Comic-Con’s Revenge

There are just some things that you’d think the Phelps clan wouldn’t try to out-do. They tried to picket Twitter (epic fail). Now they tried to picket Comic-Con, triggering a counter-protest. Guess who won? LOL.

h/t Pharyngula who got it from a Pharyngulite (Justin Kirchart)

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July 22, 2010   Posted in: Uncategorized  No Comments

Atheist Bingo

One of the Christian blogs I’ve been following of late posted as humor an image that depicts their version of “atheist bingo.” The arguments presented are laughable to anyone who’s given them any real thought, but there really are those that think these sorts of arguments against atheism are valid or worthy.

I took five or ten minutes and created an animated GIF that refutes each. Sometimes seriously, sometimes humorously (it was originally intended as humor after all). But more detailed and serious refutations are available to anyone interested.

Here’s your “atheist bingo:”

Atheist-bingo

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July 22, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Culture Wars  2 Comments

Child Predators and their Champion: the Catholic Church

Pedophile Priests
Image by hopeandmegan via Flickr

In a recent article I discovered online with Dalje.com, a Croatian site, I came across the following quote[1].

But is the Catholic church being unfairly targeted, and, if so, why? Are atheists innocent of child abuse, or Protestants, or Jews? While it is true that the Catholic church represents the largest single religious entity in the world, and wields great influence, should it therefore be held to a higher standard by the media? It doesn’t seem quite fair. After all, does a child suffer less agony, physical and emotional, from the illicit touch of an atheist, a rabbi, or a Protestant minister than that of a Catholic? Of course not. And should a pastor or a rabbi or an atheist be spared humiliation, disgrace, and public reprobation in the media and his community because he belongs to a smaller, non-Catholic religious denomination?

The author, Julienne Eden BuĹĄić, is clearly missing the points of the criticisms against the Catholic church. The point isn’t that critics perceive Catholicism as a cult of pedophilia, rather it’s perceived as a cult of cover-up.

The one thing that the other groups the author mentioned (atheists, Protestants, Jews) as well as those not mentioned have in common is that they shun pedophiles and rapists within their groups. It is rare that these groups seek to pay off officials, intimidate victims, witnesses, and complainants, or relocate these dangerous criminals to new, fresh sources of pleasure.

We’re not talking about pastors who are drunks or guilty of skimming the collection plates. We’re not even talking about clergy who make unwanted advances on adults. We’re talking about predators who put their genitalia in the mouths of children for their own pleasure and then shame the children into silence. The predators are then protected, not by their immediate friends, but the entire Catholic church, starting with the pope himself.

This is a crime against humanity and one that should not go unpunished. The pope himself should be held accountable and, with any luck, will be arrested once he arrives in Britain.

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  1. Frogs in Water, found online at: http://dalje.com/en-bestseller/frogs-in-water/314382#bottom, last accessed 7/15/10 [↩]

July 15, 2010  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Cults, Spells to Break  One Comment

Can an Atheist be more Christian than a Christian?

Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...

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Often you might hear it said that among the virtues of Christianity are prudence, justice, restraint, courage, faith, hope, and love. But are these virtues limited to Christians alone? I like to think my life’s experience and a lifetime of good mentors and learning from both good and bad decisions has equipped me with the first four. These are the sorts of virtues that help me rate high on performance reviews with my employer, so I must be doing something right.

But what about the last three? Faith, hope, and love.

I know ‘faith’ is a virtue that many if not most atheists quickly dismiss, but the more I ponder it, the more I find some reason to have faith. For instance, I have faith in the ability of science to provide quality explanations for the universe around me. I have faith in my team as a unit to achieve our goals at my job. And I have faith in my fellow man to ultimately come through and do what’s right.

Not all things can be explained by science. I realize this. But its the best source of knowledge we have.

Not all of my team-members perform as well as others. Individually they’ve got their quirks, but they work together well and their unique individual qualities comprise a much greater whole.

