God's Dupes

by Sam Harris for the Los Angeles Times

March 16, 2007

PETE STARK, a California Democrat, appears to be the first congressman in U.S. history to acknowledge that he doesn't believe in God. In a country in which 83% of the population thinks that the Bible is the literal or "inspired" word of the creator of the universe, this took political courage. Of course, one can imagine that Cicero's handlers in the 1st century BC lost some sleep when he likened the traditional accounts of the Greco-Roman gods to the "dreams of madmen" and to the "insane mythology of Egypt."

Mythology is where all gods go to die, and it seems that Stark has secured a place in American history simply by admitting that a fresh grave should be dug for the God of Abraham — the jealous, genocidal, priggish and self-contradictory tyrant of the Bible and the Koran. Stark is the first of our leaders to display a level of intellectual honesty befitting a consul of ancient Rome. Bravo. The truth is, there is not a person on Earth who has a good reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead or that Muhammad spoke to the angel Gabriel in a cave. And yet billions of people claim to be certain about such things. As a result, Iron Age ideas about everything high and low — sex, cosmology, gender equality, immortal souls, the end of the world, the validity of prophecy, etc. — continue to divide our world and subvert our national discourse. Many of these ideas, by their very nature, hobble science, inflame human conflict and squander scarce resources.

Of course, no religion is monolithic. Within every faith one can see people arranged along a spectrum of belief. Picture concentric circles of diminishing reasonableness: At the center, one finds the truest of true believers — the Muslim jihadis, for instance, who not only support suicidal terrorism but who are the first to turn themselves into bombs; or the Dominionist Christians, who openly call for homosexuals and blasphemers to be put to death. Outside this sphere of maniacs, one finds millions more who share their views but lack their zeal. Beyond them, one encounters pious multitudes who respect the beliefs of their more deranged brethren but who disagree with them on small points of doctrine — of course the world is going to end in glory and Jesus will appear in the sky like a superhero, but we can't be sure it will happen in our lifetime.

Out further still, one meets religious moderates and liberals of diverse hues — people who remain supportive of the basic scheme that has balkanized our world into Christians, Muslims and Jews, but who are less willing to profess certainty about any article of faith. Is Jesus really the son of God? Will we all meet our grannies again in heaven? Moderates and liberals are none too sure. Those on this spectrum view the people further toward the center as too rigid, dogmatic and hostile to doubt, and they generally view those outside as corrupted by sin, weak-willed or unchurched.

The problem is that wherever one stands on this continuum, one inadvertently shelters those who are more fanatical than oneself from criticism. Ordinary fundamentalist Christians, by maintaining that the Bible is the perfect word of God, inadvertently support the Dominionists — men and women who, by the millions, are quietly working to turn our country into a totalitarian theocracy reminiscent of John Calvin's Geneva. Christian moderates, by their lingering attachment to the unique divinity of Jesus, protect the faith of fundamentalists from public scorn. Christian liberals — who aren't sure what they believe but just love the experience of going to church occasionally — deny the moderates a proper collision with scientific rationality. And in this way centuries have come and gone without an honest word being spoken about God in our society.

People of all faiths — and none — regularly change their lives for the better, for good and bad reasons. And yet such transformations are regularly put forward as evidence in support of a specific religious creed. President Bush has cited his own sobriety as suggestive of the divinity of Jesus. No doubt Christians do get sober from time to time — but Hindus (polytheists) and atheists do as well. How, therefore, can any thinking person imagine that his experience of sobriety lends credence to the idea that a supreme being is watching over our world and that Jesus is his son? There is no question that many people do good things in the name of their faith — but there are better reasons to help the poor, feed the hungry and defend the weak than the belief that an Imaginary Friend wants you to do it. Compassion is deeper than religion. As is ecstasy. It is time that we acknowledge that human beings can be profoundly ethical — and even spiritual — without pretending to know things they do not know.

Let us hope that Stark's candor inspires others in our government to admit their doubts about God. Indeed, it is time we broke this spell en masse. Every one of the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain — from cosmology to psychology to economics — has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture. Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music.

Video Time.

KT Tunstall - Black Horse And The Cherry Tree. I've heard this tune in my head for a few days now.... so I thought it was about time I shared it with the world....

Cartoon Time.

It’s Asymmetrical, My Dear Watson

by Sean Gonsalves for Cape Cod Times

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

You’re familiar with the story about Sherlock Holmes and his camping trip with Watson, right? They set up tent and go for a hike. Exhausted, they return to camp as night falls. First Watson hops in his cot. Holmes gets under his covers and stares up at the cloudless night sky.

“My dear, Watson. Do you see what I see?” “Oh yes, the Milky Way is quite prominent tonight.” “No. Look closer.” “Now, I see it. The Big Dipper...” “No, no. It’s elementary, Watson. Someone stole our tent!”

Since I first started writing about U.S. policy in Iraq 10 years ago, I keep having the someone-stole-our-tent moment over and over again. Have you been reading these stories about how “the surge” seems to be working. The violence in Baghdad seems to be subsiding. Even Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., who just led a delegation to Iraq, said the Bush push to secure Baghdad “appears to be working,” according to the Associated Press. I suppose his words are supposed to carry some weight because the good senator is of Palestinian descent. He’s one of “them.” That kind of stuff works on some folks – like trotting out Colin Powell and Condi every now and then to explain why yet another nation full of backward dark-skinned people need to be bombed – I mean, “liberated” – from barbarism. Not knowing him personally, it’s hard to say why a smart guy like Sununu would say something so foolish without adding a HUGE caveat.

Of course, the violence is subsiding. This is a guerrilla war! Guerrilla War 101: “When guerrillas engage a stronger enemy, they withdraw when he advances.” That’s right out of Mao Tse-tung’s classic treatise On Guerrilla Warfare.

“When the invader pierces deep into the heart of the weaker country and occupies her territory in a cruel and oppressive manner, there is no doubt that conditions of terrain, climate, and society in general offer obstacles to his progress and may be used to advantage by those who oppose him. In guerrilla warfare we turn these advantages to the purpose of resisting and defeating the enemy. Guerrilla warfare basically derives from the masses and is supported by them; it can neither exist nor flourish if it separates itself from their sympathies and co-operation. There are those who do not comprehend guerrilla action,” Mao wrote way back in 1937.

The good news is: Gen. David Petraeus is now in charge of our forces in Iraq. A few weeks ago the general said something straight out of a Sean Gonsalves column. “Any student of history recognizes that there is no military solution to a problem like (guerrilla insurgencies) in Iraq.” Then, this past Sunday, the AP reported on Petraeus’ new leadership, illustrating what the fear-induced fools in right-wing radio land and the soft-handed talking heads who play tough guys on TV “news” shows can’t seem to get through their history-challenged heads.

Petraeus “has revamped the counterinsurgency strategy, designed to win back not only the turf but public support... . To set the tone, Petraeus has made several high-profile forays into public markets in Baghdad and elsewhere...smiling and greeting bystanders with simple Arabic phrases” – the kind of Arabic phrases that, if someone were to suggest they be taught in American schools, would trigger conservatives to decry the evil influence of political correctness and multiculturalism. This business of treating Iraqis like human beings instead of evil incarnate as fantasized by jingoists here in the States “carries some risk to U.S. troops...but the U.S. command seems prepared to take the chance. The new motto: ‘The more you protect the force, the less secure you really are’.” Gary Brecher, the “War Nerd,” has been trying to teach us real good on this and it took me some time to notice that someone stole our tent, too. It bears repeating. C’mon, say it with me: short of genocide (dropping nukes and turning the Iraqi desert into a sea of glass), there is NO military solution to guerrilla insurgencies.

It’s elementary, really. Actually, it’s asymmetrical.

[This certainly puts the whole “It’s getting better” story into perspective doesn’t it?]

Just Finished Reading: The Devil’s Account – Philip Pullman & Christianity by Hugh Rayment-Pickard

I didn’t know this at the time of purchase but the author not only has a PhD in the Philosophy of Religion but it also a Parish priest in London. This may go some way to explain the tone of the book.

Rayment-Pickard (RP) certainly does a fair job of analysing Pullmans Dark Materials trilogy as well as several other Pullman works but failed to hold his own disparaging views in check. Not only was the overall tone of this work sarcastic and cynical but I quickly lost count of the number of snide comments aimed at both Philip Pullman and his books. It was abundantly clear that RP found His Dark Materials deeply offensive. On more than one occasion he dismissed Pullmans own statements regarding his atheism and pointed out that only someone with a deep (and presumably deeply repressed) need for God – indeed an actual belief in God – could have written such a seeming polemic against the Church. The criticisms of Pullmans works oscillated between statements pointing out the overly aggressive treatment of Christianity in his books contrasted with the apparent fact that Pullman was apparently trying to usurp the Christian Myth with one of his own. The charge of hubris was implicit on almost every page.

