Religulous opens tonight

And it’s not showing anywhere near me. In fact, I will be very surprised if it opens anywhere in this rural, religious area…I’ll probably have to wait for it to come out on DVD. Religulous is the new movie by Bill Maher, an agnostic who thinks religion is a “load of nonsense”, which by all reports is going to mock religion mercilessly — if this hysterical review by a devout fundamentalist is any indication, it’s going to be great. Maher, though, isn’t exactly an unblemished source with a deep dedication to reason, since he’s fallen for some embarrassingly silly altie medicine nonsense before. I’ll have to wait to see it before I can judge, which may be a while.

Any of you out there who get a chance will have to leave a comment. Go ahead, you can gloat that you live in a civilized part of the world burgeoning with readily available material goodies that are obtainable with a snap of the fingers (…and an agonizing ride through heavy traffic to park on a monstrous sheet of asphalt and pay exorbitant sums for admission…)

Still, I can have the fun of criticizing the critics. Andrew O’Hehir interviews Maher, and although it’s largely a sympathetic review, there’s a big chunk in the middle that is the usual aggravating deference to religion that everyone makes without thinking about it.

But as I gently tried to suggest to Maher during our recent phone call, his scattershot and ad hominem attacks against many different forms of religious hypocrisy don’t add up to a coherent critique, and he’s not qualified to provide one.

“Scattershot” is grossly unfair, since he is attacking religion. Go ahead, stack up Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Scientology, Hinduism, etc. next to each other: it seems to me that the fact that there is no possible rubric for judging the validity of any of them, that they typically contradict each other, and that religious belief is so diverse and so inescapably weird means that it is ridiculous to demand a simple, coherent narrative that addresses the flaws in all of them. There they are, the existence of multiple god-beliefs is sufficient in itself to refute them, and it’s perfectly reasonable to expose their various absurdities in brief snippets.

Any serious theologian from the mainstream Christian or Jewish traditions would have eaten his lunch for him, and that’s why we don’t see anybody like that in this film for more than a second or two.

No, I think it more likely that it is because serious theologians are a) dead boring, b) irrelevant to an extreme degree to most varieties of religious beliefs, and c) are just as silly when their ideas are examined. Except for all those serious theologians who have ended up as atheists, of course.

During their brief appearances, for instance, Vatican Latinist Reginald Foster and astronomer George Coyne, who are both Roman Catholic priests, make it clear that contemporary Catholic theology resists literal readings of Scripture and is not in the least antiscientific. You can find liberal Christians who will argue that the resurrection of Jesus was somewhere between a con game and a dream sequence, and numerous Jews who treat the Torah as legendary material and God as a distant hypothesis.

Yes? And this refutes the contention that religion is absurd how? The only way most religious beliefs can be rationally justified is by running away from them very fast, and then making a delicate and distant wave of appreciation, acknowledging their past role in the intellectual tradition, while denying the substance of their arguments. Fine with me, probably fine with Maher.

It’s perfectly legitimate to argue that all such people are putting lipstick on a pig, to coin a phrase — that they’re apologizing for a ruinous and ridiculous body of mythological literature whose influence on human history has been overwhelmingly negative. But Maher’s idiots-of-all-nations anthology in “Religulous” doesn’t even try to make that case; it’s as if he doesn’t even know that religion has centuries’ worth of high-powered intellection on its side, whether you buy any of it or not.

Now there’s a valid criticism of the movie, and until I’ve seen it, I won’t know if the show makes a poor case or not. O’Hehir may be right, but I’m immediately rendered dubious by this justification that “religion has centuries’ worth of high-powered intellection on its side”. I don’t see that at all. I mainly see that religion has had centuries of cultural monopoly, where intellectuals had no choice (and no alternative) but to work within the framework of religion. All the intellectual circle-jerking over religion? Pfft. Nothing useful came of it. Progress came only when smart people started breaking free of the straitjacket.

Maher and Charles’ film also doesn’t engage the value of religious narrative in moral or existential terms, nor does it even try to address the ubiquitous nature of supernatural and spiritual experience in human life.

