Highlighting the show, ‘Touched By An Atheist’, with George Carlin:
Enjoy.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Discerning The Anti-Semite – Signs And Portents
This is a great video, frankenspliced to portray crazy Mel as an anti-Semite.
It’s no secret that I support Israel (and, I suspect, it’s likely the reason I lose people off the feedburner that shows how many people subscribe to my blog, but I’ve been wrong in the past). But I’ve noticed tip-offs when someone on a blog comments about Israel and/or Jews. Patterns emerge. It usually goes a little something like this:
1. Generalized derogatory comments on Jewry. They can be subtler hints, like “I think that there is no doubt that there are many american citizens that have greater loyality to Israel than the US.” (My subsequent challenge to that assertion consisted of getting absolutely no evidence other than the assertion, I might add). Then there are more flagrant commentaries like “If for whatever reason, the USA entered into military conflict with the foreign nation Israel, could we count on all the Jews in the US military to support and not sabotage the operation?” I have seen some truly idiotic and despicable comments that state that ‘Jews are over-represented in Hollywood’. You ken me drift, I think.
2. Usually, I point out that Jews are a race and an ethnicity, not just a religion. Don’t believe me? Look it up. Without exception, I hear this: “You can convert to Judaism, that makes you a Jew, so you’re WRONG.” Never mind that if your mother’s a Jew, you’re born a Jew. This is pretty much a false dichotomy: there’s more than one way to be a ‘member’.
3. Entering into discussion with these folks and calling shenanigans usually ends up degenerating into a pissing contest. I get accused of being brain damaged, rabid Zionism, and other ridiculous nonsense. Even of not being a ‘True Atheist™’
4. Usually this devolves even more into ridiculous comparisons: Israel commits genocide, accusations of apartheid, comparisons to Nazi Germany (that last part should Godwin a thread, but doesn’t, as the clown is usually building up some lather).
Now, as a qualifier, some people go directly to number 4. Once upon a time, I was one of those folks. And someone challenged me on it. So I did the research. I’ve other posts on the subject, so before you take a swing at me, do a little reading up. I have valid reasons for ‘switching sides’.
One of the issues you’d imagine I’d have as an atheist, is this: they started the whole shebang, the whole monotheistic trinity of nonsense we have to endure and combat in the name of reason and rationality. More correctly, their ancestors did that, and I’m not a big fan of children inheriting the ‘sins’ of their fathers folderol. The other fact of the matter, is that aside from the latest problems occurring in Israel, Jews aren’t in the news. Or rather, they’re more sporadically in the news – outside say, the Madoff scandal, the contrast of bad press from either Islam or Christianity (or the variants thereof) outnumber the bad press from Judaism by at least 20 to 1 (that’s a guessed margin – feel free to correct me).
Have no doubt, I’m firmly against religion. As Einstein so succinctly put it, "the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions." My major beef is that folks (especially on the left) indulge themselves in (sometimes unknowingly) distinctly racist (yes, Jewish is a race) scapegoating, which I might add, is a religious practice, and one that should be tossed in the garbage with all the Talmuds, Korans, and bibbles. I do have a sort of empathy for them as a people, because I’m fairly sure no other group gets blamed for so much on so little evidence, and anti-Semitism is an evil Christian legacy that atheists should not espouse.
Make of that what you will.
L’Chaim.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Allegories Gone Wild – Of Papists, Popes, And Puerile Prophecies
Cross posted @ God Is 4 Suckers!
In the wild weird and wooly world of woo, the Catholic Church has had some truly bizarre ideas. From stigmata to the cilice, from the flagrum to exorcism, these people seem to have all sorts of crazy ideas.
One of the major fantasies of the monotheists is the concept of the end of the world. As we see lives begin and end, we project this cycle of life and death and rebirth onto the larger world, and the theists among us re-interpret wildly to retrofit reality to their pre-supposed peccadilloes.
Among the odder oddities one can stumble across in the laundry lists of lunacy, is the Prophecy of the Popes, as given by one alleged Saint Malachy:
The Prophecy of the Popes, attributed to Saint Malachy, is a list of 112 short phrases in Latin. They purport to describe each of the Roman Catholic popes (along with a few anti-popes), beginning with Pope Celestine II (elected in 1143) and concluding with a pope described in the prophecy as "Peter the Roman", whose pontificate will end in the destruction of the city of Rome.
