religion
mikethemadbiologist | October 12, 2007One of the common responses I get to posts about theopolitical conservatives is that I am advocating atheism or calling for the destruction of 'religion.'* This is absurd, as I am one of the defenders of some religions (though not all of them obviously). This is often accompanied by complaints of 'why don't you criticize Dawkins for saying mean things about religion?' First of all, there is a difference in kind in using harsh language when criticizing a particular theology or supernaturalism as a belief or idea system versus using eliminationist rhetoric against those who wish to use…
neurophilosophy | October 11, 2007Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, the Malaysian orthopaedic surgeon aboard the Russian rocket that is now on its way to the International Space Station, can observe Ramadan and perform other acts of Muslim worship by following the guidelines set out in this small booklet, which was produced by 150 Islamic scholars and scientists at a conference held 18 months ago by the Malaysian National Space Agency.
jrosenhouse | October 11, 2007UPDATE: October 12, 5:00 pm. It has been pointed out to me that my statement that support for Israel has been a constant of post WWII American foreign policy is not correct. President Truman recognized Israel upon its formation, but relations between Israel and the US were distinctly chilly through most of the fifties and early sixties. This only changed in the late sixties, as a response to the warm relations between Syria, Egypt and the Soviet Union. The strong support of the US for Israel has far more to do with American interests in the region than it does with the influence of the…
mikethemadbiologist | October 11, 2007
We likes Ann Coulter!!!
Professional provocateur Ann Coulter in an interview on MSNBC advocated the conversion of the Jews (italics mine):
During the October 8 edition of CNBC's The Big Idea, host Donny Deutsch asked right-wing pundit Ann Coulter: "If you had your way ... and your dreams, which are genuine, came true ... what would this country look like?" Coulter responded, "It would look like New York City during the [2004] Republican National Convention. In fact, that's what I think heaven is going to look like." She described the convention as follows: "People were happy. They're…
pharyngula | October 10, 2007Speaking of bad teaching and schools that screw up under community pressure, it looks like we have an ugly story here in Morris. Last week, the student at the Morris Area High School were released from classes (you know, those sessions where they are supposed to learn something) to listen to some motivational speaker babbling about healthy lifestyles and abstinence, and apparently telling them that Madonna was a lesbian, among other tidbits. I've only heard third-hand about the event itself — Skatje's still in touch with friends at the high school, but she didn't actually attend herself — but…
pharyngula | October 10, 2007That conservative Christian who offed himself in an autoerotic embarrassment? That's simply sad, and reflects poorly on a repressive culture. This story, of a Catholic priest who collaborated in kidnappings and torture, is just plain evil, and is something completely different.
Christian Von Wernich, 69, was chaplain to the Buenos Aires police force. He used this position to obtain confessions from prisoners, which he then passed on to police who tortured them at secret detention centers.
Von Wernich was convicted of complicity in seven murders, 31 cases of torture and 42 abductions in the…
evolvingthoughts | October 9, 2007
It seems that almost nobody can mention Jews without making an inadvertent or deliberate ass of themselves. Most recently, Richard Dawkins put his foot in it in this Guardian article. He said:
When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told - religious Jews anyway - than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place.
Now, I know what he's trying to say here…
pharyngula | October 9, 2007We're seeing an ugly form of intolerance creeping into the western states, carried with slavic evangelicals who hate homosexuals.
A growing and ferocious anti-gay movement in the Sacramento Valley is centered among Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking immigrants. Many of them are members of an international extremist anti-gay movement whose adherents call themselves the Watchmen on the Walls. In Latvia, the Watchmen are popular among Christian fundamentalists and ethnic Russians, and are known for presiding over anti-gay rallies where gays and lesbians are pelted with bags of excrement. In the…
oracknows | October 9, 2007On occasion, I've thought of inaugurating awards for the looniest quackery, alternative medicine, or antivaccination craziness of the year. I was thinking of calling them the Woo Awards, but I've never actually gotten off my lazy posterior to do the work it would take to set up some sort of voting system, and I'm not so sure that a list picked out only by me wouldn't just end up reflecting my personal idiosyncrasies. Be that as it may, with the end of the year fast approaching, if I were going to do it now would be the time to start looking for nominations.
If I were going to give a prize for…
jrosenhouse | October 8, 2007Take away the question mark and that's the name of a blog maintained by Zack Exley. I came across it by following links from BoingBoing and Andrew Sullivan.
