The joblords

In some parts of the world, the government is relatively weak, and the real power lies in the hands of the warlords. I think we’re rapidly approaching a similar situation in the United States, at least economically: the government is relatively weak financially, and the real power is being concentrated in the hands of the joblords. Sure, they prefer to be called “job creators,” and they pay people to call them that on TV, but seriously, how many jobs have they been creating lately? They’re not job creators, they’re joblords, holding the rest of the country hostage to their demands, and threatening to withhold jobs, or even downsize, if the legislature does not crank out policies more favorable to the joblords increasing financial and political power.

A while ago my son and I were talking politics and he said an interesting thing. I forget his exact words, but they were something like this: our Founding Fathers made a very wise decision when they wrote the separation of church and state into the Constitution. Now we need someone to figure out how to do the same thing for the separation of business and state.

 

Orthodox Jews vs the Internet

So, you heard about the tens of thousands of Jews attending a rally last Sunday to look at the “problem” of the Internet? Tens of thousands of Jewish men, I should say.

The organizers had allowed only men to buy tickets, in keeping with ultra-Orthodox tradition of separating the sexes. Viewing parties had been arranged in Orthodox neighborhoods of Brooklyn and New Jersey so that women could watch, too.

via NYTimes.com.

You might think that the Internet is a good thing, and that there’s not really a problem. But then, you probably aren’t trying to sell net filtering software to tens of thousands of Jewish men.

The rally in Citi Field on Sunday was sponsored by a rabbinical group, Ichud Hakehillos Letohar Hamachane, that is linked to a software company that sells Internet filtering software to Orthodox Jews. Those in attendance were handed fliers that advertised services like a “kosher GPS App” for iPhone and Android phones, which helps users locate synagogues and kosher restaurants.

God and Mammon, together again.

My new favorite religion

For some reason I don’t seem to attract the kind of crank email that, say, PZ Myers gets, but now and then I stumble across a bit of good material. It happened to me this weekend: I was in the store buying vitamins, and noticed that someone had discretely slipped a copy of “Prophetic Observer” into one of the displays. (Talk about a bold witness, eh?) Published by Southwest Radio Ministries and the Southwest Radio Church of the Air, this was a full tabloid-sized four-page newsletter containing a single article: “Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?” by Noah W. Hutchings. And man, it brings the crazy.

[Read more…]

Sarcastic?

Just to follow up on yesterday’s post, I’ve had some objections along the lines of the idea that theism is wrong and therefore we should not express (or seem to express) our support of it, even to make a point. But isn’t that what sarcasm is? Expressing an idea you do not support, in order to make a point?

[Read more…]

Improving the pledge

Maybe you’ve seen this, or even participated in it: the occasion is a public meeting of the local PTA, school board, town council, or what have you, and someone gets up and leads everyone in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Everyone, that is, except the local atheist/agnostic, who stands there quietly but visibly NOT reciting the pledge, in silent protest over the addition of the words “under God.” He or she might also object to the whole idea of a loyalty oath on general principles, but let me skip over that for the moment, because I want to zero in on the words “under God,” and suggest a way we can make a huge improvement.

[Read more…]

Who’s attacking marriage?

You hear a lot from the religious right about how marriage is under attack and how Christians need to band together to defend marriage. And yet, nobody is really attacking people’s right to get married—except people like Jayman.

I don’t view marriage as a civil right (i.e., it is not like the right to life, the right to free speech, and the like).

Pardon me whilst I attach my own Defense of Marriage Amendment to that particular argument.

[Read more…]

Defending bad definitions

I got a lot of good comments on yesterday’s post about the definition of marriage, but not everybody was happy with my description. In particular, Jayman777 wants to take me to task.

It makes sense, therefore, to define marriage in terms of what the relationship between those individuals is and/or should be.

Which is it? What marriage is or what marriage should be?

I think he’s missing an important point here. There are many definitions of marriage, some good and some bad, and some of those definitions describe what marriage is, and some describe what marriage ought to be. By what definition of “marriage” has Newt Gingrich had 3 wives? By the definition of what marriage is, or the definition of what marriage should be? By what definition of marriage did King Solomon have 300 wives (and 600 concubines)? Is marriage a union of one man and up to 900 women? Should it be? Well, we could talk, but the point is, if you have a definition of what marriage is, that does not preclude you from having a different definition of what marriage should be.

That’s why it’s silly to talk about anyone “changing THE definition of marriage.” There is no one, single, exclusive definition that covers all the cases. Even in purely heterosexual relationships there’s frequently (if not inevitably) a gap between what it is and what people think/want/expect it to be.

[Read more…]

Not all definitions of marriage are equal

The other day I was listening to yet another Christian conservative parrot the tired mantra about how liberals are trying to change the definition of marriage. My first thought was that if marriage equality changes your definition of marriage, you’ve been using a bad definition of marriage. And that got me thinking about the various definitions of marriage, and how they compare with one another.

[Read more…]

Better late than never

So President Obama has finally come out in favor of equal civil rights for gays. About damn time, and kudos to him for having the courage to do so ahead of the election instead of waiting until it was “safe” to take a stand. He should have done so years ago, but still, credit where credit is due. This takes a fair amount of courage. He’s taking a genuine risk here by making gay marriage a campaign issue, because the right is looking for something they can use to build up a backlash, and this could be their best bet.

My advice to the Obama campaign: focus on the theme that it’s wrong to discriminate against people just because they fall in love differently than you do. The right is going to harp on the idea that he’s “changing the definition of marriage” and promoting immorality. He needs to undercut that and challenge the assumption that there’s only one “correct” way to fall in love, and that the government ought to deny equal rights to those who are different. Marriage, as an institution, belongs to everyone, and not just to those who fit the majority’s self-serving definition of what constitutes “normal.”

Perverted Science

Writing for the Finance section of Townhall.com (wait, the Finance section?), Mark Baisley has great hopes for the future of science.

Galileo was a true scientist.

I like Wikipedia’s description, “He displayed a peculiar ability to ignore established authorities, most notably Aristotelianism. In broader terms, his work marked another step towards the eventual separation of science from both philosophy and religion; a major development in human thought. He was often willing to change his views in accordance with observation.”

Based on recent trends in education and politics, I predict that human thought in the 21st Century will progress even further with a new separation of science, this time from politics. Three recent, unrelated publications; a video study, a book, and a movie; give me encouragement that the contemporary version of geocentricism is about to get its comeuppance.

He bases this hope on three things: a video from Focus on the Family, a book by William Dembski, and the move Expelled.

[Read more…]