Language is ultimately a means to the end of communication. In most situations we implicitly understand this and either avoid or explicitly qualify our use of words we know are likely to be misunderstood by our audience. For instance even if I spoke some ultra-proper dialect of english that rejected words like ‘hot dog’ and was highly concerned with the overabundance of uncomfortably warm pooches I wouldn’t make speeches demanding “the government act to eliminate hot dogs.” I certainly wouldn’t dismiss a public figure as cruel to dogs because he admitted liking “hot dogs.” Even if I felt very strongly that the term “hot dog” should only be used literally I would recognize the fact that this isn’t what others mean by the term and adjust my remarks to address their intended content. Strangely¹, however, ‘moderate’² religious intellectuals tend to do just the opposite when they talk about god. Rather than attempt to communicate their positions and beliefs in the way that would be maximize understand they instead play confusing word games to avoid saying anything the man on the street would recognize as atheism. This tendency goes so deep that I know pastors who flatly reject any belief in life after death, supernatural beings or events yet get up in church on sunday to read the gospel and give homilies about obedience to god without reminding the audience that they are just using god metaphorically³.

I was forcefully reminded of this tendency while listening to KQED’s interview with Karen Armstrong about religion and the new atheists like Dawkins and Harris. While I couldn’t find the actual interview I heard she says more or less the same thing in this salon.com piece (and if you really want you can watch her give a similar address). Like many religious progressives she makes her dissatisfaction with ’simplistic’ notions of god clear but this doesn’t excuse the miscommunication caused by using ‘god’ to refer to certain kinds of (totally scientific/non-supernatural) experiences and brain states⁴. Ironically though Ms. Armstrong recognizes the fact that most other english speakers mean something totally different by the word god when she complains about monotheist’s talk about god loving people or willing things.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the vast majority of english speakers understand ‘god’ to describe some kind of conscious actor of vast supernatural power. If you don’t want to refer to a supernatural conscious agent pick another word. Sure it’s fair to use god to describe something other than the old man with a beard in the sky most Americans think of when you use the word but only if this is close to the notion you want to communicate. The level of double think required to believe using the term god to refer to some completely natural (non-supernatural) phenomenon isn’t misleading is simply astounding. A significant fraction of the US populace is waiting to be teleported to heaven at Christ’s second coming and 82% of americans believe in life after death. What sort of self-deception is required to think that ‘god’ is a reasonable way to communicate the non-supernatural (or not necessarily) phenomenon you have in mind to a general US audience⁵?

Still this would be just par for the course if she hadn’t gone farther and actually criticized Dawkins and Harris for using god to mean what everyone thinks it means. I’m not a fan of Dawkins’s book (he just stirs up the indignation felt by the average atheist at religious irrationality while making several fallacious arguments) but one thing he does is make it quite clear that he is only rebutting arguments for a supernatural personal deity and I’m sure Harris is even more consciousness. Surely if she has the right to redefine god so throughly as to include non-supernatural experiences they can define the word god to mean what everyone expects it to mean yet she dismisses them as “fundamentalists” for using god to mean a supernatural being. Not only is it absurd to think that the meaning you assign to a particular sound makes you a religious fundamentalist getting the terminology (consistently) wrong doesn’t justify dismissing their argument in the first place. I agree that Dawkins’s rhetoric is not the best way to actually convert religious people to atheism (not necessarily his goal) but recognizing that atheists should try to avoid seeming dismissive of people’s heartfelt experiences doesn’t justify misleading people to believe in god.

Of course no one person alone is responsible for the misguided faith of Americans in god but collectively intellectuals do influence our beliefs. The average american doesn’t have the time or inclination for deep theological pondering and they look to authorities for guidance. When those authorities endorse or just refuse to dismiss claims about god’s existence or the truth of religion the public takes that as confirmation of the fact that their comforting beliefs in a big dude in the sky are reasonable. It doesn’t matter that the person doing the talking might have trickily redefined the word the message that people walk away with is that belief in god is something reasonable people do and then substitute in their own understanding of the word god. If people like Ms. Armstrong actually said what she believed in a language that was straightforward and understandable to the average english speaker that would go a long way to changing people’s religious beliefs.

