Jerry Coyne discusses an interesting article that suggests that religious faith in countries is positively correlated with insecurity, as measured by income inequality.

Another interesting article supports the idea that fear of death can lead to greater religious belief. This study does not strike me as very rigorous in how it was done but it is suggestive.

One of the image problems that prevents Christianity from attracting men in America is that Jesus, with his long flowing hair that seems out of a shampoo commercial and wearing a robe that could be easily confused with a dress, seems effeminate and this can be off-putting to manly men.

But the undoubtedly manly Jesus’ General (who scores an 11 on the manly scale of absolute gender) points out that evangelical pastor Steven L. Anderson has revealed the heretofore hidden truth that Jesus actually had short hair and wore pants and that the mistaken image people have of what Jesus looked like is the result of deliberately misleading depictions of him by homosexual artists like Michelangelo who were covertly seeking to advance their gay agenda. As Anderson says, “Sodomite homosexuals such as Michelangelo painted Jesus to look effeminate and to have long hair in order to make him fit their own queer image… Anyone who has not had their mind warped by a so-called theologian or historian knows that a dress is a woman’s garment. The only men I have seen wearing dresses in 2010 are homosexuals, Catholic priests (sorry to be redundant), Islamic clerics, and Buddhist monks. These men are an abomination according to the Bible.” You can’t argue with that logic.

We are lucky that we have people like pastor Anderson to tell the truth and stand up for what it means to be a man. And talking of standing up, Jesus’ General highlights another important feature that pastor Anderson has cleverly deduced from the Bible that can tell you if someone is a manly man or not.

“Half of pastors would leave the ministry tomorrow if they could. Seventy percent are fighting depression and 90 percent can’t cope with the challenge of ministry… 1,500 pastors walk away from ministry every month because of moral failure, burnout, conflict, discouragement or depression… 80 percent of seminary and Bible school graduates will leave the ministry within their first five years.”

Who is saying this? Not some atheist gloating over the demise of religion. These were the figures quoted by Jonathan Falwell, who took over the ministry of his well-known evangelical father Jerry Falwell.

Ken Pulliam, a former fundamentalist preacher, provides additional statistics on the rampant dissatisfaction of evangelical preachers with their lives:

• 89% considered leaving the ministry at one time.
• 57% said they would leave if they had a better place to go—including secular work
• 71% stated they were burned out, and they battle depression beyond fatigue on a weekly and even a daily basis.

Pulliam makes the point that these statistics are telling all by themselves and that it is not relevant to compare them with other professions to see if they are better or worse. Evangelical pastors consist of people who are supposedly sure that they are doing god’s work and thus should be immune from the usual problems that the rest of us suffer from. What this data suggest is that many of these preachers think they are living a lie, that the beliefs they share with their flock is not true

While the media focus on a few high profile mega-church pastors to suggest that evangelical Christianity is flourishing, the reality is different. No thinking person today can believe that the Bible is literally true the way that these people say it is. Modernity cannot be shut out and it is taking its toll on many of them. It is really very sad.

An Anglican church in Canada welcomed pets to attend their services and Donald Keith, a new parishioner, took his dog Trapper with him. Since he was a newcomer, the vicar singled Keith out and invited him up in person to receive what is known as Holy Communion where you receive and wafer (and sometimes some wine or other beverage) to symbolize the body and blood of Jesus. (Catholics are told that the wafer and the wine actually become transformed into the body and blood of Jesus, but I am not getting into that here.)

When Keith went up, Trapper naturally followed him and the interim vicar said a small prayer and gave communion to Trapper too.

I thought that this was a nice story about a spontaneous friendly gesture on the vicar’s part. When you are handing out what seems like treats to everyone and there is a dog waiting expectantly in line, it is hard to say no. Apparently almost every member of the congregation found the gesture to be heartwarming. But one person took umbrage and went straight to the archbishop and as a result Trapper has been banned from receiving communion. And of course, the Jesus lovers are incensed. Former Watergate felon and now crazy-for-Jesus evangelical Chuck Colson says that this is the result of the dangerous trend of thinking that humans are not special in the eyes of his god.

If I believed in heaven, my guess would be that Trapper is more worthy of going there than the parishioner who complained about him.

This will be my last post. I expect to be taken up to heaven shortly at 6:00 pm eastern time with all the other true believers.

