This week, Carisa joins me as we talk about the Westboro Baptist church getting hacked, the burning of a Koran in Afghanistan, and the Richard Dawkins / Archbishop of Canterbury debate.
It still amazes me the way we let experts on nonsense babble on about their specific deity and its role in the natural world. What does super-magical-man-you-can’t-disprove have to do with evolution? The moderator made the mistake of claiming both Dawkins and the Archbishop knew for certain what the truth of the Universe was. Dawkins ended up admitting the limitations of his own understanding (and the obvious inability to disprove a negative), and yet this same humility in the face of the unknown is never displayed by our religious counterparts. How can the Archbishop be certain that his specific brand of fairy-tale bullshit is the right one? He just decided it was true, and the rest was easy.
The annoying thing in all of this is the fact that mouth-breathers couldn’t wait to point out the fact that Dawkins had to concede that he couldn’t fully be sure of the existence of God. It’s our honesty that gets the better of us when it comes to that question, because the truth is, this uncertainty is extremely overstated. Remember, religious people rely on absolute certainty to tell them about the world they live in. In their minds, doubt is a golden opportunity to convert someone. Religious folks just can’t understand the fact that atheists naturally accept the incomplete picture of nature we do have, specifically because that uncertainty has scientific value. How can progress ever be made if people think all of the answers to the questions of the Universe were answered a few centuries ago by illiterate animal herders?
“Our Freedom comes from God”
I’ve heard this argument before. Apparently when you’re living in a delusional bubble, only an all powerful entity can grant people the freedom to damn themselves to an eternity of hellfire. Wow, sure sounds like a fair deal.
We’re back, and we’re announcing the ‘Save The Good Atheist Campaign’. This month, we’ll be featuring a bunch of bonus shows for free, all gearing up for our big relaunch. Carisa joins me as we also discuss death.
Death is hard on those who accept its terminal reality. There’s no magical playland in the sky, there’s no transference or retention of our thought patterns, and there’s no evidence whatsoever that the mind is anything more than the brain. Materialism may not be appealing to the majority of the population, but it’s undeniably the only reality so far to manifest itself. These supernatural fairy-tales we’ve constructed during the infancy of our species – a time when the tools for understanding the world had not yet been invented – should be treated with contempt, and yet we languish in ignorance in favor of comforting thoughts.
One of the hardest transitions into atheism is the acceptance that death is final, and this can be a powerful blow for those still partially wrapped up in the bubble of religious delusion. In many cases, dealing with the non-reality of Heaven (or some analogue) is like losing your deceased loved ones all over again. I can only imagine my reaction if this was compounded by trite, childish words meant for comfort. How can we convey the sorrow of reality to someone still living (quite literally) in a fantasy land?
Were it not for the fact that we occupy the same physical space, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad. Luckily, the Internet is exactly the kind of place where you don’t have to. There, grieving atheists like Rebecca Hensler have a place where they can express their sorrow. After her 3 month old child Jude died in 2009, Rebecca created a Facebook group called “Grief Beyond Belief“, a place where atheists can share their grief in an environment not populated by delusional idiots sharing their thoughtless platitudes. The story of this has since been picked up by the mainstream media and so far, there are a few trolls on both sides (a non-believer attempting to debate about some finer point of atheism, and a few Christian douchebags spewing hateful shit), so I strongly urge you to participate in shaming these morons. Also, there’s something beautifully melancholic of reading the stories of lost loved ones. Makes you appreciate what you do have, doesn’t it?
There aren’t a lot of opportunities to be proud of your government these days. As a beleaguered young(ish) male anxious to blame others for his failures, I see every incompetent bureaucratic farce (of which there really are too many to name) and forget that occasionally, they get something right. In this case, it was refusing the appeal of two unnamed parents who wanted their children pulled from a religious diversity class. Claiming that the education of their young ones would crumble their fragile belief structure (they called it “protecting their religious freedom”, a common tactic of today’s fundamentalists), the Catholic parents managed to make it all the way to the Quebec Supreme Court before someone finally called them on their shit: religious freedom has nothing to do with isolating people from other world views. Period.
