Christopher Hitchens is not someone that I'd want to have gazing dourly in my direction. In his latest article for Slate, he takes the Republicans behind the proverbial woodshed:

And then he goes on to detail how Palin's egregiously ignorant remark about fruit fly research (in Paris!) belies an abhorrent anti-science mentality that everyone should be disgusted is within reach of America's highest office.

I don't know how Palin's fortunes will fall come Tuesday, but I predict that her political future will continue to be (at some level) a national travesty.

I’m really starting to feel sorry for Paul Manata at this point; like the Rain Man, he has a single-minded fixation on revisiting the contrary paths his assertions have trodden. "Fetus is human. Definitely, definitely. Yeah. I'm an excellent apologist." Oh, but I should stop. Paul's not comfortable with humor, at least not at his expense. He'd like me to lighten up on the jokes, but he's all too quick to compare me with a stupid Star Trek robot. It's mildly clever, but I would have thought that a better comparison would be the robotic probe Nomad from "The Changeling," which was caught by Kirk in a logical contradiction and self-destructs; I can only guess that Paul in moments of perverse pleasure fantasizes about me experiencing a similar conclusion. Still, since the analogy was left unused, perhaps I can give it employ.

I must say I'm a bit surprised at Paul's lamentations about my light-heartedness, particularly because he has previously complained that "[he] just wish[ed] atheists had as good a sense of humor as Christians. Atheism is so boring and drab. Yawn." Hey, Paul, I'm just trying to "goose the antithesis" a bit here, but if you can't handle the sauce, I'll move on to the serious stuff.

First off, let's stop all this sillyness with Paul rewriting my arguments. I don't know whether he really thinks that he's doing me a favor by doing so, or whether he's actually devious enough to think that he can get away with tinkering with my arguments before he knocks them down. Where I come from, that's called a "strawman," but maybe they play by different rules in Grand Rapids. So if I may be indulged to take Paul's words out of my mouth: the conclusion "it is morally acceptable for women to have abortions at any time up to and until the unborn human fetus emerges from the woman's vagina" is not mine. I do so hate to be pedantic, but if Paul can't even get my argument’s conclusion right in the first 500 words of his post, what's the point in following along for the next 2500?

But I like Paul, and I have great hopes for him someday, so I'll try yet again to correct him. IF all human beings are sovereign over their bodies, and IF sovereignty entails the ability to remove anything one wants from one's body, THEN any human being may remove anything one wants from one's body. I do so hope that Paul can confine his further criticisms to these words alone.

Particularly astute readers (and hopefully Paul himself) may note that nowhere in the above argument do I make any mention of a fetus, or whether or not a fetus is equivalent to a human being. It's simply not relevant to my argument.

Now, what gets Paul chuckling hoarsely to himself and rubbing his hands back and forth is his certainty that I've caught myself in a logical contradiction, a la Kirk to Nomad. He thinks that all he needs to do is substitute "fetus" for "human being" in my argument, and suddenly my argument self-contradicts. But let's look at what happens to the conclusion of my actual argument if we play Paul's game: any fetus may remove anything it wants from its body.

I have no problem with the veracity of the statement, and it can stand as readily as my own conclusion above; however, we may wonder how the privilege of personal sovereignty claimed by a fetus overrides the personal sovereignty of the woman in whose uterus the fetus makes its residence. In fact, the very nature of human biology precludes the ability of a fetus (or anyone acting on its behalf) to act on any decision to exercise this ability until after parturation.

What's that, Paul? Oh, sorry. Sounded like steam whistling.

I want to work extra hard now to help Paul understand what I'm saying. Let's analogize from sovereignty over one's body to sovereignty over one's habitat. Paul and his wife just bought a lovely new house- they have sovereignty over it, and can decide who stays in the house, and who does not. Let's imagine that their friend Craig comes to stay with them, and they give him a room, over which he has sovereignty (ability to decide who comes in the room, and who does not). Although in real life, Paul and Craig are great friends, let's say that he and Craig have a falling-out, and Paul wants him to leave. Craig, although enjoying sovereignty over his room, does not have the right to force Paul to allow him to stay in the house against his will. Paul's sovereignty is complete throughout the house, including Craig's room, and therefore Craig must vacate. Whatever challenges and threats Craig may face outside of Paul's house may be something for Paul to consider, but they do not infringe Paul's sovereignty or remove his right to kick Craig out the door.

What's that I hear? - sounds like a tea kettle boiling. I guess that means it's time to take Paul's argument off the burner; it's done.

I should probably wrap this up before the poor guy's head bursts, but there are a few huckleberries that are too sweet to pass up before I go.

