Who is Jordan Peterson and Why Have 7 of My Previous 8 Posts Been About Him?

(8 out of 9 if you count this one.) I'm so glad you asked!

Jordan Peterson

is a Canadian professor of psychology who is one year younger than I am and specializes in myths and their Jungian interpretation. For example, he points out that in some myths males represent order and females represent chaos. So far so good, that is an accurate description of those myths.

But then, instead of pointing out that such myths (developed and propounded mostly by males, of course, with very little consultation of female viewpoints) are descriptive of the psychology of the myth-tellers, he actually claims that they are literally accurate. He insists that males are ordered and that females are chaotic. All 4 billion or so human males, Peterson says, are ordered, and all 4 billion or so human females are chaotic.

And furthermore, he insists that male and female are the only 2 human genders which exist. (Any real experts in myth who never heard of Peterson before this blog post are already beginning to sense how much myth Peterson has to ignore in order to keep his worldview intact.) And this leads to the way in which Peterson became famous: by objecting, in 2016, to the the 2nd clause of Bill C-16, which reads:

This enactment amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination.

The enactment also amends the Criminal Code to extend the protection against hate propaganda set out in that Act to any section of the public that is distinguished by gender identity or expression and to clearly set out that evidence that an offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on gender identity or expression constitutes an aggravating circumstance that a court must take into consideration when it imposes a sentence.

Peterson objects to this because, he claims, it will infringe upon his freedom of speech by forcing him to use pronouns other than "he" and "she" when referring to persons.

As far as I know, Peterson has not yet faced any criminal or civil prosecution because of his use of pronouns. Still, in tried-and-true right-wing fashion, he is claiming to have been victimized when no-one has done anything to him.

That's what made him famous. That, and some very popular YouTube videos in which he spews his right-wing viewpoints which, in tried-and-true right-wing fashion, he claims are not right-wing, but Classical-Liberal (or, as we would say in the United States, libertarian.) And also his book which followed very quickly upon his sudden fame as a martyr against pronoun abuse, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. (Remember: as mentioned above, Peterson says that males are orderly, females are chaotic, and that no further human genders exist.)

Peterson is a far-right-wing nut. He checks all the boxes: He claims that women need (and secretly want) to be dominated and controlled by men. He says that postmodern neo-Marxists have (again, secretly, as the postmodernists deny that they are Marxists and the Marxists deny that they are postmodern) swarmed into the faculties of our universities, where they are trying their best to enslave the minds of our young people in preparation for marching all of us off to the gulag. He is a climate-change skeptic. He says that white privilege doesn't exist. He's against women's right to choose with no if's and's or but's. He's against casual sex and gay marriage.

And he's passing himself off in many -- by no means all -- mainstream media outlets as not being right-wing at all. And he has a huge following among incels and other groups of misogynistic young men. And, annoying to me personally as a real intellectual, very many people, even including some generally-sensible Leftists, keep referring to this doofus as an intellectual. Does this help answer your question about why I've been posting about him?

Why Define Masculinity?

What's the point? It seems to me that all it leads to is a long list of normal healthy things which many boys and men are afraid to do because of the risk of being thought of as "unmasculine," or as gay, with an accompanying explicit or implied homophobia : dancing, crying, playing with cats, cooking, not being an absolute asshole, bathing, shaving, reading -- the list varies according to the norms of the particular macho subculture, and is often extremely long. Don't eat salad. Don't drink schnapps. Don't wear pink. Don't show any emotions at all and die of a stroke in your 40's.

I reject all of these stupid restrictions, and the notion that homosexual men are "less masculine" than the rest of us.

Has the notion that dancing is not for heterosexual men become more widespread in the past several decades, or have I just become more aware of how widespread it has been all along? The term I've heard most often to describe my looks is "butch" or some equivalent of that term. But I like to dance. I like it a lot. How many women have seen me dance and turned away from me disappointedly, thinking to themselves something like, "Oh no! And up until now he had seemed so butch!" ?

Well, if that's how they thought, maybe I'm better off because they turned away.

(The term I've heard most often to describe the way I dance is "like Snoopy.")

