Educating our youth population efficiently and effectively is a difficult proposition. I know many people who work hard to find ways to improve methods of education.

But not all the problems teachers face are with the approach, curriculum or methods. Some problems are societal. You don't have to look far to find students who cannot focus on their studies because their school is plagued with poverty, hunger, the drug trade, and prostitution. Middle school is difficult enough without these factors.

It's all the worse, then, that we have to deal with superstition as well.

Pat Sinclair, who oversees substitute teachers in the Pasco County School District, was on the phone. She told Piculas there had been a complaint about his performance at Rushe Middle School in Land O' Lakes.

He asked what she meant.

"She said, 'You've been accused of wizardry,' " Piculas said.

What was his crime? He made a toothpick disappear with some slight of hand and transparent tape. And then showed the kids how to do it.

Whatever other reasons that the school district said they fired him, this appears to have been a precipitating event. It shouldn't have even merited mention.

Think about all that mankind has learned and how it helps us make a little bit of sense out of the world around us. Think of our hopes for the future, which rest upon our friends and neighbors having some understanding of the world with all of its complexities. I am amazed we make any progress at all.

(Hat tip to Bob on EAForums.)

(P.S. If anyone doubts that teen prostitution is aproblem in schools:

The number of girls being sexually exploited through prostitution is rising rapidly in Boston, with 12 times as many cases of teen prostitution in the first nine months of 2005 as in all of 2003.

)

Technorati : wizardry witchcraft education school superstition religion

Did you hear the news story about the girl who would not recite the Pledge of Allegiance in high school classes? They booted her out of school for it.

Eighteen-year-old Tyner Academy senior Quinesha Garrett was removed this week from daytime classes and ordered to night school, where the pledge is not recited.

She refused to say the Pledge, so she's probably some kind of terrorist or other.

But there is a happy end to this story. Ms. Garrett simply told the administration that she had political reasons for not reciting the Pledge at this time, and that she felt it was part of her exercise of freedom of speech. And they let her back in!

I'm totally kidding. She told them it was against her religion.

Sometimes I wish non-theists could get notes from god, but he tends not to return our phone calls.

If you're not familiar with Ben Stein's recent involvement with a film called "Expelled," I'll give you the short version and you can check out the rest on Wikipedia and/or through a Google search.

Essentially, Stein is the host of an anti-science screed of a movie which seeks to get people all worked up against science, biology, atheists and Planned Parenthood. I first heard of this film when he fooled some prominent biologists into being interviewed, and again later when one of the interviewees was barred from seeing the film in public. The new York Times reviewed the film and called it "a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry."

I hadn't discussed this story before because it was all over the atheist blogosphere. But the latest development in this saga has me really upset.

If you're a skeptic, you've likely heard the name "Michael Shermer." He's the founder of the Skeptics Society and of Skeptic magazine. In addition to debunking psychics and other bullshit artists, he has written books on the reasons that people believe strange things and on pseudohistory.

It was from Shermer that I first learned about the deeply delusional world of Holocaust Deniers. Before I read Shermer, I didn't realize the depth of denial some people harbor regarding the Holocaust. I found it eye opening; it was a moment in my life when I saw more clearly how the delusional thinking that is the antithesis of skepticism is not harmless. The danger of delusion, of believing things that make us happy, was something I had suspected. But it became more real and more visceral when I read about Holocaust denial.

Shermer has spent a great deal of time debunking Holocaust Deniers. Which is why I am upset at what Stein and his fellow filmmakers have done.

In their linking of evolutionary biology to all the evils of the world, they have painted creationism skeptics as contributors to the Holocaust on the oft-repeated but unsupported belief that Hitler's atrocities were driven by atheism and evolutionary biology. In their effort to smear Shermer in the film, as a person who has opposed the creationist delusion, they've convinced some Jews that this champion of the facts of the Holocaust is somehow responsible for the Holocaust.

This came to the attention of Richard Dawkins, and he's posted about it on his website in an entry called "Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda." The short version is that after seeing Expelled, a moviegoer contacted Shermer and criticized him as someone who thinks "that it was okay for [his] great-grandparents to die in the Holocaust!"

