The Happy Apatheist

Enough said.

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 22:30:00 +0000

(h/t)

"Old Time Religion" Challenge!!!

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:34:00 +0000

Greta Christina is offering fun and prizes to whomever can come up with the best verse to "That Old Time Religion"'s evil pagan cousin, the "pagany folk nerd" parody. Check out the link for some good ones.

Because I'm such a self-aggrandizing boor, I felt compelled to post my own verse here, as well as at her blog:

We give thanks to mighty Ceres,
with her shredded wheat and Cheeri-
o's that make our bowels so clear. You
know that's good enough for me.

This won't win me any points with the choir marm, but she's not really my target audience.

Mmmmm, that's good Jeebus

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:50:00 +0000

I was raised Episcopalian (Catholic Lite--all the salvation with half the guilt! (h/t Robin Williams)), so I have some experience with seemingly loony communion traditions, but this is just...remarkable (h/t BronzeDog and Pharyngula):

Webster Cook says he smuggled a Eucharist, a small bread wafer that to Catholics symbolic of the Body of Christ after a priest blesses it, out of mass, didn't eat it as he was supposed to do, but instead walked with it.

***

Catholics worldwide became furious.

And wouldn't you know it, Bill Donohue got in on the act (it's been a while since Bill was last outraged, so it's good to have him back!)

My first thought on reading the article was to picture mortal sinner "walking with, talking with" the wafer, but I'm just being silly.

Walk With Me Talk With Me _Tamla Motown 1972 - Four Tops

Seriously, though, the Consecrated Host is a big deal. It must not be desecrated or sold on eBay because it literally is the body of Christ. It was recently explained to me by a devout Catholic friend that one of the reasons non-Catholics should not take Catholic communion is because of concern that Consecrated Hosts might be stolen for use in Satanic rituals. I did my best to be polite, but I find the idea kind of nutty.

I heard a similar story regarding the theft of some silver bowls and pitchers used in the Eucharist from the church I attended in my youth. There was apparently some speculation within the church that these items had been stolen for use in a Black Mass. This might overlook the more obvious explanation: that they were stolen because they are made out of silver.

Since I cannot speculate on the motivations of the host-walker (although he did return the Host), I'll limit myself to saying this: this whole thing is silly. A cracker is a cracker.

A belated George Carlin tribute

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:45:00 +0000

1937-2008. Perhaps you're in a better place, perhaps not. Or perhaps you are at total peace, living on in our memories and YouTube videos.

Earning our nobility

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 01:06:00 +0000

Quote of the century from PZ Myers:

Look at the bible as a pastiche, a collection of mutually and often internally inconsistent fragments slapped together for crude reasons of politics and art and priestly self-promotion and sometimes beauty and a lot of chest-thumping tribalism, and through that lens, it makes a lot of sense. It does tell us something important…about us, not some fantastic mythological being. It tells us that we are fractious, arrogant, scrappy people who sometimes accomplish great things and more often cause grief and pain to one another. We want to be special in a universe that is uncaring and cold, and in which the nature of our existence is a transient flicker, so we invent these strange stories of grand beginnings, like every orphan dreaming that they are the children of kings who will one day ride up on a white horse and take them away to a beautiful palace and a rich and healthy family that will love them forever. We are not princes of the earth, we are the descendants of worms, and any nobility must be earned.

Wizardry???

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:42:00 +0000

Seriously???

No matter how many times I blink, rub my eyes, or try to wash them out with Visine, it's not going away.

[A]nother Pasco County substitute teacher's job is on the line, but this time it's because of a magic trick.

The charge from the school district — Wizardry!

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.

But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land 'O Lakes, Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own.

"I get a call the middle of the day from the supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, 'Jim, we have a huge issue. You can't take any more assignments. You need to come in right away,'" he said.

When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell that went much farther than he'd hoped.

"I said, 'Well Pat, can you explain this to me?' 'You've been accused of wizardry,' [he said]. Wizardry?" he asked.

I guess I'll have to stop removing my thumb to entertain kids, lest I be branded a minion of the Dark One or something.

That didn't take long

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:24:00 +0000

I think the whole kerfuffle over Expelled is pretty well-known by now, so there's no need to reinvent the wheel there (vague pun intended). The latest observation from Bad Astronomy bears mentioning, though. It seems that an Expelled supporter has already invoked Godwin's Law. It's sad, really. I want the implosion of the ID movement to continue at its present rate of gemoetric growth, but I almost feel bad for the people who have permanently hitched their wagon to the movement. Almost.

