Fundamentalist Antihumanist Personality Disorder

I might expound more fully on "Fundamentalist Antihumanist Personality Disorder" in the future. In the meantime, we have all encountered those who make their attitudes our problem.

I stumbled across an old post about The Need for Absurd Belief Among Fundamentalists on the Breaking Spells blog. It discusses, amongst other things, the fact that fundies are desperate to attack segments of scientific knowledge.

I read it with interest because I am fascinated — and dismayed — by what I regard as the Fundamentalist Cognitive Disorder*. This is often linked to the Fundamentalist Antihumanist Personality Disorder.**

The final line of the post reads:

""Eventually, perhaps, the spell of religion will be broken.""

I decided to convert my response into a post.

Let’s hope! Religion continues to support damaging and outright dangerous cognitive and behavioural disorders.

I completely agree that fundies are terrified of knowledge — whether it’s science or the expert conclusions of unbiased biblical scholars. I also agree that this rigid thinking is the result of childhood indoctrination. Why else would IDiots be fighting to insinuate creationism into secondary science curricula?

I think that the motivation is not merely habit — it is highly emotional. It is also deliberately anti-factual, and, most important, illogical. They are trained into illogic and this fallacious thinking is reinforced by Bible quotes.

Successful religions have set up clever reward and punishment systems. Community is the most mundane motivation, but is probably essential for many. An eternal afterlife with a loving SkyDaddy who punishes one’s enemies is an obvious incentive. The flip side is the prison door. They fear what they are instructed to fear.

However, based on long observation of how some fundies think, I conclude that much of the emotional appeal lies in certainty and the assurance that religious-rule-following renders one RIGHT and morally SUPERIOR. (Excuse the caps. They seemed appropriate.)

It always reminds me of prefects in a school playground. Not a highschool playground. Not a primary school playground in North America. No, a school playground for children up to age 11. That’s the moral level at which these authoritarianism-oriented folk function.

Ugh!

* and ** : not official terminology

* and ** Disclaimer: not all fundies, religionists other than fundies, the occasional atheist.

Ominous Voice mimics Creepy Voice

I have not checked to see whether this has already been posted elsewhere. Excuse me if I have duplicated it.

Anyway, for any of you who have had the misfortune of watching a video by a soporific* YECer who calls himself NephilimFree, then this video should amuse you. It is a brilliant take-off and the double entendres at the end are hilarious. It opens with something that the “Creepy Cretinous Creationist” actually said.



* I'm serious, if it were not that his videos would give me nightmares, Nephy would be perfect for curing insomnia.

Community Activism

Poor old YouTube – driven by profit, presumably hiring expensive software engineers, but the cheapest administrative staff that they can find.

The result of this is that some of the YT user community is brighter than the YT staff. (Not I – the video makers on the big science channels.) These tubers are much, much brighter than the majority of creationists and religionists who are using YT as a forum for their illogic, misinformation, and dirty tactics.

In lieu of good arguments, creationists and religionists have been forced to resort to cheating. The votebot is their latest tactic in the war on anyone with the temerity to disagree with them. Honest voting does not interest them. Oh no, they need to use computers to cheat down the ratings of those who are armed with knowledge and logic.

One of the interesting aspects of this ongoing battle between rationality (evolution, atheism) and petty-minded delusion (creationism, bigotry, hate-speech, religionism) has evolved (I love that word) since the attack of the bot-slaves. (Forgive the machines, Lord, they know not what they do).

Creationist and religionist foolishness and malevolence – and now YouTube ineptitude – has forced grass roots activism and community organization.

It's like watching a sociology experiment.

Atheists and scientists tend to be an independent-minded lot, who have naively assumed that providing factual information would be sufficient to help the ignorant to learn the truth. Belatedly, atheists and scientist are realizing that they must co-ordinate their efforts and take a political stand against the Forces of Darkness and Ignorance.

Acting rather like the Bush administration, YouTube has turned a blind eye to hate speech, while acting as dupes to petty-minded, religionist flagging of mild content, and to malicious, false DMCA claims.

YouTube apparently regards tubers as pests, who are best ignored and avoided. This is particularly so when tubers have complaints about YouTube’s failures to provide service in accord with their own guidelines.

Like any greed-bloated corporation, YouTube has focussed on advertising revenues while ignoring the fact that its very survival actually depends upon uploaded videos. Our uploaded videos. Our creations. Videos, which remain on our computers. Videos that we can delete from YouTube and upload onto an alternative site. In other words, we are both the fans and the producers. Boycotts work well, emigration would be even more effective.

