This just gets crazier, and more entertaining…

(via)

Stanhope can be an asshole, but he’s basically right. If people truly believed in heaven, they’d welcome death – rather than merely use it as a way to feel better when someone dies. Imagine how many murders and suicides there’d be if we knew with 100% certainty that heaven was real. Who [...]

This video isn’t entirely necessary to watch in full, but irritated me as I watched it last night. Bible thumper comes on and says that homosexuality is against the word of God. Elliot Spitzer is very careful, saying things like “I respect your beliefs” but never addressing the obvious: the Bible says that [...]

This won’t end well: Study suggests ‘born-again’ believers have smaller brains –
The study, which examined the hippocampus region of the brain, found that Protestants who did not have a “born again” experience had significantly more gray matter than either those who reported a life-changing religious experience, Catholics, or unaffiliated older adults.
The study, funded by [...]

Nice documentary, though at times too nice, as the narrator (who made “Trekkies”) is a kind of anti-Bill Maher. His takeaway is that we’re all very similar searching for the same thing. Though it’s a portrait of how colorful the world is, this cynic’s interpretation is how weird it is that so many people [...]

via the Daily Grail:

German ‘thought car’ could be driven on Sabbath, Rabbi says
Rabbi Dror Fixler, an electro-optics expert from Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, told The Local that the distinction between thought and action could mean that driving on the traditional Jewish day of rest was mutar, or permitted.
In October, scientists [...]

Very fascinating.  If you watch anything, watch Hitchens’ opening remarks.

Tony Blair’s main idea is that religions do good charitable work – but so do legions of non-faith-based organizations.  You don’t need religion to care for the poor.  It’s not as though if Jesus didn’t exist to serve as an example, we’d spend all our time [...]

In light of the last few posts, I think I’ve changed my tune about fundamentalism. In a recent Technoccult interview I said:
The main thread here I think is the problem of fundamentalism. First two novels I wrote were about Hollywood – which I see as another religion, with the same kind of blind worship. [...]

This discussion about the origins of Jesus’ teachings is interesting in the light of the incredibly disgusting comments coming from the far right. Jesus as ass kicker:
Jesus’ act of self-sacrifice would ultimately have been meaningless – yes, meaningless – if he had not inflicted a mortal wound on the enemy while giving up his [...]

Via Disinfo, this video makes a startling case for the Bible’s repulsiveness, given how many times it says we should kill people who break God’s law – and God’s law happens to be normal, everyday things.

Lest there be any confusion where Jesus stands – as this mainly references the Old Testament – this comes from [...]