God-based Abortion Policy: FAIL (Open thread on episode 719)

I'm going to talk about abortion again this week. This time, I'm taking a completely different tactic. I'm going to apply my own personal moral principles to the problem and see how well I do against those of the religious right, supposedly backed by their god.

Guess which one will come out objectively better? Hopefully, this leaves the question of why an individual atheist is doing better than American Christendom backed by the Author of morality.

Feel free to treat this as an open thread on episode 719.

Postscript: I found out late that Greg Paul was to be a special guest caller on the show, so I wasn't able to get to my topic. I'll save it for next time.

Some thought experiments on "potential life"

An ex-theist emailed to say that, although he has made a lot of changes to his thinking regarding gay rights and race issues since abandoning his theism, the abortion issue still bothers him.

The human egg and sperm are not in and of themselves able to "live" and reproduce/multiply on their own. Once they are joined, something happens that causes them to "become alive" and the cells will them multiply on their own without any external influence other than feeding off the body of the mother.

The glob of cells will in the vast majority of cases eventually become a human and the progression of its growth can not be physically stopped by the mother or father without the prescribed use of a poison pill, or physical instrument where a doctor must physically cut it or smash it until the growth stops.

I'm no legal scholar, but I can not see how this action can not be defined as anything other than "killing" an immature human.

Rather than just send him off to another site, I gave a little more thought to the implications of requiring the care of a fetus on the basis of it being a potential future life as soon as the sperm and egg join. For starters, you can't go wrong reading Carl Sagan's essay on abortion from Billions and Billions:

Despite many claims to the contrary, life does not begin at conception: It is an unbroken chain that stretches back nearly to the origin of the Earth, 4.6 billion years ago. Nor does human life begin at conception: It is an unbroken chain dating back to the origin of our species, hundreds of thousands of years ago. Every human sperm and egg is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, alive. They are not human beings, of course. However, it could be argued that neither is a fertilized egg.

In some animals, an egg develops into a healthy adult without benefit of a sperm cell. But not, so far as we know, among humans. A sperm and an unfertilized egg jointly comprise the full genetic blueprint for a human being. Under certain circumstances, after fertilization, they can develop into a baby. But most fertilized eggs are spontaneously miscarried. Development into a baby is by no means guaranteed. Neither a sperm and egg separately, nor a fertilized egg, is more than a potential baby or a potential adult. So if a sperm and egg are as human as the fertilized egg produced by their union, and if it is murder to destroy a fertilized egg--despite the fact that it's only potentially a baby--why isn't it murder to destroy a sperm or an egg?

For context, here's support for Sagan's claim of the frequency of spontaneous abortion from the University of Ottowa:
"The incidence of spontaneous abortion is estimated to be 50% of all pregnancies, based on the assumption that many pregnancies abort spontaneously with no clinical recognition."

So if a fertilized egg is more likely than not to not grow into an adult human being, why draw arbitrary lines in the sand saying that it becomes murder in that particular moment?

For the sake of argument, I'd like you to imagine that time travel is possible in order to consider the following eight thought experiments.

1. You go back in time and deliberately prevent somebody's parents from meeting. To be concrete, we'll call him "Biff". History has now changed and Biff is never born. Have you killed Biff? (If you're like me, the answer is "Maybe. I'll have to think about it a bit.")
2. Suppose that, instead of preventing Biff's parents from meeting, you go back to the night of his conception and strike up a conversation with them. The three of you have a delightful time until late at night, and they never get around to having sex. Again, Biff is never conceived. Again, have you murdered him?
3. Now suppose that Biff's parents were already actively planning to have a kid, and so they go at at the next night. A child is conceived but -- due to the statistical issues involved -- a different sperm implant in the egg, and the genes expresses themselves in very different ways. Returning to the present, you find that Biff doesn't exist at all. In his place, his not at all similar brother Griff was born. Is Biff now dead?
4. In order to fix the timestream, you travel back and prevent yourself from meeting Griff's parents, thus restoring the original history. Biff is born and Griff is not. Have you now killed Griff?
5. You and your partner discuss having a child of your own, and almost decide to do it, but in the end you decide that the cons just barely outweigh the pros. Had the argument gone a little bit differently, you might have had a kid. Have you killed your future child?
6. You (or your wife) are pregnant, but there are complications -- possibly not fatal, but definitely not something you would like to deal with. You agree to abort the baby and try again. The original fetus is never born, and the new baby is healthy, happy, and grows to adulthood. If you had chosen to bear the original fetus, you wouldn't have wanted any more children. By deciding not to have the abortion, would you have been killing the healthy baby?
7. Some religious groups teach that child bearing is a responsibility and a duty. Protection of any kind is never allowed during sex, and therefore they have fifteen kids. Compare them to a couple who bear two children by choice and then use protection for the rest of their lives. Have they killed the other thirteen children that they might have had? Do thirteen murders simultaneously occur as soon as the man gets a vasectomy? What if they decided to have no kids, is the murder count now bumped up to fifteen?
8. Similarly, is an abstinent couple committing murder by giving their future children no opportunity to come to life?

Onward Christian Thugs

This week in Texas, State Senator Dan Patrick proposed a bill to require women seeking abortions to undergo a mandatory sonogram, see the image of the fetus, hear its heartbeat, and hear a mandated description of the fetus by the doctor. The only purpose of such a bill is to coerce women into making a choice that Dan Patrick and his fellow Christian thugs think is the moral one. These sorts of bills have been proposed and many approved all over the country. Fortunately for Texas, some of the most odious parts of this particular bill have been softened in committee, leaving only the doctor-supplied fetal description mandatory.

The number of things wrong with this sort of effort are astonishing. Let's see if we can list a few of them:

• A major objection would have to be that these sorts of bills are a transparent (and often successful) attempt to use the government as a tool to further the lawmaker's Christian beliefs. The supposedly "secular" purpose of the bill is education, but that's a ruse (but we'll get to that.) If freedom of religion means anything, it means freedom from religion — freedom from transparent con games.
  
• They might also claim that they're trying to reduce abortions, but that would be framing the issue wrongly. They are trying to create more people who can be coerced into their religion. You never see these Christian groups promote birth control, mandatory waiting periods or mandated doctor intervention for the MEN who are impregnating these women. You do see Christian groups working to remove an honest teaching of the responsibilities of parenthood in high school health classes. Christians feel that they've gotten the process this far with their efforts. They have to "close the loop" and get the baby born. See "God's Little Rabbits" for more about their success.
  
• They (and we all) know there is no God to whom they can pray to make more human beings. Only a moron would believe such a thing, right Dan? Matt. 7:7, Matt. 17:20, Matt. 21:21, Mark 11:24, John 14:12-14, Matt. 18:18 all have Jesus claiming that prayer works all the time. Gen. 1:26 (and others) has God creating humans. Christians don't believe that stuff. Christians know they have to co-opt as many uteruses as they can (there's plenty of sperm to go around — just make masturbation taboo).
  
• Dan and his fellow Christians know that God and the church have failed to enforce their edicts on their flock. The absolutely must use the real power of the government to achieve their end.
  
