Sonny Nobles is mayor of Live Oak, Florida. He may be a decent mayor and public servant, I don't know, but whatever good he otherwise manages to achieve he has seriously undermined by abusing his office to deliver an official message that atheists and agnostics are ultimately responsible for all the ills and problems of the world.

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Mayor Sonny Nobles: Atheists Officially to Blame for All World's Problems originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Friday, May 6th, 2011 at 12:00:16.

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Christopher Lane has a fascinating history of agnosticism in the New Humanist, an ode to doubt. :

Then [in the Victorian era] as now, doubt requires strength - it is not an easy or straightforward position to maintain.

The impact of such doubt grew on both sides of the Atlantic, with subscription rates for freethinking journals rising substantially and a growing number of articles appearing on the topic. ... The idea that doubt was a sin and a moral failing, still widely held in the 1850s, gave way to a new and different emphasis: doubt was instead an intellectual obligation, even an ethical necessity. It represented a principled position. It was not a sign of emotional weakness or a moral failing, but exactly the reverse. ...

Yet it was Thomas Huxley, Darwin's staunchest defender (and so-called bulldog), who not only coined the adjective "agnostic" in 1869, but argued strenuously for a seemingly oxymoronic "agnostic faith". Huxley stated his rationale and advice clearly: "In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you. [But] do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable."

The whole essay is worth reading, and I look forward to getting my hands on Lane's book The Age of Doubt, of which this essay is an excerpt.Read the comments on this post...

Apparently, male swallows are growing longer and longer tails. Why? Female swallows seem to like long tails quite a lot, so males with longer tails have a better shot at getting the mate they want. It's evolution in action, but creationists will dismiss it because the male swallows aren't a new "kind" of some sort.

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Sexy Evolution originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Thursday, May 5th, 2011 at 12:00:00.

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Does gay marriage really lead to the enslavement of Christians? That's what Jim Garlow asserts. Christians already try to link themselves to the abolitionists in the debate over abortion, but now they are trying to link themselves to enslaved Africans in the gay marriage debate.

Yet there is no acknowledgement from these same Christians that other conservative Christians provided religious and ideological justification for slavery. The Southern Baptist Convention itself was created precisely to create a safe place for Christians to be slaveholders and racists.

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Jim Garlow: Gay Marriage = Enslavement of Christians originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Wednesday, May 4th, 2011 at 12:00:00.

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Some atheists are able to date and even marry other atheists, but most have relationships with theists -- after all, theists are in the majority. Being in a relationship with a theist isn't always easy and there are lots of extra places where conflicts can arise. So how do some atheists manage it? How do they overcome the problems?

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Forum Discussion: Significant Others Who Are Theists originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Wednesday, May 4th, 2011 at 08:00:29.

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In Canada, the Science Minister is Gary Goodyear, a chiropractor from Cambridge, Ontario. Unfortunately for people in Canada, Gary Goodyear may also be a creationist. It's not absolutely clear that he's a creationist, but the way he avoids answering questions about his beliefs suggest very strongly that he denies science and evolution. So how did he get appointed to the position of Science Minister in the first place?

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Gary Goodyear: Questions About Evolution = Questions About Religion originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 at 12:00:05.

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The degree to which patriarchal religions oppress women is undeniable. This raises the question, though, of why women remain in such religions. In the past there were few choices so it's not hard to understand why women would prefer to make the best of a bad situation, but today there are far more options available -- including leaving religion entirely. So why don't more women try to assert independence and equality?

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Comment of the Week: Why Do Women Remain in Patriarchal Religions? originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 at 08:00:03.

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James Kirk Wall, Author of Agnosticism: The Battle Against Shameless Ignorance Osama bin Laden was an absolute embarrassment to all decent Muslims. Unlike the proud warrior known as the Prophet Muhammad, bin Laden was a cowardly killer of unarmed women...

There's no shortage of anti-atheist critics who presume to know something about atheism but who will quickly demonstrate that they know nothing about the subject whatsoever. Denis Prager is always a good source of this because he doesn't seem to know much at all about the subjects he chooses for his columns. He recently wrote about what he thought was causing the apparent growth in atheism in the West and it reads more like a lesson in how not to write.

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Denis Prager Pretending to Understand Atheism originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Monday, May 2nd, 2011 at 12:00:07.

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(Scott)

William McGowan is the prominent journalist and author, most recently, of Gray Lady Down: What the Decline and Fall of the New York Times Means for America. The book authoritatively covers the important and interesting subject suggested in its subtitle.

Glenn Reynolds hailed the book in the excellent lead review of the January 24, 2011, issue of National Review. Glenn wrote: "McGowan piles up incident after incident demonstrating beyond dispute that the New York Times of today is very different from, and far inferior to, the New York Times of a generation ago....[He] deploys the sheer repetitiveness of the problems as a way of making clear that they are systemic ones, not just the result of a few bad actors or bad decisions." Numerous excerpts of favorable reviews are compiled here at the site for the book.

In a series of previous posts Bill has examined the Times's treatment of national security issues. In this concluding installment of the series Bill will takes a look at other issues of adult supervision at the Times:

* * * * *

Kellerworld

As noted in the first post of this series, Bill Keller was made executive editor to nurse the New York Times back to health after the Jayson Blair scandal, to correct for the crusading biases of Howell Raines, and to lend gravitas to publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., widely perceived as a lightweight. But Keller has actually increased the leadership deficit at the paper. He's been defensive about criticism and subverted reforms designed to prevent scandal and the perception of bias. He has resorted to glib pronouncements while "dissing" other news organizations, especially Fox News.

Initially, Keller appeared open to criticism. Just before the 2004 presidential elections, he had cocktails with Karl Rove, who complained that the Times was unfair to George W. Bush. The New Yorker's Nick Lemann reported that Keller sympathized, saying, "Conservatives feel estranged" because they "don't see their ideas taken seriously or treated respectfully."

