Was Mandela an atheist? The answer is no, and it doesn’t matter.

Here’s the summary from Jacques Rousseau.

We do now know that Mandela was a member of the Communist Party, and some might therefore think it follows that he was an atheist. On the other hand, we do know that he was baptised as a Methodist, and we have Wikipedia quoting an interview with Mcebisi Skwatsha, in which Mandela apparently confirmed that he was a Methodist. In Mandela’s book Conversations with Myself, he says ”I never abandoned my Christian beliefs”, and a comment on Pharyngula points to a CNN story, where it’s described how Mandela would regularly receive blessings from Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris.

Mandela also spoke at churches on a semi-regular basis, and in short, clearly seemed to have no antipathy to religion. Instead, his attitude to religion seems to have been exactly the right one for the leader of a nation to have – to hold it as a personal issue, and to devote himself to allowing others to exercise their religions, or lacks of religion, in the manner they see fit. In other words, regardless of what his personal beliefs were, he seems to have been fully committed to secularism in government.

He was a secularist. That ought to be good enough.

David Silverman did kick butt

Ophelia has the video of Bill Donohue, David Silverman, and Schmuley Boteach on Fox News — and she’s right, the two flanking nutcases were embarrassing, while Silverman was the voice of reason. The two theistic cranks kept whining about Satanists! Ruining Christmas! while Silverman just pointed out that yes, you don’t get to decide which religion gets to be the right one in a pluralistic country, and that means you have to give satanists the same accommodations you do Christians. But Satanists! How can you support Satan?

I found out what that was about. Oklahoma has a Ten Commandments monument on their statehouse steps…so a Satanist Temple has asked for parity. Seems fair to me. Cue predictable dismissals:

Rep. Bobby Cleveland, who plans to introduce a one such bill next year, said many Christians feel they are under attack as a result of political correctness. He dismissed the notion of Satanists erecting a monument at the Capitol.

"I think these Satanists are a different group," Cleveland, R-Slaughterville, said. "You put them under the nut category."

Brady Henderson, legal director for ACLU Oklahoma, said if state officials allow one type of religious expression, they must allow alternative forms of expression, although he said a better solution might be to allow none at all on state property.

But I think Baptists belong in the “nut category”! Can we have the Christian monument taken down? Although I think Henderson is actually the voice of reason here.

Also, the Hindus want to put a monument to Hanuman there, too. Are they in the “nut category”? How do you decide which religion is nutty?

I would also point out to Donohue and Boteach that there has been a long history of discrimination against both Catholics and Jews in the US — they won’t disagree, I’m sure both are far more aware of that history than I am — so it’s a bit weird for them to be participating in a discussion that attempts to label one religion as fringe and undeserving of recognition, support, or even respect. I guess empathy is not one of those “Judeo-Christian” virtues.

I’m a bit uncomfortable with this

Gregory Paul says that Nelson Mandela was an atheist. I’ve looked around a bit, and I can’t find any confirmation of that — I wouldn’t be surprised, but at best I find that he was a committed secularist who avoided coming out clearly about religion. Can anyone confirm? I don’t like it when dead people are immediately brought into the fold of a religion when they can’t deny it, so I’m not keen on atheists doing likewise.

Back in the last decade there was a cable talk show titled Faith Under Fire. Hosted by a right wing Christian, it featured theists and atheists in direct conflict over assorted matters. In one segment a theist challenged a leader of an atheist organization to name a single atheist who had become a great moral leader. To my annoyance the had-not-thought-about-that-one-before atheist was stumped. 

A leading example, of course, is Andrei Sakharov. The wholly ungodly leftist physicist started out as the father of the Soviet H-bomb, but became so fed up with dictatorial communism – Khrushchev’s insistence on detonating a colossal 50 megaton thermonuclear device for no practical reason being a factor – that he became the leading dissident against the system, fighting for progressive democracy at considerable expense to himself.

