Where do you get your morality?

Some atheists seem to have trouble answering this question. In the recent Paula Zahn program on CNN I was depressed to find that the President of the American Atheist Associate Ellen Johnson was posed the question of “where do you get your morality” but Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson. She stumbled in her answer and seemed to avoid the question. The answer of, “where do Atheists get their morality” though is so very simple I am surprised an educated women of her stature was unable to enunciate it.

Society, yes society dictates morality. Murder, rape, theft, all things condemned by society in law, all things condemned by morality. One does not need guidance of a God to appreciate what is fair and what is just. As early as Hammurabi’s code, law has dictated the morality and the morality has impacted law in mutually beneficial relationship which fostered the growth of societies across the world.

The Golden Rule is in fact a very secular idea. “Do unto others as you would have done unto you” is an excellent bit of logical reasoning which any thinking society can and have arrived at without the help of morals imposed by religion. The fact that different societies, with different religions still arrive at this logical conclusion… that people seeking to have their rights respected need to respect others, speaks more to the logical abilities of the societies than to their religion.

Religion does not dictate morality. Society does. Hence why, in a relativist world, different societies will accept different standards of morality, yet they all have them. Atheists will not remove morality from our society; they will add their logic and reason to it allowing morality to better change with the changing of society.

To those who fear changes in morality I say that moralizing persons are responsible for prohibition, one of the most ludicrous and failed policies in American history. Society did not see alcohol consumption as immoral, thus legislating its immorality did not stick.

Where do Atheists get their morality? They get it from the society they live in.

Finally, Someone Can Show Me Why God Killed All Those Children

Someone calling himself or herself Bet left and interesting link (and nothing else) in one of my comments sections. I can only assume from the content of the linked article that Bet wanted to turn me away from my wicked ways in an attempt to save my soul from eternal damnation. While I appreciate the concern, I wanted to take the time to address the article.

Written by Ray comfort, the article comes from ChristianAnswers.net and is a three pronged attack against atheism. In the first part, Comfort tries to show how a loving god can exist when we have terrible natural disasters like the tsunami on Dec 26, 2004 that killed a quarter of a million people. Comfort poses a worthwhile point:

Tell that to those who were burying tens of thousands of human corpses after the tsunami hit. Tell that to the fathers who hold the dead bodies of their beloved children in their arms, or to the relatives of those who died of horrific diseases. It doesn't take much intelligence to realize that if there is a God who created all things, He must be all-powerful. Nothing is impossible for Him. He therefore could have easily prevented unspeakable agony by simply lifting His finger off the earthquake button. But He didn't.

How does Comfort reconcile this with his beliefs? Oh, it’s amazing:

A quick look at Jeremiah 9:21-24 gives the answer to this intellectual dilemma. How could God be loving and yet allow suffering? The Bible tells us that He is in control, and that He does send judgments to this earth. God is love, but He's also just and holy and if He gave us what we deserve, the tsunami of His holiness would sweep us all into Hell.

Imagine you have knowledge that a bridge has been washed out by a terrible storm, on a dark and moonless night. You stop all approaching cars and say, "The bridge that spans a thousand-foot chasm has been washed away! Please turn your vehicle around." The violence of the storm itself is enough to convince any thinking driver that you are speaking the truth, and those who have the sense to believe you do turn around.

Tsunamis, terrible diseases, agonizing cancers, massive earthquakes, devastating tornados, killer hurricanes, awful suffering, and death itself are very real and violent storms that should be enough to convince any thinking person that our warning is true.

The message of Christianity isn't one of God wanting to better this life for humanity. It is one of warning of a terrible fate in store for those who continue on the road of sin. We are told by God's Word that there are two deaths on the highway to Hell. The first death is when we leave the storms of this life and pass into timeless eternity. The second death is the chasm of eternal damnation. It is the terrifying justice of a holy God.

Thanks, Ray. You pretty much confirmed my feeling that fundamental Christianity is a death cult obsessed with suffering. I’m sure God smote the thousands of children who died in that disaster for their wickedness. Doesn’t the Bible say children are innocent? I guess that doesn’t apply to evil, heathen babies.

