THERE’S a deliciously funny response over at C J Werleman’s blog to a video in which mad Muslim cleric Muhammed Al-Munajid provides the faithful with an update on the current virgin situation in heaven.

Portly Muhammed Al-Munajid tells an interviewer that:

Black eyed virgins are beautiful white women, with black pupils and very white retinas, whose skin is so bright that it causes confusion.

The cleric adds:

They are all the same age, morally and physically beautiful…..each of them so beautiful that you can see the bone-marrow through the delicate flesh on their legs.

Bone marrow? What sort of turn-on is that?

More importantly, the virgins aren’t burdened by any of the impurities that plague earthly women.

The women of paradise are unblemished, menstruation free, free of faeces, urine, phlegm, and children, because Allah has cleaned them of all impure and foul things.

Werleman, author of God Hates You. Hate Him Back, tells the old loony:

I like the idea of a wife that doesn’t rip a fart as much as the next Mullah but your disgust of earthly women is an indictment against you as a human being, and further illuminates the misogyny contained within the pages of the Old Testament faiths.

Further, you have most likely helped recruit a further several dozen male virgin would-be suicide bombers with your promise of what takes place beyond the supernatural. This makes you an extremely dangerous individual, and I long for the day when religious zealots such as yourself are incarcerated for preaching such vulgarity.

And he asks:

What is the big deal with virgins anyway? I’ve had one sexual experience with a virgin – it was me and I was lousy. I can’t imagine the prospect of having sex with a 17-year-old version of myself to be too alluring albeit for the most sexually deprived, but I guess that’s the point, religion is carried forward by those with an unhealthy and unnatural fear of sexuality.

The Christian Post gives us a look into the mind of Pastor Brady Boyd, Senior Pastor at the New Life Church, the Colorado Springs, CO megachurch founded by disgraced pastor Ted Haggard. As part of a sermon series on The Supernatural — wouldn’t that be pretty much any sermon involving gods and demons? — Boyd covered “speaking in tongues”.

Glossolalia, or “speaking in tongues”, is also known as “ecstatic speech”. Speakers believe that they are speaking in another language, and others believe they can interpret it. What do linguists think?

In his 1972 book, Tongues of Men and Angels: The Religious Language of Pentecostalism,
, University of Toronto linguist William Samarin described glossolalia as:

. . . meaningless but phonologically structured human utterance, believed by the speaker to be a real language but bearing no systematic resemblance to any natural language, living or dead.

More explicitly, glossolalia:

consists of strings of syllables, made up of sounds taken from all those that the speaker knows, put together more or less haphazardly but emerging nevertheless as word-like and sentence-like units because of realistic, language-like rhythm and melody.

Other researchers have come to the same conclusions, that the speech produced in an ecstatic state is a mishmash of sounds from the speaker’s native language — not new sounds or sounds from other languages not known to the speaker — with no perceivable organization or meaning.

Believers, on the other hand, refer to it as a “heavenly language, God’s language”:

The truth is, speaking in tongues is the most intelligent, perfect language in the universe. It is God’s language.

Boyd grew up in churches which treasured the “gift” of “speaking in tongues”, by which they mean a “private prayer language”. It was so normal in the cults he attended, that Boyd believed that everyone could jabber nonsensically nearly from birth.

Oh, wait. They can.

Like all Christians who believe that spouting gibberish is a “gift from God”, Boyd has to distort Scripture to reach his conclusion that speaking in tongues is anything but nonsense. However, he goes out of his way to insist that he follows Scripture perfectly, with a straightforward, face-value approach to the Bible.

Boyd asked the thousands in attendance to “let Scripture interpret Scripture” and approach the Bible as if they were reading it for the first time.

“I’m not going to stretch Scripture,” the New Life pastor emphasized.

Reading from Acts 2 in the New Testament, Boyd underscored the account that on the first day of the first church service, every one of the 120 people were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues.

“If I were reading the Bible for the very first time, as a young believer, and I was trying to make sense of this tongue thing, I think that would jump off the page at me and go ‘wow, if in the very first church service everyone there spoke in tongues when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit, it should be fairly common among us today,” said Boyd.

“I think that’s a safe assumption on all of our parts.”

I agree. If Boyd’s congregation were speaking in tongues the way it is described in Acts 2, that’d be quite something! But it’s not. And Boyd can’t help but know it:

The senior pastor went on to point out the God-fearing Jews who recognized that their language was being spoken by people that didn’t know the Jews’ native language.

Speaking in tongues, Boyd said, could be used to communicate the Gospel to unbelievers. Thousands were born again that day when the Holy Spirit first came down upon believers. And Boyd said he knows tons of stories of such witnessing in tongues happening today.

Boyd’s congregation doesn’t have Coloradans suddenly speaking fluent Swahili or Russian. That’s the recorded “miracle” of Acts 2; the apostles spoke fluently in existing, real languages they did not know:

Acts 2:3-4 “And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Acts 2:8 “And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?”

Acts 2:11 “Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.”

Far from speaking and hearing in different languages, Boyd’s congregation has Coloradans blabbing in something a step below baby talk — which often has an attempt at meaning behind it, unlike Godly gibberish — and calling it “God’s language”, while others decide what is intended and “interpret”.

Does that sound like the “miracle” from Acts 2 to you? Or any sort of a “gift”?

Boyd continues:

Sometimes we think tongues is just people getting in an emotional frenzy. But the spiritual gift is practical. It is intended to draw people to God.

I think that oftentimes we have made the spiritual gifts about us. ‘What does it do for me?’ Not every time are the spiritual gifts for you. Oftentimes gifts are there … to draw people to Christ.

Practical? How is it practical, when outsiders regard it as nonsense, and nobody but the speaker can understand it (if indeed there is intent behind the blabber)?

Here, Boyd again diverts from Scripture.

The apostle Paul had other thoughts on the matter. In the first letter to the church at Corinth, which was apparently quite taken with ecstatic speaking, Paul warns against allowing the practice to get out of control:

1 Corinthians 14:9 “So likewise you, except you utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for you shall speak into the air.”

1 Corinthians 14:13-14 “Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret. 14 For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.”

1 Corinthians 14:21-23 “In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord. 22 Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe. 23 If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that you are mad?”

Ecstatic speech, then, serves only the speaker; the opposite of Boyd’s contention.

I thought he wouldn’t stretch Scripture. It sounds to me as though he’s twisted and pulled it until it fairly shrieks!

What possible reason could Boyd have for his abuse of Scripture? Look, a poll!

For a Biblical perspective on speaking in tongues, have a look HERE.

Related posts:

1. Satan Possesses Mississippi Coed A Pelahatchie, Mississippi high school student spent three days speaking...

Your Thoughts?

In order to get around the objection that the phrase 'under God' is the endorsement of some type of religious belief, we are simply going to re-define the term 'God' so that it is not religious but, let's say, patriotic.

Let us redefine the term 'God' to mean, a political philosophy whereby a power greater than government grants people their inalienable rights.

Now, how stupid of you atheists to assert that the phrase 'under God' is a violation of a government prohibition on religion. This is not about religion at all. It is about a political philosophy that holds that individuals have certain inalienable rights, and those rights come from a source outside of government. As a result, governments can neither create nor destroy these rights. When you protest 'one Nation under God', you are not protesting a particular religious idea. You are protesting the idea that humans have moral rights independent of government. Which, of course, is something that no decent American would ever do.

If this were a valid form of argument, then I can give another form of argument that is equally valid.

Let's define the term 'white' to mean a political philosophy that came out of Europe, and embraced by our (caucasian) founding fathers, that holds that individuals hold certain inalienable moral rights that find their source outside of government - that governments can neither create nor destroy.

Great. Now we can change the Pledge of Allegiance to be a pledge to 'one White nation', and we can proudly assert that this is an endorsement of the basic principles on which this country was founded. Consequently, when you protest 'one White nation', you are not protesting an expression and endorsement of the white race above other races. You are protesting the idea that humans have moral rights independent of government. Which, of course, is something that no decent American would ever do.

There are some falsehoods that warrent a patient and quite expression of the reasons why the person making that claim is mistaken, and a respectful but diligent attempt to steer them onto the right path.

And there are some falsehoods that betray such a defect in moral character that they do not warrant such a patient response. They warrant our outright condemnation.

This is a lie.

This type of statement can only sensibly be uttered by somebody who says, "I want to use the Pledge to promote my brand of religious/racist bigotry. Of course, my brand of religious/racist bigotry is prohibited by law, by the Constitution, and by morality itself. So I am going to lie and say that the term 'God' or 'white' respectively means 'a political philosophy that holds that humans have certain inalienable rights that come from a source outside of government.'

The only people who would go along with this lie are people who, with a wink and a nudge, decide share the immoral attitudes of those who originated this lie and for the sake of political and immoral expediency agree to assert, "Yes. Yes. Of course. It's perfectly obvious that the term 'white' (or 'under God') refers not a race (or religious belief) but to a political philosophy."

That way we can have our pledge of allegiance to one White nation or one nation under God and pretend, at least in our public lives, that we are obeying the legal, constitutional, and moral prohibitions against racial/religious bigotry respectively.

Two of the three judges who heard the case of Newdow vs. Rio Linda, with their own wink and a nudge, have decided that they are going to go along with this lie and write it into their legal opinion.

Where it can now be found in their statement:

[B]oth the purpose and effect of the Pledge are that of a predominantly patriotic, not a religious, exercise. The phrase 'under God' is a recognition of our Founder's [sic] political philosophy that a power greater than the government gives the people their inalienable rights. Thus, the Pledge is an endorsement of our form of government, not of religion or any particuar sect.

Newdow v. Rio Linda, USD p. 3921

Finally, sometimes a typographical error is simply a typographical error. I make a number of them.

However, in this case, I have to wonder what philosophy the judges in the majority were thinking in this case when they wrote about:

our Founder's (singular, capitalized) political philosophy.

We have reason to ask what a person might be thinking - what their particular philosophy of religion and government might be, if they think that the United States had only one Founder, and that a reference to Him must begin with a capital letter.

The news itself isn’t earth-shattering, surprising, or really all that exciting. It’s the build-up that’s been more interesting. As is pointed out in the Vulture piece, a lot of The Advocate’s cover article about Hayes concerns his secrecy about his sexuality over the past decade or so, even as that magazine itself worked so hard to out him. From the beginning of Will & Grace’s success, he wasn’t playing ball:

Suddenly everyone wanted to know if Hayes himself was gay and how he felt about playing a gay character. Faced with the very real prospect of jeopardizing his chance at landing straight roles down the road, he started reciting stock answers, variations on what he told the Detroit Free Press early on: “When I play a gay character I want to be as believable as possible. And when I’m playing a straight character I also want to be as believable as possible. So the less that people know about my personal life, the more believable I can be as a character.” And Hayes never pretended to be something he wasn’t; he never walked some pretty woman down the red carpet or faked a straight relationship.

So even now, having won their story, The Advocate still can’t resist taking a few shots at his “stock” answers. But what is so wrong with saying “I don’t want to talk about it because that’s my private life”? The problem The Advocate, and the gay community, seems to find with such a viewpoint is that they feel every gay celebrity has some sort of responsibility, some obligation to help the “greater good.” Hayes knows this, and shoots back at The Advocate a little bit:

“Why would you go down that path with somebody who’s done so much to contribute to the gay community?” he asks. “That was my beef about it. What more do you want me to do? Do you want me to stand on a float? And then what? It’s never enough.”

To be honest, I really side with Hayes (or whoever else): your business is your business. Most people feel he did it to protect his career and bankability as an actor. To avoid typecasting. If that’s the case, then that’s sad, but it’s still his business. It’s only in recent years that out gay actors have been embraced by the mainstream, and there’s still work to be done. It’s all rosy right now for Neil Patrick Harris, and I would never want to take any of that success away from him (I’m a huge HIMYM fan), but it probably helped that he was already playing the womanizing Barney Stinson when he came out. I’ve heard Ellen DeGeneres talk about how difficult it was to find work after her sitcom ended. So in some regards, we’ve come a long way, but it’s still hard for a gay actor to get mainstream leading roles. It’s an unfortunate truth that being gay in Hollywood is a label.

