Author Archive for PZ MyersPage 2 of 99

Derbyshire finds a new home

Published

on May 14, 2012

You knew he’d be just fine. After getting fired from the National Review for his ghastly racist views, he’s now been picked up by the openly racist VDARE. He’s come out now with a little post wondering about what label he should apply to his political camp. Before settling on calling his in-group the “dissident Right”, he considers this one:

Leaving aside the intended malice, I actually think "White Supremacist" is not bad semantically. White supremacy, in the sense of a society in which key decisions are made by white Europeans, is one of the better arrangements History has come up with. There have of course been some blots on the record, but I don’t see how it can be denied that net-net, white Europeans have made a better job of running fair and stable societies than has any other group.

Wait — he forgot to consider “The Racist Assholes” as a possibility. I think that’s the real winner.

Then he speaks the truth openly about the Republican party, or “Conservatism, Inc.” as he likes to call it. It’s one of the good things about Derbyshire: he’s so shameless that he isn’t at all hesitant about describing himself and his political pals in terms he finds copacetic, and the rest of the world finds contemptible.

I don’t mind the word “white” in either of those expressions. Conservatism, Inc. or otherwise, is a white people’s movement, a scattering of outliers notwithstanding.

Always has been, always will be. I have attended at least a hundred conservative gatherings, conferences, cruises, and jamborees: let me tell you, there ain’t too many raisins in that bun. I was in and out of the National Review offices for twelve years, and the only black person I saw there, other than when Herman Cain came calling, was Alex, the guy who runs the mail room. (Hey, Alex!)

This isn’t because conservatism is hostile to blacks and mestizos. Very much the contrary, especially in the case of Conservatism Inc. They fawn over the occasional nonwhite with a puppyish deference that fairly fogs the air with embarrassment. (Q: What do you call the one black guy at a gathering of 1,000 Republicans? A: “Mr. Chairman.”)

And why is this? It can’t be simply because conservatives are racist assholes, no…it’s got to be because minorities are parasites.

It’s just that conservative ideals like self-sufficiency and minimal dependence on government have no appeal to underperforming minorities—groups who, in the statistical generality, are short of the attributes that make for group success in a modern commercial nation.

Of what use would it be to them to embrace such ideals? They would end up even more decisively pooled at the bottom of society than they are currently.

A much better strategy for them is to ally with as many disaffected white and Asian subgroups as they can (homosexuals, feminists, dead-end labor unions), attain electoral majorities, and institute big redistributionist governments to give them make-work jobs and transfer wealth to them from successful groups.

Derbyshire has been fired from his more mainstream position, and he’s dying of cancer — he’s got nothing to lose. It’s quite bracing to see an old-school bigot open his yap and vomit forth his prejudices without the mealy-mouthed cliches all the others use so freely.

But still…he’s a racist, homophobic, bigoted asshole. I think he should even more freely embrace that label.

A pretty fantasy

Published

PZ Myers

on May 14, 2012

I like the sentiment, but…

Jesus probably didn’t exist, and if he can be said to be modeled after some first century Jewish rabbi, he would almost certainly have been virulently concerned with controlling people’s sexual lives…and would have regarded homosexuality as an abomination. Also, there’s no afterlife, so he isn’t lounging about in heaven moaning about our bad behavior on earth. Also, Freddie Mercury is, regrettably, dead and no longer exists: no afterlife, remember.

This has been a clarification from your friendly godless party-pooper.

But otherwise, yeah, nice.

Why I am an atheist – David Rutten

Published

PZ Myers

on May 14, 2012

Having grown up in secular Holland in the 1980′s I don’t need a reason to be an atheist. One’s an atheist by default. Those attending church on a regular basis are either few and far between or tend to live in the heavily segregated villages in the Dutch ‘Bible belt’. The only interesting question that pertains to my situation would be; “why didn’t I become a Christian?”.

