Do we really care what the Pope says anymore?

Many people have been sending me links to the latest comments by our charming Catholic pontiff, and I don’t know, I’m just finding the old boy increasingly irrelevant as he continues his reactionary slide into medieval thinking. More and more it’s like hearing reports of what some random homeless man in a Philadelphia subway station ranted about — it’s amusing and appalling, but it’s hard to work up the outrage to care any more. Yes, you can argue that the Pope is influential, but even there, how many self-identified Catholics pay any attention at all to what he says about contraception, for instance? But alright, once more unto the breach, etc.

So here’s what the pope babbled recently.

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An exemplary Christian science fair project

It’s getting to be about that time: science fair season. I’ll remind you all that we have an infamous local event, the Twin Cities Creation Science Fair, in which real live homeschooled creationist kids will present their experiments at the Har Mar Mall, on 16-17 February. I’m hoping to make it this year, but I’ve got a lot of other traveling to do that week, so I’m not sure that I’ll be able to make it…if I do, though, I’ll let you know.

Because I have to deal with this all the time, I’ll also remind everyone that the Objective: Ministries Creation Sciende Fair page is a satire, OK?

This, however, is real: Possummomma finds a lovely example of Christian “science”. A sixth-grader in her area decided to test the hypothesis that “unchristians” are less moral than Christians with a questionnaire — a badly done questionnaire. Some amusing bits: the student had his subjects report on their amoral behaviors, and didn’t keep their answers anonymous. Cool. That could add some fun to a community event.

The other amusing thing is the conclusion: everyone failed the morality test. The answer, then is that we are all sinners, so we’d better become Christians.

The kid ought to come on up to Minnesota — he’d fit right in.

Heath Ledger dead, and why it matters

So Heath Ledger, the young actor, is dead of unknown causes. I don’t know much about him, I did not have any kind of personal interaction with him so I don’t need to know much about him — I liked some of his movies, he was young, it’s tragic to see a life ended so early.

Those demented ghouls at Westboro Baptist Church have a different point of view, though.

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It’s just a lunatic ranting his hate, but that last paragraph is fascinating.

Heath Ledger is now in Hell, and has begun serving his eternal sentence there — beside which, nothing else about Heath Ledger is relevant or consequential.

That epitomizes the problem, I think. There is a kind of sliding scale of belief: most of us value our lives to some degree, and consider how we spend our three score and ten to be important; then there are people who attach some degree of importance on an afterlife they’ve imagined, and consider this hypothetical eternity to be a matter of concern. Atheists have the scale pegged way over to the left and see this little slice of time we have as all we have, and therefore the only thing we have to make work. Most religious people have the dial turned up a little to the right — they are clearly operationally secular, spending most of their time on work and family, and socking away a little Sunday prayer time for an anticipated and wholly delusional Heaven. We can all live with that.

But then there are these wackos like Fred Phelps who have the dial turned so far to the right that they place a higher priority in their fantasies about what they’ll be doing after they’re dead over what they’re doing with their life right now. That’s where religion becomes a great evil, where it destroys lives and compels people to commit acts that are materially insane, but make great logical sense to people infected with the idea that there is an eternity of consequence for trivial transgressions against a shared belief.

This is why we have to strike right at the root of religious belief. It’s an unfounded expectation of a magic post-mortem resuscitation in a new universe with different rules that has the potential to completely change the equation about how we live our lives in this brief span — and not for the better, as proponents pretend — and to those of us who care about our lives, our world, and our legacy rather than our imagined ghost-existence, that matters.

P.S. Note the inconsistency in Phelps’ position, too. If what Heath Ledger did in his life is such a tiny, irrelevant fragment of god’s great plan for his existence, why is his role in a movie Fred Phelps didn’t like so important that it dictates an eternity of pain?

I could be killing people here!

Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, a journalist in Afghanistan, has been arrested and condemned for downloading articles on the internet that are critical of Islam.

Kambakhsh, a student at Balkh University and a journalist for Jahan-e Naw (New World), was arrested in October 2007 after material he downloaded was deemed to be offensive to Islam.

Shamsur Rahman, the head of the court, told Reuters news agency: “According to… the Islamic law, Sayed Perwiz is sentenced to death at the first court.

“However, he will go through three more courts to declare his last punishment,” he said.

I would say right now that Islam is an evil and atrocious collection of obsolete myths that is a threat to human sanity and safety (along with Christianity and Judaism, the other Abrahamic afflictions), but I better not—somebody reading it in the wrong place might get arrested.

And what else lacks evidence…?

Ali G interviews four people with opinions about religion. It’s a bit hit or miss, but listen for the bit at the end.

Ali G wonders why so many nuns work as strippers on the side, and the easily offended Catholic priest says, “I don’t think you can demonstrate that statistically…it’s an absurd statement that you’ve just made. …

I would really prefer that you move off this topic because I find it offensive. It’s not documented by any kind of evidence. It’s hearsay.”

Hilarious irony there.

O Canada! O Women!

