The Pope Seems Pro-HIV

Today, Pope Benedict XVI stated, while en route to Africa to address the continent’s “grave problems and painful wounds”, that condoms do not help stem the spread of HIV, but actually make it worse.

Here’s the quote.

You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.

In another related quote, he said,

[AIDS] is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems.

The Catholic Church promotes “abstinence education” and opposes methods of birth control, including condoms. Perhaps the Pope was using statistics such as the ones in this article which state that even though the number of condoms has increased, so has the number of people infected with HIV.

[Edward Green] wrote Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning From Successes in Developing Countries and reported that, between 1989 and 2001, the average number of condoms per male ages 15 to 49 in African countries skyrocketed. So did the number of those infected with HIV. South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe had the world’s highest levels of condom availability per man. They also had the world’s highest HIV rates.

At first glance, that sounds bad for proponents of condom usage for AIDS prevention. However, it says nothing about condom usage, only condom availability. The hardest part about promoting condom usage in places like South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe is overcoming the social aversion to condom usage. Education is key, and with church representatives like Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo running around saying things like this…

The Aids virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon. The spermatozoon can easily pass through the ‘net’ that is formed by the condom. […] These margins of uncertainty… should represent an obligation on the part of the health ministries and all these campaigns to act in the same way as they do with regard to cigarettes, which they state to be a danger.

…educating people is a nearly insurmountable struggle against a increasing rise of deliberately orchestrated ignorance and misinformation. The Catholic Church, because of its adherence to faith-based dogma, is working directly against efforts that are proven, when given the chance, to reduce the spread of HIV.

According to the World Health Organization (information from the same article above), “consistent and correct” condom usage reduces the risk of HIV infection by 90%. Given that the WHO bases their statements on science and research, I’d say that they’re at least a little more reliable regarding medical issues than an organization that bases its beliefs on a 2,000 year old holy book.

The Pope’s statements are irresponsible and ethically bankrupt at best.

What I really meant to say was…

Oops!As I’m sure you are aware, some Christians interpret the bible mostly as a fictional story filled with allegories and examples showing how we should live our lives. Some other Christians seem to not “interpret” the bible at all, instead taking it at its literal word, insisting that everything is true in exactly the way it is written.

I usually don’t have much of a problem with the first group, much like I don’t usually have a problem with those who interpret Aesop’s Fables as fun made-up stories with accompanying moral lessons. If Aesop-readers started speaking as if real talking foxes were actually disgruntled over not being able to eat grapes, there would be a different issue.

The bible literalists are the ones I target in this post. I find that, right at the beginning of the bible, we see that God is either not all-knowing or he is a liar. There are a number of biblical passages that show this, but I’m going to start right in Genesis chapter two.

God tells Adam that he can eat from any tree in the Garden of Eden except… the Tree of Knowledge. So far, so good. Other than setting Adam up for failure (and already knowing that Adam will fail, being all-knowing and whatnot), this is a relatively straightforward rule. Here’s the exact quote from the King James Bible.

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Genesis 2:16-17

That’s pretty simple. Eat from any tree in the garden whenever you want, just don’t eat from the tree of knowledge because on the day you do that, you’ll die.

Wait… you’ll die? That day?

If you continue reading Genesis, you’ll see that Adam and Eve both lived long after they chomped on the forbidden fruit. Strangely enough, that’s what the serpent told them. So did God lie and the serpent tell the truth? …or did God make a mistake when he just thought that Adam and Eve would die that day. It’s got to be one or the other because according to the bible, they most certainly did not die that day.

Continue reading “What I really meant to say was…”

Creationism in School… the PZ Myers Way

Over at Pharyngula, PZ Myers posted about how creationism should be taught in the classroom. I assumed that he didn’t mean it in the same way that creationists mean it, but his version was even better than I anticipated (Sorry, PZ. I won’t make that mistake again!). Here’s my favorite paragraph from his article.

A lesson plan that includes creationism should plainly show that experiment and observation have irrefutably demonstrated that it is now a splintered pile of cack-minded gobshite, wrecked by a century and a half of discovery, and that its supporters now are reduced to pathetically feeble rationalizations that rely almost entirely on people’s emotional dependence on the legitimacy of their religious beliefs. A science class isn’t the place to rip into airy-fairy religiosity — we have other venues for that — but it should uncompromisingly demolish every attempt to link natural, material events to pious metaphysics. If a student comes out of such a class believing that maybe there is still something to the Genesis explanation of the origins of life, then the instructor has not done her job. Her job was to explain with science how the world works, and if anyone wants to smuggle in the seven days and the magic fruit tree and the talking snake, it should be so the teacher can show the students that that is not how it works.

