OK, anger it is

Honestly, the sheer cheek of some people is breathtaking.

Not content with his spectacular and very public failure to predict something that will never occur, Harold Camping is now at it again. The Rapture won't be on May 21st 2011 but October 21st 2011, after all that.

Quite why this date is a dead cert when the previously predicted two also were and then weren't is not clear. I'll have a guess though. It has something to do with Harold Camping being a clueless lying fuckwit trying to impose his ridiculous interpretations of a ridiculous superstition on the real world, then desperately trying to cover it up when it all goes tits up because he knows the truly stupid won't miss a beat as they accept this new date and his rationalisations.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say the real world is going to win this one. Again.

The sad thing is that people will still suck this shit right up and pretend its chocolate. Who knows though, maybe it'll be third time lucky. But I wouldn't cancel any plans you have for the 22nd October 2011.
Embiggen!

Pity? Anger? Amusement? I'm just not sure

Well, you didn't really think I was going to let the failed Rapture pass without comment, did you?

Now, I'm honestly not sure exactly what I should be feeling about this whole thing. Should I pity the people who believed Harold Camping and gave up money and more? Should I dismiss them as gullible and stupid? Should I feel they got what they deserved for their lack of critical thinking and arrogance? Should I direct my feelings towards Camping in the form of anger and disgust? Or should I just point and laugh?

Right now, I'm going for a mixture of most of the above. But I think I can rule out pity, except for the innocent victims. Those who have no college fund now because their parents are fucking morons. Those who will suffer because others fell for this fast burning stupidity.

Let's start with the obvious

I read with some amusement this article on the BBC news website this morning: 'Rapture': Believers perplexed after prediction fails. Quoth the article:

Some believers expressed bewilderment or said it was a test from God of their faith, after the day passed without event.

I have a much more simple and obvious explanation for this whole thing. One that is stark in its simplicity and fits the facts with the least amount of assumptions: its not real. There is no Rapture and there never will be. Being bewildered by there being no Biblical Rapture as predicted is as ridiculous and absurd as being bewildered by the fact that Skynet has not destroyed the human race yet. They're both made up, hence won't really happen.

Simple. No need for bewilderment or perplexity.

Robert Fitzpatrick, a retired transportation agency worker in New York, said he had spent more than $140,000 (£86,000) of his savings on advertisements in the run-up to 21 May to publicise the prediction.


After 1800 passed and nothing had happened, he said: "I do not understand why... I do not understand why nothing has happened."

"I can't tell you what I feel right now. Obviously, I haven't understood it correctly because we're still here."

Obviously. Or maybe, just maybe its not real.


But real harm has been and will be done

Let's not pretend though that this was just a few gullible or misguided (or just plain stupid) people doing something harmless - real damage has been, or is being, done. Not to mention creationists just adding to the stupid. MSNBC and the BBC both point out the vast sums spent by people, life savings gone. There were people who harmed themselves and others thinking the end was coming. There is a very real risk of people committing suicide through fear, depression and anxiety caused by this.

This was not harmless. Its easy to laugh until you realise people will suffer for it. At first I hoped people would start taking a pound of flesh from Camping and his organisation. But then I realised they only have themselves to blame. You can't hold Camping responsible for the fact that people gave themselves willingly to his delusion. It wasn't a scam. It was religion.

I don't see a difference between them myself. A scam is someone taking your money for something that isn't real. Sounds like religion to me.

The problem isn't Camping. The problem is that religion enables people like Camping. Religion isn't harmless. This is what happens when you take things on faith.


It's hard to feel sympathy for people this dumb

Then, just as I think I do feel some sympathy for the people who fell for it, you come across people this stupid (and a little scary, to be honest), quoted in both the BBC and MSNBC articles:

"I had some scepticism but I was trying to push the scepticism away because I believe in God," said Keith Bauer, who travelled 4,830km (3,000 miles), from Maryland to California, where Mr Camping's Family Radio is based, for the Rapture.


"I was hoping for it because I think heaven would be a lot better than this Earth," said Mr Bauer, a tractor-trailer driver, who took the week off work for the voyage.

Apparently Keith Bauer and I use different definitions of the term 'scepticism'. I wasn't aware that scepticism of the Rapture meant believing in it and taking your family across the continental USA for a week to get ready for the thing you are sceptical of. That sounds like blind credulous acceptance to me. Perhaps it was a typo. Twice. From different sources. Or, perhaps Bauer is a credulous buffoon who got what he deserved. I feel sorry for his family. I especially feel sorry for his family since he apparently thinks hanging out on Earth with them is a bit shit.

"I had some scepticism that I wouldn't burn myself if I put my hand in the fire, but I tried to push that away because I believe I am fireproof."

That's no different to what Bauer said, but we're supposed to believe one is not stupid and one is.

I also can't help but feel somewhat unnerved by people who believe that what we have right here, right now is not as good as something that we can't even prove exists. It's easy to rationalise killing if you think you're doing the person a favour. That you are sending them to a better place.
 

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
-- Voltaire

 
So, I find myself with no sympathy for Keith Bauer, and he deserves every problem he suffers through for this. And just to reinforce this, MSNBC adds a further quote from him:
 

Then he added, "It's God who leads you, not Harold Camping."

Really? Then why were you following Harold Camping, Mr Bauer?

Then, you have people making excuses for the stupid people. Again, from the BBC article:

A group from the Calvary Bible Church in Milpitas, California, organised a Sunday morning service to comfort believers in Mr Camping's preaching, the New York Times reported.


"We are here because we care about these people," the newspaper quoted James Bynum, a church deacon, as saying. "It's easy to mock them. But you can go kick puppies, too. But why?"

Because the puppies didn't get themselves in a position to be kicked. They are innocent. Camping and those who believed him are not - they willingly went along with the whole thing. If you can't understand that distinction, you should keep your mouth shut on the topic. I applaud the effort to provide help to these people, but don't pretend the situation they are in is anything but of their own making. This was not an accident beyond their control - they went in eyes wide open.

I feel no sympathy for people who allow their greed to override their common sense and who lose all their money in a scam, just like I have no sympathy for people whose arrogance led them to believe God was coming to take them away to a better place on the say so of someone just as delusional as them.

Still believe there was no way these people could suspect something might not be quite right (apart from it all being made up anyway, obviously)?

He [Camping] has predicted an apocalypse once before, in 1994, though followers now say that only referred to an intermediary stage.

