Flores, 44, has said he was acting on a divine revelation and wanted to warn Calderon of an earthquake that would occur in 2012. That year has been widely mentioned on the Internet as the date for potentially catastrophic events, based on astronomical alignments and purported ancient prophesies.
“I am never going to regret it,” Flores told Milenio Television Friday. “My intention was to do good, to announce, without regard to my life or liberty, that we should join together and pray for the earthquake not to occur.”
“I am happy because I know this is God’s” work, he said as he was transferred to prison.

The operative theory here seems to be that God has foreknowledge of an impending earthquake and wants to prevent it. So God told Jose Flores to tell Felipe Calderon to tell the all people of Mexico to… ask God to prevent the earthquake. Apparently God likes seeing people beg.

It’s not clear whether God or Flores originated the idea to hijack an airplane, but the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost did allegedly participate in the hijacking. Police who stormed the airplane could not locate the divine trio, however.

Ok, so Jose Flores is crazy. And it’s not really fair to assign moral blame to other Christians for what he did. That said, the very insanity of the entire incident raises an important epistemic question for all the non-airplane-hijacking Christians out there: Why exactly do you think that the divine revelations which you receive (or which other people received and wrote down to form the Bible) are any more reliable than Flores’s revelations?

Now, what if someone who lives a great distance from you beats and rapes his wife? What if there’s a faraway land where this behavior is common and widely condoned by other men? As the Guardian newspaper reports, these are not hypothetical questions.

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands’ sexual demands

…effectively legalizing rape within marriage, which is all the more horrifying for the fact that women in Afghanistan typically have little say over whether or to whom they will be married. The law also contains various other provisions eviscerating the legal rights of women in that country.

One response to those questions, and a particularly odious one, is to assert that although beating and raping one’s wife is unacceptable in our culture, it is acceptable in their culture, and we have no basis to claim that our culture is better or to impose it upon others.This argument implicitly allows their culture to be defined by a subset of the population (i.e. male clerics and their male followers), who happen to be the same group imposing their will on others by force. Afghani women presumably have a somewhat different opinion on being starved and raped by their husbands.

In principle, our response to these faraway violations of human rights should be no different than our response to violations of human rights committed next door. In practice, however, there are numerous problems which may lead a consequentialist to conclude that invading a foreign country to protect half of its population from violence at the hands of the other other half might not actually be a great idea. It’s hard to alter foreign cultures by force, and it’s easy to spend a lot of money and get a great many innocent people killed while trying.

In this case, however, I’d say intervening to protect Afghani women is the correct thing to do, since we’ve already invaded and occupied Afghanistan. That is, we’ve already paid a large part of the costs associated with the humanitarian intervention in question. At this point, allowing the Afghanistan government to legalize spousal rape is pretty much on par with, say, the Northern states fighting the Civil War and then not bothering to make slavery illegal.

One might argue that US military is not in Afghanistan for humanitarian reasons, but rather to stamp out the allies and supporters of the 9/11 terrorists — and we don’t want to stay there longer than we have to just to protect Shia women. I would suggest, however, that using religion to justify violence against women and committing violence against foreigners in the name of god are really two different manifestations of the same underlying problem. It’s not just a freak coincidence that the Taliban welcomed Al-Qaeda into Afghanistan.

The unfortunate fact is that much of Afghanistan is immersed in a deeply illiberal culture which is disturbingly willing to condone violence against anyone outside a narrow in-group demarcated by religion, gender, and tribe. As this horrendous law demonstrates, it’s hardly unthinkable that the current Afghani government could morph into a second incarnation of the Taliban. Protecting the basic rights of Afghani women is essential to changing that culture for the better, and the United States has every reason to do so.

Dawkins, for example, argues as a scientist that religion is comparable to a mental virus or “meme” that can be explained through evolution, that religious believers are delusional, and that in contrast, atheists are representative of a healthy, independent, and pro-science mind. In making these claims, not only does Dawkins use his authority as the “Oxford University Professor of the Public Understanding of Science” to denigrate various social groups, but he gives resonance to the false narrative of social conservatives that the scientific establishment has an anti-religion agenda.

Yes, Dawkins is denigrating various social groups. He is doing so because those groups promote horribly ill-founded ideas. And being a member of a social group doesn’t make it okay to push stupid ideas on other people any more than joining the mafia makes extortion okay.

