Islamic apologetics in the International Journal of Cardiology

I’ve run into this particular phenomenon many times: the True Believer in some musty ancient mythology tells me that his superstition is true, because it accurately described some relatively modern discovery in science long before secular scientists worked it out. It’s always some appallingly stupid interpretation of a vaguely useless piece of text that wouldn’t have made any sense until it was retrofitted to modern science. My particular field of developmental biology has been particularly afflicted with this nonsense, thanks to one man, Dr. Keith L. Moore, of the University of Toronto. He’s the author or co-author on several widely used textbooks in anatomy and embryology — and they are good and useful books! — but he’s also an idiot. He has published ridiculous claims that the Qur’an contains inexplicably detailed descriptions of the stages of human development, implying some sort of divine source of information.

I’ve mentioned this before. For instance, the old book claims that at one point the embryo looks like a piece of chewed gum, or mudghah, and Moore announces, “by golly, it does, sorta”, throwing away all the knowledge we have about the structure and appearance of the actual embryo, which is not a chewed lump. I’ve actually seen these kooks show pictures of a piece of gum and an embryo and declare that they are similar. It’s insane. It’s pareidolia run amuck and swamping out actual scientific information for the sake of propping up useless superstitions.

Here’s Moore himself, endorsing the divinity of Allah on the basis of mudghah.

You may not have heard of him before, but I regularly get email from Muslims telling me that as a developmental biologist, I ought to follow Islam because of its insights into embryology, which don’t exist. Thanks, Dr Moore, you dumbass.

Well, now the Muslim cranks have another coup, having persuaded some other dumbasses to publish an appallingly bad paper in the International Journal of Cardiology, a credible peer-reviewed journal. Or, at least, formerly credible.

The paper is disgracefully bad. It’s basically a compendium of an assortment of references to anatomy and health from the Qur’an, endorsing them as accurate sources of information. For instance, the Qur’an prescribes three techniques for healing, “honey, cupping, and cauterization,” and gosh, we now know that “Honey contains the therapeutic contents sugars, vitamins, anti-microbials, among other things”!

Are you impressed yet?

Since this is a cardiology journal, the article also finds it necessary to waste the readers’ time with blather about blood and arteries. Here’s an example of the Prophet’s profound knowledge of the circulatory system.

Another great vessel mentioned in the Qur’an is the Al-Aatín or aorta “We would certainly have seized his right hand and cut off his Al-Watín,” [20]. Al-Watín has been translated into different, yet similar words, including “aorta”, “life-artery”, and simply “artery”. This verse is taken to mean that if the Prophet Mohammed was lying about the teachings of God, then God would have grabbed the Prophet Mohammad’s arm and cut a vital artery, certainly killing Mohammad. This verse confirms that 1. Blood was indeed viewed as a vehicle for life and 2. The artery directly leading from the heart is vital to survival. By analyzing the different translations and exegesis of Al-Watín, it can be safely assumed that it is the aorta that the author of the Qur’an is referring to in this verse.

Hmmm. So a warlike society that had many soldiers running about chopping into people with swords was aware that cutting major arteries would lead to rapid blood loss and death. I have no idea how they could have figured that out without an omniscient god whispering the explanation into the ears of priests.

The holy book also talks about heart disease, something else a readership of cardiologists would find interesting. Does this sound like well-informed medicine to you?

The Qur’an shares with the Hadeeth a metaphorical description of the heart as a possessor of emotional faculties, thus giving the heart many characteristics that modern science attributes to the brain. As is popularly stated in Islamic culture, every action is dependent upon intentions, and “…what counts is [to God] the intention of your hearts…”. These actions, whether “good” or “bad” determine the health of the heart, namely if it is a sound or diseased heart. A diseased heart is one filled with qualities such as doubt, hypocrisy, and ignorance among many others. Possessors of such qualities have a “hardened,” diseased heart. Other malaise qualities contributing to a diseased heart includes blasphemy, rejection of truth, deviation, sin, corruption, aggressiveness, negligence, fear, anger, and jealousy, among others.

The authors of the Qur’an and of this paper seem to have confused poetic metaphor with science.

Yeah, the article also repeats Moore’s nonsense about embryology. There’s much, much more: read the original paper for yourself, or this excellent critique that also points out all the conveniently omitted parts where the Qur’an gets everything completely wrong.

