National Day of Reason

Religious people in the USA will be pushing the National Day of Prayer into your face all day today. Yes, there has actually been a day mandated by Congress for the establishment of (Christian) prayer in nearly every government legislature, offices, schools and businesses throughout the land because, you know, the prioritizing of religious privilege had not been quite blatant enough before. There is another designation for today - the Day of Reason - but unlike the National Day of Prayer, it hasn't been widely publicized on national media or trumpeted proudly by our elected representatives.

There have been a few notable exceptions to the general bowing and scraping before the intimidation of religious power and a couple of mayors even proclaimed a Day of Reason to balance the national day of prayer. Most elected officials, however, refused to risk their careers by daring to champion the foundational principle upon which this country was built - the recognition that the establishment of authoritarian religion as a basis for any society leads to discrimination, injustice and eventually violence and brutal oppression. Instead, nearly all tugged their virtual forelocks, bowed their heads and murmured spells and incantations to one of the skygods in a show of obsequious respect for the dominant, hypervigilant, easily-offended, dangerously powerful Christian evangelical movement.

Those politicians - like non-Christians and non-believers everywhere - recognise the terrible truth. Religious privilege is so total, so oppressive and so vicious that to even suggest that forcing it on the population in the form of faith-based laws and "social services" might cause real harm to some citizens while reducing every citizen's liberty results in hysterical blowback. Fox "news" wasted no time this morning drawing an imaginary line spuriously connecting the Day of Reason to the Holocaust.

Oh, those silly, angry atheists!

Even the mildest criticism of religion unleashes the vitriolic pushback from religionists - usually in the form of mockery (he's an "atheist" angry at God he claims doesn't exist! harhar), followed by the inevitable comparisons between non-believers and monsters of history*. Hyperbolic language like that is not harmless. That kind of demonization of people who do not share the dominant faith in any society has paved the way for progroms, Inquisitions, burnings, genocides and brutal persecution for all of human history. Unbelievers know it and believers know it, too. They deploy this type of language as both a threat and a promise: Shut up and submit to our god-given authority or you will be targeted for the punishment that we believe your kind of evil deserves.

The religious right has been working tirelessly for several decades to seize the kind of absolute political, economic and social power which they have been imperfectly prevented from grasping since the United States of America was formed, largely thanks to the wisdom of the founding fathers who inserted the Establishment clause into the Constitution. But, theocrats are patient.  After the social revolutions in the 1960's they experienced a resurgence in energy and an implacable determination to take over the country once and for all, rolling back the clock on civil rights (especially women's rights). The first and most important step in their strategy was to promote the false idea that "secularism" is a religion like Christianity - although naturally secularism is a godless (and therefore evil) religious cult. By drawing a false parallel between "faith" and "godless secularism", they laid the groundwork to polarize society into "good" and "bad" camps, where the price of accepting anything outside of religion as possibly good for society was to be put in the "bad" camp. And those in the "bad" camp, being compared to Hitler and all, might just be righteously punished at some point, amirite?

Just for the record...

Seriously, if you truly believe that a group in your community is really just like the Nazis, then isn't it your duty to neutralize them to prevent them from subjecting innocent people to atrocities? Isn't that the reasoning behind the notion of "just war"? In fact, this is the very rationale behind the murders of health workers who provide abortion services. The far right has moved on to demonizing atheists, humanists and non-Christians of every religious stripe, including people who may think they are Christians but who fail to pass the litmus test of the religious right (many are just not true Christians, don't you know). Religious fundamentalists try to attack all of these people under the umbrella of hated secularism but they fail to realize that secularism is favored by many moderate religionists since secularism is, you know, NOT a religion but a philosophy of how best to ensure a just and free society. Hence, the 'not a true Christian' label is applied followed by increasingly pointed attacks on moderate Christians who are just not Christian enough.

In the past decade, as the destructive power of the Christian theocratic movement finally began to be so obvious that even religious moderates could not fail to notice it, a group of atheists began to push back against religious hegemony. Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have all written famous (and infamous) books on the dangers of handing unfettered power over to religious believers. Their work started a movement which has grown slowly but surely - containing both non-theists and theists who share a grave concern for the future of this country if theocrats continue to ride the wave of unquestioned religious privilege to the highest seats of political power.

Last year, Richard Dawkins teamed up with another outspoken atheist - physicist Lawrence Krauss - to make a movie about this movement and the vitally important work it is trying to do. The movie's premiere this week in Toronto quickly brought out the usual attacks and insinuations that without religion, human beings are reduced to hopeless nihilism:

Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss double down on disbelief, the Globe and Mail, April 30, 2013.

