A number of you wrote in to me to let me know that Hong Kong was considering labeling the Christian bible as indecent—it is full of violence and kinky-freaky sexual behavior, after all. It was also amusing how some people rationalized it.
Ralph Reed is a sleazy con artist who hides his predatory nature behind a mask of piety; Hannity is a slow-witted thug with a simple-minded view of the world that he takes straight from the religious. It was therefore rather delightful to see Christopher Hitchens plainly reject their ridiculous demand for a hypocritical expression of sorrow at the death of a rich old shaman.
I was particularly appalled at Hannity’s list of Falwell’s virtues that included founding Liberty University. If founding a compound where ignorance is encouraged to fester is one of his accomplishments, I will admit that he was much much more successful at it than Jim Jones, David Koresh, or Elizabeth Clare Prophet…but I refuse to regard it as positive on Falwell’s ledger sheet.
It was good to see how to handle the right-wing blowhards well, too: charge ahead, don’t allow them to force you into their frame, and talk right over their diatribes.
Man, what a beautiful burn.
And he doesn’t just take on Falwell, it’s the whole rotten edifice of religion.
While I am sorry for the pain that his family now feels, we can all take solace in the fact that the extinction of the televangelist was all part of god’s loving plan.
A Christian game company has started a promotion for one of their games, and one gimmick is that they are offering a $10,000 prize to any atheist or agnostic who can replicate the unique literary style of the bible, which they purport is evidence of its divine origin.
You might not want to look at this story about the televangelist fraud, Peter Popoff around lunchtime — it contains graphic visuals of a known con artist cheerfully defrauding the sick and elderly, and it might leave you a little squeamish. Popoff was discredited by James Randi 20 years ago, as is vividly shown at the link, but he’s back now, sucking in millions of dollars every year with his lies.
There’s also a couple in the story who were sick and unemployed, and who borrowed thousands of dollars from relatives to help them pay their bills…and who instead sent all the money to Popoff, who promised them magic Jesus prosperity. It’s a veritable freakshow of stupidity—you’ll despise the con artist, but you’ll also want to kick some of his victims.
Brent got asked a question by Vox Day: to list Christianity’s 10 greatest sins against science. He expands a little bit:
I’m reading all of these New Atheist books, I keep reading these condemnations of Christians being anti-science, but no one ever bothers to explain exactly what they mean by that. I mean, what the Hell does Galileo’s trial have to do with Christian attitudes today, except as some sort of analogy for… something current? But what?
I mean, if the worst thing people have done is put someone on trial 500 years ago, is it really such a huge deal? Now, I’m assuming that there are other things, such as opposing Federal stem cell funding and pushing for ID in the public schools, but there has got to be more. So, in what other specific ways are Christians endangering science? Is Galileo still a top ten grievance? What else is there?
Bleh. Day is looking for some specific list of incidents, like Galileo’s persecution by the church, or perhaps George Deutch’s arrogant attempts to hide scientific conclusions at NASA. That’s typically superficial of him; that’s not the objection at all. The problem is that religion instills odious patterns of thinking in large numbers of people, ideas about how the world works that actually get in the way of improving our culture. The problem isn’t Galileo specifically, but that religion provides institutions and a rationale for Galileo-like situations, and inculcates support for such decisions in the populace.
Here’s my quick list of objections to religion. Please note that I understand there will be individual variation, both between people in a sect and between sects themselves (Calvinists and Unitarians will have different views of destiny, for instance, and Buddhists seem less prone to the tyranny of authoritarianism). Also, the general public will embrace these sins a little less fervently than creationists and fundamentalists, but they’re all there to some extent—while sometimes I’ll mention creationists as extreme examples, that does not mean I am implying that all religious people are creationists.
Oh, and forget 10; this dial goes up to twelve.
You can’t trust that tyrant Terwilliger. He’s an awful, awful man, and once he made school principal, he used his vast autocratic powers to make every Christian suffer. He threw them to the lions. He crucified them upside down. He beheaded them and shot them with arrows. He tied them to stakes and set them afire. He lashed them and flayed them. He burned their bibles and slapped them when they dared to pray in the lunchroom. He made them stop wearing offensive t-shirts that said other members of the student body were going to hell.
Oh, wait. He didn’t do any of those things, except the last one. What kind of pathetic despot is he if he doesn’t even try to oppress people? And what kind of crybaby Christians are these picketers? Their only hardship is that they aren’t allowed to pretend to be the Reverend Phelps in the school.
She beat Brownback. She trounced Tancredo. She even clobbered Coburn. America’s Holiest Congressperson is Minnesota’s own Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
Bachmann, an Evangelical Lutheran, and self-professed “fool for Christ,” ran for Congress because God—and her husband—wanted her to. The representative publicly credited her campaign to her submission to her husband, who was channeling God’s wishes for her.
Prior to this higher calling, Bachmann earned a law degree from Coburn, an affiliate of Oral Roberts University, and helped found a charter school where she reportedly worked to prevent the Disney movie Aladdin from being shown, because it supposedly promoted paganism. Then, as a Minnesota state senator, Bachmann launched a crusade to outlaw gay marriage that turned into a highly publicized spectacle replete with restroom run-ins with angry lesbians and grainy photos suggesting that Bachmann was “spying” on a gay rights rally while crouching behind a bush.
Tireless in her pursuit, Bachmann has even gone so far as to be active in efforts to “rehabilitate” people who “suffer from ‘same-sex attractions,’ and once articulated the merits of being “hot for Jesus Christ.”
The magazine also has a list of our Ten Dumbest Congressperson — couldn’t they have saved some space by consolidating the two lists?
