on religious arguments against equality, or why the Mormon church deserves all the criticism it gets

The hypocrisy in the Mormon church comes not from it having beliefs I disagree with, but rather that it makes certain claims, and then acts completely contrary to those claims. The claim it makes that it is not anti-gay is a lie, and a ridiculously transparent one at that.

The church has systematically opposed ALL rights for gays wherever it could, excommunicates people for being gay, has a long history of emotionally, mentally and physically abusing gays. Its claim that it is "protecting" marriage from unspecified threats to it is a red herring and a straw-man. There is no demonstrable threat to marriage which comes from equality for LBGT persons. The church has lied about the supposed threats to religious liberties in order to convince people to oppose gay rights. It knows it has lied, and still purports to be an ethical institution with absolutely good morals.

The church is supremely hypocritical on the issues of general honesty and historical accuracy.This has been proven, time and time again, regardless of whether member wish to confront that truth.

But why should gays be able to have equal rights? It’s true that there’s nothing inherently right about civil or human rights. As a species we’ve invented/evolved our own moral code and set of ethics because of shared human subjective experience and because we were better able to survive and reproduce if we behaved ethnically. But the universe does not care one way or the other. It has no lasting effect.

I have two reasons: 1) we’re humans too, if you get rights, then we deserve them too, and 2) there is no unbiased, non-bigoted reason to withhold rights from an entire minority group.

Within the shared ethics of humanity it makes absolutely no sense to deprive me of rights simply because I have a penis and so do the people I am able to be attracted to and love. The separation of heterosexuals from the rest of humanity is a totally arbitrary delineation that really only happened because heterosexuals are in the majority (or at least perceived to be) and have cultural mores acting on them.

To argue that my rights are any less fundamental or worthwhile than a straight person’s is supremely dehumanising to me, and comes from a place of supreme ethnocentrism, undeserved moral superiority, and self-righteousness.

American constitutional rights are just a subset of ethical human rights. They’re not some magic list, not even the best list, and certainly not the end-all of what should be guaranteed to other humans. Arguing that gay rights aren't included in American constitutional rights isn't a very good argument (besides it being untrue) because the overarching point is not that we're being treated illegally or unconstitutionally (though important), but rather that we're being treated unfairly, unethically, and immorally.

My argument is of course based on the idea that all humans are equal in that we’re all in the same basic situation here, in life. Those who are rich and powerful don’t deserve to be nor do those who are poor, hungry, and deprived. Social striation is artificial. It is subjectively wrong to give one group of humans privileged and power over another because of superficial differences. But it’s subjective in a way that approaches objectivity. If suffering is in any wrong, if fairness matters at all, ever, if oppression and exploitation and discrimination are in any way bad, then lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersexed, and queer rights and equality are as objective ethical and moral as it gets. Denying us total and complete equality comes from the same source as sexism and oppression of women, and of racism and the oppression of racial minorities. You cannot separate out gay rights from the rights of all other minorities or oppressed groups. Either we all somehow deserve complete equality or we don’t – but there really is no room in between.

And by that same logic, Mormonism, and every group, religious or not, which fights against complete equality for sexual minorities, is fighting against the concept of human equality and fairness. No matter how one couches it, Mormonism supports oppression, discrimination, and institutionalised dishonesty and those are things it purports to abhor, and is therefore supremely hypocritical.

carnival of the godless #132

1) Mike presents Normal Heights Welcomes Nation’s First Agnostic Church posted at SD Headliner. It's an amusing parody of what a church would be if it were for agnostics (seems quite similar to UUism to me...)

2-4) Leah L. Burton presents Prayer Warfare ~ ?Prayercast? ~ Spiritual Warfare? Someone Please Tell Me How This is Christ-like?! , Guest Post ~ Bible Study for Palin, and Rebiblican Coburn Invokes God as an Imprecatory Weapon Against Senate Dems all posted at God's Own Party?

5) Martin Rundkvist presents Theological Carolling posted at Aardvarchaeology. An interesting look at how secularism and historical Christianity are at work in Sweden.

6) Shiloh Ledger presents The Metrics posted at Shiloh Doesn't Care. Why belief in afterlives ruins this one.

