So an athiest group (athiests are organized?) in England is doing something I hate, which is pushing their beliefs on others. Even if I agree with them, I think they should keep their religion, or lack thereof, to themselves. After all, that seems to be the point of the ads they’re running on busses:

The adverts contain the slogan: ‘There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life,’

Some people do enjoy their lives through religion. I’m not religious and I enjoy Episcopal church. It has a calming, soothing effect on me. I’ve written poetry about how the repitition of well-memorized statements in unison with others is somewhat calming to me, even if/when I don’t believe. The ritual itself is soothing. And then there’s that 10-minute sermon which –  if you’re in a church with biblical and historical scholars for preachers –  is like a historical lecture. So it’s easily possible to enjoy life within the confines of religion. Not to mention the feeling of community and the actual community a church creates.

I take issue when folks, outside of an academic-ish debate, try to invalidate the beliefs or lives of others. And use religion to do it. It’s hard to reason with “Well God says being gay is wrong,” or “Well, God said the world was created in 7 days.” How do you reply? “Scientific evidence says otherwise.” “Yeh, but God said this.” That’s a debate killer.

That’s what I feel like this athiest group is doing. “There is no God, you’re wrong, get over it.” Debate over.

I feel more for ardent Christians who take a similar tactic, because if they’re not motivated  by the desire to piss people off by telling them they’re wrong, then, at the very least, they actually are trying to get people into heaven. They are literally trying to save (post-mortem) lives. I feel like this atheist group is just being confrontational for the sake of confrontation.

Well, a Christian group got pissed off and has reported the ads to the bus service regulator because they are allowing advertising that can’t be backed up with evidence, or so the Christians say. That’s true, I have no more evidence that there is no God than I have that there is a god. As it is, God doesn’t make sense to me, and the idea that I’m supposed to give up this gift of reason God supposedly gave me and just believe in and worship him makes me think that God is a terribly conflicted egomaniac. But I’m always open to the possibility of God.

Anyway, got off on a tangent there. Sorry.

They might lose that “no evidence God doesn’t exist” debate in court, if it comes to that. But if you’re not talking about, say, evolution or something else scientific, the athiests might have some problems. It’s difficult to invalidate people’s perceived perceptions of God in court. You can’t prove that those people aren’t sure God didn’t talk to them, after all. In some cases, you might be able to prove that they’re crazy, but hell, Tucker Carlson became a Christian the other day because he said God talked to him (“I exist,” God said to Carlson). He sucks, he really, really sucks and is a miserable cesspool of humanity’s potential, but I don’t think he’s a diagnosable schitzophrenic.

But it sounds like an interesting case, and I look forward to following it.

A US man divorcing his wife is demanding that she return the kidney he donated to her or pay him $1.5m (£1m) in compensation.

Dr Richard Batista told reporters that he decided to go public because he was frustrated at the slow pace of divorce negotiations with his estranged wife.

He said he had not only given his heart to his wife, Dawnell, but donated his kidney to save her life.

[Emphasis theirs]. You should go to that website and check out the wedding pic, too, it’s like a fucking Hall & Oates album cover or something.

Seriously, if people think gay people are threatening marriage, they’re overlooking divorce.

A kidney?

Why I’m Not Blogging More About Gaza

Gaza has overdetermined

me into paralysis.

I actually feel too close to

this problem,

a problem

that symbolizes

all problems.

It’s true: I have friends in Gaza

about whom I worry a great deal;

I’ve seen many people killed in Gaza;

I’ve served in the Israeli Army in Gaza;

I’ve been kidnapped in Gaza;

I’ve reported for years from Gaza;

I hope my former army doesn’t kill the wrong people in Gaza;

I hope Israeli soldiers all leave Gaza alive;

I know they’ll be back in Gaza;

I think this operation will work;

and I have no actual hope that it will work

for very long, because nothing works

for very long in the Middle East.

Gaza is where dreams

of reconciliation go to die.

Gaza is where the dream

of Palestinian statehood

goes to die;

Gaza is where the Zionist dream

might yet die. Or,

more to the point,

might be murdered.

I’m not a J Street moral-equivalence sort of guy.

Yes, Israel makes constant

mistakes, which I note rather frequently,

but this conflict reminds me once again that

Israel is up against an implacable force, namely,

an interpretation of Islam that disallows the

idea

of Jewish national equality.

My paralysis isn’t

an analytical paralysis.

It’s the paralysis

that comes from thinking

that maybe there’s no way out.

Not out of Gaza, out of

the whole thing.

This is a late night reminder of sorts for me to think about this later, but it seems odd to me that Bush is pissing off his own party — and the powerful ones in it, at that — while he’s a lame duck rather than being 100% strong partisan. There’s been a change in Bush since Rumsfeld and Rove left and Cheney became less of an influence–he’s taken to admitting mistakes nearly twice in a blue moon and even blaming the economic crisis on himself, which is slightly harsh and hard to prove (reasonable doubt as a benchmark).

I don’t know the historical lame-duck moves. I know Clinton went a little wild on pardons (eww) and conservation (yay!) but I don’t know about policy in general (Bush has actually been ramrodding new environmental regs that SUCK in his last days). Maybe it’s just that Republicans don’t have to pretend to like him anymore now that he’s only a month (HOLY SHIT) from the end of his presidency.

I still don’t like him. But I still wouldn’t throw a shoe at him. Maybe a brick wrapped in the Constitution, though.

