Rick Perry is very confused

Did someone tell him I was the president of the US? Because going after Obama, who has been no friend to the separation of church and state and is openly Christian, for his war on religion makes no sense at all.

But wait, even if I were president, I wouldn’t forbid people to pray or celebrate Christmas, and neither of those things are forbidden now. And why does Perry hate our troops?

I don’t know which is worse: that a Republican candidate for president can freely lie and campaign against imaginary enemies, or that there are swarms of people listening to that bullshit who will agree with him.

Probably the latter.

(via JT.)

Here’s a reply:

Amusing irony alert: take a closer look at the jacket Perry is wearing.

Somebody tell David Barton to shut up

David Barton is a guy who makes a living lying about history…and now apparently he wants to add lying about science to his résumé. Here he argues that abortion and homosexuality are wrong because they are aberrations of nature.

The stupid burns white hot in that one.

  1. It’s the naturalistic fallacy. You can’t derive what humans ought to do from what other animals do (and worse, what you imagine in your ignorance that other animals do). Other animals don’t worship the Bible or pray; therefore, it is wrong for humans to do so. At least, that’s the reasonable conclusion for Barton’s logic. We’ll also have to shed hats and shoes, stop cooking our food, and Barton will have to stop doing his clown act on TV…all human behaviors that are not shared with other animals.

  2. It is simply not true that other animals don’t abort their young. Look at the Bruce effect; rodents will spontaneously terminate their pregnancies if exposed to a strange male. Lots of animals will spontaneously abort under stress, and it makes evolutionary sense: evolution, unlike fundamentalist Christians, favors the preservation of maternal life. It is wiser for a female to conserve her resources and bear offspring when she can afford the cost.

    You want real horror stories? Look up maternal infanticide. It’s a continuation of that same evolutionary logic: if infants cost resources, and if the choice has to be made between preserving the life of the infant vs. the life of the mother (and usually, death of the mother leads to death of the infant anyway), animals will sacrifice the young first. It’s been seen in rodents, penguins, pigs, foxes, tamarins, you name it. It’s often even accompanied by cannibalism. If Barton wants to draw moral lessons for humanity from the animal kingdom, there you go.

  3. Homosexuality is also common (here’s a list). Barton is making the common fundie Christian error, thinking sex is for reproduction and only for reproduction. As anyone with any sense knows, though, in humans and many other animals, sex is primarily for social bonding. Almost every single sexual activity in which you participate, even if it is with a member of the complementary sex in permanent relationship, is for fun and because it strengthens the relationship.

    When you look at it that way, what’s surprising is how little homosexuality is going on — why are businessmen settling for a handshake and a golf game when they could really seal the deal? But then of course there are other factors, like maintaining some exclusivity of special relationships and the importance of distancing as well as intimacy in different classes of social behaviors. But you simply cannot make the blanket argument that homosexuality is unsupportable by evolution.

    Also, because it’s the explanation I favor, not everything in evolution is finely tuned for optimal reproductive efficiency. I think homosexuality is common because evolution favors sexual behaviors first, and adding restrictions to limit sexual behavior to reproductive behavior a distant second.

Unfortunately, lying for favors and obstinately clinging to ignorance are typically human behaviors, too, so I can’t slam Barton with the argument that he’s an aberration.

Grrrr…ECKLUND!

Elaine Howard Ecklund is the sociologist who studies atheists and always twists the interpretation of her results to laud religion. She’s done it again.

She has a new study about “Atheists embracing religious traditions”, which notes that some unbelievers will still send their children off to church, out of familial obligation or a vague sense that that is an appropriate way to socialize the kids. I think that’s entirely true, and I’ve seen it myself — but it doesn’t say much about atheists as much as it does the pervasive cultural attitudes that falsely make “church” a synonym for morality.

But here’s what makes me disrespect her pretense of objectivity.

Ecklund said one of the most interesting findings was discovering that not only do some atheist scientists wish to expose their children to religious institutions, but they also cite their scientific identity as reason for doing so.

“We thought that these individuals might be less inclined to introduce their children to religious traditions, but we found the exact opposite to be true,” Ecklund said. “They want their children to have choices, and it is more consistent with their science identity to expose their children to all sources of knowledge.”

Religion is not a goddamned source of knowledge. Quit pretending that it is.

But also, that’s her twist. When our kids were living with us, we freely encouraged them to go to church with their friends when invited, but it wasn’t because we thought it was a “source of knowledge”. Religion is an unfortunate reality in our society, and we wanted them to be able to see for themselves what was going on. Ecklund simply doesn’t understand what science is about: it’s part of the ethos that we don’t hide data, but confront it and address it.