7) Transplanted Lawyer presents Top Ten Worst Bible Stories posted at Not A Potted Plant. They're pretty nasty, and go to show that the Bible is hardly the bastion of morality and loving-kindness that Christians want to pretend it is.

8) Hall Monitor presents Kalamazoo Catholic schoolchildren write letters to Baby Jesus instead of Santa posted at DetentionSlip.org. It's amusing to see the comments by offended readers who take umbrage at being told baby Jesus doesn't exist, and neither does Santa.

9) Michelle Bell presents Yes, Where are the Young Atheists? posted at The Gaytheists. A great post, questioning why it seems that young atheists aren't organised and as clearly involved in the community like their religious peers.

10) Michael McElroy presents What Should Atheists Evangelize? posted at Thoughts from a Godless Heathen. An excellent question.

11) Peter Bowditch presents Earthquakes and God posted at The Millenium Project.

12) Kylie Sturgess presents More Research On Why Kids Believe In ‘The Tooth And Nothing But The Tooth’ posted at PodBlack Cat. The linked-to article about magical thinking in children is a fascinating read for sure.

13) Carol at Letters from Abroad posts about her holiday adventures with her theistic extended family and her eight-year-old atheist-leaning son, spanning 4 posts: How do you know you exist?, More existential musings!, The rest of the holiday story..., and Then he told his other grandma that God doesn't exist...

14) Marcus presents Holiday Bleh posted at ...Ergo Sum. A story that is not at all dissimilar from my own.

And that's it for this edition of the Carnival of the Godless. For future Carnivals, visit The Gaytheists. Who will either host it or let us know who is!

upcoming: carnival of the godless

The next Carnival of the Godless will be right here at Yes, I am on Sunday, January 3rd. The deadline for all submissions is midnight on Friday, January 1st.

Submission of articles to Carnival of the Godless 132 should be made here. They will be posted by Sunday Morning.

Also visit The Gaytheists, who are permanently running/managing the Carnival, to see the current edition of Carnival of the Godless (131).

X-mas for real

I'm not going home to see my family this year for Christmas. This'll be the first year, excluding my 2 years in Germany, that I've not been with my parents and siblings for the holidays. The main reason I'm not going is because I only get one day off of work and it's completely impractical to try to travel from Utah to rural Wisconsin and back in a weekend. But it's not the only reason.

I find so much of Christmas, and especially Christmas with my family, to be completely and utterly creepifying. The overly-emotional adoration of Jesus, the rampant historical inaccuracy, the emotionally-manipulative "faith-promoting" stories, readings from the Bible, exhortations about the "true" meaning of Christmas, etc. ad nauseam all combine to make Christmas a disturbing and frustrating event rather than a fun and relaxing one.

I think more than any other time of year, Christmas reminds me of how utterly different I am from my family, how much our moral, philosophical, religious, social, and political beliefs divide us, and how impossible it is to discuss any of this with them. It's still strange to me how fundamentally and radically different my relationship with my family is now that we don't share a common religion. While I always knew that religion was especially strongly integrated into my family, I never quite knew how axiomatic it was to them.

In the past year I've seen my family twice, last Christmas for 2 days, and this past August for just half a day, and both times the explicit religiosity was both extremely apparent and extremely disconcerting. I find that it's nearly impossible to have extended conversations with my parents or be in the same room with them for more than an hour without god-talk creeping in disturbingly frequently. And it's not that I don't love them or enjoy seeing them, but the fact of their extremely orthodox, near-fundamentalist religious beliefs coupled with their restrictions on what I'm allowed to say in front of my siblings makes it nearly impossible for me to feel comfortable around them for any period of time.

Because I was raised with and brainwashed into those beliefs, I now am altogether creeped out by them. I can't be open about my beliefs in front of my siblings because my parents are afraid I'll corrupt them and quite literally lead them to hell. Perhaps if I were able to express my extreme disagreement and disbelief it would be more tolerable, but as it is, when I visit I'm forced to endure almost torturous displays of brainwashed adoration of imaginary friends and protestations of belief without being able to say a thing against it.

It's very common for religious families to not respect other family members who reject superstition and theism because they often see it as a personal affront and can't deal with the fact that the beliefs they blindly accept and have no real evidence for are being challenged if only through non-adherence. What exactly my parents think about my atheism I don't really know, but I do know that I feel more like an independent adult now than ever as a result of this choice to not spend Christmas with my family. I hope this will help them to further solidify that independent status with them.

