religion
mikethemadbiologist | February 11, 2008I really wasn't going to bash Kristof over his recent apologia for evangelicals. I've done so before, and I didn't really see the point in doing so again. But, by way of ScienceBlogling James Hrynyshyn, I came across Kristof's response to some of the criticism he has received (in bold is his synopsis of a particular criticism; italics mine):
It's okay to deride evangelicals because they're Neanderthals on science and other issues. If people don't believe in evolution, they invite mockery. If we call them nuts, it's because we have good evidence that they are nuts.
I agree that the…
jrosenhouse | February 11, 2008Meanwhile, over at Town Hall Dinesh D'Souza serves up yet another steaming pile of religious idiocy. His subject is an exchange between Rabbi Jacob Neusner and Pope Benedict. He opens with a gratuitous slap at Richard Dawkins:
Even so, Neusner's treatment of Christ could not be more different than that of Dawkins. One of the main differences is that Dawkins is a biologist and Neusner is a scholar of ancient texts and history. Consequently Dawkins' historical and literary understanding is at the eighth grade level, while Neusner brings to his work a depth and sophistication worthy of a man…
gregladen | February 11, 2008... according to some.
The Veteran's Administration (hospitals) maintains chapels in their facility. In 1953, the VA initiated a policy regarding chapels that states: "Chapels will be appointed and maintained as places for meditation and prayer for members of any faith group or denomination." Apparently, this policy has been widely ignored, but is now being addresses, to the consternation of some.
In Beckley, West Virginia, there is a cross hanging in the VA chapel. Other religious iconography has been removed from this chapel, but the cross is kind of built-in, and even if it wasn't, it…
pontiff | February 11, 2008The U.S. presidential candidates been invited to a debate on science. Will they come? I don't know, but the thought of Mike Huckabee using biblical references in discussing science could lead to some very fun sentences. For example, if he wanted to get apocrypha-l, when talking about the bioethics of artificial wombs, he could bring up the Gospel of Thomas 15:
Jesus said, "When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship. That one is your Father."
Of course, Mike Huckabee didn't major in math, so I worry that he won't attend for fear that the debate might test his…
pharyngula | February 10, 2008So…Muslims want special foot washing stations so they can tidy up in order to pray, but at the same time, Muslim doctors don't want to have to wash their arms before they plunge them into my guts. "No practising Muslim woman — doctor, medical student, nurse or patient — should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow," they say.
A belief system that prioritizes washing up before mumbling at an invisible man over sterile technique in surgery does not require accommodation. It needs to be the target of laughter and contempt.
mikethemadbiologist | February 10, 2008Because what's a little intolerance among 'friends':
The revision of a contentious Good Friday prayer approved this week by Pope Benedict XVI could set back Jewish-Catholic relations, Conservative Judaism's international assembly of rabbis says in a resolution to be voted on next week.
The prayer calls for God to enlighten the hearts of Jews "so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men."
The draft resolution states the prayer would "cast a harsh shadow over the spirit of mutual respect and collaboration that has marked these past four decades, making it more difficult for…
pharyngula | February 9, 2008Saudi police arrested and strip-searched an American businesswoman for the crime of visiting a Starbucks with a male colleague.
"Some men came up to us with very long beards and white dresses. They asked 'Why are you here together?' I explained about the power being out in our office. They got very angry and told me what I was doing was a great sin," she told the Times.
It could be worse. In Iraq, women who violate "Islamic teachings" are tortured and murdered. The "Islamic teachings" that are so important that violators must be tortured and beheaded involve wearing a headscarf.
You can…
scientificactivist | February 8, 2008The Guardian reports today that Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, raised eyebrows last night when he suggested that the UK ought to recognize sharia law. Sharia law, or Islamic law, forms the basis of the legal systems in Islamic theocracies, but is often practiced informally within other societies, particularly on matters such as marriage and divorce.
The idea that the UK--a society that like Europe at large has almost fully rejected the shackles of religious tyranny--would take such a huge leap backwards is almost unthinkable. Not only that, but one of the fundamental pillars…
pharyngula | February 8, 2008Greg Laden has provided som lengthy commentary on the Rue-Myers debate.
They really didn't have to taser him. Just waving the weapon at him was enough to quiet him down.
gregladen | February 8, 2008Last night, the Campus Atheists, Skeptics and Humanists club (C.A.S.H.) presented a debate between PZ Myers and Loyal Rue on the question: Can religion and science co-exist? I witnessed this event and would like to tell you what happened.
