2051. Dobson and John MacArthur fantasize about the downfall of America

Comment #48724 by Dr Benway on June 8, 2007 at 8:23 pm

Aids is proof of God's hatred of gay sex, that's clear. But what do we make of the low incidence of HIV among lesbians?

God must have a hard time picking favorites among the nations, since the gays don't always cluster together as in the Castro.

Maybe it's not gay sex God hates. Maybe it's "celebrating" gayness God finds offensive.

2052. Teaching assistant quit in protest at Harry Potter

Comment #48720 by Dr Benway on June 8, 2007 at 8:01 pm

I wonder what this woman imagined would happen if a seven year old were to read a few sentences from Harry Potter out loud. Snakes slithering up through the floor? Demon possession? Does Harry Potter make the baby Jesus cry?

Someone tell the woman, "Did you know that the word 'gullible' isn't in the dictionary?"

What's left of children's literature without magic powers, talking animals, and impossible events? Clearly CS Lewis is right out, as is Tolkien. Guess you can keep Old Yeller.

However we survived the "Dungeons and Dragons is of the devil" problem back in the 1970s, maybe we can apply those lessons to the current crisis.

2053. We of little faith

Comment #48716 by Dr Benway on June 8, 2007 at 7:31 pm

Tony Blair:

Some of the most distinguished scholars and religious leaders the world over are gathered here. I ask people to listen to them. They are the authentic voices of Islam. The voices of extremism are no more representative of Islam than the use, in times gone by, of torture to force conversion to Christianity, represents the true teaching of Christ.

I listened to Blair on NPR. The words, "They are the authentic voices of Islam," made me go, "Whaaa?" I must have missed the memo naming Blair arbiter of Islamic authenticity.

When Blair eloquently pledged friendship to the US after 9/11, I regarded him as one of the most well spoken, inspiring statesmen I've ever heard. I still feel a debt to the Brits for that speech. But Jesus, what happened to the man.

Pre-mass media, politicians didn't have to do their fence sitting and dancing right in front of us all the time. Maybe even Churchill would have come off as a putz in today's world of 24 hour hyper coverage.

2054. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48701 by Dr Benway on June 8, 2007 at 6:30 pm

Zwingli:

What was the author's train of thought?

This is terribly naive. Read this: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_tora1.htm

2055. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48698 by Dr Benway on June 8, 2007 at 6:10 pm

Zwingli:

Other religions do sanction religious violence - but I don't try to pretend that all religions are the same!

I'm afraid I can't use your personal taste for one religion over another in my argument with the jihadists. Until you provide me with something better, I'm forced to revert to the one argument that makes sense to me: "Mr. Jihadist, faith, or belief without evidence, is never a good justification for blowing people up."

If you stand as a defender of faith, then I view you as Mr. Jihadist's protector. The blood of those he kills is on your hands as well.

2056. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48647 by Dr Benway on June 8, 2007 at 4:34 pm

Zwingli:

The writers of the bible books etc were writing thousands of years ago in greek, hebrew etc, and to people in rather different stuations to our own. What we think God inspired them to write won't all be relevant to us today.

Sounds reasonable to me.

The people who take the scriptures literally are a problem. Any ideas how we change their minds? I've puzzled over this for a long time now, and feel the key is faith. If it were no longer socially acceptable to use faith as a justification for doing things that gravely affect other people, I don't think we'd have so many killers for God.

2057. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48620 by Dr Benway on June 8, 2007 at 3:38 pm

Zwingli:

And I resent having christianity associated with people who fly planes into buildings.

Then help us stop them. They think God is well pleased with martyrs. They've no evidence of this; only faith. Faith is the most elastic justification imaginable.

Join us in attacking faith. Join us in stopping the madness.

2058. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48472 by Dr Benway on June 8, 2007 at 5:08 am

Dianelos, God89 bless you, your posts are long. Boil it down, mate.

An ethical system is a set of values. Good values result in long-term species survival. Bad values fuck things up. Kid torture is such a bad value. Do we really need an imaginary sky momma to sort this?

If your enjoyment of life is enhanced by your powers of imagination, have at it. I would never deny your right to believe.

I ask only this: please don't deny my right not to believe. Please don't use social or political incentives to coerce my obeisance to your Dear Leader. Please don't tax me to pay for shrines to your fantasies.

2059. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48416 by Dr Benway on June 7, 2007 at 8:37 pm

Dianelos:

B: How do you know that you lack any beliefs about god(s)?

It's the default position. No proposed God is believed in, until some reason for believing is asserted.

Presently I have n+1 gods under my bed I might present to this forum. It seems fair to me to assert that no one here believes in any of these gods at this time.

May God7895 have mercy on your faithlessness, ye unbelievers!

2060. My Road to Atheism, What Took Me So Long and The Aftermath

Comment #48251 by Dr Benway on June 7, 2007 at 7:40 am

heathen2

If you teach them to be critical and judge for themselves, they can make informed decisions on all sorts of things as they get older.

