Tag: religion

Discriminating

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Remember when that word meant “discerning,” or “judicious?” Whereas now it means “bigoted” or “prejudiced.”

Well, I’m guilty of prejudice.

There are two documentary films out, or coming out, that I find interesting for different reasons. One I want to see. I’ve prejudged it, and judiciously discerned that it’s worth some of my time. The other, I don’t. I’ve prejudged it, and judiciously discerned that it’s not worth my time or my dime.

The one I want to see, and am willing to spend some of my hard-earned money on, is Indoctrinate-U by Evan Coyne Maloney. Regular readers of TSM will understand why.

The one I’m going to skip is Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed by and with Ben Stein. You know, I like Ben Stein, but I think as he gets older he’s getting further and further “out there.” This movie pretty much settles it for me – I can’t take him seriously any longer.

UPDATE, 4/20: WRT Expelled, quoth Professor Reynolds,

I hate writing about this stuff because — pardon me while I speak plainly — the people on both sides of this issue are assholes. I mean, even by the low standards of Internet discussion. I’m getting email calling me a “theocon shill” for mentioning Stein, and email telling me I’ll burn in hell for calling Intelligent Design “pernicious twaddle.” Frankly, the rabid atheists and the rabid creationists seem an awful lot alike, and no proper hell could be truly hellish without the both of them yammering away at each other. Feh.

Er, “amen”? I mean, I’m not getting the “fanmail” he is, but I certainly understand his position.

KevinLeave a comment

Want a Quick Overview on “Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming”?

I strongly recommend you watch the 50-minute film produced by Warren Meyer, the proprietor of Coyote Blog and Climate Skeptic. (Of course Warren can be ignored by the Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming faithful – he once worked for Exxon, and admits it!)

Warren offers multiple options for viewing his video. I just downloaded and watched the Windows Media version.

Compare the information in his video to this 30-second “Public Dis-Service” commercial designed to frighten our children:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU7BO35n47I&hl=en&w=425&h=355]

I am now thoroughly convinced that “Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming” is nothing more or less than the latest incarnation of Rachael Carlson’s “Silent Spring” and Paul Erlich’s “Population Bomb” – another excuse to politicize all aspects of life, and to frighten the population into giving unlimited power to government officials in order to “save us from ourselves.”

As Richard Thripp at the YouTube site commented on the “Tick, Tick” video:

Together we can obliterate self-sovereignty!

That is the plan. And that is the Quote of the Day.

KevinLeave a comment

Quote of the Day.

Let me know when you stop regarding us religious types as ignorant, irrational subhumans.

Francis Porretto, proprietor of Eternity Road (which I have listed on the sidebar under “True Excellence,” BTW) from a comment to yesterday’s QotD.

Compare and contrast that with this comment by Sarah, of the blog Carnaby Fudge:

“What has been your best blogging experience?”

Arguing with Kevin from The Smallest Minority over religion and philosophy.

Things that make you go, “Hmmmmm…..”

KevinLeave a comment

It’s a Beautiful Video, But…

Also via Van Der Leun, a truly gorgeous video someone put a lot of effort into.

Unfortunately, the first third of the video pretty much cancels out the “message” of the piece for me.

I think my biggest problem with religion, the Abrahamic faiths in particular but for pretty much all of them, is the concept that a Supreme Being created all of this – hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars, cast about the sky in myriad profusion along with nebulae, quasars, etc. just so he could pick one completely ordinary spiral galaxy, one unremarkable star, and one perfectly pedestrian planet and put an intelligent species on it, then make not one, not two, but multiple contracts with those essentially puny beings.

It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It seems to me to be the ultimate waste of resources.

Especially if the physical laws of this universe prohibit us from visiting those billions of other stars and galaxies.

KevinLeave a comment

NEWSFLASH: GLOBAL WARMING AFFECTS EARTH’S ORBIT!

If an actor tells us, it must be true!

Japanese actor Ken Watanabe, who is currently doing the voice-over work for the Japanese TV version of the Planet Earth series, relates the following in a Japan Times interview:

The project that brings (Watanabe) back from hibernation is the BBC nature series “Planet Earth” (titled “Earth” in Japan) by documentary maker Alastair Fothergill, the creative force behind the huge worldwide hit “Deep Blue.” A filmic plea to rescue the planet from environmental destruction, “Earth” opens with a haunting shot of that polar bear coming out of hibernation and searching for footing on melting ice.

Watanabe, who narrates the movie’s Japanese version, recalls what he saw when he spent a month in the Arctic filming on a different project, before he got the call from the producers of “Earth.”

“The first dawn after winter up there is supposed to be mid-February, but the sun appeared to rise two weeks earlier. When I asked the locals about it, they said there have been huge changes here in the last few years.

Yes, the orbit of Earth has been SHIFTED BY GLOBAL WARMING!

You heard it here first, folks.

KevinLeave a comment

South Park on the Mormon Religion.

