The sign had two sides

I neglected to show you the backside of that sign in St Joseph. It doesn’t get any better.

Jesus provides the only worldview that offers forgiveness

Right…”Jesus provides the only worldview that offers forgiveness”. As if that’s a positive message — it’s also the worldview that insists that we are all evil, rotten, god-cursed creatures from birth, and who therefore need magical forgiveness. I can also negate it by stating the my wife, the goddess Mary, is a very nice person who would also offer any of you forgiveness (while I am the converse, the being of eternal judgment who will never forgive you no matter what you do). I would argue that my imaginary pantheon is more complex and difficult than your imaginary singleton god, and therefore you should worship us, because we are more unique than you are. So nyaah.

By the way, both sides feature that odd “quote” nonsense — when the words don’t seem to be quoting anyone in particular. Do a google search, you won’t find that specific sentence anywhere. I suspect they were added simply because someone thinks that quoting an authority sounds more…authoritative.

Also, neither side has any attribution — whether it’s an individual or church or whatever who put it up is unknown.

A real sign

We were driving along I94, and took the exit to St Joseph, Minnesota…and right after we exit, what do we behold?

With atheism, there is no hope, only despair

I guess it’s what you expect in a town with a “St” in the name.

How about you, fellow atheists? Are you full of despair?

Announcing…FtBConscience

This blog network has decided to put on a show. We go to conferences a lot, we have conversations with all kinds of atheists, we have things to say and we know you do, too, so we have decided to put on our own conference, with our themes and interests. And because we’re a blog network, we’re entirely comfortable with doing it all in our pajamas, so we propose to do this entirely with the technology our readers have on hand already: the internet. And further, we’re going to do it entirely for free — if you can get on the internet, you can access the talks and panels. If you can type, you can converse with everyone in our chat room.

A conference for atheists with a conscience

An Online Conference
19-21 July 2013

FtBCon is a free, online conference organized by the Freethought Blogs network. It will take place on July 19-21 and will focus on social justice, technology, and the future of the freethought movement. Without travel, registration, or hotel costs, FtBCon will be accessible to freethinkers around the world. Conference sessions will be held through Google+ hangouts, and attendees will have the opportunity to interact with each other in chat rooms and to submit questions to moderators.

We are currently assembling our schedule. If you or your organization are interested in participating, submit your session ideas for consideration by e-mailing PZ Myers with a proposal.

See that last bit? The event is a month away, and our schedule is filling up, but we also want to make this a participatory event that draws out your voices. If you’re part of a group that you’d like to see represented, if you have something valuable to say that fits into our overall theme, contact me soon and we’ll see if we can fit you into our programming grid.

There is a long list of scheduled speakers at FtBCon.org. Want to listen to them? Want to join them? Come right here to FreeThoughtBlogs on 19-21 July.

CDD

Oh, those wacky mixed-up Christians and their warped authoritarianism. There’s this…thing… going around called Christian Domestic Discipline (CDD), in which Heads of Households (HoHs; there are lots of acronyms here) are encouraged to spank their wives. That’s right, it’s always husbands doing the spanking — anything else would violate God’s natural order, of course.

Christian Domestic Discipline, or CDD as its adherents call it, is a movement that seeks to carry out God’s will. Which specific plan of God’s? Oh, you know, just that all women obey their husbands fastidiously — a dynamic that CDD thinks is best maintained through doling out out corporal punishments. Its few thousand practitioners, however, claim that it’s not domestic abuse.

The very-serious practitioners have this discipline have conveniently put together a 50 page guide to spanking your wife (pdf) — somehow these obsessive cranks always get carried away trying to justify their abuses. It’s terrible and ridiculous. Read the thing, and all you learn is how much these kooks want to infantilize women.

An atheist goes to church: The Catholic Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Oh, gob. I’m beginning to crack. This whole series was a ghastly mistake. As I was sitting there in the pews (unpadded this time!), it began to sink in that I was bored, excruciatingly deeply terribly bored, that these people were saying nothing of any interest to me and never would, and that the whole affair was a dreadful waste of time. It was all coming back to me, the dreary tedium of church, and I wondered how all these people can bear it, going to this same ritual week after week after week.

I’m trying to make a sincere effort to learn what the religious folk in town are getting out of this tedious affair of going to church, but it’s evading me.

