1991: My Summer of Death and Religious Craziness

It was the third of September.
A day I’ll always remember, yes I will.
‘Cause that was the day that my daddy died.

-Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, “Poppa Was a Rolling Stone”

~
My father could hardly have been described as a rolling stone, but he did happen to pass away on September 3rd.  He was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer the year before, but kept it a secret until he couldn’t anymore, in the spring of 1991.  If it had been up to him, he would have died alone, with no fanfare.  He was signed up for Meals on Wheels and Visiting Nurse services, and those kind people were the ones who found him helpless on the floor and called to let me know, over his strong objections.  While his oncologist predicted his death by early summer (and with good reason -- by the time I learned the truth, he weighed about 70 pounds and could be transferred from couch to bed by two slightly built women using a sheet as a sling), he hung on for another two and a half months.  He endured the indignity of having strangers in his house, his living room turned into a sickroom, and most of his personal autonomy taken away.  None of this could be helped -- he was too fragile to move to my home or even to a Hospice facility, and the heavy pain medications made it impossible for him to manage his finances or make decisions for himself.  He and I didn’t get along spectacularly well by that point, so it was awkward on both sides for me to be taking over the checkbook.  But there was nobody else.  Mom had died the year before, and I was the only child.  

It was an extremely stressful time.  Religion didn’t help things at all.

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The commandment that comes with an asterisk

Something occurs to me, reading headlines about teabag wingnuts and their consistently outrageous claims about President Obama.

These allegations are obviously lies. Sure, some of these people are truly around the bend -- especially those who have access to little more than a keyboard, and dutifully forward the wacky reforwarded e-mails they get from equally confused, pathetic people such as themselves. They sometimes don't know better, by virtue of insufficient education, low IQ, and/or social insulation. Sometimes they do know better, deep down, but it's easier to remain ignorant.

But then you have the people who promulgate this garbage.

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Catching Myself in a Classic Lie, Part 2

Continued from the previous post: Why did I write “He paints the sky with stars” on the Facebook page of a respected non-theist who died earlier this year?

First off, the line comes from the title of a song by Enya. I listen to a lot of Enya, on Rhapsody and Pandora, as well as in the car. There are days when a good dose of “Only If” is the one thing that can ward off creeping depression. Enya is the sort of music you either love or hate. It’s perfectly formulated, commercially viable Celtic/New Age. It does exactly what the genre is set up to do. It calms, it soothes, it puts your mind at ease.

During my days as a believing Christian, I heard plenty of ominous statements about New Age, mainly that it was a “gateway” to occult or satanic practices. People like Bob Larson said it was “trance-channeling” music; he linked New Age with Hinduism, Buddhism, transcendental meditation, mind control, brainwashing and subliminal programming, all of which – and much more – are believed by fundamentalists to be in direct opposition to scriptural Christian doctrine. The list goes on and on.
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Catching Myself in a Classic Lie, Part 1

Note: The quotes contained in this post are not verbatim, but accurate enough to convey what the speaker was attempting to say.

A very unscientific survey seems to confirm that 2009 has been a year of loss for a lot of people. We’ve had a rash of very high-profile celebrity deaths, and the pattern seems to be present for many closer to home, myself included.

In addition to my brother-in-law, who died about six and a half months ago, there have been numerous passings at the Unitarian Universalist church I attend. Shortly after I joined, the minister said to a group of us, “These next few years are bound to be tough ones for this congregation – many of our most active members are also our oldest, and I anticipate conducting a continual series of memorial services.” That prediction took a couple of years to come true, but now it has. We’ve lost close to half a dozen this year. It’s stressful for everyone.

One member whose death has especially touched me was Bill, who would have been 81 today. Bill’s passion was membership, though during his many years, he was a willing participant in nearly every aspect of church life. Bill was invariably the first person a visitor would meet, as was the case with me. Even though it was summer and the minister wasn’t there, Bill was, in his requisite tweed blazer with patches on the elbows. In a place where many attendees arrive in shorts, flip-flops, and kilts, piercings and tattoos blaring forth, Bill was always impeccably groomed. In spite of his relatively small stature, his bearing was one of authority and dignity. Bill knew everything there was to know about making a good first impression.

