From Jeff’s favourite comic, XKCD,

“I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.”
– Mike Huckabee

Now that we have embraced Ceremonial Deism, our spiritual lives have improved 9-fold. Christmas was especially good this year.

We don’t usually bother much with prezzies apart from a little something for the kids but this year we decided to honour our fake religion with a splurge.

I finally got the guitar that I have wanted for ages - but I had to promise to get lessons before I was allowed to get it. The kids finally got their Wii.

Georgina got a camera with a zoom long enough to take pictures of corners but she was outdone in the photo department by Jazz who took several thousand photos with her new camera.

The best bit was when each of us, one by one, went into a minor panic on Christmas Eve because we each thought (falsely) we weren’t gonna get what we wanted. Dylan wanted to drive around looking for Wiis, Jazz was crying because she wasn’t going to get a camera and I was upset because my kids had not delivered the multiple hints  that I had given about The Golden Compass books. I think every single present wass wished for late on Christmas Eve after it was too late to do anything about it.

With all this commercialism and phony belief in God, I feel that we are finally living the American Dream!

Oh! Hai!

Every now and then something finds exactly the right spot on my funny bone and I laugh and laugh and laugh. There something about Absurdist Humour in the Monty Python (“Where is that fish?”), League of Gentlemen (”Those are local things. For local people.”), Not the Nine O’clock (“Ball? Or Aerosol? Neither. It’s for my armpits.“) tradition that makes my cheekbones hurt once I start laughing. The way they layer silly on sophisticated on silly on sophisticated and on and on and on until you lose track of which layer you are at and eventually it doesn’t matter because your cheekbones hurt.

I fully understand that most people either don’t get it or don’t find it funny - but I do. I expect there is a gene for it. My son has it. My wife doesn’t.

The lolcats craze started with I can haz cheezburger? and reaches the very pinnacle of silly intertwined with sophisticated with its oh hai!s and its buttsecks and its lolrusses wiv no bukkits and its PENIS GOES WHERE? and I can’t get enough of it.

The latest advances in the lolcats art are pushing the envelope of silly sophistication. Try on Lolcatsbible (the whole bible translated into Kitteh Pidgin) for size:

1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.

2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.

3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1

6 An Ceiling Cat sayed, im in ur waterz makin a ceiling. But he no yet make a ur. An he maded a hole in teh Ceiling.7 An Ceiling Cat doed the skiez with waterz down An waterz up. It happen.8 An Ceiling Cat sayed, i can has teh firmmint wich iz funny bibel naim 4 ceiling, so wuz teh twoth day.

9 An Ceiling Cat gotted all teh waterz in ur base, An Ceiling Cat hadz dry placez cuz kittehs DO NOT WANT get wet.10 An Ceiling Cat called no waterz urth and waters oshun. Iz good.

Lolscience balances out the religion with some quantum physics and philosophy. (WARNING! It’s very obscure!):

kthxbai!

Captain Groggy Swag and I were having a pleasant chat in the comments to my post on Songs of Praise about whether it is appropriate for an atheist to sing Carols or say Grace.

There are some religious things that are ingrained into our daily lives that do bug me. What do you do when you sit at a dinner table and someone says grace?

- Captain Groggy Swag

I confessed that I rather enjoy all the trappings of Cultural Christianity. I enjoy the songs, I have a nativity scene on my mantelpiece and I insist that our Christmas cards feature scenes from Luke and Matthew. I really miss not hearing sacred music played around Christmas time and the whole Frosty the Snowman and fat men in red coats thing bothers me much more than it should.

The Times picks up the trail after Richard Dawkins’ recent admission that he happily sings along to God Rest You Merry Gentlemen along with the rest of us Cultural Christians and Ceremonial Deists.

But the really fabulous news I mentioned is that Richard Dawkins, Prophet of Atheism, has said in a BBC interview that he is not against “cultural” Christianity and “Yes, I like singing carols along with everyone else”. Which raises enough tantalising philosophical and ethical questions to keep us going till Christmas Eve. Dawkins sings carols? Does he sing all the words? Does he boom out lines about herald angels, holy nights, the tender Lamb promised from eternal years? Does he croon: “What can I give Him, poor as I am?” Does the polemicist who gave three eloquent pages to deconstructing the story of St Luke’s Gospel happily warble O Little Town of Bethlehem and Once in Royal David’s City? Does the man who says that religious education is tantamount to “child abuse” feel wholly comfortable crooning Away in a Manger?

