Good Reason

It's okay to be wrong. It's not okay to stay wrong.

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Maybe he’s just a spelling reform advocate.

8 September 2009 / / 5 Comments

Senator Steve Fielding’s fiscal gaffe is in the news.

Gaffe-prone Family First Senator Steve Fielding has made another blunder while trying to clarify his economic position.

Senator Fielding, who previously called a double dissolution election, “double disillusionment”, has frequently spoken about “physical policy” instead of “fiscal policy”.

When questioned about the mispronunciation this morning, he only managed to jam his foot further into his mouth.

“I’ll make it quite clear: fiscal, F-I-S-K-A-L,” he spelt.

The journalist repeated the misspelling, prompting Fielding to correct himself.

“F-I-S-C-A-L. Yeah, fiscal.”

I’m not here to pile on. I don’t think it’s fair to label someone as thick just because they can’t spell. Spelling is a superpower that was thrust upon me at birth, and I don’t know how someone could go about acquiring it.

What I would be more embarrassed about is being a Family First senator. And saying things like divorced people are harming the planet, a piece of claptrap which I covered a couple of years ago. I would also be embarrassed to be a citizen in an electorate that had a Family First MP.

I hope he really does have a genuine learning disability, as he says he does. Using the term ‘learning disability’ as a cover for more general ‘not knowing how to spell words and stuff’ would be really slimy.

When a loved one can’t accept your non-acceptance of god

7 September 2009 / / 8 Comments

It’s not often that I bother with proto-arch-evangelist Billy Graham, but on this particular Sunday his article seemed appropriate:

What to Do When a Loved One Rejects God

The correct answer is, of course, to congratulate them on their clear-headed reasoning skills, and offer support for the sometimes tough deconversion process that follows. And thank Zeus that they’ll no longer be trying to evangelise you, with that hopeful but concerned expression that loved ones often wear when they consider the state of your hypothetical soul.

But that’s not Billy’s answer.

Q: Our college-age son says he doesn’t believe in God anymore. We talk about it some (mainly when we’re trying to get him to go to church), but we always end up arguing. How can we convince him that he’s wrong? – Mrs. A. McC.

Gotta love those assumptions. I suppose a bit of evidence is out of the question.

A: In all honesty, you probably can’t convince your son that he’s wrong right now – because he’s probably not willing to admit that he might be. Hopefully, some day, he will be open to changing his beliefs – but right now, he isn’t.

Well, not willing to admit you might be wrong isn’t a good thing, that’s true. This ad appeared on the same web page, which gives you some idea as to how eager these folks are to allow that their beliefs could be mistaken.


I’d like to pose the question from the opposite perspective: what to do when a loved one accepts God, but won’t leave you alone about it? In which case, my answer would match Mr Graham’s answer to the letter.

I don’t mind if my family stays religious. I’m certainly not trying to deconvert anyone — I’m happy for them to do as they please. (If someone finds themselves not believing any more, but they don’t know what to do about it, that’s another story.) I don’t even mind if people in my family (or anyone else) want to talk about religion to me; it’s actually one of my favourite topics. I wish they’d bring it up more! Just as long as they know that when they do, they know they can expect a factual and straightforward response.

I’ve just received a message from a loved one who I’ve known for years, who’s still in the LDS Church. Here’s an excerpt, emphasis in original:

I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church.

No, you’re merely certain.

I also know that you and Miss Perfect love one another and would want to be married and sealed for all eternity.

That would be lovely, if eternity were on offer. I wonder if anyone else can offer eternity on slightly better terms, perhaps without threatening me with eternal consequences if I don’t obey commandments involving (say) giving them lots of time and money.

In order to do this you need to come back into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Sounds simple. So what’s the problem? Equally simple. The LDS Church is untrue — a fact which every non-Mormon already knows. Like all religions, it teaches untrue things. All I ask is that a religion live up to its own hype, and this one doesn’t.

To put a finer point on it, the doctrines of the LDS Church (and every religion I’ve ever run across, which are myriad) fall into exactly three categories:

  1. Teachings that are unconfirmed by evidence, like the existence of supernatural beings, an afterlife, and so on
  2. Teachings that have been refuted by evidence, e.g. ancient Americans are Hebrews who spoke a form of Egyptian, rode horses, and smelted steel
  3. Teachings that are more or less true, but which were already known by people without any revelation being necessary. For example, Mormons are fond of claiming that the Word of Wisdom is revolutionary, especially about smoking. But the anti-tobacco movement was getting started around the 1830’s, about the same time as the temperance movement, and could have been familiar to people in that area.

