Absurd religious wingnutery

Chopra, soul, and a big, insoluble mess

palmd — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:07:07 +0000

Chopra, soul, and a big, insoluble mess

The recent arrests of the Hutaree cult here in Michigan are part of a tradition of militant separatism in this part of the country, beginning with the militia movements in the late 20th century and climaxing (hopefully) in the terrorist acts of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. This latest incident is interesting in that it appears to share some qualities of the militia movement, the Christian Identity movement, and the Tea Party movement (although what sorts of ideologic connections there really are will take some time to figure out.)

Cults in general scare me. They scare me not just because of their acts and their ideas, but their attractiveness. They have the ability not just to attract those of similar ideas, but they also seduce those who may simply be vulnerable to their philosophies. The flames of hatred are being fanned by those on the right, including teabaggers and so-called mainstream right wing commentators. The economic times, an "ethnic" president who represents the future of the US population, and an utter failure of others on the right to speak out against the hate feed these right-wing violence cults.

But cults don't just feed on hatred. Cults, like street gangs, also seduce with love, with pleasant-sounding ideas that are congruent with and confirm one's own beliefs. The antivaccine movement (as opposed to individuals with their individual beliefs) are a cult. They have charismatic leaders (such as Barbara Loe Fisher, JB Handley, and Jenny McCarthy), they have their own beliefs that are impervious to the assault of actual facts, and they accrue followers, spreading their lies. Their lies have helped to lower vaccination rates and increase the incidence of vaccine-preventable diseases. And their success depends upon a general cheapening of the meaning of "experts", and a vilification of earned scientific authority when it disagrees with their beliefs.

So let's talk about Deepak Chopra. He is probably not an evil guy. In fact, he seems rather compassionate and well-meaning. But the credulous bullshit he continually spews helps fortify the foundation of anti-scientific beliefs such as those of the antivaccine movement. One of his "big ideas" is that consciousness is/can be independent of brain. This idea is of course completely unoriginal, being the default belief of most of humankind until the scientific era. It is probably still the default belief, but the majority of the reality-based community have come to the obvious conclusion that belief in an immaterial soul would require the invalidation of most of modern science.

But Chopra feels that soul. He just knows it's there, but he's smart enough to know that most ideas of "soul" are incompatible with science. So he is trying to bend the ideas of soul and of physics around each other to try to preserve his desire to retain his beliefs. His current favorite strategy is the abuse of the language of physics. This strategy has twisted the ideas of soul and of physics so acutely that he has broken them both. At a recent conference he was confronted by an actual physicist. I'll let them speak for themselves:

It's instructive that Chopra is so attached to his beliefs that he cannot speak the same language as the physicist ("I know what each of those words means, but..."). It's also spectacularly arrogant of him to think that this video somehow supports his beliefs.

For a number of reasons, I would very much like to believe in an immaterial, immortal soul right about now. But if I am that casual with reality, what might I believe next?

palmd Wed, 03/31/2010 - 07:07

Tags

Absurd medical claims

Absurd religious wingnutery

medicine

Vaccination inanity

".... beginning with the militia movements in the late 20th century and climaxing (hopefully) in the terrorist acts of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols."

And Baruch Goldstein....

I wasn't aware that Baruch Goldstein was a product of the American Militia Movement.

He wasn't. However, he was Jewish. You seem to be Jewish from previous posts. The poster's name is DUBAIjazz. I am completely helpless with math, so I'll let someone else do for me.

Baruch Goldstein was, however, part of the JDL founded by Meir Kahane who went on to found KACH, a Jewish terrorist organization proscribed by the EU and US.

Ah, the JDL. I remember when I was but a bocher one day at shul some of those JDL assholes showed up. The rabbi kicked them out of the building but not before giving them a stern lecture.

This whole series of debates is pretty interesting, but I don't know if there's a bigger win than actual physicist v. Choprawoo. If something does come close though, it's the porn debate between Ron Jeremy and a female porn star against the Jebus-tastic anti-porn crusaders. Whenever I see Deepak I always get the idea that the end result of every one of his ideas is "so, because of this, we'll never know anything."

"...in the absence of brain you can still have consciousness which has no thought...a consciousness which is awareness in itself"

He's stringing words together in a grammatical manner, but when you look at the sentence it makes no sense.

He's stringing words together in a grammatical manner, but when you look at the sentence it makes no sense.

Heh... yeah, I guess it'd be nice if a professor of English offered him some lessons on the language also.

I sincerely think that Chopra uses the fact that English is not his first language as a dodge. It's actually a masterful obfuscation, and the first woman to ask a question is his intended audience. She knew what she wanted to believe, laid it out in some detail and you just know that no matter what answer she got from either Harris or Shermer, she wasn't going to let go of that cherished belief.

So watching the video in the post got me hooked and I wound up watching/listening to the whole damn thing. Luckily I had some mundane work to do at the same time that didn't need a lot of brain power. Fascinating, though. The co-opting of scientific language in sloppy ways to promote a religious concept... It makes me wonder what Saul of Tarsus would be using today if he were starting his religion now instead of not quite 2000 years ago.

If something does come close though, it's the porn debate between Ron Jeremy and a female porn star against the Jebus-tastic anti-porn crusaders.

Please, please tell me you have a link. Sounds like there's potential for much hilarity here.

"...in the absence of brain you can still have consciousness which has no thought...a consciousness which is awareness in itself"

Perhaps more importantly than grammatical issues, my objections to these types of statements are twofold: first, the use of non formally defined terms such as "consciousness" and (or as distinguished from) "thought". And then, and perhaps more egregiously in this case, the actual statement of fact "...you can still have...", asserting something as fact but without any empirical backing whatsoever. In other words, made up stuff using fuzzy terminology.

JM,

That's exactly what I was complaining about. It sounds like an meaningful sentence, but it actually is really, really stupid and meaningless.

I think ol' Deepak is getting tired. Chopra really does a poor job of hiding his disdain for . . . well, just about everyone around him.

I get that it must be hard to be a public persona. Any celebrity has to deal with the fact that about half the population probably doesn't like them when they open their mouths and let the opinions fly. But really, if you can't stand the heat . . .

Chopra does this thing I used to see (and do) quite a bit back in my New Age days, he covers all his seething human emotions with a thick layer of sickly-sweet, faux serenity. I see it in a lot of my "spiritual" friends. They're terrified of "negativity" and try to subjugate any anger because it's not enlightened. Problem is, it usually comes out, uncontrolled, somewhere else.

That's what I kept seeing in this debate. Chopra would say some bitchy remark and then blame it on Shermer's mere presence on the panel. Then he'd get caught in some logical fallacy, and try to act humble and then another nasty swipe and the whole cycle would start all over again. He also seems humor impaired and irony-deficient. Like he knows the words that make up a joke, but has no idea how to tell it.

Extraordinary claims Deepak, extraordinary claims . . .

After watching the entire series of videos (a fascinating and enlightening discussion BTW), and putting the hijacking of scientific terminology aside, it occurs to me that Deepak attempts to substitute a set of mystical claims initially conceived during the bronze age (aka most 'modern' major religions - "The God Of The Past") with a new set of mystical claims, in this case just outside or at the edges of the set of current scientific knowledge ("The God Of The Future"). The "it is not known, therefore must be unknowable, therefore [insert gap filler set of mystical beliefs here]" fallacy all over again...

Of course great mysteries of today may become yesterday's explained phenomena, thus bringing down the entire construct. Except... the mystical system won't be brought down right away and you'll have folks clinging on to a set of beliefs and refusing to let go, regardless of where the evidence leads... Seem familiar?

Ooh sorry! I knew I should've linked that talk!
Go here and scroll about 3/4 the way down

Enjoy!

"...in the absence of brain you can still have consciousness which has no thought...a consciousness which is awareness in itself"

He's stringing words together in a grammatical manner, but when you look at the sentence it makes no sense.

Not at all! This makes perfect sense, especially if he's referring to himself.

"I think ol' Deepak is getting tired. Chopra really does a poor job of hiding his disdain for . . . well, just about everyone around him."

Perhaps true, but I find it interesting that the other side of this coin (i.e., most of the readers of this and similar blogs) go out of their way to broadcast their disdain for the 'woo-sayers'. I read so many posts and comments on blogs like these where everyone pats each other on the back for how snarky they can be to the other side. All the while being baffled why there are so many people that still don't want to join them in their club of the most rational and wisest people on the planet.

I'm a researcher in geophysics. I love science and could (and do) speak volumes about the values of rational, objective thinking. But the unceasing, childish, arrogant discussions on blogs like these is NEVER going to make someone on the other side change their minds. So what is the point of all these rants? Please ask yourselves if your your approach is actually doing any good to improve the situation you are bitching about. To me, it just seems a poorly cloaked exercise in ego-stroking.

You may wan't to brush up on some definitions.

So-called animal rights activists are evil and idiotic

palmd — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:18:10 +0000

So-called animal rights activists are evil and idiotic

I learned from a couple of colleagues (who I won't name) a couple of facts that reinforce just how hypocritical, hateful, and inane animal rights activists can be.

First, the terrorists are still targeting researcher Dario Ringach. Ringach, a former primate researcher, left the field due to violent pressure from these assholes. He's done. He is a former primate researcher. But for these goatfuckers, it has never been about helping animals but hurting people.

The Houston Press is reporting that those charged with participating in a large dogfighting ring in Texas served little or no time. As far as I can discover, none has received as much as a nasty postcard. (Nor am I suggesting they be harassed. The courts have spoken. If you're pissed, write your representative.)

So the animal rights anencephaly squad are spending their resources and hate on ex-researchers, people who used animals under close scrutiny and regulation for the betterment of humanity, instead of going after people who torture animals for pleasure and monetary gain. What a bunch of fucking idiots.

palmd Mon, 03/15/2010 - 12:18

Tags

Absurd religious wingnutery

Dog fighting makes me see red. There is nothing so vile as making animals fight each other for amusement. There's nothing whatsoever that could redeem it in any way. Sadly real animal cruelty is often treated lightly by the courts.

And animal research also benefits animals! My cats are vaccinated against some nasty diseases because of animal research. There are vaccines for various diseases in cats, dogs, horses, cows, chickens etc.

May those idiots itch in embarrassing places, in public.

I'm still trying to find the animal activist who doesn't use any drugs such as Tylenol or anything else that was tested on animals. They may be out there, but I haven't found them.

I also haven't gotten any responses when I ask fellow CFS patients who are also PETA idiots bitching about the use of mice in XMRV studies whether they will reject any treatment or cure that results from those studies.

Fucking hypocrites indeed.

"May those idiots itch in embarrassing places, in public. Now there's a thought. HEY! FLEAS are animals right?!
May the fleas of a thousand camels infest their nethermost regions! And they are left with no recourse because harming the poor helpless fleas would be WRONG.

Also, can anyone else feel the dripping irony of animal rights fringe lunatics sending "Dario Ringach is a BAD MAN!!!11" letters to McDonalds?!! Dude, if they wanted to send a letter to Dr. Ringach about McDonalds, I might have some sympathy. But this? the mind boggles. These guys make PETA look rationale.

Stand up for Science!

If you live near L.A. or happen to be in the neighborhood on Thursday 8th April 2010 you should take the opportunity show your support for Dario Ringach and animal research at the UCLA Pro-Test for Science rally.

http://speakingofresearch.com/2010/03/15/pro-test-for-science-april-8th…

I have to leave LA on April 7, but I'll be there in spirit.
Becca and Annaliese, great sentiments.

This is just more evidence in support of the hypothesis that animal rights extremists are bullies, pure and simple.

I can just see the thought process in their tiny lizardbrains-- Researcher: easy target. Dogfighting ring: oooh, they might be able to beat us up or worse! Why open ourselves up to the same kinds of violence we wish to inflict on others?

Perky is exactly right. It is not about loving animals and wanting to protect them, it is about hating anyone who is not an animal rights activist.

It doesn't matter if the ARA actually uses animals for food or meds, or for anything. It doesn't matter if the non-ARA doesn't use animals for food or meds or anything. It is about being in the ARA cult and hating everyone who isn't.

It is just like how the homophobic preachers can have gay sex, get caught, and be forgiven. It isn't the "sin" that matters, it is not being in the hoomophobic cult.

I explain how the physiology of xenophobia works on my blog.

It's not just about the ARAs hating anyone who isn't an ARA themselves -- it's about them hating people. I think that there's an element of self-hate in play.

And why don't they go after the dog fighters? Same reason they don't go after leather-wearing bikers. Who would you rather pick on, a mild-mannered, studious researcher or a biker? The ARAs are not only bullies, but they are cowards (which is typical of bullies.) That's why they target children as well.

These Negotiation Is Over people actually, truly scare me. It frightens me that there are people in the world who are that unhinged from reality.

I was going to comment, but ArtK (9) said exactly what I was thinking. They're bullies and cowards...most scientists are easier targets than most people who run dog-fighting rings.

Given the way things are going for some scientists in the US, the UK and now Canada, perhaps street-fighting and urban defence techniques should be introduced to all science curriculum?

Why I'm disappointed with Garrison Keillor

palmd — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:21:11 +0000

Why I'm disappointed with Garrison Keillor

I don't know if Garrison Keillor is anti-semitic and I don't really care, but the question was raised by his Christmas editorial at Salon.com. After reading it last month I decided I had nothing to say about it. Who really cares what Garrison Keillor says, right?

This morning I was on my way to work and yesterday's Prairie Home Companion came on. I found my hand reaching for the dial to change the channel. Then I realized why I haven't been able to get this out of my head.

I've been listening to PHC for about 20 years. I always enjoyed the quirky humor and most of all the music. When I was younger and searching for my identity, I felt a real connection to the music, as an American and as a Midwesterner. We have a real streak of Appalachia in my part of the country despite being pretty far from the mountains and I love bluegrass and mountain music, even though much of it has a gospel theme. What Garrison reminded my last month is that the music isn't really mine. My connection to it is in my imagination. I may want it, but it doesn't want me.

I love the winter holidays, the light they bring to a dark time of year. My favorite is Channukah, given it's the one I celebrate, but I love my neighbors' Christmas lights, my wife and daughter love to listen to Christmas music on the radio. What I didn't realize, perhaps because of my own willful blindness, is that as much as I feel I am a part of all of this, I am not. Keillor took away my Christmas, took away my identity as an American, a Midwesterner, and a lover of bluegrass music.

Of course I'm not about to change, really. I still love music, I'm still a Midwesterner and an American. But now when I turn on the radio on Saturday evening, I'm not going to be tuning in to Keillor---he shattered my illusion of belonging, and I wish to guard that illusion a little bit longer.

palmd Sun, 01/03/2010 - 09:21

Tags

Absurd religious wingnutery

Narcissistic self-involvement

I keep wanting to believe that Keillor is being funny in an edgy way that those who have criticized this just are not getting. That he's not being anti-Semitic or over the top main-stream Christian apologist.

I keep wanting to believe that he is playing a role that is a parody. He does in fact do that all the time. His minnesotanisms are parodies. His roles as the cowboy or the hard boiled detective or the guy in the muffin mix or the katsup commercial are all parodies. Why assume that anything he does is NOT a parody.

That's what I really really want to believe, and I keep trying, because I don't want to write him off.

Secretly, I want a job writing for the PHC. Because I have a lot of inner parody for and about Minnesota.

Less secretly I'd rather that one off the primary cultural icons of Minnesota not be a jackass anti-Semite.

So I read that Salon piece just now and for the first half I was able to keep up my desire to believe that Kiellor is not an ass.

But by the end ....

... holy crap, man.

There is still hope. Maybe he just has a brain tumor or something.

You're welcome to join my friends and I and our holiday tradition of Gift Card Day. Every Dec 26th, we get together, swap out unwanted gift cards amongst ourselves and go forth and buy the shit we really wanted for Christmas.

As new guy, you'll be responsible for driving and restaurant gift cards have to be used for the benefit of the group.

This is very true and very sad. I am such a sentimental, secular holiday lover, that people like Keiller, and the rest of the "keep Christ in Christmas" group are stealing something innocent and beautiful from me. It is putting the holiday into the same part of my rational mind that is so angry with religious society. I do live in France at the moment, and must admit that the Christmas trees and lights are much more benign here.

Oh, and I'm sincerely pissed off at him for ruining your christmas spirit, as it were. I've been living without my christmas spirit for a long time. It's quite doable.

Keillor has appeared to sink into miserable, mean-spirited bigotry within the last few years; whether that's truly his mindset, or rather some grand, painfully clever parody, I really can't say. I stopped listening to PHC, though.

Please don't let Keillor ruin bluegrass and roots music for you, Pal. My parents used to take us kids to camp out at the Kerrville Folk Festival every year, and the audience was (and continues to be) always diverse and mellow. Listen to Mountain Stage or Folk Alley, and forget Keillor's exclusionary narrow-minded nonsense.

Oh man, I found his piece through the Baltimore Sun and was shocked and disgusted. Turns out he'd written another screed, this one homophobic, a few years back and said he was just joshing around. I guess this one is joking, as well@@ Either that or Keillor is a big, fat, folksie bigot.

Might I suggest that you let your local public radio station know precisely why you won't be tuning in to PHC? I'm sure they'd appreciate the feedback.

I feel the same way about the local oldies station. I love listening to it, but around Christmas time there is nothing but Christmas music (and lots of overly religious Christmas music). I can't listen to the station the rest of the year, because of how it make me feel excluded during Christmas.

We have a real streak of Appalachia in my part of the country despite being pretty far from the mountains and I love bluegrass and mountain music, even though much of it has a gospel theme. What Garrison reminded my last month is that the music isn't really mine. My connection to it is in my imagination. I may want it, but it doesn't want me.

You know what? That isn't really true - we totally own the shit out of bluegrass and mountain music. It may not be in our specific ancestral heritage, but it is certainly a big part of Michigan heritage. Our state imported a lot of autoworkers from Appalachia, The Smokies and the Ozarks - bringing some awesome music with them. There are several dulcimer makers trained by parents or grandparents, who were trained by the same, with skills to rival any mountain dulcimer makers. There are a whole hella lot of excellent bluegrass players - professional and amateur and many in between here in MI, I've had the pleasure of playing with several of them.

We have several generations of homegrown bluegrass, folks who mixed it up with the natives to the point that we have a very reasonable claim to that music. I have sat around a scant few bonfires that didn't have someone or more often several someone's busting out instruments and as often as not it was bluegrass or hybrid folk being played - make up the words as you go if you don't know them or they don't exist.

Bluegrass, folk and pure mountain music doesn't give a flying fuck who or what your labels are. Whether you are picking away, singing away or just enjoying the shit out of it, players are happy to welcome you - no matter what color your skin, faith or lack thereof you might follow or even if you are particularly capable of the picking or the singing. The whole point of that music is to foster community and provide as much enjoyment as possible, to the players as much as the audience - it doesn't even require a fucking audience - nothing says rocking big fun like fifteen to twenty folk sitting around making music together.

As for Garrison Keillor - fuck him and his tiny petty bullshit. I have personally never been a big fan, but have plenty of friends who have been - that pathetic little tirade has lost him a lot of listeners.

Once upon a time in a far away land, I tried to explain Rush Limbaugh to an Iraqi interpreter. He worked every day in an office where one of the military guys blared Rush over his PC speakers. I fumbled through an explanation of the Conservative movement and fear politics and I realized I wasn't getting through. Finally I said "Limbaugh's an asshole." The interpreter's face lit up. What he really needed to hear was that not all Americans buy Rush's line of BS.

I think this is also the proper response to Keillor. Publicly disagreeing with the bigoted nutball goes a long way. I believe that's more than just the American way, it's an obligation we share as Americans.

I am all about taking symbols back. I love my country very much but was pretty quiet about it the last few years to as to not look like a right winger. Screw that. I love my country AND I'm a liberal AND I vote.

The central problem is that Garrison Keillor has never been funny. And I know Funny. And Matt Groening has my back:

Man: [quietly] Well, sir, it has been an uneventful week in Badger Falls...where the women are robust, the men are pink-cheeked, and the children are pink-cheeked and robust.
[Audience laughs loudly]

Homer: What the hell's so funny?

Man: At the Apple Biscuit cafe, where the smiles are free, don't you know, Sven Inqvist studied the menu, and finally he ordered the same thing he has every day.
[Audience laughs and applauds]

Bart: Maybe it's the TV.

Homer: Stupid TV. [Hits it] Be more funny!

Meh.

G.K. doesn't own Christmas, neither do Christians. Enjoy any holiday/celebration you want in your own way. Don't let him get you down, he doesn't speak for all Midwesterners. He also doesn't have the authority to take away your identity, don't let him do that to you.

I was really happy when my dh told me tonight a recent pol in Maine had 41% of people/Mainers saying they don't believe in God. There is hope.

Well, unfortunately, the Internet has let me down in terms of someone having compiled a comprehensive list, but a quick glance at Wikipedia's List of bluegrass musicians turns up:

Judith Edelman
Bela Fleck
David Grisman
Andy Statman
Eric Weissberg

And that's just the names I recognize and know to be Jewish. I'm sure someone with more time and expertise could compile a more comprehensive list. I know that Weissberg ("Dueling Banjos") was part of a thriving Jewish Bluegrass scene in NY in the '60s. Throw in Dylan and the folk crowd, jug band revivalists, trad jazz and swing, etc., and I think American Jews have as good a claim on Southern/Midwestern rural and traditional music as anybody.

Let me know if you're ever in Cincinnati, and we'll head across the river to Rabbit Hash and hear some real music.

I just try to tell myself that it's the stroke, and all the undiagnosed little strokes that he's had prior to this. Because frankly someone would have to be suffering brain damage to not like Unitarians such as myself.

Wait, you mean all Midwestern American bluegrass music lovers aren't Jews?
Something is very wrong with my worldview. And I like it that way.
That said, I will grant Keillor one point. Do reindeer have cloven hooves? Cause I would totally roast up a Rudolph. Not that I eat meat. But I'd make an exception.

