religion
pharyngula | February 6, 2007Man, this Keith Henson character is a fearsome dude. He was convicted of a crime, fled the state, has been on the lam for 6 years, and was finally caught and thrown in jail, with bail initially set at half a million dollars. What heinous act won him such a nefarious reputation?
He posted a joke on usenet. A joke that made fun of a religion.
Henson was convicted in 2001 under a California law (Sec. 422.6) that criminalizes any threat to interfere with someone else's "free exercise" of religion. One Usenet post that was introduced at his trial included jokes about sending a "Tom Cruise" missile…
jrosenhouse | February 5, 2007Theologian Alister McGrath offers these thoughts about Richard Dawkins. Let's have a look.
Actually, the fun begins with essay's headline: “Do Stop Behaving as if You Are God, Professor Dawkins.” McGrath is about to devote roughly a thousand words to explaining all the ways in which Dawkins has been behaving badly. If Dawkins' behavior is nonetheless reminiscent of God, then God is hardly someone to be admired.
We pick up the action in the fifth paragraph. McGrath writes:
Of course, back in the Sixties, everyone who mattered was telling us that religion was dead. I was an atheist then…
mikethemadbiologist | February 3, 2007It should tell you just how loony the Christopath right is when a conservative Texas governor gains admission to the Coalition of the Sane (for the time being, anyway). How did Texas governor Rick Perry do it? By mandating that schoolgirls receive the HPV vaccine, and that the state subsidize the vaccinations. From the AP:
Some conservatives and parents' rights groups worry that requiring girls to get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer would condone premarital sex and interfere with the way they raise their children.
By using an executive order…
oracknows | February 3, 2007Remember how often I rail against misguided laws that seek to criminalize Holocaust denial, laws such as the one in Austria under which David Irving was imprisoned? I've referred to them more than once as "stomping free speech flat," and I still believe that's what they do. I've also pointed out the danger of a potential slippery slope, an assertion for which I've been criticized, sometimes vigorously. Well, take a look at this (via the History News Network):
PEOPLE who question the official history of conflicts in Africa and the Balkans could be jailed for up to three years for "genocide…
clock | February 2, 2007Continuing with the last week's topic (originally posted on March 11, 2005 - click on the spider-clock icon to see the comments, including by Mark O'Connell - who I subsequently met and blogged about, on the original post)
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Last night I listened to NPR's "On Point" about adolescent sex (http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2005/03/20050310_a_main.asp). As you may have guessed, I am interested in this topic as it can reveal something about the current fixated-on-sex femiphobic culture, as well as evolution of the institution of marriage (http://…
jrosenhouse | February 1, 2007Remember Kearney, NJ? That was where history teacher David Paszkiewicz routinely lectured his students on the fine points of getting into heaven and about which trendy scientific theories were not scientific. I described the basic facts of the case in this post.
The case was remarkable not just because a teacher grossly overstepped his classroom authority, but because the community largely supported him against the student who recorded his classes. Rather remarkable behavior, especially from the blue states. The story was a useful reminder that all those folks who state so casually that…
omnibrain | February 1, 2007You're kidding me right?
Kabbalists have attained them all. But don't take Perceiving Reality's word for it... Test the method of Kabbalah upon yourself, and discover the higher states of consciousness for yourself.
But wait... it gets better - they prove their point by using a random dot stereogram saying it comes from a higher dimension or something nonsensical.
Enjoy the video below the fold...
What a waste of 4 minutes... haha..
pharyngula | February 1, 2007I've received a few interesting links on the state of religion in America, so I'll just dump a brief hodge-podge below the fold. The quick summary: one clueless twit, one poll, and one philosopher weigh in.
Let's get the ugliness over, first. Andrew Sullivan is still an obnoxious fool. He gets some letters from atheists, and quotes a few: I thought this one was nice.
I, personally, as an atheist, find meaning in my own possibility and will to act in this world. I have the opportunity to interact with others and to create things. I have the chance to leave this world a bit better than when I…
jrosenhouse | January 31, 2007From the blog of Oxford University Press comes this essay from philosopher Phillip Kitcher. The subject: evolution and religion. Let's look at some highlights:
The answer, very often, is that particular pieces of scientific knowledge are viewed as threatening. Acknowledging the truth about global warming would unsettle those who believe in the unfettered rights of oil companies to drill and of auto-makers to produce gas-guzzling behemoths. Acknowledging the truth about Darwin would raise worrying questions about religious belief (or so many people think). So the pressure for “alternative…
clock | January 30, 2007[Pushed to the top of the page due to interesting updates...]
Ah, the perils of growing traffic! I get e-mail. Usually those are nice questions about sleep disorders, or requests for link exchanges. But today I got a christianist. Oy vey!
I hope I never get PZ's traffic - I guess he gets dozens of those a day! And I don't even bash religion on my blog every day like he does.