I do believe

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:21:00 +0000

Excellent post at Skepchick about what a particular atheist does believe in. Assuming I have time, I want to add my own positive beliefs, but for now I'm going to carry one commenter's belief around with me for a little while:

I believe that we were put on this earth to take care of dogs. I believe our reward for that is that we get to take care of dogs.

The real problem with ID

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 01:36:00 +0000

I have been following the renewed ID/creationism/evolution "debate" with much interest, mostly so I can further educate myself about science and the fascinating array of knowledge and experience to be found in the natural world, but also to marvel at the colossal waste of time and energy expended in an ever-increasingly-desperate effort to keep evolution out of children's minds. The particulars of the "debate" have been discussed ad nauseam, but for me it really comes down to one, simple, painful conclusion.

Intelligent design is supremely, fantastically boring.

The basic premise seems to be this: This biological mechanism is so apparently complex that I cannot conceive of a natural means by which it may have evolved; therefore, an Intelligent Designer must have created it.

That's it. Whatever science has not yet been able to explain (and in most cases of supposed "irreducible complexity," already has explained) must be the work of some supernatural desginer. End of story. Go grab some chips & queso and see what's on TV.

Seriously, what's the point? How does this help anything?

How would Jesus curse?

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:50:00 +0000

Skepchick has a funny piece on whether non-theists should invoke the name of God or his ilk when cursing:

My hubby was on a message board the other day where someone was telling him that when an atheist says “Goddammit,” it implies at least some vague belief in God.

I find that notion somewhat nutty, and perhaps a bit self-contradictory. Truth is, though, that a good hearty G/D is sometimes the most effective way, on the spur of the moment, to express one's true feelings. She offers some alternatives to the old standards, of which the following are my favorites:

“Holy Curie’s Isotopes!”

“Mother of Galileo!”

“Great Merciful Hawking!”

One commenter recommends dropping into another language (vaffanculo!), which can be both effective and amusingly confusing to your listener. I will admit to dropping some ordinary German and Russian exclamations (Scheisse! Жаль.), but my favorite came from a Spanish-speaking friend back in college. Just try saying it:

¡Hijo de la fregada!

Babelfish translates it as "Son of the mopped one," but I've also been told it means "Son of that which bothers me." What it shows, though, is that in this crazy, technological, postmodern world, there are more than enough cursewords to go around, in just about any language. Try using a completely innocuous, yet reasonably uncommon, foreign word as a swear, and see how soon it starts to sound a little inappropriate in polite company. Imagine you just swung a hammer straight into your thumb, and then recite the following words:

Shishkebab

Portobello

Melange

Ensalada

Lieblingsfarber

Humuhumunukunukuapua'a

See what I mean?

In closing, I have to note that the Wikipedia entry on the cumbersomely-named Hawaiian fish above states that its name is one of the longest words in the English language. Do I really need to point out that it's not in the English language?

cdesign proponentsists

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 03:11:00 +0000

Perhaps the most astute, and tragic, observation I've seen out of this whole ID/creationism kerfuffle:

ID is "creation science" is "creationism" is "God dun it." Teaching that as something provable beyond faith in a science curriculum is a big reason future Nobel winners will pour out of China and India, and not Kansas.

I have many, many thoughts on this whole matter, but it really boils down to a single question, which is this: What will be the state of science, medicine, technology, and our whole freakin' infrastructure in America in a generation if the ID crowd has their way?

By the way, if you're wondering about the title of this post, it refers to an intriguing intermediate form between creationism and intelligent design.

God meets calculus

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 01:39:00 +0000

Reprinted from a comment thread without the permission of the author, because it made me chuckle:

[T]his reminds me of the day I disproved God with calculus, in calculus class, at a Catholic high school. Let me see if I remember it...

Let {C} be the set of all possible truth claims that might fill a particular gap in our knowledge. If we have no reason whatsoever to choose one possible claim over another, the probability of each claim being true is 1/n (where n is the number of truth claims).

