A certain Pat Bethelot complained in the Herald that the Family Guy episode in which Brian the dog was the object of Meg Griffin’s raging hormones was aired as his/her family was sitting down to dinner.
Shaw Cable wouldn’t do anything about it and so the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunication Commission (Canuck equivalent to the US FCC) is receiving a formal complaint. Bethelot blames the move from a late night slot for the show to dinner time to apathy and is promising changes. He is running for mayor and says:
“Just for references, it’s the same as the do-nothing attitude that has allowed all or most governments to behave the way they do. I am totally disgusted and can assure you that politics are about to change.
I can assure you our municipal election coming up in 2010 will be one of the most interesting elections this city or province has ever seen.”
To which I replied in a letter published yesterday:
It was was a disheartening start to a glorious morning to realize that there were people in this fair town who need an introduction to the Theory of Cartoons. Alas, Pat Bethelot’s letter (Aug. 21) condemning the outrageous animated TV series, The Family Guy, and announcing his plan to run for mayor was there in black and white.
Cartoons and puppetry often rely on characters that fuse animal and human traits which results in strange interrelationships. TV audiences have long been accustomed to these, including some with cross species romantic liaisons; for example Miss Piggie and Kermit the Frog. At times, fantasy romances and attraction cross the human / animal divide. Again the Muppets spring to mind as the creature characters were sometimes swept off their feet by the human guests. How seriously should reasonable people take any of this? The Family Guy is certainly coarse and rude, but the show is not only a satire on American society but also on the conventions of pop culture and the entertainment media itself, including cartoons.
It is none of my business whether the Bethelot family has their TV on during their dinner, but why have it tuned to one of the most outrageous shows ever made? I cannot see how Shaw Cable is at fault. The TV station that aired the episode in question might not even be in the same time zone as Lethbridge. In any case, how were they to know that the Bethelots were sitting down to their dinner at that time with the volume turned up? Watcher beware! Rather than complain to the CRTC, why not simply pay attention to the TV listings?
No doubt with Pat Bethelot running for mayor the municipal campaign will be “interesting,” but perhaps not in the way the candidate hopes. It might even be able to compete with The Family Guy in terms of over the top self-mockery.
The letters page of the Lethbridge Herald has been burning up with the publication of one letter after another as the culture war for the hearts and minds of Lethbridgerians (sp?) has turned into a major slugging match.
First, there was the Bill 44 kafuffle that is only now dying down-unfortunately since it is such a *%@%#!!! stupid piece of legislation. See my earlier posts to catch up if you don’t know what that was about: here where I respond to being called “militant”, and here.
None of your scientifical rubbish here, this is BILL 44 country!
That discussion quickly evolved into a discussion on the origins and social acceptability of homosexuality, especially after the gay pride event here in town and Dr. Jim crashed a party
A partygoer
It seems as if there is at least two religion. vs. atheism letters every three or four days, and reading the Herald is getting to be a lot of fun. I haven’t been able to report or respond to them all here. There have even been a number of letter from more liberal Christians (you know, the sensible ones that that actually help make the world a nice place) chastising the fundamentalists for their homophobia and general unchristian like attitudes.
Anyway, here is a taste of how it is developing. There have been two lengthy and savage blows for the cause of sense and secularism of late and a few incompetent lightweight jabs in the opposite direction.
Is there still a moral conscience alive today that says some things are either right or wrong? Or have we evolved to the extent there really is nothing right or wrong?
hmm, they seem clearly marked here.
Has the creation account of the Bible been blurred in the minds of evolutionists to such an extent that our right and wrong has become a stumbling block to the progress of the human race to higher intellectualism so that right or wrong is merely a state of mind according to every individual’s decision?
For example, it feels good so it must be right for me. It doesn’t feel good so it must be wrong for me.
Every man becomes an authority unto himself. In the Genesis account, Cain slew his brother Able because his offering was not acceptable to God. God’s judgment was severe because Cain violated a divine law of God the creator.
We cannot violate divine laws of right and wrong because they are created for the well being of every person born, so as a society, we may enjoy the blessings of God.
The feel-good psychology is detrimental to a flourishing society. It creates and causes misery, broken homes and confusion, and little children suffer the most.
In bygone days, teachers taught right and wrong in schools. This was impressed by punishing wrong behaviour and language.
At the crucifixion of Jesus, Pilate asked, “What is truth?” Jesus said, “Thy Word’s truth.”
My advice would be to go back to the book of instructions, the Bible, to find out once and for all just what is truth. What is still right and still wrong and always will be. Seek the truth and ye shall find it, God says.
I’ve taken George to task in a letter that will be published shortly (so they say). I will keep you all in suspense until then, but it is a good one.
Letters concerning the gay debate are not going to convince either side because there are entrenched beliefs on both sides.
My grandmother once said if you want to know if something is right or wrong, ask yourself what would happen if everyone did it. If everyone were gay, human society would die out because gays cannot, through normal interaction, reproduce.
If it is bad for everybody to try to be his baby
then it is bad for anyone to try to be his baby
but then who will be his baby now?
That sounds pretty bad to me.
We all feel a propensity toward something but the beauty of the human being is that we can choose not to give in to urges that will be harmful to us or someone else in the long run. If we couldn’t choose, we would be no better than the animals that just run on instinct of the moment. Too many people choose not to curb their urges and that is what makes trouble in the end.
Ah, his grandmother! Well, what if everyone had a cheese sandwich? That would obviously mean cheese sandwiches are bad. Way to go Dave. Anyone note the odd logic “gays cannot, through normal interaction, reproduce”? I thought is was through interaction homophobes thought abnormal that reproduction rates reached an unsustainably low figure. Oh well, what do I know?
Rob took issue to a letter a week and a half earlier (the Herald allows long letters, but they are slow to publish), that blamed atheism for mass murders. He writes:
David Wetterstrand (letter July 17) does not like attention on atrocities committed in the name of religion. Rather than owning up to this evil, he hopes to downplay it, pointing his finger at some non-religious people who have been more evil.
Martin Luther’s The Jews and Their Lies. The Holocaust wasn’t
his fault, but this little pamphlet sure the hell didn’t help.
