Oh look, Church leaders are up in arms about some new piece of legislation. Are we really surprised? After so many thousands of years of them proclaiming that anything which makes them, personally, feel uncomfortable is evil, how can we be anything but bored when they keep at it in the present time? Last year it was equal rights for homosexuals, this year it’s advanced research into human genetics. Before long it’ll be artificial intelligence, neuroscience, or some other thing which challenges, and advances, our view of ourselves.

Oh, and of course the cries are going to be led by the Catholic Church this time; they’re the ones with a huge theological investment in the subject. We’re talking about a cult whose insane superstitions about human genetic material lead them to declare male masturbation a “sin against God”, and to deduce that tens of millions of people in the third world dying of AIDS and hundreds of millions more living in miserable, starving poverty due to overpopulation is probably OK compared to the much greater sin of letting them use condoms. These are people whose core values are utterly incompatible with the human rights and human dignity they claim to be the guardians of, and our response to their claims of being some sort of authority on ethics (especially bioethics) should be to laugh disdainfully and get on with trying to make the world a better place.

This really is the last thing we need.

I’m not talking about the bug itself (although obviously MRSA is a problem and needs to be taken very seriously,) but about the fact that it seems to have established itself in the gay community. I haven’t googled to find out, but I’m sure the Religious Right has already got hold of this and stared beating it’s “dangers of an immoral lifestyle” drum. And if they haven’t, it’s only a matter of time. Mark my words.

For an example, take a look at the Metro’s coverage. Their headline alone is shockingly misleading; “Strain of Superbug ‘may be new HIV’”. I don’t know where they got that quote from (they don’t bother to attribute it anywhere in the article,) but I’d love to hear it justified. Is MRSA a virus? Does it attack the immune system? No. So in what way exactly might it be the new Human Immunodeficiency Virus? Oh yes, because it’s a “gay disease.” Just like AIDS. The ignorance staggers me.

And it gets worse. Further down the article they write:

MRSA expert Prof Mark Enright, from Imperial College and St Mary’s Hospital, London, said gay communities and drug users were particularly at risk. But it could also be spread by those involved in sports, such as wrestling, with skin-​to-​skin contact.

‘Having a number of sexual partners and making skin contact with a large number of different people is how these infections are picked up,’ he added.

I really hope they’ve ‘massaged’ Prof. Enright’s quote, because if not, he should not be called an expert. Gay communities and drug users are not “particularly at risk,” and Enright knows it; he says as much in the next paragraph. The people particularly at risk are people who make a lot of direct skin contact with a lot of different people. Now, it might be true that there’s a strong correlation, that gay people tend to have more direct contact with others than non-​gay people, but that is utterly irrelevant; it’s still the contact, not being gay that puts those people at risk and to suggest otherwise is downright irresponsible.

Obviously health professionals have a responsibility to identify trends in disease transmission and infection rates, and to try to highlight high-​risk activities and to keep the public informed; that’s their job and it’s immensely valuable in preventing and treating illness. The problem arises when some rag takes what they’re saying and twists it into an article which effectively says “Oh noes! Teh Gay! It’s making us ill! Again!”

Shame on you Metro, for publishing this: It’s bad science, it’s bad journalism and it’s morally reprehensible.

This is an interesting case. The family of a woman who died after being bitten while handling a rattlesnake during a religious service have sued the hospital she was taken to for failing to correctly treat her. They claim

After being taken into the hospital at 8:09 p.m., Long said she was having trouble breathing, and asked for oxygen. Hospital employees gave her a portable, oscillating fan as they allegedly “snickered and made derogatory comments” to employees — and Long’s family — about the religious beliefs and circumstances under which she was bitten.

Her blood pressure dropped; her heart rate went up; her neck, face and tongue swelled; and she went into shock. However, a doctor failed to properly treat her and did not put in a tube to help her breathe, according to the lawsuit.

At 8:28 p.m., hospital personnel contacted the air ambulance service. When the helicopter arrived 12 minutes later, the crew asked the doctor to put in a tube to help Long breathe, but the doctor said her airway was not the problem and told the flight crew to get her to Lexington quickly, the suit says.

