The GOP Thanksgiving Family Forum Debate: The Giblets

Bachmann, displaying GOP-approved gender role

On Saturday, six Republican candidates testified, wept, and proselytized in Des Moines Iowa as part of the Thanksgiving Family Forum 'debate.'

The Family Forum was billed as a "family discussion with the Republican presidential candidates." The event was sponsored by right wing organizations Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink, the National Organization for Marriage, and the Iowa based Christian conservative organization, The Family Leader.

Two candidates did not attend the forum. The Mormon guys took a pass, and understandably so. In 2008, Focus on the Family's CitizenLink pulled an interview with Glenn Beck because of his Mormon faith.

The Deseret News reported:

James Dobson's Focus on the Family ministry has pulled from its CitizenLink Web site an article about talk show host Glenn Beck's book "The Christmas Sweater" after some complained that Beck's LDS faith is a "cult" and "false religion" and shouldn't be promoted by a Christian ministry.

And so, here in America, where there is no religious test for office, the six non-Mormon candidates sought to win over the Evangelical vote by out-weeping, out-witnessing, and out-pandering the competition.

Here are some of the more memorable quotes from the event:

• "I’ve poured a lot of water in my time." (Michele Bachmann, submitting to the female duty of pouring water for the male candidates.)

• "Go get a job. Right after you take a bath." (Newt Gingrich, to Occupy Wall Street protesters, many of which have jobs, and many of which are protesting the lack of available jobs)

• "American exceptionalism is grounded on the Judeo-Christian ethic, which is really based upon the ten commandments. The ten commandments were the foundation for our law." (Michele Bachmann, apparently not realizing that the Ten Commandments are made up of four religious edicts that have nothing to do with ethics, three one-dimensional prohibitions that are irrelevant to modern law, and three shallow absolutes that are useful but certainly not unique to the Judeo-Christian system.)

• "It was George Washington that added those last four words, ‘So help me god.’" (Michele Bachmann, once again serving up dubious history)

• "A country that has been now since 1963 relentlessly in the courts driving God out of public life shouldn’t be surprised at all the problems we have. Because we’ve in fact attempted to create a secular country, which I think is frankly a nightmare." (Newt Gingrich, thrice married, and the only Speaker of the House to have been disciplined for ethics violations.)

• "Unlike Islam, where the higher law and the civil law are the same, in our case, we have civil laws. But our civil laws have to comport with the higher law." (Rick Santorum, opposing a theocracy, while calling for a theocracy)

• "In every person's heart, in every person's soul, there is a hole that can only be filled by the Lord Jesus Christ." (Rick Perry, gunning for presidency of a country that is home to Jews, Atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, etc.)

• "That person terrifies me because they completely misunderstand how weak and how limited any human being is." (Newt, former Speaker with eighty-four ethics charges, who cheated on his wife while she was fighting cancer, on an atheist becoming president)

• "Probably the boldest statement since Lincoln’s first inaugural took on the Supreme Court over the Dred Scott decision." (Newt, on a paper that Newt wrote and published on Newt.org)

• "I always wanted to be a veterinarian ... and then He introduced me to organic chemistry, and I became a pilot in the United States Air Force." (Rick Perry, clearly becoming more skilled in debates, on God's plans.)

• "Somebody's values are going to decide what the Congress votes on or what the president of the United States in going to deal with. And the question is: Whose values? And let me tell ya, it needs to be our values -- values and virtues that this country was based upon by the Judeo-Christian Founding Fathers." (Rick Perry -- and by 'our values' he means not yours)

• "I've been driven to my knees multiple times as the governor of the State of Texas, making decisions that are life or death -- have huge impacts on people's lives. The idea that I would walk into that without God Almighty holding me up would scare me to death." (Rick Perry, on how God helped him execute over 230 people)

Sam Harris: What If We're Born In The Wrong Place, To The Wrong Parents, In The Wrong Culture, Given The Wrong Theology?

In the following video, taken from a debate with apologist William Craig, Sam Harris offers a thought-provoking view of religion from the perspective of circumstance. It's something that I have thought about often.

So many of us believe that our religion is true. We believe this with so much certainty that we don't hesitate to characterize other belief systems as incorrect.

A great majority of us are born into a religion. We are indoctrinated into our religions, whether we want to admit it or not. If we had somehow been born to a different family across the globe, in another culture, we would very likely have been indoctrinated into a completely different religion -- one which we would feel to be the one true religion. All other religions, including the one in that alternative scenario, would be false.

Beyond childhood, the religions that we are born into are further reinforced through worship and the reading of scripture. Each of us are further assured that our religions are true, because each of our holy books commands us to believe that they are true.

How are we to reconcile this? Many argue that, if a religion is true, it will find its way to us no matter where we are. We need to remember, that billions of people believe the exact same thing.

Although Harris does not delve into it, I have often extrapolated, considering the probability of Darwinian life elsewhere in the cosmos, that there are unlimited religions currently in existence -- not to mention those discarded, or yet to be conceived.

Fischer, Citing Quran, Calls For Military Ban On Muslims, Apparently Forgetting All That Bible Violence

Bryan Fischer, douchenozzle

If I didn't know any better, I would suspect that The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer is an invention -- brilliant comedy-slash-performance art for the ages, joining the ranks of Tony Clifton and Neil Hamburger.

His anti-LGBT, xenophobic, extreme Christian Right views are so ridiculously over the top, you'd be crazy not to wonder if he's simply an elaborate hoax.

If his extreme ideology wasn't enough, Fischer also lacks any hint of self-awareness, spouting blatant hypocrisy at every turn.

Take his recent post at World Nut Daily, in which he doubles down on his belief that Muslims have no place in the US military.

To my knowledge, I was the first voice in America to call for stopping the practice of Muslims serving in the U.S. military. I did so the day after the Fort Hood shootings in November of 2009.

I endured a withering firestorm of criticism from friend and foe alike, and was summoned to both CNN and the Alan Colmes radio show to explain myself.

Now a prominent Tennessee legislator, Rep. Rick Womick, is joining me in this call. Said he, at a Sharia-awareness-event over the weekend, "If you believe it (the Quran), you are commanded to kill anybody who will not convert to Islam."

And of course he is right about what the Quran teaches the followers of Muhammad and Allah. There are 109 verses in the Quran, by one count, that call for violence against infidel Christians and Jews. One example will suffice: "Slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them" (Sura 9:5).

What part of "slay the idolaters wherever you find them" do brain-addled idolaters not understand? Muslims have been ordered by their god to kill you! What about that do you not get?

Further on:

Arresting, besieging and lying in ambush is exactly the kind of thing the United States military does to our enemies. Who are Muslims obligated to do that to? Who are the enemies of Islam that devout Muslims are ordered to arrest, besiege and ambush? Why, their fellow soldiers who believe in the God of Christianity.

It would be one thing if this ideology were covert and we were just finding out about it. But it's right there in their holy book where it has been for 1,400 years, where everybody, including our next commander in chief, can read it. It is sheer lunacy not to take this seriously.

In fact, I would suggest that I am showing more honor to Muslims than anyone else, because I am taking their religion more seriously than they are. I believe what Allah said through his Prophet, peace be upon him, that his followers have a sacred duty to slay infidel Americans. It shows a shameless lack of respect for Islam not to believe what their holy book says about their own religion. I have too much respect for Muslims and their sincerity and devotion to make that mistake.

