It comes in threes

Well, we had delicious irony yesterday. Now we have a bunch of men wearing dresses involved in a gay prostitution scandal (No, not queens, but the Vatican!). For comedy's sake, I wish to invoke the silly rule of threes, so I wonder what the next outragiously hypocritical thing will happen next?

Vatican chorister and usher in gay prostitution scandal
One of Pope Benedict's ceremonial ushers and a member of an elite choir in St Peter's Basilica have been implicated in a gay prostitution ring, in the latest sexual scandal to taint the Vatican.
Ghinedu Ehiem, a Nigerian, was dismissed by the Vatican from a prestigious choir after his name appeared in transcripts of police wiretaps.
In the wiretaps, Mr Eheim is allegedly heard negotiating over the procurement of male prostitutes.
The wiretaps were carried out in connection with a probe into corruption in contracts to build public works, including the planned venue in Sardinia of last year's G8 summit.
Among four people arrested last month in the corruption probe was Angelo Balducci, an engineer who is a board member of Italy's public works department and a construction consultant to the Vatican.
Balducci is also a member of an elite group called "Gentlemen of His Holiness" – ushers who are called to serve in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace on major occasions such as when the pope receives heads of state or presides at big events.
Balducci was arrested on corruption charges and the allegations of prostitution emerged only later.
Excerpts of the wiretaps and police documents published in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica showed that Ehiem, 40, had been in regular contact with Balducci before Balducci's arrest last month and the subject of their conversation was gay sex.
A police document prepared for magistrates and published in part by La Repubblica said Balducci was in contact with Ehiem and an Italian who were part of what the police called "an organised network ... to abet male prostitution".
It was not immediately possible to contact Ehiem's lawyer.
A Vatican source said Balducci, who is still in jail, has been dismissed from the elite group of ushers and that his name would not appear in the next edition of the Vatican's directory.
"He obviously can't come back here after being accused of these things," the source told Reuters.
The latest black eye for the Vatican comes on the heels of major paedophilia scandals involving the abuse of children by priests in Ireland, Germany and the United States.
Balducci's lawyer, Franco Coppi, one of Italy's highest profile lawyers, said he had no comment on the newest accusations against his client, saying: "We have much more serious things to be concerned with right now," referring to the corruption charges.

Science education inoculates against religion

So I saw this blog in my feed today. I went over to read it just to see what the author had to say. At first I was hopeful that there was some correlation like IQ vs Religiosity, but I really don't see that. To me, it just seems that the more devout someone is, the more they will run away from learning about the world around them. They can't handle the fact that their impotent little god hardly has an gaps to hide in as it is, so they just cover their eyes and ears and hope nothing gets in.

Some are more active about it, and even try to keep other people who may actually want to learn (Texas Board of [un]-Education anyone?), but hopefully more and more rational people will stand up to those fucktards, and kick them to the curb where they belong. SO while this paper was somewhat positive to me, it just reminded me that it's more a result of some of these cretins willfully ignoring science, and swallowing up every lie they can find that supports their incredibly fucked up view of the world.

Science education inoculates against religion

At the back end of 2007, I wrote that science education doesn't inoculate against religion. But the time has come to indulge in a bit of revisionism.

Here's why. Darren Sherkat (who has a paper out on religious fundamentalism and verbal ability that I covered in the previous post) has also taken a look at the link with scientific knowledge. The paper isn't published yet, but he sent me the manuscript - and he's also blogged it, if you want the 'horse's mouth' version!

As before, this is an analysis of the US General Social Survey, which includes a set of 13 questions on general science topics. As you can see in the graph, people who think the Bible is a book of fables scored nearly 40% higher that those who think it is the literal word of God.

You get a similar result for people who are members of Conservative Protestant sects. What's more, it persists even after controlling for other factors that might explain the difference - like age, education, income, race, immigrant status and region.

