I’m back

’m back, but not really. In that sense, I guess Christians might assume that I’m “resurrected.” I’ve just stopped by to say that I probably won’t be back any time soon. The book isn’t done (it’s not about religion or philosophy, BTW, for those of you who’ve written asking. It doesn’t relate to this blog at all except that I happen to have written both of them. It’s my ninth book, and is about a subject related to my day job). I’ve just been too busy to make much progress on it. Tomorrow, all that changes. I’m taking off a few weeks to work on it.

I don’t know when or if I’ll ever post here regularly again. It will have to wait until at least after the book is done, and I don’t know when that will be. I’m going to take down the re-run posts I put up since 9/15, and I won’t be posting any others. I hope to get back here someday, but I just can’t afford the distraction right now.

Some random parting thoughts:

Beyoncé can upgrade me anytime she wants to. About all that’s missing from that commercial is her going down on a silver phallus with the word “upgrade” on the side. What the heck were her handlers thinking when they let her do that one? She seriously looks like she’s about to give it up for DirecTV.

Dolly Parton looks creepier by the day. She really ought to lay off the plastic surgery. She’s starting to look like Tammy Faye’s deranged sister.

I’m in love with Marie Osmond. I gave up on my love for her back in the 70s, realizing it just wasn’t meant to be. Then I saw a clip the other day of her fainting on Dancing With The Stars and realized how hot she is--40-something or not. She was just gorgeous, absolutely stunning. They said something about her having recently lost a lot of weight. Whatever the case, she looks fabulous. And she’s newly single. Almost makes me want to convert to Mormonism...

For my money, Temple Whore (http://templewhore.blogspot.com/) is still the best religion blogger on the web. I still read her regularly and still feel her blog is a masterpiece of simple elegance. Her witty writing, the wonderfully clean, sleek design of the blog itself, and, yes, those gorgeous pictures, make hers the place to be. She represents all that’s good about religion blogs and blogging in general.

Van Halen is a putting on a great show right now, but I doubt it will last. Eddie simply has a few screws loose, and no singer that we’d pay to see could get along with him for long.

My teenagers have been putting me and the rest of our family through hell lately. Their antics have made me question my liberal outlook on life more than once. I often look at them and wonder where the innocent, good-hearted little kids I helped raise went, the ones who loved Barney and Beauty and the Beast, and their family members.

I’ve been a Hilary Clinton fan ever since I listened to the audio version of her last book. She’s for real and would make a great president.

Nuclear power is the answer to our energy problems. A concerted effort to dramatically increase our use of nuclear power coupled with a move to electric vehicles (Tesla, anyone?) could wean us off foreign oil. Then we could just let them kill each other and stay the hell out of the Middle East. I’m sick of spending American lives to protect our right to make the sheiks richer. The hysteria and ignorance that has surrounded the use of nuclear power for three decades now is threatening our national security and our posterity. Imagine with me a day where petroleum-based cars are a thing of the past, a quaint relic of years gone by much like the steam engine and the telegraph. Imagine being able to “fuel” your car via an extension cord in your driveway and being able to drive great distances without having to recharge. That future is there for the taking if we really want it.


A few parting quotes:

“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.” –Hunter S. Thompson

“I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.” –Thomas Paine

“But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” –Thomas Jefferson

“We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear -- fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts, or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer.” –Hunter S. Thompson

“That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests cannot, or that the Bible does not.” –Thomas Paine

“In four short years he has turned our country from a prosperous nation at peace into a desperately indebted nation at war. But so what? He is the President of the United States, and you’re not. Love it or leave it.” –Hunter S. Thompson

“Richard Nixon looks like a flaming liberal today, compared to a golem like George Bush. Indeed. Where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need him?”–Hunter S. Thompson

“The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.” –Thomas Paine

“Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for–but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him.” –Hunter S. Thompson

“Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles; he can only discover them.” –Thomas Paine

“Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.” –Thomas Jefferson

“He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.” –Thomas Paine

“I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.” –Thomas Jefferson

“[The clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.” –Thomas Jefferson

“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” –Thomas Paine

“I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.” –Robert Green Ingersoll

“It is an affront to treat falsehood with complaisance.” –Thomas Paine

“Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites.”–Thomas Jefferson

“My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.” –Thomas Paine

“Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency. Richard Nixon comes quickly to mind, along with Ronald Reagan and his ridiculous 'trickle-down' theory of U.S. economic policy. If the Rich get Richer, the theory goes, before long their pots will overflow and somehow 'trickle down' to the poor, who would rather eat scraps off the Bush family plates than eat nothing at all. Republicans have never approved of democracy, and they never will. It goes back to preindustrial America, when only white male property owners could vote.” –Hunter S. Thompson

“One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.” –Thomas Paine

“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must approve the homage of reason rather than of blind-folded fear. Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences....If it end in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the love of others it will procure for you.” –Thomas Jefferson

