Stupid AND Poor.

Here's something interesting. Religious people, on average, are less wealthy than non-religious folks. Probably has something to do with them not being as smart as rational people, I would have thought. Let's face it, if you believe in a magical malevolent sky fairy, I'm sure it's pretty easy to be taken in by pretty much any old scam, I would think.

The study examines why conservative Protestants are dramatically overrepresented at the bottom of the U.S. wealth distribution and concludes that the cultural understandings that accompany conservative Protestant beliefs influence wealth ownership directly and indirectly.

But there is a reason for it, it seems. According to Lisa A. Keister, Duke professor of sociology and author of “Conservative Protestants and Wealth: How Religion Perpetuates Asset Poverty,” published in the March issue of the American Journal of Sociology,

The direct influence stems from conservative Protestants’ unique approach to finances -- in particular the belief that people are managers of God’s money and excess accumulation of wealth should be avoided.

In addition, conservative Protestants have tended to be less educated and have large families beginning at younger ages; and fewer conservative Protestant women work, all of which indirectly contribute to slow asset accumulation.

A couple of the reasons made me laugh out loud. Apparently, conservative christians tend to ask for

...Divine advice, advice from clergy and other religious advice about money and work...More conservative Protestants than other people surveyed are likely to pray about financial decisions, for example.

Clearly, it's not helping. Let's be real here, you can't trust your kid with a priest, so why would you trust him on money matters also? And, not surprisingly, low educational attainment is a factor too:

Education is one of the strongest predictors of wealth, and conservative Protestants have significantly less education than members of other faiths.

So there you go. Christians: Stupid and poor.

Late Easter....

I know it's a little late for Easter, but I thought since it was a festive time, I'd add a few quotes from George Carlin (courtesy of the "Orgy of George" desk calendar for last weekend):

I have as much authority as the pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it

Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham will lead a nationwide prayer vigil and ask God to do something about America's moral climate. God will promptly strike all three of them dead.

(Note - Jerry met his maker, or not, depending on your viewpoint, last year)

Religion at work.

According to CNN, religion in the workplace is on the rise:

Religion, like sex and politics, once was considered inappropriate watercooler talk. Not anymore. Prayer sessions, religious diversity groups and chaplains..., along with rabbis and imams, have become more common across corporate America in the past decade.

This makes no sense. Work is for, well, work and religion is for Sundays. Please keep the two separate. I may just have to start a pink unicorn or yellow bunny (appropriate for Easter) worship group just to keep things fair. I like the last quote though:

There are more places to pray in America than (there are) pizza parlors. Go to them.

Religion, Obama and McCain

Religion is once again rearing it's ugly head in American politics. Barack Obama has been forced to distance himself from the words of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. It's possible that it may be enough of a "scandal" to ensure Hillary Clinton's victory in the democratic race for President. And that's sad.

The culture here in the US is one where even the slightest whiff of scandal can drag down even the best candidates. We have to stop focusing on minor issues - here, it's what someone close to a campaign (not the candidate, note) said a few years ago that is controversial. We need to be listening to the candidate's views on the big issues of the day - the economy, the war for example, rather than the scandal of the day.

It's worth noting that associating with anyone religious can get you into this kind of trouble. If it's not Obama, it's McCain with John Hagee, who has preached that Hurricane Katrina was the result of God's wrath against gay people, and that he's happy about the Iraq war because it will hasten Armageddon. And McCain is "proud" to have his support.

Candidates are caught in a quandary. They need to pander to the religious nuts, but come off just looking stupid. They have to decide whether stupidity will get them more votes than rationalism. Unfortunately, it looks like it does.

Teh Stupid - it's spreading!

...let us count the states where teh stupid is spreading....

• Florida (although we won a battle there, there's still unrest amongst the nuts)
• Texas (again, one battle won, but it's certainly not the war)
• New Mexico: "Academic Freedom" which is defined as teaching anything but the facts of evolution. Of course, academic freedom doesn't extend to creation myths beyond the bible.
  
