Chaplains Want to Bar Atheist/Humanist Chaplains

I should be used to Christian arrogance by now, but every now and then another insensitive, arrogant Christian breaks through my indifference and makes me mad. This time it's Father Jonathan Morris, an Army Chaplain who appeared on Fox News to ridicule the idea of Humanists and Atheists serving as chaplains in the military.

"What is a 'chaplaincy' in the first place, where does it even come from? The word, it comes from the Latin word which means a sanctuary or place of worship. And atheist ... (pauses) ... place of worship? Or a military chaplain, someone who is advising someone in their spirituality? ... [If an atheist] is being paid as a chaplain, then our country is saying, 'We are not willing to stand up for what we believe to be a very good thing for our soldiers, and that is the development of spirituality.' ... It's degrading the military chaplaincy saying 'You know, it doesn't matter whether you believe or not believe'..."

On the face of it, an atheist chaplain does seem a bit odd. But the truth is

AA Is a Religion: Atheists Kicked Out

The core mission of Alcoholics Anonymous is to help addicts stay sober, right?

Wrong. Atheist alcoholics aren't welcome. Even agnostics are personae non gratae.

Everyone knows that the core twelve-step program of AA rests on a belief in a higher power. Its core tenets came from the evangelical religious beliefs of founders Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith and were based on Biblical principles.

But in spite of this Christian foundation, I always thought that AA was supposed to be nondenominational. I thought AA put the welfare of its members above proselytizing. Even though its founders were Christian, AA's "higher power" is very generic, something that could appeal to Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Jains and even Native American spiritual beliefs. AA tries to help everyone ... except atheists.

On Tuesday of last week, Toronto's two atheists AA groups were

Bible Prohibits Homosexuality? WHO CARES?

Once again the Bible is proving how it wastes careers, holds back our culture and should be abandoned as a source of morality.

Professor Jennifer Wright Knust's new book, Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire, and her recent blog on CNN both purport to show that the Bible does not actually prohibit homosexuality. She claims that the message is ambiguous at best, and that there are many passages that actually condone same-sex relationships.

I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone that her book and blog have provoked many responses from conservative Christians. Perhaps the most scholarly reply is this one by Professor Robert A. J. Gagnon. The good professor has written not one, but two books that prove that the Bible condemns homosexuality.

And you know what? We don't care!

This debate is just another illustration of why the Bible shouldn't be anyone's

Alabama Christian Governor: Do Politicians Have a Right to be Prejudiced?

Do politicians have a right to hold beliefs that are offensive to modern society? Do they have a right to espouse those beliefs in public? Should they be held to a higher standard than the rest of us?

Robert J. Bentley, the newly-elected governor of Alabama, is "raising eyebrows" according to the LA Times.

"If you're a Christian and you're saved ... it makes you and me brother and sister. Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister ..."

The governor made these remarks in church, not during his official duties as the state's governor. Does that make it OK?

I don't think so. Governor Bentley abused the power of his office, plain and simple. He used the State of Alabama to promote Christianity. It may not be illegal, but it certainly is unethical. The governor should be ashamed of himself.

Governor Bentley has a duty to represent all of the citizens of Alabama: people of all faiths and no faith, people of

Merry Co-opted Pagan Winter Celebration!

First, I'd like to thank all of the people who purchased the Kindle edition of The Religion Virus on Christmas day! There is a certain delicious irony to this, and the day isn't over yet. (I love Kindle – I get up-to-the-minute reports on my sales!)

I was contemplating a complaint about how the pagan Winter Harvest/Solstice celebration has been co-opted by Christmas and Hanukkah. But wait ... I'm not even a pagan. How can I whine about that? So I guess there's not much to do but to go along with the spirit of it! And in spite of my frequent criticisms of the bad that comes from blind religious faith, I do admire the spirit of Christmas.

My favorite Christmas movie is It's a Wonderful Life. But it's ironic: even though it's supposedly about Christmas, there is almost no religion in it. It does have one religious icon, the hapless, somewhat comedic angel named Clarence who escorts the young suicidal banker George Bailey (Jimmie Stewart) into a bleak George-less future. But the core message of Wonderful Life, the part I love the most, is that it shows how each person's life here on this Earth does matter. It shows us that being good and kind to one another is the highest ethic of all.

