Bonus Christmas Rant: Toronto Sucks

I just had to drive back from North York during what I would call a mild snow storm. Listening to the Toronto media describe it, it was the worst winter storm in years. They issued an "essential driving only" warning. To hear them, it was a total whiteout, and, gasp, 10-15 cm of snow!

Visibility was, well, diminished, but you could still see to the horizon most of the time. There was snow on the ground, but who cares? This is Canada; there is always some snow on the roads. It took me almost two hours to get back to my office when the usual time is more like 35 minutes. Why? Surely not because the snow itself. Why, then?

Fucking moron Toronto drivers.

Toronto drivers drive 50 km/h on reasonably well-plowed, sanded roads. They get stuck on tiny little snow drifts. They lose control of their cars at the slightest slipperiness.

I've got a freakin' two-wheel drive car with summer tires on, yet I am having absolutely no problems with this fucking snow. Back where I'm from, a mere 200 km east of Toronto, we'd laugh at this weather, go joy riding in it, wear shorts, etc. Toronto drivers are useless. Here, though, I get stuck behind morons who drive at a walking speed, can't hold their lane, and make me hours late. I so want to kick all of them in the nuts.

When I finally got back to my office, I discovered that the crybabies had closed up shop and gone home hours earlier. Yet I had to remain and finish a fucking report until 5:45, which I could have easily finished before our normal closing time if Toronto residents could drive in the winter.

The Inuit have hundreds of words for snow. What's the Inuit word for snow that isn't slushy, isn't icey, isn't oily, and results in basically no impediment to driving? Furthermore, what's the Inuit word for fucking Toronto wusses?

Church Peeves: Part 1

As an atheist who keeps up with the writings of PZ Myers, Ebonmuse, Greta Christina, etc. I am well aware of the damages inflicted to the human thought process by religion and the dangers posed thereof. But that’s not to say there aren’t things about church/churchgoers (not all of them, but a significant portion of them) that piss me right the hell off that are of little or no consequence whatsoever. And since I really need to vent, you’re going to read about them in a 5-part series. Here’s the first:

1) Bland Omni-Happiness

You know the type: the kindly middle-aged lady, the smiling and squinting old gentleman greeter, the pudgy junior pastor – all sorts of people at the church united by one common element – they are always, always happy-looking. You come in the door; they smile. You sit down next to them; they smile. You engage in half-hearted small talk; they smile. It doesn’t matter if times are good or times are bad; if it’s raining, snowing, or sunny; if a group of orphans just got run over in the parking lot; or if you’ve just insulted their stinky old grandmother with a limp: they keep on smiling that same soulless lobotomized smile. They are like freaking morning TV show hosts.

Here’s a news flash to all the smiley automatons of the religious world: it’s okay to show emotions other than bland omni-happiness. It’s what makes us interesting as human beings. If God^* had wanted us to only smile, he wouldn’t have given us all these wonderful facial muscles that can make us look angry, bored, confused, frustrated, and (here’s one to try) genuinely happy – not the phony-looking blandly happy garbage that these guys put on.

That said, I’m sure some of them really are that happy; for some, they who have drunken deeply of the Jesus cool-aid, I’m sure that there is a genuine euphoric response to being holed-up church surrounded by people and things that have been Jesified. However, I’m also sure that some of them are fakers and just going along with the crowd.

Regardless, I badly want to kick one of these guys in the nuts just so they will express some emotion other than the bland omni-happiness. Even though it may not be “emotion” so much as it will be “agonizing pain.” I’m sure there will be other emotions in there such as confusion and anger even if you can’t quite tell by looking at them. No matter; at least the smile will be gone.

Scratch that, I’d bet some of them would merely wince and drop to their knees, yet maintain their smile and reach out, saying, “Isn’t it a wonderful day to be loved by Jesus?”

Grinning bastards.

* Note: not actual God, but it’s much easier than writing, “If evolution by means of natural selection had selected for us to only smile…”

It's Eastern Standard Time!

CBC hockey commentator Harry Neale calls it his favourite day of the year. Like Neale, I find the extra hour of sleep (or extra hour of guiltless bumming around) to be quite heavenly. I was so happily enjoying the extra hour of sleep that I almost forgot just how much I hate it when Daylight Savings Time gives way to regular, fuddy duddy old Eastern Standard Time. It's getting freakin' dark out now. Dark at 5:00? What the hell? It'll be even worse in a month.

