The Unwanted Blog

US pastor Terry Jones promises to hold Koran burning

… the pastor insisted that the Koran torching to be held on Saturday aimed “to remember those who were brutally murdered on September 11th” and to send a warning “to the radical element of Islam”.

Oh, yeah. This’ll go over well.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703467004575463833265055248.html

Navy Chaplain Terry Moran is steeped in the Bible and believes all of it. His assistant, Religious Programs Specialist 2nd Class Philip Chute, is steeped in the Bible and having none of it.

…

“He trusts God to keep him safe,” says RP2 Chute. “And I’m here just in case that doesn’t work out.”

Ha!

In all honesty, though, the chaplain here sounds like a Grade-A dimwit. Not sbout his religious beliefs (though his belief that the world is 6,000 years old is pretty dimwitted), but because he seems completely oblivious to the fact that he’s in a combat zone. If he wants to act the dumbass and win a Darwin award, hey, great… but unfortunately it seems likely he’ll put other people in harms way through his obliviousness.

“Tell the [expletive] chaplain to get behind the goddamn vehicle,” Gunny Shawhan yelled into the radio.

“Like bullets aren’t going to kill the goddamn chaplain,” he muttered to the men near him.

The chaplain does say one thing that’s terribly important to take note of:

“He’s familiar with the Christian doctrine, but he chooses not to believe it,” … “That’s what I find puzzling.”

To far too many True Believers of any religion, the idea that someone can be familiar with their faith and not be a believer is just mind-snappingly puzzling. It is, I suppose, much like the way I feel when someone tells me that such-and-such relatively mundane occurance was a “miracle” and “proof” that God exists/loves us/whatever, or when I hear someone say that all the vast collated store of data regarding paleontology, astronomy and geology somehow provide not evidence for an old universe that has seen evolution, but instead is easily handwaved away as being irrelevant to the story of how the Earth is only 6000 years old.

For some belief systems, there is no understanding of some others.

http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/9883914856.html

There’s very little that I can say that will make the subjects of that article - and its author - look any dumber or more pathetically low-rent evil than the article itself does.

When it first started, the “Tea Party” movement was pretty much a one-issue concept: government spending is out of control and needs to be clamped down within the bounds of the actual Constitution. When restricted to that, the message is a winner with the vast majority of the voting public. But due both to the leftist noise machine and right wing religious nuts, the Tea Party message is getting smeared into a rainbow of basically irrelevant topics. A good writeup on this is here:

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2148461

Simple games theory shows that sticking to fiscal responsibility while ignoring the religious stuff is the way to go: fiscal responsibility appeals to 90% of the voters. Religious stuff, one way or the other, will irritate 50% of the voters.

Sadly, this simple advice is likely to fall of willfully deaf ears. Take, for example, a discussion thread on this topic at the formerly relevant Free Republic: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2579887/posts

As I write this, the commenters are approximately evenly split between “this is good sense” and “To hell with that noise… God is my campaign manager.” The last comment on the thread, as I’m looking at it, is by the founder of Free Republic, who posts:

Over my dead body.

Keep it up, jackholes. And say hello to a continued Dem domination of the government, and trillions of dollars added to the deficit every year. All because you just had to cram God into every damned thing.

Who knew that Saudi televisoon could be awesome??

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/7950200/Role-reversal-Saudi-comedy-provokes-anger-among-male-population.html

The comedy was an episode in Saudi Arabia’s most celebrated satirical series, Tash Ma Tash or No Big Deal, a take-off of social prejudices shown annually during the holy month of Ramadan.

The central character takes four husbands, explaining herself using the conventional arguments Saudi men use to exercise their legal and religious privilege of marrying four times.

But of course, and you saw it coming…

 There are regular calls to ban Tash Ma Tash…

I’m a fan of the idea of the government having minimal interference with commerce. Largely they should be restricted to enforcing contracts… and enforcing truth in advertising (this would encompass product safety; tennis shoes should not explode unless they are advertised as “explodey fireball napalm sneakers”).

And often enough, misleading advertising  gets taken to task by private industry, before the government could even come into play. For example:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7950087/Amulet-advert-banned-over-claim-of-divine-protection.html

An advert for an amulet which promised ‘divine protection’ has been banned by advertising bosses because the firm behind it could not prove that angels will protect those who wear it.

Damned skippy! If you offer a product that claims to provide some feature or service, you should stand ready to prove that it actually does provide that feature or service. Whether it’s making a headache go away, getting you drunk, getting 35 MPG or invoking the protection of angels, gods, demons or tax professionals… you should be able to back that up.