I find this to be a very sad and upsetting irony, and an example of the infectiousness of delusion. Ben Stein and the other makers of Expelled have taken up their own kind of Holocaust denial, denying the reasons why the Holocaust happened and hijacking it for their own creationist purposes. In the process they have smeared innocent people.

What they have done is absolutely despicable.

Technorati : ben stein, creationism, evolution, expelled, michael shermer, richard dawkins, skeptic

Overpriced, prittified, and deceptively marketed vitamin supplement "Airborne" has agreed to pay back some of the money they successfully marketed out of the pockets of consumers who figure that if a company says that it's got research to back its claims, that research is done by scientists rather than by two guys in a garage.

Technorati : airborne, drugs, health, medicine, quackery, scam, vitamins

Scourge of Scientology dies in apparent suicide

Now that’s not shady at all. This is a fellow who created a documentary show for his public access cable channel, and angered more than a few scientologists in the process. He was even “battered’ at one point, while he was filming.

They called Lonsdale’s employer at a title company and his landlord and said that Lonsdale was a religious bigot, possibly dangerous.

If you disagree with the tactics of Scientologists, you’re a religious bigot? Really? I mean, seriously. L. Ron Hubbard said that if you want real money, you have to make up your own religion. Where’s that quote? Here it is on Wikiquote. So, he decided to do that.

If you make up a religion, should people be labeled as “bigots” if they oppose the activities of an organization they disagree with?

The answer is “no.”

I’ll restate it for clarity: Opposing the actions of an organization that calls itself “religious” does not make a person a bigot. Actions are part of the observable world, and are subject to evaluation on their merits alone. You are not a bigot if you oppose an action.

I think we all agree that we wouldn’t respect an organization if its stated goals were to oppress some other group. If they couch that activity in religion, it doesn’t make it any better. Certain fundamentalist Muslim organizations have a radical and violent agenda. Are we bigots if we openly disagree with those beliefs, and even work to oppose the activities of such a group? No.

If we agree on that, does it only apply to a violent agenda? I shouldn’t think so. If your disagreement is based in reality, it’s a rational objection, then it’s not bigotry. If you disagree with some of the ideas the organization espouses, that’s also a disagreement based on reality.

So, what do I think is religious bigotry? That’s easy. Like other bigotry it’s when you discriminate against an individual because of some group affiliation. here are some bigoted statements:

• “I refuse to have an Arab in my house.”
• “I will not hire a Jew.”
• “I refuse to ride in an elevator with a Scientologist.”
• “Christians have an anti-science agenda.”

That last one is tricky. I’m generalizing, so I’m applying my opinion to all Christians. That’s a problem, because it’s inaccurate and unfair. If I was trying to make a rational point with that comment, I should try to be much more precise, accurate and fair. Even if I make a comment that hurts feelings, if it is defensible as accurate and fair, it can be argued that there is value in the comment.

Not bigoted:

• “I won’t shop at that website because part of the proceeds go to the Church of Scientology.”
  • If you disagree with the activities of the Church of Scientology, you should not be expected to support them.
• “The people I talked to from that Baptist church have some pretty backward ideas about biology. I worry about their effect on the local schools.”
  • You may feel some beliefs are detrimental to your community without being a bigot, especially when they result in policies that affect you.
• “O’Leary was extremely rude last time he was here. I am never inviting that guy over again.”
  • O’Leary may be Irish, Black, left-handed or whatever. He was rude, you aren’t obligated to invite him over.

I’ve drawn a fairly clear line between individuals and organizations, your ideas and actions, their behavior and generalization.

But there is a borderland, of course.

Your actions against an individual, if they cause injury or are unfair and hurtful, are not just an opinion; they have a measurable effect. That will land you in the “bigotry zone” if they are motivated by a generalization.

