The hypocrisy of religious people

Hey there blogosphere,

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not a Ricky Gervais or Richard Dawkins type anti-theist atheist, where I feel the need to rub it in the face of religious people for their beliefs. The truth is, I'm a Presbyterian type atheist. I attend church when I have to (funerals, weddings), but other than that religion is not something that takes up much of my time.

But I do get annoyed by some religious things, mainly for two reasons. The first is when it interferes with my everyday life. For instance, when Muslims feel the need to have a massive prayer session together in a public area, they often take off their shoes. The smell is reprehensible. But the second thing that annoys me about religious people is the underlying hypocrisy of their thinking.

The most recent example I came across today was this story about a no-tipping pastor. You should note, blogosphere, that the story offended me first as a former server. The pastor, to avoid a mandatory 18% tip involved in parties over 6 people, had the bill split into 6 separate bills. But, she then proceeded to pay all of the bills herself. Certainly, flipping the bill for 6+ fellow church-goers shows how generous she is - to everyone except the people serving her*.

But there is more to this hypocrisy than her false feeling of generosity. It's the type of underlying hypocrisy I dislike about religion. You can be a complete ass, but as long as you are religious you are not a bad person. It's having your cake and eating it too.

Here's what I mean. The pastor didn't stop at the crappy tip. She went as far as to write a snarky message on the receipt (seen above). In an interview after, the pastor talks about how the posting of this receipt was God chastising her - something he only does to those who he loves, or so she says. But, she proceeded to complain to AppleBees and have the waitress who posted the receipt fired. There's the hypocrisy. On one hand, she is crediting this girl for doing Gods work by chastising her. She's thankful this girl did this, because it made her a better person. On the other hand, she's gotten the girl - who by all accounts was only doing what the good Lord asked of her - fired. Is that any way to treat a messenger of God?

Of course, the underlying message of the hypocrisy is that outspoken devout religious people can do terrible things, but parade the bible in front of them as evidence that they are good people. Fortunately, I think in general people are becoming less tolerant of this. A good example of this would be Ray Lewis. He recently won the super bowl, and, like many athletes before him, attributed the victory to Gods will (and God apparently acted through the referees, who failed to call several obvious holding penalties on the 2nd last play of the game, and an obvious passer interference on the 3rd last play of the game).

But what is just plain wrong with Lewis's outspoken religiousness is something that occurred in the superbowl pre-game. He gave an interview and referred to a double murder that took place in 2000, of which he was a prime suspect. At the time of the murder, Lewis was wearing a white suit, which has never been recovered. The logical conclusion would be that the suit was covered in the blood from the stabbings Lewis and his friends performed, and they subsequently burned it (but this is of course, speculation). Lewis was eventually charged for obstruction of justice for lying to police the next day, but was convicted of no other charges.

 
But listen to what Lewis is saying. He is pointing to the fact that his team is in the super bowl, that he has had a long and illustrious career in the NFL, and that he has given money to various charities, as evidence that he didn't commit murder. His claim is that God would not allow him to become so successful if he had of committed the murder. "It's the exact opposite" he says in the interview. The implication being that Lewis is being rewarded by God for being falsely accused of a murder with fame and fortune. Gee, I wonder what God would have given him as a reward if he hadn't of obstructed an investigation into a double murder? Probably 25 to life.

The point being, Ray Lewis is using religion to rub it into the faces of the relatives of the people who he may have had a hand in murdering. He was involved in the worst thing a person can do and that should categorize him as an evil person for the rest of his life. Giving a few million dollars away - especially when you just had a 10+ year career in the NFL where you were likely paid upwards of 80 million - is not going to change how he should be categorized. Yet, with the help of religion, that's exactly what has happened.

It's hypocritical. It's annoying. It's religion.

Adios Blogosphere.














*In the interest of full disclosure, she did leave a tip, but obviously it would be less than the recommended 18%.

Junk Science

Hey Blogosphere, I know it's been a while since a post - so long that in fact you've adapted a new format for my blog writing - but last night, while watching Piers Morgan a topic arose that I found interesting.

