religion
mikethemadbiologist | November 8, 2008Soon it will be the War on Christmas season wherein a bunch of assholes shriek hither and yon complaining that someone somewhere tried to remove a Christmas tree, and that said removal will lead to the Destruction of Judeo-Christian Civilization As We Know It.
As far as I'm concerned, it's the last gasp of conservative white Protestants who have suddenly realized that now they are those people. So my question is, given the political shift this country has undergone, how do you think John Gibson's attempt to use religious tribalism to sell really bad books the War on Christmas will play out?…
gregladen | November 8, 2008According to the survey of 1,200 teachers, 53 per cent thought that creationism should not be taught in science lessons, while 29 per cent thought it should, reports Timesonline.
However, 88 per cent said that if students raised the issue in a science lesson, they should be allowed to discuss it.
details
UPDATE: see THIS important note.
pharyngula | November 6, 2008Imagine yourself in this situation. A young girl is accused of a heinous crime — use your imagination here, too, and think of the most horrible thing a person can do — and she is trapped in front of you, helpless. You have a rock in your hands. People around you are urging you to kill her; they say that you are justified in taking her life. What would you do?
Let's say you don't have a rock, but are just part of the large crowd of spectators, witnessing a small group of men killing this girl. What would you do then?
Be honest now.
I wouldn't be able to do kill anyone, and I would try to stop…
grrlscientist | November 4, 2008tags: God is Hate, christians are haters, religion is organized hate, religion, fundamentalists are everywhere, mindcontrol
The above letter was spoofed and supposedly signed by Alice Shannon of Soldotna, Alaska, and republished by DIGG. However, the original letter was published in the newspaper, The Augusta Chronicle on Monday, October 22, 2001, when all the good religionists in the area were pondering the role of a gawd-inspired terrorist act: the destruction of the World Trade Towers, portions of the Pentagon and the downing of an airliner in an Pennsylvania cornfield -- which…
gregladen | November 4, 2008A thirteen year old is brutally raped by three men. Since this constituted sexual relations outside of marriage, she was sentenced to death.
She was buried in a hole up to her neck. She pleaded for her life. "Don't kill me. Don't kill me..." she cried.
Then fifty men threw stones at her head until she was dead, as one thousand others looked on.
... witness ... said she had been crying and had to be forced into a hole before the stoning, reported to have taken place in a football stadium.
"More than 1,000 people arrived there," he said.
"After two hours, the Islamic administration in…
gregladen | November 3, 2008As you know, Webster Cook was Impeached by his school government for his role in Crackergate. Then, the impeachment was overturned. But this meant that he would be re-impeached ... the appellate system does not really overturn an impeachment in this case, but rather, sends it back. So Webster Cook was Re-Impeached.
And moments ago, I have received word from Benjamin Collard, Webster's friend, that the Re-Impeachment of Webster Cook has results in ....
... Acquittal!!
Below the fold: Links to the earlier stories on this.
24 hours of silence
August 13th: Webster Cook Acquitted
August 14th…
gregladen | November 2, 2008He remembers when his father would force him and his siblings to run five to ten miles around the high school track every night. One evening another boy was riding his bicycle along the outer lanes of the track, and Fred began yelling at him to leave. The boy's response was to keep riding on the track, and Fred's was to push him off the bike. The boy left, screaming, and 20 minutes later a truck came screeching into the parking lot. The boy had brought his father, who approached Fred and knocked him to the ground.
"The man was threatening to sue him," said Nate. "Then my old man yelled at us…
gregladen | November 2, 2008Next congressional election: If someone running for the US house was an outed atheist/agnostic, and every atheist/agnostic donated one dollar to that campaign, or if ten percent of the atheists/agnostics gave ten dollars to that campaign, it would be the best funded congressional campaign ever.
Of course, you'd have to be an otherwise competent candidate, probably with a liberal stand on most issues, pro-science, pro-education, pro-rational, etc. etc. But mainly we need you to be an Establishment Clause nut.
Pass it on.
evolvingthoughts | November 1, 2008
I used to think that Jews in general were able to avoid the confusion of biblical literalism with their rich tradition of allegorical and other forms of interpretation and commentary, but it seems that there are some - haredim - who follow the example of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and dismiss evolution as far-fetched and anti-biblical. The link is to an anonymous essay by a rabbi at the Jerusalem Post. In it he argues that the tradition of Orthodox Judaism permits a looseness of interpretation that means that science can rule out bad interpretations, which is very unlike the Christian literalist…
razib | October 31, 2008I have a piece up for The Guardian's new Comment is Free Belief site, The use and abuse of statistics - Prophecies of the extinction of religion, or its triumph, fall prey to the weaknesses of linear prediction. Implicit in my argument are these sorts of dynamics:
Bearman and Brückner have also identified a peculiar dilemma: in some schools, if too many teens pledge, the effort basically collapses. Pledgers apparently gather strength from the sense that they are an embattled minority; once their numbers exceed thirty per cent, and proclaimed chastity becomes the norm, that special identity…
gregladen | October 31, 2008Emailed to: info@brazileassociates.com
Ms Brazile,
I heard your comments on CNN regarding the North Carolina race. See this:
"My Godless Money: Take it or leave it"
Donna, about 20 percent of the Democratic party are atheists. You just told us that the word "Atheist" is properly thought of as equivalent to "jew" (when used in a derogatory way, like to "jew someone down") or "nigger" when used in a derogatory way among, say, non-African Americans. You are quite wrong about this and your comments were deeply offensive.