New film examines science vs. religion, CNN belief blog, April 29, 2013.

A better and more thoughtful interview came at GlobalNews (Canada): Dawkins, Krauss have faith in 'The Unbelievers',  John R. Kennedy, GlobalNews, April 29, 2013.

Here is the official trailer for The Unbelievers. You need to see this movie!




One final word. It's been true for all of history and is still true today. It doesn't matter what flavor of religion they practice, when they carry their religious beliefs to their logical conclusion, true believers are literally capable of anything:

*I refuse to link to any of the sites which demonize rational, reasonable human beings in this manner, but a simple google search for "evil, atheists" should reveal as much as you need to see to understand that this is a real problem.

Thorsday Tonic - Now This Is A Mayor!

This week, the northeastern United States and Eastern Canada are bracing for a snowstorm projected by some news sources to be "historic" in snowfall and disruption. While nor'easterners are battening down the hatches and preparing for the coming excitement, The Weather Channel and its affiliates NBC and Weather Underground have gleefully "named" the storm Nemo, and have wallpapered the internet and TWC with hysterical "reports" about the possible magnitude of the storm. 

This naming of winter storms is an effort to equate (in the public psyche) regular winter events with massive, life-threatening but far less regular occurrences such as tropical cyclones. So, let's talk about that.

The northeast has endured wicked winter storms for centuries. 

The people really do know what to do and how to handle themselves.

Winter storms are a pain. They also have the potential to cause life-threatening conditions, but nearly always of the sort that can be avoided by sensible people preparing for normal winter events. Slippery roadways and cold, while potentially deadly, are nearly always avoidable or manageable - unlike 120mph hurricane winds taking the roof off your only shelter or massive flooding caused by a cyclone which inundates every shelter for miles. Except in rare circumstances, winter storms are just a costly nuisance. That is the reason why very little is being made of the possible aftermath of "Nemo" - because the truth is that it will cause a lot of headaches for a couple of days and then nearly everyone will get back to normal life. 

In this age of easily roused rabbles and the 24-hour panic-of-the-week news cycle, it is a refreshing change to come across an elected official who behaves like an adult, calmly assessing the situation and then sensibly describing the reality instead of throwing out hyperbolic statements to score political points. Upon learning that a similar storm was bearing down on his city a few weeks ago, Mayor Dennis O'Keefe of St. John's advised the citizens to be prepared for a lot of snow and possible power outages, stay off the roads and try to enjoy the unexpected day at home. 

 Mayor O'Keefe: leading by example

“Enjoy the day and 
get ready for the clean up. 
Don’t panic, 
don’t sweat it. 
The power will come back.” 
Mayor Dennis O'Keefe






Solid advice. Most valuable, however, was the Mayor's calm demeanor. You've been through this a hundred times, he seemed to say. You know how it goes. There is nothing to be gained from scurrying around in a panic. There will be plenty to do later. Get ready, then relax and rest up for the work to come. That night, the storm came and the storm raged and there was, indeed, a "heavy snowfall". Nearly two feet fell over most of Mayor O'Keefe's city. The wind howled -  blowing heavy wet snow in front of it. The power did go out in a lot of places, but people were mostly prepared.

People hunkered down, lit candles, fired up the grill and made hot beverages. They joked with their neighbors, embraced the unexpected long weekend, griped about losing power or rejoiced about power restored. Facebook friends offered to deliver hot food and drinks to friends without power, and everyone kept tabs on everyone else in case help was needed. People settled down for a long winter's night. As they have done for years.

And in the morning, the clean up began. The power did come back - not as quickly as some people would have liked, understandably - but it did come back thanks to the efforts of linemen and power crews who braved the elements to repair lines thrown down by the gale force winds. Neighbours and friends worked together again to shovel driveways and dig out cars and clear a pathway to the front door.

"Nemo" may dump up to two feet of snow on parts of New England before it finally pushes off to the north Atlantic. But, like Newfoundlanders, northeasterners are used to winter storms. They know what to do!

Whipping people into a frenzy with hyperbolic projections of "historic" storms is really not helpful for anyone but those who stand to benefit from increased viewer ratings (ahem, NBC). The northeast has endured wicked winter storms for centuries. The people really do know what to do and how to handle themselves. The damage and the scope of the coming storm may indeed be greater than most storms in the past, but not so much greater that it should be used to pad TV ratings, stoke the panic machinery and drive storm-related purchases. The stuff you did to prepare for the regular old snowstorms before the naming nonsense began in 2012 is still the stuff you will always need.

