Is it okay to lie about Jesus?

January 31, 2015 • 1:00 pm

I usually listen to National Public Radio when I’m doing my Saturday-morning shopping, but the thought of having to hear the oliagenous Krista Tippett sometimes drives me away, and today it drove me to an even more religious station—Moody Radio Chicago. It’s a production of the Moody Bible Institute, a famous evangelical Christian seminary and educational center in a big building downtown.

I listened to all kinds of nonsense, like people calling in and asking if God would still hear their prayers if they called him “Yeshua” (the host said “yes,” that God knows all languages—though I’m not sure what would happen if you called him “Allah” but he was really Yahweh). It’s actually quite interesting to hear how deeply people are steeped in their delusion. (Another caller asked whether it was necessary to pray with your head bowed.)

What made me ponder, though, was some stuff said during a break during. A drug addict—a guy who had taken and manufactured methamphetamine—testified about his recovery. He was once completely absorbed in meth, and, he said, neglected his kids and family. And then he got into a recovery program and, with the help of Jesus, he claimed that he was made whole and is no longer addicted to drugs.

So I thought to myself, “What if believing that Jesus was there for him really helped him get off drugs, even if Jesus didn’t exist and the whole Christianity thing was a scam?”

So here’s my question: suppose that someone did a scientific tests of two programs that purported to get people off drugs: the best non-religious program (you’d have to consult experts on this) and the best Jesus-based program)—and you found that the Jesus-based program had better results? Remember, this is just a hypothetical question? You can also couch it like this: “Suppose adding Jesus to the most efficacious secular program improved its cure rate even more?”

Suppose you’re a drug counselor.  You want people to kick their addictions to harmful drugs like meth. But you don’t believe in Jesus because you’re an atheist.  My question is this: Would it be okay to lie to your charges about Jesus if it helped them get off drugs?

Now don’t mess up the answer with stuff like, “It wouldn’t help” (my question is a hypothetical), or “we haven’t yet tested all alternatives.” I’m talking about what one should do now in the face of existing evidence. (I repeat that there’s no evidence I know of that religion helps—but it could!)

 

Chopra officially posts his denial of AIDS denialism and his critique of Professor Ceiling Cat

January 31, 2015 • 9:30 am

Well, the person who posted his answer to my criticism of Deepak Chopra’s dangerous views on HIV/AIDS was obviously Chopra himself, for he’s now put up his original response as an official post at The Chopra Foundation: “Responses to Jerry Coyne’s misrepresentation of my position on HIV/AIDS.”

Unfortunately, in an act of cowardice, Chopra has turned off comments on that post. At least I let him respond on my site, and I’d ask him to reciprocate. He’s also failed to link to my original post, so he’s denying an assertion that he won’t let his readers see.

I stand by my original post that accused Chopra of denying that the virus was the cause of AIDS (something he now admits without also also admitting that he was wrong). That was a dangerous thing to say, and he hasn’t either retracted or clarified it beyond flaunting his M.D. credentials (and denigrating mine) and saying that he now asserts that HIV is the “cause”of AIDS. Which is it? Nor has he retracted his criticism of virus-reducing drugs like AZT, or clarified his views about how “bad thinking” might cause AIDS. For a fuller explication of Chopra’s errors and obfuscation, I direct you to Bo Gardiner’s longer analysis of his HIV/AIDS denialism on her website Under the Greenwood Tree.

If Chopra is interested in honest dialogue about science, I ask him to allow comments on his post. But I will be very surprised if he does, for he doesn’t want his readers to know the depth of criticism about his “science” that has surfaced from me and other researchers and doctors.

His views are dangerous, for they minimize the importance of the virus in AIDS, and maximize the value of “right thinking”, which (beyond those lifestyle changes that reduce the severity of the disease) hasn’t been shown to have any effect.

 

Caturday felid trifecta: Matthew’s cat name, Bart the zombie cat, and lynx becomes best buds with house cat

January 31, 2015 • 8:20 am

First, I reluctantly inform you that Matthew did not use any of the names suggested by readers for his new kitten. Instead, he went with the name they had tentatively chosen at the beginning—Harry. As he said, the source is obvious to anyone who has a teenager, and his daughter chose the name.  Sadly, since nobody won, nobody gets a book; but we’ll have another contest soon.

As solace, here’s a picture of Harry taken today, sitting in a box:

IMG_0119

*******

The big cat news of the week is the story of Zombie Cat, which many readers told me about.  Bart, a cat from Tampa Bay Florida, was hit by a car, buried by his owner after he showed no sign of life, and then—five days later—turned up alive but in bad shape. He had clawed his way out of the grave. From The Independent:

Ellis Hutson told vets that he had found Bart lying in a pool of blood after he was hit by a car, and had taken him away and buried him. He could not explain how the cat came to be spotted by neighbours five days later.

Vets said that the most likely explanation was that the cat was just unconscious, and clawed his way out of the grave before hiding for a few days until he became hungry. Hutson reportedly claimed he was “sure” Bart had been dead.

From ABC News:

The cat’s owner, Hutson, 52, said he found Bart the cat two weeks ago in the middle of the road, lifeless in a puddle of blood.

Hutson said he asked his friend to help bury the 23-month old cat, because the landscaper was so distraught after losing a companion he’s had since he was a kitten.

“We were so close, I couldn’t stand to bury him,” Hutson said. “I put him on the shoulder of the road and went and got David. He dug a hole and covered up the cat with dirt. I witnessed him bury the cat.”

Five days later, the cat showed up in a neighbor’s yard alive, but weak, dehydrated and in need of medical attention.