How did this crap manage to get published? Once again, we have a disgraceful failure of peer-review to weed out obvious religious propaganda, allowing an Islamic tract to appear under the guise of a scientific article. Just the fact that the references consist almost entirely of citations to pages of the Qur’an ought to have triggered some concern. I’d like to know what went wrong in the reviewing process that allowed garbage like this to make it onto the pages of the International Journal of Cardiology. Write to the editor and demand an accounting; also make them squirm in embarrassment and appreciate the damage that has been done to their credibility.

And remember: ancient holy books are sources of lies and misinformation, not science.

Loukas M, et al, The heart and cardiovascular system in the Qur’an and Hadeeth, Int J Cardiol (2009), doi:10.1016/j. ijcard.2009.05.011

How to deal with the crazies

You all know them: those awful loud little men who travel from campus to campus to preach apocalyptic hateful nonsense on the sidewalks, who rant and howl and condemn everyone who passes by as a sinner, damned to hell, and reserving a special hatred for women and gays. One of the virtues of being on a small campus in a remote rural part of my state is that we don’t get many of those jerkwads here, but they infest the main campus and any other college that is more conveniently located.

What do we do about them? Tarring and feathering is illegal, and you can’t just silence them because you don’t like what they say. I think James Dimock at Minnesota State University Mankato takes exactly the right approach.

“The answer to speech you don’t like isn’t to suppress it. The remedy is to speak back,” said James P. Dimock, associate professor of communication studies at Mankato State. “That is what those kids did and why I am proud of them. They could have gone to the university administration and fought to keep this guy off campus — a fight they would probably have lost. But instead they answered speech with speech. I support what they did 100 percent and I think that they should be a model for how people should respond to these preachers everywhere.”

What he did was encourage students to politely protest the noise of a gay-hating preacher going by the name of John the Baptist by taking him up on his invitation to attend his church services. They did. They sat in the front row, quietly, with signs showing gay people who had committed suicide, thanks to homophobic bullying. They didn’t interfere with his preaching at all, but no one could look at him in the pulpit without also seeing the victims of his hatred. It’s perfect. It’s the kind of peaceful protest that makes people think.

Of course preacher John Chisham doesn’t see it that way. He’s angry about it all, and is whining that the university is promoting anti-Christian attitudes (anyone want to bet against the idea that many of the students who were protesting were also Christian?)

But Chisham said that was unfair. “If a professor said ‘Why don’t you come and attend my class?’ I would take that to mean I’m going to go into the class and sit, and listen respectfully, and I would expect the same kind of decorum.” (Both Chisham and those who protested agree that while the students held signs in front of the room, making it impossible for the congregation members to see their pastor without seeing images of gay youth who have killed themselves, the protest was a silent one — and did not stop the prayers or any other part of the service.)

Chisham said he has filed a complaint with the university, asking it to impose sanctions on Dimock, the professor who advised the students and who attended the service with them. But Chisham said he does not believe Dimock is being punished. “I think there should be sanctions,” he said, “unless Mankato State doesn’t mind being associated with someone disrupting a service of worship.”

Oh, the hypocrisy, it burns.

They did not disrupt the service. They silently highlighted his message. They also listened to every word he said, they did not shout him down at all. When creationists come to Morris, I’ll often encourage my students to attend and listen, too, and I’ll tell them to be polite and non-disruptive (although I’ll also assure them that good, calm questions are also a good idea). The creationists don’t particularly like this, because it means some of their audience are there to think and criticize rather than affirm and gullibly swallow whatever they say, but there’s not much they can do to stop us without looking blatantly hypocritical.

There’s also the fact that Preacher John sees no problem in proclaiming his message, but is offended that anyone would quietly reject it. There’s this whole evangelical principle of, well, evangelizing … but any pushback, no matter how mild, is regarded as wicked. We’re not supposed to ask questions in church, but there’s a whole evangelical literature praising the idea of promoting Christianity in the science classroom — see Chick’s “Big Daddy” for the classic example.

