NEON GODS

Catholic Church - where men wear dresses and funny hats, and women should just STFU.

I don't read Maureen Dowd very often.  Like Richard Cohen of the Washington Post she can make words sing, but often the targets of their ire make me face-palm.

But today Dowd hit a home run today when she excoriated her church.

I ALWAYS liked that the name of my religion was also an adjective meaning all-embracing.

I was a Catholic and I wanted to be catholic, someone engaged in a wide variety of things... So it makes me sad to see the Catholic Church grow so uncatholic, intent on loyalty testing, mind control and heresy hunting. ...

Absolute intolerance is always a sign of uncertainty and panic. Why do you have to hunt down everyone unless you’re weak? The church doesn’t seem to care if its members’ beliefs are based on faith or fear, conviction or coercion. But what is the quality of a belief that exists simply because it’s enforced?

For the life of me I can't understand why any reasonably intelligent human being would remain in the Catholic Church.  Of course they are a great fit for today's Republican party since both want to take America back to the 19th century!

--Trakker

Still waiting for that NYTimes gig...

Like you I get lots of spam.  Most are obviously spam, but every once in awhile one looks almost legitimate.  And sometimes legitimate emails look like spam.  A few weeks ago I got a suspicious email from a magazine reporter saying he had read one of my blog posts and asked if I would agree to an interview with him. Yeah, Right! Do I look like a fool?

But my ego got the best of me and I replied.

It was legitimate.  He was a reporter for a online religious magazine and he wanted my opinion on a fundamentalist Baptist preacher who was questioning the existence of hell.  I had written a post about the preacher about a year ago.  As it turns out I declined to be interviewed because I didn't feel qualified to discuss something I knew little about. In the end we agreed to let him include a paragraph in an email I had sent him as part of our discussion.

The reporter, Raymond Billy, notified me yesterday that his article had been posted and sent me a link. I just find it ironic that I'm quoted in a magazine about religion. What I really want is for the NYTimes to drop Ross Douthat and give the slot to me.

Still waiting...

--Trakker

What does it say about Christians if a 16 year old, fighting for her rights, needs police protection from them?

Back in 1963, when non-Christians were more timid, a large prayer banner was hung in a Cranston West High School hallway.  The prayer began, "Our Heavenly Father, ..." so there was no doubt this was a Christian prayer.  In 2010, an atheist student there, Jessica Ahlquist, saw the banner and, as an atheist, was shocked that her school would promote a Christian prayer.  Surely not all students were Christians.

Most Christians probably don't understand how atheists feel when we see our government take a religious stand.  We are not offended by churches or crosses on necklaces, and stuff like that.  We do get annoyed at the many bumper stickers on cars and people wishing us Merry Christmas, but we know it's not personal.  But when our own government pushes Christianity we see red.  Government is not supposed to takes sides and it is the only protection we have against the tyranny of the majority.

So Jessica complained.  She filed suit.  She won, and that's when the fireworks began.  The judge ordered the school to remove the prayer banner and some of the good Christian people of Cranston went ballistic. 

According to The Examiner,

The prayer banner episode brought out the worst in many residents of Cranston. In what some found to be an open display of religious bigotry, Rhode Island State Representative Peter Palumbo referred to teen atheist Jessica Ahlquist as “an evil little thing." In addition to calling Ahlquist an “evil little thing,” Palumbo also made the claim that “she (Ahlquist) is being coerced by evil people;” the implication being that atheists and other secular Americans are “evil.”

 

Indeed, the hostility and threats directed towards Ahlquist were so intense that at times the 16 year old high school student required a police escort. In addition, four different florists in the Cranston area refused to deliver flowers to Jessica. At least one florist claimed to be frightened of the potential backlash from angry Christians who did not want young Jessica to receive any flowers.

You've got to wonder just how filled with Christian love the people of Cranston are if a 16 year old student, fighting for her constitutional right, needs police protection in their city.

A few days ago the public school district committee voted not to appeal the court decision.  Presumably the banner will be removed and the issue will be laid to rest.

