Just got this from Pharyngula…

Pretty interesting article in The Guardian:

So what Hume’s argument boils down to, then, is that we have never had any good reason to believe that a miracle has occurred, and nor are we likely to. But this is not the same as saying dogmatically that no miracle ever has occurred. This explains the final paragraph of the essay, in which Hume seems to simultaneously clobber Christianity over head and give it a reprieve. [...] Believers may agree that reason is indeed insufficient, which is why you need faith. Hume agrees, but in spelling out what this faith means, he may make life a little uncomfortable [...] You can believe in miracles as a matter of faith, not reason. But you have to realise that faith does not simply plug a gap where reason fears to tread; it actively goes against all that reason tells us.

I just like that last line.

It’s not that you’re “stopping short” of something in some way.

It’s that you’re actively going against something — which, I think, is called “being irrational”…

(And I’m sure we can find something like this in American newspapers — right?)

Just a note from our friends from the Great White North…

Atheist ads on OC Transpo in limbo

An Atheist advertising campaign will spend a few weeks in limbo after the transit committee deadlocked on a vote on whether to allow ads to run on city buses. The ads by the Humanist Association of Ottawa, stating “There’s probably no God, now stop worrying and enjoy your life,” were rejected last week. Transit committee chairman Alex Cullen had attempted to overturn the decision and pledged to bring it to city council in early March as a separate motion. Humanist Julie Breeze said she was disappointed that the decision was not overturned, but said she intended to keep fighting. “The ads that we are proposing are not intended to offend,” she said. “We’re hoping that these ads will let other non-believers know that they are not alone. It’s not an easy thing to be an atheist surrounded by a sea of believers.”

And, of course, there’s the clincher…

However, Theresa Milligan argued against the ads, saying that it goes beyond freedom of speech. “When statements are said that God probably does not exist, this is an implied statement of hatred towards all those who do believe that God exists.”

Oh, Ms. Milligan? Please just go fuck yourself.

Now that’s hate speech. You fucking idiot.

Just thought this little story would bring a chuckle or two.

Boy marries dog in India to ward off tiger attacks

BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) – An infant boy was married off to his neighbours’ dog in eastern India by villagers who said it will stop the groom from being killed by wild animals, officials and witnesses said Wednesday.

Around 150 tribes people performed the ritual recently in a hamlet in the state of Orissa’s Jajpur district after the boy, who is under two years old, grew a tooth on his upper gum.

The Munda tribe see such a growth in young children as a bad omen and believe it makes them prone to attacks by tigers and another animals. The tribal god will bless the child and ward off evil spirits after the marriage.

“We performed the marriage because it will overcome any curse that might fall on the child as well on us,” the boy’s father, Sanarumala Munda, was quoted as saying by a local newspaper.

The groom, Sagula, was carried by his family in procession to the village temple, where a priest solemnised the marriage between Sagula and his bride Jyoti by chanting Sanskrit hymns, a witness said.

The villagers then ate a feast with rich food and alcohol to celebrate.

The dog belongs to the groom’s neighbours and was set free to roam around the area after the ceremony. No dowry was exchanged, the witness said, and the boy will still be able to marry a human bride in the future without filing for divorce.

The last line, “the boy will still be able to marry a human bride in the future without filing for divorce” cracked me up.

Indian law does not recognise weddings between people and animals, but the ritual survives in rural and tribal areas of the country where millions are illiterate.

He won’t have to divorce his dog-bride because rational people realize that this is just superstition. I would say the more illiterate the weirder the religion, then I look at the educated Catholics and their ghoulish practices.

A Muslim television executive beheaded his wife a few days after she served him with divorce papers.

Muslim TV exec accused of beheading wife in NY

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. – The crime drips with brutal irony: a woman decapitated, allegedly by her estranged husband, in the offices of the television network the couple founded with the hope of countering Muslim stereotypes.

Muzzammil “Mo” Hassan is accused of beheading his wife last week, days after she filed for divorce. Authorities have not discussed the role religion or culture might have played, but the slaying gave rise to speculation that it was the sort of “honor killing” more common in countries half a world away, including the couple’s native Pakistan.

While investigators are still trying to figure out if this horrific incident was just an act of “domestic violence”, those who work for women’s rights see this crime as something more:

The New York president of the National Organization for Women, Marcia Pappas, condemned prosecutors for referring to the death as an apparent case of domestic violence.

“This was, apparently, a terroristic version of ‘honor killing,’” a statement from NOW said.

Nadia Shahram, who teaches family law and Islam at the University at Buffalo Law School, explained honor killing as a practice still accepted among fanatical Muslim men who feel betrayed by their wives.