It comes from our country’s celebrity obsession. We aren’t content to watch a performance and let it speak for itself. We had to know if Brad and Angelina had more going on behind the scenes. We want desperately for our leads to have a romance that we can follow off-screen. Who’s cheating on whom? Who’s having a baby? Who’s going on a bender and shaving her head this week? Then, in turn, we project these qualities onto every character that person plays. This is all part of the problem. See, because being straight is considered the “norm,” it’s assumed that when someone plays gay, he must be gay! Hayes pointed this out in an early interview:

“I’m an actor first. I’ve played straight characters—the husband or the guy who gets the girl—in almost every commercial I’ve ever done, and nobody’s ever asked me if I’m straight. Now that I’m playing a gay character, everybody asks if I am gay.”

It’s not fair, but it’s reality. And can any of us fault him for not wanting to deal with it? The double standard he mentions is also a little silly. In a recent blog post, one of my favorite tweeters, @BroadwayGirlNYC, recently pointed out the ridiculousness of the media’s obsession with people’s sexuality, addressing Hugh Dancy’s performance as a gay man (well, really two gay men) in the play “The Pride”:

Why does every interview I read with Hugh Dancy have to ask whether he had any hesitation in playing a gay role, or about whether people around him were concerned about him playing homosexual onstage? Not once have I EVER seen an interview with a gay actor where they asked the same questions about playing straight, and they do it ALL THE TIME. Dancy is a professional ACTOR — it’s his life’s work to pretend to be something he’s not in real life. Why the obsession over kissing another dude, as if it’s the most deplorable thing in the world? Grow up, media. Ask Hugh Dancy about some issues people actually care about: like whether Claire Danesever calls him “Jordan Catalano” in bed. (link)

See, in this case, they can’t just attack him with questions about his own sexuality, seeing as he’s married to a beautiful movie star (*phew!*). So instead, everyone gets to ask him how it feels to be a macho, masculine, normal straight guy playing a gay character. Was it awkward for him? Wasn’t it icky to kiss another guy? How could he possibly look at another man and pretend to be attracted to him without immediately going limp-wristed as he immediately felt all testosterone drain from his body?As BroadwayGirl points out, it’s his job to find those feelings, wherever they come from. It’s not a matter of whether he can drum up sexual attraction for his costar. But, as I pointed out earlier, Americans want to believe that everything they see is real, that every rom-com couple is in love on- and off-screen. They simply cannot accept that a man who, in his private life, carries on relationships with men could possibly play a convincing straight man. And they won’t believe it, so they won’t go see the movie, so the studio doesn’t cast him. On the flip-side, they don’t understand a heterosexual actor so secure and fearless (and dreamy!) that he will go to that place without fear of destroying his “image.” In the end, actors become afraid to come out, fearing pigeonholing by casting agents or rejection by the public. It’s a personal decision, and one no one has any business judging it.

I know there are a lot of people who will be angry with me, who feel like it’s every gay person’s duty to spread the truth that being gay is fantastic, who need to march and shout it from the rooftops. And that’s fine. But deciding that that’s not for me does not make me a self-hating gay or mean that I’m not proud of who I am.  I have never felt like I “owed” something to the gay community. I don’t generally come off as gay (I’m not trying to be rude here, I just don’t really possess the signals that Americans, fairly or unfairly,  generally associate with gay men), and I don’t consider it my duty to come out to everyone I meet in every conversation. If I happen to mention an argument I had or trip I took with my boyfriend, that’s fine. I like TR Knight’s stance on the topic when he was outed: “While I prefer to keep my personal life private, I hope the fact that I’m gay isn’t the most interesting part of me.”

In my opinion, the less we talk all the time about our gayness, the less lurid and different it will seem to everyone. We say “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it,” and let’s own those words by getting used to it ourselves. Outlets like The Advocate wringing their hands over a new actor’s sexuality only perpetuates the sentiment that a gay actor is different from every other actor and that, until we know whom he sleeps with, we don’t know enough about him. My goal, as far as my sexuality is concerned, has always been to show everyone I meet that I’m no different than they are and can’t be defined by one thing. I’m smart, funny, stubborn, kind, incredulous, and infuriating. The fact that I also happen to be gay should be kind of mundane and, well, old news.

It's interesting stuff, but utterly unsurprising to atheists. These are people who entered the ministry out of a sincere desire to do good in the world, and as they delved into religious scholarship, they discovered they couldn't believe anymore…but hey, they were still humane and concerned about their fellow human beings. They're also concerned about what will happen to their income if they leave the church, and what will happen to the opinion others have of them. And they engage in some difficult and twisty rationalizations for their situations.

One other interesting point is that several of them came to their atheism by way of reading books by Ehrman and Spong, and also Harris and Hitchens. These works do make a difference. Unfortunately, we also learn that while they have received enlightenment, they're very, very reluctant to share that shameful knowledge with their congregations, and continue to reassure them about belief in god.

Unfortunately, the WaPo couldn't just put up Dennett's bombshell on its own: they've surrounded it with a confusing cloud of commissioned articles to answer the question, "What should pastors do if they no longer hold the defining beliefs of their denomination?". Most of them are believers, except for Rebecca Goldstein and Tom Flynn and Herb Silverman, and most of them are making excuses. You just knew that someone would make the inane argument that "doubt is part of faith." No, it's not. Faith is the blunt instrument used to crush doubt.

The comments on Dennett's article are also fascinating. There are people who are quite upset about his revelation. And there is even a Cracker Catholic there, claiming that an atheist priest at communion turned a wafer into a hunk of bloody meat — therefore, god, apparently.

Just watch. This is news that will provoke protests and complaints and lots of excuses. I hope it also encourages more ministers to come out of the closet and face reality, instead of making it their profession to obscure the truth.

The Church knew about widespread reports of priests repeatedly molesting children... and instead of acting to protect the children, they acted to protect the priests, and themselves. Thus deliberately and knowingly putting more children in the way of known child rapists, solely for their pure self-interest.

Repeatedly. Time and time again. In every part of the world. As a cold-blooded matter of Church policy.

That is the scandal.

The pope's entire career has the stench of evil about it.

Conservatives on the Texas Board of Education have approved a series of major changes to the state’s social studies curriculum. The new curriculum stresses the superiority of American capitalism, questions the separation of church and state, and presents Republican political philosophies in a more positive light. One plank in the new curriculum ensures that students learn about “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.” In economic classes, free market advocates Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek will be mandatory reading. Meanwhile, attempts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models in the curriculum were defeated even though half of the state’s four million students are Hispanic. The legendary farmworker organizer Dolores Huerta was removed from the curriculum, as was the Mexican American painter Santa Barraza. Board member Mary Helen Berlanga stormed out of one meeting, saying, “They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist. They are going overboard. They are not experts, they are not historians. They are rewriting history, not only of Texas, but of the United States and the world.”

– To avoid exposing students to “transvestites, transsexuals and who knows what else,” the Board struck the curriculum’s reference to “sex and gender as social constructs.” 

– The Board removed Thomas Jefferson from the Texas curriculum, “replacing him with religious right icon John Calvin.”

– The Board refused to require that “students learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others.”

– The Board struck the word “democratic” from the description of the U.S. government, instead terming it a “constitutional republic.”

He spoke at the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s convention last November and a transcript of his talk is now available online in the most recent issue of Freethought Today.

In it, he listed (in no particular order) the Top 10 good things about being godless:

1. Secularity is on the rise in the U.S. and throughout much of the world.
2. Godless people and secular people are less sexist, less chauvinistic and much more supportive of women’s rights.
3. We are more tolerant and accepting of others not like us.
4. We are better educated and maybe even a little bit smarter.
5. The godless are less homophobic.
6. We are more moral and more ethical.
7. Atheists experience and enjoy more oral sex than religious people do.
8. We are better parents.
9. When there are a lot of us in one place or one nation or one state or one group, the result is societal success and well being.
10. We’re just better looking.

Obviously, some of those items are tongue-in-cheek, some are debatable, and some are very serious. Before commenting on any of them, check out how Zuckerman defends each item in the actual piece, since he goes into quite a bit of depth.

I don’t think women who chose abortion make the choice lightly.  It is an extremely difficult decision that should be made not by religious groups, politicians, men, or anyone other than the woman herself.  There are those that are pro-choice but are actually against abortion, though still believe in the individual’s right to choose.

If any group has misnamed itself it is the pro-lifers.  In truth they are not pro-life at all, but pro-fetus.  On the issue of the day, health care, one of the arguments or fears of those opposed is that it might include funding for abortions, therefore we should leave the status quo; and continue to allow the 45,000 plus people to die each year because they cannot afford health care.  The pro-fetus folks do not seem to give a rat’s ass about their lives.

To say that one is pro-life should be all-encompassing, not the pro-selective-life that is their modus operandi.  In addition to the unborn, nonviable cells they so vocally seek to protect they should value all life.  This would include the already born, the animals that many of them kill just for the fun of it, and that pesky fly or mosquito you swat because it is annoying you.  These all represent life that you claim to be proponents of because life is sacred.  So I strongly suggest we drop the façade and start calling the pro-lifers what they are, pro-fetus hypocrites.

Dr. Omi Osun Joni L. Jones gives 6 rules for allies (cross race/gender/sexuality/nationality/religion etc) in her keynote speech given 2/19/10 at a luncheon sponsored by Abriendo Brecha Vll Conference and The Seventeenth Annual Emerging Scholarship In Women’s and Gender Studies Conference UT Austin (hat tip: Sharon Bridgforth):

Being an ally is a very challenging thing. It’s easy to say, “I’m an ally, I support you.” It’s very difficult to follow through on that. There are many ways I try to be an ally and often feel I fall short. I also get easily frustrated with alleged allies who choose not to measure up to the title.

I’d like to highlight Dr. Jones’s six rules with some of my own thoughts as well as some current events from as early as a few hours ago. You can read the full text of her speech here (PDF).

Rule #1: Allies know that it is not sufficient to be liberal. In fact, the liberal position is actually a walk backwards.

This is probably the hardest one. It’s a challenge both for allies as well as for those in-movement. I think today we saw an interesting juxtaposition between the HRC rally and the GetEqual direct action. HRC had Kathy Griffin who was taping for My Life on the D-List, and really, who cares? Lt. Dan Choi showed up and was like we can do better than a rally and went over and chained himself to the White House fence. He and two others were arrested (Towleroad has updated coverage here). The difference between the two is striking.

Allies who really care about standing up for oppressed groups have to do more than vote for democrats. Sometimes it takes more than just showing up at the rally! Action has to be taken. (Photo courtesy @piconico).

Rule #2: Be loud and crazy so _____ folks won’t have to be!

This is so true. I think many allies simply wait to be told by the oppressed group what they should do. What a difference it would make if groups didn’t always have to advocate just for themselves. In a way, this should be kind of obvious. Allies should care at least as much as any member of the group they are trying to be an ally to.

I was excited to see a Bilerico-led blog swarm today calling for passage of ENDA. Despite my impatience at employment inequality though, I have my reservations about the effectiveness of such a swarm when Congress is already being inundated with feedback on healthcare reform, which is why I haven’t actively participated. I did try calling Speaker Pelosi’s office, only to get a busy signal and then no answer.

But look at the participants in the blogswarm. It’s almost all the LGBT blogs you’d expect, which is great, but where are our allies? Daily Kos is apparently participating, but you can’t even find the swarm on the homepage! It shouldn’t be up to just the same old folks to be advocating against the same old inequality.

Rule #3: Do not tell anyone in any oppressed group to be patient. Doing so is a sign of your own privilege and unconscious though absolute disregard for the person with whom you are speaking.

I couldn’t agree more. And the cry of “wait!” takes many forms! The waffling and call for more studies on repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is a great example. Anytime you hear “We’re not ready yet” or “We have to study this more” is just an excuse to delay justice. I’ve written on this one before, so I think we can move on.

Rule #4: Recognize the new racism, the new sexism, the old homophobia. It is institutional and structural… The absence of ____ in any space cannot be accounted for by chance or accident… Allies know that racism, sexism, and homophobia are real and NEVER tell people, “You could be wrong, you know.” Such a statement presumes that you have greater insights than those with lived experience inside of multiple oppressions.

This is also a difficult one, and one that I know I’ve definitely struggled with as a white man working to be a better ally. I think back to my recent outcry about the way my identity was edited out of my local newspaper. It really doesn’t matter if I’m wrong, I can’t change that the way my identity was edited out is only one of many microaggressions I have experienced for being gay. Seeing that incident as an attack on my identity is the only way I can see it, because I have to constantly be on guard for such attacks.

