SSA2011 is nigh!

Today's the start of the Secular Student Alliance Annual Conference.  Any readers going to be there?

I plan on going to as many sessions as I can - it looks like I'll be doing a lot of room hopping in Hitchcock Hall over the next couple of days.

I might swing by the Union to say hello during my lunch break today as well.

Thoughts on the Norway attacks

And so it came to pass that the bombing and massacre in Norway were carried out by a homegrown, lone-wolf terrorist with anti-Muslim sentiment, contrary to conjecture about al-Qaʿida or other Islamist groups masterminding this horror.  I have to admit that Islamist terrorism was the first thing that popped into my head when I first heard that there was a bombing, but I wasn't so reckless as to make public declarations about it before I knew the details.  I would have hoped that professional journalists would hold themselves to an even higher standard than an ordinary citizen, but who am I kidding?

Left-wing commentators have been coming down hard with criticism toward anyone who incorrectly speculated that Islamic terrorists were behind the attack, solidifying their view that Christian extremists are just as bad. But is Anders Behring Breivik really a Christian extremist?  Anders Behring Breivik thinks so.

How sincere are his religious convictions?  From what I've gathered by skimming his manifesto, he was just an all-around deranged madman who admittedly hedged his bets on Pascal's wager before what he thought would be a suicide mission in the name of "cultural Christians" against the threat of multiculturalism.  Regardless of how much of a True Believer™ Breivik was, attempts to associate or dissociate him with Christianity are pointless; Jon Stewart did a great job pointing out how ridiculous it has become:

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Right-wing pundits were quick to suggest that Breivik was right about the Islamic threat in Europe, though bombing government buildings and massacring children isn't a very effective way of fighting that threat.  If he believed that his country was under siege by Muslim invaders, why didn't he take the "fight" to his perceived enemy?  What did he think he was accomplishing by murdering all those people?

For what it's worth, I can somewhat understand the concern about multiculturalism - the "live and let live" attitude many Western governments have toward immigrants with no pressure to assimilate can lead to de facto segregated communities in which custom may supersede local law.  I've heard reports of troubling inicidents in majority Muslim communities in other countries such as the UK before, though I'm not sure how factual they are; similar reports coming from Dearborn, Michigan are mostly sourced from a Christian group with its own agenda.  Concern is one thing; paranoia is another.

Here's hoping that this atrocity is an isolated incident and not the start of a wider right-wing terror campaign.  The last thing any secular society needs right now is the additional threat of self-styled Crusaders attacking civilians.

Being a centrist, or: My opinionated nonpartisan ego

According to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, people who don't pick a side in polarized politicking are the cancer that is killing America.  He points to the media outlets which try (in vain) to maintain an air of impartiality in politics reporting, and concludes that centrists are devoted to a "cult of balance" and are "unwilling to sacrifice their treasured pose of being above the fray."

I've heard this argument from liberals before.  Angry because I show capacity for reason, criticize the other side, and yet don't support their party either, it dawns on them that I must have some inflated view of myself, that taking a stance on a contentious issue is somehow beneath me.  In their minds, I walk a tightrope of neutrality, wary of any opinion that might knock me from my lofty position and into the mudslinging match below.

Bull hockey.  I'm as opinionated as any of them about the hot-button issues of the day; the difference is that I try to base my views on what I observe and not on party dogma.  It doesn't mean that I obsessively try to balance the scales in every debate or scramble frantically to point an equal number of fingers at both parties.

The specific issue on which he calls out centrists is regarding the looming debt ceiling crisis, and how we seem intent on giving equal blame to both Democrats and Republicans for bringing us to brink of default.  How dare we, as it's obviously totally the GOP's doing and we should support the heroic Democrats' effort to accommodate those right-wing tyrants' demands!

Not so fast, Paul.  You're right on one thing: the stubborn GOP congressmen, prodded by their Tea Party handlers, are the ones who threaten to topple our nation's economy in their stubbornness on the debt ceiling.  The GOP certainly hasn't been the party of spending cuts in the past decade, and that doesn't absolve the Democrats of their failure to control spending either, but pointing out that they're both to blame for getting us to this precipice doesn't mean that centrists don't recognize which one threatens to push us off of the ledge!

