Donahue needs some additional press

Well little Billie just can't take it and decides to unleash on "Militant Atheism". First of all, let's just address the deceptive use of the term militant, because it deserves an answer. Words matter and the use of the term is intended to connect two boogeymen in the minds of his flock. Obviously militant can mean:

vigorously active and aggressive, esp. in support of a cause: militant reformers.

Now being vigorously active and aggressive in support of a cause is not always a negative. Surely a less militant Martin Luther King would not have been desirable. You could say the same about a militant peace activist. And yet that combination of words in today's context seem like an oxymoron. In a very strict language sense it, of course, is not contradictory. But in the hear and now, and particularly in the last 7 years militant translates to Islamic militant. Donahue is keenly aware of this. Which brings us to the second definition of the word:

engaged in warfare; fighting.

The atheist authors and thinkers Donahue mentions in his screed probably don't even own a single firearm between them. And they are certainly not engaged in an armed conflict. They are simply making arguments and speaking out. But Donahue knows that using the word militant will create a correlation between the pictures of the Islamic militants that your average Catholic sees on TV and a handful of atheist authors. The fact that these authors ideas and philosophies are as far from that of an Islamic militant as conceivably possible is of no consequence. Donahue has to know this and yet he uses the term dishonestly anyway. Now on to the substance (or lack thereof) of "From the President's Desk".

Donahue begins by recounting the four incidents of Eucharist no-nos over the summer that got him so riled up. He first related a Sally Quinn article in which she related that she would take communion in order to honor Tim Russert. This is how he described it:

The first incident occurred when Washington Post religion editor Sally Quinn decided she would show how much she cared about the late Tim Russert by doing something she hated to do—receive Communion; Quinn is not Catholic.

Of course Quinn never said in her article she "hated" taking communion. In fact here is the relevant passage:

Last Wednesday at Tim's funeral mass at Trinity Church in Georgetown (Jack Kennedy's church), communion was offered. I had only taken communion once in my life, at an evangelical church. It was soon after I had started "On Faith" and I wanted to see what it was like. Oddly I had a slightly nauseated sensation after I took it, knowing that in some way it represented the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Last Wednesday I was determined to take it for Tim, transubstantiation notwithstanding. I'm so glad I did. It made me feel closer to him. And it was worth it just to imagine how he would have loved it. After I began "On Faith," Tim started calling me "Sister Sal" instead of "Miss Sal."

Notice no mention of hate. It clearly provided some comfort to her over the loss of a good friend and respected colleague. Also notice Donahue's last notation "Quinn is not Catholic". In this we see the tribal nature of religion. Quinn is not a part of Donahue's tribe. Thus, even respectfully partaking of their custom becomes an offense. It is unlikely that Quinn was even aware that she would be offending the likes of Donahue and his ilk. Ignorance of weird ritualistic hangups provide no excuse for her crime.

Donahue goes on to the militant atheist authors:

What’s going on is that militant atheism is all the rage. Books by Richard Dawkins (a personal friend of Myers who lies about me the same way Myers does), Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens have all sold well, and what they are selling is hate. Hatred of religion in general, and Christianity in particular. The bulls-eye, of course, is Roman Catholicism. I’ll give them this much: At least the religion bashers are smart enough to know who’s on top.

It is almost amazing to count the number of fallacies contained in that paragraph. Unsupported assertions, demagoguery, selective reading all make the list with a heaping dollop of smug arrogance adorning the top of it all. All of the books by these men spend copious amounts of time on religions outside Christianity. Dawkins, who understandably spends more time on evolution than the other authors, spends less time on the generally pro-evolution Catholic church than the more evangelical creationist sects. Donahue can't help but once again puff out his tribal feathers by declaring that Roman Catholicism is "on top". Isn't there a deadly sin associated with such declarations?

