Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1949

20-Year-Old School Division Trustee Wannabe from Winnipeg Supports Teaching Creationism in Science Class

Candace Maxymowich (below) is a 20-year-old Canadian conservative who wants to become a public school board trustee in Winnipeg. But even before she’s an official candidate — she can’t file until September 10 for the October election — she’s giving voters every reason not to support her.

Earlier this month, on Twitter, she voiced her support for abstinence-only sex education.

That comment alone should scare off potential voters, since the evidence shows that abstinence-only sex education doesn’t work, but Maxymowich added that she didn’t necessarily support teaching it in the classroom; she only believed it personally. Which, okay, might be acceptable.

But now she’s gone even further. This week, she said on Twitter that she supported teaching Creationism in science classrooms:

At least she’s honest about her intentions… She’s giving locals plenty of information about where she stands on serious issues — and it’s all the more reason they shouldn’t vote for her.

It does bring up another question: Why do people like her always seem to run for public office while the more sensible candidates stay out of the race?

Winnipeg, enjoy your school system while it lasts.

(Thanks to Lorne and Michael for the link)

In Response to Christian Protesters, Zoidberg Jesus Visits Comic-Con

Every year at San Diego Comic-Con, there are Christians who picket the event because, you know, all the heathens are walking around with smiles on their faces.

So the folks at Tested — a side project of Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman — decided to introduce the protesters to Zoidberg Jesus:

I’m pretty sure Zoidberg Jesus won over more converts than any of the actual Christians.

(Thanks to Tim for the link)

Remembering Skeptics We’ve Lost Over the Past Year

At The Amazing Meeting every year, there’s a video presentation to remember notable skeptics, scientists, allies, and even “opponents” who have passed away since the previous meeting. This year’s video, made by Daniel and Cheryl Loxton, is below:

You can read more about each of the individuals here.

Followers of the Religion of Peace Behead Another U.S. Journalist

In 2012, James Foley, a freelance journalist for GlobalPost, Agence-France Presse, went missing in Syria and was presumed kidnapped. Today, he showed up in a video released by ISIS.

CNN reports:

In the video posted Tuesday on YouTube, Foley is seen kneeling next to a man dressed in black. He reads a message, presumably scripted by his captors, that his “real killer” is America.

“I wish I had more time. I wish I could have the hope for freedom to see my family once again,” Foley can be heard saying in the video.

He is then shown being beheaded.

A colleague of Foley’s, Time‘s Steven Sotloff,  also makes an appearance in the video, dressed in orange garb similar to Foley’s. The ISIS terrorists spared his life, for now, pending the American response.

If This Doesn’t Convince You That God Exists… Join the Club

Christian Joshua Feuerstein, whose embarrassing rant against evolution went viral earlier this year, is back with a new video in which he proves God’s existence — scientifically! — in under three minutes.

If his “logic” doesn’t sway you, I’m sure the orientation of his camera will.

In short, his arguments include:

The First Law of Thermodynamics requires God to infuse the universe with initial energy. So… the Big Bang must be wrong.The rules of science wouldn’t even exist if God didn’t give our universe order to begin with.God is the reason for Earth’s orbit, 24-hour days, the seasons, our heartbeats, etc.

His argument boils down to a bunch of things scientists have better explanations for that Feuerstein either never learned about or chooses to ignore.

But, you know, he says it loudly while wearing a backwards cap, so I’m convinced.

When You’re a Christian, But Not Christian Enough

Redditor ThisDharmaBum writes:

So I get a call from my mom, who is crying. She has been a Christian all her life, but hasn’t attended church regularly since my folks split up 20 years ago. All the while she has remained Christian: praying, reading the Bible, etc.

Well I get a call from her saying she got offered a job teaching (she used to teach elementary school for years before moving on to direct day cares) at a Christian school. She was ecstatic until they took the offer back when they found out on the phone she didn’t go to church every Sunday or wasn’t a member of a particular church.

I wanted to tell her so bad how I lost my faith so long ago because of shit like that. Nonetheless, I told her “it was their loss for being so narrow-minded” and “Another job will come along, God wouldn’t judge like that.”

Who would Jesus snub?

