Why Atheist Buses Rock

A comment (by this fellow) on the atheist bus advertising campaign caught my eye:

My question to Hanne Stinson would be “What has this appeal acheived?”

For an atheist like Dawkins, the statement seems a little weak to me. “There probably is no God” does not carry the tone as when Christians declare there definately is one. I’m suprised at the level of compromise.

I think its heartening for atheists, secular humanists, and agnostics to see something like this.  For myself – a theist – its a cheering thing to see (I live in the DC area, where we have our own advertisements for Atheism).

It isn’t a compromise, its truthful.  The logic of Atheism can be a bit counterintuitive to folks coming from a faith-based background.  Instead of starting with a neccesary belief and using logic to defend it, one starts with available evidence and uses logic to explore it.  So from an Atheist’s perspective, one might say there is no reason to believe God does exist.  But there is evidence to suggest God doesn’t exist (the Problem of Evil is  one example).  So its simply the most likely possibility that God doesn’t exist.

I think this bit from the campaign’s website clarifies the use of the word probably perfectly (emphasis mine):

As with the famous Carlsberg ads (‘probably the best lager in the world’), ‘probably’ helps to ensure that our ads will not breach any advertising codes Committee of Advertising Practice advised the campaign that “the inclusion of the word ‘probably’ makes it less likely to cause offence, and therefore be in breach of the Advertising Code.”

Ariane Sherine has said, ‘There’s another reason I’m keen on the “probably”: it means the slogan is more accurate, as even though there’s no scientific evidence at all for God’s existence, it’s also impossible to prove that God doesn’t exist (or that anything doesn’t). As Richard Dawkins states in The God Delusion, saying “there’s no God” is taking a “faith” position. He writes: “Atheists do not have faith; and reason alone could not propel one to total conviction that anything definitely does not exist”. His choice of words in the book is “almost certainly”; but while this is closer to what most atheists believe, “probably” is shorter and catchier, which is helpful for advertising. I also think the word is more lighthearted, and somehow makes the message more positive.’

The campaign  defines Atheism in a way theists ought to sit up and take notice of:

Atheism [/aythi-iz’m/] is defined as “a lack of belief in God”.

But atheism is much more than that. It’s about making sense of the world, thinking freely and feeling liberated because of it. It’s about using your intellect and sense of reason to learn what life is about, and having the courage to think for yourself. It’s about relying on evidence when deciding on your beliefs, and being brave enough to speak the truth.

While I do have a belief in God, I can absolutely embrace the ideal of thinking freely, using evidence, and speaking the truth.  When we stick to these principles we can be more honest in probing our own beliefs and internal consistency, as well as being accepting of other ways of viewing the world besides our own.  It frees us up to have the kinds of conversations that are fulfilling and healthy for society to have, those about ethics and purpose.

Which is why I see these buses as such a wonderful thing.  At the very least, they are letting people know how many Atheists are out there.  I’d also bet that the ads are inviting more than a few people to examine their own thoughts.

Hopefully more people check out the website.

Hilarious Anti Liberal Atheist Rambling

This is just too much awesome to pass up. Probably a parody site, but well worth tackling seriously.  Frank (Ignorant Christian) writes:

I’ve been thinking for a long time why liberals don’t beleve in God. Here’s what I learnt:

This is going to be extra special, so I’m going to go through point by point.

They don’t understand, but they never let that stop them!

Don’t understand what exactly? God? Theology wouldn’t exist as a branch of human study if anyone understood God and the philosophical implications of such a being perfectly. That said, notice the lack of a supporting statement. Frank just makes a flat claim, then leaves it hanging in the air, waiting expectantly for nods of approval from his audience.

Science. They think it replaced God somehow. They think sceince has all the answers. They think if they can anser questions with mumbo jumno that’s the only reason for God, instead of understanding God made this world. Real science keeps proving God over and again, but there’s a lot of psuedo science out there. Whatch out for anyone who tells you the world is somthing crazy like a billion years old, or dinosaurs could fly. But they keep having new laws of nature, handd down by God the law maker himslf. How can you have a law without someone to make that law, like the Sabbath.

What real science proves God exists?  The fundamentalists who play dress up in lab coats and explain that God exists because bananas fit in our hands?  Science is about repeatable, testable theories.  How do you test if God exists?  Do we stick a piece of holy litmus in the air and wait for it to turn blue?  I do dig his point about laws though.  Who enforces gravity anyway?  Let’s all break the law of gravity now!

It’s new and trendy. I read a good quote it said “People today are atheists not because of conviction but from indifference, distraction and confusion accelerated by mass media. Truth is not a democracy. Test the message.”

New?  There have been atheists since we’ve had recorded history.  The emergence of the monotheistic traditions that gave birth to Christianity are relatively recent.  The arrogance in his statement about conviction, again, offered not only without evidence, but in the presence of a mountain of contradictory evidence, simply underscores how utterly divorced from reality Frank is.

They feel popular.

This might be my favorite.  Yes, people become atheists to become more electable and generally well liked.  The fact is atheists are despised and seen as untrustworthy by far far too many in this society.

