She was sooooo cute today, despite nursing (another!) cold. She got many compliments on her outfit, and a few people caught the pop-culture reference, too.
I'm not sure who had more fun this Hallowe'en, Emma or her mama and dad!
[EDIT: If you're stuck and don't get the pop-culture reference, here's a clue]
A hell house, also commonly known as a Doom House or Judgment House, is a haunted house-style attraction typically run by North American fundamentalist Christian churches or parachurch groups. These attractions are meant to depict the divine judgments that await unrepentant sinners and the torments of the damned in Hell. They are typically operated in the days preceding Halloween although by definition, they are not part of the holiday.
A hell house, like a conventional haunted house attraction, is a space set aside in which actors attempt to frighten patrons with gruesome exhibits. Unlike the conventional haunted house attraction, the hell house focuses on occasions and effects of sin, or the fate of unrepentant sinners in the afterlife. The motivation for the event occurring during the month of October before Halloween is to take advantage of the similarities between hell houses and conventional haunted houses.
Jerry Falwell is known for staging the first ever Hell House.
Tonight I watched the 2001 documentary that followed a long-running Hell House staged by a Texas church. The documentary follows church members from the brainstorming sessions in August to the auditions of roles to actual Hell House presentations in October. There's no narration -- just the words and actions of the believers who are participating in this event.
Highlights (if you could call them that) of the documentary:
The minister admitting that fear is a major motivating part of salvation
A spray-painted pentagram consisting of a Star of David in a circle
On opening night, the frantic search for a knife to be used in the occult scene (the preacher offers his straight razor in his desk)
Fear of the literal devil being matched only by their fear of final judgement from God
Teenager Christians discussing which is the scariest and bloodiest scene to act out/watch
What? Marilyn Manson is the devil?!
At the altar call, the minister said "This isn't a scare tactic or a guilt trip" -- RIGHT. Then proceeded to scare and guilt people into making a commitment.
Final stat: Over 75,000 people have attended the Hell House over the last 10 years, with 15,000 making "decisions" by the end of it.
The documentary is disturbing -- on several levels. Not only are the scenes of the Hell House distorted and graphic, but it was disturbing to see so many young (and easily influenced!) kids walking into that mess. I was also disturbed by the glee many of the actors took in acting out these caricatures of human tragedy.
I can remember playing lots of different roles in various church plays -- everything from a palm-waving child to a dancing girl in the temple to Mary, mother of God -- and I remember the feelings of excitement and solidarity it inspired in my faith. And here the actors of this Hell House are feeling these same feelings, but are experiencing them by participating in something vile.
While I understand these believers may have the best intentions at heart, I still can't help but think these types of "hell houses" are more detrimental for Christianity than good. I understand that this type of presentation is supposed to make its audience run into the arms of God -- but if I were to attend something like this, I'd want to run in the opposite direction.
And before anyone comments on this, I know this represents one fraction of the evangelical movement -- but regardless, I can see similarities, while distorted, that also translate to larger portions of the faith.
Sick.
And with that glowing review, here is the first part of the 85 minute documentary:
Final thought: I'm struck by the fear in this film -- and I'm not necessarily talking about the fear the Hell House organizers/actors are trying to instill in their audience. I'm talking about the fear that motivates these believers to do these types of programs in the first place. The world is such a scary place to them, with the unknown and the tragic being blown up to cataclysmic proportions. I wonder how many of the people I saw in this documentary would actually respond to the events they so blithely distorted. It's one thing to only see the world in black and white -- but in reality, that gray has a way of sneaking up on you, often when you least suspect it.
8:00pm [Drama] Elmer Gantry (1960) A young drifter finds success as a traveling preacher until his past catches up with him. Cast: Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Shirley Jones. Dir: Richard Brooks. C-147 mins, TV-PG
10:30pm [Drama] Miracle Woman, The (1931) A phony faith healer fights the temptation to go straight when she falls for a blind man. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, David Manners, Beryl Mercer. Dir: Frank Capra. BW-90 mins, TV-PG
(based on the life of 1920's female evangelist Aimee McPherson)
Too bad that the end of Gantry isn't anything like Sinclair Lewis's book! Which reminds me, it's one I need to add to the reread list.