In January 2004, Keller started a "conservative beat" to identify leading conservative thinkers, describe the conservative grassroots, and explore how the movement "works to be heard in Washington." He created a "public editor" to address complaints of ideological blind spots. The first public editor, Daniel Okrent, affirmed the charge that the paper tilted toward the cultural left. "Is the New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?" Okrent asked in his headline, answering in his lede, "Of course it is."

For a while there was more candor about liberal bias. A 2005 report, "Preserving Our Readers' Trust," said that "when numerous articles use the same assumption as a point of departure, [the resulting] monotone can leave the false impression that the paper has chosen sides." The committee that produced the report recommended broadening the definition of diversity to bring in more conservatives. Keller said he wanted "more journalists with military experience, more from rural upbringings, more who grew up in evangelical churches."

But the reforms enacted on his watch have been halfhearted or ineffectual. The conservative beat was discontinued in 2007, permitting inattentiveness to stories such as the revelations of ACORN corruption in 2009. Keller soon announced that an editor would monitor "opinion media" and brief other editors on "bubbling controversies." But nothing's been heard about this since.

Public editors have often been treated like unwanted stepchildren. Keller told Okrent's successor, Byron Calame, that some of his questions were "prosecutorial and scab-pulling." Okrent characterized his own tenure as "18 months of bruised feelings, offended egos, pissed off editors and infuriated writers."

Liberals continued to dominate hiring and set the newsroom tone. If you worked for the Washington Monthly, welcome aboard. Staffers from the Weekly Standard need not apply. Those few with conservative leanings who did get recruited-with their "nonstandard narrative," as some at the Times put it-told Okrent they were "constantly made aware of their differences."

Right-leaning media assembled voluminous evidence of bias in stories about race and crime, illegal immigration, Islamic assimilation, the arts, and military operations. Keller categorically denied it. In 2005 he extolled the paper for "agnosticism as to where a story may lead." In 2007 he told a British audience that it was "just plain wrong to say that the newsroom is 'liberal' in the sense that it toes a certain political or ideological line." Reporters, he said, "have no license to insinuate their politics or ideology into news stories."

Yet as I documented in Gray Lady Down, editors and reporters at the Times manipulate story selection, quotes and choice of sources to inject opinion quietly into news reports. And as the public editor Clark Hoyt wrote in April 2008, the "news pages are laced with columns, news analysis, criticism, reporter's notebooks, memos, journals and appraisals-all forms that depart from the straightforward presentation of facts and carry the risk of blurring the line between news and opinion."

A prime example of opinion bleeding into news coverage was the Duke "rape" case of 2006, on which the Times ran almost 150 news reports, columns and editorials, almost all skewed against the suspects. One controversial piece affirmed that the prosecutor had assembled a strong enough case to go to trial, even as it acknowledged the case had major holes in it. Dan Abrams, a former MSNBC legal analyst, called the article "shameful" and "an editorial on the front page of what is supposed to be the news division of the newspaper."

The longer Keller stayed in office, the more his sympathy for conservative complaints about media bias wore thin. In fact, even as he was validating the conservative point of view to the New Yorker he maintained the idea of a "liberal press" had been manufactured for political gain.

During the 2008 election campaign, Keller approved a front-page report insinuating that John McCain had had an affair with a young lobbyist, based in large part on anonymous sources. The McCain campaign denounced it as "a hit-and-run smear campaign." Clark Hoyt scorned Keller's explanation that the story was about recklessness and potential conflict of interest.

Asked about the McCain campaign's complaints on a New Yorker panel, Keller arrogantly replied, "My first tendency when they do that is to find the toughest McCain story we've got and put it on the front page." But Keller had to eat crow when the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, brought a $27 million libel suit. She dropped it in exchange for a back-peddling statement from the Times--a year after the original report.

Meanwhile, the Times succumbed to Obamania, minimizing Obama's relationships with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the former terrorist Bill Ayers. Keller even wrote part of an introduction to a hagiographic book about Obama's "Historic Journey." David Gregory, hosting the Today Show, asked him if the book added to "criticism of the news media that we're somehow cheerleaders for Barack Obama." Keller said that "as a rule, reporters don't fall in love with candidates. They fall in love with stories."

Keller's anticonservatism has been most virulent in his Ahab-like crusade against Fox News. On C-SPAN in 2004, he quoted the Los Angeles Times editor John Carroll's assertion that Fox does "pseudo-journalism." In 2005, he called Fox's "fair and balanced" motto "the most ingeniously cynical slogan in the history of media marketing." Speaking about the Tucson massacre at the National Press Club in late January this year, he asserted, "It is true that the national discourse is more polarized and strident than it has been in the past, and to some extent, I would lay that at the feet of [Fox owner] Rupert Murdoch."

In March 2011, at the City University of New York, Keller took his anti-Fox vendetta to a new level, saying, "I think if you're a regular viewer of Fox News, you're among the most cynical people on planet Earth." Bernie Goldberg put his gloss on Keller's words: "He finds Fox viewers to be among the stupidest people on the face of the Earth."

Keller's recently launched Sunday magazine column displays yet more disdain for conservatives, along with self-serving spin--and a need for a better fact-checker. The first four columns required two corrections--an amateurish error rate. On March 25, referencing the NPR sting, he wrote that James O'Keefe (of the ACORN prostitution sting) had posed as a potential donor to NPR. In fact, it was two associates of O'Keefe who did so. This error suggested that Keller may not have watched the video he was writing about.

The column's headline, "Traditional News Outlets-Living Among the Guerrillas," epitomized Keller's arrogant myopia. "When we get it wrong," Keller claimed, "we correct ourselves as quickly and forthrightly as possible." But it took Vicki Iseman a year and a lawsuit to get her correction. Brandon Darby was slandered in a 2009 Times report as the instigator of a bombing plot against the 2008 GOP convention. In fact, he was an FBI informer. It took Darby two years and he, too, had to file a lawsuit to get his correction.

