In Defense of Sarah

Sarah Hippolitus posted an interesting essay on Responsible Atheism. There were several people who criticized her for not providing evidence to support her case. They cited claims such as "Believing in a power infinitely stronger than you, and offering this power some kind of dominion over your life, is emotionally unhealthy." When I read this my thought was, of course this is the case. When others read this they thought she is providing no facts to back up this claim and there was no reason to accept this and other claims made by Sarah.

Let me start by saying that I am profoundly confident that Sarah can defend herself on this and related points. My title reference above really has less to do with defending Sarah than my desire to look at the issues that arise when considering the criticisms of her essay. What evidence is relevant and what should a person writing to a blog assume about the audience reading an essay?

I recalled a story about a couple of deeply religious Christians working in Afghanistan who got captured by the Taliban. Coalition forces found where they were imprisoned and a firefight ensued. The two Christians reported that when this happened they “prayed furiously.” They presumed that an infinitely powerful force controlled their lives and imploring help from this force could protect them.

In the same context I would have been thinking about where the bullets were coming from, what solid objects could shield me and if perhaps getting closer to the floor might be safer. Taking charge of my life would obviously allow me to best protect my own health in that context. I also recalled back when I was very young, 8, 9 or 10 year old, I would put enormous effort into praying. I had been told that prayers were answered and for a while I believed it. When I figured out that this did not work I was outraged. All that time and effort had been wasted. Obviously attempts to invoke magical supernatural actions is a waste of time that is a needless burden on a person's life. All such burdens of necessity reduces a person's ability to pursue healthy goals in life.

In short I had extensive data from news reports and my personal experience to document how and why Sarah's claim was valid. The people people criticizing Sarah almost certainly had a similar variety of common knowledge which they could use to evaluate this particular claim. Similar detailed analyzes could be made with all of Sarah's claims. Somehow her critics chose to not invoke the knowledge which would support this type of understanding.

What did they want? Did they want carefully controlled studies with empirical evidence concerning the degree of power allocated to a being with dominion over the person's life correlated with metrics of mental health? Perhaps that is what they might prefer but Sarah was doing something else. She was doing a very thoughtful analysis of extremely common religious assumptions and the probable implications in people's lives.

Any blogger must of necessity define a scope for a given post. If all implications and threads of evidence are covered a post on any complex subject it would have to have the length of an encyclopedia volume. Just before posting this essay I noticed that Sarah commented that she would be posting followup essays with supporting evidence. I very much look forward to those posts.

There were also that there were a couple of comments noting that religion also had positive effects. To be fair and balanced we need to look at and understand the positive elements of religion. I hope to post some thoughts on that issue if time permits.

Sizing up Arguments on Government Versus Corporate Bigness

Two sided arguments are abroad in the land. One of them is about the conflict between Big (Federal) Government, as in “tax-and-spend”, and Big Business, as in “too big to fail”. I recently posted a small blog on binary thinking and the above conflicting phrases can certainly be seen as framing opposing stances. But they are many aspects to the issues. One is just the idea of private business-public government conflict. Juxtaposed this way it is presented as something like an athletic contest between the two. Indeed many of us identify with one pole of these 2 choices. But this seems too simple a position and leaves out the process by which we come down towards a side. That process should be rational and empirical. Doesn’t it matter what the specific issue of government or corporate activity is? Shouldn’t it matter whether we take a short of long-term view of the issues? Many of us might agree that both government and private institutions are challenged if not damaged. But why?

One aspect of any comparative analysis that should be addressed is the implied argument that it is bigness as opposed to an implied smallness that is a problem. Here the modifier big might be used to describe institutions that have grown excessively large, and in the process corrupt and/or inefficient.

The two aspects of the contrast (gov vs. bus and big vs. small) are intertwined, but we can start a discussion with some thoughts on the private-public dichotomy. Like many liberals contemplating the government vs. business issue, I personally think that there are examples to show the weakness of an argument singling out big government for the blame. For one thing Federal government, in our founder’s words, was a necessary evil and part of a balanced system. Arguments that “government is THE problem” smack of too much of a simplification. They appeal to an almost religious feeling of an innate evil that is inherent in government, but not true of other institutions. Even milder, criticism couched in skepticism toward the government’s ability to do good, seems ideological and unbalanced. On the surface it appeals to skepticism, but supporting arguments are narrow and seem more like crank complaints, when the facts and arguments themselves are analyzed. A good example is the almost religious fervor arguing against government regulation to address climate change. This so called debate is full of rhetorical arguments that remind me of arguments I hear from creationists and the Intelligent Design folks. The arguments give the appearance of legitimate, open debate, when in fact there is almost no serious argument in the scientific community. Instead one is presented with a faith-based or ideological argument that has as its 2 real goals:

· Raising doubts about data, theory and conclusions where scientific consensus already really exists.