And the other great moral atheist leader of the 20th century was Nelson Mandela. He too was an nontheist of the left (as most are, in the US 3/4s of the nonreligious are progressives, the rest Randian libertarians.)

Now that last bit is interesting. If you’ve been wondering how big the atheist rift is, and are a little tired of vague claims that those jerks are a minority, it at least pins a specific number on them: 25%. Which isn’t small.

The claim is a little overstated, though. They aren’t necessarily Randian libertarians. The basis of that 25% comes from the Pew poll of the “nones”, which found that about a quarter of them were politically conservative.

nones-vote

I looked through the whole thing; no sign that they actually assessed the details of political alignment closely enough to recognize libertarians. But yeah, 25% does sound like a reasonable estimate of the fraction of jerks infesting the atheist movement.

Grrr. Stedman.

Bill O’Reilly, as he always does this time of year, was ramping up this War on Christmas nonsense again. He’s peeved at the new billboard display from American Atheists in Times Square.

American Atheists launched a major billboard display on Tuesday that declares Christmas is better without the Christ. The huge 40′x40′ digital billboard is located in Times Square in Midtown Manhattan. Using motion graphics, the billboard proclaims, “Who needs Christ during Christmas?” A hand crosses out the word “Christ” and the word “NOBODY” appears. The display then says “Celebrate the true meaning of Xmas” and offers a series of cheery words: family, friends, charity, food, snow, and more. The commercial ends with a jovial “Happy Holidays!” from American Atheists and displays the organization’s website, atheists.org.“This season is a great time of year for a hundred reasons—none of them having to do with religion,” said American Atheists President David Silverman. “This year, start a new tradition: Don’t go to church. You hate it, it’s boring; you probably only go because you feel guilty or obligated. Instead, spend more time with your family and friends—or volunteer. There are better uses of your time and money.”

Ed Brayton jokes that O’Reilly should have invited him on to talk about it — he would have engaged in some merciless needling that would have annoyed the old windbag. It would have been nice, but no, no way was that going to happen; it would have been even better if David Silverman had been invited on…not only more appropriate, but Silverman is good at standing his ground and punching back. But no. O’Reilly brought on…

Chris Stedman.

He was awful. Well, from my perspective he was awful — O’Reilly seemed to think he was just wonderful, since Stedman was largely agreeing with him. O’Reilly showed part of the billboard, the bit where is it says “Who needs Christ during Christmas? Nobody,” and then cut away to O’Reilly asking Stedman what he thought about it. He replied that they were “not contributing to the destigmatization of atheists,” and later he said that he completely agreed, and he wanted “to see more of yes of atheism than the no of atheism.”

I can guess exactly how Silverman would have responded: by pointing out that the primary message of the billboard was the importance of this season as a family holiday, which certainly is the “yes of atheism”. Stedman either didn’t do his homework or was more interested in ingratiating himself with a far right blustering jerk, and decided instead to see if the snow tires on the bus could bounce over a few atheists.

O’Reilly was pulling his usual schtick, claiming that atheists are bitter, that they sue schools if they have the temerity to let a kid sing a Christmas carol, and whining that Macy’s department store brought in a Santa Claus and didn’t announce that it was Christmas. Why can’t those atheists just leave Christmas alone, he begged.

Most of these claims of atheists hating Christmas are lies, and the criticisms groups like the FFRF levy against schools and other state institutions aren’t that kids shouldn’t be allowed to pray or sing hymns if they want, but that these schools cannot selectively privilege only the Christian religion. Stedman was totally ineffective.

Further, when O’Reilly says “What I’m seeing here is an amazing amount of anger from atheists” and “I don’t really know what they are angry about”, when the angry ranter here is O’Reilly and the atheists aren’t expressing any anger at all, Stedman feebly goes along with it and agrees with the stupid host. I guess he’s hoping for a repeat invitation.

