This sure as hell looks like satire, but it's apparently a genuine news story.

The half-dozen activists -- Twyman, a former Miss Washington DC, the owner of a small construction company and two volunteers at a local soup kitchen -- joined hands, bowed their heads and intoned a heartfelt prayer.

"Lord, come down in a mighty way and strengthen us so that we can bring down these high gas prices," Twyman said to a chorus of "amens".

"Prayer is the answer to every problem in life... We call on God to intervene in the lives of the selfish, greedy people who are keeping these prices high," Twyman said on the gas station forecourt in a neighborhood of Washington that, like many of its residents, has seen better days.

"Lord, the prices at this pump have gone up since last week. We know that you are able, that you have all the power in the world," he prayed, before former beauty queen Rashida Jolley led the group in a modified version of the spiritual, "We Shall Overcome".

"We'll have lower gas prices, we'll have lower gas prices..." they sang.

(Comment on this post)

Quick thought: only the rethugs could get away with calling a black man elitist and out of touch with ordinary people, while running a smear campaign against him that can only be called a lynching. Jeremiah Wright has been a godsend for the lunatic extreme right, allowing them to wallow to their black hearts' content in the racism that is at the core of their beliefs, without being called on it.

But I must say my respect for Barack Obama has risen enormously. He has taken everything that Hillary and her rethug bedfellows have thrown at him, and maintained his dignity instead of letting them drag him into the gutter with them. He is far and away the most presidential of the three candidates, and he will make a terrific president.

(Comment on this post)

A Division by Zer0 has an interesting post on the difference between subjective morality and moral relativism. The latter, as formulated by its opponents, is the position that there are no universal human values; we may find slavery abhorrent, for example, but other cultures see nothing wrong with it, so who are we to judge them.

This of course is an incoherent stance, akin to a Cretan saying: "All Cretans are liars." But in my experience, moral relativism is more usually a strawman, an insult to be flung at the enemy, than a self-identified viewpoint. Subjective morality is another matter.

Theists often have fetishes about objective morality, seeing at as a royal road to proving the existence of their Sky Daddy. The theologian William Lane Craig, in particular, is cringe-inducing in his enthusiasm for this argument:

It is fantastically improbable that just that sort of creatures would emerge from the blind evolutionary process who correspond to the abstractly existing realm or moral values. This seems to be an utterly incredible coincidence, when one thinks about it. It is almost as though the moral realm knew that we were coming.

--The Existence of God (II). Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003

To me, this is about as laughable as going on about how incredible it is that the human foot evolved to fit the sock so perfectly. I have argued before that it is perfectly reasonable to believe that morals evolved along with the human societies in which they are found. One can argue that the concept "thou shalt not kill" exists in some timeless platonic sense, like the concept of pi or square roots. But did the concept really exist billions of years ago, when there were no intelligent minds in the universe to grasp it? One might as well say that the concept of Tuesday is eternal and universal.

So if morality is subjective, on what basis can we condemn slavery? That's simple. Slavery causes suffering. The slaves themselves, even if no-one else, know what freedom is and yearn for it. And simple empathy with one's fellow humans ought to convince one of the injustice of the institution.

It seems to me that many of the practices of past centuries which today strike us as barbarous were accepted simply because of limited contact between different peoples, and suppression of independent thought by the church. Improving technology gives us more opportunity both to think and speak for ourselves, and deal with other people as individuals and fellow humans despite differences of "race" and what not.

Thus, ironically, our supposedly deficient and crippled subjective morality is actually far superior to the divinely ordained morality of the bible in alleviating human suffering. Go the bible with a question and you will come away with twelve different answers, all of them equally arbitrary arguments from authority and antiquity. In fact I would say that the bible gets the right answer far less often than by random chance; it contains not a single word of condemnation of slavery!

So if some bible-thumper tells you that your morality is subjective, you can take it as a compliment. Religious morality is also subjective, being based on which dusty collection of scrolls the adherent chooses to believe; it's just more arbitrary, self-deluded and incoherent.

(Comment on this post)

Welcome to the 90th biweekly Carnival of the Godless! It seems like only yesterday when I hosted the 21st edition. Now it's fast approaching 100, and has become a beloved institution in the godless blogosphere.

