It’s a mysterious sign in an unknown location…and I take it personally.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
One of the most annoying features of South Park is the creators’ hypocrisy. They’re so infatuated with tearing down that they never bother to build up. Trey Parker has an odd comment in an interview:
“All the religions are super funny to me,” Parker said. “The story of Jesus makes no sense to me. God sent his only son. Why could God only have one son and why would he have to die? It’s just bad writing, really. And it’s really terrible in about the second act.”
But Parker says atheism is more ludicrous to him than anything else.
“Out of all the ridiculous religion stories — which are greatly, wonderfully ridiculous — the silliest one I’ve ever heard is, ‘Yeah, there’s this big, giant universe and it’s expanding and it’s all going to collapse on itself and we’re all just here, just ‘cuz. Just ‘cuz. That to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever,” he says.
Nah, he doesn’t even get the physics right. We’re here; we have the observations and measurements and experiments to show how we got here; it just is, no because about it.
But here’s the cowardly part of his statement: he implies he’s not a Christian, he implies he’s not an atheist — neither of which are particularly interesting comments — but nowhere does he say where he thinks we came from. You know why, and he knows why: he’s made a profession out of tearing down and ridiculing ideas (no problem there, it’s often a good thing to do), and he is well aware that if he actually gave even tentative support to some idea, not only would others reciprocate and rip into it with ridicule, but he’d be expected to do a show where he laughs at it himself. Of course, it may well be that he accepts the physical explanation of the universe — or even the Christian story, for that matter — but still thinks it is ridiculous because that is his only response to everything.
I think his show is often funny, and it does sometimes do a good job of satirizing even stuff I like (and often does a bad job, but heck, 95% of everything is crap), but the depressing pattern it constantly exhibits is that it is so damned hollow.
Oh, and I think the recent Mohammed episode falls into the 95%, and I really don’t believe their claim that the network forced them to censor it — I find it hard to believe anything they say, and think it’s just Parker and Stone gaming their audience some more. Just ‘cuz that’s what they do.
The intersection of sex and religion can get very disturbing. But if you want really disturbing, forget Catholicism — that’s just old school abuse of power and guilt and ugliness, given strength by sheer numbers. The really freaky stuff is in cults, like The Family International. Don’t click on that link unless you want to get sucked into a vortex of insanity — it’s about a sex cult that used what they called “Flirty Fishing”, more commonly known as prostitution, to recruit followers to Jesus and to make money, among other things.
I got that from a link to a blog by a phone sex worker, which can also draw you in. Now that I’ve ruined all your productivity for the day, I’m going to put the internet aside and go get some work done.
The Reverend Barry Lynn was on Fox News with Megyn Kelly, and I am unsurprised that Kelly was astonishingly awful: talking over Lynn, pushing lies, etc. There are multiple face-palm moments here: Kelly telling a reverend that he “wants god out of everything,” for instance, or when Lynn points out that the national day of prayer is not neutral on religion, but promotes it, she offers a ‘secular’ alternative: instead of praying, let people meditate and acknowledge the role that god has played in the founding of this country and its laws.
Lynn is good, though, and shows how to gracefully cope with an interview with a moron.
Lynn has an excellent defense of the decision that the national day of prayer is unconstitutional (even if it is on the odious HuffPo), where he makes the case that the NDP has always been a sectarian and blatantly religious event, of exactly the kind that the government is forbidden from endorsing.
Man, if more Christians were like Barry Lynn (or like Sam Venable, for another example), those danged New Atheists would have very little to rail against, and we’d all kind of cool down and go take a nap, or something.
Unfortunately, they aren’t like that, and right now we have the Department of Justice gearing up to appeal the decision against the NDP, and Obama still intends to honor the National Day of Prayer (thanks, Mr President — you are apparently the kind of disreputable Christian we oppose). The Freedom from Religion Foundation has a petition asking Obama to respect the court decision, and is also looking for contributions to their legal fund. Sign it! Do you really want the likes of Megyn Kelly deciding what is constitutional?
Last year, Liberty University picked an appropriate commencement speaker: Ben Stein. And the laughter did peal across the nation.
What could they do to top that this year? Who could they possibly get as a commencement speaker for the class of 2010 to signify exactly how deeply into Wingnuttia they are? Who could possibly stand up and show them their future?