Donahue goes on to play the victim card alongside the tribal appeals already made by declaring:

The sick climate that these zealots have created could not have succeeded without a little help from their friends. In the case of Myers, that means the administrators at the University. They had several options available to them, and they passed on every one of them. Predictably, they hid behind academic freedom, claiming they were impotent to do anything about Myers’ off-campus behavior.

This is utter nonsense, and I will prove it right now: Does anyone believe that the University of Minnesota would do absolutely nothing about a white professor who packed them in at a local comedy club on weekends doing his racist rendition of “Little Black Sambo”? Would the very same administrators plead helplessness about a professor who spoke to community groups off-campus about the mythology of the Holocaust?

Academic freedom is not something to hide behind. It's a guiding principle of Western thought that traces back to the Enlightenment. Donahue's "proof" is of course nonsense but displays perfectly the obvious failures of Catholic philosophy and logic that strech back to the unfortunate and undue respect given to Aristotlian logic. He makes an informal syllogistic comparison between criticism of religion and overt racism. This is a gross category error but it is not uncommon in religious thought. There is of course no "proof" of the supposed nonsense of UMN's position. The hypothetic situations Donahue pulls from thin air aren't even of the same category as Dr. Myers actions not to mention the fact that he is claiming something he cannot know. Indeed, the administration of UMN may be powerless to remove a tenured professor in the situations he gives. But such thoughts don't entertain his mind as he is so focued on the travails and offenses to the tribe. Donahue goes on to cite Larry Summers exit from Harvard. But of course summer was a University President (category error #1) who wasn't fired by a superior (category error #2). He resigned his position after the controversy after a vote of no confidence from his own staff. Logic. Fail.

Donahue goes on to bellow:

Academic freedom was instituted to protect contrarian professors from being hounded out of the academy for challenging the conventional wisdom on a particular academic subject. It was not instituted to protect hate speech. Myers is free to say whatever he wants about his specialty, which is zebrafish, but he has no moral right to assault the sensibilities of any religious group. So what should the administrators have done?

Stick to zebrafish Dr. Myers! Notice the falback on the Orwellian "hate speech" crutch. Of course in Donahue's context this means "anything that criticizes Catholics or challenges Catholic dogma". This is a convenient refuge for the ridiculous to harbor in while trying to avoid scrutiny. The doctorine of transubstantiation lies quite clearly outside of objective material reality. A simple chemical analysis of the wafer and wine before and after the blessing would in all probability reveal them to be identical. So clearly the only way to defend it is to put the issue completely off limits. Any discussion of its validity is so offensive it is off limits.

Donahue finishes off his screed by issuing not so thinly veiled threats:

As I said to Ray Arroyo, this may not be over yet. Over the summer, Myers’ personnel file ballooned: everything that happened regarding this issue is in it. Which means that he’d better be careful about bringing his religious bigotry to bear in the classroom. If just one Catholic student complains that he is being treated unfairly because of his religion, Myers will have to answer.

Unfair treatement of a student because of his religion would clearly be inappropriate for any teacher. But what Donahue means by "unfair" belies his true intentions. Would it be unfair to give a student a poor grade solely on the account of his religious faith. Absolutely. Would it be unfair to give him a poor grade because the student uses his faith to improperly distort what is being taught in the classroom? Not at all. The trend for those that cry religious persecution in classrooms has been pretty evident in recent times. The strategy is to make wild claims about biology and claim persecution when the teacher hands out a giant F for not fulfilling the class requirements. This is Donahue's ham-handed, bullying way to plant a bad seed.

Donahue closes the post out with more self-centered puffery (his arrogance is even more striking in this letter than I have witnessed in him during other media appearances and written statements). You get the feeling that this is not so much about how Catholics feel as how he feels. Which I suppose is appropriate given that the Catholic League has no affiliation with the Catholic Church and anything relating to the Catholic League always seems to be about Bill Donahue.

