John Lennon in hell

The Vatican forgives John Lennon. Y'know. For when, back in the 60s, he said that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus and opined that rock and roll might outlast Christianity.

I think it's fascinating that they imagine anyone giving a damn - least of all John Lennon who if not an out-and-out atheist was definitely massively distrustful of all religion. I think it's fascinating that they imagine we care what they think about our art and our artists. It's all so narcissistic! The idea that Lennon needs to be forgiven by them, that such a thing would have any meaning at all (especially in light of the fact that their religion condemns him to eternal torment because whether or not he was an atheist might be in question, but whether or not he was a Christian is not).

Priests and "sex drive tests" - the laughs abound

Apparently, priests are gonna going to be evaluated for their sexuality before taking the cloth. This is one of those things where my fairly considerable mockery skills are challenged by the inherent stupidity of what they're talking about. How can I mock the Catholic Church's testing of the sexual orientation of enforced celibacy? A bunch of eunuchs are going to be designing tests about sex. Funnier than I could come up with.

The reason is, of course, because priests are raping little kids. In my mind, the real problem is that instead of allowing the authorities to do their job the Catholic Church hushes it up. They're still going to hush it up. This is just one of those sound bite talking points that they can trot out to say that they've cleaned up their act - when the real problem is the tradition of secrecy around the crimes of priests that the Catholic Church has defended for sixteen hundred years or so.

However, the article doesn't really seem to be about trying to weed out pedophile priests. They're looking to vet "deep-seated homosexual tendencies", "uncertain sexual identity", "evident the candidate has difficulty living in celibacy: That is, if celibacy for him is lived as a burden so heavy that it compromises his affective and relational equilibrium". It doesn't even sound like they're looking for pedophiles. What are they looking for? Priests with a "positive and stable sense of one's masculine identity".

Priests. With a . . . positive and stable sense of their . . . masculinity. Isn't being a Catholic priest slightly more girly than being a cross-dressing hooker? The priesthood is about as masculine as a doll house! How can I mock that? It's pretty self-mocking, if you ask me.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests isn't fooled by this nonsense. They say, "Catholic officials continue to fixate on the offenders and ignore the larger problem: The Church's virtually unchanged culture of secrecy and unchecked power in the hierarchy" and "these broader factors are deeply rooted in the Church and contribute heavily to extensive and ongoing clergy sex abuse and cover up".

Indeed. If the Catholic Church wants to stop priests from raping little kids, they need to, first, when they become aware of the problem inform the authorities and, two, assist in whatever way possible the authorities in prosecuting these criminals. Whether or not priests need to be screened to determine if they're butch enough for the job is a question I can't answer - but the Catholic Church currently acts like a criminal conspiracy towards criminals who have taken the cloth.

If it was up to me, I'd have the Pope up on racketeering charges for his role in protecting sex offenders - rapists - in the Catholic clergy.

The Archbishop of Westminister wants Christians to play nice with the godless!

The Archbishop of Westminister wants Christians to treat atheists and agnostics with deep esteem. I laughed and laughed.

I mean, obviously, it'd be nice to be respected by Christians. I like being treated with respect! And I feel the reason I'm so militant is largely because after years of trying to be respectful to Christians I got deeply tired of their lack of respect so I started getting more and more aggressive until, y'know, I wrote Simon Peter.

I find this statement as a backhanded way of saying that, y'know, it's just a well-known fact that religious people don't respect or esteem non-beleivers. So, at some level I know it'd be nice for Christians to treat atheists respectfully.

But so long as Christianity is a religion, that can't really happen. The problem isn't one of respect, in the end, but that sincere religious people feel morally compelled to act on their religion. And no religion is based in honest reason. In the end, all religions take certain facts for granted - unalterably for granted. The usually take the physical existence of their god as a fact beyond dispute, and they usually take their primary religious works as truth beyond critique or reproach. The problem is that religious people use religion to make decisions that effect me, and they make these decisions on grounds that are beyond reason.