• After the baby is born, they lose interest. Christians know that the evolution-engineered motherhood hormones will kick in. While Christians want to have the power to make these decisions, they never step up to the plate when it comes to the responsibility for the child. If they ever did, you'd see Christian organizations make deals with women where the deep-pocketed Christian group would fund the child through college in exchange for the mother bringing the child to term. Christians instead use coercion and thuggery, which are their time honored tools.
• Christians claim to care about poverty, but efforts like this have the effect of creating poverty. Again, the marketing doesn't match the actual behavior. Their only "solution" here is to encourage single mothers to get married. "Family values" apparently means the creation of families by coercion. No wonder the divorce rates of evangelicals and fundamentalists is higher than that of atheists.
  
• Christians like Dan don't think the mother has the intellectual capacity to make the moral decision to keep the child, but they seem to think that she is perfectly capable of raising it. Ironically, the women seeking abortion are the ones that know their limitations. I'll trust a woman's decision about her abilities over Dan Patrick any day of the eternity.
• There is often some claim of the "sanctity of life", but Christianity is a religion that teaches our bodies are little more than soul traps whose natural use is to release the soul so that it can go meet the Christian god. The god of the Bible is a murderous thug who has also commanded the murder of children and the unborn. The "sanctity of life" is a complete fabrication incompatible with Christian dogma.
  
• Dan Patrick is not a doctor, nor are any of the law makers (that I know of) creating laws like this. They have no business interfering with medical procedures.
• Dan and his ilk clearly don't believe in the golden rule, such as stated in Matt. 7:12. If they did, they would welcome others to insert themselves in their own medical treatments. I would encourage those of you who do believe in the golden rule to make Christians aware of this fact. If you can find someone who advocates Christian interference in medical practices, teach them a practical lesson in Jesus' moral teachings.
  
• Supposedly, women seeking abortions need education. I have yet to see a bill mandating education about the cost and responsibility of raising a child or the risk of child birth. There are no bills forcing women to see pictures of women who died in child birth. There's no education about the emotional risks of postpartum depression and the risk of the mother harming the child or herself. The "education" that Christians propose is one-sided.
• Christian efforts to slow abortion have failed. According to this article, countries with strong religious belief have higher rates of abortion. We might make more progress taxing religions and using those funds to support unwanted children.
  
• Finally, I don't see anything resembling compassion in Dan Patrick's bill or other efforts by Christians to prevent abortion. These people clearly care more about their invisible friends (their concepts of god) than the women they seek to manipulate.
  

Christians claim to care about "sin", but overlook the issue of responsibility. Christians seek to try to make their god happy by coercion and manipulation of vulnerable people. The atheists I know, focus on responsibility. How can we educate people so that the understand the consequences of their actions? How can we provide them with tools to mitigate harm? How can we help people who know they are in over their head? Abortion is not a good thing, but why don't we start using reason, responsibility, and compassion to address the problem?

Notice how misogynist the GOP has gotten lately? Want to do something fun about it?

Abortion rights is not necessarily an atheist issue. But it is a human rights issue. And it's something the Christian Right has chosen to go to war over with its biggest, nastiest guns. They're not exactly about playing fair either.

Recently, civilized hominids everywhere were left slack-jawed in disbelief when Republicans tried to redefine rape in order to make it damn near impossible for any actual rape survivor to terminate her pregnancy. They coined the baffling term "forcible rape," implying they think there's such a thing as "consensual rape." Or something. Anyway, it's obvious no Good Christian Woman would be out drinkin' in bars and shit. So if some slutty sinful whore gets her drink roofied, it's obviously her fault for not being pure enough, ain't it?

Now it's gotten crazier. As it seems to be GOP policy to constantly try to out-douche one another, Pennsylvania's Republican Senator Joe Pitts has introduced H.R. 358. This bill would allow hospitals staffed by the kinds of people with a bug up their ass about abortion and a thin grasp of the Hippocratic Oath not only to decline to provide a life-saving abortion to a woman who direly needs one, but even to refuse to facilitate transporting her to a hospital that will. Save her life, that is. So we are presented with the spectacle of a woman dying in agony in a hospital parking lot while the nurses and orderlies on duty calmly watch Oprah and tweet about their weekends. Paradoxically, Pitts calls this the "Protect Life Act." What a lovely thing Christian family values are.

And remember, these are the same people bleating about less government, less government!

It's especially boggling when women, in what can only be thought of as Stockholm Syndrome taken to exponential new heights, fall into the right-wing misogyny camp and oppose the very medical procedures designed to help them in the unfortunate and hopefully unlikely event they will need them. Get it straight: no one is a fan of abortion. But to deny that sometimes the procedure is necessary, and moreover, to declare that the life of a woman is automatically worth less than that of a blastula, and that once a woman is gestating, she is automatically deprived of her personhood and her only function is now that of incubator, is nothing less than monstrous. That this is in fact how the Christian Right thinks is enough to make you think nuclear holocaust might be all humanity deserves after all.

But here's a little something you can do. It's even fun!

Recently, Lila Rose, a rising star in the (sexist wisecrack coming) right-wing bimbo brigade behind Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, made a ludicrous attempt to swiftboat Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides a plethora of invaluable health assistance to women everywhere, but which the right chooses to characterize exclusively as Dachau for Babies. Rose's stunt was butt-stupid, even for a Republican. Like her BFF, convicted criminal James "Doctored ACORN Videos" O'Keefe, Rose tried to punk PP with some video doctoring of her own. Her ingenious plan must be read to be believed.

Over a five day period, visitors to Planned Parenthood health centers in six states said they were seeking information from Planned Parenthood about health services Planned Parenthood could provide to underage girls who were part of a sex trafficking ring.... Men, sometimes accompanied by a woman, have visited at least 11 Planned Parenthood health centers in six states within a one-week time frame. During their visits, they claimed to be involved in sex trafficking of teens, some of whom are in the United States illegally. These men appeared at health centers without appointments and said that they were seeking health services for themselves, but they quickly turned the conversation to the sex ring they said they were managing.

Wait, what?

Yes, you read that right. The plan was to get PP to appear as if they were helping conceal the existence of a child-sex trafficking ring. Rose's little brainchild was itself aborted, however, when PP did what she hoped they wouldn't do: report this bullshit to the FBI.

Now of course, poor Lila — abetted by her pals in right-wing media, of course — will continue to try to sell this false story, and probably paint herself as some kind of martyr for truth. Wingnuts do that kind of thing. But here's a fun thing we can all do, as a kind of sweet revenge. It's a way of letting petty little people like her, and all her anti-choice pals, know that the more they lie, the more they try to tear down women's right to safe and legal health options through disinformation, the more we will remain committed to the cause of women's health. And a little thing called truth.

• Click on this link. It will take you to Planned Parenthood's "Honorary Giving" donations page.
• Throw a few bucks their way "in honor of" Lila Rose!
• Finally, send Lila a friendly, cordial, profane-insult-free email at lilarose@liveaction.org, informing her that you have done this, and that her campaign of disgraceful lies has resulted in your increased support for Planned Parenthood. In her name. Don't be snarky. Don't cuss her out. Don't give her any ammo to whine about the evil libral socialist godless heathen scary people who are stalking her. Be so civil it hurts. You could also add that you hope she never finds herself in need of PP's services, and to keep an eye on her drinks when she goes out.

That should do it. A little bit of the old martial artist, turning your opponent's attack back upon them, you see. Most satisfying. But then, people like Rose have committed to a life of lies. Committing to truth, as she'll soon learn, wins in the end.

