Defaithed

Another original (he said with little pride).

This is Teh Internets, so I have certain duties to fulfill. My obligatory motivational poster:

That great picture is a find, not a work of mine; Monty Propps is the credit I saw attached. (It was cropped out by the poster generator, so I added it back as I found it. If the attribution is incorrect, please let me know.)

"Without God, we end up like atheists Stalin and Hitler." Asinine beyond reason (though not beyond belief), yet the line just won't die. (Never mind the additional ridiculousness that Hitler, like most Nazis, was a Christian.) From big-name cardinals to school-board creationist nut cases, the "faithful" love to toss out Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and their ilk as the end result of losing religion.

Pretending for a moment that Hitler wasn't a Christian, let's say that these dictators indeed weren't religious. Fine. But while they're not religious, they were all men of faith. Overpowering, self-righteous, unwavering faith.

Stalin had no proof that Communism was superior and would crush capitalism; he took that belief on faith. Hitler's fantasies about Jewish conspiracy and the superiority of the Reich? Again, no evidence, just faith of a strength on par with that of Biblical prophets. Mao Zedong justified his catastrophic Great Leap Forward not with empirical backing, but monstrous faith that it would work miracles. Readeth thou more

Configuration clumsiness on my part left visitors' comments in limbo. Comments should now properly appear on the site, as should my responses to those. My apologies to everyone who was kind enough to write; I welcome further comments and will make sure the system is working properly at all times.

Also, I misattributed an online text's author in my post Recycling an excellent anti-atheist argument. The text should have been attribued to Vox Day. This is very poor form for any writer, and I deeply apologize to the good sir whose name I mistakenly used.

I think I'm now supposed to eat some Confession wafers, and then throw ten Hail Mary passes, or something like that... sorry, we ex-JWs are completely ignorant on Catholic stuff.

Someone named Vox Day has graced the world with such an awesome putdown of the recent atheist books that I just had to leave a comment on the blog post in question. I'll repeat it here for your amusement:

Original post: Readeth thou more

A trip back to my JW past: For all the negative things I could say about the Jehovah's Witnesses, I can think of a few good things as well. First, like Mormons, they tend to be "good neighbor" types. And on matters Biblical, I think there are actually areas in which they come to saner, back-to-the-original-intent readings of scripture than do sects hanging on to fossilized readings set in stone by long-ago pontificators.

That said, those things make for really weak praise. A Witness may be a friendly neighbor who'll return your garden shears on time, but he's still a gullible goof who returns the shears along with an unasked-for copy of The Watchtower and the question, "So, do you ever wonder Who made shrubbery so beautiful?" And having a more "accurate" reading of scripture is like having a more "accurate" insight into the truth of The Three Little Pigs – it remains a wacky acceptance of utterly unbelievable fiction as reality. (On top of that, there are indeed areas where JW interpretation of scripture is more loony than the average: blood and birthdays are good starting points.)

But regardless of whether or not it stands as "correct" interpretation, there's one bit of proprietary Biblical dogma that scores the JWs more marketing points than I think many realize. Simply put, Jehovah's Witnesses offer the best eternal reward package in the religion industry. Readeth thou more

Ars Technica reports on February proceedings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, on the topic "Communicating Science in a Religious America". http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/communicating-science-polarized-...

An interesting bit from Ken Miller, Brown University cellular biologist, on combating Intelligent Design. Specifically, he addresses how to counter the doubt over Darwinian evolution created by ID's tactic of portraying it as an improbable "chain of accidents". Readeth thou more

Hello, former (or current!) Jehovah's Witnesses! Or former and current religious folk, to cast the net wider. I was once one of you – and like most believers, so self-assured that I was right in all of my beliefs.

Commence rambling.

My immediate family entered "the Truth" (as the JW's humbly call their brand of faith) when I was only about five, so I don't have a memory of how the change came about. My parents were young, poor, beset by life's troubles (like a bunch of wailing kids), and lacking in the critical analysis skills that a university education (sometimes) provides. They were ripe pickings, in other words, for the evangelicals. Readeth thou more

Yet another old clipping that I dug up. I know, I know, it's Ziggy; sorry, but I liked the theme anyway.

(Rhetorical question: If this cartoon caused the mullahs to issue a fatwah against Ziggy, would anybody protest?)

Another clipped cartoon found among old papers. Not wildly funny, but it'll do.