But some organizations define themselves based on a specific behavior or idea you might find abhorrent. You might be able to defend against charges of bigotry if you think that people who believe aliens are hiding among us are not worthy of trust. And if those people form a group called “Humans Aware of Alien Presence” they’re self-identifying, and that doesn’t exempt them from your opinion. But what if a job applicant says he is a member of that group? Now you are in a situation with potential to do harm by not giving the person a fair shot at the job. Is this a grey area where your ability to be more certain of their beliefs collides with the knowledge that your actions could be unfair? Perhaps we need to err on the side of calling it bigotry if you don’t go out of your way to be fair here. Or is that, in turn, unfair to you, because it strips you of an aspect of your decision-making process?

Human Resource departments often have rules to avoid these situations altogether, by limiting what you are allowed to ask applicants. But presidential candidacies don’t. I had no problem with Romney for his Mormonism; there was plenty I disagreed about with him. I think that if I said I opposed Romney for president because of his religion, I’d have some real explaining to do to show it wasn’t for bigoted reasons, because that’s a bigoted statement¹.

How about whether you decide to be a part of the Catholic Church²? Let’s say you make that decision based on the Church’s priest scandal, because the organization acted to sacrifice the security of children in an effort to avoid criticism and retribution from the law. If it’s a church, a book club, or a bunch of model airplane hobbyists you can argue that your actions are a direct consequence of their actions. There is no bigotry there, and no religious discrimination. You cannot say that this priest or that priest is a molester, but it is entirely fair to say you don’t trust the organization.

Calling someone a bigot because they don’t like the actions of the Church of Scientology is inaccurate and unfair. It attempts to protect the organization from valid criticism. And it dilutes the meaning of “religious bigotry” from an unfair treatment of an individual to meaninglessness.

¹ If you had a sense that a candidate was only in a race to impose his religion on the country, or if he didn’t seem to be able to make a rational decision without making it a religious issue, you would have a real basis for questioning his judgment as a humanist.

² I apologize to my Catholic friends for this example, not because I think the Church shouldn’t be criticized for its actions but because I think that Catholics and Priests are disproportionately criticized. I think that, as an organization, the Church deserves all the criticism it gets for its scandals, but the fact that other churches are less organized, or smaller organizations, or more splintered makes it less likely you’re going to hear about a scandal. And there’s possibly as much of a chance that some random non-Catholic cleric is taking advantage of his position as there is for a Catholic one.

Did you catch the Tom Cruise video that was all the rage last week on the interweb? It was on Gawker (via YouTube) and the Church of Scientology is suing to take it down. Or something.

As I watched the video, I was reminded of what creeps me out the most about Scientology, and it isn’t limited to scientologists.

It’s the whole personal power gig. Now, I’m all for giving people advice to help them sort their lives out. Especially when they ask for it. But when people are on a crusade to supersize their personal power, it makes my skin crawl. That’s a visceral reaction, and I’ve had it since I first learned about est when I was in college.

With Scientology, they seem to have cranked the skincrawl factor (I like to abbreviate it to SF because it’s cool to have your own secret acronym language) up to eleven by insisting that their thoughts can change reality, something that the cult of The Secret also has latched on to.

My thoughts can change reality, too! If I think the right thoughts, like I’m going to give you noogies, and then I allow my muscles to move my arm and grind my knuckle into your scalp, then my thoughts have changed reality. The thing is, I have to use my physical body to do it. That, inconveniently enough, is the way the universe works.

Some people think that all they need to do is think, and reality bends toward their will. That’s dopey, but it’s the “drunk on your own personal power” trip that really gives me the heebie jeebies.

The idea that I keep hearing with selfish belief systems is that if you are focused enough on your success, then you will achieve it. My take is that if you are focused enough on your own success, you will be an insufferable bore, a self-absorbed ninny, possibly a danger to the world and you will make people’s skin crawl. The more focused you are on changing reality with your thoughts, the more your own brain is going to become out of synch with reality.

There are people who don’t believe that their thoughts change reality, but are self-deluded beyond the norm and craft their own versions of reality. Our president is possibly one of those people, and all you have to do is watch the news to see the results of staying focused on how you want reality to be rather than facing reality. Now imagine how much worse a situation you could get yourself into if you not only deluded yourself about reality, but also on how you interacted with reality. It’s a double dose of delusional thinking.

