On Alienating Moderate Believers

At Evolution Blog (a site you should visit) author Jason Rosenhouse discusses a review of his recent book Among the Creationists (a book you really should read) by Panda's Thumb contributor Matt Young. In the review, Young claims that Rosenhouse "has the same narrow view of religion as the creationists – that it is all or nothing – and he risks alienating moderate theists who are otherwise on his side." As it turns out, this claim isn't really accurate (as is often the case with such claims) - as you'll learn when you read Rosenhouse's entire response.

I felt compelled to leave a comment (slightly edited here for syntax), as I find the notion of alienating moderates during honest discussions of science to be a non-issue - and if it is an issue, well, anyone who'd feel "alienated" by an honest discussion of scientific facts probably isn't a moderate anyway!

My comment:

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If a "moderate" is so easily offended by a frank discussion of the current state of evidence for X that they would prefer to side with fundamentalist X-deniers than participate in that discussion, it is neither the fault of X nor the fault of those doing the discussing.

We do no favours to moderates by coddling them; in fact, we infantilise and condescend to them when we do so. Were I a moderate and someone patronised me by soft-peddling the truth about something that happened to sail near the waters of my faith, I'd be a lot more offended than if they just presented the facts and the evidence without qualification. You simply don't read about this aversion to "offence" when discussions of particle physics arise; it's inevitably biological subjects that get this special treatment because a large proportion of the population still objects to being apes. Again, that's not the apes' fault, nor is that the fault of the scientists whose lines of inquiry cross over this topic.

I'm aware that the religious culture in the US is different to that here in Australia, and that accommodationist positions regarding the discussion of [theologically] uncomfortable scientific facts seems prudent given the vehement fundamentalist opposition to them. Having said that, I think that anyone calling themselves moderate should be treated as though they have the requisite intellectual honesty & courage to be able to see a fact as it is and not require an abridged, sanitised version of it designed to assuage any fears [of theological conflict] or doubts they may have. If a religious believer is unable to comprehend and appreciate a scientific fact (and its metaphysical implications, if any), without storming off to join the fundamentalists in "shooting the messenger", then I must question any person who would describe that believer as "moderate". As an aside, I would also question the harm done by alienating a person who behaves in such a childish manner.

Given the well-known extremist elements of religious culture in the US - and that country's overtly religious nature when compared with other first-world nations - I'm of the opinion that the only way to combat the influence of religious extremism [in science] and the only way to encourage more input from moderates is to be honest about scientific facts, theories and processes, give said moderates some credit for maturity and intelligence and not to allow the discussion of said facts to be plagued by frets about who will be offended.
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To continue that line of thought, placing such overwrought concern over who may be offended by an unequivocal discussion of the current state of scientific knowledge merely validates the frequent claim of fundamentalists that there are some scientific facts that are indeed devastating enough to a person's faith to render it mute, dilute it to meaninglessness or destroy it. But if someone does abandon or modify their faith because it, or crucial aspects of it, have been falsified by verifiable knowledge, I must again question whether any real harm is being done. A person led away from fundamentalism (which, being inherently dishonest, intentionally ignorant and therefore unavoidably harmful) to a more moderate faith - or away from faith entirely - by facts and evidence should be celebrated. In fact, isn't leading people from a state of ignorance to a state of knowledge the primary goal of science and science education? Should really we spend much concern on people who will turn their backs and sulk when presented with knowledge?

I do not advocate getting in the faces of religious people and barking at them that Scientific Theory X proves their god is a bunch of hooey and nonsense and that they should abandon it; but I will advocate frankness when discussing any & all aspects of scientific inquiry. If there happen to be metaphysical or theological implications that make some believers feel uncomfortable or ask questions or experience religious doubts, that's for them to grapple with. Scientific familiarity among laypeople does not advance when facts are cushioned; moderates gain nothing when they're pandered to by well-meaning science advocates acting as if they know what's good for others.

The bottom line: we should show people enough respect for their intelligence and maturity that we present the unvarnished truth as it is currently known.

To close, a note for Matt Young: when reviewing a book, we should show its author enough respect to present their arguments and views as they are written; to do our best not to project whatever existing opinions we may have onto the words of others.

I know how to make Christianity more logically coherent

Yes, I do. I can fix it so it's less ridiculous. It involves a couple of major changes which would likely get me burned at the stake, but at least it'd make more sense.

First, let's recap the current story: God creates man, man defies God, God condemns man to death (first by eviction from Paradise and eternal life, next by global flood), God (as his own son, the avatar Jesus) later returns to earth to a) try and convince everyone he's God and b) have himself executed as the ultimate scapegoat in order to take on all of man's sin against himself and spare man from the eternal Hellfire he presumably created. Got that? God sacrifices himself to himself in order to save mankind from his own wrath (with the proviso that man believes God did precisely that, otherwise the deal is off).

I'm sure we're all familiar with the story. I'm equally sure we're all familiar with the objections: God is all-powerful - in fact, the supreme power in and outside space and time - so he shouldn't have needed to be tortured and killed as a mere man by other mere men and have those same men believe he did so in order that they be saved from him. God is all-loving - in fact, we're led to believe that even Hitler might be in Heaven if he recanted his many sins - so if he chose he should be able to simply forgive us all our imperfections, without demanding we accept his sacrifice. God is all-seeing - in fact, we're told God can see all of us, all the time, all the way into our hearts and minds through and past all our thoughts and feelings - so he shouldn't need us to pray or worship him or abstain from sex or wear certain things or not eat other things or even do good works in order for him to see the truth of our characters.

If God is the god, the most powerful god, the only god, he shouldn't have needed to make such a horrid spectacle of himself in order that we all be spared hellfire. If he loved us all and wanted to forgive us all our trespasses and keep us from torment, he has the power to do so without imposing upon us rules & beliefs unsupported by evidence. So, the logical conclusion is that God probably isn't all-powerful, all-loving or perhaps ... he's simply not alone.

On ethics and morals and Sunday School

Somehow and for some reason, when I woke up this morning I was in the middle of thinking about ethics and morals and how my parents taught them to me. The key point which kept rolling around in my head was along these lines: if my parents were able to teach me how to behave ethically and morally, without invoking deities as their inventors or enforcers, it stands to reason that anybody with any knowledge of morals and ethics should be able to teach them to anybody else, also without invoking deities.

The obvious religious objection naturally & instantly arose: where did your parents get their morality? That they taught you good behaviour without using Scripture as source material means nothing; they had to get theirs from somewhere and so did their parents and so on. Even if your family are all a bunch of atheists going right back to Noah, they nonetheless followed religious morality. Morality is a gift from God and you can thank Him for it or not, it's your free will (which is also a gift).

The above paragraph probably isn't going to be representative of the entirety of religious moral arguments. Consider it an amalgam of all the things I've heard most frequently from religious people about morals over the years; take or leave what you will when reading it, as you like. Basically it boils down to "religion = morality."

But here's the problem. Some variants of the "religion = morality" stance would have us believe that positive behavioural codes didn't exist before Jesus or the Ten Commandments (apparently we're meant to imagine some hedonistic free-for-all where people ran around the entire planet Earth raping, killing and generally being unpleasant with no consequences, just because noone had heard of Hell or God's wrath yet). Well, that proposition is easily debunked by pointing in the general direction of two great civilisations that were both contemporaneous with and predated Jesus & Moses: Rome & Egypt. You don't get to be a continent-spanning Empire without some kind of behavioural code which prevents & punishes destructive behaviour and encourages beneficial behaviour. You might also point to the ancient Athenians, with their Golden Age of scientific inquiry and philosophy; the Chinese, with their economic, philosophical and military strength or the Persians, whose empire once rivalled that of Rome. Yes, they were brutal societies a lot of the time, but that was how things got done in the BC's - and need I mention the thousand years of brutality of the Christian empire which later grew from the ashes of Rome? There didn't seem to be much Christian love on display during the early years of Roman Catholicism and, frankly, there still doesn't. The Mesopotamians, Celts, Aborigines, Mayans, Native Americans & countless others were also all thriving and all had detailed societal codes governing individual and group behaviour long before any of them had heard the stories of Jesus or Moses (indeed, it wasn't until one and a half millennia after Jesus' life that far-off civilisations like the Native Americans and Aborigines were introduced to Jesus, yet there they were, in possession of morality, ethics and part of thriving, successful, complex societies).

