Atheists at the Table

Show from: Nov. 4, 2009

2009-11-05T10:19:00.000-08:00

Here are thinks to the news items discussed on the show:

http://saintgasoline.com/2009/09/29/researchers-clone-god-uncover-theological-mysteries/

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080921/COMMENTARY/809219997/-1/RSS

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/europe/04briefs-Crucifix.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/middleeast/04sensors.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/us/politics/05maine.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-na-health-religion3-2009nov03,0,2239900.story

Not Discussed:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,3846,n,n

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-8947-LA-Atheism-Examiner~y2009m10d23-Houston-woman-fights-city-hall-to-stop-prayer

And my rant on God's right to judge:

Okay, it’s time to tackle yet another of our “basic assumptions.” The one up for review? The one that assumes that God has the right to judge us. And let me put up for clarity now that I will be working off of the Judeo-Christian god, for reasons of relating to this Christianity saturated culture. The Bible is filled with examples of God’s wrath and his “holy” and “righteous” judgment. God will not let into the gates of his heavenly city “dogs, and socerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.” For the Isrealites who did not keep his law as set down in Leviticus he would send down terror; lethal tuberculosis and fevers. If “Man lie with man as with woman” they are to be killed. If one is to break any law, be it eating of swine, commiting adultery, or whatsoever, God will “continue to punish you sevenfold.” That’s right. Now, I’ve heard of “an eye for an eye” but I’ve not heard of “two eyes, a nose, the ears, your tounge, and perhaps an arm for an eye.” No, that would be unjust, especially by today’s standards. But God will rain down “terror” on his own chosen people for betraying the slightest law. Indeed, he prefaces his promise of terror by saying that he will bring the destruction if “you do not observe all these commandments.” The usual argument for all these strict laws is usually that they were for health reasons and to keep an identity as a nation, however, what good is a law to protect your health when the penalty for forgetting that law is death? What good is a national identity if the laws are broken and the nation is destroyed? Many will say that God is our father and therefore has the right to tell you what to do, and to do what he will with you, his creation. I wholeheartedly disagree. The idea that “I made you, I can destroy you” is absolutely wicked. We know that a father here on Earth could not simply do away with his child should that child come to displease him. Why is God given this right? Let me stretch this analogy further, to encompass my frustration and irritation with “final judgment.” I would say that an Earthly father has more right to judge us than God does. A Judge here on Earth has more right, and I’ll say why in a moment. But his is not the “ultimate justice that so many crave. People want to know how I can deal with not thinking that there is some ultimate justice. Well, that’s not something I can decide on how to deal with. Some people get justice, some don’t. It’s a fact of life. But I know that I sure as hell wouldn’t want some holier than thou being judging me, or anyone else. How can an eternal, supposedly all good, all powerful being ever possible decide what is justice for us mere humans with our human whims and human emotions? That’s why here on Earth we have a jury of peers because they are the only ones who have even a remote understanding of our situations in life. It’s why our laws have been developed by men over thousands of years. God has never had to lose a loved one, fear for his life, or support a family; God has never been a homosexual, wondered where he will go when he dies, or wondered if he exists. How could he POSSIBLY know how to judge us? I will be told that it is because God is good. And not only is he good, he is perfect goodness and that we cannot question whether or not he is good, because of course he is good, he is the pinnacle of good; he is above us and his ways are not ours. They say we cannot understand why he does what he does. But I say that’s a bunch of hogwash. We may not understand why one man kills another, or if he had some purpose in mind, we still know that it is inherently wrong to kill another man, even if the murderer decided it was “good.” And if God’s ways are above our reasoning, then who are we to say if his ways are good OR bad to begin with. It’s all absurdities. Of course we can question whether or not God is good. How did our ancestors decide that he was good in the first place? They based it on their own ethical evaluations. Ethical evaluations that have changed! The standards of ethics and morality are changing and improving over most of the world. It’s not okay, in most places, to kill someone for stealing or for consensual sodomy. Humanity’s sense of moral has changed GREATLY from God’s as he set down in the Bible. It has changed for the better. For humankind as it is now our goodness depends on kindness, love, mercy, compassion. These are good and we know it. We don’t need mysticism or a higher power to understand that love is good, that kindness is good, that mercy is good, that helping people is good. God serves his own interests and judges us based on whether or not we fit into his “plan.” I don’t want to be judged by that. I would rather not be judged at all, for who, truly, can ever understand the nuanced lives of any person on Earth and what drives them to righteousness or piety, but should I be judged, I would want to be judged on whether or not I was a good person, and be judged by those who know me and understand me. God coming down as Jesus doesn’t cut it for understanding humans. Jesus knew who he was (GOD) and where he was going (HEAVEN). If we KNEW that God existed and KNEW where we went after death you can be sure that piety and would be much easier. Jesus: thanks, but no thanks. I’ll take oblivion before I spend eternity bowing before you.

Show from: Oct. 28, 2009

2009-10-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

Here are the links for the news articles from the show this week:

http://www.utne.com/Spirituality/Overloading-Gods-Servers-Atheism-5679.aspx?utm_content=10.28.09+Spirituality&utm_campaign=Spirituality&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email

http://www.atheistnexus.org/group/atheistnews/forum/topics/pushing-a-button-more-work

http://jonathanturley.org/2009/10/06/blasphemy-american-style-obama-administration-supports-resolution-on-limiting-free-speech-to-bar-criticism-of-religion/

http://www.atheistnexus.org/group/atheistnews/forum/topics/50year-study-shows-the-obvious

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2285881/amazing_grace_baptist_church_to_burn.html?cat=8

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_god_button_home_depot

Show From: Oct. 14, 2009 (ABORTION RANT)

2009-10-21T23:11:00.000-07:00

Abortion Rant

So, my topic for this week is abortion. This can be a touchy subject, and my particular viewpoints will not make the subject much easier to swallow. All the same, I ask you to hear me out to the end, as the final reasoning of my ideas make the face of my beliefs seem less extreme, or so I believe.
I do not have a problem with abortion, far from it. I fully support abortion, for any reason, of any unborn fetus. I believe that the happiness of any functioning human far outweighs any concern for what is no more than a small mass of cells.
And here comes the doozy: I support something that I term a “fourth trimester abortion.” Think about that for a second. Yes, I said it. I support the deliberate putting-to-death of an infant, up to three months after birth, in cases were the child is significantly mentally or physically disabled, to the point where we could reasonably determine that the negative experiences of their life would outweigh the positive ones.
You see, I put value on sentience—the power of experiencing sensation and feelings. With sentience we have the only thing that truly matters: the basis for the human condition, the ability to experience pain and experience joy. I do value different lives in different ways. Allow me to illustrate. In the hypothetical situation of choosing to save either the five year old or the fifteen year old, I choose the fifteen year old. Why? First, on the personal basis of the teen: he or she has the heightened ability to understand the value of life, and is in greater fear of death. They are fully conscious of the pain they will face and are able to consider the existential questions of what happens when I die, which add to the fear. They have formed connections and have memories, all of which they will b even more distraught to lose. Furthermore, the teen has had ten more years during which they have interacted with others, forming bonds with many more persons than the child. In this way, the death of the teen will cause significantly more people to grieve his loss. Returnging to the five year old, we must consider that they do not have the higher thinking ability and will not be able to consider the greater consequences of his or her death. The experience for them is significantly less traumatizing in this way. And, paralleling my example with the teen, the child does not have many connections to the people around them, and those they have been with have not had as much time to form as concrete bonds as the teen has. For someone like me, who values the greatest positivity in the world and the least negativity, there is a great difference in the value of a life.
But there are exceptions to this idea I have. What if the five year old is a child prodigy and the teenager is a severely handicapped person whose constant situation is to experience discomfort? In that case, who I save switches. Everything comes down to: how much positivity can we allow in the world and how much negativity can we prevent?
I save the adult over the child, the child over the dog, the dog over the ant, the ant over the amoeba. Descending levels of sentience, descending levels of value.
When it comes to destroying a fetus, we can be relatively certain that it has no emotional cognition. For that, you need a reference point. You need to know what sets off the pleasure center of your brain versus the pain center; you need to understand the value of being conscious before you can begin to concern yourself with the vagaries of the possibility of never being conscious again. Fetuses lack al of this. Therefore, their destruction leads to no positive or negative emotion from the fetus itself. Therefore, if the mother is made happy by the fetus’s destruction then we have introduced more positive emotion into the world.
Now, to defend my position on the so-called fourth trimester abortion, I say this: some abortions are too dangerous to do inside the womb, and some disabilities are not discovered until a little while after the child is born. Before the child grows up and has experiences, and begins to develop those reference points that allow them to begin to understand and better feel pain and terror, we could determine, somehow, if the child’s disability would lead to a significantly negative life. We draw an arbitrary line at three months so as to prevent things going out of control. This allows time for the child’s condition to develop and for the family and physicians to discuss the options and the child’s proposed quality of life. If the parents choose to keep the child and raise it as best they can, then alright. If the parents choose to be humane and allow the child to be killed, all the better. There is enough suffering in the world. Let’s stop some of it before it has a chance to get started.
Now I will discuss a few counterpoints. The biggest argument I hear is the “life begins at conception” idea. Any religiously based defenses of this are dismissed out of hand. People say that a fetus is human and humans have rights, therefore fetus’s have rights, QED. This particular argument is fundamentally flawed, and is easily demonstrated as such. First off, humans do not inherently have rights because we are human. Our governments and our society affords us that. Beyond that, we know that merely being human does not give you equal rights to every other human within the same social or political environment. Humans are given different rights based on a variety of different factors. You get sent to jail, you loose some rights. You’re born a male, you lose the right to enter a women’s room. You turn eighteen you earn the right to vote; you turn twenty-one you earn the right to drink alcohol. If you are born Native American you are given the right to cultivate an otherwise highly illegal substance. And, for the most part, if you are unborn, you have no right to life. There is nothing inherent in one’s genetic composition that affords it any rights.
And don’t give me the adoption argument. There are too many children needing to be adopted as is in this world. We don’t need any more.
The other big objection I hear is that of what I will call the “Baby Mozart Fallacy,” this idea that just because the child could turn out to be the next Mozart that it needs to live. First off, this argument dies when you propose that the fetus could also turn out to be the next Jeffery Dahmer. Secondly, potential proves nothing. It is not a real positive effect on the world, but an imagined one. And thirdly, the potentiality argument is shown to be a bit absurd when we consider that every one of my own ejaculations has the potential to be a person. Should I run to a sperm bank every time I need to masturbate? Should every woman, from the moment she begins to menstruate be required to conceive, lest she deposit hundreds of little potential Johnnies and Janies onto little Kotex pads over the course of her life? How would we even keep up with all that potential, what with the millions of viable sperm in every ejaculation and the severe dearth of women to accomadate that. Theoretically, I could produce enough sperm to bless every fertile woman on Earth with a little Edwin Jr. But then what about the potential of my co-host’s sperm? Granted, I may be taking this argument on a small trip down a slippery slope, but I’m trying to prove the point that you can put the moment of potential at any point on the line. Some people just want to place that arbitrary moment at the point when the sperm and the egg come together. I say, potentiality is imaginary, and is therefore insufficient to base legislation on.
To sum up my argument: if a woman wants to kill anything in her womb, even just for kicks, I say go for it. If the child has been born and a handicap that we could reasonably determine to cause more pain than joy can be identified within three months of the birth I say allow the parents to terminate the child. In my heart of hearts I’d honestly say we should require it.

Show from Oct. 21, 2009

2009-10-21T23:08:00.000-07:00

I apologize for taking so long to put the shows up on iTunes and get these show notes out. Everything should be finished uploading by tomorrow evening.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biology_evolution/article6879293.ece

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/world/europe/21pope.html?_r=1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shermer/an-open-letter-to-bill-ma_b_323834.html

Show From : Sept. 30, 2009

2009-10-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

This is the script from the September 30, 2009 show. It includes Godless Wisdom and the news items.

Today we have an article from Search Magazine by Sam Kean entitled “Open to Revisions.”

Sam Webster has serious tech credentials. He has lived for decades in the San Francisco Bay area, a techie Mecca. Back in the early 1990s, before most people had even heard of the Internet, he was writing code for some of the early sites on the World Wide Web. He’s now a systems analyst, or, as he says, “I’m a geek for a living.”
What Webster never envisioned himself as was a prophet. He’d been involved in a pagan group called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (left) since the early 1980s, and in February 2001, he decided to hold a workshop on his religion in the Bay area. “I never thought it would catch on,” he admits, but people took a shine to the order. They decided to establish a permanent chapter in northern California.
At the same time, Webster and his fellows were itching to remake themselves. The Hermetic Order grew out of Free Masonry and Kabbalah, a school of Jewish mysticism. “But we didn’t want to do the traditional things like adhere to secrecy,” Webster says. The group also wanted to incorporate practices from other mainstream faiths, include women in their mix, and, perhaps most important, put a mechanism in place to make room for good ideas in the future. So the group self-consciously decided to involve its members by encouraging them to tinker with the order’s structure and practices. And that’s the moment when Webster realized his dual role as geek and prophet.
“I said, ‘Wait a minute, there’s a name for this’,” Webster remembers. “Open source.”
Open-source religion is an amalgamation of two ways of thinking about the world. The first is religion, a common set of practices, rituals, and beliefs. It’s as old as the hills, one of the most enduring traits of humankind. The “open source” component is new, an unforeseen consequence of the Internet revolution of the 1990s. It’s a reference to open-source computer code, code that anyone is allowed to rewrite, add to, or delete. Most websites or blogs are not open source, because even when the pages change frequently, a handful of people at most make all the changes. Wikipedia is open source because many people collaborate to produce one common text.
The best-known example of open-source software is Linux, an operating system released in 1991 by a Finn name Linus Torvalds. Unlike Microsoft XP or the Macintosh OS, Linux is free. The latest versions of it represent the fruit of millions of man-hours of labor—people poring over arcane code to improve Linux’s security, compatibility, aesthetics, speed, etc., without any hope of compensation or gain. And by many measures Linux performs better than its for-profit competitors: So many eyes have gone over the code, it’s unlikely anything has been overlooked. Linux also draws on more people for ideas, and it’s easier to incorporate good ideas into Linux because users don’t have to wait for a corporation to roll out a new product. They can download a patch from the Internet in minutes.
So why doesn’t everyone use Linux? Perhaps because it’s unfamiliar, even scary, and for things they’re unfamiliar with, people prefer to trust experts and professionals. They often mistrust the idea of mass participation. The same holds true for religion. In dealing with supernatural or spiritual phenomena, rabbis and priests and medicine men who can draw on pre-existing faith traditions can provide comfort that newer, changeable religions cannot. (If nothing else, how often do people convince themselves of something by saying, “It’s ancient wisdom. The so-and-so peoples have been doing this for thousands of years?”)
But adherents of open-source religion note that tradition can calcify into dogma, and if there’s one common trait to people who practice open-source religion, it’s distaste for dogma. Some open-source believers want to found entirely new religions, and some merely want to reinvigorate a mainstream faith. All want to change people’s perceptions of religion from something that’s handed down to them, something they receive, and make religion something people do. All religions evolve, of course, but the tinkering inherent to open-source religions can benefit founders and followers alike, Webster says. “When you share what you learn, you learn better,” he notes, “and the content evolves that much more efficiently.”
For an example of how open-source religions work in practice, Douglas Rushkoff, founder of the Open Source Judaism movement, cited a project he started around the Haggadah, the Jewish text that lays out the practices of the Passover Seder meal and all the associated prayers and family rituals.
Rushkoff first approached open-source Judaism more from the techie side than the religious side. He was both inspired by the possibilities of widespread, democratic, participatory media like the Internet, but also fearful that the Internet could be used to manipulate people or invade their privacy on an unprecedented scale.
So, he says, he looked for “historical examples of how people had dealt with media before, ethical templates,” and he found some examples in his own religion. He was most excited about flexible templates that people could alter as they needed, and this led directly to open-source Haggadah. Rushkoff set up a website for Jews to upload pictures, prayers, and descriptions of their Seder meals, encouraging people to adapt the practices however they wanted.
It’s a modest example, but it’s actually a good test of the viability of open-source practices in religions. Among the areas of Judaism appropriate for open-source revisions, Rushkoff cited Torah commentary as the most obvious example. (He also cited interfaith studies, including the study of how Judaism originated in relation to other religions.) One area of Judaism not amenable to open-source change, he discovered, was ritual practices. This surprised Rushkoff, since he supposed that actions were less intrinsically part of a person’s religion than beliefs, but he says, “people really depend on it for some reason. People are much less likely to engage in ritual in a do-it-yourself fashion.”
This observation seems borne out on the Open Source Haggadah website. It’s impossible to say how many people downloaded texts and adapted them privately, and the site’s webmaster notes that financial and technical limitations have curbed the site’s impact, but beyond the basic, traditional Haggadah, few people bothered posting additional ideas or commentary. These days, much of the site’s activity has migrated to projects run by affiliated groups such as Matzat and Jew-It-Yourself.
Webster agreed that in his Golden Dawn Order, rituals often don’t change much once they get set, remaining rather conservative. “We have some rituals that are pretty honed,” he says. He gave the example of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, an invocation that links the four cardinal directions and the archangels Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and Uriel, and which has existed for centuries. But honed doesn’t mean inflexible, Webster adds. “We approach it like it’s a really good recipe, but you might add a little bit of cinnamon or cheese.” In the Pentagram ritual, the “cinnamon or cheese” substitutions might mean invoking a different set of sacred figures than the archangels, for instance.
Limitations aside, followers say that Judaism and paganism are among the religions most amenable to open-source practices. In Judaism, that springs from both the participatory nature of Talmud commentary and the early history of the religion, says Rushkoff. “The more I looked at Judaism, it was largely the result of the invention of text, a religion based on the contract-covenant, writing your own laws instead of living according to preexisting laws.” He sees no reason why Jews today cannot continue to write their own laws. In fact, he feels that “institutional Judaism” often betrays that original ideal.
As for paganism (or “neopaganism,” as the modern practice is called; symbols of modern pagans are shown to the left) some scholars also see an open-source ethos built directly into its foundation. In an essay titled “Learning about Paganism,” scholar Helen Berger traces the constant revision of neopaganism to its not being “a religion of ‘The Book,’ but of [many] books,” from which people could select what suited them. She added that “most American neopagans are solitary practitioners” who can adopt new practices more readily than larger groups can.
Douglas Cowen, in his book Cyberhenge, goes even further, making an explicit analogy to computer coding: “Pagans are ‘hacking’ their own religious traditions out of the ‘source codes’ provided by pantheons, faith practices, liturgies, rituals, and divinatory practices drawn from a variety of cultures worldwide.” Given all that “hacking,” it’s no wonder that, as Webster says, “There are a huge number of pagan people in the high-tech space.”
Rushkoff and especially Webster talk about transforming their religious inheritance by updating it with new knowledge and ideas. Other people who practice open-source religion have much different intentions—some aim to found entirely new religions, others simply to tweak a mainstream religion and make it more relevant for the modern world.
Andrew Perriman falls into the latter set, having, as he says “come out of a fairly normal evangelical background” in Great Britain. “‘Open source’ in this instance is really only a metaphor for a much more transparent and collaborative approach to doing theology within what is to my mind still a mainstream Christian tradition.”
Perriman started a website called OpenSourceTheology.net after noticing that the modern evangelical movement was rebelling against “pre-packaged” theology in much the same way that Linux users rebelled against pre-written software from Microsoft. “People feel they’ve been told how to think, and feel they don’t have much scope to think for themselves,” he says. That view of theology as closed off is particularly true in Europe, he adds, “where people regard Christianity as a historical disaster. If [Christianity] has a future at all it will require quite a radical rethinking of what this faith narrative means, going to back to the biblical story and asking how we can re-appropriate it.”
Perriman’s approach to open-source religion, then, might be best described as legalistic. In the modern jurisprudence system, process is everything: Even when we “know” somebody is guilty or innocent, he still has to stand trial, and trials are judged as fair if the correct procedure is followed throughout. In other words, the process gets privilege over the end result and verdict of the trial.
Perriman, who has a Ph.D. in theology and works as an independent writer and theologian, thinks theology should work the same way. Unlike what most people believe, “Theology is not a set of beliefs, it’s a shared mindset,” he argues. And revising theology through open-source means is “more an issue of methodology than [of challenging] a particular point of content.”
As a result, Perriman cannot yet point to any doctrinal changes that open-source Christianity has brought about. At the same time, he said, especially compared with the authoritarian traditions of evangelical Christianity, “It’s significant that people feel they can explore [changes] without transgressing in some horrible way that will get them thrown out of the church.”
Perriman’s is one view of what open-source religion can do: Get people involved, even if not much changes about their faith in the end. Those interested in founding new religions, which lack a coherent, pre-established body of beliefs and practices, take a different view. Daniel Kriegman, founder of a new religion called Yoism, stresses that content and process have to work together in a fledgling movement because many things will likely change at the beginning. “It’s extremely important what you end up with, since it has to comport to everyone’s experience. Content has to be something we convincingly believe.”
Kriegman works as a psychologist and has long studied the interplay of psychology, evolutionary biology, and religion. And after years of inquiry, he has some rather strong views about the dangers of traditional religions. “Human history is the history of mass murders,” he said, “and it all seems to be organized about these crazy belief systems.” When he really gets going on the topic, Kriegman likes to make gorilla noises for emphasis, which to him are the onomatopoeic embodiment of dangerous groupthink. About old-time religion, he says, “This way of knitting together a group into an ideological system and going ‘oo-oo-oo-oo!’ has ancient roots.”
After growing more and more distressed about the dangers of religion, Kriegman finally had an epiphany: “What if someone developed a religion that made sense, and that people could test and see for themselves?” He started calling his idea an open-source religion after his son, an early adopter of Linux, described the parallels to Kriegman. (Kriegman claims he was the first person to found an open-source religion. Others credit Webster.)
Though jazzed about the prospects of founding a new religion to combat old religions, Kriegman hesitated: “I was embarrassed. I’m going to start a new religion? Every once in a while a psychologist goes off the deep end, and I was afraid my colleagues might think that was me.” But he soon founded a church called “Ozacua,” a portmanteau made up of the names of his three sons. It was also a character (a giant) in a bedtime fairy tale he used to tell them. Its moral was “United we stand, divided we fall.” He based the Ozacua religion on a cocktail of rational inquiry, empiricism, and science. His group eschews talk of visions, for instance, since however real the vision may be to the visionary, no one else in the group can experience it. To this rationalism—and here’s the religious angle—Kriegman mixed in a healthy dram of the pantheistic god of Spinzoa (above) and Einstein, a sort of life force that permeates the universe. It’s science that respects mystery and preserves awe.
Things were going well for Kriegman’s religion early on, until he almost ran aground on an uncomfortable disagreement: People liked the religion but hated the name. A lot. For an open-source religion, this was a sure test of its viability. In a religion more imbued with priestly authority, the flock can be overruled if the high priest dislikes the change. Kriegman wasn’t a priest in his religion, but he had a natural leadership role as its founder—not to mention a personal attachment to the name—and the soft, focus-group-like rebellion of his adherents concerned him. “I was not upset about losing the name,” he says, as much as “upset that people assumed [the religion] would become too associated with me, that it was a sort of cult underneath.”
In the end, a few dozen fellow believers had long debates about the name before they finally settled on Yoism, which is derived from Yo, the name they gave the vague spirit-force that permeates their universe. At first “yo” was a meaningless syllable, but group members have since come across many pleasing associations: “yo” means “I” in Spanish and “friend” in Chinese (hence Yo-Yo Ma), and is reminiscent of “you” in English. A few African cultures use the word in their creation myths as well, Kriegman says. In fact the name grew to have so many associations that Kriegman joked that perhaps god wanted it that way: “It’s like a miracle!”
He also adds, more seriously, “The mind finds lots of coincidences and puts them together, but [the name] does come to mean lots of things.” And those layers of meaning are something the few thousand followers of Yoism worldwide can share.
The question about the future of open-source religion is the same question that haunts any new religious movement—will it last? Most new religions don’t, and many versions of open-source religion are working at a disadvantage. For all the prosaic reasons people follow one faith or another—it’s what they grew up with, it’s socially advantageous, etc.—many people stick with a faith because they believe in its principles and doctrines.
But the aversion of open-source religions to doctrine and dogmas makes it seems likely they will have trouble attracting followers who need that core, that bedrock. For if every idea is at least open to revision, even if it doesn’t change in practice, religion can lose its authority, and doubts can creep in. Would Christianity really be Christianity if people could vote that Christ was not divine? Would Hinduism remain Hinduism if people could throw out reincarnation? (Even in the radically democratic world of open-source computing, Linux founder Torvalds and a few trusted advisors retain exclusive control over the Linux “kernel,” its most important underlying code.) If the beliefs are so arbitrary that majority votes can change them, why believe at all?
Indeed, there’s a certain lackadaisicalness about some open-source religions. Kriegman has been meaning to develop an initiation rite for Yoism for years but hasn’t quite gotten around to it, and he admits that other projects have fallen by the wayside. This includes his sometime battle to restore the Wikipedia page about his group, a page someone deleted as too marginal a topic. Wikipedia is an important tool for a religion founded on the principles of the free and open Internet, and Kriegman fought the deletion with Wikipedia administrators. But after losing his appeal, he hasn’t done much lately. He seems to lack the fanaticism that, for better or worse, does mark successful new religions. It’s hard to imagine John Calvin or Mohammed not fighting back.
With open-source Judaism, its founder, Rushkoff has more or less dropped out of the movement, though he still believes in it and promotes it when he can. As to the reason, he said, “No one really wanted to fund it, and at least at the time, most Jews weren’t really interested.” Even more importantly, “I wasn’t really committed to it to the point where I would contend with all the crap that comes with pushing an idea before its time.”
However much they adhere to the ideal of open source, most open-source religions do in practice maintain at least a few core and inviolable beliefs. If nothing else, their commitment to openness and the possibility of constant revision is itself a dogma. What’s more, there are other reasons people stick with a religion beyond fanatic commitment to it. Those reasons include community ties and a stable tradition, and here at least there’s evidence that open-source religions might have an advantage over traditional religions.
Rushkoff explains that religions with priests and elite castes are often committed to maintaining a status quo. But on the other hand, if change is necessary, the small number of people in charge make it easier to change the religion all at once, via fiat. “But I think in open-source, change is actually slower and more steady,” he says.
Plus, he adds, even if open-source religions weaken ties with the past by changing rituals or reinterpreting texts, open-source work can also help each generation of believers cohere among themselves
“It’s every generation’s obligation to reinterpret and reboot the religion,” Rushkoff says. “It’s much harder to accept and understand, but it’s actually a form of continuity, too.”
And now onto news!

