Boycott GE!

Pressured by Joseph Goebbles Pravda Bill O'Reilley, MSNBC stopped airing this ad:



MSNBC is owned by GE, and I suspect that this newest chickenshit decision, just like the recent removal of Keith Olberman from the election news coverage, is dictated by the corporate Big Brother. Another step on the road to the fascist-communist Soviet States of America.

It is time to defend freedom of speech. Send the ad to everyone you know and think twice before buying GE products.

Orlando magic crackers: the saga continues

Wafers of Mass destruction aren't going away. Webster Cook, the student who "kidnapped Christ" is facing possible university disciplinary action, and his friend, whom he wanted to show the wafer, may be in trouble as well. Ed Brayton has the story and the link to the president of the University of Central Florida. I have sent my appeal for an immediate dismissal of all religion-based complaints, and I urge you to do the same.

Meanwhile, Freethought Radio has an interview with Cook (it starts about halfway through the segment). Cook, who is 19, sounds articulate, calm, and polite. The interviewers were rather provocative and snarky at times, but Cook kept his calm and stuck to recounting the events seriously and responsibly. If you suspect that he is a brat and an irresponsible prankster, listen to the interview and you'll probably change your mind.

Besides, he was introduced as a double major in Economics and Actuarial Science, which counts as a big plus here on Gnash Equilibrium.

How about some real support for the troops?

Via PZ Myers, a real vet's story:

A disabled vet has fought far too much already to have to continue to fight with their own government like this when they get home. In this case, it is the soldier who is looking to citizen for help with this fight.

That's just the bottom line. Read the whole thing.

I Support PZ Myers

PZ Myers is an associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris, and the author of the very popular Pharyngula blog. He is currently under attack by the Catholic League president Bill Donohue and his followers.

The case began with the news of a student in Orlando, FL, who attended Mass and took a communion wafer with him instead of swallowing it. He then received threatening messages, and the church filed an official complaint with the University of Central Florida against the student. The student also alleges he was physically attacked while trying to keep the uneaten wafer. The church's overreaction involved calling the student's act "hate crime" and "kidnapping" and procuring armed UCF police officers to stand guard during Mass to protect "the body of Christ".

PZ Myers, an outspoken critic of any belief in the supernatural, known especially for his criticism of religious excesses related to evolution, but also in other contexts, wrote a commentary on his blog in his characteristic sharp and provocative style, in which he exposed the hypocrisy and perverted moral priorities of those (including Donohue) who have made the incident into a high-profile national issue. He ended his post with a satirical request that the readers send him consecrated communion wafers, which he would then treat "with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse". That angered Donohue so much that he called his followers to write to the University of Minnesota (and even to the MN legislature) to demand Myers' resignation. Not surprisingly, Myers has also been receiving numerous threats of physical violence.

While Bill Donohue obviously doesn't speak for most Catholics, he is very influential among the extreme Catholic right, and he and his followers are very vocal and active, so I expect that the president of the University of Minnesota has been getting a deluge of angry letters and e-mails. PZ Myers has asked his readers to send polite messages of support to the president. Many other liberal bloggers (some of whom are known not to like Myers' style) are urging their readers to support Myers.

I wrote a letter to the president of the University of Minnesota, expressing support for Myers. Here it is:

President Robert H. Bruininks
202 Morrill Hall
100 Church Street S.E.
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455

July 13, 2008

Dear President Bruininks,

I wish to express my support for Professor P. Z. Myers, whom I deeply respect for his tireless promotion of science, scientific education, and a scientific worldview.

I am concerned that Professor Myers is, apparently, being threatened by some overzealous individuals who accuse him of offending their religion. If I understand correctly, some of those individuals have written to you demanding that Professor Myers be disciplined or even fired. Those demands are terribly misguided and I respectfully urge you to reject them.

Professor Myers' blog post that angered those people was itself a reaction to the news reports of a student who was harassed, threatened, and possibly assaulted, all for his improper handling of a Communion wafer. Our society's civilization norms do not condone abuse of persons as retaliation for merely symbolic offenses, and Professor Myers was rightly indignant at the treatment to which the student was subjected. His commentary was an appropriate and fair criticism of the abusers and an expression of solidarity with the victim. While it is not surprising that those whom he criticized detested his writing, that cannot justify their attempts to silence him.

