In the article, Coyne begins by citing a recent survey of 34 western countries, in which the US was 33^nd in belief in evolution (only Turkey was lower).  40% of Americans said they agreed with a statement “Human beings, as we know them today, developed from an earlier species of animals.”  In contrast, the agreement was over 70% in the UK, France, Spain and Germany.   In response to these numbers, Coyne does not hold back:

This is a national embarrassment. Imagine if America ranked as low in international surveys about our acceptance of atoms or the “germ theory” of disease!

He then goes on to show how this kind of thinking is holding us back from societal growth.  In a fascinating graph shown below, he plotted acceptance of evolution with how successful the society is on 25 indices of social well-being.  Of 17 First World countries, we are at the bottom off both scales.

About the scale, Coyne writes

Paul constructed an index of social health for 17 prosperous First World democracies, the “Successful Societies Scale” (SSS). This incorporated 25 indices of social well-being, including rates of homicide, incarceration, juvenile morality and adolescent abortion,  the incidence of venereal disease and alcohol consumption, corruption, levels of poverty and income disparity, and so on. It turns out that on the 10-point SSS scale, the United States, which scored 2.9, ranked lowest, with many countries substantially higher (e.g., Sweden was 7.1, Japan 6.0, Italy 5.6, and Australia 4.8). In fact, the United States ranked dead last in 14 of the 25 categories and was above average in only five. Despite America’s self-image as a healthy and wealthy nation, Paul’s data show that, compared to other countries, we are a sick society.

Politicians need to stop having debates about the role of faith in America and instead talk about the role of science in generating real solutions to our problems.  That debate should start with the acceptance and promotion of evolution.

In a recent Washington Post blog post, Brad Hirschfield talks about a video that was released today as part of an effort by Liberty Institute to defend the blatant (and unconstitutional) use of Christian cross in military memorials.  The result is an absurd music video, “Don’t Tear Me Down,” which overlays the US Flag with Christian crosses, as if they are the same thing.

The video confuses the private use of religious symbols, such as found on individual graves, with public use, which is supposed to represent all soldiers who died. Most offensive is refrain that appears to be directed at the ACLU and FFRF:

“Don’t tear me down, Just walk away
Our Founding Fathers, What would they say?
Don’t tear me down, These words I pray
I’m just keeping watch, Over the fallen brave”

Hirschfield sums it nicely:

The song suggests that those opposed to religious symbolism are somehow less concerned about these battles and how to properly honor those who fell in them. That’s just wrong. Not to mention the threat implicit in suggesting that the ACLU and FFRF should, in the words of the song, “just walk away in the name of peace.” Again, it’s just wrong.

The odd thing is that the first 1:45 of the song is just fine.  It talks about soldiers who have sacrificed.  With the flag behind the guitar, Jon Christopher Davis sings “I stand and salute those who are gone.”  Why can’t the song end there?  Why is it that holidays have to become another opportunity to push one’s own religious views on the rest of the county?  Why can’t the Liberty Institute just walk away and leave the Constitution alone?  More importantly, why don ‘t they look at what our Founding Father actually did say. I think they might be surprised.

Which US cities are most religious?

1. Salt Lake City, Utah, 73.4%
2. Birmingham, Alabama, 71.0%
3. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,  60.2%
4. Memphis, Tennessee, 58.8%

and drum roll ….

5.  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 57.7%

Sigh. That is right.  Mormon central, Bible Belt times three, and then us.  Not St. Louis, Atlanta, Cleveland, New Orleans, anywhere in Texas or Florida.  No.  Sadly, little old Pittsburgh is Number 5 on the list.

So who is at the other end:  The top three centers of enlightenment were Portland, OR 32%, Tampa, FL 35% and Seattle 36%.

Clearly, we have our work cut for us.  The only glimmer of hope was I tried to track down how the data was collected and appears it was done by asking churches for their rosters of members, or at least counts, and then comparing that to the overall population.  In a city that is losing population (like Pittsburgh), if the rolls are not up to date, over-counting could easily emerge.

At the same time, it is clear from those numbers why there might be an acceptance of government sponsored nativity scenes (Ellwood City) or a plaque of ten religious commandments posted in front of a public school (New Kensington).  One tends not to notice (unconstitutional) religious icons in government settings, if they are the same icons that are around one’s home or one’s church.  My guess is that similar activities in Portland, Oregon, would raise eyebrows among a large majority of residents.

