Thoughts on the Foundation for Democratic Advancement Podcast….

Last night I was a panelist on the monthly FDA podcast (link to follow once it is on iTunes) discussing the question of whether or not political parties based on religious principles should be allowed to form in democratic countries. Besides me, there were a couple of representatives from the Party of Concerned Christians (Artur and Jim) that do indeed base their platform directly on the Bible, one very excitable member of FDA (Dan) and the moderator and founder of FDA (Stephen).

An interesting topic, but I think the question is ill-formed. I have no problem with the formation of any political party regardless of platform (within the limits set out on free speech). I think placing any unreasonable limitations on what a political party can stand for (again, with the same caveats) is fundamentally and fatally antidemocratic. Dan was the only dissenter on this, and I think he’s plain wrong. What he’s afraid of is theocracy. No argument there, particularly if one uses the Bible as the basis of political platforms. The two Christian members of the panel disagreed, of course, but offered absolutely no substance in rebuttal. Let’s face it – the Old Testament is strong evidence of a patently evil god and if that god were to exist there is no way I would possibly even consider worshiping it.

The Historicity of the Baptism of Jesus – The Criterion of Embarrassment

I have just finished reading Paul Tobin’s excellent book The Rejection of Pascal’s Wager (who of us godless Sodomites isn’t sick and tired of all its different flavors by now?). I have a fairly substantial library on biblical criticism, including books by Ehrman, Helms and Callaghan. But I especially like this one as it gets into how scholars have come to the conclusions more than most, and in a manner not as dry as a turkey cooked two hours too long (like say Burton L. Mack’s Who Wrote the New Testament?).

Dinosaur & Human Coexistence Conference

On the weekend of September 9, I and a fellow member of the Center for Inquiry attended a creationism “conference” (I’d have called it a lecture series, but hey, whatever). My overall impression is that if this is all that creationists have, evolutionary theory is not at all in jeopardy. Of course, I never thought it was. I just wanted to experience what people who believe the Earth is a mere 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs co-existed with humans had to say. The whole thing could only be accepted by those who have drunk the Kool Aid. There was nothing convincing in anything I saw, and some stretched my credulity well past the breaking point.

Why I despise moral relativism

It’s getting tougher and tougher to find the time to blog, and I really wanted to get this one out. A while ago I was part of a discussion course entitled “God, Atheism and Morality” that used Sam Harris’ book The Moral Landscape as a back-drop, as well as Richard Holloway’s Godless Morality. Though Holloway still has some religious baggage to unload that keeps his goal of a morality that encompasses humanity out of reach, he’s a Christian (an Anglican bishop) who largely gets it. There are problems with Harris’ book as well, but as Matt Dillahunty notes he provides us with a language for discussing these issues.

I wish I had kept up with the class in my blog. Throughout the coarse my view of Harris’ book changed significantly. For instance, I agree with Massimo Pigliucci’s view that Science can not determine the values we should hold, but I think Massimo undervalues Science in evaluating the effects of values we do hold. Harris bizarrely never mentions the application of the social sciences to this evaluation, and I have a hard time seeing how a reduction of morality to the neurosciences can have anywhere near as much value as some of the work that Gregory Paul has done. But while I have mixed feelings about the contents of The Moral Landscape, Harris opened up a dialog that needed opening.

Math Fail: 30% of Morinville is Catholic = 100% of Schools Are Catholic

Hi folks! I haven’t written in some time, but I thought perhaps this might be of interest. To keep those who might balk at the length of this diatribe interested enough to read further, I’ll just say that a situation has arisen in a town called Morinville, Alta, where it is not possible for parents to select a secular education for their children. For those that want to skip the history lesson, scroll thine eyes down five paragraphs. But the history lesson itself will surprise many people. I met someone who recently moved to here from British Columbia who had no idea that Alberta has a faith-based publicly-funded school system.

