I have been starting to re-think that attitude. September 11 was a big part of that, as I don’t really make the distinction that’s so popular in this country between fundamentalist Muslims and fundamentalist Christians. So one is acting up at the moment and one is laying low. So what?

I came across this quote from Richard Dawkins:

Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where’s the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let’s now stop being so damned respectful!

Christians have long claimed that there is a “culture war” in this country. They claim that we godless liberals are out to take their Christ from them, banish the ten commandments, and cancel Christmas. We, as is our wont, have always demurred, saying “Oh, no, no, we respect your beliefs, we’re not anti-Christian” and being good little ecumenical sycophants.

They’ve stated there’s a war, which is itself a declaration of war. We have not rose to the challenge. Perhaps we don’t think the stakes are high enough. Maybe in a world in which one religion is sending people with bombs strapped to them into cafes, another religion which is merely trying to enforce its backwards moral codes on our nation’s laws seems, well, harmless. Maybe we’re complacent in the victories we’ve made in the last hundred years, and don’t think that the Christian right can regain the ground it’s lost. Well, it’s doing so. The stakes are that high. They don’t blow up buildings, but do you really think if they keep getting their way for long enough, they won’t put gays in camps? They will. “Re-education” first, then when that doesn’t work, extermination. You don’t think they’ll make denying God a crime? It already is in some states, they don’t even need to pass new laws, just start enforcing the old ones. It would happen slowly. Trust me — if these people keep winning, not being a Christian in the United States will end up amounting to second-class citizenship.

Each victory emboldens them. We must not cut and run. It’s time we stopped denying there’s a culture war, and started focusing on winning it.

The subject was a parody image that the blogger had created mocking one of these bigoted shitbags’ billboards…

So, naturally, Exodus reached into their bag of legal tricks, and pulled out that favorite weapon of humorless dickheads, the cease-and-desist letter. So the blogger called up the ACLU, who wrote a fine little response to the bastards reminding them of exactly what constitutes parody and fair use.

For anyone who’s ever found themselves scratching their heads about some of the sillier causes the ACLU has championed over the years, cases like these are a reminder of why this organization exists, and why they’re needed. When well-funded shitbirds like Exodus can pull legal arguments out of thin air and wave official-sounding legalese around in an attempt to bully their critics into submission, we need organizations like the ACLU to stand for the rights of the people. God bless ‘em.

Now, at the suggestion of one of our readers, I have settled on a prize: A cameo appearance in Monkey Law for the winner! That’s right, you too can have your likeness drawn in India ink and immortalized on the web forever.

A guest appearance in the webcomic Penny Arcade went for $20,000! And Penny Arcade isn’t even that good! Imagine the value of a cameo in a quality powerhouse like Monkey Law!

So come to the forum, make a guess as to the date of Sharon’s demise. Keep in mind, his condition has been stable for days now, so you’ll want to take that into account… soon he could be out of the hospital and just be another morbidly obese septugenarian who runs a nation under constant threat of attack and is currently trying to navigate an increasingly hostile parliament. He could live up to a month! So get those guesses in soon! Once Arik’s over, so is the contest!

Mecca, of course, is the holy city of Islamic tradition, and the people were pilgrims participating in the hajj. More specifically, they were heading towards a ritual “stoning of Satan” which I haven’t learned much about except that it seems to involve running real fast to throw rocks at the devil.

My reaction was, of course, “What the fuck!” but the Times reporter didn’t seem to share my surprise, noting that this was “the deadliest such stampede since 1990.” So I did a little research, and found that two years ago, 251 people died during the same ritual. And on July 2, 1990, a similar stampede killed 1402 people. That’s one thousand, four hundred, and two. Trampled to death. That’s over half the people who died in the World Trade Center, people. That’s roughly one whole tower’s worth.

My question is, why the hell isn’t this bigger news? 168 people died in the Oklahoma City bombing, and that got to be on the front page for weeks. Miniseries were made, I remember. Well over twice that number died yesterday because someone left some luggage in the wrong place and it’s below the fold on the Times and God knows where CNN put it, but I had to search.

The framers of the Constitution said a dark-skinned person was worth 3/5 of a light-skinned one, but if the US news media is any indication, I think they may have overestimated.

All I can say is, Arik, don’t take it so hard! Yeah, you’re a little overweight, but I didn’t mean to suggest that you’re ugly per se. Just not as good looking as Colin Farrell.

Who would have thought the Butcher of Beirut would be so thin-skinned?

Now I’m hearing that everyone’s favorite shit-for-brains, Pat Robertson, has (predictably) opened his big mouth on the subject of Sharon’s stroke. Words of compassion for a stricken world leader? What are you, crazy? Who do you think this is? A real man of God? No, we’re talking about Brother Pat here. Instead, he’s making sure everyone aware that Sharon’s stroke is God’s punishment. What a guy.

On the other hand, it seems like many people use the term casually to refer to a belief about the relative probability about god’s existence. As if atheists have a faith based belief that there is no god. But that’s really not a reasonable characterization. Certainly some are more strident than others, but it’s hard to imagine the existence of an atheist who’s certainty in the lack of god’s existence could be seen as so “flying in the face” of something that it would merit being called faith-based, or unreasonable. The label agnostic seems to be almost an accusation that were an atheist confronted with proof of god’s existence, he would deny it to maintain his atheism.

I don’t think that’s fair. I think that if a group of atheists were suddenly confronted with proof of God’s existence, some would immediately convert, some would remain skeptical. I do believe that Atheism is a religious belief, and atheists have just as much capacity to be unreasonable as anyone else. “There must be a rational explanation for this” is just as dogmatic a statement of faith as “Our father, who art in heaven…”