Ohio schools have ecome officially atheistic, godless, and toxic…

I don’t really have words for this. The Atheist Mama had a few though.

The Columbus Dispatch – Editorials

In December, I submitted a resolution to the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio, urging pastors and parents to investigate the indoctrination of our young people into the homosexual agenda and to encourage concerned Christian parents to remove their children from public schools.

At the heels of the recent 11-4 decision by the State Board of Education to censor any criticism of Darwinian evolution, it has become clear that our young people are being indoctrinated into not only a pro-homosexual, but a humanistic religion, as well. Ohio schools have become officially atheistic, godless and toxic, morally, intellectually and spiritually, to our precious children.

Sounding both intelligent and reasonable

There’s a rather uninteresting post from the ID camp, except for one little line, quoted below (emph mine)

Evolution News & Views: The Scotsman: Intelligent Design Evidence-Based

Scotsman Alistair Donald recently engaged Peter Jones concerning intelligent design and the age of reason, and came off sounding both intelligent and reasonable.

This is the cornerstone of ID — sounding intelligent and reasonable. The average Joe or Jane may have a difficult time discerning real science from something that sounds intelligent and reasonable. This includes politicians. Thus, a large group of creationists gets together, makes a concerted effort to seem legit, and are subsequently percieved as scientific skeptics who just want to make sure that we’re dilligent in our skepticism.

It’s important in trying to limit the impact of ID that we understand the social and psychological manipulation perpetrated by its proponents.

ID/Creationism people cite criticism of Kitzmiller Case

They lost that case, and lost it big. They should be hanging their heads in shame because their utter sham was revealed.

Intead, they cheer at every option when someone critcizes the decision.

Evolution News & Views: Philosopher Alvin Plantinga Demolishes Part of Kitzmiller Decision

The critical response to Judge Jones’s decision in the Kitzmiller case continues to build. Renowned philosopher Alvin Plantinga has recently written a short article analyzing part of Judge Jones’s reasoning. Having Plantinga’s analytic expertise and philosophic understanding come down against the Kitzmiller decision does not bode well for the intellectual vitality Judge Jones may have hoped his opinion would achieve. For those who may not know, Alvin Plantinga is a highly respected philosopher who has written extensively on such topics as epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion. As one of the worlds leading thinkers about the ‘science of knowledge,’ epistemology, Plantinga has published a seminal trilogy centering on warrant. He is highly respected in the philosophy community and has served as the president of the American Philosophical Association. All this makes Plantinga’s analysis of the reasoning employed in Kitzmiller highly relevant.

Hell’s Handmaiden shares my opinion, and has already dealt with the praised article here.

Withering criticism of Leon Wieseltier’s review of “Breaking the Spell”

The very article that the Intelligent Design folks were drooling over has been met with a flurry of criticism.

‘Breaking the Spell’ – New York Times

Leon Wieseltier’s review of Daniel Dennett’s “Breaking the Spell” (Feb. 19) was an impressive demonstration of the power of religious faith. In gathering the wood for this auto-da-fé, Wieseltier showed no facility at all for scientific thought, nor even a basic appreciation for the standards of rigor and intellectual honesty that distinguish science from religion as a human pursuit. Wieseltier writes with triumphal smugness about the “excesses of naturalism” that apparently blight Dennett’s work. He might as well have pointed out the “excesses of historical accuracy” or the “excesses of logical coherence.” If utter naturalism is a sin, it is one only from the point of view of religious faith — a faith that has grown ever more blinkered in Reason’s glare.

That bit’s from Sam Harris.

Senator Bill Napoli (R) Googlebombed

The Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels have initiated a googlebombing of Bill Napoli, whom I quoted yesterday evening.

They chose to highlight the same bit I did yesterday, as to who might be allowed an abortion, copied here:

A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

Now if you look up Bill Napoli on Google, you get this as the first entry:

napoli (not to be confused with the proper noun, which indicates the Italian city)
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): napolied
Pronunciation: nA’poli

1. To brutalize and rape, sodomize as bad as you can possibly make it, a young, religious virgin woman who was saving herself for marriage.
2. To hella rape somebody.

Etymology: From State Senator Bill Napoli’s (R-SD) description of an acceptable rape that would merit an exemption from South Dakota’s abortion ban.

Example of usage: “Did you hear? Laura’s dad totally napolied her, but according to Utah law, she still has to obtain his permission before getting an abortion.”

It’s good to see the Internet giving Napoli the recognition he so richly deserves.

