Gawd sez, You better like women, but not too much

You really got your Weiner in a jam now, didn't you Anthony? I'm speaking, of course, about Congressman Anthony Weiner, who always seemed to have a name too unfortunate for a top leadership, though he has proven himself a fiery, and entertaining speaker at times. Now Pelosi is calling for his resignation, and Weiner is allegedly checking himself into sext-a-holics anonymous. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Of course, right-wing theocrats have long and gleefully waged a jihad against Weiner, a Jew whose wife is a Muslim. Their latest tactic was to claim that he had phone communications with a 17-year-old Delaware girl. While I tire of defending this Weiner-brain, I don't think it takes more than 3 seconds of searching to confirm that the age of consent in Delaware is 16, and nobody is saying that Weiner actually had sex with this unnamed girl. In fact the girl denies that any inappropriate communication too place, and you know that has to be true, because otherwise it would be all over the internet by now.

My only amusement is that this comes on the heels of Tracy Morgan bashing gays. See he wants us to remember that God hates fags. That would make you think that he loves the Weiner. But apparently it's more complicated than that. While God wants you to love women, and the Old Testament thought polygamy was a dandy marriage, the Eternal One apparently changed his mind later on. He decided that you should love women, but just not too much. At least their God should take consolation that Weiner wasn't sexting dudes.

Tracy Morgan Should Join God Hates Fags Church

Tracy Morgan thinks that being born homosexual is "bullshit", because "God don't make no mistakes". I suppose he missed the memo about all the kids being born with no arms or legs or eyes, or any number of other horrific birth defects. Not that I'm saying that homosexuality is a birth defect, or even a "mistake". That is Morgan's faulty premise, but it reflects the simple-minded thinking of a deeply superstitious person, brainwashed by religious extremists who spoon feed idiotic talking points like "god don't make no mistakes". I fully expected Morgan to bust out "God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve", but he spared us that one.

Of course Morgan has apologized for this and other comments, including the statement that he would stab his son to death if he turned out to be gay. The thing about apologies, though, is that you actually have to mean them for there to be in value. Granted, I'm sure that, on some level he is sorry that he offended people, especially to the extent that it might harm his popularity and his career. Also, I am also the first person to say that "a joke is a joke", and if he were merely joking, or playing a character, that would be quite a different matter. However, this is no indication that Tracy Morgan is completely joking. OK, he probably wouldn't really stab his son, but he does believe that homosexuality is a "choice", and because he sees it that way, certainly sounds like he would be angry and unaccepting of this "choice".

The thing about this ridiculous choice-only argument, as I have noted before, is that it doesn't stand up to reasonable scrutiny. If this were all a matter of "choice", uninfluenced by biology or hormones, then we would expect as many as 50% of men and women to choose to become homosexuals. Instead, we see very small percentages of the population being homosexual. If you tossed a coin and 99% of the time it came up one way (i.e. straight), I think you would conclude that something is biasing that coin. It's not all just culture.

Gender is, after all, determined chromosomally, but, as we know from the discussion of birth defects, things don't always proceed perfectly from fertilization onward. While most men will naturally develop hormonal based urges that cause them to seek females, and females will feel attraction toward males, it is conceivable that biological wires can cross. Most honest, rational men, for example, can easily admit that didn't just wake up one day and say, "after lengthy deliberation, and careful weighing of the pros and cons, I have decided that I like women". We just started liking women, and would have even if it hadn't been socially acceptable to do so -- whereas, before puberty, most young boys don't particularly care for girls one way or the other.

Of course, one of the groups which has the hardest times being honest and rational is doctrinaire religious adherents, like Tracy Morgan. They're in a bind because their Bible does say some uncomplementary things about homosexuality. However, if the basis of homosexuality were biological, it would seem rather unfair for God to punish people for things out of their control. It would be like punishing Tracy Morgan for being goofy-looking. He really had little "choice" in the matter, at least up until the point that he started making a lot of money and could afford plastic surgery.

Of course, it is conceivable that both sides could be partly right. This is another option that hardcore believers often fail to grasp in their 100% black or white universes. It could be that only some people are genetically and hormonally disposed to be homosexuals and others do it more as a matter of choice. Ever heard about what goes on in prison? Of course there too, those guys don't have a lot of choice in the matter either. Given their limited options they decide that some form of sex is better than nothing. However, outside of prison, many of those individuals tend to show more typical preferences.

This leads me to my last point, which is that Morgan should really have the courage of his convictions, like those Westboro Baptist Church people. Maybe he can join them and become a high profile spokesperson for their group. They could certainly use a bit of diversity, from the look of things. That way he could at least be "out" and honest about his anti-homosexuality, instead of hiding behind insincere apologies.

A man's bare chest is pornography?!!

Gosh, if a picture of a man with a bare chest is pornographic, as some right-wing religious hypocrites are suggesting, in the case of Anthony Weiner, then apparently almost every man in America is guilty of the same crime. I walked outside without a shirt this morning to take the garbage out to the curb. Who knew that I was guilty of the same epic "scandal" that is now being fabricated around US Representative Anthony Weiner. Have you ever seen a crucifix -- you know the ones with Jesus on a cross. More pornography, eh? I'm sure there are loads of Christians offended by Jesus's bare chest and loin cloth, right? Not so much.

