Ask an Atheist anything...

Apparently, today is "National Ask an Atheist Day." Who knew? Now, most people I know are not under any illusions about my beliefs, and for the most part, they play no part in my day to day life. But, if you happen to have a question about atheists or atheism that you'd like answered, hey, now's the time. Ask away, and I will do my best to provide reasonable, considered answers.

In fact, I don't even care if the question is about or relating to atheism at all. Let's make this one of those "Ask Me Anything" memes that Jaquandor likes to do over at Byzantium's Shores.

Should religion be a government service?

I've been wanting to write about this issue for a week now, but every time I read the article in question, I get so angry I can't bring myself to set down my thoughts clearly. I've taken issue with the writing of Father Raymond J. De Souza before. The man's a bit intellectually dishonest, if you ask me, and this most recent article of his highlights that like none other to date.

As mentioned in the above linked piece, the Quebec government subsidizes daycare in the Province. Not all daycares are subsidized; there are private, unsubsidized daycare centers available to any who want what they offer. However, any daycare provider who follows government guidelines can offer customers daycare for only $7 per day, with the government picking up the balance of the tab (about $40).

Until recently, the government guidelines did not address the issue of religious instruction of children in daycare centers. I mean, why would they? We're talking about children under the ages of five years old here. Surely there isn't any serious religious instruction going on, is there? Well, it seems there is - at least in some centers. According to government figures, there are over 2000 subsidized daycare providers in the Province, and it has come to light that about 100 of them are religious in nature - that is, their purpose is primarily to provide religious instruction to specific cultural groups. So, the government has moved to stop the practice, and the religious people are all up in arms about it.

Father De Souza's December 30th column in the National Post is an example of the hyperbole being bandied about.

As far as I'm concerned, the Quebec government has taken the only steps they could have, given the situation. In disseminating government funded public services, whether they be unemployment benefits, or health care, or drivers licensing, or daycare, there are only two essential requirements: universality of access, and universality of experience. Government funded public services must be, as much as possible, available to all with the same level of access, and providing the same level of service, and the same service experience to all.

If I were Jewish, and my next-door neighbour were Muslim, and we both sent our children to the same neighbourhood daycare center, and we both paid the same price to do so, that constitutes identical access to the service. However, if the daycare in question is run by a Synagogue, and provides religious instruction in Judaism to the children, and no instruction in Islaam, then that does not constitute an equal level of service. The Muslim family would be right to complain.

"But," I might say, "you can take your children to the daycare run by the Mosque. It's only ten blocks away." That might be true, but while I could walk my child one block to the local daycare center, my neighbour would have to inconvenience himself by driving ten blocks to get the same level of service. In some communities, there simply isn't another alternative. We are no longer talking about universality of access. If a government funded public service does not provide equal access and equal services to every member of society, regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual preference, it is unfair, and, quite frankly, unconstitutional.

That is what the government of Quebec is trying to fix. To hear Father De Souza tell it (and many other commentators around the web), the government is furthering some kind of anti-religion agenda.

The educational world in Quebec does not leave much room to breathe. The consensus position, as defined by the curriculum apparatchiks, must be taught without exception in all public schools, private schools and even at home. Until now, the preschoolers had escaped the stifling grasp of government. No longer.

This is, however, disingenuous. The government is not trying to prevent you from teaching your children your religion. They are simply trying to prevent you from teaching my children your religion, in a publicly funded venue, against my wishes. In order to ensure equlity of service experience in this situation, there are only two possible courses of action: either provide instruction to all children in every possible religion, or provide none. The former, being impractical, and virtually impossible, the latter becomes the only real option. To deny this is to deny a free and equal society.

The thing that makes me so angry, though, is that Father De Souza knows all this, and he doesn't care. He's trying to make it sound like someone's rights have been violated, when that just isn't the case. The entire purpose of secular government is to protect everyone's rights equally. He says:

The heart of every culture is its attitude to the big questions of human life and existence. That's why a sensible people leaves culture in the hands of the churches, the artists and the writers. Only a deeply insecure society entrusts culture to bureaucratic inquisitors. And only bureaucratic inquisitors see threats in the cradle.

But, Father De Souza, aren't you arguing in this piece that you want religious instruction in the government regulated daycares? Why don't you leave it to the churches, the artists, and the writers?

