Why Lent Is Really Stupid

I used to be a Catholic. As I mentioned a while back, my mother sang in the choir at INSERT LOCAL CATHOLIC CHURCH HERE, and still does to this day. While my father has since converted to the broader realm of the “vague Christian” since beginning his second marriage, during the halcyon days of youth he, my mother, my brother and I would drag ass out of bed Sunday mornings to hear Mom sing the same four or five variations on the same weathered liturgical dirges, interspersed with plenty of kneeling down and standing up, nodding heads and shaking hands, eating wafers and (not) drinking (disgusting) wine (from a cup which has been passed around the entire congregation for decades).

http://blog.theproudatheist.com/why-lent-is-really-stupid/

Religious affiliation in the United States is at its lowest point since it began to be tracked in the 1930s, according to analysis of newly released survey data by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Duke University. Last year, one in five Americans claimed they had no religious preference, more than double the number reported in 1990.

Fewer Americans affiliated with an organized religion, survey shows

UC Berkeley sociologists Mike Hout and Claude Fischer , along with Mark Chaves of Duke University, analyzed data on religious attitudes as part of the General Social Survey, a highly cited biannual poll conducted by NORC, an independent research institute at the University of Chicago.

Results of the survey – which looked at numerous issues, including attitudes about gun ownership and how tax dollars should be spent, and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation – are being released now and in coming weeks.

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An analysis of the results suggests the following:

-Liberals are far more likely to claim “no religion” (40 percent) than conservatives (9 percent)
-Men are more likely than women to claim “no religion” (24 percent of men versus 16 percent of women).
-More whites claimed “no religion” (21 percent) compared to African Americans (17 percent) and Mexican Americans (14 percent).
-More than one-third of 18-to-24-year-olds claimed “no religion” compared to just 7 percent of those 75 and older.
-Residents of the Midwestern and Southern states were least likely to claim “no religion” compared to respondents in the Western, Mountain and Northeastern states. But Midwesterners and Southerners are catching up, Hout said.
-Educational differences among those claiming “no religion” are small compared to other demographic differences.
-About one-third of Americans identify with a conservative Protestant denomination, one-quarter are Catholics (although 35 percent were raised Catholic) and 1.5 percent are Jewish.

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2013/03/12/non-believers/

Science is almost totally incompatible with religion. I say "almost," but I do not wish that weasel word to be construed as weakness. The only point of compatibility is that there are well-meaning, honest people on both sides who are genuinely and deeply concerned with discovering the truth about this wonderful world. That having been said, there is no actual compatibility between science and religion.

Science's dispassionate stare examines issues publicly, exchanges information openly, discusses awkward points objectively, and builds up a network of interdependent ideas and theories that progressively expose the complex as an outcome of the simple. Religion's inwardly directed sentimental glow reflects on issues privately, exchanges information by assurance and assertion, discusses awkward points by warfare, terror, and coercion, and builds up a network of conflicting ideas that conceal ignorance under a cloak of high-flown yet empty prose.

Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation. Science, with its publicly accessible corpus of information and its open, scrutable arguments, can lead the wondering to an understanding of the entire physical world. (Below, of course, I shall have to argue that that is the entire world.)

Science respects the power of the human intellect; religion belittles it. Science gives us the prospect of full understanding, for it continues to show that, given time, there is no aspect of the world that is closed to its scrutiny and explanation. Religion disarmingly avers that human brains are too puny to achieve full comprehension. Yet science is progressively advancing toward complete knowledge, leaving religions bobbing about in its wake.


--snip--

Here, though, we must be very careful to distinguish between questions that have been invented and questions that at least seem to be real. Only the latter are likely to lead to true understanding of the world; the former merely expose the psychological condition of individuals and societies who invent them. I am afraid that, in my view, most of the questions that so exercise the religious are of the former, empty kind. Thus, whereas it may seem to be a perfectly legitimate question to ask, What is the purpose of this universe?, in fact that question is a transposition from everyday life. There is no need for this universe to have a purpose: it could be a wholly purposeless accidental entity.


http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=atkins_18_2

The Center for Inquiry's Office of Public Policy today released a new position paper that details a disturbing expansion and entrenchment of Christian fundamentalism in the U.S. military -- a cultural force which remains at times both tacitly and overtly endorsed by senior military leaders.

Over the past decade there have been multiple news reports highlighting an intensified tension regarding what constitutes proper religious expression in the U.S. military. However, there has been a scarce amount of thorough research examining the connection between these reports and, in addition, proposing possible solutions. As a result, there has been a lack of information with which to stoke change.

CFI's position paper, titled "For God and Country," presents several case studies demonstrating a clear pattern of unconstitutional religiously sectarian behavior; explores the merits of the competing philosophical perspectives on the proper role of religious expression by men and women in uniform; and concludes with recommendations that those in power should implement immediately in order to fully protect the U.S. military’s necessarily secular foundation and the religious freedom of all who volunteer to serve.

"For God and Country" was authored by James Parco, PhD., Lt. Col. USAF (Ret.), an associate professor of economics and business at Colorado College. Parco graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1991, was a member of the faculty for many years, and retired from active duty as a lieutenant colonel in 2011. He has also served on the National Security Council at the White House during the Clinton Administration, as well as in a diplomatic capacity overseas with the American Embassy in Tel Aviv.
http://clergygonewild.com/bigotry/52-my-god-vs-your-shitty-god/1946-qfor-god-and-countryq-shows-fundamentalist-christianity-rampant-in-us-armed-forcres