What casual remarks reveal about theism's view of the world

I'm writing this on Monday, but have delayed the scheduled posting of it for a few days, in that I do think there's such a thing as inappropriate timing. Some folks may still think I'm off base with this one, and that's fine.

In the wake of the horrific shootings in Tucson the other day, there has of course been a lot of argument as to possible causes, motivations, the role America's current volatile political climate may or may not have played in the event, and so on. I've been involved in a few arguments on Facebook myself.

What will go unnoticed — indeed what is almost certain to be praised — is the way theists will spout sanctimonious, pious bullshit so staggeringly stupid and offensive that it can only be by a willful disconnection of one's higher cognitive functions that the stupidity of such pronouncements do not meet with immediate ridicule and condemnation. Here's one such inane homily, plucked at random from CNN.

"The doctors are pretty clear that we just have to wait and see," Mike McNulty said. But he added, "I can only think that God has more important things planned for her in the future."

Now, sure, I'm willing to accept that Mike McNulty is a respectable Democratic congressman, a dear friend and colleague of Gabrielle Giffords', a good man dedicated to serving his state and his country, and an all around decent and intelligent fellow. He is in a deeply fraught emotional state, as anyone would be, and of course I'm not unsympathetic to that. I'm not attacking him here, so much as I am the inanity he has uttered, and what it says about how religion asks us to view the world.

Let's consider what kind of God this remark is proposing here.

As he sits upon his heavenly throne of purest gold and alabaster, he thinks to himself, "Hmm, I have important things planned for this Democratic congresswoman. Being omnipotent, there are any number of ways I can achieve this. But I think the best is this: I will arrange for a delusional psychopath to purchase a gun under his state's extremely lax gun laws, fit it with an extended clip, and shoot her in the head at point blank range in broad daylight in public. In the process he will shoot a number of other people, killing some, including a small child. But these will just have to be acceptable collateral damage, even though in my omnipotence it would be easy for me to prevent all of it. I'll just make sure the girl gets an extra-awesome Barbie collectors set when she gets up here, along with pie. Now, the congresswoman herself will not die, as I will arrange for the bullet to perforate only one of her brain hemispheres. She will be in a coma following this, and will be several years recovering. But the end result of it all will be that it will allow me to implement my important plans for her once she recovers. If she does. Even though I could do it any other way."

Does that about sum it up?

Seriously, the only way a person could believe in a God like this is if they just don't think about the implications of what they believe. Religion trains you not to think of such things. And this is why I think religion, far from being something to offer true comfort in a time of crisis, simply offers a way to delude yourself that every tragedy has a silver lining, and that a benign space daddy still has my back, even if making life better for me required a little girl to die.

If you think I'm being offensive offering a snarky critique of a statement made by a theist in the wake of a tragedy that happens to reflect his beliefs in the midst of emotional upset, well, that's your prerogative. For my part, I am offended by the way religion so easily makes light of human pain and suffering to find some way, no matter what, to glorify its God. It's not Mike McNulty I'm criticizing, it's the indoctrination that's influenced his thinking, and the way it values its God's glory over innocent lives.

Burning Korans, drawing Mohammed, avoiding hypocrisy, creative vs. destructive protests — religion just makes the whole frickin' world crazy!

There's a truth about the upcoming Koran cookout planned by Dove World Church and its grandstanding (and light-fingered) pastor Terry Jones: they have every right under the Constitution to do this thing. Are they a bunch of dicks who don't care about the potential devastating backlash of their actions as long as they get the publicity they crave? Yeah, I suppose they are.

Recently, atheists proudly participated in an online event called Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, which was as deliberate a middle finger to Islam as we could have thought up. Before that, PZ Myers famously threw a cracker in the trash, making him the bête noire of Catholics worldwide. (Though they conveniently forget that he also trashed a copy of The God Delusion at the same time.) As people who are not above acts of deliberate provocation ourselves — indeed, as people who are currently arguing amongst ourselves about the merits of "being a dick" in our encounters with religionists — it would hardly be honest of us to join the chorus of chest-beating outrage against Jones' church for the horrible offense of burning somebody's holy book. While most of us, I'm sure, take Fahrenheit 451 to heart and deplore book-burning on general principles as a disgraceful act of intellectual cowardice and the suppression of ideas, we should also acknowledge the legitimacy of the act as a form of protest speech. After all, I can't very well defend the rights of flag-burners while condemning a Koran-burner. Don't work dat way!