It doesn't matter whether you are Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Jain or anything else, we can all appreciate this message. We may feel that the world is too huge, and each of us is too insignificant to make any meaningful difference. Recessions, wars, crime, natural disasters ... sometimes it seems like no matter how hard we try, it will all be for nothing. Why bother?

But we do bother, because it does matter.

A million years from today nobody will know who we were. Our existence will have been

Bad News: Atheist Palestinian Faces Death Penalty

Reports are coming in about an atheist blogger in the Palestinian West Bank who was caught in a sting via Facebook and now faces the death penalty. It seems the best he can hope for is life imprisonment. Even members of his family say so.

This should completely dispel any doubts anyone might have about the importance of America's strong separation of church and state. The fact that in the year 2010 there are still people being put to death for their religious beliefs should be repugnant to every civilized human, regardless of faith.

But that's what happens when you mix government and religion. History proves it. Down through the ages, whenever the two mix you'll find that the zealots eventually get into power and persecute everyone who doesn't agree with their views. Not just their religion, but their particular sect. Without strong legal limits on religious coercion (such as in the UK) or an outright separation (like our Constitution), it seems inevitable. Is there even one place in the world that has religious tolerance and religious leaders who are superior to the elected leaders?

I hope the civilized people of the world, whether Christian, Jewish,

Death Challenges Atheist Convictions

A remarkable woman passed away this weekend. Those of you who have read The Religion Virus will remember my personal story called "The Southern Baptists" about Ruth (not her real name).

Ruth was a strict member of the Church of Christ, born and raised in the heart of the "Bible Belt" of the southern states. She and her husband attended church every Sunday and often on Wednesday. For those of you not familiar with the minutia of America's evangelical churches, the Church of Christ is considered conservative by the mainstream Southern Baptists, who in turn are considered conservative by almost everyone else. The Church of Christ worships twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday, and they don't even allow musical instruments in church, just singing.

On several occasions I joined Ruth and her husband at their tiny rural church in the middle of the cotton, bean and wheat fields from which their people made their living. Although I didn't share their faith, I enjoyed the enthusiasm, honesty, and especially the gospel music. You haven't heard true gospel until you've sat in the pews at a tiny concrete-block church in the heart of the South and listened to a bunch of farmers and their wives, children and grandparents all sing their hearts out. Now that is honest gospel.

Ruth was remarkable to me because she kept her faith and she was accepting of others. Unlike so many people in the evangelical churches,

Christians Beaten by Atheists, Jews and Mormons on Biblical Knowledge

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life just published an interesting new survey about how much Americans really know about religions. Much to everyone's surprise, the atheists and agnostics came out on top!

The headlines are filled with stuff like Atheists Outdo Some Believers (NY Times) or Atheists and Agnostics Know More About the Bible than Religious (National Public Radio).

But not so fast! It turns out that Atheists didn't really win, it was more like Christians lost. The atheist/agnostic category got the best score at 20.9 out of 32 questions. But look at how it really went down:

Santa Claus Slams the Pope!

Santa Claus sticks it to Pope Benedict XVI! But there's a serious message behind the lampoon:

A Christian Bishop, Monk, and child advocate, whose legal name is Santa Claus, is taking Pope Benedict XVI to task, for what Bishop Santa Claus describes as, "the Pope’s continued moral failure to address urgent children's issues within the Roman Catholic Church."

... In the United States, between 1950 and 2009, the Roman Catholic Church has paid more than $2.6 billion to settle claims of abuse by clergy, has obstructed criminal and civil investigations, and often filed for bankruptcy to avoid making court-ordered payments to survivors of clergy abuse. Santa observes that, “The Roman Catholic Church clearly is more concerned with protecting its clergy and assets than protecting vulnerable children."

You can read the entire "news release" here. It's good stuff.

Santa Claus, who always puts his children first, proposes mandatory reporting laws, a one-strike lifetime ban for any priest who molests a child, mandatory fingerprinting of all priests, revoking the tax-exempt status of any church that fails to report abuse, and requiring all priests to take classes in how to detect and report child abuse.