I'm thinking Gantry could translate well into the 21st century -- now to find a director and studio to fund it! (and make them accountable to the source material)
Here's what we do for fun in the Bennetch household: watch a debate between an agnostic and a theist! The Socratic Club of Oregon State University recently hosted a debate/discussion between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D’Souza. I think I found this debate more interesting and enlightening than ones I've seen with Hitchens or Dawkins -- see it for yourself and let me know what you think.
I found this debate to be the most interesting of the various debates I've watched on the topic. Shermer, known as the editor of Skeptic magazine, is articulate and pointed in his criticism -- yet doesn't defame or attack the other side. I found both sides were actually TALKING to each other, which is something that rarely happens in these types of discussions.
Granted, I found D'Souza fairly amusing in some of his arguments -- I particularly enjoyed his defense of the Church's refusal of Galileo's heliocentric theory (it's near the end of part II). D'Souza isn't the most articulate of theists that I've seen, and I found he was a little too sermonic as he attempted to persuade -- and that he didn't like to back up many of his assertions.
On the other hand, Shermer had many references to external sources and studies to back up his claims, and I particularly liked this one part of his presentation, found at 36:20-40:57 of part I:
You guys are really missing the boat here on homosexuality and gay marriage. You'll get around to it eventually, for other reasons, as my Churchillian quote said. ["You can always count on Americans to do the right thing, after they've tried everything else."]
The overwhelming evidence from science says that gender preferences are primarily determined by genetics and prenatal biochemistry, especially embryological hormone balance. Almost everyone is born attracted to members of the opposite sex -- a tiny percentage, maybe one or two percent, maybe even less than one percent, are attracted to members of the same sex.
So what?!
Asking a homosexual when he or she "chose" to become gay is like asking a heterosexual when he or she chose to become straight. Nevertheless, on this particular issue, Christianity remains mired in pre-civil rights, pre-Enlightenment, pre-scientific medieval barbaric thinking. Basing their beliefs on a single biblical passage, Leviticus 18:22: "Thou shall not lie with mankind as with womankind, it is abomination." This quote, by the way, is tucked in between other passages that instruct parents to kill disobedient children and to execute adulterous wives and non-virgin brides.
[...] Anyway, as an embarrassing lapse of Christian charity and Jesus's doctrine of love for all humanity, Christian preachers and writers and theologians think nothing of tormenting gays by telling them that their desire to love another person of the same sex is an abomination. By telling them that they have a disease, that can be cured through a treatment. These treatment programs, by the way, involved such things as watching football -- I mean, it's so pathetic it's something you would see as satire on the Stephen Colbert Report.
And that promiscuity is evil -- that the single best prophylactic against promiscuity, marriage, is legally banned from them. Christians actually believe that they're being charitable by proclaiming that they "hate the sin, but not the sinner" -- which is just what Christians declared before torching women for allegedly practicing witchcraft in order to save their souls because "we love them."
[...] Mark my words, here is what is going to happen. Within a decade, maybe two or three, Christians will come around to treating gays no differently than they now treat members of other groups whom they previously persecuted: women, Jews, and blacks -- but not because of some new interpretation of a biblical passage, or because of some new revelation from God, these changes will come about the same way they always do, by the oppressed minority fighting for the right to be treated equally and by a few enlightened members of the majority supporting their cause.
Then what will happen is that the Christians will take credit for the civil liberation of gays -- dig through the historical record, find some a few Christian bloggers or preachers who had the courage and the character to stand up for gay rights when their fellow Christians would not, and then cite those as evidence that "were it not for Christianity, gays would not be equal."
Exactly. I've always found it amusing that one of the first assertions used in debates defending the morality of Christianity is the involvement of Christian preachers and churchgoers in the abolition movement. What isn't mentioned is the thousands of years that slavery was condoned in the Bible's pages or from the pulpit -- while I won't deny that the abolition movement is indebted to those believers who finally stood up for the right thing, I wouldn't necessarily brag about how long it took to get to doing the right thing.
Anyway, the debate is well worth watching -- particularly part II -- I really enjoyed the conversation between Shermer and D'Souza as they questioned each other. Also worth noting are the homosexuality-obsessed questioners that spring up during the question session.
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider God-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, wrongly believing that he has the Gods on his side.
Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [the Babel fish] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED"
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book, Well That about Wraps It Up for God.
Rowling, finishing a brief "Open Book Tour" of the United States, her first tour here since 2000, also said that she regarded her Potter books as a "prolonged argument for tolerance" and urged her fans to "question authority."