The Catholic bishops of Pennsylvania have designated March 30 as a day of prayer, fasting and abstinence for religious liberty.

Their call, in the context of Lent, was sparked by a furor between the bishops, some other religious groups and the Obama administration over a mandate requiring most employers to cover contraceptives and “morning after” drugs in employee health plans. The bishops also urged the state’s 3 million Catholics to contact their legislators.

“On that day, offer your sacrifice for the cause of religious liberty, that the church may be granted the basic right to practice what she preaches, and for our political leaders, that their eyes may be opened to the rights of all Americans, including those of faith,” the bishops wrote.

The “rights of all Americans” are not at issue.  The rights of employers to control the lives of employees is at stake.  The article is full of biased reporting.

As drafted, the federal mandate exempted only religious organizations that primarily employ and serve only their own members. It forced Catholic social services to provide coverage for services that the church teaches are immoral.

First of all, the federal mandate exempted religious organizations that primarily employ and serve only their own members. The qualification above (the first use of ‘only’) does not change that fact.   Second, the coverage is not a gift from Catholic social services.  The money used to cover health care is earned by the employee.  A health care provider then provides insurance, which covers a wide range of coverage. Medical decisions are best left between a patient and a doctor.  The religious dogma of the employer should not be in the equation.

The funny thing is that this request is presented as critical to faith.  Yet, we know from many studies that prayer does not work, so praying is a waste of time.  And, what did Bishop Zubik say about the Lenten fish frys on Friday, which many churches depend on for raising funds?

In deference to Friday fish fry fundraisers, he emphasized that people could fast from television or other pleasures, not just food.

So we have an end-of-the-word scenario that requires all PA Catholics to pray and fast, but, hey, if fasting is too difficult, no worries.  They are serious about restricting non-Catholics in their choices, but restricting Catholics is just a little too much trouble.

I also recommend watching the wonderful video of Daniel Paul Tammet, a writer who has been diagnosed with high-functioning autistic savant syndrome, in which he recites Pi to 22,500 decimal places from memory (!) in a live demonstration of his unique memory skills.  The fun starts at 4:57.

Pi is also at the center of one strangest legislative maneuvers. In 1897, the Indiana House considered a bill that would set Pi to 3.2 by legislative fiat. Fortunately, a Purdue professor caught wind of the bill and managed to convince enough elected representatives to defeat the bill. Unfortunately, government continues to the present day to vote on issues that would be better left to scientific community to sort out.

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The only downside was the NY Times required that FFRF soften the headline by using the phrase “consider quiting” rather than the more direct “quit”.

Expect the wagons to be circled in all camps.  Personally, I think the FFRF ad is spot-on, given the state of denial about both individual rights and basic health care needs in the 21st century.

While it made for good comedy, there are those who have taken this notion seriously to the extent that corporations have 1st amendment protections. The proposed Blunt Amendment in the Senate would have allowed employers to refuse federally-mandated health care coverage based on religious and moral exemptions. While in the end it did not pass (by the narrowest of margins), our own Sen. Bob Casey supported it.  He was one of only three democratic Senators who voted for the measure and justified his vote by saying

“As I have made clear continuously, I strongly support contraceptives and have voted to provide funding for family planning but I also believe that religiously-affiliated institutions should not be forced by the government to violate their beliefs.”

The religious beliefs that concerned Casey were not those held by individuals, but institutions. Furthermore, he is not talking about churches. Churches and other organizations, which primarily employ people of their own faith, have the right to restrict employment, benefits, and the moral behavior of its employees.  This “freedom” goes so far that the bedrock American Disabilities Act (ADA) does not provide any protection to religious teachers, according to a recent Supreme Court ruling.

What we are talking about is religious affiliated employers, like UPMC Mercy Hospital, which hires a wide range of employees from chaplains to computer programmers.  While I can understand restrictions on who is hired as a chaplains (athough I personally find the existence of a Department of Spiritual Care to be a rather odd concept), imposing restrictions on the lifestyle of non-religious employees is rather barbaric.  This is incredibly slippery slope that harkens back to 19th century labor camps where the company bosses ran company towns that controlled every aspect of a worker’s private life.

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We need a serious dialog of what is and isn’t a matter of religious liberty in this country. We need a return to individual liberties. We need to respect those without any religion to live their lives without religious dogma determining what is acceptable, especially in light of scientific facts, which should be the sole determinant of a sound health care policy in this country.

