What I learned today

I've written here before about how I really hate reading the news these days, because so much of what is reported is so upsetting. Nothing has really changed on that front. But, some days, there are some interesting things to learn by browsing through a newspaper (yes, they do still publish those) or surfing a few news sites on the Internet.

In my reading today, I learned some very interesting things. Or, at least, they were interesting to me.

Yahoo! News informed me that the planet Mercury has water ice on its surface.

This seems a little counterintuitive considering that Mercury orbits the Sun at a distance of 29 million to 43 million miles, less than half the 93 million miles that separates the Earth from the Sun. Granted, even 29 million miles sounds like a long way, but the Sun is very hot.

The temperature extremes on Mercury are vast, with temperatures on the surface of the planet ranging from minus 279.67 degrees Fahrenheit to 800.33 degrees Fahrenheit. Minus 279F is surely cold enough to freeze water, but 800F seems about hot enough to vaporize it. The thing is, the poles of Mercury, where the ice was detected, rarely come out of shadows and remain very cold because the planet has no atmosphere.

The presence of water ice on Mercury has been suspected for a couple of decades, but the Messenger spacecraft that has been in orbit around the planet since last year, has reportedly confirmed its presence.

Back down on Earth, CNN is reporting that men in the Mideast are increasingly having surgery to enhance their moustaches. One plastic surgeon in Turkey claims to be doing up to 60 such procedures every month, while another plastic surgeon, this time in France, claims that men from around the Middle East fly in for the surgery.

The same report also says that moustache styles in Turkey have taken on a sort of second life as a political code, with the way a man wears his 'stache often indicating whether he is a conservative or a left-wing nationalist.

In another "who knew" story, it turns out televangelist Pat Robertson is not a young earth creationist after all. Young earth creationists believe that the planet has only been in existence a short time, generally between 6,000 and 10,000 years as opposed to the scientific consensus that the Earth is around 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old.

While answering a question from a viewer on his "700 Club" television show on Tuesday, Robertson acknowledged that some people were not going to be very happy with his answer before he said that dinosaurs clearly lived longer ago than 6,000 years, "before the times of the Bible," as he put it. "So," he is quoted by CNN as saying, "don't try to cover it up and make like everything was 6,000 years."

And last, but certainly not least, CNN also reports that the original Batmobile, created in 15 days by designer George Barris for the television series "Batman", which ran from 1966 to 1968, is going to go up for auction in January. The thing that makes the car unique is that it was the only one used in the series, making it unequivocally the original Batmobile. In most TV series and movies, several copies of a vehicle are created, making it difficult to call any of them "the original". Even more unique, Barris has been the only owner of the car, so it is difficult to say just how much bidders will be willing to pay for this particular piece of television history.

So...this is what I've learned today. What new piece of knowledge have you picked up today?

In the name of God? Really?

I'm really not what you'd call a religious person. Even so, I don't have a problem with religion in general, and while I'm agnostic on the subject of deity, I tend to lean toward their being some kind of power that we don't yet understand, some kind of organizing force, in the universe. Might just be the laws of physics, might be something more godlike, as many people define that concept. I haven't seen conclusive proof of it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

At any rate, I don't go around dismissing or disrespecting religion in general or, usually, in specific.

I have my moments however, when I question the usefulness of some forms of religious belief, that some believers interpret as giving them the right to hurt, maim, and kill anyone who does not conform to their particular set of beliefs. So, stories like the one I read this morning on Yahoo! news, reported from an ABC News story, make me angry and sad, in turn. But mostly angry.

The story reports yet another incident in Pakistan where parents have been arrested for allegedly killing their daughter by pouring acid over her head and face, and all over her body. Then, then waited overnight to take her to a hospital, where she died in what was described as a "slow and excruciatingly painful" manner.

Her crime, as her parents perceived it? She talked to an "unknown boy".

Excuse me?

Yes, I know that rigid and strict interpretations of some forms of Islam regard a woman talking to, or even being seen with, a boy they are not related to by blood as a sin. One thing that has always puzzled me about these "honor killings", though, is that we never hear about the boys being punished for talking to the girl. But that's not the point here.

The point here is that people are going around killing, sometimes killing their own children, for something so trivial as talking to someone of the opposite sex that they aren't related to. That just isn't right. I don't care how ingrained in their culture or religion it is. It. Is. Just. Not. Right.

I'm NOT being anti-Islamic here, believe me. I would be saying the same thing if it were members of any other religion involved in something this stupid and horrible.

To make the point that this sort of thinking is not confined to Islam, let me remind you that there are people, advocates of what is called Christian Reconstructionism, who believe that the laws of the Old Testament should be enacted into secular law in the United States. This would include making such things as blasphemy (that would be cussing, among other things), adultery, children talking back to their parents, lying about one's virginity, apostasy (leaving your church or declaring unbelief in God), witchcraft, homosexuality, or bearing false witness in court, crimes punishable by death. Basically, they believe that anyone who does not conduct their life in accordance with the Reconstructionist interpretation of what God wants deserves to die.
Not that much different from many of the things that the most strict forms of Islam advocate, is it?

This philosophy also considers democracy to be incompatible with Christianity, by the way, and advocates institution of a theocracy in the United States. Just so you know where they're coming from politically.

And lest you think that this is just a small group of religious nut-jobs who have not had any influence on wider Christianity as it is practiced in the United States today, among those who have been influenced by Christian Reconstructionism and the related Dominionist Theology, consider that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and D. James Kennedy (all of whom are or were very widely known televangelists, with large followings) all spoke admiringly and approvingly of books advocating this religious philosophy. The "father of Christian Reconstructionism", Rousas John Rushdoony, was on Robertson's "700 Club" television show several time.

Additionally, David Barton, a revisionist historian whose most recent book, "The Jefferson Lies", was withdrawn from publication by its Christian publishing house for being largely made up out of whole cloth, is an adherent of Reconstructionism. Barton has had a huge influence on the Christian Right and has been supported publicly by people like former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and broadcaster Glenn Beck. So, it isn't as if the views of Christian Reconstructionism haven't found their way into what has become widely recognized, if not precisely mainstream, religious and political thought in the United States.

The point that I'm trying to make here, although it's taking me a lot more words to do it than I had anticipated, is that while religion and religious believers have made wonderful contributions to the world, religion also manages, sometimes, to bring out the absolute worst, and most vicious, in human nature. And that part of religion, I don't believe, should be immune from criticism just because it is rooted in religious belief.

So, no, it isn't okay, no matter if you believe, as those parents in Pakistan apparently did, to go around killing your kids because they were disobedient in ways that are a normal part of human nature. Girls are going to want to talk to boys, and boys are going to want to talk to girls. What is not natural is thinking that this desire to socialize is a bad thing, to be prevented by whatever means necessary, including homicide.

As a trivial aside, by the way, while I was doing research for this post, I discovered that Rushdoony, the "father of Reconstructionism", grew up not far away from where I live now, in the small Central California town of Kingsburg. For some reason, I find that to be really creepy.