” I grew angrier and angrier with the God who hated me so much for wanting a few minutes of peace and silence.”
Author: Ophelia Benson
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Titles
PZ wants help finding the right adjective for the title of his book…but I don’t think it can be done. I think The _______ Atheist is a boring title no matter what ________ turns out to be. I think this because I tried to think of something interesting and then I read other people’s attempts and there’s just no spark, no matter what. This tells me that the formula is a dud – at least, it’s a dud if they (the publishers) want a buyer-thrilling title, which of course they do.
The Something Atheist. I just don’t think there’s a word that can make that sound exciting.
Unless they go absurdist or something. The Ruritanian Atheist. The Pioneer Atheist.
Think of something. Something not boring.
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The Skeptic’s Dictionary Newsletter
Quack of the month award to Michael Longo for his “pages of truth,” his “centering tree chair,” and especially his neo-Hegelian page of truth art charts.
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Molly Ivins can’t say that about Rick Perry, can she?
“Now he’s trying to disguise the fact that the schools are in free-fall by proposing that we teach creationism in biology classes.”
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Scientology attacks The New Yorker
“Everybody had forgotten about the New Yorker piece, but now they’ve brought it all up again for everyone to think about.”
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It is time you resigned as chairman of the universe
Here’s a pretty item from Michael Pearl –
A woman wrote to him about her devastation at a miscarriage.
Even now I have nightmares every night. I dream that my baby is crying and when I go to take care of him, I can’t find him. I look everywhere but I can’t find my baby. I have even woken up my husband asking him to help me find our baby. I have dreamed that my baby was beautiful and healthy. I would wake up deciding how my baby and I are going to spend the day and I realize that there is no baby.
He set her straight.
Your anger is based on the assumption that you know better than God what is best. Your child is now in the presence of God beholding the face of the Father (Matthew 18:10). “It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish (Matthew 18:14). Your child will appear again in the Millennium as a child to be raised by someone—possibly you—to maturity, and so make a choice concerning the Savior. In reference to the Millennium the Bible says, “And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof’’ (Zechariah 8:5). One of those playing children is your little one. Jesus held your child before your did. Are you angry at him for drawing this little one to himself? He said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14).
She wanted to have a baby, and Jesus decided he wanted that baby for his own self so he took it, and Michael Pearl scolds her for being unhappy with this arrangement.
Like Job you need to be humbled and face the fact that your world has revolved around you. It is time you resigned as chairman of the universe and leave it to God to do a little “baby sitting” until you get there to take over for him. I am sure your baby is in the best of hands.
Christian compassion.
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Cameron “won’t back” Dorries’s plan
Dorries says he’ll change his mind.
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More new 9/11 conspiracy books
David Griffin, a professor of theology, has written nine books purporting to prove that the September 11 attacks were “masterminded from inside the American state apparatus.”
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9/11 conspiracy theories debunked
One by one.
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Jamaat-e-Islami had Hijab Day yesterday
It is time that Hijab culture should be promoted through social media and networks to eliminate vulgarity from society.
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Charlatans preying on the vulnerable
Oh hey, a good idea.
Chanting to cure snakebites, claiming to be a reincarnated spouse to obtain sex, and charging for miracles could soon be banned by an Indian state seeking to stop charlatans preying on the vulnerable.
Many superstitions are widely held in India but a campaign group is lobbying hard for a new law in the western state of Maharashtra to outlaw several exploitative activities, with penalties of fines or up to seven years in jail.
But………not so fast, pardner.
But the push to pass the Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and Other Inhuman, Evil Practices and Black Magic Bill has not received unanimous support.
Some Hindu nationalists fear the legislation seeks to move beyond the excesses named in its title and might be used to curb cherished religious freedoms.
One right-wing association, the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, called it “a draconian law targeting faith”, denounced its proponents as “atheists” and called for supporters to lobby assembly members to oppose it and demand amendments.
Because only atheists have any problem with claiming to be a reincarnated spouse to obtain sex or charging money for “miracles”; decent normal respectable people think that’s a fine way to carry on.
Some critics, however, say the draft law does not go far enough and has been watered down since it was first mooted way back in 1995 due to protests from pro-Hindu groups.
“In my opinion the bill that has ultimately come into Maharashtra suggests nothing new. It doesn’t give anything additional,” said Sanal Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalist Association.
Concerns about the draft law’s impact on legitimate religious practices from Hindu nationalist groups such as the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have delayed its passing.
A semi-good idea, endlessly delayed, that might become law, some day, perhaps.
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Indian state considers ban on “black magic”
One right-wing association, the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, called it “a draconian law targeting faith” and denounced its proponents as “atheists.”
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Redacted v unredacted
One WikiLeaks staffer says why he felt he had to leave.
The final straw for me came on Friday. By drawing attention to, and then publishing in full, the unredacted cache of documents, WikiLeaks has done the cause of internet freedom – and of whistleblowers – more harm than US government crackdowns ever could.
Before the first publication of carefully redacted cables, human rights activists, NGOs, and organisations working with victims of horrific crimes contacted WikiLeaks begging us to take steps not to publish any names. To be able to assure them details would be protected was an immeasurable relief.
