Turns out not to be a repeat from last year. The same disgusting preacher dude is making headlines once more and once more I acknowledge Mojoey for mentioning it:

Pastor Daniel Cormier was convicted of sexual assault Friday in Canada in a case involving a 16-year-old girl. His previous conviction occurred last January for the sexual assault of a girl aged 10.

Cormier is a freak. He needs to spend a long time in prison, 15 to 20 years at least. With Canada, this is unlikely. They are a “humane” country. It’s much better to have Cormier out of prison and preying on children in 2014.

From the CBC article:

He’s already serving a five-year sentence, handed down last January, for sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl he had claimed as his bride after a ceremony at his Downtown Church.

The victim at the centre of the latest trial was a parishioner and volunteer at the facility.

Cormier was accused of sexually exploiting the girl between 1993 and 1995 when she was 16 and 17 years old.

She told the court she was naive and had no sexual experience before meeting Cormier at his so-called church. Eventually they ended up together at a religious retreat in the Laurentians, with her sleeping in his bed.

Mojoey’s disgust has to do with both Cormier, and the bias he thinks is evident in CBC’s reporting of the incident: “self-described” pastor and “so-called” church.

The bias is obvious. No self respecting legitimate pastor would molest a child, right? It’s just freaks like Cormier who actually commit the crimes. I have ample examples showing that this is just not true. The clergy sexual abuse epidemic is real and happens in every major denomination.

I also have ample examples of people starting a church as a way to make a few bucks and avoid taxes. Any random Joe off the street with a Jesus loves you message can start a church. There are no standards. I could open Mojoey’s blessed church of the holy Jeebus for $100 and the patience to stand it line at city hall. With luck, I could be in business by next Saturday night. Beer is our sacrament, put $2 in the collection plate and bask in the glow of Mojoey’s love. …you must be 21 and like reggae to attend.

Well, I’d go. I like reggae. I don’t know if Canada tracks these storefront religious organizations in any way. I don’t know if they have to be affiliated with any of the typical denominations or if they really can just take a bible and say the words and be a legal church that easily. Can anyone who wants to rent a hole in the wall and has enough leftover cash for folding chairs and candles set up shop, no official standards required?

If the answer really is yes, that’s a hell of a system.

It’s not. (edit 5:06 pm Wednesday — fixed the link to the site in question. People need to tell me when links are bad. Surely there’s some button people can click that will send a comment my way…)

So, I popped a couple comments into a post called Attention Atheists about the so-called miraculous painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe which I didn’t know existed. I’m not into art, me.

Lewiscrusade was hoping the inability of scientists to explain the “miracles” of this particular fabric art would be enough to turn an atheist’s heart. Well, better luck with the next one, Lewis. Later on in my post I reveal the research proving just how flawed that “miracle” concept really is.

Here are my comments (prior to researching this myself):

As I am not one who’d know anything about fabric, let alone historical fabric making in Mexico circa 1500s, I can’t explain why it’s endured as well as it has. I don’t know anything about the history of paint mixing either for why it hasn’t faded.

Doesn’t automatically mean I’d conclude a miracle happened (or more than one). It just means I don’t know.

This atheist says it’s not proof enough.

Researchers have claimed it’s not painted because no brush strokes are noticeable and the pigment doesn’t seem to be animal, plant or mineral based. Should we surprised to discover they’re laughably wrong? Better researchers got better results which will be revealed below.

Sorry, just thought of something else – A better miracle would be if it miraculously turned up painted in a style not reminiscent of anything being done at the time – like a Picasso style or Dali.

I mean really. It has all the same imagery as other art had at the time, which helps everyone who knows art from that time period understand the meaning of it and infer whatever they want out of it.

He (or she) also provides a link to Science Sees what Mary Saw which is about getting digital imagery of the tilma to study it in detail, but goes under the silly assumption that the picture really was magicked onto the cloth by the holy virgin Mary herself, apparently.

Though the dimensions are microscopic, the iris and the pupils of the image’s eyes have imprinted on them a highly detailed picture of at least 13 people, Tonsmann said. The same people are present in both the left and right eyes, in different proportions, as would happen when human eyes reflect the objects before them.

