Blue Collar Scientist

I ask because a tragic mishap has befallen this church:

As many as 70 people have been taken to hospital, several critically injured, after the auditorium floor collapsed at a church in Abbotsford, BC, Canada.

Around 9 pm PDT an approximately 900 square foot section of the stage and floor collapsed at a Starfield concert attended by more than 1200 people at Central Heights Church. Reports from the concert goers indicate that sound and lighting scaffolds collapsed onto the front section of the stage and mosh pit, causing the floor to collapse into the basement 10 feet below.

This is no laughing matter; it sounds like some people are likely to die, others will certainly face a long period of recovery and possibly disability. I’ve called the church to inquire about where to make a donation to help with the medical care or recovery costs of the victims; I haven’t heard back yet but I will post a link when I do.

I don’t want to minimize the magnitude of the tragedy by bringing theology into it. But I’m not the one doing that. The church’s own theology insists that the question in the headline be answered, since the church has made up its mind on the issue. In a FAQ on their website the church claims:

5. Why is there so much pain in my life?

Pain is part of the consequence of our rebellion against God.

They link to The Great Questions of Life as a way of learning more about their theology¹:

The Effects of Sin

Sin brought disease and death into the world.

God is Just

God is a righteous judge. This means that He always does what is right…. Through Jesus, He wants to save us from sin and all of its effects. But if we won’t let Him, He will allow us to feel the evil results of our wrong actions.

God Knows Everything

God knows the past, present, and future. He sees, hears, and understands everything that happens. He knows your thoughts and why you do what you do. God knows what is best for you….

I’m quoting selectively, so run down the links and see. I think this church teaches that if something causes you pain, it’s your own damn fault.

Sometimes it is². But in this particular case, my hope for the members and guests of this church who have been injured by this accident is that they escape being condemned as vicious god-hating madmen by their pastors, and that they benefit from the finest evidence-based medical care that can be brought to bear to heal their injuries, physical and otherwise.

1. They also link to Answers in Genesis. [↩]
2. Even when it is, that doesn’t mean that people in pain deserve to suffer. [↩]

I’ve said a number of times here that Christian creationists, whether ID or otherwise, who deny science are religious extremists. At various times, I’ve pointed out Ken Miller, the Clergy Letter Project (which has 11,000 religious leaders affirming evolution), and other examples to support my claim that creationists are minority radicals.

(Of course one reason that I promote this meme over and over is to marginalize creationists and assist any split that may develop between them and more mainstream religionists. But don’t tell anyone. I wouldn’t want to be accused of doing framing wrong, or anything.)

Today there’s another example of how radical creationism is a fringe view. Reasons To Believe is an non-denominational Christian think tank, and they take Christian apologetics pretty seriously. They are also among the more thoughtful such groups. Some time back, they posted some tentative comments on Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, which opens today:

Many people have asked Reasons to Believe (RTB) to make a statement about the movie. For the sake of integrity, we cannot offer an assessment until our scholar team has had a chance to view the movie.

RTB views the scientific enterprise as a vital component of carrying out one of God’s first recorded commands to Adam and Eve. Without the understanding derived from scientific investigation, it would be impossible to take care of this home God provided for us.

I’m quoting selectively. They have some questionable material up there, but on the whole these are reasonable people that you could talk to. They understand their own shortcomings, and they understand the value of science.

Now some of the Reasons To Believe leaders have seen the movie, and sources say they have released this statement:

After previewing the promotional materials provided by the movie’s marketers, we were concerned that the movie took an adversarial approach to the scientific community. A number of RTB scholars and staff attended a prerelease screening in Los Angeles recently and confirmed that EXPELLED definitely does take such an approach…. EXPELLED implicitly argues that the scientific community deems certain questions off-limits, particularly any question about the legitimacy of neo-Darwinian evolution. The movie further argues that academia, the media, and the courts all conspire as “thought police” to oppress any and all dissent from the party line.

Clearly some oppression and discrimination have occurred, but the experience of RTB scholars and many of their contacts refutes the movie’s premise that the scientific community systemically and unilaterally fosters these injustices.

They end with a policy decision:

Therefore, we ask all chapter members and volunteers to refrain from endorsing EXPELLED in any official way.

Reaction to this has been favorable:

Kudos to them. This is outstanding.

And again:

indeed. this is an excellent response!

is this on the web anywhere? I would like to direct others to read this.

And yet again:

Yes. It is posted prominently on the front page of the RTB site at www.reasons.org.

I am very proud of them for this response.

I could go on - the favorable reaction to Reasons To Believe’s stance against the movie continues.

The point of all this? Expelled isn’t even appealing to all of its expected core audience. Expelled is so extremist that it has split their demographic.

Hat tip to Panda’s Thumb.

