Well, Muslim theologians have come up with the greatest marketing tool ever.  They tell randy young men that they’ll get great sex in heaven if they will just blow themselves up.  Here’s a video of Egyptian clerics promising martyrs black-eyed virgins and other goodies in the afterlife.

“We congratulate the relatives of whoever died for the sake of Allah. We congratulate these (martyrs themselves).  There are black-eyed virgins ready for you. The martyr gets at least two of the virgins of Paradise.  Imagine a black-eyed virgin embracing the martyr.  While people carry the body to be buried, a black-eyed virgin is embracing him.  We’re talking black-eyed virgins, man! . . . .Do you know what a black-eyed virgin is?”

Watch this and then tell me that this has nothing to do with religion — that it’s all based on “socioeconomic deprivation.”  And tell me that Islam is a good thing.

If we ever get into World War III, it’s more than likely to involve religion.  And while Karen Armstrong babbles on about the Ground of Being and the peacefulness of Islam, people like this are building bombs.

h/t: Richard Dawkins

Damn!  Just when I was praising the Guardian for publishing critiques of faith, along comes Michael Ruse to argue that “Dawkins et al bring us into disrepute.”  By “us,” of course, he means “atheists.”  Sadly, Ruse, whose ideas are quickly approaching their sell-by date, simply expels the same arguments as all faitheists:

1.  I know theology and you don’t.

. . . unlike the new atheists, I take scholarship seriously. I have written that The God Delusion made me ashamed to be an atheist and I meant it. Trying to understand how God could need no cause, Christians claim that God exists necessarily. I have taken the effort to try to understand what that means. Dawkins and company are ignorant of such claims and positively contemptuous of those who even try to understand them, let alone believe them. Thus, like a first-year undergraduate, he can happily go around asking loudly, “What caused God?” as though he had made some momentous philosophical discovery. Dawkins was indignant when, on the grounds that inanimate objects cannot have emotions, philosophers like Mary Midgley criticised his metaphorical notion of a selfish gene. Sauce for the biological goose is sauce for the atheist gander. There are a lot of very bright and well informed Christian theologians. We atheists should demand no less.

The assertion that “God exists necessarily” is not a satisfactory answer to critiques of First Cause arguments. As Dawkins and many REAL PHILOSOPHERS have pointed out, one could equally well say that the Universe exists necessarily.  It is not fatuous to ask “What caused God?” — not a bit. What was God doing before he created the Universe?  Yes, there are a lot of very bright Christian theologians, but I haven’t seen any of them make a satisfactory argument for why God exists.  Theology is the business of turning empirical necessities into religious virtues.

2.  Atheists aren’t nice or humble enough.

. . .how dare we be so condescending? I don’t have faith. I really don’t. Rowan Williams does as do many of my fellow philosophers like Alvin Plantinga (a Protestant) and Ernan McMullin (a Catholic). I think they are wrong; they think I am wrong. But they are not stupid or bad or whatever. If I needed advice about everyday matters, I would turn without hesitation to these men. We are caught in opposing Kuhnian paradigms. I can explain their faith claims in terms of psychology; they can explain my lack of faith claims also probably partly through psychology and probably theology also. (Plantinga, a Calvinist, would refer to original sin.) I just keep hearing Cromwell to the Scots. “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” I don’t think I am wrong, but the worth and integrity of so many believers makes me modest in my unbelief.

Lord help me, why would anybody turn first to a theologian if they needed advice about “everyday matters”? Do they have any special expertise?  And besides, how can we be “mistaken” in our view that “there’s no evidence for God”?

3. Atheists are politically incompetent and should shut up.

I want evolution taught in the schools and I can think of no way better designed to make that impossible than to spout on about religion, from ignorance and with contempt. And especially to make unsubstantiated arguments that science refutes religion. I never conceal my nonbelief. I defend to the death the right of the new atheists to their views and to their right to propagate them. But that is no excuse for political stupidity. If, as the new atheists think, Darwinian evolutionary biology is incompatible with Christianity, then will they give me a good argument as to why the science should be taught in schools if it implies the falsity of religion? The first amendment to the constitution of the United States of America separates church and state. Why are their beliefs exempt?

