Another Embarrassment for Islam

Today May 20 is "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day 3", which is absolute blasphemy in orthodox Islam. The story of what this lead to in Pakistan is interesting: first blocking, then restoring access to, Twitter.

""In negotiations with Pakistani officials, Facebook agreed to continue to prevent the “Draw Muhammad” page from being accessed in Pakistan [Personally I find nothing as offensive as a $100 billion corporation folding like a cheap suit when it comes to freedom of expression-HL], but Yaseen said Twitter would not cooperate. That led to a directive from the Ministry of Information and Technology that ordered telecom providers to block Twitter access in the country. Officials began negotiating Saturday evening with Twitter “to remove this content, this objectionable Web site which is objectionable to the Muslims of this country,” Yaseen said."

And for some context:

"In Pakistan, even the most liberal politicians tread lightly when dealing with the issue of blasphemy — especially since the assassination of Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province and a leader of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, by a member of his security detail. Taseer’s confessed killer cited Taseer’s opposition to anti-blasphemy laws and was lauded as a hero by a group of 500 Muslim scholars as well as many ordinary Pakistanis."

The reality is simple. Stifling dissent (specifically, keeping the prophet untouchable) is part and parcel of orthodox Islam. The calls for freedom of expression is the Islamic world cannot be traced to the Koran and the Hadith. Rather, to Enlightenment values that are finding their way to the Islamic world. While secular Muslims are fighting the good fight, it is clear that in much of the Islamic world, the "traditionalists" are winning, through the use of terror.

Book Festivals for Freethinkers

By Gary Berg-Cross

The Baltimore-DC area gets its share of book festivals. The 2 day 2012 National Book Festival on the mall is coming up in September followed by the Baltimore Festival. There is the Virginia Festival of the Book. The Bethesda Literary Festival of 2012 was just held in April and yesterday I attended a grand, free 1 day book festival in Gaithersburg modeled after the National Book Festival with writing workshops, exhibitors, book sales, book signings, children’s entertainment and activities, blue grass music food vendors, and a Coffee House featuring poetry readings and musical entertainment. And yes there were authors. Both national and local authors there to speak under tents to answer questions and sign books. These covered a wide range of topics with a generous number of children's books, memoirs, historical novels e.g. on (J Edgar Hoover), mysteries (Tom Alngleberger), politics & news, sports, comedy, fiction, and non-fiction. The non-fiction category included its share of Science talks. I heard and saw Marc Kaufman’s slide presentation on astrobiology (“First Contact”). He was just one of many fine speakers and I’m already looking forward to next year’s event. What I didn’t find at the Gaithersburg Book Festival were any authors of works on atheism, non-believers, skeptics or secular humanists. To be fair I didn’t find philosophers either, but why not some of our fine “local” non-belief authors like Sean Faircloth or Rob Boston? They are great speakers and have presented to WASH chapters recently. And of course there were authors at the Reason Rally. Perhaps all it would take is a bit of
organizational effort to see if they are interested and then put a word in the organizer’s ear. Anybody out there know Founder and Chair Jud Ashman or the new owners at Politics and Prose that was the official Bookseller?

It’s something to think about for next year. I’m sure that if one of the national figures, like Sam Harris, has a new book there will a chance for one of the big venues, but I sure would like to have a secular voice heard at the local festivals. I imagine that we have enough organizational presence to make this a reality in the DC Baltimore area.

Aerodynamics? No, I don't have enough faith

By Mathew Goldstein

Dr C. Destum gives us: "Ultimately, if you accept the aerodynamic lift theory, you dismiss accountability, you don't have to abide by a set of moral codes." Adding that if you accept aerodynamic lift theory, "you have no reason for things such as good behavior".

Sitting in his study with mechanical engineer C. Destum (CD), the United Nations liaison for the One-Week Departurist Church (DC) engaged him in conversation, and the discussion turned to the subject of aerodynamics and accountability. As they faced each other between the erudite tomes on the bookcase and the modern technological equipment on the desk, it felt appropriate to think about our incentives and airborne transportation.

