Courage And Good Sense

This morning's ABC world news broadcast (at some hour) featured a San Bernadino city memorial gathering honoring those killed in the massacre. Visible front and center in the crowd was a young woman in conventional Muslim dress, her demeanor prayerful, her manner solemn. She had a choice to make, a decision about just what to risk, and in our society, no less rife with religious extremism than, say, Saudi Arabia, she put her own life on the line to make a simple declaration: typical Muslims do not approve of mass violence any more than, say, Christians, Jews or Unitarian Universalists. Kudos to her for her bravery.

My mind's eye looked back 14 years to Sept. 11, 2001. I lived in an apartment then. A young couple, my neighbors across the walkway at the time, were Muslim, she of American birth, he of Canadian. Neither their appearance nor their family name nor any audible accent distinguished them as being Muslim, but somehow, at the school attended by their two young sons, word got out that they were, and the kids... the older one might have been age 9... were harassed, both openly and (more troubling) also anonymously.

I regret to say this story has a happy ending: at the cost of both their jobs, and taking advantage of his Canadian birthright, the couple moved somewhere in Canada. Regret? Yes:  I grieve to see America lose potential solid, hardworking, honest and downright cheerful citizens. Happy ending? Yes: those kids did not deserve to be threatened with bodily harm because of their faith.

Yesterday and today, the young, visibly Muslim woman at the memorial gathering was courageous. Fourteen years ago, the young couple and their sons showed good sense. What kind of America do we put forth to the world, that any of these people have to reckon with consequences just for being who they are?

Here ends the lesson for the day. <sigh />.

Trump Is A Conservative An Anti-Religious Nut-Job

Well, I suppose he could be both, even at the same time. But anyone who claims to support the First Amendment view of freedom of religion in America can't go shooting off his mouth like this:

Businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said the U.S. will have to "strongly consider" shutting down some of the country's mosques during a Monday morning interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

After the attacks that rocked central Paris and killed more than 100 people, the French interior minister called for the closing of radical mosques in France.

On MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough asked, if President, would Trump consider closing mosques?

"I would hate to do it but it would be something that you're going to have strongly consider," Trump said. "Some of the ideas, some of the hatred, absolute hatred, is coming from these areas."

...

Perhaps some of the problems do come from "these areas," but their solutions emphatically do not, at least in a nation that wants to be taken seriously in its claim to offer freedom of religious belief.

Religion is about belief, and belief is precisely what is protected by the First Amendment against government infringement.

All belief is protected. But not all action deriving from that belief is protected: your religion can lead you to believe in, say, ritual human sacrifice, but the First Amendment confers no right to perform such sacrifices; murder is still murder. Still, the First Amendment does not permit anyone to shut down meeting places of selected religious groups or treat them differently under law. Those who murder or threaten to murder can be arrested and charged under law, but their houses of worship may not be tainted by the fact that murderers attend.

I am not saying this is easy. We appear to have some evidence that some Muslims indeed want their ritual sacrifices in the name of their god, and are willing to misuse individual mosques in pursuit of such terroristic murders. But we still do not have a right to shut down places of worship because some bad people attend them and try to use them for nefarious purposes. If that were the case, I could surely compile a list of various Christian denominations whose most radical churches should be shut down... oh, never mind; don't get me off the topic here. The simple version is this principle: shutting down places of worship is not a valid or viable solution to the problem that some criminally or terroristically inclined people do their organizing at or through those places. The terrorists may of course be pursued— their religious institutions may not.

And besides, shutting down mosques is surely a self-fulfilling act. Shut down mosques, and you will justify acts by the very terrorists you wish to stop. Why is this so hard for some people to understand?

And so we come full circle to the antireligious Mr. Trump. Those who are contemplating voting for him should think long and hard: Will the GOP always offer presidential candidates who will shut down only mosques? or could the practice extend to churches? or synagogues? or your very own house of worship?

You Think Religious Fundamentalists Are Harmless, As Long As They Call Themselves Christian? Fat Chance!

librarisingnsf at Kos, for LGBT Kos Community:

Anti-Gay NC Church Members Indicted For Felony Kidnapping And Assault Of Gay Man

...

