A voice of reason

Recently Episcopal congregations have split from the Episcopal Church and have chosen to align with an Anglican branch (formed by a Nigerian Anglican archbishop) over disagreements with the Episcopal Church's liberal views on homosexuality (including the ordination of an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson). Of course, the Episcopal Church has sued to get their churches back.

Meanwhile Nigeria is passing draconian anti-gay laws.

On the bright side we have Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu saying:

"I am deeply, deeply distressed that in the face of the most horrendous problems -- we've got poverty, we've got conflict and war, we've got HIV/AIDS -- and what do we concentrate on? We concentrate on what you are doing in bed."

If you don't like it, call it satanic

The mayor of Moscow vowed not to let to allow a gay rights parade occur and called such events satanic. Press coverage seems to indicate the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church. Maybe this doesn't reveal religious hypocrisy since the ROC is the one true perfect religion and if they demonize gay rights marches you know it must be true.

In the Anglican conservative/liberal fight we have Nigerian Archbishop calling the acceptance of gay relationships as a "satanic attack" on the church.

Science is controversial if it disagrees with religion

It is absolutely crazy that schools are required to acknowledge every laughably incredible religious idea because science becomes 'controversial' when it disagrees with myth. A Seattle school board voted to prevent schools from showing the film An Inconvenient Truth unless the teachers also present "a credible, legitimate opposing view" as well. Um, where would one find that? Does a bible thumper count as "credible?" Not in my book.

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old."

How are teachers able to teach anything legitimate if religion and politics are allowed to decide the meaning of truth? I don't like what science says about climate change, lets vote it off the island.

Dick Cheney on the firing line

CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked the following question of Dick Cheney in an interview: "Mary Cheney's pregnancy raises the question of what's best for children," Focus on the Family declared. "Just because it's possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father, doesn't mean it's best for the child." Do you want to respond to that?

Dick Cheney ducked the question by saying "No, I don't." He then proceeded to say that Wolf Blitzer was out of line with that question. Given that the republican party has been aligned with far right religious groups for many years now and Cheney is a leader of that party I don't see how the question is anything close to out of line. I loved Jon Stewart's line for Cheney:
"how dare you apply my party's cruel and inhumane policies to my family."

Evangelism vs. environmentalism

I should give credit when I notice religious groups doing something right, but I don't see it very often. Here is a story of an evangelist who is working with scientists who for advancing environmentalist causes. The rationale for Richard Cizik's lobbying efforts is 'God wants us to be a steward for the earth.' This sort of motivation is completely lost on me, but hey, whatever works for you. We all have to live here, taking care of our environment is a logical necessity.

The ironic thing is that there seems to be a larger resistance to the work of from other evangelists (amounting to silence or antipathy towards the environmental movement) who seem to think that man has been given the Earth to use and to go forth and prosper (and by consequence, waste natural resources as though they will never run out) and that climate change is God's will that we can do nothing about. Is that f*&^%d up, or what?

The war without

I don't want to give the impression that I am annoyed at just the hypocrisy of christian religions. The muslim religion is just as guilty for being intolerant of other people's beliefs and way of life as any other religion (and in my opinion, MUCH worse).

It is impossibly difficult for an outsider looking at Islam to separate the difference between "extremists" (who see Christians as the enemy) and "moderates" (who see atheists as the enemy) and to have any sympathy for a religion when half of the daily violence in the world is caused by "religious" people who think they are going to heaven. Where does that idea come from?

Less is written by muslims in English expressing thier views than most christian religions so I will write less about them. Rather than fighting a jihad they should blog. It is probably a better way of releasing frustration than blowing themselves up.

Rewriting Science

I missed a news story (not widely circulated) that the Bush administration is preventing employees from telling the geological age of the Grand Canyon to visitors for fear of offending religious fundamentalists. Fortunately Gary Trudeau didn't miss it, but makes it look like a joke.



I mean who could believe that someing so stupid is actually true? At least the National Park Service hasn't changed its website to call the age of the Grand Canyon 'controversy.' Very few people understand the amount of time that is spent studying, collecting data, comparing work of different scientists in order to arrive at a scientific conclusion.

Science is hard and requires a lot of work to arrive at a theory and you almost never call science `a fact' because evidence could arrive tomorrow which upends everything you know. Science has already discarded the theory that there was a biblical flood and the age of the earth is 6000 years old because that disagrees with observable data (if the age of the Earth is 6000 years old then we should see X. We do not see X, therefore the age of the Earth is not 6000 years old). To have all of that work discarded because it does not agree with the biblical myth is obscene.

I can understand why park service agents don't want to disobey though. A christian fundamentalist is likely to become violent if you say something that disrupts its world view.

Republican + christian = intolerant?

Rep. Virgil Goode (R, Virginia) caused a lot of controversy by stating in a letter to his constituents that Muslims have no business holding elective office in the United States. He was obviously taking issue with Rep. Keith Ellison's (D, Minnesota) election to the House or perhaps his choice to use the Quran in his swearing in ceremony today. Goode went quite a bit further by saying "I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America." Ouch, Virgil. Can you clarify that to make it sound less bigoted? Read the bill of rights lately? He states in the same letter that he has the Ten Commandments hanging in his office.

Dennis Prager, a Townhall columnist, seems to have stirred up the pot even more by stating:
"He should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization. ... What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book."

Ummmm, Dennis, you are insane if you think I would actually believe "the act undermines American civilization" or that America holds the bible as its holiest book. I am atheist and American and you are undermining the tenants of American government that I hold most dear, namely, the separation of church and state and the first clause of the first amendment of the constitution.

Excuse me, but can someone explain to me why the controversy over what book he uses for this swearing in ceremony? I am perfectly happy to ban the use of the Quran if we also ban the use of the bible for the swearing in ceremony. Fairs, fair.

Pat Robertson predicts the future

I know that many people consider Pat Robertson rather strange because he tends to talk more than he thinks. It wasn't very kind of him to call for the assassination of Hugo Chavez in 2005.

But I heard today that he made some predictions for the new year. In 2006 he predicted that a tsunami would hit the U.S. In 1998 he predicted bad weather for gay friendly Orlando. He claims to have a good prediction record because he said in January 2004 that George Bush would easily win re-election in 2004 (it is debatable if the adjective 'easily' applies to what happened in November 2004).

His latest prediction is that terrorists would carry out mass killings in the U.S. in late 2007. My message to Pat Robertson: my cat can make predictions better than you can. I hope that you are wrong about this one. What you seem to call 'a conversation with god' most people call 'an imagination.'

The Christian Coalition and gay marriage

Joel Hunter was supposed to have taken the leadership position in the Christian Coalition of America in January of this year but turned down the post in November and distanced himself from the group by saying that he wanted the group to focus on issues other than abortion and same sex marriage such as environment, AIDS and poverty.

My feeling is that the Christian Coalition's position on gay marriage is bigoted. How do I know that the Christian Coalition is not interested in doing anything but attacking gays for political gain? A straight couple can meet a potential mate, date, f*&k and marry in the course of one television season and what does one hear from Christians who are supposedly interested in protecting the institution of marriage? Ten seasons of The Bachelor.

Can I get a constitional amendment against bad television?

Ever get frustrated by god bother-ers?

I think that the religious right should accept a good part of the responsibility for the war in Iraq. I will point out some of the hypocrisy of religious 'values' and how they lead to clearly bad political outcomes. You can believe anything you want, but please don't use your crazy magic-wand/fairy dust/rapture/Jesus-loves-you logic when making policy decisions because the rest of us don't live in that fantasy world and are trying to make this a better place to live in.