Sick and Tired of Christian Manipulation

The headline reads, “Oklahoma Senate Passes Five Controversial Abortion Bills.” It should read, “Christian Theocrats Make Strides in the Promotion of Sadism, Manipulation, and Hypocrisy.” Let’s face it: if there’s a group in the U.S. that wants to harness the reproductive capacities of others, it’s Christians. In this case, the Christians elected by Christians in the Oklahoma State Senate has thought of various creative ways to screw with women who are convinced they’re not able to raise a child that they have in their womb. The Senators feel it’s their duty to demand potentially invasive medical tests to take “baby pictures” for the sole purpose of emotional manipulation. They feel it’d be a good idea to invade the personal lives of these women. And to add insult to injury, they’re making the patently false claim that they’re trying to help these women.

If Christians would really like to help women seeking an abortion, I have some suggestions. First, I have yet to see a Christian group put up the money (up front in escrow) that is necessary to raise a child to adulthood as a trade for a woman not to have an abortion. Why not? Christians want to have the power over a woman’s womb, but they run away like squealing vermin when the slightest mention of responsibility is mentioned. Their propaganda says that “God will provide.” Christians, why don’t you pony up the money and let your invisible friend reimburse you? We all know that will never happen. If you want to reduce abortions without being sadistic and manipulative bastards, try actually putting your money where your mouth is. If you don’t believe your bullshit propaganda, why should anyone?

Other suggestions:

• Quit sabotaging contraceptive use, sex ed, and family planning. These things actually reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortions. It’s obvious that reducing abortions is not the motivation of Christians. And please quit pretending to want to reduce abortions. Your obvious intent is to increase the number of believers in the world without having to pay for them.
• Quit meddling in the lives and medical business of people you don’t even know. Nobody appreciates being fucked with. Duh.
• Please understand that what you are doing is religious persecution. If you can’t show a bit of empathy for your victims, don’t expect anyone to give a shit about your religious rights when that glorious day comes when the shoe is on the other foot.
• Learn a little empathy and humility. Just because you’ve sucked up to the invisible Big Thug in the sky doesn’t give you the right to be a little thugling. Anyone who has taken an objective look at your religion is aware is a load of crap. Keep it to yourself.
• Concentrate first on fixing your festering boy fucking problem that shows how astoundingly incompetent your God is, and how amazingly gullible your fellow believers are for believing the amazing bullshit rationalizations used to excuse the problem.
  

Christians claim to follow an all-powerful God who has the ability to create people. If that’s true, why doesn’t your God make more gullible toadies if he really wants them? Seriously, aren’t there already enough in the world? The actions of Christians make it obvious that they know it’s a complete lie. They know they have to harness reproduction to make the next generation of sycophants. Unfortunately, with all it’s claimed power, Christendom plus God don’t have the power to control their own flock’s reproduction. Instead, they are hijacking the reproductive capacities of others via government control—and then foisting the expense onto them. This policy actually creates poverty and ignorance, which make it easier to instill religious belief in the next generation. If Christians want to run a breeding program, at least do it with your own people and your own money. And start paying your taxes. What you’re doing is not charity and deserves no public support.

In the spirit of Jesus’ saying of “Doing Unto Others,” I would like to suggest new law to be applied to Christians. Under the law, Christians would enjoy their Constitutional Right to free exercise, but upon entering their church, they would need to submit to a head x-ray (at their expense). The test would help them determine whether they had a brain and it would be purely for the benefit of the congregant. I would also suggest that any Christian in a leadership role, such as clergy or in government, submit to a weekly anal exam with the results published on the Internet. We want to make sure those assholes are working properly, don’t we?

Nebraska Abortion Regulations

I am on the road for about the next month or so. Interestingly I had alerted Matt that I likely would not be able to participate much in ACA activities during that time. However, I've had at least three events/items come up that I'm burning to share. Two are more involved, one less so. And since I have only a few minutes, I'll go with "less so."

In reading USA Today, I see that Nebraska has just given final approval to a new sort of measure requiring women to be screened for mental health problems before they can have an abortion.

In principle, I would probably support this, if it wasn't so non-universally applied. I have known women who have had abortions, and at least one I think should have thought it through more thoroughly before having the procedure. I could have foreseen that it would be something her personality would later ultimately regret--and it was. However, I still support it was her decision, and I know that there are other women for whom abortion may be, or may have been, a better life choice. Is offering counseling to women considering abortion a bad thing? Certainly not.

That being said, the first thought I had upon reading this blurb was, "I wonder when they'll pass a law requiring the same thing for anyone planning on becoming a parent?" Am I the only one who has thought that about the Quiverful adherents? Would that the parents on "17 and counting"—oh wait, isn't that "19 and counting" now—would require some sort of screening.

It would be great if we had screening for elective surgery applicants, people wanting to become parents, and women considering abortion. But the fact is, we don't require it. Doctors or clinics can set rules for such counseling, and sometimes do, but the state does not normally. And so I see this as somewhat prejudicially applied, and wonder if the real motivation is concern for the woman's well being, or to create further pressures and delays on women trying to obtain an abortion?

I have no idea what the debate in Nebraska has been leading up to this, but it smells a bit of fundamentalist conservatism. Feel free to correct me in comments if I've misjudged.

One less religious deception in Austin

The Austin City Council unanimously passed an ordinance yesterday that would require "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" to post information about what services they do and do not offer. These centers have sprung up around the country in recent years with billboards targeting pregnant and desperate teenagers. While posing to help people in a challenging situation, these fake clinics are only in existence to manipulate the victim into having the child. They do not provide contraception or information about contraception. Another impact they have is that they delay the decision, thus making getting an abortion more difficult. The ordinance partially addresses the problem by making it a bit clearer to the victim of what they're getting into. From the ordinance:

The Owner or Operator of a Limited Service Pregnancy Center shall prominently display, at the entrance of the Center, two black and white signs, one in English and one in Spanish, that state as follows: “This center does not provide abortions or refer to abortion providers. This center does not provide or refer to providers of U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved birth control drugs and medical devices.”

I hope other communities follow suit.

Odds and ends

Other Work has kept me from posting over the weekend, but I thought I'd just toss a few kernels of corn to all you lovely pigeons!