And so I'm staying at home alone this Christmas, and I'm quite happy about it. I've decorated a little with lights and candles and a small tree, and am having a big Winter Solstice party this weekend with all my queer, godless, liberal, drunkie friends. While I do feel a very slight pang of disappointment that I won't be with my family, I'm glad I'm starting my own completely atheistic, booze-filled and religious-free holiday traditions. And maybe some year I'll be able to celebrate in my way while they do in theirs, and we'll be able to do it at the same time in the same place.

For now though, the differences are, I think, too many, and too new.

sweet baby space jesus

The full text of the very quickly infamous Dallin Oaks BYU-I speech has much more crazy in it that just the extremely racist, homophobic, ethnocentric statements about the post Prop 8 Mormon "persecution" being the same as blacks in the south in the 60s. Just as crazy, and perhaps more dangerous are his arguments about religious freedoms, and how they apparently trump the freedoms of the non-religious or gays (who apparently are all non-religious).

The problem for him is that Oaks is stumbling into dangerous waters with his religious vs. gay framing of the debate - because it's a false dichotomy. There are quite a few religions which strongly favour gay equality, gay marriage, total equality for all. His arguments therefore lose their potency because the only grounds upon which he has to argue against gay rights are religious, and indeed, are the only grounds upon which he even tries to argue, in this particular speech. What he forgets to mention is why his specific, Mormon, religious beliefs should be able to trump, in secular society, the religious beliefs of the UU, Church of Christ, liberal Quakers, or Episcopalians, etc., let alone non-Christians.

Because of the constitutional issue of separation of church and state, the state cannot favour one religion over another. Even if we were to allow it to favour religion over non-religion (which we don't allow, or are trying not to at least), it still could not constitutionally or legally allow conservative religions to overrule liberal religions on this or any other issue.

And I just can't believe he's stupid enough to not have realised this - though perhaps I'm over estimating his intelligence - but I have to assume he knows how fundamentally flawed his entire argument is. I am forced to conclude he's only using it to cynically manipulate those who won't question his words or fault him for his massive illogic. Oaks, Hafen, et al. are just not so cleverly or subtly giving the faithful ways to not feel guilty about being homophobes. They are making the members perform their dirty work by filling their heads with lies and half-truths and faulty logic, and then telling them it's their godly duty to oppose equal human rights for all.

I think it is also clear that Oaks believes (or at least says he does) that gays shouldn't be allowed to even protest. The church clearly believes they have some imaginary right to be immune to all criticism. They seem also to think that they have a right to fund votes on which minorities get which rights, and receive no legal or social consequences, simply on the basis that they're a religion. This mentality stems from the idea Mormons are brought up with that they're special, better, and more righteous than EVERYONE ELSE EVERYWHERE, EVER. They have the "ONE TRUE TRUTH" from sweet baby jesus, and that gives them the right to lord it over everyone else. They simply don't comprehend why society can't function when people act or think like that, or why they should be subject to the same secular laws as all the heathens and fags. They just don't understand that their apostles aren't in charge of the country, that their imaginary space-jesus isn't really running things on earth from his perch on Kolob, and that they're on the very, very wrong side of this issue, as so often in the past.

If we were to give into his and the church's ideas of religious "rights" (and the evangelicals', etc.) we would swiftly have several fundamentalist Christian theocracies warring with each other, rather than a free, democratic, secular, and pluralistic society where individuals and minorities have (at least some) rights.

And that is why Oaks is full of shit, why his ideas are dangerous, and why I hate him and his ilk.

what the fuck?

Mormon Church Leader : "Mormonism is the new black"

i has a food blog!