For a couple of years I've been wondering whether some people who were laughing in a bar were laughing at me, and specifically, whether they were laughing at me because I had ordered cinnamon schnapps. Only more recently have I begun to wonder why I was concerned at all about what some homophobes might have thought of me for not sticking to their homophobe-approved list of manly drinks. (As I recall, the laughing, sneering people were drinking something truly horrible like Bud, or maybe even PBR.)

These rules about what manly men may and may not do seem to reach much farther than the demographic of those who are so homophobic that they don't want LGBT's to marry or serve in the military. It seems that many people are for gay rights to that extent, but still are implicitly homophobic by continuing to carry around with them their particular subculture's list of approved and disapproved behaviors for heterosexuals, because it's not just the irrational assumption, because I am dancing or wearing a pink shirt, that I may be gay, it's the horror at the possibility at which they've irrationally arrived. Not only are they morons for thinking that dancing may be a sign that I'm gay, they're assholes for worrying about what they're moronically thinking. That's right, if anybody has any problem -- or "concern," or is "alarmed" or taken aback -- because I like to dance, or because I talk to cats in a baby voice, they're a moron and an asshole.

They need to unclench. And perhaps I do too, for taking their prejudices too seriously. As well as the LGBT's nervously adhering to their long list of LGBT-approved interests and activities, instead of just being themselves.

Masculinity? It's defined by chromosomes. Sexual orientation? It's a matter of physical attractions and disinterests. All the rest is just artificially overlaid, a matter of culture-specific neuroses or lack of same.

Nebraska Woman Sues Every Gay Person On The Planet

I'm not making this up.

This is an exciting legal precedent. I would like to sue every moron on Earth -- and I can start with Sylvia Ann Driskell!

I'm definitely open to making this a class action. It's not as if I'm the only person who's suffered from the actions and failures to act of morons. I think maybe I'm completely serious. I know some some lawyers. Who's with me?

Biblical Schmiblical!

Jay Michaelson claims that Jesus had 'advice' for homophobes. What?! you're saying. Yeah, that's what I said: What did this joker just make up and put into Jesus' mouth? Turns out Michaelson is referring to Matthew 22:21 : "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." What?! you're saying. How does does that have anything to do with homophobia? It doesn't, of course, but in Christian theology, just as in punk rock, there are no rules. If you've sat through very many Christian sermons, and actually stayed awake and paid attention, you know that it's standard procedure to pick a topic from current politics, pick a Bible verse, and then invent a connection between the two. Such was the traditional authority of Christianity that it was seldom that a member of the congregation dared to say something so shameless, so wicked and surly as, "But Reverend, that doesn't make any sense," no matter how senseless the supposed connection between the Bible verse and the current political topic may have been. Sorry, Reverends, but those days are gone.

Nevermind the way you put a statement on gay rights into Jesus' mouth, Dr Michaelson -- as someone with a a PhD in religion from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, you ought to know how high the chances are that the author of Matthew put those words, about what to give to Caesar and what to give to God, into Jesus' mouth: Matthew was probably the last of the 4 canonical Gospels to be written, and many of the possible reasons for differences between Matthew and the other 3 Gospels, besides pure accuracy on the part of Matthew, are among the things taught to freshmen pursuing Bachelor's degrees in Biblical studies or Christian theology. They're also taught things such as how many changes were made to the New Testament over the course of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and many of the reasons, besides a pure concern for accuracy, why these changes may have been made.

Maybe it's time for me to stop taking umbrage at people like you for things like that, and finally accept how widespread "lying for the Lord" is, including the lie that the Mormons are more guilty of it than others.

