Do Iowa State football players need to be converted to the Christian faith?

Athletics are a fine part of the college tradition — students come to our universities, and some of them want to participate in sports, others like to watch, and others like to enjoy a non-academic social event. I think some support for our students’ extracurricular interests is a good idea. What I detest, though, is the overpaid coaches and the tendency to set the small group of college athletes apart as something special, deserving of special consideration. Even at my small university, there is a constellation of special programs to serve the college athletes, and it gets rather annoying that this one group with no unique academic ability is granted privileges other groups do not receive.

UMM isn’t too bad in this regard, but then we’re small and everything is on a tight budget. Larger universities are more prone to excesses and waste and the promotion of a separate tier of students (I attended the University of Washington; the football team members were treated as small gods there). Now look at our neighbor to the south, though: Iowa State University hired a Baptist chaplain to minister to the football team. This was opposed by 130 of the faculty, who signed a petition asking that sectarian counseling not be given this privileged access to students, but the coach seemed to take it for granted that he could add another lackey to his retinue.

Much like we have offered our student-athletes access to drug and alcohol counselors, sports psychologists, nutritionists, hypnotists, physical therapists, learning specialists, chiropractors, physicians, etc., we are now going to also provide access to a spiritual advisor.

Well, the chaplain would fit right in with the hypnotists and chiropractors. But I read that litany and wonder why the football team gets such special treatment over other, apparently less important students.

But that’s a different question. The issue here is whether it is appropriate to bring on a Baptist minister as a full-time chaplain to the team. It looks like there are two tiers of privilege: if you’re on the football team, you are a big man on campus, but if you’re a Protestant ball player, you are exalted beyond that. It’s also not exactly clear what this person would do: pray for victory? Lead the team in prayers? Reassure everyone that god really loved Iowa State? It’s a pretty damned useless sinecure.

Except we know one thing this chaplain would do: as a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, his job was to “use the powerful medium of athletics to impact the world for Jesus Christ”. He was a professional proselytizer brought on to evangelize a narrow faith to the football team. The coach basically hired a local shaman to convert a subset of ISU students to his faith.

This chaplain has revealed all in a talk to the FCA titled “Overcoming Adversity”. What adversity, you might ask? His. The entire half hour talk is about he was so oppressed because so many people, including that wicked atheist Hector Avalos, opposed granting him this ride on the gravy train.

FCA Chaplains 2010 – Kevin Lykins Session #4 from Name Brand TV on Vimeo.

Notice that one of his mechanisms to “overcome adversity” was to simply lie about his motivations and purpose in the job.

Kevin Lykins is no longer employed at ISU, but he set a precedent and there is now an empty slot for a chaplain to the football team, and there is push to fill it with yet another useless bozo. I hope ISU alumni will write in and protest — this is an entirely inappropriate attempt to couple an extracurricular activity to sectarian religious belief.

Oh, look. One of the local radio stations has a poll on the issue.

Are You in Favor of College Football Teams Having a Life Skills Assistant/Chaplain?

Yes
60.53 %
No
39.47 %

The video has been abruptly yanked — I wonder why? — but it has been captured and if you really, really want to watch it, you can download it here. I don’t recommend it. It’s incredibly boring, consisting of nothing but self-righteous evangelical babble, but if you really want to see what kind of tedious tool Kevin Lykins is, you can.

Isn’t this just the cutest thing you ever did see?

It’s a page from an old Irish Catholic schoolbook.

i-b52b735a6cb522bba9cb971b9538af30-hierarchy.jpg

I like how not only do they clearly indicate the hierarchy of God’s love, but they force the child to be complicit in assigning that love by circling the right picture — that’s excellent indoctrination technique right there. It’s a bonus that they don’t even bother to show the baptized baby; its worth comes from the priest’s hand.

I know most religious people aren’t terrorists are raving homophobes or fundagelical zealots…it’s the little conceits and assumptions like this that make me despise religion the most.

I’m sure it will be popular with Christians

Oh, jesus…Chris Stedman is coming out with a book titled Faitheist, all about “How One Atheist Learned to Overcome the Religious-Secular Divide, and Why Atheists and the Religious Must Work Together”, which leaves me with a strange gagging sensation in the back of my throat. My response is that people must work together on shared goals, but that faith and reason will always be deep and bitter enemies…and unlike Stedman, I am not confused about what side I’m on. I can share secular aspirations with religious people, but the moment they use me to rationalize or endorse faith-based folly, I’m out of there, and you should be too.

