religion
pharyngula | April 16, 2009This is an entirely sensible ad promoting safe sex from Botswana. How do you think it would be received in the US?
We already know. Remember Jocelyn Elders, fired from her position as Surgeon General because she said of masturbation that "I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught"? One brief sentence on this taboo subject led to her dismissal. Amusingly, the president who fired her was that dismal old prude and paragon of propriety, Bill Clinton. I guess that's an indication of just how narrow and strait-laced this country is.
razib | April 16, 2009There are some really weird comments about Albania below. Part of these confusions have to do with ambiguities as to the religious identity of Albania, traditionally majority Muslim, but after decades of Communism very secular. What exactly are the religious breakdowns? How religious are Albanians? Additionally some of the same questions are thrown toward the Bosnian Muslims. Are Balkan Muslims true religious moderates, or, are they simply secular Europeans whose ancestors practiced the Muslim religion?
The World Values Survey can help answer these questions, or least put some numbers on…
terrasig | April 15, 2009Serendipity. Me and Tancredo, of all people.
Start here: The press has been buzzing today about former Colorado congressman and US presidential candidate, Tom Tancredo, having to cut a speech short yesterday at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill due to protesters on his stance toward illegal/unauthorized immigration to the US. With regard to state universities, Tancredo is opposed to granting in-state college tuition to children whose parents came to the US outside of legal immigration procedures.
I am not a fan of Tancredo or his policies. The time has come in this country…
gregladen | April 14, 2009August Berkshire is the vice president of Atheist Alliance International, past president of Minnesota Atheists and member of the board of Camp Quest of Minnesota. He was president of Minnesota Atheists for a long time and is one of the prime movers in the organized "nice guy" atheist movement.
August attended a talk here in the Twin Cities by Ken Miller, author of Finding Darwin's God, and he wrote up a review of the talk which has been published on Quiche Moraine. Go have a look: Losing Miller's God by August Berkshire
razib | April 14, 2009I've suggested before that the idea of Turkey entering the EU is a farce. One could make the economic case that it is far too large and poor to be absorbed easily (unlike the Eastern European nations Turkey is nearly as populous as Germany). But there is a strong cultural case too. Turkey is a very religious nation in a European context. It is more Creationist than the United States. Though Turkey is secular for a Muslim nation, it is not secularfor a European nation. But many people seem to be intent on accusing Europeans of racism or discrimination based on their evident disinclination to…
pharyngula | April 14, 2009Spring is in the air! Young hearts turn to thoughts of love, and romance flowers everywhere, even in the darkness of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. A young couple there, their union frowned upon by their families, eloped to marry anyway, a gesture I find wonderfully romantic and sweet. I'm a little biased — my own parents were discouraged from marrying by their families, and they too ran off to marry without permission (in liberal Idaho, in their case). I wouldn't be here without youthful affection and passion!
Alas, no such happy result comes from a region poisoned by fanatical Islam. Mullahs…
oracknows | April 13, 2009Nearly two weeks ago, P.Z. Myers mentioned a story that would normally have provoked a post by me. Specifically, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had issued a warning against the use of reiki as being unscientific, unproven, and, worse, "dangerous to Christian spiritual health." Unfortunately, this story came out right before Autism Awareness Month and the all out spring offensive by antivaccinationists fronted by Jenny McCarthy, along with all the nonsense that entails, and my attention rapidly got sidetracked. The reason I've come back to it is that I recently learned that defenders…
razib | April 12, 2009Gallup has a new report up, This Easter, Smaller Percentage of Americans Are Christian, which is rather self-explanatory. These data aren't surprising, other surveys report the same general finding. Here's an interesting chart with some long term trends:
I want to point to the numbers for Catholicism. In the early 1990s I remember reading popular press accounts about how Catholicism would become the dominant religion of the United States in the early decades of the 20th century because of immigration. That doesn't seem like it's panning out. Why? The American Religious Identification…
pharyngula | April 11, 2009What can we expect of a theocracy? One thing is for sure: you won't be able to criticize the church or church leadership. Here's an example from Florida.
Mac Brunson is the pastor of one of those awful megachurches, an organization that has been growing fast and sucking up lots of money for expansion. A member of his flock who was a bit concerned at the direction the church was taking set up a blog, FBC Jax Watchdog, and anonymously expressed dismay at the way the church was being run.
I saw possible abuses at our church shortly after our new pastor arrived, regarding acceptance of a $307,000…
gregladen | April 10, 2009
Thou SHALT NOT believe all thou art told.
Thou SHALT seek knowledge and truth constantly.
Thou SHALT educate thy fellow man in the Laws of Science.
Thou SHALT NOT forget the atrocities committed in the name of god.
Thou SHALT leave valuable contributions for future generations.
