The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 088
This week, Ryan and I talk about why the atheist movement is still a sausage fest, why men and women think differently, and why I’m a terrible outdoors-man.
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Excellent video on “putting faith in its place”
His arguments are irrefutable, his narration is spot on, and his little animations are helpful and clear. Could you ask more of an educational video? Don’t you just love the fact that people do these kinds of videos for no other reason than to encourage others to think?
Tony Blair wants religion to save the world
If you’re not British, you might not really care what Tony Blair is up to. After all, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, we regard the man as nothing more than a puppet of the Bush administration (Nelson Mandela famously described him as “the US foreign minister“). Most Brits tend to believe that his actions and policies granted more police powers and eroded their civil liberties. Everyone I’ve ever talked to unanimously agreed that he’s a giant dick.
Like most retired politicians, he’s in legacy mode, and wants people to remember him as more than just Dubya’s puppet. He’s started an organization called “The Tony Blair Faith Foundation”, whose mandate is to:
…promote respect and understanding about the world’s major religions and show how faith is a powerful force for good in the modern world.
Even if Tony has good intentions with this foundation, he’s completely out of his depth here. All he can do is attract religious institutions that are already interested in peaceful dialog, and nothing more. Blair’s history in the Middle East is a liability more than it’s an asset. How are Muslims in Bagdad supposed to react to Blair’s words of peace when they have tasted so much of his sword?
In any case, if they truly want peace they will have to do more than appeal to people’s “faith”. Not every religion takes a kind attitude of tolerance towards other teachings. Most religions tend to have bloody conflicts over even the most minute doctrinal differences.
The National Secular Society seems to agree with me, and stated Blair is “profoundly wrong” in imagining religion is a peacemaking tool. If it was, we’d have a very different type of world right now. If we want human beings to see one another in the same way, we need to discourage people from believing in things without evidence. We live in a world with so many interesting and fascinating answers, and yet there are still people who kill one another over their genocidal mythologies.
Tony, the best thing you can do for world peace is to find a place to lay low for the next 30-40 years. Is there any nice way to tell this douche to get the fuck out of our faces?
Suck it, God!
Genesis Chapter 3, verse 14
And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this [tricked Eve into eating the apple] thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field;upon thy belly shalt thoug go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.
Crawl on their bellies forever, huh? Evolution might have something to say about that. Doesn’t it kind of look like this snake is giving us all “the finger” in this picture? Also, how often has anyone commented on the fact the Bible hilariously thinks that snakes eat dirt? Perhaps the snake got a raw deal, and it was really the earthworm that told Eve to eat the apple. After all, I’m pretty sure they eat that shit too…
Sam Harris: Faith vs Reason
Sam is a great speaker, and it’s very hard to argue with his logic. He’s the main reason I do this atheist thing (his book, The End of Faith, was like getting hit in the face with a brick. Once you read it, you change). My favorite quote from the videos is “Rationalizing the barbarism we find in the Old Testament merely renders it irrelevant, it doesn’t render these books morally wise. It is faint praise indeed if the best that can be said of scirpture is that it can be now safely ignored” You’re goddamn right, Sam.
Nerdcore!
Ok, so this might not have much to do with atheism, but I still can’t help but post it up with the feeling that any country where the President can give someone a Vulcan salute, perhaps there is hope for humanity yet!
Old school Bill Maher smacks down religion
Here’s an old clip from way back before the mainstream bitch slapped Maher back to cable television. I love how Joe Scarborough can’t seem to find any answers to Bill’s tough criticism of religion. It is all pretty fucking arbitrary, isn’t it?
Movie about Darwin doesn’t have U.S. distributor
One of the crown jewels at the Toronto Film Festival this year was Creation, a movie depicting the life and struggles of Charles Darwin. The film focuses specifically on his family life, and the destruction of his faith with the death of his beloved daughter Annie. The film stars Paul Bettany (you might remember him as the albino monk in The DaVinci Code) and his real life smoking hot wife, Jennifer Connelly. So far a bunch of countries have already picked it up except the big one: America
US distributors fear that the film is too controversial for American audiences, which is to say that they are worried any involvement in the film may end up costing them dearly. There are no companies willing to take the risk of pissing off hard core Christians who blame Darwin for the Holocaust, eugenics, and just about any other atrocity you can imagine. It’s never dawned on them this gentle and thoughtful man was one of the greatest minds in the history of our species.
