Man, those visits to Fargo and Maine sure stirred up a lot of people. I’ve just been getting an unusually large volume of mail lately, and it’s about evenly split: half are saying “Yay, I’m going to read your blog every day!” and the other half are “You’re going to burn in hell!” It seems appropriate, then, to at least acknowledge this flood by posting one of them.

Nate is trying to pull a Ray Comfort on me. There’s a reason why people call Comfort “Raytard”, so he really isn’t the right person to emulate.

You

Hi Paul,

The ten commandments:

1. No other God’s…. even yourself.
2. No idols… none!
3. Take God’s name in vain…. Never.
4. Keep the Sabbath day… every week!
5. Honor you father/mother…?
6. You shall not murder… Jesus said to hate your brother is to murder…. Ever hate anyone?
7. You shall not commit adultery… Jesus said to lust after a woman is the same… Lust?
8. No stealing… ever stole anything.. even minor?
9. Bear false witness?
10. No coveting… ever!

How did you do? If you are like everyone else you probably failed to keep 8-10 of these. Not a good sign for anyone that believes in God. I guess for now the easier thing to do would be to put him out of our lives. Of course in the end we will have to face the music no matter what we believe… or maybe Jesus faced the music for those who do believe. He can change your life as he has many. God is calling you.

How did you do with the ten commandments?

With love,

Nate Stead

Whoa. Slapped down with the Ten Commandments. No one has ever tried to do that to me before.

1. Not only do I have no other gods, I have no gods, period. I ace this one and deserve extra credit. Score: 1½.
2. Idols, are you kidding me? Of course not. No idols, no fetishes, no funny costumes or hats, no rituals, no hymns, no saints. I’m completely free of that nonsense. Score: 2½.
3. There is no god, so no name to take in vain. And what does that mean, anyway? When I say, “Jesus was a deluded kook whose suffering does not excuse anyone’s sins”, I’m not taking his name in vain at all. Score: 3½.
4. “Keeping the sabbath” is another nonsensical idea. Sure, I keep it; it’s a day on the calendar, it’s awfully hard to lose. But if you mean I have to be like those crazy fundamentalist Jews who don’t even flip a light switch on Sunday, no. I hope this guy isn’t serious about wanting to establish that kind of principle for everyone. I’m gonna give this one to myself. “Keeping” a day is so vaguely defined and even Christianist kooks differ in what it means. Score: 4½.
5. Of course I honor Mom and Dad. I love ’em to pieces. Easy. Score: 5½.
6. I have never murdered anyone. Never even killed anyone. And the commandments specifically say “murder”, not “hate”, so I reject your redefinition. Score: 6½.
7. Likewise, I’ve never committed adultery. And once again, you don’t get to redefine the commandment to mean, “Think Raquel Welch looked hot in that wetsuit”. Score: 7½.
8. No, I haven’t stolen anything, either. I make a reasonable wage, have relatively few material requirements, and haven’t needed to steal. I know, this wanker is probably going to redefine stealing to mean “Watched Indiana Jones snatch away a jeweled idol in a movie and thought it was cool” to mean I broke both #2 and #8, but I reject that fatuous word game, too. Score: 8½.
9. No, I don’t lie, either. It’s so much easier to tell the truth. Oh, there were probably a few negligible childish fibs once upon a time, but I’ve never harmed people with a lie, or tried to use a lie to get away with something. Score: 9½.
10. Uh-oh, caught me. Yes, I covet stuff all the time. I walk into bookstores and lust after so much stuff; I’ve got a long Amazon wish list, and I like my computer gadgets. So?

So, I score 9½ out of 10, and most Christians, by Nate’s admission, score 0-2. That has to sting; here he’s dreaming of someday watching the heathen burn in torment from a ringside seat in heaven, but I do better at following the commandments than he does!

But wait, I know Ray Comfort’s schtick, so I know what comes next. God has given us these ‘laws’ that are virtually impossible to keep, so everyone breaks them at some time, but it’s OK, because if you accept Jesus in your heart, it gives you license to break all these laws, and still get into heaven. If you’re a Christian, you can lie, steal, commit adultery, and even murder, and still get divine approval. And if you follow every single one of the ten commandments, but don’t love Jesus, you still get sent to hell.

So what good are these commandments? The people who think the source is credible also get carte blanche to break them, and the only people who are expected to stick to them are the ones who reject the Bible…and they are damned anyway!

So, Nate, I suggest you take your ten commandments and stuff them up your nether orifice. Sideways. No lube. And look! There’s no commandment against it!

Meh. Some progress: 1653 words, but not very satisfied with what I got done. Scribbling away on airplanes and in airports doesn’t lend itself well to focus.

We had a fine evening here at Bates College in Maine, and here’s our group photo of the elites who gathered for calamari, Maine food, and beer afterwards. Note satanic red glowing eyes.

You may notice that some of us are wearing an interesting orange necklace. That’s a cephalopod from Noadi. Not only are they pretty, but I can guarantee that they ward off vampires.