Thankfully the book was a short one and I didn’t have to suffer too long the overbearing criticism of three of the best books I’ve ever read. The few good points RP made were more than drowned out by his prejudicial stance and spiteful commentary. This book might be useful to those studying Pullman’s work academically but if you want to have a deeper understanding of His Dark Materials in particular I’d look elsewhere.

Why is Easter a Movable Feast?

To be honest Easter confuses me – OK quite a lot about Christianity confuses me but Easter really does. I mean, Easter is supposed to be a celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus right? So why does the date keep moving from year to year? According to Wikipedia:

It celebrates the resurrection of Jesus, which his followers believe occurred on the third day (counting inclusively) after his death by crucifixion some time in the period AD 27 to 33.

I can’t help presuming that like his birthday on 25th December (even if that’s his official birthday rather than his actual birthday) the date of Jesus’s execution on the Cross and his subsequent Resurrection should have an actual date. If such an exact date is unknown (which seems to be the case) then why not pick an official date and declare it doctrine? Having a moving date for Easter makes no sense – at least to me. What makes even less sense is how Easter is calculated. This again from Wikipedia:

At the First Council of Nicaea in 325 it was decided that Easter would be celebrated on the same Sunday throughout the Church, but it is probable that no method was specified by the Council. (No contemporary account of the Council's decisions has survived.) Instead, the matter seems to have been referred to the church of Alexandria, which city had the best reputation for scholarship at the time……. The practice of those following Alexandria was to celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the earliest fourteenth day of a lunar month that occurred on or after March 21. While since the Middle Ages this practice has sometimes been more succinctly phrased as Easter is observed on the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox, this does not reflect the actual ecclesiastical rules precisely…… The ecclesiastical rules are:

Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or after March 21 (the day of the ecclesiastical vernal equinox).

This particular ecclesiastical full moon is the 14th day of a tabular lunation (new moon).

THAT certainly makes a whole lot of sense to me [not]. The word arbitary springs to mind doesn’t it? Then of course there is the origin of Easter itself. Yet again from Wikipedia:

The English and German names, "Easter" and "Ostern," are not etymologically derived from Pesach and according to the 8th century Christian monk and historian Bede are instead related to ancient name for the Anglo Saxon goddess, Eostre, who was celebrated during Eosturmonath, equivalent to April/Aprilis. Bede wrote - "Eosturmonath, which is now interpreted as the paschal month, was formerly named after the goddess Eostre, and has given its name to the festival."

Sounds like the typical Christian hi-jacking of an existing pagan festival doesn’t it?

Of course Easter is a very important, indeed arguable vital, part of the Christian belief system. Paul himself said as much in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:14-17):

"And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ: whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins."

So… if the Resurrection hadn’t happened Christianity would be a false faith? Is that what Paul meant? No wonder people get fired up over claims that the remains of Christ’s body have been found. If he died and his body was buried here, on Earth, then doesn’t that undermine a fundamental pillar of Christianity – indeed maybe the fundamental pillar? Without the Resurrection would Christianity survive? It’s an interesting question to ponder this Easter.

Poster Time.

Religions don't deserve special treatment.

By A C Grayling

October 19, 2006

It is time to reverse the prevailing notion that religious commitment is intrinsically deserving of respect, and that it should be handled with kid gloves and protected by custom and in some cases law against criticism and ridicule. It is time to refuse to tip-toe around people who claim respect, consideration, special treatment, or any other kind of immunity, on the grounds that they have a religious faith, as if having faith were a privilege-endowing virtue, as if it were noble to believe in unsupported claims and ancient superstitions. It is neither. Faith is a commitment to belief contrary to evidence and reason, as between them Kierkegaard and the tale of Doubting Thomas are at pains to show; their example should lay to rest the endeavours of some (from the Pope to the Southern Baptists) who try to argue that faith is other than at least non-rational, given that for Kierkegaard its virtue precisely lies in its irrationality.

On the contrary: to believe something in the face of evidence and against reason - to believe something by faith - is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect. It is time to say so. It is time to demand of believers that they take their personal choices and preferences in these non-rational and too often dangerous matters into the private sphere, like their sexual proclivities. Everyone is free to believe what they want, providing they do not bother (or coerce, or kill) others; but no-one is entitled to claim privileges merely on the grounds that they are votaries of one or another of the world's many religions. And as this last point implies, it is time to demand and apply a right for the rest of us to non-interference by religious persons and organisations - a right to be free of proselytisation and the efforts of self-selected minority groups to impose their own choice of morality and practice on those who do not share their outlook.

Doubtless the votaries of religion will claim that they have the moral (the immoral) choices of the general population thrust upon them in the form of suggestive advertising, bad language and explicit sex on television, and the like; they need to be reminded that their television sets have an off button. There are a number of religious TV channels available, one more emetic than the next, which I do not object to on the grounds of their existence; I just don't watch them. These remarks will of course inflame people of religious faith, who take themselves to have an unquestionable right to respect for the faith they adhere to, and a right to advance, if not indeed impose (because they claim to know the truth, remember) their views on others. In the light of history and the present, matters should perhaps be to the contrary; but stating that religious commitment is not by itself a reason for respect is not to claim that it is a reason for disrespect either. Rather, as it is somewhere written, "by their fruits ye shall know them"; it is this that far too often provides grounds for disrespect of religion and its votaries.

The point to make in opposition to the predictable response of religious believers is that human individuals merit respect first and foremost as human individuals. Shared humanity is the ultimate basis of all person-to-person and group-to-group relationships, and views which premise differences between human beings as the basis of moral consideration, most especially those that involve claims to possession by one group of greater truth, holiness, or the like, start in absolutely the wrong place. We might enhance the respect others accord us if we are kind, considerate, peace-loving, courageous, truthful, loyal to friends, affectionate to our families, aspirants to knowledge, lovers of art and nature, seekers after the good of humankind, and the like; or we might forfeit that respect by being unkind, ungenerous, greedy, selfish, wilfully stupid or ignorant, small-minded, narrowly moralistic, superstitious, violent, and the like. Neither set of characteristics has any essential connection with the presence or absence of specific belief systems, given that there are nice and nasty Christians, nice and nasty Muslims, nice and nasty atheists.

That is why the respect one should have for one's fellow humans has to be founded on their humanity, irrespective of the things they have no choice over - ethnicity, age, sexuality, natural gifts, presence or absence of disability - and conditionally (ie. not for intrinsic reasons) upon the things they choose - political affiliation, belief system, lifestyle - according to the case that can be made for the choice and the defence that can be offered of the actions that follow from it. It is because age, ethnicity and disability are not matters of choice that people should be protected from discrimination premised upon them. By contrast, nothing that people choose in the way of politics, lifestyle or religion should be immune from criticism and (when, as so often it does, it merits it) ridicule.

Those who claim to be "hurt" or "offended" by the criticisms or ridicule of people who do not share their views, yet who seek to silence others by law or by threats of violence, are trebly in the wrong: they undermine the central and fundamental value of free speech, without which no other civil liberties are possible; they claim, on no justifiable ground, a right to special status and special treatment on the sole ground that they have chosen to believe a set of propositions; and they demand that people who do not accept their beliefs and practices should treat these latter in ways that implicitly accept their holder's evaluation of them. A special case of the respect agenda run by religious believers concerns the public advertisement of their faith membership. When people enter the public domain wearing or sporting immediately obvious visual statements of their religious affiliation, one at least of their reasons for doing so is to be accorded the overriding identity of a votary of that religion, with the associated implied demand that they are therefore to be given some form of special treatment including respect.

But why should they be given automatic respect for that reason? That asserting a religious identity as one's primary front to the world is divisive at least and provocative at worst is fast becoming the view of many, although eccentricities of dress and belief were once of little account in our society, when personal religious commitment was more reserved to the private sphere - where it properly belongs - than its politicisation of late has made it. From this thought large morals can be drawn for our present discontents. But one part of a solution to those discontents must surely be to tell those who clamour for a greater slice of public indulgence, public money and public respect, that their personal religious beliefs and practices matter little to the rest of us, though sometimes they are a cause of disdain or amusement; and that the rest of us are as entitled not to be annoyed by them as their holders are entitled to hold them. But no organised religion, as an institution, has a greater claim to the attention of others in society than does a trade union, political party, voluntary organisation, or any other special interest group - for "special interest groups" are exactly what churches and organised religious bodies are.