I’m listening to an religious commentator on NPR talking about the anti-Mormon bias that Mitt Romney’s campaign revealed. Now I don’t know if there is much evidence of this supposed ‘bias’ or not but I’m sure that the comparison to antisemitism is unfounded. The Jews (since we don’t really mean Semites) are a cultural and ethnic group as well as a religious one and antisemitism refers to a prejudice against this ethnic/cultural group not hostility to the Jewish religion. There is every difference in the world between questioning someone’s judgement because he believes something stupid and hating them because of their heritage. Mormons (like every religious person) can always choose to believe something more reasonable but you can’t choose to have a different ethnicity.

Of course not all types of undesirable prejudice rest on immutable characteristics. Certainly the unfounded bias and suspicion of catholics at an earlier time in our history is another black mark on our past. However, what made this a harmful prejudice rather than a reasonable disagreement over religious views is the nature of the suspicion that Catholics labored under. It wasn’t merely that people felt catholics believed stupid things or even thought this made their judgement suspect. This might warrant voting against them for president but wouldn’t stop you from being friends with them or accepting them into society. Rather there was a general antipathy toward Catholics that extended to viewing them as inferior people. There is no good reason to believe there is any substantial antipathy for Mormons the way there used to be for Catholics. Even hard core religious right types seems to view Mormons as merely having wacked out religious beliefs but generally being good people.

Still if you think that merely voting against someone on the basis of your religious views is prejudiced and unacceptable then Romney supporters don’t have much ground to stand on. After all Romney has repeatedly made statements about the importance of having someone of faith in the white house. You can’t have it both ways. Either religious views are reflections of the person’s identity and character and thus valid considerations for the voting booth or they aren’t and atheism shouldn’t be seen as a disqualifier for election.

I mean Jesus Christ this is like running on a campaign of ‘kicking out those damn wetbacks’ and then complaining that people didn’t vote for you because you’re black.

I woke up this morning to an NPR discussion with Gary Wills about his op-ed in the LA Times today claiming that abortion is not a religious issue and despite having the sort of calm measured voice that makes you want to believe he is being reasonable the arguments Wills made were so bad it was almost physically painful. True most of the callers to the show were even worse but this guy is being held up as if he made an important serious argument while in reality he is making the same kind of illogical, incoherent partisan emotional appeal that he thinks he is criticizing others for doing. Of course it’s hard to remember what exactly he said on the show but ‘thankfully’ his op-ed is just as incoherent.

Before we even examine what Wills says it’s easy to see that his conclusion couldn’t possibly be true. If you accept a religious account of morality as every major religion does then all moral questions are religious questions. Now I dispute the idea that god could possibly be responsibly for morality¹ but short of throwing out traditional monotheism you’re stuck with the conclusion that abortion is a religious matter. A slightly more defensible claim that Wills could have made is that abortion is not a scriptural matter but this is only better in the sense that the entirety of modern religious moral teaching lacks scriptural justification² and it wouldn’t give him the conclusion he wants (religion should stay out of the abortion debate). So keeping this in mind let’s see what he has to say.

It is not demonstrable that killing fetuses is killing persons. Not even evangelicals act as if it were. If so, a woman seeking an abortion would be the most culpable person. She is killing her own child. But the evangelical community does not call for her execution.

About 10% of evangelicals, according to polls, allow for abortion in the case of rape or incest. But the circumstances of conception should not change the nature of the thing conceived. If it is a human person, killing it is punishing it for something it had nothing to do with. We do not kill people because they had a criminal parent.

For starters no one believes that all forms of killing deserve to be punished equally. Evangelicals might reasonably think that falsely believing a fetus wasn’t a person was a mitigating factor in their crime. Arguably it wouldn’t even be murder since they would be lacking the relevant intent to take a human life. Ultimately though at best he has shown that some evangelicals have compromised between the pull of religious teaching and mainstream social belief in an inconsistent way. It is of no relevance to the question of whether abortion is a religious question.

Nor did the Catholic Church treat abortion as murder in the past.

Uhh so? They didn’t used to consider the murder of infidels to be morally wrong either. Does this show murder isn’t a religious issue?

The subject of abortion is not scriptural. For those who make it so central to religion, this seems an odd omission. Abortion is not treated in the Ten Commandments — or anywhere in Jewish Scripture.

As I’ve already observed if we insisted that only things with clear cut scriptural support counted as religious we would have to throw out almost all the teachings of every modern religion. The dirty secret of modern religious practice is that we decide what teachings we want to believe in and then search for things that support that view in our holy books. This is a compelling argument that religion is an absurd internally incoherent practice but it is misleading to raise a general failure of religion as if it were of specific relevance to abortion. In any case it brings us no closer to the claim that abortion is not a religious issue since obviously not every matter of religious importance is addressed in scripture.

