Skepticum

Why Don’t You Blog listed Skepticum on their “10 best blogs on WDYB’s Blogroll.” I truly appreciate the mention, especially because WDYB is on my list of 10 Best Blogs.

I mostly read blogs that challenge me, not only those that I agree with, and the blogs I consistently read make it on my RSS list, which is absolutely the only way to keep up with all of them.

Here’s a list of ten that appear on my RSS list in addition to WDYB, and that I read on a regular basis (I have more than 10 that I subscribe to) :

Atheist Revolution–vjack, doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to atheist topics.

Middle Aged Vampiress Atheist–Vamp DiVerL addresses atheist topics with wit and humor.

Figleaf’s Real Adult Sex– Figleaf discusses sexuality in an educated manner, with a sprinkling of naughty thoughts (or more than a sprinkling sometimes).

The Atheocracy–Jeffrey W Hawks has some of the catchiest headlines in the atheist blogosphere.

Black Sun Journal–BlackSun writes (very well I might add) highly educated and well supported arguments against religious myths without appearing belligerent.

The Jesus Myth–Deals with agnostic and atheist topics not just Christian mythology.

The Jewish Atheist–Alan writes very well thought-through posts on sophisticated religious topics.

Tikkun Olam in Nicaragua–Maddy’s travel log shows us how we can make the world a better place one person at a time.

Five Public Opinions– Arthur shows us that people across the world may think the same, and that all is “best viewed with a brain.”

Dictionopolis in Digitopolis–Ben keeps me smiling with his entertainment news and smart-ass comments (smart-ass in this context is a compliment).

There are many more blogs that grace my rss reader, marketing/seo blogs, international blogs, financial sites, news sites, etc that I subscribe to, but I will keep this list to blogs that feel like they have a person (or more) behind them, rather than a news organization. One more mention, for the “deceased” aesahaettr.com. We miss Mel’s contribution to the blogosphere.

I’ve been following a few recent posts on the not-so recent topic raised by Dawkins in 2006 regarding religion teachings being mentally abusive to children. The Rational Fool writes a very thoughtful post with a focus specifically on the issue of inducing fear in children and Mahendra of An Unquiet Mind gives the perspective of one raised in a Hindu family.

I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, however, the perspective that these two posts brought to me is worth exploring–it’s worth exploring the concept of fear in religious education, the implications of family, society and tradition.

Dawkin’s main example of mental abuse in children is the fear-inducing teachings of hell. He says, “the threat of eternal hell is an extreme example of mental abuse, just as violent sodomy is an extreme example of physical abuse.”

The Rational Fool tells a powerful story of his experience growing up under religious-induced fear:

Born into a religious Hindu family, I still remember how the adults used to scare me with dire consequences to deter me from committing minor transgressions. For example, if I attempted to steal a sweetmeat before it was consecrated to the gods, they’d admonish me with, “swami kannakkuthiduvar” [in Tamil]. Translated into English, it literally means, “god will drive a dagger into your eyes”. For major transgressions, there was the ubiquitous threat, “You will go to this horrible, horrible, place called hell”. Occasionally, I too have nightmares of being thrown into a vat full of boiling oil in a scorching desert, with emaciated men and women around me being roasted on the skewers! I shrug off these dreams when I wake up, but not everyone does.

He goes on though to wonder if watching horror movies may have the same effect on children, and if a parent lets a child watch a horror movie, will it be just as scaring as threatening children with hell.

To answer this I would look at the emotion itself. Fear, is a useful feeling, that allowed humans and other creatures the ability to discern danger and flee, fight, hide, or invoke another protective behavior. This emotion has been essential to our evolution.

Emotions though do not function on their own, require a certain behavioral output, or else there would be no channel for the emotion, and the emotion would not be recognized. We recognize fear by its manifestations, most of them physiological, such as cold sweating, heavy breathing, panic, etc.

Scary movies are designed to make people jump out of their skin, and appeal to the large population of thrill-seeking, adrenaline junkies. Children can be easily impressed by these movies but they can also be taught how to behave in situations of fear. So if by some chance your child gets to see a scary movie, I would take it as an opportunity to teach the child about fear. Everyone feels fear but how we react to it is what makes the difference in the long term.

In the religious context the behavior that’s taught in response to fear is religion specific. Thus it’s the behavior that’s the end-goal and fear is a means to that end. Parents don’t only have the ability to instill fear in their children but they also teach the ensuing behavioral rules. For example, a deer will teach its fawn to run when sensing danger. A fawn raised in captivity without learning how to positively employ fear will most probably not survive amongst predators.

