Hate organization reaffirms hatred

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Michael

A spokesman for Focus on the Family recently said the organization would not oppose an openly gay nominee to the Supreme Court.

“We agree with Senator Sessions,” Bruce Hausknecht, a spokesperson for Focus on the Family, which was founded by top religious right figure James Dobson, told me a few minutes ago. “The issue is not their sexual orientation. It’s whether they are a good judge or not.”

Their sexual orientation “should never come up,” he continued. “It’s not even pertinent to the equation.”

Surprise! Shock! Awe!

Wait.

“It has been reported that we would not oppose any U.S. Supreme Court nominee over their ’sexual orientation.’ Our Judicial Analyst [Bruce Hausknecht] made a statement to this effect in an interview with The Plum Line. To be honest, this is one of those conversations we’d like to ‘do over.’ We can assure you that we recognize that homosexual behavior is a sin and does not reflect God’s created intent and desire for humanity. Further, we at Focus do affirm that character and moral rectitude should be key considerations in appointing members of the judiciary, especially in the case of the highest court in the land. Sexual behavior–be it heterosexual or homosexual–certainly lies at the heart of personal morality.”

And people whine about the application of the term “bigotry” to scumsacs like this?

Filed under: Politics and Social, Religions | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

National Day of Prayer struck down

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Michael

The National Day of Prayer is a purely religious statute endorsed by the government. It is unconstitutional – and obviously so.

“[I]ts sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function,” a Wisconsin judge wrote in the ruling, referring to the 1952 law that created the National Day of Prayer.

“In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience,” wrote the judge, Barbara B. Crabb.

This is an obviously reasonable ruling. Unlike Christmas, there is no secular function or secular need for such a day. Of course, not everyone is so clear-headed.

Conservative religious groups called on the White House to appeal the decision.

“The National Day of Prayer provides an opportunity for all Americans to pray voluntarily according to their own faith and does not promote any particular religion or form of religious observance,” said Joel Oster, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.

This makes no sense. It’s the same nonsensical crap religidiots are always peddling. “It’s freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion!” All these Joel Osters of the world are doing is demonstrating their poor grasp on prepositions and how they pertain to the First Amendment.

The promotion of any religion is a violation of the First Amendment, even if that promotion includes all religions – the constitution does not somehow exclude atheists, agnostics, and other non-believers (or even those whose religions exclude prayer).

This really shouldn’t be that hard to grasp.

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If you desire it, truth will come

Posted on April 12, 2010 by Michael

When in discussions and/or debates with the religious, I cringe before I bring up the point that, yes, of course atheism does lack a certain sort of comfort. Afterall, do people really have no fear of death? But this does not mean that fear ought to motivate one to believe in any sort of god or afterlife. An emotion, no matter how strong, does not make something true. And, frankly, it’s bizarre that anyone would ever try to make that sort of argument. But alas, I’ve encountered it a number of times.

The reason, however, I cringe is that as soon as a lack of a certain comfort is admitted*, the theist jumps up and proclaims, “Aha! So you do desire a god/an afterlife!” But this isn’t so. I certainly do not desire to live with the redneck described in the Bible. But what’s really perplexing is how illogical the theist’s whole point is. You desire X, thus X is true. Or sometimes with some condescension, You desire X, so maybe you ought to reflect on that a little more. The assumptions there are that 1) I haven’t reflected on these sort of issues and 2) all it takes is reflection on a desire to come to believe in a god. The first assumption is obviously wrong and the second shows the theist’s ignorance: I want evidence, not a belief motivated by fear.

Honestly. The logical argument is that people have fear and seek to soothe that feeling; religion makes sense in light of this fact (though it needs far more than that to explain it). The theist, however, then tries to turn logic on its head and say that fear is somehow a sensation put in place by some religion’s god and that’s why we feel it. Such shenanigans completely circumvent the whole giving-evidence-for-one’s-beliefs thing – it is such a nuisance for believers, afterall.

The whole crazy argument is a Field of Dreams sort of fantasy: If you desire it, truth will come.

*I keep saying “a certain comfort” because there is a greater comfort in believing what is true and in enjoying life for the sake of life.