As I mentioned below in Everything I Needed to Know About Mormons I Learned on South Park, Matt and Trey did a fairly accurate recollection of the history of Joseph Smith and the creation of the Book of Mormon in a South Park episode. Apparently search engines work, because I received this commercial email from the marketing firm 360i a couple of days later:

Hello,

I noticed your post from a few days ago about the Romney Mormon speech and how everything you needed know about Mormonism you learned from South Park. I definitely have to say that’s true for me too 🙂

I know you’re out of town right now, but I wanted to let you know that the folks over at Comedy Central’s Indecision 2008 blog thought that, in light of today’s big speech, they’d resurrect the classic episode.

Check out these (historically accurate, I swear) South Park clips:
http://www.indecision2008.com/blog.jhtml?c=v&m=93189

Feel free to share with your readers, and let me know what you think!

Cheers,
Orli Sharaby
360i on behalf of Comedy Central

Sure enough, there are three short clips, so if anyone’s interested, please enjoy.

But bear in mind Gary’s admonition.

KevinLeave a comment

Everything I Needed to Know About Mormons.I Learned on South Park

I listen to the Hugh Hewitt show on my 45-50 minute drive home every afternoon. My options are Mark Levin, Hugh, or Michael Savage, unless I want to listen to music. Occasionally I do listen to music, but I find talk radio more interesting. Generally. (Mark Levin’s voice is fingernails on a chalkboard to me, and I’d rather bathe vigorously with sulfuric acid and stainless steel wool than listen to Savage.)

Hugh is fully in the tank for Mitt Romney for President, so he spends a lot of time talking about his guy. Apparently Romney is going to give a speech later this week which is going to be on the topic of his religion as it relates to his candidacy. I guess it’s a point of dispute with some since Romney’s a Mormon. Anyway, Hugh, outraged, played a sound-bite of CNN’s Jack Cafferty sounding off about the upcoming speech. There’s a clip of it up at RadioBlogger. Let’s see if I can transcribe it:

The Mormon Church is shrouded in a certain amount of mystery, and, and secrecy – if you’re not a Mormon you can’t go into the temples – If he doesn’t address the Mormon aspect in this speech then he might as well not give it. We’ve, we’ve got a poll that shows about one-fifth of prospective voters that say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who is a Mormon than they would for a candidate who isn’t. It’s the Mormon in Mitt Romney that matters to America’s voters, and if he’s not going to lift some of the veil and explain away some of the mystery that surrounds his religion, which as Gloria points out is a very small percentage of the population of this country – it’s not like he’s a Catholic or a Protestant or a Lutheran or a Methodist or a Baptist – there aren’t that many Mormons and there’s a lot of questions surrounding that church. He needs to address that or this speech is a waste of time.

Wow. There’s a lot of… idiocy there. For one thing, Jack, Lutherans, Methodists, and Baptists are all Protestants. Second, there aren’t that many Jews in this country either. Did Joe Lieberman need to make a speech explaining Judaism to America? You know, about baking the blood of Gentile babies into bread and such? Insofar as I am aware, if you are not a Muslim, you’re not supposed to enter a Mosque (though I could be wrong on that one.)

But in point of fact, the Mormon religion is not shrouded in mystery, nor is it all that secret. You see, everything you need to know about Mormonism has been (rather accurately, from what I’ve been able to determine) explained in a single half-hour television show – South Park. In fact, you can still download the 2003 episode and watch it on your computer if you’d like!

The episode spends about 90% of its airtime reciting and ridiculing the history and beliefs of the Church of Latter Day Saints, with quite good effect I must add.

But it is the ending of that episode that I was reminded of when I heard Jack Cafferty’s idiocy. During the episode, Mormon beliefs and history are explained to the character Stan, who is visiting the family of the new kid at school, Gary. After listening and ridiculing “The Story of Joseph Smith” as related by Gary’s father, Gary explains patiently to Stan:

Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life. and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don’t care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people. And even though people in this town might think that’s stupid, I still choose to believe in it. All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you’re so high and mighty you couldn’t look past my religion and just be my friend back. You’ve got a lot of growing up to do, buddy.

Now I am an atheist, as I’ve made plain on more than a couple of occasions. To some extent this whole thing is, to me, an argument over who has the better imaginary friend. But I do recognize that I am a member of a very small group as well. I won’t be voting for Mitt, but not because he’s a Mormon. I won’t be voting for Huckabee, but not because he’s a Baptist minister. (Actually, I can’t vote for either of them since I’m registered as a Democrat in Arizona.) The fact that these men believe in an invisible friend – however devoutly – is not really germane to me, though.

But Jack Cafferty? He’s got a lot of growing up to do, too.

KevinLeave a comment

LabRat’s on a Roll.

Another Quote of the Day from the first of two posts on faith, religion, and Western society:

What is killing Western civilization is not the death of God, it is the death of meaning.

Go read.

KevinLeave a comment

Quote of the Day.

But to a person who has not already taken a number of things on faith, that story does not make God look loving! The story looks, to eyes that have not already been prepared with several heartfelt acceptances, like this:

“For God so loved humanity, he sent His only son to die, and removed all conditions from their acceptance into His company in the afterlife except an acceptance of the Savior after hearing the Word. Except for everybody who did not hear the Word for geographic or linguistic reasons. They were just out of luck, until hundreds of years later when the faithful came to them to spread the Word. And smallpox. More smallpox than Word, really.”

By LabRat from the comments to this post.