For instance, the Archbishop of Westminister is against gay marriages, against birth control, abortion, stem cell research, human cloning and a bunch of other things. Not because they hurt people. Indeed, they sometimes provide considerable help to people. Like condoms. They protect people against STDs. And they allow people to rationally plan families. How is this bad? Even vaguely? Even if you take the position that "fornication" is immoral, how can protecting yourself and your partner from a disease be immoral, too? Or explain how gay marriage is immoral? In all of these things, ultimately, they have to say that their god believes them to be wrong and it doesn't matter the rational explanation. They're wrong because Jehovah said so. And these people are advancing these positions because of their religion. In my democracy!

So, even if they pretend to listen to what atheists say, and say "please" and "thank you", well, there's a deeper problem than that, once that can't be fixed by superficial politeness. These religions, based on arbitrary authority, are doing things to the world. Things that need to be stopped. And so long as religious people believe these things based on their invention of divine authority, atheists will attack religion itself. Because religion is a stumbling block to making the world a better place. Which is the real problem with respect between atheists and religious people.

Pope Rat and Pedophlia

Over here in America, Pope Rat deigned to talk about the pedophilia scandals that have rocked the US Catholic Church. What he said is very interesting. He said that the Catholic Church would not tolerate pedophile priests. He said that the real problem was the complicity of the Church hierarchy.

Well, what was his position, then, when he was in position to say? When it was in his hands. Well, let's find out. Apparently, in 2001, the Observer newspaper got a secret memo from then Cardinal Ratzinger, a letter sent to every bishop in the world, when he was chief in the Inquisition – the Catholic Church organization which oversees these things. The memo “asserted the church's right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood.”

Huh.

“Ratzinger's letter states that the church can claim jurisdiction in cases where abuse has been 'perpetrated with a minor by a cleric'.”

Huh.

“It orders that 'preliminary investigations' into any claims of abuse should be sent to Ratzinger's office, which has the option of referring them back to private tribunals in which the 'functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests'.

“'Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,' Ratzinger's letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication.”

Huh.

So, at least in 2001, Pope Rat was, on possible pain of excommunication, which is the worst thing that can happen to a Catholic and is functionally (in their eyes) a ticket to eternal damnation, ordering church officials to obstruct justice in the cases of pedophilia. Is it just me, or is this not the problem? That these cases are secrets of the Catholic Church, and even the victims are sworn to secrecy under threats of the most dire punishment possible from the Catholic Church?

I mean, if you want, read the memo! It's . . . fucked up.

On page 2 it has a real gem. After talking a bit in Catholicese about how it's the responsibilities of the Church to punish the rapists, they actually advises the bishops (to whom the letter is written) to “transfer him to another [assignment]” if the rapist priest isn't doing the penance directed by the Church! Wow.

On page 3 on bullet point 11, it says that everyone in the Church that knows about the rape, again under threat of excommunication, must forever be silent about the crimes.

It just goes on and on. It repeatedly stresses the secrecy of everyone involved, including the victim, it has creepy stuff like . . . if two witnesses can't be found not only do the accused get away scot-free but all evidence is to be destroyed. I read it and grow more horrified!

On page 11 on point 52, okay, I'm not making this up, it says, “In every way the judge is to remember that it is never right for him to bind the accused by an oath to tell the truth”! I have rarely read such a depraved document.

But, there, that's the story behind the story. This sonofabitch comes here and pretends that everything is nice, everything is wonderful, but he's personally given orders that the Catholic Church is to obstruct justice, swear everyone to secrecy under the most dire threats, transfer guilty priests around.

To me, that memo proves that Pope Rat is a criminal, guilty of a massive obstruction of justice, of massive criminal conspiracy including racketeering. He shouldn't be lionized. He should be arrested.

Pope still a stupid creep . . . his New Year's mass!

