We have a problem

The archbishop of Wales thinks one of the greatest problems facing the world is “atheist fundamentalism”. The only problems he seems to be able to ascribe to it, though, are a dearth of school nativity plays and stewardesses failing to drape themselves with religious paraphernalia, neither of which seem to be exactly pressing crises, especially since it is quite clear that there is no worldwide shortage of public piety. If all outspoken atheism has done is offend a few sanctimonious old bishops, it sounds to me like a virtue that we ought to encourage.

I’d say that this is a much more serious problem:

There are demented fuckwits running for the office of president in the most militarily powerful nation in the world. They think they can have conversations with an all-powerful cosmic being who instructs them in the right things to do, and that they have the approval of that being, no matter what they do: they can initiate an unjust and futile war that kills and maims our soldiers and slaughters the civilians of another country; they can endorse torture; they can deprive people of their civil rights; they can treat loving couples as pariahs if they don’t meet their abstract notions of who is allowed to fall in love; they can poison the planet; they can oppress the poor; they can enrich their corrupt cronies; they can pretty much run roughshod over any notion of justice, liberty, and equality. And what does their imaginary god do? He gives them a phantasmal thumbs-up and an ethereal “Good job!” and assures them that he is on their side. That’s all he can do, since all he is is a projection of a mob of venal bluenoses’ sense of entitlement.

And of course, archbishops and other such foolish figureheads will support their delusions, pointing their bony claws at a woman who isn’t wearing a crucifix around her neck as the great problem of the world. Wouldn’t it be better to point to men with armies who get marching orders from hate-filled apocalyptic holy books as a slightly more plangent concern?

Spend Easter in Minneapolis!

Everyone ought to mark their calendars: on the weekend of 21-23 March, the 34th Annual National Conference of American Atheists will be held in lovely Minneapolis, Minnesota — my backyard. Well, my distant backyard. I’ll be going, of course. If you read the Minnesota Atheists newsletter, you also know who a few of the speakers will be.

  • Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, will be everywhere.

  • Lois Utley will be speaking on the consolidation of public and religious hospitals.

  • Robert Lanham will be talking about the dangers of the religious right.

  • Some guy named Richard Dawkins will be there. I wonder what he might talk about…

  • There will be others, the schedule of speakers is still being worked out.

Come on out — it’s on Easter weekend, so it’s not as if you’ll have anything else to do.

Roland S. Martin doesn’t understand the true meaning of Squidmas

Sunset approaches, so I have to go outside and do the evening chant to the Old Dark Ones and I just don’t have time to deal with this colossal wanker, Roland S. Martin. He’s a commentator on CNN (why, oh why, can’t we have better media?) It’s a crazy whine that demands a return to “traditional values”, whatever those are, and complaining a backlash against Christianity. I like that dimbulbs like Martin are feeling pressured — it’s about time stupid ideas were feeling the heat.

Anyway, the sacred rites of the Festival of Snata Kluahz summon me, so I’ll leave Greg Laden the joy of the ritual evisceration.

Ridicule works!

The threat of an eruption of creationism in Polk County, Florida, is dying down. The school board hasn’t changed, it still has a number of confident creationists on it, but they’re all going to keep their religious beliefs at home and in church, and in fact, they have a “great eagerness simply to return to the day-to-day work of running a school district with 90,000 students.” It’s great news all around.

What got them to confine their interest to doing their job? As the article explains, a lot of factors contributed. The county wants tech sector jobs and expansion of a University of South Florida campus, and they got biting comments from the people behind those economically important initiatives. They had the Dover trial waved in their faces, and saw the threat of expensive litigation and even more expensive defeat. And they got ridiculed on a local and national level—bloggers and magazines mocked them, they got mail from proponents of the flying spaghetti monster, their quaintly ridiculous religious views got publicized on the front page of local newspapers.

Creationists hold some very stupid ideas, but most of them aren’t stupid people. They know deep-down that their religious beliefs are indefensible on a plane that demands evidence and results, and while they aren’t going to give up those beliefs, they’d rather be spared the embarrassment of having to lay them out and explain them in scientific terms. A good loud campaign of public ridicule can be just the thing to convince them to put their heads down and buckle into the secular work they’re supposed to be doing.

Creepy Texas dentist slathers on the smarm

Godless heathen that I am, even I can read the subtext in Don McLeroy’s recent letter to the Dallas Morning News. First he reassures us that he is very, very, very Christian, and then he promises to purge the dogma from Texas education. We know what that means in the up-means-down world of Christianist fanaticism: the dogma is the science and his empirical evidence is the revealed word of his Lord, Jesus Christ.

I’ve heard a few words about the situation looking up in Florida, but Texas is a dismal scary place for evolution education — I’m going to have to put a few more quatloos on Texas in the creationist courtroom catastrophe pool.