Archives March 2012

BillDo Didn’t Like the Reason Rally

The Reason Rally, billed as the largest gathering of atheists and similar heathens on the National Mall in history, was this Saturday. Naturally, BillDo got his panties in a twist, fell on his faiting couch, clutched his pearls, summoned his smelling salts, and generally carried on as he usually does.

He couldn’t complain that Christians are being singled out for persecution (where “persecution” means not being allowed to hit gays over the head) given that Taslima Nasrin devoted her time to criticizing Islam, and Greta Christina called out the Dalai Lama on Buddhist BS. So he had to settle for complaining about how “atheists always attack us more than any other religious group”.

But he also didn’t like Richard Dawkins:

The big draw was Englishman Richard Dawkins. He implored the crowd to “ridicule and show contempt” for people of faith. “Mock them, ridicule them in public,” he bellowed. Especially Catholics. Dawkins not only mocked the Eucharist, he advised the crowd to ask Catholics, “Do you really believe…that when a priest blesses a wafer, it turns into the body of Christ?”

Actually, that’s a fair question: does Bill actually believe that when a priest blesses a wafer, that it turns into the body of Christ? If no, would he please come out and say so publicly?

And if yes… WTF? I mean, seriously, WTF? Here we are, in the 21st century; we have the Internet and DNA sequencing and space probes and lasers and telemedicine and drought-resistant crops and wonders beyond measure, and he’s still holding on to primitive superstitions about bread magically turning into meat? ‘Da hell?

I’m sorry, but if you’re a grown-up and still believe in magic, you don’t get to complain when people point out how ridiculous that is. If you can’t grow up and join the 21st century, then at least try for the 20th.

Tim Minchin’s Pope Song — the Clean Version

Benny Johnson at the Blaze really didn’t like Tim Minchin’s Pope Song, which he played at the Reason Rally:

From the article and comments, it looks as though the word commonly referred to as an “eff-bomb” stopped Benny’s and his readers’ mental processes, rendering them incapable of hearing what the song actually had to say.

So for the benefit of all of these delicate flowers on their fainting couches, here’s my cleaned-up version of the lyrics:

Darn the bad person, darn the bad person
Darn the bad person, he’s a really bad person (repeat)
Darn the bad person, darn the pope.

Darn the bad person, and darn you
If you think he’s sacred
If you cover for another person who’s a child molester
You’re no better then the rapist
And if you don’t like this swearing that this person forced from me
And reckon it shows moral or intellectual paucity
Then too bad for you, this is language one employs
When one is cross about people having sex with children.

I don’t care if calling the pope a bad person
Means you unthinkingly brand me an unthinking apostate, and
This has naught to do with other godly people
I’m not interested right now in scriptural debate
There are other songs and there are other ways
I’ll be a religious apologist on other days
And the fact remains that if you protect a single child molester
Then pope or prince or plumber you’re an evil malefactor.

You see I don’t care what any other person
Believes about Jesus and his mother
I’ve no problem with the spiritual beliefs of all these people
While those beliefs don’t impact on the happiness of others
But if you build your church on claims of moral authority
And with threats of hell impose it on others in society
Then you can expect some wrath
When it turn out you’ve been engaging in non-consensual sodomy with us

So darn the bad person and darn you, bad person
If you’re still Catholic
If you covered for a single child molester
Then you’re as evil as the rapist
And if you look into your heart and tell me true
If this stupid song offended you
With its filthy language and its disrespect
If it made you feel angry go ahead and write a letter

But if you find me more offensive than the possibility
The pope protected priests when they were abusing children
Then listen to me, this here is a fact
You are just as morally misguided as that
Power-hungry, self-aggrandised bigot in the stupid hat

Emphasis added to the important bits.

And just so there’s no confusion: curse words are bad because they make some people feel momentarily uncomfortable. Child rape is bad because it causes physical harm and psychological trauma, often for a lifetime, a lifetime that may be cut short because of the aforementioned psychological trauma. Covering up child rape is bad because it allows child rape to continue. And, of course, claiming to be in a position to decide what is and isn’t good, while covering up child rape, is the height of hypocrisy.

There is no way Minchin’s song is in any way comparable to what the Catholic church has done. And if you’re not angry enough at the church to swear, then what’s wrong with you?

Shit My Bible Says: Girl Cooties

Leviticus 12:2-5:

2[…] A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. […] 4 Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. […] 5 If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding.

So ladies, the next time some guy treats you as inferior or compares you to livestock or something, don’t blame him. God himself says that you have cooties.

Natural Selection in the Fossil Record

table.figure {
background-color: #f0f0f0;
}
table.figure caption {
caption-side: bottom;
font-size: 90%;
padding: 1em;
background-color: #f0f0f0;
}

For quite some time now, I’ve had a question:

We can see evolution in the present.
And we can see natural selection in the present.
And we can see lots of evolution in the fossil record.
But can we see natural selection in the fossil record?

