Category: osculating the rump of faith

The FBI and terrorism: a satire

September 21, 2016 • 2:39 pm

This clip was produced by a group of Israelis who did satirical cabaret, making fun of sacred cows. (The language is Hebrew with English subtitles.) The cow in this short video is the FBI’s attitudes toward Islamic terrorism; the Boston FBI locale and Chechen perpetrators make clear that this is about the Boston Marathon bombing. (The video was also made in 2013).

This film, in fact, couldn’t be shown on Israeli television, which by and large is so Regressive Leftist that it wouldn’t countenance this kind of satire. But it’s funny, and certainly has a grain of truth. Malgorzata found it and put the subtitles in Polish, which you can see, if you wish, by pressing the cc button.

Fulsome accommodationism in the journal Nature

September 21, 2016 • 10:00 am

I don’t know what’s going on with Science and Nature—perhaps the two most prestigious science journals in the world—but both are increasingly catering, if not pandering, to religion. Science and its sponsoring organization the AAAS have a program, funded by Templeton, to increase dialogue between science and religion, and the AAAS has faith-themed events at its annual meeting. Nature publishges editorials and pieces speaking positively about religion, claiming that science and religion both depend on “faith”, and arguing that science and religion are compatible (see here and here, for example).

Now Nature has jumped the shark even farther with a new article by Kathryn Prichard, who works for the Church of England, called “Religion and science can have a true dialogue.” This short piece is still too long, for Prichard simply claims that science and religion can have a fruitful dialogue because religious people are avid followers of—indeed, are hungering for—science. This, she argues, should lead to useful discourse between the two areas, discourse too often stymied by popular misconceptions that science and religion are in conflict.

But her article is one of those well-meaning bowls of mush that hasn’t been properly digested, and Prichard tries to veil the very profound conflict between religion and science with a rain of sweet words.

My counterarguments to her pap are these:

Science and religion are in conflict.  I lay out the reasons in Faith Versus Fact. Suffice it to say here that both areas endeavor to find truths about the Universe, but only science has a way of verifying its truths. The “truths” of religion—about the existence of God, the afterlife, saviors and prophets, the nature of God, His moral code and so on—differ among faiths, and none can be verified empirically. In other words, scientific claims are made on the basis of observational and experimental evidence that is widely agreed on (and makes testable predictions), while religious claims are made on the basis of revelation, dogma, scripture, and authority. Only one of these epistemological methods is reliable.

Prichard claims that the conflict simply doesn’t exist, it’s a misleading “popular narrative of science-faith conflict that pervades contemporary culture.” She also argues that this false argument is used to dismiss the ethical concerns of religious scientists:

Too often, this simplistic claimed tension is used in the media, for instance, to pigeonhole ethical arguments from (even highly scientifically literate) religious figures as being relevant only to those ‘of faith’, rather than expressing a broader concern for human welfare. This biases the way that their engagement filters into public consciousness.

Her unwillingness to give examples of anything (and her tedious prose) makes this a bit hard to parse, but I’m not aware of secular ethical arguments being dismissed simply because a scientist is religious. Plenty of religious scientists are pro-conservation and anti-global warming, and I’ve never seen anybody say, “Well, we can dismiss her arguments because she’s a faithhead.” On the other hand, when some religious scientists argue, as does Francis Collins, that human morality, lacking an evolutionary explanation, much have been vouchsafed us by God (shades of C. S. Lewis!), we can dismiss their arguments out of hand because they involve a deity for which there’s no evidence.

Finally, Prichard hints that the historical conflicts between churches and science are overblown. This is a common theme of accommodationist historians like Ronald Numbers, who say that the Galileo affair, as well as creationism, have nothing to do with religion. In fact, in this way the accommodationists are of a piece with those who claim that terrorism has nothing to do with religion. It’s always politics, personal frustration, colonization, and so on. To argue that creationism is not a huge instantiation of the different “ways of knowing” of science versus faith is to brand yourself as an ideologically blinkered zealot. And the motivation of both groups is the same: to show that religion can’t inspire anything bad.

