Rational Dreaming
If one could sum up the place of religion in American politics in one short clip, then it would be tough to do better than show Herman Cain breaking out into song at the end of his speech at the National Press Club yesterday:
After enduring what was without doubt the toughest day of his campaign, what better way to reassure his supporters of his innocence and resoluteness in the face of the sexual harassment charges and to remind them of the deep Christian faith he shares with them, than to sing something written by Dottie Rambo, the patron saint of emotive spiritual songs in the evangelical community?
What is amazing is the contrast between that and, say, the last General Election in the UK, where the religious beliefs of the three main candidates for Prime Minister, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, and Nick Clegg, went almost completely unremarked upon by the press and by the candidates themselves, and played no factor in outcome of the election (even though Nick Clegg is a self-professed atheist).
If any of them had broken into song the way Herman Cain did, it would have been dismissed as naked pandering, at best, and a worst, it would have disqualified them as suitable material for the role as Prime Minister in the eyes of a majority of British voters.
Of course, nothing Herman Cain does comes close to naked cynical use of religion Newt Gingrich has had to employ just to get himself into a position to run for the Republican nomination (with a large assist from the Catholic Church). Ironically, it’s Newt Gingrich who likely stands to benefit the most from Herman Cain’s recent travails. It’s possible that in a couple of months we’ll be missing the time when Cain used his folksy religious shorthand to establish his conservative credentials.
PZ Myers just posted some comments about the a video that’s making the rounds at the moment from a British talk show which was discussing the question “Does Heaven Exist?”
There are quite a few things in this clip worthy of debate, like atheist Kate Smurthwaite implying that those who believe things on faith are idiots (I prefer to call their beliefs idiotic, not the people who believe them since we’re all prone to believing idiotic things at times), and the nonsensical arguments about “believing in money” as though that justifies belief in a specific vision of an afterlife. But I would like to focus on the very brief exchange between Smurthwaite and the (presumed) Christian minister who said that all aborted fetuses go to Heaven: Continue reading »
Several recent posts of mine have discussed various aspects of the fundamentalist Christian’s concept of Hell–that horrendous destination supposedly reserved for all but a select few lucky human beings when they die.
As an atheist, I don’t believe in all that nonsense–not Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Nirvana, or anything like that.
When you’re dead, you’re dead, nothing more.
That viewpoint can seem pretty bleak, of course, but I can’t just believe in some fantastical afterlife because I want to believe in it. That would be indulging in wishful thinking.
But that doesn’t mean atheists never engage in speculation about the possibility of life after death, even in a strictly material universe. Personally, I believe such a thing to be highly improbable (i.e. almost certainly not true, but not impossible) and of the ideas I have heard of, here are a couple of possibilities that sound quite intriguing: Continue reading »
I was looking at my site stats the other day and noticed that the number one search engine result that brought people to this site was “steve jobs death bed conversion” which was taking them to the post I put up entitled “Is Steve Jobs In Hell?” To be perfectly honest, I realized as I was typing the title it would probably make good link bait, and it certainly proved to be (not that I get that many hits through search engines!).
But I was wondering why I just started getting all these “death bed conversion” hits in the last few days — the article I wrote is two weeks old. After a quick search I came across this article in the Christian Post about a conversation Steve Jobs had with his biographer, Walter Isaacson, that he related on “60 Minutes” recently:
”I remember sitting in his backyard in his garden one day and he started talking about God,” said Isaacson in the interview. “He said, ‘Sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I don’t. I think it’s 50-50 maybe. But ever since I’ve had cancer, I’ve been thinking about it more. And I find myself believing a bit more. I kind of – maybe it’s ’cause I want to believe in an afterlife. That when you die, it doesn’t just all disappear. The wisdom you’ve accumulated. Somehow it lives on.’ Then he paused for a second and he said, ‘Yeah, but sometimes I think it’s just like an on-off switch. Click and you’re gone.’ He said and paused again, and he said, ‘And that’s why I don’t like putting on-off switches on Apple devices’.”
Enough about religion, let’s talk about space for a change.
Here is an excellent panel discussion from the JREF TAM event, probably one of the most vigorous, interesting and entertaining debates I have seen in quite a while.
Yes JREF is the James Randi Education Foundation, one of the country’s foremost organizations of skeptics but the panel, featuring Pamela Gay, Lawrence Krauss, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson and chaired by Phil Plait of the Bad Astronomy website, remains focused on the future of space flight and steers clear of any comment about religion.
Highly recommend viewing for believers and skeptics alike.
TAM Panel - Our Future in Space from JREF on Vimeo.
