Category: religion

14 CFI Skeptics ‘welcome’ creationist Jonathan Sarfati, PhD

October 30, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · religion · science · skeptivism

Once again thumbing my nose at the publishing guidelines for Canadian Atheist, I am cross-posting the summary I wrote on this event here. Readers should be aware that I was not present at any of the described events. What follows is my amalgamation of the impressions of a diverse group of skeptics working in different cities.

This past week, British Columbia was host to creationist lecturer Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, a PhD in chemistry who gave a series of lectures entitled “Evolution: The Greatest Hoax on Earth.” The title, while pithy enough on its own, is based on the title of the international bestselling book The Greatest Show on Earth by British biologist, professor and novelist Richard Dawkins.

Dr. Sarfati, founder of Creation Ministries International, asserts that evolution is a hoax based on his literal interpretation of the story of Genesis – in which God created the universe in 7 days about 10,000 years ago. One must admire the courage and temerity of a man who looks at pre-human fossils dated orders of magnitude older than that; rock formations dated billions of years old; and abundant cosmological evidence putting the age of the universe even older than the rocks; and says “nope, ten thousand – book says so.” Maybe ‘admire’ isn’t the right word…

What did we do?

Upon hearing that we would be paid a visit by such a luminary figure, British Columbia skeptics decided that if creationist propaganda was going to be spread around our fair province then audience members deserved to hear what the scientific evidence had to say. After all, forewarned is forearmed. Centre for Inquiry (CFI) Vancouver, in partnership with our colleagues at CFI Okanagan, the University of British Columbia (UBC) biology department, UBC Okanagan (UBCO), the UBC Freethinkers and the UBCO Skeptics contacted the venues where Sarfati was scheduled to speak – UBC’s Vancouver campus, The Pacific Academy in Surrey, and UBC’s Okanagan campus – and requested permission to set up an information table in the lobby.

The Pacific Academy, a privately owned venue attached to a Pentacostal Christian school (K-12) in Surrey, declined our request to set up a table. While we were understandably disappointed – especially given CFI’s past willingness to allow creationists to push their propaganda (usually in the form of “if there’s no God, how did all this stuff get here? Therefore, God.”) at our events – we recognized that private businesses have every right to hold whatever events they like. The Surrey event was attended by around 800 people of all ages.

We were able to prevail upon UBC to allow the presence of science within the morass of apologetics by reminding them of their obligation to present information that is consistent with the policies of the university. While creationism might be entertaining, evolution is a fact. We were lucky to be able to borrow on the heft and credibility of our colleagues within the UBC biology department.

The Vancouver lecture was not quite as well-attended, perhaps due to the fact that people in a university environment know a bit more about science than the general public. Many of the students we encountered there attended out of sheer curiosity – having heard about the evolution vs. creation “controversy” (only controversial to those within the creationist camp). They thanked us for being there to present the evidence, rather than… well, we’ll get to that later.

The UBC Okanagan lecture was again not quite as popular as the one held by the Pentecostal Church in Surrey. Our volunteers were present to provide some information to those who might not have a background in biology. Feeling a bit cheeky, some of us wore t-shirts that said “Creationism: a Philosophy of Ignorance”, referring to the argument from ignorance that Creationism is based on (“I don’t know how this works, therefore it must be God’s doing”). Our esteemed presenter wasn’t particularly pleased about that, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Overall, our presence was welcomed by audience members. We were careful not to force information on people, preferring instead to wait for curious parties to come to us. We were not there to sell anything or to force an agenda, merely to make information available and give people a chance to pre-empt some of the more egregious lies inherent to creationism.

What happened at the lecture?

While the bar for creationist lecturers isn’t set particularly high, either in terms of evidence or persuasive arguments, Dr. Sarfati did his utmost not to clear it. Instead of presenting evidence for the truth of creation (which would be impressive, because there isn’t any), he instead presented a series of shallow, recycled and easily- (and oft-) refuted arguments. Some of the highlights:

The second law of thermodynamics says that organization can’t increase in a closed system, therefore beneficial mutations cannot happen and evolution cannot occur. Never mind that the Earth is not a closed system, gets regular energy from the sun, and beneficial mutations have been observed to occur (a PhD in Chemistry really should know this)…
Science comes from Christianity (therefore… God?). Never mind that the Christian church repeatedly blocked scientific progress that was contrary to dogma, that science has explained many things that were supposedly divine “mysteries”, and that during the Dark Ages – when the church was at its height of power – it was the Muslim world that made the greatest contributions to science…
Noah’s flood explains everything, from the Grand Canyon to the divergence of species. Never mind the fact that contemporary floods don’t seem to have the magical properties of Noah’s flood, that building a ship capable of holding 2 of every animal in the world would require a level of technology we don’t even have today, and that there is no evidence anywhere of a flood that covered the entire world and then carefully planted specific types of animals only in certain places…
Fish float when they die, therefore they can’t fossilize, therefore fish fossils are evidence of being buried by mud slides from Noah’s flood. Never mind the fact that you do not need Noah’s flood to create mud slides that bury fish. It happens all the time. Never mind the fact that fish sink after their air bladders lose integrity, or that fish without bladders sink right away, or that fossil records are not the only – or even the strongest – evidence we have for evolution…
If you put a frog in a blender and turn it on, you’ll never see a live frog be reassembled. I’m not even sure if this one is worth taking on, and someone should probably call the SPCA.