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Oh, and you can get an account of the talk here. It was all about blasphemy.

Today was a big day for revision and cleanup — I cut out some of the weaker stuff I’d written before. I think deleting words ought to count for just as much as adding words, but I’ll refrain from complicating the tally that way.

Productivity for Sunday, 27 September:

1651 shiny new words, one brand new piece added to the pile, a few other pieces buffed up.

I’m trying to have some serious writerly discipline here, so I’ve been hammering at the keyboard all day, and will do more tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, etc., until it’s all done (my goal is to wrap it all up within a month). As part of the process, I’m going to start posting a summary of my output at the end of each day.

So, productivity for Saturday, 26 September:

4105 words, three pieces mostly complete; one’s a little rough and needs some overall polish, another has a weak ending that needs some tightening.

I’m finding the stuff I write in the morning to be a lot cleaner than the later work, so I don’t expect to get quite those numbers tomorrow; I’m going to sink some time when I’m fresh to just sharpening up the clumsy bits.

More travel this week: I’ll be in Lewiston, Maine to speak at Bates College, at 5 p.m. Tuesday, 29 September, in Room G65, Pettengill Hall. And from there I’ll be flying to Los Angeles for the AAI convention.

Lots of flight time is lots of writing time, right?

Jebus, they can’t shut me up. Just got back from the afternoon discussion, which went on for two hours. It was great fun. Of course…

My opening remarks were about being assertive atheists who challenge conventions and do things like desecrating crackers…

…and a priest, complete with clerical collar, was right there in a good seat smack in the middle of the auditorium.

He looked a bit peevish, but didn’t say very much. A few of the other Catholics around him expressed how offended they were, which was fine. They could have taken more time to state their case, if they wanted.

Good times. You should have been there.

Remember, tonight, 6:00, Fargo Theatre…it’s your last chance to get a piece of me. It’s small and it looks like a big crowd might turn out, but if you want to give me a piece of your mind, I’ll be available just outside the theater around 9:30 for a bit. The price for telling me how wicked I am is one beer.

I’m keeping busy here — we had a packed house at my talk (which was all wonky sciencey biology stuff) last night, I did a press conference this morning which might get a few soundbites floating around North Dakota, spent a little time on the Christopher Gabriel show on WDAY radio, and now get a brief break before I head over to NDSU for a 2:00 discussion session on atheist activism, which should be fun. I plan on briefly discussing the Creation Museum trip and desecrating communion wafers, and then let other people howl back and forth for a while.

At 6:00, it’s time for the Fargo Theatre and Julia Sweeney’s Letting Go of God, and I need to warn you: it’s a small theater. The audience I had last night would not fit in it. If you’re hoping to go, either go early to get in line, or just figure on going to the 9:30 showing instead and missing my post-movie talk. I’m not planning on posting the talk here, as I usually do, either — I’m writing a book, you know, and a polished and slightly expanded version of this talk will be going in there, so you’ll need to buy my book if you can’t get into the theater.

I am venal and cruel, I know.

I’m traveling to Fargo on Wednesday for a series of events. I think I know what I’m doing, so let me spell out as much as I know.

On Wednesday at 6:00, I’ll be speaking at Minnesota State University Moorhead, in room 118 in the Science Lab building, on the subject of “Darwin and Design”.

Wednesday evening afterwards? I don’t know. Somebody will probably take me by the elbow and lead me to beer.

Thursday morning I’m doing a press conference with the Red River Freethinkers, and then at 11ish, I’m going to be on WDAY radio for a short while. Tune in!

Thursday afternoon at 2:15 2:00, I’ll be engaging in an informal panel discussion at NDSU (location to be announced). I’m planning to talk about godless activism, but I’ll also address questions, so who knows, we could find ourselves walking down some strange paths.

I just heard from the organizers: here’s update information on the Thursday panel.

Jason did all the advertising and scheduled it for 2:00pm 9-24-09 at the Century Theater at NDSU. The century Theater is located upstairs in the Memorial Union on campus. 12th ave is torn apart. I would advise anyone to take I29 North to 12th ave North and go right. On 18th Street go left and then go right on Centennial BLVD. If they have to come from downtown, AVOID Main ave bridge connecting Moorhead to Fargo!

Thursday evening at 6, we’ll be watching Julia Sweeney’s movie, Letting Go of God, at the Fargo Theatre. After the movie, I’ll be making some remarks — I’m going to talk about narrative and story-telling, and its value to atheists.

Sometime after 9, elbow, beer, somewhere, again.

It should be fun! I shall be talked out, all of North Dakota will be tired of me, and I’ll go home the next day to shackle myself to the book again!

I give you all fair warning: my daughter Skatje has passed her driver’s test, and has a license to drive. Alone. Without her father sitting by her side, hands clenched tightly to the armrest, feet pounding the floorboards to hit imaginary brakes, and using the force of his indomitable will to prevent collisions, explosions, squirrel-squishings, etc.

You might just want to stay home for the rest of your life.