The Founding Fathers

These men operated on principles. When John Adams asked Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence, he was seeking a document that declared the rights of the colonists as Englishmen. That isn’t to say that Adams wanted anything to do with the British. He just had a narrow view of what was necessary to declare independence. He wanted Jefferson to make the point that they were all Englishmen and should thus be treated justly – and soon separately.

But Jefferson would have no part of such a view. He instead wrote a document declaring not just the rights of Englishmen, but of all men. Adams was surprised by this – and much delighted.

Being against individual rights, therefore, would run counter to what these men believed. This is especially true if we were to transport them into modern times with modern context. For example, many of them held slaves (though with better treatment than the average slave – not that they were justified with owning people in the first place, obviously). We cannot go from that point and say that the founding fathers would therefore hate the freedoms that are enjoyed by all races. Take them outside their time with a modern point of view built upon their principles and you inevitably end up with anti-slavery views.

The same would apply to homosexuality, I think. These men were deists, so they were untainted by religious bigotry. In fact, the original starting line to the Declaration of Independence was one that was anti-Christian. And since there is no good secular reasoning as to why we should not allow same-sex marriage, I think these men would be forced by their principles to favor it.

But even should I be wrong about that, it is certain that they would hate the purely religiously based arguments against same-sex marriage. Adams often sneered at the idea of Christianity itself. Jefferson coined the phrase ‘separation of church and state’. All these men greatly opposed having any religion make a marked influence on the role of government. Given that marriage licenses are a purely governmental (and secular) affair, there is no way they could have stood for all this anti-same-sex marriage malarkey.

More dumb newspaper

I recently wrote about the stink of dumb coming from my local newspaper. The new, conservative editor, after months of talking about health care and days of mentioning an upcoming speech by Obama, placed what was clearly the lead story (said speech) on the third page. The front page amounted to an advertisement for same-sex marriage bigots opponents. The editor has followed up with more inanity.

Law’s opponents gather in Augusta for strategy session

Christ. This was a closed-door, routine political campaign type meeting. It was not front page news. The editor – Richard L. Connor – is just a bigot pushing an agenda. That’s pretty much the norm for conservatives. But I have no problem with him voicing his silly little ill-begotten opinion in his unfortunately dwindling newspaper. As long as he does it in the editorial section. That’s where it belongs. He put his Christian-based bigotry on the front page at the expense of an actual news story. That makes him an awful editor with little to no common sense.

Ya know, this guy has a history of this sort of rubbish. When he first bought the paper, he made himself front page news to introduce himself. Okay, fair enough. But then a couple days later he did the exact same thing, except he took up something crazy like 46 inches to do it. I don’t think people subscribe to their local newspaper because they want to read about some egotistical conservative who has enough money to get his view out in the forefront.

On the upside, a reader wrote a letter making the same complaint I did.

The Sept. 10 edition of the Kennebec Journal devoted 30 column inches to the “anti-gay vow rally” planned for the following Sunday, featuring a banner headline on page one. President Barack Obama’s address on health-insurance legislation to a joint session of Congress rated 20 column inches on page 3.

Is something wrong with this picture?

A cynic might guess that the new owner of the KJ favors repeal of the law allowing gay couples to marry, and doesn’t support the president’s push to find a way to end our tragic health-care mess.

That viewpoint should appear on the editorial page, not in lopsided coverage on the news pages.

Jon Lund

Hallowell

Thought of the day

Steven Anderson, the mainstream, and closets

Steven Anderson is a complete and utter nut job. He also holds beliefs which are largely in line with mainstream Christianity (especially the Christianity prevalent in Maine): he hates da gays, Obama, and common sense. He’s most recently known for praying that Obama would die of brain cancer. This isn’t much different from Limbaugh hoping for Obama’s failure. They both want disaster for the country if it proves their ideology. The only distinction to be made is that Anderson wants Obama to die naturally sooner than Limbaugh. They still both think the president will be judged by some tiny-minded, local god and sent to hell for not loving giant corporations and the wealthy.

In the above link is a list of 10 Anderson quotes. This one especially stood out to me.

