Oklahoma…you have left me speechless

They’re considering a new law to keep women ignorant and ashamed.

The governor of Oklahoma is considering tough new abortion bills that would allow doctors to withhold test results showing foetal defects and require women to answer intrusive questions.

The results of the questionnaires would be posted online.

Women would also be required to have a vaginal ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the embryo or foetus in a third bill passed by the legislature on Monday.

So let me get this straight. If a woman in Oklahoma thinks she is pregnant, she can go in for “testing”…but she won’t get to know all the results. And she has to fill out a form so her sexual history can be posted on the web. And she’s going to get a pointless ultrasound and a lecture scripted by the likes of Prolife across America.

Why would anyone do that?

Nice to know we don’t have a monopoly on lunacy

Below is a short video from AndromedasWake refuting some specific claims by a couple of creationists from the UK, Andrew Inns and Malcolm Bowden. It’s nicely done, a good explanation of some basic physics, but what caught my eye is the beginning, when the creationists start explaining that they are going to disprove evolution. How are they going to do it?

Would you believe…by saying that the earth is stationary at the center of the universe, and doesn’t even rotate — everything else spins around it with a 24 hour period? Most of our American creationists aren’t that stupid!

I feel a brief moment of patriotic pride.

As AndromedasWake asks at the end, what the heck does any of that have to do with evolution?

Shall we frustrate some Mormons?

It would be only fair, after all. They frustrate me with their ridiculous beliefs all the time, and with their bigoted intrusions into national politics. A few Mormons are planning a youtube challenge, coordinated on FaceBook: on 3 May, they intend to all visit one particular pro-Mormon video, comment on it, uprate it, etc., and attempt to turn it into a notable event that will bring wonderful, uplifting exposure of the Mormon Church to the public.

That ain’t gonna happen.

Here is their complete plan. We’re going to start working against it already.

Dear friends,

On May 3, 2010 (perhaps as part of your Family Home Evening program) if all reachable members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints–and any non members interested– would follow the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkKblIMfmjI and watch the YouTube video of Jeffrey R. Holland bearing testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, we could potentially achieve promoting that video to the YouTube homepage, based on volume of views.

The repercussions of this could be great. YouTube reports:

YouTube Stats (US)
(comScore MediaMetrix April 2009)

"The YouTube Homepage is the highest-profile placement on the site… eleven million unique visitors a day in the US [and] 89.7 Million unique monthly visitors."

The exposure that the Church–even the Book of Mormon–could receive in one day is astronomical. Please keep in mind though, while it is ideal that this video be promoted to the homepage, it is the spirit felt from the message wherein the success lies.

TIPS ON HOW TO ACHIEVE THIS:

1 views
2 comments (the more comments, the more valuable Youtube sees your video.) Comments almost carry as much weight as views.
3 favorites – everyone needs to "favorite" the video.
4 thumbs up
5 subscriptions – daily subscriptions have a major impact on popularity. This also has longterm impact on the future videos coming to the channel because they will get emails from Youtube letting them know when MormonMessages posts new stuff.
6 reshare. The more things are shared on Facebook and Twitter the better the video’s rankings will be.

Please send this to anyone you think would be interested. Maybe you don’t have to invite them to be a part of the cause, but even just sharing the link with non-member friends on May 3 could achieve the same effects (multiple views by one viewer in a day bumps the view count as well.)

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints blessed with the knowledge contained in the Book of Mormon I seek to share with the world what I know to be true; what I know to bring happiness and hope in the times of travail; what I know to be the word of God.

For this challenge May 3 is calculated from 12 am to 11:59:59 pm Eastern Standard Time (for those participating from different time zones), but viewing before and after the event is helpful as well. Please mark your calendars and gather round in your families, wards and stakes and join me, May 3.

All my best,

Erin Jakob

*** As the group has more than 5000 members I am not able to send out a reminder email for the event so I will update the event details a couple days before (so you can send out your last minute reminder emails) and the day off. These updates will appear in your notifications and serve as a reminder.

