Thursday, March 19th, 2009
The Bush administration refused to support it, because it wanted to protect states’ rights to ban same-sex marriage, but the Obama administration has announced that it will endorse a U.N. declaration calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality. Sixty-six other U.N. members have already declared their support.
According to The Washington Post, more than 85 countries still outlaw homosexuality, and in several Islamic nations, it is punishable by death.
The non-binding declaration urges states to pass laws to ensure that “sexual orientation or gender identity” can “not be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention.”
Tags: administration, Afghan, Afghanistan, Arab, ban, Bush, criminal, Criminalization, death, Homosexuality, Iran, islam, Islamic, Law, Obama, rights, Saudi, sex, Sexuality, Washington
Posted in Government, Religion | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
Book Review- Monkey Girl, by Edward Humes
Book review by L.Grey, with permission.
In the time of Galileo it was argued that the texts, ‘And the sun stood still … and hasted not to go down about a whole day’ (Joshua x. 13) and ‘He laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not move at any time’ (Psalm cv. 5) were an adequate refutation of the Copernican theory.
Alan Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Mind 59 (1950), 443.
Monkey Girl by Edward Humes ISBN: 9780060885489, ISBN10: 0060885483 Ecco (imprint of Harper Collins) Hardcover 400 pages, $25.95
What does it mean when proponents of Intelligent Design say “teach the controversy”?
You may think you know what the controversy is about, but you’ll never get a more thorough and up-to-date analysis of the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trial than Edward Humes’ book Monkey Girl. The 2005 trial was one of the latest episodes of the seemingly never-ending struggle for the hearts and minds of public school students. This is a fight between those who feel that Science describes nature pretty well, and those who believe that anything other than a strict literal interpretation of the Bible deserves a trip to hell and excommunication from polite society. The trial itself was a gripping account of small-town drama unfolding over the course of a year, of parents and children enduring intimidation and humiliation. Witnesses from both sides turned the courtroom into a fascinating arena of scientific evidence versus faith dressed in science’s clothing. At least three books have come out of the case (see further reading below for details), and Ed Humes’ Pulitzer Prize-winning writing style and even-handed coverage make Monkey Girl a compelling choice. Humes not only covers the case, he describes the town as the trial transforms it:
Dover sits firmly astride the front lines of America’s culture war, occupying the uneasy space between America’s religious faith and its longstanding fondness for scientific progress, between an idealized past and an uncertain future, between education and indoctrination, between the natural and the supernatural. For the next several months, the ninth floor courtroom in the Ronald Reagan Federal Building will belong to Kitzmiller et al versus Dover Area School District, an unintentionally epic lawsuit filed by a group of parents against their evolution-doubting school board. The case does indeed have much in common with the 1925 Scopes Monkey trial, a public spectacle in which Clarence Darrow and the American Civil Liberties Union unsuccessfully challenged a Tennessee law banning the teaching of evolution. But unlike its illustrious predecessor (which, popular imagination and classic films notwithstanding, had exactly no impact on the law or educational practice at the time), the Dover case is positioned to define (or redefine) for decades just what children are taught about where we come from. [prologue, Monkey Girl]
The controversy has shifted a bit since the famous 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, which first questioned the legality of teaching Darwin’s theory of Evolution in public schools. World War II and the Cold War demanded that the United States produce competent scientists. This demand seemed to effectively muzzle fundamentalists for a few decades. High School Biology classes approaching the Theory of Evolution would often involve an uneasy truce involving the words “changes over time” and neatly sidestepping the origins of life. Until reading this book, I assumed that all but the most extreme religious fundamentalists were fine with this truce. Humes’ book shows precisely how much this has changed.
While the book mostly focuses on the Dover trial, Humes also takes us to a similar trial in Kansas, the controversy involving the gift shop at the Grand Canyon, where Creationists have had some success in censoring information about the geological age of the national monument. Most importantly, Humes follows the trail of intellectual and legal deception to the pseudo-scientific think-tank called The Discovery Institute, a group of scientists who exclude any scientific evidence in conflict with Christian Scripture.
The Dover Trial is full of drama and bad debate, A Scopes Monkey Trial for the 21st century, or Inherit the Wind, Redux. Humes shows in the Dover case how Creationism in public schools, having been defeated in courts during the late 20th century under the Separation of Church and State clause of the First Amendment, evolved (pun intended) into the virtually identical Intelligent Design movement, to Dover, Pennsylvania among other places. Some of the most shocking moments of the trial feature the ironic displays of dishonesty which ultimately brought down the school board members who were trying to bring religion into the local biology classrooms. Humes covers the scope of the grand scheme of religious activists, who plan on infusing not only science classes with Christian dogma and bias, but History, Government, and other classes as well.
