AaA Episode 15 With Greta Christina! Also - SCAN Awards

New Ask an Atheist with a very special guest - Greta Christina!

Also, tomorrow is the deadline to vote for Ask an Atheist for the SCAN awards! As always, thanks for your support!

Just A Funny Sign

Hey.

I started school

Here's a funny sign:

OK, laterz.

SCAN Awards - Vote For Ask an Atheist! Also - AIDS walk

I hate feeling like I'm spamming people with silly posts, but here are a few things I'm involved with in which I would love and appreciate your support.

First - Ask an Atheist is up for 4 awards at this year's SCAN Awards ceremony. Please go vote! I would especially love to win in the category of "Best Religious Programming" - if only because of the delicious, delectable irony. :D

Second - I'm participating in the AIDS walk with the Tacoma Atheists and could use your support. Even if you can't pledge, a comment or 'go team' would be much appreciated. :D

Thanks!

Abuse of Positions of Power - Pharmacists Gone Wild

In Washington, we're dealing with a little issue concerning personal freedom versus people using their positions of influence to mandate morality. A pharmacist doesn't want to sell Plan B - the "morning after" pill - because she says it violates her morals to do so. The thing that bothers me is that she chose to be a pharmacist, her job is to fill prescriptions, not make moral decisions about the prescriptions she's being asked to fill. Ugh, look - what would the response be if a Hindu told someone that selling them their heart or diabetes medication violated their morals because the drug was tested using bovine DNA? What about small towns where there is only one pharmacist in the area? If pharmacists are allowed to pick and choose what medicines they dispense based on their personal beliefs, what is to stop religious extremists from specifically choosing that career and implementing their morality on others in an underhanded fashion? Do I sound completely paranoid? If so, I would suggest you haven't been paying attention to the kind of tactics more extreme groups have employed in the recent past to circumvent the law and underhandedly violate the constitution.

Here's hoping they make the right decision and continue to expect pharmacists to do, I don't know, their job.

KENT, Wash. -- Hundreds of women gathered in a Kent courtroom Friday afternoon over the controversial morning after pill.

The Washington State Board of Pharmacy is considering changes to the way pharmacists hand out these types of prescriptions and held a public hearing Friday for public input.

Women from all over the state filled every chair and spilled out into the hallway, eager to tell the pharmacy board their opinions.

"I would prefer on my free time to go celebrate the victory of the Storm, but this is more of an important issue for women," said Betsy Shedd.

Betsy Shedd and several other women want the Board of Pharmacy to keep the current rules in place. As it stands, pharmacists must to fill all prescriptions of medicines they have in stock.

Dr. Patricia O'Halloran says that rule is violation of her religious rights.

“I would like to see them come out of this respecting and honoring the conscious rights of pharmacies and pharmacy owners," said O’Halloran.

So would attorney Kristen Waggoner, who represents the owners of Ralph's Pharmacy in Olympia. They're suing the Board of Pharmacy. Ralph’s Pharmacy doesn't want to be forced into filling Plan B prescriptions or any other drug like it.

“We will move forward and go to trial if the pharmacy board does not the pass the rule that allows our client to refer patients and that's because referrals are a time honored practice in all health care professions," said Waggoner. “A rule change in no way would better support a patient’s health."

The board says it's listening to all sides, and in the end they don't have to change the rules.

“We may just keep the rule as it is. We may amend an existing rule or we may start a new rule," said Gary Harris, Board of Pharmacy.

One of those rules up for discussion is the facilitated referral rule. If a pharmacist does not have a medicine in stock, he or she would be required to find another pharmacy close by that carries it.

The next hearing will be held September 25th in Kent. The Board says it will review all comments from this hearing, online and written letters before making a final decision sometime before December.

Ask an Atheist Episodes 12 & 13

I got my computer back from the shop today - yay! - and so I'm posting the last two weeks worth of Ask an Atheist episodes for you today. Enjoy!