YouTube would be well advised to remember not to cut off the hands that grow the food.

The Yawning Chasm

The NYT, in Evolution Book Sees No Science-Religion Gap, had the following to say of the National Academy of Sciences' third book on evolution and the creationist mythologies:

"But this volume is unusual, people who worked on it say, because it is intended specifically for the lay public and because it devotes much of its space to explaining the differences between science and religion, and asserting that acceptance of evolution does not require abandoning belief in God."

Unfortunately, the yawning chasm between rationality and creationism necessitates such a footbridge.

What's left once a person reconciles evolution with religion?

Plenty.

Deism, or moderate theism, or Catholicism, or Judaism, or Buddhism, or whatever other religious tradition of choice is compatible with science. There's also nonliteral interpretation of the best bits of the Bible as moral allegory, religious ritual, religious community, music, art, literature, and, most wondrous of all, the fabulous world of opening one's eyes to . . . understanding and appreciating the world.

Imagination is much better stimulated by recognition that modern theories of biological evolution offer the best explanation for the observable fact of biological evolution. Yes, Virginia, there really is a chimp ancestor in your family tree! Grounds for rejoicing. Yes, you really can count bacteria not only as your distant ancestors but also as the power houses of your cells and the photosynthetic machines that capture Ra's munificence. More grounds for rejoicing.

In an ideally rational world, it would not be necessary to pander to religious sensibilities so that some might open their closed minds to the wonders of reality. In an ideally rational world, there would be no need for supernatural mythologies or fantasies of special creation. In an ideal world, the nation whose Founding Fathers considered it expedient to entrench separation of Church and State would have honored and protected that prescient ethos by providing an educational system commensurate with the nation's wealth. In an ideally rational world, the wall would have been built higher rather than ignoring the fundamentalist sappers who were tunneling under the wall.



Brochure from NAS (pdf)





atheism, biological evolution, creationism, deism, education, fundamentalism, intelligent design, religion, science, supernatural, theism,

Suffer the Little Children

Pariahjane on Information Paradox provides a link to a poll of opinions among 16 to 29-yr olds, conducted by a religiously affiliated special-interest group.

The good news is that young people are more skeptical than older people about the respectability of Christianity. And rightly so, I might add. Eventually, fundamentalists of any faith almost invariably earn their religion a bad name.

However, this poll was not conducted to offer hope of a more sanely secular society in the future, it was undoubtedly intended as a prompt to increase child-oriented evangelical efforts. "THE ENEMY HAS PLANS FOR YOUR CHILDREN— DO YOU?" It's amusing that they shout at one another in caps too. Perhaps they fear that readers will only consider something True if it is Capitalized.

The enemy has plans for your children? What, a good, rational education? Encouragement to think for oneself? Recognition of human rights? No wonder all creationists have hitched their wagon to the IDiocy campaign. At the heart of all fundamentalisms is fear, which is hardly surprising because fear-mongering is at the heart of what Dawkins decries as religionist child abuse.

I want to comment on this section:

"The study explored twenty specific images related to Christianity, including ten favorable and ten unfavorable perceptions. Among young non-Christians, nine out of the top 12 perceptions were negative. Common negative perceptions include that present-day Christianity is judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), and too involved in politics (75%) - representing large proportions of young outsiders who attach these negative labels to Christians. The most common favorable perceptions were that Christianity teaches the same basic ideas as other religions (82%), has good values and principles (76%), is friendly (71%), and is a faith they respect (55%)."

Let's look at a segment of the above:

"The most common favorable perceptions were that Christianity teaches the same basic ideas as other religions (82%)"

I would not actually consider that a positive! Presumably the designation of "positive" for this question was pre-assigned by the pollsters. Those interviewed were probably best acquainted with the Abrahamic religions, which make similar claims of beneficence, but which ultimately all derive from the same original OT patent of rule-by-divine-terror.

Recent studies have shown that most practicing Christians know little about the tenets of their own faith (not tenants, as so many Christians miswrite). Obviously, this suggests that they probably know even less about the history of Christianity and still less about the tenets of other faiths. So, particularly considering the age group polled, this 82% can hardly be assumed to reflect educated opinion. (This would cause no worry to the participants or the pollsters, American religionist society has been raised to believe that all opinion, no matter how ill-informed, matters.)

