Religion Means “This Law Doesn’t Apply To You”

My religion won’t allow it!
We consider it a sin!
If a gay man wants to shop here,
Why, I dare not let him in!
It’s infringement on my liberty—
Repression at its worst—
You’re a bigot, if you force me
Not to be a bigot first!

I’d kill animals humanely—
All my cattle, sheep, and goats—
But the Torah says, specifically,
I have to slit their throats
I’m opposed to simple stunning
But that’s all the law allows
All I want is my exception,
For my right to torture cows!

I’m just looking for a loophole;
There are laws I won’t obey!
I believe in equal treatment,
Sure, but not if someone’s gay!
It’s my right—well, it’s my privilege,
It’s my “free expression” clause
To read, “Only if you want to”
When interpreting the laws

From the first link:

The bill notes that businesses can refuse services and goods only if it furthers a civil union, domestic partnership, or same-sex marriage. The person or business would just have to say it was against their religion. For example, if a same-sex couple wanted a cake for their wedding reception, a bakery could refuse to cater to them.

But… good news!

Tennessee State Sen. Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) suddenly pulled his sponsorship of the so-called “Turn the Gays Away” bill on Thursday after the controversial proposal was subject to national attention.

From the second link above:

The Danish government has banned shechita, saying “animal rights come before religion”.

Denmark’s Agriculture and Food Minister Dan Jørgensen yesterday signed a regulation preventing Danish slaughterhouses from applying for an exemption to pre-stunning, which effectively bans any religious slaughter in the country.

President of the European Jewish Congress, Dr Moshe Kantor, said: “This attack on basic Jewish religious practice in Denmark puts into question the continuance of community life in the country and follows strongly on the heels of persistent attacks on Jewish circumcision.

Really, though, doesn’t it sound completely reasonable, that you shouldn’t have to follow a law if you really, really, really don’t want to?

On Coughing And Sneezing My Way Through Valentines Day

It’s Valentine’s Day (and that never gets old)
I could give you my love, but I’d give you my cold
So, much as the Hallmark folks wish to inspire us
I’ll stick to my couch, here, alone with my virus
You’d think some affection is not much to ask
But a kiss ain’t a kiss through a surgical mask
And hugging’s not hugging, I think you can tell,
If, immediately after, you bathe in Purell;
With Lysol’s protection, and thick nitrile gloves
We’ll just have to trust in each other’s true loves
So my gift, from my heart, on this Valentines Day
On behalf of my germs, is to stay far away.

For those who prefer the older Cuttle-valentines, the more-or-less complete collection is here.

Sixty Years Under God

I don’t know how I missed this–Monday was a big anniversary:

Feb. 10, 2014 was the 60th anniversary of the original congressional move in 1954 that added “under God” to the official Pledge of Allegiance, and state lawmakers all over the country have introduced resolutions to mark that unfortunate moment in American history.

Given that the original, God-free version of the pledge is just over 121 years old, it seems reasonable to me to suggest that the current 60 year term is up, and it’s time to retire the pledge entirely. After all, “indivisible” and “for all” kinda imply that the godless are people too, deserving of equal treatment and respect.

Or maybe not–a school in NC can have a Christian athlete’s club, but a proposed atheist club is getting a thumbs-down from the administration (the atheist students did some reaching out, some organizations sent letters to the superintendent, and… God shut down the school with a snowstorm before anyone could comment).

It’s funny–coins and bills and pledges are all “ceremonial deism”, but it really does seem sometimes that the “ceremony” has the express purpose of marking public territory as Christian.

I pledge allegiance to the flag
At school, with all my friends
While one girl sits there silently,
And one boy just pretends
And three don’t mention “under God”,
Just roll their eyes and wait
And two more use the pledge to sneak
To class a little late.
There’s one or two who think it’s cool
To monitor the rest
To see who says the pledge; who loves
America the best
But most of us just wonder
Who this pledge is really for
And count the days till we don’t have
To say it any more.

Backyard Dinosaur Count This Weekend

It’s time to count the dinosaurs—
It shouldn’t be that hard
Just grab yourself a window
That overlooks your yard
A pencil and some paper
To make a little list
A “field guide to the dinosaurs”
To name the ones you missed
The count begins this Friday,
And by Sunday night, it’s done
It’s time to count the dinosaurs…
So won’t you join the fun?

That’s right, this weekend (which has already started in Australia, so I’d better post this!) is the annual Great Backyard Dinosaur Count (ok, they call it the Great Backyard Bird Count, but as cool as birds are, everything about them is cooler when you remember that they are dinosaurs).

It’s very easy to do, and can take as little as 15 minutes at some point over the weekend, or (if you happen to be an obsessive birder… which phrase might well be redundant…) you can spend every waking moment and a substantial portion of your dreams, from Friday morning to Sunday night, looking out your window and noting the different dinosaur species.

