I stumbled across this in the comments at Friendly Christian and just had to share. The LOLcat Bible Translation Project is working towards the momentous goal of translating the entire Bible into lolcat speak. They are currently 61% complete. This is absolutely hilarious.
The LHC is due to come online this summer, and it’s got the entire world of physics waiting on the edge of their proverbial seats. Here Brian Cox (British rocker turned particle physicist) explains in terms for the general public just what the LHC is all about and why it’s so important. This is truly an awesome talk.
Yup, it’s that time of the semester. Finals start in just over a week, so you probably won’t see me around here much in the next two weeks. After that though I should have a little more free time and will be able to blog more often.
Oh, the irony.
Today is April 28th. It was hailing at 1:20 pm, when my last class started, raining at 2:10 pm, when it got out, and now, at 3:00 pm, sitting in the study den on my floor (the eighth) it is snowing hard enough that I can barely see the apartment complex that usually dominates the view out of the northward facing window. I love Wisconsin!
This is an incredible image. For the first time ever, an Orangutan has been observed using a tool to fish. Absolutely marvelous.
Ben Stein is bat shit crazy.
When I was younger I always thought it would be extremely cool to be a string theorist. Then I started looking up guys like Brian Greene and realized most of them had been mathematical prodigies as children. Here, Greene explains string theory, and its roots, in a very clear, nontechnical manner.
(via Greg Laden)
Team of researchers in Italy claims to have directly detected dark matter
Short background: we know dark matter exists. We also know it must be made up of particles that are very difficult to detect (or else we’d see them, of course). A leading contender are WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, specifically a weird particle called an axion. We still have not directly detected and identified an axion in any particle experiments, though LHC (and more on that later, of course!) may bag one soon.
DM particles form a cloud around and throughout the Milky Way. Although they don’t interact with normal matter terribly well (hence the weakly interacting part of their name) they do sometimes slam into normal matter. You can build a detector to look for that interaction — it would make little flashes of light — but again you need to look very carefully.
The Italian experiment looked very carefully. One of the things they looked for was a modulation in the signal, a change over time. They wanted to see the number of flashes of light from DM hitting normal matter go up and down by a few percent, with a maximum in June and a minimum number in December. Why?
Imagine you are in a car, driving through a cloud of bugs. If you hold your hand out the window, a bunch of bugs will hit it (ewwww). Now if you throw a ball out the window into the direction of the car’s motion, it will hit more bugs, because it’s moving into the cloud faster. If you throw a ball behind you, then the ball will be moving slower relative to the bugs, and fewer bugs will hit the ball.
A similar thing is happening with the Earth. The whole solar system is orbiting the center of the Milky Way at about 250 kilometers per second. But the Earth is also orbiting the Sun. When the Earth is at one part of its orbit, its velocity (30 kps) adds to that of the solar system, but six months later it’s headed the other way, and its velocity subtracts.
If the Earth is slamming into dark matter particles, then we should hit more when the Earth and solar system velocities are in the same direction, and hit fewer when the Earth is moving in the opposite direction of the solar system as a whole six months later. So not only should we see the number of hits go up and down every six months, but that oscillation must line up with the correct dates (June for the former, and December for the latter).
That is precisely what the Italian team found.
The following is an open letter written and posted online by Richard Dawkins to a Jew who saw the opening of Expelled this weekend, and unfortunately was taken in by the massive load of bullshit concerning the Holocaust that it contains. Richard’s intro and explanation is preserved.
On 18th April, the day Ben Stein's infamous film was released, Michael Shermer received the following letter from a Jew (referencing a past article that Shermer had written debunking the Holocaust deniers) whose identity I shall conceal as “David J”.
Now I truly understand who you atheists and darwinists really are! You people believe that it was okay for my great-grandparents to die in the Holocaust! How disgusting. Your past article about the Holocaust was just window dressing. We Jews will fight to keep people like you out of the United States!
Shermer wrote to Mr J to ask if he had by any chance just seen Expelled, and he received this reply:
Yes I have. You know, I respect you as a human being and you have done great work exposing psychics and frauds, but this is a very touchy issue that affects me and family emotionally. Our family business was affected because of Auschwitz because now, our family has nothing. It is gone. Things began to make sense once I saw the movie and I am just appalled. I have learned a lot from Ben Stein, a Jewish brother, who has opened my eyes up a bit.