The believer makes the mistake of assuming that n = 2 (i.e. "Jesus" and "Something Else"). But the elements of a set must be discrete: "Something Else," unlike "Jesus," is not a discrete claim. "Something Else" is itself a set of discrete possibilities, all of which must be counted individually among the truth claims of {C}.

If the believer cannot introduce any reasons (i.e. arguments) to narrow the set of possible claims, then the membership of {C} is limited only by our imagination. As Vishnu piles upon Odin, as telepathic koalas who control the weather bump into the invisible leprechauns who tuned the Universal constants, n quickly approaches infinity — and the limit of 1/n, the probability of any one claim being true, falls to zero.

Q.E.D. ......?

I really don't remember my high school calculus class too well--I'm one of those people who can honestly say I won't ever need calculus for my job. I get about as far as n = ∞, so 1/n becomes infinitely small, and then I get lost.

He speaks the truth

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 01:53:00 +0000

moar funny pictures

Family-friendly after all!

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 04:11:00 +0000

San Antonio Dating

Guess I'll have to work harder at it.

Hyde Park update

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 01:47:00 +0000

John Kelso discusses and satirizes the whole Hyde Park Baptist Church/Thanksgiving thing with more wit and restraint than I think I could manage. My favorite part:

Why did Hyde Park Baptist decide to give the mixed prayer group the old heave-ho? Simple. They don't want non-Christian stuff going on on their land. I didn't realize telling people to get lost was Christian, but you learn something every day.

"Although individuals from all faiths are welcome to worship with us at Hyde Park Baptist Church, the church cannot provide space for the practice of these non-Christian religions on church property," a statement from Hyde Park Baptist said. "Hyde Park Baptist church hopes that the AAIM and the community of faith will understand and be tolerant of our church's beliefs that have resulted in this decision." So they're pleading for tolerance while being intolerant. In these situations, people often ask the question I mentioned earlier, "What would Jesus do?" If Jesus ran the Quarries, I don't think he'd charge rent. I also don't think he'd turn anyone away. And, from what little I've read of the Bible, he'd probably provide free grub, although probably seafood.

Tolerance for another faith's intolerance. Irony truly is dead.

Wait, never mind...

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 19:42:00 +0000

Seems Hyde Park Baptist Church changed its mind about letting one of its facilities be used for an "interfaith" Thanksgiving celebration:

Austin Area Interreligious Ministries, the city's largest interfaith organization, announced Thursday that its annual Thanksgiving celebration Sunday had to be moved because Hyde Park Baptist Church objected to non-Christians worshipping on its property.

The group learned Wednesday that the rental space at the church-owned Quarries property in North Austin was no longer available because Hyde Park leaders had discovered that non-Christians, Muslims in particular, would be practicing their faith there. The event, now in its 23rd year, invites Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Bahais and others to worship together.

Organizers had booked the gymnasium at the Quarries in July and made the interfaith aspect clear to Quarries staff at that time, said Simone Talma Flowers, Interreligious Ministries' interim director.

Several Muslim groups were acting as this year's hosts for the event. Kent Jennings, associate pastor of administration at Hyde Park, released a statement Thursday that said church leaders received a postcard about the service Monday and only then realized that it "was not a Christian oriented event."

The postcard also "promised space for Muslim Maghrib prayer and revealed that the event was co-hosted by the Central Texas Muslimaat, the Forum of Muslims for Unity, and the Institute of Interfaith Dialog," according to Hyde Park's statement.

"Although individuals from all faiths are welcome to worship with us at Hyde Park Baptist Church, the church cannot provide space for the practice of these non-Christian religions on church property," the statement said. "Hyde Park Baptist Church hopes that the AAIM and the community of faith will understand and be tolerant of our church's beliefs that have resulted in this decision."

Be tolerant of what, exactly? Your unwillingness to tolerate others? "Uh, sorry, but my religion says you can't come in here, and even though I already said it was okay, please be tolerant and understanding of the fact that I now have to kick you out." Put another way, "my imaginary friend who lives in this building doesn't want your imaginary friend to come in, so nyah."

Say it with me, Baptists: interfaith, meaning "shared by, involving, or derived from two or more ." Luckily for the organizers, a new location was available rather quickly. It would have been interesting to see what God might have actually done if Muslims had been allowed to pray at that facility, but I'm sure the church sank a big investment into it and don't want to see it lost to raining fire or anything.

