Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter sever ties with Southern Baptists over disparagement of women

Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter have severed their ties with Southern Baptist Convention. Why would they do this, after a six-decade long affiliation with the SBC? It's because the SBC cherry-picked the Bible for the purposes of arguing:

that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

What are the consequences of this disparagement of women?

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met.

Continue ReadingJimmy and Rosalyn Carter sever ties with Southern Baptists over disparagement of women

What’s in a Type?

One of my peeves against anti-evolutionists is those moderates who fully accept gene drift and mutations for short term changes (breeds, "micro-evolution") but not longer term changes (species, types, "macro-evolution"). Try to pin one of those people down on a definition of species and type, and one can always show them an observed example of something that crossed the line, or else multiple species that are obviously different but on the same side of their line. But this post is broader than that. For example, Pluto was a planet. Everyone knew that. Recently it was demoted to dwarf-planet. There are groups still dedicated to its reinstatement as a planet, like the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet. My presumption is, because that's what they were taught in their youth, therefore it's "As God Intended". Nothing changed in the sky, nor in our understanding of how things work. But a category changed and our world shook. Well, at least the world of those of us who noticed. What of moons? An excellent article is here: Meet our Second Moon! We now have two moons? And in my lifetime, the origin of our main moon changed from an unlikely captured or even less likely co-congealed object to a reasonable and most probably ejected one. I remember being disturbed when the moon count around Jupiter went from 12 (the 19th century standard) to 63 (care of Voyager etc). The count varies depending on how you define "moon". One has to be broadly accepting of both size and ballistic classification to accept 3753 Cruithne as a moon of the Earth, but it is there. Speaking of the moon, here is an incredible new way to see our moon up close (with pan and zoom) taken from ground based cameras. Things change. As I have mentioned many times on this blog, most people are hung up on the misconception that words accurately define things. The thinking that, if you have a name for it, then you understand the thing. You get the collector's fallacy: The confusion of the joy of matching names to things with the understanding of the things themselves. Knowing the names of thousands of birds (or bugs or species or stamps or diseases) and accurately matching them to the subjects is useful. But it is not complete in terms of understanding the similarities and differences. That is what is meant by the quote "Biology without evolution is but stamp collecting". One cannot understand things without also understanding the relationship between things (species, astronomical objects, populations, etc) and knowing the latest (most complete, so far) underlying set of theories (scientific definition, not vernacular). Humans are better than most other creatures at recognizing patterns. We regularly see patterns in random observations: Pareidolia. Any set of words will be an incomplete definition of any object. Defining a class of things is even more nebulous. Do species change over time? Certainly, given either enough time or a precise enough definition. How many moons are in the solar system? Good question. Define "moon", and show me the latest ballistic data on the 100,000 largest object so far discovered inside of the Oort Cloud. By the time I have an answer, something will have changed.

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Who Goes to Heaven?

One obsession among fundamentalists is the question of who, exactly, qualifies for heaven. Basically, the answer comes down to "us". I.E: Christians. Not all 2Bn of them, but only those who are "true" Christians. If you question an American fundamentalist individually about who gets to go, denomination by denomination, then you learn that a fraction of a percent of those they claim as Christian (when boasting of how many they are) actually qualify. (List of Christian denominations) Catholics, the vast majority of Christians, are not eligible according to fundamentalist thought. Here's an excerpt from a recent youth Mexico Mission blog:

"Later we were sitting outside and I asked her how long she had been a Christian. She told us that when she was seven she wanted to be a Christian but her parents wouldn't let her and made her go to a Catholic church.

I guess when her parents died, she was able to actually actively follow God."

I've been to her church, and this is what they are taught: Most forms of Christianity are heretical cults. But what of, "All dogs go to heaven"? What is a cat's incentive for goodness? How about Bees? As the video implies, that any human may expect to go to a particular heaven is an artifact of the heaven having been invented by humans. If such a place existed, why would any innocent organism be kept out?

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The Family: Trickle down fundamentalism.

Would you like to know about a group of six or seven fundamentalist Christian Congressmen who believe that they have been tapped by God to usurp more power for the already powerful? Then consider Rachel Maddow's discussion about The Family with Jeff Sharlet, author of a brand new book: The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. Jeff knows about The Family because he went undercover and spent time living among them at 133 C-Street, the group's headquarters in Washington D.C, which is a church that looks like a house. Senator John Ensign lives at the house. So does Senator Tom Coburn. Mark Sanford mentions an affiliation with C-Street while he was having his affair. What goes on at C-Street stays there, thanks to the secrecy pact enter by the members. Wikipedia offers far more. What do these guys want? To do God's will, of course. What is God's will? As long as you are chosen by God, the means justify the ends. Anything is justified, even monetary bribes; they sometimes call themselves "The Christian Mafia." They prefer to operate behind the scenes. Maddow sums up the aim of The Family:

promoting American power, world wide, unfettered capitalism with no unions, no programs to help poor people, all with this idea that godly powerful rich men should get as many resources as possible personally, and they should just privately help everyone else.

Here's Maddow's interview.

Continue ReadingThe Family: Trickle down fundamentalism.

Pharyngula’s first rule regarding religion

Spurred by news of a distressing incident occurring in Jerusalem, Pharyngula announces his basic rule regarding religion.

This is something too many religious people fail to understand — you can practice your religion, other people can practice their religion, but you don't get to tell other people that they must practice your religion.
Sounds good to me. It couldn't be clearer. Maybe we should add it to the First Amendment for those who are having trouble understanding the existing text.

Continue ReadingPharyngula’s first rule regarding religion