Aside from the breath-taking moral cynicism of his dodge, he commits two errors. He speaks of evil “in the name of religion,” but he mentions only the evil committed in the name of Catholicism. This is but one of thousands of faiths, and but one of eight major religions. Consider that all of them have committed evil deeds for their faith. Mr. Wetterstrand’s accounting of evil only in the name of Catholicism is clearly an underestimate. We should increase his estimate by at least eight-fold. I say “at least” eight-fold because the final number could be much larger, assuming Christianity has been about average in evil. Correcting his second error will lead to an even greater number.
He says the body count “in the name of religion” is only one per cent of the total of the regimes of atheists, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Notice the ploy and the second error. He switches from crimes committed “in the name of” something, to crimes committed by leaders who hold a certain belief. Hitler et al did not murder in the name of non-believing in religion. The crimes were motivated by a fanatical commitment to national socialism, centuries-old theories of racial/cultural superiority, or to Leninism. “Lack of belief” is a poor rallying cry. There is reasonable doubt about Hitler’s and Stalin’s atheism; when young and acquiring their moral compasses, they were raised according to religious doctrines.
Ben Stein wonders how Darwin got expelled from the P.C. edition of Mein Kampf.
If Mr. Wetterstrand really does want to count the evil deeds done by atheists, merely because they held that idea, then he must do the same thing for religion, counting evil deeds done by religious people. This number will be extraordinarily large — the total of all human evil minus that committed by atheists. Most people committing the Hitlerian atrocities were Christians. Under Stalin, the Orthodox Church was revived to foster patriotism for Stalin’s war effort.
We should broaden our view and acknowledge a hard-won truth: totalitarianism, political or religious, can be used to make otherwise good people commit horrible atrocities. Even religions that advertise a way to eternal peace have enabled great evil.
WOOT! GO ROB!
And the icing on the cake came today when John P. Nightingale wrote:
Just when I thought it was safe to read the “Letters” section of The Herald without being bombarded by Biblical quotes and testimonies to the purity of creationism, now we have two letters from Tom Yeoman and Geoffrey Capp in as many days.
This time it is homosexuality they are out to discredit.
Yeoman refers folk to “NARTH,” a website denounced by most psychiatrists, dedicated to caring and curing (my word) homosexuality. This is “cherry picking” at its worst! For example, there is a link titled “Syphilis rates up on gay male sex.” The fact that rates are up amongst black Americans also, apparently is not considered relevant. There is also a link to “First Things” which — surprise, surprise — is a religious (Catholic) site.
Capp prefers the “genetic” approach. There is no defined “homosexual gene,” according to Capp, thus homosexuality is not inherited and must be abnormal but they are still deserving of “love,” despite Capp admitting he “grieves” for them. Medical genetics was almost unheard of a couple of decades ago so who is to say that in the future a “gay” gene will not be identified?
Gay Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop
References to higher suicide rates noted by Yeoman likely can be attributed to the high cost of “coming out” wherever there are self-righteous zealots like these two godly people who wish to “love” but not embrace the “sin.”
Think about this for a moment: Why would anyone come out in this nasty environment with so much Biblical rhetoric directed in their direction (see other “Letters to the Editor”) if it were optional or “curable”?
As to Capp’s assertion about “extinction,” I am a single heterosexual with no children. Am I thus contributing to the human race’s demise? I think not!
In the July 21 Herald, Joel Houwelling jumped on the Biblical bandwagon, proclaiming “God’s Law” and impressing upon everyone of the need to follow His commandments verbatim. Too bad Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Mark Sanford and many other “Christian” folk didn’t head the “Law”! I suppose all they have to do, however, is repent and cry a few crocodile tears and all will be well.
Kindly leave the rest of society to lead their lives without all this self-righteous indignation. Keep it for the pulpits.
Dang! He took after Geoffrey Capp (which my letter does, too), AND preempted my use of the expresison “crocodile tears”. DAMN AND DANG! Oh well, great minds think alike!
Every year there is an uproar about the Calgary Stampede and the welfare of animals. One the one hand, bleeding heart liberal critter rights folk try to prevent animals from being tortured while countless more defend what is called “The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth”.
Some guy doing something macho. Apparently.
Although in general I agree with the bleeding heart liberals about a lot of things, I do belong to P.E.T.A. Yes, I am one of those People who Eat Tasty Animals and I like to go fishing. Still, I think the Stampede is pretty awful. OK, so I’m a hypocrite. But I do think there is a difference between torturing intelligent, sentient animals, and those that a little further down on the brain scale. How many of us won’t swat a fly?
Every year at the Stampede animals die needlessly (four this year). Others are flipped on their back by some big brutes and tied up, while some other guys who think Hummers and Axe body spray are sexy™ torment poor horses, bulls, or large goats by seeing who can sit on them the longest. And they play the worst god awful country music ever. I will, however, listen to justifications for it all and I respect that there are frequent reviews of safety for the critters. But I did read of one justification yesterday morning that BENT ME THE HELL OUT OF SHAPE. You guessed it, it was religious.
This is NOT Dr. Jim
I will admit a bias against the Stampede. Dr. Jim was never really all that into cowboy imagery. Even when I was a kid, Westerns and the like took second or third place behind war movies and model airplanes. I did have some some plastic logs for making cavalry forts, toy cowboy guns and so forth, and I did like to watch F-Troop (remember that?), but really, I wasn’t an imperialistic, land grabbing cowboy, out to displace the Indians.
I was an over militarized, war mongering, carpet bomb the village to save it, ‘ha ha, I sank your battleship’, Tora Tora Tora kind of guy.
Poster for the 70s movie about the bombing of Pearl Harbour (“Tora” = “Tiger” in Japanese, the code word for the operation). Notice the big bird poop-splat on the window of the plane in the foreground. The U.S. was so ill prepared for war they tried to use gulls to stop the Japanese. They were notoriously ineffective. This led to an increase in animal cruelty in Western culture.
In retaliation for the bird poop attacks, the Japanese targeted U.S. gophers, a strategy that backfired as it saved the Americans doing it themselves that year. It did set the stage for post-war reconciliation, though.
Wow, I’m really digressing here, aren’t I? What was this post supposed to be about? Oh yeah, religion and cowboys and horses and stuff.
Some guy, just before moseying into town to visit Miss Kitty at the saloon. She didn’t just sell drinks, did she?
So, what has got my boxers in a bunch? It’s not any rationally considered ethical position (that I may or may not disagree with), but outright claims of divine license. Yup, the Bible is being drawn into the debate about animal cruelty in a letter in the Calgary Herald. Some guy (not the guy above) from Medicine Hat wrote yesterday:
Re: “Are we having fun yet?” Letter, July 13.