Plus, I’m sure all the children in the remote, coastal villages of Southeast Asia really had a chance to hear the messenger warning them of the washed out bridge. Is it their fault they didn’t even get an opportunity to hear Christian teachings? If God punishes people for not believing in something they never even heard of, then God is a real bastard.

Next, Comfort goes into a variation of Pascal’s wager suggesting that a person might as well believe in a Christian afterlife to spare the torment of hell. Sorry, but I can’t just make myself believe in something without evidence. Pretending to believe won't be actual belief.

Finally, Comfort tries to prove that atheists don’t actually exist. He uses the same tired argument:

Let's say that you know an incredible one percent of all the knowledge in the universe. To know 100 percent, you would have to know everything. There wouldn't be a rock in the universe that you would not be intimately familiar with, or a grain of sand that you would not be aware of. You would know everything that has happened in history, from that which is common knowledge to the minor details of the secret love life of Napoleon's great-grandmother's black cat's fleas. You would know every hair of every head, and every thought of every heart. All history would be laid out before you, because you would be omniscient (all-knowing).

Bear in mind that one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, Thomas Edison, said, "We do not know a millionth of one percent about anything." Let me repeat: Let's say that you have an incredible one percent of all the knowledge in the universe. Would it be possible, in the ninety-nine percent of the knowledge that you haven't yet come across, that there might be ample evidence to prove the existence of God? If you are reasonable, you will be forced to admit that it is possible. Somewhere, in the knowledge you haven't yet discovered, there could be enough evidence to prove that God does exist.

Okay Ray, so you suggest we just accept something on blind faith for which you have no evidence? The problem is that he assumes atheists are 100% convinced there is no God. That’s not the case. I certainly can’t speak for all atheists, but my beliefs are driven by evidence. If there was actually tangible evidence for a God, then I would admit my error, but I won’t accept the existence of a God without it. Why? Because something that does not exist will not leave evidence. It’s like me claiming there’s an invisible dragon under my bed. Using Comfort’s argument, he’d better accept that the dragon lives there because he isn’t omniscient. He’d also better accept every god that people have ever worshiped because he isn’t omniscient.

Now, I can easily admit that the evidence for God's existence might be out there. Does that make me agnostic? Sure, whatever, but it's nothing more than semantics. I simply won’t waste my time worrying about something that isn’t real enough to leave evidence. I’d rather spend my time actually helping people and doing what I can to improve the world in this life. If there is a god and helping others doesn’t get me into his good graces, then he’s not a god worth believing in.

However, I'd assert that, everyone is atheist to an extent. As Richard Dawkins said:

We are all atheists with regard to most of the gods of history. Some of us just go one god further.

He's Cured!

After an intensive three weeks of treatment, Ted Haggard has been officially cured of his gayness. The Denver Post reported the following:

The Rev. Ted Haggard emerged from three weeks of intensive counseling convinced he is "completely heterosexual" and told an oversight board that his sexual contact with men was limited to his accuser.

Wow, that's enough to convince me that homosexuality is a choice. Despite the copious scientific evidence proving otherwise, I can't argue with this. But, come to think of it, I'm sure I would agree to just about anything after three weeks of intensive guilt tripping from a group of overbearing fundamentalists. It's really sad that Haggard can't admit who he actually is. He has to keep living a lie.

Then in a move suggesting that the New Life Church leadership doesn't believe their own bullshit, the Denver Post had this to say:

In the message, Haggard revealed that he and his wife, Gayle, intend to leave Colorado Springs and pursue master's degrees through online courses.

Haggard mentioned Missouri and Iowa as possible destinations. Another oversight board member, the Rev. Mike Ware of Westminster, said the group recommended the move out of town, and the Haggards agreed.

