Miscellanea Agnostica

So much for Barack Obama’s vaunted plans to “change” the country. Rather than shutter Bush 43’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives — a bad idea if ever there was one, which necessarily entangled religion and government — Obama plans to keep it in place, as Politico reports:

Obama plans to install a principal campaign adviser on religious affairs, Joshua DuBois, to lead a revamped office of faith-based initiatives, according to sources familiar with the decision. …

Aides are nearing the final stages of discussions on how to structure and staff the White House faith-based program and religious outreach. Faith leaders who have been consulted by the White House said they expect an announcement within a week. The New York Times first reported the appointment Thursday.

That’s the way to “change” the country, Mr President … keep in place one of your predecessor’s worst ideas, ’cause we gotta keep pandr’in’ ta dem dere believer-folk.

The Washington Post’s On Faith site poses an interesting question for its panelists:

Is it better to challenge or ignore Holocaust deniers such as Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson and Iranian President Mahmoud Amadenijad? Why?

A lot of the responses are moralistic in nature, and although mostly written from the religious perspective of their authors, not far off base. However, for me — although Holocaust denial is rooted in anti-Semitism and therefore has a mostly-religious basis — the question of whether or not the Holocaust happened, is inherently historiographical, not religious. That is, the most important question is the veracity of the Holocaust and what we have since learned about it.

So in a way, the question of “engaging” Holocaust-deniers is not a sound one. It’s premised on the idea that Holocaust deniers have something to say that’s worth hearing, or that their opinions are worth wrestling with.

This is not a safe assumption, however. Not all views have any validity, nor is there always an “equivalence of viewpoints.”

Let me use a different example. Say you meet someone who thought the earth was flat, not round. (Not a kid in school just learning about the shape of the earth … I mean an adult who has been educated in physics but has chosen, for whatever reason, to believe the earth is flat rather than a sphere.) Would you bother arguing the shape of the earth with such a person? If so, why? What reason would any rational person have, to “engage in dialog” with someone whose beliefs are obviously contrary to science (and have been for the many centuries that have passed since the ancient Greeks, among other peoples, determined the earth is a sphere)?

I suppose if the person is a friend, you might want to straighten him/her out, but otherwise, why bother? The idea that the earth is flat, is not a view that’s worthy of any discussion. It is not a notion that could be “balanced” somehow with the (correct) notion of a spherical earth. There is no equivalence, no “balance point,” and no merit to entertaining such a view.

The same goes for Holocaust denial. There is no merit to even discuss the possibility the Holocaust didn’t happen, since it did — and we know it — just as surely as we know the earth is a sphere.

The cold hard fact is that Holocaust denial has no historiographical basis any more. It is motivated solely by hatred of Jews and/or Judaism, and a desire to rob them of their heritage. In this regard it’s no different from, say, British-Israelism, which claims that modern Jews are not actually Jews; rather, the peoples of Britain are descendants of the “lost tribes of Israel” and therefore the British — not the Jews — are God’s “chosen people.” In the same way, Holocaust-denial is a way of eliminating any consideration of the Jews as a distinct people (whether ethnically, socially, culturally, or religiously).

When people are motivated to believe something because of religion or hatred, there can be no “reasoning” with them, no constructive dialog. There is nothing that Holocaust-deniers can say about the Holocaust that’s worth hearing, because it has no basis in fact or rationality.

The only reasonable way to deal with Holocaust-deniers, is to marginalize them. Laugh at them. Dismiss them. Call them kooks, cranks, or wing-nuts. But don’t do anything that even implies they have anything worthwhile to say — because nothing good can come from hearing what they say.

I’ve previously blogged about the anti-vaccine crowd and its too-often-heard Hollywood-based spokespersons. Well, in addition to the forces of reason and science fighting back, as I remarked, the anti-vaccine fortress is beginning to crumble, as Newsweek reported:

This week, Alison Singer, the executive vice president of communications and awareness at Autism Speaks, one of the nation’s leading autism advocacy groups, announced her resignation, citing a difference of opinion over the organization’s policy on vaccine research. “Dozens of credible scientific studies have exonerated vaccines as a cause of autism,” she wrote in a statement. “I believe we must devote limited funding to more promising avenues of autism research.” …

The Newsweek article includes an interview with Ms Singer, in which she says, among other things:

In general, I disagree with a policy that says, “Despite what this study shows, more studies should be done.” At some point, you have to say, “This question has been asked and answered and it’s time to move on.” We need to be able to say, “Yes, we are now satisfied that the earth is round.” …

Over and over, the science has shown no causal link between vaccines and autism. …

I think that there’s this feeling [among some parents] that the vaccine decision is a choice between, “Do I want to risk measles or do I want to risk autism?” That’s not a good characterization. We know for a fact that the measles vaccine reduces the risk of getting measles. One choice is backed by science, one choice isn’t.

Emotional thinking — which is what fuels the anti-vaccine crowd (e.g. “I know vaccines cause autism ’cause my kid is autistic and s/he’s been vaccinated, and you can’t tell me it’s not true ’cause s/he’s my child and I just know it!”) — has no place in science. It is, instead, merely sanctimony, and is even a bit childish. Having a feeling that two things are connected, does not mean they are. Being the parent of an autistic kid, does not make one an expert on the causes of autism. I know it sounds heartless, but emotions are not as important as fact, veracity, or verifiability.

Things are not looking up, over at the monstrosity of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. Even the church built by the famous “Hour of Power” pastor Robert H. Schuller, is feeling the pinch of America’s recession. As the Orange County Register reports:

Crystal Cathedral’s executive pastor, who was brought on board by the church’s former senior pastor Robert A. Schuller, was let go this week because of financial issues, church administrators said.

Jim Poit and his wife, Linda, who was director of children’s ministries at the cathedral, were both laid off. Deb Yurk, who had been brought on board by Poit as pastor of congregational life, was also released from her job, according to a news release by the Church Executive magazine based in Arizona.

Clarification: Like the two presidents George Bush, the two pastors Robert Schuller have different middle names; the elder is Robert H. Schuller and the younger is Robert A. Schuller. It was the latter who, having taken over the family business some time ago, abruptly resigned at the end of November last year. The departure of his successor, Poit, leaves the Crystal Cathedral without a leader. But is the recession the cause of this vaunted congregation losing money? CBS News reports a very different possible cause:

The church is in financial turmoil: It plans to sell more than $65 million worth of its Orange County property to pay off debt. Revenue dropped by nearly $5 million last year, according to a recent letter from the elder Schuller to elite donors. In the letter, Schuller Sr. implored the Eagle’s Club members — who supply 30 percent of the church’s revenue — for donations and hinted that the show might go off the air without their support. …

The Crystal Cathedral blames the recession for its woes. But it’s clear that the elder Schuller’s carefully orchestrated leadership transition, planned over a decade, has stumbled badly. …

Members often tie their donations to the pastor, not the institution, said Nancy Ammerman, a sociologist of religion at Boston University.

Could it be that the billions of dollars the Crystal Cathedral collected over the last several decades, came in due not to the “loving message” of Christianity, but instead because of the elder pastor Schuller’s personal style? If so, this would tend to undermine the presumed power of Jesus’ message, would it not?

But even if the recession is to blame for this, it tends to undermine the “conventional wisdom” that churchgoing increases in troubled times (presumably because people are looking for “guidance” of some kind).

Whatever the cause of the Crystal Cathedral’s financial woes, it does my heart good to see that one of the greatest monuments to religious ostentatiousness has run aground on its own excess. I’m no Christian but I’m fairly sure I saw nothing in Jesus’ career that he ever intended for his followers to build such colossal, splashy edifices in his name.