Now, to apply this to politicians and televangelists…

A common complaint that I see quite often about Americans is that we’re an overly religious lot (as well as fat, stupid and loud… but enough about Charlie Rangel). “Overly” is of course a purely subjective measure, but on the whole, yes, we are *relatively* more religious than, say, western Europe. But does that mean that the things many Americans get wrong (due to religions teaching factually inaccurate things), our more culturally evolved cousins around the world get right?

Well… no.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/30/2968669.htm

Did humans live at the same time as dinosaurs?

The answer is of course no, but about a third of Australians got it wrong in a recent survey.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4410927/Poll-reveals-public-doubts-over-Charles-Darwins-theory-of-evolution.html

More than half of the [UK] public believe that the theory of evolution cannot explain the full complexity of life on Earth, and a “designer” must have lent a hand, the findings suggest.

And one in three believe that God created the world within the past 10,000 years.

http://www.cobourgatheist.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=645:attitudes-on-creationism-canada-a-us&catid=126:statistics&Itemid=72

About a quarter of Canadians also believe in Creationism

This compares to about 45% of Americans who seem to believe that God created the world and it’s critters pretty much as-is in their present form sometime within the last 10,000 years or so. This is shockingly bad, and displays both scientific illiteracy on a vast scale, as well as a very odd, internally contradictory theological viewpoint… most of these Creationists would say they believe in a “loving God” and all that, but apparently its a God who lies *all* *the* *damned* *time,* and has created an entire universe with the express purpose of confusing humans.

And of course, there are differences within the US based on political affiliation. However, the differences are not as pronounced as one might expect. Republicans are the more or less self-avowed “Christian” party, so it’s to be expected (sadly) that they’ll more readily buy into the creationism bunkum, while the Democrats should, at least in theory, avoid Creationism and other trappings of Christian fundamentalism like the plague. And still…

http://www.gallup.com/poll/108226/republicans-democrats-differ-creationism.aspx

There is a significant political divide in beliefs about the origin of human beings, with 60% of Republicans saying humans were created in their present form by God 10,000 years ago, a belief shared by only 40% of independents and 38% of Democrats.

I’m sorry, but in terms of it being blisteringly obvious that Young Earth Creationism is a bunch of moronic bullcrap, 38% is still really damned high.

The question then becomes, how important is the Creationism delusion to the stability and progress of society? On one hand, having that many people being that badly misinformed cannot possibly be a good thing. But on the other hand, they are misinformed on a topic that, on the whole, does not mean a whole lot to daily life. If similar numbers of people were convinced that the blood of (insert hated religious/political/ethnic minority group HERE) made a really good oil substitute, then yeah, it’d be important. If similar numbers believed that nuclear power was a bad thing and should be banned, it’d be (and has turned out to have been) important. If similar numbers believed that the government owed them goodies, and that the government could just pull wealth out of its ass it’d be (and has turned out to have been) important. But belief in evolution? It’s harder to see similar overall negatives. There is probably a correlation with some aspects of belief regarding medicine… lack of belief in evolution leads to not understanding that bacteria evolve, which has played hell with the effectiveness of antibiotics. And the sort of group that believes that everything was just POOFed into existence by a cosmic teenager with ADD may well correlate with the sort of group that is easily led to believe that vaccinations lead to autism, or that prayer is more likely to cure cancer than radiation. And in these cases it’s a net postive; they are thus selecting themselves out of the future gene pool by avoiding decent medical care.

Another worry might be some sort of cultural clash between the pro-science and anti-science groups turning into an actual bloody fight by way of some sort of civil war. But Americans have usually been pretty good about such things, at least in the last century. While Europeans will happily slaughter each other in their millions over reasons most Americans can’t quite fathom (most of us wouldn’t know a Serb from a Croat, nor likely care), Americans tend to slaughter each other only for reasons of drunken brawls and drug and gang crimes, witha  healthy dollop of automotive hijinks thrown in for good measure. Europeans (and, hell, just about most everybody) lump themselves into vast groups to kill each other for stupid reasons; Americans tend to see killing for stupid reasons to be more of a small-group or even individual activity. I find it highly unlikely that the anti-evolutionists in the US are going to start wiping out the evolutionists anytime soon. This is of course a bit of a difference from European anti-evolutionists like Hitler and Stalin who happily threw Darwinists into camps; but since they were busy throwing *lots* of people into camps, evolutionists were kinda further down on the lists.

Anyway…

Along with belief in ghosts, alien visitations, patently absurd conspiracy theories and the like, belief that some god or other created a world full of fossils jsut to mess with us seems to be damn near a universal. The US has a definite high dose, but then this does not seem to be a new thing… and even with that particular anchor around our necks, we still managed to split the atom and send men to the moon. What has retarded our progress, sending us ona  trajectory out of first-world status, is not wacky religious beliefs… but wacky collectivist political beliefs. At least in the US, socialism is a far greater threat than anti-sciencism.