"This is a good place for Ted," Ware said. "It's hard to heal in Colorado Springs right now. It's like an open wound. He needs to get somewhere he can get the wound healed

I see. Haggard is "cured," but he still needs to be banished. If he was really cured, what would be the problem? I guess the church doesn't want Haggard tainting the entire congregation with his suppressed gay thoughts. What happened to the Christian ideal of being forgiving? I guess that doesn't apply to things people have no control over. It's really quite disgusting and helps highlight the moral bankruptcy of fundamental Christianity. They're on the same level of morality as the segregationists of the 20th century (unsurprisingly, it was fundamentalist Christians then too). If Americans really want to be seen as a caring, moral people, then we need to throw off this unethical mentality and embrace the idea that all people are equal.

The Creationists' Biggest Mistake

I wrote a post on this subject a couple of days ago, but the blog Hell’s Handmaiden brought a poignant article from Answers in Genesis to my attention, and it inspired me to expand on some of my ideas. The article’s author, Answers in Genesis president Ken Ham, laments the fact that most colleges will not accept credits from Christian home schooling or Christian schools:

Let’s face it. Secular humanists have, by and large, won the culture war in America’s public schools. But not just satisfied with victories there, they are now aiming at Christian schools and homeschools. Yes, Christian institutions are becoming more and more marginalized in the US. And, I think you will be shocked at the latest developments.

Then he goes on to show his winner takes all mentality:

So, the major argument presented against homeschooling in the US and Britain is that most of the parents teach their children the biblical account of creation. The secularists recognize that if the account of creation in the Bible is true, then Christian doctrine and morality are also true—and that humans are accountable to their Creator God (who is the absolute authority in all things). Therefore, people who deny they are responsible to a Creator—and who demand that morality be relative and lobby for the legalization of abortion, “gay” marriage, etc.—are often intolerant of those (i.e., biblical Christians) who oppose them.

The logical, if unsaid, flip side to Ham’s argument is that if the biblical account of creation is untrue, then Christian doctrine and morality must be false. I don’t think Ken Ham realizes how damaging this can be to his religion. He stakes the entire basis of his faith on whether or not Genesis is 100% accurate then leaps headfirst into an argument he’s poorly prepared to fight. People don’t need their scriptures to be completely true to maintain their faith. Just ask the millions of moderate Christians in this country who accept evolution.

Plus, Ham chooses to ignore the reams of evidence in favor of an old Earth just so he can validate his faith. Unfortunately for Ham, it’s hard to fight reality. Galileo is an excellent example of this. It took a few centuries, but the Catholic Church eventually had to reconcile with the fact that the earth is not the center of the universe and apologized to Galileo. Reality simply didn’t support that biblical claim, and forced the Church to admit that the Bible should not be taken literally.

More than anything, Ham’s efforts don’t help him spread his faith. It might make the true believers feel good since they won’t do any research, anyway. However, the more moderate, educated Christians will scoff at Ham’s efforts and might even buy into his winner takes all mentality, except they’ll probably go the opposite direction from what Ham wants. It might make them actually question the validity of their faith when they look at the evidence against the Bible being 100% accurate.

How do I know? Well, it’s what drove me away from Christianity. I grew up with a general acceptance of the findings of science, and, at the same time, I was comfortable with the idea that the Bible was more a set of morality tales than literal history. I didn’t need it to be true to have faith. However, the more I noticed the Creationist claims against evolution, the more I did some research to formulate my own opinion. I learned what the evidence was for evolution and a 4.6 billion year old Earth and what the Creationists' counter evidence was. I found the Creationist side to be severely lacking. It showed me just how lousy Creationist evidence is and how dishonest and willingly ignorant they are. It also caused me to actually read the Bible and realize that we don’t get any of our morality from it. If anything, Christians ignore most of the morality requirements in the Bible, particularly those in the Old Testament. In the end, it showed me that I didn’t need religion to have a fulfilling life. And it was all because of the Creationists. For that reason, I’m actually thankful for their efforts. They helped me gain a better perspective on life, the universe, and everything.

