Top posts of 2013

Let the obligatory year-end list commence:

  • On Thunderf00t, misogyny, misandry and nonsense — Want me to make a long story short for you? Thunderf00t, a.k.a. Phil Mason, said some things about misogyny that some people thought were controversial while on a brief run over at Free Thought Blogs, and regardless of whether his removal from FtB was warranted or not, he has seemingly been on a hack campaign against his detractors ever since. … [Read more]
  • Shocker: Priests quibble over gay bishops — For people who talk so much about morality, the divine and transcendence, believers sure do find a way to make the church and religion look more and more like the man-made, carnal institutions that they are. … [Read more]
  • Darwin Day and Ken Ham’s pseudoscience — Two hundred four years ago todayCharles Darwin, the man who would go on to introduce the concept ofevolution by natural selection (although he didn’t call it that at the time), was born. Of course, here in the year 2013 when we know that evolution is the process on which everything else we know about biology is based. … [Read more]
  • Wealth, treasure and thrift in the Bible — So, I listened to a little bit of Dave Ramsey today on talk radio because, well, conservative talk is about the only option in East Tennessee, and I usually prefer talk with which I disagree compared with bad pop and worse rock. If you don’t know who Dave Ramsey is, he’s basically a right wing pro-investment guy who, while mostly giving callers advice on money matters, periodically ventures into politics and religion. As you might imagine, Ramsey fits right in with a local radio station that gets most of its content from FOX News Radio. … [Read more]
  • Is God good? — For simplicity’s sake, I am mostly going to be speaking here of the Judeo-Christian conception of God, known as Yahweh in the Old Testament and God the Father in the New Testament, but a good portion of this will apply to the God of Islam or any other deity that man has created with certain transcendent, otherworldy characteristics, such as omniscience. … [Read more]
  • Wutu wouldn’t resurrect Jesus, either — Obviously, the historical evidence for Jesus passing down parables and performing the many miracles attributed to him is slim to nil, so much less is the possibility that Jesus suffered a physical death and then on the third day ascended to the heavens to take his place (again) at the right hand of the father, thus becoming one of numerous figures in the Bible to break the laws of nature. This is, nonetheless, what believers claim … [Read more]
  • Christians who believe in evolution — In the first place, I think it’s a stretch to suggest that belief in God-inspired evolution is kosher among mainstream Christians. For support of this, see my post on an official Darwin Day and the general pushback in the United States against giving Charles Darwin the recognition he deserves, particularly given the number anti-science, young earth lawmakers sitting on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, and indeed, in Washington generally. … [Read more]
  • On trial: ‘The Case for Christ’ part 3c — This is the continuation of a series on “The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel. If you missed them, here are the other parts in the series: Part 1Part 2Part 3a and Part 3b. … [Read more]
  • Finding purpose without religion — Religion is definitely a kind of “anxiety cure” for people who are unwilling or unable to face the stresses and fears inherent in life without looking to a father figure in the sky for guidance, and ultimately, for a path to eternal salvation, thus in part negating the trepidation people have about death and the dark. Notice that I said “in part” negating that fear. Believers don’t seem to spend much time thinking about this, but like it or not and regardless of whether heaven is a real place or not, they will still have to one day face their own mortality like everyone else. … [Read more]
  • Atheists: Baby eaters, angry, hateful and generally unpleasant folks! — I’m always surprised by a Christian’s basic lack of understanding when it comes to their perceptions about just what it is we unbelievers think about God and religion. They often paint atheists as angry or filled to the brim with hate. How they come to this conclusion is beyond me, but take this guy … [Read more]
  • Falling down a wormhole courtesy Alvin Plantinga —  from over at the Cross Examined blog on Patheos recently considered philosopher and Christian apologist Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism, which essentially states that if evolution is true, human cognitive function developed in such a way as to support survival, but not necessarily beliefs as truth. Thus, according to this argument, how can we trust what we think we know about the world? And if we can’t trust our own ability to glean truth reliably, God must be the conduit by which we mere humans can know things. … [Read more]
  • A few words on presuppositionalism — because that’s all it deserves — Over the years, I’ve dispensed with most arguments from the Christian apologetic worldview, but one of the more asinine and obscurantist that has been resurrected by modern evangelicals is something called presuppositionalism, which is essentially the claim that only God is the arbiter of truth and without God, man can’t know things or use reason and logic to form conclusions about the world. … [Read more]
  • 1860 all over again —  As reported by Slate, a group of Republicans, lobbiests and other conservatives met in Washington this week to hash out a plan called the Convention of States Project to attempt to wrest some control away from the federal government and give states more power. … [Read more]

Cracker Barrel shames itself because that’s what’s best for business

I tweeted about this earlier today, but if you missed it, Cracker Barrel initially said it was going to remove Duck Dynasty merchandise from its stores after Phil Robertson’s noxious comments on gays and black people, but only 48 hours later reneged on the decision claiming that it had learned the error of its ways by displeasing its customers.

Here is the entirety of the statement, which was posted on the Cracker Barrel’s Facebook page. It has more than 21,000 comments, most of which are drivel:

Dear Cracker Barrel Customer:

When we made the decision to remove and evaluate certain Duck Dynasty items, we offended many of our loyal customers. Our intent was to avoid offending, but that’s just what we’ve done.

You told us we made a mistake. And, you weren’t shy about it. You wrote, you called and you took to social media to express your thoughts and feelings. You flat out told us we were wrong.

We listened.

Today, we are putting all our Duck Dynasty products back in our stores.

And, we apologize for offending you.

We respect all individuals right to express their beliefs. We certainly did not mean to have anyone think different.

We sincerely hope you will continue to be part of our Cracker Barrel family.

The part about offending its customers by pulling the merchandise is particularly shameful. What about the millions of homosexuals Robertson offended when he more or less compared the human love and affection of consenting adults to bestiality? What about the millions of blacks Robertson offended with his idyllic and inaccurate portrait of the segregated South?

In short, Cracker Barrel seems more concerned with kowtowing to its bigoted customer base rather than fighting bigotry itself. Oh that’s right: Without the bigots, Cracker Barrel would be out of business.

Duck Dynasty anti-gay clusterduck

As I’m sure many are at this point, I too am really tired of this Duck Dynasty nonsense, so I’m not going to spend much time on this. Frankly, the show, and its controversial patriarch, have already garnered much more attention that they deserve, and I’m surprised reality television as a genre hasn’t flamed out by now, much less produced a show about hicks operating a damn duck call fabrication business.

But here we are.

Phil Robertson’s comments during the infamous GQ interview let us know that clearly there is still a divide in America, and as this article points out, there are essentially two camps: those who think what Robertson said about homosexuality was somehow acceptable, presumably from a Christian worldview, and those who think comparing homosexuality to bestiality is reprehensible.

I wasn’t terribly surprised but nonetheless disappointed by the number of people on Facebook, usually crowing something irrelevant about free speech (a person working for a private company can’t just say whatever they want with impunity) who were ready to defend his comments. Again, not surprisingly, I didn’t see any nonreligious heterosexuals defending him; just the religious, which makes a strong case that once someone is indoctrinated to view homosexuals as immoral or even depraved, the door is then open to push the buck further to view them, our fellow human beings, as subhuman. And this is, if it can be called anything else, is immoral, but it’s exactly what Robertson was hinting at in his comments and what I and fellow humanists find so reproachful.