For a long time Ruse has been making the ridiculous argument that if you feel that evolution promotes atheism, then teaching evolution is the same thing as denigrating religion in the pubic schools.  Apparently the man is serious.  Although Ruse loudly and constantly praises himself for his perspicacity and deep understanding of philosophy and politics, he seems unable to comprehend this simple fact: the erosion of one’s faith by the facts of biology, astronomy, geology, biblical scholarship and the like does not mean that these fields are equivalent to atheism.  Is that so hard to understand?

So here’s my “good argument,” Dr. Ruse:  lots of things that we teach students make them question not only their faith, but their fundamental values. This is GOOD.  Questioning your principles is one of the main aims of education, as Socrates knew well.  As biology teachers, our job is to teach evolution, for that is the true account of the history of life.  If that account leads some people to question or leave their faith, that’s just too bad.  But it’s not the same thing as telling students that there is no god.

Who is the one bringing us into disrepute? Ruse should look in the mirror.

______

UPDATE:  P.Z. , who has been photographed in passionate embrace with Ruse, noticed Ruse’s screed simultaneously and has posted about it here. Russell Blackford has also posted.

Yay for the Guardian “Comment is Free” section!  True, the paper suffers under the burden of Andrew Brown and Madeleine Bunting, but it also has Anthony Grayling and Marina Hyde.  In her column last Friday, Hyde points out that the viral posting of news videos about Scientology (my own example here) has done tremendous damage to the reputation of that cult religion.  There’s something about seeing a Church official stonewall about Lord Xenu that brings home how truly ridiculous their belief system is.

It is the internet wot dun it. Did I lose you on the intergalactic tyrant stuff? Then Google it immediately, as you are fortunate enough to be able to do these days. During his lifetime, the religion’s inventor L Ron Hubbard deemed the chief enemies of Scientology to be tax inspectors and psychiatrists (it is not desperately difficult to figure out why). Even a sixth-rate science fiction writer such as himself would not have been able to predict that it would be the web that would pose the gravest threat to his church since his inception, facilitating everything from the circulation of whistleblower accounts and cult-busting advice to videos of Tom Cruise chuckling maniacally while repeating “KSW! Keep Scientology Working!” Strangely, there are times when “Lol!!” – normally the seal-honk of the internet’s least self-aware halfwits – really is the most eloquent dismissal on earth.

Similarly, if you haven’t seen the Bashir interview, you can do so on YouTube. Challenged on the old Xenu chestnut, Davis knows how utterly loony tunes it sounds, and walking out evidently seems less damaging than even having the discussion. And so with the French court case. How could the Scientologists possibly have argued that the readings from their Fisher Price-style Play’n’Polygraph machine justified a penny in the collection tin, let alone hundreds of euros worth of books?

Hyde floats the possibility that the internet could do to Christianity what it did to Scientology.  After all, when you put down Christian theology in black and white, it doesn’t look much saner than the soul-sniping exploits of Xenu:

Clearly, Scientologists should be forced to justify their doctrinal lunacies – the only sadness is that other religions are apparently exempt from having to do the same. Imagine for a moment a Bashir-type interviewing some senior cardinal. “So,” he might inquire, “you’re saying that by some magic the communion wafer actually becomes the flesh of a man who died 2,000 years ago, a man who – and I don’t want to put words into your mouth here – we might categorise as an imaginary friend who can hear the things you’re thinking in your head? And when you’ve done that, do you mind going over the birth control stuff?”

What a shame that we see rather fewer of these exchanges, however amusing and useful a sideshow Scientology may be.

I’m not holding my breath.  The question of why bizarre Christian beliefs are treated with more respect than the equally bizarre tenets of Scientology has a simple answer.   “Modern” religions, like Scientology and Mormonism, seem more bizarre simply because they’ve arrived on the scene only recently, making their  man-made nature more apparent, and because their adherents are not in the majority.

Indeed, next to the problem of evil, the problem of Why My Religion Is The Only True One is the greatest of all arguments against faith.  Christians — or adherents to any other religion — can simply give no good account of why their beliefs are the right ones, while those of Hindus, Scientologists, and Muslims are badly wrong.  It would be a dishonest Christian who would deny that had he been born in Saudi Arabia, he would be as big an advocate for Muhammed as he is now for Jesus.  Ask an evangelical Christian how he knows for certain that all Muslims and Jews are going to hell!  Believe me, the answer won’t satisfy you.

