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Some interesting news this week:

The South Korean government comes out against creationists.

Jen McCreight quits blogging.  She was part of the "A+" movement for nicer atheism (or something), and also part of Freethought Blogs, which had some drama recently when PZ Myers kicked Thunderf00t off the Freethought Blogs site.  I didn't follow her blog closely but it's distressing to see her go.  Nobody should have to deal with sexist crap, though the cretins kind of proved her point about the way women are treated by male atheists.  Plasma Engineer summarizes the history of Atheism+ and the fallout on his Something Surprising blog.  In part two he links the commentaries of several male bloggers/vloggers.

Crazyass super-extremist fundamentalist Christian visited my campus this week.  I was going to post the local paper's description but it can't top this blog post by the Ohio University Skeptic Society after the nutter visited Ohio U. in 2009.  It's encouraging to see that he is apparently 100% unsuccessful in getting anyone to take his nutty theology seriously.

A lucky 13 kids were molested (allegedly) by a 25-year-old music "minister."  His father, the former pastor, embezzled from the church before taking a powder.  Lovely people, these Christians.

Mentally disabled Christian teen accused of blasphemy in Pakistan is released on bail.  This Islamic example of letting religion rule the state should give some dominionist Christians pause... we can hope.  The cleric who first accused the girl is now in trouble himself. (if you can trust Fox News)

Rather nice coexistence piece by a Christian (who also blogs for Patheos)

In Egypt, women and girls are being harrassed and some aren't putting up with it.

How to tell if your religious liberty is at risk.  Something to share with believers.

Fiji is still a Christian nation, at least until the military who took over the government in a coup finish writing a new constitution.

Jesuit Catholic instruction at Georgetown University includes a biased course in Hinduism.  Hindus are surprised.  I'm not.  But all is not lost.  McDonald's is opening vegetarian fast-food restaurants for them.  No cows sacrificed for a sandwich, but will that matter to Hindus?

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom reprinted an op-ed about Burmese prejudice against muslims from an unlikely source:  The Indianapolis Star

The Catholic church is still reluctant to deal with perverts.  How can they object to a priest doing a reading at a gay marriage and then rationalize pedophilia?

Meanwhile, the Episcopal diocese is cooperating on an investigation of one of its priests.

An ordinary woman can be an atheist

Browsing through other blogs I see a lot of "creds," including women who blog as "polemicists" or "feminists."

eh, I'm an feminist in the sense that I want to do what I want to do and I don't want men, especially men who don't know me, telling me what to do.  I don't want women to tell me what to do, either, so that really makes me a free thinker.  (One exception: my boss can tell me what to do but only for 40 hours per week and she can't tell me who to fuck or who not to fuck or how to do it when I do it, which she fortunately isn't nosy enough to be tempted to do even if she was a fundamentalist nutter)

Some lady bloggers began their blog "careers" as ordinary people then got creds by being bigger-than-life bloggers.  Jen McCreight became famous for "Boobquake," which was a "movement" (heh, couldn't resist) objecting to some fundy muslim cleric's claim that earthquakes were due to women being boobish... or something.  I wasn't paying attention then and only found her blog later.  At the time she was an undergrad at Purdue.  Now she's a graduate student and has flown around going to conferences speaking on student activism.  She did a good thing, but her "creds" were really just having a point of view and being willing to speak out, then encouraging other students to make a point (or two.. haha couldn't resist that one).  She didn't write her blog as a scientist, just as a person who believes in the right to be an atheist in the U.S.

The thing about ordinary women, who aren't ex-pastors or philosophers or PhDs in one of the "hard" sciences or evolutionary biology, is that ordinary women in Christianity are often the invisible glue holding together passé religions (i.e., all religions).  They are the "church ladies" and the moms and wives who make it possible for crazyass men to take crazyass positions.

I was expected to be one of these religious women, because church theology (doesn't matter which denomination) is so insane that it needs a translator who will put it into everyday parlance. 

Some of my facebook friends are just such people.  They "praise god" for a good outcome after an illness or scary event that god didn't apparently forsee so they had to praise him after he figured out how to fix his oversight.  If they didn't pray for the happy ending, they credit god with being magical beneficial, but if they did pray for it, they thank him.  Granted, more of my FB friends are women and my women friends are chattier on FB, but I think they kind of represent what happens in families and social circles in general. 

