Jesus Christ, Jack

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Michael

In taking his break from getting his cues from FTSOS, Jack Hudson has ventured, once again, into a land he does not understand.

In recent years there has been an increasing antagonism to public displays of religious faith. Whether it concerns the those national symbols which historically refer to our inherited religious beliefs as in the Pledge of Allegiance or the National Anthem, or whether dealing with more explicit religious expressions, as in prayers offered at public events, the opposition to such expressions has grown if not in numbers, certainly in volume.

As every person with any bit of knowledge of history knows, pledge references to God were added in 1954. They have nothing to do with any historical references (not that that would necessarily even matter), but were instead a reflection of a growing paranoia over Communism and a misunderstanding of what atheism actually is. (Pss, it’s about the moral equivalent of not collecting stamps as a hobby – and just as dangerous.) Moving beyond the crackpot claim that one can somehow “inherit” religious beliefs, it’s unclear what sort of antagonism the Star-Spangled Banner has faced in recent times. The last thing I can recall dates a couple of years back when a few people decided to come up with a Spanish rendition, enraging a bunch of Fox Noise employees rednecks.

In the recent past such conflicts usually occurred as the result of what was perceived to be the direct imposition of religious belief on unwilling participants by the state via of the Federal or state government agencies. For this reason the Establishment Clause, that portion of the 1st Amendment which is understood to prevent the government from becoming excessively entangled in religious matters, is understood to be violated when publicly funded educational institutions express in any manner religious sentiments via a state agent like a teacher or curriculum.

Wtf. No. That clause prevents the government from endorsing and/or giving preference to particular religions. Given the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled that atheism is due the same protections (and restrictions) as religion, it is a violation of the First Amendment when any religion is given favor. In other words, not only is the First Amendment not to be construed in the narrow way Jack would prefer, but it has recently been expanded in a definitive direction.

Jack then goes on to cite an instance where a senior citizen center has stopped offering public prayers before meals. The reason has to do with the partial federal funding the center receives for many of the meals it provides. It isn’t at all surprising that a number of people interpret the lack of public prayer as someone telling them to not pray at all. I mean, god damn it. That’s just stupid. No one is saying “SHUT THE FUCK UP! EVERYONE STOP PRAYING!” No. They’re saying, “We aren’t going to lead any prayer as an organization because we may be acting as too much of an extension of the federal government.” It’s unclear just how the legal situation will shake out in this instance, but the position really isn’t unreasonable. But does that stop Jack? Heck no!

…collectively the state acts mindlessly in accordance with the rules and regulations it is given, not in accordance with cultural realities, or traditions, or personal sensitivities. The state is no respecter of individuals, and it’s activities reduce every situation down to the lowest common denominator – in the case of religious liberty, this lowest denominator is always state imposed secularism.

Ah, the ol’ “We’re a Christian nation!” line of thought. It doesn’t matter. The U.S. is set up to be secular and not endorse any religion. It only imposes neutrality (something to which it does not adhere nearly enough). Now, if there was a National Day of Godlessness, it absolutely would be imposing secularism, but the fact that the government says “Pray on your own dime” does not somehow mean “SHUT THE FUCK UP! EVERYONE STOP PRAYING!”

As the state intrudes itself financially into virtually every aspect of our lives – our education, our medical needs, taking care of us in our retirement, etc – it gains the power (or claims to) to dictate to us the manner and degree of expression of our respective faiths. Whether it is limiting personal prayers shared between individuals, or, as in the example above, corporate prayers shared at a meal, the growth of government as our caretaker inevitably entails the imposition of secular restrictions on our lives.

Nope. Dead wrong, you mook. The government will not pay for you to pray. It will not pay to have others encourage you to pray. It is not an extension of your church (I mean, how could it be? It’s actually honest about wanting your money for its own personal use). Oh, and that article Jack cites? It is about a college student and professor who prayed together. Gasp! you proclaim! Why, it must have ended in the limitation of “personal prayers shared between individuals”, you declare! Why else would Jack have cited it?!

In the settlement, announced this week, the four-campus Peralta Community College District recognized the right to “non-disruptively pray on campus.” The district also agreed to remove all records of disciplinary action against the students and pay their attorneys’ fees, said Kevin Snider, a lawyer with the Pacific Justice Institute, which represented the students.

Students still won’t be allowed to lead organized prayers in class, but can pray in other campus locations “to the same extent that they may engage in any other free speech,” Snider said.

“This was a case of voluntary prayer between consenting adults,” the attorney said.

Oh, that’s right. Creationists will always lie for Jesus.

