Monthly Archive for March, 2010

Observing Love

Published

on March 31, 2010

Recently I attended a jazz brunch at a lovely venue with great food. The 4-piece jazz band whipped up a storm as we ate and we couldn't help following the highs and lows with the music. A few hours spent in the company of a friend - we desperately needed to catch up on our life experiences and just have a good old laugh, which we did.

The restaurant was within a busy train station and as we left we were both struck by a couple who were stood by the train with their heads together and hands holding the other's head. The embracing couple was one man crying, sobbing with his eyes closed and the other man was whispering comforting words to him. We watched this tender moment and I said, 'We need to see more of that on our streets'. My friend agreed and said, 'On the one hand I am pleased that they felt comfortable enough to ignore the bullshit that the society throws at gay people, but on the other I am scared for them.' I didn't quite understand and she explained that she was worried that someone could see them and cause them physical harm.

Isn't this world fucked up? Here are 2 people who are clearly in love, distressed about leaving each other and yet there's concern that some homophobe might decide to attack them. It is just too sad. So many things going on in the world and yet loving someone of the same sex could get you killed. Right in the centre of London someone had to feel fearful of the consequences of a same-sex embrace.

What the Catholic Church is hiding

Published

Billyist

on March 31, 2010

On CNN today twitter-themed anchor Rick Sanchez had Catholic League chief Bill Donahue, a frequent guest on CNN, appear to defend the church in light of questions of hiding the pedophilia scandal coursing through the institution. Through his clearly agitated ramblings, Donahue tried to make the points that because A) most of those molested were post-pubescent and B) most of those molested were boys; The problem was, in fact, not an issue of pedophilia, but an issue of homosexuality. Not all homosexuals are pedophiles, Donahue said, but most pedophiles in the church are homosexuals.

This is where I'm going to cut off his armchair psychology and pick apart all the things that are wrong with this and what he seeks to hide.

As can be seen in the documentary Deliver Us From Evil, a fantastic and unsettling first hand account of what it's like to be a pedophile priest, pedophilia is not necessarily gender specific. That is to say, there are pedophiles out there, like Father O'Grady, who don't seek victims of a specific gender. It's a psychological disorder, not a sexuality and the sooner people realize that, the sooner people are going to stop falling for this despicable stereotype of gay molester. In fact, it's not even true that most pedophiles go after young boys. It's been demonstrated that most pedophiles seek female victims. If it's Donahue's claim that most pedophile priests take male victims, he's got to qualify that with the fact that he's only referring to reported cases. (And even that isn't backed up by any facts or numbers). But to assume that because most reported cases involve a male victim that most cases involve a male victim is like assuming that because most cases were reported after a certain year, most cases happened after that year. Now, years later, we're seeing people come out everyday and say, 'yes it was the 60's, the 50's, the 40's and I was raped by father so-and-so then.'

OK, so the misinformation put forth by this Bill Donahue character is just off the charts and seeks to put your mind in so many places that distract you from the real lesson of this scandal. That priests are not trustworthy people.

The church depends on a community that trusts it so it does everything in it's power to gain and maintain that trust. Priests, religious leaders, are often mentioned among the roll call of adults that children should be able to go to for safety, along with police officers, friends' parents, and teachers. And even these people are to be trusted with a certain dose of suspicion. Priests shouldn't be immune from the same suspicion that children are taught to apply to a friend's parent or even their own step-parents.

But the Catholic church won't ever say that. They won't ever admit that a priest is not a person qualified to babysit, to educate or to unquestioningly trust. To do so would be the most damning possible scenario for the church. They depend on family devotion. That's why sacraments are centered around family activities, stages of life, rites of passage. The church only succeeds when families allow it to be integrated into their lives So they put the focus back on an old enemy: TEH GAYZ! They're not the traditional family. It's followers for the most part don't understand them. It makes it look like an insidious evil has snuck into their precious church. Perhaps queer 'ol Satan himself. They're playing to the base. It's the Bush/Rove strategy, if you rile up those who already support you, they'll make a stronger effort to support you.

Don't ever forget it. The lesson from the pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church is that these are not trustworthy people, they are not qualified and parents would be fools to leave their children in the care of these people. And that's what they're really hiding.

What the Catholic Church is hiding

Published

Billyist

on March 31, 2010

Trust and Bias

Published

Bjorn

on March 31, 2010

Whether you accept or reject evidential claims (your bias) has a lot to do with what you trust.