They don’t have to folow any rules. Big selling point for librals.

A handy little lie.  The idea that ethics come only from a Daddy figure in the sky telling us how to behave.  We can form our own ideas on ethics and morality, and live by them just as well without some concept of God who is “gonna getcha” during the afterlife if you misbehave now.  If anything I’d question how moral we can be if we outsource our own ethical reponsibilities to God.

They think God id boring. Not as fun as drugs and grand theft auto.

I guess non existent beings are kinda boring, huh?

Ignorance. Some of the critics on this web blog say they were born as athiests and never grew out of it.

Shame huh, some people weren’t indoctrinated into a religion when they were minors?  I guess knowing your own personal history does kinda count as ignorance in a bizarro sort of way.

They think God is a bully or something. I dunno how they can not believe in God and hate him at the same time?

You can hold the Biblical account of God to the fire.  This is a God who kills entire towns, and has the negative traits of jealousy and anger.

Ignorance. Libtards love to say “thats a strawman falsify” and the God they try to talk about is one to. They make up all kinds of things they don’t like, call it God, and then use that like it proves anything.

Ignorance, the point so good (and ironic) he had to hit it twice.  Again, with the lack of specifics.

Personality disordered. Athiests are always mad, you ever notice that? They can only decribe themselves being against something. God is always there.

Atheists mad?  Dear lord!  What delightful nuttery.  Atheism is simply not believing in God.  It is not an active belief like “I am against God”.  It is a simple lack of belief, usually due to a resounding lack of evidence.

Liberals are united by the desire to make the world a better place for everyone, including (gasp) the meek.  This is a feeling and a calling shared by the very deity worshiped by Frank.  Perhaps in his rush to condemn the scary people who don’t share his religious fervor and hate of science/reason, he forgot that.

p.s. For the curious, I myself am a liberal theist.

The Bible: Why Believe?

Commentor mdking has inspired me to ask a question:

People putting the God cart before the Morality horse are nuts. Period. Maybe it’s not medication nuts, but the mental wiring is all wrong.

Lot had sex with his daughters after the Sodom and Gomorrah ordeal. So, was God’s picker adjusted to drunken pervert in selecting Lot??

You can’t salvage an ethic from the Bible without being VERY selective.

What about people putting their holy book of choice before morality?  Scripture contains some very nasty takes on what it is to be moral.  Killing innocents to pay for the sins of their parents.  Killing people for loving outside of their faith.  Given this, why believe the Bible at all?  Why make excuses for the passages one rejects while clinging to the supposed truth value of the rest?  How can the faithful keep claiming it is a work of God when it contains errors that indicate a backwards view of morality and ethics? Defenders will state “the Bible was not meant to be taken literally”. I’ll buy that. But why ascribe to it a higher status than any other book of fables and morals? Why not use Aesop’s fables as a guide? If it is the infallible word of God, then why does it contain laws and rules that are immoral to follow? The cognitive dissonance this produces is one that plays a toxic role in the society we all have to live in.

God is Not Just

A random encounter on the metro yesterday turned into an unexpected debate.

Upon reflection, I realized that the evangelical mindset has a worrying impact on our justice system, and how we approach both crime and criminals. In other words, I had run smack into the premise of one of Amanda’s posts over at Pandagon.

During the course of our debate, we came to the question of Justice. I was taking the position that God would never commit murder, while my evangelical friend asked “what about justice?”. One particular story we sparred over was that of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Two points of contention arose. One was whether a perfect being can commit an imperfect action. If a person were to say, set off a bomb in a city, killing all of its inhabitants, this person would be rightly condemned to prison for life. The biblical god does it, and he is praised for his “justice”. This is a similar problem to the questions of God having emotions like anger and jealousy. Why would a perfect being possess imperfect, negative, human emotions? By the same token, one wonders why it is the biblical god gets away with murder.

Which leads into the second point of contention. “Do you suppose”, I asked, “that there were children under the age of two in Sodom?”. After this was affirmed, I asked whether such young children could be justly punished so violently and cruelly for their parents sins. The answer? “Its different because when God does it, it is just. The children would go to heaven, which is better than Earth.”.

This immediately raised a very worrying question. Was this evangelical suggesting that it was ok to kill children under 2? That sending them to heaven was somehow just, or even kind? What kind of a God was being worshiped, when his actions were cruel and evil enough that were they committed by a human being, they would be harshly condemned?

The actions we ascribe to God as moral are those we ourselves aspire to. I cannot think of a theistic religion in which the practitioner does not attempt to be like God. So how does one interpret scripture that insists God killed the innocent? How does one read this and continue to believe that those words describe or even approach perfection?

What does such a mindset bring to practical questions of law and justice as practiced in our country?

Huckabee’s Two Man Race With Reality

Reality is beating the pants off Huckabee in a two man race (NYTimes):

“You know, over the past few days a lot of people have been trying to say that this is a two-man race,” he told his supporters in a suburb of Little Rock, Ark. “Well, you know what? It is. And we’re in it!”