The people who went willingly and lost deserve no sympathy, its the people they dragged with them that deserve the sympathy.
 
But don't blame Harold Camping - he didn't force anyone to believe him, and don't pretend that the 'victims' have anyone to blame but themselves.
 
And if you are a person of faith shaking your head at this whole thing and patting yourself on the back for not believing in this particular predicted Rapture then you're a hypocrite - you have no right to feel smug. The faith that led people to believe Camping is the same faith as yours. After all, you think there will be a Rapture to, you're just not certain of the date. From my point of view, there's no difference between you and the people who followed Camping. Its like saying people who believe in the Jedi are silly when you believe in Elves.
 
It's all very silly.
Embiggen!

More Catholic excuses

I say more, but what I really mean is "More of the same." A recent anonymous comment was added to an older post about the Catholic Church desperately trying to find anyone to blame but themselves for the recent and ongoing child sex abuse scandals revealed in multiple countries around the world. Rather than try to fit my reply into a couple of seperate comments thanks to bloggers annoying comment length limit, I thought that it was a good excuse for a new post, since I've been quiet for a while.

Our intrepid anonymous commenter (henceforth known as Beatrice) basically trotted out two excuses used with disturbing monotony by the Church and its apologists:

1. But it wasn't every priest doing it.
2. Blame it on the gays. If there were no gays, this wouldn't have happened.

Seen it before, often out of the mouths of very senior members of the Church. They were both bullshit the first time we heard them, and they're still bullshit now.


Let's look at what was said about number 1

Beatrice opened with:

I enjoy reading comments like these. I'm hoping to be a Catholic priest myself and I'd rather the church just flat out say we screwed up.

Not sure why the post brought so much enjoyment, but I think you'll agree by the time we get to the end that it may have something to do with the fact that Beatrice either didn't read it or didn't understand it. And the Church saying "We screwed up" really doesn't quite seem to do the widespread physical and sexual abuse of children across the world for centuries much justice, does it?

"Sorry about that whole slavery thing. Our bad."

Then on to the meat:

To add a bit more rationality to the picture, technically only 0.3% of priests have molested children.

The irony of someone believing in an invisible sky fairy lecturing others on rationality seems to have skipped by Beatrice completely.

But where does this number come from? I'm going to go out on a limb and say pulled out of Beatrice's arse. No source is immediately cited, no figures given for the conclusion. How does Beatrice know how many priests have raped children? Even the Church can't say how many priests have raped children, how does Beatrice therefore arrive at this figure?

Here's a piece of advice Beatrice - making up numbers or misusing them does not make for a rational argument except in the most esoteric and worthless philosophical sense. Here it will get you laughed out of the room.

It is this simple - WE DON'T KNOW HOW MANY PRIESTS HAVE MOLESTED CHILDREN. Therefore, claiming only a certain number of them has is bullshit. What we do know is the tiny number who have been caught. Perhaps then Beatrice is referring to the fact that only 0.3% of priests have been caught molesting children (we'll see later, but this 0.3% seems to actually be that, out of reported instances of child abuse in the USA in 2006 priests made up only 0.3% of the perpetrators, Beatrice seems to have misread this, but for now we'll go with their reading of the figure).

According to the Catholic Church there were (in 2009) 5,065 bishops and 410,593 priests. Lets just say that only priests molest children, for the sake of argument. That's 1,272 priests in 2009 alone.

The problem is, these scandals don't cover just one time period, they cover centuries. The church has been getting away with it for that long. Take a look here. The numbers start to add up very quickly just in modern times alone. 200 here, 58 there, 22 in that place. Then take a look at the damage just one priest can do. Some of these evil bastards had dozens, and in some extreme cases possibly hundreds, of victims each.

But here's more to think about. We know that most sexual assaults go unreported just in society at large. That link cites sources claiming that as many as two thirds of rapes/assaults go unreported in the USA. That is in an open society with a well developed legal and judicial system. We know that the Catholic Church is the exact opposite of this. If that figure cited by Beatrice is only a third of the rapists (for simplicities sake) then that means there could have been as many as 3,816 rapist priests in 2009 alone. If you look at a closed hierarchical system more like the Catholic Church, say the US military, then the number of unreported sexual assaults can become horrific - the Pentagon estimates that 90% of assaults go unreported. So if that figure of Beatrice's is the 10% of reported rapists, that means there were 12,720 rapist priests in 2009 alone, correct? Wow. That figure ain't looking so rosy now, is it?

But that would be only if everywhere in the world was just like the world's most developed democracy, wouldn't it? Take another look at the Wikipedia page I linked to on Catholic sex scandals. Notice anything about the countries cited? They are overwhelmingly from the developed or 'nearly' developed world. Not many from the third world, are there? Anyone think of a reason why sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church aren't being reported from failed states, isolated missionary posts and states with endemic corruption or incompetence? Anyone seriously believe that there is no sexual abuse going on where people are less likely to find it and do something about it?

No, me neither.

So, what we have is only the few cases we've found in places where it is eventually likely to be found and something done about it. We have evidence of what Catholic priests do when they think no-one will catch them or care. In fact, from what we see of the Jesuits in Alaska we know the Catholic church will dump pedophiles where they think no-one will find them - there are more likely to be rotten priests in the third world countries where we won't catch them. Where they can get away with it at will.

The simple fact of the matter is that Beatrice's 0.3% figure is a disgusting attempt to excuse the inexcusable by painting a rosy picture using dodgy numbers - it is a cast iron assumption to believe the abuse that has come to light in recent years is merely the tip of the iceberg. I shudder to think what is going on in parishes out of the sight of the developed world's media and law enforcement, because I can guarantee it isn't better than it was here.

That number is obviously still higher than it should be.

No. Really? That number is also bullshit. It is misinterpreted and meaningless and does not take into account what we know about repressive or controlling organisations and the reporting of sexual crimes.

That number also does nothing to excuse or explain the Catholic Churches consistent, constant and unrepentant covering up of child rape by its members. It wouldn't matter if it was only two priests if the Catholic Church successfully kept it secret and just moved them around and around. Which, if it hadn't been caught, it would still be doing (and, let's face it, almost certainly is still doing). The Catholic Church enabled the repeated rape of children and didn't care - it only cared when it got caught. Because of this it doesn't matter if it is 0.3% of priests or 100% of priests. The Catholic Church lays claim to moral authority and states that I have none because I am an atheist - yet which of us has covered up mass incidences of child rape? Which of us continues to do so?