Which is here. It's pretty naked right now, but I'm working on it. Look for developments in the near future.

recipe of the week

Beer Braised Chicken with Herbed Dumplings

8-10 chicken thighs, skin on
2 12 oz bottles of beer* (see below)
4 C low sodium or unsalted chicken broth
1 bunch flat-leaf Italian parsley
20 g (one .7 oz pkg) fresh thyme on the stem
15 g (3/4 of a .7 oz pkg) fresh rosemary
2-3 dried bay leaves or 8-10 fresh
5 garlic cloves
kosher salt
1 large onion
3-4 large ribs celery (with leaves if possible)
8-12 oz cremini mushrooms (baby portobello)
fresh ground black pepper
celery seed

Dumplings:
3 C flour
4 t baking powder
1 1/2 t kosher salt
freshly ground pepper to taste
4-5 scallions (green onions)
1/2 C milk
1-1.5 C beer (8-12 oz)
reserved herbs

Wash the chicken thighs and pat dry with paper towels. Season liberally on both sides with kosher salt, pepper and celery seed. Lightly oil a very large, at least 4 inch deep skillet, pot, or electric frying pan and pan fry the thighs on both sides until well browned and the skin is crispy. You may have to remove some of the grease half-way through.

While the chicken browns, chop the herbs, stripping the thyme and rosemary leaves from their stems. Mix the dough for the dumplings, adding in about 2/3 of the rosemary and thyme and 1/2 of the parsley to the dumpling batter as well as all of the scallions, reserving the rest of the herbs for the gravy/garnish. Add in the liquid, adding in more beer if needed to make a slightly stiff dough. Dice the onion and celery, mince the garlic, and halve (or quarter if large) the mushrooms.

Once well browned (don't worry about cooking through, because you'll braise them later) remove the chicken, set aside, and then remove most of grease without disturbing the cooked-on remnants. Leave enough fat to sauté the onions, celery, mushrooms and garlic in. Add in the onion and celery and season with salt and pepper, scraping up the browned bits. Sweat until soft and slightly caramelised, then add in the garlic and mushrooms, being careful not to let the garlic burn. Add more of the chicken fat if needed. If using fresh bay leaves, add them in with the garlic and sauté them slightly being careful also to not allow them to burn either. Once cooked, deglaze the pan with one of the bottles of beer*. Again scrape up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan, and then add in the chicken stock. Check for saltiness and add more salt if needed (if you use unsalted or low-sodium stock it will definitely need salt). Add the chicken back in at this point, as well as the reserved herbs (keeping 1/4 of the parsley until the end as a garnish for the whole dish), cover so as not to lose liquid volume, and let braise on medium-low heat for about 20-30 minutes.

At this point, spoon the dumpling dough into the spaces between the chicken (into the broth). The starch from the dumplings, as well as evaporation, will begin to greatly thicken up the broth and turn in into a gravy. Replace the cover, and steam/braise the dumplings for about 7 minutes, and then add in the second beer and (if any) left over which you didn't put in the dumpling batter. Cook for another 10-15 minutes until the gravy is thickened, but not too thick (add in more stock and/or beer if the gravy evaporates too much/gets too thick). If too watery, remove the cover and let simmer for a few minutes until thickened. Remove the bay leaves.

At this point, serve the dumpling and chicken, spooning gravy over the dumplings. You might want to also serve this with a light salad or carrots, or green vegetable, as this is quite heavy (but goddamn amazingly flavourful). Garnish with the reserved chopped fresh parsley.

*Ideally a medium-heavy bodied, hoppy & malty ale such as an amber ale, red ale, pale ale, Belgian ale, or some types of non-stout medium dark porters). You definitely don't want to use either a light lager or dark stout - something in between. In Utah we have beers called Polygamy Porter and Evolution Amber Ale, either of which would would be ideal for this dish.

One of the benefits of cooking with alcohol (besides the addition of tons of delicious flavour) is the fact that while alcohol has a lower boiling point than water, all of the alcohol won't cook out, and it acts as a natural flavour-enhancer (like salt, but obviously without the sodium/salt taste). I add in the second beer later to keep in more of the alcohol in the gravy so the flavour is that much more enhanced, and to ensure the gravy doesn't cook down too much.

Furthermore, I love to use the beer in the dumplings because the acid in the beer reacts with the baking soda to create fluffier, more flavourful dumplings than one would get with using milk only.

Using fresh herbs in this is a real must if at all possible. Dried herbs in the dumplings especially would create a different texture and be too bitter and strong. When cooking with fresh herbs, use 3-4 times as much as you were to normally use dried. Some herbs (like parsley and cilantro) lose their flavour when dried, and so are really only useful fresh. Other more woody herbs (thyme, rosemary, oregano) intensify when dried, and are good in some dishes/in some instances. I keep dried herbs in my pantry, but regularly purchase fresh herbs for most uses.

just so you know

Einstein was not a theist. He wasn't even a deist. No matter how often theists try to pretend he was one of them by quote mining him out of context, he was not, so stop it.