From LGBTQ Nation:

... but religious bigotry
is no laughing matter

Five members of an anti-LGBT church in Spindale, N.C., were indicted on several felony charges this week, following a complaint lodged by a young gay man who says church members kidnapped him and assaulted him because of his sexual orientation.

A grand jury indicted Justin Brock Covington, Brooke McFadden Covington, Robert Louis Walker Jr. and Adam Christopher Bartley on second degree kidnapping and simple assault charges. A fifth member, Sarah Covington Anderson, was indicted on second degree kidnapping as well as simple assault and assault by strangulation.

The grand jury met on Monday, with indictment announcements released on Tuesday.

All are members of The Word of Faith Fellowship, a church which has continually come under fire for its alleged cult-like behaviors and severe treatment of members, particularly young people.

In this most recent case, 21-year-old student Matthew Fenner, a member of the church since age 16, alleges that several members targeted him because of his sexual orientation.

...

May the good Dog spare me from bigots. If this church didn't hate gays, they'd hate Blacks. If they didn't hate Blacks, they'd hate Unitarians. (No, I'm not making that up; one such person raged and raved at me for being a UU... the R&R took place over a lunch table at a music workshop. FWIW, my UU church in my young adult years had an openly gay minister, and all of us, straight, gay and otherwise, admired him greatly.)

Apparently the fundies have to hate somebody to keep the fire in their bellies going. I am not Christian, but I have serious doubts that Jesus would recognize these people as members of his flock.

Irony Exemplified

Caitlin Macneal at TPM:

WTF? Wat, Thai, Firearm!

A North Carolina man was partially paralyzed after he was struck in the head on Saturday by a stray bullet at a festival celebrating the opening of a Buddhist temple in Charlotte, N.C., WSOC-TV reported.
Brandon Yam was serving food at the festival when a stray bullet fell from the sky, according to WSOC.

I suppose as many Americans as there are who fire their guns into the air on July 4, this was inevitable. But... a Buddhist temple opening? Oh, irony... the poor man really was struck in the temple...

How To Drive Someone Away From Christianity — Indeed, Any Kind Of Religion

Regular readers know I'm something of a skeptic regarding formal, church-based religion: I have never been a Christian, and as a UU, I exercised the broad latitude extended by that religion to its fullest extent. But heretofore I have been, in my own estimation, very tolerant of other people's religious beliefs, even as I am utterly disinclined to engage in anything one could reasonably call "faith" myself: if something can be demonstrated satisfactorily by proof, example or repeatable experiment, it is at some level "true"; if not, I'm not interested... that thing may be harmless, but it is also useless.

On that basis, I've been tolerant of the religious beliefs of fundamentalist evangelicals I know. But the nature of fundamentalism has been radically altered by the likes of preachers like John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in the San Fernando Valley and radio Bible-thumper extraordinare:



When a "man of God" asserts that parents must disavow their own children, "turn them over to Satan," etc. just for being gay, that's where I must definitively part ways with him: frankly, anyone who is that ready to "turn [adult children] over to Satan" apparently perceives very little difference between God and Satan, and very little difference between himself and a prison guard prepared to inflict torture.

Condemned to an eternity
of Really Bad Hair
and Fraktur Type

In short, if God is not good or if God not only condones but encourages hateful behavior, what possible basis is there for worshiping Him/Her? Right... there's no basis whatsoever. We don't need any more hatred in humanity's already mean‑spirited, afflicted world. And so I say to Hell, perhaps literally, more likely figuratively, with damnation-fixated preachers like MacArthur.

Aside: FWIW, I've been damned to Hell by so many self-satisfied fundy Christians in my lifetime that if you wish to comment for that purpose only, you're wasting your time.

Afterthought: here's Ricky-boy Perry saying that being gay is like being alcoholic. This isn't the first time he's said that. Consequently, this isn't the first time he's been wrong about it. Alcoholism comes in several flavors, some of which are amenable to various kinds of treatment, and there are compelling health reasons for addressing treatable alcoholism. OTOH, as straight guys go, I've probably known more gay guys (and a few gals) than most, and not only do all of them assert that gayness is intrinsic, inborn, but I've yet to see any compelling reason for attempting to modify the behavior... certainly not because a radio preacher or a GOPer state governor thinks you should.

(H/T Christian Dem in NC at Daily Kos.)