Also, I am deleting all links that are not the video itself, mormon.org or lds.org, and any disputes that may arise. If you would like to discuss something with someone please private message them.***

I’m sure you’re all itching to take a look at the video — and I’ll give you the link in a moment, so you can witness the dumbassery in all of its pompous inanity — but here’s the deal: when you go look at it, you must also click on the little “don’t like” button to downrate it (and yes, it’s true, you won’t like it), and ideally, leave a negative comment behind (if you can, it’s censored, as you might expect). Not one of the stupid profanity-laced misspelled ungrammatical comments so typical of youtube, but one that points out the absurdity of the video. And then ignore it. Don’t go back to look at it again, since that will just jack up the page views.

The second step is a more positive one. Leave some suggestions in the comments here for a great godless pro-science video that we can promote. I’ll pick one and announce it on the evening of 2 May, and we’ll send the horde there to uprate and promote it — so even if the Mormons do make a push for their video (and it’s entirely possible that, after we trash Holland’s idiocy, they’ll shift their target to a virgin Mormon message), we’ll still dilute their efforts.

Got all that? It’s a two-pronged attack: downrank their awful video now, then ignore it; and give me suggestions for a good atheist/science video that I’ll highlight before their big day. Easy.

As for the video they are promoting — it’s appallingly illogical. In case you don’t even want to watch it at all, I’ll summarize. It’s a well-produced video of a prophet, seer, and revelator of the Mormon Church, Jeffrey Holland, who is also a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, so he is quite highly ranked in the hierarchy. He’s telling a story — and actually, he’s a good speaker, if you discount the dead-eyed glaze of the true believer — of the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Joseph Smith was the crazy leader of the cult who had led his people to Nauvoo, Illinois, where he started to build his theocratic polygamous empire. It’s a typical story for the beginnings of a major cult — think Jim Jones in Guyana, David Koresh in Waco, Elizabeth Clare Prophet and her Montana compound.

Unfortunately for the Smith brothers, they were still a batty minority, and outraged members of the community assaulted the Mormon leadership and managed to kill them both. This was a criminal act that also made a couple of martyrs for the cause.

Holland’s version of the story is supposed to be a testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon, and his reasoning is sadly familiar. It’s a Mormon version of the Trilemma argument of CS Lewis! He claims that Hyrum and Joseph had been reading from the Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon before they were killed, and while in jail, Joseph Smith had written that the Book was true. That’s his starting premise.

From that, he concludes that well, if the Smiths knew they were under threat of death, they wouldn’t be turning to a book that they knew was false for comfort. Therefore, the book must be true!

Using this logic, of course, means that every cause for which someone has died — both sides in the American Civil War, communism, the Nazi party, the love of a woman, the Albigensian heresy, Al Qaeda’s cause, every shift of every border, every battle over religious dogma, the fight between the caves of Og and Thag for the local water hole, the cults of Jim Jones and David Koresh — has been absolutely true. Holland is assuming that no one ever dies for stupid causes, or for cherished delusions, or for greed…and we know that is false.

It’s not at all intellectually persuasive, but it pulls out all the standard Christian tropes: the self-sacrificing prophet, martyrdom as a substitute for reason, pious emotionalism, a self-serving twisting of the facts, overstatement, and the conclusion that does not follow from the premises, but still appeals to what they want to be true.

So somebody find a video that represents our cause without those flaws. Something by Sagan or Feynman, perhaps? Someone new, since we don’t rely on simple authority?

The Mark of the Beast will be foiled by Republicans!

I learned something odd this morning. Three US states have laws on the books, created by Republican legislators, making it illegal to insert microchips into people. Virginia has even declared them to be the mark of the beast from Revelation.

And now Georgia is hoping to join the ranks of the crazy states. There is a bill pending, SB 235, the “Microchip Consent Act of 2009; prohibit requiring a person to be implanted with a microchip”, which is symptomatic of the problem. This nice opinion piece summarizes why it is nuts.