Despite Big Daddy’s puffery, one thing I’ve learned is that fundagelical Christians are typically cowards. They fear and hate being criticized. I occasionally get protests at my talks, and my response to the sign-bearing chanters lined up outside the auditorium is always to invite them to come in and feel free to ask questions in the Q&A. They rarely do. I’d actually welcome a mob of creationists who showed up and sat up front and quietly listened, and might even make sure to keep the talk a little more brief than usual, because I’d expect a lively post-talk discussion. It just doesn’t happen, much as I’d like it to, and here’s Preacher John complaining because he’s got an audience with specific issues to debate. If he’s so sure he’s right, he ought to be overjoyed to have an opportunity to publicly rebut specific questions.

Just in case the opportunity comes up, any time I give a public talk, the creationist versions of Professor Dimock are welcome to show up, take a front row seat, and carry signs that object to evilutionism. I shall joyfully address any concerns that you might have at the appropriate part of the hour, and all you have to be prepared for is the laughter of myself and the rest of the audience.

Why do you think I call it a death cult?

Ray Comfort is great at demeaning the whole of Christianity by doing all the stuff you imagine that not even a Christian would stoop to doing. His latest: targeting the elderly with cards to remind them of their mortality and imminent need of salvation.

The card, published by livingwatersnewzealand.com, was addressed to her by name and asked her to fill in the date and time of her death.

“Please don’t forget to call me on the date you’re going to die, then we can discuss your eternity,” it says. However, the cards do not have a contact name or phone number printed on them.

“Hey, lady, you’re old and are going to die soon. Come to church now! Put us in your will!”

Living Waters is also the organization that sponsors these morbid booths at our county fair where kids are asked to take a test to determine whether they’re going to heaven or hell. The answer is always hell…so they’d better follow Living Waters orders!

Whenever I hear apologists tell me that religion brings solace to the sick and old and despairing, I always think of Living Waters and their mission of making sure everyone is dreading their demise.

What would Scrooge McDuck say?

The Pope visited Scotland recently, to the great disappointment of all. They hired him at extravagant cost to do a magic act in a park, and all he did was wave his hands and mumble some Latin…and now they’re getting the bill.

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Scottish Catholics will be told this weekend that they have to make up an £800,000 cash shortfall for the cost of the papal visit.

Congregations were already asked in the run-up to the event in September to donate cash to an appeal target of £1.7 million to fund the historic first state visit by a pontiff.

Wow. The Scots got snookered.

Most Catholics aren’t this crazy. I hope.

Michael Voris and his Vortex (of Insanity) have been mentioned here before, but now he’s profiled on AP News. He really is nuts: he runs a YouTube channel and makes these strange videos where he demands that America become a Catholic dictatorship, all with a straight face.

Last time I mentioned him he got pricked by all our incredulous disgust with the Catholic Taliban, so he even made a clip all about us angry atheists, taking care not to link to any of our sites.

I hope this is representative of a tiny minority in the church, but I don’t know…last time I crossed Catholicism I was exposed to all the madness within it, so I’m not so confident that the fascist Voris doesn’t have more support than we expect.

Maybe it’s like a lottery

Mary MacKillop has been officially canonized as an Australian saint on the basis of two purported miracle cures — two women reportedly dying of cancer had spontaneous remissions after praying to her. Adele Horin puts them in context.

At the time Mary MacKillop answered the prayers of a woman dying of leukaemia, there was a lot of static in the air. In China 43 million people were dying of starvation in one of the world’s worst famines.

Thirty years later in the 1990s, when MacKillop answered the prayers of a woman dying of lung cancer, 3.8 million were dying in the Congo wars, 800,000 in the Rwanda genocide, a quarter of a million in the Yugoslav wars.

The connection between these two women praying for healing and the dead MacKillop was so tenuous to be nonexistent, while millions beg in vain for a reprieve from day-to-day misery. Praise the gods.

They hypocrisy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”

It will be interesting to see if anyone squawks about this revelation: Army Chaplain Lt. Col. William McCoy seems to have a wild and frolicsome sex life, while writing pious little books promoting Christianity. There’s absolutely nothing suggesting male homosexuality in his online personal history, but isn’t the occasional menage a trois or voyeurism session as sinful to an evangelical Christian?

Belgian archbishop represents the church’s love

Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard has written a book in which he reveals Catholic thinking about AIDS.

The Archbishop who is seen as a conservative does not pull his punches. Speaking about AIDS he says that this is a kind “immanent justice”.