Rule #5: When called out about your racism, sexism or homophobia, don’t cower in embarrassment, don’t cry, and don’t silently think “she’s crazy” and vow never to interact with her again… Be grateful that someone took the time to expose yours—remember, exposure allows the wind to whip away isolation and fear. Exposure is a step toward freedom. Allies welcome an opportunity to see how their choices, ideas, words may be erasing those around them… Allies want to know when they have been contributed to the very oppressions they oppose. Allies know they are not above reproach.

I try to relish opportunities to admit that I’m wrong. That’s why I’m so willing to put myself out there. I can’t be afraid to be wrong, because then I will never learn and grow.

For example, I was totally against the National Equality March as it was getting organized. It seemed like it was not actually organized at all, I bought into what a lot of the big groups were saying about it, and it just didn’t seem like it would be effective. As it came together and I chose to participate, I saw just how important this new way of thinking about activism was. I saw how my socioeconomic privilege was actually clouding my ability to truly appreciate the importance of grassroots efforts toward queer equality. I was wrong for opposing it, and I’m glad I figured that out before it was too late.

There’s a reason I always encourage people to comment on my blog. I like to hear when people disagree with me! I like to argue and work through new understandings. I hope that as an activist and ally, I am not above reproach.

Rule #6: Allies actively support alternative possibilities… because allies believe “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house,” allies consider the transgressive power in alternative academic strategies, a power that works to undo patriarchy, white supremacy, the insatiability of capitalism, and heterosexism. Supporting alternative possibilities is the only way we can all dream ourselves into the world in which we want to live.

This is another one of the reasons I was mad about my newspaper’s censorship. I knew that my opportunity to perform was an opportunity to offer a liberated message, as it was for my graduate capstone. At the performance last night, I successfully did it again. My opening monologue included some vague allusions to my gay identity and I also sang “Maybe This Time,” complete with male pronouns, and people left the event asking if I was gay or not, because they weren’t sure. That was specifically my intent, and I was successful, but it would have made a lot more sense if the proper context had been set up in the article.

This also makes me think about how the rest of my professional field might feel about my blogging, as I wrote about last October. For higher education, blogging is still a unique medium. It’s not an academic journal, nor should it be read as one. There are surely folks who do not appreciate what I write, because it is not their tactic. Similarly, I disagree with the way social justice education is so focused within the academy and our professional organizations rarely speak outwardly about the values they claim to uphold. I’m proud I have this venue to creatively share some fresh points of view and get people thinking in new ways, as well as to push myself to continue to learn and think in new ways!

Being an ally is tough, and I know I feel very refreshed by Dr. Jones’s words. They present new challenges for moving forward, but I’d rather struggle toward liberation than settle for oppression.

[An] Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.

But Michele Bachmann won't be participating.

She claims it has something to do with WWII Japanese American internment camps, but I think it's all about the Bible. Michele knows her Bible too well to participate in a God-damned government census.

Remember what happened with David's census? God killed 70,000 men (and who knows how many women and children) in three days of pestilence.

Why did God kill so many people? Because David had a census.

David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, Go, number Israel ... and bring the number of them to me, that I may know it.
...
And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David.
...
And God was displeased with this thing; therefore he smote Israel.
...
So the LORD sent pestilence upon Israel: and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. 1 Chronicles 21:2-14

And why did David have the census?

Because Satan told him to.

And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. 1 Chronicles 21:1

Michele Bachmann knows that if Satan could fool David, a man after God's own heart, he sure as hell could fool the authors of the U.S. Constitution.

Note: Michele also knows that Satan had help in inspiring the David's census.

And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. 2 Samuel 24:1

Satan and God worked on it together. But that's beside the point. God got angry and he and/or Satan inspired David to have a census and then God killed a couple hundred thousand people because of the census.

So it doesn't matter whether the 2010 census was inspired by God or Satan or both. God hates censuses, and he kills those that participate in them.

My favorite lines:

As I trust my offspring’s ability to separate fact from fantasy, I am happy for him to participate in your indoctrination process on the proviso that all references to ‘Jesus’ are replaced with the term ‘Purportedly Magic Jew.’

Your inference that I am without religion is incorrect and I am actually torn between two faiths; while your god’s promise of eternal life is very persuasive, the Papua New Guinean mud god, Pikkiwoki, is promising a pig and as many coconuts as you can carry.

If I too knew some guy that had been killed and placed inside a cave with a rock in front of it and I visited the cave to find the rock moved and his body gone, the only logical assumption would be that he had risen from the dead and is the son of God. Once, my friend Simon was rushed to hospital to have his appendix removed and I visited him the next day to find his bed empty. I immediately sacrificed a goat and burnt a witch in his name but it turned out that he had not had appendicitis, just needed a good poo, and was at home playing Playstation.

You raise a valid point and I appreciate you pointing out my failings as a parent. Practising a system of ethics based on the promise of a reward, in your case an afterlife, is certainly preferable to practising a system of ethics based on it simply being the right thing to do.

Many years ago, I lived next door to a Christian named Mr Stevens. You could tell he was a Christian because he had a fish sticker on his Datsun. He used to wave at us kids from his bathroom window on hot summer days as we played in the sprinkler. I learnt a lot from Mr Stevens. Mainly about wrestling holds.

Your job would be made much easier if, after making the school children sit through an hour of church youth group teens dancing, singing and re-enacting Jewish magic tricks, you simply told them that it was just a small taste of what hell is like and if they didn’t believe in Jesus they would have to sit through it again.

The different is that atheists are honest about what happens when we all die. We don’t make up stories about the afterlife. We don’t claim to have knowledge about something no one has ever experienced. We accept that death is the end of the line and hopefully we’ve left behind wonderful memories and a positive legacy for those around us.

Side note #1: One of the commenters on David’s site alludes to this, but does it make sense for an atheist to have “Rest In Peace” written on the tombstone? There’s obviously no need to worry about that.

Side note #2: Tombstone? What a waste of space. Atheists ought to be giving their bodies to science or being cremated. (Sure, they’re not around to make that decision, but they can let others know of their wishes beforehand.) Are others with me on this?

Side note #3: You’re all organ donors, right?

Lord Harrison will hold a debate on two reports by the British Humanist Association (BHA) calling for a secular approach to public service and legislation.

The reports call for an inclusive approach to public services, provided in a secular way, and say all citizens should have equal rights to access and receive public services.

The BHA regards religious privilege as a form of discrimination; it is the largest organisation in the UK campaigning for a secular state.

In 2009, the BHA launched a billboard campaign urging parents not to label their children with their own religious faith. The campaign – which features in capital cities across the country – is designed to challenge state-funded faith schools.

Continues: http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_lords/newsid_8572000/8572391.stm

The letter is certainly informative. It conveys the signatories’ concerns about the current attacks on climate scientists. But it also gives a useful history and description of the IPCC review process and puts the whole question of recently disclosed report errors into its correct context. It endorses the public right to know the risks involved in climate change and the need for restoring confidence in the review process. The letter proposes specific ideas for improving the review process, providing for more rapid acknowledgment and correction of inevitable errors and correcting misconceptions about IPCC conclusions.

The letter declares:

“It is our intention in offering this open letter to bring the focus back to credible science, rather than invented hyperbole.”

It provides a brief history and outline of the IPCC review process:

“The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established the IPCC in 1988 to provide policy makers regularly with balanced assessments of the state of knowledge on climate change.  In so doing, they created an open intergovernmental organization in which scientists, policy analysts, engineers, and resource managers from all over the world were asked to collaborate.  At present, more than 150 countries including the United States participate in the IPCC.  IPCC publishes an assessment report approximately every six years.  The most recent Fourth Assessment, approved by member countries and released in 2007, contained three volumes: The Physical Science Basis (Working Group I); Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (Working Group II) and Mitigation of Climate Change (Working Group III) and a Synthesis Report.  More than 44 writing teams and 450 lead authors contributed to the Fourth Assessment – authors who have been selected on the basis of their expertise in consultation with all member countries and who were assisted by another 800 scientists and analysts who served as contributing authors on specific topics.  Authors donated their time gratis, and the entire process was supported by four Technical Support Units (TSUs) that employ 5 to 10 people each.”

And it acknowledges:

“It was hard not to notice the extraordinary commotion that erupted around errors that were eventually found in the AR4. ” . . .  “In any case, it is essential to emphasize that none of these interventions alter the key finding from the AR4 that human beings are very likely changing the climate, with far-reaching impacts in the long run.”

“The heated debates that have emerged around these instances have even led some to question the quality and integrity of the IPCC.  Recent events have made it clear that the quality control procedures of the IPCC are not watertight, but claims of widespread and deliberate manipulation of scientific data and fundamental conclusions in the AR4 are not supported by the facts.  We also strongly contest the impression that the main conclusions of the report are based on dubious sources”

It concludes:

“the IPCC procedures are transparent and thorough, even though they are not infallible.  Nonetheless, we are confident that no single scholar or small group of scholars can manipulate the process to include or to exclude a specific line of research; authors of that research can (and are fully encouraged to) participate in the review process.  Moreover, the work of every scientist, regardless of whether it supports or rejects the premise of human-induced climate change, is subject to inclusion in the reports.  The work is included or rejected for consideration based on its scientific merit.”

After proposing procedures to improve the future work of the IPCC the letter concludes:

“The significance of IPCC errors has been greatly exaggerated by many sensationalist accounts, but that is no reason to avoid implementing procedures to make the assessment process even better. The public has a right to know the risks of climate change as scientists currently understand them. We are dedicated to working with our colleagues and government in furthering that task.”

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Scratching around, then, we have to first rule out financial stresses (they’re worth £30m between them), along with that showbiz catch-all that they didn’t make time for one another in their jetset lifestyles. (Winslet had only recently returned from a year off work.) Neither of them was having an affair, or maybe they both were – it’s all irrelevant because we’re asking the wrong question. It’s obvious why people would split up: habituation is its own excuse. But what makes people stay together?

Celebrities don’t immediately seem to offer any useful lessons, being so profoundly unusual, but they offer a neat insight into what people do when they aren’t stressed. When money is no issue, when work can be picked up and put down, when intellectual and/or creative fulfilment is a given, when peer disapproval doesn’t really exist because, well, you are peerless (and disapproval will rain down on you anyway, just for the shape of your teeth), how long do those relationships last? Not very long; really, six or so years is about the most of it, unless you’re Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon – and even that, at 11 years, felt a lot longer than it actually was, though of course I can’t speak for the people in it. We should look at stars not as aberrant wantons with too many attractive associates, but rather as humanity in laboratory conditions, all confounding factors removed. What, in their chamber of purity, do famous couples do? Why, they split up, of course.

Meanwhile, outside the laboratory, politicians everywhere wheel out their wives as badges of righteousness. The idea of the everlasting couple is at the centre of every conversation about society. Certainly where children are involved, the one point on which every party would agree is how to shore up the parental partnership. Tories insist that it can be done with marriage. Their favourite statistic is that one in three unmarried couples who are parents will split up before their child’s third birthday. I always think that sounds about right. Most relationships in one’s twenties – relationships that aren’t the Big Relationship – last about three years. The only difference between these “problem” broken families and the supposedly upstanding middle classes, who deferred the gratification of children for university, is we spent our twenties getting drunk. It’s hardly a moral position.

No account is taken, in this almost logical deduction, of the fact that married people are a self-selecting sample of people who are very serious about staying together. So there’s no point harrying or bribing people into it, it’s like giving up smoking: it only works if you wanted to do it in the first place.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/17/splitting-up-marriage-broken-society

"I nearly lost my faith, but God found me again. I am no longer at the Seminary as I was when we last spoke but have found a new calling for which to serve. My purpose here is to understand in a very succinct and brief way why you feel Christianity as an institution is irrelevant for our society at large and for you personally.

I promise this is not another back door ploy to bring you to faith. The Spirit will work in you if he sees fit. I honestly respect your opinion and would like to further understand what it is specifically about modern Christianity that doesn't work for you? What are your biggest hang ups with Christians and the church as it represents itself in North American culture?"