So fear in itself has served us good, but as humans we’ve also learned how to employ it to serve less rational and less noble purposes. Despite having the luxury of reason (and ever- increasing science knowledge) to explain certain phenomena to us, we still teach our children to obey through fear. As a kid I was told that if I didn’t behave the boogeyman would get me. When at a very young age I said there was no boogeyman (my folk were laughing too hard during their boogeyman threat so it wasn’t believable to me), I was told the gypsies would take me away. In the religious household the threat takes on religious connotations and it continues to be religious even at an age where the child can understand reason, facts, science.

What’s paradoxical about the attempt of religious folk to control their kids through religious threats is that, “you have to work hard to get kids to believe nonsense. If you’re not desperately selling lies, the work is a lot easier” (Penn Jillette, Parenting Beyond Belief). Jillette’s advice is to “tell your kids the truth as you see it and let the marketplace of ideas work as they grow up.”

That sounds too simple to be that simple. So what do you tell your kid when his friend asked, “Did your grandpa go to heaven when he died?” Julia Sweeney’s answer is, “No we don’t believe in that.”

Before I express my disagreement with Sweeney’s answer, let me tie in another point about culture and its implications in the context of religious fearmongery. Religion, families and cultures are closely connected. From questions of how do I continue belonging to my family after I leave their faith behind, to how will we function as a family if husband and wife have different belief systems, to how the next generation should be educated, all depend on navigating the outside teachings vs. internal reason divide. How do I balance what I’m taught versus what I should believe as an independent rational being?

Some of us want to stick with what we’re taught, regardless of what the world teaches. It is very comforting to think grandpa went to heaven, and it might seem the best way to soothe a child who just lost grandpa. Sweeney chose to give the blunt answer, ” we don’t believe in that.”

Here is where I disagree. Culture is a beautiful thing that keeps us human and connected. There is nothing wrong with telling the child, “some people believe grandpa went to heaven because he was a good man, I do not think he did because there is no heaven. But how you remember grandpa is more important than where he went.” And that’s because I believe family is about the history we share, the experiences we share and the love we share, all that is real between people, not some fabricated fantasy. Saying “we don’t believe in heaven” is assuming the child knows what he believes in, and it’s the same as saying “we believe in heaven” and assuming the child believes.

In conclusion, I believe fearmongery for religious goals is unacceptable, particularly when teaching the impressive minds of children. It’s not fear itself that’s the cause of concern but its psychological and behavioral aftermath can be damaging. There is nothing wrong with navigating fear through cultural conversations but it is very important to not lie to our children, and to give them rational information that they can put to use on their own.

I don’t believe my grandpa is in heaven or hell or anywhere, but he is with me, because he is part of my family, my culture and he made sure I learned science. I don’t think my parents were abusive for letting me watch Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the short movie, which to this day haunts me (mostly because of what Michael Jackson became later in life). I stopped being scared at night by memories of scary movies since that first 1989 night when machine guns were roaring outside our apartment during the Romanian revolution (coup d’etat, or whatever is called today). I learned to fear abuse of power then, and scaring children through purposefully developed religious hell-tales meant to inflict obedience to religious entities is one of those examples of abuse of power.

TechTags Plugin [ religion | atheism | hell | society ]

In the past few years an increasingly vocal group of activists and soldiers have spoken out to dispel the myth that “there are no atheists in foxholes.” Meant to imply that non-belief disappears in the face of adversity to be replaced with religiosity, the concept was used this past summer by Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, who said, Agnostics, atheists and bigots suddenly lose all that when their life is on the line.” The National Guard later clarified Blum’s statement to say the statement was meant to emphasize camaraderie between soldiers of different belief.

During the modern day’s debate which heavily started with a 2005 Good Morning America segment (in which Bill Weih use the expression), atheist military personal came out to say their superiors had made it clear they would not tolerate atheism amidst their ranks. However, officially, atheist, agnostic or no religious preference are all belief options for new recruits for their dog-tag identifications.

Regardless of the inclusiveness of the US Military, does the expression, “there are no atheists in foxholes” stand?

According to professor Ken Pargament (Bowling Green State University), a professor specializing in the psychology of religion and coping, says (as quoted by Newsweek): “If someone is a committed atheist, they’re likely to stay a committed atheist.”