Really good point. I'm not interested in converting others to my way of thinking, so much as I want wide distribution of bullshit detector kits.

Teach your kids what a syllogism is. Teach them all the logical fallacies and point out current examples. Teach the art of persuasion or marketing. Teach wariness of in group/out group biases, which typically short circuit critical thinking (e.g., politician emphasizes he's a member of our group - born again Christian, regular guy, business man, hunter, whatever - and so avoids our scrutiny).

Your personal opinion regarding God's existence and His nature isn't as important to your kids, ultimately, as is their ability to reason things out for themselves.

2061. Scopes Two

Comment #48239 by Dr Benway on June 7, 2007 at 7:06 am

Delay essentially says that his rejection of evolution is ignorant. If he were a consistent person, he would surrender his problematic position.

Character means accepting the fact you can't have your cake and eat it, too.

2062. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48231 by Dr Benway on June 7, 2007 at 6:36 am

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "Atheism means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God."

Thanks Dianelos for the published definitions of atheism. I'm now struggling with terms a little. I've been content with the theism/atheism duality, with atheism as the default. One starts as an atheist. After encountering theist propositions that seem convincing, one converts to theism.

However, many of the definitions you cite imply the reverse. One must evaluate a set of theist propositions, find them unsatisfying, and convert to atheism.

I don't like the second model, the one that makes evaluation and active rejection of certain theist propositions a necessary part of the atheist position, for several reasons:

1. I don't know what term we ought to use for a person who hasn't yet evaluated a set of theist propositions.
2. Because the potential set of theist propositions is infinite, the atheist position seems impractical if not impossible.
3. Things don't work like this in science.

2063. Sen. Clinton: Faith got me through marital strife

Comment #47985 by Dr Benway on June 6, 2007 at 7:51 am

Edwards:

...the United States shouldn't be called a Christian nation.

Well, that's refreshing. Although Edwards' confession that he sins every day is just the sort of public masochism I don't want in a president.

No one seriously interested in getting elected is going to deny a belief in God. But people are tired of the constant political pandering to the religious right. The first candidate to push secularism in a passionate way could stand out from the pack of suck-ups. The second and third candidates on the side of secularism will seem more like followers than leaders.

Someone check in with Obama's speech writers. Of the lot, I think he could champion secularism most convincingly.

2064. My Road to Atheism, What Took Me So Long and The Aftermath

Comment #47971 by Dr Benway on June 6, 2007 at 6:59 am

There are religious groups light on dogma, like the Unitarians, Buddhists, and some Quaker groups. Prayer or meditation without belief is possible and can be quite helpful.

I've never stayed connected to a religious group for long stretches. Even when a group says no particular belief in God is required, a large percentage of people interested in spirituality are prone to magical thinking, and that can be wearing.

This American Life did a show called "Heretics" about an evangelical pastor who stopped believing in hell. Pastor Carlton Pearson didn't become an atheist, but he became a universalist, which is atheism's next door neighbor. You'll find the show here:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=304

30 second promo: http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/promos/304.mp3

2065. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47957 by Dr Benway on June 6, 2007 at 6:07 am

Dianelos:

I have argued elsewhere (in post 148 in this forum) that the "lack of belief" definition of atheism is a bad one because it implies strangely sounding propositions such as that all newborn babies are atheists, that all severely mentally retarded people are atheists, and so on.

Those propositions don't sound strange to me. Babies don't believe in Yahweh, and they don't believe in Zeus, Apollo, Zool, Neptune, and TheGodIJustPulledFromMyAss.

Belief needs a reason. Non-belief requires no reason. Non-belief is the default position.

2066. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47862 by Dr Benway on June 5, 2007 at 7:56 pm

James:

What do you think about the movies "What the Bleep Do We Know?" and "The Secret".

Bleep, I've seen. It's a drinking game. You take a swig everytime you hear the word "quantum." So before your rent the video, pick up a case of this: http://www.unibroue.com/products/fin.cfm. A very fine triple fermented ale.

2067. My Road to Atheism, What Took Me So Long and The Aftermath

Comment #47854 by Dr Benway on June 5, 2007 at 6:21 pm

James,

The Pentecostals call your experience being "slain in the Spirit." I've seen it many times, and I've had something nearly as intense, but without the blackout. What I experienced felt good, really good. I was about 13 years old when it first happened, and I didn't expect it or want it either. I thought of it as the presence of God.

I've never taken ecstasy, but I've talked to people who have and what they describe sounds similar - a relaxed feeling of expansive love, as if everyone is a dear brother or sister and all is right with the world.

For a time I attended a meditation group, a Sufi offshoot, and I encountered the same delicious feelings.

There's a fellow in Canada, Michael Persinger, who's made a helmet with a few solenoids pointed at areas in the temporal lobes. In most people (but not Prof. Dawkins) he can induce something he calls "the sensed presence." Sometimes the presence is idyllic, like an angel or like God. Sometimes it's quite the opposite.

