“I don’t trust the Bible…
I don’t trust Disciple!” Our atheist friends Gogol Bordello rock it godless-style.
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Archive for the ‘Movies/Music/TV’ Category
Penn & Teller, Bullshit! The Vatican
The lastest episode from season 7 of Penn and Teller, BullShit.
Penn & Teller discuss the Catholic Church and their involvement in anti-homosexuality efforts, condom use, and the cover up of the priest abuse sex scandal. They talk with an Italian comedian that was punished for criticizing Pope Benedict the XVI.
Family Guy: yes, Virginia, 20% of us ARE atheists.
A doffing of the atheist cap to Family Guy, who advanced the cause of normalizing the non-belief in God. Brian came out as an atheist this week, though the show laid low by pretending (in TV Guide, I guess) to be about reuniting the cast of Star Trek: Next Gen. That was a disingenuous few-minute subplot, but what were they going to put in the description, “God doesn’t exist and even this animated dog knows it“?
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation don’t like the YouTubes so much, so I can’t show you a clip of the show, but here’s series creator Seth McFarlane chatting with Adam Corolla about his general atheist agenda:
Finally, a mainstream atheist character, even if he is a talking dog. Baby steps.
Fox News gets to the bottom of this whole Satan thing
In a bold, hard-hitting display of brilliant investigative reporting, Faux News provokes thought and deepens our trusting relationship with this gem: the Science of Satan debates.
Oh, I wish I was kidding.
Sadly, the word “science” is invoked twice in this clip about the upcoming special. I certainly hope 70% or so of Americans, as O’Reilly mentions, don’t actually live their lives in fear of stuff that doesn’t exist.
O’Reilly brings it all back to free will; God created the Devil to give us some options and counts on us to choose wisely. We don’t have to love God, because there is a competing product. It’s the free market of the soul!
Neither being has so far made a verfiable appearance unto me, so I’m not sure how God expects me to properly conduct interviews and select someone to worship. I know, I know; mysterious ways.
Edward Current’s “A Christian Meets the Invisible Pink Unicorn”
For all you non-god-fearing fans of Mr. Current, a recent video on what really happens when you go to the big social network in the sky. The end is, in a word, dead on.
Scientology Propaganda Documentary
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is a Scientology front group that has put out a documentary called Making A Killing: The Untold Story Of Psychotropic Drugging.
The CCHR also runs the infamous “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” museum in Hollywood.
The documentary, much like the museum and it’s travelling display version, are full of ad-hominems, non-sequiturs, straw-man arguments and various other logical fallacies.
Enjoy the crap-ola.
Sweet victory! Reason prevails over ignorance in Texas.
Thank the good Lord Jesus Christ in Heaven above,
The drama over the potential inclusion of creationism or intelligent design in Texas biology curriculum is over for now as a coalition of six Democrats and two Republicans defeated an amendment that would have maintained discussion of evolution’s “weaknesses.”
Textbook publishers cater to the influential Texas market, so whether or not science books continued to kowtow to creationism is of great interest nationally—changes to Texas’ science curriculum will likely be echoed across the land. The exact issue was whether to re-incorporate the phrase “strengths and weaknesses” into the discussion of evolution in state biology curriculum. The loathsome Discovery Institute had it’s scaly hands all over this fail.
The big deal about referring to “weaknesses” in evolution is that there aren’t any. Creationists are trying to introduce controversy and suggest that gaps in evidence equal flaws in the theory. We’ve seen those gaps steadily filled in as knowledge and technology increase. There’s no reason to think knowledge won’t continue grow, unless of course the Discovery Institute has its way.
This is a vote on the science curriculum, not theology or philosophy. It’s certainly not an issue of free speech; I doubt high school kids have been doing research and uncovered a dramatic flaw that’s being suppressed by wily biology teachers. There are no “sides” to be on; within the realm of science this theory is the accepted one, due to overwhelming evidence, for the diversity of life.