In Gov. Roy Barnes’ stump speech, the bill has become a routine example of the Republican tendency to attack problems that don’t exist, and ignore the ones that do. Besides, Barnes argues, if someone holds him down to insert a microchip in his head, “it should be more than a damned misdemeanor.”

But it goes even deeper than that. These bills, despite the protests of the sponsors, are driven by biblical baloney — there is this weird fear by crazy Christians that the onset of the apocalypse is going to be signified by people getting barcodes or chips or tattoos or something weird on their hand and forehead. The Georgia state house recently witnessed testimony in favor of the bill that shows how close this religious delusion is to serious mental illness.

He was followed by a hefty woman who described herself as a resident of DeKalb County. “I’m also one of the people in Georgia who has a microchip,” the woman said. Slowly, she began to lead the assembled lawmakers down a path they didn’t want to take.

Microchips, the woman began, “infringe on issues that are fundamental to our very existence. Our rights to privacy, our rights to bodily integrity, the right to say no to foreign objects being put in our body.”

She spoke of the “right to work without being tortured by co-workers who are activating these microchips by using their cell phones and other electronic devices.”

She continued. “Microchips are like little beepers. Just imagine, if you will, having a beeper in your rectum or genital area, the most sensitive area of your body. And your beeper numbers displayed on billboards throughout the city. All done without your permission,” she said.

That’s just sad. That woman is ill; she’s paranoid and delusional. And she’s being called upon to support time- and money-wasting legislation to endorse her hallucinations.

Even sadder: the committee hearing this testimony went on to approve the bill.

I get email

Somebody was a little peevish that I slammed a woo-wooish poll. It’s not much of a note, but for some reason Mr Spagnuolo’s complete obliviousness tickled me.

I read your article about the lost girl and the man that gave credit to God for helping him to find her. You Sir, are a dick. Your arrogance has made you blind to the point where you take pot-shots at things your ‘scientific’ mind can’t even begin to comprehend. Quit being a dick.
-Chris Spagnuolo

I can’t. It’s who I am.

I think, though, that I am able to comprehend some guy finding a lost girl in a swamp by chance. Mr Spagnuolo can’t even do that! Maybe it’s his dicklessness that is the problem.

Those naughty Germans

Apparently, German Catholics are a bit irate over the cover to a satirical magazine. I don’t understand why. This one just shows a reverent priest, titled “The church today”.

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And this one actually offers a practical use for Christian icons (“Does Jesus play a role?”).

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This cover is a little more serious, befitting a more serious magazine. It says, “The Hypocrites: the Catholic Church and Sex” — this is a little more accusatory.

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Maybe the church does have good reason to be a bit touchy about it all.

Let’s pick on an Old Earth Creationist

CFI sponsored one of those awful debates between a Christian and a rationalist in Vancouver, BC. It followed the typical sequence: the specific topic was “What’s right and what’s wrong with Christianity,” which the creationist essentially ignored and the philosophy student tried to address, which meant, of course, that neither one was talking to each other.

The one amusing bit is the person defending Christianity: it’s Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe. Ross is unlike Kent Hovind and Ken Ham in that he believes in an old earth…but exactly the same in the way he came to that conclusion, which is that he wrestles the bible into being a science textbook and pretends that his answers are entirely biblical…and further, that the bible is a superior source of information over science. There is no substantive difference between Ross and Ham except that each thinks the other is a charlatan who is going to hell.

Watch the videos at that link to see what I mean. Ross spends his entire time arguing that the Christian bible specifically and accurately and exclusively (compared to all other religions) describes the explanations made by modern physics for the origins of the universe. It’s complete nonsense — the book of Genesis is wrong in all the details, vague in all the generalities, and Ross’s apologetics reduces to “The Bible says there was a beginning, physics proposes the Big Bang as a beginnning.” Whoop-te-do.

His opponent, Brian Lynchehaun, was right to simply ignore the BS.