--Trakker

My conscience must be respected also

Lately we've been hearing a lot of whining by the Catholic bishops about how they are being forced to go against their conscience and provide the employees of their non-religious ventures certain health benefits that they don't agree with.  They are throwing a major hissy fit about this even though Obama agreed to modify the requirement so the the Catholic church wouldn't have to pay a penny to provide the coverage.

Listening to this one would think Catholics were the only people in America with a conscience.  Well, I do too and my conscience is pissed that I, as an atheist, must use currency minted at my expense, and is the only cash legal tender in the U.S., that says quite clearly "In God We Trust."  No, I don't trust in God, in fact I'm certain the God referred to on our currency does not even exist.  So I demand that the U.S. Treasury mint special God-free currency for atheists, and not only that, I demand that all cash given to atheists for any reason be the special God-free currency.

--Trakker

Indiana, my Indiana, going all stupid

Oh my God Zeus!  I'm not sure which is worse.

First, the Indiana Republicans controlling the state Senate Education Committee voted to allow creationism to be taught in the state's public schools(!).  Then, the Muncie (IN) StarPress newspaper ran an editorial titled, "What's so bad about creationism in public schools?"(!!) Yes, a prominent newspaper in a city with a large state university (Ball State) thinks teaching creationism in Indiana's public schools is okay.  Why?  Because the editorial writer doesn't have a clue what the word "theory" means especially as used in science.

Theory: 1) a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena: Einstein's theory of relativity. Synonyms: principle, law, doctrine.

The writer believes that by tacking the word "theory" onto creationism that makes it equal to the theory of evolution.  The writer took a lot of hits for that in the comments section (what do you expect in a city with a large university?).

This bill, now ready to be voted on in the Indiana Senate, and the editorial, have now gone national and is becoming a huge black eye for Indiana.  Here's my comment:

I have a diploma from an Indiana high school and I graduated from Indiana University. When Hoosiers like me apply for jobs in this extremely competitive job market, often all candidates have similar credentials and the decision who gets the job comes down to little thing like where you went to school.

In one fell swoop, the Republicans in the Senate Education Committee, who equate creationism with evolution, and an editorial writer at a prominent Indiana newspaper who doesn't know the definition of the term "theory" in science, have just made Indiana look stupid, and those who have been educated in this state look suspect.

This issue has now received national attention and it will mean job seekers educated in Indiana will have a harder time competing against those educated elsewhere...and maybe that's as it should be because one can easily presume that the educational system in Indiana is not prime time judging by the bills proposed and editorials written recently.

Might I suggest that if Indiana wants employers offering good paying jobs to move there, and it's graduates to do well in the job market, their elected leaders should focus less on busting unions and concentrate more on developing intelligent and responsible leaders who have the guts to put an end to pandering to the myth-purveyors.

--Trakker

Another example of how Christians gain converts: the Puckle Gun

The Puckle Gun was invented in 1718 by (you'll never guess!) James Puckle (1667–1724) a British inventor, lawyer and writer.  And evidently a religious nut.

[The Puckle Gun] is a tripod-mounted, single-barreled flitlock weapon fitted with a multishot revolving cylinder. ... It had a pre-loaded cylinder which held 11 charges and could fire 63 shots in seven minutes—this at a time when the standard soldier's musket could at best be loaded and fired three times per minute.

Okay, sounds like a pretty nasty weapon for it's time, but here's why Puckle was so enthused about his gun:

Puckle demonstrated two versions of the basic design: one, intended for use against Christian enemies, fired conventional round bullets, while the second variant, designed to be used against the Muslim Turks, fired square bullets, which were considered to be more damaging and would, according to the patent, convince the Turks of the "benefits of Christian civilization." The square bullets, however, were discontinued due to their unpredictable flight pattern.

Ah, yes, if you shoot people and really, really hurt them bad, they will want to worship your God.  Strangely, turns out the Christian "God" wasn't good enough at doing God things to make those square bullets behave on their way to killing or converting those damn Muslim Turks.  What a missed opportunity.

