Carnival of the Godless

I haven’t written much recently, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of good stuff out there I can recommend. This week the Carnival of the Godless at Life Before Death is exceptionally good, in my opinion. One of my favorites is this piece from Surgeonsblog on the absurdity of religion, specifically Christianity:

What a comedian! [God] makes mankind imperfect, sets up some rules to follow, knowing (by definition) that billions of people will be unable to follow them, and then sees to it that in their failure they suffer eternal punishment. Eternal. To infinity and beyond, hallelujah. (Although according to those who build the churches and collect the cash, you can live a life of sin and crime and have a deathbed conversion; or drop a dollar in a dish; or, like Jimmy Swaggart, weep and declaim, and be fine, poof, it goes away. On planet Earth some killers get off after a couple of decades. But god's "vengeance is mine" jones doesn't get satisfied after a million years or two? Pretty harsh.) And for what? Well, murder, I suppose, except when it's in his name; whacking off, I'm pretty sure; but for most, just not accepting him as their savior. Even if you live an exemplary life by all other measures, if you don't kiss his... ring, you boil and blister forever. FOREVER. Life is short, eternity is quite a bit longer. It's like giving a first-grader the SAT and jailing her for the rest of her life if she fails. This particular picture of god, which seems to place many beside themselves with self-satisfied delight -- by any reasonable criteria is one of a child abuser. If you heard of a guy who had a bunch of kids, starved them, and then threw them in a hole when they reached for food (god made rules he knows we'll break, gave us hungers he knows most can't resist), you'd call the cops for sure. Good for you, by the way. And even if you found cartoons on his hard drive, I'm thinking you wouldn't say with a chuckle (did I mention the chuckle in the preview?) what a funny guy he is.

Much more at the link.