Voodoo Rile

Remember how that earthquake killed hundreds of thousands of Haitians? No, the other earthquake. No, HAITIANS! Yeah, that one. Anyway, there was recently a gathering in Haiti's Cite Soleil to honor the dead and pray that their spirits will be guided safely through the afterlife. You'd think no one would have a problem with this, but you should know that these people were Voodooists. So you can understand why they were set upon by a mob of angry Christian evangelicals who pelted them with rocks and urinated on their religious implements. Love thy neighbor and all that. Well, except when your neighbor practices Voodoo. Unfortunately, the Voodooists weren't able to fight back, since it takes three forevers to make a little doll of just one person, much less an angry mob. But many Voodooists have been intimidated into converting to Christianity. Some feel safer knowing they won't be victimized by Christian pee flingers. Others honestly believe that the earthquake itself was a punishment from God for practicing Voodoo. And some think that Voodooists might be overlooked when it comes to handing out food and water to the poor and homeless. Because everyone knows Jesus hid the loaves and fishes from that dude who was dancing with a chicken. More details here.

Smartsy Fartsy

A new study out of the London School of Economics and Political Science (safety school) has shown that people with higher IQs tend to be more likely to identify as liberal atheists. In other words, smart people are godless commies. There are a few evolutionary psychology hypotheses for why this might be, but it may be as simple as the fact that reality has a liberal, naturalistic bias. But as far as the endless struggle of slobs v. snobs goes, I don't see this study doing much to improve the acceptance of my side (snobs). If there's anything a faithful dumb person hates more than an atheist, it's a smarty pants. This study will just serve as confirmation of their worst suspicions. You'd think people would consider that the trends demonstrated by smart people might be the best roadmap for success, but that line of thought probably just makes you an elitist. This study also found that men with high IQs tend to me more sexually monogamous, but intelligence had no bearing on the sexual exclusivity of women. I knew smart chicks were sexy, but I didn't know they were THAT sexy. More details here.

Fleece the Children

CBS News has been investigating Feed the Children, the Christian charity that tries to guilt you with TV ads showing fly-ridden hovels while you're watching Dancing with the Stars. Seems like there's a difference of opinion between Rev. Larry Jones, the charity's founder and spokesman, and the Board of Directors, led by Jones' daughter Larri Sue. Jones claims Larri Sue used charity money to pay for her lavish Los Angeles home and tried to cover up her own tax evasion. The Board and Larri Sue claim Jones and his wife are the real thieving liars, skimming money off the top of donations for themselves and bugging executive offices. Jones fired his daughter from the charity and all Board members who opposed him. A court ruling reinstated all of them, then Larri Sue fired her father. Then the Board claimed to find incest porn in Jones' office. Then Jones' claimed Board members sent around racist and sexually charged emails! And while all this is going down, there are serious questions as to whether or not Feed the Children is doing any charity work at all in Haiti, which it has claimed to be doing since the recent earthquake. But really, all my attention is focused on the incest porn v. racist emails conundrum. Assuming there's no kiddie stuff involved, is it worse to be into some family roleplaying or to be a dirty racist prick? I'd say the latter. But then again, I don't know from Christian morality. More details here.

Gays vs. Creation

Joey Ratz (a.k.a. Ratzo, a.k.a. J-Rat, a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI) recently gave a speech wherein he described the push to legalize gay marriage as a threat to creation itself. [Insert tired joke about Prada loafers and/or men wearing dresses.] The Rat Man says that humanity is made in God's image, so we must bend to the will of God. In addition to banning cotton/poly fabric blends (good call, God), this would also mean the prohibition of homosexual activity. He made a sort of strained correlation between moral endangerment and the endangerment of species due to climate change, but I guess his mind drifted off before he could wrap up those thoughts into anything like a coherent sentence. Meanwhile, new data show divorce rates are going down in the U.S. Well, in those states that allow gay marriage, that is. Everywhere else, divorce continues its upward march. God may hate gay marriage, but He sure is sending us mixed mathematical messages. More details here.

No God, No Go

I don't know anything about Cecil Bothwell other than the fact that he was elected to the Asheville, North Carolina city council last month. Oh, and that he's an atheist. How do I know this? Because his opponents are arguing that he shouldn't be seated in his newly won office, because North Carolina's state constitution bans anyone who doesn't believe in God from holding a public position. Sure, America is a free country where everyone has a right to believe or not believe whatever he wants, but Bothwell's opponents would like you to also consider the fact that they'd rather he wasn't in office. "“I'm not saying that Cecil Bothwell is not a good man, but if he's an atheist, he's not eligible to serve in public office, according to the state constitution,” said anti-Bothwell activist H.K. Edgerton. But the thing is, the U.S. Constitution states that no one may be denied election to a public office because of religion or a lack thereof. And when it comes to civil rights, federal law trumps state law. Which H.K. Edgerton, former president of the North Carolina chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, should know, considering federal rulings are what won black people like himself their own civil rights. Or maybe he's just never heard about that, since douchebags don't have ears. More details here.