The obvious objection to the above examples: all those ancient civilisations and tribes had gods! They all had their mythologies & sacred stories & fables keeping their behaviour in check. They may have been the wrong gods and the wrong stories, but they wouldn't have had their laws and their functioning societies without them.

Apart from ignoring the obvious point that human societies across the world developing independent codes of conduct which have many key aspects in common is evidence of morality being a natural development of human society and not a top-down heavenly imposition, such a position also puts the cart before the horse. It's pretty simple to imagine beneficial behaviours arising in a group long before anyone had the ability to verbalise what they were. Considering even ant colonies and schools of fish behave, comparatively unconsciously, in ways that benefit the wellbeing and safety of the group, it's no great stretch to imagine that our hominid predecessors would have, as social creatures living in groups, arrived upon a system of behaviour that worked to keep their group safe, fed and together, all without a single word of English or Latin or Arabic or Hebrew needing to be spoken. You see it today in our cousins, the apes, monkeys, lemurs and other primates. You see it in little meerkatswatch over each other can develop in a less intelligent species, why should you ascribe to a highly intelligent species like us the need for a celestial code of conduct? Why should humans, the smartest creature on the planet, need to be told how to behave by a god when chimps, ants and fish can figure it out for themselves?

We're humans not because we're bald apes that can talk; we're humans because we use our unique verbal ability to discuss & codify & disseminate existing positive behaviour in ways that other humans can understand and accept. Since "humans" as we know ourselves first walked through Africa a million-ish years ago, we've carried with us the unspoken behavioural codes that kept us alive & kept us together in the face of extreme weather, rival groups and any number of predators, long before we had words for any of those things. We survived a million years because, just like our hominid ancestors, we looked out for each other and played within rules that worked - even before we spoke them. To think we, unlike every other species on Earth, needed to be told not to murder each other or steal each others' food or mates by a god, is ludicrous and insulting to our intelligence.

And now, to close, I think it's worth pointing out a couple of things. First, whenever my parents were giving my young self a serve for doing something stupid, careless or hurtful, one very effective question always posed was: "How would you feel if that happened to you?" That was always a showstopper (although I wouldn't admit it at the time). A simple appeal to empathy - or just naked self-interest, which is all sometimes children of very young age can process - is often all a child needs to make them think about the effect of their actions. With this simple approach, a god or his stories are not needed. That's not to say mythology isn't useful: a fable by Aesop can be a useful illustration and a way to encourage children to think empathically, but there's no reason to dress a talking tortoise as the absolute truth. In fact, I think a book of Aesop's fables would be a lot more use in teaching morals to children than either of the Testaments, considering the questionable and sometimes outrageous "morals" displayed in those books by God and his chosen. Not to mention the lack of talking tortoises.

Second, up until I was about six years old, I attended Sunday School at the local church. The reasons were twofold: my grandmother liked my mother to accompany her to church and my mother thought Sunday School would be a good place to learn some moral lessons (and probably keep me busy for a morning). My parents didn't necessarily want me to be Christian as such but mum thought some Bible stories might give me pause to think about some of my more demonic behaviour (for the record, I thought it was all incredibly dull except for the stories about guys like Samson & David hacking their way through the Bible). Eventually, my brothers and I were removed from Sunday School. At the time, and for years afterwards, I thought it was because of a successful campaign to allow us to watch Sunday morning cartoons. Only last year did I find out from my mother that she'd removed us the moment she discovered that we small kids were being taught about Hell (I don't remember it, but I was only six and I probably wasn't paying attention anyway). Religious or not (well, dad's a godless heathen but I'm still unsure of my mother's affiliation - I suspect it's because there are and always have been more important things to discuss), my parents could not abide small children being taught the vicious & hateful doctrine of infinite torment for finite crimes. The concept of being tortured for billions of years was so despicable that my mother removed us from the church the family had patronised for years without a second thought. Yet Christians, who invented a punitive afterlife worse than a billion Auschwitzes, would have me believe that without them and their teachings the human race would have no morals!

And they wonder why we look at them sideways when they make this claim.

What if you're wrong?

"What if you're wrong? Atheists encounter this question from time to time - some more than others, depending on the extent to which they're prepared to suffer the slings and arrows of internet theists.

It's the simple form of and often a precursor to Pascal's Wager - a seemingly clever intellectual exercise which makes belief in God the only logical option. Basically, the wager goes like this: believe in God and, if he exists, you'll go to heaven when you die. Don't believe in God and, if he exists, you'll go to hell. If he doesn't exist you will have lost nothing regardless of whether you were a believer (except some time spent on your knees when you could have been doing something fun or interesting). When all is said done, apparently you're better off being a believer.

What Pascal missed here, by a long way, is the obvious followup: what if you, the believer, are wrong? What if God indeed exists but isn't actually the god you think he is? Belief in the wrong god can put you in hell just as quickly as if you didn't believe in any god - Christian theology tells us that much. What if you're spending your life worshipping a god who isn't there and what if this behaviour is destined to earn you eternal damnation at the hands of the real god? Pascal, a philosopher and mathematician, seemingly overlooked a key component of philosophical (and mathematical) discussion: the prior definition of terms. Which particular god are we discussing here and how do we know he (a) actually exists and (b) has the qualities attributed to him. Further, even if you can show (a) and (b), how is it you know that it's your particular denomination that has the True story of your religion? If it's your god we're betting on, how do you know you're not a heretic in his eyes? What if you're wrong, Pascal? Soft, wishy-washy "there is some kind of god somewhere" deism isn't going to cut it if the real god wants to be recognised and worshipped in a specific way. Even the most highly specific religious practices will get you roasted if you're unlucky enough to be raised by people of the wrong sect.

I'd now like to broaden that question to every religious person currently alive: what if you are wrong?

The odds are that your religion is completely, utterly wrong and everything your holy men have told is equally false, mistaken, mendacious and un-freaking-true are actually pretty good. I'm not saying that from a purely atheist perspective; I'm looking at it from the perspective of any religious person. Look around you at the different religions in the world. Look at all the tribal animism, sun worship, pantheons and other systems of belief that have dominated over the years, only to fall under the trampling feet of human progress. Look at all the odd little cults that spring up here and there, flare up and take peoples' money and sometimes their lives & then vanish as soon as law enforcement or mass suicide spoils the party. Can they all have been right? No, you say, because noone worships David Koresh or Jim Jones or Thor or Zeus or Jupiter anymore. Those religions were shown to be false and their leaders liars. As if there's a giant bearded man living on top of Mt Olympus who can throw thunderbolts! As if aurora borealis is Thor's campfire! Jim Jones was clearly a criminal madman!

Well, obviously, extinct religions and insane cultists are an easy target. So, let's concentrate on the sons of Abraham: Judaism, Islam, Christianity. They've sprung from the same well, branched off and made something of themselves in different parts of the world. They have launched brutal wars against each other in defense or furtherance of their Truths. This is because, despite being directed toward the same god, they are diametrically opposed in spirit and in purpose and brook no disagreement. If Jesus was the messiah & son of God, the Jews are all wrong and they're wasting their time. Every last one & every last second. If Jesus was not who he said he was, the Jews might be right and the messiah may still be on his way, except of course if Mohammed was God's last true prophet, in which case the Jews lose again. But what if Mohammed was just an illiterate warlord with a taste for jailbait and delusions of grandeur? Does that automatically make Christianity the real deal? If it does, which kind of Christians will go to heaven? Well, all these questions have made people torture and kill each other countless times over the years and I could on at length about that, but I won't. I'm going to look just at Christianity.