· Preventing agreement on actions that the government can take on behalf of the public.

This is a combination of denials – of the agreement on a problem and on the need to take action. Indeed one often sees anti-government action arguments the 5 characteristics of what John Cook calls scientific denialism (http://www.skepticalscience.com/5-characteristics-of-scientific-denialism.html):

• Conspiracy theories
  When overwhelming scientific opinion concludes X, denialists challenge that X was arrived at independently with sound evidence. Instead, the claim is that there is a vast scientific and secretive conspiracy using 'junk science'. In the case of government programs such as healthcare the claim is that there is a plot to take over healthcare and have the government run it. But the facts of the current reform are not that.

• Fake experts, false facts & loud messaging
  Crank individuals are pointed to as real experts. But their views are like Creationists - inconsistent with established knowledge. Good examples of fake expert exist from the asbestos and tobacco industries, who hand-select favorable researchers and then spread their claims in an attempt to drown out independent conclusions. Efforts to block government oversight often have arguments from people who are not real experts.

• Cherry picking
  This leverages the 2 above factors to give disproportionate weight to isolated papers, usually not peer reviewed. These often pick at the edges of consensus giving the impression that fringe findings are real challenges to the broad, commensurate body of research. Criticisms of government by the Cato Institute and economic plans from the Hoover Institute often smack of cherry picking and a rush to conclusions that are not subject to critical analysis. Certainly there is little consideration given to the other side except to imply that it is evil. One looks at how raising taxes on the top 1% is treated in the current budget debate.

• Strawmen and Impossible expectations of what research can deliver
  Examples of this are arguing that climate change models can’t predict how warm winter will be in DC. If it can’t do that is must be wrong. Right? Or why have government regulation of carbon if the science is so imprecise? Why believe the value of an economic stimulus if it can’t predict unemployment rates within a percent? All of these create strawman expectations about what good science knows or what good policy can do. Cautious suggestions from economists should be considered as opposed to wild claims such as trickle down economics which makes wildly confident predictions. These can be manufactured to set expectations on what knowledge is needed to make an informed decision.

• Misrepresentation, irrationality and logical fallacies

Columnist George Monbiot points out that conservative contrarians, who consider themselves skeptics, are in reality often selectively gullible and are easily mislead by poorly reasoned arguments. They suffer from conformatory bias and will believe pseudo-science and ad hominem arguments that supports their pre-existing belief. We saw this in the health care debate where health reform was labeled a government take over or with the claim that “Obama is coming to take our guns.” Or they will argue that a single weather event like a big snow in DC is evidence of global cooling. Another one is that glaciers are melting as a result of volcanoes under the ice. No explanation is too far out if supports existing convictions. One is reminded of Gregory House quote on religious arguments: "Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise, there would be no religious people. “

It’s now time to come back to the idea that (Federal) government size is the problem. One aspect of size is power and relative power is involved in relational problems between government and business. Rather than being isolated areas where one is good and the other bad, they are in practice intertwined via business-government interaction. This point is sometimes ironically made by noting that Republicans love the free market so much they in effect subsidize it by legislating government spending to that effect. A Washington Examiner article recently made this point in discusses a Virginia Economic Development Partnership of Henrico County & the Greater Richmond Partnership to secure 500 GE jobs. It would cost at least $2.6 million in state-controlled and taxpayer funds. The article notes the irony of small-government congressman Eric Cantor assisting happily with the project, while opposing stimulus via government hiring. To me such stance seem unreflective, and smells perhaps of hypocrisy. See http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/04/cantor-mcdonnell-warner-pay-ge-replace-some-ge-jobs-it-killed

The size factor for either government or business affects how each treats citizens and how citizens relates back to them. When institutions grow large they can become intentionally or unintentionally insulated from parts of the larger society. Then to achieve their internally developed aims both business and government may become inappropriately involved in areas of people’s lives. If they are Big they have the power to do this despite opposition and indeed what on the face of it the spirit if not the letter of the law says. One thinks of post 9/11 Bush era initiatives like the so called Patriot Act for “security”. This turned out to involve NSA warrantless surveillance requiring cooperation between telecommunication companies and government to:

“monitor, without search warrants, phone calls, e-mails, Internet activity, text messaging, and other communication involving any party believed by the NSA to be outside the U.S., even if the other end of the communication lies within the U.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy

