After Scalia

You’ve probably heard that Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia passed away of natural causes a few days ago. I wish his friends and family solace in this difficult time.

But setting that aside, I’m glad he’s off the court. From Lawrence v. Texas to Obergefell v. Hodges to many others, he did more to fight the advance of civil rights in this country than anyone else on the court, or indeed anyone else I can think of.

And now, of course, there’s a storm of speculation in the opiniosphere: will Obama nominate a replacement? (Yes. That’s his job.) Should he leave it to the next president? (No, that would be not doing his job.)

Will the Senate block his nominee? Yes. That’s what this Congress does: block Obama. Isn’t there a tradition of not nominating SCOTUS replacements in an election year? No, that’s just something Republican senators made up so they wouldn’t have to do their job.

Will Obama nominate a liberal, or a moderate? Will Mitch McConnell refuse to let the issue come to the floor? Those are interesting questions, and the pundits are applying the full force of their three-dimensional-chess-playing brains to them, because there are so many interesting ways this could go, so many ways the actors could position themselves. Obama gets to pick a nominee. The Senate can drag its feet on the confirmation. But the longer the position isn’t filled, the more pressure there will be on the Senate to do so. And it could be a big issue in October, at the height of election season.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. But one thing I’m fairly certain of: Scalia’s replacement will be more liberal than him. He or she would pretty much have to be, unless Obama somehow nominates Bryan Fischer or the reanimated corpse of Atilla the Hun.

And that in turn means that some number of cases that would have been 5-4 decisions with Scalia’s vote will become 5-4 the other way. And maybe this country can move forward.

BillDo Has A Totally Practical Solution to Zika

Looks like it’s time for another edition of Bill Donohue Is A Terrible Person.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights commented on the current Zika epidemic:

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said Friday, adding that laws and policies that restrict access to sexual and reproductive health services in contravention of international standards, must be repealed and concrete steps must be taken so that women have the information, support and services they require to exercise their rights to determine whether and when they become pregnant.

So if women get to decide when they get pregnant, there’ll be fewer pregnant women with Zika, and thus fewer kids with microcephaly. Does that sound pretty reasonable to you? Yes? Well, that’s because you’re not a frothing anti-contraception dogmatist like BillDo.

The way he sees it (emphasis emphatically added):

Zeid wants restrictive abortion laws repealed. More than that, he is fuming over the notion that women are in charge of their bodies. They are not. Moreover, he smirks at the advice that women should delay getting pregnant. According to the High Commissioner such advice “ignores the reality that many women and girls simply cannot exercise control over whether or when or under what circumstances they become pregnant, especially in an environment where sexual violence is so common.”

Okay, back up to that “They are not” for a moment. Is that poor phrasing, or did Bill just say that women are not in charge of their bodies? And if the latter, is it safe to assume he means something abstract and nebulous like “all our bodies ultimately belong to Baby Jesus, and we’re just caretakers”, rather than a more concrete bit of horribleness like “men get to decide whether women get and stay pregnant”? (I mean, we know he endorses the “stay” part of that, but I don’t know to what extent he’s willing to say so out loud.)

Be that as it may, he continues:

Here’s some advice for Zeid. Number one, girls should not be getting pregnant, and it is his job to say so.

Okay so far. I’m curious to know how BillDo proposes to enable them to make this choice.

Second, women are not the powerless wimps that he says they are: they can, in almost all circumstances, control when to have sex and with whom.

Yes. In almost all circumstances (let’s say over 95%), women decide when and whether to have sex. The other cases are called rape.

Third, he needs to man-up and name those Latin American nations (those were the ones he was addressing) where rape is commonplace.

Oh, Jesus Mary-fucking Christ on a consecrated cracker! Is this really that hard to look up in the age of Google and Wikipedia? Here’s a chart of rape rates in Latin America. And here’s Wikipedia’s section on rape in Brazil, one of the countries currently worst-hit by Zika.

Whichever way you slice it, we’re talking about tens or hundreds of thousands of women whom BillDo dismisses with a wave of his in-almost-all-circumstances, women far more alive and breathing than the virgin Mary, the only woman he seems willing to protect.

Fourth, killing innocent persons is never a morally acceptable remedy for any disease. Fifth, he ought to be policing the U.N. instead of lecturing us about the wonders of abortion

For some reason, BillDo doesn’t mention that the document he’s complaining about isn’t a paean to abortion, but rather talks in more general terms about letting women control their bodies, including sex ed, medical services, and contraception, as well as (and preferably before) abortion.

