No more, please, no more

Really, I frackin’ know about the crappy MSNBC poll about having “In god we trust” on our money. I’ve known about it for months and months. I am currently receiving about 20-30 notifications a day from random people that I should crash that poll.

Please, please STOP.

It’s a dead poll. It’s been hacked and slashed and butchered and cheated into the most amazing state of pointless stupidity. It’s got 16 million votes on it, almost all from a handful of people running scripts on a computer. It is apparently on some wingnut email that is circulating aimlessly in the Sargasso of lies and rumors and urban folklore that stagnates forever in the mailing lists of cranks and bored office workers, and is constantly revivified by someone who sees it for the first time.

It is currently the #1 most common single topic in my new mail folder. I am about to blow up and launch fireballs of wrath at anyone who sends it to me again. Actually, what I’m going to have to do is start blacklisting everyone who sends it to me — that’ll make the email slightly more manageable. But if you do send me email telling me about an MSNBC poll, it will be the last piece of email I ever see from you. Got it?

The curse of Eve

Fawziya Ammodi was 12 years old. She was a little girl in Yemen — she would still be in elementary school in the US, or would be just entering middle school. Twelve year old girls are still interested in dolls, and are maybe giggling over those gawky immature boys, and should be learning prior to the awkward business of growing up.

In Yemen, Fawziya was married to a 24 year old man.

She was pregnant.

She was in labor for 3 agonizing days — twelve year old girls usually aren’t physically developed enough to cope with childbirth, at least not with the relative (emphasis on that word, please, labor is rough enough on adults) ease of a grown-up.

She bled to death and died in pain. The baby died, too.

She was twelve years old, and won’t be getting any older.

The father, of course, experienced no discomfort, and is ready to receive consolation for his loss. He’s probably looking for a new wife, too. Maybe he’ll see the problem with child-raping, though, and will pick one who is a little mature.

Like a thirteen year old.

A peek into Obama’s “Faith Council”

Frank Page is a former head of the Southern Baptist Convention (i.e., nuts) and is also now a member of the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. In an interview, he talks about what’s going on in that council, and there is actually some good news.

My hope was that there would have been more time for focusing on formulating actual policy recommendations for the president. They keep saying that that’s something we’ll have more time for in the future. But most of our time so far has been briefings from administration officials about various government programs that are already in place.

So they’re wasting a little money and time by keeping these believers around, but they’re not wasting a lot of money by actually paying attention to them and letting them set policy. That’s reassuring, but not particularly efficient…unless, of course, the efficiency lies in keeping the delusional thinkers tied up in committee meetings.

But then, the way they’re thinking delusionally is aggravating. Page is the most conservative member of the team, and what do they put him on? A fatherhood committee.

There have been times when my voice and voices of others have been kindly heard, but the wish is always expressed that we need to find common ground or consensus. For example, I’m on the fatherhood task force, and there have been times when I have attempted to deal with the issue of fathers being better fathers because of their faith traditions, that they need to be true to the Bible or some other holy book about what makes a man a good father.

And they kindly listen, and then we move on to what government programs are available for fathers. It’s more about how the government would like to help fathers and here’s what government money is available for this problem. I feel that the key to solving those problems is not government money but the responsibility that’s rooted in one’s faith.

I can’t quite imagine a more disastrous social policy than basing male roles on the patriarchal misogyny of the Bible. Well, except for using that book to define female roles.

I also doubt that they’re actually honestly looking for common ground. There’s a notable absence of fierce god-hating atheists on the council (hey, if they can put conservatives who want to destroy the public school system on school boards, why not anti-religious crusaders on the Faith Council?), so I think the system is more interested in stacking the deck.

Prophet, Patriarch…PZ

Michael Dowd, the peculiar author of Thank God for Evolution, has a strange podcast up that promotes the New Atheists because they are the new prophets — we’re telling it like it is, and religious folks need more of that. He also urges people to read Pharyngula, or, if they want something a little gentler, to read Richard Dawkins’ site…ah, flattery.

Anyway, the gist of his argument is that “The religion that the New Atheists are attacking is otherworldly, superstitious religion when it’s interpreted as objectively real. And that’s not where the power of our religious language lies…”, which is, in part, the point I was making when I criticized those faith-heads who make up pseudo-scientific explanations for the miraculous. Of course, I disagree that there is any power in religious language, except as potent mind-games to tap into kinks and biases in human psychology.

Religion poisons everything — even porn!

Jen went to a Christian anti-porn crusade, and all she got for her trouble was a lot of lies. It’s amazing how, on these issues like birth control, abortion, homosexuality, and pornography which stir up so much concern among Christians, they always resort to invented statistics and bogus sloganeering to make their case. Shouldn’t it make someone on their side of the argument wake up and wonder what’s going on when they can’t even tell the truth in their PR?

What happened to my eyes?

That’s a disturbing logo for Skepticon II: my eyes are whited out. It reminds me of The Village of the Damned, that creepy movie about alien-human hybrid children. We will be taking over Missouri on 20-21 November, infecting the entire population with the curse of doubt. It will be fun!

They have a good lineup of speakers, but the one thing they lack is money. One of the problems with being godless is that we have failed to institutionalize a means of gouging money out of people…no tithing, no offering plates, no thugs in clerical collars telling you you’ll go to hell if you don’t include us in your wills. That means they’re reduced to paypal and puppy-dog-eyed, quivering-lipped begging for a pittance. If you can, donate a little to the organizers. It’s a good cause, they’re shipping in snarling godless skeptics to one of the most pious corners of the country, you know.

How long has this argument been going on?

This is an excerpt from a letter Richard Feynman wrote in March 1958, back when I was just about exactly one year old and still wearing diapers. He’d been doing some consulting work for the entertainment industry, and wasn’t very happy with their attitude.

The idea that movie people know how to present this stuff, because they are entertainment-wise and the scientists aren’t is wrong. They have no experience in explaining ideas, witness all movies, and I do. I am a successful lecturer in physics for popular audiences. The real entertainment gimmick is the excitement, drama and mystery of the subject matter. People love to learn something, they are “entertained” enormously by being allowed to understand a little bit of something they never understood before. One must have faith in the subject and in people’s interest in it. Otherwise just use a Western to sell telephones! The faith in the value of the subject matter must be sincere and show through clearly. All gimmicks, etc. should be subservient to this. They should help in explaining and describing the subject, and not in entertaining. Entertainment will be an automatic byproduct.

I don’t entirely agree with him — most entertainment isn’t at all didactic — but he’s right that when you are trying to get an informative message across, the gimmicks have to be the garnish, not the main course, and the work you do in developing the medium has to focus on making the message itself interesting.

For instance, the Book of Kells is an artistic wonder, an illuminated manuscript that anyone could spend hours and days staring at, enjoying the script and the little illustrations all over the pages. But those are geegaws that don’t make the content clearer or more palatable — they allow one to appreciate it while ignoring the message (and a good thing, too — it’s just the dull old gospels turned into art). In communicating science, the goal is not to load it up with bells and whistles, but to make the story you’re telling clear and accessible. You don’t want the listener or reader to overlook the message.

Although I have seen a few evil PowerPoint presentations that show the creator doesn’t understand that concept…