Captain Cassidy

There is something truly grotesque about the way so many Christians seem to get off on the idea of people burning in Hell. I don’t think they even realize they’re coming off that way, they’re so desensitized to the idea by now. The idea that a huge number of their family members, loved ones, and total strangers alike are one day going to burn forever and ever and ever is so endemic to their worldview that I’m not sure they even realize what it means or what their gloating implies about them as people. Today we’re going to talk about this mindset and what it means–and why good people reject it.

Sometimes when people can’t possibly achieve a goal, they start setting some downright odd priorities to make themselves feel like they’re getting something done. Lately we’re seeing some of that behavior out of Christians–and it’s another sign that things are getting better (for the rest of us). Misplaced priorities are just part of the dying pains of a major movement. This time it’s not quite as comical–or as harmless–as their apparent war over how brightly-lit their churches should be during services. This time they’re attacking tolerance itself.

I couldn’t help but notice a major shift in the tenor of how Christians are engaging with general culture in the wake of the Supreme Court case about equal marriage–and a new discussion emerging from the ashes of that decision. Today we’re going to talk about that shift and what that discussion is, and what that discussion is leading toward for them–and us.

Airline High School of Louisiana has a problem. Airline is a public school that has become embroiled in the latest example of right-wing Christian overreach disguised as religious freedom. Today we’re going to talk about how this case illustrates the various excuses the Christian Right is using for their misbehavior, and why those excuses are bullshit.

For a group of people who genuinely believe that their god is the most powerful force in the universe, evangelical Christians as a group sure do shit their pants over the idea of Halloween. Today we’re going to talk about why they seem to love to hate Halloween, and what this love-hate relationship means for the religion.

I saw this really neat Washington Post article about stupidity earlier and I wanted to bring it up because let’s face it: if we’re not dealing with the stuff we do ourselves, we’re dealing with the stuff other people do. Knowing where this behavior comes from might come in handy.

Mr. Captain and I have–or rather had–a cat we nicknamed Monster for how downright evil she was (but she was “just a little one”). She passed away yesterday. Her death reminded me of how David Marshall, among many other Christians, believes that this world we live in is the best possible world out of all possible configurations and that his god is in charge of all of it–and how wrong that belief is in reality.

In 2013, a Christian apologist named David Marshall debated historian Richard Carrier on the topic “Is the Christian Faith Reasonable?” The debate was hosted by both an atheist and a Christian student group at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Today we’ll be talking about it–and about debates generally. Here Read more