Some Thoughts on Religiosity

The Uncredible Hallq makes a much-needed point on the recent complaints of trading secularism for progress (and general increases in the global standard of living), in a post entitled Optimism, pessimism, and humanism:

"In the face of this, the optimist and, if I am correct, anyone who believes in a perfect God, must deny that what we are seeing is progress. I suppose religious people will note the decline of spirituality. Others will find secular ways in which our lives have become less meaningful. But if we were starving, we would hardly have the time to worry about such matters. I for one, think that improvement of the world is a real and noble [sic]."

People may believe that increased religiosity leads to increased happiness, decreased crime/increased morality, etc...but there is not only no evidence for this, there is actually evidence against the idea.

Multiple studies have found that correlation between religiosity and economic growth is tenuous with some variables and inversely correlated with others. It seems clear that poor people tend to be more religious, but is that a coping mechanism for poverty, or an effect due to their willingness to live more modestly and selflessly? Also, an interesting recent study found that although religiosity correlates to a greater disagreement with sexual "sins", it inversely correlated to disagreement with general dishonesty and integrity in government:

...says that religiosity, both on the societal and individual level, is far less likely to discourage thoughts about giving the government false information, accepting bribes while in public office, buying stolen goods or avoiding a public transportation fare. In these cases, people tend to be deterred less by religious beliefs and rituals than by secular laws that apply to believers and nonbelievers alike.

Furthermore, religiosity was probably greatest in the time of Middle Ages Christendom. And yet more people died of famine and disease then than now. More babies were born, but the death rate was staggeringly higher. Was god more generous when more people believed in god and/or worshipped god? Sure doesn't seem so, does it?

One of the most contradictory issues in the Bible is whether or not god protects/blesses "his" people or whether or not god "chastens" them (including swallowing them up in the earth, during Moses' day, and more recently, allowing them to go through the Holocaust, or more mundane examples of God's abandonment) more because they are his own. See, for instance, those passages that seem to contradict one another as to whether a righteous man will flourish, on whether wealth is good or bad, on whether god destroys the righteous (his own) or just the wicked.

The issue of god "chastening" his own is even touched on by Mormons. See for instance even the book of Mormon:

And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him. (Helaman 12:3)

The US is the most prosperous and religious western democracy...but it also has the shortest life expectancy, the highest murder rates, the highest abortion rates, the highest teen pregnancy rates, the highest STD rates...of any western democracy! Why? Tucker Carlson talked about this study, and here is an interview with the author, Gregory Paul.

Unscrewing the Inscrutable blogger DarkSyde wrote three very readworthy blogs: "I Am A Believer", "Why I'm An Atheist", "What it Feels Like to Be An Atheist". I strongly recommend reading the last one first to get a sense of how atheists view living in a society with high religiosity, to get a perspective on how atheists do not all hate god, or the idea of god...etc. And see this post by The Mighty Middle on how a lot of atheists perceive Christian theology--as absurd. The absurdity springs from the concept of a god who would create men with freedom, thus enabling them to choose to do things that they are not pre-programmed to do like robots, and then the god creates rules for them (by the way, freedom does not require a choice of "good and evil" in this sense, some animals make choices without us humans having attached moral value to their training), knowing full well they will break them, then gets so mad god decides blood is all that will assuage his anger...and so kills a part of himself--his "son". Etc. Read on there for more.

PS: If you're particularly blasphemous, you can read what The Huge Entity has to say about the staff of god.
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Technorati tags:
Atheism, Faith, God, Religion

"Science is the Antithesis of Faith"

I read something today that nicely follows up on some comments I've made before on the growing trend of godlessness, and especially on the link between science and faith:

Skepticism is the antithesis of faith, and a science that encourages people to question is the enemy of a religion that demands people accept. PZ

Nice.

And that's why fundamentalists of all religions pervert science to maintain their dogma.

And that's why we must all oppose fundamentalism, whether we're [progressive] believers or unbelievers.

