You can’t turn on the news lately without hearing multiple items involving gay marriage: Maine’s legislature passes (and its governor signs) a bill legalizing same-sex marriage; former NYC mayor and failed Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani skips the wedding of the gay couple who put him up (and put up with him) during his messy divorce; and Miss California USA Carrie Prejean puts foot in mouth in support of “opposite marriage” (and here I thought that was the definition of divorce).
Plus:
David gets into (another) knock-down-drag-out with a Christian (this time his neighbor). What can we say–the guy’s a magnet for trouble.
California high school teacher James Corbett is sued (successfully) by a student for making anti-Christian statements in the classroom. (Thanks to Liz in Texas for prompting us to talk about this on the show…)
Three Georgia Congressmen sponsor a bill aimed at declaring 2010 “The Year of the Bible.”
The Eye of Sauron wants Sony Pictures to insert disclaimers ahead of screenings of the film Angels & Demons, the sequel to The Da Vinci Code starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard. Apparently Catholics are so reality challenged that won’t be able to tell fact from fiction.
David’s Secular Nation Podcast makes it onto Christian blog twoorthree.net‘s list of “Essential Atheist/Secularist/Anti-theist Podcasts” (with American Freethought still in the running).
Mexican skeptic Danny Zepeda (Un Papá Escéptico) gives us an update on the swine flu panic, the lamentable side effects include the movie theatres being shut down (which prevents Danny from seeing the new Star Trek).
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Theme music by Body Found.
Recorded May 15, 2009. Hosted by John C. Snider and David Driscoll.
After looking over twoorthree.net’s blog entries, I’m not certain I would be clamoring to reach his top selections. It seems like getting a restaurant recommendation from someone with anorexia.
I love people of faith because I admire their ability to untether themselves from critical thought. I have a great many Christian friends and believe in God myself, but I find it extremely hard to sit and listen to someone who appears to have disconnected themselves from open minded thinking in order to bolster their belief.
A friend of mine insists that the Bible is literally true and that therefore the world is about 6000 years old. When faced with that kind of seemingly willful stupidity I find myself really repelled from wanting to engage with the Christian faith.
I believe in God, but I doubt too, and I am not afraid to continually question. This makes me toxic in the eyes of those who like to sing songs on Sunday and live an unchallenged nice safe life in their Christian bubble
A recent post on my blog about Prejan’s comments on gay marriage sparked an interesting and engaging discussion about the issue of gay marriage. Before I had no real opinion because the issue was of no concern to me. However, seeing the hate that gets whipped up and presented as something other than what it is (hate), I have formed an opinion. Gay marriage should be legal because there is no damn good reason why gay marriage should be seen as any different to straight marriage. I have Prejan to thank for that.
PS. Your Christian neighbors will (and should) try to smooth things over with you. If I know Christians they may well try and use your daughters as a back door way to save your souls! Watch out!! :)
Thanks for the comments Simon. You are the kind of believer that I have no issues with at all. You are open to things that go against the Bible and don’t use Dogma to decide how you feel about things such as Gay marriage.
Luckily we don’t have any daughters, just two cats so I think we are safe from our soul saving neighbors!
Oh, my mistake, I thought you said on the podcast that your neighbors walked to school with your kids. My bad :-)
On belief: I believe in God, I absolutely do NOT believe in religion!
Hi Simon,
I think David referred to his wife and his neighbor’s wife as “the girls” and said “the girls go walking together”–that’s probably where the confusion got started.
Thanks,
John
Yup, that must be it. I know it isn’t PC to say “Girls” but I can’t seem to help myself, I met my wife when she was 2 years old and I was 4 so she will always be a girl to me. At least I never say it a work.
Right, okay, I gettit now.
Hey, I wanted to say that I enjoyed your podcast. I’ll tune in again I suspect, and I’ll throw a link to you from my blog at beforeiforget.co.uk. That’s pretty much a useless link though because I doubt I have anywhere near the same level of traffic as you guys do – just about the only time I get traffic spikes is when I say something to piss of the religious people. (Which I’ll admit is just SO much fun!)