I've got a couple of posts that have been nominated for The 2005 Koufax Awards: Best Post, so I've quickly brought them on board here at the new site. Voting isn't yet open, but here they are:
- Idiot America. This one is something of a howl of anguish, and it's really more a lot of quotes from Charles Pierce's article of the same name in Esquire. If this gets the nomination, credit should go more to Pierce than to me—and that's OK.
- Planet of the Hats. This article is probably the best representation for how I actually feel about religion. It's all metaphor, but if you don't get it, I won't be surprised…it means you're really, really, ummm, devout.
- The proper reverence due those who have gone before. I have to say, if one of these three gets the nomination, this is the one I'd personally favor. But hey, you're all supposed to vote for your favorite, and there are about 220 other great choices there, too. Anyway, if you want to understand why I despise creationists of all stripes, this article might help you understand why.
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I'll definitely vote for "The proper reverence due those who have gone before." It was the post that first got me into this site.
Proper Reverence. Hats was excellent, too, making it a hard choice. Perhaps, in a different mood, I'd vote for that one.
Not only is Proper Reverence one of my favourite posts, but it is probably the most uplifting blog post I've read in the Koufax listing. I'll most likely be voting for it.
likewise - all three of the posts are excellent - but I'll be voting for "Proper Reverence...". I hadn't read it until just now and it blew me away. Fantastic stuff!
Thanks for bringing these posts to our attention, I enjoyed them all, but especially the "Proper Reverence" posting.
A comment on your comment: to me it seems that an inability to "get" the hats posting would not be a sign that the reader is particularly devout. To me, it would be a sign that the, reader is, to use the most straightforward word, stupid. (This is, I suppose, what you were hinting at by the way you used the word "devout"...)
I think that if you -- ironically or not -- have a habit of equating religious devotion with stupidity, you will probably frequently find yourself underestimating those who are in fact, both devout and not stupid. You also may find that idiocy of the type that Charles Pierce so eloquently skewered in "Idiot America" is harder to understand and to fight, because while there are certainly plenty of religious idiots in this country, the stupidity that threatens us (and indeed it does) has more to do with a combination of unwillingness to think and an utter disregard for legitimate expertise. These characteristics are found across our culture -- which, despite rather large majorities responding positively to vague questions about "belief in God", is not extremely "devout", with only about 20% actually attending religious services weekly.
I really liked the "Proper Reverence" post.
I hate it when people say that atheism is about closedmindedness. Me, I became an atheist because of open-mindedness.
People say atheists are too quick to dismiss the experiences of religious folk, but for me, if I accept some religious experience, I have to accept all of them. Why should I accept that Paul had a vision of Christ, but that Motecuzoma's priests were lying when they said they saw Coatlicue, or that a haitian woman is lying when she says she's been possesed by a Loa?
And so I've had to look for a philosophy that synthesizes all the evidence. No religion I've heard of can do this, but atheism can.
Thanks for bringing these back. Even though I'm a regular of Pharyngula I missed two of those.
However, my nomination for best Pharyngula post of 2005 would probably go to Niobrara.