Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1972

How Many Mistakes Can You Spot in This Christian Children’s Book About Spiders?

Normally, if I have an issue with religious books targeted at children, it’s that the authors are teaching their beliefs as facts.

But reader Lauren recently came across a Christian book explaining spiders and snakes and the like to children… and found some other kinds of mistakes:

How does one page in the book contain so many mistakes…?

Spiders, by definition, have eight legs. Not just “most” of them. And there is a species of spider that has a mostly herbivorous diet. (Also, God didn’t make them, but I guess that’s the least of our worries here.) (Edit: Apparently, there are also more than 40,000 species of spiders, not 30,000. So there’s that.)

I figured all that out with a few seconds on Google.

How lazy were the author and editor? It’s one thing to say your beliefs are facts, but you shouldn’t get the actual facts wrong, too.

Did the Hobby Lobby Decision Make You Want to #KnitABrick?

What was your reaction to the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling? The staffers at the Secular Coalition for America were angry, but they know that anger alone won’t change anything. They opted instead to create a visual that might stick in people’s heads when they’re in the voting booth (or, in the case of members of Congress, voting on legislation).

It’s a giant wall of separation between church and state, and they’re inviting everyone to #KnitABrick (get it?):

If organizers collect 400 bricks, they will carry them to the steps of the Supreme Court. If they collect 800, they will deliver them to Congress. And if they collect 1,200, they will walk over to the White House and hand them over to President Obama’s staff.

“People tend to be impacted when they see a visual demonstration, and that is what this is,” said Lauren Anderson Youngblood, the coalition’s director of communications. “It’s a visual demonstration of people’s anger about this decision and a constructive way to show lawmakers that they have the ability to change it.”

If you can’t knit, you can sponsor someone to knit one for you.

Before you dismiss this as useless or silly, Kimberly Winston points out that this sort of campaign isn’t new:

Other groups have engaged in protest knitting. In 2012, “Government Free VJJ” organized people to knit pink uteruses for male lawmakers who were making laws regarding women’s contraception. “Wool Against Weapons” is a British organization that knits to protest nuclear arms factories, and Australia’s “Knitting Nannas Against Gas” rallies grandmothers (and others) to knit in protest of gas mining.

The goal is to remind people that the wall of separation must remain in place. It’s not a replacement for active lobbying or arguing for and against legislation, but considering how easily voters and representatives ignore logical arguments in defense of protecting women’s health options, it’s not a bad idea to try an alternative approach. If you’d like to participate, all the details are here.

Tom Petty’s New Album Includes a Track Condemning the Catholic Church for Covering Up Sexual Abuse

Singer Tom Petty‘s new album Hypnotic Eye comes out later this month and the vinyl edition includes a bonus track all about sex abuse victims in the Catholic Church. In an interview with Billboard magazine, he explained the motivation behind the song “Playing Dumb”:

“I’m fine with whatever religion you want to have, but it can’t tell anybody it’s OK to kill people, and it can’t abuse children systematically for God knows how many years… If I was in a club, and I found out that there had been generations of people abusing children, and then that club was covering that up, I would quit the club. And I wouldn’t give them any more money.“

Too bad this is a bonus track and not on the actual album… (come to think of it, “Free Fallin’” would also be a good name for a song about the Catholic Church.)

The song hasn’t been released yet, but if it becomes available online, I’ll post a link to it.

(Thanks to Jaynee for the link)

This Is What Religious Indoctrination Looks Like, Courtesy of a Christian Summer Camp

When little children throw their hands in the air, stream tears down their faces, and attempt to speak in tongues at the behest of adults around them, is it out of sincere religious conviction or peer pressure?

The correct answer is: Who cares; You should be horrified by this:

That video comes from the Rose of Sharon Camp in Burlison, Tennessee. The story of how it got online is fascinating. One of the counselors at that camp uploaded the video to Facebook — parents had to sign a waiver saying their kids could be taped for promotional purposes — along with this message:

Turns out that post was shared with someone who was disgusted by what s/he saw and it was forwarded to the folks at Awkward Moments Bible, who posted it on their own Facebook page… and then all hell broke loose. One of the most intriguing reactions came from a parent whose child attended the camp:

My daughter was at camp when the pictures were taken last week. I am a Christian and raised Baptist. Never once did I EVER witness the likes of this! Pictures of my daughter were also posted on the woman’s page. Pictures of her crying and in very apparent emotional distress. When asked about the pictures of her, her response was that she was TOLD to pray with the other children, so she did. I asked why she was crying and she responded with, “Other kids were crying, it made me cry too.” So, please explain to be how children who are ENCOURAGED TO COPY what they are seeing other adults and children do without rhyme or reason or instruction is healthy? You cant. And when it ISN’T healthy, it becomes a form of abuse. Period. Emotional abuse has occurred that could scar these children for life.