A “constructive” dialogue between science and religion can go only one way: science tells religion what’s true, and religion has to deal with it. Although Prichard claims that fruitful two-way dialogue is possible (“Our projects express the conviction that science and theology — at the church, cathedral and local-community level — can illuminate one another to the benefit of all. We will report on the results”), she only gives us ways that science can help theology. For example:

Science and faith, we are constantly told, are in conflict and have little in common. Yet in this enjoyable, high-energy context [a meeting of the Archbishops’ Council of the CoE related to science], there was much to tease out together in terms of big questions about human origins, purpose and destiny. What would it mean for belief in God and the story and themes of Christian faith if there were multiverses? Where is the Universe heading, and what does that tell us about human purpose and destiny? The event was transformative in ways that none of us — the cosmologists included — could fully articulate.

Well let the faithful masticate these metaphysical questions until their teeth are worn down, for they won’t find any answers. But scientists have even less to gain—in fact nothing—from theology. Ours is an atheistic, naturalistic discipline, one that needs no input from religion. As Laplace is supposed to have said about God, “We have no need of that hypothesis.”

At the end, Prichard describes some projects intended to educate the faithful about science, like a “Scientists in Congregations” project that brings science and its practitioners into Christian churches to educate believers. That’s fine with me: the more science the better, and maybe a few people might even give up their superstitions. But, to paraphrase C. S. Lewis, “Let us not come with any patronizing nonsense that science has something to gain when believers discuss their faith with scientists. Science has not left that open to us. That is not the way it works.”

The asymmetry between science and religion—science can force religion to change its theology, while religion can have no effect on science—is, I think, known to most believers. And it infuriates them. It shows the epistemological inferiority of religion and the vapidity of religious belief. To deal with this cognitive dissonance, people like Prichard pretend that their faith has something to contribute to science, so that the areas are not only not in conflict, but mutually supportive.

That, of course, is hogwash. But it pains me to see the hog being bathed in the pages of Nature.

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h/t: Cameron

The BBC osculates faith on Sunday morning

September 11, 2016 • 8:46 am

Reader Michael called my attention to today’s BBC schedule, which apparently upset him. His note:

Hi Jerry. The below is my BBC radio guide for this morning. I’ve supplied exact quotes of the listing descriptions. Please note that item 8 is a different person each week and it’s very rarely an atheist.
06:00 – 07:00
[1] BBC Radio 2: “THE SUNDAY HOUR. Diane Louise Jordan plays uplifting spiritual music  – hymns, gospel, choral, classics. Plus listeners’ dedications & prayers.”

06:00 – 07:00
[2] BBC Radio West Midlands: “SIOR COLEMAN. Sunday morning hymns and the religious music you love.”

06:05  – 06:35
[3] BBC Radio 4: “SOMETHING UNDERSTOOD. Ethical & religious discussion. Poetic Rituals: Dr Sarah Goldingay searches for moments of transcendence that can be encountered through the routine & ritual of the everyday”

07:00 – 09:05   
[4] BBC Radio 2: “GOOD MORNING SUNDAY. Fern Britton presents the topical faith programme with poet Lemn Sissay & faith guest Reverend Zoe Hemming”

07:00 – 09:00
[5] BBC Radio West Midlands: “SUNDAY BREAKFAST. Llewela Bailey with the week’s news & topical conversation from a faith perspective”

07:10 – 07:54
[6] BBC Radio 4: “SUNDAY. How can churches’ make people with learning disabilities welcome? Measures to placate Icelandic elves. A LGBT chaplain for Wales. Are C of E Bishops too ‘safe’?”

