Coming up on FtBCon 2

I’ll be hosting a session on Spiritual Abuse at FtBCon 2 at 9am. I’m just convening the event: the real work will be done by Vyckie Garrison, Ania Bula, Jamila Bey, and Heina Dadabhoy, who will be talking about…

What is spiritual abuse? What distinguishes “spiritual” abuse from regular forms of physical, emotional, and mental abuse?

In spiritual abuse, a person’s faith and ideas about God, the supernatural, and the afterlife, get intermingled and entwined with relational and behavioral choices so that the situation is not only about the way a person thinks, acts, and relates – it is primarily about the condition of your soul.

“Spiritually wounded on the battlefield of the great war”

You’ll never guess what that is a euphemism for in this creepy video from the Mormon church.

Yep, it’s all about masturbation, wrought with an excessive metaphor that protecting your friends from pornography and self-gratification is exactly the same as running around with guns to rescue wounded soldiers on the battlefield. I think the problem here isn’t that young men masturbate, but that old authorities are telling them that they’re evil and helping Nazis win the war for Satan when they do what comes naturally.

Be sure not to miss the end, when the two guys who have confided in each other about their sins give each other hot, smoky looks across a room.

Also, I’ve gotta say, when youtube pops up a collection of recommended videos to watch after this one, I blushed…I had no idea that you could find those kinds of R-rated videos there. This production from the Mormon church is only going to help people find more porn!

(via Carrie Poppy, that perv.)

Biblical slavery was such a lovely and tolerant experience

The clueless goons at AiG are confident about the outcome of Ken Ham’s debate with Bill Nye, claiming that the scientific facts of the Bible will win the day. Of course, you have to understand that what creationists call “fact” and what rational people call fact are rather different things. For example, when confronted with the Biblical support for slavery, here’s what they have to say:

What do you mean by slavery? Biblical slavery (servitude) was much different from what most people today think of as slavery (e.g., what some Europeans and Americans shamefully did with some African peoples, which is a recent example of forced slavery in the Western world).

Slavery (servitude) in the Bible was when someone was overextended in debt and could not pay it off. They would sell themselves into slavery for a seven-year term to pay off that debt to a wealthier person. During that time, they were given room and board, were paid a small wage that they could put into savings, and were taught a vocation. Then when they came out of this seven-year servitude, they could enter the culture with means and a profession.

Oh, really? That was only sometimes true, and then, only for the men, and only if they are Hebrews. Read Exodus 21.

2 “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. 3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.

5 “But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’ 6 then his master must take him before the judges.[a] He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life.

7 “If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. 8 If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself,[b] he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. 9 If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. 10 If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. 11 If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.

This idea that slaves were all happy Hebrews who were going through the ancient equivalent of bankruptcy court is amusing, but atypical. Where did many slaves come from? It’s just a real shame if you happen to be a woman, or for instance, a Midianite, because you were spoils of war. Read your bible, Numbers 31.

7 They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man. 8 Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. 9 The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. 10 They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. 11 They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, 12 and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.

13 Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.

15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

I am not so confident of the outcome of this debate. You can see what the liars at Answers in Genesis will do; not even the words of their Holy Bible are safe, but will be twisted and misrepresented to produce a false picture of their claims. I do wish these loons who so enthusiastically endorse the “literal interpretation” of their Bible would actually acknowledge what it says. If you’re going to claim that the Earth is less than ten thousand years old because you are forced by logic and consistency to accept every word of the Bible, then you must also accept that your daughters are your possessions to be bought and sold into slavery, and that the rape and genocide of foreigners is God’s will.

Just say it, “Anti-Christ!”

A spokesperson for the American Patriarchy Association has a few revealing words about Obama.

Responding to a caller who warned that “there’s a black cloud over our national capital” that is bringing down America, Rios said that there is a “spiritual” element to the political battle: “I do think what we’re facing here is otherworldly, there is a supernatural power to this president that I can’t—that I think most of us have picked up, those of us who believe in God and believe that there are other forces at work here, but we don’t know what God’s mind is on this.”

To be fair, she could be trying to imply that he is a Magical Negro who is going to bring wisdom to America…but somehow, I don’t think so.