No one could dream of demanding that political parties be respected merely because they are political parties, or of protecting them from the pens of cartoonists; nor that their members should be. On the contrary. And so it should be for all interest groups and their members, without exception.

[It had to be said… and it was said so well.]

Cartoon Time.

I always had a problem with the idea that God created Man in His own image - that God looks like us. I always considered that to be the height of arrogance. Then some months ago I thought about it this way: "Image" seems pretty close to "Imagination" meaning "In the Mind". Then I thought that saying God created us by thinking us into existence makes a whole lot more sense than the other interpretation - not that I believe that God did create us, of course....!

Bush is After Our Rights

by Marie Cocco for the Boulder Daily Camera (Colorado)

August 2, 2006

To turn our eyes momentarily from the terrifying war in the Middle East is to discover an ever-more ominous turn in the Bush administration's war on terror. Having been barred by the Supreme Court from treating foreign terrorism suspects as if they had few — or no — legal rights, the president's initial response is not to comply with the high court's finding that detainees must be treated under accepted standards of international law. In fact, the White House pushes to extend the ill treatment to American citizens.

That is, effectively, what the administration's draft of new rules for the military detention and trial of terrorism suspects would do. News and human rights organizations that have obtained the document, marked "deliberative draft — close hold," have criticized the way in which it would obliterate the Supreme Court's ruling. It seeks to have Congress write into law essentially the same procedures for military trials that the high court just said were illegal. That is, terrorism suspects still could be excluded from the courtroom, evidence could be withheld from the defense, and the Geneva Conventions — which the Supreme Court explicitly said must apply, would be circumvented. More chilling is that the draft makes clear that the president wishes to impose these conditions upon any American citizen he calls an "enemy combatant."

A copy of the draft made public by The Washington Post shows that, while an initial version anticipated military trials only for "alien" enemy combatants, the word "alien" is subsequently crossed out. Instead, the document refers time and again to "persons" who are detainees. A "person," under this draft, could be an American seized at a shopping mall, or in a suburban backyard. Here, then, is how the government could treat American citizens if this draft were to become law: A citizen could be designated an "enemy combatant" (a term the administration has never clearly defined) and held in a military prison. There, the citizen would have no right to a speedy trial. Any trials, the draft says, could occur "at any time without limitations."

Once the citizen is tried under rules that mock the constitutional protections he would receive in a federal court, or in a U.S. military court-martial, the outcome would mean little. An acquittal would not necessarily free the detainee. Neither would a sentence imposed, say, for two or three years and served in full. "An acquittal or conviction under this act does not preclude the United States, in accordance with the law of war, to detain enemy combatants until the cessation of hostilities as a means to prevent their return to the fight." Of course, "the fight" as defined in the draft is not necessarily an armed battle. People may be designated "enemy combatants" and subject to these rules if the president and the Pentagon believe they are now or were once "part of, or supporting" the Taliban, al-Qaeda or "associated forces." Support isn't defined. It could mean shouting "long live Osama!" while walking down Pennsylvania Avenue. All these powers are rightly the president's because he is commander in chief of the armed forces, according to the draft.

This is the precise argument the White House has tried, again and again, to get the Supreme Court to accept. It has failed. In two cases in which President Bush indeed did detain American citizens indefinitely and without charge, the courts derailed the effort. After the Supreme Court ruled against the administration two years ago in the case of Yaser Hamdi, the military released him and returned him to his family in Saudi Arabia. In a second case involving Jose Padilla, a citizen who was picked up at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, the government finally issued an indictment four years into his detainment — just as the Supreme Court was considering Padilla's case. The Bush administration now seeks from Congress an authorization for the blank check it once sought to give itself. If lawmakers hand him this, they will be handing over rights that Americans may never regain.

[The questions inevitably emerge from the above article – Is security, or even the illusion of security, worth this kind of infringement on civil liberty? Can we trust our Governments to act responsibly if we give them this kind of power? What can we do about a Government that has forgotten that it works for us and not the other way around?

I feel that more people should be asking these kinds of questions on both sides of ‘The Pond’.]

Just Finished Reading: Gunpowder Empire by Harry Turtledove.

In a new future Los Angeles a family gets ready for its Summer Vacation. But this will not be an ordinary trip, for the Solters family are Crosstime Traders. For a few months each year they work in an alternate reality where the Roman Empire never fell. Selling slightly superior technology for much needed grain they help feed the growing numbers in their own timeline. But this trip is different. After the Mother becomes ill and is rushed back for modern medical aid the portals fail and enemies appear at the gate of their adopted city. The two youngest Solters are left to fend for themselves and need to grow up – fast.

I had a feeling that this was going to be juvenile SF and so it was. But actually it wasn’t that bad considering the age range it was aimed at. The plot was a little thin as was the character development and attention to detail but I could imagine someone who had never come across SF before would find this an exciting read. It certainly raised some interesting questions including the morality of slavery and addressed the idea of cultures that are different to ours but not inferior because of that – though the tone of the book was rather patronising in places. Whilst not exactly the most riveting book I’ve read this year I would recommend it as something to give to a child either to interest them in SF or to get them reading in the first place.

Video Time.

Atheism 101 The Sixth & Final part.

US court rules Pringle chips are not satanic

By Ekklesia staff writer

22 Mar 2007

Pringles appear to be safe from demonic association after a US court ruled that the devil is not in league with global consumer brand Procter & Gamble (P&G). The ruling brought an end to a 12-year lawsuit pursued by P&G against four distributors of rival Amway, over rumours tying P&G to Satanism. P&G won the $19m (£9.7m) lawsuit when the court concluded that the four had spread a false accusation that P&G subsidised Satanic cults. The rumour had proved popular with evangelicals in the US and some in the UK. During the 1960s, a story began circulating that the corporation was controlled by Satan worshipers. A moon-star symbol was used by the company on many of its products from 1882 to 1985, which was considered suspect. The stars in fact stand for the thirteen original American colonies. But the arrangement of stars in the symbol was said to secretly spell out the Revelation 13:18 "number of the beast": 666. Without examining the facts, many people, most notably evangelicals, signed petitions against Procter & Gamble and boycotted their products in the 1980s and 1990s.

This latest case is one of several unfair competition suits P&G has brought refuting the Satanism slurs. According to P&G, the four distributors had passed on to customers the notion that its logo - featuring a bearded man looking over a field of 13 stars - was a symbol of Satan. "This is about protecting our reputation," said Jim Johnson, P&G's chief legal officer. Amway pointed out that it had successfully defended itself in an earlier case brought by P&G that had been connected with the rumours. It had also, it said, done everything it could to get the rumour stamped out.

[Is it any wonder that Atheists think that Theists are nuts? I mean… Satanic Potato Chips? Please……………………….!]

Poster Time.

Priests to Purify Sacred Mayan Site of 'Bad Spirits' After Bush Visit

by Juan Carlos Llorca for the Associated Press

March 9, 2007

GUATEMALA CITY -- Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday.

"That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday. Bush's seven-day tour of Latin America includes a stopover beginning late Sunday in Guatemala. On Monday morning he is scheduled to visit the archaeological site Iximche on the high western plateau in a region of the Central American country populated mostly by Mayans.

Tiney said the "spirit guides of the Mayan community" decided it would be necessary to cleanse the sacred site of "bad spirits" after Bush's visit so that their ancestors could rest in peace. He also said the rites - which entail chanting and burning incense, herbs and candles _ would prepare the site for the third summit of Latin American Indians March 26-30. Bush's trip has already has sparked protests elsewhere in Latin America, including protests and clashes with police in Brazil hours before his arrival. In Bogota, Colombia, which Bush will visit on Sunday, 200 masked students battled 300 riot police with rocks and small homemade explosives. The tour is aimed at challenging a widespread perception that the United States has neglected the region and at combating the rising influence of Venezuelan leftist President Hugo Chavez, who has called Bush "history's greatest killer" and "the devil."

Iximche, 30 miles west of the capital of Guatemala City, was founded as the capital of the Kaqchiqueles kingdom before the Spanish conquest in 1524.

[This is just so funny. Actually it’s not just funny….. it’s hilarious.]

Cartoon Time.

Just Finished Reading: The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury

In 1291AD the city of Acre fell and with it the Holy Land. But as the city burnt a lone ship made its escape carrying with it a secret cargo disappearing from history until the present day. That secret is about to be revealed to the world and there are those that will kill in order to stop it.

