Quote du Jour

Every great scientific truth goes through three states: First, people say it conflicts with the Bible; next, they say it has been discovered before; lastly, they say they always believed it.

— Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) Swiss-born American naturalist

Watch Out Christians – Atheists are Out to Get You

Pious paranoia: In a sign that the Bible thumpers are getting frustrated at their inability to impose theocratic doctrines throughout American government and society, our favorite Christian statistician, George Barna, has conducted a study to examine the similarities and differences between atheists and agnostics and those who believe in Santa Claus, virgin birth and transubstantiation. Barna notes that increasingly, atheists and agnostics are “critiquing” people of faith and — gasp! — publishing best-selling books that question the existence of God.

Two-thirds of Christians (63 percent) perceive that the nation is becoming more hostile and negative toward Christianity.

Beyond the bestseller lists, however, a new survey shows there is indeed a significant gap between Christians and those Americans who are in the “no-faith” camp. For instance, most atheists and agnostics (56 percent) agree with the idea that radical Christianity is just as threatening in America as is radical Islam. At the same time, two-thirds of Christians (63 percent) who have an active faith perceive that the nation is becoming more hostile and negative toward Christianity. (“Active faith” was defined as simply having gone to church, read the Bible and prayed during the week preceding the survey.)

Instead of using simple descriptive terms like “believer” and “nonbeliever” to describe the two groups, Barna frames believers as “active faith,” which sounds really positive and happening, versus “no-faith,” which is negative and sounds kind of hopeless. It’s the familiar old “pro-life” trick. I would argue that staunch atheists maintain a fervent belief in the nonexistence of God and hold as an article of faith that all religion is hokum.

According to Barna, about one out of 11 Americans, or 20 million, is an atheist or agnostic. That’s about 9 percent of the U.S. population, which means Satan’s recruitment program is working extremely well, and our ranks of the Godless are swelling.

Barna notes that only about 5 million no-faithers actually call themselves atheists and “staunchly reject” the notion that there is a God. He takes that to mean that the 15 million harbor doubts about the nonexistence of God. However, I cite Pascal’s wager as a likely reason for the seeming disparity. Blaise Pascal said that if one believed in God and God didn’t exist, then nothing was lost, but if one did not believe in God and God existed, then one was in for a world of hurt for eternity. Therefore, the safest bet would be to behave as if one believed in God — just in case.

The no-faith audience is younger, and more likely to be male and unmarried. They also earn more and are more likely to be college graduates.

Perhaps partly due to the younger nature of the audience, atheists and agnostics are more likely than are active-faith adults to say they are into new technology (64 percent among no-faith individuals versus 52 percent among active-faith adults) and to assert that they adapt easily to change (81 percent versus 66 percent). Atheists and agnostics are also significantly less likely to say they are convinced they are right about things in life (38 percent versus 55 percent).

One of the most fascinating insights from the research is the increasing size of the no-faith segment with each successive generation. The proportion of atheists and agnostics increases from 6 percent of Elders (ages 61+) and 9 percent of Boomers (ages 42-60), to 14 percent of Busters (23-41) and 19 percent of adult Mosaics (18-22). When adjusted for age and compared to 15 years ago, each generation has changed surprisingly little over the past decade and a half.

Cool. Atheists and agnostics are richer and smarter than believers. But then Barna gets down to the nitty-gritty as regards us unbelievers: We are less likely than active-faith Americans to register to vote, but more likely to register as an independent or with a non-mainstream political party. We are less likely to volunteer for a not-church-related nonprofit, to describe ourselves as “active in the community” or to “personally help or serve a homeless or poor person.” But worse yet, atheists and agnostics donate a paltry $200 per year to charitable causes, whereas the typical active-faith American donated $1,500 in 2006.

Ouch! But at least my $200 isn’t going to support some big-haired shiny-suited slick-talking preacher. It’s going to support National Public Radio and the Sierra Club.

Barna noted that both believers and nonbelievers experience personal difficulties with similar frequency, including being in serious debt, dealing with a personal addiction and trying to find good friends. Christians are fatter though, while atheists and agnostics are more likely to feel stressed out — probably from fighting attempts to teach creationism in their kid’s school or display the Ten Commandments at the local courthouse.