08:10 – 08:48
[7] BBC Radio 4: SUNDAY WORSHIP. The Power of Peace: The Rev Steve Chalke argues that living a life of peace is the most radical response to violence & suffering. Live from Oasis Church, Waterloo, London”

08:48 – – 08:58
[8] BBC Radio 4: “A POINT OF VIEW. A reflection on a topical issue. Atheist John Gray muses on what his idea of heaven is – and why it shouldn’t be a perfect world”

I had no idea that there were three hours of religious proselytizing on the Sunday BBC. Even the last ten minutes, involving John Gray (whom I’ve often criticized on this site and called “an atheist-hating atheist”) is paying some homage to religion by discussing heaven. But really, a government-run radio station in a largely secular country—one far less religious than the U.S.—shouldn’t be purveying this kind of fictional palaver. NPR, the U.S. equivalent, though not run by the government, would never do anything like this. Any any U.S. government radio station wouldn’t be allowed to broadcast such stuff; it would violate the First Amendment. (Or, if they did, they’d have to allow all religions to do their thing, including the Pastafarians and Scientologists.)

Isn’t this what churches are for?

Nick Kristof osculates religion again, but do the faithful really give more to charity?

September 4, 2016 • 8:30 am

Let’s face it, you’re not going to lose any readers if you praise religion in The New York Times, as Nicholas Kristof has done this morning. If you criticize religion you lose both readers and popularity, but osculating faith? Well, believers and faitheists will love you, and most nonbelievers will just say “meh.” And believe me, everyone knows this, which is why a number of atheist scientists stay well away from criticizing religion.

Kristof, who describes himself as sort of religious, is kvetching about how progressive the founders of Christianity and Islam were—noting that Jesus focused “on the sick and the poor” and Muhammad “raised the status of women in his time”—but now religions are debased, with adherents ignoring the messages of the founders. Kristof quotes a rabbi, Rick Jacobs, on what the faithful should be doing:

“That’s where I see our path,” Jacobs said. “People have seen ritual as an obsession for the religious community, and they haven’t seen the courage and commitment to shaping a more just and compassionate world.”

If certain religious services were less about preening about one’s own virtue or pointing fingers at somebody else’s iniquity and more about tackling human needs around us, this would be a better world — and surely Jesus would applaud as well.

But that’s secular humanism, isn’t it? But Kristof argues that religion inspires the “tackling of human needs,” at least where charity is concerned:

This may seem an unusual column for me to write, for I’m not a particularly religious Christian. But I do see religious faith as one of the most important forces, for good and ill, and I am inspired by the efforts of the faithful who run soup kitchens and homeless shelters. [JAC: Note that he mentions only the good bits. No beheadings, no attacks on abortion by Catholics.]

Perhaps unfairly, the pompous hypocrites get the headlines and often shape public attitudes about religion, but there’s more to the picture. Remember that on average religious Americans donate far more to charity and volunteer more than secular Americans do.

Well, the last sentence may not be true—at least in the sense Kristof means. At the end of 2013, Hemant Mehta looked at the data from a National Study of Religious Giving (summarized at Religion Dispatches), and said that the common idea of generous religionists and chintzy nonbelievers isn’t really true.  I quote from the RD study:

Religion is where American give, and a reason why they give. Along with the 73% statistic, the study revealed that 55% of Americans say that their religious orientation (a weird locution, but one the study chose) motivates their giving.

That may not seem like a lot, but just crunch the numbers for a minute. The study found that 65% of religiously-affiliated people donate to congregations or charitable organizations. (More on that statistic later.)  80% of Americans are religiously affiliated. And 65% of 80% is just about… 55% of the total.  In other words, the religious people who are giving say they’re giving because of religion. And they’re overwhelmingly giving to religion as well.

. . . Probably the most notable statistics, though, are those which compare religious and non-religious philanthropy. Religion is supposed to make us better people, which includes, I assume, being more generous. So, is it the case that religious people give more generously than the non-religious?

Well, yes and no. Remember that statistic, that 65% of religious people donate to charity? The non-religious figure is 56%. But according to the study, the entire 9% difference is attributed to religious giving to congregations and religious organizations. So, yes, religion causes people to give more—to religion itself.

What did Richard Dawkins say? The primary function of a meme is to replicate itself. Which is what religions do, brilliantly.