But nevermind the complete non-sequitor of claiming that "give Caesar the things that are Caesar and give God the things that are God's" has some relevance to the, it now appears unsuccessful, thank goodness and common sense, attempt on the part of the Arizona state legislature to give legal backing to discrimination against gays on religious grounds. And nevermind the high probability that you know damn well that Jesus very likely never said anything like Matthew 22:21, and that you probably already know much better than I do why that verse is in the Bible, and nevermind the possibility that Jesus never existed at all -- yes, ?I can picture very well the sneer you would give me for saying that, I'm very much used to getting that sneer. Don't worry, Reverend: we're sneering right back. And we in fact are not climate-change skeptics or Holocaust deniers, we're neither scientifically-illiterate nor bigoted, and we can see quite plainly the difference between when an authority provides copious data, as meterologists do when asked about climate change, and the quite curious case of authorities appealing to authority, as Biblical scholars do when asked why they're so sure that Jesus existed -- nevermind all that.

Let's say for the sake of argument that Jesus existed, and that he made that remark about giving Caesar his and giving God his, and just for the sake of argument that there really is a perfectly clear statement in there about the the legal status of LGBT's -- so what? It was Christianity which introduced homophobia into Christian lands to begin with. Homophobia was foreign to most of them before they were converted. We don't need theological arguments to undo this damage which theology has wrought.

A Bill May Become Law Soon In Arizona Which Would Allow Businesses To Refuse Service To Gay People If Their "Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs" Tell Them They Should

Who could possibly have foreseen it? Who could have foreseen that such intolerant homophobia would spring from a religion which stamped out so many other religions out of concern that everyone with different beliefs was going to face eternal torment after death, which for nearly 2000 years had a strong tendency to equate all forms of sexuality with sin, grudgingly making exceptions only for some very narrowly-defined sorts of sex (Does the phrase "missionary position" ring a bell?), and in which only over the course of the past several decades only a part of its membership has publicly, officially taken the position that homosexuality is natural and not a problem? Who on Earth could have seen something like this coming? And as if these extremists in Arizona weren't enough, on top of that, a few unspeakably snarky individuals are suggesting, for unfathomable reasons, that the religion itself is the problem! What's THEIR problem?!

"Jesus Wasn't A H8er!"

You'll notice, please, that I put the title in quotation marks. That's because I'm not saying that Jesus wasn't a hater. Some "progressive" Christians are saying it, as they argue that the Christian thing to do is to be nice to people. Even to the point of granting gay people the same rights as anyone else. And it's great that they're arguing for human rights. Even though Christian policy was consistently homophobic until a few decades ago, and it's still homophobic to a great degree. But these "progressive' Christians don't like it when you point out things about the history of Christianity when they're trying to tell you what Christianity is all about.

But let's not quibble about that, and really make an effort to understand where these good people are coming from. And obviously, they've got a point: the New Testament does not depict Jesus as a hater.

Except, of course, for the passages which do: the ones depicting him beating up on the moneychangers in the Temple, and saying that he hadn't come to bring peace, but a sword, and to set son against father and so forth -- but FOR THE MOST PART, the New Testament tends to show Jesus preaching love and compassion.

Well, but then again, most of the current scholarship says that we don't really know much at all about what Jesus actually said or did BUT LET'S ASSUME FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT that the passages depicting a meek and loving, gentle and forgiving Jesus are accurate, and that the stuff about bringing not piece but a sword and so forth got into the Bible by accident somehow -- What?! you may be asking. Do I still have some sort of cotton-pickin' problem here?

Well, yes, I do. About 40 years ago, Bob Dylan wrote a really great line in one of his songs:

I try my best to be just like I am

And I try to do that too. And I don't mean that I try my best to act just like Bob Dylan. I can't speak for Bob Dylan, but I suspect that he might say that people who point to that line he wrote and try to be like him, are missing the point. I try my best to be just like The Wrong Monkey. I'm not claiming that I actually always succeed in being just like me, but I try to. It's not always easy, but I try.

And I'm not trying to tell any one of you to be like me. Or like Bob Dylan.

And I'm not trying to tell anybody to be like Jesus -- I'd advise against that, actually, but that's a different sermon -- and I'm not trying to tell anybody NOT to be like Bob Dylan, or to be just like themselves, if they'd rather not be like themselves.

I'd like people to be for human rights, including LGBT rights, and I'm glad when they are, no matter what the reason.

But if they're for LGBT rights because they actually made up their own minds and decided to be, I admire that even more than if they're pro-LGBT rights because they think Jesus would be, or Buddha, or Karl Marx, or Groucho Marx, or Ashurbanipal.

