religion
evolvingthoughts | March 25, 2009At Laurie's blog, The Critical Thinker's Speakeasy. 'Course, I don't think this actually happened. My own Mormon stories are much more restrained. After 20 minutes of arguing, in which I quoted the Bible at some Mormon missionaries, one said "But the Bible is not accurate. You need the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately I gave mine away." "No worries," I said. "I'll just go get mine." They left shortly afterwards...
pharyngula | March 24, 2009There was an appalling and tragic plane crash in Montana: 14 people were killed, 7 of them children.
Tom Hagler, a mechanic at the Oroville airport, told The Sacramento Bee that he allowed several children ages 6 to 10 to use the airport bathroom before they boarded the doomed plane.
"There were a lot of kids in the group," he said, "a lot of really cute kids."
Nine of them were members of one family. This was a horrifying and genuinely horrible accident; I can't begin to imagine the grief felt by the survivors, who lost children and grandchildren.
I can feel great anger, though. Here is…
pharyngula | March 24, 2009I'm sure you all remember that plane crash in the Hudson a while back, in which all the passengers survived thanks to the commendable competence of the pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, and the crew. What impressed the atheist community, too, was that this was not a case where the crew credited some fickle deity for keeping them alive — it was good old skill, training, and keeping a cool head in times of danger.
What if, instead, the pilot had trusted in a god? We've got an example of that, too.
A plane made a similar emergency water landing off the coast of Sicily in 2005. In this case, the…
pharyngula | March 23, 2009The Pope is on a grand tour of Africa, where he has been striking up a theme of — brace yourself — opposing superstition. The man who heads an institution with an official top exorcist is asking Africans to "shun witchcraft", and to reject fear-mongering talk of evil entities…
In his homily, he urged his listeners to reach out to those Angolans who believe in witchcraft and spirits. "So many of them are living in fear of spirits, of malign and threatening powers. In their bewilderment they even end up condemning street children and the elderly as alleged sorcerers," he said.
Right. Don't…
sciencepunk | March 23, 2009
Last week the Independent newspaper reported on the case of Tim Nicholson, a UK executive claiming religious discrimination after losing his job because of his beliefs on climate change. Nicholson had been head of sustainability at Grainger plc, a residential property investment company, but claims his attempts at implementing environmental and corporate social responsibility policies were blocked by fellow executives.
This case is noteworthy because it reveals several things - that someone could be fired for doing their job too enthusiastically, that Grainger plc possesses an asinine…
gregladen | March 22, 2009How to spot a hidden religious agenda
As a book reviews editor at New Scientist, I often come across so-called science books which after a few pages reveal themselves to be harbouring ulterior motives. I have learned to recognise clues that the author is pushing a religious agenda. As creationists in the US continue to lose court battles over attempts to have intelligent design taught as science in federally funded schools, their strategy has been forced to... well, evolve. That means ensuring that references to pseudoscientific concepts like ID are more heavily veiled. So I thought I'd share…
grrlscientist | March 22, 2009tags: Christianity, war, humor, streaming video
Wow, this insightful little video shows that war happens because of made-up religions from the Middle East and, as a bonus, it also proves that the Muslim "god" is fake! [3:14]
pharyngula | March 21, 2009The physicist Bernard d'Espagnat has won the Templeton Prize. I don't think much of the Templeton; I think it's a rather devious organization that's trying to sidle in support for superstition under the guise of science. However, in this case I have to commend their choice for the nice remark he made on receiving the award.
In a statement d'Espagnat said "I feel myself deeply in accordance with the Templeton Foundation's great, guiding idea that science does shed light [on spirituality]. In my view it does so mainly by rendering unbelievable an intellectual construction claiming to yield…
pharyngula | March 21, 2009Our spring break is almost over. I hope none of our students wasted their time fishing for souls for Jesus. Follow that link; it's a story on Salon.com of a young man who goes undercover at Liberty University and goes on a Spring Break proselytizing trip to Florida. It's depressing — mindless zealots on fire for the Lord wander the streets, asking people if they've found Jesus, and almost always getting turned down. Even the few who say "Hallelujah!" are unlikely to join the church. This is truly desperate angling.
