How to teach a religion class

Scalzi makes an impractical, mocking suggestion (hey, isn’t that all he does?) for how to teach comparative religion:

Incidentally, there’s a simple solution to the problem of teaching the history and literature of religions in public schools without “accidentally” tipping over into, you know, proselytizing: Have atheists teach the classes. Yes, that will go over swell, I know. I’m just saying.

He’s right, it would never fly, but I have a suggestion that might make it work. Two rules:

  1. The person teaching the course may not at any time or in any way, even indirectly, discuss his or her own religion.

  2. All discussion of any religion must be value-neutral, that is, you can’t talk about what’s “good” or “bad”, just state the historical and doctrinal facts.

Since most teachers are going to be Christian, that means Christianity would get short shrift, which isn’t appropriate…but the obvious solution there is to have guest lecturers. Invite the local Muslim or Buddhist in to summarize Christianity from his or her perspective. That alone, of course, would guarantee that the instructor couldn’t be some raving fundie—imagine a David Paszkiewicz having to sit quietly at the back of the room while a Dawkins-like atheist or a Muslim like Keith Ellison explained Christianity to the class.

Coelacanth evolution

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I was reminded of one of the more comical, but persistent misconceptions by creationists in a thread on Internet Infidels, on The Coelacanth. Try doing a google search for “coelacanth creation” and be amazed at the volume of ignorance pumped out on this subject. I’ve also run across a more recent example of the misrepresentation of the coelacanth that I’ll mention later … this poor fish has a long history of abuse by creationists, though, so here’s a brief rundown of wacky creationist interpretations.

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Starbucks gets cozier with the DI

I like Seattle. I grew up near there. But it’s got two things that annoy me: Starbucks coffee (OK, but overpriced and a little too pretentious) and the Discovery Institute (unspeakably vile inanity). Unfortunately, the proximity of those two institutions seems to encourage them to ooze into bed together and spawn expensive coffee with stupid ideas. They’ve done this before, publishing tripe from Wesley Smith on their cups, and now they’ve gotten worse, smearing lies from Jonathan Wells across the cups.

“Darwinism’s impact on traditional social values has not been as benign as its advocates would like us to believe. Despite the efforts of its modern defenders to distance themselves from its baleful social consequences, Darwinism’s connection with eugenics, abortion and racism is a matter of historical record, and the record is not pretty.”

Dr. Jonathan Wells,
biologist and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design

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A.N. Wilson has a genuine talent for stretching a quote

Perhaps your curiosity was aroused by Richard Dawkins’ apology:

I am distressed to find myself reported as participating in a “literary spat”, and as “pouring scorn” on an individual, comedian Peter Kay, for whom I actually feel nothing but goodwill (Heard the one about the atheist who scorned a comedian for his belief in a comforting God? March 8). The explanation is as follows. I am one of those whom reporters regularly telephone for a soundbite. Last week, I was fed a quotation from somebody, previously unknown to me, who said he believed in God because he found it comforting. Assuming I was one of a panel of usual suspects being asked to comment on this rather common sentiment, I gave my usual response.

Now it seems that I was being set up by a hired publicity machine, so that I would appear to be mounting a personal attack upon a particular individual who is my rival for a literary prize. And I also learn that the quotation they selected is an unrepresentative one from a book I haven’t read (I look forward to doing so), which is competing with my own for the same prize. I hope you will allow me publicly to apologise to Peter Kay and wish him well in the competition.

Perhaps you are also wondering what horrendous torrent of abuse he must have spewed to require that he apologize. Here it is, in full:

How can you take seriously someone who likes to believe something because he finds it “comforting”? If evidence for a Supreme Being were found, I would change my mind instantly—with pride and great surprise. Would I find it comforting? What matters is what is true and we discover the truth by evidence and not by what we would like.

That’s it? He said he finds it difficult to take someone seriously who believes in some elaborate my because it is “comforting”? That doesn’t sound like it warrants any kind of apology at all.

What demands an apology are the extravagant, indignant histrionics that A.N. Wilson spins into a half-page article of shrill denunciations in the Daily Mail. You can get an idea of the tone from the title alone, but do read the whole thing: Why, in God’s name, do we take this silly, shallow scientist seriously?. Ouch. A.N. Wilson stands exposed as a silly, dishonest, and patently sleazy journalist.

(via Back off, man; I’m a scientist)

Ooops, the link to the Daily Mail scan didn’t hold up under the load: try this copy instead.

Kicking ’em where it hurts

From Orcinus, I’ve learned a useful new term (“spockoed“, referring to using aggressive tactics to shame the right-wing extremists) and that Michael Savage and Ann Coulter are suffering for their calumnies, which is always satisfying. There might be a little too much self-satisfaction, though: I think there’s a large enough culture of right-wing extremism to keep them both profitable for a long time to come, and I suspect that knocking down one or two sleaze-artists just means new ones will rise to take their place.

Career day at the Discovery Institute preschool

“Hi, kids! My name is Barbie, and I’m like Britanny’s aunt, and I’m a model, you know? And I don’t like math? And you know, I never use math? But you know, when you grow up, you can just hire an accountant, so you don’t need math! Skip math class and hang out in the girl’s room touching up your makeup!”

“Greetingth, young mathterth. I am Igor, thon of Igor, father of Igor. I dig graveth for a living. You don’t need to read to do thith work: a thtrong back, a lack of thcrupleth, and a willingneth to do dirty work will carry you a long way. The mathter may thend you to fetch thingth now and then, but by not reading the labelth on the jarth, you will get fun thurpritheth! Tell your English teacherth they are only good for thpare partth.”

“Dudes and dudettes! Have I got good new-ews for you-oos. I’m Pauly Shore, the wea-sel, and that’s my nephew, the lit-tle wea-sel, eating paste over there…and guess what? No, guess what? There’s a mar-ket for being really, really, really dumb! Don’t go to school, PAR-TAY!”

“My name is Dr. Michael Egnor, M.D., and I am a neurosurgeon. Doctors don’t study evolution. Doctors never study it in medical school, and they never use evolutionary biology in their practice. There are no courses in medical school on evolution. There are no ‘professors of evolution’ in medical schools. There are no departments of evolutionary biology in medical schools.”

In case you ever doubted that the Discovery Institute’s real goal is the promulgation of ignorance, that’s a genuine quote: Michael Egnor is directly addressing high school kids and telling them they don’t need to learn basic biology, because he doesn’t use it. I well believe he doesn’t — he does seem to be woefully ignorant of the subject, that’s for sure — but then, he’s not asking the kinds of questions that are answered with evolutionary biology. I don’t expect my auto mechanic to have a mastery of evolutionary principles, either, but I’d be a bit pissed off if she were telling the school board to shut down everything but the shop classes at the high school.

That same arrogant ignorance also leads him to misrepresent modern medicine. Of course there are doctors who study evolutionary biology and use it in their research, and there are professors who study evolutionary issues in medical schools. Egnor is being as unethical and dishonest as my imaginary career day advocates who suggest that their personal stupidity about a subject means it has no utility in any context at all.

Check in to the Panda’s Thumb —Burt Humburg has finished a rebuttal that shreds Egnor. Northstate Science has more, ERV tears him a new one, and Afarensis exposes more lies.

Finally, an issue that gets fundamentalist Christians to support biotechnology

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, now thinks that high-tech, fetal research is OK — if it leads to a cure for homosexuality.

If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin.

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