The Norwegians have pissed off the Muslims again

You know those Norwegians — fierce Vikings all, with no respect for the religious. The Students and Academics International Assistance Fund (SAIF) put up a promotional poster, and now the Iranian embassy wants to tear it down (Google translation).

You have offended the feelings of a great nation, said in the letter that SAIH has received from the press chief of the Iranian Embassy in Oslo, Mohammad Javad Hosseini.

I have considered their complaint (well aware that I have no status at all in Norway), and have concluded that…it’s a pretty nice poster. I’d like one.

Kim Jong-il might complain, though. I can live with that.

An irrefutable argument

Jessica Ahlquist is suing her school district to have a prominently posted prayer removed. It should be an open-and-shut case — it’s a freakin’ prayer in a public school, for pity’s sake — but I noticed one peculiar argument in a profile of the case.

Her frequent appearances, say the lawyers for the city and school, show that she does not fear harassment, as she claims in her suit. “These are not the actions of a frightened student, but of a zealous advocate.”

If the prayer were a problem, students would be cowed and fearful, and would not be complaining. A student is complaining, therefore she isn’t fearful, therefore it’s not a problem.

That’s some catch, that Catch-22.

(via Cuttlefish)

I think all Americans have just been insulted by Andrew Brown

He calls Mormonism a “truly American faith”. I don’t think Brown actually knows anything about the Mormons other than the whitewash they’ve been given in their efforts to become more mainstream.

Mormonism is detested by some American evangelicals because it is “not Christianity” – but perhaps more because it is the first, great, truly American religion. It is founded on claims that no outsider can take seriously, but validated by one of the greatest epics of the settlement of the west, and secured by prosperity and tithing.

[Read more…]

Oh, you cruel gay kids!

David Barton and Sally Kern have a conversation.

Barton: With all of the protection we have for free speech, there’s still a number of areas where you’re not free to speak out on certain things. If you touch homosexuality, be prepared to pay a price, not just attacks, it’s gonna cost you economically, other things as well, may cost your life. This is, the way people respond to what you say about homosexuality if you criticize it and we got Sally Kern today, State Rep from Oklahoma who experienced that first time, what happens if you exercise your right of free speech and happen to say something disparaging about homosexuality.

I know there are a fair number of gay readers here, so ‘fess up: how many heterosexuals have you killed? I had no idea we had gangs of homosexuals casually beating and murdering the poor oppressed heteros.

Kern: I have to be honest with you Rick, when I was sitting there in my car that day and when she told me that those emails were coming from homosexuals, honestly, fear gripped my whole body, because I was very aware of the homosexual lobbyists and the power that they have. And people say, ‘oh you’re so brave, so heroic,’ but I’m not, I’m just a sinner saved by grace and I was gripped with fear that day. I just said, ‘Lord, what have I done?’

She did say one true thing: sitting in a car trembling in fear of the gays is not brave. Actually, it’s rather cowardly to use your fear of a class of people to push legislation that really does cause fear and anxiety.

Precious but icky

This is what religion does: it institutionalizes and rationalizes stupidity, like these signs in New York neighborhoods.

The large signs started popping up in the neighborhood more than a week ago. They had a Yiddish message that translates as: “Precious Jewish daughter, please move to the side when a man approaches.”

Neighborhood residents were annoyed the plastic signs, which were bolted into the wood, were taken away.

“The signs don’t bother anybody,” said Abraham Klein, 18. “Men and ladies don’t go together. It’s just our religion.”

Yeah? Well, your religion sucks. And the signs bother me.

Orthodoxy and misogyny seem to go together like a bad sandwich: shit and slime, two awful flavors that taste worse together and don’t stand alone so well, either.

I get email

This one isn’t crazy. It’s from an atheist, so it’s also properly spelled and punctuated, with good grammar.

The point is that many (sophisticated) religious advocates would argue that if everyone dedicated themselves to following certain religious codes of conduct, this would improve the world, and whether a God actually exists is largely irrelevant. Terry Eagleton discusses this position in Reason, Faith and Revolution.

This leads on to an interesting philosophical question: if the world could be a more peaceful and fulfilling place because people acted in accordance with strictly false beliefs, whereas if people only held true beliefs the world would be more conflicted and painful – then which scenario is preferred? This question is philosophical and I can’t see how science alone can adjudicate on the answer.

Science can’t, directly. This is a matter of values, and I, for instance, value truth very highly — so highly that the world logically cannot be a more fulfilling place for me if I were driven by false beliefs. That, I would admit, is a personal idiosyncrasy and I can easily imagine people who don’t give a damn about the truth of their beliefs. Picture the Joe Pantoliano character in The Matrix, Cypher, who sells out his friends in order to be reinserted into the computer fantasy simulation. Notice also that he’s portrayed as a bad guy.

