This is going to be posted all over every news site and many, many other blogs besides this one, but I just can't help but share in the good news. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of marriage equality. Here's a link to the article from MSNBC, Supreme Court rules in favor of marriage equality.
There were two questions before the court, whether states had to license same-sex marriages, and whether states had to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Happily, the court ruled yes to both questions.
The vote was closer than I would have liked to have seen. I'm not really surprised at Alito, Scalia, or Thomas, but I was hoping Roberts would have been on the right side. I know it might not have been the original intention of the 14th Amendment, but I don't see how someone from today could read that amendment and not think it mandates marriage equality. And to the people arguing that this decision overturns the will of the people - that's the whole point of this amendment and the Bill or Rights, to ensure that people's rights aren't trampled by the tyranny of the majority.
Oh well, I'll leave it to other sites to analyze and discuss the decision in more detail. I'm just happy to share the good news.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons (Human Rights Campaign Marriage Equality Logo)
I've published* a new update to my book, God? Leaving Christianity - only $4.99 from LuLu (also available for free online - but that doesn't make nearly as nice of a gift...) The book is a collection of some of my best essays on religion, both chronicling my thought process in abandoning belief and explaining some of my more recent thoughts on the subject. I've kept the book relatively short, just over 100 pages, to keep it as a reasonable introduction to non-belief that won't be overwhelming to readers.
I know it's hard to be impartial about a book I've written myself, but from the reactions of friends who have read the book, I feel comfortable recommending it. One of my friends, after reading the book, went and bought ten copies so that he could give them away to other people to read. The most recent friend I gave a copy to sent multiple text messages while reading the book to say how much he liked certain passages.
I usually order a small batch of books at a time to have some on hand to give to people who want a copy (I never push it on people, and only give it to people who actually ask for it). However, that most recent friend also received the last copy from the most recent batch, so I figured I'd read through and make a few revisions before ordering another batch, creating a new third edition.
If you're one of the select few who already owns the first edition, there are two new essays in this book. You can either read those essays online, or download a pdf copy with the link below. The pdf is formatted to print out as a booklet on 8 1/2" x 11" paper. Even if your printer doesn't have auto duplexing, Adobe Reader has options to print out a booklet. Religious Essays.Supplement - Two More Essays.2015-06-23.pdf
However, I really do recommend the LuLu paperback version for people who want a hard copy. With the glossy cover and perfect binding, it's a much nicer form factor than anything most people can print out on home equipment. And at only $4.99, it's not that expensive.
If you just want to read the essays, you can do that online for free. But if you want a nice physical copy that you can hold in your hands or give to someone as a present, then go buy the book from LuLu**. Just in case you missed the multiple links in this post or the ad in the sidebar, here's the link to buy the book one last time:
* I'm using 'published' in a loose sense, as it's really self-published from a print on demand company. As I've written before, this is the modern version of a vanity press, but without the expense of paying for a print run.
** Another option if you want the book is to befriend me and just ask for a copy, but then you'd have to know me in person.
On the weekend when the situation seemed most dire, and the National Weather Service was predicting a flood 3 ft higher than the previous record flood for the city, the city council held a special emergency meeting to inform the public. Being close to the area affected, I went to that meeting. For the most part, it was very informative, and I'm grateful to the city for all their efforts in this situation. Despite a few minor missteps, it was certainly handled better than the flood in 2007. However, there was one part of the meeting that rubbed me the wrong way. This isn't a major complaint on my part (I'm not going to contact the Freedom from Religion Foundation or anything), but it is a gripe.
You can watch a video of the meeting below. There's a half hour of just the news channel's logo before the video actually begins (it's from a live recording). The meeting starts at about 35:30, but the part that irritates me starts at 1:22:03.
The pastor of First Baptist Church, Dr. Robert McCartney, was in attendance (the doctorate is from a seminary). I don't know much about McCartney himself, but his church is the one that unleashed Robert Jeffress on the world, so he's already tainted a bit by association. Anyway, the mayor called him up to lead everyone in a prayer. I'm not visible in the video, but if they'd have panned to the back of the room, you'd have noticed a rather grumpy looking person who wasn't bowing their head like almost everyone else in attendance. This was a public meeting, run by the city government. On top of that, there was a real emergency going on, and the mayor decided to waste everyone's time listening to a minster. Actually, that's what bothered me the most when this happened. I normally say 'to each their own' and don't get that bothered by people praying. But this wasn't a token prayer before a meal. This was a real emergency, and people were turning to their super powerful imaginary friend for help. The mayor might was well have called up a witch doctor and had us all sit through a chicken sacrifice to appease the rain gods.
I understand that religious people will want to turn to their god(s) in times like these for comfort, and they have every right to do so. But do it on your own time. If you want to hear from the pastor, go to church. Don't bring the pastor in to a public meeting (not to mention the violation of the establishment clause).
McCartney's prayer was mostly what you'd expect - praising God, thanking him for ending the drought, and asking him not to flood the city. One part did stand out to me, though.