I have some scientist friends who are in the 40% of believing scientists, [see Nature] but none of them have a problem in demarcating the line between religion and everything else--they all practice Gould's NOLM.
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Technorati tags: Philosophy, Atheism

Three Good Things this Thursday

Three good things courtesy of reading PZ today:

1) A review of Coulter's screed by a journalist in Dover
2) A review of DaveScot commenting that, "Ultimately the universe is governed by gravity. It is the strongest of all the forces in the big picture." and "By the way, gravity is the strongest force in nature. It overwhelms the electromagnetic force to form neutron stars. It overwhelms the weak nuclear force to form quark stars. And finally, when it overwhelms the strong nuclear force, a black hole is formed. Thanks for playing."
3) A review of how gills evolved into pharyngeal arches, and into the human parathyroid from there

For more on DaveScot's comment, see my analysis below:

Well, we seem to have a problem...trusted authorities in science and physics often claim that "gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental fources". (see here for more)

DaveScot has obviously claimed the opposite. Who to believe? Well, I don't like "belief", so let's do the physics (the following was left as a comment on the site)--

First, lay out the equations to make sense of the controversy:
F = G *(m1 * m2) / r^2

That's the force given by gravity, and if you use kg for mass and meters for r, then the units that come out are in N.

Couloumb's Law for the force between two point charges:
F = 1 / (4*pi*vacuum resistivity) * (q1 * q2) / r^2

Now, let us assume for a moment that we want to compare the two forces. In order to do this fairly, we ought to use the same values for all of the variables in the two equations which we can -- in this case, r. Let's just use an r = 1 meter. This gets rid of the r^2 term in both equations.

Now, let's set the two equations equal to one another and see what happens:
(m1 * m2) * G = 1 / (4*pi*vacuum resistivity) * (q1 * q2)

Let's get rid of all of the constants:

(m1* m2) / (q1 * q2) = 1 / (G * 4 * pi * vacuum resistivity) = 1.3 * 10^20

What in the hell does this mean? It means that the ratio of multiplied masses to multiplied charges has to be 10^20 in order for the forces to be equal to one another. That's the regime in which the forces can be equal. Obviously, you can do the algebra to see that the when charge is dissipated and mass built up enough in neutron stars, they do indeed surpass this ratio.

In this sense, Dave is right, in that inside neutron stars, gravity has overcome electromagnetism. Perhaps that is simply what he should've said to begin with, that the potential for gravity's force to overcome the force of electromagnetism is there, so long as the ratio of m/q is high enough. That doesn't mean that gravity "is stronger than" electromagnetism, of course, when we consider "non special cases". For instance, do a simple calculation of the gravitational and electromagnetic force between a proton and neutron 1 m away from one another, and this is where the ratio originally cited by Kibitz in the comment above came from. Kibitz is thus correct in concluding that:

Electromagnetic repulsion is approximately 10 to the power of 42 (that’s a million billion billion billion billion)times more powerful than gravity. If your right bicep represented the strength of gravitational force, then your left bicep would have to extend beyond the edge of the known universe to represent the strength of electromagnetic force.

However, since the Chandrasekhar mass [where the ratio of m/q is high enough] is only achieved in stars which can accumulate enough Fe56 to collapse inward, the "regime" is limited to stars which start out at least 15-30 solar masses, and go through stellar evolution, and arrive at a neutron star potentiality. This is the one time when gravity "wins out".

So, I don't know what to conclude from here...Dave was right and wrong. It is *possible* for gravity to overcome the other forces, but it is, indeed, by far the weakest of the four in 99.99999% of the possible scenarios you can speculate on in our universe. Perhaps Dave will show some humility in admitting this?
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Technorati tags: DaveScot, Intelligent Design, Creationism, Discovery Institute

What a Shield We Have in Jesus

**UPDATE 3: I decided to un-draft this. In looking back, I see that it was largely a bunch of immaturity and I should've just ignored Frank Walton from the get-go.

**UPDATE 2** See Frank and Playing With Fire for more. I'll not be commenting any more about this, and I'm leaving the thread open for comments from anyone. Poor bastard.

**UPDATE** Frank Walton has removed the offending material from his website. He has demonstrated some ethical concern, after all, and I give him the credit of responding with moral responsibility rather than out of pure fear of litigation, although he somewhat denies that attribution of motive (see http://atheismsucks.blogspot.com/2006/06/dear-oh-dear-what-to-do-with-aaron.html) [edited to remove hyperlink - cut and paste if you want to view] (citing concern for losing his blogsite). Nonetheless, as I pointed out earlier, I am happy that he has taken down my emails and the libelous statement that he made, and I do not wish to pursue any legal recourse, although the act of removing the statement does nothing to reduce his liability. I am unsure of how the Infidel Guy, Ed Babinski, John Loftus, and Aaron may proceed, if at all.

