The Hidden Atheist - Hiding in plain sight: Aug 20, 2009

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Another Religion Reporter Loses His Faith

William Lobdell’s time working as a religion reporter for the LA Times helped him become an atheist.

It looks like he has a counterpart in the UK.

Stephen Bates is a former religion reporter for The Guardian. His time reporting on religion led him to agnosticism.

The thing that astounded me was the vituperation directed not at other faiths (a degree of Islamophobia came later) but at those who happened to disagree within the same faith communities.

You get evangelical publications denouncing “liberals” within the Church of England and claiming they are not really Christian, there are reactionary Catholic publications sneering similarly at modernists and attacking those who do not wish for a return of the Latin mass as somehow lesser beings…

What rankled most was the hypocrisy, the fact that the Bible’s scattered and random words on homosexuality were uncontestable for all time and yet, somehow, divorce — which Jesus himself appears from the Gospels to have condemned — was somehow only a minor and changeable transgression…

…

I gave up covering religion for the paper after seven years, partly because I felt I could no longer report dispassionately on such events, or even give a fair shake to those whose views seemed to me to be both deluded and malign.

The last paragraphs are must-reads.

Atheism may be realistic, but without some humanism in there to provide compassion and support, it’s hard to get people to consider godlessness as a viable option for them.

(Thanks to Emma for the link!)

Another Religion Reporter Loses His Faith
Hemant Mehta
Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:00:08 GMT

Friendly atheist under attack

(Via The Good Atheist)

Ok, the title of my article is a little inflamatory, but how else can you describe a consentrated effort on the part of the Illinois Family Institute to get Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta fired from his job as a high school math teacher? Sounds like an attack to me.

IFL director Laurie Higgins is on a crusade to get the school faculty to punish him for writing an atheist blog on his free time, even though it plays no part in his teaching life. I won’t pretend to know all the details (go to his site for that), but I thought it might be fun to put up some choice quotes from the whole affair:

…even if Mr. Mehta does not view his math classes as opportunities to proselytize, there still remains the fact that he is a role model and he regularly engages in very public discourse on very controversial topics. For many parents, views on homosexuality and belief in God are two of life’s most important issues — issues that are critical to both civilized and eternal life.

I personally think that the illimination of hunger and suffering in the world are more important issues, but what do I know, I’m just a Godless heathen! Also, if that statement wasn’t ignorant enough for you, here is a classic one that should be put on a trophy for “Worst Anology ever made by a retarded Christian”

Many parents would recoil at having their children spend a school year under the tutelage of a teacher — particularly a charismatic teacher — who in his or her free time blogs favorably about racism and travels the length and breadth of the country preaching racism. Similarly, some parents may recoil at having their children spend a year under the tutelage of a teacher who spends his free time blogging favorably about atheism and homosexuality and traveling the length and breadth of the country preaching favorably about atheism.

So, let me get this straight: Hemant’s blogging on issues of gay rights and atheism is racist? This from a woman who has compared homosexuals to nazis? Do these morons ever listen to the delicious irony that sometimes spills out of their ignorant mouths? If it’s any comfort Hemant, she did called you charismatic at least…

Friendly atheist under attack
Jacob Fortin
Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:07:18 GMT

When to Stone Your Whole Family

OK, I admit it. I stole the title from the Brick Testament.

But the Brick Testament pretty much stole it from the Bible, so I guess it all works out OK.

Deuteronomy 13 gets my vote for the worst chapter in the Bible. But before we get into it, let's look at its context.

The last verse of chapter 12 says this.

What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. Deuteronomy 12:32

The person who is supposedly talking here is God, and he says to do whatever he says, exactly as he says, no more and no less.

And what does he say to do immediately after this verse? Three things.

Kill any prophet or dreamer of dreams. Even if they have cool signs and wonders.
If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder ... that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death. Deuteronomy 13:1-5

Kill your family if they have religious beliefs that differ from your own.
If thy brother ... or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods ... Thou shalt not consent unto him ... neither shall thine eye pity him ... But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. Deuteronomy 13:6-10

Kill everyone in every city that has citizens that believe differently than you.
If thou shalt hear ... men ... saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known ... Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. Deuteronomy 13:12-17

But I'd like to focus on God's second command in Deuteronomy 13: When to Stone Your Whole Family.

If thy brother ... or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods ... Thou shalt not consent unto him ... neither shall thine eye pity him. Deuteronomy 13:6-8

But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death. Deuteronomy 13:8-9

and afterwards the hand of all the people. Deuteronomy 13:9

So God commands us all to stone to death, without pity, our wife, husband, son, daughter, brother, sister, or friend, if they have religious beliefs that are different from our own. (Our own beliefs are the correct beliefs, of course.)

And God said immediately before these verses that "what thing soever I command you, observe to do it."

Is there a believer that follows God's command in Deuteronomy 13:6-10?

Is there a believer who is not deeply ashamed that this is in the Bible?

If so, I'd love to hear about it.