religion
jrosenhouse | December 18, 2007Meanwhile, former Archbishop of York John Hapgood weighs in on four recent books about religion and atheism. The first: The New Atheists by Tina Beattie. Sadly, I am familiar neither with the book nor the author.
Hapgood's essay is the usual gibberish from the high-minded wing of the Christian community. Here's his opening:
The so-called new atheism turns out to be little more than a step backwards to the old-fashioned atheism, which used to make great play with the idea of an unbridgeable gulf between religion and science. Supporting this claim was, and to some extent still is, a…
jrosenhouse | December 18, 2007All sorts of items in the news about science, religion and politics. As a warm-up, here's Christopher Hitchens stating it plain about the odius denizens of the religious right:
Isn't it amazing how self-pitying and self-aggrandizing the religious freaks in this country are? It's not enough that they can make straight-faced professions of "faith" at election times and impose their language on everything from the Pledge of Allegiance to the currency. It's not enough that they can claim tax exemption and even subsidy for anything "faith-based." It's that when they are even slightly criticized…
evolvingthoughts | December 18, 2007
PZ Murghl has challenged me to explain why there are theology departments in universities. Of course, most universities lack theology departments, and some, like the Princeton Theological Seminary, have been hived off their home institution. Back when I actually did theology, at Ridley College at the University of Melbourne, the theology was run independently of the university under the aegis of a nationwide theological umbrella institution, and its entire connection with the university was as a domiciliary college.
But that's not what PZ is asking. So I will give a reason and limited…
neurophilosophy | December 18, 2007
God's Eye View, which depicts four biblical events as if captured by Google Earth, is the work of The Glue Society, a collective of writers, designers and art/ film directors based in Sydney, Australia.
Says Glue Society member James Dive:
We like to disorientate audiences a little with all our work. And with this piece we felt technology now allows events which may or may not have happened to be visualized and made to appear dramatically real. As a method of representation satellite photography is so trusted; it has been interesting to mess with that trust.
Dive reiterates something I…
gregladen | December 18, 2007I wanted to point out two interesting posts both having to to with the nature of knowledge, or as we call it here in Minnesota (where the "k" in "Knute" is proudly pronounced).
The first is The Problem with Google's Knol Initiative (aha, you see, there's that "k" again...). This is about Google's idea of starting up it's own version of Wikipedia. Pierre Far of BlogSci questions the wisdom of Google's approach. The Google version of a wiki that is an encyclopedia promises to be better because it will recruit, and rely on, expertise. However, Far suggests that this could backfire, and asks…
pharyngula | December 18, 2007Someday, I'm going to have to get John Wilkins to explain to me why we still have universities with theology departments, and haven't razed them to the ground and sent the few remaining rational people in them off to sociology and anthropology departments where their work might actually have some relevance. It's terribly uncharitable of me, but after reading this interview with John Haught, a Georgetown University theologian, I'm convinced that the discipline is the domain of vapid hacks stuffed full of antiquated delusions. I also feel bad for the guy since he did testify on the side of…
gregladen | December 18, 2007This video has been removed becaus, I assume, THEY did not want you to see it...
So how about this one instead:
(an oldie but a goodie)
gregladen | December 18, 2007
I knew there was something holey about this road that I drive on every day. And all this time I thought it was the potholes. (see this for earlier post on this topic)
You understand, right, that this video proves that religion is not only very kooky and sometimes amazing, but also, that it is ABSOLUELY INSANE!!!
[hat tip, The Lizard Queen]
Hey, Krazy Kristians, Take Your Dirty Hands Off My Highway!
gregladen | December 18, 2007Finally, some spirituality I can live with...
I was a little disappointed with the online store, though.
pharyngula | December 18, 2007I have to wonder if Navy Lt. Cmdr. John Thomas Matthew Lee, Chaplain, was considered a man of good character—he just received a two year prison sentence after using his office for years as a base for preying on young Navy men…and he was also HIV-positive. He had his sentence reduced for his willingness to give up all of the names of his sexual partners, for their own good, I presume.
I also wonder if the Navy would be so fierce in their denunciations if he'd been using his rank and reputation to molest young women. There's also a troubling suggestion that their pursuit of the victim's names…
clock | December 17, 2007I've never before seen a picture that better fits the description used in the title of this post:
You may have to read the story here to see how well the title fits.
