Skepticism, Religion Archive

Friday, June 4, 2010

Still Arguing

Well, I don't have any new entries this week, either. I got too caught up in that same comment thread on The Chronicle of Higher Education as last week, and spent too much time leaving comments there. I think I'm suffering from SIWOTI Syndrome. Like last week, if you're really interested in reading something by me this week, I've included my comments below the fold.

Continue reading "Still Arguing" »

Friday, May 28, 2010

Arguing About Religion on Another Site

Well, I don't have any blog entries this week. I've been spending too much time reading and commenting on other sites. In particular, I've been following the comment thread of this article, The New War Between Science and Religion, from The Chronicle of Higher Education. If there's anybody out there just dying to read something I've written this week, I'll copy my comments here (and some of the relevant comments of others). Since this doesn't really count as an original blog entry, I'm going to put all of it below the fold.

Continue reading "Arguing About Religion on Another Site" »

Monday, May 10, 2010

Ray Comfort and Moral Accountability

The Atheist's Worst NightmareI usually try to avoid Ray Comfort's blog. It just sucks me in and I end up wasting too much time. But, he was mentioned on Pharyngula the other day, so I headed over to Comfort's blog out of curiosity. The post that day happened to be Mark and Albert's Common Belief, which used Mark Twain and Albert Einstein to describe how atheists, in Comfort's view, are idolaters (never mind that Comfort uses a quote from Einstein at the top of the blog to try to show Einstein as a theist). The part that got me the most was this section.

Man has always gravitated towards making a god in his own image. He does this because he doesn’t want moral accountability.

After reading the entry, I did something I'd never done before. I tried to leave a comment on Comfort's blog. For those unfamiliar, Comfort's blog is moderated, and it does have a commenting policy. Here are the guidelines.

All comments are moderated before being published. When deciding which comments to publish, we use the following guidelines:

1. Any comments we deem abusive or outside the boundaries of Christian civility will not be published.

2. Any comments that don't properly, and respectfully, capitalize the name "Jesus" and/or "God," or use these in a blasphemous manner, will not be published.

3. Any comments that include website links will not be published. (Since we are unable to fully explore every web site, the inclusion of a url may mean we choose not to publish your otherwise wonderful comment. If your web site is important to you, we suggest you include it in your personal profile.)

I can't remember now exactly what my comment was, but it was something to the effect of this.

I don't understand this 'moral accountability' argument from Christians, since Christianity seems to take away this accountability. You can be as horrible of a person as you want to be, as long as you accept Jesus before you die. Just look at Paul of Tarsus. He killed many people, but then after he converted, everything was okay. Christianity is like the ultimate 'get out of jail free' card.

I thought it was reasonable, and I thought I was following the guidelines. I even double checked on my capitalization, but it still didn't get published. Maybe it was the Monopoly simile in the last sentence. Oh well, lesson learned - don't waste time trying to comment on Comfort's blog (when I shouldn't be wasting time reading it in the first place).


As I've said before, Ray Comfort will always hold a special place on this blog. It was one of his CDs that got me motivated enough to actually start this blog, and he was the subject of my first substantive entry (third entry overall, but the first two were basically just announcements that I was starting a blog and how I was going to run it). For anyone interested in my previous entries dealing with Comfort, here they are:

Friday, April 23, 2010

Christian Group Going to Supreme Court for Right to Flout Rules

I heard a story on NPR on the way in to work this week. A case is being brought to the Supreme Court by a student group, the Christian Legal Society, against the Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. The university has had a long standing policy that in order to be officialy recognized by the university and receive public funding, student groups could not restrict membership on any basis. The local Christian Legal Society (CLS) at the university had for many years followed that policy, but in 2004, when it joined the National Christian Legal Society, it changed its rules to exclude homosexuals or those engaging in pre-marital sex. The university enforced its policy, and revoked its official endorsement of the CLS.

Well, the CLS didn't like that, so they're claiming discrimination. They want to be exempt from the rules because they claim that the rules infringe on their religious rights. To be clear, the university did not ban the CLS from convening on campus, or ban students from joining the CLS, and did not even stop the CLS from using university facilities. They just didn't officially endorse the CLS and give it the stipend that official organizations receive.

I see two issues here - receipt of public funds, and official recognition from the university. I don't see that the CLS has a leg to stand on concerning public funds, and I really don't see that they have much more of a case concerning official recognition. To be affiliated with a public institution, you have to follow the public rules. If you want a private club that excludes members for whatever reason, that's fine. Just don't expect to use my tax dollars to pay for your club, and don't whine when a university won't advertise for you.

(This reminds me of the whole brouhaha during the election season, when churches wanted to endorse candidates but keep their tax exempt status. You don't get to break the rules just by playing the religion card.)

Calvin and Hobbes Comic from Go Comics
Calvin and Hobbes on GoComics

Friday, April 16, 2010

Random Thoughts After a Night at Mass

crossOver Easter weekend, I went to church for the first time in years. (I was visiting family, and that same weekend my nephews were getting baptized, confirmed, and receiving first communion - all at the same mass. Since that was such an important occasion for them, I went to watch it.) It was a bit of a strange experience. On the one hand, it was all very familiar. I remembered when to sit, stand, and kneel. I remembered all the appropriate responses and prayers (even the full Nicene Creed). I felt myself reflexively wanting to make the sign of the cross and all the other appropriate gestures. I still felt the urge from my altar boy days to reach down and ring the bells when the priest was preparing communion. On the other hand, I was now watching the mass as an outsider. I was struck by just how much conditioning there was. It was easy to see how people repeating the same things week after week reinforce their existing beliefs. I realized why it was so hard to break that cycle.

Since it was Easter weekend, the Gospel reading was the story of Doubting Thomas. I'd never questioned the meaning of this story as a Christian, but now, as a non-believer, it's obvious how insidious it is. Thomas heard a group of people making claims of a very, very unlikely event. He did what any normal person would do in that situation, and demanded a bit of evidence. When Jesus showed up, he reprimanded Thomas for being skeptical. The moral of the story is supposed to be that blind faith is better than evidence! That type of thinking is exactly the problem with why rumors and urban myths are perpetuated. If everybody demanded a bit of evidence before accepting stories as true, we wouldn't need dedicated debunkers like Snopes or the Myth Busters.

At one point, I did become rather sad, when the priest started talking of praying for the deceased. It got me to thinking about all the people I knew who had died. I felt a double sense of loss - the first for when those people had died in the first place, and the second for when I finally realized that there wasn't an afterlife, and that I actually wouldn't ever get to see them again. Dealing with the death of loved ones and facing our own mortality is never easy, but at least those who have never been promised an afterlife only have to mourn once.

I didn't take communion myself while I was there. I didn't figure the priest would have been very happy to discover that an atheist had eaten the Eucharist. But to tell the truth, I wouldn't mind having a few wafers to snack on. Like I mentioned above, I used to be an altar boy, and we would occasionally snack on non-consecrated wafers. It may be an acquired taste, but I kind of miss it.

One aspect of mass that I've missed since I quit going is the singing. I was never one of those Catholics who sat there silently, or just mumbled the words during hymns. I sang. I wasn't particularly good, but I enjoyed it. So, going into church, I was thinking that I might enjoy singing hymns again. I tried on the first hymn, but I just couldn't get past paying attention to the words and the meaning of what I was singing. So I didn't try to sing anymore after that (even though I had most of the lyrics memorized and didn't need to look in the hymnal).

Anyway, those are just a few of the random thoughts I had after going to mass for the first time in years. I definitely didn't feel any pressure to return to the church, but it was an interesting experience.

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