Via The Anchoress I got to follow the web of the web and find the transcript of “An Evening with Christopher Hitchens,” from Union League Club, New York, May 1, 2007 (Part 1, and Part 2). While some claim Hitchens was drunk and obnoxious during this event I can’t help but admire someone who even though possibly under the spell of Bacchus can solidly argue that our secular tradition is nothing to be ashamed of. Here are some excerpts from the event:

We don’t expect people to give up their need for something numinous or transcendent. That’s what poetry is for; that’s what literature is for. That’s the need I think it supplies. I don’t actually like devotional painting, but I could not possibly do without gothic architecture and devotional music. It would be — life would be quite empty without it. Like not having the poems of Auden or Philip Larkin or, indeed, the Cranmer Prayer Book — or the Book of Job, where it says — why does this move me? Why should it? It says, Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. Okay, if I live long enough, I’ll write something that people would remember like that. But I’m not there yet.
But you don’t have to pay the supernatural and worshiping and prostrating price for this culture. I would say that was my main point. And those of us who believe that an ethical life can be lived without this are not without resources, you know. We have Epicurus. We have Spinoza. We have Benjamin Franklin. We have Thomas Payne; Thomas Jefferson. So you know, you can — morals do not derive from holy books. The holy books steal their morals from us and make them into an object of worship, and demand sacrifice, which we don’t need.
Our secular tradition is nothing to be ashamed of. Whereas religion is never done apologizing for its crimes; never, never, never and never can be. Just last week, His Holiness the Pope announces, You know what? All those dead babies, un-baptized, that you bore in pain and died on childbirth — they didn’t go to limbo after all. Can you think of anything crueler than that? I can — telling them they were in limbo in the first place — St. Augustin’s beautiful idea. Centuries of torturing ignorant and uneducated people — giving them vouchers, so they could go to schools where they would be told that their miscarried babes had gone to something very like hell, and were howling and crying without consolation.

And again I have to admire Hitchens for explaining (and all atheists I’m sure have struggled with this) what I call the ‘Hitler was an atheist fallacy.’ However, Hitchens explains it on a larger scale, in the context of a question from the audience:

Unidentified Audience Member: I just wanted to suggest that, even though there are secular thinkers who haven’t apologized. The religious people have apologized. But it doesn’t mean that the secular people have nothing to apologize for; they just don’t bother doing it.

Christopher Hitchens: Well, I’m not sure quite which secularists you mean, though I think I can guess. I mean –

Unidentified Audience Member: Engels]?

Christopher Hitchens: Oh, so it’s wonderful Engels. When Joseph Stalin went to meet his mother down in Georgia after all those years — hadn’t seen her for awhile — and she said, “Naughty boy, where have you been? Why do you never write? What are you doing now?” And he said, “Well, actually, Mama, I’m Chairman of the Central Committee of the Presidium of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union now.” And she looked at him and said, “You stupid boy. If you’d stayed in that seminary, you could have been a bishop by now.”

It would be idiotic of the Bolshevik Party not to take advantage of the fact that until 1917, the Czar, the head of the state, had been considered the head of the Church, and also semi-divine. If you couldn’t replicate a credulity like that and take advantage of it, you would not be doing your job as a totalitarian — save if you happened to inherit a Confucian China, or an Angkor Wat type Cambodia. Take — by all means, you have already the local superstitions. That’s how Christianity converted the pagans — by putting a cross around the head of the local deities.

It’s not a question of whether it’s secular or not, if you see what I mean. It’s a matter of attacking our own beliefs — not how bullying is the leader, but how willing are we to prostrate ourselves at his feet, or hers. How willing are we to be citizens?

Now no society that we know of — and I’ll challenge you directly on it — has ever been accused of falling into totalitarian habits by following the examples of Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Payne, Epicurus, Spinoza — the tradition of doubt and separation of church and state — that I can think of. And I’ve tried. I don’t think you can find one, either.

So be sure you’re comparing like with like when you do this.

And fascism, of course, was essentially a Catholic racket, everywhere from Croatia to Portugal. In Slovakia, the head of the Nazi puppet state was actually a priest in holy orders. The Concordat between the Vatican and Hitler and Mussolini was agreed by all to be essentially the guarantee of their taking and holding power.

In the other side of the axis, the head of Japanese National Socialism — the Emperor was actually not just a religious figure, but himself a god. Do not confuse the idea that totalitarianism and secularism are in that way confusable.

As a huge fan of Discover mag I had to think twice this morning on why Discover would launch a Science and Religion blog, or rather why would Discover mag promote and host the blog of Father Michael K. Holleran, who views science as intrinsically amoral:

I would propose that scientific research is intrinsically amoral; by its own rules, science would simply go out and do whatever it is capable of doing at any time. This is a limitation, but not a fault. Problems arise, however, because its object is often part of a much more complex reality. For example, not only do people do science, but people are often the object of science. What is more, they are not simply the subjects and objects of science, they are also the subjects and objects of psychology, art, ethics, philosophy, theology, and mysticism. Hence, these other levels of exploration and discourse have the right not to do science but to challenge the scientist, when a value known and embraced at another level is threatened by a science that is fundamentally without values. This is obviously the case in the life sciences: biotechnology, biochemistry, etc. Even if cloning, stem cell research, and reproductive advances represent scientific progress, are they truly and necessarily progress for the totality of the human person and for life in society?