Professor Myers' writings for general public are thoughtful, engaging, and highly valuable. University of Minnesota should be proud to have him on its faculty.

Sincerely,
(signed)

If you are familiar with Myers' writings and comfortable with supporting him, feel free to copy as much as you like from my letter. If you are not familiar with him (or not enthusiastic about his style), please consider sending at least a brief e-mail message to Robert H, Bruininks, President of the University of Minnesota; his e-mail address is bruin001@umn.edu. Even a very brief message such as "I support Professor P.Z. Myers" or "I support Professor Myers' rights to free speech" can make a difference. As Mr. Bruininks is probably getting tons of e-mail, it would probably help to give the message a descriptive title, e.g., "Support for PZ Myers".

Ed Brayton is "New"!

Or should I say "fundamentalist"? Or "evangelist"? Whichever misnomer you choose to describe atheists outspoken in criticism of religion, like Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris or PZ Myers (But what about H. L. Mencken or Robert Green Ingersoll?), this post looks like it was written by one of "those people":

Talk about leaving out relevant information. Well yes, Christianity has certainly been a huge influence on Irish culture for centuries, but that hardly tells the full story. Making that vague statement without pointing out that two brands of Christianity have been murdering each other for much of that time is a lot like whitewashing the truth.

That's exactly like Dawkins warning that religion provides a structure for people to divide into opposing camps, define themselves by membership in a camp, and kill the members of the other camp. It would be a one-sided argument if taken out of context, but not if used (as by Dawkins and Brayton) as a counterargument to the dominant/prevailing/background argument that religion benefits the community. As Brayton points out, it is a necessary part of the whole truth.

I am glad to see Brayton arguing like Dawkins because I think he made a mistake when he declared himself to be a member of... well, the opposing camp:

I am firmly a member of the first group, as are the vast majority of those I work with on this issue. Genie Scott, Rob Pennock, Wes Elsberry, Nick Matzke, Jack Krebs and nearly everyone I consider colleagues in this regard recognize that the dispute is over evolution and creationism, not over theism and atheism. But some, like Larry Moran, PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, Gary Hurd and others, are involved in an entirely different battle. For them, it's not enough to protect science education from the attacks of some religious people; religion itself, in any form, is to be attacked and destroyed by any means necessary.

I thin Brayton's self-classification is a mistake not only because I tend to think that Dawkins has the better arguments than the "appeasers", but also because Brayton - much like Larry Moran or PZ Myers - is temperamentally not suited for charming the religious, so he can be more effective if he doesn't try. He is quick to call some types of religious arguments idiotic, and he is usually right, but the division among anti-creationists is not about who is right (they all are), but who is diplomatic. And Ed is not diplomatic, which, BTW, is one of the reasons I read his blog.

UPDATE: Ed Brayton responds here.

Some Garlic Against the Stalin Vampires

Objectively, the "Stalin was an atheist" (SWAA) argument is a stupid, desperate piece of bullshit, but it is repeated ad nauseam and it tends to work well as propaganda, so it is important not to dismiss it too lightly.

In interviews, Dawkins usually responds that (1) Stalin didn't do all those bad things because he was an atheist, and (2) his ideology was rather based on "blind faith" and has more in common with religion than with a rationalist-naturalist atheism. I am afraid this kind of response is not effective enough. Point (1) is lost on most of the sound-bite audience, which is generally unable to tell causation, correlation, and coincidence from each other. Besides, it is an obviously falsifiable hypothesis, so why should it convince a rational opponent without evidence (which can't be packed in a sound bite)? And it is not sexy enough to convince irrational opponents. Point (2) is very good standing by itself, but it redefines the frame of the debate that Dawkins had set up. I have always preferred to group pervasive ideologies with religion, but Dawkins, who entered the debate over religion through the "evolution vs. creationism" gate, had not had the need to do that, which may make him ill-equipped to argue this particular point.

From comments on Pharyngula, here is an excellent answer to the SWAA fallacy that fits in a sound bite:

there is a world of difference between believing that there is no god and believing that there is one, and you're it!

