I’m sure you all remember that plane crash in the Hudson a while back, in which all the passengers survived thanks to the commendable competence of the pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, and the crew. What impressed the atheist community, too, was that this was not a case where the crew credited some fickle deity for keeping them alive — it was good old skill, training, and keeping a cool head in times of danger.

What if, instead, the pilot had trusted in a god? We’ve got an example of that, too.

A plane made a similar emergency water landing off the coast of Sicily in 2005. In this case, the Tunisian pilot panicked, and instead of taking emergency measures or even trying to reach a nearby airport, he instead chose to pray loudly. I’m sure that was reassuring to the passengers.

Sixteen people died.

Reason gets some revenge, though. The pilot has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for his neglect of his responsibilities. I like that; resorting to prayer represents an abdication of responsibility.

The Pope is on a grand tour of Africa, where he has been striking up a theme of — brace yourself — opposing superstition. The man who heads an institution with an official top exorcist is asking Africans to “shun witchcraft”, and to reject fear-mongering talk of evil entities…

In his homily, he urged his listeners to reach out to those Angolans who believe in witchcraft and spirits. “So many of them are living in fear of spirits, of malign and threatening powers. In their bewilderment they even end up condemning street children and the elderly as alleged sorcerers,” he said.

Right. Don’t believe in malign spirits, like, say Satan. Has the Pope become an atheist lately?

Oh, I guess not. He’s still demanding that people believe in supernatural occult powers that have battled and defeated other supernatural occult powers.

In his homily, the pope urged Catholics to try to persuade those who had left the Church that “Christ has triumphed over death and all those occult powers.”

If only they would turn their powers of skepticism, critical thought, and rejection of unfounded supernatural phenomena on themselves, the Vatican would implode overnight.

The physicist Bernard d’Espagnat has won the Templeton Prize. I don’t think much of the Templeton; I think it’s a rather devious organization that’s trying to sidle in support for superstition under the guise of science. However, in this case I have to commend their choice for the nice remark he made on receiving the award.

In a statement d’Espagnat said “I feel myself deeply in accordance with the Templeton Foundation’s great, guiding idea that science does shed light [on spirituality]. In my view it does so mainly by rendering unbelievable an intellectual construction claiming to yield access to the ultimate ground of things with the sole use of the simple, somewhat trivial notions everybody has.”

Oh, snap.

There’s a fellow who has been posting as an atheist on various sites, and making unusual claims — unusual because I have never heard an atheist say anything like this.

If a man wants to make a women his b****, so be it? So what if you don’t like it, what if I do?

If I want to do something, and my conscience is cool with it, then I can do it. If it’s feed a homeless person, so be it. If it’s kill my neighbor, so be it. I am not bound to any morals.

Wha…? That’s not what an atheist would say; it sounds more like an ignorant Christian caricature of an atheist. And what do you know, it was. Even better, the fellow who is doing this is Pastor Chris Fox of Kendalls Baptist Church in New London, NC. He has been confronted with his dishonesty, and he sees nothing wrong with it, even. Way to represent Christian morality, pastor!

Since this is acceptable Christian behavior, I guess that means I can visit various Christian sites, pretend to be born-again, and chatter about how that means I have acquired a taste for human flesh and want to gun down random people so they can go to heaven faster. Oh, wait, darn…I’m an atheist! I’m bound by human, social patterns of acceptable behavior, and don’t have an imaginary friend in the sky to give me a pardon for lying. Oops. I guess I’ll have to change my plans for the afternoon.

The Vatican astronomer made some strong comments against creationism…but I find them bizarre.

Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a “destructive myth” had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.

He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a “kind of paganism” because it harked back to the days of “nature gods” who were responsible for natural events.

Wait…did a priest of one weird cult full of bizarre ideas just claim that another weird cult was full of bizarre ideas? He’s right, of course, but he seems to have a blind spot for his own superstitions.

This, unfortunately, is complete bullshit:

“Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism – it’s turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do.”

His religion is a superstition, and I don’t believe for a moment that he wants science to keep it close to reality — if that were true, he’d be chucking out all those myths about triune gods, ritual cannibalism, magical transformations of crackers into holy meat, virgin births, miracles, yadda yadda yadda.

The tripe that religion provides a conscience is just a cliche…and one that is completely false. We’ve seen just in this past week that the Catholic church would rather that 9 year old girls die in childbirth, and that Africans should eschew protection from sexually transmitted disease in order to better follow the advice of ancient celibates.

If he wants to talk credibly about morality and conscience, first thing he needs to do is dump the evil archaic religion.

I find the results of this study to be simply sad, but entirely unsurprising. An examination of dying cancer patients showed that the most religious were also the most likely to ask for very aggressive medical care.

The patients who leaned the most heavily on their faith were nearly three times more likely to choose and receive more aggressive care near death, such as ventilators or cardiopulmonary resuscitation. They were less likely to have advanced care planning in place, such as do-not-resuscitate orders, living wills, and healthcare proxies.

“These results suggest that relying upon religion to cope with terminal cancer may contribute to receiving aggressive medical care near death,” the authors write in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association. “Because aggressive end-of-life cancer care has been associated with poor quality of death . . . intensive end-of-life care might represent a negative outcome for religious copers.”

Most religions are built on fear and ignorance, so we shouldn’t be at all surprised to find that these dying people respond to their situation with great fear, and with little planning or thought. I don’t even think it’s because religion tells people to ignore their wills or to seek the most excessive (and ultimately, futile) medical attention — this is a property of the kind of people who seek out religion.

A young man is languishing in an Islamic prison right now, for a terrible crime. Look at this travesty of justice, this product of primitive morality.

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the student journalist sentenced to death for blasphemy in Afghanistan, has been told he will spend the next 20 years in jail after the country’s highest court ruled against him – without even hearing his defence.

…

It later emerged he was convicted by three mullahs, in secret, without access to a lawyer. The sentence was commuted to 20 years on appeal. At that appeal, in October, the key prosecution witness withdrew his testimony, claiming he had been forced to lie on pain of death. The prosecution then appealed to the Supreme Court to reinstate the death sentence. The defence appealed to quash his conviction altogether.

Meanwhile, the student has been languishing in a Kabul jail, fearing for his life. Islamic fundamentalists have been baying for his blood while moderate groups have led marches countrywide demanding his release.

What was his crime? This is as bad as the criminality of the kangaroo court that convicted him.

Mr Kambaksh was found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to death last year for circulating an essay on women’s rights which questioned verses in the Koran.

Don’t question. Don’t support women. We’ll kill you if you do either. Is that the message?