Below the fold is the exchange so far:
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to me:
Sir, you say that you are atheist? Meaning you KNOW God doesn't exist. This would imply that you have absolute knowledge right? You…
omnibrain | January 30, 2007Here's the main gist of his argument - I really wish this was a conversation in the cartoon though.
I suppose some of you will argue that the Big Bang started a natural series of events that led to a chance development of intelligent life. And then the life did all of the intelligent stuff. But what is the logic behind arbitrarily picking a tiny slice of time and acting as if it's the only important part of a process that requires many steps?
Consider the simple act of picking up a pencil. It requires your brain and your muscles, but it also requires you to exist in the first place. And that…
oracknows | January 30, 2007Via Black Triangle, I'm made aware of another example of religious fundamentalism interfering with sound health care:
A MUSLIM doctors' leader has provoked an outcry by urging British Muslims not to vaccinate their children against diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella because it is "un-Islamic".
Dr Abdul Majid Katme, head of the Islamic Medical Association, is telling Muslims that almost all vaccines contain products derived from animal and human tissue, which make them "haram", or unlawful for Muslims to take.
Islam permits only the consumption of halal products, where the animal has…
mikethemadbiologist | January 29, 2007I recently posted about creationists who want their 'biology' courses to be taken seriously by universities. Josh takes to task a libertarian who states "if we chose to mandate what is taught about human origins, and we are true democrats, we should mandate equal time for creationism and evolution." So, I found on the internets a description of Biology for Christian Schools, a creationist textbook, written by the textbook's authors.
Creationism should never be viewed in the abstract, but as the mindless indoctrination that it is. Hold your breath and dive in; the passage destroys the…
pharyngula | January 29, 2007That third-rate right-wing wanker, Dinesh D'Souza, had a article in the Washington Post, in which he attempted to defend himself from accusations of appalling stupidity in trying to blame radical Muslim attacks on the US on liberal culture. Of course, he failed. Instead, he just repeated his crazy claim that it's all godless Hollywood's fault.
The thrust of the radical Muslim critique of America is that Islam is under attack from the global forces of atheism and immorality — and that the United States is leading that attack.
David Neiwert ably rips that apart on matters of fact—it's simply…
pharyngula | January 29, 2007A Colorado state senator (a Republican from Colorado Springs, of course), Dave Schultheis, is pushing a draft of an absurd bill to open public schools wide to religious indoctrination, all in the name of the first amendment to the constitution. It's a demand to create a "Public School Religious Bill Of Rights", with a long list of religious privileges. Some of them are trivial: it ought to be OK for students to give each other holiday cards with religious sentiments (and of course, they already can), or greet each other with religious slogans (like, say, "Merry Christmas"…hasn't the war on…
pharyngula | January 28, 2007D. James Kennedy, head mackerel of Coral Ridge Ministries, had a very serious heart attack last month. He seems to be recovering now, and let's all wish him well and encourage him to relax, enjoy the rest of his life, and stop standing up in pulpits and lying.
Strangely enough, though, this opponent of godless naturalism and materialism didn't trust in prayer and faith when physiological catastrophe struck—instead, he took advantage of the best and latest medical care. Funny, that…do you think he had a deathbed conversion? There are no theistic heart attack patients—they're all clutching for…
oracknows | January 28, 2007Remember Donnie Davies, the "youth pastor" that I wrote about a couple of days ago, who posted a list of gay bands, plus a homophobic video proclaiming that "God hates a fag" that led to a prolonged debate over whether he was for real or some sort of elaborate Borat-like prank?
Two sources tell me that he's apparently been outed as actor Joey Oglesby:
Thanks to the sleuthing of Dallas JMG reader Bob Stoller, "Pastor Donnie Davies" has been exposed as Dallas-area actor Joey Oglesby (First name corrected from post headline). Here he is. Joey Oglesby recently appeared in a production of Debbie…
mikethemadbiologist | January 28, 2007Here's an excerpt from an essay by Albert Camus "The Unbeliever and Christians." It was originally given as a speech to Dominican monks of Latour-Maubourg in 1948. Just imagine giving this speech to the Southern Baptist Convention. It would be...interesting. Here's the speech (translation by the Mad Biologist; italics mine):
And now, what can Christians do for us? To begin with, give up the empty quarrels, the first of which is the quarrel about pessimism. I believe, for instance, that M. Gabriel Marcel would be well advised to leave alone certain forms of thought that fascinate him and…
mikethemadbiologist | January 27, 2007Sara Robinson raises an interesting solution to "end the Intelligent Design fiasco", one that has been discussed here at ScienceBlogs before. Her suggestion is to have universities declare: "Teach what you like, it's all fine with us. But if you put ID in your science courses, we will not accept those courses as adequate for admission to our campus."
I think there's a legitimate argument here: if your religious views make it impossible to accept multiple lines of evidence supporting a well-documented theory, then, yes, you should be discriminated against, in that you are not remotely…
clock | January 27, 2007There are also more responses to the U of California lawsuit described by Sara Robinson the other day.
See what Amanda and PZ Myers have to say about it.
Edit: and Mike