He was so very old, having outlived family and friends. How many miles he’d traveled, no one could know. He had seen so much change — for the worst. Whether or not it was really “his time to go,” he was slaughtered by a gang of heartless, mindless killers. In a world soaked in blood, blinded by a spectrum of cruelty and violence, choked with the nausea from limitless abuse and inhumanity, his death breaks my heart — again.

If there ever was a god, he killed himself or walked away in disgust. mjh

Whale found with 19th-century weapon in neck, By Erin Conroy, Associated Press

BOSTON — A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt — more than a century ago. Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3 1/2-inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale’s age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old. …

“It probably hurt the whale, or annoyed him, but it hit him in a non-lethal place,” he said. “He couldn’t have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years.” …

The 49-foot male whale died when it was shot with a similar projectile last month, and the older device was found buried beneath its blubber as hunters carved it with a chain saw for harvesting. …

“We didn’t make anything of it at the time, and no one had any idea about their lifespan, or speculated that a bowhead could be that old,” [some idiot] said.

It is a measure of our indifference that the tone of this article is of amazement, not guilt. Look! We finally got him! Hey, he couldn’t have been hurt so bad — he lived another century. For all we know, he ached every day of that 100 plus years. Regardless, it’s over now. Someone got a museum piece, a moment in the news, a bowel movement. mjh

“What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!”

— Hamlet (II, ii, 115-117)

So, Archbishop Sheehan doesn’t believe in atheists. That’s as self-serving as Wal-Mart’s CEO disparaging unions.

I certainly don’t expect to prove that Sheehan is part of the problem. However, to the “you can’t prove a negative” argument, I say, “so, what?” The efforts of the vast majority of the human race have failed to prove the existence of god — and with very good reason.

Sheehan places the Inquisition and Communism on the scales of justice and pronounces the Inquisition ‘not so bad after all.’ I wonder if his god admits the trivial murders and torturers into heaven while barring the door to the really bad cases. “Lord, it was only a few thousand people and we did it in your name.” The absolution of scoundrels.

Equating communism with atheism comes as no surprise from a religious zealot. It is ‘militant regionists’ who have polarized the entire world. In truth, humans pick and choose their beliefs and behaviors with maddening inconsistency. People of great faith and people without faith turn out to be heroes and ax murders. You can look back and say, “see, of course he did that because ….” It really proves nothing. The Virginia Tech mass murderer came from a deeply religious family and saw himself as christ-like. That’s a specious remark but no less so than blaming the behavior of brutal despots on atheism. Humankind is a murderous breed that embraces lies as readily as the truth. Even if we grow out of our religious infancy, we’ll find new reasons to brutalize each other. mjh

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor
Atheists Spit Into Rising Wind

The May 26 article on militant atheist writers making an all-out assault on religious faith moves me to respond.

Christopher (an odd name for a nonbeliever!) Hitchens’ book “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” Richard Dawkins’ book “The God Delusion” and others seem to be selling briskly according to the article.

Michael Novak, writing in the June issue of the magazine “First Things,” notes that there is an odd defensiveness about these books, as though they were a sign not of victory but of desperation.

Everywhere on earth except Europe, religion is surging. According to a 2007 Princeton survey for Newsweek, at least 91 percent of Americans believe in God. Only 3 percent say they are atheists. In fact, the whole group of nonbelievers including agnostics and those of no religion is only 10 percent.

These atheistic authors are kind of like men spitting against the wind. Each trots out his arguments for atheism, it might seem, to convince himself. Maybe the books are selling well because there are always people that are curious about authors who attack the respected and the sacred.

Religion throughout history has brought about the establishment of great movements for civilization— the establishment of universities and education, hospitals and various means of helping the sick and the poor.

The atheists typically bring out the sad reality of the Inquisition, but the death inflicted by the Inquisition is a mere pinprick (at most 1,500) compared to what was done by atheists in our times. In the 20th century alone communist atheism has been responsible for the deaths of more than 100 million people.

