Ken Ham: A clock that's correct twice a day is better than a clock that is never correct!

(via Pharyngula)

   Ken Ham has some of the dumbest arguments, I often don't know whether to laugh or cry. This week, the argument is essentially because science has changed, and the Bible hasn't, the Bible is more reliable.

An evolutionist could look at this chart and say, "See, scientists are continually studying the data and refining their answers, so we now have the age of the earth and dinosaurs narrowed down." We agree that scientists should continually refine their views as new information becomes available, but that is precisely the problem when it comes to this topic. Evolutionary scientists have changed "common knowledge" multiple times over the past century, yet the Bible has not changed. It still clearly teaches that the universe, earth, and dinosaurs were made during a six-day period about 4,000 years before Christ.

PZ Myers has a more thorough breakdown that I recommend reading, but this got me thinking about how even a broken clock is correct twice a day (assuming we are using 12-hour time). What is often not pointed out is how a working clock may never be correct! Think about it — if I have a clock that keeps perfect* time, but it is a minute off from the actual time, it will always be off by a minute. So which clock would you rather have? The one that's correct twice a day or the one that's never correct?

   Of course, my analogy is flawed. The Bible is just flat out wrong on the issue of the age of the earth (it's not and is never correct) and science works at getting closer to the correct answer. Yet, the larger point I am trying to make is that I'm not going to go with a source just because it may happen to be right once in a while nor because it is consistent/unchanging. If it is a choice between a source that randomly guesses and a source that does actual investigative work to influence its guesses, I'm going with the source that investigates even if the former is correct more often than the later.

* Which isn't really a thing...time is relative. But maybe one could say "perfect relative to the location"? All else I'll say is I didn't want to dive into the philosophy of time on this post.

This is why I speak out against religion.

   This is a post I started drafting in early May...figured it was about time I finish it.

   JT Eberhard posted a four-part series of email exchanges between his dad and a Christian from his home town. The Christian made a lot of baseless claims, but also said something I find quite scary (emphasis mine):

I feel no guilt about potentially damaging the world with this information, because it contains the very power of God to save those that are lost, and offers to believers glory in the Lord. What is wrong with that?

I, of course, realize that not all Christians agree with this. However, (1) there are likely many Christians who do and (2) such a statement is actually consistent with not only Christianity but basically any religion that promotes a personal god with a plan for humankind. In a recent post, I made the point that conservative Christians could argue that, in reference to gay rights, "God's law is higher than, and therefore trumps, human's law." (And they have.) A similar argument can be made here. In this case, it is reaching heaven that is the goal.

   The problems of this are so enormous, it's hard to know where to start except with where it should be most obvious — managing the resources of our planet. Just over a year ago now, I was hosting a party mocking the idea of the rapture. Yet, "41 percent of Americans think Jesus Christ is returning by 2050." Chances are, this guy is part of that 41%. When you put these two concepts together, why would such a person be concerned with global warming? What do they care if we run out of oil? In another 40 years or less, we won't be here anyway, according to these people.

   For anyone who cares about what we leave behind for future generations, religion should concern you.

Bizarre Right-Wing Christian Logic

(via Biodork)

   Below is a video featuring Kalley Yanta, who, apparently, was a TV news anchor up in Minnesota and is still a media presence. She is railing against birth control in the video and makes some interesting arguments, which I will go over below the video and the break.

What birth control did for me was it enabled and prolonged my promiscuous lifestyle. It caused a loss of self-respect as I felt used over and over again, and sometimes I was the one doing the using. It resulted in the end of my first marriage due to my pervasive selfishness. I made some rather, shall we say, unhealthy choices during that "fun" time I was having—choices that had permanent and negative consequences.