Humans are all about relationships. We create a model in our heads of the mind of another person, so we can anticipate and appreciate the other person's feelings and perspectives. To kickstart the modelling process, mother nature hardwired two basic templates into our brains, like two blank, generic Mr. Potato heads. One is good; one is bad. When you're with the good Other, you're about as high as you can get. It's like falling in love.

My point is, evangelical Christianity hasn't cornered the market on overwhelming bliss.

2068. My Road to Atheism, What Took Me So Long and The Aftermath

Comment #47510 by Dr Benway on June 4, 2007 at 7:31 pm

DavidMarsh:

...how the universe works, gravity and speed interacting with time and amazing mind blowing stuff like quantum mechanics.

A lot of atheists talk about the awe that comes from these naturalistic epiphanies about Life, the Universe, and Everything. I get more of that sense of wonder from little things. I've been watching my neighborhood birds and listening to their songs. I've seen the courtships, the sex, the nest building, the fights. These delicate creatures live full and challenging lives.

When I catch a small dark eye gazing in my direction, I often feel a moment of wonder, that I'm alive and this other is alive, quite unlike me but like me. The vivid sense of life is impossible to describe. No romantic or magic overlay is necessary to make it more perfect.

2069. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47457 by Dr Benway on June 4, 2007 at 2:52 pm

Interesting, BillySands, about the role of prophecy in your unbelief.

My faith was ruined at about 15 or 16 years by contemplation of the eternal barbeque thing. I'd met a number of non-Christians I admired, people of honesty, kindness, intelligence, and humor. It was difficult for me to imagine a loving God roasting these specific people for all eternity, merely for their lack of belief. I'd find myself thinking, if so-and-so is damned, I'm gonna have to stand beside him in hell, or I'll feel like a total schmuck. And if Jesus is half the man I imagine him to be, he'll do the same. Might even bring marshmallows.

The entire edifice of belief crumbled soon after.

Dianelos:

Well, we are less than perfectly good so we need a place to get our morality from, but God is perfectly good so does not need to do that.

Seems like a failure of the imagination to me. Try as I might, I can't draw a perfect circle. But I can imagine one. And for that I don't require an actual, perfect circle as a reference.

However, I'm not sure a mental representation of perfect goodness would help me in any practical way. Most of the time I simply try not to be an asshole. When I do get stuck on a sticky ethical problem, I'm usually faced with a choice between two unpleasant options. I ask a few friends how they'd handle the situation, then I pick the lesser of the two evils and hope for the best. If God were around, his input would be welcome. But God never rings.

2070. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47417 by Dr Benway on June 4, 2007 at 1:04 pm

Dianelos, thanks for that simulation link. Loads of fun reading.

Bat, vat, does it matter? Perhaps my brain is wired into a bat body in such a way that although I believe I'm hitting keys on a keyboard, I am in fact squeaking out sonar.

Religion as subjective experience like the color red doesn't bother me. Religion as politics bothers me.

Let's say God speaks within me and commands me to confiscate my neighbor's TV set. I knock on my neighbor's door and inform him of the Lord's commandment. He tells me the Lord never said anything about this to him and he suspects I'm off my meds. What then?

Until the Lord can speak for himself in court, His testimony is hearsay and we rightfully ought to ignore it.

2071. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47352 by Dr Benway on June 4, 2007 at 7:36 am

Dianelos Georgoudis:

The Matrix movie is a dramatization of a thought experiment long used by philosophers, the so-called "brain in a bat".

Most bats do, in fact, have brains. But that seems neither here nor there. ;o)

I found the reason given for the Matrix curious. If you remember, robots of the future need a lot of batteries, and homosapien brains seem to do the trick.

Do you think knowledge is knowable? If not, how do we know this?

2072. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47343 by Dr Benway on June 4, 2007 at 6:18 am

Dianelos Georgoudis:

Some such axiomatic beliefs might be "I am a conscious being" and "There are objectively good and bad acts".

Define "good" please. I think once you do that, you'll see that in this context, "objectively" means "doubleplus".

The effort to establish certain values as "objectively good" is politically dangerous. The state wants God and doubleplus good, because the state is about power and God is all-powerful. Doubleplus good means no argument allowed, which is quite convenient if you're in power and doubleplus good is on your side.

Hello 1984. If you haven't read that book, pick it up. It's the natural sequel, or prequel, to "god is Not Great". God + groupthink = Big Brother.

2073. Man to die over insult

Comment #47261 by Dr Benway on June 3, 2007 at 7:35 pm

PeterK

I wonder what would happen if someone yelled publicly "Muhammed's mother wears army boots!"

An empirical question. Why not visit your local mosque some Friday evening and give it a go? Let us know how things turn out.

2074. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47260 by Dr Benway on June 3, 2007 at 7:23 pm

james_the_doubter:

When I woke I had an overwhelming sense of God's power/love/spirit or some like that - I have a hard time nailing it down... What do I make of that? ... Do you think those things were all natural/rational/logical? I assume your are an atheist?

