Archive for the 'Religion' Category

What is it about evolution that makes religious people so crazy? Is it that the truth hurts? Are they so married to the idea of their point of view that they can tolerate nothing that contradicts it? Are they just power freaks? Are they afraid of themselves in a world without hellfire as punishment and easy forgiveness with the mere invocation of a name? Or are they just afraid of monkeys?

Whatever the reasons are they are wrong. Ok I said it. There is no debating this issue. Not in a science class anyway which is where Bush and the crusaders he’s enabled are trying to reintroduce the discredited and legislatively denied creationist p.o.v. under the guise of Intelligent Design. Faced with a series of legal setbacks keeping creationism out of our schools including use of the 1st Amendment and its unconstitutionality in the cases of McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education and Edwards v. Aguillard, both dating from the early 80′s, which both followed and preceded other legal setbacks for those that tried to violate our basic principle of seperation of religion and government, the Bible first crowd is trying a new tact.

Now they are back for more with ID. They are armed with a motley crue of a small number of scientists who are almost all associated with the right wing think tank the Discovery Institute and its offshoot the Center for Science and Culture. The New Republic article I will mention again in a moment and which i can post at request if anyone can’t get access, and numerous other entities have amply and empirically discredited these hacks and their religious agenda. They are all, of course, backed by their fearless leader W, who said he thinks ID should be taught in classrooms because, “part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought.” Well then let’s teach Communism and Socialist ideals in school too? Throw a little Satanism or Wicca in, maybe with some alternate history by Harry Turtledove, Philip Roth, or even Newt Gingrich who has co-authored a civil war trilogy where, and this is a shocker huh, the South wins.

But this is not the place for a lengthy stripping of the creationist or ID case. For a long and excellent one see Jeff Coyne’s article in The New Republic (you can read it online after registration at TNR.com. *

What might be scarier is how the media is folding under the guise of objective journalism or equal time for both sides and giving credibility to a creditless and crackpot theory with no scientific virtues. In the wake of the current Dover trial that has parents fighting the mandated incorporation of ID into science curriculums, we’ve got beaucoup media debates trying deal with the question equally. But ID/creationism has no more place in reasoned journalistic debates than classrooms, which have no less obligation to give voice to these theories than they would to those that teach Bill Bennet’s recent theory on abortion and black children, which actually has more sound science behind than the ID argument. We’ve even had to put up with the increasingly annoying NY Times getting in on the “debate,” on a regular basis. Their latest is a piece that makes the ID/creationist side part of a noble debate with evolution that supposedly fits right in with our democratic ideals. Problem is that, as the Coyne article deftly proves, as have many and countless books, journals, peer reviewed papers, scientists, etc,there is no warrantable debate here. What is happening is not the dialectic process at work. What is happening is a total capitulation to the growing right wing fundamentalist empire.

But beyond the facts that reduce Intelligent Design to a dung pile of Jobian proportions, I’d like to discuss why this is being allowed to gain credibility. For some of the societal trends towards the lowering of standards of truth see my rant on bullshit. To sum that up briefly we are a nation that enjoys lying and being lied to and have many mechanisms in place that encourage it. Now we get former media stalwarts that should act as watchdogs for the public interest giving in to the culture of bullshit that now seems to have its headquarters in the White House. The Monday edition ran one of a few recent forays into the world of bad science as a give and take article is presented without any of the voluminous refutations of every aspect of the ID argument being talked about, or mentioning the fact that the Discovery Institute is a right wing think tank. Yes the piece is balanced with something for both sides and no clear bias towards either ID or evolution. But quite frankly, not all arguments deserve equal time, and the only reason this ID scam is getting it is because of the all pervasive fear of the right wing and the corporations they are aligned with.

The NY Times is a business too and they have advertisers to please. It seems the kind of affirmative action hiring that let Jayson Blair embarass the paper extends also to pasty white guys who voted for Bush. Here’s an excerpt from a recent Alterman column in The Nation about the Times.

Op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote that the paper suffers from a “failure to hire more red state evangelicals.” A recent “credibility” committee formed in the wake of the Blair and WMD scandals somehow resulted in a meeting, written up by Todd Gitlin in The American Prospect, in which one editor suggested an affirmative-action program for conservatives. And following the committee’s report, executive editor Bill Keller sent the staff a memo urging reporters and editors to “stretch beyond our predominantly urban, culturally liberal orientation.”

