Yesterday, I got a request to publicize a drive to promote charitable giving by atheists; then today I’m pointed to a list of atheist charities. Perfect! Bring these two together, and we’ve got synergy: we should all be doing what we can to help the needy, and now we have an excellent list of good destinations for your giving.
I’m very much looking forward to the opening of The Golden Compass at the end of this week — and we’re even getting the premiere here in little ol’ Morris. I’m having mixed feelings about the way it’s getting enlisted in the culture wars, though. It’s a fantasy movie, and it’s ultimately going to succeed or fail on its merits as entertainment, not its ideology.
Still, I have to like the attitude in this Mark Morford column.
It’s this: If your ancient, authoritarian, immutable belief system is threatened by a handful of popular novels, if your ostensibly all-powerful, unyielding creed is rendered meek and defenseless when faced with the story of a fiery, rebellious young girl who effortlessly rejects your stiff misogynistic religiosity in favor of adventure, love, sex, the ability to discover and define her soul on her own terms, well, it might be time for you to roll it all up and shut it all down and crawl back home, and let the divine breathe and move and dance as she sees fit. Don’t you agree?
The movie is a pawn in the War Against Religion, whether we like it or not. It better not suck.
Here’s a very useful document that I got from August Berkshire (you can also get this in pdf form from Minnesota Atheists): 34 Unconvincing Arguments for God. I guess he forgot to include all the convincing arguments for gods, but I’m sure some wandering delusional troll will try to provide some. That’s OK, I’m sure August would be willing to increase the number in his title.
Anyway, maybe a better title would be “34 arguments for god, and why they are unconvincing”. Go ahead and make suggestions to improve them, I think August will be checking in and following along.
The dying grandma gambit is a scenario familiar to most atheists; it’s been played out a few times in this thread. I’m sure you know it.
Clenched fist salute to Pat Condell:
Exactly.
There is a Sunday School for Atheists? I think it’s an interesting idea to have a special school on Sundays for people to teach their kids about ethics and family, but it shouldn’t be for atheists — Christians need it more. I know they already have something called Sunday School, but I went through it, and it wasn’t about values: it was about memorizing bible verses, mindless arts and crafts, and antique and false stories illustrated on a felt board.
Besides, we already have a Carnival of the Godless and a Sunday Sermonette. If we just had a felt board and some colored cloth, maybe we could re-enact science stories for the kiddies.
A Canadian school board has decided to remove Philip Pullman‘s books from its schools’ shelves because people complained that the author is an atheist. This is a remarkable objection, obviously. I mean, we don’t see school boards screaming to remove Chuck Colson’s books from the shelves because the author is a convicted felon, which seems to me to be a much more serious indicator of moral turpitude than atheism, nor do we see a call to eject books by Ann Coulter because she is incredibly stupid, and is therefore a poor role model for students. It’s just atheism that spurs this objection.
I think we ought to run with it. The school board didn’t go far enough. Let’s purge school libraries of all books by atheists.
Here’s a fun exercise: since we already have Christianity Today underwhelming us with the most compelling argument for Christianity, how about if we compile Pharyngula’s list of “What is the FEEBLEST reason for becoming a Christian?”
I’ll start with the easiest answer: all of them.