Some of you will be surprised that I will be among the select few, since I have been making the case for atheism and making fun of all religions, including Christianity, and thus would have seemed a sure bet for hell. It is time to reveal the truth. This was all a ruse on my part. I was deliberately trying to drive people away from Jesus because I was working as a double agent for the CIA (Christ Indoctrination Agency). Jesus wanted to weed out all those whose faith was weak enough that they could be swayed by atheist arguments. Jesus wanted only the truest of the true believers, those who are willing to completely abandon all evidence and reason and logic, and instead put their complete trust in the words in an old book of dubious origin and so he and Melvin and Harvey created this agency to carry out this task. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and most other atheists also work for the CIA and are in the top ranks of the organization, so you will have the seeming paradox that heaven is going to filled with people who were considered dyed-in-the-wool atheists on Earth. Life is full of these little ironies.

Some people say that 2% of the world’s population, or about 130 million, will be saved but they are wrong. There aren’t that many true Jesus lovers and heaven would not want to admit any riff-raff. We are a pretty exclusive community and only 144,000 people will be saved in the Rapture.

So I will soon be off to get my wings and harp and enjoy the delights of heaven, such as singing hosannas and hanging out with the Cherubim and Seraphim, whatever the hell they are, because the Rapture manual they gave all CIA agents doesn’t say. I am guessing that they are a comedy duo like Laurel and Hardy who perform their act between the hosanna sessions.

So goodbye and remember that the world actually ends on October 21. Until then you will experience five month of tribulation, which is not going to be a walk in the park. But cheer up. However bad the tribulation period is, remember that when it ends, it will be even worse in hell. And don’t forget to wear clean underwear for the underworld, ha, ha! (Just a little Rapture humor.)

There is a person named David Barton who has been pushing the idea that the US was founded as a Christian country and that the separation of church and state was not intended to be a guiding principle. He is widely quoted in evangelical circles as an authority on this topic and has been influential in setting guidelines for high school textbooks.

In early May, Jon Stewart invited him to The Daily Show which is where I first saw him. Barton struck me as a fast talking snake oil salesman who knows how to impress people with seemingly erudite knowledge and to my irritation managed to steamroll Stewart.

To his credit, Stewart realized that he had been snowed so last week he brought on a genuine constitutional historian, Richard Beeman of the University of Pennsylvania, author of the book Plain Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution, to set the record straight. (The book is on my list of things to read.)

You can see all the interviews.

David Barton part 1:

David Barton part 2:

Richard Beeman part 1:

Richard Beeman part 2:

Today’s Doonesbury cartoon continues his series on the Rapture

I also received this link from reader FuDaYi about people having fun with the Rapture with parties planned for the big day tomorrow. One person (an atheist, of course) is even offering pet care insurance for people who want to make sure that the pets that are left behind when their owners get taken to heaven will be looked after. This raises the serious theological question: Why don’t pets get to go to heaven? What kind of god would deny people the company of their beloved pets? I personally wouldn’t want to spend eternity without Baxter.

Not everyone is enjoying the publicity this event is garnering. “When we engage in this kind of wild speculation, it’s irresponsible,” said the Rev. Daniel Akin, president of the Southeastern Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. “It can do damage to naive believers who can be easily caught up and it runs the risk of causing the church to receive sort of a black eye.”

Of course it does. The church deserves to get a black eye because they are the enablers of these people. His concern about ‘naïve believers’ being misled is hilarious since that group constitutes his entire base. If you encourage people to believe in nonsense, you shouldn’t complain if they believe in nonsense that is different from the nonsense that you believe in.

One of the key cases involving church-state separation (discussed in my book God vs. Darwin: The War Between Evolution and Creationism in the Classroom) was McCollum v. Board of Education (1948) which involved a challenge to the practice of public schools granting “release time” for the teaching of religion in school buildings during the school day to those students and parents who agreed to it. The U.S. Supreme Court by an 8-1 vote ruled the policy unconstitutional. This was the first time that religious instruction in public schools had been explicitly ruled to be unconstitutional under the U.S. constitution.

It turns out that Vashti McCollum, the feisty mother who brought the case objecting to this practice and braved the wrath of the religious people in her small town in Illinois, is still alive died only in 2006 (thanks to reader George for pointing out the error) and some PBS stations will be broadcasting a new award-winning documentary The Lord is Not on Trial Here Today that deals with her case. Here is a preview.

If your local PBS station is not listed on that site, you can call them and ask them to consider showing it.