On Job

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Michael

We all know the story of Job. The devil makes a bet with God that Job will lose faith and curse his Lord if he loses all his good fortune. And so God takes the devil up on that bet and Job’s life is soon all fucked to hell. Dear!

So this leaves us with a few options. First, God decided to gamble with the devil. Second, God led the devil to believe there was a chance Job would lose faith. Third, God is an inexplicable dick. What to choose, what to choose.

I don’t like our first option. If we’re going to bother arguing about the characteristics of God, we can’t use difficult- or inconvenient-to-explain scenarios to override the things which are necessary to God’s very existence (omnipotence, moral perfection, etc). Since gambling would be a sin for God to commit, and since God does not sin, there must be some other explanation.

This second option isn’t so bad. In fact, it’s exactly what God did. Since he knows everything, he clearly was not gambling (not to mention the fact that being morally perfect precludes him from gambling anyway, as just discussed). And he did get the devil to believe Job wasn’t going to curse the name of God. But wait. That would make God a liar. We can’t have that.

So we have the third option. This one seems to be the most parsimonious with the evidence, so I’m going to have to lean this way. Once the theologians figure this one out, maybe I’ll change my position. But remind me again…what objective method of inquiry are they using to interpret the actions and words of God? I don’t seem to recall ever hearing about one.

Oh. And there’s also the chance that this is all just a made-up story designed to show people that faith is important even in the face of great pain. A rather bullshit point, yes, but it strikes me as just a tad more plausible than all the others.

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“A judicial slap…”

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Michael

A federal court has found that a cross in San Diego marking a war memorial is unconstitutional.

The three-judge panel concluded in its 47-page opinion that the U.S. “district court erred in declaring the memorial to be primarily nonsectarian and granting summary judgment in favor of the government and the memorial’s supporters.”

A group that filed a brief on behalf of 25 members of Congress supporting the Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial, the American Center for Law and Justice, condemned the appeals court ruling as “a judicial slap in the face to our military veterans.”

And they’re right. This ruling is a total slap in the face of military veterans…

unless they’re Jewish.

or Muslim.

or atheist.

or agnostic.

or Buddhist.

or any non-Christian religion.

or supporters of the First Amendment.

But for everyone else? Total slappage.

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Religion continues to kill Nigerians

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Michael

I’ve long been following the crisis in Nigeria. People have been murdering each other for quite some time there, with part of the basis being fertile farm land, part of it being poverty, part of it being government corruption, but the biggest part being religion. The most recent attacks reflect that.

Nigerian authorities on Friday arrested 92 people allegedly affiliated with a militant Islamist group that the government says is responsible for a string of recent killings in the country’s northeast.

…

Three men were arrested with bombs in their possession in the vicinity of Jos on Christmas Day, authorities said

The Jos region lies on a faith-based fault line between Muslim-dominated northern Nigeria and the mainly Christian south.

At least four people were killed and another 13 wounded Friday in a bomb blast at an army barracks in Abuja [on New Year’s eve], the deputy police commissioner said.

I would prefer not to have the perfect example to illustrate the point that religion causes divide and fosters violence, but it is what it is. Without Christianity and without Islam dividing the city of Jos, Nigerians would either be able to more easily resolve issues over farm land or they wouldn’t have any violence in the first place. (These most recent attacks are driven by extremists, but it remains that many of the other attacks have been over non-religious issues which are heightened and worsened by the presence of religion.)

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Catholic Church: Double Effect is wrong

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Michael

Well, they didn’t really say that. But they effectively stated as much when they stripped an Arizona hospital of its affiliation with the church.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix stripped a major hospital of its affiliation with the church Tuesday because of a surgery that ended a woman’s pregnancy to save her life.

Bishop Thomas Olmsted called the 2009 procedure an abortion and said St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center — recognized internationally for its neurology and neurosurgery practices — violated ethical and religious directives of the national Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In fact, the woman was virtually guaranteed to die if she continued to carry the 11 week old fetus much longer. Now keep that in mind:

Double effect is the ethical principle which says something is ethical so long as it conforms to these four conditions:

1. The nature-of-the-act condition. The action must be either morally good or indifferent.
2. The means-end condition. The bad effect must not be the means by which one achieves the good effect.
3. The right-intention condition. The intention must be the achieving of only the good effect, with the bad effect being only an unintended side effect.
4. The proportionality condition. The good effect must be at least equivalent in importance to the bad effect.

