Willum Geerts' 'Sorry (Bible)'

Dutch Artist Willum Geerts has taken correction fluid to all letters of a Holy Bible, except for S, O, R, R, and Y, in that order.

A close-up can be viewed here.

In his artist statement, Geerts says, "I share my astonishment about our absurd everyday life and ask the viewer to re-address the complex world around us. I enlarge the banal by isolating it from its regular context, mixing it with apparent opposites and by adding dramatic, theatrical elements to it."

He writes of how, in complex modern life, individuals deal with the chaos of "constant impulses and [try] to canalize these by conforming, losing oneself in material solace or falling into conditioned behavior. With superficiality, alienation, passiveness and banalities as a result.'

More of his work can be explored here.

Woody Allen Interviews Billy Graham

One of the great things about YouTube is discovering great (often little-discussed) moments in television history that you never knew existed, or that you have never seen. Scott Ross of NBC Philadelphia called the below gem "the kind of encounter made in TV heaven: the neurotic intellectual New York Jew and the fire-and-brimstone televangelist arguing about what it all means."

Good stuff.

Douchebag Of The Day: Bryan Fischer

Bryan Fischer, Director of Issues Analysis at hate group American Family Association, is a huge douchebag.  I've called attention to his insanity in these pages on a regular basis, so nothing he says is ever terribly surprising, sadly.

Fischer tweeted the following today:

It cannot be stressed enough that Fischer is not part of the lunatic fringe.  He is in bed with many high profile religious right politicians, including current Texas governor and potential President of the United States, Rick Perry (The AFA is paying for Perry's 'Response' prayer rally in Texas.)

How To Reach Atheist Teenagers: An Evangelical's 'Rules of Engagement'

Greg Stier of Dare 2 Share Ministries

Over at the Christian Post, Greg Stier (president of Dare 2 Share Ministries) has a post called How To Reach Atheist Teenagers.

Dare 2 Share Ministries' mission statement reads: "Mobilizing teenagers to relationally and relentlessly reach their generation for Christ," so I can't really fault him for doing what he has the right to do. He's an evangelical, and that's what evangelicals do. But his Christian Post piece left a bad taste in my mouth, for more than a few reasons.

From Stier's playbook:

1. Mock religion as early as you can in the conversation

In other words, right off the bat, approach your mark and misrepresent yourself and your agenda. It's the old 'gotcha' trick employed by snake-oil salesmen, pickup artists, politicians, and predators. It's cynical, dishonest, and misguided. It's easy to see where Stier is going with this:

Gain this common ground as soon as possible with atheist teenagers. When they see you sickened by the hypocrisy that inevitably accompanies religion, the emotional barriers that often keep them from taking a second look at Christianity can begin to fall down.

He continues:

2. Focus on Jesus. 

Jesus was a radical, rebel and revolutionary. This same “vibe” often appeals to atheist teenagers, many of whom consider themselves the same.

Show them stories in the Bible where Jesus healed lepers, hung out with “sinners” and bucked the religious system. Paint the picture of Jesus as a hero of the downtrodden (because he was) and his death as the ultimate injustice (because it was!) When they begin to see Jesus’ willingness to suffer injustice so that they could be justified the code of unbelief can be cracked in their souls.

In other words, if you can show teens that Jesus was rad like you, hung out with societal rejects, and gave it to The Man on occasion, then they will be able to accept that he was the son of God, was born of a virgin, was able to suspend the laws of the cosmos at will, died and came back from the dead, and rose up to this place called Heaven, body and all.

Then Stier comes in with the  old 'if you say it enough times, it becomes true' ploy:

3. Speak of God as if he exists.

Instead of assuming they are true atheists, speak of God as a reality.

He then applies the tired old 'no atheists in foxholes' trope:

At the end of the day there are no true atheists. In the deepest parts of their soul every atheist, according to Romans 1, truly believes in the existence of God but doesn’t want to give glorify him or give him thanks.

So, there are no true atheists because a guy said so in a book that has no supernatural significance to atheists. Would you also say that there are no true Muslims, Greg? No true Jews? Keynesians? Pacifists? Vegetarians?

And, because, at the end of the day, there is only so much you can do, Stier finishes off with:

4. Pray, love, repeat.

I've been trying to put a finger on what exactly bugs me so much about Stier's piece. (There are a lot of things to dislike.) Beyond all the creepy, stealthy, dishonest stuff, I think it's the reminder that the faith community still doesn't understand atheism.

Atheism comprises a broad spectrum of individuals, with varying philosophies. The only uniting characteristic is an absence of a belief in a deity.  The 'atheist' moniker could be applied to agnostics, secular humanists, Buddhists, Hindus, nihilists, anarchists, or any number of life stances that do not require a belief in a deity.

Stiers seems to perceive atheists as simply people who are anti-religion, or who have had bad experiences with the church and organized religion. Are there atheists who fit this description? Sure. But this description would only fit a small subset of atheists.

