If same-sex marriage is OK, why not polygamy?

I know that in some corners of conservative Christianity, that's the rhetorical argument du jour against the Supreme Court's legalization of gay marriage nationally last week. (That's if they've not already stooped to the ridiculous and claim bestiality or child marriage is next.)

First, especially for conservative Christians who always like that "Judeo" fig leaf on "Judeo-Christian values," er, your past religious heritage shoots you in the foot.

Many of the "heroes" of the Christian Old Testament/Jewish Tanakh had multiple wives. (Yes, technically that's polygyny, not polygamy, which cuts both ways and could also include multiple gay or lesbian marriages at once, but, usually, polygamy winds up as one man and several wives. So, we use polygamy throughout.)

But, Jesus said!

Erm, no he didn't, and claims that his comments disallowing divorce prove either that he was anti-polygamy or that polygamy no longer existed at his time simply aren't true. The actual Paul may have been anti-polygamy, and the pseudo-Paul who wrote the Pastoral Letters certainly was, but that's a different story.

However, while Greeks and Romans were one-spouse folks (not counting mistresses, of course), some sects of Judaism still allowed polygamy at the time of the New Testament.

As for today? There's religious freedom grounds for it, primarily for Islam, but also for the Fundamentalist LDS. And, while Ashkenazi have officially banned it for a millennium, Sephardi still accept it, and Orthodox among them still argue for it today. And, to really screw with fundy Christians, a "Messianic Jewish" rabbi practices it in London.  And, although legally banned, it's also practiced in Israel.

So, why shouldn't polygamy be legally protected? Fredrick de Boer offers an in-depth argument in support.

I agree. First, per my comment about mistresses, he says polyamory's been around as long as the "nuclear family." Beyond "mistresses," polyamory as all multiple relationships, none of them "legalized" by marriage, has been gaining steam.

Second, the legalization of same-sex marriage has refuted the old "for having kids" argument. Of course, older straights getting married has always been Argument No. 1 against that.

deBoer then notes that traditional marriages, like polygamous ones, can be havens of abuse. Duggar Family Values, anybody?

I would go beyond deBoer, at least what he explicitly mentions.

I would require a man or a woman wanting to enter a second or additional marriage to publicly disclose he's married to another person already. As it already generally is considered with no polygamy today, such failure to disclose would be legally considered fraud — and should be considered felony-level fraud

==

For commenters or others who think this is "snark," it's not.

To go beyond my comment response to Joshuaism, most of the comment is red herring.

First, consent is "manufactured" in single marriages. Don't tell me you haven't heard of Indian-Americans still marrying the spouses their parents have arranged for them.

Second, the consent issue has nothing to do with incest, which I'll tackle separately.

Third, to elaborate on my comment about Macedo's Slate article, of course there can be one-to-one meeting on each marital partner in a plural marriage. Maybe there can't be one-to-one 100 percent meeting, but if you're expecting that, then you've got a definitely naive, possibly harmful "absolute soulmate" view of marriage in general. No marital partner should be, or should be expected to be, the 100 percent match, complement, "meeting" or whatever of another marital partner.

This expands on what I noted was of concern in Kennedy's ruling — the over-uplifting of marriage as more than it really is, or really should be expected to be.

For both him and possibly Katy, beyond the public health angle, I think the state can make a plausible, even compelling, public mental health angle against incestuous marriage. While questioning the over-uplifting of marriage, I don't want to over-devaluate it, either. And,  yes, especially with kids, the whole wrecking of the normal plot of extended family relations that an incestuous marriage would cause would be a public mental health concern.

Gnu Atheists - the gnu fundamentalists

Sorry, or rather, "sorry," to a Facebook friend like Dan Fincke, but it's not just liberal Christian theologians who call Gnu Atheists a new version of fundamentalists. It's also many of us non-Gnu Atheists who have no desire to be "in others faces" about our atheism or otherwise emulate some of the group psychology, sociology, and even psychology of religion that fundamentalists do.

Dan does acknowledge that, in a good piece here.

That said, my post has a different angle than his.

I've said before in various spots that I regard Gnu Atheists and Christian fundamentalists as mutual tar babies. And, I'm far from alone. Philosopher Albert Camus said that a certain variety of atheists (the "antitheist" that Fincke used is perhaps even more apropos) need to have a god to rebel against.

That said, like most things in life, the Gnu Atheist vs. Plain Jane Atheist (or intra-atheist "Nones," if you will) differentiation isn't two polarities, but rather two ends of a continuum. I wouldn't consider Dan as far to the end of Gnudom as, say, Jerry Coyne or P.Z. Myers, or Chris Hitchens from whom he used the antitheist term. And, I wouldn't put myself as far on the Plain Jane end as Mr. Faitheist, Chris Steadman or people like him.

I would, though, put Dan on the Gnu side of the continuum, scoring a fair degree above (or below) the 50 midpoint, while I'd put myself as far on the other side.

The issue with Gnus and fundamentalism is exacerbated (and, I use that word, not "compounded," VERY deliberately) by the Atheism Plus movement. The best parallel from the Christian fundamentalism tar baby I can think of is fundamentalists who also insist you have to speak in tongues as part of your fundamentalism.

And, Dan, I wouldn't be so virulent at times in my take on Gnus if y'all would just find a way to excommunicate Plusers. But, I don't think most of you want to do that, let alone not being able.

Anyway, another difference is that we Plain Janes (excepting the Faitheists, who have their "branding" to do as much as Gnus) aren't out to convert anybody. We just want to be let alone to be nontheistic in peace. If we see a First Amendment issue that needs addressing, we'll handle our protests via the ACLU, or even that "accommodationist" group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

A couple of Gnu-defenders, one in particular, on Massimo Pigliucci's blog asks why my animus. I already mentioned part of it -- the Pluser storm troopers. And I use that deliberately too.

Beyond that, but related to it? A lot of Gnus, including Gnu leaders, don't know philosophy that well. (Dan, whether it relates to being less than hardcore Gnu or not, is an exception.) Most also don't know religion that well, or in tar baby syndrome, simplistically boil it all down to fundamentalism. Dan, per your Facebook and blog post about liberal theologians, there's your answer right there.