How about going to any beach? You'll see a lot of bare chests there too. You might even see the fully clothed bulging crotches. And people of all ages go to a beach. There are women in skimpy bikinis, men in speedos, and even young children. Is anyone scandalized by this? Are you scandalized when you go to a gym? Maybe if this were 1811 instead of 2011. Maybe if it were Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, instead of the United States of America. Get real, people. All the current evidence about Mr. Weiner's conduct suggests that this is a manufactured scandal. It is a mole hill in search of a mountain. If this is all the better that his opponents can do then why should we give them the time of day?

Pictures of a Weiner. Put it in perspective.

US Representative Anthony Weiner recently admitted that he had send lewd pictures of himself to several women whom he had met online, over the course of several years. He had previously claimed that his twitter account had been hacked. Now everyone is looking at a shirtless picture of someone who is purported to be Anthony Weiner. Really? Is this all they've got. It's not illegal or immoral for men to walk around topless in the summer. Ever heard of a public swimming pool?

Holier than thou right-wing theocrats are having a hypocritical field day condemning Weiner for such activity. That is, they are condemning him just on the basis of a few photographs less provocative than many Hollywood celebrities have taken of themselves on an almost daily basis.

Remember that, on many occasions, holier-than-thou right-wingers have been caught doing far more than sending photographs. For example the self-proclaimed "bishop" Eddie Long has been accused of homosexual activity with four men who were members of his church. Nobody is actually claiming that Weiner really had sex with any of these women. A number of these photographs, while inappropriate, are not invitations to perform any kind of sexual act. Some are just jokes. Yet in the minds of many evangelicals, they can't see the distinction. Even feeling momentary lust is tantamount to adultery, for them. To wit, see my previous post called "The Imaginary Teaching of Jesus".

See, according to Jesus, even looking at a woman lustfully is tantamount to adultery. Arguably, sending a provocative picture of yourself to a woman is not even looking at the woman, though presumably he did look at her picture online, or he probably wouldn't have sent the provocative photo. Still, is there really anyone who observes the standard of not even looking at an attractive woman (or man)? Is it even possible, without living in a monastery, or being blind altogether, to avoid this kind of momentary, hormone-induced reaction?

Now, if it turns out that Weiner actually slept with other women while he was married, or attempted to sleep with them, then that is a different story. But just sending mainly clothed pictures isn't much of a scandal.

MisBelieving in the Bible

CNN has an article today which is really just a rehash of what any Bible student could tell you for decades. People know little or nothing about the Bible, and many things that they think they know about it are actually not even Bible verses. In other words, modern day myths have grown up about the mythic Bible itself. It cites people like Mike Ditka, who mistakenly believe that "This too shall pass" is a bible verse. In reality, the only thing that is close to this in the bible is the frequent transitional phrase "then it came to pass that ...." Other things like "God helps those who help themselves" or "cleanliness is next to godliness" are also mentioned as being mistakenly identified as Bible verses. However, with respect to the first misquote, perhaps people are confusing the sentiment with Mark 4:25 where Jesus makes the charming pledge, "Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them."

This highlights a point which cannot be over-emphasized about Bible believers. They pick and choose the verses they like, interpreting them in ways that they wish were true, and sometimes completely fabricate Bible verses to justify believing what they already believe. That many of them are unaware that they even do it is not the point. Of course they need to be unaware of this or they wouldn't really believe it anymore. Ignorance may not be bliss but it is belief for many. The best way for most believers to maintain blind faith in the Bible is for them to not have a clue what it actually says.

Magical thinking about end of life

Few things inspire more fear and fascination than death. Arguably religions were invented in ancient times to provide fanciful and elaborate answers for people's insatiable questions surrounding death. These days, however, death is not quite as mysterious. People like the now late Dr. Kevorkian, in part, helped the world to understand that death is not as mysterious, and magical as people might think or fondly wish it to be. It is a brute mechanical fact about how our biological systems work. No system works forever. There is no reason to think that there is a magical land for broken human bodies any more than there is a magical land for broken cars or computers.

Of course, this offends the wish and desires of people who would rather that reality be otherwise. They find more comfort in invisible, undetectable entities like spirits that go to invisible, undetectable places like heaven where they can sit on clouds and play harps. Most of us gave up that kind of fantasy when we left childhood. Most adults, especially in their later years, have acquired enough wisdom to know reality from nonsense, and that is why many old people do not fear death, even if it is the end. Some, like Kevorkian's patients, saw through the ridiculous myths and lies made up by ancient scribes, and sought to take control of their own biologies. Thank you, Jack, for helping people understand that death is not some magical place of candy, and rainbows, and a big family reunion. It is just when our machine stops and our hamster falls off our wheel.

That is not to say that we invite it. Most of us enjoy letting our hamsters run on our wheels as much as they would like. However, all must end and life is not obligatory. The best person to decide how to proceed with your life is you, and lacking compelling reasons, that is how it works most everywhere. After all, it turns out that, even if we wanted to it is too much work to try to run other people's live for them. So, by default, unless there are serious threats to the rest of us, modern society says, go for it. Do what you gotta do. Life is short enough anyway without other busybodies trying to slow you down. If life is not what you want it to be then that is largely up to you to figure out how to change. Most of us find plenty in life worth living. However, in the final analysis there is nothing magical about life or its absence. There are no guarantees, and anyone who tries to sell you one, via religion, politics, or late-night info-mercial, is probably not on the level. Once you stop believing that things have to be magical, and wonderful, and secretly different than they appear, you might just have the time to actually live your life, in peace, and freedom, on your own terms.