My own position on the matter is that Obama is a human politician.

Engaging silly beliefs in multiple ways

John Wilkins discusses the utility of believing in nonsense. He knows some members of a branch of the Plymouth Brethren down there in Australia; they’re a pretty distinctive sect here where I live, too. The interesting thing about them is their intentional isolation. They don’t proselytize, they don’t even talk much to us outsiders, and as John says, these are probably survival tactics for the sect — silly beliefs can flourish if you only talk to other people who share the same silly beliefs.

So what do you do when your opponent avoids engagement?

What does this mean for practical purposes? How do we counter these false beliefs? There is no simple answer. In the short term we can insist that our functional bureaucracies and social institutions do not give credence, but that will only harden those who deny the facts in their beliefs. At best it will slough off the fence sitters, and reduce the core denialists to a rump. That is one good thing, but we want people to face reality when it really matters. A better, but longer term solution is to insist that education teaches not the facts, but the methods by which we understand those facts, in order that people can develop their cognitive stances appropriately. This denies the next generation of denialists their replacements, until they become at best an extremely small minority. Education is the solution, which the denialists well understand. This is why we have objections to even discussing these “controversial” matters in schools, and why the denialists (whether of evolution, global warming, or whatever) continuously try to insert their agenda into public education. An uneducated community is more easily controlled and manipulated.

This is a good general approach, not just for dealing with creationists, but for teaching the general population. Teaching to the test just generates competing authorities, and we can’t win that battle; parents, peers, and coercive religion hold all the trump cards. But teaching kids to think for themselves…now that’s where we totally rule.

But I think there are a couple of issues that John didn’t engage in that blog post. Yes, please, better teaching. But what about these problems?

The Brethren or the Amish or any other sect that withdraws from the larger society really isn’t a long-term problem. They’re going to fade away or evolve eventually. The reality is that, at least in America, we have to deal with evangelical religions: Answers in Genesis or the Southern Baptist Convention aren’t simply retreating into their own navels, they are actively proselytizing bad beliefs. Simply trying to erode their base away with good teaching hasn’t worked here, at least (or possibly, we just don’t have good teaching), and direct and aggressive opposition is necessary.

Even religions that have insulated themselves and just want to be left alone do harm. Consider just the problem of faith healing; we have laws in the US that shelter ideas that lead to dead children. Unless we’re willing to say that society as a whole has no interest in kids, and parents are free to abuse them intellectually and medically, intervention is often called for. Our local Brethren aren’t proselytizing directly, but apparently they have quiet clout: they’ve compelled the school board and local businesses to avoid ‘controversial’ issues by threatening to withhold their custom or withdraw their kids from school. They’re smart and are using passive techniques to prevent kids from getting good educations.

Finally, if we’re going to concede that creationists are following a rational social strategy (and I do!), then we also have to recognize the godless complement: while many scientists and naturalists certainly follow the similar tactic of cloistering themselves with their like-minded colleagues, many of us are rationally pursuing a strategy of active, public opposition to believing in silly things. While teaching children how to think and learn is part of our goal of taking over the world, another important aspect is consolidating and reinforcing a non-believing community.

The inward-looking community is one approach to sustaining and strengthening a group: look to those Brethren or most academic departments, for instance, and you’ll see that in action. But the flip side is forming outward-looking communities — Answers in Genesis has a little bit of that, poorly done because they can’t really afford to engage the evidence, but it’s a fairly natural direction for science-based communities to take … we’re supposed to be evaluating new ideas all the time.

Also, we do it for the lurkers. Exclusive sects aren’t very good at gaining new recruits.

Sticking it to this pope

It’s good to see that I’m not the only one not falling for this grinnin’ pope. Gregory Paul talks about the Dark Side of Pope Francis.

That theoconservatives are being unsettled by Francis is a good thing. What is disturbing is how so many, but by no means all, liberals – including atheist Bill Maher – are being significantly seduced by the guy. A reason this is occurring is in part because the news media is as it often does is buying into a storyline that boosts ratings, so they conveniently stick to it without checking the objective facts that is supposed to be their job. 