But, you might claim, "Not all Gnus are like that! It's a stereotype."

No less of one than Gnus, on average, make of religion in general. If the shoe fits, wear it, even if it pinches.

And, that relates to the final angles.

If you're really about evangelizing non-atheists, or just marketing atheism better, y'all still aren't remembering the old cliche: "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." (You catch more yet with bullshit, but that's for another blog post.) By all means, continue!

And, related to that, some of you, namely the American Atheists President David Silverman, kind of give atheism a black eye.

Good example? Chris Hedges, who doesn't distinguish between Gnu and other atheists because of some rough treatment he got from some Gnus, and now blasts atheism in general. Yes, that's partially on him for not being more discerning, but it had its starting point with Gnu Atheists.

You may still catch a few flies with vinegar, but you're sure to drive them away with sulfuric acid, you know?

Well, maybe you don't. Or maybe you don't care.

Gee, the parallels continue. Now we're almost into Rev. Fred Phelps territory.

See both of you sides in the funny pages.

===

But I don't want to end there.

Behind the matter is that not all of us atheists make atheism so central a focus of our lives.

That, in turn, is why I mentioned "atheist evangelism." There are non-Gnus who are also serious about it, like Chris Stedman and his merry band of Faitheists are very much into this, and with honey rather than vinegar.

But that's why Faitheists aren't the best example of the other end of a continuum from Gnus. Maybe we need to update the idea of a continuum on this issue to three corners and sides of a triangle or something.

I'm no more interested in being an evangelist for Faitheism than I am for Gnu Atheism. (Regular, long-term readers of this blog know that I'm no more a fan of Faitheism than Gnu Atheism, too.)

At the same time, atheism just isn't that much a part of my life as it is for Gnus (Or, maybe, than for Faitheists, either.) And, occasional blogging on the wrongs of hardcore Gnus aside, being a Faitheist, or Plain Jane Atheist, counterweight, just isn't that big an issue to me, either. Liberal politics, third parties, classical music, St. Louis Cardinals baseball, environmentalism and counterfactual history all rank higher.

And, there are plenty of others of us who are "nones" inside the world of atheism. 

==

In hindsight, there's probably one other thing that distinguishes true blue Gnus from the rest of us, and that's a denial that life is in some way tragic.

Note that I did NOT say that life is meaningless without religious structure, or a belief in a deity or higher power.

I said that life is tragic. And, I've heard/read several Gnus reject this.

But, as philosopher Albert Camus and astronomer Steven Weinberg both know and have affirmed, life IS tragic. Exquisitely so. Gnus who fail to accept that, to me, exclude themselves from the tradition and flow of true humanism.

But, back to Dan's main thrust. A lot of Gnus, when they don't lump fundamentalist Christians (and this applies in spades to Muslims) with the more liberal types, often "demand" that the more liberal types "denounce" the rest, then overlook how much they do.

Well, when I blog about Gnus, it's usually a "denouncing," and for similar reasons.

The Golden Rule vs. the Silver Rule and the War on Christmas

1. The small-town America background

I currently live in a small town in a small county in Central Texas. Indians run three of the motels here. I know at least one of them is not Christian, because the man has said so. I'll assume he's Hindu.

There's a Vietnamese family here. They could be Catholic, given that, especially in the earlier post-French governments of South Vietnam, Catholics predominated. There's still good odds they're Buddhist.

In the county, of 18,000, there's at least one Pakistani business owner. Presumably Muslim. And, even with a rural Texas discount from the national average, to just 0.1 percent, that would put 18 Jews in the count.

Hence, even in a smaller town in modern America, not everybody is a Christian. Per the Indians, Pakistanis and Vietnamese, and contra the likes of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, not everybody is a "cultural Christian," either.

And so, we should, at this time of year, think about the Golden Rule vs. the Silver Rule.

And, with that, the following several paragraphs are adapted from my most recent newspaper column.

2. How the Silver Rule shows itself to be better, often

One of the axiomatic moral guides of Christianity is, by many people, found in the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It’s not just Christian, as Jesus cites it as a summary of the Old Testament Law, or Torah.

That said, in Judaism and elsewhere, there’s also the flip side, often called the Silver Rule. This maxim, to be found in other religion and philosophy as well, says, “Do not do unto others what you don’t want them doing to you.” It too is ancient. For example, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the book of Tobit, part of the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, and the Protestant Apocrypha, says, “Do to no one what you yourself dislike.”

It’s arguably a little bit more live and let live, a bit more libertarian if you will, than the Golden Rule version.

Let me give you an example. I might love chocolate cream pie. So, if I follow the Golden Rule, I might think, I’ll bring you my neighbor a chocolate cream pie. How loving, right?

But, if you’re diabetic, that’s about the worst thing I could do for you. Instead, I should be thinking, what can I do to be nice to someone else that he or she likes, not what I like and think he or she should like.

In other words, it’s an invitation to step into another person’s shoes, or moccasins, or slippers, and walk a few yards, if not a full mile.

I think of it in light of alleged “War on Christmas” talk that ratchets up this time of year.
From where I stand, many people say “Happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” for one, or more, of several reasons that have no spiritual warfare involved.

Speaking of Judaism, maybe they’re Jewish. Or Muslim. Or non-religious. Or, they don’t know what your beliefs are. Or, if it’s in the business world, they certainly don’t know the religious beliefs of John or Jane Customer. Or maybe it’s Christians who believe Christmas has become so commercialized they don’t want to utter the “Merry Christmas” phrase any more.

And, having given you a prologue to that column, which was small-town focused, I move beyond it to the big picture again.

4. How this should play out today, the Christian side

Besides Faux News and Rush Limbaugh throwing red meat to fundamentalist Christians, there's really no need for fundamentalists, or conservative evangelical types, to buy into this.

If anybody's conducting a War on Christmas, it's the likes of Walmart, with ever-increasing commercialization, including Christian Christmas items made in China, to boot.

Most people who say "Happy Holidays" aren't trying to overthrow your celebration of your holiday. But, because Christmas has become secularized, far more than Easter (setting aside the pagan origins of most ways in which Christmas is actually celebrated), those people are just trying to carve out a bit of space to observe Christmas their way.

