CT Blue

Since I somewhat regularly bash the Southern states, bastions of ignorance that they are, it’s only fair that I make note of hopeful signs from that portion of our country that, generally speaking, keeps us in thrall to superstition.

A federal court has upheld the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s decision to deny accreditation to the Institute for Creation Research’s proposed graduate school’s science program, on the what appears to have been extremely politely expressed grounds that they were perfectly entitled to teach religion, but they couldn’t call it science.

Via the Panda’s Thumb:

The Institute for Creation Research has apparently closed its graduate school after being denied the authority to offer a master’s degree in science education. See the concession by Henry Morris III. The National Center for Science Education reports, however, that the ICR is opening instead a School of Biblical Apologetics, which will offer a master’s degree in Christian education, as well as a minor in creation research. The graduate school may be exempt from licensing requirements as long as it offers purely religious degrees.

Pity the poor lawyers trying to make a coherent case for the ICRG. This portion of the court’s ruling exemplifies the difficulties that they must have had. The court is discussing the Institute’s claim that the Board was discriminating against it on religious grounds:

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Because ICRGS alternates between arguing it is merely teaching science and arguing its program is compelled by its religious beliefs, the Court is at a loss to determine what portion of ICRGS’s behavior should be considered motivated by its religious beliefs. And although its pleadings and various documents in the record (such as the report of the review panel) contain third-person references to ICRGS’s religious beliefs, the Court has no actual evidence (such as an affidavit) of what those beliefs are and to what extent they motivate ICRGS in offering the degree in question. Without any evidence of ICRGS’s specific religious beliefs and what it considers its religiously-motivated behavior, the Court is entirely unable to conduct an inquiry into whether the government action has created a substantial burden on ICRGS’s free exercise by “truly pressur[ing] [ICRGS] to significantly modify [it]s religious behavior and significantly violate [it]s religious beliefs.” Barr, 295 S.W.3d at 301-02.

Talk about trying to have it both ways.

In any event, three cheers for the Board for standing up for science. Before we give too much credit to Texas, however, we must recall that the Board’s original ruling was rendered in 2008, meaning Rick Perry has had two years to try to destroy this island of sanity in an ocean of ignorance (this is the state, remember, that is on a campaign to pervert primary and secondary education in the name of religion and conservatism).

If any proof were needed that the Catholic Church either a) really doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks about it, or b) is incapable of grasping the way it is perceived by others, here is that proof via (Why Evolution is True):

The Vatican is preparing to update the 2001 norms that deal with priestly sex abuse of minors, in effect codifying practices that have been in place for several years.

At the same time, it will include the “attempted ordination of women” among the list of most serious crimes against church law, or “delicta graviora,” sources said.

Sexual abuse of a minor by a priest was added to the classification of “delicta graviora” in 2001. At that time the Vatican established norms to govern the handling of such cases.

That’s right, ordaining a woman is as serious a sin as sexually abusing a child. Actually, the Church is just kidding, because in the real world, the Church would never forgive the bishop who ordained the woman, but it would gladly accept a sincere act of contrition from a priest or bishop who ruined the lives of scores of children, would cover up for him, provide him a sheltered but comfortable retirement, and of course forgive him his trespasses. So long as he didn’t steal money from the church-that’s another story.

For better or worse, the United States has been the source of most of the world’s cultural innovations in the past century or so. On the plus side, we gave the world rock ‘n roll, jazz, and ..well, I’m thinking. On the minus side is just about everything else.

Despite years of cultural imperialism it has seemed that Europe, at least, has been largely resistant to our most dangerous cultural trend: the rise of unreason and fundamentalist religion. Not so anymore, apparently, where at least in Northern Ireland they have seen us a demand for “teaching the controversy” about evolution and raised us by “abusing the language of rights and equality” in order to put religious delusion on a par with science. They have taken the religious right’s strategy of posing as the victim to new heights.

Last month Nelson McCausland, DUP assembly member and Northern Ireland culture minister, wrote to the trustees of National Museums Northern Ireland about how “to ensure that museums are reflective of the views, beliefs and cultural traditions” of the region. This included a more specific stipulation – referring explicitly to the Ulster Museum, the letter called for alternative views of the origin of the universe to be accommodated. In other words, creationism was to be incorporated into the museum’s natural history displays. That an elected minister should make such a suggestion is a development that should be taken seriously.

McCausland claimed that a third of the Northern Irish population believe in creationism, and said that “the diversity of views” on this should be reflected in the region’s museums. Calling it “a human rights issue and an equality issue”, this could have been viewed as an honest, but seriously misguided attempt to improve diversity in museums. However, shortly after the letter was made public, theCaleb Foundation, a group which “promotes the fundamentals of the historic evangelical Protestant faith”, revealed that it had previously met the minister to discuss the presentation of evolution in the Ulster Museum’s nature zone exhibits. They called this “wholly misleading propaganda” and claimed they were responsible for the content of the minister’s letter. As a fellow DUP member,Mervyn Storey, sits on the Caleb Foundation Council, this seemed plausible. McCausland himself is a Protestant fundamentalist, and what began to emerge was the pushing of a personal, religiously-informed viewpoint rather than the expression of a minister’s opinion formed on the basis of expert knowledge of the heritage and culture sector.