Canada does not have an explicit church-state separation. I wish it did. Had the Canadian Constitution been drawn up now rather than 30 years ago, I think it would. Religiopolitics in the US scares the bejesus out of us. Well, most of us. The current constitution relies very heavily on a previous act of British Parliament passed in 1867, the so-called British North America (BNA) Act. In it, it allows for religion-based school systems to remain publicly funded. This was a historical reality at the time, but has long since become an anachronism. Regions were settled by people of a single predominant faith and built public institutions before they entered Confederation and became provinces. These were predominantly Catholic, with a bit of Anglican thrown into the mix. The BNA Act provided for publicly-funded separate school systems for schools of religious faiths that existed prior to their entering into Confederation. (This led to an interesting situation when about 30 years after Manitoba entered into Confederation the provincial government decided to cease funding the Catholic school system, causing Pope Leo XIII to write a papal encyclical condemning the whole action. Fortunately, no one listened….)

Here we go, once more into the breach…

Yesterday the Government of Canada lost a vote of confidence over the new budget, necessitating an election on May 2.

While I don’t know yet who will be getting my vote, I most certainly know which party I will not be voting for, putting me squarely in the ABC (Anybody But Conservative) camp. The current regime is the most undemocratic group I have ever seen in Canada. The sheer contempt this Prime Minister has shown parliament and the citizens of Canada is appalling in the extreme:

• The ill-fated attempt to end party funding (the obvious result of which would have been that party policy would be dictated by those “donating” the most money to a party and not about doing what is best for the electorate);
• Not once, but twice prorogued parliament not for what proroguing is supposed to be used for (end the session when the business of the house is finished early), but to cynically avoid a non-confidence vote in the House in 2008 and again in 2009 to avoid answering tough questions about the Afghan detainee affair. In both cases legislation was still waiting to be dealt with by Parliament, thus shutting down the House violated the spirit of prorogation entirely and abrogated the rights of Canadians to ask questions and demand answers of the government.;
• Witholding information asked for by the House on costs associated with crime bills and thus were found in contempt of Parliament;
• Ending of mandatory submission of the long census for those that receive it. (Any statistician will tell you just how skewed data critical for developing public policy will now be….);
• illegally financed campaigns in the last election through money shuffles, a scandal called the “in and out” scheme;
• Maintaining a cabinet minister who, while leader of the Conservative Party, as condition to garnering support for his leadership promised never to merge with the Alliance Party (headed by Stephen Harper). He got what I think is his own just desserts when his girlfirend and fellow caucus member crossed the floor to the Liberal camp without telling him of this action beforehand. Delicious!
• Was admonished by Hillary Clinton for not including funding abortion in foreign aid packages…. The United States lecturing another country on family planning! Abortion is considered a necessary medical service legal in Canada, but apparently not for other countries where access is also needed. This action by Harper clearly shows his religious beliefs affect his policies, and relgion has no place in politics. Not now, not ever!
• The pièce de résistance, Harper shows his respect for science by appointing to the office of the Ministry of Industry, Science and Technology a chiroptractor. You read that right- a fucking chiropractor! Anyone with an ounce of scientific knowledge wouldn’t be a chiropractor.

God, Atheism and Morality – A 10-Week Discussion Course. Day 1….

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve blogged on anything of substance. Busy, busy, busy. Last month, my wife pointed out to me a new class being offered through the Continuing Education program at the local university called God, Atheism and Morality. It’s a discussion class using Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape as the backdrop and led by an ex-Lutheran pastor. A nice fellow, but maybe too nice for the things likely to come…

There are nine of us, from a wide range of backgrounds and beliefs. There’s a non-believing Teacher who wants to return to university, perhaps to get a PhD in the philosophy of science; a Lawyer who deals with immigrants and who made an excellent point on refugee claimants that I have suspected for some time that I will get to later on; another who grew up in a Secular household and does not understand faith (I do – I just don’t understand why anyone in their right mind discards reason and evidence in favor of wishful thinking); the Spiritual woman that made the claim that most atheists are really agnostics (which underscores a problem of definitions that might produce some trouble); another that wants to see if there are reasons to discard her Faith (burden of proof shift, anyone?) and “dragged” her husband along (well, according to him, anyway…); a retiree with a Physics background who didn’t really say much about himself; a believing Moral Relativist (!) who knows too much about philosophy, an intellectual pursuit that I have little patience for (and who actually told me that string theory is not testable, that I should Google it! Ah, the University of Google, where you can get a degree in 9/11 truthing! Michio Kaku, where are you when I need you?); and yours truly, who described himself as “the most unspiritual person that you will ever meet”. Quite a wide spectrum of beliefs which is a good start.