The poll invites a philosophical tension alert:

It's interesting that positives and negatives contradict one another, rather than being proportionally inverse. How can people simultaneously think that Christianity is judgmental (87%) and hypocritical (85%), yet has good values and principles (76%), is friendly (71%), and is a faith they respect (55%)?

In view of the post-Scopes resurgance of fundamentalist political-power ploys, I think that the negatives probably relate to the in-your-face-bigotry of fundamentalists. The positives probably reflect the claims that religious devotees make for Christianity, but which the church increasingly fails to deliver. Let's be generous to the intelligence of those polled, though. The apparent discrepancy may also reflect awareness of the huge, hypocritical disparities across Christian denominations. Some denominations actually do preach tolerance and love.

bigotry, child abuse, Christianity, fundamentalism, intelligent design, religion, Richard Dawkins,

Hurrah for Europe!

The Founding Fathers may have been enlightened for their time, as witnessed by constitutional separation of church and state, but Europe has been ahead of America in enlightenment ever since:

The dangers of creationism in education

3. Creationism, born of the denial of the evolution of species through natural selection, was for a long time an almost exclusively American phenomenon. Today creationist ideas are tending to find their way into Europe and their spread is affecting quite a few Council of Europe member states.

4. The prime target of present-day creationists, most of whom are Christian or Muslim, is education. Creationists are bent on ensuring that their ideas are included in the school science syllabus. Creationism cannot, however, lay claim to being a scientific discipline.

5. Creationists question the scientific character of certain items of knowledge and argue that the theory of evolution is only one interpretation among others. They accuse scientists of not providing enough evidence to establish the theory of evolution as scientifically valid. On the contrary, they defend their own statements as scientific. None of this stands up to objective analysis.

Full list (1-20) can be found here: Europe Moves To Ban Creationsim in Schools .

From Council of Europe: Provisional edition, The dangers of creationism in education, Resolution 1580 (2007): Assembly debate on 4 October 2007 (35th Sitting) (see Doc. 11375, report of the Committee on Culture, Science and Education, rapporteur: Mrs Brasseur). Text adopted by the Assembly on 4 October 2007 (35th Sitting).

Hurrah for Sweden! Sweden to Suppress Religion in Schools - Proposal That Britain do the Same .




biological evolutionChristianityCouncil of Europecreationismeducationintelligent designIslamreligionscience

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

More discussion surrounding the gross misrepresentations of atheist arguments and arguments for appeasement by atheistic scientists is to be found here in response to Mary Midgley argues that opponents of intelligent design are driving people to accept it. In response to Midgley's preposterous contention that, "scientific atheism and Darwinism which are pernicious moral doctrines", PZ Myers provides an amusing argument from ridicule.

Mary Midgley appears not to have read Dawkins' The Selfish Gene and yet has critiqued things that Dawkins never said in the first place.

On his own website, Dawkins clarifies:

1. I have never said that there are no positions available except for my own and creatonism.
2. I have frequently said that natural selection is NOT the only source of evolution. I have written enthusiastically about Kimura's neutral theory of evolution.
3. I have frequently emphasized that natural selection favours cooperation and 'using something that others are not'.
4. I have repeatedly repudiated the worship of Thatcherite competition.
5. I have never said that religion MAKES people do appalling things, only that it frequently IS used to justify doing appalling things, just as ideologies such as Marxism are.
6. Far from being angry with anyone who says there are mysteries, I frequently and passionately invoke mystery as an inspiration for science, and I frequently state that science cannot answer some questions.

More : M. Midgley, ‘Gene-juggling’, Philosophy 54 (October 1979). : In Defence of Selfish Genes by Richard Dawkins : Read the goddamn book!!! : Dawkins needs to read some theology (as though that would convince Dawkins!) :



apologeticsatheismChristianitycreationismintelligent designmoralityphilosophyreligionscienceRichard Dawkinsjonathan haidt

A War on Science

Here's a BBC Horizon examination of the culmination of the Scopes 1925 Monkey Trial in the Kitzmiller vs Dover School Board case. Well worth watching if you can understand those with a Scottish accent.