After the lecture there was a Q&A session. Dr. Safarti wasn’t too pleased to see our volunteers in the first place (someone put a copy of Biology for Dummies on the podium – perhaps not polite, but certainly funny), and mentioned our insouciant t-shirts a few times in Kelowna. He became even more hostile when we pointed out some of the more egregious fallacies in his argument, interrupting the questioners, accusing us of trying to convert people to atheism (a big scary deal to Dr. Safarti), and assuring us that the answers were in one of his books, but he couldn’t answer it right now. The Vancouver event was attended predominantly by students and evolutionists, who did not respond well to these evasive tactics and cheered on those who took the creationist presenter to task for them.

Our reception was somewhat frostier in Kelowna, where the crowd was not quite as pro-science as in Vancouver. Our questions, rather than being met with tacit approval, were the cause of some consternation to the audience. One attendee, a professor of philosophy, attempted to demonstrate some of the logical problems with Sarfati’s arguments – an audience member threatened to put the professor in a head lock. Perhaps it goes without saying that we didn’t win any popularity contests there. Hopefully we got mentioned in a few church sermons the following Sunday.

Needless to say, Dr. Sarfati was not pleased to have people present who are aware of history, science, and basic logic. His hostility was not saved for skeptics either: he made many disparaging comments about atheists, Muslims, and made disparaging remarks about other Christians who believed in evolution. Perhaps being a jerk and a buffoon isn’t relevant to the fact that his presentation was frankly a big steamy pile of BS, but it certainly didn’t help his cause.

What did we learn?

The British Columbia branches of CFI are working on our “skeptivist” approach – bringing the tools of skepticism out into the open and engaging the public. We were lucky to have partners at UBC, as well as the support of the national branch of CFI. We were once again received positively by most of the audience at the event we attended – a reception we can at least partially attribute to being polite and non-pushy (being a good-looking group of ladies and gents probably didn’t hurt either).

People are understandably curious when someone tells them “the thing you’ve been taught is a hoax”. I’m sure that many of the attendees were either confirmed creationists for whom science is blasphemy, and more than a few were science-literate skeptics present at the lecture for a chuckle. Our mission was not and has not been, to convert the whole audience to one way of thinking; it was to present the actual evidence and allow people to make their own decisions. We are confident that after hearing “both sides” of the creation/evolution issue, reasonable people will choose the side with the evidence on its side over the one that relies on distortions and outright falsehoods to make its point.

Our information tables were visited predominantly by the people we were hoping to attract – science-weak university students who were there out of curiosity. They thanked us for being there, knowing that evolution is embraced by the scientific community but not being too sure about why. While skeptics and atheists are often accused of “preaching to the converted”, we were glad to have an opportunity to “preach” to those whose understanding of biology is less than full.

Dr. Sarfati is perhaps not the greatest challenge facing us in the creationist camp. While folks like Ken Ham at least have some kind of charisma, Dr. Sarfati has pictures of blended frogs and slander against non-believers. However, it is important to counter pseudoscience and fraud whenever it appears, particularly when it’s on our university campuses, no matter how unimpressive the speaker may be. We are happy to have been a part of this, and optimistic that we may have given people some things to think about.

0 Movie Friday: Spooooooky ghoooooosts!

October 29, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · critical thinking · movie · religion · skepticism

Because it’s almost Hallowe’en, I thought I’d take a bit of a side-trip from my usual topics and talk about some good old-fashioned non-religious superstitious nonsense.

Yep, I’m talking about ghosts:

Part 2/6
Part 3/6
Part 4/6
Part 5/6
Part 6/6

Many of you probably don’t know Derren Brown. I say this because up until a couple months ago I’d never heard of him either. Maybe you’ve all heard of him and I’m just a nincompoop. Whatever the story, Derren is a British skeptic who has taken up the mantle of James Randi and who shows how so-called “supernatural” phenomena are actually (and without exception) easily explained as either cons, tricks, or other misinterpretation of natural phenomena. In this particular episode, he’s following around self-proclaimed “ghost busters” who claim to be able to detect and communicate with dead people.

Of course, the idea of ghosts presupposes that there is a soul that is distinct from the body, that this soul can take on semi-corporeal form after the body dies, and that this semi-corporeal form sticks around to move around pots and pans and fuck with recording devices. Throw some religious mumbo-jumbo into the mix and you’ve got a party. The “exorcist” priest in part 3 spells it right out:

“Sometimes he has people who can really do with a good psychiatrist; and then he’s got the people who have got the explainable happening inside their homes, and that’s when he calls me.”

Yep, when something happens that you can’t explain, don’t bother looking for evidence. Call a priest! He’ll give you all the “explanations” you could ever want. Pretty weird how Christian people are always possessed by Christian demons. Just once I want to see a Muslim demon, or a voodoo demon, or even a deist secular humanist demon. Oddly though, they all seem to be susceptible to prayers from the belief system of the “possessed” person. Also kind of weird that God just sits on his ass and doesn’t do anything to help the “possessed” until some chubby guy with a dubious relic and a bunch of rituals comes into the picture, then all of a sudden he’s your best pal, driving out all the demons.