Are there issues with this? You bet your sweet aunt’s fanny there is.
The prophecy was first published in 1595 by Arnold de Wyon, a Benedictine historian, as part of his book Lignum Vitæ. Wyon attributed the list to Saint Malachy, the 12th‑century bishop of Armagh in Northern Ireland. According to the traditional account, in 1139, Malachy was summoned to Rome by Pope Innocent II. While in Rome, Malachy purportedly experienced a vision of future popes, which he recorded as a sequence of cryptic phrases. This manuscript was then deposited in the Roman Archive, and thereafter forgotten about until its rediscovery in 1590.
‘Cryptic phrases’? Is this facepalm time? 
On the other hand, Bernard of Clairvaux's biography of Malachy makes no mention of the prophecy, nor is it mentioned in any record prior to its 1595 publication. Some sources, including the most recent editions of the Catholic Encyclopedia, suggest that the prophecy is a late 16th‑century forgery. Some have suggested that it was created by Nostradamus and was credited to Saint Malachy so the purported seer would not be blamed for the destruction of the papacy. Supporters, such as author John Hogue, who wrote a popular book titled The Last Pope about the claims, generally argue that even if the author of the prophecies is uncertain, the predictions are still valid.
How so? Let’s take a brief look into it:
Interpretation of the mottos has generally relied on finding correspondences between the mottos and the popes' birthplaces, their personal arms, and the events of their pontificates. For example, the first motto, Ex castro Tiberis (From a castle on the Tiber), fits Pope Celestine II's birthplace in Città di Castello, on the Tiber.
Pope Celestine II (died March 8, 1144), born Guido di Castello, was pope from 1143 to 1144. Self-fulfilling prophecy there. Next.
Pope Clement XIII, referred to in the prophecy as Rosa Umbriae, the rose of Umbria, is stated to have used a rose "as his personal emblem" (his coat of arms does not include one, however, nor was he from Umbria nor had any but the most marginal connection with the region, having been briefly pontifical governor of Rieti, at the time part of Umbria). The technique of word play was evident in instances where interpreters find a phrase fitting more than one explanation.
‘Word play’ is christlation for ‘let’s make it fit!’
It is notable that where the interpretation of the prophecy is clear (as is the case for almost all of the Popes prior to 1590), the reference is almost always to some characteristic possessed by the Pope prior to assuming the Papacy -- e.g., his birthplace, his arms, his surname, or his cardinal see. However, for more recent Popes, efforts to connect the prophecy with the pope have often focused on the events of his pontificate.
This sounds more like a literary version of cold reading to me.
In recent times, some interpreters of prophetic literature have drawn attention to the prophecies, both because of their success in finding connections between the prophecies and recent popes, and because of the prophecies' imminent conclusion. Interpretations made before the elections of recent popes have not generally predicted their papacies accurately.
Small wonder that.
For those interested, the popes and their ‘corresponding mottos’ can be found here. And the skepticism kept on coming for the prophecies of Saint Malarkey:
Spanish writer father Benito Jerónimo Feijóo wrote in his Teatro Crítico Universal (1724-1739), in an entry called Purported prophecies, that the ones by Saint Malachy's were a shameful forgery, claiming that they were created ad hoc during the 16th century. As a proof, he offers an accurate fact: that the first time the prophecy is mentioned is on a handwritten account by patriarch Alfonso Chacón (a.k.a Alphonsus Ciacconus, 1540-1599) in 1590 (this account would be later published, in 1595, by the abovementioned historian Arnold de Wyon); in this account, Chacón only comments the prophecies until the papacy of Urban VII (whose papacy only lasted September 1590, and was the current pope at the time Chacón wrote the comment). According to Feijóo, Chacón, who held a great intellectual prestige at the time, was lured to comment the prophecies by someone who wanted to help cardinal Girolamo Simoncelli (1522-1605) reach the papacy. By showing them to be accurate till Urban VII, it was expected people to believe the next ones; that way, Girolamo Simoncelli could be easily elected pope, since the prophecy after Urban VII's one tells about a pope Ex antiquitate urbis (from the antiquity of the city), a fact that seems to fit him, who was cardinal of Orvieto (literally "old city", urbs vetus), or at least better than Gregory XIV, who was elected pope after Urban VII. Thus, the forgery would have been useless, since Simoncelli was not elected pope. Jesuit father Claude-François Menestrier also claimed that the prophecies were forged in order to help the papal candidacy of Girolamo Simoncelli, offering similar reasons to those of Feijóo. Spanish historian José Luis Calvo points out that the prophecies seem to be very accurate till Urban VII, fitting perfectly even the antipopes, but that afterwards great efforts have to be made in order to make the prophecies fit their pope. Feijóo's explanation is usually regarded as being the most probable proof of the forgery.