Finally, Ken Ham is sorely mistaken if he thinks humans must be “accountable to their Creator God (who is the absolute authority in all things).” Is it so wrong to be accountable to you fellow man? Sure, no human can threaten you with eternal damnation, but is that really a bad thing? In my opinion, it is morally superior to help others because you want to alleviate suffering in the world, not because you’re afraid of punishment. Mr. Ham, you must have a terribly dark opinion of your fellow humans if you think the threat of punishment is the only way we can be good. Shame on you.

The Use of Fear by Answers in Genesis

Ken Ham, president of the Creationist organization Answers in Genesis, recently posted an essay on his website warning Christians of the “new atheists.” It’s nothing more than the same old tactic of trying to scare people in supporting him, but I wanted to discuss it briefly. Ham starts by saying:

We’ve warned you about them before on our website—but now they’re on a much more aggressive march all across America. No longer are they just staying in their classrooms or writing books and articles in the comfort of their offices. They are “the new atheists,” and they are aggressively going after your children, your liberties, and your faith!

Right. So we’re supposed to stay out of sight and out of mind while Christians get to say whatever they want in the public arena. Ken Ham smells like a freedom hater to me. As for atheists trying to go after Christians’ children, liberties, and faith…well, if educating children how to think for themselves is what all that means, then sure. Is it wrong for children to learn how to make choices for themselves and how to look beyond the Bible to gain knowledge about the world around them? Obviously, Ham would think it’s wrong after seeing him in the documentary Friends of God brainwashing children with the line: “God said it, I believe it, that settles it!” Ham knows that religion loses too many true believers once people start thinking rationally.

Ham then goes into a long elaboration on how terrible it is that atheists dare express their opinions, particularly Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. To me, it just looks like Ham’s scared of Christians having to share the spotlight, but of course he uses fear to rile up his supporters:

Evolutionary indoctrination has produced generations (even in the church) who doubt the Bible. Barna Research discovered that of teenagers today who call themselves born-again Christians, only 9% believe there is such a thing as absolute truth. These young people are ripe for “secular evangelists” like Dawkins and Harris.

I automatically question how accurate that 9% figure is (it seems like it should be much higher), but it’s all nothing more than Orwellian scare tactics to keep people from learning something on their own. When Ham paints atheism as something to be feared, people close themselves off to understanding it. It works all the time. Just look at the US after 9/11 and the lead up to war with Iraq. A majority of Americans closed themselves off from rational thought out of fear right when we most needed to be reasonable. Ham’s trying to achieve the same thing.

Finally, how else could a religious leader finish except to ask for money?

As we begin this new year, I ask you to consider what you might do to partner with us. The website and future museum are wonderful ways we can counter the atheists’ message of meaninglessness and hopelessness—and offer the precious gospel instead.

Once again, painting atheism as something it’s not. *Sigh*

To sum it all up, I wanted to share this letter because it displays one of my major problems with organized religion. Almost all are based on fear and use fear to maintain power. The only reason this tactic perseveres is because fear is the best way to keep people in line. No free, civilized society should stand for it. Now, I'm sure Ken Ham is sincere about his beliefs, and I have no problem with that, but that doesn't mean should be allowed to scare people into believing the same thing. It's coercive and ethically wrong.

Refuting Divine Command Theory

One of the favorite theories clung to by the moral absolutists and the religious right is the theory of Divine Command. Essentially this theory states that moral goodness is determined solely by the will of God. God, Bad, Right, Wrong, singularly depend on Gods will.

I will state theory again in unequivocal terms…

God determines the morals of the world.

Refuting this theory is accomplished solely through the use of logic. The great Athenian philosopher Socrates presented this logic impeccably in his Euthyphro Dilemma:

1) To begin our logical destruction of Divine Command Theory let us first assume that it is true… God dictates the morals of the world.

So, if Divine Command Theory is true then one of two possible scenarios occur with regard to actions deemed “morally good”

a. Morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good.
Or
b. Morally good acts are morally good because they are willed by God.

See the distinction? Is it good because God says it is good, or is it good because it simply is good?

