October links

(And a few left over from September. Oops, it's November already.)

Hating on climate change. It's no surprise to me that nasty conservative trolls would hate on teenager Greta Thunberg for her message that the people currently in charge of the world aren't doing enough. I've written elsewhere that models for climate change haven't been strong, but there is also enough solid data to be very worried.

Intolerance on campus. I hear screeching about it, but here is a solid court case about bullying of Christian groups by campus officials.

The fear among the conservatives. They fear being overwhelmed by the left and forced to give up their religious beliefs. Considering the disrespect for religious beliefs on the left, I have to say it seems like a rational fear.

Why Trudeau almost lost. Canada is in good shape, which allows lesser issues to create more fractures than before.

Iran and Russia interfere. ... in the US via Facebook.

Tough politics in Texas. The Texas House speaker is out after being stabbed in the back while conspirimg to stab other Republican reps in the back. Do I like anyone in this mess?

Image: edenpoliticalcartoons.com

May links

Religious right takeover. After about 40 years of trying, the religious right is taking over and abolishing the right to a safe, legal abortion. Conservatives used to pay lip service to pro-life groups, and those groups got fed up and marshalled their strength, electing someone malleable like Trump and his openly pious VP, Mike Pence. Snippet: More rights for workers to opt out of tasks due to conscience and religious belief. Will patients not receive care because of it?

Abortion actions in states. Many states are changing their abortion laws. Some are pushing to overturn Roe v Wade, and others are updating to allow late term abortion for therapeutic reasons. Related: an argument that men cause all pregnancies. Fun to read, but does it hold together? And an article and interesting comment thread about stealthing, which is secretly removing a condom during sex.

Mueller as witness. A profile of what to expect, as though we couldn't predict it from what we know already. Sober, honest, rule-based, tough, consistent. <---- Well, that item is now defunct. Mueller has said that his report is his testimony, and he has nothing to add. And finally a cogent conservative view on why Mueller was wrong to hint so broadly that Trump obstructed justice. I've read so much junk from conservatives, it's a relief to find something intelligent.

The spies don't like it. Trump has appointed Bill Barr, the Attorney General, to decide what documents to declassify related to unfair investigations into the Trump campaign. I don't trust Barr to be impartial or the intellligence servicess to be candid, but the truth almost always comes out.

Shutting down free press in Europe. Scary. Not by killing journalists, but by buying up the media outlets.

Maneuvering over impeachment. Impeachment will help Trump, so he's now trying to goad the Dems into it. I'll have to check what GOP mouthpieces are saying. Maybe their 'coup' rhetoric will be replaced with claims that the Dems are impeaching Trump, even when they aren't. It's obviously theater and moot because the Senate won't convict. In related news, Trump had a temper tantrum, blew up a negotiations session that was supposed to work toward an infrastructure bill, and then ranted in the Rose Garden. But it was all planned, with the podium and signs already set up.

My obsession with fake claims of voting fraud. Another entry in this category. Texas tries to remove non-citizens and screws up. Let me guess--are minorities the main target again?

Conservative fake news industry. For outright lies, conservative media wins hands down. Someone faked a video of Pelosi slurring her words, and the rubes ate it up. In related news, the Washington Examiner had a headline about Buzzfeed having to correct a tweet. It was a small correction, hardly worth a newstory or headline. I wonder when the Examiner will correct its own false stories, like the one I write about here.

Developing nations. An overview of nations with different levels of development and different obstacles. A good encapsulation, with helpful examples.

Is India headed to another civil war? Trouble is simmering, and might explode.

Important link on server forensics. Damn those stupid talking points. The DNC didn't need to turn over servers to the FBI according to an actual computer expert. And another article about the forensics of the computer hacking investigation, though ultimately the info comes from the same source.

Still available by mail, no matter what state

Image: thecut.com

Is it a hate group?

Conservatives like to claim that the Southern Poverty Law Center, the long-time watchdog on hate groups, is now a hate group itself. They want to make this claim because the SPLC has labeled some of their favorite organizations as hate groups, including the Family Research Council.

This time I looked into the Alliance Defending Freedom. It's been active in lawsuits, such as defending the Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. From what I know, that baker isn't filled with hate, and defending him isn't what I'd call hateful either.

However, the SPLC has quite a solid complaint against the group for supporting laws that mandated sterilization of transgender people who wanted official name and gender changes. It also has a list of other positions against transgender and gay people, with the worst behavior over a decade ago, but several incidents in the past 5 years.

The Alliance (ADF) tries to look friendly and not hateful on its website, but some of the hate comes through. It lies about Planned Parenthood--but isn't that de rigeur for any conservative group? It claims it supports rights and freedom, but doesn't mention how not all rights get their respect. Some people's rights are obviously more important than the rights of those gays.

ADF lawyer moving up.

Image: thenation.com

Last outpost of crazy: Ohio war

Just imagine that you're engaged in a guerrilla war. You can pick your side: a church or a strip club.