He also points out that we've already got a "centrist" President, in the form of Barack "moderate-Republican-in-disguise" Obama.  That's nice, except that politics isn't a straight line on which we can plot politicians and see who comes closest to the sacred midpoint.  I don't want a candidate who pretends to be the "average" of two extremes (they all do that when pandering for votes!); I want one who rips the good planks out of both major parties' platforms, leaves the rotten ones behind, and builds a new, stable platform that most of the country can stand on.  I know that that's just a fanciful dream, so we're just going to have to settle for him for now.

Finally, Paul, don't confuse the news reporters with the general electorate.  It's the big corporate journalists' job to pretend to be impartial and present both sides as equally as they can.  The frustrated swing voters, however, don't pick a side because they see through the glossy facade that both parties affix to their platforms and candidates.

If you don't like the fact that I view Democrats with the same skepticism I direct at Republicans, then perhaps you ought to look at why so many people feel that no one in Washington has their interests in mind.

</rant>

Sorry, all.  That column irritated me more than it should have.

An option for Americans who are sick of partisan politics?

The two-party system in this country frustrates me to no end.  Not only do I find myself unable to support the ideology of either major party (it's tough being an atheist and not being a faithful liberal in this country), but I can't even trust their candidates to be honest about what they stand for.

The result is a political climate that focuses more on who's talking than on what's being said, and many good ideas flounder and die amidst volleys of nastiness and name-calling.

I hate to admit it, but I've become so disillusioned with the state of American politics that I almost don't feel that voting in national elections is worth my time.  I just want to let the Republicrats continue their stalemate in Washington while focusing on the issues I can help change, and I end up just casting a ballot for whichever side I think is the lesser evil (and then usually find out I was wrong).

And then, whilst skimming the news, I come across this:

If this kind of idiocy by elected officials sends you into a hair-pulling rage and leaves you wishing that we had more options today than our two-party system is putting forward — for instance, a party that would have offered a grand bargain on the deficit two years ago, not on the eve of a Treasury default — not only are you not alone, but help may be on the way.

Thanks to a quiet political start-up that is now ready to show its hand, a viable, centrist, third presidential ticket, elected by an Internet convention, is going to emerge in 2012.

There's an internet-based movement called Americans Elect 2012 that seeks to smash the two-party Scylla-and-Charybdis mold we've been stuck in for generations.  In a nutshell, it's a group of Republican, Democrat, libertarian, and independent voters attempting to form a consensus and jointly put a candidate on the ballot next fall who will actually get something done.

Part of me is doing the fist-pump, shouting "woo hoo!", and wanting to crack open a few beers with like-minded friends in celebration.  Part of me is skeptical of this movement's chances of success, and thinking that I shouldn't get my hopes up. 

Still, it's nice to entertain the notion that the next election might not be a choice of the lesser evil, and that I might have a positive alternative to a write-in vote for Cthulhu.

For what it's worth, any American readers who are frustrated with the current state of politics might want to visit the site and answer some of the policy questions.

Ghana is reportedly staging mass arrests of homosexuals

Via Blag Hag:

If this article is accurate, it appears that Ghana's government is taking notes from the Inquisition, colonial-era witch hunts, and fascism:

Ghana’s Western Region Minister, Paul Evans Aidoo MP has ordered the immediate arrest of all homosexuals in the country’s west.

Aidooo has tasked Ghana’s Bureau of National Investigations and security forces to round up the country’s gay population and has called on landlords and tenants to inform on people they suspect of being homosexuals.

Never mind everything that's wrong with arresting adults for consensual relations with other adults; encouraging citizens to rat each other out like this will create an environment of fear among the people there. Will a quarrel with a neighbor lead him to accuse you of homosexuality? Should you accuse him first out of self-preservation?

They won't notice it coming until the undesirables are all gone and they have no one left to despise but each other.

While looking for other articles on this matter (I tend to be skeptical of stories that can only be traced back to a single news source), I stumbled across this opinion piece:

Ghanaians are first and foremost Afrikan people and must be proud and respect their Afrikan culture and value systems AND MUST NOT allow themselves to be hoodwinked into accepting something that is alien to their culture and value systems.

I've seen this kind of rhetoric before, and not just from the Christian and Muslim hardliners. Even African-American atheists have promoted this view that tolerance of homosexuality is an affront to the "Afrikan" way of life.

Sorry, but human rights aren't culturally relative. Celebrate your heritage all you like, but your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of another person's nose.