In his New Year's Mass, Pope Rat apparently said that a traditional family is the foundation of peace. It's all part of the focus his Papacy has "traditional family values". You know, no premarital sex, no divorces, definitely no gay marriages, one biological man and one biological woman in neat nuclear family arrangements. I, myself, have something of contempt for traditional family values, because I've known, both personally, through research and anecdotally, that too many families are actually pretty horrible. As in literally abusive. I think it's only sensible that people leave abusive relationships, or unhappy and unhealthy ones, and I certainly don't think that love could or should be limited to one biological man and one biological woman. Plus, y'know, traditional family values haven't been terribly effective, thus far, in stopping war. In times past, the amount of warfare in the world was even worse than today, even though that's difficult to imagine. But for much of human history, every summer and fall, most of the civilized world was wracked by armed conflict. So, even through simple observation, it's pretty easy to see that traditional families and war can pretty easily co-exist. Unsurprisingly, I think the Pope is wrong, spewing out a religious message without any real evidence to back it up . . . but evidence isn't precisely religion's strong suite.

But what I found more interesting is the last bit of this BBC article. The Beeb says, "His New Year prayer included a plea for renewed global efforts to dismantle nuclear weapons and curb the arms trade." Which sort of highlights the insanity and stupidity of this whole "family is the basis of peace". He spends most of the service talking about the importance of family values but then, at the end, slips in some bit about how we should get rid of nuclear weapons and firearms.

The message is clear. Fags are more dangerous to peace than nuclear weapons. So, fuck you, Pope Rat.

More on Catholic Rape Insurance Scandal!

An LJ friend said that perhaps the insurance that covered the child rape might be an horrible mistake on the insurer's part. That the Catholic Church had a general liability policy that just happened to cover children being raped by priests, too, though unintentionally.

I didn't think so, because the way that I understood it, after a certain time period elapsed the insurer could cancel coverage -- insurance companies generally leave the option over to drop coverage. But I thought it was a good question. Does the Catholic Church have liability insurance to specifically cover sexual abuse?

Well, amusing things first. When you google "catholic church and rape liability" my own article is what comes up. Yay, me, I guess. But you find some other stuff, too, such as this Slate article. Allow me to quote:

Since the spike in sex-abuse lawsuits in the mid-1980s, churches have also had the option to take out extra liability policies for damages related to sexual misconduct. These policies don't come cheap, and they protect just the institutions, for the most part. Insurers will mount a legal defense for accused individuals, but the support extends only so far: Perpetrators are on their own if they're found guilty or choose to settle out of court.

But insurance companies created these abuse-specific policies only after the lawsuits of the mid-80s forced them to make large payouts. Until then, general liability policies didn't specifically rule out sex abuse, so churches that needed to pay damages argued that insurers should pay. Thus, even though sex-abuse insurance is available today, many of the big payouts actually come from the churches' general policies, since the abuse happened decades ago. (The Los Angeles settlement probably came out of these general policies.)

So, according to Slate, we were both right. Initially, sex abuse of this nature was paid for out of general liability policies, but nowadays people can get sex abuse policies. Churches do get them. The Slate article has some specifics, even -- say, $100 a year for a small church with a single pastor, or $6,000 a year for a big church with a day care center. The average liability covered is $100,000.

It also mentions that the Catholic Church has it's own insurance company, Catholic Mutual, and half of the Catholic churches in America get their insurance through this system. Take that as you will.

The article ends up mentioning that many of the archdioceses that face these settlements are, nevertheless, facing bankruptcy due to the large payouts. Take that, too, as you will, but for me it feels very insufficient given the extreme and systematic nature of the crimes, but I believe in both corporate death penalties (the government seizing corporate assets if the corporation obviously and systematically is corrupt, as determined by a court of law) and I believe in treating religious organizations no differently than secular ones.

Post-script: Here's another article about the Catholic church's rape and insurance scandal, and a hat tip to Symboid for bringing it to my attention. One of the things it does is point out that Catholicism is hardly alone in the sex abuse cover-ups, but let's have a quote:

These types of policies started coming into existence after the court case Hanover Insurance Co. vs. Crocker in the 1980s. In the case, Mrs. Crocker's husband was accused of the sexual abuse of a child. She was aware of the abuse but neglected to report it to the authorities. She was charged with neglect, but her lawyer found a loophole in her homeowner's insurance policy that the court ruled to be an indication that the insurance company was responsible for covering her monetary settlement.