Another consistent angle to Ecklund’s work is spotlighting the statistics that fit her bias and trivializing the rest. Here’s the evidence that atheists are “embracing religious traditions”:

The researchers found that 17 percent of atheists with children attended a religious service more than once in the past year.

I am underwhelmed. The only surprise there is that the number is that low — given that American society is soaking in religion, and that atheists are a minority surrounded by friends and family who are religious, I’m impressed that 83% have succeeded in escaping the church trap so thoroughly. That ought to be the news.

But that’s Ecklund. Show her a population with an overwhelming majority rejecting faith, and she’ll ignore them to turn to the minority and pretend they are representative, just to find some tiny reassurance that scientists and atheists really are god-lovin’, deep down.

Stupid whiny Christian poll

There are a diverse collection of holiday traditions in this country. For instance, in late December, my family eats a lot of lefse — and the older generation would have lutefisk, that awful fish jelly made from reconstituted planks of dried fish preserved in lye (we modern folk have at least shed that one). We also put up a tree in the living room, and last time I decorated it with cephalopods. I’m thinking this year I should look for some ornamental gastropods and bivalves, because biological diversity is important. In Philadelphia they have a Tree of Knowledge tradition in the atheist community, which sounds like a fine idea. Have a good time with your family and cultural traditions. Heck, if you want to put up a manger scene in your house or yard, go for it. It’s your privilege.

So what the heck is wrong with Rhode Islanders? Some of the more conservative dimbulbs in that state are getting all huffy because there is a decorated tree going up at the capitol, and the governor called it a “holiday tree”. It is. It’s a holiday, and it’s a tree. But some Christians want to demand that every holiday tradition be labeled as their tradition, no one elses.

So they’ve got a poll. At least it’s running in the right direction so far.

Do you agree with Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s decision to host a Rhode Island “holiday tree” lighting instead of a “Christmas tree” lighting?

Yes, it should be a ‘holiday tree.’ 53%
No, it should be called a ‘Christmas tree.’ 46%

I’ll tell you what. If you want to call it a Christmas tree, I won’t complain. If you want to call it a Holiday tree, I won’t complain. I’ll only complain if you tell me or anyone else that they must use your official terminology, because you don’t get to impose your traditions on anyone else.

And if you think people have that right, I’m coming to your house with a big plate full of lutefisk, and I’m going to demand that you eat it all up for your holiday dinner. Or Christmas feast, if you’d prefer to call it that.

Why I am a Christian – Taylor

(Want a chew toy? I’ve had a number of submissions to the “Why I am an atheist” series from Christians trying to play the apologetics game. Most of them are embarrassingly illiterate and incoherent, and I just throw them away; this one is at least competently written, even if the ideas are nonsense cribbed from William Lane Craig. Have fun tearing them up.)

Hi PZ, I know this isn’t exactly what you called for, and you probably won’t post this on your famous blog (understandably), but I feel quite strongly that I have two very good reasons for being a Christian:

1) Existence
2) The Uniqueness of Christianity

Now I’ll elaborate a little:

1) The universe exists. Disregarding modern philosophy for a minute, I think this one is fairly obvious. As far as I can know anything, I know that the universe exists. That means it had to have a beginning. Now, the existence and order of the universe may or may not be explained by the Big Bang (I’m no theoretical physicist), but it seems to me that the Big Bang still needs a Big Banger. Someone or something to start the whole thing off. Multiverse theory? I think it still needs some work. And evidence. An eternal Universe? Ok, but I think there are some problems with assigning non-material properties (namely eternal existence) to material things (namely matter). I’ll come back to that. But for now, I’m at the point where I admit that there has to be a beginning, an “uncaused cause” as the philosopher’s put it.

2) That “uncaused cause,” that “Big Banger,” the being that caused everything else to exist, must be the God of the Christian Bible. Why? Because of Christianity’s uniqueness. Say what you will, but after years of studying world religions, Christianity is entirely unique. To oversimplify my case: Every other religion requires an action (service, certain words or actions, good works, etc.), in return for a reward. Christianity is the exact opposite. You are called by Christ first, saved from yourself (that’s the reward), and then the good works flow out of gratitude, or a desire to be more like God. You don’t have to do good works to be saved. Can you see how this is unique?

Now, as to the point about assigning eternal properties to material objects, I don’t see how this is beneficial. Christianity says God created the universe, and He is eternal, intelligent, and caring. Atheism says that the universe created itself, and it is eternal, unintelligent, and uncaring. Is that really better? Personally, I can’t believe that this universe is unintelligent, nor that all of the pain and suffering I see is purposeless.

