Wednesday, December 10, 2008

"Three rants in a row? He couldn't possibly..."

Oh, but I can. 'Tis the season, to be filled with indiscriminate rage. And my favorite little high profile punching bag just got himself mentioned on the internet again. We get Maggie Segelstein, interviewing Dinesh D'Souza the Magnificent, and introducing him as follows.
The first thing you notice about Dinesh D'Souza is an intellectual swagger that borders on cockiness without crossing over.
More like "a cockiness that borders on intellectual swagger without crossing over". Amirite?
But you get the feeling that it actually stems from the knowledge that, at any given moment, he is probably the smartest person in the room.
What...does he like, work at a daycare center or something?
Don't get me wrong; he's not arrogant in the least. It's just that he knows, deep down, that he's smarter than you; he's smarter than me; and perhaps most importantly, he's smarter than the New Atheists whom he routinely debates at universities across the nation.
Funniest thing I've read all year. And that includes Dinesh's columns.
So masterful is its defense of religion, and of Christianity in particular, that D'Souza has quickly become the world's foremost religious apologist— a C. S. Lewis for the postmodern set.
At first I was going to scoff, but comparing him to C.S. Lewis in regards to apologetics is a mighty low bar to set. That being said, D'Souza falls dreadfully short of it still. But it is less outrageous than I originally thought once I saw the word "masterful" in description of anything but D'Souza's ability to simultaneously pull the wool over his own eyes while Gish Galloping himself into position to do the same for everyone else in the room. Maggie then proceeds to ask:
What do you think has caused atheists to move from a desire to be tolerated to a desire to make religion—especially Christianity—disappear?
You can almost hear the whining. We don't want you to disappear; we want you to put away the KKK hoods and the Ten Commandments, and call it a day on the theocracy front.
For a number of decades, the atheists had embraced what might be called "the secularization thesis," which maintains that the world is automatically becoming more secular. In other words, they believed that as society becomes more modern, educated, technological, and scientific, it will naturally become less religious
What? I am unfamiliar with anyone who holds this thesis. The idea that secularization is increasing, and that we should be secular, that is something I hold. That this is supposedly an inevitability...I am far from optimistic enough to make that assertion.
Interestingly, the world has not met this expectation. As the last century ended, the atheists looked around the world and said, "Wait a minute. The world isn't becoming more secular; it's becoming even more religious."
Sigh. What the hell are you talking about? Governments, in general, are becoming more secular, even if more people are becoming religious. So, are you referring to populations or governments? Because it's only the latter that is actually relevant to what you are claiming.
And many people don't realize this, but Christianity is actually the fastest growing religion in the world.
Bull. Christianity has only the fifth largest rate of increase over the last 5 years, behind Islam, Baha'i, Sikhism, and Hinduism in order. And it has been behind those religions in percentage rate of increase, along with other religions, for the past 35 years. That being said, it is the largest religion, so its percentage rate of increase has a greater number of net converts. But, that isn't the same thing as "growing the fastest" though, considering that proportionality has a very intriguing effect on the rate that I am sure you would rather not acknowledge without time to rationalize it beforehand.

I thought Islam was the fastest growing.