Life "from womb to tomb" is nonsense

I know that there is nothing more impressive to certain, simple-minded people than short, infantile slogans that rhyme. Never mind the fact that their slogan, "from womb to tomb" makes no sense, in the case of certain so-called "pro-lifers". After all, you aren't alive well before you make it to your tomb. You probably haven't been alive for several days before you are put in your tomb. Anyway, there is nothing to say that you reached your tomb naturally. There are a lot of unnatural things that could put one in a tomb too, and to listen to their slogan, they apparently support that too. Suicide puts you in a tomb, doesn't it?

Furthermore, I thought religious fanatics believe that life starts at conception. This "womb to tomb" slogan contradicts that, because conception does NOT take place in the "womb". Fertilization takes place in the fallopian tubes, and then the conceptus moves to implant in the lining of the uterine wall. So life really happens before the womb, at least according to them when they're trying to argue issues like abortion. Or is that only the BS they claim to believe when they're getting all-self righteous, and preachy? know it would be too complicated to say that life goes from the second you're born to the second you expire.

Kevorkian is dead. Long live Kevorkian.

Controversial figure Jack Kevorkian died today, at age 83, joining the 130 patients whom he helped end their life journeys. Most of the legitimate, intelligent "controversy" about euthanasia centers around making sure that adequate safeguards are put in place so that terminally ill patients make an informed and mentally competent decision when it comes to ending one's own life. However, in many places where euthanasia, in the form of physician assisted suicide, is legally permitted, there are elaborate safeguards. You can't just break up with your girlfriend at age 18, get drunk, and go down to the suicide drive-thru for your shot of cyanide. You have to be a terminally ill patient in a sound state of mind, and often have to wait months. Now then, Kevorkian and some of his sympathizers thought this was too much of a burden for very sick, pain-wracked patients, and they sought short-cuts. Reasonable people can disagree on the types of safeguards which should be in place, as a matter of public policy.

However, there are also the unreasonable, unintelligent objections to suicide. These often come, unsurprisingly, from absolutist religious fanatics, who seem to believe that suicide is not permitted under any circumstances. The actual number of bible verses relating to suicide are surprisingly slim, and as usual, quite vague. Some try to claim that the body is a temple and killing oneself defiles that temple, as per passages like 1 Cor 3:17. However, it's not clear why this would defile the body any more than natural death. From a Jewish perspective, dead bodies were unclean, and it didn't particularly matter how the body died. Besides, lots of things might theoretically defile the body, such as shaking hands with a gentile, or masturbating. Is suicide in the same trivial category as these types of deeds?

Others say that suicide is wrong because it is killing, and the so-called ten commandments prohibit killing. Of course, they don't really prohibit all killing. We still kill in war, and self-defense, and even in capital punishment, which is heartily endorsed by the same bible that supposedly commands us not to kill. It is conceivable that people could interpret suicide in terms of administering capital punishment to oneself, as per a variety of biblical directives which call for capital punishment of people committing minor offenses, up to and including gathering sticks on the Sabbath, blasphemy, etc.

Some try to put words in the Bible's mouth and say that what it really means is that you aren't supposed to kill innocent people for no reason. However, nobody is truly innocent, and terminally ill people certainly have reasons. At the very least, we must admit that killing of oneself is quite different than killing of a non-consenting other.

Consider the analogy to stealing. The same commandments say we are not supposed to steal. However, is it stealing when you say it is OK? Is it stealing when you do it to yourself. Clearly, no. If someone takes your money then it's stealing. If you give your money away freely then nobody would say that this donation amounts to "stealing from yourself".

Comparing then with killing, when you kill someone else you steal that person's life. However, you can't really steal from yourself, in the same way, as we just explained, because you have given at least a measure of consent, whereas an outside individual may not have.

One might similarly take the view that killing oneself can be a form of justifiable defense, or even a form of warfare, both of which are traditionally exempted from prohibitions against killing. In the first case, one might argue that killing oneself was defending oneself and one's quality of life against mortal attack by the ravages of disease, and pain. It is conceivable that one might look terminal diseases as a form of war, declared by nature against one's own body. Killing is sometimes justified in war, and that killing might include destruction of oneself, to prevent the enemies of disease and ill-health from making further gains on the battlefield.

Of course, if you disagree with anything, then you certainly shouldn't do it. You are even free to attempt to persuade others not to do it. For the record, I am not advocating that people do it, generally, because, aside from the terminally ill, most of us have plenty to live for. If this life is the only one we get, contrary to the wishful thinking of many religious people, then we want to make sure we get the most we can out of it. However, if one is satisfied with what one has gotten out of life already and now the burdens of life have become too heavy, that is something that the individual will have to address. That was what Kevorkian, in his own way was saying, which is why I say, though "Kevorkian is dead. Long live Kevorkian" in terms of his idealism.

