The Faith of Christopher Hitchens

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Larry Taunton, a Christian author in Birmingham, has recently made TV appearances on the right-leaning Fox News and on the left-leaning MSNBC.

Taunton’s new book on famous atheist Christopher Hitchens, who died in 2011, has gotten rave reviews from prominent atheists, and prominent Christians.

I hadn’t even heard of this book, and I doubt it will go on my reading list. I don’t care for books that are going to make me want to toss them out a window.

Their friendship became so close they went on two long road trips together, with Hitchens reading aloud from the Gospel of John on one of them.

As Hitchens suffered and died from esophageal cancer, Taunton believes he was giving Christianity a kind of final review. Hitchens, who was baptized as a child in the Church of England but declared himself an atheist and burned his Bible at 15, never recanted his atheism.

But Taunton believes Hitchens gained a new appreciation for evangelical Christians who actually believe the Bible. “For the first time in his life, he was engaging evangelical Christians,” Taunton said. “He found them to be different from the veneer of Christianity in Britain. When he began debating these evangelicals, he began to like them.”

That’s news to me, but I didn’t exactly follow what Hitchens’ was or wasn’t doing. I don’t think it’s terribly surprising that you can end up liking people you also disagree with on some issues. That happens to most people, doesn’t it?

I don’t know if I can write anything ever again that gets universal praise from both the left and the right. This book is getting quite a reaction. The reception has been so kind, no nice. The atheist Michael Schermer loved the book.”

Yeah, okay, the book is a definite skip for me.

“I discovered Christopher is not defined by his atheism,” Taunton said. “Atheism is a negative and you can’t build a philosophy around a negative. Christopher was searching for a unifying system of thought. They’re accusing me of saying he converted. I make no such claim. It’s not my claim that Christopher converted, it’s that Christopher was contemplating conversion. I think I substantiate it in the book.”

[…]

In the end, Hitchens had created too big a reputation on his atheism to convert to Christianity, Taunton said.

“Christopher was in a difficult place,” Taunton said. “He’s a dying man. He asked me why I thought he didn’t convert. I said, ‘You’ve created a global reputation as an atheist, your fortune, your reputation is based on it. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to admit you were wrong. You created a prison for yourself.'”

I’m not saying he converted! Wait, I am too saying he converted! No, just that he wanted to convert! I’d think more of this “good Christian” if he wasn’t picking the bones of the dead to make a profit. Full Article Here.

This is Shermer’s brief review:

If you really want to get to know someone intimately, go on a multi-day cross-country road trip, share fine food and expensive spirits, and have open and honest conversations about the most important issues in life. And then engage them in public debate before thousands of people on those very topics. In this engrossing narrative about his friendship with the atheist activist Christopher Hitchens, the evangelical Christian Larry Taunton shows us a side of the man very few of us knew. Apparent contradictions dissolve before Taunton’s penetrating insight into the psychology of man fiercely loyal to his friends and passionately devoted to leading a life of integrity. This book should be read by every atheist and theist passionate about the truth, and by anyone who really wants to understand Hitch, one of the greatest minds and literary geniuses of our time.
—Michael Shermer

John Kasich on Anti-LGBT Discrimination: ‘Get Over It’

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Kasich

Republican presidential hopeful John Kasich’s answer to LGBT people turned away by businesses is “get over it,” while his advice for those business owners it to pray.

Kasich, the governor of Ohio, has said he wouldn’t have signed anti-LGBT laws like the ones recently enacted in North Carolina and Mississippi, but today on CNN’s State of the Union with Dana Bash, he said that as president, he wouldn’t do anything to stop states from passing such legislation.

“There is a legitimate concern for people being able to have their deeply held religious beliefs, religious liberty,” he told Bash. “But there’s also people who we shouldn’t be discriminating against. … We need to strike a balance, and I just wish we’d take a breath and calm down and take a breath, because you see, trying to legislate that balance is complicated and you keep doing do-overs, because nobody gets it right.”

