Q: What’s so funny?

There’s a candy-apple chapter I’ve kept out of my reach until I finished my liver-on-a-bed-of-kale chapters. Oh they’re not bad, but they weren’t as much fun as some others — too complicated, too “important,” too full of stuff I HAD to include.

Now they’re done, and it’s time for dessert.

Part III is “Great Works of Atheism,” which could have been deadly. So instead of going in strictly historical order, I created a few chapters around themes. “Lost, Secret, Censored, and Forbidden Works” I’ve already finished, and “Deep Thoughts, Big Thinkers,” which handles most of the important warhorses. The 21st century to date gets its own chapter. But in the midst of all that is my favorite piece of candy: Chapter 12, “Laughing in Disbelief: Challenging the Divine with Humor.”

A lot of the most brilliant expressions of disbelief and challenges to religion have been satirical. I’ve written before about the connection between humor and thinking. I’ve always been fascinated by that. As soon as I finish laughing myself to tears over a line of Minchin or the picture at the top of this post, I start trying to figure out why it’s hysterical, and why the next line or the next parody photo isn’t.

The chapter includes Twain and Carlin, parody religions (FSM, Landover, Bokononism), music (like Tim Minchin), film (Life of Brian, The Invention of Lying), TV (Simpsons, South Park), web (Mr. Deity, Jesus and Mo), and more (The Onion). I’m never going to get to everything — even leaving out some of my own favorites — but lemme ask:

Q: What are some of your favorite examples of humor aimed at religion or atheism?

I love to count! Ah, ah, ah

I’m working on a chapter that gives a snapshot of atheism today — numbers, issues, activities, groups.

I start with a bit about how hard it is to get useful data on nonbelievers. First, there’s the stigma, which means many or most nonbelievers will not fess up when asked by a pollster. Then there are false negatives — if I say “Unitarian,” I’ll usually be counted as Christian, even though the majority of Unitarian Universalists are nontheistic of one stripe or another. And what about Buddhists, most of whom are also nontheistic? Are secular humanistic Jews counted as religious Jews by the poll? Since “Jewish” is usually a single category, yes. There’s also the form of the question, which varies from country to country, year to year, and poll to poll. Some ask about religious identity and others about religious belief. As the cultural Catholics of Quebec will tell you, ce n’est pas la même chose! And is the category “atheist” or “nonreligious” or “none”?

Apples and oranges and pears, oh my.

So although we have a pretty solid idea how many Mormons and Muslims and Methodists there are in the world, counting nonbelievers is like counting beads of mercury. While wearing plastic mittens. In the rain.

The best current guess puts people who do not believe in a supernatural God at around 16 percent of the world’s population – roughly 1.1 billion.

Ding! Have a nice weekend, folks.

Climbing out

Chasing the Chase grant continues, and thanks to all y’all, it looks like the Foundation is going to pull down a beautiful grant! More on that in a few days. Keep voting through Wednesday, please!

So a quick catchup on Dummies. It’s been an ugly two weeks since I turned in the 50 percent benchmark. It doesn’t help that I shoved several topical Hydras like morality and mortality into this quarter. The complexity isn’t the main problem, though — it’s making a complex thing simple, which this project demands. Cutting nine heads down to one. Which, if you know your Hydras, ain’t how it works.

It also didn’t help that my research (for a section on current controversies in the freethought movement) required me to spend a day diving deep into the insane vortex of poison currently swirling around women in the movement, especially a few key spokespeople. It continues to sicken and infuriate me, and though I’ve offered support in public and private ways, I still don’t feel it’s nearly enough.

For three days after the day I spent in that poison, I couldn’t write, at least not well. Hell, I could barely think. And still the clock ticked. I went back and read everything I’d written those three days, and it was garbage. I couldn’t tell why, just that it was.

It’s amazing how completely a writer can lose confidence by writing shit for a few days.

I finally figured out what was wrong — it was the voice. The content was okay, but all the heart had gone out of it, all the lightness, all the humor that this project requires, gone. I trashed about 15 pages, and (at the risk of falling even further behind) took a few days off to focus on the Chase competition.

I’m back now, writing really well and quickly. Goody for me. But what about the women who’ve been marinating in that poison for a year? Can you imagine what it’s done to them?