• The latest entry in the "Dumbass Utterances from Texas SBOE Members" Sweepstakes: An article at the Texas Tribune informs us that not only is the SBOE incompetent at determining curricula and separating their personal political and religious agendas from the educational needs of children, but they're also ineptly managing the Permanent School Fund, a $23 billion endowment that basically pays for the state's schools. Hardly anyone on the SBOE has experience with this level of financial management, and among their idiotic decisions was to hire consultants, against the advice of the Texas Education Agency, who were not only poorly ranked but actually being sued by the town of Fairfield, CT, for losing the town's entire pension fund to Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme! Responding to criticisms that the SBOE didn't know their asses from their elbows, the board's dimwit du jour David Bradley actually tried to argue...well, I'm not sure what the fuck he's arguing. Either he's arguing that it's perfectly okay for unqualified people to do jobs better suited to qualified people, or the exact opposite. Either way, it's Argument Fail By Bad Analogy for $1000, Alex: “If you sit on the mental health commission, do you have to be retarded? If you sit on the [Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission], do you have to be a drunk?” No no, David, the SBOE has a lock on the "drunk retard" quota, don't worry.
• Oh dearie dearie me! Some unscrupulous soul has either planted malware on the computers over at the Christian Worldview Network, or just spoofed their email. You remember them, Brannon Howse's House of Lunacy, where they never met a persecution complex or conspiracy theory they didn't like — especially both in combination. Well, I haven't been getting their newsletters for a while, and I figured they'd learned I was a godless baby-eating hellbound librul socialist communist Marxist whatever who simply subscribed so he'd have all manner of material for blog snarkage, and deleted me. It's a fair cop. But imagine my glee to see an email from them today, only to discover, when I opened it, this:
  Aww, boo! Boring! When I checked the link (out of curiosity, mind you), it was really nothing but the most mundane spam. I mean, it really should have been gay hentai! That would have been the most delicious cosmic justice for old Brannon!
• In the wake of Scott Roeder's murder conviction, news is making the rounds that some people aren't too happy about it. I imagine you can guess who. Thing is, I'm puzzled by the who-cares obviousness of the headline "Roeder conviction angers anti-abortion militants." So basically, a bunch of domestic terrorists are angry that a domestic terrorist is going to prison for an act of domestic terrorism. Yeah, so? I'm quite sure al Qaeda gets a little peeved whenever we blow up one of their top guys too. Does that warrant its own news coverage? How about "Crackheads angry over crack dealer conviction"? Not anyone's problem but their own, you know? I'm just sayin'.

Guilty, asshat!

That's what Scott Roeder, murderer of abortion provider George Tiller, just got from a jury after a scant 37 minutes deliberation. Roeder had, of course, hoped to turn his trial into a media circus and referendum on abortion. By arguing a manslaughter defense and hopefully getting away with a mere five years — the thrust of the defense being that Roeder had an "unreasonable yet sincere conviction" that he had to shoot Tiller in order to save babies, because guys like him care so much about the babies — he and his ideological brethren at Operation Rescue hoped to make his trial the first shot across the bow in the war to eventually overturn Roe v. Wade.

The jury, comprised of the sensible Kansans, wasn't having any. Instead of seeing a valiant superhero of the Lord courageously protecting the unborn, they saw a cowardly, first-class douche canoe who willingly popped a man in the back of the head in public, and handed him a first-degree murder conviction. The prosecutor says she will seek a "hard 50" sentence, meaning Roeder will have to serve at least 50 years before eligibility for parole. This is effectively the same as life without parole for a man who's already 51. Once behind bars, if very unlucky, Roeder may have to face an entirely different kind of "hard 50."

Never fear, Scott. Once they're done with you in there, at least you won't need an abortion.

6,753 douchebags: a post in which I swear a lot, even in Finnish

That is the number, as of this posting, of the people who have actually voted "yes" to the current CNN online poll question: Should information about women who get abortions be posted online? Fortunately, they are in the vast minority on this one. As much as America has been slouching toward lunacy in the past eight years, at least most people have an appropriate sense of clarity on something this deranged. Still, that's a lot of fucking douchebags!

In case some of you are wondering with slack-jawed horror what might have prompted this poll question in the first place: yes, it's true. The great state of Oklahoma — home of Silly Sally Kern (read up on her by doing a search over at Abbie's); the state where they were so offended by Richard Dawkins' speaking tour that the legislature introduced a resolution telling everyone how offended they were, as they'd already eradicated all crime and poverty in the state and therefore had plenty of downtime that week — yes, Oohhhhhklahoma wants to pass a law...

that will post information online about women who get abortions in the state -- an act critics say would be harassment and an invasion of privacy....

"We're not trying to embarrass anybody, hurt anybody or make anybody's identities known. That's not the purpose of the legislation," the Republican lawmaker says.
"We want to collect hard data that can be a useful tool in helping prevent future unwanted pregnancies."

You know, I was going to call this bullshit, that being what it is and all, but it occurred to me that mere English profanities were not sufficient to convey the totality of the bullshittery on offer here. So I did a little Googling and discovered that "bullshit" in Finnish, which is a lovely lyrical language, is ja vitut! Nice! Just kind of rolls off the tongue. So having logged "bullshit" in my multiculti swearing lexicon I began a desperate search for "motherfucker," but the best I could come up with was runkkari, which evidently only translates to "wanker" but which I'm also assured is "extremely offensive." Great, I'm sold! Now, setting aside the fact I know bugger-all (see, I can do it in Cockney too!) about proper tenses and grammar and such in Finnish, I'm just going to cobble the thing together and proudly announce that I've come up with exactly the thing to say to any right-wing runkkari who tries to tell me that their new "harass teh wimminz" law is all in the interests of looking out for their delicate well being. Ja vitut, runkkari!

(And I'm not kidding about the lyrical qualities of Finnish profanity, people. Wikipedia helpfully informs me of the magnificent phrase Vittujen kevät ja kyrpien takatalvi!, "paraphrased, 'Oh fucking shit!' or literally 'The spring of cunts and the late winter of dicks!'" That simply leaves me reeling in awe. It's like the kind of album title you'd get if Marilyn Manson ever went emo.)

I mean, I could tell these idiots how to prevent future unwanted pregnancies. Just drop millions of free condoms from low flying airplanes! Or just pass some kind of comprehensive sex education to inform all those poor redneck kids of yours that inserting Knob A in Hole B usually results in Lump C unless sensible precautions are taken. This suggestion perhaps unfairly assumes a measurable percentage of Oklahomans are sensible, but please, won't someone think of the children!? Anyway, there are any number of easily-implemented ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies if that's what they really wanted to do up there, so if you try to tell me you're taking down women's private information and posting it on the goddamn Internet, for chrissakes, in order to help these women, then you're just olla naama norsun vitulla. (Yeah, look that one up, kids. Har!)

So the wingers are of course trying to lie about their real motives, which is to frighten women out of exercising their reproductive rights entirely, and claim that...

The measure specifies women's identities will be protected. "Nothing in the Individual Abortion Form shall contain the name, address or information specifically identifying any patient," it says. "Nobody's identity will be made known," Lamb says.

Which naturally prompts the question of why do it at all then? What exact scientific information that is helpful to anyone will be gleaned from looking at a bunch of questionnaires and determining, "Well, X thousand women had abortions last year, and of those, 25% were due to health dangers, 10% were due to interfering with their lifestyles, 20% were due to being raped by their dads in the back of the singlewide when ma's off doing church bingo, and the rest were due to the women realizing their kids would grow up to be dumbfuck rednecks from Oklahoma and they simply couldn't bear the shame." None of that is necessary to get you to the simple realization that you could have spent all that time and energy simply dropping condoms from airplanes!

It will be interesting to see how badly this crashes and burns, although when the wingers get motivated, watch out! There are no guarantees. In the meantime, just remember: Ja vitut, runkkari!

So do Finns have a word for "douchebag" anyway?

PS: I've actually met a lot of nice people from Oklahoma. I have. Really! :-)

Christianity and the allure of "cheap grace"

One aspect of religion that has often come under atheists' critical fire is the way in which it enables the most egregious hypocrisies amongst its most devout adherents. Considering how important Christians will tell you Scripture is to their lives, it's remarkable how selective they are in their reading of that Big Book of Multiple Choice. The warnings against hypocrisy among believers that comprise most of Matthew 6 would be sufficient to shut up almost the entirety of the American Christian Right, if they were the kinds of people who practiced what they preached.

