Eagles can't be gay

Here's an article about a gay kid in the Boy Scouts who is being denied his Eagle award because he's gay, and who in fact was kicked out of Scouting entirely. He also doesn't agree with the principle of "Duty to God."  As his mother pointed out, he's been in the Scouts since he was six, and he's clearly put large amounts of time and energy into the organization. But now that he's old enough to know he's gay (and apparently agnostic or atheist), out he goes. Nice.

And my inlaws wonder why I don't want my boys in Scouting.

That evil homosexual agenda

Joe.My.God and Friendly Atheist both have up a news item about Mix It Up at Lunch Day, a national event launched a decade ago by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Mix It Up at Lunch Day encourages students to identify, question and cross social boundaries... we ask students to move out of their comfort zones and connect with someone new over lunch. It’s a simple act with profound implications. Studies have shown that interactions across group lines can help reduce prejudice. When students interact with those who are different from them, biases and misperceptions can fall away.

You might think that tolerance just means... tolerance. But of course you'd be wrong. The American Family Association clarifies the matter, claiming that it's "a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools."

Having Googled, I can assure you there is nothing out there to support this contention (Googling "mix it up" and "homosexual" turns up nothing but the AFA's own statement over and over again). But that's okay. It must be true (and credulous fundamentalists are cutting and pasting it all over the net, thus "proving" its truthfulness even more) because the Southern Poverty Law Center is a "fanatical pro-homosexual group." So yeah, that's the sum total of the AFA's proof-- the SPLC is "pro-homosexual," therefore this event must be about pushing the "homosexual agenda."

Of course. It makes perfect sense. Well, if there's foam at the corners of your mouth, anyway.

Earth and all stars

Wow. Look at this photo from the Hubble telescope. It looks back 13.2 billion years into the past, and gives us a glimpse into an almost unimaginably vast universe. And yet, as someone points out in the comments, some people still manage to cling to the belief that the Earth and all stars are less than 10,000 years old...

It's a miracle!

The first line of this article calls a heart that spontaneously heals itself "miraculous." And indeed, it sounds that way. But further down in the article we get the real explanation:

Um said doctors seem to be seeing more cases similar to this, in which a failing heart heals itself. 

"The interesting thing is that if he had gotten a transplant right away, we would have never known if he could have recovered on his own," Um said. "Now that we have technology that allows people to remain on external heart machines longer, we could see this more." 

In the simplest terms, Dr. Um explained, the heart got sick, triggering an immune response that shut the heart down to fight the infection, and eventually healed itself. Technology kept Crowe's body alive while his heart healed.

So it's not a "miracle," it's yet another benefit of modern medical technology. Not quite the same thing, is it?

Of hell and paddling

I didn't intend to go back to blogging here, but I keep finding news items I want to send in to Friendly Atheist, so I might as well comment on them myself. First news item: Paddling kids is still legal in Texas (and indeed in nineteen other states). Parents can opt out, but still. This girl was spanked by a male vice principal, and so hard that "her bottom was fire-engine red and looked as if it had been 'burned and blistered.'" That's pretty horrifying.

Second item: CNN debates whether hell is real. I found this interesting because the first argument is the one I tried to hang onto as a Lutheran, but eventually realized it didn't work. I wanted to believe that if "God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son," then he'd save everyone. But Jesus talks quite clearly about hell, and says that the road to "life" is narrow. It's clear that he expects most people to walk the broad road and wind up in hell. So as much as it pains me to agree with Mark Driscoll, I'm forced to concur-- that's what Jesus said, and if you believe in Jesus, you have no choice but to believe in hell. Look around you, and imagine your nice neighbor with the pretty rose bushes, or that sweet guy in the cubicle next to yours whose worst sin is playing "Angry Birds" when he thinks the boss isn't watching, screaming in agony for all eternity. Nice thought, isn't it?

Happily, I no longer think that's the "truth," or that most of us are doomed to be sent to a horrific flaming hell by a vicious, mean-spirited deity who makes Q look like a pussycat by comparison. Which is good, because "for God so loved the world" and "small is the gate and narrow the road" can't be logically reconciled. Life makes much more sense from an atheistic viewpoint, doesn't it?

Illogical

It's discouraging to read this article and see how many parents are starting to avoid vaccinations for their kids, due to the anti-vaccine hysteria some people have managed to create.  What's even scarier is that many of those surveyed don't seem to realize that failing to vaccinate their kids puts their children and their communities at risk for some dangerous diseases.

Did Jesus die for Klingons?

There's an article here about the issues Christianity faces if there are really other species out there. "If the whole of creation includes 125 billion galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars in each, as astronomers think, then what if some of these stars have planets with advanced civilizations, too? Why would Jesus Christ have come to Earth, of all the inhabited planets in the universe, to save Earthlings and abandon the rest of God's creatures?"

Frankly, anyone who's never thought about this before now wasn't really thinking.  As a great philosopher (okay, it was Douglas Adams) once observed, "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

We're not even a pebble in the vastness of space.  Thinking that we're so important that god loves us all personally, wants to redeem every one of us, and listens to every thought we have, seems just a bit on the egotistical side.