No obvious theme emerged from the submissions I received for this carnival, and after being sicker than a dog yesterday, I'm too brain-fried to come up with one. So it's just going to be a link dump, and we might as well jump right in. In no particular order, we have:

Kejda Gjermani on Beyond Conservatism: Freedom in a Godless Future

Wenchypoo on Polygamists or Poly-GAMISTS?

The Whited Sepulchre on "Under The Banner of Heaven", Warren Jeffs, The FLDS, and The WFZ Ranch.

Sid Schwab of Surgeonsblog on Hell No!!, on the mentality of those who relish the thought of others being tortured for eternity.

Phil for Humanity on Humanity's Responsibilities, in which he argues that it does not matter if God created man or if man created God. Alas, when I viewed the post, it was deface by a Google ad for Expelled. Which brings us to:

Vjack on I Was Wrong: Why We Must Discuss Expelled. Meanwhile, I am pleased to report that Expelled is bombing at the box office and being savaged by the critics.

One final post on Expelled from Aaron Miner, who writes about Academic Freedom and Academic Responsibility.

Next, it's the Barefoot Bum on Theistic morality and objectivism, in which he argues that although theistic morality claims to be objective, it is nothing of the sort.

The Bad Idea Blog on Florida Believers are Not Stupid, But the State Issuing the Liscence Plates Is, in which PZ Myers is taken to task.

PZ also gets some stick from Chris Hallquist in Tolerating ourselves to death, on Geert Wilder's video Fitna.

Adrian Hayter proposes an online atheist book club in The Atheist Blogger Book Club.

The View from Here on Muslim Call to Adopt Mecca Time. "Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth. [...] One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca's was in perfect alignment to magnetic north."

Bloggin' Off on Pope Ropes a Dope, Does Boffo Box Tax Free.

Meanwhile, the Sexy Secularist writes in Pope on a Rope: "The Pope on the sex abuse scandal: 'It is important that those who have suffered be given loving pastoral attention.' Honestly, Ratzi, was that the best thing to say?"

Brave New Kitty on Atheism and the Mythical God: "The atheist is stuck in the same myth as the believer; he is merely on the other side of it. His beliefs are rational, but they are also reactionary."

Al-Kafir Akbar! on The Real Meaning of 'Jihad', and the linguistic games some Muslims play.

In a strange land on ANZAC Day Atheist, regarding the religious nature of ANZAC day when Australia and New Zealand commemorate their war dead.

Alonzo Fyfe on A New Constitutional Test for Religious Liberty, a very disturbing development by the Supreme Court's right wing which would give the government much greater latitude in shoving religion down our throats.

Bay of Fundie on OneNewsNow Readers Say the Darndest Things!, on the funny/scary comments at a fundamentalist news site. (Funnily enough, my spell check program wanted to change "darndest" to "damndest".)

Speaking of Neanderthal attitudes, The Skwib brings us the latest installment in the adventures of Thag, the original atheist. Thag grok free will!

Butch of Mississippi Atheists on Science Only Goes So Far.

Michael Dorian of NYC Atheists ask, What can atheists do to improve their image?

Divided We Stand United We Fall, on "The maxim of civil government being reversed in that of religion, where its true form is..." The writer argues that religious diversity is a strength, not a weakness.

The Evolved Rationalist on Fundie Claim #6: Christianity helps people, atheism doesn't.

PodBlack Blog on Wagga Wagga Meeting Skeptics Summary - Hello Ian Bryce! on the importance of teaching children critical thinking skills.

Ben Hamilton on A New Dawn, an introduction to Discordianism.

Pigassus on Charles Bukowski - Laughing At The Odds.

Billy the Atheist on Compassion and Christianity. Are they compatible?

First-time COTG contributor Travis Morgan on Attributes of god that indicate there isn't one.

The Digital Cuttlefish urges us in rhyme to Join Me In A Moment Of Silent Prayer (or do nothing--it all comes out the same).

Risto Juola on Arrogance Has No Intellectual Utility, regarding Abraham, Buddha, and the dangers of a one-dimensional education (be it religious or otherwise).

The Daily Atheist on The necessity of combating relativism.

