Monday, February 02, 2009

From the Albigensian Crusade to the Route4 Express

News Item: Atheist Ad Campaign on Calgary Buses

A PSA has arrived in Calgary after obviously stirring up controversy in the UK. To balance this campaign, the United Church with nothing better to do with their congregation's charitable donations, has launched a counter-ad saying "There probably is a god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
"Probably is a God"?? Christians spent 14 centuries torturing and killing people for heresy and blasphemy and now they've been whittled down to "probably. " Well, that's the United Church for you. No wonder Catholics think everyone is going to Hell. A brief survey of the Catholic Encyclopedia about the inquisitions yields such apologetic gems and outright lies as:

"St. Augustine, on the contrary, was still opposed to the use of force" (not true)

"opposite of historical truth to assert that the imperial edicts punishing heresy with death were due to ecclesiastic influence" (hilariously wrong)

"In short, no blame attaches to the church for her behavior towards heresy in those rude days." (OMG!!!!!)

Thankfully, the church is no longer slaughtering heretics by the tens of thousands as Pope Innocent III did (this period is the origin of the phrase, kill them all let God sort them out). As the world marks Darwin's 200th birthday this week, I will try to remember that now the church only psychologically tortures people by telling them how they descended from, and inherited Adam's original sin. The American numbers are too scary for me to quote but even in Canada a full forty percent either don't believe evolution or aren't sure.
Sorry Mr. Darwin, you'll have to sit at the back of the bus.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3 comments:

Bananor said...

LOL. Back of the bus.
OK - what can we accuse the United Church with besides psychological warfare? They seem pretty harmless on the grand scale of things.

Probably. Priceless, nice zing.

rainswept said...

I've always preferred the back of the bus anyway.

even in Canada a full forty percent either don't believe evolution or aren't sure.

22% of Canadians also believe "the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, had nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden and were actually a plot by influential Americans" while 62% "believe life exists elsewhere in the universe." Since belief-claims seem to be overwhelmingly un-evidentiary as long as the answers don't seem to affect the daily life of the respondent, I'm going to go out an a pretty sturdy limb and say that questions clearly and specifically worded could cut the evolution results in half, and that the "beliefs" of the remainder are unimportant (in the dictionary sense) even to them.

That's why they call them opinion polls and not knowledge polls. Knowledge isn't polled - it's tested.

and then the_doctor said...

Yes Bananor, the United Church is pretty harmless. They occupy a some of the more liberal ground among the major religious sects. They seem to be standing on a deist dock constantly dipping their toes into the cold lake of secular humanism. Jump in and get it over with!

In fact Vin, your limb is very sturdy as 20 percent oppose the idea of evolution and 20 percent are unsure.