I suppose where the conversation ought to go from here for atheists is in whether or not Jones is motivated by a desire to conduct a legitimate form of protest, or if he's simply a crass political opportunist, playing into a rising tide of anti-Muslim bigotry in order to increase his profile from "obscure pastor of an outcast hick church" to "internationally famous martyr and warrior for Christ". Well, what is legitimate protest in this context? Yes, radical Islamists brought down the World Trade Center. But all Muslims are not radical Islamists, and all Muslims did not partake in, let alone condone, the 9/11 attacks. So if Jones's idea is that he's protesting Islam for 9/11, he's clearly throwing his net way too wide. The thing is, I suppose he knows it, but doesn't care. He's getting the publicity he wants.

The potential for hypocrisy in criticizing the upcoming burning has been much on my mind, and I've been forced to think about the similarities and differences between what Jones is about to do, and, say, Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. And then I've been forced to question whether or not any of my ideas are simply bullshit justifications I've been making up to feel better. I don't think they are. But I do think it's a positive thing, overall, that I'm willing to be self-critical. This is an advantage the godless life offers, I think, over the brazen certainties of God-botherers like Jones, who confidently assert that God (i.e., their projection of themselves upon the universe) truly wants them to do what they're planning.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, for one thing, was on the whole a creative rather than destructive act of protest. It was a response, not only to the real Islamist violence and threats of violence that erupted in the wake of the publication of a few innocuous (and not especially good, when you think about it) cartoons, but to the arrogant assumption on the part of Islamists that non-Muslims were somehow obligated to follow Islam's rules. Also, at the end of the day, what you had were a bunch of silly cartoons. While there was a little huffing and puffing about EDMD, in the end, the message I think got across (to the general public, if not to radicals) that taking someone's life over a lame doodle was both insane and pitiful in equal measure. Lame doodles themselves can't possibly hurt a fly. EDMD might have offended some Muslims. But in the end, no one killed anyone.

Now, piling up a couple hundred copies of the Koran and torching them — that would be a destructive form of protest. Furthermore, it's hypocritical of Jones to justify it by condemning Islam as a hateful, intolerant religion, when he has a history of hate speech (against gays, the usual suspects) and intolerance. While I think Jones has the right to go through with his speech, I don't think his motives are honest. He's exactly what he condemns, except that his religious radicalism wears a cross rather than a crescent moon and star. (The atheists who took part in EDMD might condemn Islam and Islamist violence, but we'd never want to deprive Muslims of their right to worship, as many right-wingers do right now.)

Could this event trigger more terrorist attacks and counter-strikes against our troops overseas? Yeah, I suppose it could, though it isn't as if they needed more reasons to do that. But if Jones ends up giving them one, the first such attack will be all the vindication he needs. "See, we were right about how violent Islam is!" Not caring that, in this instance, he threw the first punch. Yeah, it's entirely valid to condemn radical Islamists for doing what they actually do, which is kill people who aren't sufficiently "respectful" to their beliefs. But you limit your condemnation to those individuals and groups who do the violence. As has been pointed out to an indifferent Jones, it's absurd and dishonest as hell for him to suggest that he's only protesting the violent Islamists, and that "moderate Muslims" ought to support him, when it's their holy book he's burning too.

In the end, I think what we as atheists should take away from all this insanity is a sobering realization that this is the kind of world you get when religion runs the show. Belief pits us against our fellow man for the most absurd of reasons: failure to worship the correct invisible magic man in the correct way. And for all that defenders bleat about the alleged benefits of religion — that sense of charity, well-being, love and community we are told believers enjoy better than any of the rest of us — they always leave out the part about religion's innate tribalism. Whatever benefits religious beliefs confer are only enjoyed by those within that particular belief community. If you're an outsider...run.

We rationalists can only hope humanity outgrows its penchant for religious tribalism one day, and that all these vile superstitions are eradicated from our cultural landscape completely. (Not through violence, of course, but through intellectual and moral awakening.) There really ought to only be one tribe — humanity.

But until then...yeah, go ahead, burn that Koran. Whatever. I'll be at home that day. Let me know when the smoke clears and it's safe to breathe free again.

