(Yeah, I have no idea what that title means either. Sometimes I just throw krahp out there.)
BoingBoing has a story today on how starting Jan 1, the TSA will be severely limiting how many and how large of batteries for electronic devices you can carry on a plane.

♦ TSA’s new forbidden item: >2 gm lithium batteries

In the comments, some of the voices of reason show pretty convincingly that there may actually be a legitimate reason for this, as laptop and device batteries can at times cause fires, and the toxic fumes they put out is extremely dangerous. Considering most deaths on an airplane come not from crashed but from smoke inhalation, I can see the point.

But the real problem is the fact that this is yet another rule the TSA is enforcing with little to know TSA agent training or clarifications which will cause and allow TSA security to enforce it arbitrarily and inconsistently. Pitting their power to harass and bully people against people’s right to travel without being made to feel like criminals, prisoners, and cattle. I’m going to be going to a conference in Florida next March…how can I be sure that some TSA agent with power issues won’t force me to trash my spare laptop battery because he thinks it might have more than the permitted lithium? What if he thinks my laptop batteries, cell battery and MP3 player battery collectively is a problem?

There’s a reason why the TSA has recently far surpassed the IRS as the most despised government agency.

Oh, this BoingBoing commenter had a great observation…
#16 posted by Thyme , December 28, 2007 10:38 AM:

This has nothing to do with explosions or even fires. It’s even simpler.

The problem is that Lithium is the lightest metal. Now, let’s assume everyone on the plane just took all the lithium they wanted onto the plane. Then it only takes one person who is an alchemist to turn all this lithium into gold. Now as you all know from observation, gold is much heavier. The new weight would make flying impossible and the plane would crash.

It’s likely someone in the intelligence community came across this “Al-Qa’my” terrorist plot and are taking proactive steps to prevent it.

Once again, the TSA has made us not only safe, but feeling safe.

I’m so lucky to have been born in a wealthy capitalist western society. If I have to be born in a pre-worldwide socialist era, this is where I want to be. (Oh, one day thanks to technology, nano-tech, etc., we’ll be able to advance the world beyond criminal and soul stupefying capitalism and world-wide poverty and suffering, to a state of socio-political harmony and self-actualization. Until then, I’ll enjoy my air conditioning and MP3 player and rail against capitalist ideology like only white privileged college-educated elitists can. But hey, even Marx said capitalism was a necessary step on the path to communism (true communism, by the way, not the f’ed-up fascist Stalinism that Stalin instigated using a perverted and bastardized form of Trotskyism mixed with totalitarian extremism that became the USSR. Soviet Russia is as much a true socialist society as the Connecticut born-and-bred rich kid W. Bush is a good ol’ boy rancher. But I seriously digress….)

So today I got two wonderful boons to my world of entertainment: The special “ultimate” collector’s 5-disk edition of Blade Runner, and a used Guitar Hero guitar controller.

The guitar was an incredible find. It’s that one I just linked to, highly rated, and regularly runs $60 (if you get it without a game.) GameStop gets used ones in very rarely, and when they do, they’re gone like that! I happened to be in a store buying a gift for a nephew, and happened to ask if they had one…and they did for $20! (Insert “Bill & Ted” air-guitar riff here.) I love the Guitar Hero games! They’re fun, even fun to watch someone else play, exciting, don’t require a huge expenditure in time and attention (like RPG’s and strategy games do, which I also LOVE but just can’t devote any time to lately,) and a great way to unwind after work.
Now, I just need to get one of the games!

The Blade Runner set was also a deal! It normally retails for $80. But after the Barnes & Noble online discount, Member discount, online coupon, and a Christmas gift card, I ended up paying only $8! I’m a huge Blade Runner fan, ever since seeing it at 11 as a wide-eyed kid. It completely changed my entire concept of sci-fi (as it did for a lot of people) and the anticipation of the future itself. Plus it had elements of questioning “what is it to be ‘human’” that even that messed-up theatrical release was able to relate, that really got me at that young age. So perhaps it’s no wonder that now that I’m older, I am absolutely in love with the works of Philip K. Dick (who wrote the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep on which Blade Runner is based) who investigates that theme in much of his work, as well as the question of subjective reality.