Apart from the fact that she mentions my three favourite Carols in a single paragraph, I enjoyed her article because it gets to the heart of a cultural divide among atheists.

My guess is that people who have grown up around religion without ever actually believing it are typically more comfortable with the trappings of Cultural Christianity than are the former believers who had a road back from Damascus moment or the atheists who were never exposed to Christian mythology at all. Reading the comments to the Times article confirms my prejudices.

It also confirms my new belief in Ceremonial Deism as the best chance for salvation for mankind. I wonder if Dawkins would be interested in becoming our pope?

A new study by Michigan State sociologist Ralph Pyle presented at this month’s joint meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Religious Research Association in Tampa, Fla., shows how all sides in the conservative-liberal religious divide have work to do in combating prejudice and promoting tolerance.

He found that moderate Protestants held the strongest anti-black attitudes. The next most prejudiced group? Liberal Protestants.

The good news for religious groups: People who go to church regularly were less likely to be prejudiced, Pyle said. The bad news is people with no religious affiliation were also much less likely to be prejudiced than individuals showing modest levels of commitment to their faith, those who attend services monthly or less.

Shurely shome mishtake?

In an otherwise excellent article, The Economist commits an error of logic.

“A few have taken to calling themselves “Brights” for no good reason and to widespread mirth.”

In fact, I call myself a Bright for a very good reason… to create widespread mirth.

Speaking of Brights and widespread mirth…the most recent-but-one Brights Bulletin wanted us to vote for a tagline. We have already agreed on a logo and a mission statement and a definition - oh, and an antonym - now we need a tagline. As soon as we have our t-shirts printed and our policy statements finalized we are going to change the world!

So, we were going to go with :

Elevating the Naturalistic Worldview

until someone pointed was like…Hey! Brights don’t elevate! They illuminate! and we were like oh yeah! We should have a vote on that. We vote on everything at The Brights. When we are not elevating or illuminating we are voting. We modelled out society on an anarcho-syndicalist commune and we have bi-weekly meetings of our executive committee.

Anyway. The choices were

• Elevating the Naturalistic Worldview
• Illuminating and Elevating the Naturalistic Worldview

Being a community-minded Bright and not wanting people to make fun of us (despite our mission to spread mirth, we don’t like people making fun of us), I emailed the executive committee to point out how silly the choices were and to ask what was wrong with simply illuminating and what does elevating have to do with anything.

Apparently two dozen other people did the same thing but apparently we are the stupid ones because

“Frankly, the Brights movement, properly understood, is very much a “lift up” endeavor….But the “illuminating” aspect just won’t get the job done!”

The goal of this movement is to achieve a level societal playing field for people who, living amidst society’s dominant supernatural-infused outlooks, hold onto some variant of a naturalistic worldview.

Well! Consider me educated, frankly!

The best thing about this statement of policy is that it simultaneously manages to be both humourless and very, very funny - all contributing to the goal of spreading mirth. Result!

I am seriously considering joining the ceremonial deists though.

I just read Romney’s speech on Faith in America and I have to say that I am terribly impressed. I think he just won himself the republican nomination. It was an excellent speech.

It’s in the nature of these things, though, that one has to find a nit to quibble with. I didn’t so much as find this one as it found me. It’s the Under God thing.

“The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation ‘Under God’ and in God, we do indeed trust.”

The Under God thing itself doesn’t really bother me (the federal courts have declared that it’s just ceremonial deism after all). I understand that it bothers a lot of my atheist friends but it doesn’t bother me. After all, I spent a couple of hours singing (and dancing to, if you can imagine that) God Save the Queen with my daughter on Monday. No. What bothers me is the dishonest suggestion that the Under God thing is somehow related to the founders. “The founders….We are a nation ‘Under God’.”

I assume that Romney is not ignorant of the facts. Therefore he is being dishonest.

That quibble aside, I applaud his speech heartily. Now…

…about that flip-flopping….