Don’t get me wrong.  That’s a great quote.  The problem is it doesn’t even come close to the reality of the race.  Romney is still ahead of Huckabee, having pulled off wins in more states, and garnering more delegates.  McCain’s startling lead makes Huckabee’s position seem almost nonexistent by comparison.  So who does Huckabee fancy himself in a two man race with?  Mitt Romney for the honor of runner up?

Gay Teachers and Brains

My post mulling over atheocracy‘s thoughts on gay hating has generated some rather interesting comments.  I thought I’d share a few.  This stuff is really classic (and indicative of the mental clarity and logic brought to the table by both sides).  (The fun is at the bottom of the post).

Apparently Theists Can’t Argue

In a piece short on logic but long on bias, Simple Light attempts to present the killer arguments that support intelligent design.  The stage is set by presenting Christopher Hitchens as disoganized and cynical, and Jay Richards as rational and full of hope.  The painful illusion being cast over the debate becomes painfully clear early on, when the arguments show up to the party:

Jay Richards had the floor for the next 14 minutes and presented the most rational, well-thought out argument for theism that I’ve ever heard. He had 6 main points (and a seventh which he added later)

1. Moral truth – we all know what it is, the question is where did it come from and atheism has no answer to that
2. A finely tuned universe – basically a brief overview of the anthropic cosmological argument (every physical constant finely tuned for mankind and unlikely to have occurred by chance)
3. A beginning to the universe in a finite past – therefore something caused the universe which must be God. He used the phrase “resting point” for the basis of a theistic belief and asked what the basis for atheism was
4. Irreducible complexity – he didn’t get into details but cited the bacterial flagellum, asked why it’s obvious that Mt. Rushmore was ‘designed’
5. Materialism – the atheist, materialist philosophers all conclude that consciousness is an illusion but most people are uncomfortable with that
6. Free will – it’s incompatible with a mechanistic worldview
7. The origin of biological information (added towards end of debate)

Let’s address this point by point.  For point #1, SimpleLight rushes to contradict his earlier statement:

His main argument was that if the world was designed by a creator, it was not a benevolent creator. He frequently resorts to this argument despite it clearly not belonging in a debate on Atheism vs Theism. (Just because one doesn’t like God, doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist).

If God could potentially be incredibly unethical, as SL posits, then how would moral truth come from God?

A larger issue is why SL is ignoring a central point of atheism.  It is not a religion, not a system of beliefs.  It is simply the idea that God does not exist.  So the source of ethics would naturally fall outside of its purview.  Fortunately there are plenty of efforts in philosophy to discuss the nature of ethics, and even our motivations for being ethical.  Arguably atheistic religions such as Buddhism have a spiritual basis for ethics in our intrinsic connection to each other as sentient beings.  So no, one does not need God for ethics.  Nor, in my opinion as a theist, should we.  A parent’s desire is not for a lifelong fear of punishment, but rather the development of an intrinsic sense of right and wrong.  We shouldn’t be do good deeds because some deity says so, but rather, because it is the right way to live.

2.  The whole “by chance argument” is really a “this is so complicated it couldn’t possibly have happened!” piece of nonsense.  It devolves rapidly into circular logic.  How does one know that complex things are necessarily created things?  That is a question that never receives a satisfactory answer from creationists.

3.  How do we know the universe is finite?  Why must we infer that a finite universe is a created universe?  Again, no answer.  This is to be expected when people try and play dress up with faith.  The lab coat alone does not a scientist make.

The idea that atheism needs a foundation is ridiculous.  You don’t need a foundation for not believing in sentient pink unicorns.  You just start with, oh, a lack of evidence, and go from there.  But Simple Light is not a person who understands what atheism is:

Am I the only one who has lost patience with the atheists? Apart from the fact that the abolition of theism would leave them without a worldview, most of them spend their time carping from the sidelines but refuse to put together a credo for examination.

Atheism simply describes not believing in God, due to a lack of evidence.  I’m pretty sure without theists, that might survive.  Furthermore, there is no credo.  There is no obsessive need to explain nature with nature gods and dryads.  Simply a “ok, where’s the proof?  Don’t have any?  That’s nice, maybe come back when you do”.

4.  Irreducible complexity is a great sound for a hollow phrase.  Where is the substance?  Where is the ability to test?  What makes me a little bit sad is that, in metaphysics we can successfully reduce almost everything in life down to the most basic elements.  The only exception is consciousness (which really has a lot of people rightly baffled).

5.  How is “most people are uncomfortable with that” even an argument?  People aren’t comfortable with death or taxes.  You going to deny either exist next?  Also, atheism is not the same thing as materialism, even if the two often coincide in the same person.  And not all atheists or materialists believe consciousness is an illusion.

Each of these statements (especially the laughable remainder), simply show that the creationist argument is more about making declarative statements than presenting an argument.

The commentators on the blog (Lev and Inmate1972) agree that the last paragraph betrays the motivations behind the article:

Basically there were two messages: one of hope, redemption and eternal life; and one of despair (he mentioned sex and schadenfreude as his two purposes for living), futility and constant railing against God. I guess people can bow their knee now or later.

