religion
pharyngula | February 27, 2008Sorry, California. After the plague of migratory, mammal-eating pythons, we now have independent testimony that God doesn't like you.
God is disgusted with California legislators - at least some of them, according to an evangelical chaplain who ruffled feathers this week in the same Capitol where he leads Bible studies for lawmakers.
No, I don't accept his personal claims about the desires of the Great Cosmic Poobah, but the evidence from the situation that 1) this bozo gets paid $120,000/year to evangelize to politicians, and 2) weepy-eyed politicians are stumbling all over themselves to…
pharyngula | February 27, 2008The Colorado NPR station KUNC recently ran a credulous fluff piece by some guy named Marc Ringel, touting "healing at a distance", some sort of magic handwaving that he claims is "scientifically" supported. The Colorado skeptical community, of course, has expressed their scorn in email to the station, and also brought it to my attention. They also mentioned an excellent website reviewing the evidence for intercessory prayer.
The most interesting revelation to me: I've heard of tests of intercessory prayer, where people pray or don't pray for a patient and then the outcomes are evaluated to…
mikethemadbiologist | February 26, 2008I think Amanda's take on Amy Sullivan's denigration of the term pro-choice is pretty dead on. But something else about that interview bothered me, and it was Sullivan's need for religious validation from political figures and parties. In the interview, Sullivan says:
When you write off Catholics and evangelicals as not your voters, you're stereotyping. When you make fun of John Ashcroft or George W. Bush for praying, you are giving off a sense that there's something wrong with that. That there's something ridiculous about people who spend their mornings with prayer. And we've seen this in…
gregladen | February 26, 2008Rick Perry, Eagle Scout, has written a book about the boy scouts, defending their homophobic and anti humanist activism.
An Eagle Scout and the father of an Eagle Scout, Perry stresses the importance of Scout values such as being "courteous and kind." (He is fond of phrases like "gosh" and "jiminy cricket.") He has received the Silver Antelope Award for outstanding service to the Scouts.
Asked in a recent interview if being gay was a choice (I presume the interview pegged Perry for gay, otherwise why ask him this question), he replied:
I'm not a social scientist. I can't answer the…
nisbetmc | February 26, 2008There's more press coverage and follow up on the AAAS session "Communicating Science in a Religious America." My colleague Dietram Scheufele, a professor of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin, has this blog post up outlining his presentation on how religious Americans view nanotechnology and the role of framing in this process. Also see the ScienceDaily press release and discussion at the Wall Street Journal's BizTech blog.
pharyngula | February 25, 2008
So…have you all read the latest Pew report on American religion? It's been reported in the NY Times, too, and I heard that it was the lead story on CBS News (which, unfortunately, said something about a "secular, morally empty America" — did anyone catch it, or better yet, record it?).
It's mostly good news. We've got a fragmented, shrinking Protestant population, Catholics are abandoning ship in droves and what's keeping it afloat is Catholic immigration from the south, and the "unaffiliateds" are growing fast, especially among young adults.
The survey finds that the number of people who…
pharyngula | February 25, 2008What organization rakes in the cash by exploiting the poor and making extravagant claims that never come true? What business is built entirely on mass marketing and dishonest advertising, and yet is never called into account for its failure? It isn't the tobacco companies or the makers of penis enlargement drugs — it's religion.
I have no idea whether this is a brilliant idea or just the daydream of an ambulance-chasing shyster, but someone is pursuing Earths Greatest Lawsuit — an effort to gather a swarm of plaintiffs to slam various religious organizations with numerous lawsuits.
It's an…
nisbetmc | February 24, 2008A few more bloggers who were in attendance at the "Communicating Science in a Religious America" panel have weighed in.
-->The editor of Nature's blog network describes the panel as the most interesting session she attended at AAAS.
-->And if you read French, Agence Presse has this report.
In addition, following the panel, Ken Miller was interviewed by the Guardian and offers these audio remarks on his suggestion that scientists recapture the term "design" from creationists. Miller wowed the packed audience with a brilliant presentation, but I'm not sure this particular communication…
jrosenhouse | February 24, 2008That, minus the question mark, is the title of a new article by theologian John Haught in the current issue of The Christian Century. The subtitle is “Why the New Atheism isn't Serious.” Sadly, the article does not seem to be available online.
After reading that headline, I was expecting Haught to offer a variation on The Courtier's Reply. Actually, Haught has something different in mind.
The serious atheists, in his view, are Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre. What makes them serious?