Much of the debate over abortion is based on a misconception — that it is a religious issue, that the pro-life advocates are acting out of religious conviction. It is not a theological matter at all. There is no theological basis for defending or condemning abortion. Even popes have said that the question of abortion is a matter of natural law, to be decided by natural reason. Well, the pope is not the arbiter of natural law. Natural reason is.

Gahh, huh? So the question of whether a soul is implanted in a just conceived fetus isn’t a religious question? People who would say yes wouldn’t be making theological arguments? This doesn’t make any sense. As far as the pope this sounds like yet another time people take the complex technical statements that characterize catholic theology and confuse them with their natural language notions. Besides, the idea that there is some bright line division between natural law and religious fact is just flat out wrong. Whether christ rose from the dead is clearly a matter of religion and theology but whether or not any human body ever ceased pumping blood for 3 days before starting to function again is clearly a scientific one and yet one can’t be true without the other (hence the reason to believe they are both false).

If we are to decide the matter of abortion by natural law, that means we must turn to reason and science, the realm of Enlightened religion. But that is just what evangelicals want to avoid. Who are the relevant experts here? They are philosophers, neurobiologists, embryologists. Evangelicals want to exclude them because most give answers they do not want to hear. The experts have only secular expertise, not religious conviction. They, admittedly, do not give one answer — they differ among themselves, they are tentative, they qualify. They do not have the certitude that the religious right accepts as the sign of truth.

Huh? Wait is he really arguing because the experts disagree there isn’t actually a clear cut answer? The argument here is so bad I can’t even guess what he is trying to say. I mean I could create a religion tomorow that says right out in it’s holy book, ‘And on the third day god said abortion was immoral,’ and no failure of scientists and philosophers to agree with me could change the fact that my religion said abortion was immoral. I mean short of straight out arguing that religious belief is unscientific and should be abandoned this point has no grip whatsoever.

So evangelicals take shortcuts. They pin everything on being pro-life. But one cannot be indiscriminately pro-life. …. And if one were consistently pro-life, one would have to show moral respect for paramecia, insects, tissue excised during a medical operation, cancer cells, asparagus and so on. …. Opponents of abortion will say that they are defending only human life. It is certainly true that the fetus is human life. But so is the semen before it fertilizes; so is the ovum before it is fertilized. …. The universal mandate to preserve “human life” makes no sense. My hair is human life — it is not canine hair, and it is living. It grows.

God this guy is a fucking idiot. When people talk about “human life” they don’t mean any living human cells they mean the life of a human being. Now of course scientifically this term turns out to be imprecise and kinda meaningless but the central thesis of most religions is that humans poses a unique indivisible soul the presence of which is what they mean by human life. If pro-lifers religious beliefs are true they have a perfectly consistent position.

Are all the millions of embryos that fail to be embedded human persons?

According to most pro-life religious beliefs, yes. So what. God kills lots of people. True the belief that it is wrong for us to intervene and cause someone to die but not for god to kill them is absurd but it is another general problem with religious doctrine nothing specific to abortion.

The question is not whether the fetus is human life but whether it is a human person, and when it becomes one. Is it when it is capable of thought, of speech, of recognizing itself as a person, or of assuming the responsibilities of a person? Is it when it has a functioning brain? Aquinas said that the fetus did not become a person until God infused the intellectual soul. A functioning brain is not present in the fetus until the end of the sixth month at the earliest.

Why is that the question? Why should I give a fuck what Aquinas said? The question is whether it is immoral to abort fetuses not whether they can think, do arithmetic or play snood. Animals can think and there are plenty of animals seemingly as intellectually capable as a newborn human. The idea that there is a simple rule that killing is always wrong and that we just need to decide when an abortion is killing is the essential fallacy of the abortion debate. Killing isn’t essentially wrong it’s the harmful effects it causes like grieving relatives and the fear that someone might kill you that make it wrong. Thus birth is a nearly perfect psychologically salient boundary at which to draw the line at which we will no longer accept killing but this is way off the topic supposedly at issue.

It is not enough to say that whatever the woman wants should go. She has a responsibility to consider whether and when she may have a child inside her, not just a fetus. ….. Given these uncertainties, who is to make the individual decision to have an abortion? Religious leaders? They have no special authority in the matter, which is not subject to theological norms or guidance. The state? Its authority is given by the people it represents, and the people are divided on this. Doctors? They too differ. The woman is the one closest to the decision.