Of my four grand-parents, only one retained her faith (the only one left alive incidentally, I wonder if that is significant somehow) and through this channel I’ve been exposed to plenty of Christians over the years. These people are almost uniformly very kind and caring, slightly more so on average than the atheists in my life I dare say.

And yet, and yet. Almost every time I talk with Christians about religious or philosophical or ethical topics, I feel as though soaked in the most bare and acrid hypocrisy. Gone are the compassion and the empathy, replaced by the holier-than-thou unspoken remarks and the patronising “I’ll pray for you” defence, designed to turn the believer from ideological busybody into sacrificial lamb. Gone are the doubt and self-deprecation, replaced by the most wanton sense of faultlessness.

I would get it if they really believed what they say they believe, but they don’t. They are Christians only while religion comes in a neat little predigested package. If these people really believed the Bible is the word of God, why have none of them read it? Why do they not even have a cursory knowledge of what their particular denomination is about? There is only one explanation I know of that covers this; they don’t actually believe. They tell themselves they believe because it allows them to belong to a group that feeds and nurtures the ever-prevalent martyr complex in all of us.

This is why religion does not attract me on an emotional level. This persistent hypocrisy that taints everything in the vicinity of faith.

David Rutten
Slovakia

We need a centralized database of non-universities

Published

PZ Myers

on May 14, 2012

I would find it very useful to have a public list of universities that say they are, but really aren’t. We could put Liberty University at the very top; these aren’t really institutions of higher learning, but institutions of indoctrination and dogma pretending to be genuine places of learning.

But here’s another: Shorter University.

In October, the college announced it would require all employees to sign a “lifestyle statement” rejecting homosexuality, adultery, premarital sex, drug use and drinking in public near the Rome, Ga., college’s campus. It also requires faculty to be active members of a local church. The statement, one of several steps the university has taken to intensify its Christian identity after the Georgia Baptist Convention began asserting more control over the campus six years ago, provoked an uproar among faculty, alumni and observers.

Any university that requires a pledge of allegiance to a particular dogma, or that monitors and restricts the private life of its faculty and staff, ought to just be denied the right to use the unqualified word “college” or “university” in its name. “Bible college” is OK; that’s an open admission of its worthlessness. Otherwise, I think that ‘university’ ought to voluntarily rename itself “Shorter Church” (wait, that might even draw in a few suckers!), or “Shorter Gulag”, or perhaps “Shorter Madhouse”.

I also like “Liberty Prison” for its ironic qualities.

(But do read the story: for all the risible failings of the administration of Shorter Clown College, it has some commendable faculty who are openly protesting the imposition of a “lifestyle statement”, and many are resigning. There are good people even at these abominations of education.)

Goddamned racist America

Published

PZ Myers

on May 14, 2012

A few years ago, at TAM, Blake Stacey and I took Ben Goldacre to a shooting range — we wanted to introduce him to the real America. Once we got there, though, we discovered an unexpected challenge: we had to choose a paper target to shoot at, and most of them were horribly racist. It turns out you can’t choose a picture of a redneck picketing an abortion clinic to blow holes in, but you’ve got a wide range of photos of black people looking snarly and vicious and threatening to “kill”. We ended up choosing the most abstract target we could find, a mere black outline, which we discovered on closer inspection had all the major organ locations market out in grey. It was all a bit squicky.

This was several years ago, though, so we didn’t have the option of choosing this target, which is apparently quite popular right now.

Nothing scarier than a figure in a hoody, armed with iced tea and skittles, I guess.

There is a petition. You can sign it to try and make yourself feel a little better. I don’t think there’s a single thing that can be done to reconcile me to the fact that our country is populated with racist thugs and morons, though. It just is.

The bottom of the barrel

Published

PZ Myers

on May 14, 2012

Some of the sleaziest people I know are creationists (not all of them, of course). There’s something about holding an irrational, unsupportable belief that makes them desperate to find vindication by any means possible, and that justifies lying, cheating, and thoroughly reprehensible behavior. “By any means possible” is their motto.

