The Panda's Posterior

NO MORE MR. NICE GUY

   Well, we've had over a month of celebrating the Dover victory. The ID debate has momentarily quieted, and Mr. Darwin's Giant Iguana army stands ready and vigilant against a further outbreak of the ID-K (Intelligent Design-Kansensii) virus.

   Unfortunately, fundamentalism of both the Christian and Islamic sort remains as virulent as ever.

   In the U.S., president Bush is calling for a revived Jihad on human cloning research, and a large proportion of the funds for the fight against AIDS is going to religious groups to promote their abstinence and fidelity message. In the Middle East, Muslims are demonstrating and boycotting all Scandinavian products because of a recent cartoon in a Danish newspaper depicting the prophet wearing a turban-shaped bomb on his head (in a welcome gesture of solidarity, several other newspapers in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland have reproduced the cartoon). Protests are growing throughout the Middle East.  The Danish prime minister has apologized to the Muslim world on Arab television, explaining (with no trace of irony) that he has no control over what newspapers publish. 

  We at Darwin's Revenge are quite willing to respect religious beliefs IF those who choose to harbor such delusions believe in God undertake to respect the rights of non-believers.

   Which they clearly don't, won't, and can't.

   We should ask ourselves, just what gives anyone the right to say that because they hold a particular belief, that gives them authority to dictate to the rest of us? Why does religious faith automatically make them immune to intellectual challenge or protect them from humor? If we cave to that, we are guilty of buying into and enabling their repressive belief system.  If we censor ourselves, free speech goes out of the window.

   And that is exactly where our society is heading. How? By according religious believers more respect than they accord non-believers. By treating them with kid gloves when it comes to satire and criticism of their beliefs.  By being too damned sensitive.

   Let's be clear about this. We at Darwin's Revenge fully support freedom of thought and speech, and are not against religion per se. What we ARE against is the patronizing, self-righteous, monumentally arrogant attitude which fundamentalists of every stripe use to deny respect and freedom to others.

   This denial can take many forms, from trying to censor art and humor to denying freedom of choice on societal issues and trying to stop funding on potentially life-saving technologies.

   How DARE they? Why do we put up with this crap? We, the agnostics, atheists, and those good, moderate believers who don't browbeat the rest of us with their beliefs, need to make ourselves heard.

   Or perhaps we should just continue to watch terminally sick loved ones suffer because of other people's delusional beliefs? We should be outraged that we accord a sick pet more mercy and compassion than we allow humans. We should be outraged that artists who tell the truth about the way women are treated in the Muslim world are killed. We should be outraged that money which should be used to buy anti-viral medication for AIDS victims is being channeled to religious groups to push their pissy puritanical agendas. We should be outraged that fundamentalists -- both in the West and the East -- seek to undermine the teaching of science.  We should be outraged at attempts to limit women's rights and freedoms. We should be outraged that same-sex partners are denied the rights that opposite-sex partners take for granted.

   It's not that bad, you say? Actually, it’s worse. The level of ignorance and intolerance among the fundamentalists of this world, both Christian and other, has to be seen to be believed. If you want a sample, check out the 'hate mail' page of that delightful and essentially gentle satire, the Flying Spaghetti Monster: the level of hatred and ignorance which many of these people harbor is vile – or its anagram, evil.

   Yet these are people who tell us that their religion is about love, just as Muslims assure us that Islam preaches tolerance. Killing people with different views doesn't look much like any tolerance we've heard of.

   So let's try for less tolerance of religion. Let's question and critique people's beliefs. Let's make jokes about them (after all, the Jews and Catholics can take it, and even laugh at themselves). Let's ask why every believer of every different religion, sect, or cult, is so convinced that their way is The Way, and everyone else is wrong. Let's ask ourselves if religion isn't at best a coping mechanism like drink or drugs, at worst a symptom of severe mental illness.

   In short, let's take the gloves off.  Because the fundamentalists never even put them on.

See Christian fundamentalist hatred in action at the FSM 'hate mail' page: this is a loving religion?

A SMALL VICTORY

   Judge Jones's ruling in the Dover case is a refreshing reminder that the US judiciary is not easily duped.

   Would that it were so for the public. In a country where critical thinking skills are in obvious decline and some 40 million evangelical Christians see it as their God-given mission to set the clock back to the Middle Ages, a terrifying proportion of the populace appears easily convinced by the pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo which the proponents of 'Intelligent Design' and their lapdog 'experts' spew forth.

   Not so Judge Jones. "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID policy," he said of the (now ousted) school board who voted for the ID policy. "We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom."

