No One Is Good but One?

Ken Ham is chortling over those silly atheists and their National Day of Reason. No One Is Good but One, he says. It’s the standard Christian anti-human self-loathing crapola that insists we need a tyrant in the sky to tell us what is good.

There is only one absolute standard by which anyone can determine what is “good,” and that is from the absolute authority who is all “good”—God! Outside of such an absolute standard, “good” is whatever you want to make it to be (if you can get away with it)—it is totally subjective. Some people think it is “good” to steal, for instance. When a culture abandons the absolute standard for what is “good” (as this culture is progressively doing in throwing out God’s Word), then we will see people doing what is right in their own eyes—as we are increasingly experiencing. The recent announcement by the president of the USA in support of “gay” marriage is just one such example—he abandoned the absolute standard for what is “good” and now is wanting to impose his subjective opinion on the nation.

Unfortunately, this God-thing doesn’t seem to be able to tell us all about this goodness: it all seems to be filtered through a cacophony of self-styled prophets and mutually contradictory holy books. It’s pointless to tell me there’s an absolute standard, but that I don’t get to see it.

Also, atheist morality is not totally subjective. We can ask ourselves what works for the majority of people: what rules and behaviors minimize conflict, maximize productivity and happiness, and produce stable, long-lasting societies that get along well with others. We do have a standard — a human standard, one that is real and measurable.

I think it is entirely rational to see that about 10% of our nation is discriminated against and treated unfairly, and to make changes in our policies that promote equality and make that 10% happier. Especially since those changes do no harm at all to the other 90%.

And then I look at the absolute morality that Ham proposes should rule our nation, and see that its solution to those 10% is to stone them to death, and I think, “I think I can objectively determine that making people happy is good, and killing them is evil, because I value humans, not voices in hateful people’s heads.” And I conclude that Ken Ham is a wicked cretin.

Also, coincidentally, I notice that NonStampCollector has a new video on a similar point.

Ken Ham says we must obey the Bible literally, in every word. In Exodus 21, the Bible clearly and unambiguously says “Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day is to be put to death.” So, I want to know: in his ideal world based entirely on Biblical morality, when his neighbor mows the lawn on Sunday afternoon, would Ken Ham kill him? Or just gather a group of his friends and kill him in a communal exercise? And would they wait until Monday to do it?

Would that be moral?

Meetup in DC

I know, I’m going to be in Kamloops next weekend (it will be a great meeting, by the way), but there’s another great meeting going on at the same time in Washington DC, the Women in Secularism conference, and a lot of readers are going to that one, or are just living in that east coast region. So there’s going to be a Pharyngula meetup in DC! It’s a secret gathering of the feminist cabal, though, so I can’t tell you where or when (I don’t even know myself), and if you want to attend you need to write to oniongirlsays@gmail.com to get all the top-secret details.

Will there be passwords? Secret handshakes? Ritual scarification? I don’t know. Attend and find out.

Why I am an atheist – Modulous

My parents were Church Of England, mildly practicing (more my mother than my father). My grandparents were strongly practicing C of E (as strong as that gets anyway – that is they went to church every week and all that).

However – my father works in oil and his job took him around a lot of places including the Middle East, the Caribbean and now, Louisiana. So there were lots of ideas flying around when I was a kid. My first school was a ‘Gospel School’ (I was the only white boy in the whole school!), and my leaving present was the Good News Bible with a picture of the island the school was on.

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My day in Flagstaff

I flit out to Flagstaff today to participate in a BBC documentary. It’s part of a series with an interesting approach: they take True Believers on a road trip to confront them with evidence against their obsessions. Some of you Brits out there might have seen an earlier episode, the 9/11 Conspiracy Road Trip, in which 5 9/11 Truthers were taken on a bus tour of relevant sites in the United States. It apparently got good reviews (except from 9/11 Truthers themselves). You can watch the whole program yourself!

There will be some new episodes of the show coming out. The one I participated in today was a group of 5 believers in aliens and UFOs who are on a grand bus tour of the Southwest — they’d talked to SETI people in LA, a NASA scientist at Meteor Crater, a biologist who tried to set them straight on evolution and aliens, and they’re on their way to, of course, Area 51.

All I had to do was have a conversation with these 5 believers in alien abductions. It was…interesting. They were all very nice people, but they ranged in rationality from people who’d experienced unexplained events and were trying to figure out what happened, to a real loon who was utterly convinced that Jews were alien hybrids, reptoids had hybridized with humans, and the stone blocks of the pyramids had been cut with lasers. We argued for an hour or two, all of it was recorded, and I’m sure it will all be cut to the 5 juiciest minutes for the final show.

Keep an eye open for it next year all you British-type people, and let me know how it turns out.

Why I am an Atheist – Alex Manuel

I believe two varieties of atheists exist, which I call “small-A” and “big-A.” Small-A atheists comprise more or less ALL atheists; small-A atheism is simply the fact of not believing in any gods or practicing any theistic religion (at least, not with the understanding that any of it is real in any sense but cultural).

All big-A Atheists are small-A atheists, but only some small-A atheists are big-A Atheists. To be a big-A Atheist is to embrace the counter-culture surrounding atheism, to recognize it as a part of who you are, and to be as outspoken about it as is comfortable for each. The big, red A that so many of us display in our various corners of the social network, on our cars or cubicle walls (for those living in states where such wouldn’t get you lynched) – that’s one good example of what represents big-A Atheism. It is not only a lack of belief, but a form of expression for the sparse few of us dotted like lighthouses around seas of theists, cranks, crackpots and the terminally incurious.

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Episode CCCXXVII: My current favorite poem

Don’t tell anyone, but I might occasionally read poetry for fun…and right now, this would be my favorite, “The Mask of Anarchy”, by Shelley.

