religion
mikethemadbiologist | June 1, 2007And in other news, dog bites man. Would the NY Times have printed an op-ed allowing a flat-earther to explain why he believes the earth is flat? Because that's what they did when they ran Brownback's defense of intelligent design creationism. And there's nothing original in Brownback's op-ed either.
First, Brownback makes this declarative statement:
The heart of the issue is that we cannot drive a wedge between faith and reason. I believe wholeheartedly that there cannot be any contradiction between the two. The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature…
evolvingthoughts | May 31, 2007
We're in the third day, and Elohim has made dry land, but no sun or stars or moon. Still, he's keen to see something growing, so he tells the land to produce, by spontaneous generation as it was later known, "seed bearing plants and plants bearing fruit with their proper seed inside". Seed here is crucial - God creates things that reproduce themselves through some innate generative power, but at first they come out of the land. Augustine, in De Genesi ad litteram declared that God acted out of a secondary power here - he didn't create these plants directly, but indirectly, by putting a…
razib | May 31, 2007The "Boy Genius" Karl Rove recently told The New Yorker that the rise of conservative Christianity bodes well for the Republican party. There's a problem with the hype though: there is a mild, but persistent, trend away from Biblical literalism, in the United States.1 Fundamentalist Christian pollster George Barna documents some small recent shifts. This isn't new, those who favor the Secularization Hypothesis for the United States have pointed to data which suggests a gentle ebbing away of Biblical fundamentalism. That being said, the process of rescaling "conservatism" every generation…
pharyngula | May 31, 2007Laura Mallory wants to ban the Harry Potter books from public schools, and she took her case to court. This is a perfect example of a mixed message:
At Tuesday's hearing, Mallory argued in part that witchcraft is a religion practiced by some people and, therefore, the books should be banned because reading them in school violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
"I have a dream that God will be welcomed back in our schools again," Mallory said. "I think we need him."
Everyone will be relieved to know that she lost.
clock | May 31, 2007In the May 18th issue of Science there is a revew paper by Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg. An expanded version of it also appeared recently in Edge and many science bloggers are discussing it these days.
Enrique has the best one-sentence summary of the article:
The main source of resistance to scientific ideas concerns what children know prior to their exposure to science.
The article divides that "what children know prior to their exposure to science" into two categories: the intuitive grasp of the world (i.e., conclusions they come up with on their own) and the learned…
pharyngula | May 30, 2007Arrrr, curse ye, jpf. How dare you reveal this abomination to me? What's this crazy born-again doing reviewing a pirate movie as a justification for his dogma?
But back to Jack for a second — sorry, Captain Jack. I was thinking about one of the central themes of this movie which involves the principal characters, one that you've most likely picked up on it as well:
Resurrection from the dead
As it turns out, getting swallowed by a nasty beastie called the Kraken is a bad thing, so one of the key story lines in this film is a desperate need for Captain Jack to come back from the dead so the…
oracknows | May 30, 2007Here it is, straight from the 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said calendar, culled from a church bulletin listing:
Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 PM in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King.
My question upon seeing such a notice would, of course, be: Is this a basketball game or a Passion play?
Having been raised Catholic and attended Catholic school for 8 out of 12 years, I can totally envision such a notice being posted in my high school.
razib | May 30, 2007In my post Why the gods will never be defeated I made many references to the rise in religiosity concomitant with modernization in South Korean. Here is an article which illustrates what I'm talking about:
As recently as 1964, only a little over 3.5 million South Koreans, out of a total population of almost 28.2 million, noted a religious affiliation on government census forms. In other words, less than four decades ago, only a little more than 12% of the South Korean people declared themselves to be Buddhist, Catholic, Protestant, or a follower of one of Korea's many other organized…
oracknows | May 29, 2007Last fall, I and quite a few other bloggers wrote about the Tripoli Six. These are six foreign medical workers arrested for allegedly intentionally infecting over 400 children with HIV in a Libyan hospital and, thanks to the ignorant hysteria whipped up against them and the need of the Libyan government to find scapegoats for unhygienic conditions in the hospital, sentenced to death by firing squad, despite allegations that they were tortured while in a Libyan prison to extract "confessions."
Now, five months after their being sentenced to death, the international dance by which Bulgaria and…
evolvingthoughts | May 29, 2007
Creationists and literalists like to talk about the book of Genesis as if it were a science textbook, which they can interpret to find anything that science has independently discovered unless they don't like it, such as evolution.