But there must be something to it — guilt, a sense of obligation, inertia? — because this was the biggest one so far. Over 150 people were in attendance on a beautiful summer day…another reason it was such a waste. It didn’t help that the Catholic service was so much more coldly formal than the protestant churches we attended in the last two weeks, either. There was lots of bouncing up and down, stand, sit, kneel, but I suspect it was all part of a plan to keep people from falling asleep during the service.

Let’s see…anything good I can say about it?

Well, the music was much nicer. The hymns were a little bit more sophisticated with more complex melodies then we got elsewhere. Part of that might have been that they were all led by a woman who had a most excellent singing voice. Usually, church congregations singing a hymn is an example of regression to the mean — the song averages out to a mumbly drone. With this woman in charge, though, I could actually listen to the music, and it was good.

The sermon wasn’t the informal punditry we usually get. Instead, they led up to it with three bible readings, all on the theme of sin and forgiveness, and then the priest gave a short discussion interpreting and explaining the meaning of those verses. It was much more universal (hey! Catholic!) than a rant about the latest news or candidate or Americanism. So I actually kind of appreciated that it was a more philosophical discussion, even though I fundamentally disagree with the whole premise of original sin and redemption through belief.

We got to see a baptism! It was preceded by a litany of belief (Do you renounce Satan? “Yes, we do,” replies the congregation. Do you believe in Jesus, the Resurrection, etc.? “Yeah, yeah, you betcha” (or words to that effect) intone all the people (except me)), and then the priest dumped a whole pitcher of water over the kid’s head.

And finally, “Behold the Lamb of God,” said the priest, and he waved a cracker and a cup at us. It didn’t look like mutton to me. Everybody filed up to get their mouthful of Jesus, again except for me. I refrained since I knew that if I was recognized, there might be an unruly spectacle, and also because I’ve had enough of Jesus’ meat in my mouth for my entire lifetime.

Another concern is that they all share the same wine cup. How unsanitary. I mentioned to my wife on the way home that if ever the zombie apocalypse starts, the vector is probably going to point right back to a Catholic church somewhere. I get the cruds at the beginning of every school year just from being in the same room with mobs of students, I can’t imagine sharing spit with ’em all.

So we escaped right after that. One noteworthy thing that did save me from terminal boredom: all of the church services we’ve attended so far have been impeccably timed. Every one begin precisely at the stated hour, and exactly one hour later, we’re being sent on our way. I’ve been impressed so far.

But still, an hour is an hour too long. I feel obligated to go to another one next week. I may need to pray for strength.

That’s not obnoxious. I could show you obnoxious, if you’d like.

Down there in sunny wingnutty Florida, a judge recently decided that Christian groups could “passively” distribute Bibles in public schools — that is, they could leave them on tables and allow students to pick them up. Mary Elizabeth Williams thinks that’s a bad idea, and I agree — it’s a decision that opens the door to “passive” proselytization.

The Central Florida Freethought Community decided to make a reasonable response, by passively distributing some literature of their own. And now Williams decides that atheists are just as obnoxious as Christians.

But after “1,700 students left school with Bibles” in the wake of one of those “passive” distributions in 11 schools last winter, the atheist groups decided to make a point. They asked for permission to distribute some materials of their own, including books and pamphlets with titles including “An X-Rated Book,” “Jesus Is Dead” and “Why I Am Not a Muslim.” Which if I’m not mistaken is a douche move.

Ms. Williams is mistaken. It is not a douche move. It is a responsible protest. Is the only protest that she won’t regard as a “douche move” one that is completely unobjectionable and does not annoy anyone in any way? Because that isn’t any kind of protest action at all.

And what’s so bad about these particular pamphlets and books? “An X-Rated Book: Sex & Obscenity in the Bible” is a biblical exegesis. Jesus Is Dead is Robert Price’s analysis of the historicity of Jesus; it’s a serious book that examines the sources and the myths. Why I Am Not a Muslim is Ibn Warraq’s call for human rights and rejection of the dogma of Islam.

In the light of a court decision that allows Christian groups to flood the schools with lies and nonsense, a secular group decides to offset that influence by providing honest scholarship and serious discussions of the issues within religion. What’s douchey or obnoxious about that? Did Williams just recite the titles expecting people to react emotionally with shock and horror because they’re obviously critical of faith? Has she read any of the books in question?

What’s really a douche move is for a columnist to blow the Jesus dog-whistle to get knee-jerk support for labeling atheists as “obnoxious”, without considering for an instant the substance of their arguments. Oh, no, they said “Jesus is dead,” they must be bad, bad people, and you must agree because they are giving kids rational reasons to turn away from faith. Oh dismay. Oh fretful dithering. Oh how dare they.

