Blaming the Moderates - Considerations of Rationality

All fiction should be condemned. If not banned outright, we should at least universally condemn all fictionists - people who create and distribute works of fiction.

The reason we should adopt this attitude is because all works of fiction are basically lies. To tolerate fictionism is to tolerate lying. Those who tolerate lying, in turn, are enablers for all of those who engage in fraud and other forms of deception. If we condemn all lying - even fiction - then there is no way that the fraudster, the deceptive advertiser, the political manipulator, or the public relations specialist can get the idea that the lies they engage in are somehow permissible.

This argument is meant as a reductio ad absurdum of the claim that religious moderates must be condemned as enablers of the actions of the violent religious extremists. Blaming the former for the actions of the latter is as absurd as blaming "fictionists" for the actions of liars and other forms of malicious manipulators of the truth.

It has been my position in this blog that all moral condemnation must be tightly focused - that only those who are actually guilty are to be condemned. There is a human tendency to divide the world into tribes of "us" and "them", and to take the wrongs committed by a subgroup of "them" (or even imagined wrongs) and apply it to all of "them". This is used to "justify" intertribal conflict - such as conflict between the atheist tribe and the theist tribe.

The way to avoid this outcome is to constantly focus attention on keeping condemnation tightly focused only on those who are guilty, to be on guard for the tendency to make irrational leaps from the subset to the whole, and to attack them when and where we find them.

Which is one of the things I try to do in this blog.

The claim that moderates are to be condemned for the actions of the extremists is one of those irrational absurdities embraced, not because they make sense, but because they mask tribal hatreds in a cloak of apparent legitimacy.

If it is permissible to condemn the moderate for the behavior of the extremists, then it should be just as permissible to credit the extremists for the behavior of the moderate. Consider two extreme cases - one of a deeply religious doctor who thinks that God wants him to provide medical care to the impoverished children in third world countries, and the other a violent jihadist who seeks to blow up a crowded shopping mall.

What argument can we give for saying that the doctor deserves to be condemned for the actions of the terrorist that is not also an argument for giving the terrorist moral credit for the actions of the doctor.

The argument is the same. Just as the doctor who promotes devotion to God is an enabler of the terrorist, the terrorist who promotes devotion to God is an enabler to the doctor. To claim that the argument is valid when used as a reason to condemn the doctor for the actions of the terrorist, but invalid when offered as a reason to praise the terrorist for the actions of the doctor, is itself irrational.

If irrationality is the true enemy, then this is an example of the true enemy. Only, this time, we are talking about the irrationality of atheists.

Rationality says that these inferences are invalid. If rationality is a virtue (and I hold that it is a virtue, though it is one we have only a limited ability to practice), then no good (rational) person would embrace this argument. In fact, the good (rational) person would condemn those who use this argument - particularly when it is used to give an illusion of legitimacy to what is used to condemn (to promote and, in some cases, sell) hatred of all members of a target tribe.

Which is what I am seeking to do here.

Please note, this is not an argument for being nice to religious moderates because it is politically expedient to do so. This is not an argument for promoting niceness at the expense of reason. This is an argument that embraces the position that rationality is a virtue and irrationality is a vice, and condemns a popular form of reasoning because it is irrational.

The claim that we must blame the moderates for the actions of the extremists is irrational - it is an invalid inference and for that reason no friend of rationality would embrace it. For that reason, any friend of rationality would condemn those who practice it.

From here we actually start down a long train of irrational arguments.

Why not credit the terrorist for the good done by the doctor? Answer: Because people can do good without God.

However, people can also do evil without God, so that argument doesn't work.

Ahhh, Alonzo, but what you are missing out on is that religion is required to do evil in the name of God.

Yes, but religion is also required to do good in the name of God, so that argument still does not work. We still do not have anything that a friend of rationality would embrace - that an enemy of irrationality would not condemn.

Religion, Condemnation, and Appeals to Scripture

In light of some recent discussion, I think it is time to specify some basic propositions.

(1) There is no God.