(Image via Shutterstock)

Saudi Arabia Commission Supposedly Calls for the Arrest of Atheist Bloggers, Though It’s Already Happened Before

Last year, 30-year-old Saudi Arabian blogger Raif Badawi was punished for starting a progressive website that called for, among other things, religious tolerance and women’s rights. That was insulting to Islam, said his critics. He was sentenced at the time to seven years in prison and 600 lashes.

His sentence was overturned… but that respite was brief. In May, Badawi was given an even harsher punishment:

… the Criminal Court has sentenced Badawi to ten years in prison, 1,000 lashes, and a one million riyal fine (USD $266,631).

That’s why this week’s news that the country’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — which is tasked with enforcing Sharia Law — has called for the arrest of atheist bloggers wasn’t very surprising. They’ve been doing it for quite some time already.

I should note that the story has not been confirmed anywhere else, but this is what GulfNews.com reported:

The commission did not divulge the number of people whose arrest it requested, but it said that they insulted God and Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

It added in a report about its work and achievements that it was coordinating closely with the telecommunication and information technology commission to block and shut down pornographic sites as well as sites that promote apostasy and atheism.

It’s a human rights violation to say the least, but there seems to be little we can do right now to protect the rights of atheists and other critics of religion in the country (a demographic that is surprisingly growing). This is, after all, a country where atheism is already considered the equivalent of terrorism.

(Portions of this article were posted earlier. Thanks to Dave for the link)

New York Police Department Says Religious Headwear Is Not Suitable For Its Officers; Protests Ensue

Via the New York Daily News, with minor alterations on my part:

A group representing the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is accusing the NYPD of religious discrimination. Pastafarians, speaking from their Manhattan headquarters, alleged yesterday that the NYPD barred FSM worshipers from the department because they don’t allow them to wear colanders in place of police-issued hats.

NYPD policy allows Pastafarians to wear colanders that fit beneath giant department-issued hats, a police spokeswoman said in a statement. Wearing colanders is a tenet of the FSM creed.

The accusations follow attacks against Pastafarians in Queens in July and another on Roosevelt Island this month.

“The NYPD cannot protect us from bias if it’s perpetuating bias,” Harlington Brownsville of the coalition said.

In truth, the complaint comes not from Pastafarians (yet), but from Sikhs who love their turbans.

That’s the same group whose members believe passionately that they must be exempt from helmet laws in Australia, and that they have the God-given right to carry ceremonial swords or daggers into Canadian courtrooms.

The NYPD has a dress code. Big deal. The code mandates proper uniforms (including an officer’s cap) and the absence of excessive facial hair. Sikhs run afoul of both requirements. Personally, I don’t think the hair ought to be a problem, and I have no problem with turbans (or colanders) either. But if you make exceptions for one group, why not for many others? Should we let Jewish cops wear yarmulkes on duty? Shall we give two thumbs up to burkas for female conservative-Muslim officers?

I really don’t see why any of that ought to be met with accommodating smiles. As I wrote last year,

I have absolutely nothing against Sikhs and don’t fear them in the slightest, though it should be fair to point out that just like other groups of believers, they’ve not always been, let’s say, unfailingly kind.

Just so we’re even clearer, I’m hardly a xenophobe. In fact, I’m one of the xenoi:

• a first-generation immigrant to the U.S.
• a member of a distrusted, much-maligned minority
• the father of two adopted children from Asia
• not a native speaker of English

Yet I am also one hundred percent OK with the age-old principle that in Rome, we do as the Romans do. I expect no special accommodations for my culture of origin, nor for my race or heritage, nor for my daughters’ race and their heritage, nor for our beliefs (that goes for my wife’s beliefs — Christian — and for mine — secular).

Were lawmakers to carve out special dispensations for my tribe, allowing us to do things that are forbidden to others, I would reject the gesture as unwanted pandering; and I would wonder what had happened to my adopted country’s professed dedication to equal treatment under the law.

That covers daggers, headwear, clothing, and anything else I can think of.

(Image via Shutterstock)

Did a High School Student Really Get Suspended for Responding to a Sneeze with “Bless You”?

Yesterday, Kendra Turner, a student at Dyer County High School in Tennessee, claimed on Facebook that she was sent out of the classroom for saying “God Bless You” after a student sneezed:

In subsequent emails with bloggers online, she elaborated on what happened:

A girl sitting right next me sneezed in class. I said “Bless You!” My teacher, Mrs. Kindle, asked “Who said that?” I said “me.” She said “Why did you say that?” I said “Because it is courtesy.” She said “Says who?” I said “Says my pastor.” She said “Well we don’t say that in my class.”