The larger point to be drawn here is the same one I brought up yesterday, which is that when we let our imaginations run wild, and use arguments from ignorance to explain real-life phenomena we don’t fully understand, we end up believing absolutely absurd shit, like ghosts. Of course when we throw religion into the mix, we get people believing in ghosts and demons and evil spirits. It’s really not that challenging to explain, as long as we’re willing to set aside kid’s stories and look for evidence.

None of the people in these videos are particularly stupid, I’m sure, at least not relatively to the general population. However, when we adopt an attitude of “well maybe it’s true” rather than “well maybe it’s false”, we end up giving license to the most ridiculous ideas our brains can come up with. It is for this reason that it’s a good idea to be skeptical.

Then again, if we’re too skeptical, we might miss out on meeting Gozer:

Happy Hallowe’en!

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0 Priestly abuse not unique to RCC

October 28, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · Catholic church · religion

I sat on this story for a while, because I was hoping to find something to connect it to. Unfortunately, nothing appeared in the past couple of weeks, so I present it here on its own:

An archbishop who has held positions in a number of Canadian communities has stepped down amid allegations of sexual abuse involving pre-teen boys. In a statement released on the website of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), church officials said Archbishop Seraphim Storheim, 66, of Ottawa is on a leave of absence as police in Canada investigate abuse claims.

In my last post about this ongoing priestly abuse, I said there were some important questions to ask. One of those is whether or not it is a uniquely Catholic phenomenon, this practice of abuse and subsequent coverup. This story suggests to me that there is nothing in Roman Catholic doctrine that leads priests to abuse children. Instead, it suggests to me that when human beings are given positions of power, power that is by its very nature uncontrollable with no checks or balances against abuse, and when those same people are given a mechanism to suppress any evidence of wrongdoing, they will commit atrocities. We see it in government scandals, we see it with corporate financial illegalities, and we see it with the churches.

Clohessy charged that church officials have known about the abuse claims for years but were slow to act. The recent announcement of the internal probe and vow of co-operation with police comes as a relief, he said. Clohessy added he hopes people with any information pick up the phone and share what they know with authorities. He admitted being disappointed that Storheim was allowed to take a leave of absence instead of being removed.

And just like in the Roman Catholic Church, the coverups and shifting around of abusive priests happened in this case. The hypocrisy of claiming the moral authority of Christianity, while at the same time committing shocking crimes against humanity is dumbfounding. Or at least it should be. Sadly, it seems to be the rule rather than the exception that those who claim superiority without evidence are the smallest, meanest, and most morally bankrupt among us.

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0 Some Hallowe’en crapitalism

October 28, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · crapitalism · forces of stupid · religion · science

So I realize it’s not actually Hallowe’en, but I don’t care.

I’ve explained before why it’s important to fight against belief in superstition – in order to co-operate with each other we need to use transparent and reality-based mechanisms. If we instead rely on dewy-eyed “respect” for each other’s ridiculous beliefs, we can end up doing damage to each other and ourselves. When the stakes are low, it’s entirely practical to ignore the more weird things that those around us think are true. Case in point: a close friend of mine believes in ghosts – while I think it’s weird to think that dead people have “spirits” that stick around and appear to random people, but cannot be detected except by the flawed human eye/brain, it’s really not worth it to try and change his mind. After all our friendship is not based on ghosts, and it’s only come up once in the hundreds of conversations we’ve had.

However, sometimes people believe in ridiculous shit and it absolutely does matter:

Eighty mainly elderly people recently jailed in Malawi for up to six years for practising witchcraft should be freed, campaigners say. George Thindwa from the Association of Secular Humanism told the BBC the convictions were illegal as there was no law against witchcraft. He said the problem was that many officials were “witchcraft believers”. The justice minister disputed the allegations, saying the justice system was “reputable”.

Regular long-time readers will remember Malawi from previous posts about religious vs. secular values, the stupidity of sodomy laws, and of course their ass-backwards stance on women’s rights and polygamy. Basically, I’m not a fan. Well now they’ve been caught putting people in jail for being witches.

And then of course, there’s the absolutely ridiculous claim from the justice minister that the system is “reputable”. Yes, it has a consistent reputation for being full of shit. That’s not the same as being reputable.

Justice Minister George Chaponda told the BBC that a person could only be found guilty of practising witchcraft if they confessed to being a witch. But our reporter says the records showed all the suspects had pleaded not guilty. “We are intervening in this matter because we are concerned we still have prisons in Malawi [with] people being accused of being witches,” Mr Thindwa told the BBC’s Network Africa programme. “The courts were wrong 100%, [and] the police, to actually accommodate cases.” Most of those recently sentenced were women usually accused by children of teaching them witchcraft.

I don’t think the people of Malawi are inherently evil, or inherently stupid. They are however held captive to inherently stupid and evil ideologies, by which measles vaccinations are tools of the devil, polygamy is the right of every woman to be protected by a man, and the accusation of a child carries the same weight (in fact more weight) as any sort of evidence. This is why I am completely unashamed to call out bullshit in as loud a voice as possible – to do otherwise would be to grant assent and respectability to all kinds of crazy half-cocked hypotheses, like the existence of witchcraft.