Christianity. There are more branches of this particular Abrahamic faith than there are of Islam and Judaism combined (though there have been and still are brutal schisms within those brotherhoods). Hundreds, maybe thousands of denominations have sprung up since Augustine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire (accept no substitutes!) in the 5th century CE. Several of these sects claim their brothers in Christ are actually destined for hell despite sharing the same core belief - that Jesus was the son of the one true God and was allowed to be executed by Rome to spare us all from Hell, as long we believe that's the case and thank him very much for it, frequently. The sibling rivalry between Catholics and Protestants is legendary in its length and ferocity. Evangelicals and moderate Christians clash at the drop of a hint and there are many sects that behave in ways that would make presumably Jesus blush, clear his throat and back out of the room, muttering "Ah, no, they didn't come with me ... "

So, back to the question: what if you're wrong? And what if the odds of you being wrong are so astronomical that it would be a ridiculous waste of time to even be religious at all, let alone place all your eggs in a particular basket case? Let's leave aside what could happen if you're a Jew when it's actually Allah calling the shots, or if you're a Muslim and Jesus is actually waiting to kick your arse to hell after you die. You might think you're safe being a liberal, moderate, wishy-washy Christian who doesn't go to church or pray much, supports secular government, gives lots to charity and doesn't drink too much - but what if the God of your New Testament is actually more like the God of your Old Testament? What if Yahweh is a bloodthirsty bastard like he was when he drowned the world, destroyed Sodom & Gomorrah or ordered Moses and his band of thugs to kill every Midianite man, woman and child except for the virgin girls, who were to be enslaved? What if the Westboro Baptist Clown College is the only church on Earth to have its shit together?

Every religion on Earth may have some "truth" at its core, as so many religious apologists are fond of asserting. Things like being nice to each other, helping the poor and taking a day or two off work. But most religions on Earth make other, more specific claims which more often than not flatly contradict each other. This invalidates the "religion in general is a good thing" trope that some moderates use. Many religions will tell you that being nice and charitable and neighbourly isn't enough; if you don't worship the right god in the right way on the right day, it's curtains. Eternal curtains! How is it, apart from being raised in a particular religious environment by people of a particular religious bent, can you know your particular version of your religion is the right one? Faith? In what? Scripture? But the people in the church across the street do different things with the same scripture and they think they're the ones with the key. Faith in the people who raised you and taught you this religion? You can't have faith in people, especially if they've been doing it all wrong, like the guys across the street say they have been. Faith in your own understanding of what the scripture says? But it's highly likely you've never sat down and read the whole thing and asked honest questions, let alone looked anyone else's - the people across town have a completely different scripture, rules, ways into heaven and hellish punishments. What are you meant to think? How can you make an honest, free rational choice to be Christian, Jewish, Muslim? Back to faith again? How can you have any faith in any single set of rules when noone in your own brotherhood can even agree which ones are the right ones?

In short: just look at how many different religions there are in the world. Look at the things they claim. Compare them to the claims of your religion. Look at the differences within that single religion then look at the differences within your own. Consider the different points of view held by people within your very own church. One guaranteed result of such observation is that these people/sects/religions can't all be right. Leave aside your strongly-held conviction that yours is - they can't all be. What is it about your religion & sect that makes it more compelling than that of your neighbour? The standard of evidence? Surely your neighbour is as convinced of the Truth of their beliefs as you are of yours and on the basis of similar evidence. There really is only one conclusion you can draw from this, and that is that despite the strength of your faith and your convictions, your religion has an equal chance of being the wrong one as your neighbour's does. If you think he's going to Hell, there's an equal chance he thinks you are. How can you even begin to know who's right? Faith? In what - the sacred texts or the people propagating them? You're essentially playing Pascal's Wager against each other with no good reason to believe you'll win, but you each have an equally strong conviction that you will. But you can't both win - unless of course your god isn't particularly fussed how he gets his props, or if he gets them at all - in which case you're both wasting your time. Go read a book! No, not that book. A different book. Something fun. Or at least useful.

Thunderf00t: Why the internet is bad for religion

Scientist, creationist vanquisher & Youtube legend Thunderf00t presents his thoughts on why the internets are bad for religion:




Check out the rest of his channel - I highly recommend his series "Why Do People Laugh At Creationists?"

Comfort

No, not Ray Comfort, the odd little Kiwi who masturbated a banana and called it "the atheist's nightmare" (I mean, it was a nightmare, only not just for atheists *shudder*). Rather, this is about the state or condition of being comfortable or comforted; the mitigation or elimination of discomfort. Specifically, the point of view held by defenders of religion, both religious and not-necessarily-religious, that religious belief, even if demonstrably false & unsupported, provides comfort to those who hold it.

With special regard to death & bereavement, this is maintained all the time. Even if someone's religion is false, they might say, the fact that they believe their departed loved one is in a much better place is easing their pain and dulling their grief. Even in their bereavement and suffering, they take solace from their belief that the deceased person now sits with God. As they contemplate their own inveitable death, they may draw comfort from the prospect of finally meeting their maker and being reunited with those who went before them.

What I'd like to know is how comfortable these believers feel contemplating the afterlives of other people - specifically, people who don't share their beliefs. With few exceptions, most people in the world have relatives and friends of different faiths and/or of no faith at all. How comforting is it to think about what happens to them once they die? How nice could eternal bliss in Heaven possibly be with the knowledge of loved ones being tormented forever elsewhere or, as some religions maintain, simply ceasing to exist?

As a child, this troubled me. The thought of Hell was bad enough in and of itself, but the thought of friends or family being sent there while I went to Heaven was utterly beastly. Surely God would know that not everyone had the same religion, or if they were, not necessarily of the same sect (as a nominal Protestant, I worried about my Catholic friends and I'm sure they worried about me). Surely God knew that many people in the world, mostly good people, had never heard of Jesus. If they'd never heard of Jesus while they were alive and therefore weren't Christians when they died, were they to expect eternal torment? This still troubles me - not because I believe it's true but because so many people seem to be so damned okay with it. Some aren't though - hence the proclaimed aims of evangelism and the subsequent being woken up on a Saturday morning by one of two main brands of Bible-thumper - and that's almost admirable. After all, they're trying to save people from the worst fate they can imagine. However, I can't help but wonder why they're not asking themselves why God created Hell in the first place, especially if he was going to make it so easy to gain entry - it's not like he had no choice in the matter. I'd suggest they actually ask God what the deal is with Hell, but there's a glaringly obvious reason why I won't.

I'm just wondering how much comfort a Christian takes from her faith whilst at the funeral of her Jewish best friend, who she believes won't be joining God in Heaven and may even burn forever. Can a Muslim draw any comfort from his faith if his son, an apostate, an atheist, lies before him in his grave? What of the Jehovah's Witness on his deathbed, spending his last moments in abject sorrow because his children left the one true faith, the faith of his fathers? It would seem that, in these cases (which must happen every day across the globe), a person's faith would provide no comfort whatsoever. Quite the opposite.

Of course, some religious people say "specific belief doesn't matter - all paths lead to God," in which case there would be no point in subscribing to one belief system over another. But I strongly suspect people who say such things wouldn't convert to another religion or even just renounce their own for, say, five minutes, even to make a point. I think they say such things to comfort themselves as they contemplate the doom of a loved one. I think the fear of Hell (a cornerstone of even the most moderate Christianity - what did Jesus get himself executed for if not to save us all from the Hell of his father's - his own making?) will always be strong enough for most believers to remain in the fold.

So, no, I don't buy this "religion provides comfort" business - especially when talking of death, which is when comfort is most needed. Indeed, it would seem that the stronger your faith, the less comfort you can possibly take from it if the deceased isn't of your flock, or if you're contemplating your own death in the unshakeable belief that many of your loved ones won't be joining you. If I were still Christian, I could think of nothing more harrowing than the prospect of dying & entering Heaven to sit with God, only to see my wife, my brothers, most of my friends or my parents condemned for all eternity and out of my reach. No amount of racing Jim Clark down golden streets or long, stoned conversations with Hendrix or real-life Quake games could comfort me.

Google's digital burqa

Well, this is interesting. It seems Google is censoring itself when it comes to religious search terms:

In the search field type "Christianity is" and you will see recommendations of "bullsh*t, not a religion, a lie, false, a cult, wrong, fake, dying, Jewish, and not a religion t-shirt."

In the search field type "Hinduism is" and you will see recommendations of "monotheistic, false, polytheistic, the majority religion of, the oldest religion, not a religion, fake, most commonly found, characterized by, and wrong."

In the search field type "Buddhism is" and you will see recommendations of "not a religion, wrong, not what you think, bullsh*t, polytheistic, a religion, false, based on what concepts, the best religion, and atheism."