I couldn’t agree more. This is just manipulation by the adults. It’s not like speaking in tongues is a special God-given gift. It’s a trick that must be taught. I know atheists who once believed they could do it — and if they get themselves in the right mental state, they can start speaking in tongues again. It’s a neat little parlor trick with them.

But with these kids, it’s flat-out disturbing. It’s not like they know what they’re doing; they’re just being pressured into going along with the crowd. We saw it earlier this month, too, with children who didn’t know they were supposed to “fall backwards” when a preacher touched their foreheads. I don’t know where the line, if any, should be drawn — it’s not like anything illegal is happening — but I don’t understand how any decent parent would find this sort of practice acceptable.

(via Michael Stone)

Mass Shootings Occur Because the Killers Don’t Believe in the Afterlife, Says Writer Who Makes Shit Up

Why do people commit mass murders or suicide? Is it because of violent video games? Music? Their parents? Mental illness?

No, none of that stuff gets to the root of the problems, writes Megan Glavin in the Seattle Times. But don’t worry; she’s figured it all out:

… our culture has abandoned a collective belief in ultimate accountability — the belief that one’s actions on Earth are somehow tied to one’s experience after physical death.

Ultimate accountability asserts that it does not matter if the evil a person does on Earth is never seen nor detected, and it does not matter if one commits suicide after committing evil. There is still judgment of some kind, and consequences to face, in eternity.

So… mass shootings happen because the killers don’t believe in the afterlife. (Which is really just an inch away from saying “all killers are atheists.”)

… somewhere along the line our society dropped the ball. Perhaps Americans believed too much in the power of science to solve problems as complex and unpredictable as criminal behavior. Perhaps Americans believed too much in the ability of psychology and counseling to supposedly correct people.

Regardless of where our country went wrong, we now have a problem. Many Americans do not believe in an afterlife and divine judgment. Thus, homicide is attractive for revenge and the expression of emotional pain, and suicide is attractive for escape.

That’s quite the hunch for someone who makes no attempt to explain the religious beliefs of killers. Obviously, atheists (who don’t believe in the afterlife) aren’t known for their violent beliefs. The only numbers we have (and they’re admittedly far from perfect) show that the percentage of atheists is much lower in federal prison than it is in the general population.

It’s very tempting to blame violence on a lack of supernatural accountability — what a simple answer! — but most atheists will tell you they have their own method of accountability that has nothing to do with a fear of hell. They believe in the Golden Rule, they respect their fellow humans, etc. I’m not saying atheists can’t be criminals, but our ethics are no less meaningful or solid than the arbitrary morality of many religions.

Hell, we’ve seen plenty of examples of terrorists or cult leaders who have committed horrific acts of violence (or led mass suicides) precisely because they thought they would be rewarded in the afterlife.

There’s no magic bullet to prevent future killings. Getting people to believe in bullshit for which there’s no evidence isn’t going to help. But there are things we can do. We can push for better mental health care policies. We can pass laws to have stricter background checks on weapon purchases. We can give parents and teachers better resources to care for children. I’m not naïve enough to think any one of these things would stop the violence, but all of those things would be more helpful than blaming people who have the good sense not to believe in heaven and hell.

(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to Richard for the link)

How do the Scientists Not Know This Yet?

Last month, Christian Joshua Feuerstein made a video that went viral for all the wrong reasons. The ungrammatically titled “Dear Mr Atheist allow me to destroy evolution in 3 minutes!” was just an awful attempt to “disprove” evolution.

The only thing worse than his logic was the orientation of his camera.

There have been a lot of lengthy refutations to everything he’s saying — JT Eberhard did a nice job of that here — but I thought TJ Kirk‘s parody below nailed it:

Somewhere, Ken Ham is rethinking the whole gravity thing…

Another Compilation of Christopher Hitchens’ Best Comebacks

This is another video in a series of Christopher Hitchens‘ best comebacks. You can see previous editions here, here, and here.

(via Agatan Fnd)

Clergy at Mosque in City of Brotherly Love Are Accused of Trying to Cut Off Alleged Thief’s Hand

How about a little vigilante “justice” to go with your God-belief? You’d think this might happen in Riyadh or Islamabad. Instead, the following attempt at Sharia enforcement took place in Philadelphia.

Two men described as leaders of a Philadelphia mosque were accused of trying to cut off the hand of a suspected thief, whose wrist was sliced so deeply it required hospital treatment, police said on Friday.

The 46-year-old victim said two officials in the mosque accused him of stealing jars of money from the house of worship after morning prayers on Monday.

Merv Mitchell (a.k.a. Mabul Shoatz)

Police reports say that the wrath-filled Allah-botherers were the mosque’s imam and amir, and that they

… dragged the victim to the rear of the mosque, and attempted to chop off his hand with a machete.

