The Atheist’s Revenge!

As you’ve already heard, the Atheist Foundation of Australia was hit with a denial-of-service attack earlier this week (you can learn more about it in this interview of Jason Ball by Catherine Deveny).

I rather like their planned unofficial response.

This is a call to all non-believers and advocates for freedom of speech to join us in a global co-ordinated minute of prayer with the aim of inundating God (in this context, the Christian god, God, as distinct from the Greek god, Zeus, the Egyptian god, Ra etc etc) with so many useless prayers that it causes his divineness to go offline as as result of our own DDOS (‘Divine’ Denial of Service).

The prayer minute will be at exactly 8pm (Eastern Standard Time) & 9am (Greenwich Mean Time) on Sunday 8 November 2009.

Please join us in this important task, with any luck it will take God a while to get back online, ensuring us at least a few days of godless peace. It will also give the Westboro Baptist Church some much needed time to catch up on paperwork.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to join in, because whatever I have planned for that time, whatever it may be, will be far more interesting and productive than babbling to an invisible man. I’m pretty sure I won’t be needed, though; I understand all modern prayers are first funneled through a 110 baud modem, then passed further upstairs by telegraph, then pony express riders gallop it over to the Pearly Gates, and then a rewritten version is passed on to a team of long-dead Sumerian scribes for transcription into cuneiform on wax plates, and then and only then is it in a format that a bronze age patriarchal deity can understand. I don’t think it’ll take much to swamp the celestial bandwidth (which actually explains a lot, if you think about it.)

Time for them to eat their own

Somehow, this story is just too cliched.

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Pastor Marc Grizzard claims the King James version of the Bible is the only true word of God, and that all other versions are “satanic” and “perversions” of God’s word.

On Halloween night, Grizzard and the 14 members of the Amazing Grace Baptist Church will set fire to other versions of the scripture, as well as music and books by Christian authors.

Book burning, sectarian intolerance, and overalls? Good grief, man, that is just playing to the stereotype of the southern good ol’ boy. Every educated Southerner is cringing at what you’re doing to their image.

I do wonder what Pastor Grizzard thinks of this version?

Sean Hannity is a twit

As I mentioned before, the Coalition of Reason is putting some positive, pro-atheism ads in the NY subways. As expected, of course, some Christians are upset about this. Their reaction is no surprise. The inanity of their reaction is also no surprise. For a beautiful example of a truly stupid response, you can rely on Sean Hannity.

Can you imagine the outrage if a Christian group put pro-God ads in the New York City subways? What outrage.

I can imagine it, because as that link points out, there have been multitudes of pro-God ads there for years. I was also familiar with seeing them all over the place in the Philadelphia subways when I lived there, and I can describe perfectly the “outrage” they generated. Look in a mirror, roll your eyes, and sigh…that’s it.

That link also points out that Sean Hannity doesn’t know, because he never rides the NY subway system.

Here’s the Arizona COR video. Watch that and imagine Sean Hannity’s outrage.

Nicholas Wade gets schooled, briefly

A few weeks ago, Nicholas Wade wrote a terrible review of Dawkins’ latest book (it wasn’t a negative review, but it just weirdly spun off into some half-baked philosophy of science).

Now the poor guy has been publicly spanked. The NY Times published short letters of rebuttal from Dan Dennett and Philip Kitcher, and then published online another dozen letters. That last link is more of a mixed bag, with some good replies and some strangely skewed ones…but it’s all fun anyway.

Unfortunately, all the letters are necessarily short. This kind of corrective actually needs some longer discussion.

Stephen Hawking is not dead

The web of lies was working away yesterday: apparently, some bored wankers created some twitter accounts and started injecting rumors into the internet that Hawking had been killed by a Christian fundamentalist, and they’ve been spreading everywhere — I’m getting all kinds of email from people wondering if it is true.

No reputable news source is carrying any story about it, and the only source is a couple of anonymous twitter accounts. So what do you think?

She ain’t dead, she’s ascended

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, who some of us will recall from the 1980s, when her survivalist, apocalyptic cult, the Church Universal and Triumphant, was digging in in Montana, has died. Another end-of-the-world weirdo bites the dust before the world does.

There was one odd comment in her obituary.

Elizabeth Prophet, who died on October 15, is survived by three daughters and two sons, one of whom is spiritual leader of the Church Universal and Triumphant. For some years she had been suffering from dementia.

“Some years”? Like, about 40?

A merger in the offing for Big Church?

What a useful way to look at it: Vatican, Inc is hoping to improve their bottom line by acquiring a competitor, Church of England, Ltd. About 600 Anglican middle-managers are in talks with the Catholic Church to rip up their theological roots (which, it turns out, aren’t all that important) and rejoin the old establishment. This could get interesting, since many of those Anglican priests are married; will Catholicism suddenly change course and allow a privileged subset of their priests enjoy sex?

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One has to wonder why so many Anglicans are suddenly jumping ship. It might be because Pope Palpatine has wonderful charisma, or because his mastery of the ways of the Force has compelled them to obey…but no, it’s neither of those things. Would you believe it’s because the Anglicans are insufficiently misogynistic and homophobic? The Anglicans are considering opening up their church hierarchy to women and gays, and the cranky reactionary wing is freaking out and threatening schism. And realizing that woman-fearing, gay-hating old farts have a natural home in the bosom of the Catholic Church.

It’s a charming prospect: the Anglicans, already little more than a mild force for promoting weak tea in the world, will become even feebler, while the Catholics will become a little bit more evil with the absorption of the nastier elements of Anglicanism.

A very unusual present

When I picked up my mail this afternoon, I was surprised to find several large boxes waiting for me. I was surprised when I opened them, both by the nature of their contents and by the fact that there was no note to say who sent them. Whoever it was, thank you! I don’t think anyone has ever given me a gift quite as unexpected. I now own…

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