The North looks ever more attractive — read this excellent article on the collapse of organized religion in Canada. The numbers of church members is simply plummeting up there, a state we can only dream of bringing to pass here in the US (numbers are declining here, too, but we can hope that this is an inevitable descent and that Canada is only leading us by a few years.)

One interesting hypothesis for why it’s happening is that we can thank, in part, feminism.

Women — the traditional mainstays of institutional religion — in huge numbers abruptly rejected the church’s patriarchal exemplar of them as chaste, submissive “angels in the house” with all of the social and moral responsibility for community and family but none of the authority.

Unable to find acceptable religious role models or religious ideals that were not painful or oppressive, they reconstructed their identities as secular and sexual beings.

As they progressed into university graduate and professional schools and entered the work force, their horizons broadened and they discovered ways of serving that were more valuable than doing dishes and running church picnics.

I don’t know how solid the data is on that claim, but it’s at least intuitively attractive. Mothers are typically far more influential on their children’s religious belief than fathers, at least in my experience, so anything that draws women away from the church is going to have strong effects.

Maybe if we want atheism to succeed, we need to promote women more. Everyone thinks of Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens when we discuss the godless movement — but perhaps we should be giving more props to Susan Jacoby, Julia Sweeney, Ellen Johnson, Natalie Angier, Margaret Downey, even Madelyn Murray O’Hair … hey, have you noticed? There are lots of actively atheist women!

Talk Radio … the horror, the horror

It’s a good thing that Minnesota Atheists are making an effort to get on the radio. Have you ever looked at the Christian talk radio programming in your area? It’s like a black hole of rampaging stupid, so awfully banal and inane that it’s terrifying. I was just sent the program guide for our major Minneapolis Christian talk station — KKMS, AM980 — and it offers a rather creepy view of their perspective. There are some surprises, though. Guess what venue the big time Intelligent Design creationists use to spread their ideas?

Tuesday
3:00 Hour – “The KKMS Ministry of the Month” – Dr. John MacArthur, Host of the Grace to You Radio Program will tell us about the history of his ministry and how we can be praying for him as we celebrate the KKMS Ministry of the Month.

4:00 Hour – “Understanding the End Times” – R. Paul Stevens, Professor of Martketplace Theology and Leadership at Regent College will walk us through a Bible study he has written that explores the end times and offer some points to consider when studying this topic.

5:00 Hour – “The Creation Museum” – Ken Ham, Founder and President of Answers in Genesis will give us details on how many people have attended the new Creation Museum in Cincinnati, OH so far and how what they’ve seen and experienced there has impacted them.

Wednesday:
3:00 Hour – “Understanding the Times” – Jan Markell, Founder of Olive Tree Ministries
4:00 Hour – “Great Getaways” – Jeanie Johnston, Heartland Tours and Travel Group Sales Director
5:00 Hour – “12 Great Choices Mom’s Make” – Robin Chaddock, Teacher and Author

Thursday:
3:00 Hour – “Responding to Atheists” – Becky Garrison, Senior Contributing Editor for The Wittenburg Door Magazine
5:00 Hour – “Ministering Through Music” – David Olson, Worship Leader for The Gathering at Wooddale Church

Friday:
3:00 Hour – “The Limits of Darwinism” – Dr. Michael Behe, Professor of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University
4:00 Hour – “The KKMS Church of the Week” – Pastor Tim Skramstad, Pastor of Living Word Lutheran Church in Eagan, MN
5:00 Hour – “Movie Reviews” – Linda Thomas, Twin Cities Film Critic

Monday:
3:00 Hour – “The KKMS Church of the Week” – TBA
4:00 Hour – “Terrorism, Christianity and Football” – Jason Elam, Kicker for the Denver Broncos and Steve Yohn, Youth for Christ Videographer
5:00 Hour – “Facts about Intelligent Design” – William A. Dembski, Research Professor in Philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

I’m tempted to listen in on a few of those segments, although honestly, the limited exposure to this kind of crap I’ve had in the past does not benefit my blood pressure, and it really ought to be the obligation of non-atheist moderate Christians to be putting these kooks’ feet to the fire. Not that they will.

By the way, their site has an online poll to see who their listeners would vote for in the presidential election — Huckabee, of course, has an overwhelming lead, while Clinton, of course, is dead last. I urge you all to really screw with their heads and go vote.

If you really want to screw with their heads, though, listen to them or your local Christian talk station and call in … and be polite, rational, and undeluded.

I listened in for a few minutes — and managed to catch the hosts complaining that we were “ruining their poll” and “running up the votes”. They also said they thought about mentioning the url to this article, but … you little savages used naughty language. Now go wash your mouths out with soap and sit in the corner until you repent.

FSTDT

I’ve known this site for a long time, but a reader just sent me a link to it, so maybe I shouldn’t take for granted that you all know about it, too…it’s Fundies Say The Darndest Things, a collection of ripe and juicy quotes culled from Christian discussion boards. Some of them I suspect to be the product of godless trolls, but others, including some of the most outrageously ridiculous statements, are definitely from steadfast fundamentalists.