Greg Laden reports on Louisiana’s recently-introduced pro-Creationism legislation.

The commentary in the Daily Advertiser points out that Lousiana was the original test case in which creationists forced the issue into the courts, and lost:

In the early 1980s, the Legislature passed a law requiring the teaching of creation science alongside evolution in our public schools. In its 1987 Edwards v. Aguillard decision, the U.S. Supreme Court smote down the Louisiana law, yea, even unto the dust. The justices cited the Establishment Clause.

Almost immediately, people calling themselves the Discovery Institute decided they could slip creationism into schools if they didn’t explicitly mention God.

The bill is a so-called “academic freedom” bill.

As usual, the religious community is split, with religious extremists favoring the bill, and sensible religious people opposing it:

There’s nothing stupid about believing that God created everything - at least not to me, since that’s what I believe. But intelligent design is an affront to both religion and science.

Another story in the Times-Picayune

The creationists are with us again, determined in the upcoming legislative session to make the whole of Louisiana like Ouachita Parish. Lord, have mercy upon us.

Ouachita Parish adopted an “academic freedom” policy (pdf) in 2006 which has since been used to harass and suppress science teachers teaching evolution in the district. The Louisiana bill is modeled on the Ouachita Parish policy, while “academic freedom” bills introduced in other states were written by, or based on an exemplar written by, the creationist Discovery Institute.

Back to the Times-Picayune:

Now [creationism] has painted on a new face and emerged on the arm of state Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, who is pushing what he humorously terms the “The Louisiana Academic Freedom Act” in the upcoming session.

Nevers has filed Senate Bill 561 with the spurious premise that evolution is a matter of serious scientific debate and that both sides are entitled to a hearing. A lot of people have fallen for that line, including Gov. Bobby Jindal, although, of course, scientists, save a few stray zealots, regard the evidence for evolution as overwhelming.

The acts seem to be consistent with the creationist strategy to get the government to force their religiously extreme views upon children, and also gain large tax subsidies for their “textbook” publishing businesses.

Is anyone else tired of the creationists’ political correctness? Let’s start calling these what they are: creationism acts, not academic freedom acts.

In Kansas, school officials prevented a woman from refereeing a basketball game on February 2.

If you heard about this happening in Saudi Arabia, you’d say, ahh, Sharia law, and shake your head over the insanity of it. But when you hear of someone in the United States being misogynistic, trying to keep women from doing their jobs (or just having jobs), you pretty much know right off the bat that what is going on is some good old-fashioned Christian religious extremism.

Campbell, as a woman, could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy’s beliefs.

This makes me immediately wonder about these boys’ mothers. I gather these kids are only in high school, and have been taught that no woman can have authority over them? What must family life be like? I was a teenager once, and I was an even bigger prick then than I am now. Being taught the meme “god says no woman can have authority over you” would have given me license to be far worse.

These kids are taught to believe that they have an inherent superiority over their mothers, or at least over their friend’s mothers, that they need not pay any respect to a female cop who stops them for a traffic violation¹, that people like the Secretary of State of the United States have no proper authority over our country’s male diplomats, and so forth. I’m guessing these kids will be essentially unemployable outside their micro-economic world, which amounts to those businesses owned and operated by the men of their own religion.

And who exactly are these people?

St. Mary’s Academy, about 25 miles northwest of Topeka, is owned and operated by the Society of St. Pius X, which follows older Roman Catholic laws. The society’s world leader, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, was excommunicated by Pope John Paul II in the late 1980s.

Right. These aren’t mainstreamers. They are some fringe group who split off because they thought the Catholics were too liberal. And the Catholics kicked them out, presumably, because they were too whacky.

What do you want to bet that they are against evolution too? I’m sure you’ve noticed that it isn’t your everyday Lutheran who gets in your face with a vicious, teeth-bared, saliva-spewing attack on the morals of the people in this world doing the most to ease suffering and cure disease (evolutionary biologists, as I’m sure you noticed if you’ve been paying attention at all during the last 80 years). The people who do this are the fringe. They are the extremists. Look around, and you’ll see that evolution denialism has some fellow travelers: marginalizing women, racial and gender segregation², big-bang denialism, vaccine denialism, belief in spirit healing over medicine, censorship, a hatred of higher education, discrimination against people with health problems, separatism from the rest of our society, and a slew of other evils. And one thing extremists have in common is that they impose these practices on their followers through autocratic, authoritarian means.

Trolling through their website, it looks like there is a St. Mary’s Academy, and a St. Mary’s College. I’m having a little trouble parsing which is which, since they share the same website, but I gather both are run by the Society of St. Pius X. And you find that these institutions are pretty much what you’d expect.