2) Let us now address these two scenarios. If (a) morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good, then all morally good acts exist entirely independent of Gods will.

Is it the case that morally good acts exist independent of Gods will? If you are an atheist then certainly, but if you are a person of faith you cannot possibly believe that things in the world can exist independent of God or you are simply a hypocritical moron.

Let us assume then that you are a person of faith, God's will controls all, thus our first premise must be false.

3) This leads to our second scenario, (b) morally good acts are morally good because they are willed by God.

If this is the case, then what is the point? God’s will has already been set and determined. He has dictated what is right, what is wrong, what is good, and what is bad, so there is no need for any independent assessment. If there is no reason for independent assessment what is the point of worshiping God at all, would he deviate from his own set plan? I purport that he would not, therefore if out second scenario is true…

There would be no cause either to care about morality or to worship God.

4) Again, assuming we are persons of faith, we clearly disagree with the aforementioned statement. Thus our second scenario is also incorrect.

5) With both our scenarios being incorrect where does that leave Divine Command Theory? The answer is in tatters and we should continue debating, discussing, and seeking the truth about morality and the nature of man.

Introduction and On Relativism

First of all let me say how honored I am that lord J-bar would consider me worthy enough to be invited to submit posts to his blog. I am not a scientist and know little more about evolution than what I have been able to personally gauge from the mind of Lord-J bar. I do consider myself a firm pragmatic thinker and shall make posts on such matters that suit that fancy.

Thus it is with great pleasure that I introduce my first post… a query on Relativism.

Let me begin with this assumption.
Assumption: It is commonly believed that those who are religiously devout tend to believe that the world is made up of moral absolutes. Such people are called (no surprise here) Moral Absolutists.

According to the idea of moral absolutism, something deemed “morally wrong” is and was always morally wrong. The idea is that certain practices transcend cultural is not all together wrong. Murder, rape, theft, all these things are fairly universally condoned. But the practice of rampant absolutism runs into difficulties in my following hypothetical situation.

I put forth that slavery is and was always wrong. Simply because it was done in abundance in olden days did not make it right.

The bible; however, has specific mentions to slavery and actually sets down regulations on how it is to be conducted (See Exodus 20:1-12 through 21:1-31)
Therefore, a devout person of the Christian or Jewish faith, who also professes to be a moral absolutist, must admit that these passages of the bible are morally repugnant; that their practice was wrong, and by setting out specific instructions for the proper conduct of slavery, God was morally wrong.

I know of no one who would suggest that their own sacred texts are morally backwards and I am certainly not saying to those of us who do believe in the almighty are worshiping a morally bankrupt God.

But in this sense it would be far more pragmatic for the religious person to be moral relativists; that the practices of out forefathers were not wrong… just acceptable to the morals of the time.

However, this is contrary to those who would suggest that the bible is literally true.

If it makes much better sense then for the bible to be relative then, why such opposition to the idea of Relativism?

I have no good answer to that. Maybe because accepting the bible as relative debunks all biblical arguments against things like homosexuality and abortion. But relativism seems to me to make for a much more tolerant society, and furthering this idea may be to all of our betterment.

Religion Does Not Make Someone a Better Person

The claim I always have to shake my head at is the idea that religion will make someone a better human being since it provides something a person would not otherwise have. However, is there any real validity to this claim? Let’s look at a little evidence and use a little logic, shall we?

Without a doubt, nearly all religious people are good, moral people. It’s silly to claim otherwise. However, I’d argue that most people are naturally good to start with. Can we really attribute religion to that person being good? All people have a natural sense of empathy. It’s what makes us feel bad when a person is harmed or what makes us feel guilty when we do something that harms another. It seems more like religion is the way humans try to codify that sense of empathy. Plus, the existence of empathy is easy to see even before the development of the Ten Commandments. In the older Code of Hammurabi, one can find the same general rules that basically direct people not to harm one another. At least as long as there’s been civilization, humans have felt empathy towards one another. The next question becomes: could we have developed empathy without a higher power?