I suspect there's a non-supernatural explanation for your experience. But you ought not take my opinion about such an important, life changing event. If you believe that your feelings were touched by God, who can contradict you? I might think such a thing improbable, but could I say impossible? No.

Never surrender sovereignty over your own truth. No group, no power ought to tread upon your right to see what you see, feel what you feel, and think what you think.

It's not atheism that animates me, but secularism. Secularism protects the still, small voice of personal conscience from the crushing power of the state. Secularism is worth dying for. Atheism, not so much.

2075. Atheism shall make you free

Comment #47228 by Dr Benway on June 3, 2007 at 3:56 pm

BillySands:

When you realise why you were wrong, it is so liberating intellectually and emotionally

Being wrong is one of life's most valuable experiences. Not to be missed.

O cringing stupidity! Why are your lessons always the most precious?

2076. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47211 by Dr Benway on June 3, 2007 at 1:54 pm

Dianelos Georgoudis :

The problem I see is that the theistic and atheistic worldviews disagree about what the "World" consists of. According to atheism the World consists of our physical universe and nothing else...

The point about world views might have merit if religious people were consistent. But they aren't.

When we talk to each other about an issue, we put forward various propositions. Some propositions are supported by stronger or weaker degrees of evidence, and some are without evidence. Many people call the latter, "matters of faith." I prefer the term, "stuff one pulls out of one's ass."

If you're an innocent man on trial for murder, you want a clear-thinking jury capable of sorting and grading evidence. You want people who understand the difference between hearsay and eye witness testimony. You want people who can separate supposition and opinion from fact. The last thing you want is a jury that feels entitled to pull any verdict it wants out of its own collective ass.

If you're seriously ill, you want a doctor who affords greater status to double-blind, placebo studies involving thousands of subjects as compared to anecdotal case reports. You don't want a doctor who thinks he's allowed to pull any treatment he wants out of his ass as a matter of "faith."

If your car is making a strange noise and running badly, you want a mechanic who can reason through the possible causes, eliminating all but the true cause using a system of evidentiary tests. You don't want a mechanic guided by whatever he pulls from his ass that day.

If believers and non-believers really operated from fundamentally different "world views" we wouldn't be having epistemic debates pertaining to a few hot button issues, such as evolution. We'd hear challenges regarding the meaning of "evidence" everywhere.

To be consistent, when Dianelos Georgoudis sees his doctor, there ought to be a few conversations like this: "You say you're hoping my test results will help you sort out what's wrong with me. But what do you really mean by 'tests'? Sure, the 'tests' are described in various studies in your medical journals, but how do we know those studies actually happened? Aren't you taking those study results on faith?"

The "we all live by faith" ploy is predictable: the religious person tries to find some proposition accepted by the atheist without a firm evidentiary basis. This acceptance is termed "faith." Once faith is admitted, nothing is logically excluded. In comes Jesus. QED.

Orthodox believers generally fail to notice that the door they've opened for Jesus also lets in Zeus, honor killings, clitorectomies, suicide bombings, homeopathy, voodoo, and all manner of superstition, madness, and bullshit high up the ass of our species.

2077. TB and the Question of Evolution

Comment #47188 by Dr Benway on June 3, 2007 at 11:42 am

Corylus:

What's wrong with being ginger??

It's a Far Side cartoon reference. I googled for a link to the cartoon, but no go. However I ran across this bit from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Far_Side that I must share, although it pertains to nothing:

As the two cartoons The Far Side and Dennis the Menace were published side by side, the captions were mixed up on several occasions, to what Larson believes to be both positive but most bizarre results. One is when three snakes are sitting down to dinner, when the youngest one complains "Not Hamsters Again!" This however was printed underneath the DTM cartoon, which portrayed Dennis and his friend eating sandwiches, while his mother is busy on the phone with the caption being "Lucky I learnt how to make peanut butter sandwiches or we would have starved to death by now," which was to appear as the Far Side's caption.

Wait, maybe the misprint story is relevant. It's an example of random mutation leading to improvement, in this case of a rather trite Dennis the Menace bit.

Lagomort:

What you are referring to is geographical variations within a cline.

I'm saying that the distinctions between species would look as fuzzy as variations within a cline if we could view all of life, past and present, at once. Once we've mapped the genomes of most known species, we'll see the degrees of relationship clearly and the continuum of life will be undeniable.

Natural selection is a general, self-evident, explanation for phenotypic changes observed over time. The distinction between big changes and little changes is arbitrary and indefensible. Many little changes will eventually add up to big changes. How can things be otherwise?

2078. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47171 by Dr Benway on June 3, 2007 at 9:51 am

Dianelos Georgoudis:

Why many people, including Dawkins, do not see sufficient reason to believe in God is the gist of the newest argument against the existence of God, the so-called argument from non-belief.

Hold up. Saying "I've not yet heard a good argument for God's existence" isn't an argument. Likewise, lack of belief is not a type of belief. Lack of faith is not "faith" in non-belief. Firm rejection of dogma is not a form of dogmatism. Off is not a TV channel.