That's actually not true. Islam is indeed growing, but primarily through reproduction. Muslims have big families, which translates into an increase in their numbers. But Christianity is growing both by reproduction and by conversions.
Oh...so you aren't even smart enough to try to manipulate the statistics. You just want to say that their growth doesn't count because they aren't converting people. Niiiiice.
Even the U.S., which is in some respects more modern, affluent, and technological than any other nation in the world, has also remained perhaps the most religious country in the West.
And we are the shame of Western society due that fact. Nowhere else is science so scorned, gay marriage such a big f%$&ing deal, and everything from the death penalty, to murder rates, to torture, to warmongering, to....dammit! Those religious leanings are fucking us up hard, is what I am saying.
Now if there's one continent that would seem to confirm the secularization thesis, it is Europe. As Europe advanced, it did become more secular, and atheists have always assumed that the U.S. would go the same way, but it just hasn't happened. Consequently, atheists have realized that they must become more aggressive in promoting their agenda.
I am sure that you have much scorn for Europe due to that fact. But, really, you think that we are trying to more or less stamp out religion from the country? We just don't want religion in our government. They are two bad tastes as it is...they go even worse when they are together.
For a long time now, atheists have been accusing religion of being ignorant—of being unscientific and preferring blind faith over critical reason—but that could have been attributed to just harmless error.
So, are you insinuating that religion is not unscientific and based in blind faith? Because I would love to hear why your particular flavor of Christianity makes sense, and more so than any other conceivable religion. I am all ears (literally...I've been genetically bitch-slapped).
Religion is not merely irrational; it's also toxic. It sets man against man. It produces carnage. It causes people to fly planes into buildings after reading holy books. Atheists have been able to surf on the wave of 9/11 by generalizing the crimes committed in the name of Islam to crimes committed in the name of God.
Please. Even without such attacks it is clear from a psychological, sociological, and historical point of view that this kind of crap happens a lot. Not always on a large scale, mind you, but it does happen, as a natural product of what religion is: a glorified method of group formation that imposes codes for behavior and common identity through shared ideas. Same function for political ideologies, except we are actually fortunate that it is more binary in nature and actually consists of some claims and ideas that can usually be confirmed or denied empirically, which religions may not, and thus are untroubled by things like reality and common sense.
The more sophisticated explanation, which has been advanced not by Dawkins but by others, is that while the claims of religion are false—or, from a scientific point of view, unverifiable—religion itself does perform social functions. For example, it brings people together; it inspires people to do noble projects and to undertake grand ventures, whether it's building pyramids or cathedrals or going off on crusades; it solidifies the community; and it's a mechanism for the transmission of education and ethics to younger people. In this sense, religion survives because it is a social adaptation that confers benefits on the groups that embrace it.
Way to make my previous points for me (though only tacitly). "Brings people together"? Ever wonder what happens when you have several different things that "brings people together"? You get clumps of people who are together, but separated from the other clumps! You get groups. Groups of people who disagree with one another adamantly. And "going off on crusades" is just admission that the violence derived from religion during 9/11 is not new, and you even go as far as to call such a thing "noble", further proving my point! And do you seriously think that we wouldn't have architecture without religious beliefs? As for "the transmission of education and ethics to younger people"; that's all well and good, that certainly is beneficial. Of course, when this education is not only on things that are patently ridiculous, or outright wrong, but also involves reasons for being hateful of other groups...it is the wrong kind of beneficial.
Years ago, the suspicion began to arise that Satan was actually Milton's hero. As one critic put it, "Milton is of the devil's party without even knowing it." Look at Satan's reason for rebelling against God. It's not that he doesn't recognize that God is greater than he is. He does. It's just that he doesn't want to play by anybody else's rules. This idea that it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven is Satan's motto, and it turns out that this is also the motto of contemporary atheists such as Christopher Hitchens.
Well, honestly, Satan is a pretty sympathetic character when it comes down to it, once you see what kind of creature God is. He is the lesser of two evils, and willing to take a stand against the greater evil. But...we will be "reigning in hell"? This is news to me. Do I get a pitchfork?
Hitchens has argued in his debates with me that he is not an atheist at all, but rather an anti-theist. It's not that he doesn't believe in God; it's that he rejects this kind of God who acts in this kind of way and demands this or that of us. This is not scientific atheism; it's more like the atheism of Nietzsche.
I can't help but think that this is a distortion on the part of Dinesh (I know...unheard of). "Anti-theist" isn't the proper label for someone who merely thinks that the description of a god offered by Abrahamic faiths is either logically inconsistent, inconsistent with reality, a portrait of a deity that is not worthy of worship due to incompetence/cruelty, or any combination of the three. And one can hold that position on the Christian God and his ilk and still have other reasons for being an atheist in general.
He simply doesn't like this Christian God with all of his commandments, the demand for complete allegiance, and his divine observance and scrutiny.
Only when the commandments are arbitrary, and the allegiance is won through intimidation, and divine scrutiny is based on criteria that makes it so that any of us fail without using the arbitrary and inane cheat code he installed.
So Satan's doctrine—I will not serve—is the poetic root of the New Atheists, many of whom claim that they would rather go to hell than heaven.
We mostly say that in the context of portraying how ridiculous your conception of those places really is. I mean, seriously, you don't see anything wrong with being able to experience eternal bliss while almost everyone you knew in life is tormented and burned for the rest of existence just because they followed the wrong set of ridiculous religious principles? This isn't just about refusing to serve a tyrannical god, of course. But if you want to pretend that this is an argument instead of a musing, go right on ahead and do that Dineshikins.