It seemed to me that Ben Stein and his lying crew were more to blame than Mr J himself for his revolting letter. I therefore decided to write him a personal letter and try to explain a few things to him. It then occurred to me (indeed, Michael Shermer suggested as much) that there are probably many others like him, whose minds have been twisted in this evil way by the man Stein, and that it would be a good idea to publish the letter. I decided to wait 24 hours to see if he would reply, although I didn't expect him to. I am now publishing my letter to him, exactly as I sent it to him except that I have removed his name.
Richard
Dear Mr JMichael Shermer forwarded me a letter from you which suggests that you have unfortunately been taken in by Ben Stein's mendacious and/or ignorant suggestion that Darwin is somehow to blame for Hitler. I hope you will not mind if I write to you and try to undo this grievous error.
1. I deeply sympathize with you for the loss of your relatives in the Holocaust. Nevertheless, I don't think that could really be said to justify the tone of your letter to Michael Shermer, who is a kind and decent man, as even you seemed to concede in your second letter to him, and the very antithesis of a Nazi sympathizer.
Now I truly understand who you atheists and darwinists really are! You people believe that it was okay for my great-grandparents to die in the Holocaust! How disgusting. Your past article about the Holocaust was just window dressing. We Jews will fight to keep people like you out of the United States!
Just look at those words of yours. Probably you regret them by now. I certainly hope so, but I'll continue to write my letter to you, on the assumption that you still feel at least a part of what you wrote.
2. Hitler's horrible opinions were not all that unusual for his time, not just in Germany but throughout Europe, including my own country of Britain, by the way. What singled Hitler out was the fact that he somehow managed to come to power in one of Europe's leading nations, which was also one of the world's most technologically advanced nations. Hitler had a lot of support in Germany. His horrible bidding was done by millions of ordinary German footsoldiers, and the great majority of them were Christians. Many were Lutheran, and many (like Hitler himself) were Roman Catholic. Very few were atheists, and whatever else Hitler was he most certainly was not an atheist. It is sometimes said that Hitler only pretended to be Catholic, in order to win the Church's support for his regime. In this he was very largely successful. So, whether or not Hitler was himself a true Catholic (as he often claimed) the Church bears a heavy responsibility for what happened. And Hitler himself used religion to justify his anti-Semitism. For example, here is a typical quotation, from the end of Chapter 2 of Mein Kampf.
Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.
Hitler's obscene anti-Semitism was able to hold sway in Germany because there was a deeply embedded history of anti-Semitism in Germany, and indeed in Europe generally.
3. Going further back in history, where do we think the toxic anti-Semitism of Hitler, and of the many Germans whose support gave him power, came from? You can't seriously think it came from Darwin. Anti-Semitism has been rife in Europe for many many centuries, positively encouraged by most Christian churches, including especially the two that dominate Germany. The Roman Catholic Church has notoriously persecuted Jews as “Christ-killers”. While, as for the Lutherans, Martin Luther himself wrote a book called On the Jews and their Lies from which Hitler quoted. And Luther publicly said that “All Jews should be driven from Germany.” By the way, do you hear an echo of those words in your own letter to Michael Shermer, “We Jews will fight to keep people like you out of the United States.” Don't you feel just a twinge of shame at those truly horrible words of yours? Don't you feel that, as a Jew, you should feel especially regretful that you used those words?
4. Now, to the matter of Darwin. The first thing to say is that natural selection is a scientific theory about the way evolution works in fact. It is either true or it is not, and whether or not we like it politically or morally is irrelevant. Scientific theories are not prescriptions for how we should behave. I have many times written (for example in the first chapter of A Devil's Chaplain) that I am a passionate Darwinian when it comes to the science of how life has actually evolved, but a passionate ANTI-Darwinian when it comes to the politics of how humans ought to behave. I have several times said that a society based on Darwinian principles would be a very unpleasant society in which to live. I have several times said, starting at the beginning of my very first book, The Selfish Gene, that we should learn to understand natural selection, so that we can oppose any tendency to apply it to human politics. Darwin himself said the same thing, in various different ways. So did his great friend and champion Thomas Henry Huxley.