   Emphasis mine. I see this as nothing but indirect scapegoating. It seems like she acknowledges that she had some personal issues, but then blames birth control for being a tool that she could use to avoid addressing those issues. Hey, it's not the fault of birth control that you had those issues in the first place! By the way, I don't think her personal issues had anything to do with "selfishness" or "promiscuity," but more likely with whatever led her to make "unhealthy decisions," as I highlighted in the transcript. My guess: it's the fault of a lack of critical thinking skills. If she's going to blame birth control, what else could she blame? Perhaps she could blame it on the alcohol? Maybe she had some shitty friends at the time, too. Later in the video, though, she seems to be more honest when she says that "[birth control] wasn't for me." That's fine, but then please don't advocate against birth control because it might be for some people.

   The more disappointing part here is that she is bringing focus to all the negatives she sees as a consequence and brings no focus to the positives. She briefly alluded to her career briefly before the section I quoted above. What about that career, Yanta? As Biodork puts it:

The fact is that one of the reasons that Yanta got to where she's at is because she had access to birth control. She is a media presence, had a career as a TV anchor on KSTP-TV, and she now – at the time of her choosing – has a family of six children that she can afford to support because she was able to forgo early motherhood. This kind of appeal drives me batshit crazy. "Hey – it worked for me, but now I feel really, really guilty about my success and happiness."

   Continuing, she then goes into how birth control is like abortion. I don't find it worth the effort arguing about that. The bigger idea revolves around the idea that a fetus has a soul. Not only that, she seems to think that these aborted souls go to heaven. Then what's the big deal? She then claims she'll have to apologize if and when she goes to heaven and meets all the fetuses she aborted (who she likely believes will be in the appearance of a young adult—more on the reason for this in a bit). Apologize for what? They're in heaven; isn't that a good thing? This is actually an inconsistency I see a lot with Christians. They claim that heaven is this wonderful place, but then still behave as though this life has significant value. If one were to compare this life to eternity in terms of mathematics, this life would have zero value. Even if someone were to live a long life, let's say 120 years, on earth, that 120 is insignificant to eternity. Just ask yourself what eternity (infinity) minus 120 is. The result is infinity. That number could be one million instead of 120 and the result would be the same. Yet, for the few Christians I have asked about this, the answer for why this life would be valuable seems to boil down to "It just is!" I get the impression that many Christians don't actually believe what they claim to believe (or they suck at logical reasoning...or both). Getting back to Ms. Yanta, I would ask her (and any Christian that agrees with her), "Isn't it better to abort a fetus knowing they'll certainly get into heaven than let them live out their lives which would risk them getting into hell?"

   As for her "proof" that fetuses get into heaven? Well, that comes from this book Heaven Is For Real. This almost deserves a post in itself. I have not read the book, but I have seen part of an interview with the boy, who supposedly had an experience in heaven, and his father on FOX News. Some of the great "proof" offered there was that the boy, while under surgery, supposedly saw his father talking to God (praying, I assume) in one room and his mother in another talking on her phone and with a friend. And there was no way the boy could have known this! *head desk* Because obviously it is rare for parents to pray or talk to friends when their children are in surgery (sarcasm). Another great "proof" was the boy supposedly meeting his grandfather, who had died 30-some years prior. And he knew things about his grandfather he shouldn't have known. Because obviously children never hear stories about their deceased grandfathers (more sarcasm). The one "proof" that I will admit I was slightly more curious about was how he supposedly met his sister that was miscarried (which is where Ms. Yanta gets her idea from). Once again, it couldn't be that the boy overheard his parents or other relatives speak of this. No, the explanation that he met his sister in heaven is obviously the more reasonable explanation (yet more sarcasm—and the boy probably could have said he had a brother and it would have yielded the same result as I doubt the family knew the sex of the miscarried fetus).

   Much of the second half of the video includes a bunch of religious babble where she asserts things that she believes as being absolutely true. I see no need to point out that I find it all to be bullshit. Though, I could maybe add that some of her claims are not even supported by her Bible, such as Satan being a murderer. Do you know how many people Satan killed in the Bible? 10 — Job's children (or is it 11 with Job's wife?). And Satan had God's permission to do it! God's kill count? I've heard it's in the millions. You can't really get an accurate count, though, because many stories just say that a bunch of people die, such as in the Noah's Ark story.