If Stedman and the Harvard Humanists want to put up a friendly, cheerful, unchallenging milquetoast sign, they are welcome to do so, and I won’t have a problem with it. I do have a big problem when a representative of the Harvard Humanists goes on the air to deny the righteous, forthright words of a less weasely organization, and when they are so ineffectual that they can’t even raise a word of rebuttal against the BS Bill O’Reilly lays on so thickly — familiar, tired BS that anyone going on the show ought to be prepared to slap down. It’s not as if he ambushed Stedman with a weird new claim.

Stedman is too feeble, and maybe Ed Brayton would be a touch too acerbic. If they can’t get Silverman to go on, may I recommend Rob Boston, instead? He wouldn’t let the bogosity fly by with a smile and a laugh. Anyone but Stedman.

I think I want these kids to handle O’Reilly.

Secular Humanists want to abort the Christ child so they can snort drugs and have gay sex on its corpse!

I think we’re all tired of the War on Christmas. The atheists have won; it’s officially a secular, federal holiday, the capitalists promote it as a consumerist orgy of mass consumption, most people see it as a nice time of year to get together with friends and family, and this Jesus guy, as always, is superfluous. But like the Japanese soldiers occasionally found holed up on remote Pacific islands, there’s Bill O’Reilly, dug in and flailing. Apparently, we have some grand plan to destroy Christmas so we can win entitlements and get gay married and have lots of abortions.

Give it up, O’Reilly. You’re just sounding increasingly deranged. War’s over.

I quite like this sentiment:

If-someone-wishes-you

But of course, Bill O’Reilly would see that as oppressive and atheistic, because it doesn’t elevate his “Judeo-Christian” values to an exalted position.

Just to spite O’Reilly, this year I’m going to have two Christmases, one with the youngest daughter and middle son in Boulder, and another with the oldest son in St Cloud. Nyah.

The dumbifying of Christianity

Jonny Scaramanga has posted a sampling of quiz questions from Accelerated Christian Education. Take a look, and ask yourself, “Am I smarter than a fundamentalist Christian taught from a home-school curriculum developed by fanatics in Texas?”

You will be reassured by the fact that yes, you are. Much smarter. Although after reading the questions, you might be a little less smart than you were five minutes before.

You’ll need all your smarts when you face the truly terrifying question: who thinks the ACE curriculum is an acceptable educational standard for the 21st century?

In the United Kingdom, UK NARIC has deemed qualifications based on ACE to be comparable to A-level. Ofsted routinely whitewashes ACE schools in reports, and ACE nurseries teaching creationism receive government funding.

In New Zealand, ACE qualifications are accepted for university entrance.

In the USA, ACE’s Lighthouse Christian Academy is accredited by MSA-CESS. The curriculum is used in givernment-funded creationist voucher programs in eleven states.

In South Africa, based on HESA’s recommendation, a number of universities have signed up to accept ACE graduates.

ACE says its curriculum is used in 192 countries and 6000 schools worldwide. This is happening nearer than you think.

They want to dumbify everybody.

Another attempt to rationalize religion by equating it with philosophy

Salon has published another of those articles — you know, the ones where some clueless ignoramus presents his biased interpretation of what atheism means and then proceeds to flog the New Atheists for their imagined sins. This time, it’s Sean McElwee bashing away at What Hitchens got wrong: Abolishing religion won’t fix anything. And here’s his premise:

The fundamental error in the “New Atheist” dogma is one of logic. The basic premise is something like this:

1. The cause of all human suffering is irrationality

2. Religion is irrational

3. Religion is the cause of all human suffering

The “New Atheist” argument gives religion far, far too much credit for its ability to mold institutions and shape politics, committing the classic logical error of post hoc ergo propter hoc  — mistaking a cause for its effect.

Tellingly, he can’t quote any prominent New Atheist say any such thing — or for that matter, any atheist at all — but he does quote a reporter from the Independent, Bernard Lewis, and Terry Eagleton on the wickedness of Hitchens, and of course Hitchens himself was rather bellicose and I concede that he might have promoted some hyperbole…but I don’t know of any specific quotes, and certainly no one I know follows that illogical chain of reasoning above.