It seems that there is something about conservative Christianity in the US that works directly against science skills. In part, this might be down to the nature of the questions.

Sherkat omitted from the analysis the question about evolution, but there are also questions about continental drift and also the Big Bang. A Young Earth Creationist, might give the wrong answer to these even though they had been taught the correct answer.

So why did I previously suggest no link between science proficiency and religiosity? Well, I looked at international student scores on science collected by PISA, and correlated these with data on how often people in those countries prayed. I didn't find any link.

But Sherkat's work suggests that the link is strongest with people who have a rather extreme attachment to their religion. So I went back and redid the analysis, using the latest religious data from the World Values Survey.

This time I looked at people who rated themselves '10' on a 10-point scale asking how important God is in their life. This is a question that really picks out the very devout.

It turns out that countries with a lot of these really devout people do very poorly at educating their children about science.

In a way that's not too surprising, because these countries also tend to be poorer and less well educated in general.

But PISA also provide data adjusted for socioeconomic differences between the countries. So this score reflects how effective countries are at educating their children on science, after taking into account their different circumstances.

The data are only available for OECD countries, but that's good because these countries are broadly similar to start with. Unfortunately, the WVS didn't collect religious data from all OECD countries, which makes the sample even smaller. But even so...

The remarkable fact is that even within this small, relatively homogenous, pool of countries there's still a significant correlation.

Although this is an ecological study (it didn't look at individual data, like Sherkat's can do with the GSS data), it does support his findings.

Either highly religious people shield their children from science, or good science education shifts people from being highly religious to a more moderate stance (or perhaps both, of course).

Either way, I'm going to have to revise my previous belief that science education and religion aren't linked!

__________________________________________________________________________
This article by Tom Rees was first published on Epiphenom. It is licensed under Creative Commons.

Pew Forum: How religious is your state?

Just going to paste the article in here (or you can click the title of this post and get there too). I will comment in that I am glad to be at the bottom of this list. And if you graphed it against education, income, quality of life, crime rates, teen pregnancies, etc., it would probably show a very high correlation. Although, those with an education and intelligence would probably already know that!

How Religious Is Your State?
Dec. 21, 2009
Which of the 50 states has the most religious population? Since there are many ways to define "religious," there is no single answer to this question. But to give a sense of how the states stack up, the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life used polling data to rank them on four measures: the importance of religion in people's lives, frequency of attendance at worship services, frequency of prayer and absolute certainty of belief in God. Mississippi stands out on all four, and several other Southern states also rank very high on the measures.
See how the states rank according to each of the four measures in the interactive graphic below.
States with sample sizes that are too small to analyze are combined. As a result, the lowest ranking is 46 rather than 50.

CLICK HERE FOR THE TABLE AND COOL INTERACTIVE FEATURES.

Maybe god hates the Republicans?

Okay, so the Republicans held a much publicized prayer to stop health care. Never mind that study after study has shown prayer to be totally ineffective. Although, with the votes that the Democrats had, this would have been a PERFECT chance for something supernatural to happen. Yet, nothing did, and old skydaddy gawd shows himself to be totally impotent and imaginary. Or, maybe, since the Republicans are so firm in their belief in this infallible skydaddy, he wants healthcare reform? Did they ever think of that? All the defeats of the GOP leading up to this is actually gawd telling them that he's on the side of the Democrats? Could it be?

Of course, the theitards will rationalize this with some sort of non-sense about god working in mysterious ways or testing them further. Well, that just seems like a really assholeish thing to do. Maybe he doesn't like you? I know I sure as heck don't like you!

Blogging and reading other blogs (Symptoms of Religious Addiction)

I read a lot of other blogs. No duh! Generally the blogs are ones of interest to me, but quite often, I try to read blogs that talk about things I am not familiar with. Actually BEING a theist is one thing that I am not familiar with. I attempted to trick myself into believing the bullshit when I was around 14, but it really was an exercise in futility. Being rational, and then attempting to be non-rational is like someone having eyesight wanting to gouge out their own eyes. As such, I really don't have a lot of experience with what people call "deconversion". I read Daniel Florien's blog on this because he's pretty funny. I read John Loftus's blog because he pulls no punches. Of course I read many non-theistic blogs too (about astronomy, science, art, computer games, etc.), but this particular entry is about one in particular.