He's trying to turn the argument around, and make it sound like the the state is advancing an educational agenda, when, in truth, they are withdrawing one. Religious belief is a personal thing. Let's keep it where it belongs, in the homes and the churches of the believers, where, contrary to what Father De Souza would have you believe, it is not under attack.

Sally Anne Hates Harry Potter

Are you donating toys to The Salvation Army this year? Maybe you should rethink that.

Recent news items have brought to light the fact that many donated toys never make it the children for whom they were intended. Because the Salvation Army is a Christian organisation, any toys that are deemed "not in line with Christian principles," are rejected by the charity. This includes the most popular items for young teens this year: Harry Potter and Twilight themed merchandise.

Are these items rejected at the donation sites? No. Your donations are taken to a warehouse where they are sorted, and the $40 Harry Potter Lego game you gave, and other toys like it are separated out, and discarded. Why? According to a representative of the Sally Ann, it's because they promote the occult and black magic.

So, you decided to donate a gift this year. You chose something you thought a child might like. The charity is second guessing you, and your choice of toy might be labelled inappropriate. If you thought it was inappropriate, you wouldn't have donated it.

The Salvation Army claims that the rejected toys are sent to a third party, where they might end up being distributed to children in a different manner, but they did not deign to identify that third party, so, really, who knows?

My charitable donations will certainly be aimed somewhere else this year. Yes, I think so.


hat tip: The Friendly Atheist

In remembrance

...and in support of those who grieve:

http://awvarchive.blogspot.com/2005/09/now-of-it-all.html

http://awvarchive.blogspot.com/2006/09/weekend-assignment-remembering.html

Those posts now reside in an archive of the original Aurora Walking Vacation blog. If you feel moved to comment, please do so here, rather than there.

Everybody draw Mohammed day

This post is very important. Discuss.

So you want to play mind games...

A couple of years ago I happened across the blog of one Denyse O'Leary. One of many, actually - she maintains about fourteen, it seems, and spends most of her time contriving to link from each to all the others in an attempt to create some kind of meta black hole. Mixed in between the links to her other blogs, and the further links to her Amazon page where she hawks her books, she manages to cram in some confused, rambling anti-"Darwinist" screeds, and Intelligent Design apologetics.

I don't remember the exact matter in question, but I left a comment on one of Ms. O'Leary's posts asking what I thought was a perfectly reasonable question. The comment was deleted in extremely short order. I emailed Ms. O'Leary, asking her why she had deleted the comment, to which she replied that she only allowed comments that were truthful, or factual, or some similar descriptor. Funny, that. I had thought the point I raised was factual. What Denyse really meant was that she only allowed comments that agreed with her world view and personal opinion.

I guess those weren't all that common, as her blogs no longer accept any comments at all.

That kind of reaction, censorship in order to protect oneself against uncomfortable and inconvenient realities, is all too common in the world of "Woo." Whether it is religion, or alternative medicine, or conspiracy theory, woo-meisters will always choose to end a dialogue when presented with actual facts that are difficult for them to rebut. On another occasion, I wrote a blog post about a local Homeopath in which I discussed some of the claims she made on her public website. Rather than address my criticism of her claims, she chose to complain to my ISP, and they chose to delete my blog entry with no warning, no explanation, and no recourse.

These events are brought to mind by a couple of similar experiences I have recently had, although not with people who traditionally fall into the category of "woo." At least people who do not, at first look, appear to fall into that category...


The first instance occurred last week, when I was directed to a web forum for audiophiles. Now, audiophilia is generally not grouped in with other "woo" because it really does no harm to individuals - unless you count to the wallets of those who fall under its sway. However, the claims made by audiophiles, and by the companies that make and sell the products they buy, are equally as specious as those of any homeopath, astrologer, or Catholic Priest. On this occasion, I read a forum thread talking about accessory power cables available for high end audio equipment. Never mind the miles of questionable wire the power flows through to get to one's house, apparently changing a three foot power cable from the wall to one's amp can result in remarkable improvemments in sound.

The person who directed me to the discussion - a Grammy winning sound engineer - had spoken up to say that he had done careful listening tests and was unable to hear a difference between different power cables - or any reasonable quality speaker or interconnect cables for that matter. He was looking for some support from some reasonable and skeptical people, so I registered for the forum, and posted a reply.

I did not criticise any of the posters. I did not accuse them of lying, or of being deluded, or of being stupid. I wrote one simple, factual sentence. I said, "if you can successfully tell the difference between different cables in a controlled listening test, you can win one million dollars." That was all.