I've never understood this system. During the winter, there are fewer hours of daylight in the day. In response to that, we shift our clocks around so that we get to enjoy less of them? Huh? I'm not sure what the rationale behind it is (is it farmers? schoolchildren? Damn them all!!!)

I am not a morning person. At all. My brain is basically equivalent to that of a vegetable or a creationist until about 9:30 in the morning, no matter how much sleep I get the night before or what time I awake. Also, I work in a cubicle (nowhere near a window), get to the office at 8:00 (or rather I should) and leave at 5:00. Even with Standard time, the sun is barely up when I start (not being a morning person, it's not like I can enjoy the sun at this time) and it has long since set by the time I leave. There are many days in the winter where I do not see the sun at all. May as well be living in Iqaluit. Or Hell.

I think I have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I feel blah and generally horrible on really overcast days and I feel even worse by the time March rolls around. SAD is a fairly common condition (up to 9% of the population suffers from it), with many people having it far worse than me. Think of the productivity and quality of life increase that could be realized in wintertime if sufferers just got a couple of hours of good sunlight a day. It seems a whole lot easier to just reverse a stupid clock change than to have 9% of the population buy specialty light therapy lamps.

On top of the SADness, there are more immediate health effects (well, getting hit by a car is a health effect, sort of). According to a recent study, when drivers and pedestrians are plunged into sudden darkness in the days immediately following the time shift. The researchers say that it's not the darkness that's the problem, but rather the fact that it's dark when drivers and pedestrians aren't expecting it.

In summary, the switch from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time should be abolished.

Hell, if it was up to me, I'd go farther than that. In the winter, why not move clocks forward one hour. That would let us increase the light in the evening hours, perhaps even giving us enough daylight to, you know, actually do something with our days.

That's right: screw the farmers, let the children go to hell, and morning people, I want to kick them in the nuts. All I know is that Standard Time is bad for me, and, like many people in this flawed, selfish organization called humanity, if something is good for me, I want to force it upon others who may not agree with me.

In fact, let's not just get rid of the standard time, nor just move clocks forward one hour, I say move clocks forward in the fall two or three hours. I'd love for there to still be some sun at 7:00 pm in December. "Fall ahead and spring back" works just as well as a mnemonic device as the current "spring forward and fall back."

Let King Aardvark see the light!

Breaking New: Dutch Priest is a Contemptible Jerk

From CBC.ca, a catholic priest in the Netherlands by the name of Harm Schilder is being a assheaded jerkwad to his neighbours. Schilder's church holds services every weekday morning. Much to the dismay of the townsfolk around him, at the ungodly hour of 7:15am, he rings the church bells loudly and proudly (well, 7:15am is ungodly for me, though everything is ungodly for me, but anything taking place at 7:15am is more ungodly than most things). And the townsfolk want him to stop, or at least turn down the volume a bit. Municipal officials have been urging Schilder to stop ringing the bells for months (Update: according to www.katholieknederland.nl, since March 16th)and recently told him that, starting Aug 16, if he didn't stop he would be fined a whopping 5000 euros each morning.

Says municipal spokesman Thomas Heesters, "The council does not want to get involved in this - it's a house of prayer - but we have to take into account the feelings of local residents." That actually bothers me a bit. Just because Schilder runs a church instead of any other establishment, the council isn't keen to get involved. Thankfully, they are putting aside their misplaced respect for the church and are proceding with the fines. The church rang its bells on Thursday and Friday, incurring fines worth 10000 euros.

That Schilder fellow sure seems like a nice accomodating person.

What's Schilder's reply? "People who are bothered by the bell should know that we pray for them in the mass." Seriously, this is what he said on the church website. What a dillhole. That's basically a giant "screw you" to everyone who is pissed off at loud noises in the morning. He's saying that, because he's on the side of God, he can be as inconsiderate as he wants.

Reports have just come out this morning that the church did not ring its bells today (Monday) as Schilder bowed to pressure from his diocese and his lawyers. Apparently the diocese that controls the church wants Schilder to comply with the municipality's wishes to prevent further escalation in the case. Here's to hoping they make Schilder pay the fines out of his own shallow pockets instead of out of the collection plates.

I hope someone in the Netherlands kicks this guy in the nuts. It'd be fair punishment for waking everybody up. Actually, no; fair punishment is more creative. Some Dutch person needs to open up a new church placed next to Schilder's house that holds services complete with bell ringing at 12:30am when Schilder is trying to get to sleep. Let's see how he likes it.

