Roy Moore Versus the Constitution

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore made an appearance here on Augoeides earlier this year when he issued a statement that the First Amendment of the Constitution only applies to Christians. This month, after a federal court struck down Alabama's ban on same-sex marriage, Moore directed Alabama judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, in direct violation of the court's ruling.

After the Supreme Court of the United States refused to stay a Federal injunction to allow marriage equality in Alabama, Moore pulled the judicial version of a George Wallace. He ordered judges to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples in direct defiance with the Federal Court ruling. Of course, Moore is all about defying higher court rulings because in his mind, laws are superseded by his God and that gives him the right to disobey Federal court rulings he doesn’t like.

The last time Moore was removed as Chief Justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court by a panel of judges because he disobeyed a Federal Court order to remove the 10 commandments from the court rotunda. Moore pulled a comeback and, once again, was elected Alabama’s Chief Justice in 2012. Now he’s trying to pull a George Wallace on marriage equality based on the same “logic” that got him removed before.

What's so funny and at the same time disturbing about Dominionists like Moore is that they pay relatively little attention to Christian teachings such as compassion towards the poor and oppressed, in favor of symbolic gestures like Ten Commandments monuments and preventing people who don't share their beliefs from marrying those they love. Only a complete idiot could read the Gospels and come away with the conclusion that the latter issues, and not the former, should be the core of Christian belief.

It also is quite telling that people like Moore claim to hold the Constitution in highest regard, but rush to defy it the moment a ruling goes against their archaic Poor Oppressed Christian beliefs. Moore may very well find himself removed as Chief Justice once more, and hopefully this time the people of Alabama will have enough sense not to elect him again.

HBO Versus Scientology

There's a fine line between a New Religious Movement and a cult. While the term "cult" is sometimes thrown around to mean any religion that one doesn't happen to approve of, there is also a more technical definition that describes specific harmful practices. Such cults generally separate people from family and friends during their involvement, and then ostracize anyone who decides to leave. They demand that members donate extravagant amounts of money. They subject members to varying forms of punishment which are doled out on a whim and to which the only alternative is to leave the group. And so forth.

Perhaps the largest organization that arguably fits this second definition of "cult" is the Church of Scientology. While representatives of the church claim that it's just another new religion, reports of cultish behavior have been coming out of the organization for years. Now HBO has gotten in on the action, with a new documentary that claims to expose the truth about the organization. The documentary is based on the bestselling 2013 book Going Clear by Lawrence Wright, who interviewed many former members of the church and compiled their stories.

Among the bombshells asserted by eight former church members: Scientology intentionally broke up Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman; it tortured some of its members in a prison known as "the hole" and subjected others to hard labor; it harassed those who left the organization and forced their family members to cut off all contact.

The film offers an intimate portrait of founder L. Ron Hubbard (or LRH as he's referred to by members) and follows the rise of current leader David Miscavige, alleging his misuse of power and that he physically abused several members.

The film also claims that Hubbard beat and threatened his first wife and kidnapped their daughter, leaving her in Cuba in the care of a mentally disabled woman. It also detailed Hubbard's elaborate cosmology incorporating space aliens, invading spirits, volcanoes and other elements that his sci-fi writing had contained.

As usual, the church claims that the book contains fabrications by disgruntled members while at the same time issuing legal threats to HBO and the producers. To be fair, it wouldn't surprise me to find that some of the stories are at least exaggerated. The problem is that there are so many of them from so many different people. It seems that the only way they could all be false is if everyone involved were part of some enormous conspiracy to discredit the church, which simply strikes me as implausible. And none of the individual stories make Scientology look like a benign religious movement.

Ark Encounter Suing Kentucky

Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis is continuing his quest to be recognized as one of the most obnoxious jerks on the planet. After his Noah's Ark theme park attraction was denied tax subsidies by the state of Kentucky, he threatened a lawsuit and is now following through on those threats. He claims that by denying him tax subsidies for a project that will hire only young-Earth creationists, and thus discriminate on the basis of religion, the state is actually discriminating against him.