I will adopt this word-for-word, with thanks to David Livesay. It is very effectively framed and presented, while not compromising on the truth. It contains the two most critical points for debunking SWAA:

1. There is a god in every totalitarian ideology. When an idea becomes more important than people, when it is considered worth sacrificing the lives of many people and the welfare of many others to that idea, then that idea is indistinguishable from God. Dogmatic Communism is a religion in every practical sense of the word.
   

2. Stalin substituted himself for God. This should not be taken as literally as the first point, but it is a metaphor that captures the attitude of every totalitarian dictator quite accurately. It is especially true if the dictator exhibits signs of paranoia, which Stalin certainly did, and to which dictators in general are prone. We'll never know what went on in Stalin's head, but it is possible that he viewed God not as a non-entity, but rather as his rival, as another alpha-male to fight for the leadership of the pack. In any case, the practical consequence was that the Christian Trinity was merely replaced by the Trinity of Stalin's personality, the state ("Motherland"), and the Communist Party. A similar argument can be made that most other totalitarian dictators considered themselves divine in some sense.
   

I think the real debate should not be between atheism and religion, but between the rationalist/naturalist/skeptical world view and the dogmatic/idealistic/faith-based one. But that's a topic for another post...

Falwell vs. MLK

Michelle Goldberg points out the immense hypocrisy of Jerry Falwell:

Falwell himself once denounced preachers who got involved in governance, though not out of devotion to a secular republic: As a committed segregationist, he decried the work of Martin Luther King Jr, saying, "Preachers are not called to be politicians, but to be soul winners."

Matthew Yglesias picks up on this and offers the following viewpoint:

From the standpoint of religious denominations themselves, though, I suspect that Falwell was offering good pragmatic advice. Religious leaders who involve themselves unduly in political matters become essentially politicians or activist/agitators, two social roles that are much less highly regarded than is the role of religious leader.

I am not sure if that is completely true; Falwell, Robertson, and similar characters seem quite successful and influential to me, and even more so is the Pope, who is clearly a full-time politician as well as religious leader. But there is probably some truth in Matt's observation; in that case, I regard it as a serious problem of our society that religious leaders are more highly regarded than politicians and secular activists. It would be a better world if the opposite attitude prevailed.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great man because he fought for a noble cause, with admirable means, and very effectively. That evaluation depends exclusively on secular criteria; and, by the same criteria, Jerry Falwell was an odious man. The fact that they were ministers is only a footnote on their moral biographies, and it should have neither disqualified them from political participation, nor given them any special privileges.

Another commenter on Matt's blog responded that MLK was personally driven by his faith, and that he considered "the moral law or the law of God" as the criterion to distinguish just laws (which we have a moral duty to obey) from unjust ones (which we have a moral responsibility to break). As a principle, this is problematic, because the right-wing religious extremists can claim it, too.

The answer is simple: that principle is bullshit. Faith as a basis of morality is garbage, because faith can justify any kind of moral values, as the comparison of King and Falwell - or, say, Jimmy Carter and Osama bin Laden - easily demonstrates. "If God exists, then everything is allowed" is what Alyosha Karamazov should have said. Insofar as he believed that his sense of Justice came from God, MLK was mistaken. But I don't care what he believed and how he rationalized his values; I care that his actions were right and good. I'd probably deeply disagree with him metaphysically, but so what? Deeds count, not creed.

For the same reason, I don't really care whether televangelists like Falwell believe in the noxious nonsense they preach, and I think that insisting on Falwell having been a deliberate fraud is a weakness in the otherwise very good Christopher Hitchens commentary. It is especially unnecessary for Hitchens to argue that, as he is perfectly willing to say that the faith Falwell preached was evil in itself, even if completely sincere.

The difference between King and Falwell is that the former's deeds were good, and the latter's bad, from a purely secular point of view. That assessment does not depend on their personal religious beliefs. In summary, I don't mind religious leaders participating in politics. What I do mind are bad people participating in politics.

Protect the Children by Locking Them Up

A 17-year-old and a 16-year old took photos of themselves engaged in unspecified "sexual behavior" and got charged and convicted as child pornographers. They didn't even intend to distribute the photos; they were for their private use only. Florida state appeals court upheld the conviciton.
The idiot judge who wrote the opinion reasoned that

the statute was intended to protect minors like appellant and her co-defendant from their own lack of judgment...
Appellant was simply too young to make an intelligent decision about engaging in sexual conduct and memorializing it. Mere production of these videos or pictures may also result in psychological trauma to the teenagers involved.

