Michael Shermer, publisher of SKEPTIC on The Colbert Report

"Being interviewed (if that’s what you can call it) by the inimitable Stephen Colbert was one of the wilder experiences of my career. I would imagine by now that most readers of eSKEPTIC know that Comedy Central’s hit series The Colbert Report features the comedian Stephen Colbert playing a role that is largely a parody of Bill O’Reilly and The O’Reilly Factor. Exaggerating the extremes of the conservative position on nearly everything, Colbert gets in his hilarious digs by arguing against liberals and liberalism. Well, words don’t do the show justice. You just have to see it. Anyway, I was on last Tuesday night. The show is taped in New York. Stephen was good enough to come by the green room (they’re never green, by the way) to introduce himself and explain, “You know, I play a complete idiot on the show, so just try to debunk me like you would any idiot.” (This introduction was very unusual. I’ve been on Larry King, Bill Maher, Oprah, and Dennis Miller, all several times each, and never once have any of them ever spoken to me before or after the show. The funniest was the first time I was on Dennis Miller’s show — I didn’t see him in person until they plopped me in the chair next to him during a commercial break, and when the cameras started rolling he turned to me and said “Sherms! How you doin’?”, like we were old pals going way back.) After Stephen left, the producer came in to review about a dozen questions that Stephen might ask, emphasizing that he might not ask any of them, or that he might start with the first one and then just wing it. That’s exactly what happened. The first question asked me to prove that I was the publisher of Skeptic magazine, and we were off and running from there, as you’ll see in this clip. It was also one of the more difficult interviews I’ve done as he is quite verbally facile, aggressive, and so damn funny that it was hard to stop laughing and try to get in just a couple of points. At least I didn’t throw water on him, which Richard Branson did the next night, another clip well worth watching (they are available on Comedy Central’s web page.)"

WATCH the video > > >

Stephen Colbert's Website

* 2000 Marks the Beginning of the Post-American Era ~ The Bush Administration

Letter from France
August 27, 2007

The Human Bomb

LETTER FROM FRANCE about French president Nicolas Sarkozy. To understand Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been President of France for three months, it helps to know the story of the human bomb. In 1993, when Sarkozy was mayor of Neuilly, he went into a nursery school where a man strapped in…

by Adam Gopnik

Excerpt:

"He [Sarkozy] continued, “With America, he wants the normal relations we’ve always had. But he is capable of candor there, too. When Sarkozy met Condoleezza Rice, she said, ‘What can I do for you?’ And he said, bluntly, ‘Improve your image in the world. It’s difficult when the country that is the most powerful, the most successful—that is, of necessity, the leader of our side—is one of the most unpopular countries in the world. It presents overwhelming problems for you and overwhelming problems for your allies. So do everything you can to improve the way you’re perceived—that’s what you can do for me.’ I think it’s entirely possible; the reservoir of good will has been drained somewhat, but it is far from dry. Look how much the image of France has changed in the United States in eight weeks.”

"Sarkozy’s decision to spend his summer vacation in New Hampshire and have lunch with George W. Bush in Maine was widely regarded in France not as obsequiousness but as pure human-bombism: walk right up to the man considered dangerous and disarm him by talking calmly over a hot dog. The effect aimed for was not so much audacity as anomie: Sarkozy is trying to remove the drama from Franco-American relations by making them “normal.” I’m in the neighborhood—let’s have lunch. The larger, implicit point is that the threatening thing is not really that threatening.

"The catastrophe in Iraq has had an unlooked-for effect: not to stoke anti-Americanism in a new generation but to make America seem almost marginal. For almost two hundred years, Americanization in Europe has been synonymous with modernization—that’s why the Statue of Liberty stands in New York Harbor, as a gift of the Third French Republic, the fraught state that appeared after Louis-Napoleon’s Second Empire failed. It was a gift not from a complacent old world to a nascent new one but from a newborn republic to one that, after its civil war, was firm and coherent. The point wasn’t that Europe would not abandon us; it was that we would not abandon old Europe to the despots.

"Now, for the first time, it’s possible to imagine modernization as something independent of Americanization: when people in Paris talk about ambitious kids going to study abroad, they talk about London. (Americans have little idea of the damage done by the ordeal that a routine run through immigration at J.F.K. has become for Europeans, or by the suspicion and hostility that greet the most anodyne foreigners who come to study or teach at our scientific and educational institutions.) When people in Paris talk about manufacturing might, they talk about China; when they talk about tall buildings, they talk about Dubai; when they talk about troubling foreign takeovers, they talk about Gazprom. The Sarkozy-Gordon Brown-Merkel generation is not unsympathetic to America, but America is not so much the primary issue for them, as it was for Blair and Chirac, in the nineties, when America was powerful beyond words. To a new leadership class, it sometimes seems that America is no longer the human bomb you have to defuse but the nut you walk away from.