Yeah, it’s long, but I love the ending.

And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, –
What they like, that let them do.

With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.

Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.

Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand –
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.

And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.

And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.

And these words shall then become
Like Oppression’s thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again – again – again –

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number –
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you –
Ye are many – they are few.

If you’re wondering, it’s about the Peterloo Massacre in 1819 — with which all you fans of popular labor movements are well acquainted, I’m sure.

(Episode CCCXXVI: Singing scientists, sorta.)

Guess what the election is going to be all about?

Oh, boy. Mitt Romney gave a speech at Liberty University, and made it clear what side he’s taking.

The American culture promotes personal responsibility, the dignity of work, the value of education, the merit of service, devotion to a purpose greater than self, and, at the foundation, the pre-eminence of the family. The power of these values is evidenced by a Brookings Institution study that Senator Rick Santorum brought to my attention. For those who graduate from high school, get a full-time job, and marry before they have their first child, the probability that they will be poor is 2%. But, if those things are absent, 76% will be poor. Culture matters.

Wait, what? Has this man never heard of cause and effect? So if you’re a high school graduate and get a good job, you aren’t poor. If you’re poor, you’re less likely to graduate from high school and get a good job. Sure, culture matters: so why are the Republicans trying to perpetuate poverty?

I don’t see where getting married before having children has a causal relationship to the problem, either, or where it’s relevant to gay marriage.

As fundamental as these principles are, they may become topics of democratic debate. So it is today with the enduring institution of marriage. Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman. The protection of religious freedom has also become a matter of debate. It strikes me as odd that the free exercise of religious faith is sometimes treated as a problem, something America is stuck with instead of blessed with. Perhaps religious conscience upsets the designs of those who feel that the highest wisdom and authority comes from government.

What’s the probability that a gay married couple are poor? I think if he’s going to try and justify a particular pattern of relationships by correlating them with socioeconomic status, I suspect the lesson might be that the god of the prosperity gospel actually favors gay couples.

I expect that this is going to be a major talking point on the Republican side in the coming months. I hope Obama is ready to sharpen his rhetoric and come out a lot more strongly on the issue than he did in his tepid announcement.

Good, bad, we’re the ones with the big guns

Watch this little sketch first, and think about it.

I am relieved to say that skulls are not an official motif in US military uniforms, although some units do use them. However, we instead have Nazi-like minds at work in our military. Here’s an excerpt from a presentation at the Defense Department’s Joint Forces Staff College, composed by Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley as a proposed model for how to deal with Islam.

It’s a little worse than decorative skulls.

When I hear the phrase “politically correct”, I’m afraid my knee tends to jerk, usually in the direction of some jerk’s groin. It is the tired excuse of the fanatic trying to rationalize the unforgivable. “Oh, excuse me, I’m going to talk about incinerating civilians in a nuclear holocaust, take your ‘politically correct’ objections out of the room.”

And that’s exactly what he’s discussing. Let’s forget civilized accords limiting the conduct of war, and frankly discuss nuking Mecca and Medina. It’s OK, we’re going to remove protections for those caught fighting out of uniform, and pretend that every inhabitant of those two cities is a spy, a terrorist, or a criminal.

You can download the whole presentation; it’s an awful mess of jargon and pointlessly busy military diagrams that say pretty much nothing at all, and it’s main point is to redefine every Muslim in the world as a military combatant who deserves everything we do to them.

It closes with this message:

It is therefore time for the United States to make our true intentions clear. This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated, Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction. Let it be known that the United States remains, and will forever be, a beacon of freedom, self-determination, hope, and representative democracy. The American people will not be converted. We will not submit. We will not be intimidated, and we will not be driven from this earth.”

That is remarkably tin-eared and hypocritical. It accuses the other side of being a barbaric ideology while planning to nuke the civilian population centers of the Muslim world…oh, wait, “facilitating their self-destruction.” So we’re going to drop a bomb on them and then innocently declare that it was their own fault?

It rather deflates the grand ideals of “freedom, self-determination, hope, and representative democracy” when you use them as buzzwords to justify the murder of millions.

But perhaps that scale of terror is too immense for your brain to absorb. How about this little morsel, instead?

The American military claimed responsibility and expressed regret for an airstrike that mistakenly killed six members of a family in southwestern Afghanistan, Afghan and American military officials confirmed Monday.

…

The victims were the family’s mother and five of her children, three girls and two boys, according to Afghan officials.

This family was just quietly living in this house in Afghanistan, when the full weight of American freedom, self-determination, hope, and representative democracy dropped into their living room in the form of a military airstrike.

I think we’re the baddies.

But at least we apologized nicely. I’m sure that made it all better.

First they came for the political scientists…

Meet Jeff Flake from Arizona. His number one goal is the destruction of the federal government, one piece at a time. His first target: the National Science Foundation. The NSF funds a big chunk of the country’s basic research to the tune of about $7 billion/year, and Flake proposed cutting it by a billion dollars.

He didn’t get what he wanted, fortunately.

But now he’s fallen back on the tricks of anti-science demagogues everywhere, falling back on using his ignorance to justify gutting programs, one by one. He’s managed to block funding of all political science research through NSF, because, he says, they’re “meritless” and “These studies might satisfy the curiosities of a few academics, but I seriously doubt society will benefit from them”.

What did he single out as worthy of cutting?

A project to “develop a new model for international climate change analysis” — apparently, if you close your eyes to a problem, it goes away.

“Understanding the origins of the gender gap in political ambition,” a project to identify why young people aren’t running for office. Oh, that one we can cut, because the reason is obvious: because the offices are full of assholes like Flake.

Strangely, Flake has an MA in political science. I guess he thinks his degree is worthless, not realizing that it’s not the diploma, it’s the brain behind it.

(Also on Sb)