From the New York Times, “Holy month ends, and violence rises again in Iraq.”

Eighteen people were killed and at least 55 others were wounded in bombings across Iraq on Monday as the country’s level of violence picked up again after a relative lull during the holy month of Ramadan.
Monday’s attacks occurred in Shiite and Sunni areas of the country and took aim not only at the Iraqi Army and the police but also at civilians.

Also from the NY Times, “When Religion is involved, a game is just that.”

This is a most wonderful gesture, having the Yankees and the Red Sox play at 1 p.m. on Sunday. It could even be the start of something better.
Instead of putting the game at 8 p.m. — prime time, as the networks call it — ESPN and Major League Baseball are accommodating thousands of fans who at sundown will be observing Yom Kippur, the most solemn day in the Jewish calendar.
Not only that, but the N.F.L. has allowed both New York teams to play at 1 on Sunday — Jets at home, Giants on the road — just to get the tackling and selling and screaming over before sundown.

Next, from The Guardian, “JK Rowling lost out on US medal over Harry Potter witchcraft.”

A memoir by George W Bush's former speechwriter claims that Bush administration officials objected to giving JK Rowling a presidential medal of freedom on the grounds that her Harry Potter books "encouraged witchcraft".
According to the liberal American blog Think Progress, Matt Latimer's Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor reveals how politicised the medal, which is America's highest civilian honour, became during the Bush administration.
Latimer, whose memoir was published last week by Crown in the US, says that the "narrow thinking" of "people in the White House" led them "to actually object to giving the author JK Rowling a presidential medal because the Harry Potter books encouraged witchcraft".
The medal is given to "individuals who make an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavours". During the Bush administration, it was awarded to individuals including Tony Blair, Harper Lee, Muhammad Ali, Alan Greenspan, Nelson Mandela, Doris Day and Charlton Heston.
The first 16 recipients of Barack Obama's presidential medal, handed out in August, included Stephen Hawking and Senator Ted Kennedy – who, according to Latimer's book, failed to receive the medal during the Bush administration because he was "a liberal".

Show From : Sept. 23, 2009

2009-09-26T19:17:00.000-07:00

This is the script from the September 23, 2009 show. It includes Edwin's rant on the 9/11 steel beam crucifix, Godless Wisdom, and the news items.

I have a little rant that I have to share. It’s based around 9/11 and I was hoping to share it closer to the date, but I suppose it doesn’t matter much anyway. This little monologue of mine will help new members of the panel, and new listeners to kind of get an idea for the type of stuff I’m thinking and whatnot. Take everything with a grain of salt and the understanding that I’m rather big on tongue in cheek humor. I don’t hate God, I don’t hate religious people—let’s get that out of the way to start with.

I would like to note, before I begin, that I am about to say a number of things that may prove inflammatory and instead of stopping every few moments to assert that these are my opinions alone, I will make it clear now that all that follows is born of my individual opinion, and while I’m pretty certain that my opinions are right and your are wrong, that is, in and of itself, an opinion, so proceed with caution.\

Walking through the science buildings in the university I saw many well decorated professors’ doors, most containing some comic strip cut out tossing a jab at creationism, religion, spirituality, and general unreason. However, at one point, I had the misfortune of passing by a secretary’s office where I saw on the door a cardboard framed image of the crossed beams left standing at the World Trade Center. Irritation, a dash of anger, and a smidgen of nausea overcame me. This usually happens when I see that image given a place of respect,.
What could possibly be the reason for showing such great appreciation towards those two crossed beams? Let us forget for a moment that there were undoubtedly thousands of crossed beams between those two buildings and one surviving is no great surprise; let us ignore that a true miracle would have been the spontaneous intangibility of the planes which allowed them to pass directly through the buildings; let us banish the notion that all God needed to do was create a strong enough gust of wind to knock the plane off course; let us unfathom the idea that God could have at least left the towers standing—and let us presuppose miraculous nature of the crossed beams. Well, the miraculous nature of the Christian god anyway. Screw the dead Jews, Hindus, and atheists. Oh, and let’s also forget that the whole of the day’s events (steel crucifix excluded) do point to the presence and assistance of a god—Allah.
What possible comfort could the presence of a crucifix at the site of one of this nation’s worst massacres possibly provide? Is it the message that “God was there?” Is that supposed to make you feel better—that God was there, in all his omnipotent grace, watched, with all his omniscient wonder, and made a clear choice not to act. God was there on that beautiful September morning, immaterial in the clear sky, but didn’t even see fit to let United 93 down gently into the fields of Pennsylvania. God could have done any number of things to reduce the horror of that day, but he chose not to.
Perhaps it was god’s plan to send the U.S. to war; however, only one tower need have fallen and America still would have mobilized for war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The package deal was unnecessary to coerce this nation into battle. There was no miracle that day. There is no greater proof that if God does exist he doesn’t care the smallest bit about us, than the fact that he didn’t even see fit to reach out his hand and guide the Pennsylvania flight to safety. One saved plane and perhaps I could rationalize away the awe people would have with God, looking through their flimsy worldview.
The reality of this, where God is concerned, is that He was there but chose to do nothing. What a slap in the face.
How dare these people prostrate themselves before a god who couldn’t care less about their measly lives? How terribly, horribly pathetic, that we humans would reduce ourselves, through prayer and supplication, to groveling for our lives. Show some gumption and flip God the bird! He screwed you over—he showed you exactly what he thinks of your insignificance—and now you owe him nothing more than your disdain. Are such a great quantity of Americans the type of people who, when marched towards certain death, would scream and plead and flail about for their lives? Are there not more brave souls who would drag their feet below a stolid mien and lay down their own necks at the chopping block just to show their captors that they care not for the cruelty of what is to be done? Perhaps not. Perhaps that is by far too idealistic.
But even so, didn’t the Lord say in Matthew that whenever two people are gathered in His name and ask for one thing it shall be done? He did, in Matthew 18:19. Look it up. And you can’t tell me that there weren’t at least two people praying not to die as flames charred flesh to bone and smoke ravaged throats. Maybe there was an odd number of people praying; maybe He only answers prayer in groups of people that are divisible by two.
But allow me to present a response to my rant thus far.
I was walking with someone that night I saw the picture on the secretary’s door. Playing Angel’s Advocate, she suggested that it was a reminder that, yes, indeed, God was there, and that he has a plan, that it was all part of a plan. This, supposedly, is some sort of comfort to people. It means there is a purpose and a reason for existence and for suffering. But using even a quarter ounce of freethinking magic dust and sprinkling it over our poor, weak heads, I think we can realize that this is no comfort at all.
First off, if God has a plan for you to reach some end for Him, He has made it clear that you are expendable in this cosmic drive towards success. Not only are you expendable, but since God is supposedly all-powerful, then he could achieve his goals instantly, without you, but instead chooses to play a game with our lives. Indeed, you have zero worth to him. You are expendable and interchangeable. For those of you convinced that God loves you: newsflash—this is not love. If you do, indeed, have a relationship with god, I believe it’s what is referred to as abusive. He hurts you, then tells you he loves you, makes it all better, hurts you again, and repeat. Sounds healthy to me. But I’m getting off topic; my apologies.
Furthermore, if there is a plan, that means you are due to die at some point, irrespective of your desires or wishes. If it is in God’s plan, you will live to a hundred and fifty, or you will die tonight. There is no security in this. You’re living life where each survived day is an empty chamber in a game of Russian Roulette. This is true whether or not God exists. The only difference is that, in the theistic worldview, God’s pulling the trigger and he knows exactly where the bullet is and he’s not going to unload it except into your skull.
But you don’t want to die. You want to grovel and piss yourself in front of this megalomaniac for the chance at eternal life, because you’re scared. But eternal life? Really? Why? What value does your existence have if it is eternal? Once you’ve read every book thrice, and watched every frame of every piece of film ever, listened to every radio transmission, and studied the life of every single sub-atomic particle throughout all the multiverse’s existences, and you have fraternized for a thousand years with every person who has ever lived—you will still have another eternity to go, and one after that, and one after that, and an infinity number of eternities after that. But I digress.
What’s that you say? Perhaps God is testing us? Well, I’d say you don’t test one person by killing another; Hollywood tried that already—it’s the plot to the Saw movies.
You believe God was there on September 11th, and isn’t that a comfort to you? How dare you spit on the ashes of every person who died that day? God left a symbol instead of a building? How dare you urinate in the faces of every family affected? God is testing us? Does that mean everyone who died that morning failed? It was all in God’s plan? Every atomized middle finger flips you off.
No. This happened because misguided people did bad things. Who died, and who survived, was entirely random. And this is a comfort. Allow me to explain.
If there is no all-powerful god—under whom we are entirely at the mercy of his whims—no great plan—over which we have no control—then we have the opportunity to save our own lives and to make things better. Think about it. If it is part of God’s plan that there should be a genocide in the future, then it will happen. But if there is no god, then we have the opportunity to educate the world and perhaps prevent such atrocities. If God needs you to be in poverty to fuel his plan, then you will never rise from society’s gutter. If there is no god then you have the opportunity to work your way out of squalor. If it is in God’s plan to have you die at a certain age, then you will die. If there is no god, then we might be able to save you from whatever ails you.
No gods means opportunity and a chance to make this world a better place. We can prevent events like September 11th from ever happening again. Without God, there is true freedom and true hope.

Okay, well, that was a lot. Any thoughts?________________

Okay, now we move on to Godless Wisdom. Today we have an article from Search Magazine by Barbara Bradley Hagerty, a religious correspondent for NPR, entitled, “Tuning In.”

I was sitting in a small examination room at Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital when the question hit me with the force of a tank: Is the brain a radio, or a CD player? Not an elegant question, surely, but it has nipped at my heels for the past three years.

The conundrum offered itself as I was interviewing a man named Terrence Ayala at the hospital’s epilepsy clinic. Several years earlier, Ayala had undergone an operation that left him with a stuttering problem, and more. Often when falling asleep, but other times as well, he would sense a “dark presence,” usually looming over him, as real and tangible as the chair he was sitting on.

The neurologists at Henry Ford suspected Ayala’s surgery had left scarring on his brain, which had eventually resulted in temporal lobe epilepsy. And in fact the epilepsy medications he had taken over the past few months had eviscerated this “sensed presence.” But rather than relief, Ayala told me he felt robbed—as if someone had dismantled his bridge to the spiritual realm.

“We have a habit of trying to bring people into conformity through medication and modern science and all kinds of things,” he observed. “Who knows what realities we’re medicating away?”

This begged another question in my mind: Are transcendent experiences—not just Terrence Ayala’s, but also Teresa of Ávila’s—merely a physiological event, or does the brain activity reflect an encounter with another dimension? This is where the CD vs. radio debate begins. Reductionists think that the brain is like a CD player. The content—the song, for example—is playing in a closed system, and if you take a hammer to the machine, then it’s impossible to hear the song. No God exists outside the brain trying to communicate; all spiritual experience is inside the brain, and when you destroy that, God and spirituality die as well.

There is some support for this line of thinking. For like magicians with their trick rabbits, scientists can now make these transcendent “realities” appear or disappear at will. Recently, a group of Swiss researchers evaluated a twenty-two-year-old woman for possible brain surgery. She had no psychiatric history. The researchers were homing in on a particular spot in the brain—the junction of the temporal lobes (thought to be the seat of the emotional self) and the parietal lobes (the area that orients your body in space and in relation to other objects). When the researchers electrically stimulated that area, the patient felt the presence of another person behind her. When they increased the voltage, she saw the “person” was young, of indeterminate sex, a “shadow” who did not speak or move. In the next stimulation, she observed a “man” sitting behind her, clasping her in his arms, which, she allowed, was somewhat unpleasant.

Stimulating alternate realities is a bit of a party trick. Making them disappear is far more common. Indeed, that is what epilepsy specialists are paid to do. It’s called treatment. They lesion the brain and remove the offending tissue, or they medicate the brain and tamp down the electrical spikes—and voilà, the spiritual experiences disappear. God is shown to be epiphenomenal.

But suppose the brain is not a CD player, but a radio. In this analogy, everyone possesses the neural equipment to receive the radio program in varying degrees. Some have the volume turned low—in the case of an atheist, perhaps, so low it is inaudible. Many hear their favorite programs every now and again. Others, through no fault of their own, have the volume turned up too high, or receive a cacophony of noise that makes no sense, as if they are tuning into two overlapping stations while driving through rural Georgia.

If this analogy is carried further—and it is, by an increasing number of scientists—then the “sender” is separate from the receiver. The content of the transmission does not originate in the brain; the brain is only picking up a transmission from, say, Studio 2A at National Public Radio, where the hosts of “All Things Considered” are sitting. If you destroy the radio, the transmission—the words spoken by Michele Norris and Robert Siegel—is still operating. If the brain is a receiver, then it is picking up God’s communications, which never stop even when the brain does.

This is not to say that all our thoughts come from another, spiritual realm, any more than everything we hear comes through the radio. It merely suggests that people who suffer from an overactive temporal lobe—or who have transcendent moments—are able to tune into another dimension of reality that many of us ignore.

Maybe St. Paul and Joan of Arc and Dostoyevsky were not crazy. Maybe they just had better antennae.

Now on to the news!

First, a “no duh” story from the BBC: “Faith Healing Risks Recovery.”

A belief in faith healing could jeopardise recovery from illness, according to a new study by a University of Ulster researcher.
Dr Tony Cassidy said he believes that some people who put their trust in faith healing may be less likely to adhere to medical advice.
He will be presenting his research at a British Psychological Society conference in Birmingham.
The Coleraine-based academic's research team questioned 766 people on their belief in and intention to use faith healing.
They were also surveyed about their intention to adhere to medical advice.
"We found that belief and intention to use faith healing was a significant predictor of self-reported non-adherence to a medication," Dr Cassidy said.
"Participants who believed strongly in faith healing were also more likely to say they were less satisfied with their GP.
"Given that only about one-in-three people follow medical advice totally and about one in four put their lives at risk through non-adherence, it's important that health care professionals understand their patients' beliefs about alternative remedies, such as faith healing."
But one Belfast GP, Dr Paul Corry, believes that sometimes the opposite is the case.
"Often patients that do have a faith in God or have had a Christian healing prayer for them, show a better outcome because they are more positive," Dr Corry explained.
"They have hope where maybe they didn't have it before."

Next, another “no, really?” story from the New York Times: Religion’s Link to Teen Pregnancy.

A report this week in the journal Reproductive Health describes what researchers call “a strong association” between the teenage birth rate of a particular state and its “level of religiosity.”
The correlation is not what you might expect. The more religious the state, the higher the rates of teen pregnancy.
Joseph Strayhorn, an adjunct faculty member with Drexel University and the University of Pittsburgh, and Jillian Strayhorn reached their conclusions by analyzing data from the Pew Forum’s US Religious Landscapes Survey and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The first asks respondents to agree or disagree with such statements as ‘There is only one way to interpret the teachings of my religion’ or ‘Scripture should be taken literally, word for word’. The second tracks the rate of teen pregnancy in every state from year to year.
How to explain the disconnect? It could be that more religious teens are having sex than less religious teens, hence more of them become pregnant. It could also be that the percentage of teens who become pregnant in each state is similar, but the percentage who terminate in the less religious states is higher, leading to more reported pregnancies and births (although the authors did take some steps to adjust for that.) Or it could be, Strayhorn suggests, “that religious communities in the US are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself”.
What do you think?

Next, we have a few news report of interesting discrimination. First, from the Associated Press: Teens tossed from NJ ballpark sue, saying it was over refusal to stand for 'God Bless America'

Three teenagers who say they were tossed from a New Jersey ballpark over their refusal to stand during the song "God Bless America" are suing the minor league Newark Bears.
The boys argue that their constitutional rights were violated when they were asked to leave Newark's Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium on June 29 by Bears' president and co-owner Thomas Cetnar.
Cetnar acknowledged the boys were asked to leave but declined to say why. He also has denied making some statements attributed to him in the lawsuit.
The boys — Millburn High seniors Bryce Gadye and Nilkumar Patel, both 17, and junior Shaan Mohammad Khan, 16 — sued in federal court on Friday seeking unspecified damages.
According to the lawsuit, the boys were seated behind home plate when the song began playing. Once it ended, they say Cetnar approached them yelling.
"Nobody sits during the singing of 'God Bless America' in my stadium," the lawsuit quotes Cetnar as saying. "Now the get the (expletive) out of here."
Cetnar denied saying that: "Never, never did that ever happen."
Cetnar said he hasn't seen the lawsuit, but called the boys' account "a huge fabrication."
The boys are being represented by Bryce Gadye's father, Ross, who said the boys weren't protesting the song and no one asked them to stand.

Next up, from CBS: Abercrombie & Fitch Sued Over Head Scarf

A Muslim teenager claims in a federal lawsuit that she was denied a job at an Abercrombie & Fitch clothing store at a Tulsa mall because she wore a head scarf.

In the lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Tulsa by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 17-year-old Samantha Elauf said she applied for a sales position at the Abercrombie Kids store in the Woodland Hills Mall in June 2008. The teen, who wears a hijab in accordance with her religious beliefs, claims the manager told her the head scarf violates the store's "Look Policy."

"These actions constitute discrimination against Ms. Elauf on the basis of religion," the lawsuit states.

A spokeswoman for the New Albany, Ohio-based retailer declined to comment on the lawsuit but said the company has "a strong equal employment opportunity policy, and we accommodate religious beliefs and practices when possible."

The suit seeks back pay for the teen and a permanent injunction against the retailer from participating in what it describes as discriminatory employment practices. It seeks undisclosed monetary and non-monetary losses resulting from "emotional pain, suffering, anxiety, loss of enjoyment of life, humiliation and inconvenience."

The suit also seeks punitive damages against the company for its "malice or reckless indifference to her federally protected rights."

In 2004, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. agreed to pay $50 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the EEOC that accused the company of promoting whites over minorities and cultivating a practically all-white image in its catalogs and elsewhere.

Now, to make you feel a little better about living in America, a story from England: Christians face trial for criticising Islam.

The Christian owners of a hotel are being prosecuted for a crime because they defended their faith and criticised Islam in a debate with a Muslim guest.
Police arrested Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang, who run the Bounty House Hotel in Liverpool, after a Muslim woman complained that she was offended by comments made on 20 March.
According to newspaper reports, the debate involved discussion of whether Jesus was the Son of God or just a minor prophet of Islam.
Newspapers also report that the debate included comments that Mohammed was a warlord and Muslim dress for women was a form of bondage.
However, the facts of the case are disputed.
The pair are now being prosecuted for a “religiously aggravated” public order offence. A criminal trial is set for 8 and 9 December at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court.
The couple’s lawyer, David Whiting, said: “Ben and Sharon do not accept they were threatening, abusive or insulting.
“They are committed Christians and it is the defence’s contention that they have every right to defend their religious beliefs and explain those beliefs to others who do not hold similar views.”
The couple were arrested and charged in July under Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 and Section 31 (1) (c) and (5) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.
If convicted the couple face a maximum fine of £5,000 and a criminal record

Next, an interesting story for anyone in the NYC area, this comes from the Wall Street Journal: Muslims Press for School Holidays in New York City.