The stories of secular (Secular Humanist, Atheist, Agnostic, et al.) people are scattered because we as a people are scattered. We are not unified by a denomination or tradition. Because there is little cohesion among us, our voice is often not loud enough to be heard in the modern religious marketplace. The secular stories that do get broadcast are most often volatile – secular people taking swipes at religious people – and reflect a divisive “us versus them” mentality. What gets told less often are the stories of people, secular and religious alike, living alongside one another peacefully and secular people expressing their own values within a diverse society. We want to hear more of these stories. We want to hear your story.

You can submit your true story of 800 words or less in one of three categories youth, interfaith and moral imagination. Submissions will be read by a panel of judges, and a winner and two runners up will be selected from each category. In addition to a prize, the winning essays will run in the Washington Post, Killing the Buddha, or the Jettison Quarterly.

Deadline for entry is May 1st. [Make that May 15th - VJ] See this page for details.

I know my atheist colleagues and friends think this way of recognising life is just a form of 'misfire', a delusion.  They find support for their view from the natural processes like a tsunami or a congenital disease, which appear to be indifferent to the value of life.  But these are some of the consequences of the processes that produce life.  In conversations with students this quickly leads them questioning my belief in God: 'why would God use natural processes, including evolution by natural selection, to bring life into existence?' and 'why would God use any process at all, why not just create the world in the intended end state, if the world is supposedly created for some purpose?'   Will our faith and theology be up to answering these questions? The answer has to be robust enough to address Dawkins saying the universe is, at bottom, pitilessly indifferent.  I regard these as excellent questions for which there are good answers.  But these would take more than this blog to set out.  It is one part of a larger conversation working out the rationality of faith.  This reference to 'reason' is deeply Christian in a Christianity that has reason to believe the divine Logos has become flesh in Christ.      

At the end of her vivid, witty segment Catherine Deveney gave us this word: "Seek the truth and the truth will make you free. Don't be afraid of death. Be afraid of never having really lived.  Peace be with you."  These are also deeply Christian themes, at least one being a direct quote.   CD says 'God is bullshit' - that is her gig at the comedy festival.  Taking a line from Dan Barker, a speaker at the Convention, this is culturally resonant with speaking about God as a shepherd in Jesus' own day. But could the truth, life and peace she commends to us enter into a conversation with the truth, life and peace that Christians value?  Catherine Deveney, would you be interested in another gig?

There was a phrase I heard all the time when I was living in Utah. If I did something friendly or helpful, the good Mormon would tell me that was mighty "white" of me. It's the same thing when someone appropriates truth and justice and reason as Christian virtues, and sits around trying to be nice to atheists by telling them how close they come to a Christian ideal.

And they call us the arrogant ones.

I'm not nice. I'm not Christian. And I tell Stephen Ames that no matter how charitable he thinks he is, he comes across as a condescending prat, and he can get stuffed.

Those virtues are human values, they don't belong to Christianity, and I'm so tired of Christians acting as if they are. Hands off. Ames sat through the convention, noted that many of the speakers repeated frequently that you can be good without gods, and failed to notice that not once did they play his game of pretending that goodness is an atheist property. We don't delude ourselves that way. We also know that reason is a virtue grafted onto a religion that is primarily concerned with irrational faith, and is entirely evidence-free.

It's his patronizing attitude that is a significant part of the moral conflict. By once again trying to tie morality to Christianity, he perpetuates the myth that marginalizes atheists.

I have to mention the flip side of this problem. I enthusiastically grant that Christians can and do embrace what I consider human cultural values, and I do not consider religion to be a necessary obstacle to doing good. The best of Christianity dedicates itself to those wonderful principles of social justice that some read into the Jesus story (I'd add that this is the very same thing I find commendable in communism). Rarely have I encountered anyone who does not regard social justice, equality, and fairness as virtues…except in the pathological extremes of libertarianism and far right conservatism.

It turns out there are people — even influential people — who seem to be dangerous sociopaths from my perspective. Roger Ebert has a fascinating essay on Glenn Beck. Beck is, apparently, an amoral being who rejects the common interests of all humankind.

What are the words "social justice" code for? Why, Nazism and Communism, says Beck: "Social justice was the rallying cry--economic justice and social justice--the rallying cry on both the communist front and the fascist front." Beck even went so far as to cite Jesus Christ, saying, and I quote: "Nowhere does Jesus say, Hey, if somebody asks for your shirt, give your coat to the government and have the government give them a pair of slacks." Well, Beck has me there. It is quite true that nowhere does Jesus say that. Nor, for that matter, does he ever say, A wop bop a lu bop, a wop bam boom!

What I would enjoy hearing is one single clergyman from any faith in America, appearing on Beck's program to agree with him and denouncing social justice. Such a person might be a real piece of work. I suspect he might currently be in between congregations. Beck's oversight is that all religions teach social justice. That's sort of what they're about. "My church doesn't," said Beck, who is a Mormon. Not for the first time, he was dead wrong, and the mountains of Utah rang with the thunder of outraged Mormon elders. I know now, and did not know before, that before statehood the Mormons in the Utah territory provided universal health care and care for the poor as a matter of their duty.

You want to identify an issue on which atheists and liberal Christians can find common ground? There it is. Just don't try to pretend that only Good Christians are the proprietors of moral behavior.

So I’ve thrown in my own opinion about the census with a little webpage. Enjoy.

The Evil Census!!!

Let’s face facts here, religion tells some pretty fanciful stories. If any rational person (even religious person) heard these stories in a non-religious context they would not believe them to be true. In fact, they would laugh at how obviously ridiculous these stories are.

If religious people just forgot about their religion for a moment and changed he names of the characters and put it into modern times instead of ancient times, they would not believe these stories were true.

Imagine that I told you that I was at a friend’s wedding and my friend Bob turned water into wine. Really? No modern Christian would believe me. Did I mention that Bob is the son of God? Still don’t believe me? You don’t say. I just don’t get how anyone could believe this stuff.

The more I talk to Christians the more I am forced back to this extremely obvious fact that Christianity as a belief system is bat-shit insane. I really just don’t get it.

"In May of that year, Ratzinger issued a confidential letter to every bishop. In it, he reminded them of the extreme gravity of a certain crime. But that crime was the reporting of the rape and torture. The accusations, intoned Ratzinger, were only treatable within the church's own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. Charges were to be investigated "in the most secretive way ... restrained by a perpetual silence ... and everyone ... is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office … under the penalty of excommunication." (My italics). Nobody has yet been excommunicated for the rape and torture of children, but exposing the offense could get you into serious trouble. And this is the church that warns us against moral relativism!"

"The Roman Catholic Church is headed by a mediocre Bavarian bureaucrat once tasked with the concealment of the foulest iniquity, whose ineptitude in that job now shows him to us as a man personally and professionally responsible for enabling a filthy wave of crime."

Under the Endorsement Test, we look to see whether the challenged governmental action has the purpose or effect of endorsing, favoring, or promoting religion, particularly if it has the effect of endorsing one religion over another.

They add:

Endorsement sends a message to non-adherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community."

The case is closed. A Pledge of Allegiance to ‘one Nation under God” is unconstitutional.

Any claim that the Pledge does not endorse ‘under Nation under God’ with its prerequisite belief in a God is as absurd as claiming that the Pledge does not endorse union, liberty, and justice for all.

Any claim that the Pledge does not send a message that those who do not support ‘one Nation under God’ are outsiders, not full members of the political community is as absurd as claiming that the Pledge does not condemn secession, tyranny, and injustice.

Any claim that a Pledge of Allegiance does not endorse religion and brand those who do not believe in God as outsiders and not full members of the political community is as absurd as claiming that if the Pledge were changed to be, ‘one white nation’, that this would not be an act that communicated that white citizens are superior to black citizens and that blacks are not (or ought not to be considered) full members of the political community.

No charge against ‘under God’ being a part of the Pledge of Allegiance is so obviously true or so obvious to defend.

In fact, this point is so clear and so obvious and so easy to defend that, on this point, I am completely baffled to discover that atheists are not making and defending this point. I find atheists preferring to use obscure and difficult arguments that are easy to mangle and counter about separation of church and state or the intentions of the founding fathers.

When, right here, there is the simplest and quickest of all of the possible arguments against having ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance. That it is as malicious and prejudiced against the interests of atheists as a pledge of allegiance to ‘one white nation’ would be to African Americans.

Furthermore, it is a message that is reinforced by the practice of having atheists self-select from being included in Pledge ceremonies. It would be difficult to find anything that better communicated that atheists are not full members of the political community than having them sit or stand aside while the rest of the community stands and gives a Pledge of Allegiance.

Throughout their opinion, the judges speaking in the majority concur with the fact that the Pledge is meant to endorse Union, liberty, and justice for all, and the effects that this has had on the attitudes of the political community.

On the fact that the term ‘indivisible’ appears in the Pledge they wrote:

Reinforcement of the idea that this nation is indivisible, a concept most Americans today would not even think was up for debate, reflects the fact that the Pledge was first drafted in 1892, not long after the Civil War.

If the word ‘indivisible’ is a ‘reinforcement’ – an endorsement – of an indivisible nation then it is a flat out contradiction to say that ‘under God’ is a reinforcement – an endorsement – of a religious proposition. If ‘indivisible’ aims to have the effect of creating a nation in which its citizens do not think that secession is even up for debate, then ‘under God’ aims to have the effect of creating a nation in which the citizens do not think that the existence of God is not up for debate.

The fatal flaw – the Achilles heel – of ‘under God’ is right here. This is where it fails. Yet, this is the point that the bulk of atheists and secularists choose to ignore.

If I were asked for a reason to explain why atheists and secularists avoid their easiest argument on this case, I would assert that it is because they are afraid to succeed on this issue. The aversions planted in their brain as young children – placed there by the message and condemnation inherent in the Pledge and the Motto themselves – make obscure and easy to challenge arguments against ‘under God’ far more comfortable than simple arguments that strike to the very core of this practice.

While much of what I have written in the past week against ‘under God’ applies as well to ‘In God We Trust’, here I want to make the case specific.

The Motto says ‘we’ trust in God – which necessarily implies that those who do not trust in God are not (or ought not to be considered) fully qualified members of the group known as ‘we’. Here, again, nothing can be so obvious that a motto that divides ‘we’ from ‘them’ on the issue of trust in God endorses trust in God as a positive quality and sends a message to non-adherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community.

Nothing could be more obvious.

As it now stands, her parents have to spend a month in jail every year for six years.

Under current Wisconsin law, parents can’t be found guilty of child abuse if they choose spiritual treatment rather than medicine or surgery.

Now, that could finally change:

State lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow prosecutors to charge parents who refuse medical help for their children on religious grounds with child abuse.

Rep. Terese Berceau (D-Madison) introduced a bill that “would eliminate a provision in state law allowing parents to withhold medical treatment if they believe that prayer is sufficient to heal their children.”

Yesterday, an informational hearing on the bill took place in the Committee on Children and Families.

It may have taken a tragedy to get lawmakers to act, but at least something positive can now come from all this.

[Berceau] tells the Assembly Children and Families Committee children shouldn’t have to die for their parents’ beliefs. Joe Farkas, legislative liaison for Christian Science churches in Wisconsin, counters the bill is vague and raises questions about whether parents can teach their children religious values.

No one is questioning a parent’s right to teach religion. This is about that religion causing parents to physically harm their children and then getting off the hook.

There’s another bill sponsored by State Senator Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) also going through the Wisconsin senate that’s similar to this one, except for a notable difference:

While Taylor’s bill would remove the religious exemption from child abuse and neglect laws, it adds the exemption to the medical practices section of the criminal code, a more expansive section of the criminal code.

State prosecutors, health care professionals and child care advocates, among others, fear this new exemption would further harm children by extending the religious exemption to an even broader category of crimes, including homicide, abuse, recklessly endangering the safety of a child and criminal neglect.

I’m hoping it’s Berceau’s bill that goes into effect.

In both cases, though, it’s very clear that the religious exemptions for child abuse and neglect need to end. Wisconsin lawmakers should not hesitate in voting for Berceau’s bill.

(Thanks to Glenn for the link)

Ken Schenck throws out an interesting comment over at his blog Quadrilateral Thoughts after reading one of N.T. Wright’s pieces: “Sometimes I think people like Wright are more clever than the biblical authors themselves…”

James McGrath picks up on this and explains: “Ken’s point (as I understand it) is that sometimes we come up with something more complex than the author is likely to have had in mind – and in that sense “cleverer” than the original author.”

Another was of putting it is that the good Bishop of Durham is being too clever by half.