Oh joy, oh rapture!

Oh, happy day! No, possums… I am not having a religious experience. I am not finally seeing the light (I think I already have, thanks). But president and CEO of the Calgary Flames Ken King finally has. Hey, Ken! What the hell took you so long?

I was at our local pub with my wife last night playing NTN when I happened to notice a splash screen on TSN that showed Darryl Sutter’s resume as GM (the first point on it, the only positive one, had more to do with his coaching than GM duties – the amazing run to the Stanley Cup finals in 2004). But there was no sound, so could not confirm my hopes and dreams had indeed come true till later.

Darryl’s head had been removed. The boom has fallen. The king is dead. Well, his position as GM is over, anyway. But for a die-hard Flames fan, this is big.

I’ve been calling for his head for years. I consider him to be one of the worst GMs in hockey history, and in recent years has made some of the most ridiculous trade decisions I have ever seen. To be fair, he’s made some good ones. He was responsible for acquiring Mikka Kiprusoff from San Jose, who is now as much a Flames icon as team captain Jerome Iginla (who has a street named after him in Las Vegas, but that’s another story). Indeed, I have always thought that the Kipper is the only player on the Flames who’s game is on night after night.

Miracles and Sainthood….

Brother Andre, a Holy Cross Brother in Quebec and whose personage is said to have healed thousands, will be canonized a saint tomorrow, October 17.

Color me skeptical. As part of the process for beatification on the road to canonization, the Vatican must verify that two (it is now one) miracles involving the subject has occurred. Two? A measely two? I would think that the Law of Large Numbers mixed with human nature will produce quite a few ‘miracles’. The association of a human figure up for canonization with a large sampling in which statistically unlikely events will always occur, especially when the sample size is increased by weird associations, like the oil from a lamp that Brother Andre used. Here’s one of the so-called ‘miracles’ as described in the Montreal Gazette:

The second phenomenon involved a 9-year-old who was cycling when he was struck by a car in 1998, said Father Claude Grou, rector of St. Joseph’s Oratory. The boy suffered severe head injuries and his parents were told there was no hope of recovery. Friends of the family prayed at St. Joseph’s Oratory, bringing a bottle of “St. Joseph’s oil,” a medal and a prayer card back to the parents, Grou said.

The oratory distributes more than 100,000 bottles of the oil annually. In his day, Brother Andre offered a bit of oil to the sick from a lamp that was burning in front of a statue of St. Joseph. He would tell them to rub it on their bodies and pray to St. Joseph to heal them.

Soon after the parents of the boy started praying to Brother Andre, “the healing started to come,” Grou said. “In a few days, he was no longer in danger of death, and in a few days more, they found he was recovering his faculties; he started to talk.”

More Christian Misconceptions of Atheism….

I got this from a link by a commenter at Pharynguyla. It’s Thanksgiving Day here in The Great White North (not so white yet, however) and the believers are atheist bashing by expressing fake sympathy for atheists with no one to thank on this day come out of the woodwork. They’ll be back again for American Thanksgiving and Christmas, where for the latter they will change their spots, point to us and say “Look! Those atheists are celebrating the birth of baby Jesus!”, conveniently forgetting that Christmas (like Thanksgiving) has been utterly secularized and attaching religious meaning to a holiday (two in Canada, since we celebrate Boxing Day as the Brits do….) is a personal matter that one may or may not do. Not to mention that pagans can point to Christians and claim “Look! They’re celebrating the birth of Mithras!”, since Christmas itself was a co-option of already existing pagan celebrations.

And believers wonder why we atheists can get a bit cynical at times.

Well, in the long tradition of religious misapprehension of what it means to be an atheist, we have yet another one that openly exposes his ignorance to the world and proudly proclaims that he is a twit. The Vancouver Sun printed a story by Douglas Todd which begins with the question-

How do the almost two out five British Columbians who say they have no religion, and especially the 16 per cent who are atheists, approach a festive day that encourages humans to express a sense of thankfulness, particularly for life itself being a gift?