Let's give this tiresome theist strategy a name. Maybe "the equivalence ploy."

Here's why it's used: at some moment, the theist sees he's been shot. He then hopes that if he can somehow equate the atheist's position with his own, the atheist will go down by the same bullet. Then it will appear that neither position wins, and everybody can go back to using "faith" as the basis for prefering one position over the other.

2079. TB and the Question of Evolution

Comment #47161 by Dr Benway on June 3, 2007 at 8:45 am

Lagomort:

You have to show something they consider one "Kind" breaking away and becoming another "Kind". If you do not show them that, then everything you say is just, "Blah, Blah Blah, Ginger!" to them...

We see species. But if we could see everything that ever lived, we'd see a continuum of life rather than discrete kinds of life.

The species concept is much like racial difference. Blacks and whites seem like separate races. But if you walk south from Europe to Africa, you'll appreciate more of a phenotypic continuum.

"Blah, blah, blah Ginger!" I use this a lot myself. Along with "Bummer of a birthmark, Hal."

2080. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47035 by Dr Benway on June 2, 2007 at 9:17 pm

Dianelos Georgoudis:

In that absolute sense, for example, we don't have any "proof" that Abraham Lincoln has existed, or that electrons exist, or that the Pythagoras theorem is correct.

There's very good evidence for Lincoln and electrons, and Euclidian geometry would be a mess without the Pythagorean theorum.

Oh, you mean "absolute" evidence. Well, we can't have conversations with each other without a few basic agreements (e.g., words have meaning and can be used to represent a real world that exists apart from our minds). If you want to use the word "faith" for these minimal, necessary assumptions, fine.

You must concede that Christianity adds a few more items of "faith" beyond the minimal set. We aren't under any obligation to accept these propositions without evidence.

2081. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47029 by Dr Benway on June 2, 2007 at 8:42 pm

james_the_doubter:

But how do I make sense of my "God-experience"?

There's evidence, then there's evidence. I can bear witness to anything I see, hear, feel, or otherwise experience. Sometimes I expect that my report will be accepted by others at face value. Sometimes it would be arrogant of me to insist others take me seriously, although I'm convinced of what I experienced and of my own honesty.

Like most people, I've had a few unusual experiences. Things like dreams or premonitions that later happened, stunning coincidences, moments of expansive, transcendent joy, feelings of the presence of God, and so on. These things were more common in my youth, or when a love relationship seemed to be getting off the ground. As these events leave no physical traces, I can't imagine insisting anyone take any of these anecdotes seriously.

If there is a God, and if he/she/it were actually creating some experience for me, then he/she/it ought to be capable of doing the same for someone else. My personal experience ought to be irrelevant to other people.

If I expect that a personal anecdote will persuade others of some supernatural reality, I'm saying, effectively, that I'm better than other people. To those who haven't had such experiences, I'm saying that God has revealed himself to me, but not to you. Isn't that special?

Think through the social consequences of accepting someone else's personal revelation as evidence for God. It's really not a pretty picture. Unless, I suppose, you're into S&M.

2082. TB and the Question of Evolution

Comment #46819 by Dr Benway on June 1, 2007 at 7:59 pm

By "think like a bug," I just mean appreciate options for self-replication from the standpoint of the bug.

Some like to whistle; some like to paint. I like to anthropomorphize.

Yes, the bug view is about natural selection. But the concept is so simple. I don't think a person needs to take courses in evolutionary bio to grok it. That's all I'm saying.

2083. U.S. a theocratic state, says former Canadian ambassador

Comment #46814 by Dr Benway on June 1, 2007 at 7:13 pm

On the plus: the Canucks have a much better national anthem.

On the minus: what's that "Toronto blessing" business?

2084. TB and the Question of Evolution

Comment #46811 by Dr Benway on June 1, 2007 at 7:02 pm

You don't have to be an evolutionary biologist to understand how antibiotics and other interventions pressure infectious organisms over time. You just have to think like a bug, and you need to understand the host-parasite environment.

Imagine you're malaria. You want to "be fruitful and multiply," as the Lord commanded. To do that, you need a human host. To move from one human to another, you need a mosquito.

If you're a nasty bug, you make your host very sick or you kill him. If you're a nicer bug, you just make him a little bit sick, or not sick at all. Which strategy works better for you? Well, that depends on the behavior of your human hosts and your mosquito vectors.

Imagine a society of loners who never leave the house except when seriously ill, when they're sent to a hospital. As a malaria bug, you ought to make your host very sick so he's sent to the hospital, where you'll have a greater chance of jumping from one host to another.

Imagine a more normal society of sociable humans. The humans go outside daily, except when sick, when they're home in bed. In this environment, you ought to avoid making your host so sick he doesn't go outside.

One of the simplest ways to pressure the malaria parasite toward a less virulent form would be to install screens on the windows of all homes in malaria infested areas. Screens mean less interaction between human hosts and mosquito vectors. In a well-screened environment, parasites that cause only mild symptoms will out-compete nastier versions that keep people home in bed.

