Christopher Hitchens on Sarah Palin

Here's a gem of a quote from a recent article by Christopher Hitchens on Sarah Palin (read the whole thing, it's positively delectable):

With Palin, however, the contempt for science may be something a little more sinister than the bluff, empty-headed plain-man's philistinism of McCain. We never get a chance to ask her in detail about these things, but she is known to favor the teaching of creationism in schools (smuggling this crazy idea through customs in the innocent disguise of "teaching the argument," as if there was an argument), and so it is at least probable that she believes all creatures from humans to fruit flies were created just as they are now. This would make DNA or any other kind of research pointless, whether conducted in Paris or not. Projects such as sequencing the DNA of the flu virus, the better to inoculate against it, would not need to be funded. We could all expire happily in the name of God. Gov. Palin also says that she doesn't think humans are responsible for global warming; again, one would like to ask her whether, like some of her co-religionists, she is a "premillenial dispensationalist"—in other words, someone who believes that there is no point in protecting and preserving the natural world, since the end of days will soon be upon us.

Study Fails to Equate Religious Belief with Superstition

Another good-natured riposte to Andrew Sullivan, a man I respect for his political commentary. In a short post referring to a study conducted by Baylor University (a Baptist theological institution, mind you) that examines whether people of faith believe in certain superstitious notions such as astrology, he makes a self-defeating reference that needs to be explored. He wrote:

"Bill Maher attacked people of faith by making fun of those who believe in guardian angels. But according to a new study, non-believers are far more superstitious than believers." (emphasis mine)

This is a false comparison that relies upon his flawed representation of what superstition means. Superstition is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as "an irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome." Whichever way you want to look at it, it is hard to make an argument that a belief in God (not to mention a resurrected Jesus and burning bushes) is not fundamentally "an irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome".

From this, shouldn't all religious believers be deemed 100% superstitious due to their irrational belief in an unknowable God? With that in mind, his final sentence becomes nonsense. 100% superstition is unarguably a larger figure than the 31% of non-believers identified in the article from which his source quotes.

By the way, Mollie Hemingway, the source from which Sullivan draws his conclusion, makes a similar mistake in her article:

"Even among Christians, there were disparities. While 36% of those belonging to the United Church of Christ, Sen. Barack Obama's former denomination, expressed strong beliefs in the paranormal, only 14% of those belonging to the Assemblies of God, Sarah Palin's former denomination, did." (emphasis mine)

I think you see where I'm going with this. To get to her conclusion, Hemingway relies on another false comparison involving the definition of the word paranormal, which means: "beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation." Again, it is hard to make the argument that a belief in God is not "beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation." Thus, religious people who believe in God (especially of the Pentecostal variety) are, as a defined group, necessarily 100% believers in the paranormal. 100% belief in the paranormal by religious believers is, again, a much greater percentage than the 31% of non-believers identified by Hemingway.

P.S. I wonder to what greater proof Sullivan owes his religious faith than an ardent ufologist or believer in healing crystal pyramids? Just asking...

Christian Group Says Hitler Never Killed Homosexuals

Some lovely Christian organization wants you to believe that the Nazis didn't kill homosexuals. There truly is no depth to which they will not sink. On the July 10 episode of the "Christian Worldview Network":

In today's program Brannon exposes that lie that Hitler killed homosexuals. Even a homosexual writer admits that is false. Some of Hitler's inner circle were homosexual and bi-sexual. The Brown Shirts started as a homosexual and bisexual organization. Brannon also reveals how the SS officers were desensitized. Many of the SS were "Christians" that went to church and some were even installed in ceremonies in churches. Evangelical pastors from other countries even praised Hitler at the beginning. The church of Germany was weak prior to Hitler coming to power and the weak pulpits make the church no obstacle for Hitler. Is the American church in the same condition?

Seriously, f**k these ignorant a**holes.