My earliest recollection of the Stampede was in 1932 from our house on Scotchman’s Hill which offered a panoramic view of rodeo and midway. Livestock and the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede have always gone hand in hand. Without rodeo, there is no Calgary Stampede. In trying to make her case against rodeo, Rhonda Anderson claims, “A steer, a horse and a human being are all animals.” Not so! A check of Genesis 1:25-28 proves the unsustainability of that argument.
Bill Shaw
Hokey Dokey, Here is Genesis 1
25And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Well, that just about explains it all, doesn’t it? We can do what we what to what we want when we want because a bunch of old Israelites (actually Judeans, but that is a different story) thought that their national deity had created them as divine representatives on earth. And since they also thought that this god could do what he wanted to what he wanted whenever he wanted to, that should be good enough for us. Really? Are there no limits to this biblical sanction?
The belief that the Bible sanctions any kind of human excess is something conservative Christians have been wrestling with for a long time. Fortunately, there is a movement within evangelical Christianity to see the human relationship with creation as one of caretaker and not lord and master.
On the other hand, why look to 2500 year old models at all when trying to figure out how to live moral lives? Do we need the Bible to help think about animals? I don’t think so.
The Arrogant Worms, thinking about cows. But not in the biblical sense (I hope).
Right, where were we? Oh yeah, the war… no, the Bible. Its so hard to tell them apart sometimes!
Noah’s ark that saved humanity and all the animals from being destroyed by some god. Notice the satanic woodpecker out to wreck this deity’s plan. This biblical story gave the Americans the idea of defending themselves by using birds. Unfortunately, they read the wrong translations which mistook the Hebrew term for “woodpecker” as “gull”. This led to the disaster at Pearl Harbor but unexpected success on the ground war when George S. Patton did his own translation, and developed his strategy that he summed up as “The best defense is a good ostrich”.
The Bible also tells of how humans pissed off God so that that almost all of the animals had to be killed. According to Biblical and Judeo-Christian tradition, it is only after the flood that humans began eating meat with God’s permission (so long as we don’t consume its blood). Apparently, any cruelty we inflict on them otherwise is fine, eh, Mr. Shaw? Of course, animals are useful, and we domesticated a lot of them. And we militarized them too, which is why no one has a right to complain about this my conflation of Stampeding Bible Thumpers and WWII history.
Inspired by medieval pictures of a gallant knights like this, the Americans tried to develop their own Ostrich Corp. in WWII.
Anyway, after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour, the Americans thought they needed bigger birds. National emergencies are often the cause of new biblical translations and this inspired to Patton to make the “New Refeathered Version for American Patriots.” Thus inspired, Patton rounded up some of the best rodeo riders in Brooklyn to lasso some ostriches at the zoo and press them into service. The results were a truly terrifying weapon that could win the war, but at what cost, to both man and bird?
One of the first draftees for America’s new Ostrich cavalry unit, the somewhat reluctant FU Troop.
As it turned out, the ostriches were horribly outclassed by the far bigger German tigers, which weren’t real tigers at all, but #*%#!^*#% TANKS! They were almost completely ostrich proof! Bloody cheaters!
Tiger Tanks on the prowl. Like the Japanese bomber pilots in the Tora Tora Tora raid, the Germans could laugh off any amount of bird poop.The British response to the Tiger Tank was also far less than adequate.
British Field Marshal Meowgomery
But soon, the allies tried new tactics that capitalized on their army’s speed. The U.S. forces, for example, began employing stealth tactics, and that won the day!
Now, what the hell has any of this to do with the Calgary stampede and dipwit’s letter to the Calgary Herald? Isn’t it obvious? Since he thinks we must take a literalistic view of Genesis, we are led to the following realization, realized in the following representation.
A Middle Eastern carpenter on his way to work.
Acknowledging the co-existence of humans and dinosaurs of course, necessarily leads us to several conclusions about how we know what we know about the very ancient world. This ends all doubt about that famous reality T.V. series,
… the Flintstones. We now know this is the only biblical accurate™ show ever to be on the telly. Notice how family friendly it is compared to the image that precedes it, though. Why, it actually has a family in it. Not like that Christian picture. That Jesus guy probably wasn’t even married.
Now, this actually brings us back to the stampede. It’s supposed to be family fun. This is what it looks like NOW:
Evil Nature is ritually subjugated once again.
But, that is not the BIBLICALLY ACCURATE™ way of doing it! No, not at all! Just look at these prehistorical line drawings that look astoundingly like the modern, colour picures in the Flintstones (this proves the historicity of the Flintstones). Here is the original rodeo for you!
Now compare the two. Isn’t the second pair a whole lot more fun, mutually supportive and generally nice? No one gets hurt. We have lost our way, we have, and our Preacher from Medicine Hat is all messed up. He’s got it ass backwards.
Animals we keep and care for should have fun living with us, at least until we eat them! People characterize themselves and each other as animals; animal imagery helps form our identity, so we shouldn’t mistreat them. This is easy to demonstrate by reference to the audio visual, televised Arts™.
“Miss Kitty” in a tank (Amanda Blake, 1929-89), a still from the TV series Gunsmoke. She ran the “saloon”, but let’s face it, there were no Western saloons that weren’t also cat houses. Miss Kitty should have been purring for pay. If Patton would have read up on the wild West, he may have invented the militarized tiger tank before the Germans!
A cowboy relaxes in the water park of a frontier “saloon”. Tired of “cow” pokin’ he wants to take a tiger (or three) by the tail and have a real rodeo. See reference above to biblical knowing. Tigers are no longer used in rodeos in North America. As the old saying goes, “another one bites the dusty cowboy on the old saddle horn.”
Wrangler Jane, (Melody Patterson), F-Troop
Now then, while we are on the subject of special relationships between humans and animals, not to mention ropin’, ridin’, and ranglin’, get a load of this! It is way better than watching some yahoo with too much body spray chase a cow around an arena, ain’t it?
Yvonne Craig as Bat Girl, Eartha Kitt as Catwoman from the 60s TV show.
Notice the tiger skin jacket on one one of the hench persons.
The video is of poor quality so here is a still of Yvonne Craig as Bat Girl. I’m not showing it for any prurient reasons or anything like that, it is just that I feel a responsibility to my audience, such as it is.
hmmmmm, purple…
Now, just to show that everyone here at Dr. Jim’s has respect for tradition, lets go back before Eartha Kitt made her debut on TV as Catwoman. There we find this fine feminine feline:
Julie Newmar, Catwoman during the 1966-67 series.
