“The mantle is far, far greater than the intellect; the priesthood is the guiding power.”

I got email from a young former Mormon who has been trying to puzzle his way through some of the craziness that comes out of Utah, and he sent me this strange document by Elder Boyd K. Packer, which is apparently representative of a lot of Mormon scholarship. I think he wants to know if I think it is as bat-rogerin’ insane as he does.

Yes. Yes it is.

Basically, it’s the Mormon version of the Courtier’s Reply. It goes on and on about how the only way to write a true history of the Mormon church is to fully accept all of its superstitions. It’s blatant and explicit.

Do you believe that God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ personally appeared to the boy prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr., in the year 1820?

Do you have personal witness that the Father and the Son appeared in
all their glory and stood above that young man and instructed him according to the testimony that he gave to the world in his published history?
Do you know that the Prophet Joseph Smith’s testimony is true because
you have received a spiritual witness of its truth?

Do you believe that the church that was restored through him is, in the
Lord’s words, “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole
earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased” (D&C 1:30)? Do you know
by the Holy Ghost that this is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints restored by heavenly messengers in this modern era; that the Church
constitutes the kingdom of God on earth, not just an institution fabricated
by human agency?

Do you believe that the successors to the Prophet Joseph Smith were
and are prophets, seers, and revelators; that revelation from heaven directs
the decisions, policies, and pronouncements that come from the headquarters of the Church? Have you come to the settled conviction, by the
Spirit, that these prophets truly represent the Lord?

Now, you obviously noted that I did not talk about academic qualifications. Facts, understanding, and scholarship can be attained by personal
study and essential course work. The three qualifications I have named
come by the Spirit, to the individual. You can’t receive them by secular
training or study, by academic inquiry or scientific investigation.

I repeat: if there is a deficiency in any of these, then, regardless of what
other training an individual possesses, he cannot comprehend and write or
teach the true history of this church. The things of God are understood
only by one who possesses the Spirit of God.

I don’t believe any of that nonsense. I guess I can’t criticize the Mormon church ever, any more. Isn’t that handy? The only people who can comment on the church are those who have fully accepted all of its fundamental premises.

That Catch-22. It’s the best catch there ever was.

Future prospects for commenting

Seed is planning to roll out some big upgrades to the commenting system here, and they’re going to potentially add a lot of new features, which is cool. They also want to know what you think, but they’ve chosen to get user input in a way I find rather uncomfortable. They’re doing it with an online poll.

Oh, no. Hoist by my own petard.

You better go vote, before the Rapture-lovin’ fundagelicals move in and voice their opinions, and we end up with every comment ending in a honkin’ big sig with huge-eyed puppy dogs and pink script with sparkly graphic effects.

Why are Texans so unpatriotic?

President Obama is going to deliver a speech to students, broadcast on CSPAN, on 8 September. He’s going to “speak directly to the nation’s children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning”. OK, sounds harmless enough, and I think it’s a good idea for our president to care about the students.

But not in Texas, apparently. There’s a poll on a College Station radio site that has some odd results.

What are your feelings about the President addressing school children in a speech on September 8th?

I have no problem – 40.6%
Depends on the topic – 17.5%
Wouldn’t let my children see it – 42.0%

Let us leaven their results with the contribution of a horde of godless, international fiends.

Stay classy, Ben Stein!

Now that he’s been drummed off the NY Times editorial pages, I guess Ben Stein can throw restraint to the winds.

We have … an entire party, the Democrats, whose primary constituency, besides the teachers’ unions, is homosexual men and lesbian women. I hope it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that a big part of male homosexual behavior is interest in young boys.

Why, yes, it will come as a big surprise. There is a range of homosexual behavior (just as there is a range of heterosexual behavior), and among both homo- and heterosexual men, there is a significant minority that are focused on youth. Shall we accuse most heteros of being pedophiles, too?

Besides, I think he confused “homosexual” with “Catholic priest”.

Oh, and just for that perfect addition to the above nonsense, here’s the beginning of the very next paragraph.

Don’t get me wrong. My very best friend is gay.