C. Destum: Like this computer: If you came into this room and saw the computer, you wouldn't think it had just planted itself here. It didn't arrive here by random events.

DC: So why do so many people prefer to believe in the undeserved distribution of goods? Or to put it another way, Why is the matter of aerodynamic lift so important?

CD: It comes down to a matter of property ownership. Who distributes the property, who deserves the property, who is given ownership of the property? Those who believe in aerodynamic lift, and in a naturalistic explanation of the universe, ultimately see themselves as self-distributers -- as the creator and ultimate source of the distribution of goods. In this way they answer to nothing and nobody, for there is nothing higher than themselves.

DC: How does this happen? What are the consequences of accepting aerodynamic lift views of accountability? How does this affect society and the way we see ourselves?

CD: By believing that wealth is a product of random acts, we eliminate accountability and the basis of ethical behavior. For if there is no such thing as accountability, you can do anything you want. You make everything relative, and there's no reason for any of our higher values.

DC: If we are all the owners of property by chance, the random assortment of atoms, living in a deterministic universe that is simply the consequence of physical interactions, doesn't it all seem so futile?

CD: Yes, in my education I had to learn aeordynamical theories, and as a God-fearing Christian I wondered how to make God and aerodynamics mesh. The truth is that you can't make them mesh--you have to choose one or the other.

DC: Too many Christians have given up too much to "science," conceding not just the observed data but the anti-God interpretations. Are you often questioned about being both a logical engineer and a Christian?

CD: Yes, my answer is that the more you understand science, the less you can believe all this is an accident! Just look at the unbreakable antler, with its vascular skin providing oxygen and nutrients to the growing bone, until it is fully grown, and the velvet is lost, and the bone dies, the antler falls off, and the process repeats every year.

DC: Unbreakable? This does not seem to be a correct portrayal of some antlers at least! Antlers have been known to break.

CD: Put a probe on the antlers of an 18 year old reindeer, and those antlers are just as strong as his first antlers. Reindeers have died of old age without breaking any of their antlers. This is a highly complex and sophisticated organ. Not a likely result of chance processes.

DC: Not even by slow degrees?

CD: Even if you allow the distribution of a single millimeter of bone. And a single millimeter of bone is amazingly important -- every millimeter of antler can be the difference between success and failure in finding a mate.... Plus, we give aerodynamicists too much if we start with a millimeter of bone. Try starting with a single cell of bone.

DC: But just supposing that one cell wasn't God's reward for good behavior?

CD: Even if you accept aerodynamic lift theory, requiring an increase in the speed of the fluid occurring simultaneously with a decrease in pressure or a decrease in the fluid's potential energy, then there should be a best shape for flying. And why does flying occur with so many shapes -- birds, insects, bats, planes, helicopters, balloons, kites -- if there is some principle that reindeers cannot fly? Why isn't everything a hummingbird - superior hummingbirds? Daniel Bernoulli specifically stated that his theory hung on the the principle of conservation of energy, and was sure that we would find that energy was conserved.

Also, there's the whole subject of the Big Bang, the idea that something came from nothing. If energy was conserved, how could we get all the energy from nothing at the moment of creation?

DC: Would so many scientists who disagree with your views be a concern to you? After all, 99 percent may say you're wrong!

CD: Before Bernoulli most scientists were Christian. Even Bernoulli was brought up a Christian, but he became embittered. He set out to prove another explanation for the distribution of property ownership. I have to give the man credit -- he was a powerful measurer. He found a way to measure blood-pressure and published a book about the measurement of risk. He worked with Euler on measuring elasticity. He concluded that vaccination was efficacious based on measurements of outcomes. He was right that vaccinated people did better - the doctors prayed for their patients.

DC: A few closing thoughts?

CD: Ultimately, if you accept the aerodynamic lift theory, you dismiss accountability, you don't have to abide by a set of moral codes, you determine your own wealth accumulation based on your own desires. You have no reason for things such as good behavior, when children help out with chores - without being asked!! You can trash Santa Claus as irrelevant, just silly fables, since you believe that it does not conform to scientific thought. You can be like Lucifer, who said, "I will make myself like the Most High."