I realize that it requires a special lack of critical thinking skills to be a young-Earth creationist in the first place, and a further lack of mental coherence to argue that those who accept the convoluted, nonsensical (and not even very scriptural) Ussher chronology are the only "real Christians." Ham has done both. But what I don't understand here is how Ham expects to win his case. Corporations that discriminate can't get subsidies, period. There's no legal loophole here to exploit and no real case to be made. But he's apparently going forward anyway.

In a new press release, Ham lays out his claims. He believes he’s the victim of religious discrimination — because the state won’t let him receive tax dollars for his Ark Encounters park while discriminating in hiring.

Ken Ham is the man behind Answers in Genesis, Kentucky’s Creation Museum (which employs exhibits to teach children that man and dinosaurs lived at the same time), and the Ark Encounters theme park, which is underway a short distance from the Creation Museum. The park, Ham hopes, will help prove that Noah could, indeed, fit two of every type of animal on a functional wooden boat.

Ham’s problems came about because of a clash between a state tax benefit he sought and his hiring practices. The program allows tourist attractions that generate a certain amount of tax revenue to receive a rebate of part of that revenue — in other words, have some of their tax dollars returned. However, Ken Ham was denied access to the program because of discriminatory hiring practices that came to light.

Specifically, a person who applied to work at Ham’s Ark Encounters park would be asked to sign a statement saying he shared Ham’s Young Earth Christian faith. Americans United for Separation of Church and State contacted officials in Kentucky, noting that to grant Ham’s project access to the tax-funded program would be to “compel taxpayers to support religious discrimination.”

Ham will lose, but it surprises me that he hasn't thought out the ramifications if by some miracle he were to win. The law has to apply to everyone equally under the constitution, so it would mean that Muslim businesses that only hire Muslims and atheist businesses that only hire atheists would be able to get the same tax breaks. Does Ham really want that precedent set? He probably he wants to have his cake and eat it too, carving out a special constitutional exception for Christians that excludes everyone else. Because otherwise the government is discriminating against Christians by not allowing them to discriminate.

When I talk about the incoherence of the Poor Oppressed Christian worldview this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Ham's position is illogical, discriminatory, and ultimately silly.

Digital Evangelism

Over the course of the last year a number of scientists have commented on the potential dangers posed by artificial intelligence. Movie scenarios speculating on "the rise of the machines" may be melodramatic and overdone, but there are also some legitimate questions raised by the development of artificial intelligence that may eventually surpass the intelligence of human beings.

Our world is now massively interconnected, and a digital mind that was smart enough to do so could eventually wield enormous power, especially as the "Internet of things" becomes more widespread. So while I think that many of the scenarios proposed by these experts are far-fetched, their potential for disaster at least needs to be considered and questions regarding them need to be asked.

One of these questions raised by artificial intelligence involves religion, and as such is a totally relevant topic here on Augoeides. Specifically, the question is whether or not existing religions should evangelize to intelligent machines. A Florida reverend has recently issued a statement arguing that if a machine is indeed intelligent, there is no reason not to expose it to religious ideas and even attempt to convert it to Christianity.

Artificial intelligence and autonomous robots should be encouraged to become religious, a US reverend has said. Reverend Christopher Benek, associate pastor of Providence Presbyterian Church in Florida, believes advanced forms of artificial intelligence should be welcomed into the Christian faith.

"I don't see Christ's redemption limited to human beings," Benek said in an interview with the futurist Zoltan Istvan. "It's redemption to all of creation, even AI. If AI is autonomous, then we should encourage it to participate in Christ's redemptive purposes in the world."

One interesting point about religious artificial intelligence is that perhaps religious ideals could rein in some of the dangers that such technology might pose. Most of the major world religions have strong social control "wiring" that is at least in theory far more strict than proposed artificial schemas such as Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.

On the other hand, looking at how some human beings actually practice those religions, I think we can all agree that the last thing anyone would want is a super-powerful artificial intelligence taking up some sort of holy war against those it considers heretics or unbelievers.

Mummified Monk Still Alive?