Surprise Trolling

Well, well, well, looks like I got my first anonymous drive-by trolling.

In fairness, he didn't just scream "UR GOING TO HELL!! PRAISE JEEBUS!!!" and run off, so I'll give him credit for that. He took serious offense at my screed against the Alpha Course Christmas dinner I went to in December - you see, he teaches, like, THREE Alpha Courses a year, so that makes him like an expert or something, even though the course leaders generally don't have any particular training (my apologies if you, dear anonymous, actually do have scholarly training in such matters). Unlike most trolls, he actually presented an argument, albeit an angry and sarcasm laced one. Unfortunately, he showed up a bit late to the post, ie. the post was in December and it's now February, so in order to address his comments (given here), I'll make a new post now.

In particular, he took much issue with my attack on a quote given in Alpha honcho Nicky Gumbel's Christmas lecture video. The quote was about there being as much evidence for the life and resurrection of Jesus as for any other event in human history, which I quickly demonstrated was a craptacularly false statement. How'd I do this? By contrasting the resurrection with another set of events: WW2. Specifically, I showed how contemporary documents from a variety of sources on many sides, combined with the testimony of still living people, video footage, official military records, etc. show much more proof than that which is available for the resurrection.

Now, how did he attack my argument? Here's how:

1) By stating that I didn't do my homework because there is extrabiblical evidence for Jesus, including the writings of Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius.

2) By claiming that comparing WW2 to Jesus is unfair, since there are people around today who fought in WW2 (he knows 2 personally). The balance is so great, I could equally dismiss Caesar's conquest of Gaul, for example. Also, that by my arguments I'm dumber than CS Lewis.

3) By comparing the weight of evidence between, again, Caesar's Gallic Conquest and the events in the New Testament (NT) and stating that I should have an open mind for something that has over 5000 surviving early Greek copies.

Let's look at these:

1) Okay, okay, I'll admit it. I didn't do my homework. I knew Tacitus and Josephus existed and wrote about Jesus (I'd never heard about Suetonius). In fact, I've never read any of their works, relying purely on secondary sources talking about them. In fact, ditto goes for Caesar's conquest diaries. It's not important for my argument anyway, because I was specifically talking about primary accounts of history in my comparison. Josephus (37 AD-100 AD) was born about when Jesus was to have died and his account of the life and resurrection of Jesus repeats only what he has heard about Christ from Christians. Tacitus (56 AD - 117 AD) was even later, and only mentions Christ as founder of the Christian sect, put to death by Pilate. Suetonius (~69/75 AD - >130 AD) made an ambiguous statement about a Chrestus (probably not Christ) in Rome around 49 AD. Big whoop. None of these are contemporary accounts that corroborate the existence of Jesus. If I wanted to go into full time bible scholarship I probably should read the real accounts, but I'm an engineer, so screw it. I've got more important things to do.

2) It is true that comparing WW2 to the ressurection is like comparing apples to oranges. That was the point. One is well supported, the other is not. Sorry if I threw you by choosing an event that still has eyewitnesses, or even video footage and photographs. The quote from the Alpha video didn't have that whole "No events that still have witnesses" disclaimer when it made its boast about the evidence for Jesus. Also, C.S. Lewis's arguments are generally unconvincing; a guy doing a PhD in theology dropped by and agreed with me ;-)

Ok, to make it fair, fast forward 100 years so as to take away all eyewitness accounts of WW2. Is there still proof? You betcha. A whole lot. And that's the point: in regards to the quote, all the WW2 evidence does outweigh by far the evidence for Jesus. The balance of evidence for WW2 does not mean that Jesus is false; that's not the point. My argument deals with debunking the dumbass Alpha quote, that Jesus is not as well supported as the Alpha guy says, nothing more.

