Baba Brinkman: Off That (Rationalist Anthem)

More Baba here.

Dawkins: What if Scientists Behaved Like Religionists?

This, it seems, is a man who thinks he is exemplifying Jesus' love

Praying for the death of President Obama. Hoping that homosexuals die of brain cancer.

Dude. You make Jeebus cry.

Favorite Lines from Recent South Park

Billy: Do you wanna do it?

Cartman: Do I wanna do it? Does the pope help pedophiles get away with their crime?

Billy: Is that something you would want to do?

Cartman: Is that something I would want to do? Is the pope Catholic...and making the world safe for pedophiles?

Billy: You wouldn't do that. 

Cartman: Does a bear crap in the woods? And does the pope crap on the broken lives and dreams of 200 deaf boys?

Tim Minchin's Pope Song

Stephen Fry Speaks on the Catholic Church

Wow.

And how did Fry and Hitchens do? They kicked ass.

No Reason to be Offended...

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!

Mark your calendar for May 20th!

Also earning my endless affection: Boobquake!

Chosen People

Heh.

Iranian cleric blames quakes on promiscuous women

[BBC]

Women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes, an Iranian cleric says.

La Ciudad de las Ideas 2009

La Ciudad de las Ideas 2009

Hitchens demonstrates again here the rhetorical skills that I so admire.

If you like, you can watch the video of D'Souza embedded below or you can trust that my descriptions and transcriptions are honest and accurate.



Among the things D'Souza says:

...I have just published a book about life after death...it's called Life After Death: The Evidence.

Got that? "Evidence."

...The atheist is posing as the champion of reason and science and evidence. I want to beginby showing that on an issue crucial to religion - is there life after death - the atheist is not only AS ignorant, but MORE ignorant than the religious believer.

D'Souza goes on to correctly describe how the atheist will disparage the view of the religious person who believes in life after death because a "holy book" SAYS there is life after death. He correctly describes the atheist reponse that the believer has access to no knowledge that can confirm the existence of life after death.

But what if we were to turn the camera around and say to Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris or Daniel Dennett: "Do you believe there is life after death?" They will say no!

Well this is very interesting. YOU haven't been to the other side of the curtain either, you haven't interviewed any dead guys! What information do YOU have that the religous believer does NOT have?! And the answer is none. And so the atheist and the believer are in exactly the same position. Both are making a truth claim and both are totally ignorant. Both are stating a belief on a position on which neither one has any evidence at all.

Dinesh isn't a stupid man, so I can only assume he is aware of what a bad straw man argument this is and is just an intellectually dishonest man.

But Hitchens responds to this dishonest argument more elgantly than I could.

I'm sorry, Dinesh:

Atheists do NOT say "we know there is no God."

We say, to the contrary, no argument and no evidence has ever been aduced that we consider to be persuasive.

There's no reason to beleve in evidence or argument, ontology or science.

The same with the afterlife. Of course we don't say that we KNOW there isn't one. We say that we don't know anyone who can bring any reason to think that there IS.

This is a very important distinction and it is very regretabble that you miss it and I'm sorry to say, Dinesh, that the immediate loser in an argument about things of which we can and can't be certain...where the only thing that IS certain in these laws is the principle of UNcertainty...the immediate loser, the man who has to leave the island (sorry Dinesh, again) right away almost, is the man who says "I already know all I need to know, I already have all the information I need- indeed I've been given it by a supernatural body."

Hitchens video embedded below:


"I can say with reasonable certainty: I don't think all this was undertaken so that one primate species on one small planet could hear the Pope telling them that AIDS may be bad, but that condoms are worse. I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, what could be more self-flattering, pathetic, and yes, superstitious than that?"

Hitchens on "National Day of Prayer"

Hitchens briefly debates Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.



Hitchens would be more effective in this one if he was slightly more polite- but I agree with everything he says.

Jesus Plays Telephone

This is great.

Blaming the Jews for Pedophile Backlash

Item: In Germany, 56% lose trust in Church

Well, good for the Germans.

An opinion poll conducted by the Focus magazine found that 56 percent of the 600 German participants have no confidence in the Church, which has been rocked by an unending stream of sex abuse allegations against priests.

Some 26 percent of the country's Catholic population is now considering quitting the Church, according to the study which is to be published in the magazine on Monday. The respondents said that this is regardless of the consequences of the move on their income tax.

On their INCOME TAX? Huh?

Germany is among a number of European countries that impose Church tax (8-9%) on followers of any religious congregation, unless a member officially quits their communion.

...and the German government gives the income from these taxes to the Church! Got that? The supposedly secular government collects tithes for the church!


Item: Jews blamed for pedophile backlash

An Italian Catholic Web site is claiming that a retired bishop has blamed the Jews for the current backlash against the church over sex abuse claims.

Giacomo Babini, 81, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, allegedly said in an article on the Pontifex Web site that he believed a “Zionist attack” was behind the criticism of the church, considering how “powerful and refined” the criticism was.

“They do not want the church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers,” he was quoted as saying.

He now denies having said these things.

[Times Online article]

However, Bruno Volpe, who interviewed Monsignor Babini for Pontifex, confirmed that the bishop had made the statement, which was reported widely in the Italian press today. Pontifex threatened to release the audio tape of the interview as proof

Wow. What an asshole.

Other Stuff Catholics Have So Far Blamed for the Church's Pedophilia Scandal:

• The Devil
• Gays
• The Sexual Revolution
• The Media
• Persecution

Unbelievable.

Atheism's One Commandment