Furthermore, most Catholic priests really don't know why there were these priests who decided to be go off the deep end.

Irrelevant. And I notice it didn't stop you spouting your own theory, which we will get to shortly.

From another perspective, understand that there is the church, which is the largest humanitarian organization in the world and mostly filled with plenty of good people, and the church which has a select number of d bags too afraid to say the truth in fear that people will run away when some priests screw up.

Again, this is irrelevant. If you as an organisation cover up and/or participate in the mass rape and physical abuse of children I don't give a flying fuck what other good you do, you should be broken up and scattered to the winds to be looked upon with disgust by future generations. Still need an outlet for humanitarian aid? Join the Red Cross. Work for the UN. They don't make excuses for chronic pedophiles.

This yahoo question also adds a bit of historical reason into the seen. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100903000552AAaJd49

Ah, now I see where that 0.3% number comes from. And I was close, its a misreading of old data, rather than just made up. Still classifies as "pulled from the arse" though. The figures are from 2006 - before many of the large abuse scandals came to light, and they only represent figures in the USA, not the world. And then the comment by imacatholic2 at the Yahoo link also relys on reports from....you guessed it.... the Catholic Church! Well, they're a reliable source for this data. Why, it isn't like we know that the Catholic Church knowingly covered up child sexual abuse or something, is it? I can't imagine why it would be that the Catholic Church might report only a few cases of abuse in the USA between 2000 and 2007, when it was still getting away with covering this shit up because the tide hadn't yet turned. Especially since we now know for a fact that there were not 15 cases but hundreds. For crying out loud, iamacatholic2 starts his comment off with "A few Catholic priests..." Not sure which dictionary definition of "few" he is using, but it isn't the same as mine.

Beatrice - using out of date data, biased sources and demonstrably false claims to support your argument really isn't going to help you.


What about "the gays"?

Also rationally,

Stop saying that if you don't know what it means. Citing someones bigoted opinion from a Yahoo answers page does not make your argument rational Beatrice. It makes you look lazy and bigoted.

if most of these molestation cases were performed on mostly boys, and often by men who were gay priests

How do you know that the priests performing the abuse were "often" gay men? Cite your source that the majority of the abuse was carried out by gay men because they were gay. Go on, we've got time.

Here's how I know you didn't really read the post you were commenting on Beatrice, I actually cited sources that show pedophilia is not something done because of homosexuality, or even exclusively by homosexuals. Pedophiles often can't be shoved into a convenient box labelled "gay" or "not gay". If you had bothered to read the post you commented on, you would have seen this. If you did read it, then maybe you should try understanding it. For the record, here's the report I cited, again. At least try to understand what it is saying this time.

who were gay priests, who entered the priesthood because in the 1950s and 1960s when being gay was so frowned upon there literally was no where else to go

See now Beatrice, this is what happens when you take your ideas from ignorant and poorly educated bigots who provide Yahoo answers. I think you'll find that 1950s and 1960s Europe and North America were not 13th century France. Were conditions for homosexuals great in the 50s and 60s? Hell no. Did families ship their sons off to the church? Don't be ridiculous. Literally nowhere else to go? Literally, the only thing for a gay man to do in the 1950s was to join the priesthood? The Catholic priesthood. The anti gay Catholic priesthood.

You know, you can't find the word "gullible" in the dictionary Beatrice. True fact.

But go on, you made the claim, now prove it. Start with an accurate estimate (show your working) of how many gay men there must have been in the USA in the 1950s and 60s. Then how many of these were from Catholic families. Then compare that to the number entering the priesthood in those decades. We can wait. They had nowhere else to go after all. Literally.

and a hand full of these same priests did this garbage it's still not surprising that the Vatican doesn't want to see anymore gay priests With the backlash against the church being this high for this the church would want to do everything it could to prevent this from happening.

Being gay has nothing to do with pedophilia Beatrice, you and the Catholic Church need to get over it. Can you even show that the rapist priests we know about now are gay? Any of them? Can you then show the only reason they did what they did was because of their homosexuality and nothing else?

No, of course you can't. You know what a claim without evidence is Beatrice? It's a guess.

I prefer the term bullshit myself, but I'm not going to split hairs this late in the game.

I have another theory, one completely supported by the evidence. Do you know what all of those child rapist priests were, for definite? They were all of them, 100%, every single one, Catholic. Homosexuality doesn't seem to be the one thing they have in common, does it? Catholicism is the one thing they have in common. Now, if I were to play this game the way the Church does I could claim that being Catholic seems to turn some people into child abusers and you have absolutely nothing you can say that disputes this. The evidence supports me 100%.

But I don't play the Churches way. I'm not that kind of scum.

After all, as bad as this sounds, a straight individual isn't going to molest a boy.

Wrong. You know, in the days of Google, this type of ignorance is unforgiveable. Let me give you the money quote from the report I cited:

The distinction between a victim's gender and a perpetrator's sexual orientation is important because many child molesters don't really have an adult sexual orientation. They have never developed the capacity for mature sexual relationships with other adults, either men or women. Instead, their sexual attractions focus on children – boys, girls, or children of both sexes...

Try reading what is written and then understanding it, before commenting on it. "Straight" pedophiles can, and do, molest children of their own sex Beatrice.

But that doesn't really describe the whole picture here. What is really at question is the chilidsh notion that whilst adult heterosexuals are considered only to want to have sex with adult members of the opposite sex, it is assumed that homosexual adults must want to have sex with anyone of the same sex, regardless of age. Why is this? I'll tell you. It isn't evidence based, it is naked prejudice, pure and simple.

Homosexuality isn't the cause of pedophilia, pedophilia is the cause of pedophilia. Adult homosexuals want to have sex with consenting adult homosexuals just like adult heterosexuals want to have sex with consenting adult heterosexuals. Pedophiles want to have sex with children. Some pedophiles are homosexual. Many more pedophiles are heterosexual. Only ignorant half wits confuse homosexuality with pedophilia and conflate the two. I also don't hear heterosexuality being blamed for instances of child abuse by priests. You should think long and hard about what that says about your prejudices.

