I sometimes see indignation about claims that atheists are a despised minority, on the grounds that other despised minorities had it much worse. That was one of Karla McLaren’s many claims.

As you may recall, this word [“accommodationist”] was first used by black Americans in the Voting Rights era against people who were seen as being too subservient and too accommodating to whites. I could write a whole ‘nother post about how interesting it is for atheists to imagine that their struggle is similar to that of African Americans.

But not everyone considers the comparison obviously wrong.

Long after blacks and Jews have made great strides, and even as homosexuals gain respect, acceptance and new rights, there is

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I got in a slight brawl with Chris Stedman at Facebook just now. I’m a brawler…but then so is Chris, in his way, only he thinks he isn’t.

He started a thread about “shock horror that atheists sometimes compare the atheist movement and the civil rights movement.” There was lots of obliging shock-horror from his friends – oh yes that is shocking and horrible; that kind of thing. I blew my nose and then commenced brawling, by saying it’s not about saying atheists have it as bad as blacks, it’s about pointing out similarities in the way the movements and the backlashes against them play out. We brawled for awhile, then he had to go get a haircut, but just … Read the rest

Nick Cohen on republicanism v the monarchy in Time is very droll, because of a certain inconsequence on the part of the editors. It goes like this:

When the 18th century English dissenter Richard Price, friend of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, warned that fawning before royalty produced “idolatry as gross and stupid as that of the ancient heathens,” he aptly titled his denunciation “A Discourse on the Love of Our Country.” (See pictures of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding day.)

Ha! Never mind all these pesky words about something or other, just look at the pretty snaps. Oooooooo she don’ahf look luvley in that tyara.

But whatever the complicating factors, only royal propagandists doubt that the

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So James Spader is one of the group of possible successors to Steve Carrell. That would be fun. I thought he was brilliant in Boston Legal.

I liked the red mittens. The oven mitt thing was really mean. The red mittens repaired that.… Read the rest

Greta Christina pointed out a little nightmare of a post by William Lane Craig at his wittily-named blog “Reasonable Faith,” saying that genocide is ok because God decided.

I haven’t properly read Greta’s article yet because I wanted to read Craig first. I’m doing that now.

He says about the genocide of the Canaanites.

These stories offend our moral sensibilities.  Ironically, however, our moral sensibilities in the West have been largely, and for many people unconsciously, shaped by our Judaeo-Christian heritage, which has taught us the intrinsic value of human beings, the importance of dealing justly rather than capriciously, and the necessity of the punishment’s fitting the crime.  The Bible itself inculcates the values which these stories seem to violate.

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