Nation

That a major journalistic vanguard like this would consciously decide to opt for diversity over facts to increase their appeal should be scandalous. But in a world where Bill O’Reilly can claim to live in a no spin zone and someone believes it, what’s one more loss of integrity? Lie about Iraq and screw up the invasion with a plan lacking focus on the facts on the ground or exit strategy? No problem, here’s your medal of honor Mr Rumsfeld, Mr Bremer. Get caught in yet another compromising journalistic position, that in this case could have cost a CIA agent her life and qualifies as treason? Not an issue at CNN where Robert Novak continues his admited crusade for all things conservative. So who cares if the NY Times sells out too? You have to go with the flow.

We are in dangerous territory when malicious and selfish interests can use the ideals of fair and equal time and notions of all sides being heard on a topic, to gain political and religious advantages. Playing off the gullibility of most of us and relying on the adage about a little bit of knowledge, the corporate, political, religious complex uses the familiarity of the concepts of such lofty ideals as honest debate to fulfill an agenda that depends on the absence of scrutiny of those ideals and their complexity. They depend on us merely sipping those Pierian springs Alexander Pope wrote about and we quote here on the site.

Not all arguments are valid just because many people get off on them. There should be standards of acccountability and verification before public forums are given over to specious arguments merely because some feel strongly about them. It would be nice to think that the less credible sides can be given their time and we then let a discerning nation sift through the evidence. But 59 million people voted for George Bush people! Alot of people are not equipped to make these judgments and I for one would like to see the educated and disciplined ones who are and presumably work for organizations worthy of their talents and ethics, not waste space or time on nonsense. Particularly when they are doing this to fulfill some half assed quota or trying to keep advertisers happy because they pay not only the Times bills but many of the White House’s, who in turn rely on misinformation to oil their imperialistic machine.

ID is fine in a philosophy class where speculation can run a little more rampant, or a religious one where its audience has come to hear what they already believe anyway, but in public schools and major media outlets which shape many minds and beliefs there should be no countenance to such dribble unless it is qualified under the proper aegis of fun speculation or fanciful imaginings. There should be no doubt in anyones mind that ID has no peer reviewed science to back up one iota of what it contends, can not disprove one element of Darwinism, which in turn can disprove virutally, if not all, of ID’s, while backing up virtually all of its own with amazing sets of predictions and their fulfillment.

The links between ID and creationist should also be duly noted, as should the many, many legal losses creationist have sustained, as well as informing them of the latest struggle which culminates in the current Kitzmiller et al v Dover area school district case in Pennsylvania where an attempt to force ID on school kids has been fighting a losing battle thanks to the suit brought against it by some of their parents.

For the motivations behind ID take a look at these comments from 2 of the movements leading proponents who have been pushing the campaign for years. First from Phil Johnson who wrote Darwin On Trial, we have his admittance that ID is a “wedge strategy,” meant to push out naturalist science in favor of spiritualism and make people associate Darwinism with atheism. In his own words Johnson admits the need to, ” Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy.” * Here we have a man who has also written a book on creationism admitting that in order to get what they want he realizes the bible has to be low keyed because it cant win in the open.

And here is Jonathan Wells, a member of Reverend Moon’s Unification Church:

Father’s [Reverend Moon's] words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.*

And there are others. What is clear is that another kind of crusade is taking place and the battlefield is our kids brains and our own as well. What is also clear is that publications that should know better like the NY Times have not learned a thing from their initial unquestioning support of the war in Iraq and are again abetting the side of lies by legitimizing them in their pages under the guise of journalistic debate.

For a cool little macromedia flash cartoon on the subject check THIS out.

*See above NR link or issue in which this also appears. Title of piece is The Case Against Intelligent Design:The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name. It appeared in an August issue. You may not ahve to register to get it but if there is any problem for anyone who wants to read it and can’t access it let me know and I’ll either e mail it to people individually or copy it on to the site, which may or may not be violating some laws to do so in total.

Been wondering what happened to critical patients in New Orleans area hospitals when power was lost and flooding caused evacuation? Maybe like me you assumed there were some rough moments as they had to evacuate these people, but that the hospitals were a priority and they mostly all got lifted out and moved to other places able to handle them? Maybe some makeshift setup was concocted at the airport where all those Dr’s and nurses were treating so many people? Probably a few were lost along the way, but for the most part these poor folks are living or dying the way god intended?

Uh-uh. Go down a bit deeper and think those thoughts you didn’t want to think.

With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.

Daily Telegraph

Euthanasia is illegal in Louisiana, but, “One emergency official, William Forest McQueen, said: ‘Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die.’ ” He had to tell family members that they were “put down.” Dr’s speaking in anonymity due to the law said these people were in agony and serious distress over the circumstances and that they did the only compassionate thing they could.

