All Thoughts Being Equal

Now I've gone and done it. This week I've found myself in tiresome social-media sparring matches not once, but twice, over matters I thought were relatively uncontroversial. I should have learned that lesson a long time ago, perhaps, but in this case it was strange: my interlocutors this time were atheists, and we were debating philosophical points. And yet, for all that they were nominally in my own "tribe," they weren't, and in the end I found them more distasteful than the far-left social justice crusaders of yesteryear . I. I'll start with one that didn't actually involve me, except on the side. Michael Luciano, a staff writer at The Daily Banter, wrote a piece called Atheists Don't Owe Your Social Justice Agenda a Damn Thing , criticizing social-justice-oriented atheists for presuming to speak for all atheists. I think he was only partially right: it does seem a bit presumptuous to say that one can only be a "good atheist" (or the f...

I. Once, a long time from now, there was a village. The people who lived in this village were mostly happy. Everyone generally had enough to eat, comfortable clothes and shoes, a nice place to sleep, and plenty of ways to enjoy their lives. But theirs was not a perfect life. Occasionally there would befall the village some mysterious tragedy. A person might go missing, or an otherwise healthy child might suddenly become ill and die. These events were sad, but they were rare and mysterious. The villagers mourned the loss of their kin, but everyone said that sometimes these Mysterious Evils happened and that was the way of the world. Then, one day, a stranger appeared at the village gates. He wore a very strange mask, and his hands and feet were tightly wrapped, but otherwise spoke the local language and was exceedingly polite. Nervous, but never one to turn away visitors, the village admitted the stranger. He immediately went to the public square and began speaking, seemingly to the...

Okay, I (sort of) understand the rationale that drives so many conservatives to harp on "one man, one woman" marriage as the "bedrock of civilization" ( for often poor reasons ) and to position themselves as so-brave champions of the pure in a "war on marriage." For the highly religious it really does seem to stem from a bedrock-level worldview, something like the Great Chain of Being where there's a truly universal law that places God, husband/man, wife/woman, children, and everything else in a vertical hierarchy (in that order). I think that's bizarre and rather repugnant, but at least it does explain why we see such otherwise insane statements about how gay marriage will lead to a hermaphroditic universe . When gender-essentialism enters the picture, homosexuality truly is a Blue Screen of Death. But for the red-blooded conservative who wants to uphold strong family values but isn't that committed to the Great Chain of Being, here's ...

or, the Protection Racket Behind “America’s Moral Decline,” Part the First You might remember my previous two posts regarding a seminar about Biblical prophecy and the End Times. “Incredible Prophecies”—their emphasis on Prophecies , mine on Incredible —continues, and I went back to learn about America’s “moral decline.” It wasn’t as bizarre as I expected (no talk of “demonic principalities” puppeteering American elites, nor of the loss of the “Seven Mountains of Culture” out of true Christian control), but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t nuts. The lecture got off to a rollicking start with the assertion that America was founded on Biblical principles, including the Ten Commandments. I got a bit excited, and thought maybe this would be an extended fever-dream of Christian historical revisionism. It was more of a David Barton Lite treatment. Dan Bentzinger (the presenter, for those who didn’t click through to my previous posts) cycled through (cherry-picked) quotes from a few Founding F...

or, Concerning a Lecture Concerning Biblical Prophecy Concerning the End of Days and the Second Coming, Part the Second (Coming) In the last post, I looked at the religious quirks of the “Incredible Prophecies”—their emphasis on Prophecies , mine on Incredible —lecture, entitled “…And the Time of the End.” Check it out , then check back here. After bemoaning the lack of “true” Christians (though not as much as you might think; more on that in a bit!), speaker Dan Bentzinger unfurled a body of what he called evidence: various facts, figures, and events from recent history that prove Beyond a shadow of a doubt! that these are indeed well and truly the Last Days. Never mind that he had just read some verses from Scripture condemning false prophets. Never mind that he had used Rapture-guy Harold Camping as an example of a latter-day false prophet. Never mind that 7DA itself is the product of a failed Rapture prophecy (called the Great Disappointment , of all things). Shhhh. Let’s just ex...

or, Concerning a Lecture Concerning Biblical Prophecy Concerning the End of Days and the Second Coming, Part the First This evening at 7:00pm I attended one of a series of lectures on Biblical prophecy. Those of you who know me or even those who have just read some of my blog posts might ascertain that I am neither religious nor that big into prophecy. But what you may not have guessed is that I still really like that stuff. I’ve come to understand that some of humanity’s best cultural output is in it’s weird things . The odd; the absurd; the cartoonish; the nonsense, especially nonsense that some people take very, very seriously. In the funhouse mirror of our kooks and crazy talk, certain fascinating features of the human psyche bulge out. So there I was, at the Seventh-Day Adventist Church on North Forest Street in Bellingham. I was an outlier.

The other day I decided to skip class in favor of a discussion with my friend. Well, it was worth it: from that discussion came the ideas in my previous post as well as what you'll read below. To summarize the last post: it was an analysis (and meta-analysis) of the classic Dickens fable, "A Christmas Carol." Suffice to say, the negative portrayal of Scrooge enrages free-market fundamentalists and intrigues me, because Dickens implies that it's possible for a person to be "not charitable enough." Enough for whom? Well, for society, I suppose. (And God, if you believe in a god and if your god believes in a certain level of charity from every human being.) This, more or less, segued into a discussion of human rights, and (in my opinion) a very good economic argument for defining them. How? Follow me..

So you might remember my earlier post contra to Dr. Stephen Prothero's Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know—And Doesn't. In that post, I raised some objections to Prothero's claim that "religion matters," including that it's a case of special pleading, and that a lot of the time, religion is somewhat incidental to the salient points of history. Well, on 15 November I attended a lecture here at Western by Dr. Prothero, mostly about his newest book, God Is Not One . In that book, he examines the world's eight greatest religions—in mostly-descending order, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Yoruba, Confucianism, Judaism, and Taoism—and especially their differences. In his lecture he explained that, far from being "eight roads up the same mountain" as some people claim, there are actually different mountains entirely. They ask and attempt to answer different "Big Questions." For example, Christianity asks "ho...

Disclaimer: This post may not sit well with you, as it deals with a topic that some people find sensitive and/or personal. While my response to that is not quite "Deal with it," you have been warned. I'm not going to pull any punches. Every year, Western Washington University selects a book for its "Western Reads" program, which is supposed to "promote intellectual engagement, community, and conversation" according to the website. The other time I actually read one of these selections, I definitely had a conversation... but it was a somewhat frustrated, somewhat snarky conversation with a friend about the poor quality of the writing. That was the 2008-2009 school year, however, and this is now. The 2011-2012 Western Reads selection is Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know—And Doesn't , by Dr. Stephen Prothero, and it's an entirely different book bag of worms. (Incidentally, the terribly-written book I didn't finish readin...