Faith

Atheist Sam Harris was the guest on The Colbert Report recently. A few weeks back I blogged an excerpt from an interview with Harris where he commented on Islam and civil society. You can watch him on Colbert here. Harris began the interview by trying to establish that an atheist is not exactly an exotic specimen:

Colbert: Tonight I'll ask, "If there is no Jesus, then who carried me on that beach?"... Harris: We're all atheists with respect to Poseidon. We all know exactly what it's like to be an atheist with respect to Poseidon. Anyone worshipping Poseidon, even at sea, is a lunatic... Colbert: Your book is called the end of faith. Um, what do you mean by the end of faith? Is faith ending or do you believe that faith should end? Harris: I think it should end. I think either you have good reasons for what you believe or you don't. If you have good reasons, those beliefs are part of the world view of science and rationality generally. If there were good reasons to believe that Jesus was born of a virgin or that Mohammad went to heaven on a winged horse, that would be part of our rational world view. And it's only when people lose their purchase on evidence and argument - when they have bad reasons - that they talk about faith. Colbert: Well I've got historical evidence. The Bible tells me that Jesus was born of a virgin... The Bible is without flaw. It is inerrant. We know this because the Bible says it is without flaw...

Harris' main point seemed to be that society is not sufficiently critical of the harm caused by religion (for example, opposition to condom use exacerbating the spread of AIDS in Africa) because of the respect it gives to religious dogma.

From a Newsweek article of the same name by Sarah Childress on MSNBC.com:

Fresh from a bruising federal court fight over the teaching of evolution, Georgia marched back into the culture wars last week when Gov. Sonny Perdue signed a bill allowing Bible classes in public high schools. An estimated 8 percent of the nation's schools offer some form of Bible study. But the Georgia law is the first to set statewide guidelines and earmark public dollars for a Bible course. Five other states are considering similar measures. Georgia's school board has until February 2007 to decide how the courses should be taught, and forces on both sides of the issue are bracing for a messy battle. In the past, school Bible lessons were informal. Now two groups with national influence and powerful backers are offering states comprehensive curricula. Last fall the nonprofit Bible Literacy Project published "The Bible and Its Influences," a textbook endorsed by moderate Christian and Jewish groups. So far, 30 schools are teaching the pilot program, and the group says 800 schools have shown interest. Meanwhile, the National Council for Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, backed by a long list of conservative evangelicals, including Pat Robertson, says its curriculum is already taught in 353 school districts.

From a Washington Post article of the same name reprinted in the Detroit news:

A new poll by scholars at Harvard University found that religion and morality are playing important roles in shaping the politics of college students of all political leanings. More than half the students interviewed at schools around the country said they are worried about the moral direction of the country. But the poll, conducted by the Institute of Politics at Harvard, also noted that students were sharply divided along party lines over whether religion ought to play a strong role in politics and government. Fifty-six percent of Republicans thought it should, but only about 20 percent of Democrats agreed. The poll found that college students did not fall neatly along liberal and conservative lines. While the largest group of students was still traditional liberals (44 percent), the numbers of religious centrists (25 percent) and traditional conservatives (16 percent) have grown in the past year. The number of secular centrists (15 percent) has declined.

Via waxy.org: Remember the church sign generator? In a previous post here there is a link to the web site as well as a link to a collection of funny fake church signs created with it. Well, the site's creator noticed that he was getting a bunch of links from a prominent racist web site. He then set it up so that whenever someone clicked through to the church sign generator from the racist web site, the fake church sign says "RACISM SUCKS", regardless of what they enter. His blog post is here.