Not all of my fellow men are righteous. And I don’t mean “righteous” in the eyes of any supernatural deity, rather righteous toward humanity. But, for every knot-head I’ve ever met, I can name three wonderful people. I suspect we all can.

So it fascinates me to watch a Christian act the fool when it comes to his bigotry toward atheists. I’m reminded of some ancient parable in a fable which cautions against casting the first stone. And you might not be surprised that the stone being cast is by the otherwise very nice Christian (I’m sure) Jim West at Zwinglius Redivivus has, in the last couple of days, made some sideways remarks about atheists. He’s not worried for atheists “souls” (whatever those are) or their fates in the afterworld. Not in the least. West clearly has a hatred for atheists.

Yesterday he writes “if an atheist died in the woods, would anyone care?” It was under the tag of “humor,” but such a joke reveals more than it laughs.

Today he weighs in with a new post taking a pot-shot at atheists. He writes, “It isn’t that atheists think too little of God; the problem is, they think too highly of themselves.” That’s it. That’s the entire post. No elaboration or discussion from the blogger. He leaves that to another who follows on with several choice and smug, but derogatory, remarks about atheists. One is left to wonder what it means to “think too highly” of oneself.

Indeed, it assumes that Christians don’t think themselves special, chosen, destined, “blessed,” or otherwise set apart from “others.”

Christians like Jim West make atheists look good when their bigotry shines through so easily. Unfortunate for Christians, I suppose. Unfortunate for humanity to be sure.

Still, I have faith in him. I think West must be a good man who lets the atheism of others trouble him too much. He sure isn’t exposing many Christian virtues in his blog when it comes to his bigoted remarks about atheists.

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June 28, 2010  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Culture Wars  3 Comments

Wrong Idea: The “Militant” in “Militant Atheist.”

WASHINGTON - JANUARY 20: In this handout phot...
Atheists March on Washington?

I was recently given a copy of Hitch-22: A Memoir, by New Atheist Christopher Hitchens. I haven’t had the chance to start reading it but put it in my pile for the summer. But I thought I’d Google a couple of Reviews, maybe check Amazon, and see what others are saying about it in case I wanted to move it up the list (I’m currently reading like four different books already).

One of my Google hits lands me on the San Francisco Gate website [SFGate.com] to a review written nearly a month ago titled, “‘Hitch-22: A Memoir,’ by Christopher Hitchens.” And one line in the review just kept nagging at me: “Currently, of course, he’s best known as a militant atheist and the author of “God Is Not Great” [emphasis mine], which I initially just read past without stopping. But it nagged me.

“Militant Atheist.”

What does this mean, precisely? I’ve blogged about it before. So have several other atheist bloggers. I’ve noticed some atheists who proudly take on the moniker, but I’ve been in the military. Retired from the U.S. Army. I know what the word “militant” means.

I don’t see any atheists that can truly say they take their atheism to a “militant” level. A truly “militant” atheist might form a group of like-minded friends and stockpile some guns, wearing camouflage fatigues on the weekends with a big scarlet scarlet_a_tiny on the sleeve. Perhaps they would show up at Meetups in Washington or their state capitals toting their assault rifles and holding signs proclaiming their right to bear arms and life under church-state separation.

“Militant” atheists would rally their peers with fear-mongering bigotry, alluding to the possibility of violent overthrow of “Christian” judges and politicians.

“Militant” atheists would likely hijack small remote controlled airplanes, and instead of chanting “Allah ackbar”, they would be quoting admiral Ackbar[1], as they fly them into the Starbuck’s sign of a local mega-church.

“Militant” atheists probably wouldn’t wear suicide vests into crowded church buses in hopes of getting 72 virgins since they don’t believe in an afterlife. And it isn’t likely that anyone is going to promise them payment in advance, but a truly “militant” atheist might consider stepping on a church-bus to be suicidal without the vest full of C-4 as long as that little scarlet scarlet_a_tiny is visible, pinning down an otherwise conservative tie.