But, there's even more. And it is the logical gaping hole in your allegedly rational argument. If these priests were just gay, why didn't they simply do what other gay men do and seek out other gay men to have sex with? Why didn't they just not have sex with anybody instead of raping children? Is there something about being a priest that makes gay men attack children? Then the problem is with the priesthood, surely? Especially since we know straight priests have raped children as well. Why, it seems the common factor here is once again the Catholic priesthood and not sexuality at all. Being gay doesn't seem to be the problem at all, when you look at it rationally.

For the simpleminded who still don't get it I'll spell it out:

1. Homosexuality does not equal pedophilia.
2. Pedophilia does not equal homosexuality.
3. There is no evidence that all, or even most, or even many, of the abusers were homosexual, but that is given by many Catholics as the reason for much of the abuse.
4. The one thing the abusers did all have in common was being Catholic, for which there is evidence, but no-one blames that for the abuse like they do homosexuality, for which there is no evidence. Why?
5. How does blaming homosexuality excuse and explain the comprehensive attempt to cover the abuse up, protect the abusers and ignore the victims? The people who did that were Catholic too. Spotting a connection yet?

So, here I am going to stick my neck out. Is the problem actually pedophilia and the fact that these men know that they will be safe in the priesthood and have a ready supply of victims?

I think for any rational person, the answer is obvious.
Embiggen!

Health and prayer, and why God can't lose

The job I started last year takes me into a lot of hospitals, and a large percentage of them are actually religious institutions - and all of these religious facilities are Christian. I find these latter hospitals strangely contradictory places that, without knowing it, are particularly damning of the idea that prayer works. I've been going to these places for a few months now and had the vague feeling I wanted to blog about them but wasn't sure how and why, until recently when a number of things intersected and gave me a direction to take. One day I saw a picture in one facility that, in equal measures, creeped me out, made me laugh out loud and certainly cemented my decision never to have surgery there. Just before I saw the picture and afterwards, there were then a number of medical scares to close family members (one of my children and my dad) and finally I've been reading "Why Won't God Heal Amputees?" Which I've linked to before and flicked through but never taken the time, until now, to read in its entirety.

In all honesty, if you've ever taken the time to read "Why Won't God Heal Amputees?" then none of this should be new to you. But it is my take on some of the ideas presented there with a couple of new bits thrown in. If you haven't read it then why the hell not? It is much better than anything I've ever written on the topic!

How do people get sick anyway?

When the health scares hit it occurred to me that the religious in my family would no doubt be urging prayer and praying themselves, and I did get one "God bless" sent my way. And all I could think was, "If prayer worked, then these people wouldn't be sick, would they?" After all, people don't ask for health scares or medical emergencies in their prayers do they? People don't pray along the lines of "Dear God, please send me or a family member a stroke." Do they? No, of course not. What they pray for is good health for themselves and their loved ones. The fact that people get sick shows, in my opinion, that at best God isn't always listening to prayers or that a great many self proclaimed religious people only pray when they think they really need to, and then usually out of fear or greed. At worst (at least for those who believe prayer works) the fact that people get sick is further proof that prayer doesn't work.

If God answers prayers, if prayer actually does work, if God can actually grant prayers, then why do people get sick? Nobody prays for themselves or a loved one to develop an illness, so how is it that people get sick? Shouldn't the only sick people be the atheist, agnostic or non-practising?

Not that old Chestnut...

This leads to another old chestnut that skeptics and atheists have long talked about: How God can't lose.

People pray for others to get better when they are ill. When they do so, and the person gets better, more often than not people will grant the recovery to God and prayer, to either a great or a small extent. But, if God has the power to cure an illness, doesn't he have the power to prevent one? But do you ever hear someone saying that a loved ones cancer is God's fault? Apart from scum like Fred Phelps and the truly fanatical gloating over the deaths of people who don't hold to the same superstitions, do you ever hear people blaming bad things on God? No, you don't. Because bad things are not God's fault, apparently. If there are 1,000 people on a sinking ship and 1 of them survives, some people will inevitably call it a miracle and attribute it to God. That 999 died is ignored. Miracles are God's work apparently, tragedies not so much. The thing that is ignored is that if God can save 1 person, he can save the other 999 and yet didn't. But no-one blames God for 999 deaths. They praise him for 1 life saved. In other words, no matter what, God can't lose. Bad things aren't his doing, but good things are.

A good recent example of this is the so called  "Miracle on the Hudson". Of course, some people immediately gave the credit for this remarkable and extraordinary piece of flying to God - people immediately started calling it a miracle. Some even got upset when the pilot didn't himself attribute the landing to God. But, if this one triumph of skill and preparation was God's work and not the crew of flight 1549, then he is very hit and miss. But does anyone ever blame God for not doing anything? For allowing these other accidents to happen?

Mulling over these sorts of questions recently prompted me to post this on my Facebook status:

Dear God,

Instead of letting people get sick and then apparently curing them after a harrowing experience for all involved, how about not letting them get sick in the first place?

Regards
Jim

...PS. And why do you always wait until after the medical attention from dedicated professionals, what's that about? Makes it look like maybe it wasn't you at all...

The same could be said for almost any bad experience that a person goes through where a successful outcome is subsequently attributed to God. If God can cure the sickness, then God let them get sick in the first place. Wouldn't it be much more loving to not let them get sick anyway? At the very least it is a lot less showy. It's kind of like setting a building alight so you can impress people with your firefighting skills, isn't it? If God has the power to improve people's lives by curing them then how about he just stops them getting sick in the first place? Everyone's time is saved and no-one has to go through any horrific or traumatic or painful illnesses.

In fact, if you are a believer in Intelligent Design or creationism then you readily accept that illness is God's doing. In fact, if you are a Biblical literalist, you readily accept that illness and death are God's doing. So, how come no-one blames God for getting people sick, but they do praise him for curing people, even when the Bible specifically says sickness and death are God's doing?

Would you praise and thank a person for deliberately breaking someones arm because they then applied a splint and/or sling? Or would you call them a sociopath and lock them up?

At the end of the day, if you believe in God, then you'd have to say that the very least God can do is make people better because GOD caused them to get sick in the first place. The fact that he makes you grovel before he does it should really cause any right thinking person to pause for thought.

Instead of saving 1 person from the sinking ship, why not save everyone by not letting the ship sink? Instead of taking credit for a breathtaking feat of airmanship, how about you don't let the plane crash in the first place? And why do it so rarely? Why save flight 1549 but not the hundreds of others?

Think about it - does anyone pray "Dear God, please wake my wife from this coma, but it is OK if you give her severe brain damage and make her quadriplegic." People wake up from a coma and it is called a miracle and thanks is given to God - the fact that they have other major health problems as a result is ignored.