I got a long email from some people who had tried to deal with Eric Hovind and Sye ten Bruggencate — I know, all I have to do is mention those names and already everyone knows the story that follows will be slimy — and rather than try to paraphrase it, I’ve just posted the whole thing below the fold. The Hovind/ten Bruggencate pair are really the very worst of the creationists I’ve encountered — Ray Comfort is dumber, Ken Ham is more conniving, but these two…they truly inspire deep fountains of disgust.

Hi there, PZ.

A couple of months ago, you were kind enough to blog about a problem we had with Eric Hovind, attempting to sell a DVD recording of a conversation we had with him and Sye ten Bruggencate, for our Fundamentally Flawed podcast. He responded to it, by appearing to drop the idea. But sadly not for long.

I’m writing to bring you up to speed with what’s happened since, in the hope you might help us out again.

As you probably know, Sye’s basic schtick is a transparent and horrible variation of Kant’s Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God. Since we poked holes in it, on our podcast, he has been systematically lying about the way our conversation ran, to anyone who is stupid enough to listen to him, rather than listen to the podcast for themselves.

So far, so Sye.

After our second podcast with him, in which he told us we would burn in hell for the sin of holding ourselves to a higher standard of proof than wishful thinking, he was told — rather generously I thought — that if and when he felt ready to present the objectively valid evidence for Yahweh’s basic existence, which he repeatedly claims to have but never shares, he would be more than welcome to come back on the podcast and tell us about it.

A few weeks ago he said he wanted to do just that. So we setup a Skype chat, and started the recording with a disclaimer saying that we did not give our permission for anyone to edit our comments, or use the recording for commercial purposes. Sye verbally agreed to this TWICE.

He was then asked to present the objectively valid evidence for God’s basic existence, which he had promised. At which point, he insisted that he already had presented it, but we weren’t interested in listening to it. He then quit Skype, in a hissy fit, and posted a recording of the conversation, without our disclaimer included, on his blog, insisting that we had tried to censor him and put words in his mouth.

A few days later a YouTube clip appeared with excerpts of our comments, to advertise Sye’s latest project — despite that we had specifically included YouTube in the disclaimer, since original content clips are eligible for Google’s ad revenue sharing scheme, which he might profit from, and we had stipulated our comment were not to be edited or used in any third party content.

So we issued a DMCA and YouTube took it down. Then he posted it again from another account. So we issued another DMCA. YouTube took it down again.

Now, in a fit of rage, Sye and his liars for Jesus are spreading a blatant falsehood about myself and my co-host Alex Botten, in the blog-o-sphere. They’re saying that we did not read out the disclaimer, and that we attempted to censor Sye’s comments, and that we’re breaking the law by asking YouTube to remove the clips.

Now, sticks and stones is all very well, but the rhetoric is mounting to slanderous levels, and I’m extremely concerned that it’s beginning to spiralling out of control.

A word from you would reach a much wider audience than we can ever hope to. All we want to do, is get the facts out:

We specifically told Eric Hovind, the first time he tried to pull this stunt, that we would happily allow him to sell a DVD of our first conversation, so long as he could provide documentary evidence that he had donated to all the proceeds from its sale to Doctors Without Borders. He refused.

We specifically told Sye that we did not give our permission for him to edit our comments or post them on YouTube. He did it anyway.

Contrary to his claim, we did not tell Sye that he could not use the recording. We told him that he could not edit our comments, or use the recording for his own personal financial gain — which he immediately went ahead and did anyway.

The more I find out about these people, the more determined I am to tell as many people as possible exactly how their scam works, and exactly how despicable, dangerous and nasty they are as people. Every time I get a comment on my blog, from someone who has clearly been listening to Sye and Eric, I sink a little inside. We started this podcast as a hobby project, to engage with Christians, and show them that being godless doesn’t make you a bad person, and we’ve ended up being portrayed by them as something we simply are not, and it’s extremely upsetting.

Thank you very much for letting me take up your time with this.

From the North East of England, Jim Gardner.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Published

PZ Myers

on May 13, 2012

(via TONMO.)