This case in Arizona is textbook. The first condition is satisfied because the act was to save the mother’s life. The second condition is satisfied because the means is the removal of a physical condition, not the explicit murder of another person. The third condition is satisfied because the doctors only want to save the mother’s life, not destroy the fetus. The fourth condition is satisfied because even if the fetus is a human, the mother’s life must be equally considered.

In fact, double effect isn’t really important here because the fetus is not a human being, but I digress.

The church stripped the hospital of its status (and, really, that’s a good thing anyway) because it thinks the woman should have risked certain death (which isn’t really a risk, now is it?). We know the end result would be the death of her and her fetus. How that is considered good is a mystery.

And that raises another point, doesn’t it? What methodology, what guidelines, what anything does the Bible (or any holy book) offer in this situation? One person unfamiliar with basic, classic philosophical examples couldn’t come up with an answer. (In fact, he might say the problem here was just logistics.) It doesn’t look like the Catholic Church has an answer either.

It’s unfortunate that the hospital says it will still follow Catholic Church guidelines (not Biblical guidelines…since they do not exist), but this is an overall good incident. While I hate to see the sort of irrational arguments that say the saving of one life is really just abortion of another, it’s fantastic that the Church has severed its formal ties with an institution committed to actually helping people. I hope that whenever necessary the hospital will not hesitate to continue saving living humans.

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Follow-up: Praying a child to death

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Michael

I wrote last year of a Pennsylvania couple who prayed their child to death. The 2 year old toddler, Kent Schaible, would have survived if his parents weren’t nut jobs motivated by their religion. We can’t bring Kent back, but the more we convict monsters of praying their kids to death, maybe the fewer kids we see needlessly die.

A fundamentalist Christian couple who relied on prayer, not medicine, to cure their dying toddler son was convicted Friday of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment. Herbert and Catherine Schaible of Philadelphia face more than a decade in prison for the January 2009 pneumonia death of 2-year-old Kent.

“We were careful to make sure we didn’t have their religion on trial but were holding them responsible for their conduct,” jury foreman Vince Bertolini, 49, told The Associated Press. “At the least, they were guilty of gross negligence, and (therefore) of involuntary manslaughter.”

The Schaibles, who have six other children, declined to comment as they left the courthouse to await sentencing Feb. 2.

This is great news, but I have very little faith in the system to dole out an appropriate sentence. As we’ve seen in the past, some parents get a slap on the wrist for praying their child to death. I hope to see something more substantial for the Schaibles. After all, the point of the system ought to be to correct the behavior of individuals for the better (as the article said, the Schaibles have 6 other children; any that are very young may be in danger) and to make sure society is safer. If parents think they can get away with praying for their sick children instead of seeking real medical help – 30 states have protections for faith healing – then we’re going to keep seeing awful stories like this because children of religious nut jobs will not be safe.

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You Christians don’t get to do whatever you want

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Michael

Is it really that hard to understand? Is it really that hard to understand that one group does not get to impose its religious beliefs on everyone else? Church and state are separate; freedom of religion also means freedom from religion. I suspect if anti-theist atheists or Muslims or Scientologists started reciting their beliefs through a government entity, you Christians would start to actually understand all this.

The Hawaii state Senate, as Christian-dominated as anywhere in the U.S., is, however, with you in their intentional ignorance.

When Senate President Colleen Hanabusa introduced a reverend to say the invocation, Mitch Kahle stood from his seat in the gallery of the Senate chambers and said, “I object. My name is Mitch Kahle and I object to this prayer on the grounds that it’s a violation of the first amendment of the constitution of the United States. I object.”