If I may offer Frank some unsolicited advice: quit doing damage to your own cause, and putting yourself in these awkward situations, by reflecting so poorly upon the religion of Christianity with personal attacks, insults, and libelous statements. Many people are convinced more by the apparent morality of those who profess a belief than they are with the belief itself.

I had heard of a little fellow named Frank Walton (see http://atheismsucks.blogspot.com) [edited to remove hyperlink - cut and paste if you want to view] a few months back. He has apparently taken it as his divinely-inspired mission to personally insult and attack atheists on the web, presumably due to the overflow of Jeebus' love in his heart. No, he doesn't address much of the substance of their arguments; yes, he engages in almost 100% pure personal attacks. Today, however, poor Frank has gone beyond insult and into injury: litigation-worthy libel. And, as much as it pains me to do so, I will likely attempt to proceed by filing a complaint.

The situation with libel/defamation, as my lawyer-friend informed me yesterday [as we ironically discussed Frank's possible libel against the Infidel Guy], is that the accused must make a statement of fact, which can be shown to be false, which is injurious to the victim. Good ol' Frank has supplied us (see http://atheismsucks.blogspot.com/2006/06/daniel-morgan-responds-to-me-after-i.html) [edited to remove hyperlink - cut and paste if you want to view] with just such a statement today, out of clear malice:

Apparently, if a Christian ever makes a refutation in the comment section the staff of "Out of Christianity" will take it as "evangelism" and would therefore delete it. Typical. I'm not so sure why Daniel is so interested in my penis or my sex life but at least I have both.

Frank Walton now makes two claims:
1) That I am "so interested" in his penis and his sex life
2) He implies, by, "at least I have both," that I do not have either of the two, perhaps alleging that this is what #1 stems from

Hopefully, Frank Walton has the ability to use one of the historical defenses of defamation, particularly opinion. In this case, though, opinion is not factually falsifiable, while the second defamatory statement clearly is. It is on this legal ground that I can stand and watch poor Frank sink. Furthermore, statements alleging sexual misconduct are legally categorized defamation per se, to which the only successful defenses are historically those which can prove the veracity of the claim.

Now, you may be wondering, "Where did this defamation come from?" "Why did Frank publish such libelous statements?" Let me explain:

A few days back, Aaron Rossetti posted some articles on his website, which Gene Cook decided to critique on his radio show. Gene is a pastor at Covenant Baptist Church of San Diego. Gene apparently enjoys defending his worldview against rational thinking, which, in the case of Christianity and other worldviews hinged on a cartoon universe and Magic Men, does indeed require the apologist to bear a heavy burden.

In his defense, he gave proper attribution back to the author, despite a lack of permission to use the material, and Gene would probably claim that it was solely for nonprofit, educational purposes, which falls under the fair use guidelines. Obviously, it could be argued that Gene is indeed profiting from the use of Aaron's material, since the radio show brings in revenues to the church via donors and exposure. But, Aaron does not mind, although he did notify Gene that he did not give him permission to use his material.

That's no big deal, right? The problem came when Gene decided to send an email to Aaron asking him to come onto his show. Aaron politely responded, "No thanks," telling Gene that he had no interest in doing any interviews with anyone. Gene, displaying the love of Jesus in full form, retorted to Aaron that he would be, quote, "Demonstrating that the real problem is that Aaron has the theological understanding of a kindergartner." Never minding that Jesus supposedly said that we all had better have the mindset of a child to enter heaven [perhaps Gene is not as Biblically-cognizant as other pastors I know, who are all quite familiar with Matthew's gospel, chapter 18, verses 2-4], we will assume that Gene was not asserting to Aaron that his place in heaven is secure, and that instead, Gene meant to insult Aaron, although this insult was entirely unwarranted.

Understandably, this completely unprovoked barb from this self-professed follower of Christ miffed Aaron a bit, who responded less politely in return. Now, mind you, these are private correspondences, which Aaron did not forward to anyone else, and did not post an article about on his website.

Two days ago, a boy who I will refer to as "Jesus' Pit Bull" [defending his leader's legacy analogously, but more vitriol-laden and less logic-based, to Dawkins defense of Darwin, or the more-tame Huxley, but with non-equivalent amounts of drool] from here on, Frank Walton, somehow gets these private emails between Gene and Aaron [presumably from Gene, who apparently hires out his dirty work], and decides to post their full contents to the web, completely without permission from Aaron, including Aaron's private email address. Now, Jesus' Pit Bull may simply be ignorant, or so I assumed, when I wrote him informing him of the unethical and illegal reproduction of an author's literary work without permission. For those skeptics of you out there, check out this attorney's write-up, and this firm's write-up, on the legal issues surrounding email copyright infringement.