Ophelia Benson has the best send-up of Stedman ever, and you should read that…but I also have to point out this perfect comment from jejaime, which predicts Stedman’s next book:

LEFT-TEA-IST: How one Leftist learned to overcome the Leftist-Tea Party divide, and why Leftists and the Tea Party must work together.

I also wonder if Stedman will acknowledge where his title came from, or is that too much reaching out to the wrong side, or maybe it detracts from stealing credit for a clever title?

Not the puppy dog!

Religion really does make people crazy. Here’s a story about a dog who walked into a Jewish court.

The dog entered the Jerusalem financial court several weeks ago and would not leave, reports Israeli website Ynet.

It reminded a judge of a curse passed on a now deceased secular lawyer about 20 years ago, when judges bid his spirit to enter the body of a dog.

So, obviously, this stray mutt must contain the displaced, reincarnated soul of a dead lawyer. At least, that’s what somebody steeped in magical thinking would assume.

If you have an animal possessed by the soul of a lawyer (what? Satan was busy?), what’s the next step? Obviously, you have to kill the dog, and since you’re a traditionalist, stoning is the method of choice. Again, if you’re full of theological wackiness.

Then, because you are incompetent at managing reality rather than your fantasy life, the dog escapes (Hooray! There’s one heartwarming moment in this story, at least). What to do next? Tell all the children to hunt down the dog and kill it.

Way to pass on humane values to your kids, rabbis!

How convenient

Gary Bradley, a professor at the Seventh Day Adventist college La Sierra University, has been under fire because he teaches evolutionary biology competently — he doesn’t accept the young earth creationism that SDA dogma demands. The battle is over, though, and he and several others have been asked to resign for great crimes.

According to the Spectrum article, Darnell met up afterward with Beach, Bradley, and Kaatz at a private home, where they watched a National Basketball Association playoff game and discussed the meeting. The recorder kept running, unbeknownst to the four men. It captured “foul language, references to alcohol consumption and unflattering comments being made about board members, administrators, and church leaders,” according to the article. Darnell then sent the recording to a number of key members of the Adventist community, including The Spectrum, reportedly without knowing that it contained more than just the audio of the meeting. Eventually, the recording made its way to Ricardo Graham, chair of the board of trustees.

I think they’re all better off getting out of that crazy place. The absurdity of being pressured to teach lies in the classroom ought to have been reason enough to leave, but that they have employers who want to control what they do after hours in their own homes ought to convince anyone that it’s time to leave.

Who says we don’t need bible scholars?

John Loftus criticizes the Courtier’s Reply. How dare he? I thought it was Holy Atheist Writ by now.

But the Courtier’s Reply as an answer for theology needs to be discussed critically. First off, I do not expect anyone to understand any particular theology in order to reject it. We all do this easily. I doubt very much anyone understands all of the religions they reject. I don’t. No one does. We reject them all for the same reasons, because they have not met their own burden of proof. So I agree very much that neither PZ Myers nor Richard Dawkins needs to fully understand the various forms of Christianity in order to reject them all. They can certainly use the Courtier’s Reply, and for them it’s legitimate, as it is for me when rejecting Hinduism, which I know little about. Christians do not fully understand the other Christianities they reject, so why should anyone expect this from skeptics?

But here’s the problem. PZ Meyers and Richard Dawkins, and others, have the clout to recommend those of us who do understand the various Christianities that exist who know how to debunk them on their own terms. But perhaps, and I’m only suggesting perhaps, they are so committed to the Courtier’s Reply when it comes to their own lack of understanding of Christian theology that they don’t realize this will not do if they want to change the religious landscape. If they do, then may I humbly suggest they recommend the work of Biblical scholars like Robert Price, Hector Avalos, Bart Ehrman and others like them, as well as philosophers like John Shook, John Beversluis, Richard Carrier, Keith Parsons, Matt McCormick and others like them. But they can’t do it, because they are committed to the Courtier’s Reply, and that’s a shame. I can embrace the Courtier’s Reply when it comes to religions I reject. But given the power and influence of Christianity in particular, they need to recommend and embrace those of us who know it and argue against it. The Courtier’s Reply may some day be the blanket response to religion. It isn’t yet. Until then let them recommend those of us who do understand the dominant religion of our land, both philosophers and biblical scholars. It takes all of us together with all of our talents, all of our knowledge, and all of our abilities.