“Because of years and years of looking at and touching scores of women inappropriately, the male gynecologist no doubt has a seared conscience and a perverted mind… Any doctor that looks upon and touches a woman’s private parts in his office “hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Sir, if you let your wife go to a male gynecologist, you need to get right with God.”

This pretty solidly represents the sexually immature views wrought by Christianity. From Ashcroft wanting to cover the breast of Lady Justice to morons pushing for abstinence-only sex education, Christians have a twisted view of sexuality. Their religion really harms their perspective. It’s unfortunate so many of them can never be healthy adults in regards to sex.

But the silliness of Christians doesn’t end with sexuality.

“If music without drums, syncopation, or a rock beat is acceptable music, then “Yesterday” by the Beatles would be suitable for a Christian. This song has no drums, syncopation, or rock n roll beat – so what’s wrong with it? It doesn’t talk about drugs, illicit behavior, or violence – so what’s wrong with it? What’s wrong with it is the source. It was written by God-hating communist devils. Rock n roll music was pioneered by ungodly sinners like Little Richard, a sodomite filthy animal, and Ray Charles, a heroin addict. The source of rock n roll music is ungodly.”

This is basically a version of the abusive ad hominen attack. It is not valid. Ignoring the inaccurate attacks on The Beatles, music is wide open for interpretation by the listener. What’s more, individual songs reflect different ideas. It is plain stupid to dismiss an entire group’s work on the basis of what some of their art says – or what they say outside their art.

And of course, Christians’ opinions on other media is horribly skewed.

“God, please just help it to be real to us. Help us to realize that David Letterman and Jay Leno just aren’t that funny. The sitcoms and the TV shows and the movies just aren’t that cool. The rock music just isn’t that great anymore when we realize that there is a far greater purpose for our lives; to win souls to Jesus Christ.”

Okay, I have to give Anderson a little leeway. Letterman and Leno aren’t that funny. But I have no idea why he’s so deluded as to think that there’s hardly anything redeemable about television or even movies. Oh, hang on. It’s the Jesus thing again. That ugly little cretin that lacks in any real beauty at all.

Anderson does finally say something that sounds sensible. Unfortunately, he would never know where the sense was.

“And this is what thought entered mind. I thought to myself… I looked over at the closet and I thought to myself, “What if I were locked in that closet for 100 years, nothing to do, nothing to see, the closet is dark.” … And then I thought, “What if you never get out of that closet.” That would be awful, wouldn’t it, just locked in a closet forever and you knew you were never going to get out.”

Yes, wouldn’t be awful if a person was locked in a closet, all alone, even alienated. And wouldn’t it be worse if a bunch of immoral bigots forced a group of people in their own, little closets.

Thought of the day

Abusive ad hominen attacks are not valid means of argumentation, no matter how often conservatives and Christians wish to implement them.

Attending an anti-porn event

Jen over at Blag Hag recently attended an anti-porn event held by some Christian groups. Her post is fairly long, but it’s well worth reading. Here’s one of the parts that I’m really glad she said.

And with the people who did have bad experiences with porn, those were all caused BECAUSE OF THEIR RELIGION. People feel guilty/scared and hide porn from loved ones, and it ruins their marriage because of bad communication. People feel guilty for being sexual beings or need to turn to porn for their sexual curiosity. You know where this guilt comes from? RELIGION. If conservative Christians didn’t beat over your head that sex was so evil to begin with, people wouldn’t be having these problems. We’d have comprehensive sex education and open dialog about human sexuality so little kids wouldn’t have to turn to the internet for information. We wouldn’t feel guilty for engaging in normal sexual activity. We’d be able to talk about sex with our loved ones before marrying them and finding out they have incompatible viewpoints.

The Christian view on sexuality has long been one of immaturity. It’s all shame, guilt, and denial. Hell, I’m surprised snake oil salesman Andreas Moritz isn’t out and about claiming that Christianity causes cancer. Actually, scratch that. It’d be hard for him to sucker people make money in his line of work if he attacked a religion in that way, so I guess I’m not surprised at all.