Correcting a few misconceptions

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 16:03:00 +0000

Here's Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo, Professor Emeritus of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Brooklyn College and Distinguished Scholar of the City University of New York, on the role of religion in choosing political leaders:

Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao Zedung are three of the most prominent political figures who believed in atheism. None of them even gave people a choice of voting for them, but ruled as bloody dictators. An intelligent and logical observer would have understood that atheism shaped the way these leaders dealt with dissent, mistakes and political decisions. Might an atheist someday come to power and provide a model of good government? I would want to move beyond the rhetoric and examine the practice of atheism of such a hypothetical candidate and make sure it is not like the three mentioned above before voting.

Golly, where to begin...

"Believed in atheism": Huh?

"[A]theism shaped the way these leaders dealt with dissent, mistakes and political decisions." Uh, really it was more Marxism and Leninism that shaped their political views and practices. They may very well have been atheists, but they were hardly rational people--and adherence to a rational process of thought and decision-making really ought to be the standard. If one believes that the only, or even principal, reason they did what they did was because they did not believe there was a God they would answer to, uh, to me that tells me more about the core motivations of theists than anything else. But back to my original point, tyrants can use any ideology to justify their actions--if "atheism" is to be blamed for the atrocities of communism, then perhaps Orthodox Christianity is to blame for the crimes of Radovan Karadzic and Slobodan Milosevic, Catholicism for the regime of Augusto Pinochet, and so forth. Don't even get me started on Hitler (yeah, I went there.)

"Might an atheist someday come to power and provide a model of good government?" Two words for you, my friend: Thomas Paine. While really more a deist than anything else, he certainly provided "a model of good government" (i.e. ours) and was more than skeptical towards the religions of his day:

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

"I would want to...examine the practice of atheism..." I'm guessing this guy doesn't know very many thoughtful atheists. There is a big difference between people who are too lazy, angry, bitter, etc. to have any religious opinions, and people who came by atheism through rational analysis, and there is a very wide and diverse gulf between what could termed these two extremes. Anyway, I'm not sure what the "practice of atheism" means, but I would imagine it to be exploration of the infinity of ideas and knowledge not contained in the Bible, Q'uran, etc. Not sure how that could be a bad thing, as long, once again, as the person in question makes rational decisions.

I am often struck by how many commenters at the "On Faith" column are critical of the theistic viewpoint, particularly some writers' simplistic view of atheism. I would like to point out one comment left by "Joe" that bucks that trend:

Atheist = not theist
Theist = belief in a god.

So theist is something, in this case a belief.

So
Theist = something

This would make atheist not something.
And if it is not something then it is nothing.

Actually, a "theist" is a person holding a belief, not a belief. I guess this is an effort to demhumanize atheists, or something. All I can think to say is that "Joe"'s educational system failed him (or at least the part where they taught logic).

"God" "speaks"

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:56:00 +0000

Apparently God has filed an answer in the lawsuit that was filed against Him last week in Nebraska. A lawyer in Corpus Christi has raised several defenses:

"Defendant denies that this or any court has jurisdiction ... over Him any more than the court has jurisdiction over the wind or rain, sunlight or darkness," according to Perkins' response.

Ha.

Ha.

That's about as much of an amused response as I can muster.

I can't wait to see what happens in discovery, though. For S's & G's, here's the full text of the original petition. Personal service is claimed to be effected by God's omniscience--this guy is either a nut or a comic genius.

Amen, Bill

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 03:59:00 +0000

Bill Maher kicks ass. "You're either a rationalist or you're not."

Mans sues God

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 13:34:00 +0000

Specifically, a Nebraska state senator is suing God (h/t Volokh Consp.)

That's not nearly as funny as the time someone sued Satan. It was dismissed in part for failure to plead personal jurisdiction or to include instructions for service of process.

Am I now one of the cool kids?

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 02:15:00 +0000

A recent World Net Daily article bemoans "The Rise of Atheist America."

In earlier eras, atheists were on the fringes of society, mistrusted by the mainstream. Those few who dared to publicly push their beliefs on society, like Madalyn Murray O'Hair, were widely regarded as malevolent kooks. But today, Hitchens' No. 1 New York Times bestseller, which has dominated the nonfiction charts for months, boldly condemns religion – including Christianity – as "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children."