So now we have sexual abuse insurance coverage? These types of insurance policies are like a slap in the face to the victims. I understand that they are a smart move for businesses to take advantage of in case an employee gets into that kind of unforgivable trouble, but the mere fact that they exist holds to the idea that these types of offenses can be settled by the stroke of an insurance executive's pen on a checkbook.

I agree it's a slap in the face to the victims.

Child Rape, the Catholic Church and Six Hundred and Sixty Million Dollars

As I have been repeatedly told in the not too recent past, the Catholic Church is the one, true church of Christ and all the rest are defective. Well, the one, true church of Jesus Christ is paying out six hundred and sixty million dollars because it's one, true priests raped children in an out of court settlement designed to protect the church from the public testimony of their victims, not to mention the way that the Catholic Church covered up child raping priests for decades and has done everything in their power to stymie bringing the attackers to criminal court. All of that is disgusting enough, and one would think demonstrates the absurdity of Christian institutions saying they have some sort of moral superiority, or that their people are somehow elect or blessed or that some benevolent god works through them -- their church is a haven for pedophiles and, institutionally, the Catholic Church has covered up their crimes. (If some Protestants out there are gonna point the finger at Catholics, don't. Protestant churches are just as bad, it's just that the Catholics are the biggest target and most clearly represent this sort of thing because of the sheer size of the Catholic Church.) Like I said, that's all disgusting enough, but my purpose here isn't simply to bash Christians for their manifest hypocrisy, or goad them into talking on this blog so we can see the double-talk they use to justify why so obviously a corrupt institution as the Catholic Church can, nevertheless, be the special receptacle for Jehovah's divine and benevolent grace.

No, no, I want to bring something else up. The article about the settlement has a couple of interesting lines. The first:

The archdiocese, the nation’s largest, will pay $250 million, insurance carriers will pay a combined $227 million.

It's a short quote,but I wanted it to stand out a little bit. Here's the other one that I found fascinating:

The deal settles all 508 cases that remained against the archdiocese, which also paid $60 million in December to settle 45 cases that weren’t covered by sexual abuse insurance.

The key words there, for me, are insurance and, then, sexual abuse insurance. The Catholic Church in LA has . . . sexual abuse insurance. Sexual abuse insurance.

This is wrong on so many different levels I really don't know where to start . . . but after grappling with it, I came down to two things that really bake my noodle. The first is that you can buy sexual abuse insurance. The second is that someone actually bought sexual abuse insurance.

This is just killing me. That there are companies -- no, no, companies do nothing, there are people who said, "Oh, yeah, we're willing to give you liability coverage in case someone in your institution rapes children. We're comfortable making a profit off of helping your institution protect itself from punishments you'd get from systematic child abuse on a monstrous scale and your morally indefensible cover-ups of these crimes." I mean, even beyond the legality of something like this, the simple morality of it. Some people, and probably a group of people, decided that, yes, it is okay to make money protecting institutions from their systematic child molestation. This boggles my mind.

The second part of my near death experience is that the Catholic Church sought out this kind of insurance. You only get insurance against events you think might actually happen, and we know with the same certainty that the sun sets in the west that priests are, in the course of time, going to rape little children -- and one of their techniques of handling this abuse is to . . . get insurance to cover it. It is so cynical and does nothing to address the problem of why the Catholic Church is such a haven for this kind of abuse. Much less doing something to stop it.

And, lastly, when I was talking about this with a guy, when I pointed out the horror of child rape insurance, I was stunned to find that at least some people -- regular people off the streets -- would defend the existence of child rape insurance. It is, I was told, merely a form of liability insurance. The person I spoke with likened it to liability insurance if someone fell on some steps in front of the church, which is where my brain broke, again. That the widespread rape and systematic cover-up of these rapes was being seriously likened to a priest failing to sweep all the snow off the steps in front of a church. Over and above the existence of liability insurance -- which I am no fan of, I think that all insurance companies should be shut down and insurance should be honestly public -- I was totally mind-fried by the idea that a real person would seriously liken widespread child rape and its cover-up to falling down some stairs.