As between different religions, the numbers are fairly consistent—except for American Jews, who give more to secular causes than anyone else. Coming in the wake of the recent Pew Survey on American Jewish Life, these findings may shed new light on Jewish secularism, a trend which has greatly worried the Jewish establishment. Maybe the secular social-justice commitments of American Jews are a sign of Judaism’s success.

So, most religious people are equally generous; they only give more than non-religious people because they give to religious organizations; and they, like the rest of us, give to overwhelmingly religious organizations. For better or for worse.

Now the quoted study was in 2013, so perhaps the faithful have amped up their giving since then. But Kristof’s link to religious generosity gives data from 2008.) If you know of newer results, by all means mention them in the comments.

h/t: Jeff Tayler

What the hell happened to National Geographic?

July 15, 2016 • 8:45 am

Well, we know that the Murdoch family and their Fox organization took over the magazine rag at the end of 2015. As the Guardian reported then, the magazine was bleeding money, and after the takeover a lot of people either quit or were fired.  And now, it seems, the magazine is turning into a tabloid, one with strong religious overtones. If you go to the National Geographic Shop, for instance, you’ll find this (I believe this issue came out in the spring):

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And this:

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Now reader James Blilie sent me an advertisement for a book that came in a card inset into his latest issue. James’s words and then the ad:

National Geographic, post-Murdoch, has slid downhill rapidly.  They recently had cover stories about: Mary (the fictional Mary of the Jesus story) and “life after death”, which included several two-page spread photos and took up a large percentage of the issue.  I’ve been meaning to send a letter to NG letting them know that I will no longer read their magazine due to its abandonment of science-based journalism; but this, enclosed with the most recent issue, may push me over to finally write that letter.
 
NG has stooped to publishing “biographies” of fictional religious figures (see attached scan). What’s next, an illustrated biography of Heathcliff or Jean Valjean?
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Ah, when I think about how much I loved the magazine as a child, and how eagerly I tore through each issue to learn about the world, and admire the fantastic photos—it almost makes me weep. Well, not really. If they’re going to ruin their reputation with junk like this, that’s their prerogative. I no longer subscribe, and many people seem to be cancelling their subscriptions in view of the new Murdoch ownership. God knows (that’s a metaphor) what their television channel is up to.

We know nothing about Jesus except for the highly suspect stories in the Bible, and there’s even doubt about whether the Jesus myth accreted around a real person. Do you think National Geographic mentions that in this book? I doubt it. They once got children like me excited about the world; now they peddle damaging myths to children.

 

PuffHo again distorts Islam, trying to show that it’s a great religion

April 8, 2016 • 12:30 pm

The “Religion” section is one of the most annoying aspects of that annoying site. I don’t know why I keep looking at it, but I suppose it helps me keep my finger on the American religious pulse.

The tenor of the site is to argue that all faith is good, and any criticism of faith is based on a misunderstanding of that faith. And so it is with Islam, which PuffHo, about as Regressive Leftist as a site can be, is constantly trying to show us is really a Religion of Peace.

Of course for some Muslims it is, but overall it’s also very authoritarian, and rife with bigotry and oppression, something you can easily see if you look at the Pew Survey of the World’s Muslims that came out three years ago. The survey didn’t really involve all the world’s Muslims, for they didn’t question the citizens of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, or Iran—for obvious reasons! So the results are skewed towards a more “moderate” Islam, and even then they’re still scary. Have a look at my post from May of that year to see the substantial number of Muslims in the 38 countries surveyed who favor sharia law, stoning as punishment for adultery, the death penalty for apostasy, as well as the view that homosexuality is immoral and a wife must always obey her husband. The picture is not one of a tolerant, peaceful, and welcoming faith, but a repressive and intolerant one.

The data speak for themselves, but people resolutely ignore it, even though, had they surveyed Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, things would have looked even worse. Seriously, would you consider the Wahhabi Islam of Saudi Arabia a desirable, conciliatory faith? PuffHo couldn’t even put out much of its stuff in that land!