The idea of a “militant” atheist is pretty funny and ridiculous when you think about it and compare with the Christian and Muslim analog. We don’t carry assault rifles to political rallies or give them away at our meetups (Christians do); we don’t wear combat fatigues bearing our cause (did you see Jesus Camp?); we don’t call ourselves “warriors for [insert whatever]” (Onward Christian Soldiers anyone?). We don’t fly planes into buildings, detonate vests of plastic explosive and rusty nails in crowds, suggest violent overthrow of government, pray for deaths of Presidents, or etch chapters and verses of Dawkins and Hitchens on rifle sights destined for soldiers in Iraq. We don’t have video games where we are killing atheists in the apocalypse.

We leave that militaristic, bigoted crap to Christians and Muslims.

If we have to be stuck with the moniker of “militant atheist” each time we disagree with superstition being forced upon citizens in a secular nation like the United States, then we should also refer to Tea Party nuts as “militant conservatives” and hate-filled, bigoted Christians who deride atheists, homosexuals, muslims, and others who don’t share their particular superstitions or notions of god, as “militant Christians.”

**The photo above isn’t really a bunch of atheists marching on Washington.

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  1. ”It’s a trap! [↩]

June 23, 2010  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Wrong Ideas  One Comment

CNN’s New ‘Belief Blog’

churchsign11This was sent to me by a reader and fellow blogger via email and I almost missed it. For whatever reason my ISP’s spam filter snatched it and I just happened to skim the spam to look for just such emails.

First, you have to check out this article by Simon Owens, “New CNN “Belief” blogger says he’ll give voice to atheist and nonbeliever issues,” in which he interviews Dan Gilgoff, the co-editor of Belief, the new blog at CNN. In this interview, Owens asks some pretty pointed questions of Gilgoff with regard

to the “balance” of the blogging that will go on there. Specifically, Owens was trying to pin down whether or not the atheist viewpoint might get some play. If you’ve foll

owed On Faith, a blog at the Washington Post.com, you may have noticed atheists such as Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett among the panelists there. Gilgoff, whose been a columnist at U.S. News & World Report as well as beliefnet, didn’t say atheists would be among their bloggers, but, as Owens put it, you could say his response was a “mixed bag.”

“We’re not being pro religion, we’re not being anti religion,” he said. “We’re acknowledging that faith plays a huge part of the news and a lot of news organizations don’t have the will power or the man power to do this.”

You should definitely give Simon Owens post at Bloggasm a read.

So on to the Belief blog at CNN.

I gave it a look and found it interesting. While I didn’t see any posts from atheists like Dennett, Harris, Dawkins, et al, I did notice a couple by Stephen Prothero, who wrote, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World–and Why Their Differences Matter. He may not be in the New Atheist camp, but he’s definitely one that has a few theists’ feathers rankled. His posts include one on Sikism and one on Hinduism. Other posts include titles like “Louisiana lawmakers declare day of prayer to stop oil disaster” and “Cardinal’s deposition sheds new light on how church handled abuse.” The latter of these has a video clip from CNN that shows some of the recently released video deposition by Cardinal Mahony as he admits mishandling the child-molesting priest, Michael Baker.

No posts yet by obvious atheists, but perhaps this will happen if enough atheists show up in the comments to show the editors there’s a market for them. On the post, “Keeping the Faith in the Gulf,” one godless commenter writes, “keep kneeling and clasping your hands together and doing nothing. The real heroes aren’t the religious do-nothings, it’s the hard workers who are on the beaches actually doing something and cleaning the mess up instead of praying to non-existent deities.” This comment clearly offended a few believers, but it still shows the frustration that atheists the world over have when believers just pray in the face of crisis rather than taking action.

Belief Blog proves to be interesting in spite of the lack of atheist discussion, particularly if you have an interest in what people believe and why, and how those beliefs manifest themselves in contemporary times. By the way, I lifted the church sign in the image above from their slide show of user-submitted church signs. A few were funny.