(Naturally, if anyone thinks I’m wrong, and knows of a religion with doctrines that do not fit into these three categories, please mention them in comments.)

It’s especially hard for family members to deal with your deconversion. Spouses, parents, siblings — they all want you to be happy, and they’ve been told you can’t be if you’re outside the religion. My old religion pretended to be able to keep families together after death, dependent on you staying in the system. Which basically means that you’re threatened with eternal isolation if you leave. This is a despicable tactic for religions to use. If I were feeling nasty, I might call it emotional hostage-taking. It makes it impossible for family members to have emotional boundaries — they think your choices will affect them for eternity.

So it’s hard for me to feel upset with caring people who try to evangelise me. I’m just glad that, as someone who accepts rationality, I’m no longer prone to the kind of worry that they feel.

Zippy theme song

2 September 2009 / / Comments Off on Zippy theme song

Did you know that Zippy the Pinhead has his own theme song? I’ve just run across it.

It’s a strange little item. The music was written (partially) by Janis Siegel of the Manhattan Transfer, and the lyrics were written by Fred Schneider of the B-52’s. So if those two artists are on your radar, this is rather a unique collaboration.

The song reminds me of Zippy, in a way. The chord progressions are weird and hard to follow, just like the strip. The lyrics are full of pop culture references, just like the strip. And something about it suggests that it could have been more interesting… just like the strip.

If Zippy isn’t your cup of Fresca, maybe you’ll have better luck with the latest version of Autotune the News. I’m on tenterhooks, waiting for #8 to drop.

All part of a plot to expand my media empire

27 August 2009 / / 2 Comments

I’ve been having fun on Perth radio station RTRFM. For the last few weeks, I’ve been appearing on their show ‘Talk the Talk’, which happens on Tuesdays at about 11:30 am. I get to talk about linguistic things, and people in Perth get to listen.

You can find streaming broadcasts on the RTRFM Morning Magazine site. Here are links to the broadcasts.

11 August: Metaphors of time
18 August: Is your dog as smart as a two-year-old?
25 August: Not about language; this one’s for plugging RTR-FM and getting people to subscribe.

If you want to skip all the other stuff, I’m on pretty close to the end of each broadcast.

Speech synthesis for accents

18 August 2009 / / Comments Off on Speech synthesis for accents

If you have a moment, get over to CereProc. They do speech synthesis, and you can try out their voices: British, American, and Scottish. You can even buy them if you’re keen — they work on Mac and Windows.

I’m having a play now. I’m rather fond of Kirsty, whose Scottish accent is a little more broad. The accents are good on numbers: try “twenty thirty forty fifty”. Not so good on disambiguating various senses of words, as in “I knew that that was the right answer.” But great on Belle and Sebastian lyrics, e.g. “I was allergic to so much dairy.”

Now when can we expect the Australian accent?

It’s all the same racket.

17 August 2009 / / 1 Comment

There’s a gypsy guy who wants to work as a fortune-teller, but can’t because it’s against the law.

He has enlisted the American Civil Liberties Union in his year-long fight to overturn the law that calls his livelihood fraudulent. He argues that fortunetelling is part of his heritage and that prohibiting him from working as a fortuneteller amounts to discrimination.

Is this some religious blue law? Nope — it’s actually quite sensible.

“I don’t think it’s strange for us to have laws that protect against fraud,” said Clifford Royalty, zoning division chief in the Montgomery County attorney’s office, adding that “religion has nothing to do with it. He’s not made that allegation in the lawsuit.”

“The practice is fraudulent,” Royalty said, “because no one can forecast the future.”

Through non-empirical means, that’s right.

So if it’s illegal to make fraudulent claims about the future in Montgomery County, are there no churches as well? Because their claims about the future are far more overblown.

UPDATE: Miss Perfect snipes: “I bet there’s a chiropractor next door.”

How to persuade? And who?

16 August 2009 / / 1 Comment

I ran across two similar articles the other day. One’s about religion, one’s about politics, and both are taking me to task.

Must science declare a holy war on religion?

The so-called New Atheists are attacking the mantra of science and faith being compatible. Others in the science community question the value of confrontation.