Just as parents are not permitted to beat their children, they should not be allowed to brainwash their children into their religious faith. In a sense, argues Dawkins, you are retarding your children's future development by implanting myths into their young heads that they will have a very difficult time getting rid of later.
I have two thoughts about this. First, I think it represents a little bit of desperation on the part of modern atheism, by which I mean that this apparent willingness to tell parents what they can and cannot do borders on the totalitarian.
Well this just might warrant a fact check, don't ya think? And, whoa, look at that! Clarification.
Key point: the argument is an effort in consciousness raising, and not actual legislation. What does that mean? Simply this: he doesn't actually want the state to dictate what parents can teach their children, but he wants the people who have heard his musings to think a little bit about the tripe they are shoving down their children's throats.
We often forget that the guy is a biologist, however, who actually doesn't know a whole lot about anything else. His knowledge of history is poor; his knowledge of philosophy is abysmal; and his knowledge of theology is non-existent.
Are you paid just to be make ironic statements that completely lack self-awareness like that? Or do you just make those complimentary?
So while in some ways I feel indignant about what he says, I also feel almost a sense of pity for him. The poor fellow is wandering around in intellectual fields where he is such an innocent
I think I just peed a little.
Atheists spend a lot of time thinking about the motives for belief. Why do religious people believe these ridiculous things? When you turn the tables on atheists and ask them why they don't believe, they will answer, "Because we don't have enough evidence. We don't believe because there's no proof." But if you think about it, this is an inadequate explanation, because if you truly believe that there is no proof for God, then you're not going to bother with the matter....I don't believe in unicorns, so I just go about my life as if there are no unicorns. You'll notice that I haven't written any books called The End of the Unicorn, Unicorns Are Not Great, or The Unicorn Delusion, and I don't spend my time obsessing about unicorns.
This x-treme failure has already been adequately covered elsewhere.
It's not as if the atheist objects to the resurrection or the parting of the sea; rather, it is Christian morality to which atheists object, particularly Christian moral prohibitions in the area of sex. The atheist looks at all of Christianity's "thou shalt nots"—homosexuality is bad; divorce is bad; adultery is bad; premarital sex is bad—and then looks at his own life and says, "If these things are really bad, then I'm a bad guy. But I'm not a bad guy; I'm a great guy. I must thus reinterpret or (preferably) abolish all of these accusatory teachings that are putting me in a bad light."
Ahahahahahaha. Nice. As arbitrary as those "moral" prohibitions are, I certainly do not benefit from objecting to them personally, so I am a living testament to how much you talk out your own ass, Dinesh. And, seriously, we may not "object" to the resurrection and parting of the Red Sea, we sure as hell don't believe in them, and they sure are symptomatic of the overall crazy that is your beliefs. You're lucky that that isn't a surefire recipe for making an atheist, because you would only be left with the goddamn Phelps family if everyone who ever divorced, had sex outside of marriage (or in the butt), or thought that the resurrection might just be figurative became atheists.
"How does one do that? One way is liberal Christianity—you simply reinterpret Christian teachings as if they don't really mean what they say."
I thought you were the guy who bashed people for not being sophisticated enough if they took the Bible literally. Has your fundification really come that far, D'Souza? Or is every comment you make just a cynical ploy in order to score credibility points from the credulous?
ask where morality comes from. Well, it comes from one of two places. It either comes from ourselves—these are the rules that we make up as we go along—or it comes from some transcendent source. To get rid of God, then, is to remove the shadow of moral judgment. This doesn't mean that you completely eliminate morality, but it does mean that you reduce morality to a tool that human societies construct for their own advantages. It means that morality can change, and that old rules can be set aside.
You mean, without using God as an explanatory device, we would have an accurate description of what morality actually is and has been? Heaven forbid!
An atheist could say to a student, "Hey, I can help you become more rational. Don't believe in religion or any of that other stuff that your parents taught you." Well, that might work to some degree, but it would be far more effective to say, "Did you know that the moral rules that your parents taught you are just in your head? I've got a way for you to get rid of those rules."
Wow. Just wow. Are we molesting college kids now? Or is Dinesh just trying to expose us to some of his twisted fantasies? On a serious note: if those "moral rules" are just "in your head", why would you need to "get rid" of them? You can change them at whim. Isn't that what gets your panties in a twist, afterall?
Atheism can be a sort of manifesto of moral liberation from rules. And the rules that are most objectionable in our day and age are those that basically say, "Thou shalt conduct thyself with responsibility, chastity, mutual fidelity, and so on."
Are you trying to argue half of all Christendom out of existence, or is that just accidental?
The reason some people don't is because many of us live in secular neighborhoods, so we don't see Christianity around us. The truth is, however, that if you go to South America, you will find a huge number of conversions to Protestant Christianity. If you go to Korea, you will find Christian churches with 100,000 members. If you go to China, you will find 100 million Christians. And if you go to Africa, you'll find that countries whose populations were only five percent Christian 100 years ago are now 50 percent Christian.
I...I just became very sad...
These trends have not gone unnoticed by historians, who are startled by them and have attempted to explain them away, and they are the empirical basis for my claim that God is doing very well in this world.
Argumentum ad populum for the lose. Oh, but wait...Dinesh can't resist getting in some more fail at the last minute.
What's important to understand is that the New Atheism is not a triumphant cry of success, but rather a bitter reaction to the success of religion.
Oh, religion may be successful and New Atheism may be a bitter reaction, but don't try to rob those facts of their context. Religion's success in the areas where New Atheism is popular is predominantly to the detriment of society in general. Points which I believe you addressed originally, but dismissed out of hand because it helps us out with group identity and building crap, and because al-Qaeda wasn't Christian. A very clever attempt to try to ignore this, when, as you typically tend to do, you actually brought it to our attention not more than a handful of paragraphs previous.