On the face of it, such big gov-bus cooperation seemed to violate the social contract needed in a democratic republic – especially one that also calls itself a free enterprise/capitalist state. It may be driven by either side, but in reality, since both sides exercise power; they have developed ways of quietly sharing power. Often this is outside the view of ordinary citizens. To me crank denialists on the conservative side often to lack sufficient skeptical instincts and discipline to see the reality of this cooperation. An example of this is the growth in the size of government and deficit spending during the Reagan and both Bush administrations. Conservatives seem to see such “bad” growth only during Democratic administrations. This is remarkable blindness since conservative administrations have had a disproportionate influence on causing the debt and unemployment. Another thing that they seem to be blind to is the American political way of doing things, which involves well developed lobbying practices to help pass laws and influence government. When corporations lobby governments, their usual goal is to avoid regulation. During Jack Abramoff’s heyday this lobbying romance included hiring lobbyists and lawyers for vast sums. For example, Abramoff’s lobbying and PR firm was paid $45 million over 3 years by Indian tribes who he convinced needed his firm’s help:

“to block powerful forces both at home and in Washington who have designs on their money.”

Abramoff’s business-government hybrid efforts was big in an embarrassing way - throwing lavish parties for politicians, aides, journalists, and so on. It’s the way the system works but it’s not particularly a picture of FDR’s “big” government. Back then it was conventional, progressive wisdom that government action (when well designed) protects ordinary citizens by restraining big business. It needs to be big and powerful enough to do this. But conservatives seem to be blind to this reason for powerful government as they are to a large military being Big Government. And they don’t easily see the corrupting role of the wealthy on government moving us towards a form of managed democracy.

As businesses have become bigger the power needed to constraint them has grown. Historically that has been government, urged and supported by progressive movements. What we should understand about an appropriately big government is what the historian Arthur Schlesinger said of it:

"Liberalism in America [the progression of the welfare state and government intervention in the economy] has been ordinarily the movement on the part of the other sections of society to restrain the power of the business community."

But now neither pole of the dichotomy seems to effectively check the excesses of the other. Indeed they often compromise with each other. It’s as if we have become so used to the gov-bus game that each side knows how to check the other. All we can do is slide sideways in the struggle. This results in an unconscious race to the bottom.

We now are at another historical point where a rational balance of mutual constraint is imperative. Perhaps there is a different way to go. If so we need to find it fast since problems that need solving will not wait.

My Birthday Wish For Thomas Jefferson:

An End To The Religious Right’s Lies About Him

By Rob Boston.

Thomas Jefferson was not a fundamentalist Christian, nor did he believe that the United States was founded to be a ‘Christian nation.’

Today is Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, and my modest gift to him is to debunk the latest David Barton nonsense about our third president.

Barton, a Religious Right historical revisionist who promotes discredited “Christian nation” propaganda, has lately taken aim at one of Jefferson’s most famous projects: The so-called “Jefferson Bible.” As usual, Barton’s version has only a passing relationship with the truth.

Formally titled The Life and Morals of Jesus Christ, the Jefferson Bible is an intriguing document. Over several years, Jefferson did a cut-and-paste rewrite of the Gospels, removing the portions he did not agree with. In Jefferson’s retelling, there is no virgin birth, no miracles, no claims of Jesus’ divinity and no resurrection.

According to Barton, Jefferson didn’t remove this material because he disagreed with it. Rather, he was trying to produce a version of the Gospels that could be used to evangelize Native Americans.

What utter tripe.

We know why Jefferson undertook the project because he talked about it with several friends. On Oct. 13, 1813, Jefferson outlined his plans in a letter to John Adams.

“In extracting the pure principles which he [Jesus] taught,” Jefferson wrote, “we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves….We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus…. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines.”

Barton’s claim about Native Americans rests on exceedingly thin evidence: There is a cover page to an early version of the book that refers to the volume being useful for Indians. But it’s not in Jefferson’s handwriting, and it’s unclear who wrote it and when. Also, in 1895, long after Jefferson’s death, one of his descendents opined that the book was intended for Native Americans. She had no evidence for this and was speaking at a time when the “Christian nation” view of America was popular and Jefferson’s unorthodox theological opinions were considered somewhat scandalous.

Did Jefferson ever say the book was intended to evangelize Indians? Nope. He corresponded with friends about his project and never once mentioned using it to evangelize anyone, let alone Native Americans. In fact, Jefferson stated several times that the book was for his personal use.