No One Is Good but One?

Published

PZ Myers

on May 13, 2012

Ken Ham is chortling over those silly atheists and their National Day of Reason. No One Is Good but One, he says. It’s the standard Christian anti-human self-loathing crapola that insists we need a tyrant in the sky to tell us what is good.

There is only one absolute standard by which anyone can determine what is “good,” and that is from the absolute authority who is all “good”—God! Outside of such an absolute standard, “good” is whatever you want to make it to be (if you can get away with it)—it is totally subjective. Some people think it is “good” to steal, for instance. When a culture abandons the absolute standard for what is “good” (as this culture is progressively doing in throwing out God’s Word), then we will see people doing what is right in their own eyes—as we are increasingly experiencing. The recent announcement by the president of the USA in support of “gay” marriage is just one such example—he abandoned the absolute standard for what is “good” and now is wanting to impose his subjective opinion on the nation.

Unfortunately, this God-thing doesn’t seem to be able to tell us all about this goodness: it all seems to be filtered through a cacophony of self-styled prophets and mutually contradictory holy books. It’s pointless to tell me there’s an absolute standard, but that I don’t get to see it.

Also, atheist morality is not totally subjective. We can ask ourselves what works for the majority of people: what rules and behaviors minimize conflict, maximize productivity and happiness, and produce stable, long-lasting societies that get along well with others. We do have a standard — a human standard, one that is real and measurable.

I think it is entirely rational to see that about 10% of our nation is discriminated against and treated unfairly, and to make changes in our policies that promote equality and make that 10% happier. Especially since those changes do no harm at all to the other 90%.

And then I look at the absolute morality that Ham proposes should rule our nation, and see that its solution to those 10% is to stone them to death, and I think, “I think I can objectively determine that making people happy is good, and killing them is evil, because I value humans, not voices in hateful people’s heads.” And I conclude that Ken Ham is a wicked cretin.

Also, coincidentally, I notice that NonStampCollector has a new video on a similar point.

Ken Ham says we must obey the Bible literally, in every word. In Exodus 21, the Bible clearly and unambiguously says “Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day is to be put to death.” So, I want to know: in his ideal world based entirely on Biblical morality, when his neighbor mows the lawn on Sunday afternoon, would Ken Ham kill him? Or just gather a group of his friends and kill him in a communal exercise? And would they wait until Monday to do it?

Would that be moral?

Meetup in DC

Published

PZ Myers

on May 13, 2012

I know, I’m going to be in Kamloops next weekend (it will be a great meeting, by the way), but there’s another great meeting going on at the same time in Washington DC, the Women in Secularism conference, and a lot of readers are going to that one, or are just living in that east coast region. So there’s going to be a Pharyngula meetup in DC! It’s a secret gathering of the feminist cabal, though, so I can’t tell you where or when (I don’t even know myself), and if you want to attend you need to write to oniongirlsays@gmail.com to get all the top-secret details.

Will there be passwords? Secret handshakes? Ritual scarification? I don’t know. Attend and find out.

Why I am an atheist – Modulous

Published

PZ Myers

on May 13, 2012

My parents were Church Of England, mildly practicing (more my mother than my father). My grandparents were strongly practicing C of E (as strong as that gets anyway – that is they went to church every week and all that).

However – my father works in oil and his job took him around a lot of places including the Middle East, the Caribbean and now, Louisiana. So there were lots of ideas flying around when I was a kid. My first school was a ‘Gospel School’ (I was the only white boy in the whole school!), and my leaving present was the Good News Bible with a picture of the island the school was on.

So lots of religion. I simply took it for granted that God was up there and was looking over me and out for me. I often had dialogue with him.

My first clash came when that common childhood fascination with dinosaurs and my insatiable appetite for facts came into confrontation with the first page of the Bible. When I brought it up with my parents they explained the basic Theistic Evolutionist position. It took a few months, but I managed to massage the cognitive dissonance away and so it remained until I was about 11 or 12 years old.