And, then the movie was released with a different actress playing Catwoman. And then more movies, with more actresses…Hmmmm, more actresses….
Lee Ann Meriwether, from the 1966 Batman movie.
Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman in 1992 Batman Returns.
Halle Berry in 2004’s Catwoman
Should I have a poll as to the best Catwoman?
Halle Berry does seem to have something about cats, which is, of course, fine by me. Notice the nice leopard skin in her appearance in, you guessed it, the Flintstones!
Notice the primitive, hammer like “gopher bopper”.
Now, ALSO in the Flintstones film (the first successful big screen historical epic) were three of the four members of the rock group, the B-52s. For the purposes of the movie, they renamed themselves the B.C. 52s, and that, of course, implies “Christ”. But where does that leave us? Of course, back the aftermath of WWII, and the need for America to have dominion over the earth and to subdue stuff.
A B-52 bomber on a dangerous, biblically apocalyptic and predicted anti-gopher sortie.
Little buggers just won’t stay subdued.
Notice the fine synchronicity here, and the way all the loose threads are coming together. Obviously, this is a well thought out and coherent discussion of animal rights that makes way more sense than Mr. Shaw’s letter could ever hope to. So let’s end it off with a song or two!
B.C. 52s, “Bedrock Twist”
Eartha Kitt (1927-2008), “I Want to be Evil”. Notice the dead tiger.
Bill 44 and the evil homosexual agenda were the topics of an incredibly STUPID letter by Geoffrey Capp almost a month ago in the Lethbridge Herald. The bill revises Alberta’s human rights code to include parents pulling their kids from school classes dealing with topic contrary to parent’s religious sensibilities, like anything to do with sex, sexuality, or religion. Needless to say, the Conservative bill pleased Capp to no end. I fired off a response and forgot to post it here, so here it is a little late with some relevant new epistolary and commentarial developments.
Capp was the local candidate for the Christian Heritage Party in the last election. He didn’t win.
Y’know, I’m starting to think that all the shit raised by the Religious Right about sex is kind of a surrogate pornography for them. They get to study and denounce all this smut and debauchery and get their jollies. Anyway, just a theory…
First, Capp’s original letter from June 11.
Parents deserve right to shield kids from liberal curriculum
Geoffrey Capp (from CHP page)
So long as our schools are going to teach on moral issues and do so using only what is considered “politically correct,” parents must have the right to exclude their children from segments of the school curriculum.
I don’t mind the schools teaching the children how to do mathematics, spell, write, read, understand geography, know the basic history of the world, learn physics, chemistry and biology, learn about nutrition and the vital body functions, etc. But if the schools are going to teach about sexuality and reproduction, I draw the line.
Modern schooling is somewhat biased to begin with, biased by teachers trained in liberal-minded universities. The bias becomes acute when it comes to sex education. They teach about homosexuality and teach only the implication that people might be “born that way,” but they don’t teach the alternative belief that it is socially caused, possibly by, for example, the absence of a father positively involved in his children’s upbringing.
They teach about homosexuality as an “optional lifestyle” but they don’t teach about the negative aspects of it such as health issues, clinical depression, the high frequency of substance abuse and the substantially shortened life expectancy. They teach about methods of contraception but they don’t promote abstinence until marriage. They teach about abortion but they don’t teach about the health risks of abortion such as an increased risk of breast cancer.
As long as the schools are biased and don’t give the proper emphasis on the hazardous aspects, parents should have every right to exclude their children from an educational arrangement that may put their children at risk of hurting themselves or others. We teach our children the Great Commandment, which includes a commandment that they must love everyone, including homosexuals.
My preference is that schools provide impartial information to parents and encourage them to teach the children at home. My wife and I have a fine set of books, the first of which is designed for children as young as five, and in fact we have used them when the children were younger but asking. We are not shy about discussing it, and that is the best any parent can do for their children.
Thank you, Alberta PCs, for being willing to let us, if it is our preference, keep our children out of the liberal-minded curricula.
Geoffrey Capp
The Herald is usually pretty slow in printing letters, it often takes over a week. One good thing, however, is that they do not mind long letters. They seem to have an upper limit of about 400 words, which is way longer than a lot of other papers. Even so, I couldn’t write everything I wanted to say. I did come up with a great first paragraph, though.
My response (June 25).
Writer’s views on origins of homosexuality ‘troubling’
Yours truly with baby, Spike.
Geoffrey Capp doesn’t mind students being educated in biology and “vital body functions” but not sexuality and reproduction. I wonder where Capp thinks babies come from, if not from “bodily functions.” Perhaps he thinks schools should “teach the controversy” and propose a stork theory.
More troubling is Capp’s view on the biological origins of homosexuality. He favours the “alternative belief” that it is determined by social factors, such as the absence of a father figure, be taught. What studies have linked homosexuality to absentee fathers? “Beliefs” do not cut it as the basis of a formal education. That diseases are caused by demons is a religious belief that won’t go away, but it is hardly the basis for teaching students about health.
The “health issues, clinical depression, the high frequency of substance abuse and the substantially shortened life expectancy” Capp associates with homosexuality are more likely to be the result of the social stigma against it, a stigma Capp is only perpetuating. Massive social problems of this sort can be found in any marginalized and persecuted population. Capp’s boast that he teaches his children to love everyone while demanding the right to excuse his children from hearing about people who make him squeamish is a self righteous hypocrisy we can do without. If students do not learn that homosexuality exists and does not interfere with people leading lives beneficial to society as a whole, where will they learn it? From the Bible that teaches universal love while equating same sex relations with murder and that homosexuals should be executed?
A final point: the idiocy of Bill 44 cuts both ways: I don’t imagine Capp would be too pleased if atheist parents pulled their children from classes on Canadian politics lest the youngsters learned about the Christian Heritage Party, for whom Capp ran in the last election.
AND FINALLY, the STUPID GETS STUPIDER! Here is Aris Slingerland, who was Capp’s campaign manager in a letter on a somewhat related topic, the Pridefest held June 9. My comments are in bold italics.
Re: Article on Pride Fest, June 9.
It is not something for Lethbridge to be proud of. Instead it should make us weep and mourn for several reasons.
