A timely interview on RTRFM, this time about the hidden persuaders in language about global warming.
Watch out for that link; it plays immediately, so make sure your speakers are at the right level. As always, I’m on about 5/6ths of the way through.
Good Reason
It's okay to be wrong. It's not okay to stay wrong.
Category: post (page 52 of 125)
It’s not a new idea that people construct their god based on whoever they are. Nice people, nice god. Horrible people, horrible god. Homophobic people, homophobic god. The god of the Hebrews was obsessed with details about animal sacrifice. The Christian god is obsessed with the sexual behaviour of other people. What else do you need to be convinced that gods are a creation of their people?
But even if you’d already cottoned on to this idea, it’s still exciting to see it verified experimentally.
For many religious people, the popular question “What would Jesus do?” is essentially the same as “What would I do?” That’s the message from an intriguing and controversial new study by Nicholas Epley from the University of Chicago. Through a combination of surveys, psychological manipulation and brain-scanning, he has found that when religious Americans try to infer the will of God, they mainly draw on their own personal beliefs.
…
Religion provides a moral compass for many people around the world, colouring their views on everything from martyrdom to abortion to homosexuality. But Epley’s research calls the worth of this counsel into question, for it suggests that inferring the will of God sets the moral compass to whatever direction we ourselves are facing. He says, “Intuiting God’s beliefs on important issues may not produce an independent guide, but may instead serve as an echo chamber to validate and justify one’s own beliefs.”
When people changed their opinions, they thought god changed his opinions, too.
In another study, Epley got people to manipulate themselves. He asked 59 people to write and perform a speech about the death penalty, which either matched their own beliefs or argued against them. The task shifted people’s attitudes towards the position in their speech, either strengthening or moderating their original views. And as in the other experiments, their shifting attitudes coincided with altered estimates of God’s attitudes (but not those of other people).
And finally, they used fMRI to detect any differences in brain activity when considering their opinion and god’s opinion. The difference being ‘none’.
The takeaway: people get themselves and their god mixed up. You’d think it would be a warning sign when your god agrees with you all the time. Maybe they just think they’re really ‘in tune’.
There are times when the news throws up some story just ambiguous enough that I don’t know what to think. Here are my current sources of mental torsion.
Switzerland’s War on Architecture
You know what? Minarets are annoying. About as annoying as church bells. First off, minarets tend to have either a muezzin or loudspeakers, either of which is noisy (though the Swiss minarets are supposed to be the quiet kind). Also, if we allow minarets today, we’ll have a caliphate tomorrow, and then falls Europe, or something like that.
But I can’t get behind the Swiss ban on minarets. As long as zoning and noise ordinances are obeyed, I think people should be allowed to be as big of idiots as they want, including practicing their religion and building buildings. Yes, churches are stupid, but if they’re not free to get their religious groove on, I’m not free to get my anti-religious groove on.
No, I’m not going soft on Islam. I still think Islam is currently the worst religion in the world, though other religions could easily pass Islam up. I mean, think of what you could accomplish if you had two million people working together. You might be able to stop the murder and violence against women that your religion engenders. Instead, they just do stupid shit like this.
Two Million Muslims to Stone Devil at Hajj
Two million Muslims are headed to Muzdalifa, Saudi Arabia, to cast stones at the devil in the most dangerous part of the annual hajj pilgrimage, Reuters reported.
Once the Muslim pilgrims get there, they will collect pebbles to throw at walls of the Jamarat Bridge to symbolize the rejection of the devil’s temptations.
Friggin’ jerks.
But towers aren’t where the fight is. We should be fighting to stop the formation of parallel justice systems based on what religion you are. We need to fight laws intended to punish criticism of religion. The minarets are only scary for people who are easily scared.
Meat in a vat
I already blogged about this when it was an idea, but now it seems they’ve gone and done it.
SCIENTISTS have grown meat in the laboratory for the first time. Experts in Holland used cells from a live pig to replicate growth in a petri dish.
The advent of so-called “in-vitro” or cultured meat could reduce the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted each year by farm animals — if people are willing to eat it.
Would I eat meat if no one has to die to make it? Is the image of muscle growing by itself in a vat of fluid too offputting? Why won’t the scientists try eating it? Will it taste like chicken? This is confusing on many levels.
Australian Liberal party changes drivers
They’ve dumped their leader Whatsisname. You know, the one who wanted to work to prevent climate change. Now they’ve guaranteed their irrelevance for the next ten years. This would normally be good, but I have nagging fears. What happens if the Liberal party does manage to sink climate change legislation and the Australian public isn’t pissed off at them?
