Miscellanea Agnostica

In the fine tradition of using catastrophes to one’s own advantage, the Church of Scientology has decided that Haitians injured in the recent earthquake require their dubious pseudo-medicine. AFP reports via Google News (WebCite cached article):

Scientologists ‘heal’ Haiti quake victims using touch

Amid the mass of aid agencies piling in to help Haiti quake victims is a batch of Church of Scientology “volunteer ministers”, claiming to use the power of touch to reconnect nervous systems.

Clad in yellow T-shirts emblazoned with the logo of the controversial US-based group, smiling volunteers fan out among the injured lying under makeshift shelters in the courtyard of Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital.

An anonymous benefactor is sending Scientolgists in, at great expense, to provide this important service to Haiti:

“We’re trained as volunteer ministers, we use a process called ‘assist’ to follow the nervous system to reconnect the main points, to bring back communication,” she said.

“When you get a sudden shock to a part of your body the energy gets stuck, so we re-establish communication within the body by touching people through their clothes, and asking people to feel the touch.”

Yeah, folks, this is yet another kind of “energy medicine,” which is just as bogus as every other kind of “energy medicine,” such as reiki, therapeutic touch, and more. Nevertheless, these Scientologists claim to have performed miracles:

Next to her lay 22-year-old student Oscar Elweels, whose father rescued him from the basement of his school where he lay with a pillar on his leg for a day after the deadly January 12 quake.

His right leg was amputated below the knee and his left leg was severely bruised and swollen. …

“One hour ago he had no sensation in his left leg, so I explained the method to him, I touched him and after a while he said ‘now I feel everything’,” said [the Scientologist known as] Sylvie.

“Otherwise they might have had to amputate his other leg. Now his sister knows the method and she can do it.”

The news isn’t all bad, though, as AFP goes on to say:

Another group of Scientologists distributed antibiotic pills. “The doctors said give everyone with wounds antibiotics,” said Italian volunteer Marina.

The Scientologists’ questionable care hasn’t gone unnoticed by true medical professionals on site; they appear to have taken advantage of the chaos to insinuate themselves into the clinics:

Some doctors at the hospital are skeptical. One US doctor, who asked not to be named, snorted: “I didn’t know touching could heal gangrene.”

When asked what the Scientologists are doing here, another doctor said: “I don’t know.”

Do you care? “Not really,” she said, wheeling an unconscious patient out of the operating room to join hundreds of others in the hospital’s sunny courtyard.

Sorry, but foisting quackery on Haitians, in the time of their greatest need — and when they are at their most vulnerable — in order to promote an ersatz religion, is — quite simply — wrong.

Tags: church of scientology, earthquake, energy, energy healing, energy medicine, haiti, haitian earthquake, haitians, medicine, pseudomedicine, psuedo-medicine, quack, quackery, quacks, reiki, scientologist, scientology, therapeutic touch, touch

It was a big story a few days ago. The (UK) Daily Mail and Metro revealed that a British researcher had uncovered evidence that the prehistoric people of Britain possessed an uncanny “navigational sense,” but without benefit of modern technology. The Daily Mail and Metro story was big news (WebCite cached Mail article and cached Metro article):

Ancient man had his own form of ‘sat nav’ that helped him find his way across Britain, according to new research.

The sophisticated geometric system was based on a stone circle markers [sic].

Our ancestors were able to travel between settlements with pinpoint accuracy thanks to a complex network of hilltop monuments (from Mail story).

It sure looks like a stunning discovery.

Or was it?

It turns out, as Gertrude Stein once said, “there’s no ‘there’ there.” Ben Goldacre at the (UK) Guardian breaks the bad news (WebCite cached article):

Every now and then you have to salute a genius. Both the Daily Mail and the Metro report research analysing the positions of Britain’s ancient sites, and the results are startling: primitive man had his own form of satnav. …

That this pattern could occur simply because one site was on the way to the next was not considered.