But I think there is something about religion that's even more insidious than hypocrisy, and that's the way it puffs up believers' hubris, allowing them to think they're more special and entitled and deserving, even (and especially) without having done anything to earn it. Religion tells people they're part of a select group, favored over others by God. And yet these are the same people who routinely like to attack unbelievers — and the intelligentsia many unbelievers are part of — as "elitists." What could be more elitist than believing everybody but you deserves eternity of torture in hell, simply because you belong to the Jesus Fan Club and they don't?

I've been thinking about this over the last couple of days since my attention was drawn to something that hasn't really turned up on atheists' radar: the Manhattan Declaration. This is a kind of manifesto that has recently been put together by several prominent conservative Christian figures — among them arch-bigot Tony Perkins and Kazim's old pal Chuck Colson — as something of an ideological purity test. It begins as follows:

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:

1. the sanctity of human life
2. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Some quick Googlage has revealed that this Declaration has already ruffled the feathers of liberal, progressive Christians, who have quickly called the whole thing out as an effort to enshrine conservative prejudices as "fundamental truths about justice and the common good." Only the most smug and arrogant bigots could claim with a straight face that a Declaration that openly repudiates GLBT marriage equality is one that favors "justice" in any form. I think that word, to quote The Princess Bride for the 80 billionth time, doesn't mean what they think it means.

Basically, the highfalutin language of the thing does little to disguise the fact that it's a huge anti-gay-rights and anti-abortion petition, and it takes a Bushian "with us or against us" attitude that is nothing less than a gauntlet thrown down to all those liberal Christians who haven't toed the Hate Line to the satisfaction of their conservative betters.

Surfing the blogosphere, I come upon this post by blogger Hugo Schwyzer — who, as an avowed pro-GLBT liberal feminist Christian, is about as far from the fundies' notion of ideological purity as a guy can get — where he takes the Manhattan Declaration to task for being little more than a reactionary pushback against the tendency among the younger generation of modern Christians to reject right-wing fundie obsessions with "pelvic morality" (basing culture war talking points on sexual and reproductive issues to the near exclusion of everything else) in favor of broader moral concerns — saving the planet, helping the needy — that are generally of interest only to those damn latté sipping libs. Schwyzer makes an astute point about the "cheap grace" enjoyed by fundies whenever they beat their chests and pontificate over such narrow-minded issues: that these are fights they love precisely because they have nothing at stake.

Here’s the thing: fighting against abortion and gay rights is, in the end, cheap. It requires no particular personal sacrifice or reflection on the part of those who claim these are the top issues. Men who will never get pregnant; heterosexuals who have the privilege to marry those whom they love — they surrender nothing precious to them by fighting tooth and nail against reproductive and glbtq rights. The struggle against global poverty and the struggle to save the planet from environmental degradation, on the other hand, make radical claims on all of us — particularly on the affluent in the West, whose unsustainable consumption patterns are directly linked to human and animal suffering. Fighting against climate change and poverty require that the wealthy transform their lifestyles; fighting against gay rights requires nothing more than censorious and self-righteous indignation.

Bam! — direct hit, below the waterline. But I'd caution Schwyzer not to forget that, in a very real way, "cheap grace" is at the heart of all Christianity, not just the version practiced by wingnutty Sarah Palin and Carrie Prejean fans. Christianity presents believers with this odd notion about morality, sin, and fate: that, merely by virtue of being alive, a person is a worthless sinner damned to eternal agony because of the Fall; but hey, not to worry, because Jesus took all of that punishment upon himself, poor chap, and now by virtue of his sacrifice, you're good to go, and all you need to do is make sure (at some point before you die) you publicly high-five Jesus for taking one for the team, accepting him as your savior. So, we're damned, but we're not, and eternal salvation is ours simply by the rough spiritual equivalent of clicking a confirmation email.

So right from the outset, Christians are more or less raised in the extremely confident belief that all the heavy lifting for their own personal redemption was already done 2000 years ago. Their own efforts require no personal sacrifice at all. If this is not cheap grace, what is?

The very thing that Christianity tries to sell as its most morally and spiritually profound element — salvation by proxy — in fact cheapens the entire notion that in life, self-respect, the respect of others, and an enduring reputation as the kind of good person whom the rest of us should want to emulate, must be earned. The whole notion of salvation by faith and not works (which, admittedly, might be more favored by conservative Christians than liberal ones, though I think God, if he's up there, ought to do his job right and clarify matters) gives Christians the ability to think pleasingly of themselves as among the saved elect, regardless of how they might actually behave in their lives. The popular Christian bumper sticker "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven" conveys egotism, not humility, as it's basically saying, "Yippie! I'm a Christian, and I never have to change, never have to better myself, never have to take responsibility at all." The very hypocrisy Matthew 6 rails against is enabled by Christianity's entire salvation mechanism. How else could so many arch-scumbags (insert names here, but off the bat I think of Kenneth Lay and Jim Bakker) preen with such pride while living the sleaziest, most immoral lives they could manage?

So, while I'm always pleased to see liberal Christians who aren't afraid to take on the Right Wing Noise Machine (a thing we have pointedly challenged them to do for a decade on AETV), I'd caution Schwyzer and his liberal Christian brethren not to overlook the cheap grace at Christianity's very foundation. But to be fair, perhaps the fact that guys like him, at the very least, do try to live decent lives of higher personal responsibility, supportive of the real meaning of terms like "justice" and "equality" that the wingnuts simply treat as pious catchphrases, means they're more aware of it than they might like to admit.

Sometimes it's nice to disengage...

Again, the blog has lain fallow for around a week. Sorry about this. I keep forgetting that when I don't post, no one else does either. But then we all have lives down here, and sometimes that just takes us away from the world of computering and blogging and online ranting. And I must say, it's nice to take a break sometime.

Because dealing with the nonstop depredations of those with whom we're unfortunate enough to share the planet can just be wearying. Sometimes it's just nice to go off and live your life, blessedly free of religion and crazy religionists, and unhinged political ideologues.

I mean, good grief, in the past week, since the Tiller murder, we've not only had another right-wing psychotic demonstrate his moral superiority to us all by going on a public shooting rampage (today's appalling incident at the Holocaust Museum), but we've also seen a spectacular act of douchebaggery from — as if they could get any worse — Operation Rescue, who have actually had the audacity to make an offer to buy the now-closed clinic of Dr. Tiller. I cannot imagine what they would want it for, except as a chance to showboat. And the Tiller family lawyers, recognizing an exercise in showboating when they see one, have turned them down flat. I mean, how could anyone interpret the purchase offer as anything but tacit approval of Tiller's murder? Even if that is the last thing O.R. intended by making the offer, well, you know, appearances count.

I'd like to think that maybe O.R. have sprouted a sudden conscience, the way your nose sometimes sprouts a pimple while you sleep, and thought that they might turn Tiller's clinic into something like an adoption agency. But then I'm reminded of the fact that radical anti-abortionists don't give a shit about human life unless it's fetal. Once those babies are out of the sanctified amniotic sac, they're on their own! And don't even think about offering them anything like health care.

So, yeah, sometimes, it's just nice to shut the crazy out and decompress for a while. Read a book. Spend time with your family and pets. Resuscitate an old hobby, like gardening or working out. It can be a relief when the lunacy that has taken over our planet gets too much for you. At least, it's a relief that'll last until some enraged, God-soaked lunatic bursts through the door and opens fire.

