Michael Prescott's Blog

Relativity

Marcel Cairo has put up a thoughtful piece on the newly discovered Albert Einstein letter in which the great physicist dismisses belief in God as a childish superstition.

I agree with Marcel that Einstein's view should come as no surprise, given his previously known statements on the subject.

I might add that Einstein seems to have doubted the existence of an individual soul also, opting instead for a sense of mystical oneness with all creation, as exemplified in this famous quote:

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.

How not to do religion

By now the whole world, or at least that part of it concerned with US politics, knows that for two decades Barack Obama has been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where the Reverend Jeremiah Wright has delivered a number of stem-winding sermons on the issues of the day. Among many other things, Wright has claimed that the CIA invented the HIV virus; he has expressed satisfaction in the 9/11 attacks; and he has declared that instead of blessing our country, we ought to say, "God damn America."

Put on the defensive by these revelations, Obama has argued that Wright is like a crazy old uncle tolerated for his eccentricities. This analogy falls short for two reasons. First, we tolerate crazy relatives because we have no choice. We don't get to pick our relatives. We do, however, get to pick our pastor. Obama could have left his church at any time. If he has remained in the congregation for nearly 20 years, it's because he felt comfortable there and liked what he heard.

Second, Wright is not a crazy old eccentric. He is an important figure in a nationwide movement called black liberation theology. Trinity United Church is considered one of black liberation theology's prime clearinghouses. That's why Wright's sermons have been recorded and disseminated on videotape, and are now showing up on YouTube. He is a leader in a movement, and by the standards of that movement he is not eccentric, not an outlier, not a crazy old uncle at all.

What is black liberation theology? As best I can judge, it is a black supremacist movement brewed up in the racial cauldron of the 1960s. One of its leading lights and formative intellectuals is James Hal Cone, whom Wright has cited as an inspiration. Cone, in turn, has praised Trinity United Church as embodying his theological ideas.

Here are some of Cone's reflections on the liberation movement he helped to found:

Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

There is no use for a God who loves white oppressors the same as oppressed blacks. We have had too much of white love, the love that tells blacks to turn the other cheek and go the second mile.

Theologically, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man "the devil."

Now, I understand that it may be unseemly for someone outside this church to criticize its theology. And I know that African-Americans have been subjected to indignities, abuses, and victimization unlike those perpetrated on any other ethnic or racial group in US history. Only black Americans were slaves, bought and sold as chattel. The lynchings and cross burnings, the Jim Crow laws and whites-only restrooms, are a shameful part of this country's past. Although things are much better today, some racist attitudes unquestionably persist and continue to hold back the progress of the black community.

All that being said, however, there are ways of dealing with this history and moving forward, and the sentiments expressed in the quotes given above are not the way.

Religion at its best encourages us to rise above the ego-driven concerns that ordinarily rule our lives. It urges us to let go of grievances instead of bearing grudges, to love rather than hate, to eschew revenge and retribution in favor of forgiveness and compassion. Where the ego says, "I will never forget and never forgive," and jealously nurses its rage, true religion says, "We are all one, I am thou, and in hating or hurting you I only injure myself."

But religion at its best is rarer than it should be. Too often, religion devolves into yet another vehicle of ego-gratification, with the resentments and grievances so precious to the ego given new and larger life in the person of an angry, vindictive, and viciously partisan God. Then we have the spectacle of religious extremists calling down death and hellfire on anyone they define as the enemy. God becomes only a projection of the narrow parochial interests and fears of a particular community, the ego writ large, a bully in the clouds, a tyrant on a heavenly throne shoveling sinners into the furnaces of hell for the amusement of the remnant who are saved.

When religion becomes just another revenge fantasy for the (individual or collective) the ego, it is religion gone bad. And I believe black liberation theology fits this bill.

Look again at the quotes from Cone. If they are indeed an accurate reflection of black liberation theology's principal tenets, then it is hard to see how that movement could be spiritually elevating. Instead of uniting, it divides; instead of forgiving, it accuses and blames; instead of subordinating the ego to higher spiritual impulses, it does the opposite -- explicitly stating that if God is not in line with the ego's agenda, then the ego will have to "kill" God.

