polydaidaloi.com

Dear American Patriotics,
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Over at Richard Dawkins’ website there was a discussion concerning Robert Wright’s quite wrong article about political leanings of the “New Atheists” in regards to foreign policy. I came across this comment:

The Tamil Tigers have a secular goal, yes, but most are hindu. It’s hard to believe that people who do not believe in an afterlife or some form of spiritual enlightenment would willingly blow themselves up to kill civilians.

This sentiment is similar to that of Sam Harris:

Several readers followed Pape’s and put forward the Tamil Tigers as a rebuttal to my claim that suicidal terrorism is a product of religion. But it is misleading to describe the Tamil Tigers as “secular,” as Pape often does. While the motivations of the Tigers are not explicitly religious, they are Hindus who undoubtedly believe many improbable things about the nature of life and death.

The mistake the commentor and Sam Harris make is one of assuming that correlation implies causation.
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Tony Abbott claims to have come to terms with the 2007 election “through a process akin to grieving and was prepared to stay in politics over the long term.”

Abbott also thinks that the best way to win back an electorate that rejected Howard is to take up Howard’s mantle of conservatism but now with added Catholicism. Abbott’s suggestion that divorce laws should be changed to include a reversion back to a fault based system of divorce is his claim to inherent the Liberal’s conservative conscience.

Abbott obviously yearns for those days where families lived behind white picket fences and women knew their place. The father was a breadwinner and the little woman just stayed at home and cooked and cleaned and raised the children. And if her lot was so suffer domestic violence then all she had to do was somehow document it for a year or so and then if successful, she won freedom, societal shame and a precarious existence as financial independence for women was very difficult back then.

Abbott’s wonderful idea has strangely received little support. Even private investigators think it is bad idea. The stories from the PIs show a farcical side of the divorce laws, illustrating the absurdity of how the then regulations were enforced.

Abbott seems to have an issue with women allowed freedom to make their own decisions. There may be good arguments for reforming certain section divorce laws and how they apply to families. But a call to go back to a time when the system was stacked against women is not the way forward.

Abbott is one of the politicians whose ambition and self opinion greatly exceeds what the electorate thinks. He is even less popular than Turnbull (note the link goes to a pdf). Hopefully his public utterances will reveal the lack of intellectual rigour in conservative thinking and eventually return Abbott to a North Shore seminary.

It internecine battles mark the maturity if a movement then atheism has reached a high point with the stoush between Jerry Coyne and Chris Mooney. It all started with Coyne’s review of two theistic evolution books in the New Republic. This was followed some criticism from Barbara Forrest and then an exchange of blog posts at dawn between Coyne and Mooney. Needless to say there is more to come.

Coyne does a grand job showing the inadequacies of certain strain of theistic evolution in his New Republic article. A provocative and well argued review that has reverberated around the community where evolution and religion is discussed. It is a civil review and Coyne is at pains to ensure that he was fair in both praise and criticism. Unfortunately, it has lead to the creation of an unfortunate term “accomodationist” to disparage those that find no problem with the like of Ken Miller. Accomodationist is a stupid term and is a distraction from the main game. I don’t see why we simply name Miller et al as collaborationists and call for their removal from the order of proper sciency folk.

I’m not really sure what the point of this stoush really is. It seems to be based around that any religious ideas are poisonous and if scientists have religious ideas it will corrupt science. But science has accommodated religious beliefs for centuries with no problems. And given the religious nature of some of the past evolutionary science heavyweights, I see no danger if someone does have religious beliefs yet is quite happy to accept evolution as is.
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A few days ago, sanity prevailed as a judge ruled in favour of three girls threatened with child pornography charges for the heinous crime of flashing their bras and taking a photo of it.

Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick is not happy at all. Criminals will now be able to run amok he reckons:

But Skumanick said it could encourage potential defendants to use the federal court system to evade state charges.

“My big fear is setting the precedent that would allow criminals in the state system seeking protecting in the federal system.” Skumanick said. When asked if he would appeal, he said was studying the opinion.

Well Mr Skumanick, maybe you should think more of proper application of the law if you want to avoid such matters. The ACLU blog has some interesting background on the case:

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Sex researcher Bettina Arndt is one of those political changelings who in changing their views tend to adopt exact opposite of their original position. It is very evident in the the press for her new book, The Sex Diaries in which she reckons women should just lie back and think of England to satisfy their men. Or a rape cheerleader if you don’t want to mess around with euphemisms.

There was great report in ABC radio today which I can’t find in which an academic skewered Arndt’s shallow reporting. A very valid criticism was of how Arndt invited people to submit diaries which hence skewed the results and also didn’t take into account other research. Another unsavoury aspect of Arndt’s reporting is that it inspired a Paul Sheehan column.

Sheehan echoes Arndt’s mindless “battle of the sexes” dribble though he does get communication (whether it be about lack of desire or a male-centric view of foreplay) is a problem.

It would be nice if someone reported on what makes a good marriage, on what couples do to keeps things nicely ticking over. But happy stories don’t sell as well as the self-perpetuating myth of the “battle of the sexes.”

Arndt is supposed to be doing a blog for the SMH. Any bets on her using a gross distortion of an evo-psych argument to support her views?

Down here in Australia, the Christmas/New Year period is traditionally a very slow time of year. Most of us are recovering from the Christmas indulgence and preparing for the New Years’ binge. The blessed sopor only broken by the sounds of the Aussie cricket team falling of their perch of dominance.

The domestic news is often slow as well with only the occasional shark menace to get us all excited. Even the pollies tend to take time off and spare us from their bleating spin.

However the Reverend Fred Nile has stepped in to fill that much needed void this holiday season by declaring that topless bathing be banned from ‘mainstream beaches’ in New South Wales. The call against free range breasts is not something new for the old Rev. A tradition as regular (and effective) as his prayers for rain every Gay Mardi Gras.
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Culture Warriors are once more unsheathing their lances of blue spruce and white pine to tilt with the windmill of “The War On Christmas”and I, for one, would like to thank them for the grass and self-serving exploitation of the jolly holidays to further their audiences and agendas; gives me leave to do it too.

It’s a fairly peaceful war, as wars go, but just as in other wars doesn’t have distinct combatants or purposes. On one side, the aggressive hawkish side, there are the defenders of faith, heterosexuality and pure European Christian bloodlines. On the other there’s…well, mostly retail and catalog stores.

And this is where it gets really silly. One of the primary complaints is that some stores have their cashiers say, “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, or some catalogs use the word “holiday” more or in place of “Christmas”. To behold a hilarious and typical reaction to this see. The Focus on the Family web site has a hilarious and typical reaction. Note the slogan at Focus on the Family’s site, “I Stand For Christmas”, it’s either an admission of etiquette or the greatest example of religious snobbery in a long time.

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