Well, I thought it was high time to add a new poll to the blog, and since I’ve been talking a lot about Hell recently…
Apparently, Rick Perry and his wife now believe that the word “persecution” is wholly inadequate for the terrible way in which he has been roughed up by his opponents this Republican Primary season:
I spoke to a feisty Rick Perry this morning who said he agreed with his wife’s comments that his campaign has been “brutalized” because of his Christianity and Perry came out of the gates attacking Herman Cain’s now famous 9-9-9 plan.
“I’ll stand by my wife. I think she’s right on both cases. My understanding is that she said I’m the most conservative candidate in the race and ‘he’s a Christian.’ So I haven’t got anything I can add to that and she’s hit me on my mark both times there,” Perry said on “GMA.”
While campaigning for her husband in South Carolina Anita Perry said “We are being brutalized by our opponents and our own party. So much of that is, I think they look at him because of his faith. He’s the only true conservative. Well, there are some conservatives. And they’re there for good reasons.”
Seriously?
Clearly this is just sour grapes in response to Governor Goodhair’s poll numbers plunging off a cliff after a string of inept performances in the debates, but it doesn’t even make any sense given that every candidate whose name is not Mitt Romney is bending over backwards to demonstrate just how ultra-conservative and God-fearing they are.
But it certainly does fit the pattern of anointing oneself a martyr for your faith that Christian conservatives love to indulge in. Any criticism of their faith, no matter how mild, is cause for accusations of religious persecution, and we hear them so often that the p-word isn’t enough anymore, and hence the word “brutalized” is trotted out instead.
If nothing else, this type of language completely trivializes the real religious persecution that millions of Christians face elsewhere in the world, where people risk imprisonment, injury, and even death for practicing what they believe. Contrast that with American Christians–probably the wealthiest, most privileged and powerful bunch of believers on Earth outside the Vatican.
Hint: someone in the press calling your debate performances poor and unimpressive doesn’t count as religious persecution.
Pathetic, the lot of them.
Simple question.
And there’s a simple answer if, like me, you don’t believe Hell exists.
But for “Bible-believing” Christians the answer isn’t so simple, if Todd Friel of Wretched Radio is any guide.
How can that be? After all, it’s well known that Steve Jobs was a Buddhist, not a Christian, and according to the fundamentalists who believe in an inerrant Bible, there is no leeway for non-believers, no matter how great a positive impact they have had on the world. Steve Jobs has got to be in Hell, right?
But, according to Todd Friel, on Tuesday’s edition of Wretched Radio, the correct answer is “We don’t know.”
Hmm. His argument seems solid enough:
“What we do know is that if you have Jesus in your heart, you will go to Heaven. If you don’t have Jesus, then you won’t. We don’t know what was in Steve Jobs’ heart [the moment he passed away].”
Agreed, but I think you would also agree that the odds of Steve Jobs having a death-bed conversion after being a Buddhist almost all his adult life, are pretty slim. If the Christian fundamentalist concept of Hell is true, then Steve Jobs is almost certainly just getting settled in for an eternity of unbearable torment and pain in the Lake of Fire–agonies that will have him yearning for the days when all he was suffering from was terminal pancreatic cancer.
As the world mourns the passing of an undoubted giant in the computer and consumer electronics industry, it seems that everyone has an opinion about the legacy Steve Jobs has left behind. There have been plenty of excellent retrospectives about his career and the impact he made on the industry, but some commenters did get a little carried away:
Everyone’s an Apple guy, whether they know it or not. Home computers, GUIs, the world-wide web, smartphones… would any of these exist now without Jobs? Well, maybe, but certainly not in the form we know them today.
Clearly, this is hyperbole, but the comment did get me thinking. What would a world where Steve Jobs never became the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation look like?
Ray Comfort has gotten a lot of mileage out of his approach to witnessing to people on the street using his well-worn tactics of quite literally putting the fear of Hell into them.
His lengthy sequence of leading questions is designed to convince people that unless accept Jesus as their savior, God will send them to Hell when they die. If that sounds like a threat, that’s because it is, but it only works if people believe that Hell is real, and that everyone who is not a “born-again Christian” will go there when they die.
The problem for Comfort is that more and more people (including many Christians) are rejecting this medieval–and thoroughly evil–concept of Hell. Why? Because it simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. If Comfort’s claims about Hell are true, then there isn’t a greater example of injustice to be found anywhere on Earth in all of history.
In order to illustrate just how abhorrent the doctrine of Hell would be if it was true, I thought it would be fun to take a leaf out of Ray Comfort’s book and come up with a series of questions that will lead inexorably to this conclusion.
Before I get to the questions, please remember that this format doesn’t allow for a lengthy debate over the finer points of arcane theological doctrine. It’s a rapid fire session where the target of the question is under pressure to supply quick sound-bite answers. If you believe this is unfair, then by all means tell Ray Comfort that you object to his tactics too.
So here goes, with the likely answers interspersed: Continue reading »
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