I find Darwin fish offensive. First, there’s the smugness. The undeniable message: Those Jesus fish people are less evolved, less sophisticated than we Darwin fishers.

Evolution of religious bigotry

I just watched “Fitna,” a 17-minute film by Geert Wilders, head of the Dutch Freedom Party, which takes a hard-line stance against Muslim immigration.

Released on the Internet on Thursday, “Fitna” juxtaposes verses from the Koran with images and speeches from the world of jihad. Heads cut off, bodies blown apart, gays executed, toddlers taught to denounce Jews as “apes and pigs,” imams calling for global domination, protesters holding up signs reading “God Bless Hitler” and “Freedom go to Hell” — these are just some of the powerful images from “Fitna,” an Arabic word that means “ordeal.”

Predictably, various Muslim governments have condemned the film. Half the Jordanian parliament voted to sever ties with the Netherlands. Egypt’s grand imam threatened “severe” consequences if the Dutch government didn’t ban the film.

Meanwhile, European and U.N. leaders are going through the usual motions of theatrical hand-wringing, heaping all of their anger on Wilders for sowing “hatred.”

Me? I keep thinking about Jesus fish.

During a 1991 visit to Istanbul, a buddy and I found ourselves in a small restaurant drinking, dancing and singing with a bunch of middle-class Turkish businessmen, mostly shop owners. It was a hilariously joyful evening, even though they spoke nearly no English and we spoke considerably less Turkish.

At the end of the night, after imbibing unquantifiable quantities of raki, an ouzo-like Turkish liquor, one of the men came up to me and gave me a worn-out business card. On the back, he’d scribbled an image. It was little more than a curlicue, but he seemed intent on showing it to me (and nobody else). It was, I realized, a Jesus fish.

It was an eye-opening moment for me, though obviously trivial compared with the experiences of others. Here in this cosmopolitan and self-styled European city, this fellow felt the need to surreptitiously clue me in that he was a Christian just like me (or so he thought).

Traditionally, the fish pictogram conjures the miracle of the loaves and fishes as well as the Greek word IXOYE, which not only means fish but serves as an acronym, in Greek, for “Jesus Christ the Son of God [Is] Savior.” Christians persecuted by the Romans used to draw the Jesus fish in the dirt with a stick or a finger as a way to tip off fellow Christians that they weren’t alone.

In America, the easiest place to find this ancient symbol is on the back of cars. Recently, however, it seems as if Jesus fish have become outnumbered by Darwin fish. No doubt you’ve seen these too. The fish symbol is “updated” with little feet coming off the bottom, and “IXOYE” or “Jesus” is replaced with either “Darwin” or “Evolve.”

I find Darwin fish offensive. First, there’s the smugness. The undeniable message: Those Jesus fish people are less evolved, less sophisticated than we Darwin fishers.

The hypocrisy is even more glaring. Darwin fish are often stuck next to bumper stickers promoting tolerance or admonishing random motorists that “hate is not a family value.” But the whole point of the Darwin fish is intolerance; similar mockery of a cherished symbol would rightly be condemned as bigoted if aimed at blacks or women or, yes, Muslims.

As Christopher Caldwell once observed in the Weekly Standard, Darwin fish flout the agreed-on etiquette of identity politics. “Namely: It’s acceptable to assert identity and abhorrent to attack it. A plaque with ‘Shalom’ written inside a Star of David would hardly attract notice; a plaque with ‘Usury’ written inside the same symbol would be an outrage.”

But the most annoying aspect of the Darwin fish is the false bravado it represents. It’s a courageous pose without consequence. Like so much other Christian-baiting in American popular culture, sporting your Darwin fish is a way to speak truth to power on the cheap.

Whatever the faults of “Fitna,” it ain’t no Darwin fish.

Geert Wilders’ film could very, very easily get him killed. (He’s already guarded around the clock.) It essentially picks up the work of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered in 2004 by a jihadi for criticizing Islam.

“Fitna” is certainly provocative, yet it has good reason to provoke. A cancer of violence, bigotry and cruelty is metastasizing within the Islamic world.

It’s fine for Muslim moderates to say they aren’t part of the cancer; and that some have, in response to the film, is a positive sign. But more often, diagnosing or even observing this cancer — in film, book or cartoon — is dubbed “intolerant” while calls for violence, censorship and even murder are treated as understandable, if regrettable, expressions of well-deserved anger.

It’s not that secular progressives support Muslim religious fanatics, but they reserve their passion and scorn for religious Christians who are neither fanatical nor inclined to use violence.

