How to ruin your next family dinner: Religion + Politics

Evangelicals, Trump, and Kavanaugh

Karen Swallow Prior answers the questions: "How does a deeply religious group of people continue to support a president who has repeatedly acted in ways they consider immoral?"

and

How important would you say Brett Kavanaugh's nomination is for the evangelical community?

This is fun!

I didn't have anything good for a 2017 post, so I promise to do two posts in 2018. And I'm good for it.

Here's 2018 post #1: https://samharris.org/sam-harris-jordan-peterson-vancouver-night-one/

It's fun. It's like a slow tennis match of ideas, but no one wants to win.

Montana Gubernatorial Candidate Greg Gianforte on Retirement

Update: Part of this recording is being used in political ads in MT now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vco1qFYCRjk

Greg Gianforte is running for governor of Montana. Greg made nearly three-quarters of a billion (with a B) dollars when the software company he started was sold. He has some very interesting bible-based views on retirement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvLkJTFnjK8&sns=em

Is Chief Executive Officer of a Software Company mentioned in the bible? That must be in one of the lost gospels. 

Would voters entrust the White House to an atheist?

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/08/10/431205042/should-we-distrust-atheists

Awkward Moment's Children's Bible and the new billboard campaign

A friend recently sent me the book Awkward Moments Children's Bible. It cracked me up.

Today, I hear that they are running a Indiegogo project to raise funds for billboards. It's their Preaching Back at You campaign. I love these guys, just telling it how it was written.

How I know that no one is reading my blog

I misspelled the word atheist in about 100 places (my fingers just type "ie" out of habit) and no one had commented on it yet. Nitpicking is a cornerstone of the internet, so I figure no one reads this. And really, why should they?

Awkward Moments (Not Found In Your Average) Children's Bible

This book just showed up in my mailbox one day. I'm glad it did.

http://www.amazon.com/Awkward-Moments-Found-Average-Childrens/dp/149217744X

How to suck at your religion

Great comic strip from The Oatmeal. It made me think of Chick tracts.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/religion

USPS discriminating against Atheists? A study by Atheist Shoes.

I have friends and family who work for the USPS. To hear them tell it, the USPS is a pseudomilitary organization--in management style, not weaponry, although I do wish the had a mail cannon--run by former soldiers, sailors, and airmen (airpeople?) who passed the Civil Servant's exam. Mostly due to episodes of MASH that featured the lovable Father Mulcahey, and the saying, "There are no atheists in foxholes," I've always thought of the US military as a somewhat religious organization. Not like the Catholic church is a religious organization; more like the Salvation Army, I guess. So, I wasn't really surprised to learn that there might be a correlation between the labeling of Atheist Shoe's packages with a giant "Atheist" sticker and the retarded (in the delayed or impeded sense of the word) delivery of their packages.

 http://www.atheistberlin.com/study

Be sure to read some of the comments. And if you like comments, read some of the comments on Merriam Webster's definition of the word "retarded." Or as spelled in the first comment, retarted.

War on Christmas: Even the Pope Emeritus is getting in on it.

Pope Benedict's book debunks aspects of the Christmas story. Now, if we can just get him to agree the entire story is a myth...

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/22/world/europe/vatican-pope-jesus-book/index.html

Signs this blog is going downhill

Here are a few fun posts from CNN. Yes, CNN.

These relate to the atheist group, American Atheists, Inc., and the billboards they've been buying.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/01/atheist-group-targets-muslims-jews-with-myth-billboards-in-arabic-and-hebrew/

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/30/dueling-billboards-face-off-in-christmas-controversy/

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/03/first-on-cnn-atheists-ratchet-up-rhetoric-use-billboards-to-attack-republican-politicians/

This is my favorite, though. Sarah Palin gets all pissy because she said she would create laws based on god's law and the billboard read an understated should:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/04/atheist-group-apologizes-for-misquoting-palin-but-defends-billboards-intent/?on.cnn=1

10 Virtues for Atheists by Alain de Botton

Maybe Alain could have stopped at 9 or struggled through to 11 so these wouldn't have become Athiest commandments.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/10-new-virtues-for-atheists-alain-de-botton-unveils-new-manifesto-8479256.html

Atheist church?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21319945

Here are some quotes from the article:

"It's not a church, it's a congregation of unreligious people."
"I think people need that sense of connectedness because everyone is so singular right now, and to be part of something, and to feel like you are part of something. That's what people are craving in the world."

Warning: I'm pretty sure this is how all religions started, folks.

"It will become an organised religion. It's inevitable. A belief system will set in. There will be a structure, an ethical outlook on life," says architect Robbie Harris.

I think Robbie's got a point here. Maybe try having your non-service on Thursday. And somewhere that doesn't look like a Catholic church. I remember another group of people who got together because of a guy named Jones; it didn't end well.

Jesus really is everywhere

Jesus is a fun guy. This blog makes me glad there is no hell.

http://jesus-everywhere.tumblr.com/

Some of my greatest disappointments

April 1986 - Geraldo Rivera opens Al Capone's secret vault and it's empty.
April 1990 - The world doesn't end because of US/Russian thermonuclear war like Elizabeth Clare Prophet predicted.
September 1994 - Jesus Christ does not return and put an end to our misery as predicted by Harold Camping.
March 1995 -  Jesus Christ does not return and put an end to our misery as predicted by Harold Camping.
March 1997 - Thirty-nine members of the Heaven's Gate comet cult kill themselves. The rest of us are "left to wallow in the spiritually poisoned atmosphere of a corrupt world."
January 2000 - The world goes on without financial and social collapse caused by the infamous Y2K bug. (Although I did have a world-ending hangover that day.)
May 2012 -  Jesus Christ does not return and put an end to our misery as predicted by Harold Camping.
December 2012 - The Mayan Apocalypse (AKA the Alpacalypse), as indicated by the end of the Mayan calendar, brought no death and destruction. 

Did you arrive here by accident? Tell me what you were looking for.

Did you do a search on Google or Bing or some other search engine that led you here only to get here and think, "This isn't what I was looking for."? If so, please leave a comment on this post to tell me what it was  you were looking for. I hope to expand this blog to include more of the info people want to see when they stumble across The Happy Agnostic. Please take a few seconds to point me in the right direction. Thanks for your time.

New book by Bart Ehrman, "Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth"

Bart Ehrman has a new book, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. Here's a review from NPR staff:


http://www.npr.org/2012/04/01/149462376/did-jesus-exist-a-historian-makes-his-case?ft=3&f=100876926&sc=nl&cc=bn-20120405

And here's an article written by Bart Ehrman that gives you a little taste of what you might find in the book:
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html

Ten thousand show for the Reason Rally

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/24/atheist-rally_n_1377443.html
http://reasonrally.org/

The Reason Rally - March 24, 2012

http://reasonrally.org/

The Reason Rally is an event sponsored by many of the country’s largest and most influential secular organizations. It will be free to attend and will take place in Washington, D.C. on March 24th, 2012 from 10:00AM – 4:00PM at the National Mall. There will be music, comedy, and speakers.

Goodbye, Christopher Hitchens.

Christopher Hitchens, author of The Portable Atheist and God is Not Great, dies at 62.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/arts/christopher-hitchens-is-dead-at-62-obituary.html?pagewanted=all