Now, Aaron is not the litigious sort, so in this case, simply wrote to both Frank Walton and Gene Cook with a simple "cease and desist" order to remove the infringed material from the website, since his permission to post it was denied. Seeing that both men are such devout followers of their god, one would expect such a simple request to be honored, even were it not a legal issue, out of ethical fiber. Well, Jesus' Pit Bull has, thus far, not displayed such a constitution, and the offending material remains on his web site. I cannot say whether or not Gene has asked Frank to remove the material. Perhaps the boy's leash broke. I wrote to Aaron informing him of these issues, and to Jesus' Pit Bull. To JPB's credit, Aaron's email address has been removed.

What does Jesus' Pit Bull do in reply? Why, cross the same ethical line, of course! He reposts the contents of my first email to him, with a portion deleted which refutes some of the bunk he has posted to his site, while neglecting to mention the follow-up email from me and from Aaron entirely in which we inform him of the legal and ethical transgression he is comitting from posting emails without permission. Aaron and I have now both informed Jesus' Pit Bull of this breach of law and ethics, in reproducing our private correspondences without our permission, but this apparently only made the pup a little more vicious, as he went for defamation of character.

I have forwarded the same notice of legal rights and protections to persons who Jesus' Pit Bull has previously defamed, including, but not limited to, Infidel Guy, John Loftus, Ed Babinski, and Aaron Rossetti. I have also made sure to save the evidence of Jesus' Pit Bull's defamation of their character as well, in the event that these others, or myself, decide to litigate.

Perhaps Jesus will shield his faithful from the consequences of their actions, after all, he supposedly bled and died for their transgressions, and we would think this would include legal ones as well as spiritual ones. Maybe his powers will protect them? I mean, if god is able to avert an eternal hellfire for these fellows, he can surely avert a lawsuit, right? Let's wait and see.

I think that the Infidel Guy has likely the strongest case of all, and my lawyer-friend agreed. Since the Infidel Guy's living is maintained via his website, writing and radio show, demonstrating defamation per se in his situation would be rather straightforward: showing that Jesus' Pit Bull's allegations have been "injurious to another's trade, business, or profession." This would not be difficult given the things (see http://atheismsucks.blogspot.com/2006/05/man-arrested-for-sexually-assaulting.html) [edited to remove hyperlink - cut and paste if you want to view] that Frank has said about Infidel Guy. The specific allegation linked to there is that Infidel Guy is "new" best friends with a man who comitted bestiality, implicitly because of the act of bestiality itself, and that Infidel Guy himself "would not have a problem" in performing such sexual acts with other animals. In so doing, Frank has stepped over the per se demarcation line with injury to Infidel Guy's business and allegations against his sexual conduct. Big no-no in libel cases.

Perhaps a legal whipping of the pup will muzzle it a bit. It would be different if this was an isolated event in this little guy's life, hell, we've all done it once or twice...but it is quite clearly Jesus' Pit Bull's mission and hobby. We'll have to wait and see how this pans out, but I do have an attorney available to me free of charge, besides my lawyer-friend who may be willing to help, so this will be an interesting situation, indeed. I will be getting an appointment in the next few weeks [they're always booked], so expect an update soon.

"Death of God" versus "Death of godlessness"

From the allegations of plagiarism (not the same old ones) to the pseudoscientific nonsense lifted from dishonest "work" by the Disco Institute, Ann Coulter's new book is basically nothing but cannon fodder by this point. I have nothing new to say about it, but you really ought to read what real scientists have said about her anti-evolutionary screed. In all honesty, most people dismiss the polemicist as the right-wing version of Michael Moore, and in so doing, allow her rhetoric to pump up her own choir, to which she enthusiastically preaches and gets a few feedback "Amen!" shouts from.

One of the things that really bothers me is when people use the word "bombshell" to describe Ann, or in any way imply that she is sexy/attractive. Look at this picture of the woman, and make sure you take some Phenergan first. She is dog ugly. Peroid.

While reading over some reviews of her new rant-rag, I noted that William Dembski had proudly endorsed her book on his site. He also boldly steps up for credit for "helping" with all of the "science" in her book. Reading over there, I attempted to leave a comment on Debmski's post after scanning it, in response to a Gildodgen there who asserted that godlessness is on the wane. Of course, might doesn't make right, so minority views aren't necessarily right or wrong as a virtue of their popularity. However, in this case, the veracity of Gildodgen's claim is highly dubious. My response follows:

(begin comment)
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Gildodgen wrote:

The 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed the death of God. At the turn of the 21st century we are witnessing the death of Godlessness. It’s all rather exciting.