I asked her why it was a big deal to her. She yelled at me and said “We will not have Godly speaking in my class!” That is when I stood up and said “My pastor said I have a constitutional right -1st amendment freedom of speech.” She said “Not in my class you don’t.”

I said “I will defend my religion.” She said “You will not in my class because I trump everyone.” Then another student stepped in and said “You don’t over trump God.” So she sent me to the office and the assistants principal said “if I didn’t want to respect my teachers rules then maybe My pastor should teach me because my freedom or speech and religion does not work at their school.

Then they sent me to ISS (in school suspension). After I left the class room all my class mates stood up and defended me the teacher had to call assistants principal to control the class.

That reads like a draft page from Todd Starnes‘ next book…

Obviously, there’s no recording of what happened, so this is inevitably the student’s word against the teacher’s, and the student got her side out before anyone else could respond.

So I called up Principal Peggy Dodds just a little while ago and got her side of the story before shit hits the fan in the conservative world.

According to Dodds, Turner was not given an in-school suspension. She wasn’t sent out of the classroom, either — she chose to walk out. And, most importantly, she wasn’t punished by the teacher for saying “God bless you” — however, the teacher did admonish her for “disrupting the classroom.”

Since I can’t verify the specifics of what was said (including the remarks about “Godly speaking”), let me offer this hypothetical:

The class was supposed to be quiet. Someone sneezed. Turner said *something* in response (it doesn’t matter what) and the teacher asked her to be quiet. Turner took that as a knock on her faith and felt the need to defend against it. The teacher only saw this as a further disruption and the situation escalated. The student, clearly frustrated, ran out of the classroom and, not long after that, posted something on Facebook.

I’m not saying that happened, but it’s plausible. There’s probably a lot of misunderstanding all around. Add to all of that the fact that the school year only began a few weeks ago, so teachers and students don’t know each other very well yet.

By the way, I left a phone message with Turner’s mother as well — but I haven’t heard back from her yet.

If Turner’s story is accurate, then sure, the teacher should be reprimanded. It’s not a crime to say “God bless you” and students have every right to practice their faith at school (without causing distractions).

But we’ve heard stories like this before, and they’re almost never accurate. It helps to hear what all sides have to say before jumping to any conclusions.

As always, I would remind all readers not to send any nasty messages to Turner or her teacher. You’re not helping.

(Thanks to Shannon for the link)

Students Walk Out on Lecture About Memes When Religion is Used as an Example

Susan Blackmore, author of the book The Meme Machine, was giving a lecture recently at the Oxford Royale Academy to a group of 17-18-year-olds.

Since she was talking about memes, the subject of religion was inevitable, and that’s where the problems began:

… I pointed out that religions demand lots of resources (I showed them pictures of a church, a Hindu temple, a Jewish menorah and Muslim pilgrims on Hajj); they pose threats to health (I showed people ‘purifying their souls’ by wading in the stinking germ-laden Ganges) and make people do strange things (I showed rows of Muslims bent over with their heads on the floor). I hadn’t gone far with this before five or six young men got up and began to walk out. They had a good distance to go across the large hall, so I said ‘Excuse me, would you mind telling me why you are leaving?’ There was a long silence until one said, ‘You are offending us. We will not listen,’ and they left. Soon after that another bunch left, and then another.

…

I called out to some as they left, ‘Can’t you even listen to ideas you disagree with? In Oxford, of all places, you should be open-minded enough to hear alternative views’. But no. They said I needed an open mind. This really got to me, raising painful memories of my early research on psychics and clairvoyants who said, ‘You just don’t have an open mind,’ when my careful experiments showed no psychic powers. By the time I moved on to showing Internet memes and viral videos more than half the audience was gone.

That’s part of the power of religious memes: They’re so strong that some believers can’t even handle listening to any critiques of it, even objectively sound ones. Mind you, she wasn’t even really criticizing religion, only using it to show how some bad ideas can spread, but it was too much for some True Believers to take.

I don’t see how she could’ve handled the situation any differently. Assuming her tone wasn’t accusatory, and she was speaking about religion the same way she was speaking about cat videos and catch-phrases, the fault here is with those audience members. They were there to learn yet couldn’t handle an idea that actually challenged them.

(Image via Shutterstock)