Obama says we are one nation under god. But we’re not. That’s factually incorrect.

1. Not all of us are under god. I’m not. Lots of people I know are not. We don’t think there is any god to be under; we don’t think there is any good reason to think there is any god to be under; we wouldn’t be under it even if we did think it existed.
2. The government doesn’t get to order us to be under god. It doesn’t get to enlist us into the party of those under god. It is none of the government’s business whether or not we are under god. We get to not be under god if we want to; that

For yet more illiberal bullying from theists and friends-of-theists, you could do worse than to read the comments on this post at the feminist site The F-Word. The post is about C of E priest Miranda Threllfall-Jones saying gosh darn it Jesus was a big ol’ feminist and anyone who says he wasn’t is just a big poopy-head. Our friend Amy Clare, who has written for the F-Word, wrote the first comment to say 1. there is no evidence that Jesus was a feminist and 2. what does it matter anyway? There was some agreement and some disagreement, and then there was a temper tantrum by an outraged entitled Christian.

I am so fed up of people, mostly

Yet more astonishingly illiberal bilge, this time from the “rabbinical adviser” of the Jewish Society at Yale – at Yale, generally considered a liberal university in all senses of the word. Yet here is what he has to say:

The president of the United States, like all citizens of this great country, has the right to follow the religion of his or her heart and conscience. As long as our leader pursues peace and justice through faith in the one G-d of us all, a believing president should not only be tolerated but welcomed.

Oh. So if “our leader” fails to have “faith in the one G-d of us all” then an unbelieving president should not be tolerated, … Read the rest

Guest post by Eric MacDonald

Take the point that he makes just at the end, where he speaks of Jeremiah’s idea of god making constant adaptations. He speaks of the vessel broken in the potter’s hands, and then he says this:

This is the story of Israel: the vessel was broken, the covenant was spoiled, and God made something beautiful by fashioning it into a pot shaped around the Jew named Jesus.

Notice how he simply runs the Jewish scriptures and the Christian Jesus together, without acknowledging the theft, without even acknowledging that Jesus has nothing to do with Jeremiah’s potter, nor with the story of Israel. That was a Christian structure built on Jewish foundations, a clear act of … Read the rest

A guest post by Peter Beattie

Alom Shaha, of Why Science is Important fame, has a new piece in the Guardian, arguing that “angry atheists” are too quick to hurt the feelings of believers by implying they are stupid and should be more aware that they are capable of holding irrational beliefs too. Empathy, and how we say things, may be more important than what we say.

Superficially, it would be very hard to disagree with all this, and in fact none of the usual suspects in the “‘angry atheist’ brigade“–and I won’t even go there, nor into the tired “fanatical atheism can be as ugly as religious fanaticism” bit–to my knowledge ever have disagreed with it. Of course… Read the rest

I lifted this sermon preached at Duke last Sunday from Jerry. I’m always lifting items from Jerry. What can I tell you? He finds interesting stuff. There’s a lot of irritating nonsense in the sermon, so there are leftovers for me to work on.

It’s nice to have an actual sermon, as opposed to something written for a media outlet. It’s nice to get confirmation that clerics really do talk nonsense in their sermons without having to go to church to listen to them do it.

The last six years have witnessed the publication of a series of books, from a variety of authors, attacking religion with a virulence not seen for a long time. This movement has been