Here's some facts:

Upon the rise of Adolf Hitler, gay men and, to a lesser extent, lesbians,^[1] were two of several groups targeted by the Nazi Party and were ultimately among the roster of Holocaust victims. Beginning in 1933, gay organizations were banned, scholarly books about homosexuality, and sexuality in general, were burned, and homosexuals within the Nazi Party itself were murdered. The Gestapo compiled lists of homosexuals, and they were compelled to sexually conform to the German norm. An estimated 1.2 million men were out homosexuals in Germany in 1928.^{[citation needed]} Between 1933-45, more than 100,000 men were registered by police as homosexuals ("Rosa Listen" or "Pink List"), and of these, some 50,000 were officially sentenced. Most of these men spent time in regular prisons, and an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 of the total sentenced were incarcerated in concentration camps. It is unclear how many of these 5,000 to 15,000 eventually perished in the concentration camps. The leading scholar Ruediger Lautman however believes that the death rate in concentration camps of imprisoned homosexuals may have been as high as 60%. Homosexuals in camps were treated in an unusually cruel manner by their captors, and were also persecuted by their fellow inmates. This was a factor in the relatively high death rate for homosexuals, compared to other "anti-social groups".

The Need for Militant Antitheism

Here's some interesting nuggets from an email exchange I had recently on an Atheist listserv:

I responded to this email from one Tyler:

Not all religion is malicious. Childish, illogical, and bad on the extreme, but not always evil. Besides, what can we do against the vast majority? We can spread knowledge that Atheism is an option and is a justified position (in the Richard Dawkins way). That's pretty much it. And seriously... "go to religious websites and engage the enemy". Really? I mean, as funny as it would be to tear down their set-in-stone beliefs, wouldn't we just be painting a bad image of atheism? I'd rather keep our number of enemies lower, and try to foster better relations with more people. Here is a potentially superior list-

Elect atheists to Senate and House
Elect atheist president
Have that president appoint an atheist Justice

A lot harder, I know. What we need to do is work toward acheiving all three of those. This means all of us have to actively try to make most religions comfortable (enough) with us. If we can do the first two things on that list, we've already won the war on religion. Spreading divisive (even if true) remarks won't help reach any of these goals.

Here's my response:

Most religions (especially of the Ambrahamic variety) will absolutely never be comfortable with Atheism. Period. Full Stop. The only way Atheism will ever have greater acceptance in America is to have less religious people inhabiting it.

To your "We can spread knowledge that Atheism is an option and is a justified position": Yeah, we've been doing that for a long while. In some countries it catches on (see Scandinavia). It won't here for a variety of reasons.

Hitchens, Dawkins and (especially) Sam Harris are part of the much more militant antitheism movement and embody the only way we can ratchet back the religious insanity in this country. This is by aggressively refuting their magical thinking and refusing to accept religious appeasement (i.e. oh, religion is fine as long as you're outwardly pleasant and not bombing things). Too many of us get distracted by noticeably BIG evils and forget to notice the subtle evils of moderate religious toleration that, in the aggregate, amount to a much greater mound of evil.

Photo of the Day - Jesse Helms

I was strolling around my new digs in Chicago's tony Andersonville neighborhood and came across a gallery that was having a most unusual 4th of July sale. Let's just say they were celebrating an occasion nearly as enjoyable as Independence Day:

Jesse Helms - Good Riddance

Jesse Helms, one of the most hateful bigots to hold the office of Senator of the United States of America in the last century, died today.

If he truly held the Christian beliefs he said that he did, I suspect he'll find his new home in the afterlife to be a bit warm. If the hell he believed in really is a place where you are tormented by your sins for eternity, let's just say that some strapping male African demons will be, ahem, "having their way" with him for a very long time.

Here's a sample of the hatred, fear, racism and homophobia that fed his career:

As an aide to the 1950 Senate campaign of North Carolina Republican candidate Willis Smith, Helms reportedly helped create attack ads against Smith's opponent, including one which read: "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races."

Another ad featured photographs Helms himself had doctored to illustrate the allegation that Graham's wife had danced with a black man. (The News and Observer, 8/26/01; The New Republic, 6/19/95; The Observer, 5/5/96; Hard Right: The Rise of Jesse Helms, by Ernest B. Furgurson, Norton, 1986)

Ancient history? No. Helms remains unapologetic to this day. Forty years after the Smith campaign, Helms would win election against black opponent Harvey Gantt with another ad playing to racist white fear-- the so-called "white hands" ad, in which a white man's hands crumple a rejected job application while a voiceover intones, "You needed that job…but they had to give it to a minority."

