Christianity
aardvarchaeology | March 12, 2016Metal detectorist Dennis Fabricius Holm made a pretty sweet find yesterday: the third known Birka crucifix.
These little wonders of 10th century goldsmith work are named for the first find, made in 1879 when Hjalmar Stolpe excavated in the cemeteries of Birka near Stockholm. In addition to the crucifix grave 660 contained, among other things, two other fine silver filigree pendants and a bronze-capped iron wand that may have served pagan religious purposes.
Crucifix from grave 660 at Birka, Uppland, Sweden.
In 2012 Silke Eisenschmidt identified fragments of a second Birka crucifix among…
aardvarchaeology | November 7, 2014I follow the decommissioning of Sweden's churches keenly for several reasons. I like churches, the older the better, but I don't like the Church much. And I take great interest in the West's ongoing secularisation process. Before, I've blogged about how Maglarp Church was torn down, about how Örja church was sold as housing and about the National Heritage Board's advice to congregations that decide to stop heating their churches.
Two upscale 1890s dissenter churches in the posh Östermalm precinct of Stockholm have been similarly de-sanctified in the past year.
A year ago, a real estate…
sa smith | January 16, 2013I will give them this-- This is a new anti-vax argument for me:
Like most medical facilities, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital appears to require that all of its employees receive an annual flu shot. It fired Sakile Chenzira, a customer service representative, for refusing to comply. Chenzira sued, claiming that because the flu vaccine contains eggs the requirement violated her religion—veganism—which prohibits the ingestion of any animals or animal by-products.
The influenza vaccine is produced in eggs. If youre vegan, this might present an ethical problem, for you. But most people are vegans…
sa smith | January 26, 2012Just, turn off your brain before you read this post, folks.
If you try to to think about this, Im pretty sure your entire brain will hemorrhage, and I dont want to be responsible for that.
You think I am joking.
I am not.
I actually heard rumors about what Im going to type here today a week ago, but I didnt write it because I thought it was just an internet rumor. It was too stupid to be real life.
And yet, after verifying the info, here I am. It is true.
*blink*
*deepbreath*
Okay.
Companies like Pepsi, Frito-Lay, Trident-- they take their food flavor/food additive/food everything very…
sa smith | February 16, 2011Via Dianna Narciso, one of the funniest/most pathetic excuse for a child-star-gone-wild: Atheist community service.
"Somewhere along this journey," he says, "both mine and Miley's faith has been shaken. That saddens me the most." When they first came to Hollywood for Hannah Montana, the two of them would drive down the freeway together to the studio each morning, and every day Miley would point out the sign that said
ADOPT-A-HIGHWAY
ATHEISTS UNITED
Just before moving out to Los Angeles, the whole family had been baptized together by their pastor at the People's Church in Franklin, Tennessee…
stoat | January 28, 2011At a funeral recently, this was the lesson, from which I excerpt:
31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
(see here for some analysis and commentary, that looks fairly mainstream to me).
And I thought at the time, what doesn't seem to be in the commentaries: very nice, but what about the other side: if we believe that God gave up his Son (ignoring for the moment the manifold theological problems with a divisible God) to…
sa smith | August 11, 2010Paleovirology is one of my favorite topics to read about. Whether its bringing extinct viruses back to life, or finding ancient HIV-1 integration sites, or finding millions of year old viruses in genomes, or studying the modern side-effects of ancient viral infections, I love old viruses just about as much as modern ones.
I even like wild guessing concerning ancient viruses, like this pic from Ancient Egypt:
We *think* this fellow has a bum leg and a cane because of polio!
And there were several 'plagues' that ravaged Ancient Greece. Scientists and scholars have proposed various pathogens,…
sa smith | August 5, 2010I normally dread my drives home to visit my parents.
I mean, its pretty-- through OK and KS... but there is absolutely nothing on the radio but those crazy Christian talk shows. I can listen to them a while, for limited lulz, but eventually I get so sick of the Creationists and women talking about how its so AWESOME to serve their husbands, I turn it off and drive in silence.
NOT TODAY, BABY!!!!
Every show was freaking the fuck out over Prop H8 getting overturned! Freaking the fuck out AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
The hours just flew by as I laughed maniacally at:
WARBLEGARBLE! VAUGHN WALKER IS…
sa smith | July 20, 2010My mom and her friends have been having a fun time with recent Oklahoma weather-- We had constant ice storms that crippled the city this winter. Spring gave us loads of tornadoes and of course, the sideways baseball-sized hail. This summer has been 'filled' with flooding...