DEAR BILLY GRAHAM: Why do people get involved in cults? My cousin has gotten involved in one, and no matter what we say to him, he refuses to listen. He says we are the ones who are in the dark, and he alone in our family has found the truth. — S. McM.

to which Graham replies,

DEAR S. McM: One characteristic of cults is that they strongly believe they alone are right in their beliefs and everyone else is wrong. Thus they reject the central truths of the Bible that Christians have held in common for almost 2,000 years and substitute their own beliefs for the clear teaching of Scripture.

What’s stunning about this is not merely the epistemic authoritarianism but that Graham seems to have never imagined that other epistemic methods might exist. How many science teachers so utterly failed in their charge to convey the essence of science to Graham and his fellow students?

Since the topic of cults has come up, I’ll take the opportunity to link to Eliezer Yudkowsky’s insightful posts on how cults arise, what “cultishness” is, and how to tell if you’re in a cult.

Ultimately, the problem in Texas isn’t whether or not the theory of evolution has weaknesses, or whether pointing to such weakness is religiously or scientifically motivated. The problem is that the public schooling system requires everyone in the state to fund schools that take a single view, resulting in divisive conflict in the short-term and erosion of liberty in the long. Add to this that government-mandated orthodoxy is inherently incompatible with free inquiry, and it is clear that what Texas needs isn’t to decide what everyone will learn, but how to give everyone the ability to choose where and how their children will be educated.

Superficially plausible, but wrong. Firstly, note that the issue of state-run schools vs. voucher-subsidized private schools is not really relevant. The core issue is whether whatever schools do receive taxpayer money will be allowed to use it to teach creationism.

One way to resolve this conflict would be to stop spending taxpayer money on education entirely. This naturally leads us to ask why should we spend tax money on education in the first place. The answer to this question is that there are positive externalities associated with education. Education benefits not only the individual being educated, but also everyone else in society. Consequently, individuals pursuing their own self-interest tend to purchase less than the socially optimal amount of education. To overcome this problem the state taxes individuals and subsidizes education.

However, it is crucial to realize that “education” is a rather heterogeneous activity. During a typical school day, students may jump from geometry to english, to history, to chemistry, and so forth. One might legitimately inquire whether society reaps positive externalities from teaching kids each of these particular subjects. But today is not the day for a battle between Shakespeare and Nobel. Instead, I would simply like to propose that teaching kids false beliefs does not benefit society. Indeed, I would argue that there are negative externalities associated with teaching kids untrue things.*

Railing against “government-mandated orthodoxy” does make excellent rhetoric. Unfortunately, for the state to determine what educational activities are worth subsidizing, it must first determine what things are true and what are false (and what things are not yet known with adequate certainty). If the state is not willing to make these judgments then it has no business subsidizing education.

*Ok, I admit it: The thought of levying Pigouvian taxes against Sunday schools fills my heart with glee.

School-choice sounds great on paper, and I’d go along with it if there were strictly enforced standards for education content. Too often in this country it just boils down to keeping kids from learning about evolution and sex.

George is undoubtedly correct that many people support school vouchers precisely because they hope to obtain taxpayer money for schools which push religious doctrine on children. However, any legislation aiming to avoid this problem should be narrowly tailored to do so. The difficulty is that state-specified standards on education content are fundamentally at odds with the purpose of school choice.

The idea behind school choice is to create a marketplace of competing schools. This “competition” is a contest to discover the most effective methods for educating students. Schools which succeed in doing so will be copied, and failed methods will be discarded as parents move their children to more successful schools. Enacting state-specified standards destroys this virtuous cycle of innovation and emulation. Imagine what would happen if, for example, the state were to create a CPU design and demand that all manufacturers produce only that design. Innovation would be stopped dead in its tracks.

Here’s one concrete suggestion for how to allow school choice while not funding religious indoctrination. Simply specify that all voucher-receiving schools must be held to the same constitutionally derived standards of religious neutrality as public schools. Schools that violate this condition could be fined up to the amount of voucher funding they receive or, in the worst cases, be completely cut off from future funding. (As a practical matter, it might be necessary for such a law to explicitly give taxpayers standing to sue. Many courts have, to my mind, been strangely eager to restrict standing in an extremely narrow manner.)

To see how professional Creation scientists approach the natural world, read Abbie Smith’s tour de force account of scientific inquiry (and creationist inquiry) into the “VPU” gene/protein in HIV.

And, you see, scientists arent like ‘Creationist’ scientists. They dont see a black box, declare a deity made the box, and take the rest of the week off. Scientists see problems and demand answers.