No, no, no. Loftus is making the same misinterpretation I’ve heard from creationists and theologians: that the Courtier’s Reply is a call for ignorance and an excuse for not trying to understand religion. It’s not. Rather, it’s an amusing way to tell someone that they haven’t established their premises (the existence of deities), and that all their phantasmagorical elaborations on their fantasies are irrelevant. Cut to the core issue; if you haven’t shown that Jesus even existed, it’s silly to be arguing about the color of his socks.

I have no disagreement with the approach of the scholars listed above; in fact, I’m a big fan, particularly of Carrier and Avalos. They’re taking a different angle: even if we set aside the fundamental fallacy of the premise, we can assay the ramshackle rationalizations and irrational excuses and shoddy scholarship and show that the whole construction is bogus from root to crown.

For me, the Courtier’s Reply is sufficient because I’m not wedded to any particular doctrine; it’s enough for me to see that the core is rotten and hollow. But I entirely agree that for most religious people, the existence of a god isn’t even an issue — it’s assumed and taken for granted. What most people have locked into their brains is a pattern of ritual and dogma and pseudohistory so intricate that it obscures the central assumption, and to chip through that we need Biblical scholars who grapple with the details.

We just don’t need Bible scholars who layer on more crud.

Ireland: victim no more

It’s as if the media is finally getting it right and timing the news to match the World Atheist Convention in Dublin with stories that show why we must oppose religion. The New York Times tells the story of the Magdalene laundries, in which 30,000 women were used as slave labor (and victims of abuse) to profit the Catholic church. Representatives of the victims are going before the UN to request justice, or at least some sort of rebuke of the church. Somehow, I doubt that they’ll get it — there are a lot of factions squabbling in the UN, and many of them defend religion and care little for women. But we’ll see.

Also, a documentary has been broadcast in Ireland (but it’s also available on the web) describing the horrific abuse of African children by Irish Catholic missionaries. One of the perks of being a missionary in Africa was that one could pick up a young boy or girl for cheap — promise them a path out of grinding poverty, and an education, for instance — and have a live-in sexual servant for the duration of their stay. Don’t watch it if you’re sensitive to personal stories of abuse: they interview many of the victims, who are broken and ashamed and overwhelmed by the betrayals of the church.

Another curious aspect of the story is the dates. The recent Catholic-commissioned John Jay report on Catholic sexual abuses pinned the blame on the hippies and the attitudes towards casual sex of the 60s and 70s (which makes no sense: pedophilia and child rape are not about love). They claim that there was a peak of such abberant behavior that coincided with that period, and that it has declined since. But this report discusses vileness that was being perpetrated in the 80s and 90s.

It sounds to me like the decline wasn’t real. It was just the Catholic church becoming aware of a major PR disaster, and shipping their child-rapin’ priests off to places like Africa and India, or to the Inuit of Canada, where they could destroy the lives of people who didn’t matter…that is, people who didn’t have access to lawyers and the media.

The power of faith

It’s amazing what religion can do. In this case, it motivated some dim old fart who ought to have been loafing about watching Glenn Beck and drowning his anger with a six-pack of Bud to go out and try to murder gynecologists. He didn’t actually succeed, fortunately: he was playing with his gun in his cheap room at the Motel 6 when it went off and sent a bullet flying into the room next door…so bad-ass that he is, he called up the front desk to mention that he was worried he might have hit someone else.

Then the police came and found out what he was really up to. He didn’t want to accidentally shoot someone, but he definitely intended to march into Planned Parenthood and murder as many people as he could.

Ralph Lang, 63, told a Madison police officer at the Motel 6, 1754 Thierer Road, that he had a gun “to lay out abortionists because they are killing babies,” according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court.

Lang said he planned on shooting the clinic’s doctor “right in the head,” according to the complaint. Asked if he planned to shoot just the doctor or nurses, too, Lang replied he wished he “could line them up all in a row, get a machine gun, and mow them all down,” the complaint said.

And he’s proudly confessing all this to the police! These religious excuses do attract the dumb ones, that’s for sure. And yes, he had a vague plan to go on a nationwide shooting spree, and he was driven by his religion.

Sgt. Bernie Gonzalez looked around Lang’s motel room and saw a box that contained several documents, including a map of the U.S. with dots in each state and the handwritten words “some abortion centers.”

Also written on the map was “Blessed Virgin Mary says Hell awaits any woman having an abortion.”

I think someone needs to lock up Ol’ Grandpa Gunman in a nice institution somewhere with a chapel and an absence of firearms and a multituded of locks on the doors, for the safety of society.