--Trakker

Fox News and their annual "Democrats Hate Baby Jesus" celebration

In our family we celebrate "Christmas" only because it has become a family tradition, not for any religious significance.  It's a holiday when the family gets together and celebrates the birth of...

...my daughter who was born on Christmas Eve, a day before that fabled person. 

And just like that fabled person, we later found out that she wasn't really born on Christmas Eve after all.  But that's where the similarities end, because unlike Jesus, my (adopted) daughter is real. 

When she and her 10 brothers and sisters were accepted into this country as SE Asian refugees, her parents were asked by the U.S. authorities for the birthdates for all 11 kids.  Since they didn't have a clue what their birth dates were, they just made up some dates - and our daughter's birthdate was arbitrarily designated as December 24.  Poor kid!

Ironically, our other daughter was born on December 30, so we have to shop for birthday presents as well as Christmas gifts.  Thank goodness for Amazon and their wish lists!

Fortunately we don't watch Fox News and their annual "Democrats Hate Christmas And Baby Jesus" celebration designed to get Christians all pissed off, so we get to enjoy the holidays.  So does John Stewart who has a great segment on Fox's feeding frenzy, so check it out while I go buy some more gifts....

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

 

UPDATE: As a godless heathen I would be remiss if I didn't allow Andy Cobb to rebut Gov. Perry's ad.

 

 

 

--Trakker

Republicanism: we tell you what to think so you don't have to

Annie Laurie at Balloon Juice posts an excerpt from an Esquire article about the Republican's hardening resistance to reality.

[Esquire]: ... [F]or most self-identified “conservatives,” it will never matter how high the water rises or how convincingly the evidence mounts, because from the start the debate about global warming has never been a debate in which rules of evidence apply. Rather, it has been a tectonic collision of belief systems, [where] the vision of America as a uniquely secular nation and the vision of America as a uniquely Christian one smash together and create earthquakes before they create mountain ranges, and in which secular Americans expressing concern for their children’s future and Christian Americans expressing concern for their children’s future turn out to be talking about two different things entirely…

... When Limbaugh derides global warming as a “religion,” he’s on to something, ... global warming has become a religion because Rush and Co. have succeeded in making it one. He has succeeded in recasting the global-warming debate in the same way he has succeeded in recasting the debate over everything else, from taxes to health care to gay marriage. He has made an issue that should be amenable only to fact amenable to faith, indeed subservient to it, so that if people don’t “believe” in global warming, it’s not happening. The great secret to the success of the Republican party since it became an arm of the American church and the American corporation is that it pretends to abide by “absolutes” while remaining committed to the relativism at the heart of all religion, which is that if you believe in something, it exists, and if you don’t, it doesn’t. [emphasis mine]

Laurie concludes with this: "It’s taken us some twelve thousand years to reach our current state of affairs, when a tiny minority of the population of one nation-state has the ability to use...“religious impulse” as a weapon that could potentially destroy the entire human biosphere, and not just that part of it within their own limited fiefdom. Ah, progress…"

Republicanism is a faith-based political party, no different than a religion.  To be a Christian or  Republican you have to believe things that common sense says is not true. The "preachers" in the Republican party are rich people who want to protect their wealth even if it means possibly destroying the planet.  They are hedonists who live only for today and the immediate future, and they succeed because too many Americans are too damn lazy (or stupid) to question why the experts are always "wrong" on issues important to Christians and right on everything else.

--Trakker

 

Atheists: 60 million and growing

If Pastor Rob Bell represents an interesting new trend in religion (see the previous post), what about those who have managed to get past religion and accept the fact that there is no god(s) and that religion tends to destructively encourage people to believe in the unbelievable?  What about atheists?

Long after blacks and Jews have made great strides, and even as homosexuals gain respect, acceptance and new rights, there is still a group that lots of Americans just don’t like much: atheists. Those who don’t believe in God are widely considered to be immoral, wicked and angry.