George Tiller: Death by Propaganda

In today’s Austin American-Statesman, there was an editorial that included a photo of a church marquis letting us know that George Tiller died the same way he lived. I believe the inferred connection there is intended to be “murder.”

The first article I read about this was in the June 1 edition. President Troy Newman of Operation Rescue responded to the murder by saying he was “shocked” and that “Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice…We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning.”

In fact, Tiller was, actually, “brought to justice” where justice, it seems, acquitted him of charges that he had illegally performed late term abortions without a proper medical second opinion.

In addition to seeking peacefully to bring Tillman—a man who was found to be breaking no laws—to justice, Operation Rescue also featured a “Tiller Watch” at their Web site. I guess now they can take it down. It’s work here is done, as the saying goes.

It didn’t get done right away, though, because it turns out that Tiller was actually the victim of a similar shooting in 1993, when another life-affirming, anti-choice, protestor—a woman—managed to get within range. I wonder if “Tiller Watch” was up back then as well to inspire her—or if it was put up after the first attempt failed to achieve the goal?

When I read Newman’s comments about his “shock”—I was, ironically, shocked myself. I turned to my friend and said, "If you go around screaming that someone is mass murdering babies—what do you think will happen?"

And this was before I had read down to the part of the article where Operation Rescue Founder Randall Terry had actually called Tiller “a mass murderer.”

Everyone has a breaking point. I don’t care who you are. You have one. Seriously, let’s say you sincerely believed your neighbor was mass murdering children in his home. You call the cops, frantic, and explain to them that he’s torturing and killing young children—you’re absolutely sure of it! But the dispatcher just says, “Yeah--that's totally his right. We really don’t come out for things like baby killings." You keep calling back. Surely they didn’t understand you the first fifty times you called? But the response is always the same. And here you are, on the phone, wasting time, while the monster next door is killing more and more innocent children! My god, man! What do you do?!

If this was actually happening, and you knew it, and nobody was stopping this killer, at what point—if out of nothing more than pure altruism (if there is such a thing?)—would you finally say, "I don't care if I die for this or go to prison for the rest of my life—someone has to do the right thing and stop this monstrous freak!"

Groups like Operation Rescue consist of members (and apparently leadership as well) who make a point of publicly labeling these doctors, and their patients, as “baby killers”—literally mass baby killers. And maybe it’s just me—but if someone actually is going around mass murdering children—I don’t think I would be “shocked” that someone stepped up and killed that person. So, why is Operation Rescue expressing “shock,” if they know this man is a baby killer? Are they “shocked” that by labeling such a person a “baby killer,” that someone might think he should be stopped by any means necessary? I mean, would it shock you if you believed what they believe? What, exactly, do they think happens when you whip up masses of (often already emotionally driven) people with something like that?

We’re all supposed to play along, I guess, that they never expected anything like this to happen as a result of merely calling someone something so benign and harmless as “a mass murderer (of babies)”? Who would have thought people would be all “up in arms,” literally, and excited over something like that? Apparently not Newman. But I think most other people could have seen it coming light years away. And I can’t really bring myself to play along that Operation Rescue is “shocked.”

I have a saying when someone asks me to believe obvious bullshit. I say, “Either you’re stupid—or you think I am.” And like most people, I don’t appreciate it when someone, or in this case some organization, communicates to me like I’m an idiot. It doesn’t upset me, but I find it hard to play along. No, Operation Rescue, you’re not shocked. Please stop pretending, and have your victory celebration unapologetically.

I guess that would result in some really crappy P.R. But, still, how refreshing to see some noble honesty for once?

“Mass baby killing." There's the trigger. Pun not intended, but wholly (holy?) appropriate in this case.

Most people agree with rule of law. If they didn’t we’d have far more chaos than we do. But I don’t think there is anyone who does not understand that at some point, we would all be willing to defy the law in order to do something we consider morally necessary.

Yes, it’s cliche’, but I’m going to use an example from Nazi Germany until a better example comes along—which will, hopefully, be never. But, if I lived in Nazi Germany—I hope I would not turn someone in if I knew they were a hiding Jew. I hope I would, like I hope many of you would, end up breaking the law, and maybe even dying, myself, or potentially killing someone, to protect others from people I view as utterly wrong and dangerous. So, it's no “shock” to me, and probably not to you, either, that if you whip up huge numbers of fundamentalist-thinking people with things like "godless baby killers!" you're going to get not a few individuals (I'm surprised they don’t get more) who go ape-shit and fly completely off the rails in the worst way.

I don't think Operation Rescue crosses a line against free speech—such as someone who might say, "Somebody needs to put a bullet in these doctors. Can I interest you in further details?" would be doing; but, when they try to divorce themselves from a natural—and, let’s be honest here, pretty predictable—consequence of their influence—that's where I want to cry "hypocrite." Not “foul.” Not “lock you up for what you said.” But “Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid—that did not shock you.” In fact, if it shocked any one of you, you don’t get out enough.

This isn’t a video game about killing doctors. This isn’t a music CD about killing doctors. This is a group of real human beings calling other real human beings “baby killers” and then saying they can’t believe that simply being consistently and publicly labeled as a “baby killer” would make someone want to kill you. I mean, he was just a baby killer—nothing to get all worked up about and start shooting people.

Really? Can’t imagine how an agenda of working nonstop to convince (many already deluded) people this guy was a baby killer, could result in someone getting hurt?

Are you stupid, or do you think I am?

What’s sad, though, is that if they were really shocked—then this man died for some mysterious agenda. “Shocked” means you don’t really think what he was doing was something a person might kill another person over. And that means you don’t believe he was a mass baby killer—because who wouldn’t expect a mass baby killer might be, himself, killed by someone one day? So, what is going on over at Operation Rescue, where they aren’t at all responding like they believed he was a mass baby murderer? What if they had some other, ulterior motive—and this guy died as collateral damage for some superficial propaganda blitz? That would really be hosed up, wouldn’t it?

But—other than their inexplicable, “shocked” reaction—why would anyone think Operation Rescue wasn’t sincere about their claims that abortion doctors are committing mass infanticide, unhindered within our own borders?

Well, here’s my theory: If they truly believed what they say they are convinced of, then abortion in the U.S. is probably the largest, mass infant murder movements in history. I’m going to assert that they'd all be shooting doctors. And, I would hope that if I really, truly, sincerely believed there was a mass child killer on the loose and nobody was stopping him or her—that just maybe I would courageously do the same thing—if I really believed it. Of course, if I just wanted to emotionally manipulate a huge bunch of people, and I didn’t really believe or care about what I was saying, then I’d be doing exactly what Operation Rescue does—taking my time in courts, standing on corners with signs, taking people’s money, telling them who to vote for, and watching them hang on my every recommendation as I play on their fear and hate.

The fact that groups like Operation Rescue stop short of reaching the, not only logical, but obvious conclusion of what needs to be done if their claims are believed—and human children are being slaughtered in droves—demonstrates to me, or to anyone, a lack of genuine belief in their own propaganda. I think, like most religious views, they "believe" it in some weird way on some odd, superficial level where it hits emotional response (and, I mean, come on, how easy is that?), but doesn’t ever sink down into thought centers, where it would normally ruminate and ferment into a more cohesive and fully formed “idea”—with actual implications and repercussions and consequences. But they obviously don't believe it on that sort of level—on the sort of level where any real, proportional “action” would necessarily follow—as I would expect action to follow if any real, thinking human being believed unhindered mass murder was happening unabated?!