It reminds me of a question that one of Mark Goodacre’s students asked him (which was recorded in the extended episode 2 of NT pod, I believe): how long do you think it took the authors to complete the Gospels? As part of his response, Goodacre explains how hurried and unpolished the Gospel of Marc appears. The whole thing has a rushed tone, and the grammar is rough in places with a lot of sentences that start with “and,” (“Jesus did this. And then Jesus did that.”) Much of this is smoothed out in translation.

So Goodacre suggests that the Gospel of Marc may have been written in an afternoon. That would certainly fit the scholar’s consensus that Marc was written during the First Jewish War; the author likely believed that the end times were here. No time to let the ink dry.

But it raises the question: how much literary complexity can you cram into a work that you write in an afternoon? Is it possible that the people who see a deep underlying structure and subtle wording in the Gospel of Marc and being too clever?

Some of the same arguments can be applied to the letters of Paul. As Philip Harland has pointed out, each letter is “situational;” Paul is writing to a specific group that is usually dealing with a specific crisis. What’s more, Paul is running all over the Mediterranean at this point, dictating these letters as he goes about establishing churches, getting shipwrecked and facing persecution.

Isn’t is possible that expecting Paul to provide theology under these circumstances is asking too much? Paul is trying to hold these fledgling communities together just long enough for the apocalypse to arrive. Perhaps he occasionally threw in some things simply because he thought they sounded good and might pacify the warring factions.

You could make a lot of the same arguments about Revelations – horrible grammar, written as a letter – but not many people who read this blog are looking to Revelations for deep meaning.

If you believe that the Bible was divinely inspired, then this probably isn’t a useful discussion. God presumably had infinite time and infinite wisdom with which to craft his work. But if you’re approaching the Bible from a secular perspective, I think it may be worth asking ourselves if our interpretations aren’t too clever by half.

After all, if we’re always going to prefer more complex and unlikely interpretations, we might as well all be mythicists. (heeee…)

Moein Khawaja: not a happy bunny

The textbooks, under the collective title of World of Islam, are published by Mason Crest Publishing. The blurb for the series declares:

Since the events of September 11, 2001, today’s society is more aware than ever of Islam, often with erroneous facts. This series seeks to educate and enlighten youth to one of the world’s most predominant religions in an easy-to-read format, along with colorful pictures and quotations.

Ah, but the books themselves are erroneous, complains CAIR.

Moein Khawaja, the chapter’s civil rights director, wailed yesterday:

Filled with incorrect information and deception, these books are contrary to the education mission of schools and libraries.

According to this report, it was not immediately clear where the series is being used, but Khawaja said complaints from council chapters across the country lead him to believe it is on bookshelves in about two dozen states.

Mason Crest partnered with the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute to produce the 10-book series, which is designed for ages 10 and older.

Institute vice president Alan Luxenberg, who wrote a book called Radical Islam for the series, defended the texts.

They’re taking things out of context to paint a picture that misconstrues the meaning of the books.

Among at least two dozen examples cited by Khawaja, the book “Muslims in America” says that:

Some Muslims began immigrating to the United States in order to transform American society, sometimes through the use of terrorism.

Foreign Policy Research Institute president Harvey Sicherman said that he is mystified by the reaction to the series, and that:

Well, yes, some people did come to the United States to commit terrorism, and I don’t know how one can quarrel with that sentence.

The institute cited several passages that it says shows there is no anti-Islamic bias in the books, including a description of Muslims as:

An integral part of the American mosaic.

Then there was the statement:

The great majority (of Muslims) reject the Islamist interpretation of their religion and are horrified by the idea of living under an extremist Muslim society.

Khawaja said the problem goes beyond isolated sentences to what he described as the series’ overarching anti-Muslim tone and message.

A book isn’t just a set of quotes – it’s a conclusion you walk away with.

He noted that a chronology in the book Islam in Europe starts with 1988 and lists ten events, seven of which involve extremist Muslims participating in bombings, hijackings or other violence.

Muslims have been in Europe for thousands of years. This is ridiculous.

Luxenberg said that while “maybe the chronology is too short,” the overall book is even-handed.

I don’t think we should be labeled as anti-Islamic.

Meanwhile, we learn from this report that a militant Islamic group in Nigeria has produced a video calling for Muslims to rise up “with the sword and the spear” against Nigerian Christians.

The 10-minute video on the Ansar al-Mujahideen forum – a website sympathetic to al-Qaeda – comes after more than 200 people, mostly Christians, died last week in massacres in villages outside of the central Nigerian city of Jos. More than 300 people – mostly Muslims – died in January during rioting in the same region.

Hat tip: BarrieJohn

The debate between Dan Barker and Cardinal George Pell

 Click here to find video

Related posts:

1. Pell fears Anti-discrimination is impacting on religious freedom
2. Goodbye George
3. Who’s afraid of Naomi Wolf…George?

People should be free to express their religious beliefs and they are. But, that is completely different from public institutions such as universities privileging one religion over others. Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion. You do not have the right to push your religious beliefs from the platform of a public institution.

He also claims that the questions “what is good?” or “what is best?” cannot be answered within a secular context. I wonder if he has ever heard of Socrates or Plato among others. I know he works at a university, but I’m beginning to wonder if he has ever attended one.

His entire argument is basically a false equivocation of secularism with state atheism. Secularism is not even close to becoming a “hegemonic force against religious points of view”. It is merely the concept that religion should be separate from the state which is one of the foundations of modern democracy. And only through secularism is freedom of religion even possible in the first place.

I also do not appreciate being indirectly accused of hiding behind a veil of secularism even if that accusation made sense in the first place. With all his talk about pluralism it is quite ironic that he is actually the one who is trying to justify his religion’s hegemony over the Chaplain’s Office.

The article I am responding to can be found here.

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Related posts:

1. Sensitive Are We?
2. Letter to the My Campus Newspaper
3. Faith is not a Virtue

Essentially, to sum up what they do, in a sentence, from their stuff plays like a lost Magnetic Fields album.

Your Thoughts?

Zedekiah was in the latter group. He didn’t humble himself in front of Jeremiah, he rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart.

Zedekah … did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the LORD. And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the LORD God of Israel. 2 Chronicles 36:11-13

And everyone else in Judah was just as bad. They did all the basic heathen-like abominations, polluted the temple. You name it.

Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the LORD which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. 2 Chronicles 36:14

They even ignored, mocked, and mistreated God’s messengers.

And the LORD God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets. 2 Chronicles 36:15-16a

Well, there’s only so much of that shit that God will put up with. Finally he couldn’t take it any longer and unleashed his wrath upon them.

The wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy. 2 Chronicles 36:16b

He sent the Babylonians (Chaldees) to slaughter the people of Jerusalem. Young men, little girls, old people – God had them all killed without pity.

Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand. 2 Chronicles 36:17

Well, not all, I guess. Some survived and were carried off to Babylon.

Jeremiah gets even more carried away with this story. Here's what he says.

Thus saith the LORD God of Israel; Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans, which besiege you without the walls, and I will assemble them into the midst of this city. And I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in fury, and in great wrath. ...

I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life: and he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy. ...

He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth out, and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey. For I have set my face against this city for evil, and not for good, saith the LORD: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. Jeremiah 21:4-10

The Bible doesn't say how many God killed with the sword, famine, and disease. But according to Jeremiah, everyone in Jerusalem died, except for those who surrendered to Nebachadnezzar. So I'll guess 10,000.

Okay, Matthew 22. We’re going to move pretty quickly tonight!

Matthew 22

Back to parables. This one is a popular one about a wedding feast. I think Christians like it because it makes them feel better about being Gentiles. Basically, the people (aka, the Jews) that this king (aka, Jesus) invited to a banquet refuse to come. So Jesus, er, the King gets mad and slaughters them (in the king’s defense, the Jews people killed all of his servants first, so it was quite justified, according to Old Testament law anyways. None of that turn the other cheek stuff you find in the New Testament. Jesus hadn’t invented that line yet.) Then he invites all the poor beggars, aka, the Gentiles. The Gentiles show up, and party. Except one who dared to not wear party clothes. They tossed him out into the cold, where the was weeping an gnashing of teeth. Guess God really does care about fashion! (Kidding.) He finishes the parable by saying, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.” Please tell me that’s a translation error, because it’s extremely rude to invite people to a party then tell them they can’t come! Surely he meant, “Many are invited, but few choose to come”! But that’s not what it says, so who knows!

Next, Jesus wows a crowd by telling everyone to pay to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. He does this by saying, “Who’s picture is on this coin?” Everyone says, “Caesar!” And that’s when he delivers the line. Guess we should start paying our taxes to Abraham Lincoln and George Washington then!

Some Sadducees, who don’t believe in resurrection–so no heaven, no hell, came to Jesus and asked a pretty good question. Basically, if someone dies who married multiple people over the course of their life, whose spouse are they in heaven? Jesus tells them there is no marriage in heaven. (Out of curiosity, my Mormon/ex-Mormon friends, what is the  Mormon church’s stance on these verses?) Well, if there is no marriage, I don’t want to go. And that’s where the Bible loses me on the whole heaven thing. Especially if God is still going to be all prude and say you have to be married or be abstinent! Sorry. I kind of like being married to my husband. Though, I have witnessed far more terrible Christian marriages than good ones, so I can see how these verses might be comforting!

On to a favorite verse among the moderate Christians: Jesus tells people that the greatest commandment is to love God, then love your neighbors. Very pretty. We see Jesus in between a manic and depressed phase here.

Then Jesus asks a very tough question to the Pharisees: If the Messiah is David’s son, then how can David call him Lord?” Um, what? Matthew says no one could say a word in reply. It was probably because the question made absolutely no sense. Jesus answers to God, yes? But they’re the same person? So how is it so impossible to have a father who calls his son “Lord”, especially in context? And I really fail to see how Jesus pulled that question out of the verse he quoted there. That’s not how the Psalm reads at all. Who is David’s Lord (vs. his LORD)? I am very confused. I think mostly it’s because I’m trying to fit what Jesus said to the verse he used and it doesn’t make any sense.

Matthew 23

Jesus tells people to obey the Pharisees, but not to do what they do. He then proceeds to rant about how Pharisees are hypocrites. But in the middle of his anti-Pharisee crusade (were Pharisees really all that bad?! I would be interested to know from a historical or Jewish point of view as opposed to a Christian pov), he does stop to talk about humility. Things Christians like to talk about, and verses I know well. After reading these verses, I’m surprised that I haven’t heard of any fundies who refuse to call their fathers “father” or anything like that because Jesus said that only God is our father. Maybe I should start calling my dad “Tom.” Wonder how that would fly?

Jesus rants against the Pharisees for the entire chapter. Pretty interesting, considering he was singing their praises at the beginning of Matthew! Instead of dissecting the ravings of a man on a manic high, I’m just going to move on to chapter 24. They’re pretty self-explanatory, and you can read it yourself if you so desire.

Matthew 24

Jesus begins to prophesy. Profound. I can prophesy like that, too. Ready: My prediction is that because of the evil perpetuated by the church, it will fall. Someday, there will be very few churches left. People will turn away from Christianity. A huge earthquake will rock North America and cities will fall into the sea.

There. Now I am a prophetess. Maybe there is good in the Bible after all. I think I like being a prophetess. It’s all so vague, and now every time there is an earthquake or a war, Christians get all hyper about how Jesus is coming. Thanks a lot, Jesus. It’s really annoying, and I confess it still momentarily scares the shit out of me when it looks like the world is going to hell. Then I remember I’m an atheist, and all is well.

So much for faith or works, now it’s perseverance that saves people. “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.”

This whole chapter is prophecy. I can imagine the scary look in Jesus’ eyes as he talks about the evil that will rain down on the world. Again, like I said last week, why is everyone who preaches like this not taken seriously and is seen as delusional or hallucinating, but we know for a fact that Jesus was perfectly sane? Makes no sense. He seriously sounds delusional in this chapter. You should check it out. It’s kind of fun. And it is also what happens with untreated bipolar disorder!

Matthew 25:

I know I am starting to go pretty fast, but really, these last few chapters have been monologues. Once you’ve read one or two verses, you’ve read the whole thing pretty much. I should slow down a bit during this chapter, but I’m running out of word room, so it’s probably easiest to keep up by following along with me.

So it continues. More parables about the end times, this one about being ready because we don’t know when Jesus will come back.