But luckily we live in the enlightened West, where we’ve outgrown such idiocy, right?

A self-described witch in Moose Jaw, Sask., says she’s outraged that religious groups have pressured a local museum to cancel a Halloween seance. The Western Development Museum had been planning to hold a fundraiser on Oct. 29 called Ghosts of the Past, at which, for a $30 entry fee, adult participants could learn about ouija boards and “attempt to make contact with the spirits.” The event was cancelled, however, following complaints from religious leaders and residents, some of whom expressed fears the seance would conjure up evil spirits.

Good grief. If you want to see some medieval stupidity writ large in public, look no further than your religious communities. Of course, these are the good, moderate Christians who are all about tolerance and acceptance. Not those crazy fundamentalists who believe in weirdo nonsense. It’s a good thing there aren’t any of those types of crazies around.

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0 The joy of the godless (parte the firste)

October 25, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · Catholic church · crommunism · religion

I was recently accused by a commenter of being the wrong kind of atheist:

There is a difference between the honest atheism of the nihilist, who believes there really is no God and acknowledges the implications of such, and the self-delusionary humanism of the New Atheist, who does not really mean what he says when he says ‘there is no God’ but instead believes ‘there is a God and I am he.’ And by that I mean that he thinks he is the highest form of life there is — the noblest and most dignified Being there is (which gives him the ability — no, it’s more than that — the right, to determine that ‘all humans have equal value.’)

Apparently I am deluding myself because I’m just not sad enough. In order to be an ‘honest atheist’, I have to be a nihilist, recognizing nothing but abject sorrow and emptiness within the meaningless void of a random, uncaring universe. Otherwise I am exalting myself to heights of self-aggrandizing hauteur, imagining myself to be the single highest life form in existence.

Calling this a straw man or a caricature would be lowballing the audacity of this ridiculous lie almost to the point of being completely inaccurate in my labeling. Nothing in that paragraph, however well it may be written, describes anything that comes anywhere close to my personal beliefs. It is an argument that is the intellectual equivalent of drawing a moustache and goofy glasses on the portrait of a political opponent (I already wear glasses and have facial hair, so perhaps a better comparison is needed).

However, mulling this over in my mind did yield some fertile personal exploration about how I arrived by my atheism, and why I am not an abject nihilist. I am, save for occasional bouts of depression when reading news articles or following politics, an incredibly happy person. Ludicrously happy, in fact. At this particular moment in my life I am employed at a job I love and find challenging, am living in the city of my choosing surrounded by interesting, supportive, and (let’s face it) attractive friends. I have personal, musical, and political projects that occupy my free hours, and there are many more things out there for me to learn and explore.

It was not always so for me, this type of fulfilled contentment. There was once a time when I was in the throes of deep existential conflict – when I struggled day and night with questions that underlay the whole of my self-identity. I read voraciously, trying to find how other thinkers had addressed these problems in the past. These sojourns into the philosophical literature occasionally yielded a few weeks or months of respite, but inevitably I would find myself foundering once again on a sea of doubt and confusion.

I was raised Roman Catholic, and beginning in my late childhood I began taking my religion very seriously. Coming from a far more liberal family than average, my religious beliefs were not scripture-based, but rather ran along lines of a code of decency, generosity, humility, and above all, forgiveness. When good things happened, I would immediately thank and praise God. When bad things happened, I comforted myself in the understanding that there was ultimate justice awaiting all people. I was happy to reconcile my scientific understanding of the universe with the bits of the Bible I had read, glossing over the parts that didn’t make sense. I was actually voted valedictorian of my confirmation class (like a Bar Mitzvah for Catholics), and asked to give a speech on our religious journey. I planned to become a priest and share my insights into the loving God with congregations of faithful believers.

But, as it says in First Corinthians:

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

I began to see that the religion I belonged to in no way reflected my own beliefs. Our youth group received newsletters from anti-choice organizations filled with lies and distortions of facts. When I wrote to them demanding that they show some accountability, my letters were dismissed and ignored. I began to struggle with the hypocrisy and vulgar pomposity of the Church; idolatry on full display, hate passed off as divinely justified, a seeming abdication of the custodianship of humanity that was preached from the pulpit. It seemed as though the idea of a loving, forgiving and just God was put to the lie by the hate, insolence and moral emptiness of those who claimed His favour.

So I began to read: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Daniel Quinn, Ayn Rand, Dostoyevsky, Hugo, Dickens, Terry Goodkind… anything I could get my hands on. At one particularly desperate point I attempted to read though the Bible, hoping to wrest some insight from its pages – sadly, the Bible is just the oral history of a bronze age tribe set in florid language; not particularly helpful. Thinking that my constant crisis of faith was due to laziness on my part, I redoubled my commitment to the church – reading from the lectern at mass, teaching Sunday school, playing viola with the choir. My father was of little help during this period, giving me pat answers to complex questions and becoming upset that I would even ask (even though it was he who taught me to question authority, a lesson I’m sure he regrets imparting now). I would pray every day that God would grant me some kind of solution to my constant queries, or that He would at least help me by silencing the voice in my head that kept pointing out the gaping flaws in my patchwork theology.