As I said, I thought twice, or thrice… or I’m still thinking about it. As a former journalist I can understand the need for balanced publishing content and also the need to attract a variety of readers. I can also understand the need to give religion a voice within the mostly science-focused writings published by Discover. However, claims such as the one above do not belong in a science publication, just as creationism does not belong in the science classroom.

Discover’s Science and Religion blog though tries to marry the two fields, through a poetic if not overly-fanciful way of describing the need for spirituality.

Perhaps what is best in our humanity is what can likewise help reconcile science and religion in practice: the sense of wonder, of openness, of exploration, the exhilarating intoxication that I mentioned above. These sentiments are the inspiration, both Maritain and I would argue, for both science and religion—indeed for any passionate pursuit. Grounded in this sort of breadth of spirit, which is secure, serene, and confident in itself, we can hopefully learn—whether in science or in religion or in any human endeavor—not only to tolerate but to glory in the experience of not knowing. The feverish demand for instant certitude seems a Western neurosis. After all, whether we consider ourselves loyal scientists or loyal members of a religious tradition or both, an awestruck sense of respect before the unknown is the only loyal attitude towards whatever reality is the object of our exploration. As Maritain pointed out, there is more mystery in a grape between the teeth than in all of our discourses that would attempt to explain it. So, may we avoid anorexia of the spirit, and let the “banquet” continue!

Fortunately a blog is a place open to dialogue, so father Michael’s posts received immediate commentary from readers, most of which were critical of his ideas.

Father Michael, you asked us to avoid ad hominem calls of hypocrisy, to turn a blind eye to the failures of the past: the atrocities of both religion and science. To imply, with some subtlety, that no modern theologian takes a literal view of the book of Genesis. However, therein lies one of the more brilliant points Dawkins makes in his book, The God Delusion. Relgious people, Dawkins notes, "pick and choose which bits of scripture to believe, which bits to write off as symbols or allegories." To discard those parts of the Scripture that no longer align with modern moral, humanistic standards, while admirable, shows how tenuous, even flippant, religious beliefs can be. How incongruent with the search for Truth, when truths can be rewritten or discarded by the whim of a single prophet. (Posted by Dave Jarvis at 2007-09-25 18:13)

My response to father Michael would be that his posts are beautifully written and call for pondering of the immensity of human experience. However, the idea that we need to glory in the experience of not knowing must simply be a figure of speech, because it is in the nature of humans to want to know, which explains the creation of so many varied religions. Religious explanations are just one way humans have attempted to "know," science is another, and then there’s such a thing as philosophy, which may or may not adhere to religious concepts. Morality, and the need to "know" do not depend on deities to ascribe rules of behavior. Just as humans painted christ to be a white blue-eyed man, humans ascribed, and transcribed (if they came from plates, not that I believe that) rules of conduct to serve human purposes. Also humans re-write rules of human interaction every day. There is nothing mystical about the need to "know" and nothing mystical about human interraction.

Magnet braces, pads, inserts, wraps and more that promise pain relief are used by up to 28% of people with rheumatoid arthritis,
osteoarthritis, or fibromyalgia, and make up for a $5 billion industry worldwide.

Despite their popularity and pseudoscience claims of medical benefits (one company claims magnets are just as effective at pain control as ibuprofen), a new study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal showed there is no evidence static magnets fight the pain of arthritis or fibromyalgia.

The lead author of the study, Dr. Max Pittler said, "the biggest concern is that people seeking to ease their pain may
be buying into - and paying big bucks - for a therapy that may not be effective."

An Amazon search on "magnet therapy" resulted in 402 books on the topic and 640 items in health and personal care, the cheapest of which are the $3.50 ear dot magnets. You can also find insoles, bracelets, adhesive strips, wrist bands, back bands, a zillion types of dot magnets, ankle wraps, elbow wraps, necklaces, circle pads, heat pads, eye masks, head bands, and even a Super Power magnet with "10,000 Guass of power." I’m sure they meant it to be 10,000 Gauss.

Most of these products’ marketing is nothing but pseudoscience. "Pseudoscience uses invented modes of analysis which it pretends or professes meet the requirements of scientific method, but which in fact violate its essential attributes (James Randi Educational Foundation).