But I guess none of that matters, because when women use contraception instead of abstinence, it makes Baby Jesus cry.

Still, I’d like to end on a positive note by treating Bill better than he would half the human population, and allow him to choose for himself whether or not to choke on a barrel of contraceptive jelly.

The Bible Answer Man Dodges the Euthyphro Dilemma

A few days ago, on the Bible Answer Man show, Hank Hanegraaff tackled the Euthyphro dilemma.

Briefly, this comes from one of Socrates’ dialogs, in which he asks a man named Euthyphro whether certain things are good because the gods say so, or whether the gods say those things are good because they are good. This also applies to the Christian god, naturally.

In the first case, morality is inherently arbitrary and subjective: if God decides that rape is good, then rape automatically becomes good; but this feels wrong, aside from being abhorrent.

The second case is that certain actions are good on their own merits: that charity is good and rape are bad for reasons that have nothing to do with any gods. But in that case, the gods are irrelevant to morality.

Now, personally, I don’t see a problem with the second one. If a god showed up and told me to do or not do something, I’d want him/her/it to explain why, and to provide a better explanation than “Meh. I flipped a coin, and today, pork is tref”.

But of course Hanegraaff sees his god as the source of morality, and not merely a middleman or a teacher. So the way he gets around the dilemma is to say that yes, things are good because God says they are, but also God wouldn’t command something like rape to be moral, because such is not his nature: things are good because they reflect God’s nature.

The problem is that this doesn’t solve the problem: it merely redefines “good” to mean “like God”, with no connection to anything else, like happiness or well-being, or anything like that. Is killing someone good? It is, if it reflects God’s nature. So how can we tell whether it reflects God’s nature? Given the number of people that Yahweh kills in the Bible, it seems that killing, and even genocide, reflects his nature.

I expect Hanegraaff would dispute this, saying, for instance, that it was okay for God to kill everyone in the flood because they deserved it, or that slavery was necessary back in ancient Israel, or It’s Okay When God Does It, or whatever. But that’s just it: why is it even necessary to explain why the Bible seems to describe God as doing horrible things? Especially if the Bible is a true account of what happened, and especially if, as many apologists say, God’s law is written on all our hearts? Wouldn’t we read about the massacre of the Midianites and think, “Yeah, they had it coming”? Would anyone balk at the image of Jesus whipping people with a scourge he made himself?

It seems clear that even if “good” and “evil” aren’t clearly defined and have fuzzy edges, Hanegraaff isn’t relying solely on the Bible to figure out what falls in each category, and neither does anyone else. That is, whatever “good” means, it’s not synonymous with “like God”.

R.I.P. David Bowie

David Bowie has died at the age of 69, of cancer. You may remember him as the guy who changed the direction of rock six or seven times.

I wish I had something clever to say here, but I don’t, so just read the AP’s retrospective (or Wikipedia‘s, if you’re reading this in a dystopian future where the AP’s links have gone dead) while listening to Moonage Daydream:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFDj3shXvco&w=420&h=315]

Charlie Hebdo, un an après

la-une-de-l-edition-double-de-charlie-hebdo-qui-sort-le-mercredi-6-janvier-photo-charlie-hebdo-1451896178
Charlie Hebdo cover, Jan. 4, 2016. The caption reads, “One year later, the assassin is still at large.” Image from l’Est Républicain

One year after the shootings at Charlie Hebdo that claimed the lives of its top staff, the magazine has released a double-length special edition issue with the cover above.

The Meaning of Christmas, a Quantitative Analysis

I’ve often heard atheists say that the things people associate with Christmas are mostly secular, and so in a real sense Christmas has stopped being a religious holiday, if it was. But I’ve never seen anyone try to quantify that. Aha! A lacuna that I can fill!

Originally, I was going to google “What Christmas means to me”, see what people come up with, and sort that into “Religious”, “Secular”, and “Mixed” (or “could go either way, depending”). But then What Christmas Means to Me turned out to be a Stevie Wonder song, and I couldn’t be bothered to find the posts that didn’t refer to that song.

