Nor should straight men who like to have sex apply.

Apparently, beggars can’t be that choosy.

The above comic is created and licensed by Rudis Muiznieks of Cectic.com.

The intolerant authoritarians have figured out how to turn tolerance on it’s head. Tolerance for those different from us is a quintessential element of our liberal form of government prized by most of the West for the past 200 years. It was first enshrined in our very own Bill of Rights. But certain groups, particularly religious conservatives have undermined tolerance in a subtle, but egregious way. They are demanding that others must tolerate their own intolerance.

It’s an act of subterfuge. They disguise their own hate and fears as religious beliefs and then cleverly prey on our good-natured love of tolerance to provide cover for intolerant actions. American Christians have done a fine job of this to protect their intolerance of gays and atheists. But it has been the Muslims that mastered the technique. They have successfully stifled free speech multiple times. First, they tried with The Satanic Verses. Later, the succeeded preventing most U.S. news sources from reprinting the Mohammed cartoons. More recently they’ve prevented publication of the book The Jewel of Medina, a book about Mohammed’s marriage to Aisha – a girl forced into marriage and rapped by Muhammed at age 9.

They’ve even managed to get the United Nations to ban criticism of Islam, exempting fatwas and Sharia law from ever being considered human rights violations, though that is often exactly what they are.

I’d normally classify Cectic’s comics under ‘humor’ but, unfortunately, this is no joke. Do not tolerate intolerance no matter how much religious clothing it puts on.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a weekly question. If you want to answer the question and skip the back story, click here.

Pharoah_omega sent me this interesting news link about the Georgia Guide Stones. I’d never heard of these stones but apparently they are a Stonehenge-like structure made of granite that sit on private land just north of Elberton, Georgia. Engraved on them are 10 guidelines or ‘commandments’ written in English, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Spanish and Swahili.

Since these commandments are not the ones found in the Bible, there is, of course, a Christian group that wants the stones removed because they are ‘Satanic’. This group has given themselves the oh-so-clever name of “The Resistance” and is more of a Christianity-meets-conspiracy-theory kind of group. They are the same ultra-sensitive group that has railed against the new Starbucks logo.

So what are these Satanic Commandments?

Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Schermer has re-posted an editorial he wrote a couple years back. It’s brief and gives six reasons why Christians and/or conservatives should embrace the theory of evolution.

1. Evolution fits well with good theology
2. Creationism is bad theology
3. Evolution explains original sin and the Christian model of human nature
4. Evolution explains family values
5. Evolution accounts for specific Christian moral precepts
6. Evolution explains conservative free-market economics

Reasons 3, 4, and 5 boil down to “behavioral evolution confirms many of your religion’s moral beliefs.” Reasons 1, 2, and 3 are interesting. For the first reason, he writes:

Read the rest of this entry »

This priceless gem (language warning) was brought to my attention by shaze. It’s olde-timey religion set to olde-timey music and a must-hear.

Sometimes, Christian fundamentalists really scare me. The asshole in the picture is one such fundie. His name is Bruce Ware, a professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Another is the president of said seminary, Albert Mohler. They’ve abused both their educations and the Christian Bible to support the most abhorrent theological conclusions. Their beliefs make them downright sexist and possibly even racist.

First the sexism. Like most evangelicals, Ware believes that women should be submissive to their husbands. That is, of course, because the Bible was written at a time when women were considered inferior and were expected to be submissive to men in all instances, so there are plenty of verses to support that theological conclusion.

Ware takes an already sexist belief to extremes. First, he blames the victims of domestic abuse. Basically he claims that non-submissive wives force their husbands to react one of two ways: to become a wimp or to beat the crap out of her.

“And husbands on their parts, because they’re sinners, now respond to that threat to their authority either by being abusive, which is of course one of the ways men can respond when their authority is challenged–or, more commonly, to become passive, acquiescent, and simply not asserting the leadership they ought to as men in their homes and in churches”

The above image of the jackass was created and is licensed by these other jackasses.

Read the rest of this entry »

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

I didn’t intend to write a Part III for this topic, but it seems I have started a bit of a trend. Five days after I published Part I, the New Yorker publishes this article about the Problem of Evil (PoE)! I had no idea that their writers read my blog!

Okay, the article is a review of a book (Bart Ehrman’s God’s Problem) on the subject and it’s more likely that the PoE was on their minds for the same reasons it was on mine – the recent natural disasters in Myanmar and China that killed about 200,000 people. Regardless, James Wood wrote a great article on the topic. For those of you who prefer more of a narrative style to my philosophically-centered writing, I recommend giving it a read. Here’s an excerpt:

Read the rest of this entry »

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

This is Part II of my post on The Problem of Evil (PoE). The first post garnered quite a response! The responses generated three separate rebuttals to the PoE (theodicies). I’m sure there are more. If you have your own reason for why the PoE is wrong, let me know! I’m always up for a challenge. Thanks to Snurp, Scott, and sawaz for contributing!