It was at this point that I first learned that there were other forms of Christianity, lots of them, and I was told outright that I was ‘Church of England’. It seemed a little odd to be told what I believed in this way, and it seemed odd that there could be so much disagreement about things.

So I picked up the Bible again and started reading. I realized that the book was very very boring. I didn’t care who begat who! Why should I? I put the book down and shelved my concerns under ‘Things other people have figured out’.

Over time, doubts still continued to gnaw at me. Why was I so sure my beliefs were the right ones, what if someone else had it right? Every time I felt these things I was crippled with guilt. I felt myself either being told off by the Holy Father or simply that feeling you get when your mother says, “I’m not angry, just disappointed.”, the feeling was terrible.

So I started comparing other people’s beliefs. My Grandmother, though a dedicated Christian had a veritable library of strange and esoteric Eastern religious concepts with strange New Age stuff. So I read about Lobsang Rampa, and everything ever written by Betty Shine. There was more besides – and these ideas resonated with me so much more than the Christian belief did.

At first I tried to merge them together so that I need not throw anything out, but that became more and more difficult.

Eventually, I realized that I wasn’t sure what religion I was, but it definitely wasn’t Christian and it was oriented more towards the East. Then my parents started talking about a Confirmation ceremony and I realized that I didn’t understand what ‘vow’ it was that I was supposed to be ‘renewing’ and that I didn’t feel comfortable making a promise that I didn’t really understand.

I was also at this time reading other books in my Grandmother’s awesome library, including books on British Law. One such book said that a child has autonomy to choose their religion when they reach the age of 16. This I did on my 16th birthday, advising my parents that I no longer wished to identify as a Christian – I went on to say that I didn’t wish to receive gifts at Christmas etc, but they told me that they would be giving them to me anyway.

I wandered about the map as far as definitive alternatives. I played with some form of Buddhism or another, including a long period in Zen, a long period of New Age Healing/spiritualism nonsense, and then a longer period self identifying as a ‘sannyasin’ via the cult leader Osho.

When I was about 18, a few friends of mine were talking about how they were having combat on the Astral plains and how they were engaged in a spiritual war with various people and melding that with some kind of neo-pagan stuff. It seemed so transparently silly to me, but I realized that my own beliefs were also pretty silly when I held them up to the very same scrutiny. So I went through a confused period once more.

Then I had a divine revelation which lead to me throw away all of the previous beliefs and follow a supernatural variety of pantheism, which was gradually stripped down to straight atheistic pantheism with a brief peculiar blip of believing in Islam (actually it wasn’t really Islam, it was a fake version of Islam).

I self identified as pantheist for a few years, but that seemed to lead to confusion, and then Dawkins started the Out Campaign and I realized that the most unambiguous description for my position with regards to religion was ‘atheist’. Still people get confused – I’ve had friends say disparaging things to me/about me. Things got better after I defended my position without fear, and now the issue is simply not discussed most of the time.

Modulous
United States

TZT

Published

PZ Myers

on May 13, 2012

Jebus. Didn’t I just put one of these down? They seem to be coming faster — I’m gonna need more ammo.

My day in Flagstaff

Published

PZ Myers

on May 13, 2012

I flit out to Flagstaff today to participate in a BBC documentary. It’s part of a series with an interesting approach: they take True Believers on a road trip to confront them with evidence against their obsessions. Some of you Brits out there might have seen an earlier episode, the 9/11 Conspiracy Road Trip, in which 5 9/11 Truthers were taken on a bus tour of relevant sites in the United States. It apparently got good reviews (except from 9/11 Truthers themselves). You can watch the whole program yourself!

There will be some new episodes of the show coming out. The one I participated in today was a group of 5 believers in aliens and UFOs who are on a grand bus tour of the Southwest — they’d talked to SETI people in LA, a NASA scientist at Meteor Crater, a biologist who tried to set them straight on evolution and aliens, and they’re on their way to, of course, Area 51.