In reality it is hard to prove the nonexistence of God as one can’t possibly prove a negative. And agnosticism, humanisticly attractive to some, leads to a moral indecisiveness leaving the religion question up in the air. It is hard also because there is a universal hunger in the human heart for the Transcendent.

There will always be the village atheists but those who believe in God, the vast majority, will continue to experience joy and strength in their belief in God.

MICHAEL J. SHEEHAN
Archbishop of Santa Fe
Albuquerque”

http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/letters/567122opinion05-31-07.htm

I could do without the war metaphors. Human history is a slow struggle out of ignorance and towards comprehension. Shedding religion will just be another step in our maturation. We also need to outgrow the madness of War and find a way to control our inherent anger. You can’t rage for peace; you can’t be mad for reason. Calm down and wake up. mjh

Angry Atheists Are Hot Authors By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer [mjh: the alliteration calls for “ABLE Authors” or “Acute”]

[B]elievers far outnumber nonbelievers in America. In an 2005 AP-Ipsos poll on religion, only 2 percent of U.S. respondents said they did not believe in God. Other surveys concluded that 14 percent of Americans consider themselves secular, a term that can include believers who say they have no religion.” …

The time for polite debate is over. Militant, atheist writers are making an all-out assault on religious faith and reaching the top of the best-seller list, a sign of widespread resentment over the influence of religion in the world among nonbelievers.

Christopher Hitchens’ book, “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” has sold briskly ever since it was published last month, and his debates with clergy are drawing crowds at every stop.

Sam Harris was a little-known graduate student until he wrote the phenomenally successful “The End of Faith” and its follow-up, “Letter to a Christian Nation.” Richard Dawkins'”The God Delusion” and Daniel Dennett’s “Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon” struck similar themes — and sold.

“There is something like a change in the Zeitgeist,” Hitchens said, noting that sales of his latest book far outnumber those for his earlier work that had challenged faith. “There are a lot of people, in this country in particular, who are fed up with endless lectures by bogus clerics and endless bullying.”

Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, a prominent evangelical school in Pasadena, Calif., said the books’ success reflect a new vehemence in the atheist critique.

“I don’t believe in conspiracy theories,” Mouw said, “but it’s almost like they all had a meeting and said, ‘Let’s counterattack.'”

The war metaphor is apt. The writers see themselves in a battle for reason in a world crippled by superstition. In their view, Muslim extremists, Jewish settlers and Christian right activists are from the same mold, using fairy tales posing as divine scripture to justify their lust for power. Bad behavior in the name of religion is behind some of the most dangerous global conflicts and the terrorist attacks in the U.S., London and Madrid, the atheists say.

As Hitchens puts it: “Religion kills.” … [mjh: gods don’t kill people, people kill people.]

Given the popularity of the anti-religion books so far, publishers are expected to roll out even more in the future. Lynn Garrett, senior religion editor for Publishers Weekly, says religion has been one of the fastest-growing categories in publishing in the last 15 years, and the rise of books by atheists is “the flip-side of that.”

“It was just the time,” she said, “for the atheists to take the gloves off.”
– – – – –

Is Atheism Just a Rant Against Religion?
Humanists Say Atheists Need to Offer More Vision Than Rhetoric, By Benedicta Cipolla, Religion News Service

Despite its minority status, atheism has enjoyed the spotlight of late, with several books that feature vehement arguments against religion topping the bestseller lists.

But some now say secularists should embrace more than the strident rhetoric poured out in such books as “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins and “The End of Faith” and “Letter to a Christian Nation” by Sam Harris. By devoting so much space to explaining why religion is bad, these critics argue, atheists leave little room for explaining how a godless worldview can be good.

At a recent conference marking the 30th anniversary of Harvard’s humanist chaplaincy, organizers sought to distance the “new humanism” from the “new atheism.”

Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein went so far as to use the (other) f-word in describing his unbelieving brethren.