God Snot, Where God's Not on Faith is better than shitting yourself.

Café Philos on Standing Up For Nontheists Like Nicole, on the Nicole Smalkowski affair.

Last but not least, two posts from Jeffrey Stingerstein: No Faith? No Problem. (Part One) and Top Ten Annoying Responses from Theists Upon Finding Out that I Am atheist.

That's all for this edition - many thanks to all the contributors. The next edition is in two weeks' time at State of Protest. See you there!

(Comment on this post)

And don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!

Condi Must Go

(Comment on this post)

It's Groundhog day... another inconclusive primary, and the promise of the never-ending scorched-earth trench warfare for the Democratic nomination dragging on and on right up to the convention.

More race cards and dirty tricks from the Clinton team, more time for Obama to make gaffes or perceived gaffes (the guy can't even scratch his cheek now) which are eagerly pounced on by the media and treated as earth-shaking apocalyptic developments. More free rides for John McCain as Karl Rove and his fellow sewer rats laugh themselves sick over this train wreck of a campaign.

I would take some consolation from the fact that both candidates are fighting so hard to win, except that I've seen this pattern before. Democrats only show this "win at any cost" mentality when fighting against each other. They use up all their energy and money trying to destroy each other, and then when it's time to stand up to rethug corruption and misrule, when they should be defending justice and democracy against the oligarchy, they cave faster than a West Virginia coalmine.

I can see Billary going into the convention, calling in favors, twisting arms, bribing and threatening in smoke-filled back rooms, flipping regular delegates and supers alike, until Hillary is one vote ahead and is duly nominated, not caring how many Democratic voters desert the party in disgust. And I guarantee that once nominated, she will immediately turn around and be all sweetness and light to McCain. Heck, it's already a lovefest from both her and Bill to McCain; he loves the US and Obama doesn't, she'd rather see him in the White House than Obama, and what not. Is she running for President, or to be McCain's Vice President?

I'm just so sick of all this shit. Even I can't believe how the Dems are once again blowing what should be an absolute lead-pipe-cinch drop-dead can't-lose election. There's a joke about academic politics being so vicious because the stakes are so small. I think something similar applies to the Dems; they believe the primary is "academic" because they can't possibly win the general election, therefore the stakes are small and they might as well destroy each other.

Can I just hibernate until the election is over?

(Comment on this post)

Sickened by the deafening silence of both the media and the Dems to recent news that the Chimp-in-Chief and the Dick-in-Chief personally approved torture, down to micro-managing specific techniques, I fired off the following letter to my Congresscritter. I urge you to send something similar, with copies to your local newspapers.

Dear Congressman X,

Some time ago I wrote to you in support of impeachment hearings against George Bush and Dick Cheney, and you replied that the Democratic Party would not consider impeachment unless there was clear evidence of gross violations of the Constitution.

Well, this evidence is now out in the open for all to see. I refer of course to recent news that Bush and Cheney not only personally approved torture but micro-managed the specific torture techniques to be used. This is utterly outrageous, and the clearest grounds yet for impeachment. Bush and Cheney have, by their contemptible actions, exposed US troops to great danger and brought this country into disrepute from which it will take decades to recover.

It seems to me that when the abuse of the Constitution is this flagrant, and the high crimes and misdemeanors this repugnant, it is not up to Congress to decide whether or not to begin the necessary hearings - Congress has a duty to protect the Constitution and demand accountability when it is violated.

Therefore I look forward to hearing from you as to how you and your colleagues will respond to these disgusting revelations.

(Comment on this post)

I'll be honest with you, I haven't seen Ben Stein's creationist propaganda movie Expelled, and I've no intention of doing so. But I've been seeing and hearing ads for it damn near everywhere, from Comedy Central during the commercial breaks while I'm watching Stewart and Colbert, to my local liberal talk radio station, KPHX.

I'm struck by the dishonesty of the advertising campaign. On Comedy Central, they're trying to make the movie look like a comedy, a sequel to Jack Black's School of Rock. And on KPHX, the ad opens with dire pronouncements about free speech and science being under attack. At first I thought they were talking about the Junior regime's campaign to suppress the truth about global warming.