Something else was bugging me, this time about Buddhism. The idea that suffering comes from attachment bothered me because on the one hand it makes some sense. On the other hand, I want to be attached to certain things, like my wife and children, and I think that good comes out of those attachments. I am only superficially informed about Buddhism, though, so I looked it up for an explanation.

One explanation that I read led me to believe that my interpretation of attachment was wrong. This explanation said that our attachment is to ideas, such as an idea of how reality is. For example, you might become attached to the idea of your life being perfect. Your attachment to an idea would cause you suffering when your idea differed from reality. Or, you could have an idea about the world which brought you misery — perhaps you imagine that you are jinxed or cursed.

In any case, an attachment to an idea of something, or an idealized version of something could certainly cause you suffering when you have a “cognitive dissonance” between your thoughts and reality. Suddenly, I found this explanation of attachment to be comforting rather than troubling. A philosophy which urges you to try to see things more clearly rather than to bend reality to your thoughts is one that I can find wisdom in.

I think that facing reality, especially the reality of change which is beyond your control could help these folks who are attached to the idea that they are the shapers of reality. And maybe the rest of us can benefit from it, too, Buddhist or not.

Bonus:

Craig Ferguson practically nailed the video in this brief parody.

PS.

“You revived your blog for this?”

In ancient times, as today, the seasons changed. For part of the year, the nights grew longer and longer until they froze. And then, just near the darkest time of the longest nights, people celebrated the promise of the return of the light. They had different symbols for the coming of the light. Evergreen represented rebirth — the promise that warmth would always return. People gathered with their loved ones, flung their voices against the darkness and shared a marvelous feast. Some called this celebration “Yule.” And, slowly at first, the light has always returned.

Another very old story tells of an anointed one (the “Christ”) who represented a new beginning, a chance for redemption. Some people who believed the anointed one had already come combined their story with the traditions of Yule and called it “Christmas.” This became a time to celebrate the fulfillment of a promise, like the return of the light, but embodied in a specific human person.

Many people all over the world celebrate this time of year. In my country, the United States of America, we have made “Christmas” an official national holiday, though nobody is required to celebrate it. It is a very inclusive holiday if you are open to the idea, no matter what your religious beliefs are. Perhaps you believe, through some supernatural force, an anointed one has already come. Perhaps you believe he has yet to come. Perhaps you believe in no such supernatural force at all. Perhaps you choose to celebrate something in your heart, some idea. It’s up to you, as all your choices are up to you.

And what a very wonderful idea it is, that at the darkest time there is hope that the light will return. And what a very powerful idea that the light can be embodied in a human person.

When things seem at their darkest, I choose to believe that you are that person. It is an important idea that the return of the light is not outside of you, but is within your heart and mind. And if you believe it, too, then you will act on it. Through your actions, change will happen slowly at first, but the light will always return. This is the magic the world needs.

Merry Christmas to you, and may your heart be filled with joy and bereft of despair. And may your friends, family and everyone you meet share that joy.

When you read that post title, you have to read it like that “What’s in your wallet” commercial. So, do that for me, won’t you?

Did you know that your colon is slowly poisoning you to death?

If you do, then you’ve fallen for one of many stories about how your colon is slowly poisoning you. Maybe you’ve had someone blame it on red meat¹. The presentation is usually something like, “if you’ve been eating meat all your life, your colon has all sorts of red meat packed into it, rotting away and poisoning your body.” Or, maybe someone was just trying to get you to use bowel cleansing products.

Years ago, I read with some astonishment that medical fads of years past included consuming products like paraffin wax that were thought to help you expel stuff from your colon. In other extreme cases of quackery, people would have large portions of their intestines removed simply on the principle that it was good for nothing but making them sick.