Can you prove aerodynamics? No. Can you prove flying reindeer? No. Can you use the intellect God has given you to decide whether something is logical or illogical? Yes, absolutely. It all comes down to "faith"--and I don't have enough to believe in aerodynamics. I'm too logical!

The Antics of Ben Carson, Round 2

By Hos

Ben Carson is a disgrace to my profession. I'd really not be mentioning him again, were it not for the "support" that he is getting concerning him commencement speech at Emory. The "support" is coming from usual suspects. As a warm up, let's get to know them first.

Meet Richard Weikart. Weikart is a creationist historian at the State University of California, Stanislaus, and a fellow at the anti-science Discovery Institute. He specializes in the fictitious link between Darwin and Hitler, and a contributor to the conservative American Spectator. He has published this piece in the World magazine, a religious right publications whose "about us" page says this: "Journalistic humility for us means trying to give God's perspective." I am sure Edward Murrow himself would aspire to such heights.

Weikart criticizes Emory faculty for their objection to Carson's speech. He centers this criticism on Emory staff's displeasure with Carson's equating acceptance of evolution with lack of ethics and morality. (Curiously, he seems to be completely oblivious to the fact that Carson's denialism goes to the heart of what Emory staff are doing, and hence would make him less than popular.) He starts by telling us that according to evolutionary biology "morality has evolved and has no objective existence". (It seems that here he is conflating that fact the human understanding of morality have evolved over centuries, with evolutionary change in human behavior over geological time.) After a brief mention of study of moral as well as immoral behavior by sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, he tell us that Charles Darwin himself mentioned the evolutionary origin of biology in the Descent of Man, and concluded that morality has evolved, therefore it is not objective and universal. Once again, he concludes (I am assuming) that Carson's tying of acceptance of evolution to lack of morality is justifiable on the basis of its being impacted by evolution. On this basis, Weikart tells us, the staff and students at Emory should not object to Carson's statement, because it meshes with statements of Darwin and today's sociobiologists.

Weikart's faulty and baseless arguments are absolutely jaw dropping. If morality has been subject to evolution, what does that have to do with morality's objective existence? The eye is a structure that has evolved. Does that mean that the eye does not exist? Human trade and commerce have changed over time. So money does not exist?

The only context in which Weikart's mediocre journalism makes any sense is by comparing morality as a subject of evolution to religious morality, and going with the common religionist fallacy that religious morality is the only objective morality, since it is based on inspiration from god(s) and so it cannot change. Which of course, opens the door the numerous problems of its own: that religion-based morality has changed at least as much as secular morality over time, that there are always "people of faith" on both sides of any controversial issue, that god's behavior in the bible/koran is anything but moral, Euthyphro's dilemma, etc, etc. Also, I would like to ask Carson and Weikart a question: if acceptance of evolution means lack of morality, does that mean that Francis Collins and Kenneth Miller are immoral people? I am sure the good Christian scientists will be thrilled to hear that.

Lastly, I think it is telling that while Weikart is supposedly a legitimate historian, this article had to come out in a religious fundamentalist magazine, as opposed to an actual history journal. Would a reputable journal publish this drivel? (You never know.)

Carlos Fuentes, 1928-2012

by Edd Doerr

The death of Carlos Fuentes on May 15 is an enormous loss to the worlds of literature, politics and social justice. If anyone merited a Nobel prize, Fuentes certainly did. His huge literary output is mostly available in English, but his writing in Spanish ranks with that of Cervantes and the other greats.

Years ago I trekked from Silver Spring to George Mason University in Virginia for 14 weeks to hear Fuentes lecture before huge audiences in a large auditorium. It was well worth the long drive.

Adios, amigo, que descanses en paz.

People Organize to Protest G8, Present Alternative Economic View

by Gary Berg-Cross

May 18, 2012 10:00 am to 2:00 pm
Community Room, C. Burr Artz Public Library
110 E. Patrick Street, Frederick, Maryland

The “Occupy G8 Summit for the People” is an alternative to the G8 that will have speakers (see agenda below) discuss the effect of concentrated wealth on global public policy, the effects of wealth inequality on peoples’ well-being and alternative economic structures that would close the wealth divide and create a more democratic, sustainable economy. The Summit will include time for hearing the voices of the 99% who will be in attendance. The public and the press are invited.