“What did you think of it?” he asked as I stood in the fellowship area with my coffee cup that first time. When I replied with my favorable views, he smiled and said, “Well, just keep in mind that it’s going to be a little bit different every time you come here. You won’t be bored.”
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Religion Explained. Finally. Now I Can Go Eat Some Soup.

Found at:
http://stupidevilbastard.com Click Here to Read More..

"Big Brother" apparently wasn't Garrido's keeper

First, my "no-news" update:
Nothing stopped me from posting during the last week, other than busyness and lack of subject matter. I did cut back substantially on consumption of news, but there was no way I could miss the death of Ted Kennedy (and of Dominick Dunne) or the resurfacing of Jaycee Dugard.

I did keep NPR turned off for most of my daily 90-minute commute and enjoyed some oldies from the 1970s. Any news-perusal skirted subjects that seem to induce the most stress, and gave me an opportunity to analyze exactly which subjects fall into that category. It appears that issues that stem from religion-based ideology are the ones that push my buttons. This includes large swaths of Asia, Africa and South America; the health-care debate; prison reform, and workers' rights, to name but a few.

It helped my frame of mind - a little, so I may continue this routine for awhile.

Now, onto Jaycee. The more reports I read about this case, the more stupefied I become.

Sex offenders: They have to register; they get their names published on lists; they get hounded from one neighborhood to another, even if their "offense" has nothing to do with endangering the welfare of anybody. But, with all that, with all the news the subject generates, here we have a monster who got away with imprisoning and impregnating a child for nearly 20 years, even though the authorities knew exactly where he lived. The neighbors even knew he was a registered sex offender, yet they said nothing when they saw three young girls out on the front lawn! Hello??? Isn't the whole point of the whole "registered sex offender in your neighborhood" campaign that they should not be anywhere near children? And yet, the neighbor said "We just thought the kids were his sister's." SO WHAT? If that were the case, the "sister" would have been in violation of the law for bringing children there, if only someone had reported it. And if someone had really checked.

Why is our justice system so dysfunctional? Why did it take two almost-rookie campus cops to run a background check, followed by the guy practically turning himself in? He walked into someone's office and basically said "Hi, I'd like you to meet my bitches." He never moved from his house; all the parole officer and sheriff's deputies had to do was walk through the yard. With everyone raving and ranting about Google Earth violating our privacy and government knowing too much about us, with all these vast resources available, Garrido was sitting there on a platter, running a business, writing a blog, practically screaming to the authorities, Hey, here I am -- I'm a criminal with a twisted past. Would someone please come over and check on me?

I hope this case wakes some people up and brings about changes. Click Here to Read More..

Making Lists, Killing Time

Confession: I'm killing time to avoid having to confront the painful reality of tax preparation. And that's all I have to say about that.

As for the lists, I have subdivided my blog list into categories, mainly because the list was getting unwieldy. Some of the categories are pretty easy, especially "Atheist Blogs," because a great many have the "A" word in the title or the "scarlet letter" prominently featured.

I originally had two separate categories in mind for "liberal" blogs and "political" blogs, but truthfully, you're not going to find any "Townhall"-style bloggers featured here, so for me, "liberal" and "political" are a tad redundant.

Skeptic/atheist/freethinker that I am, I still attend a Unitarian Universalist church, as I've mentioned here and there; it's an adventure to sort out objective reality from wonder (or "woo-woo," as our minister calls it). Yesterday's "unknown" is today's science and the same undoubtedly holds true now, for the most part. Yet, there are still questions about how we grow our worldview, and anyone who takes on this challenge full-time deserves recognition, which is why the "Religion/Philosophy" list is separate.

The feminist blog list is small, and I am in the process of remedying that.

As for the rest, a number of my favorites fall into several categories all at once, or offer an unblinking and unintimidated view of the author's everyday life, which I find irresistible and often inspirational. We are, indeed, all in this together and blogging helps provide great reassurance of that. There are a few expert blogs in here, as well as irreverent humor -- in all cases, you'll find an abundance of talent and great writing.