I’d also agree that abolishing religion (wait, does any reasonable atheist propose abolishing religion?) would not fix everything, but educating people away from irrationality would certainly fix some things. We have a more moderate vision of the affliction that is religion than McElwee credits us with, but at least we can still recognize some legitimate distinctions, unlike him.

The impulse to destroy religion will ultimately fail. Religion is little different from Continental philosophy or literature (which may explain the hatred of Lacan and Derrida among Analytic philosophers). It is an attempt to explain the deprivations of being human and what it means to live a good life. Banish Christ and Muhammad and you may end up with religions surrounding the works of Zizek and Sloterdijk (there is already a Journal of Zizek Studies, maybe soon a seminary?). Humans will always try to find meaning and purpose in their lives, and science will never be able to tell them what it is. This, ultimately is the meaning of religion, and “secular religions” like philosophy and literature are little different in this sense than theology. Certainly German philosophy was distorted by madmen just as Christianity has been in the past, but atheists fool themselves if they try to differentiate the two.

So religion is just like philosophy and literature, and philosophy and literature are just instances of this peculiarly vague monstrous amalgam McElwee wants to call “religion”? Do science, philosophy, and literature have at their heart an unevidenced concept that defies everything we know of reality, an elaborate and ultimately nonsensical premise around which theologians build intricate fantasies that contradict one another and all human experience?

The man libels philosophy and literature, and puffs up myths and lies with a credibility they do not deserve. For shame.

Where’s IACUC when you need them?

Gwen Pearson makes a really good point about the Ark Park: there has been virtually no thought put into animal care, and it’s an abuse scene waiting to happen.

I’ve helped manage and care for a wide assortment of wild and domestic animals, big and small, over the course of my career. There is a HUGE amount of paperwork, documentation, and inspections involved in having captive animals. It is, frankly, a gigantic pain in the ass, and the animals are healthier and receive better care because of all the annoying, complex rules. That’s why the Ark project set off all sorts of alarm bells in my head.

Keeping animals in captivity is really, really difficult. By gathering animals together in an artificial environment you concentrate all the poop and pee, and just make it easier for diseases to rapidly spread. (Got a kid in daycare? You know exactly what I’m talking about.)

As caretakers we have an ethical duty to provide captive animals with the food and environment they need to stay healthy. Doing that takes specialized knowledge. If you have raptors or game birds, they can get bumblefoot just from the wrong kind of perches. Feeding an imbalanced diet, or just not noticing a raptor is off its food, can tip a bird into a metabolic crash. Ducks can get a fatal type of herpes.

And they’re doing everything backwards! They originally planned to stock their fake ark with a menagerie, and are now backing off and plan to use some live animals and a mix of animatronic and stuffed animals now, but this is exactly the reverse of what you do in setting up a facility that will contain live animals:

Those were some early ideas about how we’re going to lay things out, and we are going to fine tune those as we get the final plans back from the architects. The architects are planning the building, lighting, air conditioning, ventilation. Once that is done, then our display design team will take those plans… we have 132 bays that we’ll have available for exhibits.

Wait…they’re planning the ventilation first, and then they’ll think about how to shove animals into their 132 bays? How many ways can that go wrong?

I guess it’s only to be expected from idiots so remote from biology that they’ll design a zoo based on a few paragraphs of mythology in a religious text.

For those of you not imbedded in the academic bureaucracy, “IACUC” is “Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee”, an organization that oversees appropriate and ethical care of laboratory animals.

How many has Oprah killed?

Read this excellent long form expose of James Arthur Ray, the New Age guru who had been promoted by Oprah and who then ended up scamming swarms of people and killing a few of them in a ridiculous sweat lodge ceremony.

Or watch the video.

Or do both!

Daytime talk shows do a really good job of pandering to gullible people and elevating con artists like Ray as “spiritual leaders”. Oprah has been pushing phonies and frauds for years, poisoning the citizenry with nonsense…and getting obscenely rich in the process.