1. That we live in a society where the Bible and prayer is banned from most schools so young people are no longer taught about responsibility. A picture of all of us is found in Psalms 81:11-16. Our hearts are desperately wicked. Mine, too, but that does not mean we can do what we like.
Ok, so the only way “responsibility” can be taught is through teaching the bible and praying in school? How the hell does preaching “Original Sin” (a doctrine completely foreign to the Old Testament Psalms) teach responsibility? Heaping any hope of doing right on some deity’s intervention is not responsibility, it is passing the buck. Sure, people do some desperately wicked things. Judging them harshly for things they are not responsible for (like being homosexual) is one of them.
2. That this group of people distorts the truth of the Bible to their own purpose. God gave His law by Moses, specifically the 10 Commandments. The seventh commandment reads “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Read Leviticus 18 and 19 for an explanation of what that means.
And to write as if we do not have to pay attention to what Paul wrote is very wrong. It is also part of the inspired Word of God.
Who are “this group of people”? Is there any church anywhere that bases its doctrine solely on unbiased analysis of the what the Bible actually says? I doubt it. Hell, even “St.” Paul could be accused of cooking the books to his own ends. Remember, the New Testament is a tendentious interpretation of the varied documents comprising the Old Testament. Reinventing the what the “word of God” says has been going on ever since, and probably even before, the Bible itself was invented.
Even though they claim the government has no business in the bedrooms of the nation, the government is still responsible to uphold the Law of God in public life.
Really? Where the hell does it say that the government is supposed to uphold the law of “God”? Whose god is that? And whose version of this deity’s laws? Here Slingerland is mixing up the agenda of his theocratic party with the function of a government of a pluralistic society. The government is bound by law to uphold the constitution which guarantees freedom of religion. The CHP want to change the fundamental basis of what government is about. And notice how the first two of Slingerland’s “several reasons” are numbered while the remainder are not. Maybe he couldn’t count higher.
What we see today, though, is people are not willing to heed what the Bible teaches. Neither are they satisfied with the freedom to do evil in their bedrooms, but they try to justify themselves by demanding public recognition. How sad.
“Freedom to do evil”? Consenting adults playing with each other is “evil?” What about all the child molestation that churches cover up? Why no uproar about that?
Another reason to mourn is city council so readily gave their consent. For by their consent, they have scorned the feelings of the majority of citizens, and become partakers of the evil. How sad!
What part of the old democratic live and let live does this guy not quite understand? Regardless of what the majority might want, freedoms must be extended to minorities, too.
Since I had a letter in only a few weeks ago, I don’t see them publishing me again, so this will have to be my response. In any case, Slingerland’s letter got posted to the LDS email list, so it went around some of the most liberal, skeptical, clever, mischievious and down right twisted minds at the university. Ah, yes, the Lethbridge District Skeptics. WHO DID YOU THINK I WAS TALKING ABOUT???
Anyway, some of the folks at LDS were pretty offended, although I don’t think Slingerland’s letter constitutes “hate literature”, as some on the list suggested. I’m hardly the one to champion censorship unless there is a call for violence or outright dehumanization of someone. Still, it will be nice to read the responses, I’m sure they are coming!
I have decided to end the tradition of adding a gratuitous and entirely sexist babe photo, not that there have been any complaints, mind you (no one reads this crap I write).
Oh, what the hell!!!?????!
Anti-gay marriage pageantess Carrie Prejean reads her Bible.
(AP Photo/Denis Poroy, April 26, 2009)
Yup, that’d be Carrie, again. Don’t know where her Bible is.
Dr. Jim has a lot of opinions on Alberta’s Bill 44 that would give parents
the “right” to pull kids from classes deemed religiously offensive or that
deal with sex or sexuality. The provincial government was long overdue
in updating the human rights legislation to recognize gay rights and so
finally including this, they thought they had to “balance” this by giving the conservative (in more ways than one) religious folk in the province some additional “rights” of its own. Hence, you have the right to keep your kids ignorant, and teachers would have the obligation to warn parents in advance if they intend on talking about potentially offensive subjects in class.
Of course there has been a massive backlash, and some nut jobs celebrating the proposed changes. The Calgary Herald ran a letter on the 21st by someone complaining that teachers who oppose the bill were “distrustful” and “antagonistic” towards parents. To which I replied (published May 25).
Re: “Parents first,” Letter, May 21.
Public education should not be a means of producing ideological clones of students’ parents, but to prepare students for being independent. I wonder if the proponents of the relevant parts of Bill 44 are not unreasonably distrustful and antagonistic towards teachers and an education system they cannot micromanage according to their own inward-looking perspective.
Religion and sexuality are as important political topics as they are private issues. Why should schools need parents’ permission to raise these topics? Parents objecting to discussions of sex, sexual preferences or religion are probably more in need of such classes than their children. At least in the higher grades, sex education and courses on world religions taught from a non-confessional standpoint should be mandatory. No exceptions should be allowed for public, separate, charter, private or home-school students.
Giving parents a “right” to veto their children’s participation in such subjects amounts to an educational and intellectual ghettoization and sectarianism. Students caught in the middle are not given the opportunity to develop the skills to participate fully in society.
Gratuitous Slinky Babe pic:
Audrey Tautou, who starred in The Da Vinci Code. Why is it relevant? It really isn’t. She is just gorgeous. But I thought I would include since The Da Vinci Code is probably the level of many people’s views on religion. See, I’m not just some pervert. I’m a snarky pervert.
“Blessed are the latent homo-erotic fantasy figures, for theirs shall be a sidekick of African descent”.
Yes, I am now officially (well, not really) Lethbridge’s Atheist in Chief. I’m continuing to catch hell from the faithful in the pages of the Lethbridge Herald, although not all the letters are showing up on their website (boo!).
So, I typed up a response and sent it in and it got published. Here it is, with some additional pictorial illumination and caption commentary.
Andrew Joosse calls me “militant” for criticizing religion. Militant people carry guns and throw bombs. I wrote to my local newspaper. Luckily, I didn’t use upper-case letters for emphasis or Lethbridge might get a reputation as a terrorist haven.
A gun shop, perhaps the one from where the noted militant, Dr. Jim, bought his deadly lap-top that has been striking common sense into sleepy town of Lethbridge .
My views are said to confirm Augustine’s claim that Christians do not base belief on reason but rather believe in order to understand. OK, so Augustine was happy with a circular argument and a bit of special pleading that seemingly protects his views from criticism and self-doubt. I’m glad Mr. Joosse and I had the opportunity to clear that up.
