“The Little Racist Who Could”

In their efforts to flog the tired old ‘War on Christmas’ trope, Fox News and Tucker Carlson, the person vying to be the worst person on it, reached new lows, combining immigrant-bashing with gender stridency. Stephen Colbert tries to understand the silliness.

Carlson’s show has already lost more than 20 advertising sponsors following his remarks.

Cue the right-wing outrage over ‘censorship’. These ardent supporters of capitalism and the market don’t seem to quite get that businesses protect their brand image, and not wanting to be associated with someone as odious as Carlson is a business decision.

Everything you might want to know about what you will look like in heaven

Of course, since many of the readers of this blog are godless heathens, this is at best an intellectual exercise. But I am sure that many have wondered, at idle moments or when they were believers, how the idea of life after death will deal with the fact that we age and change on Earth. Do we take the form that we had at the end of life? If so, a lot of people in heaven will be old and decrepit or disfigured because they met a tragic end. This clearly will reduce the appeal of life after death and may even suggest that it may be best to die when one is in the prime of one’s life so that one looks buff for all of eternity. Evangelical preachers like Billy Graham, when asked this question, said that people will look their best in heaven but shy away from details. But if we don’t look like what we did when we died, then what?
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Uh oh, head for cover! Andrew Sullivan is having deep thoughts again

Catholic apologist, fervent Iraq war-cheerleader, and Bush-Cheney booster Andrew Sullivan has a long article where he ruminates on how only religion can save us from tribalism. That alone should set off warning bells because religion has been one of the major drivers of tribalism. This article reveals clearly the kind of apologetics that Sullivan specializes in, whether it be for warmongering or political opportunism, where he starts from his desired conclusion and then works his way back to the beginning.
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Falling for Jesus, if you know what I mean (and I think you do)

We know that for some reason, many Christians really enjoy all the gory details of the torture and crucifixion of Jesus and can’t seem to get enough of it, as witnessed by the success of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ which I refused to see because I heard that it was one long continuous orgy of violence. There is a Christian theme park in Orlando, Florida (whose multimillionaire owners take full advantage of all the tax loopholes that the US gives to religious groups to enrich themselves) and that also wallows in the violence in staging the crucifixion scene several times a day with lifelike special effects as Jesus gets brutalized by the Roman guards. The audiences apparently love seeing it, which utterly mystifies me.
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The battle over Christmas is over

The idea that December is now a general season of celebration for everyone has taken hold, aided by the addition of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa to the mix. The commercialization of Christmas, with retailers seeking to draw everyone in to the gift-giving frenzy whatever their religious beliefs further cements that idea, and you can be sure that ‘Happy Holidays’ and ‘Season’s Greetings’ will remain in stores despite all the efforts of the Christian warriors, aided by that extremely religious person Donald Trump, to force people to only say ‘Merry Christmas’, though that too has been largely drained of any religious sentiment.
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The ongoing persecution of Aasia Bibi by Pakistani religious zealots

Pakistan is bracing for its full supreme court to issue its final verdict in the case of the blasphemy charges brought against the woman known Aasia Bibi after a three judge panel ruled that the charges against her had not been proven and that she should be released. The right-wing Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP) party has been leading the protests. Meanwhile, Bibi’s lawyer has had to flee the country out of fear of being killed.
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Pakistan blasphemy ruling

The laws in Pakistan against blasphemy are an absolute disgrace. They are so expansive and ambiguous that people can use them against their enemies by alleging blasphemy and making their lives intolerable. It seems like charges can be brought easily and religious mobs easily incited who then in turn intimidate authorities into take action against the accused. Hence the decision last week by the Pakistani Supreme Court to overturn the blasphemy conviction of the woman known as Asia Bibi is a welcome development.
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The story of the book of Revelation

I have referred several times to the weird book of Revelation in the Bible, particularly how it has become the go-to source for the Rapture-lovers. I just learned that my colleague Tim Beal in the Department of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University has published a new book titled The Book of Revelation: A Biography that dishes the dirt on this last book in the Bible that has produced such a lot of head scratching and been the source of so many weird fantasies.
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