It's probably going to be a blizzard. Judge yourselves accordingly. Stay informed and stay prepared, but don't let the panic-mongering of modern commerce rattle you. You know what to do. Do it.

Preparedness tips from Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency here.

Christian Conservatives Hate The World...Therefore Climate Change Denial

"Immediately after the distress of those days " 'the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.' 30 "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. Matthew 24:29-31:29

This month in Scientific American magazine, there is a fascinating in-depth account of the history of the Christian conservative anti-science movement which has ebbed and flowed in this country for nearly 200 years. The concluding paragraph sums up this critical issue very well:

In an age when science influences every aspect of life—from the most private intimacies of sex and reproduction to the most public collective challenges of climate change and the economy—and in a time when democracy has become the dominant form of government on the planet, it is important that the voters push elected officials and candidates of all parties to explicitly state their views on the major science questions facing the nation. By elevating these issues in the public dialogue, U.S. citizens gain a fighting chance of learning whether those who would lead them have the education, wisdom and courage necessary to govern in a science-driven century and to preserve democracy for the next generation. (Shawn Lawrence Otto, America's Science Problem).

"President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise
of the oceans and to heal the planet." What a good joke!

NPR has a related story today about conservative climate change denial and how it is affecting the 2012 election. At the RNC convention in Tampa, the guffaws from the Republican faithful at Mitt Romney's thinly veiled coded "joke" pointed to not only global climate change denial, but to an even more sinister truth about conservative Christian theology. They laugh about denial, because it is a political tool to further their religious agenda. It is possible that many conservatives understand very well that global warming is happening, but that fact is actually a source of gleeful satisfaction to the true believer, not a cause for concern. So why do they publicly deny it? The policy of denial is necessary in order to block any efforts by sane people to slow down or stop human activity that contributes to global warming. Evangelicals see this climate crisis as part of the end times, the most highly anticipated and welcome event in the conservative Christian mind.

There is something I think people must understand every time they read examples of the often incoherent dishonesty of Christian apologists as they deny the reality of global climate change: Christians want the world to end. In their religious delusion, they really do believe that it is necessary for the world to be destroyed in order to bring about the return of their Messiah, and they welcome the end of the world. 

This truth cannot be overstated: conservative Christians despise the World™. They deny the importance of this mortal life. It is a religion of self-loathing where the only relief for the wretched sinner is not in this life - on this earth - but in another "life" after death.  The entire point of Christianity is to deny that this life is all we may have, to disparage the efforts of human beings to improve this life for themselves and others, and to work toward bringing about the end of this world, so that their bronze-age mythical "prophesies" can be brought to fruition. This is not hyperbolic fear-mongering. Christians are open about this. They consider it to be "good news".

Standing up to the propaganda of religious madness,
the President is the adult on the national stage.

In the larger conservative movement, there was a concerted effort to undermine efforts to slow global warming combined with propaganda "education" designed to mislead people into thinking that there is a scientific "controversy" over whether global warming was an actual phenomenon. There is no controversy about global climate change: the scientific community is unanimous that it is happening and that it has been greatly accelerated by human activity. As with their successful effort to convince more than half the population of the lie that Evolutionary theory is scientifically "controversial", conservative groups managed to undermine the trust that people once had in scientific research, leaving the population adrift in a sea of religious lunacy and doubt.

From time to time, a thinking Christian speaks up, trying to sound the alarm, but even knowing how much is at stake, he is careful not to offend the powerful religious majority. Even the rational Christians who claim not to agree with the extremists will not break away from the power and privilege that belonging to that group gives them. They know on what side their bread is buttered and they hope to continue to perform a balancing act between what they know is morally right and their desire to remain aligned with power. The agenda of Christian fundamentalism has become a juggernaut and it has swept all other voices to the fringes.

Global warming denial propaganda funded by
conservative groups with Christian ties like the
Heartland Institute helped to sway public opinion
against the scientific reality.

Every effort that science makes to warn about or mitigate global warming is met with fierce resistance by powerful lobbyists backed by radical fundamentalist Christian groups. One fact canot be stressed enough: These groups want the world to come to an end. With the irrational zeal of true believers, they welcome mass death, destruction and horror because they imagine themselves to be the "elect" - the tiny group of their god's favored people who will not be destroyed in the cataclysm that they are doing their utmost to bring about.