With everyone’s heads screwed back on, these kids have a chance of actually learning something that isn’t founded on principles set out by a bunch of weird dudes dressed in overly elaborate robes. Who knows, maybe these kids have a chance in a province where 68% of the population believes in Evolution (compared to the national average of 59%).
This week, I discuss extra Biblical literature featuring Cain and Abel, as well as ancient myth floods that sound awfully familiar! Also, I announce plans to try and save the show by launching pre-orders of the book.
Although he’s one of the most infamous characters in fiction, Cain is still a relatively obscure figure. The Bible seems to make him out as a whiner, jealous and petty, so unworthy of any love that he’s blamed for making crops so damn hard to grow. Once he’s given the infamous “mark” for having committed the first murder, he’s told that he will become a nomad, and like any bad-boy, he does exactly the opposite and settles down in the land of Nod (which is about as real a place as that sounds).
The story doesn’t technically end there, depending on who you ask. There are tons of stories outside the bible that attempt to describe Cain and Abel’s relationship in more detail. This kind of material is called pseudepigrapha, texts which are regarded as false or unverifiable works. It’s basically the first century equivalent of fan-fiction. One of these books is called The Book of Jubilees, sometimes referred to as “Lesser Genesis”. It further elaborates on the sexual relationships between Cain and his sister Awan, and between Seth and his sister Azura. It sounds as enjoyable to read as the many erotic adventures of Kirk and Spock
The story of Cain doesn’t end there. Mormons believe that he made a secret pact with the devil to kill Abel. In the Book of Moses, they form a secret alliance, which helps explain why Genesis specifically mentions Cain’s son Lamech murdering one of his enemies (I just think the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree).
Regardless of which particular fairy tale you subscribe to (if you tend to favor this nonsense), Cain’s limited choice of mating partners isn’t a subject most people are comfortable talking about. Incest has largely fallen out of favor, and defending this particular aspect of the dogma is a thankless job. Luckily, Answers in Genesis is always happy to fight the good fight, and they aren’t afraid to try and inject some science in there!
Now it is true that children produced in a union between brother and sister have a greater chance to be deformed. As a matter of fact, the closer the couple are in relationship, the more likely it is that any offspring will be deformed. It is very easy to understand this without going into all the technical details.
Yeah, it’s a good thing they try to avoid the “technical details”, since a gene pool consisting of only two organisms is on the fast track to Extinction-Ville (with a stop-over at Mongoloid-Bay). Don’t let that bother you too much though, since you can always claim some magical mumbo-jumbo helped.
Speaking of mumbo-jumbo, you might like they way they try and explain how these first humans survived the first onslaught of genetic catastrophe: It’s all about sin, you see:
When the first two people were created, they were perfect. Everything God made was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). That means their genes were perfect—no mistakes. But when sin entered the world because of Adam (Genesis 3:6), God cursed the world so that the perfect creation then began to degenerate, that is, suffer death and decay (Romans 8:22). Over a long period of time, this degeneration would have resulted in all sorts of mistakes occurring in the genetic material of living things.
By long they mean around 2,500 years (or about 125 generations), a tiny blip in evolutionary time for such a complex species. Still, you have to admire their attempt to try and maintain their idiotic beliefs in the light of modern genetic evidence. They are sticking with their incest guns, and they are proud of it. “Hell yes, Cain fucked his sister! Didn’t you know that was the thing to do at the time?”
As for all this business about sin being a mechanism of evolutionary pressure, it sounds like a testable theory to me. Under this model of genetic, the more you sin, the crappier your genes. Hey, I wonder what kind of fucked up experimental conditions you would need to test this moronic idea out. I’m laughing just thinking about ’em.
This week, Carisa joins me for a very special episode about the Religious History of Marriage, and our thoughts about our own special day.
I generally dislike when celebrities try and participate in the political discourse. Sure, I might not mind if someone famous agrees with me on every issue (which has yet to happen), but most of the time, celebrities use the spotlight to demonstrate how little they know about important topics. Such cause célèbre also tend to make them look foolish. Remember Brad and Angelina’s attempt to re-invigorate Louisiana with unusual architecture? After spending millions of dollars, these monstrosities may house people, but they do little to inspire anyone to go back to the Big Easy.