And we have proof.

The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. ... For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition.

Suck on that, theists.

and it came to pass jesus did cum down and did most vigorously fuck mohammed in the ass, and god looked down and said, oh me that is so fucking hot.

Tomorrow is International Blasphemy Day. Why is it important? Well, the Center for Inquiry has more than a few ideas, and so does PZ Myers of Pharyngula - all of which I agree with.

From the article on the CFI website,

Blasphemy Day International is a campaign seeking to establish September 30th as a day to promote free speech and stand up in a show of solidarity for the freedom to challenge, criticize, and satirize religion without fear of murder, litigation, and reprisal. It is the obligation of the world's nations to safeguard dissent and the dissenters, not to side with the brutal interests of those who demand "respect" for their beliefs (i.e., immunity to being criticized or mocked or they threaten violence).

The right to free speech, which includes the right to criticise any idea, is one of the most important human rights.

Certain religious people, groups and countries seem to think that religion should be exempt from criticism (i.e. blasphemy) because religious ideas are somehow deserving of immunity from criticism. Of course, that's utter bullshit, but that fact hasn't kept the UN from giving into pressure specifically from Islamic nations to do the exact opposite of what makes sense, and declare the "defamation of religion" a human rights violation. The problem is, human rights are about protecting humans, not human ideas. Not one single idea, concept, or belief should ever be exempted from the most intense scrutiny or criticism.

It is grossly disturbing that free speech is being so constricted by the international community. No idea should ever be exempt from criticism, no matter how "sacred" or important it is to a society.

Though this was specifically instigated by Muslims' freak-out over the Mohammed cartoons of 2005, Islam is far from the only offender, though perhaps currently the worst. Christianity has just as bad a history as Islam does in allowing free inquiry, and the vast majority of religions curtail in to one degree or another.

While in most parts of the world physical violence is no longer likely if one blasphemes Christianity specifically, it is still very taboo in many cultures and countries, where it enjoys a very privileged status. For example in Ireland, it is even now illegal to blaspheme. From wikipedia,

In Ireland, blasphemy is prohibited by the constitution and carries a maximum fine of €25,000. A controversial law was brought into law on 9 July 2009 making blasphemous libel a crime for material "that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage"blasphemy is prohibited by the constitution and carries a maximum fine of €25,000. A controversial law was brought into law on 9 July 2009 making blasphemous libel a crime for material "that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage"

In some countries the right to free speech is curtailed under existing "hate speech" laws where "inciting hatred" against specific groups is illegal, and while certain degrees of hate speech should be illegal (inciting murder for example), far too often it is applied to something as trivial but important as the right to "insult" religious groups, through criticising or attacking their beliefs and traditions. This happens routinely in Canada and Europe especially.

I do my best to blaspheme daily, but I think it deserves a little extra attention tomorrow. The only way we'll ever bring about tolerance for others' right to be and believe different is to allow complete and open criticism, comment and speech on every topic imaginable. Notice I didn't say tolerance for other's beliefs, but rather their right to those beliefs. I believe in being utterly intolerant and disrespectful of bad beliefs, non-scientific beliefs, and harmful beliefs. But beliefs and their expression cannot ever be curtailed.

In this one instance, the laws of the US are ahead of the rest of the world - because of the first amendment. But the cultural ramifications of blasphemy are still very real in the US, and conservative Christians specifically seem unable to grasp why they don't deserve any sort of special respect for their beliefs, nor why when they preach against other creeds (atheism, Islam, polytheism, etc.) they're doing exactly what they want to be exempted from.

Unabashed and unending blasphemy is one of the best solutions to bring awareness to the importance of the right to free speech and right to criticise any and all ideas. Free inquiry and free thought are the foundations of rational thought, science as well as are the core of the very idea of human rights.

So to start off,

Joseph Smith was a paedophile, con-artist, and all-around fuck-tard, Tommy Monson and his cronies are in charge of one of the cleverest, richest and brainwashiest pyramid schemes/cults of all time, and aren't fooling anyone as to the real reason of their obsession with attacking gay rights.

Any other takers?