The topic, as you may have surmised from the title of this blog, is "Junk Science". Of course, it was more of a debate about social science. The focus was on gun control, not surprisingly occurring right after the Colorado shooting. There were a few things that stood out to me in this particular episode. Firstly, the NYC Mayor Bloomberg was on. Piers treated him like a old pal, agreeing with him on everything and occasionally pumping his tires. Bloomberg talked about how the time is now to start implementing tough gun laws, while Piers agreed, additionally making the point that he can understand why Obama would rather focus on condolences rather than making this a presidential race talking point. But isn't that just the problem. The talk of gun control only comes up whenever one of these brutal killing sprees occurs, yet when it comes up people would rather focus on condolences, rather than addressing the issue. Then, you have people like Bloomberg who identify this, but take the same approach each time (ala Micheal Moore). The point I am trying to make is, where was Bloomberg last week before the shootings? Wouldn't that have been a good time to bring up gun control - I mean there is a presidential election coming up, and if you want to make gun control an issue, why wait until it is a national topic of interest? Why not, instead, make it a national topic of interest (I mean the guy is the mayor of NYC, I'm sure if he wanted to get on Piers Morgan, he could do it any time he wants).

  But anyway, that whole Bloomberg situation aside, what was really interesting about this episode was when John Lott Jr., author of "More Guns, Less Violence", showed up as a guest to debate gun control. As you can probably guess from the title of his book, John believes if more people carry guns, there will be less violence because everyone will be afraid of everyone else shooting back. I will refer to the movie's Tombstone, The Quick and the Dead, and Wild Wild West as evidence that this type of situation won't work, but that's a topic for another day. Instead, what I would like to shed light on is the evidence that suggests this WOULD work. Ready? Here it comes...BAM - there is none. Instead, John's focus is on evidence that gun control (i.e. making it harder for someone to own a gun in the states) DOESN'T work. Importantly, even if he proves this, he's not proving that more guns will equal less violence. He's merely highlighting the fact that new measures need to be taken to ensure that guns (and bullets for that matter) need to be harder to access. So really, these people are in agreement, based on the evidence of John and the Opinion's of Piers and his debater colleague.

Of course, being Piers Morgan, it was more of an attack on John than an actual debate, which is a pity because I would have genuinely been interested in John's response to what the fellow debater had said when he referred to Johns research as "Junk Science". Unfortunately, Piers didn't let him explain it in full. Essentially, his evidence is that in the year 1900, there were 2 gun-related murders in London, England. In the year 2000 (or somewhere near it) there were 39 murders in London. John is saying that within that 100 year span, gun control laws and policies were implemented, yet it still didn't stop the increase in gun related murders. The same types of trends exist all around the world, allowing John to draw the conclusion that gun control policies and measures actually increase gun violence. He then takes that conclusion, and goes one step further stating that if there was less gun control measures, and more people carried guns, everyone would be safer. The general example would be the Colorado shooting, where the shooter could have been shot down after a few shots if everyone in the front row had a gun. Of course, the counter point to this could be the reality that the killer was wearing a bullet proof vest, or the theory that if everyone starts shooting at him your bound to get a few innocent victims. (In other words, gun related murders may decrease, but gun related deaths would not). But all that is beside the point, because the conclusion John is making isn't a conclusion, it's an opinion based on a conclusion he made from his previous evidence.

 On top of this, clearly, this is faulty evidence John is providing. It ignores a growth in population, a shift in culture, an advancement in gun technology, the ease in which guns can be illegally attained, and probably about 100 other reasons that would contribute to an increase in gun related murders. Essentially, it is exactly as the other person called it, Junk Science. You can't draw a conclusion by simply ignoring every contributing variable but the one that proves your point, that's not how science works. And I would have been really interested to the rebuttal, but that idiot Piers decided his viewers would be more interested in him instead repeating "What do you say to the Victims of the Colorado shootings parents when you defend gun control?". Instead of allowing John to defend his insane theory, Piers made it personal. What an idiot.

On deck tonight (though I'll regrettably miss it - I only fit in about 2 or 3 episodes of Piers a year): Michael Moore. No surprise here, Moore turns a national tragedy into an opportunity for him to waddle into relevance again. My guess, he'll make it political.

Arriving in Torona, Adios Blogosphere

Nasa Gets it Wrong

About 18 months ago I remember getting in an argument with someone about these findings. I'm no expert, but when some jag off tells me in a bar that DNA is made with Arsenic instead of Phosphorus, I remember. Wish I could remember who the argument was with so I could shove this video in their face. Not that I'm like that