Episode 12 - Viewer Calls and Emails

Episode 13 - 9/11 Conspiracy Theories - The case against controlled demolition

AaA Episode 11 - Atheists in Fiction 2

Episode 11 - atheists in fiction 2 with Mike and Libby. Enjoy. :)

The Curious Case of LH

I have a woman who emails me regularly, though I'm not sure if she realizes she's doing it. From what I can tell, she's kind of my antithesis. She's talked about vacations, stocks, and her home enough for me to guess she's in a higher tax bracket than me and she's mentioned some other things in her emails that has led me to think of her as an older woman, possibly someone whose use of the internet came late in life and really only deals with email and possibly recipe and craft sites, but certainly not work. I am making a few assumptions here, but I'm trying to paint a portrait of her for you without getting too personal, since like I said, I don't think she's aware that she keeps emailing me. One of the main reasons I assume she's not terribly familiar with using the internet is because she 1 - sends those awful chain emails that everyone in their right mind knows are annoying, a waste of time, and a source of aggravation for the majority of people out there and 2 - I keep telling her she's emailing me by mistake, but she never seems to understand how that might be or how to stop.

Someone in her life, presumably from what I've read her daughter, has almost the same name and email address as me except there's an 'a' instead of an 'e' in her last name. I've emailed LH as well as BL to let them both know that I keep getting emails meant for someone else, emails dripping with prayers and mentions of God and tea party politics, misinformation and snarky comments about Obama (which is especially annoying since there are plenty of legitimate reasons to be less than enchanted with our current president) and everything else one would expect from a typical middle to upper class religious American.

In one email, she perpetuated the idea that America ought to be run the way Wal Mart is run - after all, they have a ton of money and are really successful, right? In another email, she evidently agreed with the sentiments that illegal immigrants are the single worst issue in America - and that democrats would rather protect the rights of an illegal than the rights of a poor, defenseless fetus.

Riiiight. Pretty awesome stuff.

This latest email is a chain email, one of those 'send this to 12 people in 12 minutes or your tits will fall off' affairs, but instead of tits falling off, this was a chain letter to prove your love of God.

What? No! No self respecting religious person would trivialize their relationship with the Most Important Person In Existence by making Him/Her/It the focus of a lousy internet chain letter, would they? Oh you know they would.

Just 27 Words:

God our Father, walk through my house and take away all my worries and illnesses and please watch over and heal my family in Jesus name, Amen.

This prayer is so powerful. Pass this to 12 people including me. A blessing is coming to you in form of a new job, a house, marriage or financially. Do not break or ask questions.

This is a test. Does God come first in your life? If so, stop what you're doing & send it to 12 people now. Watch what he does!

My main concern through all of this is the fact that LH only sent this to 8 people. Looks like someone needs to find 4 more people to send this shit to so her god, who has evidently taken to testing people via internet memes these days, knows she puts him first in her life and she can get that sweet sweet blessing! Ching!

Also, I bet Job is pissed.

Perpetuating The Myth of Religious Intolerance

Denver Archbishop Charles_J._Chaput recently gave a 12 page address to the Canon Law Association of Slovakia titled "Living within the Truth - Religious liberty and Catholic mission in the new order of the world". Basically, Chaput tries to establish the idea that Christians in the US and Europe are victims of intolerance, but I'm still not seeing it. To me it seems like a lengthy whine about not having as much political power and influence as he would like, with his only real argument for why any religious group should be involved in politics at all in the US is that the US (and Europe and presumably anywhere else that's western, proper, predominantly white and Christian) is based on Christan values and indeed owes its very success and ability to flourish to Christianity.

Right. Well, I obviously disagree.

One part of the address specifically caught my attention:

Downplaying the West’s Christian past is sometimes done with the best intentions, from a desire to promote peaceful co-existence in a pluralistic society. But more frequently it’s done to marginalize Christians and to neutralize the Church’s public witness.

The Church needs to name and fight this lie. To be a European or an American is to be heir to a profound Christian synthesis of Greek philosophy and art, Roman law, and biblical truth. This synthesis gave rise to the Christian humanism that undergirds all of Western civilization.