Today I was emotionally blackmailed with typical FB crap again:

To all my friends (including me) who are going through some issues right now--Let's start an intention avalanche. We all need positive intentions right now. If I don't see your name, I'll understand. May I ask my friends wherever you might be, to kindly copy, paste, and share this status for one hour to give a moment of support to all those who have family problems; health struggles, job issues, worries of any kind and just need to know that someone cares. Do it for all of us, for nobody is immune. I hope to see this on the walls of all my friends just for moral support. I know some will!! I did it for a friend and you can too. You have to copy & paste this one, no share button

Amen! Love you guys!

uhhhh what?  Do guys post this kind of thing?  I've never seen a guy post something that useless, but it's commonplace amongst my Christian friends.  Another one posted this gem today:

Today in my devotional, "Jesus Calling," there was a word "abhor." It said that "Jesus abhors the use of guilt as a means of motivation." Abhor means to "loathe or hate." Strong word. You shouldnt be pressured into serving Jesus

First of all, why do they have devotionals?  A: because reading the Bible will turn them into atheists!  It makes no fucking sense if you read the whole thing.  And not feeling pressured into serving Jesus?  The post itself is peer pressure to make you want to serve Jesus, and who wouldn't want to?  Oh you don't?  Well that's just not acceptable.  You should feel guilty for not feeling non-guilt for not doing what you don't want to do, .... or something.  You can't say "Jesus doesn't want to guilt me into serving him. *whew*  Let's party!"

Or this, which speaks to the social needs of women.  We want to talk about our problems, but you know what?  Even our best friends get sick of us.  But Jesus, our invisible friend, doesn't get sick of us (that we know):

Jesus is not only your King, but He is your friend. You can talk to Him whenever you want. He is the kind of friend you can call at 3am just to talk. Is Jesus your friend?

My King is my pal.  How sweet.  WHAT?  Why should he talk to me at 3 a.m. when there are premie babies and earthquake victims praying for him to help them?  Ohhhh... he's like a magical Santa Claus who hears all and is everywhere at once.  Does the Bible say any of that?  Only kind of sort of.  It's a huge modern stretch to fill a gaping psychological need.

 

So....   how will atheism reach people like my Christian gal pals?  They are not interested in philosophical arguments or rants against Biblical errors or inconsistencies.  They don't really pay attention to the Bible anyway, not really.  Their religion is medicinal, social, and psychological... and simplistic.

 

The ordinary woman is not going to read polemics or philosophy or probably anything written by someone with a Ph.D.  We don't need more feminist bloggers.  We need examples of how you can be an atheist without being "uppity."  Jen used to be ordinary and then she got to be a big deal, and then she got smacked down by atheist men & trolls (I hope they're trolls) for getting uppity or "divisive" or for having breasts.  Whatever.  They weren't her target audience anyway, at least not in the beginning.

 

She became a cause celebrée by asserting a woman's right to jiggle without being accused of causing natural disasters.  Let the academics call that polemics or [insert unintelligible academic gibberish here].

 

I want to see more ordinary people being ordinary but atheist.  Maybe what we need isn't "A-Plus" movements (whatever that is) but more of this:

 

 

 

(random friends' group photo grabbed from the web - lots of these out there, but few of men in such groupings, FYI)

These are the links that was, erm... were

Romney says releasing his tax returns would violate his religious privacy (even though he's released two years).  Fellow Mormon politician John Huntsman calls bullshit, sort of.

TV station owned by Mormons refuses to air "The New Normal."  I wonder how they'd feel about "Sister Wives."

Another child-raping closet homosexual Bible-thumping evangelical anti-gay spokesperson for purity gets arrested.

Prostitute asks God for forgiveness and winds up being raped and set on fire.  Good going, God.  I guess they needed more prostitutes in Heaven.

Washington state Catholic church ignores state election law unless you count their rationalizations.

Baptists are distressed by the Clergy Project (despite what they say at the end of this article) and they stick with Todd Akin. 

Pentecostal teen fired by Burger King for wearing a skirt instead of slacks.  She claims she can't wear "men's clothes" but she can work at a job?  What a ridiculous religion.

Boko Haram sect of Islam wreaks havoc on Nigeria.  Now Nigeria wants to "talk" with them.  Does that mean they win?