I cannot believe that people can take this clown seriously.

18 comments:

mac said...

Wow !

I just can't get past the beginning of this one.
Dinesh is clearly smarter than the new atheists that he debates? I wonder if the author actually saw any of the debates, or if she just took him at his word that he won.

I first saw Dinesh D'Souza in a debate with Chritopher Hitchens online. I was so amazed at his silly tactics I began contributing regularly to his aol Blog( or rather, dis-contributing?) He went so far as to suggest Hitchens was an atheist in the same vane as Hitler.
Which is what? Not at all?

I'm not all all a believer that atheists are out to destroy Christianity, but I'm sure D'Souza is poised to destroy atheism. It's a shame people buy his shit.

I also like the way he tries to put Dawkins down because he is a bright scientist...what would a scientist know of religion? As much , it would seem , as anyone else. I wonder if he could look at himself in the same fashion....what could a religious hack know about science and why is he trying to teach ID ( non-science)?

No books on denouncing Unicorns? Perhaps because half the world does not blindly follow an invisable unicorn in the sky ?

And Yes ! If the god of the Bible is the best they can come up with, I shall have contempt. Is such a creature worthy of adulation? Really ? Before or after he destroyed an entire city to rid it of sodomites? Before he destroyed the entire planet ? Before or after he sent his only son to suffer a harsh death?
Yeah...I can see why now ;-)

Asylum Seeker said...

There are only two possibilities:
1. She is a hyper-religious thrall and just thinks that anything that has the slightest veneer of legitimacy is genius if it is in support of her worldview. Or:
2. She is just lazy and is taking other people of the first categories word that Dinesh is the best thing since the lobotomy.

"I first saw Dinesh D'Souza in a debate with Chritopher Hitchens online"

The first time I heard of him was when there was an announcement about him coming to campus for a presentation being put by the University's Republican Club. Before going to the pathetic show (with Dinesh being panned in the school newspaper for blaming liberalism for 9/11 in one of books just prior to his arrival), I took a stroll on his blog. Hilarity (and addiction) ensued. Shortly after, I saw (a) Hitchens-D'Souza debate, and two more online debates of his. He is the most overrated human being in the history of everything.

"No books on denouncing Unicorns? Perhaps because half the world does not blindly follow an invisable unicorn in the sky ?"

That's the crux of the matter, which, of course, he will deliberately ignore, as usual. You should really take a look at the post I linked to over at Evangelical Realism. It is pretty entertaining take on the comparison.