The article goes on to raise a number of points (I won't quite call them interesting, or apply any adjective, for that matter), but at no point does it actually refute any of the allegations references in the above quote.

I have to agree with Skepchick's idea to make this into a poster:

Seriously, all this "America is a Christian nation" stuff is getting tiresome. I am still resolute in my conviction that a religion is only as worthwhile as its worst practitioner, and most religions in existence today therefore have a lot to answer for.

On brainwashing

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:52:00 +0000

Bad Astronomy Blog on teaching creationism to children:

I am filled with sadness when I see things like this. I’ve been around a lot of kids. I helped at a local Boys and Girls Club when I was in NorCal, teaching them about the solar system, astronomy, and science. I’ve used my own telescope to show Saturn to countless kids. I’ve traveled to schools around the country to talk about the joy, the wonder, the awe of astronomy. When you see that spark, that glow, that moment when a child understands what they are seeing, or even just the potential in their faces as they chew over the nature of reality, of the Universe… the joy that fills your heart is impossible to describe. It’s wondrous.

Creationism and fundamentalist dogma destroy that potential. It’s wrong, and it’s evil.

He links to a polite deconstruction of the winning essay in a creationism essay contest.

It's heartbreaking, really.

Plus, I continue to suspect that somewhere in India and/or China, a classroom full of science students is laughing its collective ass off at us because of stuff like this.

Please sell crazy elsewhere

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:41:00 +0000

There are so many historical and geographic problems with this video, but I will just let it speak for itself (h/t to Jesus' General).

I'll just mention two glaring problems: (1) to make the map look like a "beast," they had to add land on the Egyptian coast where none actually exists; and (2) somehow the great "Islamic empire" that the creators of this video claim will rule over the Middle East and Europe does not include Saudi Arabia (and therefore Mecca and Medina). I guess issue #1 is the more intractable of the two (I think there's a pun in there somewhere...)

Anyway, the fact that people might honestly want to base U.S. foreign policy on a map featuring made-up land is both mind-boggling and terrifying to me. I hope these folks will quickly retreat to their mountain strongholds, so we won't have to worry about them.

No good deed goes unpunished, or, how America told the Afghans to suck its blasphemous balls

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 23:54:00 +0000

The BBC reports that many Afghans are upset that footballs (soccer balls to you and me) bearing the name of Allah are being handed out by American forces. Upon reading the headline, "'Blasphemous' balls anger Afghans," my first reaction was to giggle like I was still in junior high. After I got over it, I wondered why Americans would have soccer balls with the word "Allah" emblazoned all over it. That was before I saw the picture:

It's actually the flag of Saudi Arabia, which apparently includes the "the shahada, one of the five pillars of Islam - the declaration of faith," which presumably includes the name of Allah. The article also notes that the Saudi government has complained before about its flag being used on soccer balls. The fun continues:

A spokeswoman for the US forces in Afghanistan said they made "significant efforts to work with local leaders, mullahs and elders to respect their culture" and distributing the footballs was an effort to give a gift the Afghan children would enjoy.

"Unfortunately," she added, "there was something on those footballs we didn't immediately understand to be offensive and we regret that as we do not want to offend."

Soccer balls bearing national flags are certainly not uncommon, so it makes me wonder whether Saudi Arabia does any other sort of marketing with its flag. Is there a particular way to handle this t-shirt? This coffee mug? I'm especially curious about this bumper sticker--what if you get rear-ended?

This actually reminds me quite a bit of the whole flag burning nonsense here in the U.S. Placing the importance of the physical expression of something over the thing itself is just silly. Whatever may be believed about the sanctity of the name of God, Allah, etc., it's still just a soccer ball. The same goes for the American flag--it's a symbol that is not as important as what it represents. And that is the freedom to wear American flag-patterned nylon pants (it's amazing what you can find on Google). Anyway, as tacky as the pants may be, we need these freedoms, because it allows us things like this:

More hotties, more soccer, less war. That's what the world needs.

I am a scientific atheist!

noreply@blogger.com (cryptic_philosopher) — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 23:32:00 +0000

You scored as Scientific Atheist, These guys rule. I'm not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future.

Scientific Atheist

83%

Apathetic Atheist

83%

Spiritual Atheist

75%

Angry Atheist

75%

Militant Atheist

58%

Agnostic

58%

Theist

17%

What kind of atheist are you?
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