All I had to do was have a conversation with these 5 believers in alien abductions. It was…interesting. They were all very nice people, but they ranged in rationality from people who’d experienced unexplained events and were trying to figure out what happened, to a real loon who was utterly convinced that Jews were alien hybrids, reptoids had hybridized with humans, and the stone blocks of the pyramids had been cut with lasers. We argued for an hour or two, all of it was recorded, and I’m sure it will all be cut to the 5 juiciest minutes for the final show.

Keep an eye open for it next year all you British-type people, and let me know how it turns out.

Why I am an Atheist – Alex Manuel

Published

PZ Myers

on May 12, 2012

I believe two varieties of atheists exist, which I call “small-A” and “big-A.” Small-A atheists comprise more or less ALL atheists; small-A atheism is simply the fact of not believing in any gods or practicing any theistic religion (at least, not with the understanding that any of it is real in any sense but cultural).

All big-A Atheists are small-A atheists, but only some small-A atheists are big-A Atheists. To be a big-A Atheist is to embrace the counter-culture surrounding atheism, to recognize it as a part of who you are, and to be as outspoken about it as is comfortable for each. The big, red A that so many of us display in our various corners of the social network, on our cars or cubicle walls (for those living in states where such wouldn’t get you lynched) – that’s one good example of what represents big-A Atheism. It is not only a lack of belief, but a form of expression for the sparse few of us dotted like lighthouses around seas of theists, cranks, crackpots and the terminally incurious.

Weaving the significance of this into my own life, there is one reason and one reason alone that I’m a small-A atheist: there has never been, nor is there likely to ever be, evidence to support the existence of any single one of the gods proposed in all the world, by all of mankind, through all of history. I do not believe in any gods because I have absolutely no reason to believe in them.

The reasons I am a big-A Atheist, however, are almost inexhaustible:

For every personal achievement someone credits entirely to his invisible stepdad . . .
For every Christian in my country who mourns the persecution of his humble people because I won’t let him force my child to pray in a public school . . .
For every state governed by sanctimonious white men in suits who hate consequence-free sex (except for themselves and other white males) . . .
For the woman who has to have “slut!” and “murderer!” screamed into her face when she’s only going into the clinic for a check-up . . .
For the woman who isn’t even lucky enough to HAVE such a clinic because her state defunded them all in a fit of anti-abortion hysteria . . .
For every female who has ever been lashed or stoned for the “crimes” of falling in love or being raped . . .
For every child who has ever died because his parents’ beliefs forbade appropriate treatment . . .
For every church or temple without a single female leader . . .
For every gay child whose parents “love” the Old Testament God more than him . . .
For every building toppled, plane crashed, structure bombed, and person killed to enforce a religious ideal . . .
For every man who can cheer a state execution yet call himself “pro-life” with a straight face . . .
For every person who is comfortable worshiping a deity who has proven to be less moral than his own arch-enemy . . .
For every minute of life human beings waste agonizing over what will happen after their deaths, and SO very much more . . .

I’m an Atheist.

Alex Manuel
United States

Episode CCCXXVII: My current favorite poem

Published

PZ Myers

on May 12, 2012

Don’t tell anyone, but I might occasionally read poetry for fun…and right now, this would be my favorite, “The Mask of Anarchy”, by Shelley.

Yeah, it’s long, but I love the ending.

And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, -
What they like, that let them do.

With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.

Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.

Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand -
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.

And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.

And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.

And these words shall then become
Like Oppression’s thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again – again – again -

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many – they are few.

If you’re wondering, it’s about the Peterloo Massacre in 1819 — with which all you fans of popular labor movements are well acquainted, I’m sure.

(Episode CCCXXVI: Singing scientists, sorta.)

Guess what the election is going to be all about?

Published

PZ Myers

on May 12, 2012

Oh, boy. Mitt Romney gave a speech at Liberty University, and made it clear what side he’s taking.

