For Santorum, faith and reason are benchmarks for politics

Rick Santorum was on the radio this morning talking about how he uses both reason and faith to make decisions. Apparently that sounds good to some people, but I’m not one of them. So I looked up the definitions to see if using those two avenues to tackle a problem were as incompatible as I thought. Here’s an excerpt of the definitions from the Merriam Webster online dictionary.

Reason: a sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defense;
especially: something (as a principle or law) that supports a conclusion or explains a fact <the reasons behind her client’s action>.

Faith: firm belief in something for which there is no proof; complete trust.

I was a little disappointed that the definition of reason didn’t include more about evidence. Maybe it’s implicit in the wording about a principle or law. However, following the definition for reason to make decisions is still a world apart from following the definition of faith. With faith I can believe what I want without proof. Yea, that’s who I want running the country…and potentially starting a war with Iran.

Here’s a link to an article about it from the Catholic News Agency:

For Santorum, faith and reason are benchmarks for politics

Newt Is Pious Baloney

I watch CSPAN way too often, and some CSPAN video of Newt shows just how pious a piece of baloney he is.   At 24 minutes into this video Newt claims that there is a  secular elite that believes that life is random and life has no moral meaning, insinuating that the godfree don’t value human life, and that we are immoral.  Why does he have to lie about us?  Doesn’t he have bad TRUE things to say about us?  He also states that our rights come to us from god.   I believe my rights are inalienable and self evident and should be respected by a government supported by the consent of the governed.  Newt says that about 2 hours after his inaugural he would sign an executive order that would make sure no U.S. money was used to pay for abortion anywhere in the world.   He would also reinstate the so-called “conscience” policy of W – no doctor, pharmacist or nurse should be forced to perform medical procedures that are against their conscience.  He would defund planned parenthood to create an adoption fund.  Newt is also a big fan of the idea that the 14th amendment allows us to define personhood, which could allow the congress to define life as beginning at conception and block the supreme court from reviewing it.  Working to make abortion illegal is profoundly immoral; Newt’s position is profoundly immoral.    Newt’s personal life is not even close to the best reason to believe he’d be a terrible president.

In another video,  at 02:18:00 in, Newt says that U. S. District  Judge Biery  AND HIS WHOLE COURT  should be abolished now.  He called this judge a radical anti-american judge.   Why?  Because this judge told a public high  school to not allow prayer at graduation.   Eliminate the court b/c it upheld a long established principle of  seperation of church and state.

Sadly, Newt doesn’t seem to be worse than either Ron Paul or Rick Santorum.  Way too much pious baloney in the Republican presidential contest.

Call Somebody And Just Say “Hi”!

I got two phone calls last night at midnight, from people I don’t talk to all that often, and I was pleasantly surprised that they would choose to call me at midnight on New Year’s Eve.   That seems like a very friendly gesture to me.  I was thinking how nice it was that they called me, and how good that felt, and it basicly cost nothing but a little time.    I would like to make the world just a little better in an easy way, so I plan to call a couple people this week that I don’t often chat with, and just see how they’re doing.  It’s a tiny kindness to be friendly (unless you’re a creep!) and it’s very rational to encourage a climate of kindness.   Call somebody this week and be friendly!

Good bless us everyone in 2012, to paraphrase Tiny Tim.  Happy New Year, everybody!

A Christopher-Hitchens-shaped Void

I heard with great sadness that Christopher Hitchens had died last week.  He was quite a topic of conversation at our Seasonal Party.   We are still debating the reasons for having this party, but we are not debating whether or not we should have a seasonal party – it’s that good of an idea.

The reactions of attendees ranged from knowledgeable comments about his work and life to “who’s Christopher Hitchens?”.   Any human who is not familiar with Mr. Hitchens’ work is experiencing a lack that the Rationalist Society must work to remedy.   We’ll do a meeting in January to more fully acquaint ourselves with the reasons why this man’s work is so important.   His work survives him, and will continue to live for a very long time.  His works won’t provide actual immortality, but this is as well as an atheist is going to do.  His book “God Is Not Great” is unmatched in its arguments against the hypocrisy of religion, IMO.