I'm afraid that this hopeful assertion is terribly contradicted by recent studies, (ARIS) which rather conclusively showed that the number of people who went from any religion to no religion increased by 23% over the years studied.

In their words, the researchers note:

The top three "gainers" in America's vast religious market place appear to be Evangelical Christians, those describing themselves as Non-Denominational Christians and those who profess no religion. Looking at patterns of religious change from this perspective, the evidence points as much to the rejection of faith as to the seeking of faith among American adults. Indeed, among those who previously had no religion, just 5% report current identification with one or another of the major religions.

The raw number of "no religion" folks swamps the Evangelicals by about 30-fold and non-denoms by about 14-fold. In numerical form, the "no religion" switch from some prior religion increased by approx. 6.6 million persons, and those "switching out" were approx. 1.1 million persons = approx. 5.5 million net deconverts.

Do the math on this, and you'll see that no other category even comes close. Not one. The next highest number of net converts is 1.4 million for "Christian" (fourfold less) and then 600,000 for "Pentecostal". So, you may want to start checking the data before baldly asserting that "godlessness" is somehow waning. On the contrary, friend, it is waxing full.

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(end comment)

They probably won't publish the comment, but I wanted to give its major point an airing...somewhere. Unfortunately for Gildodgen, and Coulter, godlessness is a growing phenomenon, and one that they will have to learn to intelligently deal with, should they want to maintain [that's a joke] intellectual credibility in the 21st century.
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Technorati tags: Ann Coulter, Intelligent Design, Evolution, William Dembski, Discovery Institute, godless

Luther and Nazism

Dear Christian,

Is Martin Luther a hero [of the faith] of yours? Did you know that he wrote a book called, On the Jews and Their Lies? (1543)

Did you know that it contains such passages as:

So we are even at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the Christians which they shed for three hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the blood of the children they have shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and their skin). We are at fault in not slaying them.

?

In context, here is the full passage:

Since it has now been established that we do not hold them captive, how does it happen that we deserve the enmity of such noble and great saints? We do not call their women whores as they do Mary, Jesus' mother. We do not call them children of whores as they do our Lord Jesus. We do not say that they were conceived at the time of cleansing and were thus born as idiots, as they say of our Lord. We do not say that their women are *haria,*, as they do with regard to our dear Mary. We do not curse them but wish them well, physically and spiritually. We lodge them, we let them eat and drink with us. We do not kidnap their children and pierce them through; we do not poison their wells; we do not thirst for their blood. How, then, do we incur such terrible anger, envy, and hatred on the part of such great and holy children of God?

There is no other explanation for this than the one cited earlier from Moses, namely, that God has struck them with "madness and blindness and confusion of mind." So we are even at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the Christians which they shed for three hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the blood of the children they have shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and their skin). We are at fault in not slaying them. Rather we allow them to live freely in our midst despite an their murdering, cursing, blaspheming, lying, and defaming; we protect and shield their synagogues, houses, life, and property In this way we make them lazy and secure and encourage them to fleece us boldly of our money and goods, as well as to mock and deride us, with a view to finally overcoming us, killing us all for such a great sin, and robbing us of all our property (as they daily pray and hope). Now tell me whether they do not have every reason to be the enemies of us accursed Goyim, to curse us and to strive for our final, complete, and eternal ruin!

Did you know that:

he wrote that Jews' synagogues should be set on fire, prayerbooks destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, homes "smashed and destroyed," property seized, money confiscated, and that these "poisonous envenomed worms" be drafted into forced labor or expelled "for all time." ^[3] He also appeared to sanction their murder^[4]

Did you also know that it has been very well argued and evidenced that Hitler adopted much of his Anti-Semitic views directly from Luther?

What, did you think that the Nazis were atheists? Oh, you could only wish so.

What, did you think that Darwin personally, or evolutionary theory generally, is somehow to blame for Nazism? Hardly so. Drawing moral extrapolations from natural observations is itself moving away from science. Science is only the statement of how things are, not how things ought to be, or how human beings should relate to one another. (I point this out, despite the fact that even if the Nazis [or anyone] tried to use a scientific theory to justify themselves, they would be committing Moore's Naturalistic Fallacy in so doing, and most people recognize this.)