Yes, you guessed it – The Last Templar is a Da Vinci Code clone. In it we have a Catholic FBI agent and a beautiful Archaeologist racing to uncover clues before the Vatican can erase them. We also have a centuries old mystery that leads to a revelation – one so powerful that it challenges the very foundations of Christianity.

This book makes no pretence at being anything else other than pulp fiction. The characters are pretty much two dimensional and the plot is largely predictable. It is fairly well written at the beginning but slowly descends into cliché and, I must admit, took a bit of an effort to bother finishing it. It did have a few interesting ideas but their delivery, via an overly long conversation spanning several pages, was poor. It had little of the page turning drama of Dan Browns bestseller and at 440 pages was far too long. The ending was a particularly unbelievable act of cowardice based as it was on a complete about face by one of the major characters. Although entertaining enough it was most certainly light entertainment. If you’re going to read this I suggest you do so at the beach.

Video Time.

Run by Snow Patrol - with amazing video from Final Fantasy.

An Accident of History.

Those who know me or have been reading my Blog for a while should be aware of my long relationship with Science Fiction. I’ve been reading it since I was about 14 and that’s a very long time in Cyberkitten years. Those who know me will also be aware of my particular interest in Alternate History – a subject I have mentioned here on more that one occasion. This idea postulates that not only could things have been different but they could have been radically different. Not only are their innumerable turning points in the greater History of the world but there are also innumerable turning points in our personal Histories too.

Consider if battles that had been won or lost where instead lost or won. Consider what would have happened if Winston Churchill had been born a woman. It is unlikely that she would have become Prime Minister of England at a time of national crisis. Would the outcome of the Second World War have been different? Consider if the 300 Spartans have not marched to Thermopylae and died heroically to save Greece. Would the Western World be speaking Persian now? Consider if the rock that finished off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago had missed. Would we humans even be here discussing philosophical questions or would we be mere mammalian snacks for dinosaur descendents?

The point I’m making is that History is more fluid than we give it credit for and that this idea has an impact on all of our ideas and beliefs as well as historical events. Personally I am as passionate about my atheism as some of my Blog buddies are about their Christianity and I have already discussed how, if our personal Histories had been different, our beliefs would have been different too. But what about global beliefs, could they have been different? I certainly think so.

The content of the New Testament was decided in the 4th Century. The books within that document formed Orthodox Christianity. The many, many Gospels that also existed at that time became heretical were sought out and, where possible, destroyed. How might Christianity have changed if different Gospels had been incorporated into the Bible? What if the Council that decided such things had been Gnostics and so those Gospels had become the Orthodox teachings of the Church? What would have happened in Constantine had not converted to Christianity and it had not become the religion of the Roman Empire? Would it have remained one religious sect amongst many? Would it have died out and faded from the history books? Would we all be pagan polytheists now?

You see, I hope, what I’m getting at here? The worlds various belief systems are contingent on accidents of History. If things had turned out differently then billions of people would believe very different things than they do now. They would believe them equally passionately and would, knowing humans, be killing each other over the various interpretations of their beliefs. Or maybe not? If Christianity had died during the Roman Empire would we have had Islam? Did practitioners of pagan religions kill each other over their beliefs? Did they wage war on each other claiming that their God(s) superior to that of their enemies? I don’t know but its not ringing any bells.

All of our beliefs are based on Historical Accidents both personal and global. They could very easily have been very different. The passion that we feel for them could quite easily have been a passion for something quite different. Those of us who are certain of our views on such things should ponder this. We are what we are thanks to the fluidity of Time itself. There is no firm ground beneath our feet.

Atheists say they've been threatened over their views

Dylan T. Lovan for Associated Press

Sat, Dec. 30, 2006

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The note on Blair Scott's windshield wasn't a nice one. The anonymous writer had to have seen Scott's atheist-themed bumper sticker, an uncommon sight in the small south Alabama town where he lived at the time. "It just amazed me that people would take time out of their day to return to their car, grab a pen and paper and write a 'You're going to hell and you're going to burn in a lake of fire,' and stick it under my windshield," said Scott, a 36-year-old veteran who installs computer systems in prisons. Outspoken atheists like Scott remain a minority, but there are dozens of atheist chapters sprouting up around the country, and even many in Southern states dominated by conservative Christians. Many who consider themselves atheists said they're afraid to mention their views on religion or that they don't believe in deities. It's an especially unpopular opinion in the South, they said.

"Do I think that any of these people are really afraid if someone knows they're an atheist that they're going to get shot down on the street tomorrow? No. But the thought is always there in the back of your mind," said Joe Mays, Louisville computer technician who helped organize an atheist group that meets monthly. Atheism is generally considered a disbelief in god or other deities, but some self-described atheists said they feel it is better described as a conclusion one arrives at sometime in their life. "I don't really care for the word belief," said Edwin Kagan, a northern Kentucky lawyer who has defended atheist clients. "People say do I believe in evolution? It's not something to be believed in, it's something to be learned. Like the multiplication table. Do you believe in the multiplication table, or do you use it, do you learn it?"

Some estimates say as much as 15 percent of the population is atheist, though few call themselves by that title, said Jim Heldberg, national affiliation director for American Atheists in San Francisco. Heldberg said his group has 60 independent groups in many cities around the country. And there are many high-profile people who have expressed atheist views or a disbelief in God, including cyclist Lance Armstrong, golfer Annika Sorenstam and actresses Angelina Jolie and Jodie Foster. At a meeting of the Louisville atheist group earlier this year, several members spoke of a fear of retribution if they mentioned their views around family or at work. Most didn't want to be identified. The members - including a factory worker, a nurse, a real estate agent, an accountant and some who work in computers - considered putting up flyers in local bookstores to attract new members, but they scrapped the idea when one said they would likely be torn down.

"Nobody's your friend when you're an atheist," one member said. Another member, Christopher Helbert, wryly suggested that he would rather his parents know he was gay than an atheist, because they would say "gay is curable." A study at the University of Minnesota this year lends credence to the group's discussion. It found that Americans favor gays and lesbians, recent immigrants and Muslims over atheists in "sharing their vision of American society." Respondents also said they were least accepting of intermarriage with atheists than with any other group. "I think the key to this animosity is probably this idea that somehow morality and religion are deeply linked and if you lose any kind of religious doctrine, you inevitably lose some purchase upon morality," said Sam Harris, best-selling author of "Letter to a Christian Nation." Harris' book is a response to Christians who have criticized his writings on atheism. "People think unless you've found Jesus, you can't love your neighbor in any significant sense," he said. Some atheists have gone to court to challenge American institutions, most popularly the "Under God" portion of the Pledge of Allegiance, which was added in 1954.

In 2002, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools, agreeing with a suit filed by atheist Michael Newdow of Sacramento, Calif. The Supreme Court in 2004 reversed that decision. Newdow has since revived the case and last year a federal judge ruled in his favor. Newdow said atheists cannot get elected to office and that elected officials consistently side with people of faith on many issues." Government sends the message that it's a bad thing to be an atheist," Newdow said in a phone interview. Scott said when he was living in Mobile, Ala., people were tipped off to his atheist views after he wrote an editorial to the local newspaper protesting a proposed bible class at a public school. He said he never mentioned that he was an atheist in the letter. Scott said after that, his car was bashed up by a baseball bat and a cross was planted in his yard. He has since moved to Huntsville and now heads a local atheist chapter in that town, which he said is much more tolerant because of the number of NASA scientists who live there.

"I think there's almost an unwillingness to come out of the closet for most atheists, especially in the Bible belt, because of the type of repercussions from people of faith," he said. "Some nasty stuff has happened to people, some really nasty stuff. And people are afraid of that."

[Why are atheists feared and mistrusted so much – especially in the US? Why does not believing in something seemingly strike terror in the believers of that faith? It’s just too bizarre to get my head around. Again I’m SO happy that I live in Europe. Phew! Much kudos to all you atheists on the other side of the Pond. My thoughts are with you all].

Poster Time.

Child fingerprint plan considered

From the BBC.

Sunday, 4 March 2007

Proposals to fingerprint children aged 11 to 15 as part of new passport and ID card plans are being considered. Immigration minister Liam Byrne told ITV1's The Sunday Edition the proposals were being "looked at". Under existing plans every passport applicant over 16 will have details - including fingerprints - added to a National Identity register from 2008. But there was concern youngsters could use passports without biometric details up to the age of 20, said Mr Byrne. This could happen if they are issued a child passport between the ages of 11 and 15, which would be valid for five years. Both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties called the idea "sinister".