An emotive tribute to three decades of the Space Shuttle

Via Bad Astronomy:

I have to admit, the video had me a bit misty-eyed. I thought they handled the Challenger and Columbia tragedies very tactfully.

I don't know when we'll have a successor to the Space Shuttle program, but I'm hopeful that the future will hold missions to destinations far more distant than Low Earth Orbit.

The trouble with religious and magical thinking (Part 1 - Christianity/Protestantism)

This post is the first in what I hope will be a series. I intend to examine a few of the major religious faiths that often ensnare the minds of the world. I'm not trying to attack people for their faith, but rather to understand why these belief systems appeal to people in the first place. Many people (often otherwise rational thinkers) embrace religions without being brought up in them or being coerced into them; what would make people want to convince themselves that such beliefs are true?

Ideally, I would like to have a discussion with a devout member of each religion before writing about it in this series.

Conversation with a Protestant

I recently (by which I mean a few months ago) had a discussion with a devout Christian who is by most measures quite intelligent, evidenced by his profession (computer programming) and by his skills as a conversationalist. He's studied his faith, studied other faiths, and come to the conclusion that his faith must be the true one.

To be honest, I'm not sure how our conversation turned to religion, but I was very interested in what he had to say once he got started on the topic. I didn't bring up the fact that I'm an atheist, and I'm not sure if my reputation preceded me or not, as he didn't bring it up either.

I'm sure that from his point of view, his statements revolved around reasons why his religion is true; from mine, they revolved around reasons why people should want it to be true.

About those "I Voted" stickers here in Ohio...

I wrote previously about the "Elect Your Sticker" online poll being run by my state to choose a new design for those small, adhesive badges of honor you get for doing your democratic duty.  Two of the proposed designs prominently feature Ohio's state motto: "With God, All Things Are Possible".  I and a number of other secular Ohioans are annoyed (though judging by the wording of their headline, Fox News wants people to think we're in uproar about it) that even something as trivial as an "I Voted" sticker has to endorse the majority religion's deity.  It's as if Christian activists want to use every opportunity they can to rub our noses in the fact that we non-Christians are outsiders in their culture, even as we go to the polling stations on Election Day.

As minor an annoyance as it is, I still pop back on to the Elect Your Sticker website on occasion to cast another vote for #3 and see how the stats are.  When I did so today, I noticed something peculiar:

Last time I checked, both leading stickers had over 500 "likes", and now, suddenly, the leading secular one has dropped down into the double digits.  Seems a little odd, no?

As you can see, the most popular religious sticker is winning again, but that's to be expected when its supporters are in the majority.

The voting ends August 8, and I'm thinking this is the last time I'm going to waste blog bandwidth on the subject.  Anyone who wants to vote for the godless "I ♥ Voting" stickers making a clever visual pun of our state's cordiform silhouette can go do so as often as they want.

Satan wants YOU to care about the environment!

This afternoon, courtesy of Martin S. Pribble, my Google Reader feed was graced by this alarming little nugget of religious nutballery. I'd like to share:

So there you have it, folks. The global movement to reduce pollution and use our planet's resources more responsibly is really a master scheme by the Devil to establish his New World Order. And how dare those environmentalist scientists suggest that our planet can't accommodate an infinite number of humans!

I personally found it hilarious when they talked about children being targeted because they are susceptible to deception, and accused environmentalists of using bad science, exaggeration, myth, and outright lies to push their worldview. Hmm, who else does that sound like? 0=)

Mr. Pribble didn't want to have a live link to these loons' website giving them hits from his blog. I personally don't care if they track hits back to me. You're welcome, guys! I'll bet you won't link to any of your critics, because that would give your followers the opportunity to think for themselves.

In all seriousness, I will admit that I am skeptical of some environmentalists' claims. I think that some of them do exaggerate the gravity of problems such as global warming to drum up support for solutions (and I'll have to see remarkable evidence of imminent danger before I support anything as rash as geoengineering measures). That's not to say that I'm not even more skeptical (cynical?) of their opponents who pretend that our activities never negatively affect the biosphere.

Legitimate criticisms of the more extreme elements of the environmentalist movement are one thing; blind religious denial that we're doing anything wrong is another. The belief that an all-powerful father figure wants our species to consume the planet into ruin is going to encourage a lot of people to behave irresponsibly, and its spread among American Christians will further divorce the faith's adherents from reality. As if this country's Religious Right wasn't doing enough in its war on science...

