An Atheistic Examination of the Culture of Belief: How Religious Devotion Trivializes American Law and Politics

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Godidiot of the Week

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This week's Godidiot is a nasty, fraudulent, arrogant, fear-mongering, greedy, lying piece-of-shit con man named Robert Frey who's such a big crybaby that he's threatened a blogger with a libel suit (and eternal damnation) for exposing his little scam. As Brent of Unscrewing the Inscrutable explains, Frey's hustle is hawking Ten Commandments signs to help gullible Christians "defy" the evil forces that brought down the grandstanding Roy Moore. As a news story linked from Frey's site demonstrates, he's encouraging his marks to overwhelm the ACLU's litigation machine by putting the signs on their lawns: Now, instead of worrying about a... (503 Words)

This week's godidiot, Christian Libertarian Vox Day of Vox Popoli, has a lot to say about the relationship between God and ethics for someone who knows so little about either: Without God, there is only the left-hand path of the philosopher. It leads invariably to Hell, by way of the guillotine, the gulag and the gas chamber. The atheist is irrational because he has no other choice – because the rational consequences of his non-belief are simply too terrible to bear. According to day, atheists are irrational because they have a "faith" in science which is "every bit as blind... (553 Words)

All Godtalk is babytalk, but this week's Godidiot, Fiona of The World Wide Rant, has raised incoherence to an art form. Not only are her words about God -- or about anything, for that matter -- incomprehensible, but the very thoughts upon which they are based are a meaningless, static buzz. No need, in her mind, to define terms or shape concepts into any recognizable form. For all the sense that comes out of her drooling little mouth, she might as well be spitting out strained carrots. Beneath it all, however, lies the same vicious, nasty, selfish theology that drives... (310 Words)

Ghwh adsjhe djhjhwi Godidiot Dawn Olsen fwiutes: Jjst mshgt ie thnt, RA blsnch tortured for eternity in hell, drjkjdfk jk a lake of fire hghje blah ngf Saddam, Hitler, Eva, Osama, Kafkaesqui, June and Ted Bundy, bjsoiu but Bob Hope, Vicky Drachenberg, Warren Zevon, Steven Den Beste and Austin Cline dfjng fg Heaven asikjg aigj. Bh yeah???? F aksd soooooo scared. Jjjdf jk ne gs waaah waah waah boo hoo. Hj adfht Dawn hsdg jehg stupid. Jgj alg fg God ajdfk aj er ominbenevolent?. Tnsh why ajjk ge ghnso ghlwie burn yn sdj a sjd Hell fgkjs etakhtg??? Dgjskd Dawn... (173 Words)

Nothing enrages The Raving Atheist more than decent, kindhearted people who are otherwise sensible -- but when it comes to religion, refuse to see the truth even when it is biting them in the face. Although they have the rational faculties to distinguish sense from nonsense, sanity from insanity, they suspend belief whenever someone gurgles about God. Knowing better, they declare the God debate a draw, inevitably chiding the atheist for being a cruel, mean-spirited bully out to pick a fight. In such a manner this week's Godidiot, Vicky of Liquid Courage, weighs in on the debate over the conflict... (698 Words)

The very essence of Godidiotism is to defend a moral position for the sole reason that it is supported by some religious dogma. Dean Esmay's stance on abortion is a classic example of this: For years, certain feminist organizations have been upset to note that support for abortion-on-demand as a no-questions-asked absolute civil right is not particularly prevalent among women generally. Worse, the younger women are, the less likely they are to view it that way. This particularly irks feminists who believed that, somehow, all those nasty reactionary pro-life women (who typically make up the majority of the crowds at... (606 Words)

Atheism and rabid secularism start with the presumption that all values are equal and entirely [a] matter of opinion. * * * On Mondays I'm an atheist, on Tuesdays through Saturdays I'm a confused agnostic deist, and on Sundays I try to take the day off. * * * I'm not an atheist. I am agnostic about God, but not about everything because I believe things like astrology, voodoo, witchcraft, and satanic powers are all nonsense, and I loathe flim-flam artists like John Edward and Uri Geller. * * * I'll come out of the closet and just say... (1842 Words)

"It really amazes me how devoid the most religious Atheists are of any positive human qualities such as tolerance, compassion, humor, intelligence and the like," says this this week's Godidiot, Clubbeaux, speaking of Yours Truly in his post The sad Atheist strikes again. Atheists like me, he asserts, are "unusually bitter, decayed stumps of people"; we're "shallow" and "unreflective," we're "empty, hollow, miserably crabbed creatures" and "the first cousins of leaf-nosed bats with the brains of a garden implement." Atheism is "the religion of scowling unthinking misery" and The Raving Atheist himself is an "emotionally deficient loon" who spreads "vicious... (1718 Words)

