Easter is for everyone

The churches open their doors to everyone who wants to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the central mythological event in their belief system…except clowns. No clowns allowed!

I have been moved by this tragic rejection, and while they are obnoxious and annoying, I can see where clowns have their place in the world. I have therefore re-enabled anonymous commenting on Pharyngula. Beep beep.

However, if you’ve figured out all that typekey stuff, you might as well keep using it — some of you have noticed that once the busy work is done, it actually simplifies commenting. I’m also going to reserve the right to turn off anonymous commenting at any time — for instance, when I fly off to Oregon this week and my ability to police the site is limited, I’ll probably require registration once again for those three days.

Todd Friel wants to know what you think

We were all greatly amused at the exchange between deer-in-the-headlights evangelical Todd Friel and Christopher Hitchens. Do you know what would make it even funnier? If Friel tried to twist the outcome by leaving it up to…an internet poll! He couldn’t possibly be goofy enough to do that, could he?

Yes, he could.

If you listened to the Christopher Hitchens:
Was Todd’s approach…

76% said: A) Just right.
7% said: B) Terrible.
17% said: C) Could have used more apologetics.

Vote fast, vote soon. This is a Christian radio evangelist’s site, so you just know that as soon as the numbers start going against him, the poll will either disappear or be mysteriously finagled.

Chaplains begone!

I’m impressed. Usually, a blunt statement of religious belief can be remarkably offensive, but in this case a Harvard chaplain used weasel words to magnify the appalling nature of his remarks.

Harvard Islamic chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser ’96 has recently come under fire for controversial statements in which he allegedly endorsed death as a punishment for Islamic apostates.

In a private e-mail to a student last week, Abdul-Basser wrote that there was “great wisdom (hikma) associated with the established and preserved position (capital punishment [for apostates]) and so, even if it makes some uncomfortable in the face of the hegemonic modern human rights discourse, one should not dismiss it out of hand.”

One could argue with the interpretation that he “endorsed death as a punishment” since he didn’t actually say that outright. Instead, we got implications.

  • He says death for apostasy is an “established and preserved position”. This is probably the least ghastly of his claims, since it is at least true in some places.

  • There is “wisdom” in murdering people who reject your beliefs? Where? So, if I said Abdul-Basser was betraying an important academic tradition of open thought, would I be wise to suggest he deserves execution? I think not, and I add, I definitely would not under any circumstances endorse such an evil proposition.

  • He thinks killing people who leave Islam might make “some uncomfortable.” Uncomfortable? Uncomfortable? If my neighbor suggested that they were thinking of painting their house in green and pink stripes, then I might reply that that made me “uncomfortable”. If he seriously suggested that it might be a good idea to execute registered Democrats who didn’t vote for Obama in the last election, I think I’d be calling the police and the hospital…and freaking out just a little bit.

  • If pushing human rights for all people is hegemonic, who is being oppressively dominant? Do we really need to respect the right of a priestly class to dictate what others are allowed to believe?

I have a suggestion: dismiss Abdul-Basser out of hand. To be fair, fire every single one of the university chaplains, and send them packing. Universities should not be in the business of pandering to student superstitions; it’s not as if there is a dearth of churches and chapels and religious organizations already surrounding and intruding upon the campus — remove the official endorsement of the administration and banish them all from the secular business of running a university.

Another sign of victory

Old timers here may recall the saga of Abunga Books, an online bookstore with the sole distinction of having a feature that allowed customers to ban books from the inventory that they didn’t like…which meant, of course, that evolution and atheism and anything that touched on those two was promptly purged. You can imagine how people here responded to that empowering policy: they scurried right on over to help ban the Bible and C.S. Lewis. The hypocrisy of Abunga was then exposed: they honored requests to ban Phillip Pullman, but banning the Bible was not allowed. So much for the illusion of vox populi.

You will be pleased to learn that now, after about a year, Abunga Books has quietly expired. There will be no funeral. Nobody cared.