Rachel Ford is a programmer, and since 8:00 to 5:00 doesn't provide enough opportunity to bask in screen glare, she writes in her spare time. She was raised a very fundamentalist Christian, but eventually "saw the light." Rachel's personal blog is Rachel's Hobbit Hole, where she discusses everything from Tolkien to state politics.
The Daily Show aired a segment the other night about the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s response to the “prayer discount” offered by a diner in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. (We covered the story on this site yesterday.) The gist of the segment was that it was wrong for atheists to interfere. While the punchline of the report was that FFRF co-President Dan Barker was a “dick,” Daily Show correspondent Jordan Klepper uncritically presented restaurant owner Mary Haglund’s assertion that merely taking a quiet breath would have netted the same 15% discount. To me, that seems to be a dubious claim for something that was termed a “prayer discount,” but I mention it less to quibble over the particular than to illustrate the general nature of the interview. The segment conveyed the impression that FFRF’s interference was petty, unwarranted, and cruel. While the piece got some good laughs at the expense of atheists, its message was wrong and, frankly, disappointing from a show that usually champions causes of fairness and equality. Here’s why: Read more
Over the weekend, Fox aired an episode of Family Guy called “The 2,000-Year-Old Virgin,” in which a set of characters set out to help Jesus lose his virginity. Needless to say, many Christians weren’t amused — but their reactions often were amusing. Young Conservatives, for instance, speculated that … the creative team who thought this episode would be funny likes to wash down their bowl of hellfire with a tall glass of blasphemy. But some of the best commentary came from Glenn Beck and his radio show co-host Stu Burguiere on Tuesday. Reacting to the segment, they expressed a great deal of outrage, confusion about history, and general inanity. Read more
Religion takes a lot of flak for the science-denial it inspires in those believers who try to re-frame reality in order to fit their particular religious text’s claims. Young Earth Creationists are a perfect example: they’ll discount mountains of evidence in order to cling to the narrow interpretation they’ve embraced. However, we tend to spend less time paying attention to the equally futile efforts of believers who reshape and rework those texts to sort-of, kind-of slip in-between the cracks of reality. The National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Carl Drews is a good example of what I mean. Drews is a software engineer with a Masters Degree in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, who has spent a good deal of time trying to prove that Moses’ parting of the Red Sea actually happened. Read more
Last week, the Huffington Post published a story about Dr. John Weafer’s book Thirty-Three Good Men. The book surveys thirty-three Irish priests, both current and former, and examines a number of issues related to life in the priesthood. Recurring themes are celibacy and sexuality. Weafer, a sociologist, examines the lives of men from different walks of life, choosing priests of “diverse backgrounds, personalities, behaviours and attitudes.” While his findings are not groundbreaking, they do provide a view of the dismal reality for priests resulting from the church’s attitude on celibacy and homosexuality. Read more
This past Wednesday, a church in the Bronx was the scene of a peculiar theft. A five-foot crucifix, worth $5,000, was taken from the lobby of the Saint Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church. The cross went missing during mass. That a thief or thieves would come in while services were ongoing in the adjacent room in order to steal a life-sized crucifix is bizarre enough. Where the story gets really interesting is when you consider that the church’s namesake, Saint Anthony, is the patron saint of lost and — you guessed it — stolen items. Read more