This is an inversion of religion in its proper sense. This kind of religion does not inspire or uplift.

Obama has based his campaign on transcendent themes and a message of hope and healing. His 17-year association with a church whose message is altogether different calls into question the whole rationale for his candidacy. The damage to his prospects is, I think, irreparable.

It turns out that Obama was right. Words do matter. Including the words spoken from the pulpit of Trinity United Church.

For further reading:

Wikipedia on black liberation theology

Wikipedia on James Hal Cone

"The peculiar theology of black liberation," by Spengler (Asia Times)

"The insanity of 'black liberation theology'," by Rod Dreher

'Africentric Church,' in The Christian Century

Last rites

Here's something a friend of mine sent me, concerning a Buddhist ceremony for her late mother-in-law, Jane. (Names have been changed for privacy.)

I’m not a particularly spiritual person, but I was very impressed yesterday evening when the Buddhist monks came. There were two of them, and one was clearly the accomplished famous monk.  Of course Jim, Gary and I made many jokes about the monk coming – Monks R Us, we might need a back-up monk, are there monks on the bench?  But this was really good.  There were about fifteen of us in Susan’s living room.  One wall is all glass, and she has a huge mirror that reflects the outdoor garden.  We were sitting on the couch where I could look straight into the mirror and it was incredibly beautiful, because the late afternoon light backlit some fan palms so they were bright green, against a background of blue-green-gray oleander that moved wildly in the wind.  It was gorgeous. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, except to look at the monk in his dark red robe.  And the monk explained what he was doing. He was matter-of-fact and made a lot of sense, talking about how life was only completed by death, and this is not a sad thing.  He had a way about him that made me feel Jane really was going on up the path to enlightenment. The monk wasn’t trying to convince anyone. It just was. There was no self-consciousness in any way – he wasn’t the arrogant Top Monk, and he wasn’t plaintive.  I was moved by his presence.  We were to give her her favorite foods by throwing them into the fire, as well as water and tea.  He told us Jane was present and her consciousness was there, but in a different way. She lay on a gurney and had been dressed in a beautiful midnight-blue tunic, she looked like a monk herself.  He said that he hoped everyone would let her go on her path and not try to keep her from it, that this was a part of life.  He embodied acceptance of the way things were, and acceptance of what could be done to help Jane on her journey.  He helped her reach up to a higher consciousness.  I was deeply moved. 

If you ever get a chance to participate in a ceremony like this, it’s worthwhile.  Especially since you are interested in death and the afterlife.  The chanting can be a bit onerous, but I left thinking I don’t know everything.

Survey says ...

It's always a good idea to be skeptical of polls. With that caveat in mind, a recent survey (PDF file) of Canadians offers some possible food for thought.

In one section of the multipart 2005 survey, respondents were asked to identify themselves as theists or atheists. Elsewhere they were asked if certain moral values were "very important" to them.

Some values were about equally important to both groups - honesty, for instance. But in many cases there was a significant gap. Kindness was rated very important by 88% of theists but only 75% of atheists. Concern for others: 82% (theists) vs. 63% (atheists). In some cases the gap was really large. Forgiveness was very important to 84% of theists but only 52% of atheists. Generosity had a whopping thirty-point gap: 67% of theists found it very important, but only 37% of atheists felt likewise.

Sociologist Reginald Bibby, who crunched the data, "acknowledged that many non-believers still place a high value on morality and ethics. But he said some of that is a legacy from previous generations who held deeper religious views."

Discussing forgiveness, Bibby says,

That's a pretty explicit value within a large number of religious communities... Look at the culture as a whole and ask yourself: To what extent do we value forgiveness against themes like zero-tolerance? We don't talk very much about what we're going to do for people who fall through the cracks. So I think forgiveness is pretty foreign to a lot of people if they're not involved in religious groups.

If you think about it, it's true that movies, TV shows, and books with the theme of forgiveness are few and far between. This theme is heavily stressed in Judeo-Christian teaching, but rarely promoted in secular culture.

An atheist named Justin Trottier tries this response:

To me, scientific thinking is a value. Critical thinking is a value. Open inquiry is my biggest value.... If he made those values -- the way atheists would -- he would have gotten different responses.