Gahh, there is no natural kind ‘child’ distinct from ‘fetus’ they are just names we choose to apply to stages of development based on our moral classification of them. But ignoring this is he really arguing that because the woman is the most emotional about the issue the most caught up in the events of her life she is the best one to make this decision?

Let’s try this argument elsewhere. Why not say that the decision on whether or not to kill your husband for his money is best made by the woman in question because she is the one closest to it? That’s absurd. In general we recognize that social and moral principles are best formulated by experts given time to deliberate and think. The reason that it should be legal to have an abortion is because on reflection the best arguments show that it is a net societal benefit not because it would be unacceptable for others to step in and stop them if they were doing something that inflicted massive societal harm.

Anyway if you want to argue that abortion should be legal and morally acceptable that’s fine but it really bugs me when someone like this uses laughably absurd arguments to try to pretend they aren’t taking a position on the issue just pointing out that others don’t have standing to really comment. Can there be better evidence that most people aren’t interested in logic but in feel good group affiliation than the fact that a total piece of crap like this piece was published as if it was a reasonable commentary on the morals of abortion?

So I’ve had two people already suggest to me that I’m missing the point on the whole Coulter blow up. They argue that while it’s perfectly okay for a Christian to believe or even say that since his religion is true it would be better if others recognized it’s truth and converted that’s not what made Ann Coulter’s remarks outrageous/anti-semitic. Instead, the argument seems to go, it is the way Coulter presented them and/or her choice to bring up the issue that, when interpreted in light of her previous beliefs, is what makes her blameworthy. The major problem with this argument is that an examination of the transcript reveals that Coulter didn’t bring the controversial issue up and she was trying hard to communicate that she wasn’t attacking anyone but merely expressing a bland belief that logical coherence requires nearly all Christians to believe.

Now if we are going to consider Coulter’s past for context in this situation we have to consider all of it and I think things like the fact that she appears to be dating a Jew is reasonably good evidence that she isn’t actually anti-Semitic. Moreover, the criticism in this case only makes any sense if in fact it was this interview where she clearly made anti-Semitic comments/revealed herself to be an anti-Semite. You can’t justify this criticism by saying you knew she was an anti-Semite all along so it’s okay to criticize her for expressing a perfectly bland position. The only way the prior context can justify the accusations if it appears that Coulter didn’t merely happen to make some claims that were interpreted as anti-Semitic but knew that given her history they would be so interpreted and instead of trying to avoid the implication deliberately courted the ambiguity.

It simply doesn’t get you anywhere with this criticism to point out that Coulter has a history of saying offensive, rude or inflammatory things about religion[^know] (or other subjects). In fact, far from providing evidence of anti-Antisemitism this is evidence against it. After all merely being rude, shallow and offensive doesn’t make you an anti-Semite. What is required is some evidence of animosity towards or prejudice against Jews as Jews and the more inflammatory she has been in the past the less reason to suppose these comments express any anti-Jewish sentiment. Moreover, a history of making controversial and outrageous statements about religion and not being misinterpreted by mainstream organizations as saying something antisemitic makes it more reasonable for her to suppose that she wouldn’t be misunderstood here while expressing a pretty banal belief.

Even if we suppose (contrary to the evidence) that she was deliberately presenting the belief in an inflammatory way this doesn’t get us anywhere. People phrase their statements confrontationally all the time for tons of reasons. I certainly can’t deny that I will sometimes state my views in the most extreme version partially in the hope of prompting an interesting disagreement. Treating religious belief the same way you treat other topics doesn’t make one antisemitic unless you actually take up an antisemitic view. But the upshot here is that nothing about Coulter’s past can obviate the need to show a particular antisemitic view or expression of animosity towards Jews. Interestingly, while Ann Coulter’s past behavior may not show the statements she made were antisemitic it does provide a motivation for others to misinterpret these statements in such a way.

Luckily we don’t need any of these more complex arguments because the transcript in this situation is remarkably clear. A careful read reveals that not only did Ann Coulter not bring up the subject at every turn she tried to avoid even the slightest hint that she might be attacking Jews. Coulter simply answered the question from the host about what she believed and, being smart enough to realize that if Christianity is true than it would be better for Jews to realize this as well, couldn’t honestly answer in any other way. As the conversation continued Coulter was repeatedly the subject of personal insults and horrific moral comparisons because of her religious belief but, even though many people would be tempted in such a situation to turn the tables and attack the host’s religious belief (he’s Jewish) she went to great pains to emphasize she meant nothing beyond the simple point that everyone should believe in whatever religion is true. Now maybe if she had the time to sit down and think through her answers she would have been able to be even more clear but I honestly can’t think of any other interpretation of her statements.