So God can't lose. If it is good, it's God. If it's bad well then it is bad luck, human error, free will, the arbitrary horror of nature, an unfortunate set of coincidences etc etc. Why does God get all the credit and none of the blame?

For instance, someone I know through work underwent very aggressive chemo and surgery for some very serious cancer problems last year. When the cancer appeared to be beaten an e-mail went around that finished with "See, prayer really works." - God got the credit. Since the cancer now appears to be back and the illness possibly terminal, do you think God will get the blame? Do you think the person claiming that prayer beat the illness will now re-examine that belief and retract it? Of course not, because God can't lose.

Health, medicine and prayer

OK. Let's assume that through some hand waving, post hoc rationalisations, openly honest avoidance or by just plain ignoring them, these questions are answered or ignored by the believer in the power of prayer. A person is sick and they, being a believer and having health insurance that allows, are taken to a religious hospital. There, because of the healing power of prayer, they are greeted by a member of the clergy, or a preacher, or some religious representative. From there they are taken into a special chapel where a group of devout believers will pray to their god and a cure is miraculously received. Oh wait no that isn't what happens, is it?

No, what happens is they receive science based medical treatment, surgical interventions, drug therapies, physical therapy and a great deal of attention from trained medical professionals who may or may not be religious.

But doesn't that strike you as odd?

If healing prayers work, why do religious hospitals need medical staff and treatment facilities? Why does a religious hospital need any of the trappings of modern medicine if prayer works? Why does a religious hospital need an ER, OR, ICU, PACU, NICU, IMCU, rehab unit? Why does a religious hospital need a pharmacy, ventilators, heart rate monitors, IVs, X-Ray machines, needles, scalpels, sutures, wound vacuums, suction pumps, pulmonary bypass units, wound therapy mattresses?

If prayer really works, and God does exist, then why does he/she need so much help? How come God only cures people after they have received all that other conventional medical treatment and why is it he/she who gets to claim the cure and not the medical team? And why do these miracle cures often take so long instead of being instant? Are people really praying "Dear Lord, please cure this cancer. But not for six months."

Shouldn't a religious hospital merely consist of enough amenities to keep a person comfortable and then a quiet room on each floor filled with devout hospital employees who pray for each patient? I mean, they do believe in the healing power of prayer don't they? Don't they?

They must do. Taking just the religious facilities I know, they are all Christian. So yes they do believe that prayer works and miracles happen. Indeed, inside each facility are devotional messages, Bible passages and pictures that imply that yes, prayer works and God exists. But then, what are all the doctors, nurses, therapists, MAs, unit secretaries, kitchen staff, cleaning staff, facilities staff, materials and supply staff etc doing there? They aren't really necessary are they? Well, not if prayer works at least.

If on the other hand prayer doesn't work, then we'd expect religious hospitals to need all those people and facilities just like non religious ones, wouldn't we? And lo and behold it seems that religious hospitals need all the things that non-religious ones do in order to treat patients. How curious.

Do you need a more damning indictment of the power of prayer? Even Christian hospitals don't trust it.

Where would Jesus make the first incision (WWJMTFI)?

So, here's an image I saw in a religiously affiliated hospital I was working at one day:

And after laughing out loud my next reaction was a mixture of horror, disbelief and fear. Is that really what modern science based medicine passes for in a religious hospital in the 21st century, hoping that Jesus (allegedly a carpenter from 2,000 years ago) is guiding your surgeon's hands? I resolved right there and then to never go to a religious hospital for treatment of any kind as long as I was able to make the choice.

Here are some questions for you - if you think that Jesus is guiding a surgeon's hands then does the surgeon need to go to medical school? If he or she does, why? Surely with faith, prayer and the Son of God on their side anyone can perform surgery? If not, why not? Why do people who work in religious hospitals need medical training?

And here are some other questions. If prayer works, why does Jesus need to use surgery to make someone better? Why does he need to act through a surgeon? Doesn't he do miracles anymore?

Oh, and more importantly - if Jesus is guiding a surgeons hands, who is to blame when surgery goes wrong? Do surgeries go 'wrong', or are they going exactly according to God's plan? Are surgeries in religious hospitals always 100% successful? If not, why not, since Jesus was aiding them? Does Jesus let some surgeries fail and not others? Why? Does Jesus deliberately misguide surgeons who screw up? Who do you sue for malpractice in that case? Should you even sue for malpractice since God was involved?

Do these medical professionals really believe that Jesus is guiding their hand? If so, then isn't that just terrifying? "Doesn't matter what I do or how good I am, Jesus is here with me."

What the hell does a carpenter from the year 33AD know about triple bypass surgery?

If that picture isn't filling you with dread at the thought of treatment in a religious institute that takes that kind of image seriously then you really aren't thinking it through. Or, on the other hand, maybe it is yet another indictment of what people at religious institutes really know about the healing power of faith and prayer.

Now, in trying to answer some of the questions above the religious don't get to redefine what a miracle is. You don't get to claim that modern surgical skills and techniques are miracles, they aren't. To the medically and scientifically illiterate they might look like magic but they are nothing of the sort - they are the product of thousands of years of science, medical experimentation, education and dedication whose origins and justifications can be traced and documented. They have an explanation. Calling them a miracle makes a mockery of the term. It makes the term 'miracle' meaningless.

The religious don't get to co-opt modern medicine for their own purposes.


A statistical case for the non healing power of prayer

So, we have a lot of questions that arise from the idea that prayer and faith can actually physically and/or mentally heal a person. The questions may or may not make people think about the claims that prayer and faith heal. Questions can be ignored or rationalised away. How about cold hard facts?

Well OK, they can be ignored as well, but let's look at some anyway.

First, let's re-state the hypothesis we're examining: Prayer and faith can heal people physically and mentally because God exists and he performs miracles.

If we accept this hypothesis, then there should be some evidence we can look at that supports this. For instance - shouldn't countries with large populations of devout people have healthier populations? Shouldn't countries with more devout people in them have better health and longer lifespans than those with less devout people in them - shouldn't it be healthier to live in a religious nation when compared to a secular one?

Let's take a look.

I started here to try and identify which countries have the most devout populations, and found that religiosity is highest amongst developing nations. Here's the Gallup table showing their results (you can see it better on the Gallup page but click on the table to enlarge):

Pay particular attention to the countries that identify themselves as the most religious and those that identify themselves as the least religious with respect to the hypothesis we are examining. What are your immediate first impressions?

