My special take on Pascal's Wager

It is likely that you have heard some version of Pascal's wager:

(1) It is possible that the Christian God exists and it is possible that the Christian God does not exist.

(2) If one believes in the Christian God then if he exists then one receives an infinitely great reward and if he does not exist then one loses little or nothing.

(3) If one does not believe in the Christian God then if he exists then one receives an infinitely great punishment and if he does not exist then one gains little or nothing.

(4) It is better to either receive an infinitely great reward or lose little or nothing than it is to either receive an infinitely great punishment or gain little or nothing. Therefore:

(5) It is better to believe in the Christian God than it is not to believe in the Christian God.

(6) If one course of action is better than another then it is rational to follow that course of action and irrational to follow the other. Therefore:

(7) It is rational to believe in the Christian God and irrational not to believe in the Christian God.

While many people have refuted Pascal's wager, here is my take:

My religion offers a 110% afterlife guarantee. Bring in the description of the afterlife from any other religion, and the Great Goddess Bhuhl'Schyttah will offer you a Heaven that is 110% as heavenly and a Hell that is 110% as hellish. It is therefore irrational not to follow the religion of the Great Goddess Bhuhl'Schyttah.

Two kinds of religious people

The way I see it, there are two kinds of religious people (and I am referring to actual religious people, not merely cultural or nominal members of religions). The first kind will gladly explain to you in detail not only what they believe, but also why they believe it. Their understanding of evidence and logic may make your head spin, but at least you'll know where they're coming from.

The second kind, the fluffy bunnies, simply assert that something is the case. They almost never go beyond that, but if they do, it will be only to something like "I feel it in my heart," as though their emotions were a special red telephone to God. If you've ever tried to have a discussion with such a person, you know that it does no good to point out that lots of people "feel in their hearts" lots of mutually exclusive positions, that they cannot all be right, and that that person has provided no test for determining who is hearing from God and who is simply engaged in wishful thinking. If you ask them how they know what they claim to know, and in the off chance that they acknowledge the question at all, they will say things like "Shut the fuck up" (and I quote that mature and Christlike language verbatim from one such person).

See also I just know and Queer religion.

We're for religious freedom, except when we're not.

A federal judge in Utah has recently held that Utah's law prohiting cohabitation violates a polygamist family's rights to free exercise of religion and due process of law. The National Organization for Marriage and the Family Research Council are calling the decision "the next step along the path blazed by same-sex marriage advocates...." The NOM and the FRC are in effect opposing that family's freedom of religion.

I thought that opponents of marriage equality were simply trying to protect bakers' and photographers' free exercise of religion. It's almost as though their stated and actual reasons differed somewhat.

My first thought was that LGBT advocates should take every opportunity to point out the chicanery of groups like the NOM and the FRC. Then, however, I remembered how often our advocates have said that free exercise of religion should yield to anti-discrimination laws. We thus have two sides in the debate, both of which think that their preferred outcome should trump the First Amendment's free-exercise clause.

See also: The great big (non-zero-sum) game of life and Same-sex marriage and freedom of association (2)

Same-sex marriage and freedom of association

One reason often given for opposing marriage equality is that government should not force caterers, florists, tour-bus operators, and the like to provide services in situations that would violate those service providers' religious or moral beliefs. While I believe in equal rights for same-sex couples, I agree that the service providers should not be forced to violate their beliefs. People do not forfeit their freedom of association by disagreeing with me. Also, competitive pressure provides an obvious remedy; if one bakery refuses to take my money, it thereby hands a competitive advantage to another bakery that will. Finally, I do not see the point of forcing people to take my money if they do not want to do so.  In short, since freedom is not a zero-sum game, we can accommodate both equal protection of the laws for same-sex couples and others' freedom of conscience.

On the other hand, I am still waiting to hear a cogent reason why freedom of association applies only to those who oppose same-sex marriage and not, say, to those who have an equally sincere opposition to remarriage after divorce in the absence of an annulment, or in other words why opponents of same-sex marriage deserve a special privilege.  Cherry-picking fidelity to principle is not fidelity to principle at all.

I like to raise that issue with those Catholics who oppose marriage equality on the ground of freedom of association, especially those who believe in their church's teachings against some forms of marriage that secular law allows. They either throw out a red herring or play the persecution card.

Free speech and hate speech, or: The obligatory Michelle Shocked post

Michelle Shocked has the right to be Princess Clara on the subject of same-sex marriage and then to backpedal furiously when called on it. Concert-goers have the right not to support her, as do performance venues in the absence of a contractual obligation to do so.
People have responded to Shocked in ways like this:

Freedom of speech and artistic expression are critically important, but this isn't free speech. This is hate speech.