Usually, I'd pick the church, but not this time. They started the war:

... a nine-year battle that began when church members protested at the Foxhole on weekends, posting patrons' license plate numbers online and urging them to repent. [The owner] sued the church in federal court and lost in 2009.

So what's a good countermove in such a fight?  How about sending topless women to church services?

Now, guess which one wants protesters to stop getting on the property, intimidating visitors, and blocking entrances. Probably both.

Effective protest? Made you look? Made you think?

sbccfilmreviews.org

Extras. This has been going on a long time.

The many enemies of Christianity

Somehow I managed to resist writing about how the death battle between same sex marriage and conservative Christians for twelve days, but that reprieve is over. I'm back to the topic again because of the hyperbole of Rod Dreher (the main conservative-religious writer whom I read).

Dreher has blamed the Reformation for this evil before. He's blamed the Founding Fathers and their political philosophy that guarantees the state wouldn't impose religion on the people. He's blamed Martin Luther. Now he's blaming nominalism, a philosophical theory that perfect, ideal things don't actually exist.

I think Dreher should just go all the way and proclaim that the problem is that too many people think, and their thoughts are too often sacrilegious because they end up questioning the dogmas of the church. Somehow, though, Dreher exempts himself. When he questions the church, as he did when he left Catholicism to become Eastern Orthodox, it wasn't a hateful, uppity, and sinful of him to do that.

However, when Martin Luther questioned the Catholic church, he unleashed an incredible amount of evil. All sorts of people started questioning church dogmas and finding alternative ideas. For example what is more likely to be correct: your priest or your conscience? Is the Church correct that the sun and planets revolve around the Earth? Somehow this questioning is the direct cause of Western civilization becoming decadent and materialistic, and forsaking the guiding principles of a religious life.

Does Dreher actually wish that he could shut down all of that thought, remove the free will of people, and force people to put unquestioning faith in whatever their church says? From what I've read, that is what Dreher would prefer, based on the number of column inches he's devoted to defending dogma ("what Christianity actually is") and decrying the wrongness of guys marrying guys.

Oh, the hubris of using your brain! (... if you might come to a different conclusion from that of the Church).

A moderate problem in Dreher's argument is that Jesus himself is an example of questioning orthodoxy. But Jesus is the Son of God, and inerrant, which no other human is. So it's not illogical if Jesus can question but the rest of us can't. An even bigger problem is that humans are questioning authorities all the time, especially when they aren't thrashed within an inch of their lives for doing so. Maybe European stock is somewhat worse in this behavior than others (how frequently did Indians question their caste system?), but it has been a persistent trait for as long as we have records.

People are going to use their minds, and what they think may change as a consequence. God can't stop it, and neither can Dreher. If it is to be labeled a sin, that tells us that Dreher or the Church or God can't deal with a major aspect of human nature. It also raises the question of whether Dreher believes that people deserve freedom, or whether instead they need the cossetting of an authoritarian system to avoid this worst of sins--thinking the wrong thoughts.

Of course, what is most likely is that Christianity wasn't threatened by Martin Luther, the Reformation, liberty-based government, or a metaphysical theory I hadn't even heard of (and me a philosophy major!). Only Dreher's mistaken and narrow definition of Christianity is threatened and only in his mind.

Image: wikipedia.org

Extras. Well, the threat's not quite "only in his mind." Traditionalists in some professions have been sued or fined for not working on same-sex weddings. There are also allegations of jobs lost or discriminatory work environments made by traditionalists.

Religious observance and religious identification are also becoming less common. Is that due to people choosing for themselves too? Most likely.

Difficult choice of conscience

We've had pizza shop owners, with video running, say that they wouldn't cater a same-sex wedding because they're Christians. I have my doubts that this was a carefully considered statement.

In contrast, here is a Christian photographer trying to work through the issue:

"I've been asked to photograph a same-sex wedding service (legal in my state), and I’ve said no. I wonder if I did the right thing. After all, this is a business, providing a service. Would it be right for me to refuse to serve a gay couple if I owned a restaurant? I don’t think so... Moreover, I’m not sure that photographing an event is an endorsement of that event. I have photographed weddings of people who were divorced (and I didn’t investigate the background), people who were probably cohabiting, people who were most likely unequally yoked to one another, and so on. 

So I’m kind of caught. My conscience bothers me because I turned this couple down, and my conscience will bother me if I photograph this wedding."

Here, thank God, is a person who sees the different sides of the issue. Is it fair to hold same-sex people as worse and different from the other sinners he photographs--though note that he doesn't 'investigate' the details of his clients' sins. He seems to take a reasonable, business-like approach that their sins aren't really his concern. That was probably how Christian photographers, bakers, and caterers handled divorced, cohabiting, and all the others who weren't holding off on sex until marriage. Perhaps most of these Christian businesspeople didn't even think of these couples as sinful. 

I personally don't believe the biblical sexual rules are correct or are the commandments of God. I'm not sure what sexual rules are correct, or how much it's a matter of morality (this is right, that is wrong) rather than a matter of risk (don't have sex until you know the person fairly well). 