Then there is the parable of the talents, which no one can seem to agree whether it’s talking about talents or money management. Both fit, which makes me wonder what other meanings you could insert into the parables Jesus taught. We’re so used to hearing them one way, though, so the thought that maybe it means something else doesn’t ever seem to cross our minds.

Poor goats get a bad rap in the New Testament. Jesus talks about separating sheep from the goats. Sure, with sheep, you get nice warm wool and pretty tasty dinners, but goats give milk. And they are much less stupid than sheep! Did anyone besides me learn the Goat Song growing up? It comes from this passage where goats go to hell and sheep go to heaven. Poor goats. What did they ever do?

More sappy verses. These used to be my favorite:

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

I won’t talk about the rest of the passage, where he throws them all in hell. But here you have WORKS as part of salvation. Gosh, Jesus, get your theology straight!

Stay tuned for more fun next week!

• Bright and early on Sat morning, there was Phillip Adams talking about the dangers of missionary zeal and “why we mustn’t be like them”. The part I found memorable was when he described how he joined the Communist party many decades ago and was kicked out for independent thought. At one point he compared the Marxist tracts at the Communist bookstore to Catholic tracts for similarity and even swapped them to see if any would be thereby converted to the other. A great reminder that religious ideology can come in many forms, even in forms that profess to deny gods.
• This was followed by Russell Blackford whose blog I read and enjoy. I was looking forward to this one especially but unfortunately there wasn’t much in the talk. Maybe because he relied too much on his powerpoint presentation, which almost had his entire speech and got stuck leading to long bouts of silence. Let that be a lesson to all public speakers! Also, it might have been a case of being too close: his points was that atheists should be the top champions of religious liberty and other forms of personal freedom for everyone — which to me is too obvious to speak of. And yet, the world shows otherwise
• Max Wallace outlined the great economic costs of the freedom of religion from taxation, estimating a significant part of our income tax going to religious institutions. He proposes to make a documentary exposing this. I agree: people feel the pain of the wallet a lot more than they feel the pain of reason. There was also the amusing bit about registering as a religious organisation at the tax office, apparently what’s required is that you have a building for meeting and worship, a paid minister or similar person and your beliefs must be supernatural. If that’s not the most blatant exposition of religion’s privelege I don’t know what is.
• John Perkins spoke about Islam and Terrorism, didn’t find much there. Making superlative statements like “monotheism was the single worst idea humanity’s ever had” might get applause and nods but seems a bit silly than the more tempered “monotheism is a terrible idea, one of the worst”.
• A real treat was Taslima Nasrin, an activist of women’s rights in Islam and against the burqa. She has 5 fatwas against her and has been exiled from her native Bangladesh for over a decade now, and kicked out by “secular” India after there were further riots against her. I’ve always thought that the Bible was the greatest cure against Christianity and Judaism. She confirmed this for the Quran. Since the Quran must be recited in Arabic, in countries where they don’t speak Arabic (say Bangladesh) schoolkids recite it like parrots. Taslima wanted to find out what it really said and got a copy of a translation. That was the beginning of the end of her Islam. There was a disappointing answer to a question on whether she thought the burqa should be banned in France — she just said the burqa is against women’s dignity, but that was probably because the questions were hard to hear.
• Next came the most disappointing part of the weekend. It was supposed to be a panel discussion with Lyn Allison, Leslie Cannold, Tanya Levin and Jane Caro about atheism and feminism. I was really looking forward to it because of the topic AND the format, alas because of time constraints there was no discussion and instead each speaker just got to present by themselves for 10 mins. Which was mostly great but not what the point was. The chair ended by saying she thinks each of these speakers deserved an hour, which got some applause but I thought it was poor form to put it like that — now I think it was justified, although she could have expressed it differently. The whole point was a discussion, and 4 hours of 4 different talks would not have gotten people talking like a 90 minute panel. The only bit of disappointment was when Leslie Cannold expressed her agnosticism, because she does not claim some kind of arrogant knowledge (gasp!) but other than that the mini-talks were spot on.
• We finally come to the lowlight of the conference: Tamas Pataki. He started off by making excuses for himself, saying that he’s probably going to be the least speaker because he has no jokes, he plans to do philosophy and he plans to share a contrary opinion. I’m sympathetic to the 3rd bit although if your contrary opinion is strong enough to stand up it should be ok to just state it (or introduce it) without giving a veiled declaration-of-handicap. But the 1st and 2nd really turned me off. Basically Pataki fulfilled the stereotype of the stodgy, dull-spoken, philosopher who fumbles around in endless qualifications and definitions of words. It’s that type of soulless fumbling that gives philosophers a bad image and as someone doing a philosophy of science degree I was personally offended at the deliberate unsexiness. Of course if the ideas were good this would have made the presentation interesting as well, but they weren’t. He didn’t seem to have any particular point except right at the end where he stated that we have no idea if a world without religion would be better or worse (he mentioned something about the psychological need of people whose lives are shit to believe that might spill over into something else without religion) so people shouldn’t be too zealous in trying to get rid of religion. This deserves a separate post as it’s interesting to dissect the idea but hopefully it’s clear that there are at least a few things wrong with it.
• Next came AC Grayling who was the exact opposite: a philosopher with great ideas who’s eloquent and has an awesome presence. I overheard someone the next day sing his praises that every sentence was so perfectly constructed, off the cuff, no notes, and had great content too. He spoke about the incompatibility of science and religion and it was great, although he was a bit too vague at times. During the questions, someone questioned his use of the word “spirit” and told us of an ancient pseudoscientific society known as “healers of the spirit” who persist today and meddle in people’s lives. Healers of the spirit in Greek is “psychiatry” and this was an anti-psych nut (perhaps a Scientologist, perhaps not). Grayling had a great answer that the questioner should be pleased it no longer means healers of the spirit and has shed its mystical roots. To which he just replied “but that’s what psychiatry means“. Aah, arguing by definition. On Sunday during Dawkins’s talk the same guy lined up for questions, presumably for another go, but they ran out of time. Part of me regrets it, I’d have loved to hear Dawkins tear him a new one.
• Last was PZ Myers — of mythical internet fame, but we finally have proof he exists! — who also spoke about the incompatibility of science and religion. He acknowledged that it was funny for a blunt scientist to follow a very cultured presentation on the same topic. Indeed his introduction was blunt but as usual with PZ, his barbs are actually perfectly apt and wise. “Science is incompatible with religion in the same way that a reasoned search for truth is incompatible with bullshit.” He presented his critique of attempts to marry the two (especially by Ken Miller), that followed some of his blog posts.

Sunday wrapup coming up!

Probably what we should expect at this stage. After all this convention was unique – the first of it’s kind.

There is good news for all those atheists who missed the Melbourne convention, or did attend this awesome event and are now suffering withdrawal symptoms. The Atheist Alliance International, which co-organised the Melbourne Convention, has planned a series of such international events. The Melbourne Convention was just the first. The next International Atheist Convention will take place in Copenhagen in a few months (June 18-20). Have a look at Atheist Alliance International 2010 Copenhagen Convention for details.

So far the list of speakers includes:

AC Grayling (UK)
Aroup Chatterjee (UK)
Brian Arly Jacobsen (DK)
Christer Sturmark (SE)
Dan Barker (US)
Gregory Paul (US)
Ivana Bacik (IRE)
Jens Morten Hansen (DK)
Lone Frank (DK)
Michael Nugent (IRE)
Mikael Rothstein (DK)
PZ Myers (US)
Paula Kirby (UK)
Per Bilde (DK)
Rasmus Fynbo / Mushi (DK)
Rebecca Goldstein (US)
Rebecca Watson (UK)
Richard Wiseman (UK)
Robin Ince (UK)
Roy W. Brown (UK)
Simon Bressendorff (DK)
Taslima Nasrin (US)
Victor Stenger (US)

And there is a a “highly relevant, surprise speaker you do not want to miss” programmed.

Looks fascinating. It’s obviously going to be different from the Melbourne Convention. Different cultures, different languages. But I am pleased to see the programme includes humour and entertainment which helped make Melbourne so successful. The Friday evening is devoted to “Godless Entertainment.”

By the way – Tickets for the Copenhagen convention are discounted if purchased before April 1!

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For background, my proposal can be addressed by asking and answering the question, "Would an African-American have standing to challenge a statute that changed the Pledge of Allegiance to say, 'one white nation'?"

Emu Sam added that atheists who pursue this method of challenging ‘under God’ should also pursue the following:

1. Spread awareness. Post about it on blogs. Talk about it in clubs and council meetings. Write letters to leaders and other organizations.

2. Consult a lawyer or multiple lawyers.

3. Consult an advertising agency.

4. Raise money to hire experts, including experts in raising money.

As elements in a tactical plan I agree with these elements and the reason for them.

Specifically, if the Court were to declare 'under God' in the Pledge and 'In God We Trust' to be unconstitutional, one possible response would be to amend the constitution. The people itself would have to know and appreciate why that was the correct decision. This would be in spite of a massive advertising campaign filled with lies and distortions on the part of religious organizations against such a decision. It will require public outreach.

It would require reaching a significantly larger audience than that which is within sight of this blog.

However, it brings up another element of concern.

My argument against the Pledge and the Motto focuses on the effect that these have on young minds.

In the context of desirism, we promote desires in young minds through the social tools of praise and condemnation. Once these desires are planted, they carry through to adulthood, even where the agent's beliefs change so that they know intellectually that the foundation for those desires is senseless.

The Pledge and the Motto provide praise for those who support 'one Nation under God' and who trust in God. They promote aversion to those who do not share these values. It is through this effect that the Pledge and the Motto provide an effective filter that is 99.9% effective at preventing atheists from obtaining public office, generates poll results that atheists are the least American group and the people they would least want their children to marry, and the attitude that they are responsible for everything from the Holocaust to every school shooting that happens to take place.

These attitudes are in each of us. Even though our beliefs have changed so that we no longer intellectually support 'one Nation under God' or trust in God, we still have the desires and aversions planted in our brains as children that inhibit us from acting in opposition to these policies. We would rather sit back and do nothing because we carry childhood desires and aversions that make it comfortable for us to sit back and do nothing.

So, there is a danger that this planning would become an excuse for procrastination - a claim that we do not have to take any action today because we still need to study and consult and plan. So nothing gets done.

We need to recognize that the desires and aversions that these practices planted in our brain are still there for the vast majority of us, and decide that there are good reasons to push through that discomfort to confront a policy that is ultimately quite destructive.

This is how we prevent the current generation from planting the same desires and aversions in our children that they planted in us, thus freeing those children from these psychological burdens and giving them greater freedom to do that which is right.

Continued public silence on matters of the Pledge and the Motto, particularly in the company of young children, only serves to help deliver the message to young minds that those who support a nation under God or trust in God are praiseworthy, while those who do not are 'outsiders' unfit for membership in the civic community. Allowing those who do not support the Pledge to remain seated only reinforces this message - those who support 'under God' are accepted and included, while those who do not are unacceptable and excluded.

The first step that Emu Sam mentions is actually quite simple and it is the most important. It is to present and discuss the idea that adding 'under God' to the Pledge makes it not only an expression but an endorsement of religious bigotry, in the same way that adding the term 'white' (as on, 'one white nation') to the Pledge would be an expression and an endorsement of racial bigotry. And then ask the question, 'Would an African-American have standing to challenge a statute that changed the wording of the Pledge to say, 'one white nation'?"

And what would a good person's reaction to such a change a change be? Or, what amounts to the same thing, what should a person's reaction to such a change be?

Merely presenting the case - presenting it, discussing it, and debating it - particularly in the presence of young children - would do much to neutralize the effect of the pledge itself in fitting young brains with bigoted attitudes against atheists. If they know that there are people who condemn 'one nation under God' as they would condemn 'one white nation', then it will be harder for the attitudes that the praise inherent in the Pledge and the Motto seek to plan to take root.

Yes, it will be a long time before 'under God' gets removed from the Pledge and trusting God is no longer the national motto. However, before they are changed they must first be challenged. The fact that change is far off in the future does not imply that challenge must wait as well.

In fact, the longer we allow the attitudes planted in our young brains that make it difficult to challenge these measures to rule our lives, the longer it will take to effect these changes. In fact, they will only be changed by the generation that pushes past those socially planted inhibitions and anxieties and take such a stand. The generation that continues to yield to these inhibitions and anxieties will do nothing.