Just remember that a college-educated city boy who made his money on Lake Wobegon, live radio and Guy Noir has no call to say one damned thing about cultural appropriation. And enjoy your excellent taste in music. Despite PHC recording across the river, we don't actually have much of a local bluegrass scene.

Blah, blah, don't let him take your symbols and music, Nobody owns bluegrass, blither, we're not all dbag-ists, bleat, bleat, blah.

Sorry peeps but fuck that.

Pal is right on target.

This is what happens when semifamous people turn out to hate you for what you are and haven't the foggiest notion of who you might be.

Nope BikeMonkey - that's too much of a two-sided coin, ya know?

You gonna let Garrison Keillor or some other stupid ass define who you are for you?

Nothing happened except he's an asshole spouting stupid bigoted opinions. No one has to take them personally or be offended by them. It's much better to laugh at his utter stupidity.

And... like #11, realize that he never was funny and never had anything really worthwhile to say.

What DuWayne said.

I'm an atheist from the Ozarks and I can like whatever music or holidays that I want to. I love bluegrass and I usually celebrate christmas with a tree and lights and all that shit.

I know that GK's screed was not a joke because he responded to comments on the piece with even more hateful and nasty insults. What a fuckhead.

DB, the notion that you are uninfluenced by surrounding culture is either a quaint vanity or a mark of sociopathy.

Donna's comment is insane and only makes sense in the context of some all white christian majoritarian bubble.

"Bigotry, hatred, violence? Figgeddabadit! There's nothing good or bad buy wishing makes it so!"

GK going on about and on about mistletoe and "O Tannenbaum"-- pagan winter symbols! This long-time PHC fan, who braved a frigid January day 25 years ago to see PHC live in St. Paul, will swear off it.

On edit: Just re-read the Salon piece. Guess GK doesn't read German; the version of "Silent Night" most people know is a pretty good English translation of it.

What about the nearly annual, brilliant interpretation of Cher's "O Holy Night" by Canadian Jew Paul Shaffer? Anyone who tries to take that away from me is asking for it!

Here you go, Happy Holidays:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CiUf4CtaSk
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSQOSzrQRj4

The original, which Mr. Shaffer recollects pretty well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQw0oEk2Ngg

"O Holy Night" begins around 3:58, but you may wish to check out William "Cannon" Conrad in the bit just before, around 2:10. Peace!

So what BikeMonkey, I am supposed to accept that as an atheist I have no right to include myself in Christmas, because a bunch of fucking bigoted asshats say I don't? I am supposed to accept that because it isn't directly a part of the cultural heritage of my ancestors (half of whom are German, my mother a first gen immigrant) that I don't have a right to be included in music I enjoy listening to and playing?

Fuck that bullshit. I really don't give a flying fuck what some bigoted fucking assholes have to say about it and refuse to let them define what I am accepted in and what I am not. I don't let Billo, Beck or any other right wing asshat "put me in my place," I am not about to accept it from Keillor or people who used to be my friends, but stopped letting their children play with mine after I came out as an atheist. Sorry BM, but fuck that.

I think he was probably trying to be funny, but failed miserably. He's not the first humorist that I've loved and then been seriously offended by. I don't know how accurately this piece reflects his real views; again, he is a humorist, and that makes it a little more difficult to tell what his real views are and what's parody. (That whole class of writer is kind of on a 24-hour Poe at times.) Regardless, I think he screwed up badly with this piece, and it disappointed me greatly as well.

And I'm not only a Christian and a Minnesotan, but a Lutheran as well. Being a Minnesotan Lutheran does not have to equal asshat. (Note for pedants: Keillor isn't a Lutheran, but used to be one. He shifted to the Episcopalians. He was raised by fundamentalists, though.) Despite the gentleness of his demeanor and delivery, he does have a cantankerous side. Perhaps it is a stereotypical Minnesotan thing -- we do breed more passive-aggressives up here, and he does often strive to be a stereotype for the purpose of humor. In general, he does seem to have become more cantankerous with age. (The lawsuit against his neighbors for wanting to build an addition to their house near his much larger house, for instance.) Perhaps he's just letting more of it out, and it's been there all this time. Hard to say. But this is not the only thing he's done lately that has disappointed me.

It does not have to be like this. This is related to why I expressed surprise at your insistence in an earlier posting that Christmas is not and could never be a secular holiday (I agreed with your general point about "Merry Christmas" as a normative greeting intensifying Otherness, FWIW). Let me say it clearly:

Screw these "Christ in Christmas" buffoons. Culture does not belong to anybody -- it is public domain. Bluegrass, Christmas lights, all of this is as much yours and as much mine as it is Keillor's. If you want to adopt it, it's yours. If you want to borrow from it and make your own tradition, that's awesome; there is nothing inauthentic about that. Concerns about authenticity seem to be a doorway to either pretentious or bigotry, depending on the political leanings of those concerned.

Small-minded bigots are trying to take back December like they own it. The best way to fight them is not to retreat into our own cultural ghettos because we feel disowned by the mainstream; rather, we should assert our right to be the mainstream. Don't let fundamentalists "take back" Christmas; they never had it in the first place, if you actually examine the history. Instead, secularists should take back Christmas. And bluegrass. And everything else.

You choose your identity, not some crusty old man who used to be funny but is turning into a dick in his old age.

Blah, blah, don't let him take your symbols and music, Nobody owns bluegrass, blither, we're not all dbag-ists, bleat, bleat, blah.

Sorry peeps but fuck that.

Pal is right on target.

This is what happens when semifamous people turn out to hate you for what you are and haven't the foggiest notion of who you might be.

What t he fuck does this mean? When a famous person disses you, you should roll over and take it in the ass?

Sorry, BikeMonkey, but that entire comment was grade-A stoopid.

I would like BikeMonkey to please tell me exactly who owns bluegrass, then.....

Keillor has always been an ass; he just happens to be an ass that has a way with words. He is a magician -creating the illusion of a down-home, folksy, welcoming enclave week after week.

"....as much as I feel I am a part of all of this, I am not."

As an Official Representative of WASP Christianity (Lapsed) (Northeastern Region), I officially decree that you are. You can have GK's place.

FWIW, I'm only in it for the lights and prezzies, too.

JS, I think you misread bikemonkey

Duwayne, James Sweet et al.

A: No. What you are supposed to do is to recognize what Pal is talking about and understand that all your brave talk is far from a universal solution for people hit with these little disquietudes. Try to understand how being Jewish gives you a reaction that has greater depth and context than does that of those who are all excited about being a New Atheist or wtfever.

He probably didn't realize he was being offensive. Maybe he thought that no one other than white Christians listen to his program. Before reading this post, it wouldn't have even crossed my mind that his article was not politically correct. In fact, I might have even thought he was being sarcastic.

But you are right in pointing out his bigotry. It's only by calling him on it that things can change. And keeping with the spirit of NPR who often represents all cultures equally, the article's content was out of place.

So thank you once again for enlightening the rest of us and let's hope that your feedback gets back to Garrison so that next time, he can come up with some more appropriate material.

Another note, just the fact that people from different cultures and religions participate in Christmas festivities is a testament to the wonderfulness of this holiday. It is my impression that Christ was accepting of all people, so everyone is welcome to celebrate Christmas in whatever way they choose.

-humans! always so worried about their feelings - but in the penultimate post we had the blog owner frying a pound of bacon, and who's worried about the pig's feelings?
I am.

Is that a fucking joke??? Who cares about the fucking pig?? If god didn't want us to eat pigs, he wouldn't have made them out of yummy pork.

Having read the salon article:

Keillor, a "Christian" man, opines (whines) about how Xmas is for Christians, (who also believe that they have an automatic ticket into Heaven).

I see it as a(n overly done perhaps?) parody of White Fat Rich Americans being scared of the "illegal immigrants" because they're a bit poorer (or browner), the WFRA's have it all but they still want to be able to bitch and moan.

Laughing at the WFRA's is one way to deal with them: this screed of Keillor's is nothing more than mocking of someone who has it all, (plus that free ticket to Heaven), who wants, nay, NEEDS MOAR!

That Keillor allows himself to be the vehicle that delivers this message I saw a bit of Andy Kaufman's "Tony Clifton" here.

We can and are encouraged to hate Clifton, who is unlikable and contemptuous; Keillor as Clifton doesn't work so well because there is no front man, no alter ego to take the heat.

I only listen to the first hour of PHC and then only if I'm out and about doing errands Saturday evenings.

They can't all be gems.

I'm bigoted for saying no one has to let an asshole get them down? And where did I say was uninfluenced by surrounding culture?

All I said was that I don't see a reason to let the asshole make you feel bad. HE should be the one feeling bad!

That's right BikeMonkey. Bigotry only affects you if you let it affect you, man. Don't let it make you feel bad. Feeling bad is the only consequence.

Keillor should feel bad that he made up one shitty joke a fucktillion years ago and he's been telling that same motherfucking joke over and over and over since then and IT'S STILL NOT FUCKING FUNNY!

The only people that think that glurge is funny are pompous douchebags from Minnefuckingsota. Fuck Minnesota. I say let's give it back to motherfucking Canada.

CPP, I assume you meant "give it back to Mexico". Learn some damned history.

Thank you for the Keillor editorial link. As an atheist, i found myself agreeing with what he wrote there, a very human and thoughtful piece. Most on this page do not share this opinion (obviously!), so what? It is weirder to witness the agressiveness and intolerance when it comes from "your side", as found in some unhinged comments here. Oh well, and so it goesâ¦

STFU, you cheese-eating surrender monkey.

I grew up listening to Garrison Keilor before he went national. I haven't liked lots of what I've seen in the last few years. It's been like learning your favorite uncle is actually a bigot but somehow you never knew.

Keillor seems to have forgotten that a key theme of Christmas is hospitality. So come on over and enjoy the lights, help decorate the tree, and the cookies if you want.

Of course BM, there is no depth whatsoever at explaining to a seven year old why he is no longer welcome to play with his best friend. No depth to being a pariah to many of your friends and having many other friends feel sorry for you, praying that you will see the error - trying to convince you you just need to read this, or listen to that until you really would rather not be around them either. No depth to being removed from the card lists of people you care a great deal for - or being told by elderly people you have helped keep their home together, that they would rather have someone who doesn't know what they are really doing fix the hot water heater, than have an atheist in their home.

No depth whatsoever, in being told not only by rightwing nutjobs, but by friends and other people who should fuckingwell know better, that because you are no longer in their little club, you should bloody well leave their fucking holidays alone.

I understand that my anger and refusal to let these motherfuckers "put me in my place" isn't a universal answer. I also understand that their are others who are coming at this from a very different context. But don't you fucking dare imply this is some superficial fucking game, when you don't have the foggiest bloody clue what you are talking about. There are very good reasons that I am angry about this shit and choose to deal with it the way that I do. They may or may not be equal in depth to the alienation that Pal is talking about, but they are no less fucking valid.

Sometimes, DuWayne, you don't have the luxury of "refusing the bigotry". I admire your ability to fight back, but in many circumstances that desire is irrelevant.

CPP, I assume you meant "give it back to Mexico". Learn some damned history.

Like I give a fucking shit about motherfucking history?? Give it to fucking Greenland for all the fuck I care.

Hey, as far as I'm concerned, the asshole Christians can have Christmas. I loathe it, myself, and would love not to be able to celebrate it, but I'm from a culturally Christian background and my family are all Christmas fanatics.

Me, I'm an atheist with very little need in general for ritual at all (I don't see the point of weddings, get pissed off at funerals, and generally don't like holidays except for the paid time off), and as far as I'm concerned, there's something wrong with people who want to party when it's cold and dark and the weather is miserable -- don't people know that the time to party is during the summer when the weather is nice and the days are long, and that dark days and long winter nights are optimised for catching up on one's sleep?!

(Also, dear squid, the incessant shitty music for three months. It can't be over fast enough.)

Bah, humbug.

Your post led me to read the Salon piece, and then contact the local NPR program manager. She is clinging to the idea that it was satire. I'm wholly unconvinced - where's the wink? I hear a great surge of resentment in that piece, and in his most recent post, although he tries to frame the newer one in a joking aspect.

The radio station is not about to drop PHC - talk about knowing which side your bread is buttered on - but this does give them a heads up to keep an eye on GK's off air utterances. Thanks for pointing this article out.

Out of curiosity, DuWayne, what does an atheist look like? How likely are their relatives to also be atheists?

WTF would you know about all this, dude?

But don't you fucking dare imply this is some superficial fucking game, when you don't have the foggiest bloody clue what you are talking about. There are very good reasons that I am angry about this shit and choose to deal with it the way that I do.

That's right, Monkey. Don't you dare imply that this is a game. It's only a game to those who have never been the recipient of bigotry. You clearly never have been.

Out of curiosity, BM, what the fuck is your point? No - never mind, I get it - to you it is absolutely nothing to basically be shunned by a rather massive swath of your friends, while dealing with the fallout of finally cutting loose a lifetime of desperately clinging to a faith you finally failed to justify. My apologies if I am not capable of that sort of cavalier dismissal and tend to be rather bitter about bigoted fucking morons taking it out on my child. And rather bitter about fucking vile asshats like Keillor - obviously there is no excuse for my feeling this way and the impact that sort of bigotry has had on not only me, but my children as well is simply not valid.

FF - Why don't you take that comment in context? That was not my implication at all. I was referring to his casual dismissal of my being a rather angry atheist - his implication being that it is just some sort of superficial game.

And for the record, it was never my intention to hijack this thread. I just rather took exception for getting slammed for having a rather angry reaction to this kind of fucking bullshit and a little different attitude about how to deal with it. Moreso, I took some exception to the notion that my experience - what happens to be behind my anger is somehow invalid or superficial.

I apologize for going this far with it and will gracefully bow out now.

to you it is absolutely nothing to basically be shunned by a rather massive swath of your friends,

Not exactly 'nothing', no.

while dealing with the fallout of finally cutting loose a lifetime of desperately clinging to a faith you finally failed to justify.

And here we arrive.

I said I was done arguing and I am - but I would really like to know what the fuck exactly we arrived at. I am rather curious what exactly is wrong with my having been and no longer being a theist.

i don't think anyone was concerned about your failure to believe in imaginary creatures. I think they were calling you out on your statement that bigotry only affects you if you let it---at least that's how it sounded.

If that is what someone thought I was saying, then they could have saved a lot of fucking ridiculous arguing and actually said so. That is not at all what I was saying.

But that is not what BM seems to be having issues with at all.

Oh I think snippy bits up there got it about right DuWayne. I'm not fond of equivalency of oppression, generally, and think there is no way that atheists (converted or otherwise) have it as rough as the ~2% of USians who are Jewish. Despite what the blowhards around these parts who have every obvious privilege, save Christianity (and chosen operating system), would like us to think.

(and chosen operating system)

Oh no, now you've done it! Cue the Windows/Mac/Linux flamefest!

(BTW, emacs is way better than vi. There. I said it.)

BikeMonkey -

I have responded here, so as to avoid further hijacking of this thread.

I think many people confuse radical, fundamentalist Christians with the majority of people who could be considered to be Christian, just like we confuse radical, fundamentalist Muslims with the majority of Muslims. Religious fundamentalism can, in my opinion, border on mental illness, and does not represent most of the population.

You can believe me when I say that I am not praying for any of you non-believers to cross over to the other side. I am not sure if either of us go to heaven, or even if there is a heaven. I was raised Catholic (if you can call that Christian), but don't practice. Sure, I do the Christmas thing, but only because I've done it all my life, it's fun, and don't know any different. So, please don't lump all of us into one stereotype.

As for the guy who feels sorry for the pig...There are room for all of God's creatures - right next to the mashed potatoes and the green beans.

Keillor took away my Christmas, took away my identity as an American, a Midwesterner, and a lover of bluegrass music.

I don't know if this helps or not, but I think you're ten times the American, Midwesterner, lover of bluegrass music and, for that matter, appreciator of the finer points of Christmas that that Hollywood wannabe is. He doesn't speak for all Midwesterners or Americans. Nor do any other of the bigots who try to make you uncomfortable with your identity.

Try to understand how being Jewish gives you a reaction that has greater depth and context than does that of those who are all excited about being a New Atheist or wtfever

This betrays a lot of assumptions about the identity of the people you are disagreeing with.

I would prefer not to say what religious minority I was raised in, but it is one that is regularly ridiculed in mainstream society -- and even though much of that ridicule is justified, I still always feel an instinctual knee-jerk desire to defend this same religion I now despise. For whatever that is worth...

Oh noes, BikeMonkey has taken away my identity! Oh wait, you didn't. And that's the point I am making.

I found this nice:

http://www.silentnight.web.za/translate/eng.htm

Which version did they sing? I see two 19th century versions that leave out the "Jesus", "Christ", and "God"

I've never been a GK fan, so this didn't mean something to me. But, I too have wondered about diversity and inclusiveness. I used to be a big fan of christmas. I liked the secular traditions, of lights, and gifts, and singing, and joy and celebration. More recently, though, I've turned away from the holiday season, because of people like GK, and the sentiments they express. I guess it's OK with me if the want to turn it back into their own holiday, but then, I think I have to wonder why it's a national holiday.

Does anybody else find any irony in a guy who presents folk music having a problem with people who change the words to songs?

That's how real folk music works, and always has been. Tunes are public domain, and people put words to them that they like.

I guess Keillor's all upset that My Country 'Tis of Thee has the same tune as God Save the Queen. And Twinkle Twinkle Little Star sounds a little too much like the alphabet song, doncha think?

I think we should give the Christians back their Christmas tunes just as soon as they give the Jews back their God.

Until then, no deal.

and think there is no way that atheists (converted or otherwise) have it as rough as the ~2% of USians who are Jewish.

Atheists identified as America's most distrusted minority

And a link to the actual article: JSTOR link

I would say enjoy your silver in the Oppression Olympics, except that you didn't even make the podium.

Which Oppression Olympics are we talking about here, the summer or the winter games?
"America's most distrusted minority": curling :: "holocaust victims":marathon.

@becca

If you think Oppression Olympics are fun, wait till i write another circumcision piece.

You'd think snipping the gribines was the same as defenestrating babies.

Hey, I live in Cambridge and my boyfriend's Norwegian. Based strictly on this column, I think Garrison Keillor may hate me even more than he hates Unitarians or Jews.

I would say enjoy your silver in the Oppression Olympics, except that you didn't even make the podium.

You need your head examined if you think distrust of atheists has more detrimental impact on a person in the US than does their being Jewish, black, Latina or gay. You New Atheists are fevered. Linux users have it worse than you people do ffs.

Now now, isn't it somewhat context dependent?
I mean, I'd wager Linux users *in Redmond Washington* have it worse than atheists in Boston. On the other hand, atheists in a small rural Alabama town probably have it worse than Linux users in Boston.

@PalMD- I for one, welcome our flying baby overlords that can only be discovered through defenestration.

Where to begin???

After reading this blog entry and the comments here, I thought I'd better go read the GK essay to see exactly what he said that upset everyone so much. I read it and some other articles, essays, columns and comments on this whole big deal.

And I have to laugh. Come on, people, lighten up and stop taking yourselves so seriuosly!! He was doing what he always does -- exposing our foibles. How could anyone take his comments seriously? How could anyone with the slightest sense of humor not see the comedy in his little sarcastic barbs that remind us that we're all take ourselves a bit too seriously?

One of the biggest problems in this whole world is how people are so sure of themselves and their point of view, so entrenched in an us-vs-them black-and-white mentality, so willing to believe that they have been dissed. I mean, these things are the bases for road rage and lethal fanaticism.

Another thing I find funny -- well, not funny, but extremely ironic -- is how much more vitreolic so many of the comments here are than any of the comments that GK made in his tongue-in-cheek little essay.

The last thing about all this that I find so funny is that I'm even bothering to comment here. I mean, really now. . . who actually cares what any of us thinks about this whole thing? There are REAL problems that should be taking up our energy.

Take care, fellow humans -- smile a little more at one another and yourselves.

BikeMonkey,

I certainly know some atheists who've had a tougher time of it in the U.S. than some Jews. Atheists are the most distrusted minority in America, and I know a number of people who've been fired from jobs or disowned by their own families for being atheists. I don't know any Jews who've been disowned for being Jewish, or for being atheists. (Jews here are mostly more tolerant of atheists than Christians are.)

Certainly, that's nothing like the holocaust. Nobody's claiming that.

On the other hand, I have a couple of atheist Jewish friends whose fathers survived the holocaust, but whose other relatives mostly didn't, and they're way more likely to mention that they're Jewish to random people than that they're atheists, partly because random people these days are more accepting of Jews than atheists. In their family's lives, a generation back, being Jewish was of course an enormous deal, but in their own lives, especially now, not so much. (A lot depends on where you live, of course.)

These days, tolerance of Jews is much greater among the Christian majority than it was, say, 30 or 40 years ago.

Atheists are still out in the cold.

Think about when the first President Bush said that he didn't think atheists should be considered patriots or citizens, because "this is one nation under God."

Imagine if he'd said that about Jews. Wow, what a shitstorm that would have been.

And when Obama said this is a Christian nation, and a Jewish Nation... and a Muslim nation, and a nation of unbelievers, which of those points was innovative and noteworthy? Not the first two. Judaism gets deference---these days even right-wing conservatives mostly talk about the "Judeo-Christian tradition," going out of their way to be inclusive of Jews but exclusive of Muslims and atheists.

I'm not equating being an atheist and being a Muslim, or being brown or black. (Or gay.) Most atheists have it easy most times, in most ways. If we shut the hell up about our views, most people won't notice. I've certainly had it easy, myself, spending most of my life in academia where being an atheist (or Jewish) isn't especially remarkable. From my looks, people have sometimes guessed that I'm Jewish, but never that I'm an atheist.