No help from above was forthcoming. I entered a long and bitter period in which I clung to the ribbons of my faith like a vagrant clings to the rags on his back, snarling angrily at anyone who would question me from either side. Believers were simple-minded fools who hadn’t asked the important questions, whereas atheists were simply denying the manifest truth of the majesty of the universe and the wonders of faith.

I can say without hyperbole that those intervening years were some of the most miserable of my life. Most assuredly, being an eccentric, chubby, racially outlying teenager probably contributed more than its fair share to my unhappiness. However, even in my private moments of introspective reflection, I could not escape the constant nagging doubt – a doubt that was a gaping hole in my entire outlook on life.

So when people rhapsodize to me about the joys of religious life, and the great comfort they find in their loving relationship with YahwAlladdha, it’s hard for me not to hearken back to those years when I reached with all my mind, body and soul for some measure of that comfort and fell repeatedly on my face. The only time when I was free from the torment was during the brief windows of time in which I was able to slap a band-aid explanation or trite bit of theology over a serious question and ignore it for a while.

Of course now I am much happier, and am no longer plagued with such angst, but I am well over my post-length limit, so I will have to save that part for next Monday.

TL/DR: I have not always been an atheist, but my religious faith (when I had it) was a constant source of trouble and pain for me. Far from making me a nihilist, my atheism has made me far happier than I have ever been as a believer.

0 Iran and the Catholic Church – not at all strange bedfellows

October 21, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · Catholic church · crapitalism · religion

It never fails to amaze me how regularly religious groups fail to see that they are exactly the same. I saw a clip on The Colbert Report a few nights ago, where an evangelical Christian minister was warning people about how Islam was planning to take over America, and that we should all be worried. I had to do a double-take, as I realized that nobody called the guy out for being an evangelical Christian. By its very nature, evangelical anything means your stated mandate is to convert as many people as possible – this guy is just as guilty as those he’s accusing. Of course Islam has an interest in converting everyone, so does Christianity. Any religion that claims to be the “one true religion” is basically out-and-out stating its intention to bring the whole world under its thumb. To deflate the predictable protest from moderate Muslims and Christians who claim that their faith doesn’t mean they have to convert anyone, I’ll say that your particular version of belief is at odds with direct commandment from your scripture:

Matthew 28:19-20

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Matthew 24:12

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Luke 9:1-6

When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them.” So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.

That’s just a handful of passages, please trust that there’s a loooot more. And for the Muslims… well I suppose you can just read this list – YahwAlladdha’s not exactly cool with non-believers.

With both religions claiming to be “the right one”, and having very clear commandments to destroy, convert, or otherwise gain supremacy over those who believe anything differently, it’s hard to imagine that there could be any kind of dialogue between them at all. But of course there is, as long as it’s politically convenient:

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written to the Pope, thanking him for condemning an American pastor’s threat to burn the Koran last month. In his letter, Mr Ahmadinejad also called for closer co-operation between Iran and the Vatican.

I hope nobody is thinking “but the president of Iran isn’t a religious leader.” Iran is an Islamic theocracy, whose real power is wielded by the Ayatollahs. You can’t separate state power from church power – they’re the same thing.

At any rate, the hypocrisy of cozying up to an enemy when it’s convenient doesn’t surprise me, and shouldn’t surprise you. The thing that I found hilarious was this:

Mr Ahmadinejad also called for “a close co-operation of divine religions to restrict destructive moves such as ignoring of religious teachings, influencing people to be materialistic, which were eroding human societies”.

As though not enough religion was the thing eroding human societies. By my count, somewhere around 74 of the posts on this blog alone have been about religion, representing about 1/3 of my total output (including the 6 weeks I intentionally took off because I thought I was talking about religion too much). Iran is a country that is trying to bludgeon people to death with fucking rocks because of religion.

Anyone who thinks that the religions of the world will sit down at the table and play nice once they have unchallenged power over the countries of the world is delusionally ignorant of history and the mandates of religion. This is a match quite literally made in heaven – two oppressive religious theocratic forces attempting to enforce their small-minded agenda on everyone else have finally learned to team up, either out of expediency or necessity.

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1 Free speech vs… itself?

October 19, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · civil rights · free speech · hate · law · politics · religion

I hope y’all aren’t getting bored with these “Free speech vs.” stories, because I plan to keep writing them.

In the other installments in this “series” (which really isn’t a series so much as an ad-hoc grouping under a recurring theme), I identified a number of potential threats to free speech: religious authority, state authority (both abroad and here at home), and the Wild West of the internet. Each of these represents an external threat by some authority or group to stifle the legitimate free expression of people (well, except terrorists I suppose). But sometimes the threat to freedom of speech is the content of the speech itself:

Dutch MP on trial for hate speech:

Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders appealed for freedom of expression Monday as he went on trial for alleged hate speech at a time when his popularity and influence in the Netherlands are near all-time highs. Prosecutors say Wilders has incited hate against Muslims, pointing to a litany of quotes and remarks he has made in recent years. In one opinion piece, he wrote “I’ve had enough of Islam in the Netherlands; let not one more Muslim immigrate,” adding “I’ve had enough of the Qur’an in the Netherlands: Forbid that fascist book.”