You can guess which end of the spectrum I fall on.

Happy Darwin Day!

I am A) exhausted from a long day, and B) sick as a dog. Or maybe two dogs. I can’t breathe, I can’t think, I can’t … something.

But it’s Darwin Day today, to I get to link to two earlier bits, both of which deserve it. One is a song addressed to Darwin himself, letting him know how things turned out.

Excerpt:

Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin, take a look around today—
You might recognize the path we took, cos you showed us the way.
We will celebrate your influence with unabashed delight;
Happy Birthday Charles Darwin, you were right!

The other was my report of a Darwin Day talk (by Daniel Dennett), which turned into the single best comment thread in the history of the interwebs. Seriously. I’d give you a sample, but I’d rather you approach it like the first people to see the Grand Canyon, walking up on foot and finding an astonishing landscape, rather than passing judgment based on a postcard. But yeah, the single greatest comment thread ever.

Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin! (of course, by now, it is the day after his birth in the country of his birth. Oh, well.)

Did You Ever Consider The Possibility That Maybe God Is A Parasitic Worm?

There’s a little kid, infested with a parasitic worm
His extremities are swollen and in pain
But this doesn’t pose a problem, or disprove a loving God
As philosopher Plantinga will explain:

See, God created Eden, which his favorite—Man—beheld,
But of course, the fruit of knowledge, He forbids
It was absolutely perfect, but humanity rebelled
As a consequence, there’s parasites in kids

You can treat the kid for parasites, and have the worms removed
And observe their squirming bodies, tightly curled…
Rejoicing in the agony that must be God-approved,
Knowing this is His created perfect world

From the horrible interview at the NY Times Opinionator Blog:

A.P.: I suppose your thinking is that it is suffering and sin that make this world less than perfect. But then your question makes sense only if the best possible worlds contain no sin or suffering. And is that true? Maybe the best worlds contain free creatures some of whom sometimes do what is wrong. Indeed, maybe the best worlds contain a scenario very like the Christian story.

Think about it: The first being of the universe, perfect in goodness, power and knowledge, creates free creatures. These free creatures turn their backs on him, rebel against him and get involved in sin and evil. Rather than treat them as some ancient potentate might — e.g., having them boiled in oil — God responds by sending his son into the world to suffer and die so that human beings might once more be in a right relationship to God. God himself undergoes the enormous suffering involved in seeing his son mocked, ridiculed, beaten and crucified. And all this for the sake of these sinful creatures.

I’d say a world in which this story is true would be a truly magnificent possible world. It would be so good that no world could be appreciably better. But then the best worlds contain sin and suffering.

I would *not* say that such a world would be truly magnificent. Far more people are suffering than in a world I would create if I could. But then, I care about people; I am a person, myself, when I’m not a cuttlefish.

Maybe it is a perfect world, for parasitic worms.

Random Thoughts On Alvin Plantinga’s Rambling Thoughts

So… there’s an interview with Alvin Plantinga on the New York Times’ “Opinionator Blog”. It’s… horrific. Embarrassing. Such a national platform for arguments from ignorance, false dichotomies, and special pleading. Really, it’s astonishing.

The questions, by Gary Gutting, are reasonable, and are followed up nicely; if anything, Gutting is not brutal enough, perhaps feeling a bit sorry for Plantinga.

There are so many times when Plantinga’s claims have reasonable answers in readily available science. One (or at least this one) gets the feeling he actively avoids the scientific literature. Ok, really, that’s unfair–science is so broad and specialized that if he were not both exposed to an extraordinarily broad swath, and sufficiently knowledgeable in depth about that broad swath (which, given time constraints, might reasonably mean that he would have no time to develop any expertise in his own philosophical areas), it is perfectly reasonable that he might miss the answers to his questions.

Fortunately, cuttlefish are very deep generalists and experts in everything, so I opened a word-processor and read the interview. (I would say “so you don’t have to”, but I actually really recommend you read it, so you can try out your own critical analysis. The weird thing is, Plantinga is not exactly a bench-warmer; when you–not “if you”–when you tear his arguments into tiny bleeding slivers, you are up against one of the best the theistic side have to offer.) Yeah, so it just so happens I take notes in rhyming verse…

In any debate between two points of view
Fifty-fifty, the odds must apply—
If we can’t prove it’s Christmas, beyond every doubt,
Then it’s likely the Fourth of July

Now, maybe the scientists figured it out
And it’s all there to read… which I won’t
Perhaps they have answers for all of my doubts
But I’m gonna assume, here, they don’t

It’s possible someone has studied this stuff
If they have, clearly, I’m not aware
So there may be a paper that proves me quite wrong
I’d go looking, but really don’t care.

My assumption is simply that nobody knows—
If they did, that would really be nifty—
In the absence of knowledge (well, knowledge of mine)
Let’s assume that it’s all fifty-fifty.