But I do know atheists who've gotten fired from regular old jobs because their overly Christian bosses were nosy about their beliefs, trying to make sure they were "saved," and then didn't trust them not to steal from the till when they admitted to being atheists.

I even know one atheist whose own (Christian) parents thought he should be killed for being an atheist, though they didn't go ahead and do it themselves.

As an atheist and a Linux hacker, I've got to say you're just fucking nuts when you equate the two, and minimize DuWayne's experiences.

I would say enjoy your silver in the Oppression Olympics, except that you didn't even make the podium.

Oh for fucks sake - this is exactly what I didn't want to see and certainly didn't want to imply. This isn't a fucking competition and to be very clear - there is absolutely no comparison to the plight of atheists in general to the plight of Jews in general - none.

Jews have a thousands of years history of persecution. They are still despised in many parts of the U.S., merely tolerated in others and outright accepted in few.

There are certainly individual Jews who aren't particularly a persecuted minority, but the same in true of atheists. For my own part, a great deal of the impact of the bigotry I have experienced as an atheist is directly related to having been a Christian - my own specific experience. There are a lot of atheists who have it a lot better and many who have a lot worse time of it.

But to say that Jews are somehow less persecuted than atheists is fucking absurd.

Different people have different specific experiences that impact them in different ways. My rage about this whole notion of ownership and my attitude about how to deal with it stem from my own experience. The only relation my experience in this context has with Pal's is that we are both targets for alienation from institutions that, in my opinion, no one has a fucking right to take away from either of us. The reasons are different and our respective reactions are different. I am sure that the depth and content of our feelings on it are also very different. My only point was that they are both valid...Beyond that, there is no fucking comparison whatever.

Fantasy is powerful, especially if you're a delusional idiot like Chopra

palmd — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:02:39 +0000

Fantasy is powerful, especially if you're a delusional idiot like Chopra

Wouldn't it be cool if after we died we didn't...die? Just like in the fairy tales, we could go to some place where we play harps on clouds and eat marshmallows for breakfast; we could play with our dead dogs, and somehow manage to live in harmony with all of our dead lovers. Unless we go to a place of flames and unending agony. Or maybe we become squid-like creatures in the oceans of Titan--all are equally (un)likely.

Except to those so mired in thanatophobia and fantasy that they can no longer reason properly. It's not like this is a new problem, but my eyes were bleeding after seeing Deepak Chopra on Larry King the other night (transcript here). Chopra launched into his usual vitalist idiocy. The reason I even care about this is that Chopra promotes himself as a doctor and often applies his dualist religious beliefs to medicine. Eww.

Chopra's approach is always one of unfounded assertion and ridicule. He asserts his belief, and then ridicules those who ask him what the hell he's talking about. Here, let him show you:

There's a lot of interesting science that our consciousness, which is the place where we perceive, think, emote, imagine, have insight, intuition, choice-making -- that this part of us is not a product of our brain.

You know, scientists have, until recently, believed that, you know, just like your gallbladder secretes bile and your pancreas secretes pancreatic juice, your brain secretes imagination...

Really? What kind of evidence would that be? And yes, that's a bit over-simplified but real doctors and biologists do know that "your brain secretes imagination"---because it's true.

The mind, that consciousness, the one I'm talking to right now is not a product of the brain, but is localizing itself through the brain, just like people who are seeing us right now on their screens, you know, we're not in their television boxes. We are coming through these airwaves and they are perceiving us.

Can anyone explain to me what separates this guy from the dude on the street with the tinfoil hat? Anyone? Bueller?

But wait, Dinesh D'Souza has Deepak's back:

The question of whether something comes after death -- I don't -- you know, whether you're a believer or whether you're a skeptic, you're going to have to wonder about that. It's going to make a lot of difference in -- in how you live now.

And I think what makes our time exciting and unique is that now there's actually some evidence about all this -- not only near-death experiences but evidence from physics, evidence from biology, evidence from the science of the brain -- all of which seem to suggest that the old idea that simply our mind and our brain are the same and -- and -- and when we die our brains obviously die.

So, if that's the case, then there's no life after death.

But there are new possibilities created by modern knowledge. And that's really what -- what I think is exciting today.

But there are new possibilities created by modern knowledge. And that's really what -- what I think is exciting today.

And what is all this modern, science-y news that confirms these quasi-religious fantasies about mind-body dualism? The panelists go off on the idea that dying is a process, not a singular event, and since that's the case, you can never say anyone is truly dead---a sort of Zeno's paradox or Miracle Max version of mortality. And the rhetorical hand-waving continues, thanks to the dumbest man on Earth:

CHOPRA: Well, birth and death are space-time events in the continuum of life. So the opposite of life is not death. The opposite of death is birth. And the opposite of birth is death. And life is the continuum of birth and death, which goes on and on.

And the opposite of intelligent is "Chopra".

The entire discussion is ridiculous. Religious folks can and will argue forever about "soul", but for those of us who must operate in the real world, it's all a pipe dream (in the "opium" sense). It is irrelevant what Chopra, the Pope, or Chad Orzell's dog thinks about the unconfirmed and unlikely existence of an aferlife. The idea violates our operational and theoretical understanding of the universe. It has no relevance in medicine or science. No one rises from the dead, no one comes back to tell us how the chocolate is in heaven, and no extra-terrestrial squids fly back to Earth to tell us about their happy reincarnation on Titan.

If folks like Chopra want to contribute to human health they can stop feeding these fantasies, roll up their sleeves and get in the trenches with the rest of us.

palmd Wed, 12/23/2009 - 09:02

Tags

Absurd medical claims

Absurd religious wingnutery

medicine

I don't think it's fair to suggest that everybody who believes in an afterlife does so because of thanatophobia (an irrational fear of death -- note to those who point out that death is a rational thing to fear, a fear only becomes a phobia when it crosses the line and becomes debilitating). There are lots of motivations for believing in an afterlife. For me, it's just part of the package of Christianity, and honestly, not that important to me -- I believe strongly that we're supposed to focus on making life better here on Earth, not on pursuing some mystical afterlife experience where everything will be all better.

The one thing I'm confident about with respect to the afterlife (if there is one) is that all depictions of it are probably wrong. ;-)

Many who believe in an afterlife do so not because they are afraid of dying but because it fits into a larger mythological picture. The Mayans venerated the dead and had a rather morbid preoccupation with the subject in their artwork -- but I don't think they were generally afraid of death. Really, quite the contrary, if you look at their warlike culture. The same was true of the Vikings. Rather than fearing death, they embraced it. The Mayans embraced it as just a natural phase in life (part of their cyclical philosophy), and the Vikings . . . well, the embraced it in a manner more reminiscent of a jihadist. Dying in battle was a glorious thing, and you'd be rewarded by going to Valhalla, where you'd get to fight and die repeatedly until the Ragnarok, when you'd fight the army of the dead from Niflheim while the Aesir and the Vanir fought and the world ended and you died for good. (I guess that's one of the interesting things about the Viking afterlife myths; they didn't believe in eternal life. They believed in a very long afterlife, but one with a definite and rather gory end all the same. And you'd participate in that gory death even if you didn't die in battle and go to Valhalla, because those who died in other ways went to Niflheim, to dwell until Hela called them all to board Naglfar, a ship made from their own fingernails.)

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that Chopra is completely bonkers on the subject -- and most subjects, really. (I acknowledge the possibility that there may be a subject on which he is reasonable.) In Chopra's case, he's clearly fitting it into another larger philosophical picture -- the idea that there is some sort of a life force which energizes the body, repairs it, envigorates it, etc. Sort of a cross between the Force and the Quickening. :-P I don't think his belief in the afterlife is due to any fear of death either; it's more part and parcel of his belief that we exist independently of our bodies.

So do all of you think we came from some great ape? Come on, enough with your opinions on religion. Stick with what you guys do best, and that is Practice Medicine.

How do you know their is no life after death? I would like to see the double blind on that one.

So tell me, do all MD's really think we came from some great ape? It would interesting to know. All I see is attack and attack on this site. I guess this is a better place to release your emotions than when at work. As many of the comments here, would more than likely land you in the Admin office.

To set the record straight this is how the average person thinks.

If my back hurts I am going to go and see a Chiropractor
If I am interested in vitamins and herbs I am going to see a Naturopathic Physician, as it would be safer than taking over the counter on my own.
If I have been to the two above and it has not worked, and I want to try a new approach then I am going to see a licensed acupuncturist
When I am sick, need medical advise, or have an emergency then I am going to see a medical doctor.

One thing I never understood, is why don't medical doctors put all of these practitioners under the same roof? Now wouldn't be the best approach, at least everyone would have an opportunity to learn from each other, and it would give the others a chance to learn from a medical doctor.

Now go and heal someone and make the world a better place

well, also ridiculous is medicine's constant pursuit of keeping humans alive as long as they can, simply because they are technologically able to do so (while children elsewhere starve to death no less). And then worse yet, disposing of most of those humans in ritual casket burials, obscenely wasteful of space and resources.

I was most disappointed with Sanjay Gupta in this interview (for those who havent seen it I posted it on youtube and linked from my blog
http://sneerreview.blogspot.com/2009/12/is-there-life-after-woo.html)
D'Souza did what he usually does, try to sound scientific with his standard Roman Catholic apologetics, and Chopra did what we expect of him - try to obscure the question with platitudes about consciousness.
Gupta, on the other hand, should have called the others when they started down the line of supposed new scientific evidence backing their dualistic notions.

To set the record straight this is how the average person thinks.

It is not very nice to call the average person a bloody idiot.

delphi4c: you say that as if modern medicine is monolithic. In fact, there is a large body of work in modern medicine towards improving decision-making at the end of life -- knowing when to switch to palliative care. I think most of the hopeless life-prolonging efforts likewise stem less from fear of death than from denial; families don't want to accept the severity of the situation. And that's understandable; the tricky part is learning how to help them through that, and there aren't easy answers. My grandma refused to put together an advance care directive when the social worker was urging her to do so. It is now too late, as her dementia has advanced to the point where she is unlikely to understand the point of it. And my grandfather isn't likely to sign it on her behalf, because of things which are too personal to relate here. Which means that if she crashes, they'll definitely do a full code on her. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Sigmund -- Sanjay Gupta has been disappointing in many regards lately. He's rather accommodationist when it comes to woo.

"I don't think it's fair to suggest that everybody who believes in an afterlife does so because of thanatophobia "

There are other reasons as well. One of them is personal incredulity and a lack of any referential understanding. People just can't conceptualize non-existence or an end to their existence. I can't fully conceptualize it either, but when I try to explain it to people, I say the following:

"You ask me what I think happens to us or what it will be like after we die. I ask you, what happened to you or what was it like before you were conceived?"

I got into a discussion with a commenter over on SBM once about the after life, and he tried to end it with the statement, "Well, when we're dead, we'll know for sure.", which showed that he completely missed the point that my position was that when we're dead, we won't exist to be able to know anything.

well, the first two posts were certainly packed with stupid. it appears, sadly, that chopra and others of his crap-spewing sort aren't in danger of running out of sheep to fleece.

Tian provides such a plethora of bad thinking; let's see how much can be teased apart...

I doubt anyone believes humans come from great apes though there's overwhelming evidence that humans and apes shared a common ancestor. Heck, humans share genes with yeast so there's a common ancestor there too, just much further back. Details are arguable but the notion of common descent is settled science.

Science doesn't claim there's no such thing as life after death. Rather, religious folk claim there is but have yet to provide any evidence of that claim. Life after death is inconsistent with observed reality. If you still believe it is so, the burden is on the believer to provide evidence of life after death, not science to disprove it.

I can't speak to what the average person thinks and I suspect neither can Tian. However, I can tell you why the modern medical standard of care doesn't include chiropractic, naturopathy, or acupuncture - it's because none of them show any efficacy beyond that of a placebo, i.e. they don't work. Chiropractic may help with lower back issues, no different from what you might get from a physical therapist. Beyond that, chiropractic is a dog's breakfast of crazy theory that adjustments to the spine can cure everything from asthma to flatulence to cancer (look up 'subluxation' and see if you can get a concise, sensible definition.) Naturopathy deals with herbs of unknown composition and potency, occasionally spiked with real drugs. Three hundred years ago naturopathy may have made sense, but today there's nothing that naturopathy can do that a pharmacy can't and what you get from the pharmacy will be cheaper, safer, and more effective. And acupuncture doesn't really do anything. And this isn't a matter of opinion - there's simply no evidence to show that any of these alternative therapies work better than placebo.

Actually, modern medicine does put these all these practitioners under the same roof - the one with the big blinking sign reading QUACK. Further, I don't believe the alternative practitioners even want to be under the same roof as conventional doctors - people with actual medical expertise might see how ineffective and expensive alternative treatments are.

I'm not a hater, really I'm not. If any of these treatments actually worked, I'd be all for them - we could save a lot of people tons of pain, suffering, and money. But the fact is there is no evidence that any of them work better than a sugar pill or a hug and no amount of wishful thinking will change that. And since we know that these techniques don't work, it would be irresponsible, cruel, and unethical to pretend they do and to delude people with false hope and false treatment.

I agree. Chopra does a lot of rhetorical hand waving, and even though I don't want to target him personally, it is disappointing hearing such sophomoric language from a doctor of medicine, and frustrating for the rest of us eager to explore the nature of consciousness scientifically. You might think I would be sympathetic to Chopra, I have practiced TM for over ten years, but as a student focusing in neuroscience who is not religious, and does not ascribe to any religious or spiritual organization, he reflects poorly on people like me. If one wants to claim a non-physicalist view of consciousness, they damn well at least attempt to use their logical capacity for argumentation to make their point, or else say, they don't know yet. Making sweeping generalizations and baseless claims is injurious to Chopra's cause. If you don't want to do the math, don't pretend your you're doing math.

I find the whole bastardization of science to try to support some wishy-washy-woo idea of an afterlife so infuriating it's sometimes hard to keep my cool when it comes up AGAIN.

Frankly, I don't think these people think it through. At what point, from single celled organism to Homo Sapien does this magical special "self" that can survive after death start applying? Is it an evolutionary trait? Which plants and animals get it? If it's not a genetic trait, what makes a living thing eligible for this ability? Or does everything, even things without brains, like corn and viruses, have this magic power? And where did it come from?

And this self that survives to be reborn, how is it maintained from death to rebirth? Is rebirth instant? Can it sit around indefinitely? Can it jump species? Can it convert into something else like all other energy and matter we know of? Is it a measurable substance? If you have a brain injury does the post brain injured self survive or the pre injured self?

It's possible people's self survives death and it's also possible that it can be reborn, but right now, one has to make some seriously huge leaps of faith to try to explain it scientifically, based on the laws that apply in the universe we live in. If it's not testable and doesn't adhere to anything we understand or know about our universe, it's fiction, or philosophy, at best. It is not, however, science.

I would like to meet Chopra face-to-face and slap the silly out of him.

Ok Bob, can I call you Bob, that is your name right Bob?

So you seem to take on the idea that only Bob knows what works and does not work? Hmmm

As far as acupuncture goes, you clearly are an uneducated person. But I think I understand your point of view. It does not make you money. So you are going to bash it. It threatens you market share so you are going to bash it.

You use the word Quack like your a duck? So let us look deeper into the this word and were it originated from:

"The original "quacks" were dentists who advocated the use of mercury amalgam, and most dentists are still advocating its use today. Quack is short for "quacksalber," the old German word for mercury."

Many physicians outraged by mainstream tactics to surpress have concluded this with regards to the term Quack:

"Nowadays the word "quack" is applied to the competition of allopathy and the drug medical establishment. "Quack" is the allopathic codeword for competition." Very interesting indeed

Or how about this mind set:
"Anyone who tries to hang the label "quack" without personal investigation to the point of proof beyond reasonable doubt must be regarded as a scoundrel until proven otherwise."

Well Bob you really seem to know it all don't you. One thing is for certain Acupuncture is going to be around long after we are gone. Also you take on the results of study are a little short of any merit. Remember were not talking about hearsay evidence, RIGHT?

Now with regards to hx of our health care system maybe Bob, could explain why physicians use to advocate cigarette smoking for tx of conditions? I would really like to see the Double Blind on that one?

Now with Chiropractors, I understand your positions, in fact I see it clearly. When a competitor enters the same market, one would clearly do one of three things,
A. Advertise they are better than the new guy
B. Create a plan to shut them down or put them out of business (Art of War) great book
C. Realize that they are not going to succeed in eliminating them, so seek to establish Strategic Alliances with them

It seems like Bob is still on the B side.

Now with Naturopathic physicians. They pretty much have the same scope as a family physician. So they are more than likely to represent the greatest threat. So Bob, seeing this realizes the impact on market profits and percentage factors of such. Decides to denounce the competition as inferior to his services.

That Bob is what we call a For Profit Free Market Society.

So what does this type of market bring us today? Well physicians no longer hold the keys for patient care, instead someone like Bob who is angry with the world, sitting at a desk drinking coffees decides that no the patient does not need the care that their PCP is asking for. So we get a big DENIED. Hmmmm
Meanwhile for this person great work, his boss will get a great bonus at the end of the month and might share a little with the guy of gave it to him. While the physician is left without the tools needed to provide the care he knows the patient needs. In the end the patient drives home and either does not improve or improves but not as quickly, as if the physician was allowed to practice medicine the way he knows how.

Then this same physician gets a visit from a pharma rep, so he takes a few minutes to listen to him. The pharma rep goes on to tell the physician that this great new drug Bioxx (I will not mention names but I think you know the one I am speaking of) is the best new tx option on the market and is backed by strong double blind evidence. So the physician starts prescribing it. Then his/her patients get better from pain, but develop cardiac conditions. We all know what happens in the end?

So Bob as you see, their is a lot of kooky stuff out their and it exists in allopathy also.

But Bob seems to be the kind of guy that thinks well this guy is bad so the whole race of the person must be bad or the whole profession must be bad.

Well Bob in the real world your argument hold no merit and must be classified as hearsay, so to speak.

Hey Bob show me all the evidence you have, I would really enjoy TEASING it apart.

Hey leave Chopra alone, this guy is AWESOME

Stupidity matched only by verbosity. You just can't make this shit up.

Wow, Tian about the only "fact" you provided, the root of "quack" is both irrelevant to the conversation and based in partial truth which is pretty much the topic at hand; that is, taking some small piece of science and warping it to suit your conclusion. According to Miriam-Webster, Dictionary.com and Wikipedia, Quack doesn't have anything to do with dental work and in fact the root referred to someone who yelled to sell salves. Go ahead, we'll wait while you look. :)

The rest of what you state is odd ad hominem attacks at Bob and vague unsubstantiated proclamations. The fact that a wrong assumption endures (acupuncture will cure a multitude of ailments) does not give it merit and the fact that science changes its stance as it is better able to test a theory (cigarettes are healthful) is not a condemnation of all modern medicine.

The question you should ask yourself is not, "why do I believe this treatment works?" but instead "What would prove to me that this treatment is ineffective?" For any treatment I concede to, I keep that in mind. And if evidence comes along latter that offers a better and/or safer outcome, I have no vested interest in staying with the old method I gladly choose the improved option. If nothing can convince you that a treatment is ineffective and if you dismiss evidence that other treatments are better, than you cannot call it science and you cannot expect others accept faulty reasoning to believe it either.

Seriously,it was one of the worst woo-for-alls I've seen yet on Larry King's(and that's saying a lot: he's had McCarthy & Co., Somers, etc.). Sceptic Michael(?) Shermer was surrounded. Is wish fulfillment the new guise of popularizing "science"

Tian,

Family practitioners are either MDs or DOs who have completed an additional three years of residency training, passed the United States Medical Licensing Exam -- Steps 1, 2a, 2b, and 3 -- and passed the family practive board exam. Included in the scope of practice is pediatrics, adult medicine, obstetrics -- inlcuding c-sections --, and some have limited training in general surgery. Naturopaths have a much more... flexible route of training. My down stairs neighbor, when I was in med school, was enrolled in a 4 year naturopathic medical school that was very similar in its organization to the allopathic school I was enrolled in. That was in Oregon. Here in Michigan, the naturopaths I have met seem to have gone to a correspondent / night school for training. The end result is a quality of training that is highly variable and questionable. To say a naturopath has the same scope of practice as an FP is laughably ignorant.

Oh by the way, some primatologists would classify our species as ONE of the great apes if it were not for chauvinism favoring H. sapiens as unique.

Tian:

Now with regards to hx of our health care system maybe Bob, could explain why physicians use to advocate cigarette smoking for tx of conditions?

What the fuck are you talking about???

Oh, c'mon McNeely, you know the hx and the tx (you show him something shiny while I get the net).

*waves shiny things*

What I don't understand is, why do people fear death? It is simply a part of life, we all consume food, we all become food for something else, it's how nature works. What's to be scared of? I rather enjoy the thought that, in death, I will nourish new life.

@17 Posted by: Dave | December 24, 2009 12:10 AM "Naturopaths have a much more... flexible route of training. My down stairs neighbor, when I was in med school, was enrolled in a 4 year naturopathic medical school that was very similar in its organization to the allopathic school I was enrolled in."

Wow, sorry- but you really drank the kool aid. go to www.naturowatch.org and read just how absurd naturopathy (at their faux universities) is. And don't miss the article by Arnold Relman (MD) on their "textbook."

Think about it, how can they truly study basic sciences and then believe in homeopathy, acupuncture, iridology, Chinese "medicine" etc. The answer is, they cannot. Dr. Atwood's primary monograph (at naturowatch) cites a prominent ND who advocates treating asthma with a bath to which hydrogen peroxide is added. Apparently the ND doesn't know that peroxide and O2 are different and, anyway, the term for people trying to absorb oxygen from water is "drowning."

Although NDs endorse every form of quackery, many of them focus their attention on undefined "toxins" and their clearance from the colon by enemas, laxatives, fasts etc. That nonsense was abandoned by medicine 80 years ago.

Naturopathy does not compare favorably to medicine in any way. Also note that "allopathy" was a derogative term invented by a quack to describe medicine.

