Possummomma has gone silent

Many of us were fans of Possummomma and her blog, Atheist in a Mini-van. She was a passionate writer, struggling to make ends meet with her family, coping with lupus, and also having to deal with a lot of anti-atheist-bigotry in her community and online. Well, they finally got to her: she’s gone offline and has put her blog under password protection, all because of some extreme harassment and accusations from, believe it or not, Christian fans of a dopey reality TV show. It’s a long, sordid, complicated, ugly story which I’m not going to repeat here, sinc The Calladus Blog has covered it thoroughly. The short and simple summary:

Venomous Christians, threats, and stalkers. Enough was enough. Possummomma has been libeled and attacked online, and stalked in real life. This isn’t good for her family, or for herself. Stress aggravates the symptoms of SLE, and who needs that? This is one more drama, and P-momma just doesn’t have the energy to deal with it. She’s offline now, and the rabid Gosselin cult can high-five the fundamentalist preachers with a hearty, “Well Done!”

Possummomma’s co-blogger also supports the explanation. I have to sympathize — trying to fight the insanity of religion that afflicts our culture can wear one out, especially when there are bigger personal issues of family and health to deal with — but let’s all hope an opportunity to catch her breath and get a rest will be sufficient to restore an excellent writer to her role as a public advocate.

Radio reminder

This week on Atheists Talk radio, Hector Avalos is going to tell us how to fight ID and win, and Scott Lohman will be talking about secular humanism. Tune in at 9am Central, or if you’re elsewhere…

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What are we, lepers?

Elizabeth Dole is continuing her campaign in North Carolina of smearing her opponent, Kay Hagan, for simply associating with atheists. We atheists are the “most vile, radical liberals in America,” out to wage war on Christmas and stock boy scout troops with homosexuals, and we actively support political candidates who are atheists. I know … how dare we.

I have a personal reason to be offended, however. The Dole ads cite endorsements by two atheists, FriendlyAtheist.com and DaylightAtheism.org. Now hang on…what’s so scary about the Friendly atheist? And Daylight Atheism sounds positively pleasant. Couldn’t they find one mean, cruel, truly frightening atheist to give a testimonial, like maybe one with an obscure and somewhat intimidatingly intellectual name?

Yeah, I’m feeling left out.

I will say anyway that if you live in North Carolina and you have an opportunity to vote for the open-minded and thoughtful Kay Hagan and against the Rovian slimebeast named Elizabeth Dole, please do so. If she’s got the endorsement of the Friendly Atheist and Daylight Atheism and even Pharyngula, you know she’s on the side of goodness and light.

Wreckers

Some guy named Quentin Letts made a list of the 50 people who wrecked Britain. I’m a bit handicapped in reading it, since I don’t know who Quentin Letts is, and I have never heard of 9/10ths of the people being damned by him, but I did recognize a few, like Tony Blair and this guy:

Anti-religionist Dawkins, the best-known English dissenter since Darwin, is the merciless demander of provable fact.

He is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and tours the world lecturing the elites of the West that they are stupid to believe in any god.

He proselytises against the proselytisers, most of his targets wishing they had a fraction of his apparent certainty.

He is the anti-preacher whose sermons are designed to erode churchgoing and, with that, weaken our happiness.

A man less obsessed with himself and with the narrow calculations of men in white coats might realise that religion, although never offering proof of God’s existence, can sugar catastrophe and brighten chasms.

In times of turbulence, the human being is little different from the vole or the dormouse. It will take shelter where it can.

No amount of superior lecturing from an anti-Christ, not even one with so important a title as his, will alter that.

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Typical apologetic rubbish. Atheists aren’t trying to weaken anyone’s happiness; atheists are happy without god. We’ve discovered that you don’t need a veneer of lies to make it through life, and that the truth and reality and the real world are satisfying and beautiful — and that the nonsense the priests tell you is squalid and pathetic. The Trinity is a feeble glimmer next to the glory of the Calculus, Genesis is a short, limping, clumsy limerick next to the epic poetry of Evolution, and the mewling whining of sanctimonious theologians is a simpering whimper drowned out in the vigor and rigor of good, roaring science.