Usually in these cases I’m content to write off the whole thing as a misunderstanding and say no one is really blameworthy. However, (short of the response/interview being deliberately staged by Coulter to sell books) the accusations of antisemitism are so throughly and completely unsupported by any reasonable theory I think the people making them are nearly as blameworthy as if they were anti-Semites themselves. Sure, they honestly believe this is the case but racists often honestly believe whites are the superior race and we hold them accountable for allowing their prejudice to so throughly color their judgment and false accusations of racism/prejudice aren’t much less damaging than false racial beliefs.

Below the break I include more of the transcript than I did last time so the reader can see for themselves just how absurd the claims is that Coulter is deliberately bringing up this issue/phrasing her statements to attack Jews.

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Ann Coulter generates a lot of controversy, mostly because she says some really stupid shit but I’m absolutely totally shocked and horrified at the latest kerfuffle she has spawned. But this time, for a change, she was being perfectly reasonable (well except for believing in god) and it is her critics that are totally fucking nuts. So in case you haven’t heard during Coulter’s appearance on The Big Idea with Donny Deustch the interview slipped into talk about religion and the relation between Christianity and Judaism. I recommend you go take a look at the transcript yourself but I’ll excerpt the notable segments here.

DEUTSCH: Christian — so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?

COULTER: Yes. …. DEUTSCH: That isn’t what I said, but you said I should not — we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or –

COULTER: Yeah. …. DEUTSCH: You can’t possibly believe that.

COULTER: Yes. ….. DEUTSCH: “Let’s wipe Israel off the earth.” I mean, what, no Jews?

COULTER: No, we think — we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.

DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn’t really say that, did you?

Amazingly these remarks have generated a huge outraged response. The Anti-Defamation League stated that they, “strongly condemns Ann Coulter for her anti-Semitic comment.” The American Jewish Committee is “outraged” by her remarks and the National Jewish Democratic Council is circulating a petition demanding networks stop inviting Coulter to be a guest on their shows. Even some catholic organizations are getting in on the action with the director of Catholics United being reported as saying, “I’m just dumbfounded that a Christian would even say this in America.” Of course the reactions in the blogosphere make these criticisms seem like high praise. The more sober criticisms merely saying her comments were anti-Semitic while more extreme reactions compared her remarks to Blood Libel. When Don Imus made his clearly faultable¹ remarks people seemed able to maitain a degree of distance but in this case people are taking this thing really personally. The number of people wishing death upon her in blog comments and this digg discussion seems way above normal.

This is totally fucking nuts! Of course it is better for people to believe true things. It would be better if Global warming skeptics realized their error and supported the science and similarly if Jews are mistaken about Christ it would be better for them to realize their error. Now I think believing in Christ or any sort of God is deeply mistaken so naturally I hope that religious Jews realize their error and convert to atheism. The idea this sort of belief makes one an anti-Semite is so absurd I can hardly believe anyone accepts it much less most Jewish organizations and many mainstream Americans. The day when Christians, Jews, and the rest of them become more perfect less severely flawed and finally give up on religion can’t come soon enough.

What should horrify people here is not Coulter’s statements but Deustch’s amazed offense at them (quoted below). I mean the irrationality and total lack of comprehension in the following segment just blew my mind yet he is being held up. Sam Harris is right, religious moderation is fucked up.

DEUTSCH: You said — your exact words were, “Jews need to be perfected.” Those are the words out of your mouth.

COULTER: No, I’m saying that’s what a Christian is.

DEUTSCH: But that’s what you said — don’t you see how hateful, how anti-Semitic –

COULTER: No!

DEUTSCH: How do you not see? You’re an educated woman. How do you not see that?

COULTER: That isn’t hateful at all.

DEUTSCH: But that’s even a scarier thought. OK –

COULTER: No, no, no, no, no. I don’t want you being offended by this. This is what Christians consider themselves, because our testament is the continuation of your testament. You know that. So we think Jews go to heaven. I mean, [Rev. Jerry] Falwell himself said that, but you have to follow laws. Ours is “Christ died for our sins.” We consider ourselves perfected Christians. For me to say that for you to become a Christian is to become a perfected Christian is not offensive at all.

