Vol. 2 No. 2 – January 22, 2007

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Publisher’s note

Sometimes, when I consider religion, I can but snigger. Really! A believer extolling the virtues of a Choo Thomas book, or enraptured by doctor Isak Burger’s in depth analysis of happenings minutes after death.

Sometimes, when I consider religion, I can but shake my head in incredulous wonder. Really! Aunty Anna, of Hertzogville, a little community in the South African outback, hoping – I kid you not – that her husband, deceased of some three years, will be resurrected unto her. Not at the “final trumpet”, but in the immediate term, to resume their life together.

Sometimes, when I consider religion, I am enraged. Really! A family is rescued from the precipice of catastrophe when the husband and father is saved by emergency surgery to remove a tumour alledgedly cured by some faith healer years ago.

What untold damage religion has wrought on human dignity. It has reduced individuals to mindless slaves feeding on the waste of fallacy.

It is time for organised religion to be held to account. Thus is my challenge in this week’s leading article: The poisonous fruits of the “Spirit”.

Nathan Bond

Editor’s Note

The Democrats have, methinks, at least an equal chance of winning the White House in 2008. Former presidents Carter and Clinton are rallying what is available from Bush’s Iraqi fallout on the Christian right, and… well, “others” – small and medium-size, black and white Baptist organizations into a robust coalition that would serve as a counterweight to the conservative Southern Baptist Convention.

Why? Because you can’t have the White House if you don’t have an imaginary friend, that’s why!

In the August 28, 2006 issue of TART Remarks, I considered Barack Obama for the White House?, and quoted from a national survey conducted by researchers in the University of Minnesota's department of sociology, the results of which appeared in the April issue of the American Sociological Review, indicating that Atheists are America’s most distrusted minority.

TART Remarks of November 6, 2006 carried an article from the San Francisco Chronicle, Democrats get religion, saying “Left-leaning politicians have a come-to-Jesus moment, bringing their faith out of the closet to challenge conservatives' claimed moral hegemony. The religious right may have to make room for the religious left.”

If ya don’t have a place to pray, the American people won’t give ya a place to stay – for “the next four years”, that is.

This week, in what promises to be regular similar articles, I publish an insert from The Washington Post on the efforts of Carter and Clinton. May the farce be with them.

I touch on the fate of Driss Ksikes, editor of Morocco’s Nichane magazine, who received a suspended sentence recently after a guilty verdict of defaming Islam, and damaging morality – through humour.

Sean B. Carroll’s excellent The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution, is reviewed by Discover senior editor Josie Glausiusz… and, as usual, Jesus and Mo have some comment worth considering. TART is, after all, about religion, what not.

Nathan Bond

Contents

Publisher’s note

Editor’s note

The poisonous fruits of the “spirit”

Morocco's serious humor gap

Modern pagans honor zeus in athens

Carter, clinton seek to bring together moderate baptists

The making of the fittest: dna and the ultimate forensic record of evolution, by Sean B. Carroll

The sound of thorns crackling in a fire