The God-forsakin' Blog

I'm by no means the first or last person to point out that the people who offer "thoughts and prayers" and the people who offer actual practical help are almost never the same people. But what I realized the other day is that religion tricks people into genuinely believing that an offer of "thoughts and prayers" IS an offer of help.  When faced with the situation where a person we care about has a problem we can't fix, naturally we want to do SOMETHING for them. But the actual helpful things we can do in those situations either involve a real and vulnerable expression of empathy, or an offer of money or labor to help make the unbearable situation at least a little more bearable. Preferably both. And most people don't have the ability to do that. Most people aren't skilled at expressing empathy well. Most people don't have money or time or energy to meet their OWN needs, let alone those of other people.  So people offer this substitute for actual ...

For the past couple of years, I've been listening to the Scathing Atheist podcast, and from there got into a couple of their other podcasts too. It's been refreshing to hear the perspectives of other people who arrived at the same conclusion I did by different paths, and to hear them being every bit as angry as I am at the harm religion does. It's also been refreshing to hear these guys talk passionately about social justice issues that I care about (and most religious people either only pretend to care about or actively oppose). In particular, hearing them as men eloquently speak about the importance of defending women's rights. So it was certainly disappointing to learn on Thursday that Andrew Torrez - a part-owner of their company, their company's lawyer, and an occasional guest on the show - has been credibly accused of sexual harassment by a number of women (and admitted to at least engaging in behavior that made those women uncomfortable, in the way that a law...