“If a woman breaks the law which the husband or father has placed for the wife or daughter, honor killing has been justified,” said Shahram, who was a regular panelist on a law show produced by Bridges TV. “It happens all the time. It’s been practiced in countries such as Pakistan and in India.”

Call it what you want, but it’s an act of gruesome murder. This is not Pakistan or India, and allowances and excuses are not given to those who break the law, period. Many who murder believe they are justified in the killing and that their immoral god is pleased. Most Christians here have learned that they cannot murder in the name of their sky boss or “tradition” and get away with it. Their god cannot save them from human justice.

Acquaintances said Mo Hassan was not overtly religious — co-workers did not see him pray, for instance. But he seemed to adhere to many traditional practices.

Nancy Sanders, the television station’s news director for 2 1/2 years, remembers him asking her to move her feet during her job interview so he would not see her legs. She was wearing a skirt and stockings.

He also would not let women enter his office unless his wife was there, and he blocked the station from airing a story about the first Muslim woman to win the title of Miss England in 2005, Sanders said.

Acquaintances said Aasiya Hassan was trained as an architect. Sanders described her as obedient to her husband, and that she wore a traditional hijab for a time but later stopped without explanation.

It seems like this poor woman was a victim of oppression and domestic violence and only wanted her freedom. Stories like this are unbelievably sad whether religion is involved or not, especially when innocent children are left without a mother and father.

First of all, I want to say that my heart goes out to all the families who lost loved ones in the recent airplane crash near Buffalo, NY. We can only imagine the horror of those final moments for the passengers, and also for the people on the ground when the plane dropped like a rock from the skies and onto someone’s home.

Today, there is a story in the news that actually comes out and says why people cling to religion in these times of disaster…they cannot accept that their loved ones have died and cling to the fantasies of everlasting life in order to cope.

Backed by a giant projector screen carrying the words “Prayer for all affected by Flight 3407,” the Rev. David Kofahl urged his 70-member congregation at Sunday services to turn to God, taking solace in the Christian faith’s promise of everlasting life.

“No one can take away the horror of what happened, but what a wonderful thing it is to know that this life is not all there is,” said Kofahl, who’d visited the site Saturday to offer counseling to emergency workers.

While many do question the existence of a god at times like this, they still congregate to churches, looking for solace and wanting to hear someone tell them the comforting fantasies that it was a good thing after all that their family and friends died because they are “in a better place”.

Those who turned out for services at other churches also had the crash in their thoughts. At Clarence Center United Methodist Church, worshippers held hands during a service honoring victims, and at Emmanuel Baptist Church, the Rev. Terry Bowman led prayers for the victims and their families.

“It’s a very caring community, and one that’s in shock but coming together in prayer,” Bowman said.

Humans don’t need to “gather in prayer” to some imaginary sky daddy for comfort. However, they do what they need to do by gathering together with friends, family and others who care. This is where the true comfort comes. No god comes down from the sky to comfort people, no god that is good would create a world full of so much heartache. For many, though, they still cling to their imaginary, absent “heavenly father”. They still feel the need to delude themselves that this life isn’t all their is. Most humans simply cannot deal with that fact of being human.

The way I have dealt with the grief of losing people I love is to let myself be angry, pissed off at nature or whatever. Let it out. And then cling to my friends and family who are still here and then celebrate the life of the person we have lost. The cherish the memories of that person that will be with us till the end of our own life. That seems most dignified to me that wishing to magically meet up with that person someday in a magical place.

It puzzles me that people wouldn’t wake up at a time like this and realize there is no grand puppetmaster who controls all things and protects us. No god saving one plane and allowing another to crash.

In a recent comment thread, Rick points out what we see repeatedly, people praising their imaginary friend when in actuality it was pilot skill that saved those people who crashed into the Hudson River not too long ago, and now it seems to be pilot error this time in the crash of Flight 3407. Human action or inaction, human error are to be credited or blamed when good or bad things happen. No god is involved. No god comes.

I stumbled across this the other day, and it tickled my funny bone just a little.

St Valentine ‘not saint of love’

If roses won’t do the trick, try Saint Raphael suggests the Catholic Church

Britain’s Roman Catholic Church is advising lovelorn singles to direct their 14 February requests for love to St Raphael, rather than St Valentine.

Over the years St Valentine has come incorrectly to be associated with finding love, the Church says.

Personally, I’d have to say that there isn’t any ’saint’ for love, as they were all deluded (if benign) folks, that is if they weren’t adopted or co-opted from other mythologies.

And the answers.com version is telling:

The origins of Valentine’s Day, like the origins of love itself, are somewhat obscure — a combination of myth, history, destiny, chance and marketing.

