We must prevent Gog and Magog from acquiring weapons of mass destruction

Biggest threat to national security: Giants!

Apparently former French president Jacques Chirac tells of a phone call he received from Dubya in early 2003, as he was trying to garner international support for the Iraq war, when he allegedly said something along the lines of:

Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East... The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled... This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.

Uh, woah.

I don't think I can put it any more eloquently than James A. Haught, writing for the Council for Secular Humanism:

For six years, Americans really haven’t known why he launched the unnecessary Iraq attack. Official pretexts turned out to be baseless. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction after all, and wasn’t in league with terrorists, as the White House alleged. Collapse of his asserted reasons led to speculation about hidden motives: Was the invasion loosed to gain control of Iraq’s oil—or to protect Israel—or to complete Bush’s father’s vendetta against the late dictator Saddam Hussein? Nobody ever found an answer.

Now, added to the other suspicions, comes the goofy possibility that abstruse, supernatural, idiotic, laughable Bible prophecies were a factor.

Via the Reason Project.

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Sshhh, don't tell anybody...

So I've been thinking about it, and there is one minor point on which I half-assedly agree with the accomodationists: I think it is probably better not to be particularly vocal about the phenomenon wherein people who come to really understand evolution on a deep level have an increased tendency to become atheists.

This is distinctly different from saying that faith and science are contradictory. That should be shouted from the rooftops. And then, if theists really want to go for this whole non-overlapping magisteria thing, where they compartmentalize their faith-based delusions from the reason-based science, then that is their business. I have written before about how I have a handful of faith-based delusions, e.g. I really viscerally believe my wife and I were fated to be together. I can't possibly reconcile that belief with my rational knowledge of how things actually work, and yet when I think about the story of how we met and fell in love, that it was anything other than fate just seems impossible to me.

So I'm okay with people having some contradictory beliefs, as long as they don't get the chocolate in the peanut butter, so to speak. Saying that faith and science are contradictory is important, not so much to discourage people from believing both, but to keep people from getting the two all mixed up.

But this thing where people go to college, gain a deep intuitive understanding of evolution, and then progress to a loss of faith... Well, maybe it's not even real; the evidence is mostly anecdotal (the high percentage of nontheist scientists is just a correlation, it does not establish causation). But in any case, maybe we ought not to be too awfully vocal about this.

I reject the accomodationist claim that the so-called "New Atheists" are driving the faithful away from science. It just seems rather absurd to me that one particular author (or even four particular authors) expressing their opinion on the compatibility of science and faith would cause a moderate theist to say, "Oh noes! Dawkins said faith and science aren't compatible, and I ain't givins up mah Jesus, so now I'm going to stop believing in evolution!" I simply don't see it. Rather, the moderates will say, "Bah! Dawkins sucks. I like Ken Miller and Francis Collins!" The only people who are going to be swayed by the "New Atheists" are people who are already inclined to listen to them -- and the thought of a Dawkins admirer deciding to reject evolution because "Dawkins said it's not compatible with my faith!" is laughable.

However, it's much easier for me to imagine an unfortunate outcome of a religious person becoming aware of examples of theists being turned into atheists by a college education. I could see this dissuading people from going to college or sending their kids to college, or it tipping the scales towards some faux-college like Liberty University. "Those godless liberals at Yale will brainwash our young'uns!" That, to me, is a plausible scenario.

Now, I'm not saying anybody should lie, and I'm not saying that people who shed their faith as a result of education should feel compelled to keep silent. But it probably behooves those with a wide-reaching voice to avoid mentioning the education-conversion phenomenon unnecessarily. Maybe.

I dunno, just a thought.

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"There are at least two atheists in the world" is now considered an "in-your-face offensive" statement

The Arizona Coalition of Reason has put up what ought to be the least controversial of the various atheist billboards, because all it says is, "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." In other words, it is asserting that at least two atheists in the world exist.