As for the commandments of God, I have no sense of that at all, except that we should do good and not waste our lives. I don't believe, as my parents did, that sex before marriage is wrong, and God says so. In fact, I find that idea either absurd or a cultural/historical artifact.

So I think anti-gay bias is another cultural/historical artifact, and a lot of Americans seem to agree with that.

Christian conscience, Christian doubt

The Christian photographer raising the question of conscience wasn't sure. The minister answering wasn't sure either. What is sad is that the minister doesn't grapple with the issue of why it's moral to serve gay patrons at a restaurant, but not at their wedding. The minister's decision comes down to the problem of giving mixed messages to those around you as to whether same-sex marriage is OK or not. This seems odd to me that the issue comes down to not wanting to confuse other people--that doesn't seem typical for moral issues, that you don't do X because it might confuse people. I have to wonder whether the minister couldn't come up with a better reason, and had to settle for this weak one--since he wasn't going to go the hate/abomination route. 

Strict Christians will be grappling with these issues, but they've done it before, as sexual mores have changed. Courts have told Christians that they couldn't deny rentals to unmarried, cohabiting couples. I don't recall a major backlash over that. Perhaps it seemed too much like not renting to black couples or interracial couples, so the Christian landlords didn't want to go there. 

Perhaps it's an issue for more Christians this time because they can play the underdog against the powerful liberal tide. Gay couples have helped their underdog status by suing them even when the same services from other vendors are readily available. But whether in suing or in refusing, conscience rarely (but occasionally) seems to be the main concern.

Image: cartoonmovement.com

Extras. NY farm owners stopped doing weddings (but not receptions) I hope they found their comfort zone. Julian Sanchez doesn't know where to draw the line either. A list of objectors--a mixed bag.

These Christians seem to think that they're the sole possessors of rigorous thinking. They are also the stalwarts who "refuse to call what is good evil, and what is evil, good." They imagine that they have a monopoly on right thinking, and I intensely dislike monopolies.

Can I make decisions based on conscience?

Yes, I can and I do. In my field of work (healthcare), I've had to deal with issues of judgment and conscience. I've broken company rules to comply with the wishes of a dying patient. (That was an easy decision, by the way.) I've told doctors that I wouldn't perform actions that they requested. I've done my best to make sure that even someone who was frequently an asshole was treated fairly.

I don't want a job where I can't exercise judgment--where my boss or the company policies are the final word on all matters.

Yet that's what is contemplated for some small business owners. They don't have the privilege of turning down work based on conscience, if their conscience tells them it's wrong to participate in same-sex weddings.

I'm not saying that everyone who declares that they'll never be part of a same-sex wedding has examined their conscience. We all know that some people don't examine anything, but are zipperheads in the thrall of talk radio blowhards like Rush Limbaugh. Here's a mechanic who won't fix cars for clearly gay men. This guy is not a conscientious objector--he's an anti-gay bigot. There's nothing in Christianity telling him that doing diagnostics on a gay man's car is aiding and abetting sin. His decision is not as a Christian but as a hater.

But I have no doubt that there are many wonderful Christians who are sincerely against same-sex marriage. I hope there's room for their consciences just as I want there to be room for mine.

Image: consciencelaws.org

Finally, my conclusion. Marriage equality, yes. Conscience, yes.

I've wrestled with the issue of good religious people and their objection to same-sex marriage. Long ago I saw the essential equality of all marriages. I support the freedom to marry, without stigma, outside of the cultural norms (which are often cultural strait-jackets).

But I also understand and respect deep religious faith. Many of the most generous, loving people I've ever known have religious beliefs that would condemn me to hell for all eternity. These are the kind of people who would risk their own lives doing missionary work in unsafe areas of the world. How can I condemn people who are so much more generous and open-hearted than I am?

Eventually, I realized a formula. You don't have to support marriage equality, but don't deny it to other people. Don't set yourself up as the judge who decides which humans deserve which human rights.

Finally, I had to wrestle with the issue of whether people who are sincerely against same-sex marriage must be forced to provide services to those weddings. Does the florist have to provide flowers, does the baker have to provide a cake, does the photographer have to capture the moment of the grooms exchanging rings and kissing?

Anti-discrimination rules for public accommodations

Our country been through a similar issue before. If you run a public business, under civil rights laws, you can't discriminate against people of different races, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability status, etc. This was a correct decision. The rights of a business owner don't trump the rights of the public to go about their lives without discrimination in the public sphere. No one is forced to like whites, to privately socialize with people of a disfavored religion, to invite them into your home. But in the public sphere, who must treat them as you treat everyone else--with fairness.

Sexual orientation isn't currently on the list of characteristics that can't be discriminated against. I think it should be, and it is in many states. In general, public opinion reviles discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Most people support fairness for gays in all areas of life, including employment, housing, court, etc.

However, requiring fairness doesn't mean that we (the public) require everyone to view gay sexual choices as equal to other kinds of choices. I don't have to declare that I totally support all kinds of sexual freedom as good and wise, just like I don't have to declare that Tea Party political opinions are just correct as my opinions. I'm not just 'allowed' to disagree--I have the freedom to disagree.