Officials at the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) had proposed the fingerprint database, said Mr Byrne. But he added that no final decision had yet been made on whether to go ahead with the idea. "The challenge that officials have been asked to find an answer to, is how do you make sure that people who are 16 and over have got biometric details recorded in their passports?" he told the programme.

Shadow home secretary David Davis said the proposal "borders on the sinister" and added it showed the government was trying to end the presumption of innocence. "This government is clearly determined to enforce major changes in the relationship between the citizen and the state in a way never seen before."

"The determination to build a surveillance state behind the backs of the British people is becoming increasingly sinister," said Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said. "It is a measure of ministerial arrogance that plans are being laid to fingerprint children as young as 11 without having a public debate first. As millions of British citizens discover that they will have to pay through the nose for the privilege of being included in a range of government databases, ministers should not be surprised if public resistance becomes ever more vocal."

Last month the opposition parties expressed anger that all fingerprints collected for ID cards would be cross-checked against prints from 900,000 unsolved crimes. And campaigners have long battled fingerprinting of children in schools, a practice they estimate happens in about 3,500 establishments. From this month guidelines from privacy watchdog the Information Commissioner will urge schools to get parental consent before taking biometric data. But under the Data Protection Act schools do not have to seek parental consent, and calls to outlaw the controversial practice have been rejected by the government. On Monday campaign group Leave Them Kids Alone will launch a list of 10 questions it recommends all parents ask of their child's school, if biometric systems are being considered or introduced. Campaigner David Clouter said they feared "normalising" the practice in schools would lessen resistance to pressure for the fingerprinting of younger and younger children. "Whatever the reason, it is an infringement of a person's civil liberties," he said.

[Wouldn't it just be easier to just tatoo barcodes on everyone's foreheads at birth or soon after... and while they're at it inject everyone with a GPS tracking device?]

Atheists' bleak alternative

by Jeff Jacoby for the Boston Globe

December 13, 2006

From the land that produced "A Christmas Carol" and Handel's "Messiah," more evidence that Christianity is fading in Western Europe: Nearly 99 percent of Christmas cards sold in Great Britain contain no religious message or imagery. "Traditional pictures such as angels blowing trumpets over a stable, Jesus in his manger, the shepherds and three wise men following the star to Bethlehem are dying out," the Daily Mail reports. A review of some 5,500 Christmas cards turns up fewer than 70 that make any reference to the birth of Jesus. "Hundreds . . . avoided any image linked to Christmas at all" -- even those with no spiritual significance, such as Christmas trees or Santa Claus.

Presumably the greeting-card industry is only supplying what the market demands; if Christian belief and practice weren't vanishing from the British scene, Christian-themed cards wouldn't be, either. But some Britons, not all of them devout, are resisting the tide. Writing in the Telegraph, editor-at-large Jeff Randall -- who describes himself as "somewhere between an agnostic and a mild believer" -- announces that any Christmas card he receives that doesn't at least mention the word "Christmas" goes straight into the trash. "Jettisoning Christmas-less cards is my tiny, almost certainly futile, gesture against the dark forces of political correctness," he writes. "It's a swipe at those who would prefer to abolish Christmas altogether, in case it offends 'minorities.' Someone should tell them that, with only one in 15 Britons going to church on Sundays, Christians are a minority."

Meanwhile, the employment law firm Peninsula says that 75 percent of British companies have banned Christmas decorations for fear of being sued by someone who finds the holiday offensive. And it isn't only in December that this anti-Christian animus rears its head. British Airways triggered a furor when it ordered an employee to hide the tiny cross she wears around her neck. At the BBC, senior executives agreed that they would not air a program showing a Koran being thrown in the garbage -- but that the trashing of a Bible would be acceptable. "It's extraordinary," remarks Randall. "In an increasingly godless age, there is a rising tide of hatred against those who adhere to biblical values." A "tyrannical minority" of intolerant secularists is openly contemptuous of traditional moral norms. "The teachings and guidance of old-fashioned Christianity offend them, so they seek to remove all traces of it from public life."

You don't have to be especially pious to find this atheist zealotry alarming. Nor do you have to live in Europe. Though religion remains important in American life, antireligious passion is surging here, too. Examples abound: In two recent best sellers , Sam Harris heaps scorn on religious believers, whose faith he derides as "a few products of ancient ignorance and derangement." A study in the Journal of Religion and Society claims that belief in God correlates with higher rates of homicide, sexual promiscuity, and other social ills, and that when compared with relatively secular democracies, the churchgoing United States "is almost always the most dysfunctional." Secular absolutists demand that schools and government venues be cleansed of any hint of religious expression -- be it a cross on the Los Angeles County seal, a courthouse display of the Ten Commandments, or the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

What is at stake in all this isn't just angels on Christmas cards. What society loses when it discards Judeo-Christian faith and belief in God is something far more difficult to replace: the value system most likely to promote ethical behavior and sustain a decent society. That is because without God, the difference between good and evil becomes purely subjective. What makes murder inherently wrong is not that it feels wrong, but that a transcendent Creator to whom we are answerable commands: "Thou shalt not murder." What makes kindness to others inherently right is not that human reason says so, but that God does: "Love thy neighbor as thyself; I am the Lord."

Obviously this doesn't mean that religious people are always good, or that religion itself cannot lead to cruelty. Nor does it mean that atheists cannot be beautiful, ethical human beings. Belief in God alone does not guarantee goodness. But belief tethered to clear ethical values -- Judeo-Christian monotheism -- is society's best bet for restraining our worst moral impulses and encouraging our best ones. The atheist alternative is a world in which right and wrong are ultimately matters of opinion, and in which we are finally accountable to no one but ourselves. That is anything but a tiding of comfort and joy.

[Whilst interesting to see the decline in religious based Christmas cards as yet another indicator of the decline of Christianity in the UK I do rather question this ‘War on Christmas’ fear being whipped up on both sides of the ‘Pond’. I think that’s its nothing more than rank nonsense as is the idea that only Judeo-Christian ethics can ‘save us’ from ourselves. A secular atheist world view is far from bleak. If it was, why is Europe in particular apparently turning its back on Christianity in ever increasing numbers? If the Church was fulfilling an obvious need then why have congregations been falling since the 1950’s? To say that Christianity in particular is the cure for what ails us calls into question why the cure has failed during the last 2000 years - Maybe because it isn’t a cure for anything after all?]

Ancient chimps used stone tools.

From the BBC.

13 February 2007

Chimpanzees in West Africa used stone tools to crack nuts 4,300 years ago. The discovery represents the oldest evidence of tool use by our closest evolutionary relative. The skill could have been inherited from a common ancestor of chimps and humans, the authors say, or learnt from humans by imitation. Alternatively, humans and chimps may have developed tool use independently, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal reports. Chimpanzees were first observed using stone tools in the 19th century. Julio Mercader and colleagues found stone tools at the Noulo site in Ivory Coast, the only known prehistoric chimpanzee settlement.

The excavated stones showed the hallmarks of use as tools for smashing nuts when compared with ancient human or modern chimpanzee stone tools. Also, several types of starch grains were found on the stones, which the researchers say is residue derived from cracking local nuts. "Chimpanzee material culture has a long prehistory whose deep roots are only beginning to be uncovered," write the researchers in Proceedings. The tools were found to be 4,300 years old, which, in human terms, corresponds to the later Stone Age, before the advent of agriculture in the area. The age of the tools was determined by subjecting charcoal from the same ground layers to the technique of radiocarbon dating.

Cartoon Time.

Video Time.

Atheism 101 Part 5.

Israel Seeks All Clear for Iran Air Strike

by Con Coughlin for the Telegraph

February 24, 2007

Israel is negotiating with the United States for permission to fly over Iraq as part of a plan to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, The Daily Telegraph can reveal. To conduct surgical air strikes against Iran's nuclear programme, Israeli war planes would need to fly across Iraq. But to do so the Israeli military authorities in Tel Aviv need permission from the Pentagon.

A senior Israeli defence official said negotiations were now underway between the two countries for the US-led coalition in Iraq to provide an "air corridor" in the event of the Israeli government deciding on unilateral military action to prevent Teheran developing nuclear weapons. "We are planning for every eventuality, and sorting out issues such as these are crucially important," said the official, who asked not to be named. "The only way to do this is to fly through US-controlled air space. If we don't sort these issues out now we could have a situation where American and Israeli war planes start shooting at each other."

