An insight!

So Jesus and Jeffrey Rowland are having a conversation in a bar…

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Now, see, that’s the root of the problem: religion is crazy when you think about it, and when people do start considering its inconsistencies and ridiculous claims, its proponents either try to spin you around with increasingly nutty rationalizations, or they outright tell you to stop thinking. If science has any heresy at all, that’s it: to stop thinking is the one thing we must not do.

This is why religion is a science stopper. It makes absurd claims about the history and origin and nature of the world, and then tells you that you can’t address the questions it raises with reason and evidence.

Sometimes, conflict is the only answer

Mooney says that because polls show that Americans are so blinded by religion that they would choose the words of a bloody-handed Middle Eastern sky god over the evidence of science, Dawkins and all us uncompromising atheists are wrong in our tactics. We are henceforth to heed the words of Nisbet and stop confronting people on their religious biases.

Huh?

But that’s exactly the problem that we’re addressing — that people will foolishly prefer “white-beard-in-the-sky-guy” over reality. And the message he takes home from this is that we’re wrong? This is nuts. I read that poll and it says we have a serious problem that we cannot simply ignore any more; this rather craven avoidance that Mooney/Nisbet propose is not working and will not work.

I’m definitely siding with Jason on this one.

Those attitudes, and the unflagging respect for religious faith that they entail, must be weakened. Can that be done? I don’t know. It certainly isn’t easy, but other Western countries have managed to do it.

But I am definitely certain that you can not weaken those attitudes by refusing to attack them.

These polls represent the state of affairs today. What got us here was not the vocal opposition to religion served up by Dawkins and the others. They are newcomers on the scene. Instead, what got us here is years of Republican pandering to the religious right, coupled with Democratic cowardice in the face of increasing challenges to church-state separation (among other factors, of course). As I have written before, it is the nicey-nice strategy of non-engagement endorsed by Mooney and Nisbett that is refuted by these polls. The strategy where you publicly attack bad religious ideas has barely been tried.

I have this suspicion that Mooney and Nisbet are drinking too deeply of the kool-aid of public approval. They’ve got a message that says do nothing, avoid criticizing people on their deeply held beliefs, and instead try to smuggle little bits of good policy past them by actively pandering to them by “framing” your proposals in their terms … and of course audiences love that and eat it up and congratulate them on their wise and sensible perspicacity afterwards, because nothing they say will ever confront the root of the problem, and those people will never feel the need to change. Nisbet/Mooney provide a feel-good façade for inertia on our side, and reinforcement for the destructive beliefs of the religious right.

You are doing something wrong if the purveyors of ancient lies and dumb dogma are thanking you for your conciliatory position; we should be making them angry and worried, and if you have deep differences with someone, you are doing neither you nor them any favors if your sole strategy is conflict avoidance. You might as well just surrender and be done with it.

Oreskes smacks down Shulte

This sounds so familiar. A few years ago, a historian of science, Naomi Oreskes, reviewed the literature on climate change and concluded that there is a unanimous consensus in the published work that anthropogenic carbon is a major contributor to global warming. Now a denialist has re-analyzed those papers and is saying that Oreskes was wrong : almost half of the papers are “neutral”, neither supporting nor refuting anthropogenic change, while 6% do reject the idea.

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Why would anyone trust a bill from those two Texans?

Texans should be concerned about Texas H.B. No. 3678, an act “relating to voluntary student expression of religious viewpoints in public schools.” It’s authored by Charlie Howard, an overly cheerful and zealous member of the far religious right, and Warren Chisum, who will be known forever as the bible-thumping dwarf from Pampa, and it plays the pious fairmindedness card perfectly, while hiding the fact that it emerged from the sleeve of a pair of notorious liars for Christ. It is an underhanded and sneaky bill that, under the guise of promoting religious tolerance, actually has the purpose of stripping protection from minority views and allowing a Christian majority to run roughshod over secular institutions.

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Rampaging PR flacks!

The Pivar story isn’t quite dead yet — Chris Mims discovers that one of his blog defenders was a public relations agent. It’s not clear if he was employed by Pivar — he has written press releases for Lifecode, though — but if he was, it looks like Pivar has another goon in his employ whose ham-handed efforts backfired on him.

It’s so hard to get good minions, lackeys, thugs, and bully-boys nowadays.

Sacrilege and cephalopod

This is a kind of cephalart quickie, two images that are perfect for Pharyngula. If I had rooms here I’d hang them in ornate frames surrounded by expensive lighting.

Here is the patron saint of Pharyngula, St Architeuthis, by Skot Olsen.

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This one is so beautiful it brings a tear to me eye; the only way it could be improved is if it were painted on black velvet. Here’s a test: I can’t name all the people seated at da Vinci’s Last Supper, but I can name every one in this picture. Can you?

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