Florida Town Bans All Holiday Displays On Public Property To Keep Out Festivus Pole, Then Changes Rules And Puts Up Manger Scene

If you ever wondered what Christian Floridians learned from the story of Christmas, here's the answer: lie, cheat or steal to keep out the competition. From Raw Story:

In 2012, the mayor of Deerfield Beach had given in to atheist Chaz Stevens and the American Civil Liberty Union, allowing an 8-foot-tall Festivus pole made of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans to be placed alongside a manger and Menorah. Festivus is a secular holiday created by the television show Seinfield, which some atheists celebrate on Dec. 23.

But to prevent Stevens from putting up the pole again this year, a city spokesperson told the Sun Sentinel that it had banned all holiday displays that it did not put up itself. Many thought that it meant that there would be no Nativity scene because the display belonged to a private business.

...

In the meantime, a Nativity scene reappeared at Deerfield Beach Fire Station No. 1.

Chaz expressed his outraged in a video posted to YouTube late last week.

...

Yep, that's Bible Belt Christianity for you. "Let us prey [sic]..."

'Lesus Jesus Wept'

This has to be the typo of the century... Lisa Derrick of FDL explains:

Someone misspelled the name of the Vatican’s raison d’etre, Jesus, on a commemorative medallion, striking 6,000 gold, silver and bronze coins with the name Lesus. Several of the medallions were sold before someone noticed the error. The remaining medallions were recalled, making the four that were sold collectors items.

The coins were struck by the Italian Mint to honor the papacy of Francis I and carried a Latin inscription which the Pope said inspired him to join the Catholic priesthood:

Vidit ergo Jesus publicanum et quia miserando antque eligendo vidit, ait illi sequere me (Jesus therefore sees the tax collector, and since he sees by having mercy and by choosing, he says to him, follow me).

...

Sigh...

My Contradictory Inspirations For The Day

As usual these days, I have been in quite a bit of pain today. To distract myself, I listened to this work, which is religiously quite foreign to me, but uplifting as a musical work, and a glorious carol of the season...



... and read an article from the Houston Press, Atheism Rising. Take your pick; it took both to help alleviate the pain in my foot (still not wholly gone, and the beginning of this week will be a rough one for related reasons). I am not a Christian. I am not quite, really, an atheist. But I'll take my inspiration where I find it now.

Aside: religious conversion attempts are UNwelcome. Proselytizers will be deleted and banned from the site. Happy Holidays to all of you!

LHC Makes New Type Of Matter... So Let's Discuss Religion!

If you're interested in the new type of matter, here's the post by Carl Franzen of TPM; it's not a bad job, and Carl has finally learned not to say "Dog particle" or whatever he used to say. Read it for the basics if you're interested in the physics.

Read the comments if you're interested in religion as a force for opposing science. By no means are all the commenters radical, but even the ones who are not, irritated me today. Here's an excerpt from a comment; I'll show mercy and not identify the commenter:

...

... 2. There does seem to be a major issue in the world today of a lack of ethics and morals. Where do those come from lacking religion? (recognizing that religious people are pretty bad as well) ...

...

Oh, yeah, I know what s/he means. Like the other day, there was this woman in Ireland, not Irish and not Catholic but Hindu, pregnant, who had the misfortune to miscarry while in Ireland. Any Irish woman would have known that miscarrying while in Ireland is both a sin and a crime. Fortunately, the doctors at the hospital were trained in "ethics and morals" because they were not "lacking religion"; they knew the fetus was beyond any hope of survival, so they stood watching, waiting for the fetal heartbeat to stop, while the mother, in agony, begged them to terminate the pregnancy, only to be told "This is a Catholic hospital" by the docs, who stood there watching the fetal heartbeat monitor as the mother... slowly... horribly... excruciatingly*... died of septicemia. It was a good thing those docs had "ethics and morals" and weren't "lacking religion"; otherwise, that 31-year-old woman might have lived a long, possibly happy, possibly productive life. And that would have been a tragedy.

Here ends today's lesson in "ethics and morals" from people not "lacking religion." Please be generous with your offering when the plate comes your way...

---

* Word chosen quite deliberately.