   Otherwise, she downs women who would get an abortion to save their livelihood, but I've already addressed the hypocrisy of this. Moreover, she really hasn't changed her attitude all that greatly. I claim she's still selfish. She's there acknowledging the fact that pregnancy can ruin a woman's career and financial future and also acknowledges the fact that could have been her. If she was truly such a changed woman, then she should serve her punishment! She should be selling all her stuff, giving up her career, and living in poverty. She should be living as though she had gotten pregnant at a young age. But no. Instead she's going to live her life of luxury that wouldn't have been possible without birth control and demonize those women who continue to use it. I'm sorry for being redundant, but Christians with "holier than thou" attitudes piss me off.

   There's also a real kicker in there when she says, "When the contraception fails, which often happens..." Emphasis mine. Interesting. Earlier she had been telling us about how she had been living a promiscuous lifestyle, no thanks to birth control. How many times did this contraception, which often fails, fail for her? It sounds like it failed exactly zero times. I guess she must be the exception to the rule (sarcasm). That's not to say that contraception can't fail, but she's outright lying, and does this before claiming it is Richards who is "under the direction" of the "Father of Lies."

   Also in that section, she now claims that birth control promotes selfishness and promiscuity (not her exact words). Recall that before she said it was an enabler. Not only has she lied about birth control, she has also changed her story about its impact on people's lifestyles.

   I'm also disappointed that she has to use this unrealistic imagery of describing abortion as "ripping apart" the baby. On top of that, she uses anecdotes from her friends who supposedly had abortions, and all these friends have deep regrets. This wouldn't surprise me because I'd care to bet that many of her friends are also right-wing Christians that now believe that abortion is horrible. In other words, her source of information comes from people who agree with her and is not representative of the norm.


* I know I've used the word "supposedly" a lot in this post. I probably shouldn't do that, but I often feel I need to be clear that I'm not assuming what these people claim is fact, nor do I want to be reporting these claims as fact. I only have their word to go off of. I'm not trying to suggest that they are indeed lying, either; rather the issue is that I have no way to confirm one way or another the factual bases of their stories.

---

Supplemental

The Catholic Church vs. Harry Potter and Yoga = Irony!

(via Blag Hag)

   Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican's chief exercist (yes, the Vatican has a chief exercist in the 21^st century!), says "Harry Potter and yoga are evil." Oh no's!!!

Father Gabriele Amorth, who for years was the Vatican’s chief exorcist and claims to have cleansed hundreds of people of evil spirits, said yoga is Satanic because it leads to a worship of Hinduism and “all eastern religions are based on a false belief in reincarnation”.

Reading JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books is no less dangerous, said the 86-year-old priest, who is the honorary president for life of the International Association of Exorcists, which he founded in 1990, and whose favourite film is the 1973 horror classic, The Exorcist.

The Harry Potter books, which have sold millions of copies worldwide, “seem innocuous” but in fact encourage children to believe in black magic and wizardry, Father Amorth said.

“Practising yoga is Satanic, it leads to evil just like reading Harry Potter,” he told a film festival in Umbria this week, where he was invited to introduce The Rite, a film about exorcism starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as a Jesuit priest.

“In Harry Potter the Devil acts in a crafty and covert manner, under the guise of extraordinary powers, magic spells and curses,” said the priest, who in 1986 was appointed the chief exorcist for the Diocese of Rome.

“Satan is always hidden and what he most wants is for us not to believe in his existence. He studies every one of us and our tendencies towards good and evil, and then he offers temptations.” Science was incapable of explaining evil, said Father Amorth, who has written two books on his experiences as an exorcist...

   Wait a minute, reading Harry Potter encourages children to believe in black magic and wizardry, but exorcism and Catholicism with it's "the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Christ" doctrine don't? I'm not sure whether to facepalm or laugh hysterically.

"Money doesn't exist!"

