Halfway Through Hell

As of today I am halfway through this nightmare of a semester at my current institution and the end of this dreadful academic year is in sight, just two months away. Luckily, I have the next week off - Spring Break - a week in which I will not have to deal with hostile, backstabbing academic colleagues nor unappreciative, indifferent students. The end cannot come soon enough.

Because of my unusual lecturing schedule this semester, I've been neglecting my blog during these past couple of months. I hope to rectify that somewhat this week.

One thing I'm planning on doing is to start transcribing Tom Kratman's afterwords (from his published novels) to this blog - something he gave me permission to do a while back. They make for quite good reading. For example, here is a tidbit of the afterword from his forthcoming novel The Tuloriad, posted by Kratman in my comments a few weeks ago - the topic being atheism:

They’ve taken to calling themselves “brights,” of late, those who disparage and attack faith. At least, some of them have. One can’t help but note the prior but parallel usurpation of the word “gay” by homosexuals. And, just as gays do not appear notably happier than anyone else, one may well doubt whether “brights” are any smarter…or even as smart.

Example: The religious impulse is as near to universal a human phenomenon as one might imagine. Not that every human being has it, of course, but it has been present, and almost invariably prevalent, in every human society which did not actively suppress it (and some that did).

Now imagine you’re a human being of broadly liberal sentiment, much opposed to religion and also much opposed to the oppression of women and gays, equally much against sexual repression, which, by you, and not without some reason on your part, religion is generally held responsible for. You are, in other words, a “bright.” Let’s say, moreover, that you’re a European “bright.”

What has been the effect of your, the collective “your,” attacks on and disparagement of Christianity? Did you get rid of religion? Yes…ummm…well, no. You got rid of Christianity for the most part. And left a spiritual vacuum for Islam. So, in lieu of one religion, a religion, be it noted, that has become a fairly live and let live phenomenon, you’ve managed to set things up nicely for a religion which is by no means live and let live. You’ve arranged to replace a religion which hasn’t really done much to oppress women and gays in, oh, a very long time, with one firmly dedicated to the oppression on the one and the extinction of the other.

And you’ll insist on calling this “bright,” wont you? Because it so cleverly advances your long term goals, right?

Christopher Hitchens even subtitled his recent book on the subject, “How Religion Poisons Everything.” Odd, isn’t it, that the subtitle fails to note that with poison toxicity is in the dose? Or that some doses are worse than others. Or that, given that near universal religious impulse, to get rid of the non-poisonous dose sets things up for a poisonous one? Yet this is “bright.”

There's a lot more where that came from. And you will love it, Dear Reader.

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And on an unrelated note, while I've been away Ann Coulter shut down her "Get Drunk and Vote 4 McCain" blog (later re-named "Get Drunk and Hope 4 the Best"), shifting all of her blogging efforts over to "Sweetness and Light." Those of you who were around last summer may recall that I wrote about the opening of the "Get Drunk" blog at that time.