An ecological viewpoint, one that appreciates not just an organism, or a species, or a particular resource such as clean water, but an entire, interdependent ecosystem, seems to be over-looked not only in medicine, but in many public discussions. Perhaps that's because we have more specialists than generalists among us.

2085. What I Think About Evolution

Comment #46805 by Dr Benway on June 1, 2007 at 5:48 pm

Brownback:

Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order.

Light on facts, heavy on good bellyfeel. Doubleplusgood duckspeak!

Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.

There is much to agree with here. "Atheistic theology" is a fine blackwhite term. And Brownback's opposition to evolutionary theory is goodthinkful. Science is dangerously close to thoughtcrime. The scientific method relies upon independent corroboration of observations and thus threatens the Party's role as sole arbiter of truth about the natural world.

It does not strike me as anti-science or anti-reason to question the philosophical presuppositions behind theories offered by scientists who, in excluding the possibility of design or purpose, venture far beyond their realm of empirical science.

A scientist must be continually reminded of his place. He is a collector of information and statistics in service to Party objectives. It is for the Party, not the scientist, to determine the significance and uses of his findings.

Yet I believe, as do many biologists and people of faith, that the process of creation — and indeed life today — is sustained by the hand of God in a manner known fully only to him.

More bellyfeel, which is plusgood in such a prollfeed piece. However, the God word must be carefully managed, as it can convey either goodthink or quite the opposite. Everything depends upon the speaker's apparent belief in the method of God's revelation.

A speaker who claims that God reveals himself to individuals via internal states or events, such as the voice of personal conscience, is clearly a thoughtcriminal. Personal conscience undermines reflexive submission to any external, organizational authority - a result inimical to the Party's aims.

If however a speaker maintains that human beings come to know God via sacred writings, he is on safe ground. Scriptures invariably are ambiguous and require interpretation and explanation by persons of authority. It's a simple matter to merge the social authority afforded to religious leaders with that of political leaders. One only has to encourage wide acceptance of the notion that religious orthodoxy is an appealing quality in a political leader.

Ideally Senator Brownback ought to replace the word "God" with "Big Brother" in future public writings or speeches.

2086. Creationist Periodic Table of the Elements

Comment #45012 by Dr Benway on May 25, 2007 at 7:25 pm

I'll share a similar Kansas spoof I read years ago on the James Randi site (http://www.randi.org/jr/12-01-2000.html):

The Kansas Board of Education voted today to eliminate mandatory teaching of the theory of evaporation from schools across the state. Most scientists believe that water and other liquids are spontaneously converted by so-called evaporation into the form of a gas, and carried off into the atmosphere. This, they say, is the explanation behind sudden disappearances of water all across the state.

Many non-scientists, however, stand by the widely accepted theory that a lovable invisible two-headed thirsty blue giraffe named Clarence is responsible for the disappearances. The two theories, evaporation and Giraffism, will now be taught on a more equal footing to school-children across Kansas. Parents are pleased, saying that Giraffism is easier to understand and far more comforting to small children. "There's nothing happy about evaporation," says Frank Nubbins, father of Jason, 6, and Sue Ellen, 4. "Clarence the giraffe is blue, and he's lovable. You can't say that about evaporation, that's for sure. I love my children."

"Nobody has ever adequately explained evaporation," says Dr. Harold Thumper, of the Kansas Board of Education. "With evaporation, we're expected to imagine that water just disappears, all by itself, with no rhyme or reason. That's ridiculous."

Clarence the lovable invisible two-headed blue giraffe, on the other hand, is always thirsty, an explanation which is simple and obvious. He has a well-established presence in children's literature. "Every culture on the planet," says Dr. Thumper "has a story about giraffes, or thirstiness, or lovable blue things. Most of these have happy, happy endings. My children just love these stories. But I challenge you to find a single good story about evaporation."

The theory of evaporation is getting a dry reception in academia these days. At leading universities including Harvard, Stanford, and MIT, it's impossible to find a single professor of Evaporation on the faculty. "What's the point?" says Gwen O'Malley, dean of the Harvard Medical School. "It's not exactly a good career move to spend your life trying to explain evaporation to people."

2087. Atheists: Get off of our country!

Comment #45008 by Dr Benway on May 25, 2007 at 7:11 pm

So, to all atheists in America: get off of our country

The evil atheist powers that we practice allow us to hover 2 mm above the ground at all times. Rest assured, we're actually not on the country at all.

2088. Teachers rebel over atheism promotion

Comment #45004 by Dr Benway on May 25, 2007 at 7:01 pm

Officials said during 2005-2006, the school handled 97 advertisement distribution requests, ranging from children's theater and Cub Scouts to summer camps, swimming and softball leagues.

Christ on a crutch! 97 adverts? Anyone arguing about beliefs is missing the big picture. We face a greater evil than government endorsement of religion. That evil is spam.