I actively despise this attitude that the purpose of an idea is to be a band-aid against reality — that the virtue of religion is glossing over pain with happy lies and wishful illusions. Yes, in times of turbulence we should seek shelter…but real shelter, in ideas of substance that can provide real help, not this dishonest sugarcoating.

He’s right, though, that it’s often tough to get people to accept the strength of reality when there’s always a slithering pack of lying con-artists always ready to provide glib promises of prosperity and immortality and love eternal at no greater cost than throwing away one’s intellect and integrity to believe in a fantasy. I guess Letts’ idea of what wrecks a country is a bit different than mine: I can see the ruin of my country all around me in the acceptance of the false dream of faith and the blind obedience to pious authority. I know, it feels so good to close one’s eyes and pretend all is well while the chaos rises all around, and damn those people yelling “WAKE UP!” — but they aren’t the wreckers. They’re the only genuine hope we’ve got.

Integrity

And courage. And, in these precarious economic times, a little bit of the crazy.

Hank Fox has quit his job at a newspaper. Why? Because they ran an article, in spite of his protests, that was plain, simple, taken-for-granted bigotry against atheists.

If you’re looking for godless heroes, there’s one; it takes guts to make these personal sacrifices for a principle. If you want to help him out, take advantage of his editorial services sometime. He’s also got a book in the works which will deserve your attention when it is published.

Texans keep going against the stereotype

Look, Texas is supposed to be all about the Gablers and Don McLeroy and the dwarf from Pampa and George W. Bush, and then the darned atheist Texans have to show up and ruin the image. The Texas Freethought Convention is happening on Sunday, 26 October in Austin — check out the infomercial. I wish I could go — it’s a state that hasn’t worked its way onto my itinerary yet, and I keep hearing about the good people working hard against rampant idiocy down there.

A little comparison

This new movie, Religulous, is doing reasonably well on its opening weekend, bringing in about $3.5 million. This is comparable to what Expelled brought in (about $3.7 million). There are a few differences, though.

  • Religulous hasn’t had much of an advertising campaign. Remember all the Expelled commercials everywhere, including The Daily Show? Maher’s movie has only relatively recently been getting plugged. It’s ads are more intelligently targeted, though.

  • Religulous only opened on 500 screens, compared to Expelled‘s 1000.

  • Religulous is coming off its opening weekend with great word of mouth and good critical reviews. Expelled attendance plummeted steadily from the first day onward.

  • One to think about, and maybe this isn’t a difference: Expelled had a built-in base of evangelical Christians to draw on (although many were disgusted by it, too). Does Religulous also draw upon a base of freethinkers? Is there a neglected audience for more godless entertainment? Will advertisers and investors figure this out?

They also have something in common. I’ve seen neither. I don’t think Bill Maher would throw me out of the theater if he spotted me in line, though. Or maybe he would — it was such great PR for Mark Mathis and company, wasn’t it?

“God is dead, and this is the best thing that could happen to us!”

My colleague at UMM, Michael Lackey, is interviewed by DJ Grothe on Point of Inquiry. He’s written a book on freethought in the American black community, and the interesting point is that black atheists embraced unbelief as a refuge from the Christian rationalizations for oppression — they saw religion as fundamentally anti-democratic, coming as it did from a closed system of knowledge.

You’ll also hear a discussion of post-modernism; hang out with enough English professors, and you’ll begin to realize it’s not as crazy as the caricatures make it out to be.

Radio reminder

Listen to Atheists Talk radio on Sunday morning — it could be an interesting one. First up is Stephen Matheson to talk about his position, theistic evolution. I hope that Mike Haubrich applies a little pressure there…otherwise, you guys better be prepared to call in with tough questions. The second half will be on the Islamic threat to secularism.

As usual, here is when it is on in your part of the world:

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