Sandwalk: Dear Royal Ontario Museum …

I’d mentioned before that the Royal Ontario Museum was sponsoring a talk by that pseudoscientific goober, Deepak Chopra — perhaps Ken Ham had been unavailable — and as you might guess, quite a few people are dumbfounded that a respected museum was bringing in a quack. You can help protest: Larry Moran has a letter to the Director of the ROM, and you can add a signature to it.

I’ve been to the ROM, and it’s excellent — there is no pandering to quacks there. I have to wonder who made this awful decision…and I wouldn’t be surprised if it weren’t some non-scientist in marketing.

Another reason to ban official prayer at public meetings

Cynthia Dunbar, one of the wingnuts on the Texas board of education, is a revolting human being. She delivered a ‘prayer’ before a meeting that is an excellent example of grandstanding piety. She seems to be lecturing god on American history…her version of American history.

Of course she wasn’t actually lecturing god — that entity doesn’t exist, and if you believe he does, then it would be an act of hubris to stand there and tell him what to think — but she was instead taking a moment to harangue the committee and audience with her far-right revisionist baloney without risk that someone might challenge her. In a room full of god-fearin’ folk, she didn’t have to worry about anyone interrupting a prayer to tell her that she’s full of crap. It was an act of outrageous cowardice.

Here are a few bits of what she said.

I believe no one can read the history of our country without realizing that the Good Book and the spirit of the savior have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses.

Whether we look to the first charter of Virginia, or the charter of New England…the same objective is present — a Christian land governed by Christian principles.

I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion. I like also to believe that as long as we do so, no great harm can come to our country.

That’s not a prayer. Those are dogmatic assertions, used to advance a loony political position.

Why shouldn’t public meetings begin with a prayer? Because they’re usually sectarian, always inane, and as we see here, can be used to advocate a specific political point under the mask of piety.

It’s South Africa’s turn for a little poll-crashing

It’s a poll about whether the Bible is an accurate historical document…and the people who think it is have a slight edge right now. Now, as I post this, that is. I have a suspicion that that will change very quickly.

Genesis en Eksodus verteenwoordig volgens prof Willie Esterhuyse nie historiese geskiedenis nie maar is singewende mites. (Genesis and Exodus do not represent historical fact but are insightful myths according to prof Willie Esterhuyse.)

Ek stem saam dat dit nie historiese verhale is nie (I agree that both aren’t historical fact) 46%

Ek beskou dit as historiese gebeure wat werklik plaasgevind het (I see both as historical events that actually occurred) 49%

Ek weet nie meer wat in die Bybel is waar en wat nie (I have no idea what in the bible is true or not.) 4%

Irking accomplished. Continue.

Draw Mohammed Day is over now, and we’re getting the reactions now. Some people didn’t get it, including
Greg Epstein.

There is a difference between making fun of religious or other ideas on a TV show that you can turn off, and doing it out in a public square where those likely to take offense simply can’t avoid it. These chalk drawings are not a seminar on free speech; they are the atheist equivalent of the campus sidewalk preachers who used to irk me back in college. This is not even “Piss Christ,” Andres Serrano’s controversial 1987 photograph of a crucifix in urine. It is more like filling Dixie cups with yellow water and mini crucifixes and putting them on the ground all over town. Could you do it legally? Of course. Should you?

Epstein completely misses the boat on this one. No, it isn’t like those crazy campus preachers who shout hellfire at passing students; it’s more like the students who are amused at the bombast and use it as an opportunity to point and laugh, which is an entertaining and productive response. Would Mr Epstein have been irked at the students who mocked and made fun, shushing them and telling them their reaction to being told they’re degenerates who are going to hell was totally inappropriate, and that they should simply listen quietly and respectfully?

What Epstein is also overlooking is that this is not simply a dismissal of the Muslim religion — it’s a humorous response to a gang of thugs who have threatened to kill people over a few sketches. You do not surrender to bullies. You also do not respond in kind, threatening to kill people who believe in the sanctity of stick figures. What you do is ridicule and weaken the blustering insistence on special privilege by showing repeatedly that they are powerless and look hypocritical and silly.

That was the primary point of this exercise, to show up radical Muslims as ineffectual buffoons. Note that the campaign was not “Draw Buddha Day” or “Draw Vishnu Day”…not because those beliefs aren’t equally absurd (they are), but because Buddhists and Hindus have not demanded special protection for the dignity of their faith, while threatening to murder anyone who violates their holy rules.

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The idea to scatter dixie cups and crucifixes across campus would be a good one…if the Catholic Church suddenly announced that immersing the figure of Jesus in water was a crime punishable by burning at the stake. They haven’t, yet, which makes that a pointless endeavor. If they do, I’ll be first in line at the dollar store to pick up a few icons, disposable cups, and food dye.

Greg Epstein can stay home and complain that the people asserting their freedom from religious dogma are irking him.

Spain has a blasphemy law on the books, too

Way back in the 1970s, a Spanish songwriter named Javier Krahe made this short satirical video.


Let’s take a gaunt Christ for every two persons. Remove the spikes and take the body from the cross, which will be left aside. The stigmas can be stuffed with bacon. Uncrust with warm water and dry carefuly. Abundant butter will be spread on the Christ, which will be then placed on an ovenproof dish, over a bed of onions. Spread over it some salt and pepper, other spices and fine herbs can be added to suit your taste. The mixture is to be left in a moderate fire oven for three days, after which He will get out on his own.

It’s silly. It’s a little weird. It also could cost Krahe €192,000.

The catholic organisation was enraged when the TV program Lo+Plus (in Canal+) referred to the video in 2005, while the author was being interviewed. The claimant organisation, whose motto is “Christianizing law, Christianizing society” understands that the short film attacks their religious feelings, a crime as described in Article 525 of the Spanish legal code.

That organisation also charges the director of the TV program, Montserrat Fernández Villa, who is asked for a bail of 144.000 euros. Both she and Krahe were astonished yesterday by the prosecution. “We didn’t air the video. Just some frames of it were displayed in the background while the last question of the interview was being answered.”, says Fernández Villa. The program apologized a few days later, after receiving some complaining calls.

So you can get massive fines in Spain for hurting Catholic feelings? There’s another country that I’d like to visit that I’m going to have to cross off my to-do list.