“At times they’ve made statements that sound really problematic, and when Sam Harris says science must destroy religion, to me that sounds dangerously close to fundamentalism,” Epstein said in an interview after the meeting. “What we need now is a voice that says, ‘That is not all there is to atheism.’ ”

Although the two can overlap, atheism represents a statement about the absence of belief and is thus defined by what it is not. Humanism seeks to provide a positive, secular framework for leading ethical lives and contributing to the greater good. The term “humanist” emerged with the “Humanist Manifesto” of 1933, a nonbinding document summarizing the movement’s principles.

“Atheists are somewhat focused on the one issue of atheism, not looking at how to move forward,” said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the Washington-based American Humanist Association. While he appreciates the way the new atheists have raised the profile of nonbelievers, he said humanists differ by their willingness to collaborate with religious leaders on various issues. “Working with religion,” he said, “is not what [atheists] are about.” …

The suggestion that atheists may be fundamentalists in their own right has, unsurprisingly, ruffled feathers.

“We’re not a unified group,” said Christopher Hitchens, author of the latest atheist bestseller, “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.”

“But we’re of one mind on this: The only thing that counts is free inquiry, science, research, the testing of evidence, the uses of reason, irony, humor and literature, things of this kind. Just because we hold these convictions rather strongly does not mean this attitude can be classified as fundamentalist,” Hitchens said.

Distinguishing between strong opinion and trying to impose atheism on others, Phil Zuckerman, associate professor of sociology at Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., also finds “fundamentalist” a misnomer. Instead, he faults atheists for preferring black-and-white simplicity to a more nuanced view of religion.

“Religion is a human construction, and as such it will exhibit the best and worst of humanity. They throw the baby out with the bath water in certain instances,” he said.

The humanists are taking advantage of renewed interest in atheism — in effect riding the coattails of Dawkins and Harris into the mainstream — to gain attention for their big-tent model. According to the American Religious Identification Survey, conducted by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, the share of American adults who do not subscribe to any religion increased from 8 percent in 1990 to more than 14 percent in 2001.

While only a small portion of the nearly 30 million “unaffiliateds” might describe themselves as atheist, Epstein, from Harvard, sees humanism appealing to skeptics, agnostics and those who maintain only cultural aspects of religion. …

More than a kinder, gentler strain of atheism, humanism seeks to propose a more expansive worldview.

“Atheists don’t really ask the question, what are the vital needs that religion meets? They give you the sense that religion is the enemy, which is absurd,” said Ronald Aronson, professor of humanities at Wayne State University in Detroit.

“There are some questions we secularists have to answer: Who am I, what am I, what can I know? Unless we can answer these questions adequately for ourselves and for others, we can’t expect people to even begin to be interested in living without God.” [mjh: I disagree. I have questions without answers but no need for god and no interest in god other than in understanding other humans. I am not just “interested in living without god,” I am doing so every damn day.]

For equal time, hold your nose and read the sarcastic wit of the Washington Times, god’s own paper:

Revival time with the village atheist Wesley Pruden, editor in chief of The Times

The jobs don’t pay a lot, and you take most of your pay in self-esteem, but somebody is always trying out for village idiot or village atheist. Often they’re one and the same.

Lately we’ve seen fresh pursuit of these positions, fueled by a rash of books about atheism, or more accurately, irrational screeds mocking those who have the faith the authors clearly envy. Atheists are organizing. They have their registered lobbyist now on Capitol Hill, and they’re planning a revival meeting in Arlington in September. …

Merely driving by a church to shake a fist at the steeple on a Sunday morning is no longer enough to make an atheist tingle. [mjh: LOL!]
– – – – –

Desicritics.org: The Atheism FAQ with Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins, the author of the NY Times bestseller – The God Delusion – has been interviewed many a time recently. The questions asked were mainly related to his book, the views on atheism, morality and present world.

He answered all questions in a flawless and confident way. Each and every answer speaks about his passion and eagerness to explain his stance on every point. It’s an amazing experience to watch him speak. I have tried to pick up a few commonly asked questions and his answers on different topics.