Perhaps so, but I'm not sure "scientific thinking" is a moral value. It seems like  more of an intellectual skill.

Trottier adds:

Religion always does this black-and-white thing. An atheist is a lot more temperate, a bit more hesitant. An atheist might be more nuanced in his or her thinking.

Sorry, but I don't see a lot of nuance in the polemicism of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, to name two currently prominent atheists. Nor was there much nuance in the late Ayn Rand's writings; she was the champion of black-and-white thinking, and proudly so. Which is not to say that there aren't nuanced atheists - of course there are - but there are nuanced theists as well.

I have mixed feelings about this report. On the one hand, society is probably polarized enough already without exacerbating tensions via this type of study. On the other hand, if there are important moral values more strongly associated with religious belief than with secularism, then we need to know it - because in some parts of the West, religion is clearly on the wane.

Angels & demons

Yesterday was Sunday and I wasn't in church. Not being a member of any religious denomination or any particular faith tradition, I have no church to attend.

From what I hear, church attendance is down throughout much of the Western world, and there is a looming shortage of priests and ministers. No doubt the various church scandals are partly responsible for these developments, as is the predominantly secular tone of our time. But perhaps another reason may be found in an unlikely place -- the Reading Guide included in the Catholic Study Bible (1990 edition), intended for believing Christians.

Here are some excerpts from John J. Collins' discussion of the Book of Daniel:

The stories of the fiery furnace and the lions' den, like all miracle stories, are meant to arouse a sense of wonder. They are not realistic stories.

Another trademark of the apocalypse is the presence of a mediating angel.... The presence of the angel emphasizes the supernatural character of the experience and adds to the sense of mystery.

Some modern Christians find the prominence of angels and demons in apocalyptic literature to be a problem.... Most people in the ancient world believed that the heavens were peopled with supernatural beings... The modern secular world, with its scientific approach to the heavens, has little us for such beings. An apocalypse, however is not a scientific treatise but a work of imagination.... Angels provide a vivid way of dramatizing providence or divine control. To understand an apocalypse, we should ask, not, "Do these angels exist?" but, "What do they stand for?" and especially, "If we imagine a world with angels, what effect does this have on the way we view human life?"

The problem is that the apocalyptic view of the world is no longer acceptable. Angels and demons are not part of our universe ... Much of the "information" provide by an apocalypse is now incredible if taken literally. It still has value, however, if we regard it a symbolism ...

Intimidated by secularism, Christianity's intellectuals apologize for the tenets of their faith, saying in so many words, "We don't really mean it, we know it's all fairy tales and fables that no educated person could believe." Then they wonder why their churches are empty and the seminaries are running short of applicants.

No, I'm not saying that all Bible stories should be taken literally. I think large parts of the Bible are fiction. But what Christianity does need to take seriously are the spiritualistic elements of its religious tradition. It makes no particular difference whether or not Adam and Eve were real people, or Jonah was swallowed by a whale; such stories can be read symbolically, as was (I suspect) their authors' intention. But when miracles, angels, and demons are denied, what's left of the faith? Only a remote, intellectualized, and deracinated conception of God, which may be philosophically sophisticated but which offers little by way of practical consolation.

The irony is that there is good evidence for miracles, for angels, and for demons -- evidence in the form of paranormal phenomena. Psychic healing is a kind of miracle, as are clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition, and psychokinesis. Mediumship and other forms of after-death communication, as well as deathbed visions and near death experiences, offer evidence of nonphysical beings that could be classified as angels or, in their more mischievous or malignant forms, demons.

It is not necessary to interpret every miracle story or every tale of a premonitory dream or an angelic visitation as a factual record of a real occurrence. What is necessary, if the Judeo-Christian tradition is to be taken seriously at all, is not to dismiss such stories should out of hand. Some of them probably are recollections (perhaps garbled or embellished) of real events. Others were probably invented, but were cast in their current form because of a general acceptance of psi phenomena in the culture in which they originated. To say that all of them are fictitious and symbolic, and that none of them represent anything that the modern mind can accept, is to peremptorily surrender to secularism.