Filed under: Politics and Social, Religions | Tagged: , , , , , , | 74 Comments »

I told you he read FTSOS

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Michael

Jack Hudson is a bit like Ken Ham. Both are Christians. Both are creationists. Both routinely fail to defend positions. Oh. And both refuse to link to those who criticize them.

Anyone who regularly reads Pharyngula knows that Ken Ham and his Creation ‘Museum’ people will not link back to PZ’s articles. It’s a cowardly passive-aggressive sort of thing. They have made a habit of referring to PZ as an “atheist professor”, a “professor from Minnesota”, or some other similar name, but they won’t mention him directly. Now it looks like Jack Hudson has taken out a page from that play book for use on me.

After getting up in a huff over something someone else said to him, he left FTSOS, vowing never to return. Okay. But it has been clear that he still lurks around here. His articles have often been based upon links posted here, and his remarks have often been thinly veiled responses to comments made here (and a couple times even to comments made on Facebook…sort of like how he referenced his Facebook discussions when he texted my cousin).

You know, I can’t deny that I’ve had conversations with friends that have resulted in posts here. It happens from time to time. Of course, if I’ve made specific responses to a person, even if written in a generalized voice, I’ve always sent on a link to the person. It’s just common courtesy. And really, why would I want to hide from what I’ve said? I said it in the first place because I want people to listen.

Jack has had at least three responses to FTSOS. The first was an update to a post of his that was pro-bigotry while vaguely featuring some infantile libertarianism.

An Addendum:

It’s a bit of a myth that this wouldn’t have happened to a heterosexual married couple; in fact, this does happen to elderly married couples.

This was in response to my post about an elderly gay couple that was separated by the state. The two men had about as much legal documentation as they possibly could so as to avoid the hardships of current end-of-life care in the United States which disregards their humanity. But it didn’t matter. They were separated and had their belongings stolen and sold by Sonoma County in California.

Jack thinks that’s the same as another older, heterosexual, married couple who was forced into a nursing home. While that is superficially similar (the gay couple was also forced into a nursing home), the fact is that this all hinges on marriage. Someone blinded by pure bigotry dressed up in lies isn’t likely to see this: the gay couple was separated and not allowed to see each other, despite the lack of any sort of conviction for alleged abuse (which was alleged by known liars), much less the presence of any charges. A married couple would have been given better than that. And, in fact, the married couple in the second story, while in a deplorable situation that was and is an abuse of power by the state, were not separated, the only reason being because they were married. Honestly. One friend (who will be getting this link, incidentally) recently told me that this whole thing is about “the legitimization” of gay relationships, suggesting that there are ways gay couples can get rights “without calling it marriage”. That’s crap and this is just another piece of evidence that separate but equal can never be equal. Oh, and gay relationships already are legitimate, gays already act as the heads of households and families, and no denial of equal rights is going to change that fact.

But that isn’t the only passive-aggressive attack.

To that end I need to make clear a few simple rules I have here – one’s that I have always had, but didn’t feel the need to make public before, but now feel compelled to.

First off I filter foul language – if you can’t say anything without dropping the f-bomb or referring to a body part in the crudest of terms, then it won’t get posted here. It is a pretty simple rule for most to follow, but some can’t seem to help themselves.

This is in response to posts of mine which occasionally have featured th-th-th, gasp!, the F-bomb!

There are three reasons I don’t stop anyone from saying “fuck” all they want on my website. One, I’m not a child. I can deal with it. Two, censorship is mostly crap. Three, it is an immature view of language to think it a good thing to curb any of its use. Words should be elastic, allowed to move and flow with the times, context, and even emotion. Sometimes a good go fuck yourself is the best available terminology; the magic is in its simplicity. I often intentionally use very simple, straight-forward titles for my posts to get my point across. Was anyone confused about what I was saying when I titled a post Andreas Moritz is a stupid, dangerous man? Was anyone befuddled as to where I was going when I said Deepak Chopra is not an intelligent man? I like to think I was pretty clear. And that was the whole point behind those titles. Sometimes simple words are needed when what’s behind the meaning is simple. There is no need to be an obtuse, pompous douche when there is so much more clarity in being short. But then there are times when a pretentious title is needed. For instance, when I wrote about the tenability of unsourced claims as they pertain to objective morality, I wasn’t trying to convey that an easy read was ahead. Philosophical styles differ markedly from most other ways of writing – and not in a way that makes them a breeze to peruse. For anyone who actually gives a rat’s ass about writing, it is abundantly clear that it is a mistake to unnecessarily corner language and only allow what feels good. Language is expression; express it.

Secondly, I don’t post personal attacks or responses to them.

Really?

You know Michael, I almost never feel compelled to deal with anyone physically, but you are very lucky your puny little bank teller body is in Maine, because i would kick your butt from one side of the room to the other if you said that to my face. Of course you wouldn’t because you are a coward.