In any case, the idea of pastoral tranquility, the end of shortening days, the sharing of joyousness with family, even "spirituality," if you will, is a message not just limited to Christians at this time of year.

So, per the Silver Rule, honor the intent. Even Joel Osteen says the "War on Christmas" claims are overblown.

4. How this plays out today, the secularist side, part 1

As for displays on public property?

Certain Gnu Atheists who want to fight fire with fire there, if a Christmas seen is too religious and hasn't been denatured into Supreme Court type civic religion enough with the addition of something from Hanukkah, could and should "fire away." And, in Oklahoma City, they're being joined by Satanists and Hindus. That's why I don't always offer up blanket condemnation of Gnus. Sometimes they are, to riff on a phrase, doing the secularists work in the secular vineyards.

And, Nino Scalia aside, "civic religion" still has the word "religion" in it, and in the 21st-century United States, government at any level ought not to be promoting it.

So, here, I split with some secular humanists who always want to condemn Gnu Atheists. Tis always the season for insisting that the state not foster religion by overtly religious displays.

And, to be honest, not everybody involved with this might, technically, even be called a Gnu Atheist. Some might be more activist than I am, but yet not be deliberately courting antagonism.

And, until Christians, municipal governments, and even some secular humanists separate out issues of Christmas on public (government) property vs. private property, no, this one isn't going to go away. And, it's not the secularists' fault. I now deliberately switch from "Gnu Atheist" to "secularist," per the section subheader, to stress that.

And thus, I can't agree with those who want to condemn secularists who insist on proper interpretation of the First Amendment in the public square. That includes standing up to some Christians who want to fight back.

As I posted on Facebook, look at Oklahoma City. There, it's not just secularists, but Satanists and Hindus who are also insisting on proper interpretation of the First Amendment in the public square.

For Christians who insists this is part of a War on Christmas, St. Augustine, already, distinguished between two cities. For secularists of a stripe who say the same, no, it's a defense of civil liberties.

3. How this plays out today, the secularist side, part 2

That said, there are some so-called Gnu Atheists, about whom I've blogged before, who do engage in a war on Christmas.

Tom Flynn of the Center for Inquiry, as I said in my blog post from a year ago about French astronomer Pierre Laplace being "the reason for the season," thinks Christmas should not even be a secular holiday. And, in shades of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, and more than just shades of outright cluelessness, he wants to rename the days of the week now named after pagan gods.

Other Gnu Atheists have put up deliberately in-your-face billboards, as much to put up in-your-face billboards, if anything else.

They seem to reflect and exemplify Albert Camus' idea in "The Rebel" that many an actual, or alleged, atheist, needs at least the idea of god to rebel against. On psychology of religion and philosophy of language grounds, one wonders whether this tar baby could not itself be called the god of such Gnu Atheists, and even more the ones who put signs on Christmas celebrators' lawns telling them to stop it.

They also seem to be clueless about Principle No. 1 of Marketing 101: You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. (Actually, per what I just said, Gnus' claims aside, I suspect that the billboards actually have about zero to do with atheist evangelism.)

So, when it comes to public displays on public property, with First Amendment issues involved, I'm all for Gnus pushing the envelope a bit on civil liberties.

Even there, though, and certainly in all other cases, it's the season to ... don't be a dick.

Or, if you "have to" be a dick, find a more trivial cause for your dickery, at least.

Note: This is not a claim to be perfect at this myself.

Note 2: I'm not Chris Stedman, and don't have a massive "brand" to promulgate this, but you heard it from me first.

#GnuAtheism + #BlockBot = gnu levels of censorship from #FTB & #FTBullies

Now, as a good journalist, I'm using the word "censorship" in its nontechnical level. Gnu Atheists aren't governments, and can block online whomever they want. That's their right.

That said, when they spread the idea to widely used social media, and try to get them to follow their lead, as does the Block Bot app for Twitter, then we have a problem. And, it's even more of a problem if Twitter doesn't investigate how legitimate these blocks are, because the app also, as I understand it, reports the blocked person to Twitter, with possible warnings, or even Twitter account deletion.

That's why, although Twitter harassment of outspoken women is simply not acceptable, the idea of a Block Bot isn't, either. Now, to riff on Georg Cantor and levels of infinity, sexual harassment is Aleph One, while the Block Bot is only Aleph Null. But, it's still bad enough. Certainly not what we now have. I've seen other people intolerant of free speech and the exchange of ideas get one email account of mine shit-canned, and another threatened. More specific to this, Gnu Atheist Greg Laden, a male peon of Stephanie Zvan, the nth-wave feminist who has falsely claimed I'm stalking her online, threatened to "ban me from the Internet."

To fight intolerance with intolerance doesn't work. And, given the history of the people mentioned above, P.Z. Myers and others, I wouldn't trust Gnu Atheists anywhere near the tolerance meter.

And, speaking of P.Z. and Stephanie, with BlockBot, yeah, that worries me, per this blog post of hers. Can you picture people like that trying to get Twitter accounts deleted?

Or, Greta Christina, with her penchant for seeing every issue as a hammer on which to wield her particular variety of Atheism Plus "everything is sexism" vitriol, does a head fake (shock me) of pretending to answer Engelhart's Salon piece linked at top, then engaging in a massive fail.

And, I now find out — as a result of pointing out things like this — that I'm a bigger, and more popular/unpopular burr to Gnu Atheists than I knew. My Twitter account is on Level 3 block from James Billingham (Twitter handle ool0n), the British Gnu who helped invent the app.

How did I, and others, like Barbara Drescher and Jeremy Stangroom, who I know, respectively, a fair bit and a little bit, online, get there? Here's how:

 The short answer is anyone that a blocker defines as block list worthy. The general rule is if you are the type that would find yourself banned on a blog on Freethoughtblogs.com, Skepchick.org or from the A+ forum then you will likely end up in the list…

There you go.