Tonsmann said he believes the reflection transmitted by the eyes of the Virgin of Guadalupe is the scene on Dec. 9, 1531, during which Juan Diego showed his tilma, with the image, to Bishop Juan de Zumárraga and others present in the room.

I’m a convert! I’m a convert!

Not.

I’m pretty damn skeptical of Mr. Tonsmann, in case it wasn’t obvious. More from Science Sees:

The scientist began his study in 1979. He magnified the iris of the Virgin’s eyes 2,500 times and, through mathematical and optical procedures, was able to identify all the people imprinted in the eyes.

The eyes reflect the witnesses of the Guadalupan miracle the moment Juan Diego unfurled his tilma before the bishop, according to Tonsmann.

In the eyes, Tonsmann believes, it is possible to discern a seated Indian, who is looking up to the heavens; the profile of a balding, elderly man with a white beard, much like the portrait of Bishop Zumárraga painted by Miguel Cabrera to depict the miracle; and a younger man, in all probability interpreter Juan González.

Also present is an Indian, likely Juan Diego, of striking features with a beard and mustache, who unfolds his own tilma before the bishop; a woman of dark complexion, possibly a Negro slave who was in the bishop’s service; and a man with Spanish features who looks on pensively, stroking his beard with his hand.

In summary, the Virgin’s eyes bear a kind of instant picture of what occurred at the moment the image was unveiled in front of the bishop, Tonsmann says.

Doing more research into this for my own nefarious purposes, I find pictures blown up, highlighted and coloured in that supposedly “confirm” Tonsmann’s delusions conclusions, almost like they know it’s impossible to pick all that out without being told what to believe we “see.”

Too bad all the scientific theory is coming off Catholic websites and every “news” source is a copy of someone else’s article, or a paraphrase. Creepy how there doesn’t seem to be a First Source to any of this.. ooeooweeooewwee.. start the Twilight Zone music.

According to this enlightening article at Experience Festival the Skeptical Inquirer debunked Tonsmann’s theories back in 1985 (yet another case of pareidolia). It also explains the pigment paint problem, plus (breaks added for eye relief):

In 1979 Philip Serna Callahan studied the icon in (The Tilma under Infra-red Radiation) with infrared light. He stated that the portions of the face, hands, robe, and mantle had been painted in one step, with no sketches or corrections and no paintbrush strokes.

Another study was commissioned in 1999 to Leoncio Garza-Valdés, professor of Microbiology at the University of Texas at San Antonio, by the Archbishop of Mexico, Norberto Rivera Carrera in hopes of proving the age of the cloth. Garza-Valdés had previously done similar studies to the Shroud of Turin. Garza-Valdés states in an interview in Proceso that he found three distinct layers in the painting, with the first layer showing a signature; M.A. and a date, 1556.

The bold is mine, as usual. So who’s M.A.? And don’t try saying the Virgin Mary signed it. Mary of Arimathea? Yeah right. Some unknown artist lost credit on this thing in order for someone else to push a religion onto the “heathens” at the time.

He also states that in the first painting the virgin had a child on her left arm and was lighter skinned. The original painting shows striking similarities to the original Lady of Guadalupe found in Extremadura Spain.

A comparison picture is here showing the difference between the statue and the cloth as painted now.

A second virgin was painted over the first one and this portrait shows facial features of strong native american origin; and is painted 15 cm to the right of the current depiction. Apparently this second virgin was painted by Juan de Arrue around 1625. Garza-Valdés also found the fabric to be made of hemp and linen, not agave fibers, as popular wisdom holds.

Very interesting. Also interesting is the fact that the microscope was invented by a couple Dutch dudes in 1590 and Galileo improved on their design prior to 1625, giving de Arrue a possible aid for painting those supposed microscopic people into the virgin’s eyes that Tonsmann claimed he could name by sight.

Finally the end:

Since 1993, the apron has been protected by bullet-proof glass in the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City and an automated mechanism transfers the icon to a safety vault every night.

So much for miracles saving the thing forever. Praise Science!

All hail the mighty Science! Three cheers for Science, accessible to all! No matter what they want to use it for! Hip hip Hooray! Hip hip Hooray! Hip hip Hooray!