Somehow, asserting this fact in public is construed by some bigoted fuckheads as being somehow "offensive":

Phoenix resident Irving Faulkner says his first thought when he saw the billboard is that it’s in your face offensive.

Ophelia Ortiz had a similar reaction.

“I think it’s wrong, because why not believe in God? Everybody has their own beliefs,” said Ortiz.

ARGH! Ms. Ortiz, the billboard does not fucking say that you shouldn't believe in God. In fact, it says exactly what you said, that "everybody has their own beliefs," but those nasty atheists had the audacity to also go and suggest that maybe their beliefs... exist? What??

The other two common atheist advertisements read, "You can be good without God," and the original UK one, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." I can actually understand why someone might find the latter offensive.

First of all, it makes a direct theological assertion: "There's probably no God." In a perfect world, I'd actually rather prefer that billboards and bus advertisements didn't make assertions such as these, because, well, all other things being equal, talking about religion is kindof retarded. That includes discussing or promoting atheism -- in a perfect world. If theists would just STFU and stop trying to push their delusions on other people or influence the political process to conform to

If you find this offensive, okay, I guess I can understand that.

their arbitary dogmas, and if theistic beliefs that condoned violence and torture and hatred in the name of God were rare or nonexistent, in that alternate reality, this entire blog would seem rather silly, wouldn't it? Dawkins' The God Delusion would be nothing but a lot of hot air, rather akin to writing an entire book about why you didn't care for the taste of olives. But that's not the world we live in, is it?

The problem is that similar religious messages -- which I do believe are offensive -- are tolerated all the time. As long as it's okay to put up a billboard that says "Jesus saves!", then it ought to be just as okay to put up a billboard that says "Jesus doesn't save!" On a side note, those cities who have declined atheist bus ads because they don't allow religious advertising of any type, I'm down with that. As long as you can't shove Jesus down my throat, I don't need to shove my atheism down yours.

If you find this offensive, then you are a bigot.

Secondly, the original billboard implicitly suggests that one major result of a belief in God is to make people worry and prevent them from enjoying life. I think this is true for a lot of people, and I am totally on board with the billboard because IMO the target audience is people who are already pretty sure there is no God but still worry about it. But I can understand a happy care-free theist (and yes, they do exist, obviously) being a bit resentful of that implication.

Now, the "You can be good without God" ad makes no such generalizations, and if you have a problem with it, then you are automatically a bigot, because you are saying all

But if you find this offensive, then you are completely insane!

nontheists are bad. However, it does actually make a statement that some people (i.e. bigots) might disagree with. So while it ought not to be controversial, I am not terribly surprised that it is.

But the "You are not alone" billboards? What? So what is the problem here? Is it that these people think there really are only zero or one atheists in the entire world? (I guess that one guy has been putting up a lot of billboards) Or is it that even just mentioning the existence of atheism is taboo? I admit, I am a little surprised people could call the billboards "offensive" with a straight face. Sure, I could imagine stupid assholes saying things like, "That kind of message is not what we need in our community" and "It makes me sad that some people reject Jesus." But to say that the billboard itself is offensive? WTF?!?

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The disastrous ethical consequences of the Atonement meme

It has been pointed out by Hitchens and others that the idea of Jesus suffering and dying for our sins is not just repulsive because it's a blood sacrifice, but because it is an ethical nightmare. There is a very good reason why our justice system does not allow a friend or relative to serve a prison sentence in place of the perpetrator: it would completely undermine the deterrent effect of punishment. Furthermore, the whole concept is caustic to the ideals of personal responsibility.

It's one thing to talk about that in theory, but rarely are the consequences of this ethical deficiency painted in such stark colors as they were today, when excerpts from the online diary of the LA Fitness shooter were published by ABC News:

Maybe soon, I will see God and Jesus. At least that is what I was told. Eternal life does NOT depend on works. If it did, we will all be in hell. Christ paid for EVERY sin, so how can I or you be judged BY GOD for a sin when the penalty was ALREADY paid. People judge but that does not matter. I was reading the Bible and The Integrity of God beginning yesterday, because soon I will see them.