Why not take the week off? What do those Darwinist pigs think they’re going to learn anyway?

In six months, evolutions ‘just so story’ [led to the discovery of a new anti-viral component of the human innate immune system, suggesting] new drug targets for new HIV/AIDS therapies, and a brand new avenue of research for immunologists and virologists all over the world
…
What has Behe been doing the past six months?

I don’t really think an “Item Two” is necessary after that. Creation Science is a joke. A very bad joke.

After reading PZ’s post, I really need fresh breath of saner, more reality-based thinking. I’m now turning off the computer and heading to the library to check out Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Yet many people feel instinctively uncomfortable when we talk about ditching multiculturalism – for a good reason. The only alternative they are aware of is the old whiter-than-white monoculturalism.
…
There is a better way for the state to understand and regulate human differences, beyond the old oppositions of [a unified National Culture] and multiculturalism. It is called liberalism.
…
The job of a liberal state is not to stamp The True National Essence on its citizens, nor to promote “difference” for its own sake. It is to uphold the equal rights of every individual – whether they are white men or Muslim women. It has one liberal culture, with freedoms used differently by different people.

Hear, hear!

The only reason I’m posting this is because I’ve long dreamed of launching an array of satellites able to act as a huge billboard in the sky. On the first night, I’d arrange for them to read “I am God and I am real”. As for subsequent nights, well, the possibilities are limitless. (“God says: Thou shalt honor the sabbath day by breakdancing to minimalist music in a kiddie pool full of borscht.”)

Please leave suggestions as to what God should say in the comments. The best ideas will appear in the night sky just as soon as my satellites are up and running.

Actually, there is a broader point to this post: if you see some extraordinary phenomenon, don’t just assume that it’s beyond your mortal comprehension. Take a closer look. Investigate. Make an attempt to understand what’s going on. Be curious about the world.

This evening I encountered a creationist while working on math in a cafe. This particular creationist thought that stars burn out on a timescale much shorter than billions of years, and hence the Earth could not possibly be that old. The creationist, who happened to be an engineering student, couldn’t give any particular reason as to why he thought the entire astrophysics community was so egregiously wrong. However, what I found most appalling was that he had not the slightest interest in figuring out just why accepted models make such terribly wrong predictions about stellar lifetimes. He didn’t care at all about how stars work.

Ask an angry atheist why they dislike religion, and you’ll most likely hear about how religion encourages humankind’s worst impulses: sexism, out-group hostility, violence, etc. There’s plenty of reason to be angry at the Osama bin Ladens of the world, but right now I’m just as furious at religion for what it did to the kid I met in the cafe as I am for what it did to the World Trade Center. That kid, that engineer, was not a stupid person. Yet he was told — by some non-violent, moderate, downright friendly pastor — that all of The Answers can be found in the collected mystic ramblings of a bunch of desert nomads. Those theists took a smart, talented kid and utterly crushed his sense of curiosity about the world. I’m mad at Christianity for destroying what was best and most noble in that kid, and so many others like him.

I think I speak for a lot of atheists libertarians when I say that, yes, Ron Paul’s views on evolution/creationism are awful, but in spite of that I’d still be fairly overjoyed to see him in the Oval Office. Why?

I don’t completely agree with the views of any of the presidential candidates. In choosing between the imperfect options available to me, I think the relevant question to ask is not “Who has the least terrible ideas?” but rather, “Who’s bad ideas are least likely to produce bad policies?”

The president’s power to push America towards a theocratic pre-Enlightenment society is quite limited. The Constitution has proven quite effective at protecting us from all the previous creationist presidents; I don’t see any reason to believe that Paul could succeed in bringing creationism into public schools where Bush and others have failed.

The president has much more influence over (for example) health care policy, and far more ability to do us all damage by instituting bad health care policy. Which is why, given a choice between a creationist and a democrat who favors even more state intervention in health care, I’ll hold my nose and vote for the creationist.

Ron Paul may be an idiot in a lot of ways, but the other presidential candidates are much bigger idiots in ways that will actually affect us.

Ironically, one of the worst places [for Mormon missonaries] to be sent on a mission is the American Bible belt, says another of the students: “People there have had guns pulled on them or dogs set on them.”

Think about that. Of all the many places in the world to which the Mormons send missionaries, the one of most violently hostile religious cultures they venture into is the American South.