Some people may be distressed by this fact. However, I am under no obligation to bury the truth simply because someone cannot handle the truth. In order for people to best fulfill the most and strongest of their desires, given the fact that they act to fulfill the most and strongest of their desires given their beliefs, they need true beliefs. Belief that a God exists is not on the list.

Even if there is a God, we know nothing about its qualities. It could be a childish God who created the earth and its occupants at set us to war against each other for its own amusement. Or it could be a bored God concerned with something else in some other part of the universe where we are an unforeseen side-effect that God cares nothing about. Or it could be a God who is more impressed with the human who uses its brain and available evidence to conclude that it does not exist than with those who shamelessly assert that faith is a virtue. All claims about what God is like have to be justified separately from the proposition that a God exists.

(2) Belief that a God exists is not morally objectionable.

We all have false beliefs. None of us have time to hold all of our beliefs up to the light of reason and sort them all out, so we all have unfounded false beliefs.

Consider a person with no beliefs. How does he hold that first belief up to the light of reason to judge whether to accept it or not? He cannot. Our first beliefs are acquired arationally. Later beliefs are evaluated in part based on their coherence with these early arational beliefs. They help to select subsequent beliefs. It is a method prone to error. If people are to be held in moral contempt for every false belief they adopt, then we must hold everybody - even ourselves - in moral contempt.

(3) People who base behavior harmful to the interests on others on scripture are evil.

If you are going to do something harmful to the interests of others - if you are going to do anything that has a reasonable chance of harming the interests of others - you have a moral obligation to provide good reason to do so. You have an obligation to begin with the assumption that others are not to be harmed unless the value of doing harm is proved beyond a reasonable doubt, and to provide that reason.

Religious texts offer no good reason whatsoever for behavior harmful to others.

As soon as somebody quotes scripture in defense of a law or policy that is potentially harmful to the interests of others, that person has done what no good person would do. that person has violated the moral prescription against doing harm without good reason.

Religious beliefs are fine for people who apply them to their own lives. If you want to use scripture to decide what to eat, when to eat, what to wear, when to work, when to refrain from working, and the like, you are free to do so. Just as you are free to base these decisions on your horoscope, tea leaves, tarot cards, or the role of a die, if that pleases you.

However, if your scripture tells you to do harm to your neighbor, your act is no more justified than that of the person who looks at his horoscope, reads, "CANCER: Your neighbor must die today. Do anything in your power to make sure that he does not survive to see another dawn."

Killing your neighbor and appealing to scripture makes you a murderer. This includes those who support capital punishment who quote scripture that calls for "an eye for an eye." They are murderers, because they have killed without providing good reason to kill. They are murderers for the same reason the person reading the horoscope above and acting on it would be a murderer.

Maiming your neighbor and appealing to scripture makes you guilty of malicious assault. Taking your neighbor's property and appealing to scripture makes you a thief. This applies to anybody fighting over land where they base their fight on the claim, "God gave this land to us." You are thieves. And if you kill others whole engage in an act of theft then you are guilty of murder here as well.

The instant a person appeals to scripture to justify harm to others, at that instant they have done evil. Even if the person harmed actually deserves to be harmed - even if they are actually guilty, the person who has appealed to scripture to justify doing harm has still committed an evil act. This is because it is still the duty of every human being to presume that others are not to be harmed and to use only good reasons to show that they should be harmed.

Again, it is just like the horoscope case. Even if the neighbor turns out to be somebody who deserves to be killed, the fact that the killer did not have good reason to do so makes the killer a murderer.

Yes, this means that there are a lot of people around the world patting themselves on the back and puffing out their chests with pride over how great they are because they are fighting God's war should be ashamed of themselves. Their arrogant false pride is wholly undeserved. For the sake of their victims - those to whom they do harm without justification - it is not only permissible, it is obligatory to stick a pin in that inflated sense of pride and tell these people what type of people they really are.

The Christian conservative who looks to scripture and finds justification for banning gay marriage is guilty of the same moral crime as the Muslim who looks to scripture and finds justifiation for flying an airplane into a skyscraper.