In fairness, the petition calls for voluntary measures rather than government censorship. Yet in making the distinction between free speech and hate speech as though they were mutually exclusive categories, which, at least in the US, they are not, the author of the petition plays a dangerous game. For one thing, our opponents have become adept at playing the hate-speech card whenever anyone dares to examine their beliefs critically.

In other papal news, water is wet.

My liberal friends are shocked by Pope Francis's history of pronouncements on women and gays. What did they expect? What sort of person did they think that the cardinal electors, all appointed by either John Paul II or Benedict XVI, would choose? The fact that anyone expected differently just shows the triumph of hope over experience.

In the Catholic Church, life imitates The Onion.

From The Onion:

VATICAN CITY—Calling forgiveness "one of the highest virtues taught to us by Jesus," Pope John Paul II issued a papal decree Monday absolving priest-molested children of all sin.

From Cardinal Mahoney's blog:

In the past several days, I have experienced many examples of being humiliated. In recent days, I have been confronted in various places by very unhappy people. I could understand the depth of their anger and outrage--at me, at the Church, at about injustices that swirl around us.

Thanks to God's special grace, I simply stood there, asking God to bless and forgive them.

An argument I think advocates of marriage equality should stress (2)

As I noted earlier,

we should decide the scope of secular marriage under secular principles rather than any particular church's interpretation of Scripture. This argument must be a strong one, since whenever I bring it up, the 'phobes immediately change the subject.

Now, it appears that the Second Circuit agrees with me. From the opinion:

But law (federal or state) is not concerned with holy matrimony. Government deals with marriage as a civil status--however fundamental--and New York has elected to extend that status to same-sex couples. A state may enforce and dissolve a couple’s marriage, but it cannot sanctify or bless it. For that, the pair must go next door.

My cafeteria Catholicism is better than your cafeteria Catholicism.

Supporters of Biden take Ryan to task, and vice versa, for picking and choosing which teachings of the Catholic Church to follow, while ignoring the fact that both they and their favored veep candidate do the same. In both cases, cafeteria Catholics criticize someone for, well, being one of them. Both sides also seem to think that when it comes to those Catholic teachings that they want to see written into secular law, the establishment clause somehow does not apply.

Bishop Harry Jackson tucks tail and runs (and in other news, water is wet).

Bishop Harry Jackson, known for bravely crusading against marriage equality in safe fora where no one will ask difficult questions, has backed out of a debate on that topic. His doing so has not exactly helped to overcome his reputation as an intellectual coward who tries to shield his statements from scrutiny as much as he can. One would think that he would fear the marketplace of ideas a little less, especially since the Almighty is supposedly on his side (Luke 21:15), but there you go.

Is Paul Ryan a true Catholic? What if he isn't?

Many Catholics, including the bishops, are questioning whether Paul Ryan's political views agree with the teachings of the church. Others defend Ryan's views as authentically Catholic.

First, it appears that Catholicism in practice is whatever any Catholic wants it to be. I have only rarely heard a Catholic say anything to the effect of "Here's what I want to believe, but my Catholic faith teaches otherwise, so what can you do?"

Second, and more to the point, why should secular law follow anyone's view of what Catholicism, or any other religion, really teaches? What happened to non-establishment of religion?

Pat Robertson on the Bible and slavery

See also: How to read the Bible

Free speech and hate speech: Be careful what you wish for.

People in the politically correct left, in America and in other countries, often say that America goes overboard in protecting freedom of speech and that freedom of speech should sometimes bow to the need not to give offense. The real-world effect of implementing such a viewpoint can be seen here:

Angry Catholics have accused an Indian skeptic of blasphemy after he argued a dripping crucifix was caused by faulty plumbing rather than divine intervention, leaving him facing a possible prison term.

* * *

The legislation bans "deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs" -- a rule Edamaruku believes runs counter to freedom of expression.

The argument that concerns over hate speech should outweigh the First Amendment is weak enough; the argument that they should do so only when we want them to is just nonexistent. People who want do-good control-freakery to trump the First Amendment should remember the iron law, "Me today, you tomorrow."

My latest letter to the editor

Here:

Regarding the ombudsman’s May 20 column “Is The Post anti-Catholic?”:

I do not see how The Post’s obsequious coverage of religion could qualify as either anti-Catholic or anti-religion in general. Instead, I believe that in this age of right-wing political correctness, the religion card is the new race card.

People of faith often claim to be the victims of religious bigotry when someone presents facts or logical arguments for which they do not care. People have made that accusation against me when I have made arguments that they could not or would not rebut. Indeed, it has long been a punch line that such people complain about persecution and bigotry when called on their own persecution and bigotry.

