Bush Administration destroyed cancer research center and scattered the researchers

Affiliated Press - May 13, 2009 Recently discovered secret documents indicate that, in 2006, the Bush Administration ordered the destruction of a major cancer research center and banned the doctors and researchers from ever again communicating with each other. Dr. Rod Nym, former Director of the center, recently agreed to discuss this disturbing incident with the Affiliated Press. Nym indicated that the towering brick and mortar research center had its genesis several years ago thanks to a large grant by the Marduk Foundation. The Center was built in the middle-east corridor of the tri-state region to bring together hundreds of cancer researchers from all corners of the globe. Even though the researchers and doctors came from many different countries and spoke many different languages, they were able to communicate efficiently thanks to special software installed throughout the center. The software was similar to Babelfish, and it instantly translated any language into any other language, enabling the researchers to collaborate to an extent never before seen in an international research team.

Continue ReadingBush Administration destroyed cancer research center and scattered the researchers

The end of rational discussion

Recently I wrote a fake news item that took the Genesis story of man’s ejection from the Garden of Eden and transplanted it to the present day. I thought that it would be a great way to get believers to view this story in a fresh way before they even realized that they were doing so. I wanted them to judge the actions of God without realizing that it was God that we were talking about. It worked well...a little too well. Many of the believers that I routinely tussle with about religion on various forums did not immediately see the satire for what it was. They became enraged at the fictional stand-in for God, Mr. Ian Oda, and demanded in their posts that justice be done. When I pointed out the many clues to the true nature of the news story, I was criticized. My analogy was "way off" and "all wrong", they said. I didn’t understand the bible at all, they said. God was exonerated once again. One particular forum member was quite interested in pursuing the discussion further. He made some good points. I made mine. Eventually I had him backed into a corner (at least I thought so) when I told him that it seemed clear to me that the God of the bible was a badly written fictional character created by men and reflecting all of men’s inadequacies and flaws. This was his reply. "I guess you can say ‘I believe he is fictional’. I felt the same, before having him work in my life. I’m not going to write a book about it, but I’ve been through the worst and have seen plenty of miracles in my life. I have seen the horrors of sin, and have seen God's work to correct that in my life. I am a better person, because of it. Something is working in my life, whether you believe it is God or just something that happens, I know the truth, because I have witnessed it. Why can’t you just accept God’s love in your life? Mike, you are a destroyer of hope." So there it was once again. The wall that is impossible to penetrate. The wall that I have hit many times in my discussions with believers, when they are honest enough to take me all the way up to it. It’s a wall made of the Pain and the Need that drives someone to discard rationality because the alternative is just too horrific to face. Is the only thing standing between me and a belief in God some catastrophic personal event? Do I have to become a drug addict or a cancer patient in order to understand? Do I not believe in God because I've been too lucky in my life? Could that be true?? My own brother, who is as staunch an atheist as I, admitted to me that when he was very sick last year he “...actually prayed”. He went on to say that it was, “...fear of death...pure and simple. When that moment is upon you (or you perceive it is) you will do and believe anything that lets you think there is a higher power that may be able to save you from this.” What do I hope to gain by exposing what I see as the absurdity of their beliefs? I have hit my wall, my crisis of non-faith. How can I, in good conscience, continue to be a “destroyer of hope”?

Continue ReadingThe end of rational discussion

On Truth and Power

Recently on Dangerous Intersection, an article was posted about the problem of Power in relation to truth. I wrote a response and decided to post it here, at more length, as a short essay on the (occasionally etymological) problem of Truth. When people start talking about what is true or not, they tend to use the word like a Swiss Army knife. It means what they want it to mean when they point at something. Truth is a slippery term and has many facets. Usually, in casual conversation, when people say something is true, they're usually talking something being factual. Truth and fact are conjoined in many, possibly most, instances, but are not the same things. The "truth" of a "fact" can often be a matter of interpretation, making conversation occasionally problematic. The problem is in the variability of the term "truth"---like many such words, we stretch it to include things which are related but not the same. There is Truth and then there is Fact. 2 + 2 = 4 is a fact. It may, if analyzed sufficiently, yield a fundamental "truth" about the universe, but in an of itself it is only a fact. When someone comes along and insists, through power (an assertion of will), that 2 + 2 = 5, the "truth" being challenged is not in the addition but in the relation of the assertion to reality and the intent of the power in question. The arithmetic becomes irrelevant. Truth then is in the relationship being asserted and the response to it. The one doing the asserting and the one who must respond to the assertion. Similarly, in examples of law, we get into difficulty in discussions over morality. Take for instance civil rights era court decisions, where there is a conflation of ethics and morality. They are connected, certainly, but they are not the same thing. Ethics deal with the proper channels of response within a stated system---in which case, Plessy vs Fergusson could be seen as ethical given the criteria upon which it was based. But not moral, given a larger criteria based on valuations of human worth. To establish that larger criterion, overturning one system in favor of another, would require a redefintion of "ethical" into "unethical", changing the norm, for instance in Brown vs The Board of Education. The "truth" of either decision is a moving target, albeit one based on a priori concepts of human value as applied through ethical systems that adapt.