That last paragraph is classic Fischer: Pure unadulterated hatred slathered in smarmy, patronizing righteousness.

While he is certainly correct in that the Quran is not in short supply of violent rhetoric and barbaric ideology, he seems to not also be aware that his Christian Bible is also not in short supply of the same violent rhetoric and barbaric ideology.

If Fischer wishes to ban all adherents of one religion based on the barbarism of its holy book, and the actions of some of its most extreme followers, then he might want to just call for a ban of Christians and Jews as well.

In a comparison of the Quran and the Bible for NPR, religion historian Philip Jenkins stated:

"Much to my surprise, the Islamic scriptures in the Quran were actually far less bloody and less violent than those in the Bible," Jenkins says.

"By the standards of the time, which is the 7th century A.D., the laws of war that are laid down by the Quran are actually reasonably humane," he says. "Then we turn to the Bible, and we actually find something that is for many people a real surprise. There is a specific kind of warfare laid down in the Bible which we can only call genocide."

It is called herem, and it means total annihilation. Consider the Book of 1 Samuel, when God instructs King Saul to attack the Amalekites: "And utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them," God says through the prophet Samuel. "But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

When Saul failed to do that, God took away his kingdom.

"In other words," Jenkins says, "Saul has committed a dreadful sin by failing to complete genocide. And that passage echoes through Christian history. It is often used, for example, in American stories of the confrontation with Indians — not just is it legitimate to kill Indians, but you are violating God's law if you do not."

Jenkins notes that the history of Christianity is strewn with herem. During the Crusades in the Middle Ages, the Catholic popes declared the Muslims Amalekites. In the great religious wars in the 16th, 17th and 19th centuries, Protestants and Catholics each believed the other side were the Amalekites and should be utterly destroyed.

Let's have a look at some of the passages from Fischer's Bible:

If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant; And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. (Deuteronomy 17:2-5)

If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you. (Deuteronomy 13:6)

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. (1 Samuel 15)

Surely, Fischer would be the first to state that the above passages are out of context, relate to a particular time and place in human history, and don't represent modern Christianity.

Most Muslims would say the same thing about the passages Fischer has cherry-picked from the Quran.

Violence in the Quran, [Jenkins] and others say, is largely a defense against attack.

"By the standards of the time, which is the 7th century A.D., the laws of war that are laid down by the Quran are actually reasonably humane," he says.

And certainly, Fischer has a point when he points to some of the sensational stories of Islamic-fueled violence in recent times. We also must understand that these acts are a whole other animal, and most modern Muslims are far less extreme in their religious views than is Fischer.

That may be the popular notion of jihad, says Waleed El-Ansary, but it's the wrong one. El-Ansary, who teaches Islamic studies at the University of South Carolina, says the Quran explicitly condemns religious aggression and the killing of civilians. And it makes the distinction between jihad — legal warfare with the proper rules of engagement — and irjaf, or terrorism.

"All of those types of incidences — [Sept. 11], Maj. Nidal Hasan and so forth — those are all examples of irjaf, not jihad," he says. According to the Quran, he says, those who practice irjaf "are going to hell."

So what's going on here? After all, we all have images of Muslim radicals flying planes into buildings, shooting up soldiers at Fort Hood, trying to detonate a bomb on an airplane on Christmas Day. How to reconcile a peaceful Quran with these violent acts?

El-Ansary says that in the past 30 years, there's been a perfect storm that has created a violent strain of Islam. The first is political: frustration at Western intervention in the Muslim world. The second is intellectual: the rise of Wahhabi Islam, a more fundamentalist interpretation of Islam subscribed to by Osama bin Laden. El-Ansary says fundamentalists have distorted Islam for political purposes.

"Basically what they do is they take verses out of context and then use that to justify these egregious actions," he says.

El-Ansary says we are seeing more religious violence from Muslims now because the Islamic world is far more religious than is the West. Still, Jenkins says Judeo-Christian cultures shouldn't be smug. The Bible has plenty of violence.

"The scriptures are still there, dormant, but not dead," he says, "and they can be resurrected at any time. Witness the white supremacists who cite the murderous Phineas when calling for racial purity, or an anti-abortion activist when shooting a doctor who performs abortions.

In the end, the scholars can agree on one thing: The DNA of early Judaism, Christianity and Islam code for a lot of violence.

Pot, meet kettle.


Further reading: 30 Reasons Why Bryan Fischer is Dangerous and Must Be Stopped

Interactive Feature: In-Depth Look At USA's Religious Beliefs, Practices

USA Today often takes a beating for being America's McPaper, but every now and then, they serve up some pretty interesting stuff.

Take, for example, their 'In-Depth Look At USA's Religious Beliefs, Practices' interactive flash feature.

The graphics allow users to slice and dice data from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life's US Religious Landscape Survey. While the Pew Forum's site does have some neat interactive features (and is certainly worth checking out), the USA Today graphics serve the data up a bit differently, with breakdowns of survey responses broken down by religious affiliation, as well as a compelling topography of American faith. Users can view data for each state by clicking the state on the map.

The results often serve to confirm stereotypes: The southeast contains a large population of Evangelicals, the Northeast and the West coast have the larger 'unaffiliated' populations, and Utah is full of Mormons.

Also worth checking out are USA Today's interactive feature on shifting religious identities and their test on religious knowledge.

Screenshot below. Click here for the interactive feature.

Trey Parker & Matt Stone On New Atheism: Don't Be Dicks

Trey Parker and Matt stone, creators of South Park and The Book of Mormon, think Richard Dawkins is a dick.

Dawkins, on 'South Park'

In an interview by AJ Jacobs in Esquire, the due discuss their equal-opportunity offender approach to their work. Since South Park first aired in 1997, Parker and Stone have skewered Islam, Christianity, Scientology, Mormonism, and dozens of other belief systems, political ideologies, and conspiracy theories. They have even skewered non-belief, specifically the so-called New Atheism of Richard Dawkins.

One of South Park's best episodes featured Dawkins as a substitute teacher who ends up having kinky sex with the boys' creationist teacher, Miss Garrison (formerly Mr. Garrison, pre-sex-change-operation). The show ended five hundred years in the future, when Dawkins-worshipping atheists are at war over whether their religion should be called the "United Atheist Alliance" or "Unified Atheist League."

Stone had this to say about Dawkins:

"He's such a dick," said Stone. "You read his book and you're like, 'Yeah, I agree with that. But it's the most dicky way to put it... I think the neoatheists have set atheism back a few decades. And I'm a self-described atheist."

It is apt that the two were interviewed by Jacobs. His very funny memoir, The Year of Living Biblically, takes religion head-on. There are plenty of laughs, and some have certainly been offended, but at the end of the day, Jacobs realizes that he is a 'reverent agnostic.' In a Q&A session, Jacobs stated, "Whether or not there's a God, I believe in the idea of sacredness—that rituals can be sacred, that the Sabbath can be sacred, and there's great importance to that. So I'm still agnostic, but a deeply different kind of agnostic."

Parker and Stone seem to share this reverence for religion, despite their own personal beliefs.

"I'm concerned about people being happy," said Stone. "With religion I was always like, Does it matter if it's true if it makes you happy?"

"As storytellers for fifteen years, we started looking at religions for their stories," Parker said.