5. Darwinism gives NO support to racism of any kind. Quite the contrary. It is emphatically NOT about natural selection between races. It is about natural selection between individuals. It is true that the subtitle of The Origin of Species is “Or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life” but Darwin was using the word “race” in a very different sense from ours. It is totaly clear, if you read past the title to the book itself, that a “favoured race” meant something like 'that set of individuals who possess a certain favoured genetic mutation” (although Darwin would not have used that language because he did not have our modern concept of a genetic mutation).
6. There is no mention of Darwin in Mein Kampf. Not one single, solitary mention, not one mention in any of the 27 chapters of this long and tedious book. Don't you think that, if Hitler was truly influenced by Darwin, he would have given him at least one teeny weeny mention in his book? Was he, perhaps, INDIRECTLY influenced by some of Darwin's ideas, without knowing it? Only if you completely misunderstand Darwin's ideas, as some have definitely done: the so-called Social Darwinists such as Herbert Spencer and John D Rockefeller. Hitler could fairly be described as a Social Darwinist, but all modern evolutionists, almost literally without exception, have been vocal in their condemnation of Social Darwinism. This of course includes Michael Shermer and me and PZ Myers and all the other evolutionary scientists whom Ben Stein and his team tricked into taking part in his film by lying to us about their true intentions.
7. Hitler did attempt eugenic breeding of humans, and this is sometimes misrepresented as an attempt to apply Darwinian principles to humans. But this interpretation gets it historically backwards, as PZ Myers has pointed out. Darwin's great achievement was to look at the familiar practice of domestic livestock breeding by artificial selection, and realise that the same principle might apply in NATURE, thereby explaining the evolution of the whole of life: “natural selection”, the “survival of the fittest”. Hitler didn't apply NATURAL selection to humans. He was probably even more ignorant of natural selection than Ben Stein evidiently is. Hitler tried to apply ARTIFICIAL selection to humans, and there is nothing specifically Darwinian about artificial selection. It has been familiar to farmers, gardeners, horse trainers, dog breeders, pigeon fanciers and many others for centuries, even millennia. Everybody knew about artificial selection, and Hitler was no exception. What was unique about Darwin was his idea of NATURAL selection; and Hitler's eugenic policies had nothing to do with natural selection.
8. Mr J, you have been cruelly duped by Ben Stein and his unscrupulous colleagues. It is a wicked, evil thing they have done to you, and potentially to many others. I do not know whether they knowingly and wantonly perpetrated the falsehood that fooled you. Perhaps they genuinely and sincerely believed it, although other actions by them, which you can read about all over the Internet, persuade me that they are fully capable of deliberate and calculated deception. You are perhaps not to be blamed for swallowing the film's falsehoods, because you probably assumed that nobody would have the gall to make a whole film like that without checking their facts first. Perhaps even you will need a little more convincing that they were wrong, in which case I urge you to read it up and study the matter in detail — something that Ben Stein and his crew manifestly and lamentably failed to do.
With my good wishes, and sympathy for the losses your family suffered in the Holocaust.
Yours sincerely
Richard Dawkins
All these on one night. Easily the best episode of Colbert I’ve ever seen.
I have to admit, when I first heard the “Breaking News” concerning Barack’s “condescending” remarks towards the people of small town Pennsylvania, and the responses of the Clinton and McCain campaigns, my first though was, “Oh no, Barack, you finally slipped up. You’ve done a pretty good job of staying out of trouble so far, had a little issues with Rev. Wright, but you covered that pretty magnificently, but now you’ve gone and done it.”