Hot Mormon Muffins!
You’ve seen young Mormon hunks in the Men on a Mission calendar, but you’ve also thought, “What about the ladies? Will there be a cheesecake calendar full of sister missionaries?” Sadly for you, a calendar of sexy sisters was just a little too hot. They’ve decided to send up an image that’s equally ripe for satire, Mormon motherhood. It’s messing with my head because I’m imagining ladies from the old ward in Cheney, in vintage poses. With doilies.
Ta to Snowqueen.
In my latest ‘Talk the Talk‘ interview on RTRFM, I discuss the Oxford Word of the Year for 2009: ‘unfriend‘. Does anyone remember their pick from last year: ‘hypermiling‘? ‘Unfriend’ has a better chance of getting remembered, I’d say.
I also discuss ‘teabagging’, and why I am an amonokerist.
Watch out for that link: it starts playing immediately. I’m on about 5/6ths of the way through.
In Australia, some of the schools are run by religious organisations, like the Anglican Church. It’s not the best situation — for many students it involves going to religious services, which is the opposite of education. Apparently, going to mass can be quite boring. But these schools are a part of the system, and they do a good job.
The problem is that these schools get tax money from the government. Say, what’s to stop them from taking some of that money — paid by tax payers, intended for educating kids — and funneling it to the Anglican Church? Apparently nothing, because that’s just what happened in Perth.
Private schools have kicked in thousands of dollars to help bail out the Anglican Perth diocese after it was hit by the global economic crisis.
The school-backed bailout comes in the face of a crackdown on the use of government grants by Education Minister Liz Constable, who said she would be concerned if grants were not spent on running schools.
Mirrabooka’s John Septimus Roe Anglican Community School, which relies on taxpayers for about 70 per cent of its funding, emerged as the biggest contributor after Perth Anglican Archbishop Roger Herft appealed for help to run his diocesan council.
Archdiocese records show the school gave $30,000 to the appeal, double the $15,000 contribution from wealthy Christ Church Grammar School in Claremont.
The high-fee St Mary’s Anglican Girls School in Karrinyup chipped in $12,500 and All Saints College in Bull Creek $10,000.
But Hale School in Wembley Downs refused to hand over school funds to the diocese council, branding the move inappropriate.
At this stage, it’s not clear how much of the money came from taxes and how much came from fees paid by parents. Either way, it’s an outrage. That money was intended to educate kids, and instead it’s being shoveled into the coffers of the Anglican Church to keep it afloat.
This is why it’s a bad idea to have religions run schools. When public funds are involved, with no accountability, it’s inevitable that the parent organisation will put some pressure on the schools during hard times. The schools need to open their books and show where the money’s going. And if it’s going to some church and not to the kids, they need to be defunded or turned into a public school. We need more good public schools.
Is it wrong to pay attention to Sarah Palin? Some people have the idea that if we ignore her, it’ll starve her of oxygen and she’ll disappear. Well, with her new book out, she’s getting the oxygen whether we pay attention or not. So I think it’s best to confront La Palin directly, unpleasant though it be.
The quote that got my attention was this:
— On her belief in creationism and how she debated McCain manager Steve Schmidt about it: “But your dad’s a science teacher,” Schmidt objected. “Yes.” “Then you know that science proves evolution,” added Schmidt. “Parts of evolution,” I said. “But I believe that God created us and also that He can create an evolutionary process that allows species to change and adapt.” Schmidt winced and raised his eyebrows. In the dim light, his sunglasses shifted atop his hear. I had just dared to mention the C-word: creationism. But I felt I was on solid factual ground.
But she’s not.
What she’s describing is theistic evolution, which is sort of like splitting the difference between science and religion. It’s now the philosophy of choice for believers who can no longer ignore the torrents of evidence for evolution, but who don’t like its inevitably atheistic implications. So they acknowledge that evolution is true, but then they say “But surely a god must have been involved somewhere. Maybe he invented evolution! Yeah, that’s it.”
Okay. So besides cowardice, what’s wrong with theistic evolution? Two things:
Lack of evidence. Is there any evidence that a god exists and made evolution? No? Well, all righty then.
That doesn’t stop believers from dreaming him up anyway, and explaining the lack of evidence by saying that he wants to hide himself because
– he wants us to live by faith
– we don’t seek after him earnestly enough, and
– he’s shy.