He continued, “What I would like to say is just relax, and if you don’t like what somebody’s doing, pray for them, and if you’re feeling like somebody is doing something wrong against you, can you just for a second get over it?”

[…]

He also mentioned, as he had previously, that he had attended a friend’s wedding to a same-sex partner, but he told Matthews, “I don’t think it’s right, and the wedding that I went to, they know that I don’t agree with them.”

I imagine they know just how much you disapprove now, Governor. I suspect you don’t have all that many gay friends whose wedding you have attended. Kasich probably wouldn’t seem so bad if he could manage to keep his mouth shut. Full Story Here.

Something positive for a change

So much of the news regarding transgender people is all bigotry, all hate, all the time. For a change, a couple of positive stories. I wish the article about Mumbai used transgender people, rather than transgenders, which reads all kinds of wrong to me.

Jennifer Pritzker, right, and Brenda Cossman of the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto, was in town recently to receive an award for her contributions to the field of sexual diversity education. Vince Talotta / Toronto Star

Jennifer Pritzker, right, and Brenda Cossman of the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto, was in town recently to receive an award for her contributions to the field of sexual diversity education. Vince Talotta / Toronto Star.

Jennifer Pritzker is a retired U.S. Army colonel and a businesswoman. She is also thought to be the only openly transgender billionaire in the world.

The Pritzker family founded the Hyatt hotel chain and, according to Forbes magazine, is one of the 400 wealthiest broods in America. Forbes estimates that Pritzker alone is worth $1.76 billion.

But if money doesn’t buy happiness, it also doesn’t buy tolerance. This is why Pritzker, who enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1974, didn’t come out publicly as transgender until 2013.

[…]

Fortunately, Pritzker says, a lot has changed since 1974. Not enough, but a lot.

Determined to help foster that change, the military veteran and philanthropist recently donated $2 million to the University of Victoria to establish a chair of transgender studies at the school — the first of its kind in the world.

“Knowledge dispels fear,” she says (a motto she picked up from the British Royal Air Force.) “It helps people dispel fear of the unknown, of (for instance) jumping out of an airplane in flight.”

If you can train people to do something as inherently terrifying as jumping out of airplanes, Pritzker believes, it’s reasonable to assume that you can also convince prejudiced lawmakers and American citizens to accept their transgender peers.

[…]

“There’s still work to be done,” says Pritzker. But those who support transgender rights can take some solace in the fact that big business is beginning to understand the bottom line.

“Productivity and profitability will not suffer by virtue of inclusion,” Pritzker says. “I’m as much a capitalist as I am anything else. And capitalism doesn’t have to be a zero sum game.”

Full Story Here.

Participants holding a rainbow flag pass through a junction during a gay pride parade, which is promoting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights, in Mumbai, January 31, 2015. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui (INDIA - Tags: SOCIETY) - RTR4NPD8

Participants holding a rainbow flag pass through a junction during a gay pride parade, which is promoting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights, in Mumbai, January 31, 2015. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui (INDIA – Tags: SOCIETY) – RTR4NPD8

Mumbai: With an aim to make transgender community self-dependent, a national-level ‘Trans Empowerment Mela’ will be organised in suburban Borivali here allowing over 500 community members to showcase their entrepreneurial ideas.

The Mela, to be held on Tuesday, is being organised by Anam Prem, an NGO, with the objective of “making the transgender community self-dependent through dignified modes of income generation”.

“This mela gives a platform to the hundreds of transgenders across the country and will make everyone aware of their entrepreneurial potential. It would also remove the long-held (negative) societal perceptions about the community,” said Manisha Parab, a volunteer from the group.

Full Story Here.

Random Monday

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All photos © C. Ford. I haven’t photographed Bull Riders in some time, but it’s always interesting, and a tad dangerous. Great way to get your camera absolutely filthy, too. I’ve come very close to being seriously injured when someone comes flying over the corral fence, and been charged more than once, too, as in the last photo. He was coming straight for me, and I held my ground long enough to get a shot, then scooched back *very fast*, in time to watch and hear the head clang on the corral fence. The only caption on that type of shot is “Oh Fuck!” There’s more here.