What’s so special about this special edition? Well, aside from all the coolio extras like art and prints, models, cool case, and a signed letter from director Ridley Scott, and documentary extras like interviews with P.K. Dick (glee!), but also a true director’s version of the film, the “final cut.” (The misnamed “Director’s Cut” wasn’t. The studio, eager to cash in on the growing demand for extended and director’s cut DVD’s years ago, threw together an altered version of the film, with at least a couple of nods to Scott’s desires: the originally intended ambiguous ending and the lack of the cheesy Harrison Ford voice-over.) This new version has cleaned up some lines that have been muddy and misunderstood for years, fixed a few laugh inducing special effects, cleaned up the print and sound, and restored some elements Scott wanted but the studio didn’t.
I’m giddy with excitement!

The Friendly Atheist has a post today that caught my eye and attention. It’s about a newspaper article featuring a civil engineer, 55, who’s worked in Iraq and provided Katrina relief, and is an atheist. He talks about his personal values and belief in family and helping fellow humankind:

♦ Positive Atheism at its Best

In a related note, he has an earlier post I just read where an atheist laments a fellow atheist co-worker’s terrible presentation of his nihilistic bent to a believer, and provides a much better, appealing, positive presentation of her non-theism in a way more conducive to positive inter-personal relations:

♦ How Not to Explain Atheism

Saw Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd last night, featuring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter:
♦ IMDB: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
♦ Rotten Tomatoes: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
I haven’t reviewed many movies lately, because I haven’t seen many movies lately. Well, some lame TV movies, the really good Ratatouille, and The Devil Wears Prada a couple of nights ago on DVD. So it was really nice to be able to go out with friends and watch a grown-up movie in a theater. Unfortunately, my wife and friends didn’t care so much for Sweeney Todd due to all the “gratuitous” blood; I loved it! I thought the nearly campy-level and comedicly over-the-top blood in the movie was necessary and matched perfectly with the tone and style of the movie.

I was very impressed with Depp and his singing, considering he doesn’t sing, and especially his characterization. A little one-sided and shallow, but with brilliant moments of touching emotion and depth. But then, I’m in love with Johnny Depp and he can do no wrong in my mind. Alan Rickman was fantastic as always as well! Helena Bonham Carter was also fantastic, but she usually is. She’s an odd one in my mind. One moment she’s very unattractive, the next she’s gorgeous. (Not in this movie, just in general.) One moment she seems annoying, the next she’s fascinating. In Sweeney Todd, she’s playing a murder complicit dreg of a pie maker, disheveled, but still strangely attractive and even sexy. OK, maybe it’s me who’s “an odd one.” The entire ensemble is perfect. But Tim Burton has always had this amazing ability to make the odd and unusual heart-felt and touching. The young and innocent daughter of Todd, played by Jayne Wisener, is also a bit unusually looking yet stunning, and her young and innocent love interest, Jamie Campbell Bower, is likewise unusual, but has a sort of rock star charisma. The kid who ends up unwittingly helping Todd and Mrs. Lovett the pie maker, has some hilarious reactions during an early scene where Todd is messing with his snake oil barker performance. The ending which involves the kid, is simply sad, creepy, tragic, just, heart-breaking. OK, it’s not so simple an ending.

I have a B.A. in theatre, but I have to admit I’d never seen Sweeney Todd performed before. But then, I’m not really a big musical fan; I prefer risky, thought-provoking, gutsy and gritty theatre. I hate popular mainstays like A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Annie and, crap. Give me David Mamet, Harold Pinter, Sam Shepard any day. And even those guys are a bit close to too conventional for me. But that being said, I also have to admit that I like more musicals, once I see them, than I like to admit. I admit. Admittedly. Into The Woods, another musical by Steven Sondheim, writer of Sweeney Todd, is one of my favorites. Hmm, but Sondheim makes gutsy and thoughtful musicals. Unlike Andrew Lloyd Webber who makes pure sap-filled drek. Anyway, I was familiar with the story, and I knew a little bit of the music, but all in all I walked into the movie with no preconceived notions and expectations based on previous stagings of the play. Which I’m certainly glad for! I was able to watch it fresh, taking it all in, and enjoying the ride Burton and cast took me on. (Well, except for much of the last half after my cell phone fell from my pocket and I couldn’t get it, so half my mind was on worrying about my phone going off under my seat since I’d forgotten to turn it off. Fortunately it didn’t and I got it back at the end. But I know I missed some of the 3rd act subtlety and drama, like when Carter’s Mrs. Lovett has a touching, sad, and frightening scene with the kid who is beginning to suspect something about Mr. Todd.