Then I got to thinking, and thanks to a long conversation on the topic with a friend, I came to realize that this isn’t a slip up at all. Barack doesn’t feel that way either. What he said is exactly right. The American people (and if Pennsylvania is really as bad as they say, then particularly Pennsylvanians) are frustrated with the economic situation. We’ve seen the American economy deteriorate over the last few years for a number of reasons. Obviously this neo-conservative idiocy about cutting taxes for the wealthy and increasing spending simultaneously while ignoring the little guy has a lot to do with it. But the Democrats are at fault too. The Clinton Era indeed was an age of peace and prosperity unseen in America since perhaps the 20s, but it was not exactly a progressive era. We made no real move forward, or at least not any that couldn’t be very quickly undone by a new administration. People are frustrated and bitter, I don’t think this is a false statement or a bit of elitism at all. It’s honesty we have not seen in ages (perhaps Jimmy Carter? then again, I wouldn’t know, I wasn’t alive then, but it certainly hasn’t happened since 1980). Whether Barack can actually bring any real change or not is another matter, but certainly neither of the other two can, and he at least talks the best game of the three.
Now, to address the other half of the statement, that “they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Again, not much to complain about here. He hits it right on the head. People frequently turn to faith in times of trouble because they feel there needs to be an explanation for something, and they put their trust in God. Or they try to project the cause of their problems onto others, immigrants, academics, foreigners, etc. This was a true statement. What he describes is merely human nature. It was perhaps not the most diplomatic choice of words in deciding to use the word “cling,” but for one, no one except for Chris Matthews will make a big deal of something so small, and secondly, I think this probably indicates that Barack understands the nature of the relationship people have with their guns and religion. The thing is, people do not like when someone else understands them better than they do to, and perhaps it would serve Barack well to hide this fact.
Barack should get out and make a point of the fact that people turn to their faith in times of hardship. He should talk about how he understands how important faith is to people in times of difficulty, and use this to bolster his Christian image. I know I just wrote a post about how annoyed I was that the two of them were going to sit down and talk about religion this weekend, and know I’m sounding a bit hypocritical right about now, but the truth is that no matter how much it disgusts me, the prospect of dealing with four years of McCain is so utterly terrifying, and I’m so sick of Hillary, that I’m ok with just about whatever Barack needs to do to get elected. I always have been a fan of politics…
Illinois Rep. Monique Davis finally called Rob Sherman to apologize for her hateful remarks (audio) directed at Sherman and atheism in general, and made on the floor of the Illinois House of Representatives. The following from Sherman’s website:
Yesterday, State Representative Monique Davis (D-Chicago) called me from the Floor of the Illinois House of Representatives to apologize for what she had said to me at last Wednesday’s hearing of the House State Government Administration Committee. Rep. Davis had said, among other things, that atheism is dangerous to the progression of the State of Illinois, that children should not be allowed to know that my philosophy (atheism) exists, and that I had no right to testify to any Illinois legislative committee because the People of Illinois believe in God. She concluded by ordering me to “Get out of that seat!”
Some bloggers have asked what I said to instigate Rep. Davis’ comments. I was testifying about why the Governor’s proposal to donate one million tax dollars to Pilgrim Baptist Church is unconstitutional. Specifically, I was reading, in a very calm manner, from my laptop computer, the words in the March 4th “Latest Update,” which appear below and which explains why the proposal to give money to the church is unconstitutional.
Rep. Davis said that she had been upset, earlier in the day, to learn that a twenty-second and twenty-third Chicago Public School student this school year had been shot to death that morning. She said that it was wrong for her to take out her anger, frustrations and emotions on me, and that she apologized to me.
I told her that her explanation was reasonable and that I forgave her. I also suggested that if she really was concerned about public school students dying needlessly, she should look into helping me to get passed legislation to get lap and shoulder seat belts on school busses that is pending in the House and in the Senate.
She thanked me for forgiving her and said that she would look into those two pieces of legislation.
Rep. Davis’ apology was a direct result of the pressure put on her by the thousands of bloggers from around the globe who commented on the various news sites and the hundreds of people from around the world who contacted her office by telephone or e-mail. Each and every one of you really did make a difference. Your comments didn’t just go out into thin air and get forgotten about and ignored. By each one of you taking the time to carefully craft your intelligent message, pressure built up on Rep. Davis. Meanwhile, more pressure built as additional news outlets picked up the story, including the Countdown show with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, which gave Rep. Davis the Worst Person in the World award; the Capitol Fax in Springfield, Illinois; and a half-hour appearance on WTDY radio in Madison, Wisconsin. Blogs and direct contact with the offending party really do make a difference. They may not get read everywhere, but they are read by people who matter, so I thank each one of you for your efforts.