A while back, I got to thinking, "What sort of world would it be if Genesis were right?" And so I started casually reading it from time to time as if the final editor of Genesis actually meant the things he allows the text to say. This is the first in an intermittent and occasional series.
Now it is clear that Genesis is a redaction (a fancy word for edited…
razib | May 29, 2007Islamic scholar promotes adult breastfeeding:
...Izzat Atiyaa had issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, offering his bold suggestion as a way around the prohibition in Islamic religious law against a woman working in private premises with a man who was not her close relative. Breastfeeding, he argued, would create a familial relationship under Islamic law.
Dr Atiyaa explained to the Egyptian newspaper al-Watani al-Yawm that: "A man and a woman who are alone together are not (necessarily) having sex but this possibility exists and breastfeeding provides a solution to this problem (by)…
pharyngula | May 29, 2007If you've recently had lunch, don't go to this opinion piece from a fanatical sports fan at Iowa State University. It will turn your stomach. It's a tirade against Hector Avalos, of course, who is apparently the man who runs ISU (it's amazing how holding an opinion contrary to the majority suddenly elevates you to a controlling power). It's an appalling demonstration of ignorance and idiocy by some born again fool named Steve Deace.
This isn't about the separation of church and state, and this isn't about tolerance. This is about one thing and one thing only—the separation of Christ and…
oracknows | May 29, 2007A new Gallup poll shows just how bad things are for science and reason:
PRINCETON, NJ -- About one-third of the American adult population believes the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word. This percentage is slightly lower than several decades ago. The majority of those Americans who don't believe that the Bible is literally true believe that it is the inspired word of God but that not everything it in should be taken literally. About one in five Americans believe the Bible is an ancient book of "fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by…
mikethemadbiologist | May 28, 2007Let's contrast Thomas Friedman with Mark Twain this Memorial Day. Thomas Friedman on the Charlie Rose Show, May 30, 2003:
I think it [the invasion of Iraq] was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie....
We needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big state right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it....
What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?"
You don't think, you know, we care about our…
oracknows | May 28, 2007i think I've made it exquisitely clear how much I detest and despise the term "Nevile Chamberlain School of Evolutionists." Indeed, my disgust at the term led me to sic the Hitler Zombie on (of all people) Richard Dawkins, the originator of the term, a deed that was either the boldest thing I've ever done as a blogger or the stupidest. (In retrospect, I haven't decided which.) Recently, however, one of the most vociferous users of the term (and fellow victim of the Hitler Zombie with Richard Dawkins) seems to have backed away from the use of the term. I'm talking about Larry Moran, of course…
pharyngula | May 28, 2007Did you know that nature is a nice place, a kind of untamed Cute Overload where nobody ever gets an owie, there are no diseases or parasites, and everyone eats tofu? That seems to be what one school administrator in Florida believes, anyway.
A class was studying reptiles and a student brought in his pet boa. Somehow it was suggested that anyone who was interested could watch the boa being fed its usual meal: a live rabbit. The teacher arranged for the feeding to be held after school hours and attendance was voluntary. No one had to be there who didn't want to be there. According to the story…
evolvingthoughts | May 26, 2007
OK, I can't be hedgehogged doing a coherent post today. I'm tired and shagged out after a long talk (lecturing for others who went and had fun somewhere, the bastards!). So instead here are random links and thoughts that happen to be open in my browser right now...
The first is the notion of an "error theory". This is a term derived from the writings of John Mackie, who thinks that objective moral values would be very odd things, and that people who think they are looking for them are just in error (hence "error theory"). This came up because we were doing the Friday evening drinks thing,…
grrlscientist | May 26, 2007tags: religion, creationism museum
While a small airplane flew overhead, towing a banner that read, "Thou shalt not lie," Ken Ham and his cronies opened their $27 million "museum" near Cincinnati today, and were met with condemnation from the country's scientists. This so-called "museum" portrays God as creating the heavens and the Earth in six days approximately 6,000 years ago. Ham responded to the criticism by claiming that his incorrect and unorthodox views were finally being represented publically.
"What we've done here is to give people an opportunity to hear information that is not…
evolvingthoughts | May 25, 2007
The recent "What kind of Atheist" posts have led to a discussion on Larry Moran's Sandwalk blog. Go read it, because I'm being as clear there as I'll ever likely be...