Stone illustrated the idea with the Parable of the Hipster Coffee Guy. Recently, Stone was at a New York hotel that was trying very hard to be cool. It had stuffed animal heads on the walls and exposed brass pipes. "I don't know if Luddite is the right word, but it was back-to-basics. The guy making the coffee had a beard and tattoos. And I'm sitting there going, 'What the fuck. I'm too old for this. This is not my scene.' And then I drank the coffee, and I'm like, 'Holy shit. That's amazing.'

"And it made me think there's something about dressing up and playing the part. To me, that's religion. You can write down how to make the perfect cup of coffee. But to make it really good, you have to play something fictional, you have to dress up, you have to think, This is the most important thing."

Read the full interview at Esquire.

What Is Tolerance?

November 16 is International Day of Tolerance.

The UN General Assembly invited UN Member States to hold the day for observance, with the goal of advancing "human welfare, freedom and progress everywhere, as well as to encourage tolerance, respect, dialogue and cooperation among different cultures, civilizations and peoples."

I once stumbled across the UN's Declaration on Principles on Tolerance. It's probably as fine a document as you will find on the subject.

Many of us have certainly run into a scenario in which we have been called 'intolerant' for denouncing the beliefs of others. If one is self-aware, such an accusation does not fall on deaf ears. Progressives are often pointing out the hypocrisy in others as a means of highlighting the need for reflection or reform. It would make sense that accusations of hypocrisy and intolerance would give pause to one who is combating intolerance.

The UN's declaration addresses this issue, and does a great job of explaining that tolerance does not require that one be tolerant of social injustice. This is where the rubber meets the road.

When we denounce beliefs which cause harm to others, we are in no way in conflict with the concept of tolerance. Tolerance, in part, is "the responsibility that upholds human rights, pluralism (including cultural pluralism), democracy and the rule of law. It involves the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism and affirms the standards set out in international human rights instruments...The practice of tolerance does not mean toleration of social injustice or the abandonment or weakening of one's convictions."

It wouldn't hurt us to give more attention to this day. There sure seems to be a lot of confusion as to what tolerance really means.

Here is the UN declaration:




Declaration of Principles on Tolerance

Proclaimed and signed by the Member States of UNESCO on 16 November 1995.
Preamble

Bearing in mind that the United Nations Charter states: 'We, the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, ... to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, ... and for these ends to practise tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours',

Recalling that the Preamble to the Constitution of UNESCO, adopted on 16 November 1945, states that "peace, if it is not to fail, must be founded on the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind",

Recalling also that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms that "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion" (Article 18), "of opinion and expression" (Article 19), and that education "should promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups" (Article 26),

Noting relevant international instruments including:

• the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
• the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
• the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,
• the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,
• the Convention on the Rights of the Child,
• the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol and regional instruments,
• the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,
• the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,
• the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance Based on Religion or Belief,
• the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities,
• the Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism,
• the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action of the World Conference on Human Rights,
• the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the World Summit for Social Development,
• the UNESCO Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice,
• the UNESCO Convention and Recommendation against Discrimination in Education,

Bearing in mind the objectives of the Third Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination, the World Decade for Human Rights Education, and the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People,

Taking into consideration the recommendations of regional conferences organized in the framework of the United Nations Year for Tolerance in accordance with UNESCO General Conference 27 C/Resolution 5.14, as well as the conclusions and recommendations of other conferences and meetings organized by Member States within the programme of the United Nations Year for Tolerance,

Alarmed by the current rise in acts of intolerance, violence, terrorism, xenophobia, aggressive nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, exclusion, marginalization and discrimination directed against national, ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, refugees, migrant workers, immigrants and vulnerable groups within societies, as well as acts of violence and intimidation committed against individuals exercising their freedom of opinion and expression - all of which threaten the consolidation of peace and democracy, both nationally and internationally, and are obstacles to development,

Emphasizing the responsibilities of Member States to develop and encourage respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction as to race, gender, language, national origin, religion or disability, and to combat intolerance,

Adopt and solemnly proclaim this Declaration of Principles on Tolerance

Resolving to take all positive measures necessary to promote tolerance in our societies, because tolerance is not only a cherished principle, but also a necessity for peace and for the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

We declare the following:

Article 1 - Meaning of tolerance

1.1 Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. It is fostered by knowledge, openness, communication, and freedom of thought, conscience and belief. Tolerance is harmony in difference. It is not only a moral duty, it is also a political and legal requirement. Tolerance, the virtue that makes peace possible, contributes to the replacement of the culture of war by a culture of peace.

1.2 Tolerance is not concession, condescension or indulgence. Tolerance is, above all, an active attitude prompted by recognition of the universal human rights and fundamental freedoms of others. In no circumstance can it be used to justify infringements of these fundamental values. Tolerance is to be exercised by individuals, groups and States.

1.3 Tolerance is the responsibility that upholds human rights, pluralism (including cultural pluralism), democracy and the rule of law. It involves the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism and affirms the standards set out in international human rights instruments.

1.4 Consistent with respect for human rights, the practice of tolerance does not mean toleration of social injustice or the abandonment or weakening of one's convictions. It means that one is free to adhere to one's own convictions and accepts that others adhere to theirs. It means accepting the fact that human beings, naturally diverse in their appearance, situation, speech, behaviour and values, have the right to live in peace and to be as they are. It also means that one's views are not to be imposed on others.

Article 2 - State level

2.1 Tolerance at the State level requires just and impartial legislation, law enforcement and judicial and administrative process. It also requires that economic and social opportunities be made available to each person without any discrimination. Exclusion and marginalization can lead to frustration, hostility and fanaticism.

2.2 In order to achieve a more tolerant society, States should ratify existing international human rights conventions, and draft new legislation where necessary to ensure equality of treatment and of opportunity for all groups and individuals in society.

2.3 It is essential for international harmony that individuals, communities and nations accept and respect the multicultural character of the human family. Without tolerance there can be no peace, and without peace there can be no development or democracy.

2.4 Intolerance may take the form of marginalization of vulnerable groups and their exclusion from social and political participation, as well as violence and discrimination against them. As confirmed in the Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice, "All individuals and groups have the right to be different" (Article 1.2).

Article 3 - Social dimensions

3.1 In the modern world, tolerance is more essential than ever before. It is an age marked by the globalization of the economy and by rapidly increasing mobility, communication, integration and interdependence, large-scale migrations and displacement of populations, urbanization and changing social patterns. Since every part of the world is characterized by diversity, escalating intolerance and strife potentially menaces every region. It is not confined to any country, but is a global threat.

3.2 Tolerance is necessary between individuals and at the family and community levels. Tolerance promotion and the shaping of attitudes of openness, mutual listening and solidarity should take place in schools and universities and through non-formal education, at home and in the workplace. The communication media are in a position to play a constructive role in facilitating free and open dialogue and discussion, disseminating the values of tolerance, and highlighting the dangers of indifference towards the rise in intolerant groups and ideologies.

3.3 As affirmed by the UNESCO Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice, measures must be taken to ensure equality in dignity and rights for individuals and groups wherever necessary. In this respect, particular attention should be paid to vulnerable groups which are socially or economically disadvantaged so as to afford them the protection of the laws and social measures in force, in particular with regard to housing, employment and health, to respect the authenticity of their culture and values, and to facilitate their social and occupational advancement and integration, especially through education.