That’s right. The Mail story assumed that prehistoric Britons could not possibly have moved from one point, to the next, and onto the next, without some kind of heretofore-unnoticed “sat nav.”

Seriously.

Goldacre goes on to explain what this was really about, and also found another similar “pattern” based on different data:

In the Metro [story author] Tom Brooks is a researcher. To the Daily Mail he is a researcher, a historian, and a writer. I hope it’s not rude or unfair for me to add “retired marketing executive of Honiton, Devon”.

Matt Parker, his nemesis, is based in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Queen Mary, University of London. He has applied the same techniques used by Brooks to another mysterious and lost civilisation.

“We know so little about the ancient Woolworths stores,” he explains, “but we do still know their locations. I thought that if we analysed the sites we could learn more about what life was like in 2008 and how these people went about buying cheap kitchen accessories and discount CDs.”

The results revealed an exact and precise geometric placement of the Woolworths locations.

Parker even filtered his data as Brooks had his own:

Parker used an ancient technique: he found his patterns in 800 ex-Woolworths locations by “skipping over the vast majority, and only choosing the few that happen to line up”.

Of course, taking a giant set of data … whether geographic or otherwise … then selectively filtering it, looking for anything “interesting” in it … is not new. Cranks have been doing it for ages. In his famous book Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science, skeptic Martin Gardner did this with the Washington Monument:

Just for fun, if one looks up the facts about the Washington Monument in the World Almanac, he will find considerable fiveness. Its height is 555 feet and 5 inches. The base is 55 feet square, and the windows are set at 500 feet from the base. If the base is multiplied by 60 (or five times the number of months in a year) it gives 3,300, which is the exact weight of the capstone in pounds. Also, the word “Washington” has exactly ten letters (two times five). And if the weight of the capstone is multiplied by the base, the result is 181,500 — a fairly close approximation of the speed of light in miles per second. If the base is measured with a “Monument foot,” which is slightly smaller than the standard foot, its side comes to 56½ feet. This times 33,000 yields a figure even closer to the speed of light. (Ch. 15)

Any sufficiently large dataset can cough up all sorts of apparently-meaningful conclusions. That they can be found, though, and that they appear to have meaning, doesn’t actually mean there’s anything to them. Combing data is easy; actually making a discovery amid it, is not.

The lesson here is that, sometimes, there’s an obvious explanation for things that you may not be paying attention to, and that sometimes, a coincidence is just a coincidence.

Hat tip: Fallacy Files.

Tags: britain, daily mail, data, data mining, data sift, data sifting, metro, nav sat, navsat, pareidolia, pattern, patterns, prehistoric, prehistoric britain, sat nav, satnav, skeptic, skeptical, skepticism, uk

I blogged already about the defense contractor Trijicon and the scripture passage references embedded on the sights they sold to the US military. The (UK) Telegraph reports the company has decided to remove the references (WebCite cached article):

Trijicon, which has used Biblical references for more than 20 years, said today that it had agreed to stop marking equipment for the US military and would make the same offer to military forces abroad.

It is also offering modification kits to forces free of charge to enable the references to be removed from any equipment which is currently deployed.

Of course, this sudden and drastic change of heart conflicts with their previous claim — included in the original ABC News report on the matter (WebCite cached article) — that there had been nothing wrong with what they were doing:

Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions “have always been there” and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them.

I’m not sure why they would back down, if they were so convinced that there was nothing wrong with it. But they are.

This makes them hypocrites (if, in fact, they genuinely believe this practice to be acceptable, but are stopping it anyway, in violation of their own beliefs) or liars (if they knew it was wrong, but told ABC News that it wasn’t). Either way, the character of this “Christian company” is apparently lacking, if not non-existent.