Recently, at a dinner with atheists, one person commented that there has been extraordinary work in the field of autism research. A doctor has successfully cured 25 children of autism by removing mercury from from their blood through a process called chelation. Others at the table remarked that chelation is dangerous and that ethyl mercury found in Thimerosal is different then methyl mercury, which is most associated with mercury related poisoning and neurological damage, because ethyl mercury is removed from the body more easily then methyl mercury.

His response? Chelation is not dangerous, that is something they just want you to believe. The mercury differences is just a smokescreen. Just look at a YouTube video of mercury destroying neurons! My child has spasms the day after he received a vaccine, that might have been due to the mercury in the shot. What about fluoride in the water? It's a known carcinogen, yet our government forces us to drink it.

I had only met this person this evening, so I don't have a lot of history to go on, but from talking with him, he's a passionate person, concerned with the environment, sustainability, organic gardening and has a distrust of corporations and the government.

Because of who and what he did not trust, this affected his acceptance of evidence, disregarding objections raised.

A concerned Facebook group member contacted me earlier this week, recommending that I send out a correction about the Tim Pawlenty scandal over the apparent misuse of funds obtained by selling Support Our Troops plates. A staff member received $30,000 as a partial salary, the same person in charge of overseeing the Governor's Faith Based Initiaves, from the Support Out Troops funds. When the DFL brought the issue to light, it was determined that this staffer was working for veterans, on behalf of a veterans welfare group, seeking out eligible veterans who were not using services to which they were entitled.

Did I send out the correction? No. I don't think sending out messages on Facebook qualifies my role as a journalist and besides, who would care? I also am acting with bias. I don't like Tim Pawlenty's socially conservative politics and as an atheist, I'm sensitive to, not only the misuse of government funds, but the misuse of funds which support a program which offers an unfair advantage to religious organizations, making it more difficult for quality secular organizations to operate. Because of my bias, I still see an issue with what happened. I still think that sharing staff between the Governor's office and another organization leads to too little transparency. So, I am hesitant to write it off as an innocent decision on the part of Tim Pawlenty. But, this is largely due to the fact that when I'm presented with information, I don't have as much skepticism when Al Franken is accused of wrongdoing as if Tim Pawlenty is, because I don't trust Tim Pawlenty, but should I trust Al Franken?

It would be a difficult world to live in if trust was thrown out of the window and all claims were subject to deep analysis. But, even at that point, what do you trust, your own experiences, your senses, your memory? It it more important, then, to be aware of ones bias? But, is it that innocent, just to be aware and let your opinions be clouded? Bias can be innocent, such as preferring one local sports team over an non local sports team; however, can be more dangerous when advocating for expensive, ineffective and potentially dangerous treatment for a condition which is becoming more well understood, but until then the favorite enemy of the day will be to blame for the cause.

Trust and Bias

Published

Bjorn

on March 31, 2010

Venus translation vs transculturation

Published

CD-Host

on March 31, 2010

When discussing the ideology of accuracy of translation there really is a conservative bias against genuine accuracy of translation. In general conservatives want accuracy but not at the expense of breaking with the traditional renderings. The most obvious example is in the treatment of old testament texts which are elsewhere quoted by the new testament:

Even fifty years ago, no scholar who wished to be taken seriously in conservative churches would have contradicted Ramm's statement that "If an Old Testament scholar says that a given passage meant so-and-so to the Jews (on the grounds that the passage must have meaning to its contemporaries) and limits its meaning to that meaning, he is misapplying the cultural principle and denying the sensus plenior of Old Testament prophecy." (14) Ramm associated this negative "use of the grammatico-historical method of exegesis in the hands of the religious liberals" with "radical criticism" and characterized it as "a return of Marcionism." (15) In 1953 the faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary issued a scathing Critique of the Revised Standard Version for this manner of treating the Old Testament. But evidently this seminary has changed quite a bit since then. (Michael Marlowe review of NET bible)

In term of my personal opinion regarding tradition, I take the opposite position. I think there is huge gap between four very different statements and this needs to be absolutely disambiguated:

The Greek text X means Y
Paul meant X when he said Y
The church has always taken Paul to mean X in passage Y
The church interprets Paul to mean X in passage Y

I have no objection to a bible being written in terms of #4. I have huge objections to conflating #1 with #3 or #4. In other words a church is free to say what they believe they aren't free to rewrite history. With respect to #4 I have no problem talking about the living church developing its theories over time, the Catholic position. With respect to #1, I am an absolute fundamentalist. I expect bibles to be very careful about their language and not conflate those two.