That same bias is present beneath the surface of every attempt to force creationism into the mainstream, and choke science with its anti-intellectual flotsam.  The goal?  To get people to “bow their knee”.

The Bible Makes a Poor Premise

Adam Smith has a fascinating post, in which he tries his very best to prove atheism does not exist. Poor chap doesn’t quite make it:

Notice how I titled this thing “Why Atheism Does Not Exist,” and not “Why I Believe Atheism Does Not Exist.” I did this because it is not only what I believe, it is also because it is a fact.

The Bible does not acknowledge atheism in any form. The Bible says that all men know that there is a God. Where does it say this you ask? Well, I am glad you asked.

Only we didn’t. Right off the bat Adam is going for a circular argument. For example. The following quote is from a book I just made up. The book of portents and squirrels:

Lord Fluff spake unto the people, and said “heed ye my fluffly book, for it is my word. Amen”. And all the unbelievers who questioned the book, which thou dear reader arst reading, is the fluffy word of the squirrel king lord God, are wrong. “Because I said so”, added Lord Fluff, before scampering after a holy acorn.

Ladies and Gentlemen need I remind you of lord fluff?

My book of fluff proclaims it is the word of fluff. So does that make it true? In the same vein Mike argues himself dizzy in the comments section (edited the html replacing a ol with an ul so it didn’t have nonsensical numbering):

I responded to the problems with fearing God rather than loving God here.  But the real gem is that Mike keeps hobbling back to the Bible to prove that the Bible is true.  Its right here:

John 1 says that the Word is God. We know God through His Word not experience. We experience things in light of His Word. Human reason is fallible. God’s Word is not.

See, because part of the Bible says the Bible is true, it must all be true!  Genius!

Which brings us back to Adam’s attempt to attack atheism.  Like Mike, he is making severe use of circular reasoning, and also trying to get into the head of his opponents.  He’s suggesting atheists aren’t really atheist.  Mike suggests those praying to God without using his Bible for guidance are not actually reaching God.  And of course both base these claims on, what else, their Bible.

Offensiveness aside, its just a poor way to make an argument.  Your premise can’t require the validity and soundness of the entire argument to be true without utterly destroying that very validity and soundness.  A circular argument is not even valid.  Here’s a quick philosophy primer on arguments.  An argument is valid if each premise is logically connected in a way that ensures if every premise is correct, the conclusion must be true.  An argument is sound if it is valid, and all of the premises turn out to be true.  A circular argument isn’t even logic, even if it looks like it on the surface.

Politically and socially, it presents another problem.  Those who rely on circular logic are ill suited to argue about beliefs with those of us who employ reason when making arguments.  It makes productive communication nearly impossible.  Instead you find humor and logic struggling to break through an unyielding wall of “Because the Bible says so”.

The Pro-Life Movement’s Truth Problem

The Pro-Life movement is the visible portion of a much larger religious, patriarchal, misogynist movement aimed at enshrining a biblical cosmology in law.  And any movement that sticks to easily disproved points like the efficacy of abstinence only education or the morality of denying women access to emergency contraceptives after rape, is not a movement that has a healthy relationship with reality.

As an example, I’d like to call attention to a really interesting post on the future of the pro-life movement from one of its proponents, Neil at 4simpsons:

The pro-legalized-abortion movement has more money.  They have 90% plus of the media firmly and energetically behind them.  They have Satan behind them.  Sinful human nature won’t change.  That’s the bad news.

But pro-lifers aren’t going away, and we have a few things working for us.  Here are some reasons why the pro-life movement may eventually win out:

Before we get into those reasons, lets look at his introductory paragraph.  Although I don’t have many specifics, and leaving aside prolife investment plans, I’d imagine the disparity of funds between liberal and conservative think tanks might give one pause before asserting who has more money.  But it are his next two points that are especially juicy.  “90% plus of the media”?  When it comes to reproductive rights, the media is completely pro status quo.  Republicans are expected to be pro-life to be electable, just as Democrats are expected to be pro-choice in a way that pander to the pro-life crowd.  If anything, this tilts towards the pro-life side of things.  In fact the media has a great deal of pro-life leaning articles out there, including human interest stories and articles like this one (USA Today):

When school administrators told Stephanie Hoffmeier they wouldn’t recognize The Pro-Life Club, the 16-year-old junior prayed to God and went to court.

Talk about a sympathetic framing!  Back to Neil’s blog post:

They have Satan behind them.  Sinful human nature won’t change.

Given his entire pro-life spiel is within a religious frame, this isn’t surprising.  But it is definitely worth tackling.  This isn’t simply claiming the moral high ground.  It is casting one’s opponents into the realm of the damned.  It preys on the religious insecurities of religious pro-choice advocates, and confirms that this movement is at its core about erasing the distinction between church and state.  For the pro-life movement, this is a religious matter.  When life begins is determined by their religion, and all of us, regardless of faith, must be bound by it.  So much for freedom of religion.

1. There will always be staunch pro-legalized-abortionists and those who profit from it that won’t give up, but the vast middle ground will shift to the pro-life side as they learn more about the nature of the unborn and see more ultrasounds.