It seems pretty straightforward to me, but I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

God bless, and stay warm up there,

Taylor
United States

(My response: #1 is meaningless. Physics has evidence that our universe had a beginning, but there is absolutely no reason to suppose a cosmic benign intelligence was behind it. An avalanche also has a beginning, but we don’t assume it was a little man triggering it by intent. #2 is absolutely the dumbest reason I’ve ever heard (and I’ve heard it many times) for believing Christianity is true. Here, I’ve just invented a religion: you achieve salvation by hopping precisely three times on one leg every morning. If you forget and die unhopped, you go to hell; so long as you have hopped, you are forgiven and go to heaven. That’s entirely unique, but it doesn’t make it true — in this case, and in Christianity’s case, it’s just stupid.

Now compare this Christian entry, selected as the best of the religious submissions so far, to the atheist submissions, which were chosen entirely at random.)

Whose side is God on?

On the side of the investment bankers and plutocrats, of course!

That’s a sign that’s gone up in Minneapolis. You want healthcare? You’re going to hell, you covetous sinner. You don’t think the obscenely rich ought to keep every penny they’ve got? You’re going to hell for that, too, Communist.

I guess it should be no surprise. Since the Bible says only 144,000 will go to heaven, he’s always been on the side of the 0.002%.

So that’s paradise?

If ever you need a good emetic, all you have to do is listen to a Muslim cleric describe paradise. Apparently the magic virgins are creepily alien (flesh so translucent you can see their bone marrow? Who the hell finds that arousing??), and the men get upgraded genitals.

Each time we sleep with a Houri we find her virgin. Besides, the penis of the Elected never softens. The erection is eternal [Oh, no! Going to heaven is like being a 13 year old boy again!]; the sensation that you feel each time you make love is utterly delicious and out of this world and were you to experience it in this world you would faint. Each chosen one [i.e. Muslim] will marry seventy [sic] houris, besides the women he married on earth, and all will have appetizing vaginas.[Anatomy fail. Function fail.]

I hate to say this, but reading that description and watching that video certainly killed my erection. Where’s your god now, misogynist?

Also, I deny being in that video.

The Quran is bunk, too

I know you kids like the youtube and hate that tl;dr text stuff, so if you couldn’t find the patience to read my post on Islamic embryology, you can now watch the screen instead. The Rationalizer goes through the ‘science’ in the Quran and shows that it’s largely plagiarized from Galen, and that it also steals Galen’s mistakes, so it’s a beautiful example of a plagiarized error of the type biologists use to demonstrate a lineage.

All the straining Muslim apologists use to fit the science to the few lines of poetry in the Quran (I’m looking at you, Hamzas Tzortzis) are futile and really only demonstrate that the founders of Islam borrowed their message, not from a divine source, but from Greco-Roman medicine.

But perhaps Allah is just another name for Galen.

(Also on FtB)

The Quran is bunk, too

I know you kids like the youtube and hate that tl;dr text stuff, so if you couldn’t find the patience to read my post on Islamic embryology, you can now watch the screen instead. The Rationalizer goes through the ‘science’ in the Quran and shows that it’s largely plagiarized from Galen, and that it also steals Galen’s mistakes, so it’s a beautiful example of a plagiarized error of the type biologists use to demonstrate a lineage.

All the straining Muslim apologists use to fit the science to the few lines of poetry in the Quran (I’m looking at you, Hamzas Tzortzis) are futile and really only demonstrate that the founders of Islam borrowed their message, not from a divine source, but from Greco-Roman medicine.

But perhaps Allah is just another name for Galen.

(Also on Sb)

Exorcist rails against superstition

Father Gabriele Amorth, the former chief exorcist to the Vatican, has spoken out publicly against the popularization of the occult. Don’t get your hopes up, though. Only some occult fantasies are wrong.

…yoga is Satanic because it leads to a worship of Hinduism and “all eastern religions are based on a false belief in reincarnation”.

Reading JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books is no less dangerous, said the 86-year-old priest

They’re evil, he says, because they “encourage children to believe in black magic and wizardry”.

He also mentioned that his favorite movie was The Exorcist and that “the sex abuse scandals which have engulfed the Catholic Church in the US, Ireland, Germany and other countries was proof that the Anti-Christ is waging a war against the Holy See.”

Jeez, it’s Sunday morning, and I’m already fresh out of sarcasm and irony. I should know better than to read anything any Catholic priest says — it just sucks all of the gast out of my flabber.