• Oklahoma: An "Academic Freedom" bill that would protect students who give answers based on their religious beliefs, and not the facts:

  Students may be evaluated based upon their understanding of course materials, but no student, in any public school shall be penalized in any way because the student may subscribe to a particular position on scientific views.

  At least there are some in Oklahoma who are vehemently opposed -from the Edmond Sun:

  On Monday the Oklahoma House of Representatives Common Education Committee took direct aim at the integrity of science education in Oklahoma’s public schools, and thereby threatened the economic prosperity that Oklahoma so desperately needs. Intelligent Design is a false theory. It contains no testable hypotheses; it has proposed none. Intelligent Design is not science, and teachers who propose it to their students as science, and as a legitimate alternative to evolution, are violating the sacred trust they have with society, with their employers, with their students, and with themselves to practice academic responsibility, that all important correlate of academic freedom.

• Delaware: This story is incredible - I can't believe school board members are this backward. Here's a quote:

  During the meeting, Doe said, "a guy stood up and said the last one to oppose school prayer was [atheist leader] Madalyn Murray O'Hair and she disappeared never to be seen again." (O'Hair was abducted and murdered). Hearing that, Doe said, "sent chills down my spine. But people laughed, and they hooted and hollered, and applauded this guy" Doe said, adding, "He used to be a school board member."

• Minnesota: Another "academic freedom" bill that's anything but.
  

Just keeping track. I'll keep adding to the list. Note that this is just in the last couple of weeks - I'm sure there's more insanity out there. Let me know if you spot anything.

7 More Deadly sins.

OK - let's see what the Catholic Church has come up with to add to the list of the worst things possible:

“You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbour’s wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos,” he said.

Bishop Girotti said that mortal sins also included taking or dealing in drugs, and social injustice which caused poverty or “the excessive accumulation of wealth by a few”.

He said that two mortal sins which continued to preoccupy the Vatican were abortion, which offended “the dignity and rights of women”, and paedophilia, which had even infected the clergy itself and so had exposed the “human and institutional fragility of the Church”.

The mass media had “blown up” the issue “to discredit the Church”, but the Church itself was taking steps to deal with it.

Alrighty then. So we've got:

1) Ruining the Environment (Don't litter!)
2) Running morally debatable scientific experiments (Nanotechnologists - watch out!)
3) Messing with DNA (that's just too sciency, and science is bad)
4) Taking drugs (aspirin excepted, I assume)
5) Causing poverty or getting rich (er...isn't the church one of the wealthiest organizations on the planet? And, I thought avarice was covered already)
6) Abortion
7) Pedophilia (although the media has blown up the issue of clergy sex abuse, apparently.)

The Catholic Church - breaking its own rules since 64AD

Seems to me to be a rather ad hoc list (and just the teensiest bit hypocritical), like they came up with it sitting round in Starbucks one Friday afternoon. I would have thought they could have come up with a couple hundred more if they were really trying. How did they come up with the list? Who voted? Which sins didn't make the cut? Staring at computer porn maybe? Listening to Marilyn Manson? I can just imagine the debate in the Vatican "....well, his music is pretty nasty, but I just love the makeup!"

The Pope also complained that an increasing number of people in the secularised West were “making do without God”.

...and quite happily too, I might add.

Score one for the good guys

Actually, score two.

Not only did Mike Huckabee finally bow out of the race for President last night (so I won't have to move to Canada), but a creationist was defeated for a spot on the Texas school board also. Barney Maddox, an avowed creationist, would have tilted the board of education towards insanity (see Time for more details), but his challenge was held off by the moderate incumbent, Patricia Hardy, according to the Fort Worth Star Telegram:

Social conservatives failed in their attempt to take control of the State Board of Education on Tuesday when incumbent Pat Hardy of Fort Worth retained her seat against a challenge from Cleburne's Barney Maddox.

Hardy, a career educator, has been a moderate voice on the board. The 15-member body still shows a close ideological split, but Hardy has helped keep it on a straight path.

