Greta Christina has been writing professionally since 1989, on topics including atheism, sexuality and sex-positivity, LGBT issues, politics, culture, and whatever crosses her mind. She is author of
The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life, of
Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God, of
Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why, of
Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless, and of
Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More, and is editor of
Paying For It: A Guide by Sex Workers for Their Clients. She has been a public speaker for many years, and many of her talks can be seen on YouTube. Her writing has appeared in multiple magazines and newspapers, including Ms., Penthouse, Chicago Sun-Times, On Our Backs, and Skeptical Inquirer, and numerous anthologies, including
Everything You Know About God Is Wrong and three volumes of
Best American Erotica. (Any views she expresses in this blog are solely hers, and do not necessarily represent this organizations.) She lives in San Francisco with her wife, Ingrid. You can email her at gretachristina (at) gmail (dot) com, or follow her on
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To say nothing of “What does it say about religion once one of these gaps that were used as evidence of the supernatural is definitively explained scientifically?”
Of course the religionist will just go onto find another “gap” and repeat the same set of arguments. But a long-term score of “That’s what you said about X, Y, and Z” needs to be kept.
And when the gaps are getting fewer they just redefine the whole god concept into ‘God is Love’ or something…
Yeas, I think this one definiitely needed to be said; it relates closely to a number of your posts (where you say things like “how often have supernatural explanations replaced scientific ones?”), but the concise point here stands well on its own.
Speaking of “God of the gaps”, I saw this a few days ago, and forgot to link it for you. I’d use it for my icon for everything, if the text wouldn’t wind up too small to read.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1763#comic
I think a better agruement for religion would be “Religion makes up what science can’t.” To learn and understand just some of the cool stuff in science takes years and a lot of hard work. Religion you can be an expert on everything instantly. And you can make up anything you want. Can dinosaurs breath fire? According to boring science, no. But exciting religion can teach us, not only could the breath fire but Jesus could fight them.
I agree with “iamcuriousblue”. The theists need to have their feet held to the fire about their prior claims. For example, creationists were initially all “goddidit” just like in the bible; then, after science showed them wrong, some of them decided divide evolution into “micro” and “macro” just so they could cling to their religion longer.
Hypocrites, all accepting science when it makes them comfy but decrying it when it shows their beliefs are wrong.
One of the greatest mysteries still is how so many people can not fathom that ‘the Lord’ is a fictional character!
Blogger asked, and Larmer anwers
http://www.newdualism.org/papers/R.Larmer/Gaps.htm