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.
Dowsing doesn’t work. Lots of people think they can find water by the use of sticks or wires, but it always falls apart under experimental conditions. It’s the thing people try most often when going for the JREF Million-Dollar Challenge, and the money is still safe.
But why would you go for a million dollars, when you could net a cool couple of million by selling phony bomb dowsers in Iraq?
The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works “on the same principle as a Ouija board” — the power of suggestion — said a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod.
Still, the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices, known as the ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of vehicles.
Would you feel happy knowing that someone had given the area a placebo check for explosives?
The US military doesn’t go for the devices, but the Iraqi authorities are sold.
“Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,” said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives.
Oh, does it? How well does it detect bombs?
The suicide bombers who managed to get two tons of explosives into downtown Baghdad on Oct. 25, killing 155 people and destroying three ministries, had to pass at least one checkpoint where the ADE 651 is typically deployed, judging from surveillance videos released by Baghdad’s provincial governor.
But the True Believers will tell you that the blame lies with the operators, not the device. You have to be
rested, with a steady pulse and body temperature, before using the device.
Water dowsing is a waste of money, but at least it doesn’t kill anyone. This is a dangerous form of insanity.
Today, I’m proud of my state, which made a tentative step toward marriage equality, or should I say all-but-marriage equality. By passing R-71, Washington became the first state to allow something like gay marriage by a vote of the people.
I wish I could be as proud of Eastern Washington, which rejected R-71 county for county.
That said, can someone explain to me why the hell we’re allowing issues of civil rights to be decided by vote at all? If it were up to a vote, African-Americans still wouldn’t have civil rights. The courts were able to enact immensely unpopular civil rights rulings against popular opinion in the 60’s, and they did so because it was the right thing to do.
You just don’t put people’s rights to a vote. Should we have a vote over whether Latinos can own houses? Should people of Middle-Eastern descent be able to get plane tickets? Should left-handed people be allowed to drive? True, none of those things are ‘rights’ enshrined in the US Constitution, but denying them by law involves unequal treatment under the law. And I’ll bet that churches and other political organisations could spend enough money to raise doubts and fears in a credulous populace, just as they have with recent anti-gay legislation.
Eventually the tide will turn. I just hope that the haters can one day feel ashamed for their actions and opinions. And in the meantime, these kinds of votes should not be happening.
Dear Sister has sent me another email. It’s a series of images of Jesus; everything from meek-and-mild Jesus praying in the garden, to a modern and distinctly muscular Jesus rolling the stone away from the tomb his own damn self.
But at the end of the email, there’s a rather pointless broadside:
I’m not ashamed.
He is the only one that can save this country and they want him removed from the government.
Our great nation will not stand if we delete HIM from all aspects of our government as the atheists want
Now I don’t know how much of this stuff she believes (or if she just thinks it’s ‘interesting’), but when she sends a message to thirty of my family members telling them that atheists are essentially out to destroy the country, you bet I’m going to respond.
So this is what I sent back.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
If you want to find out what atheists want, you should ask an atheist.
Hi. I’m an atheist. I can’t speak for all atheists, but I’m going to be presumptutous and try it anyway, based on my thoughts and my conversations with other atheists.
First off, there’s this thing in the U.S. Constitution called the ‘Establihment Clause’. It says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
That means that you can practice whatever religion you want (including no religion), but the government isn’t allowed to promote one religion over another.
We atheists think that the Founders meant that. They had every opportunity to write religion into the Constitution, and they chose not to. It’s not about removing Jesus from the government — the guy was never there in the first place.
Another thing. We atheists have noticed that lots of Christians are on the more conservative side, and lots of conservatives think the government isn’t very good at doing things. So we wonder why you want the government to handle the teaching of religion, instead of having churches doing it like usual. And which version of Christianity would the government be promoting? There are a lot of Catholics, but I don’t imagine that Protestants would be thrilled to have the government promote Catholicism. But which Protestant variety? Would Methodists get shut out, or would Baptists? How would Mormons feel to have some other religion get pushed by the government? Of all the sects and creeds that exist, do you really think that you’d be lucky enough to have the government promote your specific variety? We think you probably haven’t really thought this through.
We atheists wonder how exactly you think Jesus will save the nation. Perhaps wearing a cape and tights? We know about Christianity — many of us have been Christians — and we’ve noticed that you folks don’t act any better than we do, and often a good deal worse. So we don’t see exactly why it would be a good thing to make the government more Jesusy. Don’t get us wrong, you’re a lovely bunch of people, but we’ve noticed that your religion has a tendency to make people act in ways that are homophobic, sexually repressed, authoritarian, anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-education, paranoid, fantasy-prone, and in some cases just plain crazy. Also a lot of you have an unhealthy fascination with other people’s sex lives. And the fact that people like that want control of the government scares the bejabbers out of us.
Finally, we don’t want to delete, erase, or outlaw your beliefs. You can go ahead and express your religious faith however you want in your homes, families, and church groups. After all, we don’t like people telling us what to believe any more than you do, which is why we don’t send out missionaries.
But does Jesus (if he’s still out there) really need all of you to email and legislate on his behalf? You may not be ashamed of him, but you sure don’t seem to have much confidence in his ability to look after himself.
Inspired by this directed graph of ‘Hey Jude’, here’s my take on the Ramones classic.
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