Read More

FFRF Ad in NYT

The Freedom From Religion Foundation ran a full-page ad in the New York Times today. The ad takes the form of an open letter to Catholics, urging them to “quit the Roman Catholic Church”.

Why are you propping up the pillars of a tyrannical and autocratic, woman-hating, sex-perverting, antediluvian Old Boys Club? Why are you aiding and abetting a church that has repeatedly and publicly announced a crusade to ban contraception, abortion and sterilization, and to deny the right of all women everywhere, Catholic or not, to decide whether and when to become mothers? When it comes to reproductive freedom, the Roman Catholic Church is Public Enemy Number One. Think of the acute misery, poverty, needless suffering, unwanted pregnancies, social evils and deaths that can be laid directly at the door of the Church’s antiquated doctrine that birth control is a sin and must be outlawed.

Right on cue, BillDo is offended.

The ad blames the Catholic Church for promoting “acute misery, poverty, needless suffering, unwanted pregnancies, overpopulation, social evils and deaths.” It says the bishops are “launching a ruthless political Inquisition” against women. It talks about “preying priests” and corruption “going all the way to the top.” In an appeal to Catholic women, it opines, “Apparently, you’re like the battered woman who, after being beaten down every Sunday, feels she has no place else to go.”

Bill doesn’t rebut any of these charges. Presumably he doesn’t disagree with them; he just thinks it’s impolite for the FFRF to point out these problems.

And then, just to prove what a class act he is, there’s this:

FFRF is led by a husband and wife team, Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker. Fortunately for Gaylor, her mother did not follow through on the advice she gave women in her book, Abortion Is a Blessing.

Oh, Billy! Will your furious tantrums never cease to make me giddy with schadenfreude?

Shit My Bible Says: By the Rivers of Babylon

Psalm 137:

1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
   when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
   we hung our harps,
3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
   our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
   they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

4 How can we sing the songs of the LORD
   while in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem,
   may my right hand forget its skill.
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
   if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
   my highest joy.

7 Remember, LORD, what the Edomites did
   on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
   “tear it down to its foundations!”

Huh. Actually, that’s quite beautiful. A song of grief and loss, and trying to carry on in desperate circumstances.

Some of you may be old enough to remember Boney M’s version. Admit it, you started singing along with the text, above:
http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/L9XDKNnE0ig?rel=0

(And for those who aren’t old enough to remember: um, there once was this thing called disco and, er, we’re not terribly proud of that.)

Update: Hold on. Alert reader me has just pointed out that I left off a bit off at the end:

8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
   happy is the one who repays you
   according to what you have done to us.
9 Happy is the one who seizes your infants
   and dashes them against the rocks.

Huh. I wonder why this part never made it into the Boney M song.

Shit My Bible Says: The Multiple Deaths of Judas

In case you don’t remember how Judas dies, here’s Matthew 27:3-10:

3When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. 4“I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”

“What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.”

5So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

6The chief priests picked up the coins and said, “It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.” 7So they decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. 8That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 9Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, 10and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.”

Or, if that’s not how you remember it, it’s understandable, since Acts 1:18-19 says:

18 (With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. 19Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

The most obvious difference is that in Matthew, Judas hangs himself, while in Acts, he falls into a field and bursts. But there are other differences: in Matthew, Judas throws the money into the temple; in Acts, he uses it to buy a field. And in Matthew, the Field of Blood is called that because it was bought with blood money — payment for Jesus’ blood — while in Acts, the name “Field of Blood” comes from the fact that it was soaked with Judas’ blood.

Now, if you were desperate to prop up the dogma that the Bible doesn’t contradict itself, and wanted to reconcile these two passages at all costs, you might note that Acts doesn’t explicitly say that Judas didn’t hang himself, and Matthew doesn’t explicitly say that he didn’t burst open, so hey, maybe both of those things happened.

You know, just like how if some conspiracy site says that Obama is a lizard-headed alien who gave instructions on the best way to invade Earth at his last State of the Union address, and the CNN article doesn’t explicitly say that that didn’t happen, then hey, the two are perfectly compatible, right?

But of course that would be silly. So let’s see what earnest apologetics site CARM has to say on this subject:

So, what happened here is that Judas went and hung himself and then his body later fell down and split open. In other words, the rope or branch of the tree probably broke due to the weight and his body fell down and his bowels spilled out.

Or the Restored Church of God:

Acts 1:18 describes what occurred after Judas hanged himself in Matthew 27:5. His body began to decay as it hung from the rope. Eventually, his corpse fell, and “burst asunder” when it hit the ground—he literally burst apart.

Or christianthinktank.com:

since suicide by hanging was usually accomplished (at least by poorer people) by jumping out of a tree with a rope around one’s neck, it was not unusual (nor is it uncommon in India today) for the body to be ripped open in the process. I hesitate to say that this was exactly what happened, but it is certainly a plausible explanation.”

Never let it be said that apologists aren’t an inventive bunch.

And if you enjoyed that, as a reward for making it all the way through to here, I present you Trektonics Apologetics Ministries’ definitive proof of the absence of any contradictions in Star Trek.