A perfect example of the Sam Harris two-step

As a follow-up to my post on how the alt-right hate groups are targeting young skeptics for recruitment, I want to point out how prominent atheists like Sam Harris are enabling this disturbing trend, something that Harvard secular chaplain Greg Epstein has already observed. This is because people like Harris say things that are rife with ambiguity. I and many others have noted before the disingenuous way that Sam Harris argues that enables him to be on both sides of an issue, something that I have labeled the Sam Harris two-step, though he is not the only one to use it. Charles Murray is also a master at it. They both seem to say outrageous things then, when challenged, point to other statements that seem contradict it.
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The alt-right is appealing to young skeptics

Some time ago, I wrote about how the alt-right coalition of fascists, neo-Nazis, and bigots was luring in young people by appealing to their sense of irony and fun, or ‘lulz’ as some say these days, acting as if the rhetoric of hate was not something to be believed in but was being used just to annoy and irritate those who were derisively labeled as ‘social justice warriors’ (though why that term is seen as an insult baffles me). The claim that they were ‘fighting political correctness’ was another shield used to deflect criticisms of this stance.
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What drives the ‘Flat Earth’ belief?

When I was a young boy in Sri Lanka, there was a Jesuit priest-in-training named Basil, a friend of the parents of a friend of mine, who liked to argue with us that the Earth was flat. We of course believed that it was round but as anyone who has argued with a flat-Earther knows, they have quite an array of arguments that they can drop on you to counter your objections and it is a good example of how almost any proposition can be defended if one is allowed to make ad hoc assumptions. We suspected that Basil did not really believe what he was saying but was using the formidable argumentative skills that Jesuits learn to mess with our young minds and show how hard it is to defend even what seem to be obvious truths.
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“Be a Hitler”

I have written many times about how there is a militant and bigoted group of Buddhists that includes Buddhist monks who feel that Sri Lanka should be a purely Sinhala Buddhist country and that every other ethnic-religious group does not belong. They have incited mobs to attack non-Sinhala Buddhists, most recently against the Muslim minority. Now a leading monk has gone to the next level, explicitly urging a presidential candidate to adopt Hitler as a model.
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The little-known story of the San Antonio Four

I have written before about cases of people who were incarcerated for long periods of time even though they were innocent of the crime. On a broadcast of the radio program Latino USA I recently learned of the case of four women who were convicted of Satanic sexual abuse and rape of two young nieces of one of the women. This was at the height of the hysteria over Satanic acts perpetrated on children in day care centers and the like.
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Give the religious an inch and they’ll try to take a mile

The US Supreme Court frequently takes up cases involving the Establishment Clause about the extent to which religious elements can be introduced into the public sphere. Rather than unequivocally declare that it should never be allowed and thus ending the debate once and for all, a decision that would likely result in them having to face the wrath of the religious in America, they have instead tried to rule very narrowly, inserting intricate conditions on when such things can be allowed. They have done this with prayers, religious displays, and the like.
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Now that’s what I call a swearing in

Many people think that before you can hold any public office, you have to swear on the Bible. Some think that any religious text will suffice. But Mariah Parker, who was elected as a county commissioner in Georgia, decided to show that this was false in the most emphatic way. She not only swore on a copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X held by her beaming and clearly proud mother, her other hand was raised in a clenched fist while she did so.

Way to go, Mariah! We need more people breaking these silly traditions.

Excellent critique of Sam Harris

I came across this excellent and thoughtful critique of Sam Harris (and in passing the members of the so-called ‘intellectual dark web’ that he belongs to) by someone who identifies himself as T1J. The title of the video is Why I Stopped Idolizing Sam Harris and, as the author explains, “While I don’t hate Sam Harris like some other progressives, he has stopped being the intellectual hero that he once was in my eyes.” The video explains the reasons for that disenchantment. The video is 23 minutes long but is so well done that I did not notice the time passing.
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Good luck with that appeal, bishop!

A Catholic bishop in Ireland says that those Catholics who voted in favor of repealing the ban on abortion have committed a sin and should go to confession. He tried to explain the vote.

He said the result indicated something “a little bit shocking” in Irish society. “There are cultural Catholics and committed Catholics… To be honest, many people would consider themselves Catholics, religion has become somewhat divorced from faith.”

He said “I think perhaps one of the problems we face is that for too long we’ve tended to rely exclusively on a model of faith formation which is addressed to young people in schools, and apart from the Sunday homily there hasn’t been serious faith formation in our parishes.

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Irish abortion ban overturned

With most of the votes counted, the people of Ireland have voted to overturn the complete ban on all abortions, including in the cases of rape, incest or fatal fetal abnormality, that had been written into the constitution by a large margin of 68%-32%, pretty much in line with early exit polls but contradicting opinion polls that had shown a close vote. For an overwhelmingly Catholic country, this is a huge deal, and the ‘yes’ vote won in every region, even in the most staunchly Catholic ones. What is astounding, as Robert Mackey informs us, is that it was only as recently as 1983 that the ban was imposed by a huge margin of 67-33%. This is a huge change in opinion in a short time.
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