I was all set to mock the silly arachnophobes who got all squeamish over this morning’s spider picture — how can a mere picture cause that kind of fear, anyway? — and then I saw this article on cleaning the Space Needle in Seattle, with all these photos of people dangling from ropes while wielding pressure sprayers.
Suddenly, I am more sympathetic.
(via Jay Lake)
Rabbi Avi Shafran is a columnist who, to my mind, represents the very worst of religious dogma. He often writes about “morality”, bemoaning the horrid state of godlessness, but his morality is little more than the rote obedience of the dogmatically orthodox. His usual complaint is that atheism removes the moral compass provided by a god — that one can believe that any arbitrary thing is good if you’re an atheist.
Now he has written another bogus argument that shows the exact opposite: if you use religion, you can justify anything. It’s a very strange piece, a study in contrasts.
On the one hand, Bernie Madoff: a scoundrel and swindler who used a Ponzi scheme to enrich himself and bilk investors of an estimated 65 billion dollars. He was also a dedicated philanthropist who skimmed off a little of his ill-gotten riches and donated to primarily Jewish charities.
On the other hand, Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot whose competence made for a safe emergency water landing a few months ago. He has been fairly quiet, and has not made a big issue of the event; he also hasn’t given any credit to a deity for the landing.
Guess which one Shafran thinks is the good guy? Since he’s using religious logic, it’s a safe bet to guess the one that makes the least sense.
That’s right, Shafran thinks Bernie Madoff is admirable. Why? Because he owned up to his crime, and didn’t flee the country, and also because Shafran imagines that he begin his investment firm with good intent. Never mind that, at some point long ago, Madoff knew he was ripping people off, that he was building an unsupportably rickety pyramid of promises that he couldn’t keep, and he didn’t own up then — he just kept robbing people. And then, of course, even after he was caught out, he was frantically trying to hide his assets. He’s a crook. Shafran is impressed because he said he was sorry after he was caught.
And what about Sullenberger?
No such sublimity of spirit [the “sublimity of spirit” refers to Bernie Madoff], though, was in evidence in any of the public acts or words of Mr. Sullenberger. He saved 155 lives, no doubt about it, and is certainly owed the hakoras hatov of those he saved, and of their families and friends. And he executed tremendous skill.
But no moral choice was involved in his act. He was on the plane too, after all; his own life depended on undertaking his feat no less than the lives of others. He did what anyone in terrible circumstances would do: try to stay alive. He was fortunate (as were his passengers) that he possessed the talents requisite to the task, but that’s a tribute to his training, and to the One Who instilled such astounding abilities in His creations (and Whose help the captain was not quoted as acknowledging).
I suspect that lack of acknowledgment is what really chafes Shafran.
Here is the difference between religious and secular morality written in boldfaced crayon. The religious claim to have an absolute, a god, who has dictated an unquestionable standard for what is good, and the role of the mere human individual is to be obedient to that standard, to follow the hierarchy of leaders who exist to translate and explain their deity’s rules. I can see where this certainly has some advantages to a society — it’s a tool to promote and enforce service to the state or church — but it’s not morality. It’s rationalized slavery.
We godless lack that certainty, and we know the world is a complex place that requires compromise and is not ruled by a moral force — virtue is subject to negotiation, and is found in working together with others to find mutually satisfactory solutions. Good is not absolute, it is an emergent property that arises from successful networks of individuals. It is also something that is measured by evidence: we look at the good that people do, not the promises that they make and never keep, or the lies that dovetail nicely into dogma. Competence is a virtue. Intent is meaningless without action.
We also know that goodness is not a state of being, but a process that requires constant effort and continuous assessment against its effects in the real world. Blind adherence to a presupposition without adjustment to fit the facts of execution is a formula for doing great harm.
My short summary of the difference between religious and secular morality is this: will you obey, or will you strive? Rabbi Shafran’s answer is that you must obey.
All mosques are supposed to have an indicator pointing at the Kaaba in Mecca — the devout are supposed to aim their prayers in that direction (which is silly to begin with, but never mind). With all the high rises going up in Mecca, though, people were able to look down and notice that hey, the mosques aren’t aimed right, maybe all of their prayers have been missing the target!
A spokesman has said something very sensible, though, something that I think certain other religious sects might consider.
Tawfik al-Sudairy, Islamic affairs ministry deputy secretary, downplayed the problem in remarks quoted by the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat.