In columns, commentaries and pronouncements from the Senate floor, Helms sowed hatred and called names: The University of North Carolina was "the University of Negroes and Communists." (Capital Times, 11/22/94) Black civil rights activists were "Communists and sex perverts." (Copley News Service, 8/23/01)

Over the years Helms has declared homosexuality "degenerate," and homosexuals "weak, morally sick wretches." (Newsweek, 12/5/94) In a tirade highlighting his routine opposition to AIDS research funding, Helms lashed out at the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS bill in 1988: "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." (States News Service, 5/17/88)

More recently, when a caller to CNN's Larry King Live show praised guest Jesse Helms for "everything you've done to help keep down the niggers," Helms' response was to salute the camera and say, "Well, thank you, I think." (Wilmington Star-News, 9/16/95)

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Higher IQ = Less Belief in God

We need more studies like this:

People with higher IQs are less likely to believe in God, according to a new study.

A survey of Royal Society fellows found that only 3.3 per cent believed in God - at a time when 68.5 per cent of the general UK population described themselves as believers.

A separate poll in the 90s found only seven per cent of members of the American National Academy of Sciences believed in God.

He told Times Higher Education magazine: "Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have higher IQs than the general population. Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQs tend not to believe in God."

He said religious belief had declined across 137 developed nations in the 20th century at the same time as people became more intelligent.

The best part of the article is this bit from a true believer:

Professor Gordon Lynch, director of the Centre for Religion and Contemporary Society at Birkbeck College, London, said: "Linking religious belief and intelligence in this way could reflect a dangerous trend, developing a simplistic characterisation of religion as primitive, which - while we are trying to deal with very complex issues of religious and cultural pluralism - is perhaps not the most helpful response," he said.

I think a simplistic characterization of religion as "primitive" is indeed warranted. Funny how he says it as if that would be a bad thing.

Stupid Is as Stupid Believes

This is too brilliant to pass up. Apparently, the more predisposed to biblical literalism, the stupider you are.

A few months ago I posted data which showed, unsurprisingly, that Unitarian-Universalists tend to have high IQs and Pentecostals not so much. What about something like Biblical literalism and IQ? Well, I plotted the IQ values from the General Social Survey for selected denominations and plotted them against the proportion which believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible. Prepare to be greeted by a very banal reality below the fold....

Also, convert the IQ values into percentiles....

Foster Ignorance in Your Flock

I never quote Andrew Sullivan lightly here due to my fundamental disagreement with him on his strained attempt at reconciling his sexual orientation and his Catholic faith but this post today was just too startling.

So, some of you may have heard that some Christianist nutjobs are calling for a boycott of McDonald's because they reached out to the gay and lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

This is the kind of redneck, religious ignorance that ensues:

"And this is so strange, because it's the family that McDonald's appeals to -- children's playland, you know, all the little toys, all of that. And they are promoting a lifestyle that would utterly destroy the traditional family."

Another:

My son and I often stop by McDonald's for a bite to eat after homeschool bowling on Fridays. But not today...

Not today, in light of reports that McDonald's has decided, apparently, to declare war on my family. And to declare war on the civilization of liberty, independence, creativity, and humanity under God that my Dad fought for in World War II.

Via Ed Brayton. I guess I just don't know what to say in the face of this hysteria. I guess we have to repeat this again and again and again and again: we gay couples do not want to "declare war" on any family; we merely want to be fully part of our own. If Wildmon could have seen our wedding, he would have witnessed two families, of all generations, bringing two men more closely together and in greater communion with their own parents and sisters and brothers and nieces and cousins and nephews and friends. Having the support of our families - and supporting them in turn - is what our marriage is partly about. We threaten no one. So stop threatening us. And have a Big Mac while you're at it.

Religion Kills 11-Year-Old Diabetic

First up from the God machine this week is one of the more painful religious stories I’ve seen in a while. I suspect very few people would ever want to interfere with parents’ rights and the religious upbringing of their children, but this does seem criminal.

Police [in Weston, Wis.] are investigating an 11-year-old girl’s death from an undiagnosed, treatable form of diabetes after her parents chose to pray for her rather than take her to a doctor.

An autopsy showed Madeline Neumann died Sunday from diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that left too little insulin in her body, Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said.

She had probably been ill for about a month, suffering symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness, the chief said Wednesday, noting that he expects to complete the investigation by Friday and forward the results to the district attorney.

The girl, who was homeschooled, had not been to a physician since she was three. Family members begged her parents to take her to the hospital, but they refused.

When her health deteriorated, the girl’s aunt called authorities to seek help. “My sister-in-law, she’s very religious, she believes in faith instead of doctors …,” she told a sheriff’s dispatcher in a call from California. “And she called my mother-in-law today … and she explained to us that she believes her daughter’s in a coma now and she’s relying on faith.”

