We’ve all seen the stories about Jesus in a cinnamon roll, or the Virgin Mary in a stain on a window, and they’re all getting a bit old. That fervent religious mindset will impose a Christian interpretation on just about any random blob. So here we go again, another unbelievable hallucination.
All right, England, enough is enough. Every Christmas, those people over there get some fabulous secular midwinter celebration, and what do we godless Americans get? Another war on Christmas waged by an indignant Bill O’Reilly, and maybe some pathetic civic spectacle as some state capitol has various sects jostling for display space. Boring!
Now look at what you can see in London: Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, with Robin Ince, Richard Dawkins, Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden, Simon Singh, Richard Herring, Robyn Hitchcock, Ben Goldacre, Chris Addison, Brian Cox, Martin White’s Mystery Fax Machine Chamber Orchestra, the BHA Choir, and some mysterious Very Special Guests. And it’s popular! It’s already sold out, so they had to open an extra show! You better snatch up tickets soon.
We should have a similar godless Christmas celebration here in Morris, Minnesota, except that the local talent pool is a little thin. I think it would just be the local village atheist, PZ Myers, slumped in a chair, blogging. Maybe if I put on a pointy party hat and were draped with tinsel, it would be bit more festive?
Remember that ridiculous pro-faith Alpha Course that had the transit ads that looked like a poll? Now they’ve actually put up an online poll. Best thing about it: look at the results already.
Yes 20%
No 74%
Probably 6%
Heh. How about making it look even worse?
Hey, they locked out votes from Pharyngula! Try this link instead.
I suppose it’s nice to know I’m not forgotten, but it’s still a little weird that I occasionally get email from Bill Donohue, just out of the blue. Like today.
secular sabotage
PZ,
Just to let you know, I did not forget you when I wrote “Secular Sabotage.” You made the cut the old fashioned way–you earned it.
Bill Donohue
I don’t know what prompted that, but it is good to know that I have a reputation for working hard. I wouldn’t want to be thought to be a mere welfare heretic, coasting along on handouts from theological anti-patronage, you know.
The Smithsonian Institution is opening a new Hall of Human Origins in mid-March.
It’s crazy — they’ve spent $20 million on exhibits describing events that occurred before the universe even existed 6,000 years ago!
OK, I confess: I completely lack the tools and background to evaluate this claim:
A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.
Except for one thing: the proponents of this idea are operating in the world of pure speculation, and have no evidence to support it, yet. That tells me that I’m best off provisionally rejecting it. I’ll start incorporating crazy counter-intuitive notions about the nature of the universe when the cold implacable hand of the universe starts shoving them down my throat, not before!
Atheists are familiar with the Grandma Gambit — it’s a common tactic used to shut us up. We’re told to keep quiet because our dear sweet devout Grandma couldn’t possibly deal with the news; it would break her heart and you wouldn’t want to do that, would you? What kind of callous rat would hurt a gentle little old lady!
It’s a rather patronizing suggestion that belittles Grandmas everywhere. Both of my grandmothers were feisty types who would have relished a good argument (and one of my grandmothers, who died when I was 12, would probably have just said, “good for you”). Go ahead, break the news to Grandma — it’s much more respectful than treating her like a delicate flower that would wilt at the thought of you not going to church.
Here’s a more realistic reaction from a Christian grandmother who hears that you’ve left the faith: an argument, in the form of a 33 page handwritten letter which is almost entirely a creationist screed. It’s interesting, too, because I see this a lot, that nowadays the response to apostasy is often built around arguments against evolution. There is an expectation that faith is not enough, and that calling the faithful back to the fold is a matter of reasoned argument with ‘science’ on their side. Unfortunately for them, they don’t have any science at all, and Grandma’s letter is a series of creationist canards, from the “just a theory” error to the absence of transitional fossils, all wrapped up with bible verses.
So Grandma wants to talk; what does the grandson do? He writes back with a 17 page letter, neatly typed, with charts and figures! Bravo! This is how loving families should deal with faith, by simply caring enough to wrestle with the ideas between them.
Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Mormon Church has made some interesting remarks.
In an interview Monday before the speech, Oaks said he did not consider it provocative to compare the treatment of Mormons in the election’s aftermath to that of blacks in the civil rights era, and said he stands by the analogy.
“It may be offensive to some — maybe because it hadn’t occurred to them that they were putting themselves in the same category as people we deplore from that bygone era,” he said.
Did you get that? He thinks the Mormons, who are trying to deny a civil right to another minority and reserve it to themselves, are exactly like a minority that were denied a civil right and had to fight to get their equality recognized.
I’m not offended. I’ve just determined that the elders of the Mormon Church are a collection of antiquated, dumb old bigots.
So…when can we start taxing the Mormon temples? And when is California going to kick their regressive, but intrusive, little butts out of the state?
There’s one thing that could make this video funnier.
It would be Bill Donohue waxing apoplectic over that video.
Hallelujah! My prayers are answered!
Comedian Sarah Silverman appeared on Bill Maher’s HBO show on October 9 attacking the Vatican. She began her monologue bemoaning the plight of world hunger, and then found a solution: “What is the Vatican worth, like 500 billion dollars? This is great, sell the Vatican, take a big chunk of the money, build a gorgeous condominium for you and all your friends to live in…and with the money left over, feed the whole f—ing world.”
Speaking of the pope, Silverman continued, “You preach to live humbly, and I totally agree. So, now maybe it’s time for you to move out of your house that is a city. On an ego level alone, you will be the biggest hero in the history of ever. And by the way, any involvement in the Holocaust, bygones….”
Silverman closed by saying, “If you sell the Vatican, and you take that money, and you use it to feed every single human being on the planet, you will get crazy p—y. All the p—y.”
Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds as follows:
Silverman’s assault on Catholicism is just another example of HBO’s corporate irresponsibility. Time and again, if it’s not Bill Maher thrashing the Catholic Church, it’s one of his guests. There is obviously something pathological going on there: Silverman’s filthy diatribe would never be allowed if the chosen target were the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and the state of Israel.
Here’s a reality check for Silverman: the Catholic Church operates more hospitals and feeds more of the poor than any private institution in the world. It also saved more Jews during the Holocaust than any other institution in the world.
Factcheck time, Bill!
In America, as of 1999, 13% of all hospitals were religious (totaling 18% of all hospital beds); that’s 604 out of 4,573 hospitals. [6] Despite the presence of organized religion in America, the Church has managed to scrape together only a few hospitals. Of these 604 hospitals many are a product of mergers with public, non-sectarian hospitals. Not all of these 604 hospitals are Catholic; many are Baptist, Methodist, Shriner (Masonic), Jewish, etc.
Despite the religious label, these so-called religious hospitals are more public than public hospitals. Religious hospitals get 36% of all their revenue from Medicare; public hospitals get only 27%. In addition to that 36% of public funding they get 12% of their funding from Medicaid. Of the remaining 44% of funding, 31% comes from county appropriations, 30% comes from investments, and only 5% comes from charitable contributions (not necessarily religious). The percentage of Church funding for Church-run hospitals comes to a grand total of 0.0015 percent.
Oh, and Catholics and the Holocaust? It was complicated. The Vatican dragged its feet for years; they could have done so much more.
