Category FFS

Highway of Holiness

Light the Highway is a group of people who apparently think that I-35, which runs from Laredo, TX to Minneapolis, MN, is God’s chosen interstate, because Isaiah 35:8 reads:

And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it.

(I-35, Isaiah 35. Get it?)

It’s unclear to me whether this is a Poe or not, but reading that site is like being beaten over the head with a stick made of frozen crazy.

OTOH, they may be onto something: the 495th line of Isaiah is 26:19, which reads:

But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.

which sounds a lot like I-495 (the Washington Beltway) to me.

(Tip o’ the tinfoil hat to Martin Wagner.)

The Crossword War on Christianity

If you thought Bill Donohue’s knickers were in enough of a twist over The Golden Compass to tourniquet a combat battalion, think again:

Many fans of crosswords look forward to tackling the New York Times’ Sunday issue. Several enthusiasts contacted the Catholic League, however, to report that they were troubled by a question in yesterday’s puzzle. The work, titled “Putting on Some Weight,” featured several answers that contained the word “ton.” For instance, the clue “I’m not interested in having tea!” led to the answer, “DON’T GIVE ME ANY LIPTON.”

Puns are standard fare for crossword puzzles, but one example from yesterday’s game is a little too cute. The clue for Number 98 across asked “Crucifix?” The corresponding answer was “SEXTON SYMBOL.” Surely the authors of the puzzle, and the editors of the New York Times, would do well to avoid such cheekiness when it comes to the figure of Christ crucified.

I’d love to meet him sometime. There could be so much fun to be had in pushing his buttons.

Reality Can Be Mean

GMAFB:

DUNDEE UNIVERSITY has been accused of “antagonising Christians” with a forthcoming Christmas lecture that challenges one of the central tenets of the faith.

Second-year dental student Emily Mackie said the university’s decision to call its inaugural Dundee Christmas Lecture “Why Evolution is Right … and Creationism is Wrong” is badly timed and insensitive to Christians.

The article shows a photo of Mackie holding a ticket to the lecture. Since she’s a dentist in training, maybe she can go and tell the lecturer how wisdom teeth are evidence of God’s design.

(HT Jesus and Mo.)

Australia Starts the War on Christmas

According to News.com.au, Nov. 11:

SANTAS working in shopping centres across Australia have been banned from bellowing “ho ho ho” because it might frighten children.
[…]

“The reason behind that is we find that in some cases the little kids can get a little bit scared of the deep ‘ho, ho, hos’ and we ask them to be mindful of keeping their voices to a lower level,” [Westaff national operations manager Glen Jansz] said.

According to AFP,

One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use “ho ho ho” because it could frighten children and was too close to “ho”, a US slang term for prostitute.

Thankfully, today we have:

Recruitment firm Westaff, which supplies hundreds of Santas for events around Australia, has backed down from its ban on the traditional greeting following a backlash from employees.

The company wanted to ban “Ho, ho, ho” for fear it might scare some of the children.

A Myer spokesman said store management believed the expression was an important Christmas tradition.

Rain Magic

Every so often, sophisticated theists will say that Dawkins, Hitchens, etc. misrepresent religion, that God is not an invisible sky-daddy who grants wishes, but some ineffable essence working within the laws of nature, or some such (see here, here, here).

And then something like this comes along:

That would be Gov. Sonny Perdue, who has asked Georgians to pray for rain today, and at lunchtime will convene with various religious and political leaders on the steps of the state Capitol to seek divine intervention in the state’s months-long drought.

There’s probably a polite way to say this, but I won’t (maybe I’m just cranky because it’s raining in Maryland, rather than in Georgia where they could use it): these people believe in magic. Primitive, superstitious magic, where if you say the right words and make the right gestures, the great sky spirit will grant you your wish.

Right here, in the United States, at the dawn of the 21st century. In the sixties, people thought we’d have flying cars. Instead, we have rain dances.