People actually making up their own minds about what they believe is right! Well, clearly, I'm insane and must be stopped.

Or am I? Who's going to stand up more tenaciously for those beliefs -- a follower? Or someone who actually made up his or her own mind, and is going to hold up that picket sign and march whether Jesus would've or not?

Christians, And Homophobia, And Solutions

Paul Brandeis Raushenbush writes: Christians Are a Cause of LGBT Oppression So We Have to Be a Part of the Liberation! And it's great when anyone stands up for the human rights of any oppressed group. It's good when anyone speaks up against the homophobic policies of Uganda and Kansas and Russia and Nigeria, as Raushenbush is doing. He even admits that Christians are involved with the homophobia, which is almost enough to make you fall down in shock, a leading "progressive" Christian admitting such a link.

The thing is, Raushenbush doesn't trace the origins of this Christian homophobia back for more than a few years, when the plain fact is that until a few decades ago, homophobia was the UNANIMOUS official policy of ALL Christian groups. One reader actually responded to this story by bragging about how his Christian group, the Unitarians, had been pro-gay for "an especially long time." All the way back to 1970! Wowser. Around 1900 years of homophobia, and then, for the last 40-odd years, some Christians have begun to roll back their hostility to LGBT's in certain respects. Sorry, Unitarians, but once again, jazz musicians and gangsters have trounced you in the tolerance race, having accepted gays for decades before any Christians did.

As long as well-meaning, pro-rights Christians continue to deny that their religion was 100% homophobic in its official statements for around 97% of its existence, I don't see how they can expect their present tolerance to be anything more than a Band-Aid compared to the deep wound of the full extent of Christian homophobia. The plain fact is that the pre-Christian Roman Empire, as well as many other cultures taken over by Christianity, completely lacked homophobia as we know it.

But Christians never have been so much with the facts, have they. Well -- except for those of us who have become ex-Christian atheists. Raushenbush makes no mention whatsoever of the homophobia which characterized the vast majority of Christian history. Instead, he and the other pro-LGBT-rights Christians accuse the homophobic Christians of not being true Christians, of misinterpreting the Bible and thoroughly missing Jesus' message. Exactly the same things of which the homophobic Christians accuse them. Exactly as many, perhaps most Christians have always denounced other Christians. Some of the pro-rights Christians declare that the homophobes are not really Christians; conversely, some pro-rights Christians say that they are not Christians, but rather followers of Christ. "Followers of Christ," of course, is precisely what the term "Christians" means.

It's all just so very depressingly stupid. The ignorance of certain statements is just appalling -- and I'm talking about the pro-rights Christians, who are by far the more intelligent of the two Christian groups in conflict here. The utter lack of historical knowledge. One reader, a pro-rights guy, one of the good guys, claimed that before 1971, no-one ever referred to him- or herself as a Christian. I'm not making that up. And furthermore, that comment was posted for days before anyone thought to challenge it. Well -- unless the Huffingtom Post didn't publish any of the replies challenging it. (Surprisingly, they published my reply. I don't expect an intelligent answer, but at least someone is on record as saying something to the effect of, "WTF?! You don't realize that people called themselves Christians before 1971?!") The majority of the comments on Raushenbush' story and stories like it are from pro-rights Christians and homophobic Christians arguing over WWJD? -- What Would Jesus Do? -- and what did Jesus mean? and how are we to interpret this or that Bible verse. And very little discussion of what Christians have actually tended to do over the course of the past 2000 years. Well, again -- perhaps the majority of people who are not homophobic and who have looked into the history of Christianity are in fact no longer Christians. If they had, how could they still want to belong to such an outfit? And by looking into the history of Christianity, I mean looking at primary sources, and not relying solely on the piping-hot ahistorical bullshit served up in the sermons they hear and in the writing of popular "progressive" Christian theologians, in which they hear that Christians of earlier eras were basically identical to 21st-century progressives.

"Joel Osteen looks more and more like the Joker every day..."

"... but I don't want to make fun of his looks."