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June 23, 2010  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: blogging  No Comments

Wrong Idea: “Atheism ‘believes’ there is no God- but where’s their proof?”

Calliphora hilli Portrait, Austin's Ferry, Tas...
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Jim West states, on his June 20th blog post, “answering your letters,” that “atheism ‘believes’ there is no god- but where’s their proof?”

He says a bunch of other stuff, too, but let’s reserve those juicy bits for later.

There are, no doubt, atheists who actively “believe” there is no god. But this isn’t the most fundamental characteristic of New Atheists, who simply aren’t moved by the claims of theists that a god does exist. West doesn’t like atheists, so he’s not about to give any credit to their point of view. Regardless, he’s the one with the claim. From the perspective of someone who wasn’t culturally indoctrinated in West’s religious superstitions, a positive claim is being made which is extraordinary (I’ve yet to meet the Christian that didn’t think their god was extraordinary). Atheists, in general, don’t start with positive claim. They simply ask, “what’s the evidence?” With the evidence lacking, they continue with “what good reason is there to accept a god as real?”

Jim West is about fighting the culture war. He says it:

“Christians have been either unwilling or afraid to take the offensive against atheist propaganda preferring, instead, to lay back and take ‘defensive’ (i.e., apologetic) positions.  In my opinion it’s time to take the fight to them instead of letting them barrage our camps without charging.”

Well, he sure isn’t about to let an atheist post his/her opinion in the comments section of his camp (a.k.a. blog). That’s for sure.  I posted several very reasoned responses that never made it past his moderation queue after he made comparisons between atheists and hated insects like mosquitoes.

West continues: “They barf out books anti-Christian and the lowest sorts of them…”

But he doesn’t provide any example of which are the “lowest sorts” and what makes them so. There’s  a reason for this, I’m sure. Either he hasn’t ever actually read any of the books by atheists or he hasn’t any real counter-argument. Better to stay in the shadows, “barfing” ad hominem remarks and poisoning the wells of intellectual authors of New Atheism than to risk getting caught up in an academic or intellectually embarrassing debate.

As to his call-to-arms: ”I’d like to see Christians of all flavors begin to barrage the ridiculous atheists with all manner of challenges to their ‘system of belief,’” I say bring it on. At some point a dialog must ensue. Either Christians will force themselves to answer intellectual and academic criticism and query, or they’ll just avoid it while atheists looking for dialog do all the talking. Hatred and bigotry versus intellectualism and reason.

West concludes:

It’s high time Christianity take back what rightly belongs to it- the upper hand, and stop sniveling about the influx of atheists and meet them on the field of battle by attacking them in their own camp.
Surround their city, blow the trumpet, and watch their walls crumble like crackers in soup.

It’s high time Christianity take back what rightly belongs to it- the upper hand, and stop sniveling about the influx of atheists and meet them on the field of battle by attacking them in their own camp.

Surround their city, blow the trumpet, and watch their walls crumble like crackers in soup.

I have little fear of any force that finds it advantageous to appeal to the mythology of Joshua and the fantastic story about Jericho’s walls being brought down by trumpets. There’s a bit of pseduo-archaeological lore surrounding this that Christians seem to fancy, much like the myths of Noah’s ark and the Exodus of Moses. Jim West’s mistake is appealing to these myths as if they are reality and not focusing on the flaws in his own position: atheists aren’t trying to prove his god doesn’t exist nor would they be expected to. He has the claim as do Hindus, Muslims, Polynesians, Peruvians, etc. It’s his responsibility to show his god exists. I don’t see him disproving Ptah, Vishnu, Allah, Polynesian volcano gods, Andean mountain gods, Zeus, or any of the other thousands of gods, both extant and extinct, that man has invented. When he has successfully disproved their existences, then he has the juice to demand atheists disprove his god.