The James Randi foundation has published criticisms on a few cases of products that claim medical benefits from magnets. Such a product is the Dr. Scholl’s insoles. Dr. Scholl’s came out with the Magna Energy Insoles that got the following review from the Randi Foundation:

On the package, we’re assured that "The Dr. Scholl’s brand is the leader of innovation" and we’re promised "penetrating waves" from their foam insoles, which are "designed to deliver Certified bipolar magnet strength." How reassuring. For a moment there I thought I was reading a quack document. And, to bolster any flagging faith in this product, Dr. Scholl tells the customers, "our exclusive bipolar magnet system allows alternating waves of magnet therapy to penetrate your body through the soles of your feet."

Magentic Fields on the Magna Energy Insoles

Here are a few facts, unpopular as they may be: All magnets are bipolar. For this company to represent that they have something "exclusive" in an ordinary magnet, is dishonest. As for the "alternating waves of magnet therapy" they coo about, I think they’ve no notion of what a "wave" is, nor what is meant by "alternating," either. To claim that the magnetic fields around these silly little disc magnets could "penetrate" the wearer’s body — let alone be measured or be of any therapeutic value, is ridiculous. Just look at the illustration, above, of the suggested magnetic field and how much of the body it affects. Arranged as they are, the tiny magnetic fields cancel one another out a very short distance from the insole, anyway! And just what or who provided the "certification" for these bits of magnet? Certification for a magnet is like licensing an acorn to grow into an apple tree.

While there might still be valid applications of magnetism in medicine, these types of price-inflated products have not proven to make any difference in pain management and are not going to be recommended by doctors or scientists as replacements for proven pain control methods. If you plan on using your money on a pair of gym shoes and a set of magna energy gel insoles, and then spend some time at the gym, may experience some pain reduction but exercise is what most probably did it, not the insoles.

LA Times reported today the evangelist Billy Graham got his own 40,000-square-foot museum in his hometown of Charlotte, NC. Unlike others who get a museum after they die, or usually just a small display in another museum Graham got to walk through his museum and got to approve its creation, "only when he was convinced that the project would serve as a perpetual crusade — a tribute not to him but to Jesus Christ — did Graham give it his blessing."

As Graham probably didn’t give the same directions to the LA Times article, his living personality is the focus of the news. From this report it’s hard to see if the museum is focused on Jesus, Graham or Disney. Here are some quotes:

The Billy Graham Library is intensely focused on the Gospel, with dozens of video clips of Graham quoting Scripture.

Right here we see we don’t just get any gospel in the museum, but rather clips of Graham quoting Scripture.

Tourists will see several dozen artifacts from Graham’s life, including a poem written for him by rock star Bono; a medal from Queen Elizabeth; photos of him with Muhammad Ali, Johnny Cash, John F. Kennedy Jr. (After his father protested there was too much Billy Graham, Franklin took down some of the snapshots, but he couldn’t bear to strip them all.)

There are also pictures of Graham with presidents including W Bush, a stuffed cat, a lifelike-looking cow and hens clucking on a soundtrack wrap up the atmosphere:

In a calculatedly Southern drawl — the first attempt at a voice-over was deemed too Yankee — Bessie tells visitors how a young Billy Frank used to practice preaching as he milked her.

And talking about milking, the museum has a gift shop with "stacks of $12 Billy Graham ball caps and $10 stuffed cows wearing Billy Graham T-shirts."

But I digress, I started by saying Graham appears to be the focus here not Jesus. At the end of the article the win goes to Graham with 36 mentions versus Jesus who only gets 2.

Suck it Jesus, Graham is our god now!

… or so claims John Friend, clerk of the Douglas County District Court.

Fried claims that god responded to a lawsuit brought against his ’lordship’ by State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha.

According to AP Chambers, who considers himself an agnostic, "sued God last week, seeking a permanent injunction against the Almighty for making terroristic threats, inspiring fear and causing "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants."

Friend claims that god’s filing appeared miraculously on the counter, "It just all of a sudden was here — poof!"

Although this first filing listed Michael the Archangel as witness, a second filing that also appeared miraculously on the clerk’s counter lists a phone number for a Corpus Christi law office.

So either god hired a law firm, or he actually lives in Corpus Christi. Just like that, poof!

According to a National Coalition Against Censorship report a number of Congressional hearings this year confirmed the Bush administration have been systematically censoring and monitoring science information being disseminated from government agencies.

On July 10, Dr. Richard Carmona disclosed that the administration interfered with his work and muzzled him on numerous issues throughout his four-year tenure as Surgeon General. Carmona, who was appointed by President Bush in 2002, alleges that his speeches were censored, and his public statements carefully monitored by political appointees: “Anything that doesn’t fit into [their] ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried.” He cautioned, "The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds.”

The NCAC published a list of 5 other testimonies of government suppression and manipulation of science.