Legend has it that a certain third-century priest named Valentine persisted in performing marriage ceremonies despite a ban by the Roman emperor Claudius II (Claudius was persuaded that single men made better soldiers for his army). Thrown into jail, Valentine formed a relationship with his jailor’s daughter (some say he cured her blindness) and he signed his last message to her “From your Valentine,” a phrase which still gets a lot of mileage.

St. Valentine was executed on February 14, circa the year 270, and his remains (probably his, but there were two other Christian martyrs called Valentine) are now on display in the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin.

There are also reports of an ancient pagan custom that took place in preparation for the Roman festival of Lupercalia, which started February 15. The names of the town’s maidens would be collected and then drawn at random by the local bachelors; in this fashion couples were paired off for the year.

Third, medieval Europeans thought February 14 was the date on which the birds started to mate. (There’s no record of when the bees started.) From “Parlement of Foules,” a poem by Chaucer:
“for this was on seynt Volantynys day/ Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his mate.

While this is a fairly borderline ‘holiday’, I think it is symptomatic of the invidious nature of religion. I have spoken before of this  – and so we have a Hallmark holiday with religious overtones.

The final part of the original article says this:

Spiritual networks

Those hoping for divine intervention to help their love lives may well appreciate the correction in target for their prayers, but Miss Ward also had some more advice.

“There is a lot of evidence to suggest that young people who have tapped into prayer groups have found partners,” she said.

“Those who have exhausted traditional routes like online dating should try spiritual networks.

“Why not come along to a prayer group – it could be your lucky night.”

 Hmmm…the pickup lines that spring to mind! “Hey, kneel here often?” “Hey, which bible version are you using?” And of course, the audience selects as the number 1 pickup line at a personals prayer meeting (drum roll please)….”So, while you’re down there, wouldja do me a favor?”

Till the next post, then.

When I was a child and first learned about communion, I was horrified. It was even more grotesque as any horror movies I watched while peeking from beneath a blanket. Eating a dead guy’s body, drinking blood! Gross!

Then later, when I was still a Christian and a Sunday School teacher, I actually was one who engaged in telling horrible things to small children and brainwashing them to believe it was all okay, normal. Now live to regret it. Many of the children sat before me with either puzzled expressions or expressions of horror. And some had lots and lots of questions of which I couldn’t seem to answer very well. Why didn’t I recognize the horrible thing I was implanting in the minds of small children? While Christian parents keep their little ones from seeing scary movies, and violent cartoons, etc. they think that telling them the gruesome stories of Jesus is okay.

The site “Why Won’t God Heal Amputees” has a scenerio that goes like this in the Chapter “Why Do We Eat Jesus?”:

Child: Daddy, what are they doing?

Daddy: Well dear, this part of the service is called communion.

Child: What’s communion?

Daddy: Well, it’s where… Well, it’s… you know, what we do is we eat Jesus’ body to… Well, it’s complicated. Let me see…

Child: We eat Jesus’ BODY???

Daddy: Yes. Well, no, but…

Child: Why do we need to eat Jesus??? I don’t want to eat Jesus!!!

Daddy: No, no, no. It’s OK honey. It’s OK. Be quiet now, don’t cry in church. Shhhh. Shush. Now it’s OK.

Child: But Daddy, I don’t want to eat Jesus!

Daddy: Mom, help me out here.

Mom: Honey, it is a holy sacrament. You see, we eat Jesus’ body and we drink his blood because…

Child: I have to drink his blood too??? Mommy, I don’t want to drink blood!!!

Mom: Honey, calm down! You don’t actually drink his blood.

Child: But that man up there is holding up a cup and he is saying that it is Jesus’ blood! Mommy! I want to leave! I am leaving!

Mom, Dad: No honey! Wait! We can’t leave now!

So what happens to people as they grow older? Why do they come to accept this bizarre ancient ritual as something sacred and beautiful? While the story of Dracula drinking the blood of humans, and cannibalism are things that frightens most people, the ritual of eating Jesus’ body and drinking Jesus’ blood is respected and loved.

WWGHA states:

Because Christians have been participating in the communion rite for many years, they tend to forget just how bizarre this ritual is. But any child sees it with fresh eyes. And many children are, naturally, horrified at the thought of eating Jesus’ body and then drinking his blood. It is grotesque in the extreme and a child implicitly understands that.

So, what happens? Years and years of brainwashing? Parents being trusted to tell them the truth and telling their young ones that it’s okay and nothing at all wrong with it and children accept it because they trust their parents? The point is, when children are small it seems they instinctively know when something is not right, so what the heck happens to make grown-up adults participate in such bizarre rituals?