These cables contain details of activists, opposition politicians, bloggers in autocratic regimes and their real identities, victims of crime and political coercion, and others driven by conscience to speak to the US government. They should never have had to fear being exposed by a self-proclaimed human rights organisation.
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“Why I felt I had to turn my back on WikiLeaks”
Dismay mounted with the arrival of Israel Shamir, a self-styled Russian “peace campaigner” with a long history of antisemitic writing.
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More Debbi Pearl
More from “how to be a really high-quality doormat for God.”
This past week the local Preparing class invited two older mothers to share their experiences in marriage. It was quite sobering, and some of the girls came away from class unnerved by the burdens of marriage. What the mothers wanted to convey to the girls was, “Learn now while you are young to honor your husbands. Learn patience to continue in your role as a Help Meet, and commit yourself to God now while you are young so you can avoid some of our trials and errors as we struggle to find our way.”
Great. The girls were “unnerved” by the prospect of lifelong slavery, and what “the mothers” want to convey to them was “learn now while you are young how to be a good obedient self-denying self-immolating slave to another human being who gets to be the boss of you because he has testicles.” Learn that you don’t matter; learn that your dreams and hopes and plans are just fluff inside your head; learn that you are never going to have a full life of your own, but only a share of someone else’s; learn that you have no rights, no authority, no power, no autonomy; learn that you have to put up with whatever is handed to you. Learn what it is to be an inferior.
Today’s culture, our own selfishness, and our lack of knowing God’s Word all play a part in making marriages miserable. What you learn as a young unmarried woman can change your life more completely than you can imagine. If you are wise you will learn to become a many colored girl. Don’t say to yourself, “I am a go-to girl and not a servant.” Rather say, “I am learning to be anything I need to be. I want to be a servant, I need to learn to lead and teach, and I will learn to be creative because my husband may need me to be all of these.” Practice being flexible in your likes and dislikes, how you feel about things, and what you hope to accomplish. Start striving to shape your life to help others, and hide God’s Words in your heart concerning becoming a wife. Lastly, make a written commitment to honor the man God provides for you.
What an absolute horror that is. Practice being flexible in your likes and dislikes, how you feel about things, and what you hope to accomplish – in other words just forget all about wanting anything, feeling about anything, and hoping anything; just prepare to do what you’re told for the rest of your sad diminished life.
That is such an outrageous thing to tell anyone. This terrible woman is telling all the women she can reach to obliterate themselves in this way. It’s evil. It’s not just mistaken, deluded, unfortunate – it’s a moral outrage.
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Women are faint copies of men
Libby Anne’s parents always taught her that women and men are equal…sort of.
My parents taught me that men and women were different and had different roles to play, but that men and women and their roles were also equal and of equal worth. The male role is to provide for his family and protect them, to engage in politics and spiritual warfare, to have a career and make the decisions for his family. The female role is to keep the house and home, raise and teach her children, exercise hospitality and offer service to others, and support her husband. I was taught that these two roles are equally important and that men and women were thus different, but equal.
Except that, as she goes on to say, that’s bullshit. Just read Debbi Pearl, author of (I’m not making this up) Created To Be His Helpmeet and Preparing To Be A Helpmeet. Read her article “Learning To Become A Multi-Colored Girl.”
As Adam was created in God’s image, Eve was created in Adam’s image. God could have shaped two clay figures and breathed life into both, but he chose to take the woman from the man’s own flesh and bone. I have come to see that tiered process as very significant, making it consistent with nature that the woman should be the helper in the chain of command.
Oh it’s significant all right, and it’s very damn convenient. On the other hand, it’s not true. It’s a sentence in an old book. That’s all it is. It’s not even the only account of human origins in Genesis; there are two, which contradict each other. In Genesis 1:27 god creates humans “in his image”; male and female. In 2:22 god makes a woman out of a rib of the already created man. Pearl is treating the second as if it amplified the first instead of contradicting it – all for the sake of declaring her own inferiority, and ours and mine.
Libby Anne quotes more:
God did not create women as he did men, strongly fixed in one type or another. Being created in the image of man, we are more muted and flexible in our types.
More muted? More muted?
That’s a truly extraordinary thing to say – it’s just an outright claim that there is less to us than there is to men. This of course is what a hell of a lot of people assume or pick up from the ether without realizing it; it must be, or the women in movies and tv shows and novels wouldn’t so often be non-entities compared to the men; but it’s an astounding thing to spell out.
Libby Anne goes through the whole thing, to excellent effect.
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Libby Anne on masters and slaves, men and women
Debi Pearl reveals that all the talk about men’s and women’s roles being different but equal is
nothing but rhetorical flourish. -
Spiegel on Wikileaks: a disaster in six acts
A chain of careless mistakes, coincidences, indiscretions and confusion means that no potential whistleblower would feel comfortable turning to a leaking platform now.
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Glenn Greenwald on Wikileaks
Many of those condemning WikiLeaks care nothing about harm to civilians as long as it’s done by the U.S. government and military.