Take a look at historical abortion polling data here.  I am not the biggest fan of polls, but we do get an interesting viewpoint.  We can see that positions on abortion are largely unchanging in a CBS/New York Times poll over a period of 5 years.  In fact the picture of America one gets is, even as more ultrasounds and data on fetus’s are made available, we see no appreciable change in opinion.  Most of America believes abortion (within certain limits) is a right, and a smaller portion of America is split on whether there ought to be no abortion, or no limits.

2. More and more women will bravely come forward to tell how abortion hurt them, thus dispelling the Roe v. Wade myth that legalized abortion would be good for women.  Studies are helping prove this point as well.

What studies?  What is certain is that making abortion completely illegal kills women.  The only myth is that removing that choice is in any way pro-women.

3. To state the obvious, pro-abortionists tend to have more abortions and less kids, while pro-lifers tend to have fewer abortions and more kids.  The pro-abortionists may not abort themselves completely out of existence, but it will reduce their ranks enough to impact their influence.

If the children of pro-life families reliably grew up to be pro-life themselves, he’d have an interesting point here.  Of course I am taking for granted that pro-choice parents have fewer children than pro-life parents.  That might be a bit much to grant without proof.  That whole point rests on a lot of ifs.

 4. Young people – even pro-choicers – realize how many potential friends and siblings were killed before birth.

Nope.  I don’t know about you, but I certainly never sat around in class thinking “Gee, my friends are kickass, but I could have had an extra friend if the Smiths hadn’t had an abortion earlier on”.  Plus it isn’t hard to imagine a birth a couple isn’t ready for having an adverse impact on that family later in life.  Social and economic pressure could very well ensure the child you befriended in 2nd grade might never have been born, or might have lived in an entirely different State.  Speculation over “what could have been” is rarely productive.

5. I know that good doesn’t always triumph over evil in the short term, but it often does in the long term (see slavery).

I don’t know that a point this absurd is worth responding to.  I could just as easily say “see Roe v Wade” for an example of good triumphing over evil.

6. Every technological advancement (e.g., 4-D ultrasounds, intra-uterine cameras) supports the pro-life cause, while none support the pro-abortion position.

This is basically a repeat of his first point.  Showing a fetus kicking does not show that it is, in fact, alive.  But it is on the right track.  Relying on science to guide our understanding of when life begins is fine.  However the Pro-Life movement uses science more as a kind of apologetics.   Their conclusions are already set before they see the evidence.

7. Women will figure out that they have been lied to.  Is the cornerstone of women’s rights really the right to have a stranger kill your preborn child in a (somewhat) clean place?  More women will discover that single men are the biggest proponents of legalized abortion.  Abortion hasn’t empowered women.  It has just allowed men to shirk their responsibilities and to put more of the burden of birth control, abortion and child-rearing on women.

Ironically, this statement is rife with lies.  Men are not the single biggest proponents of legalized abortion.  They are the biggest proponents of outlawing abortion.  Sex doesn’t need to lead to pregnancy.  It is ok to have sex for pleasure.

And here is where the gulf of understanding opens.  I believe sex is fun, pleasurable, and for everyone.  A religious fundamentalist believes sex is for straight married couples, and exists only to produce children.  And they are willing to lie and stretch the truth so that their religion becomes our law.

Unfortunately for them, we are standing directly in their way, bullshit detectors at the ready.  And we’ll have none of it.

Identity vs Circumstance and Hate

I have an odd way of seeing myself in the world. How I fit in the larger picture, so to speak. I’d like to talk a bit about identity and circumstance, and how these two very separate ideas get confused.

I wish I could say an example of “self” hate like this was startling (David Neiwert, Orcinus):

I was on David Goldstein’s radio show last night and, in between segments, we wound up chatting briefly on the subject of anti-Semitic Jews. Not being Jewish, I’m not very comfortable wrestling with the issue — but Goldstein, being very Jewish, has no compunction about it at all. He said he’s looking forward to talking about them when the subject arises, and he thinks it will a lot in the coming year.

I share in David Goldstein’s enthusiasm. The very thought of so many inconsistent brick heads makes my rhetorical karate chops water in anticipation. But that’s not the only reason. This kind of hatred for one’s own group provides an excellent opportunity to take a peek into the logic behind affirmative action, immigration policy, hatred, peace, and a number of issues that revolve around how we see ourselves and others.

First there is the matter of my own identity. I was born into the culture and faith of Judaism. How I got to where I am now is a bit of a story, so I’ll be brief. A combination of exposure to various philosophical traditions and my own intellectual curiosity have left me something of a theist. That said, there is still this ingrained sense of identity with the Jewish tradition. A love of humor and stories as a way of understanding and interacting with the world, and a sense of familiar and comfortable logic when traveling through the words of those who came before me.

But that is not how I view myself. I see myself purely as a human being, and I understand my heritage in those terms more with each passing day. I am every bit the heir to Gandhi, hitler, pol pot, MLK, FDR and Rumi as I am to any other luminary or dark stain upon history. I share in the shame and guilt of the German people, and in the pain and suffering in Darfur. Every tyrant shares my blood, as does every revolutionary.