Here are some of the reasons those who understand the process and results of science “believe” in evolution:
Year One: a search for the meaning of life
Ooh, this looks good! Filming this month, Year One is the epic quest of two hunter-gatherers (Jack Black and Micheal Cera, as ‘Oh’ and ‘Zed’) in Biblical times, looking for the meaning of life. Directed by comedy legend Harold Ramis, it’s going to be a Life Of Brian-esque tale inspired by improv Ramis did with Belushi as a Neanderthal and Bill Murray as a Cro-Magnon. Damn!
Expect delicious religious satire, with David Cross as Cain! I’m not a huge Jack Black fan, but I predict this will be an epiphanic role in which Black discovers his life-long niche, as Keanu did when he graduated from Ted to Neo.
Full length Religulous online
Happy 09! May it be a whole lot less religulous than last year. Speaking of that, should you have missed Bill Maher’s ungodly doc this year and are snowed in with no ability to rent it (do try to support this flick if you possibly can), the whole thing is up here.
Saw this on Reddit and thought it made a nice point…search this page for “God”.
Knowledge is the little hammer that chips away at the religious worldview
There’s a reason religious folks try to keep their kids away from pop culture, whether it’s music, video games, the internet, movies, books or tv. Getting children to buy in to a religious worldview requires creating the illusion that a particular way of thinking is the right way. Repetition and authority help indoctrinate kids, and you don’t want anything that contradicts or interrupts your message getting through. The differing lifestyles and opinions presented by pop culture compete with the dogma you’re marketing.
Say you’re selling a Christian mythology and its proscribed moral code as the one true system. It doesn’t do you any good to have Harry Potter poking his wand in there and telling kids there’s magic and it’s fun. Neither do you want Hannah Montana jiggling her milkshakes and suggesting there’s sex and it’s fun. You certainly don’t need science being taught to your kids, with its sticky attachments to falsifiability, reasoning, and critical thinking.
Every piece of knowledge kids are exposed to is a little bit of evidence on the pile that says ‘Hey, my parent’s “truth” isn’t the only one out there’. The smarter kids will follow that up with ‘What does that mean?’
That’s why the Golden Compass gets panned as atheist (it totally is) and Narnia gets the moral thumbs up for Aslan the Christ. Speaking of that, did you know Twilight is a Mormon sexual frustration fantasty? Abstinence message approved!
Everywhere in the nonbelieving universe, the religious worldview paint is cracking and peeling. Two to ponder:
1) New Scientist recently wrestled over whether 2009 – the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of the telescope, and the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth – should celebrate the original recanter or the original speciator? Who rocked the religious worldview the most? Galileo let us in on the fact that the earth isn’t the centre of, well, anything. Darwin shed light on the fact that we’re freakin’ animals, about which many of us conclude God’s image is a pretty confusing likeness in which to be made. Both of these contributions are wonderful examples of the fallout of science’s quest for truth melting the bomb shelters of religion.
2) Friendly Atheist hosted a passionate discussion about what to do if an in-law starts getting their Christianity all over your kids. A number of comments suggested exposing the kid in question to even more fables and mythologies from other religions, thereby showing this one worldview in the context of many other equally fantastic ones. It will occur that there is no more proof or reason to believe one idea over any other, and the effect of the attempted inculcation will be diminished, if not nullified.
In sociology, the accepted norms and ‘common sense’ that makes up your world is called the nomos.
In order to be at its most effective the nomos must be taken for granted. The structure of the world which has been created by human and social activity is treated, not as contingent, but as self-evident. ‘Whenever the socially established nomos attains the quality of being taken for granted, there occurs a merging of its meanings with what are considered to be the fundamental meanings inherent in the universe.’
You can only take your worldview for granted if you’re not exposed to anything else. That’s the methodology of religion: to keep you in the dark. You’re meant to think the Bible contains all you need to know.
Worldviews can be cracked. Knowledge is the little hammer that chips away at ignorance. Read, travel, and teach children how to reason. And if your worldview needs a little shaking up, blow your mind with this.
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