Thou SHALT live in peace with thy fellow man.
Thou SHALT live this one life thou hast to its fullest.
Thou SHALT follow a Personal Code of Ethics.
Thou SHALT maintain a strict separation between Church and State.
Thou SHALT support those who follow these commandments.
Details here.
mikethemadbiologist | April 10, 2009A recent post about the idiocy in Fairfax County regarding a student who was expelled for two weeks because she took birth control pills during school received some great comments. But as you might expect, with enough comments, one of the 'contraception is abortion' morons showed up (can't you morons leave me alone during my vacation?). Ordinarily, I would have let the commentors administer an ass kicking (which they did very well). But when the commenter wrote:
I just wanted to remind readers that some believe life begins at conception (and that it doesn't get a postmodernist exemption to…
evolvingthoughts | April 9, 2009A young gorilla escaped from his enclosure at the Melbourne Zoo last night and wandered about for 20 minutes while craven visitors hid out. I would have sat and waited for him to introduce himself. And paid good money for the chance.
A moron by the name of Cardinal George Pell, who has a chance at being a pope one day, has reiterated the lie that condoms do not reduce the incidence of AIDS, with anecdotal accounts filtered through the Jedi Catholic Mindshield.
And to the folk who were up at 6.30am to go to Mass, and decided that everybody had to be able to hear their conversations in…
evolvingthoughts | April 9, 2009It's that time of year, so Happy Spring Festival, Zombie Vampire Death and Raising Weekend, and Escape That Didn't Happen Celebration...
[I know, I know, don't blog drunk...]
terrasig | April 9, 2009My deepest gratitude goes out this morning to Bora Zivkovic, Mrs. Coturnix, and family for hosting what was for my daughter and I our first Seder supper. The evening was made even more special with Sheril Kirshenbaum, her BF and his labmate, Lisa (I'm sorry I don't know your full name but I do remember you got your recipe for the spicy matzah dish from The Southern Jewish Cookbook), Anton Zuiker and his wife, and all our kids - celebrating as Bora said, in "a very secular/humanist/feminist/environmentalist way, focusing on good company, good food and good wine." Speaking of the latter, I…
evolvingthoughts | April 7, 2009This is a response to David Brooks' column in the New York Times, today: "The End of Philosophy". Other respondees include PZ Myers, Brian Leiter, James Smith, bottumupchange, Mark Liberman, and chaospet (who does a very nice cartoon summarising many of the problems with Brooks' column).
Hume once wrote: "Reason is, and ought only to be, slave to the passions". By this he meant that reason is motivated by a moral sense, but at the same time Hume also wrote that one cannot derive a statement of "ought" from a statement of "is", which attempts at naturalising morality G. E. Moore called the "…
pharyngula | April 7, 2009James Dobson always seemed a little too obsessed with spanking and checking out penises to be entirely healthy, and now one of his employees has been outed as a pedophile.
Juan Alberto Ovalle, 42, thought he was corresponding with a girl under the age of 15, but instead it was undercover officers with the Jefferson County district attorney's office, according to court documents.
Ovalle works for a Spanish-speaking arm of the Colorado Springs Christian group Focus on the Family and narrates Biblical text for CDs, according to Internet websites that sell the products.
"We're shocked," said…
gregladen | April 6, 2009Do you believe that indoctrination of children into the fundamentalist christian is child abuse? If so, skip this video. If not, watch it and I'm sure it will change your mind.
Hat tip: Colloquy
pharyngula | April 6, 2009Rabbi Avi Shafran is a columnist who, to my mind, represents the very worst of religious dogma. He often writes about "morality", bemoaning the horrid state of godlessness, but his morality is little more than the rote obedience of the dogmatically orthodox. His usual complaint is that atheism removes the moral compass provided by a god — that one can believe that any arbitrary thing is good if you're an atheist.
Now he has written another bogus argument that shows the exact opposite: if you use religion, you can justify anything. It's a very strange piece, a study in contrasts.
On the one…
pharyngula | April 6, 2009All mosques are supposed to have an indicator pointing at the Kaaba in Mecca — the devout are supposed to aim their prayers in that direction (which is silly to begin with, but never mind). With all the high rises going up in Mecca, though, people were able to look down and notice that hey, the mosques aren't aimed right, maybe all of their prayers have been missing the target!
A spokesman has said something very sensible, though, something that I think certain other religious sects might consider.
Tawfik al-Sudairy, Islamic affairs ministry deputy secretary, downplayed the problem in…
grrlscientist | April 5, 2009tags: prayer, religion, humor, satire, streaming video
This streaming video is a commercial for the PrayerMAX5000! Finally, Prayer Amplification Technology⢠can be yours -- either at home or on the go [2:00]