Ooo, confrontation. Sounds confronting. It seems that atheist scientists are being mean, publishing books, and loudly declaring that God probably doesn’t exist. Doing science, in other words.

And then there’s this article:

Are liberals seceding from sanity?

The left is crazy to insult white Southerners as a group

which takes liberals to task for South-bashing, and the only example offered is Kevin Drum. But never mind. The article warns us:

They are erring neighbors to be won over, not cretins to be mocked.

At which point I ask: Is it too much to ask for both?

Let’s examine the question that ties these two articles together: how do we act toward people who disagree with us? And there are at least two possible answers:

  1. Be nice, keep quiet, persuade them with reason, and sooner or later they’ll come around if we don’t hurt their feelings and (all together now) alienate them.
  2. Be loud and proud, combat the ridiculous with ridicule, the error with truth, and don’t worry overmuch about stepping on toes.

Now let’s see: where have I heard this conflict before? Ah, yes. It was Amy Sullivan, who warned us that Democrats needed people of faith to win elections. She couldn’t have known how badly that would work for Republicans, who herded the faithful into their tent, only to find that they couldn’t get rid of them. Now the delusional folk are wanting to run the whole show, with predictably disastrous consequences.

So let’s address the religion article first. And just for perspective: these articles ran on the same day as these news stories:

Dozens of rabbis fly over Israel praying to defeat swine flu

The aim of the flight was to stop the pandemic so people will stop dying from it,” Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri was quoted as saying in the mass-circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth.

“We are certain that, thanks to the prayer, the danger is already behind us,” added Batzri.

Mayoral Candidate Mary Falling Wants Creationism Exhibit

TULSA, OK — A mayoral candidate has resurrected a controversy over Creationism at the Tulsa Zoo.

A push to exhibit the Christian story of creation at the Tulsa Zoo failed four years ago. Republican candidate for Tulsa mayor, Anna Falling, is bringing the issue front and center.

It’s the same exhibit and the same arguments, but now it is given from the bully pulpit of a candidate running for mayor.

“Some may ask why this issue during a Mayoral campaign? And I say why not?” said candidate Anna Falling.

For Anna Falling, the road to city hall runs through the Tulsa Zoo. She’s made her Christianity central to her platform and now the exhibit depicting the Christian story of Creationism is her first campaign promise.

“Today we are announcing that God will be glorified in this city. He shall not be shunned. Upon our election, we hereby commit to honoring Him in all ways that He has been dishonored,” said Anna Falling.

These people live in the same century as we do. They have access to all the same knowledge that we do. The Enlightenment was 400 years ago. Sweet reason has had all that time to do its work. The non-confrontational approach has failed. They’re still here, dumber than ever, and trying to take over the world that science has created. By not confronting them, by not speaking out, we will let them win.

On the other hand, by speaking out, by coming out and being heard, by being loud and obnoxious and, yes, confrontational, we have seen our numbers grow. More people now identify as non-religious than at any time in recent history.

If my reading is representative, most of these gains are coming from people who haven’t been religious for a long time, but were reluctant to call themselves atheists or agnostics. For these people, all the noise about religion has forced the issue, and pushed them to re-examine their beliefs. It may have pushed some other people the other way, this is true, but those people probably weren’t convincible anyway. The only people I see complaining about noisy atheists are Fundamentalist Christians — and why wouldn’t they.

See, when you’re in a religion, it’s like you’re in a bubble. A big cushy bubble where it’s nice and soft, and everyone reaffirms your beliefs. And it feels goood. Now someone comes and gives your bubble a push. You have two choices. If you’re a confirmed believer, you retreat further into the bubble. That makes the noise stop. Drat those noisy people! Why must they challenge you? It certainly didn’t make you change, but then what were the odds of that happening? On the other hand, if you’re someone who makes reality your guide, that noise (plus the cognitive dissonance you already have floating around in there) may be just the thing that forces you to see how the facts conflict with what’s going on in your bubble. And when that gets loud enough, you might decide to burst your bubble and change your thinking.

But that only works when it’s obvious that there’s a disconnect between your bubble and the real world. So I’d say that when you have the facts on your side, your cause can only benefit from pushing the facts.

Now what about the South-bashing? This is trickier because while the US South has a definite inclination toward the most dangerous kind of lunacy, I’ve read comments from loads of people in the South who are progressive, and who feel annoyed and embarrassed by the attitudes of their neighbours. So I don’t engage in South-bashing. I’m not a big fan of stereotyping. Not very accurate. But I’ll gladly take on the lunacy. People who are convincible aren’t too crazy about the crazy anyway.

