Archive for August, 2009

Our old buddy Pat has just come out of heart surgery. He’s 79. It happens. He’s making a full recovery. Here’s what the doctors did to save his life. Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, underwent…a new approach to dealing with atrial fibrillation, called convergence procedure. It involves cauterizing the continually beating heart muscle with heat generated by a radio frequency. It rewires a portion of the heart, in a sense, to correct the irregular beat. …The technique is less invasive than traditional surgery and more effective long-term than drugs and their many side effects. In a separate but related procedure, doctors also removed an abnormally enlarged left appendage on Robertson’s heart. They believe the growth contributed to Robertson’s atrial fibrillation. And here’s who gets the credit. “Only the prayers of thousands of believing people kept me on this earth,” Robertson said in a statement. Yeah, I know, typical. Medical science that didn’t exist 20 years ago keeps some old superstitious codger breathing, and he only has thanks for his imaginary friend in the sky and the prayers that presumably winged their way skyward to him. Right. But that isn’t what this post is about. It’s about something else very revealing in Robertson’s statement. At 79, Pat Robertson, perhaps the leading evangelist in all of American Christendom, is afraid to die. I mean, think of it. If you really, truly believed in Christianity’s promise of Heaven — a perfect paradise free of woe, strife, pain, fear, sadness, queers and liberals — wouldn’t the prospect of finally getting to go there be the happiest news you could possibly receive? Really, I cannot imagine anything happier. That is, if you really, in your heart of hearts, believed in its existence and in your guarantee of a place there. Not to get into a “No True Christian”...
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I have, as many of you have doubtless noticed, been absent from the blog for most of August, preferring to concentrate on some other things and take a bit of a break from the whole atheist-activism thing. Mainly, this has been due to a real need to decompress. I am frankly in a state of despair regarding America as a whole. The right wing — duplicitous, self-serving and dishonest at the best of times — have simply descended into bugfuck insanity and psychosis. I mean, for Set’s sake, we’ve actually got Republican politicians openly “joking” about killing Obama. What the blue blazing phuque is wrong with these maniacs? I’ve never seen anything like the mass insanity surrounding the health-care reform “debate,” which hasn’t been so much a debate as a mindless, frothing mob going absolutely apeshit over the most preposterous lies that such bobblehead demagogues as Limbaugh and Beck can cook up. Apparently, Obama is going to send the SS to kick down your door, gun down grandma, and hold you down while they forcibly administer HPV vaccines whether you’re a girl or not. That so many of these people just believe the shit they’re being spoonfed without so much as a pause for thought (a skill they evidently don’t possess) makes it dismayingly clear just how far this country has sunk into near-savagery. The neocon Christian right are no longer even recognizably human; they are simply wild animals driven into a Pavlovian rage at the mere sight of a sliver of red meat, even when (especially when) it’s a wholly imaginary sliver. (After all, as Matt Taibbi has pointed on in Rolling Stone, what kind of fucking morons must these people be to decry as “socialism” a health-care reform proposal designed to preserve as much of the private sector as it can?) I just don’t want to be in the same dimension with these, um, “people.” I’d rather read lots of sci-fi or...
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An email friend, whom I’ll call “Carl,” (he can identify himself in the comments if he feels like it) sent me a message with the subject “Could you help?” It contained a few letters exchanged with a pastor named Jesse. It seems that some of Carl’s well-meaning friends don’t care for his atheism, and therefore sent Jesse after him to change his mind. I won’t quote the entire exchange. Carl started off well but then after a couple of rounds said this: Jesse, anyone that believes in any “Man Made” religion is not only superstitious, but harmful to society and has a serious moral dilemma to deal with. All religions are hurtful to the progress of all science and mankind in general, the sooner people learn this and think for themselves the better off everyone will be. It’s a shame what you do for a living really. Taking advantage of innocent people with lies and false promises of eternal punishment and damnation if they fail to believe as you do. Are you truly happy in your chosen line of work? I don’t know how you sleep at night knowing that you preying on people’s insecurities and lack of knowledge. Jesse got extremely huffy and basically accused Carl of being an intellectual lightweight, concluding: Unfortunately, further discussions will take viable witnessing time away from those who are seeking our Savior rather than those who have clearly rejected Him after 25 years of holding the title “Christian”. … Again, that the burden of proof that God does not exist falls solely on you. Carl came away from this exchange feeling annoyed and wondering how he could have gotten across to the Christian about how burden of proof works. I have a lot more thoughts about the way this conversation went though, so here’s what I wrote back. I hate to say it, but in a small way I agree with Jesse. It was kind of rude of you come at him with a personal attack,...
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For reasons I can’t quite fathom, but which probably have to do with the fact that I was at one point listed (I didn’t bother renewing when production in Texas essentially dried up) in the Texas Film Commission Production Directory, I’ve been added to the email list of Brad Wilson Acting. This means that I have intermittently been getting newsletters plugging his “Faith Based Acting” seminars. Not that I couldn’t find this out for myself if I cared to look into it (but as this would involve attending the seminar, my motivation is nil), but I find myself puzzled as to what Wilson, a former personal assistant to Robert Duvall who now produces microbudget direct-to-DVD Christian movies, exactly means by “faith based” acting. It seems Christians can attach the label “faith based” to nearly anything now, thereby making it better. Here’s the pitch: Does your art collide with your faith? Does your talent challenge your calling? Hollywood film producer, Brad Wilson, wants to help you find direction from the Bible that has not only encouraged him to continue his work in film and televition, but to see it as a calling vs a job in his popular workshop, Faith Based Acting For the Camera. As a Christian, Brad has felt the need to help guide others in the “business” by not only using invaluable techniques he has learned for acting for the camera, but most of all using ones faith and belief in God as the ultimate guidance. Brad will share many of his own experiences and obstacles he himself has faced in a business that does not generally put God first. Well, you know, like any business (including religion) Hollywood puts money first. They have to, since they spend so goddamn much of it filling the multiplexes with shite like Transformers and G.I. Joe. It takes millions of publicity dollars to convince you that you haven’t just been robbed of two hours of your life you’ll never get...
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My woo-detector is finely honed, as it turns out. This guy (beware of popups) never met a theory he didn’t like and never saw two items he couldn’t link in a dozen meaningful ways. He sent me a long e-mail asking for a review of his research. As I’m busy with work, and my woo-dar overloaded rather quickly, I figured I’d let someone else waste their…er, review this. There’s the famous quote from Feynman, “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.” It’s bad enough when real scientists get there, but when schizotypal folks get this stuff in their brains it’s like giving a kaleidoscope to an acid-freak in a room full of disco lights. (I think I found next weekend’s special activity!) In the spirit of The Matrix, some of us opted for the red pill and this guy took an everlasting gobstopper dipped in some of Timothy Leary’s ‘quantum enlightener’.