Tags: bible passages, christian right, Christianity, hyperreligious, militant christianity, militant christians, military, pentagon, religionism, religionist, religionists, religious right, scripture, scripture passages, sights, trijicon, us military, violence, war, warlike, weapons, wixom MI

Never underestimate the power of a moral panic to turn a society upside down. One example of a kind of moral panic which often gets out of control and leads to violence and death, is the phenomenon of the witch hunt. Other kinds of moral panics are a little less disruptive, such as the craziness over Satanic ritual abuse (which never really happened anywhere on the scale that was claimed back in the 80s). Another moral panic in the 20th century a bit less disruptive and sillier than that, is the campaign against comic books.

We may think we’ve risen above irrational moral panics, but the fact is that human nature has not changed, and — even though we live in the Information Age, with the entire Internet available to us — we are still vulnerable to “the madness of crowds,” as much as we ever were.

The most recent example of this is the vilification of “sexting,” or the sending of erotic images via electronic means (usually by cell-phone picture message), usually by minors. For instance, the Hartford Courant filed this “scare-journalism” report on this insidious trend which threatens to destroy America’s moral fiber and subject teens to the whims of the criminal justice system (WebCite cached article):

Sexting’s Pervasiveness, Dangers Detailed As Police, Lawyers Offer Ways To Shield Students

As if booze, drugs and tell-all Facebook profiles weren’t sufficiently alarming, parents should now add “sexting” to their well of worries.

That was part of the message Wednesday night at a district-sponsored public forum on technology and teens that drew about 200 people to the Conard High School auditorium. They were mostly parents, some of whom brought their kids, but it was the police officers and attorneys in the crowd and onstage who underscored the topic’s gravity.

As if to hammer home the horrific nature of this unconscionable crime, the Courant goes on to report:

“Sexting” is sending or receiving text messages that include nude or sexual images, and as Lt. Donald Melanson, a West Hartford police spokesman, told the hushed crowd, such images can be criminal.

Sexually explicit images of a child under age 16 are considered child pornography, and law enforcement finds itself “in a very difficult place” when dealing with sexting cases, Melanson said.

This article dutifully adds polling data which — supposedly — demonstrates how pervasive and damaging “sexting” is:

A report on sexting last month from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, based on a survey of 800 minors, stated that 18 percent of youths aged 14-17 with cellphones reported receiving “sexually suggestive” nude or semi-nude images of someone they know. Moreover, 17 percent of teens who pay their own cellphone bills said they have sent provocative images via text messaging.

Unfortunately, polling data such as this … based as it is on self-reports … doesn’t actually prove anything. Teens have been known to make stuff up so they can brag about their behavior. (Really!)

To make this “scare” even worse, the Courant gratuitously adds that it’s not just a phenomenon of poverty … sexting is a plague that affects everyone:

State police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance said Wednesday afternoon that complaints about sexting have popped up across Connecticut, “across socioeconomic borders,” because young people don’t seem to realize that “a message can last for an eternity on cyberspace.”

“Once an image is sent, it cannot be retrieved,” Vance said. “You lose control over it. … Parents just don’t believe this goes on. But it does. It does.”

I could go on and relate the many scare tactics in this article. The facts of the matter, however, are two:

1. Teens will be teens. They do occasionally trade erotic pictures. They once did this with snapshots. They now do it with camera phones. There’s nothing new here except the method they use. Figure it out, people.

2. “Sexting” between minors is against the law in Connecticut (and I assume other states) solely because the laws against child pornography are absolute; there’s no reason an exception can’t be added for willing minors sending pictures of themselves to other people they know. Laws forbidding the sending of other children’s erotic pictures, even by other children, can be allowed to remain as is.

Really, there’s nothing to this except to encourage parents to be aware of what their kids are up to. Then again, it’s always been the case that parents should do this; nothing has changed in this regard!

Move along, folks. There’s nothing to see here.

