Second, I had a great conversation with Mister Payne for the Religion of Curiosity podcast, and the episode has just posted. This is a really great show that genuinely, curiously explores many questions about religion, so check out all of his shows! I haven’t listened to this episode yet*, but we talk about my beefs with Catholicism, why I consider myself to be pretty laid-back about my atheism these days, astronomy, bellydancing, etc. It was a really fun conversation so I hope you enjoy listening in.

*And I probably won’t… I hate how I sound, or my accent, or my word choice or something… so once something is published, I can’t go back and listen to it without cringing!

The Catholic Church surely don’t have the monopoly on harm.  But as an ex-Catholic who was quite dedicated to the faith and raised in a nearly all-Catholic community, the stupidity of some Church doctrines get under my skin in a deeply emotional way.  Maybe it’s frustration at the hundreds of hours I spent in church, the skewed view of history I received in my Catholic school, the percentage of my allowance that ultimately went into their bloated coffers, the anti-abortion letters we wrote to politicians as homework, the dozens of hours I spent in service to my church, desperately trying to connect the Catholic worldview with my own emerging one, or the fact that some of my nearest and dearest friends are still Catholic.

Sometime in high school, I found it increasingly difficult to align myself with a worldview that viewed homosexuality as an unnatural evil.  To count myself among the numbers of Catholics who supposedly, though not in reality, all hold to church doctrine, seemed disingenuous.  How so many can do that without trying to change their church for the better or just leave it in the Middle Ages where it belongs… I will never understand.

Anyway, this sentiment was brought forth in response to a couple of recent news items. In one, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., is at a standstill with D.C. lawmakers over certain non-discrimination laws that would require the Catholic Church to not discriminate against same-sex couples.  Catholic Charities would then end its contract with the city, which allows the organizations to partner up to provide basic charitable care to the city’s poorest inhabitants.  The article doesn’t cover the thorny issue terribly well, since it is full of quotes and accusations from both sides.  The issue is elucidated somewhat by a follow-up article (thanks, Nick!)

I think the solution is fairly simple: separation of church and state! It protects the religious freedom of the Church, which can then discriminate at will with its followers’ own money, and the lawmakers don’t then have to bend over backwards to compromise on civil rights.  While you are at it, take away the tax-exempt status of churches, and leave that privilege for the actual charitable subsets of the organizations.  I think no matter how you slice it, the Church looks like a bunch of bigots to the rest of us.

So this ties into the next recent topic, a debate on whether the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world.  On the “yes” side were Archbishop John Onaiyekan and Anne Widdencombe MP, and for “no,” everyone’s favorite chain-smoking atheist Chris Hitchens and the lovable Stephen Fry.  As you can imagine, the proponents of Catholicism tout the many charitable acts provided by the Church (um, see previous issue, it comes with a stipulation) and ignore the accusations of harm done by the Church in the past and in the present.  Even if you ignore rehashing the Crusades, the Inquisition, or the arrest of Galileo, there is plenty of harm to the world from Catholicism today. When the Church actively discriminates gays for no other reason than “god says it’s icky,” when the pope goes to Africa and blatantly lies to a continent ravaged by AIDS, saying that condoms worsen the spread HIV, when these Middle Aged superstitions are carried to all corners of the Earth with the bait of food and education, so that a doctor can be excommunicated for performing a live-saving abortion for a raped 9-year-old girl, or innocent people in Africa and around the world are being tortured and killed in accusations of witchcraft in 2009, some with the help of Christian pastors… yeah, I have a problem. You can have charity without the funny hats and ridiculous doctrine and the cost in human lives. Shouldn’t an organization that claims to have knowledge of divine truth be progressive in issues of civil rights, even to the point of being millennia ahead of the rest of the world?

I do believe that most religious people are generally good and would continue to support charitable acts around the world without Church oversight.  After all, building a better world is a basic tenet of secular humanism. Part of that belief is also motivated by the fact that I know so many people that I love and adore and that would never intentionally harm another human being who are Catholic.  My problem is with the doctrine and those that carry it out in harmful ways.  I would just love to see millions of Catholics see the atrocities being perpetrated TODAY in the name of their religion, and either force it to adapt, or leave it altogether.  I was heartened to see at the end of the debate that most of the audience came around to this starkly obvious conclusion.

Just watch and tell me what you think.

Part 1 of 5

Part 2 of 5

Part 3 of 5

Part 4 of 5

Part 5 of 5

So there, that’s my asshole skepticism unleashed just a bit. Passionate, yes, but informed, and with darn good reasons to care so much.  And if you really care, too, please do what you can to help others around with world without the guise of religion, and donate a little bit to a charity like Doctors Without Borders.