“I open the door and my neighbor’s standing there with the cat in her hand,” Hutson said. “She said, ‘Bart is not dead.’ I said, ‘That’s impossible. We buried Bart.'”

Here’s what Bart looked like when he showed up. His eye was irreparably damaged, and he had a broken jaw and severe facial wounds (photos from The Independent):

bart-cat

The great news is that Bart is being taken care of by the vets at the Human Society, and he’s expected to make a full recovery after his left eye is removed and his jaw, now wired shut, heals. Here he is in the Cone of Shame at the vet’s.

bart-cat3-v2

Now of course people are attributing Bart’s survival to God. One of them is a neighbor whose own cat died the same day that Bart was hit:

Hutson’s neighbor Dusty Albritton started a GoFundMe page to raise money for the cat’s medical expenses.

“I saw him with my own eyes. I know he was dead. He was cold and stiff,” Albritton told ABC News.

Albritton’s cat died the same day with similar injuries.

“We figured he was hit by the same car,” she said.

“Now my kids believe their cat will also rise from the dead,” she said with a chuckle. “But I told them I don’t think so.”

When she discovered the resurrected Bart, she said he acted “like he’s in no pain whatsoever.”

“The only thing I can think of is that this is God’s miracle. And I thought, why five days later? If Bart was alive before, he would have come to our homes earlier. All I can think of is that God created animal life on the fifth day.“

I guess that God hated Albritton’s cat.  Reader Matt sent the link to a video and his own reaction:

There are several videos. The one on nbcnews.com has an interview with the poor kitty’s staff, thanking jesus for bring his cat back from the grave. I give the kitty 5 stars for being dead 2 days longer than jesus…

Finally, here’s a YouTube video of the Lazarus Cat:

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Finally, the Pussington Post, a great source of cat stories, reports an unlikely friendship between two species of felid:

A homeless cat now named Darling wandered into the lynx cage at St. Petersburg Zoo and quickly bonded with Linda the Lynx. Despite the disparity in their size they quickly became best friends.

Instead of sending her back to the streets the zoo staff decided to adopt the domestic calico cat and gave her the name Darling.

Several years have now passed and the friends remain inseparable friends.

The video quality ain’t great, but the bond is still remarkable. I wonder if the housecat ever gets out of the cage:

h/t: Merilee and elebenty gazillion readers

 

Readers’ wildlife (and astronomy) photographs

January 31, 2015 • 6:39 am

Well, astronomy isn’t wildlife unless there are creatures out there, but I’ll include this photo because a. it’s very good and b. I don’t know where else to put it. It comes from reader Tim Anderson, an astronomy buff, who took it Thursday night from Tumut, New South Wales, Oz:

This is a photograph of the Orion Nebula (Messier 42), taken on 30 January 2015. The nebula lies at the tip of Orion’s sword. The photograph is a stack of sixteen 30-second exposures taken with a Canon DSLR mounted on a 110mm aperture refracting telescope.

Orion Nebula 2

Now I’m sure that those readers who take pictures with telescopes know the reason for using 16 30-second exposure, but I didn’t, and I asked:

 If you look at the night sky, you’ll notice how little starlight there actually is (the Orion Nebula is a faint fuzzy patch even on good nights). To get the details, you need a lot of light, hence the long exposures and plenty of them. The experts often take six hours worth of five-minute exposures to show up very distant faint galaxies. You also have to account for the rotation of the Earth – thirty seconds is about as long as a single exposure can be before the stars start to form streaks. Unless you have a motorized mount capable of tracking them.

Tim also sent a photo of his telescope; don’t ask me what all those gizmos are:

Telecope

And back to critters, reader Laurie in England sent a photo of a sleeping Honorary Cat™:

This guy was fast asleep outside our kitchen for a few hours.  Poor Theo was going bananas.  He was there for so long, I thought he might be sick and I thought of ringing a vet.  But luckily he moved off when I rattled the door.  The urban ones in London have evolved into these guys that are out in the open any time of day.  Isn’t be gorgeous?

(Theo, by the way, is her prize-winning and unusual cat—a moggie who drinks espresso [see him here]).

Fox, Laurie

Time for plants! Here are two wild species snapped by reader Marilee Lovit:

Iris hookeri, a/k/a Iris setosa, a subarctic species that reaches a southern limit along the Maine coast.

Merilee Iris hookeri Nash Island May 31 2010 ml 094

Here is a plant, in case recent interest in the Andromeda galaxy can carry over, Andromeda polifoliavar. glaucophylla. Bog-rosemary. Photographed from my kayak, in a bog in Maine.

Andromeda polifolia 5-25-2008 ml 071 (2)

And finally, photos of a nuthatch and a chickadee (nomming seeds) from Diana MacPherson. Sadly, I’ve lost her notes on these, which would have had some nice anthropomorphic description. I’ll leave her to do that in the comments.  The IDs will have to be mine, and if I err let me know.

A white-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis):

270A0860

A black-capped chickadee next to what appears to be a faux lizard (Poecile atricapillus):

270A0898

 

Chopra responds about HIV/AIDS

January 30, 2015 • 7:25 pm

Someone whom I think is Deepak Chopra (the email address makes me a bit unsure) has responded to my criticisms of his earlier interview, an interview in which he stated, among other dubious claims, that the HIV virus is not the cause of AIDS. He now seems have retracted tha claim t without actually doing so. You can see his long comment (I’m assuming it’s him) here.

I have responded right below it.

Readers can feel free to respond as well, but, as always, do not be aggressive or nasty when dealing with someone who responds to public criticism on my site.