And I say, oh fuck Jesus and Mohammed and all those other frauds, and be grateful that atheists are being gentle and generous in their efforts to help educate children. Because those pious fanatics who oppose us won’t be generous in return.

An unconstitutional poll

A Republican legislator is trying to give religion yet another special privilege. He wants to insert a provision into a defense bill that says the federal government can ignore the first amendment when it comes to putting up monuments.

“This provision creates a foundation in federal law for emblems of belief on war memorials and monuments,” Hunter said Thursday. “Emblems of belief … should be protected.”

Oh, really? Why? So you can only honor those people who have the right beliefs? What happens when, say, someone puts up a memorial to the Muslims who died in New York?

Go vote on the poll.

Do you think the Federal government should protect historic "emblems of belief" like the Mount Soledad cross?

YES 74%

NO 25%

Atheism has no desire for martyrs, so please stop creating them

In Syria, you aren’t free to argue in even the mildest terms about gods.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the boy had been arguing with someone about the existence of God, and was heard to say: "Even if the Prophet Mohammad returns, I will not become a believer."

But other sources suggested that the comment was misheard, and that the boy was actually arguing with another customer over giving him a free coffee, saying "Even if the Prophet returns, I will not give you a free coffee."

Qataa was reportedly abducted and tortured for 24 hours, before being dragged into the middle of a crowded street and executed in front of his mother.

It was quite explicit that he was murdered for atheism.

The Observatory said in a statement: “People gathered around him and a member of the fighting brigade said: ‘Generous citizens of Aleppo, disbelieving in God is polytheism and cursing the prophet is a polytheism. Whoever curses even once will be punished like this’.

“He then fired two bullets from an automatic rifle in view of the crowd and in front of the boy’s mother and father, and got into a car and left.”

I curse that cowardly gunman’s god a thousand times, and I won’t give him any free coffee, either.

Mohammad Qataa was 15 years old, and killed for being smarter than a pious thug.

An atheist goes to church: First Baptist

This is Minnesota, where all the Scandihoovians are Lutheran and all the Germans are Catholic, and there ain’t no one else. Well, at least that’s the stereotype. Since we went to the liberal Lutheran church last week, because that’s what I grew up in, my wife suggested that for parity’s sake we attend a church like the one she was brought up in. She was Baptist, once upon a time. Would there be any Baptist churches here?

Yes, there’s one. So we dropped in this morning, and Mary introduced me to Baptist culture.

First shock: Baptists sleep in. The service didn’t start until 11am. I know! They’re stealing an atheist advantage there! Mary said that was typical, though. There were also more Baptists in town than I expected, with about 60 in attendance.

The second mild surprise was that the whole service is practically non-stop hymn singing, and that they had a pianist, an organist, and a violinist up front to accompany us. I was used to liturgies & chants & recitatives breaking up the occasional hymn, but no, we opened up the hymnal as soon as the service started (promptly at 11, and again, it ended promptly at noon) and worked our way through a series of hymns with one interruption for the offering collection and one for the sermon. And we sang every verse of every hymn! Of course, every song had the same structure: two line verse, followed by two line chorus, then repeat and repeat and repeat.

The music did nothing for me, but then I wasn’t brought up in it. Mary got caught up in the rhythms, which I found interesting — early childhood experiences seem to program us to respond to particular patterns, and I could tell that I’m a Lutheran atheist and she’s a Baptist atheist. Irreconcilable differences, I guess we’ll have to divorce.

Wait, no, I think the atheism cleared those conflicts away. Whew!

Then, the sermon. Scratch that, the “message”. It started off well.

It was built around Psalm 147, and the pastor was telling us about the things God is not impressed by…and the first one was by show of force. Was this going to be a pacifist message? I might like this guy after all.

Alas, it was to be that only certain shows of force fail to delight the Lord. God is not impressed with North Korea’s parades of tanks and missiles, and they keep shooting missiles at us (Really? Where?) and they keep missing. And hey, Napolean invaded Russia with 600,000 men, and nearly all of them died to God’s winter, and the same for Hitler’s army. Ditto for Pharoah’s army, which chased Moses across the Red Sea, and then God made their chariot wheels fall off. They’ve found those chariot wheels at the bottom of the Red Sea, too. (No, they haven’t. This is more propaganda from wacky Ron Wyatt, who made that claim — I can tell what kind of literature the good Reverend is reading!)