Filed under: Religions | Tagged: , , , , | 3 Comments »

When being ‘morally upright’ goes a bit too far

Posted on April 7, 2010 by Michael

Edit: What specifically spurred this post was when Jack deleted a post from his own site. The post, made by me, referenced harassing text messages, but would have been entirely incoherent to anyone who had not sent such texts. That is, I made a comment on Jack’s blog where I responded to the specific subject of a post. However, within that comment, I made reference to the immorality of sending harassing text messages. I did not specify that it was Jack who had sent anything, nor did I reference my cousin. Jack immediately deleted the post. For further evidence, see here where Jack has deleted all my posts from the record. Specifically, Jack says to have deleted the entire post for language. However, he contradicts himself by admitting that when he comes across “foul” language, he only edits posts. That, in fact, is a policy of his. He had never deleted an entire post for containing curse words before that point; only when the post also contained a reference only he would understand if he had sent out texts did he start with the deletions.

Jack Hudson is a creationist and frequent poster here. He’s actually even on my ‘friends’ list on Facebook (my requirements for ‘friendship’ basically being ‘any interaction on any level at some point in time’). Given that he has the conservative, creationist, Christian version of SIWOTI (unlike my version which is centered around things that are true), it’s understandable that he’s going to post from time to time on my links, status updates, etc. In fact, I frequently find my notifications up around the 40-50 mark each day, largely thanks to Jack and those who respond to him. And that’s all fine and dandy; it keeps me entertained.

But sometimes people will react with hostility. It isn’t unique to Facebook or people I know, of course, but it does happen on my profile. One person who did this was a cousin of mine whose hostility was given in a relatively unique way: rather than lash out or rant, he just went for the jugular. Even though the topic was health care or some such thing, he started making abortion jokes. They shouldn’t really bother any rational person who has ever worked with any cells of any kind since there’s no ‘spiritual’ difference between, say, E. coli, and a human embryo (with “spiritual” being meant largely in the Carl Sagan sense, i.e., ‘important philosophical difference’). But the entire point of using those jokes was to bother someone – a conservative Christian. My cousin didn’t want to engage the particular views being offered since there wasn’t much point in arguing, so he just sought to anger. And believe me, the plan worked.

But it worked too well. Instead of the issue ending on Facebook, it spread further; my cousin has his personal phone number listed on his page, which itself is not private. Over Easter dinner he told me of recent messages he had been getting from several different phone numbers. They read something like “How can you make jokes about abortion like that?”. At no point did the person identify himself, but the blatant references to what happened on my private Facebook profile makes it all too obvious.

Now to be sure, my cousin actually has no idea I’m typing this. And, in fact, he expressed no particular concern over the issue. It’s sort of funny, sort of pathetic, and if I actually thought Jack was dangerous and not just taking his notion of morality a bit too far, I might be more concerned myself. (In fact, I haven’t even defriended him.)

Instead, what does concern me is how this relates to what I’m always writing on FTSOS – religion and how it motivates. For those with children, imagine little Johnny sending hostile texts to a random person on the Internet. How would you react? Would it ever be okay for that to continue? I can vouch for the general sanity of my doctorate-pursing cousin, as it happens, but how much is that even worth on the Internet? Johnny would be told never do that again – right after he was grounded and had his phone and Internet taken away. And it wouldn’t be Johnny’s motivations that were of concern. No. It would be his actions. No matter how good he thought his reason, his actions were the problem. But that all changes when the autonomy of an adult (even if it isn’t the one I suspect) motivated by religion enters the picture. The whole What Would Jesus Do? jazz is what has caused my cousin to receive texts (from several different phones, no less) berating him for his jokes; that seems to have somehow made things okay. No longer are over-the-line-actions what matter; instead, (and because an adult is involved) it is the motivation that is important – because it’s religion.

Filed under: Religions | Tagged: , , , , | 47 Comments »

Jesus cheated

Posted on April 4, 2010 by Michael

Another problem: Jesus cheats. We’re supposed to believe that he’s saving us from an imaginary ancestral sin, and that he’s doing so by dying…but he doesn’t! He comes back three days (OK, actually a day and a half) later, perfectly healthy except for a few holes which don’t seem to perturb him much, and he gets to magically zoom up into the sky and live forever in his dad’s palace. This is no sacrifice at all.