So it is with business owners. They may have to operate as though they are fair and unbiased, but aren't required to adopt those beliefs.

Remember 'Live and Let Live?'

When support for gay rights was much less popular, some of the appeals were for understanding and tolerance of different viewpoints. These were good arguments. Why not live-and-let-live? Can't we give space to people to have different religions, different sexual interests, different languages, different political beliefs? Generally, we want to say 'yes' to this. We aren't required to all think and do the same.

So why doesn't this extend to the florist who is a devout Christian? Doesn't she get to live-and-let-live without being hauled into court for not wanting to participate in a same-sex wedding?

Are there limits to how far live-and-let-live goes? Certainly. It's not a carte-blanche to loudly and obnoxiously tell people that you don't like their kind, and therefore you won't have anything to do with them. It doesn't undermine the right of others to expect fair treatment in employment.

I'd like to draw the line on live-and-let-live somewhere short of compelling people to take part in acts they profoundly disagree with. But they still don't get to be bigoted about it. Can I make a conscience-exception only for the sincere people, and not for the bigots? That's the question.

Image: pantheos.com

Nothing much to say about that

My interest in political observation has finally dropped. It's been over two weeks since my last post, and I'm not finding much to talk about. Most of the Republican leaders and presidential candidates are shaping up to be knee-jerk idiots who are against anything related to Obama. But that happened 4 years ago too. I watched the show then, figured out the ending before the actors and directors did, laughed at them during their screechy antics, etc. It's 4 years later, and I'm too jaded to do that again.

So I won't be writing about the latest GOP idiocy every week. If there was good news from the GOP, that would be a wonderful topic to write about--such happy news and so unexpected... but that's not going to happen, is it? The talk-radio idiots are fully in charge of the GOP agenda, so there will be no good news for the foreseeable future.

I was mildly interested in what happened in Indiana, but everyone piled onto that one. I'm ambivalent. On the one hand, I believe in conscientious objections. On the other hand, the analogy and experience of racial discrimination shows that there's no room for exceptions in the public/business world. Most people seem to see only one side, but I see both, and I'm torn.

However, I also see the legislation as a stunt by the GOP party in Indiana--a little poke in the eye to show who's in power there. It deserved to backfire, and it did. The lesson is not to poke people in the eye. A good lesson, but I already know it.

So, we'll see if anything comes along to pique my interest again. But I doubt it, and I don't even wish for it. I don't see a path to better politics in this country in the next 1.5 years. I just pray it doesn't get worse than the current level of terrible.

Image: evilrightwingbastards.blogspot.com

Denying Contraceptive Coverage is Slut-Shaming

First, I'm sorry that this topic is getting so many posts, but there is a good reason. This is one of the few issues where it's possible to nail down the logic and see it for what it is.

People who argue against contraceptive coverage fall into three categories:

1. Those who are against ALL drug coverage, but make the mistake of focusing on contraceptives. 
2. Those who don't want any of their money to go to subsidized contraceptives for parasites who are probably irresponsible sluts.
3. Those who follow religious tenets against the use of contraceptives. 

I'm giving category #1 people the benefit of the doubt. It's easy to identify them. If you ask, why should contraceptives be any different from, say anti-cholesterol drugs, they readily agree that they shouldn't.

For category #3 people, I have to argue that their church's tenets are misguided and/or outdated in this age where we have over 7 billion people thronging the Earth. Also, they cannot and should not force their church teachings on employees. Do they make their employees swear religious oaths? No. So keep religion out of healthcare also.

But a lot of religion tenets come down to category #2, which is disapproval of sex. Often it's clothed as disapproval of wanton, irresponsible sex, but when you scratch the surface, it's a general disapproval of sex.

Image: politicalfun.blogspot.com

However, it makes no sense for this disapproval of wanton sex to apply also to contraceptives. These are used mostly by very responsible people for responsible purposes. Just because prostitutes and sexually adventurous people also use contraceptives, that doesn't make contraceptives evil. Prostitutes and the unchaste also drink water for the same reasons the rest of us do, but we don't have religious prohibitions against water.

So there's no logical reason to deny contraceptive coverage--unless I've missed some other argument. If that's the case, I apologize. However, I really doubt that there is any other argument.

Slut or responsible person?

Image: thebottomline.as.ucsb.edu

Update 1/31/14. Answer to O'Reilly's questions above: No, Bill, I want you to shove that money so far up your ass that it comes out your foul mouth. Plus, I hear you're quite a slut yourself.

Most evil: Atheists vs. Christians

I saved an article in National Review for reading post-Christmas, when I would have lots of time to mull it over. The thesis of the article has slipped from my steel-trap mind while reading the 900+ comments, but it was something about the West being post-Christian.

