You better watch out, because Skatje is glaring at us, and she shoots laser beams out of her eyes.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
You better watch out, because Skatje is glaring at us, and she shoots laser beams out of her eyes.
“Kill them with kindness”?
Skatje has nothing on my favorite 2008 candidate.
Yeah, but Zod isn’t also 17 and cute.
And Zod ain’t no Tristan J. Shuddery either.
Did your daughter inherit those laser eyes from you or from her mild-mannered mother?
I just read Chris Hedge’s book, American Fascists and I now feel like there is more reason than ever to be angry with what so-called “Christian” right-wing fundies are doing to this country.
From a Democracy Now! interview from February:
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Why did you write this book?
CHRIS HEDGES: Anger. I mean, I grew up in the Church and, of course, as you mentioned, graduated from seminary, and I think these people have completely perverted and distorted and manipulated the Christian message into something that is the very antithesis of certainly what Jesus preached in the Gospels.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/19/1545218
The dominionist-type fundies are truly scary, they control a lot of media, and a lot more people need to get angry about what those fucking assholes are doing to this country.
“just with more beards”… kids are so cruel!
Chris Hedges, quoted by CalGeorge:
And he knows this because. . . ?
Let’s face it: the words of Jesus — assuming the man ever existed — are irrecoverable. Think of all the distortions which occur when a professor lectures and the students try to take notes, and multiply that by a generation or two of oral transmission. The more one searches for an “original text”, trying to reconstruct an ur-gospel from the fragmentary documents still remaining, the more one realizes the dubious nature of the enterprise. The NT’s only explicit reference to Trinitarian doctrine was added by a fourth-century hand; the Pericope Adulterae (“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” etc.) has a similarly disreputable provenance. The search for the “historical Jesus” has not advanced materially since Reimarus started the business in the 1700s.
Taken in toto, the canonical gospels are inconsistent. They can’t agree on biographical details of their central figure, and the anti-Semitism ramps up considerably between Mark and John. In places, they are as brutal as the Old Testament, and when they do preach “peace”, what they proffer is in truth more like Charles Foster Kane’s “love on my terms”. Rather than an abjuration of violence, they urge the deferral of violence; instead of equality, they advocate hegemonic domination by a particular group.
An interpretation of the New Testament supporting modern ideals of love and liberty — the “hippie Jesus” — is just as dependent upon selective quotation as is the “fundamentalist” version.
I know that Hedges is supposed to be my political ally, but by appealing to “what Jesus preached” he is pushing his own, unverifiable interpretation of an ancient myth. He is propping up the relevance of an old and bloody book. Designating our modern theocrats as “so-called Christians” reveals the same essentialist thinking which George W. Bush employed when he said that Osama bin Laden practices a deviant, degenerate form of Islam. On what grounds can we dispute a fervent self-identification when no empirical or rational reasons exist to uphold a “valid” interpretation or version of the holy texts? To deny these men the label “Christian” is to deny the same designation to Constantine, and paves the way for claiming that Judas Maccabeus was not a real Jew.
(Yes, I’ve been reading Hector Avalos. Why do you ask?)