The issue of post-salvation behavior is an interesting one. I thought, when…
grrlscientist | March 21, 2009tags: religion, atheism, humor, streaming video
Christians know that science is wrong about a lot of things. But if you just use your own eyes, and your faith, you can make your own scientific discoveries. And you don't have to be a God-hating know-it-all to do it [3:46]
evolvingthoughts | March 20, 2009I am rather old fashioned, which is unsurprising since most of what I read dates from before the invention of the transistor. But I think that one can disagree with someone else without needing to call him an idiot:
This is exactly why idiots like Matthew Nisbet, who continually call for reining in of harsh criticism of religiously motivated solecisms, are floridly misguided. People can bitch about "New Atheism" all they want or they can raise their chins off their chests and actually look around at the world. The best possible way to combat atrocities of all kinds is to drag their…
pharyngula | March 20, 2009There's a fellow who has been posting as an atheist on various sites, and making unusual claims — unusual because I have never heard an atheist say anything like this.
If a man wants to make a women his b****, so be it? So what if you don't like it, what if I do?
If I want to do something, and my conscience is cool with it, then I can do it. If it's feed a homeless person, so be it. If it's kill my neighbor, so be it. I am not bound to any morals.
Wha…? That's not what an atheist would say; it sounds more like an ignorant Christian caricature of an atheist. And what do you know, it was.…
oracknows | March 20, 2009Oh, goody! Vox Day wants to play.
You remember Vox "Hey, it worked for Hitler" Day," don't you? It's been a long time. In fact, I had to do a search to find the last time I had a run-in with him, and it appears that it's been about a year since I last noted him mindlessly parroting antivaccinationist myths and spouting his usual misogyny. Alas, Vox has been a regular irritant to this blog since very early on, when he didn't like my likening his views towards women to the Taliban for his arguing that women shouldn't be allowed to vote because they are "fascists at heart." Since then, every so…
grrlscientist | March 20, 2009tags: religion, atheism, humor, streaming video
The deluded, ignorant followers of Darwin believe that man is actually a type of animal. This video disprove this godless blasphemy with totally real facts [3:46]
oracknows | March 19, 2009Given that I'm the proverbial lapsed Catholic cum agnostic, religion just doesn't play that large a role in my life and hasn't since around six years ago. I don't know if I'll ever discuss or explain on this blog what the last straw resulting in that transformation was (it's too personal), but a couple of years ago I did go through a period where I became hostile to religion, perhaps spurred on by PZ and the whole anti-religion gestalt of the ScienceBlogs Collective here. That lasted maybe a year or two, during which time I did what every new disillusioned ex-religious person seems to do (…
grrlscientist | March 19, 2009tags: religion, atheism, humor, streaming video
This video discusses the burning question: What would the world be like without a god [3:33]
evolvingthoughts | March 18, 2009I'm posting this on my American blog because the Australian government, through the Australian Communications and Media Authority is fining people on Australian sites who give the links below the fold $11,000/day. Pretty well everything I feared about censorship by the internet filter and heavy handed government action is coming true.
First of all, it transpires that only one bureaucrat at ACMA is required to block and ban a site, with no further oversight or redress. Second, it turns out that yes, ordinary and popular pornography sites are being blocked, so that if the filter becomes…
pharyngula | March 18, 2009The Vatican astronomer made some strong comments against creationism…but I find them bizarre.
Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a "destructive myth" had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.
He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a "kind of paganism" because it harked back to the days of "nature gods" who were responsible for natural events.
Wait…did a priest of one weird cult full of bizarre…
pharyngula | March 18, 2009You've all heard the news by now, I'm sure: the pope was traveling to Africa, a continent plagued with widespread sexually transmitted diseases adn also, coincidentally, one of the few places where Catholicism is growing, and he dispensed a little medical advice:
Speaking to reporters on his way to Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, the Pope said HIV/Aids was "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem".
The solution lies in a "spiritual and human awakening" and "friendship for those who suffer…