As for me specifically? Disagreeing with Zvan over Julian Assange's rape case in Sweden, namely the reopening of a closed case and whether Sweden had international geopolitical reasons to do so, started it all. (And Sweden did have such reasons, as I detail in this blog post.. It "cooperated" with the CIA on several "renditions" of alleged Mooslim terrorists.) The disagreement led eventually to comments like the following, documented on this blog post of mine about nth-wave feminists and Freethought Blogs denizens attacking the Center for Inquiry's Ron Lindsay:

Well, Steve Snyder/SocraticGadfly, since no one else can be assed to step up and say this, no matter how much me being harassed "pisses them off", no matter how much they'll stand up for JT, fuck off, you putrid, obsessive, pointless, sexist smear of slime. It is not anything but vilely anti-social to spend two and half years after a woman tells you that rape allegations need to be taken seriously popping up any time she and the man on whose blog you were schooled are mentioned together to say that this woman is controlling this man's behavior by having sex with him.

There's even worse on her own blog, like this.

Add in that I've been accused of cyberstalking her and other things, and you get the gist of what the "game" is. For the record, I'd be scared of actually cyberstalking her, and doubly scared of stalking her in real life. I'm afraid she'd attack me.

And, the "banned from blog"? That goes to further show that most Gnus aren't interested in actual dialogue, or, in even respectful terms, having their positions challenged.

Meanwhile, Tim Farley tells us more about just what's wrong with it. I've got some selected quotes, to which I will add my own analysis.

Problem 1:

The first sentence (of the above quote from Block Bot's website) is circular and the rest of it defers to guidelines which it does not link. It’s not clear there’s any enforceable standard here at all.  It’s clear as mud.

The core problem here is this tool was developed for specific needs of a very specific community (namely, those who identify with “Atheism+”). Therefore the operators of the bot assume knowledge or attitudes on behalf of the user base that may not be held by the average Twitter user.

Bingo.

So, what if fundamentalist Christians re-engineer Block Bot for their purposes? Will Billingham, Myers, Zvan, Greta Christina, Rebecca Watson and others suddenly cry wolf? Or, a more accurate metaphor, cry wolf while crying crocodile tears?

Obviously, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but they would bitch and moan, to be sure.

Problem 2, Farley says, is lack of transparency as to who's authorized to create/add to block lists, at what level, etc.

Not that anybody who's involved with creating the lists is likely to listen to me, Travis Roy, Drescher, Stangroom or others who are on Level 3 blocking. In fact, our queries, let alone complaints would probably be taken as signs of troublemaking and justification to boot us up to Level 2.

But, per Farley, we wouldn't even know to whom to complain or whom to query in the first place. And, there might eventually be a scrum between one person wanting to unblock us, another who wanted to keep us at Level 3, a third who wanted to move us up a level, etc.

Problem 3, he says, is that there's no audit of actions to block, paper trails, etc. This follows on problem 2. If somebody promises to unblock someone, how does the person asking for relief know that they actually were unblocked? Or, when someone is blocked, how much documentation is saved for what led to that decision.

Problem 4 is what the levels are about. Farley again quotes from the website:

Level 1 is sparsely populated with “worst of the worst” trolls, plus impersonators and stalkers. Level 2 (which we recommend for general use) includes those in Level 1, plus a wider selection of deeply unpleasant people. Level 3 goes beyond The Block Bot’s main purpose, and expands the list to include those who aren’t straight out haters, but can be tedious and obnoxious.

Fortunately, I'm just Level 3, but from the user's guide, it's made clear that people can be bumped up. In other words, it's kind of like me, playing fantasy baseball, and flagging a fantasy free agent for possible future pick-up, even if I don't want to immediately pull the trigger. However, in this case, I have no control over the trigger-pulling. A better analogy might be a person being put on the most basic level of a National Security Agency or Transportation Security Administration watch list. The idea there is: "We're watching you, and we're waiting to see if you screw up.

Farley has the details of the lists, from the website:

→ Level 1 blocking: this blocks only the worst of the worst. These are the really nasty ones.

Both “sides” across the Deep Rifts™ will hopefully agree these need to be blocked.
Accounts that spam extremely abusive messages to people with the intent only of hurting them with not a hint of “disagreement”.

D0x’ers who want to drop information on fellow atheists in order to scare them off the internet or have real life effects on their well-being.

Stalkers that create sock-accounts to inject themselves into your time line to get a response from you or imposters pretending to be you.

→ Level 2 blocking: these are the abusive subset of anti-feminists, MRAs, or all-round assholes who think nothing of tweeting their much loved photoshopped pictures, memes and other wonderful media directly into your timeline to get attention (Listen to Meee!!1!).

This level also includes the “parody” accounts, if you have better things to do with your life than “disagree” on Twitter with a parody of yourself that seems to have suffered a frontal lobotomy.

Level 2 blocking includes all members of level 1.

→ Level 3 blocking: these are the merely annoying and irritating Twitterers who trot out the A+ arguments to avoid at a moment’s notice, and show no signs of giving them up until you pry them from their cold, dead hands.

Given that is not a practical option, how about blocking them and avoiding tedious exchanges?

This is the 100% frozen peach option… These from time to time leap to level 1/2 so why take the risk?

Level 3 blocking includes all members of levels 1 and 2.

Again, you see how Level 3 is explained.

First, under Level 1, about what the "Deep Rifts" are. That's Gnus, Atheist Plusers and other fundamentalist atheists vs. people like me, who prefer the phrase "secular humanist" because of people like them.

That said, I agree that truly abusive people, the stalkers, publishers of personal information, etc., should not only be blocked but reported to Twitter. But, you don't need a bot for that, and you don't need to create levels 2 and 3.

As for Level 2? Wanting to block parody Twitter accounts reinforces what I've said about Gnu Atheists: They have no sense of humor.

As for Level 3? Wanting to block Twitter accounts that point out where your thinking is wrong shows that you truly don't appreciate or support free thought, and the free exchange of ideas, even if you blog at a place called Freethought Blogs.

Anyway, the "frozen peach" will actually mean, "dueling blocking." Or now, in the case of PZ's latest possible nuttery, dueling reporting of blogs to their ISPs for alleged terms of service violations.

Then, there's the related Problem 6, where Farley notes that the definition of troll, semi-troll, troublesome, etc., is ginned up by Gnu Atheists, specifically the subset known as Atheism Plusers.