Kahle’s protest lasted about seven seconds. Then he stopped talking and sat down. The Senate’s Sergeant at Arms was determined to remove Kahle. When Kahle resisted he was forcefully removed and roughed up. The incident was caught by several video cameras including a camera belonging to Hawaii News Now.

“Then what they did to add insult to injury was, they arrested him for disorderly conduct,” said William Harrison, Kahle’s attorney.

Fortunately, the courts are more and more frequently getting it.

District Court judge Leslie Hayashi needed less than an hour to find Kahle not guilty.

“Number one, there was no disorderly conduct. Number two, he has a first amendment right to speak in a public forum such as he did. And number three, the legislature was violating our U.S. Constitution as well as the Hawaii constitution by having these invocations,” [Kahle’s lawyer] Harrison said.

Fortunately, Kahle and his photographer, Kevin Hughes, are suing.

via Pharyngula

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Re: “The Impoverished Bus Campaign”

Posted on December 5, 2010 by Michael

I’m going to repost a response I added to a Christian blog post I came across from my stats reference page. I’m doing this for three reasons. One, I’m going to forget all about it if I don’t make a post. I would consider it rude to do a drive-by response, as it were. Two, comments are held in moderation over there (In A Spacious Place) so I don’t know if my post will ever see the light of day. Disallowing dissent is a big thing with Christians (look at Ken Ham or any of the other lying Christians who don’t mention by name those they criticize). I’m not saying the person who runs that blog, Christopher Page, is going to deny my post – I’ve never encountered him. I’m just hedging my bets. Third, I want to highlight what a surprising number of people consider to be evidence. Most Christians, at least when it comes to religious matters, are willing to count just about anything as evidence. It’s unfortunate, and it’s one of the reasons we constantly have these struggles with creationists dishonest fundamentalists trying to smuggle creationism intelligent design into schools.

Here is the bulk of the original post. The author is talking about a recent atheist bus campaign.

Apart from wondering who has so much spare time and energy that they choose to spend it on such an enterprise and who has an extra $50,000 lying around to finance the campaign, I would be curious to know what the luminaries behind this campaign understand by their use of the word “Christ.”

I presume they mean to refer to the historical person of Jesus. If this is the case, the real question is who they understand Jesus to have been. If Jesus was, as Christians believe, the embodiment of love, light, hope, goodness, truth, beauty, and light, it is sad to think that there are intelligent people who can find no more evidence for this reality than they do for the existence of Bigfoot.

In the world I inhabit I am surrounded by “Extraordinary Evidence,” of the power of love. Everywhere I look I see abundant evidence of hope, goodness, truth, beauty, and the indestructible power of life. It is a sad impoverished life indeed that is unable to find any evidence of beauty or any reason for hope in the world.

The list of “Extarordinary Evidence” for the Claims of Christ are abundant. I see the presence of Christ in:

At this point Page lists out a number of things he personally sees as positive. A few of them are:

the profound ability of tragically broken human relationships to find reconciliation and healing in spite of desperate hurt and pain

the extraordinary tenacity of human hope in the face of what often seems to be almost insurmountable suffering

the unstinting graciousness, kindness and generosity extended toward others by countless people in so many situations of desperate need

the endless determination of people divided by deep differences to find ways to live together in peace

the persistent determination of people to find ways to fuller, more meaningful, lives

Page finishes with the usual stab at atheists, saying we cannot see all the beauty he sees. He’s trying to argue a polemic. I’m not falling for it.

It is tragic to think atheists might be unable to perceive or to appreciate these wondrous mysteries of life. What could possibly provide more “Extraordinary Evidence” of the reality of the transcendent quality of love than the faces of parents holding their newborn?

What an impoverished existence if none of the realities of life tug at a deeper part of our being and cause our hearts to open to a profound mystery than can ever be contained by our intellectual formulations or our rational analysis. How sad to live in such a truncated universe that the beauty of creation moves nothing deeper in us than a parched acknowledgment that evolution seems to work efficiently.

It is not an absence of “Extraordinary Evidence” for the reality of love and life embodied in Christ that is the problem. The problem lies in the hearts of those who are unable, or unwilling to see.