It speaks volumes that Stein and his creationist paymasters are going to such lengths to deceive people and prevent them from finding out what this piece of crap is really about - which is of course merely a continuation of the tactics used in making the film.

Part of me feels the sanity-based community should simply ignore this movie, relegating it to the obscurity it so richly deserves. But the central thesis of Expelled is the outrageous and despicable lie that "Darwinism" lead inevitably to the WWII holocaust, that the highly principled and humane Charles Darwin was himself some kind of proto-Nazi - and that anyone who continues to teach evolution today is in the thrall of eugenics and genocide.

This is the sort of big lie that only organized religion can get away with - and it's long past time we started calling them on this shit! I for one am going to do everything in my small power to expose Stein's lies, smears and slanders. I hope he and his fellow liars-for-jeezus lose a buttload of money on this turkey.

(Comment on this post)

For years, George Bush Junior has studiously ignored the climate change crisis, bleated that "further research" was needed before taking action and then slashed funds to prevent that research from taking place, allowed oil industry lobbyists to rewrite and falsify his own scientists' reports, and fired those scientists when they did their jobs too well. And of course he reneged on his campaign promise to ratify the Kyoto treaty.

Now he dimly realizes at some level in his vestigial reptilian brain that a lot of people are worried about global warming, and therefore some token gesture on the subject is required. But not anything of substance; heaven forbid that Big Oil's hundred billion a year profits should be reduced by even the slightest amount! If that happened, no-one's face would be safe from Cheney the Dick's shotgun.

In a speech in the Rose Garden, Bush will lay out a strategy rather than a specific proposal for curbing emissions, White House press secretary Dana Perino said Tuesday. She did not disclose details of his announcement and would not say whether the president would propose any kind of mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course he won't. And nobody seems to have asked Dana Peroxide whether Junior consulted with any climate scientists in coming up with this "strategy", whatever the hell it is, but again the answer is: of course not. Dollars to donuts the "strategy" is another few billions in corporate welfare for the oil companies.

In his remarks, Perino said, Bush will articulate a "realistic intermediate goal" for the United States. Bush will emphasize the importance of offering incentives to promote technology as an effective way to reduce green house gas emissions, she said.

Let's translate from Bush-babble into English.

Realistic? Read: business as usual.

Incentives? Yup, more subsidies for Big Oil, just like I said.

Technology? Read: "clean coal", which is so dirty, a Prius running on fuel derived from it emits more pollutants than a Hummer running on regular gas. And read biofuels, a gigantic swindle which is destroying the last of the tropical rain forests, driving food prices through the roof throughout the third world, and which is so heavily dependent on intensive application of artificial fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides that it actually uses up more fossil fuels than it replaces, while releasing 17 to 420 times as much greenhouse gas as if you just burned fossil fuels. But biofuels are Junior's favored "solution" because it's another massive giveaway to the megacorporations.

But here's what really kills me:

"To us, having unelected bureaucrats regulating greenhouse gases, at the direction of unelected judges, is not the proper way to address the issue."

Of for the love of... since when is "unelected" a deadly insult? And what about an unelected pseudo-president who refuses to address the issue at all? Sheesh! No sane person wants elected bureaucrats. It's their friggin' job to regulate, and politicians should set policy and then get the hell out of the way and let the bureaucrats implement the damn policy. As for judges... oh, forget it. This is all so stupid it hurts my brain.

Let's face it, no rethug is able or willing do anything meaningful about climate collapse. We will have to wait for a Democratic president taking office next January, unless we can impeach the snivelling little chimp in the meantime.

(Comment on this post)

Teegeeack will be a sucky place, and other dire predictions. Add your own.

Thanks to Miguel for the link.

(Comment on this post)

As the US becomes more of an all-pervasive surveillance society every day, incidents like the following are bound to become both more common and more deadly in terms of the authority's overreaction.

It turns out the feds have been monitoring Interstate 5 for nuclear "dirty bombs." They do it with radiation detectors so sensitive it led to the following incident.

"Vehicle goes by at 70 miles per hour," Giuliano told the crowd. "Agent is in the median, a good 80 feet away from the traffic. Signal went off and identified an isotope [in the passing car]."