It's easy to see the pointless nature of Stier's approach when we substitute the atheist with a vegan and the Christian with an omnivore.  Let's take Stier's own words and see how silly it becomes:

1. Mock meat-eating as early as you can in the conversation.

Gain this common ground as soon as possible with vegan teenagers. When they see you sickened by the hypocrisy that inevitably accompanies the commoditization of animals, the emotional barriers that often keep them from taking a second look at meat-eating can begin to fall down.

Veganism, like atheism, is not a condition that develops due to a misunderstanding the opposing stance. (Most vegans have a very good understanding of what meat-eating is all about -- often they are more educated than the omnivores.) It is most often a life stance that has resulted from a great deal of research, self-reflection, and critical thinking. By showing a vegan that meat-eaters can be good people, generally free of hypocrisy, you have done nothing to eradicate the ethical dilemma that is at the core of their veganism. No matter how many rad omnivores exist, or how convincingly a covert omnivore pretends to also despise animal products, the central philosophical viewpoints remain.

Even if Stier's ploy made sense, how incredibly weird would it be if some person came up to you (a vegan) and pretended to also be a vegan, befriended you and gained your trust, when in fact they weren't vegan at all, and only wanted to convert you?

I have had believers approach me with the same angle as Stier's approach. The assumption is often that I am not a Christian because I was turned off by the church's stances on social issues, or perhaps by the hypocrisy that often accompanies religious figures and religious politicians. Or maybe something bad happened at church. Maybe I was molested by a priest. Who knows?

Sure, I do get upset when religion is used to justify inequality, greed, and exceptionalism. Sure, I get angry when authority figures in the church abuse their power and prey on children. But if all these things suddenly were eradicated from the church, it would not change the fact that I simply cannot accept the tenets of Christianity.  My inability to believe is as real as anything else about me. It is as real as my preference for certain melodies or works of art. It is as real as my aversion to violence, or my attraction to certain physical characteristics. My disbelief is very real to me, even though I grew up in a wonderful church full of wonderful people, many of which I am still very close to today.

It's not that I choose not to believe in the fantastical claims made in scripture, it's that my brain will not allow me to suspend disbelief in order to accept those claims.

Stier might want to reconsider his stealth plan to bring atheists into the fold. I would first suggest he differentiate between teens that don't like church and teens that do not accept the supernatural claims of religion.  There is a difference between teens that haven't made up their mind about religion and teens who have come to the conclusion that they can't accept the existence of a supernatural being based on the evidence that they have examined through critical thinking.

If he doesn't understand the difference, then he is probably wasting his time.

Bill Maher On Why Liberals Don't Like Bachmann And Palin

Bill Maher does a great job of demolishing the accusations made by conservatives as to why liberals give Palin and Bachmann such a hard time. It's not because they're women. It's not because they're Christians. It's not because they're pretty.

It's "because they’re crazy people. People who are not that bright and full of awful ideas. Pretty much the exact same reasons we didn’t care for George Bush and made jokes about him. So trust me, it’s not because they have breasts. It’s because they are boobs."

Communion Wafer Turns 'Blood Red': When Miracles Aren't

The Greek philosopher Anaxagoras (500 BCE – 428 BCE) was onto something when he stated that the sun was not a god, but rather a red hot stone. (It's also worth noting that he was imprisoned for saying as much.) Granted, Anaxagoras was a little off on the physical properties of the sun, but he knew that there was a natural explanation for even the greatest mysteries of the cosmos.

Fast forward a few thousand years to St. Paul, MN where a communion wafer has turned "blood red" after being placed in a cup filled with water.

The Pioneer Press reports:

[Rev. John Echert of St. Augustine Church] said the host fell to the floor as a member of the laity who is appointed to assist priests was distributing Communion at the 7 a.m. Mass on June 19, the Feast of the Holy Trinity. It was put in a ciborium, a container for the Eucharist - which is typical practice - with the expectation that it would be poured in a sacraium, a kind of special sink where items are washed into the ground not into a sewer system.

When the Rev. Robert Grabner, the church's parochial vicar, next looked at the cup the following Sunday, Echert said, "he noted a red color in the ciborium." Normally, he added, the host would dissolve in water within a day or two.

Grabner asked Echert to examine it.

"The host was a very bright red," Echert said. "On one side, it was completely red, and on the other side, it was red around the perimeter and it looked almost like the white of the host tended to have an appearance of a cross."

Echert said he transferred it to a glass bowl the next day. A day later, he saw the blood-red color.

"It appeared to be like the blood red of tissue," he said. "If I had not known what it was, I would have thought that there was maybe a small bloody piece of tissue. It was striking enough that there was no way I could have disposed of the remains of the host at that time with good conscience."