If your reasons are not the type of reasons that are admissible in court, then they are not the types of reasons that should be permissible in Congress.

However, this applies ONLY to those who appeal to scripture to justify harmful actions. As I have argued, a rancher who gets drunk and drives around his ranch - where there are no other people to hit - is NOT guilty of any type of moral negligence, because he does not put others at risk. Similarly, people are free to be as intellectually reckless as they wish with beliefs that do not threaten others. It is when people put others at risk that they acquire the obligation to act (and to think) more responsibly. It is when they consider policies harmful to others that they become evil if they seek justification for those harms in scripture.

So, if we are going to condemn people, the people who deserve our condemnation are not "the religious". It is "the people who base behavior potentially harmful to others without good reason" - a group both broader and narrower than "the religious" and likely includes a good number of atheists as well.

If a person commits an act of attempting to justify behavior harmful to others by means of appeal to scripture, then this makes that person a member of the group, "People who have attempted to justify behavior harmful to others without good reason" - all of whom have done something evil and can justly be labeled as such.

This is true in the same way that a person who commits rape becomes a member of the group, "Rapists", all of whom have done something evil. And anybody who commits theft becomes a member of the group "thieves", all of whom have done something evil. There is no bigotry involved in labeling these groups what they are or to say that they all deserve condemnation based on that fact.

But nothing in this - nothing at all - justifies extending condemnation to anybody outside of the group, "rapists", "thieves", and "those who seek to justify behavior harmful to others without good reason."

Pledges, Promises, and Prescriptions

Pledges, Promises, and Prescriptions

A 10 year old boy, Will Phillips, is getting attention because he has made a principled stand not to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance because America does not provide “liberty and justice” for homosexuals.

(See: Arkansas Times A Boy and His Flag)

Technically, this involves a misunderstanding of the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge is not a mere description of America that happens to be false. The Pledge is a prescription – a statement on what the pledge taker will try to bring about. A person who refuses to say the Pledge is a person who refuses to promise to support liberty and justice for all.

This does not imply that Phillips was wrong. A part of the purpose of a protest is to generate publicity for a message – and Phillips has certainly accomplished that. Furthermore, Phillips’ protest is a statement of moral condemnation of those who treat homosexuals unjustly. It is quite refreshing to see such a widely publicized statement of moral condemnation of a group of hate-mongering bigots coming from a 5th grader.

In this sense, the statements that follow may be seen as pedantic, but they have important implications.

The Pledge of Allegiance is not a values-free description of what America happens to be as a matter of fact. It is prescriptive. It is meant to set forth an ideal – to make a statement of what America should be. It should be one nation, with liberty and justice for all. To the degree to which we fail to provide liberty and justice for all, to that degree we have fallen short of our goal, and the Pledge is a promise to work harder to obtain that goal.

All of this applies to the phrase, "One nation, under God" as well. This, too, is meant to set forth an ideal – to make a statement of what America should be. It should be one nation under God. To the degree that we fall short of this objective, the Pledge is a promise to work that much harder towards that goal.

Of course, we can never be a nation 'under God' because there is no God to be under. People who demand that we be a nation 'under God' typically see themselves as God's self-appointed magistrates on Earth. So, the promise to be ‘under God’ is a promise to be ruled by those who claim the authority to speak for God, which means being 'under' a religious institution of some sort.

As long-time readers of this blog will note, I hold the Pledge (as written) and the Motto in particularly high contempt – as I do anybody who supports these bigoted hate-mongering prescriptions.

Pledge of Allegiance is a promise on the part of those who take it to fight against the four great anti-Americanisms; atheism, secession, tyranny, and injustice.

It is unconscionable, particularly in a nation that pledges religious freedom, to have children promising to devote their lives to fighting atheism, or for the government to call decent citizens un-American simply because those citizens do not believe in a God.

I count this as hate-mongering, or the selling of hate for profit, because those who sell this particular brand of hate profit by establishing a filter that is 99.9% effective at keeping atheists out of public office – or, at least, keeping out atheists who will admit to being atheists.