When the dispatcher asked if an ambulance should be sent, the family member said the girl’s mother is “refusing” to seek medical care for her daughter. The dispatcher eventually got the family’s location, but by the time paramedics got Madeline Neumann to the hospital, she was declared dead.

Leilani Neumann, Madeline’s mother, said she and her husband are not worried about the investigation because “our lives are in God’s hands. We know we did not do anything criminal. We know we did the best for our daughter we knew how to do.”

I have no idea what the law is regarding these kinds of cases, but it sounds like criminal negligence to me. People can be as religious as they like, and believe whatever they choose. But when they let a little girl slip into a coma and die — from an easily treated ailment — without getting her care, it’s time for the state to intervene.

Also from the God Machine this week:

* After losing in court a few weeks ago, state lawmakers in Kansas passed another law this week to restrict some right-wing religious fanatics from protesting at funerals for U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Minister Prefers to Export Homosexuals from US

"I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society."

That's how Peter Sprigg, vice president of policy at the Family Research Council, explained the conservative group's opposition to the Uniting American Families Act, which would allow gay Americans the same right straight Americans have to sponsor a foreign partner for citizenship here.

Just in case you wondered…

(Video here; Spriggs quotes at 1:37)

Highway in Texas: Mentioned in the Bible?

I mention this because fostering and promoting stupidity and ignorance is a grand evil in my mind. Apparently there is a small group of True Believers in the Midwest that thinks Interstate Highway I-35 is a highway mentioned in the Bible:

"A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness." -- Isaiah Chapter 35, Verse 8

Is it possible that this "highway" mentioned in Chapter 35 is actually Interstate 35 that runs through six U.S. states, from southern Texas to northern Minnesota?

Yeah, about as likely as a serial child molester and convicted fraud named Joseph Smith finding gold plates in upstate New York that recounted Christ's resurrection and ministry.

Some Christians have faith that is indeed the case. Some of the faithful believe that in order to fulfill the prophecy of I-35 being the "holy" highway, it needs some intensive prayer first.

Give me a break.

// Tuchman: Hitting the road (literally) with some faithful

Hitchens: Right to Reject Candidates for Religious Views

I only wish I could write as well as Christopher Hitchens. Check out this gem on why we have a right, as voters, to reject candidates for office based on their religious views:

What Article VI does not do, and was never intended to do, is deny me the right to say, as loudly as I may choose, that I will on no account vote for a smirking hick like Mike Huckabee, who is an unusually stupid primate but who does not have the elementary intelligence to recognize the fact that this is what he is. My right to say and believe that is already guaranteed to me by the First Amendment. And the right of Huckabee to win the election and fill the White House with morons like himself is unaffected by my expression of an opinion.
...
Isn't it amazing how self-pitying and self-aggrandizing the religious freaks in this country are? It's not enough that they can make straight-faced professions of "faith" at election times and impose their language on everything from the Pledge of Allegiance to the currency. It's not enough that they can claim tax exemption and even subsidy for anything "faith-based." It's that when they are even slightly criticized for their absurd opinions, they can squeal as if being martyred and act as if they are truly being persecuted.

// This is not a test (via Andrew Sullivan)

Thoughts on Secularism from Andrew Sullivan

Although he's generally a bit too Catholic for my taste on matters religious, Andrew Sullivan wrote a nice piece today about the place of religion in public life:

"It may well be that support for a piece of social policy emerges from religious reasons. But in a secular society, it is vital that when making the argument for your position in public, you do not deploy arguments that depend on or invoke religiously-revealed truths. The essential civic discipline in a pluralist democracy is to translate your religious convictions into moral arguments - arguments that can persuade and engage people of all faiths or none. Only a few secularist extremists are saying that people's politics should not be informed in any way by religious faith (an impossibility in any case); most of us anti-Christianists are saying rather that political arguments should not be made on explicitly religious grounds, and political parties should not be allying themselves explicitly with one religion or another."

// The Right and Religion

Soon on the Billboard Charts: "God Hates the World"

Nothing better than the ignorant among us casting judgment down upon us for our sins.

From "God Hates Fags" to "God Hates the World" (see the video below):


God Hates the World - Watch more free videos

Homosexuality: Are Christians On the Wrong Side of History?

In a word, YES.

Here's an interesting MP3 recording of an Albert Mohler radio program addressing the question of "America’s Debate over Homosexuality: Are Christians On the Wrong Side of History?" -- Read More