Three Tiers of Religious Belief

Atheism is one logical conclusion of a skeptical worldview. Once you train a thoughtful and inquiring eye on almost any aspect of religion, it begins to unravel. Look into the history of religious texts, and it becomes clear they were written by fallible human beings not so much inspired by God as making God up as they go along. Tracing a line through the Bible, you can find God referenced in the plural, referenced as just the greatest of many gods, referenced as a sole force of vengeance, and finally referenced as a quasi-human example of perfect kindness. The evolution of God doesn't teach us anything about an actual deity, but it teaches us a great deal about the changing priorities and ideals of humans as we multiplied and civilized ourselves.

So, it's no wonder skeptics' circles include many atheists. Once you discover evidence of God being a human construct, it's hard to believe in Him any longer. But atheism isn't a necessary conclusion of skepticism. As Bill Maher proves, it's very possible to be skeptical of religion without carrying that attitude over to other important topics like science-based medicine. Martin Gardner, one of the founding fathers of the modern skeptical movement, is a deist. Or, more specifically, he's a fideist in that he believes God exists as an unknowable entity who doesn't take an active role in our existence.

But many atheist skeptics oppose religion not just on historical or philosophical grounds, but as a matter of morality. It's undeniable that organized religion has perpetrated innumerable horrors. Mass murder, torture, thievery, and anti-intellectualism have all been committed in the name of religion, and the harm is still ongoing. The Catholic church, in opposing science-based sex education and condom distribution in Africa, has been complicit in the deaths of millions of people due to preventable STIs, including HIV/AIDS. By campaigning against the teaching of evolution in public schools, many different religions have tried and succeeded to impede the education of our children in favor of dogmatic ignorance.

It's because of these moral crimes that many atheist skeptics also become too dismissive of religion and the religious. It's difficult to ignore the fact that whatever charitable organizations that exist in our communities to feed, shelter, and clothe the poor are far more likely to be run by churches than by secularist groups. It's also difficult to ignore the fact that despite the Bible's teachings about the stoning of homosexuals, the banishing of women on their periods, or the sins of eating shellfish, most followers of Judeo-Christian beliefs are able to ignore these teachings. This is because in addition to their top-down, monolithic bureaucracies, religions are also necessarily bottom-up forces. No matter what horrible decrees come down from on high, the people are always free to ignore them. And if they're ignored by enough people, they become irrelevant.

A quick look at religious history bears this out. Religion once condoned slavery, but religious people have since rejected it. Religion has excused genocide, but religious people have fought it. There's a steady, though tediously slow march toward progress, even though the figureheads are reluctant to change. The reforms adopted by the Catholic church at Vatican II show how necessary and inevitable it is for the top to adapt to the bottom. And even though the newest pope seems to want to roll back those reforms, he'll find it's nearly impossible to do so.

Lately, the fight to legalize gay marriage in the U.S. has created a new tension between religion and reason. There are no serious political arguments against marriage equality for gay people. All of the opposition is firmly based in the irrational moral beliefs of the religious, which have no place in public policy. But skeptics, humanists, and rationalists should understand atheism isn't the only cure for this kind of institutional religious ignorance.

Last year, California voters struck down marriage equality by passing Proposition 8. This would seem like a damning statement about the harmfulness of religion, but the numbers tell a different story. 47.76% of voters chose to preserve the civil rights of gay people by voting against the measure, according to the official election results. But only about 20% of California's population identifies as non-religious. This means that a large percentage of voters who fought for gay rights at the ballot box were religious people. Like the scriptural ban on eating shellfish, they were able to put their compassion and reason above dogma. If this means reinterpreting scripture, so be it. The effect is the same.

Simple belief in God may be irrational, but it's not a symptom of an irrational mind, as Martin Gardner's deism proves. And disbelief in God is not a symptom of a rational mind, as Bill Maher's anti-science beliefs prove. And the teachings of any particular religion don't always trump basic human kindness, as the numbers in California prove. Yet it's not difficult to find skeptical bloggers and commentators speaking about the religious as if they're all idiotic, dogmatic robots. As if their internal and external contradictions are just a front for their true loyalty to the worst of religious teachings. The reality is more complicated than that. And the priorities of skeptics should reflect this fact.

