A Forum? - Fri, Jun 11, 2004
It occurred to me while setting up the 'Quote of the Day' (and I was told [ok prompted] to do it a while back ago but like a typical female, I forgot) that maybe a forum would be of good use here. Looking at the logs for RA there are a lot of repeat visitors.
If you think you'd be interested in participating in a discussion forum that bashes Theists, please voice your opinion here and if RA says it's alright, I'll set one up. But I'd hate to do all that work and have no one use it.
-Chris
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Ray of Light - Fri, Jun 11, 2004
In most versions of the afterlife, we merely regain whatever abilities we lost on Earth. But this cartoonist seems to believe that we, or at least Ray Charles, get even more than we had:
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The Devil Made Me Do It - Thu, Jun 10, 2004
"God wants me to do it" is the premise underlying mosts religious freedom lawsuits. The theory is treated with fawning respect by the courts -- whether they uphold or dismiss the action-- because, as we all know, "men may believe what they cannot prove." But you get laughed off if you claim Satan made you do it, as the plaintiff in Mayo v. Satan and His Staff, 54 F.R.D. 282 (W.D.Pa. 1971) long ago discovered:
Weber, District Judge:Plaintiff, alleging jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 241, 28 U.S.C. § 1343, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 prays for leave to file a complaint for violation of his civil rights in forma pauperis. He alleges that Satan has on numerous occasions caused plaintiff misery and unwarranted threats, against the will of plaintiff, that Satan has placed deliberate obstacles in his path and has caused plaintiff's downfall.
Plaintiff alleges that by reason of these acts Satan has deprived him of his constitutional rights.
We feel that the application to file and proceed in forma pauperis must be denied. Even if plaintiff's complaint reveals a prima facie recital of the infringement of the civil rights of a citizen of the United States, the Court has serious doubts that the complaint reveals a cause of action upon which relief can be granted by the court. We question whether plaintiff may obtain personal jurisdiction over the defendant in this judicial district. The complaint contains no allegation of residence in this district. While the official reports disclose no case where this defendant has appeared as defendant there is an unofficial account of a trial in New Hampshire where this defendant filed an action of mortgage foreclosure as plaintiff. The defendant in that action was represented by the preeminent advocate of that day, and raised the defense that the plaintiff was a foreign prince with no standing to sue in an American Court. This defense was overcome by overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Whether or not this would raise an estoppel in the present case we are unable to determine at this time.
If such action were to be allowed we would also face the question of whether it may be maintained as a class action. It appears to meet the requirements of Fed.R. of Civ.P. 23 that the class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable, there are questions of law and fact common to the class, and the claims of the representative party is typical of the claims of the class. We cannot now determine if the representative party will fairly protect the interests of the class.
We note that the plaintiff has failed to include with his complaint the required form of instructions for the United States Marshal for directions as to service of process.
For the foregoing reasons we must exercise our discretion to refuse the prayer of plaintiff to proceed in forma pauperis.
It is ordered that the complaint be given a miscellaneous docket number and leave to proceed in forma pauperis be denied.
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Regained - Wed, Jun 9, 2004
The nature of bodily resurrection after death is a hot topic among theological scholars, particularly those who haven’t peeked into a year-old coffin. But what happens to the mind? The nation’s religious cartoonists are at odds over the question, at least with respect to former President Ronald Reagan. They all agree that the body he got is about 70 to 80 years old -- but did the Gipper shake off any of the ravages of Alzheimers? Englehart says yes:
So perhaps he’ll respond to a few unanswered questions about Iran-Contra. But maybe not -- Harville and Heller seem to think he’s digressed to age 4:
McCoy and Marlette believe he’s still deluded . . .
. . . but Ariail and Wells think he’s just joking:
Whether he’s serious or not about tearing down the gate, I have to admit I just don’t get the joke. It’s almost like they’re suggesting that Heaven is an oppressive, authoritarian, Communist state.
Oh . . . now I get it.
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Monks Running E-Business Inspire Stories About The Irony of Monks Running E-Business - Tue, Jun 8, 2004
Sparta, Wisconsin, June 7, 2004
Special to The Raving Atheist
The irony of an ancient order of monks running a modern, profitable e-commerce venture has inspired countless breathless news stories about how very ironic it is for monks to run a modern profitable e-commerce venture. According to Richard Hoskins, director of the National Press Association, the nation’s editors and reporters decided that the story of cut-rate printer cartridge e-tailer LaserMonks should receive and endless stream of uncritical, fawning publicity focusing on how cute and neat it is for ordinarily sheltered religious types to engage in twenty-first century, internet-based capitalism.