The Redheaded Skeptic stopped by here one time and left me a comment. So I went and checked out her blog, and I was pleased to have another person's perspective on deconversion (my wife has her perspective too, but her version didn't seem to resonate with other's and she thinks more in pictures anyway so it's hard to articulate it). So while I can't offer anything on this, maybe she can. One of her entries particularly resonated with me though... Let's just say that in reality, strong theism is like a mental disorder, and this post sums it up quite well:

Josh posted a list of signs that one is addicted to religion, along with how he fit the criteria. I read it and definitely saw myself and my family.

The list can be found here and seems to describe fundamentalism at its core. It is as follows:

1. Inability to think, doubt, or question religious information and/or authority
2. Black-and-white, good/bad, either/or simplistic thinking: one way or the other
3. Shame-based belief that you aren’t good enough or you aren’t doing it right
4. Magical thinking that God will fix you/ do it all, without serious work on your part
5. Scrupulosity: rigid obsessive adherence to rules, codes of ethics, or guidelines
6. Uncompromising judgmental attitudes: readiness to find fault or evil out there
7. Compulsive or obsessive praying, going to church or crusades, quoting scripture
8. Unrealistic financial contributions
9. Believing that sex is dirty; believing our bodies or physical pleasures are evil
10. Compulsive overeating and/or excessive fasting
11. Conflict and argumentation with science, medicine, and education
12. Progressive detachment from the real work, isolation and breakdown of relationships
13. Psychosomatic illness: back pains, sleeplessness, headaches, hypertension
14. Manipulating scripture or texts, feeling specially chosen, claiming to receive special messages from God
15. Maintaining a religious “high”, trance-like state, keeping a happy face (or the belief that one should…)
16. Attitude of righteousness or superiority: “we versus the world,” including the denial of one’s human-ness.
17. Confusion, great doubts, mental, physical or emotional breakdown, cries for help

Verrrry interesting. I definitely fit almost every single criteria. Though I do wonder if it is based on anything scientific or the author’s own observations. This may not be a list of addiction symptoms, but rather fundamentalism. Is there a difference? That is for science to know and for us to find out! What do you think?

Now, I do want to mention, I also read blogs by the deluded. I have only commented on one (by invitation even). I don't repost what they have to say, because, well, it's the same lame shit over and over again. It's the same with any delusions that fly in the face of reality, like the birthers or people who deny evolution. All too often, people who attempt to debate theists/birthers/creationists end up having to sit through endless bad arguments and just plain silly assertions. And they get tiresome. Incredibly tiresome. So tiresome in fact that anyone caught in the endless web of theist/birther/creationist lies and deceptions usually just gets frustrated and leaves, handing the theist/birther/creationists a victory in their mind (a la pigeon playing chess analogy).

Theitard Nuts waging war on Halloween!

Dr. Plait has another fun blog entry today in celebration of the candy festival that we all refer to as Halloween. I will say that generally I too tend to be tolerant of people clinging to childish superstitions, UNLESS they insist I somehow need to adhere to their beliefs, or even respect them. I am under no obligation to respect them in the slightest; and I can't, since I think they are just silly. Sorry. Anyway, Dr. Plait seems a bit kinder in his assessment for the majority of people.

Okay, back to the topic at hand though. One of the reasons that theitards make me laugh is that so many of them pull off stunts like this:

A Halloween bag full of Dum Dums

I actually am fairly tolerant of religious differences between people. Religious beliefs run very, very deep, and touch a part of us that is incredibly difficult to analyze rationally or with any sort of real self-skepticism. In general, a person’s religious belief is wrapped up in their own sense of self, so attacking that religion is akin to a personal attack on them.