If you're a blog author and you want to persuade me to move your blog to another list, drop a line. Meanwhile, enjoy and have a good rest of the weekend. Click Here to Read More..

Talking About Israel Some More

Back on October 31 of last year, I reflected on my evolving mindset concerning the "other" side of my religious heritage, i.e. Judaism. The first item on my short list was Israel, and how, for many years, I had been convinced that it represented a more advanced moral standard and a higher plane of existence, as it were. More recently, having rejected religion outright, I was finally willing to take a cold, hard look at Judaism and decide whether or not it was worthy of rejection in the same way as Christianity.

I thought I had the issue all tucked in and put to bed with the lights out, but recently, a new angle (new to me, at least) on the subject has taken shape.

Excerpted below is the article from the NY Times - emphasis mine.

A Religious War in Israel’s Army
By ETHAN BRONNER

JERUSALEM — The publication late last week of eyewitness accounts by Israeli soldiers alleging acute mistreatment of Palestinian civilians in the recent Gaza fighting ... exposes something else: the clash between secular liberals and religious nationalists for control over the army and society.

...[T]he left-leaning secular kibbutz movement ... showed a distinct impatience with religious soldiers, portraying them as self-appointed holy warriors.

For the first four decades of Israel’s existence, the army — like many of the country’s institutions — was dominated by kibbutz members who saw themselves as secular, Western and educated. In the past decade or two, religious nationalists, including many from the settler movement in the West Bank, have moved into more and more positions of military responsibility.

“The officer corps of the elite Golani Brigade is now heavily populated by religious right-wing graduates of the preparatory academies... The religious right is trying to have an impact on Israeli society through the army.”

Those who oppose the religious right have been especially concerned about the influence of the military’s chief rabbi, Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki, who is himself a West Bank settler and who was very active during the war, spending most of it in the company of the troops in the field.

He took a quotation from a classical Hebrew text and turned it into a slogan during the war: “He who is merciful to the cruel will end up being cruel to the merciful.”

...[W]hat was evident in Gaza was that the humanistic tradition from which a code of ethics is derived was not being sufficiently observed there.

Mr. Halbertal, the Jewish philosopher who opposes the attitude of Rabbi Rontzki, said ...“The right tends to make an equation between authenticity and brutality, as if the idea of humanism were a Western and alien implant to Judaism,” he said. “They seem not to know that nationalism and fascism are also Western ideas and that hypernationalism is not Jewish at all.”

This brings me back once again to an examination of what Judaism is to me. I realize now that from the very beginning of my exploration of Judaism, the focus was always on philosophy, scholarship, reason. I recall the pleasure I derived in college from independent reading and study -- the leisurely examination of "the meaning of life," and the historical threads that bound all of like mind -- those who sensed that we, as humans, had the potential to rise above emotion-driven savagery and create a world of thought, beauty and constructive action. But the farther along I went, the more room there was for religion to rear its ugly head. Time and again I was reminded by one person or another, that, oh yes, scholarship is fine, but Judaism is about tradition, which holds that women are "ordained by the almighty to be separate from men and to serve a different function. Women, you see, are holy because they can bear children, and that is your supreme calling. Scholarship is nothing -- men study scripture day and night because they can't bear children..." etc. etc.

So while I tried mightily to cling to the humanistic, reason-bound traditions of Judaism, my lack of grounding in it (that is, the fact that my mother was gentile and therefore I did not have "the birthright" as one rabbi put it), made it very hard to fight back against the growing tide of traditionalism. In college, for example, during my sophomore year when I first began hanging out at Hillel, the campus rabbi was a fairly liberal-leaning, egalitarian sort. At first glance, he gave the impression of being rather old-school, but that wasn't where he was coming from.