Obama's delegate to special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation gives an interview.  It's rather impressive that the OIC is addressing the problems caused by some of the crazier Muslims.  Teh cRaZy runs so deep there that I wonder what can be done.  At least the U.S. has someone who can speak their language instead of crazy cowboy talk of the previous generation.  Quotable quote quotes the Quran:

We have made it clear, since President Obama took office, that what terrorists are doing contradicts the teaching of Islam. However there are limits to what the US can do. This requires the attention of the Islamic world, and we have no problem to say that this is not consistent with the teachings of Islam. The Quran states: “God does not change the condition of people until they change what is in themselves.” We support all constructive attempts to change in the Muslim world.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney needs an evangelical embassador to relate to people in his own country.  The guy's mentor and second father was Jerry Falwell.  *shudders*

The "Thinking Atheist" on how he deconverted

This is an audio-only youtube video. And sadly, you may have to sit through a Mormon commercial before getting to it!

He is another former fundy who came to atheism from a close study of Christian theology.  His family was deep into it and they were not pleased with his atheism, to say the least.  This is the story of his coming out to his family.

If you don't already subscribe to his podcasts I recommend them. He often interviews very interesting people.  This is the first one I've heard that has his own story.  Afterward, some callers read the letters they've written to family.

Good night and good links

Yes, the dead can come back to life.

Camp Quest receives national coverage.  It's too bad they had to add something about spirituality being beneficial for children.  Some so-called expert thinks children's proneness to fantasy makes believing in a supernatural eavesdropping bully a good thing.

The new face of Jesus, a new meme inspired by a decrepit old woman possessed by Satan (or poor eyesight)

Seattle is one of the least religious cities in the U.S., but incredibly they have more anti-vaccine nuttery.  And Mississippi, which is one of the most religious states and one of the most ignorant, doesn't allow exemptions from vaccines.  Sometimes this country just makes me want to scream.

I don't get this.  The National Cancer Society is using churches to enroll participants in an epidemiological study.  Why???  Do they think Catholicism is a risk factor for cancer?

Puerto Ricans were victimized in a Ponzi scheme run by evangelicals.  Seems like church-goers of that stripe were a wee bit gullible.  Who'd a guessed that?

Chicago eliminates city jobs in order to shift care of the homeless to Catholic Charities.  ... basically replacing hard-working paid employees with hard-working volunteers?  Oh wunnerful.  Well, at least when the laid-off workers become homeless they will have three hots and a cot.  I wonder if the CC can resist prosletyzing.

Anti-gay "Fundamentalist Christian Patriot" who promoted stronger laws against exposing private parts gets caught whacking off in a public park... near children. You can't make this stuff up!

Being in a church parking lot is no protection from a bad driver.  It's also apparently no place for teaching a teen to drive, especially if you don't know better than to stay in the car with the driver.

Huffpo essay on the Texas Republican Party's anti-science platform.  There's a link to the platform there, but I don't have the stomach to go there.

Bill Maher holds nothing back attacking the religious right for magical thinking.  "The symbol for their party shouldn't be an elephant -- it should be a unicorn."

This article on religiosity and non-religiosity in Central Florida is worth a read, and really worth point-by-point commentary which I don't have time for now.  There's just so much in there - narrow-mindedness vs. inquiry for starters.  I wonder how many fundy republicans will read this when they come to the convention.

If you haven't already read this, I recommend this New York Times profile of Jerry DeWitt, former fundy pastor and now executive director of Recovering from Religion.

Al Jazeera interviews feminist author Naomi Wolf about abortion.  Unlike U.S. media, they have the balls to do an episode about abortion in the U.S.  (the link goes to a promo)

One blogger's answer to the question:  Is Israel succombing to Jewish fundamentalism?

CNN just ran a one-hour special on Mitt Romney's life.  I couldn't find a link but you can imagine:  blah blah daddy was a great man blah blah went to France as a "mission" blah blah wife is pretty blah blah blah  The narrator really tried to make Romney sound like an interesting person but it just didn't work.

Bertrand Russell: Why I am not a Christian

I read this awhile ago but it's worth a re-read and linkage: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell0.htm He addresses the "First Cause" argument... in 1927...  decades before William Lane Craig made it the cornerstone of his career.  Can't WLC do a teensy bit of research on his pet theory?  The gaping hole in that argument is "Who made God?" He never seems to remember that people have been pointing out that flaw in this "argument" for a long long time

I may say that when I was a young man, and was debating these questions very seriously in my mind, I for a long time accepted the argument of the First Cause, until one day, at the age of eighteen, I read John Stuart Mill's Autobiography, and I there found this sentence: "My father taught me that the question, Who made me? cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, Who made God?"