In the search field type "Judaism is" and you will see recommendations of "false, not a race, not a religion, a race, a religion of the book, not Jewish, a gutter religion, monotheistic, a cult, and a religion."

Try typing "Atheism is" and you will see recommendations of "a religion, dead, not a religion, wrong, the new fundamentalism, growing, a non-prophet organization, so senseless, illogical, a religion supreme court." Clearly they are not holding back on the Atheists.

Now, let's try Islam. Type in "Islam is" and you will see...
Absolutely nothing. That's correct. Google makes no recommendations based on searches of "Islam Is."

Why is Google blocking search recommendations for "Islam is?"

On The Buses - everywhere but Down Under...

...but do I give a toss?

Recently, atheist bus ads have popped up in the UK and the US to much acclaim from freethinkers and much tiresome bitching & moaning from the usual suspects. Buses are so hot right now! However, an attempt by an Aussie atheist group to have their own ads on our buses has been unsuccessful. The Atheist Foundation of Australia wanted to buy ad space, the ad company, APN Outdoor, refused to sell it to them. And it seems they didn't explain why. I certainly don't see the harm in slogans like "Sleep in on Sunday mornings" or "Celebrate reason", but I guess APN have their reasons. Such as - they're a pack of bastards with double standards higher than Israel's separation wall. So, yes, it's disappointing. Even annoying! And refusing to take someone's freely-offered money is just goddamned un-Australian. Not to mention that glaring double-standard: the article explains that APN had buses in Adelaide plastered with the Bible verse John 3:16 - that's the one about God loving the world so much that he had himself (in the form of his hippy son) tortured & executed to forgive us all of our sins, especially the original sin committed by Adam & Eve, the guilt of which apparently extends several millennia onto every last one of us, from birth - conception - no less, giving us no damn choice but to accept the hippy as our saviour. Nice. World's oldest protection racket - "Say, that's a nice soul you got there...be a shame if anything, I dunno, happened to it..."

Now, some people might find the public assertion that we're all destined for eternal torment at the whim of a celestial tyrant, unless we accept that he had himself (his human avatar anyway) murdered to save us all from the Hell he created and could simply choose not to send us to, somewhat offensive. But an atheist wouldn't try to stifle someone's freedom to say so. They'd only ask for the same freedom to say something arguably less offensive - like "sleep in" or "celebrate reason". If one group can buy an ad saying "God exists and is awesome and will roast your soul", another group should have an equal right to ask "how can you be sure?" or "just be good!"

Anyway & however.

Apart from the 50-foot high, floodlit double standard on display from APN, I really don't think I care. Yes, people should have the freedom to say what they want. Equally, advertising companies, like any seedy bar with a handwritten sign, may "reserve the right to refuse service". Commerce isn't an equal opportunity industry - people can sell to whomever they choose and refuse the money of whomever they choose. Although, in this case, it seems the Aussie Atheists aren't able to buy space from anyone else, because it seems APN are more or less a monopoly when it comes to bus ads. And billboards. Which is a shame. Any time when one company has more-or-less total control of a particular medium, it's very easy for that company to exercise unfair control of the messages people want to spread. I think if TAFA have a good case to sue then they bloody well should.

But I just don't think a public awareness of atheism campaign is necessary in Australia. Most of the time when you hear religion in our media it's either about some whiner from Family First having an tiresome, sky-is-falling crack about the sanctity of marriage and how the gays want to take it from us and make all our kids gay, some cardinal something-or-other droning on about other peoples' sexual & reproductive rights (as if they have any first-hand evidence of sex with adults anyway) & reminding everyone exactly how out of touch his crew are with modern Australia and its evolving moral landscape, or some off-leash imam, comparing liberally-dressed Aussie women to uncovered meat (then failing to see what's wrong with that). Most people in this country tend to keep their religious beliefs private, and we (because we're such cynical bastards) tend to look on anyone who's oh-so-earnestly preaching anything with a sideways glance - even those ostensibly on the same side as the preacher. That's what I think would happen with this atheist campaign - people would see the atheist bus ads, go - derisively - "ok, righto, whatever mate, good onya" and get on with their day. Much as they do when they see a religious ad. Or an ad for oven cleaner. Much as I do when I see dreadlocked greenie ferals screaming hysterically at police when they break up a protest and start arresting people. Do yourselves, and the image of your cause, a good solid favour you stinky bastards - peaceful, non-violent resistance. Civil disobedience, not obscenity-laden tirades and throwing rocks and lighting fireworks to freak the horses out. Ghandi & MLK made enormous strides! I'm on your side and I love my planet too, but it'll get you a lot more respect and public support if you quit the usual drum-beating chants, face painting and screams of "fascist!" You're there to make a political point, not start a freaking roots festival on the steps of Parliament House.

Among my wide & varied circle of friends and family, religion doesn't come up at all, even amongst my fundy cousins or the few of my friends that I know for sure are religious (there are probably more than I'm aware of). Not because we actively avoid talking about it, it's just that it's considered a private matter and really isn't pertinent. My lack of religion is the same. My folks, brothers, friends & I have the odd cackle at nutters but we don't sit around discussing the finer points of non-belief. We all have more important and more fun things to do and to talk about, especially considering we only see each other twice a year. It's the same across the country. Put it this way: whenever a group of Aussies watch the Grammy awards, we play the "I wanna thank my lord and saviour Jesus Christ" drinking game and we're usually blotto before they even get to the hip-hop/r&b categories.

So ... back on topic: while I'm a tad miffed at APN refusing, for seemingly no good reason, to take money from the decent godless folk of TAFA, I didn't really see the need for an atheist awareness campaign in this country to begin with. We're not contending with a home-grown wannabe Taliban-for-Jesus like our Yank chums or with flamin' sharia courts like our Pommy inferiors (sharia courts, you idiots? WTF?). We're not fighting uphill against the active public bigotry & political marginalisation of the godless. We're not battling for simple acceptance. We're not the suffragettes or gays or blacks of our day (hell, the Aboriginals of right now are still getting screwed). We godless are already all over the place and most people wouldn't even know who believes what in Parliament House anyway!

But hey, bugger it - get the ads up there. I'd just like to see the reactions from the usual suspects! If nothing else it'd make good blog fodder.

God Trumps - collect 'em all

A pithy pictarticle from New Humanist gives you, the lucky reader, a free card game featuring the world's major faiths. While it doesn't go into (any) detail (whatsoever) about the rules, I shall just say this: look out for the trump card, it's vicious.

Here are a couple that jumped out at me:

"Ex-smoker of the religious world" - love it.

There are a bunch of others - got get the whole set!

So, they're dead now...so what?

Who's dead? Three of the little bastards who carried out the Sari club bombing in Bali in 2002. They've been sitting on death row since then and within the last 24 hours were shot dead by an Indonesian death squad. Their coffins, predictably, were paraded through the streets like trophies, held aloft by screaming family members and bellowing supporters who have made it very clear that their jihad against "the West" will continue. Naturally, a governmental advisory against travelling to Indonesia has been issued. Who knows who'll take up the jihadi cause now and decide that killing white tourists, enjoying the exchange rate and out for a surf, a beer, some cheap weed on the sly or those infernal hair beads, will make Allah happy.

OK, so some people might be rejoicing. These animals killed over 200 people in cold blood, 88 of them Aussies on holiday. They were mindless apes, jumping on the ol' jihad bandwagon at the urging of some bloviating hatemongering imam somewhere (these mental children do need to be told what to do after all; independent thought is not a hallmark of your average jihadi) and striking at soft targets with homemade bombs - with obviously no regard at all for the lives of fellow Indonesians, let alone fellow humans. But hey, that's what fundamentalism does to you: makes anyone who's not on your team fair game, even if they're a neighbour. It splits the world into enemies and friends, and all enemies deserve a gruesome death. The most infuriating thing was that footage of these - people - from their jail cells and from the courtroom showed them grinning like idiots and raising their fists in triumph, like they'd won gold medals. That grinning halfwit Amrozi, nicknamed "The Smiling Assassin" was the one everyone down here wanted to damn well smash in the face with a pint glass, me included. I wouldn't even have finished my beer first. He's killed 200 people and he's grinning like the cat who got the cream. Smug bastard. Smash!