Now here's where we're screwing up as a society. If these rules that Santa Claus proposes were put to Congress, there would be howls of protest! I can just hear it now, a cacophony of spluttering outrage at the insult to our priests. Fingerprinting priests? Treating them like criminals?

UK Govt Changes Law To Prevent Pope's Arrest

England has always been a leader in human rights and the rule of law. Now they've thought of something new: Put a politician in the courtroom!

Children in the UK and particularly Ireland, which is heavily Catholic, have been hard hit by the pedophile priests who lurked in the Roman Catholic Church, and then were protected from prosecution by church seniors including Cardinal Ratzinger, who is now the Pope. There is some strong evidence that Ratzinger was directly complicit in shielding priests from prosecution, and worse, for allowing them to move from parish to parish, abusing more and more children. It's likely that Ratzinger is personally responsible for a number of children's nightmare sexual abuse at the hands of a Roman Catholic priest that Ratzinger protected.

Now, quite reasonably, some Brits want Ratzinger to answer for his deeds. The UK apparently has a law that allows a private prosecutor to take up a case when the public prosecutor can't or won't. A private prosecutor can provide evidence to a judge and, if the evidence is strong enough, have the alleged criminal arrested.

Well, no more. The UK government is in the process of changing the law:

Glenn Beck is Not a Christian?!? Another Liar's Club Nomination!

Don't you just love it when Christians start fighting about who is really a Christian? I particularly like to see the typical hair-splitting, like where the Church of Christ only sings a capella because "Jesus didn't use musical instruments" so anyone who brings a piano or organ into their church is going to be rejected by God and Jesus on judgement day. Seriously, they believe that.

But today's story is much bigger than hair splitting, because apparently Glenn Beck, the Fox News comedian, er, I mean news commentator and ultra-right-wing religious fanatic, is *gasp* a Mormon! Can you imagine that?? I mean, he's been passing himself off as a Christian!

But Bill Keller explained that:

"... the beliefs of the satanic Mormon cult are totally inconsistent with Biblical Christianity ... a person who believes in the lies of the Mormon cult is no more a Christian than a Muslim is."

And who, you might ask, is Bill Keller?

Scientific Study: Misinformed People Become MORE Certain When Presented With Facts

Every scientist and atheist has run into this: You're having a discussion with a religious person who holds beliefs that are simply wrong, and you have solid facts that show that they're wrong. Maybe it's about obvious conflicts in the Bible like Genesis 1 versus Genesis 2, or how the various versions of the Easter story can't be reconciled, or why creationism can't possibly be right. You carefully and politely show them the facts ... and they become more entrenched in their position, not less.

Why is that? It's baffling!

Now a scientific study reported on National Public Radio confirms it. This isn't our imaginations, it's real. People really do actively resist the truth.

Take the case of Jan Brewer (governor of Arizona) who claimed that border-patrol agents had found beheaded bodies in the Arizona desert. It turned out her claim was a gross exaggeration – most of the border violence is on the Mexican side of the fence. But she started a myth, and people believed her. Nothing new there.

But here's where it goes off the tracks: when presented with evidence showing that the governor was wrong, people who believed her didn't change their minds. In fact, they actually believed the falsehood more! Instead of changing their minds, they concocted theories that there was a government conspiracy to fool us, to cover up the true level of violence along the border. The truth is that undocumented Mexicans are, on the whole, one of the most law-abiding groups in America, and there has never been a single case of a beheaded body found in the Arizona desert.

Somewhere down inside me I've always understood that people's ideas are entrenched. I even wrote a whole chapter of The Religion Virus about why this is biologically important: it helps our survival if we can pass information from one generation to the next with high fidelity. Children are biologically programmed to learn, and then as teenagers they're programmed to "freeze" their knowledge so that when their parents die, the information will be safe until they can pass it along to their children.

But this study goes one step farther. Apparently memes (the ideas that reside in our brains) are not only entrenched, but they're actively resistant to change. They defend themselves. They build counter-arguments when threatened.

It's frustrating, but the old adage "Know your enemy" comes to mind. If we assume that logic and facts will prevail against faith and falsehoods, then we don't understand our enemy. The enemy is irrationality and myths, and it's the human mind itself. The human mind is apparently programmed to resist change.