Below the break I document in detail the fact that Coulter said nothing that isn’t contained in mainstream Christian dogma (and most other religions) and discuss what this means about the nature of religious faith.

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So apparently in the UK some muslim medical students are refusing to practice basic medical skills. Claiming it violates their religious beliefs they refuse to learn about treating alcoholism or treating STDs and some of them are even refusing to do basic examinations of female patients. Apparently there is some thought that maybe they shouldn’t be kicked out of med school for these lapses.

Now if private companies want to give religious employees special exemptions I think it’s radically unfair but that’s their business. If you want to let your muslim cashiers call over someone else to sell alcohol that’s up to you and you’re the one who pays the price of annoyed customers. However, when we are talking about what effectively amount to government standards for the education of doctors that’s a whole other matter. Either it is important that we make doctors learn these skills and accredit them accordingly or it isn’t. Why the hell does it matter that you don’t want to learn it because of your religion rather than because you think it’s gross or just really really don’t want to?

Still, it might be a good idea to tolerate things like not treating women if this was a sufficiently widespread cultural practice (don’t think it is). Of course if I was the UK health system I would never hire such a person if there were alternatives but that’s another matter. However, refusing to learn about things like alcohol abuse significantly hampers a doctor’s ability to treat patients. It isn’t something like gender where the doctor could (theoretically) just avoid situations where the skill is required. Moreover, it is hard enough to get people to be honest and admit embarrassing issues like STDs if some doctors refuse to listen or call in their colleague to deal with the matter it poses a serious health threat.

This really fucking pisses me off. Saying some man in the sky told me to do it shouldn’t be a magic pass to do whatever the fuck you want. Having absurd stories about why it is important for you to do something shouldn’t make us more likely to accommodate you. Sure there is something to be said for increasing utility by respecting strong irrational beliefs but that’s no excuse not to create a general system to handle strongly felt preferences rather than behaving as if it was reasonable to have these stupid beliefs.

It shouldn’t have to be said but obviously I feel the same way about Christian doctors who refuse to properly console patients about the abortion option.

I’m not a big fan of religious tolerance as some of you might have guessed. I believe in freedom of speech and belief so I don’t want the government shutting down churches anymore than I want the FBI to raid UFO conferences. I also believe general tolerance. If cousin Fred believes deeply and sincerely in UFOs it’s reasonable to try and convince him otherwise and to tease him in a (genuinely) good natured way about it but it’s just mean to publicly mock his beliefs in front of him. This (at least in principle) is a useful and pretty fair social standard since we implicitly view obligation to steer the conversation away from UFOs as a favor to Fred. If uncle Joe works for CSICOP we might expect him to be polite and avoid deliberately inflammatory remarks but he would hardly be obligated not to discuss his job or explain his beliefs if asked and if Fred gets offended it’s Fred who we would blame.

Religious tolerance, however, tends to work quite differently. Rather than viewing the religious individual as the unreasonable person and regarding the choice to avoid topics they find sensitive as a favor it’s just the opposite. Society doesn’t demand we pretend believing in UFOs is a plausible response to the evidence, only that we don’t shove it in their faces but religious tolerance demands we act as if religious belief was reasonable. For instance if one of the candidates for president admitted their long held belief that benevolent aliens were visiting our planet in flying saucers the media and folks at home wouldn’t think twice about suggesting this showed poor judgment and rendered them unfit for the presidency. However, apparently religious tolerance renders it unacceptable to criticize a candidate for believing that special underwear will help them become mini-gods in the afterlife or that there is some big dude in the sky who is nicer than anyone whose ever lived but would let us be eternally tortured for something we didn’t do but since he is such a just guy he can’t just not punish us so instead he tortures his son instead so that those of us who believe this story without evidence can be saved¹. Similarly as I complained about in a prior post even when it comes to academic rules we have to pretend that it’s totally reasonable to prioritize religious obligation over your studies but aren’t expected to pretend the same about going out to where you think the aliens are landing².