On this episode, Ryan Naylor, tries to pitch the idea of BeeEss Watches, I mean, Esso Watches, which neutralize the ions and blah, blah, blah. He even did the infamous balancing trick on one the panel members, which almost convinced her it was real.

Fortunately, Mark Cuban saw right the through the crap, having heard about this scam in the sports world:

This is not new. It’s been disproven. It’s a joke. It’s a scam . It’s not real. I’m out.

You can watch the video segment here, after a short ad.

As for the balancing trick, it is a major part of the scam.  As pointed out in this video from Australia, it is all a matter of physics and a subtle change in direction that you push.  The funny thing is that every con artist does the exact same “test” of its power.

Explanation starts at 1:30

By the way, if you still believe in the power of the Esso Watches, I know a little three card game that you might be interested in.

By the way, he wasn’t talking about the paper mills, the steel mills, the clothing mills, or any other mill that makes  a product.  Those are long gone.  No, ex-Senator Rick blasted the indoctrination mills, otherwise known as colleges and universities.  As Wonkette so aptly put:

Santorum continued his ‘Knowledge Is Evil Tour’ this week with a visit to husband Glenn Beck’s radio program, where he went the farthest he’s gone yet — no guarantees that by summer’s end he won’t be recommending locking children in a dungeon with a Bible, some water and breadsticks i.e. the body of Christ for 18 years — in condemning higher education as an expensive and frightening thing that sucks Christianity right out of us, even those of us who are not Christian but had the potential to be until big heavy textbooks whalloped us over the head. Santorum, in this hour-long verbal makeout session, basically compared college to a factory, and cited some probably invented statistic that “62 percent of kids who go into college with a faith commitment leave without it,” which really is great news, if true. As the National Journal politely put it, Santorum “declined to cite a source for the figure.”

Anyway anyway, the worst thing about this is calling colleges “indoctrination mills.” INDOCTRINATION OF WHAT, PRAY TELL? A worldview? Ideas? Creativity? Awareness? Respect? Ambition? Keg stands? Sports? Dance parties?

Santorum: “I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely … The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country.“

In this interview, which apparently was some weird kind of circus magic performance attended by other media members, Santorum also “expanded on his vision of dramatically reduced involvement in public education by both the states and the federal government,” in other words, the only persons who should have any say over a kid’s education is their sheltered, culturally deaf and blind parents, who know nothing of this world beyond the fact that they and all their neighbors have an average of 38 kids each and they are all beautiful gifts from this one particular lord.

Let’s see. If universities are so bad, then how many Republicans in Congress, including Ricky himself, chose to forgo the college?  More to the point, would you go to a doctor who claimed “I just learned this on my own.  No need for any formal schooling”?  Since when is education bad?  Since when is learning more than your parents learned an evil little thing (to mix metaphors)?

It is the lack of adequate funding of education is the real problem.  The U.S. far behind every other Western country in providing higher education at an affordable cost. I want the next generation to be smarter and more creative, to discover new knowledge, and to make this world a better place.

As for the 62% figure pulled out of thin air, Desert Beacon did some interesting digging:

Actually, perhaps we can clear up part of the mystery of the 62% by conjecturing that what Mr. Santorum was speaking of was a 2006 survey by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government which found that 62% of college Republicans said “religion was losing its influence on American life.”

If this is the source of the Magic 62% figure, then [Santorum's] commentary missed the report’s most important point:

“Seven in ten college students today say religion is important or very important in their lives. What’s more, a quarter of students (25%) say they have become more spiritual since entering college, as opposed to only seven percent (7%) who say they have become less spiritual.”

Interesting, while 62% of college Republicans bemoaned the declining influence of religion in American life, 25% of their cohorts were becoming more spiritual while only 7% were becoming less so.   A smaller study conducted by the Newman Society of specifically Catholic institutions found that only 6% of the young people educated at Catholic institutions had left the faith after graduation.

Be that as it may, after an afternoon of “Googling” to find the source of the serious 62%, as close as I could come was the Harvard Study, and it’s impossible to conclude that because 62% of college aged Republicans are dismayed by the “decline” in religious influence they perceive in American life that their collegiate friends are having the same experience.