So, I'm proposing a three-tiered classification system for religious beliefs, scaled according to importance.

Tier #1: The Irrelevant

This tier encompasses an abstract belief in any kind of supernatural deity. Even among members of the same faith, there are numerous interpretations as to who or what God is. To some, He's a blind watchmaker. To others, He's not even a he. To many, He's nothing but a vague force with malleable motives and powers according to what makes the believer feel good.

This kind of belief, while possibly irrational or even silly in its meaninglessness, is not harmful in any appreciable way. Criticizing it or deconstructing it or railing against it as anything other than an intellectual exercise is both shrill and useless.

Tier #2: The Inaccurate

This is when skeptics should start to take notice. Inaccurate religious beliefs are those that contradict established, empirical scientific evidence. These beliefs may or may not be harmful to society, but they're undeniably wrong. The Hebrew exodus from Egypt as recounted in the Bible, for instance, is not based on fact. The divine origins of religious artifacts such as the Shroud of Turin are questionable at best. These kinds of curiosities should be treated with an unwaveringly fact-based, but light touch. The goal in fighting them should be education, not necessarily outright ridicule.

Young earth creationism may be the most problematic inaccurate religious belief. Many religious people may accept the myth that our planet was conjured out of nothing only 6,000 years ago, but they also may do so only by default. Maybe being taught this since birth has made them less likely to question. Or maybe a larger ignorance of history and geology makes it easier to accept this false belief.

The danger comes from people who would push this belief on others, especially on the educational system. In this case, creationism would fall under the third tier. But some who would try to spread misinformation or outright lies about evolution do so in such a silly and ineffective way that they really pose little harm. Ben Stein's anti-evolution documentary "Expelled" and Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort's altered "On the Origin of Species" fall under this category.

Despite what some skeptics have claimed, "Expelled" was no flop. It didn't make the money of a summer blockbuster, to be sure, but it did respectable business for a documentary on a niche topic. Still, its influence is negligible at best. Poll the average person, and it's doubtful he or she has even heard of the movie, much less seen it. We have to ask ourselves if skeptical coverage of the film even outweighed its exposure in popular media. I suspect so. In the end, "Expelled" was an effort doomed to speak only to the choir. Its release was definitely noteworthy, and a point-by-point response to its distortions was warranted, but its impact was slight and not worth too much hand wringing.

Skeptical blogs, podcasts, and journals similarly have been buzzing about Comfort and Cameron passing out copies of "On the Origin of Species" with their added introduction chock full of creationist lies. Even more than "Expelled", the effect of this publicity stunt on the popular culture was negligible. The best way to influence a busy college student is never to hand them a dense Victorian science tome, regardless of what you've printed in the front. Someone at that age who has enough science education to accept evolution as a fact isn't going to be swayed by reading an essay from the banana guys. It's insulting to the intelligence of college students to pretend otherwise. Ultimately, this was another case of preaching to the choir on Comfort and Cameron's part. And once again, they were given more attention from skeptics than from the larger media. This was a topic worth addressing, but nothing worth any kind of serious fuss.

Tier #3: The Insufferable

Religious beliefs in this tier go from being simply wrong to demonstrably harmful. Creationists who use their positions of political power to influence science education are dangerous and should be dealt with vigorously and thoroughly. The Vatican's opposition to sex education and birth control in Africa is outright deadly. Christian Scientists have proven themselves willing to harm their own sick children because of their religious aversion to medicine. Religious superstitions such as the belief in demonic possession or witchcraft can destroy communities and end lives. These beliefs are insufferable, and skeptics have done an incredible job exposing and debunking them. All efforts could be more effective, but none of these issues has been ignored.

However, there is one insufferable religious belief that has provoked less skeptical outrage than it perhaps should. Again, there is no argument against marriage equality that is not firmly based in religious aversion to homosexuality. Though incremental progress has been made, the forces of reason on this front are fighting a tough war, even losing battle after battle. In the case of California, the courts struck down marriage discrimination, but the voters built it back up. Recently, government officials in New York proved themselves unwilling to legislate civil rights for their state.

To reiterate, this fight is not one of atheists versus the religious. Though the arguments against reason are based on religious belief, I've shown that the religious are willing to go against the scriptural teachings of their faith when reason wins out. But for every skeptical article on gay marriage, there seems to be a dozen or more on Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. Kirk and Ray may have invaded college campuses, but anti-equality laws are currently invading the homes of every gay person in America and the consciences of everyone concerned about equal treatment under the law.