Geert Wilders is the head of a far-right political party that is based largely on anti-immigrant themes. Anyone who had a picture of the Netherlands (or any of the Scandinavian socialist utopias) as happy places full of peaceful hippies has not been paying attention. Tension with non-native groups is escalating, particularly in the face of the economic crisis. Mr. Wilders has put a voice and a face to this simmering resentment, and has managed to parlay it into real political power. Ordinarily I would be in support of anyone who openly criticizes the advance of any religion in public life, but not when it’s like this:

“I am a suspect here because I have expressed my opinion as a representative of the people,” Wilders told judges at the start of the trial. The trial was adjourned until Tuesday shortly after Wilders’s opening remarks, when he declined to answer any questions from the three judges, invoking his right to remain silent.

This disgusts me. You don’t get to have it both ways – you can’t hide behind free speech protections and then refuse to answer questions. If you have an opinion and you demand the right to express it, then you ought to express it. Hiding behind the principle of free speech to defend your bigotry – and Mr. Wilders is nothing but a bigot, to be clear – is a perversion of the idea of free speech. The whole point of a free speech law is to defend people’s right to engage in legitimate discussion and criticism, not as a skirt to hide behind like a frightened bully whose victim stands up for itself.

While I am not in favour of legal proceedings against hate speech, I am far less in favour of cowardice being wrapped up in the principle in which I believe most strongly.

Westboro Baptist Church at Supreme Court:

The U.S. Supreme Court is to hear arguments Wednesday in a case that pits a dead marine’s grieving father against the Westboro Baptist Church, an obscure Kansas church that protests at soldiers’ funerals. The marine was not gay. However, the members of the church, who gained notoriety for using the same tactics at funerals for AIDS victims and who also oppose abortion, claimed his death was God’s “punishment” for the United States’ tolerance of homosexuality.

Ah yes, Freddie Phelps again. Once again, while ordinarily I would be in support of a group’s right to free speech (even when I absolutely 100% deplore the content of that speech, and would bitch-slap Fred Phelps to death if given the opportunity), this is another case where the right is being abused to serve a perverted end. Westboro Baptist isn’t protesting against a corrupt system, or leveling legitimate criticism, or contributing anything worthwhile to a discussion. Instead, they are hiding behind the Constitution to disrupt the lives of grieving parents for no reason other than to hurt people and gain publicity for their disgusting medieval pseudo-religion. Worst of all, Phelps is deputizing and corrupting children to further his own feeble-minded dictatorial agenda.

While I maintain my distaste for prosecuting hate speech, I bemoan the fact that this stance allows slime like Geert Wilders and Fred Phelps a platform to spread their brainless hateful nonsense. Free speech is supposed to defend unpopular ideas that have a legitimate purpose, a purpose that can be articulated and defended. The greatest threat to free speech therefore isn’t oppressive governments, religious authorities, or the New World Order on teh intarwebz; it’s those scumbags that abuse and debase the principle and undermine the public’s appetite to defend it from these more apparent threats.

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6 Why are atheists so ANGRY?

October 18, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · critical thinking · forces of stupid · secularism

Despite the fact that it is against the rules, I have cross-posted this piece on Canadian Atheist.

Most of you are probably unaware that I occasionally contribute to the group blog Canadian Atheist. This is a site with contributors from all around the country, discussing various activities and issues within the atheist community, with particular relevance to Canada. The authors, myself among them, are all young people from various walks of life (although predominantly students). The discussions are usually interesting, but most of the time I end up bashing my head against my keyboard and screaming. As I’ve often said I have no problem with people disagreeing with my positions – I am happy to admit that I don’t know everything and am overjoyed when someone approaches me with a cogent, well-reasoned refutation of a position I hold. I am married to exactly none of my ideas, except insofar as nobody likes to be told that they’re wrong.

The thing that frustrates me is when the opposing position is completely brainless:

I know this is going to sound like a bit of a rant, but an idea just occurred to me. I’ve noticed that atheists, quite frequently, have sour dispositions. They’re often stand-offish, critical, and unfriendly. I notice they are also quite frequently socially awkward, but that’s a different issue to tackle.

Crap. Crap crap crappity crap crap.

We need to work on our image. I’m not sure where to start, but perhaps approaching the problem from the ground up is a nice way to start tackling the issue. What I would suggest is for atheists everywhere to be a little more friendly to not only one another, but also to others outside their atheist circle of friends.

Depressingly crappy craptacular crap.

The point is that the great atheist leaders that many atheists regard so highly are often viewed by outsiders as extreme, unreasonable, and ridiculous. Even those who agree with our cause often feel this way. Which means that if we’re trying to get the public on-board with our ideas and opinions, we’re failing.

Unadulterated, pure, unprocessed, certified organic CRAP.

All of this crap, brought to you in this particular case by fellow CA author Brent Kelly, is in reference to an argument that I’ve talked about a few times, the virtue of confrontational atheism. My position, boiled down, is that there absolutely must be people who are not afraid to stand up and make their opinions clear, regardless of if those in the majority get their feelings hurt in the process. Some things are more important than feelings, and I would offer human rights and the future of our society among those things.