And along with that readers should know I never call or email strangers or people who I interact with online.

Again, Jack is directly responding to material from FTSOS, but he’s pulling the ol’ Ken Ham. He doesn’t want to link others here and get any exchange moving between users, I suppose. Fortunately, while Jack has a handful of creationist milling about his page, I have a bit of a larger audience. I encourage everyone reading this to venture over to Jack’s site and start leaving comments. Don’t spam the guy’s stuff, but make him actually response to something intelligent. I recommend starting with this incoherent post about atheism, but feel free to tear apart whatever seems appealing. Unlike Jack, I don’t want to pretend I’m your boss.

And finally:

Recently I saw an atheist claim that ‘spiritual beliefs do not equal religious beliefs’. This may be true, but for an atheist to say so is a bit like a vegetarian lecturing on the best way to prepare a steak.

Surprise, I’m that atheist.

This analogy is just so awful. First, an atheist has no religion. That does not mean an atheist has no knowledge of religion or is unable, like Jack, to tell the difference between a real world phenomenon and a nebulous term that always needs to be defined before being used. Second, aren’t theists always claiming that atheism is a religion? In Jack’s bad analogy, atheism is very unlike religion. Isn’t it amazing just how often these people undermine their own silly claims?

So a quick wrap-up (because this post is way longer than I ever intended): Jack is a creationist like Ken Ham who refuses to link back to those who criticize him; he does not understand how to parallel socially important issues because (also like Ken Ham) he is a bigot; and finally, he apparently does not pay close enough attention to FTSOS. Say something stupid loudly enough, like Christopher Maloney or Andreas Moritz, or cross me in a magnificently stupid way like Rawn and Judy Torrington or Lt. J Christopher Read, and I have no issue posting and posting and tearing apart what I see as a wrong on my website (and for all five of those people, publishing and distributing stories all around my hometown, including Maloney’s own neighborhood). I mean, honestly. Have I not been clear? Has there been confusion as to what I am willing to do to get my point across? Do people not realize that to do something for the sake of science does not simply mean to act in a way that shows passion for science because science is good, but it also means to stand up to bad actions, bad behavior, lowly thoughts, and dishonest methods?

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, Creationism, Misc, Religions, Same-sex marriage | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Jack Hudson is a moron, part 2

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Michael

After rambling on with a number of lies and a little incoherency, one might imagine Jack Hudson couldn’t get worse. Don’t worry. There’s always art.

(Not only is Religion not Dangerous) But it appears to have given us art.

Please excuse the randomly capitalized words. Inside the parentheses is the title of the post (despite “only” being written inappropriately).

Jack is attempting to make a correlation and call it a causation here, nothing more. But let’s continue.

But we already knew that didn’t? After all, the vast majority of art, music, writing, and much architecture in human history appear to be motivated by some sort of spiritual beliefs.

Lol? Yes, lol.

1) “Spiritual beliefs” do not equal religious beliefs.
2) That something can be motivated by a type of belief is not evidence that that something originated in a type of belief. In other words, just because there is religious art, music, writing, and architecture does not mean that religion is somehow the creator of these things. Indeed, all of these things are actually what help to create religion. They are means of communication and expression which promote ideas that then morph and evolve into more and more complex things. Jack’s analysis is fairly immature.

The article on Science Daily discusses how the origin of art and religious beliefs are linked though – and how we had to overcome wrongheaded ideas about evolution to realize it.

The article in question actually says nothing about evolution. The original paper (to which Jack does not link), however, mentions ideas about social evolution. It quotes the beliefs surrounding early man – from 1865; it also quotes socially-based racist beliefs surrounding man from the same time. In fact, the paper then goes on to note that many of the beliefs that early man had no religion came largely from political considerations, not any actual evidence. None of the ideas expressed were ever really part of evolutionary theory, and they certainly are not part of it today.

The reality is that humans are spiritual creatures – we are in fact the only organisms which exhibit spirituality. Divest us of this spiritual reality, and we lose all that that it produces, and which makes us unique as humans – art, music, philosophy, systems of morality and law.

Jack has no idea what makes human unique.

1) Evidence exists which shows that Neanderthals also had art. Were they also spiritual? Does that put them on an even playing field with humans?
2) There is no evidence that spirituality – a nebulous term Jack has not bothered to define – gives us art or anything else.
3) No evidence has been offered which actually shows causation. Major fail. Move along.

Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Jack Hudson is a moron, part 1

Posted on April 25, 2010 by Michael

In all likelihood, Jack Hudson still reads this blog. As regular readers will know, he left in a huff when I exposed the ‘anonymous’ phone calls he or one of his friends had been making to a family member of mine. Of course, I went out of my way to point out that the best evidence was track phone numbers which originated from his home state, but he’s likely one of the most deluded, arrogant individuals I’ve encountered so that fell on deaf ears since he didn’t want to hear it. My relative then berated him for the sake of causing anger, pulling out a number of insults which any rational person would have seen as zingers that should have little consequence beyond a small blog in the corner of the Internet. Then after all that, Jack blamed me for what someone else said (sharing 1/4 of my genes with someone makes me guilty, I guess?), defriended me on Facebook a la John Lott style, and stormed off the set.

But he still probably reads this blog.

He has this post about a case of bigotry in Sonoma County in California, likely having taken the news from FTSOS; the main ways of finding the story were via a short post from PZ or by being someone who specifically searches gay and lesbian sites for news. And since most of Jack’s posts relating to PZ only pop up after I post about them, it’s hard to believe he doesn’t still peruse FTSOS. And that’s fine. I glance at some of his posts. I’ve even tried leaving a couple comments, but alas, he has already gone out of his way to block my IP. Some people just can’t take it. (Even those who can beat people up real bad!)

But enough qualification, let’s get to the post in question (which is about two elderly gay men who were forcefully separated by Sonoma County).

So the story came out, was gobbled up (though not digested) – and of course no follow-up will happen, because these folks aren’t interested in facts which might muddle up their epistemic closure on all things homosexual.

Of course there will be follow-up. If the result is in favor of the elderly gay man who is still living (despite having all his property stolen), then that’s good news for gay rights. If the result is against the elderly gay man, it’s an unfortunate blow which serves roughly the same political purpose as the initial story.

At the outset its important to note the events themselves take place in Sonoma County, California. This is important because we aren’t talking about some back-woods, redneck, right-wing enclave that systematically oppresses anyone who isn’t a white heterosexual – this is perhaps one of the most gay-friendly places on earth. It is also one of the most ‘progressive’ parts of the country; so there is little indication that politics ordered the set of events detailed in this story.

Here Jack wants a strawman. No one said there was some deep political current. Those in charge separated the two because the couple could not get married. Nothing beyond that matters.

It also went without note the reasoning the county gave for acting as it did with the two men…In this case of course, the left-wingers weren’t interested in the whole story, because another set of facts might threaten the usefulness of the story they had concocted

(The ellipsis is for some meaningless, irrelevant excerpt from the Bible.)

One of the first sites to break the story actually linked to the .pdf of the lawsuit which included that claim.

No one is saying supposed accounts of abuse are unimportant, but the county did not charge anyone. No convictions were made. The county had no right to dissolve all the legal arrangements the two had set up. They did it with no authority, and in fact, they repeatedly claimed both men were suffering from dementia. Isn’t it just convenient that both men were suffering from severe mental impairment, yet the county was still able to selectively believe certain claims? And how can anyone believe these people? The man who is still living, Clay, is not actually suffering from anything (other than the torment of having not seen the final days of his partner’s life). He is actually free from the abuse he actually suffered at his prison nursing home.

And what is even more ironic is what is really bothersome in this case is the wanton disregard the county showed for property rights. The fact that they felt they could imprison an individual and then confiscate his property to pay for his incarceration, even if they felt it was for his own health, is outrageous – but it is outrageous for conservative reasons, not progressive reasons. In this situation the bureaucrats were acting exactly as progressives want the state to act; to be indifferent to our property, to act in what they deem is our best interest, and to intrude into what should be personal and individual financial issues.

Going off the looney deep-end with a non-sequitur much? If the couple was married, the county would not have been able to steal property. End of story.

Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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 »

Jack, Jack, Jack

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Michael

Editing posts on one’s blog is only funny and/or okay when the person is a spammer. It doesn’t so much work when it’s done to people putting forth real substance.

I actually didn’t say that, and if you are going respond to arguements, perhaps you could respond to arguements made, instead of making arguements up to respond to? Of course, it may be you can’t respond to those actually made, in which case, I understand the temptation.

That should read as follows.

I actually didn’t say that, (sic) and if you are going respond to arguements, (sic) perhaps you could respond to arguements (sic) made, instead of making arguements (sic) up to respond to? (sic) Of course, it may be you can’t respond to those actually made, in which case, (sic) I understand the temptation.

No one minds the occasional typo or spelling error. They happen. I routinely find errors in old posts. (And, in fact, there surely will be one somewhere in this post, no matter how closely I comb over it.) But god damn it. If you’re going to edit someone’s correction, at least also edit what was being corrected in the first place. Language is important.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , , , | 8 Comments »

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