This very book elicits criticism from those whose definition of “Fair and Balanced” have been warped to Orwellian proportions by Fox News and today’s most hyperbolic propagandists. Humes compassionately portrays how the plaintiffs’ religious beliefs in this case, were attacked and their children mocked at school out of ignorance. The Dover case pitted one kind of Christians against another. Those who favored the separation of Church and State were attacked as “not Christian enough”, in a great example of how the separation of these two functions protects freedom of religion. Another surprising turn of events showed how the presiding judge, a Bush-supporting Republican was branded as a liberal judicial activist for defending the constitution.
While it is clear on which side Humes’ sympathies lie, the reader is necessarily confronted with the heart of the so-called controversy: regarding extreme religious views which by definition do not tolerate any opposing views, what are the limits of tolerance in society? How can a democracy defend pluralism from those whose religious beliefs clash so vehemently with the definition of reality itself by the rest of the world, both secular and religious? The Framers of the Constitution were historically not far away from centuries of religious wars in Europe which constantly threw governments into turmoil. They saw the value of the separation of church and state to both church and state. Back in those days religious persecution meant death or incarceration because of one’s beliefs, not what passes for persecution these days in the minds of some.
One gets the strong impression reading Humes’ insightful analysis, that this latest version of the old Darwin-vs.-God controversy is the product of the removal of Critical Thinking skills from the mainstream public school curriculum, and the lack of a Cold War Era push towards developments in Math & Science, supported by all but the most outspoken of Bible literalists, who constantly attempt to couch the debate as “God vs. Darwin”, when in fact, most religions don’t require people to choose between the two. In my opinion, this is a clear case of the old adage, “Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it”. Young-Earth Creationists might benefit from not ignoring the history of the Catholic Church’s censorship of Copernicus and Galileo hundreds of years ago, and ask themselves why the Pope doesn’t have a big problem with Darwin’s theories today.
-Philadelphic
Further reading on the Dover Trial: (after the break…)
(more…)
Tags: activists, Amendment, America, ban, banning, belief, bible, bio, biology, Bush, California, Canyon, Casey, Catholic, censor, censorship, children, Christ, church, Civil liberties, Columbia, Constitution, Copernican, Copernicus, Cornel, Cornelius, creationism, creationist, Darwin, death, Democracy, discovery, dogma, Dover, Dover trial, Enterprise, Europe, Evolution, faith, First Amendment, foundation, freedom, fundamental, Galileo, god, Government, history, Hume, Kansas, Kitzmiller, Law, lawsuit, legal, liberal, Logic, Matthew, monkey, movie, Orwell, Oxford, pagan, Pennsylvania, political, Pope, Psalm, Pulitzer, Reagan, Religion, republican, Review, school, school board, Science, Scopes, scripture, secular, Tennessee, theory, tolerance, United States, war
Posted in Review | 1 Comment »
Thursday, February 5th, 2009
On February 5, President Obama held the traditional (at least since the Great Depression) National Prayer Breakfast in DC to clarify issues about his take on the faith-based initiative, and to laud the benefits of faith. Despite the fact that President Obama created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships made up of both secular and religious components, and despite his suggestion that the separation of church and state is a good thing that needs to be perpetuated, the Prayer Breakfast set an unsurprising, although perhaps subtle, non-rational tone.
For instance,
He said even though a diverse group of faith leaders and lawmakers read different religious texts and follow different traditions, one law unites them all — “the Golden Rule” — the call to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.”
Implying simultaneously that faith is acceptable as a source of guidance, but is not the foundation of morality, which brings into question the purpose of focusing on faith as a benefit rather than merely focusing on benefit. (In other words, why not laud, in general, those people who help others, rather than trying to establish that there’s something inherently good about faith itself?)
More disturbing, and fringing on an attack against non-believers, a guest speaker at the Prayer, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, stated that “The extreme believers and aggressive nonbelievers come together in an unholy alliance.” Funny, I don’t recall, by the nature of my aggressive nonbelief joining up with suicide bombers and bible-thumping clinic bombers. Non-belief is non-belief. It’s the lack of something, whereas belief is the addition of something, and extreme belief is the extreme addition of something. How can one have an extreme absence of something? It’s like trying to multiply by zero.
But, am I even remotely satisfied that Obama has taken Bush’s outlandish and non-working faith-based extremism and molded it, through compromise, into something that somehow includes non-believers with an overall goal of improving the lives of others? No. I can’t say that I am satisfied at all. I think every moment that Obama takes to focus on faith itself as a benefit is a moment that he tramples upon his own assertion that there exists and should be maintained a separation of church and state. Obama even recognizes that not all faith-based actions are beneficial, and excludes the extremists and the self-righteous, but he still can’t bring himself to the logical conclusion that if instead of focusing on “faith” as a factor, we focused on actual benefit as a factor, we could accomplish the same goals without risking establishment and without isolating those who would bring benefit to others without unsupported belief in the supernatural. Is this just another political maneuver to keep the religious groups from rioting, or is this Obama continuing to show his religious favoritism?