Can't allow rape exception because women just lie

This is what it's come to with the unmitigated craziness that is right-wing religious fanaticism. Indiana Rep. Eric Turner believes that we cannot allow abortions in cases of rape or incest because then women will simply all lie and say they were raped. Yeah, maybe some would, so I guess that means we should further victimize the legitimate rape victims by accusing them of being liars as well. People lie about lots of things in law. People might lie about being mugged too, but I don't see people concluding that, therefore we should do away with laws to prevent mugging.

Besides, if they don't want the pregnancy that badly, perhaps it should tell you something, Mr. Turner. It should tell you that forcing them to be mothers against their will would be a phenomenally bad idea. It should tell you that these unwilling mothers will produce unwanted, uncared for children. It should tell you that, in your absolutist quest to force them to do this against their will, you are creating a police state. After all, are we really going to investigate every case of rape and determine its authenticity first. Better to just assume they are all guilty of lying until proven innocent , eh?

Anti-abortionism is the real excuse, not rape. It is not an honest, legitimate issue, but rather a self-righteous smokescreen. It is nothing but a political buzzword meant to smuggle the trojan horse of fundamentalist theocracy into American law. Politicians know that they cannot really stop it or even outlaw it in the US. They would be voted out of office, because the majority of our nation does not reside in the Bible Belt. Yet we have to continue playing this silly, time-wasting charade. Why should women have to come up with excuses? They don't have to come up with an excuse for why they are pregnant in the first place. This isn't Egypt .... yet ... where virginity tests are administered to women on the street to make sure they are not prostitutes. They shouldn't have to come up with an excuse, because it is not the business of Turner or anyone else. They only choose to make it their business because they are bullying, in-your-face evangelicals, who like nothing better in life than forcing others to believe as they do.

War against stem cell science continues

Religious nuts who think that a single-celled organism with no brain or ability to sense pain is the same as a third-trimester, new-born baby, have blocked embryonic and stem cell research in the US for decades with only occasional reprieves. The hope was that science would be able to do an end run around superstition by creating a kind of adult stem cell that mimicked an embryonic stem cell. These were called induced human pluripotent stemcells (iPS), and when they were discovered in 2007 many religious people declared that this proved that we didn't need human embryonic stem cell research. Well, the wingnuts have been proven wrong, yet again, this time in a UCSD medical trial. In the test, iPS cells were violently rejected as if they were foreign tissue, while embryonic stem cells were accepted into the bodies of mice. Unfortunately, however, congress has already banned federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, and conservative judges have sought to overturn president Obama's attempts to lift Bush era restrictions on the science. As a consequence, US biotechnology research has languished for decades, while other nations have shot ahead in perhaps one of the most promising areas of future medical research.

I have talked to many anti-abortionists, and none can give an intelligent, non-emotional, non-religious answer to why the use of stem cells from frozen embryos that would have been discarded, should be stifled. There are millions of frozen, fertilized ova in fertility clinics all over the US and people can only have so many kids. The excess remain frozen, up to a point, and are then tossed out. If it is "murder", as some right-winger insist, to do medical research on these cells, which are never going to be implanted into a mother anyway, then why are these modern-day Luddites unconcerned about the large numbers of frozen embryos that fertility clinics throw away on a daily basis? Why is it only of concern to them when people do research with them, as opposed to merely tossing them in the dumpster?

Virginity tests...coming soon to the US

Reports that Egyptian military officials used stun guns on women and subjected them to "virginity tests" is disturbing to many people in the modern world. However, before you insist that it "can't happen here" in the US, remember that right-wing religious whackos in our country spent over a billion dollars of federal taxpayer money promoting "abstinence only" sex education, which turned out to be a complete failure. One can imagine that, in a nightmare scenario, under president Palin, the next version of Abstinence Education 2.0, might involve having to prove that one was abstinent. After all, even Palin's own daughter Bristol fell off the abstinence wagon, and straight into a pile of unprotected sex, so I would imagine that Palin would want to be conducting frequent checks of her younger daughters, to make sure that more embarrassments don't occur.

Of course, the US already does poorly enough on standardized tests, and virginity tests share one key feature with standardized tests in that they are not particularly reliable. Still, though, one can only imagine how badly many of our girls would fair on virginity tests, even if they could be made more reliable. As the joke goes, the only test some of these girls are able to pass is a pregnancy test. In fact, I dare say that our would-be fearless leader Sarah P would have been no more able to pass a virginity test during high school than her daughter(s?). However, joking aside, efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, and propaganda campaigns against contraception are pushing the US backward, in the direction of Egypt, instead of forward, toward a modern, progressive, 21st century future.

Tupac, Elvis, and Jesus still alive and well...or NOT!