Dude, we don't just come from great apes (all members of Hominidae are great apes), we ARE great apes.

FWIW, a HUGE part of the reason why my contempt for religion and its followers grows every day is the fact that they don't listen to science. I don't care about what emotional succor it brings some people, it's succor borne from falsehood and people need to grow the fuck up.

This goes not only for actual religions, bizarreness that they are, but the quasi-religion that the alternative medicine movement appears to have formed around its own figurehead, the Nebulous Toxin.

There is so much about our world, our universe and ourselves that we don't know despite the vast knowledge and massive scientific discoveries that have taken place.
I can't say 100% whether the soul survives or not, but to dismiss the theory completely is ignorance within itself.

Again, there is so much we don't know.

Barbara, that's the same reason I'm still waiting to find my unicorns. Everyone tells me they don't exist, but really, no one has proved it to me yet.

@Pareidolius said "you know the hx and the tx."

Reminds me of the line in the Terminator Sarah Connor pilot episode: "you know, the robots...from the future..."

@Tian said "that Bob is what we call a For Profit Free Market Society."

There are higher ethical standards than those of commerce / free-market, whereby 'the buyer must beware'. The label "profession" that naturopathy uses is quite a ruse. A profession has to fulfill the social contract 'the client's interests are primary'.

Naturopathy does not live up to that promise, and it can't because its central premise that 'what is science is the same as that which is nonscience' is absurd.

@Dave said "to say a naturopath has the same scope of practice as an FP is laughably ignorant."

Hear, hear.

It's all about the robots. You know, from the future.

-r.c.

@Barbara You said:

I can't say 100% whether the soul survives or not, but to dismiss the theory completely is ignorance within itself.

Actually, a theory that cannot be tested in any way should be dismissed. Any scientifically based hypothesis must be testable and refutable, as well as repeatable by anyone. A soul may survive the body but at this point, no theory has been floated that can be tested. Scientists have no choice but to dismiss it. To do otherwise is "ignorance within itself."

#27 -- there's no reason for science to "dismiss" any theory that has not or as yet cannot be proven. Theories, hypotheses really, that have been proven incorrect can be dismissed. Those that we lack the means to prove or disprove do not fall in the same category.

However, there's little sense in trying to prove or disprove something we do not have the means to test, so shoving them to the far far back burner is definitely appropriate.

@Donna B.
Actually, while I appreciate what you are saying about the limits of human abilities and creativity of human thought to postulate beyond our limits to test, I humbly disagree with your premise that certain theories aren't worth ditching.

If a theory is not testable and offers us no way to advance any existing field of science beyond philosophical pondering then it is useless to science. There are an infinite number of untestable theories on various unobservable phenomenon and they are all equally valid until we can find a way to test one against the next. If an idea only offers people a sense of warm fuzzies and purpose in life, it's spirituality.

Marnie, I suspect we're saying the same thing with different words. I certainly don't advocate science taking up the currently impossible. You are absolutely correct.

@Donna B,
Well, then, dammit, I agree right back :D

@ Donna and Marnie,

While I hate semantics, I think part of the problem is the use of "theory" where you are discussing a "hypothesis" (as one of you observed) or "idea." Karl Popper promulgated the notion that untestable hypotheses are not scientific; but he was a philosopher, not a scientist.

There are two kinds of untestable hypotheses at any given time. One, for example, is the idea that "everyone has an undetectable soul." Since it is by definition untestable, it lies outside the realm of science. The second is one whose testability lies outside the range of our current technology. That constitutes a challenge for the experimenter.

I respectfully disagree. Untestable does not equal "outside the realm of science". The concept of an immaterial soul, while not exactly unfalsifiable, can still be evaluated scientifically. Its existence would require us to toss out a lot of our current knowledge; it is inconsistent with what we know about our universe. It can be put in the category of "very very unlikely to be so".

I said something defined as untestable (in my example I said "undetectable") is outside the realm of science. That is how to decide between faith and science. But I really dislike philosophy and I cannot say you are wrong that an immaterial soul cannot still be evaluated scientifically.

Of course, anything defined as untestable is something that has no effect on our universe. Which is fine. People can believe in those unicorns if they want to.

The problem is anything so defined becomes irrelevant and not worth spending any time, energy or money on, and nobody seems to be content with that. They keep wanting to insist on relevance of some sort, which changes the definition back to testable. You don't both get to claim that something is testable and that it makes even the tiniest change in the world.

[Apologies for length. This was aimed at me and while I appreciate the support from others, I feel a duty to respond directly.]

Ok Bob, can I call you Bob, that is your name right Bob?

Yes, in fact it is.

So you seem to take on the idea that only Bob knows what works and does not work? Hmmm

No. Truth should not depend on the observer. If you looked closely at the scientific process, you'd know that it's designed to overcome personal bias, since all observers have some bias. If independent observers can come to the same conclusion using the same method, it's likely the conclusion is correct and free from bias.

No medical theory or practice makes me any money aside from whatever my retirement account invests in. Since it's the fund managers' decisions, not mine, no, I don't have any financial interest in the outcome. However I do have an ethical interest in the outcome - the greatest happiness, longevity, and wealth comes when we spend our medical dollars wisely on treatments that work.

That said, acupuncture has not been shown to work better than placebo. I would appreciate a list of papers that show otherwise.

-- irrelevant bits on the phrase 'quack' omitted --

Well Bob you really seem to know it all don't you.

No; that's why I subscribe to the scientific method. If I know others have used the same filter to evaluate evidence, I can generally trust their results. I don't need to take results on faith or rely only on my limited anecdotal experience. Further, I don't expect anyone to take my position on faith; there is evidence to support my position. Can you say the same?

One thing is for certain Acupuncture is going to be around long after we are gone.

It took a long time for people to accept the heliocentric solar system, Newton's laws of motion, the germ theory of disease, continental drift, the reality of the city of Troy, and the bacteriological origin of ulcers. Most people with a modicum of education about biology realize that there's no evidence and no theoretical basis for acupuncture, chiropractic, reiki, homeopathy or the bulk of 'alternative' medicine. It takes time and effort for these truths to filter into the general population.

Can you explain this more fully? I don't believe I've seen any reputable physicians or organizations advocate cigarette smoking.

It seems like Bob is still on the B side.

A competitor would provide the same or equivalent service to an established enterprise. Chiropractors do neither. They either provide the same service as a physical therapist (which is not in fact chiropractic) or they provide their bogus subluxation theory manipulations ("I can wiggle your vertebrae to cure your kidney stones") which have no effect on the underlying condition whatsoever, at least not beyond placebo. The ethical issue is that they accept money to claim to cure a condition they do not in fact cure. That is, in a word, fraud.

How is a naturopath in any way comparable to a general practitioner? Spending four years studying herbalism is in no way the equivalent of a four year degree plus medical degree plus residency plus board certification. It's not a matter of profit, it's a matter of experience and education. Again, the services of a naturopath are not a substitute for those of a GP.

That Bob is what we call a For Profit Free Market Society.

We do not have a free market in health care. If anything, we (the US) have a mixed economy, part planned economy and part oligarchy. Tell me the last time you had a real choice in health plans (say) provided by an employer. Likely the economic reality you faced was a choice between their system or nothing.

And regardless, the form our medical economy takes bears little on the effectiveness of chiropractic, acupuncture, naturopathy, etc.

What makes you think I'm angry with the world? And what makes you think I have so little compassion for others? Why do you feel I should be demonized as such a straw man? Have I not treated you and your position with some modicum of respect, avoided calling you an idiot or worse? Have I not simply responded to your position with facts and a skeptical outlook? We might disagree, but we don't need to ascribe to our opponent any malice or tar them with ridicule or insult. Believe me, I can dish it out with the best of them but in this case there's no need. If I don't convince you, at least others can read this exchange, research the facts, follow the argument, and decide for themselves.

-- deletia --

So Bob as you see, their is a lot of kooky stuff out their and it exists in allopathy also.

But Bob seems to be the kind of guy that thinks well this guy is bad so the whole race of the person must be bad or the whole profession must be bad.

Well Bob in the real world your argument hold no merit and must be classified as hearsay, so to speak.

Hey Bob show me all the evidence you have, I would really enjoy TEASING it apart.

You are the one making the claim that chiropractic, acupuncture, etc. work. The burden is on you to show these work better than placebo. Papers listed on PubMed haven't shown any evidence that they work better than placebo so starting with the null hypothesis, they are not effective. Nothing you've said has moved the ball out of your court. Put up or shut up.

Also, I'd suggest that you reevaluate the accuracy of your psychic powers. You have no idea what I think or believe aside from what I write.

Hey leave Chopra alone, this guy is AWESOME

For some definition of AWESOME.

Chopra is awesomely dangerous, awesomely idiotic. When he simply advocates silly superstitions, he's amusing at best, when he advocates changing our view of medicine by applying his superstitions, he's dangerous.

Remarkably, the passion of the arguments above stimulated by the critique of Chopra echo the tension between Descartes' and Spinoza's philosophy from the mid 1600's. For a thorough and thoughtful discussion that can illuminate the philosophical underpinings behind the threads up until #37, look at Dimasio's Descartes' Error and Looking for Spinoza. Spinoza essentially wrote that everything that exists has an explanation...and that we did not have to resort to superstition to find an explanation. Chopra seems to not be familiar with Spinoza.

We are great apes, or great apes are hominids, depending on your angle. Homo is the senior taxon, not Gorilla or Pan. (The tendency to splitting rather than lumping in classifying hominids probably puts as at the family rather than genus level, though: if Lucy and Ardipithecus are in different genera, so are the living great apes.)

It's amazing how many people can start with a reasonable idea, that whether there is life after death should affect how they live here and now, and then jump to such a weird conclusion.

We know this life exists. As far as anyone can prove, this is all there is. That's an argument for doing it right this time, for living well, treating other people right, and trying to make a better world. If you waste the years you have here, nobody is going to stamp your card, or regenerate your hit points, or otherwise send you back to try again.

I got into a discussion with a commenter over on SBM once about the after life, and he tried to end it with the statement, "Well, when we're dead, we'll know for sure.", which showed that he completely missed the point that my position was that when we're dead, we won't exist to be able to know anything.

I always like to say that when we die, we'll either find out what happens or we won't. ;-) The pointless absurdity of the statement amuses me.

Bob sorry for the outburst. When you originally stated that "I am going to have fun Teasing this apart", well I took it the wrong way. Thanks for you professional response back.

My brother is a MD so we tend to argue a lot. I will not get into details with it, but lets just say it can really heat up.

I respect your opinion and thank you for respecting mine.

With that said, I like natural medicine. I like having another option when my brother who thinks he knows it all, cannot fix the problem I am having.

I hope one day that all will be under the same roof. I think it would really be an awesome thing to offer.

I hope more studies are done in the future with regards to acupuncture. My uncle has done some really amazing things for people with it. Including a few MD's that did not think it would help.

Happy holidays and soon to be new year

Death of a scam artist

palmd — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:47:13 +0000

Death of a scam artist

Oral Robers, a man infamous for his televangelism and faith healing, died yesterday. The coverage of his life helps remind me why I'm a skeptic. There are many wonderful skeptical bloggers out there---I'm not one of them. Sure, I aim a skeptical pen at improbable medical claims, but my posts aren't dripping with skepticism in the same way some of my favorite blogs are. But from time to time, it's good to remember why skepticism is a very good way to approach the world.

Oral Roberts was a scam artist. He built an evangelical empire on the wallets of his victims. He famously told his marks that God would strike him dead if they didn't send him eight million dollars. The man was no better than a drunken carny keeping teddy bears from toddlers, but he had significantly greater reach.

Folks like Roberts are brilliant. For most psychics and faith healers, other human beings are simply sheep to be fleeced. To fleece a sheep, you have to know sheep, and these folks know their sheep. They understand human nature very well and are are experts at exploiting this knowledge. They know that human beings are seekers of patterns and that a mark "probably thinks this song is about you". These hucksters rely not so much on their own talent at "reading" people but on our own inherent cognitive biases. They know that we are likely to think well of ourselves, to interpret vague statements specifically, and to remember "accurate" statements over inaccurate ones. An they exploit our basic hopes and fears.

There will always be predation in human societies; this we can't avoid. But when so-called mainstream elements of society cozy up to them, we legitimize the crooks and become their accomplices.

Psychics faith healers are real---real thieves who steal real money. There is always---always---a better explanation for their results than the supernatural. Unfortunately, the harm is quite real.

palmd Wed, 12/16/2009 - 07:47

Tags

Absurd religious wingnutery

Just a bit more on Merry Xmas

palmd — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:21:18 +0000

Just a bit more on Merry Xmas

I guess I hadn't realized how attached people are to their holiday greetings. There are a number of comments that deserve some examination here, at least if you have any interest in living comfortably in a multi-cultural society. Since it's my blog, I get to yank the comments out of context and focus on some misconceptions.

"Christmas has become as much a cultural holiday as a religious one."
That is an opinion that may be shared by many majoritarians. But for many Jews for example, there will never be anything secular about Christmas. Sure, there are Jews who get Christmas trees and give presents as a secular winter celebration, but that's not the norm. I am not delivering an indictment of Christmas, holiday wishes, or Jews who do Christmas but simply letting you know that not everyone is the same as you.
"I think I'm beginning to get it. If the majority of people celebrate a cultural thing, it's bad because it's not sensitive to those who don't celebrate it."
No, that would be stupid, and I suspect that this is a deliberate, defensive posture taken by many majoritarians when people point out that their assumption of a normative status actually has an effect on other people. People who are part of a minority get that they are a minority. We get that most people do things differently and always will. Many of us hope, however, that the majority will try to be sensitive to the fact that not everyone is the same. I strongly suspect that most African Americans don't expect white people to turn black, but would like the majority to recognize that being black comes with a different set of societal assumptions and experiences than being white, and that being white often confers a set of privileges not immediately available to others.
"I never understood why it would be bizarre or uncomfortable to wish someone a happy [your holiday but not theirs]. If you get a different happy [their holiday but not yours] back, it means you will have been wished an EXTRA happy day..."
Yes, that's pretty much the point. If you grow up as part of the majority culture, you are unlikely to intuitively "get it", and there's nothing wrong with that. It's considered a polite part of living in a civilized society to try to "get it". I hope and suspect that most "Merry Xmas's" are benign and meant to convey a kind word. I also know that motives are not always benign.

I am trying to help you of the majority understand what we of the minority often understand: that when you assume that Christmas is some sort of normative default, you are implying, whether you mean to or not, that the rest of us are "other" or "abnormal".

I'm cool with being other. I'm part of a minority and I have no intention of changing that to increase my comfort level among majoritarians. Neither do I expect the majority to stop celebrating Christmas or stop saying "Merry Christmas". But, as a member of a diverse society, I would respectfully suggest that people try to be aware.

palmd Fri, 12/11/2009 - 07:21

Tags

Absurd religious wingnutery

As an atheist, I completely get where you're coming from. As much as I know about the history of Christmas and its' pagan precursors doesn't change the fact that in it's current context it's a religious holiday. While the kids are young we focus on the Santa Claus side of things because I wasn't willing to get divorced over this issue. My fervent hope is that once they are old enough to understand that we will really scale back or even completely do without the Christmas thing and focus on the birthdays of two of my three daughters, both of which are within days of Christmas, and the coming New Year.

I don't begrudge the majority the Merry Christmas greetings they proffer, any more than I get worked up about the people who say 'have a blessed day' during the rest of the year. But I don't generally say Merry Christmas in return either.

Like Matt (I am also an atheist) I don't take affront at these merry xmas greetings - I think in almost all cases it's pretty much the same as "have a nice day." Still, I can't help thinking of this:

http://www.savagechickens.com/2009/12/seasons-greetings.html

I remain baffled by the objections to the "Christmas is mostly a cultural holiday rather than a religious one" statement. I totally buy your objections to using that as a justification for saying "Merry Christmas" to one and all -- your point about how the assumption of normative default creates otherness still stands, regardless of whether the holiday is religious or secular.

But the obstinate insistence that Christmas will "always be a religious holiday" just feels, I dunno... almost fundie-esque. I think you are giving the holiday with more reverence than it deserves, almost. And yes, as you say, for some Jews it will "always be a religious holiday," just like for some fundamentalist Christians it will "always be a religious holiday." It is hard for me to criticize the latter without criticizing the former, you know?

(And with this whole, "You can't 'get it' unless you are the 'other'" line, you are starting to sound like Isis :p )

I am from the UK and an atheist from a non-religious household - so Christmas was never an overtly Christian holiday to me. So I just take it for granted that "Merry Christmas" is a "cultural / commercial" holiday greeting. In the UK we are a less overtly Christian culture, despite having a state religion, so perhaps we feel this less keenly. I also think that we say things like "Merry Christmas" / "Happy Holidays" / "have a great weekend" far less frequently than in the US.
I do think that since I moved to the US I feel more excluded from Christmas, since it is more often couched in religious terms here, and there are more (overtly) religious people. So I am sympathetic to the normal/abnormal argument - but aren't these greetings just convenient platitudes anyway. I don't think that someone saying Merry Christmas to me in a store is attempting to single me out or convert me, any more than they are when they tell me to "have a nice weekend" on a Sunday. Even if I choose to ignore the weekend, or celebrate it as Fri/Sat, Sat/Sun is still the weekend for most folks. Is it not still Christmas even if you don't celebrate it? Just as Eid is still Eid on the given day?

It's an interesting assumption that the "other" has to be offended in order for something to have gone wrong in what is supposed to be a pleasant social transaction--or that the person being exclusionary has to have done it deliberately. Am I offended by someone's ignorance? Is that person trying to be ignorant? Not usually, but that doesn't keep it from being ignorance. Same with insensitivity.

Nor does it have to be a capital crime for there to be room for improvement.

I think this raises the issue of the degree to which religion and culture are closely linked. American majority culture is kind of vaguely and nominally Christian in our holidays and rituals. Even acknowledging that Christians stole most of that trappings for others. Many people have rejected the theology, but have kept some of the rituals. That's the perk of majority culture. There is nothing wrong with that. Just acknowledge that others of nonmajority culture aren't always going to see the way many have sliced religion and culture apart.

I'm an atheist and it's okay for people who KNOW ME to say "Merry Christmas" because they know I celebrate it. (I don't consider it a religious holiday.)

When someone who doesn't know me (store clerks, other attendees at social gatherings) say "Merry Christmas" it annoys me because for all they know I might celebrate Hannuka."

Those who INSIST on saying only "Merry Christmas" are not giving warm greetings, they are pushign their religion on other people. Same with that "have a blessed day" stuff.

As to taking the "Christ" out of "Christmas", if christians gave gifts only to the poor I'd say they're are serious about making it a religious holiday. If they give presents to friends and family who don't need them then they have taken Christ out of it - even if they do have a little nativity scene in their house and go to church on christmas eve or day.

I think the polite thing is to say "Happy Holidays" if you don't know someone well enough to know what they celebrate.

One of the Little Anthropologists is PalKid's age. At his school, they explore the planetary science of winter solstice and celebrate the return of the light. They talk about the "Winter Holidays," and learn about a wide array of cultures and rituals. The emphasis is on inclusion. Our family greets others with "Happy Holidays!" Human variation is itself a cause for celebration.

The comments on the previous Pal holiday thread reminded me of this: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/

I also know that motives are not always benign.

Ironically, this is probably best demonstrated by the "War on Christmas" hysteria itself. I don't celebrate Christmas, but I'm not offended by the sight of Christmas trees (hardly a religious symbol anyway!), by calling them Christmas trees, by being told "Merry Christmas", &c, &c. I am offended by persecution-complex faux-outrage about "Happy Holidays". The fact that these people cannot even tolerate other people's desire to be inclusive is what makes the malignity of their motives so clear.

Ugh, sorry about all that, the more I try to be concise the more incomprehensible I become. Le sigh.

I suppose this is might just be me, and might come out of both being raised within the majority and the rebellion of leaving such, but my (atheist) friends and I for a long time wished each other "happy stuffness" beginning sometime around Thanksgiving and running through New Years. It was a silly and materialistic way of looking at the various holidays of winter, but "happy holidays" feels so generic that somehow I'd rather say something completely off the wall or not say anything about the season at all.

Because Christmas? Still religious. That's not the marketing, sure, but that's the driving force, at least here in the U.S.

And what the F is up with lighting all these Fing candles tell me please?!

The thing about the religious vs. cultural argument is that it doesn't actually make much difference. Even if for a lot of people it is a purely secular celebration, the culture it came out of is specifically Christian. It's very easy, when you're in the majority, to assume that everyone does the same as you, without really thinking about why you do these things.
For me, yes, Christmas is secular. It always has been, because I was raised as an atheist. However, I was also raised in a Christian culture, and that has fed into the way I celebrate Christmas. Even more specifically, it arises out of Protestant Christianity, and out of specific national traditions. The celebrations are very different in Russia, or South America, or even just 200 miles away in France. It would be silly to assume that, just because Christmas has no religious meaning to me, that it must be inclusive to everyone. Secular is not the same as universal, and it pays to examine one's assumptions periodically.

Happy Sunreturn to all.

(I just had an Ursula Le Guin Earthsea cycle reading orgy)

To PalKid -- you are fortunate in your father. AND a joyous Channukah festival to you.

I'm Pagan and I get what you are saying. What is happening right now is not a war on Christmas. It's a war on inequality, and that is a good thing.

I just realised something as I was saying goodbye to my friends yesterday (probably because i've been thinking about this post quite a bit). I don't ever *say* Merry Christmas unless someonee says it to me first, my default statement is "Have a great holiday".

Again probably due to being brought up in an environment where most people *didn't* have christmas. And it wasn't a particularly good idea (especially in Saudi Arabia) to go around wishing them a happy one.

In the same way my friends never used to wish me a happy Eid (although I would say it to them), they knew I didn't celebrate it, and understood that it wasn't an appropriate greeting.