Folks, for people who aren't actually abusive, if you want to be closed-minded, there's a simple option: Don't read. Don't click the link for the URL. Don't "follow" the Twitter account.

And, for other people who, like me, are on the more reasonable, and lower-key, side of  Deep Rifts™? Don't stoop to their level. Don't be like a Paula Kirby. There's no need to engage in name-calling.

And, as they come into my mind, I'll have additional thoughts below the fold.

And, I wound up grouping some of those thoughts into a new blog post, as new allegations of sexual harassment or abuse crossed the transom.

Are we seeing the end of a Fourth Great Awakening?

Per discussion with friends on Facebook, over the book "The Rocks Don't Lie," I'd say the answer is yes. (Partial review of the book below, followed by a jump into discussion.)



The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood by David R. Montgomery

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A genial refutation of young-earth creationism

Montgomery generally keeps this story about how the earth's geology refutes any version of a literal Noahic flood light on detailed scientific language. And, it is written as a story.

He takes the reader to various geological formations in the world thatr have been key to the development of geology as a science, while narrating how key figures from geology's history have studied and analyzed such formations. At the same time, he narrates the history of Christian theological thought on literal vs non-literal biblical interpretation in general, and specifically on the Noahic flood. He intertwines the two in discussing how different strands of Christian thought reacted to these scientific findings.

Basically, by the end of the 19th century, a literal or semi-literal young-earth creationism (if not 10,000 years or less, certainly no more than 100,000 years) had fallen out of favor with the great majority of theologians in most of the Western world.

With the exception of the United States.

Montgomery puts YEC developments in the historic context of:
1. Anti-evolutionism and the Scopes trial of the 1920s and
2. Anti-communism and the Cold War, etc., of the late 1940s and beyond.

As talk of "culture wars" continues, and as Montgomery stretches YEC roots back to the Second Great Awakening, this is good to remember.

And now, to tie this to a "Fourth Great Awakening."

First, unlike the First Great Awakening. the Second Great Awakening, or the Third Great Awakening, this "Fourth Great Awakening" has a much more political component.

To explain, for people not very familiar with the history of Christianity in America:

The First Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards, and others, attempting to revitalize the Puritan Calivinist beliefs of New England and the Middle Atlantic colonies in the first half of the 1700s. It was also was intertwined with the growth of Methodism and Baptist denominations. The Second started to battle deism and skepticism, and at its tail end, was connected to the start of sects such as Mormonism and Seventh-Day Adventism. The Third was connected with the late 19th century Social Gospel and reform movements such as the temperance issue.

The First one may have had some connection to the American Revolution; Wiki's entry claims that, but I think it overstates the case. The Second spawned the short-lived Anti-Masonic Party, but was not directly connected to abolitionism. The Third  (I partially accept there was one, but definite more narrowly in time than Wiki) had a bit of a political angle, more in the "Social Gospel" of mainline Protestantism, though, than in the rising Holiness Movement. was a bit more political, but not extremely so.

I also accept the idea of a Fourth Great Awakening, but while I disagree with Wiki that its timeframe for the Third is too long, I think it's too short for the Fourth.

The Fourth relates to the rise of literalism in biblical interpretation and much more. It's definitely the most anti-intellectual of the Great Awakenings.

Evidence for one starting includes that the National Council of Churches "peaked" in the late 50s/early 60s, mainline Protestantism had clergy/laity separating more at that time, and fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism grew rapidly.

That said, previous "Great Awakenings" shot their Roman candle in 35-45 years, really. (Which is part of why I think Wiki is too long on the Third and too short on the Fourth.)  So ... W's two elections aside, is the Third Awakening pretty much dying? And, does that in part explain some of the vitriol? Angry death spasms?

We're at about the right time frame. Each previous Great Awakening died differently.

The First petered out, as much as anything. The fervor of the Second got a nurture in sects such as Mormonism, Adventism, etc., that got new life in the Third, which also faced American industrialization.

The Fourth had a start, if you will, and was almost stillborn, in the Scopes trial. Not all conservative Christians were young-earth creationists, and so, while they may not have been fully reconciled to Darwinian ideas about evolution, many probably could have halfway accepted a "tamer" version of evolution if combined with old-earth creationism.

But, the Second Red Scare ( the first being after World War I) changed everything. But not by itself. The Civil Rights Movement added a "second stage" to this rocket. (Although black megachurches have grown recently, the Fourth Great Awakening is much more a white Christian phenomenon.)

Because the Fourth Great Awakening tied with this, not just the Second Red Square, it naturally became more political. Non-Catholic parochial schools, battles over school prayer, tax exemptions and more, as well as political appeals, both open and coded, by both Democrats and Republicans, became part of this.

But, now, has it shot its bolt?

It may have. One sign? Per a new Wall Street Journal poll, almost 70 percent of Americans want to keep Roe v. Wade. Gay relationships, if not gay marriage, are also getting more support among centrist Americans.

That said, as I noted, the First Great Awakening pretty much faded out. The Second created the "burned over district," but eventually died down smoothly enough. The Third definitely faded out, after the passage of Prohibition and the fading of political Progressivism.

I don't think the Fourth will end the same way. To riff on T.S. Eliot, if it doesn't end with a bang instead of a whimper, its demise will be more emotionally violent. And, because it's more political, that emotionally violent denouement, which I believe we're seeing now, will have political fallout which none of us can probably fully see at this time.

That depends in part on how much the Democratic party tries to stay progressive on social issues while remaining conservative on financial ones, and even more if some conservative Christian laity become disgusted with a Republican party that panders even more to the rich.

Could we see the Constitution party, which is the closest thing the US has to a Religious Right party, move more fully that way?

It wouldn't surprise me. If a Ron Paul type were to temper his financial libertarianism with a heavier dollop of William Jennings Bryan type populism, that person could indeed lead such a "movement."

If we had parliamentary government, this would be a no-brainer. That said, countries like France, which has a modified presidential-parliamentary hybrid, but more power with the president than the leader of parliament, have multiparty government. The problem here in the US is, of course, the Electoral College system. One could have a spectrum of parties in Congress without it, and lesser parties focusing on Congressional elections.