Most of the places where this comes up are politically hot verses. I'd like to pick low passion verse where translations tend to obscure the Greek, "I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. (2Cor 12:2)". Some bibles and most commentaries drop the term "third heaven". What's interesting is this is an example of overly literal translation being used to avoid the actual meaning. What's worse is what commentaries frequently do here. Taking the views from above:

The Greek text means "Venus". (i.e. in order the heavens are: The moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn).
I think Paul meant Venus, but he was bringing with him a Hellenistic notion of layers of heaven in a metaphorical sense (as per the Secrets of Enoch). The third heaven would have been above the land of the Archons but not quite there with God, the abode of Raphael where great mysteries like the Tree of Life resides....
The church has always taken this to mean "with God" or "elevated / greatly honored" (and elevated or greatly honored is correct).
The modern church takes him to mean a vision of being with God.

I have no trouble with a bible saying in a note, "This is understood by the church as being a spiritual vision of being with God". I have a huge problem with a bible saying "The Greek means a place where God lives" (from the Harper Collins or the Reformation Study bible for example). The Greek means Venus, and Hellenists including Jews did not believe the 3rd heaven was where God lived.

The NISB and the NET bible actually addresses this directly. The NISB agrees with the treatment above. They explain this is being used in the sense of Jewish mysticism, they make no false claims about where God lives. And that is a perfect example of why I recommend the NISB. The NET comes with an unusual theory based on no texts AFAIK but at least shows an awareness of the Greek meaning:

In the NT, paradise is mentioned three times. In Luke 23:43 it refers to the abode of the righteous dead. In Rev 2:7 it refers to the restoration of Edenic paradise predicted in Isa 51:3 and Ezek 36:35. The reference here in 2 Cor 12:4 is probably to be translated as parallel to the mention of the “third heaven” in v. 2. Assuming that the “first heaven” would be atmospheric heaven (the sky) and “second heaven” the more distant stars and planets, “third heaven” would refer to the place where God dwells. This is much more likely than some variation on the seven heavens mentioned in the pseudepigraphic book 2 Enoch and in other nonbiblical and rabbinic works. (NET bible note on 2Cor 12:4)

Now in the case of Harper Collins and the Reformation Study Bible I think they were just being lazy. 20th and 21st century educated people don't know their astrology and they didn't bother to check. I freely bash all the major bible translations for screwing up Paul's frequent use of astrology. But this reads like an honest mistake.

Because this isn't an idealogical mistake I think it is a good one to discuss. How do you think this verse should be translated? What should the textual comments say? What do you think it means? And given how the mentally imagery of Venus has changed. A modern American when he hears "Venus" pictures the image to the left not the one to the right.

___

Addendum:

Douglas Ward has an article where he takes the takes the position of the sky as an onion.

The Hutaree

Published

Billyist

on March 31, 2010

A tattered American flag is taped to the antenna of a van at the home of Thomas William Piatek Monday, March 29, 2010, in Whiting, Ind. Piatek is one of nine suspects tied to a Christian militia that was preparing for the Antichrist and are charged with conspiring to kill police officers, then attack a funeral using homemade bombs in the hopes of killing more law enforcement personnel, federal prosecutors said Monday. The Michigan-based group, called Hutaree, planned to use the attack on police as a catalyst for a larger uprising against the government, according to newly unsealed court papers. U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said agents moved on the group because its members were planning a violent mission sometime in April. (AP Photo/(M. Spencer Green)

I don't know if I can put it much better than Mark Potok explains it here. People are led to believe one thing and they act in a certain way based on those beliefs. Whether it's Jesus or an anti-Christ or the New World Order or some one-world government — these fears inform people's decisions. Are the people evil? Do they seek to harm because they delight in it? Or do they act in these reprehensible ways because their minds can't properly determine the difference between reality and fear? Of course people like this, whose fear-roasted minds instinctively act defensively, are going to stock pile weapons and attempt to kill hundreds. In their imaginations, police, government, the U.N., atheists, are their oppressors. This is what happens when people are taught that faith is a virtue. When critical thinking and rationality are replaced with dogma and fear.

This group, presumably, is acting in a way that they think is logical to overthrow their oppressors, among them, perhaps, the anti-Christ. But I'm willing to bet they haven't really considered that they are the crazy ones. That the U.N. don't seek to take over the world. That there is no anti-Christ. I wouldn't be surprised if they never even wondered why it is that they believe in an anti-Christ or whether it makes sense to accept that belief.

Some have told me that religion 'just is' as if it has a natural societal origin like trade or sex. Besides this being the naturalistic fallacy, it's not even accurate that religion is natural. It's a system devised to control people and even if that original control worked to most people's benefit, it clearly leads to unreasonable thinking today. It's expired. What once over-road people's base desires to eat rotten meat and rape left and right now only overrides reason and intellect. Had these people held their beliefs about Jesus or the New World Order or whatever up to the light and really examined whether it was true, they probably wouldn't have been sure enough to set a bombing plan into motion. But since religions often consider it an offense to question the religion, these people are prevented from developing the critical thinking skills that could have led them to see they were making terrible, terrible choices.