Furthermore, it would have been impossible for the tome to be used for evangelism because Jefferson never intended for it to be published, and it wasn’t during his lifetime. The first edition didn’t appear until 1895 – 69 years after Jefferson’s death.

And, as a moment’s thought will demonstrate, a book portraying Jesus as merely a man with worthy ethics (as opposed to the supernatural son of God) isn’t likely to lure anyone into a conservative form of Christianity. If Jefferson sought to “Christianize” Indians, his idiosyncratic version of the Bible would be an odd tool for that task.

In fact, Jefferson didn’t seek to Christianize Native Americans (or anyone else). Like many people of his day, Jefferson harbored certain prejudices about America’s original inhabitants. He wanted to see them “civilized” – meaning they should live like the European settlers. But he didn’t advocate giving them his version of the Bible to achieve this. Rather, he suggested two other works: Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and (the decidedly pre-Christian) Aesop’s Fables.

The question of Jefferson’s religion has fascinated scholars for years. There will always be room for debate, but a few things are clear: Jefferson was not a fundamentalist Christian, nor did he believe that the United States was founded to be a “Christian nation.”

Jefferson was an advocate of religious freedom for everyone – Christian and non-Christian – and he believed that the best way to protect that freedom was through a high and firm wall of separation between church and state.

If you really want to know what Jefferson thought about these issues, ignore Barton and go straight to the source: Jefferson’s own words. Americans United has compiled some of his best thoughts on religious liberty here. Information about his famous letter to the Danbury Baptists, which contains the “wall of separation” metaphor, is here.

Celebrate Jefferson’s birthday by reflecting on his wisdom about freedom of conscience.

P.S. Thanks to Chris Rodda, author of Liars for Jesus, for research help

Reprinted with permission from American's United for Separation of Church and State blog.

Link to original post

The “Binary Thinking” Habit

Are you for or against cutting Medicare? Are you for this budget or not? It’s a simple up or down question with an embedded dichotomization of positions. Such forced choice questions are in the air just now. They are a bit like the binary view of the world as organized into male/female, matter/spirit, reason/intuition etc. We have a 2 party political system and it makes for polar positions at times. This perhaps feeds on a Manichean tendency we have to set many things up as exclusive and naturally opposed choices.

Looking at the world in terms of binary of dichotomous categories simplifies things. Indeed there is a long tradition of binary or dichotomous thinking in our common-sense cultures, but also in formal philosophy. Structuralism, for example, sees binary opposition as a fundamental organizer of human philosophy, culture, and language. We get trapped into such binary simplification for several reasons including:

• the sequential nature of writing,
• the ease of considering one alternative
• tradition,
• habit and
• a common sense ontology (things are alive or they are not, right?).

As a result much of our everyday analysis frames issues in terms of binary opposites. You can see a remarkable prevalence of assumptions based on implicit, binary opposites in casual conversation and even on this Blog. Are secular humanists liberals or can they be conservative? Thee may be false dichotomies representing an erroneous reduction of many possibilities down to only 2. Essential this creates an either/or situation that may not exist or which is a poor model of what does exist.This blog had a binary style debate on whether what is moral is objective or subjective. Is this a proper frame for the discussion? Perhaps not – there may be other positions and some middle ground. The middle is often good territory especially when opinions are dichotomized. But some situations shouldn't be treated this way and answers can be more in one direction than another. In the biological argument between a creationist and evolutionary position on where did species come from, I would argue strongly for the evolutionary side.

 

A binary style with false dichotmies can lead us to some pretty weak conclusions. If you are not a Democrat, then you must be a Republican. Remember where this argument lead us in 2001:

“You are either with us or against us.”

 

 

Lots of things warn us off such a false dichotomization, but an ironic lesson comes from this equally simple formulation:

 

“There are only three types of people in the world, those that understand math and those that don't. “

 

In recent years efforts like the deconstructive reaction against structuralism have exposed some problems with traditional simple polar opposites. My earlier post on Mark Twain is relevant. Twain was a great realist writer who deconstructed cultural assumptions about what is good or bad in society. Twain's fiction showed that the categorization of binary oppositions often is value laden and ethnocentric. It relies on some unstated, unanalyzed and perhaps superficial ordering mechanism such was evident in the Antebellum South. 

Another problem is that some binary categories arise from an unconscious tendency towards reification. Reification of a concept means making an idea (like “soul”) concrete. This often leads to binary thinking. Descartes dualism is a famous example. Another folk wisdom example might be reifying an abstract concept like strength in a person. We talk about a “strong person”. We thus make it concrete, put it into everyday language and divide people into strong and weak (alternatively good or bad). A culture or a conversation now, has some verbal artifact that can be employed as part of binary thinking.
 