Discussing same-sex marriage with the fundies

Yesterday, in a discussion of Obama's announcement, someone said to me, "Marriage has always been one man and one woman. Read the Bible." In addition to the toxic level of irony, that person just refused to listen when I tried to tell him what his own holy book actually says. Yes, I do so want you to run my life out of a book that you haven't read or, worse, about which you are willing to lie.

Going Galt from the Catholic Church

Joseph Amodeo describes his decision here:

In light of Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan's comments directed at the LGBT community, I resigned from the Executive Committee of the Junior Board of Catholic Charities. By this action, I seek not to disparage the work of Catholic Charities, but to voluntarily remove myself as a leader with an organization under the pastoral leadership of Dolan.

Good for him. I've been saying for a while that we need to withdraw the sanction of the victim from churches and other institutions that demonize us. I cut all ties with one such church in my early twenties, despite my close emotional identification with that church, and have never regretted having done so.

How consistent is your view of religion?

In case you want to find out, here is a 17-question quiz:

In this activity you’ll be asked a series of 17 questions about God and religion. In each case, apart from Question 1, you need to answer True or False. The aim of the activity is not to judge whether these answers are correct or not. Our battleground is that of rational consistency. This means to get across without taking any hits, you’ll need to answer in a way which is rationally consistent. What this means is you need to avoid choosing answers which contradict each other. If you answer in a way which is rationally consistent but which has strange or unpalatable implications, you’ll be forced to bite a bullet.

I managed to get through without taking any hits or biting any bullets.

If a church denies us communion ...

... we should deny it the sanction of the victim. By now, you've likely heard of this:

Deep in grief, Barbara Johnson stood first in the line for Communion at her mother’s funeral Saturday morning. But the priest in front of her immediately made it clear that she would not receive the sacramental bread and wine.

Johnson, an art-studio owner from the District, had come to St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Gaithersburg with her lesbian partner. The Rev. Marcel Guarnizo had learned of their relationship just before the service.

“He put his hand over the body of Christ and looked at me and said, ‘I can’t give you Communion because you live with a woman, and in the eyes of the church, that is a sin,’ ” she recalled Tuesday.

I won't get into whether Ms. Johnson, Fr. Guarnizo, or both acted inappropriately under Catholic canon law or whether the Archdiocese of Washington did the right thing by apologizing to her. I will say, however, that by caring whether a church will let us partake of its sacraments or ordinances, we give it a power over our lives that it neither necessarily has nor deserves to have. Instead, it makes more sense for all concerned if we shake off the very dust from our feet. While I don't lightly agree with a source like this, he has a point when he writes the following:

4. * * * If you don't like the Catholic church, don't become Catholic and don't come to our Mass and other events. Isn't that what you tell those who oppose abortion (Don't get one.)?

5. Please remember, no one forces you to be a Catholic or take Communion in our Churches. If you do, then you should respect our requirements. I have been to churches and synagoges for funerals, weddings and other occassions. I will stand, sit and even kneel when it is appropriate. I will not say their prayers or receive their "communion." I will not make a scene when they say or do something that I do not agree with. It is their faith, and that is fine with me. I am there as a guest.

An argument I think advocates of marriage equality should stress

I've commented here and here on arguments that I wish advocates of marriage equality would stop using, but there's one that I don't think they use often enough. Since opponents of marriage equality tend to use religion as a reason, or at least a pretext, we need to emphasize that at least here in America, as opposed to Iran, our Constitutional rights include freedom from establishment of religion, so that we should decide the scope of secular marriage under secular principles rather than any particular church's interpretation of Scripture. This argument must be a strong one, since whenever I bring it up, the 'phobes immediately change the subject.

In this regard, The Washington Post characterizes the view of anti-marriage-equality pastors thus:

But Thomas and the 77 other Baptist ministers in the association do not see same-sex marriage as a civil rights matter. Rather, they say, it is a question of Scripture, of whether a country based on Judeo-Christian principles will honor what’s written in Romans or decide to make secular decisions about what’s right.

Apart from the seriously question-begging reference to "a country based on Judeo-Christian principles," I agree completely with this framing of the issue, and under the First Amendment, the answer should be clear.

Enlightened self-interest should lead the pastors to the same conclusion. Do they seriously want the government to be the final arbiter of the correct interpretation of "what's written in Romans" or any other part of the Bible? What would they do if the government granted itself that authority and then took a position directly contradictory to theirs?

How to tell you've won an argument against a member of the religious right

The joke used to be that when you won an argument against a member of the religious right, that person would respond, "I'll pray for you." Now it's the more aggressive "You're persecuting me for my faith!" I've had that one used on me a few times, and I've made it my new catchphrase in an ironic sense.