Gee, that was fun, lets have another go around that same theme (yes, cheap joke, but I like the cartoon, too).
I do not question many Christians’ charitable nature or work for world peace but the same can be said of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Wiccans, agnostics, and atheists. My real point is that religions get undeserved preferential treatment. For example, organized religions enjoy special laws allowing them to issue tax receipts for donations, regardless of whether the money is put to any real humanitarian end. This is unfairly denied to other groups.
To illustrate the Christian sense of “true religion”, Mr. Joosse employs a verse from the biblical prophet Micah that advocates doing justice and humbly walking with one’s god. We get a different perspective on it if we flip ahead several pages in the Bible to the prophet Malachi, who accuses poverty stricken Judeans of stealing from God by skimping on their tithes, offerings and sacrifices to the temple. Some biblical passages are simply timeless.
Before this letter was published, however, the Herald published another letter about my earlier note. This is not online so here is my badly typed reproduction.
Brock Schuler writes (Faith has Value, April 15).
I find it unfortunate when people refer to faith in derogatory ways when it has so much to offer. Faith provides foundations for morals and gives hope.
When people refer to the concept of a God like “mythology” or “magical” or a “pretentious red herring that merits little regard,” they are throwing away something of value. But I suppose more than one atheist blames his problems on religion.” And no, the atheist Ahab will not be slain by faith, but he is shown to be close-minded as he barely considers the possibility of a God, which is closer to shooting oneself in the foot.
I feel sorry for the naturalist / secularlist / scientist that has nothing to believe in. I find belief in God essential for my personal and spiritual development, even my intellectual development.
So, in sparing the Herald yet another of my letters, I will respond here, but I hope others do write in, as Schuler repeats a number of perfectly asinine generalities about atheism and misconceptions about morality that do need addressing in public.
Schuler think it “unfortunate when people refer to faith in derogatory ways” because it “ provides foundations for morals and gives hope.” Of course, morality does not come from faith at all, but evolution. The simple requirements of social living would demand a system of rules governing interactions.
What really bugs me is that religionists often appeal to “moral absolutes” enshrined by their faith but do not notice how other faiths–and godless folk–share many of the basic tenets like taboos against killing (in at least most circumstances). Beyond some basic issues, the contents of “moral absolutes” are pretty darn relative.
The contents of religious faith may be a way of externalizing and legitimizing morality as somehow a requirement for human life but it is hardly the only way. Religion (not “faith”) is an all-encompassing symbolic symbol system that articulates what believers find important, but it is hardly the case that without a religious context, the important institutions of human social life would be abandoned.
One thing that really gets me about Schuler’s opening line is that “faith” and “hope” are taken as entities in their own right, rather than feelings or beliefs. FAITH IN WHAT? HOPE IN WHAT? These are religious keywords that carry a lot of symbolic baggage but little real content.
And why should the godless be utterly without hope of a good life for ourselves and loved ones? Sure, it would be nice to think that somehow all the crap one has to put up with will all go away, or that you would get the job you want, or your kids would have an easier life than you did, but what good is hoping on a god? It is scarcely a replacement for actually doing something to help your situation.
Of course, there are many situations that are completely out of one’s control, and perhaps “faith” in a deity or another can bring consolation, but it is an empty consolation in the long run. There will be no justice unless people want to make it work, no equitable distribution of goods until people stop being selfish. An atheist with a strong sense of attachment to all of humanity can have high ideals about making the world a better place, a sense of dignity and the strength of convictions. I see no advantage to “faith” in terms of hopes for a better life down here.
And what of hopes of a more transcendent nature, that manifests itself in expectations of heaven for Christians? Well, a lot of religions have no counterpart or so utterly differently construe the afterlife and human condition, that Christian conceptions of “hope” are little more than statements of being comfortable with one cultural context while finding others strange or disconcerting. By the same token, the sense of interconnections with the universe that many atheists feel is totally misunderstood by most religious folks. There is no transcendence in the Christian sense, but there is a sense that one belongs to some far older and far more lasting than one’s own several decades of life (give or take several decades…).
Ain’t it neat being part of all of this?
Schuler gets it all wrong when says people are discarding something valuable when they “refer to the concept of a God like “mythology” or “magical” or a “pretentious red herring that merits little regard,” adding, “I suppose more than one atheist blames his problems on religion.”
I suppose there are many religious people who blame THEIR problems on the existence of people who disagree with them. It needs to be said here that Schuler is, just like my other fans Knoch and Joosse before him, completely ignoring the real focus of my recent letters, to challenge the privileges religion enjoys. Instead of actually addressing the matter, they just assume I have some sort of psychological issue with religion. He continues:
And no, the atheist Ahab will not be slain by faith, but he is shown to be close-minded as he barely considers the possibility of a God, which is closer to shooting oneself in the foot.
Closed minded? Holy crap! Time for cup of tea!
And at the end, Shuler feigns compassion
I feel sorry for the naturalist / secularlist / scientist that has nothing to believe in. I find belief in God essential for my personal and spiritual development, even my intellectual development.
”Nothing to believe in”? Oh for Jebus’ sake, give me a break. Now, there is a nice point right at the end, though isn’t there? God is necessary for his INTELLECTUAL development? Well, perhaps he should try believing in himself and his own natural intelligence rather than on vain hopes that Jesus will home-school him. Who knows, it might open his mind.
And now for the best part of all my new posts, the gratuitous but thematically appropriate slinky babe.
Dr. Jim’s poison pen (or at least sensible laptop) has been at it off and on over the past few weeks. And there has been an interesting exchange of ideas in the pages of the local and under-rated paper, the Lethbridge Herald.
After my 15 seconds of fame last month–being interviewed by the Herald and Global TV about the (now somewhat stalled) bus ad business–there has been something of epistolary exchange between myself and a Mr. Knoch of Cardson.
I don’t have a copy of the Herald’s interview, but on the same day as that was printed (in early March), I had a letter in the paper in early March. Anyway, it started over the abortion issue:
Cartoon shamelessly stolen from Bartblog. See the post that went along with the cartoon, too.
Re: Aris Slingerland “There’s more to abortion issue than the woman”
In taking Thera Body to task for her views on abortion, Aris Slingerland advocates abstinence only sex education and adoption. His appeal to the Bible lends only an illusory weight to his case. Christianity has waged war with itself over rival biblical understandings. Who should be Canada’s Minister of Scriptural Interpretation?