At the turn of the century, this theory of colon poisoning was called “autointoxication.” From an abstract of the paper Colonic Irrigation and the Theory of Autointoxication: A Triumph of Ignorance over Science:

Autointoxication is an ancient theory based on the belief that intestinal waste products can poison the body and are a major contributor to many, if not all, diseases. In the 19th century, it was the ruling doctrine of medicine and led “colonic quackery” in various guises. By the turn of the century, it had received some apparent backing from science. When it became clear that the scientific rationale was wrong and colonic irrigation was not merely useless but potentially dangerous, it was exposed as quackery and subsequently went into a decline. Today we are witnessing a resurgence of colonic irrigation based on little less than the old bogus claims and the impressive power of vested interests. Even today’s experts on colonic irrigation can only provide theories and anecdotes in its support. It seems, therefore, that ignorance is celebrating a triumph over science.

These colonic fixations survive today in the form of colon cleansing products and “irrigation” techniques.

Today, you may encounter people who tell you that you have a dangerous “mucoid plaque” that is clinging to the walls of your colon, but that they can sell you a product which will help you expel this plaque. It’s a convenient story, not backed by any science, and nobody who does not use one of these cleansing products ever sees a “mucoid plaque.”

If your gut is bothering you, see a doctor². He will best be able to do the tests to find out if you have an actual problem. But if you don’t have a condition requiring medical or surgical intervention, he will likely tell you that even healthy bowel functioning has a range of variation. Including fruits, fiber-rich veggies and whole grains in your diet is the moderate and safe way to keep the average colon functioning. Stay away from that guy with the 30 inch hose and the 20 gallon tank of herb-infused water.

¹ There are a lot of reasons to be careful about your red meat consumption. But the question here is what this has to do with your colon. I haven’t yet seen evidence that a diet with moderate amounts of red meat puts you in any danger. Of course, we all wonder about BSE…

² I’m serious. I am not a doctor; see a physician for medical advice.

Yesterday I got an email from a friend. She was seeking my advice with a family situation.

Her experiences with a religious community led her to take a more personal approach to her beliefs, which means that she and her children are not part of an organized religion. She retains spiritual beliefs¹.

Her children have tutor, and this tutor is a practitioner of an unfamiliar religion. This religion differs significantly from her beliefs. The kids and she are really fond of the tutor and his wife, they’ve gotten close, and now two of her kids have decided that they’d like to join that religion and begin studying the religion. The younger of the two sons is 10. She doesn’t want to react in a way that motivates her older son in a negative way. And she doesn’t think the younger one quite grasps what it means to adopt a religion. On top of that, she doesn’t want to insult her friends with her reaction.

My advice (edited a bit and elaborated in places):

One of the problems I have with religion is in how it is used to control people, and that would be my main worry if my children got involved with any religion. I agree that 10 is too young to really understand the implications.

I think that if my kids were to get involved with a religion, I would get involved, too. Like your family, ours encourages rational and independent thought. Your sons are naturally curious, and so of course they want to explore both their world and people. And religious beliefs are absolutely fascinating, even if we find this one or that one silly.

I would try to make sure we could continue to have discussions about belief, so that I could understand what they are thinking and, perhaps, where they are going with their thoughts. As a parent, you are still guiding their study of belief. You’ve probably already exposed them to the ideas of different religion. I’d suggest continuing to do so. Don’t be afraid to touch on some of the dangers of belief, and trouble people have gotten into when other people take advantage of a willingness to believe. You can continue to teach them to be skeptical without necessarily teaching them to be cynical or atheistic.

The important thing always with children is to keep them engaged in thought and to be critical of their own beliefs as well as those of others. Self criticism is essential to a scientific mind. I am finding that the most effective people I know are creative thinkers who self-criticize. It allows them to be creative, productive and stay grounded in reality.

You have to have an open mind and many creative thoughts and points of view, but grounding them by thinking critically is what helps you find a balance.

If you’re involved with them you can help them make sense of what they’re hearing and make sure they’re not accepting anything uncritically. Their beliefs are going to be theirs alone, but as a parent you provide context and can help reinforce their confidence to decide what they want to believe rather than what someone else wants them to believe.