Mom & Co. giggle: "Better stock up on OFF!. I heard next you all are going to have a plague of locusts." "What the hell is Oklahoma doing to piss off God??" "The only thing keeping Oklahoma from being obliterated by God is the few Chosen People who manage to live there. Way to keep God from killing Oklahoma, Abbie…
grrlscientist | May 1, 2010tags: Bible Contradictions Quiz Show, religion, christianity, Bible, humor, funny, satire, comedy, fucking hilarious,animation, cults, streaming video
This amusing video shows a quiz show where the two contestants are asked questions about the bible -- unfortunately, the holy word of god is filled with contradictions (more contradictions than the Harry Potter series, for that matter!)
grrlscientist | April 4, 2010tags: Shroud of Turin, christianity,catholics, religion, cults, History Channel, streaming video
This video is a clip from the History Channel, where they report on the face that is imprinted onto the Shroud of Turin (rumored to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ). Ho-hum.
sa smith | March 10, 2010Oklahomas Christian Medical and Dental Association is such a massive joke.
They brought in Donald Ewert, a clueless dork, to talk about the 'Evolution of the Immune System' Creationism.
Brought in Mr. NOMNOMNOMNOM to talk about the science/religion/ethics behind stem cell research SCIENTISTS KILLING BABBIES!
And yesterday they brought in Ellen Myers to talk about: "Did the Nazis have it correct? Part II: Euthanasia and Doctor Assisted Suicide; Will We Repeat the Past."
I had no idea who this woman was. A casual Google search turned up juicy morsels like this:
She has published papers in the…
grrlscientist | January 31, 2010tags: christianity, religion, cults, mind control, social phenomenon, Harry Potter, witchcraft, beliefs, education, streaming video
This video is a report on the christian wingnuts' response to Harry Potter -- it seems this is another cult of mind-control that is unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Since today is my birthday, and I am a rabid Harry Potter fan, I will spend this entire day brushing up on my spells and wand-work by watching Harry Potter DVDs. Since alcohol will also be involved, I urge you all to watch out, lest I (accidentally?) change someone into a toad.…
grrlscientist | January 16, 2010tags: religion, IDiots, satire, parody, comedy, humor, fucking hilarious, Hitler, DOWNFALL, streaming video
The so-called Discovery Institute is a pretentious über-Christian disguise for creationism and an ultra-Conservative social agenda called The Wedge Strategy. So-called Intelligent Design theory is plagiarized from William Paley's long-refuted Blind Watchmaker argument, and is merely creationism in a not-so-cunning disguise.
Having neither facts nor logic at their disposal, the polemicists of the so-called Discovery Institute have been forced to resort to lies and subterfuge. One of…
razib | December 21, 2009Tom Rees:
It seems that when Christianity is popular, Christians are content with the idea of a firewall separating Church and State. It's only when Christianity begins to lose it's influence over the population at large that Christians begin to campaign for the State to adopt a Christian character.
Looking at survey data from 18 Western countries, they found:
-The fewer Christians in a country, the greater the support among Christians for a greater public role for religion (as shown in the graph).
-The polarization of views between Christians and non-religious on a public role for religion…
grrlscientist | December 20, 2009tags: Atheists Can't Think For Themselves!, humor, funny, satire, religion, christianity, islam, Edward Current, streaming video
This astonishing video sets out to prove that being a Christian requires constant thinking, while being an atheist sheep does not. This explains why atheists are the dumbest people God ever created!
grrlscientist | December 19, 2009tags: religion, fundamentalism, christianity, SPAM, MysteryBox, streaming video
A hardcore atheist finds God when he wasn't even looking for God. It's a touching story with a happy ending.
Although the star is having a bit of fun in this video, the point that the video star making is serious. The world is full of people making exactly the sort of logical mistake he's making in the video. As a result the world is filled with people thinking they have had a personal experience of their version of god yet all these people believe conflicting notions and have no real evidence for their beliefs.
grrlscientist | December 13, 2009tags: religion, christianity, fundamentalism, wingnuttery, comedy, humor, satire, fucking hilarious, streaming video
The Bible states clearly in Genesis 3:16 that the man rules over the woman.
Did anyone follow this guy's "logic"? If so, please do explain to the rest of us who are still mortally confused. A flowchart might be helpful.
grrlscientist | December 5, 2009tags: religion, fundamentalism, christianity, Islam, Islam Not A Religion, Pat Robinson, streaming video
A Muslim takes on Pat Robertson and his form of fundamentalist wingnuttery known as "evangelical religion". Pat Robinson demonstrates nicely that even religious people of different denominations do not respect each other even though they supposedly are on the same side. They are so busy pointing fingers and making judgments about each others' faith that it's beyond silly for them to try to convert atheists .. because they can't agree as to which religion is "the one true faith" nor can…
grrlscientist | November 15, 2009tags: religion, fundamentalism, christianity, humor, satire, funny, evolution shmevolution, Edward Current, streaming video
Edward Current comments about all of the ignorant evilutionists (including me) who are contaminating the world with our crazy ideas. Nevermind that we have proof and the religious wingnuts do not.