“There are no major errors but corrections have been made for some old mosques, thanks to modern techniques,” he said.
“In any case, it does not affect the prayers.”
This is something believers and atheists can accept. The believer, because the nit-picky details of the ritual shouldn’t matter that much, if you really believe in a wise and compassionate all-powerful being. The atheist, because yeah, the prayers are ineffectual in the first place.
Now we just need to hope that certain Muslims acquire a similar attitude towards cartoons and literature. If gods are so powerful, they should be able to take a little mockery and criticism; if they’re nonexistent, there is no one to file a complaint.
What happened last night? Did someone spike the entire North American water supply with hallucinogens? Because for some reason all the kooks went nuts in a short span of time. Many of you probably noticed that David Mabus/Markuze, the Canadian lunatic with the obsession with Nostradamus and James Randi and seeing atheists burn in hell, went on a spamming spree all over here (a spree which seems to have been mostly cleaned up now). He was also emailing me his angry rants, so that was another mess to clean up.
There was other silly email, but I’ve thrown most of it out, too. You might be amused at the Return of the Kwok, though. He’s been mailing me regularly, and also cc’ing his cockeyed screeds to random other people, like senior faculty in my discipline. This one also went out to Abbie, for no rational reason that I can determine.
There’s a new entry in the Urban Dictionary: pz envy.
The jealousy expressed by an atheist who’s not quite as famous, popular, or controversial as PZ Myers. ”
Unknown Atheist Blogger felt some serious pz envy when she realized she didn’t have enough followers to crash a poll.”
Bob: Man, I only got one piece of hate mail last month, but Pharyngula mocked 42 letters this past week!
Jane: Oh, enough of your pz envy!
Clearly, I’m going to have to run out and trademark my name before it becomes commodified by its ubiquitous usage in other contexts.
It’s a grim subject this week: Atheists Talk radio will be discussing assisted suicide at 9am Sunday morning.
Uh-oh. There is evidence that the damning email might have been faked. The “from” field of the message looks to have been crudely pasted in, and this whole story may be a product of a slighted student’s imagination.
This is an astonishing example of homophobic bigotry in a nursing college. A student was basically flunked out of a key course in the curriculum for a reason you will find hard to believe — here’s a letter from a nursing faculty member to the student:
Nioska, I’ve been thinking about the meeting in rita’s office and I feel that maybe Nursing is the wrong career for you. As a nurse, I have to advocate for my patients, and i feel that female patients will be uncomfortable having a lesbian nurse caring for them. You do not provide a sense of security to patients when you keep important information from them. Your sexual orientation is something important that patients have a right to know so that they can decide if they wish to have you as their caregiver. I myself am not homophobic at all, but I would not want a lesbian nurse caring for me when I am vulnerable. I would just not feel comfortable with that.
I think it might be best if you see student services to explore other career options that do not involve physical interaction, and intimacy. It wuold look better if you left nursing out of your own accord, rather than get kicked out.
i am just being honest. at the beginning of the rotation you asked me to be honest in my feedback, and i am doing just that.
Tassy
Notice: the student is a lesbian, and she does not trouble her patients with her sexual orientation … and the faculty member is penalizing her for being discreet! She is actually insisting that her students declare their sexuality, a completely irrelevant characteristic, to all of her patients.
If I were in the hospital, and my nurse walked up to my bed and cheerfully announced, “I am a heterosexual!”, I can guarantee you that my wife would march up to the administration and demand an immediate change of the nursing assignment. The sexual preferences of nurses may be a staple of porn films, but it is not the reality of health care.
And look at that classic disclaimer…she’s not homophobic, oh no — she just wouldn’t want a homosexual giving her injections and changing her bedpan.
This is absolutely outrageous. Even worse, the college is dragging out the investigation, has hurt the student’s prospects, and shows no sign of actually wanting to address the issue, preferring to try and place the blame on the student. The college also outed the student to all of her fellow students in the course of ‘investigating’ the problem. I’ve got a full account from the student below the fold.
(via JREF)
First Iowa, and now North Dakota — North Dakota has rejected a bill that would have given “personhood” to every fertilized egg. The senate voted by a large majority, but not unanimity, to squash that very silly bill.
OK, Wisconsin and South Dakota — your turn. Do something to impress me tomorrow.