¹ I’m being vague because the details aren’t really that important. And I like to take a default approach of preserving as much privacy as possible even though this friend said I ought to share some of our conversation with my blogging audience. If she reads this and wants to elaborate details, she can, of course.

Can you legislate your morality? Certainly you can work to make something illegal if you think it is immoral. If you have enough political power, or get enough people to agree, you can make anything illegal.

But does making something illegal stop people from doing it? if you believe that people base their beliefs largely on the law, or they fear being caught doing something, then you might think that you can change people’s behavior for the better just by outlawing something.

But fear of the law is not always the biggest motivator, and time and time again we’ve learned that changing the law only changes people’s behavior to the point where they are now jumping through hoops, or doing dangerous things to accomplish what they could have accomplished more safely otherwise. See prohibition, and the war on drugs.

Strict father model conservatives¹ act as though the state can act as a force to change people’s minds. You can naively argue that you’re simply making something immoral illegal because it ought to be illegal — and that’s good enough. Unfortunately, it’s not good enough if the net effect is a less stable society when people do not tend to take their moral cues from the government².

Even people who support choice in the abortion issue can often be heard to say that their goal is not more abortions, but rather safer abortions. This is an acknowledgement of the reality of what happens when abortions are illegal. Forced-birth³ supporters want to ignore that reality; in the case of “radio conservatives” they are even heard to mock the argument⁴.

Not that this will change anything about conservative radio, but now there is hard data to back up two important opinions.

1. Outlawing abortions does not reduce the number of abortions, it merely makes them less safe.
2. The only way to reduce abortions is to increase access to contraception.

These findings were published in the Lancet (referenced in New Scientist this week) and they lend force to arguments pro-choicers have made for a long time.

This study also appears in the article “With Facts on Our Side” in The Nation (November 2007 issue).

“The legal status of abortion doesn’t predict whether abortions occur,” study co-author Gilda Sedgh told me by phone. “It predicts whether they are safe. South Africa liberalized its abortion laws in l997, and maternal deaths from unsafe abortion have plummeted by 90 percent.”

This fact alone means that forced-birth supporters must attack this study. The forced-birth opinion, if enacted, is measurably deadly to women because of the truism that legislating morality doesn’t make it the people’s morality. No doubt conservatives will use the same argument they’ve used against undocumented immigrants — if they’re getting an illegal abortion, they’re lawbreakers and perhaps they’re getting what they deserve. But this toll would quickly be felt well into the middle class⁵, and I don’t think the majority would stand for it. Calling pregnant woman “illegals” probably won’t wash.

But I find the following even more important.

The countries with the lowest abortion rates, like the Netherlands, have few abortion restrictions and lots of birth control. Consider Eastern Europe. Under communism, abortion was virtually the only family planning method. As contraception has become more available, the abortion rate has plummeted—from 90 in 1995 to 44 in 2003.

I am anti-abortion. I’m not for making it illegal, I’m for making it not happen.

To be truly anti-abortion is about giving women the widest possible latitude in controlling their biological processes. We have evolved a certain method of reproduction as a species. And our morality has evolved to give each of us a sense of individual autonomy. Our rights have developed to respect that individuality. Do we usurp a woman’s individual biology for the purpose of imposing our view of society on her? If a woman’s reproductive function a tool of society, or part of her self?

This study shows that we have the tool to reduce the incidence of an objectionable procedure. But religious absolutists have adopted an all-or-nothing argument. In their view, contraception and abortion would be illegal. Contraception, to them, is often equal to abortion. In a world where that becomes the law, disastrous consequences from botched abortions would be commonplace as unwanted pregnancies skyrocket and desperate women seek dangerous alternatives.

Opponents of legal abortion ask women to be strong and make tough choices to prevent the pregnancy from happening in the first place. However, when reality does not agree with your opinion, now you are faced with what may be a tough, but practical, choice. If you want fewer abortions, you should compromise on the contraception. Society asks you to make this choice for yourself. Will men and women meet the challenge and make this compromise? Or will religion assert an unworkable solution, an ultimate authoritarian cop out?