Muslims groups here are pressing city officials to close public schools on two of the faith's holiest days, just as schools do for major Jewish and Christian holidays. But the groups have yet to persuade the man in charge of New York City schools, Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Muslim groups have asked the city to cancel classes on Eid Ul-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, and Eid Ul-Adha, which marks the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
New York is one of many public-school systems now struggling with appropriate ways to recognize religious holidays for a diverse population. An estimated 100,000 Muslim children are enrolled in New York City schools, about 10% of the enrollment.
The matter has taken on a political aspect as Mr. Bloomberg, seeking a third term as mayor, has steadily courted the endorsement of a slew of ethnic groups. One city councilman said Muslims might withhold their votes if the mayor doesn't heed their wishes. Candidates are running in a primary Tuesday for the right to face Mr. Bloomberg, an independent, in the November election.
"This city is supposedly the most diverse city in the world. The city's laws and rules have to reflect that," said Councilman Robert Jackson, a Muslim from the borough of Manhattan. "I am hoping that pressure from the Muslim community will help Mayor Bloomberg decide, in the best interest of himself politically, to incorporate these two holidays."
The mayor often says children need to be in school more, not less, and that establishing more holidays would encourage every religious group to demand that their holy days be recognized. Children are required to attend school for at least 180 days a year in New York.
Other states have found a workable approach. Dearborn, Mich., where nearly half of the 18,000 students are Muslim, is believed to be the first city to close school on Muslim holy days, a spokesman said. Several cities in New Jersey now close school on the holy days.
After Muslims asked for school closings in Hillsborough County, Fla., the school board in 2007 approved a secular calendar that doesn't commemorate any religious holidays for the 189,000 students. Schools remain open on Good Friday, a Christian holiday, even though many students are absent, said Linda Cobbe, a spokeswoman. "There are so many religions we don't want to single out one or two," she said.

Now, from Fox News: Pledge of Confusion? Schools Wrestle with Flag Policy in Classroom.

It's a new school year, but an old fight is brewing in American classrooms. Teachers and administrators around the country are scratching their heads once again over the Pledge of Allegiance.
The courts have consistently ruled that students have the right not to recite the pledge in public schools. But now some First Amendment advocates are taking it one step further, arguing that the law compels educators to inform kids at the beginning of school that the decision is entirely up to them.
They're advocating a "Miranda warning" for the Pledge -- an administrative notice to students that they have the right to remain silent.
“The Pledge of Allegiance creates a constitutional problem. You have to tell students they can opt out,” the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told FOX News.
New Mexico dealt with this question last month when its education secretary upheld that students are permitted to opt out of the Pledge, but rejected an ACLU-backed amendment that would require schools to inform parents and students that they have the option.
In Florida, schools have tried to resolve uncertainty by announcing a new policy — students don't have to participate, as long as they have a letter from Mom and Dad.
These are just the latest in a litany of challenges to the Pledge and its place in the classroom.
Thirty-six states now have laws requiring that the Pledge of Allegiance be recited daily in public schools. But the oath as it's written does not sit well with some Americans.
“The Pledge doesn’t even state the truth. We are not one nation under God," Lynn said. "I don’t think we should lie to students, and there’s no way we can require them to say it.”
But supporters of the Pledge insist that the words are both constitutional and an important part of our national heritage.
“There has been a recurring effort by the ACLU and others to try to stop the Pledge of Allegiance from being said. The fact of the matter is that the American people like the Pledge of Allegiance, they like it the way it is,” Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the Eagle Forum, told FOXNews.com.
“The teachers are government employees, their paychecks are paid by the taxpayers, and the American people support the Pledge. I’m with the American people,” Schlafly said.
The majority of Americans do, in fact, overwhelmingly support the Pledge of Allegiance in its current form. A FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll from November of 2005 showed that 90 percent of Americans approve of the oath. Only 7 percent of people polled said they would change the language of the Pledge, while three percent of Americans were undecided.
The Pledge's popularity aside, the Supreme Court ruled in 1943 that mandating a student to participate in the oath was an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment right to free speech.

Also, not from the show, I found three other articles of some potential interest:

"The Right Way To Pray?"

"Taliban Leader Said to Warn U.S. on War."

"Religion Battles Medicine in Kenya."

My Spiritual Experience

2009-08-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

I had a spiritual experience on Saturday. Don't worry--I didn't act on it.

You see, sometime Saturday morning my car was broken into. The rear passenger window was shattered and my two backpacks were stolen. A laptop with priceless ideas and documents yet to be backed up, an iPod with years of collected music, books, and my wallet with every credit card, identification, and penny I had were all taken.

Coming from New York, I was in Atlanta, Georgia ending a brief visit with an old friend, on my way to Kerrville, Texas. I found a stash of $30 hidden away in the trunk. That, and what gas I had in the tank was all I had to get me where I needed to go. I was stranded.

Then my friend lent me $20--the only money she had. Another friend in Dallas, Texas left $40 hidden along his driveway. That meant making it on $50 and half a tank from Atlanta to Dallas. I had not eaten since the early afternoon the previous day. Ditto sleep. There was a very good chance I would not make it.

Six o' clock in the morning I se out, starving, tired, my phone essentially useless, hopped up on caffeine and emotion, and unsure if I'd end up a Yankee stranded in the Deep South.

Somewhere between Alabama and Mississippi, a very foreign sensation filled me and set in my mind the strongest desire to pray.

More alone than I've ever been in my life, scared and depressed, I suddenly felt my heart open to God. I tried to rationalize it: "It couldn't hurt. What if? I have nothing else." I wanted the help so bad. Even in my days as a full and quasi-believer, I can't imagine that I'd ever felt the urge to cry out to the Lord as strongly as I did on Saturday.

I almost prayed. Almost. I gathered the words in my head and prepared to address the almighty. But I stopped. I looked at myself in the (rearview) mirror and chastised myself for such absurdity--such weakness of character, heart, and mind. What would I achieve through beseeching the nonexistent? Did I not already have help and concern and love? Did I not still have my wits about me? I put the idea of prayer from out of my mind and took instead to substantial thought: how could I help myself? How could I, with virtually no resources, improve my situation?

I know that if I had started down the rabbit hole of prayer I would have been trapped until I arrived in Dallas or my car ran out of gas, and I would have been at a loss for a solution. Instead, I put my mind to work. I determined that if I found a Best Buy I could convince them to charge my phone and lend me the use of a computer to look up directions, cancel cards, and the like. I decided that if I broke down I would not be reduced to mere beggary. I considered that the small travel refrigerator would be a good sale for some $10 or $20. The chilled beverages within could be sold.

Luckily, I made it to Dallas with a quarter tank left and was sure that $5 for food and $35 for gas would be sufficient to get me to Kerrville where my job and all my people were. A Best Buy in the area indeed helped me out and I charged my phone, changed passwords, got directions, looked up resources, contacted worried friends, etc.

I had also one other desire. The desire for a reason, also often provided through supernatural means. And I do hope this happened for a reason. Not some cosmic, predetermined, greater-good, but for the reason that the person who burglarized me really needed what they took to preserve themselves. Maybe the profits from my goods will get them where they need to be, help them feed their family, whatever. Then again, maybe not. I put my faith in hope. I hope the thief had no choice. I hope it helped them.

Here's the ultimate lesson: prayer would not have helped. It may have indulged my baser nature, my need for a primeval assurance of safety, for reason, but it would not have devised solutions. I would never have thought to go to Best Buy. If my car had run out of gas I would have been at a loss for a solution.

And if I had prayed, and gotten to Dallas alright? Would I thank God? Heavens forbid! How dare I! What of reality? What of the friends who cared enough to give money, to offer money, to stay on the phone with me? What of my mother who helped me call the credit card companies, the insurance people? What of the kindness of a gas station attendant who gave me a place to lay my head, out of the rain and the heat? What of the Best Buy worker who assisted me when I needed it? Would their credit go to God? I would never allow such a thing.

Once again, personal ingenuity and human kindness prevailed above superstition. I thank every person who helped me through one of the most difficult and scary times I’ve gone through yet.

Things are what they are, and nothing changes that. Only human goodness can deliver us from adversity. And I’m okay with that. The elation I feel now, knowing how I was helped, outshines those dark moments on Saturday.

So, remember, when you’re down, and things appear bleak, and everything seems too hard, look inside yourself and reach out to others, and find your salvation there.

News for July 11-17, 2009

2009-07-18T15:42:00.000-07:00

Atheist Convention to Take Place:
The Atheist Alliance International will be hosting an Atheist convention on October 2,3, and 4 at the Burbank Airport Marriot and Convention Center. Guest set to appear include, Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, Eugenie Scott, and many more. Check out the link to see more.

Kiss-in Planned in Utah:
A couple of days ago a male couple kissed briefly on the property of the Salt lake City Temple (Mormon Church) and they were promptly escorted off the premises by security. Tomorrow at noon a whistle will be blown to signal the gathering of people to begin kissing on the LDS property.

Episcopalians Decide to Treat Gays Like Normal People:
Earlier this week the Episcopalian Church voted to allow openly gay men to be ordained as bishops. Now these bishops are looking to create procedures for blessing gay marriages. Thank God.

FFRF at it Again:
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is at it again, filing a lawsuit to prevent "In God We Trust" from being engraved at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington. Best of luck to them.

This news could not wait for Friday

2009-07-15T20:01:00.000-07:00

One of these is satirical and the other is real. I had a pretty hard time telling the difference. You try.

Bill to Ban Mermaids

NASA Launches First Ever Faith Based Space Program

There simply are no words...

Finished the BIBLE!!

2009-07-14T23:53:00.000-07:00

Wow, okay, so I just finished the Holy Bible. That's right, the Old AND New Testament. I began on May 15th at an unknown time and finished this evening/morning, July 15th, 2 AM. Hallelujah!

The experience was at times difficult, often exhausting, and frequently tedious. But all in all I greatly enjoyed the experience. My views of the Bible and characters within have been in some ways reinforced by my readings, but in many more ways my preconceptions were often revealed as misguided and off-the-mark.

Yahweh is a bit of a prick, but in reading the whole of His story I feel like I understand His motives and personality a little bit better. Reading the Old Testament directly into the New Testament rewarded me with a perspective on Jesus that I think I could never have had reading them seperately. The contexts of the time, the hopes, fears, and desires of the Jewish nation are powerfully expressed in the last books of the OT, and the arrival of Jesus, and his subsequent appeal to non-Jews as well, cannot be fully appreciated without proper context.

I'll definitely return to this subject again, and I'll be posting chapter by chapter summaries of each book. Real summaries. Like one or two sentences a chapter. Should be interesting.

All in all, my favorite books were Genesis, Exodus, Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Jonah, Luke, and Revelation.

If you want to read a verse that will blow your mind with the absolutely grotesque and horrifc nature of the image, check out Deuteronomy 28:53-57. The guys who wrote Saw didn't think of anything that messed up.

If you're looking to understand the history that is recorded in the Bible and want to read narratives, read, in order, Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, Matthew, Luke, Acts, and Revelation. That's the meat of the Bible, the history, the story-telling. Everything minus the prophecy, poems, and tedious dictation. Those books were, as a whole, pretty interesting.

Reading the Bible was absolutely amazing, and I liken it akin to viewing the entire Star Wars series from beginning to end. As when Anakin shows up alongside Obi-Wan and Yoday, so was the final "Amen" in Revelations incredibly powerful. I read a story of a people, the supposed human race, rise from the dust to take over the world, fall, rise again, catching themselves in perpetual conflict, and finally fall to the Kingdom of God. It was epic in every sense of the word.

All the same, I can't imagine how anyone thinks that stuff is true.

Great stuff; highly recommended :)

Godless Wisdom: Douglas Adams

2009-07-13T16:06:00.000-07:00

Here's a classic quote that I think almost everyone has heard or read before. All the same, I feel that it bears repeating:

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

- Douglas Adams

What a beautiful statement that really sums up a true appreciation of the world--a scientific viewpoint, if you will. That very sentiment is at the heart of every rational minded person who denies the supernatural and searches for the wonders that are within our world, our existence, as it is.

In many ways, it bothers me to hear the credulous person cast their eyes to the heavens and proclaim, "There has to be more." More?? What more could you desire beyond infinity? The expanse of the universe stretches to the borders of imagination and defies all applied ingenuity for a definitive explanation, and yet some people are searching for greater mysteries!

Our minds are capable of perceiving the world and reacting to it in a way that, as far as we know, no other type of being is, or has ever, been able to, and yet we have no cohesive understanding of how it works. We can't comprehend how we communicate within ourselves and others are postulating that we communicate with others using nothing but our minds.

For these people, and many others, the mind is seperate from ourselves (despite any evidence to the contrary) and will exist beyond our decaying bodies. For those who believe, this is a comfort. A perpetual existence where there is no driving force, no chance for risk, no reason for being. And if you believe in God--well, don't get me started on that.

Death is the one true factor in existence that makes all things truly powerful. Knowing that Death's scythe catches the glint of every dawn's rising sun drives one to achieve immortality. How do some do it? By wasting their lives in supplication working through telepathy for an ethereal post-corporeal being. Others are doing it through music and marble, film and fiction, research and risk. Who are the true immortals? The latter. Those whose works have existed and will exist well beyond themselves; indeed, the memory of them may never die.

If man defeats supposed fate and perpetuates humanity beyond the cessation of our universe then what should ever be there to cause the last recording of Mozart to cease mid-symphony?

If man defeats the natural death of the flesh, how much more poignant will be the destruction of one person? A child at fifty, how great could have been their life? A sage, at a thousand, how terrible the loss of their myriad experience? What new art might be formed by the hands and minds of practitioners honed through the ages? What discoveries made by intellects so experienced?

There is, of course, a place to wonder about telekinesis and astral projection, about gods and nymphs, devils and wizards, fairies and leprechauns. But it is in books, movies, songs, theatre, and our imagination. Let us relegate fancy to its place and reality to the present. There is no more than what we have. There is life as we know it, and wanting something beyond that doesn't make it true--it only distracts from our reality. We are losing our minds and, indeed, our souls to "fairies at the bottom." We must reclaim our lives and learn to pry ourselves off the flowerbed to stand and appreciate the vast garden of our existence that is before us.

News for the First Week of July!

2009-07-10T22:03:00.001-07:00

NYC Atheists Bus Campaign:
It seems that the local atheist organization, NYC Atheists I joining the bandwagon with D.C., London, and others, and comissioning an ad campaign for the MTA's buses. Two dozen buses across NYC will have the message, "You don't have to believe in God to be a moral or ethical person," plastered across their sides.

Atheist Billboard in Idaho:
You know what goes great with potatoes? Butter, sour cream, chives...oh! And atheism!

The sign in Moscow, Idaho, along Highway 95 and Sweet Avenue reads, "Want a better world? Prayer not required."

Atheist Billboards in Florida:
Yay for atheist activism! We're finally standing up and really getting our message out there. A sign in Florida reads, "Being a good person doesn't require God. Don't believe in God? You're NOT alone!"

I have to admit, seeing a "Don't believe in God, You're not alone," sign in New Jersey a few years back was one of the things that really made me feel good, helped me feel less lonely about my lack of belief, and was one of many little pushes that got me moving towards my involvement with atheist activism.

I love these signs and I hope they keep putting more out!

Pharmacists Forced to Supply Pharmaceuticals:
Gasp! In Washington State a federal appeals court has ruled that pharmacies must dispense Plan B pills regardless of personally held religious beliefs. Supposedly, this could have wide ranging effects over the whole of the Western United States.

If you ask me, provide the pills or get a new profession.

Free Speech Outlawed in Ireland:
Blasphemy has been outlawed in Ireland! This idea has been rolling around in the UN for a while, but it has become reality in Ireland where any speech that is blasphemous and results in causing an outrage has been deemed illegal and punishable by a 25,000 Euro fine. This covers not only published statements and broadcast statements, but mere utterances as well! It gets worse. Your blasphemous materials, lets say a copy of "The God Delusion," may also be confiscated--by force.

For the full text of the legislation as well as some interesting consequences, check out this post.

Daniel Radcliff is an Atheist:
Score one for the team! Catholics have Braveheart, Scientologists have Ethan Hunt, but we atheists now have freakin' Harry Potter!

Radcliff was quoted as saying, "I'm an atheist, but I'm very relaxed about it. I don't preach my atheism, but I have a huge amount of respect for people like Richard Dawkins who do. Anything he does on television, I will watch."

Take that, muggles!

Pope is an Idiot:
Oh, wait, that's not news. Never mind. Well, I do have an article here about the supposed bones of St. Paul being exhumed and tested by Vatican scientists. Basically, they took the bones out of a sarcophagus that hasn't been touched since before we had, oh I dunno, documentation, dated them to the first or second century, and have yet to report on whether or not there are signs of trauma from Paul's reported beheading. But, based strictly on the dating, the Pope is saying that they have conclusive evidence that these are the bones of St. Paul.

Now that I think of it, my heading for this news item was pretty spot-on.

Chores Instead of Rape in Afghanistan:
A while back I reported on the fact that Afghanis essentially made marital rape legal. Well, that has been reversed and now its illegal, as long as women do the house work. Um...yay, I guess?

Shroud of Turin May Have Been Fabricated by Da Vinci:
MAY have. The gist of it is this: the facial features and dimensions seem to match up with those of Da Vinci from drawings and the Shroud first appears in the general time around the life of Da Vinci. But really, the shroud first turns up long before Da Vinci was even born, and even if it had been created during his lifetime its a stretch to say he was its creator when the only thing you're going on are a handful of drawings of one man. Sorry, but I'm having a hard time being convinced that Da Vinci was the ONLY person able to do this, which is the only reasonable reason to posit such an idea. Why Da Vinci? The shape of the features match? There's a lot of people that have been over this planet, and I'm sure many others fit the bill. In my opinion, I think it's just a bunch of Dan Brown infused excitement rolling off the Angels and Demons movie and the ucoming sequel novel. Check the article out and judge for yourself.

Game Show to Convert Atheists:
There's a game show being put on in Turkey when a bunch of religious leaders try to convert atheists to any one of their religions. The winner gets a free vactions to the holy land of their chosen religion. I can't describe any more. I'm typing with one hand because the other one is clasped to my head in bemused exasperation.

Back!

2009-07-10T20:49:00.000-07:00

Hello, all! I'm not sure who was reading this blog or who will be, but as is clearly evident by the time stamps on these posts I've been gone for about two months now. The radio show went on hiatus until September and I went out to California for my summer job and didn't have any time to keep up with the world of religion and atheism, much less the blog or podcast!

But things have slowed down a little bit. I'm home for about two weeks, then I'm off to Pennsylvania to work an archaeology dig, and then I'm out to Texas to work some more, however, things have slowed down enough that I think I can keep up with the blog again.

At the least, I will be bringing you the week's best news in religion, spirituality, and atheism every Friday.

Also, I've spent the first half of the summer reading the Bible cover to cover (I've got about a hundred pages left [out of two thousand!]) and I would like to bring some of my thoughts to the table about the text. You know, share some favorite passages, explore some interesting points, and review some changed or reinforced preconceptions.

I also have a notebook half filled with pages about my adventure through the Koran last summer. I hope to bring you some of those gems as well.

My summer reading list will continue without mercy following the Bible and I will be reading a history on the birth of the Church, a book on the social constructs of Palestine in the time of Christ, a Bart Ehrman book (if you haven't read on of his works, I strongly encourage you to) on the now extinct sects of Christianity, Daniel C. Dennet's book "Breaking the Spell," Bulfinch's Mythology, a complete review of world history complements of Wikipedia, and a book on the history of the English language. That last one has nothing to do with Religion, but it should be interesting.

...

That's a lot now that I look at it.

Oh, and I'm attempting to learn Latin. We'll see how that goes.

Anywho, I'll be posting a review of this past week's news shortly, just to get in the swing of things.

Show From: May 8, 2009

2009-05-21T16:10:00.000-07:00

First: a happy belated National Day of Reason to everyone! It was yesterday, coinciding with the national day of prayer. So, happy reason everyone.

Today I don’t have a Godless Wisdom, per say, but I found an article in the New York Times that was kind of interesting, so I thought we’d give that a read instead.
Does God Want You to Be Bankrupt?
By RON LIEBER
This week, yet another Washington debate over who deserves a break on their debts drew to a close. On Thursday, the Senate voted against allowing judges to adjust the terms of the mortgages of people filing for personal bankruptcy.
Scratch the surface of the opposition in these sorts of debates, and it tends to ooze moral righteousness. “People who get themselves in over their heads,” the upstanding declare, “need to bear some responsibility for their foolishness.”
Maybe so. But if we can’t pass legislation that gives us new tools to determine who should be eligible for debt forgiveness, we need to look elsewhere for written instruction. Given that large numbers of Americans take many of their moral cues from their spiritual beliefs, I decided to turn to the good books of some of the world’s great religions for guidance on the subject.
Just about every doctrinal expert I spoke with, no matter the background, began by mentioning slavery. In ancient times, when interest accrued and compounded, it was common for the indebted to simply work it off. Often, this took the rest of their lives. Many of the teachings that grew up around debt forgiveness aimed to avoid that sort of outcome.
Still, the notion of enslavement, albeit of the psychological sort, survived to modern times. N. Eldon Tanner, a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wrote: “Those who structure their standard of living to allow a little surplus control their circumstances. Those who spend a little more than they earn are controlled by their circumstances. They are in bondage.”
This will be a familiar idea to people who have considered the idea of paying only the minimum amount on a large credit card debt, only to realize that if they do that, the debt may actually outlive them.
“Binding oneself financially is not something that trumps every other need,” added the Rev. Brian Daley, a Jesuit priest and professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. Scripture suggests that the redistribution of property is also a reasonable thing to do. “You just can’t mention it in public in the United States,” he said. “Our notion of capitalism is so absolutized that we give it a quasi-religious value.”
However strongly we believe in free markets (not, perhaps, as fervently as we did a year or two ago), the theme of forgiveness does run strongly through religious writings of all sorts. In the Old Testament, for instance, Chapter 15 of the book of Deuteronomy calls for the forgiveness of debts once every seven years.
Religious leaders were aware, however, of the chilling effect that could have on lending (particularly in the sixth year). “The Torah says don’t think that way, don’t be stingy” in that sixth year, said Rabbi Mark Washofsky, a professor of Jewish law at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. He added that later on, the Talmud introduced the idea of a Prosbul. This was a sort of workaround court that was not covered by the religious law. The Prosbul could administer debts during or right before the seventh year.
When the court confiscated property outright, sometimes this worked to the benefit of the debtor and sometimes to the benefit of the creditor. “In other words, the ultimate power resides with the community,” Rabbi Washofsky said. “It can intervene in what was a private transaction, in a situation of great need. The power is there. The real question is, do you use it and when?”
The answer depends on who you are ultimately reporting to, your immediate supervisor, your shareholders or the Entity that will ultimately render judgment on you.
Father Daley, of Notre Dame, said that the New Testament talked about debts to God resulting from sin. Another idea popular with rabbis and early Christians, he said, was the notion that doing good deeds turned God into a debtor. “God is a kind of referee or bookkeeper, noticing things that people do,” he said. “And if they do good deeds without obligation, God will repay them in judgment. I think being able to dismiss debts or forgive them is something that is seen as a generous and gracious act.”
Bankers that cater to Muslims, who are not allowed to charge interest because of some of the tenets of Islamic law, claim to foreclose on homeowners less frequently than regular creditors, according to Mahmoud Amin El-Gamal, an expert on Islamic finance and an economics professor at Rice University. He added, however, that any leniency was probably priced into the financing in the first place, making it a bit more expensive.
The Koran, meanwhile, offers one of the more useful ideas on debt. “If the debtor is in a difficulty, grant him time till it is easy for him to repay,” the passage in the second chapter, verse 280, reads. “But if ye remit by way of charity, that is best for you if ye only knew.”
Charity is not required here, according to Mr. El-Gamal. But during that granting of time, he added, the creditor is not allowed to charge interest.
This offers a possible compromise. If lenders and senators are unwilling to allow judges to permanently alter the terms of a mortgage loan, perhaps they would agree to allow qualified borrowers who have lost their jobs or fallen ill to take a two- to six-month break from making payments.
During this time, the lenders would stop the interest clock from ticking, not levy any fees and not tack on missed payments to the end of the loan. Then, once the borrowers were back on their feet, they could start regular payments again. If they weren’t able to make them by then, then foreclosure proceedings could begin.
Or, if this proves unpalatable or too expensive, how about selling an insurance policy that would pay for a six-month period of payments? That could satisfy both God and the gods of capitalism.
Perhaps if the Democrats want to enact bankruptcy reform, they ought to bring an imam to address their opponents.
------
Obama Watch:
Further details of Obama’s 2010 budget were released yesterday. Good news—abstinence only education is out! The relevant part of the budget reads:

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Next up on the Obama watch, we witness the president taking a much needed middle stance on the National Day of Prayer held yesterday. While past observances have included a service held in the White House, Obama chose to simply offer a proclamation acknowledging the day while holding no public events.