First Nations community grappling with suicide crisis: ‘We’re crying out for help’

People take part in a candlelight vigil Attawapiskat. Photograph: Chris Wattie/Reuters

People take part in a candlelight vigil Attawapiskat. Photograph: Chris Wattie/Reuters

After 11 people tried to take their own lives on Saturday evening, exhausted leaders declared a state of emergency. On Monday, as officials scrambled to send crisis counsellors to the community, 20 people – including a nine-year-old – were taken to hospital after they were overheard making a suicide pact.

“We’re crying out for help,” said Attawapiskat chief Bruce Shisheesh. “Just about every night there is a suicide attempt.”

[…]

There is no single reason for the toll. In Attawapiskat, Shisheesh pointed to overcrowded houses riddled with mould, drug abuse and the lack of a recreation centre that could give youth something to do. But mostly, he said, these children have fallen victim to the deeply rooted systemic issues facing Canada’s First Nations.

Chief among those is the lingering impact of the country’s residential school system, where for decades, more than 150,000 Aboriginal children were carted off in an attempt to forcibly assimilate them into Canadian society.

“You can’t attempt cultural genocide for 140 years, for seven generations – the last of these schools closing their doors in 1996 – and not expect some very real fallout from that,” author Joseph Boyden wrote this week in Maclean’s. “Attawapiskat is a brutal example.”

Rife with abuse, the schools aimed to “kill the Indian in the child”, as documented by a recent truth commission. Thousands of children died at these schools – the absence of dietary standards in the schools left many undernourished and vulnerable to diseases such as smallpox, measles and tuberculosis – with hundreds of them hastily buried in unmarked graves next to the institutions. In nearly a third of the deaths, the government and schools did not even record the names of the students who had died.

The legacy of these schools sits silently under the surface of much of First Nations life in Canada, often combining with deplorable living conditions to produce deadly results. Last month, after six suicides in some three months and more than 140 attempts in a two-week span, another remote community – the Pimicikamak Cree Nation in northern Manitoba – also declared a state of emergency.

[Read more…]

Atheists Fight to Offer College Scholarships

FFRF Ad.

FFRF Ad.

LOS ANGELES (CN) — A school district in California’s high desert refused to include scholarship offers from atheist groups in the lists they distribute to students, the groups claim in court.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Antelope Valley Freethinkers sued Antelope Valley Union School Board and its High School District on constitutional grounds Tuesday in Federal Court. […]

The Freedom From Religion Foundation annually offers $17,950 in college scholarships, and the Antelope Valley Freethinkers offered $1,750 in scholarships to three winners.
Both groups asked applicants to submit an essay on the challenges of being a “nonbeliever” or “freethinker.”
Both say the school district and Palmdale High School refused to make their scholarship announcements available to students, though the district did announce other scholarship offers that “solicited religious speech, required applicants to be religious, and dealt with the historically controversial topics of homosexuality and guns.” […]

Freethinkers president David Dionne, a plaintiff, says in the lawsuit that Deputy Superintendent Jeff Foster told him that “he couldn’t approve the scholarship the way it was worded because it would upset some parents. In particular, he cited the following sentence as particularly objectionable: ‘Perhaps you’ve been ridiculed, harassed, or punished for speaking up against religion in the classroom, at school events, in government, or within your family.'”
When Dionne offered to rewrite his announcement, he says, Foster told him: “”We simply do not have the time to ‘word smith’ language that might be acceptable to the district and yet meet the intent of your organization.”

Full Story Here.

Across the Pond: Prove Your Gender!

Ny Richardson.

Ny Richardson.

It looks like the insanity currently infecting uStates is spreading, all the way across the pond. Naturally, there’s a whole lot of denial going on, nothing new there, and there’s been quite the effort to blame the victim. Full Story Here.