And you don't fill the pews by waving a white flag.

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P.S. I should probably add that I regard the Book of Daniel itself as fictional. It was apparently written in the second century BC but "backdated" to a much earlier era.

Collins' remarks, however, apply to more than just this one book. They apply to Biblical writings generally. 

Guest post: Eteponge

Frequent commenter Eteponge provided two very interesting responses to my post about Marcel Cairo's Tuesday radio show. As Marcel himself said,

Michael, if you're ever not in the mood to write a new post, I would suggest you might repost Eteponge's comments above. I would love to see what people have to say about traditional religion and the afterlife.

Good advice. And being incurably lazy, I'm taking it.

By the way, a good source of info on this subject is the online book Spiritualism in the Old Testament by G. Maurice Elliot, which can be found in its entirety here.

Below are Eteponge's two comments. I've added a few links.

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Comment No. 1

First off, what the Christian Guy in the program said stating that the spirits of the dead who communicate with us are demons "according to the Bible", that is totally incorrect.

In the Old Testament, Samuel came back from the dead as a ghost summoned by a medium, and the Scripture even states that it was actually *Samuel Himself* that came back as this ghost and therefore it wasn't a demon. He even prophesied Saul's destruction, and told him that the next day, he and his sons would be with him in the Afterlife. That right there OBJECTIVELY proves from The Bible that Spirits of the Dead can be contacted and are who they say they are.

Old Testament Law specifically spoke against contacting the actual spirits of the actual dead, stating right there in the Law that it is possible, it did not say that these Spirits are "demons" or any such hogwash like that. That's something that Christians like to make up and pull completely from nowhere. The incident with the Prophet Samuel objectively proves according to Scripture that it's possible. Old Testament Law such as that was ONLY IN EFFECT for the Jewish People, and ONLY IN THE LAND that God had brought them, Gentiles who converted to Judaism had to follow a SEPARATE set of Laws.

The Law specifically states that this practice is only banned in the land that God had brought them, to make them different from the other pagan nations that did such things.

Why was this Law put into effect? Quite simply, because The God of Israel wanted his people looking TO HIM for guidance, not the dead, who, if wicked in life (or earthbound and negative), could lead people astray. That's the true context. "Why contact the dead when you can directly commune with God as a Mystic? The dead are just the same as you, they've just shed their flesh!" Seems to be the true reasoning.

Regardless, if you accept that Jesus Christ fulfilled and erased the Old Law, then that restriction no longer exists at all. Which would jive with the "Testing the Spirits" gift being added in the New Testament.

One major thing also, is that Jesus Christ spoke with the deceased Spirit of Moses and also spoke with Elijah in Spirit Form while on the Mountain of Transfiguration and the Apostles witnessed it.

Of course, perhaps the biggest event is where Jesus Christ Himself said...

"Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have." (Luke 24:36-43)

This was after the Apostles exclaimed that they thought Jesus Christ was a Ghost returned from the dead, as in a Wandering Spirit. Jesus Christ Himself said, "a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have", admitting that Ghosts as in Spirits of the Dead that do not have flesh and bones that wander the earth do exist.

The other verses in the Old Testament attacking mediums and attacking mediumship rely on bad faulty translations. I've seen a large chart somewhere online that has the original Hebrew words and meanings in those verses, and they were very different in meaning and context than what Biased English Translations say, that such Biased Christians cherry pick from to attack stuff like this.

Also, his quote of "the dead know nothing", is a verse that is always taken out of context from Ecclesiastes, which was a book written by a Man in Torments looking at the world through a dreary tortured atheistic nihilistic perspective "All is meaningless, all is meaningless" Ecclesiastes says over and over, which encompasses the whole dreary context of the Scripture. The phrase "under the sun" is used many times showing how he sees the world through man's atheistic view apart from God's view. He is unknowing and uncaring and unconcerned about the state of the dead, for he states, "Who knows if the life-breath of the children of men goes upward..." That is probably the most out-of-context quoted Scripture in existence.

Someone on BeliefNet long ago posted the following information which I saved, and I quote...