Why we need blasphemy

Pat Condell, in one of his wonderfully cranky YouTube rants, opined that the Danes (I think it was the Danes) were probably wondering what the hell had happened to their free country since Islam showed up. The idea that freedom should surrender without a fight to religious fundamentalism of any kind, but especially that which has only fear and violence to support itself, is disgusting. And craven laws like that passed in Ireland, which naively strip away basic rights out of the fear of even a little bit of violence, merely give the fundamentalists what they want: a culture of oppression which is the only kind of culture where fundamentalism can thrive.

Now from Denmark comes word that a Somali terrorist has been shot (to which I say "Good," and the PC crowd can flame away all they like) and wounded attempting to break into the home of cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who was responsible for some of the controversial Mohammed cartoons that caused such a stink some years ago. The man's goal was, of course, not to sit down over coffee with Westergaard to offer constructive critiques and rebuttals to his work, but to murder him, which is of course a perfectly rational response to a cartoon.

Once more with feeling: if your religion cannot stand up to a fucking cartoon, it ain't the cartoon that has the problem.

I have spoken to a number of atheists who, with the very best of intentions, have naively asserted that the best thing to do when faced with the violence of radical religious extremists is to sit down, shut up, and not get them riled, because really, we don't want anyone to get hurt, do we? That they cannot see how this cowardice and capitulation gives religious lunatics the power over us they wanted all along never ceases to amaze me. And does anyone actually think that, by appeasing them once in this way, they'll be satisfied and decide they can stop shooting and bombing and whatever else it is sky-daddy has told them to do this week, "peace" be upon him? Let's do that as a multiple choice question: A) No; B) No; C) Hell no!; D) What, are you stupid? Once they know that a tiny bit of fear is all it takes to control you, then they'll just keep demanding and threatening more and more, until you're afraid to wipe your tender bottom without their divine mandate.

People, what we need is more blasphemy, more anger and more outrage in the face of this lunacy. Religious extremists are the cockroaches in the kitchen, and only the light of reason will send them scurrying to hide. Belief systems propped up by violence are ones that have already failed. No respect should be given them. So pick up your pens, cartoonists, and blaspheme your butts off! And if they turn up at your door, well...shoot first. If they really think they're the only ones out there to be feared, they obviously haven't heard Matt Groening's dictum: "It is unwise to annoy a cartoonist!"

Sometimes it's nice to disengage...

Again, the blog has lain fallow for around a week. Sorry about this. I keep forgetting that when I don't post, no one else does either. But then we all have lives down here, and sometimes that just takes us away from the world of computering and blogging and online ranting. And I must say, it's nice to take a break sometime.

Because dealing with the nonstop depredations of those with whom we're unfortunate enough to share the planet can just be wearying. Sometimes it's just nice to go off and live your life, blessedly free of religion and crazy religionists, and unhinged political ideologues.

I mean, good grief, in the past week, since the Tiller murder, we've not only had another right-wing psychotic demonstrate his moral superiority to us all by going on a public shooting rampage (today's appalling incident at the Holocaust Museum), but we've also seen a spectacular act of douchebaggery from — as if they could get any worse — Operation Rescue, who have actually had the audacity to make an offer to buy the now-closed clinic of Dr. Tiller. I cannot imagine what they would want it for, except as a chance to showboat. And the Tiller family lawyers, recognizing an exercise in showboating when they see one, have turned them down flat. I mean, how could anyone interpret the purchase offer as anything but tacit approval of Tiller's murder? Even if that is the last thing O.R. intended by making the offer, well, you know, appearances count.

I'd like to think that maybe O.R. have sprouted a sudden conscience, the way your nose sometimes sprouts a pimple while you sleep, and thought that they might turn Tiller's clinic into something like an adoption agency. But then I'm reminded of the fact that radical anti-abortionists don't give a shit about human life unless it's fetal. Once those babies are out of the sanctified amniotic sac, they're on their own! And don't even think about offering them anything like health care.

So, yeah, sometimes, it's just nice to shut the crazy out and decompress for a while. Read a book. Spend time with your family and pets. Resuscitate an old hobby, like gardening or working out. It can be a relief when the lunacy that has taken over our planet gets too much for you. At least, it's a relief that'll last until some enraged, God-soaked lunatic bursts through the door and opens fire.