Long’s heart stopped on the way. She was pronounced dead at 10:50 p.m. at the University of Kentucky Medical Center.

Serious allegations. While, personally, I think anyone who deliberately antagonised a lethally venomous animal for recreation pretty much deserves anything they get, it is not the the place of the hospital to take that stance, and they have a responsibility to offer treatment, regardless of how the injury was sustained. I’m no toxicologist, but I do know that most rattlesnake venom attacks the heart and/​or blood directly, so the cause of death was likely not her breathing difficulty, just like the Doctor said, although that doesn’t justify the attitude of the hospital staff, if this report is to be believed.

The article doesn’t make it clear, but I’d be willing to bet that while the deceased’s family are suing the hospital for failing to correctly treat her, they won’t be overly down on God for letting the snake bite her in the first place.

The Catholic Church’s consistent anti-​contraception stance is one of the best examples of blind adherence to outmoded religious thought doing actual, measurable harm in the world today. Not only does it excaserbate population pressure, increase poverty, and lead to unwanted (and therefore unloved) children, it is also a major contributor to the continued spread of sexually transmitted diseases world-​wide.

When you add this sort of utterly insane crackpottery into the mix, you end up with a conspiracy theory that would be funny if it wasn’t tragic.

People are going to listen to this moron. They’re going to believe him because he’s a “holy-​man,” they’re going to stay away from condoms, they’re going to catch AIDS and they’re going to die painfully because one man is too blinkered by religious dogma, and his own insane justifications for it, to see just how important and effective proper healthcare is.

PZ has stepped up to the plate, with a numbered list of Christianity’s sins against science. The one that sticks in my throat the most from his list (although they all more or less get to me,) is his number 1, theft:

Atheists know this one on a daily basis: Tornado demolishes home, tearful survivor comes before news cameras and “thanks God” that she was spared. Football player scores goal, drops to knees and praises god for his touchdown. Cancer patient goes into remission, lies in bed surrounded by his expensive, highly trained medical team, calls it a miracle. What religion does is steal human accomplishment and bestows it on a fickle imaginary being. Modern medicine is not a product of religion, it’s the highly refined outcome of years of empirical science, yet people still babble about miracles and prayers.

It’s not so much a sin against science as it is a sin against humanity. Sure medical science is an area of human achievement that is often appropriated by the religious as a miracle, but it’s far from the only one; works of art, strength of will, even basic kindness are frequently spoken of as though they come directly from God rather than the actual person or people involved in the act. A corollary to this is a sin that PZ missed (presumably because it doesn’t really apply to science):

guilt: Not only does religion take credit for all of it’s adherents successes, but it pushes all the responsibility for their failures right back onto them (not forgetting the failures of their all ancestors, ever). How many sportsmen do you hear criticising God for not giving them the skill or determination to score a winning goal when they’ve lost? How many down-​and-​outs curse God for not turning their life around and giving them the drive to make something of themselves? None. Of all the features of Christianity, it’s that utterly unequal (and after the fact) apportioning of blame and credit that angers me the most.

As a (somewhat) aside, Mike The Mad Biologist has an interesting point by point response to PZ from the perspective of his own beliefs, which is well worth a look. I do, however want to take issue with his example of “good faith”:

Most movements that have led to profound change were not forgone conclusions, and require incredible faith–that is, an irrational belief that right would will out in the face of extensive oppression–to sustain them (e.g., the civil rights movement). In retrospect, many such movements appear inevitable, but it certainly didn’t look that way to those engaged in those movements at the time. So, some ‘faiths’ are not bad.

If change was not a foregone conclusion — and I’m inclined to agree — if it didn’t look inevitable at the time, then I don’t see how you can talk about those people as having faith that right would out. It seems to me that they had was hope that they could overcome the odds and a conviction that it was worth putting it all on the line in the attempt. In fact surely, if they had faith that right would out, then they’d have been less inclined to make a stand; why risk everything when you have faith that things will turn out OK? No — what those embattled agents of social change had is the opposite of faith: they had the knowledge that things wouldn’t just turn out alright, and that it takes the voice and the actions and the sacrifice — sometimes the ultimate sacrifice — of people of conviction to even stand a chance of changing the world for the better.