This second part explains why the PoE has significant personal interest to me. It’s what caused me to lose my religion. Before even being exposed to this argument against the existence of God, I thought up a simplified version of it in my teens. At the time, I was a Republican-loving, Christian fundamentalist. What’s odd is that the idea of the PoE came to me as a result of this tasty little piece of Christian fundamentalist propaganda which was shown to me by the youth pastor at my Baptist Church. It’s a film aimed at scaring the shit out of Christian teens via that tried-and-true religious motivator: guilt.

I probably forget many of the details, but the following is how I remember my experience of the film. The basic idea was that four teens die in a car accident only to find themselves in a dramatized Christian afterlife. The four eventually make their way to a line in front of a receptionist at a computer terminal. One of the four is ‘saved’. During the wait, the other three have plenty of time to poor the guilt on the fourth for not sharing the “Good News” (as if they haven’t heard it before). They watch as each person walks up to the receptionist. The receptionist then takes their name, types it into a computer, which then brings up their personal info as well as their ‘reservation’ status. Those with reservations step off to the right (how politically symbolic) into the light. Those without reservations are directed to a scary elevator on the left that only goes ‘down’. The ‘saved’ teen watches with mounting guilt as his three friends enter the elevator before his reservation is confirmed.

The film ends with a shot of the computer screen listing name after name color coded according to their reservation status, which, if it isn’t obvious by now, indicates whether or not that person is ‘saved’ or not. The name is in red is the person is unsaved, and green if saved. If you pay close attention, approximately one-in-four names is green, the same ratio as the group of teens had, hmm. This coincidence is confirmed as the names blur and a statistic is placed on the screen claiming that only one-in-four humans on the entire planet are saved. This was one of the biggest shocks of my life.

I know the film’s purpose was to motivate us teens into evangelizing. “Don’t end up guilt ridden, like the main character”, was the message, “You never know how much time you have”. It had a very different impact on me. I had thought most people were ‘saved’. I immediately asked myself how God, who is all-powerful and loving, could allow this to happen to his creations? Three in four suffer eternal torture? Where is God’s love? Where is His mercy? Where is His justice? Why doesn’t God have a higher ‘win’ ratio?

I didn’t lose my faith immediately. It took time. Those question and related ones slowly undermined my world view. Eventually, those questions, combined with some deep, personal suffering experienced in my late teens and early twenties, and exposure to the multitude of other word views did my belief in Christianity in.

I now imagine my name switching from green to red on that fictional, 1980s style computer monitor and laugh.

Note: This was an article I originally wrote for ReligiousFreaks.com back in October of ’06. Unfortunately, the site has fallen into disrepair and risks disappearing altogether. As such, and with inspiration from a recent Spitball Politics post, I wanted a permanent home for the article, so I am copying an edited version of it here. Note that some of the links are no longer valid due to the age of the article.

The Christian States of America?

There has been much debate across the web over whether the United States is a Christian nation or a secular nation. The debates can be categorized into three distinct questions: Is America currently a Christian nation? Was America founded as a Christian nation? And finally, should America be(come) a Christian nation? On the extreme sides of this debate are fundamentalists and atheists. Fundamentalists who desire a ‘Christian America’ often are of the opinion that the nation was founded as a Christian nation but an encroaching anti-Christian sentiment has made it a secular nation in need of reformation. On the other hand, atheists who believe America should be secular are of the opinion that America was founded as secular and has been growing increasingly Christian in recent times. Both sides feel they need to save the country from the other group. Which group is right about which questions and to what extent? This article attempts to detangle the noise surrounding this debate and argues that the nation was founded as, is still, and should remain secular.

Read the rest of this entry »

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

Epicurus asked this question some time in the third or fourth century B.C.E. It’s one of the oldest expressions of The Problem of Evil (PoE). The PoE is probably the most compelling argument against the existence of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity and has been a thorn in the side of religious thinkers for millennia. The attempt to refute the PoE is called a theodicy.

Here’s one formal version of the argument, according to The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
2. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
3. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
4. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
5. Evil exists.
6. If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn’t have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn’t know when evil exists, or doesn’t have the desire to eliminate all evil.
7. Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

What I’m interested in is the following question:

What is your theodicy, if you have one? How do you refute the argument or do you accept the conclusion?

I’m interested in debate here, so expect to be challenged.

In Part II, I will write about why this argument has significant personal interest to me.

—————-

UPDATE:I received multiple counter-arguments to my post about the Problem of Evil (PoE). Instead of very long comments addressing each counter-argument, I’ve decided to dedicate a separate post for each. That way, we can keep the various debates more organized. As I complete these posts, I will link them here.

The Denial of Evil Theodicy
The Spiritual/Personal Growth Theodicy
The Freewill Theodicy

Also, don’t miss part II and part III!