The old Argument from Design is still haunting us today, too.  Russell summarizes it this way:  "You all know the argument from design: everything in the world is made just so that we can manage to live in the world, and if the world was ever so little different we could not manage to live in it. "  This is also called the teleological argument.  I have to *lol* at this point he makes:

Really I am not much impressed with the people who say: "Look at me: I am such a splendid product that there must have been design in the universe."

The moral argument goes back that far too.  There is apparently nothing new in the modern Christian's argument arsenal.  "Kant, as I say, invented a new moral argument for the existence of God, and that in varying forms was extremely popular during the nineteenth century. It has all sorts of forms. One form is to say that there would be no right and wrong unless God existed" This form seems to be the most popular at least from what I've seen.  Or maybe I think it's popular because I find it so utterly stupid.

If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God's fiat, because God's fiats are good and not bad independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God

Next he examines Christ specifically, which I haven't heard Christians really talking much about.  I think they avoid quoting Christ because they really don't follow much of his purported teachings.  They're much more fond of "John" of the 4th gospel, and Paul.  They conveniently forget that Christ failed to predict his return, or that he wanted them to give up their possessions.

His observation that people believe for emotional reasons still rings true:  "do not think that the real reason that people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it."  haha  I can just hear him say this in his British accent.

I'm not sure what this argument is called.   Argument from pragmatism?  Christianity has a good effect on (some) people therefore it should be followed even if you don't believe it's true.  Of course the same could be said for all the other religions of the world.  He doesn't mince words at all here:

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress of humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or ever mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
I find his observation about fear & cruelty very profound:

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand-in-hand.

There's no reason to attack someone you don't fear, so that makes sense.  I do agree that homophobia is real - it's a fear that acceptance of homosexuals in the world would either 1) make their own suppression of their homosexual impulses seem silly or 2) make their own heterosexual impulses seem silly.  Either way, attitudes toward differences are really self-centered fears turned outward.

His ending reflects my attitude pretty well including my guarded optimism that rationalism and reality will win out:  . We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create.

It's a good thing people can't really roll over in their graves.  He'd be so ashamed of what America has become.

I think he's a good example to point to when Christians accuse us of having a depressing worldview.  From their own impoverished view, life without hope of an eternity in Heaven kissing God's ass must seem pointless.  They need to read Russell.
Here is his message to the future, taped 30 years after "Why I am Not A Christian"

Links Links Links and news news news

Not new, but it seems that liberals and conservatives really do think differently, with different parts of the brain.  Or rather, liberals think, and conservatives feel.

Atheism is increasing in the Persian Gulf.  The responses are similar to responses you'd get writing about atheism in the Gulf of Mexico area.

In the U.S., not enough of us signed a petition urging Obama to take on the case of an Indonesian atheist jailed for expressing unbelief.  I find the number eerily low, but I also find it ridiculous that the State Department isn't already smacking Indonesia for this, or Amnesty International.

There was an atheist film festival in San Francisco last week.  Sounds like a great idea for other cities to emulate.

Gone With the Wind heir donates rights to the Catholic church.  Not the movie, just everything else.  Very strange and now I wonder if I should continue to point out to Christians that just because Atlanta really did burn during the Civil War that doesn't make GWTW true.

Both VP candidates are Catholic.  Will Catholics care more about caring for the poor than "culture war" issues (translation: anything remotely having to do with sex)

Orthodox Christian Church & Catholic church are taking steps toward reconciliation.  I wonder how they'll settle the issue of married priests.

Hank Williams, Jr. calls Obama a muslim who hates farming among other all-American things.  He really looks like someone whose opinion I should adopt... NOT!

Other lovely "Christians" are desecrating muslim graves in Chicago.

On the other hand, non-muslims were among the donors who raised $375,000 to rebuild a Joplin, Missouri mosque destroyed by a mysterious possibly hatred-fueled fire.  I wonder how all the Christians who patted themselves on the back for helping out after the tornado feel about this.

I have pointed out to friends that this election could be very different due to the lack of a Protestant on the Republican ballot.  I'm not the only person who has noticed this.  Not only is there no Protestant, there's no evangelical protestant though Ryan's creds with that group are probably pretty good.  He seems not to mention the papacy in public.  That will go a long way.  Several news outlets commented on this unique event this week including CNN.  (Prothero has written some very interesting books on religion I've read his book, Religious Literacy which has a lot of interesting history)