From an article in The Christian Chronicle by Erik Tryggestad (I remember Erik being on the Lipscomb "Babbler" newspaper staff) titled "Churches mourn seven Jamaican slaying victims":

The recent slayings of seven people - ages 3 to 40 - with ties to churches of Christ in Jamaica has church members across the country mourning and Jamaica's prime minister denouncing the tide of violence sweeping the island nation. Mourners packed the Morant Bay Church of Christ for the funeral of six members of a church family - Patrice George McCool, 28; her children Sean Chin, 9; Jihad George McCool, 6; and Lloyd McCool, 3; her aunt Terry-Ann Mohommed, 40; and another family member, Jesse O'Gilvie, 9. Their bodies were in three locations, some with slashed throats and one stuffed in a barrel... Minister Michael Dehaney conducted the funeral, which included a speech from Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who called for a time of prayer and fasting as Jamaica struggles to cut its high crime rate. Days after the funeral, the Mona Church of Christ in St. Andrew laid to rest 15-year-old Jordano Flemmings, who was fatally stabbed in a robbery while walking home from church.

An article in the by Carol J. Williams in the LA Times mentions the Morant Bay slayings, calling them a "suspected revenge attack for a failed drug deal":

Contrary to the islands' laid-back, reggae-rocked, calypso-serenaded image, the Caribbean is awash in murderous anger. Homicide rates have soared - Jamaica last year achieved the alarming distinction of being called the homicide capital of the world, and Trinidad isn't far behind. With suspects walking free because of ineffectual courts and corrupt law enforcement, vigilante justice is also on the rise.... Although the roots of the violence differ from island to island, some striving to contain it point to the region's shared afflictions of poverty, social inequity and racial resentment stemming from its history of slavery and colonization. "This is not just about people losing confidence in law enforcement. This is an eye-for-an-eye society," said Deputy Commissioner Mark Shields of the Jamaican Constabulary Force. "Even if you had an effective system of criminal justice, when children are murdered, you'd have mob rule." He was alluding to one of the more grisly recent slayings, the Feb. 25 suspected revenge attack for a failed drug deal that left a Morant Bay woman, her aunt and four children with their throats cut and the neighborhood enraged. Residents of the quiet community east of Kingston, the capital, stormed the police station demanding, "Give him to us!" after the suspect turned himself in for his own protection... Jamaica has been tabbed the world's most homicidal country since reporting 1,674 killings last year, a rate of 62 per 100,000 residents. The country had ranked third in the most recent U.N. global assessment, in 2000, with 32 per 100,000, behind Colombia's 61 and South Africa's 49. By contrast, anarchic Haiti, usually seen as the most unstable country in the Caribbean, had fewer than 20 homicides per 100,000 last year. Jamaica's shootings, stabbings and rapes mostly occur in Kingston, but bystanders and even tourists may be at greater risk as the incidence increases. "No one in his right mind goes to Kingston," said Rensselaer Lee, a security analyst and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Washington, who has long studied crime in the Caribbean. "People can be shot walking down the streets. The violence is mainly turned inward, poor people killing each other. But increasingly people are getting caught in the cross hairs of these gangs and getting killed."

From an article in The Jamaica Observer:

The deaths sparked much public outrage amongst residents in St Thomas, and after a suspect was apprehended, many of them descended upon the Morant Bay Police Station, where he was being held, and demanded that he be turned over to them. This prompted a speedy transfer of the suspect from Morant Bay to a police station in Kingston. Still seething, the residents found recourse in setting fire to a house allegedly belonging to the suspect last Tuesday. Two rooms and the contents of the back of the house were scorched in the blaze.

Another article in The Jamaica Oberver describes Jamaica's new prime minister's remarks at the memorial service held at the Morant Bay church of Christ:

"Let us use this occasion of immense grief to make a safer Jamaica for our children," Simpson Miller said in her tribute. "We must stop the slaughter of our children, mothers, fathers and grandparents. We need to engage all sectors of society to play their part." She noted that nearly 100 children were killed last year and called for an end to the "savagery and barbarism". "We need to take back the power from the criminals and restore it to peace-loving citizens by influencing change in the society," she said. In a symbolic gesture of unity, she invited Golding, the MPs and the police commissioners onto the platform to stand beside her. "We need unity of purpose and to demonstrate that we are serious, because we need to secure the future of our children," Simpson Miller said. The six were honoured with numerous tributes in song and poetry by friends, family members and former schoolmates of the children.