Remember that ridiculous pro-faith Alpha Course that had the transit ads that looked like a poll? Now they’ve actually put up an online poll. Best thing about it: look at the results already.
Yes 20%
No 74%
Probably 6%
Heh. How about making it look even worse?
Hey, they locked out votes from Pharyngula! Try this link instead.
I suppose it’s nice to know I’m not forgotten, but it’s still a little weird that I occasionally get email from Bill Donohue, just out of the blue. Like today.
secular sabotage
PZ,
Just to let you know, I did not forget you when I wrote “Secular Sabotage.” You made the cut the old fashioned way–you earned it.
Bill Donohue
I don’t know what prompted that, but it is good to know that I have a reputation for working hard. I wouldn’t want to be thought to be a mere welfare heretic, coasting along on handouts from theological anti-patronage, you know.
The Smithsonian Institution is opening a new Hall of Human Origins in mid-March.
It’s crazy — they’ve spent $20 million on exhibits describing events that occurred before the universe even existed 6,000 years ago!
OK, I confess: I completely lack the tools and background to evaluate this claim:
A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.
Except for one thing: the proponents of this idea are operating in the world of pure speculation, and have no evidence to support it, yet. That tells me that I’m best off provisionally rejecting it. I’ll start incorporating crazy counter-intuitive notions about the nature of the universe when the cold implacable hand of the universe starts shoving them down my throat, not before!
Atheists are familiar with the Grandma Gambit — it’s a common tactic used to shut us up. We’re told to keep quiet because our dear sweet devout Grandma couldn’t possibly deal with the news; it would break her heart and you wouldn’t want to do that, would you? What kind of callous rat would hurt a gentle little old lady!
It’s a rather patronizing suggestion that belittles Grandmas everywhere. Both of my grandmothers were feisty types who would have relished a good argument (and one of my grandmothers, who died when I was 12, would probably have just said, “good for you”). Go ahead, break the news to Grandma — it’s much more respectful than treating her like a delicate flower that would wilt at the thought of you not going to church.
Here’s a more realistic reaction from a Christian grandmother who hears that you’ve left the faith: an argument, in the form of a 33 page handwritten letter which is almost entirely a creationist screed. It’s interesting, too, because I see this a lot, that nowadays the response to apostasy is often built around arguments against evolution. There is an expectation that faith is not enough, and that calling the faithful back to the fold is a matter of reasoned argument with ‘science’ on their side. Unfortunately for them, they don’t have any science at all, and Grandma’s letter is a series of creationist canards, from the “just a theory” error to the absence of transitional fossils, all wrapped up with bible verses.
So Grandma wants to talk; what does the grandson do? He writes back with a 17 page letter, neatly typed, with charts and figures! Bravo! This is how loving families should deal with faith, by simply caring enough to wrestle with the ideas between them.
Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Mormon Church has made some interesting remarks.
In an interview Monday before the speech, Oaks said he did not consider it provocative to compare the treatment of Mormons in the election’s aftermath to that of blacks in the civil rights era, and said he stands by the analogy.
“It may be offensive to some — maybe because it hadn’t occurred to them that they were putting themselves in the same category as people we deplore from that bygone era,” he said.
Did you get that? He thinks the Mormons, who are trying to deny a civil right to another minority and reserve it to themselves, are exactly like a minority that were denied a civil right and had to fight to get their equality recognized.
I’m not offended. I’ve just determined that the elders of the Mormon Church are a collection of antiquated, dumb old bigots.
So…when can we start taxing the Mormon temples? And when is California going to kick their regressive, but intrusive, little butts out of the state?
There’s one thing that could make this video funnier.
It would be Bill Donohue waxing apoplectic over that video.
Hallelujah! My prayers are answered!
Comedian Sarah Silverman appeared on Bill Maher’s HBO show on October 9 attacking the Vatican. She began her monologue bemoaning the plight of world hunger, and then found a solution: “What is the Vatican worth, like 500 billion dollars? This is great, sell the Vatican, take a big chunk of the money, build a gorgeous condominium for you and all your friends to live in…and with the money left over, feed the whole f—ing world.”
Speaking of the pope, Silverman continued, “You preach to live humbly, and I totally agree. So, now maybe it’s time for you to move out of your house that is a city. On an ego level alone, you will be the biggest hero in the history of ever. And by the way, any involvement in the Holocaust, bygones….”