That’s just golden.

There are some great comments following his article as well. I usually try to read most of them, as they are frequently insightful and/or entertaining. Here’s a great one from Steve Jeffers.

As the British comedian Chris Addison says, teaching creationism in science classes is like teaching Narnia in geography. If you’re learning Spanish, you don’t learn a load of words that aren’t Spanish but sound like they might be.

I just finished reading 40 Days and 40 Nights by Matthew Chapman (a great read, by the way), which is a book about the Dover, PA trial in 2005. At the end of the book, Chapman says that, after attending the trial, he supports teaching Intelligent Design in Biology class… for essentially the same reasons that PZ Myers does.

If science is taught well, it is taught critically. Any critical examination of  Creationism and Intelligent Design will point a scorchingly white hot spotlight on the complete vapidness of their claims. Perhaps that should be the new direction that biology teachers should take. It could end up being a waste of time, but it also might illuminate the path of critical thinking, the scientific method, and rationality for students. Teaching students how to weed out bad science or pseudo-science from real science would do wonders to improve the anti-intellectualism that has thrived in this country for years now.

I don’t know if using Creationism and Intelligent Design as fodder in Biology classes is the way to do that or not, but it’s an interesting idea.

I wonder what Bill Buckingham would think?

(Bill Buckingham was the school board member in Dover who spearheaded the ID curriculum proposal)

Fun with Tracts

Faith Baptist Church Tract - Page 1
Click to View Full Tract

Every now and then, I find a religious tract lying around… a movie theater, a restaurant, the top of a urinal at an all-inclusive resort in the Mexican Riviera (seriously). I always pick them up because they usually provide a fair amount of amusement. Chick Tracts are the most amusing with their over-the-top cartoons, but I rarely come across them “in the wild.” More often than not, I find ones similar to the one pictured here (you can view the full tract by clicking on the image). They’re not as exciting as the Chick ones, but tend to be entertaining, anyway.

I do find it interesting to note that I’ve never received one directly from another person. I only ever find them lying around. I assume it’s because that, for most people, it would be a little uncomfortable to walk up to a perfect stranger and hand them a tract, opening an opportunity for dialogue, but also for ridicule or rejection. I used to work in commission sales, so I know that feeling and can sympathize with the tract carrier in that regard. I am, however, always disappointed when I don’t get the opportunity to discuss the tract. I’m not a hostile or angry person, and if I had time available when given a tract, I’d happily take some time to talk to the giver to find out about their beliefs and why they believe them.

Since I didn’t have that opportunity at the all-inclusive resort in Mexico, I’m going to talk about the tract here. It won’t be quite as fun as talking to the original carrier, but I’ll take what I can get.

Continue reading “Fun with Tracts”

Ray “The Banana Man” Comfort -VS- …The Vatican?

ray-bananaThere is an article on The Living Waters website about “The Banana Man’s” (hereafter referred to as BM) disagreement with the Vatican’s “endorsement” of evolution.  Yes, in February the Vatican officially endorsed the notion that Darwinian evolution is compatible with the Bible’s account of Genesis. BM decided to take the gloves off and evoke the written testimony of non other than…wait for it…JESUS! Yes, I said Jesus. BM actually said:

Ray Comfort, author of the hottest Christian book on Amazon, “You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence But You Can’t Make Him Think,” points out Jesus himself backed up the Genesis account of Creation when he said, “In the beginning God created them male and female.”

 Well, that seals the deal! I didn’t know Jesus said it. I think BM was serious too. BM would make a great prosecuting attorney, “Your Honor, allow me to call forward my next witness to this terrible homicide…the tooth fairy. The tooth fairy herself was hovering above the house of the victim and will back up the prosecution’s account of how the murder took place”. Calling forth Jesus as a witness to the validity of creation is like verifying the existence of Santa’s workshop by …asking Santa. I can’t understand why anyone even listens to BM. Every time I hear or read anything he says I find myself confounded by his sophomoric ramblings. Here is BM’s next revelation:

“But the Vatican has chosen to officially believe Darwin rather than Jesus,” added Comfort. “That belief reveals a shallow understanding of the claims of atheistic evolution. God gave us six senses, and the sixth one is common sense. That one doesn’t get used when it comes to Darwin’s theory. And that’s the problem – its devoted believers don’t think too deeply. That’s why I wrote the book. It shows that Darwin’s theory is a fantasy – a ridiculous and unscientific fairy tale for grownups.”