1

But what the hell. In the spirit of Christmas, let’s see what Stevie lists, and whether it’s religious:

  Rel Mix Sec
Candles burnin’ low     ✓
Lots of mistletoe     ✓
Lots of snow and ice     ✓
Choirs singin’ carols   ✓  
little cards you give me     ✓
runnin’ wild, as anxious as a little child     ✓
Greet you neath the mistletoe     ✓
Wish you a Merry Christmas baby   ✓  
happiness in the comin’ year     ✓
deck the halls with holly     ✓
Sing sweet silent night ✓    
Fill the tree with angel hair[1]     ✓
pretty, pretty lights     ✓
Christmas bells are ringin’ ✓    

[1] A note says that “angel hair” means tinsel, so I’m counting it as secular.

2

After that, I googled “What I like about Christmas”.

Rozario Fernandes, Express Tribune, 8 Things I Love About Christmas:

  Rel Mix Sec
Listening to Christmas carols   ✓  
Fairy lights and pretty decorations     ✓
Buying gifts for your loved ones     ✓
Keeping a secret stash of holiday sweets     ✓
Another reason to stay out late     ✓
Family get-togethers     ✓
Vacation time     ✓
Attending the midnight prayer service ✓    

2.5

Next on the list was a Yahoo! Answers entry, which I didn’t pick because honestly, it’s a discussion thread, so it’s not clear where it ends, or how the entries were chosen.

3

What Do You Like About Christmas by Carey Kinsolving is an explicitly-religious piece, a list of children’s answers to the titular question interspersed with Bible verses. The site was down when I tried accessing it, so I had to rely on Google’s cache. But let’s see how it fares:

  Rel Mix Sec
giving people presents     ✓
celebrating Christmas[2]   ✓  
donees’ faces lighting up with joy     ✓
celebrating Christ’s birth ✓    
the lights, because of the light in the sky when Jesus was born   ✓  
presents     ✓
spending time with family     ✓
share Christ’s love ✓    

[2] Could be either secular, religious, or a mixture, depending how the person celebrates.

4

Aprille Rose at allwomenstalk writes 7 Things I Love About Christmas:

  Rel Mix Sec
The smells of Christmas[3]     ✓
Seasonal flavors     ✓
Christmas movies and cartoons[3]     ✓
Christmas songs on the radio   ✓  
Stringing up lights around the house     ✓
Decorating the tree     ✓
Baking cookies     ✓

[3] All the examples listed are secular.

5

The 25 Greatest Things About Christmas by Belinda Moreira at Arts.Mic:

  Rel Mix Sec
Christmas trees     ✓
Chance of snow     ✓
Lights     ✓
Vacation time     ✓
Hot chocolate     ✓
Ornaments     ✓
Christmas parties     ✓
Ugly Christmas sweaters     ✓
Presents     ✓
Treats     ✓
Stockings     ✓
Snuggling     ✓
Ice skating     ✓
Mistletoe     ✓
Carols and music[3]     ✓
Santa     ✓
Christmas sales     ✓
Eggnog     ✓
Gingerbread houses and men     ✓
Time of giving     ✓
Time with friends and family     ✓
Snowmen     ✓
Classic Christmas movies   ✓  
Holiday cheer     ✓
The chance to feel like a kid again     ✓

5.5

I skipped this page at Amazon’s Askville, for the same reasons as the Yahoo! Answers one.

6

Jesse Carey at Relevant Magazine lists 7 Reasons Why We Still Love Christmas:

  Rel Mix Sec
Spending time with friends and family     ✓
opening gifts     ✓
getting away from work     ✓
Celebrating the birth of our Savior ✓    
Inflatable lawn ornaments[4]     ✓
Christmas sweaters     ✓
Claymation specials   ✓  
Family Christmas cards   ✓  
Advent calendars   ✓  
Christmas carols   ✓  
Office gift exchanges     ✓

[4] I’m counting this as secular because I have yet to see an inflatable Jesus.

Conclusion

I count 6 religious, 11 mixed, and 56 secular things to love about Christmas. I think we can confidently say that you can give up religion without giving up the things that make Christmas special. Numbers don’t lie.