Look, I don't know about the US, but in these parts (Scotland), kids AT NURSERY, i.e. age 0--5, learn about different festivals and customs such as Ramadan, Diwali, Chanukkah, as part of their education. best way to encourage cultural sensitivity, if you ask me.

Being German, my kids also learn about the *German* Santa Claus, who comes on December 6 and brings presents. Baby Jesus then drops off another load on December 24. Sinterklaas is a Dutch custom as well. But don't tell PalKid, she'll just feel shafted ;)

I tend to feel a bit alienated this time of year: my immediate family was/is basically agnostic/atheist, although my ancestors were(several different denominations/types of)Christians.Because I look like the queen of the WASPs(actually,I'm more mixed than that),most people assume I'm a Christian and say,"Merry Christmas".It doesn't *really* bother me because I suppose that they mean well.My SO is vaguely Christian,doesn't attend church or read bibles, but likes the decorations,the gifts, and the(aaarrrrggggghhh)music.(I confess I *do* like the lights).I look at the "holidays" as a cold, dark time of year when many folks want an excuse for a party,a get-together, or to go foraging(I mean, shopping).Or as my late father,master of social negotiation,would say,"Let them 'do their thing' and have fun;it also creates jobs".I do however,go out of my way to wish the appropriate holidays' greetings to people who celebrate other traditions.

And.... Happy Chanukah to the Pal family!

I'm Baha'i. It's not worth being offended
over "Merry Christmas". IMO, that holiday
has devolved into the sort of secular
year-end gift-giving ritual similar to
the Japanese "o-seibo" tradition. I use
a default greeting like Lab Rat, FWIW.

I wish you and your family Happy Hanukkah!

Perceval:

Look, I don't know about the US, but in these parts (Scotland), kids AT NURSERY, i.e. age 0--5, learn about different festivals and customs such as Ramadan, Diwali, Chanukkah, as part of their education. best way to encourage cultural sensitivity, if you ask me.

Here the Children's Museum has a Festival of Light that showcases some of the winter holidays across the globe (well, at least the Northern Hemisphere portion). They change it each year: http://thechildrensmuseum.org/festivals-of-light

I have a very simple system. I wish everyone a "Happy Hanukkah", unless they're Jewish, in which case it's "Happy Festival of Saturn".

If I don't know their religious affiliation, it's "Happy Pagan Holiday of Your Choice".

So, Happy Kwanzaa.

Someone on my blog suggested that non-Christians view Christmas as a Cargo Cult, which I thought was hilarious. It's very unfortunate that some lunatics use the holiday as an opportunity to bludgeon people who are not exactly like them.

Slightly OT anecdote, but I did field work in the Negev desert and stayed at Kibbutz Retamim during that time. I was definitely Other; however, most Israelis graciously extended the benefit of the doubt and were very friendly. No one tried to convert me (secular) to Judaism.

It was a cushy developed-world way to experience a slightly different culture. It was surprising how many Americans (all of whom were the products of some variation of Christian homes) were deeply and personally offended by denial of electricity on Saturdays and by the requirement to cover your head at some religious sites. These seemed to be to me small (mildly annoying) gestures of respect for the host culture.

I have a friend who does field work in Kenya, and he reports that some Christian missionaries are particularly offensive b/c they don't even bother to learn the language, take meals with locals, and so on. They actively cultivate status as Other in which their particular Other = better, and it rightly angers the dominant population.

My mom comes from a Quaker/agnostic background (who now is more into Solstice/Wiccan/agnostic). My dad came from ancestral worship/natural animism/barely agnostic to probably atheist background. My husband's mother is a Jehovah's Witness and his sister-in-law is Catholic. I've gone to Anglican, Episcopalian, and nominally Quaker schools. My best friend has a PhD in early Christian history/identity (which makes for a great resource when dealing with people who try to tell me that the Bible is the Word of God-yeah... I don't think so). Growing up, Christmas trees were pretty and Christmas was a time for some phat lewt. Nowadays Christmas trees are still pretty (my mom's partner insists on real candles on the Solstice tree) and if there's some lewt, cool. If not, it's a great excuse for hanging out with family eating good food. I find religion in general an unmitigated pain in my ass, particularly any one who feels the need to save me (no, you don't and get the hell away from me now please immediately, and really, why does that seem to be people of Christian faiths who feel the need to do this?). I do think this time of year is pretty commercialized and the whole War on Christmas is yet another diversionary tactic so people don't look at the real problems in the US like health care disparity and the increasing gap between the rich and the poor.

That said, I like Christmas music/carols. I really like O Holy Night, What Child is This?, Handel's Halleluja Chorus, Joy to the World, and the Carol of the Bells. I also like Hannukah O Hannukah. To me it's music. If someone wishes me Merry Christmas/Happy Hannukah, I give them "You too" or "Happy Holidays". If my patients want to discuss God, fine, but if they try to convert me, then we're just going to have to disagree.

So Happy Holidays, stay safe, and don't let the turkeys get you down.

AnthroUndergrnd: "It's very unfortunate that some lunatics use the holiday as an opportunity to bludgeon people who are not exactly like them."

"Bludgeon" is a perfect word to describe what you're saying. I've used the word "spat" to describe the manner in which "Merry Christmas" is shot back at me when I've casually wished someone "Happy Holidays." How dare I presume to be non-presumptuous.

btw, either I cross paths with a lot of "lunatics" or the bludgeoning sentiment is somewhat common.

As an nonbeliever, I can tell you I am in a smaller, and in America more despised, minority than just about anyone when it comes to the Christmas Season. For what it's worth, I enjoy celebrating in a traditional style, with lights and a tree and so on, subtely devoid of any overt religious content. I see the holiday, like all holidays, as a recognition of the importance of family, the passage of time, the transience and fragile beauty of human life, and many things that people celebrated at this time of year before Christmas came to be and that they will celebrate at the change of seasons long after Christmas has been forgotten. A broader historical and cultural perspective can take a lot of the sectarian sting out of such observances, which really predate any particular religious or cultual trappings.

I have a bunch of persecution-complexes where I work, and one of them is my boss, so I try to avoid the whole thing completely. The thing is, we have a Christmas tree in our lobby and lots of Christmas decorations and such, but I have never, ever heard someone get offended by those things. I cringe when I hear the word "Christmas" because all the persecution-complexes are the ones who get offended, because someone, somewhere might be disapproving of them for saying it. When one says "Merry Christmas" to another, they have to have an obligatory discussion about how it's so great they actually said that because some invisible force is trying to force them to say "Happy Holidays" or whatever. They're so defensive for no absolutely no reason.

I'm agnostic and celebrate Christmas, but I'm really annoyed to constantly hear them bitching about it. I try to inject tidbits of logic whenever I can, because they're otherwise reasonable people and they might listen if I don't make them feel defensive. For example, one guy described a Christmas card that he got that he absolutely loved. It had a star on the front and said "Merry Christmas" or whatever, and then on the inside the star was actually part of a crown of thorns, and made the point that that's "the reason for the season". So I just said, "that sounds like a nice Easter card", and everyone was baffled enough by it to end the conversation and I could get some work done.

Next time I hear someone complaining about "happy holidays", I'll have to think of a clever way to point out that even Christians celebrate two holidays within a week of each other. I'm really tempted to start saying "Merry Christmas but Crappy New Year", but I'm afraid that most people just wouldn't get it.

I celebrate meta-Christmas. I enjoy walking in the cold of the evening and people-watching as the city lights turn on. I'm a real sucker for coloured lights at night.

Other than that? Meh. I travel to visit family at this time of year because this is the season when I'm most likely to see the handful of high-school friends I still keep in touch with. It's a matter of convenience, nothing more. (It'd be even more convenient if we got together in late January or February, say for the Feast of the Lupercal: Boston weather then is worse than in December, it seems.) I like to give close friends gifts I've personally chosen, but I can do that on birthdays. My total intensity of "Christmas spirit" rounds down to zero.

I tend to wish people a happy new year; anyone who objects to that in response to "merry Christmas" is looking for a fight, and I may or may not be in a mood to oblige them.

Also, the next person who says they want to put the Christ back into Christmas is going to get a cheerful "Oh, good, I'm not the only person who doesn't worship Mammon" and possibly a rant about overblown consumerism, debt, and people who think the value of a present or gift card is the right way to measure love.

@SkeptVet; @ catgirl: You sound similar to me, however, I have the luxury of living a few miles west of NYC- not so many conservatives/ evangelicals here in our neck of the (non) woods. But if you drive an hour or so west or south to the hinterlands, it's surprisingly traditionalist and horrendously apparent if you look at voting pattern maps.

It is true that many of the trappings of Christmas have little to do with the actual religion. But that doesn't change the fact that they are trappings of Christmas. It doesn't matter where Aunt Bess got that coat; it's still Aunt Bess wearing it.

I say "Merry Christmas" a lot; it's kind of reflexive, and indeed, I generally only mean it like "have a nice day". I do try and use "Happy Holidays" when I'm not sure of the other person's religious affiliations. "Happy Holidays" is great; it applies in any case, since at the very least, everybody's aware of New Years. I've never understood why some fundies get upset about "Happy Holidays".

As an amusing addendum, there *is* a form of Christmas which is utterly secular and has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity. That would be Christmas as it is celebrated in Japan. It's kind of a paradox, in that Christmas is heavily celebrated, but Christians are a very small minority there.

"Happy Holidays" is great; it applies in any case, since at the very least, everybody's aware of New Years. I've never understood why some fundies get upset about "Happy Holidays".

Perceived threats to group identity trump logic in the authoritarian mind.

Yeah; I think it's a form of territorialism. The "war on Christmas" meme is an aspect of that. It's not that these traditions are objective all that significant from a theological perspective; it's that they're THEIR traditions, and they're gonna fight for 'em, dammit. It all strikes me as . . . well, pretty contrary to the spirit of Christmas, frankly, which I always thought was supposed to be about giving and charity and embracing one's fellow humans. Unfortunately, for some, it's about ME and MINE, not about you and yours, and I find that sad.

Re: The greatness of "Happy Holidays"... my mom once mentioned in an e-mail how annoyed she was that she couldn't find a Christmas card that actually said Christmas, that they all said "Happy Holidays".

My general response: First of all, bullshit. It is trivial to find cards that say "Merry Christmas", and the only reason someone would claim otherwise is if they had a persecution complex.

Secondly, I pointed out to her that since my wife comes from a Jewish family, she and I actually celebrate both Christmas and Chanukah (despite being atheists), so "Happy Holidays" is actually more accurate in our case than either "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Chanukah." I also expressed surprise that she would be so insensitive to this.

She didn't reply. :)

Thanks for reminding us that we aren't the only ones in the universe! As an agnostic who was raised Christian, I celebrate Christmas every year with my family, and I'll admit that rarely has it even crossed my mind that there are people out there who don't celebrate Christmas. I live in the midweat and sometimes it feels like the bible belt. The place where I work has a holiday party each year that is very Christmas-like, even though they call it an "employee recognition" party. There is a Christmas tree and work and I doubt that it ever occured to anyone to do anything different. Don't blame us - we mean no harm. It's just that if the only color you've seen is red, it doesn't even occur to you that blue might exist.

I work with a guy from Albania who is, I think, a non-practicing muslim. In my ignorance, I often ask him what he is doing to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever, not because I expect that he is celebrating like us but because I'm curious to get his take on things. Never once has he said that his family hates turkey or doesn't have Christian beliefs, but if he did say that, it would be ok with me. I'm just trying to make interesting conversation.

I may be clueless, but I am open minded! And I do like to celebrate the solstices by attending drumming circles or enjoying nature in a peaceful way.

I just think everyone needs more Yule in their life. It's a holiday that goes from beginning/mid of December...ish, to about New Year's. And then some. Depends on how long the leftovers last and how much alcohol you have and how dark and miserable the weather is, I guess :P

But yeah. A good Yule to you all, and yours. 'specially you "reason for the season" ignoramuses. Read your histories! Reason for the season: Well, it's miserable and cold and dark out. Let's have a party. Best argument for a holiday, EVER. Bring out the tasty foodses!

I love living in Norway. It's always so easy to beat down the people who say "Jul is all about Jesus". Uh, what about no? :P I tell 'em to sod off and take their Kristmesse (Christ-mass) to where it's welcome and let the rest of us have "en god Jul" (a good Yule). Most people around here aren't religious anyway so we don't get many weirdos like that, though :)

If I'd lived in an English-speaking country I'd probably go with a neutral greeting like happy holidays or maybe happy solstice or something cos "Christmas" is so very Christian and I'm not, but the solstice bit is the heathen, sun-addicted (like we all are) Norwegian in me :P

I generally return greetings as they're given (like, if someone wishes me a good Sabbath (yes, this happens), I will say, "thank you, and you too" or something like that), and if I know people of some kind of religion and I know they have a holiday, I'll greet them along those lines. I tell my Muslim friends good Eid, for example. Important holiday for them and they're glad that I remember, and care :)

Either way, a good Yule to you and yours, and a happy new year!

Good point Caro! Who's to complain about time off work and "holiday" cookies? Takk!

I can't wait for one of these "war on Xmas" lawsuits to reach the supreme court. Scalia has already declared the cross a universal (non-religious) symbol for the memorial of the dead, lets see if the creche becomes the universal winter holiday symbol.

Reason for the season: Well, it's miserable and cold and dark out. Let's have a party. Best argument for a holiday, EVER. Bring out the tasty foodses!

Being from Rochester, NY, I whole-heartedly agree. Of course, if you grow up as part of the majority climate, you are unlikely to intuitively "get it", and there's nothing wrong with that.

I work with a guy from Albania who is, I think, a non-practicing muslim. In my ignorance, I often ask him what he is doing to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever, not because I expect that he is celebrating like us but because I'm curious to get his take on things.

Of course, Thanksgiving really is a secular holiday, right up there with Memorial Day. It has some vaguely spiritual overtones, but it's not explicitly Christian. Many American Muslims do observe it, though in the same manner as any other secular holiday.

Caro: a god jul to you as well! Though I'm an American, I come from a Scandinavian background, and there are lots like me in this part of the country (Minnesota), which had a major wave of Scandinavians and Germans in the late 19th Century. I attended St Olaf College, for instance, which has an annual feast consisting of meatballs, ham, lefse, rommegrot, lingonberries, glorified rice, and even the dreaded lutefisk. Me, I'd rather have pickled herring than lutefisk. Scandinavian sushi! So a "god jul" to you too, and don't forget to leave some porridge out for the julenisse. ;-) Tusen takk!

Mu: Apart from horror at the ludicrous expense, I'd like to see such a lawsuit go through, so it could be shot down with extreme prejudice.

Of course, Thanksgiving really is a secular holiday, right up there with Memorial Day. It has some vaguely spiritual overtones, but it's not explicitly Christian.

Ah, but you still need to be careful, because of those damn Canucks. At least two of the Canadians I know (which, unless I'm forgetting any, is all of them) have responded to "Happy Thanksgiving" with "Uh, you're about two months too late." ;D

Calli Arcale:

and even the dreaded lutefisk. Me, I'd rather have pickled herring than lutefisk. Scandinavian sushi!

I actually like lutefisk! Oh, and the pickled herring I had at the local reform synagogue's KlezFest (my daughter and I also enjoyed watching her friend perform in the KlezKidz band).

Now I have to see if my very late Yearly Letter printed. With the stuff I have to do over the next week, all I can say is Bah! Humbug!

I have done some thinking and broken down all winter holidays into the essential elements that appealed to me and all the children I've ever associated with. After completing this analysis, I have come up with my new holiday greeting.

Happy Shiny Lights And Presents, everybody!!!! :) :) :) Or, have a SLAP-happy holiday!

Ugh, lutefisk! NO THANKYOU :O I'll go with the yule sausage, meatballsy thingies that are way too greasy but it goes down with akvavit anyway, potatoes (never underestimate well-cooked potatoes with a bit of parsley and butter), and root mash (swede/rutabaga, celeriac, parsley root, and carrot, mashed with butter and cream, nom nom nom) and cookies and mum's rice pudding with pears cooked in mulled wine and so on >_> I won't eat pinnekjÃ¸tt, though (steamed smoked lamb/mutton ribs), nor those greasy pork ribs. Ew!

That's one downside about Yule in Norway. Half the food's disgusting :P Thankfully the other half is rather awesome :D

:p ... Many long years ago I was in a conversation about various foods with a bunch of Swedes. One mentioned that there was something worse than lutefisk, something that sounded like "rottenfisk." Then one of them piped up say "But I like it!". There is always one.

@Sandra Wooten: "Those who INSIST on saying only "Merry Christmas" are not giving warm greetings, they are pushign their religion on other people. Same with that "have a blessed day" stuff. "

Yeah...those people drive me nuts, too. I had to move 1200 miles away from that weird subculture (there is far less of it in New England than in the southeast).

But if I get the vibe that the "blessing" or "Merry Christmas" -wisher is actually making a religious point, I ususally reply to "have a blessed day" or "Merry Christmas" with, "Thanks, but I have other plans."

I'm not usually re-blessed.

Thank you for desecrating my grave

palmd — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:12:55 +0000

Thank you for desecrating my grave

I try not to get involved over at PZ's place, but his post today just sucked me right in. To catch you up, in a case before the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia argued that a cross can actually be a secular symbol used to honor the dead.

"I assume it [the cross] is erected in honor of all of the war dead. The cross is the most common symbol of ... of ... of the resting place of the dead."

Um, Tony? My cemetery doesn't have a single cross. In fact, none of my relatives is buried at a cemetery with crosses in it. What's up with that?

I must be some sort of freak. If these cross things are so common, how come none of my peeps have them on their graves? I shouldn't feel bad. According to Scalia, the cross is for Yids, to:

"I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead the cross honors are the Christian war dead," thunders Scalia. "I think that's an outrageous conclusion!"

See, the symbol of the cross, whose only common use is to symbolize the death and rebirth of Jesus Christ in Christian mythology, is secular, and Jew-boys like me should feel honored that generous Christians might adorn my grave with one. How can I turn down a gift like that?

It's thinking like that that incites religious hatred. In fact, a part of me was thinking, "Gee, I'd really like to take a nice, big mogen David and shove it up Tony's ass." But that's horrible. Let's step back from my nastier urges for a moment.

I have no doubt that many people (but not Scalia) "innocently" see the cross as common enough to be a secular grave marker. But only someone deeply steeped in Christian culture could make such a terrible mistake.

First, just because crosses are benign to you does not mean they are to all. That is very narrow thinking.

Second, there may be reasons other than simple religious disagreements that set off people like me. I'm not a religious person, but the thought of a cross some day adorning my grave, or someone baptizing me post-mortem, horrifies me. I perceive this as an existential threat. It is not a leap for me to think that acts like these against the dead might lead to viler acts against the living. While a nice, peaceful Christian dude might see this as ridiculous, I submit that it is not. Once you lift the blinder of your own preconceptions, you may see that Christianity (or maleness, whiteness, or whatever) is not "regular" and everything else "other".

So do yourself a thought experiment. Think---really think---about what it might be like to be "other". I don't mean what it's like to sit when you pee, or to go to a synagogue on Friday night. I mean what it's like to ride the bus, to sit in a meeting and listen to the people around you, to think about where you can bury your uncle and not have his grave desecrated. Put some effort into it.

palmd Thu, 10/08/2009 - 14:12

Tags

Absurd religious wingnutery

I spent the first half of my life trying to get away from the cross...I'll be damned if I'm stuck with it after I die too.

I seem to recall the Reverend Lovejoy on The Simpsons commenting on religious freedom by saying "We all get to worship Jesus in our own way." Justice Scalia seems to be as enlightened as a cartoon character. (Just as I had long suspected.)

I'd rather be dumped on the body farm and eaten by maggots than have a cross on my grave. (spits three times) The cross? A secular symbol?? This is so deeply offensive and troubling. Just disgusting. I have this gut reaction to crosses -- fear. And I am neither religious nor paranoid.

Well, Jesus died on a cross, and he was Jewish. So what complaint could you possibly have? It's an all-purpose symbol. Like the Christmas tree! Or saying "under God" when you pledge allegiance. Or swearing on a Bible. It doesn't mean anything *religious*.
I'm sure Justice Scalia wouldn't consider burning a cross or even immersing it in piss to be sacrilege, because a cross just symbolizes the resting place of the dead - it's secular.

This is an honest question... I am NOT trying to piss anyone off.

As I understand it, the cross in question has existed for 60-70 years. So far, no one has indicated that anyone objected to it before now.

Presumably there was some public support for it when it was built.

So - why should we erase our cultural heritage? Does every monument ever built still speak to us the way it did when it was built? Isn't it a part of our history that not all veterans were honoured equally on Remembrance Day? Isn't it also true that aboriginal and black soldiers were missing from the military motifs of nearly every war? Should we now take those images and photoshop them to something more politically correct?

It seems to me that sanatizing history is really, really dangerous. Architecture, monuments, place names, local heroes, literature should reflect the time they were created. They give us the opportunity to reflect on how we would do thing differently now. They point out how we have the power to make better choices in the here and now.

I know we all hate the "slippery slope" argument, but apparently some fools are trying to whitewash the memory of Joseph Stalin. It's bad enough that history always is written by the victors. Let's not erase the tangible signs of the world as it really was.

The cross in question hasn't been there 74 years. If it was still the original wooden cross that was erected then I would say you have a point. However it has been replaced a number of times and the whole reason this became an issue is because the park service refused to allow a Buddhist shrine on the same land. That clearly set it up as one religion being given preference. If they had been neutral on the subject and allowed the shrine this would never have gone to the courts in the first place.

Here's a simple solution for anyone with a shred of common sense: take it down and erect a simple attractive non-religion monument with an inscription that say: In honor of all US war dead

First, R E G, pull your head out of your nether regions and note the fact that Dr. Pal wasn't writing about the actual case. He objected quite clearly and specifically to Justice Scalia's twisted and insulting legal rationalization in this case. (I say rationalization, not reasoning, because it is clearly a shoddy imitation of reasoning intended to support a position that Scalia reached before considering and quite aside from any logical or evidential arguments in its favor - or he wouldn't have said anything so offensively stupid as calling the cross a secular symbol.)

Second, consider the facts of the actual case. Contra Noadi, I'm not sure it would matter much if it were the original wooden cross. In a time ("60-70 years" ago) when people regularly, casually, and thoughtlessly (although sometimes with malice aforethought) would dismiss and oppress every cultural, ethnic and religious minority that came within their purview, some people erected a public monument to those fallen in war. Since a vast majority of the Americans who died in WWI were probably Christian, it's not unreasonable that they chose to erect a cross in their honor. But you imply that the monument was supported or approved by some ill-defined majority of people ("Presumably there was some public support for it..."), when in fact it was erected by the local VFW Post:

In the area known as Sunrise Rock, the cross was erected in 1934 by a Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) as a memorial to veterans who died in World War I. Wooden signs which described the site as a memorial are no longer present, but the original cross has since been privately replaced several times. (from here)

So what bearing does your overheated rhetoric about "cultural heritage" and "sanitized history" and "history being written by the victors" have on the actual substance of this case? None at all. The monument in question is not a great work of art or otherwise an aesthetic/cultural addition to the public area in which it is placed, nor does it in any way signify its intended memorial purpose: It's just a big ol' cross. (And it's not even the original big ol' cross! Although if it was, the rest of my points would still undermine its cultural significance.) As an object, its only connection to its original purpose lies in the history of its original dedication and erection - a history in no way indicated or symbolized by the actual object standing there today. Very few of the people who see the thing would or could possibly know that it is a war memorial (unless they've read about this legal case), so it is a ridiculous stretch to refer to this particular object as a substantial, meaningful piece of "cultural heritage." It's just a big, context-free cross of no apparent significance besides the significance of any cross - which, Scalia's mental gymnastics aside, is a quite thoroughly religious significance.

Since you appear to be clueless, I'll spell out the opposition to this cross a bit: Non-Christians already feel like second-class citizens in this country most of the damned time, what with the excesses of public piety engaged in by elected officials and pundits and ordinary citizens - which, as acts of fellow citizens exercising free speech, we must endure with good grace. So the last thing we want to see is official state endorsement of religion on top of all that. Fortunately, we are not obligated to endure official state endorsements of religion with good grace, but rather the opposite: The state is obligated not to do that sort of thing by the Constitution. And yes, a large religious symbol without any context or evident historical meaning prominently displayed on federal land does in fact serve as a state endorsement and promotion of religion - not just religion in general, but a specific religion, Christianity. The fact that this is the religion embraced by a majority of citizens only highlights the seriousness of the problem, since the purpose of defined legal rights (such as those established in the First Amendment) is precisely to limit and prevent the majority from imposing its will on minorities.

I'll be generous and grant that your aim was not to piss people off - but you definitely did NOT ask an honest question: An honest question would have actually pertained to the matter at hand, and you missed on two counts. Firstly, the matter at hand was not the actual legal case at all, but Scalia's absurd and insulting legal excuse-making in the case. Secondly, even if the matter at hand had been the actual case before the Supreme Court, none of the b.s. about cultural heritage and whitewashed history and such has anything at all to do with Buono v. Salazar, about which you obviously didn't make the much effort to inform yourself. I can only infer that when you said "As I understand it..." to preface your remarks on this issue, what you actually meant was "As the right-wing media that shapes my opinions told me to understand this issue..."

Reading the transcript of Scalia's comment, it seemed to me that he truly could not understand his own bias in this case. To him, a cross is a universal symbol, much in the same way white, landowning men were the prototype for "citizen" to the founding fathers. It is humbling to realize that sometimes one can not see what is plainly in front of his or her face. But we do expect more from a judge on the Supreme Court!

I agree with your post.

My understanding is that his friends call him "Nino," not "Tony."

Precisely why no one here refers to Scalia as "Nino"

I am aware of that. : )

In my family when someone says or does something that is so obviously out of step with reality and common sense we say "There's a diagnosis there".

So we could bring this back around to the medical theme of the blog and ask for differential diagnoses on Justice Scalia's mental disorder.

As committed agnostic, I've decided I want a question mark on my grave.

Who could possibly look at a cross and interpret it as a secular symbol? It is solely a religious symbol without secular connotation. Scalia is a moron.

OK, I didn't mean to imply you were a friend of his. But what is the purpose of calling him "Tony"? I must be missing something.

Marilyn, should we be respectful to him while he "innocently" declares that we're being "outrageous" to think that the cross is anything other than a benign, secular, all-purpose symbol of death and remembrance?

@jen

You are misunderstanding my point. I don't like Justice Scalia any more than you do. I was not saying you should be respectful to him. All I was saying is, call him by the name he actually uses. He doesn't use the name "Tony." I don't like George W. Bush, but I don't go around calling him "Bob."

It is not that important though. Call him whatever you like.

This is what drives me nuts about the coverage this issue has gotten. The problem isn't so much that a cross was erected. The problem is that, having allowed one group to erect a monument, the government would not allow another one to do so.

Nobody objects (as far as I know) to crosses at Arlington National Cemetery, because people of other faiths, or no faith at all, have their own symbols. No one is sticking crosses over non-Christians.

FWIW, I'd rather nourish a tree than have a piece of carved stone over my corpse. Something symbolic, though. You know, some kind of nut. :-)

Justice Scalia seems to be as enlightened as a cartoon character.

which should surprise no one.

Well, he does have a point in that, technically speaking, a cross can be used without a person professing any Christian beliefs. I don't imagine it happens very often, though, and this particular instance is not an example of it. The Christians who erected the cross clearly intended to honor all war dead, Christian or otherwise, but did so within the context of their religion, displaying a rather narrow-minded viewpoint which was unfortunately rather common at the time. (More unfortunately, such a narrow viewpoint persists to this day.)

Personally, I think the cross should remain, but other religious should be permitted to honor the dead in their own ways as well. That is, after all, the point of a cemetary.

One more comment, for the record....

I actually don't know many cemeteries with lots of crosses in them, apart from military cemeteries, where the convention is a relatively plain marker with name, dates, rank, any medals, and the relevant religious adornment (eg a particular cross to designate the person's declared faith). Maybe it's just local preference (or maybe it's just that I don't have any Catholic relatives; we're Protestants), but most of the markers where my relatives are buried lack religious markings of any kind. Typically, the main memorial is just a stark granite block engraved with a surname, marking a family plot. The individual graves are marked by small stones carrying the basics (name, dates, possibly profession and/or relationship), set into the ground, often low enough to mow right over. Most carry just name and dates, and possibly an epitaph. My favorite belongs to a relative who died many years ago. It's a bench. He arranged for it before his death, so that if people came to visit, they'd have somewhere to sit. ;-)

Of course, markings do vary, and while some cemeteries impose restrictions in order to maintain a uniform appearance, most will let you put up just about anything you can pay for.

Last time I went grave-tending with relatives on Memorial Day, we did visit a few distant relatives who *are* Catholic. (Too distant for us to decorate; closer relations tend those graves.) I recall some graves having crosses on them, but most had no adornment at all. Angels were more common than crosses, which perhaps reflects common Catholic sentiments on the subject of angels.

There is one quasi-religious symbol that I've seen at a lot of these cemeteries, and that's a lamb. Referring both to the lamb of God and also to the story of Abraham and Isaac, lamb-shaped headstones were traditional for a long time to mark the grave of a child. Most are made from limestone, and the older ones have weathered severely, with some hardly recognizable as a lamb.

I've seen those lambs, Calli, and I never thought of them as Biblical until now. It makes me never want to hear children referred to as "little lambs" again.

Also, when I've seen lamb headstones they've been about 6-8" long by a couple of inches high, just nestled into the grass, and they are everywhere. Made me realize how commonly children died--if the wealthy in the cemetery I visited lost so many, I wonder about the poor.

@ Felis

Thank you for taking the time to review my post.

I am willing to admit to being far less informed about the details of this case than you are.

Please feel free to accuse me of any number of failings EXCEPT being a pawn of the right wing media. That's unjust and untrue.

"EXCEPT being a pawn of the right wing media." - Right Wing media doesn't have pawns, only Kings, Queens, and Bishops. Left wing media on the other hand plays exclusively checkers or possibly go fish but without taking out the jokers.

So we could bring this back around to the medical theme of the blog and ask for differential diagnoses on Justice Scalia's mental disorder.

I'm going to go with RSSD (Religion Specific Stupidity Disorder)

... "Gee, I'd really like to take a nice, big mogen David and shove it up Tony's ass." But that's horrible. Let's step back from my nastier urges for a moment.

You had it right the first time.

wow palmd! do your patients know that you suffer from such passive aggressiveness? i bet you don't post a copy of this article in your waiting room lobby. i am truely embarassed for you.

I wasn't aware that there was anything "passive" about it.

Sarah Palin's immoral rantings

palmd — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:03:07 +0000

Sarah Palin's immoral rantings

The Right likes to hold up Sarah Palin as a beacon of morality and virtue in an irredeemably corrupt world. But with her latest words, she has shown herself to be either an immoral, lying sack of crap, or severely cognitively impaired.

And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Such as system, were it to to exist, or even to be proposed, would be evil. Since no one has proposed any such thing, Palin has Godwined herself even closer to irrelevancy.

palmd Mon, 08/10/2009 - 11:03

Tags

Absurd religious wingnutery

health care reform

IMO, she is both an immoral, lying sack of crap, and severely cognitively impaired. You could probably throw the book (DSM-IV) at her and score a few more points.

"Death panel"? Oh, she means "insurance company".

@1: Would you consider hitting her with the DSM-IV? Repeat as needed.

From driftglass.blogspot.com

The world is full of bad people. Dumb people.

I don't mind bad people; them I can handle.
But dumb people are tough.
And arrogant dumb people are impossible.

Dumb people you can outsmart.
Arrogant people you can outwit.

But dumb, arrogant people, Jack?
Forget it.
You cannot go over them, under them,
around them or through them.

They are there.

-- Harlan Ellison

I don't really think anybody reading this blog cares, but this post on another blog has some background as to why she might say such an "immoral" thing:
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2009/08/inconvenient-truth-about-…

Too bad a large percentage of the country actually believes what she says. This month I'm assigned to a rural hospital and FoxNews is on every TV (including in the physician's lounge) and I keep on hearing an ad repeating the "government bureaucrats will decide whether your grandmother lives or dies" crap. The problem is that when people are getting their information exclusively from these sources, and it's repeated over and over again, they start believing it. The sad thing is that the poor people here without insurance have also been tricked into thinking healthcare reform is a bad thing. There are a lot more people that just Sarah Palin that are immoral.

Call it what it is, a blood libel. No different than the anti-Semitic blood libel claiming that Jews use the blood of Christians and need to be slaughtered, or that witches kill children and need to be burned at the stake, or that blacks in the south raped white women and needed to be lynched.

Palin is using lies to whip up a hysterical mob and use that rage to intimidate members of Congress with lynching in effigy and death threats. Gingrich agrees with her.

I hope these film clips are saved for the next election so the people understand what the GOP really stands for. They criticize Obama because in an off the cuff comment he says âthe cops acted stupidlyâ, but Palin gets a free pass to make a blood libel and Gingrich agrees with her?

Please America - Stop letting these clowns manipulate you through fear.

Do you think all those Canadian seniors are in Florida every winter to avoid "death panels"?

Ironically, when citing wait list times for elective surgery in Canada, hip replacements are nearly always in the lead. Could it be because there is no age limit?

My friend's father is doing well, now that he has completed his cancer treatment. He is 87.

I think the insurance companies have created an atmosphere of learned helplessness in the American public. Americans just don't seem to believe they can ever design an option that doesn't formally deny care to someone. Guess what - Yes You Can. You have the money, the creativity, the ability and the ambition to accomplish great things.

A Canadian - concerned for her American friends and relatives.

Why won't she just go away????
I was hoping her "failure to finish" would start her marginalization, but no. She keeps moving her mouth and people keep printing its output, no matter how wrong or ridiculous it is.
With all of the intelligent, thoughtful women in the world (even within the Republican party there are some), why do we have to suffer Sarah Palin?

i have never seen so much hatred like this directed towards another humanbeing and there family!! male or female.alot of people love sarah.she has a nice family.if you disagree with her policies thats one thing.but the insults are starting to get old.give her a break.i bet the country ends up sideing with sarah.because when people get treated that unfairly by MOST major news outlets.it usally means there doing something right. get it right [hehehe]

Charles, if she stops saying stupid things, then maybe people will stop criticizing her. What she said is there for anyone to analyze... if you want to defend her, defend her statements, don't cry about the media not being nice to her.

Maybe it's the BMI postings, but at first I read "bacon of morality"

Charles, she is not saying "stupid" things, she is telling inflammatory lies. She is bearing false witness. She is saying that Obama wants to kill her son.

Who is treating her unfairly by repeating what she says? Who is she treating fairly by lying and saying they intend to kill people?

Maybe she will be able to get a lynch mob mentality going. The people who follow her do have a lot of guns, and are willing to use them. A lot of then already donât like Obama because he is black, liberal, intelligent, educated, articulate. Adding the false reason that he wants to kill her child may drive some to violence. That certainly is a foreseeable consequence; I presume that is her plan.

The moment that the violence of a minority with lies and guns outweighs the voice of the majority with truth and votes, is the moment that the US becomes a failed state like Somalia. We know the GOP wants Obama and the US to fail, their spokesman Limbaugh has said so.

That's a good point daedalus2u, whether it's her or people who tell her what to say, someone actually has an ulterior motive behind what she says, so I shouldn't call her comments as stupid, rather they are calculated to incite the anger of the public rather than to seriously debate an important national issue.

K with post #1 got it right at the first shot.
Good job.

Agreed; she can't be that stupid. She (and the other right-wing windbags) don't believe the proposed bill to be this psychotic. What they are doing is playing politics, which should come as no surprise to anyone, and yet we all (myself included) find ourselves shocked and surprised when they do it. They are poisoning the well, a known tactic when fighting an idea, by trying to get horrible scary things linked to health care reform in the minds of the public. It's not a new tactic, and it's been used by both political parties many times. Neither of them originated it either; it probably predates recorded history.

@Donna B

To be clear, that blog post is pretty deceptive in it's writing.

It fails to discuss how these decisions are made NOW.

Right now, whether or not a particular service is paid for by medicare/medicaid is voted on by congress. Each individual service. Congresspeople who can't pronounce lymphadenopathy and TIA, vote on whether or not treatment for those conditions will be paid for.

The proposal discussed on that blog says "well, experts should decide, and part of their evaluation for really expensive, scarce resource treatments should include an answer to the question 'will this person have a chance to live a full life?'"

And thats not just about cost, it's about suffering. Should your 90 year old man with pancreatic cancer, and other medical problems who currently has painless juandice, have extensive surgery that might add a few months onto his life, if that time will be spent in the hospital, in pain? It's up to the 90 year old man, but he should be aware of the actual risks and benefits.

The blogger says that Down's syndrome would conceivably NOT get treatment in this scenario. Speaking from a medical perspective, i sincerely doubt that.

I'm not a huge fan of most of the writing about healthcare reform from lawyers. They generally read things written by doctors and quote them out of context. They almost always leave out anything approaching the common base of knowledge and ethics that doctors would know, and have discussed earlier in the papers and writings quoted from.

Palin is right. Death panels are evil. That is exactly why we need an alternative to private insurance companies. She doesn't even realize that she proved the opposite of her point.

No, the most stupid was the IBD saying that Stephen Hawking would be killed in the UK.

"Counselling Sarah": she needs to find "something to do with her time" (hopefully,where she'll cause the *least* harm possible)- she likes the limelight and talking, so how about encouraging her to become a gossip columnist on Fox?( but she'd probably make *even that* political). Maybe a nice charity to help disadvantaged people?(Wait, she wouldn't want to help *them*).What about going back to school? (Not likely).Scratch hobbies, she already has a lot of them.Perhaps she needs to find an all-consuming interest/*raison d'etre* that takes a great deal of money to indulge(therefore, she'd also need to work to support it)- answer: high-end fashion (she already has some experience with that)and/or boating (Alaska has a huge coastline that borders Russia).Now we need a self-sacrificing wealthy liberal to get her introduced and "hooked".......Arianna, that's you!

Skepticism 101

"Ok class, today we are going to learn about the "Straw Man Fallacy".

For a classic example, we're going to hear Sarah Palin's argument against Health Care Reform.

As you can see, she creates a classic "Straw-man" by completely mischaracterizing the real.....Oh no, Angello threw up again! I'm sorry. I'll try to get some more pleasant examples.

Why does anyone with an IQ in excess of 60 read or believe anything this Palin woman has to say? Or care for that matter?

There's only one donor liver, and two patients it'll work with. All other things being equal, who gets the liver and who has to wait and likely die ?
The one who can pay the bigger bribe ?

Mercy for father who murdered his child?

palmd — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 08:28:43 +0000

Mercy for father who murdered his child?

If you haven't heard by now, the parents who murdered their diabetic daughter are getting a taste of justice. This week Dale Neumann, the father of the diabetic girl whom he and his wife watch die in their home while giving only "prayer", was found guilty of reckless homicide. Death by diabetic ketoacidosis is not pretty. The symptoms start with extreme thirst and frequent urination. Then the person develops headaches, abdominal pain, and vomiting. Eventually, they become confused and lethargic, then lapse into a coma before dying. The discovery of insulin has made this event rare, at least for most diabetics.

But not for Madeline Kara Neumann, whose parents watched and prayed as she died painfully in their home. How should justice be done? The Wisconsin Rapids Tribune reports:

But how will Marathon County Circuit Court Judge Vincent Howard view the couple when he sentences them Oct. 6? Are they the negligent and uncaring parents that prosecutors portrayed during Dale Neumann's weeklong trial on reckless homicide charges? Or are they devout Christians who were faithful to their convictions and already have been punished by the loss of their child, 11-year-old Madeline Kara Neumann, as defense attorneys contended?

How about both: they are devout Christians who negligently murdered their daughter in the name of their faith.

There should be no prevarication here---this is morally and legally homicide. There is no "other side" in which his act can be viewed as "devoutly faithful", except perhaps and an auto da fe.

Some may think it would be better to give Neumann a brief sentence, then release him to raise his remaining children. Any sane person should see this as a terrible idea. He already murdered one child; what evidence do we have that his strong faith won't be used to murder another? He sat through his trial, Bible in hand, with no reported renunciation of his homicidal beliefs. Why should society trust him?

We shouldn't. His right to act however his faith instructs ends at the tip of his nose. His imposition of faith, his implementation of what he perceives as God's will, is abhorrent, and he cannot be trusted caring for children.

So, for the sake of the children, lock the murderer up until they're age of majority. And while you're at it, consider mandating that he stay away from children, similar to how we treat sex offenders. Lock him up, throw away the key, and surround him with pictures of his suffering child.

That would be justice.

palmd Sun, 08/02/2009 - 04:28

Tags

Absurd medical claims

Absurd religious wingnutery

I agree with the notion of locking this piece of human scum up and doing whatever is needed to keep him from any future contact with his children. I hope the judge will look at how this person watched, without concern or apparent remorse, as his daughter sickened and died, and realizes that there is no way he will ever become a normal person.

I hope the harshest punishment possible is given: I fear that it won't because, as some of my in-laws argued, people will take the view that "he's suffered enough".

My son has type 1 diabetes--I remember the guilt we felt when he was first diagnosed, that we did not see it sooner and save him so much suffering. To watch a child die? That must take some heavy-duty faith...

http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2009/08/modern-abraham-isaac-stor…

I don't know how long he could or should be in prison. I do know that he shouldn't have any further contact with his remaining children until they are 18 (if they wish to have contact with the killers of their sister then it's their call) or ever allowed to work with or care for children ever again.

Hopefully his kids are placed in a good foster home or with relatives who believe in medicine. I feel most for them, because of their parents' actions they lost their sister, their parents, and their home as they knew it.

As for letting him out to care for his other children, the youngest is 14. Even a light sentence he'll be out when his youngest is 18 or close to it.

As for Dale Neumann "suffering enough" ... I feel sorry for his ignorance, but not a bit sorry for his conviction. There are cases where people make a bad decision that ends in disaster, and I generally don't support punishing those people harshly, but the Neumanns had plenty of time to reflect on just how disastrous their decision was. It wasn't a simple, brief lapse of judgment that just happened to end badly -- it was a prolonged pigheadedness that allowed them to watch their child die painfully while they did nothing.

A commenter on PZ's blog made the analogy between this case and allowing your family to starve because, instead of buying or growing food, you sit at home praying for it to appear. I think that's an excellent analogy, and one that points out just how stupid and callous these parents were -- and all because of a religious belief that they would claim makes them wise and loving. Incredible.

So here's the question: aside from religious adherence to "an eye for an eye" retributive justice, what purpose is served by locking him away at taxpayer expense for several years?

Not that I'm not disagreeing with the idea of enjoining him from being responsible for children ever again, but I will point out that that kind of injunction is easier to manage as a condition for avoiding imprisonment instead of if he has already "paid his debt to society."

Reckless homicide? No, torture-murder. The kid knew she was going to die and she knew who was killing her.

So here's the question: aside from religious adherence to "an eye for an eye" retributive justice, what purpose is served by locking him away at taxpayer expense for several years?

Precedent. If other parents know that they'll go to prison if they neglect their children to their deaths, even if they claim religion as a reason for their neglect, maybe they will hesitate before ignoring their children's slow, painful, and entirely preventable deaths. I can't believe that a person who would watch his child die of DKA suffers as much from the loss of his or her child as a normal person would. Therefore the threat of punishment is necessary to stop others from following the Neumanns' example.

Precedent. If other parents know that they'll go to prison if they neglect their children to their deaths, even if they claim religion as a reason for their neglect, maybe they will hesitate before ignoring their children's slow, painful, and entirely preventable deaths.

I'll chalk that up as one vote for the exemplary theory of justice. Sort of like locking up someone caught with a few stems and seeds for life, or landing on a college kid for three-quarter million for thirty songs: terrify anyone else who might even comes close to thinking of it.

On his web page, he says that he would do the same thing again if faced with the same circumstances. That pretty much defines stupidity. So no remorse, no understanding of what he's done - he should be facing the upper end governed by whatever laws govern those convicted of child abuse when he is released.

D.C.S. are you really comparing the social harm caused by smoking wacky baccy or by illegally sharing music with the harm caused by inflicting a painful lingering death on your child? Seriously? IMO anyone who thinks it's acceptable to deny a child medical care in the name of faith ought to be terrified into following the law, if that's the only way to get them to behave like a normal human being.

And Gareth, this guy has a website? Yuck. An unrepentant self-publicist has not suffered enough, and could be socially dangerous, encouraging others to follow their delusions. Perhaps prison could break through his denial/self-righteousness and make him realise what he's done.

Charlotte -- what DCS is saying is that punishment is for the individual crime committed, not to teach a lesson to others. And I agree with that.

Precedent (legal-wise) is based on the course of reasoning behind a previous decision. It's basically inhumane to use the punishment of one person to "teach" a lesson to others. Call it "pre-scapegoating" perhaps -- punishing someone for crimes others might commit.

And there's no legal reason to punish him by making it a provision of his sentence that he never be in contact with another child. His "faith" would demand that he watch an adult die in the same circumstances.

All that said, I wouldn't consider death too harsh a penalty based simply on his actions the day of (and weeks? months? preceding) his daughter's death.

Donna, I agree with nearly all of that, except:

And there's no legal reason to punish him by making it a provision of his sentence that he never be in contact with another child. His "faith" would demand that he watch an adult die in the same circumstances.

Adults can generally take care of themselves, kids, not so much.

Prison in the US is strictly punitive, not instructive, not rehabilitative. And he deserves fierce punishment.

Prison in the US is strictly punitive, not instructive, not rehabilitative. And he deserves fierce punishment.

Looks like a vote for the retributive theory of justice. One exemplary, one retributive.

I suppose that a really poetic solution would be to wipe out his Islands of Langerhans and tell him to deal with it appropriately -- but that wouldn't be ethical.

I don't argue for our current system...it sucks. But that doesn't mean I think this guy should be let loose.

I'm not arguing for a long sentence to discourage others, exactly, I just think it was a bad comparison. Giving him a short or non-custodial sentence because of his religious convictions would also set an example, after all. But I'm not convinced that setting an example isn't one of the functions of the justice system. Most people have a moral framework about things like homicide, but there are plenty of laws that people obey mostly just to avoid getting caught. If the penalties aren't applied, then what motivation is left?

Anyway, if not retributive, how about avoiding further social harm as a reason for incarceration? He may be unlikely to re-offend, but he's unrepentant about what he did and apparently using the publicity as a platform for his views. Isn't that a reason to remove him from society for a time? I'm not sure whether rehabilitation is possible for someone so blinkered, especially given the limitations of the US prison system, but perhaps he'll find his justifications a little harder to believe if he can't surround himself with people who think he did the right thing. The first step towards rehabilitation is remorse, surely, and I can't see that happening in his current situation.

Why would you say he's "unlikely to re-offend", Charlotte? He has other children, and as you say "he's unrepentant about what he did". Meaning that any other sick kid in his care will get the same treatment.

Pal -- there are plenty of legal reasons that his punishment should include him never being allowed the responsibility to care for a child. Contact does not necessarily include making care decisions.

As for adults being able to care for themselves, that's generally true, except when an adult gets entangled in an abusive relationship. I can see this same scenario playing out with this man's wife just as easily as with his child.

BTW, weren't there adults present other than the mother and father? Are they being charged?

DCS - that thought crossed mind too! It would be argued that that is cruel and unusual. And it is... as a method of carrying out a death sentence.

Charlotte -- avoiding further social harm is most definitely a valid consideration during sentencing phase of a trial.

While comparing the crime of smoking pot with the crime of homicide is not usually valid, the idea that the purpose of a harsh sentence is to prevent others from committing the same crime is less valid regardless the crime in question. It's an entirely separate principle.

As for a harsh sentence POSSIBLY having the side effect of preventing others from preventing the same or similar crimes, see above... that's a form of social control that lies outside our current legal system. Or should, at least, IMHO.

One example is the speed limit. There's no intrinsic immorality in exceeding it. People obey it because they don't want to pay fines. It's more a tax on speeders, not a punishment. Reckless driving is a separate offense.

What could be very interesting is to see if someone uses this case as a precedent for criminal charges against other "faith healers" such as homeopaths or woo-wielding chiropractors.

Cath, I was just estimating that in four years it's not very likely one of his remaining children will have a life-threatening illness.

Donna, I think we're more or less in agreement - except that I was never advocating harsh punishment, only the application of the law as is stands. Certainly the best examples I can think of where a deterrent might be necessary aren't exactly questions of morality - some speed limits are there for safety reasons, but some are pretty useless. Perhaps drunk driving, where everyone agrees it's dangerous, but too many people think they can handle it if they've only had a few? But a deterrent to my mind involves consistent application of proportionate punishments, not scapegoating those unlucky enough to be caught.

Charlotte, we most likely do agree in principle. And I really didn't perceive you advocating for harsh punishment. I do think that others have done so on the grounds that it would be a deterrent and "example" to others. I think this has happened mainly with drug possession offenses and 3 strike laws.

On rehabilitation... am I the only one old enough commenting here to have immediately thought of the Group W bench?

On rehabilitation... am I the only one old enough commenting here to have immediately thought of the Group W bench?

Old enough? By no means. However, this isn't a case of blind justice.

I ref'd the group w bench in a piece recently...no one noticed...

I ref'd the group w bench in a piece recently...no one noticed...

Rejection hurts. I wish I could give you a hug.

They should be blocked from having any contact with anyone under the age of 21, including their children. Their faith has so clouded their judgment that they are incapable of behaving rationally or of conveying the ability to think or behave rationally. They will try and proselytize and damage the ability of others to think rationally.

They should be treated as pedophiles, as sexual predators and not allowed any contact with any children under the age of 21. Pedophiles are not allowed contact with children because pedophiles are unable to not injure children by having sex with them.

There are guidelines for reckless homicide. If I were the judge I would sentence them on the high end and bar them from all contact with children for the rest of their lives. That is they are not to talk with anyone under the age of 21 either in person or by phone. They are not to communicate in writing either. This is not punishment; it is to protect those they would injure with their delusional world view.

Lock the evil freak up!!!!!!!

certainly we ought to be merciful to this sad, deluded, unrepentant murderer. we ought to not hang him by a piano-wire noose. refraining from that, i would say, is quite merciful enough.

as far as DCS' argument goes, by any useful theory of justice i can think of, this man deserves to be locked up and kept out of contact with minor children for the rest of his life. that being so, i see little point in defending our doing so by any specific such theory. his words and actions both mark him as a danger to society and to any children under his care; therefore we ought to see to it he gets as little contact with either as possible.

Pal... I'm sorry I missed the Group W reference... which piece was that? (If it was an audio piece I missed it because my USB ports are all screwed up and I can't have an operating mouse at the same time I have sound. AND I'm too lazy to pull the box out of its dusty cobwebby cubbyhole.)

This guy should clearly not be allowed to have any position of responsiblity over children, as for locking him up, my mind recoils from the idea of letting him go unpunished but I'm not convinced there is any practical value in locking him up. Using prisons to seperate violent psychos and habitual theives from society severs a purpose in protecting people, the ones who need protecting here are his other kids and that would best be done by them being taken into care. The setting an example argument is pretty weak, up until the start of the 19th century they used to hang people for stealing, never solved the crime problem.

@Donna B. "One example is the speed limit. There's no intrinsic immorality in exceeding it." You mean apart from the selfish and reckless endangerment of pedestrians and other road users?

Is there any reason at all to believe he can ever be reformed?

Justice? I dunno. I really don't see how he could be convicted of 2nd degree homicide .

I am a fairly strong atheist (a 6 on the Dawkins scales) but no matter how much a waste of oxygen this guy is, I would not agree to calling him a murderer.

Negligent? Yes. Reckless? Yes. Murder? I'm not so sure.

Despite his faith, he had his daughter best interest at heart. He obviously is sorely lacking in the critical thinking department, but all his magical mumblings and pleadings are in no way trying to harm her directly, even though his actions did indirectly caused her harm. But that does not constitute murder, does it?

I dunno the case intimately, and I think he is deserving of a lengthy rehabilitation process, but throwing him in the same hole as murderers and thieves seems excessive.

Using prisons to seperate violent psychos and habitual theives from society severs a purpose in protecting people, the ones who need protecting here are his other kids and that would best be done by them being taken into care.

I have several problems with that. First, it's harder to keep people away from kids, particularly their own kids than you might think. He can sue for visitation or even custody any number of times and will probably eventually get a sympathetic judge. And his kids will be in danger again.

Second, there's nothing to stop him from having more children and putting this new family in danger. More danger because they'll be infants and he'll have had experience with the legal system and this time maybe not even call the paramedics when they die, just bury any bodies in the back yard.

Third, he is an example to others. Other parents in his church and similar churches will be looking at what happens to him and basing their own decisions on it. If he gets away with killing his daughter (I agree that it probably wasn't murder but still he did kill her as much as if he had locked her in a box and refused to give her food: in DKA more sugar is leaving the body than going in and so the person is effectively starving to death even if they are able to eat) then they will say, "Too bad about Kara but prayer is the way to go." and keep neglecting their children's medical care. If he goes to prison then they'll take their children to the doctor. They'll whine and complain about how they're being forced to do it and oppressed, but the kids will live.

Finally, he needs to know that he did something bad. Something that society frowns upon. Seriously, not just with a mild tsk and slap on the wrist. He can't control himself, only the threat of eternal punishment keeps him from committing crimes. He has to know that his behavior is unacceptable and I suspect only a prison sentence will tell him that. Otherwise, he WILL endanger his own or other children.

i would argue that his daughter's best interests were the last thing on his mind. The one thing religious nutters have in common is the belief that they are somehow special, and that one day god will make everyone see it.

I'm willing to bet that all he was thinking of was how many worshippers he could attract to his insane cult if it was known that he prayed his daughter back from death.

Arrogant narcissism, pure and simple. He's a psychopath - lock him up.

Negligent? Yes. Reckless? Yes. Murder? I'm not so sure.

Despite his faith, he had his daughter best interest at heart. He obviously is sorely lacking in the critical thinking department, but all his magical mumblings and pleadings are in no way trying to harm her directly, even though his actions did indirectly caused her harm. But that does not constitute murder, does it?

In this country, we give alot of leeway to religion and religous people. It's one of the freedoms we are lucky to have. But to have that freedom, we need to police the border - all the things where that freedom can cross a line - so that it isn't abused. For that reason I'm generally in favor of prosecuting cases like this, or the Daniel Hauser case. Your freedom of religion doesn't extent to child abuse, and it absolutely doesn't extend to killing your child.

I'm not sure if this death meets legal definitions of murder rather than manslaughter or negligent homicide or whatever other options are on the table from that perspective. My problem is that your quote almost sounds like an insanity defense. Yet the parent's weren't insane, they were religious.

As far as I can tell he was judged competant to stand trial, so he should have been competant to understand a doctor telling him "If she doesn't get insulin, she will die."

Choosing to ignore that is directly causing her harm, just as much as if he'd put a bullet in her head.

So, he tortured and murdered a child and feels no remorse and will do it again. One wonders what else he will do in the name of god.

But religion is sacred. And athiests are evil and immoral and he's just being persecuted for his beliefs.

@Dianne: My first sentance was "This guy should clearly not be allowed to have any position of responsiblity over children" I ment that to include all children born or yet to be conceved, much like in some juristictions being placed on the sex offenders regester for child molestation means any kids you have get taken away at birth.

"Other parents in his church and similar churches will be looking at what happens to him and basing their own decisions on it." won't they end up with more "experience with the legal system and this time maybe not even call the paramedics when they die, just bury any bodies in the back yard." If you really want to scare them, why not put the kids in a catholic orphanage. I don't actually advocate this, I'm not cruel, just unusual. I've already said that I really don't think the example thing works.

"Finally, he needs to know that he did something bad." This works for kids, but for an adult with support from his church and family? He'll just bookmark the book of Job and call himself a martyr.

B. Franklin wrote, "There is no freedom without responsibility". I explained this to my children, by pointing out to them that they are free to do anything they want, but they must be prepared to accept the consequences of their actions. Crudely put, "Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time".

As a result, they do think rather more deeply about what they are going to do next, in complete contrast to many of their peers. They are nicer people as a result.

OTOH, Neumann probably did not think of the consequences of his actions, so his daughter died and society should now punish the crime of reckless homicide. This girl died because of the ignorance and crass stupidity of her parents. T'was ever so. It's called Cognitive Dissonance.

I'm thinking this guy's place might not be jail.

I mean, he and his whole cult are clearly insane.

He should be locked up yes, but in an insane asylum, where he'll receive some sort of therapy. Not only him, but the whole group. They pretty much, all of them, share responsiblity in this homicidal neglect. I don't think that a non-schizophrenic person can maintain a delusion of this magnitude without help, and he had plenty from his pastor and fellow church members.

Think about it : all of these people's children can end up the same as this girl. If he goes to jail, it can be used to fuel their persecution complex, and make it even more likely, that in the event another child gets sick, they'll do the exact same thing. And barring complete isolation, he'll receive powerful support from them even in jail.

I wonder if the DA in this case has the guts to go after the remaining members of the church who helped pray for conspiracy now that he has his two prime movers convicted. But that would probably be styled as religious prosecution.

Perhaps we can induce a case of gangrene in his pinky toe, then see if he can pray it away.

Maybe it'll give him some time to think. Not much, perhaps, but I'm sure that little hamster wheel in his head will be racing as things progress.

Not much, perhaps, but I'm sure that little hamster wheel in his head will be racing as things progress.

Or...not. I remember a case I heard about* when I was in medical school (in Texas where life is cheap and fundies are strange.) In any case, this guy and his wife belonged to one of these churches that liked to handle snakes. Rattlesnakes, those being the poisonous snakes most readily available in Texas. The man's wife got bit and he is said to have physically stopped her from getting medical attention, preferring to pray the damage away instead. She died. He got charged. He said, "God will decide" and stuck his hand in a bag of rattlesnakes. God, apparently, decided against him. I don't know if he sought medical attention for himself, but if so he did so too late or it just didn't work. I know I've been accusing Neumann of being unfeeling, but if he is just a nut, he might well allow himself to die of a treatable illness too. And the death penalty seems a little extreme for negligent homicide, even in as disgusting a case as this.

*Note that I did not see any of this and therefore can not confirm that it is not an urban legend.

I ment that to include all children born or yet to be conceved, much like in some juristictions being placed on the sex offenders regester for child molestation means any kids you have get taken away at birth.

I am unfamiliar with the way the sex offenders laws work, but that sounds difficult to enforce. (Does that also mean that 18 year olds who had sex with their 15 year old boy/girlfriends can never raise children if they are prosecuted? I know that some states have laws that try to acknowledge that adolescents have sex with each other and eliminate this problem, but...well, that's a derailment anyway.) Besides which, Neumann is not a sex offender, no one has accused him of being so and thus he can not justly be put on the sex offender registry. Similar laws preventing parents who grossly abuse or neglect their children from coming into further contact with children could be written, but they wouldn't apply to this case because you can't prosecute someone for an act that wasn't illegal at the time it was performed (or, I presume, impose a punishment not yet legalized for an illegal act.) So unless you can come up with a law that would allow that punishment to be imposed, I don't think you can say that it is possible to keep him away from children legally. And that doesn't include the difficulties in enforcing this sort of law...I was on a jury once in a child abuse case. The abuser (he was convicted so I can identify him as such) was separated from the children and had a restraining order placed against him for years but continued to see and abuse the children nonetheless. (There was some serious nastiness involving the other parent enabling his behavior.) Until we have a reasonable mechanism to stop that kind of behavior, it's safer for the other children for Neumann to be in prison.

I'm tangentially related to members of one of the original snake-handling churches (Jolo, WV). I haven't heard that anecdote, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen (I've heard crazier). Snake handlers tend to hedge their bets more than people on the outside know, though.

I think D.C.Sessions asks an interesting question (what is the benefit to society of locking this guy up as opposed to just keeping him away from his children?) but I also think that the question is much broader than this individual case. Putting this guy in prison for a reasonable length of time is consistent with our present system of justice, so to deviate in this one particular case would be an implicit endorsement of his Faith Crime.

Furthermore, I don't think this is a particularly good test case for the broader question of whether a retributive justice system is particularly effective.

For one thing, as others have pointed out, he is unrepentant (heh) about the harm his faith has caused. Normally, when a person murders because of faith and then doesn't apologize, we call them a terrorist, and it's pretty non-controversial that you don't let avowed terrorists run around free. It's conceivable the guy could pose future faith-related dangers to public safety.

For another thing, the harm here is severe. As others pointed out, trying to equivocate harsh prison sentences for non-violent drug offenders to harsh prison sentences for negligent homicide is a bit of a stretch.

Note that I am not saying the harm done automatically justifies a retributive response -- I share some of D.C. Sessions' skepticism about the practical benefit of this. I'm just saying that it's a poor test case, because there are plenty of other things where the justice system comes down hard on people where there is absolutely no practical purpose for isolating the perpetrator from society and the resulting harm from the crime is relatively small. Let's start with those crimes!

I'm not a legal expert, especially in american law (I'm british), here in the UK social services can remove a child from their parents if they can provide evidence that the child is at risk from physical, psycological or sexual abuse. Being on the register is usually enough evidence. In previous conversations regarding other cases I was given the strong impression that similar rules applied in the USA. As for short circuiting the system, I consider the wife to be equally culpable so she should also be denied access to the kids.

This discussion seems to have entered a grey area between what suold be done and what can be done, what should be done is remove the other children permanently. What can be done is, as ever, a differnet matter. Locking the parents away would only protect the kids if:
1) The kids are placed in foster care rather than with friends or relitives that may pose an equal threat, so go into care anyway.
2) The prison sentance is not less than 18 years minus the age of the youngest child.
3) Something is done to prevent them having more kids. Which is more ethical, forcing a vasectomy or taking kids away at birth?

For those who are wondering how you could keep him away from kids, that was part of my point about not locking him up.

ANANAl, but:

Assuming sufficient judicial lattitude (mandatory sentencing laws get in the way of stuff like this) the Court could accept his agreement to a lifelong injunction against ever being responsible for a minor again in lieu of prison. Thanks to jurisdictional issues, it wouldn't be subject to a later judge with more sympathy -- criminal court and all that. Violate the order and he's straight to prison for maximum time.

The key to this is that it's voluntarily accepted in lieu of sentencing.

Remember, though, IANAL.

@James Sweet: You make a good point about consistancy, but I have to disagree with you terrorist analogy. We lock terrorists up because if they are free to walk the streets the can, and probably, will hurt more innocent people. the only way to stop them re-offending would be to have men with guns follow them around all the time, not a reallistic possibility. In this case the most effective way to prevent further harm by the parents is to prevent access to the kids. This is much more achievable.

Maybe it'll give him some time to think. Not much, perhaps, but I'm sure that little hamster wheel in his head will be racing as things progress.

mmm... not so sure.

Punishment tends to work only when the punished and witnesses know (and in some way sort of agree with) the reason he is being punished. Otherwise it becomes persecution, a reason to hate the punishers and harden their position.

Someone so far gone in delusion as to let his own daughter die in his arms cannot be that afraid of secular justice and even death. After all, he's quite convinced he's got god on his side.

Julie Stahlhut:

There are cases where people make a bad decision that ends in disaster, and I generally don't support punishing those people harshly, but the Neumanns had plenty of time to reflect on just how disastrous their decision was.

Agreed. There is a certain element of depraved indifference here. They chose to see this as a test of their faith. Their faith was more important to them than the comfort of their child. While this does prove they are faithful to God (or to what they believe God is), it is devastatingly revealing as to their priorities in life.

Their faith comes before their children. They should lose all parental rights to their remaining children. That's not punitive; that's for the welfare of the remaining children.

As far as punishment goes, I do think he should get a stiff jail sentence. This was murder, plain and simple, and our society cannot tolerate that. I might lean towards a mild sentence if he had shown some remorse, but he didn't. He still feels that he did the right thing. And the courts mustn't give him the impression that they agree on that count.

"I ref'd the group w bench in a piece recently...no one noticed..."

Officer Opie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope under that half a ton of garbage.

Locking this guy up doesn't bring back his poor daughter. And contrary to the thoughts of at least one other commenter, I suspect that it wouldn't act as a deterrent to other similar crimes, either. Rather, I would guess that it will make the religiously nutty more determined to cover up and hide their actions in these situations. You know, to avoid "persecution" for their "faith".

I've discussed this quite a bit with several friends recently, because my first instinct as well was that "something should be done" about this. One friend took issue with my statement that a parent should NEVER have the right to "take risks" with their child in a life or death situation. I had to explain:
Giving a child vitamin C and chicken soup when they show cold-flu-strep type symptoms rather than immediately going to the doctor and maybe getting antibiotics is a RISK (scarlet fever, meningitis, and pneumonia are possible consequences, although probably not likely for a healthy child). Kid will probably be okay.
Sentencing your child to death from meningitis, undiagnosed and untreated diabetes, lymphoma, etc. because you are too ignorant/stubborn/cheap/"faithful" to take them to a doctor is NOT a risk--it's homicide.