Keller maintained that the Times does "not go into a story with a preconceived notion" or "manipulate or hide facts to advance an agenda." But what about its refusal to acknowledge the religious motivations of jihadi attacks like that at Fort Hood in 2009? What about the notions shaping coverage of the Duke rape case, or the Tucson shooting, on which the Times beat the drum about allegedly violent right-wing rhetoric for days after it became clear that the shooter was an apolitical nutjob? And almost everything the Times published about Rep. Peter King's hearings on Islamic radicalization showed an agenda, impugning King's motives and invoking the specter of bigotry.

Writing about James O'Keefe and Julian Assange, in his "Living Among the Guerrillas" column, Keller commented that "each, in his own guerrilla way, has sown his share of public doubt about whether the press can be trusted as an impartial bearer of news." Keller has done his own share to sow the same doubts.

This concludes Bill McGrowan's series. Previous installments can be found here (part 1), here (part 2), here (part 3), here (part 4), and here (part 5).

From: "ESSSA"
Subject: Are Atheists Rational?

Are atheists rational and theists irrational? Are atheists open-minded and theists closed-minded, or are there closed-minded atheists and open-minded theists?

Mailbag: Atheism & Rationality

The answer to both of these questions is definitely no: atheists are not necessarily more rational than theists and not all atheists are more open-minded than theists. This is true both generally and when it comes to the more specific issues of theism and religion.

First, it is entirely possible for atheists to hold beliefs for irrational reasons - just because a person is an atheist doesn't mean that they suddenly start being perfectly rational in all spheres of life. Indeed, a theist might have more rational beliefs and be more open-minded when it comes to something like politics or astrology than an atheist.

Second, even if we limit ourselves to the subject of theism and religion it wouldn't be true to assume that atheists are always more rational than theists. We must keep in mind that the label "rational" or "irrational" here is a function of the means by which the belief was arrived at - not the belief itself. A person can arrive at a true belief through irrational means while another person can arrive at a false belief through rational means.

Thus, even if we assume that atheists are all correct and theists are all incorrect, it's entirely possible that a theist has arrived as her position rationally (she may have started with information she didn't know was incorrect) while an atheist has arrived as his position irrationally (he grew up with atheism and simply accepted it because his parents did - he never really thought much about it).

It might be easier to understand this by considering the analogy of a murder. Two detectives might arrive at two different conclusions about the identity of the murder - one is correct and the other is incorrect. The one who is correct arrived at his conclusion without examining the evidence very much and simply jumped at the first suspect whose name came up. The one who is incorrect made a careful examination of the scene and reaches a different conclusion, not realizing that a couple of key pieces of "evidence" were actually dropped earlier by careless police officers. Which of the two is more "rational"?

I'd argue that the second detective is more rational for making more of an effort to examine the evidence. It's not his fault that some key evidence is faulty - and although he is wrong in this case, I think that we'd all feel more comfortable with detectives like this than with detectives like the first one. This first detective may be right, but only by chance - in this case, being correct isn't a function of using the best possible methodology. Given that regardless of the quality of the evidence and reasoning we use, we will sometimes be wrong, our best bet is to insist on the best possible methodology - and it is the use of the best possible methodology which differentiates a person who is being rational from one who is not.

Do some atheists succumb to the same tendencies towards arrogance as theists do? What is the difference between the self-righteousness of a religionist and the feeling of intellectual superiority of an atheist? Isn't it all just a bunch of people up on a high horse?

There are quite a few arrogant, self-righteous atheists out there - and that's really sad because they simply don't have anything to be arrogant and self-righteous about. It's always been my experience that the atheists who are most arrogant are also the one who are most obsessed with atheism itself rather than the reasons why a person might be an atheist or a theist. For them, the only thing that matters is having the "right" conclusion (atheism), regardless of how one gets there.

But "atheism for atheism's sake" is really quite pointless. Atheism, by itself, has no real value - there's nothing about lacking a belief in gods that makes a person superior to others. Atheism only acquires any significance and value when it is embedded within a general philosophical program that promotes reason, skepticism, and critical thinking. There is no sense in promoting atheism outside of skepticism and critical thinking; promoting atheism does not mean also promoting skepticism and critical thinking (it's possible to be an un-skeptical and un-critical atheist).

Note: This message originally appeared in the Agnosticism / Atheism forum. Read the whole thread. More selections from the Agnosticism / Atheism Mailbag...

We hear lots of fear about "Shariah" in America, but who's complaining the loudest? If you look closely, you'll find that the loudest and most strident voices against Muslim Shariah are also, at other times, the loudest and most strident voices in favor of Christian Shariah. What this means is that these voices are not being raised on behalf of freedom and secularism, but rather against a rival religion. They are, in other words, Christian theocrats who are afraid of competition from Islam, not defenders of secular liberty.

Case in point is Sally Kern, a Republican state representative in Oklahoma. Kern has made opposition to Shariah one of her signature issues; at other times, though, Christian theocracy is her signature issue.

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Sally Kern: Opposed to Muslim Shariah, Supports Christian Shariah originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Sunday, May 1st, 2011 at 12:00:08.

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Usually it's extremist Muslims who make the news for violence against infidels who dare insult their religion, but we shouldn't imagine that Christians aren't equally capable of violence themselves. In Avignon, France, some Catholic extremists used hammers to destroy art that offended them because it was "blasphemous." Apparently, it's just not permissible for anyone, anywhere, to publicly display anything that any Catholics regard as blasphemous. Who knew?

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Barbaric Christians Destroy Art in Avignon originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Saturday, April 30th, 2011 at 12:00:10.