Now, take a look at this table of international life expectancy (note: below I do use a different set of life expectancy figures when comparing developed countries to each other). Notice anything yet? The lowest life expectancy is in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, the highest in Japan, Andorra and San Marino. Unfortunately there is no religiosity data on Mozambique, but Malawi has a life expectancy of 37.6 years and 99% of adults claimed religion is an important part of daily life. Zambia has a life expectancy of 37.2 years and a religiosity of 95%. There is no religiosity data for San Marino or Andorra but the life expectancy of Japan is 80.7 years and there just 24% of people say religion is an important part of their daily lives. All three of the least religious countries on the Gallup poll have a higher life expectancy than the three most religious (in the cases of Denmark and Sweden, much higher).

Which doesn't seem to support the hypothesis that religious faith and prayer can work miracles for public health, does it? Wouldn't we expect that the more devout a population the more healthy it would be, if we accept that prayer and faith actually work to improve health or treat disease?

The obvious objection to this is that there are many other factors involved in the health of a population and this is no doubt borne out by closely examining the data I've so far provided, and my response is: Yes, exactly. Anyone who raises that objection is simply proving my point. If prayer and faith truly had an impact on health, then nothing else matters and the more religious countries should have better health - but overall they clearly don't. In fact, the data suggests that economics, sanitation, infrastructure and a great many other things have a far greater impact than prayer. Clean water has a bigger impact than prayer ever could. And that is my point.

But, let's be fairer to the hypothesis than it seems to deserve, let's compare countries that have more similarities than those at the extremes of developed states versus developing or failed states (even though prayer working or not shouldn't depend on the developmental state of the nation in which the prayee resides, only how devout they are, and nobody who says prayer works qualifies it with "Unless you live in the third world" anyway). And lets add another variable to judging how well prayer and faith work in respect to health care - the average per capita expenditure on health care. Shouldn't we expect more religious states to have to spend less on health care if prayer and faith work in treating medical problems or improving health? So let's include health expenditure as well.

Here are a few pages of data comparing countries with more similarities in terms of their developmental status, including data on states belonging to the OECD.

Starting with the UC Atlas website we see a comparison of life expectancy with per capita expenditure on healthcare in dollars. Taking the 5 countries with the longest life expectancy here (excluding San Marino, Monaco, Australia and Andorra because I didn't have religiosity data for them) we see that, with these figures and highest first, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Canada and France all have life expectancies between 82 and 79 years. Respectively, they have a religiosity of 24%, 41%, 17%, 42% and 30% (so an average of 30.8%).

The 5 countries (excluding Portugal and Cuba because there was no religiosity data) with the lowest lifespans are (lowest first) Ireland, Cyprus, USA, Denmark and the UK with a life expectancy between 76 and 78. Respectively they have a religiosity of 54%, 75%, 65%, 19% and 27% (so an average of 48%).

Far from conclusive in favour of the hypothesis that prayer and faith somehow improve health one way or the other. Significantly the USA, with its 65% religiosity, has a low life expectancy compared to other developed nations yet spends roughly twice as much per capita on healthcare than most other developed nations. Why would a country with such a large devout population need to spend so much on healthcare if prayer worked, and for such a relatively small gain?

In fact, the second graph on the UC Atlas page suggests that, up to a point, life expectancy has far more in common with money spent on healthcare than religiosity. Why would money have more of an effect than the devout appealing to the Almighty? Unless, of course, prayer doesn't work. The second website, Seeking Alpha shows that the USA spends almost double the average OECD percentage of GDP on healthcare. Why would that be if prayer worked?

Indeed, if prayer doesn't work then the data we have looked at makes perfect sense. However, if you believe prayer does work then the data presents you with a problem - what is going on? How do you explain what we are seeing in the data if prayer works?

If prayer works, then how do you explain the data on the Visual Economics page that shows that the US infant mortality rate (6.8 per 1,000 live births) is almost triple that of Japan (2.8) - 65% religiosity compared to 24% remember? People don't pray for children? God ignores those prayers?

Or maybe, just maybe, prayer doesn't work?

The fact remains that no matter how you look at the data, prayer seems to have no discernible effect on health. The most devout nations are amongst the least healthy and shortest lived in the world when we should expect the exact opposite if prayer worked. Some of the most devout developed nations spend the most on healthcare and still have relatively low lifespans when compared to less devout developed nations, when we should see the exact opposite if prayer works.

Even just within the USA we can see evidence that being devout doesn't significantly help you live longer or healthier - as a group black people are more likely to frequently attend church than white people, yet they still have a lower life expectancy than white people.

The Plan

As pointed out on Why Won't God Heal Amputees one of the common responses to the questioning of prayer and its effectiveness is that if what was prayed for doesn't happen then it not happening was part of God's Plan. I think it is worth re-iterating the answer to this given over at WWGHA.

If God has a plan for everyone and everything, and has done since the dawn of time, then prayer is pointless. In fact, it is more than pointless, it is asking God to change his plans. Who are you to ask the creator of the Universe to change what he has set in motion? What kind of arrogance is that? If a loved one is sick, if a loved one is dying, then that is what God wanted and the outcome is already determined - it is in the plan remember. Praying is therefore a waste of time and will change nothing. It will accomplish nothing. The way it is is the way God wants it and therefore prayer still does not work because the way it is going to be is also the way God wants it to be.

If God exists, and he has a plan for everyone and everything, prayer does nothing.

And yet the Bible says that prayer does work. How confusing. Either God has a plan and that explains the seemingly inexplicable and arbitrary nature of the success of prayer, which also means prayer is ineffective because outcomes have already been decided by God. Or, the Bible is wrong and if you ask for something in prayer you still might not get it.

How would a believer in the power of prayer explain that?

Conclusion

Prayer simply does not work.

Claiming that prayer works leaves you with so many unanswered questions that your position becomes unsustainable. The evidence presented here and elsewhere shows that prayer doesn't have any discernible or even demonstrable effect on healthcare or medical treatment and it is apparent that, whether they consciously recognise it or not, religiously affiliated medical facilities are, by the simple virtue of their existence, an acknowledgement that prayer doesn't do anything.

Prayer doesn't work. Let's stop pretending it does and do something useful with our time instead.
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Syvlia Browne fans - why so quiet?