…
It is unjustified to presume that morality is the exclusive province of religion or that religion should be protected from criticism. The global uproar surrounding the atheist and humanist bus ad campaigns bears witness to the protectionist attitude religion enjoys.
Moves to bring such a campaign to Lethbridge have just begun, but an Ontario based Christian group is already claiming that “Bible Study Panels” will soon be displayed by Lethbridge Transit. Hopefully our community will be enlightened enough to expect a public service like Lethbridge Transit to make advertising space equally available for rent to the agnostic and atheist community.
I rather liked that letter. One of my better ones. Mr. Knock, however did not. He quoted Martin Luther at me (I couldn’t find the letter on the Herald online) EEK! Anyway, here is my relpy:
Faith nothing mysterious, just a red herring March 19
Frank Knoch (“Faith can’t be argued with human reason”) recommends that I ask God to reveal himself after reading (“without bias”) John’s Gospel. I will, but only if Mr. Knoch reads Norse and Babylonian mythology without bias before praying to Odin and Ishtar.
As many have observed, everyone disbelieves in most gods. Atheists just disbelieve in all deities equally.
I can assure Mr. Knoch that I already have read the Bible and visited “Christian turf.” Professor Craig Evans recently spoke at the Evangelical Free Church. He argued that the Gospels are true because their original wording can be recovered. The faithful were edified but hardly educated by this absurdity, but perhaps that was the point.
Religion’s special status means society often regards someone as an expert in ethics or public affairs simply by virtue of becoming the leader of a congregation. Religious sensibilities are often too fragile to upset. Religious ideas are often taken seriously simply because they are religious, not because they have any intrinsic merit (e.g., creationist pseudo-science).
Mr. Knoch holds that faith is beyond reason, making any rational dialogue with faith “ridiculous.” I admit the futility of playing hockey against a team that boards up its net, but not because that team has any god-given talent.
Faith is not some mysterious, extra-human category of heightened knowledge and certainty. Its objects are merely those ideas that a religious community does not wish to have questioned. Faith is not some giant white whale against which atheist Ahabs will destroy themselves if they try to slay it. It is but a pretentious red herring that merits little regard.
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” as they say. Divine roaring too often proves to be mere humans issuing decrees behind a mystifying veil that masks their fallibility. Secularists of all stripes should join together in calling their bluff when their lives are impacted by this. Any idea advertised as too special for public debate is probably a bad idea or outrightly malicious.
Mr. Knoch writes, “let’s give equal time” to the decorating of buses with a biblical passage that calls unbelievers fools. Let’s not “give” him any such thing; it is merely the drawing of another privileged curtain. But let’s protect his right to book advertising space and pay for it himself.
To which Mr Knoch replied:
Where are ancient dieties now? March 28:
In response to James Linville’s response (March 19) to my article about faith and bus ads, I apologize if my letter seems to suggest that purported atheists were fools. Rereading my article, you would realize that it was a quotation from the Psalms, Chapter 14 verse 1a. The 1b part of that verse is even harsher, but I do not endorse that appellation when there is honest doubt and honest research for the Truth, which I am sure Mr. Linville is searching for, being a free thinker as he would claim.
As to the Norse and Babylonian deities, where are they now? All but extinct. I once had 50 odd books on the occults and some of these were mythologies. I disposed of these because of the depressive nature of the subject matter and they did not offer a hope of salvation as the Bible does. Salvation and a need for it comes from the Jewish people. Man has to first of all recognize his own sinfulness. The theme of atonement — forgiveness by God of man’s sin — was inculcated by Moses’ leadership into the mindset of the Hebrews, throughout the 39 authors of the Hebrew Bible. Even the design of the tent of meeting, the tabernacles and the temples reflected the idea of atonement, through their many blood sacrifices.
Christians see in it the foreshadowing of God’s supreme sacrifice — Christ, who, as John the Baptist calls Him, is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Christians identify Isaiah 7 as Christ in the word “Emmanuel,” which means God with us and in Chapter 9, in the words “wonder, counsellor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” as the fullness of the Godhead which describes Christ here according to Christians. In Chapter 53 of Isaiah, the person suffering and sacrificed is identified by Christians as Jesus and no other.
As to Creationism as a pseudo-science, Mr. Linville shouldn’t have to fear when he looks up his own family tree that he’ll get beaned with a coconut. God made creatures all after their own kind.
I was’t going to reply with another letter, I figured I’ve taken up my allotment of column inches for the month, but then, I said what the hell, I might as well post it here.
What a load of patronizing shite.
I shouldn’t have just mentioned currently unworshipped deities, but still, what happened to the worship of Odin and Ishtar is a very real possibility for the worship of Yahweh. And besides, Ishtar is being reincarnated or resurrected by the modern new-age movement. And the idea that you can tell the really powerful gods by the numbers of believers they have is straight out of a Terry Pratchett novel (to wit: Small Gods).
I wonder if Mr. Knoch could even understand that the Christian appropriation of earlier Jewish religious writings in the so-called “Old Testament” is a MAJOR point in favour of atheism: what seems natural to the believer is only a human product, an accident of history. The references to Jesus in the Old Testament are, of course, purely anachronistic.
I also wonder what education Mr. Knoch has with with which to challenge the findings of the entire field of evolutionary biology?
I think it is about time folks stopped giving any credence to claims like “my faith is beyond comprehension”. It is bad case of special pleading and a ploy to distract attention away from any real issue (e.g., lack of evidence for creationism) by claiming the real issue is something different, that the non-believer simply cannot understand the certainty of faith.
BULLSHIT
All “faith” is is a a belief that one is unwilling to both abandon or defend.
THINK OF ALL WE CAN LEARN FROM THE ANIMALS: World’s stupidest argument for God.
OR: WHY YOU SHOULD NOT REGARD DR. DOOLITTLE AS A DOCUMENTARY
This will make more sense if you sing “Talk to the Animals” while reading…
Here is Sammy Davis Jr.’s version
I have no idea where to start with this one by Ken Healey in the Lethbridge Herald letters page, Oct 19. It didn’t make the online edition, perhaps because it would blow up the computer system.
Ken Healey asks if readers have considered how non-human creatures strictly obey natural laws while people break them all the time.