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Conservative Christians aren't just expressing disapproval of homosexuality or opposition to equal rights for gay Americans. No, conservative Christians like those at the Family Research Council would like to see homosexuality made a crime. They don't generally say this openly, but sometimes their true intentions are made clear.

Recently the Family Research Council started a campaign against a non-binding UN resolution that calls on nations to treat gays more tolerantly. Why would the FRC oppose this? Even though it's non-binding, it might create new norms where it becomes unacceptable to make homosexuality a crime. Ergo, they want gays to be treated as criminals.

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Family Research Council Supports, Defends Criminalizing Homosexuality originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Wednesday, April 20th, 2011 at 12:00:37.

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It's common to hear theists tell atheists that without belief in a god, they have nothing to look forward to because they don't believe in an afterlife. Well, if that's the case then why are so many theists so afraid to die? Shouldn't they be looking forward to death? Then again, maybe it's precisely all the stories their religion teaches them that makes them afraid.

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Forum Discussion: Fear of Death originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Wednesday, April 20th, 2011 at 08:00:38.

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What kind of case can be made against the existence of gods? Well, a lot depends on what one means by "gods." When specific gods are being discussed, the quality of one's argument depends upon the nature of the specific claim. When it comes to "gods" generally, though, the subject is much too broad for specific arguments. That leaves more general inductive arguments: arguing from our experience with specific claims to the more general concept or category.

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Comment of the Week: Induction vs. Gods originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Tuesday, April 19th, 2011 at 08:00:41.

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The Republican war on women really is a matter of life and death: although they will usually include exceptions in abortion bans when the life of the mother is at stake, they don't always and there is little evidence that they ever really want to.

Perhaps because he was in Kenya and away from the American media, New Jersey Republican Chris Smith was honest about his beliefs: abortion bans shouldn't make medical exceptions because they could be "abused." Ergo, women should be allowed to die.

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Republican Chris Smith: Ban Abortions, Even if it Kills Women originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Tuesday, April 19th, 2011 at 12:00:39.

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When he’s not writing bestselling books, Vincent Bugliosi is a legendary prosecuting attorney. As such, he is certainly well acquainted with the legal policy of presumption of innocence. His newest book, Divinity of Doubt, a treatise on agnosticism, would have been much better if Bugliosi had taken this principle into account in the context of his arguments for, and against, God.

You probably heard about Terry Jones overseeing the burning of a Qur'an and the subsequent mass murder committed by Muslims in the Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif -- 14 people were murdered on a UN base, including 7 UN staff. People are blaming Terry Jones for this, but as reprehensible of a person as he is, it's just not reasonable to hold him to blame for the outrageous and barbaric violence committed by others who disapprove of Jones' actions.

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United Nations: You Have No Right to Offend Culture, Religion originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Monday, April 18th, 2011 at 12:00:42.

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Should employers "accommodate" the religious beliefs of employees who think they should be able to harangue other employees about the "sins" of homosexuality? Wal-Mart didn't want to and they were sued by Tanisha Matthews who demanded just such an accommodation. The 7th Circuit Court agreed with Wal-Mart: employees simply don't have a religious right to harass other employes while on the job.

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Anti-Gay Harassment Does Not Need to be Accommodated originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Sunday, April 17th, 2011 at 12:00:44.

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Kathy Escobar is a co-pastor at a Christian church in Denver who was invited to speak at a high school's baccalaureate service. Not long after the invitation was made, though, it was retracted. Apparently a bunch of local conservative pastors were incensed that a woman was being given a position to talk to students like that. This isn't very surprising since traditional Christianity prohibits women from teaching men or having any authority over men, but Escobar was surprised and disappointed in what happened.

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Taking Seriously the Command to Not Let Women Teach originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Saturday, April 16th, 2011 at 12:00:46.

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Carole A. Smith was, at one point, in the top 10 percent of TSA employees when it came to catching weapons on the x-ray machine at Albany airport. Now she's out of a job and all the evidence points very strongly to the conclusion that she was discriminated against and ultimately fired simply because she was a Wiccan -- or perhaps I should say because some Christians at the TSA decided that they couldn't stand to work with a Wiccan.

Is there any facet of the TSA which doesn't grossly violate the basic constitutional rights of Americans? Not even TSA employees appear to be free anymore, never mind Americans who have to submit to the molesting, the groping, and the radioactive rape scanners.

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TSA Fires Woman for Wiccan Religion? originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Friday, April 15th, 2011 at 12:00:50.

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James Kirk Wall, Author of Agnosticism: The Battle Against Shameless Ignorance Pastor Rob Bell is arguing that there may be no Hell. Would Christianity still be able to sell without Hell, or would membership plummet? Heaven and Hell make up...

According to Newt Gingrich, we should all be afraid -- well, Christians should be afraid at least. They should be afraid that America will become a "godless" society and a "secular atheist" society that is dominated by "radical Islamists." Of course there is no chance of this happening because a secular atheist country is the opposite of one dominated by radical Islamists, but that doesn't matter because Newt Gingrich is selling fear. When you're a fear monger, logic and facts are irrelevant.

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Newt Gingrich: Fear the Godless Society originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Thursday, April 14th, 2011 at 12:00:34.

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When it comes to atheism, theism, and agnosticism, there are four general positions: agnostic atheism , strong atheism , agnostic theism , and strong theism .

When it comes to atheism, theism, and agnosticism, there are four general positions: agnostic atheism (don't know that any gods do or don't exist, but don't believe), strong ('gnostic') atheism (don't believe in any gods and are certain they don't exist), agnostic theism (don't know for sure that a god exists, but believe anyway), and strong ('gnostic') theism (believe in a god and are certain that one exists).

