Short story: the Marquis de Sade's "Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man"

This is actually a dialogue rather than a story. A priest is giving the last rites to a dying man who repents that he has not taken full advantage of the fact that he was "created by Nature with the keenest appetites and the strongest of passions and was put on this earth with the sole purpose of placating both by surrendering to them." The dying man then proceeds to state his case for atheism.

Despite the fact that the dying man seems not to have heard of the is-ought fallacy, he makes some good arguments that resonate well with current debates. His opponent is probably an unfair strawman, but I have heard a Christian apologist in a recent debate with Christopher Hitchens advance at least one of the priest's counter-arguments--the notion that the world has been created "broken" as an answer to the problem of evil.

The dialogue is far too long to reproduce here, so I'll just provide a link to the PDF:

"Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man"

Of course, more than just atheists have been influenced by de Sade's ideas:


Read more!

The Wonderful World of Magical Thinking XIX

Image via Pharyngula

The week in fundie . . .

1. Moderate Liberals attempt to block Religious Right putsch in Sydney seat of Mitchell. (Brisbane Times)
2. A 16-year-old female gang-rape victim "may well have been glad of the attention," according to one of her attacker's defence lawyer. The lawyer suggested that the victim was asking for it because of her "provocative" clothing and the fact that she was overweight at the time of the assault. Incidentally, this happened in London, not Saudi Arabia. (Via Magic Bellybutton.)
3. Israeli Knesset moves to ban gay pride parades. (Via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)
4. Theocracy comes to West Papua. (Via Bartholomew's Notes on Religion)
5. "The Talibanization of Iraq"--the deterioration of women's rights in the post-Saddam era. (Assyrian International News Agency)
6. Stoning defended in Iran by Judiciary Chief Advisor (National Council of Resistance of Iran)
7. Crowds stone gay rights marchers in Bucharest. (SMH)
   

Just to make it worth your while, here's Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot."

Read more!

The Wonderful World of Magical Thinking XV

The week in fundie:

1. Christian students cry "persecution!" because they're not allowed to abuse homosexuals at their high school. (via Pharyngula)
2. Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort claim that they can prove God's existence without the Bible . . . by referring to the Ten Commandments. Kirk and Ray: YOU FAIL. (See the unedited Nightline debate between Cameron/Comfort and the Rational Response Squad here, and see also the recap by FriendlyAtheist)
3. Pope Benedict threatens to excommunicate Catholic politicians who don't force their religious beliefs regarding abortion on the populace. (Austin Cline)
4. Meet Jesus' favourite Congresswoman. (via Pharyngula)
5. School bus driver fired for gay personal ad. (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
6. Pakistan's legislature considers a bill to execute people for leaving Islam. (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
7. WorldNetDaily: "STARBUCKS HATES GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
8. UPDATE: Hundreds of thousands of homophobes attend gay hate rally in Rome.
   

Read more!

The Wonderful World of Magical Thinking XIV

The week in fundie:

• Malaysian couple forcibly separated by the country's Islamic authorities after 21 years of marriage because "the husband did not convert to Islam as required by law for their marriage to be legal." (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
• The ACLU is fighting to re-establish an Atlanta woman's legal custody of a child placed in her care by the girl's biological mother. The child was placed into foster care in February by an Atlanta judge after he learned the woman looking after her, and to whom the child had grown attached enough to call "Mommy," is a lesbian. (Morons.org)
• The Rev. Sun Yung Moon, founder of the Washington Times and Bush crony, calls for gays to be wiped from the face of the earth. (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
• Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan suggests that Julia Gillard's choice to remain childless (or "deliberately barren") renders her unfit for leadership. (Ninemsn) (See also Bruce's post)
  
• The Australian blogosphere's foremost misogynist heartily endorses Heffernan's remarks. (via Random Brainwave)
• UPDATE: US conservatives are debating whether or not Darwin supports their worldview. Dinesh D'Souza goes so far as to re-interpret evolution to support his own wingnut presuppositions, suggesting that this new Conservalution^TM can be used to woo conservatives. (Pharyngula)
  
• Meanwhile, in a recent debate among Republican presidential candidates, John McCain admits belief in evolution. As for the Grand Canyon, however: a magic man did that. (EvolutionBlog)
  

Read more!

The Wonderful World of Magical Thinking XIII

The week in fundie:

• Jim Crow in Jerusalem: on Israel's "modesty buses"--public buses which service Orthodox Jewish neigbourhoods--men sit up the front while women passengers are forced to sit in the back. (via Pharyngula)
• Rosa Parks in Jerusalem: a woman who dared to challenge the bus policy last November was beaten up by the local Israeli chapter of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. (via Pharyngula)
• Utah Republican: "Immigration is a Satanic plot!" (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
• Illinois student arrested for handing in a "violent" writing assignment to his teacher. (Just like Cho Seng-Hui!!!) He's Asian. (Just like Cho Seng-Hui!!!) (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
• Another own-goal for the Right in the debate over the VT shootings: Judith Reisman blames the massacre on the killer's "erototoxins." (Erototoxins, as Ed Brayton explains, "are hypothetical chemicals released in the brain when one views dirty pictures that, Reisman claims, actually 'change the structure' of the brain. They're the biochemical equivalent of Mr. Snuffleupogus on Sesame Street; only Judith Reisman can see them.") (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
• Dutch creationist "re"-builds Noah's Ark. (via Pharyngula)
• Arkansas man sues public library after he claims his sons saw a book about lesbian sex there. (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
  

Read more!

Five Public Opinions is banned in China

China: free market good;
political freedom bad:
Bush USA?

Sorry--a commenter named Uspace who blogs in Senryu and Tanka inspired me to blog in haiku about the fact that Five Public Opinions is banned in China.

Milton Friedman once said that "the free market is the only mechanism that has ever been discovered for achieving participatory democracy." Milton Friedman was wrong, as the free-market-loving yet participatory-democracy-hating China demonstrates.

Anyway, you can test whether your own site is blocked at Great Firewall of China.

Oh, yeah--the point of my haiku? China's combination of capitalism and authoritarianism makes it seem (ironically) very right-wing--in a Bush/Howard conservative kind of way.

(Via Basil's Blog) Read more!

You criticised Bush. That makes you a terrorist.

A conservative legal scholar from Princeton has been added to the Transportation Security Administration's terrorist watch list after delivering a televised speech attacking Bush's executive overreach.

Walter F. Murphy, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Emeritus, at Princeton University, attempted to check his luggage at the curbside in Albuquerque before boarding a plane to Newark, New Jersey. Murphy was told he could not use the service.

"I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list," he said.

When inquiring with a clerk why he was on the list, Murphy was asked if he had participated in any peace marches.

"We ban a lot of people from flying because of that," a clerk said.

Murphy then explained that he had not marched, but had "in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution."

The clerk responded, "That'll do it."

Murphy was allowed to board the plane, but was warned that his luggage would be "ransacked." On his return trip, his luggage was lost.

Murphy blogs about his experience here. Normally this kind of thing only happens to peace activists. Perhaps someone could explain to me how punishing dissent in this fashion aids the "War on Terror," because I couldn't be more confused.

(Via Morons.org) Read more!