As Iran continues to defy UN demands to stop producing material which could be used to build a nuclear bomb, Israel's military establishment is moving on to a war footing, with preparations now well under way for the Jewish state to launch air strikes against Teheran if diplomatic efforts fail to resolve the crisis. The pace of military planning in Israel has accelerated markedly since the start of this year after Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, provided a stark intelligence assessment that Iran, given the current rate of progress being made on its uranium enrichment programme, could have enough fissile material for a nuclear warhead by 2009.

Last week Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, announced that he had persuaded Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad for the past six years and one of Israel's leading experts on Iran's nuclear programme, to defer his retirement until at least the end of next year. Mr Olmert has also given overall control of the military aspects of the Iran issue to Eliezer Shkedi, the head of the Israeli Air Force and a former F-16 fighter pilot. The international community will increase the pressure on Iran when senior officials from the five permanent of the United Nations Security Council and Germany meet at an emergency summit to be held in London on Monday.

Iran ignored a UN deadline of last Wednesday to halt uranium enrichment. Officials will discuss arms controls and whether to cut back on the $25 billion-worth of export credits which are used by European companies to trade with Iran. A high-ranking British source said: "There is a debate within the six countries on sanctions and economic measures." British officials insist that this "incremental" approach of tightening the pressure on Iran is starting to turn opinion within Iran. One source said: "We are on the right track. There is time for diplomacy to take effect."

[If such a crazy plan comes to fruition and Israel actually attacks Iran with US approval I shudder to think what the consequences will be. Certainly it will make the present fighting in the Middle East look positively calm by comparison. Haven't people learnt yet that military 'solutions' normally turn out to be anything but solutions?]

What is Left? What is Right?

Heather Mac Donald for The American Conservative

August 28, 2006

[Nod to The Secular Outpost for linking to this]

Upon leaving office in November 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft thanked his staff for keeping the country safe since 9/11. But the real credit, he added, belonged to God. Ultimately, it was God’s solicitude for America that had prevented another attack on the homeland. Many conservatives hear such statements with a soothing sense of approbation. But others—count me among them—feel bewilderment, among much else. If God deserves thanks for fending off assaults on the United States after 9/11, why is he not also responsible for allowing the 2001 hijackings to happen in the first place? Skeptical conservatives—one of the Right’s less celebrated subcultures—are conservatives because of their skepticism, not in spite of it. They ground their ideas in rational thinking and (nonreligious) moral argument. And the conservative movement is crippling itself by leaning too heavily on religion to the exclusion of these temperamentally compatible allies. Conservative atheists and agnostics support traditional American values. They believe in personal responsibility, self-reliance, and deferred gratification as the bedrock virtues of a prosperous society. They view marriage between a man and a woman as the surest way to raise stable, law-abiding children. They deplore the encroachments of the welfare state on matters best left to private effort.

They also find themselves mystified by the religiosity of the rhetoric that seems to define so much of conservatism today. Our Republican president says that he bases “a lot of [his] foreign policy decisions” on his belief in “the Almighty” and in the Almighty’s “great gifts” to mankind. What is one to make of such a statement? According to believers, the Almighty’s actions are only intermittently scrutable; using them as a guide for policy, then, would seem reckless. True, when a potential tragedy is averted, believers decipher God’s beneficent intervention with ease. The father of Elizabeth Smart, the Salt Lake City girl abducted from her home in 2002, thanked God for answering the public’s prayers for her safe return. When nine miners were pulled unharmed from a collapsed Pennsylvania mineshaft in 2002, a representative placard read: “Thank you God, 9 for 9.” God’s mercy was supposedly manifest when children were saved from the 2005 Indonesian tsunami. But why did the prayers for five-year-old Samantha Runnion go unheeded when she was taken from her Southern California home in 2002 and later sexually assaulted and asphyxiated? If you ask a believer, you will be told that the human mind cannot fathom God’s ways. It would seem as if God benefits from double standards of a kind that would make even affirmative action look just. When 12 miners were killed in a West Virginia mine explosion in January 2006, no one posted a sign saying: “For God’s sake, please explain: Why 1 for 13?” Innocent children were swept away in the 2005 tsunami, too, but believers blamed natural forces, not God. The presumption of religious belief—not to mention the contradictory thinking that so often accompanies it—does damage to conservatism by resting its claims on revealed truth. But on such truth there can be no agreement without faith. And a lot of us do not have such faith—nor do we need it to be conservative.

Nonbelievers look elsewhere for a sense of order, valuing the rule of law for its transparency to all rational minds and debating Supreme Court decisions without reverting to mystical precepts or “natural law.” It is perfectly possible to revere the Founding Fathers and their monumental accomplishment without celebrating, say, “Washington’s God.” Skeptical conservatives even believe themselves to be good citizens, a possibility denied by Richard John Neuhaus in a 1991 article. I have heard it said in the last six years that what makes conservatives superior to liberals is their religious faith—as if morality is impossible without religion and everything is indeed permitted, as the cliché has it. I wonder whether religious conservatives can spot the atheists among them by their deeds or, for that matter, by their political positions. I very much doubt it. Skeptical conservatives do not look into the abyss when they make ethical choices. Their moral sense is as secure as a believer’s. They do not need God or the Christian Bible to discover the golden rule and see themselves in others. It is often said, in defense of religion, that we all live parasitically off of its moral legacy, that we can only dismiss religion because we are protected by the work it has already done on our behalf. This claim has been debated ad nauseam since at least the middle of the 19th century. Suffice it to say that, to many of us, Western society has become more compassionate, humane, and respectful of rights as it has become more secular. Just compare the treatment of prisoners in the 14th century to today, an advance due to Enlightenment reformers. A secularist could as easily chide today’s religious conservatives for wrongly ignoring the heritage of the Enlightenment.

A secular value system is of course no guarantee against injustice and brutality, but then neither is Christianity. America’s antebellum plantation owners found solid support for slaveholding in their cherished Bible, to name just one group of devout Christians who have brought suffering to the world. So maybe religious conservatives should stop assuming that they alone occupy the field. Maybe they should cut back a bit on their religious triumphalism. Nonbelievers are good conservatives, too. As Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center has advised, it should be possible for conservatives to unite on policy without agreeing on theology.

Vatican asks UN for moratorium on cluster bombs

From Ekklesia - 08/09/06

The Vatican's permanent observer to the United Nations has called for a moratorium on submunitions, otherwise known as 'scatterable mines' or 'cluster bombs'. Submunitions are air-dropped or ground launched shells that eject multiple small bomblets, grenades, or mines. Small and explosive or chemical-filled, they are designed for saturation coverage of a large area, and in effect create large mine fields designed to kill or main. As well as military casualties, according to evidence gathered by non-governmental and international organisations, the use of cluster munitions has resulted in a consistent pattern of civilian harm.

Civilian casualties take place at the time of attacks but also in the post-conflict period as a result of unexploded bombs left behind. Campaigners say the full extent of this harm cannot be known because of difficulties in gathering information at the time of attacks and because casualties are still occurring in almost all countries where cluster munitions have been used. The use of cluster bombs has been admitted by both the U.S. and British military. Both used several types of cluster munitions, including those that have caused severe humanitarian problems in the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. The call for a moratorium came from Archbishop Silvano Tomasi was speaking at the 15th Session of the Group of Governmental Experts of States Parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) which was held from August 28 to September 6.

Archbishop Tomasi said: "we have heard no convincing evidence from those who consider these arms [sub-munitions] to be legitimate. In any case, all arms are called legitimate before being prohibited or regulated. Was that not true of chemical, biological, incendiary and laser weapons? The fact of declaring a particular armament legitimate does not make it more acceptable or less inhuman." After highlighting how the Holy See considers "it vital to undertake a profound reflection on the nature and use of sub-munitions," Archbishop Tomasi pointed out that the victims of conflict "cannot wait for years of negotiations and discussions. For this reason, there must be a moratorium on the use of these arms. At the same time, the States parties to the CCW must set themselves to work."

In 2004, Pope, John Paul II urged the destruction of landmine stockpiles and called on nations including China, Russia, India and the US to adhere to the 1997 Ottowa Convention to ban them.

[..and the Vactian right on the money.. again. I'm impressed.]

Poster Time.

Just Finished Reading: Obsidian Butterfly by Laurell K. Hamilton.

On her return from a routine resurrection vampire hunter Anita Blake receives an unexpected phone call. Her mentor and sometimes fellow monster hunter Edward needs her help. Something is slaughtering its way across New Mexico and Edward wants it stopped in the only way he and Anita know how – hunt it and kill it. But as soon as Anita arrives complication is piled upon complication and death in its many forms is never far away.