Continue ReadingOn Truth and Power

The Interview

Via the Barefoot Bum, I found a list of interview questions posted by the Wintery Knight. For now, I shall leave alone the good knight's contention that Hitler was a "Darwinist atheist" (certainly not a Darwinist and arguably not an atheist, given his obsession with Nordic mythology and the occult, not to mention those SS belt-buckles that said "God is with us"), as well as his claim that "Atheists struggle with morality, it just doesn’t sit well on their worldview, even though they sense God’s law on their hearts, like we do." Both are baseless and false and not worth any decent person's time. I shall answer his questions though, and with as little snark as I can muster, given that I know I'm answering someone who believes I may have "fascist tendencies" (bah - I've never once advocated a merger of state and corporate power) and struggle with morality even though I apparently really do believe in God, even though I say I don't - but obviously I'm just rebelling against our heavenly father like I did against my real one when I was 15. Really, if Christians wish to have an open dialogue with atheists, these tiresome myths must be left at the door. Anyway, on with The Interview (I have sent this post as an email to the good knight and eagerly await his reply:

1) Do you believe that the universe was brought into being out of nothing by a person (agent)? Is it possible that this agent could communicate to us, or that we could discover something about that agent? (i.e. – does God exist, is he knowable)
No. However, if an agent powerful enough to create the universe existed, you'd expect such an agent to be able to communicate with us in some way we could all understand, all at the same time. Also, if such an agent wanted anything about itself to be discovered, surely that agent would know the best way for us to do so. Revealing himself to a small number of people and letting them fight amongst themselves about who was right about what for two thousand years doesn't make a lot of sense.
2) Explain to me in which religion you were raised by your parents, if any. How did your parents approach religion in the home? (strict, lax, etc.)
My parents didn't raise us in any faith. I became a Christian at a young age after being exposed to it at primary school (age 5-12). Religion didn't come up in conversation at all at home (let alone positively or negatively). We were, however, taught the importance of empathy, politeness, generosity, respect and decency (both directly and indirectly, by our parents' examples). Both my parents are fine moral people, having proudly served their family and community their whole lives. My father was a public school science teacher (now retired but continuing to serve with Meals on Wheels). My mother was a long-time public servant and both parents were tireless social campaigners in our local area, defending our community hospital and local bushland reserves against corporate and government interference.
3) What events in your past affected your beliefs about God’s existence and knowability? (e.g. – I studied biology, comparative religions or anthropology, or I met a girl I liked)

Continue ReadingThe Interview

Not Ready to Meet their Maker?

Reading through my back issues of the Economist, I came across this article from March. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association religious people seem curiously unwilling and unready to die. According to the study, by Andrea Phelps and her colleagues at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, religious people seem to use their faith simply to cope with the pain and degradation involved in treatment, and that they are more willing to experiment with more aggressive treatments, even though such treatment rarely makes much difference to the outcome or their life expectancy.

Dr Phelps and her team followed the last months of 345 cancer patients. The participants were not asked directly how religious they were but, rather, about how they used any religious belief they had to cope with difficult situations by, for example, “seeking God’s love and care”. The score from this questionnaire was compared with their requests for such things as the use of mechanical ventilation to keep them alive and resuscitation to bring them back from the dead.
According to the study, three times as many 'religious' people requested aggressive life extension measures (mechanical ventilation and resuscitation) versus the least religious. I would expect that the religious would be happy to eventually 'meet their maker' - but I suppose this is yet another aspect of the cognitive dissonance we find among religion and it's adherents.

Continue ReadingNot Ready to Meet their Maker?