However, what got me started on this topic today was the choice by the Washington Post and many other newspapers not to run the two most recent opus comics because they might be offensive to Muslims. Now I don’t think there is any reason to get as worked up about this as for the danish cartoon controversy since there are no calls for government censorship nor the risk of rewarding violent protest. In fact despite all the claims of bias I don’t think the Post did anything much differently than they would for any comic with the potential for religious offense: they went around and asked the people in that religion how they felt about the comic. Indeed this mirrors the general way we decide if comments or jokes about one of our culturally anointed classes is off limits. It’s just that the average Christian in the newspaper business is probably going to be a lot more accepting of comics poking fun at Christianity. So it’s not that the Post has embarked on some sort of super PC campaign that says you can’t joke about Islam. It’s that the fundamental societal norms about religious tolerance is throughly broken.

I mean there is no doubt in my mind that if there had been a similarly mild cartoon mocking atheists no one would have hesitated to print it and the explanation is obvious: atheists don’t tend to raise a fuss when their views are criticized. Now as I said in the beginning there is nothing wrong with trying to be nice but since it isn’t the religious individuals we blame for being sensitive to criticism but rather those who offended them this practice creates serious and unacceptable bias³. There are plenty of books carried by major chains (even the Walgreen’s in Berkeley) which openly vilify atheists as evil and perpetuate lies about them when a similar book against Hindus would probably get at least pulled from the display. Where politicians generally don’t dare to openly criticize another candidate because they are Jewish or Hindu they will charge them with being an atheist.

In short this Opus story convinces me of the cocktail party theory of religious tolerance. Society views it as morally acceptable to mock a belief system or openly call it evil so long as doing so won’t ruin their cocktail party. Since members of most religious faiths will become overtly offended (or even get into a fight) with people who diss their religion people are quickly trained to view such comments as unacceptable. Since most atheists will ignore the relatively common remarks that implicitly assume religion is good or that atheism is bad or at most politely disagree atheism doesn’t get the same immunity from criticism that most religions enjoy.

My preference would be to have all ideas treated equally. We would all be responsible for being reasonably polite and avoiding insult but not expected to act as if we believed other people’s beliefs were reasonable, just not shove it in their face. Accommodations should be made for people whose holy day conflicts with an exam but also for people whose girlfriend will be in town for a conference that day. We would have religious tolerance as a consequence of general tolerance and accommodation. However, this is extremely unlikely to happen until atheists start being less polite but unfortunately I’m not sure if we will ever care enough. I mean it seems pretty fucking silly to me too to care about the whole “E plurbis unum” thing on our currency but I suspect it’s this sort of fussiness and easy offense which has gained religious beliefs their protected status.

So today I received an email from the Chancellor Breslauer setting out UC Berkeley’s policy on students who have a religious or extra-curricular conflict with an exam or other important event in class. Now a uniform policy like this is quite welcome, it gives instructors clear guidance and makes sure students can plan their other obligations without having to worry about what sort of professors they get this year. What I find objectionable about it is the differences in the way it treats religious ‘obligations’ and sports trips. Here is what the email says about religion:

In compliance with Education code, Section 92640(a), it is the official policy of the University of California at Berkeley to permit any student to undergo a test or examination, without penalty, at a time when that activity would not violate the student’s religious creed, unless administering the examination at an alternative time would impose an undue hardship which could not reasonably have been avoided. Requests to accommodate a student’s religious creed by scheduling tests or examinations at alternative times shall be submitted directly to the faculty member responsible for administering the examination. Reasonable common sense, judgment and the pursuit of mutual goodwill should result in the positive resolution of scheduling conflicts. The regular campus appeals process applies if a mutually satisfactory arrangement cannot be achieved.

Here is what the email says about musical or sports trips:

-It is the instructor’s responsibility to give students a schedule, available on the syllabus in the first week of instruction, of all class sessions, exams, tests, project deadlines, field trips, and any other required class activities. -It is the student’s responsibility to notify the instructor(s) in writing by the second week of the semester of any potential conflict and to recommend a solution, with the understanding that an earlier deadline or date of examination may be the most practicable solution. -It is the student’s responsibility to inform him/herself about material missed because of an absence, whether or not she or he has been formally excused.

The clear sense these rules convey is that the instructor is expected to bend their rules if they might create difficulty or hardship for someone who wishes to respect a religious obligation but that a student who is going to be absent for some other extra-curricular activity undertakes a greater obligation if they want to miss class. Now one might justify such a policy on the grounds that some athletes or musicians are going to be out of town on a large number of dates or that religion is more important to people. However, it would be easy to give every student a certain number of absences they can exercise using the easier standard and there are many students who are more casual about the religious observances they ask to be excused for then athletes are about their games.