So, to protect her from "psychological trauma", we should lock her up and stigmatize her as a criminal. Remarkably, another judge agreed with this bullshit, producing a 2-1 opinion.

People like this not only shouldn't be judges, they shouldn't even be allowed to vote for their neighborhood association boards. Heck, they should be locked up, to protect them from their own idiocy.

Atrios has more on this and related subjects, as does Yglesias.

Is Yglesias on Drugs?

This is utterly ridiculous:

...lately there seem to be an awful lot of what you might call evangelizing atheists who want to publish books about how awful religion is. Kevin names Richard Dawkins, Victor Stenger, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens and I was also add Daniel Dennett into the mix. What's going on?

It seems especially odd to me because it's so contrary to the spirit of non-theism to go around writing books like this. The whole strength of the non-theistic intellectual enterprise over the years has simply been to go about our business without talking about God.

WTF?!? Evangelizing atheists?!? What is next? Pious scientists? Fanatic deconstructionists? Crusading Quakers? Nerdy NFL quarterbacks? Intelligent Fox newsanchors?

Several people took Matt to task in the comments, but some have built further upon his oxymoronic (as well as just plain moronic) idea. A lot of people need a bucket of cold water poured on them.

Where Is the Outrage?

Richard Posner offers an interesting view regarding the lack of violent protests against the Iraq war. He disagrees with the conventional wisdom (and his co-blogger Gary Becker) that the main difference between the Vietnam era and today is the draft. Instead, he lists five ways in which protesting has higher cost and lower benefits today than it had in 1968:

1. Opponents of the Iraq war have the support of one of the two major political parties. They thus have less reason to feel abandoned and more hope that their goals will be achieved through the regular political process. They also may be reluctant to jeopardize the efforts of Democratic Party politicians.
2. The opportunity costs are higher today: wages are higher (especially for the highly educated), more women work, and the greater competitiveness in the economy means that a reputation as a violent protester poses a higher risk to one's career.
3. Blogs and other electronic media provide alternative outlet and support networks.
4. People learned from earlier mistakes: Vietnam protests probably didn't end the war, but they did help Nixon become president.
5. Vietnam protests were also about the system in general; there was a revolutionary or Utopian element then. In contrast, most people today believe strongly in the American political and economic system in principle.

That's some food for thought, and all of Posner's reasons deserve to be taken seriously. But they should also be scrutinized. Are they factually correct? Can they explain the lack of outrage in other recent situations that might have resulted in mass protests, such as the stolen 2000 presidential election? (Obviously, the draft and the number of casualties do not apply there, so Posner's reasons should only be more important.) And finally, if Posner is right, what are the broader implications? Should we be happy about what we learned?

Factually, Posner seems mostly correct, except that, for most people, real wages are not much higher now than in 1968, and it is likely that the protests did speed up the end of the war, although we'll never know for sure.

As for explaining the lack of outrage over the 2000 election, I can only see #2 as a convincing factor, although it is far short of a full explanation. The Democratic Party did not rock the boat, blogs hardly existed, there were few, if any, related past mistakes to learn from, and a belief in the American system of government might have been an additional reason to protest. (On the other hand, the belief in the system could also have resulted in the Gore position - accepting the decision despite strongly disagreeing with it - but at least the net effect is ambiguous.)

I suspect there is an additional cultural reason - that Americans have become more risk-averse. That would be consistent with the observed changes in other areas, from school safety rules to product liability lawsuits. Admittedly, that same change in attitudes makes us more sensitive to the military deaths (so 3,000 in Iraq feel closer to 60,000 in Vietnam than the raw numbers suggest), but the aversion to relatively small personal losses (like time and career prospects) has apparently grown more than the aversion to risking lives. Other people's lives, that is, which brings the draft issue back into play.

Finally, I find Posner's reason #2 troubling. There is no causal connection between a more competitive economy and career risk for protesters. If someone has been a protester, can we infer that that person is likely to be less productive? Certainly, there are traits that make one both a likely protester and a productive worker; for example, enthusiasm, initiative, and willingness to take risks. There must be something other than competitive economy that creates the link between protests and career risks, and that something does not look benign.

UPDATE: Posner addresses some readers' comments here.