A quick look at my Sitemeter statistics at the foot of the page tells me that by far the overwhelming number of visitors to my blog are people who search for some variation of "Sylvia Browne 2010 predictions". And I mean overwhelming. In fact, almost every visitor to the blog comes from someone searching for Sylvia Browne's 2010 predictions. Yet none of them seem to stay very long once they get to my page talking about Sylvia Browne's 2010 "predictions" and only one person has ever left a comment that tried to defend her.

Why is that? No-one wants to defend the indefensible? They don't like having their delusions shattered so disappear in a huff? They think I'm wrong? They have absolute proof of Browne's powers so ignore the ranting of a know nothing skeptic? Or are they scared? Are they scared that the house of cards they built and called their belief system will come tumbling down if just for one moment they actually have to think about what they believe? Is it because deep down they know I am right about Browne and people like her?

Are these people so scared of having to think that they run away every time they are challenged?

Why are Sylvia Browne's fans so quiet?

Here's what I think - Browne's fans don't have an answer to what skeptics say about her, so they just ignore the criticisms and hope they go away because they can't handle the truth. Reality is just to scary for them.

Browne fans: prove me wrong. Have the guts to actually say something that isn't a childish insult or unthinking devotion.

I dare you.
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How well do you really think accommadationism works?

Today is the 55th anniversary of Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama - a pivotal event in the civil rights movement that sparked the Montgomery bus boycott. So, whilst I was sitting in traffic listening to NPR on the subject I started to think about the blogging topic that's been on my mind lately - accommadationism and the whole "You're doing it wrong, don't be a dick" crowd.

And it occurred to me: where would most successful social reform movements be if they had listened to their own versions of the "Be nice, not pushy. Don't be rude. Couldn't you just talk to the more moderate of our opponents." people?

I can just imagine people saying to the leaders of the civil rights movement. "Look, don't you think calling them racist is a bit, well, rude? And calling people rude names is a bit, dickish, after all. Couldn't we tone it down a little bit so that the less racist ones (the moderates)  might be able to help us with some tiny aspect of the whole picture? We're scaring off potential allies by being so strident. Do you really have to be so, militant?"

Can you imagine the civil rights movement toning it down a bit, not causing such a fuss, not making a scene? Was the literature of the civil rights movement less strident than the books of Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens? Certainly not, in fact in many cases it was far more extreme. Worthy of the description "militant" far more than "God is not Great" certainly.

Can you imagine the civil rights movement if they'd listened to the "Don't be so confrontational" crowd?

No. I don't imagine that would have been that successful either.

And if you think that the struggle against religion is not a civil rights issue, then you haven't been paying attention and you have no business being involved.

The truth of all successful reform movements is that they need the militants, the pushy, the dicks, in order to shake things up. To make people pay attention. To give them a metaphorical slap in the face. Just putting your case politely, eloquently and forcefully - yes, even passionately - is not enough, and has never been enough in any reform movement.

Why do people expect it to be different this time? What good would it have done if the civil rights movement had failed but participants could at least say "Hey, at least we didn't call anyone names or upset anybody. I would have hated to have to make a scene. But we gave it a good shot."

I don't think so. You can keep polite and safe. In fact, you can stick it up your arse. Sideways.
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How can you call yourself a skeptic if...

... you accept things on faith or believe in the supernatural? The answer is, I believe, you can't. And you don't get to call yourself a critical thinker either. What you would be is a hypocrite. Or, maybe a little more charitably, a part timer. At best, you'd be someone capable of fooling yourself.

Thinking about writing this post is what prompted me to write yesterday's post as well, and its all about getting my thoughts down on this whole silly shit about accommadationism and people trying to exclude atheism from skepticism, and those people trying to define who the real skeptics are and who gets to join in and how they should do it (this last I covered yesterday). So here goes.

Atheism isn't skepticism - say what now?

Via PZ Myers I found out about a ridiculous blog post by Jeff Wagg, who used to work for the JREF. I was going to leave it alone until I read the always excellent Tom Foss writing on a somewhat related note. As usual, Tom said just about everything I would want to on the topic before I had even thought about it and better than I would have done anyway. Git. But that's not going to stop me adding my own not so humble opinions anyway, oh no.

The gist of what Jeff Wagg is saying is that skepticism deals with science so has very little to say on religion except where a testable claim is made and that whilst atheism and skepticism overlap in places they are distinct and should be kept so. On top of this he is claiming that skepticism doesn't lead inevitably to atheism.

Almost all of what he says is absolute bollocks.

I'll put it simply to start with. If skepticism and critical thinking don't lead you to, as JT Eberhard wrote to Jeff Wagg "some brand of atheism/metaphysical naturalism" then you really aren't doing it very well. If I'm being generous I could say you've learned to switch your critical thinking on and off when it suits you. What you are doing is applying bits of skepticism and critical thinking to the things you want to and ignoring it when you want to ignore it in regards to the things you don't want to apply your skepticism or critical thinking to - like the existence of gods. Exactly what kind of skeptic or critical thinker accepts a truth claim on faith alone? Exactly what kind of skeptic or critical thinker believes in the supernatural? Exactly what kind of skeptic believes in the unscientific, untestable or unprovable?

In other words, what kind of skeptic or critical thinker still believes in gods?

Now, you might say "Jimmy, aren't you being a tad hypocritical here? You have a problem with people who say you can't be a real skeptic because of something, and you are saying these people can't be real skeptics because of something." I would reply - "If I was using my own definition of skepticism you'd have a point."

But I'm not.

In fact, I'm using Jeff Wagg's definitions of skepticism. The problem is people defining skepticism how they want to in order to include or exclude what or who they want to, but I'm not doing that. Wagg and people like him are though, and in this case failing miserably. Wagg writes:

 I believe that if you equate skepticism with anything other than science, you’ve missed the point.

Followed later by:

Skepticism is about drawing conclusions that are proportioned to the available evidence.

How exactly, given these definitions of skepticism, is religion and the existence or not of gods excluded? How do you exclude the supernatural claims of religion from skepticism but include the supernatural claims of those who believe in ghosts? A supernatural claim is a supernatural claim - it doesn't matter if the ghost in question is Abraham Lincoln or the Holy Spirit, for example. Science has plenty to say about the claims of religion. Are there turtles all the way down? Did giants once roam the earth? Did the Universe begin 6000 years ago? Was the earth covered by a giant flood? Pose a religious question, science will almost certainly have something to say on the matter. That includes the existence of God, since religious claims are inextricably linked with their deities. To claim the existence of something, even gods, is to make a scientific claim.