Well this is a fine little dust up

Yesterday, PZ Myers, of pharyngula fame, pointed to a silly little story of alleged Eucharist desecration and the death threats (yes, that's right I said DEATH THREATS) that the wafer smuggler received after taking the cracker. PZ expressed a desire in his post to obtain the holy tasteless bread to perform some symbolic desecration. Well this got the ire of Captain Catholic himself, Bill Donahue, who now is, of course, calling for PZ Myers job as pennace for so foul an act as doing horrible things to a cracker.

Donahue is the epitome of a serial religious grievence monger. His organization is no different than CAIR, they just hold different myths sacred. Of course it is rank insanity to get huffy over a freakin cracker. Heck, the Catholic church let serial child molestation by its own clergy continue unabated for decades. A little inappropriate cracker touching would seem a minor offense. But irony has never been a strong suit for the relgious mind.

Well this little dust up has landed over at Nation Review Online's The Corner and the results are mixed. Katherine Lopez started it by merely reprinting Donahue's press release. But the response from the peanuts wasn't universal outrage. Andrew Stuttaford pointed out the obvious free speech issues while John Derbyshire reflected on PZ's discussion about piety and intelligence. But the most interesting passage was a letter reprinted by Jonah Goldberg from a reader. From the letter:

I understand that your heart is in the right place here, but the analogy is completely inadequate. We Christians are quite accustomed to have our _images_ treated scornfully, in a way that the Academy would never tolerate for images of politically correct heroes. But the Eucharist is not an image: it is, in the teaching of the Church, the Body of Christ itself. People have died rather than obey their captors' command to desecrate the Eucharist. To a believer, there is simply no analogy between the Eucharist and mere objects, any more than there is between a person and a photograph of a person.

This I find most interesting. If this were indeed the body of a human being, then Catholics around the world are guilty of cannabalism. Whoa whoa whoa!! you say. That's just going too far! Is it really? People like Bill Donahue are demanding that we take their religious views and traditions with respect. He damands it to an extreme that he believes a public University should FIRE a professor for merely suggesting that he would like to"desecrate" a cracker. I'd say that's pretty serious. And as the emailer suggested, Catholics believe that that cracker is the LITERAL body of Christ. It would seem we have no choice but to start rounding up Catholics as they leave the sacrament line. The Catholic League would surely roundly denounce the authorities for, you guessed it, taking their religion seriously.

I don't know how much clearer the goal of an organization like the Catholic League could be. They pine for the warm wooden box of theocracy to bury individual liberty in. Donahue wants the University of Minnesota Morris to destroy the livelihood of an individual over his opinions of a stupid cracker. And make no mistake about it, if Donahue had his way and didn't live in a secular democracy, PZ would have to worry about much more than his job.

Hmmm wonder why none of the companies were named

Fromm CNN we get this lovely piece of uncritical woo. Her name is Laura Day and she's an "intuitionist". It's certainly not surprising that she has a long list of celebrity clients. We expect the Nicole Kidman's of the world to buy what sounds like, well it sounds like absolutely nothing. And she charges her corporate clients 10K a month for this "service". Obviously the story says nothing whatsoever about which companies these may be. I wonder exactly where you put an intuitionist's services on a corporate balance sheet. We've all had to deal with the occasional idiot "consultant" that ends up costing you more than he could ever be worth. Can you imagine working a a particularly vexing project only to have Ms Day come in and convice upper management that her little inner voice tells her that it's a bad idea? And I wonder what the typical stockholder think about the company spending their investment on a bunch of nothing.

It seems that not even corporate America is immune to uncritical irrationality. What amazes me to no end is that CNN runs a total non-story with absolutely no critical examination. Are there no critics of this? If this were a story on, say, stem cell research, we would have quotes from scientists along with some ridiculous, uneducated horse manure from some "family" group. What to we get here? Essentially, it's a glowing profile and advertisement for Day. It almost makes me wonder if one of her clients is a certain news media mogul.....