But then he left, and a female rabbi replaced him. And then came the backlash. Whereas earlier, our functions had been co-ed, as soon as the female rabbi arrived, the more reactionary elements in Hillel demanded a more traditional setting for our social activities. And so up went the mechitza [that's the curtain that separates men and women in orthodox synagogues]. Soon there was a lot of talk about the "authentic Jewish experience," in which we gals were expected to move to a Chasidic enclave and settle into a "proper" existence of early marriage and abundant childbearing, complete with an ugly wig, ugly shoes, and a lifestyle reminiscent of a Polish shtetl in 1901. The Jewish version of Quiverfull, in other words.

This encroachment of oppressive religion was what drove me far and fast from Judaism. Something in me sensed that it was harmful to my psyche. And since the rabbis I consulted were unanimous in saying that I should never expect any encouragement to convert, that I was entirely on my own in this endeavor, backing away was fairly painless. [The followup question of what led me into Christianity is something I'll have to look at later, since it seems to be a clear contradiction.]

But getting back to Israel -- it's a question that I imagine many Jews are having to grapple with, and it parallels the dilemma that many religious Americans have faced over the last 35 years or so, as the religious right has hijacked some fairly benign and humanistic concepts. Equality, dignity, compassion, unity ... those were the values I grew up with as a nominal Catholic, and I have clear memories of a reaching out between Christians and Jews during the post-war years, up to the late 1970s. Suddenly, religion began overshadowing everything again, emphasizing the differences between groups that had been working so hard to embrace their commonalities.

Finally, the question is being spelled out for people to really look at. What is Israel, and more importantly, what is Judaism? Is it an advanced, lofty, scholarly, humanistic and ultra-modern system of philosophy? Or is it, like other western religions, a regressive, patriarchal political system that endeavors to shackle its followers through fear, superstition and brainwashing?

My rejection of Israel in my post from last October was, I think, born out of the intuition of what it seems to be becoming -- what the New York Times article describes. Click Here to Read More..

Attention Creationists: We're Onto You

An entertaining and insightful guide to recognizing a hidden religious agenda.

I especially like the following, having heard far too many of these during my years of being religiously educated via radio:

When you come across the terms "Darwinism" or "Darwinists", take heed. True scientists rarely use these terms, and instead opt for "evolution" and "biologists", respectively. When evolution is described as a "blind, random, undirected process", be warned. While genetic mutations may be random, natural selection is not. When cells are described as "astonishingly complex molecular machines", it is generally by breathless supporters of ID who take the metaphor literally and assume that such a "machine" requires an "engineer". If an author wishes for "academic freedom", it is usually ID code for "the acceptance of creationism".
If an author wishes for 'academic freedom', it is usually code for 'the acceptance of creationism.'

Some general sentiments are also red flags. Authors with religious motives make shameless appeals to common sense, from the staid - "There is nothing we can be more certain of than the reality of our sense of self" (James Le Fanu in Why Us?) - to the silly - "Yer granny was an ape!" (creationist blogger Denyse O'Leary). If common sense were a reliable guide, we wouldn't need science in the first place. Click Here to Read More..

Some People I'm Glad Not to be Related To

Picked up this story via Google Reader. It has sort of a "Rashomon" quality -- I can picture different readers having completely different reactions to it. My mother would have certainly related to the mother profiled here. A younger person would identify with the son.

The church itself sounds quite a bit like one I was attending 12 years or so ago ... a startup without a permanent home. A cult? Probably not Jim Jones, as the mother is alleging, but any serious Christian church -- make that ANY religion -- is going to do whatever it can to hang onto followers. It's what they do.

And I find it ironic that the mother talks about Catholic doctrine in which parents are compelled to raise their children Catholic. Seems to me the main difference between the church and the mother is, the church people want Tom to stay with them for some perceived need on their part to save his soul, while the mother wants Tom to stay with her in order to save her soul.

Without religion in the mix, Tom and his mother would still be struggling because she's overbearing and controlling (hello? the young man is 18!), but it would be about something more concrete and objective, and nobody would be worrying about eternal damnation. Click Here to Read More..

Theo-crazy

Viddy well, droogies.

They're firing public school teachers in Texas when they don't pass the religion test. Click Here to Read More..