At death, man becomes a rephaim, i.e., "ghost," "shade," or "disembodied spirit," according to Job 26:5; Ps.88:10; Prov.2:18; 9:18, 21:16; Isa.14:9; 26:14, 19. Instead of describing man as passing into nonexistence, the Old Testament states that man becomes a disembodied spirit. The usage of the word "rephaim" irrefutably establishes this truth. Langenscheidt's Hebrew-English Dictionary to the Old Testament (p.324) defines refaim as referring to the "departed spirits, shades." Brown Driver and Briggs (p.952) define rephaim as "shades, ghosts...name of dead in Sheol."

It is a Hebrew fact that "rephaim" (ghost) means a disembodied spirit.

Lastly, he was quoting a random verse from The Bible that suggests the world is round, talking about how it "proves" that The Bible is scientific.

What he doesn't seem to realize, is that the Hindu Scriptures state the exact same thing, as does The Quran, and both the Hindu Scriptures and The Quran contain many additional verses that their adherents constantly quote as "unknowable scientific knowledge" to prove they are authentic. The Hindu Scriptures mention that the universe is billions of years old, and mentions evolution, according to Hindus, and The Quran even mentions The Big Bang, according to Muslims. So, if this guy is saying The Bible contains "unknowable scientific knowledge" for it's time, he's gonna have to accept those in The Hindu Scriptures and The Quran as authentic too.

Regardless, it's also obvious that he was cherry picking the few times The Bible "got it right" in regards to scientific things, and is flat out ignoring the many times it got such stuff laughably wrong or obviously goofed.

By the way, just to throw this out there...

2 Corinthians 12:1-4 I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know - God knows. And I know that this person - whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that humans are not permitted to tell.

[Near Death Experience / Out Of Body Experience in The Bible]

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Comment No. 2

Another thing I'd like to point out in regards to Jesus Christ speaking with the deceased Spirit of Moses and also speaking with Elijah in Spirit Form while on the Mountain of Transfiguration and the Apostles witnessing it...

According to The Bible, Jesus Christ was sinless. According to The Bible, He committed no sin during his lifetime. Therefore, His obvious communicating with the deceased Spirit of Moses and also with the Spirit Form of Elijah on the Mountain of Transfiguration, proves that communication with the dead is not a sin in the context of the New Testament. He even let the Apostles witness this, and they even suggested to Jesus that they build tents for them to dwell in to stay with them!

Saul's sin in the context of the deceased Prophet Samuel's being angry with him when he was summoned as a ghost and contacted via a medium, was not directly because he was contacting the dead, but because Saul himself was directly pacted with God and had full potential to contact and communicate with God directly and to rely solely on Him, but he had turned his back on God and towards sin, and the last straw was that he was turning to the deceased Samuel to tell him what he already knew, rather than turning to God Himself, and so the deceased Samuel prophesied his destruction, and told him that the next day, he and his children would be with him in the Afterlife.

Also, something I read somewhere online in referring to that incident that I found interesting (I forget the source, I merely saved it in my notes), and I quote...

"This medium, whom Saul used, also saw many people on the other side, when she was calling up Samuel. One should also note in this verse, that Samuel had maintained his form of an old man wearing a mantel, just like many documented ghost sightings of apparitions, report the ghost to be dressed in "period dress" from their own time era, here on earth."

And so it goes

I was surprised to find that my post on the Buddhist monk was picked up by another blog, where it led to a long and rather interesting discussion.

I never actually thought that my observations on this topic would generate much interest.

Also, here's a critical review of Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now, which makes some points I'm inclined to agree with. For instance:

[As a young man] Tolle had a "splitting" of his mind from his "essential being", somehow detaching from the former and finding himself living in the latter. Of course, as is usually true in breakdowns, this did not create a particularly good situation, and Tolle spent a couple of years unable to work, homeless, and spending all day sitting on park benches going "WOW!" as he looked at the world through eyes not being filtered by the mind/ego. Somehow he transitioned from "crazy guy on the park bench" to "seminar leader" (the book is rather hazy on how that happened), and had a new career telling people about living in a timeless "now" state...

