James The Mysterioso Predicts... Pat Roberson will...

I have great psychic powers ... something is coming to me ... yes, I can see it now, my crystal ball is clearing ... What's this? Why, it looks like an evangelical Christian, talking on TV. Why, it's Pat Robertson, and ... the words aren't clear ... Wait, the great Mysterioso James hears his words! He's saying that the Magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile is God's punishment! For sin!

No, it's even worse, God has spoken, personally, to Pat Roberson! It seems God wanted Pat to know this is the Apocalypse! Two earthquakes, what could be clearer than that? The End of Times has started!

Will the prediction of the Great Mysterioso James come true?

Morality: Stirring up the Catholic News

Apparently I've graduated into the ranks of real bloggers. We start off talking to ourselves, then we slowly build an audience, then we get a modest readership, a few people answer us. But we keep slogging away, wondering if the day will ever come that we have an actual impact on anything. Well, last Tuesday was apparently my day.

I responded to a Catholic blogger, Matt Archbold, who wrote a snide and condescending blog about atheists in the nation's oldest Catholic newspaper. He criticized atheists for forming their own Haitian charity, claiming atheists have no real morals and are just trying to emulate Christians.

Normally Mr. Archbold gets a dozen or so comments, and almost all are from Catholics and other Christians. But last Tuesday, he was inundated by comments from other atheist readers as outraged as I was, and it appears these were mostly my readers.

I was also very pleased at the lively debate that broke out between the few Christians who normally respond to Mr. Archbold's blogs and the atheists. There was some great stuff there, from the origins of morality to the circularity of arguments for God's existence. And it wasn't the flame war, name-calling fest that you sometimes see – these were good, solid debates.

I doubt we converted any Christians last week, but you never know. For every Christian who wrote, there were probably 100 who were just readers. A lot of Christians are normally insulated from honest debate, only exposed to the dogma of their own religion. But last week, they got a dose of real debate, a glimpse of honest, rational thinking rather than appeals to their faith, fears and desires.

Maybe it made no difference, but maybe it did. Maybe there's one more person out there today who is reading non-Christian philosophy for the first time.

And that's why I'm here. Not necessarily to convert religious people, but to at least ask them to think about religion, to ask questions, and to understand that there are two sides to every question.

Pat Robertson on Haiti: Bad Theology Too!

I thought I was done with Pat Robertson, but I found this, and it's so good I just have to share it. It's a letter to the editor (the actual author is Lily Coyle of Minneapolis). Enjoy!

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating.

I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle.

Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox – that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it – I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings – just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

What can I say? The author says it all. Not only is Pat Robertson mean spirited and ignorant of science, he also doesn't even know his theology. Who would have guessed?

Catholics Nasty about Atheist Haitian Charity

Update: (1:17 PM Pacific Time) After a firestorm of criticism, Mr. Archbold has cut off comments to his blog and deleted most of the replies, including my first comment, which you can still find below.

Update 2 I received an email from the NCR's editor explaining that the comments were cut off automatically because there were too many, as an automatic anti-spam block. They adjusted their database and restored the deleted comments.

Matthew Archbold over at the New Catholic Register wrote a snide and offensive blog this morning, criticizing Richard Dawkins and all atheists for setting up a atheist/humanist charity to help Haitian earthquake victims. If this were some random blogger, I'd pay it no mind. But this is the oldest Catholic newspaper in the United States. In a nutshell, Archbold claims:

• Dawkins is ... intent on proving that atheists can be as good as Christians.
• [Atheists are] desperate to prove that they’re as good (and usually better) than us religious types.
• Dawkins is only proving that he can be good without acknowledging God.
• Atheists can't define good and evil, and are only borrowing from Christianity.

And Archbold closes with this:

But we’re glad for the help anyway. Thanks.

Got that? We're glad for the help. We. The Catholics and Christians are in charge here! I guess God, after causing this earthquake that may have killed upwards of 200,000 people, has assigned the Roman Catholic Church to fix the mess that He created. And we atheists are welcome to help out a little if we like. This is offensive in the extreme.

