The Null Device

The God Illusion

BBC News has some excerpts from Richard Dawkins' new book, "The God Delusion":
When I interviewed for television the Reverend Michael Bray, a prominent American anti-abortion activist, I asked him why evangelical Christians were so obsessed with private sexual inclinations such as homosexuality, which didn't interfere with anybody else's life. His reply invoked something like self-defence. Innocent citizens are at risk of becoming collateral damage when God chooses to strike a town with a natural disaster because it houses sinners. In 2005, the fine city of New Orleans was catastrophically flooded in the aftermath of a hurricane, Katrina. The Reverend Pat Robertson, one of America's best-known televangelists and a former presidential candidate, was reported as blaming the hurricane on a lesbian comedian who happened to live in New Orleans.* You'd think an omnipotent God would adopt a slightly more targeted approach to zapping sinners: a judicious heart attack, perhaps, rather than the wholesale destruction of an entire city just because it happened to be the domicile of one lesbian comedian.

There are 1 comments on "The God Illusion":

Posted by: Bizarro bizarro.typepad.com/lowbagger_world Wed Oct 4 10:35:29 2006

Finally, the truth! I've been struggling for years to understand why fundies, regardless of their religion, should give a rats if someone were a screaming promiscuous bi-sexual who likes to wear day-glo underpants on the outside of their trousers. Well, aside from the poor fashion choice that is. Now I understand, it's about not wanting to be collateral damage!

But I shouldn't be so surprised, I've heard it before, and just the other day. The Mullahs of Pakistan, feeling particularly disempowered since the godless NGOs arrived to do what neither they nor their god could do for the sick and dying after last year's earthquake, have demanded that we all leave and take our infidel ways with us. Those infidel ways being not treating women like cattle or forcing them to dress in burkahs. In the same rant, one of the kiddie-fiddling Mullahs announced that natural disasters were caused by Allah, that he had sent the earthquake to punish them for not being faithful enough (ie begining to believe in Women's rights)