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?

The case of the Brazilian child who was raped, impregnated, and then had an abortion has taken a predictable turn. Sensible, rational people saw this as a tragedy, but one with a simple partial solution: the abortion was necessary to save the life of a young girl who could not possibly bear the burden of an unwanted pregnancy. The Brazilian Catholic church saw it differently and excommunicated everyone associated with the decision. Then the president of Brazil took a public stand against the church’s unjust decision. Now at last, we hear from the top of the Catholic hierarchy…and the Vatican sides with fetuses over children. No surprise there at all.

Somehow, a church that preaches about a god of love has turned into a tableaux of empty gilt robes, devoid of human compassion, dedicated only to the perpetuation of a dead dogma. The utilitarian argument that religion at least provides comfort to people in need ought to be extinct now.

Adding to my joy of late is a remarkable article predicting the demise of evangelical Christianity in our lifetimes.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the “Protestant” 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

Do I believe it will happen? I confess that there’s a good bit of wishful thinking on my part that clouds my judgment, but I have high hopes, and I think it entirely possible. This particular article is especially interesting because it is published in the Christian Science Monitor, and it’s written by a Christian (well, more accurately, “a postevangelical reformation Christian in search of a Jesus-shaped spirituality,” whatever that means), writing as an insider with intimate knowledge of the evangelical movement. He’s not happy about it, either, which makes the article an interesting read just because every time he intones an article of woe in his litany of doom, I’m feeling like pumping a fist in the air and shouting “Yes!”

He places the blame on several factors. 1) Evangelicals hitched their wagon to conservative politics, and that cart is busted. 2) Christian media has been superficial and failed to teach them the basics of their belief (which I don’t think is quite as damaging as he thinks—teaching the actual scripture is a great way to make atheists). 3) Megachurches. Enough said. 4) Christian education has failed. 5) Christianity has become a taint rather than a selling point in efforts to do good works. 6) Confidence in the bible and faith are waning. And probably most importantly, 7) “The money will dry up.”

One caveat to his explanations, though, is that he is making specific predictions about a very narrow part of the Christian spectrum, evangelicalism. We still have to worry about the crazy Charismatics, the freaky Fundamentalists, the conservative Catholics, and all those weird little splinter sects all over the place. Christianity isn’t going to simply vanish, it’s simply going to submerge for a bit, be a little less flamboyant and openly money-hungry, and maybe be a little less politically influential. Those are good outcomes all around, in my opinion.

He also wants to predict that a new and vital Christianity can arise from the ruins. Let’s hope not — I want to see a clearing away of the detritus of superstition to allow for a new Enlightenment to shine forth, instead.