Is Ignorance Bliss?

Caught an interesting line from a post over on The Slowly Boiled Frog: "The conservative Christian freak-out over Barna's Gen-Z study".  While's its subject isn't my usual cup of tea, I was caught by one line in particular:

"Religious literalism causes people to be wrong most of the time yet never uncertain. In effect it is a celebration and affirmation of ignorance. "

'Wrong, but never uncertain!'   It certainly can explain a few things, maybe even more than a few things.  Theists are always so sure, whether or not they can articulate any sort of valid reasoning for what they are so sure about.  I think that's one of the things that annoys me the most.  They embrace ignorance, celebrate it, want to pass laws protecting it, and  . . . worst of all . . . demand the right to force their ignorance on all schoolchildren, not just their own.

I know any theists will claim not to be ignorant, but the word applies.  What does a theist usually do when faced with actual evidence?  Look at little kennie ham and his Kentucky ministries for example.  He ignores it.  If he cannot ignore it, he denies it.  If that doesn't work, he rationalizes it.  When pressed he comes up with the most outlandish stories to remain as ignorant as possible.  Plus, like all to many others, he makes his living pushing such ignorance.

OK, if you want to argue semantics, I guess it's acceptable to be ignorant when you are not exposed to something.  But once you have been exposed, remaining ignorant is a choice, and it's one all too many theists make.  What they 'know', particularly when it comes to science, is pretense.  Here is a Jesus and Mo strip that explains it well:

" . . . as long as there are questions, there are people who will pretend to know the answers!"  Great line, but it gets even worse when they convince other people to join them in their pretense, and then they get organized and the followers pay for the privilege of being ignorant.  The final step is they want everyone, not just their followers, to pay for their ignorance.  Think about how much money the taxpayers of Kentucky have paid and will continue to pay for little kennie's ministries!

Now, just to be clear, when I say 'ignorant', I am not talking about intelligence.  There is nothing to indicate theists are more or less intelligent than non-theists.  While there was a study that some sites tried to make such a claim, it really doesn't support that idea. (Did a Study Find That Atheists Are Smarter Than Religious People? Not Quite.)  What the study did find that when intuition comes into play, non-theists tend to do better.  I believe that's because a theists intuition will invariably follow their religious beliefs -- which often turn out wrong in the real world, as we stated above.

The old saying "Ignorance is Bliss" doesn't seem to apply either.  I mean are theists really more blissful than non-theists?  The more hardcore ones certainly are not.  They are at war with the rest of the world all the time.  One of the most common reasons for war are religious differences.  And we are not just taking war, but fighting and disagreements in general.

Case in point, remember Tammy Kitzmiller, she was a parent in the Dover PA school district and one of the 11 parents who were plaintiffs in the Dover suit. For whatever reason her name was listed first so the suit is commonly referred to as Kitzmiller v. The Dover Area School District. According to Lauri Lebo's excellent book "The Devil in Dover" and many articles about the trial, Ms Kitzmiller and her family suffered verbal abuse and attacks from self-identified Christians. In a York Dispatch article they mentioned some of it:

• One letter she received, scrawled in big letters across a sheet of yellow notebook paper, begins, "When you open your eyes in hell. ..."
• One boy at school told the girls to tell their mother to "go to hell," delivering the message through a third person.
• The atmosphere worsened as campaigning began for a hotly contested school board election and people prepared for the trial. There were nasty phone calls and confrontations in restaurants and on the streets.

These attacks were enough to have her stop her daughters from even answering the phone! This isn't the only example. The judge in the Dover, Judge John E. Jones also received death threats as a result of which he and his family were given around-the-clock federal protection. I believe the parents who sued John Freshwater after he burned a cross into their son's arm also received similar backlash once their identity was revealed. The members of the Iowa State University, after they refused to give Guillermo Gonzalez tenure -- tenure let me remind you that he failed to earn -- were vilified by some online blogs and posts, same with Ball State University's president, Jo Ann M. Gora and the whole Hedin/Gonzalez issue (yes, the same Gonzalez who screwed up so spectacularly at ISU).

So, what have we discovered?  While theists may be as intelligent as non-theists, often they are wrong when it comes to matters that impact their belief system - mainly because they rely on that system to answer questions it is unsuited to answer.  And while they may be certain, certainty is not a measure of being right.  By the same token, that certainty often bring them into conflict, conflict driven by those same beliefs.  That conflict manifests in everything from full-scale war to make attacks against people who refuse to share their belief system.

It's this close-mined certainty that makes dealing with many theists so challenging.  As soon as you challenge any part of their belief system, they avoid, deny, or outright lie to protect it -- regardless of any actual evidential support for their position.  Ignorance may breed certainty, but it sure doesn't bring out the bliss.