I'm not sure what'll be more entertaining -- the resulting fan fiction or the Religious Right's reaction.
[EDIT: More tasty spoiler bits from the evening here.]
Think of the damage. An estimated 18,000 Americans die every year because they can’t afford or can’t qualify for health insurance. That’s the 9/11 carnage multiplied by three-- every year. Not to mention all the people who are stuck in jobs they hate because they don’t dare lose their current insurance.
Saddam Hussein never killed 18,000 Americans or anything close; nor did the U.S.S.R. Yet we faced down those “enemies” with huge patriotic bluster, vast military expenditures, and, in the case of Saddam, armed intervention. So why does the U.S. soil its pants and cower in fear when confronted with the insurance industry?
If you've got an hour and a half to spare, do watch. It's quite entertaining!
Who won? Of course, I'm partial to Hitchens (even if I don't personally like him). I'm not sure McGrath (or his arguments) held up his end of the discussion, but I'm open to be convinced, otherwise, in the comments.
I'll be back later to add a few key quotes I found interesting.
Representative Pete Stark, the California Democrat who is chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, told Republicans: “You don’t have money to fund the war or children. But you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.”
According to the NRLC's legislative director, "There’s nothing there [in the SCHIP bill] for us to really grab onto.” NOTHING to grab onto?
This just demonstrates, once again, that many in the pro-life side are more concerned with the baby inside the womb than the baby outside. One of the main reasons NRLC isn't supporting the SCHIP bill is because it didn't provide explicit coverage for fetuses -- while the House Democrats thought coverage should instead be offered for the pregnant women carrying them.
I propose the pro-life lobby should change their position to explicitly state they are indeed pro-life ... until birth.
In other news, Bush recently appointed an outspoken contraception foe to head family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services. Again, this makes NO SENSE. Her job will oversee $283 million in annual grants to provide low-income families and others with contraceptive services, counseling and preventive screenings. This is the same woman who supported Bush's proposal to eliminate birth control coverage for federal employees. She's quoted as saying: "We're quite pleased because fertility is not a disease. It's not a medical necessity that you have [contraception]." [link]
(yet it's a medical necessity to have Viagra covered?)
I often saw weary little women coming to the table after most exhausting labors, and large, bumptious husbands spreading out their hands and thanking the Lord for the meals that the dear women had prepared, as if the whole came down like manna from heaven. So I preached a sermon in the blessing I gave. You will notice that it has three heresies in it: "Heavenly Father and Mother, make us thankful for all the blessings of this life, and make us ever mindful of the patient hands that oft in weariness spread our tables and prepare our daily food. For humanity's sake, Amen."
As you can imagine, ever since I've written this post about my nonbelief, I've had a number of reactions. Just glancing over the 30+ comments the post inspired, you can read over the range of opinions (positive and not) on the topic. And that's not even counting the reactions I've had from close family and friends. While I wasn't necessarily looking for everyone to be supportive of my declared lack-of-faith, I was hoping that respect could still be given to my contrary perspective.
Then yesterday, I had a driveby testimony by a former porn producer turned Christian speaker, which again, while it was a nice gesture, it still rang a little empty considering the context of what my post was about. It is sorta like getting a tract on your car windshield -- while it may have been left there with the best of intentions, does this type of communication really work?
It also makes me think of this idea of our belief systems being different inwardly and outwardly. I have a friend who has recently stopped believing in the Christian faith after years of basically faking it. She didn't really believe on the inside but outwardly professed a faith. How many people are like that?
Paranoid that I am, I asked for clarification that it was me he was referring to -- and sure enough, it was. But it wasn't meant to be offensive, he said. I'm not sure how I couldn't take offense at basically being called a hypocrite, especially since my doubts and concerns about faith have been growing over the last few years -- as evidenced by a number of my blog posts, if not personal conversations I've had with various friends and family.
So, there you go. I suppose I could dwell on the negative aspects of my coming out -- tallying up the times my former faith was categorized as being shallow and anti-intellectual, along with all the subtle references to my newfound lack of moral sensibility ...
... but, no. I won't dwell on the negative because since I've finally allowed myself to utter aloud my doubts and disbelief, I have never felt so free and true to myself.