The recent hacking of pbs.org's website , in which a fake story was posted claiming that Tupac Shakur was "alive and well in a small resort in New Zealand", illustrates something fundamental about human nature and our inability to deal with death. Denial is a common reaction when confronted with the sudden, shocking, and brute finality of death, especially when it is a well-know or beloved figure. Tupac's fans didn't want to believe he was dead. The same was true for fans of Elvis, who was the biggest star of his era. It's unsurprising that similar reactions existed even thousands of years ago, when various small sects of reformist Jews, known as Christians, could not accept the reality of the death of their founder and leader. Instead, like all these other groups, they invented a story appropriate to their own era, culture, and level of technology. Unlike Elvis, who is often reputedly modified with plastic surgery, cyrogenically preserved, and hanging out on UFOs, Jesus was attributed various magical and supernatural properties to cheat the executioner. None of us want to believe that our heros are dead and gone. However, unlike christianity, most of these other modern groups have eventually developed the maturity to eventually accept the reality of the death of their heros. That is why it is essentially a bad joke to insist that Tupac is really alive. Few people sincerely believe Elvis faked his death today. Yet Christianity clings to its denialist rhetoric, despite the fact there is no independent evidence for their claims outside their own partisan stories in their own Bible. How do we know where Joseph of Aramathea really took the body, or if he substituted it with another before reaching the tomb. How do we know there was ever really a tomb, or that they found the right one, or that there even was a Jesus apart from fanciful stories about him. At least we know that Tupac and Elvis lived, which is more than we can say about claims made of Jesus. It's time for people to grow up and accept the reality of their own mortality, instead of inventing bogus stories about people coming back from the dead to give us false hopes. Perhaps, though I doubt it, this latest Tupac example will serve as a teachable moment for those still in denial and living in fantasy.

Why "abstinence" is like saying "don't get shot"

I have debunked, countless times, the flawed "logic" of the "abstinence only" (AO) position, but no matter how many times one does it, there is an endless well of ignorance, often watered by religious fanaticism, that continues to promote it. Often times I point out that advocating "abstinence only" is like telling a soldier that he should go into battle with no helmet or body armor because all he has to do is "abstain from being shot". After all, body armor and helmets are not 100% effective, the AO booster might point out, but "not getting shot" is 100% effective. Of course, the trick is not getting shot. If you do get shot, despite your best efforts to avoid it, then the person with bullet proof vests has a much better chance of surviving. I often put some probabilities on the different events to illustrate. Suppose that there are 100 soldiers in the AO brigade and 100 soldiers in a normal unit where they believe in body armor. Now, depending on the battle, pick a probability that a soldier has of getting shot. Let's say it's only 20%, despite all soldiers making an effort to avoid being shot. Also suppose that the body armor, helmet, etc is only 75% effective preventing the bullet from causing serious injury or death. The expected casualties after the battle are listed below:

AO brigade: 0.80*(100)*(0) + 0.20*(100)(1) = 20 casualties.

BPV unit: 0.80*(100)*(0) + 0.20(100)(.25) = 5 casualties.

See the problem that most AO proponents have is that they assign 100% *effectiveness* to the procedure of abstinence, but they forget to assign a probability that a given person will remain abstinent. That is, there are really two different issues here, by analogy with bullet proof vests. The first is the effectiveness of the vest in stopping bullets. The second is the likelihood a person will be shot. We can't assume that there is a zero percent chance of being shot, even if we do our best to avoid it.

Usually the AO proponent will start attacking the analogy. No analogy is perfect, because if it were identical to the situation being compared it would no longer be an analogy. It would just be a restatement of the original situation. They want to nitpick this or that feature of the analogy, because they can see that it is clearly fatal to their position. Perhaps the best approach to all this quibbling is to generate new scenarios.

For example,consider this one. Instead of sticking with bullet proof vests, consider vaccinating for an infectious disease. The AO crowd would be arguing, analogously, against vaccinations, just as religious people have opposed vaccination in real life in the past, because vaccinations are not perfect. Instead they would be taking the view that the best way to prevent a disease is to abstain from exposure to the germs that cause it. So long as one can do that, one will never catch the disease. Alternately, pro-vaccination folks are arguing that one needs protection for the times that one cannot reasonably expect to avoid these germs.

The AO proponents naturally feel that sex, unlike germs or bullets, is something that is much more controllable, and that is something I am prepared to grant, in many cases. However, they apparently are unaware of how many date and acquaintance rapes take place. There is, of course, rape by strangers as well, but those are not as common. There is also the possibility of drugs impairing one's ability to abstain. There is even just succumbing to temptation, which happens even with saints. Because of all those factors, one MUST assign a non-zero probability that a person's attempt to abstain from sex will fail. When AO's say that abstinence works 100% of the time, they are wrongly assuming that every person has 100% control over sex in all circumstances. Even if we assume that, under normal circumstances people had 90% control, when we are talking about a policy for hundreds of millions or billions of people, that 10% failure amounts to a lot of people.

Why we stick with scandalous pastors...and politicians

CNN has an interesting article analyzing why people stick by embattled priests and pastors like so-called "Bishop" Eddie Long, who was accused by several men of pressuring them into sexual relationships. For some people it is because admitting that the pastor was fraudulent might make our own spiritual experiences with that person seem fraudulent as well. For others, it's about watching the spectacle. Long before reality TV, these preachers, especially in the historically black and evangelical communities, were often putting on quite a show every Sunday.

A mainline protestant or Catholic mass is pretty subdued by contrast. Not that there isn't plenty of the same stuff going on in some Catholic dioceses, particularly due to the unrealistic celibacy policy for priests. The problem is really a more universal one of personally investing too much faith in an individual, so that one's own faith becomes challenged when this individual inevitably falls short.