One can easily see why evolution would favor humans who help others within their own social groups. Besides our cognitive abilities, humans excel at few things. We can’t run fast. We don’t have any natural defenses. We dehydrate quickly. Our brain requires a vast amount of energy to operate. Our young are helpless for more than a year after birth. There seems to be no reason for us to have survived until one adds empathy to the equation. Since empathy makes people feel good about alleviating suffering in others, it makes people want to work together because it lessens suffering throughout the society. Working together, humans can acquire more resources than loners, and empathetic individuals care for the sick and wounded, making it more likely empathetic humans will live long enough to reproduce. Loners would not have these benefits. We can see it today. People who lack a sense of empathy, rapists, murderers, etc., are quickly shunned from society, preventing them from gaining the benefits of society. Therefore, it’s not a huge stretch of the imagination to see why surviving humans would naturally develop a sense of empathy. Plus, we can see the same behavior in chimpanzees, so it’s not a trait unique to humans.

Now, if religion is just how people codify empathy, then what’s the problem? The problem is that religion can also remove the sense of empathy one feels towards a different group of human beings. Every religion proclaims its believers are the only people that matter and nonbelievers are to be despised. This removes the sense of empathy a group of religious people would otherwise feel towards nonbelievers. This dehumanization then allows the believers to maim, torture, kill, and otherwise harm other humans with no sense of remorse. Plus, it makes the believers feel good because they believe they have helped others within their social group. Just look at the historical example of the Inquisition. Inquisitors happily killed heretics because they felt they were helping society by removing the destructive influence of sin. This willingness to kill in the name of religion is just an unfortunate side effect of our ability to be selective with our empathy.

Of course, religion isn’t the only societal construct to do this. Racism and the efforts of Social Darwinism do the same things. However, most modern people can agree that adherence to racism and Social Darwinism is harmful to those who suffer from it. Why should religion be any different? It needlessly categorizes people along lines that would otherwise not exist.

In the end, most people will be good because we’ve evolved that way. It’s what allows us to survive in a dangerous world. Unfortunately, our sense of empathy only extends to humans within our perceived societal group. Religion inadvertently exploits this shortcoming, making it easer for religious people to discriminate those of a different faith. In the end, it’s an extra rift that simply doesn’t need to be there and doesn’t add anything substantial to our sense of morality. We don't need fear of a giant, invisible man in the sky to be good people.

Inconvenient Evidence for the Religious Right: Gay Sheep

Time Magazine just published an article about the uproar in the blogging world over Oregon Health & Science University's research on homosexual rams. It turns out the claims made by PETA were blown out of proportion, but I'm not going to cover that here (I suggest you read the article because it's interesting to see how quick rumors can get out of control on the internet). What I'm going to cover here is the findings of the study.

One finding was that about 8% of rams have sex exclusively with other rams, which is about the rate of incidence found in human populations. Another finding is "that gay rams have different brain structures from heterosexual ones."

It all goes to show how reality goes completely against the claims of fundamentalist Christian organizations such as Focus on the Family who insist that homosexuality is a "morally deviant choice." Come on people, the only reason you think that is because of a few lines in a Bronze Age text. If they really think humans are the only living things with free will, then how do they explain a part of nature engaging in "morally deviant behavior?" Of course, the willing ignorance of conservative Christians means these findings will probably be ignored and James Dobson will keep doing "research," a.k.a. making shit up, to justify his interpretion of the Bible.

If we really want to be a moral and just society, then we need to look away from ancient myths, not towards them. Otherwise, millions of Americans will continue to suffer from irrational, pointless hatred based on a distant culture's prejudices that have no bearing on the modern world.

Evangelicals Have Better Sex?

Tonight HBO will feature the documentary "Friends of God" by Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of House Majority Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Ther interesting part is that Pelosi's guide through the evangelical world was none other that Ted Haggard. In the Newsweek interview with Pelosi, the interviewer made this observation of the doumentary:

Early on in the film, Haggard tells you, “Surveys say that evangelicals have the best sex life of any other group.” He then asks a pair of married, young male parishioners standing nearby how often they have sex with their wives. One of them responds, “Every day. Twice a day.” Then Haggard asks the man how frequently she climaxes. “Every time,” the man says.