Desperate to shore up support for his sloppy reformulation of my arguments, he introduces the so-called "Preservation Principle." That is, "Generally, any living human that is not insane or suffering some other mental disorder would not want to end their life by means of saline solution and, if they could tell us, they would tell us that they do not want their life to end that way."

And yet in Paul’s own Good Book we find the character of Job, who, (presumably not insane) following a long string of torments commissioned by the omnibenevolent Yahweh, asks for just that:

Job 3: Why was I not still-born, or why did I not perish as I left the womb? ... or, put away like an abortive child, I should not have existed, like little ones that never see the light.

It would seem that even a "blameless" "God-fearer" like Job would rather have been snuffed out in the womb (by saline or otherwise) than have to experience profoundly adverse circumstances later in life.

And it should be pointed out that Yahweh is all too eager to put children to death after being born- for no other crime than being a member of the wrong ethnic group and religion. In Numbers 31, in fact, we find a particulary pernicious passage (on which I've commented previously) – Yahweh commands Moses to order the Israelites to kill all the baby boys belonging to the Midianite tribe… and leave their virgin sisters alive to be divided among the population and the priests as part of the “war booty.”

Numbers 31: ...kill all the male children and kill all the women who have ever slept with a man; but spare the lives of the young girls who have never slept with a man, and keep them for yourselves.

We also find blood-curdling exhortations to infanticide – where Yahweh through the Psalmist proclaims that killing tiny unbelieving babies is a blessed enterprise:

Psalm 137: Daughter of Babel, doomed to destruction, a blessing on anyone who treats you as you treated us, a blessing on anyone who seizes your babies and shatters them against a rock!

And while we’re perusing the Christian Scriptures for any information regarding abortion, it might be of interest to point out the passage where it is said that causing a woman to miscarry carries no more penalty than a few shekels:

Exodus 21: If people, while brawling, hurt a pregnant woman and she suffers a miscarriage but no further harm is done, the person responsible will pay compensation as fixed by the woman's master, paying as much as the judges decide.

While this is not abortion per se, nowhere else in the Bible gets closer to illustrating the true value of a fetus in Yahweh's law – a few coins, at most. Certainly not the death penalty, as advocated by good modern-day Christians like Craig Sowder. That horrific fate is quite explicitly spelled out elsewhere in Exodus, and clearly does not refer to anyone causing the termination of a pregnancy. So much for biblically-minded theology.

And I'll note that Triablogue commenter Marshall has pointed out what I've repeatedly argued is the gaping hole in Paul's argument - if we're to take his position seriously at all, he needs to deal with the science of reproduction and development. As Marshall observes:

[Paul is] stating that the personhood argument is irrelevant. I don't see how this is possible, since the claim is that the abortion destroys a human being. The question that is natural[sic] brought up is: is a baby fetus a human being?

Most people would argue that a human sperm is not a human being, nor is a human egg. If they did, they'd have to deal with the concept that ovulation, masturbation, nocturnal emissions, etc. are all murder. I think we can all agree that this is not the case.

Most people would also agree that a baby that comes out of the womb is a human being. It can breathe by itself, speak, think, and perform *most* of the functions that you and I can (enough that we call it human).

This 9 month point is rather arbitrary, as development is a nonstop process until death (the 9 month period happens to be where the fetus is no longer in the womb, but it develops along all the same). The question is, if the beginning--the sperm and the egg--are not a human, and the 9-month baby is, then at what point does this organism become a human being? This question, in the context of the apologist's argument, seems unavoidable.

Indeed. And yet I'll venture a guess that we'll be long in wait before we hear from Paul on this matter. I've asked nicely once already, and Paul turned tail and fled from the science. I suppose that if I had to deal with his level of cognitive dissonance, I might want to get as far away as possible too, just like the crew of the Enterprise when Nomad realizes that it made a logical error at the beginning of the episode. Because if he were to just sit there and take it for much longer, who knows what might happen...

Look out everyone! This huckleberry's about to blow!

The first-ever Texas Freethought Convention took place this past Sunday, October 26th, at the Saengerrunde Hall in Austin, Texas. As far as I've been able to determine, this is the first time in modern American history that a convention has been held specifically for the freethinkers and atheists of a single state to come together. There are, of course, many national groups that hold conventions: the Freedom From Religion Foundation, American Atheists and Atheist Alliance International are the primary sponsors of these. There was, back in the 19th century, a regular annual meeting of freethinkers in New York State that lasted for six years. However, it does not surprise me in the least that the great state of Texas would lead the way in this respect. There are certainly enough active secular groups here to make the prospect plausible, and the pervasive religiosity throughout the state makes the possibility a necessity.