I think you need to step back and think about the message you are…
gregladen | October 30, 2008... Just like that (snapping my fingers as I say that).
"Do you want to escape Satan's grip? ... It is time for the Lord Jesus Christ to set the captive free..."
Pastor John says:
I vote no on masturbation. ... I walked by a whole section of "photography" books at the Walker Art Center last Thursday empowered by the better pleasure of feeling Christ conquer the temptation to look.
Why are we talking about this? Well, the so called War on Wanking, which by the way seems to exclude women explicitly as I read it, the idea that governments are set up to serve as god's tool for running…
pharyngula | October 30, 2008This is a video of Barack Obama pointing out that we can't use the Christian holy book as a guide to secular law — it has bits that advocate slavery and stoning obstreperous children, and that the injunctions to "turn the other cheek" and follow the golden rule in the Sermon on the Mount would, if taken literally, put the Defense Department in violation.
The irony comes from the outraged Christian fundie voiceover. He accuses Obama of mocking the bible, and then defends it by claiming that the Sermon on the Mount is "spiritually inspiring"…completely missing the point that Obama was not…
pharyngula | October 29, 2008Some Christian fanatics are concerned, quite reasonably, about the economy, and have chosen, quite absurdly, to try and correct the problem with prayer. So far, so typical, but then … well, they picked a peculiarly oblivious way to do it. They prayed before a statue of a golden bull on Wall Street.
We are going to intercede at the site of the statue of the bull on Wall Street to ask God to begin a shift from the bull and bear markets to what we feel will be the 'Lion's Market,' or God's control over the economic systems. While we do not have the full revelation of all this will entail, we do…
jrosenhouse | October 29, 2008Last night I completed one of the least ambitious reading projects I have ever undertaken. I have now read all sixteen volumes of the Left Behind series.
As I am sure you are aware, this is a series of novels written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, describing the Earth's last days as foretold in the Book of Revelation. It begins with the Rapture of the church, in which millions of believers disappear from the face of the Earth. This is a bit awkward for those folks driving cars or flying planes at the time. The story then meanders its way through eleven subsequent volumes, documenting…
evolvingthoughts | October 28, 2008
As I feared, the internet filtering issue has now been taken up by special interests. The conservative Christian political party Family First, run largely by the Hillsong evangelical denomination, has one senator, but the balance of power is so tight they wield disproportionate power, and as PM Kevin Rudd and several of his cabinet colleagues are themselves religious, the FF interests are likely to be pandered to, as they were by the conservative Howard government. Senator Steve Fielding wants the filtering to include pornography and gambling, both of which are legal for adults in Australia…
oracknows | October 27, 2008Hot on the heals of my post earlier today about the flurry of misinformation-laden ads being aired in Michigan to try to prevent Proposition 2, the proposed amendment to the Michigan State Constitution that would allow embryonic stem cell research using embryos that would be discarded from fertility clinics, I've learned that my alma mater, the University of Michigan, where I did both my undergraduate and medical school training, has released a series of videos countering the dishonest propaganda of groups like MiCAUSE:
The truth about stem cell science
And there's more:
Where Do Embryonic…
oracknows | October 27, 2008Two years ago, there was a brouhaha in Missouri over a ballot proposal to allow state funding for embryonic stem cell research using discarded embryos from fertility clinics. The issue made national news, including some rather despicable rhetoric from Rush Limbaugh about Michael J. Fox, who made ads in support of the Missouri initiative, as well as deceptive ads against the proposal featuring Patricia Heaton and members of the St. Louis Cardinals. It was a big stink that drew national attention.
Fast forward to two years later and to my home state of Michigan, and history appears to be…
pharyngula | October 24, 2008She may have deleted her post that called for killing homosexuals, but now she's put up a guest post from some freaky Baptist minister, shrieking about "Sodomites" who are being punished by her loving god, with quotes from the usual suspects — Romans and Leviticus — demanding that they be put to death.
That Christian deity sure is a cranky, bitter, hateful old guy, isn't he? And Christians sure are talented at inventing imaginary enemies to work themselves into a frothing rage over.
razib | October 23, 2008John Wilkins points me to a piece by Pascal Boyer,* Being human: Religion: Bound to believe?:
So is religion an adaptation or a by-product of our evolution? Perhaps one day we will find compelling evidence that a capacity for religious thoughts, rather than 'religion' in the modern form of socio-political institutions, contributed to fitness in ancestral times. For the time being, the data support a more modest conclusion: religious thoughts seem to be an emergent property of our standard cognitive capacities.
If there is one thing you can say for philosophy, the discipline imposes a clarity…