In one of the more telling comments in this piece, Potok says the group's name is a made-up word. They're a people with no connection to anything. Just angry, looking to hitch the star of their ignorance onto an equally ignorant wagon, and imagine the surprise that Christianity won their affection. (Christianity, and of course, certain cable news conspiracy theorists.)

The Hutaree

Published

Billyist

on March 31, 2010

The Santa Delusion

Published

Melliferax

on March 30, 2010

So I’ve been thinking about Santa.

Richard Dawkins recently participated in a popular Australian show called Q&A (you can watch it here) where they discussed god, science and sanity. One of the questions posed was as follows:

Cassandra Devine asked: Why do you feel the need to express your views so stridently when they’re not always welcome? Isn’t it rather like going around to playgrounds and telling children that Santa Claus isn’t real?

Ignoring the first part of the question, let’s talk about the second. I’ve seen this argument before. Not just the “don’t ruin people’s fun” argument, but specifically the Santa Claus argument. And it gets more and more bizarre every time I hear it.

Jesus fuck he's creepy

Firstly, I have trouble relating to it because no Swedish kid I ever knew believed in Santa Claus. This probably has to do with the fact that our tradition is completely different: Rather than a secretive visit during the night, our Santa (called Jultomten) arrives on christmas eve, usually in the form of your dad or some other male relative or possibly neighbour dressed up in a ridiculous costume. No kid with two brain cells to rub together could possibly fail to notice that this person clearly did not arrive on a magical sled. The fact that our christmas presents are usually addressed not just with “To:” but also “From:”, implying Santa is no more than the delivery guy, drives the point home.

Secondly, even if we did have the rather more scary custom of imagining a stranger sneaking into our house at night, I think it’s positively appalling that parents would go around lying to their children about it. You know that the kid will find out that Santa doesn’t exist sooner or later, and if you suspect even for a minute that this will be an upsetting event, why would you tell him he exists in the first place?

Basically my point here is that if people are living with delusions foisted on them by others (as is usually the case with religion, which is most commonly inherited from your parents — notice a certain parallel?), ridding them of that delusion is an act of kindness. Not cruelty.

Those kids on that playground have been fooled into believing a falsehood by their own parents and they deserve to know the truth. Especially since some of them are probably terrified of the idea that someone is constantly watching and judging them (see what I did there?).

So to answer Ms Devine: Yes, maybe it is. So fucking what? Free the kids of the Santa Delusion!

–Mel

Attentäterinnen tragen Terror nach Moskau, Fahndung nach Komplizen

Published

rmonteux

on March 30, 2010

Zwei Frauen sprengen sich in Moskaus Metro in die Luft. Für die Polizei führt die Spur eindeutig in den Nordkaukasus. Die beiden Attentäterinnen, die am Montag 39 Menschen mit in den Tod gerissen hatten, wurden identifiziert. Die Bluttat löste weltweit Empörung aus. Nach dem Doppelanschlag auf die Moskauer U-Bahn mit mindestens 39 Toten und mehr [...]

WBC Donates to LGBT Charities

Published

Aaron Kinney

on March 30, 2010

Well, not really. But donations to LGBT charities were given in the name of, and made possible by, the Westboro Baptist Church. I do hope the Phelps family is aware of this. It's very satisfying to think of a religious hate group being thwarted in a charitable way by moral people.

On a political note, I do like how the WBC desecrates the flag.

Fantasy

Published

Mandrellian

on March 30, 2010

Simple experiment: find a few OT Bible chapters online & paste them into a text editor. Replace every instance of the name "Moses" with the name "Gul Dukat" and "Israelite" with "Cardassian". Still awesome? You bet:

Numbers 31:7-18

They fought against Midian, as the LORD commanded Gul Dukat, and killed every man. Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba - the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. The Cardassians captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Gul Dukat and Eleazar the priest and the Cardassian assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.

Dukat, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. Gul Dukat was angry with the officers of the army - the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds - who returned from the battle.

"Have you allowed all the women to live?" Dukat asked them. "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Cardassians away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man."

Perhaps even more awesome. And certainly more appropriate that a Cardassian is being such a brutal, merciless, child-raping son of a bitch, rather than Yahweh's chief prophet and holiest man on Earth. Also, it's strange how easily names from science fiction slot right into Bible stories.

