The Digital Cuttlefish has found an excellent expression of religious thought.
That isn’t photoshopped or fudged in any way — that is the actual, complete cartoon that Ken Ham has happily encouraged everyone on the internet to share around.
It’s perfect. We ask for evidence of their god, they point to one of their own silly texts. And we really are stunned, shocked, and surprised, just like the guy in the cartoon…because we had no idea anyone could be that stupid.
Boy, when you see those four words strung together in the title, you know exactly what you expect to see: sophisticated theology. They certainly do parse the temporal options finely to conceal the fact that they are proposing to to use the public school system to promote sectarian religious practice.
When do you think prayer is appropriate in high school football?
Over the public address system 33.77%
In the locker room 20.65%
At midfield after the game 19.44%
Before or after practice 17.44%
Not at all 8.7%
They left out “Whenever the opposing team scores a goal” and “When the cheerleaders do those high kicks” and “Someone ought to be constantly praying to make sure the earth doesn’t open up beneath us and tumble us down into Hell.”
The Montgomery, Alabama police have pious plan to send out priests along with the police on emergency calls. “Trained” priests, apparently, which means they’re going to be spending money on completely unqualified people who can provide no material assistance to tag along with the police. Why? Because it makes someone in the chain of command feel good, I suppose.
Do you think police should send out trained clergy to violent crime scenes?
No, there should be a separation of religion and government 66.64%
Yes, police and victims need all the help they can get. 29.98%
I don’t care either way. 2.45%
Not sure 1%
The only virtue I could think of is that maybe they’d put a check on the police and prevent them from shooting innocent people, but you don’t need to be a priest to do that.
Wow. Glenn Beck really is an authoritarian tool. Watch this clip; he’s ranting at the microphone at children, insisting that they must learn that their rights come from god.
You’ll be relieved to know that his tirade is directed only at little boys. You little girls out there are free to laugh at his magic god and recognize that your rights represent privileges and responsibilities conferred by your fellow human beings.
And I hope that the rest of you all see that bullying kids into guilt is also a bad thing. You don’t want to be like Glenn Beck, do you?
Atwill is this guy who claims to have evidence that Jesus wasn’t real: Christianity was a cunning product of a Roman imperial conspiracy, intentionally designed to placate those troublesome Jews, and he claims to have a Roman confession that he’ll reveal next week.
I think a few too many atheists are seeing “Scholar Says Jesus Was Fake” and are not thinking any more deeply than that. The whole idea is ridiculous.
The Roman idea of social engineering was to plant a legionary fortress, or retire a bunch of legionaries, into an area that they wanted to pacify. Incorporating regional gods into their pantheon by synonymizing them, sure; far-fetched long-term plans that would require centuries to mature into a tangible result, no.
Has there ever been a religion that was created by a government that actually caught on? Most religions die young; they have a very low success rate. It’s not a smart investment — it’s like buying a lottery ticket. If Romans had been in this game of inventing religions to win over the natives to Romanism, we’d see more examples of failures than long term success.
What would you think of a conspiracy theorist who announced that Joseph Smith had been a secret government agent with the mission of persuading a large number of people to settle that barren Utah territory? Or that L. Ron Hubbard was J. Edgar Hoover’s boy, part of a plan to provide an alternative to the Communist Party for impressionable youth? There are always people to whom a conspiracy theory is attractive, but more rational people would just laugh at the very idea.
Finally, as Russell Glasser points out, real scholars don’t spring the evidence on their audiences by press release or by public lecture — it is first reviewed by independent scholars for authenticity.
If you’re one of the many atheists who gleefully forwarded this to me or credulously mentioned it on twitter…hello, there. I see you’ve already met the good friend of so many half-baked wackos in the world, Confirmation Bias.
Richard Carrier demolishes Atwill in detail.
Answers in Genesis has gotten in the billboard business, just in time for Christmas.
To all of our atheist friends: THANK GOD YOU’RE WRONG
To which I can only say…but I’m not wrong, there’s no god to thank, so why are you talking to yourselves so publicly and loudly? It’s a bit embarrassing, actually.
Just in case you think you’re talking to us, I’m sorry — that message isn’t going to change our minds in the slightest.
Isn’t there a dank dark hole you should be crawling into somewhere?