The disgraceful cost of the Iraq War

In the news today is word from Afghanistan that those wacky pranksters in the Taliban thought it would be a hoot to spray some teenage girls walking to school in the face with acid. Now two of them are blind! Hooray for the religion of peace. (Because it is, of course, against their precious religion that women should be educated.)

Why is this part of the disgraceful cost of the Iraq War? Why, because if we hadn't pulled troops out of Afghanistan in order to invade Iraq, a country that had exactly two things — jack and shit — to do with 9/11, then we could have spent the last five years still in Afghanistan, killing every single living member of the Taliban we could find. Which is no less than they deserve. Oh, dear. Was that not sufficiently politically correct? Good, I'll say it again. Every single living member of the Taliban should be killed. Summarily. And left to rot in the street. Or a ditch. I'm not particular.

To those who think I'm wrong to claim that right-wingers' lives are ruled by fear...

...I present this headline.

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Addendum: Factcheck.org exposes the falsehoods behind the NRA's fear campaign regarding Obama's views on guns. Still, you gotta admit the gun lobby's come up with a great con to boost sales, hasn't it? Take a page from religion's playbook: exploiting fear and uncertainty always sells.

A grim reminder on a grim anniversary: it can happen here

Because people need to remember exactly what was at the root of the most horrific terrorist act of modern times: religious fundamentalism and zealotry. Here is the list of instructions that was found among the personal effects of 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. Some salient excerpts:

Keep in mind that, if you fall into hardship, how will you act and how will you remain steadfast and remember that you will return to God and remember that anything that happens to you could never be avoided, and what did not happen to you could never have happened to you. This test from Almighty God is to raise your level [levels of heaven] and erase your sins. And be sure that it is a matter of moments, which will then pass, God willing, so blessed are those who win the great reward of God. Almighty God said: 'Did you think you could go to heaven before God knows whom amongst you have fought for Him and are patient?'

Remember the words of Almighty God: 'You were looking to the battle before you engaged in it, and now you see it with your own two eyes.' Remember: 'How many small groups beat big groups by the will of God.' And His words: 'If God gives you victory, no one can beat you. And if He betrays you, who can give you victory without Him? So the faithful put their trust in God.'

When you have reached (M) and have left the taxi, say a supplication of place ['Oh Lord, I ask you for the best of this place, and ask you to protect me from its evils'], and everywhere you go say that prayer and smile and be calm, for God is with the believers. And the angels protect you without you feeling anything. Say this supplication: 'God is more dear than all of His creation.' And say: 'Oh Lord, protect me from them as You wish.' And say: 'Oh Lord, take your anger out on [the enemy] and we ask You to protect us from their evils.' And say: 'Oh Lord, block their vision from in front of them, so that they may not see.' And say: 'God is all we need, He is the best to rely upon.' Remember God's words: 'Those to whom the people said, "The people have gathered to get you, so fear them," but that only increased their faith and they said, God is all we need, He is the best to rely upon.'

The ultimate "faith based initiative," this.

Ah Martin, some of you might be saying, of course radical Islamists are violent psychotics. But that's what their religion promotes. Christianity is all about peace and love and forgiveness and fluffy bunnies. You'd never see that kind of mindset bred here, goodness gracious me no!

Except, of course, we do. Meet "Joel's Army," a fast-growing group of Dominionist maniacs so flamboyantly extreme that they even frighten other conservative Christians. In the words of Rick Joyner, a popular pastor associated with the movement:

"As the church begins to take on this resolve, they [Joel's Army churches] will start to be thought of more as military bases, and they will begin to take on the characteristics of military bases for training, equipping, and deploying effective spiritual forces," Joyner wrote. "In time, the church will actually be organized more as a military force with an army, navy, air force, etc."

This is how you brainwash a generation of kids into becoming the kinds of killers who strap bombs to themselves and walk into public places. You convince them that any violent act they see fit to commit is fully justified as an act of self-defense. And the best way to feel like you're a persecuted minority when you really aren't is by embracing religious piety. Ol' Adolf had convinced himself of this, when he wrote many religious justifications in Mein Kampf for his anti-Semitism, and the psychology was well understood by Hermann Goering, a much smarter and more cunning man than Hitler, who testified in Nuremberg, "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." Goering was speaking in a general political sense there, but the principle applies to religious terror as well. Just replace "pacifists" with "unbelievers" or "unsaved," and "patriotism" with "piety" or "faith," and it's basically the same sentiment.