While She Was Rubbing My Ankle

I'm now halfway through with physical therapy, and it has helped. The people at the rehab hospital are very nice, very patient, and they listen. From my experience, the stories of "pain and torture" are myths. The therapists I've worked with all say that if real pain starts, the exercise should stop. The goal is not to hurt me, or reproduce the pain, but to strengthen the ankle. It's begun to hurt a bit on the outside now, instead of the inside, which to me is good. When the inside and Achilles tendon hurt, it was a reminder that the two small bones there had ground together, pinching nerves, ligaments, etc. between them. Outside ankle pain is something I've experienced numerous times before; it seems to dissipate quickly, so it's not a problem. I'm almost starting to remember what my real walk is like.

Anyway. My first session was an evaluation, after which they outfitted me with one of those fat rubber bands you use for resistance while exercising at home. The next two sessions this week were actual supervised exercises. The first time I wore my standard work outfit and regretted it as soon as I started perspiring. Next time I wore my church t-shirt under my work clothes and stripped down to it, changing back before heading back to the office.

The therapist wore a tiny cross on a chain. She noticed the discreet logo on my shirt and asked me about it. I was happy to give her a general sort of description of a Unitarian Universalist church, but had no intention of launching into any kind of a spiel. I assumed she was just making small talk. But at one point,
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Volly vs. the Jehovah's Witnesses

Earlier today I was enjoying some sofa-spud time when the doorbell rang. More than one person from the neighborhood association had indicated they'd be dropping by for various wrap-up business, so a caller was no surprise. Unfortunately, the two well-dressed ladies were not anyone I recognized; they were brandishing copies of the Watchtower, which made me quite glad the screen door was securely locked.

"Good morning, ma'am, have you heard about the terrible disaster that has befallen Kingston, Tennessee?" They meant the coal-ash spill that is threatening the watersheds there. So, yes, I told them I'd heard about it.

"And, in your opinion, is it within the abilities of humankind to control disasters such as this?"

"Absolutely!" said I.

That stopped 'em in their tracks.

"Really?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am," I replied, with a big smile.

"Oh. I see. Well. We have some lovely copies of our publication, and would like you to accept them with our compliments."

"That's okay, I'm sure you can find someone else on this block who would be interested. Have a good day."

Are you proud of me? I am. I earned my scarlet "A" today. Click Here to Read More..

Religulous

If you haven't seen it yet, Infidelguy is showing it for free on his site...bring your own popcorn. Click Here to Read More..

Steeplejacking!

Time to put back that Amazon widget and stick this one up there...

In their new book Steeplejacking United Church of Christ Ministers John Dorhauer and Sheldon Culver describe the organized efforts of the religious right to silence the members of the religious left within mainline Protestant churches.

The Institute on Religion and Democracy was founded in 1981 by conservative Democrats who realized that liberal elements in the mainline Protestant churches had been among the most powerful opponents of hawkish American foreign policy. Over the years, the Institute has been very successful in turning the flocks of liberal pastors against them.

More on this... Click Here to Read More..

A long, long road for the rationalists in INDIA

Okay, all you Western skeptics.

You think YOU'VE got it tough?

Try being an atheist in India.

Some folks are trying and they can probably use all the help & support they can get.

~~

Now, today at church we had a guest who lives half the year in an ashram in southern India, following a lady popularly known as The Hugging Saint. We saw DVD's of "Amma's" work -- she's attained multiple honors from the UN and the Indian government, and there is no doubt whatsoever that she has done phenomenal work for humanitarian causes.

It's certainly not difficult to become inspired by Amma's accomplishments. Our guest today talked about how she "was called -- sold everything and went to join the ashram." I pondered this -- over the last year or so I've met more than a couple of people who have chucked nearly everything in the material world to devote themselves full-time to one spiritual cause or another.

Sometimes it's tempting to contemplate. A great many of us, I think, often look around and ask themselves, Is this all there is? Is this what life's about - schlepping back and forth to the office every day, trying to keep ourselves from going under, losing this house, with its carpeting, Cuisinarts and computers? Would it be such a radical leap to give it all up and just go where the need is greatest? To save just one life? To bring hope?