I spoke to Mr. Hitchens twice, and both times he was gracious and friendly.  Considering how acerbic his wit could be, that was a relief.  I ran into him in a hotel hallway in Madison Wisconsin, during a FFRF convention some years ago, and was overwhelmed by my good fortune.  I got to stand next to a celebrity and hero, and there was nobody else but Hitch and me in front of that elevator.    Hallelujah!  I tried to be cool, and offered him some of my popcorn, which he politely declined.   I think I thanked him for his work, while I was careful not to gush or talk too much;  and I think he spoke a few sentences.  I got to ride in the same elevator as him!  He didn’t even look annoyed with me, which I appreciated tremendously.   It seems Mr. Hitchens was a nice guy, as well as a towering intellect; those traits don’t always travel together, so to speak. 

If you’re interested in obituaries, please see Richard Dawkins’ site, which has done a very fine job of aggregating obits :    http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644246-christopher-hitchens-obituaries

Also, you might check out this short video that I found on the Guardian’s website of Mr. Hitchens speaking about the afterlife  :  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/16/christopher-hitchens-debate-highlights-video

A Rational Response

Here’s a link to the FactCheck.org story about Michelle Bachmann’s comments linking the HPV vaccine to mental retardation. FactCheck does a good job of policing political speech for misleading or exaggerated claims as well as outright lies.

However, I don’t usually see bullshit called on a candidate by the media as much as I have for this claim. There is a bioethicist that has put up a $10,000 reward, payable to the charity of her choice, for Mrs. Bachmann to produce the patient in question.

I just thought this was a very apropos story for the Rationalist Society. Who knows, maybe rationalism will catch on and candidates will actually be asked to back up their claims more often.

“There Are Gods And We Are Them”

Dale, our private listserve provacateur, sent a great post the other day, and I just thought we should make this one a blog post.  

“I have flown eight miles above the earth at a speed of ten miles per minute. With about two hundred passengers and full fuel this fast aircraft weighed about one hundred tons at take off and about sixty tons when it landed almost three thousand miles away in Iceland. The temperature outside was sixty below even though it was July and the air was too thin to keep us alive.

 I have seen pictures of light that is thirteen billion years old and have seen pictures of my great grandsons before they were born. I know where my family lived one hundred and fifty thousand years ago. I have had my heart stopped for more than two hours. I had no pulse or brain waves. I died and came back to life. 

There are gods and we are them. 

Dale”

About Dale, it might be said that He descended into hospital; on surgery day He rose from the dead, and ascended into the Rationalist Society, sitteth at the right hand of Kathleen, the Miss Almighty.  From thence he does come to judge the living and the dead.  

Don’t we live in an age of wonders?  Wonders that are usually produced by good scientific work.

Obama’s Ratings Have Been Higher Than God’s

On a recent Colbert Report (repeated on 8/22/11)  the comedian Stephen Colbert claimed that Gods approval rating, accoring to a recent poll, was 52%.  At last weekend’s Americans United picnic, the ever-wise Ray Hartman noted that after Obama supervised the killing of Osama Bin Laden, his poll numbers only went up to 60%, but it seems that Obama is occasionally more popular than god!

Ray also mentioned that George W. Bush’s poll numbers after 9-11 were up to 90%.  This after all Bush did (depending on whether you believe the 9-11 truthers or not) was show up at ground zero and make a speech with a megaphone.

Ray Hartman gave a great speech, including so many important points that I was really sorry that I hadn’t taken notes.  He said that the left had relied too heavily on the fact that Roe Vs. Wade had been successful in becoming the law of the land, instead of forcefully stating that abortion is a moral choice.  By depending on Roe Vs. Wade, the left sort of shrank from the argument, as if being anti-abortion was actually a positive moral choice, which it’s not.   This isn’t what Mr. Hartman said, but IMO, working to make abortion illegal is profoundly immoral, yet the protesters stand on the corner of Forest Park Parkway acting like they are holier than thou while protesting the beleaguered Planned Parenthood clinic.  They may be “holier” but they are not more moral, and I’m grateful to Ray Hartman for publicly pointing that out.