Now, if our hypothetical soldier who threw himself on a grenade turned out to survive the experience hale and healthy because, for instance, the bomb was dud, he’d still be a hero — he didn’t know it would fizzle, and the intent was there. This doesn’t help Jesus, though. He’s omnipotent and omniscient and knew his own nature, and knew that you don’t kill a god by hanging him from a tree and poking him with sticks. Jesus faked his heroism. He’s no hero at all.

Via PZ

Filed under: Religions | Tagged: , , | 13 Comments »

Belgium to ban burqa

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Michael

A bill is making its way through the hoops in Belgium that would ban the covering of one’s face with clothing in public, effectively banning some of Islam’s most prolific tools of oppression.

The draft law would make it illegal to wear clothing that covers all or part of the face, which would also include the facial veil known as the niqab. Defying the rule could lead to nominal fines of $20 to $35 or possible imprisonment for up to seven days. Proponents say they’re targeting the burqa not because of its religious symbolism or even because it is widely seen in the West as a sign of male oppression, but rather for safety reasons: they say that people who hide their faces represent a security risk. In that light, the law also seeks to target potentially violent demonstrators who cover their faces, backers say.

I don’t believe that for a second. Everyone knows the purpose of the burqa is to oppress women – and reasonable people reject its use on that basis.

This reminds me of blue laws. In their original form, these laws are meant to enforce what the religious think people should be doing. That is, they are immoral impositions of morality. In the U.S., they are usually unconstitutional since they endorse a religion, but court rulings have tended to cite the modern secular reasons the laws are maintained. (Incidentally, the secularization of Christmas is why it legally remains a federal holiday.) Recently in Maine, there was an attempt to allow car dealerships to be open on Sundays, something they currently cannot do. There was a backlash from that industry that pointed to higher costs and effectively forced openings on Sunday due to higher competition. It’s that sort of reasoning that makes what were once blue laws into just regular, secular laws.

Belgian lawmakers are utilizing this sort of reasoning in their rationale for banning the burqa. They’re claiming security since the religious basis has less clout. The difference, however, between what happened with Maine car dealerships and what is happening in Belgium is that the dealership owners really did have secular reasoning; it wasn’t just a thinly veiled lie.

Of course, not everyone is lying.

But the bill’s chief sponsor, Daniel Bacquelaine of the liberal Reformist Movement party, admits that cultural considerations have also come into play. “In an open society, we need common values and we need equal rights and duties,” he says. Bacquelaine estimates the burqa is worn by only a few hundred of Belgium’s 630,000-strong Muslim population, but the numbers have been rising in the past decade. “It has become a political weapon,” he says. “There is nothing in Islam or the Koran about the burqa. It has become an instrument of intimidation, and is a sign of submission of women. And a civilized society cannot accept the imprisonment of women.”

Filed under: News, Religions | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

No one has the right not to be offended

Posted on April 2, 2010 by Michael

Phillip Pullman has a book titled The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. Below is a video where a member of an audience points out that Christians may find that offensive.

Via Jerry Coyne.

Filed under: Religions | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

The religion prize

Posted on March 29, 2010 by Michael

PZ Myers complained last week over the London Times calling the Templeton Prize a prize for “scientific thought”.

Say what? There’s no amount of science you can do that will win you a Templeton prize. It’s a prize for religious apologetics, nothing more.

That’s pretty accurate, so maybe this Yahoo! article can do some soothing…

A one-time priest who later became an evolutionary geneticist and molecular biologist and helped scientifically refute creationism with his research was honored Thursday with one of the world’s top religion prizes.

Of course, it would be better if all that money was just given out as research grants.

Filed under: Religions | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Well done, Greece

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Michael

Greece has made a step in the right direction.

The Greek government has announced it will start taxing churches as part of its efforts to get out of its financial crisis. A new draft bill to be tabled in parliament next week imposes a 20 per cent tax on the Orthodox church’s real estate income, reportedly worth over 10 million Euros (US $14.8 million) a year, the Wall Street Journal reports.

In Euros, Greek debt is 216 billion, so it’s no secret that this new tax is going to generate very little. But it’s still good because there’s no reason churches should be tax exempt in the first place. There is nothing special about religion which warrants it special economic considerations or status.

Now if only we can do the same for religious institutions in America – especially when they violated the conditions set out for them under current law.