I was proud to represent the North Texas Church of Freethought, and there were many other groups in attendance who were active in organizing and promoting the convention, including the Freethinkers Association of Central Texas, American Atheists - Texas, the Atheist Community of Austin, the Corpus Christi Atheists, and the Center for Inquiry - Austin. I was especially happy to meet some of the people with whom I've been corresponding by email for quite some time; there were also plenty of new people that I had opportunities to speak with. I'm hopeful that, if nothing else, this convention has propped open the doors of communication among the secular groups in Texas, and there will be a lot of cross-pollination between us all as a result.

The demographics were much more balanced than I thought they would be. Families were the overwhelming majority as far as I could see from my table in the back, and there were more children running around than you could shake a Bible at. The large hall made for a kid-friendly atmosphere, as they tended to dance around whenever the music acts came on stage, or regroup to the back of the hall for coloring or face-painting. I'm glad to see this being established as the rule right off the bat- I'm encouraged to think that future conventions will also have large numbers of atheist and freethinking children, and I hope that the organizers will be able to develop more content specifically for them.

The overall atmosphere of the convention was jovial and social. There were regular speakers on the schedule (including myself) and they captured the assembled crowd's attention throughout the day (substandard PA system notwithstanding), but between presentations, attendees routinely gathered in groups eating barbecue from the restaurant next door, or wandered back to the tables set up by the various participating groups. My own high visit rate had nothing to do with all the free bottles of Shiner and Blue Moon I was handing out (free beer for freethought). There were also some organized light-hearted moments, such as the "de-baptism," facilitated by walking underneath a hair dryer. At first I wasn't going to bother, but then I figured, "what the hell" and went up to join in. It's worthwhile to submit to a few seconds of embarrassment for the sake of demonstrating how silly rituals can be.

One of the real highlights of the convention was Terry McDonald's speech. He began by taking Sam Harris to task over his 2007 Atheist Alliance International speech where he called for an end to the use of the term, "atheist." Terry made the point that most of us feel comfortable calling ourselves atheists because that accurately describes us, and that whatever we call ourselves, everyone else is going to refer to us as atheists anyway. He made a comparison to the term "non-smoker." If smoking had never been invented, it would be a ridiculous term, but since there are smokers, the designation "non-smokers" carries semantic weight. So although Sam Harris' post-religious aspiration is still nice to keep in mind, we also have to be mindful of what we're considered by society at large. And Terry also made the point, drawing on his own experiences with people like Derward Richardson, that atheists should not shirk from friendships and communication with Christians and other theists. This drew some strong criticism from Miguel and others of FACT, who felt that seeking egalitarian relationships with Christians and other theists was a tacit approval of their position. More debate followed, and Michael from Corpus Christi Atheists pointed out that a hard-line approach is reasonable when atheists' rights are threatened, but otherwise it's more profitable to reach out to theists, especially moderates. This exchange was electric, and I'd like to see some planned debates at future conventions- if we're going to do it anyway, it might as well be planned.

It was also a joy to see a performance by Anna De Luna, whose "Chicana Atheist" one-woman show is a celebration of the struggles faced by atheists who must emerge from stifling religious cultures; as an Hispanic, her stories about the slavish acquiescence to Roman Catholicism by her family were poignant, tragic, and instantly empathetic to the audience, who sat entranced during her performance. Even something as seemingly simple as finding friendship or falling in love can all-too-easily be complicated by contradictory views about one's spirituality and religious acceptance.

The penultimate event of the conference was a performance by some of the assembled musicians including Safely Limitless, Paul Mitchell's Riffsong, and Paul Martin's Aspiring Atheist. As promised, we were able to sing (more or less) along to John Lennon's "Imagine." It was a nice way to close out this history-making event, and only winning the autographed copy of Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell" in the final raffle could have made the day better. Which it did.

My final thoughts are: 1) I'm glad this happened, 2) I'm glad that I was able to be a part of it, and 3) I'm especially glad that this is going to continue next year, and for years afterward. I hope that Texas can be a beacon to the other states as freethought and atheism continue to gain cultural ground in our great society.

Don't let my tulip-loving associates fool you- Western Michigan has plenty of rationality to go around. The Center for Inquiry - Michigan not only brought you the infamous Hitchens vs. Hitchens debate, it also helps (in a roundabout way) to bring you the Reasonable Doubts Podcast, featuring the class-act trio of Jeremy Beahan, Luke Galen, and David Fletcher. It's no understatement to say that I'm nursing a wicked man-crush on these guys - not only is their in-show repartée amusing and engaging, they also know what the hell is going on.

Their latest outing has them grappling with Alvin Plantinga's "Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism," and slamming it down on the mat. Subscribe here to listen to Plantinga's epic fail.