But do I want him dead? No! Why? Because he believes when the Indonesian government murder him, he's going to Heaven to screw his brains out for eternity. He's getting exactly what he wants. He's fulfilled the orders of his bizarre & barbaric corruption of a god (head of the alleged "religion of peace") and is about to score bigtime. Which, to me, is the complete opposite of what punishment should entail. It's no punishment to kill a man when all he wants is to die and be martyred, a hero to his polluted herd, and achieve paradise. You commit a crime against society, you should be deprived of the privileges of being a member of that society. Take lives and your quality of life should be forfeit - but not your life itself. I'd much prefer if they kept the little shit alive, in the squalid filth of a Indonesian jail, until his lifeless flesh can be fed to sharks. Don't let him wear his little jihadi hat. Don't let him read his precious goddamned scripture. Don't give him a prayer mat. Let him have a skylight, not a window - don't let him know which direction Mecca is. It's his religion that turned him into a murderous, easily-led automaton - deprive him of all the comfort it gives him. It's his comrades that conspired with him to kill all those people - deprive him of their company & any comfort that they may give him. Let him befriend the guards (who should be under strict orders of complete silence) if wants company. Even better, let him have a TV behind a grille that plays nothing but evangelical Christian shows with the volume way up and don't give him the remote. Don't let him have any control over his life. Don't let him have anything he'd have on the outside, save food & water & light. And a nice cold hosing every month. Hey, it's a hot country. He'll be fine.

But, no. Indonesia, having a backward & reactionary justice system (which I define as "any system which includes death as punishment"), follows the law ... and lets these bastards have exactly what they want. Then their bloated corpses get treated like rock stars, crowd-surfing to the grave, held aloft by adoring fans.

Now, apart from wanting the little shit to suffer properly and apart from the fact that he & his chums wanted martyrdom and therefore should have been deprived of it, I don't believe the death penalty makes any sense as either a punishment or a deterrent. It didn't deter these primates. It didn't deter fellow mindless ape Tim McVeigh, the dim-as-a-two-watt-bulb drug-smugglers known as the Bali Nine (who still rot, awaiting their own Indonesian murder squad) or anyone else who's been executed lately. Anyone currently on Death Row, anywhere in the world, had to know the possible penalty for what they were doing yet they went ahead anyway (provided they were convicted fairly - another problem with death penalties is that you can't be sure 100% of the time that you have the right person). If the death sentence is meant to be a deterrent, news flash: it isn't damn well working.

The state, whether it straps someone to a table and injects lethal poison, ties them to a chair or electrocutes them, suffocates them in a gas chamber, breaks their neck on the gallows or just lines them up and has soldiers shoot them, is no better than the criminal they're ostensibly punishing. It's the 21st century for crying out loud. We're better than this. We have to be if we want to progress.

Anyway, Amrozi (and your fellow murderous intellectual cripples), now that you're dead ... I hope you go straight to hell. Which I suppose, to a randy little shit looking forward to deflowering children for the rest of eternity (and considering I don't believe in hell), would be not existing at all (which would be unpleasant as long as you knew you didn't exist anymore, which implies that you'd have to exist to know you didn't exist - quite a paradox I know, but I'm annoyed, so give me some latitude). To me, non-existence is no substitute for being treated like the animal you are for the rest of your sad little life, but I guess it has to be good enough for me. You might not be suffering, as the victims of your righteousness and their families still suffer, but it's at least nice to know that you're not getting your perverted little slice(s) of heaven.

Anglican Bishops assembles A-Team to combat Dawkins; I pity da fool

[RD.net]

Canterbury, England (ENI). The Anglican bishop of London, Richard Chartres, is to host a study day at St Paul's Cathedral in the British capital to help clergy counter the influence of the scientist and atheist Richard Dawkins. A keynote speaker will be John Cornwell, the author of "Darwin's Angel", whose subtitle is, "An angelic riposte to 'The God Delusion'". Cornwell will advise clergy on how to respond to the claims of Dawkins at a time when the apparent polarisation between religion and science raises many questions for people of faith.

Schedule of events

"Oh, no, don't go in there! What if Dawkins' evil questions make you think about what you believe? Dear God, no!" What's wrong with people learning to think for themselves and find their own answers, o wise clergy?

From the schedule:

11.05 am God Without the Gaps

One consequence of the current science and religion debate is that it makes theology appear reactive and defensive. Professor Keith Ward has for many years worked on developing a scientifically literate approach to theology. Today he goes beyond the ‘God of the gaps’ to explore a positive theological approach to science and its role in Christian formation.

Theology without resorting to "God of the gaps"? I'd honestly like to hear Professor Ward's argument. Although, with him presumably being a professor of theology, I have no choice but to assume there'd be a laundry list of mental contortions on display. I've really encountered nothing but when reading or hearing theological arguments, even from those considered the "best" in their field. I suppose when your field can be summed up as "proving the unprovable" or "preaching to the converted in such a way as to flatter their intelligence & justifying their blind faith in an unsupportable idea" you're not exactly starting in the fastest car on the grid.

2.00pm The Gospel according to Luke (Skywalker)?

Science plays an important part in fuelling our imagination though literature, films and television. In this session David Wilkinson, the author of The Power of the Force: The Spirituality of the Star Wars Films considers practical ways for clergy to communicate the Gospel using science fact and fiction in preaching and teaching. The session includes Q&A.

Well, first let me put on my giant nerd pants and say Star Wars isn't science fiction. Space opera, science fantasy, a common swashbuckling pirate narrative transposed to space, really long commercials for toys, yes (especially the new ones), but not science fiction. Asimov, Banks, Clarke: these are true science fiction.

Nevertheless, this section would also be very interesting to see. Especially considering the recent Star Wars prequels, in which those Jedis or Sith Lords strong in the previously-referred-to-as-mystical "energy field" - the Force - now are revealed to simply be bursting with biochemicals known as "midichlorians". Young Anakin Skywalker's midichlorians were indeed "off the charts" which is seemingly the reason it was so hard for his master, Obi-Wan, to control him. So, instead of having a very strong bond with the energy field which binds everything in the Universe together, it now seems young Annie is reduced to being hyperactive & moody (& whiny - oh god the whining!) because of a gland problem. Maybe it was George W. Lucas's attempt to inject the "fiction" with a bit more "science".

So, the clergy is going to attempt to use the Force to combat Dawkins (and, presumably, all his little secular wizards).

Interesting as this segment might be, it still amounts to using fiction to justify fiction.

3.30pm Eureka! Science in liturgy

How can we bring science alive as a part of Christian liturgy, and the Gospel alive in the light of scientific understanding? In this session Lucy Winkett, Precentor of St Paul’s Cathedral and David Wilkinson discuss practical ways in which the awe and wonder inspired by the natural world can be expressed in Christian worship.

How indeed? How to inject the facts of the universe into mythology? How to tint reality with fable? How about not doing that at all and just enjoying nature for its own sake? What is exactly so wrong with the awe and wonder of the natural world that you can't simply enjoy it for what it is?

What I'd like to know is, are these guys going express awe over such wonders of nature such as HIV, ebola and ovarian cancer in Christian worship? Truly these are marvels of creation; tiny self-replicators able to spread rapidly and follow their design ruthlessly, often with proud, strong, intelligent humans standing by helplessly. Or are such inconvenient facts of life to be ignored? Really, if you're going to use nature's awesomeness as a way to exalt the Great One, you're only doing half a job if you just concentrate on little kitties and baby giggles and waterfalls.

Humbug.

California Christians display epic self-pwnzage!!1

A recent Dispatch From The Culture Wars brings news of a queer situation in California:

In May, after the California State Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage legal, the courts mandated state officials to provide gender-neutral licenses and other marriage forms. "Bride" and "groom" became "Party A" and "Party B."

[Whackaloon Fundy Whingers]Bird and Codding have refused to complete the new forms, a stand that has already cost them. Because their marriage is not registered with the state, Bird cannot sign up for Codding's medical benefits or legally take his name. They are now exploring their options, she said.

