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What kind of daydreams do religious kids have?

They start with the usual, I imagine. As far as I know, I was pretty normal in the drifting-off department. While I wasn't a sports kind of kid, I'd entertain the occasional fantasy of wowing the classmates with the home run they never expected, or knocking that ol' kickball all the way over the big tree in the grade school yard. Sometimes I had more exciting daydreams of gaining awesome superpowers. And, of course, there were no end to the fancies involving That One Girl in the next row or next classroom or whatever – just little secret stories that were clean and cute in grade school (less clean and cute in high school).  

But uber-religious kids have got to have their own special brand of daydream – or at least, those kids with the "funny" religions that put them in the camp of outsider. I was a Jehovah's Witness kid, and that was considered a crackpot variant of the hometown's generic Christianity (when it was understood to be Christian to begin with!). As you'd expect, there was the occasional wisecrack to put up with, plus those embarrassing everybody's-staring-at-me moments when I had to publicly opt out of the Pledge of Allegiance or of a Christmas piece in band. To be fair, I can't say that I was treated awfully because of the wacky religion, but there were just enough jibes to spur a typically overly-sensitive and imaginative kid into irregular "I'll show them all!" fantasies. Here's how one of mine went. Readeth thou more

Purpose of this page

Discovery Institute Discoveries: Detailed List by Year (DIDDLY) is a new resource on this site to assist in educating the public on research performed by The Discovery Institute, a US-based think tank with a voice in the public discussion of scientific, social, and educational issues.

DIDDLY will catalog all discoveries, scientific or other, which have been made directly by, or through the support of, the Discovery Institute. Readeth thou more

Via Jack Shedd's Big Contrarian: Steven Weinberg's essay Without God casts a sober look at the conflict – or "tension", as he puts it – between science and religion, and finds that we're slowly losing God (and that that's okay). It's a good read; have at it.

I wanted to highlight the same passage that Shedd did:

[E]ven someone who believes in God can feel that Abraham in the Old Testament was wrong to obey God in agreeing to sacrifice Isaac, and that Adam in Paradise Lost was right to disobey God and follow Eve in eating the apple, so that he could stay with her when she was driven from Eden. The young men who flew airplanes into buildings in the US or exploded bombs in crowds in London or Madrid or Tel Aviv were not just stupid in imagining that these were God’s commands; even thinking that these were His commands, they were evil in obeying them.

This is what I was just writing about in "Would you do it?": An open question to believers: that an evil command is evil, regardless of its source. One of the saddest aspects of religion is the backward logic of starting with the bald-faced assertion "God is good!", and from that, proclaiming that any command attributed to God – any murder, any atrocity, even Old Testament-style butchering of children – must also be good. (Good for the circumstances of the time, as apologists try to argue.) Readeth thou more

One of my favorite podcasts on secular issues is the Atheist Community of Austin's broadcast The Atheist Experience (also a cable access TV show). Good topics, live listener call-ins, and hosts who really know their stuff; I highly recommend that you listen in. (I wish more of those callers would regularly listen; they might learn to 1. Turn down the TV when calling!; and 2. Quit asking "So, you're atheist; that means you don't believe in anything, right?", again and again and again.)

I have a question about how one particularly loony Christian conceit fares in debates. I don't get much chance to talk to rabid believers, so thought I'd ask the debating pros at The Atheist Experience about their experience. The reply is an eye-opener. Here's my email first: Readeth thou more

Okay. The "wafer wars" – the "desecration" of a cheap communion wafer by a Florida student and later PZ Myers, followed by a righteous uproar among Catholics and demagogues – is past its peak, so I'm late with this. But still:

The hubbub put a picture in my mind of an atheist "Pac Man" gobbling up wafers, pursued by outraged fundie "ghosts". Drawing up the cheap gag, the image got bigger until it reached what I'm attaching here.

So, here's a bit of fun with the whole wafer silliness, done with much admiration PZ Myers' steadfast refusal to show "respect" for an utterly idiotic bit of medieval superstition. It's a big graphic; download the attachment to see it.

You may know of blogger and podcaster Steve Pavlina. One of many writers on the topic of "personal development", Steve is ahead of the blogging crowd on name recognition, and is frequently mentioned among the elite of "Internet celebrities".

I've paid attention to his work on and off; there's often some good inspirational or practical content in there, along with some feel-good fluffiness that doesn't speak to me (though I begrudge neither the appeal it may have to others, nor Steve's success in gaining fans).

The thing that dropped Steve from my must-listen podcast list was a positive mention by him, many months ago, of his wife Erin's work as a "psychic medium". "Great, Steve", I thought, "your wife is a charlatan and you're happy with that. Bravo." It lowered the fellow a few notches in my book (though in all fairness to him, I know that brutal objectivity about one's better half is a perilous path to tread : ).

In early June, a new entry appeared in iTunes: Steve Pavlina podcast #021, "Being Pyschic". I let it sit ignored for a long time, but my eye hit it repeatedly. "Being psychic? I know his wife has something going on with the woo - but is Steve serious about this too?" Finally, I gave it a listen.

The Pavlinas are beyond serious - way beyond. Maybe I'm just not experienced enough in what transpires out there in the woo industry, but I found it pretty jaw-dropping. Get ready: Readeth thou more

Via the invincible PZ Myers, here's the kind of "they've-got-to-making-this-up" story that passes for reality in religiondom:

A student went to Catholic mass, and instead of chewing the communion wafer, walked off with it. (Instead of respectfully, piously swallowing and digesting and defecating it.)

A cracker. (See: IT'S A GODDAMNED CRACKER)

The Catholic community is in an uproar. The student has desecrated and defiled the Body of Christ. He has commited a mortal sin and sacrilege. There's talk of disciplinary action at his school, and accusations of "beyond a hate crime".

It's got to be a joke, right? No. Catholics worldwide are seizing this opportunity to prove that they are not going to take second place to fundamental Islamic fanatics in medieval superstitious lunacy. 

Anyway. I have a confession (or is it Confession?) to make. I may have desecrated the Body of Christ myself. Readeth thou more

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

John 3:16. It's one of the most widely-quoted Bible verses there are. It's been called "the Gospel in a nutshell", for its succinct summary of the New Testament's "message".

A verse as vital and revered as John 3:16 deserves proper examination in the light of the rest of Holy Scripture. Let's place it into the wider context of the entire Bible: Readeth thou more

There's a subset of atheism called antitheism. And within that, there's a smaller subset that I'll call strong antitheism, until I can come up with the right name.

Atheists are well-known for their simple motto: "I don't believe in a god or gods."

Antitheists are also atheists (usually, that is; some antitheists may say "I do believe in God and I don't like Him"). The antitheist creed is "I don't believe in a god - and I sure hope there isn't one! He sounds awful!"

Strong antitheists are antitheists who go an extra step: "I don't believe in a god, and I hope there isn't one. But if it turns out there is a God who "takes" people in plane crashes, and quietly watches children die in earthquakes, and inflicts babies with defects to "test the parents' faith", and ordered "His people" to slaughter neighboring peoples... If that Being exists, my only question is: How do we find It and kill It? "

That's the strong antitheism that I embrace. Does it already have a name? If not, what works? Strong antitheism? Militant antitheism? Over-the-top antitheism? : ) Any suggestions?

"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