Richelle said...

every time i read dinesh's crap i throw up in my mouth a little.

he's so fucking dense.

bitching about dawkins being a biologist and not knowing anything about history, philosophy and theology, is that a fucking joke?

dinesh CONSTANTLY makes fallacious arguments and logic is taught in the most basic of philosophy classes. even i am more effective at argumentation and i am only a novice so what does that say about him? r-tard? anyone? bueller?

and as far as both history and theology are concerned does he just dismiss the fact that christians stole a lot of things from other religions? and that they actually had to argue over whether or not jesus and god were the same entity at the council of nicea? and of course they decided to pretend jesus is immortal because it gave more authority to their bullshit religion. so if he is such an expert in all this he must just be willfully ignorant because anyone could learn about this from watching the history channel and doing a few google searches.

and the comparison between europe and the united states... you're kidding right? this country is pretty fucking new when compared to the countries of europe. they have already been there and done that and understand that legislating by religion is fucking dumb.

we (the u.s.) are like fucking teenagers. we think we have these awesome ideas for how everything should be run and we know we're right because we know more than our parents (european countries) do and they just don't get it, so fuck them. now, our little brother (canada) is a little bit smarter than we are, so even though he is a teenager too, he acts more mature and sometimes takes a hint from the example that mom and dad have given us that we, on the other hand, stupidly chose to ignore.

and eventually, one day, we will get it too (hopefully in my lifetime, but i won't cross my fingers). we're already starting to shift in that direction. and in the future we'll get to look back and say, "man, what stubborn cock sucking dumb asses we were."

and this deal with the morals. i wish he would shut the hell up about the morals and the jesus and the "god" and blah blah. dinesh needs to answer this question from socrates: do the gods command it because it is right, or is it right because the gods command it?

if it's the first then morality exists independent from "god" and one does not need to believe in him to behave morally. and if it is the second then "god"'s commands are arbitrary. he could tell us to kill babies and it would be moral.

it's all pretty elementary so i don't understand how such an "intellectual" who "is probably the smartest person in the room" can't grasp that.

oh wait, that's right, because he's a dense, douche bag, ass clown, homophobic, hate-mongering, pitiful, sack of monkey scat who only pretends to know what the fuck he is talking about.

Asylum Seeker said...

Good to see you around, Richelle. It seems that the rage is contagious.

"dinesh CONSTANTLY makes fallacious arguments and logic is taught in the most basic of philosophy classes. even i am more effective at argumentation and i am only a novice"

Same here. I found that a crash course in "Internet Religious Discussions 101" serves the same purpose as Philosophy 101, however. The overlap was startling to say the least.

"this country is pretty fucking new when compared to the countries of europe. they have already been there and done that and understand that legislating by religion is fucking dumb."

That's a good point. I wonder if relative ages of the nations would be a factor. It's pretty clear that the founders' were influenced by their contact with a Europe that was already suffering religious fatigue in trying to make provisions against government oppression of religious groups (in terms that suggest that this is also best done by preventing any given religious group undue influence over government). Our isolation has allowed Christianity to revive, as if it were never attached to its European counterparts, and remains fresh due to the particular insanity that only a nation of violent rebels could bring to it.

"we're already starting to shift in that direction. and in the future we'll get to look back and say, "man, what stubborn cock sucking dumb asses we were.""

Diverting from a religious tradition AND engaging in self-reflection? Don't go crazy. The country might grow up at some point, but full-grown adults can be unreflective assholes too.

"it's all pretty elementary so i don't understand how such an "intellectual" who "is probably the smartest person in the room" can't grasp that."

He's the smartest person in the room because he can make it sound like he answered any objections without actually understanding what they are, and then move on to make a bunch of bold asserions that you can't possibly respond to due to their combination of sheer quantity and magnitude of WRONG. He is the master of seeming smart without actually having a thought in his head.

"oh wait, that's right, because he's a dense, douche bag, ass clown, homophobic, hate-mongering, pitiful, sack of monkey scat who only pretends to know what the fuck he is talking about."