The fact that Page is being dismissive of “intellectual formulations” and “rational analysis” is a good indication that there really isn’t much, if any, good evidence for Christ.

I responded:

First, who has that much money just hanging around, waiting to be spent on bus ads? Christians, of course! And – fortunately – now some atheist groups. This whole campaign is a response to those awful ads that spam buses and billboards, telling everyone a loving god is going to send them to hell for eternity based upon particular transgressions over a roughly 80 year period.

Second, nothing you listed constitutes a shred of evidence for Jesus, whether as a man or as a divine being. You can’t get away with proclaiming all the things you personally think are good as being evidence for Jesus because you’ve defined Jesus as good and loving and all those other things.

I do rather like the header image on his blog, though.

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Comedian writes to the editor

Posted on December 5, 2010 by Michael

A comedian by the name Roger Leblond has written a letter to the editor of my local paper.

Our nation has become sickly immoral and extremely perverted and Satan has taken a stronghold in our country.

If we were to put God’s moral laws before man’s law we would see where we have gone wrong.

That’s weird. I’m not convinced that we ought to stone rape victims because God interprets silence to be enjoyment. I don’t know. Maybe the early Christian writers (or later editors or later scribes or later politicians or later…who knows, really?) tended to not hear a lot of noise when they had sex.

Under our constitutional right of Freedom of Speech, which I agree with, God’s moral law of adultery is allowed to live. If the moral law of God took precedence over man’s law, pornography, topless bars and the like would not be allowed under Freedom of Speech.

Anything sexual is bad.

We have perverted the word of God so bad that we have taken Christ out of Christmas. We should now proclaim Dec. 25 as Happy Materialism Day. To prove that to be true, look at your major and local newspapers, and see pictures and pictures of people waiting selfishly at stores the day after Thanksgiving. Greed and selfishness are sins of God.

Wait, we’re winning? The materialists are winning? The U.S. is no longer dominated by Christian culture? It’s possible to not be aware of the constant barrage of Christian religion in our society? Oh, and getting gifts for other people is selfish? My whole world view has been turned on its head!

Does anyone know when this guy will be playing any clubs?

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A response to the pope

Posted on December 1, 2010 by Michael

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Catholics create funny sign

Posted on December 1, 2010 by Michael

There is a sign by American Atheists in New Jersey that says, “You KNOW it’s a Myth. This Season, Celebrate REASON!” I personally disapprove of the capricious capitalization, but the message has reportedly been making an impact.

Mr Silverman said despite the fact that the billboard has only been up for a few days, he and his group are calling the campaign a success.

‘We’re getting a lot of response from closeted atheists saying: “Thank you for putting it up.”’

I’m sure it’s also causing a lot of discussion, and that’s always good for a minority position when it is the minority that is directing the initial talk.

But now the Catholics have responded with a sign of their own.

“You know it’s real,” the newer billboard tells drivers passing the corner of Dyer Avenue and West 31st Street in Manhattan. “This season, celebrate Jesus.”

That capitalization in the Catholic sign is better than in the atheist sign (and not as depicted in the news article), but it could be improved.

But I digress.

Look at how the signs match up. The Catholic sign, intentionally placed on the other side of a New Jersey-New York tunnel as the atheist sign is suppose to be a direct response. The atheist sign says (ignoring its particular capitalization), “You know it’s a myth”, with the Catholic sign responding, “You know it’s real.” Okay, fair enough. That’s pretty straight-forward. Not really all that great or especially effective since it doesn’t distract from the atheist message, instead implying that the atheist message is worthy of some sort of attention, but it’s at least not terrible. But then the next line in the atheist sign is, “This season, celebrate reason!” And how do the Catholics respond? This season, celebrate Jesus.” While I appreciate the decision not to use an exclamation point, do they really want to imply there is a contrast between reason and Jesus? I mean, of course they aren’t trying to do that, and of course there really is quite a stark contrast, but anyone comparing the two billboards is forced to conclude that there is a divide between the two – and the Catholics surely do not want that.

But I guess I shouldn’t expect the Catholic church to offer a thoughtful response.

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