------

News:

Next, I’d like to talk about my irony meter. It’s off the charts. Pope Benedict has arrived in Jordan for the first leg of his first trip to the Holy Land. This past Friday the Pope expressed “deep respect for Muslims.” First off, the Pope got in trouble back in 2006 after making a speech in which he said the Islam brings thing evil and inhuman. Second, the nature of Christianity rejects Muslims, who, by most accounts, will go to Hell if the Catholics are right. How much respect can you have for a people God sees fit to send to an eternity of hellfire? Not to mention that the Koran explicitly speaks out against the Catholics. Oh well, I guess it’s good to see the Vatican turning the other cheek for once, and this time it’s not a but cheek. The pope doesn’t say exactly why he respect the Muslims, but he does want to play a role in fostering peace in the Middle East. That’s fine. That’s great even. As long as he doesn’t come barreling through with any more of his anti-condom propaganda. Remember kids, always use a condom, no matter what some celibate old man tells you.

Ask the Atheists:

I want to ask you guys your opinions on some controversial items in the news. First we have the story of a school in San Leandro. Some parents want religiously themed music banned from school holiday programs. The compromise proposed is to adopt a policy of notifying parents of the holiday music program. What do you think? Is the compromise necessary? Should the music be banned?

------

Next, we have a story from the military. The Pentagon was involved in the production of a cable program that featured two so-called “extreme” missionaries embedded with a U.S. Army unit in Afghanistan trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.
The popular reality series, "Travel the Road," aired on the Trinity Broadcasting Network and featured Will Decker and Tim Scott, who travel the globe to “preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth and encourage the church to be active in the Great Commission.”
The other cable program green-lit by the Pentagon is “God’s Soldier,” which aired in September on the Military Channel, and was filmed at Forward Operating Base McHenry in Hawijah, Iraq. It features an Army chaplain openly promoting fundamentalist Christianity to active-duty U.S. soldiers in Iraq in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a watchdog organization, amended a federal lawsuit it filed against the Department of Defense last year, currently in federal District Court in Kansas City, Kansas to “include these despicable unconstitutional promotions of fundamentalist Christianity in the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan,” said MRFF founder and president Mikey Weinstein.

What do you think? Is the military’s promotion of these television programs a problem? What about the evangelizing occurring in the fields?

-------

Next, we have a school in Tennessee that less than a year ago was brought to court for illegally promoting religion. The courts ruled that the school’s actions were indeed illegal. Following in the fear of the judiciary system, the school prevented students from putting up posters that advertised the national day of prayer. The school was sued yet again in March for silencing the student led prayer event. A judge ruled last week that the schools could not prevent religious speech on posters. What do you think? Should student be allowed to promote religion on public school property?

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Last, on Ask the Atheists, we have the story of a teacher who called creationism “nonsense” during class. A student brought a lawsuit against the pedagogue and a district judge ruled that the teacher had indeed violated the student’s rights. The student doesn’t want money. He just wants the teacher to be prohibited from saying similar things in the future. What do you think? Was the teacher right or wrong?

Show From: May 1, 2009

2009-05-21T16:09:00.001-07:00

Show from May 1, 2009

Show From: April 24, 2009

2009-05-21T16:07:00.000-07:00

Today’s Godless Wisdom comes to you from the mind of Alan Watts:
--What guarantee is there that the five senses, taken together, do cover the whole of possible experience? There are gaps between the fingers; there are gaps between the senses. In these gaps is the darkness which hides the connection between things . . . The darkness is the source of our vague fears and anxieties, but also the home of the Gods. --

On to news!

First up we’ve got the Institute for Creation Research which has had the brilliant idea to go ahead and sue the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for not granting the creationist organization a state certificate authorizing them to offer master’s degrees in science education. The sixty-seven page complaint is apparently rife with such gems as, “discussions do not become empirical science simply because the discussions emit from the oral cavities of scientists,” and, “the big bang should not be confused with the great noise mentioned in 2nd Peter 3:10.” Oh, heavens no. Who would ever confuse those two? Oh Texas, you give us so much to laugh about.

Next we’ve got another lawsuit going on. The Riverside Church in Manhattan is suing to stop the hiring of a new minister at their church. The new preacher, Brad Braxton, would receive a total compensation of about $600,000 a year, approximately twice the previous pastor’s pay. The compensation is broken down into $250,000 as a base salary, a monthly housing allowance of $11,500, pension and life insurance, entertainment, travel, and professional development expenses, an equity allowance for the future purchase of a home, allowance for a full-time maid, and private school tuition for his 3 year old daughter. Damn, I knew I was in the wrong business. There are people studying their butts off to be doctors and lawyers when the real money’s in storytelling and fearmongering!

Continuing on, we’ve got a bunch of new converts from a revival church in the Congo jumped into a river to be baptized. 12 went under only a handful ever came back up. God sure does work in mysterious ways, doesn’t he?

In Singapore the Muslim leaders have begun to push for a balance of religious and secular education. Students begin the morning with prayers and move right into classes on chemistry, math, and English. And this goes for boys and girls alike. This move towards a Westernized education has helped Singaporean children, who come from the Islamic portion of the society, achieve a greater standing in society, some even going on to the national university.

Finally, we have a story from across the pond. The BBC will be accepting a prominent atheist onto its advising board to provide guidance on religious programming. Andrew Copson, of the British Humanist Association, will sit on the board and is expected to push for an increased participation from atheists on Radio 4’s religious slot, Thought for the Day. While a boon for secularists everywhere, Christians are getting their panties in a twist, complaining that this exacerbates the BBC’s abandonment of their Christian audience. Boo-hoo. You got the last 50 years of television, let the rest of us get a little air time.

Show From: April 17, 2009

2009-04-23T19:23:00.000-07:00

De-Baptism Gains a Following in Britain

More than 100,000 former Christians have downloaded "certificates of de-baptism" in a bid to publicly renounce the faith, according to the London-based National Secular Society (NSS).

Terry Sanderson, the society's president, says the group started the online de-baptism initiative five years ago to mock the practice of baptizing infants too young to consent to religious rites. Their web site invites visitors to "Liberate yourself from the Original Mumbo-Jumbo that liberated you from the Original Sin you never had" and allows them to print out a paper certificate that uses quasi-formal language to "reject baptism's creeds and other such superstitions." But in recent months, as tens of thousands began to download the certificate, organizers realized that they had struck a chord with atheists and once-devout church members who are leaving churches they see as increasingly out-of-tune with modern life.

The campaign has become so popular — with nearly 1,000 certificates downloaded each week — that the NSS has started taking orders for certificates printed on parchment, at $4.50 each; they've sold nearly 2,000 in just three weeks. "Every time the Pope says something outrageous we get another rush on the certificate,"

In October last year, Italy's Union of Rationalist Atheist and Agnostics sponsored the country's first-ever "De-baptism Day," when the no-longer faithful attended protests and passed out de-baptism forms to areligious people who didn't have internet connections to download them. More recently, on March 2, atheists and feminists in Argentina teamed up to launch the "Not in my Name" Internet campaign which encourages Roman Catholics to notify their local bishops of their desire to officially leave the church. So far more than 1,800 have joined their Facebook group or signed the petition on their website http://www.apostasiacolectiva.org

According to Argentine campaigner Ariel Bellino, a former Catholic: "The church counts all those who've been baptized as Catholic and lobbies for legislation based on that number, so we're trying to convey the importance of people expressing they no longer belong to the church."

Given that God takes on different forms for different people, the NSS has been approached by non-believers are far away as Australia, Romania and Saudi Arabia requesting certificates tailored to their former faith. "We've had Jewish people write in asking, 'Can I have a certificate to undo my bar mitzvah?'" says Sanderson. And while the group is considering those requests, there's at least one recurring query they're certain they can't undo, symbolically or otherwise: "How can I get myself uncircumcised?"

***

Jesus Missing From Obama's Georgetown Speech

Amidst all of the American flags and presidential seals, there was something missing when President Barack Obama gave an economic speech at Georgetown University this week -- Jesus.

The White House asked Georgetown to cover a monogram symbolizing Jesus' name in Gaston Hall, which Obama used for his speech, according to CNSNews.com.

The gold "IHS" monogram inscribed on a pediment in the hall was covered over by a piece of black-painted plywood, and remained covered over the next day.
While the "IHS" directly behind where Obama spoke was covered over, CNSNews.com said the monogram was still visible in 26 other places in the hall during his speech. Those areas just weren't as prominent.

Catholic University spokesman Victor Nakas felt a bit more strongly on the subject:
"I can’t imagine, as the bishops’ university and the national university of the Catholic Church, that we would ever cover up our religious art or signage for any reason," Mr. Nakas wrote. "Our Catholic faith is integral to our identity as an institution of higher education."

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Crucified nun dies in 'exorcism'

Members of the convent in north-east Romania claim Maricica Irina Cornici was possessed and that the crucifixion had been part of an exorcism ritual.

Cornici was found dead on the cross on Wednesday after fellow nuns called an ambulance, according to police.

Police say the 23-year-old nun, who was denied food and drink throughout her ordeal, had been tied and chained to the cross and a towel pushed into her mouth to smother any sounds.

Father Daniel who is accused of orchestrating the crime is said to be unrepentant.
"God has performed a miracle for her, finally Irina is delivered from evil,"

***

Force is strong for Jedi police

Strathclyde Police said the officers and two of its civilian staff claimed to follow the faith, which features in the Star Wars movies.

A spokeswoman for Strathclyde Police confirmed: "At the time of the request, 10 (eight police officers and two police staff) had recorded their religion as Jedi."

About 390,000 people listed their religion as Jedi in the 2001 Census for England and Wales. In Scotland the figure was a reported 14,000

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Devotees re-enact the Crucifixion

Filipino devotees and an Australian man have re-enacted the Crucifixion by having themselves nailed to a cross in the Philippines.

John Michael, a 33-year-old Australian from Melbourne, and four Filipino devotees, including a woman, were nailed to crosses in a makeshift stage on a basketball court in northern Bulacan province's Paombong town as thousands of spectators looked on.
Ruben Enaje, 48, was nailed to the cross in San Pedro Cutud for the 23rd year. He said it is his way of thanking God for his miraculous survival after falling from a building.

Other devotees say they go through the pain to fulfil a vow or to pray for a cure for an illness in the family.

***

Atheists Flock to Secular Sunday School

Christian kids are typically sent to Sunday school for lessons on the Bible and morals. For nonbelievers, there's atheist Sunday school.

With an estimated 14 percent of Americans professing to have no religion, according to the Institute for Humanist Studies, some are choosing to send their children to classes that teach ethics without religious belief.

Bri Kneisley sent her 10-year-old son, Damian, to Camp Quest Ohio this past summer after a neighbor had shown him the Bible.

"Damian was quite certain this guy was right and was telling him this amazing truth that I had never shared," said Kneisley, who realized her son needed to learn about secularism, according to Time magazine.

Camp Quest, also dubbed "The Secular Summer Camp," is offered for children of atheists, freethinkers, humanists and other nonbelievers who hold to a "naturalistic, not supernatural world view," the camp website states.

The summer camp, offered across North America and supported by the Institute for Humanist Studies, is designed to teach rational inquiry, critical thinking, scientific method, ethics, free speech, and the separation of religion and government.

Kneisley welcomes the sense of community the camp offers her son. "He's a child of atheist parents, and he's not the only one in the world," she said, according to Time.

Atheist and humanist programs are expected to pop up in such cities as Phoenix, Albuquerque, N.M., and Portland, Ore., and adult nonbelievers are leaning on such secular Sunday schools to help teach their kids values and how to respond to the Christian majority in the United States.

Show From: April 10, 2009

2009-04-23T19:22:00.000-07:00

I didn't keep show notes for this episode for some reason, so all I have here is the link to the audio file, sorry. Anyway, enjoy!

Show From: April 3, 2009

2009-04-23T18:53:00.000-07:00

First off, in a move to appease Islamic radicals, the president of Afganistan has essentially made rape legal. It negates the need for sexual consent inside of marriage, approves child marriage, and restricts a woman’s right to leave the home.

--

Next, we have some results back from the Texas Science standards rulings. While the creationists certainly didn’t win, they did get a little something. The age of the universe is going to be erased from the schools’ science curriculum.

--

In the case of the Maryland mother who allowed her son to starve to death after a leader of her religious group determined that the boy was a demon due to his not saying “amen” after meals, the mother has pleaded guilty—with one catch. The charges are to be dropped against her once her son is resurrected, which she fully expect he will be. The DA was only too happy to agree to the terms. The defense will be represented by God. No, really. That’s the defending lawyer.

--

Today, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously rejected a state law that banned same-sex marriage. The decision will become effective in 21 days. Non-Iowan can seek a marriage license in the sate. Of course, not everyone was quite so happy. An ammendemnt is already being pushed trhough the state congress, but the Supreme Court has said it will not back down, saying that especially under Iowan law, same sex couples are severly hurt in tangible and intanglible ways when they are not allowed to get married.

--

More Atheist ads from the Freedom From Religion Foundation have been rolled out on buses in Madison, Wisconsin. 50 buses in the city will hold the varying signs from the organization. The FFRF has also placed billboards in over 25 cities in at least 15 states.
In response to the ads, a church put up ads that quoted the famous Psalm 14:1 verse “The fool has said in his heart, there is no god.” They seem to have forgotten Matthew 5:22 where Jesus himself says that whoever calls someone else a fool is in danger of hellfire. Guess they forgot that one in their rush to become a mass of puerile namecallers.

Godless Wisdom: "Atheism is a Solace"

2009-04-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

This is so true...so true. Please watch this video by Penn Jillette and hopefully grasp a better understanding of how powerful atheism can be.

http://crackle.com/c/Penn_Says/Penn_says_Atheism_is_a_Solace/2280592#ml=o%3d7%26fcx%3d140%26fk%3dpenn%2520says%26fpco%3d%26fx%3d

Show From: Mar. 27, 2009

2009-04-23T18:40:00.001-07:00

Obama Lifts Bush’s Strict Limits on Stem Cell Research:

Pledging that his administration will “make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology,” President Obama on Monday lifted the Bush administration’s strict limits on human embryonic stem cell research.
At a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, before an audience that included lawmakers, scientists and patients, several of them in wheelchairs, Mr. Obama announced that he was issuing an executive order intended to advance the research. He said he hoped Congress would follow with bipartisan legislation that would ease the existing restrictions even more.
The president acknowledged that studying stem cells extracted from human embryos, which are destroyed in the process, is deeply divisive.
“Many thoughtful and decent people are conflicted about, or strongly oppose, this research,” the president said. “I understand their concerns, and we must respect their point of view.”
But Mr. Obama went on to say that the majority of Americans “have come to a consensus that we should pursue this research; that the potential it offers is great, and with proper guidelines and strict oversight the perils can be avoided.”
In making his announcement, Mr. Obama drew a strict line against human cloning, an issue that over the years has become entangled with the debate over human embryonic stem cell research.
He said that he would ensure that his administration “never opens the door” to cloning for human reproduction, adding, “It is dangerous, profoundly wrong and has no place in our society or any society.”
Mr. Obama paired his executive order with another document, a presidential memorandum directing the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to “develop a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making.”

***

Science standards challenging evolution debated in Texas:

The Texas Board of Education this week will vote on science standards that critics say seek to cast doubt on the theory of evolution.

The board -- considering amendments passed in January -- will hear from the public on Wednesday. It will then take votes -- an initial one Thursday and the final vote Friday.
"This specific attack on well-established science ignores mountains of evidence and years of research done by experts in a variety of fields," said Steven Newton, project director at the Oakland California-based National Center for Science Education, a proponent of evolution.
One amendment, critics say, undermines the idea that life on Earth derives from a common ancestry, a major principle in the theory of evolution. It calls for the analysis and evaluation of "the sufficiency or insufficiency" of the common ancestry idea to explain the fossil record.
Newton said the board is considering other amendments casting doubt on well-established ideas in the earth and space sciences -- plate tectonics, radioactive decay and how the solar system developed.
School board chairman Don McLeroy has wanted to tackle questions that highlight supposed weaknesses in the theory.
For example, skeptics of evolution point to what they contend are fossil record gaps casting doubt on the scientific evidence of common ancestry.
"I'm a skeptic. I'm an evolution skeptic. I don't think it's true," he said. "You need to present other ideas to the kids."
The issue reflects the strong feelings among representatives on the 15-member board, some of whom accept evolutionary theory and some of whom don't. The size of the textbook market in Texas gives it influence nationwide, as publishers adapt their material to its standards.
The board in January voted to remove language that called on science teachers to focus on the "strengths and weaknesses" in all scientific theories.
It was replaced by language urging students to use "empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing" to "analyze and evaluate scientific explanations."
More amendments are expected to be brought up in the three-day hearing.

***

Pope Tells Clergy in Angola to Work Against Belief in Witchcraft:

Pope Benedict XVI, nearing the end of his first pilgrimage to Africa, on Saturday told priests and nuns of their duty to divert their fellow Angolans from malign beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery.
“Who can go to them to proclaim that Christ has triumphed over death and all those occult powers?” he asked guests at an invitation-only Mass in the blue-domed splendor of St. Paul’s Church in the capital.
Morning light flooded through stained-glass windows — a depiction of Christ on the cross in the center — as the 81-year-old, German-born pontiff spoke of Angolans so fearful of evil spirits that they wrongly condemn innocent children and the elderly for being possessed by demons.
It was a somber moment at the end of Benedict’s homily, words of challenge to the devout white-frocked worshipers crowded into the pews.

Godless Wisdom: "Don't Stop Believing"

2009-04-23T18:20:00.000-07:00

Today’s Godless Wisdom comes to you from: Adam Gopnik in an article from Search Magazine, titled, “Don’t Stop Believing.”

--A lot of atheists don’t believe in atheism right now. That is, they view with a certain embarrassment the louder arguments that have lately filled the best-seller lists. The feeling comes less from disagreement with those arguments than from the fear of a kind of Gradgrindism of the heart. Just as the dumber anti-scientism writers treat science as mere product rather than as spiritual adventure, the louder atheists often treat spiritual yearning as mere product, too, reducible to nice buildings or fine music.

The aesthetic sense and the religious sense are permanently joined, however. We go to Italy or India in wonder and we cannot wish away the religious basis of the icons and images we see any more than the religious can wish away obvious, humane progress as mere technology.

For all the stormy arguments, I still think, as Darwin did, that a decent pluralism is possible. It is a pluralism rooted neither in mysticism nor in Stephen Jay Gould’s separate “magisteria” but in plain social fact. Whether we ought to find something unbridgeable between science and faith, the first fact is that we haven’t. Darwinism has been the basis of biology for a century and a half; meanwhile not only have fundamentalists remained fundamental, but poets have gone on writing Christian poetry, and mystics have gone on doing mystical work.

It’s a good thing we can’t reconcile all our beliefs with each other because the possibility of alteration is the healthiest part of our ability to believe. Of course, it is possible to imagine a day in which the forces of intolerance could overwhelm the habits of pluralism. But it hasn’t happened, not yet, and the friends of pluralism do their cause no favors by trying to force the day or pretend that it is nearer than it is. We live perfectly happily in a world where there are churches on the street corners and biology textbooks in the study.

For if by religion we mean a faith in a supernatural deity, an invisible man in the sky, who makes absolute rules about human existence, punishes people for breaking them, and then arrives to hand out a newly amended set from time to time in the Middle East—then, no, the truths of Darwinism are not compatible with religion. But few religious poets or thinkers have held that view of God for a very long time.

Ours has been an age of great theological speculation, sublime religious poetry, and profound personal revelation. If by religion we mean belief in a force in the universe that is mysterious and remote, which nonetheless seems to shine inside us with a power that is inexplicable but real to all those who witness it, and gives meaning and serenity to life—then yes, religion is completely compatible with Darwinism, which is a claim about history, not about everything there is.

And if we mean by religion what most people have actually meant by it since the beginning of religion—an encompassing practice of irrational rituals, which can’t be justified but only experienced, and give order to life and continuity, too—then, yes, of course, religion is compatible with Darwinism. The faiths of George Herbert and Dr. Johnson, of Kierkegaard and W.H. Auden, all have nothing to do with obeying the commands of an invisible man in the sky who intervenes and talks, and everything to do with confronting the chaotic reality of the cosmos and finding order within it.

In this sense, the “epiphenomena” of religion—music, stained glass, meditation exercises, and every other religious product—are the real thing. The imaginative life, in which we make symbols and stories, is not secondary, but primary. When we talk of souls and spirits we are not talking nonsense, any more than we are when we talk of love and courage and faith in an ideal cause.

The fact-value distinction that is so much a part of the modern philosophy of science—the rule that our values are not naturally determined but chosen—is not intended to deprecate the role of values; it is intended to diminish the tyranny of facts. It is a way of saying not that physical truths imply no morality, but that morality is made in the face of mere physical truth.

Religion may be no guarantee of humane conduct; but nor is it a barrier to it. Atheism is no guarantee of humane conduct, either. As Darwin knew, nothing is any guarantee of humane conduct—except an insistence on it.—-

Binghamton Hostage Situation

2009-04-03T12:14:00.000-07:00

I want to update everyone on a terrible tragedy occurring right now in Binghamton, NY. There was a hostage situation at the American Civic Association, during a class on citizenship for immigrants, when a gunman with a high powered rifle came in. 13 people are confirmed dead—the gunman may be one of them.

