“But they are with God now”

”They were good people, and sometimes it’s hard to understand why things like this happen to good people,” Sainval, 32, said. “But they are with God now. Someday we’ll be together again.”

Yes, detach, disconnect, and let that nihilism glaze form over your eyes. You were agonizing over the deaths, and now everything’s all better.

The new Carny of the Godless is up, this time of over at Smijer and Buck. A minor comment of ours is represented, but frankly, there’s lots of better and meatier stuff to read there. Check it out.

[* Jody's an apparent atheist, and was in the movie "Carny" with Gary Busey and Robbie Robertson. I dunno; it just popped into my head.]

Really cracked up when I read this shit: Found, the lost letters of Shelley the atheist

A lost series of letters by the Percy Shelley in which he masqueraded as a clergyman to try to persuade the recipient to become an atheist has been found. [...]

He discovered four by Shelley and the same number by his fellow atheist Thomas Jefferson Hogg, all addressed to Mr Wedgwood, who was a devout Christian.

In one of the 1810 letters Shelley, who was 18 at the time, wrote: “Christ never existed … the fall of man, the whole fabric indeed of superstition which it supports can no longer obtain the credit of philosophers.”

The letters were part of a campaign by Shelley and Hogg that led to their expulsion from Oxford University.

Not that I admire the methods, of course (although the attempt at conversion would have been completely condoned if made in the opposite direction). But what chutzpah, pulling this shit in 1810. Nice!

Graham outlines tsunami aid effort

Christian evangelicals have been given an open door to profess their faith in the aftermath of the devastating tsunami of December and will do so with aid to children, Franklin Graham told a Jacksonville audience Sunday at First Baptist Church’s 19th annual Pastors’ Conference. [...]

He said the most devastated areas were centers of Muslim and Buddhist faith that have been closed to evangelicals.

Graham said criticism might follow the effort but would be unjustified.

“We’re not taking advantage of a child,” he said. “We’re giving a gift.”

Proselytizing by evangelical groups in the aftermath of the disaster has been considered an affront or worse by some. Muslim militants have made menacing threats if Christian groups do more than simply provide aid.

Graham said Christians have been closed out of some of the worst-hit areas in the past.

“Because of the tsunami, we are able to go,” he said.

The fact that evangelical idiots can’t see this as simply taking advantage of someone in a time of crisis astounds me. Ummm, excuse me, xian wackos — but the reason why evangelicals were originally excluded from these places was probably due to the fact that they didn’t want you there. Get over yourselves, assholes.

More on Dumb-Ass Teen Believers. Bob pulls the right thumb-up-the-ass social scientist line out of it:

The research found that devout teens hold more traditional sexual and other values than their nonreligious counterparts and are better off in emotional health, academic success, community involvement, concern for others, trust of adults and avoidance of risky behavior.

Geez, here’s a possibility: American parents largely have traditional “beliefs”. On average, if you’re really well connected to your parents, you’re less likely to even seriously consider rejecting their religion — at least until some atheist professor shows you the light. So “emotional connectedness” would correlate with religious belief — at least, in a culture where the significant majority of parents are (at least nominally) believers.

I mean, come on, who should be surprised that teens that have better relationships with their parents would be more likely to both (a) accept their parents “religious beliefs” and (b) be inclined to be “better off in emotional health, academic success, community involvement, concern for others, trust of adults and avoidance of risky behavior”. Thing is, if most parents were atheists, you’d likely get exactly the same correlation: Teens with better relationships with their parents would likely both share their parents’ atheism, and be “better off” by those other measures.

I fucking hate spurious correlation shit.

fast loan car

Some new auditoriums have installed wire mesh in the walls to make loan equity maine home cage, which prevents signal penetration without violating signal jamming laws.

Survey: Teens’ Religious Knowledge Shallow

The majority of American teens believe in God and worship in conventional congregations, but their religious knowledge is remarkably shallow and they have a tough time expressing the difference that faith makes in their lives, a new survey says. [...] Though the phone survey depicted broad affinity with religion, the face-to-face interviews found that many teens’ religious knowledge was “meager, nebulous and often fallacious” and engagement with the substance of their traditions remarkably shallow. Most seemed hard put to express coherently their beliefs and what difference they make.

Okay, so that’s the funny part — i.e., “Oh, definitely, I’m a believer — but I have no idea what the hell I believe.” But then, as you might expect, in comes the monkey wrench of moral bias, which is so prevalent in religious surveys like this:

The research found that devout teens hold more traditional sexual and other values than their nonreligious counterparts and are better off in emotional health, academic success, community involvement, concern for others, trust of adults and avoidance of risky behavior.

Now, some of this makes sense, i.e., traditional sexual values. But better off in emotional health? Greater concerns for others?

And an important question here is: given all this, how can one even put these two things together in any relevant way? That is, on the one hand, we have a completely inadequate, “meager, nebulous, and often fallacious” religious belief that teens can’t even express coherently; and, on the other hand, we have the claim that religious teens are “better off” than their non-religious friends in these areas.

But it’s probably me. I must be missing something.

WTF?! Korn Guitarist Finds God, Leaves Band

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Korn guitarist Brian “Head” Welch has parted ways with the hard rock act, citing a recent religious awakening.

Welch broke the news Sunday on Bakersfield, Calif., station KRAB-FM. [...]

Addressing the aggressive tone of the music he made with Korn, Welch said, “Anger is a good thing, and if kids want to listen to Korn, good, but there’s happiness after the anger. I’m going to show it through my actions how much I love my fans.”

Welch added that he would be appearing at a local church on Feb. 27, during which time he would “speak (about) how I got to this place in my life, and I’ll answer all your questions.”

Shit, if Zack ever finds religion, I think I’ll just go fuck myself.