You can't have it both ways, Joel. You can't be homophobic and love gay people at the same time, any more than I can make fun of your looks and at the same time not make fun of your looks. Don't worry about the mockery too much, I only did it to make a rhetorical point, and the truth is that we're both in our 50's, and I look it, and you don't. I should be half as handsome as you.

You said that homosexuality is a sin, but that you didn't want to preach about it. Well, that was preaching about it. Saying that you want to be nice isn't enough to make you nice. That big smile of yours lights up the room, but it doesn't take any of the sting out of your words. You want to accept the GLBT community? Then you're going to have to give the conservative evangelical community a big jolt, and reverse your position about homosexuality being a sin. You can't please both communities. You have to pick one.

What Elephant In The Room?

I've quoted the following sentence from chapter 52 of AD: AMAZON Nietzsche's Antichristso often that I'm sure I must sound like a broken record to some of my readers. It's just that it has proven itself over and over again to be true, and I haven't been able to improve upon it, and I'm not going to pretend that I and not Nietzsche came up with it: "'Glaube' heißt Nicht-wissen-wollen, was wahr ist." ("Having religious faith means not wanting to know what is true.")

I'm imagining how Nietzsche may have tried over and over again to have sensible conversations with religious people about religion before he came to the sad conclusion expressed in that famous sentence. (I'm not the only one who has repeatedly quoted it.) But they don't wanna know. They may be very intelligent, you may be able to have sensible conversations with them on every conceivable non-religious topic, but as soon as a religious topic comes up, it's simply a no-go.

A recent, horribly-familiar example (These things are horribly familiar because they occur with even greater regularity than me quoting "'Glaube' heißt Nicht-wissen-wollen, was wahr ist." It's AD_AMAZON Groundhog Day --or so I gather. I've never watched the movie, but from what I hear, the hero, Bill Murray, repeats the same day over and over and it becomes nightmarish. Seeing an otherwise-intelligent person's brain switch off when the topic of conversation turns to religion is nightmarish.) is the reaction of "progressive" Christians (They may well be both progressive and Christian -- just not at the same time, imho.) to the fooferah over the Duck Dynasty doofus and his homophobic comments.

The Duck Dynasty doofus is a Christian. Because of the publicity his recent nasty remarks have gotten, "progressive" Christians are rhetorically asking, "Is homophobia Christian? Is Christianity homophobic?" Rhetorically, of course, because they have no intention of really looking into that question, they have their own answer ready, and any intelligent commentary on the subject is going to annoy them greatly. They're going to avoid any real discussion of the matter the way ducks avoid deserts. Their answer is that Christianity is not homophobic. Which of course is a thoroughly absurd thing to say about a religion which was extremely uniformly and harshly homophobic for its first 1950 years or so, and which in the several decades since then has gradually begun to change, but still, unfortunately, is probably deeply homophobic in its majority.

I was about to add something like "It's very easy to learn the truth about the history of Christianity," but of course for most people it isn't easy at all. I was thinking of people like myself, who, when they are curious about an historical topic, refer to primary sources: things written in the historical period under consideration. In this case, things written at various times over the course of the past 2000 years. But of course, I'm not like most people. Most people study history by reading recent authors and deciding which ones they trust. (Trust ME!) And most of the people writing about the history of Christianity are Christian apologets who can't write four words without lying three times. Or is it a lie when you don't want to know the truth? In any case, in this example of Christianity and homosexuality, a "progressive" Christian theologian will most likely offer up an interpretation of the New Testament which supports the position that Jesus Christ didn't oppose homosexuality. This will involve either completely ignoring Matthew 5:17-18, where Jesus is portrayed as saying that he supports Old Testament law completely, or claiming that Jesus never actually said that, or "interpreting" Matthew 5:17-18 to make it seem that it says something other than what it clearly says -- I can think of terms other than "interpretation" to describe this, but none of them are even remotely polite -- or claiming that Old Testament law was not homophobic, which is as ridiculous as it is currently popular among "progressive" Christian and Jewish theologians.