Joel's Army have what must be the biggest case of fatwa envy on the planet, and take my cynical little word for it: the only difference between them and al Qaeda is that Joel's Army simply haven't gotten around to the "killing people" part of their plans yet. They're hopeful, indeed, even eager, to see a sea change in public attitudes that will make that kind of activity in America receive the sort of overall public support that Qaeda's terrorism gets in much of the Islamic world. But that doesn't mean they'll wait around to commit acts of violence, any more than the Islamist terrorists have. Proud of their anti-intellectualism and lack of education and worldliness, the cretins of Joel's Army pray for the day God's armies swoop down across the United States, killing off all the fags and libruls and establishing a blessed Christian fascist theocracy to welcome the savior's second coming.

Sure, you might say that, with the vast majority even of Christian denominations contemptuous of the militarist fantasies of JA's "Kingdom Now" theology, and arrayed against them, that they're unlikely to gain any kind of majority foothold. But while they might hope for that kind of acceptance, disaffected loons don't exactly need a majority foothold to be violent. Indeed, the feeling of being further isolated and marginalized might prompt them to action sooner rather than later. And with the far right currently energized by the rise in popularity of Sarah Palin, a book-banning zealot of the fire-and-brimstone old school from a Dominionist church, who knows what kind of plans are fomenting in the brains of these loons, if it looks like even a shred of respectability is suddenly being accorded their views. (Not saying that Palin's fundamentalism, while too extreme to make her a safe bet in the White House, is as extreme as Joel's Army. But the link between her church and Dominionist teaching has been noted.)

So on the 7th anniversary of 9/11, it behooves us to remember that not only is the war on terror still not won, it will probably never be won as long as the primary ingredients of terrorism's recipe — a self-righteous sense of victimhood married to an implacable faith that God is behind you all the way — remain at full boil on the stove. And while we've been spending all our time these last seven years nurturing our fear of the Islamists, and wasted countless lives and resources trying to bring the war to them on their shores, over in America we've been cooking up our very own divinely inspired wannabe mass murderers, who have as much, if not more, contempt for the United States and its diversity and freedoms as al Qaeda ever had.

Hey, kids, guns! And Jesus! Find your faith!

Allow me to preface this by saying that I am not against gun ownership. But this sends a rather peculiar message, don't you think?

An Oklahoma church canceled a controversial gun giveaway for teenagers at a weekend youth conference.

Windsor Hills Baptist had planned to give away a semiautomatic assault rifle until one of the event's organizers was unable to attend.

The church’s youth pastor, Bob Ross, said it’s a way of trying to encourage young people to attend the event. The church expected hundreds of teenagers from as far away as Canada.

Wha? Gee, what about iPods or XBox360's? Or do you not want kids playing those evil violent video games or listening to that godless rock 'n roll or hip-hop? Yeah, an assault rifle is much better. It's not like a teenager is likely to misuse that.

“I don’t want people thinking ‘My goodness, we’re putting a weapon in the hand of somebody that doesn’t respect it who are then going to go out and kill,'” said Ross. “That’s not at all what we’re trying to do.”

Perish the thought. It never crossed my mind.

Ross said the conference isn’t all about guns, but rather about teens finding faith.

Okay then, I feel better already! You know, when the Muslims give kids deadly weaponry at a religious function, I think they call it terrorism and it's the kind of thing that makes the sphincters of priviliged white Oklahoman Christian conservatives completely lose their structural integrity. Well, maybe they're just taking precautions for when Obama's elected and he throws a huge party for all his Islamofascist friends on the White House lawn. Must be it.

I suppose if this weren't all happening in the state that gave us the psychotic Sally Kern, it wouldn't have such a shudder factor. I'd say, "Could be worse, could be Texas," but I have a feeling this might be an old Texas tradition...

The cost of abandoning reason is measured in lives

From the news today:

A group of up to 300 young men killed 11 people who were accused of being witches and wizards in western Kenya, in some cases slitting their throats or clubbing them to death before burning their bodies, officials said....

