Camels With Hammers

Archive for the ‘Theocrats’ Category

The Vagina Ideologues

It was nice to see Jon Stewart finally have a chance to weigh in on last week’s absurd push from the Catholic Church to win the exemption from the law requiring employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The [...]

Kirk Cameron Gapes Admiringly At Monuments

That seems to be the central motif of Kirk Cameron’s new propaganda film about the founding of America, Monumental.

Support Hamza Kashgari However You Can

Maryam Namazie has been on top of the story of Hamza Kashgari, a 23 year old Saudi journalist whose life is on the line after he tweeted the following on Mohammad’s birthday: “On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to [...]

Religious Privilege and Grievance-Based Catholic Identity Politics on Full Display

In a column last week, Melinda Henneberger criticized the Obama administration’s refusal to exempt the Catholic Church from requirements it provide for its employees health insurance which would cover birth control at organizations it runs which have secular functions. The column is an extraordinary exemplification of religious entitlement, identity politics, and anti-secular, anti-democratic demands for [...]

The Author of The Cranston High School Prayer Outraged

This week, Jessica Ahlquist and the ACLU won their court case against Cranston High School West in Rhode Island. The school was ordered to immediately remove a banner containing an official school prayer addressed to “Our Heavenly Father” and ending in “Amen”, which hung over the school gymnasium as an unambiguous endorsement of the Christian [...]

Maryam Namazie Attacks Shari’a And Defends Muslim Immigrants Against The Far Right

A great lecture and Q&A my estimable Freethought Blogs colleague Maryam Namazie: . An important excerpt from the Q&A: Look, George Bush says he attacked Iraq for women’s rights and I’m a women’s rights campaigner, but I don’t believe him. It’s possible that a politician will say something, that they’ve done something for a reason and, [...]

Emma Goldman’s “The Victims of Morality”

In reply to my dialogue which I posted this morning examining what I perceive to be immoralism’s important contributions to moral thinking and its inevitable limits, a reader sent me to investigate Max Stirner and Emma Goldman. I may have something to say about Stirner in the future if time permits. But for now I [...]

Bullying or Debating? Religious Privilege or Freedom of Speech?

Jaime: Did you see the Republicans just endorsed the right to bully in schools as long as it’s done in the name of religion. Kelly: They did not. Jaime: Yes. They did. They perversely added to anti-bullying bill the right to bully as long as such bullying was based on “sincerely held religious or moral convictions.” [...]

A Critique of Noble Lies And The “Theologies” They Create

In this long post, I begin by explaining Plato’s formulation of the concept of a noble lie for those unfamiliar with it and then I explain in detail numerous problems I see with employing noble lies and with attempts to persuade people through “theological” arguments. I think all theology is either an explicit or an [...]

Jon Stewart Considers “In God We Trust” Debate Just A Waste of Time Distraction. Is It?

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook After watching that clip from The Daily Show, I think I can finally crystalize what I hear from the average secular progressive voting in Congress, writing for The Daily Show, or watching at home when a [...]

American Values vs. Fundamentalist Values

Contemporary Evangelical arguments for the mixing of Church and State usually fallaciously assume that for America’s most historically vindicated political, moral, and cultural values to be accepted as good and as true, either theoretically or in practice, or for these values to be preserved and advanced in future generations, Americans must accept and continue to perpetuate [...]

The Religious Conservative’s False Choice: “Big Brother” Or “Heavenly Father”

The following is a repost from February 23, 2011: In an e-mail to me, Caroline proposes thought provoking reasons for non-believers to encourage (or at least to not actively discourage) religious beliefs: It would also be nice if people would carry out actions in good conscience of just being decent human beings rather than in [...]

Did Theocrats Swing Weiner’s District Republican?

Robbie George, the conservative Princeton Professor who opposes same-sex marriage, writes of an under-reported influence in Weiner’s Queens district (NY-9): In the run up to the election, a group of Orthodox rabbis, most from Brooklyn, but including others, notably Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky and Rabbi Simcha Bunim Cohen, two nationally prominent Orthodox Jewish authorities, published a [...]

Why Clergy Rightfully Have No Place At A 9/11 Memorial (Or Any Civic Ceremonies)

Some clergy have been upset that they were explicitly excluded from today’s ceremonies about 9/11. I alluded to this, with a link where you can read more, in the following critical remark yesterday: some [are taking] the opportunity [of 9/11's tenth anniversary] to selfishly feel aggrieved because their religion and its pseudo-authority and pseudo-comforts are neglected. [...]

Santorum’s Hypocrisy and Backwardness on Questions of Epistemic Authority

My thoughts:

9 Vital Points About The Public Relevance of Political Candidates’ Religious Beliefs

Last week, Bill Keller had a good piece in the New York Times in which he discussed the importance of “asking tougher questions about faith” to the presidential candidates and then offered to each of the current Republican candidates for president a set of specific questions, tailored uniquely to each candidate, about their faiths and their [...]

The Perfect Links For The Christian Theocrats In Your Life

I do not think that the Bible or any other sectarian text should be the basis of one’s views on separation of church and state. Such views should be formed from a position of neutrality about all religious or anti-religious sources of authority and simply be grounded in fairness to each individual’s conscience. But for [...]

Norwegian Imam Argues For Beheading Students Who Don't Fast For Ramadan

Your Thoughts?

On The Conflict Over The Meaning And Cultural Influence of Political Secularism

In this post I just want to jot down some thoughts about a knotty issue. I probably will not make much progress in untangling all its strands but hopefully will stimulate a discussion that straightens things out at least a bit. Is political secularism inherently neutral or antagonistic to religiosity? There are a couple of [...]

"Why Women Should Not Be Allowed To Vote"

As Ellis on Facebook put it, the Bible was “written by and for men like this guy”: It’s not a divinely inspired book any more than this jackass is a prophet. Your Thoughts?

Trainwreck of the Day

A couple Christian kids with a nauseating, badly performed anti-atheist song set to “My Humps” (via Greg Laden, whose categorizations of the video say it all about the video’s contents): And then there’s “Don’t Cha Wish Your Savior Was Right Like Mine”: Your Thoughts?

Why Atheists Should Not Give Up Challenging Theism And Theists

GreenGeekGirl advises the atheist community (and she has a nice defense of the existence of an atheist community against those who do not believe one exists) that we should no longer bother arguing with theists, since this is supposedly futile, but should rather accept we have it pretty good in America and focus on protecting [...]

The Religious Conservative's False Choice: "Big Brother" Or "Heavenly Father"

In an e-mail to me, Caroline proposes thought provoking reasons for non-believers to encourage (or at least to not actively discourage) religious beliefs: It would also be nice if people would carry out actions in good conscience of just being decent human beings rather than in fear of reprisal in the afterlife, but as there [...]

Muslim Cleric Who Led Friday Prayers In Egypt Friday Supports Death For Apostates

Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s show ash-Shariah wal-Hayat has an audience of 40 million.  He is the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, is a trustee of Oxford University, and is considered a leading Muslim Brotherhood intellectual.  He returned to Egypt from exile after the fall of Hosni Mubarak and led Friday prayers on February 18. [...]

Another Middle Eastern Dictator's Regime Is Threatened

Yahweh is the latest under siege by a young, freedom movement: Speculation has been growing about whether God’s dictatorship will be the next to crumble under the demand for freedom that is sweeping the earth. Yahweh has now ruled without free elections for over 2,000 years. He seized power after the assassination of his son, [...]