R.I.P. George Carlin

George Carlin died yesterday of heart failure at the age of 71. Carlin was one of the most eloquent spokesmen for free speech and skepicism by speaking plainly and truthfully about the nonsense of believing in things for which there is no evidence. When arrested for using "vulgarities" in Milwaukee during his 7 words bit, he was asked about if he considered the children in the audience and if he would have used more restraint if he had known there were kids there. Most of the milquetoast entertainers of today would have folded into a genuflect apologia in an attempt to assuage the PC nannies. Carlin was unfazed and basically said it was the kids that needed to hear these words the most before they had built silly prejudices. He was right. Later, a broadcast of his comedy show precipitated a complaint to the FCC that eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court. The case unfortunately ended in a 5-4 decision in favor of the FCC being able to regulate "profane" speech on the radio (which apparently doesn't cover Michael Savage or Mark Levin).

He also directed a considerable amount of ridicule toward the major icons of Christianity. He could mount a full frontal assault on the 10 commandments, the Catholic church and evangelicalism in front of an audience that surely contained a large number of at least nominal Christians and get uproarious laughs. I have to believe that after some of these people stopped laughing and let the reason sink in, they had a "road to Pesci" moment and realized that the religious dogma they had been fed were nothing more than fairy tales.

So in rememberance of George, I will be weaving Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits into my language today. And if anyone is offended well they can just fuck off.

Book burning

No, it's not what you think. It seems there may be a portion of the Jews in Israel that aren't exactly interested in converting like the Hageeites would like. And they're burning New Testaments to make their point. No doubt many of the evangelicals that read this story will recoil in horror as they conveniently forget how they accused the Harry Potter books of promoting witchcraft and yes, burned them.

Beyond the obvious irony, it's a fascinating look into how religion is really just an extension of our tendency towards tribalism. Even among those that claim to be Jewish, the divisions among the traditional Jews and the Messianic Jews are so deep that it is not only driving some individuals to burn the New Testament, but to also attempt to have the government restrict the distribution of the text altogether. The State of Israel is assaulted from almost all sides by Islamic countries who don't believe their country is legitimate. And yet Israel is still beset by the same lunacy that drives Muslim hatred. Their eyes are so colored by their fealty to the tribe that they cannot see themselves in the eyes of their enemy.

Some funny

It's about a year old but still quick funny. The first time I saw Red State, I couldn't tell if it was a parody or not. That's the amazing thing about creationists. The loopy ones are almost indistinguishable from a joke.

Creepy Christian fetishism

Newsweek has a report on the "Holy Land Experience", a bible based theme park in Orlando, Florida. To say this is weird really doesn't quite do it justice. One of the main attractions of the park is a recreation of the crucifixion tale complete with fake blood and an actor playing Jesus nailed to a cross. So amid all the standard trappings of your typical theme park, the $4.00 sodas, cotton candy, and a variety of frozen confections, you get ritual torture and scape goat fetishism.

I honestly have to wonder about the mental stability of a person who would actually go to a place like this for fun. The crucifixion story is not only barbaric in the physical, it's a horrible moral tale. The idea of transferring the wrongs of one person to something else is a common theme in primitive superstitious storytelling. And yet the people watching this somehow find comfort in a god that demands one person be tortured and killed before he grants forgiveness too everyone else.

Creep, creepy, creepy. The intermingling of Jewish and Christian themes also looks an awful lot like the Christian Dominionist style of evangelicalism. I'm sure pastor Hagee would approve.

The WaPo sees through the charade

There's a nice editorial on the Washington Post editorial page echoing my previous post about the red herring of "Academic Freedom" bills. This is a clever tactic in a political sense. It exploits one of the most admirable values of our nation's conscience: our devotion to free and unfettered speech. The problem is this has nothing whatsoever to do with speech. Teachers have a contractual obligation to teach the curriculum as adopted by the governing school district. This is why the creationist tactic has been to target school boards and cajole them into adding ID into it. But that tactic simply won't work. It's creationism promotion in public schools which is a clear violation of the establishment clause. So they have decided on a new tactic. After all, if you can't play by the rules, why not just change them!