Krugman, Rubio And The Age Of The Earth

Paul Krugman points out that Marco Rubio's evasiveness when asked how old the Earth is is more than just a gesture to appeal to religious fundamentalists in the GOP's base: it is a direct, full-fledged abnegation of science in pursuit of the truth... and an indirect rejection of the economic prosperity that can only be based on Americans' widespread knowledge of the sciences. Krugman is right; indeed, he could scarcely be more right. Conservative biblio-babble notwithstanding, in these days, without science, the American economy... any human economy... is nothing.

The Earth? It is 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years old. Some Bible-bangers... Rubio, perhaps? will tell you figures in the vicinity of 6000 to 7500 years; others give longer spans from 12000 to 20000 years. A mere 6000 years? I had a great‑grandmother who was older than that... [/snark]

The point is this: science is not necessarily always right, but it is always rooted in physical reality as best researchers can determine that reality. Religion may occasionally be factually right, but it is always mythology, with no obligation to factual accuracy. As mythology, it may have some moral instructive value (or not); but as myth rather than fact, it is a poor basis for formulating public policy... let alone teaching science.

Ryan Slashes At Obama's Religious Values

There is a tradition in American politics that we do not... publicly at least... fault an opponent for his religion. Of course our one (?) Muslim member of Congress has received no such courtesy, but for the most part, over most of my lifetime, only one presidential candidate... John F. Kennedy... has been called to account for his religion, Catholicism.

Now comes GOP veep candidate Paul Ryan one day before the election, wielding a baseball bat at Mr. Obama's religion (and it's not the first public mention criticizing his religion). From TPM's David Taintor:

Paul Ryan told a group of evangelicals Sunday night that President Obama has put America on a path that compromises the "Judeo-Christian, western-civilization values that made us such a great and exceptional nation in the first place," NBC News reports:

A Ryan campaign spokesman told NBC News about Ryan’s comments: "He was talking about issues like religious liberty and ObamaCare - topics he has mentioned frequently during the campaign."

...

NO, HE WAS NOT. That is not what Ryan was talking about. He was talking about Obama's religion, saying it "compromises [our] 'Judeo-Christian, western-civilization values.'" Only a certifiable idiot would be unable to understand that Paul Ryan was criticizing Obama's religion. And Ryan isn't... quite... stupid enough to qualify as an idiot.

Ryan set out intentionally to say something bad about Obama's spiritual life, contrary to America's tradition of not publicly faulting a candidate for his or her religion. And he did exactly what he set out to do.

Does this give me license to do the same to Rmoney and Ryan? Am I now entitled to light into Rmoney for his missions, his secrets of the temple and his funny underwear? How about Ryan... am I allowed now to talk about boy-buggery?

Shades of that pic of GeeDubya with a halo!

The End Of Science In America?

Paul Krugman:

...

Like others doing similar exercises — Drew Linzer, Sam Wang, and Pollster — Nate[ Silver]’s model continued to show an Obama edge even after Denver, and has shown that edge widening over the past couple of weeks.

This could be wrong, obviously. And we’ll find out on Election Day. But the methodology has been very clear, and all the election modelers have been faithful to their models, letting the numbers fall where they may.

Yet the right — and we’re not talking about the fringe here, we’re talking about mainstream commentators and publications — has been screaming “bias”! They know, just know, that Nate must be cooking the books. How do they know this? Well, his results look good for Obama, so it must be a cheat. Never mind the fact that Nate tells us all exactly how he does it, and that he hasn’t changed the formula at all.

This is, of course, reminiscent of the attack on the Bureau of Labor Statistics — not to mention the attacks on climate science and much more. On the right, apparently, there is no such thing as an objective calculation. Everything must have a political motive.

This is really scary. It means that if these people triumph, science — or any kind of scholarship — will become impossible. Everything must pass a political test; if it isn’t what the right wants to hear, the messenger is subjected to a smear campaign.

...

This strikes me as yet another manifestation of the right-wing concept of science as simply a belief system, like Catholicism or Islam or Mormonism: as though, if you don't like one "faith," you can choose another; if you are offended by one scientific theory, you can replace it, based not on whether the replacement truly describes the world we live in, but on whether it is compatible with your political outlook. It's the same situation as in any other search for truth in reality: you don't get to choose your own facts. Honest seekers across the spectrum freely acknowledge this. Right-wingers, even the ones who are not utterly nuts, do not: the facts themselves, as they see them, are subject to reshaping based on one's political philosophy.