I am SO glad that I don’t live in one of those areas I hear about where the movie audience yells at the screen and consistently laughs in the wrong places and are constantly talking. I mean, I saw it in the worst way possible: in a multiplex frequented by teens and college students in a SW Missouri town, so you’d expect bad and ignorant behavior. But I have never had a bad audience experience seeing a movie (except for Medicine Man when the woman behind me constantly ruined coming events with her explaining to her friend what to pay attention to, but that was just one woman,) and has usually been favorable (South Park was a stupid movie made hilarious because of the audience experience)–but this was a musical of all things, in a filled to capacity theater, I expected the worst. …and was amazed to find the audience receptive! There was a little laughing at the wrong places, but forgivable. No one talked, I sensed no general surprise or dislike of the music (after all, the trailers don’t really point up it IS a musical,) and people seemed to enjoy it in general and remained politely subdued. I think I’d have to leave a theater that had people talking at the screen and cheering and commenting as I’ve read about on IMDB forums.

Well, enough babbling; I really enjoyed the movie. I feel terrible that the people I went with didn’t much like it, since I kind of steered us in the direction of Sweeney Todd. (We were actually originally going to see No Country For Old Men, which I really want to see, but I don’t think they realize it’s at least as if not more violent and gruesome, and made worse by its realism. I mean, one of the characters is a psychopath who relentlessly terrorizes and kills his victims with a compressed-air cattle slaughtering gun.) I was getting kind of worried about Tim Burton (Planet of the Apes was OK at best and not at all his level of entertaining, and Depp’s Carol Channing impersonation in Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was literally painful to watch. (Even though it ironically just reinforces for me that Depp is absolutely an amazing actor. I hated his Wonka, but when put into his oeuvre of characters through the years, just goes to show he can do anything, and be convincing at it!)

December 25th is a very special day. It’s the celebration of a human-deity that was born of a virgin, performed miracles, provided salvation, and was resurrected after being sacrificed.

No, it’s not who you think.

Most Biblical scholars and religion historians believe the story of the Sumerian sun-god Mithra (adopted and worshiped by Romans, centuries before Jesus was said to live), is likely the most direct antecedent of the Jesus story, from birth and beyond.
(The Greek Dionysus and the Egyptian Osiris are a couple of the ancient man/gods who share the same birth, salvation, death, resurrections as Jesus–including virgin births and crucifixions.)
Actually, there’s more evidence that Jesus is simply a recycling of previous redeemers by a very persecuted people, more than the culmination of any prophesy. In fact, the Jesus story adds many elements that came from popular regional myths that aren’t Old Testament (such as the virgin birth), it also fails to fulfill many of the Old Testament prophesy, including name and place of birth, and those are elements that were shoehorned into the later Gospels to try to validate the growing cult of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, instead of just Jewish Midrash and myth evolution.

(Some topical humor:
And the Lordy Goes To…
Who Put the X in X-Mas?)

That said, I like most elements of the Christmas season. I actually like a lot of the music (George Winston’s December and the Christmas albums of Harry Connick Jr. (When My Heart Find Christmas is fun and playful), and especially Dark Noel by various artists! “Carol Of The Bells” performed by This Ascension is amazing, “O Come Emmanuel” by Area is haunting and beautiful.)
I love the weather (well, when it freakin’ snows, blasted Ozarks! I miss Colorado! And Iowa for that matter.)
I like cooking special holiday foods (I make a really good gumbo only this one time a year for friends and parties.)
I like giving (even though my wife does most of the list making and shopping–but part of that is because of the following dislike of the holidays….)
I love the decorations, the green and evergreen, and holly and silver and snow men, and cute reindeer, and Santas.
This really is a perfect time of the year.