Is anyone actually censoring the Discovery Institute?

It's coming up on Feb 12th, a day referred to as Darwin Day.  Wikipedia calls Darwin Day:

"a celebration to commemorate the anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin on 12 February 1809. The day is used to highlight Darwin's contribution to science and to promote science in general. Darwin Day is celebrated around the world." (Wikipedia: Darwin's Day)

Of course, you know the Discovery Institute (DI) doesn't celebrate Darwin the way the rest of the world does.  They try and co-opt the day and celebrate what they call "Censor of the Year".  While Darwin Day celebrations go back pretty far, sporadically since 1882.  The DI's version is only a few years old.  But before discussing that, I would like to discuss Censorship.  I have a feeling that the DI's idea of censorship and the rest of the world is quite a bit different . . . just like Feb 12th. is celebrated differently.

Just to start on a level playing field, here is the dictionary definition of Censor:

"a person who examines books, movies, letters, etc., and removes things that are considered to be offensive, immoral, harmful to society, etc." (Merriam-Webster: Censor)

We have all seen the effects of censorship.  Prior to a film's release, it gets edited to conform to rules concerning objectionable material.  During wartime, correspondence to and from people within the war zone was censors to prevent the release of sensitive material.  When I was stationed in the Republic of Korea, I purchased albums . . . yes, actual vinyl . . . that were censored by the South Korean government to eliminate objectionable material.  Based on all that, I have a question, just who is censoring the Discovery Institute?

I know they have accused two people as their 'Censor of the Year' previously, and they are currently looking for nominations for this year.  But, based on history, are they being censored?  Is someone taking their publications and videos and removing anything?  No, no one is.  If that was so, don't you think they would be raising an actual hue-and-cry, instead they are inventing things to cry about?

The two previous 'winners' for 'censor of the year' are Jerry Coyne and Neil deGrasse Tyson.  Coyne's 'crime' was encouraging Ball State University to stop teaching Intelligent Design.  That's not exactly true.  What Ball State University did was stop teaching Intelligent Design as if it was science.  Not that you would expect the DI to get the facts straight.  They used their usual tactics, claiming that the University was violating 'Academic Freedom', but as we, and many others have said, actual academic freedom does not include teaching pseudo-science is if it was science.  They certainly targeted Coyne, more as sore-losers than anything else.

But before moving on to Tyson, what is the evidence that Jerry Coyne censored the Discovery Institute?  None at all.  It seems that the DI wants to ability to say whatever they want, but when anyone voices any form of opposition, that's not free speech, but censorship!  How Marie Antoinette of them!  It is not censorship to speak out against something.  Like I said earlier, the DI and the rest of the world have a different definition of censorship.  No one is stopping them from giving presentations, releasing videos, or publishing articles and books.  What they are upset about it that no one is buying into their marketing efforts which means mainline scientific conferences, actual science journals, and most university science programs ignore them.  That's not censorship!  You have to earn your place in science, and to date, marketing is not science.

Now, what did the DI claim Neil deGrasse Tyson did to offend them?  He hosted  the updated Carl Sagan series Cosmos.  Yes, the DI didn't like Cosmos, why?  I'm sure they had lots of reasons, but their main objections seems to be that several segments dealt with some of religions' negative impacts on scientific inquiry.  Of course while they officially claim not to be a religious organization, this shouldn't have bothered them.  But since we all know that's not true, I bet it really aggravated them.  Tyson also had, what I considered, an epic take down of Bill O'Reilly (You know, the Ann Coulter for people who cannot read)  when he said "God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance". 

So, once again I would like to ask the DI, just what censorship did Neil deGrasse Tyson do against the DI?  There doesn't seem to be much evidence of censorship at all, just opposition.

So I think we now have a pretty good idea of what the DI calls 'censorship', it is saying anything that the DI doesn't like.  Based on that, I am willing to bet the United Methodist Church will be one of the nominations.  I would have to assume that folks like PZ Meyrs, Larry Moran and Jerry Coyne are perennial nominees.  So will they be predictable, or will they really piled on the silly crap on some other unsuspecting 'honoree'.  I know I won't be, my little corner of the web just doesn't have the readership to really get their goat.  I can only hope that one day I might be so awarded!  That would be fun!

So there we have it.  While the rest of the world celebrates Darwin Day, including many Darwin-centric presentations in Church Pulpits from many of the signatories of the Clergy Letter Project.  The DI will be spinning up a new set of lies against someone who isn't censoring them, just exhibiting some vocal and visible opposition to their version of Creationism.  Whoever they are, I hope they pay as much attention to it as it deserves, nothing at all.