In 2014 I published a piece in The New Republic (click on screenshot) which, despite the title, which I didn’t choose, described ways to turn religious peoples’ debate arguments back on themselves. Part of that article involved using a “no-god of-the-gap” arguments, asking religious people to answer a series of six questions. The bit below […]
Category Archives: Christians behaving badly
A Christian tries to save my soul by answering my hard questions about religion
August 23, 2020 – 9:15 am
A short Francis Collins interview on the BBC
May 23, 2020 – 11:00 am
Here’s a short (7.5-minute) interview with NIH director and Templeton Prize awardee Francis Collins that was played on NPR yesterday but came from the BBC Newshour. Collins answers questions about God, evil, coronavirus, and so on, but you may already be familiar with his theological views, which are at the preceding link. Collins’s interview starts […]
Francis Collins, new Templeton Prize winner, pushes woo in a Scientific American interview
May 22, 2020 – 2:00 pm
As I reported two days ago, NIH head Francis Collins, an evangelical Christian, just nabbed the lucrative Templeton Prize, usually given to people who are both science minded and blather on about the “Big Questions”: metaphysical “why” questions like “Why are we here?” or “What is our purpose?” Designed to exceed the Nobel Prize in […]
A pastor, on house arrest, vows to further violate quarantine orders in Louisiana
May 17, 2020 – 1:15 pm
Talk about Making America Great Again! Why not do it by violating the law? Reader Ken sent a link to this video, made three days ago, which truly shows a man who serves God by risking the lives of his flock in defiance of Caesar’s order and snarfing up the government pandemic checks given to […]
The faithful go after Andrew Cuomo for giving humans and not God credit for abating the pandemic
April 19, 2020 – 12:00 pm
Remember a few days ago when I quoted the words of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in an interview with CNN about the pandemic? “We’re talking about a reopening that has a public health plan and an economic plan totally coordinated. Our behavior has stopped the spread of the virus. God did not stop the spread […]
Ross Douthat’s dumb Easter theodicy: what is the “meaning” of the pandemic?
April 12, 2020 – 11:00 am
If you knew that Ross Douthat was religious, or even that his faith was Christian, but didn’t know what brand, you’d know by the end of his new column that he was Catholic. And indeed he is, for at the end he invokes the Hornéd One, aka Beelzebub. In other words. . . SATAN. After […]
Evangelist Franklin Graham helps set up COVID-19 facility in NYC, but makes helpers pledge to oppose abortion and same-sex marriage, and accept his Christian beliefs
April 12, 2020 – 9:00 am
This is the kind of thing that ticks me off about Christian “charity”: there are nearly always goddy strings attached. When believers tout the noble acts committed in the name of their faith, they never mention these strings. In contrast, when humanists or atheists do organized charitable acts, they never ask the recipients to abjure […]
Rowan Williams, Lord Oystermouth and former Archbishop of Canterbury, faults Dawkins and New Atheists for damaging Christianity and not knowing theology
April 2, 2020 – 1:15 pm
Good God, here we go again! Rowan Williams, formerly a “sophisticated” Archbishop of Canterbury, now bearing the appropriate title of Lord Williams of Mealymouth Oystermouth, is still kvetching about Richard Dawkins and his supposed New Atheist posse, and on two grounds. First, Dawkins (and we) damaged Christianity, and it needs to be repaired. Second, New […]
Religion infects another 2500 with coronavirus, kills 17
April 2, 2020 – 10:30 am
The Sophisticated Theologians® had better get to work on this one, telling us why God would let people assemble to worship Him—and then strike down thousands of them, killing 17. Yep, it’s in the Evening Standard, but also in other places (click on screenshot); An excerpt: A pastor whose church service has been blamed for sparking a huge […]
Southern churches pack bodies in during the pandemic; Liberty University reopens with students on campus
March 30, 2020 – 10:00 am
On the evening news last night, NBC reported that churches in the South were packing in the flocks—hastening their slaughter, I guess—in defiance of social-distancing regulations. They interviewed one of the preachers urging his flock to assemble to find togetherness, salvation, and (indirectly) the means to a hasty exit via viral contagion. The preacher said […]