Being a brand new member, my post was not published immediately, rather directed to the moderation queue, so I determined to come back later to see if there were any replies. Later, I was unable to login to the forum. It appears that the forum moderators/administrators deleted my first and only post, and immediately IP banned me from the forum. For making a simple statement of fact.


The second thing happened just this past weekend. Have you seen the NHL commercials currently airing in which famous plays are "rewound"? The first one I saw was the one that asks, "what if Orr didn't fly," and shows Bobby's iconic goal being "unscored", and Orr flying backwards through the air to land on his feet and retreat from the net. The ads end with the line, "history will be made." I believe the suggestion is that, even if the NHL's most famous plays had never happened, new history will be made, starting in this year's playoffs.

The ads have become popular fodder for YouTube spoofs, with video creators picking out all their favourite imfamous plays, and asking, "what if..." They are being reposted all over the internet. One of my Facebook "friends" posted one to her profile showing the contentious triple overtime goal by Brett Hull that won the Stanley Cup for Dallas over Buffalo in 1999. This spoof asks the question, "what if Brett didn't cheat?" Of course, this "friend" is a Buffalo fan.

I commented on her link, pointing out that Brett did not, in fact, "cheat;" that the goal, though hotly contested by the Buffalo team, was completely legal. She promptly responded that I didn't know what I was talking about, that she was a huge hockey fan, and had been all her life, therefore she knew the goal was illegal, and that "they" had changed the rule right after that game (the inisinuation was that the NHL had somehow tried to post-legitimize Hull's goal).

Well! Anyone who knows me knows that attempting to present me with "facts" based on ideology rather than information is just begging to be schooled. I did the research. I scoured YouTube for every replay of that goal I could find so I could refresh my memory of exactly how it had unfolded. I looked up the rule in question - the crease crashing rule that was in force for only that one year - and read it carefully. I compared the details clearly visible in the replays to the rule. I then returned to comment again. I quoted the exact language of the rule that pertained to Hull's goal, and pointed out where and why in the replay it was evident that the goal was legal. I also explained that the rule wasn't changed in order to validate Hull's goal, but because it was a poorly thought out rule to start with. The rule did, in fact, do what was intended, that is, reduce the instances of players crashing the net in order to distract and impede the goaltender. Unfortunately, it also resulted in dozens of goals being called back that should not have been; goals on which there had been no goaltender interference or distraction, either intentional or inadvertent.

The response to my reply? She "unfriended" me. It was more important to her to preserve her illusions about the perceived massive NHL conspiracy against the Buffalo Sabres, than to engage in honest dialogue about the actual facts of the matter. She was just like the audiophiles, or the Homeopath, or Denyse O'Leary, all of whom chose to avoid dialogue rather than confront reality; to surround themselves with sycophants and toadies and yes-men who were willing to join them in drinking the woo kool-aid.

Me, I choose to live in the world of fact, and deal with uncomfortable realities as they present themselves.

Atheists day?

   I have read it all over the Internet that today, April first, is "Atheists Day." I don't know who came up with that idea, but I can't imagine it was an Atheist. More likely it was a Christian, who thought he or she was being oh-so-clever throwing around Bible quotes like, "the fool has said in his heart, There is no God." Psalms 14:1.
   In response, I can only, humbly, offer another piece of scripture. "Whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." Matthew 5:22

   Why would an atheist come up with the idea that April Fools Day should be called Atheists Day? Indeed, why would an atheist think we need any day at all? It isn't athesists who are all about public exultation. We're perfectly happy to believe what we believe, without trying to impose our beliefs on any others. If I remember my scripture, it isn't Christian to be all about public exultation either. Didn't Jesus rebuke his disciples for public prayer?
   Because, let's be honest, public prayer isn't about exultation of God, is it? It's about exultation of the self. "Look at me, I'm all righteous, and stuff!" To those who want to spout off in public about their piety all the time, I recommend a thorough and careful reading of The Book of Job. Don't come back until you understand what Job's sin was. Then let's talk.
   How's Easter for you?

Something to celebrate?

