phelps is just a twisted old hater, who has turned his family into a bigoted cult. When atheists like myself criticize and oppose Christianity, we focus on it's doctrines, not the haters who parade under the banner of Christianity. So if you wish to criticize Feminism, criticize the belief that women should have equal rights. Then you can target a handful of radicals.

Even though I admit that some feminists can go too far, does that justify the perpetuation of sexism in society? Of course not.

Just like Fred Phelps, we do not say all Christians are haters towards homosexuals and non-Christians. Even homosexuals can be Christians. Atheists and agnostics know better than to label every Christian as a "hater" simply because people like Fred Phelps exist. In the same respects, citing a few self-described Feminists as "man-haters" does not mean that Feminism and all Feminists are man-haters.

I've already made it clear that any self-proclaimed Feminist who seeks supremacy over men is by definition not a Feminist, because it throws the definition of Feminism right out the window. Even Gloria Steinem of the Women's Liberation Movement has said that women deserve equal rights, but women don't deserve special rights over men.

That being said, the first time I ever thought "that's going too far" occurred in 2012 when a radical left group in Sweden was trying to pass legislation to make it illegal for men to stand while urinating. But when I brought this news to three of my feminist friends, each of them lashed against it too. Since then, every conversation I've had with a Feminist, I always bring up this example. And to this date, I have not met a Feminist in person or online who agrees with this radical left party as a good idea. So it became clear to me that a handful of Feminists in an other country do not define what Feminism is.

I remember when George Carlin made his "that's going to far" case in regards to Feminism when it came to words and labels, and I think he was right. I think mankind ought to humankind. I think that police man/woman ought to be police officer. And I agree that we should not over do it. In my circle of friends, I am the Wolfman. That should not have to change to Wolfperson.

But that being said, I do not think Feminism is any less important. It remains very relevant.

Feminism and sex

But the moment I knew the MRA were full of crap was when California passed a consent law "Yes means Yes." This law mirrored my own lifestyle and how I behave before I engage in sex. I always ask for consent, specifically three times. If I receive a "No" even once in those three times, I stop. Quit. Done. And it has served me well thus far, never had any complaints. Asking for consent just seemed like a total no-brainer to me. So when the MRA were objecting to this law, basically arguing that they should be able to have sex with a woman without her consent, that was the moment I realized what a bunch of douchebags these guys were.

To me, women are people too. If you want to have a "good time" with them, you ask them like they are an actual person if they want to partake. I don't understand how that is so hard to grasp for some. And as a person, she has every right to say "No." And what struck me was that there seems to be some growing social trend that if a woman says "No" she is sneered as a prude instead of respected for her freedom to choose her lover. On the other hand, if she says "Yes" to you, others people who are not you may sneer her as a "slut." There seemed to be no upside to this. Like the world is inclined to not like women. --though of course there are indeed women in this world that I definitely do not like. Ann Coulter and the wife of Fred Phelps comes to my mind. But then again, the same can be said about men (Fred Phelps comes to mind).

But to the best of my knowledge, Feminism does not mean that women should refrain from sex, nor does it say that women should not enjoy sex. 

Now to jump back a bit in regards to clothing. I don't know why this is a big deal. Again to the best of my knowledge, Feminism doesn't say that women can't dress sexy if they want to. If a woman wants to dress sexy, why in the world should I think any less of her? GUYS DRESS SEXY TOO, and they want to. Even I do it! I've come to learn that a well dressed man in a suit is incredibly sexy to a great deal of women. It really is. 

I've even had a woman drive up next to me when I was sitting alone at a bus stop. She called out from her car and asked if I needed a ride. She was gorgeous, but that was new and my better judgement told me to not get in the car so I respectfully declined. A while later I got on a bus, I sat at the far back. A few stops later, a cute girls makes her way over to me, sits next to me even though there were plenty of open spaces, and she starts talking to me and wants to get to know me. This is not a rare thing that happens to me.

Stay classy my friends.

And yes I know a suit doesn't draw every eye my way, but truth be told I don't really care because I feel good looking nice while wearing a suit. And I am sure that there are men out there who enjoy walking around in skinny jeans and wearing tight t-shirts so you can count his abs. Hey, if you feel comfortable in your own skin, more power to you, but I'm not going to diss someone for choosing to dress sexy as they see fit. But I should make this clear: there is no pressure on anyone to dress sexy. Women and men don't have to dress sexy if they don't want to.

I'm a guy who grew up with the other boys in schools, and every guy alive knows that men can act like sluts too! Some guys know it so well that they even they call themselves sluts. All they would do is talk on how they can get with women, or talk about how many women they've been with. Some guys like to think they are "studs" but sometimes their behavior reveals they are sluts too. I personally am not going to hide my desires for many female partners. And that's another thing that always made me curious: why is it that we look up to men who have had multiple female partners, but we look down on a women who has had multiple male partners? That double standard just doesn't make sense to me.