A well known example of how government appointee ideology is attempting to replace science with dogma is the case of the abstinence-only sex-ed programs:

Two reports commissioned by Congress confirmed the ineffectiveness of ’abstinence-only’ sex education, and documented how these programs disseminate scientific misinformation that poses a serious threat to public health. Despite these findings (and ignoring recent polls suggesting that over 75% of Americans support more comprehensive sex education), the House Appropriations Committee recently voted for a 25% increase in federal funding for abstinence-only programs next year.

Let me repeat what Carmona said, because I can’t say it better, "in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds."

UPenn Bioethics professor Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., published a commentary on MSNBC today warning women to be wary of TV commercials that promote genetic testing to detect risk of breast cancer.

Salt Lake City biotechnology company Myriad is running TV, radio and magazine ads with the slogan “Be ready against cancer” in Boston, Hartford, Providence, and New York City.

Caplans’ concern is that,

“Myriad is getting awfully close to overselling its testing technology in the guise of trying to educate women about breast cancer.”

His argument is not necessarily against Myriad advertising their $3,000 genetic tests but he has concerns about the fact that Myriad is targeting such a larger population and their claims are vague and wide-sweeping.

Here are the facts that Caplan quotes:

1. “The genes Myriad offers testing for are responsible for only about 10 percent of all breast cancer. “
2. Having the gene doesn’t mean you will get the disease at a young age. Cancer may not strike until you’re 50 or 60, so worrying about it from your 20s is a long time.
3. “Many experts on genetic testing recommend the Myriad genetic test only for women who have close genetic relatives who had breast cancer at a young age — 40 and younger. Perhaps 2 percent of American women meet that criterion.”

Caplan also points to a very serious side-effect of taking such testing in a non-regulated environment:

Health insurance companies may decide to consider a positive test as a preexisting condition, or even completely drop health coverage. “There is not much in the way of legislation that protects women against this sort of genetic discrimination.”

Caplan concludes:

Not only is there a grave risk that the test is being pitched to women who don’t need it, it is not clear what women are to do if they do have the genetic mutation.

The Chicago Tribune reported today that, “Mayors and state legislators nationwide have weighed in on the obesity crisis by targeting fast-food companies and the way they cook and market their burgers and chicken.”

Some of my closest friends have accused me of being an exclusive proteinovore. I get low points in diversity because I am not very tolerant of carbs, or so they say, and I like my meat close to breathing. So I may not be the most objective party when it comes to dieting, however, I also have low tolerance for government intervention in business.

In this particular case the problem is gluttony. Christians talk about IT, movies cash in on IT, and Americans love IT. And when I mean we love it, we really love it.

So at the risk of offending a few people, I’d say we are the problem not the fast-food companies. As Chris Rock says, no drug dealer ever has to worry about how they’ll sell their stash of crack, because crack sells itself. In America food is like crack, it sells itself because we are addicted to having more and more and more of IT. Fast food companies are enablers, but they’re not at fault for our gluttony.

However, not all is lost in America:

A federal judge in New York signaled Tuesday that regardless of how strenuously health advocates plead, it isn’t easy to insinuate the government between a diner and his or her fries. In a closely watched case, U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell struck down a local rule that required fast-food restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus.

New York went ahead with a calorie counting rule, but who’s to say that any of us understand the whole calories counting thing. As I said, I was accused of not following FDA’s recommendations by overdoing it on protein and discriminating against carbs, and I’ll admit I have no clue about calorie counting with the exception of the fact that I know if something has calories it means it can be set on fire.

In fact, that’s how chemists and physicists count calories, because a calorie is nothing else but a method of measuring energy consumption.

The Calorie you see on a food package is actually a kilocalorie, or 1,000 calories … The original method used to determine the number of kcals in a given
food directly measured the energy it produced.The food was placed in a sealed container surrounded by water–an apparatus known as a bomb calorimeter. The food was completely burned and the resulting rise in water temperature was measured. This method is not frequently used today. SciAm.com, May 19, 2003.

The food labels though are dictated by an Act not by a science textbook. Yes, The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990.

…most of the calorie values in the USDA and industry food tables are based on an indirect calorie estimation made using the so-called Atwater system. In this system, calories are not determined directly by burning the foods. Instead, the total caloric value is calculated by adding up the calories provided by the energy-containing nutrients: protein, carbohydrate, fat and alcohol. Because carbohydrates contain some fiber that is not digested and utilized by the body, the fiber component is usually subtracted from the total carbohydrate before calculating the calories. SciAm.com, May 19, 2003

Did you get that? An indirect calorie estimation.

And who has to gain from this Act? Dietitians. And you thought this Act was favoring those with girth issues?