   There has been a fair amount of squawk in the atheist/humanist blogosphere over the recently announced results of the latest American Religious Identification Survey, ARIS 2008.The survey appears to show a significant increase in the number of atheists and agnostics in America, accompanied by a matching drop in numbers of Catholics and Protestants. There has been much hooting and hurrahing, and raising of hands in celebration, as if this were some kind of victory, in some kind of contest.
   Leaving aside the question of whether or not this is an appropriate thing to celebrate, I'm not sure the celebrants are feting the right thing. I don't know that they are correctly interpreting these results. Are there really more non-religious people in the USA now then there were in 2001, the last time this study was undertaken? Or is something else going on?
   The most important point to remember is that this is a study of religious self-identification. What do you call yourself? The secular community has always recognised that the non-religious have long been under represented in surveys. Most non-religious people are not activist atheists; they are just people for whom religion has no place in their lives. They never think about it. But if they were raised in a Catholic, or Baptist, or Jewish household, that's the little tick they make on the survey. It is an answer stemming from culture, rather than religious belief in many cases.
   Over the past eight years, we've seen a dramatic upsurge in the visibility of atheism and secularism in our every day lives. There are a couple of different reasons for this.
   First, we've seen several best-selling books on atheism from authors such as Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins. Additionally, the advent of the popularity of blogging has many people expressing themselves in ways they never have before - and many more able to easily find information on atheism/agnosticism than ever.
   Second, there have been several high profile court cases dealing with seperation of church and state issues. Along with focus on the previous administration's rather liberal (heh) interpretation of the constitution, these have brought secularism under a microscope in America in a way it never has been before.
   The offshoot of all this is that more Americans than ever before are thinking about what it means to be agnostic, or to be an atheist. More Americans than ever before are considering whether or not the USA truly is a nation founded on Christian ideals, as the religious right would have you believe, or whether it was, in fact, envisioned and created as a secular nation.
   More Americans are looking at that questionaire, and stopping, and thinking, "what am I?" There aren't really more atheists in America than there were eight years ago. There are just more people willing to be honest when answering that survey than there were before.
   And maybe there is cause to celebrate that.

Do you have biblical morals?

So, does this mean I have no morals...?

Your morality is 0% in line with that of the bible.

Damn you heathen! Your book learnin' has done warped your mind. You shall not be invited next time I sacrifice a goat.

Do You Have Biblical Morals?
Take More Quizzes

Or does it just mean I got my morals from somewhere other than The Bible?

Hey, what did you score?

via Pharyngula

More right wing spin rears its ugly head

Natalie, in a comment in my previous post said, "Actually many children are now feeling the brunt edge of discrimination in schools and rec centers." I agree with that statement wholeheartedly. I have read numerous accounts of young people who have questioned religion, or publicly professed their atheism being ostracized, bullied, had their belongings stolen or vandalized... Oh, wait. Natalie was talking about something else:

The government has seen to it that children of different religions including Christianity, Judaism, Sheiks, Hindus who wish to pray may not...

it is encouraged that these children are made fun of...

It is encouraged that these children are laughed at in class...

Really? Are religious children - including Christian children - being made fun of in schools? Are the other children being encouraged, by their peers or their teachers - the inference is unclear - to ridicule their religious classmates? These are outrageous accusations, and, well, I'm skeptical. Natalie, I'm going to have to ask you to provide some corroborating evidence to back up those statements, because I think they're (pardon the strong language) Bullshit.

Send me some links to news articles describing the events mentioned above. If you have them. I won't be surprised if you don't. I won't be even the slightest bit tempted to raise an eyebrow if you cannot support a single one of those statements.

See, Nat, I think you are much like Fred was, simply repeating things you have heard as if they are gospel truth. Unless you can back up those claims, I am going to dismiss them.

As for the other things you said in your comment, about the respecting the "historical" religious aspects of your country's founding, you are sadly mistaken. You should study some history, Nat. The founding fathers of your nation - the ones whose signatures grace the Declaration of Independence - were, for the most part, either weak Deists, Agnostics, or outright Atheists. Your country was founded on secular ideals, not religious ones. The appearance of God on your currency did not happen until almost a century after the founding of the country, and He did not find his way into your Pledge of Allegiance until almost another century after that. So your over-the-top hyperbole about dropping our Judeo-Christian roots in the trash can is just so much dishonest jibber-jabber. What has long been dropped in the trash can are the secular ideals of your founding fathers. The revolutionary ideas they had, and fought for, and are the very basis of what made America great, are being undermined and discarded on a daily basis by the current power brokers of your nation.

Why?