Now, to be fair to Luther, nearly all contemporary Catholics hated Jews too. (also see wiki)

So, dear Christian, what do you have to say in response to this? Perhaps you'll remember it the next time you quote Luther?

With respect to Christians and their Anti-Semitism...so much for 2 Cor. 5:17, eh? New creatures, indeed.

Perhaps you'll think of this the next time you want to blame science for immoral choices on the part of people who fallaciously attempt to use it to justify themselves, or the next time you blame atheism for Hitler's Holocaust?
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Technorati tags: Religion, Martin Luther, Hitler, Judaism, Anti-Semitism

Quiet, Transition in Progress!

**UPDATE** MTV News has a follow-up article, in which Alter Bridge counters Living Things' version of events with their own. Funniest excerpt from AB's statement:

Alter Bridge fully supports every American's right to free speech...If any band chooses the stage to address their political views and to take shots at the current U.S. government, that is their right. However, it is not their right to slander our country and its people in the process... [Living Things] shouted obscenities and "repeatedly yelled 'F--- America!...I hate America!'

So, in other words, AB supports free speech, so long as that free speech isn't offensive or slanderous towards the US. Okay? Sounds like they have been getting their tips on "free expression" from the idiots pushing the flag-burning amendment. **END UPDATE**

"Regardless of anyone's political views this is simply ignorant, offensive and unacceptable,"

A recent news story in music follows. The reason the story appeals to me is that, despite the outright rejection of the labels "Christian" or "spiritual" to the band Alter Bridge, they have, willingly or not, inherited the religious conflict from their past. I found myself remembering their quasi-Christian heritage when Lynne tipped me off to their recent debacle in Switzerland.

When people hear "Creed", they think, minimally, "spiritual lyrics" and possibly [albeit erroneously] "Christian band". This seems to be the case despite repeated protests against the label "Christian" during the time of the band's inception. It is a long-standing interest of mine to study the "crossovers" from Christian music as they move into other genres--typically rock and pop. The transition is often accompanied (some may argue "paralleled", or "compelled") by a synchronous transition of faith, or entire loss thereof. From the famous case of Jerry Lee Lewis, to Arethra Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Elvis, to contemporary bands like Lifehouse, Amy Grant and POD, crossover bands and artists are worth a moment's thought. To me, they are simply spotlighted case studies in deconversion, a phenomenon that I personally identify with. They are famous, completely public examples of the sort of experience that millions of people have annually--losing faith. I find religious transitions, and especially deconversions, fascinating [particularly the psychological aspect of] and would love to be pointed to some scientific studies on the process.

The former band Creed broke up, with lead singer Scott Stapp going solo and the remaining band members reforming as Alter Bridge. Why do we care?

Apparently, at a show in Zurich on June 14th, Alter Bridge is being accused of assaulting Living Things, another rock band, as they spoke against the current administration and the ongoing war(s). From the myspace site for Living Things, some fans did indeed document, on the day of the concert, the veracity of LT's claim.

On the same site, the tour date roster purports, "June 14 in Zurich, Switzerland at Rohstofflager supporting Alter Bridge". This implies that LT was opening for AB, so far as I can tell, and is thus considered a bit subservient in terms of their popularity/demand. An MTV news article interviewed the band's lead singer, Lillian Berlin, about the incident, where he claims,

We were in the middle of our second song, and I had some stuff to say about the current administration and the way they're handling the Iraq war...The Swiss were all behind us, and the crowd was cheering me on. I was talking about this letter I got inviting me to a Democrat-bashing dinner at the White House. And we went into our fourth song, and some goon from that Creed band came out swinging an American flag and then threw it at our drummer, Bosh.

However, the spokesman for AB refutes this claim,

Alter Bridge was not happy that this band chose to deliver anti-American statements to their audience.

However, no Alter Bridge bandmembers were onstage, and their crew was in their designated working areas during this supposed incident. Alter Bridge thinks this is just a weak attempt by the opening band to drum up press for themselves. Alter Bridge will have no further comment on this as they are finishing up their extremely successful European tour and returning shortly to the U.S. to start work on their second album.

I'll have more info as it becomes available, but I would expect a lawsuit if the claim of LT holds water, especially since Lillian claims the band members suffered verifiable injuries, including black eyes. This news article was also picked up by chartattack and pr-inside. Whether it holds merit or not we will shortly see.