Save for two reasons:
One, The uber-religiosity of many people (and the arrogant religiosity in the first place.) Christianity is a Johnny-come-lately to the Winter celebration. (Mithras, Saturnalia, solstice, yule–there were winter celebrations long before Christianity took it over, usurped pretty much every single element that is thought to be part of the Christmas celebration (including the nativity) from other religions and cultures.) I can’t count how many time I overheard (by people who obviously wanted to be overheard) people in stores commenting on “Happy Holidays” and how it should be “Merry Christmas.” Arrogant and sanctimonious. As if there’s some War on Christmas going on. Yet I heard not a single person who commented that it’s unfair to say “Merry Christmas” or it’s against their freedom or sensibilities to limit the holiday to just the religious “Christmas.” I don’t know, maybe in some of the so-called “Blue States” there are people who are more vocal about their disgust with the religiosity–bust as far as I know, most of us non-theists not only don’t care that people celebrate “Christmas,” but we’ve even been known to SAY “Merry Christmas!” Gasp! In general, I don’t care what people celebrate, and I’ll even participate. Just don’t shove it down my throat and force me to celebrate your stolen and artificial version of the holiday your way, and you’ll likely find me much more willing to appreciate it.

And two, the freakin’ commercialization! I’ve never really cared for it. Well, that’s not entirely true. As a kid I LOVED when we’d finally receive the J.C. Penny Christmas catalog. Ah the toys! But then as I grew older and started liking Christmas for other reasons, and getting things became more and more the least important part of the holiday–I started realizing just how early the marketing begins (around mid-September this year I noticed Christmas items for sale and reminders to prepare to buy stuff for Christmas,) I started noticing the crass commercialization and marketing of the holiday. The importance placed on “Black Friday.” The marketing strategies that create existential, and even direct, crisis in you and then provide you with the material objects to buy to prevent/end the crisis. Marketing that convinces you the holiday/your relationships/family/you will be ultimately better if you buy X or Y. “Save money; live better.” Gawd I want to scream when I see that freakin’ Wal-Mart motto. I absolutely hate and despise the mad, insane, neurotic push to sell, sell sell; buy, buy, buy this time of year! It really makes me want to crawl into a hole in October and not come out until the after-Christmas sales are over, sometime in February.
I hate that my enjoyment of a fun, warm (historically intentionally ironic because of the weather), friendly, bright, festive, cozy holiday is perverted and cheapened and commodified and made turgid and banal because of crass commercialization and mass capitalism run amok. I’d even take the religiosity of the holiday any day over this sick illness (redundant, I know) of disgusting commercialism!

Anyway, next year I’m going to do my part to not participate in that aspect of Christmas, and encourage others to do likewise. I’m going to participate in “redefining Christmas.” It’s actually something I thought about doing this year (unfortunately, too late) before I even heard of the movement, Redefine Christmas:

♦ Redefine Christmas

Next year I’m going to ask for only two things: Either for a donation to be given to a charity or non-profit I support, or for an item that is not commercial and mass-produced and created by a corporate entity. (Like, art or a hand-made craft, or tasty treats.)
Hopefully other I tell will feel the same way (although I’m never going to say “You must do this too,” as that’s me imposing my holiday beliefs on others as I don’t want done unto me. I’m just going to tell people this is what I want, and hope the example may spark something in them.

But, I and others who are sick of the capitalistic devouring of the holiday, have a hard task. The very effective tactics of marketing have pretty completely convinced our society that the purpose for the holiday is to buy stuff for people. You are a cheap and grinchy humbug if you don’t buy stuff for everyone you know. It’s part of the self-feeding ideology, forcing people to feel guilty and bad for not buying things, and happy and fulfilled and part of the team if they buy things. It’s a very tenacious tentacle that wraps itself around our self-esteem, our self-worth, our very important concept of cultural identity and desire to fit in and participate with the rituals of our tribe members. Capitalism and corporate culture have twisted these anthropological drives to serve their needs and desires. I just want nothing to do with it, and I’m sick of it sucking the enjoyment out of the holiday for me.

We all know from civics classes that a bill passes the Senate with a simple majority vote. That someone can filibuster to delay the passage which takes a vote of 60 to end.
Reminder: A couple of years ago when the Democrats were the Senate minority, they threatened filibusters now and then of course. Often to oppose really bad judge appointments (which is only about 15% of the time).
But then the Republicans clamored and clamored how the Democrats kept stalling the process, and threatened “the nuclear option”: rewrite Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster!
Yikes!
So, you think the Republicans would be pretty against filibusters, huh? Would have some moral qualm against them.