A Buddhist expert has claimed that a mummified monk found in Mongolia is still alive, in a deep state of meditation called "tudkam." The remains are about 200 years old and show a remarkable degree of preservation, though from all outward appearances the body is completely mummified and shows no signs of life.

According to the same expert, Dr. Barry Kerzin, the tudkam state is a predecessor to the attainment of the "rainbow body," a transformation in which the body is converted in some fashion to "pure light." I have heard reports of lamas entering tudkam at the moment of physical death, and apparently their bodies do not seem to cool normally even after more than a week. But of course that's not nearly as long as two centuries.

Forensic examinations are under way on the amazing remains, which are believed to be around 200 years old, having been preserved in animal skin. But one expert has insisted the human relic is actually in ‘very deep meditation’ and in a rare and very special spiritual state known as ‘tukdam’.

Over the last 50 years there are said to have been 40 such cases in India involving meditating Tibetan monks. Dr Barry Kerzin, a famous Buddhist monk and a physician to the Dalai Lama, said: ‘I had the privilege to take care of some meditators who were in a tukdam state.

‘If the person is able to remain in this state for more than three weeks – which rarely happens – his body gradually shrinks, and in the end all that remains from the person is his hair, nails, and clothes. Usually in this case, people who live next to the monk see a rainbow that glows in the sky for several days. This means that he has found a ‘rainbow body’. This is the highest state close to the state of Buddha’.

It seems to me that observation of the mummy makes for a perfect test of the "rainbow body" effect. If the monk is indeed still alive in some sense but on the way to accomplishing the transformation, perhaps we could capture it on a security camera or something. A few of these transformations allegedly took place in the last century, listed here. But as far as I know it has never been directly observed.

It can't be a matter-to-energy conversion because the mass of the body would yield energy far in excess of that produced by even hundreds of nuclear explosions and nothing of that magnitude has ever been reported. But if it's real, what else could it be? Suffice it to say that I would love to be able to study a real case and make some sort of scientific determination.

Mark of the Beast

The trouble with Biblical literalism is that it really needs to be all or nothing. My main objection to it, in fact, is that if you read the Bible in its entirety you will find conflicting accounts of the same events. That means the text can't literally be true, so some degree of interpretation is necessary in order to make sense of it.

When people who are not very bright try to do this they usually get themselves into trouble. An Ohio man who refused to provide a social security number to his employer, because he believed that it represented the "Mark of the Beast" from Revelation, lost his position and sued the company for religious discrimination. But a federal judge recently ruled that employers do not have to accommodate religious objections to social security numbers.

Donald Yeager, of Austintown, Ohio, was accepted in 2012 as an intern at FirstEnergy in western Pennsylvania, but he eventually lost the position because the company would not process his application without a Social Security number, reported the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

He believes that the government-issued, nine-digit identification numbers are foretold in the Book of Revelations and associated with the Antichrist, and he renounced his Social Security number at 18. U.S. law refers to Social Security numbers in a statute numbered 666 – which is commonly understood as the biblical “mark of the beast.”

The Internal Revenue Service by law requires employers to provide their employees’ Social Security numbers for tax purposes, although they may still hire workers without one but must fill out additional paperwork.

Yeager sued the company last year, claiming that FirstEnergy had discriminated against him due to his religion. FirstEnergy argued that case law had established that employers do not have to accommodate religious objections to Social Security numbers, and a federal judge agreed.

This is clearly the correct ruling. According to the law, government does not have to accommodate religious beliefs that conflict with its "compelling interest." For example, even though Warren Jeff's Mormon polygamist group saw no problem with older adults marrying girls as young as twelve, he still wound up in jail because in the eyes of the government statutory rape is a crime regardless of the perpetrator's religion.

Likewise, the collection of social security numbers by employers is used to make it more difficult for undocumented immigrants to find work and to administer the withholdings that support the social security trust fund. If anyone who wanted to claim a religious exemption could just opt out, neither of those functions could be adequately performed.