In this respect the new atheism is very much like the old secular humanism that was rebuked by the hard-…
nisbetmc | February 24, 2008Traveling back from talks at UTexas, I spotted this front page feature in today's Austin American Statesman. As I have noted at this blog before, according to surveys and experts who track the Evangelical movement, a generational split has emerged among Evangelicals when it comes to the issues of most salient concern. Evangelicals 40 and older tend to vote for the most socially conservative candidate and rally around issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, but evangelicals under 40 are defining a new set of political priorities, with poverty and the environment at the top of the list.
jrosenhouse | February 24, 2008The Christian Century has this interesting article about the relationship between evolution and Christianity, written by Amy Frykholm. Interesting not because it actually resolves the question in any satisfactory way, but rather because it states the problem in a more forthright manner than is typical for writing in this genre:
But I suspect that the compatibility of evolutionary science with Christian theology is more often asserted than explored. I, for one, do most of my thinking about science out of one mental box and my thinking about religion out of another. On questions about…
terrasig | February 24, 2008Following last week's outtakes from church bulletins, the synthetic organic chemist who goes by Milkshake of Org Prep Daily sent along this for our pleasure.
oracknows | February 24, 2008One of XTC's best songs:
I actually heard this on the radio the other night, hence my looking for it on YouTube. I hadn't heard the song in several years, and I don't recall ever hearing it on the radio. In any case, it caught my mood this morning.
razib | February 22, 2008In my post below, Pentecostals are stupid? Unitarians are smart?, I derived some conclusions from data which suggests that different religious groups in the United States have different IQs and/or academic aptitudes. The data are not particularly surprising, as some noted the class biases of American Protestantism have long been observed, and class usually has some correlation with education and performance on intelligence tests. That being said, one must be careful about extrapolating from one nation to others. Darwin Catholic stated:
For comparison, I seem to recall reading that…
pharyngula | February 22, 2008The German Family Ministry (does anyone know if inclusion of the word "family" in an organization title is as ominous auf Deutsch as it is in English?) wants to ban a children's book. The book is about two little animals on a pilgrimage to find god, and in the end they don't find him anywhere, and conclude that they haven't been missing anything. There's a good reason to ban it, I'm sure…
"The three large religions of the world, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, are slurred in the book," the ministry wrote in a December memo. "The distinctive characteristics of each religion are made…
oracknows | February 22, 2008Sometimes woo jumps out and hits you from sources from which you least expect it.
Such was the case earlier this week, when I found my self in Detroit lazily watching a local newscast. Now, I realize that local news is not the place to look for skepticism. Heck, just the other day, I mentioned a really egregious example of a newscast from Oklahoma City that credulously regurgitated Generation Rescue talking points as fact. But it's rare in my experience to see such a sterling example of woo appearing in a major market newscast. So there I was, sitting in front of the TV, when I saw a story…
clock | February 21, 2008Seminar on Secular Parenting Coming to Raleigh, March 15
Presented by Dale McGowan
Editor/co-author, Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion
* How does moral development really work?
* My mother-in-law wants our kids baptized. How can I respond without causing a rift?
* How can I ease my son's fears about death without pretending there's an afterlife?
* How can kids learn about religion without being indoctrinated into religion?
Over nine million parents in the U.S. are raising children without religion. The Parenting Beyond Belief seminar, a…
evolvingthoughts | February 21, 2008
One of the more curious episodes in recent cultural history is the adoption, word for word, by Islamists particularly in Turkey of the American Christian fundamentalist antievolution schtick. Nobody knows more about this than Taner Edis, whose book An Illusion of Harmony: Science And Religion in Islam outlines how this came about and the relation between science and Islam (overall: not good).
Here's a nice short article by Edis, from the History of Science newsletter.
gregladen | February 21, 2008Plan B is, of course, inserting Christian Creationism into the Social Studies curriculum. This is disconcerting. Many otherwise perfectly rational and intelligent people think this is a good idea. It is not.
This sort of proposal is becoming more common now (this week) in editorials and other opinion outlets, with the defeat of the Wedge Strategy to water down the science standards in Florida. (This rebound effect occurs every time creationists are defeated.)
So, why is this not a good idea?
Social studies is a broad field of investigation that has many important goals. Like modern…
razib | February 20, 2008A few days ago I noted that smart people believe in evolution. And stupid people do not. Inductivist looked at the IQ scores in the GSS for whites and this is what he found for various religions:
Mean IQ of whites from General Social Survey by religious affiliation
Episcopalian
109.9
Lutheran
107.4
Mormon
105.7
Presbyterian
102.3
United Methodist
101.8
Southern Baptist
98.0
Assembly of God
94.5
Pentecostal
92.2
Surprised? I hope you're not so ignorant that you are! Here are the top 10 religious groups in SAT score from 2002:
Average SAT score by religion for…