¹ People who believe the government should act like a strict parent. See brief Wikipedia entry or George Lakoff’s books.

² I have always found it ironic that conservatives argue against making people dependent on the state for their survival, and then advocate authoritarian social measures which try to make people dependent on the state for their morality. It’s been tried many times in the past with a state religion, but in a country where you’re not allowed to force a religion down the throats of your population, people start working to turn government into a surrogate religion. Religion already has a lousy track record on morality, and government as church does an even worse job. Government ought to stay out of the morality business altogether, look to the people for what laws to enforce and retreat altogether on morally contentious issues.

³ The term “pro-life” is misleading and inaccurate. People who oppose abortion are not pro-life, they are against legal abortion. If I wanted to be equally inaccurate, I could say they are pro-dangerous-abortions, since that is the result of restrictive abortion policy. But keeping it simple and accurate, they are about forcing pregnant women to carry through the pregnancy and go through the birth process. They are pro-forced-birth. Some people refer the term “anti-choice.” That always struck me as too tit-for-tat, and sounds confusingly unspecific to me. It’s simpler than that. Forcing women to give birth is forced-birth. The term is focused on the immediate consequence, and the fact that it is not just removing choice, but forcing a woman into something. It highlights the victimization that is taking place.

⁴ I know not all conservatives agree with talk radio. However, I have not often heard conservative media criticised by conservatives for belittling the issue of the specter of an increase in dangerous abortions. I perceive a lot of silent agreement, and that’s my charitable assessment. The less charitable assumption would be that these people don’t disbelieve a spike in dangerous abortions, but rather don’t care about dangerous abortions. The “sinners deserve to die” thing that worked so well with AIDS during the Reagan administration.

⁵ Super-rich folks need not worry. With enough money there is always a way to get your safe abortion. And the self-righteous religious rich know that if you have an abortion quietly enough, even God doesn’t hear about it.

So, there’s this conversation you can find cut and pasted all over the internet. It’s a discussion between an asshat philosophy professor who can’t argue for shit raking one of his hapless theist students over the coals for no apparent reason.

Someone saw fit to paste this near-worthless piece of writing in a comment to my blog. It amused me a little bit because it’s so sad. But I had to figure that some angry theist must have gotten a kick out of writing it. I thought I’d try my hand at that!

Now, to be absolutely accurate to the style of writing, I’d have to make the theist in the story a surly and belligerent moron, like the philosophy professor in the story who picks a fight with a student but can’t even argue about heat and cold. It doesn’t seem quite fair, but hey, that’s the template I’m working with. So, here goes!

Professor of Religion speaks to his class on how stupid atheists are.

He ask one of his atheist students to stand and….

Prof.: So you believe in the almighty God?

Student: No, sir.

Prof.: Why not?

Student: Based on the evidence.

Prof.: Can you prove God doesn’t exist?

Student: Of course not but…

Prof.: (Interrupting with a huge grin) Aha, so you admit that your claim that God doesn’t exist is the height of arrogance!

Student: I didn’t make that claim. You asked me what I believed. I am technically an agnostic because I refuse to say God is absolutely impossible, but I am a de facto atheist because the evidence leads me to believe that the possibility of God’s existence is intolerably small. So I live my life as an atheist. You also asked what I can prove. It’s impossible to prove…

Prof.: (Smugly, drooling slightly) Impossible because Gods existence is impossible to deny!

Student: (Calmly) Well, no. It’s because God is defined in such a way that you can wiggle out of every argument, but in general it’s not possible to prove the nonexistence of something. Nor is it appropriate; the burden of proof is on you.

Prof.: The proof of God’s existence is all around us. You and I couldn’t possibly exist if God hadn’t created us.

Student: Well, that’s what you believe, but you were attacking me on my reasoning and clearly I can’t take “creation” as evidence that God exists when there are quite plausible scientific explanations for the complexity of the universe. If this were an age of superstition, I might have to throw up my hands and concede the argument to you. But let me ask you a question, do you believe in a teapot, floating in space between the Earth and Mars?

Prof.: (Haughty) That’s ridiculous, of course I don’t. How would it get there?