P.S. Note that I am not in favor of kids sending erotic pictures to each other. It is a very stupid thing to do and they’re likely to regret having done it almost as soon as they hit “Send.” Nevertheless, there is no way I know of, to utterly prevent teens — or anyone of any age for that matter — from engaging in stupid behavior. The fact is that we need not frighten people or turn society upside down over it. It’s a problem that can easily be solved by proper parenting, but there is no reason why proper parenting should not be the norm, rather than the exception.

P.P.S. Memo to the Courant: I know circulation is off, but “scare journalism” is beneath Connecticut’s newspaper of record and the oldest paper in the country. Just stop already.

Tags: bad journalism, camera, camera phone, camera phones, cell, cell phone, cell phones, journalism, journalism fail, moral panic, moral panics, panic, scare, scare journalism, scare tactics, sexting, west hartford CT

Several times already I’ve blogged about the scandal of abuse of children in the care of the Catholic Church in Ireland, which has been investigated and is considerably worse than anyone had imagined. I’ve remarked that the Church’s evasions, cover-ups and denials prior to the investigation; its attempts to derail and/or stop the investigation from finishing; and its sorry and pathetic reactions and non-apology apologies once the final reports were released, have all been nearly inexplicably asinine. Well, according to a piece that ran recently in the Irish Times, there may be an explanation for the Church’s lackluster response. It’s one you will find hard to believe. It comes from an anonymous victim of the abuse (although the person’s identity is known to the Times). You had to read it to believe it (WebCite cached article):

“Paul”, who suffered clerical sex abuse, explains why he believes the Catholic Church has failed properly to deal with the problem in its midst

I AM writing because I know why the church hid the abusers and is still evasive about blaming the perpetrators and the people who hid them. Naturally I am a victim, so I am limited by the anger I feel, but also it seems I am unique in remembering the most important aspect of it all, the aspect that explains everything. …

The reason why the church covered up the abuse and moved priests about is because they did not blame the priests, they blamed the children. With this knowledge observe the reaction of church authorities. They look as if they would like to say it, but can’t.

And that is it. They can’t because they believe society is now over-sentimental about children and they would not be understood. This was confirmed to me when I met an old priest tucked away in a nursing home despite the fact he was not unwell.

At one point he suggested Cardinal Ó Fiaich should be canonised, I rejected the idea, pointing out he was involved in the cover-up of abuse.

The old priest said: “People should forgive him, after all we are prepared to forgive the children.” I asked: “Forgive the children what?” He replied: “Their share of the blame.” Of course in that moment I realised he was himself an abuser, hidden away there.

The writer of this piece, “Paul,” offers even more insight into this, which perhaps he knows best, since he was a victim:

In my own case the priest treated the abuse as punishment for some contrived wrongdoing by me. Afterwards he would recoil, claiming that I was the cause of it and he was merely a weak sinner who had been tempted by me.

You can see; firstly, the damage this would do to the child, (the child is unlikely to report it as the child has been led to believe that he/she is to blame) and, secondly, you can also see the moral get-out clause this gives the priest and the church.

They see themselves as the victims and everything that has happened, up to and including the Murphy report, is part of the attack that these Devil-inspired, tempter children have been responsible for in their attempts to destroy the church.

Every victim who then claims against the church is simply acting in the role in which they have been cast. Having tempted the poor, weak priest into sin they then add insult to injury by trying to destroy the church by attempting to steal its money.

No wonder the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland has been so vehement about not admitting the abuse, about stopping the investigation and holding it up as long as it could, and about paying only as little money as required; they think that truly apologizing, and paying for their misdeeds, would mean capitulating to Satan himself … and they cannot, and will not, do that.

I’ve seen some really twisted, depraved religious thinking in my time, but this takes the cake.

This being an anonymous account, it’s difficult to confirm. The Irish Times is not calling this “news,” they clearly label it as an “opinion” piece, so one must reserve judgement. Nevertheless, it neatly explains the Church’s obstinacy and reluctance to deal with this matter, in the face of what is overwhelming evidence of massive misdeeds on its part.