   The video below is from July, though I only discovered this version recently. I had always seen one titled "Atheists Bitchslap" that ended after the woman, Kate Smurthwaite, said, "...I'm not an idiot." It was harsh, but a point with which I agree - it's not smart to believe in things without evidence. However, this extended clip shows the theists proving her point by claiming that she has faith that money exists. That's just a load of bull, and she gives some examples of why that is.

   I think I understand where they are coming from, though. Money symbolically represents something else that has value. Money is essentially the solution to an overly complex barter system. By that I mean to ask what do you do if person A has something that person B wants, person B has something person C wants, person C has something person D wants, and finally person D has something person A wants? You can't necessarily get all four people together to exchange items, so you instead create something, money, that represents the value of the items. Nowadays, with computers, the exchange of money has even become symbolic. So you have symbology on top of symbology which creates an even greater disconnect from the physical objects that are represented. At some level, they know this, and I think the best response that I saw that would reveal this would be to ask them for some large amount of their nonexistent money. After all, if it doesn't exist, that shouldn't be an issue.

You're interpreting it wrong!

Alternative title: "The problem with liberal Christians"

   One of the common defenses for the Bible is that one is "interpreting it wrong." This is usually used in defense of the amoral teachings of the Bible, like how to mark your slave as belonging to you. (Another defense for slavery is that it was the "culture of the time"...because God, you know, can't tell people that their culture is wrong, so he has to instead make the best of a bad situation.) Sometimes the defenses seem mostly legit. There are those who point out that the Bible does not allow one to harass homosexuals. OK, the Bible does say something about he who is without sin may cast the first stone along with everyone is a sinner, resulting in no one being able to cast stones. But, it does make clear that a man sleeping with another man (doesn't seem to say anything about women on this) is a sin. So, things like denying homosexuals the right to marry and reparative therapy are fine. (Also for reparative therapy, such a program is just trying to help people out of their sin, so it's really hard to condemn such a practice without also condemning Alcoholic Anonymous...at least from the Christian perspective.) Others are complete hog wash. The Bible says that women shall submit to their husbands, but Michelle Bachmann claimed in a debate that submit somehow actually means respect. Not buying it, Michelle.

   But, there is actually a much bigger problem with these believers interpreting the Bible. They all interpret it as the "word of God."

   There has been an analogy, apparently first used by Sam Harris, that has been going along the blogosphere as of late. It is that of the talking hair dryer. Basically the analogy goes as such (emphasis mine):

Let's say that you meet a person who says to you, "Every morning, I hear messages for me coming out of my hair dryer. They tell me to picket the funerals of AIDS victims and to demand that it be made illegal for gay people to buy health insurance."

Now let's say a second person cuts in with, "That's not true! Every morning, I hear messages from my hair dryer, and they tell me to donate money to the poor and volunteer at my local soup kitchen! That first guy has just misinterpreted the message of the Holy Hair Dryer."

Is the second viewpoint an improvement over the first? Sure. Would I rather live in a world with people who profess the second viewpoint rather than the first? Of course. But at the same time, isn't it obvious that there's still a problem with it?

   The problem, of course, is that they both think their hair dryer is talking to them! Argue about misinterpreting all you want. It misses the larger problem.

...[A]ttacking only faith's worst manifestations, while giving faith itself a pass from criticism, would be like treating a sick person's symptoms without curing the underlying disease. As long as people are using the presumed will of imaginary supernatural beings as the basis for their decisions, there will be those who use this method to justify doing evil...

Dawkins vs. O'Reilly

   Richard Dawkins is out promoting his new book, "The Magic of Reality," and, for some reason, he was doing so on the O'Reilly Factor. (I'm not sure who he thinks, out of those viewers, is actually going to buy the book.) I have only seen the clips of the interview that are in the TYT video below, but what is there is pretty good. Cenk makes some great points, but there are things I want to add below the fold.