Furthermore, equating social security numbers with the Mark of the Beast requires a staggering lack of both intelligence and critical thinking skills. It is not printed on the hand or forehead, and it is not required to buy or sell anything. Yeager's sole piece of evidence is that social security numbers are referred to in a statute numbered 666 - which again, if you read the text, is the "number of a man," not the number of a statute.

Sauron at Nine

It's the most trite time travel cliche in the book. If you had a time machine, would you use it to kill Hitler before he came to power? Maybe that's what administrators at a Texas school had in mind when they recently suspended a fourth-grader for threatening a classmate with the One Ring from J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Clearly, the rightful owner of the One Ring is the Dark Lord Sauron, and think what would have happened had this embodiment of evil been suspended at the age of nine?

That suspension would have gone on his permanent record, and prevented him from getting into a decent college in Middle Earth where advanced scientific topics like mind control and orc breeding were taught. The lack of a first rate education might have resulted in mistakes leading to his defeat while still in his guise as the Necromancer of Dol Guldur. Likewise, it might have undermined his alliance with Saruman, perhaps to the extent that Gandalf and the White Wizard could have remained allies.

So clearly, suspending Sauron in the fourth grade would have led to a much easier victory in the War of the Ring, and perhaps could have prevented the war from coming to pass at all. But otherwise the school's actions seem quite ridiculous.

A fourth grader in Kermit, Texas was suspended for making “terroristic threats” after allegedly telling a classmate that he had a “magic ring” that could make the boy disappear, the Odessa American reports.

According to Kermit Elementary School officials, 9-year-old Aiden Steward told a classmate that he possessed a magic ring forged in Mount Doom — a fictional location from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series.

Aiden’s father, Jason, told The Daily News that his family had just watched The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies earlier that week, and that his son “didn’t mean anything” when he told his classmate he was in possession of the “one ring to rule them all.”

“Kids act out movies that they see. When I watched Superman as a kid, I went outside and tried to fly,” he said. “I assure you my son lacks the magical powers necessary to threaten his friend’s existence,” he added. “If he did, I’m sure he’d bring him right back.”

What's shocking here is the complete ignorance of the power of the One Ring. It doesn't make people cease to exist, it turns them invisible - and what fourth-grader wouldn't like to turn invisible? He or she could run around unseen and play pranks on classmates and teachers alike. That's not much of a threat; it's actually pretty awesome. I suppose it would be less fun to be stuck that way, but Tolkien is clear that the only way to make that happen is to keep wearing the ring. You can always take it off, it just twists your mind so that you want to keep it on.

Seriously, though, if I were sending my kid to a school where the staff feared the magical powers of a toy ring I would do my best to find another school as soon as possible. Maybe the family is stuck where they are, but what could their kid possibly learn from teachers who are this stupid?

Reverse-Groundhogmancy for 2015

Last winter my attempt to apply reverse-groundhogmancy failed spectacularly. To recap my ongoing attempts to apply this potentially remarkable divination tool, back in 2012 a meteorology website put together an analysis of the predictions of Punxsutawney Phil, the world's most famous groundhog. According to folklore, if Phil sees his shadow on Groundhog Day there will be six more weeks of winter. If he does not see his shadow, spring will come early. But what the analysis showed is that Phil is only right 39% of the time.

A commenter here on Augoeides noted that in fact the analysis meant that if every one of Phil's predictions were reversed, his accuracy would be 61%, substantially better than chance. It was with that revelation that I embraced the dark art of reverse-groundhogmancy. In 2013 it worked just fine - Phil predicted an early spring which did not come to pass, making the reverse prediction correct. Last year, though, he predicted six more weeks of a winter that was truly awful in Minnesota, and was not just correct but overwhelmingly so. The winter of 2014 endured longer than a mere six weeks, including a blizzard in April.

This year I'm more hopeful, for both the weather and the reverse method. Today Phil once again saw his shadow and predicted six more weeks of winter. Unlike last year, though, this winter has been relatively mild here in the Upper Midwest, with above-zero temperatures every couple of weeks. And now according to the reverse method we will have an early spring, so that's my prediction and I'm sticking to it.

We'll see how it works out this time.