Obama has selected to Warren give the invocation at his historic inauguration. And gay rights groups are up in arms over this. Sure, Warren (author of that Purpose-Driven Life book) is moderate and I understand and sympathize with Obama’s political needs and intentions. But Warren’s church does  have one of those “ex-gay” groups, a program to help homosexuals stop being gay. That’s really disgusting to me. And he’s sorta kinda equated gays with child molesters and polygamists. But my good man Obama has selected him to reach across party lines and be a symbol of Obama’s post-partisan world.

I get it, Barack, and I love you. I really do. But I always said that when I was supporting you that I was prepared to be disappointed, because part of the reason I loved you was the sweeping rhetoric that made me feel good, and that’s not really a rational way to choose a President, so I voted on his policies, which I like (but in the primaries, when faced with a choice between Clinton and Obama and their very similar policies, Obama’s ability to make me happy and talk about unity in an interesting, compelling manner put him over the top for me… but I really wanted Bill Richardson).

You’ve already managed to disappoint me. And that’s fine. I know you don’t endorse everything Warren has said and that you’ve stated that time and time again.

I think a caller on Talk of the Nation said today something along the lines of, “what if Rick Warren had said he didn’t believe that interracial marriage was okay?” What if Rick Warren was an anti-semite? I think Obama would not have him at the inauguration. But right now, whether you believe it or not, it’s socially acceptable to treat gays as not equal. 10% of the population and their small group of friends gets pissed and then what happens? Nothing. So you don’t have to take gay rights seriously as a public figure.

Obama doesn’t take gay rights seriously. That’s what I’ve learned from this. Or, at the least, he’s not yet ready to risk his political goodwill and take gay rights seriously. But risk it he has.

What’s more shocking to me is the furor over this inauguration — the event that was supposed to basically end such partisan back-biting in America — is being stirred up by gay folks. We are now dividing Obama’s supporters. Not Republicans (well, maybe they’re on the other side). The first major blow to Obama’s ability to govern as everyone’s President comes from folks pissed off about Prop  8 and Warren’s support of it.

And we’ve made Obama talk about it and say he fully supports gay rights (though he’s a civil union guy, which is fine with, though Andrew Sullivan or one of his readers has suggested this is a “separate but equal” compromise–click around those links up top).

Neat stuff to think about.

This post created something of a conundrum on the back-end of this blog. I went to put this in “Radical Wrong,” Z’s cleverly named category for the Radical Right, but then realized that label doesn’t really fit this post. So this is a new category called “Radically Wrong Moderates”.

UPDATE: Due to it being the devil and all, I don’t normally like to talk about the National Review. I started reading it when I was doing a lot of political blogging, for “balance.” I mostly fume at everything they say. But Ramesh Ponnuru has nailed it:

By giving Warren a platform, Obama is not endorsing his views—but he is saying that those views are a legitimate part of the national conversation.

He goes on to attack liberals, but he’s right in this one line. Obama is saying that those who talk about gay rights as if it’s ridiculous (or disgusting, or whatever) are okay, and shouldn’t be treated like outright haters of other groups.

I’m not one to say gay rights are Big C and Big R “Civil Rights” as in the black Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. But it’s not because I don’t believe that homosexuality is in-born (probably a mix of genetics and other neo-natal factors), because I do. In that way, it’s like race (well, without the other factors). But I don’t equate the two because there’s not really a huge movement and in our time there haven’t been nearly as many snarling dogs, jail cells, murders, firehoses, bombs, and riots (not to take away from those who have been harmed by bigots and stupid laws, at all, just the suffering on a mass quantitative level is not quite the same). But there certainly have been similar things.

I was kind of hoping we could do it without the bombs, dogs, firehoses, jail cells, murders, and riots. I was kind of hoping we would have learned from the Big C and Big R Civil Rights movement.

A Memoir of Addiction

By Cookie Monster

And Five Things to Avoid

By Gene Chizik

And Other Shit You Should Probably Know

“You freaks make me sick,” the e-mail read. “You are the scourge of the earth and are responsible for everything that’s wrong in this sorry world because of the immorality you have brought on this world as a whole.”

That’s sweet. Gays are responsible for *everything* that’s wrong? Man, that’s impressive. I’d think Tamburlaine, Christopher Marlowe’s “scourge of God,” might also be pissed that homosexuals who don’t even conquer or whip anyone (well, not unless you’re into that kind of thing) or do any other such badass shit get to be named the “scourge of the earth” by this UAB employee. Who is this UAB employee, you ask? The Schnauzer’s got the link to the folks who think they’ve figured it out. FOX40 News in Sacremento believes that Pamela Gibson, an office associate in the Physiology Department, is the culprit who allegedly sent this e-mail from her work e-mail address, which is probably a violation of policy.

What’s even more amazing is that a UAB employee is being investigated about hate speech by a news outlet in Sacremento, California. Makes Alabama look good, doesn’t it?

Man, I’d like to know the thought process that goes into declaring that someone is “responsible for everything that’s wrong in this sorry world because of the immorality you have brought on this world as a whole” for being gay. I, personally, have a hard time figuring out how what I do in the privacy of my own home with a consenting adult is immoral, or in fact affects anyone else at all. Is it like bad karma or bad energy? Does it radiate from my house and infect the world with immorality? I don’t get it. When two straight people fuck, does it restore the balance? Is it like the Force? If I start fucking women can I trick people into thinking that these are not the droids you’re looking for?

Because, if so, I could probably pretend to think women are attractive … if I got superpowers. How many times do I have to do it until I can lift an X-Wing with my eyes closed? I could do it like, maybe 5 times. I wouldn’t want to make a habit out of it. But if I get superpowers from just one fuck or something, I could probably swallow it. Or not swallow it, as it were.

Lady, if you were the one who wrote that and you did it on company time, you might have a lot more to do with what’s wrong with the world than queers do.