Archive for the ‘commentary’ Category

Answering “Seven Questions You Should Ask an Atheist”

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

I stumbled, quite by accident, across this blog entry by Tom Elliff (who has been, among other things, president of the SBC Pastors Conference and two-term president of the Southern Baptist Convention).  “Seven Questions You Should Ask an Atheist” is apparently Elliff’s idea of playing gotcha with the village atheist.  But really, I can’t help but thinking that if this is the best the good reverend can come up with, he isn’t really trying.

Elliff sets up his little pop quiz by mischaracterizing the so-called “New Atheist” movement.  According to Elliff, among other things, New Atheism “calls… for absolute intolerance of any belief in God, and the banishment of such belief by every possible means.”  Really?  “Absolute intolerance”?  “Banishment”?  “Every possible means”?  Is Elliff seriously implying that New Atheists call for outlawing religion, persecuting Christians–even murder?  Just about the only thing Elliff gets right is that atheists are increasingly unwilling to stay silent.

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1 in 5 think Obama’s a Muslim?

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Frankly, I don’t believe the recent Pew Research poll that indicates 1 in 5 Americans believe President Obama is a Muslim.  Sure, there’s some percentage of abjectly ignorant people who think that, but what this poll shows, IMHO, is the willingness of people who simply hate the president’s policies–or his race–enough to claim the worst about him in any category.  Had the Pew poll asked “Does Obama smell bad?” 20% would probably say yes, even though they’ve never been in downwind proximity to the Commander in Chief.

I’m more inclined to believe the 43% of Americans who say they are unsure of the president’s religious affiliation.  Since the president’s public falling-out with his Chicago church, the first family have not regularly worshiped with any particular congregation.

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Topic of Cancer

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

Worried about the Hitch?  Here’s a detailed and heartfelt essay from Christopher Hitchens from the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair, in which he talks about his battle-so-far with esophageal cancer.  Go Hitch!

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Do you have “acedia”?

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

If you haven’t already, you should subscribe to Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day service.  Helps build the old vocabulary from the convenience of your email inbox.

Anyway, today’s word got my attention:

acedia \uh-SEE-dee-uh\, noun:

1. Sloth.
2. Laziness or indifference in religious matters.

It’s meaning #2 that’s the real problem.  Although a great many people (especially Americans) are religious fanatics, many others ARE “acediacs”–they lazily and indifferently accept the religion that’s been foisted on them by the random happenstance of birth.  Really, it’s the latter that we might have some chance at getting through to.

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Liberty, meet Irony

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Liberty “University” has announced that Ergun Caner has been forced to step down as dean of Liberty’s seminary.  Caner is a Swedish immigrant of Turkish/Swedish extraction who came to the US when he was three and became a Christian as a teenager.  He’s made a living since 9/11 touting his “Muslim-turned-preacher” credentials, and of course the evangelicals lapped it up like it was gravy.

The thing is, the details of Caner’s story kept changing, and when problems were pointed out to him he asked websites containing the incriminating material to remove it.  Anybody with the brains of a dishrag knows you can’t purge info off the internet–not without a lot of people knowing about it, anyway.

A Liberty committee found that Caner story contained “contradictory statements,” “discrepancies” and “misstatements,” and discovered “problems with dates, names and places.”  Hey waitaminnit: didn’t they just describe the Bible???  When did the evangelicals get all historical-critical on us?  I find it incredibly rich that the crowd who likes to tout the Swiss-cheese called The Holy Bible as perfect, complete, literal and non-contradictory would quibble about names and dates with the dean of one of their most successful schools.

Alas, it will all blow over soon.  Caner will still teach at the school, but will no longer be dean.

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A lung? My bad…

Sunday, June 27th, 2010

This is a rather grotesque story.  If you have a sensitive constitution and/or a hair-trigger gag reflex…you’ve been warned.

Nicolas Cocaign has just been sentenced by a French court to 30 years in prison for (…wait for it…) murdering his cellmate, cutting open his chest and “cooking [part of] the man’s left lung with shallots, garlic and some left over rice.”

Now, a number of interesting questions come to mind (we’ll get to the one about what would motivate anyone to do such a thing in a minute).  First, where the fuck were the guards while all this was happening?  (Answer: No one has explained this that I have heard.)  Second, what kind of prisoner has access to cooking utensils, shallots, garlic and rice?  (Answer: French ones.)

One morbidly hilarious aspect to this incident is that Cocaign actually intended to eat the victim’s heart.  It’s hard to see how he could make such a mistake,  I mean, I’m no expert, but I think it’s pretty much common knowledge that lung tastes like lung, and heart…tastes just like chicken.

Finally, what would motivate someone to do such a thing?  According to Cocaign, he had convinced himself there was no god and he could indulge himself with impunity. Ah, who am I kidding?  He murdered his cellmate in order to “take his soul.”

I know I’ve beaten this drum before, but once again I have to wonder why it is that profoundly delusional people almost always have religious delusions?  Why are there no psychotics who obsess over the lack of an afterlife and take things to the (il)logical extreme?  Is there some connection between run-of-the-mill religious belief and (not to put too fine a point on it) insanity?

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Enough already with the political prayer

Monday, June 21st, 2010

In case you hadn’t heard, the Louisiana senate unanimously declared Sunday, June 20th, a “Statewide Day of Prayer” for those affected by the massive oil spill.  Really, you have to read full text of Senate Resolution No. 145 to get the full flavor of foolishness.  Did you know that “in times of great distress and need, we, the people of this land, have always turned to private, public, and corporate prayer”?  (Italics mine.)  Did you know that “prayers woven together through common effort can themselves become an awesome and powerful force”?

Louisiana Senator Robert Adley was quoted as saying, “Thus far efforts made by mortals to try to solve the crisis have been to no avail.  It is clearly time for a miracle for us.”  The precise nature and extent of the expected miracle hasn’t been spelled out, so anything or nothing can subsequently be interpreted as the answer from on-high.

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Podcast #89 – World Ends – Miss USA is a Muslim

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

OMFG and other exaggerations.  The new Miss USA is Rima Fakih, who hails from Dearborn, Michigan by way of Lebanon.  According to Ms. Fakih, her family is not terribly pious–apparently they observe both Muslim and Christian holidays, for example.  But to hear the conservative blathersphere, you’d think the selection of  an Arab-American as one of our foremost icons of cheesecake is either political correctness run amok, or part of some elaborate master plan by Hezbollah to lower Western civilization’s defenses before they come in for the big kill.

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Catholic scandal: Are these guys reading the same news?

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Hardly a day goes by that we don’t read something new about the worldwide, decades long scandal involving the Catholic Church and sexual abuse cover-ups.  What seems obvious to me is that there has been a persistent, consistent pattern of conspiracy–from the top down–to hide the wrongdoing of priests, and a resistance to and resentment of the idea that civil authorities might prosecute suspects who happen to be, um, employees of the Catholic Church.  Anyway…

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Podcast #85 – American Atheists Convention Part 1

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

John reports (almost) live from the American Atheists Convention in Elizabeth, New Jersey.  Day One speakers included Center for Inquiry’s Paul Kurtz, biologist/philosopher Massimo Pigliucci, UK-based National Secular Society’s Keith Porteous Wood, The God Virus author Darrel Ray, and newly-elected Asheville (NC) city councilman Cecil Bothwell.  Plus: Sightseeing in NYC, including an unexpected sighting of… Mandy Patinkin.

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