But sometimes, just sometimes, a belief can be goofy enough — and damaging enough — that maybe a little bit of mockery is deserved. Certainly Pat Robertson has done so much damage in his lifetime that he gets no pass at all from me. My thoughts on him are clear and public (for example, he is "bigoted, small-minded zealot who will say anything to appeal to his base").

So it comes as no surprise that his website CBN is a haven for nonsensery at all levels. But a new post there about Halloween has even me scratching my head. Kimberly Daniels wrote a piece there about Halloween that is about as far from reality as it can be:

Halloween is a counterfeit holy day that is dedicated to celebrating the demonic trinity of : the Luciferian Spirit (the false father); the Antichrist Spirit (the false holy spirit); and the Spirit of Belial (the false son).

Really? I thought it was a time to have fun, let a little loose, eat candy, and just be silly. But I guess that’s just me.

… and about 300 million other Americans.

So we’ve established she’s a goofball. Fine. But then she goes too far:

During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.

Attacking Halloween is one thing, but attacking the candy?

Wow, it must be fun to live in an evidence-free world where you can simply assert whatever you want without proof or references or anything! Here, let me try: CBN is run by a TI 99-4a computer with buggy code that sometimes strings words together in patterns that almost make sense, if you squint and stand some distance away from them.

Hey, that was easy!

I think that it’s not only OK, but appropriate to shake your head and be somewhat dismissive of opinions stated as fact that aren’t within a glancing blow of reality. That anyone can take Robertson^* or his organization seriously is weird. The fact that they make money hand over fist is, well, not a crime since it’s legal, but a real shame.

And I wonder if anyone has told Ms. Daniels about the pagan origins of Christmas celebrations?

Anyway, as for me, I’ll happily be giving out my accursed Kit Kats and demonic Baby Ruths to all the satan-worshipping entrail-reading pagan evildoers in the neighborhood. And probably snitching the occasional hellspawned Tootsie Roll, too.

---

^* In case you think I am being unfair to Robertson — if such a thing is even possible — because someone else wrote that article, then check out this article at Americans United. Robertson deserves far more mockery than even I feel I can do on this blog.

International Blasphemy Day!

Just found this humerous bit on the net. Of course, I try to live my life as a blasphemy to religion every day. And it builds off two earlier essays that I copied over to here: Disagreement is not intolerance (despite protests to the contrary on religious ideas). And of course that religious ideas shouldn't get some sort of automatic protection from criticism. So go forth and blaspheme! It's fun!

International Blasphemy Day is not just a day. It is a movement to dismantle the wall which exists between religion and criticism.
The primary focus of the Blasphemy Day movement and indeed this website is not to debate the existence of any gods or deities (there is an abundance of fantastic websites which deal explicitly with that argument all over the internet, check the Web Links section).
The objective of International Blasphemy Day is to open up all religious beliefs to the same level of free inquiry, discussion and criticism to which all other areas of academic interest are subjected.
Why September 30? The last day in September is the anniversary of the original publication of Danish cartoons in 2005 depicting the prophet Muhammad's face.
Any visual depiction of Muhammad is considered a grave offence under Islamic law. The fury which arose within the Islamic community following this publication led to massive riots, attacks on foreign embassies and deaths.
The newspapers which chose to publish these cartoons were in many cases blamed for the outpouring of violence which followed. This unfortunate yet inevitable sequence of events clearly demonstrated a dangerous misconception that had piggy-backed into the 21st century on the shoulders of ignorance, fear and apathy, that all religious beliefs and ideas deserve respect and are beyond criticism or satire.
International Blasphemy Day is a movement, not just a day, to remind the world that religion should never again be beyond open and honest discussion or reproach. Our future depends on it.