Here Comes Science!

I got a letter from John F — you know, John Flansburgh, of They Might Be Giants — and he says, “We’ve got this new album coming out that you might like, want me to send you a copy?”, and so I nonchalantly type back, “Sure, here’s my address,” which was really hard to do when you understand that I was dancing jigglety-pigglety in my chair, pumping my fists in the air, and shouting “WOO-HOO!” at the same time. It would have been impossible except for my blogging superpowers. (Oh, yeah…I’m a TMBG fanboi.)

I got the album Here Comes Science the other day, and it is fabulous. It’s kids’ music, so it’s catchy and a teeny-tiny bit didactic, but don’t let that put you off — I’ve loaded it onto my iPod and am enjoying it all the time. It’s also contains a CD and a DVD: each song also has an animated cartoon to go with it. They’re great and enthusiastic songs — my favorites so far are “I am a paleontologist” and “Science is real”.

You should buy it. It’ll be available next week, or you can always stop by my house and I’ll put the DVD up on the big screen and we can all rock out in my living room — I’ll push all the furniture to the side so we can all dance. Or if you’re cheap and don’t like me, you can subscribe to the TMBG podcast on iTunes: they’re going to release a song a week.

Can’t wait? You can get a look at “Science is Real” right now.

I should warn you, though, it’s controversial. Yeah, right. Look at the comments on Amazon. The song “Science is Real” contains these lyrics:

I like the stories
About angels, unicorns and elves
Now I like the stories
As much as anybody else
But when I’m seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The facts are with science
The facts are with science

This has prompted a few comments.

I love TMBG more than anybody, but was it really necessary to take a pot-shot at religion?

This guy must be one of those thin-skinned elf worshippers.

As a Christian I’m offended by comparing unicorns, elves with angels. Unicorns and Elves are fiction, and angels are biblical. End of story.

(Shhh. Don’t tell him about Numbers 23:22 and 24:8, Deuteronomy 33:17, Job 39:9,10, Psalms 22:21 and 29:6 and
92:10 or Isaiah 34:7. Unicorns are biblical, too.)

This is why the accommodationist strategy is doomed to failure. There is no gentle demurral from religion that will not offend someone — even fun songs about science are expected to pretend that angels are real.

Boom-boom-chika-wow-wow. Amen.

The Catholic church has instructions for you before you get down to business with your sweetie: you’re supposed to say a little prayer. This one.

Father, send your Holy Spirit into our hearts. Place within us love that truly gives, tenderness that truly unites, self-offering that tells the truth and does not deceive, forgiveness that truly receives, loving physical union that welcomes.

Open our hearts to you, to each other and to the goodness of your will. Cover our poverty in the richness of your mercy and forgiveness. Clothe us in true dignity and take to yourself our shared aspirations, for your glory, forever and ever. Mary, our mother, intercede for us. Amen.

Ooooh. Gets me hot*. Maybe Kristin Maguire can write a story with this little fillip in it.

Hey, wait a minute…what are a bunch of old pseudo-celibates doing recommending prayers before sex? Do they teach this one to the altar boys?

*Actually, it doesn’t. I lied. I think it would be kind of a buzzkill.

No surprise, you’re all a bunch of mutants

The BBC has an article on the recent direct measurement of human mutation rates, and while it’s not a bad article, it does seem to express the view that the result is something novel. It’s not; it’s a confirmation of a standard measure that scientists have known about for a long, long time. We have estimated the number of novel mutations in newborn human individuals to be somewhere between a hundred and a few hundred (best estimates were on the order of 150) based on a couple of facts.

We’ve had measurements of the fidelity of the enzymes that catalyze replication, and since we know both the per nucleotide rate and the number of nucleotides, it’s straightforward to calculate the average number of errors per replication event. We’ve also had estimates from the measured frequency of spontaneous mutations in human disease genes that have given answers in the same ballpark. The only thing new in this recent study is that they sequenced the Y chromosomes of a group of related men and directly tallied up the new mutations, confirming that the previous calculations were roughly correct.

Like I say, it’s not a bad article, but if you really want the best summary of the work, you should be reading Sandwalk.