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.” –Thomas Paine

“Jesus! How much more of this cheap-jack bullshit can we be expected to take from that stupid little gunsel? Who gives a fuck if he's lonely and depressed down there in San Clemente? If there were any such thing as true justice in this world, his rancid carcass would be somewhere down around Easter Island right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.” – Hunter S. Thompson on Richard Nixon's life after resignation

“When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.” –Thomas Paine

“Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all...It was pitiful...I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him ‘Mr. President,’ and then I felt ashamed.”—Hunter S. Thompson on Bush’s 2004 debate performance

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” –Thomas Paine

“All we have to do is get out and vote, while it’s still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out of the White House.” –Hunter S. Thompson

“It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.” –Thomas Paine

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Stepping outside for a smoke

or those of you who frequent this blog, this is just a little note to let you know that I’m stepping out for a smoke. Many of you know that I write professionally and that I have another book in the works. For some time, I’ve felt that I’ll likely never finish the book so long as my creative Jones is being satisfied by this blog. So, I’m putting the blog on hiatus for the next three months. I won’t be adding any new posts or responding to comments during that time. If you urgently need to reach me, use the email link at the right. I’ll try to hook back up with you around December 15th.

For those who visit this page via your web browser, I highly suggest you get yourself an RSS reader and subscribe to the blog instead. That way, you’ll get a notification when I start posting again. IE and Firefox both feature RSS subscriptions, as does Google’s personal homepage, iGoogle. Nearly all blogs provide RSS feeds, and you can subscribe to them rather than manually visiting them via your browser. If you’d prefer a standalone RSS reader, I recommend RSS Bandit. It’s the one I use. Alternatively, subscribe to my mailing list via the link on the right, and I’ll send out a note when I come back.

Sorry to run out on you, but this book will be my ninth and needs my full attention. I’ve enjoyed our exchanges and will come back as soon as I can. Wish me luck, and I’ll catch up with you down the road.

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Is infidelity wrong?

I once caught an Oprah show where a guy was hawking a book entitled, How to Cheat on Your Wife and Not Get Caught. Naturally, the book caused some controversy, especially given the audience. He had no sooner finished the interview with Winfrey than there was a line of women a mile long at the guest microphone, each with her hands planted firmly on her hips and mad as hell. He patiently endured their wrath for the next half hour or so as one after the other told him off in no uncertain terms. It was quite comical. I sat their wondering, “What did you expect, you fool?”

A conundrum facing people who don’t believe in absolute morals is whether something like infidelity, which has traditionally been viewed by civilized society as wrong, really is wrong if no one is hurt or even knows about it. Atheists often remind people that atheism is not a morality framework—you need humanism or something else for that. As I’ve said before, atheism is simply the absence of belief in a deity. But assume for the moment that you’re an atheist-humanist and that you gauge the wrongness of an act in terms of the harm or hurt it brings to others. Is infidelity wrong?

Given the title of this blog, you might think that I’d be an expert on infidelity, but not so. This is just something I’ve pondered often—not because I want to cheat on my significant other, but because it is a conundrum commonly faced by people who refuse the shackles of the absolute morality (or immorality, depending on your perspective) detailed in books like the Bible. Following orders is easy; thinking for yourself is harder.

So, what say you? Is it wrong to cheat on your significant other provided a) they’d never find out about it, and b) no one else is hurt or harmed in any way. And, please, don’t give me the copout answer, “Yeah, but I’d know. I’d be hurt. My conscience would bother me.” That’s circular. Your conscience won’t bother you if you don’t believe it to be wrong, so we need to settle whether it’s wrong before we go listening to the little voices in our heads. Also, please don’t come back with the equally vapid, “Well, I’d be hurt if they did that to me, so, yes, it’s wrong.” You’d be hurt if you knew; remember the two qualifications I stipulated. What if they had casual sex with someone that meant no more to them than using a vibrator or blowup doll and you didn’t know anything about it? Is there any real difference in that case between another human bringing them to orgasm or a toy? Would it be wrong?

I’ve heard both Goldie Hawn and her daughter Kate Hudson say that people aren’t naturally monogamous, and a couple generations of men have thanked their lucky stars that they feel that way. They probably wish all women did. Is it wrong to follow your natural instincts and have sex every time the opportunity presents itself provided no one gets hurt?

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Atheism defined

Religionists like to equate atheism to the same type of faith-based position that belief in God is. They often try to claim that it’s merely the flip side of the theism coin. But atheism is the complete absence of belief, not a negative belief based on similarly incomplete evidence. The distinction is subtle, but important. If believing in God is the equivalent of a positive account balance, atheism is not a negative balance or even a zero balance. It is not having an account at all.

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Suck it, Jesus

My friend Temple Whore speculates that it was Kathy Griffin's “Suck it, Jesus” remark rather than what she said right before that: “...no one had less to do with this award than Jesus.” I’m sure she’s right. I’m sure that’s regarded as even more offensive. One question: if she’d said instead, “Suck it L. Ron Hubbard,” would that have been met with such outrage? What about, “Suck it, Krisha”--would that have had a similar result? If we’re going to let people thank Jebus, let’s let them unthank him, too. Kathy’s not representing anyone but herself with those remarks, and she should be allowed to say whatever she wants vis-à-vis handing out accolades for her Emmy. Sure, it pisses religious people off, but she has a right to thank/unthank whomever she wants, in the same away that every other award winner does.