This is the ninth book in the Anita Blake, vampire hunter series and by far the longest at just under 600 pages. Despite ‘knowing’ Anita and her world fairly well by now Laurell Hamilton still manages to keep things interesting despite a few annoying literary habits. In this volume we find out a bit more about the enigmatic Edward and the story throws out a few more hints of the wider world they live in. Broadly similar to our own – indeed for several volumes I thought it was our ‘reality’ – the world Anita inhabits is full of vampires, werewolves, witches and much else. It is a world that has come to terms with its long association with the supernatural to the extent that it is a fully integrated part of the culture complete with its own history, mythology and politics. That alone would make her books interesting.

But what I really like about this series of books is the character of Anita herself. Inevitably reminiscent of Buffy, Anita is a diminutive attractive woman with a troubled love life (having both a vampire and a werewolf as her lovers) and a nagging worry about both her soul and her sanity. Her character is complex enough to make her real yet not too fabricated for the reader to lose interest. You find yourself sharing her pain as she goes about her job riding the world of monsters while hoping she doesn’t become one in the process.

Although classified as Horror I would personally call this type of book Action Fantasy. There are certainly horrific elements in most of this series so far – the scene in the hospital nursery comes to mind in this book – but unlike most horror books I’ve read (which actually don’t amount to that many) the horror elements in Hamilton’s books are not their purely to frighten or disturb. They are there to show the reader the level of evil Anita is attempting to vanquish. Hamilton does have an irritating habit of introducing too much sadism and far too much sadistic sex into her novels but if you can skim over that (as I tend to do) you’ll find her novels to be sure fire page turning entertainment.

Cartoon Time.

Video Time.

Atheism 101 Part 4

Bush's Burned Bridges

by Rosa Brooks for the Los Angeles Times

July 21, 2006

Things fell apart so quickly.

At the beginning of this millennium, the Cold War was over, the prosperous United States was the sole remaining superpower and global opinion was largely sympathetic to U.S. aims. In the wake of brutal ethnic wars in Central Europe and Africa, the international community had forged a new determination to prevent conflict and atrocities. The volatile Middle East was quiet, and the world seemed headed toward stability rather than chaos. Only six years later, things couldn't be more different. The Bush administration's tunnel-vision approach to foreign policy has pushed the U.S. and the world into a devastating tailspin of conflict without end.

In Afghanistan, this year is shaping up to be the deadliest yet for U.S. troops. In Iraq, which President Bush promised would be "a source of true stability in the region," the carnage has been mind-boggling, and by late September, the fighting will have dragged on for 3 1/2 years — the same length of time it took us to defeat Germany in World War II. The total implosion of the Middle East highlights the continuing decline of U.S. prestige and influence. As Israeli planes — built with our money — pummel Lebanon, our world is becoming ever more perilous and American pre-eminence ever more fragile. The violent Hezbollah incursion into Israel was a deliberate provocation, to be sure, but Israel's response has dizzyingly upped the ante. Hundreds of Lebanese civilians — a disproportionate number — already have been killed by Israeli airstrikes. More than a dozen Israeli civilians have died in retaliatory Hezbollah rocket attacks. And that's just the beginning.

If Syria or Iran gets drawn into the conflict to bail out their Hezbollah client, Israel will retaliate against them as well. Spooked by Iran's burgeoning nuclear capabilities, Israel may be looking for just such an excuse to launch a punishing strike against Iran. Even if the conflict doesn't spread, it is already hardening the battle lines between the U.S. and our allies and the Muslim world. The conflict will breed a new generation of martyrs, a new generation of hungry children growing up amid the rubble and a new generation of mistrustful, bitter fighters — some of whom will be willing to blow themselves up for the chance of taking Israelis or Americans down with them.

The cataclysm in the Middle East represents the final and total failure of the Bush administration's foreign policy. After 9/11, the world was on our side, and we had a unique opportunity to turn tragedy into triumph, to strengthen the alliances and global institutions that have long sustained American pre-eminence. We wasted that opportunity. We promised to make the world safer, but we've turned it into a tinderbox. We promised to unite our allies, but we've sown rage and division. We promised to promote democracy, but we did so through violent and poorly thought-through "regime change" rather than through diplomacy, friendship and foreign aid. Now Israel, our closest Middle Eastern ally, appears hell-bent on destroying Lebanon — the second most democratic state in the region, which has been struggling successfully to cast off the Syrian yoke.

A year ago, the administration was pledging to support Lebanon's fragile and hard-gained democracy. Today, "the country has been torn to shreds," as Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora bitterly told diplomats. "Is this the price we pay for aspiring to build our democratic institutions?" And as the conflagration worsens, Washington is indecisive and impotent. We might use our leverage with Israel to push for an immediate cease-fire and a long-term political solution, but we lack the courage to criticize Israel. The administration's insistence on the right to unilateral self-defense (no matter how disproportionate) would make any U.S. criticism of Israel hypocritical anyway. We could use our leverage with Syria to get Syria to make Hezbollah back off, but we have no leverage with Syria. We refuse to have direct discussions with Syria anyway. We could use our leverage with Iran to get Iran to make Hezbollah back off, but we have no leverage with Iran. And we refuse to have direct discussions with Iran anyway, unless Iran agrees to all our nuclear demands in advance. And Israel, Syria and Iran all know that they can do as they wish at the moment without fear of a meaningful U.S. response. They understand (as does North Korea's Kim Jong Il) that we're bogged down in Iraq, too overextended to spend time, money or troops to stop the latest catastrophe.

We've burned up every ounce of goodwill we ever had, we've burned every diplomatic bridge we ever had, and now we can do nothing but sit on our hands as the ashes rain down all around us. Engraved on a wall at the British Imperial War Museum is a phrase attributed to Plato: "Only the dead have seen the end of war." It was meant as a warning about the perils of arrogance and empire — and the Bush administration seems determined to prove the aphorism's truth.

Economics of the suicide bomber

by Heather Stewart for The Observer

February 25, 2007

Better-educated suicide bombers are given harder targets and succeed in killing more victims, according to research by American economists. Efraim Benmelech and Claude Berrebi, of the National Bureau of Economic Research, studied almost 150 Palestinian suicide bombings, and found that older recruits, and those with more schooling, were assigned to tougher targets. 'The suicide bomber's age and education and the importance of the target are strongly correlated,' they say. Previous research has suggested that suicide bombers may make a rational economic decision that fame, honour and support for their families outweigh any benefits they are likely to gain from a lifetime of ordinary paid employment.

Benmelech and Berrebi suggest that, since more educated bombers could earn more in the labour market, they may demand higher-profile targets, with greater potential rewards. At the same time, terrorist organisations are likely to want to direct their most educated recruits to the hardest jobs. Of 148 bombers examined, 18 per cent had stayed in education beyond high school, compared with 8 per cent in the Palestinian population as a whole.

[A rather interesting way of looking at a disturbing phenomenon I thought.]

Rise of the funerals that leave out God

By Caroline McClatchey for the Sunday Telegraph

04/03/2007

More than 30,000 funerals in Britain last year were nonreligious, as families turn increasingly to "celebration-of-life" ceremonies rather than church services, according to new figures. The rise is being attributed to people's growing willingness to admit that they are non-believers, and to their desire to avoid "hypocrisy". Ten years ago, a funeral without a minister of religion and reference to God was virtually unheard of but increasingly, services are presided over by a "celebrant" and involve poems instead of psalms, while mourners are often asked to wear something bright rather than black.

One in 20 families now rejects a church service in favour of a celebration of life, according to the National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD), which represents 85 per cent of the industry. Most of those choosing non-religious funerals were brought up as Anglicans or Presbyterians but have stopped going to church and no longer believe in God, said Dominic Maguire, a spokesman for the association. "Years ago, people thought they needed a minister of some religion," he said. "They were concerned about what the neighbours would think. Now they are saying there's going to be no hypocrisy in death." Lapsed Roman Catholics are more likely to be "dragged" into church by their families, he added.

Christine Frain, 62, from Chiswick in west London, decided on a non-religious funeral for her husband Ron, a photographer who died of cancer in December. She said the 75-year-old jazz fan had not believed in God or an after-life, so a more personal affair "with plenty of Miles Davis" was more true to him. "He was born a Catholic but was deeply suspicious of religion," said Mrs Frain, a retired secretary. "We had poems and I wrote something about his life. It was not religious at all." Caroline Black, 50, a British Humanist Association celebrant, organised Mr Frain's funeral. When she finished her training six years ago, there were 120 humanist celebrants in England and Wales. There are now 220. Referring to herself as the "atheist vicar of Dibley", she said: "Every ceremony is unique and reflects the character of the deceased. The minister or God doesn't own the funeral, the family does."