The real fascinating issues are debated in the comments. On one side you have the self-proclaimed Christians claiming that humanist/atheists/liberals are the scourge of humanity, and Christianity brought us the best society in the world--the American constitutional nation. According to the Christians: [my selection]

1. It's Christian belief in the sacredness of the individual that brought about the Enlightenment and our constitution.
2. Humanists are not part of the Enlightenment.
3. Humanists wrongly believe that they can perfect mankind, and they perform all sorts of nastiness in their misguided attempts to do that. That nastiness includes genocide, bureaucracy, thought control, mass killings, and purges.
4. Christians might have done these things too, but not when they were acting as true Christians. [See below for my quick responses to these assertions.]

Those contentions got an atheist really angry, and he must have written over 200 comments on the thread. I'm not sure who started the argument over whether the murders by Stalin/Hitler/Mao go into "the Atheists caused it" column or "the Christians caused it" column, but that was the largest point of contention. The atheist, named Heathen philosopher, claimed communism is an outgrowth of Christianity, as was fascism, so the huge 20th century death toll would go on the Christian column. Of course the Christians blame the atheists/humanists.

Heathen philosopher  (I'll call him the Atheist) makes the better arguments generally. He argues that the Christians aren't as clean as they claim since they have a shitload of massacres clearly in their column. He also does a decent job of refuting the contention that atheists/humanists deserve the demerits for the Stalin/Hitler massacres, since these occurred in cultures that were steeped in Christianity. He points out that Stalin and Hitler just followed from earlier models that flourished in explicitly Christian times.

The Atheist also avoids the pitfalls of labeling everything Christian as evil, noting a few merits of Christianity and demerits of some atheists too. It's not hard to avoid the pitfall of wildly exaggerating the evil of your opponent, yet so many commenters make this mistake.

The Christians put themselves in a poor position by not acknowledging the violent history of Christian countries. They also claim that all the improvements in societies since the 18th century were due to the West being steeped in Christianity, when not explicitly Christian. So the Christian side both rejects the "steepage" argument and uses it when convenient.

Who can claim the Enlightenment?

The Atheist also raises the issue of classical Greek philosophy and its contribution to the Enlightenment and our constitution. I'm a strong advocate of the Greek philosophers, particularly the Socratic method, so I don't need much convincing. The Christians don't address this issue much, perhaps because it ruins their dichotomy of the Christian vs. atheist/humanist.

The Christians try to defeat the arguments of the Atheist by imputing the worst of humanism onto him. According to them, he's a humanist so he believes the central humanist tenets that man is the measure of all things and is perfectable, rather than being fallen by nature and needing the ministrations of a merciful God. The Atheist denies believing that man is perfectable, as well he should because all evidence runs strongly against that belief.

Unfortunately, this argument doesn't settle a question that is more important than "who's the worst?" That question is "who's responsible for the Enlightenment and the constitution?" My first stab at this would be to guess that it's classical Greek philosophy, but I have to wonder what role Christianity played. The Greek philosophy seemed to need to percolate through centuries of Christianity before it bubbled up as the Enlightenment.

Utility/Futility

There is a futility in the blame game that each side plays, especially if you're only doing a body count. The blame game doesn't include any honest analysis of why the death toll was so high and how to prevent the violence. It's really about trying to score points, especially on the Christians' side. Perhaps that's a large part of the reason why their arguments fail--they aren't searching for truth, they're looking for a superficial win on points.

The big loser in the arguments, besides fair and honest discussion, is the idea that we can perfect our societies. Theocracies have a terrible record--the more they try to purge, the higher the death count goes with no real progress made to the perfect earthly society. Communist and fascist countries have major death tolls also. We in the US can't sit too high on our laurels either since there was plenty of genocide in our Indian wars, slavery, and racial and ethnic discrimination and killing, which hopefully we aren't still practicing. The hope of a society to purge its way to improvement is demonstrated as bloody awful and misguided many times over in history. Perhaps we (I) should be remembering that was we try to fight Islamic terrorists.

Image: continental-philosophy.org

Here are some of the highlights of the discussion for those who are interested but less dogged than me in reading all the comments:

• Comments on whether the Enlightenment was good or not starting here.
• Non-christian and non-religious systems of morality.
• An unexpected in-depth discussion of Russian history starting here.
• Sophie, a commenter, starts by saying all collectivism is left-wing, but eventually drops that to agree with the Atheist that humans aren't perfect.
• Communists societies were atheist and evil, therefore atheism is evil. Not so fast.
• One of the worst exchanges. The Atheist talks about being in foster care/orphan/ward of the state, and God didn't help him. An idiot replies that this young boy hated God and that's why God didn't come. Ugh.
• A complaint that there are no Protestants on the Supreme Court without any acknowledgement of the reasons. (The reason is polarization. Dem presidents have chosen reliable sympathic ethnic judges that are Jewish or Catholic. GOP presidents have chosen Catholics as a proxy for being anti-abortion.)

