A Slight Delay

I don’t remember quite how I came across this. As with so much else, I was probably looking for something else and came across it by accident. Oh, in case you were wondering what “it” is, it’s Jefferson’s Bible.

A bit of backstory: legend had it that one night, Jefferson took a razor blade to the Bible, excising the bits with which he didn’t agree. Those bits consisted mainly of the stuff referring to the geneology and divinity of Jesus. What’s left reads like a synopsis of the synoptic Gospels, a Cliff’s Notes version of the Good News. (more…)

I’m not sure what it is about me that everyone thinks I need to be converted to something else. Catholics, Muslims, Jehova’s Witnesses, and Protestants of practically every stripe think that I need to join their crowd. It’s like PBS with loaves and fishes; a perfectly innocent everyday conversation is chugging along nicely, only to be brought to a screeching halt by some kind of churchy pledge drive.

This has happened so often that I’ve come up with some coping strategies in case anyone decides that there’s something religiously or theologically wrong with you. Use as many of the following as are necessary ‘til your interlocutor has had enough/sobs with frustration. (more…)

Another post that I came across at random, this time from Ever Looking Upwards, who asks, “Are you a fan of the ‘patchwork’ Gospel??” She asserts:

If you don’t consider scripture to be the inerrant Word of God (and thus above the words of anyone on this earth including the Pope!), and you feel that it’s been changed over the years by the multiple translations and rewritings etc, so you figure you can’t accept it as it’s provided, but would still call yourself a Christian, then you are also a fan of the “patchwork” Gospel, whether you realise it or not.

And this is a problem why, exactly? (more…)

I’m generally pretty neutral on Starbucks. Sure, I cringe at the thought of paying $24.75 for a tall soy mocha latte. On the other hand, I don’t think they’re the root of all evil (a distinction that clearly belongs to Wal-Mart). So I’m amused to find out that a group of supposed Christians are calling for boycotts of the chain. Their reason? Nothing to do with fair trade beans, soy milk, or snooty baristas. Apparently the coffee chain’s mermaid logo is showing too much skin for their taste.

The boycott comes from a group calling itself The Resistance Manifesto, which also devotes a fair amount of space to 9/11 “truth” screeds, and rants against celebrities. To quote from the little missive they sent out to publicize their boycott:

(San Diego, CA) Starbucks has recently introduced a new version of their logo which features a topless mermaid with her legs spread, which has caused outrage from a nation wide Christian media watchdog organization. The Resistance, with [sic] has over 3000 members nationwide, is boycotting Starbucks across the country saying their new logo is inappropriate.

“The Starbucks logo has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute,” explains Mark Dice, founder of the group. “Need I say more? It’s extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves, Slutbucks.”

Okay, I admit that I’m not up on mythical beasts, much less their mating habits. The best I can remember, though, mermaids don’t have legs. But that’s not the least of it. First off, if you think someone’s going to get their kicks off a badly-drawn cartoon mermaid, you’ve got more issues than Time magazine. Second, what next? The Coppertone logo? Products like Naked Juice, or Bear Naked granola?

And finally, with all the more pressing issues facing the world–poverty, starvation, warfare, race and class strife–the best you can do is a outrage over a fucking mermaid? Somebody’s priorities are seriously ass-backward if they think this merits a second look, much less a boycott.

On the brighter side, maybe if they get worked up enough about the mermaids, they’ll keep their mouths shut about gay marriage for a change. That would be progress.

One thing life should teach everyone, sooner rather than later, is never to say, “Now I’ve seen everything.” I was reminded of this when I made the mistake of answering a question posed to me during an everyday conversation. I was asked if I’d ever read Rhonda Byrne’s insipid and insidious The Secret (the insipid and insidious part wasn’t part of my interrogator’s question, merely my own editorializing).

I answered that I hadn’t, but that I’d once been subjected to the movie, because someone at my last place of employment apparently thought it was so deep and insightful, we should all be subjected to it. Normally, I would never take the movie over the book; this is one time I gladly made an exception. Hell, it’s bad enough I’ll never get those 90 minutes of my life back.

You would think that I’d just told Billy Graham that I thought the Bible was crap. (more…)

Blogs on religion proliferate like weeds on the web. Unfortunately, they all too often settle into trite cliches, facile dogmatism, and sloppy theology. A refreshing exception comes to us courtesy of Amicus Dei, a blog written by Pastor Chuck Warnock. Once you’ve read his writing, both there and on his other blogs, such as Confessions of a Small-Church Pastor, you come to realize that any preconceptions you might’ve had about Baptist pastors pretty much go out the window. At least mine did. (more…)

Watching the news last night, you know what I realized? I’d make a lousy weatherman. For one thing–and God help me, I never thought I’d say this–I’m not funny-looking enough. You don’t believe me? Two words for you: Willard Scott. The other thing is, I have no patience. I feel sorry for the first anchorperson who says, “So, another day of rain, Paul? When are you going to stop this? Give us some sun, already!” (more…)

Douglas Adams famously referred to himself as a “militant Atheist,” mostly so that people would know he did not, in fact, believe God existed; he didn’t want to be confused with a garden-variety agnostic. However, the last few years have given rise–or at least a lot more attention–to an atheism that is militant in the more traditional understanding. These atheists have raised their profile considerably, collectively publishing thousands of pages on their belief system, and spending a good amount of time on the bestseller lists as a result. To wit: Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great; Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion; Sam Harris’s The End of Belief and Letter To A Christian Nation; and Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.

More on them later; for now, let’s have a look at one of the products of a pendulum shift in the other direction, courtesy of Chris Hedges. Previously the author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and American Fascists, Hedges trained early on as a seminarian, and later cut his teeth as a journalist for the New York Times. With I Don’t Believe in Atheists, Hedges concerns himself with—to borrow a phrase from Tariq Ali—the clash of fundamentalisms. In doing this, he’s delivered not only a good read, but also something that will hopefully start a lively (not to mention probably heated) debate. (more…)