Funny thing about that — that’s the same explanation I use for the apparent lack of evidence for subterranean mountain goats on Venus. They’re there, I tells ya! but we never see them because scientists refuse to look for them in earnest. Plus the mountain goats hide when we turn our telescopes toward them. How do they know when our telescopes are trained on them? They’re omniscient.
Hmm. Seems like the only way you can have a decent conspiracy theory is by crediting someone with omniscience.
The lack of evidence leads us to point number 2:
Occam’s pesky Razor. This general (and very useful) principle states that there’s no reason to accept a more complex explanation when a simpler one will do. Evolution explains biological complexity and similarity between animals just fine all by itself. You could slap a god on top of it (and a walrus, and a monkey, and fries to go), but this doesn’t really do a better job of explaining things than evolution all by itself, so Occam’s Razor says we lose nothing by cutting it out.
Trying to throw a god into the mix really misses the point of evolution: the process isn’t directed by anyone. If a god were in charge of evolution, it would be the most cruel and unfeeling being imaginable. How many millions of beings had to suffer and die from disease so that our bodies could evolve an immune system? How many had to eat each other so they could evolve sharp vision, long fangs, thick skin, fast legs, good brains, poisons, spikes, or any of the hundreds of other methods they use to survive? Saying a god set up this wasteful and savage system means that he’s sent untold billions of souls to the meat grinder, when he could have magicked up an Eden that was perfect to start with.
That reminds me: How do the theistic evolutionists reconcile evolution with Eden? Not very well, I’m afraid. But that’s another story.
Have a listen to the first minute of these YouTube clips.
You’ve seen this one with Tom the Scientologist…
and here’s one with Will the Scientologist.
They’re not new, but I’d never watched them back to back before. Now I’m struck by the similarity between them. No, I don’t mean how embarrassing it is to watch these two idiots blabbering while normal people can only stare in horrified fascination (especially that Scientologists are better qualified to help an accident victim than, say, a paramedic, or that 2 + 2 = 4 only if we agree that it does). And I don’t mean how they both repeat inflated claims made by their church about human potential.
These two share a discourse style that I’ve never seen before. It’s a weird kind of unfocused rambling, but with evangelical intensity. Acronyms appear out of nowhere (KFC?). They start sentences with no idea how to finish them, but they do it with certainty and weird bravado. It makes no sense, but they seem unaware that they’re making no sense.
Is this a style of monologue that they picked up at the Celebrity Centre? because I don’t want any of what they’re having.
Gay marriage isn’t legal in Australia (yet), but today a step forward was made.
Gay unions now legal in ACT
AN ACT Greens Bill to legalise civil ceremonies between same sex couples has been passed by the Territory’s Parliament.
The Bill allows gay and lesbian couples to create their civil partnerships through a legally-binding ceremony before friends and family.
“This legislation is another step along the road to full equality for same sex couples in Australia, and we are delighted that the assembly has passed it today,” ACT Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury, who drafted the Bill, said in a statement.
ACT, for you non-Australians, is the Australian Capital Territory. They must have chosen the ACT to avoid overcrowding. Canberra’s not a gay-tourism hot spot.
But will Kevin Rudd shoot it down? Why would he, when gay marriage is actually quite popular in Australia? Could it be… his religious tendencies? Hope not.
In other big gay news, the Mormon Church thinks it’s pretty swell for backing proposals that gay people shouldn’t be fired from their jobs or evicted from their houses. Which just sounds normal to me, but what do I know — I don’t have a Holy Ghost following me around.
“The church supports these ordinances because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage,” Otterson said.
In other words, they’re not anti-gay; they just don’t want those filthy perverts getting their hands on marriage. You have to admire their devotion to semantics.
The endorsement is not a shift in the church’s position on gay rights and reinforces past statements on the issue, Otterson said.
Not so fast. In the past, the LDS Church worked to scuttle sexual orientation provision in Salt Lake City’s anti-discrimination ordinance. (See note 158 here.)
Speaking of Mormon cluelessness, Deseret Book is carrying this tome: Encouraging Heterosexuality. So now there’s another reason not to be a Mormon kid: Having The Talk with your dad.
Dad: You’re not a homo, are you, son?
Son: No way, Dad. I’m really really hetero.
Dad: That’s good.
(Pause.)
Dad: Wait a minute! How do you know how hetero you are?
From the blurb:
Their message is simple and clear: Parents can prefer and encourage heterosexuality in their children
I’m pretty certain there’s evidence to the contrary.
and can do so without disrespect or criticism for those who believe or act differently.
I’m pretty certain that this book is evidence to the contrary.
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