religion
pharyngula | June 30, 2011Now here's a criminal abuse of my youth: the Archie comics were written for a time by a demented fundamentalist. How crazy, you might ask? Read his comic book explanation of the Rapture. That is some insane stuff.
pharyngula | June 30, 2011Y'all remember Michael Voris, the Catholic Dominionist who wants America to make the Pope King of the United States? He's nuts, obviously, but now we get to see him make his sad face. He visited Ireland, at the invitation of some diocese to babble about "the sacred heart of Jesus", and while he was there, he did some man-on-the-street interviews. He is horrified to discover…most of the Irish have left the Catholic church!
Also, there are gays!
I think he should have also asked all those people if they believe in leprechauns. I think he would have been even more disillusioned.
Here's a…
pharyngula | June 29, 2011The Pew Foundation has surveyed evangelical Christians on a variety of topics, and here's an interesting result: only 3% accept evolution. And it's worse than that, since that 3% seems to be just in the bounds of noise and the frequency of individuals who essentially reject the basics of Christianity.
To put the 3% figure in perspective, it is the same as the percentage of evangelicals who answered that it is not "essential to follow the teachings of Christ in one's personal and family life": pretty much the defining feature of evangelical Christianity. Furthermore, the 3% figure for support…
oracknows | June 29, 2011It's grant crunch time, as the submission deadline for revised R01s is July 5. However, in a classic example of how electronic filing has actually made things more difficult, the grant has to be done and at the university grant office a week before the deadline if it is to be uploaded in time. So, my beloved Orac-philes, I'm afraid it's reruns one last time today, but, benevolent blogger that I am, I'll again post two on the same topic. As regular readers know, I've had a long history of combatting Holocaust denial online, but I also have a real problem when the price of combatting Holocaust…
oracknows | June 28, 2011It's grant crunch time, as the submission deadline for revised R01s is July 5. However, in a classic example of how electronic filing has actually made things more difficult, the grant has to be done and at the university grant office a week before the deadline if it is to be uploaded in time. So, my beloved Orac-philes, I'm afraid it's reruns one last time today, but, benevolent blogger that I am, I'll again post two on the same topic. As regular readers know, I've had a long history of combatting Holocaust denial online, but I also have a real problem when the price of combatting Holocaust…
pharyngula | June 26, 2011I know, it's a sign of the coming apocalypse…but Bill Donohue of the Catholic League opposes faith-based federal programs, just like I do! Well, not quite like I do. It turns out he has a different reason than I do.
When Sen. Obama was running for president three years ago, he pledged support for faith-based programs provided they were emptied of any faith component: he opposed the right of faith-based programs to maintain their integrity by hiring only people of their faith.
…
When faith is gutted from faith-based programs--when Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Jews can't hire their own…
pharyngula | June 26, 2011You know who is really unhappy about NY's gay marriage law? "Religious leaders", of course.
Religious leaders slammed the state's new gay marriage law on Saturday, vowing to ban politicians who supported the measure from any Catholic church and parochial school events.
The city's top Catholic clergy released strongly worded statements in the hours after the state Senate voted 33-29 to legalize gay unions.
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, of the diocese of Brooklyn, called on all Catholic schools to reject any honor bestowed upon them by Gov. Cuomo, who played a pivotal role in getting the bill…
pharyngula | June 24, 2011It's demons. The whole state is infested with 'em.
There was a big conference on exorcism offered by the Catholic church in Texas; it was apparently well-attended by an enthusiastic crowd who were anxious to learn how to purge the state of evil invisible magic beings. Bishop Pfeifer had this to say:
Pfeifer said he believes there is demonic influence in West Texas manifested through cults…
Oh, sure, he went on to say the demons were secular and on the internet, but I think he would have been better served looking at the wackaloons babbling at his conference.
pharyngula | June 23, 2011
University College Cork is hosting a small academic event featuring the work of Chicano artists, which includes an art exhibition that includes irreverent images of the Virgin Mary, with titles like "Our Lady and Other Queer Santas". Apparently, this image has stirred up fury and threats from deranged Catholics everywhere it goes — but then, it really doesn't take much to set off mindless fanatics.
Irish Catholic bloggers are outraged and calling for it to be taken down — you aren't allowed to denigrate beliefs, they claim, never mind that yes, you are, and that there isn't anything…
oracknows | June 22, 2011You know, it all makes a lot more sense now.
Actually, I can't believe I didn't see it before. Here I was, all these years, and somehow the thought never crossed my mind, even though all the signs were right there. And then, yesterday, Tufted Titmouse showed me the light. She showed me the light about über-quack, a.k.a. The Health Ranger, the man who has provided me endless entertainment and exasperation at the same time with his reality-challenged (actually, reality-lacking) rants about medicine, vaccines, and science, peppered with bad rap videos and the occasional 9/11 "Truth" rant thrown…
pharyngula | June 22, 2011This email is different than the usual rants and threats and claims about creationism disproving evolution — instead, my correspondent claims that the Catholic church knew about evolution all along. All I learned from the letter, though, is that he doesn't have a clue about what evolution is.