While I can respect people around me who are practicing their religious rites, I no longer have to be silenced. That's not to say I'm now on an anti-theist campaign, but I won't be a member of silent-doubters, either.
A comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it.
Moreover, the researchers found that abortion was safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerous in countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely.
[...]The data also suggested that the best way to reduce abortion rates was not to make abortion illegal but to make contraception more widely available, said Sharon Camp, chief executive of the Guttmacher Institute.
In Eastern Europe, where contraceptive choices have broadened since the fall of Communism, the study found that abortion rates have decreased by 50 percent, although they are still relatively high compared with those in Western Europe. “In the past we didn’t have this kind of data to draw on,” Ms. Camp said. “Contraception is often the missing element” where abortion rates are high, she said.
[...]The wealth of information that comes out of the study provides some striking lessons, the researchers said. In Uganda, where abortion is illegal and sex education programs focus only on abstinence, the estimated abortion rate was 54 per 1,000 women in 2003, more than twice the rate in the United States, 21 per 1,000 in that year. The lowest rate, 12 per 1,000, was in Western Europe, with legal abortion and widely available contraception.
The Bush administration’s multibillion-dollar campaign against H.I.V./AIDS in Africa has directed money to programs that promote abstinence before marriage, and to condoms only as a last resort. It has prohibited the use of American money to support overseas family planning groups that provide abortions or promote abortion as a method of family planning.
My emphasis, of course. It's like a broken record, isn't it? And still, some people just don't get what being pro-choice is primarily about -- ready access to contraception, in order to help prevent abortion.
The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough, but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them, for then it must sink back into savagery . . . It may matter little to me, in my cloud-castle of sweet illusions and darling lies; but it matters much to Man that I have made my neighbours ready to deceive. The credulous man is father to the liar and the cheat.
W.K. Clifford, 1879 (quoted in "The Secret Behind 'The Secret'" by Ingrid Hansen Smythe in Skeptic, 13.2)
I've had a line of posts ready to publish, but for some reason they'd get stuck on the publishing screen and wouldn't show up on my page. Of course the Blogger Support and contact email addresses were USELESS, but thanks to this page, I tried something that worked. I had to put an "ftp" in front of my ftp server address. I'm not sure why I had to do this all of a sudden, but it appears to be working now.
So if any of you are having Blogger publishing issues right now, hopefully that'll help.
EDIT: If any of you posted comments on the Blogger commenting service, they've disappeared (sorry). I meant to install Haloscan for all the comments, but with the new template, I screwed up slightly. Ah well, enjoy the bugs until I'm able to technically squish 'em!
esprit d'escalier (e-SPREE des-kal-i-YE) noun, also esprit de l'escalier
Thinking of a witty remark too late; hindsight wit or afterwit. Also such a remark. [via]
How many times have I thought of the perfect retort just a moment too late? Yesterday, while re-watching Jonathan Miller's The Atheism Tapes, Daniel Dennett said something that I wish I had said, a couple weeks ago in an online discussion I was having.
Read and discuss amongst yourselves:
I think religion for many people is sort of moral Viagra.
Of course this is in reference to the argument that without religion, one has no reason to be moral. Ah! I wish I had this quote just a few days ago. Oh well, I'll just put it in the mental stockpile.
For your viewing pleasure, here's the YouTube clip of the Dennett interview: You really should check out the other interviews from the series. Here's the Wikipedia entry on the interviews, and various YouTube clips of them.
On any given day you will find my browser open with a minimum of 10 tabs -- usually they are articles, blog posts, or news stories I want to read. Because I'm consumed with taking care of an infant, and the fact that I now have the attention span of an 8 year old, usually these tabs sit there until I read or bookmark them to read later.
Here's a sampling of what I've got open right now:
"In the new humanism, everything will be tentative. For example, if someone asks us, "What do you stand for?" we must not take offense. We must say: "Why is that important to you?"
A post on Experimental Theology entitled "Purity as Harm"
The lolcat translation of the Bible: "Teh Holiez Bibul" -- It's a wiki, so you can add your input.
Translate a chapter! Translate a verse! Every little bit helps. Maybe one day we will have the entire Bible translated . . . Have fun with it, be a bit loose on the translation.
After all, the Bible has already been literally translated several times. Time for our interpretation.
and finally in my last tab, I've got Sam Harris's response to the outcries from his (now infamous) speech where he decries the use of the term "atheist."
