What have you changed your mind about?

Every year, John Brockman comes up with a question and asks the eclectic group on the Edge forum to answer it…then all the answers get bound up in a book. In the past he has asked, “What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?”, “What is your dangerous idea?”, and “What are you optimistic about?” This year’s question is now revealed:

When thinking changes your mind, that’s philosophy. When God changes your mind, that’s faith. When facts change your mind, that’s science. What have you changed your mind about? Why?

It was a tough one. There are so many trivial things that we change our minds about — toast with my oatmeal, or a muffin? —but they don’t make for interesting reading. I’m afraid I got rather general in my answer, and argued that there is a commitment in science to look for data that will change your mind about something you are advocating, which creates an interesting paradox: if your goal is to change your mind about something, doesn’t finding evidence to change your mind mean that on a higher philosophical level you haven’t really changed your mind? For a scientist to really change his perspective would require a retreat into dogma.

Anyway, look for the book when it comes out — there are always infuriating and enlightening answers in them.

There must be violence against women

Those darn human rights organizations keep meddling in people’s personal affairs — for instance, they think fathers and brothers shouldn’t be allowed to beat or kill their wives and sisters if they have been dishonorable, and that women ought to report abuse to the police. Don’t they know that violence against women is a good thing? There are perfectly good reasons for it.

Relationships between fathers and daughters or sisters and brothers also provoke argument from human rights organizations, which propose the suggested solutions for all relationships. Personally, I don’t think fathers or brothers would undertake such behavior unless there was a reason for it.

Of course, if you actually read the article, the author just rambles about and never tells us what these good reasons might be. If women are naughty, you have to do something about it, after all, and why not kick and hit them?

Fathers are responsible for their daughters’ behavior, but human rights organizations deny this too. Brothers also should take action regarding their sisters’ behavior, especially if their parents are too old or dead. If a daughter or sister makes a mistake – especially a moral one – that negatively affects the entire family and its reputation, what’s the solution by such organizations?

According to them, women should complain to the courts about any type of violence against them. Likewise, should fathers and brothers complain to police if their daughters or sisters violate moral, Islamic or social norms?

Fathers should handle their daughters via any means that suits their mistake; thus, is it better to use violence to a certain limit or complain to the police? Shall such women then complain to the police against their fathers or brothers? It’s really amazing to hear this.

It really is amazing. How about talking with them, treating them with respect, and finding out what their reasons for their behavior might be…and how about finding a solution other than stupidly hitting them?

It’s also peculiar because all of this violence is only excused against women — as if fathers and brothers do not ever violate moral, Islamic, or social norms. It’s all so blindly one-sided. And here’s the interesting reason why:

Dear readers – especially women – don’t think that I hate or am against women; rather, I simply mean to preserve the morals and principles with which Islam has honored us.

I hope my message is clear, since it’s really quite relevant to the future of our societies, which must be protected from any kind of cultural invasion.

That last bit is legitimate — of course there is a fear that outsiders will destroy one’s culture, especially the valuable, useful, loved parts of one’s historical tradition, so there is a natural tendency to bunker up and defend everything with equal zealotry. But no culture is perfect and every culture has some ugly relics creeping about in the basement; in this case, the mistreatment of women is one such horrid little vestige of a barbaric society. Perhaps instead of arguing in favor of the indefensible, it would be better to encourage the culture to change from within, and recognize that there is injustice in Islam.

Unfortunately, there will also be people who will argue that because Allah wills it, it must be so.

Question of the day

I get to do some more traveling this morning, so I’ll leave you with an off-the-wall question: since Denyse O’Leary has taken over most of the posting on Uncommon Descent, and since most of her posts link to some other in her network of poorly trafficked, repetitious blogs (and sometimes she links to a post that links to one of the others!), does this mean UD is now officially a link farm?

Listen to Texas this morning

I was just notified that one of the people working for Texas Citizens for Science (the good guys) will be discussing the Chris Comer incident with someone from the Texas Freedom Network (more good guys). It doesn’t sound like there will be a lot of drama and confrontation, but there will be information and an opportunity to see the decent, intelligent side of Texas represented.

Thresholds’ host George Reiter will be interviewing Steven Schafersman, President of Texas Citizens for Science, and Dan Quinn, communications director for the Texas Freedom network, on the politics in Texas that led up firing of Chris Comer, director of science at the Texas Education Agency for ‘misconduct and insubordination’ and of ‘siding against creationism and the doctrine that life is the product of ‘intelligent design.’ The show is on KPFT, Houston, 90.1 FM, from 11am-12noon this Thursday, Jan 3, 2008. It can be picked up live on the website, http://www.KPFT.org.

You just don’t know how evil Skatje can be

All that noise from a pair of rather ugly pissants criticizing my daughter falls short of describing her perfidy. Today, Skatje spent the whole afternoon making lefse — and she’s really getting it down. The shape isn’t perfect yet, but the texture and the thinness is getting up there around Scandinavian-grandma-quality, which is pretty darn good…I mean, evil.

Dang. It really isn’t very evil at all, is it?

Except that she didn’t make enough.

There is no such thing as a godless family?

John and Cynthia Burke have adopted two children. By all accounts so far, they were a decent couple of an appropriate age and financially able to take care of the kids. The first was from the Children’s Aid and Adoption Society in East Orange, New Jersey. They recently adopted a second child from the same agency — strangely, the article says their first son is now 31, which would put them in their mid-50s at the earliest, and I might see some grounds for objecting to the adoption on the basis of age…but no, a judge has ruled that they may not adopt on the basis of a rather interesting legal requirement.

In an extraordinary decision, Judge Camarata denied the Burkes’ right to the child because of their lack of belief in a Supreme Being. Despite the Burkes’ “high moral and ethical standards,” he said, the New Jersey state constitution declares that “no person shall be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshiping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience.” Despite Eleanor Katherine’s tender years, he continued, “the child should have the freedom to worship as she sees fit, and not be influenced by prospective parents who do not believe in a Supreme Being.”

Wow.

This is so revealing. I’ve mentioned that religious indoctrination is a kind of child abuse, as has Richard Dawkins even more notably, yet when you press us we are both are at a loss to what we can do about it; parents have rights, and this is a situation where there there are all kinds of conflicting interests. Neither of us have advocated taking children from parents, or punishing people for mentioning god to kids, or any other penalties, not even mild ones — all we’ve ever said is that this is a real problem, one with no clear solutions, but we shouldn’t hide away from it.

Of course, the typical reaction from Christians and creationists and wingnuts has been pure hysteria — the atheists want to snatch your children away if you take them to Sunday school! Now we can understand it all as a perfect example of projection: if you don’t take your children to Sunday school, the Christians will try to take your children away.

I hope all those good theists who rebuked Dawkins and other atheists for a false perception that they were out to dismantle their families or deny them the privilege of instructing their children in their religion are howling about this attack on the family right now. Perhaps some of them, especially the New Jersey residents, are writing their representatives right now and demanding that this intrusion on the rights of parents be removed from the New Jersey constitution immediately…and perhaps they should be suggesting that Judga Camarata’s high-handed personal bigotry warrants official censure.

And hey, all you conservatives out there, with all your lip service to “family” — what are you doing about this? James Dobson and Tony Perkins must be furious. I’ll be looking forward to their denunciations, and their cooperation with the ACLU to correct this injustice.

Yeesh — now I discover this is old news, from 1970. Why did so many people suddenly send this in to me, anyway?

Anyway, it’s still relevant — I hadn’t known that theists had in the past tried to remove children from atheists. No wonder some freaked out at Dawkins’ description of religious indoctrination as child abuse…again, it’s projection.