#Tebow - an anti-Catholic?

Frankly, I was glad for the New England Patriots' takedown of Tim Tebow and his Denver Broncos yesterday. And, it happened as I and millions of other NFL fans knew it would: The opponent got far ahead of the Tebowites and forced him to come from well behind by passing.

That said, in light of that, over at ESPN's Grantland, Charles P. Pierce has a great take on Tebow's religiosity, and how he's not "a Christian" but a specific, narrow slice of Christian. And, if Timmeh is like his old man and his old man's "ministry," he is, per the title, an anti-Catholic:

Let us be quite clear — Tim Tebow adheres to a particular form of American Protestantism. He belongs to — and proselytizes for — a splinter of a splinter, no more or less than Mitt Romney once did. This particular splinter has a long record in America of fostering anti-Enlightenment thought, retrograde social policies, and, more discreetly, religious bigotry. To call Tim Tebow a "Christian," and to leave it at that — as though there were one definition of what a "Christian" is — is to say nothing and everything at once. Roman Catholics are Christians. So are Lutherans, Episcopalians, Melkites, Maronites, and members of the Greek and Russian Orthodox faiths. You can see how insidious this is when discussion turns to the missionary work that Tebow's family has done in the Philippines. This is from the Five Priorities of the Bob Tebow ministries, regarding its work overseas:

It is the goal of the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association to preach the gospel to every person who has never had an opportunity to hear the good news of eternal life in Jesus Christ. Most of the world's population has never once had the opportunity to hear the only true message of forgiveness of sins by faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.

It so happens that 95 percent of the population of the Philippines is Roman Catholic. Catholic doctrine just happens to be in conflict with what Bob Tebow and his son preach in regard to personal salvation. ... Bob Tebow's goal is not to convert unbelievers. It is to supplant an existing form of Christianity. So who's the actual Christian here? This is not an idle point to be made. Down through history, millions of people have died in conflicts over what a "Christian" really is, which is what so exercised (James) Madison, and also what brought down a lot of Hitchens' wrath upon religion in general. History says that as soon as you start talking about "the only true message" in this regard, you guarantee that, eventually, people will get slaughtered in the town square.

A long quote from the article, but well worth it, in part to show that, like Rick Reilly, there's a few thoughtful sportswriters out there who can put sports into a larger context. Any sports writer who knows his or her religion enough to reference John Chrysostom deserves a kudo and a long quote. And, most red-state types whom Pierce excoriates in his book or over at Esquire are probably clueless about who Chrysostom is.

And, Pierce is right, Tebow's religion is fair game in the public square, just as is Christopher Hitchens' political hypocrisy, even more than his atheism. As Pierce notes earlier in the column, a Christian can always pray on the other side of a metaphorical or literal lake in another metaphorical or literal village. (Or, in his closet, as Jesus himself says. Funny how the Tebows of the world overlook that one.)

Douthat - at best, half right about the GOP and Xn right

Ross Douthat says that journalists should look at claims of Rick Perry's or Michele Bachmann's religious dominionism, or whatever, with the same eye as claims about Barack Obama allegedly palling around with socialists.

Well, wrong on half, and the half-right portion is itself only half right. Let me explain.

Douthat is right that, to some degree, some GOP wingers pander to the religious right. He cites Rick Perry and the cervical cancer vaccine pandering to Merck even in the face of outcry from Christian rightists and others. But, he ignores, even while citing the diversity of the Christian right, that its "success gospel" subset would be perfectly OK with pandering to big business. He also gives little more than lip service to the "What's the Matter with Kansas" issue of many winger GOP politicians pandering to the Christian right then not following through.

Where he's 100 percent wrong, the half where he's totally wrong, is making the analogy to the 2008 claims against Obama.

Why? Obama wasn't even pandering to "socialist," to Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers or any others. Let alone actually trying to put in socialism in the White House.

The GOP's wingnuts are at least pandering to the Xn Right, on the other hand.

And, in the case of a Bachmann, if not a Perry, actually trying to implement Xn Right beliefs as part of public policy.

I'm inventing a new scale for judging the stupidity of mainstream media punditry. (With some "equivalency" exceptions, MSM news coverage is still generally OK.)

This scale will be 1-10 "doorknobs," based on Alcoholics Anonymous' claim that one's "higher power" can even be a doorknob.

There will be two ratings ... one a general one, the other scaled to the "base point" of a columnist I review regularly.

This column gets 7.5 doorknobs overall (higher is stupider) and 5 Douthat doorknobs (it's about the middle of his stupidity range).

Xn conservative hypocrisy, women's political division

Why is Michele Bachmann in the House of Representatives? Why is she running for president?

Sarah Palin, similarly -- why did she run for governor of Alaska, then vice president? Why would she run for president?

I'm not talking in terms of motivation.

Michele Bachmann gets a smackdown from the hypothetically inerrant Word!

Rather, since multiple places in the Christian New Testament, either Paul or someone pretending to be Paul said, in various ways, he didn't permit women to have authority over men, aren't they being HUGE religious hypocrites?

The three main "proof texts" are 1 Timothy 2:12, written by a pseudo-Paul, Titus 2:5, by the same pseudo-Paul, and 1 Corinthians 14:34, possibly written by the real guy, though authorship is questioned by a fair amount of critical scholars.

Let's look at each one, in case you're not familiar. (All citations are New International Version; even though any good old-time fundamentalist knows the KJV was just as inspired as the original Greek and Hebrew, there's errors in the KJV, there is no "original" Greek and Hebrew left today and we can't always tell from textual criticism what the original was, and inspiration in that sense doesn't exist anyway.)

I Timothy 2:12:

I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.

I Corinthians 14:34:

Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says.

Titus 2:5, starting from v. 4 in parentheses:

(Older women must train younger women) to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

So, why do Palin and Bachmann want to violate the Word of God? (Capitalized for those types of folks.)

Well, first, many fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals will claim the first two passages (the second one explicitly saying so) apply only inside churches.

Tis true, that is.

BUT!

The Palins and Bachmanns of the world, and many of their backers, are on record as saying:
1. America is a Christian nation;
2. America needs to be more explicitly governed by Christian law.