At some point in the comments on the previous post, Fred said, "I don't see why you bother." He meant by that statement, why do I bother with these posts about skepticism, about critical thinking, about atheism? The irony in the question is that Fred is a perfect example of why I bother.

Here we have Fred, not uneducated, clearly intelligent, worldly and experienced, a self-professed agnostic verging on atheist, a believer in evolution, and yet... And yet, there he is in the comments section of my blog, repeating every anti-science talking point in the Answers In Genesis debunk-the-Darwinists playbook. Now, I'm pretty sure Fred doesn't even know who Answers In Genesis is, but he knows how to parrot all of their dishonest arguments. I mean, we could start a drinking game here. Take a drink of your beer every time Fred repeats another AIG anti-science canard. Hey, here's the "evolution is just a theory" angle ::slurp:: Oh, look, it's the "where are the transitional fossils" rebuttal ::gulp:: Whoops, did he just say, "belief in evolution requires faith?" ::guzzle:: Whoa, we've been playing for, what, thirty seconds? I'm already tipsy. I hope he doesn't bring up the 'crocoduck.' Rules say I gotta down a whole bottle in one go for that one.

Fred is an illustration of just how successful the propaganda machine of the evangelical Christian right is in America. They have been able to reach right into his psyche and supplant any kind of science knowledge Fred may have once had with their own mis-information. And he isn't even the slightest bit aware of what is wrong with the points he has been raising here. Why, in his most recent comment to date, he says that evolution "isn't the most solid theory science has going." Yet, all he'd have to do is read the link I suggested in my very first reply to him to find that statement is inaacurate. Evolution, as a scientific "theory," is more solidly supported by concrete evidence than any other scientific theory in existence. We are more sure of evolution than we are of how gravity works. But the religious right would have him deny that truth, in favour of their own 'truth.' They would have us all deny any evidence that seems to contradict their slap-dash collection of 3000 year-old folk tales.

And they're winning. Fred is the evidence of that. They are slowly, but surely chipping away at the foundations of right and reason the founding fathers of the United States used as the basis for their vision of a new country. They are creating a nation of Freds; a nation of people who just don't care; a nation of people who think science is something that never touches their lives.

Why do I bother? Why don't you bother? I cannot understand why every single person with a basic understanding of science isn't standing up in the public square and calling out The Discovery Institute, and Answers In Genesis, and all their ilk for the liars and deceivers they are.

Come on, point and laugh. It's what they deserve.

Secularists, Humanists and Atheists, oh my!

Fred (an excellent writer - check out his stuff) wrote a post about his impression that God - well, religion - well, specifically the Christian religion - is under attack in America.

I am not the most religious of men. I don't remember the last time I was in a place of worship, other than as a tourist or a wedding guest. But I recognize that religion is under attack in this country. And, it's not all religion, just Christianity. Because, I don't believe for a minute that the same sort of message would be allowed on Metro buses and trains about Allah. (link)

Yeah, you know I couldn't resist.

I posted a couple of comments on that entry, but my most recent reply became quite involved, so, as is my wont, I turned it into a blog post of my own. Also, I like commas.

You should pop over there to catch up on the conversation so far, then come on back here and read my response.

Here's what I wrote:

Dear Fred,
As I said in my most recent comment on your blog entry about religion, your views on atheism, secularism, and science are somewhat misguided. Don't feel bad. You are being lied to every day by the religious right about what the secularist message actually is. They lie about what the US constitution really says, and they lie about the history of your nation. They lie, bald-faced and unashamed, because it is the only effective tool they have in the fight to protect their "Truth." Funny, that.

Below, I have selected several points you made in your last comment to me, and attempted to explain where your understanding of the topic is erroneous.

1) "The percentage of people who regularly attend church, the people who ARE battling the atheist, is only a little more than 25%. The rest don't care enough one way or the other to even notice unless there's something in the news about religion."

-Wrong. In a February, 2007 Gallup poll , 53% percent of respondents said they would not vote for a "generally well qualified" presidential candidate if that candidate were an atheist. So, significantly more than just 25% of religious people are discriminatory towards non-believers. Over half of the population of the United States believes that a lack of belief in God should disqualify someone from holding high public office. No other minority group is reviled as strongly in America as atheists. The moderates are as intolerant as the fundies.

2) Evolution is an atheistic view.

