Aug 16
via wtfschmuck.tumblr.com
Any deity that refuses evidence honors the intellectually dishonest, the ignorant, and the gullible.
… Or this deity is totally hands-off and doesn’t give a shit, which basically means we don’t need to give a shit either.
… Or this deity doesn’t exist.
Choices, choices.
Aug 10
I am sure we’ve all been asked this question or wondered ourselves. But have you ever heard the answers given by Buddhists? Scientists? Mormons? Taoists? Roger Nygard, director of Trekkies and Trekkies 2, took his curiosity and sense of humor on the road and asked this important question to hundreds of people. His new film The Nature of Existence tells the tale:
I wrote the toughest 85 questions I could think of, about our purpose and the nature of existence, and then asked hundreds of people all over the globe, such as: Indian holy man Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (The Art of Living), evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), 24th generation Chinese Taoist Master Zhang Chengda, Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind (co-discoverer of string theory), wrestler Rob Adonis (founder of Ultimate Christian Wrestling), confrontational evangelist Brother Jed Smock, novelist Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game), director Irvin Kershner (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back), Stonehenge Druids Rollo Maughfling & King Arthur Pendragon and many more… How would YOU answer?
I decided to take a look at these 85 questions, and I think we should all try them on for size. Here’s a taste:
I love them all, and I think I’d like to take some time to write out my own answers in the future. What do you think of The Nature of Existence? If there’s a screening near you, will you see it?
How would you answer the questions?
Aug 5
From PEP #192, April 1966
The evangelical magazine Christianity Today (which I’ve mentioned quite a bit) published an article titled “Woman As Folly” about the many curious Bible passages about women as possessions, being below or weaker than men turning women away from Christianity and god:
… “I think men are more aware than women of their tendency to sin,” one of the men suggested. “Maybe they can use this wisdom to help guide their wives.”
I couldn’t believe this was being discussed as a legitimate idea.
“Don’t they understand?” I said [to my husband]. “These sort of misconceptions—the idea that Christianity subjugates women—drive people away from the church.”
I wondered what he thought was so clear—that women bear a greater burden for the fall of man? “If I wasn’t a Christian,” I said, “these comments about women would turn me away from God.”
I wanted to deconstruct the ideas that were chipping away at my confidence in the Creator, but I felt outmatched. Among the men in our group, conversations often felt like a Scripture-quoting duel. Each time a new passage was referenced, I had the same question: What’s the context? Their response was nearly always a puzzled look. It was as if I’d just suggested we tear out pages from our Bibles and fold them into paper airplanes. Scripture, they reminded me, is inerrant.
This woman is starting to see sense. You can almost feel the warmth of the light bulb glowing brightly above her head.
Could this be the birth of a feminist? A liberated woman who realizes her entire religion has been anti-woman for 2000+ years? Maybe she could actually re-consider her belief in a god who would use authors with misogynistic values to be its voice?
But no. She can’t doubt god or the Bible. She has to pound the square peg into the round hole any way she can. So she goes looking for a comforting justification for the sexist teachings in her holy book.
Anne Rice was raised a Catholic and left the religion to do her own thing for many years. Much to the delight of Christians who like to name drop (and especially those who hate vampires), she reverted to Catholicism in 1998, dedicating her writing and life to Jesus.
But twelve years later, the tide has turned once again. Rice recently spread this news via her facebook page:
Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten …years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.
As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.
–Anne Rice, author 2010
You can imagine all the atheists eating this for lunch, can’t you? Can’t you smell the delight over someone famous leaving Christianity? Everyone likes having a public figure on their team. Free endorsements!
However…
Good for Rice that she finally recognized the mess of this religion. I understand not wanting to identify with much of Christianity—especially the fundamentalist branches that make a business out of being anti-everyone–but that’s not good enough!
Rice is clearly not abandoning her mythology and superstitious delusions. She’s leaving conservative, fundamentalist Christianity behind and making a political stand out of it. But what about liberal Christianity that is still based on the same myths, but is dressed up in hipster clothing and a laissez faire attitude? When Rice realizes the whole shit n’ caboodle is based on a false premise, then perhaps she might leave for good. Perhaps.
What do you think?
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