Where is the courage of conviction here?

Where is any conviction here?

What the hell do these people honestly believe?

And why did this guy really die?

BIRTH CONTROL IS SINFUL!!!!

We had a caller on the March 22nd show who was hearing impaired and we attempted to interact with him via a TTY service. Unfortunately, we didn't get very far with the caller as the interaction was so painful, but he did get out a rather strange phrase having to do with abortion. Matt and I didn't get gist of the call, so we moved on.

Some of our sharper fans figured out what the caller was trying to say. He was quoting a rather amusing book title, "BIRTH CONTROL IS SINFUL IN THE CHRISTIAN MARRIAGES and also ROBBING GOD OF PRIESTHOOD CHILDREN!!". It's being sold on Amazon and it's worth checking out if you'd like a chuckle. Especially check out the description (mostly capital letters), reviews of the book, and its price. If it weren't so expensive, it might make a nice book for a devout family member.

So, thanks to our caller. The message finally got through.

Dobson: clueless on American slavery

I turned on my local Christian station this morning (99.3 FM in Austin) and ran smack into Dobson gearing up for a rant on abortion. I don't remember how I knew that it was going to be about abortion, but I could tell from a phrase and the tone.

Sure enough, it turns out they were talking about this clip from "The View." In this clip, John McCain says that Roe v Wade should be overturned so that abortion can once again be thrown as a matter to the states. McCain specifically says: "I want people who interpret the Constitution of the United States the way our founding fathers envisioned." Whoopi Goldberg asked: "Should I be worried about being a slave, about being returned to slavery? Because certain things happened in the Constitution that you had to change."

At this point, Dobson breaks in on the clip and berates Goldberg, saying that, of course it's the CONSTITUTION that outlawed slavery. Specifically, the 13th amendment passed under the Lincoln administration. And so, foolish Whoopi, she should learn some history.

This obviously misses the point, by a very long way. First, McCain's traditionalist appeal to the "what would the founding fathers do?" argument is very directly countered by Whoopi's point that the founding fathers supported slavery, even going so far as to write into the constitution that a slave's vote is worth 3/5 that of a regular person's is worth 3/5 of a person for the purpose of census counts (Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3).* That Lincoln had to come along and fix this only emphasizes that point, which is that no, we DON'T always want to strictly go by "original intent."

In addition, Dobson should turn the page to the next amendment, because that bears very directly on the kind of "states' rights" argument that John McCain invokes to indicate that RvW should be overturned. Ratified shortly after the 13th, the 14th amendment says:
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Later Supreme Courts recognized this as overruling what was originally a states' rights justification for slavery. Essentially, before the Civil War, individual states were free to allow or not allow slavery as they saw fit. The 14th amendment says that no, individual states are NOT allowed to override what has become the law of the land.

This was the same legal reasoning that was later used in the Roe v Wade decision. Previously, abortion was a matter that was left up to the states to allow or outlaw. Now it's not. Nobody's REQUIRED to provide abortions, but nobody can PREVENT you from having one, regardless of which state you live in. Despite what anti-abortion advocates would like you to think, this is not "legislating from the bench"; this is an ongoing process of exploring the legal ramifications of changes to the constitution, and this process started within a few years of the amendment's passage.

Whoopi had a perfectly valid point in the above clip. Our current interpretation of what the 14th amendment means is based on the way that historical courts have ruled on the matter. And that's perfectly constitutional. Unlike, say, the Bible, the Constitution isn't supposed to "interpret itself" (hah); the Constitution SAYS that the courts have the power to indicate what is Constitutional. Whoopi's point is that you can't just go back to the way the founding fathers interpreted their laws, because it's changed. One of those changes was disallowing prohibitions on abortion. Another was disallowing slavery. The same argument that invalidates one would also invalidate the other.


* Edited: The stricken out passage was a total brain fart. Obviously I wouldn't have meant to claim that slaves had any vote before the Voting Rights Act. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, Tommy.

No need to think for yourself

I just finished watching this video, which shows the responses of anti-choice demonstrators in Libertyville, Illinois when asked what sort of punishment women should receive if they had an abortion after abortions became illegal. Go watch it...I'll wait...

The responses speak for themselves.

I don't want to get into the specifics about abortion (though I'll proudly admit to being pro-choice) because it's not an atheist issue. Atheists can be pro or anti-choice. I do believe, though, that it is (often) a church-state separation issue, fueled by emotion and irrationality.

My purpose in posting this video is to point out the sort of mindless sheep that are produced by religious thinking.

(I know, I know...you're not all mindless sheep, so don't get your panties in a twist about my generalization. If you're not like the folks in the video, I'm not talking about you.)

Dogma, in all of its disguises, is evil. Magical thinking poisons the mind. Religion, as a combination of the two, renders its victims unable to deal with reality, incapable of questioning their beliefs and completely unconcerned about the consequences of their actions. They're unable to follow any logical argument that might, in any way, jeopardize their beliefs.

The people in this video aren't rabid fundamentalists. They're not calling for the death penalty (though one of them allowed for that possibility). They don't fit in with the true hatemongers who call for homosexuals to be put to death like some politicians have done... and some countries. They sincerely believe they're doing the right thing — protecting innocent little babies — and none of them have given a moment's thought to anything else. They believe that they're doing god's work and that they cannot be mistaken; which makes them just as dangerous and delusional as the truly hateful. To quote William S. Burroughs:

"No one does more harm than those who feel bad about doing it."

I'm still amazed that anyone could avoid the simple concept that there's no point in making something illegal if you don't have a punishment for breaking the law... but that's not the big question, the big question is this:

Why were they able quickly and easily to proclaim that abortion is the murder of a human being and yet they couldn't quickly and easily agree to the punishment proscribed for murder?

The answer is simple. Even these sheep recognize a difference — they're just unable to act on that recognition because their brains have been poisoned by religion. They neither need nor recognize rational arguments. Somewhere, deep in the compartmentalized recesses of their minds, protected by gross rationalizations, shielded by emotional pleading, they know that their beliefs don't make any sense.

Now, if they could only be convinced to give a damn.

What still hasn't been reported about the bomber

The would-be family planning clinic bomber Paul Ross Evans was indicted today on a number of charges, including attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. He got most of the materials for his bomb at a local Wal-Mart and used his credit card for the purchase. It didn't take too much effort to solve the crime. He faces a potential sentence of life in prison. Apparently, he realized the seriousness of his little stunt while awaiting trial and he made a suicide attempt.

It might be interesting to readers to know that this event occurred in Austin Texas, the home town of the Atheist Experience. While Austin is a great place to live, we have our nuts, too.

The press has been eerily silent about the motivations of this guy. Anybody who pays the slightest bit of attention to the culture war knows that the only people who care about making trouble for family planning clinics are the hard-core Christian conservatives. I'll bet anyone that this guy had some religious indoctrination along the way. I wonder if he didn't get some of that faith-based programming while he was in prison earlier. I seriously doubt the mainstream media will look into the question, given their pro-religion bias. Believers certainly don't like to be confronted with the reality that belief (denying reality) has bad consequences. It's bad for newspaper sales.