I want to begin with a message to PZ Myers: Thank you, PZ, for your service! There are a lot of people in the twin cities who could engage in an interesting debate on religion, atheism, evolution, creationism, etc. and do an OK job, but none others have the experience and intellectual preparation (to do an excellent job) and the draw (to guarantee lots…
pharyngula | February 8, 2008At some time, a recording of our 'debate' will be available online, so I won't try to do a play by play now. I will say that I found this one pretty much impossible to prepare for — there was no way this debate could be shoe-horned into a good vs. evil or smartness vs. ignorance conflict, making it a much more complicated discussion, rather than a television wrestling storyline. We'd had a few conversations in email and there were several points of disagreement, and in fact Dr Rue showed those points in a slide, but you know, he had good reasons for all the stuff he got wrong. I read his book…
tqa | February 6, 2008
We're now into the third day of the brouhaha that was sparked by Casey Luskin's misuse of the "Blogging About Peer-Reviewed Research" icon. Casey posted a few responses to criticisms in the discussion thread over at the BPR3 blog, then packed his bags and went home because Dave Munger didn't delete all of the comments that had said bad things about Casey. It's pretty clear that Casey got what he was fishing for before he left, though: more stories about how poor Intelligent Design proponents are picked on by mean scientists.
They've been playing up that sort of story for a while now, and…
tqa | February 5, 2008
It looks like there's definitely going to be a little bit of good political news for everyone tonight - a statement released by leading theocon James Dobson:
"I am deeply disappointed the Republican Party seems poised to select a nominee who did not support a Constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage, voted for embryonic stem-cell research to kill nascent human beings, opposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty, has little regard for freedom of speech, organized the Gang of 14 to preserve filibusters in judicial hearings, and has a legendary temper and often…
pharyngula | February 5, 2008
Just the title of this book is good for a laugh: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Prayer. They've certainly got their target audience pegged.
As an added bonus, the reviews are amusing.
Have reviewed a number of books on prayer and they usually get too complicated and bogged down.
"Close your eyes and pretend" is too complicated? Are there rules and regulations and rituals that must be performed for this prayer thing that are baroque and beyond my understanding, or is this reviewer the kind of person who finds swallowing to be an act of will that requires concentration and practice?
I just…
tqa | February 4, 2008
Casey Luskin has a post up over at the Discovery Institute's website that discusses an article that was recently published in PLoS Biology. The post itself is nothing particularly remarkable - Casey takes a paper that says that current hypotheses don't adequately deal with all of the problems of figuring out how life started, and claims that a lack of a workable hypothesis is evidence that an Intelligent Designer is needed to explain how life got here. Along the way to the argument from ignorance, he manages to misrepresent portions of the article, put words into the author's mouth, and use…
pharyngula | February 3, 2008We're in a war, we're looking at a looming mortgage crisis, and I can tell you that our educational system is getting flushed down the tubes, and what does our brave congress do? Why, it decides to make the words "In God We Trust" bigger on our coins.
Responding to complaints from the Religious Right, Congress has passed legislation mandating that the phrase "In God We Trust" be moved from the edge to the back or front of the new presidential dollar coins.
President George W. Bush signed the measure into law Dec. 26. It was tucked into a $555 billion domestic spending bill after having been…
gregladen | February 3, 2008Have a good time.
But you may want to have a look at this.
NFL cracks down on Super Bowl church parties
Hat Tip: Evolgen
evolvingthoughts | February 2, 2008
Here's a comment that represents a widely held misconception about the evolution of religion:
Whenever there is an discussion about religions and changes in religions someone always pulls out the argument that religions evolve. I am very sorry but I believe that applying the concept of evolution to religion is not a valid argument.
The argument suggests that religions start off as primitive beliefs and then change to become better beliefs. This is not the idea of evolution. Evolution does not necessarily make life forms better. Evolution changes life forms and sometimes these changes…
terrasig | February 2, 2008Readers and colleagues often ask why scientists care to blog, especially given increasing time demands and decreasing research funding. For me, the blog is an opportunity to have discussions with colleagues from diverse research areas all around the world. Quite often, I learn something quite new that I would not normally encounter in my chosen field of cancer pharmacology.
A case in point stems from a reader comment by Dr Italo MR Guedes, a Brazilian soil scientist who writes the blog, Geófagos (Google Translate works well enough unless, of course, you are already fluent in Portuguese).…