(via Friendly Atheist, emphasis his)
I agree with Hemant that her excuse doesn’t really explain it all. It explains why she made the complete non sequitur concerning guns in schools, which is I suppose understandable, if regrettable. But that doesn’t explain the rest of it, and the deep seated misconception she obviously has concerning atheism. Likely though, she has learned her lesson, and if not I’m sure she has at least learned to keep her mouth shut and not spew this nonsense at others.
Note Sherman’s comments that it was the blogging community that forced this apology. While I certainly claim no major role in this as the only person who seems to have read my post on the subject was someone who supported her, this is exactly what we need to do and exactly what Dawkins means when he talks about a consciousness raising. In another day and age this event would have gone largely unnoticed, but the blogging community is essential in making sure that these things get heard and that people are forced to admit that they are wrong when they make comments like this.
This is of utmost importance to maintenance of our civilization as we know it. I know I don’t devote enough attention to it as I should, and I’ll try to do so in the future. To quote Dawkins, we need a “consciousness raising,” and we need it fast!
(via onegoodmove)
No doubt by now you’ve heard by now about Illinois State Rep. Monique Davis and her disgusting rant against atheist Rob Sherman, in the halls of government no less. Chicago Tribune coverage here and audio is here. But Keith Olbermann just gave this the biggest coverage it’s gotten thus far. I can’t embed it here, or at least don’t know how to, so here’s the link. I’ve always been a fan of Keith (and all the bias that comes with him, in fact mostly because of the bias), but I really appreciated this.
I’d like to actually get something of substance up here sometime soon, but as I mentioned before, school’s a bitch right now, and on top of it, I’ve come down with with my fourth, yes FOURTH, cold of the season. Just as it has started to get beautiful outside, I get sick again. If I ever get HIV I’m screwed, my immune system sucks enough as it is.
Anyways, enough with the tasteless jokes at the expense of millions of people suffering from a horrible disease. I lieu of actually posting anything of substance, I offer Richard Dawkins British television special “Root of All Evil?” My bet is that anyone who actually regularly reads here will have already seen this, but chances are there are some who haven’t. I’ve actually only seen the first half, but it is very good, and I’ll hopefully see the second soon (maybe tomorrow I’ll just stay home from class, suck on cough syrup, and watch Richard Dawkins productions).
And apparently for some reason I can’t embed Google videos here, so instead I’ll just link.
As many may likely be aware, Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ short film, Fitna, which juxtaposes verses from the Qur’an and snips of hate speech and violent acts from radical Muslims, was posted on LiveLeak for only four days before they were forced to remove it due to “threats” they received. I am not necessarily endorsing this movie as an accurate representation of Islam as a whole, as indeed the entire premise, that moderate Muslims need to take the initiative in changing their religion into the vessel of peace they claim it to be, seems to be entirely lost until the last few minutes, but regardless, it is undeniable that it presents an accurate characterization of the wicked acts perpetrated against humanity by the extremist types. We cannot continue make clear the backwardness of extremist Islam and then shrink from our statements and relinquish our freedom of speech when we gets scared. If we continue to do so, we will eventually give it away for good. It is in solidarity and in the spirit of free speech that I repost the film Fitna below, and ask others to do the same.
This has absolutely irrelevant but simply incredible. This kid lost his eyes to cancer at a young age and has taught himself to see using echo location. That’s right, echo location! I absolutely did not believe it until I saw it.
This is just the first in a five part series. I haven’t had the time yet to watch the whole thing, but if you have some spare time I think the whole thing would be really interesting.
Posting is going to slow down now as Spring Break came to an end this Monday and school has resumed. Unfortunately, these last two months are shaping up to be absolutely hellish so that likely won’t change until mid May.
Of course, the real news of the day is this disgusting story. An 11 year old girl (pictured above, click for source) from Weston, Wisconsin, just an hour north of my hometown, is dead after her parents refused to seek medical treatment for a dangerous, but treatable condition called diabetic ketoacidosis, preferring instead to pray for her return to good health.