Maddox's entry in the race had set the stage for debate over the scientific theory of evolution, which he has described as "fairy tales." Hardy took a better course: Teach kids about all theories, she said, from creation to evolution, and give them enough information to make up their own minds about what to believe.

She's wrong about teaching all theories especially where one has no evidence to back it up and one has the full support of the entire scientific community, but it does preserve the teaching of evolution in the state, which had been under fire, and it's better than the alternative.

Bible and a Pinhead

Oh, sorry - that should be "bible ON a pinhead". Silly me.

Following up on my post from a week or so about folks in the US being "morally against" nanoscience, maybe this story will help to raise the numbers a little. According to Ananova,

Israeli scientists say they've created the world's smallest Hebrew Bible - on a gold-coated silicon chip smaller than a pinhead.

Scientists at Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology, were able to pack the 308,428 words on to a 0.5mm square of silicon by etching its surface with particle beams.

He said he now wanted to take pictures of the nano-Bible and blow it up to a seven-by-seven metre poster, which will make it "possible to read the entire bible with the naked eye".

The tiny Bible was developed as part of an educational drive to increase interest in nanoscience among teenagers.

So, there you go. Increasing nanoscience interest amongst teenagers.

Sheesh. There must be a better use of resources.

Bill Maher on Religion

I've been meaning to post this for a while now. Last month, comedian Bill Maher appeared on Larry King live to promote his new movie "Religulous". I only caught the last few minutes (I can't stand Larry King - it's clear he usually has no idea who he's talking to or what he's talking about - time to retire Larry!!), but have looked for the video clip ever since. Well, here it is:

In the clip, Bill responds to Catholic League president William Donohue's criticism of him. Now, I've blogged about Donohue before - here and here, and it's clear he's as nutty as a fruitcake, but I was impressed by Maher's response - he articluates what a lot of us have been saying about faith - why put it on a pedestal? Why can't we criticize faith? Here's the transcript:

KING: Back with Bill Maher. Catholic League President William Donahue says that you really have it out against Christians and he would love to duke it out with you in the ring. He's a very, very passionate Catholic, as you know.

MAHER: Oh, yes. Aren't they all? I used to be a Catholic. I saw that on Keith Olbermann's show, and I thought he had the right response after the man threatened to beat me up, just as Jesus would handle it. I hope we can avoid a fight. If I'm attacked, I will defend myself.

KING: Do you suspect when "Religulous" comes out to get a lot of flak?

MAHER: Yes, but I get a lot of flak anyway. That's been their trick for hundreds of years. They say the word faith and somehow we all have to back off and pretend that what they believe is not destructive, and I won't do that. And there are millions of people who won't do that. The minority that is what I would call rationalists, that is people who don't believe in something supernatural, something that was obviously fables that were written by men before men knew what a germ or an atom was. OK?

Yes, we're rationalists. That's like 20 percent of people under 30. That's a bigger minority than lots of minorities. They just don't speak up. I'm hoping this movie and this movement will encourage people to speak up about this. They accuse me of being a Catholic bigot. First of all, I don't have it out especially for the Catholics. I think all religions are coo-coo. OK? It's not just the Catholics.

I'm not a bigot. Just because I wish for the demise of an organization that I think is entirely destructive to the human race, that doesn't make me a bigot. I also wish for demise of Hamas and the KKK. Not that on every score the Catholic Church is the same as those two organizations. But to me they are destructive organizations. I'm not a bigot because I root for their downfall.

KING: But you can offend them?

MAHER: I have been doing it for 15 years. They're perfectly within their rights to be offended. But they're not going to shut me up. They're not going to do it by saying the magic word, faith. This is what I believe. Yes, you believe it. I'm going to say why it's dumb. (emphasis mine)

I think this is critical - we need to start to speak up and let everyone know that faith in God is just as crazy as faith in pink unicorns, or, praise his noodly appendages, the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Dissatisfaction with Religion Growing

According to the latest opinion poll from Pew Research, dissatisfaction with religion seems to be growing in the US:

More than one-quarter (28%) of American adults have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion -- or no religion at all.... In addition, about 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.