A Modest Proposal

Another day, another shooting two shootings. As usual, people will shrug and say that as long as the Second Amendment (peace be upon it) guarantees the right to carry a gun in your pocket (especially if you’re not glad to see me), these sorts of massacre will continue to happen.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from conservative discussions about abortion and voter registration, it’s that just because a right is in the constitution doesn’t mean that it should be easy to exercise. So herewith, I present a few suggestions on how to curb gun violence, without actually repealing the Second A:

  • Gun sales are limited to registered weapons dealers. Close the gun-show loophole.
  • All gun dealers must have admitting privileges at a local hospital. Just in case something goes wrong during the sale.
  • To purchase a gun, you must first attend a series of counseling sessions showing the aftermath of all of the mass shootings in the past year.
  • Purchasing a gun also requires a transvaginal (or, for men, anal) ultrasound. Yes, it’s medically unnecessary. So what?
  • No federal money shall go to any organization that advocates for gun ownership, or is involved in weapons sales, or conducts weapons training, or has a gun range.
  • To purchase a gun, you must complete a gun safety course and demonstrate proficiency at an approved gun range. I think there’s one in Billings, Montana. Hurry while they still have some slots open for 2020.

Update, Dec. 4: Alert Reader LP points out that Missouri state legislator Stacey Newman has proposed a bill along the same lines as above. I wish her luck.

Such Customer Service

Some companies really know how to make their customers feel valued as individual people:

WELCOME TO $COMPANY

Dear
c79dc7497a95472065ca031d908cc4493375c7178ca33bf0c8acdc5dfc4447177d803fde9fa9e339
f019673cef7b434090970e0e3fac10953fb720b370fc2b1beff12d550da1c797 C28AC3,

Do we have to be so formal? Just call me c79dc749.

What If Intercessory Prayer Worked?

What if intercessory prayer worked? What if, when you or someone else had a disease, and you prayed, there was a significant chance that the disease would be healed, either by one or another divine being, or by some other mechanism?

And yes, I realize that a lot of people think that it does; but I’m going to look at this in the way a science fiction writer might, and see what happens.

One of the most obvious attributes of prayer is that it’s cheap and easily-accessible by anyone. It’s also said to be as safe and side-effect-free as, say, homeopathy. That means that it should be everyone’s first recourse, not their second, third, or last. People wouldn’t say “there’s nothing to do now but pray” after an operation; they’d say “prayer didn’t work; there’s nothing to do now but operate”.

Insurance companies would refuse to cover the cost of, say, blood pressure medication or chemotherapy unless you’d already tried cheap prayer first. In this, they would be joined by doctors, because medications have side effects (to say nothing of surgery and similar operations), so it’s best to try side-effect-free prayer first.

Then again, maybe insurance companies wouldn’t bother: they’d just assume that everyone would pray before resorting to medical professionals, that there wasn’t any real money to be saved by screening out the vanishingly few die-hard antitheists, and they’d get rid of that particular bit of paperwork.

At the same time, though, assuming that not all prayers are equally effective, we’d see a new profession: prayer therapist. These would be people whose job it is to help you pray in the optimal way: do you need to be on your knees, or can you just sort of wish for recovery while sitting in traffic? What are some good ways to achieve the purity of heart that gives the best odds of recovery? Is it okay to take painkillers so you can pray without being distracted by the pain? For that matter, are Catholic prayers more effective than Buddhist ones, or doesn’t it matter? (Yes, it means that some people would stay with insurance companies that they hate simply because their favorite prayer therapist is in-network.)

Naturally, in addition to the well-informed professionals, there would be the fakers, posers, and spouters-of-BS. Hollywood celebrities would hire celebrity prayer therapists and would compare notes on morning talk shows about the latest trends and fashions in intercessory prayer.

None of this even addresses the wider theological repercussions: if prayer really worked, there would be an awful lot fewer atheists, and a lot more members of whichever faith had the most effective prayers. I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide how well this little flight of fancy corresponds to the world we live in.

Thanksgiving Pho

Yesterday, around dinner time, we started digging through the Thanksgiving leftovers to see what looked good. M wanted soup. Great. Except that we didn’t have enough noodles for a decent soup, but we did have maifun rice noodles, so we used that instead.
Basically, J combined the noodles with leftover turkey, plus carrots, onions, celery, and the herbs and vegetables used to stuff and flavor the Thanksgiving turkey. I called the result Thanksgiving pho, and it was surprisingly good. I added Sriracha to mine; the others didn’t, for some reason.
Try it. You know you want to. Plus, you’ve got to do something with that leftover turkey, right? Might as well put is in a dish that tastes good no matter how you make it.