by cameron | Mar 13, 2007 | Australian politics, science, science vs religion
As mentioned here last week, Democrat Congressman Pete Stark from California has outed himself. Wonkette says he is a “Unitarian”.
“When the Secular Coalition asked me to complete a survey on my religious beliefs, I indicated I am a Unitarian who does not believe in a supreme being,” Stark said. “Like our nation’s founders, I strongly support the separation of church and state. I look forward to working with the Secular Coalition to stop the promotion of narrow religious beliefs in science, marriage contracts, the military and the provision of social services.”
Unitarian Universalism describes itself as creedless, meaning that it has no underlying authoritative statement of religious belief. While some members believe in God, not all do.
I still find it almost unbelievable that in 2007 this is such big news but there you have it. Do you think this means the rest of the US politicians actually believe in mythical beings? Or that they are just too scared to front up? Either way, it’s pretty scary. The LA Times says:
A USA Today/Gallup poll last month found that only 45 percent of respondents said they would vote for a “well qualified” presidential candidate who was an atheist. Ninety-five percent said they would vote for a Catholic candidate, 92 percent a Jewish candidate and 72 percent a Mormon candidate.
I would love to run a similar survey in Australia. Perhaps the Secular Coalition needs an Aussie operation?
And what’s with this “nontheist” crap? What’s that?
According to this blog:
a nontheist is someone who does not accept a theistic understanding of God, as described in the preceding paragraph. Such a person may reject all understandings of God, may embrace certain non-theistic understandings of God, may find God language useful and rich in trying to describe their experience of the world but not true in a literal sense, may believe in certain non-material, transcendent realities that have little in common with the common understanding of the word “God.†An atheist falls within this understanding of nontheist, as does an agnostic, a humanist, a Buddhist, and many Quakers who find the whole practice of labeling our belief systems an unfortunate distraction from genuine religious living.
We definitely need a better marketing term than “nontheist” or “atheist”. I prefer “rational”. Or “sane”.
by cameron | Mar 8, 2007 | Christianity, Podcast, science vs religion
Brian Flemming’s bio on his blog says “I make movies, I write plays, I blog.” You have to admire that kind of brevity.
The main reason for chatting with Brian was to talk about his 2005 documentary “The God Who Wasn’t There” which he describes as “a feature-length documentary partly exploring what amounts to Christianity’s dirty little secret: That Jesus Christ probably never existed at all.”
Make sure you get your free copy of Brian’s film by entering the “Blasphemy Challenge“.
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!
by cameron | Feb 25, 2007 | science vs religion
From Time’s site:
Let’s go back 27 years, when Israeli construction workers were gouging out the foundations for a new building in the industrial park in the Talpiyot, a Jerusalem suburb. of Jerusalem. The earth gave way, revealing a 2,000 year old cave with 10 stone caskets. Archaeologists were summoned, and the stone caskets carted away for examination. It took 20 years for experts to decipher the names on the ten tombs. They were: Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua.
Israel’s prominent archaeologist Professor Amos Kloner didn’t associate the crypt with the New Testament Jesus. His father, after all, was a humble carpenter who couldn’t afford a luxury crypt for his family. And all were common Jewish names.
There was also this little inconvenience that a few miles away, in the old city of Jerusalem, Christians for centuries had been worshiping the empty tomb of Christ at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Christ’s resurrection, after all, is the main foundation of the faith, proof that a boy born to a carpenter’s wife in a manger is the Son of God.
But film-makers Cameron and Jacobovici claim to have amassed evidence through DNA tests, archaeological evidence and Biblical studies, that the 10 coffins belong to Jesus and his family.
Oh, this should be fun. I’m hoping that, at the moment of maximum tension, James Cameron’s flings back the lid of Jesus’ coffin and a real-life Jesus springs up out of the coffin, fixes the press corps with a menacing stare and then liquid-mercury morphs into a T1000. It’s time for another Cameron-directed Terminator film
I was the machinima film festival at ACMI with Tommy Reynolds yesterday and we interviewed NY-based machinima guru Paul Merino. The video will be up early next week. He was talking about James Cameron’s new machinima film “Avatar” which is due to start filming in April. Amazing he has time to to the pre-production for his most ambitious film ever AND totally dismantle the basis of 2000 years of Christian mythology in his spare time. The man is a god!
by cameron | Feb 20, 2007 | science vs religion
I’m sitting here waiting for filmmaker Brian Flemming, creator of “The God Who Wasn’t There” to turn up for our interview. I don’t think he got my email confirming the date/time. Ah well. Meanwhile I’m reading Brian’s blog and there are some great links to information I was going to talk to him about. I might as well share some of it with you now.
Join “The Blasphemy Challenge“!
The Rational Response Squad is giving away 1001 DVDs of The God Who Wasn’t There, the hit documentary that the Los Angeles Times calls “provocative — to put it mildly.” There’s only one catch: We want your soul. It’s simple. You record a short message damning yourself to Hell, you upload it to YouTube, and then the Rational Response Squad will send you a free The God Who Wasn’t There DVD. It’s that easy.
Go to WellingtonGrey.net to find out how George W. Bush’s decision tree works.
He’s also explains the difference between the scientific decision tree and the faith decision tree. Very enlightening.
The Center for Inquiry Transnational, in conjunction with its Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER) announces the creation of the Jesus Project. The Jesus Project will enlist the talents of scholars from many disciplines to try to determine the likelihood of Jesus of Nazareth having ever existed.
Spearheading this important undertaking is the Chairman of CSER, R. Joseph Hoffmann. The goal of the project, according to Hoffmann, is not to “prove” the non-existence of Jesus, but to take the theory as a “testable hypothesis” and use the best methods of critical inquiry to reach a probable conclusion.
by cameron | Feb 19, 2007 | Christianity, Podcast, science, science vs religion
An interesting post on Andrew Sullivan’s blog recently from one of his readers who says:
I am an atheist (who was once a Christian) and wanted to comment on your latest missive to Sam Harris. I would describe my own embrace of science and secular humanism as being motivated by a form of faith that is deeper than Christian faith. I believe that if Jesus lived today, he would be a secular humanist and would reject Christianity, just as he “rejected” Judaism and inspired Christianity. Christianity was once the vehicle for the boldest and most honest thinking about reality, the brotherhood of man, and the human condition. I think in light of the advances in science and our exposure to other religious traditions, it is time again to humanize further our understanding of “God” (or the source of all truth, goodness, and beauty) and come to a more universal understanding of religion.
I’m not sure I agree with the author’s claim that Christianity was ever “the vehicle for the boldest and most honest thinking about reality” – bolder than vedanta? However, he makes a good point that, from what we know about the man called Jesus (which as we saw from my podcast with John Dickson, is very little), he doesn’t seem to have been overly concerned about tradition or authority.
Would he have been like Father Bob Maguire, who I had another of my regular skirmishes with last week?