(Although I’ll bet a cookie they’d call bullet-proof glass part of the miracle, too…)

A City Councilman in North Carolina has turned out to be either atheist or agnostic. His opponents are crapping their tightiewhities:

Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell believes in ending the death penalty, conserving water and reforming government — but he doesn’t believe in God. His opponents say that’s a sin that makes him unworthy of serving in office, and they have the North Carolina Constitution on their side.

Bothwell’s detractors are threatening to take the city to court for swearing him in, even though the state’s requirement that officeholders believe in God is unenforceable because it violates the U.S. Constitution. Arkansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas have similar provisions.

“The question of whether or not God exists is not particularly interesting to me and it’s certainly not relevant to public office,” said Bothwell, 59.

Well done, Councilman. I wish more people who thought like you would run and get elected. Why is god such a big part of these state constitutions anyway? Someone who is American can come on by and explain this to one very bemused Canadian, please.

Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist lists all the portions of constitutions with these bizarre holy edicts written in and, according to The Freethinker, the NC one was modified in 1868 to include this particular passage. Is it safe to guess all the rest were altered at some point as well?

When Bothwell took office last week, he used an oath that doesn’t require swearing on a Bible or reference God. That has riled conservative activists, who cite a quirk in the state constitution that disqualifies officeholders “who shall deny the being of Almighty God.”

Although Bothwell said a legal challenge would be “fun,” he believes his foes’ efforts are politically based.

Rather than let him do his job and see how capable he is to be working for the city at a political level, they’d rather try and get him canned now because they don’t approve of his lack of belief? How dare a non-believer have a presence? How dare he run! How dare he win! Whaaaaaaa!! Stomp stomp stomp those big boy Christian feet until you get your way. Very mature.

I wonder if people who voted for him knew he wasn’t religious ahead of time, or if that’s just popped into public awareness now.

It’s sad if he had to hide it in order to run.
It’s even more sad that it’s considered a scandal.

Although I got good comments off my other header, I thought I’d freshen up the blog with a new header. It’s from another picture I took a few years ago by the river.

Also new as of today, I joined the Happy Atheist Forum. I don’t know how active I’ll be (1minion if you’re in there, or thinking about it) but hey. It’s a forum, it’s a hang out, it’s blog fodder.

I should read her stuff more often. I Trekked out today, and she also wrote about Trek recently, and why people who claim religion is a metaphor are lying through their teeth:

Original Showians don’t treat Next Generationists as sinners and blasphemers; and none of them write editorials lambasting people as immoral sociopaths if they prefer documentaries to any sort of science fiction. And they — okay, fine, we — don’t insist that “Star Trek” is just a story… and then get bent out of shape when people point out that it is a story, and hence that it’s not true. Trekkies have a good time trying to fit the inaccuracies and inconsistencies into some sort of continuity (that’s half the fun); but we understand that the show is a fictional story, with all the flaws that fiction is heir to, and we don’t treat it as a divinely-inspired guide to reality and life.

That’s what “it’s just a metaphor” religion would look like.

And if religion looked like that, I would have no problem with it at all.

But it doesn’t. Too many people believe it’s a reality, even though the grandiose miracles of God’s early days have never been duplicated in a time when we could film and properly document them and prove once and for all a god really does give a damn who wins. Now God’s stuck “proving” existence in tree trunks and chocolate bars. People have to put logic on the back burner to credit a disaster to God’s hatred of one group of people. They have to put facts in an oubliette in order to shove their deluded reality into the foreground of their lives and everyone around them.

Progressive religion says, “This is simply a story”… but it isn’t sincere. You can tell that it isn’t sincere by how bent out of shape it gets when people point out that it’s just a story, and therefore isn’t really true. Progressive religion uses the “metaphor” trope as a slippery way of avoiding hard questions when engaged with skeptics… and as soon as the skeptics turn their backs, it slips right back into actual, non-metaphorical, “belief in immaterial entities or forces that it has no evidence for” religion. Progressive religion is ultimately just as willing to ignore evidence that contradicts its comforting story as hard-line conservative religion.

Truly secular “religion,” on the other hand, says, “This is simply a story” — and means it.

The snake offering Eve temptation!