Oops.
The Republicans in the Senate have filibustered 62 times in 2007. That’s a record! What’s the 2nd-place? 61. What year? Oh, not one year, the entire 2001-02 session! The GOP has blocked all progress in the Senate and not offered any alternatives to the issues they’ve blocked and the public wants: Providing healthcare to millions of children, allowing Medicare to fight for better prescription drug prices, stem cell research, ending the war, things the majority of Americans express they want.

People, including myself, keep complaining the Democratic Congress hasn’t been accomplishing anything–and the reason is because the Republicans have in essence rewritten Senate rules basically forcing 60 votes for anything to pass.

♦ The Conservative Block and Blame Game

And the so-called “liberal media” is complicit. Two years ago they reported all about the Democrats blocking bad judge appointments; but today, when the Republicans block a bill the press doesn’t report on the Republicans blocking it, they simply report “it didn’t pass” even though it did pass, but got blocked.

Continuing the campaign of the War on Reason and Rationality, and the War On Promoting Fear Itself, the CHicago police department want citizens to be watch-dogs on people with cameras or notepads:

♦ Chicago police ask you to report people using maps or taking notes in public

I’ve said and I still believe, that police do a job I’m glad someone does and I could never do. (Sounds like a scene from “A Few Good Men”. I can handle the truth, let me tell you.) You can watch those cop/video shows on TV, browse YouTube, and see so many disturbing incidents of police on routine (and presumably legitimate) traffic stops getting attacked, shot at, ran into, usually because a criminal wants to escape justice but sometimes just because the guy’s a cop and a general “enemy” of the pycho punk. Police are the ones that have to respond to horrendous accidents, crimes, suicides, domestic issues. A lot of people are police (or at least begin their career) because they honestly want to protect and serve. And for all that, they deserve respect.

However… there’s a dark side to police that seems to be getting darker and more pronounced. And it’s a condition that is being fostered and promoted and nurtured first by the irrational “War on Drugs” mindset, and now by the “Protect the Homeland at all Costs” campaign. And a general attitude the last several years in which the Executive Branch of government and its law enforcement are above reproach, above the law, to be obeyed and feared. These collusions of mindsets and attitudes and cultures, I believe have led to a condition now where the police are becoming for like the SA and Gestapo. The War on Drugs campaign as helped militarize the police, making them an effective and brutal tool of the Justice Department as a form of civil military despite the Constitutional prohibition. The proliferation of “non-lethal” (which isn’t true) Tasers among the police have created a situation in which police feel allowed to electrocute first, as a way of establishing authority and gaining control, before properly assessing or dealing with a situation that does not require brutal and painful forced compliance.
Cops taser deaf man for not listening.
Shoot first; show compassion, intelligence, competency, later.

More recent events, such as Indiana SWAT team gassing and breaking into an apartment to apprehend and unresponsive fugitive–who was unresponsive because he wasn’t there. But they pretty effectively destroyed this working mother’s apartment and killed pets and made the place unlivable for the mother and her two kids. And when asked for some sort of renumeration or accounting or remedy for their actions, the mother was told by the police department, “Sorry. Go ahead and clean our mess.” Of course after being pressed on the issue by the press, the police finally broke down and told them mom…we’ll pay for your cleaning supplies you use to clean up our mess. No apologies, no attempts to help her find a place to live or pay for her having to find other living arrangements. No sense of responsibility for their actions. One Iraq war soldier who was home on leave witnessed their needless raid and said he couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t seen anything like it in Iraq. These cops looked like they were enjoying it.
Cops are such funny people. A real laugh riot.

This appearance of enjoying brutality is seen in so many stories of police violence against innocent people, often the victims of police mistakes and wrong information: “I asked if my baby was OK and the officer told me if I moved he was going to put a bullet in my head.”
The militarization of our police and raids gone wrong.
And sometimes when faced with the results of their occasionally fatal mistakes, they try to cover it up: Atlanta cops lied and Kathryn Johnston died.
Who is supervising the supervisor?

And if not for citizens and video cameras, and leaked dash-cams, so many of these incidents would never get known by the public:
An insane cop who shouldn’t be in his job.
Driver tasered for refusing to sign traffic ticket
But of course, police behaving badly don’t like this idea that the citizens who employ them can record their misdeeds:
Tasered and shot with a beanbag gun for videotaping warrantless police search
What do you think the result is going to be of this crossroads between citizen recordings and police misdeeds and brutality? When the police have the current Justice Department and the MP5’s and Tasers and riot gear, it’s hard to believe the citizens have any hope anymore.