My reply to these pro-Christian assertions at the beginning of the post are:

1. It's Christian belief in the sacredness of the individual that brought about the Enlightenment and our constitution. Plausible.
2. Humanists are not part of the Enlightenment. Wrong. Humanists seem to be at the forefront of the Enlightenment. 
3. Humanists wrongly believe that they can perfect mankind, and they perform all sorts of nastiness in their misguided attempts to do that. That nastiness includes genocide, bureaucracy, thought control, mass killings, and purges. This is a caricature of humanists by people with a grudge.
4. Christians might have done these things too [genocide, purges], but not when they were acting as true Christians. This is a 'no true Scotsman' fallacy.

Last outpost of crazy: Religious statue wars

Fact-checking is second-nature in me. So when I saw this comment, I had to check it out (emphasis added):

"Godless secular leftism is the end result--complete apostasy and the existence of a society that rips down symbols of the One God and literally puts up monuments to Satan." -- National Review comment

My good friend Google helped me discover that this is a real story, as unbelievable as that sounds. The quote is not quite accurate in all its parts. A tiny segment of society is trying to put up a literal monument to Satan, namely a statue of Satan. The same tiny sect isn't ripping down the symbol of the One God, but rather trying to share public space with a display of the Ten Commandments.

Here's the story: The Oklahoma state government allowed the display of the Ten Commandments on state property by the State House. The monument was paid for by private funds, so it wasn't literally funded with public tax monies. Some other groups have sought to erect statues to other religious figures in the same place under a fairness doctrine. These groups include a satanic cult (now raising funds) and a Hindu group that wants to erect a statue to the monkey god Lord Hanuman.  The ACLU wants the Ten Commandments monument removed, and no religious monuments at the public site.

Now, who seems to be the voice of reason? And who didn't pay attention to foreseeable consequences? Sigh.

Coming soon to Oklahoma

Image: theblackcatcloset.com

Update 1/7/14. See the statue proposal submitted by the Satanists. Children will love it, to the horror of non-Satanist parents.

Short: Tax-Exempt Status Denied

While following up on some issues related to the recent IRS scandal, I found this at a Tea Party site:

Chris Long. President, Ohio Christian Alliance Email: chrislong@ohioca.org 330-329-0105 Cell. Chris’s group can prove actual damages from the IRS Action. They filed for a 501(c)3 tax status in January of 2011 and waited thirteen months to get approved. During that time, he has documentation of significant donors who withdrew their donations because he was unable to get the 501(c) 3 certification in a timely manner.

Look at the website and tell me whether this looks like a political group, or more like a charitable group, which is what 501(c)3 organizations are supposed to be:

Image: ohioca.org

I think that donations to this organization should be treated like political donations, not like donations to schools, libraries, or the Salvation Army. Donors to this organization shouldn't have their donations subsidized by taxpayers. Organizations like this, on the left and the right, deserve greater scrutiny. It's not going to be hard to make this point to the persuadable public. 

Values and judgment: Judging Scalia, judging tradition

Antonin Scalia is in trouble again with liberals and the media over his viewpoints. This happens fairly often, but with little effect on the offender or the offending behavior. Scalia, with a lifetime appointment to the US Supreme Court, doesn't have to change. No amount of anger, demonstration, fury, or criticism will dislodge him if he doesn't want to go. Besides, he seems to love the attention and the fight.

This is the latest fracas: on Monday, Scalia spoke at Princeton. Unsurprisingly, he defended his support of laws against sodomy. He defended his comparison of laws against sodomy to laws against murder. That's expected. However, he unnecessarily twisted the knife when he added:

"I'm surprised you weren't persuaded."

Hey, Justice Scalia, a lot of people have opinions that differ from yours. That doesn't make them stupid or contemptible, so don't treat them that way.

Many people dissent

Image: amazon.com

Tradition vs. Change

Aside from Scalia's atrocious manners (and he's not alone--there are way too many nasty, screeching liberals too), there is a huge question on how we respond to our traditional moral teachings. To gain some perspective, let's look at a case of conflict between tradition and change.

The Christian Example

Christianity had a major problem back in the first century. Did adherents have to follow all the laws of Judaism? On one hand, the laws had made the Jewish people keenly aware of right and wrong, and they endeavored to live in ways that were deeply virtuous. On the other hand, the laws were crazy in their extent. Not only was there circumcision with prayers, etc., but there was a huge number of dietary laws, marriage laws, maybe just about any law you could imagine. This was offputting to people who were interested in living virtuously as God intended, because it strained belief that God intended so many strictures for everyone, not just for the high priests.

St. Paul probably saved Christianity by giving adherents a pass on the old laws, which he deemed to be superseded by the new laws, which were a new covenant with God.

So there's a precedent for looking at your laws (moral rules), and chucking them when they don't make sense anymore. It certainly didn't turn Christianity into a shameless, vile religion that led people into evil ways. Christianity has generally been a force for benevolence to mankind, just as Judaism was and is.

 Image: todayinheritagehistory.wordpress.com

America questions

Now we in the US are in a similar process of questioning some of our traditional morals. Specifically, are homosexual relationships immoral? Can we, like the early Christian founders, examine the laws and judge their merits?