Governor Paterson has came out and made a statement which he ended with “I speak for all of New York when I offer my prayers for the victims and families of this tragedy.” This sort of irresponsible representation of the governor’s constituents is, in my opinion, unacceptable. I am not going to harp on this or draw an undue amount of attention to it, but I do find it bothersome that someone has just spoken for me, implying that my “prayers” are with anyone. I do not pray, I do not believe in the effectiveness or utility of prayer. I find prayer to be self-indulgent and foolish and I am offended that this horrible event has been co-opted as an opportunity to perpetuate spiritual nonsense that says everyone believes. My dismay, my sadness, my terror may be there, my condolences may be there for the family and victims, but certainly not my prayers. I wish that the governor would be more careful with his words in the future.

The Gist: Mar. 20

2009-03-20T12:16:00.000-07:00

Welcome to The Gist, where I give you articles from the week's religious news that I found interesting and/or important, but couldn't fit into the radio show. Today I have two interesting links for you. Enjoy!

Plan Would Limit Prison Chapel Books:
the gist of the article is that there are people who want to ban religious texts form prisons because they might incite, promote, or otherwise suggest violence or criminal activity. I think they're right that religious book do all three of those things, without a shadow of a doubt. But I don't know if its wise to try and keep them out of the prisons. That might cause more problems than it hopes to solve.

Air Force Looks Into ‘Inspirational’ Video:
the gist of the article is is that a Colonel sent out a link, via e-mail, for an inspirational video with a Christian angle. People complained, saying they were offended, and now the Air Force is looking into whether or not the video was in violation of military neutrality. Based on what the Colonel said in their message, I don't think it was a violation. Participation in viewing the footage was purely anonymous and voluntary and carried no pressure, nor any threat of reprobation. I have no problem with it.

Show From: Mar. 20, 2009

2009-03-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

Alright! And now it’s time for…Godless Wisdom! Where every week we bring you the greatest thoughts from the brilliant minds of the world’s best thinkers. Today’s Godless Wisdom comes to you from the mind of Penn Jillette, the larger, louder half of the magical duo, Penn & Teller. I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.”

***

That’s all for Godless Wisdom. Now, onto the news!

First up, we have a report released on Wednesday that says people who claim greater faith in heaven are the most likely to fight to keep their mortal life. The story can be found all over the internet, and the article, if you want to see the whole thing ("Religious Coping and Use of Intensive Life-Prolonging Care Near Death in Patients With Advanced Cancer"), can be found in the Journal of the American Medical Association. We’ll be reading from the New York Times.

--Terminally ill cancer patients who drew comfort from religion were far more likely to seek aggressive, life-prolonging care in the week before they died than were less religious patients and far more likely to want doctors to do everything possible to keep them alive, a study has found.

The patients who were devout were three times as likely as less religious ones to be put on a mechanical ventilator to maintain breathing during the last week of life, and they were less likely to do any advance care planning, like signing a do-not-resuscitate order, preparing a living will or creating a health care proxy, the analysis found.

The study is to be published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
“People think that spiritual patients are more likely to say their lives are in God’s hands — ’Let what happens happen’ — but in fact we know they want more aggressive care,” said Holly G. Prigerson, the study’s senior author and director of the Center for Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care Research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

“To religious people, life is sacred and sanctified,” Dr. Prigerson said, “and there’s a sense they feel it’s their duty and obligation to stay alive as long as possible.”

Aggressive life-prolonging care comes at a cost, however, in terms of both dollars and human suffering. Medicare, the government’s health plan for the elderly, spends about one-third of its budget on people who are in the last year of life, and much of that on patients at the very end of life.

Aggressive end-of-life care can lead to a more painful process of dying, researchers have found, and greater shock and grief for the family members left behind.

The new study used both a questionnaire and interviews to assess the level of reliance on religious faith for comfort among 345 patients with advanced cancer. The patients, most of them belonging to Christian denominations, were followed until they died, about four months on average.

A vast majority of patients, religious or not, did not want heroic measures taken. Still, 11.3 percent of the most religious patients received mechanical ventilation during the last week of life, compared with only 3.6 percent of the least religious.

The most religious patients were also more likely than less religious ones to be resuscitated in the last week of life and to be treated in an intensive-care unit as they died, although those differences may have been due to chance. --

I’m not shocked, not at all. It’s what I’ve been saying all along: most people say that they believe in God and whatnot, but in all reality, when the cards are down, they focus their minds and their fears in the natural world.

***

Next we have something truly deplorable, coming straight from the Heart of Darkness itself, the Pope condemns condoms, once again. For the complete story, we turn to the New York Times.

--Condoms are not the answer to Africa’s fight against H.I.V., Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday as he began a weeklong trip to the continent. It was the pope’s first explicit statement on an issue that has divided even clergy working with AIDS patients.

Benedict arrived in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital, on Tuesday afternoon, greeted by a crowd of people waving flags and snapping cameras. The visit is his first pilgrimage to Africa as pope.
In his four years as pope, Benedict had never directly addressed condom use, although his position is not new. His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, often said that sexual abstinence, not condoms, was the best way to prevent the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.

Benedict also said the Roman Catholic Church was at the forefront of the battle against AIDS.
“You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,” the pope told reporters aboard the plane heading to Yaoundé. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”

The pope said a responsible and moral attitude toward sex would help fight the disease.
The Roman Catholic Church rejects the use of condoms as part of its overall teaching against artificial contraception. Senior Vatican officials have advocated fidelity in marriage and abstinence from premarital sex as crucial weapons in the fight against AIDS.

About 22 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with H.I.V., according to Unaids, a United Nations agency. In 2007, three-quarters of all AIDS deaths worldwide were in the region, as well as two-thirds of all people living with H.I.V.

Rebecca Hodes of the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa said that if the pope were serious about preventing H.I.V. infections, then he would focus on promoting wide access to condoms and spreading information on how best to use them.

“Instead, his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans,” said Ms. Hodes, the campaign’s director of policy, communication and research.--

Disgusting. Type Pope Benedict Condoms into the google news search engine and you will find a slew of articles where countries are outright ignoring the Pope’s words and many groups are actively speaking out against him.

The Vatican stepped in a few days later to “clarify” that the Pope only said that condoms risk making the problem worse. The Catholic News Service came out with this report:

--Regarding the reaction provoked by words of the pope on the problem of AIDS, the director of the Vatican press office, Father Federico Lombardi, clarifies that the Holy Father has reaffirmed the position of the Catholic Church and the essential elements of its commitment in combating the terrible scourge of AIDS: first, with education in personal responsibility in the use of sexuality and with reaffirmation of the essential role of marriage and the family; second, with research and implementation of effective treatment of AIDS and making it available to the greatest number of sick people through many health initiatives and institutions; third, with human and spiritual assistance for those with AIDS as for all the suffering, who have always been in the heart of the church. These are the directions in which the church concentrates its commitment. It does not believe that focusing primarily on a wider distribution of condoms is in reality the best, most far-sighted and effective way to oppose the scourge of AIDS and protect human life.--

Update to the Brazilian Girl Story

2009-03-14T12:28:00.000-07:00

Finally, a powerful public figure has stepped forward to speak out against the absurdity of the Catholic church's statements and decisions in the case of a 9 year old girl who was raped by her step-father.

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva, spoke out against the church, criticizing them for excommunicating a group of people who were, essentially, responsible for saving the life of a 9 year old girl.

Reason: it's a beautiful thing.

Show From: Mar. 13, 2009

2009-03-14T12:13:00.000-07:00

Alright! And now it’s time for…Godless Wisdom! Where every week we bring you the greatest thoughts from the brilliant minds of the world’s best thinkers. Today’s Godless Wisdom comes to you from the mind of Dale McGowan, author of Parenting Beyond Belief—On raising ethical, caring kids without Religion. “I try to set up an unconditional love of reality. The decision that our existence here is spectacular. It’s the most amazing thing you can dream up to have been unconscious stuff for billions of years. And now, for a brief time, we’re assembled into these sentient beings able to actually look around and understand the universe and ask questions and love and laugh and burp and fart and the whole thing. I mean, this is an amazing moment.”

Now for the news. First, we catch up on a story from last week: the unfortunate circumstances of a 9 year old Brazilian girl who was raped by her step-father and subsequently became pregnant with twins. Under Brazilian law abortion is illegal except in cases where the life of the fetus or mother is in danger. Doctors ascertained that the girl’s body could not physically handle one, let alone two, fetuses and decided that they needed to perform an abortion. The local archdiocese stepped in to condemn the doctors and went so far as to excommunicate everyone involved in the abortion, except the little girl who they said was protected by her status as a minor. Oh, and the step-father who raped her. They didn’t bother to excommunicate him either. But then again, the Catholic Church hasn’t seemed to have much of a problem with child molestation in the past, so why should it change now? Outrage has been boiling in Brazil as the story has received further coverage. And, finally, the Vatican stepped in to make a statement and bestow a token of rational thought on the situa-. Oh. Wait. No. They just decided to back up the Brazilian archdiocese. Where the hell is the common sense? If they didn’t abort the babies the mother and her children would have died. The doctors saved a life. How can no one see this?

Okay, I’ve got some quick news bits here. All coming from this past week’s New York Times. First up: “Somalia Cabinet Votes to Adopt Islamic Law.” The cabinet voted Tuesday to make Islam the basis of Somalia’s legal system. The move, which still must be approved by Parliament, was an attempt to isolate more extreme elements of an Islamic insurgency by agreeing to a demand supported by moderate elements and much of the population.

Next, we have ‘HBO Apologizes for ‘Big Love’ Episode.” --An episode of “Big Love,” the HBO series about a polygamous Mormon family, above, has courted controversy with the Mormon church and prompted an apology from the cable channel before the show has run, The Associated Press reported. The episode, scheduled for Sunday, will show a character undergoing an endowment ceremony, a religious rite the church considers sacred. In a statement, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said, “Certainly church members are offended when their most sacred practices are misrepresented or presented without context or understanding,” according to The A.P. HBO said that it did not intend to cause offense to the church and apologized but added that the ceremony was an important part of the episode. In a statement the show’s creators, Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, said they “took great pains to depict the ceremony with the dignity and reverence it is due,” The A.P. reported.-- The part I love is that they’re still going to play the episode, uncensored. Good for them.

From Indonesia we have, “Bali Defies Fatwa on Yoga.” -- A weeklong international festival celebrating the pan-religious practice of yoga here on the island of Bali is wrapping up peacefully despite a recent religious ruling condemning the practice from the top Muslim authority in Indonesia. .

It is the second time in recent months that Bali, a predominantly Hindu island in the world’s most populous Muslim country, has openly opposed rulings by the Ulema Council, the quasi-governmental body that issued the yoga edict.

In October, after the Indonesia Parliament passed broad antipornography legislation, which was first championed by the Ulema Council and included limits on dancing and dress, Balinese erupted in anger, fearing many of their traditional rituals would be considered illegal. Thousands marched through the streets and Bali’s governor, Made Mangku Pastika, declared that he would not enforce the law.

Though about 90 percent of Indonesians are Muslim, the country is made up of hundreds of distinct ethnic and cultural groups. Islam itself comes in many different forms here. The religious and governmental authorities in Jakarta, on the island of Java, Indonesia’s most populous island and the country’s center of power, are often accused of being insensitive to these differing cultures.

When the Balinese, along with people in Sulawesi and Papua, protested the pornography bill last year, they held signs calling for increased autonomy from the central government in Jakarta.
The Muslim Council’s yoga ruling came in a package of fatwas issued in January. The council deemed the ancient Indian poses and exercises incorporating Hindu chanting or rituals a sin for Muslims. Similar fatwas have been issued in Egypt and Malaysia. In all three countries, the religious leaders said they were concerned that practicing yoga could cause Muslims to deviate from Islamic teachings.

But a council member who was in charge of investigating yoga said that while yoga could be spiritually hazardous, practicing it purely for health reasons was acceptable. “What could be a problem for Muslims is if they practice yoga as part of a religious ritual, using Hindu mantras or Hindu prayers,” said the member, Sholahudin al-Ayubi, by telephone last week.

Now for some exciting news! Two great reports going around. First, a report from the Christian Science Monitor that predicts evangelical Christianity is on its way out, and the other a recent report that religiosity in America is in decline. First I’d like to read a selection from the Christian Science Monitor, titled, “The Coming Evangelical Collapse.”

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.
Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

Why is this going to happen?

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.
The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.--

That’s the end of the selection I’m reading you. You can read the rest by finding the link in the show notes at our blog at atheisttable.blogspot.com. The piece goes on for a little bit longer, talking about what will be left of Christianity and offers some possible solutions for the problem. Mostly I hope he’s right about Christian evangelicalism falling apart. It’s been long in coming and I believe that the fall of the evangelical movement will lead to a more rapid move towards a secular society across America and the marginalization of Christianity into the mythology books across the world. I mean, it’s virtually impossible to get a decent religion started these days. The best attempt we’ve seen is Scientology, and that’s a bit of a joke, isn’t it? Once Christianity is absorbed into the pages of history it will only be a short time before true religion is something practiced almost exclusively by those with the least and those on the fringe of society. Of course, spiritual beliefs and random superstition will remain, but dogmatic subscription to absurdities? I believe that one day that will be the case. These reports give me hope that it will come sooner than later.

This ties in directly with a report released Monday that finds America is becoming less religious. I’ll be pulling quotes from an article on CNN, a release by Trinity College, and USA Today. For the full articles you can find them linked on the blog at atheisttable.blogspot.com.

America is a less Christian nation than it was 20 years ago, and Christianity is not losing out to other religions, but primarily to a rejection of religion altogether, a survey published Monday found. Seventy-five percent of Americans call themselves Christian, according to the American Religious Identification Survey from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1990, the figure was 86 percent.

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League said he thinks a radical shift towards individualism over the last quarter-century has a lot to do it.
"The three most dreaded words are thou shalt not," he told Lou Dobbs. "Notice they are not atheists -- they are saying I don't want to be told what to do with my life."

At the same time there has been an increase in the number of people expressing no religious affiliation.

The survey also found that "born-again" or "evangelical" Christianity is on the rise, while the percentage who belong to "mainline" congregations such as the Episcopal or Lutheran churches has fallen.

One in three Americans consider themselves evangelical, and the number of people associated with mega-churches has skyrocketed from less than 200,000 in 1990 to more than 8 million in the latest survey.

The rise in evangelical Christianity is contributing to the rejection of religion altogether by some Americans, said Mark Silk of Trinity College.

"In the 1990s, it really sunk in on the American public generally that there was a long-lasting 'religious right' connected to a political party, and that turned a lot of people the other way," he said of the link between the Republican Party and groups such as the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family.

Silk also said the revelation that some Catholic priests had sexually abused children -- and senior figures in the church hierarchy had helped to hide it -- drove some Catholics away from religion.
And, he said, it is now more socially acceptable than it once was to admit having no religion.

"You're not declaring yourself a total pariah. The culture has changed in a way that makes it easier to say, 'No, I don't have a religion. Even in the past year, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama feel obliged to talk about 'those of no faith,' " he pointed out. Obama mentioned people without faith in his inaugural address in January, making him the first president to do so.

In the survey, one in five Americans said they have no religious identity or did not answer the question, and more than one in four said they do not expect to have a religious funeral.

The rise in what the survey authors call "nones" is the only trend reflected in every single state in the study, Silk said.

So let’s lay the data out. The percentage of Americans claiming no religion, which jumped from
8.2 in 1990 to 14.2 in 2001, has now increased to 15 percent. Given the estimated growth of the American adult population since the last census from 207 million to 228 million, that reflects an additional 4.7 million "Nones." Northern New England has now taken over from the Pacific Northwest as the least religious section of the country.

According to the researchers, people thought that perhaps the year 2000 results were an anomaly, but the evidence confirms it was not. The “nones” are the only group to have grown in
every state in America.

The total number of Christians in America has gone down to 76% from over 86. 90% of this decline comes from non-Catholics. The growth within the number of Christians has come from those identifying as simply Christian, born again/evangelical, or non-denominational. This has been associated with the growth of megachurches.

Other key findings:
• Baptists, who constitute the largest non-Catholic Christian tradition, have increased their numbers by two million since 2001, but continue to decline as a proportion of the population.
• Mormons have increased in numbers enough to hold their own proportionally, at 1.4 percent of the population.
• The Muslim proportion of the population continues to grow, from .3 percent in 1990 to .5 percent in 2001 to .6 percent in 2008.
• The number of adherents of Eastern Religions, which more than doubled in the 1990s, has declined slightly, from just over two million to just under. Asian Americans are substantially more likely to indicate no religious identity than other racial or ethnic groups.
• Those who identify religiously as Jews continue to decline numerically, from 3.1 million in 1990 to 2.8 million in 2001 to 2.7 million in 2008--1.2 percent of the population. Defined to include those who identify as Jews by ethnicity alone, the American Jewish population has remained stable over the past two decades.
• Adherents of New Religious movements, including Wiccans and self-described pagans, have grown faster this decade than in the 1990s.

And here’s something really exciting: Only1.6 percent of Americans call themselves atheist or agnostic. But based on stated beliefs, 12 percent are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unsure), while 12 percent more are deistic (believe in a higher power but not a personal God). The number of outright atheists has nearly doubled since 2001, from 900 thousand to 1.6 million. Twenty-seven percent of Americans do not expect a religious funeral at their death.

Just look at those last figures. The population of outright atheist, in effect atheists who are either willing to say they are atheists or people who understand the definition of atheist well enough to know they are one, has doubled! How exciting! The study finds that 12% of Americans are atheists. And irreligion is growing steadily across every state in the Union—from New York to Tennessee to California to Hawaii to Alaska to Alabama to Texas! Vermont and New Hampshire increased 20% in non-religious populants! In fact, So many Americans claim no religion at all that this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists.

Show from: March 6th

2009-03-06T11:44:00.000-08:00

Thank you, everyone, for being with us here today. Now it's time for Godless Wisdom! Today’s Godless Wisdom comes to you from my ever questioning head.

People in the fundie world of Christianity give to the Church because supposedly God has said that if you are charitable there will be a reward which will come back to you many times over; however, when a non-religious person gives to those in need, they do it with no real thought of reward, except maybe the good feeling of knowing you've helped out. Now—who has the greater morals?

And that was Godless Wisdom. Next up we have a new Atheists at the Table segment! From the Pulpit! This is the point during the show when everyone gets a chance to go on a rant about something that's bothering them in the world of religion, faith, and superstition. Who's first?

Alright. Today I'd like to get up to the pulpit to preach out against the ubiquity of public prayer. Does it not say in Matthew 6:6, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” It doesn't matter what translation you go to, the words barely change, and the meaning remains strictly the same. There is no metaphor here, no mistaken context, except that perhaps you don't necessarily need to go into a room with a closed door—just do it privately. So what in God's name are all these people doing in church, praying? Praying on the streets? Praying on television? Ministers at the inauguration requesting millions of people to gather in one mighty prayer session! Where the hell is the consistency? Why do Christians keep asking me to pray with them? What is going on here? Is this not one of the most obscene affronts to God's word? Indeed, according to the Christian, this is God's word, since—guess who's talking—Jesus says it himself! Find it in a Red Letter bible and the words will be in red. These are the very words of Christ the Lord telling you to pray in secret! So I'd like it if from this day forth every honest Christian would refrain from asking me to pray with them. Go check it out yourself: Matthew 6:6. First book of the New Testament, sixth chapter. Keep your damn babbling away from me and show some freaking internal consistency and some respect for your own religion.

Now for the news. I'd quickly like to go back to something I've brought up on the past two shows. Measure Initiative 1040. This would be the proposed law in Washington State to make illegal “state use of public money or lands for anything that denies or attempts to refute the existence of a supreme ruler of the universe including, but not limited to, appropriations for displays, scientific endeavors, textbooks, instruction, and research projects.” Now, here comes the amusing part. Under a close rhetorical examination of the proposed measure, the religionists have damned themselves. The single letter/word “a” ruins everything for them. Indeed, churches are state sanctioned and any statement made in a Christian church that asserts Christianity as the one true religion, and therefore Yahweh as the one true god, then they have in turn denied the existence of, say, Vishnu. Vishnu is “a god.” Therefore, the Churches will be breaking the law. That hasn't stopped them before (let's not forget their unabashed support of candidates in the presidential race despite being non-profit organizations) but it does kind of amuse me a bit.

I love rhetoric. What do you guys make of this.

Next, from the Associated Press on Wednesday, March 4^th. A nine year old Brazilian girl was raped by her stepfather and ended up pregnant with twins. 80 pounds and 15 weeks pregnant, the girl's body could not handle one, let alone two children. Laws in Brazil allow for abortions in cases where the mother's life is threatened. Doctors decided that there was a serious risk to mother and fetus and decided to perform the abortion. The Catholic Archdiocese stepped in to complain about the abortion, saying that the girl should have simply continued carrying the fetuses to term and then received a cesarean section. A lawyer for the Catholic Church was quoted as saying, “It's the law of God: Do not kill. We consider this murder.” Well, if that's how you want to interpret it then make sure you outlaw meat, vegetables, Raid, and antibacterials, not to mention tumor removal, walking without sweeping in front of you, driving at a speed that could smash insects...shall I continue?

What do you guys think?

Next, from Oklahoma: Richard Dawkins is the target of a legal resolution to have the University of Oklahoma rescind their invitation for Dawkins to come speak at their institution. A piece of the resolution reads as follows:

“NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE 1ST SESSION OF THE 52ND OKLAHOMA LEGISLATURE:

THAT the Oklahoma House of Representative strongly opposes the invitation to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma to Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published statements on the theory of evolution and opinion about those who do not believe in the theory are contrary and offensive to the views and opinions of most citizens of Oklahoma.

THAT the Oklahoma House of Representatives encourages the University of Oklahoma to engage in an open, dignified, and fair discussion of the Darwinian theory of evolution and all other scientific theories which is the approach that a public institution should be engaged in and which represents the desire and interest of the citizens of Oklahoma.”

Brilliant, guys. Whatever happened to “academic freedom?” Yeah, try looking for consistency in religion.

What do you guys think of this, the state trying to govern what a University does with its academics?

Finally we have an article from the Associated Press on March 3^rd. East Brunswick, NJ. “High School Coach Marcus Borden used to bow his head and drop to one knee when his football team prayed. But the Supreme Court on Monday ended the practice when it refused to hear his appeal of a school district ban on employees joining a student-led prayer. The decision could add another restriction on prayer in schools, advocates said. The district established the ban in 2005 after parents complained that Borden, a coach at the school since 1983, sometimes led prayers at the Friday afternoon team pasta dinner or in the locker room before games. Borden said he wanted to show respect for the students engaged in prayer by bowing his head silently and dropping to one knee.”

Show from: Feb. 27, 2009

2009-03-03T14:34:00.000-08:00

Here's the show script, including one article that didn't get discussed:

Thank you, everyone, for being with us here today. Today’s Godless Wisdom comes to you from: Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles, #502, a webcomic by Neil Swaab.