Clip 1: O'Reilly apparently accuses Dawkins of mocking God. O'Reilly's comments about "it says these things are myths, they're not really true" doesn't make a whole lot of sense here. As Dawkins points out, the book includes Aztec myths, Egyptian myths, etc. Is O'Reilly upset that Dawkins is calling those stories myths? Likely not. O'Reilly is really only upset about Dawkins including myths of Abrahamic religions like Christianity. This is known as special pleading. Additionally, O'Reilly's comment about getting the kids to think "you are an idiot to believe in God" falls in a similar category. Does he think the Aztec's were idiots for worshiping the sun? (Oh, wait, this is Bill "sun goes up, sun goes down" O'Reilly we're talking about, so maybe not.) It's always amusing watching theists be OK with criticisms of other religions, but then getting upset when theirs is criticized. (Anyone remember the Isaac Hayes incident with South Park? Perfect example.)
   Otherwise, Cenk has great comments on how atheists don't think theists are stupid. Uninformed? Probably, but that's unrelated to intelligence/stupidity. A little education can fix that.

Clip 2: Oh, Stalin, Mao, and Pot...didn't I discuss this in a recent post? Otherwise, I think Cenk said about everything else that needs to be said on this, except for what Dawkins adds in...

Clip 3: Religion is a "constraining influence"? I'm with Cenk. Religion isn't a restraining influence. While I have not yet released my long-time-since-it-has-been-sitting-in-draft post on morality, one thing I address in there is that the Bible has both positive and negative moral commandments. For a person to only follow the positive ones and ignore the negative ones means that the person's morality must come from outside the Bible. This "constraining influence" actually works by good people looking for Biblical scripture to justify their desire to be good. In short, people doing good is in spite of the religion, not because of it. However, the same is not always true for people doing bad things. Steven Weinberg has a fitting quote for this: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

Clip 4: O'Reilly just gets bizarre on this one. Dawkins own question of "What does that have to do with the origin of the moon?" should hopefully get you thinking about how absurd O'Reilly's comments are. Cenk's response with the Dave Silverman clip is classic! And appropriate!

Because Anthony made me!

A friend at work shared this link about religious influences on epidemics. The idea seems to be that some religions encourage tending to the sick, thus putting more people, particularly those tending to the sick, at risk of infection. There are some transitional problems in the article that make it slightly difficult to follow. For example, one paragraph states that "between 800 B.C.E. and 200 B.C.E...several modern religions emerged." The next paragraph mentions Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but, of those three, only Judaism emerged in that 800 - 200 B.C.E. time frame. (And Christianity and Islam were later derived from Judaism.)

Besides that, there were parts of the post that bothered me. First, it seemed to not only take a pro-Christianity slant, but neglected relevant information. Take this statement, for example (emphasis mine): "Helping the sick was one way to ensure a trip to Heaven, so risking death from a disease's spread was encouraged." If you read the New Testament, it seems quite obvious the early Christians believed that disease was caused by demon possession. One can also reasonably conclude that they didn't think demon possession was necessarily contagious. The problem with that statement, particularly the emphasized part, is that those early Christians didn't even realize they were putting themselves at risk! The article really seems to push a "look at those noble Christians risking their lives!" slant, but the truth is that their "nobility" was derived out of ignorance! These people would be like Don Quixote's -- absolutely clueless!

The article continues to discuss this influence in present-day Malawi, Africa.

...About 30% of the Christians regularly visit the sick, whereas only 7% of the Muslims do, Hughes reported. The survey also revealed that the prospect of getting help was enticing. In the past 5 years, about 400 of those responding have shifted religions, many of them moving to Pentecostal or the African Independent Churches, places where the promise of receiving care is greater and the stigma of having AIDS is less, Hughes noted.

I do not know a lot about the African Independent Churches, but I can tell you the Pentecostals are big on demon possession. Even here in the USA, many Pentecostal groups ban watching TV or listening to non-church-approved music because demons may use those as media (plural of "medium") to enter a body. I wish I were kidding! (I don't know where in this podcast the discussion is, but I'm quite sure this is the correct one. The whole thing is worth checking out, though.)