3) Now, on to the other point regarding the historicity of the NT compared to other historic documents. It's funny he mentions Caesar's Gallic War. I remember the first document my wife received from her Alpha Course: a handout photocopied from the course manual talking about the historicity of Jesus. It included a handy table that I fortuitously recalled seeing (speaking of that, if I were religious, I would use that freak remembrance as evidence for God's work in my life; however, seeing as this special occurence is helping me attack religion, I'll put it down as a fluke). As I said, funny he would mention that if he wasn't just regurgitating his Alpha course. Anyway, here it is, sorry for the formatting:

Work, When Written, Earliest Copies, Time Span (yrs), No of Copies

Herodotus, 488-428 BC, 900 AD, 1300, 8
Thucydides, 460-400 BC, 900 AD, 1300, 8
Tacitus, 100 AD, 1100 AD, 1000, 20
Caesar's Gallic War, 58-50 BC, 900 AD, 950, 9-10
Livy's Roman History, 59 BC - 17AD, 900 AD, 950, 20
New Testament, 40-100AD, 130 AD in part 250 AD full, 300, 5000 Greek 10000 Latin, 9300 other

Now, at first glance, I'll admit I was impressed, but something was wrong with this that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Then it hit me: it doesn't matter how many copies exist, how early the copies were made, etc. All that matters is if we can take the writing inside as accurate. No one is disputing that the New Testament was written (I think those numbers above prove very well that it was) but it was written starting at least 6 years after the events described (according to the above table) by people who weren't firsthand witnesses. Likewise, we don't doubt Herodotus wrote his histories, but that doesn't mean the contents are true. In fact, we now think that a substantial portion of his accounts were credulous BS.

Now it comes to the other unsettling part: the huge number of copies of the NT. As the Alpha book suggests, the other entries are considered history, while the bible has skeptics. Alpha presents the huge number of copies suggesting that, if eight copies is history, we'd be foolish to not consider 24300 copies as even better history. I have another query: why does the bible have so many copies when the real histories have so few? Something is amiss, and it's because the NT is pushing a religious agenda, not content to let the facts speak for themselves. In other words, the NT has so many copies because it is not history.

My troll also makes a few other arguments:

He writes, "Anyhow, if the Christians did do a sharp pen job on the New Testament they sure did a crap job. It makes all the apostles look like morons for half the time." But it's not that surprising. Arthur Conan Doyle made Dr. Watson into a complete dolt half the time as well, and he's supposed to be a doctor, not some illiterate fisherman. Why do it? To make your hero smarter and even more impressive, probably.

He classily finishes off with "You however look like your wife has pissed you off, you started popping the happy pills then started typing out of your arsehole!" Thanks for veiling the vulgarity. Now, normally I do get a teenie bit cheesed at my wife when dragged to a church thing, but I do appreciate that, rightly or wrongly, she is concerned about my welfare and, hell, there was food so I wasn't complaining. I was just getting at the arguments presented. You could deal with my arguments instead of strawmen, if you please. Either that or a little reading comprehension would be appreciated.

Did Jesus exist? And, if so, was he resurrected? I say a definite no on the second, but I really don't know for the first. It wouldn't surprise me either way if he was a real itinerant radical rabbi or if he was fictional character, or even if he was parts of both: a real rabbi with fables superimposed. Kinda like Davy Crockett, without the rabbi part.

Please see this FAQ on the historicity of Jesus from Internet Infidels for more.

Frank Gehry, meet my foot in your nuts

I'm a proud civil engineer. I design buildings for a living, and for me, nothing is more important that producing a safe building in a reasonable time frame for a reasonable chunk o' change. And, as a self-respecting civil engineer, I share a common trait with my colleagues: I think architects suck.

There are many reasons for this. First, the simplist reason is that we are under their command whenever we design a structure. But the problem is that they keep changing their minds so that we'll finish the design for something only to be told of a "small architectural change" that requires us to redesign the whole thing the day before the submission date. And they often want really stupid things for aesthetic purposes, like no columns in a wide atrium, or funny curved things.

Second, is they can just be too functionally useless. I hate Frank Gehry. Why? Because he designed one nice thing (the Guggenheim Museum) but followed up with countless uninspired blobs, which are damn hard to design, by the way. I actually worked on a Gehry-designed building recently, for shame.

Third, and lastly, I hate architects because of this:


Merry Freakin' Christmas!

Alpha Course Christmas Craptacular!

My wife dragged me to a Christmas party thrown by her Alpha Course (for those who don't know, Alpha is a popular introduction to Christianity course that runs for about 4 months - each session includes a meal, a lecture on video, and discussion).

She claimed it was a just a celebratory dinner because it's Christmas and the course had just ended, that families were welcome, and that it was just dinner, no Alpha lesson.

I suspected better: that it was going to be an attempt to advertise the program and try to get family members and friends to join next year. Alarm bells started really ringing when I got there and I overheard someone mention that they had been encouraged to bring as many family and friends as possible. Maybe my wife just didn't put 2 + 2 together there.

It was an ambush...