And what else could they have done? Horrible situation we’re not used to seeing in a country that affords us the illusion of the sanctity of life and the warm glow of of our cherished luxury to opine about how other people should live theirs. But if those opinions are real and those who make no compromise in issues of abortion or went all sanctimonius over Terri Schiavo want to be consistent they and their leader in D.C. should have something to say about the hubris of Dr’s and the violation of god’s will, right?

Or is it only when it’s politically expedient do we see His Fraudulency rush from one of his rest stops, as he did in the Schiavo case, (unlike his actions on 9-11 and Katrina when in both cases he ran the other way), and to the forefront of his no compromising attitude when it comes to issues of morality? Will he only rally around god when his constituents call for it? And will they, or might they make an exception here? Clearly public opinion will not be kind now that the reality of natures brute force and the futher incompetence of small p’s peeps have illustrated just how silly and inconsequential our beliefs can be. Does that make it unlikely that the kids from the 700 Club will have much to say in this instance of plug pulling and human accelerated death?

But if they believe so strongly there should be no exception then this denial of that precious right to life should not go by without outrage. To let it do so would be to admit the existence of moral caveats. Refusal to punish those who have killed others is a tacit admission that extenuating circumstances can change the immutable will of god. I’ll have to wonder what exception they might make when it’s their daughter’s pregnancy at 15 that threatens to ruin their standing. Or what will happen when their relative is sucking the financial lifeblood out of the family as they linger in a mortal stasis on man made machines for years? They won’t disillusion me will they? I have not agreed with these people in the past but surely they are not hypocrites and will defend the right to life without exception right?

I mean it’s not like fundamentalists approve of capital punsihment or anything.

Genesis 9:6 — “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.”
Exodus 21:14 “If a man schemes and kills another man deliberately, take him away … and put him to death.”

Oh well it’s ok then since it’s in the bible. Hold on a sec let me read a bit further and….oh. Ummm. Yeah, I uh, well it kind of goes on to include things like sodomy, bestiality, incest, kidnapping, prostitution, adultery, perjury, blasphemy, female promiscuity before marriage, talking back to parents, working on the Sabbath, showing contempt for a judge or priest, false prophecy, owning an ox that kills someone, and being rebellious as all similarly worthy of death. That’s a lot of killing we’d have to do. Courtney Love alone qualifies for pretty much all those categories.

So I can expect the moral majority to get their act together and start pushing for god’s hit list soon right. Kill those Dr’s in N.O. for a start and then just drop a bomb on those Hollywood perverts. Think of all the rockers thy can get rid of just on the talking back and rebellious charge. I’ll miss Henry Rollins but at least those Gallagher boys wont be around to trouble us anymore. Dionne Warwick is in trouble on that false prophecy charge along with anyone else who’s ever called themselves a psychic. And those poor animals on the Discovery Channel. At least 2 chages against them.

Come to think of it 6 of those categories above apply to me. I sure hope those Christian’s have at least a little moral hypocrisy in them. You think they might?

Chief Justice William h Rehnquist dies from Cancer tonight. Yahoo News. So we have more proof that God listens to the prayers of idiots. Not content with God forcing Sandra Day o’Connor to resign, presumably under pressure of divine death threats, Robertson asked his fellow organized dirtbags to pray harder for another Supreme Court opening soon. So tonight Robertson’s mercenary divinity strikes again.
The criminals in the Right Wing fundamentalist halo mafia get their boy W one more shot at stacking the courts before a liberal gets into the White House. With the traitorous scumbags in the Democrat party once again putting up no fight over John Roberts nomination, there is little hope that our Supreme Court won’t more closely resemble the Imperial one led by Palpatine than the vanguards of equality, common sense, pragmatism, and ethics led by men like Oliver Wendel Holmes.
How long before their god starts targeting Michael Moore? Hillary Clinton? The Dixie Chicks for Christ’s sake. I think I see his plan now. He gets his fellow Sith-esque followers in positions to make important decisions and then, has a bunch of Jar Jar Binks to cast the votes that will one day make him supreme ruler of the United States.
Somebody put an A.P.B. out on this bastard! Stop god before he strikes again! Where’s a Jedi when you need one.

I love the English. Let me make that clear. I fantasize about moving to London someday, kneel at every ironic and haughty utterance that comes from their humor and film, and think women with English accents (well i guess any accent really) exponentially increase their sexiness quotient. But what’s up with all the hating going on?

