Agora
This doesn’t look quite like the movie about Hypatia of Alexandria that I would have made… …but then again, it’s impressive that a movie about Hypatia has been made at all. And that they had the very good sense to… Continue Reading
Religion
Enemies Who Deserve Each Other
OPEN SCENE: Southaven, Mississippi. An AGNOSTIC and the MAYOR are debating. A: Hey, when I go to court, I notice that the seats in the gallery are church pews! Complete with crosses engraved in the side! That makes me feel… Continue Reading
Context
Hat tip to Common Sense Atheism.
Am I Just Phrasing The Concept Badly?
To call something an inherent good is to say, at some level, that an intellectual examination of a moral value has reached a stopping point. But it is certainly possible to at least try to explain why something is held… Continue Reading
Judicially-Enforced Indoctrination
Divorced couples use their children as pawns in power plays against one another all the time. It’s despicable. Parents and adults of all sorts also believe that they have a religious duty to indoctrinate children into their weird religions, and… Continue Reading
Morning Reading
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi uses military airplanes to shuttle her family around the country without even bothering to go with them or providing any substantial tissue of even political necessity. Millions of public dollars used to provide for… Continue Reading
Appropos Of The Current Debate
This one’s for my new friend Ennis.
Barbarism
I’ve little more to add to the Unreligious Right than is already there — giving a sixteen-year-old rape victim 101 lashes with a whip for the crime of becoming pregnant as a result of the rape, and acquitting the rapist… Continue Reading
Dialogue With Apologists Always Reach This Point
My latest apologist interloquitor and I are starting to narrow down the issues somewhat in a dialogue aiming to tease out the real moral lessons of the Bible. We’ve agreed to cross-post our responses, and I’m concerned that stand-alone posts… Continue Reading
The Massacre Of Moab
In my now-famous post Top Ten Worst Bible Stories, I singled out the Massacre of the Midianites in Deuteronomy 7:1-6 and Numbers 31:1-18 for particular criticism. It is, in fact, a story of genocide, the bloodthirsty and unprovoked annihalation of… Continue Reading