Anyway, that's my rant. My mind is temporarily broken. My next bit will be a rather interesting bit about science and the evolution of intelligence that might actually be semi-original, but I need to check some facts, first.

On Intolerance

I've been called intolerant, again. I always find it ironic when members of an intolerant church -- and most are wildly intolerant -- complain about intolerance, conceptually. Because the truth is that, yes, I am intolerant of most forms of religion. I mean, duh, look at my journal!

However, and this is not generally touched on when people start up this sort of thing, is that there are many forms of good intolerance. For instance, I'm just going to assume that everyone that reads this is fairly intolerant concerning Nazism, or Stalinism, or pimps, or organized crime, or torturers.

So, I set out to determine what constitutes benevolent intolerance! I came up with two criteria. The first is -- there must be a substantial justification for intolerance. Meaning, you've got to have a good reason. The second is -- what you propose to do should be appropriate to the offenses.

Let us take my intolerance of the Catholicism and the Catholic Pope, He Who Zings Rats (which is a very mild satire, I should point out out, totally not like calling someone's mom a whore -- I say this because I've been accused of that, believe it or not!).

The reasons why I am intolerant of Catholicism and the Catholic Pope. The organization is sexist: it is anti-birth control (which has made worse the epidemic of AIDS, leading to numerous deaths, I should add), anti-abortion, anti-divorce and forbids women into positions of power in the Catholic Church. It engages in massive, wide-spread campaigns of intimidation: it says that anyone who doesn't follow the Pope's rules goes to Hell, it threatens people with eternal suffering in order to spread itself and maintain its congregations. The Catholic Church's unelected officials, this is the Pope specifically, interfers with the politics of other countries, such as threatening excommunication for politicians who don't create laws supporting an anti-abortion agenda. I could go on, but these are some of the big ones. I think that they are true (indeed, obvious) and serious. People's lives are often at stake, and the welfare of whole countries. No joke.

And what do I want to do about it? Engage in occasional light satirization of the Pontiff Who Zings Rats. That's mostly it.

Now, let us compare what the Pope Who Zings Rats and his intolerance towards Protestants. Why is the Pope intolerant of Protestants? Because their leaders don't have apostolic succession. What is the consequences of this? Well, uh, since their leaders don't have apostolic succession, it means none of their rites -- including baptism, communion and marriage -- are "real" and it means they're . . . all . . . going to Hell.

You MIGHT see some differences in the substance of the intolerance, here. Oh, I know, for the Catholics apostolic succession is an element of their dogma and they take it very seriously -- but it isn't very meaningful to non-Catholics. It is the Catholic Church again trying to push itself off on people that don't want it's interference (which is a common theme in the reasons I loathe the Catholic Church -- it systematically is trying to push off itself on people who don't want it, and who are often hurt in the process). And for this "sin", the Pope affirms that all those Protestants are going to burn in Hell forever! Now, I of course do not believe in Hell, but they do. I know that no Protestants are very scared of Papal threats (they've had five hundred years to get used to them, after all), and further many Protestants believe that Catholics are as hellbound as Catholics believe Protestants to be for equally absurd reasons, but the Pope is threatening these people in a very real way with hellfire, he's really trying to intimidate them!

A comparable situation might be if my intolerance of Catholics included, say, a plea to have them rounded up and put in "reeducation camps" where they'd be given electric shock therapy to turn them into good atheists. While it would be laughable that I suggested such a thing, because I altogether lack the authority to make it happen, it would still be really, really disturbing that I'd want to do it at all. (Just like it is disturbing that many neo-nazis want to kill non-whites -- they can't do it, but it's horrible that they want to do it.) So to with the Catholic Church. It is horrific that the Pope is comfortable of it happening (especially since he can do something about it -- he could easily write an ex cathedral papal bull saying that all Christian leaders henchforth have apostolic succession on his own authority, that they forevermore have apostolic succession from St. Peter's throne, but I guess it's just easier to remind them they've all got defective churches and are going to Hell), and wills it to happen.

