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Thursday, March 15, 2007
Homosexuality: Another Galileo Embarrassment Coming
By VictorM: Albert Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville wrote an article about homosexuality that for obvious reasons pissed off a lot of people. I'm not going to dwell on those reasons because they're too stupid for even an insignificant blog like this to address, but there are a few bits that I liked:Mohler conceded in his column what many opponents of homosexuality have rejected -- that there may be a biological explanation for why some people are attracted to those of the same sex... In the interview, Mohler said he's been "barraged by e-mails" from other evangelicals saying that there couldn't be a biological cause for homosexual orientation because that would eliminate the moral responsibility for homosexual acts. "That's just a bad argument," Mohler said. "I am absolutely confident that a large number of homosexuals are telling the truth when they say they did not choose that orientation," he added.Forget about the other nonsense in the article. That this jerk has other religious idiots discussing their shameful and stubborn position on homosexuality is a good thing. The more they talk, the more apparent it becomes that they demand 100% scientific evidence for the views of others while they offer 0% scientific evidence for theirs. There will come a day when they will face another Galileo embarrassment.
Labels: homosexuality, religion
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Internet Religious Worshipping: A Ticket To Hell?
By VictorM: This Washington Post article covers how many people, from all kinds of religions, are looking for new ways to worship and are finding it just a website away:The Internet has become a hub of religious worship for millions of people around the world. Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs and people of other faiths turn regularly to Web sites to pray, meditate and gather in "virtual" houses of worship graphically designed to look like the real thing. Some sites offer rites from baptism to confession to conversion to Judaism... For many cyber-worshipers, online religious life conducted at home or in an Internet cafe has replaced attendance at traditional churches, temples, mosques and synagogues... The boom in online religion comes at a time when people, especially the young, are questioning traditional institutions... "Old mechanisms of religious authority are changing,"... "There is more emphasis on individualism. We want to decide for ourselves."Any breakaway from most organized religions sound like a good idea to me, but this notion of "emphasis on individualism", well, I got news for you: according to the current fogies who control your after-life, your desire to spend your money elsewhere other than in their institutions mean you're going to suffer the same fate as I am: you're going to hell!
Labels: religion
Sunday, March 11, 2007
The Battle Between Evangelicals
By Kevin Drum: [T]he battle between the "old guard" evangelicals (Dobson, Weyrich, Bauer, etc.) and the younger crowd is heating up... It's not just that [the old guard] want to stay focused on abortion and gay marriage, the Dobson crowd's usual hot buttons... Opening up the evangelical agenda to topics such as citizenship for illegal immigrants, universal healthcare, and caps on carbon emissions risks finding common ground with Democrats:The best-known champion of such causes, the Rev. Jim Wallis, this week challenged conservative crusader James C. Dobson, the chairman of Focus on the Family, to a debate on evangelical priorities.Just thought I'd let everyone know that there are cracks in the evangelical movement's longtime role as a bought-and-paid-for subsidiary of the Republican Party, and those cracks are getting bigger. The old guys don't like it much, but time may not be on their side.
"Are the only really 'great moral issues' those concerning abortion, gay marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence?" Wallis asked in his challenge. "How about the reality of 3 billion of God's children living on less than $2 per day? ... What about pandemics like HIV/AIDS ... [and] disastrous wars like Iraq?"
Labels: evengelicals, James Dobson, Jim Wallis, kevin drum, religion
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The Source of Your Beliefs Not Important To Me
By Atrios, on political beliefs based on religion: [Q]uestioning the sincerity of peoples' faith does anger them. On the other hand, appealing to the sincerity of their beliefs is a way of privileging them, to put them in the realm of privileged discourse, as well as removing the person's responsibility. I don't really care if the desire to discriminate against gay people, or turn the uterus into state property, is motivated by sincere religious conviction. I don't think religious conviction, sincere or otherwise, makes your beliefs somehow special. If you think your misogyny or homophobia is sanctioned by God, it doesn't make you not a misogynist or homophobe... The fact that your political beliefs are motivated by your religion doesn't make them special to me.
Labels: atrios, homophobia, misogyny, religion, religious beliefs
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
On Brands: A Note to The Religious (and The Press)
By Paperwigth: If you don't use and defend a trademark or brand, you lose it. In particular, you have to defend your brand against people using it to identify products and services that you don't provide and which may be far inferior to the products and services that you provide. This is the fundamental problem that the mainstream religious face in the United States today: they have not defended their brand, and they have lost it to the outrage pimps of Republican Fundamentalism like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and (most recently) William Donohue.
Labels: James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, religion, republicans, William Donohue
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Gays Can Be "Cured"
Hey, all you have to do is want to believe. Details at Religion Today.
Labels: homosexuality, religion, ted haggard
Friday, February 02, 2007
Who Made Baby Jesus Cry?
By VictorM: Call me what you will, but I don't buy this story of a statue of the baby Jesus crying tears. One woman who apparently witnessed the event said: "Everybody took out their cell phones, some of them have cameras. For me, it was a very special day. I feel like God is telling us he is alive." Sounds to me like another case of some perfectly good explanation that people just choose to ignore.
Labels: Jesus Christ, religion, tears
Thursday, January 25, 2007
One of the signs of Jesus Christ's imminent return
By VictorM: In this story about showing the documentary An Inconvenient Truth in public schools, Frosty E. Hardiman, a parent of seven wrote in an e-mail to the Federal Way School Board: "No you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation -- the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet -- for global warming"... This guy is an evangelical Christian who believes that a warming planet is "one of the signs" of Jesus Christ's imminent return for Judgment Day. We cannot and must not be tolerant of religious fanatics whose views are sure to have such dire consequences to each and everyone of us.Labels: al gore, global warming, inconvenient truth, religion
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Religion's Credibility and Homosexuality
By Oliver "Buzz" Thomas: Christianity is in danger of squandering its moral authority by continuing its pattern of discrimination against gays and lesbians in the face of mounting scientific evidence that sexual orientation has little or nothing to do with choice... The suffering that gay and lesbian people have endured at the hands of religion is incalculable, but they can look expectantly to the future for vindication. Scientific facts, after all, are a stubborn thing. Even our religious beliefs must finally yield to them as the church in its battle with Galileo ultimately realized. But for religion, the future might be ominous. Watching the growing conflict between medical science and religion over homosexuality is like watching a train wreck from a distance. You can see it coming for miles and sense the inevitable conclusion, but you're powerless to stop it. The more church leaders dig in their heels, the worse it's likely to be.Labels: homosexuality, religion
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Male Circumcision and the Creator
By VictorM: Circumcising adult men may reduce by half their risk of getting the AIDS virus through heterosexual intercourse, the U.S. government announced recently. There have been other studies that suggest similar benefits. Also, over the years, there have been other reports that male circumcision has other benefits. If one believes these findings, it raises one important question: Did our Creator screw up when He/She/It gave us that extra piece of skin?Labels: health care, religion
Saturday, December 16, 2006
American Pastor
By Atrios: CNN has taken to referring to Rick Warren as "America's Pastor." Well, they put quotes around it so maybe they just mean that someone somewhere has called him that. Look, I know it's assholes like me who are always accused of being hostile to religious people, but that kind of thing from a major news network should be deeply hostile to people with or without faith. America does not have a pastor. America does not have a single religion. America does not have a single faith. America does not need CNN anointing a pope or choosing the county's religious leader.Labels: cnn, pastor, religion, rick warren