So, nutshelling it: said ‘prophecies’ were forged in the 16th century, and were eerily accurate (if you accept the 12th century publication fib) up to Urban VII who was pope during…drum roll please…the 16th century. Many many tickle up the raisin (if I might use a little wordplay on an old bibble saying). For those of you who don’t get the esoteric mangling: it’s easy to see the writing on the wall, and it’s mostly graffiti that adorn the smoke and mirrors.
And one has to but Google this topic, to see that this obvious hoax has survived nearly 5 centuries, even though anyone with half a mind (or half a critical eye) can see that this is an utter fraud.
The ubiquity of stupidity is appalling.
Till the next post, then.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Tuesday Funny – Comfort’s Nightmare!
I’m convinced that Ray Comfort sees this on one of those bad nights:
Actually, this is from the show, That Mitchell And Webb Look.
Also, I find Sir Digby Chicken Caesar is particularly amusing (yeah, I know, not particularly PC):
And of course, the game show Numberwang:
Enjoy.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
On The Heels Of A Tragedy, The Dogs Of War Will Root Out The Outsiders…
Cross posted @ God Is 4 Suckers!
As no doubt some of you are aware, recently a Muslim military psychiatrist went haywire, and shot (and killed) a number of people. Recently, CNN did a report on Hasan’s motive and background, and yes, it doesn’t look too damn good.
Humanity being a species of extremists, the days to come will no doubt illustrate polarization issues. And one of the worst cornerstones of the problem, is this idiocy we term religion, this superstition we are told to nod and murmur over and grant obsequiousness to.
It is no secret that I’m no fan of being told to be quiet when idiocy raises its ugly head. Most of you are like-minded. Those few of us who recognize the ideological blind spot are considered pariahs and told to shut up and sit on our hands, instead of vocalizing our criticisms. Even though 9/11 should have taught us collectively that unrestrained superstition is dangerous in any hands.
And to top off the scare-mongering, I found this deeply disturbing as well:
Within the fundamentalist front in the officer corps, the best organized group is Officers’ Christian Fellowship, with 15,000 members active at 80 percent of military bases and an annual growth rate, in recent years, of 3 percent. Founded during World War II, OCF was for most of its history concerned mainly with the spiritual lives of those who sought it out, but since 9/11 it has moved in a more militant direction. According to the group’s current executive director, retired Air Force Lieutenant General Bruce L. Fister, the “global war on terror”—to which Obama has committed 17,000 new troops in Afghanistan—is “a spiritual battle of the highest magnitude.” As jihad has come to connote violence, so spiritual war has moved closer to actual conflict, “continually confronting an implacable, powerful foe who hates us and eagerly seeks to destroy us,” declares “The Source of Combat Readiness,” an OCF Scripture study prepared on the eve of the Iraq War.
‘Spiritual battle’? We’ve heard that trope before. The troops blared that at the Crusades, the priests trumpeted that during every inquisition, in fact that fuckhead Woodrow Wilson alluded to it in his speech on Manifest Destiny.
Inevitably this ends in tears. Someone somewhere will be broken over the knee of ideology.
But another OCF Bible study, “Mission Accomplished,” warns that victory abroad does not mean the war is won at home. “If Satan cannot succeed with threats from the outside, he will seek to destroy from within,” asserts the study, a reference to “fellow countrymen” both in biblical times and today who practice “spiritual adultery.” “Mission Accomplished” takes as its text Nehemiah 1–6, the story of the “wallbuilder” who rebuilt the fortifications around Jerusalem. An outsider might misinterpret the wall metaphor as a sign of respect for separation of church and state, but in contemporary fundamentalist thinking the story stands for just the opposite: a wall within which church and state are one. “With the wall completed the people could live an integrated life,” the study argues. “God was to be Lord of all or not Lord at all.” So it is today, “Mission Accomplished” continues, proposing that before military Christians can complete their wall, they must bring this “Lord of all” to the entire armed forces. “We will need to press ahead obediently,” the study concludes, “not allowing the opposition, all of which is spearheaded by Satan, to keep us from the mission of reclaiming territory for Christ in the military.”