The agent raced after the car, pulling it over not far from the monitoring spot (near the Bow-Edison exit, 18 miles south of Bellingham). The agent questioned the driver, then did a cursory search of the car, Giuliano said.

Did he find a nuke?

"Turned out to be a cat with cancer that had undergone a radiological treatment three days earlier," Giuliano said.

At least the powers that be realized their mistake. Suppose they had decided to shoot first and ask questions later?

I find it profoundly creepy that those who rule us have such awesome technological power at their disposal, coupled with a mindless bureaucratic attitude that everyone's life should be an open book - if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear - and that if their 1984-style equipment yields a false positive, the onus is on you to clear yourself - hopefully before they've blown you away.

When every cat is potentially a terrorist suspect, what kind of country are we living in?

(Comment on this post)

You can hardly go anywhere in the US without seeing freeway signs, billboards and what not with some Christian message on them. "Follow me - God", "If you think it's hot now, try Hell" and various other gems of Christian wisdom are everywhere. There seems to be a direct correlation between how much media power and saturation coverage Christians have, and how much they rant and whine about being persecuted and their free speech suppressed by those evil all-powerful atheists.

So what would happen if some freethought group were to put up a billboard with a secular message? The same thing as happened when they tried to display a secular message at Christmas, amid all the nativity schlock. The outraged local Christians shut it down, pronto.

In Florida, a restaurateur was furious when a billboard with the message "All religions are fairy tales" went up next to his establishment. He blamed the billboard for a drop in business, which I suppose is possible; fearful Christians would not wish to go anywhere near the sign lest they be struck by lightning or the pox or something. But in the end, it was not Jehovah's mighty wrath but the "city-wide controversy" and flood of angry calls to the billboard company which led to the sign being taken down.

But maybe there was a supernatural aspect after all, though involving Satan rather than the other guy. As the article notes, "The billboard was on Colonial Drive near Old Cheney Highway." Now that's someone you really don't want to piss off!

[Via PZ]

(Comment on this post)

I'm going to bring this story up from now on every time some gun fetishist tells me that gun nuts are by definition safe, solid, reliable people who would never dream of abusing a firearm, and we should feel totally reassured by the fact that every two-bit redneck in the country is armed to the teeth.

DEEPWATER, Mo. -- Officials are trying to decide whether to file charges against a Missouri man who fatally shot his wife while trying to install a satellite TV system in the bedroom of their home.

Patsy Long, 34, of Deepwater, died after being shot in the chest with a .22-caliber handgun on Saturday. Her husband, Ronald Long, fired the shot from the inside of their home after several unsuccessful efforts to punch a hole through the exterior wall using other means.

Via Jim Downey, who also relates the story of some genius who thought a 12-gauge would be a useful tool for installing a pot-bellied stove in his shack. I think I'm safer among the "unarmed sheep"...

(Comment on this post)

The TV series 24 jumped the shark for me long before it became the wet dream of extreme-right loons who get their rocks off fantasizing about torturing people. I could only take so much stupidity from Kim Bauer, the dumbest blonde in the history of the universe.

On the other hand, I've been following Jericho since it started and it has been getting more interesting all the time. The last few episodes have been downright seditious, with not-so-veiled references to Halliburton, Blackwater, a corrupt politician from Wyoming who's also an executive of an equally corrupt corporation, fake terrorist attacks staged by a government as a pretext to waging war for profit and shredding the Constitution - hmmm! (On the other hand, the good guy who rides in to the rescue is - Texas. Not so realistic after all.)

Tonight was the series finale, and they went all out, with numerous characters declaring that the government that ruled them was corrupt, illegitimate and criminal, and there was no alternative to overthrowing it and bringing on the second American Revolution. Gee, I wonder if the producers are in Camp Guano yet?

I'd love to think that this sort of contribution to the popular culture raises people's awareness of what's going on in real life. And there's no question the show has a lot of devoted fans - it's pretty unprecedented that pressure from fans forces a network to rescind a series cancellation.

On the other hand, remember "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more"? What a difference that movie made, huh? The American capitalist machine has an infinite capacity for co-opting anything that might threaten it, offer an alternative to it, or simply get people to think for themselves instead of being mindless, passive consumers. I remember watching a documentary about the Summer of Love, and seeing how its counterculture and iconography were being used to advertise Coca-Cola and the like even before Autumn rolled around. How depressing.

