Proof religious people are stupid! Or at least ignorant. Well, I have a CHART.

I know, divisive title for the blog. Razib at ScienceBlogs.com made this post where he correlates IQ and Biblical literalism by religion, hehe. (Which I in turn got from The Friendly Atheist.) And it's not really strong proof - what it is is a simple correlation between IQ values charted to religion. I, myself, don't think that IQ tests for intelligence so much as a particular kind of education . . . so if anything, this is a measure of the education of religious people (which is, itself, of course, very interesting data).

OK, then. Granting that it's not a study, and it's not really measuring intelligence but how well the people took IQ tests, it's still pretty lovely, hehe.



Isn't that lovely? Razib is personally aware at the limitations of the chart. While the data is legitimately gotten from reputable sources, it is, in the end, just a chart, so we should remember that correlation is not causation.

However, correlation suggests causation. What IQ tests were initially intended to do is locate people inside a given society that have special needs. If Pentacostalists as a group are doing poorly on IQ tests, it is legitimate to ask why. At a guess, it isn't the religion, but their education, which is likely bad not because of their religion (tho' that might play a role in it, esp. with science education - Bible literalists are known to have some contempt for science, after all) but because of issues like poverty and social status. Indeed, it isn't precisely news that fundamentalist religion goes hand-in-hand with poor, low status groups whereas non-theism is largely amongst the best educated people with secure careers (y'know, tenured scientists).

But for me the real pleasure is just seeing it charted out how Biblical literalism is heavily correlated to outright stupidity, hehe. I have to admit.

Cyborgization continues - "brain pacemakers"

Apparently, good work is being done by using "deep brain stimulation" to help some seriously depressed and obsessive-compulsive people.

I know that my own depression is not the same as the kinds of depression this device works on - severe depression is the realms of utter madness, often including delusions and hallucinations, and is utterly crippling. It is ghastly. So, knowing that, even I can't help but feel some real joy at the notion that work is being done that can successfully treat depression as a purely material problem. (Because it is, of course. The "mind/body problem" is only a problem if you think there's a difference between your mind and your body. Which there isn't. "Mind/body problem" makes as much sense as "heart/body problem". Your mind is part of your body, located primarily in your brain. Duh.)

Of course, what particularly fascinates me about this is that it's a mechanical, electronic solution. You stick some wires in your head and, zap, 4 out of 6 severe patients feel better.

It makes me wonder when someone will say to themself, "Self, if it works for them, might it not work for me. Oh, I know that I don't suffer depression, but if it helps my mood, makes me feel happier, be more productive, allows me to more fully express the person I want to be, why not?" then I'll be particularly fascinated. (People already do this with mood medication; taking anti-depressants as "mood brighteners". I should note I'm mostly for this. What's wrong with people being in good moods?)

But we're all on the verge of becoming literal cyborgs. I find all of this very fascinating and await all of this with bated breath.

For the most part, I will add, I don't think that this will lead to some dystopian future with people being modified or drug addicted to become the mindless drones of the state. The reasons for this are two:

1. In the end, humans will prove more useful if they are allowed to pursue their interests where it leads them. Since machines are taking over all our physical and even some of our intellectual labor, creative labor is about all we've got left as we begin this new period. Enslaving people through these techniques would be a disaster, good for no one.

2. The techniques, themselves, will lead those who use them to benevolent conclusions. I have long wondered how much of human civilization has been the results of literally madness - how many lawmakers have been mentally ill, and how has that effected our society? I think quite a bit. (I also think that since the average life expectancy of early civilizations was about 18 years old that civilization was created by teenage boys - and shows it.) I believe that clarity of thought makes it intellectually and emotionally difficult for tyrants to be tyrants. The cruelty and stupidity of what they are doing will be clear, not only to themselves, but others, because of people's intellectual clarity.

Conservapedia YouTube vid and general comments

More about Conservapedia! Here's a lovely YouTube video of Andy Schlafly and a member of his "world history class" that created Conservapedia going on about the project:



Great video. I love it, hehe. What I love the most about it are the pans of the kids in Schlafly's home schooling class. Not only are no minorities represented, I don't think I saw a single kid who was so much as dark haired. No kidding! I was spooked by the way these kids looked like recruitment posters for racial purity. They weren't just white, they were pale.

The other thing that struck me is how there's an automatic equation between conservative Christian beliefs and real truth. Again and again, they talk about a liberal bias while frankly saying that Conservapedia is from the point of view of fundie Christians. To them, that's not bias. That's truth. Fundie Christian bias is truth to them.

One of the things in particular I found amusing is when the young woman that served as the mouthpiece of the students said that one of the reasons they founded Conservapedia was because they couldn't go edit Wikipedia's evolution article to talk about creationism and intelligent design. What I found funny is that Wikipedia's portal about creationism is vastly superior to Conservapedia's rather anemic article about the same subject. Conservapedia, as a source of information even about what is their stated reason to exist is far inferior than Wikipedia's articles about the same subject matter. If you want to learn about creationism, you're much better off going to Wikipedia than Conservapedia. I doubt that they'll grasp the irony there.