It's time we re-prioritized and divided the inaccurate from the insufferable or the irrelevant. It's time we stopped equating atheism with reason. It's time we showed kindness and understanding to those religious beliefs that deserve it and vigorously attacked only those that truly don't. But in everything, we should act with a generous heart, a sense of humor, and a respect for the only thing that unites all of us: our humanity.*



*Those reading this who might be new to my blog might be wondering why so many other posts contain juvenile jokes about robots, genitals, and robot genitals while this post is mysteriously robo-genital joke-free. To that, I can only say this: Mechadong.

Scientology Going Down (Under)

Australian Senator Nick Xenophon has called for a parliamentary inquiry into the Church of Scientology, citing several allegations he's received in letters from former members of the cult. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says he'll consider the inquiry, since he shares the concerns of several other Australians over the cult's activities. And by "activities", we're not talking lawn darts or tetherball. Some of the allegations cited by Xenophon include incidents of beatings, imprisonment, forced abortions, and blackmail. The cult says this is all religious oppression, that no government has any right to look into what people say about them, and that former members are no more trustworthy than your whorish ex-wife. All reasonable arguments, I suppose, except that none of them are reasonable. Instead, they might have better luck questioning the terrestrialism of Senator Xenophon. This name is oddly similar to the cult's galactic nemesis, Lord Xenu. Could this all be part of Xenu's master plan to embody himself in human form and run for office in the Australian government? Just show us your birth certificate, Xenophon, and this will all go away. More details here.

Gay Doesn't Mean Child Molestor

The U.S. council of Catholic bishops commissioned a study into clergy sexual abuse by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and the early results confirm what non-homophobes have been thinking all along. Homosexuality in priests (or anyone else, for that matter) is not a predictor of pedophilia. Even though the majority of rape victims have been boys, the percentage of rapists who are also homosexuals isn't statistically significant. This is good news, since a huge number of ignorant people believe homosexuals (especially homosexual men) are prone to pedophilia, and that the priesthood offers a veritable boy buffet. As a result of this study, the church probably won't begin to consider homosexuality a factor in selecting priests. Another positive from this study? Incidents of clergy sexual abuse seem to be on a sharp decline since the mid '80s. Most of the current allegations are from decades old incidents. Hopefully all of this will help clear up the clergy's reputation. As awful as many Vatican policies are and as much damage as the church has done over the centuries, the fact is that most Catholic priests are very decent people who do good work for the community. Take any random program to clothe and house the poor in your city, and there's a good chance it's being sponsored by the local Catholic church. Pope Ratzo may be trying to roll back that kind of service in the interest of pinching pennies, and I've heard from more than a few priests who are upset about this. But that's another story. No matter how silly their beliefs or fashionably questionable their clothing, I'm all for the clergy moving past this sex abuse business and getting on with good deeds. After all, it's not like all the other religions don't have their fair share of pedophiles. More details here.

Foreskin Freedom

Putting aside the debate over whether circumcision is still a necessary or humane practice (probably not, but cut penises are just more fashionable), the fact remains that God made Himself perfectly clear in the Bible. If your pee-pee has a turtleneck, you can't buy a mansion in Heaven. Which is why an unidentified Vancouver man is arguing his botched home circumcision on his 4-year-old son was an act of religious expression instead of, say, criminal assault. See, he only wanted to be right with the Lord, so he stretched his son's penis across a cutting board, sliced off half his foreskin with a razor blade, and coated the wound in a blood clotting powder meant for horse surgery. And though the didn't use ice or anything to numb the pain (where would the Israelites have gotten ice, silly?), he did give the kid ice cream afterward. Now, you might be saying, "Sure, this is pretty harsh. But we're talking about a god who killed first-born babies en masse just for the thrills. You don't fuck with someone like that." Well, call me a bigot, but I think someone would have to have a severe brain injury to believe it's okay to perform amateur surgery on his toddler son's penis. What's that you say? This guy suffered brain injuries from a motorcycle accident? Well, there you go. More details here.

Scientology Woes

So, you've probably heard that the talentless and bewilderingly Oscar-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis has left the Church of Scientology, and you've heard this because his letter of resignation has been posted online for all to see. I've avoided writing about this for a few days, since I wasn't entirely sure the story was legit. Haggis himself didn't release the letter, and Hollywood stories are notoriously unreliable. Did you know Zack Morris never actually died in a car accident? (Though his career did.) But this looks solid. And my immediate reaction is to congratulate Haggis on his decision to break ties with a wacky sci-fi cult. Also to please return any award he ever won for "Crash". One has little to do with the other. But in reading his letter, I have to wonder what the hell took him so long. Sure, most of us would have hit the road around the time they busted out the e-meter, so Haggis is obviously in a league of his own (plus a few tens of thousands of others). Turns out the last straw for him was in Scientology's support of California's Proposition 8 revoking marriage rights for gay couples. Horrible, to be sure, but why didn't he cut ties when the church forced his wife to not communicate with her own family? In his letter, he says that he began to lose faith in the church when they labeled his mother-in-law as an enemy and forbade communication with her. I guess he loves gay rights more than he loves his mother-in-law. (Insert Borscht Belt joke here.)