He repeatedly mentions "surrender", defined as almost a Taoistic concept of "going with the flow" rather than resisting one's life situations, but this still seems to only point towards a world filled with blissed-out glassy-eyed staring "in the Now" people, balanced both on the esoteric edge of "the end of time", and the exoteric park bench. Unfortunately, any question of "what then?" is destined to be brushed off as only being some sort of "ego ploy".

I want to add, however, that I still think Tolle is well worth reading and that his approach can be usefully incorporated into our lives, as long as we don't go overboard with it. The ability to shift into the Now can be extremely helpful in dealing with anxiety, anger, or everyday worry. In fact, it is one of the most useful self-help techniques I've ever learned.

So I'm not trying to belittle Tolle or mock him. I just think that his approach is not the be-all and end-all. It's another tool in the toolkit, another chord for the guitar, another entree on the menu. You get the idea.

And here's a different telling of the monk story, with readers' responses. Some of my favorites:

The monk's calmness is admirable, but the idea that one should not speak the truth when confronted with a lie is potentially very harmful.

Perhaps it is too obvious that "Is that so?" is both a passive challenge to the accusers and an invitation to look more deeply into the matter -- both of which were repeatedly declined. The [monk]  wisely declines to force the issue, accepting minor injustice while avoiding greater disharmony.

That girl is a lying slut.

When I read this story for the first time I thought that the only words that [monk] knew were "is that so?" I then thought that couldn't be right so I read it again. Now I just don't know what to think.

So what?

Another version, with interesting commentary, is here.

Yet another version. A Google search yields many more.

I'm beginning to think that the purpose of the story is just to stimulate thought, and not to point to any moral at all.

His brother's keeper

I didn't even know that Christopher Hitchens had a brother, but he does, and Peter Hitchens has written a fascinating, thoughtful, and provocative  review of Christopher's book God Is Not Great.

Christopher is an atheist, or as he styles himself, an "anti-theist."

Peter is a member of the Anglican Church.

They do not get along. Peter quotes Christopher as saying,  "The real difference between Peter and myself is the belief in the supernatural. I’m a materialist and he attributes his presence here to a divine plan. I can’t stand anyone who believes in God, who invokes the divinity or who is a person of faith."

This would seem to suggest that Christopher "can't stand" the vast majority of the human race. But Peter is too kind to point this out. 

Hat tip: Drudge. 

Not bright

I think atheists need better spokespersons.

Just look at this nine-minute appearance by a seemingly besotted Christopher Hitchens on Hannity & Colmes.

Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great, was on the show because he wrote a nasty column excoriating Jerry Falwell as a superstitious fraud mere hours after Falwell's death. The article begins:

The discovery of the carcass of  Jerry Falwell on the floor of an obscure office in Virginia has almost zero significance, except perhaps for two categories of the species labeled "credulous idiot."

Classy.

Colmes gingerly asks if Hitchens might have restrained himself until the family had been given a chance to grieve. Hitch will have none of it, intemperately lashing out at Falwell, his children, his supporters, Hannity, and Ralph Reed (the other guest, who barely got a word in).

Whatever anyone thinks of Falwell, this is boorish behavior. And Hitchens (who is a very talented writer) comes across a mean-spirited, supercilious twit.

In this he's not unusual. Other atheists, past and present, who come across badly in public appearances include Madalyn Murray O'Hare, Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, Harlan Ellison, Richard Dawkins, James Randi, Andy Rooney, and Penn Jillette.

Maybe it's something in the water. Or could it be that the deep-seated conviction that life is devoid of higher meaning and purpose, along with the insatiable need to browbeat others into feeling likewise, does not necessarily translate into the most appealing personality?

Whatever the reason, if atheists insist on peddling their product on the airwaves, they need more mediagenic salespeople. There are rumors (unconfirmed) that Angelina Jolie is an atheist ... Sign her up!

Update, May 21: Orginally I included Michael Shermer on the list of non-mediagenic atheists, but a couple of readers felt that Shermer actually does come across as likable and personable on TV, so I've removed his name from the Roster of Shame. I'm sure he's greatly relieved ...

Delusional thinking

This is cute.

Hat tip: Skeptical Investigations.