3.4 Appropriate scientific studies and networking should be undertaken to co-ordinate the international community's response to this global challenge, including analysis by the social sciences of root causes and effective countermeasures, as well as research and monitoring in support of policy-making and standard-setting action by Member States.

Article 4 - Education

4.1 Education is the most effective means of preventing intolerance. The first step in tolerance education is to teach people what their shared rights and freedoms are, so that they may be respected, and to promote the will to protect those of others.

4.2 Education for tolerance should be considered an urgent imperative; that is why it is necessary to promote systematic and rational tolerance teaching methods that will address the cultural, social, economic, political and religious sources of intolerance - major roots of violence and exclusion. Education policies and programmes should contribute to development of understanding, solidarity and tolerance among individuals as well as among ethnic, social, cultural, religious and linguistic groups and nations.

4.3 Education for tolerance should aim at countering influences that lead to fear and exclusion of others, and should help young people to develop capacities for independent judgement, critical thinking and ethical reasoning.

4.4 We pledge to support and implement programmes of social science research and education for tolerance, human rights and non-violence. This means devoting special attention to improving teacher training, curricula, the content of textbooks and lessons, and other educational materials including new educational technologies, with a view to educating caring and responsible citizens open to other cultures, able to appreciate the value of freedom, respectful of human dignity and differences, and able to prevent conflicts or resolve them by non-violent means.

Article 5 - Commitment to action

We commit ourselves to promoting tolerance and non-violence through programmes and institutions in the fields of education, science, culture and communication.

Article 6 - International Day for Tolerance

In order to generate public awareness, emphasize the dangers of intolerance and react with renewed commitment and action in support of tolerance promotion and education, we solemnly proclaim 16 November the annual International Day for Tolerance.

Charles Darwin 'Barrel of Monkeys' Portrait

Check out this amazing Darwin print from Pure Evil. If you look closely, you'll notice that dozens of Barrel of Monkeys chimps comprise the portrait. The print is 24 by 33".

From Pure Evil's description:

A 4-colour process screenprint with 5th colour border of the beardy genius Charles Darwin made up of 100's of stenciled barrel monkeys.

Unfortunately, the print is currently sold out.

Detailed look here.

h/t Dangerous Minds.

The 'Douchiest Occupy Wall Street 'Eviction' Tweets Award' Goes to...We Have A Tie!

Last night, while Occupy Wall Street protesters were being forced from Zuccotti Park, a few folks were downright giddy with excitement, tweeting well into the night.

If there are two media pundits who feed off of negative Occupy news like pigs at the trough, it's conservative commentator Michelle Malkin and right wing media critic, Andrew Brietbart.

Malkin and Breitbart, douchebags

Here we have a sampling of Ms. Malkin's wee-hour zingers:

Live from New York…It’s Operation Monday Night Un-Occupy Zuccotti Park

NYC Occupiers now bemoaning loss of their personal belongings. #privatepropertyrightsepiphanies

NYC Occupier shrieks in horror: "A SANITATION TRUCK!" Like garlic to vampires. #ows

Occupiers United Against NYC Sanitation Trucks: "All we are saying is give filth a chance!" #ows #MICCHECK

The Occupier narrating the clean-up needs a throat lozenge. And then some duct tape.

Oh, dear. The Occupiers are doing some sort of Indian war chant thing. #ows

#WAWAWAWAWAWA

Occupier:"This is history in the making." #justlikenormandyortiananmen #standingaroundwithiphonesblockingdumptrucks

Kamp Alinsky Kids now split up into roving bands of brigands wandering NYC. #occupybedtime

Then we have Mr. Breitbart, certainly feeding off of Malkin's punchiness:

NYPD removing #OccupyWallStreet: Is the DoodiePoopieRapieMurderySuicidyGropy Socialist/Anarchist/Utopian #OWS Dream Coming to an End?

I will be starting an NYPD Gonorrhea Fund for all Riot Police Who Accidentally Contract Sexual Disease While Ridding Zuccotti Park.

Overhearing #OWS cry as they are disbanded, I sadly recall last day of summer camp. I feel your pain! There's always next WTO/G-FillInA#!

Do I care if #Occupy gets bigger? That's more public defecating, murder, don't-report murder stories for my websites?!

Musta been a TranFat® violation that finally pushed Bloomberg over the edge. #OWS

Watch Live Now: 562 people, 3243 tattoos being forcibly removed from Zuccotti Park: http://bit.ly/u7qBl4 #OWS

C'mon #OWS-ers! We made our point! (That we have no point!) Now let's do something ballsy: #OccupyTehran! Mic check: Let's roll!

The Great #OccupyWallStreet Constipation is Coming to an End.

All we are saying, is give RapeMurderSuicidePublicPooingGropingPubicLice a Chance! #OWS

Congratulations, Michelle and Andrew! You succeeded in further cementing your images as immature, screeching, humorless, half-wits, who only see the world in black and white.

It's a shame that you're both married, because you clearly deserve each other.

The Catholic Church: Rejecting Children, Rejecting Progress

It's not much of a surprise that the Catholic Church is seeing a decline in recent years. Church attendance has fallen to less than 30 percent in Italy, where 95 percent describe themselves as Catholic. Here in America, 400,000 left the church in 2008 alone.

The church has been hit hard by child sex abuse scandals, causing many to rethink their affiliation. Many are also having a hard time reconciling their personal convictions with the Church's views on contraception, gender equality, and reproductive rights.

As if those reasons weren't enough to decimate the church's attendance, we have this 'issue' of homosexuality and same-sex marriage.

When it comes to homosexuality, the Catholic Church, unlike many Protestant churches, will not budge. Not only will they not budge, they are also shooting themselves in the foot. They are guaranteeing the decline of new life in the Church by rejecting the very children they need to survive (and, in turn, rejecting the parents, and potential parents, of their own communities).

In Illinois, the Church has decided that, rather than let same-sex couples adopt, they would rather get out of the foster care business altogether.

Since March, state officials have been investigating whether religious agencies that receive public funds to license foster care parents were breaking anti-discrimination laws if they turned away openly gay parents.

In discussions after the civil union bill went into effect in June, representatives for Catholic Charities in Joliet, Springfield, Peoria, Rockford and Belleville told the state that accommodating prospective foster parents in civil unions would violate Catholic Church teaching that defines marriage between a man and a woman.

The Church has since called off efforts to keep in the foster care business by dropping lawsuits against the state, and agreeing to transfer over 1,000 foster care children to other agencies.

The Catholic Church simply refuses to evolve. The number of gay couples who adopted tripled in the last decade. This is a battle the Church will not win.

According to the Adoption Institute, at least 60% of U.S. adoption agencies surveyed accept applications from non-heterosexual parents. Nearly 40% of agencies have knowingly placed children with gay families. About half the agencies surveyed reported a desire for staff training to work with such clients.

"If one agency doesn't serve you and you're gay, then another agency will," said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Adoption Institute. "You don't need 100% agency participation. The bottom line is, if you're gay or lesbian in America and you want to adopt, you can."

About a third of the adoptions by lesbians and gay men were "open," and the birth families' initial reactions regarding sexual orientation were very positive, according to the study.

Contrast these realities with the stunted logic of the Church:

“We believe that children are best served by being in the home of a married couple or a single individual,” [Catholic Conference executive director Robert Gilligan] explained. “That's not a radical notion.”

He added that homes provided by married couples or single, committed individuals “is in the best interest of the child and quite frankly, I think society should recognize that that's in the best interest of the child.”

Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

While there is no reason to believe that single parents can't, or don't, do the job (so many do it extremely well), it is absurd to posit that two loving parents of the same sex are not as capable as a single parent, especially in an economy where at least one parent must work full time to make ends meet.

Good luck, Catholic Church. While this latest step certainly isn't the nail in the coffin, it isn't doing you any favors.

According to the Public Religion Research Institute:

More than 6-in-10 (62%) Millennials (age 18-29) favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry, 69% favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt children, 71% favor civil unions, and 79% favor employment discrimination protections for gay and lesbian people.

Slightly more Catholics (46%) believe the Catholic Church’s position on the issue of gay and lesbian people is too conservative than believe it is about right (43%).

Nearly seven-in-ten (69%) Millennials agree that religious groups are alienating young people by being too judgmental about gay and lesbian issues. Among seniors, only 37% agree that religious groups are alienating young people by being too judgmental and 48% disagree.

Among religious groups, 73% of non-Christian affiliated, 64% of Catholics, 60% of black Protestants, 59% of white mainline Protestants, and 51% of white evangelical Protestants say places of worship contribute either a lot or a little to higher rates of suicide among gay and lesbian youth.

The train has left the station, dudes.  It seems most don't want you on board, anyway.

Rabbi Thinks Non-Believers Actually Believe (But I Don't Believe Him)

Over at Huffington Post, Rabbi Adam Jacobs tries to make a case that everyone, regardless of what they tell you (or what they think they believe), believes in God.

While I was willing to give the Rabbi the benefit of the doubt, it didn't take long to realize that I don't think he knows what he's talking about.

In the post The God Test: Why Really Everyone Believes writes:

Try as I might, I continue to be startled by the mindset of the non-believer. It's not so much that I can't grasp the notion that someone could believe that there is no Creator and that there is no grand design to the universe, but rather that so many of their choices and thinking patterns seem to suggest that they believe something quite unlike that which they profess. Often, I've inquired of non-believers if it at all vexes them that nothing that they have ever done or will ever do will make the slightest difference to anyone on any level? After all, one random grouping of molecules interacting with another has no inherent meaning or value. I still await the brave soul (or neuron complex if you prefer) who will respond that I am quite correct; that no thought, deed, action or impulse is any more significant or meaningful than any other, that statements like "I would like to enslave all of humanity" and "I would like a chocolate bar" are functionally equivalent, and that their very own thoughts and words are intrinsically suspect as they are nothing more than some indiscriminate electro-chemical impulses. Until then, I will carry on believing that most "non-believers" actually believe a bit more than they generally let on, or are willing to admit to themselves. That, or that they have contented themselves to willfully act out fantasies that bear no relation to their purported worldview.

Rabbi Jacobs makes his first misstep when he suggests that the very nature of non-belief requires the non-believer to concede that his or her actions and accomplishments lack meaning or value. Either Jacobs has not talked to many non-believers, or he chooses to ignore the fact that meaning does not require a creator or a religion.

Jacobs poses three questions to non-believers. He believes that the non-believers' answers to these questions will likely prove that they actually do believe in God. He says, "I posit that if you are inclined to answer any of them from a non-materialist perspective then you might secretly suspect that there are grander cosmic forces at work than those discernible on a purely empiric level, or, possibly, that you are a victim of societal programming."

What are the questions?

1. Would you be willing to sell your parent's remains for dog food?

2. You and someone you dislike are stranded on a desert island with a functioning ham radio. One day you hear that there has been a terrible earthquake that has sent a massive tsunami hurtling directly for your island and you both have only one hour to live. Does it make any difference whether you spend your last hour alive comforting and making amends with your (formerly) hated companion or smashing his head in with fallen, unripe coconuts?

3. Is love, art, beauty or morality intrinsically significant?

It is apparent that the good Rabbi is unable to understand that respect, compassion, empathy, heritage, ritual, morality, and pleasure can all exist outside of religion.

I'll address Jacobs' questions one at a time:

1. As a non-believer, I would not sell my parents' remains for dog food because I am an evolved human being with a strong sense of respect for family, heritage, and ritual. Do I believe that by not disposing of my parents' remains in an appropriate manner I would be punished in some metaphysical sense? No. Do I believe that my parents would be aware of my lack of respect from beyond the grave? No. Then why would I not take the materialistic route, and accept the dog food? Because -- get this -- non-believers actually are capable of placing value on non-material things. Like believers, we evolved to be ritualistic beings with a strong sense of heritage. Because humans have had rituals associated with the burial of loved ones for at least 130,000 years, and because these rituals remind us of who we are, and where we come from, we (yes, even non-believers) find comfort in these rituals. There is a psychological and emotional component to closure (obviously) that transcends religion. There are many non-religious components to a proper burial (respect, sanitation, etc.), just as there are religious components (the afterlife, etc.). These rituals, regardless of their origins, do not lose their importance if one does not believe in a supernatural being.

2. The reason I would not smash my 'hated companion' with a coconut upon hearing about the tsunami is twofold:

• First, as a skeptic, I understand that, at times, when we attempt to predict the behavior of natural phenomena, we can be wrong. Perhaps, the tsunami will not destroy us. Perhaps, we would both find a way to survive. All humans have a survival instinct, and non-believers are not exempt from this. 

• Secondly, this question is insane. Without the Ten Commandments as a source of morality, and without the fear of eternal hellfire, humans are still quite reluctant to murder, steal, and cause harm. This is called empathy. Lack of belief in a higher power in no way makes it okay to murder anyone, even if the world is about to end, and even if that person is a real pain in the ass. If I were to find myself in the desert island scenario, as a human being with compassion and a evolved predisposition for altruistic behavior, I would wish to comfort my fellow human being in our final hours, just as I would wish to be comforted. It would matter not that I might be rewarded in the afterlife for such compassion -- it would simply be the right thing to do. Also, there's that psychological need for closure that we were discussing above. If this particular scenario is not a good time to seek cognitive closure, I don't know what is.

3. Of course, love, art, beauty and morality are intrinsically significant. The reason that we find them significant is actually quite simple: they evoke feelings of pleasure. Humans place value on things that bring pleasure. When we are in love, when we view wonderful artistic expressions or natural beauty, or when we do good things, we feel pleasure, warmth, and appreciation. These things have value not only to us, but to others. As social beings with evolved capacities for reciprocity and compassion, we gain pleasure from producing art and music. We gain pleasure from expressing love to others, and by performing acts of kindness. Art can be a source of communication. Beauty, love, and morality enhance our lives and our well-being. I would ask you, Rabbi, why do we find expressions of love in animals? Why do birds, who have no known capacity for religious thought, sing or exhibit their beautiful plumage? All of these things you list (love, art, beauty, morality) exist in nature: apes and birds woo mates with song and beauty. They participate in altruistic behavior daily. Yet it is not required that they believe in a creator.

I find Jacobs' view of non-belief to be rather sad. It mirrors the view of many -- that without religion, life is meaningless, or that without religion, society would dissolve into barbarism, greed, and anarchy. This view shows how very little Jacobs, and those who share his views, understands about where humans came from, and how we got here. If we study the evolution of religion alongside the evolution of humans (and of societies), we learn that we were social, compassionate beings long before the God of monotheism arrived on the scene. I am not denying the role of religion in shaping humanity and society, but just as we evolved morality without the Abrahamic God, morality will continue to evolve regardless of a belief in said god. Just as polytheistic (and other pre-monotheistic) humans exhibited moral codes, a hypothetical post-Abrahamic society of the future would also exhibit moral codes. Many of these codes would certainly have ties to pre-monotheistic societies, just as many of these future codes might improve upon the sometimes barbaric and primitive moral codes of the Bible.