Animal liberation extremists launch intimidation campaign against biomed students

Via OSU's "On Research" blog:

The campaign, spurred by an activist website called Negotiation Is Over, urged its followers to attack.

Students, the website said, are “infinitely more susceptible to negative and inflammatory publicity,” and  that “when education fails, smear campaigns can be highly effective.  Abusers [meaning science students involved in animal research] have forfeited all rights to privacy and peace of mind.”


Led by activist Camille Marino in Florida, this proposed attack on students seeking an education, and possibly a career, in the sciences was broadly seen as stepping over the line.  While activists have destroyed property, harassed scientists and businesses and proposed violence for years, targeting students in this way somehow seemed worse.

NiO is encouraging like-minded vigilantes to target students of biomedical sciences, what the site's author describes as "the soft underbelly" of the "animal abuse industry".  They've been passing out handbills on university campuses across the country enticing cash-strapped undergrads to spy on biomed students and help NiO assemble dossiers on these "soft targets", presumably to post this information on their blog for every ecoterrorist in the world to see.

NiO paints a sordid picture of scientists who experiment on animals; they're portrayed as sadistic Dr. Mengele cutouts, willfully foregoing other types of testing (examples?) in order to torture animals for profit (?).  Marino and her site's commenters talk about animal researchers like they're nonpersons, fair game for all manner of retaliation for their "crimes".

 

If you are willing to give that eyesore of a blog the time of day, you'll notice that many posts speak in the passive voice about the unfortunate things that befall animal researchers; they may receive threats, their families may be harassed, their homes may be vandalized, and so forth.  Their site logo, featuring a masked and hooded figure holding a lit match, is cleverly suggestive of arson.

In reality, they're implicitly advocating far worse than "smear campaigns", but the lawyer who runs the organization is very careful about her wording to avoid actually committing a crime herself.  Marino can disavow all responsibility for any nutcase who reads her site and then feels inspired to go burn down a grad student's home.

These people are using the same inflammatory rhetoric displayed by anti-abortion extremists about abortion doctors and by radical Islamists about blasphemers.  If I were a biomed student, I know I'd be taking Krav Maga classes and applying for a CCW license right about now.

I'd be happy to see experimentation on live animals come to an end when it's replaced by a better system.  Until then, I have no ethical objection to it if the research is saving human lives.

A stone at rest gathers no blood

Today is International Day Against Stoning, part of a campaign to raise awareness (and, in turn, condemnation) of the barbaric practice of battering people to death with rocks.  It's a striking anachronism to see it listed on Wikipedia's capital punishment article as a "current" death penalty method.

It turns my stomach to imagine myself half-buried in a pit, feeling the impacts shatter my bones and teeth and rupture blood vessels.  It's even more revolting to imagine myself in the mob surrounding the victim, my peers coercing me to pick up a stone and throw it at the shrouded, bleeding figure in the pit.

It's likely the oldest form of execution employed by our species, and though it predates Islam by eons its continued use today seems to be most prevalent in theocratic Islamic countries.  I hate to jump to conclusions about blaming religion for human evils that could exist independent of such beliefs, but there's really no way around it in this case: fundamentalist Islam is the most prominent force keeping stoning alive today.  The penalty of death by stoning is implemented not for only the most heinous crimes, but for mere violations of social norms.  Adultery, fornication, homosexuality, being a rape victim, and refusing to go along with an arranged marriage are all offenses punishable with death by stoning in some parts of the Islamic world.

What sickens me the most about this brutality is that I'm practically helpless to stop it.  What are we to do, invade every country in which stoning still occurs?  That won't fix it.  Such a conflict could go on forever.  Is it too much to hope for that our species could cast this horror aside once and for all?  Or is it only realistic to expect that it will endure in some communities on and on into the future?

For now, we can at least put strong diplomatic pressure on countries like Iran whose governments do have the power to curb the practice.  It's worked before, or at least is working so far for one case.  Apart from foolhardy armed intervention, it's all we can really do.

One Nation, Indivisible: a godless perspective on America's heritage

"We must, indeed, hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." - Benjamin Franklin

I had originally started this a week ago as an "atheism and patriotism" Independence Day post; as I continued writing and fleshing out ideas, it became something different.