Here's what I wrote on Archbold's blog comments:

First, each and every one of your claims has been resoundingly refuted long ago, by Mr. Dawkins himself and many others. You should take the time to research the target of your essays before you publish them. Second, in this crisis, I applaud EVERY organization, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, atheist or any other faith, that helps. The last thing we should be doing is criticizing one another’s charities. And third, would you give your donation through a Muslim organization if none other were available? I doubt it. Why do you think an atheist would want to sponsor the Catholic Church’s efforts? We could go into all of the problems suffered by the Church over the last few decades, and illustrate why an atheist might not want to donate, but that would be counterproductive to the real cause: Getting help to Haiti. Shame on you for posting this snide essay. You should instead be encouraging any and all of your fellow humans who want to help.

Mr. Archbold owes everyone, not just atheists, an apology. This is a time to pull together. This is a time when atheists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, everyone, should work to save Haitian lives, not criticize each other. If there's competition, it should be friendly and good spirited.

Pat Robertson on Haiti: Why Religion Hates Science

Pat Robertson's idiotic claim that God caused the Haitian earthquake got me to thinking about just how much religion preys on ignorance.

Consider for a moment what Robertson is really saying. He claims God was angry about the Haitians making a pact with Satan about 250 years ago, around 1800. Now earthquakes don't just happen – it's not like God stomped on the ground really hard and everything jumped around. No, this earthquake has been brewing for ... wait a second, since 1843 when the last earthquake struck Haiti! (It killed 10,000 people. Maybe that was God's first blow against these sinners.)

But wait, there's more – it seems God screwed up. He blasted the place a couple times before the Haitians made their pact with Satan! According to Wikipedia, there was a magnitude 7.5 earthquakes in 1770, thirty years before the Haitians' pact, and another before that in 1751 that flattened the city.

In fact, it turns out God had to start his revenge on the Haitians hundreds of millions of years ago, when He created the geology of the area!

But wait a second ... it's that very geological fault that raised Haiti from the ocean floor in the first place. So if God hadn't need to get revenge, there wouldn't have been a Haiti in the first place, the French wouldn't have colonized it, killed the natives, and brought African slaves there, and they wouldn't have had to make that pact with Satan. So God's revenge is also the cause? My head is spinning.

Of all the things I dislike about religion, its reliance on ignorance is the worst. People with even a modest education in science can't stomach this Biblical literalism nonesense. It's so silly it's laugable ... except that so many people believe it.

Worse, religious leaders count on the fact that most of their followers don't understand even the most basic aspects of science. And to ensure their own survival, they actively oppose education, because they know that their superstitions will wither in the face of facts.

Robertson's childish notion of God is just an extreme view of what most religions claim: God alters the laws of physics in the universe that He created, just to reward or punish humans. Here we are, on a tiny planet. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains at least 200 billion stars, and there are many billions of other galaxies, which means there are an estimated nine billion trillion stars total. That's a big universe, yet God is over here in this corner, willing to change the fundamental laws of physics for the universe just because we're praying for our football team to win.

This is why religiousness falls with education, and why evangelicals are so opposed to real science. Their millenia-old ideas just can't stand up to the truth.

Unfortunately, people like Robertson prey on ignorance, and they're good at it. Education is the answer, but it will take time.

Pat Robertson, Coward, Runs From His Own Idiocy

Pat Robertson is a coward. I have a certain respect for evangelists, even the weird ones, who have the guts to say, "That's my story and I'm sticking to it!" But when they're both cruel and they don't stand behind their own words, cowardice is the right label.

Robertson's latest outrageous claim is that the horrifying Haitian earthquake, which killed as many as 50,000 innocent people, was God's retribution:

You know, Christi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and the people might not want talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh, you know, Napoleon, the third or whatever. And, they got together, and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you, if you'll get us free from the Prince." True story. And, so, the devil said, "Ok, it's a deal," and they kicked the French out, you know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another, desperately poor.

Even the White House couldn't stomach Robertson's idiocy, and called it "stupid."

But the real story is not Robertson's idiotic remark, it's his two-faced cowardice. He won't even stand behind his own words. Here's what his spokesperson, Chris Roslan had to say once the smelly stuff hit the proverbial fan:

Dr. Robertson never stated that the earthquake was God’s wrath.

This is sheer spin-doctoring. There is no doubt what Roberson's quote means: The Haitians made a pact with the devil, and to punish them, God sent this earthquake, to add to all the other misery He has caused Haiti.

Robertson, you should either shut up, or have the courage to defend your idiotic ideas. And Chris Roslan, you should stop wasting your talent defending such an immoral man.