Dinner was good and the people were friendly, but, after dinner, there were instructions about how to join Alpha next year and they played a half-hour lecture by Nicky Gumbel, the head Alpha Course guy. It was an early video, from 20 years ago, about the meaning of Christmas, ie. Christ. I won't get into details, but there are a few things I would like to address below.

Firstly, I never had any experience with the works of C.S. Lewis before my interactions with Christianity; I just had the impression that he was supposed to be this famous and influential author. In the short amount of study I've partaken, led by sources from both the atheist camp and the theist camp, I can only come to the conclusion that the guy was a freakin' moron of the highest order. In the video, Gumbel paraphrased Lewis, saying, "If Christianity is true, then it is the single most important event in the history of the Earth. If it is untrue, then it is of no importance. There is no inbetween: Christianity can't be of medium importance." This guy must get off on false dichotomies (trichotomies? - see the Liar, Lunatic, or Lord "argument"). What about if it's partially true but overblown/exaggerated, as the Muslims believe? Then it is of medium importance. I think it is untrue, but even so, what about historical and cultural importance?

Second, the next logical step, given the argument of the craptacular C.S. Lewis, is to show that Christianity is indeed true. That is what they attempt to do, though "attempt" should be used loosely. Very loosely. Instead of summarizing evidence, Gumbel goes on to list a dozen or so famous scientists who were Christians, without noting of course that the majority listed were from 16th and 17th century Europe (like Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Boyle, and Newton) while the more recent ones got more and more obscure. This was followed by quoting some guy (who was supposed to be famous but his name didn't ring a bell, so I promptly forgot it - sorry) who said, "there is at least as much convincing evidence for the birth, life, and resurrection of Christ than for any other event in history." Of course, after wasting a good five minutes listing scientists and quoting obscure people, they list not one single piece of evidence.

Ok, let's try this game. I'll look at the life of Christ juxtaposed to a well-regarded historical event, say, World War 2.

Christ:
Birth - No government record of birth. Only two of the Gospels mention where he was born.
Eyewitnesses - Many eyewitnesses are recorded in the Gospels, including those who witnessed miracles: crazy things such as raising dead, magically multiplying food, and Jesus himself getting executed and rising again. However, the Gospels themselves didn't begin to be written down until a generation or two after Jesus. The most prolific spreader of Christianity, Paul, was not even an eyewitness. Essentially, no one wrote of Christ except by reporting what Christians told them. Arguably, that even includes the earliest Christian writers, as the attribution of writings to Peter and John are suspect.
Death - Again, the only documentation comes from Christian sources. The typically very diligent Roman record keepers do not mention the execution of Jesus.

WW2:
Birth - The countries involved formally declared war on each other through legislature, with specific dates for each declaration.
Eyewitnesses - Currently, we have many people alive today who claim to have fought in WW2. These claims are corroborated by the service records kept by their respective governments. These people, and others affected, often kept their own writings during WW2. We have film footage, in colour, that shows the events of WW2 occuring. We have archeological evidence in the form of graves, bombed and bullet-holed buildings, and leftover tanks. During the war, and in the decades afterwards, many books were written by people involved in WW2, as well as scholars and historians studying preexisting documents. These documents and witnesses came from all sides of the conflict, not just the victorious side.
Death - The formal surrender agreements were signed by both sides, and the signing was even broadcast around the world.

Score:
WW2: 1
Christ: 0

It would be nice if eminent Christians weren't retarded. It would help even more if people considering Christianity did not buy into such crappy arguments.

After the video, the group leader had two of the course participants come to the front and give testimonials. They were both relatively young and said roughly the same thing: that they started out doing the course as atheists but had both become Christians. Though, from what they said, they were more atheists out of apathy than serious thought, it does show that these Alpha Courses are effective at evangelizing. And that's not a good thing.

Finally, though he probably can't help it because he does seem happy, in the video, Gumbel has an annoying perpetual smile that shows way too much of his upper teeth. It makes me want to kick him in the nuts just to wipe the grin off his face. It's okay to not be super-happy all the time.

Christmas was better celebrated at another party we went to immediately after the Alpha dinner - where we feasted on greasy pub food, drank ourselves silly, and reveled in the light of novelty glowsticks. And Jesus was only mentioned as a curse word.