And the Motto is pure tribal divisiveness. Its purpose is to divide the population into two tribes. It declares that the primary requirement for being a member of the favored 'us' tribe is to trust in God. If you do not trust in God, you cannot be one of 'us'. You must, then, by the process of elimination (and I use the term in its fullest sense) be one of 'them' – beneath 'us', unworthy of membership, unworthy of respect, worthy only of contempt.

It is precisely because the Pledge of Allegiance and the Motto are prescriptive that they are so contemptible. It is because they prescribe bigotry. Furthermore, their most important function is to teach bigotry to young children, where its lessons are planted at a deep and emotional level that they will find difficult to shake even as rational adults. It is one of the major contributors to the fact that atheist adults, though substantial in numbers, are so politically impotent – because of the shame that makes them admitting what they are even to themselves, let alone to others.

Just as anti-black bigotry was successful even at turning blacks against other blacks, and anti-gay bigotry is successful at turning gays against themselves (leading to high suicide rates among teenage homosexuals and other forms of self-destructive behavior), we see atheists hiding meekly in the closet ashamed to show themselves in public, turning on each other, and, in many cases, ashamed to admit their atheism even to themselves.

In this sense, it does not matter whether the law or social pressure requires people to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance. The law, at one time, required blacks to sit at the back of the bus, to attend black public schools, to eat only in the 'colored' section of restaurants, to use only those bathrooms set aside for 'colored' people, and prohibited from buying houses in neighborhoods that had racial covenants.

When it comes to unjust laws and social customs – when it comes to laws and social customs that are built on a foundation of hate-mongering bigotry and whose primary aim is to turn the next generation into bigots as well – when the law can be broken without violence and without harm to any person or institution other than the institution of bigotry from which it sprang – then there are times when a good person would not obey a particular law or custom. These are times when a good person, in fact, identifies himself as such by his decision to refuse to obey a law or custom.

Even if the law required American citizens to promise to become bigots (or at least act as bigots act), we can still ask the question of whether good people would obey such a law. And even if legislators insist on posting signs in public buildings that declare, "Those who do not trust in God do not belong amongst us," this does not obligate any citizen to show that message any respect.

I once answered the question, "Why don't you stand for the Pledge of Allegiance," with the question, "Why do you stand? Are you such a fan of bigotry that you are willing to make a promise to the state and to your fellow citizens to support it. Because the Pledge of Allegiance is a promise to treat one who does not believe in God the way one would treat secessionists, tyrants, and the unjust."

A person with good desires - a person with a proper aversion to hate-mongering bigotry - just would not be willing to stand for that type of behavior.

The New York Terrorist Trials

A great many Republican politicians and pundits, and a few Democrats, apparently think that rights are the blessings of government - that government bestows rights and governments can freely take rights away for even light and transient reasons.

Since the announcement came out that some of the people captured and accused of involvement in the 9/11 hijackings were to be tried in civil court in New York "like common criminals", many have protested that such a move is objectionable on the basis that it grants the accused certain rights. There is no talk of these being inalienable, human rights - that governments are instituted to secure rights such as these. Instead, the argument is grounded on a seemingly unquestioned premise that rights are to be spoken of only as conveniences one has at the whim of those holding political power.

The theory that rights are government blessings is the theory that there is no such thing as a just or unjust government. Government can do no wrong if right and wrong are determined by what the government does. The possibility of just and unjust government requires that there is a standard outside of government that dictates what governments may or may not morally do.

At the same time, desirism denies that there are intrinsic moral properties - some type of fundamental moral ought that comes from some sort of great law-giver (either God or evolution) that dictates universal moral oughts.

Rights, in desire utilitarian terms, are facts about relationships between malleable desires and other desires. They are facts about the value of aversions to governments committing certain types of acts - curtailing free speech, arbitrarily arresting and imprisoning citizens at the whim of the head of state, denying people a say in selecting who will make the laws, etc.