And in other news, it looks like Scientologists have been convicted of fraud in French courts. France doesn't recognize Scientology as a protected religion, and they'd been investigating claims made by former Scientologists that unfulfilled promises made about e-meter auditing sessions amounted to criminal lies. The French are probably right, both about the science of sauces and this particular case, but I wonder whether there is a bit of unfair treatment. Scientology isn't the only wacky belief that can't make good on its claims. It's not even the only one that takes money in exchange for lies. Is there that much of a difference between intergalactic volcano bombs, magic golden tablets, and people living inside whale bellies? I mean it's not like Scientology requires its members to give the church money. Oh wait, they do? Curious. More details here and here.

Baby Writing

A nine-month-old baby named Ali Yakubov appears to have Koranic verses written on his skin, which thousands of pilgrims have traveled to the southern fringes of Russia to see. According to religious leaders who've set up camp around the baby's home and act as gatekeepers from the public, a verse translating to "Be grateful to Allah" appears and disappears in pinkish script all over his body, though journalists have only seen a single letter on Ali's foot. But these same religious leaders are happy to distribute photographs of the whole verse, which looks suspiciously and nauseatingly like scratches made by a sadistic person instead of divine tattoos from God. But even assuming there's a miracle at work here, can't God think of anything more impressive than sometimes scribbling on a baby? Locals believe the verse may be a warning to Islamic extremists who are trying to turn the region into a Muslim state through the tried and true diplomatic power of suicide bombs. So wouldn't a more effective miracle involve rapturing all of the explosives in the area? Or has God turned into some kind of experimental graphic artist? More details here.

Blasphemy Schmasphemy

For a while now, a loose coalition of mostly Muslim U.N. member nations has been trying to push through resolutions calling for limits on free speech when it comes to ridiculing religion. The U.N. Human Rights Council recently passed a non-binding resolution in support of free speech, though it also included an exception for the same kind of religious talk these nations have been opposing. Though the resolution passed unanimously, several European nations made their opposition to the religious speech clause known. But not the U.S.! America sided with Egypt in supporting the clause, spouting something about protecting the dignity of religious people. This is sort of a reversal, since the U.S. has opposed such nonsense in the past. Is this what the Nobel committee meant about Obama's power to bring people together? It should go without saying, but limited free speech isn't free speech. No one has a right to not be offended, precisely because in order to enforce that right, you have to strip the rights of others to express themselves. Once again, this is a non-binding resolution, so it doesn't really mean anything as far as concrete laws are concerned. But by supporting it, the U.S. has sided against the very freedoms upon which it was founded. Boo to that. Boo all over its smug little face. More details here.

The Curse of Halloween

Rev. Jonathan Campbell, a Methodist minister in Northern Ireland, is appealing to his local community to cancel their plans for the annual Halloween carnival before it's too late. Rev. Campbell claims Halloween in one of the two most important nights for Satanists and that celebrating the holiday will place a curse upon the town. He's desperate to rip off Halloween's veil of fun, fancy, and innocence to expose its festering corruption of children and devilish promotion of the occult. Lest your cynicism convinces you Rev. Campbell just needs to loosen his collar and chillax, you should know that every year the effects of the Halloween curse have been felt on the town of Derry for weeks after the turn of October 31st. Fortunately, those effects seem to mostly involve an unusual concentration of candy. More details here.

They Killed Their Child

When Dale and Leilani Neumann's 11-year-old daughter Kara came down with a treatable form of diabetes, they opted to pray for God to heal her rather than seek actual medical care. Because God performs miracles only when you least expect it, He allowed Kara to die. For inadvertently killing their daughter, the Neumanns have just been sentenced to six months in jail and ten years of probation. "But they killed their child!" you're saying. Well, let's put this in perspective. Those six months in jail will be served over six years, with each parent alternating one month in jail at a time so that they can take care of their two remaining children. "Wait, they have two other children! None of them are safe!" Well, hold on a second. As part of their ten year probation, the health of their children will be evaluated once every three months, and the Neumanns will be forced to take them to real doctors if they become sick. "Okay, but didn't they kill their fucking child?" Yes, but the judge in their trial has said that the Neumanns are good people who were just a little misguided. "Child! Dead! What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are these people allowed to continue caring for children? Are you insane?" Look, I don't know what to tell you. God works in mysterious ways. And sometime that mystery involves killing children. Hey, where are you going? More details here.