The NPA directed ABCNews.com reporter Barbara Pinto to be sure to start her article with the words “[i]n a monastery nestled deep in the hills of western Wisconsin, six Catholic monks spend hours a day in prayer and contemplation -- chanting in Latin from hundred-year old books, and studying the Bible.” Said Hoskins: “We thought that would really set the reader up for a shock went it was revealed that the monks were engaged in a multi-million dollar printer supply operation.” Hoskins added that Pinto was told that it would be good idea to say how LaserMonks’ website has adorable features like a place to submit prayer requests, and to quote company’s president as modestly attributing his success to God. “I actually got him to say “We have been blessed,” boasted Pinto. “And since he said it with a sly smile, I mentioned that too.” Similar stories on the LaserMonks have appear in USA Today and The Pioneer Press.
Following LaserMonk’s example, a New York Catholic group has started a real estate business called PropertyBishops.com. “We know that competing in the cut-throat Manhattan market won’t be easy,” said the company’s President, Edward Cardinal Egan. “However, with God’s help, prayers, and a little uncritical, fawning media coverage we hope to one day be the City’s largest private landowner, as we have been for over fifty years.” Egan added, with a smile, that any politician who wished to be elected had better stop by his Cathedral on St. Patrick’s Day, kiss his pinky ring, call him Your Eminence and shine his shoes with their tongues.
[Link via PurpleCar]
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Patriotism - Mon, Jun 7, 2004
Illinois radio talk show host Scott Thomas, on patriotism:
Let me be clear on this. I do not think you can fully be a true American patriot without first loving the God who blesses this nation. Sure, an atheist can fly a flag, pledge allegiance (without mentioning God), even fight and die for our country . . . all legitimate patriotic acts.But, without recognizing the God who makes this country possible, can you fully be a patriot? Without God, there is no free United States, because freedom, even the freedom to not believe in Him, comes from and is ordained by God Himself.
Etc. Read the annotated version by atheist blogger Josh Rhoderick at The Turnspit Daily.
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God Squad Review XCI - Mon, Jun 7, 2004
Death is on the Squad's mind this week, as they address the finer points of religious burial in their responses to three separate letters. The first is from a Catholic couple that wants to be cremated because they don't like "the whole funeral parlor deal" and think cremation would be cheaper and easier on their family. After noting that the Church dropped its ban on cremation in 1963, the Squad continues:
Orthodox Christians remain staunchly opposed to cremation. Cremation is still against Jewish law because it interferes with the natural process of decomposition ("from dust to dust"). Sometimes cremation puts mourners, both Catholic and Jewish, in a bind. The deceased wanted to be cremated, but the surviving family wants to bury them in a grave where the family can visit and pay their respects. A solution to this is to cremate the body and then bury the remains in a grave.
Note that the solution doesn’t actually address the religious concerns of Orthodox Christian and Jews. The Christians are still left with nothing to be resurrected (presumably their objection, although the Squad doesn’t bother to mention it), and the Jews go from dust to ashes. The mourners do get to talk to a box full of cinders, though.
The second letter is from a Lutheran who wants to tattoo his name in hieroglyphics with Egyptian gods on each side. The Squad repeats their stand (previously discussed here and here) that “God owns our bodies and therefore ‘body art’ is less a form of artistic self-expression than the desecration of a human body that God alone owns,” again failing to explain why make-up and clothes are permitted. Then, returning to their death theme, Squad notes that “Judaism is firm on this view, forbidding the burial of anyone with a tattoo, although this law is violated routinely.”
It seems to me that cremation would also be the solution here, fire being the ultimate tattoo-remover. And I bet Jews would readily waive their objection to cremating a Lutheran, given how many Jews Luther had burned.
The final letter is from a Catholic/Jewish couple that can’t be buried together because Catholic cemeteries don’t accept Jews and vice versa. The Squad’s response shows how trivial they consider the selection of one’s (allegedly) most deeply held spiritual beliefs: “If one of you would consider a deathbed conversion, then it would be possible to bury the spouse who dies first in his or her sacred ground, followed by future burial of the other spouse alongside.” That’s right – faithfully practice your old religion until you’re about to die, and then dump it at the last second to get a grave next to your beloved. I can see how God -- whether it turns out to be the one you converted to or converted away from -- is going love that.
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New York Governor Declares Kosher Emergency - Fri, Jun 4, 2004
New York, New York, June 4, 2004
Special to The Raving Atheist
Amid confirmed reports that the state's water and wig supply were in violation of Orthodox Jewish law, Governor George Pataki last night declared New York to be in a state of Kosher Emergency. His executive order immediately vested the New York Divison of Kosher Law Enforcement with permanent supervisory authority over all of the state's public utilities, hair, and head-coverings. The proclamation expands upon similar emergency legislation drafted last year to protect consumers from unscrupulous merchants who mislabeled as "kosher" food which failed to meet strict Orthodox Kashrut standards.
The latest measure was prompted by two recent rabbinical rulings. The first concerned the purity of human hair wigs, which Orthodox women must wear to hide their own hair in the interests of modesty. Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, The leader of a Lithuanian Torah Jewry faction, last month declared that Indian human hair wigs could have been cut in a Hindu temple -- part of a sacrificial rite that Jews would consider idolatrous. One strand in a human-hair wig would render it unfit, he ruled. The rabbi's edict caused a panic in Miami beach, where women were crying hysterically and publicly immolating wigs costing thousands of dollars.