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June 21, 2010  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Culture Wars  No Comments

Objections to My Opinions

The New Atheists @ Creepy Library
Image by ~C4Chaos via Flickr

In a recent email, a reader had this to say:

You’re simply proving that you are just as insulting as any of the Christian writers you have read.  Is this really necessary?

… about the “very extreme language” I used:

zombie Messiah, contrived, forced, and desperate, emotionally involved and vehemently opposed to anyone who dares question, query or critique their dogma, doctrine, and beliefs, eager to insult, disparage, and deride, Ultimately their arguments have to appeal to ignorance and the supernatural, pure, unadulterated hatred and bigotry, etc.

While I admit I can see how “zombie messiah” might be insulting, it is how those who don’t subscribe to Christian superstition see it. I think its important to point this out. There simply is no a priori reason to accept that a dead body can return to life. And, if it did, it would, by definition, be a zombie: a body that came back to life. If you find that insulting, then that says more about your “faith” than it does my opinion of it.

My description of the anti-atheist responses to the New Atheists stands. I see them as very contrived[1], forced, desperate, emotionally involved, and vehemently opposed to anyone who dares question, query, or critique their dogma, doctrine, and beliefs. We can see it in the very response of the reader who objected. We see it in the very books I listed by theistic authors who bring no real critique to the table, seek to ride the coattails of popular works by atheist authors (Atheist Delusion vis a vis God Delusion), and respond with utter hatred and bigotry. Frankly this should be insulting to Christians for whom these authors would like to represent. I could go into a point-by-point discussion of these, and I may in the future, but this would turn into a book review rather quickly.

And, ultimately, their arguments do have to appeal to ignorance and the supernatural. They cannot and do not appeal to logic and reason. In addition to ignorance and the supernatural, these authors appeal to hatred and bigotry. This should come as no surprise. Yet I’m accused of being “just as insulting” as these Christian writers? If the layperson, the average Christian is insulted by my critique of the sort of Christian author I cited in my previous post, this, again, says more about your own faith than it does me.

I’m interested in dialog with believers. But if you find honest, brutal critique and query insulting, then perhaps there’s no hope. I rather think, however, that this isn’t the case with believing Christians in general. If they’re willing to read the comments and articles posted on an atheist blog, then they’ve got to expect the atheist blogger may be skeptical of their faith. They might even expect that I’d see it as a superstition.

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  1. as in unnatural and forced [↩]

June 21, 2010  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Culture Wars  One Comment

The Culture Wars Between Atheists and Theists

Ephesians 2,12 - Greek atheos
Image via Wikipedia

Lately, I’ve been working on a project that I might turn into a book on atheism that takes a different tack than man of the books already in print by other New Atheists. I say “tack” in the sense that I’m taking a new direction. I fully expect, and hope, that other New Atheists whom I admire and respect will sail on in their own directions.

First, let me say that I consider myself a New Atheist. This is a label that has garnered various acceptance and derision from both theists and atheists alike, but I see it as wholly appropriate. Atheist was originally a label of derision in a much younger Western society, one that was overwhelmingly controlled, politically, by polytheistic and, later, monotheistic worldviews. “New atheism” is a different worldview from the atheism of pre-Enlightenment times. And while we proudly share a great number of attributes with our Enlightenment predecessors, we live in a very different time. A time of a New Enlightenment – a time where it is beginning to be acceptable to embrace atheism. We New Atheists stand for a great many things, but reason, freethought, secular government and humanist ideals rank high among them.