Blake raises some excellent points and I just wanted to respond to this:
>>An interpretation of the New Testament supporting modern ideals of love and liberty — the “hippie Jesus” — is just as dependent upon selective quotation as is the “fundamentalist” version.< < I submit, it is MORE dependent on selective quotation. As Sam Harris also points out, in a different context, those American Abolitionists who WERE of a religious bent, may have been morally correct, but they were decidedly on the LOSING side of the Theological argument. The Bible is clearly hunky-dory with slavery. Moreover, Maimonides also explains that "Thou Shalt Not Kill" (i.e. Thou Shalt Not Murder, to be more precise) only meant to apply to in-group morality. It was NOT the universalistic proscription we read into it today. (tip of the hat to Dawkins for pointing this out to me in THE GOD DELUSION) Instead of trying to bend and contort ancient scripture to "fit" our more enlightened, evolved, civilized moral senses, why not dispense with bronze age tales altogether and just proclaim those modern secular moral positions outright and defend THEM. Defend rational inquiry, scientific method, and humane action in the world. Because that's the only thing that ever PRODUCED "moderate" Christianity to begin with. Moderate Christianity "evolved" as a byproduct of Enlightenment rationality. Thus to push "moderate" Christianity as a force for change and progress is putting the cart before the proverbial horse; it's doomed to fail and misses the point. There's no purified "ur-Christianity" >>out there<< waiting to be found that will reconcile everyone and everything. The Engine of Change is the same-as-it-ever-was, for Voltaire, for Tom Paine, for Diderot, for Robert G. Ingersoll, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, PZ Myers, Dawkins, et. al. The more Christian movements apply rational scientific inquiry to biblical scholarship, the more "liberal" they tend to become until they provoke a Fundamentalist "backlash". Harvard was originally founded as a conservative REACTION against liberal trends in the Church of England. But today, Harvard Divinity School would be considered on the leading edge of "liberal" Christianity. Given enough time and material progress, and openness to rational methods of inquiry, its not impossible to imagine places like Liberty University or Bob Jones University going (eventually) someday (say, thanks to theists like Rick Warren of THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE or Joel Olsteen and other Mega-churchers) the way of Harvard Divinity School, only in turn to provoke yet another conservative fundie backlash, etc, ad nauseum. Fuck it--Let's just break that cycle altogether. Moderation in Christianity reminds me of "moderation" in chemically dependent people...the point is you gotta quit cold turkey and make a fresh, clean break if you're ever going to build a better life for yourself and others. Just my $0.02 worth.
Basically we “militant” atheists would like moderate theists to “shit or get off the pot”, to put it crudely.
Embrace the woo, or don’t, but MAKE UP YOUR F*CKING MIND.
I guess that’s my $0.04 now.
I agree that the scriptures are crap (that’s got to be worth at least $0.02,) but don’t you think it to be karmic justice for the likes of Robertson to be eviscerated by the “sword of truth” that they brandish so carelessly?
We know it’s crap but a lot of people have been raised on a sticky meme version of the message of Jesus. You know, the love and beatitudes one.
Despite the errancy of the Bible, I would still like to see those that pretend to hold it so dear be exposed as having trashed the “true message of the love of Christ”. It just has a nice symmetry to it.
Having just finished Dawkins’ THE GOD DELUSION, I’m continually amazed how anyone can characterize this man as some kind of “fire breathing militant”; persistent, yes, passionate even but–unfailingly polite in that uniquely British manner.
I guess the real point in dealing with moderate theists–no, don’t be rude, don’t slap them in the face–but don’t throw them a sop either or concede ground you oughtn’t. Be persistent and keep after them. Make them uncomfortable. Challenge their assertions, appeal to their humanistic morals and point out the glaring contradictions between those and what their holy book actually says. I think only “militant” atheists are capable of doing that…and that moderate theists are the only ones who can be persuaded…to abandon faith as untenable and join us as secular humanists. If they hang on AS theists, they’re unreliable, “fair weather” friends, of limited utility. Moderate atheists having a polite conversation with moderate theists achieves at best a temporary detente, and that’s being generous. The Fundies, mind you, view this as WAR; They won’t be restrained by “moderate” theists, who need to be reminded they’ll be next on the target list if we fall.
If we loose a few of them to the fundies in the process, well, *shrug*….then by their own twisted logic they should thank us for “restoring” their “faith”.
If they’re going that way anyway, they’ll stop listening to you, shut down their critical faculties and start spouting bible verses in a supposedly grown-up, sophisticated version of “nya nya nya can’t hear you blah blah blah blah”
Rick, I am going to say that the Bible is only 90% crap, and I certainly don’t think it is a reliable guide for life, it has surprise elements: Job (which is not likely a Hebrew story) and Eccelesiastes who doesn’t even seem to have been all that religious.