And this is what I think both authors miss: people are different. That is, some people are crazy, and some people are convincible, and they are not the same people.

You can take on the crazy with mockery and ridicule. They won’t like it. But the convincible will notice that you’re making sense. They’ll thank you for it. And all you have to do is tell the truth and tell it loud.

Astroweed lobbying

15 August 2009 / / 2 Comments

When political action committees pay to create the semblance of a public groundswell, it’s called ‘astroturfing‘. It looks like a grassroots movement, but it’s fake.

To extend the metaphor, here’s a neologism that surely deserves a place in the political lexicon: astroweeds. It comes to us courtesy of Salon’s Alex Koppelman.

[W]hat we are seeing falls somewhere between, and essentially combines the worst part of both grass-roots activism and astroturfing — that is, it pairs the slick coordination of elites coupled with the raw, unfiltered advocacy of the masses. What happens when a set of elites coordinate, fund and foment public expression, but encourage just about anyone — whether informed or not, whether skilled communicators or not, whether dedicated to the particular issue under discussion or merely dedicated to resistance for “Waterloo”-style resistance’s sake — and send them into the public arena to express their opinions? We get ugly signs, incoherent questions and blood-curdling screams about the coming end of America as we know it.

Astroweed lobbying has been a terrible distraction in the American discussion on health care. Insane people are getting townhall airtime — and in some cases, subsequent TV appearances — despite being poorly informed, unfocused, and incoherent.

It’s almost enough to drive you to Whorfianism; maybe we do need more words to describe right-wing reality distortion, just by virtue of its prevalence.

Mormons v JW’s: Thinking of the children

11 August 2009 / / 5 Comments

Now that I have a bit of time to relax, I’m going through that Pew Report again. One thing that really stood out for me is how closely Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses show the same kinds of attitudes. They both take the Bible literally, they’re just as likely to attend weekly services, they don’t like evolution or gay people, and they both feel irrationally threatened by ‘Hollywood’.

But one difference is striking: Mormons are retaining their young people, while Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t.

Mormons have a relatively high retention rate of childhood members compared with other major religious traditions. Seven-in-ten of those raised Mormon (70%) still identify as Mormon, a figure roughly comparable to that seen among those raised Catholic (68% are still Catholic) but somewhat lower than among those raised Protestant (80% are still Protestant and 52% are still in the same Protestant family). Jehovah’s Witnesses, by contrast, have a relatively low retention rate (only 37% are still Jehovah’s Witnesses).

That’s really low for the Witnesses, especially when you consider how important kids are for the growth of the movement. (Just look at the Shakers. If you can find them, that is.)

So why is there such a difference between Mormons and JW’s on this score? It can’t be because LDS youth just love church so much. Religion’s kind of a boring and depressing pain in the ass either way.

Is it the door-to-door stuff? Tracting was bad enough as a 20-year-old; it would have been infinitely worse as a teenager in my own town. With my parents.

But I don’t know if that’s it. Someone help me out here.

Humanists, Skeptics, and Atheists: Oh my.

9 August 2009 / / 2 Comments

Richard Saunders and Rachel Dunlop gave a talk as part of Secular Week at UWA. It was great to see so many people turning up, and from so many different groups. There were lots of Humanists, some Skeptics, and plenty of Atheists.

It got me thinking: the distinction between Humanists, Skeptics, and Atheists seems to be an age thing. The humanists (identified by a show of hands) were overwhelmingly older; about 60-something. How cool that must have been, being in the old guard and seeing the growth of rationalism now. The atheists were quite a bit younger, probably 20-somethings. (I’m an outlier.) The skeptics I’m not sure about, but they seemed half-way between.

It seems to me that all these groups are saying mostly the same things, but which one you are depends a lot on what was going on when you became a rationalist. Humanism seems to have a philosophical bent to it that matches with what was going on in the 50’s and 60’s. Skeptics seem to focus specifically on the debunking of dowsing, UFOs, and crystals, things people were talking about in the 70’s and 80’s. And the youth of the atheists seems to match the youth of this New Atheist movement in the 90’s and 00’s.

Does that seem about right to anyone else?

Oh, and if you’re a Freethinker, you’re just really friggin’ old. The only way you could be older is if you’re a Deist, but we don’t see too many of them anymore.

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