I do wish people would knock it off with the automatic bestowal of moral authority on religion. It was the only game in town for millennia, and it didn’t make people better — deeply religious cultures have always been as nasty and brutish, if not more so, than more secular cultures, and religious individuals had as much capacity for evil as atheists. Religion gets no edge here.

But OK, I suspect the movie doesn’t ask the question of why so many people are religious. So what? It’s a comedy-documentary. It’s not supposed to answer all questions, especially not tragic-serious ones about the universal human affliction of faith.

But of course this is actually an interview with Maher, and he does answer those questions — so read the whole thing.

David Popescu, all around sweet guy

Popescu is running for some political office (the article doesn’t say what), and he recently gave a talk at a high school where he frankly stated his views.

“A young man asked me what I think of homosexual marriages and I said I think homosexuals should be executed,” he said. “My whole reason for running is the Bible and the Bible couldn’t be more clear on that point.”

I get the impression that this guy doesn’t have a chance of winning his election, but still — it’s likely that saying homosexuals are evil will cost you fewer votes than saying you don’t believe in any gods, at least in this country. That always seemed backwards, to me.

Aaargh — I have to disagree with Harry Kroto

And it doesn’t feel good. Kroto is a Nobel-winning chemist, and I’ve had dinner with him — he’s a good guy, a very outspoken atheist, strongly on the side of science education, and all around smart and personable. So I hate to say it, but this opinion piece on the Michael Reiss affair is just too exclusionist for even me. Reiss, you may recall, was the education director for the Royal Society who resigned after making some conciliatory (or reported as conciliatory) remarks about creationism.

I do not have a particularly big problem with scientists who may have some personal mystical beliefs – for all I know the President of the Royal Society may be religious. However, I, and many of my Royal Society colleagues, do have a problem with an ordained minister as Director of Science Education – this is a totally different matter. An ordained minister must have accepted that there was a creator (presumably more intelligent than he is?) thus many of us (maybe 90% of FRSs) cannot see how such a person can pontificate on how to tackle this fundamentally unresolvable conflict at the science/religion interface. Reiss cannot have his religious cake in church and eat the scientific one in the classroom. This is where the intellectual integrity issue arises – and it is the crucial issue in the Reiss affair.

This is too close to blacklisting people for their personal affiliations, and it should not be acceptable. I agree that being an ordained minister implies that the guy is fairly deeply into weird old woo, but surprise: people are really good, for the most part, at holding a lot of disparate ideas in their heads, and people trained as scientists are especially good, for the most part, at keeping the spiritual blather out of their science. Keep in mind that generic religiosity can be rationalized to avoid conflict with specific issues in science (in ways that are deplorably vague and pointless, of course); this isn’t like discovering that Reiss was a card-carrying creationist with an a priori commitment to anti-science. If we’re going to start kicking scientists out of organizations because they have some bit of irrationality in their lives, we’re all going to be in trouble. Do I need to start expunging the space operas from my bookshelves and the old cheesy horror movies from my DVD collection?

I say that qualified scientists should be awarded positions like Director of Science Education solely on the basis of their record as science educators. Give them the benefit of the doubt that they understand the difference between science and their private hobbies, and aren’t going to mix the two up. And, of course, if they do mix them up, go after them for the specific infraction, and not for their private interests.

This is also difficult for me to say because I do think religion is a taint that corrupts the thinking of otherwise intelligent persons, and I do find it personally suspicious when an ordained minister is given authority in a scientific organization…but no one is perfect, it’s a rational principle to judge by only appropriate criteria, and it’s simply an injustice to shut people out with such an unyielding criterion.

How about an utterly trivial poll?

Rather than asking random internet voters to decide who should be Leader of the Free World, how about this one: Should Montel have psychic Sylvia Browne on his new show?

For those who don’t know who this is about, Montel Williams is an ex-talk show host best known for having gullible tripe on every week — in particular, the odious, awful Jabba the Hut Sylvia Browne. Williams is apparently getting a new show (don’t ask me why, as far as I’m concerned he’s a cut-rate version of Oprah, who’s rather awful, too), and a few people are wondering if it’ll be as credulous and phony as his old one.

Anyway, after that dull debate last night, we need something really stupid to lighten the tone.