Jacobs concludes:

If you are willing to define the human experience as nothing more than an arbitrary series of chemicals, atoms and other blind and indifferent forces acting in concert, then at the end of the day, you necessarily concede that human emotion and experience are intrinsically meaningless. What difference, then, does it make if you (or others) choose to completely disregard concepts like kindness, decency and love? The non-believer is duty bound to say that it makes no difference whatsoever, as meaning -- in all of its varied splendor -- resides exclusively with those who acknowledge its basis. One that is neither blind nor random nor physical.

If you chose the non-materialistic answer to any of these questions (no, yes, yes) you may be more of a believer than you think.

*sigh*

Rabbi, most non-believers do not define the human experience as nothing more than arbitrary series of chemicals, atoms, etc. And those who might, are not saying in any way that human emotion and experience are intrinsically meaningless.

Science may tell us that we arrived via a series of chemical reactions, mutations, and a complex array of mechanisms. But at the end of the day, we are here, and we will do what we will do. It took us 4.5 billion years to arrive, and over the course of that amazing journey we developed the ability to create and to find meaning. We do good things because good actions promote societal cohesiveness, good-will, and ultimately, survival. We ostracize those who do bad things, such as killing others, because such behavior threatens that cohesiveness and survival. Even if we took religion completely out of the equation for everyone, most of us would still choose to do the right thing. As social beings, we want to belong. As survivalists, we want to survive and reproduce. And as empathetic beings, we want to make others happy. Because, ultimately, we want to be happy. We can't be happy when everyone is killing everyone.

The meaning of life is up to each of us. We do not have to understand where the first life came from in order to appreciate how fortunate we are to be alive. Originally, life's purpose was simply to survive, to replicate. And now, our purposes are defined by what we choose to do with our lives.

Happy Birthday, Carl

Carl Sagan would have been 77 years old today.

You could do a lot worse than to spend 3 minutes and 53 seconds of your time today listening to him.


“Look back again at the pale blue dot of the preceding chapter. Take a good long look at it. Stare at the dot for any length of time and then try to convince yourself that God created the whole Universe for one of the 10 million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust. Now take it a step further: Imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species, or gender, or ethnic or religious subdivision… We can recognize here a shortcoming—in some circumstances serious—in our ability to understand the world. Characteristically, we seem compelled to project our own nature onto Nature… “Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work worthy [of] the interposition of a deity,” Darwin wrote telegraphically in his notebook. “More humble and I think truer to consider him created from animals.”… We’re Johnny-come-latelies. We live in the cosmic boondocks. We emerged from microbes and muck. Apes are our cousins. Our thoughts and feelings are not fully under our own control. There may be much smarter and very different beings elsewhere. And on top of all this, we’re making a mess of our planet and becoming a danger to ourselves… The trapdoor beneath our feet swings open. We find ourselves in bottomless free fall… If it takes a little myth and ritual to get us through a night that seems endless, who among us cannot sympathize and understand?… We long to be here for a purpose, even though, despite much self deception, none is evident. The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable… Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop… Our commonsense intuitions can be mistaken. Our preferences don’t count. We do not live in a privileged reference frame… If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal…”

Happy Birthday, Carl.

Symphony of Science: Neil deGrasse Tyson Sings!

In the latest video from the Symphony of Science folks, we're treated to the lovely (auto-tuned) vocal stylings of astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, physicist Brian Cox, and planetary scientist Carolyn Porco.

The video, "Onward to the Edge!" also features stunning visuals from My Favorite Universe, BBC's Wonders of the Solar System, and NatGeo's Traveler's Guide to the Planets.

The Symphony of Science folks describe it as: a musical investigation into the importance and inspirational qualities of space exploration (human and robotic), as well as a look at some of the amazing worlds in our solar system.

Enjoy.

The Good News - Election Edition: Science, Reason, Sanity Win In Landslide

In our ongoing, but much-too-infrequent series highlighting good news, we look at Tuesday's election results, which were resounding victories for science, reason, and sanity.

America spoke on Tuesday, and, for the most part, we were very clear in communicating that we are not as racist, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-science, or as crazy, as our politicians.

A few highlights:

• The ludicrous Mississippi 'personhood' amendment, which would have legally defined a fertilized egg as a 'person,' and which would have outlawed abortion completely, in all instances, was rejected by more than 55 percent of voters. (CBS News)

• Ohio voters rejected the recent GOP-backed collective bargaining law, which would "prevent public-employee unions from collective bargaining, prohibit strikes and force teachers, police offers and firefighters to contribute a set amount toward their health benefits and pensions." (Time)

• In Maine, voters rejected the ban on same-day voter registration, which the state's Republican Party claimed was 'gay.' (Sun Journal)

• In North Carolina, where voters will decide on a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in May, five openly gay candidates had victories. This fact should worry any Republican who thinks the May 8 amendment is in the bag. (QNotes)

• Openly gay candidates fared well in other states as well, including races in Texas, Ohio, Montana, and Iowa. Progress. (LGBTNation)

• Democrat Adam Ebbin became Virginia's first openly gay state senator, defeating Republican challenger Timothy McGhee by a margin of 64 percent to 35 percent. Pwned. (Washington Blade)

• In Wake County, North Carolina, Kevin Hill defeated challenger Heather Losurdo in a contentious school board race, tipping the balance of power from the Tea Party-sympathizing Republicans, who took control in 2009 on a platform of doing away with the district's highly regarded racial and socioeconomic desegregation program. (WTVD-ABC)

• In Arizona, the state senator who wrote Arizona's controversial immigration law was defeated in a contentious recall election. (CNN)

The message from Tuesday's election results should be pretty clear: "If you overreach, you will be punished."

In Which I Am Rankled By An Annoying Anti-Occupy Wall Street Image

An old high school acquaintance circulated an image of American soldiers carrying a wounded soldier on a stretcher through a war zone. The text surrounding the image reads: "Sorry, we're too busy protecting your freedom to occupy Wall Street."

This image has circumnavigated the Internet, as such things tend to do. It usually is met with responses such as: "The OWS movement is filled with a bunch of lazy, spoiled, far-left, frauds," or "'Nuff said."

We all love these Internet-ready mini-billboards which attempt to drive home a point with an economy of words and a searing image. They can be powerful and persuasive. But this one rankled me.

To be clear, I have nothing but respect and admiration for our men and women in uniform, and for our veterans, but, one could insert any movement, cause, or daily activity in the last part of this text: 'attend your tea party,' 'walk for breast cancer,' 'vote democratic.' Sadly, we have to go about our lives here and do what we need to do, whether that's attending a football game, leading a scout troop, or exercising our right to protest.

Perhaps what this image underscores more than anything is the sad fact that no matter what is going on in the homeland, our soldiers are in foreign lands risking their lives for what are, arguably, dubious causes. (Anyone who thinks the war in Iraq is about 'our freedom' is fooling themselves.)

Undoubtedly, many of these soldiers would rather be here occupying Wall Street, like many other fine service men and women.