On this point, we might remember the German Lutheran scholar and pastor, Dietrich

Bonhoeffer. He wrote these words in the months leading up to his arrest by the Gestapo in 1943: “The unity of the West is not an idea but a historical reality, of which the sole foundation is Christ.”5

Our societies in the West are Christian by birth, and their survival depends on the

endurance of Christian values. Our core principles and political institutions are based, in large measure, on the morality of the Gospel and the Christian vision of man and

government. We are talking here not only about Christian theology or religious ideas. We are talking about the moorings of our societies -- representative government and the separation of powers; freedom of religion and conscience; and most importantly, the dignity of the human person.

This truth about the essential unity of the West has a corollary, as Bonhoeffer also

observed: Take away Christ and you remove the only reliable foundation for our values, institutions and way of life.

That means we cannot dispense with our history out of some superficial concern over

offending our non-Christian neighbors. Notwithstanding the chatter of the “new atheists,” there is no risk that Christianity will ever be forced upon people anywhere in the West. The only “confessional states” in the world today are those ruled by Islamist or atheist dictatorships -- regimes that have rejected the Christian West’s belief in individual rights and the balance of powers.

Just a few comments - though so much more can be said.

Claiming that there is no risk that Christianity will ever be forced on anyone in the West is not only a shockingly naive statement, it's blatantly untrue. The only way this statement might be valid is if you were to reduce what would be considered "forcing Christianity" enough to make any given example of Christianity being forced on people not count.

Even if you disregard the seemingly constant issues that are popping up all over the US with prayer in city council meetings and school board meetings and religious displays on government property - an obviously unconstitutional act that I personally would consider examples of low level government officials trying to force religion onto people in a subtle, non physical way - there are even more blatant examples of Christians forcing Christianity on people to be found. A recent situation that pops to mind is the Christian concert that was put on in Virginia where soldiers had the "choice" of either attending the concert or going back to their bunks and cleaning for hours. I'm curious as to how that might be considered not forcing Christianity on someone? Is it because there was technically a choice involved?

Also, are there really atheist dictators alive and kicking today, forcing godlessness on their people? Where are they? What are they doing in the name of atheism that is so terrible? Why have I not heard of this before from the literally hundreds of theists I've debated in the past few years? I'm not saying they don't exist, but it is suspicious to me that this is the first time I've heard of them and that no specific examples of these dictators were given.

Last, I find it interesting that the author feels comfortable claiming that both regions are based off of Christianity - or rather "profound Christian synthesis of Greek philosophy and art, Roman law, and biblical truth." He seems to be fine with admitting that our society is not a direct product of one influence, but rather a kind of synthesis of three different influences. Again, this seems short sighted to me. Why only go back that far? What about those influences that helped shape Rome and Greece? Seemingly the only reason that those influences are less important is because the time when Greece, Rome, and the rise of Christianity intercept one another is about how far back Chaput had to go in order to make his point, but if we're going to reach back to the ancient romans to establish what our modern societies are founded in, what's to stop anyone from going back even further than that? Can't I equally claim that US and Europe was built on a foundation that began with Hammurbi's code? Or the Code of Ur-Nammu? Citing the point in history where Christian and Roman ideologies began to intertwine as the foundation of western civilization seems more like convenient historical cherry picking in order to perpetuate an agenda than anything.

I don't mean to downplay the influence Christianity has had in western civilization, it obviously has influenced our societies quite a bit. However, at least in countries where there is some kind of provision for church/state separation, that does not in any way stand as justification for allowing religious groups - Catholic or anyone else - to politicize their religion.

It would seem Chaput's main point is that we somehow owe Christianity for a lot of good things, therefore not allowing Christianity to have a position of political influence and power is tantamount to religious intolerance.

I just don't agree with that sentiment at all.

(thanks to Religion Clause for the link)

Ask an Atheist Episode 10 - Intelligent Design

Please welcome the newest host to the show - Scott! Also, ID is one of those topics I randomly know a lot about and love to talk about. They did a top notch job on this episode. Enjoy!

First It Was The Banana. Now A New Nightmare Has Emerged - Peanut Butter!

I'm not seriously commenting on this because it's a joke. Possibly an unintentional, sadly misinformed joke, but a joke regardless.

Yikes. All I have to say is - evolution says nothing about the origin of life. The idea they're talking about is abiogenesis.