Go back to Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor

Garrison Keillor has done it again: he’s written another insipid article loaded with casual bigotry, this time against gays. I’m pleased to see that Dan Savage has savaged him, so I don’t need to go on at length.

However, this really isn’t the first time Keillor has done this—he has a history of unthinking stereotyping and rejection of gays and atheists. He’s an excellent example of why, when I see the Religious Right and the Religious Left, I don’t think the problem is the Right or Left…it’s the Religious.

My criticism of Keillor from 2005 is below the fold. Not only does he reject atheism and homosexuality, but he does so on the most trivial grounds—gay people want to get married to economize on their wardrobe? It’s nuts.

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“Spirituality”? Another word for lies and empty noise

If you go to the main ScienceBlogs page, you’ll discover that the Buzz for the day is this little gem, triggered by one of our newbie bloggers:

Spirituality and Science

Over the last few hundred years, science has provided a mind-boggling richness of answers about the workings of the universe. For many people the importance of religion, at least as an explainer of the natural world, has shifted. Is it possible to believe what science teaches us about nature, and also be a person of faith? A Galactic Interactions post about being a Christian and a scientist has ignited an explosive debate.

Appropriately enough, the latest Templeton Prize has just been awarded. $1.5 million for this rubbish:

Professor Taylor has written extensively on the sense of self and how it is defined by morals and what one considers good. People operate in the register of spiritual issues, he said, and to separate those from the humanities and social sciences leads to flawed conclusions.

“The deafness of many philosophers, social scientists and historians to the spiritual dimension can be remarkable,” Professor Taylor said in remarks prepared for delivery at the announcement of the prize at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York this morning. This is damaging because it “affects the culture of the media and educated public opinion in general.”

There’s also much more at the Templeton Prize site. He blathers on and on about “spiritual thinking” and a “spiritual domain” without ever telling us what the heck it is, although it does seem to be all tied up in believing in a religion, any religion. So, someone tell me, how am I supposed to hear this “spiritual dimension”? What is it supposed to mean?

Near as I can tell, it means making up vague nonsense about special values only religious people can have, and getting a cool million five for insisting on it. What a sweet scam, and what a useless lot of hot air.

(via Butterflies and Wheels)

How to teach a religion class

Scalzi makes an impractical, mocking suggestion (hey, isn’t that all he does?) for how to teach comparative religion:

Incidentally, there’s a simple solution to the problem of teaching the history and literature of religions in public schools without “accidentally” tipping over into, you know, proselytizing: Have atheists teach the classes. Yes, that will go over swell, I know. I’m just saying.

He’s right, it would never fly, but I have a suggestion that might make it work. Two rules:

  1. The person teaching the course may not at any time or in any way, even indirectly, discuss his or her own religion.

  2. All discussion of any religion must be value-neutral, that is, you can’t talk about what’s “good” or “bad”, just state the historical and doctrinal facts.

Since most teachers are going to be Christian, that means Christianity would get short shrift, which isn’t appropriate…but the obvious solution there is to have guest lecturers. Invite the local Muslim or Buddhist in to summarize Christianity from his or her perspective. That alone, of course, would guarantee that the instructor couldn’t be some raving fundie—imagine a David Paszkiewicz having to sit quietly at the back of the room while a Dawkins-like atheist or a Muslim like Keith Ellison explained Christianity to the class.

Finally, an issue that gets fundamentalist Christians to support biotechnology

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, now thinks that high-tech, fetal research is OK — if it leads to a cure for homosexuality.

If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin.

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Fascinating letter to the editor

Comments on this one are a little superfluous, don’t you think? Alice says it all.

It’s time to stomp out atheists in America.  The majority of Americans would love to see atheists kicked out of America.  If you don’t believe in God, then get out of this country.

The United States is based on having freedom of religion, speech, etc., which means you can believe in God any way you want (Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, etc.), but you must believe.

I don’t recall freedom of religion meaning no religion. Our currency even says, “In God We Trust.” So, to all the atheists in America: Get off of our country.

Atheists have caused the ruin of this great nation by taking prayer out of our schools and being able to practice what can only be called evil.  I don’t care if they have never committed a crime, atheists are the reason crime is rampant.

Alice Shannon
Soldotna

Edward Wilson is doomed

Wilson wrote a nice book, The Creation(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), in which he argued that Christians should be leaders in good stewardship of the earth. Now some religious leaders have spoken out against such activities.

The Catholic church is babbling about an antichrist.

An arch-conservative cardinal chosen by the Pope to deliver this year’s Lenten meditations to the Vatican hierarchy has caused consternation by giving warning of an Antichrist who is “a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist”.

After all, as we all know, when Christ returns he will be an isolationist industrialist who will rip through our natural resources to build up an awesome war machine. It says so in the Bible.

It’s not just the Catholics—Jerry Falwell is all worked up about Al Gore and global warming.

Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, who has worked for decades to involve conservative Christians in politics, said Sunday the debate over global warming is a tool of Satan being used to distract churches from their primary focus of preaching the gospel.

Good ol’ Jerry, at least you can trust him to back up his assertions with evidence. Irrefutable evidence:

Falwell cited two Bible verses that he said apply to the global-warming debate: Psalm 24:1-2, which declares “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof,” and Genesis 8:22, which says there will be seasons of spring, summer, fall and winter for “as long as the earth remains.”

Uh, what?

That’s pretty much meaningless. Minnesota has seasons; Israel has seasons; I think, though, that most people would agree that there are substantial differences between the two. Even during the ice ages there were seasons. Global warming will not end seasonal differences in temperature and precipitation.

This is a problem. Trying to argue idiots who believe in magic, all-powerful words in one book into following a path of enlightened self-interest is difficult — it would probably be easier to first destroy the source of the foolishness, that book and the church organization.