But here’s the story that prompted me to write, again, on the subject:
When I first heard it a few days ago, I didn’t believe it. It couldn’t be true. It was too much. But, turns out, it’s factual:
♦ NY police train citizens to be bad samaritans
Basically, police have set up a “sting” in NY subway system, leaving a wallet or purse or bag in the open and waiting for someone to pick it up. Regardless of the reason. And then arresting them. And for felonies too, as they’re loaded with credit cards which elevates the “theft” from the usual misdemeanor.
Again, the point is, they’re arresting people regardless of the reason. And as you can read in the article and from the many article’s commenters, it’s the normal thing for a person who finds a purse or wallet and plans on returning it, to pick it up and take it away from the found location.

Police have changed from being public servants, to well-armed public predators. There was a time when I never thought a bad thing about police in general. Even after I was accosted for attempted shoplifting when I was 16 or 17 (and rightfully so–it was a completely dumbass and stupid thing for me to do, and for the cliched reason of trying to impress someone no less), I still had respect and appreciation for police. But the last few years of abuses and wanton disregard for law and order, the thuggery and arrogance and near sociopathic inability to show remorse or responsibility for their actions, have scarily made me distrust and dislike police out of hand. Instead of an immediate reflexive respect and appreciation whenever I think of the badge and uniform, the first thought and feeling that comes to mind now are Gestapo stormtroopers and fear and dread. That is not the kind of thoughts and feelings that a civilian (or even military) police force should foster in the citizenry.

OK, with my last post on religion getting that out of my system, probably for another few months at least (it’s a rather fantastic post, that one by John Loftus), it’s time to move on to good and positive things! And one of those things, for me, is the awesome wonder of the universe!!!

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan
“I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.” -Carl Sagan

Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, has posted a blog entry as wonderful and glorious as Loftus’ post is critical and sour-pussish:

♦ Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2007

Of course Phil explains each image and discusses some of the wonders of science surrounding each image and its “story.” The universe really is a wondrous and amazing thing!

That reminds me, he also posted a blog yesterday pointing to a fascinating animation project:
♦ Creation vs. Reality
Be sure to go to the linked site and watch the videos…there’s a certain conceit that’s applied that really makes a thought-provoking point, but they don’t come right out and say it–they present it in the way the animations are presented. Really clever!

And since, after my last post, I’m back on the path of being positive and generous, to be fair, most Christians don’t believe in Creation but rather some form of guided evolution. (Of course, that’s like conceding gravity exists but only because a magical…no no! Back on the positive path! I had my purge, now it’s time to stop dumping on religion again for a while! Here goes. *smile*)

…not written by me.
John W. Loftus, according to his brief bio, has: “the equivalent of a Ph.D. in the Philosophy or Religion/Apologetics (three master’s degrees and Ph.D. studies). I majored under William Lane Craig and earned a Th.M. degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1985.” Trinity is one of the most prestigious religious schools in the nation, and Craig is a preeminent Christian apologist. He also studied under the distinguished theologian Dr. James D. Strauss. So when Mr. Loftus writes about the mythology of Christianity, one can be pretty certain he’s not doing it out of his hat; he has a rather significant background in religious studies which gives his outlook a certain…gravitas, shall we say. Legitimacy, at the very least.

He’s written a book: Why I Rejected Christianity: A Former Apologist Explains, and maintains the blog Debunking Christianity, which features other educated and well-spoken contributors in addition to himself.

I’ve quoted from his site on several occasions in the past, although not so much the last few months as I’ve tried to avoid all issues of religion on here, due to my problem of coming off being rather mean and demeaning when dealing with that subject. But the issue of religion is an undeniably important if not crucial topic in our culture, and entire world, today. The fruits of religious belief are all around us, from the hate-mongering of the Fred Phelps church (a groups of evil Christians so vile I’m not even going to link to anything about them), to the recent murdering in Toronto of a 16 year old Muslim girl by her own father because she refused to wear the head covering demanded of her by Mohamed. The woman in Saudi Arabia who was gang-raped, and then convicted by the religiously controlled Saudi Arabian judicial system as being at fault and sentenced to being lashed (instead of killed as Islamic (and Jewish, by the way) law demands, since Saudi Arabia is an ally of the U.S. and didn’t want to cause an “incident”), to the Jesus Camps around America which brainwash thousands of kids a year to become intolerant haters of everything non-Christian and literal warriors in the war to turn the U.S. into a Christian theocracy. Let’s not forget the reasons 9/11 happened, by any means. Or the proliferation of HIV and other diseases and starvation in 3rd-world nations where many Christian-based charities preach that condoms are sinful while they’re handing out desperately needed food. (Interesting, the worst atrocities of needless human-on-human suffering come from the Abrahamic religions, which share the same belief in the schizophrenic, psychopathic, blood-lusting god(s) that came out of the exiles of Canaan.

