A godless potpourri

I'm in St Paul, about to give a talk on evolution, ... Have fun,I have to babble!
Posted by PZ Myers at 10:27 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

The mark of a good scientist, being direct and concise.

Story #13 and #8 in the coming out link is hillarious!

"pastor dragging a girl behind a van for the sin of insufficient stamina"
There was not a lot of detail in this about why she was there - but in some cases courts may be able to send kids to these camps. They are not necessarily religious but can be dangerous. I remember a story some years back about a court that committed a girl offender to such a camp against her parents wishes. They made her run when she felt unwell and she died.
Bullies are vile whatever their religion.

From the post on Dr. ("I ain't George") Carlin:

I am counting almost all "agnostics" as atheists, since the great majority of American agnostics, while willing to grant that there is a slim -- an exceedingly slim -- chance that God might exist, are for all practical purposes deniers of the existence of God.)

Et tu, Bluto?

Interesting to read about the fundie attacks on Romney. As a mormon turned Atheist, I can say that attacks from the fundies cemented the deal for me: they forced me to apply the same critiques they were applying to mormonism on to christianity itself. Fundies believe that they are the one true Scotsman/christian and don't hesitate to attack the rest of the christian body. What better way to force christians to look at their beliefs? My testimony to all those christians being attacked is to turn and critically look at your attackers. The history of christianity is as sordid, ugly, and full of anachronism as any modern-day cult. Then, when you've finally rid yourself of your christianity, you'll find the greatest peace, serenity, and purpose that you've ever known.
Alan

On the man-of-god who loves teens (like thugs King and Brewer loved James Byrd, Jr.), this is only unusual in that it is getting some press. Of course it will be waved away with the one-bad-apple theory, and glowing "tough love" testimonials will "balance" any legitimate criticism of the ethically bankrupt idea.

The godly bullies at these wildly profitable places are getting away with torture and murder, and Mitt Romney is an enabler, and beneficiary, of the industry. Maia Svalavitz has been writing about this for awhile, including some big articles and a book and many Huffpo posts.

I'm still trying to figure out how millionaire Christians like Mitt Romney get away with having all of that money, buying expensive cars and houses, and still thinking they're going to heaven despite the Bible saying otherwise. But I'm sure he'd just give a typical justification.

I was wondering why I suddenly got an influx of hits from Ken MacLeod's site. Now I know: it's a second-level Pharynguloid horde.

In regard to the Carlin article:

I think a general taboo on discussion of religion (in day to day social intercourse, not in the realm of arguments on policy, ideology, and the like) makes a fair degree of sense in a country as religiously varied as the U.S.

If there is such a taboo, however, it's wearisomely common for many of the pious among us to assume that it doesn't apply to them. I still recall with shudders a Chicago El ride from Howard to Belmont, during which some lunatic thought it a fine time to start testifyin', at the top of her lungs, to the goodness and greatness of Jesus. If God existed, and if he were just, he would have struck her dead.

Since this penchant of so many among the pious is hardly new, it's no explanation for the popular interest in books like THE GOD DELUSION. I think it's the unrelenting efforts of the godly to affect policy that better accounts for this phenomen.

Tom - I've always heard it justified by the argument that it's ok to be rich, as long as being rich doesn't mean much to you. You see, it's the love of money that's bad, not simply having it. As long as you *think* that it's not that important, and you give some of it to the church, it's all good.

As I understand the LDS myth Joseph Smith was denied access to the "golden plates" making up the book of Mormon for four or five years in a row because he kept forgetting the angel Moroni's instructions. Once he got it right he lost the first draft of the translation of the plates and Moroni took the plates away again -- who can take seriously any religion that careless?

An observation about the horrid "Love Demonstrated" abuse/assault/battery case...

Xians have a different definition of "love" than the wider community... it is a sort of term-of-art for blind obedience on one side and patriarchal tyranny on the part of the other.

Off topic, I know, but it made me laugh out loud.

I was doing a google search on baraminology. Google kindly provided many links on the topic, and at the bottom of the page it then said :-

"Did you mean to search for: criminology

Of all the ologies in all gin-joints in all the world ...

I checked the link about Fred Phleps, but stopped reading after the second line. It call Christopher Hitchens a "fascist".

On topic (i.e., the topic of entertaining links related to godlessness), but not in reply to anything in particular, this made me laugh out loud (see esp. 02:10 et seq.).

When I was in high school, a guy from my school got body-grabbed and taken to a rehab program, because his mother found a bowl in his room and went ape-shit. They made a major mistake though, because they kept him past his 18th birthday.