Conservapedia article of the year is atheism!

Woo woo! The Conservapedia article of the year is their article on atheism!

It is, of course, a totally dismal article. The larger part of it is actually debunking atheism, saying everything from that atheists are fascists to saying we have worse health than people who believe in religion. The list of reasons why atheists are atheists is fascinating, itself:

* Rebellion: Atheism stems from a deliberate choice to ignore the reality of God's existence.
* Moral depravity: Moral depravity has been demonstrated in the atheist community through history and through various studies. The Bible asserts that "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good." (Psalms 14:1 (KJV)). The biblical fool is said to be lacking in sound judgment and the biblical fool is also associated with moral depravity. For example, the biblical book of Proverbs states: "A wise man is cautious and turns away from evil, But a fool is arrogant and careless. A quick-tempered man acts foolishly, And a man of evil devices is hated. The naive inherit foolishness, But the sensible are crowned with knowledge."(Proverbs 14:16-18 (NASB)). The book of Proverbs also has strong words regarding the depravity of biblical fools: "The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul: but [it is] abomination to fools to depart from evil." (Proverbs 13:9 (KJV)). Regarding the deceitfulness of fools Proverbs states: "The wisdom of the sensible is to understand his way, But the foolishness of fools is deceit." (Proverbs 14:8 (KJV)). Noted Bible commentator and clergyman Matthew Henry wrote regarding atheism: "A man that is endued with the powers of reason, by which he is capable of knowing, serving, glorifying, and enjoying his Maker, and yet lives without God in the world, is certainly the most despicable and the most miserable animal under the sun."
* Superficiality: Noted ex-atheist and psychologist Dr. Paul Vitz has stated that he had superficial reasons for becoming an atheist such as the desire to be accepted by his Stanford professors who were united in disbelief regarding God.
* Error: Some argue that atheism partly stems from a failure to fairly and judiciously consider the facts.
* State churches: Rates of atheism are much higher in countries with a state sanctioned religion (such as many European countries), and lower in states without a sanctioned religion (such as the United States). Some argue this is because state churches become bloated, corrupt, and/or out of touch with the religious intuitions of the population, while churches independent of the state are leaner and more adaptable. It is important to distinguish "state-sanctioned churches," where participation is voluntary, from "state-mandated churches" (such as Saudi Arabia) with much lower atheism rates because publicly admitted atheism is punishable by death.
* Poor relationship with father: Some argue that a troubled/non-existent relationship with a father may influence one towards holding the position of atheism. Dr. Paul Vitz wrote a book entitled Faith of the Fatherless in which he points out that after studying the lives of more than a dozen leading atheists he found that a large majority of them had a father who was present but weak, present but abusive, or absent. Dr. Vitz also examined the lives of prominent theists who were contemporaneous to their atheist counterparts and from the same culture and in every instance these prominent theists had a good relationship with his father. Dr. Vitz has also stated other common factors he observed in the leading atheists he profiled: they were all intelligent and arrogant.
* Division in religion: According to Francis Bacon, atheism is caused by "divisions in religion, if they be many; for any one main division addeth zeal to both sides, but many divisions introduce atheism."
* Learned times, peace, and prosperity: Francis Bacon argued that atheism was partly caused by "Learned times, specially with peace and prosperity; for troubles and adversities do more bow men’s minds to religion."
* Negative experiences with theists.
* The advance of scientific knowledge: Science has in many ways become a new God.

I mean . . . wow. And the whole article is like that - just filled with a great and directed anger towards atheists. I am serious when they compare atheists to Hitler, literally Hitler, saying we're mentally ill, etc., etc., but I think this list of reasons - taken straight from their site - does a good job of nailing on the head what they think of atheists. Atheists are morally depraved, or have had bad relationships with our fathers (just our fathers? having a shitty mom doesn't make one an atheist?).

But, really, my favorite is that education, peace and prosperity are one of their factors leading to atheism, hehe. I love that one. I mean, there's some truth to it (but just some, the growth of atheism in Europe was vastly facilitated by the World Wars - many Europeans rejected god because of the horrors of those wars, feeling that no god could allow such terrible things to happen), in terms of education in particular. Education allows one to see all the stupidity of religion, yes. But nested with all the rest, all those hideously insulting, superficial reasons, that one shines out because I think that they put it in there like they put in all the others, as a sly, anti-intellectual barb - and don't understand how they saying that poverty, war and ignorance are the causes of religion is high praise to atheists.