"What Brown, Merkel, and Sarkozy all have in common is that they do not want to be defined by their response to America—either unduly faithful, as with Blair, or unduly hostile, as Chirac became. Instead, as Levitte says, they all want to normalize relations with a great power that is no longer the only power. Its military weakness has been exposed in Iraq, its economic weakness by the rise of the euro, and its once great cultural magnetism has been diminished by post-9/11 paranoia and insularity. America has recovered from worse before, and may do so again. But it is also possible that the election of Nicolas Sarkozy may be seen not as the start of a new pro-American moment in Europe but as a marker of the beginning of the post-American era."

* Religion & the 2008 Presidential Candidates ~ What's Wrong With This Picture?

Faiths of the candidates

"The 2008 presidential candidates were asked what their religion is, whether they belong to a particular church and how often they attend services.

"Like the majority of Americans, all the candidates are Christians. Seven are Roman Catholic, three are Methodist, three are Baptist, one is Episcopalian, one is Presbyterian, one is Mormon and one describes himself simply as Christian."

DEMOCRATS

Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden, Jr.: Roman Catholic. He attends services at either St. Patrick's or St. Joseph's in Wilmington, Del., when his schedule permits.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton: A "practicing Methodist who attends church as often as possible."

Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd: Catholic. He attends services in Washington, Connecticut and when traveling.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards: Methodist. He is a member of the Edenton Street United Methodist Church in Raleigh, N.C., but is looking with his wife, Elizabeth, for a church near their new home in Chapel Hill.

Ohio Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich: Catholic. He is a member of St. Aloysius in Cleveland but attends services "not often."

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama: Christian. He attends Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and goes to services "frequently, when at home on Sundays."

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson: Catholic. He attends St. Francis Cathedral Parish in Santa Fe, N.M., "on a fairly regular basis, and attends services on the road when possible."

REPUBLICANS

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback: Catholic. He attends two services on Sundays, Mass in the morning at Christ the King Catholic Church in Topeka and then services at Topeka Bible (Evangelical Christian) with his family. "He tries to go to daily Mass whenever he can, wherever he is. When in Washington, he attends St. Joseph's on Capitol Hill."

Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore: Methodist. He is a member of River Road Methodist in Richmond, Va., and "attends his home church as often as his travel schedule allows."

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani: Catholic. "The mayor's personal relationship with God is private and between him and God."

California Gov. Duncan Hunter: Baptist. He is a member of Trinity Baptist Church in El Cajon, Calif., and attends services almost every Sunday but usually elsewhere because he's often traveling.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Hucabee: Southern Baptist. He is a member of the Church at Rock Creek in Little Rock, Ark., and attends services "every Sunday he's in town."

Arizona Sen. John McCain: Episcopalian, but his four youngest children are Baptist, and he attends the North Phoenix Baptist Church when he is home.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul: Baptist. He is a member of the First Baptist Church in Lakewood, Texas.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: Mormon, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He attends services weekly at a Mormon temple in Belmont, Mass.

Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo: Presbyterian. He is a member of the Cherry Hills Community Church in Highland, Colo., and attends services "every week I am home."

Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson: Catholic. He is a member of St. Peter's in Madison, Wis., and attends services weekly. Source: Associated Press For additional health information, visit OhioHealth.

Columbus Dispatch

* "God's Warriors" ~ with Christiane Amanpour

Cross-reference to original posting: METAXY

CNN's Christiane Amanpour says she believes the world has entered an "age of religious politics."

CNN.com asked users to send questions to Amanpour as part of "CNN Presents" documentary, "God's Warriors." Read the Questions & Answers.

About Christiane Amanpour

* Gerda Lerner ~ Feminist/Historian, Author, Teacher, Jewish Atheist

Feminist/Historian, Born April 30, 1920 in Vienna, Austria.

Gerda Lerner is one of the founders of the field of women's history and African-American history. She was a founding member of the National Organization for Women and is a former president of the Organization of American Historians. Lerner has played a key role in the development of women’s history curricula at Long Island University (1965-1967), at Sarah Lawrence College from 1968 to 1979 (where she established the nation's first Women's History graduate program), at Columbia University (where she was a co-founder of the Seminar on Women), and since 1980 as Robinson Edwards Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is a professor emerita of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a visiting scholar at Duke University.