Christian mischief at home (Weekly Roundup)

Lest you think that one religion is causing all of the problems of irrationality, I bring you the weekend roundup of issues with Christians in the West. Again, numbered for reference but no particular order:

Harry Clarke reviews the case against Mother Teresa, where belief in a Higher Power led to neglect of care here on earth (emph mine).

With regard to those suffering from serious diseases the Mother ‘prefers providence to planning; her rules are designed to prevent any drift towards materialism’. Her patients looked like inmates of Belsen because they all ‘had shaved heads…This is two rooms with fifty to sixty men in one , fifty to sixty women in another. There’re dying. They’re not being given a great deal of medical care. They’re not being given pain killers beyond aspirin…’. Why aren’t you sterilising the needles, ‘There’s no point. There’s no time’. Mother had money but who needs that when God is on your side and why corrupt these sufferers with materialism.

To a patient dying of cancer and suffering incredible pain the Mother said ‘ You are suffering like Christ on the Cross. So Jesus must be kissing you’. The patient replied ‘Then please tell him to stop kissing me’. Why could he not understand?

There’s an amusing bit about Paris Hilton as Mother Teresa at the end.

1. Bush links the Department of Homeland Security with faith-based organizations. Great. Now we can pray for security.
2. The Vatican wants Italian schools to allocate Islamic prayer time. They seem to rightly recognize that if one religion is allowed into schools, theirs might follow.
3. Scientists are rallying as they realize that people will in fact believe Intelligent Design (read: creationist) BS if it’s fed to them. Educated people used to shrug it off, as if we could never slide that far back, but we are doing just that. It’s good to see that people are getting worried and doing something about it. Don’t believe it’s a real problem?
   

   Aside from the recent legal battles, educators point to several other signs troubling them about evolutionary education in the United States. For example, in a study published last year, Randy Moore, a professor of biology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, reported that 20 percent of the biology teachers he surveyed in Minnesota include creationism in their classes and believe that it is scientifically valid.

   More examples will follow.

4. Lest we think that humans are somehow now exempt from evolution, a professor at the University of Chicago would beg to differ.
   

   Providing the strongest evidence yet that humans are still evolving, researchers have detected some 700 regions of the human genome where genes appear to have been reshaped by natural selection, a principal force of evolution, within the last 5,000 to 15,000 years.

   But humans didn’t evolve. An intelligent designer made it look that way to confuse us.

5. More info on South Dakota’s move to criminalize abortion. A state senator explains the charity of the one loophole in the law,
   

   “A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl, could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.”

   I wonder, if she weren’t a virgin, but she were raped, would she be able to use the loophole? Or what if she weren’t sodomized? But surely, abortions are done for simple convenience, because people are too lazy or hedonstic to control themselves as long as abortions are available (Napoli [quoted above] believes most abortions are performed for “convenience,”)

   “It was difficult when I found out I was pregnant. I was saddened because I knew that I’d probably have to make this decision. Like I said, I have two children, so I look into their eyes and I love them. It’s been difficult, you know, it’s not easy. And I don’t think it’s, you know, ever easy on a woman, but we need that choice.”

   How callous of her. Soon, you won’t just be prevented from aborting a pregnancy, you’ll be prevented from preventing one:

   In South Dakota, pharmacists can refuse to fill a prescription for contraceptives should it trouble their conscience, and some groups who worked on the anti-abortion bill believe contraception also needs to be outlawed. Good plan. After that, we’ll reconsider women’s property rights, civil right and voting rights.

   I’m dumbfounded.

6. Britain, considered by some to be a shining example of secular rationality is considering teaching about creationism in school science courses. A science teacher in Sussex voiced some of his concerns,
   

   “This opens a legitimate gate for the inclusion of creationism or intelligent design in science classes as if they were legitimate theories on a par with evolution fact and theory.

   “I’m happy for religious theories to be considered in religious education, but not in science where consideration could lead to a false verification of their status as being equal to scientific theories.”

   This rings of The Wedge Strategy.

7. Tennessee is also on the way to banning abortion.

That’s enough for tonight. This is depressing me.

More on Protests, Cartoons, and Censorship (Weekend Roundup)

I sorted through nearly 600 feed entries this weekend, several of which contained more news about the cartoons and Islam-inspired censorship. Here’s a list (numbered for reference — no particular order):

1. Catallaxy quotes a story on the debates now taking place among moderate Muslims as a result of the cartoon insanity. The Democratic Muslims want to make sure it’s clear that not every Muslim shares the same views,
   

   “I have been in Denmark for 17 years but I was not part of the integration debate because I just thought that everything would work out,” says Mr. El-Abed, who is of Palestinian origin. “But since this crisis came, I decided that I can no longer allow others to speak on my behalf … many others are in the same position.”