James Dart, a Manhattan-based architect who was born and raised in The Big Easy, labels the houses as “Alien, sometimes even insulting,” adding, “the biggest problem is that they are not grounded in the history of New Orleans architecture,”
It’s great to have your heart in the right place, and Pitt’s foundation Make it Right has built over 70 houses. Was this the best use of these resources however? Would they have done more with the money if Brad didn’t have a love of ghastly architecture?
In light of the fact that I’m just about to contradict myself, I can’t help but find yet another reason to love Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe (apart from him being a fellow “Mega Brow”). His outspoken atheism not-notwithstanding, he’s now come out publicly that he’s changing his political support. He claims that Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrat government is placating the religious right, especially when it comes to ‘faith schools”.
Radcliffe said that he wished more educational establishments, especially in the US, were not in thrall to religion, stating: “I’m not religious, I’m an atheist, and a militant atheist when religion starts impacting on legislation. We need sex education in schools.
I like the way he doesn’t fear the word militant. I know we hate being compared with our religious counterpart, but I’m far more afraid of how organized and effective the religious right is. So, now you have a few more reasons to like Danny-boy. Do I like him enough to go see his new movie? I may not love him enough…
When you think of the word courage, what’s the first thing to cross your mind? If you happen to be gay and a Catholic living in Connecticut, that word is about to take on a disturbing new meaning:
The Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, this month is beginning a program that ministers to gays and lesbians…The Vatican-endorsed program, called Courage…was started in 1980 by the late Terence Cardinal Cooke in Manhattan “to form a spiritual support system which would assist men and women with same-sex attractions in living chaste lives in fellowship, truth and love.”
It’s basically an organization that emotionally tortures gays and lesbians into giving up their joy of sex and intimacy because it doesn’t conform with what the Vatican wants.
“These are people in the Roman Catholic Church who need our care and love,” Deacon Robert Pallotti, director of the Office of the Diaconate, told the Hartford TV station. “In some cases, they have been rejected by society. They need to be accepted, affirmed and supported as Roman Catholics trying to remain faithful to church teachings.
Rejected by society, eh? Could that have anything to do with the fact that your organization continues to support the bigoted idea that what they are doing is inherently bad? Remaining “faithful” to Roman Catholic teachings is just a nice way of saying that they don’t want gay dudes fucking each other in the ass anymore.
Honestly, there is no one on this planet that needs the Vatican getting involved in their sex life. They’ve already proven that their sexual philosophies are diseased. While they condemn homosexuality, the Vatican has provided an unprecedented level of financial, legal and emotional support to child rapists. This alone should bar them from the conversation.
The program, ironically called “Courage”, is just another way for a bunch of creepy celibate dudes in robes to try and tell everyone else how to live. I’ll tell you what Courage is: it’s not putting up with deluded assholes who care more about their money, power and interests than they care about human suffering (remember, they actually think that suffering makes you closer to God). Courage is rejecting old dogmas in favor of scientific truth, even when everyone around you still cling to these ancient superstitions. And above all else, Courage is staying true to yourself, no matter what.
This week, we discuss the recent loss of Christopher Hitchens and Susan Jacoby’s recent article about the challenges facing atheists. I also share some exciting news about the future.
Theramin Trees produced this thoughtful and beautiful tribute to everyone’s favorite polemicist. It’s worth a look. Be sure to check it out!
Mobilizing 10,000 people to pray! Wow, how amazing. Think of all the good you can do by sitting in a dark room and talking to yourself all day.
So, if you want God to interfere with human affairs (and apparently throw this whole “free will” idea out the window when it’s inconvenient), you just need to stop eating for several days, followed by imperceptibly mumbling to yourself. Sounds good to me!
“Imagine with me half a million people praying for a nation.”
Praying for what? The economy to recuperate? For the poor and indigent to finally get their due? Nope. She just wants to get rid of abortion and gay marriage. That’s the kind of priorities you can expect from someone who sits very still and begs their imaginary friend for shit they want.
This week, I interview actor, teacher and now author William B. Davis, also known as the ‘Smoking Man’ from the X-Files. Davis is a skeptic and atheist who recently published his memoirs entitled Where’s the Smoke…Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man.