You see, living a lie is nearly universally considered a bad thing. Even the people who most devoutly believe in the most wacky fundy beliefs, or scientologists, or Mormons, do not argue that their ideas are false but that they believe in them anyway — they all argue that they are literally true. The truth of Christianity or Islam or Hinduism or whatever is considered very important, but they’ve simply deluded themselves into believing that they are true (and we know that they can’t all be true, since they’re mutually contradictory).

I would also argue that an intellectual foundation built on false beliefs is inherently less stable than one built on true beliefs, because there is the continual risk that the falsity of that foundation can be found by its proponents, reducing their confidence. I presume that stability contributes to “peaceful and fulfilling”, although maybe some kind of chaotic anarchy would form a stable attractor in the great state space of possible social worlds. Unfortunately, my personal values intrude again: I don’t want to live in an anarchic state built on lies. I want to live in a totalitarian Dominionist state built on lies even less, though, so maybe you could make a “lesser of two evils” argument.

Somebody watched “Born Free” too many times

Students in California were participating in a big project: they were helping to raise tens of thousands of salmon to be released into San Francisco Bay. The release of the smolts was imminent, and a party was planned to honor the people who had helped, when animal rights activists cut the nets and freed the salmon prematurely.

I really do not understand how these kooks think. Nothing was gained by this action, other than to disappoint some kids who’d been working to help restore salmon stocks. I don’t even know what they want: do they just want the salmon to die out? Are they even aware that they released the salmon from an environment where they were sheltered and fed, into a wild world where food is more scarce and they will be actively preyed upon?

Peter Young, in a “Voice of the Voiceless” journal for the Animal Liberation Movement, weighed in after the first episode of vandalism, calling the perpetrators “anonymous saboteurs.”

“If this was the act of animal liberators, it would be the largest recorded animal liberation ever in the U.S.,” he wrote, noting that the largest previous one was the release of 14,000 mink in an Animal Liberation Front raid on a fur farm in Iowa.

“Those who cut the nets may not have known the fish were slated to be released in the coming weeks,” he went on. “Or, they could have chosen to risk themselves anyway to give the fish a few extra weeks of freedom, sparing them the psychological suffering of being kept in intense confinement with approximately 40,000 others in a small net.”

Oh. They were suffering psychologically. How does Young know? Which is happier, a salmon confined to a net with a steady food supply, or a salmon fleeing from an orca or a seal?

Referencing the mink farm release is also telling. Imagine 14,000 voracious predators released into the local environment: every other animal in the environment is going to experience intense “psychological suffering”, and ultimately most of the released mink are going to starve to death.

These people don’t think.

(Also on Sb)

Why I am an atheist – Gwen

Simple. I read the bible. At 11. After reading through Norse, Roman, Egyptian and Greek mythology. I recognized they were the same. My mother was ecstatic, My father not so much. Oh, and I am African American. My mother was an atheist, and so are my children…they also came there with some guidance, but of their own volition.

Gwen
California

Somebody watched “Born Free” too many times

Students in California were participating in a big project: they were helping to raise tens of thousands of salmon to be released into San Francisco Bay. The release of the smolts was imminent, and a party was planned to honor the people who had helped, when animal rights activists cut the nets and freed the salmon prematurely.

I really do not understand how these kooks think. Nothing was gained by this action, other than to disappoint some kids who’d been working to help restore salmon stocks. I don’t even know what they want: do they just want the salmon to die out? Are they even aware that they released the salmon from an environment where they were sheltered and fed, into a wild world where food is more scarce and they will be actively preyed upon?

Peter Young, in a “Voice of the Voiceless” journal for the Animal Liberation Movement, weighed in after the first episode of vandalism, calling the perpetrators “anonymous saboteurs.”

“If this was the act of animal liberators, it would be the largest recorded animal liberation ever in the U.S.,” he wrote, noting that the largest previous one was the release of 14,000 mink in an Animal Liberation Front raid on a fur farm in Iowa.

“Those who cut the nets may not have known the fish were slated to be released in the coming weeks,” he went on. “Or, they could have chosen to risk themselves anyway to give the fish a few extra weeks of freedom, sparing them the psychological suffering of being kept in intense confinement with approximately 40,000 others in a small net.”

Oh. They were suffering psychologically. How does Young know? Which is happier, a salmon confined to a net with a steady food supply, or a salmon fleeing from an orca or a seal?

Referencing the mink farm release is also telling. Imagine 14,000 voracious predators released into the local environment: every other animal in the environment is going to experience intense “psychological suffering”, and ultimately most of the released mink are going to starve to death.

These people don’t think.

(Also on FtB)