That simply doesn't work... at all... in scientific research. You cannot "pray away" global climate change. You cannot merely assert loudly, or even pass a law in Congress, that the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe has no ongoing environmental consequences. You cannot pass a law about when human life begins, and thereby change the physiology of the process. And as Krugman reminds us, you cannot legislate underlying motivations for human economic behavior, the ones that are truly wired in, as if they were simple matters of policy. You can't make trickle-down supply-side economics "true" by fiat. You can deny Keynes until you're blue in the face, but his message will nonetheless haunt you in the real world if you ignore it.

Newton

Galileo

There have always been science deniers; this is nothing new. Indeed, before a few people in 17^th-century England, Italy and Germany framed the basics of how one does science, of the notion of a hypothesis to be tested, of experimental confirmation, of mathematical description, there was not a great deal of science done anywhere. (The age of Archimedes, c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC, mathematically enlightened and technologically clever as he was, was all too brief, and had no thread of historical succession directly connecting him with the beginnings of science as we know it.) For millennia, most people did not think in scientific terms; those who did often paid dearly for their troubles. Today's science deniers would take us back to that time. (Hey, the torture apparatuses are already in place, thanks to the political system!)

And that is the crux (!) of what is frightening about right-wing politics: the wingers wish to establish a new age of "truth" by fiat, not truth through research in scientific matters, not even political truth by honest debate among people of differing interests, but truth by reference to authority. Regular use of the argument from authority leads almost inexorably to more emphasis on the authority than the argument. Spare us, please!

Catholic Hospitals In America: 'We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To Anyone'

Americans of a certain minimum age will remember the signs on the doors of dining establishments back in the 1950s, mostly but not exclusively in the Deep South: "We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone". What they meant, of course, was "We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to People of Color". Lunch counter occupations were among the early protest events of the Civil Rights movement.

Via Adgita Diaries, from AMERICAblog's John Aravosis, we learn that

...

The Catholic church is now making rumblings about turning away non-Catholics from the emergency rooms of Catholic hospitals. I shudder to make a Nazi analogy, so I won't. But what other analogy is there for a hospital to even dare start talking about picking and choosing who lives and who dies based on their religion?

...

From Maureen Dowd, writing about the latest Catholic scare tactic, distributed in tax-exempt churches, to oppose President Obama's new contraceptive policy that Mitt Romney previously endorsed as well.

The Archdiocese of Washington put an equally alarmist message in the church bulletins at Sunday’s Masses, warning of apocalyptic risk:

“1. Our more than 600 hospitals nationwide, which will need to stop non-Catholics at the emergency room door and say, ‘We are only allowed by the government to heal Catholics.’

Aravosis goes on to note the cognitive dissonance experienced by many non-Catholic Americans over the difference between the surveyed beliefs of Catholic Americans regarding contraception, abortion, premarital sex, etc. on the one hand, and on the other hand the fist-of-iron approach of the newly mean-spirited Catholic hierarchy in America. And he's right; it bugs the Hell out of me.

But hospitals are institutions that are necessarily ultimately under secular law, laws not about the practice of faith but the practice of medicine. Any hospital that decides to threaten to deny emergency care to any human being for reasons not related to the current best practices of medicine should have its doors shut and padlocked until it recants the threat. Every institution that calls itself "hospital" should without hesitation render emergency medical aid to any person... no exemptions, no qualifications... who needs it. Enough is enough.

Conservation Of Church-State Separations

Via Lindsay Beyerstein, here's AFP in the National Post:

OSLO – Norway, which is one of few developed countries to still have a state religion, passed a final hurdle Thursday to separate the Protestant Lutheran Church from the state, parliament said.

The move, which requires changes to Norway’s constitution, was approved by parliament a second time Thursday, in what was a formality after lawmakers voted through with overwhelming support on Monday, with 161 votes in favour and just three opposing votes.

...

High marks for Norwegians' legendary common sense. There was scant opposition.

Meanwhile, assuring conservation of church intervention in state affairs in America, Catholic church leaders and fundamentalist evangelicals with Catholic assistance...

In America, no liberty won by our forebears ever stays won. No good turn in the world goes unanswered by a selfish one. This is particularly true when we strive to retain our government's independence from the influence of religious organizations. Eternal vigilance, etc.