Just over 235 years ago, a group of colonial elite first declared the U.S. as an independent entity from the British Crown. The armed insurrection had started over a year earlier, and this Declaration gave it legitimacy and a united sense of purpose. People from the various colonies had their own (sometimes conflicting) motives and their own ideas of how they should be governed, but they all agreed that monarchical British rule would not be part of their future.

The story of this country's birth is a fascinating one, albeit overly romanticized in popular culture. I know that it is irrational to have pride in something so circumstantial as being born within a country's borders, but it's an emotion I can't help but feel; chalk it up to a sentimental attachment to my homeland and the people in it. Our system may have its inherent flaws and checkered past, but it's less wrong than many of the abysmal alternatives we've seen throughout history. Reason can flourish here, even if it must occasionally struggle against ingrained ignorance for survival.

Hypocrisy about the environment?

This post by Heather Mac Donald over at Secular Right is an indictment of the pseudo-environmentalism of many liberals, and an interesting perspective coming from an avowed conservative. It paradoxically put a ruminative smirk on my face. It's precisely the sentiment that crossed my mind one evening in Ann Arbor when I noticed that Whole Foods keeps their store lit up all night with what must be a kilowatt worth of bulbs even when they're closed.

It's a thought that's crossed my mind before: even though I try to do simple things to reduce my negative environmental impact, is it hypocritical of me to expect big government or big business to make bigger proportional sacrifices than I do?

If truly “caring for the environment” required anyone to give up his core lifestyle, the response would be: “Sorry, no can do.” The lifestyle changes that people are willing to embrace—recycling; driving a cool Prius; possibly, in a few cases, taking one’s own bags to the farmer’s market—are things that we are already willing to do. If saving the planet required us to turn off our computers and wireless devices, or running the electricity just 8 hours a day, no one would do it.

I do disagree with her idea of using higher gas taxes to increase demand for fuel efficiency; that's ultimately going to harshly punish blue-collar workers who depend on trucks and other vehicles for their livelihood while being a mere inconvenience for better-off suburbanites who do more unnecessary driving. She does, however, make an excellent point about the superficiality of the "green" label and the way the cultural elite brag about their "carbon footprint" as models do their dress size.

I recycle, turn the lights out when I leave the room, try not to waste water, and so forth. I make an effort not to directly make things worse in my day-to-day life, but can I honestly condemn polluting corporations when I'm unwilling to give up luxuries they provide? Is it fair to punish a firm for acting rationally in response to demand from its consumer base?

I think that we humans need to accept that we're an invasive species in most ecosystems on this planet. We don't adapt to our environment - we adapt our environment to us. We wreak ecological havoc just by being here. If we're going to be serious about mitigating that havoc, we should be promoting individual discipline to replace our culture of reckless consumerism. The solution isn't using government regulations to strong-arm industry; it's getting the general public to realize that environmental responsibility is an act of collective self-defense against a planet that could easily go on living without us.

The interblags are on fire again!

Just last week I wrote about how petty controversies within the online atheist community tend to explode into all-out take-no-prisoners no-holds-barred flamewars.

It happened again shortly thereafter, like a forest fire breaking out just after a Smokey Bear PSA.  This time it involves pretty much every blogger whose blog I read; even Richard Dawkins himself felt the need to get involved in the melee by making snide comments on Pharyngula.  And I can't help but #smh at PZ's Twitter feed.

Really, people?  We seem to get angrier with each other over tone and word choice when we disagree than we do at the religious establishment for their usual nonsense.  Maybe it's because we're used to it from the pious ones and expect better of one another?

To sum up "Elevatorgate" for the uninformed: Atheist and skepticism advocate Rebecca Watson was propositioned in an elevator at a skeptics conference.  She wasn't interested and was kind of creeped out, and mentioned the incident in a video essentially saying "guys, don't do stuff that creeps women out.  It makes them not want to come to conferences."  Another atheist and freethought advocate, Stef McGraw, wrote a blog post accusing her of overreacting to the elevator guy's advances.  Watson then called McGraw out on it in her keynote speech at the conference, and then the internet exploded into a storm of rage, feminist and misogynist and everything in between, on a scale unprecedented even by the earlier Gendergate row.

Drama, drama, drama.  I'm hoping that this has finally blown over, and that the next gender-related faux pas doesn't flood the secular/skeptic movement with even more venom than this.