In my frying pan! Just now! It’s totally amazing! And since I’m hungry, I’m going to drizzle all the goodness that is syrup all over it and enjoy every bite of this breakfast!

(A real sign would have noodly appendages, by the way…)

Earlier this week, P.Z. Myers had an interesting post about atheism, and what we atheists should be for and against. There were old atheists (whoever they might have been), New Atheists, and now something Myers states is Atheism 3.0. He’s against the whole idea inherent in that.

It’s been around as long as atheism has, and there’s a much better and far more descriptive term for it: “Atheism But.” As in, “I’m an atheist, but I think religion is a wonderful institution (usually for someone else, just not me.)” It’s atheism for people who don’t like atheism, or who want to neuter atheism so it doesn’t challenge a pious status quo, or have this condescending idea that the rest of society is dumber than they are, and needs the palliative of unreasoning faith. The New Atheists, as much as we detest the title, at least offer an honest, open integrity about their ideas; these guys seem to be more interested in hiding the significance of the nonexistence of gods so they can hide behind a façade of superficial religiosity, and appeal to a waffly, wishy-washy middle ground.

I hate the whole labeling aspect of this stuff.

Atheism is a philosophy, to my mind, not a religion. It’s a life without gods, and it’s a good life, I think, that can be a great life if a person puts the effort into it to make it so.

It’s a life not every religious believer is ready to embrace, however, nor are they always wanting to embrace those who do. Should we be forcing them, badgering them, insulting them, calling them deluded? I don’t think coming across like an enemy is going to make us any friends, nor will it make much headway. I would rather not come across as a asshole just to state my position as an atheist, new or otherwise.

I will admit, however, that I think it’s unfortunate that people want to hang onto miracles, ghosts, astrology and new-age nonsense as if those “truths” are as verifiable as what’s in my refrigerator:

Will you believe me if I said the plastic bag has chicken in it (for later today) and the aluminum pan has fudge brownies? I wouldn’t lie about the existence of fudge brownies. I might lie about how many are left so I don’t actually have to share any, though…

The best thing atheists should be is passionate and compassionate. Fight for rights, for equality, for whatever goals are worthy ones. Fight for quality education, pure science over pseudo-hokum. I think we need to encourage people toward leaving that stuff behind, and if we can’t get them to do that, then at least we have to get them to stop pushing their antiquated beliefs into a society that needs to move forward.

Faith might be an anchor, but we all know what anchors are for. Sail on and see the world in all its wonder, or sink with it as you dream of some heavenly distant shore you’ll never lay eyes on.

Saw this in New Scientist the other day. It validates my “no shit!” belief completely:

“Intuiting God’s beliefs on important issues may not produce an independent guide, but may instead serve as an echo chamber to validate and justify one’s own beliefs,” writes a team led by Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Volunteers were given a few tasks. The volunteers who claimed they were religious had to describe their views on controversial topics, but also explain what they thought other prominent and well known people thought about them. For these people, their views corresponded with whatever they thought God thought about these topics.

Next, the team asked another group of volunteers to undertake tasks designed to soften their existing views, such as preparing speeches on the death penalty in which they had to take the opposite view to their own. They found that this led to shifts in the beliefs attributed to God, but not in those attributed to other people.

“People may use religious agents as a moral compass, forming impressions and making decisions based on what they presume God as the ultimate moral authority would believe or want,” the team write. “The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing. This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God’s beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing.”

Robert J. Sawyer, a science fiction writer I like (responsible for Flash Forward if you love or hate it – the book is, of course, better), had something similar to say during a talk I went to in June of this year, that people are going to read what interests them, and probably won’t find a dissenting view in it unless it sideswipes them by surprise.

That compass analogy is an interesting one. The Good Atheist has a good post related to this, and one of the comments (thanks Duckphup) is worth pointing at, a quote from Robert A. Heinlein, another famous science fiction writer:

“We define thinking as integrating data and arriving at correct answers. Look around you. Most people do that stunt just well enough to get to the corner store and back without breaking a leg. If the average man thinks at all, he does silly things like generalizing from a single datum. He uses one-valued logic. If he is exceptionally bright, he may use two-valued, ‘either-or’ logic to arrive at his wrong answers. If he is hungry, hurt, or personally interested in the answer, he can’t use ANY sort of logic, and will discard an observed fact as blithely as he will stake his life on a piece of wishful thinking. He uses the technical miracles created by superior men without wonder or surprise, as a kitten accepts a bowl of milk. Far from ASPIRING to higher reasoning, he is NOT EVEN AWARE that higher reasoning EXISTS… yet he classes his own mental process as being of the same sort as the genius of an Einstein. Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.”