Oh me, oh my, oh my Great Galactic Squid, the EPIC LULZ are almost too much for my mortal, carbon-based brain to withstand! In a bizarre, inexplicable, baffling display of OMGWTFBBQ, these two COMPLETE CRETINS have CHOSEN to inflict upon themselves the very situation they & their bronze-age ilk wish to (and in many cases do) inflict upon gay people across the entire USA. Read the rest of Ed Brayton's short & sweet dispatch. Pretty much sums it up!

Last thought, directed directly at Bird & Codding: mentally retarded goats who eat lead paint and live under power lines on toxic waste dumps no doubt approved by your tax & destroy Republican party have more of a clue than you, you pair of barely cerebrally evolved mental sub-mammals with whom I'm ashamed to share my DNA. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face! You lackwits are voluntarily cutting yourself off from vital legal rights - rights that you were born with and never even had to break a sweat to earn - just to spite gay people who've been struggling for those very same same rights for decades. I'd admire the strength of your convictions if they weren't so completely misguided and arse-backwards and, ultimately, futile with any luck. Instead, I join the world in heaping epic lulz upon you!!

HA!

Cracked: 7 Pop Culture Phenoms That Annoy Jesus

And rightly so! There's nothing more downright E W I L than Spongebob telling kids they should be accepting of each other. Why, to some well-meaning but completely misguided Christian activists, that's practically a license to sodomise (and then presumably eat) babies in public whilst wearing a Satan costume and listening to Slayer! Observe:

Both Focus on the Family and the American Family Association complained about a Spongebob video that was delivered to schools in which Spongebob has the balls to try to teach children to be accepting of others. Now you know Jesus isn't going to stand for that shit.

Even though the video never actually mentions homosexuality, on the website for the video's producers they include a pledge of tolerance for all races, cultures, beliefs and, yes, sexual orientations. Just like Hitler. Or the opposite of Hitler. Whatever, fuck that cartoon sponge!

Of course not all Christians are that retarded - just (generally) the ones with "Family" in their titles. I've noticed (and it's not just an American phenomenon either, it happens Down Here too) that the presence of the word "Family" in the name of a Christian lobby/political action/groundless & retarded-whinge-against-the-inevitable-progression-of-social-equality group is really just code for "We Hate The Gays". So much so that it maligns any other government/non-government/secular/religious "Family" group that is actually about helping actual families regardless of how many dads or mums are present. I really wouldn't be surprised if any actual, non-retarded pro-family groups have changed their names just to distance themselves from their similarly-yet-inappropriately-named fundamentalist namesakes.

It really makes me wonder what's worse for kids: seeing lil' Spongey & pals promote acceptance of people who may be different (y'know, like friggin' JESUS apparently did before he was brutally un-accepted by the Romans and those nasty ol' Pharisees) or having some thundering, fundamentalist, fire n' brimstone gay-haters attempt to twist that very decent, simple message around into something evil & corrupting, no doubt confusing the hell out of anyone too young to realise exactly how stupid and insane these alleged "family friendly" spokespeople are.

Heads up, Family Fundies: if you're really focused on helping the "family", the first thing that should become abundantly clear in your little scope is that there is more than one kind of family. Not all kids are raised by a man & a lady who love each other very much and have only ever had sex with each other exactly as many times as there are children in the house. Some kids only have one biological parent, some have none, some have two parents of the same gender, some only have grandparents, extended family members, yada freaking yada, I could go on but I fear I might blow your tiny minds with my dazzling expose!

The bottom line is this, my Christian friends: families aren't what they were in what I presume is your heyday - some bizarre Rockwellian 1959 where kids dragged puppies around in lil' red wagons, wore short pants until they were twelve and said things like "golly" and "smash the Reds!" With more information being launched straight at kids these days than ever before, what they need is clarity & reasonable filtering from those who know how to sift through the spam & the bullshit: us. The grownups. What kids need, today more than ever, are positive messages from us about humanity and how, most of the time, we can get along with our fellow humans. What kids simply do not need is this confusing, wasteful, hurtful worldview of yours that takes an ordinary message of acceptance from a character kids love and twists it around into some kind of subliminal ploy to turn all our kids into occultist sodomites. Do you seriously think a guy called Spongebob Squarepants is some kind of secret icon of the "Gay Agenda" (whatever the hell that is) out to "convert" children and give them The Gay? What the hell have Spongey & his starfish buddy ever done that Bert & Ernie haven't been doing since the 1970s?

The kids may be the young ones here, but it's your mis-named Family groups that have to grow up.

Alozno Fyfe: "When Atheists Attack!"

I direct your attention to this post by Alonzo over at Atheist Ethicist.

He laments what he perceives as a common occurrence in atheist blogs/articles: the tendency to take an isolated incident involving a religious person and use it as a hammer with which to crush all religion. Excerpt:

There are those who have taken every act performed by somebody who (claimed to be) religious and turned it into an attack on all religion. From 9/11, to every instance in which somebody who was religious has molested a child or stolen money from a church or viciously assaulted another member of the community, these have all been held up with a sign that says, "See what religion does!"

I must absolutely agree with Alonzo here, while simultaneously wondering if I've been guilty of the exact same thing. I do hope I haven't, as I'm acutely aware of when religious people use an isolated incident involving an atheist to make the same kind of broad generalisations and group indictments about we non-religious folk and I'm acutely annoyed by it.

We, being non-religious people who give enough of a crap about religion's influence on people and society to actually write posts like this, need to avoid being hypocrites. When responding to an attack or an article exposing a the hypocrisy of a religious person or group, our response has to be proportionate. It's not good reading about, for example, yet another pastor being found guilty of seriously breaching his own faith's guidelines - or the laws of his nation - and proclaiming religion as the source of his evil. That he used religion as a means to his greedy or lewd or hypcritical or criminal ends doesn't necessarily indict either the religion he claimed to subscribe to or the rest of his followers. However, it can shine a spotlight on the fallacy that religion precludes people from doing illegal or immoral things. Saying "religion made him do it" is as bad as saying "atheism made the Nazis do it". It's not only factually wrong, it's entirely unreasonable and hypocritical.

In quite a few of my own posts I know I've used offensive, crude language to express my displeasure at the actions of a religious person or group, but (without having sufficient time to check through all my previous blatherings) I hope I haven't been guilty of tarring every religion and all religious people with the same brush I use to shellac the Pope or Sarah Palin or any other of the faithful cranks that have become the honoured subjects of my work. I do not for one second think your average, everyday Catholic is as deserving of my 'praise' as their ancient, feeble-minded murderous virgin bastard of an Emperor - though I certainly think more of them should simply grow a pair and tell the Vatican to butt out of their private lives and let them decide when to conceive children & if and when to end their marriage. I don't think every American Evangelist Christian deserves to be flogged mercilessly the same way multi-millionaire faith-healing charlatans like Benny Hinn do - but I do know that Hinn and his tax-evading ilk wouldn't be where they are without millions of devoted, hoodwinked (and quite possibly greedy - see "Prosperity Gospel") disciples sending him their hard-earned money every single day. After all, you can't light a fire without dry kindling (or Jiffies!).

However, having said that, every motherfucking last member of Fred Phelps' gay-hating, military funeral-picketing, offensively coloured, worded & designed sign-painting, wilfully & consciously mentally retarded Westboro Baptist Church can go fuck themselves with a chainsaw.

Papacy: "evolution is too science-y!"

PZ Myers expertly excoriates the ecclesiastic like noone else can, so instead of ranting myself I'll link you to his post about a "Vatican evolution congress" (maybe I should have an 'Atheist Prayer Meeting' in response, it would make as much sense) entitled "Science Is Not Your Merkin" (LOL) and tease you with some choice quotes:

"[Jesuit Father Marc Leclerc, a philosophy professor at the Gregorian] said arguments "that cannot be critically defined as being science, or philosophy or theology did not seem feasible to include in a dialogue at this level and, therefore, for this reason we did not think to invite" supporters of creationism and intelligent design.""

What an out — they're only going to allow arguments critically defined as scientific, oh, and theology. Those are two different things, you know.

I eagerly await the announcement of the associated banquet for the participants. They will only be serving the highest quality food, made by master chefs of Europe, using only the freshest, best ingredients, oh, and there will be dollops of runny, rancid fecal material splattered over the tables and dishes. But the meal will be a magnificent gourmet experience, and the world will know that Vatican shit deserves to be served to the greatest minds of science.