Thought: if Alter Bridge was not inexorably tied to a quasi-Christian heritage and subsequent image, would we even care about this? Typical rock/metal/punk concerts are almost boring without some sort of violence or tirade. Why is this newsworthy, and eye-catching? It must be the association between AB and Christianity.

As an aside, it appears that Living Things' enthused political commentary from the stage has made news before.
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Technorati tags: Alter Bridge, Creed, Scott Stapp, Religion

The Evolution of Gay Animals (Including Humans)

There is a quite interesting article in SEED magazine about sexual selection and homosexual behavior in animals. The interview with Joan Roughgarden, an evolutionary biologist, examines the role of evolution in animal homosexual behavior. As usual, PZ Myers' trenchant analysis shines light on the relationship between sexual selection, homosexual behavior in animals, and evolutionary biology.

The major points/possibilities where these converge, which PZ analyzes:

1) Homosexuality is selectively neutral (in PZ's hilarious words, "Many heterosexual couples elect not to have children, and many homosexuals elect to have them. This shouldn't be a surprise; all it takes to start a baby is a few pokes and a spurt, and it really doesn't take much effort to overcome an inclination for such a brief event. We are sex-obsessed animals, so redirecting an ejaculation to a particular orifice isn't that astonishing.")
2) Homosexuality promotes community bonding (conflict avoidance = more survival)
3) Homosexuality is coupled to other advantageous traits (coupling)
4) Homosexuality is a product of weak genetic specification (e.g. "brains are plastic")
5) Homosexuality is a byproduct (e.g. developmental/environmental, not genetic)

Obviously, one or more of these has to be right. Hopefully, the more genetics becomes understood in its relationship to evo-devo, we can begin to attach hard data to these hypotheses.

The well-known gay behaviors in animals (read the SEED article for details) are often used to "justify" homosexual behavior. Without going into detail, I do think it is funny how people will fall into Moore's naturalistic fallacy in concluding moral behavior from observations in nature: "It happens in nature, therefore it's natural, therefore it's moral!" Of course, the problems with these arguments go far and wide, but the most obvious and gut-wrenching refutations hinge on the exploitation of this same illogic in genocides, Übermensch, and in Hitler-esque "survival of the fittest" mentalities.
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Technorati tags: Homosexual, Evolution, Biology

Tangled Bank #55

Welcome to the *55th edition of Tangled Bank. I hope you enjoy the reading as much as I have.

Let's dig right in:

⊆Animal Biology
•Bird-brained

1. “101 Ways to Help Birds”, Grrlscientist, Trackback
2. "Mocking After Midnight", Mike Bergin

•Bug-brained

1. "Emergent behavior in desert locusts", Josh Rosenau
2. "Eight Hours a Circadian Rhythm Do Not Make", Courtnix

•Dog-brained

1. "Flappin' in the Wind", Always Learning

•Dino-brained

1. “Giant Armored Dinosaur Discovered”, Grrlscientist, Trackback

•Primate-brained

1. "Artificial Parts Versus Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine", Reason
2. “How Long Does It Take To Dress Your Monkey?”, Benjamin Cohen
3. "Breathing Liquid: The Frontiers of Human Respiration", Joe Kissell, Trackback

⊆Diet/Nutrition

1. "The missing nutrient?", Cat Davies
2. "Water - How much is enough?", Cat Davies
3. "Two Interesting Calorie Restriction Papers", Reason
4. “People with chronic back pain more sensitive to taste”, Dave Munger

⊆Environmental Science

1. "Let's Remove the Radioactive Metals Spewing Out from Coal-fired Power Plants!", Ruminating Dude

⊆Evolution

1. "Writing the right poll question", Josh Rosenau
2. “Electrifying Speciation”, Grrlscientist, Trackback
3. "Origin of Biological Diversity", Courtnix
4. "Evolution of Biological Diversity", Courtnix
5. "Current Biological Diversity", Courtnix
6. “Chelifores, chelicerae, and invertebrate evolution”, PZ Myers
7. "Emerging Disease and Zoonoses #16--the origins of HIV", Tara Smith
8. “Here is the ultimate question for which the answer is 42”, Arunn Narasimhan

⊆General Science/Seed/Other Stuff

1. "Justify my existence?", Orac [answer to Seed Question re "Brain Drain"]
2. "New York City trip - Part III: SEED", Courtnix
3. "Fish Story", Science Made Cool
4. “Oxford Scientific Activists Take Their Message to the Streets”, Nick Anthis
5. “Religion and Science”, Paul Decelles
   