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Flimflamboyant Benny Hinn Exposed

CBN' The Fifth Estate did a bang-up job recently of exposing con artist-cum-televangelist Benny Hinn. Check out the episode link here, which links the entire documentary.

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Lady M.

I was disappointed to learn today that my friend Lady M. has shut down her Bitchasaurus blog. She’s a past Site of the Week winner here on my blog and one of my favorites. One of the things I really liked was how she so adeptly mixed science with unbelief and a good pinch of humor. She has her reasons for doing this and will definitely be missed. In her honor, here’s a post that you might have expected to find on Bitchasaurus. The photos and data are courtesy of another friend of mine, who appears to have gotten them here.

Click the play button at the bottom to play an MP3 that I think is particularly appropriate.

Top Ten Photos of the Hubble Space Telescope

R.I.P. Bitchasaurus.

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So many Tuesdays ago

It was a Tuesday morning, as regular a Tuesday as there’d ever been. I was getting ready for work, about to walk out the door and head for the office. I walked through the living room and saw the story breaking on TV: one of the World Trade Center towers had been hit by a plane. They didn’t know what kind of plane. They didn’t know if anyone was hurt. They didn’t know whether it was intentional.

Then, as I stood there watching, another plane flashed across the screen and hit the other tower. Many of my questions were answered instantly. It was a commercial jet. It was definitely intentional. Lots of people were killed. Lots more would be.

What caused 9/11? George W. Bush would have us believe that 9/11 happened simply because a few fanatics oppose our protecting our interests in the Middle East. The religious right thinks Satan was behind it. Some nutballs think the Jews orchestrated it. A few others think that covert U.S. government agencies were somehow to blame. Nonbelievers generally chalk it up to a combination of religious zealotry and misguided U.S. policy. Whatever the cause, the effect was earth-shattering and probably permanent.

Fidel Castro is a tyrant, a brigand, and a hypocrite, but he is no fool. When asked in 1978 by the House Select Committee on Assassinations whether Cuba had anything to do with the assassination of President Kennedy, Castro astutely pointed out that such an attack “would have been the most perfect pretext for the United States to invade our country, which is what I have tried to prevent for all these years, in every possible sense.” That wisdom was lost on Osama bin Laden, whose Al-Qaeda infrastructure was virtually obliterated by the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda may have recovered somewhat and reformed in the outlying reaches of Pakistan, but it once had an entire country under its domain, and that is over.

Regardless of what you think of the invasion of Afghanistan, surely you would agree that the subsequent war in Iraq—ostensibly fought for some of the same reasons—has not enjoyed the same degree of success. We can argue over whether the war itself was just, but surely we can all agree that no one wanted the protracted mess with which we are now left. Surely we can agree that our government led us to believe that the war would be far shorter and simpler than it has turned out to be. Surely we can question the wisdom of continuing to pump lives and money into such a quagmire.

I think this all goes back to the President and the leadership he demonstrated (or rather the lack of it) in the wake of 9/11. He characterized the attacks as a clear-cut attempt by those bad old Muslims on the American way of life. He led the American response (and thereby the world) down a reactionary, xenophobic path. He framed the conversation in terms of a war on the ever-elusive “terror,” a time to go on the offensive and attack those who might attack us before they do so.

It is fortuitous that JFK, when faced with a similarly harrowing crisis one Tuesday in 1963, took a different path. Faced with the knowledge that the Soviets were deploying nuclear missiles 90 miles from our shores, Kennedy worried that invading Cuba would result in another world war. The Soviets would presume “a clear line” to conquer Berlin, and U.S. allies would think of us as “trigger-happy Americans” who lost Berlin and started a war because they could not peacefully resolve the missile crisis. The naval blockade that Kennedy instituted on Tuesday, October 23, 1963 (and which went into effect at 10 a.m. the next day) probably saved the world. It prevented an all-out confrontation with the Soviets and avoided painting them into a corner from which war was the only respectable outcome. It also forced them to remove the imminent threat of the missiles themselves and had the added benefit of removing the (largely superfluous) American missiles in Turkey. That wisdom was lost on George W. Bush, who has now bogged his country down in what may end up being the most costly war in human history. The war has already cost more in terms of actual dollars spent than World War II, our most expensive war prior to the Iraqi conflict, and will end up costing more than all of our wars combined by the end of the year (in actual dollars, not inflation-adjusted dollars). Long-term, it may very well end up being the most expensive war ever, even taking inflation into account.

So, for me, 9/11 is a case study in unheeded wisdom on both sides. It is a showcase for what a deadly mix arrogance and ignorance make, a fine example of being condemned, as Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana said, to repeat the mistakes of the past because we cannot (or we choose not to) remember it. In that vein, I will tell you what I wished Bush had said in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. Here’s the leadership I wish he’d shown:

“My fellow Ame