We even see some reification sneaking into early social science. An example is the coining of a term like “intelligence”. By converting an abstract concept, intelligence, into a word implying "unitary thing," intelligence becomes a "single substance." It becomes an "object" that occupies space inside the brain and can be measured on a test. At the turn of the 20^th century psychometrists established intelligence as a tool for ranking individuals, social classes, and races on a uni-dimensional scale of "worth." You are smart or you are not. This concept could then be picked up by a broad social movement like Social Darwinism, where policies were formed based on the belief that the strongest or fittest should survive and flourish in society, while the weak and unfit should be allowed to die. Such simplifications make their way into easy conversation, but as in the case of Social Darwinism they can be dangerous. I’m afraid that we can see much of this reified, binary thinking in some of the current political debates. They remind me of earlier formulations:

• America: love it or leave it.
• Either support States rights or Texas will separate from the US.
• Every person is either wholly good or wholly evil. 

 Not the best way to frame arguments on difficult topics.


 

Responsible Atheism

We feel only a little uncomfortable broadcasting the harsh truths of atheism to believers who happily push their “truths” on us. But I want to talk about how to handle the quieter believers who aren’t proselytizing at all, and not publicly judging others. They are minding their own business and usually don’t understand why atheists can’t mind theirs. These theists are often offended by atheists’ public declarations, objecting that it’s fine if atheists don’t believe in god but they should at least have respect for people who do and not push their atheism. After all, tolerance is about respecting different viewpoints, especially when it comes to something private like religion, they say.

But is religious belief the kind of viewpoint that we should all tolerate and exempt from public scrutiny? Belief in god isn’t like a predilection for classical music or Italian food. There is a crucial categorical difference that makes it awfully hard for an atheist to say, “To each, his own.” That is, whether there is a personal god is an objective matter; it is supported by evidence and justified by argumentation or it is not. Furthermore, believing or not believing in a personal god (especially of the Judeo-Christian variety to which most of the 70% of U.S. citizens who believe in a personal god subscribe) has profound personal and social consequences, unlike preference for music and food (to each his own taste). There is no good evidence or cogent argument for the existence of a supernatural creator, and belief in one has negative personal and social consequences. Also, since the belief concerns something monumentally important, these consequences are profound.

I don’t want to unnecessarily offend people or hurt their feelings, but I also don’t want to be complacent and feel intellectually and morally dishonest. So what’s the big problem with believing in a personal god? Here are some major ones:

• Believing in a power infinitely stronger than you, and offering this power some kind of dominion over your life, is emotionally unhealthy.


• Believing that faith is a virtue, and that you should take someone at their word with no good evidence to back it, instead of forming a belief based on a critical examination of evidence and arguments, is intellectually poisonous.


• Believing that there is some being that knows everything, more than you can ever know, even about yourself, is intellectually tragic.


• Believing that you are born flawed, from sin, and that you must rely on someone else for your own salvation is dehumanizing.


• The belief that god has a plan for everyone justifies imposing that plan on other people even when it causes suffering. (They say god always has a reason for allowing suffering.) Ironically, for other believers faith in god’s plan diminishes their urge to intervene where there is suffering. (Why do something so pompous as to interfere with god’s “great” plan?)


• Belief in an afterlife necessarily devalues life here on earth and would mitigate responsibility and diminish motivation to change the status quo.


• Belief in god offers false hope, and when prayers to help others aren’t answered, this can lead to feelings of profound guilt that one didn’t pray hard enough or in the right way.


• Worship of any being threatens human integrity; subservience and unqualified devotion are not commendable.

As a participant in our society, passionate about emotional health and human potential, I can’t fully respect myself and not publicly challenge these harmful beliefs. Morality requires that we help people do what is in their best interest, even if others are totally unaffected by their choices. If you had a friend believing something harmful, wouldn’t you feel compelled to speak up? You want your friend, and people in general, to have the most fulfilling life possible, both emotionally and intellectually. So if your friend has a false belief, and you know there is intellectual damage and negative moral consequences that stem from it, are you a jerk for speaking up? On the contrary, morality requires it. So why are atheists accused of being jerks just because the topic is religion? How can we be expected to irresponsibly stand by and watch someone surrender to a harmful delusion?