The Darwin fish ostensibly symbolizes the superiority of progressive-minded science over backward-looking faith. I think this is a false juxtaposition, but I would have a lot more respect for the folks who believe it if they aimed their brave contempt for religion at those who might behead them for it.

Hahaha, this was pretty funny, even though it probably wasn’t intended to be.

Let us bow our heads in thanks for atheists

The re-awakening of atheism in America is going to make for some very interesting times. Leaders of the Christian Right have spent years trying to cast themselves as the voiceless victims in a secular society, but the scapegoating is over. (Want to talk marginalized? How many atheists have there ever been in Congress or the White House?)

Nonbelievers know a lot about Christianity and Judaism, most having been raised in religious families. Believers, however, are somewhat less clued-in about atheists. Here are a few simple truths about who they are, and aren’t.

Atheists are well-behaved. Atheists seem to play well with others overall. They’re not in the news for getting caught doing things they tell others not to do. Most co-exist peacefully with believing family and friends. They pay taxes.

Atheists don’t start wars on behalf of atheism. They do join the military, however, and contrary to the cliché, they are found in foxholes. In fact, there is a lawsuit now against Defense Secretary Robert Gates and a major who harassed a group of “foxhole atheists” who simply wished to exercise their freedom of/from religion while serving their country in the Middle East.

Atheists have a thing for the American Constitution, particularly the First Amendment that separates church and state. They are secularists who support a government free from influence by any religion. They’re not anti-religious but nonreligious.

So when people like Mike Huckabee announce they want to “take this nation back for Christ” and make the Constitution fit the word of God, atheists worry, and feel that everyone else would be wise to worry along with them.

Atheists don’t take up much space. In fact, they only comprise 0.4 percent of the U.S. population, according to the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, conducted through the Graduate Center at CUNY. (Agnostics would add 0.5 percent, the nonreligious 14.1 percent more.)

A total of 900,000 people isn’t even enough to fill 10 football stadiums, but evangelical leaders insist the godless are behind the decline of a whole nation. Uh, okay.

Atheists make good neighbors. Chances are, if you lived next door to an atheist, you might never know it. Atheists aren’t known for going door-to-door or shore-to-shore to un-convert people. They will help you even though there’s no heavenly reward in it for them.

Christians: Tips To Doing Battle With Evil Atheist

1.  Remember that they are people, just like you are.  Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, they are not some lower life form we share this planet with.

2.  More than likely, they are smarter than you are.  This can be difficult to come to grips with, but it does appear to be true and is a claim that is actually supported by the Bible (1 Corinthians 1:18-31)

3.  Statistically, they are also as moral, if not more so than you are.  While it is a good thing that they generally are highly moral,  it is a shame that we, who often times claim the moral high ground,  seem unable, or unwilling, to match our words with our lives.

4.  They will probably thump you in debate.  They are much more likely to have carefully thought through their position and understand why they believe what they do.  We are more likely simply to present some argument that the person we heard it from guaranteed would destroy the enemy.  The problem with that is that many of them have heard the same arguments many times and are easily able to counter them.

5.  Don’t under-estimate their knowledge of the Bible.  Many of them are more familiar with the Bible than the average Christian is.  And they know all of the passages that will cause you a problem, and will not hesitate to challenge you with them.

This week we’ll be going all out on Scientology, what with the ANON war going down, we feel it’s in the spirit of things..

The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power

By all appearances, Noah Lottick of Kingston, Pa., had been a normal, happy 24-year-old who was looking for his place in the sun. On the day last June when his parents drove to New York City to obtain his body, they were nearly catatonic with grief. This young Russian-studies scholar had jumped from a 10th-floor window of the Milford Plaza Hotel and bounced off the hood of a stretch limousine. When the police arrived, his fingers were still clutching $171 in cash, virtually the only money he hadn’t turned over to the Church of Scientology, the self-help “philosophy” group he had discovered just seven months earlier.

His death inspired his father Edward, a physician, to start his own investigation of the church. “We thought Scientology was something like Dale Carnegie,” Lottick says. “I now believe it’s a school for psychopaths.” Their so-called therapies are manipulations. They take the best and the brightest people and destroy them.” The Lotticks want to sue the church for contributing to their son’s death, but the prospect has them frightened. For nearly 40 years, the big business of Scientology has shielded itself exquisitely behind the First Amendment as well as a battery of high-priced criminal lawyers and shady private detectives.

