Spring on a large university campus means but one thing: crazy evangelicals. Since I attend (arguably) the largest university in the country, I get my fair share of kookery. Most evangelical preachers simply stand on a grassy area and preach, for hours, about the damnation that sinful, depraved college students face. Some gather crowds and screaming voices of dissent, but many are as easily ignored.
But every spring, the evangelical season is rung in by a group so passionate they cannot be ignored: the abortion protesters. They cover the campus in the blight of propaganda- their commitment is clear. This year, I decided to take a few photos of the madness, and string them into a quick youtube slideshow. Check it out, and note the response of the pro-choice counter protesters:
I often find Christopher Hitchens to be an insufferable ass, and often too abrasive and sure of himself to be enjoyable, but I really enjoyed this takedown.
Hitchens is invited by the host, Todd Friel, of a Christian Radio show to play a version of the Christian 'What if?" game. This game tries to lead you inexorably from fanciful scenarios based on the presupposition that god exists, to the conclusion that since god exists you should, of course, accept jesus into your life!
Hitchens' demonstrates the right way to engage with such dishonest tactics - simply play the game on your own terms.
Well done sir!
Hat tip: Pharyngula
On my FaceBook profile, I currently list my religion as "Tolerant Atheist". This was not carefully crafted to annoy absolutely everybody, but rather to allow for conversation. I recently received this strip of paper with an eBay purchase.
I try to accept the caring and sharing intent of the message, rather than be irritated by the inference that I am damned to hell for all eternity because I don't share their dependence on a particular brand of invisible friend.
Just after I graduated from college, I was somewhat less tolerant. That summer, I visited St. Peter's in Rome with my Jewish girlfriend. We followed an American priest/guide around and got some wonderful architectural and artistic behind-the-scenes insight, beyond that of a regular tour.
As he led us out, we handed him a tip in honest appreciation of his sharing. He returned the gesture in kind, by blessing us each with a thumbed cross to our foreheads.
My companion handled it with aplomb. I was less graceful. I'm sure my face reflected an expression appropriate to being blessed by a primitive savage priest with some unpleasant goo.
Many atheists vehemently reject religion much like recovering alcoholics reject alcohol. They had been eager partakers, and now pity anyone who hasn't yet seen the light. Recovering Cathoholics and other Christ-shuns. I was raised atheist, so I don't have that particular bent. It's not that I disagree with Dawkins and PZ and their ilk about the dangers and inherently infantilizing nature of these beliefs. I just think that atheism will become better accepted in America if it isn't so intimately associated with vocal anti-Christianity.
Here is how a well known irreligious bloviator candidly expresses his experience of receiving an evangelical gift.
His point of view seems to match my own. Accept a gift as it is intended.
We human beings are the most important aspect of the entire universe. Or at least some people say. They say that a Supreme Being created the entire disposable universe to serve us, and that HE visited us here on earth, the moral and spiritual center of the entire universe.
Others would differ. Unbelievable as it might seem to many Believers, perhaps we are big fish in a very very small pond. Listen to the words of Carl Sagan, as he discusses our "pale blue dot":
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