These people are undermining the SOCAS. They are most emphatically not putting their country first: they’re obviously putting it second to their superstitious drivel. If you’re a soldier, you put the country first. Otherwise, you’re an extremist, and need to be watched very carefully.
Every man and woman in the military swears an oath to defend the Constitution. To most of them, evangelicals included, that oath is as sacred as Scripture. For the fundamentalist front, though, the Constitution is itself a blueprint for a Christian nation. “The idea of separation of church and state?” an Air Force Academy senior named Bruce Hrabak says. “There’s this whole idea in America that it’s in the Constitution, but it’s not.”
Huh. Skipping over the fact that the Constitution states baldly that ‘no religious oath is required for office’, that there’s not one breath or iota of religious rhetoric contained in the whole damn thing, the only people who think that the SOCAS is in it are undereducated (and I’m being kind here).
If the fundamentalist front were to have a seminary, it would be the Air Force Academy, a campus of steel and white marble wedged into the right angle formed by the Great Plains and the Rockies. In 2005, the academy became the subject of scandal because of its culture of Christian proselytization. Today, the Air Force touts the institution as a model of reform. But after the school brought in as speakers for a mandatory assembly three Christian evangelists who proclaimed that the only solution to terrorism was to “kill Islam,” I decided to see what had changed. Not much, several Christian cadets told me. “Now,” Hrabak said, “we’re underground.” Then he winked.
Again, the target isn’t a single religion, it’s all of it. It needs to go. One of the more frightening asides in the article was this:
3. Warren’s bestseller sometimes displaces Scripture itself among military evangelicals. In March 2008, a chaplain at Lakenheath, a U.S. Air Force–operated base in England, used a mandatory suicide-prevention assembly under Lieutenant General Rod Bishop as an opportunity to promote the principles of The Purpose-Driven Life to roughly 1,000 airmen. In a PowerPoint diagram depicting two family trees, the chaplain contrasted the likely future of a non-religious family, characterized by “Hopelessness” and “Death,” and that of a religious one. The secular family will, according to the diagram, spawn 300 convicts, 190 prostitutes, and 680 alcoholics. Purpose-driven breeding, meanwhile, will result in at least 430 ministers, seven congressmen, and one vice-president.
Obviously these ‘numbers’ were retrieved from that mysterious place where the sun don’t shine.
Here’s a high note, though:
Mikey Weinstein, for his part, doesn’t mind being called demonic by officers like Boykin. “I consider him to be a traitor to the oath that he swore, which was to the United States Constitution and not to his fantastical demon-and-angel dominionism. He’s a charlatan. The fact that he refers to me as demon-possessed so he can sell more books makes me want to take a Louisville Slugger to his kneecaps, his big fat belly, and his head. He is a very, very bad man.” Mikey—nobody, not even his many enemies, calls him Weinstein—likes fighting, literally. In 1973, as a “doolie” (a freshman at the Air Force Academy) he punched an officer who accused him of fabricating anti-Semitic threats he’d received. In 2005, after the then-head of the National Association of Evangelicals, Ted Haggard, declared that people like Mikey made it hard for him to “defend Jewish causes,” Mikey challenged the pastor to a public boxing match, with proceeds to go to charity. (Haggard didn’t take him up on it.) He relishes a rumor that he’s come to be known among some at the Pentagon as the Joker, after Heath Ledger’s nihilistic embodiment of Batman’s nemesis. But he draws a distinction: “Don’t confuse my description of chaos with advocacy of chaos.”
I think we need more Mikey Weinstein’s in this world. Of course, the ‘dog loves you unconditionally’ crowd responded with their usual ‘love thy neighbor’ tactics:
But as Mikey’s client base grows, so too do the ranks of his enemies. The picture window in his living room has been shot out twice, and last summer he woke to find a swastika and a cross scrawled on his door. Since he launched MRFF four years ago, he has accumulated an impressive collection of hate mail. Some of it is earnest: “You are costing lives by dividing military personnel and undermining troops,” reads one missive. “Their blood is on your hands.” Much of it is juvenile: “you little bald-headed fag,” reads an email Mikey received after an appearance on CNN, “what the fuck are you doing with an organization of this title when the purpose of your group is not to encourage religious freedom, but to DENY religious freedom?” Quite a bit of it is anti-Semitic: “Once again, the Oy Vey! crowd whines. This jew used to be an Air Force lawyer and got the email”—a solicitation by Air Force General Jack Catton for campaign donations to put “more Christian men” in Congress, which Mikey made public—“just one more example of why filthy, hook-nosed jews should be purged from our society.”