The American culture promotes personal responsibility, the dignity of work, the value of education, the merit of service, devotion to a purpose greater than self, and, at the foundation, the pre-eminence of the family. The power of these values is evidenced by a Brookings Institution study that Senator Rick Santorum brought to my attention. For those who graduate from high school, get a full-time job, and marry before they have their first child, the probability that they will be poor is 2%. But, if those things are absent, 76% will be poor. Culture matters.

Wait, what? Has this man never heard of cause and effect? So if you’re a high school graduate and get a good job, you aren’t poor. If you’re poor, you’re less likely to graduate from high school and get a good job. Sure, culture matters: so why are the Republicans trying to perpetuate poverty?

I don’t see where getting married before having children has a causal relationship to the problem, either, or where it’s relevant to gay marriage.

As fundamental as these principles are, they may become topics of democratic debate. So it is today with the enduring institution of marriage. Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman. The protection of religious freedom has also become a matter of debate. It strikes me as odd that the free exercise of religious faith is sometimes treated as a problem, something America is stuck with instead of blessed with. Perhaps religious conscience upsets the designs of those who feel that the highest wisdom and authority comes from government.

What’s the probability that a gay married couple are poor? I think if he’s going to try and justify a particular pattern of relationships by correlating them with socioeconomic status, I suspect the lesson might be that the god of the prosperity gospel actually favors gay couples.

I expect that this is going to be a major talking point on the Republican side in the coming months. I hope Obama is ready to sharpen his rhetoric and come out a lot more strongly on the issue than he did in his tepid announcement.

Good, bad, we’re the ones with the big guns

Published

PZ Myers

on May 11, 2012

Watch this little sketch first, and think about it.

I am relieved to say that skulls are not an official motif in US military uniforms, although some units do use them. However, we instead have Nazi-like minds at work in our military. Here’s an excerpt from a presentation at the Defense Department’s Joint Forces Staff College, composed by Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley as a proposed model for how to deal with Islam.

It’s a little worse than decorative skulls.

When I hear the phrase “politically correct”, I’m afraid my knee tends to jerk, usually in the direction of some jerk’s groin. It is the tired excuse of the fanatic trying to rationalize the unforgivable. “Oh, excuse me, I’m going to talk about incinerating civilians in a nuclear holocaust, take your ‘politically correct’ objections out of the room.”

And that’s exactly what he’s discussing. Let’s forget civilized accords limiting the conduct of war, and frankly discuss nuking Mecca and Medina. It’s OK, we’re going to remove protections for those caught fighting out of uniform, and pretend that every inhabitant of those two cities is a spy, a terrorist, or a criminal.

You can download the whole presentation; it’s an awful mess of jargon and pointlessly busy military diagrams that say pretty much nothing at all, and it’s main point is to redefine every Muslim in the world as a military combatant who deserves everything we do to them.

It closes with this message:

It is therefore time for the United States to make our true intentions clear. This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated, Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction. Let it be known that the United States remains, and will forever be, a beacon of freedom, self-determination, hope, and representative democracy. The American people will not be converted. We will not submit. We will not be intimidated, and we will not be driven from this earth.”

That is remarkably tin-eared and hypocritical. It accuses the other side of being a barbaric ideology while planning to nuke the civilian population centers of the Muslim world…oh, wait, “facilitating their self-destruction.” So we’re going to drop a bomb on them and then innocently declare that it was their own fault?

It rather deflates the grand ideals of “freedom, self-determination, hope, and representative democracy” when you use them as buzzwords to justify the murder of millions.

But perhaps that scale of terror is too immense for your brain to absorb. How about this little morsel, instead?

The American military claimed responsibility and expressed regret for an airstrike that mistakenly killed six members of a family in southwestern Afghanistan, Afghan and American military officials confirmed Monday.

…

The victims were the family’s mother and five of her children, three girls and two boys, according to Afghan officials.

This family was just quietly living in this house in Afghanistan, when the full weight of American freedom, self-determination, hope, and representative democracy dropped into their living room in the form of a military airstrike.

I think we’re the baddies.

But at least we apologized nicely. I’m sure that made it all better.