There won't be any satisfaction for the rest of us if and when these fools discover that they and their descendants will perish along with all those they hate if they succeed in setting the world on a final path to global catastrophe. It won't matter that they were dangerously, madly wrong and we were right. The only thing that matters is that we find the courage to speak up now and take action now to slow down the disaster.

A few items to read and ponder:

Fact: June 2012 was the 4th hottest month since record-keeping began in 1880.  It was the 328th consecutive month that global temperatures have remained above the 20th century average.

Here is the sort of story which will warm the cockles of the fundamentalist's heart, while it chills the blood of people who care about humanity.

Mother Jones, The state of climate change denial.

Antiscience Beliefs Jeopardize U.S. Democracy, Shawn Lawrence Otto, Scientific American, October 17, 2012.

Equal time to truth and bullshit, from No brain left behind.

Tuesday Tonics - Throwing Darts in the Dark?

via Trenchant Atheist, Faith vs. Science: A Difference in Darts

A Lifeboat For Humanity?

Hank Fox's post Lifeboat of Knowledge, Dinghy of Power will give you much to think about. Like this:

"A lifeboat as in: A conveyance that rescues or gathers something valuable from an area of danger, a place where it will be drowned or sunk, and brings it to safe harbor.
  But THE Lifeboat as in: The thing that saved the knowledge and techniques of Science.
  Now I can make my argument as: We may have had flashes of science as far back at the third millennium B.C., but we didn’t have The Lifeboat until about 350 years ago."

And this:

" So: The Catholic Church’s 2,000-year-old Dinghy of Power goes on. But also, the dinghies of all those younger religions — Islam, and the Mormon Church, and even that mind-control turd Scientology, recently crapped out by SF writer L. Ron Hubbard.
  How? Just this: They found an interesting new way to convince people to fall under their sway. Rather than terrorizing them directly – “Obey me or I’ll burn you and your whole family to death in a fire!” (which works only as long as you’re willing to actually follow through and burn some people, and only as long as you live) …
  … they discovered you could terrorize people indirectly. Very different from scaring them with direct physical threats, this was scaring them and then posing as the friend who could save them.
  Hey, *I* won’t burn you and your whole family to death in a fire, but This Other Guy will. This huge, dangerous guy that you can’t hope to avoid … because he gets you after you die. He can see in the dark, follow you everywhere. He knows everything and he can hear your thoughts. Plus, almost everything you’re doing pisses him off, and you don’t have a chance in Hell of knowing the good things from the bad … without me."

And this, in response to the frequent derailing rebuttal to the "Dark Ages" argument that Wait! Islam produced science and mathematics during the "Dark Ages" (leaving aside for the moment the obvious point that most people refer to them as the "Christian" dark ages for that very reason):

" For much of human history, Knowledge served as a threat to Power. What do you do when individuals rise up and say “Hey, Candy-Titties doesn’t even make sense! Besides, I just discovered that the Earth isn’t the center of the universe!” For it to be a true Dinghy of Power, you have to squash that individual — and his discovery — right away.
  So for most of human history, religion (and, yes, superstition) was the choppy sea on which each new discovery attempted to bob and float, but was instead swamped and sunk out of sight.
  Doesn’t mean there weren’t fantastic inventions and discoveries in past eras. Does mean they were continually lost or suppressed.
  For instance: Kudos for the early intellectual advances of the Arabs — astronomy! mathematics! — and for those of so many other peoples over the earth. But where did they all go? Those discoveries remained virtual secrets as far as larger humanity was concerned. They vanished. Something sank them.
  It was only after we cobbled together the Lifeboat of Knowledge that such discoveries had a place of rescue. A place where one piece could be placed on another, and something built with it."

The threat that the resurgence of fundamentalist religion in the world poses to humanity cannot be over-emphasized. Hank's post is a great way for me to start working on posts about education and the suppression of knowledge which have been beating against the wall of my brain for months, but which just seemed too darn huge to get down on paper. Maybe I will try to break them up into smaller bits.  The trouble with the power and reach of religion is...it's power and reach. Religious influence has always been ubiquitous in society, but its power and ability to control the future of humankind has reached renewed ascendency.

I really am convinced that we have reached a point where the level of power that religious fundamentalism holds has achieved critical mass. Either we act now to reduce that power, or we face the dawning of another dark age.