Intolerance | Always Question Authority

h/t: We Fucking Love Atheism

Dearest Ben Affleck, Nicholas Kristof, et al.

This is what an attack on an idea—not an individual—looks like. In the future, please exercise some basic critical thinking skills and understand the difference, if unable, I am sure that Sam Harris and Bill Maher would be glad to educate you; if unwilling, please exercise quiescence in any future conversations concerning this matter.

In Reason,
Madison

Leviticus 12:1-5New International Version (NIV)

Purification After Childbirth

12 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Say to the Israelites: ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. 3 On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. 4 Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over. 5 If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding.
h/t: Bible Gateway

America is becoming less Christian because young people are less religious. That’s not blessed news for conservatives.
[…]
While the effect on evangelicals is new, the general pattern isn’t. The Catholic church, the largest single religious denomination in America, was the first to feel the pinch. Church leaders and Catholic apologists have been fretting for years over the problem of aging and shrinking congregations, declining attendance at Mass and fewer people signing up to become priests or nuns – although their proposals for how to solve the problem all consist of tinkering around the edges, or insisting that they need to try harder to convince people to believe as they do.
[…]
But even if this secularizing trend continues, it’s likely that there’s a hard core of believers who will persist no matter what: no one is forecasting the total extinction of the religious right in politics.

Still, for progressives, the eroding power of the churches is a most welcome development: the religions right can no longer claim to be the sole source of morality and virtue, nor can they expect to assert their will in political matters and be obeyed without question. Instead, they’ll have to muster evidence and make their case in the marketplace of ideas like everyone else.