If you aren’t persuaded by this paternalistic ethical stance, consider the negative social consequences of religious belief. We all live together in a society with no sharp boundaries, so religion and faith can’t be private matters. And on public matters, citizens have a democratic right to debate issues of public impact. Whenever someone votes against abortion and threatens women’s reproductive rights because they believe that a woman is killing one of god’s planned creatures, this becomes my concern as a U.S. citizen. When a person votes against gay marriage because the Bible says homosexuality is a sin, their religion just became my business. When someone’s religious beliefs cause them to let their daughter die from cancer without undergoing thorough medical treatment because “Jesus is calling for her,” that is a moral wrong and it would be wrong of me not to say so – that child is innocent and ought to be protected from such a moral atrocity. If some religious believers pray for victims of natural disasters in lieu of donating, I can hardly be expected to withhold criticism that they are outsourcing their moral obligations to a god that doesn’t exist. We have freedom of speech in a democracy so that society may progress by adopting reasonable viewpoints.

Many religious believers would object that they agree with me in most or all of these cases and therefore, I shouldn’t criticize their religion because it isn’t interfering with the social good. I admit many religious believers have done a fine job warping their religion to fit morality, and I’m extremely grateful that they value reasoning over what their religion tells them – I wish more believers did. I also don’t deny that there are atheists who aren’t on the right side of the issue: for example, there are some who don’t support gay marriage. But in those cases, it’s not a lack of religion or belief in god motivating this -- it’s plain old bigotry and ignorance. When a Christian is against gay marriage, I would expect that the belief that homosexuality is a sin against god is the motivating belief.

Cultures don’t progress when superstitions prevail over rational inquiry. The only way for a culture to advance is to believe and act only on what can be known, or at least on which there is good evidence. All actions stem from beliefs, and all beliefs have practical consequences. Fighting the truth only brings suffering because it’s fighting reality. If we accept the truth, suffering is diminished because we are aligned with the way life is. For that reason, and because we all have to live together, we are not entitled to believe anything we want. Why should I let culture stagnate because 70% of society is comforted by a personal god? Don’t I have a right to cultivate the most successful culture I can? Don’t I have a moral obligation to help those who aren’t living up to their full potential as rational human beings? I submit that I do simply because I’m a responsible participant in our culture. Precisely because religious beliefs have extreme consequences, for believers and nonbelievers, people have a responsibility to openly examine and criticize them.

Unfortunately, so long as we are dealing with deeply personal beliefs, criticism will unavoidably be tantamount to offense. Human psychology does not permit criticisms of one’s religious convictions to not come across as personal attack. Some atheists (not all) think that you can always separate the criticism of one’s belief from criticism of the believer – if only that were true. There are certainly better and worse ways to communicate to someone that a treasured belief is wrong. The mistake some atheists make (not all) is proceeding from the true premise that religious belief is not exempt from criticism to the idea that any brash attitude or rude approach towards religion is acceptable. I get frustrated when some atheists engage in more offense towards believers than necessary and justify it on the grounds that “they’ll just be offended anyway.” That attitude ignores the reality that minimal offense is more effective when arguing any position. Come at someone with too stinging an attack and they’ll only cling harder to their beliefs. Atheists need a respectful attitude and tactful approach to be effective. Moreover, human decency requires it, especially when it comes to these quieter believers who aren’t (publicly) judging atheists. Let’s civilly focus on the good reasons for criticizing religion by presenting the negative consequences, both personal and social. Staying focused on the negative consequences of religious belief as much as possible as opposed to attacking the beliefs themselves (especially with a brash characterization that they are simply stupid and irrational) mitigates perception of a personal attack.

Public atheism causes offense. Yet responsible criticism is justifiable when the stakes are a better future. We all need people to base beliefs on good evidence and fulfill their potential as rational beings. A naturalistic worldview brings self-empowerment and sets the stage for cultural improvement. Nobody likes to be told they are wrong -- I take no pleasure in doing that, especially when dealing with deeply personal beliefs. However, there is a brighter future for a society that holds accurate beliefs on matters of monumental emotional and social importance. Public examination of matters of great practical consequence, like religion, is necessary. Atheism is best done responsibly.

The Borgias

 Last night I enjoyed the astonishing story of Pope Alexander VI as told in the first episode of “The Borgias.” This is a first rate production by Showtime with Jeremy Irons in the role as the newly elected Pope. It is a story of extravagant bribery, conniving, debauchery and murder. It is billed as the story of “the first crime family.” Obviously, there were cases of brutal criminal action prior to this time but it does make for a rather stark, dramatic story to have the Pope being accurately portrayed as the head of a violent crime family.

Moving Toward a Civilian-led Egyptian Government

Many Egyptians, despite having great pride in the armed forces, dream of the day when the military no longer rules society.  To do so, they must build the power of civilian authorities to exercise control over the military. To begin this process, they must put in place a constitution that institutionalizes democracy, assures the rights of minorities and guarantees civilian control of the military.