One of the would-be choppers, Merv Mitchell, a.k.a. Mabul Shoatz (pictured above), has been arrested, and police say they confiscated a two-foot-long machete. The unidentified imam is still on the loose.

The pair will face charges of aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy, simple assault, reckless endangerment, and related offenses. The victim, who denies he attempted to steal anything, will have to undergo reconstructive surgery.

(Thanks to Brian for the link)

Woman Lets Jesus Take the Wheel… and Nearly Kills Motorcyclist

A couple of years ago, someone created this Facebook event page:

I thought it was funny because no one in their right mind would actually do such a thing. Let Jesus take the wheel? Never!

But that’s literally what someone just did in Fort Wayne, Indiana — and driver Prionda Hill nearly killed a motorcyclist as a result:

Police later found the driver of the car, Prionda Hill, at the Rally’s several blocks down the road from where she hit [motorcyclist Anthony] Oliveri. She told police “she was driving and out of no where God told her that he would take it from here and she let go of the wheel and let him take it.” She’s now facing several charges.

Hill ended up running over Oliveri and his motorcycle, leaving him with a set of broken ribs. He’s lucky. It could’ve been much worse. (His fiancee says his guardian angel was watching over him… which, to me, sounds like a pretty shitty guardian angel.)

I wish Oliveri a healthy recovery.

And I wish Hill’s lawyer a lot of stress relief. (What’s her defense gonna be? “It’s was God’s fault, not mine”?)

(via AATTP. Thanks to Richard for the link)

Southern Baptist Convention Leader Richard Land: Out to Pasture, But Not Irrelevant

A profile of old guard conservative Southern Baptist leader Richard Land (below) in the National Journal reveals some interesting connections about how he drove the shift in conservative Christian politics over the last 10 years and the current Southern Baptist community’s evolution since his heyday.

Called “God’s Lobbyist” by TIME magazine, Land was pivotal to shifting the moderate Southern Baptists of the late 70s and early 80s to a firm line of conservative Christians with an eye toward aggressive political engagement, especially on issues of sexuality and reproduction.

In the NJ profile, Land talks about getting the Southern Baptists to engage politics for Jesus:

“Pietism, or withdrawal from the culture, has always been a big temptation for American evangelicals,” he says. “It took a lot to convince them to jettison that pietism and get involved, number one. It took a lot for most of them to do so primarily through the Republican Party, because most of them were not raised Republican.”

What he calls “pietism” is largely driven by the apathy impulse of Christians to insulate themselves in their own culture. His brusque and offensive personality perhaps lent itself to an aggressive style of staking his claim on being an American practicing a conservative Christian faith, and he drove a gently evolving community to become a rigid bastion of moralistic ideology.

What’s funny to me is that this is the other side of the coin from the isolationist Christian homeschooler rhetoric I grew up with. Both reject apathy and take strong stands against mainstream culture, declaring it impure and in need of reform. But Land’s action plan involved conquering and changing, while the Christian homeschool action plan was to withdraw and create a strong alternative culture. Both saw their purpose as a sort of spiritual warfare.

In the profile, Land described his fears for the millennials in the Southern Baptist Convention:

Training a new generation — and perhaps seeking to make them as aggressive as he once was — may be a better way for Land to influence the future of the movement he helped to build. “What we’re now seeing is a transition from combat-troop leadership to occupation-troop leadership,” Land says of the generational shift from offense to defense. But he warns, “Peacetime armies aren’t as disciplined, vigilant, or well trained as armies that have been in combat.”

After Land came into the Southern Baptist Convention as President, he put this battle-lines thinking into play, cleaning house (much like Al Mohler did at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary):

Within a generation, the Southern Baptist leadership had gone from being loosely for abortion rights to being staunchly antiabortion. Seminary professors, along with other church staff members, were fired or resigned when they did not adhere to the new conservative doctrine. Southern Baptist women were stripped of their right to pastor churches, though they had been ordained in limited numbers since 1964. The leadership issued statements codifying a number of beliefs: that wives should submit to their husbands, that homosexuality and abortion are wrong, that the Bible is without error.

Make no mistake, the recent Hobby Lobby victory in the name of “religious freedom” is a direct result of the work Land did during his presidency. The Hobby Lobby owners, the Greens, are strong supporters of Land’s successor, the slightly-more-tactful Dr. Russell Moore.

The Southern Baptist Convention is likely preoccupied with not scaring away members right now — they’re in a steady decline — so having Land out to pasture at Southern Evangelical Seminary is a good move. But the end game hasn’t changed much: women will be put in positions of dependence on men for their faith and their home lives, sexuality must run as straight and married as train tracks, and anything science-y about birth control will be ignored in favor of grumbling about “abortifacients.”