One more thing, I've heard men complain that women should not dress sexy because the women despise it when you approach them and make a move. It goes like this "I may dress sexy, but that does not mean I am a whore. If I dressed like a police officer, that does not mean I am a police officer." Well no kidding, but I hope for your sake that you are a police officer, otherwise you'll be facing jail time for impersonating a police officer -- and possible face prison rape. But I digress.

To the point, it is true that dressing certain ways in public does not mean a special invitation has been given out or that immunity from bad behavior is openly declared. If a woman is dressed sexy, that does not mean she is a whore nor does it permit you to say disgusting dirty things to them. If I saw a person walking in public dressed like a vampire, that does not give me permission to walk up to them and stake them. If I see a guy counting some cash in public, that does not mean I am entitled to walk up to him and take the cash. If I see a person cooking on one of those portable hot dog stands on the streets, that does not mean I am entitled to approach and take his food. We know that is not good behavior. None of them are. By the same logic, it is definitely not okay to approach a sexy woman and grope her or say bad things to her. Even if you see a naked woman on the beach, her nakedness does not mean you are entitled to fuck her or touch her. Just because a person's body is exposed, does not mean you are entitled to any part of it.

We are human beings capable of rational thought, not animals of pure carnal instinct.

Some men just say to women to stop dressing sexy, ergo taking away one of her free choices on how to dress. But in reality it doesn't matter what you wear, even if you wore a burka or pants and a beige turtleneck. This is not a guess or a general assumption. Take a look of this map.

Notice how the areas where rape is uncommon or unusual. These are the same countries where women are free to wear bikinis, skirts and hot pants, and are able to move freely with their hair out for all to see and don't require a male escort around town. And yet these areas have the lowest occurrences of rape. But look where rape is prevalent or an epidemic. Look at the Middle East, where women are required to cover their bodies head to toe, and require a male escort when they leave the house. And yet with all of this, rape is an epidemic in these countries. So to anyone who tells me that it's the woman's fault for wearing certain clothing for being raped, I know they are full of crap.

Besides, suggesting that women not dress sexy to avoid rapists or catcallers misses the core problem. Basically what these men are suggesting is that women should change their behavior so the rapist goes rape the other woman. The problem is still there: rapists. What we should be focusing on is drilling the hard point into society, "don't rape."

I can say more on the issue of women "revealing too much" or "dressing nice," but I'll leave it to Jessica Williams reporting on catcalling to take make and seal the case (be sure to watch Part 2).

Now I am not saying that every man should not say a word to a woman on the streets. That would be hypocritical of myself. I see no harm in passing a compliment. It wasn't all that long ago I said to a woman on the streets "I love your purple hair." Yeah, I see women with dyed hair, and I happen to like that particular color. She gave me a big smile, her eyes lit up, she briefly paused walking, and thanked me kindly and went on her merry way. I've even had women walk up to me and compliment my long hair. Some women on the streets say nice things about what I am wearing, like my necklace that my grandmother made me. I've never said anything to a passing woman beyond the parameters of the example I gave.

But let me make it perfectly clear: there is a big difference in giving a woman a polite compliment and creeping her the fuck out with inappropriate comments.

Yes I pass compliments to women, but I know better, and it should not be hard to know better. You don't walk behind a woman and say "I bet you're a freak in bed" or "you've got a nice ass." Would you say such things to your own mother? I don't think so.

But what about people who stare? I personally think it's harmless, but I am not saying that everyone should think that way. I remember when I was 17, I went to a festival with my grandfather. He was on oxygen and had to ride on his stroller. I was still much faster, so he strolled a bit behind me. Long story short, we are making our way through a crowd. Eventually he rides over by me and says, "what did you do?" I had no idea what he was talking about. He then said, "Those pretty girls that walked by and looked at your butt. Did you smile or wink at them or something to get their attention?" I was surprised, I totally did not see the girls. I asked how old they were, he said about my age. How did I feel after learning about girls starring at my butt? I felt mainly surprised, but not creeped out or uncomfortable at all. To be honest, it made me feel a bit good about myself - after all, I was a teenage boy who wanted to catch the attention of girls, and I did it without trying. As an adult, I still have that desire. Maybe that's why I like to dress classy.

Sometimes I catch the attention of men. I don't swing that way at all, but I don't feel creeped out. When I was 22, I started to volunteer at the Museum of Tolerance. One day, I was stationed with two old women to operate a section of the museum. When we were talking about upcoming events, one of the events was about a former White-Power racist man, Tim Zaal, who was with his group of racist friends and they assaulted a gay man, Matthew Boger, on the streets and left him there bleeding. These men eventually found each other many years after the incident and became (and remain) good friends. It was such a happy story, and I'm so glad they became friends. I hope they share their story with as many people as they can. But as the ladies and I were talking about Zaal and Boger's upcoming event, one of the ladies said to me that she saw Boger "looked at your butt" (those were her words) and based on the way she said it, she sounded like I should be concerned that a gay guy was looking at me. I told her why should I be concerned? If what she said is true (and I never verified it, she may have been seeing things), I still would not be creeped out. A gay guy looked at me, so what? It doesn't bother me in the slightest. The man is gay, I bet he always look's at other men's butts. Let him, he likes men, you can't think any less of him for his sexual preferences.