-Wrong. Evolution is a scientific view. It does not claim that God does not exist. It simply demonstrates that there are perfectly rational and natural ways to explain our existence. God might be out there, or not, but whether he is, or isn't, is impossible to determine by looking at our world. There is nothing in our observable reality for which, "God diddit," is the only possible explanation. Science does not preclude the explanation, "God diddit," but it does not find any evidence to support it either. Science is agnostic on the topic of God.

3) "...atheists [are] fighting to keep creationsm from being taught."

-Wrong. Atheists are not fighting to keep creationism out of the classroom. Secularists are fighting to keep creationism out of the science classroom. To you, the disctinction may be a fine one, but it is a very important one. Creationism, or Intelligent Design if you like, does not use science, or the scientific method as a basis for investigation of the world. The Discovery Institute standing up and saying, "it is so science," doesn't make it so. In order to be science, they have to do science. They don't. Reading the Bible and saying, "there, that's how it is," is not science. If creationists want to teach their views in a comparative religion, or philosophy course, I have no problem with that. But teaching it in the science classroom is like teaching kids flower arranging in auto shop class - just plain wrong.

4) "But the attacks aren't aimed at those vague psychological teachings, they are aimed at the church."

-Wrong. Putting aside the topic of whether or not the word 'attack' is appropriate here, the problem is that those "vague psychological teachings" aren't telling people that they are the be-all and end-all of reality. Freud's ideas are pretty much dismissed today, but he is still taught as a historical reference to the science. But every psych student alive will tell you that, "sometimes a stairway is just a stairway." Psychology is taught as a theoretical science. Religion is taught as the only one truth. You cannot compare the two. No scientist will tell you you're going to burn in a lake of fire for all eternity if you disagree with him.

5) "While they concentrate on keeping their children out of church, they don't see them heading for the mosque."

-Wrong. That's just silly, and the fact you make that statement at all shows how poorly you understand the secular movement. I don't fear the church, or the mosque. I am raising my son to think for himself. If he tells me one day he wants to attend a church, I won't stop him. And the reason we aren't focussing on the Moslem (or any other) religion goes to our goals, which are not destruction of the church. They are freedom for all, not just freedom for all who agree with me. As I said in an earlier comment, black people don't want to kill all whiteys - they just want all the same rights and freedoms as we enjoy. And gay people don't want to tear apart all existing heterosexual marriages - they just want to be able to enjoy the same legal protections we already have. Atheists have no interest in making all religion go away. We just want equal treatment for all - including Moslems, and every other religion. The reason we don't "pick on" other religions is because the other religions don't exercise undue political power in our society the way the Christian church does.

Of course, if you feel that black people should still be on the plantation, and that gays deserve to be stoned to death, and that women exist solely for the gratification of men, then you won't understand any of these arguments anyway.

A post with meat

A recent editorial in the Toronto Sun caught my eye. Alan Shanoff wrote about a religious group in Alberta called the Hutterian Brethren, who are arguing before the Supreme Court of Canada that they should be exempt from having their pictures taken for driver's licenses. It seems the Hutterian Brethren take very literally the second commandment, which states, in part:

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth (Exodus 20:4).

According to the Brethren, this commandment prevents them from voluntarily having their picture taken, which they interpret as 'making an idol.' Leaving off the fact that they seem to be quoting the verse out of context, and misinterpreting their own scripture, their argument is that the Government of Alberta, in refusing to issue driver's licenses to people who decline to have their picture taken, is infringing on their right to freely practice their religion.

Actually, their argument is slightly more complex than that. According to the Shanoff article, the Government of Alberta is preventing them from "continuing their communal way of life." Whatever that means.

Those of you who have been reading AWV for a while probably know my response to this. As I did for Mr. Balinder Badesha a few months ago, I have a couple of questions for the Hutterian Brethren:

1) Does your religion prevent you from posing for a driver's license photo?

We know the answer to this question, because it is the basis of their argument before the Supreme Court. (In case you weren't paying attention, their answer to the first question is, "yes."

2) Does your religion require you to operate a motor vehicle?

Now, here's the thing, uh, Brethren. If you try to answer, "yes," to this one, I'm gonna hafta ask for some kinda, you know, documentation. You're gonna hafta show me where, in your Holy Book, God says, "thou shalt operate motorized vehicles on public roadways." 'Cause, you know, I've read it, and I'm pretty sure that isn't in there.

So, for the record: requiring you to adhere to the law does not, in any way, infringe upon your right to believe silly things. Case dismissed.



Also, Alberta beef. Mmmm!