And this isn’t some fringe group. Not only does Governor Perdue believe that rain dances work, enough of his constituents do that he hasn’t been laughed out of office.

So, all you sensible theists out there, why aren’t you policing your own? Why aren’t you pointing out to these superstitious fools that what they’re doing is no different from spreading mistletoe on the ground and chanting? Pastors, why aren’t you educating your congregations and telling them that no, God doesn’t work that way?

In a recent speech, Daniel Dennett suggested referring to non-brights as “supers”, because they believe in the supernatural. But perhaps “super” is short for “superstitious” as well.

The Mozart Argument

Over at Dangerous Idea, Victor Reppert links to the lecture notes for a talk by Alvin Plantinga listing half a dozen (or so) arguments for the existence of God.

Down in the comments, someone asks why atheists snigger at Plantinga.

To answer that question, scroll down Plantinga’s talk to “(U) The Mozart Argument”. As far as I can tell, it’s basically:

  1. I like Mozart’s music
  2. If evolution had taken a different course, Metallica’s music would have been considered beautiful
  3. But it’s not
  4. Therefore, God exists

As Dawkins put it in The God Delusion, “That’s an argument?” To answer the commenter’s question, the reason I have such a low opinion of Plantinga is that any time I read him, he’s in one of two modes: 1) full-on obscurantism and bafflegab, or 2) tripe like the above.

Obviously, just because I don’t understand something doesn’t imply that it’s meaningless. Maybe if I put in the time to understand high-falutin’ Plantinga, it would make sense. But bullshit-drivel Plantinga makes me seriously doubt that possibility. If I may steal a line from Sam Clemens (only steal from the best!), it ain’t the parts of Plantinga that I can’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts that I do understand.

The GOP Is Getting Predictable

EDGE Boston gives us the setup:

[Richard] Curtis, elected to the [Washington] state House three years ago, voted in the spring against a measure to provide domestic partnerships to gays and lesbians.

In 2006, Curtis came out against an anti-discrimination bill to protect GLBT people from being discriminated against on the basis of their sexuality.

I’m sure you can guess the punchline. Check your answer below the fold. Read More

Sony Learns Nothing From Its Mistakes

Remember back in 2005, when Sony decided it would be a smashingly brill idea to include a rootkit on one of their CDs? Well, now they’re selling USB keychain drives with built-in fingerprint scanners, and they figured it’d be totally rad to include a rootkit with that as well.

As the old saying goes, subvert my security to prevent the inevitable release of your IP onto the net by 15 minutes, shame on you; subvert my security etc. twice, shame on you still, dumbass.

Arming the Enemy

From the Washington Post:

The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.

The author of the report from the Government Accountability Office says U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

Can this administration do anything without it turning to shit?

And I don’t want to hear another word about “criticizing the war emboldens the enemy” or any crap like that. Not while the government’s own incompetence is inadvertently supplying weapons—actual steel weapons, not metaphorical ones—to the people shooting at our troops.

God in the Texas Pledge

Did you know that Texas has a pledge, much like the pledge of allegiance? I didn’t, until I ran across this article in the Houston Chronicle saying that the Texas legislature has added to it the words “one state under God”.

Why? Debbie Riddle (R-Gilead) says:

“Personally, I felt like the Texas pledge had a big old hole in it, and it occurred to me, ‘You know what? We need to fix that,’ “

Perhaps the good citizens of Texas would have been better served if their state legislators had looked to Iraq and taken the month off.

I don’t see how this can possibly pass constitutional muster. According to the article, saying the Texas pledge has been mandatory since 2003. If there’s a more clear-cut case of violation of separation of church and state, I haven’t seen one yet. Then again, if and when someone sues (the article quotes Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State), they’ll be able to whip people up into a frenzy over those damlibruls who “want to take God out of our schools”.

What would Jesus think of this sort of all-god, all the time mentality?

Matthew 6: 5“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

But I don’t suppose one can expect True Christians to listen to some 2000-year-old long-haired hippie Jew.