These people who object to a public trial are people who clearly have little or no desire to see the government as a protector of rights. They have little or no aversion to the government simply sweeping away rights as a matter of convenience. If they have no desire to see rights protected generally, then they have no desire to protect your rights or to see governments sweep your rights aside on a whim. And they broadcast the same attitude to the rest of the world - telling the whole global community that humans have only those rights that their government tells them they have and no more.

Clearly, there are some circumstances in which there may be reason to deny a prisoner an open trial. Let us assume that somebody working for the German army is captured early in 1944 trying to smuggle plans to Nazi Germany, or somebody captured today needs only to broadcast the activation code for a nuclear bomb he has hidden in a major city. We clearly have good reason to deny that person an opportunity to broadcast the information he wants to get out. Absolute rules fail absolutely.

However, rights do have a weight, and they are not to be violated for trivial reasons.

We hear reasons like:

(1) We do not want to give these people a platform at which to speak. We do not want to give them a platform that they can then use to mock their victims.

Obviously, the right to a trial can be revoked by the government whenever there is a risk of the accused making statements that the government disapproves of what they say. This is not a case of the accused giving some vital piece of information to those who would use it to do great harm. This is a case of shutting people up because those with power do not want them to speak.

There are legitimate reasons to keep people from speaking. However, "Because I do not like what you would say" is not a good reason. It is, in fact, a reason that substantially denies that there is a right to freedom of speech. If the government has the right to silence people who might say something those with power disagree with, then none of us can claim a right to speak. We must all, instead, accept that we may be silenced as well if the government should not approve of our message.

The right to freedom of speech means nothing if it is not construed as a right to say things that others might not want to hear.

(2) The trial will be a circus. It will be out of control.

Again, these protestors are asserting the principle that the right to a trial can be revoked whenever the government declares that it cannot have an orderly trial. Of course, I can think of a great many circumstances in which the government may declare that it cannot have an orderly trial. They correspond to any case in which the government might want to lock somebody away without a trial.

Let us imagine, as a hypothetical example, that the Democrats have set up their campaign headquarters at the Watergate Hotel, and a group of Republicans then get caught trying to bug the Democrats. Let us assume that the President is somebody who wants to protect himself from what might be revealed in any public trial or hearings of those involved. All that President would have to do, if we establish such a principle, is declare that the trial would be a circus and, for that reason alone, must only be held behind closed doors where the words of the accused cannot be heard by the general public.

A politician or pundit who has particularly warm feelings for tyranny and for the government's ability to silence its critics is going to have particularly warm feelings for the idea that it can suspend any trial that the government declares would be a 'circus'.

The biggest circus that a tyranny has to fear is one that exposes the depths of its tyranny.

There are others, but this is a fine start for such a confined space.

In all cases where people are arguing against such a trial, I invite you, he reader, to look for the principle that lies at the heart of their alleged reason to deny such a trial. Look at what it says about the speaker's desire for fair trials and his aversion to the arbitrary exercise of government power. Then ask yourself how secure you would be if those sentiments became universal.

Smith vs Parfit Part 14 of 15: The Desire to Enjoy Happiness

I am sorry for the delay in this series. My evenings have been taken up with another project. However, I wish to continue to discuss these types of topics.

In this series of posts I am commenting on an article sent to me by a member of the studio audience. These are, in a sense, notes written in the margin as it were as I highlight passages in the article and explain my agreement or disagreement.

I highlight the following quote:

If someone believes that a certain episode of happiness could both feel the way that happiness does and be his own, then he desires that he enjoys that episode of happiness.

And I make the following scribbles:

Once again, what happens if the beliefs are false?

Let us assume that a person believes that a certain episode of happiness could feel a particular way, but he is wrong. Or he believes that the episode would be his, but it turns out to be somebody else’s? Do false beliefs still generate desires? Or does the generation of desires require true beliefs?

In past posts I have argued that beliefs – whether true or false – are not relevant to the formation of desires. Beliefs can imply beliefs about desires, but do not imply actual desires themselves.

Also, what role does the term 'could' plays in the above proposition?