I think we can and should. There are a lot of sources for our moral laws, and many of them are specific customs. The permission of a father or brother used to be required to get married. Was it really a moral necessity, or just a custom? How do you answer such a question? Furthermore, what are the implications of asking such a question?

There are typically two ways to answer the question. One way is to appeal to an established authority, such as custom, religion, or an authority figure. Another is to test the action in a moral system such as the Golden Rule or Kant's categorical imperative.

The Advantages and Problems with a Moral Authority

It's interesting that there is a method other than appealing to authority. For many people, the authority is the final word, and the only safeguard from a moral free-for-all. However, the problem there is that people strenuously disagree on who or what is an accepted authority. Having an acceptable alternative, such as a test by way of a moral system, solves this problem to a certain extent, but many find it an affront to the authority they deeply respect.

Based on what I know of the American founders (admittedly just high school history), they were probably more comfortable with testing within a moral system. Political philosophers such as Locke were developing ideas of government based not on authoritarian justifications, but on consent of the governed. John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant are the two philosophers who have tried to develop systems for testing moral precepts that didn't depend on a moral authority. They haven't been completely successful, but that's true for all the other moral philosophies too.

I don't think we'll ever have a perfect moral system. I prefer a non-religiously-based moral system, but that is a preference that reflects my values, not a demonstrably superior position. As I've written before, there aren't absolutes when it comes to values, judgment, and morals.

 Image: irregulartimes.com

Extra. An earlier gotcha moment for Scalia.

Short: The Dilemma of Black Conservative Christians

This article was a glimpse into a different world from mine.

I don't make decisions based on religious tenets or trying to understand which moral choice God would want me to make. But that is what conservative black pastors are trying to do: determine which US presidential candidate is the better choice for a strict Christian. Hint: It's not a slam-dunk for Obama and it never was. This year the choice is especially hard--a anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage Mormon, or a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage unorthodox nominal Christian.

I'm so glad I believe in individual conscience. That is my prescription. Search your heart, analyze your values and the values, policies, and likely outcomes. Know your reasons, then vote your conscience.

... or you can do as your pastor says.

Image: aikenstandard.com

Last outpost of crazy: Feuding Amish

This could also be filed under Absurd Religious Follies. The horrible crime of beard-shearing occurred due to a years-old dispute about a bishop's right to order shunning.

For me, this story is pretty much from another planet because I don't believe in:

• Pronouncements from bishops.
• Shunning.
• Beard-cutting as a grievous retribution on the unholy.
• The God of all things would worry about ordering us to grow just our chin hairs to ridiculous lengths.

Image: newsnet5.com

Food fight

I rather not have to check the bona fides of every product I buy to make sure that they meet a laundry list of do's and don'ts. I've never had a Chick-fil-A sandwich, but I'd try it sometime. I think my son said it's pretty good. But I won't go on "Support Traditional Marriage" Day because I wouldn't want my commercial and gustatory decision to be interpreted as a political statement.

When I buy something, it's because it's a good product, and that's all. When I give to charity, I want it to support their charitable work, not their strategic alliance with or against some other group. We have enough liberal-conservative divides in this country. It doesn't have to extend to all of commerce and charities too.

The efforts of the Susan G. Komen trust to cleanse itself of all connection to Planned Parenthood was a debacle, but luckily it didn't spread to other charities (as far as I know). It should have been a lesson--support projects (or charities or products or companies) on their merits, not on their political pedigree. If it was my decision, I'd save boycotts for the organizations with egregious practices, not because a CEO has a political opinion. Maybe it's part of my live-and-let-live mindset, or maybe it's because I'm too lazy to make sure every item in my life is politically pure.

Actually, I'm pretty sure it's not laziness. I definitely don't want everything in my life to be politically pure, because I want a huge chunk of life not to be political at all.

Silly Power Games

Yesterday 43 Catholic organizations filed suit against regulations from the Obama administration mandating contraceptive coverage in healthcare plans that cover other prescription drugs. Commenting on the news story, I wrote:

"This is happening because there’s a silly contest over who has power on this issue: the government or religion. It’s definitely not the people or the employees whose voices are being listened to."

John Powers rightly questioned me:

"Tell me again why your defending First Amendment rights is a 'silly contest'? Keeping the Government out of Churches has always sounded like a good reason to have a Bill of Rights. Freedom of Religion is a fundamental right in the United States, regardless of the voices of the 'people or the employees.' "

So this is my fuller explanation:

@John Powers, when churches stick to being churches, the government leaves them alone. When they become big employers, government is right to get involved in ways they are involved with other businesses/employers. But the churches-cum-employers then try to hide behind first amendment/freedom of religion, when, really, they just aren’t being allowed to conduct their employee relations the way they want. Maybe the churches want to avoid minimum wage or overtime laws too.

Are you really sure that freedom of religion is a free pass for corporate religions to do whatever they want? Maybe freedom of religion is an individual freedom, not carte blanche for organizations to ignore all government rules. I see more than one principle involved here, so it’s a balance of competing rights and principles, not just freedom of religion, as you say.