As an aside, I've always thought there were curious parallels between the names in sci-fi, fantasy and the Bible (and other mythologies). I'm going to go out on a limb and presume that SF and fantasy authors have always used Biblical/mythological-sounding names (and naming conventions) to add to their stories a particular gravity. "Balaam, son of Beor", for instance: if you'd never heard this name in its Biblical context and were asked to guess where it came from, you could be excused for guessing it was from a Middle Earth-ish sword & sorcery novel or a space opera in which an advanced race encounter a primitive & barbarous people on a distant planet.

Now, if you wanted your Star Trek search & replace 100% authentic (euphemism for "if you were a complete & utter nerd") you could replace "Midianite" with "Bajoran", then do a little research & replace all the other names with appropriate analogues from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. But you don't have to, really (but if you do, send it to me!).

I think the point I'm making is transparently obvious and doesn't need explanation. Suffice it to say that if today, you were to read your own sacred scripture for the first time, independent of input from any priests or anyone else with a vested interest in making you believe it, you'd probably think it was mythology inferior to that of the ancient Greeks, fantasy inferior to Tolkien or some sub-par science fiction (which Star Trek is not, by the way, so do not misunderstand me). You'd probably wonder if the protagonists - that Yahweh chap and all his favourites - were really meant to be the good guys, what with their smiting and massacring and raping and pillaging of anyone who displeased them or just happened to be in their way. You'd likely look at the basic factual errors about the universe (such as Genesis) and unverifiable, unsupported events (such as Exodus) and conclude that it was indeed a work of fiction. If, after noticing all that is factually and morally wrong within it, you found out that people were viewing it as absolute Truth, basing their entire lives and after-lives on it and even oppressing or killing people who didn't believe in it or interpreted it differently, you'd be flabbergasted. If you were already religious, you'd call them blasphemers, heretics. Depending on how religious you were, you may well call for their deaths! If you weren't religious, you'd stand there scratching your head at the sheer lunacy of it all.

And if you did that, you'd then know nonreligious people feel: watching people hate, oppress & kill each other over some poorly-written fantasy really does our fricking heads in.

E is for Ethics

Published

on March 30, 2010

Facebook is wonderful! I am able to learn of news items, new books, music, comedy, etc. quickly and easily through my friends on facebook. One book I recently became aware of is "E is for Ethics". After perusing the website and reading a few pages via amazon.com, I decided to become a fan. Now, I've actually purchased the book at my local bookstore and am happy to add it to our collection of books we use to teach morals to our kids.

The other books in our collection include:
If You Had to Choose, What Would You Do?
What Do You Stand For? For Kids: A Guide to Building Character
Character Building Day by Day

E is for Ethics is a collection of short stories with moral dilemmas included in them. Each story is followed by some discussion questions and some relevant quotes. One thing I like about the new addition to our collection is that the stories are short and to the point. This leaves more time for discussion...and I'm assuming that most people's kids are like my kids and the story will be embellished upon as the discussion progresses. All the "what if's" can be very interesting and add to the thoughtfulness of answers kids come up with.

I haven't had a chance to read all of the stories yet. However, I did find a couple where I would change the wording of the discussion questions following the stories. Some of the questions tend to be a little bit too black and white for me. I would rather have the questions be relevant to each situation and help the child learn to think for themselves how it might relate to other situations instead of leading them to "always" do something a certain way. To me, teaching a child to "always" do something a certain way is creating a sheep instead of a thinker.

Other than that, I think this is a great addition to our collection. We'll add some of the stories from this book to our routine values discussions and see what our kids come up with. They always amaze me :)

To end this post, here's a quote from the "Respect" story:

"To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater." Anonymous

*** I forgot to mention, all of these books are on kindle! I love this because I have them on my iPod touch and we can read the character building exercises even when we don't have the books with us. I had the the hardcopy of the books first, but definitely recommend the kindle edition if you have the ability to use it. It's so convenient!

E is for Ethics

Published

on March 30, 2010

The teabaggers of old

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 29, 2010

They haven’t changed much. After all, before health care, they were protesting about taxes (the reason for the name “Tea Party”, in fact)… after the Obama administration lowered taxes for 95% of Americans — and, since there are probably no billionaire teabaggers, for 100% of protesters.

If they were honest, they’d admit that what they’re really protesting is “the President is black, and black people scare me”. What else explains that they protested about taxes after they were lowered?

Pat pwns Pope

Published

Mandrellian

on March 27, 2010

Pat Condell should require no introduction to any heathen who's been on the web longer than five minutes. If you're at 4:59, go check out his channel now. Here's his latest: