religion
oracknows | July 23, 2009Although I often don't agree with him and have cooled on him lately, I still rather like--even admire--Richard Dawkins. While it's true I've taken him to task for having a tin ear for bioethics, lamented his walking blindly right into charges of anti-Semitism (no, I don't think he's an anti-Semite), and half-defended/half-criticized him for seeming to endorsing eugenics. What's really irritated me about him in the past, though, is his use of the "Neville Chamber atheist" gambit that I so detest, so much so that I once featured Dawkins in a Hitler Zombie episode (albeit not as the victim). On…
pharyngula | July 22, 2009The atheists put up billboards, the Christians put up billboards. What's the difference? One small difference can be found in this story about new pro-theocracy ads going up in Florida.
The billboards showcase quotes from early American leaders like John Adams, James Madison and Benjamin Franklin. Most of the quotes portray a national need for Christian governance.
I don't believe the founding fathers were infallible, so just digging up quotes from old dead white guys who liked Jesus doesn't impress me much. But wait! That's not the difference yet. This is the difference:
Others carry the…
oracknows | July 22, 2009This may be the burningest stupid I've ever seen about vaccines. Maybe. It's so hard to tell given how much idiocy I've seen about vaccines.
I know, it's really, really hard to believe me when I say that what follows deserves to leap right up to the top ranks of brain-melting moronicity. After all, over the last four years, I've delved into the deepest, darkest chasms of pure anti-vaccine stupid. I've subjected myself to the incredible idiocy that is Jenny McCarthy and Kent Heckenlively. I've delved into the most vile cesspits of anti-vaccine propaganda, cesspits so full of misinformation and…
emjohnson | July 22, 2009Earlier this week a classified Scientology contract was leaked (full pdf document here), revealing the paranoid nature of the Church. The document is entitled Application, Declaration and General Release Declaration of Religious Commitment and Application for Membership in a Scientology Religious Order and for Active Participation on Church Staff. This contract must be signed by anyone who wishes to engage in "active participation as a staff member within the Church of Scientology" as a Class V Org member.
Among the items they must agree to are:
8. I am not related to or connected with any…
oracknows | July 20, 2009...as the last Virgin Mary sighting in a bird turd smear on a pickup truck.
At least this time around, we're back to more conventional "Virgin Mary in a tree"-type sightings:
(Click on image for video.)
Of course, this time around, I have to wonder if the guy who cut the tree down is having a little fun with the faithful.
grrlscientist | July 20, 2009tags: science, geology, Grand Canyon, religion, creationism, humor, funny, streaming video
The Grand Canyon is such an icon of the Earth's geological history, of slow and steady uplift, erosion, submergence and deposition, that the creationist crowd thought it essential to tackle it head on. So they have come up with an explanation as to how it might have got there in a world created only 6,000 years ago. Their attempts to squeeze this majestic testament to natural processes into bronze age mythology are not just clumsy, they're the stuff good comedy is made of [10:03]
emjohnson | July 19, 2009A gay couple kiss in front of the Salt Lake City Mormon Temple / David Daniels
For the second time gay activists and allies held a kiss-in at Temple Square in Salt Lake City. The action held this morning was to protest the arrest of two gay men two weeks ago who showed "inappropriate" public affection on LDS Church property.
According to The Advocate:
Aune, 28, and Jones, 25, told the newspaper that they were walking back to their nearby home in the evening when they crossed the plaza holding hands, then stopped to kiss on the cheek. Several security guards arrived and told the couple…
razib | July 19, 2009Tyler Cowen gives a positive review of Your Religion is False:
In addition to its humor, I prefer the content of this book to the better-known "new atheist" tracts. Grus yields many of the strongest arguments. For instance the biographical and sociological correlates with belief (most people choose the religion they grew up with, or encountered through a friend, etc.) suggest that, in this area, intuitions which feel "certain" simply cannot be trusted.
Also see associated weblog.
grrlscientist | July 19, 2009tags: religion, fundamentalism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, terrorism, Marcus Brigstocke, streaming video
In this video, Marcus Brigstocke rants about religion. Not for the faint-hearted! And I agree with everything he says, too. So there. [Audio from 'The Now Show', Radio 4, Saturday 21 July 2007. Pictures compiled, animated and sequenced by Alien8ted] [7:21]
grrlscientist | July 19, 2009tags: religion, afterlife, humor, satire, Edward Current, streaming video
In this video, Edward Current shares his thoughts on god and the afterlife. He writes, "Frankly, one reason I've remained a die-hard Christian is to cover my behind in the afterlife. But I recently realized I need to worship ALL gods that might possibly exist." [3:26]
pharyngula | July 18, 2009Several months ago, we witnessed a tragic spectacle in the news: a nine-year old Brazilian girl was raped, became pregnant, and got an abortion…and the Brazilian Catholic church responded by excommunicating all the participants. One cleric in Rome, Monsignor Rino Fisichella, said the church had been insensitive, but no one in the hierarchy stepped forward to outright condemn the heartlessness of the church's stance and the unfairness of the policy.