So, at any rate, I hope I've given some people something to think about when people frivolously bring up the whole intolerance thing. Remember, it matters why you're intolerant and what you propose to do with that intolerance. If your intolerance is backed up with firm reasoning and your intentions are benevolent, you go!

Pope Rat Strikes Again!

I love Pope Rat. I really do. He's doing more to destroy the Catholic Church than a legion of atheists parked out in front of St. Peter's will for twenty years, I kid you not.

It appears that Pope Rat is asserting the primacy of Catholic churches. This is so special and dear that I must quote:

Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.

He just set back reconciliation between Catholicism and other Christian demonimations fifty years! All other Christian churches are either defective or not true churches. Classic! I couldn't do this kind of damage to Catholicism my whole life!

Here's some more:

"Christ 'established here on earth' only one church," said the document. The other communities "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense" because they do not have apostolic succession - the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles, it said.

Isn't that great? I think it's great. I love Pope Rat.

Let's Convert the Jews - It's What Mel Gibson Would Want!

The Pope has decided to let priests give the Latin Tridentine Mass. That's a Latin Mass. I have two points, here.

First is that the Pope is allowing this to "heal rifts" between the Catholic Church and it's crazy nutjob ultra-conservative faction. Is he trying to heal rifts between the Church and people who want the Church to lift it's violently insane beliefs about homosexuality, birth control, women priests, non-celibate priests or members who are pro-choice? No. But he does want to "heal rifts" with the most reactionary Catholics in the world.

Second thing is that the Tridentine Mass has this nifty section in it that calls for the conversion of the Jews. Seriously. It contains language saying, basically, that those filthy Jews should convert to Christianity to save their filthy Jew souls.

What a guy, our Pope Rat!

Response to Peter

This is a discussion that was started on YouTube in the comments section of this video. It's about the appropriateness of attacking religion. The person with whom I am talking, Peter, is a rather nice fellow who has the position, roughly speaking, that you'll catch more flies with sugar than vinegar -- that aggression against theists doesn't do anything or is, worse, counterproductive. My position is, roughly, attack, attack and when in doubt, attack again. I'm responding here rather than in the YouTube comments section because you can only posts posts that are 500 characters or less, and by now everyone who reads my blog knows I can do that in a single sentence. ;)

So, Peter, hello! For some background, one of the reasons I am obsessing about religion is because I'm writing a deeply blasphemous novel called Simon Peter, which is written about Jesus from the point of view of the leader of the disciples, Simon Peter. My take on the story is that Jesus is not some legitimate religious figure or social reformer but an insane charlatan. If you want to read a short story that I've written in the style of Simon Peter, I have Immaculate Conception. You could probably read it in 20 minutes, and I'll put my usual caveat that it isn't for the weak of stomach -- it has a lot of violence in it. That said, here's the actual response to your posts. ;)

Thanks so much for this. I think I was aware of the diffs between Europe and the US, but your video reinforces my awareness of that. I totally understand your anger, given the context! Isn't one MAJOR reason for that the low general level of BASIC education in the US? (Of course I'm not talking about college-educated people).

There are places in the US where al-Qaida would be welcome, if they trimmed their beards and bleached their skin. The only think that stops some Christians from turning the US into some medieval hellhole is the separation of church and state, so, ramen for that.

I would suspect one of the reasons why religious people are ignorant of their own faith in the US is linked to the generally poor education, but I think there's more than that. I think the culprit that informs both religious ignorance and the dismal status of basic education in the US is a deep anti-intellectualism. (I think that anti-intellectualism has been created and nurtured by religions in America to quite consciously make it easier for them to bamboozle their constituencies.) These people can read, and could read the Bible. But so many Americans hold reading in contempt, the very idea of being educated unless it has a direct monetary connection (and, even then, not enough Americans hold even that limited view of the use of education, as we continue to important educated people to fill necessary jobs on all levels of our economy), and I think that's what holds them off from learning about Christianity. It'd take reading. And reading is icky.

