in betenden Händen ist die Waffe vor Mißbrauch sicher

Hey, you mean America isn’t the sole refuge of pious war-mongers? I was sent this remarkable quote from Cardinal Meisner of Köln:

Einem Gott lobenden Soldaten kann man guten
Gewissens Verantwortung über Leben und Tod anderer
übertragen, weil sie
bei ihm gleichsam von der Heiligkeit Gottes mitabgesegnet sind … Wem käme es in den Sinn, Soldaten, die auch Beter sind , dann
noch als Mörder zu diskriminieren. Nein, in betenden Händen ist die
Waffe vor
Mißbrauch sicher.

It begins “One can in good conscience give a God-praising soldier responsibility over the life and death of others” and ends with the fine sentiment that “In praying hands weapons are safe from abuse.” My German is rusty enough that I would have great difficulty detecting sarcasm in that language, so someone should tell me if I’m missing some essential subtlety in the translation.

So, I’m wondering … if a soldier faithfully wears a “Gott mit uns” belt buckle, does that suggest that he can do no evil?

Shall we assume that any Muslim who hits the prayer mat four times a day is harmless?

Is Germany planning to disarm any atheists in the ranks, because they can’t be trusted with their weapons?

No church-going doctors for me, please

Here I’ve been thinking of getting a nice tattoo (something discreet and subtle, like an octopus someplace you‘ll never see it), and then I learn that for the sake of my health, I better not. After all, some good Christian doctor might refuse to help me when I’m sick. Dr Gary Merrill, who proudly proclaims his Christian faith, turned away a little girl with an ear infection because her mother had a tattoo.

…Dr. Gary Merrill wouldn’t treat her daughter for an ear infection because Tasha, the mother, has tattoos.

The writing is on the wall—literally: “This is a private office. Appearance and behavior standards apply.”

For Dr. Gary Merrill of Christian Medical Services, that means no tattoos, body piercings, and a host of other requirements—all standards Merrill has set based upon his Christian faith.

Way to represent your faith, doc! He ought to read the Gospel of Luke—there’s an obscure story in there about some guy beaten up and left to die by the road, and a priest and a Levite, the people Dr Merrill must model his life after, walk by and leave him there to die. He can stop reading right there, though…there’s some other bit that follows with a fellow from Samaria that isn’t all that important.

Hey, I just had a liberating thought—I think I’d rather die than ask for help from some sanctimonious jerkwad who calls his clinic “Christian Medical Services,” so maybe I can go ahead and get that tat after all! Maybe I can get a little more flamboyant, too—how about keeping most of it under the shirt, but with one tentacle reaching up and wrapping around the neck?

Blasphemy is too education!

This message came by a roundabout route—a reader sent me a link to an Italian blog (translated) that was discussing a protest petition of a ‘blasphemous’ play that is being put on at…the University of Minnesota! The petition is titled “Blasphemy is not education”:

I understand the University of Minnesota plans to stage an anti-Catholic play, “The Pope and the Witch” by Dario Fo, a communist playwright. … I believe this play is blasphemous and not a legitimate expression of academic freedom. I am deeply offended as a Catholic. Together with thousands of TFP Student Action members, I urge you to respect the Catholic Faith and cancel “The Pope and the Witch.”

I beg to differ. Blasphemy is highly educational, and I hope our university can do more of it. We are not here to reassure you that your ignorance and prejudices are alright, we’re supposed to shake up our students.

I’m also amused that all this indignant young person can say about Dario Fo is that he is a communist <gasp!> — right. Dario Fo, winner of the 1997 Nobel for literature. Religion does seem to make for a fine set of blinders, doesn’t it?

I don’t think the petition has had the slightest effect. I hadn’t heard a single word about it until it was mentioned in my email, and the play opens this week. I’m tempted to go, because it should be entertaining and being able to thumb my nose at religious bigots adds a little extra flavor to it. If only we weren’t expecting several more inches of snow later this week…

Obey God — Kill!

Researchers compared levels of aggression (measured in a test where participants get to blast each other with loud noises) between students at Brigham Young University (99% True Believers) and Vrije University in Amsterdam (50% God-Wallopers). They also compared aggression after reading a quotation that enjoined them to “take arms against their brothers and chasten them before the LORD”. The results: getting God’s permission increases levels of aggression.

The research sheds light on the possible origins of violent religious fundamentalism and falls in line with theories proposed by scholars of religious terrorism, who hypothesize that exposure to violent scriptures may induce extremists to engage in aggressive actions. “To the extent religious extremists engage in prolonged, selective reading of the scriptures, focusing on violent retribution toward unbelievers instead of the overall message of acceptance and understanding,” writes Bushman “one might expect to see increased brutality.”