BM suggests (in his support of Genesis) that Darwin’s theories are, “fantasy – a ridiculous and unscientific fairy tale for grownups.” Yes, one of the biggest evangelical proponents of creationism (Adam’s “rib”+ God =Woman) believes that Darwin’s theories are a, “…fairy tale for grownups”.  Truly boggles the mind.

The story ends with a commercial to promote the sale of BM’s books. He has written over sixty. Nice little business BM has going. Remember what Jesus said BM, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” I know it’s true because Jesus said so!

It’s all fun and games until…

My new favorite web comic is xkcd. It’s a sometimes geeky, almost always insightful, and always funny comic drawn with mostly stick figures by Randall Munroe, a CNU graduate with a degree in physics. Who knew physics geeks could be funny?

So the comic below was just brought to my attention by a friend who’s also an xkcd fan and I thought I’d share it here since the subject of the comic is perfect for Rationality Now. It addresses (somewhat) the issue of why atheists give a rip about what other people believe. See if you can follow along. I’ll elaborate in a future post.

Oh… and go visit xkcd. It’s funny and they have geeky t-shirts.

xkcd: beliefs (#154)

Some of Us Are Closer to Primates Than Others…

monkey-0214-12

I couldn’t possibly count on all of “God’s” appendages how many crazy fundie opinions I have read or heard through the years,  but this one might take the cake.

Sean McDowell at WorldViewTimes.com has written a brilliant article on the recent “Monkey Attack” in Connecticut. His article  ingeniously illustrates why Charles Darwin was directly responsible for this animals savagery.

Allow me to quote Sean:

Nevertheless, we need to ask a basic question: How could something like this happen? How is it that we live in a culture where people think it’s safe to have a chimpanzee as a pet? Where do people get the idea that we ought to take a wild animal and treat it like a human being? The chimp owner treated the animal like a son who ate at her table, slept in her house, and even drove her car.

Ideas do not exist in a vacuum. In fact, there is one culprit for the idea that human beings and chimps are really not that different and should be treated that way: Darwinism.

Yep, Darwinism!  Sean’s article seemed silly enough so as not to even deserve rebuttal… but I couldn’t help it.  Sean is right about one thing. Ideas don’t exist in a vacuum. Blind faith exists in a vacuum. To blame a scientific theory (Darwinism) for an animal attack is silly, but to suggest that this theory alone makes the case that we are similar to chimps is insulting. Darwinism, by itself, doesn’t suggest we are similar to apes. It is evidenced by our own DNA! We share 95% of our DNA sequence and 99% of the coding of DNA sequences with primates. Sean continues:

Yet, ironically, this week we witness a brutal act that seems to logically follow from Darwin’s ideas. You may be wondering how I can possibly link Darwin to this atrocious event. But think about it, if humans are deeply related to chimps then why not expect them to act that way?

The attack, “logically follows Darwin’s ideas?!?” Crazy person says what? This last statement almost sounds crazier than the rantings of The Banana Man himself, Ray Comfort (Monkey story = Banana Reference).  Sean wants to know why, if we are so “deeply related,” chimps don’t act more human? We need to first identify which humans Sean is referencing. I guess Sean “disremembered” these world class examples of God’s work:

  • David Berkowitzz – aka “Son of Sam” and “The .44 Caliber Killer”; convicted of six murders in New York
  • Bloody Benders – family who killed guests at their inn in Labette County, Kansas in 1872
  • Robert Berdella – convicted of killing six men in 1988 in Kansas City, Missouri; sexually tortured and dismembered his victims
  • Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, Jr. – aka the “Hillside Strangler”; killers of 13 women and possibly involved in three other killings
  • Richard Biegenwald – convicted of killing five people in the early 1980s in the Asbury Park, New Jersey area; suspected in at least  six  other murders
  • Arthur Gary Bishop – Utah man who murdered five young boys; executed in 1988
  • Terry Blair – Kansas City serial killer and rapist; active 1982–2004
  • William Bonin– aka “The Freeway Killer”; with several accomplices, claimed the lives of 20 boys in California
  • Robert Charles Browne – convicted of two murders in Colorado; confessed to 48 murders
  • Jerry Brudos – aka “The Lust Killer” and “Shoe Fetish Slayer”; killed at least five women in Oregon
  • Ted Bundy-law student who raped and murdered more than 35 women in six states

These are just the B listers from the United States.  Did Sean forget that even humans are capable of “animal like” savagery? Sean’s expedition into the absurd ends with a condemnation of “Darwinism” being wrong (a little presumptive) and corrosive (unlike Christianity, which in all of it’s history never hurt anyone… *wink*… *wink*). Considering some of the humans God saw fit to include in his plan for the earth, I think Sean owes all chimps an apology for comparing them to mankind.