Miss Black conducted the funeral last year of Linda Smith, the comedian and a former president of the British Humanist Association. The funerals of comics Ronnie Barker, Bob Monkhouse and Dave Allen, and of John Curry, the ice-skater, were humanist. Robert Bolt, the writer and director who wrote A Man For All Seasons and the screenplays for Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and Ryan's Daughter, had a secular funeral in 1995. Part of the appeal of non-religious services may also be the increased cost of conventional funerals. Britons spent £1.3 billion on funerals last year and the average cost has risen by 61 per cent from £2,048 in 2000 to £3,307 last year. A celebrant from the British Humanist Association charges an average £130, about the same fee as an average clergyman.

Most non-religious services take place in crematoriums. Up to seven out of 10 bodies are cremated, which is the cheaper option. Many cemeteries will run out of space within 10 years, forcing councils to consider unpopular solutions such as "double-decker" graves, with coffins buried on top of one another. However, cremation also poses problems. The fumes from vaporised dental fillings make up 16 per cent of mercury emissions, according to government figures. More Britons are opting for coffins of wicker and cardboard. The NAFD estimate there are 2,000 "green" funerals every year and that there are now 214 "natural" burial grounds across Britain, compared with 52 in 1997.

The Church of England carried out 207,300 funerals in 2005, down from 228,000 in 2001 and there have been calls for all churches to modernise services to boost numbers. The Rev Paul Sinclair, the founder of Motorcycle Funerals, which uses side-car hearses in place of traditional vehicles, said it was already happening. "Most church ministers I know will happily have music the deceased liked and will not insist on hymns," said the Pentecostal minister. "We need to get the message out to people that the church has come a long way."

Cartoon Time.

Just Finished Reading: Six Impossible Things before Breakfast – The Evolutionary Origins of Belief by Lewis Wolpert.

Professor Wolpert in this interesting little book puts forward the idea that the foundations of our beliefs – all of our beliefs – originate from the time when early humans began using and making tools for the first time. This process of making tools – almost a definition of humanness in itself – changed the structure of the brain through natural selection ‘designing in’ beliefs regarding cause and effect. Wolpert extends this suggestion to encompass beliefs about health, the supernatural, religion, morality and much else besides.

Whilst full of interesting ideas and snippets of information I think that Professor Wolpert failed to make his case here. I can certainly understand why we can be ‘programmed’ to believe things – to have in effect a ‘belief engine’ as part of our brain structure - but I’m not convinced that this followed on from the process of early tool making. It certainly might have had an impact on the development of beliefs but it wasn’t necessarily at the core of things.

I actually found this book to be fairly badly written. Wolpert made many statements (some of which I agreed with) but made little effort to back them up. I continually found his assertions to be heavy with conjecture but light on the evidence to support them. Even though I agree with his idea that evolution most likely plays a significant part in the development of our belief systems – to the extent that we are built to believe – I would have liked to see a stronger argument put forward to support it. Six Impossible Things was an interesting and often thought provoking read but a little too light for my liking.

Advanced geometry of Islamic art

From the BBC.

23 February 2007

A study of medieval Islamic art has shown some of its geometric patterns use principles established centuries later by modern mathematicians. Researchers in the US have found 15th Century examples that use the concept of quasicrystalline geometry. This indicates intuitive understanding of complex mathematical formulae, even if the artisans had not worked out the underlying theory, the study says. The discovery is published in the journal Science. The research shows an important breakthrough had occurred in Islamic mathematics and design by 1200. "It's absolutely stunning," Harvard's Peter Lu said in an interview.

"They made tilings that reflect mathematics that were so sophisticated that we didn't figure it out until the last 20 or 30 years." The Islamic designs echo quasicrystalline geometry in that both use symmetrical polygonal shapes to create patterns that can be extended indefinitely. Until now, the conventional view was that the complicated star-and-polygon patterns of Islamic design were conceived as zigzagging lines drafted using straightedge rulers and compasses. "You can go through and see the evolution of increasing geometric sophistication. So they start out with simple patterns, and they get more complex," Mr Lu added.

He became interested in the subject while travelling in Uzbekistan, where he noticed a 16th Century Islamic building with decagonal motif tiling. Mr Lu, who designs physics experiments for the International Space Station, was in the region in order to visit a space facility in Turkmenistan.

Islamic art traditionally uses a mixture of calligraphy, geometric and floral designs because of a prohibition on the portrayal of the human form.

[Interesting. I must admit that I found Islamic art and architecture both fascinating and incredibly beautiful on a visit to Spain some years ago. Maybe it was the mathematics?]

Poster Time.

Video Time.

Atheism 101 Part 3

Bush Military Budget Highest Since WWII

by William D. Hartung for CommonDreams.org

February 10, 2007

Even by Bush administration standards, the military spending proposal for Fiscal Year 2008 - the budget year beginning on October 1, 2007 -- is enormous. The request for the "regular" military budget, which includes Pentagon spending plus work on nuclear warheads and naval reactors at the Department of Energy, was $499 billion. This represents a $46 billion increase from the current budget year.

Figures for the regular military budget exclude the costs of the current wars that the United States is engaged in. A proposed supplemental appropriation to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq of $141.7 billion brings proposed military spending for FY 2008 to $647.2 billion, the highest level of military spending since the end of World War II - higher than Vietnam, higher than Korea, higher than the peak of the Reagan buildup. There will also be a proposed supplemental of $93.4 billion added to this year's (FY 2007) budget, bringing the total for the year to $622.4 billion. This spending spree comes at a time when America's main enemy is not a rival superpower like the Soviet Union, but a network of terrorist groups armed primarily with explosives, shoulder-fired missiles, and AK-47s. And even if one accepts the "need" to fight a war like the current US occupation of Iraq, there are tens of billions of dollars in the administration's budget proposal that will never be used in that conflict. Requests for systems like the F-22 fighter ($4.6 billion), the V-22 Osprey ($2.6 billion), the CVN-21 aircraft carrier ($3.1 billion), the SSN-774 Virginia attack submarine ($2.7 billion), the Trident D-5 Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile ($1.2 billion), and Ballistic Missile Defense ($10.8 billion) are just a few examples of weapons that are unnecessary, unworkable, or both.

What do all these figures mean? How can the average person make sense of these billions and billions and billions of dollars? Some comparisons may be helpful. Proposed U.S. military spending for FY 2008 is larger than military spending by all of the other nations in the world combined. At $141.7 billion, this year's proposed spending on the Iraq war is larger than the military budgets of China and Russia combined. Total U.S. military spending for FY2008 is roughly ten times the military budget of the second largest military spending country in the world, China. Journalist Jim Lobe of the Interpress Service notes that proposed U.S. military spending is larger than the combined gross domestic products (GDP) of all 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The FY 2008 military budget proposal is more than 30 times higher than all spending on State Department operations and non-military foreign aid combined. The FY 2008 military budget is over 120 times higher than the roughly $5 billion per year the U.S. government spends on combating global warming.

FY 2008 military spending represents 58 cents out of every dollar spent by the U.S. government on discretionary programs - the items that Congress gets to vote up or down on an annual basis. This means that military spending is more than the combined totals of spending on education, environmental protection, administration of justice, veteran's benefits, housing assistance, transportation, job training, agriculture, energy, and economic development. As the poverty rate continues to climb, the FY 2008 budget proposes cuts of $13 billion in non-military related discretionary spending, including cuts of $1.4 billion from the Community Development Block Grant; $436 million from Head Start; $1.1 billion from the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program; $669 million from Special Education; and $111 million from the Child Care and Development Block Grant. Progressives need to come up with more ideas about how to describe the size - and impact - of military spending levels. Educating the broader public on this issue will depend in significant part on whether we can find comparisons that make these massive numbers real to people.

One last point -- despite spending these huge sums on the military, the situation in Iraq is getting worse by the day, and U.S. troops are taking greater and greater risks as a result of shortages of equipment and training and reductions in down time between deployments.

[With all the problems the world is facing – to say nothing of internal US issues – this is a truly obscene waste of time, effort, expertise and money to say nothing of the number of lives that will be lost when these weapons are used (if they ever are). Is the staggering amount of money the world spends on improved ways to kill more people a really productive way to make a better world and make us sleep safely in our beds? I think not.]

Cartoon Time.