I'm using the skepticism that Wagg endorsed when he was at the JREF - faith is not enough to validate a claim, you need evidence. Claiming God exists is a claim that needs evidence in the same way that claiming Bigfoot exists needs evidence. Wagg would not accept faith as evidence in favour of Bigfoot, why is God different? Why is questioning one skepticism but not the other? Why can I say "I don't believe in Bigfoot" and be a skeptic according to Wagg, but not "I don't believe in God"?

More importantly though: how can you say you believe in God and claim to be a skeptic? You wouldn't call someone who believed in Bigfoot a skeptic. What, exactly, is the difference that makes one skepticism and the other 'only' atheism?

What definition of skepticism or critical thinking are you using where you can include people who accept supernatural claims on faith alone, with no evidence and in defiance of logic and reason? Really, I would love to know the answer to this.

You don't get to call yourself a skeptic or a critical thinker if you accept even one supernatural claim, or even one claim for which there is no supporting evidence. You wouldn't call someone who rejected all woo except astrology a skeptic, so why make an exception for someone who rejects all woo except the existence of a god?

If you accept even one bit of woo, you're a woo. It's that simple.

Skepticism of the existence of gods leads to atheism if the principles and tools of skepticism and critical thinking are rigorously and completely applied to the question. The only way that skepticism and critical thinking don't lead to atheism, or at least agnosticism, is if you don't ever apply your skepticism or critical thinking to the question of the existence of gods in the first place. And if you only apply those tools and principles where and when you feel like it, you aren't really a skeptic or a critical thinker, you're a part timer.

Atheism is merely the name for the result we get when we fully apply skepticism and critical thinking to the claim "Gods exist".

Atheism, skepticism and critical thinking are inextricably linked. Atheism is the result of applying skepticism to the most popular bit of woo in the world - religion.

Wagg and a silly strawman

Not only does Wagg make the baffling argument that atheism isn't part of skepticism and indeed is something completely separate since skepticism has nothing much to say about the existence of gods unless it is a testable claim, he throws in a silly strawmen that seems to lie at the root of this while he is at it.

Wagg writes:

The e-mail is an admission that the organizers of Skepticon believe that Skepticism = Atheism

Wrong. What JT Eberhard said was:

it is the opinion of most of our organizers that skepticism leads directly to some brand of atheism/metaphysical naturalism

The organisers of Skepticon believe skepticism leads to atheism. Not that skepticism is atheism, or skepticism = atheism. This mistake I think lies at the route of the problem Wagg seems to have, and probably prompted his silly post.

Nailing my colours to the mast

Otherwise known as "Fuck accommodationism, I don't want you in my gang anyway."

Wagg, and a great many other people in the recent past, are complaining about assertive atheism driving people away from the skeptical and critical thinking movements as well as the many movements to prevent things like the teaching of creationism in classrooms, the politicisation of science and the desecularisation of the country here in the USA.

Wagg, for instance, writes:

I see a lot of good people leaving the skeptical community because they’re uncomfortable with the tone and disappointed with, frankly, the lack of skepticism presented by many people.


....
 
I’m convinced that a litmus test over who’s a skeptic and who isn’t based on religious belief is harmful to both movements.

 
To this I say:
 
Good. Fuck 'em. Lightweights scared off by naughty words. I call into question your use of the term 'good' in this context. And anyway, no such litmus test exists. The only 'test' that exists for this gang is that you consistently and rigorously apply skepticism and critical thinking.
 
If these people don't apply their skepticism to the question of the existence of gods it is not the assertive or vocal atheists (the so called New Atheists - a term I despise) who are displaying a lack of skepticism. I don't want these half arsed skeptics clogging up the skeptical movement with their "Oh, skepticism and critical thinking applies here and here, but not there or there." They are the people holding the skeptical movement back and damaging it.
 
You don't destroy ignorance by allowing some versions of it to go on existing. And that is what this is all about, isn't it? We're here to destroy ignorance, they want their favourite bits of it to remain.
 
Or are we really going to say that we are happy to include any kind of half arsed 'skeptic' in the movement just for the sake of not upsetting someones sensibilities? Just where do we draw the line for what we can count as a skeptic? As long as they don't believe in astrology and homeopathy should Holocaust Deniers be called skeptics? Where exactly is this list of things you can or can't believe in for you to qualify for the skeptics club and who made it and with what authority and how was it determined?
 
Or, is the only real litmus test that you rigorously and comprehensively subject ALL your beliefs and those of others, as you encounter or develop them, to the tools and principles of skepticism and critical thinking?
 
And yes, that would mean religious belief. That would mean that if you believe in gods, you aren't really a skeptic. What you are is someone who applies skepticism and critical thinking when it suits them. When it isn't something they are personally invested in. When it is easy. You can't call me a professional footballer if I only played five a side once a week for two years.
 
I am tired of people telling me I'm not a real skeptic when they pick and choose what skepticism applies to or doesn't. They are the problem, not those of us who insist that the tools can be applied to any claim. All I am saying is that if you want to be a skeptic then you have to do it all the time and include your own beliefs in there.
 
So I am glad that these wishy washy lightweights are leaving the skeptical gang - I don't want someone calling themselves a skeptic when they accept that "God did it" might one day be the answer to a question. I don't want someone who might one day attempt to explain an as yet unexplained occurrence with "It was a miracle." I don't want someone who believes a guy rose from the dead and ascended into the sky arguing alongside me that ghosts don't exist. I don't want someone who believes in Heaven telling me that such and such a psychic can't really speak to people in the afterlife.
 
I don't want my skepticism to be associated with such confused hypocrisy.
 
I don't think any woo should be able to call themselves a skeptic. I don't think anyone who believes in the supernatural should be able to call themselves a skeptic. I don't think anyone who accepts something on faith should be able to call themselves a skeptic. I'm glad that the people who get so upset by tone they leave are gone, they don't have the stomach for the struggle ahead and clearly weren't that committed - they're just words.
 
As JT Eberhard says in his reply to Jeff Wagg, it is horseshit to say that skepticism applies to some truth claims but not others. The people who claim that skepticism doesn't apply to their cherished belief are the problem.
 
And they shouldn't get to call themselves skeptics.
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