Alpha is for Suckers

My wife was talking to me a bit yesterday about the retreat she went to for her Alpha course, and we started discussing the contents of the course itself. I think I blew her mind that I already knew about all sorts of this stuff, like C.S. Lewis's crappy "God, liar, or madman" argument. I pointed out that I read too much, and went to a catholic highschool for 5 years, so I've heard all this stuff before. Anyway, I'm sure she's still trying to convert me. She started telling me about Nicky Gumbel, the lawyer turned vicar who started the modern version of the Alpha course back in England in 1990. She explained how he was as serious an atheist as possible, but had a Christian roommate in university who he liked to debate religion with. According to Gumbel's story that he tells in the Alpha videos, in doing all this research into the claims of the bible to argue with his roommate, the evidence he found convinced him that Christianity was true so he converted, and later became a vicar.

Now, because a) he's an evangelical Christian, b) he's sold over 750000 books, and c) he's a former lawyer, I figured I probably couldn't trust him as far as I could throw him (Looking at the picture of him on the back of one of his books, he looks like a decent-sized guy. I'm average-sized without any fighting training, so I probably couldn't throw him very far.). I challenged my wife with the following question, which she didn't come close to answering:

Given that Alpha is intended as an introduction to Christianity with the desire to convert people, and that Gumbel has alledgedly researched historical data that proved to him that Christianity is true, then why do the topics of discussion in Alpha stick to fluffy topics like "How does God guide us?" and "Why and how should I pray?" and almost entirely avoid issues of proof?

You hear it out of almost every evangelical with something to sell, how you were a militantly atheist sinner who looked at the facts and found Christ. Throw in random comments about how you used atheism as an excuse for all manner of moral depravity, like sex and drugs. I don't know if Gumbel ever claimed wickedness as a result of his atheist, but others like Lee Strobel come to mind.

How many ever really were atheists? How many found a persuasive talking point that they could use to help sell books to the easily impressed?

Songs of Faith = Injustice against Music

For my first post with content, I would like to look at at contemporary Christian music. First off, I'm an athiest. I'm also a classically-trained pianist of moderate ability (I played seriously for 8 years), so I know music pretty well. I know that in the good ol' days of the Baroque period, church music was at the pinnacle of compositional achievement, with Bach, among others, writing powerful, uplifting, and complicated holy music. Personally, I find most Bach to be overly technical, but a lot of people like him. Second, my wife is a happy Christian who loves popular Christian music that she hears in church: she sings it in the shower, buys CDs of the stuff, and feels that it is very uplifting. You know what else it is? It's crap.

I'm not knocking the content (well, I could), rather I'm knocking its musical value. These songs are just plain awful. There is one song she has on our computer that sounds like it was a rejected ensemble song from an awards show, with about a hundred people singing, "Ce-le-brate ... Je-sus ... Ce-lebrate!" over and over again to repetetive and obnoxious John Tesh-style synthesizer music. Speaking of which, John Tesh is one person I'd seriously like to have kicked in the nuts.

The songs at the church we go to aren't much better. Since this church is fairly modern, they invariably play uplifting, peppy music. The styles vary, but what doesn't vary is their lack of musical complexity. Sometimes it's fluffy pop music, sometimes it's the new fashioned "wimp rock" (you know, that style of stuff that airhead teenage girls listen to when they want to rebel against Britney and her ilk, that only has three different guitar chords that are each played repeatedly for two measures, forming no melody whatsofreakinever), or sometimes it's adult contemporary, like Kenny G but with vocals. Regardless, there is no musical soul.

Now, I know there are some excuses, like the music and lyrics need to be easy so people can sing along. And I understand that. But I've noticed that it seems to extend beyond church singalongs as well. I know that this is unscientific, but in my experience, a lot of Christians tend to listen to fluffy crap music outside of church as well. My wife listens to pop and dance music, and prefers Britney (who can't sing) to Christina (who can). My religious friends in high school and university also listened to music of dubious quality, mainly country and pop. My non-religious friends tended to listen to Metallica or the Tragically Hip: music that without a doubt contains more talent and creativity.

Could it be that turning off your skeptical, critical mind when it comes to religion results in turning off those same skills when it comes to music?

I don't know. What I do know is that it still sucks, and I heartily recommend the South Park episode where Cartman forms a successful Christian rock band by taking pop-rock songs about love and replacing the words "baby" and "girl" with "Jesus."

In closing, there is a Christian song where the singer sings the line, "I can sing of your love forever," for the entire second half of the song (about 3 minutes). He doesn't really sing of Jesus's love forever; it only feels that way.