Nature, he observes, very quickly takes care of dead animals with the need for burial. Might have something to do with this, I suppose:
And it continues:
Did you ever stop to realize that all animals and birds do not wear clothes, yet they present themselves modestly and appear modest, and for the most part even behave modestly (monkeys and apes being a possible exception: animals do mate, of course but only during the mating season). And with all the talk of gay marriages and gay lifestyles, what percentage of the animal kingdom are gay? Could it be that they understand the true laws of nature more accurately than we do?
Which is probably why animals never make award winning movies:
Modest animals? Yah, there’s lot of them.
Mr Healey then goes on to observe how in many animal species–especially birds–it is the males who are richly coloured and not the females: as he puts it “unlike female humans who are and [sic] focus more on beauty than male humans.”
And how geese tend to care for one another.
Mr. Healy concludes:
All of the above tells me we do have a Supreme Creator and in this “crazy” world of ours, plants and animals are doing a much better job than we are at obeying His laws! Just something to think about.
Oh boy, my head exploded! Obviously the guy has never seen pictures of how rich men in the 16th century used to dress!
And of the implication that male animals can choose their plumage, all I can do is repeat this rather apt rhetorical question: “Can a leopard change his spots?” (Jeremiah 13:23).
I suppose “anthropomorphism” is too big of a word for Mr. Healey, but Jebus B. Gobley, what a goof! He attributes to animals the ability to choose whether they are colorful or drab, and of “understanding” “laws” of nature as if they are “laws” made by humans to control activity. There is something seriously wrong with this guy’s way of thinking.
I do wonder why the the Herald saw fit to publish so silly a letter, but in the end, they probably know me too well, I feel disappointed when there isn’t a stupid letter in the paper!
I just wrote a response to a letter objecting to my comments in an article about the local Catholic School Board’s backtracking on the HPV vaccinations that they had originally accepted. In the article (around Oct. 8), I was quoted as mentioning the typical fear religions have of female sexuality and the empowerment given women by birth control and the challenge this presented to “abstinence only” sex education favoured by many churches.
On the 15, a certain David Cavilla wrote to object, and this morning I just wrote back. Here is what I had to say:
Mr. Cavilla asks for my rationale in claiming that women are empowered by birth control and that abstinence only sex-education is a poor policy. He also considers it “misguided” to protect teenagers from their own lack of self-control by removing consequences from bad decisions.
I would remind him of the stigma and ostracisement born by unwed mothers and “illegitimate” children in past decades, not to mention the biblical story of Mary’s controversial pregnancy. Thankfully things have changed but terrible burdens continue to be born by young mothers in terms of family stability, career prospects and so forth.
Teaching abstinence alone to young people simply does not work as well as proper sex education and access to birth control. The statistics bear this out.
Society typically judges women accused of sexual impropriety far more harshly than men guilty of similar indiscretions. Count all of the profane words we have to name a sexually active woman and compare this list to the number of derogatory terms for men who enjoy frequent amorous adventures.
The Bible itself often personifies religiously apostate societies as promiscuous young women who enjoy many “lovers”. Of course, the cities are condemned to destruction. In Ezekiel 16 and 23 the sexual imagery reaches pornographic proportions. The latter chapter goes further to command that real adulteresses and prostitutes be executed –along with their children!
Parents and governments protect children, teens and adults from the worst consequences of countless rash actions. Many children and teens take silly risks when riding bicycles regardless of how many times they are told to be careful. We do not ban helmets but make them mandatory. Why should a harsher standard apply to teen girls who succumb to natural sexual urges?
I suspect it will get published, but it might take a week or so.
UPDATED TO ADD: The letter got published today (Oct. 22). I expect some “polite” replies.
Psychic’s claims demand skepticism (Thursday, October 9, 2008)
Re “Do you have the power?” Lethbridge Herald Sept. 29
The Herald has done its readers a disservice by repeating the slogans, jargon (i.e. “communicating with the other side,” “past life”) and bombastic claims made at the recent Psychic Fair without any critical reflection, let alone investigation. Re “Do you have the power?” Lethbridge Herald Sept. 29
The Herald has done its readers a disservice by repeating the slogans, jargon (i.e. “communicating with the other side,” “past life”) and bombastic claims made at the recent Psychic Fair without any critical reflection, let alone investigation.
In a recent and well-documented case from Barrie, Ont., a psychic told a teacher’s aide a student was being sexually abused.
The Children’s Aid Society subjected a severely autistic 11-year-old girl and her mother to a traumatizing and needless investigation. How can your reporter forget this when passing on the claims made by “Oren” that she can help solve murders and to give desperate families closure?
People often give away more about themselves than they realize to observant strangers who ask leading questions and note such things as body language, clothing style, manner of speech (“cold reading”).
In turn, people are often willing to suspend normal critical facilities, especially when they are grieving, worried or afraid. Organizations like the James Randi Educational Foundation and the Center for Inquiry have done stellar work in demystifying paranormal claims and “outing” frauds who prey on the vulnerable.
Pronounced skepticism should greet any extraordinary claimant of special knowledge or powers, be they proponents of the paranormal or self-professed prophets or healers working in the name of a deity. We expect close scrutiny and demonstrable qualifications from the regular medical and financial industries, not to mention those in the forensic sciences.
We should also expect our governments to enforce a high level of consumer protection against the claims of the “faith-based” and illusion-based health, analytic and advice industries.
James Linville
President, Lethbridge Freethinkers Society
Lethbridge
Whoot! This was the first published text with the LFS name attached, although the day previously, the Herald published a letter by our vice-pres. James Litwin on global warming. See the text on the society webpage. For some reason, the paper did not print his affiliation with our group.
Rob took issue to a letter a week and a half earlier (the Herald allows long letters, but they are slow to publish), that blamed atheism for mass murders. He writes:
Geoffrey Capp (from CHP page)
Anti-gay marriage pageantess Carrie Prejean reads her Bible.
Yup, that’d be Carrie, again. Don’t know where her Bible is.
Audrey Tautou, who starred in The Da Vinci Code. Why is it relevant? It really isn’t. She is just gorgeous. But I thought I would include since The Da Vinci Code is probably the level of many people’s views on religion. See, I’m not just some pervert. I’m a snarky pervert. 
BIBLE MAN, Dr. Jim’s Anti-Militant Arch-Nemesis 
Ain’t it neat being part of all of this?
And at the end, Shuler feigns compassion
Elizabeth Hurley in Bedazzled. 
Cartoon shamelessly stolen from 