A second scare has been roiling the Orthodox community in New York, where organisms known as copepods have been found in New York's unfiltered tap water. Although tiny and harmless, copepods are crustaceans. And eating crustaceans -- shrimp, crabs, or any other creature with an external shell -- is against Jewish law. According to the New York Times, some of New York's hardware stores have experienced a rush on water filters. Rabbi Abraham Zimmerman, of the Orthodox Satmar sect, has called upon the City to help make the water kosher, but the Department of Environmental Protection has refused on the ground that the copepods provide health benefits.
State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, whose office runs the Kosher Law division, vowed to combat the new wave of anti-Semitism with forceful action. "Unless we act swiftly, New York's drains could be clogged Hindu demons fornicating with mini-lobsters," he said. Spitzer ordered that all wigs be made from synthetic materials, already favored in the Orthodox community because they are heavy, sweaty, clearly fake and minimize feminine allure. Spitzer further proposed that, once restored to their appropriately stinking state, the women could be shaved, fitted with collars and placed on leashes. With regard to the water problem, Spitzer directed the erection of separate Kosher and non-Kosher water fountains and the segregation of all restaurants into Jewish and non-Jewish sections.
[Links via Debbie]
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Militancy - Wed, Jun 2, 2004
My favorite weak atheist, Julian Baggini (see here and here) addresses one of the most popular anti-atheist canards:
One of the most serious charges laid against atheism is that it is responsible for some of the worst horrors of the 20th century, including the Nazi concentration camps and Stalin's gulags. The godless regimes of fascism and communism could only commit such atrocities because they were godless. How should atheists respond to this charge?
He concludes that the Holocaust resulted from an "anti-semitic tradition in German Protestantism" and that "Nazi doctrines themselves were also at odds with the kind of rational naturalism of traditional atheism." But I think Baggini needs to be involuntarily institutionalized and re-educated for some of the conclusions he draws about the communist experience:
[A]theists can consistently distance themselves from the terrors of Stalin by simply point out that Soviet communism is not even a logical extension of Marxist communism, let alone a logical extension of core atheist values, which are not communist at all. However, although this defense is certainly enough to justify a 'not guilty' verdict in the court of history, the Soviet experience does point to two dangers of atheism. The first of these is a too-zealous militancy. It is one thing to disagree with religion and quite another to think that the best way to counter it is by oppression and making atheism the official state credo. What happened in Soviet Russia is one of the reasons why I personally dislike militant atheism. When I heard someone recently say that they really thought religious belief was some kind of mental illness and that they looked forward to a time in the future when religious believers would be treated, I could see an example of how militant atheism can lead to totalitarian expression.
The notion that the state must, or even can, remain "neutral" towards religion is a myth. State agnosticism, apart from being as much a militant position as anything else, is useless because social policy can't be formulated without distinguishing between sense and nonsense. The state should routinely rejects, as false, religious doctrine whenever attempts are made to introduce it into the public schools, hospitals and other institutions. The "official state credo" towards creationism and faith healing must be atheism, not some mushy "who knows, anything goes" tolerance.
No one, of course, should be incarcerated or institutionalized for merely expressing their religious (or political or other) beliefs. But the exercise of those beliefs need not be tolerated when they cause harm. And mental illness need not be ignored merely because it takes the form of religious expression.
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God Squad Review LXC - Tue, Jun 1, 2004
A bum who got dumped by his wife after he demeaned and ignored her for twenty years asks the Squad how to get her back. He's helpless by himself, and needs her to cook, sew, clean, do the laundry, pay the bills, mow the lawn, rake the leaves, shovel the snow, and put out the garbage. The Squad attributes his predicament to "karma," which, they say "refers to the results or consequences of our actions." Specifically, they offer the profound insight that "[y]our disregard for the sacrifices of your wife on your behalf caused her pain, so she left you, which has caused you pain -- a perfect example of karma."
Being the "God" Squad guess they're compelled to shoehorn some sort of theology into every answer. But it's not clear here why the Priest-Rabbi team has elected to explain things in terms of Hindu theology, particularly a doctrine that primarily related to consequences after death. Moreover, they don't explain how the wondrous cosmic law has brought justice to the wife. How did karma reward her for twenty years of selflessly cooking, sewing, laundering, bill-paying, mowing, raking, shoveling and garbage putting-outing? She got ignored, demeaned, suffered pain and, apparently, was driven out of her own house.
The Squad also introduces the stick doctrine, noting that "[s]ticks in a bundle are unbreakable . . . [s]ticks alone can be broken by a child . . . [y]ou're a stick alone, and you are broken." They claim that this an old Jewish saying "which, remarkably, is also a saying of the Masai tribe in Africa" – presumably to demonstrate the universality of divine law (at least among Jews and the Masai). However, once again I fail to see how the doctrine applies to the wife. She's alone, too, but not broken – she can take care of herself by cooking, sewing, laundering, etc. Maybe it's karma.