2. Sandmonkey talks about a response to his question — which was which book the world Muslim population should ban next. Surprise! It’s Don Quixote.
3. A recent conference in Denmark geared toward easing tensions had disappointing results, including (probably unintentionally) veiled blackmail (emph mine)
   

   Khaled sought to emphasize that “we are here to build bridges for dialogue” and suggested that a continuing boycott of Danish goods in Arab countries could stop if Danes and their government reach out with initiatives such as health care or help for small businesses. [Though a boycott is the right way to go about this, compared with violence --RR]

   and outright expression of anger and demands for apology:

   “We are here today because we want to tell you that every Muslim in the world is very angry,” said Tareq Alsuwaidan, general manager of the Kuwaiti satellite channel Al Resalah.

   “We request an official apology from your government to the Muslim nation. Your government has done a very bad job and you have to do something about it.” [Still better than violence and threats thereof --RR]

   and out come the demands for censorship again:

   He demanded that the European Union enact a law that forbids insulting religious figures. [This is not how it works... --RR]

   Europe’s existing issues with freedom of expression are giving them leverage:

   “Freedom of speech shouldn’t be absolute,” said Al Habib Ali Aljifri, an Islamic scholar from Yemen, noting that many European countries do not allow anti-Semitic speech. “We must come to an understanding of rules governing freedom of expression.”

4. Sugiero compiles an interesting review of the provocation within the Muslim world that resulted in the widespread outrage, including the fabrication of additional images that supposedly “give an insight in how hateful the atmosphere in Denmark is towards Muslims.”
5. A newspaper editor in Yemen is under threat of the death penalty for publishing Danish caricatures of Muhammad. Sandmonkey comments on how great this is for the image of Islam. A story of the Prophet’s endorsement of killing is being used to encourage the dismantling of the accused newspaper and the execution of its editor. Apparently, obscuring the (shrunken) images and actually condemning the cartoons was not a sufficient counterweight to publishing them.
6. French philosopher Glucksmann seems to argue that it’s okay to censor holocaust denial but not cartoons of Muhammed because one is based on faith and the other on fact. This is the sort of thing that’s referred to above about conflicting rules, and if we are going to have our freedom of expression and really mean it, we can’t tolerate either camp.
7. Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka points out the folly of Islamic censorship and the Western voices that support it.
   

   Who is it that really defiles the name of the Prophet Mohammed? Those who butcher innocents in the name of that Prophet, innocents who have never tasted Danish butter in all their lives, who do not even know of the existence of a nation called Denmark, or some cartoon editor who, for all we know, has never related spiritually to Jesus Christ or Mohammed, to the Buddha or Orisa-nla?

   …

   The Danish government, thank goodness, declined to assume the burden of guilt by succumbing to the call to apologize for the conduct of one of its citizens, an individual who at no time was accused of being its official, representative or spokesman, but a free agent in his own cause, however censurable. The proposition that a government should act as monitor for individual choice within a free society is repugnant. [It'd be nice if some other Western governments would back them up --RR]

I can’t believe this is still going on. How long ago were these cartoons published?

Science turns its lens on religion, with controversial results

There’s been a lot of discussion around the web with insults, comments, retorts, counter-retorts and more over a recent book by Daniel Dennett (Breaking the Spell), wherein he turns the lens of scientific inquiry on the biology behind religious belief. Clive Cookson gives an ineresting overview of the subject matter.

According to Tim Adams of The Observer, Dennett

has been called a ‘Darwinian fundamentalist’ in that there is no area of life or experience that he believes cannot be understood in terms of natural selection.

This is a subject that has sparked a nontrivial amount of debate on this blog recently. It seems he has taken Dawkins’ suggestion of the ‘meme’, sort of a virus of the mind, very seriously.

It also seems he shares my aims with regard to taking religion off of its untouchable pedestal:

Breaking the Spell opens up a new front in this engagement. ‘It just became clearer and clearer to me that there were too many presumptions in the air about the elevated status of religious presuppositions,’ he says. ‘I thought that wasn’t right. I wanted to find out why religion still has such a hold on people.’

I find his ‘bright’ moniker for himself and others of like mind (including me) a little arrogant. He’s certainly not out to tread softly with this stuff. On the other hand it’s a nice example of framing (similar to the pro-abortion vs. pro-choice, pro-life vs. anti-choice name-wrangling of that debate), as he states in the article,

Dennett has written editorial pieces in the New York Times about the brights being America’s most persecuted minority these days; the godless worse than jihadists in some eyes. Is the term gaining currency?

