Oh I didn’t know it was National Prayer Day. I never do know it’s National Prayer Day. It’s not something that looms large in my schedule. But I got a press release from the Secular Coalition for America, so I read some more of their press releases, and doing that led me to something that mentioned National Prayer Day.

Well I know what it was: it was googling for information on an idiotic house bill making “In God We Trust” the “national motto,” whatever the hell that is. Googling for the one turned up mentions of the other. Life is like that. When the state tells you to do god, news of it turns up on related google searches. Whaddya … Read the rest

This morning I keep seeing bad stuff at the Guardian, via different directions – Terry Glavin at Facebook, Norm at Normblog, like that. I’ve seen so much bad stuff this morning that I feel as if I ought to point at it in disgust.

Like Adam Curtis at CisF, via Norm.

The horrific thing about Osama bin Laden was that he helped to kill thousands of innocent people throughout the world. But he was also in a strange way a godsend to the west. He simplified the world.

That “but” is interesting. So is that “the horrific thing.” The but is interesting because given what comes before, why have a “but” at all? There is no but. … Read the rest

So many things are stupid. This is stupid.

Our culture has become impoverished by certainty…Doubt and its religious cousin agnosticism, a word rarely heard nowadays, may have fallen out of fashion, but they have much to teach us, despite the disdain of Richard Dawkins, who famously wrote in The God Delusion: “I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden.”

And then Christopher Lane cites the disdain of some religious boffin, right?

No.

No, his only example of disdain for doubt (and agnosticism) is Richard Dawkins.

That’s stupid.

It’s just plain stupid. As if* Dawkins were the most dogmatic person on the face of the earth! As if there … Read the rest

Shmuley Boteach has a laugh at the idea of atheist military chaplains. I think the idea of atheists chaplains is silly in general, but I can certainly see that there ought to be some kind of chaplain-equivalent for people in the military who aren’t religious. Boteach’s objections are somewhat problematic.

And what comfort will they offer dying soldiers, G-d forbid (oops! Even that doesn’t work). Will they say, “Game over. You’re going to a place of complete oblivion. Thank you for your service.”?

Well, what comfort can anyone offer dying soldiers? What comfort will Boteach offer?

I don’t even know, actually. It’s my understanding that Judaism doesn’t actually believe in an afterlife, so what does he have to say … Read the rest

One thing. We’ve all been seeing every inch of tape there is of bin Laden over and over again since Sunday evening. That one where his best pal grabs him by the hat for a hug and hangs on to the hat as if it were handles – that’s a goofy one. But that’s not the one I’m going to say about.

It’s the one where he’s holding a microphone. What’s up with that? Why does he hold it in that affected limp loose “look how special I am” way? I want to know. I’ve seen that clip about 50 times now, so I want to know.

I didn’t go outside and run around yelling “we’re number one,” so I … Read the rest

Wait…

While the U.S. government might have preferred to cremate Bin Laden’s remains prior to disposal, Muslim tradition forbids cremation because it’s inconsistent with the resurrection of the body.

Um…so is rotting. Is Muslim tradition unaware of this?… Read the rest

Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse have doubts about Mary Warnock’s way of defending the social value of religious belief.

According to religious believers, their beliefs are not merely useful social instruments or efficient means for instilling good moral habits.  They are rather commitments to very particular metaphysical, ontological, and epistemological views.  These views provide the basis for the moral and communal practices among religious believers that Warnock finds socially valuable.  But the social value of the practices provides no defense for the underlying views, all of which are, we contend, false.  No discussion of the merits of religious practices and institutions should be permitted to evade the fundamental question of the truth of distinctively religious claims.

That is what I … Read the rest