Unlike some uber-materialists like Rush Limbaugh, I find no reason to denigrate people who adopt such an ascetic lifestyle. In fact, the older I get, the more sense it makes.

And that's the place where you start hearing the spiritual talk. The "higher purpose" talk.

Is it a spiritual undertaking to care more about other people's lives and well-being than your own interests? It's troubling to me, because it's nearly impossible to hear anyone talk about wanting to adopt a self-denying existence without bringing invisible beings into it. Seems to me, it's enough just to say, "Hey, look at this teeming mass of humanity we're all part of. We need a way to ensure that we don't lower ourselves to a primitive, animalistic state just to survive. We need a way to achieve our greatest potential, make the most of the few decades we have here and secure the future for the generations that follow."

I find it interesting how people who have come back from the brink of extinction (victims of flood, earthquake, famine, etc.) almost immediately turn inward and start wasting their time and energy setting up shrines and praising an imaginary being, rather than rolling up their sleeves and saying "Those people who rebuilt our village and got the power on are the ones we should be inspired by. I'm going to learn how to build houses and roads and make a difference." Or "None of this can be achieved without education -- I'm going to get some people together and start a school." Certainly some people do just that -- judging by the videos we saw today, that's the mindset in some places But the same catastrophes are going to just keep happening until people start looking at life in a pragmatic way, rather than just relying on superstition and magic.

Plenty of rambling thoughts here -- sorry! Click Here to Read More..

Letting Go of My Judaism

For a formerly religious individual shifting toward atheism, one of the hardest processes has to be rethinking all the assumptions that we took for granted for years and sometimes decades. The list of these truisms could fill many volumes, and the Bible is certainly the source of many. From obvious ones like those contained in the Ten Commandments, to more subtle views, such as the role of women, it can take a lot of time and patience to examine each one rationally. On top of the formalized canon, we often grow up surrounded by family members, neighbors, co-congregants at church and classmates all echoing the same opinions and disguising them as fact.

Quite recently, I’ve come to see that I’m not entirely innocent of this. While I’ve been pretty diligent about rejecting the fictions fed to me during my 15 years as a Christian, I now understand that I’ve been equally blinded during the 32 years or so since my freshman year of college, when I began exploring the paternal side of my family tree – the Jewish side.

Even a year ago, I would not have thought to post a blog like this.

Here’s a quick summary of a few vestiges of faith that I have stubbornly hung onto, to one degree or another:

• Everything Israel does is absolutely right, no matter how much the world community protests and no matter how brutal it may appear to an “outsider.”
• Jews are inherently more moral than other people.
• All religious law that originated with Judaism is logical at the core, even if it’s hard to fathom in the modern age.
• All Muslims are the enemy.
• Judaism is in danger of becoming extinct and this cannot be allowed to happen.
• Anybody who voices objection to Jewish practices is either anti-Semitic or ignorant, and these two things are really synonymous.
• My Jewish father lowered himself by marrying my Gentile mother; he came from a better “bloodline.”

Is there a “chosen people?” A year ago I would have said yes. I find it encouraging to have backed away from such a notion on two fronts: As a Unitarian Universalist, I promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person and the goal of a world community, with peace, liberty and justice for all. And as an atheist, I find it unacceptable to endorse “chosenness.” Unless someone can prove to me that Jews, or any other group of people historically singled out as being exceptional and distinguishable from other humans, actually originated somewhere outside our planet and possess measurable, objective qualities that make them superior to others here on Earth, I will strive to reject any such notions, no matter how deeply rooted they are or how strongly rejected by what some call the “conventional wisdom.”

I’d like to try fine-tuning my previous misconceptions, based on those two principles.