Well, the site wants to ignore these inconvenient truths in its mission to pretend that all Muslims adhere to a wonderful faith. Have a look at its April 6 article, for instance: “Here are 4 concepts in Islam Muslims wish you’d talk about more” (or click on the screenshot below, for it’s largely a video). To show that Muslims are mostly peaceful and tolerant, they interviewed exactly five adherents:

For years, Islam has been misunderstood and politicized by American pundits and politicians. The consequences of this climate are evident in the growing number of anti-Muslim incidents that are occurring across the country. Although it’s ridiculously unfair burden to put on American Muslim communities, Muslim activists and organizations have repeatedly and unequivocally denounced terrorism in all forms and stood up to defend their faith.

Muslim Americans have had to spend a lot of time talking about what Islam isn’t. So it’s important for allies and others who seek to understand the community to listen in closely when they talk about what Islam is — the theology and practices that make this religion so precious to its followers.

HuffPost Rise invited five Muslim Americans to talk about concepts within Islam that they wish more people knew about. The participants spoke about ideas of justice, mercy, community, and diversity.

Have a gander:

Screen Shot 2016-04-08 at 7.37.03 AM

What you hear is that Islam (and not just Islam in America!) is balanced, merciful, compassionate, that its adherents don’t hold animus against a wrongdoer (!!), and that the faith promotes comity among all nations as well as tolerance among people with different views.

Well, yes, these five cherry-picked, smiling, and Westernized Muslims believe these things, but it just isn’t true. Have a look at the degree of “tolerance” evinced on one front: tolerance of those who leave Islam. Here are the Pew data:

apostasy

And look at the original survey. What you’ll realize is that PuffHo is dissimulating: using hand-picked Muslims to pretend that there’s not a darker side of the faith. PuffHo is in fact lying—through omission.

Let us always be aware that there are those in the media who want to signal their virtue by putting out the message that Islam is a lovely, peaceful, and tolerant faith. For some it is, but for many it’s not.  The Muslims who are making trouble are not the Westernized group trotted out in the video above, but those who embrace the forms of intolerance and repression that are so common in the Pew Survey.

Shame on PuffHo, and on all those who distort the data on faith (I’m looking at you, Karen Armstrong) to paint religion as a positive force in this world.

Morgan Freeman’s “The Story of God” continues its pandering to believers

March 27, 2016 • 10:00 am

This is part of Morgan Freeman’s series “The Story of God” that begins on Sunday, April 3, on the National Geographic channel. (See my previous post on this series, which appears to be involved in heavy osculation of faith.) The title of this video that National Geographic chose is “Morgan Freeman Examines the Afterlife in Jerusalem,” which already tells you that it’s hardly unbiased. Have a gander at a tomb that the show describes as the “historically credible” resting place of Jesus. The archaeologist is a real Jesus enthusiast. (Apparently the term “mythicist” isn’t in the show’s vocabulary.)

Here’s PuffHo‘s puffery:

Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre is believed to be the site where Jesus was both crucified and buried. Due to the prominence of those events in the Christian gospel, celebrated during the Holy Week leading up to Easter, the site has long been a place of pilgrimage for Christians around the world.

Actor Morgan Freeman recently made his own pilgrimage to the revered site for the upcoming National Geographic Channel series, “The Story of God with Morgan Freeman.” In the clip above, the actor visits the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and discusses its history with archaeologist Jodi Magness.

“You can really feel the energy here,” Freeman says in the clip. “This spot is the focus of so much devotion.”

Magness explains to Freeman that in Jesus’ time, Jews buried their dead in underground burial caves, much like the one beneath the church. Christian gospel recounts that Jesus was buried outside the walls of Jerusalem, which the church was at the time of Jesus’s death.

“In some places I found answers, and others led to more questions,” Freeman said in a press release. “The constant through it all is that we’re all looking to be part of something bigger than us. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that we certainly are.”

You can feel the energy there—if you’re already a believer. I doubt it would do much for me. Nor of course does the film express any doubt whether Jesus lived, or whether he was in some sense a holy figure. The stuff about the film “leading to more questions” is, of course, standard boilerplate, but if by “we are certainly part of something bigger than us,” Freeman means something divine, then he’s simply making stuff up.