The reason this is a silly contest is that the Catholic Church in this country has lost the argument about contraception with its own adherents, yet the Church continues to pretend that contraception is so wrong that it can’t countenance including it in comprehensive medical plans. On the government side, it’s silly to mandate insurance coverage for pills that cost $9 a month at Walmart (not a myth–I looked it up). Yes, it is silly to anyone not wrapped up in the power play.

 Who is sillier?

Photo: fanpop.com

Against dogmatism

I'm not a religious person, but I'm quite familiar with religion.  I grew up with fairly devout parents, several siblings are devout, and my sweetie enthusiastically goes to church nearly every Sunday and holy day. As I've said before, I greatly respect religion.

That said, religion is a horrible basis for politics. This suddenly strikes me as strange. Why is religion a good basis for religion, but a bad basis for politics? Such a simple question, but perhaps there's a lot to explore there.

What got me thinking about this is Andrew Sullivan's post about another blogger at National Review insulting his thought process. I don't want to comment on blogger squabbles, which are endless and tacky in their inbreeding, but it did remind me how important one idea is to me: empiricism.

I fell in love with philosophy in college, and have used critical thinking forever afterward. I also studied physics and psychology, with a sprinkling of art history and geology and other assorted bits. It was a wonderful example of a wide-ranging liberal education. Of all these fields, the one with the strongest basis was the philosophy of pragmatism.

Pragmatism has a lot of similarities to science. It calls for empirical observation, reflection, and testing. It is also explicit about some processes that are implicit in science: follow-through to see the results, iterations on promising theories to refine them, trying out alternative approaches. What makes pragmatism work is what makes science work so well: it is based on honest, unbiased, and careful observation. You don't jump to a conclusion, you wait for enough evidence. If only politicians of all stripes would do that.

"I wrote my dissertation on the primacy of practical wisdom in human conduct - in contradistinction to ideology... Dish readers can judge for themselves whether this blog is about imposing 'theoretical, theological, and ideological certainties' or whether it is about taking positions but always subjecting them to scrutiny, re-evaluation, re-thinking." -- Andrew Sullivan

 Graphic: chemheritage.org

Voting for a Mormon

It looks like American citizens will get to choose between a Mormon and a Muslim, radical liberation Christian this fall. I'm predicting that the religion of the candidates will make a difference to a paltry number of voters.

We won't see a decline in voting among Bible Belt Christians. I seriously doubt that there are many evangelicals who "just can't pull the lever for a Mormon." Some have already voted for him in the primaries. If they didn't vote for him, they probably voted for a Catholic (Santorum or Gingrich) and won't have any trouble voting for a Mormon when Obama is the alternative. Those few who are concerned about voting for a Mormon will likely get the OK from their pastors. Perhaps they'll also reflect on why it's now acceptable to vote for a Mormon despite all the suspicion that their churches regularly cast on the Mormon religion.

The whole Mormon issue was corruptly exploited by just a few campaigns and preachers during the early part of the primaries. Now that the primary season is winding down, I'm not seeing the issue stirred up on comment pages anymore. I can read the Washington Wire without being reminded how the founding myth of the Mormons is a crazy lie thought up by Joseph Smith (which I already knew, thank you) or how Romney wears magic underwear. I no longer need to remind myself how infinitesimally small the slice of voters influenced by such stupid, prejudicial statements is.

I predict this scourge won't return in the fall, at least not more than a few scattered comments. Perhaps this is wishful thinking on my part, but I don't think many Democratic partisans will be using this tactic to pry a few conservatives off the Romney (station) wagon. I'll be sure to report back if I'm wrong.

Mormon Homeschool: Make your own golden plates... (seriously)

Extra: While I'm saying offensive things about the origins of the Mormon religion, I also want to express my doubts about the literal existence of Abraham and Moses; that the Koran contains all the sayings of Mohammad; that Jesus was resurrected; that souls can be reincarnated; and that souls persist after the death of the body. I'm sceptical of all these tenets and a great many more. However, religion is very often a boon to the believers, and I wish them well. (But please, don't try to convince me--I'm so well inoculated against religious myth that the stories don't stand a chance.)

Here are some of the anti-Mormon comments I collected a few months ago:

"Q. How Many Wives did Romney’s Grandfather had? A. 5
Q. How Many Wives did Romney’s Great-Grandfather had? A. 12
Such great traditions! Even hard core islamists cannot beat that one."

"Mormans do have a crazy religion and Romneys faith is supposed to be questioned. I don’t want to hear about the crazy stories of Joseph Smith and his ilk. I asked a devout Christian what he thinks about the Mormon faith, and all he did was laugh. No Thank You"

"Is God really just a human being living on a planet that orbits the star called Kolob? Did the Angel Moroni really visit the lifelong criminal Joseph Smith in his tent and designate him as the latest prophet for Christianity? Uh, no."

"I cannot vote a person to the Presidency who follows the teachings of Joseph Smith. Romney and Huntsman are off my list..."  -- All from one comment page in WSJ, 12/14/11