(Actually, are there any places to which the LDS does not send missionaries? As bad as the South may be, I feel pretty certain that there are some Muslim countries which would be much more dangerous for missionaries from America.)

A philosopher constructs some property, p, and asks you to consider the following statement:
(1a) You can imagine that a thing with property p exists.
Or alternately, if the philosopher wants to use modal logic,
(1b) It is possible that a thing with property p exists.
Now, unless p is blatantly self-contradictory, proposition 1 (in either version) usually appears pretty plausible. Of, course
(2a) You can imagine that a thing with property p does not exist.
and
(2b) It is possible that that a thing with property p does not exist.
also seems pretty plausible.

Now for the trick. A clever philosopher can construct a p such that (1) and (2) can be shown to contradict each other! How should we resolve this awkward situation?

Before going any further, let’s make this slightly less abstract. Specifically, suppose that in addition to the above, p is some manner of “god-like” property; that is, p is constructed so that it is natural to identify the thing exhibiting property p as god.

So, what are we to conclude from this state of affairs?

Some theologians want to claim that this proves that god exists. This is not terribly persuasive in absence of some good reason why we should accept (1) and reject (2), rather than vice-versa.

Williams wants to claim that the ontological argument shows that atheists must absolutely reject the possibility that god exists. This is imprecise. What is shown is that atheists must reject the possibility that a thing with property p exists; invariably, it’s possible for a being to be quite recognizably god-like without strictly exhibiting p. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, since it’s not the first time someone attributed properties to god which turned out to be paradoxical. For example, omnipotence (or, at least, a naively literal conception of omnipotence) is a thoroughly paradox-ridden concept. But even if omnipotence is paradoxical, and some people say god is omnipotent, this doesn’t imply that god doesn’t exist. A being who is not literally omnipotent could still possess powers deserving of the appellation “god-like”. Likewise, in these ontological arguments, to reject the possibility that a thing with property p could exist isn’t the same thing as concluding a priori that god (in the more general meaning of the word) cannot possibly exist.

Alvin Plantinga wants to claim that the ontological argument, though it doesn’t actually prove that god exists, demonstrates that it is rational to believe that god exists. Basically, he’s says that we have to either accept (1) and reject (2), or vice-versa, and the former option is just as good as the latter.

Actually, no. There are excellent reasons why we should accept (2) and reject (1) whenever we are confronted with this situation. Like Hume and Dawkins, I think that it’s pretty laughable to attempt an a priori proof of the existence of anything. Playing word games and examining your own mind just isn’t going to tell you that much about the world outside of your own skull.

But maybe you don’t share our empiricist leanings. Even so, you should reject (1). The reason is this: if you accept (1), it is ridiculously easy to use ontological arguments to prove the existence of all sorts of silly things. Here’s one example:

• I can imagine a maximally sexy woman.
• Youthful women are sexier than old/dead women; mortal women must eventually grow old and die, and thus be less sexy than an immortal, eternally youthful woman.
• A woman who exists in the real world is sexier than one who only exists in my mind.

Hence, there must exist in the real world an immortal, eternally youthful, maximally sexy woman; let’s call her, oh, Aphrodite. To the best of my knowledge, this ontological proof is original, although I wouldn’t be too surprised to find out that someone else thought of it first. The philosophic literature has no shortage of parody ontological proofs. (Exercise for the reader: use an ontological argument to refute the second law of thermodynamics. Hint one, hint two.) Ontological arguments are pretty much the quintessential example of bullshit sophistry.

It is possible, in principle, that all of the many, many ontological parodies are flawed, and somehow, the only true contradictions between (1) and (2) occur for p’s which are “god-like”. But if any of you are tempted to start a crusade against ontological parodies, please pause for a moment. Pause to ask yourself whether your desire to start skewering ontological parodies stems from an earnest desire to discover the truth, whatever it may be, or from a need to provide the less credulous part of your mind with some justification for believing what you already believe and want to keep believing.

Dear Sir,

I read your recent recent article on Dawkins, ethics, and religion in The Independent. I have a question: of which religion are you a member? I wish to join. I am an atheist, but see no conflict in joining a sect so refreshingly free of mysticism and supernatural claptrap as yours is. Indeed, I should be quite happy to spend my Sunday mornings with your group, discussing Hume, Sidgwick, Bentham, etc. Does your group have use of a traditional temple, or do you meet in a coffeehouse?

Sincerely,
Jacob Wintersmith