   Heartening as these developments may be, we should not become complacent: creationism is not going to go away any more than its proponents are likely to renounce their faith. Like the Hydra of myth, no sooner is one head cut off than it grows another. In a direct challenge to the public university system, a suit brought by 4,000 Christian schools against the University of California accuses the university of discriminating against them by setting admissions rules that violate their free speech and religious rights. Preliminary rulings are expected soon.

   The front line of the War on Reason is, and will continue to be, education. One has only to look at the middle east and Afghanistan to realize that religious fundamentalism can only thrive on poor soil, namely an educational environment unfertilized by critical thinking and scientific rigor. By allowing fundamentalism into the science classroom, we would open the way to a new medievalism where the sun revolves around the earth, dancing is a sin, and women must obey their husbands at all times.

ID's NEW WORLD ORDER

   In an article titled 'Under God or Under Darwin?' in the Dec 2^nd issue of National Review Online, Muslim writer and 'expert' witness in the recent Kansas State Education Board hearings Mustafa Akyol blames Mr. Darwin for the 'extremely hedonistic and degenerate elements that turn life into meaningless profligacy' in the West.

   In Mr. Akyol's view, Intelligent Design theory offers the much-needed bridge between Islam and the West. Closely argued and doubtless well-intentioned, Mr. Akyol's article is nonetheless a perfect example of the way in which religious faith colors and distorts people's perception of reality. While Mr. Akyol correctly points out that (moderate) Islam's biggest problem with the West is the latter's perceived lack of values and rampant materialism, he then -- with that sublimated superiority peculiar to the faithful -- falls into the trap of thinking that belief in God is a prerequisite for moral values. Clearly Mr. Akyol has never investigated Philosophy.

   Mr. Akyol further weakens his case by playing the odious 'France Card' established as a Conservative rallying cry in post 9/11 America: 'Sadly, it was secularist Europe — and especially, theophobic France — rather than the religious United States that the Islamic world encountered as "the West." No wonder, then, that the West eventually became synonymous with godlessness.' Ah, the 'religious United States': goodness, goodness. Perhaps we should point out that France has a social system that takes rather better care of its poor and infirm than does the US, and does not reward greed and materialism with tax breaks.

   Mr. Akyol's new world order under the Intelligent Designer will bring together 'sane and pious' Muslims and Christians to 'save the west' from the runaway materialism which encompasses it. But whereas Mr. Akyol takes every opportunity to tie promiscuity and materialism to atheism and belief in Mr. Darwin's theories, he is (at the same time as he rightfully decries terrorism) very careful to not underscore the evident causal links between religious fervor and acts of violence. It might be well to remember that religious extremists in Iraq are currently killing intellectuals and academics.

  In addition to the standard, tired creationist swipes at the fossil record, Mr. Akyol makes the astonishing statements that 'there is a huge and growing body of ID literature produced by some of the world's finest minds,' and that 'ID presents a new perspective on science, one that is based solely on scientific evidence'.

   Evidently, new definitions of the phrases 'scientific evidence,' and 'the world's finest minds' are at play here: it must all be part of the 'new world order' under Mr. Akyol's Intelligent Designer.

read original article

   Consider, dear friends, the following twaddle from 'Of Pandas and People', the poorly-disguised religious tract which the proponents of ID theory have been trying to get into state schools, mostly as a supplemental as a biology textbook

   "If science is based upon experience, then science tells us the message encoded in DNA must have originated from an intelligent cause. But what kind of intelligent agent was it? On its own, science cannot answer this question; it must leave it to religion and philosophy. But that should not prevent science from acknowledging evidences for an intelligent cause origin wherever they may exist."

   Do you really want your children -- any children -- to be taught this fluff in a science class?  Let's take a closer look at the stitching on this cheap tux:

   "If science is based upon experience"

   Science is based not upon experience but upon observation and experiment. This bait-and-switch tactic of adopting pseudo-scientific language to propagate lies and flawed logic is typical of ID literature.

   "then science tells us the message encoded in DNA must have originated from an intelligent cause."

   Science tells us no such thing!  Clearly, the author hasn't the foggiest notion how science arrives at its conclusions.

   "But what kind of intelligent agent was it? On its own, science cannot answer this question; it must leave it to religion and philosophy. But that should not prevent science from acknowledging evidences for an intelligent cause origin wherever they may exist."

   Fourth, complexity alone is no basis for assuming intelligent design. A pencil, razor, or telescope, all inanimate objects which serve no function in nature: those are clear examples of intelligent design, since none of them could have evolved naturally by any known mechanisms of nature. Nor have their antecedents left any fossils.