I note that the archbishop is probably mortal, and appears to be aging. If he someday suffers miserably from a prostate cancer that is ripping his guts apart, I hope he finds comfort in it as a kind of “immanent justice”. If he should suffer a massive stroke and his brain should bleed and fail, I hope he has a last moment of awareness to appreciate the “immanent justice” of his fate. I hope that if one day he is crossing the street and suddenly finds a bus roaring implacably in his direction, that the destination on the bus’s sign reads “Immanent Justice”.

We’re all going to die. Labeling our ends as the conscious acts of a vengeful god and treating the inevitable as an outcome contingent on our respect for religious mores is one of the oldest tricks in the book of pious lies.

Barbarity in Italy

An Italian woman, Nosheen Butt, and her mother were resisting the idea of an arranged marriage, which annoyed the men in the family. So they took action to put the women in their place.

The daughter, 20-year-old Nosheen Butt, was hospitalised with head injuries and a broken arm after her 19-year-old brother beat her with a stick in the courtyard of their building in Novi, near the northern city of Modena.

According to Modena prosecutors’ initial findings, the father Ahmad Khan Butt, a 53-year-old construction worker, threw his wife to the ground and beat her with a brick while the brother Umair attacked his sister. The father had been in Italy less that 10 years and was the owner of the local mosque.

The mother has died for defending her daughter’s autonomy.

What the hell is wrong with these benighted fanatics? Trying to murder your sister or your wife because they aren’t your obedient slaves is screwed up in more ways than one. Doesn’t this single incident alone shatter Peter Hitchens’ argument for the necessity of religion to foster morality?

There’s never a shortage of smarm among evangelicals

There has been a recent rash of publicized suicides by young gay people who have been bullied and intimidated and shamed by their peers…and we’re also getting a rash of Christian apologetics by the blind bigots of homophobia who simultaneously declaim their pious regrets that these poor children of God couldn’t find their way to redemption, while continuing the slander of damning their sinning lives. It’s hard to get more unctuously hypocritical than the odious Albert Mohler, who whimpers ‘think of the children!’ while protesting that as good Christians they must condemn the sin, and he sadly wonders where the good people to tell the suicidal that their lives are worth living are to be found (not in your ministry or any priesthood, that’s for sure…if they want humanity and caring, they need to turn to Dan Savage).

Mohler has some competition now, though: it’s from Daniel Spratlin, another of those purblind preacher boys. It’s not entirely in the article he has written, though —

Rutgers student suicide highlights growing sin problem — which is just another pile of fuzzy love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin BS, but in the comments where he opens up to complain about the criticism his article recieves. This is where he exposes the dementia of his chronic fuckwittedness.

I don’t (nor do the majority of confessing Evangelicals) believe homosexuality to be abhorrent because my “religion says so.” Rather, I believe it to be so because God says so.

I have no doubt that America will eventually accept homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle. Nor do I have a problem with it. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not equal to American values. Never has been and never will be. This world has to be destroyed in the end and I welcome it. That doesn’t mean, however, that I won’t stand firm in my position and continue to shout.

Do I want homosexuals to “feel isolated and ashamed to the point of suicide”? Of course not. I want them to feel isolated and ashamed to the point of repentance.

Look at the awesome arrogance of that first paragraph, the ridiculous gall of claiming that he and his fellow fundie sphincter-lipped wardens of the public morality have the one true hotline to the mind of their omnipotent god. Remember this every time someone accuses an atheist of being arrogant — we don’t claim to be speaking for a cosmic tyrant who will torture you for eternity if you don’t obey us.

And then he proudly announces that he welcomes the necessary destruction of the world. This is one of the most perniciously vile doctrines promoted by the Abrahamic religions, not just that an apocalypse will occur, but that believers should be actively working to bring it about. Agents of destruction like that are objectively evil; if such creatures were to appear in a fantasy novel, you know that they’d be the orcish villains.

The bottom line is that he wants gay people to “feel isolated and ashamed,” period. Suicide is to be regretted because a body count is bad PR, and it’s a lie when an idiot prancing towards armageddon claims that he grieves over the death of one. He wants the death of billions, and he’s also happy to spread misery through oppression while he’s waiting for the last trump.