RCimT: Sunday Atheism Roundup (on Monday)

Oh how late I am with this post! The fact that I’ve taken so long in posting my traditional Sunday link roundup obviously must mean I’ve run out of things to blog about and the blog will shortly close down! Well, I won’t let that stop me from carrying on blogging like our evangelical blog-stalker’s prognostications are as much bunkum as his religion or his conspiracy-theories.

I can’t help but feel a small measure of schadenfreude mixed with a tinge of sadness over Kristie Alley’s continuing downward spiral, having been fired from Jenny Craig reportedly over her involvement with Scientology’s detox program which demands that weight loss not occur during the course of the program.

Meanwhile, in Haiti, people are suffering and death and decay is everywhere… but don’t worry, because John Travolta is airlifting them some e-meters! That, combined with the desperately needed touch-assists will surely help clear Haiti of thetans in no time flat.

Meanwhile, in Hell, Satan replies to Pat Robertson on the subject of Haiti. Seems he doesn’t like being associated with such one-sided deals for souls, and Robertson is doing him a grave disservice — especially after Robertson’s own deal. Seems even Big Red has a sense of morality an an honor-amongst-thieves sort of way. I wonder why Robertson doesn’t have that same sense of propriety.

Hey, how’s that for segues in a row? This was like a four-hit combo! Let’s see how long I can keep the chain going.

Robertson doesn’t have any sense of morality to speak of, and apparently neither does his compatriot Ken Ham, willing to lie to his parishioners about atheists and their morals. He actually calls it a “spiritual battle”. And that would be fine if there was a “human spirit” outside of the metaphorical sense. Rather, the fight between atheism and religion is one about intellect — removing those unhelpful intellectual memes from humans so as to unlock their human potential.

That human intellectual potential is the topic of Mike Haubrich’s latest post at Quiche Moraine on how belief in religion isn’t necessarily stupid, nor is it consigned to only stupid people — for instance, William Lane Craig, as intelligent as he is, is as subject to the mental trap of religion as anyone else. To win a man like him over to free-thinking would be a boon to our movement, though like Mike explains, leaving the faith is something you must do yourself, once you’re ready to free yourself of the “cultural miasma” that is the religion you were brought up in.

And the funny thing is, once you free yourself of that miasma, you’re a free-thinker — which apparently makes you Satan’s slave. As with most other aspects of reality, religious folks see no grey area — you are either Godly or aligned with the Devil. The funny thing is the amount of mocking you see of those that aren’t “in”, and the amount of outright fabrication that is done to bolster the worldview.

Speaking of fabrication and mocking, apparently Jesus takes revenge on those that mock him — via death. Never mind that everyone dies, whether good, evil or indifferent; whether Christian or Muslim or Jew or atheist; whether black or white or yellow or brown; whether super-intelligent or stupid enough to pass chain-letters along like this one. Even if you were to only pick those that mocked God immediately before their deaths, you’d be bound to get a few percent of the human race, and a few percent of those might be well-known enough to be considered celebrities.

Aaaand, I’m sorry, I’m out of combo. 8 hits is the best chain I could manage.

Here’s another church sign that could have fit somewhere in the Haiti chain or after the other sign, but would have made the combo chaining text too awkward. Supposedly, evolution implies a lack of morals, as opposed to providing a scientific explanation for our propensity toward helping the least among us. Which is interesting that they should bring up such socialist activities as “helping the poor”, when doing so is a very anti-capitalist point of view.

An older thread at DanJ’s has been invaded by a Hindu creationist with a wacky theory — that evolution and in fact all four of the universe’s forces are controlled by gravity. To prove it, he pulls a quote from a totally unrelated discussion of panspermia that happens to contain the word gravity, completely in a different context than he uses it.

Apparently some Orthodox Jews’ phylacteries — the small leather boxes they strap to their foreheads and arms while praying — caused the culturally unsavvy and paranoid passengers of a flight in the United States to completely freak out and the flight was diverted to Philadelphia where the prayer-mongers were duly arrested for being non-Christian in a terrifying sort of way. Now, don’t get me wrong, every religion is as wacky as the next, but for the paranoid schizoids produced by Bush’s constant drumbeat of terror-amplification after 9/11, they all have a hair trigger at this point, and even in the absence of any religious context they might have had, let’s say, a Canadian arrested for trying to take a Tim Horton’s cup onto the plane because it’s not a good American drink like Starbucks. (Yes, yes, I know, liquids aren’t allowed on planes any more. Also due to the terror amplification, keep in mind.)

Ooh, a miniature three-hit combo to finish up!

Jesus and Mo weigh in on the ongoing (due to certain parties NEVER FREAKING ACCEPTING DEFEAT) “accomodationist” vs “New Atheist” debates as to what science should do about scientific outreach in the face of religious scientists, and in the face of religious people attacking science as being incompatible (and wrong). Since I’m in the “New Atheist” camp, I have no qualms with pointing out that science and religion does indeed tend to be incompatible in many key areas (e.g. the age of the Earth), and every single religion is totally outclassed by science on the evidence front, so the religious are right about one thing — science is incompatible with religion when both are taken in their entirety, but where they conflict, religion is de facto wrong.

An atheist in Toronto attempts to horn in on religious jerks’ wine racket by obtaining sacramental wine at the deep discounts they enjoy. Considering sacramental wines are identical to table wines, right down to the various varieties of grape, and considering they skimp only by bottling it in big milk jugs, the practice of sacramental wine being a non-taxable item is yet another break society confers on the delusional, and I wholeheartedly agree with his attempt at obtaining good wine for cheap. The very first comment by Teapots is priceless — “Shouldn’t this wine be distrubuted through Canadian Blood Services?”

And finally, some interesting evidence has been unearthed that the Dead Sea Scrolls inspired the New Testament, meaning the Jesus everyone knows and loves probably came from the heretical sect of Sadducees called the Zadokites. And they in turn were very likely, given the gross similarity between the Jesus story and the Horus story, inspired by Egyptian mythos.

Anyway, with those two big combos, I’m all punched out. So, enjoy your week, folks! And do not hesitate to send me links you find interesting or funny.

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RCimT: Sunday Atheism Roundup (on Monday)
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2 thoughts on “RCimT: Sunday Atheism Roundup (on Monday)

  1. 1

    Many thanks for the link love. It does sadden me, though, to think that your blog soon won’t be here to help brighten my day. *sniff*

    Yeah, whatevah!

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