Laughing a bit at religious homophobic, racism and sexism - also warning labels on the Bible and Koran

Recently, I was contacted by some people who have a neat little video that makes fun of religious sexism, racism and homophobia:



It's a fun little song - in French, but it has English subtitles - that brings up the serious and very real point about how morally backwards the Bible and Koran are, but does it with humor and is a nice little ditty. Everyone should watch it. Pertutti wants their names out there, so I'm gonna give a little help. ;)

The people who made the video are also suing people, initially in France but now more broadly, to put warning labels on the Bible and the Koran for it's racist, sexist and homophobic content. I love the idea of that, because I believe that religious works (and organizations) should be treated like any other work (or organization). There is nothing special about these books, or these organizations, and I think it's bad for governments to accord them special privileges. They should be held to the same standards that any other human work or enterprise is held. I think that's obvious. So I'm fascinated and glad that people are working to remove the special status of religions. Anyway, here's a video (also in French with English subs) about their attempt to sue the French government to get warning labels put on the Bible and Koran:



From letters with the makers of the video and subjects of the news story, I was told that the case was dismissed in France because the plaintiffs were ruled not to have legal standing ("because it should have been done by a group who considered being globally discriminated by the books, like homosexuals for instance") which is one of the standard legal tricks that governments use when they don't want to deal with a sticky issue like this. It has the air of a stupid procedural rule being used to avoid what would certainly be a contentious issue. On the good side, it's at the European Court of Human Rights and some people have come forth to possibly resubmit the case in France with legal standing of the globally discriminated groups.

They're also writing "le livre athée", an atheist's book, to lay out the case for atheism in clear and accessible language. I fully support that kind of project as well. A big problem, I feel, with atheism is that it is not particularly gentle to people without fairly traditional advanced educations. Atheists often have trouble speaking to people who aren't college educated, so a clear and simple book about the subject I think is a very good idea.

So, take a look at the things Pertutti is doing! :)

Liberals and Guns

My blog is verging on becoming a political blog! Oh, no! I'll write about something different soon, I promise, hehe. But I'm using this journal to vent some frustration, and, hey, it's not like anyone actually reads it, except for a few Europeans. ;)

One of the reasons I can't identify as a liberal is that, well, they're not very liberal. Take this "liberal" posting about why gun restrictions are bad. In my experience, this is pretty much the standard American liberal line about firearms - that, y'know, because most gun owners never blow anyone's head off, it's OK to ignore it when other gun owners do blow someone's head off. Because, okay, the quote is too good: "Guns are a tool, like anything, can be used to harm….or they can be used for fun, like most gun-users do."

For fun.

Around 10,000 people a year in the USA are murdered with firearms. That's 68% of all murders, not to mention 42% of all robberies and 22% of the assaults in the US involved guns. About 16,000 people a year kill themselves with guns. There are around 40,000 firearms injuries per year where hospitalization was sought. There are over half a million crimes a year committed with guns. A gun is eleven times more likely to be used in a suicide or suicide attempt than home defense!

But the justification is that guns are fun. And on the strength that people like guns, we are justified in turning our eye away from the 26,000 people a year who die because of guns, the forty-thousand who are seriously injured with guns, and the hundreds of thousands of gun-related crimes committed each year.

I have difficulty expressing how morally vacant I find that argument. I prefer the conservative argument, for even tho' I don't agree with it, and I think it is ignorant, it is not wholly morally vacant. To say that we need guns to kick the government's ass if it becomes tyrannical is a little crazy, but not morally vacant given that governments do become tyrannical. But the argument that guns are fun, or cool, or whatever, is so blindingly empty, so vile and backwards and stupid that I have trouble imagining how an intelligent person could hold to such an evil idea. It baffles me.

Additional Comment: One of the "guns are cool" group on the post that spurred my post has gone on to say how we should boycott bananas because of how awful and destructive United Fruit (aka Chiquita) is.

So, we should stop eating bananas because United Fruit is a horrible corporation but it's okay to supports the arms industry. Because "guns are cool". At least bananas are healthy. Oh, I think she's got a point about United Fruit - it is a horrible company, without doubt, but at least the product that United Fruit produces, bananas, are actually good for people.

I mean, how can you support firearms, the fucking arms industry, the death merchants and then criticize any other corporate entity for being horrible? And do support the most murderous - overtly, literally murderous and literally war mongers - group of corporations on earth and then get your knickers in a twist over bananas?

The piece de la resistance is, of course, that United Fruit's horrible policies would be impossible without the arms industry - the arms industry makes oppression possible. So, y'know, don't eat the banana, but support the company that makes the oppression of the farmers who grow the bananas possible.

It's insane.

"Buy this car and I'll throw in a FREE PISTOL!"

Max Motors in Butler, Missouri, have decided to give away a handgun with every car purchase. And it's all Barack Obama's fault, or at least that's what owner Mark Mueller says: "He said all those people in the Midwest, you've got to have compassion for them because they're clinging to their guns and their Bibles. I found that quite offensive. We all go to church on Sunday and we all carry guns."

I mean, let us ignore the fact that this sorta demonstrates Obama's point. But, man, am I the only person who finds handing out pistols with cars is kind of like handing out quarts of Jack Daniels with cars?

Mark suggests a Kel-Tec .380 pistol, which he describes as "a nice little handgun that fits in your pocket". Because, you know, what a great idea! A gun that fits in your pocket! Because, you know, needing a pistol in your pocket at all times is not clinging to your guns because of your ignorance.

Missouri has the 14th highest murder rate in the Union, which is the 27% percentile for murder. Good going, guys! Exactly what a state like Missouri needs, more people carrying guns in their pockets.

The depths of this irresponsibility stagger me. Unlike Obama, I don't think that they should be pitied. I think they should be stopped. Before they kill again.