It's must be IMMENSELY frustrating that in your country fundamentalist religion is so powerful. Anger is a natural response and can even be useful I think. But I think we also need to channel it into putting our rational arguments as calmly and forcefully as possible as there are reasonable theists, and even some doubters we can sway, even in the US! I'm convinced the tide will turn.

Yes, it is frustrating, but there's more to it than my personal frustration. Oh, so much more!

I am unsure at the power of cool, rational arguments to win debates. When I was in college, I did speech and debate tournaments for a year and I was pretty good at it. One of the things that I was told, time and again, to overcome was the urge merely to prove I was factually correct. While being factually correct was important, even more important was meaningfully engaging a person's emotions. I was told not to make them angry not because it would be unsuccessful in getting them to think about what I said, but because I would not win tournaments -- getting people angry, it seems, is a great way to get them to think about something. They can't get it out of their head. And this is comes from communications theory! This is a material scientific rationalist point of view.

In short, it is easy to dismiss a calm, rational argument. Not with logic, but with the emotional sleight-of-hand you've already noticed! Something that is not seen to be believed passionately is believed to be a trivial belief. A person charged up with the emotional hallucination of religious belief isn't anywhere near caring about carefully nuanced arguments, I think.

Additionally, I don't think we all need to do the same thing. I'm quite willing to play good cop, bad cop with theists. I suspect this multi-faceted approach would be more useful than us just calmly repeating ourselves over and over without any variation. I think that after I get in their face, having someone else come along and say, "Well, that was harsh, but there is some truth to that position" is useful.

Also, I think that it is useful to show theists the emotional consequences of their actions. To show them that what they do makes people, other real people, hurt and angry. Many theists, IMO, feel that they do nothing but good and simply do not understand the real consequences of their actions. I think it is fair to show them.

I am also somewhat critical of the "reasonable theist" argument. To me, and perhaps this is a distinctly American perspective, but it's really the only one I've got with any force, moderate religious people will defend the rights of the fundamentalists to be fundamentalist. Time and again I've talked to Christians about taking to task those people who call themselves Christian and who are racist, sexist, homophobic, classist warmongering bigots. I can, pretty easily, get them to agree that they should theoretically take them to task, but when I start to mention specific groups, the Pat Robertsons and Fred Phelps of the American religious scene, they start to defend them in a variety of ways, or find reasons not to take specific people and groups to task. So, I become increasingly forced to conclude that most Americans who call themselves moderate Christians are actually screening and defending the more radical and fundamentalist groups. And as far as I can tell, this is equally true with Islam and Hinduism.

I am also convinced the tide will turn. Even in America, the fastest growing religion is lack of religion. But I think that American Christians can do a lot of harm before this has run its course.

ps interesting you heard about that study published in "Le monde des religions". The study concerned the 51% of French people who define themselves as Catholics. On the existence of God, here's the precise breakdown: 26%: it's certain He exists; 26% likely; 10% unlikely; 7% doesn't exist(!); 30% no idea; 1% no opinion.

Just as interesting was the reasons people gave for being a Catholic: 55% "because born in Catholic family"; 21% "because have faith"; 14% "because attached to Catholic values"; 10% other/no reasons. This shows that belief is partly about identity, and that its intellectual base is often not questioned.

I have my sources! :)

Most of my online friends are European. Which might say something about me, but I don't know what. I am hoping my wife gets to do her post-doctoral work in France, though.

But, yes, I interpreted the information given as meaning that a fair number of people in France and culturally Catholic. Again, I must emphasize that in the US it isn't like that. There are more people who believe in god than are actively religious, here. We aren't culturally Christian, at least not yet, but are actively and often viciously Christian.

But I would bet that even less ANGLICANS believe in God!! Religion is often just a form of sociability, and also that we need to take this fact into account when challenging believers. We need to propose alternative forms of sociability and community.

This is very true. And I agree whole heartedly. Do you have any suggestions or examples of this?

Feel free to comment here! There are no character limits, Peter.