6. "NASA to Build Litterbox for International Space Station", Hazel, Trackback
   
7. “Nonviolent Communication”, Brandon Peele, Trackback, Carnival ping [only non-science post accepted, for its moral fiber]

⊆Molecular Biology/Biochemistry

1. "Genetics Interview with Dr. David Moskowitz of Genomed", Hsien Hsien Lei
2. “Cell Rigidity and Protein Recruitment”, Dan Rhoads
3. “Chromosomes Involved in Color Blindness”, Daniel Fluck
4. "Piling in on Lipofuscin", Reason
5. "Antisense RNA Therapies", Reason
6. "RNA Interference as the New Gene Therapy", Reason
7. "Reducing the genome of E. coli", ¡Viva La Evolución!

⊆New blog alert: Conservatives Against Intelligent Design

⊆Plants

1. “Death Itch 3000”, Mark Rayner, Trackback
2. “Unintended consequences of invasive species”, Paul Decelles
3. "Poison ivy is sexy", James Hrynyshyn

Thanks for reading! The next Tangled Bank will be held at Centrerion. Please alert me in the comments section of any broken links or other errors.

*Thanks to Neil for the heads-up about me erroneously posting this as the 54th, rather than the 55th, edition of the carnival. Courtnix hosted #54, this is #55. Unfortunately, I can't fix the link without losing a huge amount of readers, so it will have to stay 54.
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Technorati tags: Tangled Bank

Bakunin on God

Mikhail Bakunin was born on this day in 1814. I want to consider a few of his sayings from his essay, "God and the State", and open the remarks for criticism.

The Bible, which is a very interesting and here and there very profound book when considered as one of the oldest surviving manifestations of human wisdom and fancy, expresses this truth very naively in its myth of original sin. Jehovah, who of all the good gods adored by men was certainly the most jealous, the most vain, the most ferocious, the most unjust, the most bloodthirsty, the most despotic, and the most hostile to human dignity and liberty-Jehovah had just created Adam and Eve, to satisfy we know not what caprice; no doubt to while away his time, which must weigh heavy on his hands in his eternal egoistic solitude, or that he might have some new slaves. He generously placed at their disposal the whole earth, with all its fruits and animals, and set but a single limit to this complete enjoyment. He expressly forbade them from touching the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He wished, therefore, that man, destitute of all understanding of himself, should remain an eternal beast, ever on all-fours before the eternal God, his creator and his master. But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge.

What we see in Genesis 3:22 certainly raises my own eyebrows:

And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

A plain reading of the Bible reveals the obvious issue of whether or not man "knew good and evil" before, or after, the Fall -- and thus whether or not man ought be responsible if the former. Nearly every time Bakunin's major point is raised with an apologist, the apologist insists that man "knowing" good and evil here means experiencing it. I brought to the attention of one recent apologist the fact that the same phraseology is used with respect to God, and thus a consistent hermeneutic would require an inference that God has also experienced evil. The apologist, needless to say, did not agree, yet was unable to provide a satisfactory reply.

An important question remains -- is the "Fall of Man" simply the acquisition of a moral conscience? It seems so at first glance. For indeed, if man does not know good from evil, then how could the choice to eat the fruit have been "sin" at all? Did the serpent lie about this? It appears that God gives substantiation to the claim in 3:22. Further, God cursed the serpent, and why would God curse the serpent for telling the truth?

The next section is particularly relevant in this day of theonomist revival:

On behalf of human liberty, dignity and prosperity, we believe it our duty to recover from heaven the goods which it has stolen and return them to earth.

If God is, man is a slave; now, man can and must be free; then, God does not exist.

A jealous lover of human liberty, and deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him."
-- Mikhaill Bakunin, "God and the State," 1883

If God exists, it is a moral affront to man to call himself "free". Let us consider this for a moment -- is there a "free will" at all, if God exists? Does man have the ability to choose freely between actions? Obviously not, according to orthodox interpretations of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. According to these traditions, man has only one choice -- God's way or hell. That is not freedom at all. That is indeed slavery.

It is thus impossible to hold to theism and man's freedom without a contradiction. In the regress of events, if God lies behind them, our freedom is not only an illusion, but a mockery of God's sovereignty -- Calvinists agree. They claim Paul and Jesus did too [c.f. Rom 9].

See his Wikipedia entry for more.
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Technorati tags: Philosophy, God