VP Debate thread

Got your popcorn and jujubes? Ready for the clown show? The debate begins shortly, and this is the place to leave your comments.

Half an hour in, and I’m seeing Biden being good and specific with facts at his fingertips, and doing a good job of answering questions with substance. Palin is an airhead who’s spouting more fluff and ignoring the questions — she keeps going back to energy and pretending she’s an expert. It’s very annoying, but she’s not descending into fumbling babble-babble, so I’m sure the audience is going right along with it. Come on, Biden, slam her back on the futility of thinking Alaska’s relatively tiny oil reserves can save the country.

Jebus, now she’s pretending to be an environmentalist.

I’m really disappointed that Biden wants to deny homosexual marriage, just like Palin.

Oh, no. SHe just praised Henry Kissinger and claimed that those foreigners hate our freedoms. She’s another Bush.

I’m happy with Biden so far — he’s good at bringing everything back to McCain’s record. Palin just fudges McCain’s record at every step.

Man, Palin is revolting: she just said that all those Washington insiders are the same (including McCain?) and that Joe Biden has been approving of McCain’s war plans all along. Ugh.

And if she claims she’s a maverick one more time … she’s a Republican tool, get real.

WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL PALIN THAT ALASKAN OIL RESERVES ARE NOT SUFFICIENT FOR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE?

Shining city on a hill, beacon perfect, force for good…empty, dishonest platitudes. We’re not going to become a better country with a gladhander who thinks we’re already perfect in charge.

Oh, good! Biden charges up and denounces this “maverick” nonsense. Best part of the debate so far.

Palin just said she likes being able to answer these tough questions — she hasn’t answered a single one the whole hour and a half, but has been ducking and skipping and dodging.

All over. Biden clearly won — he sounded presidential, human, intelligent, and actually addressed the questions without being too harsh on Palin. Palin was a flag-waving cheerleader, with a voice that really grated on me, and she was evasive in answering questions. She didn’t pull any major gaffes, though, so since everyone had exceedingly low expectations for her, they’ll probably think she did fine.

No big knockout, then. No huge embarrassing boo-boos from either side to keep the media entertained. I’m still mostly reassured that Biden will be good in the job.

What’s wrong with this? Teach the controversy!

This is a very silly story.

Spring Hill resident Anita Koper thought she’d heard it all – until last week, when her 12-year-old daughter came home from school at Explorer K-8 and started asking her about “revolution.”

“She said her science teacher told the class that in some religions, if you are bad, you come back in another life as a dog, cow or pig,” Koper said.
She said she soon realized her daughter was asking about evolution, not revolution, and that her sixth-grade science teacher had mentioned the theory of reincarnation.

“He also told the class that if you are any religion, you can just go to a Catholic church and they will let you in if you give them money,” Koper said. “I am Catholic and this teacher should get his facts straight before he starts talking about religion. Unless he’s a theologian, he shouldn’t be preaching about this.”

Why should she object to tales of reincarnation? Isn’t it obvious that her daughter is the reincarnation of Gilda Radner?

As Florida Citizens for Science points out, this was a case of a teacher cursorily answering questions that students brought up, prompted by some obligingly vague mentions of alternative faith-based explanations for our origins in their textbook. The teacher was not promoting some kind of bizarre New Age Buddhist-Catholic Prosperity Fusion religion, he was simply trying to cope with a few off-the-wall queries from students who might have been sincere, or might have been acting the smart-ass. The story was further distorted by this young lady, who apparently wasn’t paying close attention, and only echoed the freaky strange bits of the class and even there, got them wrong.

This is not unusual. These are 12 year olds. Little distracted and easily distractible kids in 6th grade.

This, of course, is the milieu into which creationists think it would be worthwhile to introduce a welter of curious myths, superstitions, speculations, and maybe even genuine alternative scientific explanations for various phenomena (but probably not — creationists are allergic to real science), all under the great and sacred principle of “fairness” and the admirable ideal of exposing students to the immense range of human thought, without regard for the filters of likelihood that science tends to throw up. Can you imagine what stories they’ll be bringing home to their parents if the Discovery Institute has their way?