Mormon meddlers

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as they insist on being called, has earned another reason to be regarded with a sneer of contempt: they sent a letter to all of their churches in California urging their adherents to vote for Proposition 8. It’s bizarre that a religion known for being out of step with the rest of the country on the issue of marriage, a place populated with polygamists and young girls treated as chattel and coaxed into child marriages, now wants to “preserve the sacred institution of marriage”. They sunk tens of millions of dollars into the campaign.

Californians are rightly demonstrating against the Mormon church—I’d be more than a little pissed off myself. After Enron enriched itself by bilking Californians, now you’ve got Salt Lake City trying to turn you into a little Utah. You’ve got cause to be annoyed at the way you’re being targeted.

People are trying to do something, and one thought is to try and revoke the Mormon church’s tax exempt status. Ah, sweet dream. I’d dearly love to see Obama repair the damage to our economy by revoking religious tax exemptions across the board, and refill our treasury with loot from the theological con artists. Alas, I’m at an Americans United meeting, and the place is crawling with lawyers and experts on separation of church and state issues, and I asked Barry Lynn directly what kind of legal recourse we had, and he regretfully pointed out that what the Mormon church did was entirely legal. It was ethically repugnant, of course, but complaining to the IRS is likely to net you doodly-squat in this case.

We may have to settle for escalating our mockery of mormonism. It’s not hard, after all: it is one of the most palpably ridiculous, unethical, dumb-ass religions flourishing in our unfortunate nation of theological dumb-asses. Did you know that being excommunicated from the Mormon church can get you expelled from BYU? Don’t go to BYU (not that there’s much chance many of my readers would do so), and feel free to sneer a little bit at the poor BYU graduates. Forget that ski vacation in Park City; Colorado has great snow, too. Be even ruder to the next pair of white-shirted Mormon missionaries who come to your door. Hey, does anyone know what a Mormon would find heretical? Send me something they find sacred.

Otherwise, we’re just stuck with this ugly outcome. All we can do is be more aware of the flock of smug, sanctimonious, hypocritical holy meddlers in our midst.

Remember, though, that all they were doing is trying to keep the definition of marriage as it has been since the beginning of time. Dumb-asses.

Commitment!

Alright, I’m juggling way too many things here, but I’ve got to make a promise about where I’ll be tonight. After the talk at GMU, I’m going to try and get into the AU event at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill and spend some time with the good people there, and then I’m going to tear myself away to go to…The Dubliner. I’ll try to get there by 10 or 10:30 — if I’m late, start the party without me.

When I was in Toronto, both Ken Ham and Jesus showed up. Could somebody give a call to invite Bush (I hear that people like to drink beer with him) and Obama? I think both of them need to spend more time with the godless heathens.

Descended from a monkey?

She’ll be back: watch this mob of blinkered Republicans gush over Sarah Palin, especially Pat Buchanan, who makes up ‘facts’ as he goes along. The Republicans are accused of being a party that celebrates ignorance, Buchanan is asked if he accepts evolution, and he blithely confirms the accusation by repeating the notorious query of Soapy Sam Wilberforce.

I’ve heard a few times now the idea that the Republican Party has become the Know-Nothing Party. It’s entirely true.

I have landed in DC!

I’m here at the Hyatt Regency in Washington DC, and I’ve received a lot of questions about my plans and availability. Here’s the deal: I’m here for an AU meeting, and that’s my first priority; then I’m giving a talk at GMU Saturday evening. I may have to depart from the traditional post-seminar beer pilgrimage this time, though: my talk is overlapping a bit with an AU event in the evening, and I should scurry back early to catch part of it.

Now there is the possibility of a late night (like, 10:00) get-together here at the Hyatt or nearby, and if there is any interest, I could probably gather a few other interested science bloggers to join us. Leave a comment if you think that’s worth doing>

I get email invitations

I just got some email that surprised me. It was from Kate Fisher, the marketing director of KKMS radio, a Christian talk radio station I’ve dealt with before. They had a request.

I am with AM980 KKMS, a Christian Teaching & Talk radio station in the Twin Cities. We would like to do a creation debate in mid-January. I am writing today to check on your interest level in participating in something like this and if you are, what your availability and honorarium is.

I didn’t have any problem making a decision on that, and immediately sent my reply.

You know, I had a debate on your station last January — in which I exposed the creationist on the other side as an ignorant fool. The response from your station was then to give the ignorant fool an hour to babble unopposed the next week. I’ll add that you also abruptly changed the topic of the debate an hour before I went on, at the request of my opponent, an unforgivable and sleazy tactic. I do not trust you at all, and I think you would abuse my participation to promote the lies of the creationist position.

So, no, you could not get me to play your game for any amount of money. I have no respect at all for “Christian Teaching & Talk radio”, thanks to your disreputable actions.

I am, however, impressed with the level of shameless gall you have to ask me again.

I was a little bit tempted to put one pinky to a corner of my mouth and say, “My honorarium will be…one MILLION dollars.” I resisted.

Kate Fisher just replied.

My sincerest apologies as I wasn’t aware that this was what happened. I was simply given your name as a good debater and asked to contact you about doing an event with us.

Thanks for letting me know what happened.

Now I feel a little guilty about lighting into her. But only a little.

Oxygen has eyelashes!

It’s cute: this exercise in molecular visualization has been all dolled up with anthropomorphized atoms to sneak it into kids’ attention spans.

I can’t be entirely dismissive, though. There’s some cool stuff lurking in the backgrounds of these scenes, it’s just unfortunate that the goofy cartoon stuff is always being placed front and center.

I am kind of hoping that the creationists, with all their talk of cars and buses and traffic lights in the cell, steal this video. I can almost imagine Michael Behe exclaiming that the sophisticated facial expressions of atoms are evidence of intent and design.

Say no to RFK

So far, rumors of the first two appointments by Obama leave me worried. Rahm? No, please — after campaigning on a slogan of “change”, buying into one of the most deeply imbedded beltway insiders is not encouraging. Maybe there’s some virtue in working with the Democratic establishment, so I can forgive one concession to the status quo, but let’s see some innovative thinking, too.

More worrisome is the idea that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could get a prominent appointment. Orac has torn that one apart, and I agree: we do not need another irrational purveyor of woo and fluffy substanceless hysteria contributing to this country’s administration.

One thing you can do is contact the transition team and voice your disapproval. Demand rigor in the people running our government!

Salon has an illuminating perspective on Rahm: he’s Obama’s designated asshole. Yeah, that works.

What is an “atheist community”?

Slate has an article by Paul Bloom on why religious people are nice and atheists are mean. As you might guess, I have some difficulty with the premise of the article — in my experience, atheists have been far friendlier, while the religious have been downright vicious — but it does make some interesting points (and, of course, it cites me as “prominent”, which is very flattering).

In particular, his main argument, which I entirely agree with, is that if religion has any virtue, it is not in the belief itself, but in the community that forms around it.

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