I thought I’d share some thoughts about the game That Dragon, Cancer and my experience of it.
About That Dragon, Cancer
Tag: atheism
Religious Upbringing and The Basis for Ethics
A friend of mine once commented that my experience of religion, from the way I talked about it, reminded her of the way some people talk about a bad trip on LSD… the kind of story where someone ends by explaining, “And that’s why I’ll never touch the stuff again.” Well, that’s not completely true. I do read about religion sometimes; look at the last book I reviewed here, for example! I sometimes read about the history of Christianity, or of scriptures, because quite frankly, that was the governing tradition of the West the way capitalism is our governing paradigm today. …
With Gods Like These…
I got the oddest comment on the last post I made. The content was unrelated to my post, but instructed readers to Google a few keywords leading straight to the comment-poster’s own blog, which was about… Er, well, I’ll let the email I just sent him speak for itself. Dear Mr. Hagedorn, Just curious what the connection is, in your head, between my review of a few recent movies — none of them theological in nature at all — and your inane theory that the real sin that got Adam and Eve kicked out of Eden was… (drum roll)… anal …
Immortality?
The Maverick Philosopher discusses the fact that Christopher Hitchens, who is not doing so well, also has not recanted his atheism. Valicella writes: The contemplation of death must be horrifying for those who pin all on the frail reed of the ego. The dimming of the light, the loss of control, the feeling of helplessly and hopelessly slipping away into an abyss of nonbeing. And all of this without the trust of the child who ceases his struggling to be borne by Another. “Unless you become as little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” But this of course …
“Let The Little Children Come To Me…”
… may be close enough to pass as a Bible quote, but I don’t think it says, anywhere in that book, that clerics get to say that to kids so they can rape them with impunity, with the aid of the Church in keeping them out of prison (or other trouble)… and I don’t think it’s specified anywhere that when this institutional crime comes out, the biggest cleric of them all gets to pretend nothing’s going on. I want to leave aside the fact that this is an obvious, and pathetic, public gaffe which can only serve to harm the …
Documentary on Disbelief
After a long silence, the exxcellent Marvin of The Electric Smack Shack has posted links to Jonathan Miller’s wonderful documentary A Rough History of Disbelief, which apparently is available on Google video. Highly recommended.
What It’s Like
Marvin linked to these very interesting and worthwhile essays by someone using the handle Darksyde, which describe what it’s like for an atheist to live in American (or any) society. What it’s Like to be an Atheist Why I’m an Atheist Not recommended reading for those who don’t want an honest, no-holds-barred look at what it feels like to be in a minority in terms of absence of religious belief. But if you’ve ever wondered why atheists sometimes seem so angry and almost evangelical in their fervor, especially the first essay is worth reading, even if you know you’ll disagree …
St Paul as a Duped Henchman of Satan?
… [these] are things which Mormon women submit to because their religion teaches them that the more wives a man has on earth, and the more children he rears, the higher the place they will all have in the world to come—and the warmer, maybe, though they do not seem to say anything about that. — Mark Twain, Roughing It, Chapter XV It’s always struck me as odd that mainstream people–religious or otherwise–laugh at the antics of street preachers, but take the conversions of the members of the early Church seriously. Take Paul, for instance. The guy hunted Christians, till …