How low can you go?

Pharyngula had a Draw Muhammad Day* last week, and now some pious Muslims have decided that they are going to deny the Holocaust in order to save face. There’s really nothing like ignorance, bigotry and complete disregard of the historical record to make a case. Whenever you want to distract attention from yourself, just say something silly or offensive about the Jews. Then hope people go back to ragging on them for a change.

Michael Peck adds:

I despise Holocaust denial and Holocaust deniers. But if that’s the price that I must pay for the right to free speech, the right to satire, the right to speak our minds without fear of violence, then I can endure it.

*Correction: Draw Muhammad Day was not PZ Myers’ idea. Here is the background, in case you missed it.

More on Paul Berman’s new book

This time Christopher Hitchens chimes in, from Tablet. You knew it was coming.

“Look here upon this picture, and on this …” In the left frame, a privileged young Swiss-Egyptian academic, whose father and grandfather were pillars of the Muslim Brotherhood and who has expressed strong sympathy for the jihadist preachings—and social and moral precepts—of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, purveyor of fatwas and self-described “Mufti of martyrdom operations.” In the right frame, a young woman from Somalia who has endured genital mutilation and forced marriage, made her escape to Europe, spoken out for the rights of women, seen a colleague of hers murdered for the same advocacy, abandoned religion for the values of the European enlightenment, and now conducts her life under permanent police protection.

Which of these two individuals garners the most respectful attention from our liberal intellectuals?

WordPress has a problem

WordPress has a problem with formatting poetry. I recently changed templates hoping it would be easier, but to no avail. So back to posting about politics and atheism. If anybody reading this has any suggestions on how to format poetry on a WordPress blog, I’m all ears.

God His true self did reveal:
“Avoid all the false gods with zeal.”
He made one mistake:
All the others are fake
But gave us no hint which is real.
-A. de Paoli

Atheist limericks: “My Daughter’s Question”

What parent hasn’t asked themselves just what they will say when asked that most proverbial of all questions? Clearly many recycle answers even they don’t believe. “God has mysterious ways.” That kind of thing. Others of us wonder if perhaps there isn’t a better solution, one approaching intellectual honesty. Thus, the following limerick.

“My Daughter’s Question”

If God is benevolent, why
do all living things have to die?
One day I’ll be asked
such a question, and tasked
to resist all temptation to lie

The art of the biblical limerick

A few years ago the Guardian posted a story on Rev. Christopher Goodwins, who rewrote the Bible in limerick verse. Readers of this blog know that I’ve been working up my own repertoire of atheist limericks, some of which deal with biblical themes. First, the Rev. Goodwins:

An Ishleham vicar called Chris
wrote scripture in limericks. “This
should help people read,
about Jesus, indeed,
and enjoy it – not give him a miss.”
________________________________________________
Now me:
The Bible’s a book full of stories
of God’s wrath at human vainglories,
of murder and war
and oh, so much more
you’d feel sick if you heard what the score is.
__________________________________________
I think we’ve managed to read two different books with the same title.



Atheist limericks: “Unintelligent Design”

Today’s limerick is on (un)intelligent design. Proponents of so-called “intelligent design” are always rambling on about watchmakers and 747s being whipped up by the Maker from the junkyard of spare biological parts lying around. They make it sound like everything is so intentionally, wonderfully designed that there can only be One Answer as to how things are as they are. But they never seem to distinguish the miserable from the horrible, as Woody Allen once said. We are all miserable. But why would an “intelligent” designer design my deviated septum? Or my wife’s intestines? Or my mother’s knees? Why such horror?

“Unintelligent Design”

If life on this earth was designed
with all of us neatly in mind
why isn’t it clear
just why we are here,
not to mention the crippled and blind?
_________________________________________________

Atheist limericks: “The Pope”

Limericks are flooding my notebooks, yielding all sorts of interesting results. I write them in the train on the way to work, over breakfast, in my sleep. I’ve even committed a few pornographic limericks – the truest to the form – which you won’t read here, to memory.

Again, feel free to cut and paste in the comments section of your favorite atheist blog, or tweet them, or put them up on your own blog. Or read them and forget about them, or whatever. Here’s today’s limerick.

“The Pope”

He once ruled over vast wastes of land
with a nonchalant wave of his hand
but confined to an isle
of protected square mile
now he broods in his kingdom of sand.
__________________________________

Atheist limericks: “Pharyngula”

I’ve been penning limericks lately. I wouldn’t publish more serious poetry on my own blog, but I figure limericks are topical, humorous and eminently memable. So feel free to cut and paste in the comments section of your favorite atheist blog, or tweet them, or put them up on your own blog. Or read them and forget about them. Whatever. This one is called

“Pharyngula“

PZ once enraged a whole slew
of religious fanatics – he threw
a Qur’an in the trash
and then with a dash
of élan, he threw in Dawkins, too.
____________________

Stay tuned for further atheist limericks!

Sex and death

from Sleeper (1973)

Luna: “Oh, I see, you don’t believe in science. And you also don’t believe that political systems work. And you don’t believe in God, huh?”

Miles: “Right.”

Luna: “So then, what do you believe in?”

Miles: “Sex and death. Two things that come once in a lifetime. But at least after death you’re not nauseous.”

Who’s afraid of Holly Near?

Holly Near wrote one of my favorite songs, which should be the anthem of all freethinkers. It’s called “I Ain’t Afraid” and it begins:

I ain’t afraid of your Yahweh
I ain’t afraid of your Allah
I ain’t afraid of your Jesus
I’m afraid of what you do in the name of your God

With all respect to Holly, my favorite version of the song is actually in Yiddish. That’s how I discovered it, and that’s how I hear it in my mind or sing it when in the shower.

Keyn moyre far ayer el shadai/ keyn moyre far ayer ala/ keyn moyre far ayer yezus/ kh’hob moyre far dem vos ir tut lekoved ayer got.

Here are the Klezmatics doing their version of the song with a Yiddish-language chorus. They alternate between Yiddish and English so anyone can follow along, learn some Yiddish and one of the great songs of our time. Play loud.