And after having said, “I don’t have anything to say about Cee Lo Green’s revision of ‘Imagine’ that my friend Rebecca didn’t already say,” I’m finding that I have something else to say.
This whole incident is a perfect example of what’s wrong with ecumenicalism.
It’s not just laughably absurd. It’s not just logically impossible. It shows a callous unconcern about whether the things you believe are true. Continue reading “Can All Religion Be True? The Problem With Ecumenicalism”
Yes, I do sometimes make weird sexual jokes. Not all the time… but sometimes. And tonight is one of those nights.
It’s been a good night on Twitter. Jokes about Santorum are coming thick and fast. (Sheesh, even when you try to say something straightforward about the guy, it comes out dirty. There — I did it again!)
Anyway, as the Iowa caucus results pour in, Jen McCreight (@jennifurret on Twitter) and I (@gretachristina on Twitter) have been doing our best to come up with/ retweet the most disgusting Santorum jokes and made-up headlines we can manage. Here is a sampling of the best. (Oh, and in case you don’t know what the joke is about: Google the word “Santorum.” Or just go here.)
@jennifurret: Santorum rushes from behind after dislodging Romney.
@jennifurret RT @byepluto: I was wrong to think he was gonna come in number three. Everybody knows Santorum comes out of number two.
@jennifurret RT @Crommunist: Santorum surge floods Iowa caucus.
@gretachristina: Romney soaked by Santorum. Slicks path for possible Ron Paul penetration.
@gretachristina: Santorum forces Perry to withdraw.
(As @VeritasKnight noted: Anyone who says dirty jokes stop when you’re a feminist doesn’t have @GretaChristina and @jennifurret on their feeds.)
Plenty of others have been getting into the game as well:
@JoeMyGod RT @MSignorile: Tomorrow’s headline: Santorum Surges from Behind in Messy Late Night Three-Way.
@Mowgli3: Santorum gushes forth in the polls after Romney finishes early. @jennifurret
@NotThatGuy: @GretaChristina @jennifurret Santorum beneath Romney now, and Paul’s behind.
And Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon has a poll, asking readers to propose better headline language for Santorum than the all-too-obvious “surge.”
But honestly, some of the best are actual real-life headlines. My fave:
RT @JoeMyGod: Fox News: “Ron Paul and Romney are neck and neck with Santorum.”
I know. This is serious business, and the guy is reprehensible. But I’m fine with ridicule as a political strategy. And as vile as the guy is, my inner Beavis wants Santorum to stay in it for as long as possible. (Heh, heh!)
UPDATE: Hoffman has now corrected the error about the source of my ranking as one of the top ten most popular atheist bloggers, and has graciously apologized for the error.
I don’t feel a compelling need to respond to every bad thing that’s said about me on the Internet. JT Eberhard‘s dad once said something that really stuck with me — “You don’t have to show up at every fight you’re invited to” — and whenever someone says something annoying/ wrongheaded/ unjust about me or tries to suck me into an Internet fight, I try to remember that. I simply don’t have the time or energy (or indeed the desire) to show up at every fight I’m invited to. And in the all-too-common case of writers who I think are trying to build a reputation and gain undeserved gravitas by picking fights with more prominent writers, I don’t want to give them what they’re looking for. Remembering what JT’s dad said helps the water roll off my back, and gives me a measure of peace.
But when I see accusations about me that are flatly, factually untrue, made by someone with a reasonably sizable audience, I feel more compelled to respond. Especially when one of the accusations against me is a fairly serious accusation of deception and fraud.
R. Joseph Hoffman at The New Oxonian has written a screed against the so-called New Atheists, and has declared us to be obsolete. Okay, fine. He’s entitled to his opinion; time will tell if he’s right about our obsolescence. And I suppose it’s flattering, in a bizarre way, that I’m considered one of the “headlights” of the so-called New Atheism by someone who despises it so much. The article is pretty much the usual anti-New-Atheist rhetoric, though, without much new to contribute, and I wouldn’t normally bother taking it on. (Especially since PZ and Ophelia have already done so.)
Except.
There are two flat-out factual errors about me in this piece. One is simply annoying, in a baffling and frankly somewhat entertaining way. But the other is a fairly serious accusation of deception and fraud. So I’m going to address that one first. Continue reading “On Accusations of Fraud and Making Weird Sexual Jokes”
You’ve probably already heard about the Cee Lo Green thing, where he sang the John Lennon song “Imagine” and changed the line about “And no religion, too” to “And all religion’s true.”
I was going to blog about it… but my friend Rebecca, founder of the Grief Beyond Belief support network, posted on Facebook and said pretty much exactly what I was going to say. So I’m just going to quote her and let this be a guest post. (For the record: I don’t actually care that much about the whole “changing the lyrics” thing. I couldn’t be a Weird Al Yankovic fan if I did. I don’t think song lyrics are sacrosanct: people tinker with them all the time, it’s part of how music evolves. I’m just irritated/ entertained by the particular content of this particular tinkering.)
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I appreciate that non-believers and John Lennon fans worldwide are pissed at Cee Lo Green for changing the lyrics of Imagine, when he played it last night, to “And all religion’s true.” I am appalled.
But I am also amused by trying to literally interpret that statement.
All religion? So we’ve got Heaven and Hell and Hades and reincarnation and Valhalla and whatever weird sh*t the Mormons and Scientologists believe ALL existing. And we have everyone from Kali to Loki to Eris messing around. And Jesus is the Messiah and son of God (Christianity) and NOT-the-Messiah and NOT-son of God (Judaism), and sort of the Messiah-but-not-son-of-God (Islam).
Wow, Cee Lo, you imagined a messy world! Good thing the whole idea is ridiculous.