But the issue at stake here (in this steaming pile of crap) is not simply whether or not “firebrands” are right or wrong, it’s the complete lie that is painted about atheists. There’s this ridiculous caricature that has been cultivated by believers that atheists are these angry, bitter, misfits who rail against religion and foam at the mouth whenever anyone has the temerity to say “bless you” when someone sneezes. Before I knew anything about Richard Dawkins, for example, I knew that he was a smug, arrogant prick with a bug up his ass about God. Of course, once I actually bothered to read any of his stuff and watch him in debate, I found out that he was a nebbish British biology professor with a soft spot for literature.

It’s a lie. It’s all of it a lie. Atheists absolutely do not have sour dispositions, any more than the rest of the population. We are not stand-offish or unfriendly in the least. Saying that we are critical is a fair charge, since criticism is part and parcel with skepticism, and the two camps share close ties. As far as being socially awkward goes… Brent, I say this with great affection, but go fuck yourself sideways with a rusty spike. At this point, you’ve completely abandoned any kind of critical thinking and have just wholeheartedly embraced the same kind of ridiculous stereotyping that is enjoyed by anti-gay bigots and racists.

I know this is going to sound like a bit of a rant, but an idea just occurred to me. I’ve noticed that blacks, quite frequently, have lazy dispositions. They’re often stupid, apathetic, and superstitious. I notice they are also quite frequently criminals, but that’s a different issue to tackle.

I know this is going to sound like a bit of a rant, but an idea just occurred to me. I’ve noticed that gay men, quite frequently, have effeminate dispositions. They’re often hyper-sexualized, promiscuous, and over-the-top. I notice they are also quite frequently HIV positive, but that’s a different issue to tackle.

This is the level of criticism we’re dealing with here. The kind of criticism that is happy to abandon any reasoned investigation into why black people are imprisoned at higher rates than whites, or why gay men have higher rates of HIV, and instead chalk it up to some kind of dispositional issue. It then becomes the job of the stereotyped group to fix the problem:

And be open to their ideas too, you might even learn something. Do whatever, just don’t get into a shouting match and reinforce the stereotype that atheists are argumentative, unfriendly, and annoying.

Cee Are Eh Pee – CRAP.

The completely false picture of atheists, or blacks, or gay people, or communists, or secularists, liberals, immigrants, etc. etc. etc. is one that is always based on an intentional mischaracterization of that group, from a position of privilege enjoyed by the majority group. Whenever someone disagrees with the majority position, if the argument can’t be defeated on its own merits, the next step is to demonize the minority group based on stereotypes – “It seems to me that many of group X is like this…” Since the majority have never come in contact with a member of the minority, they’re happy to buy into the idea that these people fit the stereotype. The lie then makes its way into the public conscience, becoming more and more popular, until members of the minority can’t even speak up on their issues without someone tagging them with completely false attributions. The member of the minority group then has to spend her/his time fighting against a lie rather than dealing with the real issues.

The most frustrating part of all of this is when it comes from within the minority group itself. When we’re not fighting against bigotry coming from those who oppose us, but from those who are supposed to be our allies – happy to throw us under the bus in the name of appeasing the completely fraudulent stereotype of members of the majority who just want to be left alone.

Utter, elemental, pure mountain springs of crap.

TL/DR: Atheists are angry because people keep spreading lies about us. It is a stereotype with no basis in fact. I have no patience for other atheists who tell us that it’s our fault that we’re stereotyped by liars.

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Brent posted a response to this rebuttal later that day. As I predicted, it’s nothing more than a butthurt whine that being upset about being slandered is “proof” that the stereotype is true, coupled with goalpost shifting – “I was just saying we should explore whether it’s true or not.” Of course, 1100+ word post was largely ignored because there were some bad words in it. Also, stereotypes must have some truth, otherwise why would people believe them? In between sarcastic comments, Brent tells me that he’s just super busy right now, and therefore can’t respond to any of the multitude of criticisms, or takes a faux-principled stand and says he won’t address any issues that feel like a personal attack. Words cannot express how unimpressed I am.

0 Free speech vs… The Canadian Government

October 14, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · politics · science · secularism

As I said yesterday, the best way to cement your tyranny under the guise of legitimate government is to silence the opposition. Without an effective opposition, you won’t have to worry about people hearing any positions other than those that you agree with. Without the ability to hear/voice dissenting opinions, people will be largely ignorant of anything other that your sanitized version of “the Truth”.

So what do you do when your opposition is reality itself?

Easy, you pervert the scientific process:

The federal government engages in “unacceptable political interference” in the communication of government science, says the head of a group that represents both government press officers and science journalists. “Openness is being held ransom to media messages that serve the government’s political agenda,” wrote Kathryn O’Hara, president of the Canadian Science Writers’ Association, in an opinion published online Wednesday in the international scientific journal Nature.

It’s a deviously effective stratagem to ensure that conservative governments will be elected in perpetuity – make sure that nobody can access unbiased information. Pretty soon, scientists will be government appointees. After all, the current federal minister of science is a chiropractor who thinks that evolution is a “religious question”; it’s fairly obvious that if Stephen Harper even understands science he doesn’t particularly like it.

Now far be it from me to suggest that politicians outside the Conservative party aren’t just as corrupt and willing to clamp down on science they don’t agree with, but according to the complaint previous governments have not done this. As with the gun registry and the census, the current government seems particularly eager to ignore whatever evidence doesn’t support its agenda. The danger with picking and choosing which evidence to follow – aside from the fact that it will result in bad policy – is that people become inherently less trusting of scientific results. We then get anti-vaccine lunatics, creationists, 9/11 “Truthers” and their ilk looking more and more plausible, as we begin to trust the evidence less and less.