In Sunday's Washington Post, former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett offers a laughably half-hearted defense of the following statements that current Secretary of Education Roderick R. Paige made in an interview with the Baptist press: All things equal, I would prefer to have a child in a school that has a strong appreciation for the values of the Christian community, where a child is taught to have a strong faith. Where a child is taught that there is a great source of strength greater than themselves. In language Bennett understandably neglects to quote, Paige also said that "[i]n a religious... (812 Words)

This week's Godidiot, Professor Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy, is a stupid and evil evangelical agnostic fucktard (but not otherwise unintelligent). He wins the award for his essay last Friday, Atheism and Tolerance, which criticizes my allegedly intolerant and contemptuous attitude towards stupid and evil religious jizwads. Our differences are actually more stylistic than substantive, as my views on religion and church/state separation coincide with his, as far as I can tell, in nearly every meaningful respect. But like an earlier Godidiot recipient, Nicholas D. Kristof, Volokh believes that "mockery of religious faith is inexcusable" -- not to mention... (2582 Words)

Allah is a syphilitic whoremonger who fucks goats in an outhouse. The Virgin Mary gives blowjobs to Jesus for ten cents a pop. Ganesh rapes the corpses of stillborn babies. Yes, I'm back. I didn't offend anyone just now, did I? If you were offended, you're either 1) stupid, or 2) as stupid as this week's Godidiot, The Raving Agnostic, in which case you've lost the right to be offended. If you were offended, you need to be educated about a few things, stupid, so sit down, shut up, and let me explain why. The Raving Agnostic believes that it's... (670 Words)

Zombyboy of Resurrectionsong has posted his response to winning last week's Godidiot Award. I reproduce it below, together with my reply. We have to start from the bottom of your commentary as that really shapes the rest of the conversation in my mind. I stand by my assertion that atheism is a "faith-based belief." Faith is defined as a "confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing." That seems to describe your position pretty damned well. The article that you linked to didn't really address that at all 1) Faith is not merely "confident... (2092 Words)

Upon further consideration, I retroactively designate the subject of yesterday's post, John Gray, as Godidot of the Week.... (19 Words)

This week's Godidiot is Zombyboy of Resurrectionsong, a frequent commentator of late in The Raving Atheist's comments section. Since he's an inquisitive sort, I'll adopt a Q&A format this time around: Q: What I don't really understand is the level of animosity towards people like me--that is, people with religious beliefs. Why does it bother you so much that I pray or believe in something you do not? Hell, I figure I'm a pretty good guy. Pretty normal, really. What about me annoys you so much (in a general atheist v. Christian sense, not in a "he posts too damned... (920 Words)

John Ray and Peter Cuthbertson have co-founded an entertaining new blog, PC Watch, presumably intended to skewer the sort of over-sensitive and humorless ideological inflexibility that comes at the expense of common sense. But this item and the others mentioned below make them co-recipients of the Godidiot Award: Political correctness even has the potential to trump religious freedom. Church schools in the Australian State of Queensland had only a narrow escape from it in 2002. The Labor Party government in Queensland tried to pass a law that would have forbidden them from rejecting gays as teachers in their schools. An... (672 Words)

(Link courtesy of reader gmanedit) "Hate the symptoms, love the disease." That's the philosophy of this week's Godidiot, Nicholas D. Kristof, whose New York Times Op-Ed yesterday suggests that sensible, intelligent people should play Chamberlain to the ignorant, dangerous, anti-intellectual Hitlers known as evangelicals. Kristof clearly knows better. He paints a depressing picture of America, which is now 46% born-again. Only 28% of Americans accept evolution, while 48% accept creationism and 68% believe in the Devil. He notes that a Christian "left behind" series about the Apocalypse has sold 50 million copies and that Benny Hinn -- the lying, murdering... (608 Words)

Two college students. He's a devout Catholic. She's a raving atheist. They're thinking about getting engaged, but are concerned that their religious differences might lead to problems in the future. So they seek the counsel of this week's Godidiot, "Alice" of Go Ask Alice -- the pseudonym of a team of Columbia University health educators and health care providers. Most of Alice's advice is touchy-feely psychobabble about exploring each other's feeling about religion and spirituality. But she concludes her answer with this recommendation: Speaking with a rabbi, pastor, or minister with whom you feel comfortable could also help. Some members... (224 Words)