Hat tip: The Skeptic’s Dictionary.

Tags: catholic church, child abuse, devil, devil made me do it, ireland, irish abuse, irish priest abuse, roman catholic church, satan, scandal as a spiritual attack

As if Nigeria doesn’t have enough problems on its hands … it being the source of many an Internet scam, as well as the homeland of an accused al-Qaeda terrorist … there’s been some fighting going on between Christians and Muslims in the city of Jos, as the Christian Science Monitor explains (WebCite archived article):

Sectarian violence continued for a third day in the Nigerian city of Jos, and appeared to be spreading to surrounding suburbs, as the state government announced a 24-hour curfew to bring Christian-Muslim fighting to a halt.

Officials at Jos’s Central Mosque, where most of the Muslim dead have been brought to be buried, say that 139 bodies have been found thus far, but other reports say that the death toll may be much higher, perhaps beyond 200. Residents told human rights workers that gunfire continued throughout the day, even after the Nigerian Army was called in to help police to rein in the violence.

This city happens to be in a middle ground between Nigeria’s Christian and Muslim populations:

Jos -– an acronym for “Jesus Our Savior” which reflects the influence of Christian missionaries –- is right on the dividing line between the northern half of the country that is predominantly Muslim and the southern half of the country that is mainly Christian. Tensions between these two communities have flared intermittently since independence in 1960, and even political parties mirror the divide by splitting primarily along religious lines.

The violence in Jos may be related to a power-struggle going on at the country’s highest level:

It is unclear how much the rioting in Jos is affected by national politics, but a political crisis in which the Muslim president Umaru Yar’Adua has spent the last two months in a hospital in Saudi Arabia, refusing to cede official power to his Christian vice president Goodluck Jonathan, cannot have helped relations between Christians and Muslims.

Many Muslim politicians say they would refuse to allow power to shift, even temporarily, to Vice President Jonathan, calling instead for a fresh round of elections in which only Muslim candidates could run. In order to keep peace, for many years there’s been an unofficial agreement to alternate the presidency between Christians and Muslims.

Since provincial authorities are mostly Christian, sending in the more-neutrally-perceived Army may actually relieve some of the tension rather than escalate the violence in Nigeria.

At any rate, isn’t it curious how the “religion of peace” (i.e. Islam) and the “religion of love” (i.e. Christianity) could produce violence of this kind?

Tags: Christianity, christians, fighting, Islam, jos, jos nigeria, mosque, muslims, nigeria, nigerians, plateau state, violence

The linkage of Christianity and the military is age-old. It’s been repeatedly shown that fundamentalist Christians in the US are more likely than others to approve of war (WebCite cached article), and even things like torture of prisoners (WebCite cached article). The confluence of Christianity and warfare has even merged in the US military in a strange way, as recently revealed by ABC News (WebCite cached article):

U.S. Military Weapons Inscribed With Secret ‘Jesus’ Bible Codes

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.

The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.

This is problematic, because it violates Pentagon directives:

U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious “Crusade” in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.

Several different Bible passages are included on the sights:

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as “the light of the world.” John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Despite this being against Pentagon rules, the company does not deny they’ve been doing it:

Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions “have always been there” and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them.

The company dismisses complaints about their practices because — they say — the complaints come from non-Christians:

Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is “not Christian.”

I guess that means they get to break any rules they want and then refuse to listen to non-Christians who object, merely because they aren’t Christians. The company is overtly Christian and militantly so, as ABC News goes on to explain (WebCite cached article):

The company’s vision is described on its Web site: “Guided by our values, we endeavor to have our products used wherever precision aiming solutions are required to protect individual freedom.”

“We believe that America is great when its people are good,” says the Web site. “This goodness has been based on Biblical standards throughout our history, and we will strive to follow those morals.”