This summit will discuss how to:

• Build the international economy from the bottom up, not the top down.
• Highlight the wealth divide that undermines the foundation of the economy and corrupts political decision-making.
• Increase the minimum wage, end poverty and reduce debt to provide a stronger foundation on which to build a new sustainable economy.
• Institute a Robin Hood Tax on the purchase of stocks, bonds and derivatives.
• Build a new economy that is both economically and environmentally sustainable.
• Build wealth at the base by encouraging worker owned co-ops and other democratized economic institutions; and by turning corporate welfare into taxpayer investment where everyone profits from the investment by the commonwealth, not just the corporate owners.
• Recognize that we all share a common destiny and that even the wealthiest require the commonwealth in order to increase their riches.

Schedule

10:00 am – Welcome Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, co-directors, ItsOurEconomy.US and organizers for October2011.org/OccupyWashington, DC

10:10 am – Global Wealth Inequality Sam Pizzigati, Too Much; Brooke Harper, Global Trade Watch; Jeremy Weyl, JubileeUSA

11:10 am – Creating a Global Economy Based on Sustainable Resources Brent Blackwelder, former executive director Friends of the Earth and Steady State; Ruth Caplan,Campaign for Global Water Watch and Alliance for Democracy; Alexis Baden-Mayer, Organic Consumers Association

12:10 pm – Break

12:20 pm –Building a New Economy from the Bottom Up Rob Kall, Editor of OpEd News and Bottom Up Radio Show; James Riker, University of Maryland and co-facilitator of 2010 G20 Civil Society Dialogue; Emily Kawano, Solidarity Economy Network and Center for Popular Economics; Lisa Stolarski, The National Cooperative Business Association

1:30 – Reception

Sponsored by OccupyFrederick, October2011.org/OccupyWashington,DC and ItsOurEconomy.us

About tactics and framing

By Mathew Goldstein

People learn about secular humanism and atheism from their family, local clerics, national clerics, their neighbors, various commercial sources of information, and the like.  In a religious society such as ours the portrayals from such sources will tend to be negative.  People are also taught to adopt a closed, circular mode of belief, where faith in the religious based beliefs is considered to be a high value, where related sets of religious based beliefs are characterized as being true because they are deemed to be necessary for human morality or for an eternal after-life, where self-identity and purpose are deemed to be products of the beliefs. These sets of self-justifying beliefs and negative misunderstandings of the people who reject the beliefs, including its theistic underpinnings, are what I have in mind when I refer to prejudices.

So it shouldn't be surprising that when psychologists examine people's reactions to criticisms of their religious beliefs it is found many people react negatively.  Good people, with the best of intentions, fear losing their beliefs and fear those who don't share their beliefs.    There is an argument that we should avoid arousing these defense mechanisms when communicating to the public. It is argued that we should avoid the topics that promote anxiety, that arouse suspicions, prejudices, disgust, feelings of being under attack. In this view, the new atheists have it all wrong, their plain and direct discussion of taboo subjects, including their rejection of theism, is too radical for the public and counter-productive.   I consider this conclusion to be mistaken and I am going to try explain why here.

There is another way of looking at this psychology.   When trying to treat a phobia, psychologists have concluded that it is usually best to adopt two elements:  1. exposure to the feared situation/object and 2. dealing with the frightening thoughts that are associated with the anxiety.  Prejudice has some of the characteristics of phobia and it is reasonable to think that, at least for adults, exposure to the contexts that arouse the prejudice is often going to part of any process that defeats the prejudice.