"The villagers are complaining that the (suspected) wizards and witches are making the bright children in the community dumb ... These (suspected) witches are not doing good things to us," Makori told The Associated Press.

Deputy police spokesman Charles Owino said that the gang hunted down the eight women and three men in the western Kenya villages of Kekoro and Matembe. Most of the victims were over the age of 70, Owino said.

Islam is evil, Part ∞

Note I didn't say Muslims, I said Islam. Don't lecture me about all the nice Muslims. I used to live in Dubai and met more of them than you ever will. But any religion whose extremism is capable of the following has no place in a modern, civilized world, full stop.

The suspect, who is unshaven and appears to be in his 20s or 30s, was arrested by Iraq security forces after they retook most of Basra in April.

CNN was shown what authorities say was his first confession. On it are the names of 15 girls whom he admitted kidnapping, raping and killing. The youngest girl on the list was just 9 years old....

Women bore the brunt of the [Shiite] militias' extremist ideologies. The militants spray-painted threats on walls across Basra, warning women to wear headscarves and not to wear make-up. Women were sometimes executed for the vague charge of doing something "un-Islamic."

In the wasteland on the outskirts of Basra, dotted with rundown homes, the stench of death mixes with the sewage. Local residents told the Iraqi Army that executions often take place in the area, particularly for women, sometimes killed for something as seemingly inocuous as wearing jeans.

The love of Jesus!

It brings people together!

A truly tragic meltdown

Matthew Murray, the poor messed up kid who shot up his church in Colorado back in December, had a lot wrong with him. Beyond his ADHD, there were overwhelming feelings of rejection, and not belonging. With his brain chemistry so badly screwed up (he was taking medication, but it's impossible to tell if he was on it at the time of his rampage), it's hard to say what could have prevented him from doing what he did.

God didn't, of course, but that's because there isn't one, so you can't exactly be bitter about that. But not only didn't Christianity provide the path to peace and healing Murray needed, but it may well have exacerbated his situation. An angry letter from Matthew written to God has come to light. In it, Matthew rails against the hypocrisy he sees all around him in the Christian community.

"The more I read your stupid book, the more I pray, the more I reach out to Christians for help the more hurt and abused I get," he wrote.

"I've heard good things about what Jesus can do, yet everywhere I go in Christianity, all the Christians I see or meet are miserable, angry, selfish, hypocritical, proud, power hungry, abusive, uncaring, confused, lustful, greedy, unsure of their doctrine and mean-spirited ... Am I too lost to be saved? My soul cries for deliverance. I'm dieing (sp), praying, bleeding and screaming. Will I be denied???"

This stuff is just heartbreaking. And revealing in the way so much of his anger and bitterness is directed at the religious beliefs in which he'd been raised, setting an ideal for which he never believed he was good enough, while all around him, he saw people who had been accepted, loved and successful within the church (like Ted Haggard, whose sex scandal was especially appalling to him), revealed as hypocrites and liars.

I'm sure his family tried to help as his mental chaos overtook him, but his suffering was beyond them. It would have been so nice if there really was a God for guys like Matthew, who could hear a guy like Matthew's pleas and reach down from whatever otherworldly, higher realm it lives in and simply, magically take the pain away. But that God's just not there, for him, his victims, you, me or anyone. We're the ones who have to look after and care for one another. You don't heal the problems of someone like Matthew Murray by filling his head with ideas about heaven and hell and being a horrible sinner who must please a jealous God if he wishes to "be saved." Build up a person's life, help him realize that he has value and worth here and now. Because this is the only shot at life any of us gets. And it's tragic to see anyone's life go down in flames — especially when it takes others with it — the way Matthew's did.

15-year-old Boy Scout massacres family

You know what they say: Be prepared.

Hey, at least he wasn't gay or an atheist. That would be immoral!

Oh no, not again

Today in the news:

A mother who is suspected of killing her four children, whose decomposing bodies were found in her home, appeared in court Thursday.

Banita Jacks, 33...told police that her daughters were possessed by demons and that each died in her sleep during a seven- to 10-day period, court documents said. Aja died first, she told police, then N'kiah, Tatianna and Brittany.