It is not exclusive to religious leaders, though at least some political leaders don't claim to be paragons of virtue. To the extent that some politicians on the right-wing of the political spectrum have tried to take this holier than thou attitude, it might have produced some short term gains, but long term, I think it has proven risky to their careers. People are not quite as enamored with the Palins and other self-styled evangelical politicians as they were even a few years ago, except for some die-hard tea bagger types. That's got to be some kind of progress.

Coburn's jihad against NSF after fail on planned parenthood

Republicans failed in their fact-free religious crusade to "defund planned parenthood", but now religious looneys are at it again, this time attempting to nitpick and ignorantly mock the National Science Foundation in what looks like a preliminary effort to cut funding for research and development. Fundamentalist christian Tom Coburn, who unfortunately also holds a public office in this nation higher than dog catcher, seems to think that trying to pick on science nerds will resonate with his ignorant constituents who probably are still harboring resentments about failing high school chemistry, and who have a vested interest in denying that anyone really needs that "egghead science stuff".

Religious people can insist all they want that religion and science are not at war, but it is clear that they often feel threatened by science, and perhaps, therefore, conclude that it would be safer to eliminate those pesky scientists altogether. Otherwise they risk having more embarrassing discoveries, like natural selection and radio-isotopic dating, which contradict articles of faith for bible literalists.

The $3.8 trillion dollar federal budget was held up by Republicans over the $75 million received by Planned Parenthood, of which only about $2 million (of their own private funds), was used to help low-income women get abortions. Now Coburn thinks that he might be able to save a whopping few more million dollars, if they consult him first about every one of the approximately 45,000 proposals that NSF receives annually. That way, if he thinks it sounds silly, like a shrimp on a treadmill, then he can put a stop to it, by God, and save tax payers some minor pocket change. Ever heard of the saying, "penny wise is pound foolish". New dictionaries may want to include a picture of Coburn next to this phrase.

Necessity of abortion education

PZ Myers has an article over at his science blog, Pharyngula, which demonstrates the medical necessity of doctors learning how to perform abortions to deal with complications that arise in pregnancy. He relates the tale of a woman who suffers a "placental abruption" and who is bleeding to death, but none of the doctors or medical students at the hospital have ever performed an abortion. Fortunately, they finally find a doctor who can do it, in order to save her life, so that her two kids are not left without a mother. However, she then relates the tale of how her pious Christian cousin finds out about her abortion and calls her up to tell her that she should not have "interfered with God's plan".

Of course, when one thinks about it, which is what many religious nutcases fail to do, just about any kind of medical intervention would qualify as interfering with "God's plan". A good percentage of us would likely be dead right now, if not for dental surgeons who removed our bad teeth before they became infected, or antibiotics, or a host of other treatments. How do we know that it was God's plan for us to take no medical action and die, anyway? Maybe it *was* God's plan that we were supposed to go to the hospital and get an appendectomy or an abortion.

There is such a high level of absolutist dogmatism, coupled with an extremely low level of education on the topic, when it comes to anti-abortionists and their rhetoric. I have personally spoken, not via the internet but with my own mouth, to hundreds of anti-abortionists over the years. I have debated their best, most seasoned veterans, and I am always amazed at (1) how little these individuals know in terms of medical or scientific facts about the subject and (2) how little they have thought of the implications of their position. That is because they hold this position not due to facts or well-thought out philosophies, but due to emotionally-distorted religious beliefs. They will tell you that there is never a medical necessary reason for an abortion, and then when you say, "what about ectopic (tubal) pregnancies" they will be like "huh?" or say, "that's not really abortion, cause it wasn't viable". However, if you then ask them about the use of embryonic stem cells (which are not viable) for medical research they will say it's "genocide". It goes on and on, and then you talk to the next person and you start all over with the next person saying "abortion is never medically necessary", and this time quoting some Christian doctor's name as their "evidence".

I have often challenged groups of anti-abortionists to bring forth the atheists among them who are opposed to abortion. I know that on the internet people will insist that there are tons and tons of non-religious people who oppose abortion on purely factual grounds. However, I have never seen one in the ranks of the anti-abortion protesters at a rally, and I have been to many. Some of them insist that they "used to be atheists", which is the single most over-used lie in all of preaching, and they tell me that they are confident that they can make a case against abortion without using any religious principles. However, again, not one of them has ever managed to go more than about two minutes, and that's being generous, before said person comes back to religious beliefs as the real reasons that he or she opposes abortion. I have seen some people try to make such cases on the internet, and these are less than persuasive, to say the least, but when you talk to the average anti-abortionist, he or she hasn't even heard of such philosophical disquisitions. These individuals are far from fountains of detailed knowledge on the topic. They often know little or nothing, and their only strategy is to use the same tired rhetoric over and over that you just debunked with the last ten people you talked to, to wear you out.

Opposition to abortion is a religious dogma as much as the virgin birth. It is not based upon serious consideration of facts or arguments or evidence. The average person who holds either view (virgin birth or anti-abortion, take your pick) cannot explain the position, except to say that he or she believes it is a religious duty to claim to believe it, despite not understanding it.

People died because of Harold Camping's BS

According to news reports, an obviously mentally disturbed believer named Lyn Benedetto attempted to cut the throats of her two daughters to spare them from the "apocalypse". The same report claims that an elderly Taiwanese man jumped out of a building to his death, believing that doomsday was near. Of course Harold Camping did not force these people to drink his Koolaid. However, his poisonous rhetoric, obsessed with the glorification of divine violence, was toxic enough to scare clearly unstable people into harming themselves and others.