Over the past year, restaurateurs who wanted to keep nutritional claims on their menus have taken one of two courses of action to meet the requirements of the NLEA. Some have worked with a registered dietitian to create healthy menu items, while others have had their recipes or samples of their food analyzed by a dietitian. National Restaurant Association, April 1998.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of nutrition is expected to grow up 10 to 20% by 2010.

So there you have it, no one knows what’s in our food but the FDA and the registered dieticians. If you really want to know how many calories you’re eating, place your food in a sealed container surrounded by water and burn it. Measure the temp of the water and you’ll get your kcals. One kcal is the amount energy (heat) that will raise the temperature of one kilogram of water one degree Celsius. What does that mean to our bodies? Well here’s the trick, it really depends on how the body metabolizes the food, what level of activity one gets etc. “The exact increase in fat tissue also depends on the form of energy intake. For example, food consisting mainly of fat can be converted into fat tissue quite efficiently, whereas carbohydrates cannot. Similarly, the exact conversion efficiency of food energy into physical power also depends on the exact form of energy source (type of food) and on the type of physical energy usage (e.g. which muscles are used, whether the muscle is used aerobically or anaerobically).” (Wikipedia, Food Energy)

So don’t sweat it, no matter what the results are someone who knows nothing about science will argue with you about the calorie content of what you just burned.

Via Why Don’t You Blog I came to read a whole string of anti-atheist comments to an excerpt from John Humphrys’ soon to be published book “In God we doubt.”

The Times Online summarized the book as follows:

He went looking for God and ended up an angry agnostic - unable to believe but enraged by the arrogance of militant atheists. It’s hard to see the purpose of the world, he says, but don’t blame its evils on religion.

Humphrys’ book aside it was the anti-atheist comments that left me pondering. In particular I found the usage of the concept of hell very revealing of how important it is to certain brands of Christianity and their struggle to make sense (for their followers) of why one should believe.

Virginia, Brisbane, Australia said,

The atheist are the stupid ones. They refused to believe that they will burn in hell for all eternity. There is really no point in trying to convince these people as they are the minority as God puts the belief in us when we were created. That is why there are very few geniune atheist if the truth were known.

The belief that an argument to be brought against atheists is that they are knocking on the gates of hell (as another vocal post said) is a debatable one, especially since atheists aren’t the ones obsessed with hell. Christians’ concern with hell goes so far that in certain circles the word ’hell’ can’t be spoken out loud. The mere mention of hell can be a curse in itself.

Another interesting aspect of ’hell’ that I got out of the 205 posts is that to have a heaven, you have to have a hell. Of course, this is classical Christian logic, but it made me realize that when all other arguments against atheism fail, there is one that always comes up as a final attempt–atheists don’t believe in hell that’s why they’re atheists. And if you don’t believe in hell it’s assumed you can’t believe in heaven, thus you can’t believe in gd. So if you could only believe in hell, maybe you’ll become a theist.

This concept of lack of believe in hell as the trigger of all non-belief is ironic for at least two reasons. One, many religions don’t believe in hell, yet they are theist (the closes to Christianity in this regard is Judaism). Two, it sounds somewhat as a confirmation that some believe only out of fear. If you would only believe in hell then you’d be scared shitless and you’d believe in gd.

Thus is leads me to believe there are such groups as Christian hell-promoters, who cannot make sense of life without clinging unto a concept of hell as the reference point that gives them balance in their beliefs. It is unfortunate as well that hell-promoters can’t understand those who have balance without hell. And if we are to compare the two propositions, which one would you choose, balance with hell as an option, or balance without hell as an option?

I’ve made my choice, I don’t believe in hell.

The Telegraph reported today that the Bengali woman who claimed to have been cured of a stomach tumor courtesy of Mother Teresa claimed the Sisters of Charity abandoned her to live in poverty.

Monica Besra claimed in 2003 that she was healed of her tumor after praying to Mother Teresa and pressing a medallion bearing the image of the sainthood-candidate to her side.

Besra’s claim that the Sisters of Charity made promises to her before taking her to testify to the Vatican, and then abandoned her is just another twist to the controversy of Teresa’s canonization process.

It all started when the Vatican made an exception in the case of Mother Teresa and eliminated a 5-year waiting period after the death of a candidate before the start of the canonization process.

More of the controversy came to public attention when it came to Teresa’s beatification (step 4 of the canonization process). To pass this stageTeresa needed to have performed miracle healings post-humously. Monica Besra was the first claim of faith healing related to Teresa. According to Besra,

“My hut was frequented by nuns of the Missionaries of Charity before the beatification of Mother Teresa,” said Mrs Besra, squatting on the floor of her thatched and mud house in the village of Dangram, 460 miles northeast of Calcutta. “They made of lot of promises to me and assured me of financial help for my livelihood and my children’s education. After that, they forgot me. I am living in penury. My husband is sick. My children have stopped going to school as I have no money. I have to work in the fields to feed my husband and five children.”