I guess evangelical sex might be better if you're having sex with a male prostitute on the side. BWHAHAHAHA!

On a more serious note, considering the subservience expected from conservative Christian wives, I wonder if the sex actually is great or if there's much of a choice in the matter. Of course, the Bible says that the woman must be subservient to the man, so the true believers who are female probably go along, not questioning their second class position. It's just one more reason to stop looking to an ancient book for morality.

The Christian Culture of Deception

The Atheist Ethicist has an excellent essay on the accepted practice of lying and deception within the current culture of Conservative, American Christians. The points brought up in the essay are one of the major reasons, if not the reason, I detest Conservative Christians. They label themselves as the moral and ethical standard bearers of the nation, but then show a complete lack of integrity and intellellectual honesty. If that's what it means to be moral and ethical, then I don't want anything to do with it. Again, I encourage you to read the essay.

Book of the Month: The Republican War on Science

Science is a subject near and dear to my heart because I feel it is our greatest and only hope for truly understanding the world around us. It may not know everything, and it never will, but it has paved the way to our modern, technologically advanced society and allows us to better understand each other and our place in the universe. Now, when someone messes with it, I get angry.

Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science made me very angry. It it, Mooney lays out a well-documented essay on how the Republican Party has ignored or distorted science for its own purposes since it took control of Congress in 1994. He shows how Republicans have repeatedly ignored scientific findings on important topics such as global warming, obesity, and wildlife protection in order to pander to big business lobbyists. Mooney shows how Republicans' insistence on using "sound science" is actually anything but and makes it almost impossible for science to work the way it's supposed to. Mooney also laments the encroaching influence of religion on science education through intelligent design, a subject very near and dear to my heart. Finally, Mooney looks at how religious "morality" has interferred with protecting this country's youth from the dangers of STDs and stalled the life-saving potential of stem cell research by using fake science to distort the facts.

In summary, Mooney's The Republican War on Science is an excellent expose on the dangers of politicized science and documents (with notes you can verify, unlike Ann Coulter) the Republican Party's efforts to destroy science for political purposes. Furthermore, it shows how the government's actions are hurting America's lead in science and giving other nations a chance to surpass us, which I feel is an unmistakable sign of our decline as a world power. If you're a fan of science and concerned about it's future in America, I recommend picking this one up.

Are We Really More Immoral Now?

I want to address the RR's insistance that we live in a time of uncontrolled immorality. They always harken back to a "better past" where people followed God's word, never had premarital sex, or took drugs.

I have a theory here. I’m sorry that I do not have much data to support it, but I think the argument speaks for itself. The reason things “seem” so much worse is because of the growth of the media and the internet. Nowadays, information reaches us faster than ever, and we have a vast repository of information at our fingertips. In my grandparents’ day, they didn’t have that. They’d see the news at the movie theater in clips such as “The March of Time.” It would condense a weeks worth of news into a ten minute clip. At home, all my grandparents had was a radio that only recieved a few stations. Most of those stations were only concerned with local news and major national events. The “immoral” activities of the nation were not important enough to make local headlines and were therefore discarded.

Furthermore, a recent study has shown that 95% of all Americans have premarital sex, and that trend has held steady since the 1950s at least, when the study was started. This trend probably goes back much farther. Futhermore, alochol is just another form of drug, and there has been rampant alcoholism throughout our counrty's history. It’s my theory that things are much the same now as it always has been in America. We just "feel" like it's worse now because information travels much faster and in far greater quantities. The “moral past” is a mythical age that never actually existed.

Here’s a CNN article discussing the study I referenced.

Quote of the Week

"Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills."

–Tom DeLay, Former House Majority Leader, on causes of the Columbine High School massacre, 1999

Surprise, Surprise...