Is it true that the mere fact that something could generate a particular feeling that gives one a reason to pursue it? Let’s say that it could generate such a feeling but does not. Then is it the case that achieving that end is an example of a fulfilled desire, or an example of something that could have fulfilled a desire but failed to do so?

A third and final question that I have about this quote is: What is 'happiness'?

If we equate happiness with a feeling, it is an open question of whether we desire that feeling or not. Let us assume that, because of some genetic change, the feeling produces an effect that is fatal to the evolutionary fitness of those who experience it. In this case, those who experience an aversion to this feeling would survive and those who desire this feeling will die out. In that case, we would have the feeling, but a desire to avoid it.

On the other hand, if we equate happiness not just to the physical sensation but the fact that it is something that we desire, then there is no mystery to the fact that we desire happiness. It would not be happiness if we did not desire it.

What Is Not Bigotry?

A member of the studio audience posited the question

The question in my mind at that point was, is all generalization bigotry? . . . Saying that the sky is blue is a generalization. That is not bigotry.

It is not the case that all generalization is bigotry.

"All bachelors are unmarried"

Or

Take the claim, "All atheists believe that the proposition, 'At least one God exists' is certainly or almost certainly false."

Both of these are generalizations, but they are not the type of generalization that would count as bigotry. They are not even the count of generalization that will count as false.

Or, let us take the claim, "All swans are white"

It is a generalization. It also happens to be false. However, a person who believes this is not a bigot. She is not even bigoted against swans. She just happens to believe something about swans that happens not to be true.

Even false generalizations about people - men have one fewer rib than women - if believed, would not count as bigotry.

So, what does count as bigotry?

The fact that bigotry is a legitimate object of moral condemnation means that bigotry has something to do with desires. Specifically, the bigot demonstrates by his actions that he has desires a good person would not have, or lacks desires that a good person would have. Furthermore, these desires tend to thwart the desires of others.

Ultimately, bigots aim to sacrifice the desires of the target group for their own benefit. They seek to create a society in which whites rules over blacks, men rule over women, where only heterosexual relationships are given social recognition, or where only theists can get elected to public office. They do so by making unjust and unjustified claims about the target group that aim to justify this attempt to divide society into classes, a superior class of "us" and an inferior class of "them". Of course, the bigot's group is always the superior "us" group.

Bigotry involves denigrating people - devaluing them, making them an object of contempt or ridicule - based on general claims that are false or sometimes false. It involves an unfounded and reasonable claim that "they" are not as good as "we". The bigot may claim that the target group shares some characteristic good people have reason to condemn (e.g., they are responsible for the Holocaust). Or it may be that the target group has some deficiency of some sort that they are not to be blamed for, but still makes them less capable (they lack intelligence).

It is not bigotry when these statements are true. All murderers unjustly take an innocent life. It is a true statement, and it is a statement that identifies the target group (murderers) as people who are to be looked down upon. In this case, they share a moral failing.

Liars are parasites who feed off of the will of others for the fulfillment of their own desires. This is another generalization that happens to be true and, thus, do not count as bigotry.

Young children lack the capacity of reason and, thus, are incapable of making decisions for themselves. Those decisions instead should be trusted to a competent adult who shall act in the best interests of the child. Again, this is a generalization about a deficiency that happens to be true. It is not bigotry. It is not bigotry even though we may find a few instances in which it is false. This is because we have good reason to make this generalization - that this is a generalization that even a person with good desires (a desire to protect children) would make.

In all cases of bigotry, the generalization is unfounded. It does not represent a conclusion based on an objective, fair, and impartial view of the evidence. It is a generalization grounded on the generalizer's own desire to see himself as superior.

This topic came up in this blog because of my condemnation of the anti-theist bigot. It is an attitude that I hold to be too common among vocal atheists that "we" are the superior group and "they" are the inferior group, where "their" inferiority is justified by means of arguments that are invalid (and the conclusion is unjustified). It is an attempt to hold all people who believe in a God morally responsible for the 9/11 attacks or the Fort Hood massacre because it feeds this desire to view "us" as morally superior to "them".