• Israel has maintained something closer to a democracy than the other (Islamic) countries that surround it. However, very much like the United States, it has more recently taken its roots for granted – just because it was originally founded to protect a persecuted class of people does not always make Israel the target or the victim. Sometimes the Israeli government falsely justifies brutality and oppression purely out of fear.
• Jews are not inherently more moral than any other people. There is a strong correlation between a codified scripture and a tradition of reason and our Western democratic ideals. That gives Jews and Christians good reason to view themselves as more moral by nature, but in truth, the morality is a learned one, and the learning process itself is highly imperfect. This particular weakness in my thinking hit me just this morning, listening to the NPR report about the kosher slaughterhouse in the Midwest, whose owner, first name Shalom, is the target of a federal investigation for illegal hiring practices. My knee-jerk reaction was something like “Oh, no, a religious Jew knows better than to hire workers under unfair conditions,” and this was based entirely on all the Torah and Talmud that was spoon-fed to me during my college years. Ideas I simply absorbed as iron-bound truth. In a similar way, I was horrified and let down upon hearing of the infamous crimes committed by child abuser Joel Steinberg, and Ira Einhorn, who murdered his girlfriend and then lived as a fugitive overseas for over a decade. I also know how many people make the opposite assumption: that all Jews are fundamentally evil and greedy. In fact, the way I learned it, all non-Jews are anti-Semitic at heart! I knew a woman some years ago who declared that all Christian churches preach “blood libel” every Sunday. This was so ridiculous, I called her on it, thinking maybe I misunderstood what she had said. But she re-asserted it. That was the end of our friendship.

What we have to get straight, once and for all, is that it’s all too easy for us humans to give in to our baser impulses and act completely in our own short-sighted self-interest and think about consequences later. It doesn’t matter what religion or ethnicity our ancestors were! And we all tend to show favoritism toward those who resemble us. It’s a fallacy in our thinking that keeps us down at a primitive level, rather than allowing us to be elevated to our potential of intelligence.
• All religious law that originated with Judaism may have seemed logical at the time it was set down, but its focus was narrow and imperfect. It was used to justify behavior that was a means toward an end. It is not supernatural in origin! It is not timeless or universal. It may be interesting to study and some of it may be adaptable to our present age, but it must all be viewed with great caution and objectively assessed.
• Side note: Yes, our present system of government is based largely upon Judeo-Christian principles that came before. Some of it’s great; some of it has to go. Keep the good stuff; ignore the stupid and harmful. We can have our democracy without someone else’s theocracy.
• Not all Muslims subscribe to the theocratic, oppressive belief system that is so commonly seen on the news. Like Christians, Jews, and other religious people, they’ve been brainwashed and victimized by the entire religious mindset. All humans can be reasoned with, under the right circumstances, and no one should be condemned just because of a label.
• “Judaism,” exemplified at its best by reason, logic, intellect, study, and discourse, is only in danger of becoming extinct if these qualities are neglected and devalued! We can always honor our ancestry and reflect on its lessons, regardless of who we marry or what culture we adapt to. We have to learn to let go of ethnocentrism if we are to advance the only race that matters to our existence: The human race. Click Here to Read More..

Found this article referenced on LiveJournal...

Prof. Dawkins is taking aim at Harry Potter for the same reason he takes aim at the fundies who condemn the books.

It's all magical thinking, he claims, all an encouragement to children to follow their elders' path to delusion.

Despite being a devotee of all things Potter, I have no problem with this, for a couple of reasons:

Dawkins is not taking the hard line toward the Potterverse that he has taken toward religious dogma ... in fact, this article says he's embarked upon research to check it out thoroughly and objectively.

He admits he hasn't read any of Rowling's work yet and has no fixed opinion. Quite different from this charming lady, who literally judges a book by its cover.

I see too many parallels between fundamentalist religion and some new-age doctrine. While it's nice to speculate about "energy," "vibrations" and "unseen forces" influencing our lives, it's all too easy to delude one's self by substituting one questionable mindset for another. Our society encourages this on a universal scale, and it's troubling.

There are no Potter churches; even in high school, nobody gets ostracized by saying "I'm glad other people enjoy Harry Potter, but it just isn't for me." Try doing that at your average church!

Get the facts! Know the science!

...and then enjoy some escapism without getting lost in La La Land. Click Here to Read More..

Doing my bit for the cause

This is for Reggie Finley, The Infidel Guy.