Here is a question that Francis needs to be asked. Directly, and with follow ups to pin him down if he issues another nice little homily that dodges the issue. 

What is he going to do concerning abortion? Really do. Regarding its legality. 

Well, we know the answer to that one. Ophelia snagged a few recent quotes from this pope on abortion.

The ever so much more nice guy pope has pitched a big fit about women having the audacity to terminate their pregnancies.

He said it was was “frightful” to think about early pregnancy terminations.

Easy for him, isn’t it. It’s not his life that will be messed up and perhaps irreparably thrown off course by an unwanted pregnancy. He can afford to drool sentimentally over a process inside someone else’s body that he chooses to think of as a “baby” or even a “child.”

“It is horrific even to think that there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day,” he said in part of the speech that addressed the rights of children around the world.

Children aren’t “victims of abortion”, any more than killing sperm represents a slaughter of innocents. Oh, but he probably thinks the latter is true, too.

I don’t even…

Every once in a while, I learn something about fundagelicals that I find simply discombobulating. Some Christian guides prescribe that a man should keep track of his wife’s menstrual cycle on the family calendar, even.

I mean, I knew that these patriarchal religions were all about controlling their women’s reproduction, but I had no idea. What’s the rationale? Here’s one reason given:

In his 1986 volume, Research in Principles of Life Advance Seminar Textbook, on page 170-171, Gothard suggests that a man keep track of his wife’s menstrual cycle and use it as a reminder of the sufferings and death of Jesus, then quotes Isaiah 53:4-5.

So Jesus menstruated? What?

The other reason is the infantilization of women’s behavior: they’re at the mercy of their cycle, so you need to be prepared to deal with them when they go all hormonal.

But this is something that goes on far beyond a man actually tracking his wife’s circle. It’s rather pervasive. Women are dismissed all the time for just being “hormonal,” and “it must be her time of the month” is a common response to a woman’s anger. In fact, there was a time men argued women shouldn’t be elected to political office, because of their periods. Do women’s hormonal cycles sometimes make them break down crying or get angry for no reasons? Perhaps, but guess what? Everyone has hormones, not just women. Everyone has bad days, not just women. And you know what? I’ve seen this “she must be on her period” line used to dismiss women’s actual needs and actual concerns.

You know, I did not track my wife’s menstruation at all. Sometimes I’d find out, obviously, and every once in a while she’d get menstrual migraines, but that’s about it for indicators — and I know some women do have debilitating physiological responses to their cycle. But I have never, ever known my wife to have a particular emotional excess or intellectual deficit in response to hormonal changes.

But maybe if I’d kept a big note on the calendar, I’d have had an excuse to belittle her once a month.

Reason opposed by unreason

Unreason being represented by its champion, religion…as always. The rational politicians in Idaho are trying to end the practice of faith healing on children; the irrationally religious politicians are trying to stop them.

A Republican lawmaker in Idaho is trying to stop a law aimed at preventing the deaths of children whose parents eschew medical treatment in favor of prayer. The Associated Press reported that state Rep. Christy Perry (R) believes that a law proposed by Democratic Rep. John Gannon violates religious freedom of families who believe God’s will supercedes modern medicine.

“This is about religious beliefs, the belief God is in charge of whether they live, and God is in charge of whether they die,” said Perry of the Followers of Christ, an extremist group who have let at least four children die of treatable illnesses in the last three years.

Perry, your beliefs do not trump the reality of dead children.

Mauritanian justice

Is this a sign of moderation by Muslim theologians? Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mohamed was a journalist in Mauritania who was accused of apostasy and of criticizing the prophet; a preacher, Abi Ould Ali, then chipped in and announced that he would pay €4000 blood money to anyone who would murder Ould Mohamed. Surprisingly, the preacher was condemned!

His call was immediately denounced by theologians and journalists in the north-western African country formally known as the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.

This would be a more promising development if Ould Mohamed hadn’t already been arrested by the state, which has a law making it a death penalty offense to criticize the prophet. I’m not hearing much condemnation for an unjust and evil law — although I do suppose it’s progress when they shut down vigilanteism.

Meanwhile, Ould Mohamed is in jail awaiting a possible death sentence.