Obama is now expanding the Faith-Based Initiative that was started under President Bush, which has been highly criticized in the secular community for linking church and state and allowing federal tax dollars to be used for proselytizing and discriminatory hiring practices. The goal of using community organizations to combat poverty seems reasonable to me, which is why it should be scrapped and restarted as a “community-based initiative” without preference to religions. D.J. Grothe from the Center for Inquiry gives a good breakdown of the problems with the initiative, and James Randi is similarly peeved.

This seems like an obvious point, but it was certainly an “ah ha!” moment for me. Really, there are as many religions as there are religious people, when you get right down to it. Each person interprets the religious teachings and acts, thinks, and reacts based on their own cultural and personal influences. My personal experience was with Catholicism, which is fairly strict on what it considers canon. However, most Catholics that I know believed and practiced a religion that was slightly different from that canon. So, is Catholicism all that comes out from the pope? Or is it defined by the Catholic people? What becomes a problem is when it is said that xx% of people are Catholic and Catholics reject birth control. Well… that’s not true. Many Catholics understand the efficiacy, safety, and need for birth control, so they are not being properly represented.

Is there ever a true, pure religion? One can say that the purest form is in the writings, but religious writings are self-contridictory. Therefore, it can never be practiced in it’s “pure” form! In fact, if more people were to realize that religion, and how it is practiced, is so heavily influenced by culture and personality, it could mitigate some of the “my religion is the only correct religion” mentality that threatens political stability and personal relationships. It may also keep non-believers from putting people in a box based on their religious labels. However, believers should be aware of the implications of their label and realize when religion breaks down in describing one’s actions and morals! Maybe, just maybe, religion isn’t needed for describing morality at all!

And, for those of you in the land of the Doctor, enjoy the Christmas special, you lucky kids. I’ll be, er, well, I’ll find *some* way to watch it over the next day or so… (Thanks, Mad Martha!)

Finally, since I grew up in the Catholic tradition, a little bit of INFALLIBILITY FAIL on this holy day, thanks to The Amateur Scientist.

Just saying…

Jesus is Alpha and Omega the Begining and the End.
No one comes to the Father but through Jesus Christ.

Jesus died for our sins so that we can have eternal life through Him. He loves you and does not wish for you to go to hell but to have life. There are two places you can go after death and that is either Heaven or hell. Now in the bible it says hell has enlarged itself meaning more and more people are going to hell and its becoming bigger. Satan is going around and decieving many people in thinking there is no God or there is no heaven or hell. Do not believe satan, for he know his time is running out and he is trying to get as many souls as possible. There is a God and you don’t have to go to hell, all you have to do is accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour. Its not hard at all and only takes a couple of seconds to become saved through Jesus. Jesus only ask of a small favor but, the hearts of men that make it so hard. Please repent, for Jesus is coming back sooner than you think to take back home His saints. But its up to you to choose wether you want to go back with Him and be in His loving care

God bless

At first, I thought I was going to be offended. But all I can see is someone who is really trying to… help. It wasn’t threatening, it wasn’t mean, it was an honest to goodness gesture. Normally, I am annoyed by proselytizing, but someone did take time out of their day to do a little something for me, to save me from a terrible fate that they believe may befall me. I can only say, thank you… but I think I’ll be alright.

Many theists, not this one in particular it seems, but some, get deeply offended when an atheist publicly declares his or her non-belief, even in a way that is not meant to convince others. Things like the “Don’t Believe in God?” ads (targeting other non-theists) or attempts at keeping church and state separate spark all kinds of outrage from some theists who wrongly feel that their rights are somehow being trampled. The so-called New Atheists are decried for writing books highly critical of religion, but of course, you don’t have to buy them. If more atheists were to actively proselytize like this fellow above, could you imagine the outrage then?

To these Hindu and Buddhist clerics, with the approval of the Nepalese president, being treated like a goddess involves being stripped from your family, thoroughly checked for physical imperfections, spending a night in a dark room filled with severed animal heads, living in isolation in an ancient temple, being paraded around the streets for strangers to touch you, and finally cast back into society, penniless and without a hope of marriage, at the time when you are emotionally most vulnerable. Um, no thanks, I think I’ll pass.

Although I disagree that mere indoctrination of children into religion is necessarily child abuse, this clearly crosses the line and violates the basic human rights of these girls. And notice that her horoscopes were checked in her candidacy for goddess-hood. Who said astrology wasn’t harmful?

