I resign from the Atheist Papacy

All the time now, I’ve got people yammering at me about how I’m an awful, terrible, wicked person because I’ve become what I hate. I’ve got one guy calling me the “god of atheism”, another person calling me part of the “high priesthood of atheism”, illustrated with that lovely photoshopped image to the right. Then I’m accused of “believing [my] own press” and “thinking [I] can do no wrong” because my “swarm of mindless groupies” are all telling me my every word is golden.

You know, if I actually started believing my press, I’d have to go shoot myself. The only people lauding me as an atheist god or pope are the people who detest me; there are whole sites out there dedicated to spitting on Pharyngula, and my mailbox is full of missives telling me how arrogant/stupid/evil/ugly/Jewish/female (yeah, they think those last two are insults) I am, and very few praising what I’ve written. Here on my own blog, some people despise me, and even my allies nag and carp and pick at every phrase (which is what I expect). Ah, what I’d give for at least one blind, obedient minion who’d revere me as a deity…why, I might pay as much as a quarter.

You have to have a thick skin to be an assertive blogger on the internet; my primary input from the world is not that I’m coddled in a little bubble of approval, but that I’ve put myself in a prime position for every rock-thrower out there to take a shot at me. I don’t post with the attitude that I’ll get accolades for every word, but as an act of defiance.

And then we got complaints like that one on bitchspot, which dismiss every one who even partially agrees with me as “highly fanatical followers” who must “Stop being a groupie. Stop bowing before the altar.” That isn’t legitimate, valid criticism. That’s a kind of blindness in itself, treating everyone who might align themselves with my position as incapable of independent thought. It is a dishonest, dismissive tactic. What we have here is a horde of thoughtful, often angry people who think science, social justice, and the Enlightenment are good things, and are willing to fight for their causes.

Whining that I am an atheist pope is also incredibly dishonest, but OK, I resign. I’ll stop doing the things that make me equivalent to a high-ranking priest. I’ll give up my non-profit status. I’ll sell off my Italian villas and all their exquisite, priceless furnishings and art. I’ll give up the support of a well-established atheist institution, staffed with lawyers and professional apologists and PR persons. I’ll step down from my official position at the top of the atheist hierarchy. I’ll stop dogmatically pushing the infallible words of Charles Darwin on the populace. I’ll take off my uniform that grants me special privileges and respect.

I’ll just become an ordinary citizen, a guy with a blog. Will that do? Or is it expected that I also shut that down and be silent?

Because that’s all these baseless criticisms of my godless papacy are about: I’m already nothing but a guy with a blog, and there isn’t much more I can give up to satisfy these wanking whiners.

Flaming Cheerios: a weapon of mass destruction

The Smoking Gun has a hilarious video of a guy with a blowtorch and a box of Cheerios. It turns out that cheerios burn really well, and he set the lawn of General Mills on fire.

But there’s also a sad part. The event took place in Minnesota; I hate being reminded that I’m surrounded by stupid people. The guy with a blowtorch is Mike Leisner, and wouldn’t you know it…he’s doing this to protest the policies of tolerance practiced at General Mills, because he has a hard-on for the gays; he hates ’em, and thinks we all ought to, too. He’s been preaching hatred on youtube for some time.

He had a youtube channel called “Live4Chr1st” (wouldn’t you know he’d have to be a raving Christian nutcase?), but no more. It’s been taken down. He works as a real estate agent for Greater Midwest Properties — it’ll be interesting to see how long that lasts.

But I will try to look on the bright side. We have a referendum coming up in November on gay marriage in Minnesota; it helps that the opponents are such embarrassing fools. I’m also thinking that when the Revolution comes, I should stock up on boxes of Cheerios, rather than molotov cocktails.

Why I am an atheist – Thomas Schratwieser

I was born into a Texan Catholic family. Growing up outside of Washington, D.C. I was raised to believe in God, but no real emphasis was placed on attendance of church, nor on the catechism. Despite my parents’ backgrounds they were very rational people, and encouraged my love of science from a young age. My father studied Chemical Engineering at university before changing tack when he realised that he preferred Law, but he always held out hope that I would go into the sciences when I was old enough to choose for myself. I recall a conversation I had with him when I was very young wherein he casually explained that he had been browbeaten into an engineering discipline in lieu of a pure (and I am not using this as a value term, purely as a demarcation) science, and had he gone into Chemistry or Physics he would probably still be in one of those fields today.

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Nothing can stop Pat Robertson from leaping to a foregone conclusion

Oh, wow: guess who was to blame for the Sikh temple shooting? According to Pat Robertson, it was atheists!

I love how he piously deplores all violence against anyone worshipping god, without concern for which god they’re praying towards. As long as they’re not Muslim, I guess!

By the way, the murderer was “a neo-Nazi skinhead in the very thick of the white supremacist movement” who talked about racial holy war. I don’t think atheism was his motive.

I think I’m beginning to hate gun culture

I haven’t even glanced at that awful Instahack’s blog in years, and now I am reminded why. Here’s what he has to say about the recent murders at a Sikh temple:

The 6 Sikh temple shooting victims identified; Satwant Singh Kaleka died trying to fight off shooter. Heroic. But it’s too bad he didn’t have a gun.

What? So it’s Kaleka’s fault because he wasn’t carrying a gun? In a temple?

In Instahack’s world, are we supposed to be armed everywhere?

Can we send them to Mars?

As we all know, now that the trivial and relatively uninteresting business of mere engineering has cleared a hurdle, Mars Curiosity can get to work on the important stuff: finding evidence of biology on Mars. This is where it’s also going to get peculiarly controversial, because some creationists are feeling a bit threatened: there is a subset of creationists (definitely not all of them!) who are convinced that there can be no other life elsewhere in the universe. There’s also a weird subset that believes there may be intelligent life elsewhere, but it must believe in the Christian god, and these alien worlds must have been visited by an incarnation of Jesus…but let’s not get that deep in the bizarre yet.

Because this is bizarre enough. Faye Flam got an angry letter from a creationist who is upset at all the money wasted on Mars Curiosity, because it’s absurd to consider the idea that life may have arisen somewhere where a god didn’t put it.

Her answer is excellent, you should go read it. Although, sad to say, it’s not true that her correspondent is from some strange dimension…he’s pretty typically from our tiny corner of this galaxy.

[Mollies] Restored and retired

The Mollies page is back, and I can now announce that the new winner for the month of June is…

Maureen Brian

And with that, I also announce that the Molly awards are now retired. There will be no new nominations accepted. Everyone who got them can now call themselves Original Mollies.

There will be something new coming up to reward commenters, though. At the end of this month, I’ll put up a post collecting nominations for excellent comments, but instead of a general award to cool people, I want to acknowledge the comments themselves. If you see some particularly perspicacious, funny, thrilling, intelligent comment, make a note of it somewhere. At the end of this month, I’ll ask you to link to, and quote some relevant fragment of, the best comments of the last month. The best comment (and an acknowledgment of the author!) will be enshrined on the Mollies page. I’ve got in mind a new title you’ll be able to wear, but you’re going to have to wait until September to learn more.

Also, note this: of course this award can go to previous Molly winners, and I’m also going to allow repeat winners — the award goes to the good comments, and maybe someone here will be making all the best comments from now on.

Whew. All the administrative stuff is now mostly done. I just got home — this was a grueling journey getting back, what with late night and delayed flights and an overnight stay in Minneapolis and having to take a commercial shuttle back home. Now I can settle back into a sensible routine again.