Ergo, the easy deduction is that for these people, America is akin to a giant church. Therefore, the first two passages still apply.

And, with Titus, it's in spades. The passage presumes that older women have already learned, and practice, the art of being subject to their husbands, else how could they train younger ones? Therefore, women in general (who are presumed to be married if not widows) are supposed to be subject to their husbands.

Period.

No "in the churches" only. Everywhere.

That said, it's fun watching a conservative Xn, and even more, one of these "messianic fulfillment" types who think that knowing five words of Hebrew and writing Old Testament names in full Hebrew transliteration gives them some cachet (it doesn't) try to wriggle out of this.

The main "excuse"? Paul's claim elsewhere that there is no male or female, no Greek or Jew, etc.

Well, that's wrong, and it undercuts their beliefs about Paul, to boot.

First, in Galatians, Paul never says that different types of people have the same rights at this moment in life. Proof? He also says there's no slave or free, but then, in the book of Philemon, sends Onesimus back to his slaveowner master. Oops!

Besides that, if this WERE the correct interpretation of how to understand the Galatians passage, it would be proof that Paul didn't write I Timothy, II Timothy or Titus, and that the I Corinthians passage is an interpolation.

Beyond that, all of these admonitions apply in spades to women pastors of fundamentalist and conservative evangelical churches.

I just love the way Christians allegedly devoted to the true, inerrant word of God ...

Aren't!

San Angelo lake is NOT hit by biblical plague

O.C. Fisher Reservoir on Texas' Colorado River has gone almost totally dry and now turned red. Some fundamentalists are claiming this is a plague of Moses type event, or one from Revelation.

Wrong.

It's really a bacterial infestation, a secular "plague" related to global warming, perhaps.

But, that hasn't stopped fundmentalists:

(The red water) apparently caught the attention of Indiana preacher Paul Begley, who suggested that what's happened at O.C. Fisher is an early sign of the end of the world. He concluded that the event is evidence of the apocalypse as predicted by the biblical book of Revelations.

Begley cited a passage, "The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water and they became blood."

That said, it's not even the first time the lake has gone dry. But, 40 years ago, fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals weren't intransigent about alleged persecution against themselves.

Christians? You got an Obamacare loophole — if you want it

You don't have to have health insurance coverage if you sign up for a dubious alternative called a health sharing program.

How dubious? This dubious:

Although they have procedures for dealing with coverage disputes, they're largely unregulated by state insurance departments that oversee private carriers.

And this dubious:

If Medi-Share is an insurance alternative, its guidelines carry an eye-catching disclaimer:

"The payment of your medical bills through Medi-Share or otherwise is not guaranteed in any fashion." Members remain solely responsible for payment.

Indeed, the main part of the story, the hook, is about Medi-Share refusing to pay for brain tumor surgery, and even eventually winning an arbitrator's decision on the matter based on its claimed inability to pay.

And this dubious, in terms of Christian brotherly love:

Nevada pastor Michael Rowden sued Medi-Share over its refusal to pay for treatment of a heart condition. He eventually reached a settlement. "I was actually embarrassed to be associated with them," he said.

So, how does it "work," using that word theoretically? Here's how:
Every month, they pay a fixed "share" to cover the medical expenses of members in need. The cost usually is less than private insurance, but it's not tax deductible. Members use a network of medical providers.
OK, so .... being a hypothetical devil's advocate here ...

What if Muslims, especially based on their history of nonbank lending networks and such, started something similar and got an exemption from Obamacare?

Conservatives would go apeshit. They would probably claim the exemption was because Obama was indeed a Muslim himself. The practice would be touted as proof of sharia law in America.

And, tell me again, how Christians are being "persecuted"?

That said, I seriously expect about the same number of Christians to sign up for this as who drive without auto insurance or who own homes without insurance (or without lightning rods).

The sad part, per my "persecution" crack, is the pandering involved by Members of Congress (and, indirectly, the "Muslim" Obama Administration). That said, by not supporting a single-payer system, or at least making it an option, Team Obama opened itself up to loopholes like that. And, because the Obama Administration has trumped BushCo on faith-based initiative spending and indulgence, I bet Preznit Kumbaya actually isn't at all saddened by the existence of this loophole.

An MD's Hypocritical Oath in action

OK, what's wrong with this picture? A hospital professional possibly violates HIPPA while perpetuating racial (it seems) and socioeconomic stereotypes. All to attack so-called "Obamacare."

Via the Snopes link, this was an actual letter to the editor Dr. Starner Jones had run in the Jackson, Miss. newspaper. I will quote the first graf in full:

During my last night's shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B tune for a ringtone. Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid. She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer.

The obvious racial stereotypes, as well as socioeconomic ones, bleed out of this doctor's letter.

First, how do you know her "shiny new gold tooth" is new? Fact is, precisely because it's so "visible," gold as a filling material has always been the poor person's filling. That's the first fact our good doctor won't let stand in the way of medical compassion, or his alternate world.

Second, how do you know the tennis shoes were "a very expensive brand"? How do WE know, even more, if you won't tell us what the brand is? Fact is, at a discount shoe store, "Docccccctttoooooorrr" Jones (to riff on Rush), Nikes can be bought for under $50.

Third, a cell phone is NOT a luxury. Depending on her rate plan and such, it may be cheaper for her than a landline.

Fourth, a "costly" pack of cigarettes? They're all kind of costly. That said, why don't you complain about Philip Morris, American Tobacco, Lorillard, etc., all of whom deliberately targeted minorities for decades? And, if you're spilling the beans, how do you know how much a day she smokes?

Fifth, buying beer isn't a sin.

But, the biggie, the "Medicaid" status.

Hey, "Docccctttooooorrrrrrr" Jones, your GOP-type buddies who own Wally-World had it as their corporate policy to push employees into Medicaid if they couldn't afford company insurance. Plenty of other people are on Medicaid who are employed. So are people on Social Security Disability Income.

Instead of complaining about her as a "cheat," let's look at rich, white present and former CEOs at Big Tobacco, the ones who targeted people like your stereotyped welfare queen.