Okay, so the fabulous and wonderful VAA trekked out to the Vinegar Hill Theatre in CVille to see Religulous on it’s opening night. This is the “guerrilla-style” documentary by Bill Maher and Larry Charles which aims to reveal the ridiculousness and danger of religion. Overall, I liked it. To be honest, sometimes I was a little uncomfortable while watching it. After all, I usually complain when a film uses biases to prove a point. I should just relax and realize that this and other movies like it is an opinion piece, not a statement of scientific, unbiased, rational, skeptical fact. I’ll have to ease up on the genre in general.

The film took a humorous romp through the fields of belief in the major three monotheistic religions. Humorous, at least, for those of us who find those beliefs generally laughable. Sometimes, you just let it go and smile at the credulity of the happy believers. Sometimes, you shake your head in disgust at the depth of ridiculousness, such as when Ken Ham was on screen. Other times, you feel a mixture of disgust and sympathy, such as when Arkansas senator Mark Pryor gets caught up in his own contradictions. My personal favorite was the senior Vatican priest (outside after the film crew had been kicked out) who bemusedly admitted that it was all just bunk, but hey, we live with it.

It’s debatable how much Bill Maher knows about the three religions that he attempts to expose. It is especially difficult for those of us in the West to culturally understand Islam, and yet the “religion of peace” take the worst hit in the film. No surprise, too, since Maher’s final message is that dogmatic belief in a divine power can lead to disastrous consequences, especially for a human race that has mastered species-destroying weaponry. The final scenes are meant to evoke the emotion of fear, and boy, do they do a good job. It’s like a bait-and-switch… most of the movie is hilarious, although you feel guilty laughing at the points where strange beliefs are tied to violence, and it ends with a very sobering message: Grow up or die.

Surely, most movie-goers are going to be those non-believers who already don’t mind poking at other people’s beliefs. So is this just “preaching to the choir”? Not so. Not all atheists are out-spoken, and I think this movie will have an effect on those to be more open about their atheism and help remove religious belief from it’s untouchable pedestal by society. (Such was confirmed by at least one in our crowd who still “coming out of the closet.”) It may even have an effect on believers, who will take responsibility for their religious beliefs and realize that radicals, fundamentalists, and overall no-gooders who supposedly subscribe to the same religion should be intellectually disowned by the moderates.

See it for yourself, and also check out more reviews and discussions here and here and here and here.

Oooo! And before I forget again, Larry at VCU has posted the Hitchen-Turek debate for all to see. Yay!

Get Inside the Vaccine-and-Autism Scare with a review of Dr. Paul A. Offit’s new book, “Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure.” This is important medical history for anyone with or planning to have children. As a parent, (I imagine, since I am not one) you have to make very important decisions that affect the health and well-being of your child. Since not all of us can be doctors, we have to do the best we can with a little bit of reading, research, and critical thinking. I’m sure I will spend most of my pregnancy (whenever I do decide to spawn some little buggers) researching children’s health issues, such as the anti-vaccine campaign. The evidence seems to rule against these claims, but many parents still choose not to vaccinate children, putting them and other children at risk of disease. Also, autism is an important disease that deserves careful research into plausible areas of risk prevention, if such a thing is possible, and treatment.

Christopher Hitchens was at it again in a debate against theologian and physicist Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete. Apparently, Hitchens was in top form and was able to trounce his opponent, and I hope that video of this will be available. IMO, he was pretty good, but not thorough, against the blatant and boring misuse of science by Frank Turek at VCU earlier this month, and frankly, they just talked right past each other.

PZ Myers warns us that in medicine, “provider conscience rights” are getting more airplay, and that they are in clear violation of patients’ rights. Scary stuff.

Coming out of the closet? No, not that one, the atheist closet. Then you are wanted for a sociological survey by Dr. Tom Arcaro and Brother Richard. All the cool kids are doing it.

Oh noes! The LHC will now be down until spring 2009! The repairs needed for the problems since the first test will creep into the winter maintenance period, so comissioning won’t resume until the spring. Bummer. Yet a situation all to familiar to one who works in instrumentation.

In the meantime, check out the top LHC videos! You’ve got the ever famous LHC rap, the adorable and smart Brian Cox telling the scientists’ creation story and marvelling at the wonder of exploration, and a great in-depth explanation of how the LHC makes those protons go round and round.

And finally, signs of the seasons…

and signs of the times…

(In all fairness, the latter was taken on the Google “Appiness” Bus while on its tour stop at UVa!)

Carnival of Space #71,

The epic fail of the Vatican trying to do science,

The very sad news from the LHC, which is shut down for two months due to a glitch (ah, such is instrumentation),

How “Religulous” aims to destroy religion (um, ur doin it wrong?),

and, NASA’s global warming rubber duckies!