Although no limited range of categories is likely to capture the full scope of human nature, these categories do much more to accurately describe people than the far more limited range of theist/agnostic/atheist which so many try to use. This can be an effective argument against the idea that agnosticism is some sort of "middle ground" between atheism and theism, but it can also be difficult to explain.

Another good argument against this popular misconception is atheists themselves: who is a better authority on what atheism is, atheists or theists who are trying to attack atheists and atheism? Muslims wouldn't accept Christians defining Islam, and Christians wouldn't accept Muslims defining Christianity. Both, though, seem to think it's appropriate for them to define atheism.

 

 

 

 

Christian conservatives are doing all they can to encourage Americans to be afraid of Muslims. Franklin Graham, for example, has asserted that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S. government and the Obama administration is complicit in helping them. There isn't much difference between this and conservative Christians in the 1950s who complained that communists had infiltrated the government.

When was the last time Republicans offered a political platform that wasn't founded on fear and hate?

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Franklin Graham: Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrates U.S. Government originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Wednesday, April 13th, 2011 at 12:00:37.

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Many Christians insist that atheism is incompatible with morality -- that atheists have no basis for being moral or for making moral decisions. It's a fact, though, that atheists behave every bit as morally as theists. But how? How do atheists make their moral decisions? They certainly don't ask themselves what Jesus would do or what some god commands.

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Forum Discussion: Making Ethical Decisions originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Wednesday, April 13th, 2011 at 08:00:14.

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The desire among many conservative Christians to criminalize sexual autonomy is not limited to just abortion or even contraception, but also includes the act of sex itself -- at least, when the act of sex occurs outside the boundaries they wish to impose. This has been clear to anyone who pays attention to what conservative Christians say amongst themselves, but mainstream media sources ignore all that.

Recently, though, conservative Christians have been more open in public with what they've long been thinking and saying to each other. Don Haase, for example, was offered by Alaska governor Sean Parnell as an appointee to a panel that nominates state judges. Then it was revealed that Don Haase believes that extra-marital sex should be a crime. The fact that he concealed his membership in and leadership of Eagle Forum Alaska, a far-right political group, only exacerbated the skepticism that he was qualified to be on that panel -- but such deception is only par for the course for people like Haase, isn't it?

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Don Haase: Extra-Marital Sex Should Be Illegal originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Tuesday, April 12th, 2011 at 12:00:39.

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Most explanations of the origin of atheism are simplistic – as is the notion that people turn to religion for comfort

The question: What can science say about atheism?

Last week, in a lecture presented by the Non-religion and Secularity Research Network, Jon Lanman set out to explore the evolutionary origins of atheism. Lanman, who is originally from St Louis, Missouri, recently completed his DPhil in anthropology at Oxford. His thesis explores atheism in the west including both non-theism (a general lack of belief in the existence of supernatural agents) and what he calls "strong atheism", defined as "the moral disapproval of and active stance against such beliefs".

"Is a science of atheism possible?" he asked, noting that there is a "great diversity of atheisms" and refusing to get tangled up in defining the term too closely. For him, the important thing is to ensure that the phenomenon being studied is not viewed as a constellation, which is only a pattern a human perceives while looking at a group of stars from a particular location and angle.

If most explanations of the origins of religion are simplistic – fear of death, an attempt to explain the universe – the same is true of explanations of the origins of atheism. Explanations such as intelligence, rationality, education or rebellion are too pat.

For one thing, there are significant national differences. Non-theists make up 43-80% of the Scandinavian population and 13-44% of the UK, but only 3-9% of the US. Ethnographic data disputes the notion that people turn to religion for comfort in a frightening world.

The most comfortable places – San Francisco, say, or parts of London – tend to have the most comforting religion, stripped of punishment and instead focusing on close, personal relationships with God. Non-comforting ideas can be found all over the world, but mainly in existentially non-comfortable places – Africa, for example – where people care about following rules. In any event, comparing Scandinavia, the UK and the US shows that non-theism can't be simply associated with education or with IQ.

The rationality explanation is countered by behavioural and cognitive literature: humans are good at seeing patterns where they do not exist. Basketball players believe in the "hot hand", the idea that a player who has scored a number of shots in a row should be given the ball because he's "in the zone" and is less likely to miss. This theory can be disproved by statistical analysis, but coaches and players still believe it.

Confirmation bias, for another example, inclines humans to look for confirmation of what they already believe rather than for evidence disproving it.

The conjunction fallacy leads people to believe that multiple conditions are more probable than single ones. Given that I am a sceptic, is it more probable that I am a feminist or that I am both a feminist and an agnostic? Associating scepticism and agnosticism, you're likely to pick the second option; but the probability that I am both a feminist and an agnostic is actually lower than that I'm just a feminist.

Turning to sociology, the literature indicates that threatening environments increase superstitious behaviour and strengthen commitment, communities, and attachment to ideologies. In many places, Lanman said, "religion is often the only game for social insurance".

At the same time, he cited Joe Henrich's work on "credibility-enhancing displays" (Creds). Before we had language we were taught by demonstration.

Once you have language, "you need a bullcrap detector".

That is often watching people's actions: they say they're religious, but do they practise or go to church? More Creds, less scepticism. Here Lanman cited Roger Dudley's study of Seventh Day Adventists that showed a greater likelihood of becoming apostates if during their adolescence their parents were not practising.

So consider those national statistics again: the US has massive inequality and a weak welfare state and a very small percentage of (open) non-theists. In the mid-20th century, Scandinavia built a very strong welfare state and now has a high percentage of non-theists.

Strong atheism, however, is a different matter: "Atheism can also be an identity," he said (just as religious beliefs can serve as markers for social groups), "though I wouldn't call it a religion." As an ideology, strong atheism tends to emerge under the threat of theocracy. Strong atheism found its public voice in the US under the twin stresses of George W Bush's second term in office and 9/11's demonstration of the worst dangers of fundamentalism.