Lerner's books "have been a staple of women's studies classes for decades. In her collection of essays, Why History Matters, Lerner described her experiences as a female Jewish atheist: 'More difficult and public was my refusal, four weeks before the appointed date, to go through with my Bar Mitzvah on the grounds that since I no longer believed in God nor in what was taught in religious instruction, it would be hypocritical for me to go through the ceremony. This provoked a family crisis, much noise, anger and pressure of various sorts, but in the end I prevailed. But more--I refused to set foot in a synagogue again and kept to that refusal for over fifty years.' Lerner links her experiences as an atheist with her eventual career choice as a historian. According to Lerner, "What is left to a Jew who refuses the religious community? Antisemitism and history."

Biography

Fireweed: A Political Autobiography,
Introduction and Chapter One

Books

• No Farewell (1955) an autobiographical novel
• The Grimké Sisters from South Carolina: Rebels against Authority (1967)
• The Woman in American History [ed.] (1971)
• Black Women in White America: A Documentary History (1972)
• The Female Experience: An American Documentary (1976)
• A Death of One's Own (1978/2006)
• The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History (1979)
• Teaching Women's History (1981)
• Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey (1982)
• The Creation of Patriarchy (1986)
• Why History Matters (1997)
• The Rise of Feminist Consciousness (1993)
• Scholarship in Women's History Rediscovered & New (1994)
• Fireweed: A Political Autobiography (2003)

Freedom From Religion Foundation

* Baron d'Holbach ~ One of the First Self-described Atheists in Europe.

"If we go back to the beginning we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that fancy, enthusiasm and deceit adorned them; that weakness worships them; that credulity preserves them; and that custom, respect and tyranny support them; in order to make the blindness of men serve their own interests. If the ignorance of nature gave birth to the gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them."

"All religions are ancient monuments to superstitions, ignorance, ferocity; and modern religions are only ancient follies rejuvenated."

~ Quoted in Jonathon Green, The Cassell Dictionary of Insulting Quotations

“How could the human mind progress, while tormented with frightful phantoms, and guided by men interested in perpetuating its ignorance and fears? Man has been forced to vegetate in his primitive stupidity: he has been taught stories about invisible powers upon whom his happiness was supposed to depend. Occupied solely by his fears, and by unintelligible reveries, he has always been at the mercy of priests, who have reserved to themselves the right of thinking for him, and of directing his actions.”

"Religion has ever filled the mind of man with darkness, and kept him in ignorance of his real duties and true interests. It is only by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of Religion, that we shall discover Truth, Reason, and Morality. Religion diverts us from the causes of evils, and from the remedies which nature prescribes; far from curing, it only aggravates, multiplies, and perpetuates them."

~ Good Sense without God, or, Freethoughts Opposed to Supernatural Ideas (London: W. Stewart & Co., ca. 1900) (Project Gutenberg e-text), preface

~ Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789)

* "God's Warriors" ~ Here & Now

God's Jewish Warriors, God's Muslim Warriors, God's Christian Warriors

Exclusive global CNN documentary 'God's Warriors' examines religion, power and politics.

CNN Presents: God’s Warriors

A Synopsis

"Protestors who kill for their religious beliefs. “Patriot Pastors” who seek to change American culture through the ballot box. Zealots who target prime ministers and presidents with assassination for “subverting God’s will.” Parents who reject science education in conflict with their religious principles. Suicide martyrs who are revered as iconic heroes. These are “God’s Warriors” of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. They see contemporary society as corrupt and view themselves as the front line of defense in a battle for cultural supremacy and political power. They are changing the world." International Air Times

"For this documentary, Amanpour reports that during the last 30 years, each faith has exploded into a powerful political force, comprised of followers – “God’s warriors” – who share a deep dissatisfaction with modern society, and a fierce determination to place God and religion back into daily life and to the seats of power. Their political and cultural struggles to save the world from what they view as secular materialism, greed and sexual corruption have caused anger, division and fear." Press Release

'God's Warriors' ~ CNN Podcast.
Three Nights. Six hours.
Reported by Christiane Amanpour.
August 21, 22, 23 at 9 p.m. in
the USA. Check your local listings.

Based on the information provided, this is not old stuff ... this is "here and now" ... should be interesting.

* The Presidential Candidates ~ Positions on Separation of Church & State

IMO, the only candidates with views close to what I consider to be the correct interpretation of separation of church and state are Hunter (R) and Kucinich (D). Separation of church and state is precisely that--separate--with no loopholes or exceptions.