There is one thing the 20 million nonbelievers and the 58 million true believers agree on, however, according to David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group:

“Ironically, however, both atheists and committed Christians share one unusual area of common ground: concern about superficial, inert forms of Christianity in America. There are nearly 130 million American adults who describe themselves as Christians, but who are Christian in name only; their behavior includes little related to experiencing and expressing their alleged faith in Christ.”

Sounds like a bunch of Pascal’s gambling buddies to me.

Quote du Jour

If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.

— Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish historian, sociological writer

It’s Not Paris, It’s the Stupid Media

While we all sympathize with the incredible psychological pressure Paris Hilton must have been under while being unable to shave her legs for three days, we have to wonder if, besides Al Sharpton (and maybe Lindsay Lohan and Michelle Ritchie), anyone really has a good reason to care about the story.

This is news: There’s a G8 meeting under way, the president is hung over, Lebanon is burning, Putin’s getting all Cold War-ry on us and soldiers and civilians are dying in Iraq. Yet our cult of personality remains obsessed with the story of the poor little rich girl who thinks it’s okay to get drunk and drive a car again and again.

‘Are we just so pathetic and so lonely that we have to live life through people like Paris Hilton?’

TVNewser provides a log of the shallowness of cable television’s reportage of Hilton’s release from jail yesterday:

10:36 am, MSNBC: Chris Jansing asks the Village Voice’s Michael Musto: “You know everything there is to know about Paris Hilton. Does she have a medical condition?” “Yeah, she’s crazy,” he says…

11:01 am, FNC: Co-host E.D. Hill: “It is a great day in America if your name is Paris Hilton or you are an illegal alien. Today, we’ll tell you why…”

11:56 am, CNN: Immediately following an interview with General David Petraeus about Iraq, Heidi Collins says: “Well you know, we’ll always have Paris, but she won’t always have a cell…”

12:08 pm, MSNBC: The cabler reveals an animation titled “Paris Hilton Free,” complete with a bark from her dog Tinkerbell. “Paris Hilton’s long, grueling ordeal behind bars has come to an end,” Lisa Daniels mocks…

12:10 pm, FNC: Jon Scott’s attempt to transition from the G8 to Hollywood: “While the president is in Germany, the world’s attention is focused on Paris — Paris Hilton…”

12:22 pm, CNN International: “These are live pictures from our affiliate KTLA, helicopter pictures of the home of Paris Hilton… We’re watching that home. Lots of cars down there.” Co-anchor Stephen Frazier transitions: “Let’s turn now to Harvard…”

12:44pm, MSNBC: “It’s good to be rich and famous in America,” legal analyst Susan Filan concludes. “It is; I wish I was both,” Lisa Daniels responds…

1:38 pm, FNC: “This was not a good punishment for her,” a Live Desk panelist says. “The real punishment for Paris Hilton, I think, would be that the media gives her no coverage at all… That would be cruel and unusual punishment for her…”

1:54 pm, CNN: Kyra Phillips asks a guest: “Are we just so pathetic and so lonely that we have to live life through people like Paris Hilton?”

2:25 pm, MSNBC: After talking about immigration, Contessa Brewer asks political analyst Pat Buchanan: “I have got to ask you, is it fair that Paris Hilton is under house arrest?…”

4:09 pm, FNC: Neil Cavuto jokes: “Do you know if Paris sold stock today?” “I don’t know if she knows what stock is,” his guest responds.

Quote du Jour

The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

– Unnamed Bush administration aide quoted by Ron Suskind in New York Magazine, October 2004 (Note that the aide likely was Karl Rove)

Quote du Jour

Somewhere, and I can’t find where, I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, “If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?” “No,” said the priest, “not if you did not know.” “Then why,” asked the Eskimo earnestly, “did you tell me?”

— Annie Dillard (1945- ), American writer, poet, 1975 Pulitzer Prize recipient

Mormons Resurrecting ‘White Horse Prophecy’ Around Romney’s Campaign

Mitt to the rescue: It was a prophecy allegedly uttered by Joseph Smith himself, but one the modern Church of Latter Day Saints dismisses. It predicts that in some future end time, with the U.S. Constitution hanging by a mere thread, a Mormon will ride in on a white horse to save it and, by extension, the United States.

While presidential candidate Mitt Romney denies giving the prophecy any credence, it has come up each time a Mormon has run for president: in 1968 when George Romney ran, and in 2000 when Orrin Hatch ran.