Kiss and Jail

A Saudi court has sentenced 32-year-old Mazen Abdul Jawad to five years in prison and 1,000 lashes for giving a television interview in which he detailed his love for sex and showed some of the toys he uses to cultivate that love. In Saudi Arabia, it's forbidden under Sharia law to "publicize vice". In addition to tossing Jawad in jail, the Saudi authorities also shut down the local offices of the Lebanese TV station that aired the interview. You see, in Saudi Arabia, it's considered bad form to have sex outside of marriage, much less talk about it. Jawad should have done the honorable thing and forced a 14-year-old to marry him, impregnated her, and then killed his daughter for looking longingly at another man. You know, wholesome shit. More details here.

Movie Day

The parents of a 17-year-old high school senior in Kentucky have complained to their local school board over a film shown to their daughter in class that they believe was inappropriate. On the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, a Junior ROTC teacher decided to show “Fitna”, the short subject documentary made by Dutch politician Geert Wilders about various horrors committed in the name of Islam. The movie shows bloody and violent footage of terrorist attacks as well as female genital mutilation performed in several Islamic countries. To be sure, the teacher probably shouldn’t have shown the film to his juniors and seniors. Not because it’s too violent or yucky for teenagers, but because it just doesn’t make a very good case for itself. True, there are some horrible passages in the Koran, and there are plenty of inhuman acts carried out in the name of Islam. But to paint all Muslims as potential terrorists is as ignorant as painting all Christians as potential slave owners just because the Bible condones it. Also, female genital mutilation is a cultural phenomenon that isn’t based on anything inherently Islamic. Oh, and Geert Wilders is kind of a racist more concerned about keeping brown people out of his country than exposing the horrible truth about a particular religion. Still, why shouldn’t teenagers be exposed to the bloody truth of terrorism and child abuse? It’s not like a few more years of maturity are suddenly going to make these into feel-good topics. Of course, as a former teacher myself, I suspect this instructor wasn’t so much motivated to inform his students as he was to dim the lights and sip his flask of soul-warming whiskey in relative silence for a few goddamn minutes. This is why all teachers occasionally check out the A/V cart for movie day. More details here.

The Value in Skepticism

Atheist Alliance International, an alliance of several smaller atheist groups, will award their 2009 Richard Dawkins Award to comedian and talk show host Bill Maher. This has upset a lot of skeptics, since Bill Maher, in addition to being a loud and open atheist, is also a promoter of pseudoscientific "alternative medicine" treatments, a promulgator of paranoid conspiracy theories about pharmaceutical companies and western medicine, and an antivaccinationist. The Dawkins Award, in the words of AAI, is supposed to be given to those people "whose contributions raise public awareness of the nontheist life stance; who through writings, media, the arts, film, and/or the stage advocates increased scientific knowledge; who through work or by example teaches acceptance of the nontheist philosophy..." Bill Maher may meet the secularist qualifications, but he fails miserably on the increasing scientific knowledge front. And the nonsense he spews could keep people from seeking life-saving medical treatment.

Some of the criticism over this award has been directed at Richard Dawkins himself, but he's not a member of the AAI committee that chose Maher as this year's recipient. However, AAI has issued a statement claiming Dawkins is "happy" with the decision, as he doesn't have to agree with someone on every point to appreciate his or her work promoting nontheism. AAI says Maher's documentary "Religulous" was "easily the most prominent film against religion in the United States last year".

Putting aside the fact that this defense doesn't address the scientific clause in the Dawkins Award criteria, it makes no logical sense. How many other films released in 2008 could be classified as being "against religion"? Holding "Religulous" up as the best example in such a paltry field is meaningless. It would be like giving "Battlefield Earth" an Oscar for Best Movie with Pro-Scientology Undertones Starring John Travolta and the Last Remnants of Forest Whitaker's Integrity.

More importantly, "prominent" isn't a value judgment at all. Instead of honoring the anti-religion movie with the most publicity, AAI should be more concerned with whether the movie is a quality piece of journalism or entertainment that makes its case effectively. "Religulous" fails on both those fronts. It's a meandering, smug, and witless film that offers no insight whatsoever. Instead of engaging with the religious people he encounters, Maher simply balks at them. His idea of debate is to shrug his shoulders and say, "Oh, come on!" This isn't an inappropriate response when faced with the raw ideas behind religion. Virgin births and neverending fish baskets are pretty silly, and there's not a lot one can say to dispute the facts at hand. But Maher's target isn't just religion. It's religious people.

