Christopher Hitchens is leaving The Nation. This is a good idea. The Nation is one hilarious magazine, but Hitchens was never that funny. Unless I was missing the joke, it was almost like he was writing serious, thoughtfull pieces instead of parodies of left-wing editorials. He was just really out of place in that magazine. Well, maybe now that The Nation is pure humor, The Onion will buy it up and integrate its content.

I think I have just been given the best compliment ever, because it involved a reference to both the Simpsons and Gen. Patton. Anyway, Mean Mr. Mustard is one awesome blog. He’s a Berkley student, but not a left-wing idiot! It’s hard to comprehend; you must see it for yourself.

They are planning on making another Superman movie, and Moriarty of Aint It Cool News has a script review. It looks like it’s going to be craptastic. Krypton, Superman’s home planet, never explodes, and they take Lex Luthor, the evil billionaire corporate tyrrant (and you think that would be a popular villian these days) and instead make him a CIA agent and an alien. I just hope they don’t do to Superman what they did to Batman. First, Tim Burton made the movies too dark and too weird, but it wasn’t that bad. But then Joel Schumacher took over, and, with each movie, moved it closer to gay porno. Well, whatever they do, if it’s an FDA certified blockbuster and contains lots of explosions, I’ll probably still go see it.

Bill Quick pointed out an article where some religious people are being silly pacifists, and then goes on to say “Religion makes some people murderously violent, but with others, it seems to cause blind idiocy.” Now, it is pretty easy to interpret that as saying for those whom religion doesn’t make murderously violent, it causes blind idiocy (though I believe Bill meant it as a condemnation of some religious people). Understandably, the comment section erupted with a lot of people arguing at and around each other. I just wanted to tackle one point brought up, which is the atheist assertion that religion is responsible for lots of wars and killing. Usually, I hear a tally of body counts, but that proves religion makes people more violent as much as it does that having ten fingers makes people more violent. Just as most people have ten fingers, by far, most people throughout history have been religious, so of course religion is going to be a factor among the killers. The difference between religion and finger count, is that religion is often used as a reason for violence while having ten fingers is not so often used as a one (except maybe if they are wars about mathematics). But wars have goals that are valuable to nonreligious people who are evil such as land, wealth, and power, and I haven’t seen any evidence that one wouldn’t have just used a different reason for violence if, by magic, a religious reason were not available, same as one might use a bomb to kill people if a gun isn’t available (religion doesn’t kill people, people kill people). As we’ve seen in the past century with things such as communism, people can just as easily latch on to nonreligious beliefs as a reason for killing. And there are many atheists who are just as fanatical and irrational about their beliefs as any religious fundamentalist. All I’ve seen proven is that religion doesn’t always prevent violence in all cases (well, a lot of cases), but that’s hardly a very strong condemnation of it.

Sorry, that wasn’t very funny, but I have to indulge myself sometimes. Now, an unrelated question I’m quite curious about: Are there atheists who think religion is a good thing? I.e. that the existence of a supreme being is a silly thing, but still it’s a useful fantasy?

In my compilation of beliefs, I have added opinions on big government, slave reparations, and the value of pi. Now you’ll know what to think on those issues.