I DON'T LIKE SPAM!

"If you let one you have to let all" has hit the reductio ad absurdum wall. We can't allow any private group to use public schools for advertising purposes.

Telemarketer cold calls while I'm in the shower, junk faxes with large graphics trying to sell me toner, spam adverts flooding my inbox, stacks of unwanted paper adverts I have to take to the recycling center each week. Enough!

Sorry advertisers, but you need limits. You're out of control.

2089. I'm Sure God is Scared

Comment #44991 by Dr Benway on May 25, 2007 at 6:23 pm

Something happened that turned him against God, and whatever it was, he has decided to make the rest of us pay for it. Anger this strong cannot possibly be based in reason.

Surely by now everyone knows that Hitchens stood up for Salman Rushdie when few else would. Imagine what it might be like, having a friend under a death sentence for religious reasons so stupid as to be Pythonesque. Outrage like that lingers.

I don't expect religion to vanish. I'm holding out a hope, however, that humans can come to view religion and religious experience as personal and subjective.

I can imagine a world where religion remains important, not as a repository of scientific fact, but as a personal art and practice. Religion is now and can remain a place where people work through questions about how to live the good life in relation to others and in keeping with one's own concience.

Viewed thus as an art form, religious conversions wouldn't make sense. Earth would have as many religions as there are people on it. Each religion could only have one authentic member.

Keep your religion, religious people. Just toss the pretention to scientific understanding via the scriptures or personal revelation. And toss the politics. Your personal God has no place ruling over your fellows.

2090. Another Christian Science Fair embarrasses itself

Comment #44954 by Dr Benway on May 25, 2007 at 4:26 pm

This story brings back memories of a very cool toy called Magic Rocks. Anyone remember Magic Rocks? Somewhat toxic, but we didn't worry 'bout no toxic in my day.

See a movie of Magic Rocks in action here: http://www.thesneeze.com/art/rocks1.swf

2091. Liberty U student plotted to set off explosives, police say

Comment #44303 by Dr Benway on May 24, 2007 at 7:49 am

Logicel wrote:

Christians view all humans as being innately evil, but it also preaches that this evil can be adequately compensated by following the religion's credo

In "god is not Great" Hitchens makes an important point: totalitarian systems all have this in common: laws no one can follow (e.g., love your enemies). When everyone is a lawbreaker, everyone is guilty. Everyone stands accused. No one, therefore, has the confidence to speak or to challenge authority. How convenient for the powers that be.

Different but related topic: It's bad manners to say, "I'm better than other people." For those who would like to say it, religion provides a tricky fix. First you humbly say, "I'm a terrible sinner." Then you say, "praise God for saving me by his grace!" Thus you can compliment God for selecting you from among the unwashed hordes and placing you among the heaven bound in-crowd, without sounding like a self-satisfied prick. Well, at least to those who share your gift for doublethink.

Religious people won't get what I'm saying. This might help: imagine God is actually a sock puppet you're wearing on your right hand. Without moving your lips too much, make the puppet say, "I so loved you that I sent my son to die for you." You then say, "Thank you so much, God!"

Then make the puppet say, "For God so hated the world, that he sent His only begotten son. Those that don't believe in him will roast in the fires of hell for eternity."

2092. Liberty U student plotted to set off explosives, police say

Comment #44256 by Dr Benway on May 23, 2007 at 9:58 pm

Goodwithwood wrote:

To make it simpler for you bizarro Napalm is what fuels the eternal fires of hell.

They have Joy in hell? Oh the irony.

2093. 'Einstein - His Life and Universe'

Comment #44251 by Dr Benway on May 23, 2007 at 9:36 pm

Thanks, Healing One, for a reminder of the complete quote.

Einstein's God is impersonal and doesn't intervene in human affairs. This God is effectively a symbol representing that which is beyond our present powers of representation.

"Religion" as used by Einstein seems akin to ethics.

I've no complaint with Einstein. I think "caving in to the religious nutcases" is a bit strong.

2094. Liberty U student plotted to set off explosives, police say

Comment #44240 by Dr Benway on May 23, 2007 at 8:16 pm

Bizarro wrote:

This event therefore is not representative of the Christian ideal, but rather of the basic human tendency towards evil.

I vote the guy is more nuts than evil, but I dunno.

I think of evil as heartless cruelty done to provoke a feeling of power or superiority over someone else.

4% of the American population lacks the normal, empathic feeling for others. Relationships don't offer much pleasure apart from the pleasure of winning.

96% feel with other people, and thus the pleasure of dominating or winning is tinged with anxiety for the other person's suffering. These people don't get the same buzz from cruelty that the 4% get. For the 96%, sharing mutually pleasurable experiences is a stronger motivation than the wish to dominate.

In short, the vast majority of people are basically good. Evil exists and it's wise to keep your eyes open for it, but it's not universal.