Couldn't have put it better myself. I just find it hilarious when people actually think that he is a scholar. He is a polemicist with a batchelor's in English for Ectoplasmic Jesus's sake! He writes almost exclusively about matters of race, religion, and politics, because it gets people's attention. But he doesn't try to be the voice of reason: he tries to distort reality to favor his own position as much as he possibly can, and people buy it, because it sounds like he knows what he is talking about. The laymen are taken in by his fancy word-smithing, and actual scholars don't give a damn because he isn't even a blip on the radar, and is just writing glorified opinion pieces. Even if they sell well, and are in book form, that's all they really amount to.

Okay...okay. My rant is spilling over into the comments too far...

pboyfloyd said...

My latest post to Salvo Magazine.

"So, what's D'Souza's claim to fame, his claim to know more about reality than Dawkins?

A degree in English, some crappy books and...

... and, "In 1981, D'Souza published the names of officers of the Gay Student Alliance in an article for The Dartmouth Review, including the names of those who were still closeted.",

...and he's a rat!"

LOL, right after some schmuck 'offered' that there were many 'ex-gays' who, having turned 'true' Christian would disagree with the notion that 'gay' is NOT a choice.

Hey, d'ya know someone that is uncomfortable being known as 'gay'?

'OUT THEM!', it's only the 'true' Christian thing to do!

mac said...

If I may,
I was reading Poetry today. I came across this one, it seemed appropriate:



They Lust!
Don't let them fool you.
Under that self righteous,
'Holier-than-thou' veneered exterior...
They lust.
That's the only thing they do,
That can be trusted.
They lust.
Whether it's sex, violence
Or drugs from others they sell to bust!
They lust.
The weapons they legalize to hunt and kill,
Just for thrills to satisfy their mental ills.
They lust!
And stealing and lieing with covered up shrills!
They lust.
Don't let them fool you.
If they didn't...
They wouldn't be asking God,
To forgive them for what they do!
They lust and pray.
And take they do from others that way!
They lust.
Deluded...
By their own self deception.
And this is not admitted.
Nor will they quit it.
They lust.
It's in the fabric they wear.
And dare those who oppose,
This exposure!
Seeking excuses and remedies,
To mask their misdeeds...
Feed and breathe.
They lust!
To protect and gratify their whims!
They lust in view.
And deny that's what they do.
They lust.
Self destructing...
With a willful absence of shame.
They lust...
And it is done,
As they imprison others to blame...
For doing the same.
They lust.
While watching those who suffer.
They lust.
And this excites them!
Even when betraying one another.
They lust.
That's the only thing they do,
That can be trusted.
They lust.
It's in the fabric of their allegiances,
They pledge to keep obeyed. -L

Lawrence S. Pertillar

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

D'Souza serves an important purpose to the fundamentalist movement. Like any good magician he knows that you have to use slight of hand to divert attention and to cover up what, in the end, is aways nothing more than a lame trick.

GearHedEd said...

His argument that atheists reject god for the reason that they wish to not be accountable to some "higher morality" doesn't wash, either.

I'm an atheist because:

a) I saw the ridiculous bible stories for what they are at an early age (fortunately before my parents had decided to start attending church).

b) I read the bible. I saw most of the Old Testament as a manifesto to conquer the holy land and take it away from its rightful inhabitants. This was back when God was still a Jew.

c) I view the New Testament as an attempt at damage control, in that the "old covenant" was fatally flawed and had to be scrapped in favor of the "new covenant".

d) There is no evidence that the gospels are in any way accurate. I pointed this out in one of DD's blogs where I contrasted the Kennedy assassination, which was filmed in real time, but the events surrounding it are still hotly debated.

e) Pascal's wager is a sucker's bet. I told my mom that when I was a teenager, and she's Dana Carvey's prototype "church lady".

f) My sexual 'morals' (I can't have "real" morals if I'm an atheist, but we'll let that go for now) have always been of a higher standard than the women I've been associated with, including three ex-wives who all fooled around on me before the divorces (I can't help that I have a small dick; on the other hand, the three of them put together would barely fill a C-cup, and they COULD have fixed that!).

g) Ultimately, if one is to believe in a (any) religion, one has to trust the initiates and holy book authors, and abdicate any personal sense of reason. I am not willing to give my brain to a bunch of fundie whack-jobs, nor to a gang of non-science-knowing-about goat-fuckers from the bronze age who, while they may have had what passed for wisdom in those days, didn't get the story correct.

Asylum Seeker said...

