Do they keep forgetting?

Assume that you came to Earth last year (you were a visitor from another planet). Assume that on the first morning you spent on Earth, I showed you how to make toast. I showed you how to put the bread in the toaster and how to turn the toaster on. I taught you how to wait for the toast to pop up, and then I showed you how to spread some butter on the toast after the toast popped up. Assume that a week later, I took you downstairs and told you I was going to show you how to make toast. Once again, I instructed you to put bread in the toaster, to turn the toaster on, to wait for the toaster and then to put butter on the toast. Assume that I tried to give you the same lesson one more week later. You would likely stop me at this point and tell me that I had already told you how to make toast. You might say, "You told me twice, in fact. The steps were simple and I truly listened. There's no need for you to tell me yet again how to make toast." [More . . . ]

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Faith is Evolving, but Toward What?

As Darwin Day approaches (February 12), it is obvious that times are changing. America may be getting ready to face the Enlightenment, only a few centuries after our founders tried to encapsulate its principles in our government. On HuffPo, Paul Pardi recently wrote Religion is Evolving Before Our Eyes, about how American Fundamentalism and even Protestantism in general is suffering from ubiquitous communication. Few kids are exposed to only one point of view any more, so they are more likely to spot the discomforting inconsistencies of any given dogma. Small churches are closing their doors for lack of parishioners, and mega-churches pander to the basest prejudices just to pay the bills. But on NPR, in the wake of Obama's "Sputnik Moment" comment, Ursula Goodenough wrote It's Time For A New Narrative; It's Time For 'Big History' as a plea to create a more evocative narrative for science, to better win hearts to engage their minds. This is a real problem, as those best trained to understand an issue are rarely well equipped to explain it from the ground up. We need Sagans and Tysons for every school district; those who can evoke the excitement of understanding the universe. More and more people are turning away from their ancestral religions. Too many toward New Age woo, and some toward rationality. So the marketing arms of the churches work feverishly. They know that rational families tend to stay that way, but woo begets woo, and can be won back to the fold. They tirelessly try to pass laws to insert a religious wedge in science and history classes. Several states currently have bills pending to make it harder to teach 19th and 20th century biology or geology by inserting stories from ancient texts that contradict every discovery of the last 200 years. Here is a link with a list of current bills to establish anti-evolution state laws. Missouri, Kentucky, New Mexico, and other states all have at-risk public school syllabi. This may be a desperate last gasp of Fundamentalist anti-intellectualism. Or their fast grasp of schools could succeed, and leave America behind as other nations quickly accept the progressive mantle we are letting slide from our shoulders. One could see this as the epic battle of the end times. But it is not the world ending, but an ancient and arguably obsolete world view. But the battle may be a messy one. The forces of ignorance are tireless and prolific. After all, an unreasoning populace is easier to lead.

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Left Behind by Snowmageddon

There was recently a big winter storm across the Central and North Eastern U.S. In my local town, it had the potential of exceeding the record one-day snowfall set 29 years ago. All the local news stations talked about the major storm approaching. Thunder snow, a rare occurrence here, was predicted. Stores were stripped of snow shovels, salt, water softener (salt), milk and bread.The governor called in the National Guard, and all the utility and road crews were on high alert. When the freezing rain started on Monday, the media warned people to stay home for the next day or two as the storm passed over. I grew excited. The little kid in me was hoping for a big snow. But our town was right on the freezing line. Just south of us, there is rain. North of us, snow. The band from rain through freezing rain, sleet, snow, up to full blizzard is only a hundred miles wide. As Tuesday dawned, we had a glaze of ice, and sleet was falling. I woke early and spent a couple of hours learning how to hack my new super-zoom camera to force it to take a time lapse picture series. I hoped to make a nice video of the yard disappearing under a foot or more of snow. So I set up my camera and started it early in the morning, when there was still just a glaze of ice on the path and plants. The day wore on. At noon I it was still just sleeting. I changed the batteries in the camera. By sunset, there was just a couple of inches of sleet. It was fun to walk on top of what looks like snow. But the yard is still visible. Had the freeze line been a couple of dozen miles farther south, that thin layer of sleet would have been about a foot of snow. What a gyp! So I let the camera run overnight, in hopes that we'd get some snow on the few inches of ice. But as Wednesday dawned, Groundhog Day, there was only a little more snow. Sure, the roads are all iced over, and icicles hang from everything. But this is a far cry from what the hue and cry of the media had us expecting. Granted, the next county over (and half the state) is snowed in. Interstate 70 is closed between the Saint Louis metro area and Kansas. And the temperature will drop below zero (-18°C) tonight. But how did we get Left Behind from the transcendental fairyland, a heaven of deep snow? Obviously we hadn't prayed hard enough to the God of the clean white snowy world above to deliver us from mundane weather. Or we didn't believe sincerely enough in the snowy salvation offered by his half-breed son, Jack Frost. Maybe some around us are heretical worshipers of the Daily Commute, and counteracted our prayers. So we beseech those who were called up to the snowy realm to share with us their good fortune. Show us unworthy shovelers of sleet what the True Light of real snow is like. Maybe it's not too late.

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Micheal Mpagi and the Atheist Association of Uganda

Note: I had nearly finished this post when the death of Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato was reported. By taking odd jobs, like cleaning and washing clothes, Micheal Mpagi earns his living. His true life's work: to help rid his society of theocracy and religious bigotry. Micheal Mpagi is President of the Atheist Association of Uganda (AAU). Mpagi wants to challenge the theocratic elements in Ugandan politics. He started AAU because Uganda's older (and still extant) atheist organization, Freethought Kampala, is basically apolitical (he is still a member). In an email, Mpagi told me "AAU is more [concerned with] public policies and how theocracy is swiftly becoming the foundation of our government." In an email to Atheist Alliance International, Mpagi wrote:

This is going to be a long road for atheists and humanists. Most atheists take a purely philosophical approach to religion with too little emphasis on promoting human rights and democracy. And that's probably because human rights in North America are a given. Here in Uganda--and in Africa in general--what come first are the rights of a murderous god, a god of human division, a god of hate.
The Ugandan freethought movement has a Herculean task before it. Uganda's population is 84% Christian (roughly split between Catholics and Protestants), and highly conservative if not reactionary in their religion. A proposed bill that would make certain homosexual acts--already illegal--capital crimes, was inspired in part by American evangelicals like Scott Lively, and given tacit support by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has said that homosexuality is "against God's will". AAU opposes the 2009 bill, which would make homosexuality punishable by prison or death. "We stand for human rights," Mpagi says. Mpagi has also taken a stand against extra-governmental forces that threaten human rights. Since 1987, Ugandans in the northern part of the country have been terrorized by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), headed by the murderous Joseph Kony: [More . . . ]

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