Diabetic ketoacidosis essentially results from untreated diabetes, and just from skimming the wikipedia article…it doesn’t sound pretty. Basically, your body goes into starvation and starts producing keytones in overdrive to supply itself with energy. Eventually it reaches the point where people can smell keytones on your breath, often said to be a fruity smell or similar to that of paint thinner, and your blood pH sinks from its usual range of 7.35-7.45 to around 7. This causes many of the proteins in the blood stream to denature, and this is bad news. Severe organ damage and eventually death follow. There are definitely worse ways to die, but I certainly wouldn’t want to go out like this poor girl did.
While this whole ordeal is extremely repulsive in it’s entirety, there are a few lines that I have trouble wrapping my mind around.
The girl’s parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, attributed the death to “apparently they didn’t have enough faith,” the police chief said. They believed the key to healing “was it was better to keep praying. Call more people to help pray,” he said.
What, is there a faith meter god uses to determine who has merit? Is it like a little needle and a dial, like a speedometer, and they just didn’t get quite to the “cure diabetes” notch on the meter? Don’t you think someone who trusted god to cure something as serious as diabetes has more faith than any god should ever need? And then there’s this:
The girl has three siblings, ranging in age from 13 to 16, the police chief said. “They are still in the home,” he said. “There is no reason to remove them. There is no abuse or signs of abuse that we can see.”
What!? In case you didn’t notice an 11 year old girl is dead do to her parents neglect! What would it take for it to be considered abuse? As many have pointed out, withholding food from a child for probably two consecutive meals, or certainly a whole day, as a punishment would be considered abuse. This girl was prevented from receiving medical attention for thirty days, and then at the end of it, she lost her life! I’d be hard pressed to come up with a way that those three remaining children could be in more danger than they are now. I don’t doubt that these parents honestly believe what they claim to, but what if another gets sick? And what if she dies? Will it be abuse then? What about a third child? When will we call it abuse?
This is religion at its worst. And that is saying something. Don’t get me wrong, the constant killings in the name of this god or that god are certainly terrible, and unquestionably more voluminous than deaths of this variety, but an absolutely senseless and easily preventable death such as this is absolutely tragic. This is the truly evil side to religion. It causes people to commit acts with good intentions that instead lead directly to the deaths of those they meant to protect.
One commenter on the richarddawkins.net repost of this article said he believed these parents deserve to die. I’ve already stated that I believe these people sincerely believe what they say they do, and a second commenter agreed with me, pointing out that death was not a fair punishment for ignorance, delusion and stupidity. A third though, hit the nail on the head, noting that ignorance, delusion and stupidity are punished by death…just not that of the ignorant, delusional and stupid.
(reposted from DailyKos)
Four more Americans in uniform were killed today in Iraq. Four still anonymous soldiers, whose families soon will know the depths of grief that 3996 families before them have been borne down to. Now 4000 Americans are dead in this war.Another 308 coalition soldiers are killed as well. Four thousand three hundred and eight families sundered, never to be made whole again.Surely a milestone in this unending disaster, though one that the Iraqis themselves passed five years ago this week. Today, alone, at least another 60 Iraqis, mostly civilians, were torn apart by blasts. Their families too grieve, along with untold hundreds of thousands of Iraqi families before them.It sickens the heart, the carnage that George W. Bush unleashed upon both our countries. No death is insignificant. The deaths of these four souls are just as lamentable as all those that have preceded, and all those that will surely follow while American forces remain in the midst of this civil war.
When will the President apologize for what he has wrought?
The issue I’m going to raise in this post is from this past Christmas, but I think the fact that today (er, well, now that I’ve finally finished this, tomorrow was Easter) is Easter makes today an appropriate time to address this (or it could be because this blog didn’t exist at Christmas time and this fits perfectly with the blogswarm for the weekend).