Exley's premise is that “secular progressives” ought to take a second look at Evangelical Christianity. He writes:
Right after the 2004 elections, a cynical map made the rounds of progressives' inboxes everywhere, separating “Jesusland” from the “United States of Canada.” Several other self-righteous riffs followed.
The image was a hit because it expressed a sinking feeling in the hearts of many progressives that America had been…
pharyngula | October 8, 2007You have to read this essay to believe it: Militant atheists are wrong. It's a collection of what I call indignant pieties — "how dare atheists challenge my precious faith!" — and it's also distilled, concentrated, essence of stupid, painful to read and even more agonizing to have to waste time arguing against. But then, it's by Lee Siegel. Lee Siegel. There's a man who has a lot of courage, exposing himself on the internet again. Siegel is the amazing hypocrite who denounced the ethics of the blogosphere, and then cobbled up a sock puppet ( remember "Sprezzatura"?) who went trolling around…
pharyngula | October 7, 2007Lots of people have been sending me links to this NY Times story on churches adopting video games to lure teenagers back to the faith. I am amused. I find the trend to be a very encouraging sign.
To get this out of the way: I don't think violent video games make for violent people, so the whole argument that this is not in harmony with the message of the church is silly, to my mind. I also don't see the message of religion as being one of peace, anyway, so even if it did lead to teen violence I wouldn't see any incompatibility with Christianity … just more of the same.
I've played Halo ……
oracknows | October 7, 2007Richard Dawkins really should know better.
That's why it's frustrating to see him put his foot in his mouth in a big way in a recent interview. Indeed, he did it in a way that leaves himself wide open to charges of anti-Semitism:
In an interview with the Guardian, he said: "When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told - religious Jews anyway - than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence…
pharyngula | October 6, 2007A certain evil old (and now deceased) affliction on the world is being considered for canonization, and they're tallying up miracles, an absurd activity in itself. One of the "miracles" they're weighing is that of a man whose kidney stone cleared up after visiting a children's home founded by Mother Teresa…an awfully tenuous connection, if you ask me, and a rather trivial event. Time magazine starts to agree:
At first glance the elimination of a mineral deposit may seem too insignificant to merit sainthood.
But then of course they go on to make excuses for it. They should have stopped there…
pharyngula | October 5, 2007Hoo boy. It's scandal time in Evangelica again. Richard Roberts, son of the infamous Oral, and his wife Lindsay, seem to have been skimming the cream off their university budget (and in her case, perhaps, off young male students).
Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and lavish spending at donors' expense, including numerous home remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter's senior trip to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay.
She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on…
evolvingthoughts | October 5, 2007
On Monday night last, Jason Grossman, a philosopher form the Australian National University rang me with an idea. He was coming to my university to give a talk entitled "How to Feyerabend", arguing that Feyerabend was a dadaist rather than an anarchist. I'd tell you more about his talk, but I can't, for reasons that will become obvious.
He wanted to do the talk as a dadaist performance. How can I help? I enquired. That was my mistake.
Well, he said, I want us to give a simultaneous presentation. What, in turn? I asked. No, at the same time. With music. And Allison (his partner) folding…
pharyngula | October 4, 2007I recently mentioned the way some serious theologians believe in demons and exorcisms. I can't help it; I find these notions ridiculous to an extreme, and the absurdity of serious scholars blaming diseases on demonic possession in the 21st century is something one has to find laughable. I was being hard on Christianity, though. I left out an important exonerating factor for these people.
Some of them believe in angels, too.
Yes, I'm joking when I say this is an exonerating factor. This merely makes them even more silly. But no, you say, they can't possibly argue for demons and angels being…
nisbetmc | October 4, 2007
Pew has released an analysis of trends in partisanship among cohorts of Evangelicals over the past six years. The significant finding is that Evangelicals ages 18-30 increasingly identify as Independents and Democrats, in greater combined proportion than Republican. While maintaining roughly conservative positions on several key social issues, this shift in partisan identity underscores the opportunity for secularists to emphasize shared common ground on policy issues such as the environment or poverty.
pharyngula | October 4, 2007Just watch the little suck-up grovel for the Religious Right. It isn't pretty.
McCain: I think the number one issue people should make [in the] selection of the President of the United States is, 'Will this person carry on in the Judeo Christian principled tradition that has made this nation the greatest experiment in the history of mankind?'
Whenever I see these pious testimonies to "Judeo-Christian values", I always wonder…how many Jewish founding fathers were there? How many Jewish presidents have we had? I have no objection to electing a Jewish president, but it always seems to me that…