The other danger is that, and I cannot stress this enough, politicians are not scientists (particularly, paradoxically, the minister of science). As I’ve said countless times before, science requires specific training in the meth0dology. Understanding science is not simply a question of being smart, any more than fixing the engine of a car or performing heart surgery is. All of these things require dedicated study, an underlying knowledge of the theory, and a great deal of experience. Politicians do not have this at their disposal. To suggest that science reporting should be filtered by the inexperienced brains of politicians is as ridiculous as saying that you need a doctor’s note for an oil change.

This is particularly true when the politicians in question are not simply ignorant of science, but opposed to it. There was a huge public outcry back in November when a former Pfizer executive was appointed to a position on the board of the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR). The fear was that the presence of someone with such close ties to the pharmaceutical industry on the board of a federal health board would be biased against preventive and non-medical intervention, in favour of the industry of his origin. Whatever your feelings on this – Leona Aglukkaq addressed my concerns to my satisfaction in her reply to my indignant e-mail – the concern is just as legitimate in this case. We have a group who has revealed itself to be opposed to the use of science in policy becoming the sole arbiter of what science is worth reporting. Like putting Big Pharma in charge of health care research or letting the oil companies decide energy policy, letting this anti-science government strangle the lines of communication between scientists and the public is a horrendously stupid idea.

Here’s a picture of an otter:

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2 Shutting down the opposition: the next step of tyranny

October 13, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · civil rights · free speech · politics · secularism

A couple weeks ago, I pointed out a few stories that seemed to support my conjecture that free speech is the bedrock of a free society – that if you want to impose a tyrannical agenda on people, the first step should be to shut down their right of free speech. However, it’s not enough to simply trample the rights of individuals, you also have to shut down any dissenting political voices as well. The next step in establishing your iron-fisted rule must be to shut down any political opposition.

For evidence of this, we turn to Sri Lanka:

The main opposition Sri Lankan United National Party (UNP) has accused the authorities of undermining democracy by intimidating parliamentarians. It says that Mangala Samaraweera, the first foreign minister under Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presidency, has been unfairly questioned for hours by the police. Mr Samaraweera has admitted responsibility for printing a poster depicting the president as a dictator.

Sri Lanka has been a consistent feature on this blog since they granted wide additional powers to their president, as I see it as a perfect example of how a tyrannical state begins. First, a titularly-democratic nation invests power in a single person or political party. It shreds any checks and balances that allow the leader to be overthrown (by anything other than military force), or that places reasonable limits on the powers of the government. The next step is to use its newly-expanded power to shut down the rights of individuals to speak freely or hear ideas that are not state-sanctioned. And now, the government is literally jailing people for criticizing its actions. While sometimes hyperbole is uncouth in political discussion, I don’t think it’s unfair to call president Rajapaksa a dictator; I think in this case it’s a legitimate criticism. Legitimate or not, putting someone in jail for calling you dictatorial is… well… dictatorial.

And of course we can’t talk about the abuse of state power without bringing up China:

China has warned the Nobel Peace Prize committee not to award the prize to well-known dissident Liu Xiaobo. The Chinese foreign ministry said giving him the prize would be against Nobel principles. Mr Liu is serving a long prison sentence for calling for democracy and human rights in China… It would run contrary to the aims of its founder to promote peace between peoples, and to promote international friendship and disarmament, [a spokeswoman] added.

Did you catch the implicit threat there? Honouring someone who promotes democracy will endanger peace and disarmament… how? Well, obviously, by provoking the Chinese government into endangering peace and disarmament. The causal relationship here, however, does not start with Mr. Liu; it starts and ends with the Chinese. They could choose to ignore the results of a foreign private consortium. They could do what so many Americans did when president Obama won the peace prize last year – deride the selection criteria and committee. However, when you use the peace prize as justification for undermining world peace, you expose your willingness to shut down opposition in favour of your own agenda, rather than dealing with legitimate criticism.

Again, the source of this next story is as obvious as picking on the Chinese:

An Iranian court has banned two leading reformist parties, judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie has said. The Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Islamic Revolution Mujahideen Organisation were “dissolved”, he said. Both supported opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, the main challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in last year’s disputed election. Members of both parties were jailed during the government’s efforts to stifle the mass protests that followed.

The Iranian regime, in doing this, completely undermines any credibility they have been trying to garner as a stable democratic nation in the eyes of the international community. It is a dictatorial theocracy that views dissent as treason. While I am constantly aware of the spin that news organizations use in their reporting of stories, the repeated actions of this government (indeed, all of these governments) are clear signs to me that their explanations and rationalization are thin and poorly-constructed lies.

So while I would very much like to see our current government ousted in favour of one that actually uses its brain, I would be among the first on the protest lines to defend them against any over-reaching attempt by a Liberal or NDP government to outlaw the Conservative party. A healthy opposition is vital to the existence of a stable democratic state, and any attempt to shut down such opposition is not only tyrannical, but a betrayal of the citizens of that state.

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