Even though it was the nuns who tied the medallion to her stomach on the first anniversary of Teresa’s death, the sisters say Besra herself made the miracle healing claim. Now, despite saying the sisters abandoned her she claims her faith is still strong in Teresa.

The doctors who treated Besra gave a logical explanation for the healing, in that the tumor was small, it shrunk and went away with treatment over a period of a year.

Even her husband said the miracle was a hoax. However, after the international press of the matter turned them into celebrities, and on the eve or his wife’s trip to the Vatican, he changed his mind and declared the healing a miracle himself. He said he was proud of his wife for traveling to the Vatican.

I guess now that they were celebrities he believed in the virtue of his wife to bring upon themselves such additional miracles as their kids being able to go to school and his wife taking a trip abroad. Unfortunately this side-effect of the miracle was short lived, and now the nuns are letting them struggle with poverty, the kids can’t go to school anymore and the husband is sick and can’t work.

Now, if the sisters had tied a medallion of Saint Mana around her waist, and then she was healed, by the same logic she would claim I healed her. Or if I go out there and find 100 flu sufferers and then give them a Mana Magic Medallion and tell them in 7 days they’ll be healed, chances are most of them will be healed and what a mighty miracle I make! Of course I would not have the ethos of Mother Teresa (which involves her reputatin as well as the strength of the placibo effect), even though, under the right circumstances I could probably raise just as much money as her from law-breaking citizens. What the nuns forget, but I will make sure to put in the box with the medallion, is the disclosure that while the miracle will be powerful it will be short-lived.

A recent post I read on King Aardvark’s Kick in the Nuts site made me repeat an expression which I realized could be my trademark when it comes to labeling religion:

To me religion will always be like an abusive partner.

I’ve posted this on many blogs as a comment, but I decided now to post it on my own.

I was an adult when I flirted with religion and got a bad case of what I call the “abusive partner syndrome.” To me that’s what religion will always be, an abusive partner–it told me I was chosen, and then beat on me and told me I fell short, then it told me it loved me, gave me comfort, and as soon as I felt better, it beat on me and told me I fell short. Then it told me I could learn from my mistakes and grow stronger, and I worked hard at it and as soon as I was within reach of my goal it slapped my hand away and once again I fell short.

Using similar metaphors I anonymously sent Aesahaettr my response to a post of his. I was afraid I was going to offend his readers by saying this, but fuck it, this is my blog and my readers so I’m going to say it:

Some love is sick and some love is true. I only want the true kind. Being in love with religion can be like being in love with an abusive partner. You open yourself up for this desired love, but they’ll keep hurting and hurting you while telling you they love you despite the inflicted pain. And they tell you the pain will make you stronger. But you’re not stronger and never free until you break free from wanting that kind of love.

I guess in the end (about 3 years later, not much longer) I stood up, stretched all my five feet and nine inches of female pride, threw some reason into it and realized that if you keep cutting the grass it may look beautiful but it will always be short. Ya’re not gonna stand there, wave your finger at the grass and blame it for being short. But we do that, don’t we? We feed the grass, we patch it, we ban the dog from running in it, and when it starts growing we cut it short.

These days I wish I was six foot tall, but my pituitary gland won’t cooperate. Might be because I needed a lot of hits over the head to wake up. Might be that genetically speaking I didn’t inherit a much taller gene, or I didn’t drink enough growth-hormone tainted milk. Or it might be that at my height I’m the same height as the average American male, so I’m tall enough. Those are the facts I flirt with today.

Aug. 29, 2007, Christopher Hitchens discusses the bright and dark side of mother Teresa’s crisis of faith in a Newsweek article.

The following quotes give a heartbreaking peak into Teresa’s struggle of faith which she recorded in her personal letters. But before we get too teary-eyed Hitchens brings us back to reality with a blunt reminder of her fanaticism and compromising situations she involved herself in during the more famous time of her life, which he guesses might be attributed to her struggle to come to terms with her “dark nights of the soul”:

The sacrament of the mass is not to be undergone in a wrong frame of mind, and there are hints here and there that Mother Teresa was afraid she was endangering her soul. She felt that she should not even be thinking such things: “So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them—because of the blasphemy—If there be God—please forgive me—When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven—there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul.—I am told God loves me—and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?” That last question in particular must have been an annihilating difficult one to face.

Now, it might seem glib of me to say that this is all rather unsurprising, and that it is the inevitable result of a dogma that asks people to believe impossible things and then makes them feel abject and guilty when their innate reason rebels. (…)

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