Student: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Wow - ridiculous, eh? That’s a bit arrogant, wouldn’t you say?

Prof.: (Suddenly looking confused) What? Well, why should I believe in such a teapot? Astronomers…

Student: (Interrupting) Oh, I meant to mention that the teapot is too small for any of our telescopes to detect.

Prof.: (Smug again) Of course I don’t believe in a floating, microscopic teapot.

Student: Fair enough. I haven’t given you any evidence. You should, at this point, be a teapot agnostic. But you went even further, calling my teapot belief ridiculous. I find that interesting. Why not go ahead and prove to me the teapot doesn’t exist.

Complete silence in the classroom as everyone realizes something EXTREMELY IMPORTANT is happening in this REALLY DRAMATIC MOMENT of this INCREDIBLE SOCRATIC DIALOGUE.

Prof.: (Humble and devoid of sarcasm) Holy crap, you’re right, I can’t prove it.

Student: And you shouldn’t have to. The burden should be on me, if I claim the teapot exists. You might not be able to prove that this teapot doesn’t exist, but you certainly shouldn’t believe it does. The possibility is intolerably small.

Prof.: (Suddenly coming to a realization about his theism) Class is canceled and all the atheists in class have an A. I’m going to see if there’s an opening on the visual arts staff because clearly I can’t teach this class anymore. Thank you, nameless student.

The professor walks out, but not before shaking the student’s hand, which turns into an emotional hug.

It’s not hard to write one of these silly dialogues. Feel free to write your own. Post it in the comments or, if you post it to your blog, post a link to it in my comments.

Noted this story on the Volokh Conspiracy:

A megachurch canceled a memorial service for a Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start because the deceased was gay.

AP Story here. — Volokh blog post Here

I basically agree with what Volokh participant blogger, Dale Carpenter says when he comments:

I doubt the church refuses to bury people it also thinks have sinned, like liars, blasphemers, and adulterers.

Does this High Point Church scour the lives of the folks they bury and refuse if they find people to be sinners? The pathetic excuse they use in this case is that a homosexual is living a lifestyle that is unrepentant. However, I don’t see how they can know what untold sins their parishioners and the other people they’ve buried have perpetrated through their lives. So, to me, this excuse simply comes off as PR cover, when it really is a discriminatory act. It’s a legal one, but it’s still hateful.

That’s what grabbed my interest in this story. But what further interested me was this at the end of Carpenter’s post:

I was raised in a Christian home and nothing the church did here resembles the values of respect for human dignity, and for the life of every single person, that I was taught. The most loving, understanding, and tolerant people I have known have been Christians. And they have been loving, understanding, and tolerant not despite their faith, but because of it.

Carpenter was taught respect for human dignity, and it does come through in his opinions and his post. And he says that some Christians have risen to the top of the heap as far as tolerant people he has known. Then he says that their faith has made them so.

I wonder on what he bases this conclusion. What this says is that he knows people who he thinks would not be as tolerant if they were not full of Christian faith. I can’t argue with him; I do not know the people he’s talking about. But I’ve never seen evidence that faith makes you tolerant, or a better person.

I’ve known good people of faith and good people who lacked faith. So, faith is not, in my experience, a factor in common. However, one thing those people did share was a respect for human dignity, and a respect for life. These are specifically humanist principles. Christians may share them, but if you affirm a respect for human dignity and you believe that is a large part of the definition of a good person, then it’s not clear to me why faith is necessary.

Perhaps Carpenter feels he needs to give this paragraph in support of faith because it’s clear, just looking at the news, that there are many acts that do not reflect a respect for human dignity, yet they are justified by faith. It would seem that faith is many times at odds with humanist principles.

On the argument that faith makes people more respectful of human dignity, I don’t find Carpenter convincing. I feel this paragraph is more effective as an attempt to mollify Christian readers who do not want to be tarred along with this megachurch. People acting on their humanist principles is a good thing. It seems to me that people betray those principles when they refuse to bury a man ostensibly because a great disapproving being in the sky is frowning at them.