Okay, I know it's simplistic simply to blame religion in situations like this. You can make the same post hoc fallacy people make when they blame violent video games for school shootings, or porno magazines for rape. In the case of the wacko who killed and cooked his girlfriend a few days ago, and then told the cops God ordered him to do it, it's obvious he was trying to appear as crazy as possible so as to cop a sanity plea when his case goes to trial. There are cases of clearly religiously inspired violence, such as 9/11, gay-bashing incidents, the killing of abortion providers, excessive corporal punishment of children bordering on child abuse, the ongoing Arab/Israeli conflict, tribal violence in Kenya and the Sudan, Catholic/Protestant violence in Northern Ireland, and more.

Then there are cases where a lunatic does something loony, and, surprise, is found to have kooky religious beliefs as well. Kooky religious beliefs and kooks do go together well.

A case like this leans toward the latter, but still, I don't think religion can get off the hook entirely. Religion is the only thing out there that encourages people to believe in absurdities like demonic possession. It's bad enough that literally millions of people have their critical thinking faculties short circuited by the teachings of religion, and thus fail to know how to protect themselves from religious hucksters selling their snake oil. But add religion into an environment where mental illness is latent, and it's a recipe for unmitigated catastrophe. While the mental illness is ultimately the cause of this woman's actions, religion only enhanced its severity, rather than helping her to overcome it.

Science, on the other hand, has made great strides in treating mental illness. There's nothing in the article to indicate Banita Jacks was on any medication for any psychological disorder. But clearly she should have been. Had she been, this might not have happened. But by putting her faith in her religion, what happened? She believed her babies were possessed by demons, and butchered them. Religion can't always be blamed for the bad things people do. But I see precious few examples of its actually doing anything to help or prevent such tragedies either.

Christian Love™ brings people together!

I can't resist hilarious stories like this. Seems two different groups (gangs?) of priests — one Greek Orthodox, the other Armenian Apostolic — were cleaning up inside Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity when some careless fellow set foot in the other group's section, setting off a bloody turf war. About 80 men of the cloth whaled away at one another with brooms until the police were called in to break up the rumble. Just amazing. Apparently there were "long-standing rivalries" between the two groups. You'd think if there were a God, he'd step in to clear that sort of thing up. Mediate, you know? After all, how can they expect to fend off the evil atheist secularist liberal Darwinist scourge if they can't even get along with each other?

Irrationalism hasn't got a leg to stand on

None of you is likely to forgive me for the bad joke in the headline when you read this article. But still, I think this little event shows up the practical risks of embracing irrational beliefs in magic and the occult. So the next time some wide-eyed individual calls me a closed-minded old grumpus because I can't see the "beauty" in the act of confusing fantasy with reality, I'll just reply that I'd rather have a closed mind than a bloody severed limb. Skepticism: the life and limb you save may be your own.

Tell me again how theism makes you morally superior?

The latest on the Colorado church shootings:

The gunman was identified as Matthew Murray, 24, who was home-schooled in what a friend said was a deeply religious Christian household.

Gosh, it's all so confusing.

Lunatic shoots up Ted Haggard's old church

This is a developing story out of Colorado, so we'll be keeping up with it. It would be too easy to throw in some snark about the obvious (God didn't pop up to save these people), but there is a time and place for that and it isn't when people are really being hurt. I suspect there's something to the fact that this occurred at the megachurch formerly run by the disgraced Ted Haggard, that the guman had some real issues there. We'll see what an investigation into his background reveals. It doesn't appear anyone was killed (we're unsure whether the gunman himself is alive or dead), so that's good news.

Apparently earlier today two guys were killed at a missionary training center about 70 miles away. We'll see if it was the same shooter.

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Latest update is that the gunman killed one person at the church before himself being taken out by a quick-thinking security guard.

Punishing the Victim

This is a sick, twisted world that clearly needs to change:

The 19-year-old victim was sentenced last year to 90 lashes for meeting with an unrelated male, a former friend from whom she was retrieving photographs. The seven rapists, who abducted the pair and raped both, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison.

The victim's attorney, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, contested the rapists' sentence, contending there is a fatwa, or edict under Islamic law, that considers such crimes Hiraba (sinful violent crime) and the punishment should be death.

"After a year, the preliminary court changed the punishment and made it two to nine years for the defendants," al-Lahim said of the new decision handed down Wednesday. "However, we were shocked that they also changed the victim's sentence to be six months in prison and 200 lashes."

The judges more than doubled the punishment for the victim because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," according to a source quoted by Arab News, an English-language Middle Eastern daily newspaper.

Judge Saad al-Muhanna from the Qatif General Court also barred al-Lahim from defending his client and revoked his law license, al-Lahim said. The attorney has been ordered to attend a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Justice next month.

So many things are wrong with this situation that one doesn't know where to begin fuming, or whether to end.

On the other hand, consider the implications of punishing victims with infinite torture in Hell. Think about it: the basic tenets of Christianity are infinitely worse than the barbaric actions described in the article.

This also needs to change.

God's forgiveness = self-forgiveness

From the world of phony sports — to which I customarily pay zero attention — comes this grisly tale of professional wrestler Chris Benoit, who murdered his wife and child and then killed himself. After killing his family, he placed a Bible next to their bodies.

This isn't going to be another of those posts full of "religion kills" bromides. In this case, the possible reason for Benoit's rampage may be linked to his use of too much of what the bodybuilding world calls Vitamin S. But the role the Bible plays here is interesting. Having no expertise in the mental health field at all, my built-in atheist's "skepdar" (a wonderful term someone on the ACA's Yahoo group came up with) tells me that Benoit was using religion as many people do in life: a forgiveness quick-fix, the moral equivalent of using Fix-a-Flat to pump up a punctured tire.

While Christians go on about how no one without religion can possibly have a moral compass to follow, what they never talk about is the way in which people who do embrace religion, however fervently or casually, typically behave no better than unbelievers, and oftimes worse. And when they do behave worse, they use religion as a convenient thing to fall back upon, either to justify their actions, or to showboat a fake display of remorse.

Many Christians will respond to this by agreeing wholeheartedly, then by attacking those people for moral hypocrisy and not being "true" Christians. This misses the point. I think Christianity unintentionally sets itself up to be used in this way by giving people a poor understanding of morality, and of the difference between right and wrong in the first place. As Stephen has pointed out here, Christianity paradoxically wants people to be good, then gives them bad reasons to do so. Christian morality is entirely tied in to how well one obeys divine rules and commandments. One should not kill or steal because it will anger God (except in those cases where it's okay) and could doom you to hell. That killing takes a life, which is in and of itself bad, and that stealing involves taking something that isn't yours and that you haven't earned from someone who has earned it, which is in and of itself bad, is significantly less relevant to Christian thought. The only consequence to be feared is the displeasure of God. All of us have heard (and if you haven't yet, it's quite sobering to hear it for the first time) some Christians say that if there were no God, then they'd see no reason whatsoever not to just go off on a wild murder rampage, wreaking merciless havoc with gleeful impunity. Whether or not they actually would if presented with the chance, or whether it's all just talk, is immaterial. That a Christian would even say such a thing with a straight face underscores the darkly ironic fact that many of the people who consider themselves to be the world's poster children for all things righteous and moral simply do not comprehend what the terms "right" and "wrong" even mean.

But what of the believer who does go off on that rampage. Well, then, there's God's "forgiveness". Since praying is really nothing other than glorified talking-to-yourself, how easy it must be for a person who does something really horrible to tell themselves, "Hey, it's not that big a deal after all," simply by praying, and enjoying a little delusional exchange in which they themselves, playing the role of creator and ruler of the universe, bestow instant "forgiveness". Occasionally, the display is brazen, as in Kent Hovind's bizarre dialogue with God in which Kent reinforces his belief in his own martyrdom and heroism to a degree that bespeaks genuine mental illness.

But other times, the self-forgiveness is more subtle and cynical. Benoit's is a perfect example. I suspect he placed the Bible next to his murdered family either in the effort to convince himself that it wasn't such a bad thing, what he did and all, because his wife and child were in Heaven now, or simply to assuage his own sense of guilt about the murders through a feeble gesture that he hoped would placate his invisible friend. Or both.

Either way, religion made it easier for him to carry out his crime, rather than giving him the intellectual and moral tools to stop himself from carrying it out. Because Benoit lacked the ability to make rational decisions in life — perhaps a combination of steroid use, religion, and too many blows to the head — he and his family are now dead. And all the little gestures of piety in the world don't change that.