The press has reported that the guy has no known affiliations to terrorist groups, but I think perhaps it's time we broaden the definition of terrorist groups to include some more of these religious extremists. It seems that there is some confusion about what kind of crime the Department of Homeland Security is supposed to go after. If this sort of bombing isn't an example of domestic terrorism, I don't know what is. Meanwhile, DHS is apparently charged with going after child predators, yet the leaders of the largest pedophile organization in modern history still flaunt the law, impede investigations, and roam free. Can anybody guess who they are? Perhaps it's time we stop giving religious believers a free ride in the morality department. After all, aren't they supposed to adhere to a higher standard?

Back to the Paul Ross Evans story, I can't help but point out the irony of "pro life" people trying to plot murders. "Pro life" seems to be little more than a marketing device. If you believe that human bodies are just soul traps, that souls are the essence of a person, and that it's the ultimate destiny of the soul to escape the trap, you're naturally going to de-value human life. Not surprisingly, countries with more believers also have more suicides and murders. ...Oh, and higher abortion rates, too. (Too many ironies for one paragraph. That last point really calls for a separate post.) You can bet that Paul Ross Evans believes that humans have souls. He might even believe that he'll have a special place in Heaven because of his actions.

I have yet to get a definite theological answer on what becomes of the alleged souls of aborted embryos, since Christians seem to think they have them. This question is especially important now that the Vatican has backpedaled on their invention of limbo. If those little buggers go automatically to heaven, then maybe killing them isn't so bad, as Andrea Yates correctly concluded. If they go to hell, as original sin would indicate, then we have to wonder how Christians live with the fact that their "gift" of free will from a benevolent God is the cause of the infinite torture of innocent little babies.

Abortion still condemned by head of church that enabled rapist pedophiles

Yes, I suppose if you abort them now, it makes it hard to sodomize them later.

Joseph Ratzinger, known to millions of Catholics around the world as "the Pope," has immediately touched off what melodramatic journalists love to call "a firestorm of controversy" over his condemnation of politicians upholding reproductive rights. He has said in effect that Catholic politicians who do not take a stand against abortion have basically excommunicated themselves and should not receive communion, a mad creepy ritual in which believers drink wine and eat little crackers and imagine themselves to be eating Jesus's flesh and sipping his blood. Again, the moral confusion of the Vatican is enough to make your head reel. What possible system can condemn abortion but sweep pedophilia under the rug and hold entire services for people to perform pretend-cannibalism? (Yes yes, I know they don't see it that way, but that doesn't lessen the bizarreness quotient.) And they call us "moral relativists."

Ratzinger's remarks were occasioned by his first visit to Latin America, an area populated by almost half the world's Catholics, and yet one which is undergoing a sea change where women's rights are concerned. In Mexico, they've just legalized abortion. The Vatican is losing followers to Protestantism, particularly this fad called "liberation theology". (Would that they were losing more to rationalism, but hey, you know, baby steps.) Liberation theology in particular drives Ratzo crazy. Part of what he is trying to do in his Latin tour is jerk a few million leashes and scare all the backsliders back into line.

Amusingly, the response from other prominent Catholics is to scramble to "clarify" Ratzinger's remarks. This is funny, as I always thought it was part of the Catholic rulebook that their "Pope" is supposed to be God's mouthpiece and thus infallible. But Papal infallibility doesn't exactly seem to be in vogue in a part of the world where hardline adherence to the most intractible and medieval Catholic doctrines about sexuality could prompt even more mass walkouts then the Church has already suffered there.

This pope's apparent candor can get him in trouble, said John L. Allen Jr., a reporter with the National Catholic Reporter. "Benedict doesn't seem to distinguish when he is speaking as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and when he is speaking as the head of the Roman Catholic Church."

Oh, there's a difference? I thought that once Ratzinger got Popified, he wasn't a mere cardinal any longer. But what does a heathen like me know about it? I must confess I have little interest in the carryings-on of a gang of medievalists who like to dress up in funny robes, give themselves pompous titles, and declaim as if they had any authority over anyone or any expertise to speak on any subject other than their storybook. I might as well take an interest in what a bunch of LARPers tra-la-la-ing about the woods in tights and chain mail and frilly blouses pretending to be Robin Hood and His Band of Merry Men have to say about abortion or human rights or geopolitics, for all that's worth.

Another humorous comment from Ratzo: God, unlike what most Christians have been led to believe, is not in fact omnipotent.

"In all parts of the world, there are those who don't want to hear," Benedict said on the plane. "Naturally, even our Lord did not manage to make everyone hear."

Naturally? Naturally. So there you have it, from his Infallible Mouthpieceness Himself: there's something God cannot do. Ta-ta, omnipotence.

It would appear that, while most of Central and South America remain devoutly Catholic, there is growing courage amongst those who would stand against the policies and practices of an oppressive Church, that, ever since the pedophilia scandal of a few years ago, has as far as I'm concerned lost any moral authority it ever had to lecture anybody on anything. As Mexican legislator Leticia Quezada, herself one of Ratzo's self-excommunicating Catholics, and one of the sponsors of Mexico's new abortion law, has said, "I voted to address a crisis of public health…. I will continue to be a believer. The church has no right to interfere in my conscience." Go, girl! It's high time — centuries overdue, in fact — for the Vatican and its gang of thugs to be handed their walking papers by the human race. Let's sweep the bums out, turn the Sistine Chapel into an art museum, and move forward with education and humanitarian aid efforts for delevoping countries that aren't based on scaring them into submission to men in robes and their invisible magic capo in the sky.

No news, still, about would-be clinic bomber

We're still having to wait a bit longer for anything tangible to be reported on the motives and desires of would-be Austin abortion clinic bomber Paul Ross Evans.

In the meantime, the Statesman has done one of those filler stories to whet the public appetite for information that actually contains no information, beyond the boilerplate interviews with people who knew him back in his hometown, who are, naturally, shocked by Ross's arrest and describe him — as most crazies tend to be described — as "pleasant and polite."

Fascinating how some of the worst crimes we see are committed by people who were just nice, quiet, ordinary guys who never seemed like they'd hurt a fly. You never hear them described thus: "Yeah, I always knew that son of a bitch was headed for trouble. The day he burned my house down and shot me in the stomach six times, I just had a feeling he'd get himself in serious trouble one day!"

So, nothing to see here, folks, except for this ironic and amusing comment from a Lufkin police sergeant: "We don't really have extremist groups here. This is the heart of the Bible belt." Ah yes, right you are.

Bomb suspect popped, but who is he?

Austin police have arrested an ex-con named Paul Ross Evans for leaving the explosive device outside the women's clinic. As a person, he seems to be a bit of a cipher. No one's been able to determine if he belongs to, or has ties to, any of the well-known, violence-advocating anti-abortion groups (like Operation Rescue). His prior convictions, for which he was paroled in 2003, were for burglary and armed robbery. Clearly, this is a bad dude, and I really don't like that our system allows them to be paroled so easily. If you're convicted of violent crimes, as his were, you should at leave have to serve half to two-thirds of your prison time, instead of one year, before you get let back out on the streets to wreak more havoc.

What impressed me most in the article were the investigative techniques used to nail Evans, involving tracing the purchase of the materials found at the crime scene. Note to redneck would-be terrorists: don't buy all your shit at the same Wal-Mart the day before undertaking your courageous, lonely mission against the forces of darkness. And if you pay with a debit card instead of cash, you're a tool who frankly deserves to be Darwinized right out of the gene pool for sheer idiocy.