Ny Richardson, a 16-year-old from Yorkshire, England, claims she was kicked out of her local McDonald’s after using the bathroom because the staff thought her gender didn’t match the facilities she used.

“I ordered my food and left it with my girlfriend as I went to the toilet,” Ny told Yahoo News. “When I was in there, someone told me to get out and when I sat back down, the manager came over and told me that I needed to leave because I have been in the girls’ toilet.”

Richardson protested and the manager asked the teenager to show her ID to prove her gender [Ed. note: C’mon, guys]. When she failed to produce any ID, the manager told her to leave and called the police.

Richardson says she was humiliated by the experience and calls the manager’s attitude towards her “disgusting.”

“I’m still angry about it now,” she added.

Los Angeles Bans Official Travel to North Carolina, Mississippi.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti

“With one stroke of their pen, Gov. Pat McCrory and Gov. Phil Bryant have jeopardized the safety and dignity of countless transgender, gay and lesbian people — who are already at an increased risk for violent crime,” Garcetti continued, referring to the governors of North Carolina and Mississippi, respectively. “As someone who has fought for many years on behalf of LGBT Americans and their right to equal protection under the law, I will continue to do everything in my power to keep L.A.’s tax dollars from supporting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

“State-sanctioned discrimination only perpetuates intolerance, hatred and violence,” said Councilmember Mike Bonin, who authored the resolution, in the same press release. “That is not at all what Los Angeles stands for, and today, we are sending a clear message that we will not endorse — with our dollars or our participation — discrimination toward our transgender, gay, lesbian, and bisexual sisters and brothers.”

Bloody well took them long enough. At least they have finally joined the sane faction in this toilet fight. Full Story Here.

“No Soy Tu Chiste ( I Am Not Your Joke).”

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© Daniel Arzola.

Out: What prompted you to create the “No Soy Tu Chiste” campaign?

Daniel Arzola: Since I was a teenager I had been creating art with a purpose, with a social voice, a cry in a universal language. I started with poems, then photography, and finally illustration. For me art has always been a social expression. I called it “Artivism.” But, my story is not very different than the stories of so many gay and trans Venezuelan people. I had a difficult adolescence where I was constantly chased and bothered. When I was about 15 years old, neighbors tied me to an electrical post, took off my shoes and tried to burn me alive. They destroyed all my drawings.

I escaped. But, so many people don’t have the chance to escape from something like that. There was one guy who couldn’t run away—he was gay—his name was Angelo Prado. I saw it on the news. What struck me was that, even in this century, when you turn on the TV in Venezuela, if they talk about LGBT people, there is mockery. They are laughing about the pain of others. Making us a joke.

Full Article Here.

Sunday Facepalm: Our God is Bigger!

A Troup ISD student wears religious shirt (Facebook)

A Troup ISD student wears religious shirt (Facebook)

Troup ISD parents are upset after a letter was sent to the school district asking that a bible verse be taken down from its website.

The letter was sent out by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Brittany Taylor has two kids at Troup ISD.  She, along with other upset parents, are fighting a battle she says the schools can’t.

[…]

Parents at Troup are in the process of ordering shirts for their students that say, “Our God is bigger.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) said that’s not the point.

[…]

The bible verse that was on the website read  “As Goliath moved closer to attack, David quickly ran out to meet him.” It comes from the Old Testament.

The FFRF said the verse promotes Christianity.

“I’m hoping that we get to put it back up because everybody should have freedom of religion,” said Jesse Calley, 7th grader.

Even if the quote never goes back on the website, parents said they’re planning to send pictures of the students wearing the shirts to the foundation in hopes of getting a message across.

“It will be in our children’s hearts and they will not stop praising God because a group told them to,” said Taylor.

Full Story Here.

Our God Is Bigger. That sentiment has a whole lot to answer for, mostly in the form of one war after another, with corpses strewn across the landscape. It’s simplistic, and terrifying. How about “Our God Doesn’t Require A Quote.”?