Or, let's look at Dwayne Andreas at Archer Daniels Midland, who, via the "farm bills" that boost Big Ag companies like his, peddle junk-food crack to lower-income people.

And, to my family that lives in a state, Missouri, that lets junk food be bought with food stamps: Whose fault is that? Probably your rich white legislators being bought off by richer-yet lobbyists for folks like ADM!!! Get a fucking clue.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm not that smart myself, supposedly.

That said, I've looked at a couple of other liberal blogs, and the conservative numb-nuts go batshit over the slightest insinuation this guy is a racist.

Well, as for the religious conservative numbnuts, and the Doooocccctttttttoooooooorrrrrrr, read Ecclesiastes about how chance comes to all before you talk about reaping what you sow. (Then, realize there is no such thing as "a unitary theology of the Bible," because it was written by dozens of people over several hundred years. Hell, Muhammad changes his mind more than once as the sole author - theoretically, in reality probably not - of the Quran.)

As for the claim that he's not talking about a black person? Sure, you can point to individual items and say, no that one, or this one, isn't necessarily a "black" thing. But, add them togethr and 2 + 2 = 4. Especially in the light of this seventh-generation Mississippian (who probably went to an all-white private school) protesting "Obamacare" behind this all.

Oh, and raise your hand if you believe Haley Barbour didn't come from "this Mississippi."

Obama needs to be Machiavellian on Park51

Here's what Obama should really say about Park51 and Muslim religious freedom. He should say that this tarring of all Muslims with the same brush looks suspiciously similar to the medieval Christian "blood guilt" claim made against Jews, based on the Gospel of Matthew. He should ask whether Jews, having been at the receiving end of that for more than a millennium, really want to be dishing it out now.

Some of the Jewish wing of neoconservatives might actually be shamed; others might look more askance at the fundamentalist Christian wing. And, there's the Machiavellianism: maybe Prez Kumbaya, if he sang from a different playbook and found some cojones, could split neocons.

Now, here's more on why Obama needs to do this, and why it might work: Jeffrey Goldberg's latest nuttery:

Goldberg claims, hopefully (but probably not) in jest, that occasionally "heated" anti-Muslim rhetoric is dwarfed by "open bigotry toward evangelical Christians" on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times. If anyone can point to anything published in the Times that is as hysterically anti-Christian as, say, any random week's worth of Andy McCarthy's contributions to the National Review, please let me know.

But, we know Obama is pretty tone deaf to much besides Kumbaya, and that he pawned his balls to the Revvvvv. Jeremiah Wright, or somebody, long ago.

So, this won't really happen.

Photoshopping fun with Pat Robertson

Get your Red Heifer jerky now so Bro. Pat Robertson can help rebuild the temple.

For non-Americans, especially, not familiar with the backstory, millennialist fundamentalists believe that the ashes of a red heifer (used in certain purification rituals in the Old Testament), are needed to be offered once more, to start the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and thus lead to the messianic millennium.

Wikipedia starts with the biblical background:

According to Numbers 19:2: "Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke" — in other words, the animal must not have hairs of any other color, it must be in perfect health, and it must never have been used to perform work. The heifer is then slain (Numbers 19:3) and burned outside of the camp (Numbers 19:3–6). Cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet are added to the fire, and the remaining ashes are placed in a vessel containing pure water (Numbers 19:9).

In order to purify a person who has become ritually contaminated by contact with a corpse, water from the vessel is sprinkled on him, using a bunch of hyssop, on the third and seventh day of the decontamination process (Numbers 19:18–19). The priest who have performed the ritual then become impure themselves. The priest who performs the ritual must then bathe himself and his clothes in water. He shall be deemed impure until evening.

From there, it became more detailed in the Jewish Mishna and connected with Messianic ideas.

For more on the origin of that idea, and its being taken over by Protestant fundamentalists, go here. The Temple Institute is an ardent pusher of rebuilding the temple.

Wiki concludes with some of this modern fundamentalist angle, even noting that Clyde Lott, a cattle rancher in the United States, is breeding red heifers, hoping to produce one that will be certified as unblemished, etc.

Finally, Justin Raimundo puts all of this into some modern geopolitical context.

Pat has put himself in the limelight enough, anyway, that the photoshopping idea popped into my head.

A heifer is a cow, and needs to be killed for its ashes to be burned. So, eat some red heifer jerky!

Hey, pastor, where’s Romans 8?

The pastor of the Arizona man who brought multiple weapons to a town hall there prayed for the death of President Obama at a church service before then.

Pastor Steven Anderson said he was going to “pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell.”

I believe Romans 8 says:

Submit unto the governing authorities, for they have been ordained by God.

And Paul was writing that while under the rule of Nero Ceasar, not the democratically elected President Barack Obama.

And, no, he didn't follow that with a paragraph about praying for Nero's death while still "submitting."

Now, are all conservative evangelicals like this? Or even all fundamentalists? No. But is Anderson a lone wolf, an outlier? I highly doubt it.

So, people on the Talking Points Memo thread who claim people are fleeing churches like this are... well, wrong! Many people, especially in down economic times, flock to absolutist messages.
-END-

Praying mom convicted of daughter’s homicide

Leilani Neumann knew her daughter had child-onset diabetes.

So, when Madeline went into a diabetic coma, she did what?

She kept praying, that’s what. Only after Madeline stopped breathing, did Leilani and her prayer partners call 911.

The state of Wisconsin rightly charged her with something much more serious than “child endangerment.” And, yesterday, needing just four hours’ deliberation, a jury agreed, finding her guilty of second-degree reckless homicide.

Contra her attorney and her stepfather, Leilani Neumann is a religious extremist, with beliefs countered by reported words of Jesus himself.

Her husband, Dale, goes to trial on the same charge in July; no word on when Leilani gets sentenced.

Assuming her husband is also convicted, I hope the state of Wisconsin also has the smarts to fight her stepfather (and mother?) becoming the custodian of her three still-living children.

Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who have need of a doctor, but the sick.” (Luke 5:31 and parallels.) He clearly was endorsing the idea for proper medical care.

I hope other states, with similar cases, have district attorneys who get serious about filing serious charges.