Some religious stuff

[mindstalk]

Georgia (the US state) governor leads group and prays for rain. Not, of course, performing a rain dance, nor sacrificing to Zeus, or spending money to, I don't know, pump water up into the reservoir.[1]

Greta Christina on the "trendiness" of atheism.

"Atheists just need a Hallmark card.". Later notes that you don't find Christians in the US having to post under pseudonyms, lest their families find out their beliefs and ostracize them, nor expressing concern for their jobs or personal safety.

[1] To be fair, an article like that probably wouldn't tell everything. Apparently Georgia is trying to retain water normally released to Florida and Alabama; of course, that would then just pass on the water shortage.

Sign that the US has a rather privileged place in the Internet: drought.gov.

Comments

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

You haven't heard of the "New Atheism" and the Dawkins Dennett and Harris books, or the Blasphemy Challenge? I wouldn't have thought to call it a trend but certainly there's a visibility and focus which probably hasn't been high in the US since, well, 1920.

googling [atheist fad] gets a bunch of hits.

[pompe.livejournal.com]

I think we need to clarify what we mean if we say atheism is trendy because I don't get any hits in my language for the relevant translation.

Is it trendy on Planet Earth, in the West, on LJ, in the English Speaking world, in North America, in Europe, your country, in my country, or in the state or city where Greta Christina lives? I might be a sloppy reader, but I don't know what she means from reading her blog entry. I know that she's living in SF and from her outfit I guess she's Amro, but she still writes in a language and in a forum which is potentially transnational.

I mean, New Atheism isn't an issue here. Sure, you can find Dennett, Dawkins and Harris, but it isn't like they stirred some particularly intense debate.