A Response

I wrote a response to this comment on my last post, but it got so long, I thought it would make better sense to make a separate post out of it.  SG suggested I read the comments on this post at Pharyngula, so I did.

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Just Ruminating

I haven’t written any posts in awhile, partly because I have been having a long debate with someone on another blog post, in the comments, about the conflict between Religion and Science, which has gravitated, as usual, to the existence of god. This is as it should be. It is where atheist/theist debates should properly end up. One can talk about the merits of religion, or the efficacy of religious belief, or the overwhelming preponderance of theists in the world, but ultimately none of it means anything in the debate until you’ve resolved the TRUTH of religion – i.e. does god exist. If he does, then there should be significant consensus, if not universal and unanimous acceptance, of that one truth. It should be obvious. The fact that there isn’t even something close to human consensus gives the lie to the proposition.

I Get Email

PZ regularly posts some of the crazy email he gets to his blog. I’d love to be able to say I get the same shit, but I don’t. Oh, occasionally some whack job Christian shows up here, and leaves really odd comments (I’m looking at you, Gideon), but they usually do it right on the blog, rarely by email. I’ve gotten a few over the years, but never anything to get worked up about.

Confrontation v. Accomodation

P.Z. Myers posted his remarks made at the recent Secular Humanist Conference the other day, and I really think, if you haven’t read it, that you should. I’ll wait.

For those who don’t have the time to read the whole thing (and it’s not that long) here are a few choice quotes:

Book Burning

I guess I have some obligation to comment on the proposed September 11 Qur’an burning by some low rent superstition peddler in Florida who seems to be seeking his church’s 15 minutes of fame, presumably to increase his membership from 50 to 55.

Future Hope

I’ve come to the conclusion that education is not going to do it.

By “it”, I mean the wholesale revamping of American thinking on the subject of religion. The national worldview is distorted, delusional and just plain sick on the god question. With pedophile priests and other so-called religious leaders running rampant through the underpants of our children; with the Pope doing his level best to continue stonewalling investigations until statutes of limitation have run, while at the same time sending his minions out to rationalize church hypocrisy; with our elected leaders of all stripes tripping over each other to convince their constituents that they are the holiest of holies, while steering our country into an economic mess through religiously tainted wars and greedy financial oversight; when the most pressing problems of our nation are deemed to be what goes on in the uteri of our women and the bedrooms of everyone else; when our schools are being inundated with the pressures of teaching our children that the world came into existence 6000 years ago, while certain aspects of history are deemed so liberal and un-Christian as to be banned from schoolbooks; while all of this predominates our thinking, I fear that education will be like a tear in a salted sea – totally ineffective – until this generation has passed on.

The Cracker Whacker

As a recovering Catholic, I have to say that PZ Myers’ final post on the Cracker Debacle is right on the mark, as is his last comment. Go read it.