I'm sure they'll get some good smart people to go along with this, because there is no shortage of competent scientists willing to compromise the public face of science by associating it with wishful thinking and the supernatural. And the Vatican will, of course, throw buckets of pomp and money and somber news quotes at this, all to decorate the rotting flesh of their decrepit dogma with the jewels of science.

And look! Their exclusivity runs the other way, too!

"Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the other extreme of the evolution debate — proponents of an overly scientific conception of evolution and natural selection — also were not invited."

"Overly scientific conception of evolution"? What the heck? So the problem with evolution, to these Catholics, is that there's too darned much science in it? I guess Richard Dawkins won't be pining by his mailbox, hangdog with disappointment that his papal invitation hasn't arrived yet. Why, the whole problem with evolutionary biology is that we don't have enough religion in it, to poison and distort and attenuate the science. But not just any religion: it seriously needs more Catholicism.

Evolution, too science-y for Catholics...what the holy poo-spattered fuck is wrong with these people? I'm flabbergasted. I'm lost for words. There really isn't anything I can write to express how completely & utterly fucked, wrong and arse-backwards that concept is. Imagine if I read a bible, put it down and said "OK, very good, very interesting. But it's a little heavy on the God-talk, isn't it?" Any Catholic - any Christian - would instantly have the right the look at me with an eyebrow raised and say to me, "That's actually the ENTIRE POINT OF IT, you fucking halfwit. Now give it back before you drool all over the fucking thing."

Prayer - now with Hurricane-Stopping Power!

...or so a pack of loons in (where else but) Texas (actually, you'd probably also find them in Kentucky, Alabama or anywhere where they speak with a twang, and I'm sure you could find them in Queensland as well) would have us (and themselves) believe.

Via Kelly at the Rational Responders, the official text for their powerful Hurricane Ike-stopping prayer which can be found here. Apart from the usual blathering idiocy & sucking up, it contains this hysterical little gem:

Father, please forgive us for our many sins. Please forgive disobedience, rebellion, unbelief, forms of idolatry, shedding of innocent blood, and the rejection of Your Son, Jesus Christ. God have mercy on the Houston Metropolitan Area.

"O Vengeful One, please spare us, your unworthy & sin-filled slaves, from your Divine & Just Wrath! Please smite some other unworthy people from another local government region in Thy Mercy!"

Utterly laughable. On the one hand, it seems like you lackwits know that you deserve to be punished with a hurricane, Gomorrah-style, for all your wickedness. But on the other hand, you have the gall to think you can appease the Almighty and avoid his wrath with some sucking up! Surely it's God's Plan, right? Surely no human has the right to question God's Plan for the world ... right? And here you are, not asking for the hurricane to be stopped and for it to blow itself out, sparing everyone, just for it to be diverted. And how are you going to feel if it misses you and kills even more people down the highway a few miles? Probably pretty bloody pleased with yourselves, I'll bet. Smug bastards.

From Kelly's post:

Their church recently held a prayer meeting in order to officially command Ike to cease and desist its approach into the Houston area. Some participants claimed to have calmed Edouard and sent hurricane Gustav into southern Louisiana. No explanation was given for the Almighty's lack of regard for the residents in that area.

See, that's the thing. Hurricanes don't just STOP and cease & desist. Of course, God could choose to just stop them in their tracks and calm the winds instantly - after all, he sent them in the first place ... right? So why won't he just switch 'em off? Whatever the reason, he chooses not to (God's Plan) and (it would seem, if these loons are right) he just diverts them around whoever prays the hardest, or sucks up the most, or whatever. God help whoever is in the new path of the hurricane, especially if they didn't pray hard enough.

But what happened to "love thy neighbour", you twisted Christfreaks? If that hurricane goes around you it's going to hit someone else! And what happens when it does? Are you going to head down to the affected area, apologise for sending God's hurricane down their main street and take blankets and food and first aid kits and assist with the cleanup or even just donate to the Red Cross? Well? It's the least you could do after sending Divine Wrath into their town! Or are you going to sit smugly in your living room, watching it all unfold on TV, safe in the knowledge that your magic spells saved your postcode or head to your church and loudly proclaim how blessed you are that God listened to you and decided to fuck up a bunch of other people? Hey, I guess you could always pray for them.

This leads me to a train of thought: if God is punishing you people with a hugely destructive and potentially fatal hurricane but he can be persuaded not to with a bit of "O God you're so awesome", he's either very easily talked out of his Divine Plan with some simple flattery or your crimes weren't all that heinous to begin with - which, to be frank, paints this god of yours as one petty son of a bitch. You want to worship a god who can be talked out of punishing you via hurricane with some simple sycophancy? Loan sharks have stronger principles than that for god's sake.

Texas (and other) Christians, I'm not going to sit here and spout what you might call the usual atheist talking points about how your god is a confused, nasty, contradictory mishmash of "extinct" tribal gods and almost certainly doesn't & can't exist. No, what I need is to hear your take on your god's morality. I need a Christian to explain to me, in simple terms - and without pasting any excerpts from scripture - just how moral it is to first send a hurricane as punishment (which would almost certainly "punish" many, many undeserving people, being that hurricanes are huge, indiscriminate forces of pure destruction), then allow some of those people to change his mind and divert the hurricane away from their town to another area, where it would no doubt do as much damage to a bunch of other, more than likely equally undeserving people. But why divert it? Why let it continue on its path of destruction at all? Why not stop it dead or send the damn thing back out to sea to blow itself out, harming noone at all? If this anti-hurricane prayer is working, why is this omniscient god - whom all Christians seem to believe has a Plan - allowing himself to be talked into changing his Plan at the pleading of a few hundred sinful humans? Who the hell are you people to dare to ask God to change a Plan that he's probably had in place for (depending on who you talk to) the last ten thousand or four billion years? You people are meant to have faith in God's Will. You're meant to trust God. Who are you to think you know better than God? Why should he listen to you? What kind of conceited, self-centred egotist are you to think that YOU talked GOD out of sending you a hurricane? If God wants to kill you with the weather so you can join him in Heaven, you should damn well go gladly and not hit your knees in desperate supplication, begging him to spare you. I thought this life didn't matter when you had eternity with the Almighty to look forward to! Seriously, I want to hear how this god of yours is so easily dissuaded from his Plan by a bunch of mere humans.

Seriously, Ratzinger, suck my arse

"Pope condemns 'pagan' love of money, power" [MSN]

Paraphrasing from the New Testament, Benedict decried “insatiable greed” and said “the love of money is the root of all evil.”

“Have not money, the thirst for possessions, for power and even knowledge, diverted man from his true destiny?” the pope asked. Benedict blasted modern society’s thirst for these new “pagan” idols as a “scandal, a real plague.” The pope urged the faithful
to “shun the worship of idols. Do not tire of doing good!”’

Do I really need to pick this apart and spell out exactly what's wrong with this picture? A spiritual monarch, appointed by a 1500 year-old entrenched, insular oligarchy, wearing Prada & silk & gold robes, paying no tax, living in a fucking palace the size of a city (with his own private army), who is treated with more deference and reverence and suckingthefuckup than any living king, queen, prime minister, president or rock star, "blasting" the world for daring to pursue material gain?

And all this before he flies to Lourdes, a place where the Virgin Mary allegedly appeared to a peasant girl a century (or something) ago, and which (like practically all other similar places) is now a massive cash cow for any opportunistic seller of glow-in-the-dark Mary statues to set up a stall and rake in francs from the gullible hordes. "Shun the worship of idols", he says...Lourdes, a place where Mary, mother of Jesus, is idolised & worshipped & prayed to by Catholics as much as her famous son, or his infamous father (this in a supposedly monotheistic religion); a place where this Mary-worship is cashed in on, on a daily fucking basis by shrewd vendors of religious garbage. Though the hordes of Lourdes may not be Ratzinger's fault, his physical presence there legitimises and condones the very behaviour he's apparently railing against. Lourdes is the very embodiment - and perfect combination - of idolatry & the love of money. It is the one place you'd expect Ratzi to single out for special excoriation. You'd think if the gottfuehrer was really out to emulate the J-man and kick the money-lenders out of the temple, he'd go up and down the route to Lourdes getting medieval on the stall-holders with their cheap trinkets and cynical cashing in on vulnerable, gullible peoples' willingness to be deceived and fleeced - or even single them out for a special Papal "blast". But I won't hold my breath. After all, the very thing that's made the Catholic church one of the most wealthy (but also most secretive) non-corporate, non-governmental organisations in the world has been its long history of deceiving people out of their wealth through appeals to peoples' fear of hell, or simply taking what they want at the point of a sword or a set of thumbscrews. Why the hell should anyone expect a career hypocrite (the latest in a long line of such hypocrites, born from an environment of the purest hypocrisy) to suddenly change his spots? Why should we expect any action on this facet of Papist hypocrisy when we can't even expect them to effectively apologise for and pursue the perpetrators of decades of child-rape?