Silverman closed by saying, “If you sell the Vatican, and you take that money, and you use it to feed every single human being on the planet, you will get crazy p—y. All the p—y.”
Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds as follows:
Silverman’s assault on Catholicism is just another example of HBO’s corporate irresponsibility. Time and again, if it’s not Bill Maher thrashing the Catholic Church, it’s one of his guests. There is obviously something pathological going on there: Silverman’s filthy diatribe would never be allowed if the chosen target were the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and the state of Israel.
Here’s a reality check for Silverman: the Catholic Church operates more hospitals and feeds more of the poor than any private institution in the world. It also saved more Jews during the Holocaust than any other institution in the world.
Factcheck time, Bill!
In America, as of 1999, 13% of all hospitals were religious (totaling 18% of all hospital beds); that’s 604 out of 4,573 hospitals. [6] Despite the presence of organized religion in America, the Church has managed to scrape together only a few hospitals. Of these 604 hospitals many are a product of mergers with public, non-sectarian hospitals. Not all of these 604 hospitals are Catholic; many are Baptist, Methodist, Shriner (Masonic), Jewish, etc.
Despite the religious label, these so-called religious hospitals are more public than public hospitals. Religious hospitals get 36% of all their revenue from Medicare; public hospitals get only 27%. In addition to that 36% of public funding they get 12% of their funding from Medicaid. Of the remaining 44% of funding, 31% comes from county appropriations, 30% comes from investments, and only 5% comes from charitable contributions (not necessarily religious). The percentage of Church funding for Church-run hospitals comes to a grand total of 0.0015 percent.
Oh, and Catholics and the Holocaust? It was complicated. The Vatican dragged its feet for years; they could have done so much more.
Wow. I was in Lewiston, Maine, just a few weeks ago, and look what kind of effect my brief visit had: several of the Catholic churches in the area have simply expired. I was there, then this happened, therefore I must have caused it.
Anyone want to buy me a plane ticket to Vatican City?
I am astounded. Usually AiG simply refers to me as “the Professor” or “the atheist”, but in their latest screed they actually mention me by name…and they even spell it correctly! Of course, they get everything else wrong.
A well-known University of Minnesota-Morris professor who has a history of hate speech against creationists—especially Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum1—inadvertently admitted recently that we were not wrong. This was kind of a blessing in disguise and also reveals much about his character. Professor Paul (P.Z.) Myers said:
First, there is no moral law: the universe is a nasty, heartless place where most things wouldn’t mind killing you if you let them. No one is compelled to be nice; you or anyone could go on a murder spree, and all that is stopping you is your self-interest (it is very destructive to your personal bliss to knock down your social support system) and the self-interest of others, who would try to stop you. There is nothing ‘out there’ that imposes morality on you, other than local, temporary conditions, a lot of social enculturation, and probably a bit of genetic hardwiring that you’ve inherited from ancestors who lived under similar conditions.
Myers admits there is no morality or anying that imposes it either (i.e., God) in his worldview. This means that from his own worldview, there is no such thing as right and wrong. Accordingly, this means that there must be nothing wrong with teaching the truth of creation as revealed in the Bible. Ironically, perhaps, it also means that there is nothing wrong in showing the problems with false religions like humanism and evolution.
They still couldn’t bear to actually link to the article in question; here it is.
Their article still goes awry at the very first sentence. I am definitely not saying that they were not wrong, and there was nothing inadvertent about my post. Seriously, I don’t sneeze and a grammatically correct blog entry pops out accidentally, or something. I actually have to invest a microsecond or three in thinking.
It gets worse in the sentence right after they quote me. There is morality in my ‘worldview’; don’t confuse the fact that I state baldly that there is no external non-human intelligent agent that imposes morality on me with an absence of moral thought. I derive my sense of what is right and wrong from intrinsic properties such as empathy and other social impulses, and from acculturation in a stable, successful society that has expectations of parents to introduce their children to what constitutes reasonable behavior. I also derive it rationally from what I can see as a robust strategy for long term security and happiness within my culture — that is, robbing banks has a very poor long term return on the effort.
So, I do believe in right and wrong. It’s just not handed down from a magical sky-lawyer.
Oh, but wait…I just noticed. This isn’t a serious article from AiG, it’s a comedy routine. That phrase, “the truth of creation as revealed in the Bible”, should have tipped me off. There is no truth in the Bible!
Never mind, just laugh. Well, laugh weakly. It’s still not a very good routine, but at least the clowns at AiG are trying out some new material.