The Candidates on Church and State

	Joe Biden	In 1994, Biden voted against a failed amendment that would have withheld federal funding from schools that deny students the right to voluntary prayer. After President Bush endorsed the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution, Biden told The News Journal in 2005 that the separation between church and state should not be "messed with."
	Sam Brownback	Brownback has said America needs to "stop driving God out of the public square." He supports allowing religious expression on public property, including nativity displays. He introduced the Public Expressions of Religion Act, which required "activist groups" to pay their own legal fees when winning cases related to public displays of faith; Brownback said the bill "would prevent local cities and towns from being coerced into settling claims out of a fear of huge monetary losses." Brownback cosponsored the 2005 Constitution Restoration Act, which would have limited the power of federal courts to rule on church-state issues.
	Hillary Clinton	In a 2005 speech, Clinton said that religious political officials should be able to "live out their faith in the public square." During her 2000 Senate campaign, Clinton argued that allowing teachers to post the Ten Commandments in schools was a violation of the constitution.
	Christopher Dodd	Dodd has said that the separation of church and state should be understood not as a strict barrier between the two but as a relationship where one can reflect the other. "Faith can influence policy and … state can influence how we allow for the space and tolerance of religious traditions," he said. "I don't think we've done a very good job of connecting those ideas and concepts." Dodd says that while his Catholicism is an important part of his identity, his obligation as a senator is to uphold the law of the land regardless of his personal faith.
	John Edwards	Edwards says he believes in the separation of church and state, but also thinks that there is a role for faith in public life. He said "freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion," but he "would not, under any circumstances, try to impose [his] personal faith and belief on the rest of the country."
	Rudolph Giuliani	As mayor, Giuliani emphasized that believers and atheists alike must tolerate each others' views. During his 2000 senate campaign against Hillary Clinton, Giuliani said the Ten Commandments are ''part of Western civilization,'' and ''if teachers want to emphasize what is in it and talk about it, there shouldn't be some kind of inquisition that they can't do that.''
	Mike Huckabee	Huckabee has said that his faith "explains" him and affects his decision-making process. He has said: "I'm not as troubled by a person who has a different faith. I'm troubled by a person who tells me their faith doesn't influence their decisions." He has said that the government "should have a hands-off attitude" toward religion, and he has called efforts to ban religious displays on public property "absurd." Huckabee says he believes that the U.S. is "a nation of faith [but] it doesn't necessarily have to be mine."
	Duncan Hunter	Hunter has clashed with Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and other groups in favor of keeping religion and government separate. In 2006, he was instrumental in enabling the Department of Defense to take ownership of a controversial La Jolla, Calif., hilltop site where versions of a cross have stood for nearly a century. Before the transfer, critics had tried for more than 10 years to remove the Mount Soledad cross from public land.
	Dennis Kucinich	Kucinich has said that "while our fathers understood well the importance of the separation of church and state, they never meant America to be separate from spiritual values." At the same time, he believes in the separation of church and state and says that federal courts have not gone far enough in requiring the removal of religious symbols from public places. "By removing the trappings of religion from our public schools, courthouses, and other institutions of municipal, state and federal government, we actually increase the freedom of everyone to freely and openly practice the beliefs of their choice," he said.
	John McCain	McCain favors keeping the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance; he has voted three times in favor of Senate legislation to affirm the reference. During his 2000 presidential campaign, McCain said the nation was founded on "Judeo-Christian values" but added that "political intolerance by any political party is neither a Judeo-Christian nor an American value."
	Barack Obama	Obama says he believes in the importance of the separation of church and state, but says that a "sense of proportion" should guide how it is enforced. He says that the phrase "under God" in the pledge of allegiance and voluntary student prayer groups on school property are two examples where conflict between church and state has been alleged, but should be less strictly policed.
	Ron Paul	In a 2003 blog post, Paul wrote that the Founding Fathers "envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance." In 2002, Paul introduced legislation that would, in his words, "restore First Amendment protections of religion and speech by removing all religious freedom-related cases from federal district court jurisdiction." Two months after 9/11, Paul was one of only three Republicans to vote against a sense-of-the-Congress resolution encouraging schools to set aside time for prayer or private reflection.
	Bill Richardson	Richardson was criticized by advocates of the separation of church and state for granting state employees a paid half day off to mark the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Richardson defended his actions, saying that the pope was an important statesman in addition to being a religious leader. While running for governor of New Mexico in 2002, Richardson said that he wouldn't impose his personal views on the government, adding, "A governor should have high moral character; a governor should recognize the separation of church and state."
	W. Mitt Romney	Romney says the First Amendment does not mean that no religion should be established, or that secularism should be established in place of religion. He also says Judeo-Christian values helped found the United States and continue to influence it today. Romney supports keeping references to God on U.S. money, in the Pledge of Allegiance and in public places to remind Americans of their heritage.
	Fred Thompson	Thompson has criticized the judiciary for overstepping its bounds and attempting to set "social policy." He wrote that "Many federal judges seem intent on eliminating God from the public schools and the public square in ways that would astound our founding fathers. … They ignore the fact that the founders were protecting the church from the state and not the other way around."

Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

* Dick Cheney's Quagmire in Iraq

It’s clear from this video that the administration knew all
along that the war would be a disaster and didn't care.

gapingvoid.com

* The Founder of Modern Secularism

"All religions have this in common: that they are an outrage to common sense, for they are pieced together out of a variety of elements, some of which seem so unworthy, sordid and at odds with mans' reason that any strong and vigorous intelligence laughs at them." ~ Pierre Charron (1541-1603)

The Bombing of Nagasaki August 9, 1945: The Untold Story

By Gary G. Kohls

08/09/07 "Lew Rockwell" --- 62 years ago, on August 9th, 1945, the second of the only two atomic bombs (a plutonium bomb) ever used as instruments of aggressive war (against essentially defenseless civilian populations) was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, by an all-Christian bomb crew. The well-trained American soldiers were only "doing their job," and they did it efficiently.

...

A large portion of the responsibility for the prevention of military atrocities like Nagasaki lies within the organized Christian churches and whether or not they soon start teaching and living what the radical nonviolent Jesus taught and lived.

The next Nagasaki can be prevented if the churches finally heed Jesus’ call to nonviolence and refuse their government’s call for the bodies and souls of their sons and daughters.

Full article ...



My question is: would atheists/agnostics have created this horror?

Jewish World Review August 2, 2007 / 18 Menachem-Av, 5767

GROW UP, MIDDLE EAST!

By Victor Davis Hanson

Radical Islamists love to scream about the "decadent" West.
Everything from our operas to our attitudes about women outrage
these loud pious critics.

As part of their condemnation, fundamentalist Muslims say they put a higher premium on family values and reverence for the past than crass modern Americans and Europeans do. But that is hardly true.

Full article ...

Religion, Secularism & Politics in the Twenty-First Century

Join the world’s most distinguished defenders of science and secularism!

The 2007 Conference of the Center for Inquiry-New York City will take place at the New York Academy of Sciences at 7 World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan, overlooking the World Trade Center site and contruction site of the Freedom Tower. Renowned speakers, scholars, and media personalities will meet to discuss the future of reason and secularism in an America and a world increasingly divided by religion.

Themes include:

• The Age of American Unreason
• The Next Islamic Enlightenment
• Science and the Public
• Student Freethinkers Speak Out
• Secularism through History: from Spinoza to JFK
• VIP Reception and Awards Presentation (with the International Academy of Humanism)

Speakers & Presenters include:

Christopher Hitchens	Alan Dershowitz	Neil deGrasse Tyson	Peter Singer
Wendy Kaminer	Paul Kurtz	Ann Druyan	Nat Hentoff
Susan Jacoby	Eugenie C. Scott	Victor Stenger

A Time of Challenge and Opportunity

The world is finally waking up to the dangers of religious faith. Books defending reason and religious skepticism top the bestseller lists. Secular Muslims are standing up for freedom of thought. The secular perspective has finally gained currency in the media and in cross-cultural dialogue. Young freethinkers and secularists are organizing and speaking out on campuses, ready to carry the torch of secularism into the new millennium.

Yet religious fervor in the United States and abroad remains at an all-time high. Science education suffers from the constant onslaught of creationist activists. Democratic politicians have joined Republicans in pandering to religious prejudices. The American courts are stacked with judges who openly denigrate the nation’s vital and historic separation of church and state. Islamic radicalism is on the rise in Europe as well as in the Middle East. In many ways, societies the world over face the ominous threat of de-secularization.

How do we seize this moment of opportunity to address secularism’s many challenges? How can secularists build a lasting movement? What political and rhetorical strategies should the reality-based community employ? Does vocal criticism of religion help or hinder the cause of secularism? Hear the thoughts of the world’s leading minds on these and many other questions.

* The Jesus Project ~ Update

Follow up to METAXY

New are two articles about the project at the Council for Secular Humanism:

R. Joseph Hoffmann is the chair of the Committee for the Scientific
Examination of Religion, Senior Vice President of Academic and Educational Programs for CFI, and an associate editor of Free Inquiry.

Tom Flynn, editor of FREE INQUIRY

Center for Inquiry

Website: The Jesus Project

Also see the JesusMysteries discussion forum.