The revolution, which was sparked by Egyptian youth, led the military to play a more overt role in governing Egypt.  In fact, the military had been in control of the country since it took power from the monarchy in 1952. Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak all came from the military, and many Government leaders either had military backgrounds or were selected by the military.

Most Egyptians have faith that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) will facilitate the election of a new parliament and president.  Such faith is not based on modern Egyptian history, however. Egyptians believed that the military would cede power to a civilian government in 1952, but Nasser took power instead.  This time, the military is more likely to step aside, for two important reasons:

1. It has built its power through control of major parts of the economy, including industry and land, so it has little need to control government directly as well.

2. Through its massive military assistance program, the US Government has trained many leaders to understand the role of the military in a democratic society. Some Egyptians believe that the US pressured the Egyptian military into removing Mubarak and pledging to transfer power to a civilian government.

The underpinning of any modern state is its constitution or set of basic laws.  Egypt has had many constitutions over the last 150 years. The importance of constitutions has been diminished in the last 60 years due to extensive periods of time under emergency law, when many constitutional rights were set aside. Nevertheless, Egypt can only begin the transition to a civilian-led state by putting into place a new or significantly amended constitution.  Moreover, Egyptians must make sustained efforts to enforce and defend their constitution.

Constitutions represent the vision of a people for their society, state and government.  So far, Egyptians have been unable to begin the debate that leads to a common vision. Instead, they have paid more attention to casting off the baggage from the past.  After the departure of Mubarak, the Coalition of Revolutionary Youth negotiated, both around the table and at Tahrir Square, a set of demands. These demands included cancellation of the state of emergency; release of political prisoners; cancellation of the constitution; dissolution of the parliament and local popular councils; dissolution of the ruling National Democratic Party and State Security; and enforcement of judicial decisions. The Youth demanded a transitional presidential council with civil and military representatives and a credible transitional government prior to parliamentary and presidential elections. During the transition period, they expected greater freedom for political parties, stronger political rights and increased freedom of association. These rights would be enshrined in a new constitution that reduces the powers of the President, strengthens separation of power and increases the fairness of elections.
 
The SCAF, demonstrating its interest in expediting the transfer of power to an elected government, appointed a commission to propose constitutional amendments that would allow an early election of a parliament and president.  In a major break from the past, it included a Muslim Brotherhood leader in the committee. The committee proposed eight amendments, and the SCAF gave the population only three weeks to review them before voting them up or down in a referendum. 
 
The amendments made it more difficult to proclaim and maintain a state of emergency, limited the presidency to at most two four-year terms, required that "he" not be married to a non-Egyptian, strengthened judicial supervision of elections, required the president to appoint a deputy, provided easier access to presidential elections by candidates and established a commission to draft a new constitution following the parliamentary election.

Egyptians did not take advantage of the review period to analyze and debate the implications of each of the amendments.  Instead, they divided into pro- and anti-camps, based on whether they saw the referendum as increasing or hurting their chances of winning the parliamentary and presidential elections.  The revolutionary youth, the Coptic Church and many civil society groups led a campaign to vote no, based on the weakness of checks on executive authority and the fear that the Muslim Brotherhood or remnants of the National Democratic Party would win early elections. The MB and the NDP were successful in gaining the support of the population for early elections, as the referendum was approved by 77% of the 18.3 million valid votes. 

The SCAF has set parliamentary elections for September 2011 and presidential elections for November 2011, although these dates are not fixed. According to one of the approved constitutional amendments, the president and parliament will appoint a 100-member constituent assembly within six months of elections to rewrite the constitution over the course of a subsequent six-month period, which would be approved or disapproved through a referendum.

It is essential now for Egyptians to begin the profound public debate about the type of post-revolutionary society, state and government they envision and how a new constitution would enable them to achieve these goals.  Such a task is difficult, given the need to also deal with the past, develop political parties and put in place the rules and safeguards for free and fair elections.  However, delaying such a discussion will empower those forces already dominating society, such as the military, the remnants of state security, the Muslim Brotherhood, elite businesspeople and remnants of the National Democratic Party.  The solidarity among groups that participated in the Tahrir Square uprising must be maintained for Egyptians to see their common interest in putting in place a constitution that establishes a civilian led-government, provides civilian oversight of the military and other components of the security sector, provides checks and balances among democratic institutions and safeguards the interests of minorities. The constitutional debate must start now and must empower Egyptians to put in place the systems that enable groups, ideas and values to compete fairly for power. 