The abuse has become a regular feature of Mikey’s routine in public appearances. There’s a sense in which Mikey likes it—not the threats, but the evidence. “We’ve had dead animals on the porch. Beer bottles, feces thrown at the house. I don’t even think about it. I view it as if I was Barry Bonds about to go to bat in Dodger Stadium and people are booing. You want a piece of me? Get in line, buddy. Pack a lunch.” Mikey sees things in terms of enemies, and he likes to know he’s rattling his.
Charming. Again, there’s religion, bringing out the best in people.
It’s a huge article, so I’ve only quoted snippets. But it’s downright scary – the military should be entirely secular. Mind you, secular, not religion-free – that would be a violation of the SOCAS, to encroach on people’s rights. But the freedom of religion also constitutes a freedom from religion, otherwise the former would be meaningless.
In the meantime, be afraid. Because extremists with guns are taking over the military. And that bodes well for no one except those who march in lockstep with them.
Till the next post, then.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Tuesday Funny – Seth McFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy
I’ve always enjoyed McFarlane’s sense of humor (especially when it comes to religion – I wonder why, hehehehe).
Anyways, here’s a REAL good clip:
Enjoy.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
With The Feel Of Death’s Breath Upon Our Napes, What Tales We Spin
Cross posted @ God Is 4 Suckers!
That quarter of the year is upon us now: when Fall’s chill threatens Winter’s white cold, and the snow and darkness remind us of our mortality.
As we are the creatures who are self-aware, and from that springs our awareness that each of us will end some day, we as a species draw strange maps of nowhere, calling upon vague shadows to hear our supplications, and some among us will lay claim to that most ephemeral of claims, the mantle of immortality.
In some ways, it is to be expected. We see our loved ones pass – we watch also the passage of strangers and acquaintances alike. It is a foible, this superstition that we tell our neural pathways, this insistence that we should rise, become some other, wisps of energy to be reunited by other wisps, to whisper to those that have gone before, and say hello, I’ve missed you sorely, and that the pain of passage is assuaged, we are all together now, as it should be.
It is also only human, to hope for a redress of the grievances visited upon us by others in this short-lived life, and to imagine there are reckonings amid the shadows and dark places.
Such are the banes of consciousness. The human animal perceives that there’s a beginning to its life, and after some years, an end. But also observes that many things in nature run in cycles, and deludes itself that there’s some cyclic undercurrent as to the state of consciousness, and sees also the inherent unfairness of having learned so very many things, and the knowledge ending upon death. (Of course this can be passed on to others of the pack, but still, it seems unjust.)
So it is the onset of winter that our (some of us blatantly, others subliminally) thoughts may turn to ending. We see the four season in ourselves, microcosmically: spring as birth, summer as youth, fall as middle age, winter as dotage.
As the animal who perceives, we spin tales, we construct elaborate rituals and dances, some of us dancing widdershins upon the heath and jump the bonfire and telling old rumors like true stories, others among us hide within stone walls and sackcloth and print voluminous tomes that recount badly remembered cautionary tales from another age, and yet others unfold and create metaphorical origami that is pleasant to the ear and the mind’s eye but anachronistic and of little use in reality.
And to forestall the inevitable end, we build cathedrals and monuments and graveyards and mausoleums to the beloved dead, and useless monks intone futile hymns to the unproven afterlife, in hopes of shoring up some form of invisible capital like karmic interest, and preparing a road where none lay.
Life is precious, and its passing sadness. But denying death and claiming life everlasting has led to naught but madness.
While there is no soul, life is good, there is no hole in us that cannot be filled by ourselves. We are all stardust dancing in this cloak of flesh, and the loss of the supernatural is a boon to the heart, and we dance, awkwardly or with grace, to the end, smiling, for life has been good for it has been there, and the inevitable quiet is to be embraced and not feared, for a human end should be soft and calm and good, to be painless it is hoped, and a life fully lived need not be shot through with regrets.
I hope your Halloween was a happy one, and may all your tricks be kind ones, and all your treats be pleasant both before and after.
Till the next post, then.
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