Neil deGrasse Tyson on ID and Fine Tuning

I just came across this today. Neil deGrasse Tyson is speaking about intelligent design, including the “fine tuning” argument for the existence of God. He’s not so much debunking it as he is making fun of it. It’s been debunked by most rational people and the court system, so that would just be a rehash. Tyson joyfully ridicules the absurdity of both ID and the fine-tuning argument with examples that highlight the ridiculousness of each. It’s about five minutes long and very entertaining.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1cKD93W3yg

Ray Comfort Responded Predictably

Ray Comfort has responded to the counter offer from Richard Dawkins regarding Comfort’s debate challenge. In a predictable statement, Comfort said…

Richard Dawkins told a news reporter that he will debate me for $100,000 per hour. He is afraid, and he thinks he’s safe because I won’t pay that much money for an hour of his time.

[…]

[Dawkins] is also a giant among intellectuals, and for years I have listened to him spout his blasphemies against God. I’m a nobody from a sheep-herding country, but I can see a gap in his armor. There’s an army of atheists hiding behind Mr. Dawkins waiting for him to feed me to the birds, and he is proving to be nothing but hot air.

What an embarrassment to the atheist community.

I have said that I will give him $40,000 an hour.  Let’s see what he says.

I doubt that fear is what Dawkins is feeling and I’m sure he does think he’s safe, but not for the reasons Comfort probably thinks. And yes, Comfort is a nobody… a nobody with silly, non-scientific claims… which is why Dawkins shouldn’t lend him any credibility by appearing on stage with him. Most of the comments I’ve read from atheists don’t want Dawkins to debate him for just that reason. They’re not “hiding behind Mr. Dawkins” waiting for him to destroy Comfort’s arguments. So Dawkins is far from an embarrassment.

As for the $40,000, why is Comfort trying to barter down the worth of God’s word? It certainly looks like that’s what he’s trying to do (not that I think “God’s word” is worth anything to start with, but Comfort certainly does). He’s also misrepresenting the recipient of the target amount. Dawkins doesn’t want the money for himself. He wants Comfort to donate the money (tax-deductible) to the Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, a non-profit organization.

Comfort also says…

All Mr. Dawkins has to do is go into a BBC radio studio in his home town of Cambridge and give 30 minutes on why God doesn’t exist. He doesn’t even have to acknowledge that I exist.

That’s odd because his original offer was for Dawkins to participate in an actual debate with each participant having a chance to respond to the other. This new requirement seems to change not only the time involved, but any chance for Dawkins to directly respond to any of Comfort’s retorts. It’s like Comfort is trying to make the whole thing more one-sided as the he tries to negotiate the price.

Go figure.

(thanks to Karen on Bligbi for the heads up)

Hope Springs Eternal

Richard DawkinsI mentioned earlier that Ray Comfort has challenged Richard Dawkins to a debate about the existence of God and why Evolution is scientific. Comfort was even offering to pony up $10,000 to Dawkins (or the charity of his choice) as an incentive.

My hope was that Dawkins would refuse the offer with an appropriately scathing reply, but not too publicly so as not to give Comfort any undue media exposure.

Well, it seems Dawkins did just that… but in an enhanced manner. Check it out. It’s definitely worth a read.

Dawkins responded on his own web forum. He didn’t specifically decline, per se, but upped the ante a bit. In order for him to accept the “debate” challenge, Comfort would have to donate $100,000 to the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. It’s beautiful.

Not only will Comfort probably not agree to that much money, but even if he did, he’d be making a significant donation to a charity organization that stands for everything he opposes. Dawkins’ counter-offer effectively negates Comfort’s assertion that scientists are afraid to debate creationists. However, if Comfort refuses to agree to the counter-offer because of the money issue, it could be said of him that he’s not strong enough in his convictions to think them worth $100,000. If there’s more at stake than a measly $10,000, perhaps Comfort doesn’t have the stomach to stand up for his beliefs.

It’s all well and good. I certainly still hope that such a “debate” never takes place since it would lend unwarranted validity to Comfort’s misleading statements and outright lies. Nor would it serve any productive purpose. As I’ve mentioned before, it takes far less time and energy to make up lies than it does to refute them all scientifically… and Comfort is a master at making up lies.

Perhaps that is the Way of the Master.