God is also not impressed with snobbery — he’s all about the little people. Somehow this was illustrated by the example of our president traveling overseas to visit terrorists and communists, but being unable to find time for the funeral of the great Margaret Thatcher. I didn’t quite get the connection, but OK, he was rambling on at this point.

The third thing God does not find delightful is…secular thinking. Modern people are all bowing down to the god of medical science, and engineering science, and geological science, and did you know that George Washington almost died because the doctors kept bleeding him? But William Harvey, a Christian scientist, discovered that the heart was a pump, and showed them all to be wrong. I was feeling rather confused at this point, since a) the doctors who were bleeding Washington would have been Christian, too, and b) William Harvey discredited the practice of bloodletting in 1628, and can’t really be credited with saving George Washington in the 18th century.

Then my favorite part: “Evolution is only a theory, not a proven fact, and did you know that intelligent people don’t believe that theory?“ He actually said it. I guess I won’t be joining his church, then.

Then the sermon got really incoherent, and not pacifistic at all.

This guy was really obsessed with Israel. He told us a story about how as a boy delivering newspapers he read about the Six Day War in 1967, and how Israel with God’s favor whipped all of its enemies until the United Nations forced them to stop, and now the UN is trying to force Israel to turn over most of Jerusalem to Arab Terrorists. Israel good, UN bad.

He also told us how the US had the North Koreans beat and chased them all the way to the Chinese border, and then the Chinese started massing troops, and General MacArthur asked to use nukes on them, and got turned down by Truman. I got the distinct impression that this servant of a god who is not impressed with shows of force thinks we should have nuked the Chinese.

America has become more concerned with its own house rather than God’s house, and is in moral decline, what with all this homosexuality. We must pray for America to humble herself so that God will heal her — if we don’t pray, we’ll find ourselves in the midst of a Nazi-Communist America! We have forsaken the Chosen People of Israel! God has made a covenant with one nation, Israel — not America, not Germany, not France, only Israel, and Israel is a monument to God and a witness to show that the End Times of the book of Revelation will come to pass!

You get the idea. It wasn’t quite my cup of tea. I would have been curious to learn if the majority of the congregation were as rabidly pro-Israel as their minister, but then it ended abruptly, the minister announced that we were dismissed, and we left.

I was impressed that it started precisely at 11am and stopped exactly at noon. So far these services have been remarkably well-timed. Otherwise…no, I’m not tempted by any of them.

By the way, this particular church is a member of the New Testament Association, which has a few rules.

Q. What is the NTA position on sexual practices?
A. Each local church sets its own standards, but we commonly hold to these practices. We believe in monogamy and sex only within the bond of marriage (between a man and a woman). We do not accept homosexuality, abortion, and other conduct that is contrary to the teaching of Scripture.

Q. What does the NTA believe regarding dietary practices?
A. We believe it is improper for believers to use alcoholic beverage in any form, tobacco in any form, or illicit drugs of any kind. A balanced diet (consisting of meat, vegetables, and fruits) should be maintained conducive to good health.

So, no gay vegans allowed in this congregation? I can’t even wash out the taste of the sermon with a beer afterwards?

There are other people who aren’t welcome.

Affiliated churches of this Association: 1) Shall be composed entirely of immersed believers. 2) Shall have declared by vote their agreement without mental reservation with the Statement of Faith and the Preamble of this Association. 3) Shall not be in affiliation with any other national association of churches. 4) Shall not be in affiliation and/or fellowship with any organization which condones the presence of religious liberals or liberalism.

Darn. I guess I shouldn’t go back then.

P.S. Padded pews again! What is it with these decadent modern folks and their pampered butts?

I have much to learn in the ways of heresy

I am a mere novice. So I threw a cracker in the trash — big deal. Valerie Dodds found a way to really annoy the church.

A Catholic school in Nebraska says it is praying for a former student who returned to campus to take nude photos and masturbate with a crucifix.

Valerie Dodds, 19, told KETV that she started a nude photography business after graduating from Lincoln East High School. But she said some her classmates from her former school, St. Pius X High School, started “saying mean things and that’s when I decided to go there and show them that I’m here to stay.”

She has since been arrested for public nudity and trespassing. I’d like to offer my sympathy and stand in solidarity with her on this one, but I don’t think I’ll go quite so far as to emulate her. I know you’re all relieved.