The crucifixion is worse than nonsense

I was on another show with this odd New Covenant group — these are people very deeply steeped in Christianity, and it shows in their modes of thinking. Not all of them call themselves atheists, but they’re definitely freethinkers, and so I chattered with them for two hours. The topic for this one was on the crucifixion, and I argued that it was more than just false, this myth of sacrifice by proxy is abhorrent poison.

The other thing that makes them different from scientists and atheists is they’re just too nice — I’m really put on edge by compliments.

And we’re the intolerant ones?

Al Bedrosian is the Republican (of course) candidate for the Roanoke County supervisor, and he certainly makes his position clear in a 2007 op-ed to the local paper.

As a Christian, I think it’s time to rid ourselves of this notion of freedom of religion in America.

Now that I have your attention, let me take a moment to make my case. Freedom of religion has become the biggest hoax placed upon the Christian people and on our Christian nation.

When reading the writings of our Founding Founders, there was never any reference to freedom of religion referring to a choice between Islam, Hindu, Satanism, Wicca and whatever other religions or cults you would like to dream up. It was very clear that freedom to worship meant the freedom to worship the God of the Bible in the way you wanted, and not to have a government church denomination dictate how you would worship.

Christianity, by its own definition, does not allow freedom of religion. A Christian is defined as a follower of Jesus Christ.

He is forthright, I’ll give him that — he comes right out and says exactly what a lot of American fundagelicals think: they are intolerant radicals. They’re also guilty of magical thinking.

Beware, Christians, we are being fed lies that a Christian nation needs to be open to other religions. America is a great nation — not because of its freedom, great economic system, or even its military power. It is a great nation because the God of the Bible has blessed us in our freedom, our wealth and our military power.

Once we remove ourselves from worshiping the one true God, all the wonderful qualities of America will vanish.

If Al Bedrosian is an example of the wonderful qualities of America, please do vanish.

Gage Pulliam: Courageous atheist in god-soaked Oklahoma

It’s a very familiar story: atheist student sits in class, looks up, notices the school administration has plastered the walls with pious Bible nonsense, and sics the FFRF on ’em.

The usual response occurred: the town is up in arms, local churches whine about “Christianity under attack!”, bullies begin lashing out at those who don’t go to church, Christians start claiming that the majority rules, therefore they get to violate the constitution.

The amazing thing is that Pulliam is still optimistic that he’ll be able to finish up his last year of high school there without serious repercussions. He has high hopes that the students and teachers will not hold his actions against him. I hope he’s right — not just for his sake, but because it would be good to see signs that the religious fanatics can back down when they’re clearly in the wrong.

Ja, we shall invade this Austrian poll

Hey, I thought Europe was more secular…so why is this poll going the wrong way? Oh, because it’s in Catholic Austria.

In German:

Sollen Kruzifixe aus den Klassenzimmern verbannt werden?

17,68% – Ja, denn Religion soll Privatsache bleiben.

77,04% – Nein, denn das Christentum hat in Österreich jahrhundertelange Tradition.

5,28% – Egal, es liegt sowieso an den Eltern, ihren Kindern Religion nahezubringen.

Auf Englisch:

Should crucifixes should be banned from classrooms?

17.68% – Yes, because religion should remain a private matter.

77.04% – No, because Christianity has centuries-long tradition in Austria.

5.28% – Doesn’t matter, it is up to the parents to bring their children up in a religion.

Can a bunch of Americans reverse this trend? That would be weird.

John Shook weighs in now

And he offers a historical perspective on Skepticism and Religion.

Enlightenment theologians had to strike a bargain with scientific skepticism since they were terrified by a different, far older kind of skepticism: ancient Greek Skepticism. This rationalistic skepticism demanded high standards of provability before accepting anything as knowledge. The basic idea for a rationalist skeptic during the Enlightenment was something like this: Where reason and empirical inquiry cannot confirm, it must be disbelieved as unreasonable. For this rationalist skepticism, all the gods must go. The core of religion, and not just the claptrap, is entirely unreasonable and unbelievable, since no theological argument demonstrates a god’s existence and no empirical evidence is sufficient to support a god’s existence. Instead of saying "No Comment" to religion’s core claims, rationalist skepticism says "That’s unreasonable for anyone to accept."