In one of the hallmarks of a poorly made documentary, Maher chooses to tack a speech onto the end of the film explicating his thesis in the most didactic way possible. After showing us a bunch of faithful people espousing silly but unsurprising opinions and acting anywhere between heartwarmingly cordial and slightly batty in the face of Maher's shrugs, his ultimate conclusion is that by preaching that the world will come to an end, the religious (mostly Christians, but not all) feel free to rape the planet environmentally and otherwise be total pricks. But while it's irrefutable that much prickishness has been committed in the name of religion, it's hard to reconcile this argument with the portrayal of so many hospitable and seemingly decent theists throughout the rest of the film. And to blame environmental travesty on religion is to ignore the more plausible explanation of sheer ignorance, selfishness, and greed. If the faithful were so sociopathically convinced that death is just an entryway to a perfect eternity and nothing on the Earth matters, they wouldn't spend so much time working for nicer homes, doting on their families, and watching TV. Maher gives too much credit to the scriptural convictions of the religious and, in the process, shows how little he understands them even after his trip around the world.

It's profoundly disturbing that AAI, Richard Dawkins, and many others are willing to look beyond the inherent value in a work or in the work of an activist like Bill Maher in favor of blindly accepting anything spewed from the mouth of the non-religious. This is exactly what religious people do! If Christians cared about the quality and integrity of their culture, mediocre to terrible "artists" like Amy Grant, Jars of Clay, Tyler Perry, and Creed wouldn't have careers. They value message over substance, and apparently AAI and Dawkins do the same.

It's spilled over into the broader skeptical community as well. Take, for example, a Twitter message recently sent out by Brian Dunning of Skeptoid.com: "'Anti-Religious Intent of "Invention of Lying" Confirmed' - http://is.gd/3P8NQ - If true, let's all go see it tonight!!" If you don't already know, "The Invention of Lying" is the new Ricky Gervais movie about a world in which no one has ever lied and what happens when one man (Gervais) learns how to lie. Because there's never been a lie in the universe of the movie, no one ever made up the concept of God. Hence, there's no religion. Gervais is an open atheist and skeptic, so this shouldn't be surprising at all. It's actually pretty brilliant. But instead of encouraging people to see "The Invention of Lying" because it's most likely a very funny movie starring, co-written, and co-directed by an exceptionally talented comedian, Dunning chooses instead to support it sight unseen because of its "anti-religious intent". And he's so worked up about the idea, he couldn't be bothered to look up when the movie comes out, which is two days after he told people to "see it tonight!!".

This isn't an isolated incident. Earlier this year, Dunning and Skeptic Magazine's Michael Shermer were subjected to a prank by British comedian Marc Wootton. Wootton plays a character called Shirley Ghostman, a self-proclaimed and obviously horrible psychic. Under the guise of a TV show seeking to have Shermer and Dunning test the powers of "real" psychics, Wootton's production company set up a situation where the two skeptics would test Shirley Ghostman. Hilarity, I'm told, ensued. But when Dunning and Shermer found out they'd been had for the sake of comedy, they went ballistic. They posted blogs and issued tweets blasting Wootton as dishonest, malicious, and unfunny. Shermer even went so far as to find out where the Ghostman character would be performing more pranks so he could send people there to disrupt the show. Only after Shermer and Dunning were informed of the very obvious fact that the entire Ghostman character isn't meant to lampoon skeptics so much as people who claim to be psychic did they settle down. Not only did they settle down, but they also changed their tune about whether the prank was funny at all. (And it was funny. Ghostman claimed to communicate with the spirit of Lee Majors, the Six Million Dollar Man. After being told that Majors isn't dead, Ghostman brought in a body bag containing a guy with calculators taped to his body. Good stuff.) They proved that their value judgments are based more on message than substance.

The Ghostman example is disconcerting, but perhaps understandable. Anger at having their time wasted and their dignity potentially compromised may have clouded Shermer and Dunning's initial statements on the matter. But allowing yourself to be blinded by ideology can also open the door to hypocrisy. For instance, Richard Dawkins appeared in Ben Stein's anti-evolution film "Expelled", and later complained that he was tricked. The producers of "Expelled" told Dawkins and the other rationalists who are interviewed in the film that it was actually called "Crossroads" and was about the intersection between faith and science. Far from the paranoid, delusional screed it turned out to be. But Bill Maher did the same thing in producing "Religulous". Speaking to the Los Angeles Time, Maher said, "We never, ever, used my name. We never told anybody it was me who was going to do the interviews. We even had a fake title for the film. We called it 'A Spiritual Journey.'" By supporting this film, Dawkins is embracing the same techniques he derided when they were used by people of an opposing viewpoint.