Surprised at lack of News Coverage

Okay, so I saw a news story about YET ANOTHER senator being a total hypocrite and doing something that they publicly condemn, rail against and basically froth at the mouth saying is a BAD Thing. Yet I am surprised that I really haven't heard that much about it in the news. Is it become such a regular thing now that it's not even worth a section by Jeannie Moos? Here is what I heard over at Daniel Florien's blog:

State Sen. Paul Stanley is a good ol’ Republican boy. He teaches Sunday School at a United Methodist Church and is on their school board. He sponsored a bill to keep gay couples from adopting children. He’s quoted as saying that he “didn’t believe young people should have sex before marriage anyway, that his faith and church are important to him, and he wants to promote abstinence.” He’s married and has two children.

And now he’s admitted to having sex with his 22 year-old intern and taking nude photos of her.

How utterly shocking!

Okay, not really.

It came out when the intern’s boyfriend tried to blackmail the senator for $10,000.

He doesn’t want gay couples to adopt children because, in his bigotry, he sees them as depraved individuals who are not fit to raise children. The irony is his own religion condemns him — he committed adultery, which goes against one of his precious 10 Commandments. By his own standards, he’s not fit to raise children. It’s unlikely he would admit that, however. There’s nothing like hypocrisy to make fundies find excuses for what they normally denounce as heinous sins.

So no coverage? I mean, even Faux Noise can't run a story about this and "accidentally" put a (D) after this guys name like they did with Foley, and Craig, and Ensign, and whoever else they were afraid to give real reporting to since it reflected bad on their ideology. Too bad these morons and the C Street fucktardery is so rampant that it can't be hidden by these "mistakes". Not to say the D's are innocent. Hell, some of them are part of the C Street cult of fucktards... *YIKES* Although generally they aren't all up in arms about people's personal business and aren't trying to legislate it. Although, it seems that the Congresscritters are just another example of what happens with power. You'd think we would have learned with Rome.

Oh, did anyone catch The Daily Show?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Bill Kristol
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

Yep, I have great health care, and none of you slobs deserve it, so suck it! Well, that seems to be the message from this douche bag. Amazing! So CAN the government run something good, or can't it? Make up your mind!

P.S. As for the actual agenda of a national healthcare plan... My view is that we need to get the insurance companies out of it. Incentiveize people to be healthier first of all, and then see what we can do to make the system efficient. Right now it's yet another bunch of douchebaggery that is out of control, and the government hasn't done a damn thing to stop it. Too much Laize Faire will result in abuses too... Because people are greedy douche bags!

And AGAIN the Republicans are being SUPREME douche bags... The only study they arte taking talking points from is the Lewin Group. They seem to be leaving out a KEY fact though:

The political battle over health-care reform is waged largely with numbers, and few number-crunchers have shaped the debate as much as the Lewin Group, a consulting firm whose research has been widely cited by opponents of a public insurance option.

To Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip, it is "the nonpartisan Lewin Group." To Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, it is an "independent research firm." To Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the second-ranking Republican on the pivotal Finance Committee, it is "well known as one of the most nonpartisan groups in the country."

Generally left unsaid amid all the citations is that the Lewin Group is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers.

Oh Snap!

Religion is Like Masturbation

Something I just saw that amused me and deserves to be posted so I can find it again. These are the ways that religion is like masturbation:

Don't do it in public. It's annoying and embarrassing.
Don't force people to watch or join you.
Don't teach children how to do it especially if they are too young to understand what's going on.
Don't label other people's children according to the way their parents do it.
Don't change the law in order to enforce your favorite way of doing it.
And finally if you explain why you do it, please be honest. Say that you do it for personal relief and spare us pointless arguments about the laws of logic, objective morality or the bacterial flagellum.

Baptism or Molestation?