A recent global study has found that promiscuity does not lead to higher rates of STDs and people are not having sex at a younger age than ever before. I guess the Religious Right will have to pull out their "rogue" scientists once again to come up with different data if they want to keep supporting their scare tactic that sex before marriage spreads STDs. That, or quit trying to use fake science for political reasons and actually listen. Alas, I suppose I ask too much.

Click here to see the MSNBC article on the study's findings.

Quote of the Week

"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin."

- Florida Congresswoman Katherine Harris (also, not likely to win reelection next week)

Abstinence-only Education, or Another Way to Impose Religious Ideology

This is a good one. The Christian right feels the only type of sex education program that should be taught in public schools is one that advocates abstinence-only. The major push for this form of sex education comes from the Bush Administration, which has worked to triple the funding for abstinence-only programs. By itself, that doesn’t sound too bad, teaching people to wait until sex for marriage. However, these abstinence only curriculums refuse to educate their students about the various forms of contraceptives that are available and distort the facts to make their case through scare tactics.

Obviously, this push for abstinence-only has come from the Christian right-dominated Republican Party, so it’s useful to look at the conservative Christian thought towards sex education, which is that if you teach teens about ways to have sex without penalty then they will have sex all the time out of wedlock and destroy their morality along with the moral fiber of the country. The question I have to ask is: can you really stop human nature? A large number of teens are going to have sex whether you tell them to abstain or not. Worse, if they do not know about ways to minimize the risk to themselves, then they are more likely to engage in risky behaviors leading to teen pregnancy and STDs. Then if teen pregnancy rates increase, you have a higher demand for abortion since most teens cannot afford to care for a child. Of course, the Christian right is completely against abortion, so their desired policy of not teaching contraception methods actually works completely against one of their major goals: the abolition of abortion. Now, take the Netherlands, for example. They have one of the most open and complete sex education programs in the world. As a result, they also have the lowest teen pregnancy rate in the world since their teens know about the consequences of sex and ways to prevent them. Also, this gives the Dutch one of the lowest abortion rates in the world since they have much fewer unwanted pregnancies, which would seem to be one of the ultimate goals of abstinance-only sex education. Too bad the Christian right allows dogma to get in the way of the facts and logic.

Another problem with these abstinence only programs is that when they do mention contraceptives, they portray them as the cause of higher STD rates throughout the country. That might be fine if it were true. However, a Congressional study by Representative Waxman of California found that 80% of the abstinence only programs contain gross scientific errors that greatly inflate contraceptive failure rates and downplay their effectiveness against pregnancy and the STD’s (for the full Congressional report, click here). In reality, the scientific data shows that many contraceptives are effective at preventing the most common STDs. The only reason that STD rates seem to have gone up (and this is with just few diseases, most have actually declined) is that people are more willing to report them and seek treatment. The fact that the creators of these abstinence-only curriculums feel the need to lie certainly tells me that they’re pushing a different motive than child welfare. Otherwise, they would show the facts allowing teens to make an informed decision.

Furthermore, some of these programs teach gender stereotypes, especially downplaying the role women have in society. They teach that the man should be the provider of the family and that women need the protection of the man (again, see the congressional report). First off, I don’t really see why that should be in a sex education class. Second, if that isn’t a return to a Medieval mentality, I don’t know what is. Pretty retroactive if you ask me.

If these programs are inaccurate and don’t work as well as a complete and open sex education program, then why do it? Well, you get back to the Christian right’s idea of morality. I have no problem with them believing in a Biblically inspired idea of morality, except when the Christian right tries to force it on the rest of us. Just look at any of their websites (for example, the vision statement for the Christian Coalition and the about page of the Traditional Values Coalition). They want to make traditional Christian values the law in this country. Unfortunately for them, that is severely unconstitutional. I’ll go more into that on another post, but that fact is that the attempt to teach abstinence-only is simply a manifestation of the Christian right’s desire to emplace a religiously-inspired morality on the nation. Therefore, if we really want to preserve the separation of church and state, then this is just one of the intrusions on our civil liberties that we need to stop.