This week's Godidiot, Angelicum-trained Chris Burgwald of Veritas, probably should have been added as the Third Stooge to last week's co-recipients, Minute Particulars and The Secularist Critique (I think he'd be the Larry). He's endorsed MP's criticism of "the goofiness that comes from [my] fingers" and TSC's response to some of my "ridiculous ranting." Before I discuss any of Veritas' specific utterances, however, a few general observations about this theological trio and their methodologies. What I find most amusing is that of all the things I've written about, the only one that has so far provoked their wrath is my... (904 Words)

This week's Godidiots are the Catholic tag team of The Secularist Critique and Minute Particulars, who have been hotly disputing my interpretation and assessment of Aquinas' first cause argument. Specifically, TSC and MP have leveled two charges: 1) that I have fabricated a contradiction in the first cause argument by inaccurately imputing to it the premise "everything has a cause" and 2) that I have misrepresented what the first cause argument proves, or is meant to prove, about God's powers and attributes. What their arguments on these points actually show is, to quote TSC himself, that "[t]hey are a bunch... (876 Words)

It's the Battle of the Magazine Godidiots in the correspondence section of this week's New Republic. The war started a few issues back, when Wieseltier pronounced Buckley "the most distinguished anti-Semite in American Catholicism" for supporting continued efforts to convert Jews to Christianity. The Jews have their own covenant with God, says Wieseltier, and he's angered that Buckley lacks the "decency" to accept the U.S. Catholic Bishop's resolution to leave the Tribe alone. Indeed, Wieseltier believes that "the Christian mission to the Jews is a delegitimization of Jewish belief [and] is downright un-American." Wieseltier also finds the doctrine of the... (690 Words)

"[I]t may be disappointing to some graduates of Princeton University to see their alma mater's name associated with the CD-ROM version of the I Ching," notes The Skeptic's Dictionary. Yale Law School grads should be mortified, then, by the antics of this week's Godidiot -- Jack M. Balkin, the school's Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment. He recently published an entire book on the I Ching, and, in his new blog, he consults it to decide whether the United States should invade Iraq. For the mercifully uninitiated, I Ching is an ancient Chinese text used as an... (492 Words)

This week's Godidiot, syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher, wins the award not for her dogmatic Catholicism -- but for her equally idiotic religious and intellectual relativism. She celebrates the atmosphere of religious tolerance that has permitted Orthodox Jew Joe Lieberman to throw his yarmulke into the presidential ring, citing polls that show that the Tribe is especially popular among fundamentalist and evangelical Christians. But Maggie is upset that the circle of tolerance is not complete -- because, she notes, the same polls show that Christian fundamentalists still get low approval ratings. She blames the "Party of Unbelief," i.e., the Democrats, for... (651 Words)

(nominated by Andy of World Wide Rant) This week's Godidiot, Christine Lehman of A Theist Gal, was selected not for something she wrote but for what she is -- an atheist who converted to Catholicism. Or, technically, a Catholic who converted to atheism who re-converted to Catholicism. Her site used to be called "Atheist Gal," but she added the space between that "A" and the "theist" after Jesus snatched her back about a year ago. She doesn't really blog, but just maintains a website with a few essays recounting her meandering spiritual journey and some Catholic links. In a previous... (738 Words)

I was pressed for time today, so this week's Godidiot, Amy Welborn of In Between Naps is somewhat of a sniper victim: picked out at random from the list of Catholic blogs at Praise of Glory. Well, not completely at random; I started from the top of the list and worked my way down, looking for the first arguably God-idiotic recent post. It didn't take long -- she's just fourth on the list. I admit that the evidence of her God-idiotism is circumstantial. It consists of just eleven words: "Because, you know . . . gays and lesbians are so... (394 Words)

I have as little sympathy for gay Catholics as I do for Jewish Nazis. So Jesus-worshipping Andrew Sullivan's whine today about the irrationality of homophobia earns him the title of Godidiot of the Week. The morality of homosexual conduct can easily be defended on the ground that it does not hurt those who participate in it, or anybody else. That is the beginning and the end of the argument, and, indeed, of any moral argument. The issue only becomes complicated, and unnecessarily so, when one invokes the will of some unseen, self-contradictory and/or unknowable celestial creature as the standard of... (594 Words)

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