Whodda thunk that the mythology of a small, ancient, superstitious, nomadic group of people so filled with war-mongering intolerant hatred for all the non-Semetic cultures around them, would survive 4,000 years and give rise to a trinity of world dominating religions that in a modern world still believe in the perfect and infallible Bronze Age superstitions and cultural rules? Reality is certainly stranger than fiction, sometimes. But I have horribly digressed!

So, John Loftus has posted a lengthy but fascinating, well-reasoned and insightful article on his blog today:

♦ A Summary of My Case Against Christianity

A snippet:

Most Christians do not believe in the God of the Bible anyway. Instead they believe in the perfect being of St. Anselm in the 11th century A.D. after centuries of theological gerrymandering. The Bible isn’t consistent in describing its God, but one probable description is as follows: The God of the Bible starts off being little more than the polytheistic Canaanite god Elohim, who, rather than creating the universe ex nihilo, fashioned the earth to rise out of the seas in divine conflict with the dragon sea god Rahab. This God is merely the “god of the gods,” who like the other gods had a body that needed to rest on the 7th day, and was found walking in the “cool of the day” in the Garden of Eden. This God fathered several sons including Yahweh, whose wife was Ashterah, to whom was given the people and land of Israel to rule over. This God was responsible for doing both good and evil, sending evil spirits to do his will, and commanding genocide. As time went on Yahweh was believed to be the only God that existed. Still later Satan was conceived as an evil rival in order to exonerate Yahweh from being the creator of evil. Still later in the New Testament the God of the Bible was stripped of any physical characteristics and known as a spiritual being. As theologians reflected on their God they came to believe he created the universe ex nihilo. Anselm finally defined him as the “greatest conceivable being.” But Anslem’s God is at odds with what we find in most of the Bible.

Some of his arguments include and are organized by:

• Sociological Reasons
• Philosophical Reasons
• Scientific Reasons
• Biblical Reasons
• Historical Reasons
• Empirical Reasons

With sections asking:
“What would convince me Christianity is True?”

• Present Day Evidence
• Prophetic Evidence
• Scientific evidence
• Biblical Evidence
• Evidence specific to Jesus

No, seriously:

♦ Muslim helps Jews attacked on New York subway

The long and short of it: Some loving and merciful Christians showed peace and meekness by insulting and then beating up a Jew to responded to their “Merry Christmas” with a “Happy Hanuka.”
But the best part which fills me with holiday spirit: A Muslim man (you know, literally the mortal enemy of the Jews) came to the Jewish man’s assistance to try to help him from getting creamed by the gang of Christians.

Maybe there’s hope for tolerance after all….

Goodness, what a topic!
Yesterday’s Thom Hartmann program had a fantastic segment on overpopulation–is it an ecological and human-race-survival issue or is it a theological non-issue.

♦ Yesterday’s Thom Hartmann program
(You’ll might want to right-click, save-as instead of stream it; it’s 19MB.)

Well, that’s later in the show. For the first 10 minutes he discusses the topic of Darwinian evolution and Intelligent Design with an ID’er who’s just written a book, then he takes callers for the next 25 minutes. That’s all interesting in its own right. The issue of over-population, the issue of whether or not the planet is our domain for us to use wantonly or if we have responsibilities to it, starts at about 36 minutes in and goes until about the 53 minute mark. What was most interesting to me was at about 42 minutes in, they start discussing socialist vs. objectavist socio-politics. The cost of human labor. The price of exploitation of labor and who really benefits from it. About “freedom” and what it means in relation to happiness.

Anyway, give it a listen; good stuff.
UPDATE: Oops. Forgot to mention, on that page that goes to the Thom Hartmann archive page, you’ll need to select the show for 11 Dec 2007. Either stream from there or download the MP3.