Regardless, President Obama isolates religion from scriptural fact when he says that “No matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate…. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.” He might actually be correct with regard to religion, but he’s certainly way off the mark with regard to God, depending on which god is the subject, and depending on one’s definition of “innocent.” Did Obama skip his bible lesson where the God of the Old Testament laid waste to millions of people, or does Obama consider them all to have been guilty in the eyes of the Lord, and thus not innocent? Either answer indicates that Obama is either fabricating a reality that doesn’t match what the good books say, or he truly believes that God’s word is the higher law. If the former, should we worry about his ability to read and comprehend? If the latter, is he not advocating the combination of church and state while alleging that he supports separation? Remember, he thinks having faith in such a deity is a good thing.
By the way, there will be an Unholy Alliance meeting at the Elk’s Lodge on Main Street this Sunday. Coffee, donuts, and pitchforks will be served.
Carnival of the Godless entry at The Greenbelt
Tags: belief, bible, bomb, Bush, church, deity, establishment, faith, foundation, god, Holy, human, Law, Logic, Lord, Love, minister, moral, Morality, Obama, political, prayer, president, rational, Religion, secular, suicide, Sunday, testament, war, Washington
Posted in Atheism, Government, Morality, Religion | 4 Comments »
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
Republicans, backed by the Christian right, have made it clear that they oppose the pro-contraception provisions in the stimulus package that allow states to cover family planning services and supplies to low-income women who are not otherwise eligible for Medicaid, and give states the option to provide such coverage without obtaining a waiver.
Apparently, the “Christian Defense Coalition calls Speaker Pelosi’s decision to add contraceptives to the economic stimulus package bigoted, racist, elitist and anti-child.” And that “The Christian Defense Coalition will do all within its power to see that hundreds of millions of dollars are not used for contraceptives.”
Eugene, at the Daily KOS, thinks that this is a battle Democrats need to insist on winning for three primary reasons:
1. Contraception, because it reduces unwanted pregnancies, is essentially economic stimulus.
2. This is an attempt by the conservatives to destroy the Obama administration early on, and if Obama gives in, it’s a major victory for Republicans.
3. This is not only a conservative effort to attack abortion rights indirectly, but also primarily attacks contraception and the right to privacy, which effectively keeps pushing this nation’s reproductive freedom and progress back decades to when contraception was illegal.
On the other hand, Benintn, at Daily KOS, thinks that instead of toiling over what amounts to a tiny amount of federal funding (0.24% of the total stimulus package, according to Benintn), efforts should be redirected to reproductive freedom in the arena where it has a good chance of success — donations to Planned Parenthood, for starters.
Benintn suggests that citizens focus on organizing in communities to discuss the impotence of Republicans, focus on private-sector efforts to provide family planning funds (donations to Planned Parenthood, for example), and focusing on stabilizing and improving state and local health departments. Rather than merely handing out condoms, says Benintn, “let’s invest in sex education and counseling that helps empower people.”
Benintn also refers to a potentially disturbing set of facts laid out by TPM, that Democrats were not always the front-runners for family planning rights, and that the provisions of the bill allowing state waivers are cumbersome, at best. Not only that, but many states already supply Medicaid money for family planning, and Republicans from those states opposed the stimulus bill’s family planning provisions as being pro-abortion, but apparently have not tried to get the already-existing funding in their own states nixed (which makes me think that this behavior may be more in line with what Eugene suggested, being an attempt to undermine Obama’s administration from the start).
Regardless of whether you favor Benintn’s or Eugene’s view, there’s no harm in donating to an organization like Planned Parenthood and working for better family planning and sex education in local and state-level communities. As far as the lack of impact of the provision in question with regard to the total stimulus package, I don’t think we should be looking at it as a comparison to the rest of the package, and then allowing ourselves to discount it based on that. I think any federal funding is beneficial, and is also an indication that the federal government doesn’t cave in to right-wing religious extremism. If I were negotiating this deal, and the Republicans tried to insist on dropping the family planning provision, I’d agree on the condition that we drop some much-desired Republican-promoted tax cut, and we’ll see if the Republican legislators are driven more by their alleged fiscal conservatism than their tired religious rhetoric.
