How dare you disrespect the Krishnas?

Steven Novella has an excellent analogy for the Sedalia evolution t-shirt nonsense: What if the Krishnas had complained about a t-shirt that showed a rocket going to the moon? Apparently, they don’t believe in space travel at all, so it would have been just as offensive to them — and it’s amazing how well the arguments the evolution-sneerers used would apply.

Except, of course, that non-Christian religions do not receive the degree of deference granted to even the wackiest dogma that has Jesus floating around in it somewhere.

Pope says it’s all our fault

The Pope has become an environmentalist, and he has figured out who is causing all our ecological difficulties: the atheists.

Is it not true that inconsiderate use of creation begins where God is marginalized or also where his existence is denied? If the human creature’s relationship with the Creator weakens, matter is reduced to egoistic possession, man becomes the ‘final authority,’ and the objective of existence is reduced to a feverish race to possess the most possible.

Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, has a pithy reply.

This is rich coming from the leader of an organisation that has plundered the world to enrich itself. As he sits in his golden palaces, surrounded by unimaginable luxury and material wealth, he lectures the rest of us about restraint and greed. We have nothing to learn about environmentalism from this hypocrite.

I think I’d have a few questions for this pope. Like, “What about over-population, Ratzi dear? What’s the devout Catholic plan for dealing with that rather serious environmental issue?” and “Hey, have you noticed all those hell-holes of destruction in Africa? How does catholicism help people achieve economic and individual autonomy, huh?”

Shame on Washington state

My home state! In a region with some of the highest percentages of godless people in the country! And they have this awful law on the books.

Washington’s law specifies that a person treated through faith healing “by a duly accredited Christian Science practitioner in lieu of medical care is not considered deprived of medically necessary health care or abandoned.” Other religions are not mentioned.

Christian Science is not science, and it is definitely not medicine. I presume some religious lobby got this evil exemption on the books years ago, but now it’s time to remove it—it’s killing people. The mention of the law comes from a story about a young man, Zachery Swezey, who died a slow, painful death from a ruptured appendix, with his parents looking on.

The day his son died, Greg Swezey told sheriff’s investigators he knew Zakk would die 10 or 15 minutes before the teenager passed away. His condition had gotten much worse about an hour and a half before Zakk died, he told the investigators, and he realized Zakk was exhibiting some of the symptoms of death he’d seen when older church members died.

He did not consider calling an ambulance, he told them.

Who did he call instead? Elders of his church, who showed up to splash oil on the poor kid and pray.

I can only imagine what that was like. I had severe appendicitis as a child, and their description of it is mild: sure, there was vomiting — like an acid geyser firing up your throat. They don’t even mention the agony and the fever and the intermittent loss of consciousness. And I didn’t even get to the point of having a rupture, because my parents did the sensible, reasonable, intelligent thing that any decent human being would do, and rushed me to the doctor, and then to the hospital.

I’m very happy to say that my parents loved me more than some insane primitive dogma, although, you know, that really isn’t saying much.

I’m very sorry that young Zakk isn’t around to say the same.

Change the law, Washingtonians.

By the way, you can find out more about this lunatic cult, The Church of the First Born, on their web page. They’re incoherent and nuts. Warning: the page fires up religious music as soon as it loads. Yeah, one of those.

Wikipedians might want to take a look at their Wikipedia entry, too. It’s pretty clearly written entirely by one of their acolytes — you can tell by all the exclamation points.

Church of the Firstborn – A Phrase/Title found in Scripture! – (Hebrews 12:23).

Not a Denomination! Not an Organization!Founded Much Earlier than any of the groups mentioned below!

The Head of This Church/Assembly is The Very One that you read about in The Holy/Qodesh Scriptures! (Romans 8:29, Colossians 1:15, Colossians 1:18) Members in This Church/Assembly Serve Him & His Father (To Whom we regard as Our Heavenly Father and HIS Son – The Messiah/Our Master & Savior) The First Born from the Dead – Leading the Way for all those that Believe & Follow Him/HIM, Never To Die Again!

It Is Not A Denomination! And It Is Not An Organization In Scripture!