Lawyer and born-again Christian fundamentalist Phillip E. Johnson reveals his motivation in the power conferred by teaching of the selected creation mythology. Stephen Meyer, a CSC lackey, reveals the search for stooges for IDiocy, including irreducibly deceptive Michael Behe and 'filter' mathematician William Dembski. These perfidious, creationist associations resulted in the reworking of Paley's Blind Watchmaker argument that has been repackaged as the sleight of mind dubbed 'intelligent design'. Dawkins correctly states that IDiocy is only finding a place amongst those "who don't know anything."







audiovisual, biological evolution, creationism, intelligent design, science, David Attenborough, Richard Dawkins, Kenneth Miller, Michael Behe, William Dembski, Phillip Johnson, Stephen Meyer, BBC,

IDiocy on Trial

By "IDiocy", I refer to "intelligent design" creationism.



Yes, after careful consideration of the evidence, I have already reached the conclusion that intelligent design creationism is religiously motivated, pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo.

November 13, on PBS's NOVA: Watch Online : Nova : Darwin's Predictions : Defining Science : In Defense ofEvolution : Fossil Evidence : WGBH's EvolutionWeb site : Teachers' Domain Resources : Board vs. Teachers : Senior ExecutiveProducer's Story : The Judge Speaks : Video & Audio Extras : In Defense ofIntelligent Design :

h/t Pharyngula: "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial".




atheismaudiovisualbiological evolutioncreationismeducationfundamentalismintelligent designsciencevideos

Kevin Padian

On FORA.tv, a conversation with Kevin Padian, one of the witnesses for science at the Dover trial. Kevin Padian is a University of California Berkeley professor and curator of the Museum of Paleontology. This is not a particularly exciting conversation because both the interviewer and Padian have a very calm style, but it is an interesting conversation nontheless.

Audiovisual INDEX

AVs are slow to load, so use this menu to choose the presentation that interests you:

Atheism:
□ Atheism in Canada :
□ Atheist Call to Arms :

□ Atheism 101 :

□ Atheism: Debunking Sociopolitical and Biblical Misrepresentation :

□ A War on Science : BBC Horizon examines 'intelligent design'.
□ Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the AAIC :

□ Creationist Distortions : the faked video that so delighted science-ignorant creationists
□ Creationist Hoax Exposed : how the Australian creationists faked a video in an attempt to discredit Richard Dawkins

□ Dan Dennett at AAIC '07

□ David Attenborough on Atheism :

□ BBC Profile of Richard Dawkins :

□ Dawkins: CNN interview :

□ Dawkins: God Delusion and Beyond :
□ Dawkins: Enemies of Reason

□ Dawkins: The Root of All Evil
□ Glad, glad, glad
□ Hitchens refutes McGrath
□ Hitchens vs McGrath
□ IDiocy on Trial : intelligent design creationism on trial; PBS, Nova, Nov. 13, 07
□ Jonathan Miller – The Atheism Tapes – Richard Dawkins
□ Jonathan Miller – Brief History of Disbelief
□ Jonathan Miller – Brief History of Disbelief II
□ Jonathan Miller – Brief History of Disbelief III
□ Julia Sweeney Sees the Light : An amusing reaction to a visitation by youthful Mormon "elders".
□ The Nonexistent cannot be Great
□ Ode on an American Turd
□ Of Blogrolls and Banners
□ Operation Spread Eagle
□ Pat Condell
□ Pray to Elvis : at least Elvis did exist.
□ Small Town, Small Minds, Big Problem : unChristian intolerance in rural America

Humor:

BritCom
□ Beyond Washoe – meet Gerald

Frasier :
□ Funniest Silent 5 Minutes
□ High Crane Drifter
□ Hoisted on his Own Sword
□ How do you say 'Fiasco' in German?
□ I Spy
□ Niles' influence?
□ Psycobabble Theme

People!
□ I don't know . . .

Religious Satire
□ These men died for us . . .

Vicar of Dibley
□ Alice in Everwonder Land

Miscellany
□ Hitler Rap
□ Pat Condell on Mitt mitt die üntergärmënts
□ You might have to be one . . .

Morality:
□ Dawkins on Scripture :


Miscellaneous:
□ deviantART animation of stick figure doing battle with Flash
□ Manikin Moonwalk a bird with da moves.