‘Power will be given to the White Horse to rebuke the nations afar off, and you obey it, for the laws go forth from Zion.’
— Joseph Smith

The disputed prophecy was recorded in a diary entry of a Mormon who had heard the tale from two men who were with Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, Ill., when he supposedly declared the prophecy.

“You will see the Constitution of the United States almost destroyed,” the diary entry quotes Smith as saying. “It will hang like a thread as fine as a silk fiber.”

Not only will the Mormons save the Constitution, under the prediction, but the prophecy goes further, insinuating that Mormons will control the government.

“Power will be given to the White Horse to rebuke the nations afar off, and you obey it, for the laws go forth from Zion,” the prophecy says.

Mormons believe that Smith found ancient gold plates and transcribed them into the Book of Mormon. In 1844, a year after he supposedly told of the White Horse Prophecy, Smith ran for president, but was murdered by a mob. Given the entire premise of the LDS and the fact that the church has posthumously baptised thousands of non-Mormons, including Adolf Hitler and Elie Weisel, it’s curious why it is so quick to deny this particular crackpot prophecy.

The LDS Church denounces the premonition, which was recorded 10 years after Smith’s death. A church spokesman pointed to a quote from the faith’s sixth president, Joseph F. Smith, who called the prophecy “ridiculous.”

“It is simply false; that is all there is to it,” the church prophet was quoted saying.

Mitt Romney claims not to believe in the prophecy, and maintains his daddy didn’t believe in it, either:

“I haven’t heard my name associated with it or anything of that nature,” Mitt Romney told The Salt Lake Tribune during an interview earlier this year. “That’s not official church doctrine. There are a lot of things that are speculation and discussion by church members and even church leaders that aren’t official church doctrine. I don’t put that at the heart of my religious belief.”

But George Romney wasn’t so absolute when he offered an interpretation of the prophecy to “Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought” in 1967:

“I have always felt that they meant that sometime the question of whether we are going to proceed on the basis of the Constitution would arise and at this point government leaders who were Mormons would be involved in answering that question.”

Frankly, given the six years of abuse perpetrated by the Bush administration on the Constitution, any savior on a white horse — Mormon, Jewish, Presbyterian or Scientologist — would be welcome.

Quote du Jour

When men imagine a female uprising they imagine a world in which women rule men as men have ruled women: their guilt, which is the guilt of every ruling class, will allow them to see no middle ground.

— Sally Kempton (1943- ), American writer, feminist

Canadian Caregivers: ‘Keep Yer Kidney, Christian Cultist’

So this guy wakes up in a bathtub full of ice in Tijuana: No, that’s the other kidney story. This one is about a Canadian hospital that is refusing to let a guy from Australia donate his kidney to a woman he does not personally know as a way to prove his religious faith. Whatever happened to the simple acts of faith, like tithing and giving food and clothing to the poor at Christmas and Easter?

‘I decided to do it [donate a kidney] because I like positive things that can be done to help people.’

Sydney man Ash Falkingham is a member of the Jesus Christians, a group led by guru David Mckay, who believe kidney donation is the “ultimate” expression of faith.

Nineteen of the group’s 30 members living in Kenya, Britain, the United States and Australia have donated a kidney as part of their desire to “live selflessly”, ABC Television’s Australian Story reports tonight.

Mr. Falkingham believes the group, led by guru David McKay, is simply following the true teachings of Christ.

Those teachings must have been from one of the lost books of the New Testament — the Book of Ectomies. Of course, the 20-year-old’s parents think he’s been brainwashed by the surgery-happy Jesus freaks:

Mr. Falkingham was in Canada for the operation because “non-directed” kidney donations are banned in Australia.

He said that under Australian law he would be required to have a long-term friendship with a recipient before donating.

He barely knows the Canadian woman, Sandi Sabloff, who was to have received his kidney, having met her online through the website Living Donors.

“The Jesus Christians believe that what Jesus said, he meant,” Mr. Falkingham said.

“I decided to do it [donate a kidney] because I like positive things that can be done to help people.”

Come on, clean your neighbor’s gutters, collect donations for Haiti, mentor a kid (on second thought, maybe not) or something. There are plenty of positive things that can be done without giving a kidney to a stranger.

Oh, and if I were the recipient, I might be concerned about the effect having a “Jesus Christian” organ inside me might have. Ever since “Frankenstein” we’ve had a whole slew of films that explore what happens when transplanted organs from crazy people “go bad.” Next thing you know, the recipient might be handing out corneas, ear drums or skin grafts, who knows?