This view cuts at one of the core components of hatred. Exclusive Identity: Here is where we get into one of the driving misunderstandings of the right wing movement. I’ll start with an example: Affirmative Action.

Affirmative action is viewed on the right in terms of Identity. You have a certain identity, and you get certain privileges. Whereas on the left it is viewed as a response to circumstance. In other words Affirmative Action was a response towards inequality generated by identity based hate, to address the circumstances created. It was also a rhetorical slap towards that hatred. So in one sense, switching to a economic based set of criteria is entirely natural. On the other, we are losing that rhetorical punch packed by group based affirmative action.

What we have is a gulf in how we see each other. When it comes to immigration, we see individuals responding to circumstance. Conservatives see a group of “permanent criminals” or “invading hispanic hordes”, depending on how far down wing nut lane you traipse.

Which brings us back to the example of the Conservative Jew (not to be confused with religious conservatism within Judaism) who is so caught up in the culture of hate that she engages in a flimsy defense of her new friends on the far reich:

The rapid Islamisation of Europe must be fought. In order to fight it, political parties must be engaged. If not, how then to effect change?

I will make the case for the Europeans desperate to save their country(s). I did research (and continue to) and see the ghosts but VB or more particularly the Swedish Democrats have done nothing in recent years that I need to worry about. The Swedish Democrats have had their purge a few years ago and are now clean. I see a pattern of such transformations in several European countries. If they want to become respectable, pro-Israel, I am thrilled to be part of the process.

I can’t be held captive to past associations. That’s like the left repeatedly running the pic of Rumsfeld and Saddam back in the 80s. Every party, every person, everywhere has past associations that are irrelevant to what’s happening now. Hell, I was once a Democrat.

Hell, why not join the KKK? They had their purge years ago, and are now clean. This kind of convenient douche logic never holds up to even cursory examination. It fails in a spectacularly instructive way now.

Take another look (emphasis mine):

Every party, every person, everywhere has past associations that are irrelevant to what’s happening now.

This is absolutely the crux of the problem with the right wing today. They do not understand that the relationships and histories we built in the past are driving world events in the present. A group of neo-nazis that once attacked the Jews are now attacking Muslims. This is very relevant. The whole mess we call the Middle East is a hotbed of past grudges being played out day after day. Those “past associations” are what keep the Middle East burning.

We absolutely must understand and grapple with those associations, just as we must understand how the hatred in our own past has made efforts like affirmative action and the civil rights law necessary. What we must be careful of is falling into the trap of exclusive identity politics. In the Middle East, we are on the side of both the Israelis and Palestinians, the Sunni and the Shiite, Turk and Kurd. Here at home, that applies with the same urgency.

Our identity is shared. Our circumstances are not. If we want to make the world a better place, we can start by recognizing our shared past, and offering our help to those who are, quite literally, our people: humanity.

Faith, Poor Logic and Health

ibadah writes:

To all the atheists out there – and I know that a few are reading this – studies have shown that religious individuals recover quicker, have longer lives, and are better able to cope with long-term illnesses such as HIV/AIDS.

So, don’t give up on faith just yet

This argument cannot prove anything about the intrinsic merit of faith, merely its effect.  Does it matter what that faith is in?  Might there be other false beliefs that provide similar benefits?  For example, say I believe in Paul Bunyon and unicorns.  Might this help too?

Its a fun argument to make.  But let’s take a serious look at what is probably being measured here.  “Religious individuals”.  We are probably talking about stress reduction.  The increased social interaction afforded by organized worship and related activities, a sense of calm about questions of fate and the afterlife, and a sense of one’s place in the world all probably serve to de-stress individuals.

Given this, any activity that reduces stress would provide those same results.  Joining a yoga class, for example.  It also means that what you believe in doesn’t quite matter, so long as stress is reduced.

In fact, I’d argue that a purposely false organized religion could provide the same if not superior results.  Picture “Lord Fluff the Holy Squirrel”.  This religion would involve getting together twice a week to look at pictures of cute animals and have a laugh about life.  I bet, given the well documented effects of humor and cuteness on stress, that combined with the increased social interaction, we’d have a pretty good alternative.

Unless of course the benefit came from suspending logic over a lifetime.  In which case, as an alternative the Republican party is recruiting.

Substituting Sexism and Bullshit for Criticism

You know the saying:  When you don’t have anything insightful to say, be a sexist prick:

Because the only criticism he can come up with when faced with female protesters is to objectify the women.  Its worth stopping by and taking a look at William Teach’s post.  The logic employed is dizzying:

Yet we can still protest. Wazzup wit dat?

Its like saying “gosh, this winter sure was cold, and hey, there’s snow!  Global warming must be a farce”.  But its even worse.  Courageous reporting?  The media swallowed lie after lie in the leadup to Iraq, and there we are.  Truly critical journalism is a rarity, with administration assertions often reported as fact.  But surely William recognizes that habeus corpus no longer applies to enemy combatants, even citizens.  Surely he realizes the President can declare anyone he wants an enemy combatant.  What’s to stop the President from arresting, torturing, and indefinitely detaining protesters?