Rick Gold

From Post-Revolutionary Egypt

Evolving Spring: Plant and Animal Vulnerabilities to Climate Change

Why do many of us believe that there is a serious problem heading our way called climate change? It's not a matter of blind faith. Like evolutionary theory it is an increasingly supported hypothesis based on a commensurate body of evidence. "Plants earlier bloom times hurting some creatures" reads the title of a recent Washington Post article by Brigid Schulte. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/plants-earlier-bloom-times-hurting-some-creatures/2011/04/08/AF42He4C_story.html. It goes on to describe field botanists' surprise that some flowers like “Dutchman’s breeches” and cut-leaved toothwort are blooming 2 weeks early. The culprit is global warming:

"Bloom hunters like Fleming, who for 40 years have been tramping through the woods, roaming along riverbanks and scrambling over rocky outcrops to document the first blooms of spring in the Washington area, worry that what they have been seeing is nothing less than the slow, inexorable shift of global warming.

They even have a name for it: season creep. And it’s happening all over the world."

Some causal evidence is experimental and comes from labs. A recent Science Friday show (http://www.sciencefriday.com/newsbriefs/read/200) made this point citing data from the University of Melbourne on the Australian common brown butterflies (heteronympha merope). They are emerging from their cocoons an average of ten days earlier than they did 65 years ago. The researchers attribute the butterflies’ early appearance to warming temperatures in the region. To test this they raised caterpillars of the common brown butterfly in a lab and then measured how quickly they emerged when exposed to different temperatures. The warmer the temperature, the earlier the butterflies took flight. They then used these measurements along with historic records of air temperatures around Melbourne, which rose about .25°F per decade, to predict when the butterflies emerged each year. Their predictions closely matched recorded observations. They concluded that:
"warming temperatures are coaxing the butterflies around Melbourne from their cocoons earlier each year, at a rate of about 1.6 days per decade."
(Photo by Flickr user Ibsut.)

The researchers believe the change in temperature is the result of human greenhouse gas emissions, not climate variability. A steady trend supported by 40 consecutive years of research at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory also shows a warming trend. Flowers are blooming a month earlier than just 10 years ago. This is not all good for them, since some bloom early enough to be killed off by a late frost. That's another part of the problem, a trend towards greater weather variability. That's something easy to intuit since things are changing to a new normal. See http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/2011/04/2031/ for a long list of evidence for climate change.

Biological warning signs of change are numerous and easily documented since many cultures have finely tuned agriculture to depend on spring for a release from winter famine. Cultures like the Korean have long records of when the first cherry blossoms of spring arrive and there is a 300 year European record on when grapevines bloom since planting time is critical to a good harvest.

A summary graphic in the Post shows how many plant species in the DC area are"creeping earlier" into spring. Bad for us, and it also has worrisome consequences for the naturally evolved plant and animal world. Evolution has fine tuned seasonal timing for many species. Our local squirrel population is dependent on the nut harvest to get them through winter. They have a frantic winter breeding seasons where females are in estrus for just 8 hours, but it results in spring-born squirrel babies (March to May) when there is again a natural supply of food. But some species in the complex chain of interdependence have been unable to keep up when seasonal timing is off.

In Europe, the leaves of the English oak are coming out earlier and this is OK for some animals. The winter moth caterpillars that feeds on them are also coming out earlier. But the pied flycatcher birds that eat those caterpillars aren't year around residents. They are migrating north at that time. Now when they arrive, many of the the caterpillars have already turned into moths and have flown off. It's a delicate ecological balance and changed timing has resulted in a severe decline of flycatcher population in recent years.

In San Francisco, some butterfly populations like Edith’s Checkerspot butterfly are simply gone. With the gradual warming of Earth and ocean temperatures that has also shifted rainfall patterns, the leaves of the plantago plant come out earlier. The leaves, which the checkerspot caterpillar depends on for food, are already dried and withered by the time the larvae emerge.

It's a deadly problem for migrating and seasonally dependent animal species. Even the largest creatures alive on the planet are affected - giant trees like our redwoods. A recent study finds that declining fog cover on the California's coast could leave the state's famous redwoods "high and dry." Among the tallest and longest-lived trees on Earth, redwoods grow where the summer fog provides water. But the fog is diminishing and climate change seems to be contributing to this decline in a high-pressure climatic system that lingers on the coast. See http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/02/100215-redwoods-california-global-warming/+.

Plant evolution has produced wonders, but unlike animals, they can’t just get up and relocate. The speed of change is something that vast numbers of species may fall to. Something to think about amidst this year's blossoms.