On the first "home visit" that he'd "earned" after his birthday, he threw his mom's kitchen table through the picture window, jumped out, ran to a friend's house and called the cops. He filed charges against his parents and every person whose name he could remember from the gulag. I don't know how all the litigation played out, but I think that particular gulag went out of business.

-jcr

Good commentary for all the non-believers at:

http://draggedfromthebottom.blogspot.com/

21st Century Atheism.

History is a fascinating subject, but you recognize many of the old players - Harris, Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens, Stacey's Law, but also someone called PZ Myers. I'm more interested in thinking about 3d Millennium Atheism. :-P

Btw, in Ken MacLeod's interesting links Natalie Anger claims that Madalyn Murray O'Hair "and her son were kidnapped several years ago and are presumed dead".

News to me, so i followed up to find that Wikipedia and its sources instead claim that they have eventually been found murdered. (After a longer period where the police believed in a voluntary disappearance since money disappeared from her organization in the process.)

The fruit cake prize of today goes to O'Hair's son William Murray, a baptist preacher:

For almost three years the national atheist organization my mother once led has claimed she left the country with a large amount of money. This was false and I will tell you in this letter why they told this lie over and over again. ...

During Easter, what is left of my mother's American Atheist organization held a convention in New Jersey. My ministry placed an advertisement in the newspaper there to tell them about Jesus. The new atheist leader, Ellen Johnson, ranted and raved against me, against Christ and against the Holy Spirit.

Johnson told the media that the whole idea of my mother being murdered was a fabrication. She told the newspapers that I had "manufactured" the story using my connections to Congress to trick the FBI into getting involved. Why does this woman protest so much? Why does she not even shed a tear for her departed leader?

The FBI is involved because one of the individuals has confessed. How many others he will point his finger at I don't know. But I do understand the "wisdom" of Ellen Johnson. Her "wisdom" is found in Psalm 14:1 "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." [Bold added.]

I mentioned once before the boycott of the Beijing Olympic Games. Here is another guy in favor of a boycott, the designer of the Olympic stadium Ai Weiwei.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2144692,00.html

He doesn't say it in this article, but I saw an interview with him on tv where he did. He seems to be rather courageous. If he came to the U.S. he might be called an "enemy combatant".

Hey PZ, check out Jack Chick films. Rather funny.

Thanks for the link, PZ. You would not believe what a link from you does for my traffic. The link in this post has already generated more traffic than my recent hosting of Carnival of the Godless! I bow to your squid power.

Fascinating sermon on atheism, PZ.

But where's the SCIENCE?

But I agree, athesits should come out in the OPEN.

I encourage them all to join the Dawkins OUT campaign.

We need to know who they are!

Bertram Cabot, Jr #21 - I am calling you out. I am not sure if you are being ironic, facetious, sardonic, sarcastic or whatever. You don't have a link for me to check out to see if you are exercising satire.

But, I need to know who you are!

If you need a target, here I am, a public atheist.

Thanks again for your talk in St. Paul! I love that kind of stuff - it makes so many disparate observations make sense.

Science on Pharyngula. Knock yourself out!

:-)

Dr Carlin thinks the proper order of things is that Christians get to criticize atheism, while well-mannered atheists will sit back and take it. Turnabout is definitely not fair play.

Dr. Carlin says:

It followed from this rule of good manners that atheists and agnostics were not allowed to attack theism in general or Christianity in particular. There was of course no law against such attacks, but for an unbeliever to attack Christianity was regarded as a great breach of courtesy. There was of course no law against such attacks, but for an unbeliever to attack Christianity was regarded as a great breach of courtesy.

The good Dr. Carlin needs to reread those incredibly self-serving commandments that God (ak.a. Moses) whispered to Moses (a.k.a. himself) on Mt. Sinai. He seems to have forgotten this one:

"You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name."

I really enjoyed the Carlin article. I especially liked his clarion call (well, "helpless bleat") for Christians to confront atheism in the field of ideas.

Talk about bringing a gun to a knife-fight! Whenever the Christians try to slug it out with atheism in the lists of rationality they wind up looking vaguely ridiculous or outright laughable. Perhaps, when he's thinking of taking on atheism in the field of ideas, he means that christianity needs more paladins like Michael Behe: you know, the kind who don't let intellectual honesty get in their way.

When christians start talking about using reason to make their case it's got a lot of the flavor of Pee Wee Herman walking up to Mike Tyson and telling him, "I'm gonna skull f*ck you to death..."

>Tom - I've always heard it justified by the argument
>that it's ok to be rich, as long as being rich
>doesn't mean much to you.

The quintessential take-down on that canard was served up by Sam Kinison in "breaking all the rules" - "JESUS WANTS ME TO HAVE A SATELLITE... Now, here's a guy who had to walk at night because he didn't have shoes but he wants PAT to have a SATELLITE."