• At the College, they deny evolution. (The page has been removed, but here it is in Google’s cache. The St. Mary’s College bookmarks, which they style as “our links of Catholic reference,” link to several evolution denialist websites, to no evolution education websites, and to no websites that explain that evolution is easily reconciled with religious belief.)
• They hate higher education. (Again, the page has been removed, but the Google cache has it: “The evolution of modern education after 1960 has metamorphosed American campuses into academic versions of Sodom and Gomorrah, erudite dens of iniquity.” Anyone writing this obviously hasn’t been on a college campus in quite a while.)
• They deny entry to people with health problems: “Good mental and physical health is an essential requirement.”
• They keep their people separate from others: “Students must live in the college dormitories and take their meals in the dining room. The only exceptions are students who live with their families in the St. Mary’s area. No other arrangements may be considered.”
• They are separatists not only with respect to the academy, but they also restrict students’ outside employment: “Off-campus jobs are not permitted unless specific written approval of the Rector is procured. The Rector will determine the character of the individuals with whom you will be working and the general atmosphere of your chosen workplace.” I suppose it is unacceptable for an employee to determine the character of their co-workers….
• They practice censorship: “Alcoholic beverages, drugs, and rock-and-roll music are strictly forbidden.”
• While we’ve already seen how they feel about women, they also regulate womens’ dress and appearance: “No obvious cosmetics may be worn. If an inordinate amount is used, you will be sent to your room to remove it.” And: “During class hours and at liturgical functions, women are to wear skirts, dresses, or jumpers. These will be at least two inches below the knee. No clothing may be tight, see-through, sleeveless, or immodest in any way. Sneakers and sandals are not permitted at these times. During non-class hours, women are to wear skirts, dresses, or jumpers on or off the campus.”
• The Academy apparently sees no difference between bad behavior and neurological disease, and they specifically prevent special ed students from attending (again, page has been removed, but Google Cache helps out): “Since Saint Mary’s is not a reform institution and has neither the means nor the intention of implementing specialized programs, we are unable to admit or retain students who present discipline problems, anti-social behavior, or those who are affected by learning deficiencies.”
• The Academy requires two credits (!) of science for graduation, but three credits in religion.
• The Academy censors students as well: “The possession of non-classical music, as well as books, magazines, pictures, comics, letters, or notes of an immoral content are penalized with suspension/expulsion. The school will confiscate and destroy, without compensation, any material considered harmful to the students’ morals.” And: “It is forbidden to possess radios, televisions, tape or CD players, video games, walkie-talkies, hot pots, etc. Such items will be confiscated.”

And so on.

Just so we’re clear, on the off chance that St. Mary’s allows its students to unleash a storm of commenting here:

• It is not normal or acceptable in any civilized society to group people with learning disabilities with juvenile delinquents.
• It is not reasonable to consider radios and TVs to be subversive to morals. It is not normal to take them away from people by force when they are found.
• It is not Christian to be separatist. Several times in the bible believers are commanded to live their lives openly among the unbelievers.
• In a civilized society, telling a woman what kind of clothes she can wear is one of two things: Kinky, which is a positive expression of sexuality and is quite acceptable if there is consent all around; or perverted, in all other cases.
• It is not sane to deny evolution.
• It is inhuman to treat people with disease as unworthy of your company and unfit to be educated.
• It is especially hypocritical to practice this when your alleged saviour was notable mainly for hanging out with and helping lepers, the blind, and other suffering people.
• It is bizarre and unacceptable to refer to all other universities using language that suggests the people who live and work there want to rape those who visit their campuses.

It is time for the religious extremists to repent and start to behave like members of civilized society.

1. Don’t believe me? The referee they sent packing is a retired cop. [↩]
2. a well-known megachurch in Anchorage has services that are eerily segregated, with whites sitting on one side and everyone else sitting on the other [↩]

Reuters is reporting that

Pope Benedict said on Thursday that embryonic stem cell research, artificial insemination and the prospect of human cloning had “shattered” human dignity.

Practices like freezing embryos, suppression of embryos in multiple pregnancies, embryonic stem cell research, the prospect of human cloning and artificial insemination outside the body had “shattered the barriers meant to protect human dignity”, he said.

Let’s make something really clear here. The Blue Collar Scientist is a human, and he’s noticed no diminishment of his “human dignity” as a result of any of these things. People still, by and large, treat me politely and with respect, just as I, by and large, treat others politely and with respect. Nobody has been running around giving others wedgies while in my presence. Nobody I’ve ever seen has chosen to excrete other than in the privacy of a restroom. People go on wearing clothing, having medical exams behind closed doors instead of in the middle of the sidewalk, making their own decisions, and avoiding being told what to do by some old white guy who wears funny hats and seeks to control the behavior of his flock like the dominant male in a troop of howler monkeys.

I hate to keep slapping down at Catholics here, but seriously, is the Pope in any way in touch with reality?