Damn.

Apparently this guy subscribed to the "we are saved by grace alone" theory, which basically says you just need to accept Jesus and then you are scot-free, no matter what terrible crimes you commit during your lifetime. We can never say for sure that this guy wouldn't have done it anyway if he didn't believe that, but the very idea is chilling.

Anti-atheists like to say that without religion, we have no moral compass. While I don't accept this line of argumentation, let's assume for a second that it is true. Even if it were, we would still expect atheists to behave more ethically than their Atonement-believing Christian counterparts, because the threat of imprisonment or other worldly consequences would be much less threatening to a person who believed that they'd get to chase it with an eternity in paradise anyway.

Via PZ.

Update: Some commenters on PZ's blog are pointing out that in another entry, the shooter also criticizes religion, and uses phraseology that suggests his final post -- the one quoted above -- may have been sarcastic.

I'm going to leave this blog post in place anyway, because I think the point about the Atonement meme eroding personal responsibility is still a valid one, and because I already acknowledged that he might have gone on this killing spree anyway regardless of his beliefs about the afterlife.

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"I think the interview went well..."

Workers at a South Korean auto factory are protesting over the loss of their jobs and have staged a sit-in with about 500 laid-off employees. Now, call me a tool of Big Business, but I've always been a little skeptical about this particular reason for labor action... it's one thing if the workers are protesting against unsafe or unpleasant working conditions, a lack of benefits, inadequate pay, etc. In general, I side with labor on that one, when their demands are reasonable.

But when the protest is about lay-offs, it's harder for me to see the labor perspective. Yes, I know that on occasion companies will try to increase their profits by reducing their workforce and forcing those who remain to work extra hours or take on an unfair amount of work, but I have to believe this is rare because it doesn't really benefit the company all that much to do this. Particularly in a weak economy, it seems to me that usually lay-offs are the result of shrinking business and the company either not having enough work for everyone, or not having enough money to pay everyone. All the protesting in the world won't make more money magically appear...

"Hey boss, are you hiring again yet?"

So I'd already be scratching my head a bit about what exactly these employees want from the company. They want the company executives to go back in time and not suck as much? Well, okaaay.... But what really makes the protesters crazy in this case is the following:

For a second day, police battled laid-off workers armed with metal rods and throwing projectiles.

Now, I know that in the early days of organized labor, physical confrontations were not uncommon. Still, it seems to me that locking yourself in and hitting people with metal rods is not the most effective way to get your job back. I mean, come on... Oh, and by the way, some of the projectiles they are throwing are firebombs. Um... I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if Ssangyong was having trouble paying its workers before, the problem can only get worse now that these dickwads have torched the factory.

Sorry to side with big business, but violent protests against lay-offs are just plain retarded. Sometimes you get screwed over at no fault of your own, and there's nothing you can do about it. If every time any person were screwed over, they started lobbing firebombs at police...

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Baby's first real food

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ORLY?

Oh. My. God.



Warning: If you are at work and will get funny looks if you laugh out loud, don't play this video.

I would take this bird more seriously than Orly Taitz.

I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like that. I admit that I am sometimes frustrated by journalists not giving guests a chance to speak or to make a nuanced explanation, but this was insane. They kept giving her more time, and she kept rambling on about anything except the question that was asked, in that absurd high-pitched voice of hers.

Speaking of the voice, I'm trying really hard to restrain myself from further ad hominem attacks, but man, they would be so easy. Her bad makeup, her bewildering hair, the way she kept saying, "Okay, okay" when she tried to think of what to say... I mean, you shouldn't judge people by such superficial things, but I do think the fact that she went on national TV looking like that probably does say something about her level of sanity...

My favorite part is the folks in the studio laughing in the background. But how could you not laugh?

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