This new attempt at inserting GAWD into public schools could do far more damage than even a few school boards adopting "Of Pandas and People". If these pass, teachers would be endlessly bringing their own agendas into public school classrooms. And if they teach some nonsense, they would simply be able to wrap themselves in the flag of "speech". Curricula are adopted for a reason. Without some standard base, education cannot build upon itself. Science teachers would be contradicting each other from year to year and the learning progression would be a muddled mess. Sure science changes. But not in primary and secondary school classrooms. It changes in research and private labs and universities. Then once the science is established, it trickles down to the grade school level.

But ID proponents want to bypass all that and go straight to "teaching the controversy" to 12 year olds. These bills would not just affect the teaching of Biology, but ALL the sciences. It's insidious and needs to be exposed for what it really is.

Dippy Ben Stein wants Darwinism to explain "where gravity came from"

No, I'm not kidding. Here's the clip. If this is the "weakness" of Darwinism, then it's also a weakness in a score of other scientific disciplines. Yet I don't see him tackling chemistry, geology, or even physics. Quite simply, none of these disciplines are even concerned with that question at all. Stein apparently wants every biology class to turn into philosophy 101. He doesn't even understand how science functions. Muddled thinking from a B-list actor. I wonder how he would feel if math classes began asking the question, where did pi come from?

This is NOT a free speech issue unless we define free speech as teaching nonsense. The interviewer of course doesn't challenge him on any of this lunacy. So sad.

The silliness of UFO reports

In an attempt to defuse UFO conspiracy theorists, the UK has declassified a large cache of documents concerning various investigations it has conducted over the years. The result? Precisely what you would expect. Many of these sightings had simple, albeit earthly, explanations. Of course this is not enough for news organization like CNN which reports on the matter complete with cut scenes from popular sci-fi movies and an interview with a UFO investigator atop a background of spooky music. Indeed there are some reports that are unexplained. But instead of the the more likely explanations, we get UFO investigator-man declaring that "the truth lies somewhere in these documents". All in all, UFO reports are innocuous. The mystery surrounding most of these generate all sorts of stories, that usually morph into exaggerations and sometimes flights of fancy. But this report is typical of the way media usually covers these stories. Debunkers are rarely interviewed because the news agency doesn't want to be the spoiled sports for the great majority that pine away for the most fantastic story they can imagine.

For my part, I think it far more likely that a discovery of interstellar life will first be simple and probably unicellular and not a super intelligent race of technologically superior little green men.

That's just wild speculation though ;)

Berkeley defends its "Understanding Evolution" site.....from a 1st Amendment challenge??

Apparently some right wing "legal defense fund" called the Pacific Justice Institute is suing UC Berkeley over some language used on their "Understanding Evolution" web resource. This particular case tugs at 2 of my competing interests and requires me to do a little extra work.

On the one hand, it's vitally important that we teach evolution. Without it, we cannot understand modern biology, physiology, genetics, and a whole host of other scientific disciplines that improve our lives and health. The Berkeley site is a fabulous resource for explaining both the evidence for evolution and its usefulness.

On the other hand, church state separation is a vitally important wall to maintain. The government should never be in the business of taking sides in theological debates or doing anything that could be construed as endorsing a particular religion over another. If the Berkeley site does either of these, it should be reworded to avoid violating the 1st Amendment.

So what's the truth of the matter then? Let's take a look at the complaint and the potentially offensive material. Here is the PJI Press Release. The first clue that these clowns have an agenda that has absolutely nothing to do with dutifully protecting church state separation are the quotes surrounding misconceptions. Although it's clear they are trying to attach derision to the Berkeley site, they fail to acknowledge the the misconceptions are very real. The information presented by the offending page is absolutely factual. There is no derision on that page, merely a factual statement that there are indeed religious ideas that are simply incompatible with evolution. They use, as an example, the literal 6-day creation. Nothing here endorses or derides this as a RELIGIOUS idea. It simply points out the fact that it is incompatible with the body of established evolutionary science. There are literally thousands of other examples of religious creation stories they could have used. They simply chose the one that is most pervasive in the United States. I have a deep suspicion that had they chosen the equally incompatible Islamic creation story, the PJI would not have complained in the same way.