Whatever Santorum was trying to claim, I would suggest that he return to school and get real facts under his belt, rather than create them on the fly or misquote them out of context.  Clearly he needs to spend a little more time in the “mills”.

This week’s brouhaha was Zombie Mohammed.  Atheist Ernie Perce choose to dress as Z. M. for the Mechanicsburg Halloween parade along with Zombie Pope and Zombie Jesus.  As can be seen on his YouTube report, Ernie was attacked by parade spectator, Talaag Elbayomy, who is Muslim and took great offense at the costume.  Ernie brought charges.  Talaag should have been fined and reminded that, no matter how offensive the costume was to him personally, you don’t attack parade marchers.

Unfortunately, to Ernie’s surprise the judge, Mark Martin, was very supportive of Islam and also took offense.  He not only did he throw out the case, but ridiculed Ernie as a doofus.  Here are the Judge’s very words:

Well, having had the benefit of having spent over two-and-a-half years in predominantly Muslim countries, I think I know a little bit about the faith of Islam. In fact, I have a copy of the Quran here, and I would challenge you, Sir, to show me where it says in the Quran that Muhammad arose and walked among the dead. I think you misinterpreted a couple of things. So before you start mocking somebody else’s religion, you might want to find out a little more about it. It kind of makes you look like a doofus. …

In many other Muslim-speaking countries, err, excuse me, many Arabic-speaking countries, predominantly Muslim, something like this is definitely against the law there, in their society. In fact, it could be punished by death, and frequently is, in their society.

Here in our society, we have a Constitution that gives us many rights, specifically First Amendment rights. It’s unfortunate that some people use the First Amendment to deliberately provoke others. I don’t think that’s what our forefathers intended. I think our forefathers intended to use the First Amendment so we can speak with our mind, not to piss off other people and cultures – which is what you did.

Actually, the First Amendment is exactly that: The right to piss off other people and cultures.  Ok, the forefathers did not use quite those words (although my 1^st Amendment rights allow me to say that is what they meant, whether they did nor did not).  The NY Times put more eloquently at “Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech“

The not-so-good Judge goes on:

I don’t think you’re aware, Sir, there’s a big difference between how Americans practice Christianity – I understand you’re an atheist – but see Islam is not just a religion. It’s their culture, their culture, their very essence, their very being. They pray five times a day toward Mecca. To be a good Muslim before you die, you have to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, unless you’re otherwise told you cannot because you’re too ill, too elderly, whatever, but you must make the attempt. Their greeting is ‘Salam alaikum, wa-laikum as-Salam,’ uh, ‘May God be with you.’

Whenever it is very common, their language, when they’re speaking to each other, it’s very common for them to say, uh, Allah willing, this will happen. It’s, they’re so immersed in it. And what you’ve done is, you’ve completely trashed their essence, their being. They find it very, very, very offensive. I’m a Muslim. I find it offensive. I find what’s on the other side of this [sign] very offensive. But you have that right, but you are way outside your bounds of First Amendment rights. …

I’ve spent about seven years living in other countries. When we go to other countries, it’s not uncommon for people to refer to us as ‘ugly Americans.’ This is why we hear it referred to as ‘ugly Americans,’ because we’re so concerned about our own rights, we don’t care about other people’s rights. As long as we get our say, but we don’t care about the other people’s say.

If we want to talk about offensive behavior, let’s start with the Westboro Bapist Church, which to the chagrin of many, is protected under the 1^st Amendment.  As has been said many times, you don’t need the 1^st Amendment to protect speech you agree with.  It is only the speech you abhor that is in need of protection.  Judge Martin is so far off base, I look forward to his censure or dismissal from the bench.

The weird twist on this story in that not only are the atheist blogs upset, but the right-wing is aghast.  The National Review Online referred to it the “The Sharia Court of Pennsylvania.” The World Net Daily wrote “Judge Martin dismissed the charges and purportedly belittled the atheist victim.” This is the very same blog that in December wrote lines like:

Atheists and “free-thinkers” sue cities into submission; Atheists attack nativity; Atheists are forcing their beliefs on the community.

Now WND talks about the “atheist victim”.  Should I be impressed?  Not quite yet.  The reason we can’t give Islam special status is the exact same reason we shouldn’t elevate Christianity to special place.   We need to keep religion out of government and we need to honor all parts of the 1^st Amendment.

Unfortunately, Judge Martin Doofus is not even close.