Well, OK, but I’ve read substantial parts of the bible, and there is no overall message of acceptance and understanding. The overall message is that you will be rewarded for obedience and the Other will be tormented brutally. And at least in American religion, the poetry and bits about tolerance are downplayed to give more time to the hellfire and worldly imperialism bits.

The unspeakable vileness of religious law

Am I supposed to believe religion is a force for morality, when I see so many examples of it more being a force for mindless obedience to arbitrary rules? This story out of Pakistan is disturbing in many ways.

Zilla Huma Usman, the minister for social welfare in Punjab province and an ally of President Pervez Musharraf, was killed as she was about to deliver a speech to dozens of party activists, by a “fanatic”, who believed that she was dressed inappropriately and that women should not be involved in politics, officials said today.

Ms Usman, 35, was wearing the shalwar kameez worn by many professional women in Pakistan, but did not cover her head.

Executed for not having a piece of cloth on top of her head; what god looks down on our world from his cosmic perspective and thinks that is an important concern for humanity? Allah, apparently; I can find commandments in the Bible that make similar demands.

Mr Sarwar appeared relaxed and calm when he told a television channel that he had carried out God’s order to kill women who sinned. “I have no regrets. I just obeyed Allah’s commandment,” he said, adding that Islam did not allow women to hold positions of leadership. “I will kill all those women who do not follow the right path, if I am freed again,” he said.

I’m sure religion’s defenders will shout long and loud that this guy Sarwar is simply an isolated lunatic, and that if he’d been an atheist he would still have been a monster. True enough; one asshole might be an exception, and godlessness is no guarantee of goodness, but a series of incidents is a pattern, and we have to look at who is inciting it.

General Musharraf, whose support for the US-led war on terror has caused consternation among Pakistan’s hardline elements, has promised to address women’s rights as part of his more moderate agenda.

But analysts said that the murder of the female minister highlighted the failure of his government in curbing Islamic extremism. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a recent report said that violence against women had increased alarmingly, with some of the incidents incited by Mullahs opposed to women’s emancipation.

Face it, everyone. Religion is not a source of moral behavior. It’s a source of tribalism and obedience to authority, which sometimes coincides with respectable morality, but isn’t necessarily associated with it. We have to find our virtue in one true thing, our common humanity, and these ancient superstitions actually interfere with instruction in how to be good by encrusting it with nonsense.

(via Pro-Science)

Too damn religious

This letter to the New Zealand Herald was written to protest a claim that NZ was a “Christian nation”. It’s got a nice twist to it.

If my resistance to deem New Zealand to be a Christian nation makes me a traitor, as Brian Tamaki suggests, take me to the Tower, or the New Zealand equivalent, for it would be greatly preferable to living in such a country.

You might think, then, that I am one of the 48.8 per cent of non-Christian New Zealanders.

I am not. I am an Anglican priest serving an Auckland church. And no, I’m not Bishop Richard Randerson under a nom de plume.

As an immigrant from America I know what it means to live in a Christian nation. That’s why I left. New Zealand’s respect for human rights is why I chose to live here as a permanent resident.

Read the rest. You can tell he was more than a little disgusted with America’s Christian hypocrisy. As a confirmation, you can also listen to this NPR panel debate

that concluded that the US was “too damn religious”.

The Curse of the Prayer Study

It’s not looking good for the authors of a study that evaluated the efficacy of prayer. The authors were Rogerio A. Lobo, Daniel P. Wirth, and Kwang Y. Cha, and now look at what has happened to them (link may not work if you don’t have a subscription to the CHE).

Doctors were flummoxed in 2001, when Columbia University researchers published a study in The Journal of Reproductive Medicine that found that strangers’ prayers could double the chances that a woman would get pregnant using in-vitro fertilization. In the years that followed, however, the lead author removed his name from the paper, saying that he had not contributed to the study, and a second author went to jail on unrelated fraud charges.

Meanwhile, many scientists and doctors have written to the journal criticizing the study, and at least one doctor has published papers debunking its findings.

Now the third author of the controversial paper, Kwang Y. Cha, has been accused of plagiarizing a paper published in the journal Fertility and Sterility in December 2005. Alan DeCherney, editor of Fertility and Sterility and director of the reproductive biology and medicine branch at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said on Monday that it was clear to him that Dr. Cha, who has since left Columbia, plagiarized the work of a South Korean doctoral student for a paper he published on detecting women who are at risk of premature menopause.

Isn’t the explanation obvious? God really hates scientists who poke at him.