And God I pray, first of all, that you would stop this rain, from happening. Lord, we don't need any more, and we're asking you not to send this huge amount of rain that's being forecast.
Man, what arrogance. First of all, he's informing God that we don't need the rain, as if an omnipotent deity needed informing. Then, he's asking God to change his plans. I left a comment in a previous entry, What's the Point of Intercessory Prayer?, that sums up my opinion on this attitude:
I was a Christian for many years before I became an atheist, and long before I began questioning my faith I'd given up on intercessory prayers. It just seemed so conceited. There's a pretty famous line in the Lord's prayer about 'thy will be done.' There was also the story of Jesus praying on the Mount of Olives - "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." And that was Jesus, God himself, praying (I'll admit, the trinity makes no sense). If even God the Son wouldn't ask God the Father to change his plans, how vain is it for a mere mortal to ask it?
The closing of McCartney's prayer also bothered me - not because it was anything out of the ordinary or unexpected from a Christian, but just because it was another reminder of a sectarian prayer taking place in a public meeting.
God, we pray now for our city. You have rescued us, as we said, from one crisis. Rescue us again Father, and we will give you glory forth. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
And it wasn't a particularly short prayer, either. It was just over 2 ½ minutes long.
There was actually one funny part to the meeting that got a chuckle out of everyone there, and it was even related to religion. At around 1:21:15, one of the area residents commented:
Can you ask people to pull those Pray for Rain signs out of their yards?
They popped up all over the city during the drought. Well, now that the drought's over, a new sign has been popping up:
Actually, I don't have anything much to say about these signs. Sure, they bug me a little bit, mainly because they seem to be more of a command to others than thanksgiving themselves. But they're nowhwere near as bad as that prayer at a city meeting, and at least these signs are on private property. I'll note that there don't seem to be near as many of these signs as there were Pray for Rain signs, though.
Anyway, I'm glad the flood danger is over, and that the flood didn't turn out to be anywhere near as bad as it could have been. And I'm grateful to the city for all they did and for being on top of the situation this time around. I just wish that Jesus didn't infect everything in this city.
The latest installment in the Jurassic Park franchise comes out this weekend, Jurassic World. There's been a lot of talk among dinosaur fans about how this movie isn't putting feathers on the theropods, even though there's pretty convincing evidence that many theropods were covered in feathers. This controversy goes back to 2013 when the director first announced that the dinosaurs would be featherless, and you can read how many dinosaur fans reacted in the comments to a blog entry on National Geographic's Phenomena, A Velociraptor Without Feathers Isn't a Velociraptor.
Nearly all of the comments condemned the director's decision. But, even on a site like that, there were a few people who preferred naked dinosaurs. Here's one example.
You know, this is a MONSTER movie, not a national geographic documentary. A fluffy dinosaur is a lot less scary than a big scaly monster lizard.
Here's another.
Yeah, that's a great argument and everything, but.... I just don't like feathery raptors. A lot of people don't, and a lot of people do, and it just happens that someone who doesn't is in charge of the film. Fandom and reason don't go together for me. If there was another franchise that did feathery raptors, that'd be fine, but a major change, like turning my childhood favorites from tall and scary to chicken sized and fluffy would cause at least a little grumbling. D: And I hope they have more puppets and robotics in 5.
Seriously? Take a look at this picture of a modern day dinosaur (yes, it is). Even though this animal has feathers, it's not cute and fluffy. Really, it's pretty intense, and if it were a bit bigger, it would be terrifying.
Now, take a look at these two pictures. They're actually both of the same animal. This time, it's a mammal - a bear, in fact. But if the idea's supposed to be that a soft covering makes an animal less scary, then a hairless bear should look scarier. Instead, it looks sickly, and not particularly intimidating at all.
Finally, here's one last picture. I don't see how someone could say this reconstruction of a dinosaur is less intimidating because it also happens to have feathers.
Actually, before moving on, let me just recommend following that Imugr link. It's an article by someone else peeved at the idea that Jurassic World didn't include feathers, and goes into more detail than this short entry of mine, including some of the evidence for feathered dinosaurs.
I realize Jurassic World is a movie, and there will always be inaccuracies in movies. But still, this one is science fiction, which should be based on, well, science. In fact, that's much of what made the first Jurassic Park movie so good. It was revolutionary in incorporating so much knowledge from the dinosaur Renaissance and depicting dinosaurs in an active way they'd never been seen on screen before. It really did alter the public perception of dinosaurs away from the slow lumbering beasts of yore. Now, with an opportunity to again advance the public perception of dinosaurs with new discoveries since the first movie, they've abandoned that approach and decided to stay stuck in the past. What a shame.
If you follow movement atheism at all, you're probably aware of PZ Myers and his blog, Pharyngula. A few years ago, PZ coined a new term, Dictionary Atheism. You can read his full explanation in his entry, Why Are You an Atheist?, but the gist is that he doesn't like when people cling to the dictionary definition of atheism as lacking belief in gods, ignoring all the positive values that led them to their atheism, or the moral values that come out of it. He seems to think that 'atheism' should imply more than lack of belief in gods, and more specifically a liberal outlook. PZ just brought this up again in a recent entry, My lasting contribution to atheism, which has motivated me to post my opinion on this issue (note that this is recycled from a comment I left on another blog, the Digital Cuttlefish, in the entry, I Thought I Saw A Dictionary Atheist).