Why are you against faith?

Because, I am a kind of person who cares about the Truth. The religion and any sort of dogma are the biggest obstacle against the Truth. Not only that, I am worried about the position religion enjoys in our society. You can attack other’s political view, criticize a football coach but cannot attack one’s religious faith. It’s a kind of immunity from criticism that religion enjoys, despite being proven to be mostly illogical.

[mjh: I agree with Kahlil Gibran: “Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’]

I’ve been playing volleyball with the same group of friends almost every Sunday afternoon for at least 15 years, maybe 20. Some of them have been playing together over 30 years. Children have grown up, become players and gone on to have their own children. (No grandchildren play — yet.)

We meet in a field in Los Lunas for 2 to 3 hours. Sometimes the play is vigorous. Sometimes we get on each others nerves. But, I’m sure it is the high point of most weeks for each of us.

Each game, we split into two teams somewhat randomly. As many games as the dozen of us have played, we’ve surely been through every combination several times.

Sometimes the scoring is quite lopsided, then sometimes it rights itself. Close games aren’t unusual. Every so often, one team catches the other in a tie close to the end. At that point, I often say, “how do you feel about a tie?” I’m sure I was being a smart-aleck the first time, but after years of proposing a tie only to be overridden by everyone else, I have come to think of it as my quest.

Sunday, the final game was a killer. We played 3-on-3, which is grueling. Each team moved ahead of the other in groups of 4 or 5 points, only to be caught and passed. It looked like my side would lose narrowly (and, honestly, I wouldn’t care or remember for long). I was serving when we caught up at 20-20 — it would take two more points for either side to win. I proposed a tie — no one took me seriously. I thought, “I can MAKE a tie.” I dropped the ball and walked off the court (probably a forfeit in “real” volleyball). The remaining players seemed poised to play on, with mild derision directed my way. I pulled my trump card: “When I’m dead, you’ll stop at a tie to honor me. Why not do it now, when I can appreciate it?”

For the one and only time in 30+ years, a game ended in a tie. As Chris noted, we may be the only 6 volleyball players ever to play to a tie. I’m very happy. mjh

Vatican abolishes the concept of limbo By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times

ROME — Limbo has been in limbo for quite some time, but is now on its way to extinction. …

That could reverse centuries of Roman Catholic traditional belief that the souls of unbaptized babies are condemned to eternity in limbo, a place that is neither heaven nor hell, giving rise to the popular usage meaning “in between.”

Limbo is not unpleasant, but it is not a seat alongside God. [mjh: and you really do want the best seat for all eternity.]

In his 14th-century work “The Divine Comedy,” the Italian poet Dante famously placed virtuous pagans and great classical philosophers, including Plato and Socrates, in limbo.

Catholic doctrine states that because all humans are tainted by original sin thanks to the experience of Adam and Eve, baptism is essential for salvation. But the idea of limbo has fallen out of favor for many Catholics, who see it as harsh and not befitting a merciful God. [mjh: isn’t that convenient.] …

Catholic conservatives criticized any effort to relegate limbo to oblivion.

Removing the concept from church teaching would lessen the importance of baptism and discourage parents from christening their infants, said Kenneth J. Wolfe, a Washington-based columnist for the traditionalist Catholic newspaper The Remnant.

“It makes baptism a formality, a party, instead of a necessity,” Wolfe said. “There would be no reason for infant baptisms. It would put the Catholic Church on par with the Protestants.”

It would also deprive Catholic leaders of a tool in their fight against abortion, Wolfe said. Priests have long told women that their aborted fetuses cannot go to heaven, which in theory was another argument against ending pregnancy. Without limbo, those fetuses would presumably no longer be denied communion with God.
– – –

Pope revises limbo, says there is hope for babies who are not baptized By Nicole Winfield

“If there’s no limbo and we’re not going to revert to St. Augustine’s teaching that unbaptized infants go to hell, we’re left with only one option, namely, that everyone is born in the state of grace,” said the Rev. Richard McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. [mjh: holy crap, there goes our monopoly!] …

[Rev. Thomas Reese] said the document also had implications for non-Christians, since it could be seen as suggesting that non-baptized adults could go to heaven if they led a good life.

