THERE IS NO GOD

HARVARD

From Harvard Magazine: During their commencement ceremonies of 2008

The Orator at the Phi Beta Kappa literary exercises, on June 3, was Steven Weinberg, Higgens professor of physics from 1973 to 1982, co-winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize, and now of the University of Texas. Given his title, “without God,” the exercises were conducted without benefit of clergy; the chaplain is expected to return next year. In a richly literary argument, Weinberg said that religious faith had weakened as science explained formerly “mysterious phenomena,” “cast increasing doubt on the special role of man, as an actor created by God,” and sought authority not in an “infallible leader…or…a body of sacred writings” but in improvable expertise. He talked about “how it is possible to live without God,” directing listeners to the beauties and pleasures of nature (“[W]hen bread and wine are no longer sacraments, they will still be bread and wine”), of art, and of humor.

————————

I cant find anything on the web about the speech but if anyone can find an audio or video clip, please contact us at goddamail@gmail.com. Steven Weinberg is the author of one of my favorite quotes about finding purpose in an obviously purposeless universe.

“We don’t see any purpose dictated to human beings in nature. Human life does have a purpose, but it is a purpose that we invent for ourselves. It takes a certain act of courage to look at nature, not see any plan for human beings in there and yet go on and live good lives, love each other, create beautiful things, explore the universe. All these take more courage without having some divine plan that we discover, but one that we rather create for ourselves.“

-Steven Weinberg

HUMOR

Emo Phillips wrote a good article about religious humor at the British Gaurdian’s website. You can read that here. He is the author of the best religious themed joke of all time (which you can read below) by Ship Of Fools. They have a great website and Ive enjoyed their Mystery Worshiper articles for a while now and its something I have wanted to do for this blog.

——————-

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?” He said, “Yes.”
I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.”
I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.”
I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.”
I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.”
I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.”
I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist?” He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist.”
I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region.”
I said, “Me, too!” Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.”
I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.

BARACK OBAMA

Presidential Nominee, Barack Obama, made a few great points in his speech yesterday to the liberal christian group Call to Renewal. Pointing out a few quagmires that would arise from a theocratic lead government.

“Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy?” Obama asked in the speech. “Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount?”

He also called Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount “a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application.”

James Dobson came to Christianities defense by saying that Barack Obama is “…deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology,” Dobson said, adding that Obama is “dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”

I havnt had an opportunity to listen to Mr Dobson’s radio show so Im not sure if he actually had any examples of how his interpretation of the bible is correct and Senator Obama’s is distorted.  The vast amount of denominations are based on each ones different interpretation of the same book. Senator Obama brought this point to a head by saying “Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson’s or Al Sharpton’s?”

With this speech coupled with his speech on race where he dismissed Reverend Wright and his church along with his views on Education, Health-care, Abortion and that he can make a jump shot, The goddam is officially supporting Senator Barack Obama for President.

George Carlin was funnier than you

He past away yesterday. He will live on respected as a speaker of truth.

PRAYER

As a christian I managed to convince myself (and a few others) that their was one Lord of the Universe and he wanted to chat it up with me all the time. I encouraged myself by remembering 1 John 5:14-15 which says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of Him.”

That last line refers to faith in such a concrete way. We KNOW that we have what we asked of him. The passage is ambiguous enough to leave a few questions left open. Does god not hear prayers that are not according to his will? Which implies there are requests and thoughts unknown to him. Im going off of a bible scripture here and I left that part of me behind a few years ago. Ill try to stick with personal experience.

Prayer can be good for the individual, in the same way that meditation or a nap has positive effects. I hated praying but I did it all the time. Mainly in times of need and other times when I was feeling guilty. There was a pregnancy scare once and I immediately called a good friend of mine to pray with me over the phone. It ended up just being a scare and that was the extent of my experiences with successful prayer. In college I was a member of the local college age youth group and also a member of their prayer team. I arrived an hour early with about 15 other people to pray that the success of the youth group be god’s will. A full hour once a week on my knees with my head down; I don’t think I spent that much time studying.

I had a friend pray that this post help anyone who reads it find some amount of god’s work in it. Obviously I do not think there is. I dont want god taking any of my credit.

New Religulous Trailer

Bill Maher and Larry Charles being awesome

AWAKE!

From the Jehova’s Witness monthly magazine:

“This Journal is published for the enlightenment of the entire family. It shows how to cope with today’s problems. IT reports the news, tells about people in many lands, examines religion and science. But it does more. It probes beneath the surface and points to the real meaning behind current events, yet it always stays politically neutral and does not exalt one race above another. Most important, this megazine builds confidence in the Creator’s promise of a peaceful and secure new world that is about to replace the present wicked, lawless system of things.”

Awake, along with the Christian Examiner (see post from jan 29th @ thegoddam.com) are always found where large groups of people come to wait… like bus stops and hospital waiting rooms. It makes sense from their perspective but the actual content of these publishings do not. If we are currently living in a wicked and lawless system then Awake has a lot of explaining to do and yet there is more information found in thier latest issues about Ligers (seriously) then there is about the promise of a peaceful and secure new world.

RELIGION IN PICTURES

All of these photos have a religious meaning

Hiding and Seeking

I REALLY love these DVD delivery services like Netflix and Blockbuster online. I wish I lived next to a blockbuster to take full advantage of their return service but I don’t own a car so I use Netflix cause I find the interface easier to work with.  Plus I think I may one day own my own computer and will be able to view the movies they made available for streaming at home.

The last movie I received off of my Queue was a Documentary called “Hiding and Seeking”. Based around the family of one of the directors, Menachem Daum, he seeks to validate the principle that god created “this one world and this one people”. He is afraid that his studious orthodox sons will fall to the teachings that gentiles are never to be trusted. He takes his wife, two sons and one grand daughter to Poland to visit a Polish family who hid his wife’s father and uncles during WW2.

I cried. It was totally unexpected, all the emotion and genuine reactions of the subjects involved. The documentary never really clues you in to the next scene and suddenly you are watching a family meet the actual people who are responsible for their very existence. From a humanistic or religious viewpoint the emotional response is the same.

As a non-believer and semi-humanist I feel its important to take in some religous material. I read “Blue Like Jazz” and TRIED to read “The Dawkins Delusion” after losing any faith I had left after college. In those cases I regret the time wasted but not with “Hiding and Seeking” which was a wonderful and rewarding film.

Click here to read more about the film