Ricky Gervais To Believers: "No one has the right to never be offended".

On the cover the September _New Humanist_ magazine,  Ricky Gervais, the comedian behind the religion-mocking movie _The Invention of Lying_ is pressing on with his skeptical message, and perhaps showing off some weight loss as well.  This time his focus, as the graphic illustrates, is the persecution of atheists and the curious notion, common in believers, that they are somehow entitled to never be offended, particularly on matters of religion.  As usual, many religious people labor under a curious double standard, where they feel entirely entitled to criticize the religions of others who think differently than they do, but feel that a special exemption is in order to protect themselves from the same treatment by others.

Most people had probably never heard of Gervais before the Golden Globes where his satire was apparently a little to close for comfort for some celebrities. For those who followed Gervais's career for longer this should have been so surprise.  One only needs to look at some of his bits _Talking about the Book of Genesis_, available on youtube, to see that Gervais has never shied away from controversy.

Unfortunately, it is unlike that Gervais will have much of an impact with his recent effort.  _New Humanist_ is not a particularly well read magazine, and even his movie _The Invention of Lying_ only attracted moderate viewership.  I think Gervais is certainly onto the right approach using humor and satire to mock the sacred cows of religion.  However, I think he under-estimates the capacity of the ignorant to ignore him entirely.  That is the time-honored strategy employed by much of organized religion, especially when they are unequipped with sufficient wit to answer him barb for barb.

Thank you Ricky, for all your (Sisyphean?) efforts, though one fears that you're still carrying the water of atheists with a very leaky bucket.

Joplin Tornado called "The Beast" after book of Revelation?

In keeping with the doomsday theme over the past couple days, apparently there was a major tornado in Joplin, MO, and apparently it is being called "The Beast", which sounds like a reference to the Book of Revelation. If that were true, however, one would expect it to kill either 666 or 616 people, depending upon the variant translations which give those number. Most people are not aware that the oldest versions of this rather questionable book of the bible quote a figure of 616.

More interesting is that, according to news stories, plenty of people in Joplin think that God and prayer saved them. The same God who sent the tornado and killed others who were likely devout and busy mumbling the same scared prayers into their hands, decided that certain people were more worthy to save than others.

In any event, if this tornado was the long awaited "Beast" of the Book of Revelation, then it is certainly underwhelming. The Beast was supposed to kill way more people than that, and not just in a modest size down.

In any event my sympathies do go out to the people of Joplin. Nobody deserves such senseless tragedy. If there were an all-good, all-powerful god pulling the strings, then such things would most assuredly never happen. The fact that they do tells us that humans will have to learn to help our fellow man to cope and recover as best we can. That doesn't require belonging to any particular religion. None of them have a monopoly on compassion. Humanism is arguably a better approach, because it is a secular philosophy that doesn't waste time with imaginary dieties and prayers to supernatural forces. Instead it dispenses with the prayers, rolls up its sleeves, and gets to work.

Thanks to the secular miracles of science and modern technology, we have radars, and other forecasting systems which can help us reduce the dangers of these kinds of storms, and then more quickly and effectively respond in the aftermath.