They also complain in the press release that: "The site also warns teachers that student questions which expose the weaknesses of evolution "may be designed to disrupt the learning process" and should not be given the same respect as "legitimate" questions."

Again with the sneering quotes. I'm beginning to wonder if these are serious attorneys or political ideologues. Here is the supposedly offensive page. The Berkeley site is trying to help teachers who are besieged with inanity get through it so they can actually teach the science. In science or any subject, there are legitimate line of questioning and there are dead ends. The PJI surely would not expect a science teacher to seriously entertain astrology while teaching planetary movements or 16th century alchemical beliefs in a chemistry class. But in Biology, they want students to be able to railroad classes with ridiculous non-science questions.

This is the complaint that gives up the deceitful little game the PJI is playing here. This lawsuit is quite transparently part of the new strategy from the ID proponents and their creationist kin. They first tried to insert literal biblical creationism into science classes. Edwards v Aguilar destroyed that dream so they turned to the more nebulous non-science of ID. Even a conservative judge appointed by GWB himself saw through that little ruse. At every turn they have been blocked. So they needed a new strategy. It appears they are now going with a term that very few average people would have a quibble with: "Academic Freedom". Over the past year or so, several states have seen these deceptive little bills show up. They couch them in terms that most Americans, even non-religious ones would support. Students and teachers should have academic freedom to "follow the evidence". They have begun pairing this with RELIGIOUS freedom and have introduced bills that would basically allow students to inject their non-scientific ideas into science classes without fear of academic failure. Here's a rundown of these efforts. Notice the rank dishonesty of these efforts. Again, these bills are not aimed at physics, chemistry, astronomy, or mathematics. It is ONLY the life sciences that are under attack here.

If you go through Berkeley's evolutionary educational site, you can clearly see its purpose. There is no endorsement of any kind of any particular religion at all. The focus is on the SCIENCE and how to answer the inevitable questions they will have to deal with WITHOUT any particular religious issues. The overarching idea of the site is that evolution deals with the material and observable NOT with the supernatural at all. This fall firmly within the Austin Dacey's definition of the accommodationism attitude in the newly published collection from Trinity College, Secularism and Science in the 21st Century. Berkeley is not endorsing any theological belief over another. They are merely pointing out the blindingly obvious fact that some religious ideas directly contradict evolution. They then try to direct teachers to the proper focus of their efforts when teaching evolution: stick with the science. Avoid the supernatural.

In the end, this lawsuit is attempting to accomplish the exact OPPOSITE of what it says. The goal here is not to protect the 1st Amendment prohibition of church/state entanglements. The purpose is to give creationist, religious teachers and students the latitude they need to turn science class into a bible study.

What is an Ardent Skpetic?

So what exactly is an ardent skeptic? It is simply someone who has a very strong belief in practicality and utility of skepticism. Of course skepticism is not an absolute by any means. It is usually measured by the how remarkable or implausible the claim is. That is balanced with the evidence presented in support of the claim and a probability of truthfulness can then be determined. For instance, if my coworker tells me he had a taco salad for lunch, the claim is most certainly quite plausible and therefore very little evidence would be necessary to believe it. (And he would probably look at me funny if I demanded a receipt.) If, however, my coworker claims that his prophet flew to Mercury on a winged horse and delivered a diamond encrusted book that told of how the earth was formed in the belly of an interstellar ogre, I would require a remarkable amount of supporting evidence before I believed it.

Ardent skepticism is not always an easy way of going about your life. Like any pattern seeking mammal, I am sometimes prone to wish-thinking and see evidence for things when no such evidence exists. However, it seems to be the best means available for determining truth we humans possess. While I may veer into some other topics of interest, this blog will focus mostly on skeptical topics and will probably rant on the lunacy of religious and superstitious thought. The easily offended should probably stop here.......