The list goes on. Greydon Square, an atheist rapper, has been the subject of fawning interviews on many skeptical podcasts, even though his songs are repetitive and pedantic compared to the best hip hop has to offer. Square entered into a relationship with the Rational Response Squad, the financially suspect atheist organization that enjoys several devoted followers despite the fact that its representatives barely managed to hold their own in a debate with intellectual powerhouses Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort of divine banana fame. Is it too much to ask that artists, writers, activists, and producers focus less on creating output that's good for skeptics and more on creating skeptical output that's simply good?

Sure, a lot of value judgments are based on taste. They're opinion, not fact. If you like Greydon Square's music or find Bill Maher funny, there's nothing wrong with that. But the next time you're reading a skeptical book or watching a TV show critical of religion, take a moment and ask yourself if you'd find any value in this piece of culture at all if it didn't reaffirm your own beliefs. There is absolutely a wealth of top quality content out there being produced by and for skeptics of all sorts. Richard Dawkins' prose is elegant and gripping. NOVA Science Now is funny and informative. The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is an invaluable resource for both knowledge and entertainment. Make no mistake that the good far outweighs the bad. But never accept the bad just because its message is good. And in the case of Bill Maher, AAI should consider whether making fun of religion in front of a wide audience is more important than feeding that same audience misinformation that could potentially kill them.

On the Overestimation of Origins

You've probably heard that out-of-work actor Kirk Cameron and poon-broomed evangelist Ray Comfort are planning to hand out thousands of copies of their own version of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species on college campuses this November. The catch is that they've inserted a forward about how Darwin is full of crap and all scientists are liars. And why? Because, as Cameron explains it to noted science journal People Magazine, On the Origin of Species is "the Bible of the atheists". But I'm not sure this is true. Most atheists have probably never read the book. People believe in evolution primarily because it just makes more sense than the idea that people were created by dirt and ribs 6,000 years ago. It makes sense to anyone who's ever broken a vestigial tail bone or had to get a flu shot because the previous year's strain evolved. All the scientific data backing up evolution is just gravy. And the best way to get your message across to horny, drunken coeds probably isn't to throw a Victorian science tome at them, crazy forward or not. This all seems very misguided and silly. Sort of like Genesis. More details here.

Catholics v. Gays

In November, Maine voters will vote on whether or not to repeal their marriage equality law allowing same-sex couples to be legally hitched. Not content to just sit on the sidelines and bitch about condoms, the Catholic Diocese of Portland, Maine is taking up collection money in church to help pay for TV ads lobbying for repeal. This makes sense, as the Bible clearly lumps homosexuality in with eating shellfish and allowing women to braid their hair as sins against God. Where this gets tricky is the fact that as a religious organization, the Catholic church is tax exempt in the U.S. One stipulation of this cushy status is that the church can't politicize itself. What did Jesus say about giving things to Caesar? For his part, Rev. Louis Phillips is sticking to his guns. "Marriage pre-dates government," he says. That may be true (though probably not). But what we understand as marriage today doesn't pre-date government at all. You know, a social contract entered into by consenting adults instead of, say, young girls being forced to marry whatever dude flashes enough cash at her parents. In fact, you could say it took the enforcement of civil rights by the government to create the modern institution of marriage. In your face, tax dodger! More details here. Link via @BadAstronomer.

Lips off the Blood

Twice a year, the blood of St. Gennaro which is kept in a glass phial in Naples, Italy is said to miraculously liquefy. As far as miracles go, this seems pretty underwhelming, especially since it probably wouldn't take much more miracle magic to have the blood glow bright orange, fly out of the phial, and travel the countryside curing cancer. Still, it's impressive to a lot of Neopolitans, who look forward to the biannual festivals where the phial is brought out for public kissing. Only the local authorities have banned kissing the phial this month, fearing all that spit swapping might lead to a fatal case of swine flu. Italy had its first H1N1 fatality only recently, but no saint stepped in to stop it. That's a bad sign. Still, the locals are pissed. One politician says the ban will only contribute to swine flu hysteria, and others believe that if the blood isn't seen to liquefy, it'll be a bad omen for Naples. Scientists and other curmudgeons believe there's nothing miraculous about the liquefication of the blood, hypothesizing that moving the phial around causes the dry blood to get all moist due to a process called thixotropy. As compromise, the people of Naples will be allowed to touch the phial with their foreheads, since you'd have to be an idiot to think that could spread germs. More details here.