"The UK," Lanman concluded, "seems right in the middle between Scandinavia and the US." The UK had Blair, and has blasphemy laws, a growing perception of the dangers of militant Muslims, and increasing numbers of faith schools – "but you don't have Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee".

There seem to be a lot of theists out there who might be accurately described as "perfunctory" theists. A perfunctory theist is someone who professes belief in a god -- and usually the traditional god of Christianity -- but who doesn't behave in a way that seems very consistent with belief in a god. At the very least they don't seem to take their theism very seriously because they don't really engage in religious practices and don't even seem to think much about it.

How long would perfunctory theism survive without the widespread social pressure to conform to traditional theistic assumptions?

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Comment of the Week: The Fate of Perfunctory Theism originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Tuesday, April 12th, 2011 at 08:00:40.

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The idea that there are no atheists in foxholes is already a popular myth among Christian bigots, but Wendy Walsh seems to want to start a new one: that atheists die first in survival situations. She has no basis for such an assertion, but I suppose it makes her feel better as a theist to imagine that she is still superior to someone out there.

The problem, though, is that there are surely people who will mistakenly think she is trustworthy and believe her -- especially since she said it on CNN. You know they won't issue a correct because they have an atrocious history when it comes to providing a platform for anti-atheist bigots.

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Wendy Walsh: Atheists Die First in Survival Situations originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Monday, April 11th, 2011 at 12:00:41.

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Are there any major Republican political leaders who aren't theocrats? I'm not sure there are, though some are more open about their theocratic intentions than others. Rick Santorum is especially honest about his intentions. When he filled in for Tony Perkins on the American Family Association's program "Today's Issues," he tried to argue that Shariah law is incompatible with western civilization while at the same time Christian Shariah is necessary for western civilization.

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Rick Santorum: We Are Obliged to Make America a Christian Theocracy originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Sunday, April 10th, 2011 at 12:00:45.

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It's pretty well known that most Christian churches won't accept a person who is openly gay, though some will accept a person who is gay but celibate. That was the situation Drew Call thought he had as a member of the Mormon Church, but he was wrong. Apparently the Mormon Church won't allow you to be a member in good standing if you are even friends with gay people. That's right, you can't even have gay friends if you wan to be a Mormon.

This was particularly bad for Drew Call because the Mormon church was also his employer and he couldn't retain his job without this "temple recommend," which is necessary to keep attending services and be a member in good standing. So Drew Call not only lost his church, but he lost his job in a tough economy. Why? Because he refused to turn his back on his gay friends. That's Mormon love for you, huh?

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Mormon Love: Fired from Mormon Church for Having Gay Friends originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Saturday, April 9th, 2011 at 12:00:46.

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Traditionally the Catholic Church has been a strong supporter of organized labor and unions. This support has been part of the church's overall support for principles of social justice. Some of the most prominent figures in America's history of organized labor have themselves been staunch Catholics. Today that's changing and some American Catholic leaders are withdrawing their support for even the right of people to organize in unions.

This shift has been made most clear in Wisconsin where Bishop Robert Morlino Madison has tried to argue that he should be "neutral" in the debate over whether public employee unions should have a right to collective bargaining. This has been welcomed by conservative Catholics whose political ideology has put them at odds with organized labor for years. For Bishop Morlino, though, the key seems to be abortion of all things.

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Catholic Leaders Abandoning Social Teachings for Sake of Anti-Choice Ideology? originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Friday, April 8th, 2011 at 12:00:49.

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If a teacher breaks the law by teaching religion and creationism in public school, what should happen to them? In any decent and rational system they would be fired and barred from teaching ever again; in Illinois, however, the consequences are absolutely nothing. That's right, you can teach creationism and religion for years in your science classes and count on the school administrators to protect you by doing nothing to you if you're caught.

That's what happened at Community High School District 128 when Beau Schaefer was caught teaching creationism.

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Consequences in Illinois for Teaching Creationism: Nothing originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Thursday, April 7th, 2011 at 12:00:46.

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What's the best way to "save" young boys from the dangers of homosexuality? Pastor Brent Girouex in Bluffs, Iowa, has developed a novel solution: have sex with them. I guess it's a bit like forcing a kid to smoke a big, nasty cigar in order to turn him off smoking. Maybe that's even where he got the original idea. According to police, Brent Girouex gave his big, nasty cigar to numerous boys, but it didn't turn them off cigars entirely, I guess, because he had to keep going back to repeat the lesson over and over and over.

It must have been so hard for him to keep repeating his lessons like that. I suppose they should be thankful that Girouex had the stamina to keep it up.

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Pastor Brent Girouex: Having Sex with Boy to Cure their Homosexuality originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Wednesday, April 6th, 2011 at 12:00:47.

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Christians frequently proclaim that their religion is a religion of "love" and that as Christians they are called upon to "love" everyone. Just how "loving" is it, though, to say to a person that if they are an atheist, they might as well put a gun in their mouth and pull the trigger?

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Forum Discussion: Christian Love - Why Don't You Kill Yourself? originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Wednesday, April 6th, 2011 at 08:00:49.

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Surveys consistently show that Americans are more concerned with jobs than anything else. So what's the GOP plan to deal with jobs? Apparently their best idea is to get "In God We Trust" put on as many government buildings as possible -- preferably all of them, I think. I doubt that very many jobs can be created this way, but it will certainly please the GOP base for far-right Christian theocrats.

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GOP Jobs Bill: Put "In God We Trust" On All Federal Buildings originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Monday, April 4th, 2011 at 12:00:56.

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The rationale for why the State of Maine needs a law establishing a drunk driver website is the same given for every registry and variation on a theme. 

More than 8,000 Mainers were arrested for drunken driving in 2009, the most recent statistics available, and Rep. Rich Cebra, R-Naples, says Mainers should know who those drivers are.