‘Well,’ he says ‘there was a flurry at first and then it sort of died down and people said, “Ha! It’s not going to catch on.” But it took the term “gay” quite a few years to catch on. So let’s come back in five years and see what is happening to “bright”. I think it would be good if there was a familiar novel term for people who don’t believe in the supernatural. There are such negative connotations to the word atheist in that it defines an opposition. I’d like a word that stands on its own.’

Dennett does not make the comparison with gay liberation tritely. For a while now, he has cheerfully been announcing to anyone who will listen that he is bright and he is proud.

‘When I came out as a bright at this wonderful conference of high-school kids up in Seattle, the effect was electrifying,’ he recalls. ‘Many of them came up to me afterwards and said, “Thank you! Thank you! I have never heard an adult say that before.”‘

The children had apparently held these private doubts about God for years, but they’d had to keep them to themselves, worried about being different, or strange. ‘Let’s shout it out,’ Dennett exclaims. ‘We’re brights! We don’t believe in God!’

There are still circles of my life where I feel the shame of being an atheist. I’m not ashamed myself, but I know that the responses I’d get for ‘coming out’ would have the intent of making me feel ashamed. This is sad. Since becming a for-sure atheist, I’ve had much more sympathy for homosexuals. And they generally don’t have a choice in the matter, which makes my situation somewhat less traumatic. He seems to have the same spirit that I do about the whole issue of ‘tolerance’ for religion:

Dennett is clearly a profoundly generous-spirited man in person, but he gives no quarter intellectually to anyone. ‘The only meaning of life worth caring about,’ he says, ‘is one that can withstand our best efforts to understand it.’

There’s no reason to abuse anyone because you disagree with them, but attempting to disabuse them of their religious beliefs should not be off-limits.

Dennett sees the world of the future polarising between rationalists and believers and, from the corner of his quad, watches that fracture deepening daily. When he wrote his seminal book, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, people used to ask him: why is it so dangerous? They don’t ask him that any more. Dawkins wrote that people had ‘evolved to be Darwinists’, but some people are clearly taking a lot longer than others.

I think this polarization is becoming more evident by the day. Amusingly, his father was a historian specializing in Islam,

‘Here was a man who intimately understood the Middle East, and who was deeply interested in politics, who loved the Arab world. It would have been great to have him in the State Department for a few decades.’

He also shares my worries about Bush’s high regard for a Higher Authority.

Dennett has a major critic at the NYT, but because of their registration BS, I won’t link to it. The [Un]intelligent Design people are loving this and another exchange between Dennett and a fellow proponent of evolution, Michael Ruse. Bill Dembski of that camp quites the exchange here.

I think that Ruse has a good point, in that the antagonistic approach might be considered rash and provocative. I also think that the time for that caution is past. All of this intelligent design nonsense being pushed into schools is a sign that the other side has moved first, while the rest of us sat calmly thinking that we were slowly winning.

Fallas self-censored for fear of Muslim violence

The fact that world leaders have been urging people to give in to the demands of violent protestors probably hasn’t helped to shore up people’s confidence when satirizing Islam. Note that Fallas mocks other religious and authority figures with abandon, but this year mum’s the word on Islam and anything that might be related.

In the Fallas festival, giant sculptures of the high and mighty are placed in the streets for the public to mock before being destroyed in an orgy of gunpowder and flames. It has survived attacks by the Roman Catholic church, various puritanical rulers and the Franco dictatorship.

This year’s figures will include President George W Bush, several of the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and the Prince of Wales dancing, in Highland dress, with the Duchess of Cornwall. But self-censorship has seen Muslim and Arab figures modified to avoid offence.

The Spanish appear to be exercising particular restraint, given their history with the Moors and traditions

involving mock battles between “Moors and Christians”, in an ancient recreation of the Catholic reconquest of Spain from Arab rule.

What’s worse — the protests and threats of voilence, or the way that Western leadership has been bending over for it?

Breaking taboos a death sentence, despite claims of Dutch Immigration Minister

Sandmonkey gives his candid opinion on the Dutch Immigration Minister’s plans to send Iranian gays, Christians, and other asylum seekrs back to Iran:

Ehh, strong societal disapproval doesn’t begin to describe it. They will get killed. They will die. Islam is clear. Any muslim who converts to another religion is ok to kill. End of story. She is sending them back to certain death.