But close…
Dan Barker And The Great Clergy Deconversion.
21 AprFirst, if you haven’t read Dan Barker’s book Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists, then I suggest you go do so quick smart. It is pure fantastic.
He introduced us to The Clergy Project, his group providing emotional, if not yet financial support to the religious leaders who’ve suddenly found themselves in the rather discomfiting position of realising that there is no god. He would like to get some funding to help with retraining because theology degrees don’t count for much in the real world of employment. It seems that this is one of the major factors keeping many unbelievers in the cloth. Not only is this project useful to the clergy, but I think the publicity it garners is useful, too. This is not an issue that anybody really thinks about. Dan used a few stats from some of Dan Dennet’s research to illustrate just how large the gulf between the faithful and their leaders can be. I wish I had copied them down but I was all interested and shit and so I forgot to.
He did his standard Christianity recap. It seems that Dan Barker has a very creepy basement.
He then went through the fallacy that religion makes you moral. If I broke into your house, did horrible things to your pets and yourself and then burn the whole place down, using the excuse that ‘the devil made me do it’ isn’t going to make you think I’m any more moral.
It’s totes okay when god does it, though:
The story of Job. His whole family is killed by a collapsing house, and Job is tormented with sore boils.
Why did God allow this?
And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.
He tormented Job and killed his family for no reason other than that the devil made him do it. Or, you know, just for yucks. Yeah.
In the end, he made a nice point about finding meaning in life. I’m sure all of my fellow heretics have encountered the disgustingly poor argument that without god there is no meaning in life therefore he must exist. Occasionally this is followed by a punch in the face from a heretic. Dan tells us that life’s lack of purpose is wonderful because if the meaning lay outside of us, then we would be secondary to that purpose. So we make our own purpose and in turn make life into its own reward. A very nice way to put it and one I hope I remember next time my fist starts a-twitching.
Leslie Cannold And The Atheist Warcry.
20 AprThis is the first of my GAC recaps and, yes, I will be titling each one as though it is a Harry Potter novel.For those of you who are not currently mourning the death of Greg Ham and have no idea who he is, Leslie Cannold is an author, columnist and ethicist. I chose to ignore the sprinklings of New York in her words and claim her wholeheartedly as an Australian. Hey, if it works for Crowded House…
She spoke about the separation of church and state and the alarming lack of it that is currently evident in Australia. Ironically, in spite of the fact that we have less religiosity over here, the Americans have interpreted their almost identical separation clause to mean the exact opposite of us. It makes my brain go all swirly. What scared the pants off of me were the figures she put out there-Australian government put $1.5 million towards the sainthood of Mary McKillop. Yes, that’s right, our government helped pay for a saint.
She told us all the scary stuff about Access Ministries who run much of the in school Special Religious Instruction classes in Victoria which we already mostly knew. I refuse to link to their site because it won’t give you the truth and I don’t want to drive up their numbers. If you’re interested, though, a quick google news search should show you how they see it as a prime opportunity for evangelism. In school time. On school grounds. When kids can be learning something useful.
It was a very Australian talk, giving something of a lie to the Global title in the opening talk of the convention. It was, nonetheless, a very good, very motivating presentation. The amount of money our government spends on religious education is appalling. It is even worse when few public schools have one history textbook per child and teachers run out of photocopying funds three quarters of the way through the school year. Overall, a great way to get the rabble roused for the weekend.
Tags: current-events, politics, religion
Donate.
20 AprThe nice little heretics over at The Imaginary Friends Show are running a cyber jelly bean contest raising money to buy a girl a wheelchair. Hop on over to their home page for the donation link. I’ll echo what they said, and ask you to donate whatever you can spare even if that’s only a dollar.
This Is Why We Call Ourselves Freethinkers.
19 AprA group of nuns in the States is in trouble with the men in fancy hats for doing too much caring and not enough hate. It seems they have been focusing too much on helping the homeless and not enough on persecuting the homosexuals. To make matter even worse, they even had the gall to speak out in support of healthcare reform that would have, you know, helped the poor. Bitches.
What made them think that the Catholic Church ever really encouraged free will? They only like it so far as it helps explain evil while ignoring the obvious fact of god’s cuntery. They don’t want you to actually use it.
Tags: human-rights, politics, religion
It’s Also An Insult To Music.
19 AprSo, some Brisbane residents are pretty pissed at the noise of the local Hillsong Church. I don’t blame them. Christian music is just awful. Nick Cave is much better. I do always wonder, though, why the god of Abraham is so hard of hearing that his followers must worship him at volumes fit to deafen surrounding communities. Not very omniscient, is it?
Tags: church, hillsong church, politics, religion
My House Is Not So Exciting.
19 AprWe got back home from the Atheist Convention last night. Did a nice little meandering drive up to Sydney from Melbourne, visiting friends along the way. We had a ball at the convention, both during the lovely, intellectual talks and the lovely, slightly less intellectual drunken get togethers with other heathens.
I took a disgustingly large amount of notes and shall be doing some write ups of them over the next weeks. First though, I wanted to do a recap of the other bits of the trip, you know, the ones that make you cack yourself or kick yourself.
- We went for lunch on Friday with a whole bunch of people from the AFA forums and Australian Skeptics. We packed out the far too small dining room and much fun was had.
- Met AronRa and David Silverman and had very lovely chats with both of them. Also met PZ, Daniel Dennett and Tom Ballard but too many people hovering and they are only one little person each.
- We had such exciting protestors. The Islamists were the most exciting:
- The Gala dinner was great fun, with some excellent entertainment. I also managed to not spill anything down my front. I am very proud.
- I dragged the boy along to “Undeniable” against his protestations to just go have a beer. None of the god botherers listened much, but one did try to faith heal mt terrible eyesight. I still have my glasses, but I’ll keep you updated if this changes. Most likely when I spring for laser surgery.
The whole event just served to make me more strident. Look out Christian friends…
Tags: current-events, daniel dennett, politics, tom ballard
