Is Believing In God Evolutionarily Advantageous?

by Alix Spiegel

August 30, 2010

All Things Considered, NPR

God, Through The Lens Of Evolution

For decades, the intellectual descendants of Darwin have pored over ancient bones and bits of fossils, trying to piece together how fish evolved into man, theorizing about the evolutionary advantage conferred by each physical change. And over the past 10 years, a small group of academics have begun to look at religion in the same way: they've started to look at God and the supernatural through the lens of evolution.

In the history of the world, every culture in every location at every point in time has developed some supernatural belief system. And when a human behavior is so universal, scientists often argue that it must be an evolutionary adaptation along the lines of standing upright. That is, something so helpful that the people who had it thrived, and the people who didn't slowly died out until we were all left with the trait. But what could be the evolutionary advantage of believing in God?

Bering is one of the academics who are trying to figure that out. In the years since his mother's death, Bering has done experiments in his lab at Queens University, Belfast, in an attempt to understand how belief in the supernatural might have conferred some advantage and made us into the species we are today.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor … amp;f=1001

Domestic Violence Fairytales Threaten Constitutional Protections

The Violence Against Women Act includes a definition of domestic violence that is so wide you could drive a Mack truck through it.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/domestic-v … otections/

This tale is not so much about a distraught woman sorely in need of psychological help. Rather, it’s a story of a police department, a prosecutor, and a judge that allowed themselves to be duped by a conniving perjurer. And it’s about a criminal justice system that has all but abandoned due process in a frenzied attempt to curb domestic violence.

Like everything in the law, the problem begins with definitions. The Violence Against Women Act, passed during the first term of the Clinton administration, includes a definition of domestic violence that is so wide you could drive a Mack truck through it.

States picked up on the loophole, and now most states include within their definitions of abuse, actions like making your partner “annoyed” or “distressed.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)  likewise followed suit. The CDC’s Uniform Definitions and Recommended Data Elements declares that partner violence includes “getting annoyed if the victim disagrees,” “withholding information from the victim,” and even “disregarding what the victim wants.”

...

Such strong-arm practices have not escaped the attention of civil rights groups. The Washington Civil Rights Council has described our current domestic violence system as creating the “biggest civil rights roll-back since the Jim Crow era.”

Last year the Connecticut chapter of the ACLU took on the case of Fernando A., a man who had been falsely accused of throwing his wife down a flight of stairs. When a judge then deprived him of the right to a hearing to decide whether to remove his children, the ACLU took the case to the state’s Supreme Court. Fernando A. won on a 5-2 decision.

Earlier this year, Stop Abusive and Violent Environments, a Washington, D.C.-based victim advocacy organization, released a report (link available at Pajamas Media) titled “How Domestic Violence Laws Curtail our Fundamental Freedoms.” The report concludes that each year, over two million Americans have their fundamental civil liberties overruled by the Violence Against Women Act.

Consider the constitutional guarantees of due process, probable cause for arrest, right to a fair trial, and equal treatment under the law — all are cast aside by get-tough-on-crime domestic violence laws.

Abeer Mohammed is a senior local editor based in Baghdad for Institute of War and Peace Reporting. Here’s an excerpt from a post at the IWPR site about the story behind his sensational report (posted below) on how teachers in Iraq are schooling their students in jihad and Islamic supremacism:

For this story, I tried to interview sources in schools in several Baghdad neighbourhoods but the headmasters refused. So I waited for teachers, parents and students outside of schools in Sunni, Shia and mixed neighbourhoods. One day, I spent six hours in front of a school in a poor Shia-majority area of Baghdad.

I faced the most resistance from officials who gave me veiled warnings to not report on such a hot topic. One official told me I was pushing too hard on this issue, and another accused me of defaming Islam.

When I asked one official why there was no curriculum on Christianity, he became nervous and angry and told me I should not focus on the curricula.

A female Muslim legislator defended the textbooks and asked me, “What is your name again? And where do you work?” Because I always identify myself in any case, these were not questions I was comfortable hearing.