Yet for Harold it is all just a game. He hasn't apologized, and instead of admitting that he was wrong, he has retreated back into infantile apologetics, claiming that God's judgment was spiritual and metaphorical, instead of literal. But the spiritual and the non-existent look very much alike. One wonders how Camping can tell that an invisible, spiritual event took place at all. The answer is, of course, that he cannot. He is lying like a five-year-old caught with his hand in the cookie jar, his face smeared with chocolate and cookie crumbs. Blaming the invisible ghost of Cookie Monster for the stolen cookies isn't likely to convince too many parents. His equally ridiculous religious excuses shouldn't persuade even the most eager of Christian believers.

Just remember that, after laughing at Camping, that some of you still believe that the "invisible Substance" of the Eucharist (in a non-detectable, non-physical, spiritual sense) becomes the "body and blood of Christ". The whole idea of the "soul" was invented when people realized that physical bodies just aren't durable enough to last forever, and certainly a physical body couldn't burn forever in hell. Think of all the completely undetectable things you believe in, including God himself, while you having your little chuckle at Harry Camping for being such a nut.

Doomsday rhetoric scary to children.

I read a recent article talking about how kids are being bombarded with these messages from the likes of Harold (NostraDumbAss) Camping, and misinformation about 2012, so that it is becoming increasingly difficult for parents to calm their fears. Indeed, the target audience for fear based messages is often naive, relatively powerless children. It's a lot harder to scare adults, which might be why Jesus said, "unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Mt 18:3). I wonder if he also makes Saint Peter wear a Mickey Mouse costume.

The article goes on to say "Kids of preschool age have a hard time determining reality from non-reality". I wish it was only kids. One sees the same phenomenon in religious fanatics. Perhaps this is a vain, Peter Pan Syndrome style effort to hold onto childhood forever. Camping apparently has managed to do it for 89 years.

Thy Will Be Done ... well duh.

I read a story about a priest in Joplin who lived through the May 24th, killer tornado there. Naturally, he prayed, since that's the only tool he's got in his box, and he thinks that this is what saved him. His prayer, according to his hero in the mirror version of the story, was to constantly repeat the phrase "thy will be done" as he took cover in the bathtub. Well duh, if there is an all-powerful god then he doesn't need this priest's permission to do what he is going to do anyway. Therefore to pray to god telling him to do what he is already doing right now, and presumably planned to do is beyond ridiculous.

Now I know some people will say, "you missed the point". This guy humbly resigned himself to his fate and that's what God wants us to do. Well it hardly matters whether people resign or not. God could kill people who resigned themselves or spare them, just as he can kill or spare people who do not resign themselves. If it is your fate then it is going to happen and there is really no resigning to even do because it would still happen, even if you protest that you don't want it to.

Besides, I can't be the only one who suspects that this priest is trying to compare himself to Jesus in the Gethsemane. Recall that he also resigns himself to be crucified (which was the whole point of him coming to Earth, according to Christian doctrine). Do you still think the priest was being oh so humble by comparing himself favorably to Jesus?

Why the Bible can't predict tornados in 2011

If you do web searches, you will find people wondering if the bible predicted that there will be tornados in Missouri in the month of May, 2011 AD. Of course, common sense would tell you people in the Ancient Near East, writing three thousand years ago had no clue that was a land half way around the globe called Missouri, much less having blow-by-blow details on how many people might be killed by a particular storm on a particular day, or the dollar amount of the property damage, etc. It should be obvious that there are billions of people today and therefore billions of large and small events happen to them every single day, month, and year all over the globe. The bible cannot possibly predict them all, and it's not much of a "prediction" anyway when it doesn't actually tell you any specifics and you can only fill in the details after the event has happened.

Other Harold Camping style religious nutters take the view these storms were send as a "message" from the Almighty, expressing his displeasure with this or that, for there is always something to claim that God is displeased about. Strangely, it seems that god is always displeased around the same time each year in these same states where tornados are known to be frequent, as opposed to Vermont or Washington state, where they seldom ever occur.

It's a curious way for god to "send a message". It's about like god trying to "tell us something" by making it hot and dry in the desert, or rainy in the tropics. More importantly, it makes god culpable for the deaths, rather than being able to blame it on "nature" or "randomness" or the "free will" of people who happened to be in its path. People who believe that god steered the exact course of the storm, destroy this building and sparing that one, or killing this person and only maiming that person must really think the God they worship is a monster.

Indeed, if anyone else decided that he was just going to start randomly killing people to "send a message" and "express displeasure", we would judge this person a psychopath. The case in point today is Jared Loughner. He killed people in his qust to send his insane, nonsensical message to the rest of the world. Even many right-wingers (who are overwhelmingly religious fanatics) had to grudgingly admit that Loughner was without any kind of justification for his actions. Yet when something even more destructive, like a tornado strikes, and there is nobody to arrest, they attribute it to God and say that it was good?