Music:
□ Allegri Miserere
□ Aranjuez
□ Laura Branigan Self Control
□ Kate Bush
□ Celine Dion & Barbra Streisand - Tell Him
□ Haris Alexiou Apopse Thelo Na Pio
□ Kitka Wintersongs
□ KD Lang, Lorretta Lynn, Kitty Wells, and Brenda Lee Honky Tonk Angels
□ Cindi Lauper, Celine Dion, Roy Orbison I Drove All Night
□ Lascia Ch'io Pianga
□ Loreena McKennitt & Leahy
□ Master Soundtrack
□ Sarah McLachlan Angel
□ October Song
□ Orinoco Flow
□ Beth Orton
□ Pokarekare Ana
□ Spem in Alium
□ Survivors' Songs
□ Tango
□ Wayfaring Stranger

Science:
□ A War on Science : BBC Horizon examines 'intelligent design'.
□ IDiocy on Trial : intelligent design creationism on trial; PBS, Nova, Nov. 13, 07
□ Kevin Padian on evolution

atheism, audiovisual, videos

Atheist Call to Arms

Richard Dawkins: An atheist's call to arms:

Dawkins has become controversial because he has spoken up against nonsensical religiopolitical propagandism. Religionists and Creationists have become accustomed to having the stage to themselves (with the too quiet exception of most who are in possession of a good education in science). Dawkin contends that it is no longer sufficient merely to reiterate scientific truths about the universe and biological evolution, but also to throw a critical light onto religious mythology.

Dawkins' pithy comments are too accurate not to have elicited an emotional backlash from religionists. This timely 2002 lecture was Dawkins' invitation to the intelligentsia in TED's American audience to join the OUT Campaign. As Dawkins' points out, atheism is on the rise in the US and is positively correlated with IQ and educational level.

"Let's all stop being so damned respectful!"

atheism

Creationist Deceptions

Only a creationist would not want to understand that the video was altered in any way. Only a creationist would fool himself that a hesitation signified the defeat of their arch enemy, the evolutionary truth crusader. The actual question to which Dawkins responded was asked by a male who was edited out, and not by the female whose voice was edited in to appear earlier in the tape.

The question deliberately appeared quite simple and there are an enormous number of concrete examples—as many, and more, as there are species. The individuals of most species exhibit some variation within the genome. The question was so worded as to imply that the foundations of biological evolution are in doubt. Speciation requires considerable accumulated genetic change. Detectable speciation is that which has already occurred in the past. Biological complexity, whether creationists accept the reality or not, comprises evidence of increase in biological 'information'.

This was a ridiculous question to ask of an evolutionary biologist, and as Dawkins explains of the situation, so irritated Dawkins that he was tempted to immediately terminate the interview and insist that the Australian creationist team leave his house.

This stupid question could have been posed because creationists are so science-ignorant as not to know that the question was ridiculous. However, the deliberate alteration of the video footage (dubbing a different interviewer into the footage) indicates that the actual question was posed in a creationist attempt to catch Dawkins out.

Dawkins' response was completely acceptable in that it accurately addresses the contained creationist misconception of evolutionary biology. Only a science-ignorant person would be so unaware that Dawkins' response was indeed accurate and then to post Dawkins' good answer on a creationist website. No worry to the creationist-poster, the audience knows no science either. Creationist hype-spinners know that emotionally-gratifying deceptions are far more important than understanding to Biblical literalists. Many of these people seem to be morally deficient in that they care only for appearances and will employ deliberate deceit to manipulate situations.

What they fail to comprehend is that even had their question stumped Richard Dawkins, any hesitation on the part of one evolutionary biologist would not be equivalent to demonstrating their hoped-for error in a competing explanation. Even if Darwin was incorrect about natural selection (he wasn't), this would not demonstrate that creationism had any validity. But to recognize that would require logic and intellectual honesty–and no brain-washed individual could simultaneously be a creationist and possess these qualities.

Sites Creationist Deception Exposed, the Skeptic, Vol 18 No 3, by Barry Williams

Blogs Creationist crankery flashback: Richard Dawkins stumped?

atheism, creationism, Richard Dawkins

Creationist Hoax Exposed

The actual question was posed much later in the footage than the fake creationist overvoice suggests: The question was, "Can you give an example of a genetic mutation of an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome?"

This is a question that requests predictions from now to later. The genome has changed through evolutionary time, and we can see the traces of that change in accumulated differences, for example, in the genes coding for identically functioning but structurally modified proteins. We can see the traces, for example, in gene duplications that are present in organism higher up the evolutionary scale but absent in more primitive organisms.

The problem with the question is that we cannot know whether genetic variation that we observe now can be expected to lead to species diversification. Organisms display a range of genetic differences between individuals of the same species, yet only time will tell which of those genetic endowments might confer survival advantage to its bearer and hence persist and prosper in the future. That would be like looking at a newborn infant and speculating on the appearance of his or her great-great-great-grandchildren.

atheism