Dear Professor Myers,
I am very confused [Ah, if only he'd stopped there, the letter would have been perfect] as to why you think evolution is incompatible with Christianity. Since its earliest days, Catholics have maintained the mutability of species. For example:
1) Saint Jerome commented on Jeremiah…
pharyngula | June 22, 2011Athletics are a fine part of the college tradition — students come to our universities, and some of them want to participate in sports, others like to watch, and others like to enjoy a non-academic social event. I think some support for our students' extracurricular interests is a good idea. What I detest, though, is the overpaid coaches and the tendency to set the small group of college athletes apart as something special, deserving of special consideration. Even at my small university, there is a constellation of special programs to serve the college athletes, and it gets rather annoying…
jrosenhouse | June 21, 2011I often write posts arguing that it is difficult to reconcile evolution and Christianity. When you consider that evolution challenges certain claims of the Bible, refutes the traditional design argument, exacerbates the problem of evil, and suggests that humanity does not play any central role in creation, you have a pretty strong cumulative case. But I always stop short of saying bluntly that you cannot accept both evolution and Christianity. That is not for political reasons or out of fear of offending anyone. It is simply that I do not believe that the question “Can a Darwinian be a…
pharyngula | June 21, 2011This is amusing: it's a blog dedicated to documenting Famous Dead Mormons, listing those well-known people who were posthumously brought into the church. At the top of the list today, Alexander the Great, well-known for his ten-year mission to Persia and India.
pharyngula | June 20, 2011It's a page from an old Irish Catholic schoolbook.
I like how not only do they clearly indicate the hierarchy of God's love, but they force the child to be complicit in assigning that love by circling the right picture — that's excellent indoctrination technique right there. It's a bonus that they don't even bother to show the baptized baby; its worth comes from the priest's hand.
I know most religious people aren't terrorists are raving homophobes or fundagelical zealots…it's the little conceits and assumptions like this that make me despise religion the most.
pharyngula | June 18, 2011Oh, jesus…Chris Stedman is coming out with a book titled Faitheist, all about "How One Atheist Learned to Overcome the Religious-Secular Divide, and Why Atheists and the Religious Must Work Together", which leaves me with a strange gagging sensation in the back of my throat. My response is that people must work together on shared goals, but that faith and reason will always be deep and bitter enemies…and unlike Stedman, I am not confused about what side I'm on. I can share secular aspirations with religious people, but the moment they use me to rationalize or endorse faith-based folly, I'm…
pharyngula | June 18, 2011Religion really does make people crazy. Here's a story about a dog who walked into a Jewish court.
The dog entered the Jerusalem financial court several weeks ago and would not leave, reports Israeli website Ynet.
It reminded a judge of a curse passed on a now deceased secular lawyer about 20 years ago, when judges bid his spirit to enter the body of a dog.
So, obviously, this stray mutt must contain the displaced, reincarnated soul of a dead lawyer. At least, that's what somebody steeped in magical thinking would assume.
If you have an animal possessed by the soul of a lawyer (what?…
pharyngula | June 15, 2011Gary Bradley, a professor at the Seventh Day Adventist college La Sierra University, has been under fire because he teaches evolutionary biology competently — he doesn't accept the young earth creationism that SDA dogma demands. The battle is over, though, and he and several others have been asked to resign for great crimes.
According to the Spectrum article, Darnell met up afterward with Beach, Bradley, and Kaatz at a private home, where they watched a National Basketball Association playoff game and discussed the meeting. The recorder kept running, unbeknownst to the four men. It captured "…
jrosenhouse | June 14, 2011Some encouraging news:
Baptisms in the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, have dipped to their lowest point in 60 years, according to a new report.
Last year, there were 332,321 baptisms in the church, which is 17,416 less than 2009, according to the report from Nashville-based LifeWay Christian Resources. There was only one baptism for every 48 Southern Baptists in the country in 2010. Sixty years ago, there one baptism per every 19 church members. In eight out of 10 years, the number of baptisms performed have declined.
Skipping ahead:
Church…
jrosenhouse | June 7, 2011We New Atheist types are used to having hyperbolic claims leveled against us. A while back author Ron Rosenbaum, writing at Slate, wrote “And some of them [the New Atheists] can behave as intolerantly to heretics who deviate from their unproven orthodoxy as the most unbending religious Inquisitor.” Clearly so. The most unbending religious Inquisitors were in the habit of torturing and imprisoning those with whom they disagreed. The NA's write books and give public presentations in which they express their views. The comparison is obvious.
More recently, we have Michael Ruse proclaiming…