My point is is that I, and it's just my opinion, I don't think starring or glancing is harmful. That being said, I am not trying to encourage it. I am not the thought police. If a girl or guy sees me and find's my body appealing, great, take a look. And when I glance and/or stare at a woman, I mean no harm. Don't do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Judge me if you wish. If you think looking at a person whose body has caught your attention means you are not a Feminist, then don't call me one if you think so. But I have yet to meet a Feminist who thinks it is wrong to simply "look" so I don't think I have anything to worry about. But if there is a Feminist reading this and thinks otherwise, feel free to notify me in the comments section and explain why.

Misogyny in Video Games

Now that I think I've said enough on that, I guess I should talk about the recent events concerning feminism and misogyny in video games. I don't follow the news concerning video games, because I don't play them all that much. But from all that I know, is there some form of misogyny in video games. I don't doubt that all. I am sure there is misogyny in video games, just as I am sure there is misogyny in fantasy and romance books and movies. I am sure we all can agree on that, and in so doing cannot label an entire industry as "misogynistic" for a handful of cases.

One thing I know a bit more than video games are comic books. I've read comic books since I was a kid, I was big X-men and Marvel fan. I'm positive if I go back and read my childhood comic books, like the first editions of Wonder Woman or Miss Fury, I'm sure I could find misogynistic elements in those editions. I remember the first year of published Wonder Woman comics, there was A LOT of spanking, and I mean a lot. But I also remember in one WW comic, specifically one published in Sept. 1942, a man literally chains a disguised Wonder Woman (who he mistakes for his wife) to the cooking stove, and WW says word-for-word "How thrilling! I see you're chaining me to the cookstove. What a perfect caveman idea." Bear in mind, that was in 1942! Other WW comics showed woman working in factories as steel workers or working in construction. The comics back then, despite all the spanking, was trying to get the idea out there that while men were off to war in Europe and in the Pacific, it was up to women to get out of the house and take up jobs; women were fully capable of doing these jobs despite being women; and we as Americans should support these women. That being said, I do not doubt that these same comics may have had misogynistic elements, but I think comic books have come a long way for the better in regards to social issues as well as their views on women.

But back to the video games. The last video game I played was Call of Duty and a bit of Destiny (not entirely fond of it, to me it's like Halo had a baby with Borderlands). My brother plays way more games than me, way more. But whenever I heard these debates on video games popping up online, they seemed to focus on Hitman, Grand Theft Auto V, and Far Cry. I only played the multiply player part on Far Cry, but my brother told me the story behind the game, including that you play a guy and a island princess rapes you.

I've seen my brother play the fourth Grand Theft Auto. I personally don't like car games, they bore me. I don't know why my brother plays them, he's got like five car games as far as I know. But one argument I heard popping up in regards in the video game debate was "games are making men kill unarmed women." My first thought was, they make you kill unarmed men too. In the case of Grand Theft Auto, it doesn't discriminate on who you kill on the streets, and it doesn't matter who you kill (be it male or female of any age) once you kill or steal anything, every cop in town is after you. If you are mad at games for things like this, your anger should be entirely be focused on the killing unarmed civilians, not singling out the female victims. But sometimes the enemies you have to kill are women, I remember my brother playing Metal Gear Solid. I recall that four of the main villains you had to kill were women, but on top of that, there were battalions of elite enemy soldiers you had to kill and they were all women called FROGS (I have no idea why they are named that). 

I guess all I am trying to say is that, comic books and videos games have their Ups and Downs, but the one thing I want to make 100% clear is that no one ever should be threatened in any way for merely disagreeing and/or objecting to an industry like video games. We are rational human beings, so lets just have a rational discussion over this please.

Do I think some video games have elements of sexism in them? Sure.
Do I think the video game industry itself is sexist or has strong sexist tendencies? I don't know. I'm not well educated enough, I am not a big Gamer. However, I would not say the comic book industry is "sexist" based on a handful of comics, so I should not have a double standard when it comes to the video game industry (unless I was given clear proof that either or both industries were indeed sexist to their core, then I'll change my mind).

Conclusion

Am I Feminist, I've been told that I am? The label and being one does not bother me. But in order to be objective, I leave the decision in the hands of my viewers, particularly any Feminist viewers.

Either way, whatever the answer, at the end of the day I call myself a Humanist, simply because I want to treat all humans of both genders of all backgrounds and of all ages as fairly as maximally possible. If that is on par with Feminism, then call me one if you wish if you think I fit the description.

Greta Christina, a feminist and atheist, and blogger on Freethought Blogs (I wish I could post on there), once said “I don’t give a damn what people call themselves. If they’re atheists, and they’re on-board with social justice, then they’re a friend of mine.”

It doesn't look like Feminists are man-haters to me. I haven't detected any impression from the Feminist movement as a whole that wishes superiority over men or to be divisive.  

My last two cents: the atheist community should also not be divisive or be exclusionary. We want a more rational world, and we should do what we can to achieve that. But we cannot have a rational world where sexism is rampant and gender supremacy is favored over gender equality.