It’s Glenn Beck. Perfection!
They may have peaked. I don’t know who they could possibly get to be as representative in 2011.
Old thread cleansed with flamethrowers and bazookas; a new nest emerges!
(Current totals: 10,075 entries with 973,299 comments)
Stories like this one about private insurers operations are one good reason.
Reuters reported on Thursday that WellPoint, the largest U.S. health insurer by enrollment, was using a computer algorithm that automatically targeted patients recently diagnosed with breast cancer, among other conditions.
The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation by the company as it searched for excuses to drop coverage, according to government regulators and investigators.
WellPoint has excuses. One that is almost reasonable is that they automatically scan claims for pre-existing “conditions that patients would likely have known about when they applied for insurance, but insisted it does not single out women with breast cancer.” Which is only almost reasonable until you think it through and realize that they’re admitting that they do actively search for reasons to deny coverage to women with breast cancer, and that their other justification is that they do the same thing for everyone on their plan who comes down with a disease.
I know. They just want to make a profit for their shareholders, and they take it for granted that they profit more if they deny health care to people in need. It seems to me that that is the problem, though: relying for health care on companies that have an incentive to not provide health care doesn’t sound like a smart move.
To be fair, WellPoint has published a lengthy counterargument. They do point out that they have a lot of clients and they do have detection and prevention programs in place, which is good; nowhere do they refute the news report that they “automatically targeted patients recently diagnosed with breast cancer, among other conditions.” In fact, they’re basically admitting it, and all they say that’s relevant is that they do not single out women with breast cancer. Which the original article did not claim.
There is one small piece of WellPoint’s letter that is unintentionally amusing.
Madame Secretary, a three-story pink ribbon hangs in the lobby of our Indianapolis headquarters for many reasons.
I hate those stupid ribbons for everything: they seem to be more a blind and completely empty acknowledgment of a problem with no solution or even any real effort behind them. Want to claim you support something? Slap a magnetic ribbon on your car. Done. If you really want to pretend you care, put up a three-story tall ribbon in your lobby. Is anyone impressed?
The stories just get worse and worse. The Catholic priesthood hasn’t just been abusing children in various places, but also has a history of abuse of women, especially in Africa and India.
The crisis of religious abuse in Africa and India was brought to Rome’s attention in 1998 when a four-page paper titled “The Problem of the Sexual Abuse of African Religious in Africa and Rome” was presented by Sister Marie McDonald, mother superior of the Missionaries of Our Lady of Africa. A March 2001 National Catholic Reporter article detailed McDonald’s claims, which included accounts of sexual abuse by priests and bishops.
McDonald quoted a vicar general in one African diocese who talked “quite openly” in Rome in 1996 about celibacy in Africa, saying, “Celibacy in the African context means a priest does not get married, but does not mean he does not have children.”
The AIDS pandemic in Africa and India is said to have made nuns “safer” sex partners and, also for that reason, targets of priests seeking sex. (Some nuns also reported sexual abuse by mothers superior.) The women, culturally brainwashed not to challenge men or female figures of authority, felt they had no choice, and the priests took further advantage by arguing that Catholic rules for priests required them to have sex “only with virgins.”
More allegations came from Sister Jesme, an ex-nun from the Indian state of Kerala, who told of sexual abuse and forced homosexual relationships in a 2009 autobiography. But when the book was released, a spokesman for the Syro-Malabar order of the Catholic Church in India dismissed it as a “book of trivialities.”
“It’s her experiences,” he said, “but these are things that might creep into a society of communal living.” He added that the church would not be shocked by the allegations, concluding, “The church knows about these things.”
I’m pretty sure Catholic dogma does not say priests are allowed to have sex with virgins, so on the one hand, this is clearly a bunch of exploiters in clerical collars going well off the reservation; on the other hand, these abuses were plainly spelled out to the Vatican, which seems to have responded with its well-practiced negligence.
Of course, another factor might be that, just as is the case in remote Inuit villages, running a diocese in Africa or India is probably a high-profit-margin affair. The Vatican patriarchy might see little to gain in helping women.
The long-awaited review of Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini’s anti-evolution book by Jerry Coyne is now online in The Nation. It’s a double-review of both the bad philosophy book and the good science book by Dawkins. Settle in for a nice read.