We can argue all we like with adults, but the real battle has to be fought in our schools. Early education is the key. Human beings have to be shown how to think rationally and be taught true science and history while young. By the time we're adults its often too late.

Creationism is a Form of Insanity?

Why is it that when talking about religion, a person can make claims that in any other topic would be considered literally insane?

Consider these three people...

"The army says my husband was killed in Iraq, but that would be awful so I know it's not true."

"Our company spent all its money, but that can't be right because we'd go out of business, so let's keep spending."

"The doctor says my baby died, but I don't believe it because I love her too much."

Sad and absurd, right? Anyone who said these things would be headed for psychiatric help. So consider this article by Joe Sobran, who is trying to "prove" that Darwin's theory of evolution is wrong. Sobran starts by lambasting Dan Brown for the historical errors in his book, The Davinci Code, and then morphs that argument into an anti-Darwinism rant. And here's the heart of his logic:

"Children must be taught that nature has no purpose, beyond 'survival of the fittest' – though even survival is, strictly speaking, an accident rather than a purpose. We owe our existence, our humanity itself, not to anything intelligent, but to the chance mutations of stupid matter. This is the dogma of Darwinism, which passes for 'religious neutrality'..."

Mr. Sobran makes it clear that this unpleasant fact, all by itself, makes Darwinism unacceptable. How can it be that there is no purpose to life, no reason for our existence?

In other words, Mr. Sobran refuses to believe in evolution because it is unpleasant.

If Joe Sobran was a lone philosopher, it would be no big deal.

Aquatic Apes and Mormonism

One of the most fascinating proposals in anthropology is called the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, the idea that at some point in the evolution of homo sapiens our ancestors spent a great deal of time in the water. The theory makes a certain amount of sense, and would explain our hairlessness and the fact that human children, unlike all other great apes, love to play in the water. Just go for a walk on the beach, as I do two or three times each week, and it's striking to see kids running into the water chased by parents trying to keep them from drowning. No other primate species does this; they're all instinctively averse to swimming.

This Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (AAH) hasn't been embraced by the anthropology community, but it's not down and out either.

Either way, it illustrates one of the big differences between religion and science. In science, when there's an outlandish hypothesis (that is, outlandish compared to the accepted science), the advocates of that hypothesis are expected to provide extraordinary evidence to support their claims. It's not sufficient for them to just say, "It could be true, you can't prove it's not." The strength of a hypothesis rests on its explanatory power and on direct evidence that supports it.

The AAH has a great deal of explanatory power, but little direct evidence to support it. For example, if archaeologists discovered human remains by a sea shore with great piles of sea-urchin shells and other marine species that could only be gathered by swimming and diving, that would be strong direct evidence. Lacking such direct evidence, the proponents of the AAH can only offer indirect evidence, such as the fact that we're mostly hairless, we're good swimmers, and we love water even as babies.

The debate about AAH started in earnest in the 1960's and has continued ever since, but it's fair to say that AAH proponents have not met the standard of providing unusually strong evidence for their "outlandish" theory. Even Dawkins chimed in to say that the theory deserves some respect, but the mainstream anthropology community isn't convinced.

What does this have to do with religion? Well, I was really frustrated this week by a long and convoluted discussion in the comments section of my blog, a quasi-debate between me and several other atheists versus several Mormons. I say "quasi-debate" because it quickly devolved into mild-to-medium strength insults and a lot of smoke and mirrors, with little real substance.

Catholic Priorities: Forget Pedophiles, Get Those Atheists!

Here's a story that typifies Pope Benedict XVII:

(AP) "VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI is creating a new Vatican office to fight secularization and "re-evangelize" the West — a tacit acknowledgment that his attempts to reinvigorate Christianity in Europe haven't succeeded and need a new boost."

Never mind about those pedophile priests. Forget about AIDS in Africa and the Pope's role in spreading it. Pay no attention to those pesky Belgian police who keep raiding your church records to root out your crimes.

No, the real problem is those atheists and secularists! Why, the Church needs a whole new office to fight secularization! It's obviously the only problem facing the Roman Catholic Church worthy of serious action!