WOMAN: I just saw the funniest ad this morning!

TEDDY: Ugh. I hate advertising. Its just lies and manipulation used to create a false need for an unnecessary product….Its kind of like religion when you think about it.

WOMAN: What?

TEDDY: Religion is like advertising for god. Even if god exists, nobody needs him—what with free will and all. And yet, religion wants you to believe in him, spend your money on him, and trick you into thinking you can’t live without him…. It’s a racket.

WOMAN: So with that logic that would make Jesus and the other prophets…

TEDDY: Very popular celebrity mascots. You know, like the Energizer Bunny or Spuds McKenzie. Remember him? He was awesome.

WOMAN: Do you ever worry about going to hell?

TEDDY: Now, that’s an example of negative advertising!

The end!

And now for the news!

Some quick notes:

· From the Norwich Bulliten, dated February 26, The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that governments that receive donations of Ten Commandments displays and other monuments for public parks are not compelled to take everything they are offered.

According to wire reports, justices said officials do not violate free speech rights when they reject requests to display monuments. The decision stems from a case in which a small religious group, the Summum, wanted to force Pleasant Grove City, Utah, to place its granite marker in a park that is home to a Ten Commandments monument.

The Summum argued a city can't allow some private donations of displays in its public park and reject others.

The court distinguished the Summum's case from efforts to prevent people from speaking in public parks, which ordinarily would violate the First Amendment.

Any comments on the article?

· Next, compiled from a variety of sources, including thinkprogress.org, the News Channel, and the New York Times. Before I continue I would like to note that my views and opinions expressed by myself and the co-hosts are mine and theirs alone and do not reflect the views of WHRW. Continuing now with the story. Governer Mark Sanford, Republican, of South Carolina, has said that he may not accept the stimulus funds allotted to his state, which total about $8 billion dollars. Sanford offers, not money, to the citizens of his state, but prayers. Billions of dollars in benefits, including unemployment benefits are being refused by the Governor, even though thousands in his state are ailing. The following is a reading of a transcript from a television call-in interview with Sanford.

CALLER: I hope you all are not playing politics with this. People in South Carolina are hurting. You know how unemployment rates are high right now and going up higher. We are running out of money in the unemployment bank — we need money for that, the people that need help. And I’m one of them, I can’t get no help. […]

SANFORD: Well I’d say hello to Charleston because its home and I’d say hello to this fellow this morning and say that my prayers are going to be with him and his family because it sounds like he is in an awfully tough spot.

Callous. Cruel. Republican ideological grandstanding. Deplorable. He’s worried about a future debt when it is our country now that needs help. Sanford claims that it is not a good idea to create more debt which “our grandchildren” will have to pay off. Hogwash. With the state of things now, people are hurting now. We need to help them now.

Comments on this news story?

· Further governmental evil in the developing story of the United Nations’ push to criminalize the defamation of religion. I’ll play you this short clip from Lou Dobbs to give you a sense of the story.

Outrageous. How damn weak is the faith of the faithful? How are you guys affected by this news?

· Next, a bit of science! In an article published in this month’s Science magazine, anthropologists released their discovery of hominid footprints from approximately 1.51-1.53 million years ago in Ileret, Kenya. The foot prints, probably from a Homo ergaster, are from a series of three trails containing between 2 and 7 footprints each. The truly extraordinary part of this is that they are decidedly morphologically different from australopithecine footprints found Laetoli, Tanzania which were dated at 3.75 million years old. The difference shows that between 3.75 million BCE and 1.5 million BCE, hominins evolved what the article describes as an “essentially modern human foot function and style of bipedal locomotion.” As P.Z. Meyers of the Pharyngula blog puts it, “Remember, though, these are 1½ million years old, 250 times older than the age of the earth, according to creationists. That's a lot of wonder and history and evidence to throw away, but they do it anyway.” Come on guys, lets pull it together and accept reality for once! You can find the article by searching for the title in Google. The title is “Early Hominin Foot Morphology based on 1.5 Million Year old Footprints From Ileret, Kenya.”

Comments?

· I’d like to share a posting from the Pharyngula blog that was posted earlier today. It is titled, “Who is buying all that porn?” PZ Meyers writes:

An analysis of the consumption of internet pornography found that there are only small differences between states, but that there are some patterns. The patterns will not surprise anyone.

The biggest consumer, Utah, averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with 1.92 per 1000. "The differences here are not so stark," Edelman says.

Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year's presidential election - Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama.

So Republican states gobbled up more nekkid pitchers than Democratic states… but of course, one could argue that it was just the few Democrats in Utah who were slavering most obsessively over porn, while the Republican Mormons were being upright (no, wait, maybe that's the wrong word…) Montana is a conservative state, too, but maybe the ready availability of all those cows helps slake their forbidden lusts.*

What about those good Christians?

States where a majority of residents agreed with the statement "I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage," bought 3.6 more subscriptions per thousand people than states where a majority disagreed. A similar difference emerged for the statement "AIDS might be God's punishment for immoral sexual behaviour."

Heh. Now we all know what "values" is a code word for.

· Next, a humorous exchange between Richard Dawkins and Ray Comfort. For those of you who don’t know, Richard Dawkins is one of the big-name spokespersons of atheism worldwide, dubbed by some as the “pope of atheism.” He is most famous for his work, “The god Delusion.” Before I tell you who Ray is, I must express that these words are my opinion only. Ray Comfort is an evangelical Biblical Literalist Christian and a professional buffoon. A well known, incredibly obstinate, fatuous, buffoon. I cannot express how silly this little man is. I can only say that for a better view of his inanity I regularly read his blog at raycomfortfood.blogspot.com to get my daily guffaws in. According to a post at Dawkins’ website, one of Comfort’s representatives came forth to Dawkins offering $10,000 to debate him. Dawkins replied that $10,000 was a miserly sum compared to usual offerings, which, when in front of serious audiences, he usually declines. Dawkins stated that the only sufficient payment would be $100,000 to go directly to the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. A beautiful irony in getting Comfort to not only part with an extraordinary amount of money but in doing so to hurt Comfort’s cause and help Dawkins’. Comfort offered $20,000, but Dawkins’ refused again, clarifying that he was not doing it to get rich, but rather to ensure that $100,000 would be unavailable for Comfort to buy “animatronic dinosaurs with saddles, or other similar nonsense” This will definitely be something to watch out for in the coming months. A debate between Dawkins and Comfort would be the hight of true hilarity.

Comments on this potential laugh-fest?

· Next, I’d like to present an op-ed from the February 22 New York Times, by David Blakenhorn and Jonathan Rauch. They offer their article, “A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage.” The article reads as follows:

IN politics, as in marriage, moments come along when sensitive compromise can avert a major conflict down the road. The two of us believe that the issue of same-sex marriage has reached such a point now.

We take very different positions on gay marriage. We have had heated debates on the subject. Nonetheless, we agree that the time is ripe for a deal that could give each side what it most needs in the short run, while moving the debate onto a healthier, calmer track in the years ahead.

It would work like this: Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal government would also enact religious-conscience protections of its own. All of these changes would be enacted in the same bill.

Whatever our disagreements on the merits of gay marriage, we agree on two facts. First, most gay and lesbian Americans feel they need and deserve the perquisites and protections that accompany legal marriage. Second, many Americans of faith and many religious organizations have strong objections to same-sex unions. Neither of those realities is likely to change any time soon.

Further sharpening the conflict is the potential interaction of same-sex marriage with antidiscrimination laws. The First Amendment may make it unlikely that a church, say, would ever be coerced by law into performing same-sex wedding rites in its sanctuary. But religious organizations are also involved in many activities outside the sanctuary. What if a church auxiliary or charity is told it must grant spousal benefits to a secretary who marries her same-sex partner or else face legal penalties for discrimination based on sexual orientation or marital status? What if a faith-based nonprofit is told it will lose its tax-exempt status if it refuses to allow a same-sex wedding on its property?

Cases of this sort are already arising in the courts, and religious organizations that oppose same-sex marriage are alarmed. Which brings us to what we think is another important fact: Our national conversation on this issue will be significantly less contentious if religious groups can be confident that they will not be forced to support or facilitate gay marriage.

Gay couples have concerns of their own. Most, of course, want the right to marry, and nothing less. But federal recognition of same-sex marriage — leave aside what you think about the merits — is not likely in the near future. The federal Defense of Marriage Act forbids it. Barack Obama and most other Democratic presidential candidates opposed gay marriage. And most Americans continue to oppose it.

At the same time, federal law links many important perquisites to marital status, including Social Security survivor benefits, tax-free inheritance, spousal immigration rights and protections against mutual incrimination. All of these benefits are currently denied to same-sex couples, even those living in states that permit same-sex marriage or civil unions. But these same benefits could be conferred by federally recognized civil unions.

And while most Americans who favor keeping marriage as it has customarily been would prefer no legal recognition of same-sex unions at either the federal or the state level, we believe that they can live with federal civil unions — provided that no religious groups are forced to accept them as marriages. Many of these people may come to see civil unions as a compassionate compromise. For example, a PBS poll last fall found that 58 percent of white evangelicals under age 30 favor some form of legal same-sex union.

Show from: Feb. 20, 2009

2009-03-03T12:20:00.000-08:00

Scroll further down for two articles that didn't make it into the show...

Today we discussed a number of headlines which you will find linked below:

Atheist Group Files Lawsuit Against Prayer at Presidential Inauguration

Visiting Pope, Pelosi Hears a Call to Protect Life

Upstate Man Charged With Beheading His Estranged Wife

For Catholics, a Door to Absolution Is Reopened

We also spent most of the start of the show discussing the inauguration of the President, focusing primarily on Rick Warren's speech. The links to the transcripts of each speech are below:

President Barack Obama

Rick Warren

Joseph E. Lowery

There were two articles that didn't make it into the show, but I thought important and interesting enough to put into my pile of news items.

The first one is "Faith Based Fudging," an op-ed revealing an unfortunate move by the new American president. Apparently, Obama has chosen not only to renege on a campaign promise, but to open an avenue through which the hoards of the Religious Right might trample on our Constitution.

President Obama said, on the campaign trail, that he would continue the faith-based funding put into action by former President Bush, but would put in place stricter safeguards to ensure tax-payer dollars did not go towards the funding of proselytizing.

Even Christians should be outraged by this! Baptists, do you want you money going to fund a Catholic missionary? I think not.

I have not seen nearly enough outcry against this, even as there was none when Bush first put it into action. What's going on, here, folks? 'Cause I haven't a clue.

The second article was an interesting look into a woman's rights movment in Malaysia. In action for the past 20 years, the movment is bolstered by supporters from 47 countries, hundreds of Muslim women, and the Koran as their guide. The oppression of these women is justified by the Koran and so, in a fight fire with fire sort of mentality, these women aim to find passages in the holy text to prove their equality with men.

I'll say that they're going to have a very tough time. I've read the Koran from cover to cover and there's nothing useful about equality between the sexes. All the mullahs have to do is pull out 2:282, to show a woman as worth half that of a man, or 4:98, to show a woman equal to a feeble man or a child, or 7:24, to show that man and woman are enemies.

The religion, Islam, has doomed these women as far as I can see. They will never be treated as women are in more progressive societies. For even in America, when pride and honor and religion are more powerful than the threat of the law, the women will be beaten or killed by husbands and fathers and brothers and uncles who's greatest devotion is to God and not to family or state.

Christian Adoption

2009-01-19T17:40:00.000-08:00

Things like this make my blood boil. The man in the video is KingHeathen, a well-known personality on Youtube. It seems like the Family Values crowd does not always understand that Child Welfare is about children.

Click the title to see his video on his experience with Georgian adoption agencies, and in particular one which openly discriminates upon the basis of religious belief.

News for the Week

2008-12-23T23:28:00.000-08:00

Since we won't have a regular show for the next couple of weeks, I'll be keeping the blog updated with interesting news in the world of religion.

First up: Scrupulosity Disorder. In this article, about a study coming out of Brigham Young University, we discover a form of religious obsessive compulsion, revolving around "obsessive doubt about moral behavior often resulting in compulsive religious observance." The study apparently says that such behavior can result in "depression, apathy, isolation and even suicide." There's a lot of line-drawing confusion coming up in this issue as the problem stems across all religious beliefs and certain treatments and approaches will therefore be valued null or negative between different cases. Interesting stuff. I hope to be able to read the actual research when I return to the University. In the mean time you can find the article for sale here at The Journal of Anxiety Disorders.

Next: Bad Time Draw Bigger Crowds to Churches. In this report we discover that as the recession hits Americans hard they are being knocked off their feet and onto their butts...in pews. As Rev. A.R. Bernard says, "It’s a wonderful time, a great evangelistic opportunity for us. When people are shaken to the core, it can open doors." Wow, that's sweet--yeah, a real sweet sentiment. Other people's suffering is the perfect opportunity to take advantage of their vulnerability and fill their moment of emptiness with something equally empty, but providing the illusion of fulfillment.

Rev. Don MacKintosh said, "I found it very exciting...We need to leverage this moment, because every Christian revival in this country’s history has come off a period of rampant greed and fear. That’s what we’re in today — the time of fear and greed." Indeed. Yes, you will grow because of the common folk's fear of recession and your greed.

Yes, I know perhaps I'm being a bit shortsighted, and perhaps some of these preachers have good intentions at heart, but at the very core of it is the outright exploitation of people in need.

Third on the list: We have the Vatican in the news in two very unfortunate ways. First, in their Dignitas Personae and second in the pope's statement against homo/transsexual people. According to the New York Times the document titled Dignitas Personae, "ratchets up the church’s condemnations of embryonic stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, the “morning-after pill” and a host of other techniques it regards as violations of human dignity." Great. Just what we need. The religion that influences the minds of at least one fourth of the American public sends out a statment that attempts to even further stagnate the push for basic human rights. At the very least be honest with us! It's not a violation of so-called "human dignity," it's a violation of your god's wishes. You don't really want to protect human interests here on Earth, so much as you want to ensure you avoid infuriating the big man upstairs as long as you can.

And the pope's statement against the gays and trannies is just abominable. Apparently saving the world from homosexual acts is just as much an imperative as saving the environment is. I really can't think of anyting coherent to say about this at the moment. Just read the article and decide for yourself.

All the same, it was not even what I read about the pope's statement that infuriated me the most--it was what I learned when I read something else in a sister article.

The pope’s remarks come on the heels of the Vatican's refusal to join a United Nations appeal for the universal decriminalization of homosexuality launched on December 18 by 66 countries, not including the United States which also refused to sign the non-binding declaration.

Now, granted I don't know all the facts about the situation, but I'm failing to see how there could be any decent excuse for the United States abstaining from a measure like that. There are some truely terrible things going on in this world, and it's mostly centered around our lack of moving forward into the future, our fear of leaving behind the old, outdated moral code, and adopting a new one, one that includes everyone.

More from the world of gay: Apparently, Barack Obama has chosen Rick Warren to speak at his inauguration and this has started quite the uproar in the gay community. Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life," is reported to be "an outspoken opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage." I think Gene Robinson, openly gay bishop in the Episcopalian Church says it best when he said:

“I’m all for Rick Warren being at the table,” Bishop Robinson said, “but we’re not talking about a discussion, we’re talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation.”

What on Earth is Obama thinking, putting, at the front of his presidency, a man who so clearly is in opposition to what Obama told us he was about? This is despicable, and while I hope Obama will change his mind, I'm not holding my breath. I will be working at the inauguration and will almost certainly get to hear the speech live and in person. I'll let you all know what I think.

And last: an update on the Washington State Christmas display scandal. Now a Festivus pole will soon be joining the Nativity and the Atheist sign. Merry-freakin-Chrsitmas! I love it.

Well, that's all for now folks. I'll be back in a few weeks with another news update, or, perhaps, a rant. Right now I need to get to bed so I'm all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for Christmas Eve. That's right--the Evangelical Atheist is giong to be celebrating Christmas and enjoying every minute of it!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!

More Mail

2008-12-20T11:07:00.001-08:00

I recently came into contact with a conservative Christian who had some rather...unorthodox views. See for yourself. As an aside, my Youtube account has a notification in it's description calling for any religious person to provide evidence for their religion, seeing as the vast majority seem content with quoting their scriptures or offering a simple command to repent or die. It was this, he claimed, that spurred him to contact me.

I accidentally deleted the first comment he made. Basically, he was claiming to prove that I was "lost," and gave me a link to a site called Return of the Nephilim, which was steeped in UFO conspiracy theories loosely tied to Christian eschatology.

Here was my reply to some of the things I found on the site:
The last site I saw which suggested that our problems were in part extraterrestrial was the Joy of Satan. Before that, it was the Scientologists. As a general rule, I never believe UFO cults and I take conspiracy theorists' words with a grain of salt. Let me guess: 9/11 was done by the Rothschilds in conjunction with the Freemasons, right?

But that aside...

Matthew 24:37 refers to the "days of Noe," which is correct on your part, because the Nephilim were the supposed reason for the Flood (despite no evidence in the fossil record of any significant veering off in an entirely new direction, ending in a sudden mass extinction). However, the passage had not only described in some detail the actual apocalypse, which made NO reference to the Nephilim (understandable because they had been killed in the Flood), but also gives a false prophecy, claiming that the generation Jesus speaks to will not be gone before the Second Coming (Matthew 24:34).

For a more serious objection to the entire idea of non-redemption through hybridization, it is not mentioned exactly why there would be no redemption. Impurity was a an ancient Hebrew concept which is not followed by Christians today, unless you still consider mixing of the races a sin as they did. Angelic beings and human beings supposedly both have free will, which is what most Christians (aside from Calvinists and some other groups) consider to be essential for salvation, the ability to choose to be saved. Thus, hybridization between men and angels is not valid grounds to reject the possibility of redemption.

Let's also remember, this is God. He can snap his fingers and find a far more humane way of dealing with these unruly angels than to drown all of them. And yes, I am questioning his decision, because there is a question to be asked. If he has every option available to him (being omnipotent), why choose that one over something equally effective yet more compassionate?

The idea of a messiah and of atonement was not even PRESENT at the time that the Book of Genesis was written, so why assign future values to past peoples? If we are to understand the Old Testament, we can only understand it in the context in which it was written, which means that we simply can not force ideologies into it which were not there.

There's a wealth of other information on why a global flood would be next to impossible, as well, so I won't elaborate on that.

So now you can understand why your ideas aren't taking on. If I may suggest a few articles to you...
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20050125-000003.html
http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/brainstorm/200810/of-jock-straps-and-conspiracy-theories
http://www.world-mysteries.com/newgw/gw_rmd1.htm

His reply:
i appreciate and commend your willingness and so far openness to discuss.

as for the nephilim, i need not and do not want to put emphasis on them alone. it is just that the website is called "return of the nephilim." as to the identity of "extraterrestrial greys", the book Communion, by Whitely Streiber, a multiple abductee, shows unintended parrallels between close encounters of the third kind and demon violation spanning consecutive centuries.

the flood was not done due to angelic-human intermarriage, so far there is no evidence for this claim alone. genesis teaches that the flood was God's judgement on the wickedness of man and the evil rife in the world.

as for God using a flood instead of making everyone but noah and his family drop dead, a flood leaves evidence, which we see today, that God has already and is willing and capable of judging mankind.

i only recommended return of the nephilim as it carries a main theme, the "ufo" activity of demons. i did however say not to consider every word of it. there is a lot of crap in books and online.

and yeah, i love what you call "conspiracy theories." some are baloney, rather obviously, but there are sources, such as alex jones, who show evidence for each of their claims.

all the best.

may the force be with you..............

My Reply:
Assuming for a moment that abductions exist, there is nothing suggesting them to be "demon" related. In all likelihood, it's aliens which have been misconstrued as demons. However, I will stress that it might be something completely different,as every age has a different way of explaining phenomena.

For example, demon possessions are today understood through psychology, whereas they were understood in the past as being caused by malevolent spirits. Old theories are discarded and new ones replace them, just as the idea of demons died out a long time ago in most scholarly discourse in favor of better explanations of what we see in the world.

And no, there is no evidence of a global flood. I know of no reliable geologists or paleontologists who hold to that claim, because they tend to know what evidence is present in an ancient flood, evidence which is not present on a global scale. That, and we are still faced with the reason WHY that flood was necessary, a question that can be understood through our understanding of the culture in which the texts were written, but not through actual history or a logical analysis of the character of Yahweh.

His Reply:
you write: Assuming for a moment that abductions exist, there is nothing suggesting them to be "demon" related. In all likelihood, it's aliens which have been misconstrued as demons. However, I will stress that it might be something completely different,as every age has a different way of explaining phenomena.

every abduction account suggests that aliens are demons, as biblically and historically described.

you write: For example, demon possessions are today understood through psychology, whereas they were understood in the past as being caused by malevolent spirits. Old theories are discarded and new ones replace them, just as the idea of demons died out a long time ago in most scholarly discourse in favor of better explanations of what we see in the world.

escusemoi, have yo come across the possession of annaliese michel? psychology does not and cannot explain everything. the idea of demons did not die out a long time ago. real demons are alive and well among us this very day. go to an average bookstore, and go to the "mind, body and spirirt" section, and see how many books there are about "demon spirit contact". there is a market for it becuase people devotedly practice "necromancy" because it is real contact with spirits. however, those who practise it do not know who or what those "spirits" really are.

you write: And no, there is no evidence of a global flood. I know of no reliable geologists or paleontologists who hold to that claim, because they tend to know what evidence is present in an ancient flood, evidence which is not present on a global scale. That, and we are still faced with the reason WHY that flood was necessary, a question that can be understood through our understanding of the culture in which the texts were written, but not through actual history or a logical analysis of the character of Yahweh.

do you know of kent hovind?

My final reply:
"every abduction account suggests that aliens are demons, as biblically and historically described"

You'd need positive evidence claiming them to be something rather than aliens. Until then, all you're doing is speculating. Thus far, the dominant theory has been extraterrestrial, though even this is based upon pure speculation. You would also need to point out that the Old Testament was referring to alien abductions. I'd be more at ease with actual biblical scholars suggesting that, but thus far I have found none who make such claims.

"escusemoi, have yo come across the possession of annaliese michel?"
After a little research into Anneliese Michel, I've already found that she had suffered from a number of different psychiatric problems prior to the possession and was already intensely religious, which would make it all the more likely that she would interpret mental illness as being supernatural and demonic in cause.

"go to an average bookstore, and go to the "mind, body and spirirt" section, and see how many books there are about "demon spirit contact""

Don't assume something is true because Barnes & Noble has a section of books devoted to it. Half the books in those areas don't even fit the criteria most researchers would demand. Obviously, I can't be trusted to dissect each of them, but I can at least understand where they're coming from. A number are very uncritical and are only meant to pique the interest of people who like ghost stories, or they are meant for people such as Wiccans, Qabaalists, or Satanists, who have very unorthodox views anyway. I have yet to see a spirit, so I feel that I do have reason to be skeptical.