Holy shit, talk about creepy. I just came accross this story where some church crazies are luring children into a van to baptize them... Why do I imagine the van having "Free Candy" painted on the side. Yes, this isn't typical behaviour, but it is not in the slightest surprising... The forcing of a belief onto someone despite their wishes is what has over time caused me to not only be an atheist, but an anti-theism atheist. It's because of this type of despicable behaviour that I actively fight theism in all its guises.

The Story:
In Colorado Springs, Colorado, members of the Cornerstone Baptist Church have been aggressively proselytizing children at local public elementary schools. The proselytizing efforts took a decidedly disturbing turn a few days ago when they tried to lure a 7th grader off the school playground and into a waiting van — apparently where he could be baptized, even if against the will of his parents or his own wishes.

Remember, though, that it's all those vile atheists who are actually trying to force their "religion" on god-fearing Americans through underhanded behavior like announcing that they exist, or daring to tell others that there's nothing wrong with atheism. What America needs is fewer public atheists and more Christians driving around in seedy vans, ready to jump out and grab random kids for impromptu baptisms.

Students at nearby Keller and Fremont elementary schools also have been approached by church members, and church proselytizing has been escalating in recent weeks at Russell. Still, officials were unprepared for what happened Thursday, district spokeswoman Elaine Naleski said Friday.

"We have never had a problem like this before," she said. "We are shocked by their actions."

A few weeks ago, officials at the school met with the church's leader to complain about members coming on school property to preach the Bible, Naleski said. But rather than stop, church members started proselytizing from public sidewalks outside the school.

The school will seek a no-trespassing order if church members resume harassing children on school property, Naleski said. But it will be up to parents to take legal action against the church if their children are approached in public areas outside the school.

Source: Denver Post

As shocking as this incident is, I'm not surprised that it would happen in Colorado Springs, home base of the American Family Association and a disturbing array of far-right evangelical groups, churches, and activism.

I recognize of course that such behavior is not typical of Christians in America, but at the same time it can't be denied that it's entirely consistent with traditional, orthodox Christian doctrine. I can't think of any arguments against this behavior which are dependent on Christian doctrine — all the arguments against it depend on independent social codes, social expectations, pragmatism and prudence, or civil legal obligations. There are no Christian doctrinal prohibitions against proselytizing to kids, but there are plenty of traditions and doctrines which encourage proselytizing generally.

Does Evolution Contradict Religion?

With the work I have been doing lately on the Facts, not Fantasy site, I have been just doing a lot of research. Now, to be honest, I am quite the anti-theist type of person, but since that site is supposed to be more educational, I am taking a much more neutral approach to the conflict between science and religion. So I was interested in this particular article I found. Especially considering that the writer is also an avowed atheist, and writes about it a great deal more than I do.

Here is the text of the article:

Does Evolution Contradict Religion?

This is a very important and fundamental question; there is so much debate in America over evolution and the nature of life that it is worth considering whether or not the theory of evolution contradicts religious beliefs. However, the question is also too broad. There is no such thing as "religious beliefs," without context or content.

Because of this, the only way to really answer the question is to say: sometimes yes, sometimes no. Evolution does contradict certain religious beliefs and even at times, certain religions. Evolution is also readily compatible with other religious beliefs and other religions. Indeed, it should be noted that there does not appear to be any contradiction between evolution and any one entire religious tradition.

The reason for this is that any large religious tradition with much of a history behind it will contain enough variety that even if there are groups which object to evolution, there will be groups which either welcome or simply ignore evolution. Sometimes this multiplicity of ways in which a religion can be interpreted may be a source of embarrassment - after all, it is hard to claim a religion to be True when there is so little agreement as to just what the religion really is.

On the other hand, it is also a principle of evolution that those individuals which are best able to adapt to changing environments are the most likely to survive, reproduce, and pass on their genes. Perhaps it also true for belief systems - those with the widest internal variety are best able to adapt to changing social circumstances and pass themselves along to succeeding generations. It may be difficult for some religions and some religious traditions to survive in the scientific environment of evolutionary theory, but not impossible.