2095. Liberty U student plotted to set off explosives, police say

Comment #44222 by Dr Benway on May 23, 2007 at 6:41 pm

Scott McMeekin wrote:

We've even got some mealy-mouthed defense - "slow burning" - oh well that's ok - he only intended to maim the atheists, not actually blow them up.

Were atheists planning to protest? Seems a waste of valuable atheist time, which more properly ought to be spent celebrating. I'd heard of the Fred Phelps gang staging a protest, but no one else.

2096. Would the World Be Safer Without Religion?

Comment #43401 by Dr Benway on May 21, 2007 at 9:25 am

Steven Mading wrote:

Nina, there is no such thing as sincere faith. Faith is, by definition, believing something while admitting to one's self that there isn't a reasonable reason to do so. That is inherently dishonest.

Devil's advocate here. Imagine an angel appears to you and tells you something about God. Could happen, maybe.

I'm willing to allow people faith regarding subjective experiences no one else can corroborate. However, I feel such people have a duty to recognize the lesser evidentiary status of their claims in the public sphere. They've no rational basis for insisting others take them seriously. They've only their own pathological narcissism as a basis, and that's the worst basis imaginable.

2097. Christopher Hitchens Is a Treasure

Comment #43362 by Dr Benway on May 21, 2007 at 7:21 am

3) Logical error. Harris says that certainty about the next life is simply incompatible with tolerance in this one. But since Sam Harris is tolerated and left unmolested in a nation where 150 million people, by his account, possess such certainty, this is obviously wrong.

Only in secular societies are unbelievers granted equality before the law. It's American secularism that protects Sam Harris, not American Christianity or American Islam. Were either religion truly interested in the rights of the faithless, we'd read about these rights in the scriptures. In fact, we read just the opposite.

2098. Christopher Hitchens Is a Treasure

Comment #43360 by Dr Benway on May 21, 2007 at 7:12 am

phasmagigas, I believe Harris' criticism of the moderate is even stronger than the bystander argument.

The fundamentalist appeals to faith as a justification for violence. The rationalist says faith, or belief without evidence, isn't a valid justification.

The moderate religionist calls the rationalist a bigot and describes critical arguments against faith as "angry diatribes."

The rationalist is like a cop disarming a lunatic with a gun. The moderate religionist shoots the cop, then hands the gun back to the lunatic.

2099. Christopher Hitchens Is a Treasure

Comment #43345 by Dr Benway on May 21, 2007 at 6:38 am

As Jürgen Habermas points out, nearly all the basic ideals of the Enlightenment – such as fraternity, not to say, liberty and equality — derive from Christianity, not from Greece or Rome.

The anchovy fallacy.

Friend: Have a piece of pizza.
Me: No thanks. It's got anchovies.
Friend: It's got pepperonis and mushrooms also. You love those. You told me just the other day, the best pizza is one with pepperonis and mushrooms. I don't understand your inconsistency. You're not being entirely honest with yourself. In your heart of hearts, you know you want this pizza.

2100. Christopher Hitchens Is a Treasure

Comment #43323 by Dr Benway on May 21, 2007 at 5:50 am

Michael Novak:

Otherwise, why year after year keep striking another stake in the heart of God?

Two words: Salman Rushdie. It can be quite affecting, knowing a friend is under threat of murder.

Prior to 9-11, I became friends with an older gentleman who worked as an Indonesian and Arabic translator in the Boston area. A kindly, bookish, overweight bachelor who converted to Islam while living in Indonesia many years ago. I'll call him Halim, although that's not his name.

In his youth he was an idealist after purity. Time slowly stripped away his naivete. Lacking a science background, he had a number of mystical ideas that he assumed were consonant with naturalism. But by the time I got to know him he was essentially an atheist. Nonetheless, he continued going to Friday prayers. He explained to me that apostasy is a capital crime in Islam.

I said, I see how that would be a problem for you in Saudi Arabia. But you live in Boston.

He said, but the nutters don't respect man's law, only God's law, and I know two crazy enough to do it.

I didn't quite believe him initially. But over several months he shared other stories that painted a disturbing picture of this subculture. He asked me, what might happen to a kid growing up in a pleasant Boston suburb, a child of upper middle class, intelligent, rational parents, to make him convert to Islam? He described a couple of young men in their 20s who just returned from the Haj. They affected that annoying brand of enlightenment similar to someone in love. "They're wearing leather socks, and it's 80 degrees out."

A man had put up a blanket down the middle of the mosque to separate the women from the men. Halim said, "I said to the guy, 'you need to be in a CLINIC!' But the blanket stays, because the zealots always win."

He told me about some grad students at a respected university, just back from a visit home to family in Pakistan. These boys bragged about taking pot shots at Hindus across the border using high-powered rifles.

Then 9-11 happened, and I no longer doubted my friend's apostasy worries. I talked about this to a few mutual friends, Muslim sympathizers, and didn't get much response. Made me feel I was surrounded by somnambulists. Then the television was filled with people saying, "Islam is a religion of peace."

To this day, I can't hear the name "Karen Anderson" without reflexively ranting and cursing.