Jon Stewart takes on American Atheists

Here’s a recent segment on The Daily Show about the lawsuit brought by American Atheists over a cross, or cross-beam, depending on your perspective, that was part of the World Trade Center rubble. This cross is slated to be an exhibit in the memorial to the September 11th attack and American Atheists is suing to have the cross be excluded from the memorial on separation of church and state grounds or to have an atheists symbol be included.

Lets just say that Jon did not see eye to eye with American Atheists. Do you think they are correct? And even if they do have a valid legal argument does this do more harm than good for Atheism?

Here’s a link to the American Atheists page about the case, you can follow the “complaint” link at the bottom to view the lawsuit.

Church State Separation Smackdown – Kennedy vs. Perry

What a difference 51 years can make!  Two politicians attend presidential campaign events in front of very religious audiences, and explain their positions regarding the separation of church and state.  The similarities end there.  John F. Kennedy gives an articulate, rousing defense of the principle of separation of church and state (click here) in 1960, whereas Rick Perry mentions briefly in 2011 that Jesus doesn’t get involved in man-made institutions(click here).  One of the things that concerned me about Texas governor Rick Perry’s presentation is that he gets quite a few huge responses from the audience (clapping and cheering) for statements that don’t, to a non-fundamentalist like myself, merit a big response.  “His agenda is not a political agenda, his agenda is a salvation agenda”, says Perry, to great applause.  “He is wise enough not to be affiliated to any man-made institutions”.   But what are churches?  Aren’t they man-made?  Is Rick Perry claiming that Jesus is not associated to any churches?  Apparently, Governor Perry’s presentation made a lot more sense to those in attendance at that religious rally than it did to me – the response seemed loud and enthusiastic in the video.    Just for fun, if you want to see why Perry isn’t going to be the republican nominee for president, watch this video of MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, who talks about Perry’s association w/Pastor Hagee, who famously claimed that Hitler’s murder of 6 million jews was just god’s way of getting jews to go back to the holy land.

To be fair, both politicians were just telling their audiences what they wanted to hear. Rick Perry, in my time, is not telling me what I want to hear.   I would be thrilled to hear a presidential candidate today give the speech that John Kennedy gave 51 years ago, but it just seems like too much to hope for.   Maybe in 2016?

Some People are Just Better Than You – Ayn Rand and Abram Vereide

The Rationalist Society has done separate presentations in the last couple of years on Ayn Rand and Abram Vereide, and while their beliefs were quite different, one thing that they had in common was the belief that some people are just better than you and me.

Abram Vereide was an evangelical preacher who believed that god was in control of the world, and therefore those that were in power, were there because god wanted them to be in power.  From a 2003 article written by Jeff Sharlet :

“There were already enough men ministering to the down-and-out, Vereide had decided; his mission field would be men with the means to seize the world for God. Vereide called his potential flock of the rich and powerful, those in need only of the “real” Jesus, the “up-and-out.” 

When the “up-and-out” decide to frac natural gas out of the ground, thereby polluting the drinking water of local citizens, those citizens need to just get out of the way, and let the people in charge do what they want to do.  After all, that’s god’s plan, and if you oppose the wealthy and powerful, you oppose god.

Ayn Rand, an atheist, believed that some people were more creative, more hardworking, and that the rest of us should just get out of their way.   If the super people are just allowed to do what they want, the world will be a better place.   To heck with what we, the people want.  The most well-known example of this was the laissez-faire attitude towards Wall Street tycoons taken by Alan Greenspan, former head of the Federal Reserve.  Greenspan worked hard to maintain a governmental “hands off” attitude & policy when it came to regulating Wall Street when some genius there decided that derivatives were a great idea, and that it was OK to sell bad mortgages to an unsuspecting public.

I thought it was just odd that an atheist and an evangelical preacher would come to similar conclusions, for very different reasons.