I guess that makes it OK. They believe it, therefore it’s true … even if it’s not. Typical theist rubbish-thinking, confusing metaphysical beliefs and subjective value judgements with objective, verifiable fact.

Critics have objected to this as a violation of separation of church and state. This may or may not be the case — and even if it is, militant Christians of this sort are not about to admit that church and state even ought to be separated. What’s more salient for them to know, is that this sort of militancy contradicts Christianity itself … specifically the words of their religion’s own founder. Consider what the gospels have to say, about the time when Jesus was being arrested:

And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. (Mt 26:51-52)

Militant Christians such as those who run Trijicon are not actually behaving like Christians, when they make weapons this way. They are, instead, warmongers who like violence … and in order to rationalize their love of war, they latch onto a warlike (albeit invalid) version of Christianity, then posture themselves as upright and pious and merely “doing the Lord’s duty.” In other words … they’re full of shit. And they know it.

In the end, they are merely bloodthirsty rogues who who have no idea what Jesus actually said, nor are they even interested, except perhaps in twisting his words to support their own militant, defiant, warlike hyperreligiosity.

Tags: bible codes, bible passages, christian right, Christianity, hyperreligious, militant christianity, militant christians, military, pentagon, religionism, religionist, religionists, religious right, scripture, scripture passages, sights, trijicon, us military, violence, war, warlike, weapons

Almost a year after resigning as head of the Christian evangelical group he founded (WebCite archived article), Focus on the Family, James Dobson will be leaving the group entirely, and establishing a new one of his own, called “James Dobson on the Family” (wow, talk about originality!). The New York Times reports on this development (archived article):

Dr. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family and an influential voice for Christian conservatives, is about to depart from the organization he created and is starting a radio program that will give him greater leeway to hold forth on politics.

Beginning in March, Dr. Dobson, 73, will co-host the radio show with his son, Ryan, 39, a tattooed surfer and skateboarder who wrote a book called “Be Intolerant” and who has honed an identity preaching to youths.

Dobson has claimed this move is just a new way to continue his all-important mission to convert the country to evangelical Christianity:

“Our nation is facing a crisis that threatens its very existence,” Dr. Dobson said on Dec. 29 in announcing his new venture on his Facebook page. “We are in a moral decline of shocking dimensions. I have asked myself how can I sit and watch the world go by without trying to help if I can. That is what motivates me at this time.”

Even if this is true, it’s not clear how it was necessary for him to leave Focus on the Family in order to do this. After all, their mission is his mission, is it not? What’s the problem? Well, the Times may have figured it out:

The real reason for Dr. Dobson’s new venture may have been his son. A Focus board member who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that because Ryan Dobson has been divorced, it would be against the board’s policy for him to serve as the voice for Focus, which counsels people on marriage and child-rearing. (Ryan Dobson has since remarried and has a son of his own.)

Yes, that’s right, folks. The man who has spent decades condemning divorce and complaining about the demise of the “nuclear family,” managed to raise his own son to get divorced and then get remarried. Because Focus on the Family was built on this strict ideal … an ideal that Dobson himself specified … he now must leave his own organization and start a new one, if he’s to include his own divorced-&-remarried son in it.

The word for this, folks, is hypocrisy. Yes … that same hypocrisy that Jesus himself explicitly ordered his followers never to engage in under any circumstances.

Of course, the Dobsons’ move of creating a new radio show, puts them at odds with Focus on the Family, which will retain its own show. In any event, the first order of business — as is usual with any evangelical group — is fundraising:

In his Facebook page announcement, he asked contributors to raise $2 million to get it under way, adding that he hoped they would also continue to support Focus.

Let’s hope money is too tight to get this project going.

Hat tip: iReligion forum on Delphi Forums.

Tags: christian, christian right, Christianity, divorce, dr james dobson, evangelical, evangelical christian, family, focus on the family, hypocrisy, hypocritical, james dobson, james dobson on the family, radio, religious right, remarriage, rightism, rightist, ryan dobson