"do you know of kent hovind?"
The young earth creationist who got his degree from a diploma mill and was convicted of embezzling money? Yeah, and I don't happen to take his ideas as being reliable for obvious reasons. [CORRECTION: Hovind actually went to prison for tax offenses]

At this point, he stopped replying. I've seen plenty of people with very odd views, especially on Youtube, which tends to swarm with all sorts of strange people (I once found a page devoted to the teachings of the Black Israelites), but this guy is up there on my weird meter. It's enough to half convince me that I was talking to a troll. He did seem to know a little bit about certain things, though, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Not that it helped his argument much.

We Get Mail!

2008-12-19T12:23:00.000-08:00

Since we're not exactly the hottest thing out there right now and aren't getting a flood of e-mail, I thought I'd share this one with you since I thought it was fairly interesting and, despite a progressively deteriorating use of language, is fairly indicative of the average fundie Christian in general. First his message, and then my response:

Science and Religion Clash

Intelligent design is no less far from the scientific method than evolution or spontaneous generation. It is the theory of how everything in this world is so uniform that it must have been created by a powerful force with intelligence and therefore living. I’m not referring to creationism, strictly defined as the universe being created in 6- 24 hour days. The Bible does not specify that, rather days are a period of time, not the whole universe but just the earth could have been created in- say 6- 20,000 year ‘days’.. The contrasting theory is that everything came from a singularity, the concept of something or the lack there of, with no time, space, matter, or energy. The foundation of the Big Bang Theory is more inconclusive on where the energy came from to create all existing matter and energy than that a designer had first created time and hence in theory infinitely exists. Spontaneous generation is the theory of life emerging from molecules in a ‘soup’. Those molecules of organic elements are believed to have formed into amino acids eventually becoming a single celled organism that could grow and reproduce, eventually becoming intelligent enough to comprehend, wonder, imagine and love while putting together this e-mail. The chances of the compounds forming amino acids and then DNA are extremely slim by themselves, let alone in such a hostile condition of the early earth. Evolution is flawed simply by the understanding that cells cannot mutate what there is no original formula to make. Such as fish scales eventually becoming bird feathers. The chances of a mutation being beneficial such as enabling a fish to grow legs and only breathe are almost as slim as the amino acids forming, 1 in 1000, I believe. The rest are mostly neutral and some harmful.
There is a point of rationality that is irrational, fogging the view, refusing to see potential because the laws seem to contradict it. Einstein altered Newton’s accepted laws. Has evolution been successful in making man better, more peaceful (Matthew 24:1-14) or smarter potentially? I bet thousand year old Egyptians could hack a computer if exposed to the same environment a skilled hacker has been exposed to.

You discussed the hypocrisy of religion in particular: Christendom. Look up Matthew 24:23-26 and think twice about referring to all Christianity as hypocrisy built on lies and fear.

The attitude: “Why should what God say go?”
(From a Bible perspective, not atheist or Hindu or the couple who want an open marriage and to believe in God)
“Father knows best”, so just because the neighbor tells me to do it means I can go against him cause I’m myself?
“God Is Love” 1 John 4:8
Questioning God’s right and just ability to rule is the very theme of the Bible. In the beginning…God Created man. Adam and Eve, the Bible’s first humans lived in perfection, they were created in God and Jesus’ likenesses, that is, possessing the quality of love. They also had free will, deciding what they want to do when. Their choice whether or not in accordance with the laws of their maker. One angel chose to go against God, he wanted glory from the creation. In the form of a serpent he approached Eve and told her to eat from the only tree forbidden to them. He implied that God was holding something back from them when he gave this command. That although they were told in that day (again day being a longer period of time) they would die. The devil told otherwise, in that day they would know right from wrong and become like God himself. They died and passed death and imperfection onto their children. The question is, are humans better off without their guide to slaughter and to hate?
And what of Hellfire? Simply it is a miss interpretation. Hades or She’ol are other names, just a reference to the grave were everyone who has died goes. The dead are unconscious- Ecclesiastes 9:10. This is biblically true because of what is foretold in Revelation 24:13,14; Hades spat up the dead, in reference to the resurrection, and Hades (hell) was thrown into the Lake Of Fire (Gahanna…(gahenna?)). This is illogical if hell is a physical place. The two are deaths. Hell is temporary and the Lake Of Fire is everlasting destruction- not torture but something destroyed forever, gone.
(End)

Before you exploit all of Christianity as hypocrisy and nonsense. Do research about what the Bible really says instead of what the Churches say.

I responded:

Hi, thank you for writing into the show! I’ll respond to your e-mail in the order in which you wrote it.

First, give me ONE shred of evidence for intelligent design. One. Next, give me evidence that the Bible is literally true, especially in its creation accounts. Your descriptions of ID are useless unless they can be backed up. Indeed, the Big Bang theory may not be true, but that doesn’t mean that we immediately insert God. It is not rational to simply say, “We don’t know how it works, therefore, God did it.”

Next, you talked about the chances of life starting on its own. The fact is there are a number planets around our sun (a star), 100 billion stars in our galaxy, 50 glaxies in a supercluster of galaxies, and thousands of superclusters on top of that. Add to that the moons that surround planets and the near 10 billion years that all the chemicals on all those planets had to bump into each other and you start to see that it’s not quite as unlikely as you might think for a self-replicating chemical to form. Besides, we know it happened. You know how we know? Because we’re here. Yes, it might be unlikely, but we beat the odds. If we didn’t we wouldn’t be around to know it.

As for the chances of beneficial mutation, again we take natural selection over time as our model. Let’s go with your estimate of 1 in 1000. If we had one million reptiles we see, based strictly on the probability, that we might expect to have 1000 beneficial mutations. And that’s with just one millions reptiles in one generation. Think about it over millions of years and millions of generations. The ones with neutral continue to survive, the ones with harmful mutations die and spare the rest of the gene pool.

Your next point, about humanity’s recent evolution is an interesting one, however you neglect a few points. First, you neglect that there is only a few thousand years of “civilized” human existence, and therefore not nearly enough time for us to evolve as a species. Second, you neglect to notice that humans are distinct in our social interactions. Humans work to keep those with negative mutations alive instead of letting nature kill off the weak. Humanity will have a difficult time evolving in the future due to our hospitals and medical advances. Indeed, in the wild, the less intelligent children would have died most likely and the children with the higher intelligence would have survived better, had an easier time of propagating their genes, and would have spread their “smart genes” further down the road. But in our world it is fairly easy for the less intelligent to survive and therefore their weaker genes will be kept alive.

As for the feathers and scales thing: I admit I don’t know, but I sure as heck am not going to act like I do and just invoke God. I’ll do some research. And if I can’t find anything, I’ll be comfortable knowing that all the patterns of evolutionary research have shown that there is a mechanism to all nature and that although it is currently unknown, there is one to explain the feathers thing.

As for your next point about my denouncement of “Christendom” as hypocritical, I’m not sure what you were getting at. I read the passage and all it said was that there would be false Christians. Okay, so tell me who the true Christians are and I’ll tell you how they too are hypocrites.

The language in your next “point” about “why should what God says go” kind of breaks down, so I had a really hard time understanding what you were trying to explain with the neighbor allegory.

As for Hell? Read you Bible, man. Mathew 13:41-42. ‘Nuff said.

Before you try to defend your indefensible religion of destruction and hate, do research about what the Bible and Science really say instead of what the Churches say.

THE END

I'll be sharing this on probably the first episode of the next season of Atheists at the Table. Leave your thoughts in the comments section and I'll talk about it on the show!

Show from: Dec. 10

2008-12-13T14:08:00.000-08:00

This was our Christmas episode! Myself, Mike, Paul, and a special guest were with us today to discuss Santa and the origins of Christmas. Here's the transcript of what I read during the show with items linked. Enjoy!

The topic today is Christmas! First off, Merry Christmas, everyone! It’s a great holiday whether you’re Christian, atheist, or Jew. I know I, for one, will be celebrating it. I’ve got a couple of talking points today. We’re going to take a look at the physics of Santa, as provided by our friend and co-host, Paul. Then we’re going to do a comparison of the mythological figures known as Santa and Yahweh, followed by an investigation of the origins of Christmas traditions, and ending, finally, with a look into when Christ was probably actually born.

So first, the physics of Santa Claus!

No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, and assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of his sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course we know to be false but for the purpose of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (refer to point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal load, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy per SECOND, EACH! In short, hey will burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create a deafening sonic boom in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal* forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

So how do we counter for these problems, since, as any child knows Santa exists, just like god. Ion shields. That’s right. Ion shields. God has a particle shield just like in Star Wars that keeps him from burning up in the atmosphere. But what about the heat from the air resistance? Well, why do you think the polar ice caps are melting? And how does Santa get moving that fast? Well, Gaute Einevoll, who works with physics in organic systems, figured out that Santa Claus of course uses vacuum energy. The sleigh and reindeer use repulsive energy to compensate for the force of gravity and therefore can fly. See? It’s so simple! And how does Santa know what you’re thinking? Well, did you ever wonder why you always wear those winter hats that have the little fuzz ball at the top. That’s right, it’s a transmitting device that sends out a signal from your brain of what you thinking.

See, with a little creative thinking, you can work out any problem. It is kind of interesting, when you think about it, how paralleled the characters of Santa and the Judeo-Christian God are. They both have apparent omniscience, knowledge of all things, as Santa always knows what you want and if you’ve been good enough to get it. They’re also omnipresent, everywhere. You ever go mall hopping during the Christmas season? You notice that there’s a Santa in every store! It’s because Santa can be where ever he wants, whenever. Santa is also somewhat omnipotent. He can get his hands on the coolest toys and can do all those crazy things that physics won’t allow. Just like God, Santa lives outside of time and physics; I mean, it’s the only way to explain all his powers. They both have a specific moral code. God has the ten commandments and such, and Santa judges who’s naughty or nice. They both have reward/punishment systems. God has hell, Santa has coal. We have similar practices regarding them. We pray to God to get what we want, we sit on Santa’s lap to get what we want. God has angels to do his bidding, Santa has elves. Heaven is a supposedly magical place “up there.” Santa lives in a magical place “up there” at the North Pole. And of course, they both have their messiah, savior, figures. God has Jesus Christ, and Santa has Rudolph! And last, but not least, let’s remember, they have the same amount of evidence regarding their existence!

Just a little food for thought. So let’s talk a little bit about the religious origins of Christmas. First, when was Jesus born? (I also used this link) Hold on for this one, folks: it wasn’t December 25^th, 1 AD. That was a date adopted by the early Christian church for a variety of reasons, namely to keep peace with local pagans and polytheists, who were the majority back then, to blend in, and for a smoother transition into Christianity becoming the majority religion later on. December 25^th coincided with the popular Roman holidays celebrating the birth and rebirth of a series of sun gods from different cultures, as well as Mithras, a popular god of the day. Using the bible, some common sense, and some astronomy, the birth of Jesus Christ can be placed at around the 29^th of September. A number of clues in the gospels lead us to this result. First, the census, which would have been impractical to conduct during the winter. Next, the fact that the flocks of sheep were still out and about. The flocks were brought out of the field before October. Jesus could not have been born on 1 AD or BC, since he was born during the reign of Herod, who died in 4 BC. Therefore, that is the earliest Jesus could have been born.

Looking into some of the Christmas traditions (I also used this link) we find that they often pull their roots from ancient pagan winter solstice festivals. These festivals would celebrate the rebirth of the sun, since the winter solstice is the shortest day of the year and the day when the sun is lowest in the sky. After that the sun would begin to rise again, and be “born.” These pagan festivals used symbols of feritility and life to decorate their houses, such as evergreens, mistletoe, and holly since these plants stay green throughout the winter. Yule logs were originally used in ancient Germanic pagan rituals and were burned for all of the festival. Yule has its origins in a pre-Christian winter festival celebrated by the Germans. Mistletoe was used by druid priests 200 years before the birth of Christ to celebrate winter.

A few other fun facts: The poinsettia’s association with Christmas began in 16th century Mexico, where legend tells of a young girl who was too poor to provide a gift for the celebration of Jesus' birthday. The tale goes that the child was inspired by an angel to gather weeds from the roadside and place them in front of the church altar. Crimson "blossoms" sprouted from the weeds and became beautiful poinsettias. The term x-mas comes from the Greek spelling of Christ which starts with an x. The term Christmas derives from the phrase Christ’s mass. Just a couple of trivia points for all of you out there.

We also discussed:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/it_just_gets_better_and_better.php

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/war_on_christmas_heats_up_with.php

The Trouble with Religious Moderates

2008-12-04T15:04:00.000-08:00

This is a transcript of my rant from the Dec. 3 show:

Well, last week an offended listener called Binghamton University’s president and complained about my show. The complaint trickled down to the general manager of WHRW and then to the Public Affairs Manager who called me in for a meeting this afternoon.

So this is the land of the free, hunh, folks? This is what it’s come down to. Censorship of thoughts, ideas. This nation has become so damn terrified of words it’s afraid of its own shadow. Its citizens have become like pathetic children who were too mollycoddled by their parents in their toddling years and now can’t fend for themselves in the ruthless abode of primary school.

It’s unfortunate that one displeased listener can cause such unnecessary hubbub. ONE listener complains and I am called in to be chastised for saying that certain religions are ridiculous and certain persons intellectually dishonest. Of course that’s my opinion! Of course it’s not necessarily fact! What, you have some person out there who hears me say that his religion is untrue and suddenly he converts to atheism? Come on, give me a freaking break. Anyone who would do something like that IS intellectually dishonest; and that’s my sincere, sincere opinion. We have a disclaimer presented at the beginning of the show that’s supposed to cover this crap.

“This program may contain language or material which may be considered offensive. The views expressed are those of the engineer and his guests and do not reflect the views of other WHRW members or management, and we therefore ask you to carefully consider whether you or your children should listen.”

Why the heck am I playing that goddamn disclaimer if it’s ultimately meaningless? *sigh*
I asked the PA Manager how in heck I could go about conducting a show about religion that doesn’t offend SOMEBODY. I asked her if they had a specifically Christian show. She said they didn’t, but I pressed on, asking her how she thought that if she gave a show to Christian they would be able to promote their views without offending somebody, like a Jew or Muslim or Hindu, or me?

She said that on her show she mentions that religion is a private thing, and made sure to emphasize that I probably wouldn’t agree with her. Well I didn’t and I let her know. I let her know that that religion isn’t private anymore, and probably never was. Religion is blowing up buildings, killing children, destroying minds, infantilizing education, and distorting politics. It is bringing down a civilization that doesn’t want or need it anymore. Religion is like the pathetic kid who tries to hang out with the cool posse but doesn’t realize that no one wants him around. Society doesn’t want religion anymore. Society wants to grow, to take grand steps forwards without having to worry about whether or not they stepped on someone’s toes. We don’t want our morality to be defined by the barbaric ideas of an age gone past, and we don’t want our science stunted by the “honest beliefs” of ignorant nomads. We don’t want our wars run by people who believe their command comes from their imaginary friend, and we don’t want our laws made and our money spent of the waste of time that is religion.

Of course, I’m no expert. These are my opinions. However, and again this is my opinion and in no way reflects the policies of WHRW, I feel confident in saying that if someone wanted to run a Christian radio show they would be left unhindered to say that Jesus is the one true God and that atheists are going to hell and that Hinduism is a false religion etcetera etcetera. Unhindered, I’m sure. And yet I believe that those statements could and most probably would be taken as offensive by someone, somewhere. And they wouldn’t be asked to repeatedly affirm that what they say was their “mere opinion” often throughout the show. Christians wouldn’t be required to have opposing view points.

I sincerely apologize to the listeners who may have been used to hearing from our Jewish and Catholic co-hosts however I do not control them and they have busy academically filled lives. When they had to step down from the show I brought in atheist speakers because they were the ones who wanted to come on the show to fill the spots. And I think the show has done wonderfully with our new panel.

I’m frustrated, I am, but I’m also happy because my conversation with the Public Affairs manager gave me just the motivation to tackle a topic I have put off for too long now: the trouble with religious moderates.

Indeed, today I am going to explain my position against religion in all its forms, from extremists to moderates.

First: extremists. They suck. End of story. And if I have to qualify my hatred of religious extremism which is synonymous with murder, genocide, infanticide, moral corruption, and evil, with the statement that it is my opinion, then there’s seriously something wrong with this world…but then again, I’m no expert.

But on the flip side of the coin we have moderate religious folks. Your Sunday Christians. Maybe only Christmas and Easter Christians. Or perhaps even the “oh crap, where are my car keys, don’t let me be pregnant, lets win this game, I didn’t study for this test” every once in a while Christians. What’s the problem with these folks?

The essence of it is that they create a base on which religious extremists can stand, perpetuate dangerous tenants and dogmas into future generations, is often psychologically crippling its adherents, and they often support legislation and institutions that lead to a poorer society. A four prong issue.

I came across an excellent article titled “The Problem with Religious Moderates” by Sam Harris. It is excerpted from his book “The End of Faith,” in my opinion the best book on secularism. I am going to read an excerpt from this excerpt which will start this little argument of mine out.

“People of faith fall on a continuum: some draw solace and inspiration from a specific spiritual tradition, and yet remain fully committed to tolerance and diversity, while others would burn the earth to cinders if it would put an end to heresy. There are, in other words, religious moderates and religious extremists, and their various passions and projects should not be confused. However, religious moderates are themselves the bearers of a terrible dogma: they imagine that the path to peace will be paved once each of us has learned to respect the unjustified beliefs of others. I hope to show that the very ideal of religious tolerance-born of the notion that every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about God-is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss.

We have been slow to recognize the degree to which religious faith perpetuates man's inhumanity to man. This is not surprising, since many of us still believe that faith is an essential component of human life. Two myths now keep faith beyond the fray of rational criticism, and they seem to foster religious extremism and religious moderation equally: (i) most of us believe that there are good things that people get from religious faith (e.g., strong communities, ethical behavior, spiritual experience) that cannot be had elsewhere; (2) many of us also believe that the terrible things that are sometimes done in the name of religion are the products not of faith per se but of our baser natures-forces like greed, hatred, and fear-for which religious beliefs are themselves the best (or even the only) remedy. Taken together, these myths seem to have granted us perfect immunity to outbreaks of reasonableness in our public discourse.

Many religious moderates have taken the apparent high road of pluralism, asserting the equal validity of all faiths, but in doing so they neglect to notice the irredeemably sectarian truth claims of each. As long as a Christian believes that only his baptized brethren will be saved on the Day of judgment, he cannot possibly "respect" the beliefs of others, for he knows that the flames of hell have been stoked by these very ideas and await their adherents even now. Muslims and Jews generally take the same arrogant view of their own enterprises and have spent millennia passionately reiterating the errors of other faiths. It should go without saying that these rival belief systems are all equally uncontaminated by evidence.

While moderation in religion may seem a reasonable position to stake out, in light of all that we have (and have not) learned about the universe, it offers no bulwark against religious extremism and religious violence. The problem that religious moderation poses for all of us is that it does not permit anything very critical to be said about religious literalism. We cannot say that fundamentalists are crazy, because they are merely practicing their freedom of belief; we cannot even say that they are mistaken in religious terms, because their knowledge of scripture is generally unrivaled. All we can say, as religious moderates, is that we don't like the personal and social costs that a full embrace of scripture imposes on us. This is not a new form of faith, or even a new species of scriptural exegesis; it is simply a capitulation to a variety of all-too-human interests that have nothing, in principle, to do with God.

Unless the core dogmas of faith are called into question-i.e., that we know there is a God, and that we know what he wants from us-religious moderation will do nothing to lead us out of the wilderness.”

This is the “moderate base that upholds the religious extremists” that I spoke of.
Allow me to add my two cents. The religious person in general adheres to the idea that beliefs should be respected, most likely stemming from the idea that if they don’t support the rights of other to believe what they want, what’s to stop others from denying their right to believe as they see fit. I was next going to describe my theory of the Tower of Religious Extremism, but in my literary travels I discovered that Mr. Harris has a very similar idea that is so eloquently put that I wouldn’t dare deprive you of its brilliance. the title of the article is "God's Dupes." Here goes:

“Picture concentric circles of diminishing reasonableness: At the center, one finds the truest of true believers — the Muslim jihadis, for instance, who not only support suicidal terrorism but who are the first to turn themselves into bombs; or the Dominionist Christians, who openly call for homosexuals and blasphemers to be put to death.

Outside this sphere of maniacs, one finds millions more who share their views but lack their zeal. Beyond them, one encounters pious multitudes who respect the beliefs of their more deranged brethren but who disagree with them on small points of doctrine — of course the world is going to end in glory and Jesus will appear in the sky like a superhero, but we can't be sure it will happen in our lifetime.

Out further still, one meets religious moderates and liberals of diverse hues — people who remain supportive of the basic scheme that has balkanized our world into Christians, Muslims and Jews, but who are less willing to profess certainty about any article of faith. Is Jesus really the son of God? Will we all meet our grannies again in heaven? Moderates and liberals are none too sure.

Those on this spectrum view the people further toward the center as too rigid, dogmatic and hostile to doubt, and they generally view those outside as corrupted by sin, weak-willed or unchurched.

The problem is that wherever one stands on this continuum, one inadvertently shelters those who are more fanatical than oneself from criticism. Ordinary fundamentalist Christians, by maintaining that the Bible is the perfect word of God, inadvertently support the Dominionists — men and women who, by the millions, are quietly working to turn our country into a totalitarian theocracy reminiscent of John Calvin's Geneva. Christian moderates, by their lingering attachment to the unique divinity of Jesus, protect the faith of fundamentalists from public scorn. Christian liberals — who aren't sure what they believe but just love the experience of going to church occasionally — deny the moderates a proper collision with scientific rationality. And in this way centuries have come and gone without an honest word being spoken about God in our society.”

Yes, and the moderates go to church more often than the even-more-moderates who just think a person needs spirituality in their lives, but the even-more-moderates support the moderates right to church as much as their hearts desire. By this layering of protection we have shielded anyone and everyone from criticism. Think about it. After 9/11, did we attack their religion, saying how it was evil and dangerous? No. Because the suicide attackers were merely devout believers. If we attacked the religion we’d have to tell Muslims around the world that their religion was wrong. And then what’s to stop people from attacking Christianity. No, instead we called them “cowards,” which was, in my sincere, sincere, opinion, one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.

How are non-hardcore Christians as well as secularists and people of differing beliefs further imposed upon by the fundies? Consider Blue Laws, put in place by the religious to undermine the rights of the non-religious or alternately religious to use their times as they see fit. In our very own New York we are not allowed to purchase alcohol between the hours of 4 AM and 8AM on Sundays, which may also vary by county. In Pennsylvania, car dealerships must be closed and hunting is prohibited on Sundays. Bergen County New Jersey forbids all forms of employment on Sunday, citing the “supposed” physical, intellectual, and moral good of the community. You’ll find more of these in various other states.

