religion
oracknows | May 28, 2009Today is a very good day indeed.
I say that because Daniel Hauser, the 13-year-old boy with Hodgkin's lymphoma who ran away with his mother to avoid having to undergo chemotherapy ordered by a judge, who had found that his parents were engaging in medical neglect in not getting him effective treatment, and returned on Monday, will begin his course of chemotherapy today. I'm very happy to hear that Daniel and his parents have decided to stop fighting:
After Daniel and his mother returned to Minnesota this week, both his parents told a judge they will let Daniel undergo chemotherapy because…
gregladen | May 27, 2009Regarding home schooling mom Vanessa Mills, of Wake County, NC, USA:
...Mills ... grew alienated from her husband and parents after joining a religious group that some former members call a cult, the judge in the case said Tuesday...
...Judge Ned Mangum ruled March 6 that it would be in the best interests of Venessa Mills' three children to go to public school this fall.
That ruling, in an ongoing divorce case between Venessa and husband Thomas Mills, sparked national attention from conservatives who maintain that Mangum overstepped his bounds.
"Based on all of the evidence, the court finds…
gregladen | May 27, 2009This just in:
Dear Greg,
We are excited about our new public service campaign and it should be fully implemented within a month. Here's the scoop:
This Thursday, May 28th, we will be at a local high school to
tape 3 presentations that will cover the following topics:
- Fossil Evidence
- The Truth about Genetics and Evolution
- How Does Evolution Supposedly Work?
Because most students respond better to interactive forms of learning, we have decided to offer free downloads of these videos as well as the supporting documentation for each of them.
Depending on future funding, we will be…
gregladen | May 26, 2009France's Church of Scientology today went on trial on charges of organised fraud in a case that could lead to the nationwide dissolution of the controversial organisation.
The Church's "celebrity centre" spiritual association and its Scientology Freedom Space bookshop in Paris stand accused of targeting vulnerable people for commercial gain.
Six leading members, including the celebrity centre's director, Alain Rosenberg, also face charges of illegally distributing pharmaceuticals.
source
pharyngula | May 26, 2009The French demonstrate their bravery by putting Scientology on trial:
The case centres on a complaint made in 1998 by a woman who said she was enrolled into Scientology after members approached her in the street and persuaded her to do a personality test.
In the following months, she paid more than €21,000 for books, "purification packs" of vitamins, sauna sessions and an "e-meter" to measure her spiritual progress, she said.
Other complaints then surfaced. The five original plaintiffs - three of whom withdrew after reaching a financial settlement with the Church of Scientology - said…
oracknows | May 25, 2009I've been writing a lot about the case of Daniel Hauser, the 13-year-old boy with Hodgkin's lymphoma who underwent one course of chemotherapy and then decided he wanted to pursue "alternative therapy" based on fear of chemotherapy and the faux Native American religion that his mother had taken up with. Ultimately, after a judge ordered Daniel's parents to make sure that Daniel received the chemotherapy and radiation therapy he needed, Daniel and his mother Colleen went on the lam last week and were last thought to be heading for Mexico and almost certain death.
That is, until sanity prevailed…
pharyngula | May 25, 2009A good column by James Carroll in the Boston Globe criticizes the absurd piety being peddled in the military, especially the discovery of Iraq war briefings laced with militant Christianity. He lists 7 reasons why it is a bad idea that the military has become wrapped up in religious jingo.
Single-minded religious zealotry bedevils critical thinking, and not just about religion. Military and political thinking suffers when the righteousness of born-again faith leads to self-righteousness. Critical thinking includes a self-criticism of which the "saved" know little.
Military proselytizers…
pharyngula | May 25, 2009The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has written what Catholics should have said from the very beginning of this Irish scandal. It really didn't take much, just the recognition of failure.
The church has failed people. The church has failed children. There is no denying that. This can only be regretted and it must be regretted. Yet "sorry" can be an easy word to say. When it has to be said so often, then "sorry" is no longer enough.
He goes on to say that the church needs to get out of its state of denial, that they have to admit that they've done wrong, and that they have to make…
grrlscientist | May 25, 2009tags: religion, prayer in schools, godlessness, atheism, streaming video
This video discusses using religion, particularly school prayer, as a mechanism for alienating children who are different. [6:34]
pharyngula | May 24, 2009One of those agony aunts, Dear Margo, got an amusing request for help.