It’s useful information for the next time you’re in a debate with a creationist, too. They often assert that all mutations are harmful, but clearly, they can’t be: they’re almost entirely neutral. That creationist is carrying over a hundred new mutations that his parents lacked, and his children will each have over a hundred more, and his grandchildren a hundred yet again. What we have going on is a great churn of frequent change, just change, not a pattern of directional variation that either degrades or elevates us.

I get email

This peculiar little email is nothing special, but is actually rather representative. It’s interesting because most atheists will read it one way, where I suspect he actually means it another way.

Professor Myers,

My name is Jack Heidman and I am an F15 pilot and commercial airline pilot for American Airlines. I am not a biologist. I was too busy flirting with my cute lab partner to pay attention in high school biology class (by the way, I went to Wayzata High – I bet you know where that is).

I would seriously like your opinion on another stupid creationist question I have. I know that you know your origins view is correct and I am wrong. I also know that you know us creationists (especially young earth creationists) are incredibly misinformed and/or stupid. I am not trying to be sarcastic. You are obviously a very educated individual and I am quite certain you are much more intelligent than I am.

My stupid creationist question is simple: What if you’re wrong? Pascal once said “Are you willing to wager eternity?” Is it possible that where you go when you die might be as important as where you came from (in your case – primordial soup)? Don’t you think your eternity might be worth a little consideration? I’ve seen your picture on the internet and I notice a few grey hairs in your beard. Unfortunately I’m getting a few myself which reminds me every morning when I shave to consider my post-death living quarters (you might want to ask yourself…smoking or non?)

The walls of your Neo-Darwinian Jericho are crumbling around you. You know it. You’ve known it for a long, long time. The problem is, now other people are figuring it out as well. A lot of other people!

Sir, please think about my stupid creationist question. I eagerly await your reply.

Respectfully,

Lt Col Jack Heidman
F15 Pilot and…
A Colossally Stupid Bible Believing Creationist

Most of you are probably thinking that he was being extremely sarcastic, in spite of his disavowal — he starts off by telling me how smart I am and how stupid he is, and winds up asserting that I’m wrong about everything, and he knows it…and then he emphasizes how stupid he is. If you read it aloud, you’d probably adopt a mocking, sneering tone.

However, he probably is entirely sincere and not at all sarcastic (emphasis on “probably” — he could be trying to be obnoxious, but I’ve talked to enough creationists to suspect that he isn’t.) There’s a key to understanding his intent.

This is classic American anti-intellectualism. He honestly believes that intelligence is not a virtue, so in a weird twist of values, he is venting a bit by accusing me of being intelligent, and bragging about himself when he says he is stupid. Heidman is a prideful man with a huge ego; it’s why he starts off with the announcement that he is an accomplished pilot. That isn’t a contradiction with his anti-intellectualism, either: learning to fly an F15 is not an exercise of the brain to him, but a God-given talent. He didn’t believe in wasting time learning in high school, when he could instead make time with the girls. He’d probably also deny being egotistical, because it’s OK to gloat over one’s abilities if they are a gift from God.

He’s also entirely correct. He is Colossally Stupid, because he doesn’t think. He’s happy to toss around Pascal’s Wager even though it is a pathetic argument, because it feels good to his gut, and he’s already blindly confident that his particular faith is entirely true. You can tell him that he is stupid, and he will be unfazed, and will probably take considerable pride in the label — people who think, think, think get in the way of unreasoning acceptance of his blithe confidence. We could easily rip his ‘argument’ to shreds — it doesn’t address any of the issues of origins, it’s little more than a fallacious argument from consequence, and it is non-specific and can be used equally well to defend any random religious belief, from the Amish to Zoroastrianism — but that doesn’t matter. He’d smirk happily through any dissection, because he didn’t use his brain to come up with it, anyway.

It’s sad. There are a lot of people who believe this way, on feelings and gut impressions and simple, stupid confidence in what they already “know”, where “knowing” in their case is nothing but unquestioning acceptance of what they’ve been told.

Be aware. This attitude is more common than you can imagine.