Our right to choose is being attacked most ferverently by the religious. Now that’s not to say that there aren’t atheists out there against abortion, but it is the religious community that is most actively working to lobby to enact laws that will overturn Roe v. Wade. Yeah, ‘cause coathanger abortions as so friggen great. But then, I’m no expert. But just consider someone you love getting raped, impregnated against her will, and then being forced to carry through to term. Imagine a couple with a child they know will have a severe mental or physical disability. Isn’t it their right as parents to spare their child the pain before the child can even conceive of pain?
Let us consider gay rights or rather the lack thereof. Let us consider the hypocritical proponents of the save-the-family institutions. You will find, very often that even liberal Christians are uncomfortable with gay marriage. The one’s a little more gung-ho, are behind Proposition 8 and various other &quote pro-family quote& organizations. I have an idea. How about we build up more families. Loving families, where Biblical patriarchy isn’t enforced in a “spare the rod spoil the child” fashion. Just recently Arkansas made it illegal for unmarried persons to adopt—a transparent way of keeping gays from adopting. Yeah, let’s keep our religious ideals held as high as possible, in front of our eyes if necessary, and completely ignore the well being of the children. This law keeps unmarried heterosexual couples from adopting as well as single heteros. This law hurts so many people, especially the helpless children.

Let’s consider the religious right’s fight against stem cell research, one of the most promising fields of research today. If you want to say that the Crusades and the Inquisition are in the past, perhaps, but the mass murder that went with that sort of religious fervor isn’t. By preventing stem cell research, just how many people do you think will die needlessly? And the blood is on your hands, Christian moderate for not speaking up, for not acting out.

Catholic missionaries in places like Africa discourage Condom use leading to the spread of HIV throughout an already disease ravaged land.

The religious promote abstinence only education which has been proven to be not only ineffectual, but dangerous, leading to higher teen pregnancy ratings and STD transmissions. What did you think would happen when you failed to mention safe-sex to a bunch of hormone charged teenagers?

What about a person’s right to choose when to die? Euthinasia. It is a person’s right to decide what to do with his or her own existence. If they are in pain, if they cannot bear to live, then who are we to force them to stay alive, especially in terminal cases. Why are we forcing someone to go through, say, another three months of torture just to die, so that we can feel morally upstanding? Why don’t the moderates speak out? Probably because they agree in most cases. They might say it’s God’s job to say when you die. I say there is no God and we can decide. Live with dignity, die with it.

Moving on. In Arkansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Texas, I cannot hold office because I am an atheist. In court I have a choice to testify on a Bible if I so desire. And if I don’t, and there is a Christian in the jury, do you not think that some prejudice will be held against me? That my word won’t be taken at value? Even a moderate Christian in the jury would likely have this response. Consider a study done at the University of Minnesota that found Atheists to be the most distrusted minority in America.
Religious institutions don’t pay taxes, even the liberal churches, increasing the financial burden on the rest of us. DO you really think all those mega-churches need to remain tax free? How much money could the country pull in if we started taxing them like you would any property owners in the U.S.? I have no idea, but I can say with a fair amount of confidence that it would help. But, of course, I’m no expert.

The national motto of “In God We Trust” excludes not only the secular population, but polytheists, pantheists, and deists. “In God We Trust” did not become the national motto until 1956. “Under God” was not added to the pledge until 1954. As children and adolescents we are compelled to recite the pledge every morning of school. What is with the publicly sponsored religious indoctrination? And where was the uproar? There was none, because Christians are, and have always been, the majority in America, and even the least extreme among them probably thought it was “nice,” especially during the era of Communist fear. I do not trust in God, and I don’t even think believers should trust in God. He hasn’t done so well thus far. As George Carlin said, “If this is the best god can do, i am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the resume of a supreme being. This is the kind of crap you'd expect form an office temp with a bad attitude.”

How about the dumbing down of science and education with intelligent design? Even the moderates often support this one, at best saying, with an innocent tone, “Well, let’s teach both sides, let’s teach the controversy.” It was heard recently across international television when uttered by Sarah Palin. That should be enough to tell you it’s a bad idea. Intelligent design is not science. It is non-predictive, and does not work off of the scientific method. There is no reputable research done in to the field that supports its claim. I am no expert, however I’ve done significant study in this subject, and I give you my understanding that ID is at best unintelligent and ignorant of the facts, and at worst dangerous.

The religion supported by moderates leads to unpunished abuses of children. There’s the story of a girl in Texas who was exorcised against her will and suffered post-traumatic stress disorder because of it. The court ruled in favor of the church, saying that it couldn’t get involved in religious affairs. There’s the story from Little Axe, Oklahoma where a woman filed suit against a school for providing special privileges for certain Christians which led to detractions from those outside the group. This woman was repeatedly assaulted and her house burned down. The cafeteria worker who assaulted the lady was supported by the community and money was raised for her to pay the fine enforced on her. How about the ever popular Catholic priest scandals? How about the psychological damage done when you tell a child that they might go to Hell, and that many of the people they know and perhaps love are going to Hell?

Atheist kids aren’t even allowed in the Boy Scouts anymore. As a former Boy Scout, I have to say, “For shame.”

Religion, even on the moderate level is sexually repressive and, therefore, often psychologically detrimental.

Religion, even on the moderate level discriminates against women, the “progenitors of sin,” who are subservient to their husbands. It is discriminatory to gays, as I previously mentioned.

And let’s not forget the recent measure by the United Nations to favor a treaty outlawing defamation of religions. You heard that right. A law to prevent freedom of speech. I am…honestly…speechless.

Let’s go through that one more time: Blue Laws, anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-stem cell research, anti-human dignity, anti-political freedom, anti-free speech, anti-America in the way of refusing to pay taxes, the institution of monotheistic terms into the pledge money and government, anti-science, anti-proper education, anti-sex, anti-condoms, anti-safe sex, anti-not abusing your children, anti-women, anti-kids, and I’m sure there’s a whole lot more out there. All because of either the direct actions of moderate Christians, or the moderate Christian’s, albeit unwitting, support of the extremist factions.

Religion does not help society. In a study published in the “Journal of Religion,” titles “Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies,” it was found that societies that were more secular fared better societally than countries like, say, the United States. The U.S., arguably the most religious of all the western nations fares worst in terms of homicide rates, general crime, violence, education, and social dysfunction. The report concludes that while religion may not cause these ills, it certainly doesn’t help them.

Religion is a blight on the face of humanity, a position held by many for quite some time, only now it’s being proved. I’m sorry if I’ve offended any of you listeners out there, but it’s true. You are enablers of religious extremism, and the hard and fast of it is that you can’t honestly speak out against the extremists without it coming back to attack your religion. How can you ask someone else to believe less than you do and then expect others not to ask the same of you? But, of course, I’m no expert. It’s sad, this state of the world.

I want to see a secular Earth. I believe it will be healthier than the one we have right now. No, I don’t want to wave a magic wand and make everyone suddenly atheists. There are many people out there who could not function without their imaginary teddy bear in the sky. Instead I want society as a whole to continue moving in the secular direction, letting each new generation develop it own mental toolset for dealing with a world without god, without, angels and demons, without pixies and fairies. Without heaven and hell. I believe we will see more peace on a secular Earth. You see, with religious dogma, there is no compromise. It’s what the big boss upstairs tells you or nothing at all. You can’t argue with that. But when everyone realizes that this life is the only one they’ve got and that we’ve got to work together to sustain a happy life, I think that we will solve our problems much more readily. Of course that’s my opinion, but it is my sincere, sincere opinion.

Show from: Dec. 3

2008-12-04T14:17:00.000-08:00

Long show today! Hour and a half, since the show after us never came in.

Last week we received a complaint from an offended listener. It caused a bit of hubbub so I dedicated today's show to ranting about freedom of expression and then a longer rant about the Trouble with Religious Moderates.

We were missing Zach today, but in his place we had Arliss, a Christian!

Check out atheisttable.blogspot.com for a copy of the rant I went on in today's show.

Feel free to write us at atheisttable@gmail.com

Christian Queers

2008-12-04T14:14:00.000-08:00

There’s something that really gets under my skin, pisses me off, if you’ll excuse a crude statement. And it’s Gay Christians. Not the happy kind, the homosexual kind who try to reconcile their Christian beliefs with their homosexuality. That goes for gay Jews and gay Muslims, two fold. Two fold for Jews because they lack the so-called “redeeming quality” of the New Testament and all that lovey-dovey crap that gets misinterpreted as real love all the time. Two fold for Muslims because of the Quran, which adds on to the anti-queer bullcrap that gets spewed from the religious. It is my firm belief that you cannot be an honest Christian and be comfortable with your homosexuality. If you are, then you are simply ignoring your scripture to satisfy whatever will make you sleep well at night. Normally I wouldn’t have a problem with this, this practice of being dishonest with one’s self; however, in this instance it leads to the perpetuation of dangerous and evil beliefs. I’m speaking to you, Christian Queer! Your “holy” support of Christ and his fag-hating ways keeps the Bible alive as a source of dogma and allows it to be fed to the rabid fundamentalists, such as Fred Phelps, Jimmy Swaggart, Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson. Binghamton University itself was home to one of these raving lunatics just a few weeks ago at the end of September, when he stood outside the Student Union crying out about all the “sins” of the students, with a massive sign advertising ex-gay websites. And that guy was a nice one. We’d have had a real issue if we had gotten a “true” Christian on the campus, who would have cried out for every gay man, bisexual, and lesbian who had engaged in sexual acts with a member of the same gender to be stoned to death immediately, and then would have reminded his audience that they were, at the moment of their death, transported to hell to burn for all eternity.

So let us argue this with scripture, because, when you discuss it at the Christian level, that is what it ultimately comes down to. It doesn’t matter if YOU think God loves everyone, it doesn’t matter if YOU think God IS love. The Bible has the answers, yes it does. First, let us deal with that issue of hate. Does God hate? Yes. He does. There are several verses that speak of it, but I shall pull here a few indisputable ones. Let us try Psalm 11:5, The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Or, Proverbs 6:16, These six things doth the LORD hate. Hosea 9:15, Malachi 1:3, Romans 9:13. It’s all there. So the god of Abraham hates, end of story.

Now I suppose it’s best to examine the arguments against homosexuality based in the Bible. I’m fairly certain we’re all aware of the story of Sodom and Gamorrah. There’s a city filled with wicked people, and the focus of the story is on the group of men who come to righteous Lot’s door asking to have sex with his two male guests. Lot offers them his virgin daughter but the men insist that they want the hunks in the back. Those guests happen to be angels and God, and God proceeds to kick some serious ass. The next most commonly used part of the bible is Leviticus which contains two verses pertaining to the butt-pirates of the world. Leviticus 18:22 reads, Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. Leviticus 20:13 reads, If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. That seems pretty damn straight forward to me. If a man has sex with another man he should be killed and is responsible for his own death. I.e. he had it coming. Think about THAT the next time you remember Matthew Shepard. There are several other Old Testament verses that speak very negatively, particularly fatally, of homosexuals, but I’ll let you look those up yourself instead of boring you here with it

So we move on to the New Testament. Romans 1:26-27, which shows a contempt for lesbians as well (for shame!), reads, For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And also Romans 1:31-32 reading, (Those) without natural affection…are worthy of death. Let us not forget Corinthians 6:9 which reads, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind shall inherit the kingdom of God. Let us move away from the writings of Paul and examine the Letter of Jude, brother of James, presumably the brother of Jesus. In the 7th verse it is written, Likewise, Sodom and Gamorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

In all of these examples, proof enough I would hope in a book that is meant to be the inspired word of god, I never once used a verse that used terms that could possibly be reinterpreted or retranslated to mean something else. The Bible uses the term Sodomite and Dog to refer to gay men, however, I refrained from using verses with those terms in this sampling to avoid any possible confusion.

Now we examine the claims for Gay Christianity. The most common arguments are that the words are being mistranslated, however, that does not hold very well, especially in the case of Leviticus, which directly calls for the death of homosexuals. The next argument is that the laws laid down in Leviticus were rules for a savage man, a hunter-gatherer type of person. Low civilization man. They base this off of the idea that there are a lot of very involved hygiene and dietary laws that don’t really apply in today’s world. First off, I don’t see it saying anywhere in the Bible that if things get comfortable enough for you, if the world gets advanced enough that the rules just stop applying. The words of the Lord himself seem to very clearly state that gay men should be killed. End of story. Then they want to say that Jesus did away with the Law, that, as Galatians 5:14 says, The entire law is summed up in one command: Love your neighbor as yourself. But taking that in the context of Biblical love, which is described as so-called “natural” love, loving your same-sex neighbor in a romantic way would be out of line, and not considered an act of “true” love by the Almighty. If we do not love how the lord intends us to love, then we are lost.

Jesus himself says that the greatest commandment of the law is to “Love the Lord God with all your heart and your soul and your mind.” How could one do that when they are constantly aware that they are an “abomination” to the lord? How could they continue to act on their homosexuality when the result would be flying rudely in the face of their God? And do not think that Jesus condemns the cruelty of the Old Testament. Indeed, he reinforces it. Jesus himself says, “Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am come not to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, not one jot or tittle shall pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Indeed, not until after the events of Revelations (which, at last check, have not occurred) shall any of the old law become a moot issue. Even if we go further with some theological interpretations of the gospel, we find that Jesus did away with the ceremonial law, i.e. law dealing with diet and clothing and the like, and keeps the moral law, the one’s applying to adultery and homosexuality. That makes significant sense in fact. Condemnation of adultery is placed right alongside condemnation of homosexual acts as well as a few other “unnatural” things. Jesus preaches against adultery. By the relation of the idea that all those things in Leviticus were under the same general category of moral law we can, by relation assume that Jesus denied homosexuals their holiness. Besides, it’s not like the Bible recorded every single word of Jesus. He could have said things directly against gay people, and almost assuredly did if we take the word of Paul.

What does all this show us? The Christian, Jewish, Muslim God, Allah, Yahweh, Elohim, El Shaddai, El Adonoi, Jehovah, hates gays and will almost certainly send them to hell, if not at least call for their death here on Earth. If you try to argue it from a Christian standpoint you will lose, as long as you are being honest and taking the bible for what it is. That’s why I urge you gay Christians to drop the Christian and just be gay! Be proud, be loud, be whatever you want, but don’t support this religion of hate. Yes, you heard me. A religion of hate. The only reason Christianity is seen as a religion of love is because hate doesn’t sell well throughout the ages. Love and hope do. Hate doesn’t sell well in today’s Western society, not among all this political correctness. Just think of all the people Christians should be out killing in accordance with their Bible. No, don’t think about it, go read it. Open up Leviticus, get a cup of tea, or beer, or milk or whatever to relax yourself for the long trip through that book, and READ what your Lord commands of you. Reads about all the things that God hates and views with displeasure. I have the sneaking suspicion that a whole lot of people, especially gays, are attached to Christianity for it’s supposed messages of love and acceptance. And, if not for that, at least for the reason that they were raised with it. Stop listening to your preacher and all the watered down, distilled nonsense they throw at you week after week. God hates, and hates with a passion. The Bible is not about love. It is a dire warning to anyone who would take its message seriously. I ask you to think for yourselves and to step away from all this Casper, zombie, vampire mythology and live your life as it is yours.

Show from: Nov. 19, 2008

2008-11-20T14:38:00.000-08:00

Our panel today:
Edwin (Friendly Neighborhood Evangelical Atheist)
Catherine (Hopeful Agnostic Atheist)
Paul (Agnostic Atheist)
Zach (Strong Atheist)

Today we talked mostly about things in the news focusing the last half of the show on the secular advertisements going up int he U.S. and the U.K.

Show from: Nov. 12, 2008

2008-11-15T03:15:00.000-08:00

Finally! The whole panel of atheists was here for the show!!

Edwin (Friendly Neighborhood Evangelical Atheist)
Justin ("I don't believe")
Catherine (Hopeful Agnostic Atheist)
Paul (Agnostic Atheist)
Mike (Somewhere Between Agnostic & Atheist)
Zach (Strong Atheist)

That's the crew. One day we hope to welcome back Jessie the Redheaded Jew and Mark the Pantheistic Catholic with a Taoist Twist to the show, but until then we'll be riding along as a panel of six atheist trying to make our way along the radio waves :)

Show from: Nov. 5, 2008

2008-11-15T03:06:00.000-08:00

Enjoy!

Show from: Oct. 29, 2008

2008-11-15T03:05:00.001-08:00

Finally got all but one (Catherine) of my co-hosts to attend the show!

Enjoy!

Show from: Oct. 22, 2008

2008-11-15T02:50:00.000-08:00

Enjoy!

About the Atheist Blogroll

2008-11-15T02:33:00.001-08:00

Just wanted to put out a quick recommendation: if you haven't noticed or checked out the Atheist Blogroll on the sidebar of the page, I suggest you scroll through and pick out a few blogs to browse. I've been rather lucky with it in the past and have found some really excellent writers while searching through there.

Enjoy!

Show from: Oct. 15, 2008

2008-11-15T02:10:00.000-08:00

This show was a bit rocky since I ended up more or less winging it when I found out last minute that my cohosts would all be absent. But despite the vacation time I got some listener interaction and it was overall enjoyable.

Nov. 12 Show Notes

2008-11-14T15:15:00.000-08:00

Here's the links and citations to all the articles we talked about on the show.

“The God Delusion”
By Richard Dawkins
Pg. 317-325

Is Religion Child Abuse? What About the Children?
By Chuck Colson
http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=1945

Uncited by Colson:
Mapping American Adolescent Subjective Religiosity and Attitudes of Alienation Toward Religion
http://www.youthandreligion.org/publications/docs/mapping_article1.pdf

Religion-related Child Physical Abuse: Characteristics and Psychological Outcomes
http://www.nospank.net/bottoms.pdf

Running From Hell: Growing Up in America’s Most Hated Family
http://www.ubyssey.ca/?p=5624

Life, Love, and Meaning as an Atheist

2008-11-07T14:49:00.000-08:00

Something I noted about life as an atheist as opposed to a theist is the idea of meaning in life. Christians and other theists always want to say how an atheist has no meaning in their life. They want to know how one can function without the idea that there’s someone watching out for you, someone, something, that has an ultimate plan. I beg to differ. In fact, I intend to turn that argument around. As a theist, believing in an afterlife and an ultimate plan of a Great Creator, their lives have no meaning. Within the context of eternity, infinity, unending life, anything you do has minimal significance, especially when you consider that a lot of what you do is probably playing into the plans of some other being. One way or another, the significance of ANY action shrivles to zero on an infinite time scale. The only thing that might warrant meaning in one’s life is saving someone else’s soul from eternal damnation; but most people aren't pursuing that anyway.

As an atheist, antitheist, and more or less a naturalist, I recognize that everything I do has a finite amount of goodness or negativity. If I save a life, I have done something powerfully wonderful. People only have a certain amount of time to spend existing and pursuing this intricate thing called life. If I help them preserve that, I’ve given them what might be just a little more time, but something that is immeasurably valuable. In a life there is a very distinct and measurable quantity of opportunities for happiness allowed! If I make someone happy, I have contributed to a very limited area of possible opportunities for that person to be happy! I’ve filled a gap in their brief time on Earth with joy. If a composer writes a song I only have so much time to listen to it, to appreciate it. Every note becomes more poignant. Everything becomes more precious, more meaningful, when you realize that this is all you get.

Indeed, it's why I've been a bit melancholy lately. I'm at war in my head! Particularly as a university student, there's so many wonderful options available to me, but I can only choose one! Whichever I choose I have to make the best of; I won’t have any other chances! I won't have eternity to try other things. Sure it’s a bit intimidating, a bit scary, but accepting this will allow me to make the most of my existence. For me, every endeavor has become so much more worthwhile for me.

Things are extreme. If I screw up, I REALLY screw up. If I hurt someone and turn them away from me, that’s it. I won’t have a chance to reunite in heaven one day when everything’s all better. When I taste food I marvel at the beauty of such a concept. When I sit with a beautiful girl I’m trying to impress, somewhere in my mind I’m laughing with joy, even as I tremble, just thinking about how an inanimate universe conspired to give me consciousness, to give me this opportunity to feel this wonderful and this vulnerable; this chance, this glorious gamble for bliss or blandishment.

I’m terribly glad I don’t believe in a God. I don’t think I could deal with that. The idea that I’m a pawn in his ultimate plan would just make me feel small and used. The fact that this guy who’s supposed to look out for me has allowed bad things to happen to me, and to other people, would overwhelm me with anger. Sure, I get the common response that it all happens for a reason, and that it’s in my best interests, and that God knows what he’s doing. But I wonder how that works for the good people who have bad things happen to them and die, cold and homeless, before God ever has the chance to work their lives out. Religionists ask me how I can deal with thinking that I’m alone in this universe, that there’s no one looking out for me. I am NOT alone. I have friends who are with me and watch out for me. They ask me how I can deal with not thinking that there’s a plan. I tell them: it makes me feel good to know that I am no invisible man’s puppet, that I am master of my own destiny; the good I do is my own, and the bad I do I will pay for from the people I hurt. People want to know how I can deal with not thinking that there is some ultimate justice. Well, that’s not something I can decide on how to deal with. Some people get justice, some don’t. It’s a fact of life. But I know that I sure as hell wouldn’t want some holier than thou being judging me, or anyone else. How can an eternal, supposedly all good, all powerful being ever possible decide what is justice for us mere humans with our human whims and human emotions? That’s why here on Earth we have a jury of peers because they are the only ones who have even a remote understanding of our situations in life. God has never had to lose a loved one, fear for his life, or support a family. How could he POSSIBLY know how to judge us?

I won’t say that theism gives nothing to people. Indeed, some people’s lives are so sad that without a belief in something else they’d be suicidal; or in some cases homicidal. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that all things lose meaning in a religious worldview. If God is omnipotent, than this creation really isn’t all that spectacular; in fact, if this is the best a perfect being can do, I’m not impressed. If one believes in heaven and hell, this life means nothing and they might want to spend their every breath working on getting into heaven, and worry less about careers and frivolities.

Many people agree that atheism makes sense, that it’s rational, and end up more or less admitting that they’d be one save for the fact that they are afraid. They’re afraid of their lives and their suffering having no meaning. It takes time, but as an atheist you eventually come to understand that your life does have meaning, and suffering becomes a passing thing when hope on this world is what you start to reach for. And death. People fear, more than anything, death. I sat with this idea for a while, and through my ruminations I came to have a sort of peace with my eventual demise. But this past Spring I came across a quote by Mark Twain that has completely erased a fear of death from my mind and truly given me full peace as an atheist. He says, “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” Truest words that I cannot hope to expand upon.

What is love anyway on Earth, if your true perfect existence will be decided in heaven anyway? Questions like, what’s the use? and why are we here? become big issues. I’ve never had to worry about that. We’re here because our parents decided to get it on. Life is here because of extraordinary chemical processes. It’s simpler than you think, yet more astounding than you can imagine. A theistic life seems rather sad to me, when one breaks it down. Life becomes less precious, love stale and worthless, sensation useless. For me, life is everything, sensations hold the possibility of being my last, and love is in the moment and precious, immediate yet fleeting.

If you’re afraid of examining your beliefs, please, don’t be. There are resources out there for the contemporary atheist. There are communities. There are likeminded individuals who’ve been through, or are going through, the exact same thing. Take the time, investigate. It’s not as scary as you think.