Ask An Atheist

Obama, China, and the US economy should be concerned.  Why?  Because Antonio Vazquez, Mexico’s self appointed “grand warlock” has made some pretty damning predictions concerning all three.

Grand Warlock Antonio Vasquez

Mexico’s self-declared “Grand Warlock” held a news conference in Mexico City on Tuesday, when he presented his predictions for 2011 on diverse subjects such as international political and economic affairs, as well as natural disasters.

Antonio Vazquez, know as Mexico’s “Brujo Mayor” or “Grand Warlock,” said there would be no quick solution to the problem of Latin American migrants in the United States.

He added President Barack Obama’s popularity will fall, and there is no way he will be re elected in 2012 as U.S. President.

He also predicted further economic woes for the U.S., saying the economic situation of the U.S. will become a real problem for the whole world because other powerful economies are also interested in its fall.

The Warlock also said China would be battered by natural disasters in 2011.

There will be earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and very serious problems this year, that will affect the country.

Oooooh snap.  Take that, several different topics!  I’m going to honest about my warlock ignorance here and admit that I don’t really know how these predictions work.  Are we going to see earthquakes and floods and hurricanes and the mysterious ‘very serious problems’ this year in China, or will it be at least one from the list?  If the latter is true, I think the term ‘very serious problems’ is just about as broad and vague a term a person might use when casting a prediction.  I mean really, does any country go a whole year without something happening to some part of it that might be categorized as a very serious problem – especially a country as populated and huge as China?  More importantly – is there anything China, Obama, or the economy can do to prevent these events?

However, the Warlock said his predictions were not definitive.

He said any of those forecasts could be counteracted or totally changed with magical spells, prayers, or only by taking personal actions or attitudes to prevent it.

Oh my goodness.  That’s so perfect, too, you can tell this guy has been doing this a while.  When you base the likelihood of an event coming to pass on something as unquantifiable as magic, prayer, or positive attitudes there is literally no way you can lose.  If it doesn’t happen – look!  Enough people prayed!  If some event occurs that can be even loosely interpreted as fulfilling at least part of a prediction – see, I told you so.

Please note his sweet warlock beard

I don’t mean to be a negative nelly so I will say one thing I sincerely like about this guy – he has an amazing warlock beard.  I mean, that thing is good.

Those of you out there concerned that birds dying is a sign of the apocalypse – fear no more.  An expert on ridiculous ideas has weighed in.

After thousands of birds mysteriously fell out of the sky in Arkansas on New Year’s Eve, it was only natural that Anderson Cooper turned to an expert for an explanation. Enter Kirk Cameron.

The former “Growing Pains” star — a born-again Christian who has appeared in movies based on the end-of-days-themed “Left Behind” books — appeared on “Anderson Cooper 360” to discuss whether he thought the dead birds were a sign of the apocalypse.

“Well, I first think that they ought to call a veterinarian, not me. You know, I’m not the religious-conspiracy-theorist go-to guy, particularly,” Cameron said. “But I think it’s really kind of silly to try to equate birds falling out of the sky with some kind of an end-times theory.”

I just have to interject here that if you make a living trying to hock the scathingly stupid and embarrassingly misguided concept of creationism, I think you may in fact be correctly categorized as a “religious-conspiracy-theorist go-to guy”.  In fact, I would say that’s precisely why he was asked about it.

His weigh in on the public reaction to the birds is a little confusing to me though.  I agree with the first half of this statement (a-a-agree with Kirk Cameron?  I know.) -

“People love to find codes and signs of future events and see if they can decipher them before anybody else,” the 40-year-old actor told Cooper.

Yep.  That goes for anything unknown, including the past.

Ahem.

Anyway, he continues with  -

“But birds falling from the sky? That has to do more with pagan mythology; the direction that the birds flew told some of the followers of some of those legends that the gods were either pleased or displeased with them.”

Waaaait a minute.  So is his main reason to reject this phenomena as being biblical in nature the fact that to him, it just sounds too Pagan-y?  So if something biblical had happened - plagues of locusts perhaps – would Cameron be getting the wife and kids ready for the rapture?

One thing is clear – even idiots can be accidentally right from time to time.

I should note that there are secret messages in our ghost hunting episode.   Or at least that’s true according to the inaugural episode of Backmask an Atheist!

Thanks to friend of the show Taylor Harris!

Got this one from that video-focused wretched hive of scum and villainy, and thought I would share it with our lovely website readers without forcing people to wade through YouTube comments. Not everyone has my sense of humor.

NEVER HEARD A BULLSHIT , LIKE THIS ARE YOU GUYS OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MINDS , BREASTFEEDING MEN . JUST FOR COMMON SENSE WHO WHO DRINK MILK FROM A WOMAN BREAST EXCEPT A CHILD , WOULD YOU?
TALKING ABOUT FATWAS . GO DO YOUR HOME WORK YOU HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUTS. YOU ARE NOTHING BUT PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO LAUGH ON OTHERS . GO AND LOOK AT YOURSELF BALDHEAD SIT YOUR ASS IN THE LIBRARY AND READ

About a news segment all the way back in our second episode. The user, “imtiazf10″, didn’t get around to watching until recently, I’m guessing. I wonder how he found it.

Also, we got this doozy from “davitodude” over here, who I’m pretty sure is not actually Danny DeVito:

Who else can imagine these guys forming a group and lynching believers of God?

Seriously? Getting the show together is hard enough– running a hyper-violent criminal enterprise is just out of our league. As, you know, this is exactly what we had in mind when we thought of a show to introduce people to atheism and the idea of an honest, truthful discussion that allowed for skeptical awareness.

And people honestly wonder why we felt we needed to do the show.

‘Twas so riotous, I felt the need to post it here in its entirety (Also note that it is explicitly labeled as a “children’s video:”… creepy):