He has a MySpace page, and I've been a fan ever since he appeared on Trading Spouses (or was it Wife Swap? ... anyway, you get the idea).

Please check him out if you haven't yet, and help him out if you can!

====

Keep The Infidel Guy Show on the air!
Much like PBS, it's time again for fans of The Infidel Guy to help keep us on the air.
More details are available at infidelguy. com

http://www. infidelguy. com

--- John Loftus will be our guest this Thursday discussing his new book. Why I became an atheist. 10-30-2008 @ 8PM ET.


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Leftover Christian Fiction

There was a time, at the height of my religious phase, when I was an eager consumer of anything offered for sale at Christian bookstores. As a regular listener to religious radio, I got plenty of recommendations for authors of both fiction and non-fiction. One of those authors is Frank Peretti -- I've read 3-1/2 of his books. Three were penned by him; another was a collaboration. I remember most of his books only vaguely, though I'll give him a bit of credit for trying. The dyed-in-the-wool Christian reader (who hasn't had much exposure to more mainstream fare) will find him "edgy," I am sure. He follows the standard protocol of limiting the language to about a PG-level -- lots of "hecks" and "darns" and euphemisms for basically everything -- but pulls it off reasonably well without letting it become a distraction. He also has a taste for action and suspense, so you don't necessarily feel like you're being forced to sit through interminable reruns of The Andy Griffith Show or Little House on the Prairie when you pick up one of his novels.

And for the Christian reader, this is sufficient. Mild entertainment, with the payoff being the preachy message woven throughout.

The number of tomes on my shelves left over from those days can now be counted on one hand, with a digit or two to spare. I've got a couple of dusty bibles and a book called The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey. I haven't picked that one up in about 7 years; one of these days I'll check it out again and most likely will come to a parting of the ways with it.

Beyond that is a Peretti novel called The Oath. Its description in Wikipedia says that it's Peretti's most acclaimed work. I can believe this, because I hung onto it and have re-read it even after giving up completely on Christianity and all religion within the last 6 years.

The basic elements of the story include a small, isolated mining town in the Pacific Northwest; various people brutally killed or vanished without a trace; corrupt cops; secrecy and distrust of outsiders, and the probable existence of a dragon.

The dragon is merely symbolic, but where Peretti goes so far off into la-la land is in his depiction of the villain at the heart of the legend. The founder of the town was a despot, a tyrant, a man of many vices. So far, so good. Since this is a Christian novel, it's no surprise that the bad guy kills an itinerant preacher and banishes anyone who may have embraced Christianity. This is because the Christians are suddenly campaigning for workers' rights and are putting a damper on the local brothel's once-thriving business.

But hold on -- the bad guy is eventually revealed as (don't be too shocked now!) an atheist, who has the gall to draw up a town charter that includes the following statements:

"...having founded and established the city...through their own resources, wisdom and resolve...
"...confident of their own capacity for good, do wish to pursue happiness, peace and contentment by whatever avenue they may choose...
"We are the masters and makers of our own destiny.
"There is no God but Reason.
"Only by Reason can Truth be established."
and the last line:
"If This Be Sin, Let Sin Be Served."


Other than the last line, these sound like my kinda people!

But of course, Mr. Peretti has other ideas. The present-day bad guy (grandson of the original one) is shown conducting a ritual, whereby he writes the names of his enemies on a slip of paper, burns it on an altar in the dark of night, and sits back with smug satisfaction as the people he named disappear, presumably devoured by an immense fire-breathing reptile.

This does not sound like something Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins would do. Unless you're a fundie who has been steeped in the fallacy that atheists are simply better-educated versions of your average mass-murdering cannibal child rapist!

This most recent read-through convinced me that The Oath will be making a swan dive into the bin on my next trip to the recycling center (which is tomorrow). Rather than impressing me as a better-than-average example of Christian fiction, it does little now other than offend and annoy me.

Trashing a book is a drastic step for me, but this is little more than slander, and I will not pass it on to some naive reader and add to the damage done by such misguided minds as Frank Peretti. Click Here to Read More..