“I want a website at [the Maine Department of] Public Safety that will have their names and addresses and their picture,” he said. “People need to know about drunk drivers that might be living next door and taking their kids to soccer practice.”

Cebra said his measure would establish the website so that Mainers could search their community to see if any neighbors are convicted drunken drivers, and whether they are multiple offenders. He said it would be similar to the state sex offender website but would not be a registry.

Blah, blah, blah.  Do it for the children.  After all, should the neighbor's know that they guy two houses down blew .08 BAC?  You can be they won't lend him the riding mower any more.  And Rep. Cebra's even figured out the perfect way to pay for it, since everything government does is very expensive.

“This would depend on the conviction information that is already being collected,” he said, “and I am proposing a $25 surcharge on every OUI conviction to pay for the website construction and operation.”

Thankfully, no one has figure out yet that if they impose a $10,000 surcharge on everyone convicted of drunk driving, they wouldn't have to lay off teachers.  But I digress.

The proposal is hardly a surprise, as the fashion of returning to the stocks in the village commons, on top of whatever criminal penalties are imposed, offers vast opportunity for the enterprising politician.  Toss in some child welfare argument and, no matter how tenuous the connection, it's usually good for re-election, at least for one term.  Nothing to see here, folks.

But what disturbs me far more is where the support comes from for such headlong dives down slippery slopes.  It's not MADD or SADD or BADD.  We expect them to mindlessly support any initiative designed to penalize drunk driving.  That's why they exist.  No, they aren't the problem.  This is the problem.

Regular readers know that I have long been troubled by the threats posed by drunk drivers and have long believed that communities ought to be as worried about drunk drivers as they are about sex offenders.  I am generally agnostic concerning the use of any crime registries unless and until research effectively demonstrates that they foster public safety.  But it seems to me that if they make sense for sex offenders then they also should make sense for drunk drivers.

These aren't the words of some political websites frequented by readers wearing tin foil hats.  These are the words of lawprof Doug Berman.

There is nothing that better supports, better emboldens, political thought than academics and scholars.  When it comes to sentencing, there is no scholar more persuasive than Douglas Berman.  No matter what the penalty or harm to be imposed, Doug's backing can mean the difference between success and failure. 

It's possible that this is just a throw-away comment, tossed out thoughtlessly and without the hard work of deliberation.  Or it's possible that Doug Berman means exactly what he says, having given this subject intense scrutiny and purposefully offering his deepest thoughts on this subject for Cebra and any other politician looking to make a name for himself to use. 

Having much respect for Doug's efforts, as well as his focus on a very narrow area of scholarship, however, his lack of distinction between sex offenders and drunk drivers, as well as his agnosticism, which in effect works out to support, toward crime registries, is shocking.

Does this suggest that a drunk driver is the same, or even remotely similar, to a sex offender?  And I'm not talking about the absurdly overbroad inclusion of people convicted of public urination on registries, but the real, hard-core, out-of-control child molesters?  It strikes me that neither the nature of the offense, nor the nature of the harm, has any similarity.  The sole factor is that both are crimes.  Aside from that, there is nothing to connect the two, and no rationale that suggests the concern for an out-of-control child molester living next door to one's child to the Mainer who had two glasses of chardonney with his lobster.

Compounding the problem is the laissez faire attitude toward registries in general, that if they're going to exist, why not have a registry for everything?  Where is the critical thinking?  Where does it end?  Does it end?

This is an invitation to slide down the slippery slope.  There may be no justification for a sex offender registry, but as long as we're being stupid, let's be really stupid.  Can this possibly be a sound basis for another registry?

It wouldn't matter if this position was espoused by someone of lesser reputation, lesser credibility.  But when it comes to sentencing, which includes the pseudo-civil, extrajudicial penalties of being tainted with the scarlet letter so all the neighbors can hate you, so employers will fire you, so no one will rent you an apartment or let their kids play with yours, there is no one whose opinion matters more than Doug Berman's. 

Are all crimes the same, all deserving a registry because judicial sentencing, zero tolerance, mandatory minimums, three strikes laws, aren't doing enough harm to our society?  If one registry exists, is that a reason to have a registry for everything?  Why not? 

We've already learned from the sex offender registry concept how quickly is devolves into overbreadth, how devastating and inappropriate the scope of harm it causes, how it's created a second class citizen whose life, and the lives of family members, are pointless harmed beyond repair.  So let's do more of the same?

I don't get it.  But then, my opinion doesn't count.  It's Doug Berman's opinion that counts, and he doesn't seem to have a problem with it.

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The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that public schools in Italy aren't violating the rights of minorities by displaying Catholic crucifixes on the walls of all the classrooms. The court admitted that it's a religious symbol, but concluded that the symbol didn't influence anyone. Well, why display it then? Why would the Italian government fight for the authority to privilege the symbol of one religious group over all others if it didn't influence or affect anyone?

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Evangelicals vs. Evangelicals, Crosses vs. Crucifixes originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Sunday, April 3rd, 2011 at 12:00:00.

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James Kirk Wall, Author of Agnosticism: The Battle Against Shameless Ignorance There is no question that pain is coming in drastic future spending cuts; the question is how that pain will be distributed. Does nothing happen to affect the pocket...

Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, is a prominent figure in the Christian right who is saying what many others in his movement already think. Most recently, Fischer stated unambiguously that the First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty was created by Christians for Christians; non-Christians, and in particular Muslims, have religious liberties only so long as Christians choose to provide them.

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Bryan Fischer: Religious Liberty for Christians Only originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Saturday, April 2nd, 2011 at 12:00:01.