Dear Margo: Our daughter started college a year ago, and we've noticed during her visits home that she's not the sweet, innocent girl we sent away for higher learning. We raised her with strong Christian beliefs, but lately she's saying that she's joined an atheist club on campus and is questioning everything we taught her. Now my husband refuses to let her in the house and is threatening to turn her in to the FBI. I've tried to cure our daughter and reconcile with her, but nothing seems to work. I've prayed over her at…
grrlscientist | May 24, 2009tags: religion, atheism, godlessness, Science is the Dumbest Religion, humor, funny, satire, edward current, streaming video
This video asks the important question: Have scientists really found the missing link? Or are Darwinianists just blindly worshipping roadkill again? [3:23]
oracknows | May 23, 2009About a year ago in Wisconsin, an 11-year-old girl named Madeleine Neumann died of diabetic ketoacidosis thanks of the irrational religious beliefs of her parents, who prayed for her but did not take her to a physician even as Madeleine became weaker and more ill, her deterioration leading to a most unpleasant death. Highly unusual in such cases, the DA actually prosecuted the parents for second-degree reckless homicide. Given the unjustifiably privileged position irrational religious justifications for doing horrible things have in our society, I was even more shocked that this case went to…
pharyngula | May 23, 2009The woman who prayed instead of getting medical help when her daughter was dying of diabetes, Leilani Neumann, has been found guilty. I found the defense argument ludicrous and revealing.
Linehan countered, saying Neumann didn't realize her daughter was so ill and did all she could do to help, in line with the family's belief in faith-healing.
He said Neumann is a devout Christian who prays about everything and took good care of her four children.
"Religious extremism is a Muslim terrorist," Linehan said. "They are saying these parents were so far off the scale that they murdered their…
pharyngula | May 22, 2009Apologies, too many Father Ted references lately. Anyway, that's what popped into my head when I saw that it wasn't just the Catholics, but the Orthodox church as well, that seems to have a humanity deficiency. A Serbian Orthodox Christian drug rehab center has some rather unorthodox techniques…like beating the crap out of recidivists. Don't watch the video at that link if violence makes you faint: it shows a thug first smacking a guy hard many times with a shovel, then punching and slapping him until he's reeling and falls to the floor. It's a nice touch when he's bounced off a wall and…
pharyngula | May 22, 2009
It is truly an amazing hat.
That's the kind of hat that if anyone other than a priest were seen to be wearing it, small children would point and whoop with laughter, adults would purse their lips in concern and cross the street to avoid it, and concerned policemen would pull over to politely ask, "Do you need some assistance, sir? Are you on any medication?"
Strangely, though, priests must get a special dispensation to be allowed to wear clothing that, if portrayed on the pages of a super-hero comic book, would cause readers accustomed to the garishness of Superman and Wonder Woman to blanch…
pharyngula | May 22, 2009Bill Donohue must be greatly distressed right now, since a commission has blown open the doors on a long history of child abuse by the Irish Catholic Church. He's scrambling to do damage control and making a pathetic spectacle of himself. He basically belittles the trauma that those kids experienced to salvage the reputation of his beloved Catholicism…it doesn't work.
Reuters is reporting that "Irish Priests Beat, Raped Children," yet the report does not justify this wild and irresponsible claim. Four types of abuse are noted: physical, sexual, neglect and emotional. Physical abuse includes "…
gregladen | May 22, 2009 Pope Benedict XVI has entered the world of social networking sites and smartphones with a Vatican portal that includes Facebook and iPhone applications.
The Pope2You Web site was launched Thursday and allows Facebook users to send virtual postcards with photos of Benedict. An application for iPhone and iPod Touch gives surfers video and audio news on his travels and speeches, as well as on Catholic events worldwide.
The new portal is the latest update in the Vatican's efforts to broaden the pope's audience... bla bla bla
source
I understand that the first facebook picture the holy father…
grrlscientist | May 21, 2009tags: book review, Why Evolution is True, evolution, creationism, religion, scientific method, Jerry Coyne
Considering the plethora of books about evolution out there, is it really necessary to publish yet another one? What can another book about evolution have to offer that previous books have not provided? This new book not only presents the latest information about evolution to come to light, but it also responds to the most recent attacks made upon this branch of scientific knowledge. The book, Why Evolution is True (NYC: Viking; 2009) by Jerry Coyne, is the most up-to-date and one of the…
pharyngula | May 21, 2009Grim tales are emerging from an investigation of the Irish Catholic Church. For years, they've been running reform schools which sound more like hellish work camps, where sadistic priests were given free rein. I found it ironic that some of these workhouses were used to make religious paraphernalia, like rosaries, that were sold to the faithful. I wonder how many hail marys have been said on beads assembled by child-slaves who were raped or beaten as a reward? It does add a rather sinister gloss to Catholic prayers.
A quick summary of the findings:
a history of official cover-ups of…
oracknows | May 20, 2009Over the last couple of weeks, I've been blogging regularly about the case of Daniel Hauser, the 13-year-old boy with stage 2B Hodgkin's lymphoma who, after one course of chemotherapy in January, refused to undergo any more, citing a faux religion run by a woo-meister naturopath and Native American wannabe called "Chief" Cloudpiler. In reality, it probably wasn't so much belief in this fake religion, which is really no more than an excuse to use laws guaranteeing Native Americans freedom to practice their religions as justification for using peyote and various quackery for disease, but rather…