The Church of Scientology, started by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard to “clear” people of unhappiness, portrays itself as a religion. In reality the church is a hugely profitable global racket that survives by intimidating members and critics in a Mafia-like manner. At times during the past decade, prosecutions against Scientology seemed to be curbing its menace. Eleven top Scientologists, including Hubbard’s wife, were sent to prison in the early 1980s for infiltrating, burglarizing and wiretapping more than 100 private and government agencies in attempts to block their investigations. In recent years hundreds of longtime Scientology adherents — many charging that they were mentally of physically abused — have quit the church and criticized it at their own risk. Some have sued the church and won; others have settled for amounts in excess of $500,000. In various cases judges have labeled the church “schizophrenic and paranoid” and “corrupt, sinister and dangerous.”

Any/all politicians should be required by oath (on something other than a bible) that they will keep politics and religion separate; this is to benefit everyone, even the pious.

What Religion’s Blind Stranglehold on America Is Doing to Our Democracy

It’s a presidential campaign like no other. The candidates have been falling all over each other in their rush to declare the depth and sincerity of their religious faith. The pundits have been just as eager to raise questions that seem obvious and important: Should we let religious beliefs influence the making of law and public policy? If so, in what way and to what extent? Those questions, however, assume that candidates bring the subject of faith into the political arena largely to justify — or turn up the heat under — their policy positions. In fact, faith talk often has little to do with candidates’ stands on the issues. There’s something else going on here.

Look at the TV ad that brought Mike Huckabee out of obscurity in Iowa, the one that identified him as a “Christian Leader” who proclaims: “Faith doesn’t just influence me. It really defines me.” That ad did indeed mention a couple of actual political issues — the usual suspects, abortion and gay marriage — but only in passing. Then Huckabee followed up with a red sweater-themed Christmas ad that actively encouraged voters to ignore the issues. We’re all tired of politics, the kindly pastor indicated. Let’s just drop all the policy stuff and talk about Christmas — and Christ.

Ads like his aren’t meant to argue policy. They aim to create an image — in this case, of a good Christian with a steady moral compass who sticks to his principles. At a deeper level, faith-talk ads work hard to turn the candidate — whatever candidate — into a bulwark of solidity, a symbol of certainty; their goal is to offer assurance that the basic rules for living remain fixed, objective truths, as true as religion.

In a time when the world seems like a shaky place — whether you have a child in Iraq, a mortgage you may not be able to meet, a pension threatening to head south, a job evaporating under you, a loved one battling drug or alcohol addiction, an ex who just came out as gay or born-again, or a president you just can’t trust — you may begin to wonder whether there is any moral order in the universe. Are the very foundations of society so shaky that they might not hold up for long? Words about faith — nearly any words — speak reassuringly to such fears, which haunt millions of Americans.

For those who think the Golden Compass is atheism being propped on kids, you should note that the Chronicles of Narnia are the same, but for Christianity.

Why attack “Compass” but not C. S. Lewis?

I loved “The Golden Compass.” What a wonderful film. Not since I was a child had fantasy worlds like this one so effortlessly absorbed me. I was afraid my adult imagination could no longer afford such luxuries at the cost of my maturity and cynicism. But, thankfully, “Pan’s Labyrinth” and now “The Golden Compass” have both proven me wrong within the last year. I can’t remember the last time I was so happy to be proven wrong. “Pan’s Labyrinth” is, of course, a superior film, but “The Golden Compass” is without a doubt in the same league.

Today came the news of the films disappointing performance in the box-office and usually a film’s success or failure does not bother me. This had, though. After seeing it Friday, I walked out of the theater thoroughly satisfied and convinced it would be a classic for all children. It wasn’t until I had told others about the film that I heard various second-hand accounts of parents refusing to bring their children to see it. I was inspired to surf the net and see how far, and deep, this epidemic had spread. I found countless posts from parents and Catholics warning others how dangerous the impact of this film’s popularity would be. Some students from various schools posted letters from their principals and deans sharing the same fear. Many of the letters claimed, in different words but with the same sentiment, that “The Philip Pullman film, the first of a trilogy called His Dark Materials, has been compared to ‘Lord of the Rings’ and C.S. Lewis’ ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ series. Well, it’s not. ‘The Golden Compass’ is the exact opposite of the Christian-based classics. The film is viciously anti-God while weaving messages of atheism, witchcraft, evolution, divination, homosexuality, and immorality. The author himself boasts that, ‘I am of the Devil’s party and know it!’”