I love that last sentence. Back to New Scientist:

“The experiments in which we manipulate people’s own beliefs are the most compelling evidence we have to show that people’s own beliefs influence what they think God believes more substantially than it influences what they think other people believe,” says Epley.

Finally, the team used fMRI to scan the brains of volunteers while they contemplated the beliefs of themselves, God or “average Americans”. In all the experiments the volunteers professed beliefs in an Abrahamic God. The majority were Christian.

In the first two cases, similar parts of the brain were active. When asked to contemplate other Americans’ beliefs, however, an area of the brain used for inferring other people’s mental states was active. This implies that people map God’s beliefs onto their own.

I’m aware that fMRI once got a reading off a dead fish, but let’s assume these boys and girls knew what they were doing and got accurate results from their testing procedures.

I think it’s fair and accurate to suggest that the only way to get God’s beliefs about anything would be out of our own heads. Looking at how much God has changed as a deity in the bible alone (and there’s no point pretending or claiming He didn’t because atheists know where the verses are that prove it) it seems clear that a god needs to be what people need. If people need a vengeful god, they will believe in one. If they need a god that won’t punish them for being racist curs, they’ll believe in one. If they need a kind and loving god (unless people are gay), they’ll believe in one, even if it actively contradicts all other beliefs in the same deity (but that’s explainable because those people aren’t “True Christians(tm)”).

We’re not rational animals. We’re rationalizing animals.

It’s written by Marcia Segelstein, and somewhat typical.

The executive director of the American Humanist Association offers an explanation for the campaigns: “We don’t intend to rain on anyone’s parade, but secular people celebrate the holidays, too, and we’re just trying to reach out to our people.” It’s a fascinating phenomenon, really. It’s as though nonbelievers somehow feel threatened by all the religious references they see around them at this time of year. No, wait. That can’t be. Multi-colored lights, brightly decorated stores, secular holiday music blasting through malls, and Santas with reindeer on front lawns have nothing to do with religion. What’s really at work here?

Nonbelievers don’t feel threatened by the references. We just want to share the space usually reserved only for a religious display, or overtly religious message. We just want to remind people that unbelievers are also people who care and want to do good things.

In an interview for Salvo magazine, Dinesh D’Souza, discussed atheism and why he believes atheists are becoming more vocal

Turns out it’s because Dinesh doesn’t believe in unicorns, apparently, and won’t write books about that. “What I’m getting at is that you have these people out there who don’t believe that God exists, but who are actively attempting to eliminate religion from society, setting up atheist video shows, and having atheist conferences. There has to be more going on here than mere unbelief.”

Not all of us are out to destroy religion, first off. Believe in your religions if you want to. Just stop assuming we all have to abide by whatever restrictions you wish to place on yourselves in order to follow those religions. We’re not going to follow those religions. We don’t want to. We’ll follow the rules and laws of our societies, though, some of which will match up with whatever faiths you’re following — because they’re beneficial to society at large.

D’Souza doesn’t believe most atheists specifically reject Christian theology. He thinks it’s Christian morality they find objectionable because it’s threatening

Says Dinesh, “The atheist looks at all of Christianity’s ‘thou shalt nots’—homosexuality is bad; divorce is bad; adultery is bad; premarital sex is bad—and then looks at his own life and says, ‘If these things are really bad, then I’m a bad guy. But I’m not a bad guy; I’m a great guy. I must thus reinterpret or (preferably) abolish all of these accusatory teachings that are putting me in a bad light.’”

Right. It’s the theology that’s reverse of sense. The morality of Christians, so long as its on par with what benefits a society, is a fine thing. Be honest, love your family, obey the laws, don’t steal or kill. That’s terrific. Keep on doing what you’re doing if you’re doing that.