It has also come up recently in the actions of several branches of the Catholic Church promoting anti-gay bigotry. And we can see bigotry written into the National Motto (“We who trust in God are superior to those who do not”) and the Pledge of Allegiance (all good Americans promote “one nation under God”).

If a generalization can be defended as true, or at least well motivated – or if it is a generalization that has nothing to do with denigrating a group of individual and casting them as inferior – then it is not bigotry.

The Catholic Church's Villainous Blackmail in Washington DC

The Catholic Church in America has decided to be an instrument for the perpetuation of bigotry and injustice in America today, and is to be regarded as such by any moral American.

Imagine that you are running a hospital. You have found a highly qualified black surgeon and you want to hire him. However, when you announce your decision to do so, an organization that contributes substantially to your hospital says that they will pull their funding if you should hire any black person.

Or, you and your young daughter have been taken hostage. The hostage taker points a gun at you and says, "Either you rape your young daughter while I watch, or I will pour lighter fluid on her and set her on fire while you watch."

There are two moral questions to be asked here.

One question is, "What should you do if somebody puts these types of demands on you?"

(Aside: Desirism concludes in these cases that the moral agent will have a strong aversion to both options. These strong aversions - combined with the fact that these are aversions an agent should have implies that the good person will be deeply and emotionally torn as to what to do. The specific action to take depends on the specific circumstances.)

The other question is: "What attitude should we as a society take towards people or organizations who place those types of demands on others?"

It's the second question that I want to focus on here, because it defines the attitude that a moral person should take with respect to the Catholic Church.

According to the Washington Post:

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

(See: Washington Post: Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum)

In other words, the Catholic Church has decided to play the role of the bigoted philanthropist.

On the issue of homosexuality, the Catholic Church has the moral facts wrong. They are as wrong about the immorality of homosexual acts just as they were about the Earth being the center of the universe.

They are also wrong for substantially the same reasons - because their Bible are the transcripts of stories made up by illiterate tribes who had a very primitive knowledge of both the physical and the moral universe.

The Catholic Church is certainly capable of ignoring the moral errors that made their way into its Bible. It no longer defends the view that God, through Ham, condemned all blacks to serve as the slaves of Europeans, it no longer demands the death of those who work on the Sabbath, it no longer condones the selling of one's daughters into slavery, and it no longer condemns the charging of interest on money.

It can easily add one more moral error to this list - unless it, like the KKK and Nazis - identify so strongly with a particular prejudice that becoming moral individuals would require giving up that identity.

I am not saying that the Catholic Church is like the KKK or Nazis. I am saying that they have a choice to make - to either be like the KKK or Nazis in their close identification with bigotry and prejudice, or cast this bigotry into the trash heap along with other moral mistakes found in scripture (or re-interpret scripture in such a way that it is more in tune with the moral facts).

People have no obligation to respect a religion that says that blacks must be enslaved or that children may be raped. It has no obligation to respect a religion that preaches bigotry against homosexuals and uses its power to promote unjust and immoral laws that do them harm.

"Charity Without Bigotry"

At the start, I said that how those who are subject to villainous blackmail should react depends on the specifics of the situation. I think that the specifics of this situation dictates a particular response.

The best response against the villainous blackmailer is to do what one can to take away the power that the villain is using as leverage. In this case, since the Catholic Church has decided hold the beneficiaries of its adoption, homeless, and health-care services hostage, those services should be transferred to organizations who can perform just as much virtuous charity, without poisoning it with vicious bigotry.

We should separate those who make contributions to charity for the sake of promoting bigotry from those who make contributions to charity for the sake of helping those who need by promoting organizations that can boast, "Charity Without Bigotry".

In fact, I would like to see that phrase used as a slogan.

This is the same attitude that a moral person would take toward the racist philanthropist and the kidnapper in the two examples that start this post. There, too, the right thing to do, if possible, is to deprive the villainous blackmailer of power so that his victims have the freedom to do what is right - or the freedom to not be forced to do evil themselves.