Filed under: News, Religions | Tagged: , , , | 8 Comments »

Hilarious attack on Dawkins

Posted on March 18, 2010 by Michael

This article by Melanie Phillips about the recent atheist convention in Australia is hilarious not because she has a stinging wit or sharp tongue, but rather because it’s just…just so silly.

LIKE revivalists from an alternative universe, 2500 hardcore believers in the absence of religion packed into the Global Atheists Convention in Melbourne last weekend to give a hero’s welcome to the high priest of belief in unbelief, Richard Dawkins.

This reminds me of when Christopher Maloney went about spamming the Internet, calling PZ Myers a “Reverend” (complete with quotation marks for some reason). The difference here is that Phillips is aware of the irony of her term “high priest” (Maloney didn’t seem to know who PZ was at all). But with the normal flea-ish weakness of the rest of her post, she may actually think she’s made some grand point.

This was even after (or perhaps because) he referred to the Pope as a Nazi, which managed to combine defamation of the pontiff with implicit Holocaust denial.

Dawkins called Pope Pious XII, not the current pope, a Nazi. (Although he could have said the same of the current pope – it would be disingenuous, but accurate. At any rate, he said it of a past pope – and the lack of action on the part of the Catholic Church in WW2 should not be ignored.)

For someone who has made a career out of telling everyone how much more tolerant the world would be if only religion were obliterated from the human psyche, Dawkins manages to appear remarkably intolerant towards anyone who disagrees with him.

It’s sad that so many people seem unable to tell the difference between non-acceptance and intolerance. How is Dawkins suppressing others views? How is he making it harder to practice religion (other than through argumentation)? What restrictions is he placing upon anyone’s beliefs?

While he was writing about the “selfish gene” and the “blind watchmaker”, he received a respectful reception even from those who might have disagreed with him but were nevertheless impressed by the imaginative brio and dazzling fluency of his argument. But then he left biology behind and became the self-appointed universal crusader against God.

So Dawkins stopped writing about science and biology in 1986? He hasn’t written multiple other books, made several science DVDs, been on who knows how many panels, explained the basis of biology countless times, or recently written a book on the evidence for evolution? Is the 2006 publication of The God Delusion retroactive? I’m not sure why Phillips would want to say wrong things.

He became the apostle of scientism, the ideology that says everything in the universe has a materialist explanation and must answer to the rules of empirical scientific evidence

The former is called naturalism, the latter a strawman.

As for Dawkins’s claim that religion is responsible for the ills of the world, this is demonstrably a wild distortion. Some of the worst horrors in human history – the French revolutionary terror, Nazism, communism – have been atheist creeds.

First, the possessive apostrophe needs not that extra “s”. Second, what part of atheism leads to such varied histories? Why is atheism the same as capitalism and socialism? I don’t understand this argument.

And although terrible things indeed have been done in the name of religion, the fact remains that Christianity and the Hebrew Bible form the foundation stone of Western civilisation and its great cause of human equality and freedom.

Except for all those nasty misogynistic bits. Oh, and all the parts about slavery and other minor jazz like that.

Just why is he so angry and why does he hate religion so much? After all, as many religious scientists can attest, science and religion are – contrary to his claim – not incompatible at all.

Oh. People can think things are compatible? It must be true.

A clue lies in his insistence that a principal reason for believing that there could be no intelligence behind the origin of life is that the alternative – God – is unthinkable.

That piece of crap Expelled movie ends with an interview where Dawkins bends over backwards to say, yes, aliens could have done it. And he goes to length in numerous other places to spell out that some divine creator could be at work. But to go further with these possibilities, he asks for evidence. He’s a real stickler about that stuff.

And so the great paradox is that the arch-hater of religious intolerance himself behaves with the zeal of a religious fundamentalist and, despite excoriating religion for stifling debate, does this in spades.

…what? Dawkins does not argue that religion stifles debate. The debate is about religion. It might stifle scientific discussion because it is an antithetical distraction, but where are all these arguments Phillips keeps attributing to Dawkins?

I don’t understand why someone would want to lie like this. Why isn’t Phillips honest? Why does she make things up? Is she doing it for fun? Does she hate honesty? Does she think of herself as clever? Why would she think that? Is she on some sort of medication? I don’t understand how people come to think the sort of string of words people like Phillips put together is worthwhile.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, Religions | Tagged: , , , , , , | 52 Comments »

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