And of course, no matter what sort of pretzel-logic, insult-to-reason-and-truth "interpretation" the Bible is subjected to, there remain 1900 more years' worth of Christianity which need to be hidden somehow in order to back up a thesis as ridiculous as "Christianity is not homophobic." Either that, or the "interpretation" means that those intervening 1900 years simply do not count and there's a do-over, which is much more ridiculous still than any Bible "interpretation."

But of course, theology is ridiculous, and growing ever more so the more we learn about -- anything. The will not to know is staggering. Or in the cases of a few tortured souls, I'm sure, the will to know all sorts of things and keep them from the public.

I'm glad that these "progressive" theologians are not homophobic and are speaking out against homophobia. But I can't ignore the ridiculousness of their claims that their religions have never been homophobic. If I were able to ignore things which are as obvious as that, I might be a theologian myself. And who's to say they're not better off? Ignorance is bliss, they say. So they say.

Teen Suspended By School For Ripping Out Bible Pages

Just think of all those centuries in Christendom when no one was allowed to do these sorts of things which are found to be a bit shocking today because we all still take religion much, much too seriously. In fact, who would ever rip pages out of a book if they didn't take that book too seriously? Yes, I get symbolism and all that. But it doesn't surprise me that Isaiah Smith, the teen suspended from a Texas high school for tearing pages out of a Bible, is a Christian.

Smith is a gay Christian, and he tore out those Bible pages as a protest against anti-gay bullying to which he had been subjected at the school, and because he doesn't believe that the Bible condemns homosexuality. The pages he tore out, from Leviticus, contain passages which very strongly suggest otherwise.

I am against bullying, period, whether kids are being bullied because of their sexual orientation or their gender or their ethnicity or because of a handicap or because of any damn reason at all, I'm against it, strongly against it, we as a society can't have that sort of thing and still claim to be fully civilized, we have to deal with it. And Smith has guts for standing up to bullying, I admire that very much, and his making a formal public protest against it, as he did, is even better. A kid such as Smith making a protest such is this is not only standing up for himself, he's also standing up for other bullied kids he's never met, and encouraging them to resist bullying as well. That's all very, very good. I admire Isaiah Smith, I salute him, and I stand with him. Good for him. Good, good, good.

Okay. And now for the part where many of you may honestly wonder what my problem is. And vice-versa: some of you who will agree with the following may have been wondering up until now what my problem was. The thing is that Christianity does condemn and persecute homosexuality. Considered over the whole course of its history, Christianity must be considered the single greatest catastrophe for gay people in the history of the world. Yes, that's changing. Today many Christians are openly and passionately pro-gay-rights. And that's good. Very, very good. The question, pressed both by more traditional Christians and also by some atheists such as myself and by some other non-Christian onlookers, is: how Christian is this new gay-friendly attitude? And it is new: out of Christianity's whole 2000-year history, homosexuality has ceased to be condemned by some congregations for 2, 3, sometimes even 4 whole decades. And how has it been done? Exactly the same way Isaiah Smith did it: by tearing out a part of Christianity which had been there from the start and pretending it had never been there. Simple as that. Very inconvenient, if Christians had ever been terribly concerned about consistency, but of course they never have been. If consistency and logic had ever been big parts of religion, both Christians and also Jews would not only oppose homosexuality but also the eating of pork and shellfish and working on the Sabbath, when Christians and Jews can't even agree on which day of the week is the day of rest which most of them don't observe anymore anyway, because, in fact, these religions are fading away, being observed less strictly than they were. Which is a very, very good thing.

Many gay people in the US and other places have found welcoming places in Christian (and Jewish, and Muslim) congregations, where they can be out and be accepted for who they are. And that welcoming is a good thing. I'm not going to try to interfere with the good thing they have going there. It's not as if there's too much human love and understanding in the world just yet. Love and understanding are more important than theology.

But I'm still going to point out all the contradictions and denial and ridiculousness, still going to criticize religion per se. In the appropriate places and at the appropriate times, which will continue to be in many more places much more of the time than many reasonable people will think, and I will continue to hope that as reasonable people we can agree to disagree and both keep a sense of what's most important of all in human life -- such as being fair and decent and kind to each other -- and also keep a commitment to speak openly about what does and doesn't make sense. Because that's important too.