So, no, kids, he's not serious. This is an empty, populist platitude, like so much of what we in the real world hear from this man and many of his silk-robed generals & lieutenants & associate wizards on a regular basis. A king - an emperor, no less - chiding us for wanting the good things this life has to offer. After all, that's what most of us want. Not the best, not the top-tier version of everything. Just good things. Hell, most of us just want things that work. A car that starts, a washing machine that washes, doors that lock, a dog that barks, a computer & connection that are fast enough to just load webpages without too much staring at that little bastard hourglass. And if we can afford stuff that might make our lives a little easier or a bit more enjoyable, leave us to enjoy it. Ratzi's "avoid the love of money" platitude is just a standard call & response to make middle-class Catholics feel good about themselves and assuage any guilt they may have at their own material success, all the while knowing the majority of their Catholic brethren just struggle to eat enough in a day, let alone have the luxury to dream about Aston Martins or houses at the beach (how many residences does Ratzi have again? At least as many as the old Czar of Russia, I'll go out on a limb and assume). While Ratzi continues the Vatican's reprehensible "only have sex for kids, condoms don't work and might even kill you faster" routine, millions of Catholic third-world citizens, already in severe straits, are condemned to even more poverty & hardship through having children they can't afford to feed. Ratzi then congratulates them on their Christ-like poverty from his gold throne, or from the platform of his gleaming, bullet-proof Mercedes.

I'm not a religious man (just thought I'd spell that out), but it's at times like this I have lots of admiration for people such St Francis of Assisi. I may not have agreed with Frank on how best to spend one's life, but the fact that he actually practiced what the bible apparently preaches about avoiding materialism, instead of just preaching it to others as he grew wealthy and fat off their toil, demands my respect. Until his death, St Francis railed against the pursuit of wealth and fame and was enraged by the cult of personality that had grown around him in his later years. If Ratzi had half that guy's balls I'd - well, shit, I'd be really, really, really surprised. A Catholic demigod, not being a fucking hypocrite? I'd be sticking a thermometer in the ground to see if hell was freezing over.

Friday Frivolity (& an aside): Jesus in the house of Terry & Jed

click to embiggen!

When I scribbled this I was still something of a deist. Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God series of books was greatly influential and elicited in me some quite profound revelations about my existence (one particular dream, where I was a ghost who not even my dog could see - contrary to all popular mythology on that subject - had me waking up sobbing uncontrollably with the joyous relief of still being alive, which was the beginning of the most serene & beautiful day of my entire life). I would sit there reading them, utterly absorbed & compelled and nodding my head quite a bit, saying "oh hell yes, that's exactly what I thought!"

Ironically though (inevitably, in hindsight), the CWG series set me coasting very steadily toward atheism. One of the major points of Walsch's conversations with his god were that all religions were human creations concentrated on control & retention of membership; hierarchical political organisations in all but name but based on infinitely higher ideals than conventional political parties (and thus able to wield much, much more power & influence - some still do, I'm looking at you, Pope Ratzinger, US fundie retards, Iranian ayatollahs, Saudi Thought Police et al.). Because they're as completely artificial and arbitrary (and corrupt) as any party or football team or fast-food franchise, no human owes any allegiance to them. The responsibility of each & every human being is to live the most honest life they can and find their unique truth; the one thing or set of things that makes them happy. A pretty simple & obvious philosophy, one might think, but one that's been coopted & distorted by religions for millennia to the point where joy & happiness in this life is unthinkable for most people in the world. Why? Because they expect to achieve (and have been promised since infancy) perfection in the next world, people most of the time don't strive for joy in this one.

Reading the CWG series was a defining moment in my spiritual development. It crystallised my beliefs; more importantly it crystallised for me my opinions on organised religions and what political, human-manufactured control systems they are (regardless of whether they were ever intended to be). Since that moment in my mid-teens, literally half a life away, when I'd decided Christians were basically making shit up, I'd long been cynical about religion but still held some kind of belief that something was somewhere, observing if not actually doing anything.

Before I read CWG I met (& dated) a few hippies, wiccans and assorted New-Agers who were into crystals, spirit guides, Magick, paganism, past-life regression, sweat-lodges, peyote and other assorted bollocks. Some had watercolour pictures of their alleged "spirit guides" framed on their walls, usually taking the form of a kindly-looking man or woman dressed in pseudo Middle Earth garb, on a nice colourful aural background. Their bookshelves were full of crystals and books on the various trendy spiritualities of the mid-late 1990s; some called themselves "seers" and some even practiced reiki (occasionally uninvited, which made me very uncomfortable). I thought they were all clear-headed and enlightened at the time. Through hindsight, however, I saw that they were lost, confused and sexually promiscuous people, myself included, clearly seeking some kind of clarity, path, answers or revelations. Much I wanted to be a part of their world, their pseudo-religions & superstitions didn't really catch on with me and I realised later that I had just been feigning interest, even to the point of wearing a kaftan at some point and allowing some old charlatan to dangle his crystal pendulum over me as I lay down. He proclaimed, as a result of the crystal swinging rather rapidly, that I was "very psychic"; I could clearly see his thumb and index finger moving the leather strap. At that point it all just seemed completely unnecessary & a bunch of wishful thinking.

So I read CWG and I realised I was a deist. After the memory of the books had faded somewhat I simply lived as I chose and tried to make myself happy. But an interesting thing happened a couple of years ago: I read Dawkins' The God Delusion. A Christmas gift from my mother, it had been on my wish-list ever since I saw Dawkins' now-legendary discussion of it at the Randolph-Macon Women's college on youtube. This book made me re-evaluate whatever I considered my spiritual side. Through close introspection (a favourite hobby) I realised that my cynicism regarding religion was well-placed and that I'd basically been living as an atheist for the past decade or so. It's not that Dawkins' words told me what to think or what I was (which would defeat the entire purpose of atheism, reason and freethinking in general); they made me think. They allowed me to crystallise what my beliefs and opinions were on the subject of religion and made me realise what a true danger blind faith can be to reason and rationality and science (as well as providing some great insights on how religion could be spread and how things such as morality may well have evolved as we did). From childhood I'd loved science & nature, from my biology teacher father's shelves full of natural history & palaeontology volumes & subscriptions to New Scientist & Australian Geographic, to the David Attenborough (long may he reign) documentaries we'd sit as a family and be enthralled by, to Carl Sagan's Cosmos series and my eventual deep love for the science fiction of people like Asimov (again, dad's bookshelf - now mine and I wonder if he's noticed that he's missing the entire Foundation series), Clarke, Frank Herbert, William Gibson, Gene Roddenberry and Iain M Banks. Dawkins' arguments appealed to nerdy side of me as well as the part of me that now, almost instinctively, mistrusted religion and an atheist was born! Well, not so much born - an atheist was made to realise he'd actually been one for years and didn't know :)

I didn't experience a profoundly upsetting & negative experience at the hands of religion or its practitioners as, so many unfortunately have; I arrived at atheism in such a quiet, understated way that I didn't realise I was there until a well-spoken professor advised me to simply stop & observe my surroundings. As I think I was already pretty reasonable, the rest just fell into place. "Oh, right ... I suppose I'm an atheist then - all the relevant boxes are ticked. OK then. Good. Now what? Oh right - get on with my life!"

Thanks, Prof Dawkins. I think I'll go and read it again now. Once I finish Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World ...