I think that an online distributor should pick it up and offer the movie on the web. If you can’t play it in theatres, people should still have a right to be exposed to ideas, even if they aren’t popular among the uneducated. In any case, most of the people who would end up watching it belong to the Internet generation, and we’ll just end up downloading it anyway. Why not make it easy for us?
The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 087
Ryan and I discuss Penn & Teller’s latest attack on the Vatican, what parts of the Bible people dislike, and a band in Missouri that was banned from using a logo depicting evolution.
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Madonna blamed for boating accident
There aren’t many beheadings that are celebrated around the world. It’s generally not a very positive thing to have a day dedicated to, but that hasn’t stopped morbid Orthodox Church in Bulgaria from marking the day John the Baptist was decapitated , which they celebrate on August 29th.
That’s also the date that Madonna, queen of controversy, chose to hold her concert there. Everyone had a great time, but it turns out by coincidence, a boat capsized on Lake Ohrid, killing 15 people. The Church has since blamed Madonna for the incident, saying her defiance is what caused God to kill a bunch of innocents in protest.
Anybody else get a warm and fuzzy feeling from the God character? No, I didn’t think so. I guess the Orthodox Church has never really stopped believing in the cruel despot of the Old Testament, who can’t help but express his dissatisfaction with humanity by causing endless disasters. Blaming an entertainer for what was actually the fault of the operators, (who greedily tried to fit more people on their tour boat than what was allowed) is not only low; it’s entirely pointless.
Hijacking for Jesus
A few days ago, I celebrated September 9th, 2009 by recording a second bonus podcast (since the original one was lost forever), and spent most of the day reading for new material to talk about for future shows. The date had no real significance to the vast majority of the planet, but for Jose Marc Flores Pereira, it was a special day. He had received a revelation from God that Mexico would suffer from a terrible earthquake, so he did the only thing he could think of: he made a fake bomb with a bunch of juice cans and hijacked an Boeing 737.
Father Pereira was convinced the date, 09/09/09 would signify the presence of the devil (since upside down the numbers would read 666), and he wanted to hijack the plane in order to get an audience with the Mexican president to urge him to preach the gospel from Mexico City’s central square.
Pereira’s wife admits the dude has “psychological problems”, which at least explains why this former singer and drug addict is allowed to go around preaching insane stories of virgin births, resurrections, and worldwide floods.
His family doesn’t sound like they are very helpful. His mother was aware of his plans, and because he claimed to be divinely ordained by God to do this, she let him go with her blessing. So an insane lunatic was allowed to carry out his plan with the full compliance of his family because his religion masked his deep psychological issues. The amount of times mental illness goes unreported because of religion is too numerous to count, and until we admit such beliefs are indicative of psychological disorders, these kinds of stories will keep happening. This guy needs help, not religion.
Harlan Ellison on God
A fan of the site sent me this video, and I had to educate myself a little bit to find out exactly who Harlan Ellison is. Because he hates the Internet and still does all his writing on an old Olympia typewriter (the supposed Mercedes Benz of typewriters!), most of you are probably like me and have to admit almost complete ignorance about his life and works. Of course, after listening to his speech, I will be picking up a bunch of his short stories and novels to see what he’s all about.
1 in 33 women pressured to have sex by clergymen
Having never been religious in my life, I sometimes forget the degree of power and reverence preachers tend to have. These men (for they are almost always all male) are seen by many as being a direct link to God, and it’s a position of power few humans seem to be able to handle very well. It turns out roughly 1 in every 33 women attending church services are approached by priests and are pressured into having sexual relations with them.
I don’t see why anyone is really that surprised. Why do most men crave power? The more power you have, the better breeding possibilities at your disposal. I don’t even think most men in positions of influence even realize this is their true intent. They probably just think it’s a sweet perk or something. Why would it be any different simply because these guys are “men of the cloth”?
Priests shaking up their female congregants is enough of a problem that states like Texas and Minnesota have made it illegal to:
[cause] the other person to submit or participate by exploiting the other person’s emotional dependency on the clergyman in the clergyman’s professional character as spiritual adviser.
In other words, if you’re a “Holy Man”, your clout with God makes the ladies vulnerable to your advances. It’s another piece of revelation that leads me to believe I’ve chosen the wrong profession. I should just quit this atheist gig and start my own harem church!
Why we believe in Gods
If you’ve got a good hour, I recommend listening to this presentation. You can play it in the background without really needing to watch it, so don’t feel like you need to burn your eyes out staring at his blue screen (why do people still use that color in their presentations anyways?). Make sure this is part of your “must watch” list.