While I'm a liberal atheist myself, I don't particularly like the idea of trying to make 'atheism' synonymous with 'liberal atheism'. For one thing, there are already good terms for the types of social issues that liberal atheists want to promote, such as the obvious 'liberal atheism', or especially 'secular humanism'. Why try to make the term atheist mean something already defined by those other terms?
The bigger problem is that conservative atheists, while definitely a minority, aren't negligible. According to a Pew survey from 2012, "Nones" on the Rise:
The religiously unaffiliated are heavily Democratic in their partisanship and liberal in their political ideology. More than six-in-ten describe themselves as Democrats or say they lean toward the Democratic Party (compared with 48% of all registered voters). And there are roughly twice as many self-described liberals (38%) as conservatives (20%) among the religiously unaffiliated. Among voters overall, this balance is reversed.
Granted, unaffiliated isn't exactly the same thing as atheist, but note that about 1/5th identified as conservative.
A 2008 Pew survey (pdf) did break down responses to some questions all the way to atheist, not just unaffiliated, and 13% of atheists think "abortion should be illegal in all or most cases", and 14% of atheists think "homosexuality is a way of life that should be discouraged by society". That's a sizeable enough minority that it can't be ignored as a part of atheism.
I've written numerous times about the problems caused by religion. See for example, the entry, Why Do I Spend So Much Time on Religion, where I include links describing some of these problems (fire bombings, children being tried for witchcraft in the modern day, opposition to marriage equality, etc.). So, I see people leaving religion as a positive thing in that they've at least left behind this great big negative influence*. But really, that's all atheism is, is a blank slate.
The fact that so many atheists promote conservative ideologies demonstrates that atheism doesn't necessarily lead to liberal values. And while atheists like me or PZ may strongly wish for all other atheists (or even more accurately, all other people) to promote liberal ideas, you simply can't ignore all those conservative atheists or dismiss them as not true Scottsmen. Liberal atheism requires more than just atheism, like critical thinking, free thought, and especially secular humanism. Personally, I'd just stick to calling it New Atheism (or even Gnu Atheism), since that term seems to have stuck, and let the 'dictionary atheists' keep plain old atheism.
*I realize not all people are equally negatively influenced by religion. To quote myself from another previous entry, Hercules Misunderstands Atheists - Responding to Kevin Sorbo, "If religion was all soup kitchens and homeless shelters, or even just spaghetti dinners and Christmas bazaars, religious debates could be mainly academic and philosophical. As soon as religious people quit causing so much trouble in the world, atheists will quit getting angry about religion."
Updated 2016-01-29: Slightly clarified second paragraph, and clarified that children are being tried for witchcraft in the modern day, and that this isn't just a historical complaint.
Take a look at this pathetic excuse for a comic that's the latest from Randall Munroe:
Click to embiggen and to read the mouse-over text
Sacrilege!!! Beer is the nectar of the gods. Sure, it may be an acquired taste, but a lot of the things I like now were acquired tastes. I didn't particularly like coffee when I was younger, but now I do. Same thing for Brussels sprouts and steak (though I think my adult taste for steak may have more to do with discovering 'medium rare' as opposed to cooked to the consistency of leather).
I can not believe that Randall Munroe would go so far as to imply that beer actually tastes bad, or that people only drink it out of peer pressure. It's an insult, and in protest, I plan to boycott his site for the next 48 hours.
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I've written about beer before, 2012 Great American Beer Festival, which reminds me that there are a few local beers I still need to try.
And even though I've already posted this before, I still like this picture, so I'm posting it again. This is from my pilgrimage to the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas.
With June here, it's time to look over the server logs to see what pages on this site were most popular this past May. The top pages were very similar to the previous month, with the only shuffling being dropping a Friday Bible Blogging entry (Joshua 1 to Joshua 10), and adding a movie review that's made the list before, Review of Ray Comfort's New Movie - Evolution vs. God, Part I.
Overall traffic is still in line with what it's been for a while.
This is going to be posted all over every news site and many, many other blogs besides this one, but I just can't help but share in the good news. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of marriage equality. Here's a link to the article from MSNBC, Supreme Court rules in favor of marriage equality.
Religious Essays.Supplement - Two More Essays.2015-06-23.pdf
The latest installment in the Jurassic Park franchise comes out this weekend, Jurassic World. There's been a lot of talk among dinosaur fans about how this movie isn't putting feathers on the theropods, even though there's pretty convincing evidence that many theropods were covered in feathers. This controversy goes back to 2013 when the director first announced that the dinosaurs would be featherless, and you can read how many dinosaur fans reacted in the comments to a blog entry on National Geographic's Phenomena, 
With June here, it's time to look over the server logs to see what pages on this site were most popular this past May. The top pages were very similar to the previous month, with the only shuffling being dropping a Friday Bible Blogging entry (