According to the Caleb Foundation, they have a civil right to their own facts, and a further right to have those “facts” foisted off on the rest of us as equal to – well, to actual facts- you know, the old fashioned kind. It would be interesting to know if they favor extending the same right to anyone who cares to come along with yet another creation myth. Flying spaghetti monster, anyone?

I must say that as a student I would have been very much in favor of this approach to education. Who was the nun to tell me that 1 and 1 is 2? If I sincerely believe it is three, aren’t my views entitled to respect, indeed, shouldn’t they, like the creationist delusions, be accorded equal weight to those held by the mathists, who insist on cramming their version of mathematics down our throats? What a wonderful world it would have been, not to know much about science books, but still having the right to be an A student.

I sometimes feel I’ve passed on too much from Pharyngula, but Myers has admitted that his readers tip him off to stories, a luxury I don’t enjoy, so I don’t feel too guilty. I had to comment on this because it involves one of my favorite historical figures.

A Spanish director has made a movie about Hypatia. I first read about her while plowing through Will and Ariel Durant’s Story of Civilization. Believe it or not I read every word of that multi-volume tome, excluding a few footnotes. What can I say? I was young and foolish. In any event, her story stuck with me long after I forgot the details of most of the rest of the history of the world. I’ve since read a biography of her.

Hypatia lived in the fourth century. If memory serves, she was both a philosopher and mathematician, and was roughly equivalent to a university professor. She lived in Alexandria, which was, at the time, perhaps the last bastion of learning in the Empire. To say the least, she did not keep in her place. She even drove her own chariot.

She lived at a time when the Western mind was closing, not to open again for over a thousand years. Christianity had become the official religion. The Christians argued among themselves about esoteric points of doctrine and reason was abandoned by all but the pagans, who experienced persecution far more vicious and pervasive than anything to which the Christians were subjected.

Besides the characteristics I’ve already mentioned, Hypatia was a pagan, which stands to reason because she stood for reason. The combination of all her qualities made her particularly toxic, and she met her rightful fate. A mob of Christians, spurred on by “Saint” Cyril, dragged her naked through the streets until she was dead, to the greater glory of Jesus, Amen.

I have no idea how faithful the movie is to the facts, but it appears from the trailer below that Hypatia is the good guy, meaning the Christians are the baddies, which is definitely in line with the facts. The movie was a blockbuster in Spain, but apparently can’t find a distributor here, though it has all the hallmarks of a hit, including someone Myers characterizes as a star (Rachel Weisz), though I admit I’ve never heard of her, which means nothing, given my knowledge of current film.

What does it say about the decline of this country that a movie like this can be shown in Catholic Spain, the former home of the Inquisition, and more recently of Franco, but it can’t be shown in the United States, the country that practically invented religious freedom (can’t forget Holland) and which was founded on enlightenment principles? But it’s easy to see why there have been no takers so far. Can’t you just imagine Bill Donahue hyperventilating about this one? Hypatia would feel right at home, and not in a good way.

A couple of days ago I expressed a bit of amazement about the fact that the Cardinal of Boston didn’t just order a Catholic school district in his jurisdiction to reverse a decision to discriminate against a child whose parents are lesbians, despite the fact that the Cardinal said he disagreed with the decision. This seemed to run afoul of time honored Catholic teaching, recognized in our law, that the Church is a hierarchical institution-indeed, perhaps the most hierarchical major institution in the present day world.

Well, it looks like the Church is officially abandoning that hierarchical status, at least when it doesn’t suit its purpose (via Truthdig, from the London Times Online):

The Vatican will today make its most detailed defence yet against claims that it is liable for US bishops who allowed priests to molest children, saying bishops are not its employees and that a document from 1962 did not require them to keep quiet.

The Vatican will make the arguments in a motion to dismiss a federal lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds filed in Louisville, Kentucky, but it could affect other efforts to sue the Holy See.

Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican’s lawyer in the US, said the Vatican would assert that bishops are not its employees because they are not paid by Rome, don’t act on Rome’s behalf and are not controlled day-to-day by the pope — factors courts use to determine whether employers are liable for the actions of their employees.

Mr Lena said he would suggest to the court that it should avoid using the religious nature of the relationship between bishops and the pope as a basis for civil liability because it entangles the court in an analysis of religious doctrine that dates back to the apostles.

“Courts tend to avoid constructing civil relationships out of religious materials,” he said.

Well, actually courts often have no choice but to construct civil relationships out of religious materials. Consider questions that arise when a local church decides to break away from the mother ship, as happened with the Anglicans here in Groton recently. The Anglican Church, like the Roman Catholic, is hierarchical, so the courts have generally ruled, as the court did in the case of the Groton Church, that regardless of who holds paper title the land belongs to the Mother church. Contrariwise, if the Church is congregational in nature. And, at least according to this Catholic website, the church’s hierarchical structure was laid down as a matter of religious dogma by the Big Guy’s son himself¹ .