His report is also one that people, whether in Iraq or particularly in the US, are not comfortable hearing. Who in the US, now that the war in Iraq has “ended,” wants to hear that in American-liberated Iraq, Islamic education class is Iraqi schools, many of which were rebuilt or built by US soldiers, is teaching jihad and Islamic supremacism? Certainly not Americans fond of claiming victory.

Mohammed Abeer’s report from the Kansas City Star (via Islamization Watch):

Zuhair Jerjis and Ahmed Mohammed are both 10. They attend the same Baghdad school and often ride home together. After school, the two get together and play video games.

But Ahmed is worried. He wonders if some day he will have to murder his best friend.

The boys go to the same school and share a ride home to the same district of Baghdad, but their parents do not share the same faith.

Zuhair’s family is Christian and Ahmed’s is Muslim. Recent religious lessons at school have left Ahmed questioning what end awaits his friendship.

“Our teacher tells us it is forbidden in Islam to make friends with unbelievers,” he said. “When I study that we have to fight the unbelievers in the name of jihad, I think, ‘Will I kill Zuhair one day?’”

Ahmed’s family in Muslim; Zuhair’s is Christian. And it turns out that in Iraq’s schools today, religious tolerance is not part of the curriculum.

Religious education is a regular feature of public schools in Iraq. Because Zuhair is a Christian, he is not required to attend religious classes. But because the vast majority of his classmates are Muslims, Zuhair said he often feels alone and isolated.

“When all of my friends are in the class, I have to stand outside,” he said.

As students prepare to return to classes this fall, there is growing criticism of the recently introduced curriculum, which critics say fails to tackle the causes of religious and sectarian hatred that have fueled the violence of the last six years. Worse still, they accuse it of laying the foundations for future strife.

The main concerns about the school program are that it favors the Shia interpretation of Islam.

In addition, many are concerned that some teachers focus on subjects not directly addressed in the curriculum, such as the treatment of non-Muslims and jihad, or holy war.

From an internal Iraqi standpoint, teaching sectarian lessons to the young promises continued division and worse. From a non-Muslim standpoint, given that Sunni and Shia Islam agree on jihad and the treatment of non-Muslims, the main problem isn’t sectarian. The main problem is jihad and the treatment of non-Muslims — if, that is, religious tolerance is the point of the lesson. But in Iraq, as an Islamic culture, religious tolerance as Westerners conceive of it, is just not a core subject.

The reporter elaborates on the Sunni-Shia disagreement a while longer:

Before the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, religious education reflected the beliefs of the minority Sunni population, which makes up roughly one-quarter of the current population.

The current curriculum places more emphasis on Shia Islam, a sect followed by the majority of Iraq’s Arabs and by its most powerful politicians, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. …

Alaa Makki, a Sunni member of parliament and head of a parliamentary committee on education, said the new curriculum was unbalanced.

“The current changes have a huge sectarian impact,” he said. “The updating process should focus on the shared aspects (of Islam), not on a specific sect.” Some of the areas of dispute are subtle and reflect the centuries-old schism within Islam.

For example, Iraq’s former Sunni-accented textbooks followed all mentions of the Prophet with a traditional Sunni blessing, “Peace be upon him.” In the new textbooks, the blessing is a typical Shia one, “Peace be upon him and his family.”

Somehow, doesn’t quite convey the impact of the two little boys at the top of the story, one wondering if Islamic teachings will compel him to murder his Christian friend. But here’s more:

In addition, anecdotal evidence from schools suggests many teachers offer their own views on such topics as the treatment of non-Muslims or the obligation to wage jihad.

Sanaa Muhsin, an Islamic studies teacher in Baghdad’s Shaab district, said she regularly instructs her students that “each Muslim had a duty to carry out jihad – namely to fight unbelievers.” She identified unbelievers as those who did not follow Allah or the Prophet Mohammed.

Some students appear to be learning the lessons well.

Sajjad Kiayyad, 7, of Baghdad, said he plans to become a holy warrior when he grows up. “I will fight the Americans because they are Jewish and unbelievers,” he said. “I will be victorious, or I will be a martyr in heaven.”

Maryam Ali, 9, also of Baghdad, said she is carrying out her own jihad by calling on “unveiled female friends to cover their heads.”