One of the most interesting aspects of the survey is the fact that young people are less likely to be religious than older people.

The survey finds that the number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.

There's a couple of takeaways from this survey. While the US is still far more religious than most of the other western democracies, especially those in Europe, we may be starting to see a turning point. As the population ages, it's clear that religion will become less of a factor in public life. Young people today are less likely to be religious, and less likely as they grow up to pass that onto their children.

With all the disturbing news about science education and creationism, religion in politics and the intolerance of many of the more fundamentalist christian churches here in the US, it's refreshing to note that time is on our side.

Losing the Faith

As I recounted in an earlier post, my wife and I lost a child at the end of the year, stillborn at 22 weeks into the pregnancy. It's been difficult getting over the loss, and we're still not there yet.

We're undergoing bereavement counseling, and attend regular support group meetings to help us through, and it's been comforting knowing that we're not alone in this process.

But, onto the point of the post. One of the things I've noticed as we attend counseling and the meetings is that there's a lot of people in similar situations to us who've lost the faith that they've had. To be sure, there are some whose faith has been strengthened, but they're certainly in the minority from what I can tell.

Many people are dealing with anger with God, and, from my perspective, it's just one more level of pain to deal with that I, as an atheist, don't have to worry about. I hear constantly "Why did God do this to us?", "What did we do wrong?" and so on.

The bottom line is that people are rationalizing that they believed in a God that is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent, but the horror of losing a child indicates that God directly caused their suffering if he is such a being. So, the theory goes, he is not omnipotent, or if he is, he is not omniscient or if he is both, he's not benevolent. So why worship and pray if it's not going to do any good? What follows is a loss of faith, compounded by a church that frequently doesn't know how to deal with child loss. As a case in point from our own example - two weeks after our son died, my wife's church sent us additional offering envelopes for our other children as if to say "Sorry for your loss - please give more".

It seems to me that this loss of faith has not been a bad thing in many people's lives - indeed, it has been freeing to an extent. I know for a fact from my personal experience that not having to worry that some psychopathic sky fairy was out to get me reduced the weight of the loss.

Science Education in the US

While we're on the subject of ignorance (see the last post), The Washington Post had an editorial this week on the "Dumbing of America":

Americans are in serious intellectual trouble -- in danger of losing our hard-won cultural capital to a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.

They posit a number of reasons for this (and to my mind, they focus a little too much on the internet killing newspapers, but they are a little biased!), but the bottom line is correct.

Dumbness, to paraphrase the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has been steadily defined downward for several decades, by a combination of heretofore irresistible forces. These include the triumph of video culture over print culture (and by video, I mean every form of digital media, as well as older electronic ones); a disjunction between Americans' rising level of formal education and their shaky grasp of basic geography, science and history; and the fusion of anti-rationalism with anti-intellectualism. (emphasis mine)

So what do we do about it? Well, the presidential campaign isn't helping - candidates are pandering to the lowest common denominator, as usual. We need to elevate the debate, focus on where we're losing out as a nation, where we're letting down today's kids - tomorrow's scientists who will drive the future of this country. Sciencedebate2008 is one place to start, but we also have to push at the grassroots level - at the local school board level, at the state government level to make sure that we're not left behind.

There was one glimmer of hope this week - Florida adopted new science standards that include the word "Evolution" for the first time, despite the pleas of the religious right who pushed to have creationism taught alongside science:


There's a story on the vote here.

We're behind again. Big Surprise.

This time, it's nanotechnology, which it seems is "morally unacceptable" to the majority of Americans, according to a University of Wisconsin study, reported in the Wall Street Journal.

In the study, just 29.5% of the 1,000 or so interviewed found nanotech research morally acceptable.

My guess is that 70% of the country don't know what nanotechnology is, due to the abysmal state of science education here. It's clear that there's an obvious anti-science, anti-reason movement in the US right now so anything equated with the "evil science" has to be against religion.

Interestingly, Europeans don't appear to have that problem, not surprisingly.