Actually, I've never had anyone flee in horror when I've told them I'm an atheist, except two dear old Jehovah's Witnesses who appeared at my door to convert me.  That was a blessing.

Rarely denounced by the mainstream, this stunning anti-atheist discrimination is egged on by Christian conservatives who stridently — and uncivilly — declare that the lack of godly faith is detrimental to society, rendering nonbelievers intrinsically suspect and second-class citizens.

And we all know why, too.  Deep, deep down inside they suspect we're right, and that scares the b'Jebus outa' them!

Is this knee-jerk dislike of atheists warranted? Not even close.

A growing body of social science research reveals that atheists, and non-religious people in general, are far from the unsavory beings many assume them to be. On basic questions of morality and human decency — issues such as governmental use of torture, the death penalty, punitive hitting of children, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, environmental degradation or human rights — the irreligious tend to be more ethical than their religious peers, particularly compared with those who describe themselves as very religious.

In other words were kinda' liberal, that other group that is hated and loudly denounced by the sanctimonious.  The bottom line is that we don't give in to our darker natures, probably because we don't attend Sunday services led by jerks who know that telling people it's okay to give in to their feelings of hate and greed makes them want to give very generously to the messenger.

And hey, get this:

Consider that at the societal level, murder rates are far lower in secularized nations such as Japan or Sweden than they are in the much more religious United States, which also has a much greater portion of its population in prison. Even within this country, those states with the highest levels of church attendance, such as Louisiana and Mississippi, have significantly higher murder rates than far less religious states such as Vermont and Oregon.

Now for the real good news:

As with other national minority groups, atheism is enjoying rapid growth. Despite the bigotry, the number of American nontheists has tripled as a proportion of the general population since the 1960s. Younger generations’ tolerance for the endless disputes of religion is waning fast. Surveys designed to overcome the understandable reluctance to admit atheism have found that as many as 60 million Americans — a fifth of the population — are not believers. Our nonreligious compatriots should be accorded the same respect as other minorities.

So if you are one of the 60 million who have rejected the craziness of religion, might I suggest a visit to the Freedom From Religion Foundation website here.  Consider joining - they have a great newsletter.  It even comes in the mail with no visible identification on the outside if you are worried about what the neighbors think.

--Trakker

A newer, questioning evangelicalism?

Pastor Rob Bell is an evangelical pastor who actually questions what he preaches, and that makes him a) unusual, and b) dangerous to fundamentalism. 

There is nothing Christ-like in most fundamental Christianity today (if there ever was).  Fundamentalism seems to be underlain by two emotions: superiority and hate.  Their unshakable faith in their religion makes them feel superior to the rational, thinking, and educated people whom they look down on, and it leads them to hate those who try to argue with them logically.  Many seem to get a grim satisfaction from the thought that those of us who resist their ugly religion are going to burn in hell forever and ever.

It's not surprising that some evangelicals rebel against those negative hateful emotions.  They actually believe that Christianity should be a religion focused on love, not hate.

Let me insert my feelings here.  I'm an athiest who is very comfortable knowing there is no God.  I don't need that crutch to lean on to get me through the day, year, life.  Other good people evidently do need the crutch that religion provides.  They join churches, and some of those churches are evangelical.  They embrace the good teachings and ignore the crazy or negative stuff.  Or try to.  Pastor Rob Bell is one of them, and he is gaining a following.  Good.

The only way a fundamentalist Christian can ever break from the craziness that is religion is to think and question.  If Rob Bell encourages this, that's great.  In my opinion, the more you question, the greater chance you will finally conclude that believing in a God who's "Bible" is full of contradictions and can be interpreted in so many different ways on very important doctrines but who refuses to appear occasionally to clear up these contradictions, is crazy.

Whatever. Even if Rob Bell's followers don't eventually reject religion, at least he provides an alternative to those churches that encourage hate and superiority, and discourage anyone from questioning what they are hearing from the pulpit.

--Trakker