Austin Cline, who seems to write most, if not all, of the atheist related articles on about.com, says this about Pentecostalism in Africa: "The adoption of superstitions in Africa is also not harmless. Belief in witches has led to violent witch hunts in which women and children have been brutally slaughtered. Belief in demons causing illnesses will prevent people form seeking real medicine that might actually help them."

With that in mind, I find there is a valid point made in the subject article that religious belief may help the spread of disease, as people will not seek proper treatment, as pointed out in the about.com article. However, where the subject article goes wrong (and where it really annoyed me) is that it states that Christian beliefs encourage "extreme altruism," which is then implied to be the cause of the additional spread of disease. But I do not see how that word, altruism, which is the opposite of selfishness, can be used. I understand how these acts of helping the sick can be perceived as altruistic, but the fact is that these acts are derived out of ignorant beliefs. When Don Quixote goes about attacking windmills, is this altruistic? Likewise, when Christians go about fighting off demons, is this altruistic? Much like I would not call Don Quixote altruistic, neither will I apply that adjective to these religious bafoons fighting off demons that don't exist.

The other issue I have is that my view of altruism involves doing something good without reward, but the Christians are doing this for reward! I've already pointed this out with the quote about ensuring a trip to heaven above. So, even if Christians do realize they are putting themselves at risk, that risk evaluation is going to be different from the perspective of someone who believes in an afterlife than from someone who does not. If you are someone who honestly believes in an afterlife, then death isn't much more than a minor inconvenience. It should go without saying that the perspective becomes different if you don't or are hightly doubtful. If I haven't made it clear, let me state it dirrectly: If persons A and B are doing the same good deed, but person A thinks they will be rewarded and person B does not, person B is the altruist and person A is not. This is independent of whether or not a reward exists. In conclusion, we cannot call these Christians altruistic when they think they are working for a reward, even though that reward does not actually exist.

What the fuck, Stewart?

The Daily Show - Culture War Update - The Dividening of America - American Atheists vs. Ground Zero Cross

Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

It is rare, but every now and then, Jon Stewart disappoints me. The surprise was when he said, "By the way, atheists, why do you give a shit?" It's one thing to hear that from the religious, because they usually say it to discourage atheists from speaking out against their mythology, but hearing it from people who are not only non-religious but likely atheists as well is quite frustrating. Imagine a extreme scenario, just to make a clear point--what if there was a group of people living in, say, 1930's Germany who found comfort in a cross that remained from a building that burned down, killing a bunch of Jews inside. The comfort, of course, was from the feeling that their god was giving them a sign assuring them that they need to purify their culture. Need I explain how they would go about doing that? Might that be something worth caring about for someone like Stewart?



Now, as I said, the example is extreme, and doesn't fully relate to this 9/11 cross situation. Stewart went on to tell atheists what to think about the cross. However, the issue is not what we think about the cross, it is what Christians think about the cross. Just like in the example above, it's not necessarily an issue what Jews think of a cross, it is what the Christian Germans think about it! Frankly, there could be some Christians out there who see it as a sign from their god that they need to promote vengeance against all Muslims. Do you doubt that? Do I need to remind people about the raucous over the "Ground Zero Mosque" last year???



And if this still fails to clear up the problem, take this quote from former President, George H. W. Bush: "...I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." Though the cross may bring comfort to people, as Stewart says, the problem is that it also sends a silent message that this is a Christian nation, and I don't mean that in the sense that Christians are a majority; I mean that in the sense that Christians have special rights in this country, and if you are not a Christian, you, as Bush said it, "should not be considered...citizens."



The problem becomes obvious in comments that were found on Fox New's Facebook page. It sounds like most of the offending comments have been removed, but some were captured by the writer of One Man's Blog, but All Facebook has condenced the comments down into one layout.

Here is the video that apparently sparked all of this anger. While Dave Silverman may have said some offensive--but true--comments, did Blair Scott really say anything that should have gotten such a reaction?