I swear, if we don't get our act together as a nation, we're going to be left behind in the race for the future.

Why I love Lewis Black

Lewis Black is one of my favorite comedians. Here's why:

Global Warming, Religion and Politics...

..all wrapped up in a neat package (It is Christmas, after all!):

More Pat Condell

I've blogged about Pat Condell before. Here's his latest, as he attempts to find something good to say about religion:

Maybe the water was cold?

I've posted a few times on the hypocrisy of the evangelical ministry, but I can't even begin comment on this one.

An Alabama minister who died in June of "accidental mechanical asphyxia" was found hogtied and wearing two complete wet suits, including a face mask, diving gloves and slippers, rubberized underwear, and a head mask, according to an autopsy report.

The community seems stunned, but is not jumping to an conclusions just yet.

Church officials issued a press release asking community members to "please refrain from speculation" about what led to Aldridge's demise, adding that, "we will begin the healing process under the strong arm of our Savior, Jesus Christ."

I wouldn't even know where to begin to speculate.

Young People flocking from Christianity..

Well, looks like reason may win the day after all. A new survey from the Barna Group, a christian research institution, indicates that many young people are turning away from the church:

A new study by The Barna Group conducted among 16- to 29-year-olds shows that a new generation is more skeptical of and resistant to Christianity than were people of the same age just a decade ago.

What's more,

One of the groups hit hardest by the criticism is evangelicals. Such believers have always been viewed with skepticism in the broader culture. However, those negative views are crystallizing and intensifying among young non-Christians. The new study shows that only 3% of 16 - to 29-year-old non-Christians express favorable views of evangelicals. This means that today’s young non-Christians are eight times less likely to experience positive associations toward evangelicals than were non-Christians of the Boomer generation (25%).

I think the biggest issues here are the intrusions into politics by evangelicals - strongly aligning god with GOP is a huge turnoff for young people - and the hypocrisy of evangelical leaders (Ted Haggard etc.)

Either way, the chart is going in the right direction.


So, we just need to wait for all the old christians to die off :-)

Weeping painting a fake (surprise!)

I caught this brief mention in Time magazine last week in the "Milestones" section:

FOR TWO DECADES, PILGRIMS flocked to the Christ of the Hills monastery in Blanco, Texas, to lay eyes on what founder Samuel Greene Jr. and his fellow monks claimed was a miracle: a painting of the Virgin Mary that wept tears of myrrh. In 2000, after a fellow monk was convicted of indecency with a male monastic student, Greene also pleaded guilty to indecency. When the compound was closed, investigators found eyedroppers and bottles of rosewater used to fake the tears that prompted donations. Last year Greene confessed to the ruse, and his sexual relations with teenage students, to his probation officer. Greene, who died after taking medications, was 63. His death is under investigation.

Really, is anyone surprised? I would have thought that it's obvious that all of these crying/bleeding statues/paintings are either faked or are common, easily explained natural phenomena. Trying to cram as much irony as possible into the event, the fakers are also monks who were found to be sexual predators. I'm becoming more and more surprised when hypocrisy isn't a part of any religious article.

New Rules for Awards acceptance......

Apparently, there are new rules for awards acceptance speeches. As of last week, the only reason anybody wins an award is because Jesus helped them. No, there's no talent or hard work involved. God did it.

How do we know these new rules? Because Kathy Griffin dared to say at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards that:

"A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus," an exultant Griffin said, holding up her statuette. "Suck it, Jesus. This award is my god now."

Sounds OK, right? Well not according to Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. He characterized the quip as "hate speech" and on CNN said that it was worse than racism and akin to what Don Imus did in insulting the Rutgers basketball team. What's more, when the awards are broadcast, the remarks will be censored.

We're moving one step closer to a theocracy here. Kathy Griffin makes one statement of fact at an awards show, and it's censored. "Blasphemy" is now not allowed on network TV. It's a sad day when a simple factual statement - that Jesus had nothing to do with winning an award - is associated with real hate speech. Looks like we can chalk up another victory in the war on terror to religious nuts.