Homophobia, And Opposition To Homophobia, In Religion

There seems to be a lot of debate within religious institutions these days about non-heterosexuality. Or LGBT, as some people call it, which stands for: Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals. Some people have added a fifth letter to the acronym LBGT, and in some cases, I think, maybe even a sixth or more. Which I find annoying. What we're talking about here is human rights for people who mate in ways other than the traditional hetero way. I'd rather just say "gay" and have it refer to all the LGBT etc etc, but alphabet soup seems to be the way the wind is blowing in this case. And acronyms aren't the main issue, the main issue, again, is human rights. Traditionally, Christians, Jews and Muslims have denied full status to LGBT's, sometimes have punished them severely for being who they are, and now that's changing in many institutions, and it's controversial.

I want LGBT's to have full rights. I want them to be allowed to marry like heteros if they want to, I don't want their career opportunities to be limited because of their sexuality, I don't want them to have to live in fear of violence from their fellow humans, or, worse, from the law enforcement organizations who are supposed to protect us all.

And so if a church or synagogue or mosque declares itself to be LGBT friendly, that's good, because, unfortunately, it's not as if our society is overflowing with institutions which welcome LGBT's unconditionally just yet. And this is where I part company with some of my fellow atheists, who simply refuse to see anything good in any religion. Well, it's part of the parting of company, because there are many other good things I see in religious institutions, from stained glass to charity work.

But in common with those other atheists, I still am critical of religion. Sorry. Even though I completely reject black-and-white, right-and-wrong worldviews which are blind to all the shades of grey everywhere, and those black-and-white attitudes most certainly include a lot of atheists who can't seem to come up with a more sophisticated approach to reality than religion-bad, atheism-good, I'm still an atheist. I still think it's ridiculous to base your life around one book, whether it's the Torah or the Christian Bible or the Quran, or even something really good like JR.

And I think it's perfectly plain that if you're a Christian, Jew or Muslim, you are basing your life around one book, even if you are determined to portray yourself as a sophisticated person who does no such thing. It may well be that you actually are a sophisticated person who claims to be religious but actually is way more sophisticated than that, and is not religious at all. That has been known to happen.

And I still think it's perfectly obvious that Christianity, Judaism and Islam have been emphatically and unanimously homophobic until recently, when they have undergone a great transformation and become partially emphatically homophobic. I think that it's as plain as can be that most of the stories of past ages of gay-friendly Abrahamic religions are pure myth, and that the few authentic exceptions, such as the partial lessening of strictness of sexual mores in Europe during the 12th century when very many of the most pious types were off in the Middle East fighting the Crusades and giving a great deal of the grief they traditionally give to their fellow Christians to Muslims and Jews and Eastern Christians instead -- I think it's as plain as can be that such episodes of partly-lessened intolerance in Christianity represent a lessening of the observance of Christianity, that they were anti-Christian. Which is exactly what some of those bawdy 12th-century troubadours said about it.

When these religious people these days welcome LGBT's and give them a place to belong, a place to be nurtured, to be unafraid to be themselves, that is thoroughly wonderful. When they claim that their welcoming of LGBT's is true Christianity, it's thoroughly ridiculous. If a Christian theologian who has studied Christian theology and history of all eras says it, then it involves denial of what he or she knows about that history on a scale which boggles my mind. Acceptance of LGBT's is at odds with all of Christian practice and doctrine until the past few decades, that is as clear as anything has ever been.

Once again we see how nothing at all can be clear enough for a religious believer who is determined not to see it, to see it. And so I have profoundly mixed feelings about the recent LGBT-friendly trend in the Abrahamic religions. Acceptance and love are good. Period. But illogic and doublethink are bad, period, and resistance to logic in one thing can and often does lead to resistance to logic in all things. And so if you welcome gays into your congregation I will support you, unconditionally. But if you try to tell me that this welcoming is in the true spirit of your religion and always has been, I will tell you that you are completely full of shit. That's how I roll.