As Keith Olberman has noted without habeas corpus the bill of rights means jack shit.  In fact, Bush has given himself an enormous amount of power:

Jonathan Turley joined Keith to talk about the law that Senator Feingold said would be seen as “a stain on our nation’s history.”

Turley: “People have no idea how significant this is. Really a time of shame this is for the American system.—The strange thing is that we have become sort of constitutional couch potatoes. The Congress just gave the President despotic powers and you could hear the yawn across the country as people turned to Dancing With the Stars. It’s otherworldly..People clearly don’t realize what a fundamental change it is about who we are as a country. What happened today changed us. And I’m not too sure we’re gonna change back anytime soon.”

We had a chance recently, and congress shot it down.  We’ve lost a lot more than the lynchpin holding the bill of rights together.  To pretend that the mere existence of a protest is somehow proof we retain our rights is transparent bullshit.  Just because Bush doesn’t use these despotic powers right away on protesters does not in any way erase the impact of that loss for all of us.

And all conservatives like William can do is crack sexist jokes and play make believe with our fundamental rights.

Logic Upside Maryland’s Head

Yesterday I wrote about Maryland’s discriminatory ruling against Gay Marriage.

Reader Karen had some a very detailed logical smackdown to share:

when i, as an individual, am denied the right to marry any particular other individual *because i am female*, i am burdened *based on my sex*. it’s that simple. the majority says,

“[It] does not separate men and women into discrete classes for the purpose of granting to one class of persons benefits at the expense of the other class. Nor does the statue, facially or in its application, place men and women on an uneven playing field. Rather, the statue prohibits equally both men and women from the same conduct.”

but this is the truth: this reasoning only works if you ignore individuals. in marrying R the individual, men and women are indeed separated into discrete classes for the purposes of granting to one class (men) benefits (approval of a marriage license) at the expense of the other class (women). it does not prohibit “the same conduct” to men and women equally. it prohibits men from marrying a male individual, and women from marrying a female individual. those actions can never be “the same conduct” because the individual in question can never be *the same individual* for both a man AND a woman.

As I noted before, this is like saying banning interracial marriage is ok because both blacks and whites are equally prohibited from the same conduct. That reasoning just does not stand. What it does do is allow discrimination and hate to stand in for sound legal reasoning. Its the same kind of process you see when a creationist struggles to make their pre-stamped conclusion seem “sciency”. Let’s not pretend there was anything principled or just about the decision: These judges were, at best, homophobic and used the flimsiest of arguments to cover for what their opinion really said:

Equal rights don’t apply to Gays.

This is a failure of our justice system. Hate triumphed over reason. And for all the talk of “activist judges”, judges are supposed to uphold and protect rights. When judges strip them away they abandon their oath to administer justice and instead abuse the power of their seat.

Maryland: Homophobic Reasoning

The Maryland Court of Appeals reversed the ruling of a lower court and upheld a discriminatory ban on same sex marriage (Washington Post):

Maryland‘s highest court yesterday upheld a 34-year-old state law banning same-sex marriage, rejecting an attempt by 19 gay men and lesbians to win the right to marry.

In reversing a lower court’s decision, the divided Court of Appeals ruled that limiting marriage to a man and a woman does not discriminate against gay couples or deny them constitutional rights.

In what fantasy land does prohibiting same sex couples from marrying not discriminate?  Its like saying interracial marriage bans don’t discriminate because everyone is prohibited from interracial marriage.  This isn’t valid reasoning, its inserting your premise up your conclusion.

The legal backflips don’t stop there.  Check this out:

Although the judges acknowledged that gay men and lesbians have been targets of discrimination, they said the prohibition on same-sex marriage promotes the state’s interest in heterosexual marriage as a means of having and protecting children.

Two problems.  Gay couples can have children.  Hell, they can adopt.  Unless Maryland is considering some kind of weird breeding program, this argument just doesn’t make any sense.  But here’s the insidious part (emphasis mine):

as a means of having and protecting children.

This heavily implies that gay couples cannot provide children with a safe environment.  It even suggest they are dangerous.  This ruling isn’t just an attack on marriage equality.  It is a strike against adoption rights.

What stings the most though, is the pretense that this is in any way reasonable, and in any way just.  The cowardly judges even tried to soften the blow with a little rhetorical massage:

The 4 to 3 decision cannot be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court because the lawsuit relied solely on state law. But the judges appeared to invite gay rights advocates to pursue their goals through the political system: “Our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex,” Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. wrote for the majority.

Well yes, the General Assembly is able to grant such rights.  However they are now significantly less likely to do so because of this ruling.  One of the foundational arguments for equal rights for marriage is that anything less amounts to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and infringes upon the civil rights of the victims.  The court has just stated their opinion that this is not the case.

They have done so using predictably flimsy arguments.  This is often the case when you have ulterior motives.  Whether the judges were just fundamentalists using their interpretation of the Bible as invisible legal precedent, or they were just straight up homophobes, the result is the same.  In Maryland Gay rights get set back at the price of their legal system’s credibility.