This is not just a test for the new administration, but it is also the first in what will be many tests of whether the Republican Party will continue to exist as is with such a distinction between the fiscal conservatives who don’t mind the concept of separation of church and state and the religious extremists who have a lot of support from religious organizations and who would probably enjoy having Palin in ‘12. During the election, I hypothesized (like many others) that the Republican Party would split along those lines, and that the less extreme, but fiscally and governmentally conservative offshoot would succeed on its own merits (and likely get along much better with the Blue Dog Democrats and other moderates in Congress), while the financially powerful but cultish party of religious extremists would, although potentially powerful in some respects, hopefully go the way of the dodo.
The bill, although passed by the House, is not nearly in its final draft. It’s still under review by the Senate, and will likely endure multiple changes by both before being signed into law by President Obama. In the meantime, Republicans need to start seriously thinking about why they’re loyal to a party that doesn’t practice the core values of conservatism and small government (i.e., are they Bush Republicans?), and whether it’s worth it to continue to exist with the taint of religious and political extremism. And Democrats need to start thinking about why the people voted for a Democratic majority in Congress, and perhaps start getting to doing some of the things we hoped would have been done years ago. Remember, Obama can’t do everything himself, and he’s far from omnipotent or perfect.
Rachel Maddow asks a pertinent question: If Obama’s attempt at bipartisanism ends up with no Republican votes for his stimulus package, and if he can pass the bill without those votes, why make concessions on huge tax cuts or anything else?
Tags: Abortion, administration, Bush, Christ, church, citizen, Congress, conservative, contraceptive, Democrat, election, family, freedom, Government, Law, legal, Obama, Palin, political, president, republican, rights, sex, tax, vote
Posted in Government, Religion, Sexuality | 1 Comment »
Thursday, January 15th, 2009
Considering events of late regarding accusations against President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and others, for the essential authorization of torture, I felt it was necessary to revisit a topic I touched on back in August — Whether in extreme circumstances, you would choose to torture someone in the hopes of saving the lives of others.
Here is the question I asked, abridged (please go read the full question if you need clarification):
You are leading an investigation regarding a potential terrorist plot to set off a bomb in the middle of Manhattan. You have good reason (accuracy of 90%) to believe that the bomb is set to go off in approximately 12 hours, and would kill about one million people. You lack the resources or time to successfully search for the bomb.
You have captured a person whom you have verified as being a member of the terrorist group in question. You have reason to believe that this person knows where the bomb will be planted and knows the location of the other members of the terrorist group. Assume for purposes of this question that you are immune from liability (you’ve been promised a presidential pardon). You have unrestricted access to the prisoner (who speaks English), and unrestricted access to any devices that may be acquired and used within a 12-hour period.
Assuming that the prisoner is adamant about trying not to reveal any information regarding the whereabouts of the bomb or the other members of the terrorist organization,
What do you do to try to extract the necessary information from the prisoner?
Here are the options I originally gave, and beneath each option is the (rounded) percentage of people who chose that option, out of those who chose anything (note: this is not a scientific test)
1: Use unrestricted torture devices and methods
[32%]
2: Use torture devices and methods, but limited in a certain way
[7%]
3: Use only methods authorized by the Human Rights Convention and other applicable humanitarian international and domestic law
[21%]
4: Only interrogate verbally (including any sort of psychological methods)
[18%]
5: Only interrogate verbally (without resorting to psychological manipulation)
[7%]
6: Something else
[14%]
Recently, top torture experts declared that torture is ineffective. Not only that, but it violates international law and human rights laws and doctrines.
Although the situation in Guantanamo, for instance, wasn’t a “24″-esque time bomb scenario, if a person in a superior position did find him or herself in such a situation, considering what’s at stake, would you accept torture as a necessary evil, perhaps as a last resort? And would you forgive those who authorized it and carried it out?
This really isn’t a question about Guantanamo’s conditions, about the lengthy and humiliating torture that those men endured that effectively accomplished nothing except maybe a get-out-of-jail-free card for the most brutally tortured of them (if not all). It’s more about the scenario that those opposing torture often refer to as being incredibly unlikely. But let’s say it did happen, and let’s say you were living in Manhattan at the time. Would you give the thumbs-up?
If not, what are your justifications for opposing it in certain scenarios? If it’s because it’s unreliable or ineffective (according to experts), are those experts basing their opinions on facts derived from only non-situational torture sessions, (i.e., no imminent threat)? And how often did that happen in order to give the experts enough data to make a fully informed opinion about torture in general?
So, in this time bomb test, torture or no?
Tags: Adam, bomb, Bush, Carrie, Cheney, doctrine, English, evil, human, Law, Logic, Manhattan, moral, Morality, president, prisoner, rights, torture
Posted in Government, Morality | 1 Comment »