Hat-tip: Mark
tqa | December 16, 2007
When Richard Dawkins and Bill O'Reilly are on the same side of an issue, it's a surprise. When it's an issue that involves religion in the public sphere, it's quite possibly a sign that the apocalypse is drawing nigh. Nevertheless, that seems to be the case at the moment.
Bill O'Reilly's views on the Christmas season are well known. He thinks that the phrase "happy holidays" was cooked up by "secular progressives" in an attempt to wage some kind of "war on Christmas", and that all good Americans should fight back by saying "Merry Christmas" as loudly as possible. Most recently, he's…
pharyngula | December 16, 2007Remember that bizarre video from Pat Robertson that claimed I-35 was a holy highway? One element featured there was a cheerful (ex-?)gay man who claimed to have been "cured" in one of the Purity Sieges the Christians put on.
It turns out that the story wasn't quite as beautiful as it was portrayed. The fellow was bipolar, was deprived of his medicine, put through a hellish harrowing instead of treatment, and was eventually kicked out of the "gay cure" program as a failure. The poor guy was simply manipulated for propaganda purposes by these Christianist fanatics.
gregladen | December 15, 2007I am amazed at the giddiness amongst Christian Fundamentalists that has fomented from the mere utterance of a holiday greeting by Richard Dawkins. The counter-insurgents in the War on Christmas ... the Red White and Blue, squeaky-faced smirking shits that call themselves commentators or preachers are creaming in their jeans. But they are also stepping over the line, and I'm calling them on it.
I do not really know or care what Richard Dawkins thinks, or said, about Christmas. I do know what I think and how my multi-canonical family celebrates the holidays, and I certainly know a…
gregladen | December 15, 2007The Texas Based Institute for Creation Research would offer an online degree in Science Education. Approved by a State Advisory Board yesterday, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board will consider the degree in January.
Could this be why there has been a shakeup at the Texas Higher Education department?
The prospect of the ICR offering a degree is at the same time chilling and satisfying. Accroding to NCSE Director Eugenie Scott:
They teach distorted science ... Any student coming out from the ICR with a degree in science would not be competent to teach in Texas public schools…
gregladen | December 14, 2007
Or maybe even PCP...
If religion was merely an opiate, that would be cool. There would be a lot of stoned people waking around. But it could be argued that religion is a harder drug, one that makes people do harder, more unsavory things than just sitting around bleary eyed and happy. Like killing people.
A new book addressing the horrors of religion is in press. This is Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World by Bob Avakian.
Avakian takes an explicitly Marxist approach to examine the question of what harm can come from believing in god (any god).…
gregladen | December 14, 2007Given the latest efforts in Texas and Florida (and elsewhere) to push religious views into the science classroom, I thought it might be helpful to remind everyone of this blood curdling story.
Dover gets a million-dollar bill
That's $1M less than what law firm says it's owed
CHRISTINA KAUFFMAN The York Dispatch
Article Last Updated: 02/22/2006 12:29:04 PM EST
Legal fees for thousands of hours of attorney services and a six-week trial: $1 million.
Damages paid to 11 parents whose rights were violated in the Dover Area School District: $1 each.
A sense of closure: Priceless.
The Dover Area…
pontiff | December 14, 2007Last week Mitt Romney, in a speech on religion, said that "Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom." Or, as I like to put it, "Religion iff Freedom." This bothered me more than a little bit, until I realized that I could turn it into an empirical question. Or a least a question where I could make a plot! Below is a plot of importance of religion in people's lives versus their political freedom for a 39 countries:
The views on religion were taken from a 2002 Pew survey and the political freedom index was taken from the 2007 Freedom House's survey of political freedom…
gregladen | December 14, 2007Yesterday, in an Australian Court, Englishman Alexander Christian York was sentenced to Five Years max for the stabbing death of Scottish biochemist Rudi Boa during an argument over evolution. The argument happened in January of Last Year. York, traveling alone, and Boa, with his girlfriend, were backpacking in Blowering Holiday Park, near Tumut, New South Wales, when Boa suffered mortal wounds at the hand of York.
Tumut is a tourist destination at which visitors pick fruit, and stay in tents and trailers. York and Boa, together with Boa's girlfriend Gillian Brown, were neighbors in the…
gregladen | December 13, 2007
You are right, Bill. We don't care about Christmas. We simply believe that no religion should be in the public square. Finally you get it.