False Arguments On Iraq

(image via prwatch)

Check this out (Mark Carlton) (the blog itself is a treat.  Its called “an honest debate”, and cites George Orwell non ironically).  He’s having a debate with a fellow also named Dan:

I do understand and accept the sincerity of a person who believes what Dan has written here. I don’t think he wants an American defeat in Iraq. I believe he sees no way for us to win and, frankly, I don’t either at this point. But I do not believe the leaders of the Democratic Party share his point of view. In fact, given their goal of gaining and keeping power, a perceived American victory would be the worst thing that could possibly happen to them.

The first thing to pick out is the tactic of assuming your opponent’s side before dispatching their argument.  Don’t do that.  Sure, it can fool some of the people some of the time, but it inevitably leads to overextension:

I believe he sees no way for us to win and, frankly, I don’t either at this point.

If Mark doesn’t see a way to win, then his criticism of Dems for acting on this reality rings a bit hollow.  Not that it had substance in the first place:

In fact, given their goal of gaining and keeping power, a perceived American victory would be the worst thing that could possibly happen to them.

Let’s take a look at why this is wrong.  A victory in Iraq would not erase the lies that brought us there.  It would not erase the thousands of US lives, lost, forever.  It would not bring back the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who were killed, or the millions whose lives have been ruined.  It wouldn’t siphon away the millions of dollars and thousands of new recruits Al Qaeda snatched using the suffering of the Iraqi people as a tool.  And it wouldn’t restore our image as a just and noble country.  This would be no vindication for the Republicans.

But it would help.  It would mean more Americans coming home safely.  More Iraqis living in safety and something beginning to approach normalcy.  The massive instability in the middle east taking a few steps back.  Our military budget leaving room for the little things like schools and disaster relief.  In short, an end to the war would be a huge help for our country, and for the world.  It would be a blessing, and the Democratic party, like any party, can benefit from a blessing.  (Emphasis mine):

Unfortunately, the more visible leaders of the Democratic Party, as Ann Coulter demonstrated, have been predicting and rooting for an American defeat from the beginning. Their statements speak for themselves.

Quoting Ann Coulter is not how one engages in serious debate.  But moving on to the more ridiculous parts of that statement:

How is predicting a defeat a bad thing?  How is an accurate assessment of a military situation an indication of disloyalty.  The answer is it isn’t, unless of course you are in the Bush Administration (Progressive Daily Beacon):

George W. Bush knows how to get Generals to concur with his disastrous plans: he fires all that disagree and promotes the numbskulls who agree.  When Bush wanted to invade Iraq, General Shinseki warned that it would require a few hundred thousand troops … not to win the war, but rather to secure the peace. Bush and his people — Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz chief among them — disagreed. They fired Shinseki and, of course, we all know now that the General knew exactly what he was talking about and that the President and his people were fools.

Its idiotic to ignore reality, but its worse to suggest the people who correctly predicted the outcome of this disastrous war were anything but correct.

As for “rooting” for a defeat, that has never been anything more than a stale talking point for the “right of Bill O’Reilly” set.

Putting the two together in that sentence:

Unfortunately, the more visible leaders of the Democratic Party, as Ann Coulter demonstrated, have been predicting and rooting for an American defeat from the beginning.

Is rather crafty.  It taints the necessary act of predicting the outcome of our actions with the undesirable act of rooting for a negative outcome.

Like it or not, we cannot afford to lose in Iraq. And with the anti-war Democrats demanding withdrawal that’s exactly what they’re calling for. Do they and those who agree with them really think there will be no consequences? I think those who agree with them would do well to ask the next question. Then what?

This is curious.  Let’s go back a little earlier in Mark’s post (emphasis mine):

I believe he sees no way for us to win and, frankly, I don’t either at this point.

Compared to:

Like it or not, we cannot afford to lose in Iraq.

So we can’t win, but we can’t afford to.  Whuh?  That makes zero sense.  But the whole proposition is devoid of sense.  At this point there is no “win” in Iraq.  There is only the question of how we work towards ending the civil war we ignited, and helping people in the country we destroyed.  The answer, strange as it may seem to Republicans, is to withdraw.  The Iraqi people, overwhelmingly, want us out.  Our presence is making the situation worse.

But let’s take a look at what it would take to win.  The original assessment called for hundreds of thousands of troops.  After President Bush’s cut, we’ll have roughly one hundred thousand and a severely strained military.  Are Republicans prepared to reinstate the draft?  Are they prepared for the deaths, of our soldiers and of Iraqi civilians, that this extended will create?   Are they prepared to raise taxes, significantly, to pay for everything?  Of course not.  They won’t even raise taxes to pay for the current excursion.  Hell, they won’t even cut back on the rampant “for the rich” tax cuts Bush and willing Republicans greedily rushed into place.

We’ve lost in Iraq.  That is the reality.  We should be focusing on how to reduce the suffering and end the conflict, not rehashing blind arguments painting a glorious military victory in our future just around the corner.  We’ve been hearing that line since Bush Declared Mission Accomplished, and we’re not buying it anymore.