Furthermore, prejudice against secular humanism, and against atheism, is a substantial obstacle to promoting more secular government. People who associate only negative concepts to what it means to not share their religious beliefs, including their monotheism, are going to be inclined to judge as bad the policies that they think conflict with those religious beliefs, such as teaching modern knowledge in public schools that describes our universe as functioning without divine intervention. It would be nice if we could frame the policy disputes to hide the conflicts with religious doctrines so that people's prejudices against the non-religious are not aroused.  But even if we could do that, as long as the prejudices against the non-religious persist, secularists will be forever operating in a fire department mode. Furthermore, there are constraints against not arousing the prejudices, such as the opposing institutions that are committed to fighting secularism and inciting against secularism. The prejudices against the non-religious keep igniting and re-igniting the efforts against secular government. This problem is alleviated some by the presence of many liberal religionists within the ranks of secularists, but it is still a problem.

So I think it is a mistake to only focus on the "important" policy issues and to avoid addressing the underlying thinking that constitute the prejudices against the non-religious.  Furthermore, there is no way to do this effectively without confronting those prejudices and thus arousing them.  But instead of being counter-productive, this is actually a necessary step to making progress over the longer term.   It would be nice if we could dissolve, or even just attenuate, the prejudices while avoiding confronting the prejudices without the risk of arousing the prejudices.  But tip-toeing around the tulips isn't a good approach here, it has little chance of being effective.

In my view the "new atheists" are right, we need straight talk that communicates honestly and directly why we don't have, and don't want to have, religious beliefs, or any beliefs more generally that fail to comport with how the world functions.  This is not a negative message, it is more of a mixed message.  It is a message that we are vulnerable to fooling ourselves but also that we can anchor our beliefs so as to more reliably match how the world functions than we do when we follow our imaginations, intuitions, biases, feelings, and historical, tribal, myths.

We don't need to convert many people away from religion to make significant progress.  But we do need to melt away some of that closed-minded over-confidence (or maybe this is a symptom of lack of confidence?) by exposing more people to the different, and for many people alien, perspectives of non-theists.  Philosophical naturalists have good arguments and strong justifications for our belief that there is no supernatural realm.  Good enough to make our perspective sufficiently competitive in the minds of more of the public to undermine our isolation.  And that is all we need to achieve.  To get there we have to be willing to express strong convictions while being nuanced, to be judgmental and principled without being harsh, and to be persistent.  But we can't do this if we fear offending people who are too easily offended and if we value avoiding conflict over taking risks to achieve longer term objectives.

It appears that this is not an approach that all WASH members are comfortable with. Some WASH members may disagree with my judgement that this approach is, or can be effective. Maybe they are right, maybe I am naive, but since I have the conviction that philosophical naturalism is correct, and that religions are false, that is what I am going to argue, and I don't see this as being too "trivial" an issue or as being in competition with, and in conflict with, achieving "more important" policy goals. I am uninterested in trying to adopt anyone's "framing" method that is supposedly more sophisticated and effective public relations. Which is not to say that there are no sensible tactical restraints. Pursuing lawsuits on behalf of outcomes that a supermajority of public opinion rejects is very risky, for example. But I am not participating in such lawsuits, I am just commenting and advocating according to my convictions.

What Man Hath Wrought in the Name of God

A big and growing theme in christian circles today is the idea that god wants you to be rich, and if you just do it all right, he'll shower you with riches. Here's what they say:

“We’re going to show you how to get wealth and use it for the building of his kingdom,” [Ephren] Taylor shouted to the congregation one morning in 2009. It was all part of what he called his “Building Wealth Tour,” which crisscrossed the country touting his investments and financial advice."

Quite an attractive message, isn't it? You can combine the pleasure of getting good with god with your earthly desire to get rich and have the best of both worlds! Right? Right? Or, maybe not:

"But according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, what Taylor was actually peddling was a giant Ponzi scheme, one aimed to “swindle over $11 million, primarily from African-American churchgoers,” that reached into churches nationwide, from [Eddie] Long’s megachurch in Atlanta to Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church congregation in Houston."

The problem with religion is the fact that it touts the use of "faith" in believing. One is taught not to question the teachings of one's "elders" in the church, but to simply believe. This kind of scam illustrates the failure of that paradigm. All it does is to enrich the man at the top, at the expanse of everybody else.


From ABC News.


(A repost from my blog, The Cybernetic Atheist, here at Blogspot)


Robert W. Ahrens