Clearly, this was the stuff of miracles:

"It was notable enough that, clearly, it was some phenomenon and not the ordinary way in which a host would dissolve...that we're familiar with," Echert said.

The archdiocese, which now has the host, is taking a "very cautious stance on the matter," spokesman Dennis McGrath said.

"I make no claims, and the archdiocese makes no claims, as to the likelihood of this being supernatural," Echert said. "But it is enough of a phenomenon, or unusual, that we will continue to examine this host."

He added: "I've never in my 24 years as a priest seen or been aware of a phenomenon where a consecrated host placed in water turns to this bright-colored red and continues in what I would call the blood-red color."

Word of the wondrous wafer eventually landed on several Catholic websites and blogs, sparking discussion and conjecture by some that it resembles the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.

Anyone with a knowledge of religion is sure to have noted that the supernatural claims and miracles associated with biblical writings were far more fantastical, and more frequent, than those of modern day. It also might be worth noting that we didn't have the scientific understanding in primitive times that we have today, nor the luxury of crowdsourcing.

In simpler times, news of this bloody wafer might have spread via telegraph or word of mouth, and soon enough, people would be making pilgrimages to lovely St. Paul to view the flesh of the Lord. But thanks to the Internet, and to science, many pilgrims have been saved the trouble.

One blogger has raised the red bacterium, Serratia marcescens, as a possible explanation for the communion wafer turning red.

According to Microbe Zoo, a website developed by the Center for Microbial Ecology at Michigan State University, the bacterium grows on bread and communion wafers that have been stored in a damp place.

The site goes so far as to cite Serratia marcescens as the probable cause of the bloodlike substance that a priest discovered on communion bread in 1263, referred to as "The Miracle of Bolsena."

More-recent incidents have pointed to bacterium contamination, including a highly publicized instance in 2006 when people flocked to a Dallas-area church after a host turned red in a glass.

According to a report on Texas Catholic Online, the Dallas Diocese had the host analyzed by two University of Dallas biology professors who concluded it was anything but a miracle.

In a letter to the parish priest, Dallas Bishop Charles Grahmann wrote "... the object is a combination of fungal mycelia and bacterial colonies that have been incubated within the aquatic environment of the glass during the four-week period in which it was stored in the open air."

Archdiocese spokesman Daniel McGrath stated, "The Church does not presume supernatural causes for things that can have a natural explanation," an odd statement coming from the church, especially considering that whole Bible thing.

Belief in Evolution vs. National Wealth: Why Does The US Not Fit The Trend?

via Calamities of Nature:

The United States is an odd bird, clearly. This graph reminded me of a post on PZ Myers' Pharyngula blog in which he discussed an international poll showing the US as being near dead last in acceptance of evolution (just above Turkey, another country with a distinct fundamentalism/modernism issues).

What, pray tell, could cause the US to remain such an outlier?

Well, first there is religiosity:

The total effect of fundamentalist religious beliefs on attitude toward evolution (using a standardized metric) was nearly twice as much in the United States as in the nine European countries (path coefficients of -0.42 and -0.24, respectively), which indicates that individuals who hold a strong belief in a personal God and who pray frequently were significantly less likely to view evolution as probably or definitely true than adults with less conservative religious views.

And then there's this:

Second, the evolution issue has been politicized and incorporated into the current partisan division in the United States in a manner never seen in Europe or Japan. In the second half of the 20th century, the conservative wing of the Republican Party has adopted creationism as a part of a platform designed to consolidate their support in southern and Midwestern states—the "red" states. In the 1990s, the state Republican platforms in seven states included explicit demands for the teaching of "creation science". There is no major political party in Europe or Japan that uses opposition to evolution as a part of its political platform.

As Myers noted, the paper ends on a sad note:

The politicization of science in the name of religion and political partisanship is not new to the United States, but transformation of traditional geographically and economically based political parties into religiously oriented ideological coalitions marks the beginning of a new era for science policy. The broad public acceptance of the benefits of science and technology in the second half of the 20th century allowed science to develop a nonpartisan identification that largely protected it from overt partisanship. That era appears to have closed.

Nigel Barber, in Psychology Today, asks if Atheism will eventually replace religion, as research shows that atheism "blossoms amid affluence where most people feel economically secure."

He writes:

It seems that people turn to religion as a salve for the difficulties and uncertainties of their lives. In social democracies, there is less fear and uncertainty about the future because social welfare programs provide a safety net and better health care means that fewer people can expect to die young. People who are less vulnerable to the hostile forces of nature feel more in control of their lives and less in need of religion. Hence my finding of belief in God being higher in countries with a heavy load of infectious diseases.

These findings are not surprising, but his piece does not acknowledge the fact that the US, a developed country where most have access to shelter, healthcare, and education, remains extremely religious (and relatively anti-evolution). Unfortunately, in the US, there appears to be no level of affluence and comfort capable of decoupling religion and politics, despite constitutional assurances explicitly requiring it.