"For 10 years, we have been fighting wars that have enriched the wealthiest 1 percent, decimated our economy and left our nation with a generation of traumatized and wounded veterans that will require care for years to come," said Joseph Carter, a 27-year-old former Army sergeant and Iraq war veteran who marched Wednesday to Zuccotti Park.

2011 American Values Survey: America Still Not Cool With Atheists

The Public Religion Research Institute has just released their 2011 American Values Survey.

While there are a lot of interesting findings, the most interesting are the findings related to voters' attitudes about the religious affiliation of potential presidential candidates.

Among the findings:

America digs a religious president
Two-thirds of voters say that it is very important (39%) or somewhat important (28%) for a presidential candidate to have strong religious beliefs. However, nearly 1-in-5 (19%) say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who had strong religious beliefs if those beliefs were very different from their own.

Suck it, atheists!
Once again, an atheist president seems to be the most universally reviled, with 67% of all voters saying they would be somewhat to very uncomfortable with an atheist in the White House. Unsurprisingly, Republicans were the most uncomfortable (80%), with 70% of Democrats and 56% of Indpendents also feeling uncomfortable with an atheist president. Americans seem to be more threatened by no religion than by religious views that lead some people to fly planes into buildings.

Not crazy about Muslims (but then again, they're no atheists)
America is slightly more comfortable with a Muslim president than they are with an atheist president, with 64% of all voters feeling uncomfortable with the idea. Republicans are the anomaly here, however, as they feel slightly more uncomfortable (81%) with the idea of a Muslim president, than they do with an atheist president (80%). The majority of Democrats and Independents are uncomfortable with a Muslim president (56% and 58%, respectively). These numbers would likely be higher if most people weren't somewhat used to Obama by now.

In Evangelicals We Trust
In contrast, an Evangelical president is much less threatening, with only 28% of all voters feeling uncomfortable (18% of Republicans, 32% of Democrats, and 31% of Independents). Americans tend to be fearful of the unknown. And while George W. Bush made many uncomfortable, it is a discomfort we are quite familiar with.

The kids are alright?
One trend that is not surprising is that millennials (18-29) seem to be much less bothered by the religious affiliations (or lack of affiliations) that bother older voters...well, except for Mormons.

A little over half (54%) of millennial voters say they would be uncomfortable with a Mormon president, compared to 39% of senior voters (65 and older).  It is unclear if millennials are simply more likely to have seen South Park, or if they are just creeped out by Glenn Beck. I mean, they are weird, right?

56% of millennials say they would feel somewhat uncomfortable with an atheist president (41% would actually feel somewhat comfortable), compared to 77% of senior voters who would feel at least somewhat uncomfortable with an atheist president (this includes the 60% who would feel VERY uncomfortable with an atheist president).

Half of millennials say they would feel at least somewhat uncomfortable with a Muslim president, with nearly as many (47%) saying they would feel somewhat comfortable. Compare that to seniors, of whom 74% would be at least somewhat uncomfortable with a Muslim president.

Progress?

There's much more to dig into, including attitudes on income equality, Obama's performance, and the current GOP candidates-in-running. View the report here (pdf).

The Call: Lou Engle's Plan To Convert Detroit's Muslims

On 11.11.11, the American evangelical firebrand Lou Engle plans on gathering thousands at Ford Field in Detroit, MI, with the hopes of converting the area's large population of Muslims to Christianity.

Who is Lou Engle?

Lou Engle is a senior leader of the International House of Prayer, a well-known Missouri-based evangelical charismatic Christian missions organization which has been called "Kansas City's biggest religious phenomenon in a century." He has been called a radical theocrat, and his sermons have been known to "venture into bloodlust." He has praised Uganda's Kill the Gays Bill.

What is The Call?

The Call is an organization which sponsors prayer meetings devoted to various evangelical causes, including abortion, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage.
Their events feature sermons, prayer, Christian rock music, fasting, and the confessions of personal and national sins. If you are imagining Rick Perry's The Response, you're not too far off. (The International House of Prayer was one of the organizers of Perry's rally.) The Call, like Perry's prayer rally, has been endorsed by many Christian right staples, including Mike Huckabee, Tony Perkins, and James Dobson.

This particular event on 11.11.11 is being held in Detroit, because, according to the organizers, it's a symbol of an America in crisis:

Detroit has become a microcosm of our national crisis—economic collapse, racial tension, and the shedding of innocent blood of our children in the streets and of our unborn.

But the place where they say there is no hope, God has chosen as His staging ground for a great communal healing and His house of prayer for all nations. Therefore, we are calling the nation to a 24-hour solemn assembly, daring to believe that Detroit’s desperation can produce a prayer that can change a nation.

Come and take your place on the wall in Detroit, where we will ask God to send fire on our hearts, to forgive our national guilt and establish justice in our land.

There's a little more to it than that, actually. Nearby Dearborn, MI, has the largest population of Muslims in America. It also is the home of the country's largest mosque. Although The Call's web site makes no overt references to Muslims, Lou Engle would like to convert these Muslims to Christianity. And what a better way to do it than through his brand of Christian love.

Right Wing Watch put together a video of "Engle, along with Rick Joyner and Jerry Boykin, who serve with Engle on The Call’s national leadership team, stating their beliefs that Islam is literally “demonic” and Muslims need to convert to Christianity."

Who wouldn't want to convert after viewing this?

Mississippi's 'Personhood' Amendment Is Ludicrous (It May Be Coming to Your State, Too)

Update: The Mississippi personhood amendment was defeated on Tuesday, Nov. 8, but other efforts are underway in other states. This initiative is not going away anytime soon.

A blastocyst (aka 'person') on the tip of a pin

Mississippi is on the verge of passing a constitutional amendment that would define a person as a fertilized egg.

The so-called "personhood" amendment is on the November 8 ballot, and according to the most recent polling, it is very likely to pass.

This should be ridiculously alarming to anyone who is not completely out of touch with reality. Not only would the amendment have cascading legal implications, it would also have serious impact on the health and rights of all women. In addition, the amendment endorses all sorts of religious ideas, whether or not those are defined in the legislation.

Slate served up a slightly humorous, yet incredibly scary, list of legal questions that would arise from the legislation, including the following:

If you are legal person at fertilization, does that mean you could drink at 20 years and three months? Could you drive at 15 and three months? Could you vote at age 17, and collect Social Security at 64?

For legal purposes, would your birthday still be your “birth” day? Or your fertilization day?

Could you arrest women for smoking or drinking while pregnant? Could the state file a child abuse case against a mother who didn’t wear a seatbelt or otherwise endangered her fetus?

If a doctor doesn't take all possible steps to stop a miscarriage, would that be manslaughter?

Could you post ultrasound photos of your fetus (naked) on Facebook? Or would that be child pornography?

Would you be an American citizen if you were conceived in Mississippi but born elsewhere? Could there be “anchor babies” whose parents come to the United States, have sex, and then return home to Mexico for their baby’s birth?

If a woman eats food contaminated by Listeria and miscarries, could the agribusiness be prosecuted for murder?

What about ectopic pregnancies? If the embryo is not removed, it could kill the mother. Should the mother or the doctor be prosecuted for manslaughter if they remove it? Maybe it would be fairer to prosecute the embryo. If the fertilized egg is a person, isn't that person trying to commit murder-suicide?