Anyway, this post is dedicated to all those who refuse to be sheeple, and insist on being individuals. To all who refuse to cower in fear. To all who realize that the emperor is naked, and respond: Nuts!

(Comment on this post)

Freedom of religion. It's what the United States was founded on. It's meant to protect everyone, from snake-handling fundamentalists to vitriol-spewing atheists like me. Yet the people who talk most about it understand it least.

Here in the Phoenix metro area, there have been a number of incidents where Christian school groups have fallen afoul of school policy for harassing gay and lesbian students. The extreme-right state legislature has felt the pain of these gay-bashers-for-Jeezus, and responded with legislation to give Christianity (especially of the fundagelical flavor) even more special powers and privileges than it already has.

Rather disgustingly in my view, the theocrats are framing the issue as one of "persecution of Christians" by those who are trying to protect the Constitutional rights of minority groups, and the local newspaper (fondly known as the "Arizona Repulsive") is mindlessly regurgitating the dominionist claptrap about helping "religious students fight back against public-school teachers and administrators who recoil at the mention of God in the classroom." Oh please!

I'm constantly amazed that the more powerful the Christian theocrats get, and the more they tighten their stranglehold on every corner of society, the more they rant and whine about being persecuted victims of a vast atheist conspiracy of evil judges and school administrators. Rather tellingly, on the same day that the above-linked article appeared, one of the Repulsive's columnists wrote in the print edition about growing up in a small town of less than 1,000 people, which had six churches. I read somewhere that something like 95% of the US population lives within walking distance of one or more churches.

Let's face it, religion is everywhere. It is ubiquitous. The theocrats can't see it because they are so used to it. Which is something I have to live with - people have the right to believe whatever they want, however bizarre, deluded and even loathsome it may be. But the US Constitution is very clear: there is to be no established, officially sanctioned religion. No church is to have special status or receive special favors or privileges at taxpayer expense. No church may use the coercive power of the state over any other church, or over those who belong to no church.

The Constitution is like the boy with his finger in the dike, trying to hold back a flood of theocracy. And it's driving the theocrats berserk. Seeking control over others, using the power of the state to dictate what others believe, who they worship and who they sleep with, is as instinctive to them as breathing. Whenever their dominionist agenda is thwarted, to even the slightest degree, they start bawling about persecution - and brainwashing their children with their laughable but dangerous persecution complex.

If these demented lunatics had a single functioning neuron between the lot of them, they would realize that (a) freedom of religion and freedom from religion are one and the same, and (b) freedom of religion protects them as well as those they despise as Hell-bound heathens and idolaters, i.e. anyone who comes up with a slightly different figure for how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

If we declare Christianity the official national religion of the US, as the theocrats are demanding, which sect of Christianity wins? Which version of the Ten Commandments - Catholic or Protestant - should be on display in every public building? There are over 3,000 different sects of Christianity in the US, and they have been at each others' throats throughout history.

The Founding Fathers, being intelligent and educated men (unlike the vast majority of today's politicians), were very familiar with the centuries of blood-soaked religious warfare in Europe, which was not between generic Christians and atheists, but between Catholics and Protestants, or various sects of Protestantism fighting each other to the death. They saw the same divisions growing daily in the early US, threatening to erupt in full-scale violence. So they very wisely took the issue off the table, declaring that everyone could believe as he or she wished but no church could use the power of the state to dominate anyone else. It's been a system that has worked extraordinarily well, allowing religion to flourish and diversify to an astonishing extent, without the ancient hatreds that have shed so much blood in other parts of the world.

The fundamentalist theocrats, temporarily riding high in power due to their political connections, want to sweep all of this away. How incredibly foolish and short-sighted! How do they know that their particular brand of Christianity will always reign supreme? Once they establish the principle of tyranny of the majority, what happens when they are no longer the majority?

That is why state-church separation is such a vitally important principle that it must be regarded as the foundation stone of the United States. Either we all have freedom of (and from) religion or none of us do!

(Comment on this post)