Now, I must not have seen the Director’s Cut of the film. Where is it playing?
I am a Catholic. I have read the bible from cover to cover. But I found nothing wrong with the film. And trust me, I looked hard. Maybe my bible is missing as many passages as the version of “The Golden Compass” is missing the scenes that bare the messages described above. But I am positive that Atheism is the belief that God does not exist, nor the Devil—so if they have quoted Pullman accurately then they have disproved the validity of their every accusation.

I was disappointed to find that not one Atheist or any advocates of atheism were so offended by the attack on their beliefs that they felt the need to rebut. Maybe they are too busy prepping the attack on the next film that supports Christianity.

But I do find it entertaining that Catholic Groups champion the works of C.S. Lewis, most specifically “The Chronicles of Narnia,” however they fail to list “The Screwtape Letters,” which depicts Lucifer as the good guy, when they speak of Lewis. I am sure if it were anyone else who wrote that novel, not the legendary and devout Lewis, the same groups would gather over milk and cookies to picket a film version.

 Here’s an interesting article by Richard Dawkins about Creationism, good read.

Why I Won’t Debate Creationists

For good or ill, the late Stephen Jay Gould had a huge influence on American scientific culture, and on balance the good came out on top. His powerful voice will echo on for a long time. Although he and I disagreed about much, we shared much too, including a spellbound delight in the wonders of the natural world, and a passionate conviction that such wonders deserve nothing less than a purely natural explanation.

Another thing about which we agreed was our refusal to engage in public debates with creationists. Steve had even more reason than me to be irritated by them. They distorted the theory of punctuated equilibrium so that it appeared to support their preposterous (but astonishingly common) belief that there are no intermediates in the fossil record. Gould’s reply deserves to be widely known:

“Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists ? whether through design or stupidity, I do not know ? as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups. “

Some time in the 1980s when I was on a visit to the United States, a television station wanted to stage a debate between me and a prominent creationist called, I think, Duane P Gish. I telephoned Stephen Gould for advice. He was friendly and decisive: “Don’t do it.” The point is not, he said, whether or not you would ‘win’ the debate. Winning is not what the creationists realistically aspire to. For them, it is sufficient that the debate happens at all. They need the publicity. We don’t. To the gullible public which is their natural constituency, it is enough that their man is seen sharing a platform with a real scientist. “There must be something in creationism, or Dr So-and-So would not have agreed to debate it on equal terms.” Inevitably, when you turn down the invitation you will be accused of cowardice, or of inability to defend your own beliefs. But that is better than supplying the creationists with what they crave: the oxygen of respectability in the world of real science.

Some nice insight into the various mainstream religions “of peace”. Ask your local religious person why it is that every major religion has a book of scripture that has brutal violence and torture in it, it’ll surely bring some entertainment to your day.

I Don’t Respect Your Religion

It appears Muslim fundamentalists just assassinated Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. It is not entirely clear they were responsible however. Not only was there a bombing (usual trademark of fundamentalist attacks), but Bhutto was also shot. So, it could be some other forces in Pakistan who were opposed to the former Prime Minister, including the government of Pervez Musharraf (after the assassination, Bhutto supporters were chanting, “Dog, Musharraf, Dog.”).

If it was religious fundamentalists, it wouldn’t be the first time. It would be about the one billionth time religious folks have resorted to violence to settle disputes. And they usually kill people trying to bring peace or empower others. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was killed by a Muslim fundamentalist for making peace with Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed by a Jewish fundamentalist for trying to make peace with the Palestinians. While Christian fundamentalists are busy trying to create the next Armageddon so we can all die. What a pleasant lot.

Why do they do this? Because they’re supposed to. Read the Bible, the Torah and the Koran. They are all full of violent, bloody fantasies that teach you over and over to kill your enemies. Christians love to think they are the exception to this rule. They’ll say the Old Testament doesn’t really apply anymore because the New Testament overruled all the gory, masochists violence of the earlier book. So, then I guess Genesis isn’t true either since that’s in the Old Testament? Oops.

Then, you’ll get the excuse that Jesus was the Prince of Peace. Yeah, I know, that’s why in Matthew 10:34 he says, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Sounds down right Christian of him.

But even if you can make up pathetic excuses for this obvious blood-lust and call to violence, it doesn’t matter. Because in the end Jesus murders almost all of us anyway. Jesus doesn’t just kill the “liars” and the “sexually immoral” and the eight other categories of people who get thrown in “fiery lake of burning sulfur.” He kills all of the “unbelieving” folks as well. If you don’t believe in Jesus, you get the lake of fire! What a swell guy.

For those who have yet to see this documentary, here it is on google video. Pretty disturbing.

Jesus Camp (video)