“I think it shows that Benedict is trying to balance his view of Jesus as being central as the savior of the world … but at the same time not saying what the Evangelicals say, that anyone who doesn’t accept Jesus is going to hell.”

When I went to school at UVa 30 years ago, we called Virginia Tech “VPI” (Virginia Polytechnic Institute). I guess they had an upgrade to a university, just like George Mason College University. I knew people at Tech but never made what seemed like an impossibly long drive to Blacksburg. (I was still unacquainted with vast distances so familiar to me now as a westerner.)

I’ll write some other time about what a great world this would be without guns. (Have no fear, gun-freaks — you’ve got guns!) I watched part of the convocation on Tuesday and was struck by a few things:

(1) The only speaker should have been the first, the Vice President for Student Affairs. Her words, tone and demeanor were perfect. Everything else detracted from her opening remarks.

(2) You knew things had turned conventional when the President of VPI offered the biography of the Governor of Virginia. Do we really need to know what the governor did in his youth? (Unless it was march for or against gun control.)

(3) Duhbya could have been worse, even if references to a loving god seem ironic under the circumstances.

(4) When the religious leaders gathered on stage — even a buddhist, but no Hindu, I think — I wondered, “where are the atheists?” Atheists suffer life’s tragedies without magic to comfort us.

(5) I was shocked by the playing of the Star-spangled Banner and the color guard drill. This was not a military situation. These were not soldiers. This wasn’t war. As with 9/11, this was a somewhat international group of victims; people all over the world were hurt by this. We don’t need nationalism, when humanity should suffice. A world without nations or guns in which everyone recognizes each other as human beings? Talk about magic. Even people who can believe in god don’t believe that’s possible. mjh

On Easter Sunday, Pastor Skip “Hollywood” Heitzig told his devoted followers — er, Christ’s devout followers — that non-Christians are “afraid Christ lives.” News-flash, Skippy: I’m not afraid of Jesus, dead or alive, though some of his fanatics are scary. In fact, I truly wish Jesus were alive and would appear before the entire world or, at least, before his true believers and say, “what’s wrong with you people? Have you understood anything I said?”

There are several reasons Jesus doesn’t scare me. I’m agnostic on whether there really was a Jesus, though it is suspicious that most of stories about him were made up — written down — a hundred years or more after his supposed time. Whether he ever lived or not, all men die. I sometimes wish that weren’t true, but it is.

If Jesus lived, he was not the son of god for the simple fact that there is no god. Nor did Zeus father the Minotaur. We tell ourselves many great and even beautiful stories for good purpose: to pass along culture. We just forget one should not believe everything one thinks. And metaphor, however instructive, isn’t literal.

There was an interesting story on NPR yesterday about a missionary-turned-linguist. The missionary went to spread the word to a little-known tribe in the remote Amazon. When he told them about the resurrection, they said, “wow, that’s amazing. What did he say when you talked to him about that?” Upon learning that this missionary hadn’t actually witnessed this miracle, they lost all interest. You can be sure that thumping a book makes no difference to them.

Now, it’s not my purpose to piss on other people’s beliefs, so long as those people remain harmless. Which brings me back to not fearing Jesus while being more than leery of his most rabid followers. People like Pastor Skipper scare me because their use of god to enrich and empower themselves is so blatant and yet welcomed by their followers. Those unquestioning followers scare me because they are willing to be lead by people who preach love and forgiveness mixed with fear and threat. Heizig has arrogated Christ’s role himself: none shall enter heaven except through him (or the next mullah). Nice scam.

Surprisingly, I was raised with the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This entry alone is proof of my frailty. Don’t expect me to live up to Christ’s simplest and most practical advice if those who want eternal life as reward for doing so can’t manage. mjh