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This is a new one for me: according to a legal complaint filed in Pittsburgh, the remodeling firm Bath Fitter is running what looks like a complicated scam in which religion is playing a prominent role. If you want to sell for Bath Fitters in Pittsburgh, you first have to attend training with a firm called Partners Through People. Who owns Partners Through People? Sam Lucci, who is also Vice President of FWJ Investments which owns the local Bath Fitters franchise. Convenient, huh?

But wait, it gets better. The cost of the training is a staggering $90,000 which you have to pay yourself. Lucky for you, Bath Fitters will helpfully deduct money from your commissions! How nice of them. If, however, you fail to follow the training, at least according to the complaint, you'll be branded an "atheist" and won't get sales leads, a situation that makes it tough to pay for the mandatory training.

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Bath Fitter & Anti-Atheism originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Friday, April 1st, 2011 at 12:00:04.

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Authored by: Rishabh Kaul

In an era where enterprises working at the BoP are busy finding their niche, a start-up named HarVa comes along with its sector agnosticism and pretty much says that they will do anything that harnesses the value of rural India. Currently, Harva is focusing on skill development, community based farming, waste management and outsourcing services.

The company is the brainchild Ajay Chaturvedi, a BITS Pilani/Univ of Penn Wharton entrepreneur who was earlier a VP at Citibank.  The concept of Harva stems from the belief that corporations today are still underestimating the potential of rural India. If the village populations can be trained adequately in specific skills as well as given management support, a lot of projects can find themselves coming to the hinterland. Fast Company placed the company at number 3 in their list of 10 most Innovative Companies in India, right below Tata Motors (the makers of Nano) and ahead of industry giants such as Godrej Group and FabIndia, possibly one of the most well known social enterprises to come out of India.

Continue reading this story...

According to Pope Benedict XVI, doctors shouldn't tell women that abortion might be a solution to any problems -- including health problems. Since some pregnancies will kill a woman whereas an abortion will preserve her life, it's a fact that some abortions will definitely solve some health problems. Ergo, Pope Benedict XVI wants doctors to lie to women about abortions in order to keep them from having abortions.

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Pope Urges Doctors to Deceive Women About Abortion originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Thursday, March 31st, 2011 at 12:00:12.

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James Kirk Wall, Author of Agnosticism: The Battle Against Shameless Ignorance Do we dare draw a line when it comes to freedom of speech? Lawyers for the city of Chicago were questioning whether protesters could be restricted from outside houses...

The punchline of most twin and adoption studies is an estimate of a trait's "heritability."  Heritability, usually written h², is the fraction of variance explained by heredity.  Twin and adoption studies also estimate the fraction of a trait's variance explained by shared family environment, usually written c².  Literally hundreds of published papers go to great lengths to estimate h² and c². 

Given the effort researchers apply to measure these variances, you'd think they were measuring something worth knowing.  But the more technically proficient critics of behavioral genetics often say otherwise.  Latest example: In the Huffington Post, Scott Barry Kaufman tells us that "The Actual Heritability Value Simply Does Not Matter."  Kaufman's main argument:

[O]ur understanding of the factors that contribute to the development of human traits in general -- and to IQ in particular -- is currently so deficient that we typically do not know if the environmental factors important in the development of a particular trait are stable across testing situations, vary somewhat across those situations, or vary wildly across those situations.

If we took Kaufman's argument seriously, it wouldn't just discredit twin and adoption research; it would discredit all of social science.  Given any social science result - or experiment! - you can always say, "Maybe the world changes so chaotically that your results are no longer valid."  The only reply to such sweeping agnosticism is to stop talking and bet.  My money says, for example, that the average adult IQ heritability estimate published in 2020 will exceed .5.  If Kaufman's isn't convinced, I'm happy to take his money.

To be fair, though, there's a narrower and more plausible complaint about heritability estimates: They're an answer to a question that no one asked.  Who cares if "heredity explains 80% of the variance of adult IQ"?  What does that mean in English?  I doubt even most practicing researchers have a compelling answer to this challenge.

Nevertheless, a compelling answer does exist.  If you delve deeply into the math of nature and nurture, you'll learn two striking results:

1. The expected correlation between identical twins raised apart equals h².

2. The expected correlation between unrelated individuals raised together equals c².

If you set up your study correctly, these are causal estimates that speak directly to the nature/nurture debate.  Suppose h²=.4.  Then if you were separated at birth from an identical twin, and you're 1 SD above average in a trait, you should still expect your twin to be .4 SDs above average in that trait.  Why?  Because of your shared genes. Or suppose c²=.1.  Then if you were raised with a random baby, and you're 1 SD above average in a trait, you should expect him to be only .1 SDs above average in that trait.  Why?  Because of your common upbringing.

Admittedly, these conclusions don't tell you which genes or which aspects of upbringing are responsible for these correlations.  But they do measure something both meaningful and important: the overall causal effects of genes and upbringing.  h² and c² aren't everything we'd like to know about nature and nurture.  Yet they're a huge advance over the preceding three thousand years of fruitless debate.

Christine Taylor once lived an ordinary, normal life but now she has become a symbol of just how far the Christian Right will go to oppress women in the quest to deny them any semblance of autonomy and control over their own bodies. After an upsetting phone conversation with her estranged husband she felt light-headed and fell down the stairs. The hospital staff which was supposed to care for her instead had her arrested for attempted feticide because she mentioned at one point that she had considered an abortion early in the pregnancy.

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Anti-Choice Theocrats will Jail You for Thinking About Abortion originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 at 12:00:24.

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Few atheists have escaped experiencing gross insensitivity from Christians, including Christians who are friends and relatives. Even if they are otherwise kind and generous people, sometimes Christians have blinders on when it comes to their religion and they become so self-centered, self-absorbed, and even self-righteous that they completely fail to take into consideration the feelings, perspectives, or beliefs of others.

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Forum Discussion: Christian Insensitivity originally appeared on About.com Agnosticism / Atheism on Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 at 08:00:28.

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