In nearby Green Bay, WI, of Brett Favre fame, there was a small dust up this last Christmas season over a nativity scene. You guessed it, it was on government property. The city council president, Chad Fredette, had heard of a case in Peshtigo where a nativity scene was placed on government property and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) filed a lawsuit, as such a display has been ruled to be a violation of the first amendment guarantee of separation of church and state. Fredette wanted to give the Foundation someone a little larger than Peshtigo
to pick on, so he went to his council and acquired the necessary permission to put up a nativity scene at the Green Bay City Hall. Residents were told that they could submit any sort of religious symbol and it would receive a slot next to the nativity scene at city hall. A Wiccan asked to put up a wreath with a pentagram and it was quickly vandalized and removed. Others clamored to place their own religious symbols, one man calling in and saying that he had a whole truckload of various symbols from different religions that he wanted to put up. The mayor put a moratorium
on all displays other than Fredette’s nativity scene until the 26th of December, and the FFRF quickly filed suit.
The point I want to make though is that none of these religious symbols should be allowed up at all. Church and state are supposed to remain separate, and that means that the state should not recognize any religion, not that it should recognize all of them. For one, there’s no way they could ever properly represent everyone’s beliefs, and secondly, it is simply not necessary. We are allowed to own private property in this country, and that’s where these things should be displayed. Chad Fredette can build a thirty foot cross on his front lawn and his neighbor can sacrifice a pig every Friday night and invite the whole town for all I care, but please keep it off government property. Why is it necessary for him to put this thing up at city hall? Does it make him less of a Christian if he doesn’t? The gospel of Matthew says:
When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
If that applies to praying, don’t you think it would even more obviously apply to nativity scenes too?
More than anything though, I think even if you look at it from the viewpoint of someone like Mr. Fredette, the advantages to him (whatever they may be, even though I can’t really see them) cannot possibly outweigh the dangers we run in allowing such displays to continue. (think Iran and Afganistan)
So the thing that pisses me off the most about this whole hullabaloo over ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,’ Ben Stein’s creationist propaganda movie, isn’t PZ Myers getting kicked out, it isn’t how how Richard Dawkins, Myers, and other were lied to about the purpose of the film when they were interviewed for it, and it isn’t the fact that it supports this ridiculous farce in which creationism continues to masquerade around in this pseudoscientific “theory” of intelligent design. These are all perfectly contemptible, but the thing that I really can’t stand are the claims that belief in evolution somehow leads to naziism or the crimes of the holocaust. I don’t even know where to begin with this. I suppose I could start out with the obligatory statement that Hitler was in fact a Christian, did not believe in evolution, and seems, in all likelihood to have been a creationist. It’s actually really, really to find the evidence too, he made statements himself in Mein Kampf, in other publications, and in speeches he made early in his career that supported this conclusion.
Examples:
The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. xi
For it was by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were given their natures and their faculties. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. x
From where do we get the right to believe, that from the very beginning Man was not what he is today? Looking at Nature tells us, that in the realm of plants and animals changes and developments happen. But nowhere inside a kind shows such a development as the breadth of the jump , as Man must supposedly have made, if he has developed from an ape-like state to what he is today. - Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Tabletalk (Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier)
Whoever would dare to raise a profane hand against that highest image of God among His creatures would sin against the bountiful Creator of this marvel and would collaborate in the expulsion from Paradise. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol ii, ch. i
My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them. - Adolf Hitler, speech, April 12 1922, published in My New Order (emphasis mine)
[source]
(tip to Phil Plait for that source)
Case closed? If anyone still has any doubts can take a look at this much more thorough analysis of Mein Kampf and Hitler’s religious beliefs.
Having established now that Hitler without question had religious motives to his genocidal tendencies, I think it is likely the creationists who need defending from a comparison to Hitler. While I think it is fair to say that Hitler’s concept of creation led him at least in part to his heinous actions, I think it would be wildly unfair to claim that anyone else who believed in a creator god somehow must also hold similar a philosophy. Just because Hitler was a creationist and he committed the most horrible act of mass murder of the last century doesn’t mean that creationism inherently leads to such actions, just like the fact that he had a mustache, that he was a vegetarian, or a teetotaler had nothing to do with it…oh, wait, it was me that was being accused of being Hitleresque wasn’t it? Eh, I think I’ve dealt with that sufficiently.