My first conscious, deliberate and willing engagement in this practice occurred when I was 17 years old. The summer I was 17 was one of three that I spent traveling with an evangelistic team (I’m embarrassed to admit that we had hugely inflated egos about our talent level). Our group’s leader suggested that our lead singer should sing Carole King’s gorgeous song, “You Light Up My Life” (from her Fantasy album). Since the song in its original key was pitched too low for our singer, I stayed up until 4:00 a.m. and wrote an arrangement suited to her range. Naturally, it featured a fun piano part for me to play. If you’re not familiar with the song, here are the lyrics:

You light up my life like sunrise in the morning;
You make me believe anything is possible.
I didn’t have a dream to my name,
Darkness was mine, it was such a shame,
But you came to light up my life,
You brought me faith and hope and love and light.

With your tender smile you brought me to the promise
Of life outside a world of 9-to-5 and Sunday.
I didn’t know how rich I could be
Until you gave your love to me.
Don’t you see, you light up my life,
You give me faith and hope and love and light.

You brought your sweet understanding
Like sun rays in my hazy skies.
If you hadn’t opened up my eyes
Love would have passed me by, right on by.

I never knew how good I could feel,
Loving you’s left me with nothing to conceal.
Yeah – you really light up my life,
You give me faith and hope and love and light.

If you’d like to hear Carole King sing it, sit back and listen:

Fast forward a few years. Since I’m part of a worship band at a weekend youth retreat, I spend much of Saturday jamming and rehearsing with the other band members. The leader, a big guy about 6′4″ who weighs at least 300 pounds, decides that the song before the sermon will be, “You Are So Beautiful,” his love song to Jesus. Instead of singing, though (which he does quite well), he’s going to play his trombone (which he does very well – he played trombone in a symphony orchestra before becoming a minister); his friend Marty is going to play the piano, and I’m going to provide a string bass line on my synthesizer. We don’t have an arrangement to work with; we just find a key to play in and follow the leader. Jump ahead to Sunday morning. Marty wakes up with a nauseating migraine and Bruce comes to me a few minutes before the service, saying, “Marty can’t make it today. I need you to play the piano for ‘You Are So Beautiful.’” So, I improvised an accompaniment while Bruce serenaded Jesus.

To complete the intended effect, picture Jesus sitting across from you in a candlelit room as you sing these words:

You are so beautiful to me.
You are so beautiful to me.
Can’t you see?
You’re everything I hoped for,
You’re everything I need.
You are so beautiful to me

Such joy and happiness you bring.
Such joy and happiness you bring.
Like a dream,
A guiding light that shines in the night,
Heaven’s gift to me.
You are so beautiful to me.

Now, watch and listen as Joe Cocker sings the song to you:

The final song that I’ll feature is not one that I’ve ever sung or played to Jesus, but it’s one that’s readily adapted to the Jesus Is My Boyfriend genre: “Have I Told You Lately,” by Rod Stewart. Can you see yourself singing this to Jesus? Some people can.

Have I told you lately that I love you?
Have I told you there’s no one else above you?
You fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness,
Ease my troubles, that’s what you do.

For the morning sun and all its glory
Meets the day with hope and comfort too.
You fill my life with laughter, somehow you make it better,
Ease my troubles, that’s what you do.

There’s a love that’s divine,
And it’s yours and it’s mine like the sun.
And at the end of the day
We should give thanks and pray to the one, to the one.

Have I told you lately that I love you?
Have I told you there’s no one else above you?
You fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness,
Ease my troubles, that’s what you do.

Now, let Rod woo you:

I think I’ve covered all the bases in the Jesus is My Boyfriend genre

a) songs written by Christians to, or about, Jesus, and
b) secular love songs co-opted by Christians and dedicated to their friend, savior, lord and lover.

If I’ve missed any possibilities, let me know. In the meantime, I’ll issue this warning: if you write a really nice love song, the odds are pretty high that some Christian will pick it up and sing it to Jesus.

– the chaplain

Blatantly evident in this clip, Richard Dawkins uses "Pope Nazi" as a shorthand descriptive phrase for "that Pope whose name I've forgotten (Pope Pius XII) — who's also up for canonisation and was aiding and abetting the Nazis during the war".

And here's the clip.

Oh, and Pope Pius XII really was a sniveling rat bastard who should have been held accountable for contributing to the evil perpetrated against the Jews.

The first one is offended at the falsehoods their critics promulgate. For instance, people have passed around this photo, claiming it is a picture of the Patriot University facilities:

It is a filthy lie! That is the minister's house. To show how wrong this portrayal is, the staff at Patriot Bible University have released an official photograph of the wonderfully elegant, high-tech but traditional campus:

Well. I guess we can't make fun of that anymore.

The second page can be summarized as "Don't trust the internet, trust us!" They explain what is wrong with the internet:

Should you trust someone's 'factual' information about morals when they post pornography, promote homosexuality, post curse words, and claim evolution as fact?

Whoa, somebody pass that along to the Intersection! I'm sure it will fit with their sentiment perfectly. Patriot University also has a simple test for evaluating the worth of a web page.

Would Jesus agree with the values and the message of the source of advice?

For some reason, this instantly stirred up an image of introducing Jesus to Dan Savage. My vision of Jesus is of an unkempt Jewish zealot with a madman's fire in his eye and a dedication to those old testament laws, and no, I don't think he'd get along with Dan at all — there'd probably be an impromptu stoning on the spot. But Christians always tell me that their version of Jesus is gentle, loving, understanding, and thoughtful — that Jesus would probably give Dan a big hug and thank him for his work. Which Jesus are we supposed to use in this exercise from PU? And isn't this an admission that you're just supposed to go along with stuff you like, assisted by the crutch of an imaginary cheerleader?

They also list the virtues of PU.

I. Patriot bases all teachings on the Bible and God's absolute truth.
II. Patriot has been teaching God's absolute truth for nearly 30 years.
III. Jesus said "He is the way, the truth, and the life" (Jn 14:6). Patriot believes this and follows Jesus, only.

Oh, yeah. I'm reassured.

Finally, they get around to discussing Kent Hovind.

Patriot does not retain ownership to student thesis' or dissertations, as is commonly practiced by many schools. Instead, Patriot grants each student full control over the circulation of his/her work. Therefore, Patriot cannot release student work to the public. Patriot issues Bible degrees for the purpose of equipping students for ministry; Patriot is not a research institution.

Hovind's dissertation was part of a graduate "project". Thus, the paper being posted online was only a portion of Hovind's initial research notes for his dissertation requirements. It is obviously not a finished product.

Hovind has been a prolific publisher of videos and books on topics involving Biblical Creation. He has participated in numerous video-taped debates. His work since 1991 has been widely distributed and stands on it's own and supercedes an earlier written dissertation. There is no need to attack it and ignore what he has produced since then.

So that thesis that was posted on Wikileaks wasn't actually Kent Hovind's thesis. PU does not keep copies of theses, they are not submitted to any official archive, so basically, it doesn't exist. Huh. Well, that certainly sounds professional.

That ragbag collection of noise that begins, "Hi, my name is Kent Hovind" was part of a "project". What project could benefit from such haphazard trash, I don't know. It clearly wasn't a finished product. Where is the finished product? Don't ask the degree-granting institution!

Yeah, Kent Hovind's work since 1991 does stand on its own as rank raving idiocy. We laugh at that, too.

Strangely, this defense of Kent Hovind doesn't mention his current residency in a penitentiary, convicted of tax evasion.

Alex McCullie

Latino-Americans have traditionally been dependable Catholics, though they are slowly but surely becoming more religiously diverse, as seen below:

Notice the number who report no religion has almost doubled from 1990 to 2008, going from 6.4% to 12.4%. This is encouraging, because it shows that cultural influences can drive people to become more moderate and enlightened in their religious beliefs. Hopefully, other cultures can benefit from assimilation in a similar manner.

A CATHOLIC adoption society has won a High Court battle over laws forcing it to consider gay couples as parents, according to a BBC report today.

Leeds-based Catholic Care had warned it would be forced to give up its work finding homes for children if it had to comply with the legislation.

Its plea to be allowed an exemption was opposed by the Charities Commission.

Same-sex adoption supporters pictured at gay pride rally

However, Mr Justice Briggs has allowed Catholic Care’s appeal and ordered the commission to reconsider the case in the light of his judgement.

The High Court ruling was met with dismay by gay rights charity Stonewall.

Jonathan Finney, head of external affairs at Stonewall, said:

It’s unthinkable that anyone engaged in delivering any kind of public or publicly funded service should be given licence to pick and choose service users on the basis of individual prejudice. It’s clearly in the best interests of children in care to encourage as wide a pool of potential adopters as possible.

Catholic Care, which serves the dioceses of Leeds, Middlesbrough, and Hallam in South Yorkshire, argued that the Equality Act 2006 went against the Catholic Church’s teachings on marriage and family life.

Other Catholic adoption agencies have changed their policies or closed.

The appeal came after the Church lost a battle against the introduction of the Sexual Orientations Regulations, under the Equality Act, which forced agencies to consider homosexual couples as potential adoptive parents.

Catholic agencies were given a 21-month transition period to comply with the new rules, which ended in December 2008.

The Bishop of Leeds, the Right Reverend Arthur Roche, welcomed the judge’s decision, saying it would:

Help in our determination to continue to provide this invaluable service to benefit children, families and communities.

He said the judgment confirmed that Catholic Care was correct in its reading of the law and that the exemption could apply:

To any charity subject to it being in the public interest. We look forward to producing evidence to the Charity Commission to support the position that we have consistently taken through this process: that without being able to use this exemption, children without families would be seriously disadvantaged.

He added:

Catholic Care has been providing specialist adoption services for over 100 years. We have helped hundreds of children through the recruitment, assessment, training and support for prospective adoptive parents, as well as offering ongoing and post-adoption support to families that give such security and love for some of the most vulnerable children in our society.  The judgment today will help in our determination to continue to provide this invaluable service to benefit children, families and communities.

Hat tip: Marcus

Pope Benny is also apparently writing a “pastoral letter” regarding the child abuse (specifically in Ireland) and the scandal that has surfaced over the past decade.

Obviously, I haven’t seen the official statement coming from the pope regarding child abuse, but I can guess.  Basically it’s a bunch of nice words about how things happened and they shouldn’t have, and we’re sorry if you were offended by the situation.  You should also still trust us, because we have God’s ear and you don’t – so hand your children over and stop asking questions.

You know what WOULD go a long way towards rectifying the situation and offering (maybe) some closure to those affected?    Opening up the records of the Vatican to government officials or NGOs for review and catalogue.  Cutting off every priest that’s molested a child.  Giving up tax exempt status (because children and their families that suffer abuse usually access government-funded therapies and assistance), and paying restitution to the families affected.  If that last part means liquidating portions of the real estate holdings of the church or liquidating the vast material belongings of the Vatican, it seems like that might be a first step towards upholding the vows of poverty the church has historically enforced upon its clergy (but not necessarily itself).

Doing these things certainly won’t bring ME back to the fold, but it might mean that it’s easier for me to associate with people who participate in the church.

Visual metaphors have been used to convey evolutionary ideas since Darwin's time. Some of the earliest kinds of images are still in use, even though they may do more to distort than to illustrate actual evolutionary processes. This seminar will explore two major evolutionary icons, the "Tree of Life" and "evolutionary line-ups", as they have been used in the past and how they must be interpreted today. Dr. T. Ryan Gregory completed his B.Sc. (Hons) at McMaster University in 1997 and earned his Ph.D. in evolutionary biology and zoology from the University of Guelph in 2002.

Once famed for housing the Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Reactor, Haddam, Connecticut is located about 27 miles outside Hartford. The town’s demographics paint a picture of exclusivity and affluence, with income and property values above state averages, substantially lower unemployment, and significantly lower minority populations than the state averages. A religious town, 71% of Haddam’s residents identify as Roman Catholic.

Chester Harris was recently elected to the Region 17 school board, which serves the towns of Haddam and Killingworth, Connecticut. Harris, a school van driver, holds a degree in theology from Toccoa Falls College, a private Christian school in Georgia. He’s a conservative Republican. He’s also a Creationist, and cites his faith and his “concerns” about the teaching of evolution as his reason for running for the school board:

I sort of got stuck on one thing with them, which was basically the teaching of evolution in the schools and how it tends to ride roughshod over the fact that various religions — Christian, Hebrew, Muslim — hold a theistic world view. Evolution is basically an assumption that there is no God.