OK, this doesn’t make the first bit of sense to me:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/27/georgia-university-tells-student-lose-religion-lawsuit-claims/

The student, Jennifer Keeton, 24, has been pursuing a master’s degree in school counseling at Augusta State University since 2009, but school officials have informed her that she’ll be dismissed from the program unless she alters her “central religious beliefs on human nature and conduct,” according to a civil complaint filed last week.

This news story has been popping up all over the blogosphere for a few days, elicitting the usual howls of rage. But in my case, it elicits howl of “huh?”

I’m willing to accept that there is a whole lot of bureaucratic, politically-correct dumbassery in the world, but this pegs my BS meter. *IF* it’s true, the university needs to have its ass handed to ‘em but the courts. But this is almost too bizarre to be true. Would they have made a similar demand of, say, a devout Muslim?

While it’s true that the students beliefs very likely will impact her ability to carry out her chosen career functions, that doesn’t seem to be the schools responsibility. A student taking astronomy classes who believes that the Earth is 6,000 years old is clearly a dumbass, and will likely have a pretty awful career as an astronomer (worse yet if he’s studying geology or something to take him into the petrochemical industry). But so long as he passes the tests and does the homework, what should the university care?

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/atheists-conduct-de-baptisms/story?id=11109379&page=1

Wielding a blow-dryer, a leading atheist conducted a mass “de-baptism” of fellow non-believers and symbolically dried up the offending waters that were sprinkled on their foreheads as young children.

Silly? Obviously. What purpose does it serve? Well, it probably amuses the hell out of the atheists involved… and since it harms nobody, that’s reason enough right there. Secondly, there’s a reason given that I’ve found true quite often myself:

“I think the reason they are worried and concerned is the very deep fear that if everyone doesn’t believe it, maybe it isn’t so.“

In my experience, those who are comfortable and secure in their faith don’t freak out at light-hearted blasphemy. The freaking-out is left to those who are *not* secure, those who believe not because they believe, but because they want to believe. They believe because they’ve bought into the flawed notions underlying Pascals Wager (whether or not they’ve ever actually heard of it).

There is a danger here. The danger, of course, is not from the atheists mocking religious beliefs or rituals, but from the religious getting laws passed to protect themselves from mockery. This blog has posted numerous times about humorless Islamic fanatics going nuts over some harmless cartoon, anti-blasphmey laws, and attempts on the part of the politically correct to shut down mockery or dissention on religious matters. “You can mock anything you want because you have the right to,” he said. “Humor is humor and what types of humor are you going to outlaw?” he said. What types of humor are going to be outlawed? Any type of humor that makes someone feel bad or uncomfortable would seem to be the answer to that question. Texts messages with lame, harmless jokes get met with criminal complaints.

Whether you believe in the rituals or not, whether you find the mockery amusing or not… so long as nobody is being harmed, you should find no reason to want to see them banned by law or sued out of existence. No person has the right to not be offended or to have his most cherished beliefs not be questioned or challenged. Anyone who would have laws passed to “protect” his faith is, well… a scumbag and a coward. And will spend his afterlife freezing in Niflhel until Ragnarok.

Lighten the hell up.

One can certainly argue with much of Griffin’s approach… choosing a specific launch architecture before the mission to the Moon and Mars was really worked out was not a spectacular strategy. But he did at least have the vision to push for such missions… a vision obviously lacking in the current NASA/White House administration. Plus, he’s capable of seeing the obvious:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/06/nasa-official-walks-claim-muslim-outreach-foremost-mission/

Griffin said Tuesday that collaboration with other countries, including Muslim nations, is welcome and should be encouraged — but that it would be a mistake to prioritize that over NASA’s “fundamental mission” of space exploration.

“If by doing great things, people are inspired, well then that’s wonderful,” Griffin said. “If you get it in the wrong order … it becomes an empty shell.”

Griffin added: “That is exactly what is in danger of happening.”

He also said that while welcome, Muslim-nation cooperation is not vital for U.S. advancements in space exploration.

“There is no technology they have that we need,” Griffin said.

Got it in one.

And Bolden has uttered his rubbish before:

A Feb. 16 blog in the Orlando Sentinel reported that Bolden discussed the outreach during a lecture to engineering students. As he did in the interview with Al Jazeera last month, Bolden was quoted then saying Obama told him to “find ways to reach out to dominantly Muslim countries.”

He reportedly talked about the importance of helping countries establish space programs and pointed to the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia, as a possible partner.

Indonesia? INDO-FRIKKEN’-NESIA?!?!?! What can they possibly have that we need… or that would make the sending of Americans to Mars substantially easier?