But stop assuming homosexuality is the road to hell – and if you can’t do that, at least try to stop telling every homosexual who crosses your path what road you think they’re on. It’s none of your business anyway.

Divorce can be good if both of you realize you really did marry the wrong person and you’re far better off apart. Some people don’t marry for good reasons. Others split for no good reason. It’s really up to the couple, not a church, or a faith or a government.

Adultery is unfortunate. It is a shame that people can’t be more honest in their relationships. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you need. If you find that person can’t give it to you, or won’t for some reason, then ask yourself how important that need is. If it is more important than the person you’re with, then maybe you’re with the wrong person. I’d rather see break ups because of disappointment rather than betrayal.

Premarital sex when it isn’t adultery is completely fine, however, especially when it’s safe sex. Waiting until marriage for sexual experience was fine when everyone was married at 18, but now? Be serious. Marriage isn’t mandatory and sex shouldn’t be reserved for only certain kinds of people (the married heterosexual kind) because that’s quite ridiculous.

This all falls on deaf ears and closed eyes, of course. There isn’t room in a theology for reasoning things out this way. Everything is old and traditional and cut and dried and unalterable. I think that’s a bigger disappointment than anything else – that the inability to change becomes a desire not to change which becomes an insistence that no one else should want changes either.

Pathetic. Truly pathetic.

My almost final words: you don’t have to move with the times if you don’t want to, but don’t stop others from moving forward just so you don’t feel so far behind.

Her final words:

If atheists care enough to try and counter Christmas, maybe, like the Grinch who tried to steal it, they just need to see true Christian love and charity in action. How about an invitation to Christmas dinner?

My final words: love and charity are two words Christians like to throw around as if that somehow proves they’re better people. But the real truth is, everyone is capable of love and everyone is capable of charity. Some people don’t do either often enough, and that includes those so called “true Christians” Marcia labels herself as.

If the only reason you are being loving and charitable is because it somehow pleases your god, that’s not a good enough reason. I love and give because people deserve it, not because I think I deserve some kind of eternal reward for my efforts. I could do more. I should do more. We all should do more for people. It isn’t just up to Christians to do it. They brag enough about the good they do. Everyone needs to do more.

—-
Edit 4pm – I see Hemant @ Friendly Atheist got wind of the same opinion piece today.

…am I too cynical when I feel like asking why the deed’s been done?

A Christian group will once again camp out in front of City Hall and offer to pay off up to $10,000 dollars in parking tickets for any passersby.

Organizers say the Dec. 12 event is an example of how easy it is to receive God’s grace.

We’ll pay your parking ticket, but you have to give your soul to Jesus or burn in hell.

What a deal.

The Grace Gift Parable giveaway was first held in 2004, when Treasure Valley church leaders doled out nearly $7,500 to delinquent parkers, including one woman who arrived with more than a dozen tickets.

Montie Ralstin, Jr., the pastor at Boise Valley Christian Communion, says the event is to help people understand that even though they’ve made mistakes, forgiveness is available.

So they can’t do it just to be nice in a hectic festive season. They’re doing it to prove they’re holier and more virtuous than anyone else, yes?

I wonder how much of that “nearly $7500″ went to that one woman’s inability to watch a clock. I wonder if her habits have improved or if she still hangs onto all of them every year on the hopes that this gang will pay them again. I wonder if others have done the same.

Forgiveness is all well and good, but are they really helping people solve a money problem? No. This might boost church attendance, but it’ll take more than a “thank you Jesus” to make these delinquents better time and money managers.

I’ve never had a parking ticket in my life. I’ve never had a speeding ticket. I’m too law abiding to disregard speed limits and meter readers. I don’t credit a deity for my ability to bring enough change and/or leave earlier, either. And, I’d rather overpay a meter than get a fine for underpaying, you know? Why more people don’t think that way is beyond me.

The $10,000 for this year’s event was donated by area businesses and the Christian Churches of the Treasure Valley.

How much of the ten grand is coming from business coffers? Are they getting credit for the good deed as well, or will Treasure Valley act as if all the money is theirs, look how saintly we are to give this all away.. ?

Next year, how’s about people agree to follow the laws of the land, as well as laws of the gods, eh?