So my views on psychology? Pretty much crap
And biology, mostly, as well—
But let’s call it philosophy (really, why not?)
If it’s bullshit, most readers can’t tell.

So… go ahead, read the interview. Try commenting here–in verse, or not in verse, I don’t care. What do you think is Plantinga’s worst? Best? Anyone think he has a point?

Just for fun, two earlier bits worth mentioning:

When Alvin Plantinga’s Car Won’t Start
And
It’s All So Simple, Really

Time To Eat The Dog–The Video

I was delighted, today, to hear from a student from Christ University, in Bangalore. As I have noted before, a bit of my doggerel is included in a textbook used in some English classes in India; these students were tasked with creating a visual interpretation of a poem, and they chose mine.

As I look out my window at snow nearly knee deep, the line “my thermostat’s on ‘chilly'” has a bit of a different meaning than it might in Bangalore–I look at all that beautiful color and (winter person that I am) feel a little longing for the days when I’ll be able to plant my back yard garden again…

With their kind permission, then, “Time To Eat The Dog”:

Conversation With A Christian…

So… I had a long talk yesterday with someone. It was a ranging conversation, in which we touched on some issues near and dear to FtB readers (I doubt, though, that this person knows FtB exists). He lives in Texas, so one topic was what an idiot Rick Perry is, and republican politicians in general. He was at a loss to explain how any poor person (or any thinking person) could ever vote Republican, other than manipulation of religious views and tribalism….

Which led to a discussion of the republican and tea-party views on creationism and evolution—he offered that no one he knew was a short-earth creationist, but did think that people who thought evolution was “how god did it” were clearly a sort of creationist themselves, and misunderstanding important aspects of the theory. And anyone who thinks humans are special creations “clearly didn’t have a good comparative anatomy class”.

He’d been reading about the writing of the constitution—not Barton (he’d never heard of David Barton, and was appalled at the blatant attempt to influence lawmakers with disinformation), but Waldman’s “Founding Faith”, and when I told him of Chris Rodda’s takedowns of Barton, he put that on his list. He has faced up against people who want prayer in school, and found that the moment he starts talking details—which faith gets to pray on which days, for instance—the demands start to wither and die before he even has to tell them “no”. He knows of, and approves of, the Jefferson bible.

Seems to me there was quite a lot more in this conversation—it was nearly 2 hours—but I can’t think of it at the moment.

Oh, yeah, there was one other topic. He’s on three committees for his church, including the search for a new pastor—the current one is retiring. He’s a very active lifelong believer, and as knowledgeable about the history of the writing of the bible as he is about, say, first amendment school prayer cases, or evolution. He has read not only quite a bit of sophisticated theology and apologetics, but quiet a bit of critical history as well. Frankly, I’ve heard him argue against religious positions far more often than for them (he argues the position supported by evidence, and more often the religious view was being argued out of ignorance).

But he is a Christian, and in his experience more Christians are like him than like the stereotypical yahoos like Rick Perry. I am at a bit of a loss to understand why he is a Christian, but he certainly is one. And I don’t know whether his observation—that he is a more typical Christian—is at all true. (His brother, for instance, is a biblical literalist.)

Sorry, no point here, just thinking out loud…

Atheism In Virginia

The Telegraph (UK) has a really nice report on the state of atheism in the state of Virginia–including contrasting reports of Virginia Tech and Liberty University. The very real concerns of atheists in Virginia make me sad for them, but very happy I am in a considerably less religious state.

Attached to the story is this video–the atheists at Liberty University, of course, have to appear in shadow if they want to remain there.

The recent shift in the gay marriage debate is evidence, say secularists, of how fast entrenched public attitudes can change: a decade ago just 30 per cent of Americans supported gay marriage, today the figure is consistently over 55 per cent. A decade from now, will attitudes to religion have followed suit?
And yet despite the softening approach of the younger generation towards religion, in this fiercely Bible-minded corner of Virginia, many atheists and agnostics still feel they must live in the shadows.
In two days of interviews at least half of the avowed non-believers declined to be named in the Telegraph, citing fears they would be ostracised by friends, family, churches and even their employers.

One grad student expresses worry that her atheism could hurt her in a job search:

“I’m more concerned about getting a job than losing one,” she said. “I know they Google you and while I can’t hide my atheism, I don’t really want to advertise it.
“If the person hiring is a person of faith – which is more likely than not around here – that could easily be the difference between a job and no job. And I have student loans. I need a job.”

As an undergrad, Cuttledaughter had to keep her atheism to herself at her research position, though she found it odd that such high-powered, well-respected disease researchers were, as she put it, “scary religious”. She needed the experience and the recommendations, so she sat there with her mouth shut while her colleagues and superiors talked about, say, how foolish the atheists were who wanted the decalogue monuments or nativity scenes removed from courthouses, or who took schools to court for school-led prayer.