Granted, some of these examples seem silly. But their ludicrousness underscores a few things: A) Such an extreme and broad amendment has huge implications on the interpretation of the law moving forward, and B) The amendment is ludicrous from the get-go.

Let's look at the human blastocyst. (By definition of the personhood amendment, a blastocyst would now constitute a person.)

Neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris wrote about blastocysts in relation to the ethics of stem cell research, but his arguments are just as apt in debating 'personhood':

A three-day-old human embryo is a collection of 150 cells called a blastocyst. There are, for the sake of comparison, more than 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly. [These] human embryos...do not have brains, or even neurons....Perhaps you think that the crucial difference between a fly and a human blastocyst is to be found in the latter's potential to become a fully developed human being. But almost every cell in your body is a potential human being, given our recent advances in genetic engineering. Every time you scratch your nose, you have committed a Holocaust of potential human beings. This is a fact. The argument from a cell's potential gets you absolutely nowhere.

Sure, a fertilized egg has the potential to become a human being. But we must also remember that an acorn is not a tree. It has the potential to become a tree, sure. We must take into consideration the fact that trees evolved to overcompensate -- to produce acorns that outnumber the trees that result from those acorns. This is how nature works.

Twenty percent of all pregnancies result in miscarriage. If all fertilized eggs are 'people,' then 20 percent of all people are killed before they are born. Will there be investigations to determine who was responsible for the untimely death of 1/5 of all 'people' in Mississippi? Will every woman who suffers a miscarriage be interrogated? If it was natural, is God the most prolific serial murderer in Mississippi's history?

Now that I've brought religion into the picture (how can one not?), let's look at this business of souls. Harris writes:

But let us assume, for the moment, that every three-day-old human embryo has a soul worthy of our moral concern. Embryos at this stage occasionally split, becoming separate people (identical twins). Is this a case of one soul splitting into two? Two embryos sometimes fuse into a single individual, called a chimera. You or someone you know may have developed in this way. No doubt theologians are struggling even now to determine what becomes of the extra human soul in such a case.

Isn't it time we admitted that this arithmetic of souls does not make any sense? The naive idea of souls...is intellectually indefensible.

The vote occurring in Mississippi should be very concerning to anyone who cares about privacy, science, liberty, and the enforcement of religious ideology as law. This amendment would ban all abortions, including those that result from incest and rape. It would ban IUDs and 'morning-after pills.' It would render embryonic stem cell research illegal. It would hamper in-vitro fertilization treatment.

God granting personhood to a blastocyst (artist rendering)

And, if successful, it will serve as a template for similar amendments across the country (there are already efforts brewing in Florida, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Wisconsin and other states), and passage could fundamentally transform the entire framework of laws in each state.

But what should be most troubling about this amendment is it attempts to define legally something which has yet to be defined by science. There is no consensus whatsoever as to when 'life' begins. There is no consensus on the definition of 'life,' in reproductive terms. The legislation attempts to define life in language that is in no way scientific. What it attempts to do is say that a bolt comes down from on high at the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg, and transforms it into a person.

This is supernaturalism, it's not supported by science, and it's about to become law.

Michael Shermer On The Evolutionary Roots Of Political Tribalism

Science writer and historian Michael Shermer isn't afraid to make some generalizations about people and their political ideologies. We all, more or less, belong to tribes, he says, and the characteristics are fairly easy to predict:

This is why, for example, the political beliefs of members of each party are so easy to predict. Without even knowing you, I predict that if you are a liberal you read the New York Times, listen to NPR radio, watch CNN, hate George W. Bush and loathe Sarah Palin, are pro-choice, anti-gun, adhere to the separation of church and state, are in favor of universal health care, vote for measures to redistribute wealth and tax the rich in order to level the playing field and believe that global warming is real, human caused and potentially disastrous for civilization if the government doesn’t do something dramatic and soon. By contrast, I predict that if you are a conservative you read the Wall Street Journal, listen to conservative talk radio, watch Fox News, love George W. Bush and venerate Sarah Palin, are pro-life, anti-gun control, believe that America is a Christian nation that should meld church and state, are against universal health care, vote against measures to redistribute wealth and tax the rich and are skeptical of global warming and/or government schemes to dramatically alter our economy in order to save civilization.

Some might beg to differ. Certainly there are those of us who are moderate, who fit somewhere in the middle of these two ideological descriptions. Some of us may even find ourselves migrating from one side of the spectrum to the other over the course of our lifetime. But I'm willing to bet that, for the most part, Shermer is correct. We do tend to like to seek out information that supports our beliefs, while rejecting information which calls our beliefs into question. We all are guilty of drinking the kool-aid, to various degrees.

Shermer's predictions bring up two questions: 1) Why are we so prone to such tribalism? and 2) Why are these tribal affinities remain so predictable -- and so strong -- despite our unlimited access to information and our capacity for critical thought?

Shermer describes how this tribalism has evolutionary roots, and was crucial to our survival. He takes us back to our hominid ancestors who lived in small bands on the African Savanna:

There, in those long-gone millennia, were formed the family ties and social bonds that enabled our survival among predators who were faster, stronger, and deadlier than us: unwavering loyalty to your fellow tribesmen was a signal that they could count on you when needed. Undying friendship with those in your group meant that they would reciprocate when the chips were down. Within-group amity was insurance against the between-group enmity that characterized our ancestral past. As Ben Franklin admonished his fellow revolutionaries, we must all hang together or we will surely hang separately.

In this historical trajectory our group psychology evolved and along with it a propensity for xenophobia — in-group good, out-group bad. Thus it is that members of the other political party are not just wrong — they are evil and dangerous. Stray too far from the dogma of your own party and you risk being perceived as an outsider, an Other we may not be able to trust. Consistency in your beliefs is a signal to your fellow group members that you are not a wishy-washy, Namby Pamby, flip-flopper, and that I can count on you when needed.

Surely, now that we have evolved the capacity for rational thought, and live in such a racially and ideologically diverse society, we have overcome this tribal mentality, right?

Research in cognitive psychology shows, for example, that once we commit to a belief we employ the confirmation bias, in which we look for and find confirming evidence in support of it and ignore or rationalize away any disconfirming evidence.

Shermer describes a study conducted during the 2004 Bush-Kerry Presidential election. Drew Westen, a psychologist at Emory University scanned the brains of 30 men, half of which were characterized as "strong" Republicans, and half which were characterized as "strong" Democrats. These men's brains were scanned as they watched videos of both Bush and Kerry making statements which contradicted previous statements.

Not surprisingly, in their assessments Republican subjects were as critical of Kerry as Democratic subjects were of Bush, yet both let their own preferred candidate off the evaluative hook. The brain scans showed that the part of the brain most associated with reasoning — the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — was quiet. Most active were the orbital frontal cortex that is involved in the processing of emotions, the anterior cingulate that is associated with conflict resolution, and the ventral striatum that is related to rewards. Roughly translated: we have an emotional reaction to conflicting data, rationalize away the parts that do not fit our preconceived beliefs about a candidate and then receive the positive reinforcement of a neurochemical hit, probably dopamine.

In other words, reasoning with facts about the issues is quite secondary to the emotional power of first siding with your party and then employing your reason, intelligence and education in the service of your political commitment.

Studies like these tend to show us what we already assume about human nature -- we have seen it enough in our own experiences. But understanding the science behind such instincts reminds us that, no matter how evolved we think we are, we are still, in many ways, quite primal.