New Atheists in the Culture “Wars”

“Nones” are among the fastest growing  groups with regard to religious affiliation in the United States. “Nones” include atheists, agnostics and those who simply say they’re “not religious.” Some estimates have put the “nones” category upwards of 11% of the American population. Understandably, this has the evangelicals of Christianity bothered to varied degrees. As we atheists seek to raise consciousness of atheism among the non-religious (the “nones”), we find ourselves pitted in an intellectual battle against evangelicals and apologists. Some New Atheists, notable authors like Sam Harris and  Christopher Hitchens, and less known bloggers like Vjack and -to a certain extent- myself, have found it convenient to point out the evils of religion and religious dogma. For our efforts, we get labeled as “militant” atheists, a term I’ve not come to accept at all because it’s inaccurate, derisive in its intent, and entirely pejorative. It seems to me that the ”militant” label more easily fits many evangelicals than it does atheists as we are not seeking to don a uniform or doctrine; we don’t generally refer to ourselves as “warriors” or “soldiers” for a cause; and no arms have been taken up for our cause.

A New Tack

Recently, I’ve attempted to interact with an apologist blogger, Jim West at Zwinglius Redivivus[1] who has written more than a few disparaging and downright hateful  words about atheists on his blog. Not surpirsingly, my comments on his blog never made it past his moderation queue, but he does seem to read the comments himself, as gauged  by the nature of subsequent posts on his blog. So, whether he likes it or not, a discussion is emerging.

Which has prompted me to re-evaluate my approach to apologists and whether or not its useful to even try. I think it is. The assumption he appears to be operating under is that atheists are immoral and Christians are, by definition, righteous. This seems to get a fair amount of play among his peers and readers and I have no doubt that he’s sincere in his belief about this. West apparently has a doctorate in either theology or bible studies (or both). And this is probably where I made my mistake: I allowed my emotion and dry wit to combine and take a dig at this qualification, likening “theology” and “bible studies” to “fairyology” and “Harry Potter studies,” since I see all four as equivalent pretenses to actual academic pursuit. That wasn’t the best way to open a dialog, regardless of how true I find the analogy since it was disparaging and insulting. And, regardless of how true it may or may not be, the man probably devoted an excess of eight years of his life toward achieving a degree in a field he feels strongly about. It’s, therefore, no surprise I’m on his crap list.

Which is why I’ve decided on an new tack. I’m taking a different direction from my “New Atheist brethren” and I’m going to make an attempt to be less insulting and more discussion oriented. Much in the same vein as Daniel Dennett. I started this blog with a desire to explore the phenomenon of religion with a goal to help others break the “spell” of religious dogma. There are enough of us approaching the issue head on, so perhaps there should be some willing to circle around the “enemy” to “out-flank” them, if the “battle” and “war” metaphor is to be used. But, perhaps along the way, friendships and respect could be forged, with a need for the term “enemy” to be obsolete. Its a far-fetched idea to be sure, but not one that is impossible.

So, over the next few days, I plan to continue my dialog with Jim West. He won’t post my comments, so I’ll have to comment here. In fact, I’m starting a new blog list on my sidebar which lists religious blogs. Zwinglius Redivivus is the first. I’ll have the discussion without him and let Google and Bing moderate it. As I discover other evangelical and apologists discussing the atheist movement, I’ll attempt to engage them in dialog as well. Jim West is welcome to post at my blog, though, like him I have comment moderation on. I have only ever censored spammers, Dennis Markuze, and some Mormon guy that is just a slice or two shorter of a loaf than Markuze. I never censor what apologists and evangelicals have to say as long as their not simply proselytizing without a dialog.

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  1. a blog one assumes is devoted to reviving the theological opinions of Ulrich Zwingli, the guy who gave up Catholicism for Lent during the early Protestant Reformation in Europe [↩]

June 20, 2010  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: Culture Wars  5 Comments

Happy Father’s Day to All You Atheist Dads

Happy Father's Day!
Image by kennymatic via Flickr

And to you fathers who happen to be Christian, Muslim, Hindu, etc.

Being a Dad is perhaps the most important label we can all hope to have. You all have my respect and admiration just for taking it on. I’ve been a father for 8 years and I’m looking forward to being one the rest of my life.

She’s never going to be allowed to date however…. :-)

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June 20, 2010  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: humanism  One Comment


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