Freji, the education ministry adviser, insisted that teachers had been instructed to steer clear of issues that aroused conflict. The new curriculum, he said, focused on the fraternal aspects of Islam. “The Islamic religion, and therefore the Islamic curriculum, emphasizes forgiveness and mercy.”

Must have gotten lost in translation.

Technology Tracks Schoolbus Kids

Updated 7:21 PM CDT, Wed, Sep 1, 2010

In a bid to set parents' nerves at ease, a southwest suburban school district has become one of the first in the state to begin tracking students riding buses to and from school each day with Global Positioning System and Radio Frequency Identification technology.

Palos Heights School District 128 had previously been using ZPass, a GPS technology provided by Seattle-based Zonar Systems, to track the buses.  But now the district is outfitting students' backpacks with a luggage tag-sized unit that logs when the student steps on and off the bus.

"A little piece of mind helps you get through the day," said Ann O'Brien, a mother of four children in Palos Heights School District 128. "They can locate kid and bus in seconds."

Palos School Superintendent Kathleen Casey said the system helps alleviate parents' concerns.

"We can track the bus with the GPS, alleviate a parent's fear if they got on or off bus, look up their ID number and find out what bus and what time boarded or if still on or exited," she said. 

The district spent $16,000 for the technology, which currently covers 10 buses. Parents say the cost is minimal for the benefits.

"As a parent, the safety of your child taking a bus is a number one concern" says Leslie Baudo.

Last year, Baudo's son was over an hour late coming home. If that happens again, Baudo can now simply call the school and get immediate information from the secure database, making the waiting game just a little bit easier.

I'm voting for Barack Obama this November 4th for President of the United States. What follows in this article are 7 of the many reasons I am voting for Obama and not John McCain.

1. Obama was against the Iraq war from the start. Very few politicians had the integrity and the judgment to know that the Iraq war was a mistake before it began. John McCain certainly did not. McCain was one of the many politicians who thought Iraq would be a short easy war and that American soldiers would be "greeted like liberators" in Iraq.

2. Obama will lower taxes for people making less than $111,645 per year (that includes me, unfortunately!) more than John McCain will. McCain has been running many misleading advertisements which make the claim that Obama is raising taxes across the board. That is not true. Obama is only raising taxes for the very rich and for corporations (who have not paid their fair share of taxes.)

For 90% of Americans, Obama's plan will bring lower taxes than McCain's will. This is an important fact not only because of the lower taxes that most Americans will pay but also because it speaks to McCain's lack of integrity. McCain continues to run ads which disingenuously claim a vote for Obama is a vote for higher taxes.

3. Obama is pro choice and will nominate pro choice judges for the Supreme Court. McCain has said he will be a "pro life President." Nobody is pro-abortion. It's not the role of the government to tell a woman what she can do with her own body.

If you believe in a woman's right to choose it is essential that you support Barack Obama as it's very likely the next President will be nominating 2 to 3 Supreme Court Justices. If McCain is the one nominating those judges, it's very possible that Roe V. Wade could be reversed.

4. Foreign policy. Obama showed he had superior judgment with his stance on Iraq. The things he said about the Iraq war in 2002 before it had even begun all turned out to be the truth. We need a President who has judgment and the ability to know when and where to strike. The shoot first ask questions later cowboy mentality of the Bush/Cheney administration would be made even worse by McCain who, as Pat Buchanan put it, would make "Cheney look like Gandhi."

5. International respect. George W. Bush has been a huge embarrassment for Americans. People all over the world now think of Americans as morons. Barack Obama is already loved all over the world. He is a brilliant speaker who understands the nuance of how to converse with people from different cultures. He's preferred in Europe over McCain by enormous margins. Obama as President would instantly make America popular again.

6. Health care. While I do not believe that Barack Obama's health care plan is the universal plan that our country really needs, it is a good step towards a better plan and it will help to lower health care costs. McCain's approach would hurt more than help. There would be even more people without health care with McCain as President.

7. Energy. While McCain is harping on the ridiculous non-issue of off shore drilling because he knows it plays well to the many uneducated voters in this country, it is Obama who has a real plan for energy independence. McCain's off shore drilling plan would only help to make extremely rich oil companies even more rich. It would not lower gas prices.