We now have an official document from the Catholic church clearly stating their position. Anyone involved in an abortion for any reason is to be…
razib | July 18, 2009Tom Rees has a blog post, Religion and marital infidelity, which shows that religious attendance, but not belief, correlate with a tendency to not have affairs. I think the critical point here is that religion is a complex phenomenon, and we condense many separate dimensions or parameters into one term. For example, there seems to be a tendency with higher socioeconomic status to be positively associated with religious attendance and affiliation, but negatively associated with religious beliefs.
oracknows | July 18, 2009Everyone knows that I'm a bit of a connoisseur of pareidolia. Pareidolia, for those not familiar with the term, is a phenomenon where humans see patterns in various things, you know, like seeing Elvis in a flame or the Virgin Mary on a stain under a freeway overpass in Chicago or in a window blotch in Perth Amboy, or seeing Jesus on a shell, on the wall of a shower, on a sand dune, a potato chip, or (my personal favorite) a pierogi. Heck, there have even been Jesus sightings on a cat, a stain on a ceiling tile, and even on a rather odd location on a dog.
However, I really, really have to…
pharyngula | July 18, 2009Oh, I believe! What else could this be?
It's the one on the left. The medium: bird poop on a pickup truck.
This is even better than Piss Christ!
jrosenhouse | July 16, 2009Moving back across the pond, we find another wise op-ed, this time by Daniel Dennett writing in The Guardian. He writes:
I am confident that those who believe in belief are wrong. That is, we no more need to preserve the myth of God in order to preserve a just and stable society than we needed to cling to the Gold Standard to keep our currency sound. It was a useful crutch, but we've outgrown it. Denmark, according to a recent study, is the sanest, healthiest, happiest, most crime-free nation in the world, and by and large the Danes simply ignore the God issue. We should certainly hope that…
jrosenhouse | July 15, 2009Writing in the British newspaper The Independent, Michael Reiss and John White have an interesting suggestion about the school curriculum in England:
It is a laudable aim of the current National Curriculum that pupils "know about big ideas and events that shape the world". But one of the biggest of these is too infrequently studied in schools. We are thinking of the growing loss of faith, over the past two centuries, in a religious picture of the world. David Hume's 18th-century onslaught on arguments for the existence of God was an early catalyst, Darwin's 19th-century attack on what today…
pharyngula | July 15, 2009Someday, someone will be able to tell me what distinguishes the theology of Wiley Drake from the theology of any random con man.
emjohnson | July 14, 2009On this day 76 years ago (July 14, 1933) a sterilization law was passed in Nazi Germany, known as Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses (Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring). Any German was a target if they were found to be suffering from a range of perceived hereditary ailments, such as congenital mental deficiency, schizophrenia, manic-depressive insanity, epilepsy, Huntington's chorea, blindness, deafness, any severe hereditary deformity or even severe alcoholism. Official pronouncements insisted that these individuals were a drain on the German people, both…
laelaps | July 14, 2009
An illustration of Albert Koch's reconstructed "Missourium", or an American mastodon with a few extra bones.
Even though I find modern creationism to be intensely aggravating I occasionally like to browse older creationist texts. It is amusing to see how old creationist arguments have been recycled ad naseum, refitted for new uses (i.e. acceptance of evolution is responsible for [insert social ill here]), or given up entirely over time. In this latter category falls the assertion of the 19th century biblical literalist Mary Roberts that God had purposefully created, and subsequently…
oracknows | July 13, 2009Well, I'm back.
After my trip to TAM7, I'm back in the real world, jet-lagged and tired. So it may take me a while--hopefully only a little while--to get back to my usual prolific output, and there will be something later today. In the meantime, just let me say I really, really wish I had had this T shirt to wear at TAM7:
Well, actually I wish I had a G-rated version of the shirt to wear. I don't generally wear T shirts with profanity on them.
If such a shirt existed, then all I would need to complete my wardrobe would be this one:
That would be a problem, wouldn't it?