Harold NostraDumbAss Camping Says Judgment Was Spiritual

Just as I predicted, the False Prophet Harold Camping claimed that the World was Judged on May 21st, 2011, but only in a spiritual sense. Yeah, that's the ticket. I had already suggested that he would claim that christians were invisibly raptured and replaced by exact look-alikes, to fool us, so unbelievers would think it didn't happen. God is apparently really sneaky like that. This is the same logic that anti-evolutionists use to argue that God and/or Satan planted phony fossils with phony radio-isotopic dating to "fool us" into thinking that the Earth is billions of years old. Sorry, Harry, even many of your gullible followers won't be fooled again.

Hey, I've got another BS line you can use. When you said "May" 21st, you really meant it "may" or "may not" happen. Oh yeah. That's a good lie, isn't it. The funny thing about bible "literalists" is that every time they get caught in a lie they say, "Aw shucks, I didn't mean that *literally*. I just meant it figuratively/spiritually." Yeah right. I guess Adam and Eve and Noah and Jesus can't be taken literally. They are just figurative. Hey, maybe the whole apocalypse thing is "figurative". How does he know it's real when he admits that the rapture is only "spiritual". What a fraud this Camping guy is.

Holy cRapture Harry Predicted Another Rapture

Holy cRapture/ Harry predicted another rapture,

This time in October / Are we sure that he's sober

Cause the last one was just over

And who will believe him / Do his gray eyes deceive him

Plus, what when this one fails? / And the false prophet finally bails

With all his ill-gotten loot / Not bad for a wrinkled up, old koot

Sorry, I was trying to write in very bad verse, the way NostraDumbAss or some of the other mystics of yore once did. Harry, you don't get a DO-OVER. You know you ain't got a snowball's chance in hell of being right. You're just trying to dump your stocks and rip off the rubes one more time before they lynch you. Or maybe you're hoping to die before then.

See you in October, and this time you better put your own money up with a bookie in Vegas. And we aren't letting you triple down and push it off until December 31st, when you get it wrong in October.

Harold NostraDumbAss Camping Says Rapture Coming in October

Well Harold Camping has finally spoken out his NostraDumbAss and, rather than apologizing, and admitting his error, he has done what so many fanatics do instead. He has doubled down and re-predicted that the Holy cRapture will occur in October of this year. Webs of lies have ways of getting thicker and thicker. His current failed prophecy has lead him to now make another one which is almost certain to fail and which is based upon absolutely no credible evidence. The most notable recent evidence against is the fact that he called it wrong two days ago. He now wants to continue to terrorize the world with his religious extremism and his extermination of human life fantasies. This is truly sick, but it is also something that I predicted. See, I have a better record of prophecy than Camping, but perhaps that is because I do not rely upon the stone age nonsense which comprises the majority of the Bible. You know the saying that one of our former presidents struggled mightily with, "fool me once....."

Bieber is So Going to Hell for Gomez Kiss

Justin Bieber (or Just a Beaver as I've heard him called) is a self-proclaimed extreme Christian who tried to cash in his Christian beliefs with his Never Say Never video. However, apparently Justin has forgotten the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:27-28, after snogging Selena Gomez on stage. See Jesus believed that if you even looked lust a woman lustfully that you had committed adultery with her in your heart and were bound for hell. He also recommended that if your right hand caused you to do something wrong (though it's not clear that it's your hand's fault, now is it Beav?) that you should cut it off. In this case if your lips or even your lower manly anatomy causes you to do something wrong, then Justin may want to follow the advice of his hero Jebus and lop that little sucker off. It's not like it would change the pitch of his singing voice much, and at least he wouldn't have to tramp around with little tempresses, who are only going to get him an a poolside view at the Lake of Fire. Come on Justin, have the courage of your convictions. I know you probably thought that the world was going to end this weekend and now you're trying to lose your cherry, in case your hero Harry Camping only miscalculated the end of the world by a few days. But Jebus will be very disappointed in you.

Joplin Tornado called "The Beast" after book of Revelation?

In keeping with the doomsday theme over the past couple days, apparently there was a major tornado in Joplin, MO, and apparently it is being called "The Beast", which sounds like a reference to the Book of Revelation. If that were true, however, one would expect it to kill either 666 or 616 people, depending upon the variant translations which give those number. Most people are not aware that the oldest versions of this rather questionable book of the bible quote a figure of 616.

More interesting is that, according to news stories, plenty of people in Joplin think that God and prayer saved them. The same God who sent the tornado and killed others who were likely devout and busy mumbling the same scared prayers into their hands, decided that certain people were more worthy to save than others.

In any event, if this tornado was the long awaited "Beast" of the Book of Revelation, then it is certainly underwhelming. The Beast was supposed to kill way more people than that, and not just in a modest size down.

In any event my sympathies do go out to the people of Joplin. Nobody deserves such senseless tragedy. If there were an all-good, all-powerful god pulling the strings, then such things would most assuredly never happen. The fact that they do tells us that humans will have to learn to help our fellow man to cope and recover as best we can. That doesn't require belonging to any particular religion. None of them have a monopoly on compassion. Humanism is arguably a better approach, because it is a secular philosophy that doesn't waste time with imaginary dieties and prayers to supernatural forces. Instead it dispenses with the prayers, rolls up its sleeves, and gets to work.

Thanks to the secular miracles of science and modern technology, we have radars, and other forecasting systems which can help us reduce the dangers of these kinds of storms, and then more quickly and effectively respond in the aftermath.