I wrote:
Talk about bringing a gun to a knife-fight!

And of course I had it backwards. It's bringing a knife to a gun-fight, in this case.

A Bertram Cabot, Jr (ref. #21, #22) used to frequent the Angry Astronomer as well as the Pandas Thumb back in late 2006. His comments in both blogs reflected an atheist-conspiracy of science.

If this is the same Cabot, I highly doubt he's being sarcastic.

On the edge of politics but speaking of morals. Mit Romney was asked in Iowa whether any of his 3 (?) sons were serving in the military. Mit answered that they were serving their country in an equally important function: helping him in his presidential campaign. This ranks right up their with GW's "Bring 'em on." I still think his name should be 'Nit'-- just another louse.

Re Bertram Cabot, Jr.:

He trolled past my blog this a.m. and is obviously capable of repeating any anti-science, anti-evolution, anti-secularist idiocy that comes from a source with a reading level of 10 years-old or below.

By the way, here is some information on the real Bertram Cabot, Jr.

Mitt Romney's claim about only "people of faith" serving i public office is obviously self-serving and bigoted, but it made me wonder what exactly this phrase "people of faith" means. One of the common responses to atheism (or agnosticism) is that everyone's beliefs are based ultimately on faith, so it is not uniquely problematic for theists to base their beliefs on faith. (Sometimes this claim is based on Hume's riddle of induction, but that's another story.) So, when it comes to arguing that theists are not particularly irrational for basing their beliefs on faith, they argue that atheists also base their beliefs on faith. When theists argue, however, that only people of faith should hold public office, they exclude atheists and agnostics. To be consistent they should claim that we're all people of faith and so should have equal rights to serve in public office, or that atheists and agnostics really do not base their beliefs on faith and, hence, are not as irrational as religious believers. Theists cannot have it both ways.

My conclusion is that the phrase "people of faith" means whatever the speaker wants it to mean. Possibly: people of faith are good people or people I like, and anyone I do not like, or whom I think is morally bad, is therefore not a person of faith.

I wonder if Romney will be sworn in on the Book of Mormon.
http://draggedfromthebottom.blogspot.com/2007/08/romney-and-keith-ellis…

Thanks for all of the good comments over at Halfway There about the Carlin piece. (And thanks to PZ for the link!) I'm glad I posted those excerpts, since it seems that most people at Pharyngula have not read the June issue of Homiletic & Pastoral Review. (Really! What are all of you doing with your valuable time, anyway?)

Father Kenneth Baker, S.J., the editor of H&PR, devoted his editorial in that issue to "The perils of accommodation." This is what he said about Carlin's piece:

The point that Professor Carlin makes is a practical one. He says that the Church must confront these people and refute them. It is in effect a call for a return of apologetics. We need more Catholics like Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen who can analyze the main currents in modern culture, point our their errors and present the truth.

Does anyone think that sounds like a plan for a successful counterattack? I don't. Not when Carlin lists Voltaire, Darwin, and Paine among the bad guys who must be refuted. Good luck with that! (Especially that Darwin character.)

arithmoquine: You ask for consistency ... that's difficult.

Of course, many of them also mean by "people of faith" a third thing, meaning "people who think the way I do."

21st Century Atheism.

History is a fascinating subject, but you recognize many of the old players - Harris, Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens, Stacey's Law, but also someone called PZ Myers. I'm more interested in thinking about 3d Millennium Atheism. :-P

Btw, in Ken MacLeod's interesting links Natalie Anger claims that Madalyn Murray O'Hair "and her son were kidnapped several years ago and are presumed dead".

News to me, so i followed up to find that Wikipedia and its sources instead claim that they have eventually been found murdered. (After a longer period where the police believed in a voluntary disappearance since money disappeared from her organization in the process.)

The fruit cake prize of today goes to O'Hair's son William Murray, a baptist preacher:

For almost three years the national atheist organization my mother once led has claimed she left the country with a large amount of money. This was false and I will tell you in this letter why they told this lie over and over again. ...

During Easter, what is left of my mother's American Atheist organization held a convention in New Jersey. My ministry placed an advertisement in the newspaper there to tell them about Jesus. The new atheist leader, Ellen Johnson, ranted and raved against me, against Christ and against the Holy Spirit.

Johnson told the media that the whole idea of my mother being murdered was a fabrication. She told the newspapers that I had "manufactured" the story using my connections to Congress to trick the FBI into getting involved. Why does this woman protest so much? Why does she not even shed a tear for her departed leader?

The FBI is involved because one of the individuals has confessed. How many others he will point his finger at I don't know. But I do understand the "wisdom" of Ellen Johnson. Her "wisdom" is found in Psalm 14:1 "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." [Bold added.]