To this day, many skeptics rely on both scientific skepticism and rationalist skepticism. It’s all about the appropriate use of reason. That is why being a genuine skeptic means being a disbeliever and being open about disbelieving everything religions talk about. But joining up with this current Skeptic(TM) movement means never having to tell the faithful how their god isn’t real. Is that too big a price to pay, to get more science accommodated by society?

To answer that last question, yes, it’s much too high a price to pay, especially since we aren’t getting a reasonable return on the investment. Science is a disruptive, revolutionary force, and lying about its implications does not lead to acceptance — it leads only to acceptance of an insipid shadow of science.

Gene Mims and the mysterious missing point

Some Christian dorkasaur named Gene Mims has an argument for silencing atheists. It’s about unicorns.

Unicorns

Stay with me for a moment and I think I can give you a better understanding to my perplexity concerning atheists.  You see I do not believe in unicorns.  You may and that is surely your right, but I don’t.  They are cute in cartoons, movies, and comic books, but I must confess that I don’t believe in them.  So what’s the point.  The point is that since I don’t believe in unicorns I don’t give them much thought.  I don’t write about them or speak about them.  I don’t go to conferences on how to stop people from believing in them.  I do not fund legal societies to stop people from being able to talk about unicorns in schools and public places.  I  don’t worry if people celebrate holidays dedicated to unicorns.  For me they don’t exist.

Give It Up

To all bent-out-of-shape atheists I say simply, GIVE IT UP! Find something else to worry about like global warming, Republicans, education, war, and rain forest destruction.  Let those who believe in God alone.  If He doesn’t exist then why all the worry and concern?  If He does exist then you don’t care anyway.  He won’t bother you.  Try not to be bothered by what you don’t believe in and work on what you do know. The more you talk about God the more likely it is that those who may share your position might begin to doubt it and actually search for Him and find Him.

Aww, we have something in common. I don’t believe in unicorns, either! So I don’t spend much time dwelling on them, myself. We’re both a-unicornists! We should form a club.

Of course, there’s a reason I don’t worry much about unicorns or unicorn believers. We don’t have institutions dedicated to preaching about unicorns every week. People don’t get tax breaks for believing in unicorns. Unicornists don’t have a de facto lock on elected office. Nobody is telling me I need to include unicorn biology and paleontology in my courses at the university, or in high school. The unicorn lobby is essentially non-existent.

I’m not at all concerned about unicorns. If we had them, it would be unicorn-believers who would worry me. I’m not afraid of getting gored by a unicorn, and neither is Mr Mims, but we might just have reason to be terrified of the kind of fanatic who would consider mindless faith in unicorns to be a necessary prerequisite to moral behavior and inclusion in civilized society, to the point where they try to force unbelievers to obey and be silent.

Same with God, Mr Mims. Gods don’t exist, so they don’t trouble me in the slightest. But I fear your dumbassery, Mr Mims — that exists, unlike the invisible being to which you so zealously devote your life.

Maybe you should think just a little bit more deeply about your analogy between god and unicorns. I think there’s a significant similarity that you missed.

How about if we all end the killing?

deathtoatheists
One point! One demand! Atheists must be hanged!

Half a million Islamists marched in Bangladesh, chanting their desire to murder people who don’t believe in their demented, angry god. I take that personally — they want to kill people like me, for the crime of not thinking as they do. If I’d been there, that mob would have torn me to pieces.

And it’s not just atheists they hate. Women must live in service to the men, they are to have their rights diminished. Education is to be crippled, reduced to rote memorization of their holy books. This is awful, poisonous stuff, and I condemn it without reservation.

But let me remind you, the United States has been carrying out routine drone attacks against Muslims…attacks that kill children.

drone-attacks

So angry mobs threaten and howl and promise to roll their culture back to the Middle Ages. Americans calmly sit in air-conditioned rooms and push buttons and joysticks and send robots through the skies to pour death on civilians. Obama calmly rationalizes the murders and cracks jokes about predator drones.

obama
The rules outside of the United States are going to be different than the rules inside of the United States.

One side wants to kill people like me, is furious and destructive, and rages passionately about killing the Other; the other side wants to kill people outside our borders, is calm and dispassionate, and marshals machines to execute the Other without risk to ourselves.

I cannot condemn one without condemning the other. Especially since our tactics seem to be so much more effective at butchering people.