Unfortunately, as I've been thinking about this, I'm not sure that there is any good solution to the problem. Punishing the parents in this case won't bring back the little girl the killed through inaction. It would doom their older children to all the trauma and pain of losing their parents and home and being forced into a foster care system where there is no guarantee they will even be fostered together (or at all). Not to mention the risks of the foster care system, where the children could be exposed to other more immediately harmful types of abuse or neglect.

Said punishment would probably not act as a deterrent to other similarly crazy people, who may just be more determined to hide their actions.

These sorts of cases are, fortunately, extremely rare. Rare enough that I suspect that any law to specifically criminalize this behavior would be largely unenforceable.

What these parents did is deplorable, but I have some concern that their children will be the ones most impacted by any punishment in this case.

It seems to me that there is this idea in America that we CAN and SHOULD be able to protect every single individual from every conceivable sort of harm that might befall them. I don't think that is really the case, no matter how much we might wish it so. Sometimes, in order to preserve the freedom of all of us, we have to accept that bad stuff will sometimes happen. All we can do is deal with some things on a case by case basis.

What these parents did was certainly careless, ignorant, stubborn, and morally repugnant, but I think that it's pretty much legally unfeasible to do much about it.

@10

Charlotte - yep, search google for "help the Neumanns" and you'll find it. It's grade A denialism. Apparently they are being persecuted by the government for their faith. They talk about all the cases where faith healing has helped people, without a single verifiable reference. They talk about all the cases where medical science has accidentally hurt people, without acknowledging that they're a tiny minority. They remain, as far as I can tell, totally unrepentant. they honestly think they are presecuted. You can even donate to their cause and sign a petition.

Having thought about it, I actually think the Neumanns should be detained in a psychiatric hospital, not prison. Were they to have acted as they did in the belief that fairies or space aliens would heal their daughter, they wuold be sectioned, not imprisoned. However, because they wrap up their delusion in christian symbolism, they're assumed to be sane.

@Bridget

These sorts of cases are, fortunately, extremely rare. Rare enough that I suspect that any law to specifically criminalize this behavior would be largely unenforceable.

Not that rare! The Daniel Hauser case was towards the end of May.

Anyway, we don't need a NEW law to criminalize this behavior, it's already covered under existing child abuse laws. Your religous freedom ends at your childs medical wellbeing when it comes to certain proven treatments. It may not apply to vaccines, but it applies to antibiotics for pneumonia, and it certainly applies to type 1 diabetes.

Sometimes, in order to preserve the freedom of all of us, we have to accept that bad stuff will sometimes happen.

I'm not sure I'm reading you correctly, it sounds like you're saying nothing should be done about this.

That would seem to set a precedent that basically says you can kill someone (at least someone in your care) so long as you really really had faith that it was OK to do that.

That's not a freedom I'm ok with people having.

I was Madeline once, a very sick little girl who developed DKA over the course of two weeks. If my mother and father didn't recognize the early symptoms--the insatiable thirst, fatigue, and sleep always tempting like a siren--I forgive them. But it was awfully hard to ignore the 25-pound weight loss and how pale I became, or the fruity acetone smell on my breath. Thankfully they took me to the doctor, convinced something was horribly wrong. Within a week I was pretty much back to normal after gettting life-giving insulin and fluids. My own parents still kick themselves for not taking me to the hospital sooner, even though I turned out fine in the end; I am still around 26 years later with no complications. I cannot imagine how hers live with themselves knowing they could have saved her so easily. And I echo PalMD--it would have been a horrible, slow, agonizing, painful death.

Pray to God, but row away from the rocks.

I think the mother has also been convicted. I understand their sentencing hearing will be joint.

In medieval times, whether someone lived or died after an illness was considered God's will because, frankly, medicine didn't offer a lot to get in the way of that sort of thinking.

That's the attitude that this kind of prayer healing stems from and it's not valid now, since one could say that God willed we humans learn to better heal ourselves.

This man possibly feels no remorse because he believes God willed his daughter's death. He wasn't tried for murder because there was no evidence that he intended to cause his daughter's death.

From what I've heard, I doubt that any of his other children are in danger from him unless they need medical care. (Of course that doesn't take into consideration of the damage to their minds that such religious teachings could cause.)

Because of the first amendment, I think the justice system has to view this case without considering religion or faith at all. This is where the "reasonable person" idea comes in. A reasonable person would have sought medical care.

Also because of the first amendment, a reasonable person has to be defined in secular terms -- one religion cannot be favored over another.

The parents are guilty of reckless homicide -- they failed to take the actions a reasonable person would have taken and caused a death. I think society is served by removing such people from its midst.

I have followed this situation since it began, albeit by remote since I don't live in the area, and I've drawn a conclusion or two that most seem to have missed. I am writing this partially in response to those who think for some reason that these people should receive light sentences and/or be allowed to care for their remaining children.

One of the earliest connections I made was between the time frame a medical professional said that Kara's symptoms would have been evident and when Kara was removed from public school to be "home schooled." They were both about six months before her death. Turns out that the school made several attempts (around 6-7) to interest the state in doing something about this child who was obviously being medically neglected and the state pretty much ignored the situation. Apparently the Neumanns finally realized that the school system might eventually pose a threat and removed the girl from the system, thus negating a major source of potential help she could have received.

Contrary to all the howling the Neumanns and their defense attorney did about Kara's supposed excellent health up to 48 hours before her death, we can see that they did know she was sick enough to draw the attention of her school and took steps to block that avenue of rescue. Their religion was the reason that they gave incessantly for their total lack of regard for their child's health. Could their real motivation for avoiding medical attention be a bit more secular than holy?

The Neumanns were fairly new to the area that they lived in, and their small "bible study" group was pretty much their only social circle. (Not that, I'm sure, any other social group would have them.) Anyone familiar with church people and their ilk, especially those as far gone as these people are, know how much jockeying for "I'm holier than you" social status goes on within the group. If your little splinter cult holds that illness is caused by sin and you're sinning further by seeking medical attention, you lose a good number of Jesus Points if you go to a doctor.

One point only intermittently mentioned in news reports and barely commented on is the topic of the Neumann's sole source of income, their business. It wasn't just another damned coffee shop, it was, according to them, a "coffee shop ministry." Yes, at Monkey Mo's, you could get an order of McJesus along with your Grande Cafe Mocha. Like many bible fetishists, they sought to link their wallets to their religion to give themselves an advantage by appealing to the soft-minded who might think it spiritually advantageous to patronize the "holy" coffee shop.

Trying to upsell Jesus instead of biscotti with the coffee would have alienated most potential patrons, so the Neumann's would have found themselves increasingly dependant on the jesuscentric customers to keep their doors open and food on their table. The Neumann's financial well being was intimately linked to their outward piety. Although hypocrisy is as fundamental to Christianism as apples are to apple pie, it's a bit tricky to maintain the Holy Joe show when you're obviously violating one of the major tenants of the religion you're selling.

In summary, the case I'm presenting is this: The Neumann's social status and financial status were both intimately linked to the practice of their religion. To allow their daughter's diabetes to be treated by a doctor would have been a major boo-boo both socially and financially. Their decision to not only ignore her condition but to do what they could to actively prevent others from helping her was a coldly pragmatic one. Barking mad they surely are, but even they could see they'd trapped themselves in a web of their own making and their 11 year old daughter died six miles from a hospital because of it.

If the Neumanns didn't need doctors, why did they have medical insurance?

Just noticed that there is a similar discussion going on over at Phil Plait's bad astronomy blog about a different case, the british guy that hacked into NASA looking for evidence of UFO's. Disturbing to think he could get decades in prison, one article gave a maximum of 70 years. I'm curious to know what the maximum for for killing you child by medical neglect is.

Negligent? Yes. Reckless? Yes. Murder? I'm not so sure.

Despite his faith, he had his daughter best interest at heart. He obviously is sorely lacking in the critical thinking department, but all his magical mumblings and pleadings are in no way trying to harm her directly, even though his actions did indirectly caused her harm. But that does not constitute murder, does it?

I dunno the case intimately, and I think he is deserving of a lengthy rehabilitation process, but throwing him in the same hole as murderers and thieves seems excessive.

Either this man is actually insane and therefore cannot be allowed to roam free, or he knew exactly what he was doing.

What you fail to realize is that negligent of this sort is a willful act. Ignorance of this sort is a conscious choice. Willfully allowing a child to die of an easily treated medical condition due to a personal emotional attachment to magical thinking and myths is a perfect example of the sort of situation the phrase "any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice" was coined to describe.

Speaking as a parent myself, it simply IS NOT POSSIBLE, barring clinical psychosis, to "honestly" be THAT wrong.

Being on the register is usually enough evidence. In previous conversations regarding other cases I was given the strong impression that similar rules applied in the USA.

Given that, in the US, child sexual abuse is considered a crime so heinous that absolutely no mitigating circumstances, including factual innocence, are considered when trying those accused, this is more than likely. Unfortunately, I think the link here is tenuous.

Posted by: Whitecoat Tales | August 3, 2009 7:19 AM
My problem is that your quote almost sounds like an insanity defense. Yet the parent's weren't insane, they were religious.
As far as I can tell he was judged competant to stand trial, so he should have been competant to understand a doctor telling him "If she doesn't get insulin, she will die."

I think I would agree with everyone here that the guy is guilty of a grevious crime resulting in the death of a minor, and deserves to locked up in prison for a long time. And I am not arguing that he was insane (although the line blurs well into religiosity).

What I am questioning is the definition for murder, and as far as I understand it, if he had no intention to kill, it cannot be murder, and he isn't a murderer.

I could be wrong here, the charge of "reckless homicide" may not require murderous intent to be convicted of the crime. Would some legal eagle here help me clear up my understanding?

At the end of the day it makes no difference whether he is a murderer or not, the poor girl is killed indirectly by her parents and that is terribly tragic. What I would like to see is for this man given every chance to rehabilitate, so he may one day see that his faith lead to his daughter's death, and maybe that would prompt him give up his faith.

That would be some measure of justice.

IANAL, but I have watched "Law and Order".

As I understand it, to be convicted of murder does require proof of intent OR proof of knowledge that a death would be the result of one's actions. I remember reading somewhere that murder required proof not only of the guilty act but also a guilty mind.

Homicide is not even always illegal, while murder always is. Judicial homicide, for example is the justified use of force by a law officer. A civilian can commit justified homicide in defense of himself or another.

IMHO, this man is guilty of murder, though he was not convicted of it. He was convicted of reckless homicide. Sort of like, not taking the actions a reasonable person would have taken to prevent the death.

To have charged him with murder would have been akin to putting his religion on trial to an even greater degree and I'd bet the prosecutors did NOT want to do that.

Murder or manslaughter? Submitted for your consideration:

Let's say that I'm a professional caregiver with basic medical training who's been hired to keep an eye on a wheelchair-bound fellow with a heart condition. One night the fellow has a heart attack that could have been arrested by giving him a nitroglycerin pill, but I choose not to give it to him and watch him die with the pill bottle in my hand.

When questioned later by the police, I relate the situation exactly as it happened, but offer no explanation for my actions, or lack thereof.

Am I a murderer, or am I simply guilty of some degree of manslaughter or reckless homicide? What explanation do you think I could give that would make a difference? Should I be allowed to continue to practice the trade of caregiver during any resulting trial or after a conviction?

Lupis -- that's criminal negligence which translates to a charge of murder.

He wasn't tried for murder because there was no evidence that he intended to cause his daughter's death.

He willfully, voluntarily, and needlessly engaged in a course of action that any sane, reasonable person would have known would cause his daughter's death. Unless he is institutionalizably insane, how is this different from intending to cause it?

What I am questioning is the definition for murder, and as far as I understand it, if he had no intention to kill, it cannot be murder, and he isn't a murderer.

I could be wrong here, the charge of "reckless homicide" may not require murderous intent to be convicted of the crime. Would some legal eagle here help me clear up my understanding?

Homicide is not even always illegal, while murder always is. Judicial homicide, for example is the justified use of force by a law officer. A civilian can commit justified homicide in defense of himself or another.

Homicide means "killed a guy," as I understand it. Murder, manslaughter, and a few other charges are subcategories.

Though, yeah, I would argue that these actions comprise murder.

Azkyroth - I should have written that he wasn't charged with murder because the prosecutors couldn't prove it -- without putting his "faith" on trial.

DCS: BTW, under most circumstances I would agree with you about using alternatives to imprisonment. I'd favor rehab for drug users, treatment for people with mental illnesses, job training and counseling for the hopelessly unemployed, opening alternatives of any sort to gang members, etc. But I'd like to start with people who are non-violent, not an unrepentent killer of children. If we, as a society, develop better means of rehabilitating people, then we can take on people like this and Timothy McVeigh. But until then, it's just not the best risk.

Dianne@#65:

The problem is that I don't think that the statutory maximum sentence is long enough to keep him and his wife from harming children. Again, IANAL -- but IMHO if the Court can keep him away from kids more effectively with an alternative sentence, that's the way to go.

Of course, "effectively" is always an issue. Having had second-hand experience with fatal failures of restraining orders, that's always a question.

LN@60, that would be murder by depraved indifference, since you clearly had the means to safely help without endangering yourself; or maybe felony murder for neglect leading to death. Not jumping into a raging river after a drowning person is understandable, not throwing the life line while safely standing on the dock is going to get you in trouble. Classification of homicides is mainly judgement on the mental state at the time of the act, not something subject to objective analysis.

I think that it is very clear that this man willfully let his child die, as I recall that a few (non crazy) family members who lived far away tried to convince him and his wife to take the girl to the hospital well before she died. It was not like he did not know that there were other options. He knew, and chose to refuse them.

How long should he be in jail? They should both be in jail long enough that they understand that children are not disposable items to be sacrificed upon the alter of your own sanctimony.

Dianne@65, I agree with you completely. One of my problems with D.C.'s view is that you don't just need to remove this couple from positions of responsibility for minors, you need to ensure they're not in a position where they're responsible for a medical decision for anyone vulnerable - children, older people or at the scene of an accident, for example. I'm not sure how that's achievable within society. I also have a huge problem with them publicising their faith online and inciting others to follow their lead. I'm taking the word of Gareth@50 on the website - I've got a pretty strong stomach but I really don't need to see that. As I said before, I don't think remorse and rehabilitation is likely if they go to prison, but I think it's downright impossible if they're left free to continue with this sick self-promotion.

Most crimes have a range of possible sentences to allow for the particular circumstances. Whatever the sentence given to this couple, it will make a statement about the gravity of the crime in the eyes of the judge, acting as a proxy for your society. It would be better perhaps if sentences reflected the utility/necessity of locking up the convicted person, but I think that ought to be established as a principle before applying it to cases.

Can we sentence them to being denied any kind of medical treatment ever? If their "faith" is as strong as they say, they should be all right with that...

@Azkyroth

Wasn't this the case where the mother fell ill in court and was treated by a doctor? Or was that one of the other evil fuckers that did this recently?

Bluntly: Mr & Mrs Neuman acted on their faith.
But acting on your faith does not mean you get a free pass on paying for it. They acted with indifference to their daughter's life, their daughter died, ergo they go to prison for negligent homicide. And they can bloody well rot there.

Ranson -- I think you're thinking of the homeopaths in Australia whose infant daughter died of complications from eczema. Eczema! That's an easily manageable condition. It takes real chutzpa to neglect that enough for a lethal infection to set in. (If it gets bad enough, untreated eczema can theoretically become fatal on its own; kill enough skin, and it's just like what happens to burn victims.) The parents professed that homeopathy is perfectly reasonable and accepted where they come from -- yet strangely the mother went and got antibiotics when she developed pneumonia.

The testimony of Mr Neumann in court disgusted me. He read from Job, obviously drawing an allusion to the fact that when God tested Job, ten of Job's children died. In other words, he has resolved the cognitive dissonance between "disease is a result of evil" and "my daughter isn't evil, but is very sick" by concluding that his daughter was dying in horribly agony in order to test *his* faith.

That's a terribly egocentric way to view the world, but the only other way to resolve the cognitive dissonance would have been to either conclude that there was a terrible hidden sin in his daughter, or to conclude that his faith was wrong. He was unwilling to do either.

What pisses me off (besides the needless suffering and death of a child, which is bad enough) is that these people who profess to be Christians are clearly ignoring Jesus Christ. There's a passage in the gospels where Jesus rhetorically asks his audience if a bunch of people killed in a recent building collapse in Jerusalem were bad people. The context of this is that under the common thinking of the day, they *must* have been bad people or else that wouldn't have happened to them. Jesus point was that they were no worse than anyone in the audience.

How many times does the Bible exhort people not to test God? And yet they do. The stupid snake-handlers do it all the time, "proving" God by handling rattlesnakes without dying. (Until, of course, they get bitten and die.) And they say this is because they are faithful to God. But God doesn't want people making asses of themselves, and praising their own righteousness while others suffer and die for want of things that they have. The Bible clearly says that if you're really following Christ, and you see someone who needs something that you have, you should give it to him immediately, no questions asked, no strings attached. Of course, few (if any) Christians ever manage to be that generous, but it seems obvious to me that this would extend to medical care. If you see your own daughter in severe pain and distress, and you have the financial means to get her seen by a doctor, you have the responsibility to do so -- not just as an American citizen, beholden to American law, but as a Christian as well.

I would say that these people practice idolatry. They do not worship God. They worship their faith in God, which thereby becomes hollow and meaningless.

There can be no religious defense of what they did. It's reprehensible on all levels.

Note: child abuse occurs without a religious factor as well. In the religious cases, there is at least the hint that maybe the person was so deluded they thought they were doing the right thing. It's still wrong, of course. But it seems much worse when the person knew from the start that what they were doing was wrong.

Sandstone woman accused of starving daughter, 10, to death
http://www.startribune.com/local/52380197.html

The girl was developmentally disabled. Starving her to death was the side-effect of the mother's plot with her state-funded personal care assistant to split all the state money for the girl's care and spend it on whatever. Knowing she'd starve to death, it seems the mother and the personal care asssistant simply didn't care what became of her.

recall early news reports on the family:

These parents had medical insurance coverage for themselves...but not for their children.

Using the religious excuses to cover their butts for the murder of the child while having medical care for themselves...hopefully will be factored in during the sentencing.

Grrrr. (On the medical insurance for themselves and not their kids.)

Y'know, I think there's a common thread among a lot of these deaths where ineffective "treatments" were used (whether prayer, homeopathy, or something else), and it's not just the blind-faith aspect. It's that they are essentially experimenting on their children, and oblivious to the fact. They are embarking on a grand experiment of making their children "better" than themselves. Or at least, I suspect a lot of them see it that way.

"Sure, I had antibiotics for that pneumonia, but for my daughter, I'm going to make sure we're not so weak. She deserves a purer life."

This may go along with the folks who think their kids are "indigo children", or otherwise more evolved. In any case, there's clearly a lack of perspective where their children are involved, and they are not making decisions based on their children's actual condition.

Rush Limbaugh---America's spewing rectum of idiocy

palmd — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:43:48 +0000

Rush Limbaugh---America's spewing rectum of idiocy

I know, I know, I don't usually do politics, but Rush is really chapping my ass right about now. His comments are always outrageously hate-filled diatribes, and he's getting harder to ignore every day. What's worse, his followers eagerly suckle at the teat intolerance, finding solace in his affirmation of their own bigotry. And finally, he is cynical beyond any hope of redemption.

First, he is virtually a Holocaust denier, and as we know, Holocaust denial is always a manifestation of hatred of Jews.

"He [Obama] is beating Germany up. He is ripping them to shreds over something they did 60 years ago. One day after praising all of Islam. Now can you imagine, there's of course Elie Wiesel gets up there and he does his thing but it's 65 years here or close to it...He's up there and he's ripping Germany for what it did 60 or 65 years ago, blah, blah, blah, blah. One day after praising to the hilt Islam, and talking about Islam, how America is a Muslim nation, so forth."

The German people have been rather careful to avoid forgetting their not-so-distant past, and I don't think they need Rush to tell them to "get over it". When your nation is responsible for a massive genocide committed in living memory, forgetting is rather dangerous. But Rush can play both sides of this one. Regarding the attack at the Holocaust Memorial:

The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine, may have been one of the shooter's targets. You know why? Because the Weekly Standard is edited by "neocons," Jewish people who are big on US foreign policy and defense of Israel. Leftist-type conspiracy theories. This guy may have been targeting a conservative publication.

[...]

A hater, a nutcase who hates neocons -- i.e., Jews -- this von Brunn guy, attacks the Holocaust museum and has in his possession the address of the Weekly Standard, a publication that is run by neocons, a term invented by liberals as a code word to describe Jews who run American foreign policy for the express defense of Israel. So this hater of neocons, hater of conservative Jews, von Brunn, attacks the Holocaust museum. There is another guy who hates neocons. His name is Chris Matthews. And he works at MSNBC, which is a network of endless hate.

Somehow, in Rush's opiate-addled mind, neocon=Jew, and an attack on Jews is an attack on neocons, meaning that the attacker is a liberal. Got that?

I've got news for you Rush. The Jewish people aren't new at this. We can recognize exploitation pretty easily, and your tortured reasoning reveals your own bigotry. "Neocon" is not the same as "Jew"---it is a common trope touted by isolationist antisemites. Also, neocon views are not a common "Jewish value". The fact that some prominent neocons are Jewish and that you exploit this fact for your own political ends, makes you an idiot and an antisemitic bigot. And the Standard wasn't targeted (if it was even targeted) because it is conservative. If it was targeted, it was because, in the hateful mind of the shooter, the Standard=Jews---neocons are the "collateral damage", not Jews. Violent antisemites target Jewish victims, some of whom may be conservative. They do not target conservatives, some of whom happen to be Jewish. If you read the twisted writings of the shooter (whose name isn't fit to be typed), he was a violent bigot, not an MSNBC-driven hunter of neocons.

He's got a lot in common with you, Rush.

palmd Thu, 06/11/2009 - 12:43

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