"LOL, right after some schmuck 'offered' that there were many 'ex-gays' who, having turned 'true' Christian would disagree with the notion that 'gay' is NOT a choice."

Good for all twelve of them! "Ex-gays" pretty much seem to have been either bisexual, or just are willing to make themselves miserable in the name of pleasing their Christian overlords. (Or they just sneak some on the side, like Haggart). Sad.

Apt poem, mac. I think that D'Souza's claim that we are atheists in order to avoid Christian compunctions against certain sexual activity (I mean, I do think that those compunctions are ridiculous, but it was little relevance to me since I've been an "atheist" since the age of 10)speaks more about him than it does about us.

Pliny has delved into far too much truth.

Ditto on GearHeadEd's points a through e (except my parents never went to church, therefore my mother, of course, was not an archetypal church lady and I never had to talk about religion with them).

"I can't help that I have a small dick; on the other hand, the three of them put together would barely fill a C-cup, and they COULD have fixed that!)."

LOL. I get spam e-mail that claims otherwise!

"I am not willing to give my brain to a bunch of fundie whack-jobs, nor to a gang of non-science-knowing-about goat-fuckers from the bronze age who, while they may have had what passed for wisdom in those days, didn't get the story correct."

Pssshh. You know you secretly want to sodomize corpses and commit mass genocide. That's the only reason why you would deny the undeniable TRUTH that is a book written two millenia ago by a bunch of shepherds who had a profound man-crush on a charismatic bum who had magic powers. There are no other explanations.

GearHedEd said...

OK, you got me...

LOL :o)

mac said...

I feel your pain GearHedEd.

You know why men like women with large breasts and small vaginas?

Because we have small peckers and BIG mouths ;-)

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

If, for some reason, you want your head to explode - try reading William P Young's NYT's best seller "The Shack". Possibly more vile than the complete collection of Left Behind books.

This is what many fundamentalists are reading. My wife tricked me into sharing her misery (someone gave it to her.) It took me quite a while to realize that when they were referring to Papa, that they meant God not Hemingway...

GearHedEd said...

I've been lurking in Brian's blog for the last while or two. There's a pretty good fight going on in there between Eric on one side, and me, pboy and Brian on the other. It finally devolved into Christianity when Eric brought up Thomas Aquinas....

LOL

Asylum Seeker said...

Now that you've mentioned, all have to take a peek. Sigh...it's a damn shame that reading Eric's posts gives me indigestion. But, can't be a whole lot worse than the rest of the Big Brain conversation (I am out of my league in that discussion).

Asylum Seeker said...

LOL. "St. Specious the Pedantic" is full of win.

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

The whole Big Brain thing is fascinating. People who would howl if someone called them a deist seem to have absolutely no problem referring to an all powerful entity encompassing all of creation of which we are a part. Change the nomenclature all you want it's still a supernatural explanation not much different from Christianity or the lot.

Richelle said...

"You know why men like women with large breasts and small vaginas?

Because we have small peckers and BIG mouths ;-)"

ROFLMFAO!!!

you guys crack me up. i love being privy to your man talk.

and as far as the little dick issue, a real woman knows how to handle a dick no matter what size it is and get good use out of it.

ya just gotta know how to work it and get familiar with some awesome sex toys ;)~

Asylum Seeker said...

"People who would howl if someone called them a deist seem to have absolutely no problem referring to an all powerful entity encompassing all of creation of which we are a part."

Yes. That is kinda odd. At first I thought that "speculation" is all well and good, but...geesh. You can entertain an idea like that for so long and with so much detail before it starts to look a little like...well, dogmatism. That being said, the basic idea behind the Big Brain is similar (almost identical to) the concept of maya, and ideas like it, so it isn't really foreign, and it isn't something I oppose, per se. But...you can only deal with the notion for so long before it feels like you are prescribing something that must necessarily be true and that you believe, rather than a passing thought.

The idea that there is only consciousness is actually the exact opposite of what I think (that the realm of the mind doesn't actually exist, and is just a poor subjective explanation of entirely materialistic phenomenon). But, that too, I can budge more than a little on (for good reason).

"and as far as the little dick issue, a real woman knows how to handle a dick no matter what size it is and get good use out of it."

That's what I like to hear! I mean....meh.