I am going to re-read them soon, because even though Job cops out at the end and accepts it when God changes the subject from Justice to Creation, Job asks some great questions about how ridiculous it is to accept that there is a deity interested in punishing the wicked and rewarding the guilty. Ecclesiastes determines that while material goods in themselves don’t bring happiness it is still good to enjoy life because we all end up as dust sooner or later. All is vanity.
Most of the rest of the Bible is crap, but some of it is intriguing, including the pornography that we call Song of Solomon.
Rick T (#11):
Reminds me of John Mack’s line in WarGames, “I loved it when you nuked Las Vegas! Seemed like a rather Biblical ending to the place.”
If we agree that there’s no evidence that Isis, Brahma, Zeus, Yahweh or any of their ilk exist, then we have no empirico-rationalist reason to exalt the sacred books of their traditions. Saying that anyone should object to oppressive politicians “because that’s what Jesus would have wanted” is as farcical as doing so because Odysseus would have insisted. It’s a rhetorical trick, and all such sophistries have their limits, particularly when for the short-term gain they uphold the root causes of long-term problems.
I second that emotion: I’ve just replied at Skatje’s blog (there’s apparently no way to link to specific comments there, so you’ll just have to find it if you’re interested) to a commenter who compares Dawkins’ “militant” atheism to Andrea Dworkin’s militant feminism, which I think gets it completely wrong. Dworkin’s message (or at least, the Cliff’s Notes version of it most people mean when they refer to her in debate) seems to be “if you’re not already a feminist, you’re a pig and a rapist,” while Dawkins’ message is more like “if you’re not already an atheist, don’t worry: It’ll make more sense to you if you just think about it.” Big diff, IMHO.
On another note, while I agree that there’s no philosophical reason to prefer moderate theists over radical ones, in practice the social ills owing to aggressively political fundamentalists and dominionists is orders of magnitude greater than those owing to kindly Anglican vicars puttering around their country parishes. We’re not going to banish theism overnight, so there’s some value in doing a bit of triage regarding how and when to speak out. Or so it seems to me.
“Rick, I am going to say that the Bible is only 90% crap”.
You’re probably correct but I was raised to believe that the Bible was inerrant and held the answer to life’s questions. I even went to Bible School and became a youth pastor. I was a silly youth. I did, however, think that if it was the infallible word then it could hold up to scrutiny. That led to questions, then college and finally to the godless heathen I am today. I simply like the freedom of disrespecting the Bible. Calling it crap “just feels good” (to quote the believers who defend their theist views).
Also, it’s crap because as my momma says, “You are judged by the company you keep”, and those 3 books are keeping ridiculous company.
By the way, I read a comment on this blog a while back that the end of Job where God makes up for all his losses, was an add on ending. The original was just God being a prick and leaving it at that. Do you know anything about that, Mike?
“It’s a rhetorical trick, and all such sophistries have their limits, particularly when for the short-term gain they uphold the root causes of long-term problems.”
I agree, but it would be nice to see the Pat Robertsons of the world beat with their own stick. Just the same as Ted Haggard being caught in homosexual activity. We all know that homosexuality is not a sin but he is revealed as a hypocrite and that brings a smile to my face.
I believe we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can impeach Dick and George while at the same time doing necessary work in the Congress. I believe we can use the religious rights’s words against them and expose them as evil hypocrites while still showing the supposed Word of God to be a work of men, and uneducated men at that.
Hey, Mike! When you get around to re-reading the bible, how about skipping all that other stuff and starting with the Book of Ester? It’s easily the most secular book in the bible, without a single mention of god or prayer, even in the greatest extremity. If you read it carefully, it’s also loaded with information about the world it describes, starting with the staff party that Xerxes throws after the summer season at Susa, the blind panic that overtakes the court when the queen disobeys him (he gets drunk and orders her to show herself off to the servants), and the fuck-off (I am using the term literally) by which Ester becomes the new queen. And that’s just the first couple of chapters. Nobody writes short stories like that any more. Check it out!