Blogger skeptical & compassionate, if unfair toward antitheists. Also, dragons.

Blogger Lindy West, responding to a creationist's argument that dragons were literally real:

Now, I don't personally believe in Satan (or dragons, or demons, or resurrection, or underground pits of eternally burning gay people, or that a guy can build a campfire in a whale's colon), but I don't mind if people do as long as their commitment to literalism remains wholly separate from my country's legislation and scientific progress. I recognize that religious beliefs, institutions, and structured rituals—even ones that seem arbitrary to an outsider—can be extremely fortifying for people, especially communities of people that have been abandoned or demonized by the status quo.

On the one hand, this is a great succinct example of sound and healthy skepticism. On the other hand, West is implicitly throwing critics of religion under the bus (specifically, those critics who do mind if people believe in supernatural entities, and who think that such belief helps to normalize certain undesirable and dangerous attitudes and behaviors).

On the other other hand, she acknowledges the benevolent role religious participation can play in believers' lives, without endorsing said supernaturalism. Two out of three ain't bad! (via Jezebel)

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And, how could we deprive you of the opportunity to watch a guy argue for the existence of dragons on theological grounds? Here's the video from the Jezebel post:

COOTIE CONFLICT IN ISRAEL

As the ultra-Orthodox Haredi community in Israel continues to grow its numbers, its coming into contact with a, let's say, more modern culture, which isn't accustomed to segregating the genders. At the Wall Street Journal, you can read about the latest fracas, occurring when a female member of the IDF had the brazen audacity to sit in the front of a bus, to the horror of the Orthodox men who expected her to take her place in the back, where her sexual cooties couldn't brush off on anyone else.

In past weeks, there have been marches and even physical clashes in Israel, relating to similar incidents. Thank goodness the culture of the US isn't subject to, or under threat of being subject to, the religious puritanism of patriarchal fundamentalists! (Wait.... )

Fear of Faith in Cambridge

(Photo by Jenna Dee; fear mongering by Harold Camping et ilk.)