Hate crimes are up 600% in England from this time a year ago due mostly to the fallout from the July bombings there. Tony Blair and co have passed legislation to deport Arabs. Home Secretary Charles Clarke has published a list of activities, that like our own Patriot Act, has been crticized by civil and human rights groups, and leaves alot of leeway for abuse. These rules will encompass articles and websites that preexisted the bombings and target their authors. Arabs like Mohammed al-Massari with websites carrying images of attacks on British troops in Iraq will likely face deportation under the new guidelines. Said Clarke, “Individuals who seek to create fear, distrust and division in order to stir up terrorist activity will not be tolerated by the government or by our communities.” Hell, War Of The Worlds kind of does that doesn’t it? Under that provision I guess Bush wont be visiting England again anytime soon huh? Kind of exactly what he did to the red states to get them to hate Iraq and Democrats.

Clarke added that, “preachers of intolerance and hatred,” will not be tolerated. Imagine that here? There goes Christian fundamentalism. Pack your bags Falwell. Want Chavez assasinated Pat Robertson? How about we deport you to Venezeula and you two can work out your difficulties together? Imagine how many local churces would be looking for help. Without intolerance and hatred they pretty much don’t have a function until they get to gloat on Rapture day.

When does someone take a look at history and find out what really foments their hatred of all us “infidels?” Could the decades of the U.S. making Israel thier largest source of foreign aid which helped subsidize the extermination and occupation of Palestinians possibly be a factor? Might not out current soiree in Iraq have similar effects? Sayyid Qutb is regarded amongs many as one of the fathers of radical Islam. Where did his awakening occur and when? While going to school in the U.S. where he arrived in 48 when Israel was created. He attributed much of his thinking to seeing American racism at work and watching the world turn a blind eye to what was being done to the Palestinians at that point. Later he was tortured in Egypt for his beliefs and associations and came to see the torturers as subhumans who were expendable. These mutated later into the infidels, of which most of us now fit, according to him and his descendents.

I don’t defend this guy. He was as much of a nut as Robertson and the growing lunatic fringe making up the hate groups that hide behind different religious denominations and those unwatchable cable channels where ugly people with bad makeup and big hair do alot of praising while they make more money. But what makes the nuts? Sure their own religion is as faulty and poisoned as ours, maybe more so, but it has always been Western interference, oppression, and aiding of Israel that has been a prime recruitment tool for terrorist groups. With England’s reactionary response as well as our own continued oblivious disregard for reality and facts on the ground, more and more people realize we’re not even getting safer in the short term, much less the long. Al Qaeda now uses footage of our work in the area including Abu-Ghraib to lure more people into the fold of player hating. While our own military’s numbers go down, Bin Ladens troops prospered not only in Afghanastan where their fearless leader was most probably on the ropes until we pulled forces out and ran to Iraq, but worldwide.

The London non profit and non partisan think tank IISS, a leading authority on global conflict and military matters, wrote last year and printed at Salon’s site, that Al Qaeda, has more than 18,000 militants in its ranks from 60 countries and that ranks have grown since Iraq. Here’s a quote from the report:

“Overall, risks of terrorism to Westerns and Western assets in Arab countries appeared to increase after the Iraq war began in March 2003. With the miilitary invasion and occupation of Iraq, the United States sought to change the political status quo in the Arab world to advance the American strategic and political interests. Al Qaeda seeks, among other things, to purge the Arab and larger Muslim world of U.S. influence. Accordingly, the Iraq intervention was always likely in the short term, to enhance jihadist recruitment and intensify al Qaeda’s motivation to encourage and assist terrorist operations.”

Now long term who knows for certain how this will all go? But if things go accordant with history there are many young Muslim kids watching their families die and suffer brutally as they go without basic amenities, seeing the worlds racial and religious intolerance of them grow, heard about or seen images of our troops desecrating their holy places and gunning down innocents, incarcerating and torturing their people, and generally interfering in other people’s homes. The unspoken neo-con justification is most probably that by the time these kids get older they’ll be under Western control, bathing in our amenities and the glories of globalization. That or they’ll just be under contol. I agree that people will generally forgive alot and sell out for profit and comfort. Beliefs are as strong as the deprivation that breeds them, for the most part, but I’m not so certain our efforts will produce such joys. Have they here? How much hate permeate the hearts and minds of militia members, religious fundamentalists, racists, gang members, skin heads and many more in America? Doesn’t matter where propaganda and brainwashing end up directing it, it’s there, and in the Arab world those inevitable pockets of hate and deprivation will not breed those who rail out about terrorists, blacks , Hispanics, godless liberals, or their wives, but will instead be directed at us. And only us.

For more on Qutb and his revelence to this issue see another great Naomi Klein column from The Nation.