The opposing lawyer, by the way, says he doesn’t have to prove that the Bishops were “employees”, merely that they were wholly controlled by the Pope and his co-conspirators, which they undoubtedly are. I wonder…if this gets to the Supreme Court, do Scalia, Thomas and the rest of the Catholics have to recuse themselves, and leave it to the Jews to decide if the Pope can be deposed?

My wife and I abandoned the Hartford Courant for the Boston Globe some time ago, so we have been following this tawdry little story since its inception. A Catholic School in Hingham, Massachusetts, in Jesus’ holy name and in Christian love, rejected the application of an 8 year old for admission to its grammar school because his parents are lesbians.

Amazingly, even some institutional Catholics have reacted with outrage. This may be hypocritically fueled, in part, by the fact that they are anxious that their basic hypocrisy, so much on display of late, would not be highlighted once more. It does, after all, seem a little much that the Church that finds it so easy to forgive the repeat priestly offenders that “repent” and then sin once more should find it necessary to punish an eight year old for the “sins” of his parents.

So the Boston Bishop, cardinal or whatever he is, has officially pronounced that this particular form of discrimination is not among the many sanctioned by the Church. But the eight year old will nonetheless not be going to the school of his choice; Church officials will be looking for another school willing to take him.

Now, it’s possible that this is because the parents have told Church officials that they would not feel comfortable sending him to a school that has already discriminated against him, but there is no indication from the press reports that this is so. It appears that the Church is here deferring to local control, something that we Connecticut folks recently learned is otherwise anathema to the Church.

Now, there are few monarchs on earth with more absolute power within their realms than the Catholic Pope. The Pope’s power is, in turn, exercised by his viceroys, otherwise know as Bishops. In other words, the Bishop can just tell this school to take the kid and they have to do it. So why, in this case, the kid glove treatment. Imagine, if you will, that same school allowing Planned Parenthood to come in and speak favorably of birth control. How long before the Bishop puts the kibosh on that?

The Pope, having failed to offload guilt on the press, Jews and gays (in that order) is talking about penance. This is perceived as a step forward by the pontiff, accepting responsibility for something.

But hold on there. When I was just a wee lad, I learned that there’s a road to travel before one does one’s penance. In my experience, too, the penance was the easier part.

Of course, it’s been a while since I was back there in parochial school. But, thanks to the internet, we can turn back the hands of time, and dial up the good old Baltimore catechism, still in use when I was a lad (I don’t know if it is still being inflicted on the defenseless young).

Let’s start with penance:

420. Why does the priest give us a penance after confession?

The priest gives us a penance after confession that we may make some atonement to God for our sins, receive help to avoid them in the future, and make some satisfaction for the temporal punishment due to them.

You see the entire word of God is set forth in sequentially numbered questions and answers. Number 420 explains penance, but note something here. You don’t get to 420 until you pass 408, et. seq, which include the following:

408. What is confession?

Confession is the telling of our sins to an authorized priest for the purpose of obtaining forgiveness.

He that hideth his sins shall not prosper; but he that shall confess and forsake them shall obtain mercy. (Proverbs 28:13)

409. Why must we confess our sins?

We must confess our sins because Jesus Christ obliges us to do so in these words, spoken to the apostles and to their successors in the priesthood: “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.”

414. When is our confession sincere?

Our confession is sincere when we tell our sins honestly and frankly.

…

415. When is our confession entire?

Our confession is entire when we confess at least all our mortal sins, telling their kind, the number of times we have committed each sin, and any circumstances changing their nature.

Ratzi is skipping the hard part (I could tell you stories) and going right to the easy stuff. Anyone can say a few Hail Marys, it’s the confession part that’s hard. Now, in this case, I humbly submit, telling it to a priest won’t do. If he wants the world’s forgiveness, then only public confession will do.

But the hardest part comes after the penance. As Jesus saith, one should “Go, and sin no more”. How likely is that in this case?

By the way, here’s what happens if you don’t fess up on all those mortal sins:

417. What happens if we knowingly conceal a mortal sin in confession?

If we knowingly conceal a mortal sin in confession, the sins we confess are not forgiven; moreover, we commit a mortal sin of sacrilege.

So if Ratzi ever does get around to confessing, he better make a clean breast of it.

The citizens of Switzerland just voted to bar the erection of minarets in their country. The Muslim world is in a bit of an uproar about it.

I’ll grant you it’s a trifle xenophobic. Well, more than a trifle. Still, it’s hard to see how the Muslims can complain, when there are Muslim countries that impose the death penalty on apostates and generally make life miserable for those that don’t share their faith. Banning buildings, as unjustified as that might be, is weak beer in comparison. It’s an odd thing that, other than the Quakers, those who experience religious persecution are capable of seeing the injustice in it, until they gain enough power to do the persecuting themselves.