When Tolerance and Reason Collide

I support religious tolerance. I really do. But I hate stupidity. And foolishness.

But I’m not sure how I feel about sacred bovine tuburculosis. Moo!

Meet an Islamic Moron

I am hardly surprised to learn that moronism, the belief that God loves idiots, has adherents in Islam.

Meet Mr. Yahya, an Islamic creationist with vast resources to foist stupid propaganda.

Allahu Akbar!

The Holy ||| Way

Who in the West does not recognize the Catholic trinity, the principle of the triune God, and the prayer “In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

A curious doctrine, the Catholic trinity: wholly devoid of the sacred feminine. As if God does not understand the reproductive family of mother, father, and child. Instead, in the Catholic doctrine, we have God the Partriarch, God the Son, and a sexually ambiguous holy spirit—probably an incubus.

It’s funny—dare I say ironic?—that a tradition that unifies the sacred masculine in a divine three way is so opposed to homosexuality.

Thank you, Glenn Greenwald

Defeatism can lead one to believe that there is no progress at all and that progress is impossible. Impatience can lead one to conclude that the progress is too slow and incremental to matter. But slow and incremental progress of this sort is the only kind that is viable, and ultimately, the only kind that really matters. (Source)

Patience?

Although I am a close observer of American politics, I recognize that my pastime is futile. The nation that we are indoctrinated to believe is blessed by God no longer exists: the myth of America rings dead in my ears.

As Ralph Nader and Amy Goodman never tire of pointing out, our public landscape is dominated by corporate interests. And with a respectful nod to George Orwell, our “public” media is hardly public. But voices like Nader’s and Goodman’s (and Noam Chomsky’s) lie on the periphery of public awareness. And even in the progressive blogosphere, I rarely see Goodman and Nader and Chomsky mentioned at all.

We live in a world where definitions are mutable and the year is 1984. I admire those who still participate in the system and who are hopeful that the damage done by the Bush administration can be corrected by the 2008 election. But the entrenched power structure—and the concomitant wealth that empowers it—are not going to be altered by one election.

The ills of our society and culture are not going to be healed in one generation. Or at all.

For only the dead have seen the end of war.

Pope to Protestants: Our Church kicks you guys’ church’s ASS!!!

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy — Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation. (Source)

The following is from The World Fact Book:

Religions: Christians 33.03% (of which Roman Catholics 17.33%, Protestants 5.8%, Orthodox 3.42%, Anglicans 1.23%), Muslims 20.12%, Hindus 13.34%, Buddhists 5.89%, Sikhs 0.39%, Jews 0.23%, other religions 12.61%, non-religious 12.03%, atheists 2.36% (2004 est.)

I suppose ole Pope Bene-dick doesn’t consider the God of the Jews and the God of the Muslims to be the same monotheistic (yet triune) God of the Catholics.

Let’s see. Three monotheistic religions supposedly have the same God, who happens to be triune.

It’s bullshit religious reasoning like this—there is only one true path to salvation / God = 3 = 1—that makes me think religious tolerance is

Misguided.

Besides, my theory that religious memes are keys to the collective mind seems less far fetched—and more testable—than belief in the imminent return of The Hidden Imam.

Allahu akbar!

Correction: I posted before consulting expert Catholic theologians mythologists.

But Cardinal Kasper said the declaration “does not say that Protestant Churches are not churches, but that they are not churches in the proper sense, that is they are not churches in the way the Catholic Church understands the word church” (Source)

Just in case you’ve been reading mainstream media headlines, we should probably start out with this: Pope Benedict does not believe, and has never suggested, non-Catholics are all going to hell because they are not members of the Catholic Church. (Source)

Whew. Maybe one day even I—and the other 77% of the world’s population who aren’t Christian—will see the other side of the pearly gates.

Praise Jesus!

No Shit Sherlock

Hot off the psychology presses: Men work out at gyms because women are sexually attracted to muscular men. That’s the conclusion, after a careful four-year study, of two UCLA researchers. (Source)

Next, I predict a study that proves people have sex because it’s enjoyable.

Hmm. I wonder what the control group for that study would look like.

Slowing Down, Tuning Out

My friend Steve was the one who first suggested that I start blogging. He thought it would be a good way to keep in touch and in tune with what we were thinking. I began gingerly, wary that blogging would lead to a false sense of intimacy. And to some degree it has: Many times I have only learned about a friend’s crisis by reading his or her blog.

But then I realized that I was using the blog as a scratch pad, as a place to first pen my thoughts. And eventually, some of those thoughts ended up on my website. Today, in the middle of this glorious Seattle summer, I find my creative streams drying up. Or, if not drying up, then turning in other directions. That’s why I’ve been paying less and less attention to blogging. Blogs are ubiquitous nowadays. And the days of the solo blogger are coming to a close.

No, this isn’t one of those “I will never blog again” posts, but it is an admission that I need a break from this form of expression. The Internet already consumes enough of my life, and I feel a keen need to acquire hobbies that have absolutely nothing to do with computers or with the Internet. So I’m slowing down and tuning out; and spending more time outdoors.

Or maybe it’s just that I find that this form of narcissism is no longer amusing.

Patriotism is for the Narrow Minded

I hate the Fourth of July. It is a peurile celebration of hypocrisy, a time to gaze in awe at glittering lights and croon “Wow. Isn’t America great!” or “Oooh. God loves us, doesn’t he!”

Howard Zinn writes:

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism — that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder — one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking — cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on — have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power. (Source)

I abandoned the myth of American greatness early in the presidency of George W. Bush Dick Cheney. And I don’t miss it. Because I hope and pray that, one day, we replace that petty and provincial myth with a new one.