Morality doesn’t equal God

Shorter Robert Wright: All we have to do to end the conflict between science and religion is convert the Christians to deists and get the scientists to pretend that evolution is teleological!

Who knew it would be so easy?

Unfortunately, from my perspective, knowledge is not one of those things on which one can compromise — you’ve either got evidence for something, or you don’t. We do not have evidence for purpose in evolution, and if anything, all the evidence is against the idea that evolution has a direction or that natural selection can be anything but an unguided response to local conditions.

Furthermore, his example doesn’t work. He’s all hung up on the “moral law”, and even cites C.S. Lewis. He wants to argue that the existence of morality, even if it isn’t derived from a god, is still an indication of the existence of a general directedness or overarching nudge from the laws of the universe, and therefore we should all just get along and accept this awesome pan-galactic force.

Nope, says I. First, there is no moral law: the universe is a nasty, heartless place where most things wouldn’t mind killing you if you let them. No one is compelled to be nice; you or anyone could go on a murder spree, and all that is stopping you is your self-interest (it is very destructive to your personal bliss to knock down your social support system) and the self-interest of others, who would try to stop you. There is nothing ‘out there’ that imposes morality on you, other than local, temporary conditions, a lot of social enculturation, and probably a bit of genetic hardwiring that you’ve inherited from ancestors who lived under similar conditions.

Jerry Coyne has addressed the same silly op-ed at much greater length. It really is wrong all the way through, but as Coyne suggests, maybe Wright is just taking a practical approach to winning that lucrative Templeton prize. It’s not because the universe drives his argument, but because he too is responding in a self-interested way to local conditions.

Steve Anderson, hatemonger

Brace yourselves: Glenn Moon is plainly mentally ill, but what are we to make of Pastor Steve Anderson? He has a job, he has a congregation, people actually respect him…but if you go to that link, you will hear the most astonishingly deranged, hateful, creepy nonsense in his sermons.

It’s all bible-based, too. You can use that vile old book to support any evil you can imagine, I think.

ELCA will have non-celibate gay pastors

In their national convention in Minneapolis, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America voted to allow gay pastors. Good for them.

I guess that lightning bolt that struck the convention center was a warning from god to the intolerant conservative wing of the church that he loves his sexy homosexual worshippers, too. Now we just have to hope that the residents of Kansas and Oklahoma and all those bible-belt states will someday figure out that he’s zapping them with lightning and tornadoes because he loves evolution, too.

Wrath of god strikes Minneapolis

We had summer thunderstorms and a tornado touchdown in Minneapolis yesterday, and the convention center was slightly damaged. At the same time, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America was having their national convention there. You know what this means?

God hates Christians. Repent!

No, wait, that can never be what an omen means. We already have prophets stirring the tea leaves and interpreting the event. It seems, if you look at the conference schedule, that the liberal Lutherans were contemplating making some friendly statements about their gay congregants, so obviously this was an example of gentle smiting of sodomites.

Of course, also on the schedule were bible study and hymn singing — god hates “Onward Christian Soldiers”. And a middle school in North Branch — god hates education. It knocked down many trees — god hates elms.

Oh, well. I know one thing. I hate pretentious gomers who use natural disasters to promote their goofy belief in a whimsical deity.

Men, Women Divided Over Sex Bill

There is a bill pending in the Bahamas which would outlaw marital rape, and it is facing a lot of opposition. There is a common theme in the arguments against it: see if you can figure out what it is.

“It is ridiculous for them to try to make that a law, because I don’t think a man can rape his own wife. After two people get married, the Bible says that they become one – one flesh. How is it possible to rape what is yours?” asked Mr. Sutherland.

“Even if a woman says no to her husband it still can’t be considered rape because she is his wife. He already paid his dues at the church and she already said ‘I do,’ so from then on, even if [a man] forces sex on his wife, it isn’t rape,” he said.

“I disagree with the bill because I disagree that a man can rape his wife. The Bible tells me that a man’s body is his wife’s and her body is his. How could he rape her?” asked Ms. Sweeting.

It looks to me as if being brought up with a belief in the literal truth of a misogynistic document like the Bible can inculcate the evil idea that women are possessions, and that marriage is an act of handing over a woman’s bill of sale to a man. I thought a wife was a partner, not a slave.