Worse it seems that students are given no allowance for non-official extra-curricular activities. Even if the student is really into launching rockets and the annual rocketing event is his favorite thing to do it appears the instructor doesn’t have to give him any accommodation as it isn’t an official school sponsored event. On the other hand someone who thinks ‘yah, I might as well go to church today’ gets all the accommodations mentioned above.

Anyway I don’t mean to critisize the Chancellor, his hands are tied by California law, but merely to point out the way in which non-believers (or even casual church goers) are treated as second class citizens. The things that we may really really care about get no accomodation while just someone has a ridiculous belief about some historical event we have to bend over to accommodate them. Now I fully understand that the potential for religious discrimination is great but if we weren’t implicitly endorsing religion as something more important than say a rocketry hobby we would use some fully neutral policy that gave everyone the chance to do what they really cared about.

In an old post I argued that Inteligent Design really is science, just very bad science. Since then several people have suggested that the scientific theory that humans were designed by intelligent beings doesn’t count as intelligent design and that intelligent design is an inherently more religious theory. However, seeing this interview with Michael Behe on the Colbert report reminded me why I never found this response that compelling.

While people like Behe clearly defend Intelligent Design for religious or spiritual motives this doesn’t change the fact that the thesis he advanced in this video and (at least according to wikipedia) the one he advanced in his book are ultimately a purely secular argument that is fully consistent with the conclusion that aliens made human beings in an irreducibly complex fashion. Since we obviously could get evidence for such a conclusion¹ what Behe is presenting is a scientific theory whatever his motives², just a very bad one.

But the portrayal of Behe in the media makes it clear that Behe’s proposal of irreducible counts as Intelligent Design, at least in the public’s understanding of these terms. Therefore to insist on saying intelligent design isn’t science is at best extremely misleading. Yes, intelligent design is just a cover for the teaching of religious beliefs in school but it is a cover not those beliefs itself. Of course teaching even Behe’s scientific theory to school children in a science class would falsely suggest that the biblical account of creation had scientific plausibility and that would violate the separation of church and state. However, it’s pretty swallow that most people would understand the claim “Intelligent Design isn’t science,” in this fashion. Now maybe this technically false claims is a necessary Machiavellian counter to the Discovery Institute’s schemes but it is still false and I worry that it will ultimately do more harm than good.

More on this subject and why the National Academy of Science’s definition of a scientific theory is misleading after the break.

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Back when I was discussing the islamic cartoon controversy I made some pretty abstract and theoretical arguments to the effect that any principle which justified criticizing Jyllands-Posten for publishing the cartoons also justified criticizing Muslims for spreading their faith. Reading some comments over on Volokh I found a much more clear and concise way to make the point (thanks Bleu).

Rather than worry about atheists who may or may not find Islam’s claims offensive what about idolaters or polytheists. If one reads the Quaran (or the bible) one finds a great many passages saying very offensive things about people who engage in either of these practices. Additionally both of these books say very harsh and offensive things about magic/witchcraft which actually does result in discrimination/hatred/dislike of Wiccans.

Obviously this tells us we shouldn’t legally suppress material for being religiously offensive or insulting. If so the Quaran and the Bible would have to be the first things to go. However, I think we can take the argument a step beyond this. Simply being a Muslim (or Christian) and encouraging the spread of your faith or the continued printing of your holy book makes one just as guilty as Jyllands-Posten. In fact the evidence that Islam, Christianity and similar religions can incite hatred, violence and other atrocities is much stronger than evidence we had that mildly offensive cartoons could cause such harm. Therefore by teaching your children your religion, by openly expressing affiliation and thereby making it easier for others to join and especially by preaching or trying to convert people one is doing something much worse than Jyllands-Posten did.

Hopefully this is a more clear explanation of why I am willing to say that Jyllands-Posten did something unwise but not ‘blamable.’ Sure it probably would have been better if they hadn’t published but it sure as hell would be better if all the Christians and Muslims stopped advocating their religious beliefs (or better just stopped believing).

Also objections that the smack talked about idolatry, magic or polytheism isn’t really serious don’t fly. Some guy may be getting executed in Afghanistan for converting to Christianity so I think we can take it as given that many people take these crazy ancient rules seriously. Besides it is totally inconsistent to demand we look to what the Quaran says instead of what Muslims believe when asked if Islam encourages terrorism/violent jihad (disturbingly huge percents of Muslims in the middle east say yes) but then refuse to look at that book when we want to know if Islam is saying offensive things about Wicca.