Fox News' Deceptive Manipulation

Jon Stewart has caught Fox News in another lie.

(See: Crooks and Liars: Jon Stewart totally busts Sean Hannity for using old footage to inflate size of Bachmann's teabagger rally.)

In a broadcast on a recent rally at the steps of the capital, Sean Hannity used footage from a previous rally where there was a much larger audience, and presented it as if were footage of this rally. At the same time, fellow commentators made exaggerated claims about the numbers of people present – numbers consistent with the deceptive footage shown at the same time.

The problem is not with this one act. The problem is with the values expressed in this one act. The type of person who would do such a thing is a type of person who has no personal aversion to manipulating others through deception. It is somebody who does not care whether he gives the people the truth. He cares about other things – such as personal profit – and is willing to deceitfully manipulate others in the pursuit of those other things.

In exhibiting these values themselves, they teach these values to others – such as our children. Sean Hannity’s message to people is that manipulating others through deception is a perfectly acceptable act – and that people in general ought not to be concerned. People who praise and reward Sean Hannity or fox News for this bit of deceptive manipulation are ALSO telling people (particularly children) that it is a virtue to engage in these types of practices.

Those types of attitudes are responsible for a great deal of avoidable pain and suffering. Those who care about their own well-being and the well-being of others will be intent to see to it that deceptive manipulation is not met with praise and reward, but condemnation and punishment.

(Standard disclaimer: The right to freedom of speech limits the response to immoral speech acts of this type to condemnation and private actions – such as refusal to purchase services from or refusal to purchase services from supporters of those who perform such actions. Specifically, it prohibits violence as a response to immoral speech acts of this type.)

For everything that gets put on the screen and every line of text that is read or statement that is spoken, we have proof that the agents responsible for those images and text are people who have no aversion to putting lies in front of the American people. Agents with an morally responsible aversion to lying would not have put those images into the report or exaggerated the numbers. Agents who put those images into the report and exaggerated the numbers are agents with little or no aversion to deceptive manipulation.

Decent, respectable, moral individuals will look on these antics at Fox News and say, "How dare you adopt values that put America and Americans at risk? How dare you think it is permissible to try to manipulate us with distortions such as these? Without an apparent ounce of embarrassment or shame - without a twinge of conscience that we can see - you sit back and count your money while your victims act on the lies that you have fed them.

People are manipulated by lies when one wants to do something that they would not do if they were given the truth.

People act so as to fulfill the most and strongest of their desires given their beliefs. Lies aim to manipulate people to act to in ways that fulfill the most and strongest desires of the liar, sacrificing the desires of the person being lied to. A liar is like a parasite who feeds off of the effort of others. He fools others into thinking they are fulfilling the most and strongest of their own desires, when, in fact, their own desires are being thwarted by actions that fulfill the desires of the deceiver.

This is the role that Fox News is playing in our society today – manipulating people into doing things that are harmful to those being manipulated or harmful to others, but which helps to fulfill the most and the strongest of the desires of those at Fox News.

The company who sells products through Fox News is showing that it shares the values of Fox News - the value of deceiving and manipulating others through profit. It might not be a surprise to find so many companies that can turn a blind eye to deceit and manipulation for profit. However, the fact that it is surprising does not make it good or right. The fact that it is not surprising does not change the fact that Americans have many and strong reasons to condemn those who value the deceitful manipulation of others.

If somebody is seeking evidence that America is not a great nation, they can find it in the fact that this type of manipulative deception for profit, causing its citizens to act in ways harmful to themselves and others, is generally accepted. Whereas a great nation would condemn these types of actions (and the motives behind them), America raises little or no objection to these manipulations and deceptions.

In fact, Americans continue to heap praise and rewards on the deceitful manipulators – it allows lying deceivers are allowed to succeed even when they are caught. That which is rewarded will grow and prosper, it is of little wonder in this country that deceitful manipulation is a growing industry in this country. The more deceitful manipulation we get, the more examples we can find of Americans acting in ways harmful to themselves and others.