As might be expected, Harris parrots Creationist party lines. Who could forget this old chestnut?

[Believing that life evolved takes] a whole lot more faith than believing there was a creator who set all these things in motion and allows us to operate under free will.

And how about this space-saving conglomeration of “stop bashing my defenseless almighty god with your ‘facts’” and “it’s just a theory”?

It’s all still theory and faith. If that’s what they want to hold to, fine, but don’t denigrate me because I believe the other way. We’re both operating on faith. I just have faith in someone and they have faith in something.

Harris didn’t forget that time-tested favorite, “my beliefs deserve equal consideration in a science class even though they’re not based on — and even ignore — scientific evidence”:

It’s time for balance. … And I just want to be there so there’s a voice that says there’s room for all of us.

So, Harris has made it clear what his agenda is. He wants to introduce pseudoscience to the science classroom.

A Creationist on a school board isn’t a new thing . . . but it is for Connecticut:

An official with the state Department of Education said he cannot recall an instance of a school in the state witnessing the type of epic battle over evolution that has riven communities throughout the nation. Nor can he recall a creationist serving on a local school board.

If it can happen in Connecticut, long known as a “blue state”, where else can it happen?

Not in Oregon, at least not yet:

Schools may teach about explanations of life on earth, including religious ones (such as “creationism”), in comparative religion or social studies classes. In science class, however, they may present only genuinely scientific critiques of, or evidence for, any explanation of life on earth, but not religious critiques (beliefs unverifiable by scientific methodology). Schools may not refuse to teach evolutionary theory in order to avoid giving offense to religion nor may they circumvent these rules by labeling as science an article of religious faith. Public schools must not teach as scientific fact or theory any religious doctrine, including “creationism,” although any genuinely scientific evidence for or against any explanation of life may be taught. Just as they may neither advance nor inhibit any religious doctrine, teachers should not ridicule, for example, a student’s religious explanation for life on earth.

While it is not permitted to teach “intelligent design” or creationism, note that Oregon’s teachers are forbidden from “ridiculing” a student’s religious explanations for life on Earth. Open to interpretation, no?

The Northwest Creation Network is working outside the schools (at present) to fill young minds with images of humans and dinosaurs coexisting. They combine pseudoscience with scare tactics, explaining in detail how the scientific theory of evolution leads to atheism:

Interestingly, the biologists in the National Academy of Science possess the lowest rate of belief of all the science disciplines, with only 5.5% believing in God. This decline in belief in biologists strongly indicates the nature of the cause, and the ability of the teaching of evolutionary biology to turn people away from a belief in God.

So far, the Creationists have been held at bay, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t tried. In 2007, Kris Helphinstine accepted a position teaching Evolutionary Biology for the Sisters School District. Instead, he handed out a young-earth creationist tract from Answers in Genesis, a radical Christian organization that links belief in evolution to Nazism. He was fired after eight days on the job.

How long will the Northwest Creation Network stay away from Oregon’s schools?

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(from Calamities of Nature)

» It’s named for a patron Saint who was a religious leader.

» It is a Catholic Holiday.

» It celebrates the superstition of luck.

» It celebrates believing in mythical creatures (whose myth also reinforces capitalism).

» Green is so not my color.

Here are reasons I do like St. Patrick’s Day:

» Green is so my blog’s color.

» Any excuse to include rainbows is a good one.

» Despite the clues in its name, most people forget it’s named after a saint.

» In US celebrations, there are no references to the religion behind the holiday.

» Did I mention there is Irish blood flowing through these veins?

» The primary celebration of the event is drinking and having a good time.

I actually think that if the Jews had led more crusades, we’d commit to the same level of celebration for Purim.

Be safe and have a good time everybody!!

The host of American Public Media’s Speaking of Faith, Krista Tippett, believes we can. She calls them both “pursuits of cohesive knowledge and underlying truths” and does not believe they are necessarily in opposition.

(Clearly, a view everyone reading this shares…)

In her new book, Einstein’s God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit, Tippett speaks to a number of scientists, theologians, Templeton prize winners (what category are they in?), and artists about these issues and shows how (as one blogger put it) “scientists and theologians are asking the same questions of and feeling the same wonder at the world they inhabit, without conflict, and with great humility and respect for the truth.”

I’m sure some of you are offended by that very notion — that science is placed on the same mantle as religion. Hell, I’m sure some religious people are offended by that idea, too. Massimo Pigliucci doesn’t hide his distaste for the book.

Before discussing whether this is intellectually honest or not — is it just a big fluff piece? — below is an extended excerpt from Tippett’s book in which she speaks with Charles Darwin’s biographer James Moore.

Judge for yourself.

Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859. We’ve come to imagine him as a godless naturalist and to see the publication of his book as a dramatic moment in history, one that has created an instantaneous rift between science and religion. These assumptions fuel some of our most intractable cultural debates.

In my conversation with the biographer James Moore, we reject those debates. We explore the world in which Darwin formulated his ideas. We read from his varied writings. We ask what Darwin himself believed. Did he find his observations of the natural world a rejection of God and of creation? How might he speak to our present struggles over his legacy?

As it turns out, Darwin was grounded in the distinctly reverent Judeo-Christian philosophy of Western science up to that point in history, a view of the world encapsulated in a quote of Francis Bacon that he put opposite the title page of The Origin of Species:

Let no man… think or maintain that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God’s word, or in the book of God’s works… but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficience in both.

Darwin, as we learn from James Moore, was agonizingly aware of the fixed worldview that his theory of transmutation — the original term for evolution — would unsettle. The people of Darwin’s time believed that every condition of plant, animal, and man was static and eternal, brought into being all at once at the beginning of time.

They estimated that to have been six thousand years earlier. But The Origin of Species was not the first classic scientific text to break from such beliefs. It was, rather, the last to fully engage them. Darwin waited two decades before he published. His observations and conclusions were painstakingly belabored. He anticipated religious questions and objections at every turn and responded carefully to them. Darwin’s theory of natural selection was born, James Moore asserts, of “theological humility.” This insight alone would place our culture’s contentious battles over Darwin on a different footing.

My own suppositions have been radically changed by this discussion. I’m reminded of the conversations I had on Albert Einstein. Einstein did not reject the idea of a force or “mind” behind the universe. But he saw that expressed in natural laws that could be discerned and described.

In a similar way, Darwin saw creation as an unfolding reality. Once set in motion, as he saw it, the laws of nature sustained a self-organizing progression driven by the needs and struggles of every aspect of creation itself. The word “reverence” would not be too strong to describe the attitude with which Darwin approached all he saw in the natural world. There is a great intellectual and spiritual passion and a touching sense of wonder evident in his writings, from his private notebooks and correspondence to the Beagle diary and The Origin of Species. For me, this view from within Darwin’s life and times opens up fascinating new ways to ponder not the rift but the possibilities for exchange between science and theology. He used the biblically evocative analogy of a “tree of life” to illustrate his theory of species sprouting as branches from the same trunk, some flourishing and others withering and falling to nourish the ground in which the whole is sustained. His vision of all of life netted together is profoundly consonant with what we are learning now in environmental sciences as well as in genetics.

In describing a creation that organized itself, incorporating chaos and change into survival and progress, Darwin did not challenge the idea of God as the source of all being. But he did reject the idea of a God minutely implicated in every flaw and injustice and catastrophe.

As James Moore puts it, Darwin forced human beings to look at the inherent struggle of natural life head-on, not as we wish it to be, but as it is in all its complexity and brutality and mystery. This is the most difficult for human beings, perhaps, in times of great change and turmoil such as ours. Indeed Moore and I trace the fact that the greatest resistance to Darwin’s ideas has appeared in other cultural moments of flux and global danger. But Moore tells his students who believe they must choose between belief in a creator and the science of Darwin simply to read The Origin of Species. There is much in Darwin’s thought that would ennoble as well as ground a religious view of life and of God. I’ll end with that book’s final lines, which are rich with wonder:

[F]rom the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals directly follows. There is grandeur in the view of life with it several powers, having been originally breathed by the creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

…

Reprinted by arrangement with Penguin Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from Einstein’s God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit

Copyright © Krista Tippett, 2010

Dear Bleaders,

We’re here on this blog together because we don’t believe in Dog, right? Strike that, reverse it, reinstate.

Look. I call my way of seeing things Poetic Atheism. I don’t believe in anything supernatural. I don’t think the universe can think. I don’t believe there is some special being that is separate from the universe and knows about us and cares about us and made us. All of that is the imaginative fantasy of one group of animals on planet Earth.

There is a fungus growing on the third stone from Sol in an outer arm of the Milky Way, a medium-sized galaxy among millions.

Like all matter, this fungus changes, the stuff of the universe is not static, energy and matter are what is the universe and the state of normal is a bubbling cauldron of interactions.

Floating gasses, flowing water, growing crystals, and life (mold, trees, monkeys) are all patterns that fall into self-replicating relationships. The systems are little vortices in the weather of what is. Whatever works keeps working for a while because it works.

It is all explicable in terms of matter and energy, it falls into patterns that generate sameness and that can get really intricate and amazingly fine tuned. It’s amazing, but given infinite time, and the fact that it is true, and there you go, we have to accept that it is possible. The patterns get so fancy that one day they are you. They look up and say, How do you do?

Now that is very strange, but okay, okay fine. Okay, the pattern that is life, that is you, is awakened to itself. It makes friends with other sentient beings. It invents agriculture. It invents writing. It writes Shakespeare’s plays and Bach’s sonatas.

When this being, the fungus that knows itself and makes art, you, when this you lays down for sleep, goes dormant for a third of every daily cycle, it dreams.

It sees pictures in its head while it is unconscious to the world. These pictures are borrowed from the previous day’s sightings and from a whole life of experience, but they are not just pictures. They are stories. And these stories are strange and sometimes horrifying. They waken the fungus, you, us, me, the person awakens in the night, having dreamed of patricide, and is shaken, is quaking.

What is reality? What is real? The universe is real, the speed of light is constant. The universe is big and true.

Also big and true is what is going on in the dark room in the middle of the night awakened by a terrifying vision.

The experience of being human, truthfully rendered, is as much about the feelings in the room as it is about what the universe can be measured to be.

What is truth? What is your truth? Your truth is that you are a life form that knows itself. You are a miracle fungus. You. We have met some smart dolphins and clever whales. If there is life in the universe other than us it is likely to be even weirder than the dolphins and whales.

No one but us is talking, doing, making, trying to get other animal’s attention, like the ant in my first post. It’s just you, fungus. Just us hairless monkeys.

What comes into being when matter and energy fall into such patterns that they look up and say hi and write symphonies? Art happens. It’s very strange and wonderful.

The truth may be real but it is not “matter of fact.” What in fact we have here is a billion fantastically sexy weird interesting stories all going on at once in a great cacophony of experience. How do we make sense of what it is to be human, to be this thing, this sentient matter?

Well I certainly don’t think the magic of consciousness should be considered evidence for something hidden, something else. The magic of consciousness is magic enough. Nothing is gained by adding fantastical imaginative inventions to the wonders that actually are.

But the truth, the what actually is is very strange and overloaded and wondrous indeed.

Poetry uses the precision and dedication to accuracy of science, with the scope of everything (the scope of religion, the scope of art), with the widest scope possible.

What can we say that is not invention, that is all fact, but that takes into account everything at once? That’s what Poetic Atheism is about. Looking at the magic that is real. How can we think about what is absurd and amazing and true, dreams, devotion, generosity, the wonder of everything from ecosystems to echolocation, without making stuff up and getting sloppy and believing nonsense? Very carefully! Is it easy to know the world through poetry? No! But it is possible and it is marvelous and it is ours.

I’ve worked very hard these past several decades to get this down in print, to make sense of it and share out what sense I can make. I wrote five books about it. If you are interested in what I am saying, please read The Happiness Myth, and Doubt: A History, Funny, The End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism, and Anthropology and The Next Ancient World. Thank you very much.

And for the love of Pete, don’t kill yourself. Stay here and suffer with me. It will be fun. We will drink beer and talk about what it all means. It all means.

Love,

Jennifer

PS. The Boston Globe Ideas section picked up on another little act of skepticality of mine — on cultural myths and the gym.