It's stuff like this that makes me predict that the Roman Catholic Church will fade into obscurity in the next couple of decades. It has become self-perpetuating.

Crybaby Christian Threatens to Destroy Atheist Groups

The Religious Right lost a major Supreme Court decision last week, and now Mike Adams, their attack-dog blogger, is being a crybaby about it.

The Supreme Court ruled that the University of California was within its rights to ban a group of lawyers for their anti-gay policies. It's OK for such groups to meet in private, but there's nothing that requires a public school to endorse such discrimination.

Well, here's what Mike Adams had to say:

"I can’t stand atheists. And I plan to do something about them. Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court has given me a powerful tool to use in my war against the godless. ... I plan to round up the students I know who are most hostile to atheism. Then I’m going to get them to help me find atheist-haters willing to join atheist student groups across the South. I plan to use my young fundamentalist Christian warriors to undermine the mission of every group that disagrees with me on the existence of God... [We] will seek to destroy groups whose names are even remotely suspicious. If I see any words like “atheist,” agnostic”, or even “free-thinker” I will know they are a group of godless heathens. Then we’ll move in for the kill.

When I first read this, I thought it was a joke, a dumb attempt at humor. It is so over-the-top preposterous that it took me a minute or two to realize, "Wow, this guy really means it."

But here's the truth: crybaby Mike Adams won't dare do this. You see,

Mormonism is Wrong

There's a persistent Mormon named Seth Rogers who is well known to atheists bloggers. Criticize the Mormon religion in an atheist blog, and Seth is right there to set you right. Three months ago I wrote a blog about the Mormon Church's immoral stance on homosexuality, and the debate is still going on.

After I wrote my final response in that thread, I realized it was blogworthy, not something that should be buried in a long tirade of Mormon apologetics, so here it is.

Mormon apologists make the classic mistake that's repeated over and over by religious apologists everywhere: they assert that the burden of proof is on the non-believer.

Mormonism makes a staggering number of amazing claims that defy both common sense and the historical and archaeological records.

How to Shut Up Pesky Creationists

This talk by Dr. Ken Miller is really amazing both in how clearly it refutes creationism / intelligent design, and also because it illustrates the uphill battle that science faces against religion.

Science is hard. This is highly technical stuff, and it is beyond the grasp of the average American. It's a complex, technical argument, but worse, it takes five minutes of paying attention. How can Dr. Miller convince a nation that thrives on sound bites and watered-down science to pay attention?

Happily, my audience has a longer attention span. Enjoy, it's great stuff!

The Anti-Rationalism Meme is confirmed by science

One of my favorite topics (I wrote about it in The Religion Virus) is called The Anti-Rationalism Meme. It's the idea that faith is more powerful than reason, that when there is a conflict between your mind and heart (more scientifically, your logic and your emotions), that faith must ultimately win.

"Divine revelation, not reason, is the source of all truth."
– Tertullian of Carthage (150-225 AD)

Strong words indeed. Basically the Anti-Rationalism meme declares that all of physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology and archeology can be dismissed out of hand if you believe something is true.

So I couldn't pass up this headline: When science clashes with belief? Make science impotent. The article describes some clever social experiments where they investigated people's willingness to discard scientific evidence or dismiss science as irrelevant.

The basic problem is that everyone wants to feel well educated and modern. They want to think of themselves as enlightened and informed. You can't just dismiss science as wrong and still get any respect. So science still rules the roost when it comes to respect.

And yet ... what do you do when you want to believe something that science says can't be true?

Montana College Still Holds State-Sponsored Prayers

Montana State University-North doesn't get it. I thought colleges were supposed to be places of higher learning. Don't they teach history and constitutional law there? Don't they read newspapers?

Court after court has ruled that state-funded schools can't sponsor prayers, Montana State University-North wants to hold school-sponsored prayer. They want to keep their Christian prayer (yes, they say it's non-denominational, but we all know it's Christian) in their graduation ceremony, and never mind that many of their students are atheists, agnostics, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists.

Why, in this day and age, do Christians feel they can use the state or federal government to force their prayers on other people? Is there some reason that their private prayers and their prayers in church are ineffective? Doesn't God listen