Op-Ed on Joe Wilson

Maureen Dowd has an op-ed in The New York Times. It’s about that whiny little brat who cannot apparently read or understand any legislation relating to the health care bill, Joe Wilson. You know the guy, he yelled “You lie!” when Obama said illegal immigrants wouldn’t be covered by any reformed health care. Yeah, he’s a full-fledged moron. But his problems with intelligence may run deeper than that.

Now [Obama’s] at the center of a period of racial turbulence sparked by his ascension. Even if he and the coterie of white male advisers around him don’t choose to openly acknowledge it, this president is the ultimate civil rights figure — a black man whose legitimacy is constantly challenged by a loco fringe.

I have to disagree with one point: the majority of the racist, bigoted, poorly educated Republican party which cannot accept being led by a black man isn’t exactly the “fringe”.

Thought of the day

What happens when the same number of people pray for something as pray against it? How does God decide whose prayer to answer? Does the total number of people praying for or against something matter? How about the righteousness of the supplicants? Are positive prayers answered more frequently than negative ones? Does God take the positive ones and Satan the negative? Does the intensity of the praying have any effect on the outcome? Does the length of time one devotes to praying have any effect on the frequency with which one’s prayers are answered? Do the words and phrases used in the prayer — either positive or negative — have any bearing on the success rate? Does the nature of the thing or things prayed for have any bearing on the prayer’s success rate — either positive or negative prayers? Why or why not??

~Robert A. Baker

Unfortunately for the bankrupt ‘field’ of theology, there is no way to internally resolve these issues. Of course, science could go ahead and make various measurements – afterall, the claim being made by most people who believe in prayer is that prayer has an affect on the real world. That places it firmly in the purview of scientific study. And indeed, science has studied prayer, so it can actually provide more answers to these questions than religions can. And the answer? Prayer produces no effect on the real world. Some studies show statistically insignificant positive results, other show the opposite, and many show that prayer is no more effective than pure chance.

Dumb newspaper

In recent months there has been a ruckus around town about the local paper, the Kennebec Journal. Some conservative guy bought it and has been printing the sort of editorials you might expect. Okay, whatever. I willingly listen to Howie Carr. I don’t mind hearing a conservative voice. Hell, they usually make for some good laughs. I guess dumbness can do that.

But there’s a different problem with this paper now. It isn’t that this guy has dumb views and prints dumb editorials. It’s that he is organizing the paper in a downright stupid way.

Obama made his speech to congress on health care on Wednesday night. This was no surprise. It had been mentioned countless times in the preceding days. Everyone was focused on it. It only makes sense that any good newspaper would have made it front page news. But the Kennebec Journal? Nah. It got pushed back to the third page or so. And what was on the front, you ask?

ANTI-GAY VOW RALLY SUNDAY

This was put out with what amounted to an advertisement for the event – ticket information, time, who to contact for more information. Other front page news had to do with an advisory concerning a virus (not swine flu) and an article about state revenue. These may be worthy of the front page, but the rally is not huge news. It’s a local political campaign. Obama’s speech has to do with issues that concern the nation. What’s more, this paper has had several stories discussing Republican ‘concern’ over the bill as well as various editorials. Clearly, the Kennebec Journal has an extensive interest in the topic, just like most people. Hell, just this week they had an article saying Obama needed to clarify his positions. Yet they go and pull this crap.

I don’t mind the conservative editorials, poorly reasoned as they may be. But I really rather not see straight-up stupid decisions about what constitutes a lead story.

Thank you, Hubble

So it hasn’t escaped my notice that my hit count has been treading absurdly high in the past couple of days. And it equally hasn’t been missed that most of the views are devoted to my Hubble contest post. Well, it turns out I’m a bit late, but the reason is that NASA has released new images since Hubble’s last repair.

“Hubble is back in action. Together, NASA and Hubble are opening new vistas on the universe,” astronomer and frequent Hubble user Heidi Hammel said.

With the obligatory quote out of the way, let’s get to what everyone wants: the photos.

NGC 6302, Butterfly Nebula

NGC 6302, Butterfly Nebula

 Hickson Compact Group 92, Stephan’s Quintet

Hickson Compact Group 92, Stephan’s Quintet

Abell 37

Abell 37

NGC 6217

NGC 6217