Have you ever wanted to enter the seminary? (I know, this audience? Probably not). I was sent a copy of the application form to enter the Mount Angel Abbey and I thought I’d compare it to the application form to enter the University of Minnesota Morris (both of those are pdfs, by the way). It was enlightening.
Here at Morris we’ve got a bunch of questions about your academic status. There’s one section that asks about your ethnic background and sex, but it’s surrounded by red border and prominently states “Request for confidential information (Optional)”. It’s appropriate and focused.
The Abbey? It’s 16 pages long and asks for all kinds of details about your private life. Do you play video games? How much money do you have? Have you ever committed heresy? Have you ever had mental health issues? Have you ever impersonated a deacon, priest or bishop? (Wait, does that get you in trouble with the Catholics? Halloween is coming up…) It goes on and on.
The message is clear. You need to apply to the University of Minnesota Morris instead of the seminary. We don’t give a damn about what video games you like to play.
Leo Igwe has an op-ed on an African problem.
Some months ago, the aviation authorities in Swaziland issued a statement which surprised many people around the globe. They warned that high-flying witches would be penalised. High-flying witches? Be penalised?
Swaziland Corporate Affairs Director Sabelo Dlamini actually said, “A witch on a broomstick should not fly above the [150-metre] limit.” Wow!
Of course, on hearing this directive one may think it was something made up by someone bent on discrediting Africa’s last absolute monarchy. Far from it, it was a policy statement from the aviation authorities in Swaziland to regulate ‘witch-flights’ in this 21st century.
He concludes by setting a goal for Africans.
We must break the spell of ignorance that hangs over Africa. Fearful ignorant minds wasting precious resources fighting imaginary witches in winnowing baskets must be replaced with educated, honest people administering the forward progress of an emerging continent with real needs.
Are the authorities in Swaziland and Zimbabwe listening to the future calling?
I hesitated to post this, because it’s all too easy to turn this into a vindication of racist bigotry. But let me remind you that here in mighty America, we have white people claiming to have fought demons, legislators denying global climate change because a god promised not to ever flood us again, and of course, the perennial insistence that we must swear an oath to an invisible boogey man to take public office.
So I have to revise Igwe’s suggestion a little bit: We must break the spell of ignorance that hangs over humanity.
Sometimes, the British get very silly in their defense of religion. The Muslim groups got very very offended when the atheists slapped a label on a pineapple calling it “Mohammed”, and now the LSE has outright banned atheist groups, and is harassing them for wearing Jesus & Mo t-shirts.
I don’t have a pineapple, I am sad to say. I was tempted to run out and buy one. But I can do one better.
Meet Mohammed.
As an added bonus, he’ll keep longer than a piece of fruit would.
Do you have a Mohammed at your house? You should get one.
Another crank is haranguing me on twitter. This one’s conceit is that he’s writing emails from God. They’re bizarre: they’re anti-clerical and pro-god, and from them we learn that God has lousy grammar and spelling, and despite being anti-religion, is still pushing the same old tiresome patriarchal beliefs that religion does. Take, for instance, GOD eMails.info: eMail III, Subject: Women.
My dear women, I made you with pre-existing matters. I created you to honor, nature, share, and preserve life. I made each one of you with your own unique beauty. Nothing that walks on earth is more admirable than you women. Men of wisdom and science would respect you and protect you. And there is nothing men can do to stop him from falling in love with you women.
You noticed that your bodies will experience a change when you become pregnant, and your vagina would go through a painful trauma at the time of giving birth. The pain caused is something you women would never forget after you had experienced it. Its serves as a reminder not to choose as the father of your child any man insisting on you to fallow any organized religion.
Sincerely;
God. Your God.
It’s condescending bullshit that trivializes women by putting them on a pedestal and acting as if their great virtue is being beautiful for “men of wisdom and science.” And then leaps immediately into pregnancy, because after all, that’s what women are for and find most important in their lives.
What? The Genesis crapola about pain in childbirth twisted to be a reminder that you shouldn’t join a church? I’m going to have to have a talk with my wife; she sure put on a good act with all the sweating and straining and grunting and crying, but she couldn’t have felt any pain during labor, since the father of her children was consistently steering the family away from organized religion.
Religious kooks, please note: I despise you. God is now blocked.