It is this irrational certainty that enables people like Andrew Sullivan to whine and cavil when we nasty militant uncivil atheists treat Catholicism without kid gloves, and yet to feel free to heap scorn on other faiths.  For the past couple of weeks over at The Daily Dish, Sullivan has been conducting a campaign against Scientology, calling it “The Super Adventure Club”, linking to South Park videos that mock it, calling it a “super-secret brainwashing cult” and the like. (See here for all his posts on Scientology.)

Now don’t get me wrong.  I agree with Sullivan:  Scientology is exactly as ludicrous as he makes it out to be.  The South Park video is a hoot.  But what Sullivan fails to get is that the beliefs of Catholicism and Christianity are just as weird as those of Scientology.  Here, from The Atheist Camel, is a summary of Christian theology:

The belief that a walking dead Jewish deity who was his own father although he always existed, commits suicide by cop, although he didn’t really die, in order to give himself permission not to send you to an eternal place of torture that he created for you, but instead to make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh, drink his blood, and telepathically promise him you accept him as your master, so he can cleanse you of an evil force that is present in mankind because a rib-woman and a mud-man were convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.

Does this summary sound offensive? It’s no more so than Sullivan’s summary of Scientology, and although it’s humorous, it’s also true.

As I’ve said before, in some ways I like Andrew Sullivan.  I find many of his political views agreeable, and I sympathize with the plight of a gay man whose faith is completely inimical to his sexual life.  But I’m fast losing any remaining respect for the guy.  With his sneering dismissal of Scientology, he shows himself to be nothing more than a hypocrite.  By all means whale away at Lord Xenu, Mr. Sullivan, but don’t complain when the rest of us go after your magical wafers.

Over at EvolutionBlog, Jason Rosenhouse has a very nice post about accommodationism.

The forces of darkness keep trying to suck me back into the debate, but I’ve said about everything I have to say on this topic.  I will summarize my views one last time and move on:

1. I see faith and science as epistemically incompatible, though of course some religious people can accept evolution and some scientists can be religious.  This cognitive dissonance does not, however, show anything more than that people can simultaneously hold in their heads two philosophically incompatible approaches to the world.

2. I think the National Center for Science Education and other scientific organizations should make no statements about the compatibility of science and religion.  When they insist on this compatibility, they are engaging in theology.  And if they must say something about compatibility, let them recognize that a large fraction of scientists see science and faith as incompatible.

3.  I applaud religious people like Kenneth Miller when they fight against creationism, and I join them as an ally in that battle.  But I reserve the right to criticize them when they try to maintain that both faith and science are valid ways of understanding the world.

4.  I see no conclusive evidence that vocal atheism is forcing Americans to choose between science and religion, pushing them back into the creationist corner.

5.  I think that, in the long run, the best way to rid our country of creationism — and, more important, of irrational views on many issues like stem cell research, condoms as preventors of HIV, and the like — is to diminish the hold of religion on America.  I want Americans to become more rational, and I think that working for atheism is a good way to do it.

6.  People like Dawkins and myself have two goals: diminishing the influence of faith, and helping people accept and see the wonders of evolution.  There is no evidence (see #5) that these goals are inimical. But even if they were, that doesn’t mean that atheists should shut up.  If, for example 5% of “waverers” were forced back to creationism by people like Dawkins (thus yielding “anecdotes” that can be trumpeted on the internet), that doesn’t mean that atheism has a deleterious rather than a salutary effect on accepting evolution. Similarly, if a godless country eliminates creationism entirely, that doesn’t mean that the interim retreat of religious “waverers” to creationism is a bad result.  A godless America will be an America without creationism.

I’ve been terribly busy with the Darwin conference here, and so haven’t been able to post.  But I see that P.Z. is doing yeoman work by summarizing for you all the talks on biology.  I’ll return to the fray tomorrow but wanted to put up a few snaps from the conference.

First, His Crackerness, photographed WHILE LIVE BLOGGING. Note the crocoduck tie:

Dave Jablonski (left) and Doug Schemske (right):

Richard Lewontin and his ex-student Fred Cohan:Finally, from left to right, Neil Shubin, Dave Jablonski, and Doug Futuyma:

Ancient metazoan: the Chinese fossil Confuciusornis presented by Paul Sereno at his talk (P.Z. describes the presentation):  This is an ancient bird (ca. 120 mya), the first avian fossil to have a short bony tail and a true toothless beak. But note the claws, betraying its reptilian ancestry.