godlessness
pharyngula | July 26, 2006He only has a few radio and television programs, his own university, tens of millions of dollars to throw at his political causes, and a few million voters in his pocket, so Jerry Falwell* is just a marginal nut, right? We can just ignore him when he says things like this:
It is apparent, in light of the rebirth of the State of Israel, that the present day events in the Holy Land may very well serve as a prelude or forerunner to the future Battle of Armageddon and the glorious return of Jesus Christ.
Those rapture freaks who are cheering on the bloodshed in the Middle East certainly don't…
pharyngula | July 26, 2006Alright, Orac, I'm trying to get some work done here this morning…so why'd you have to send me this clip of an atheist church to distract me with unseemly giggling?
pharyngula | July 25, 2006So Hank Fox sent along a couple of videos: one's funny, and the other is "funny."
An atheist goes to heaven—it's Robot Chicken. You know what to expect. "It's so…it's so…uh, what's the word?" "Ironic?" "Yeah, ironic."
An atheist goest to hell—this one is not ironic. It's so earnest, it's painful to watch. It alternates between a couple of swishy dancers frolicking to hackneyed techno, and shots of gargoyles and flames accompanied by screams, all overlaid with scrolling text telling us that "Atheists Will Burn In Hell" and "God Loves Us".
pharyngula | July 25, 2006I usually like Cornelia Dean's science reporting, but this recent collection of book reviews put me off from the opening paragraph. She begins with the tired old claim that "scientists have to be brave" to embrace religion. Malarkey. I've never heard a scientist bring up the subject of religion, pro or con, at a scientific conference or associated informal gathering. You can be as devout as you want to be with no risk to your professional career (you may even find yourself an icon for the compatibility of science and religion!), and as for your personal life, being religious in a country in…
grrlscientist | July 24, 2006Okay, I have one comment about this streaming video, but I will resist the urge to say anything until after you've watched it first (below the fold).
Oh yeah? Well, using that same er, "logic", gawd invented liquor because he wants us all to be raging alcoholics.
.
tags: banana, atheism, godlessness, IDiots, religious fanatics, wingnuts
pharyngula | July 23, 2006Two more carnivals on this fine Sunday afternoon:
Carnival of the Godless #45
The Synapse #3
You know the drill.
pharyngula | July 22, 2006Georgetown College in Kentucky has ended its affiliation with the Southern Baptists after the Baptists tried to dictate that a new hire be a biblical literalist. The Baptists wanted nonsense like this:
"You ought to have some professor on your faculty who believes Adam and Eve were the first humans, that they actually existed," Dr. York said.
They also refused to allow the college to hire more than 25% non-Baptist faculty, and what may have really been the deal-breaker is that the university's enrollment is less than half Baptist…so insisting on strict adherence to the principles of a…
pharyngula | July 22, 2006The Strib has an article on Camp Quest of Minnesota, the secular summer camp that is starting up this week. It's a fairly good story, although it's unfortunate to see it overwhelmed by the gigantic rah-rah story on crazy Pentacostalism spread over the next two pages of the paper, by the same reporter.
By the way, I'll be volunteering at Camp Quest on Friday, to show the kids how to deal with creationists.
pharyngula | July 20, 2006
I imagine this might be a problem in mixed marriages, if one partner is one of those wicked militant fundie atheists I hear so much about.
By the way, that link probably isn't safe for work or the easily offended, although the part I found most offensive was the totally fictitious building in the last panel.
pharyngula | July 19, 2006So, has everyone read the latest investigation into Pat Tillman's death already? I'm appalled at this astonishingly insensitive Christian bigot, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, who basically slanders Tillman because he was an atheist.
"But there [have] been numerous unfortunate cases of fratricide, and the parents have basically said, 'OK, it was an unfortunate accident.' And they let it go. So this is I don't know, these people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs."
Kauzlarich, now a battalion commanding officer at Fort Riley in Kansas, further suggested…
pharyngula | July 18, 2006That irreverent rapscallion Larry Moran suggested that I read this article by Natalie Angier. She begins by telling us that scientists are always asking her to help out in the fight against those loony creationists, but then she turns around and chews them out for their hypocrisy. I say, give 'em hell, Natalie.
No, most scientists are not interested in taking on any of the mighty cornerstones of Christianity. They complain about irrational thinking, they despise creationist "science," they roll their eyes over America's infatuation with astrology, telekinesis, spoon bending, reincarnation,…
pharyngula | July 18, 2006From the insightful Digby comes this insightly insight:
Why do the vast majority secularists vote for the Democrats? Could it possibly be for the same reason that African Americans do? Could it be that the Republican Party is so implicitly or explicitly religiously intolerant that they have no place in it?
They don't even need to be intolerant, though…just being implicitly and explicitly religious, period, full stop, is sufficiently off-putting. The intolerance is the creamy rich arsenic-laced frosting layered thickly on top of the putrefying fruitcake of superstitious dogma—excuse me if I'd…
pharyngula | July 16, 2006We're getting rude, we dare to criticize the theistic evolutionists, and now Ophelia has done gone and poo-pooed the distinction between methodological and metaphysical materialism. I love it! Rise up, all ye fierce and firebreathing atheists!
Much as I'd enjoy the squeals of agony from the usual protesters, I'm going to suggest that you might be better off arguing over it at Ophelia's. I'm doing a bit of traveling over the next two days, my access to the net might be spotty, and so I'll probably be slow to approve any comments that our annoying spam filters might hold up.
pharyngula | July 16, 2006I'm going to be giving a talk tomorrow and Tuesday in St Paul and Minneapolis—if you're free at the noon hour, stop on by! The title of the talk is "Science and Secularism in a Demon-Haunted World," and it's sponsored by the Atheists for Human Rights.
On Monday at noon I'll be at the St Paul Landmark Center, 75 West Fifth Street, in the Ramsey County Room.
On Tuesday at noon I'll be in the Minneapolis Downtown Public Library, in the Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi Room.
If you aren't in the Twin Cities area, be patient…I just agreed to do an interview with the Infidel Guy sometime in…
pharyngula | July 16, 2006Thank you for the concern about my spiritual well-being, Craig Clarke! Usually I just get promises to pray for me and bible quotes and suggestions to bring a big bottle of aloe vera with me when I go to hell, but Craig gave me choices. He sent me a link to the Godchecker, an online searchable database of deities. It currently contains 2,850 gods in its listings (which are not complete—there is no Echidne, for instance), all of which have been worshipped by people at some time in history. Craig sent me a few recommendations, and I searched for a few of my own.
There is one squid god, Kanaloa.…
pharyngula | July 14, 2006Eugenie Scott is going to have to increase the length of her list of scientists out to "destroy religion." Larry Moran (fans of Talk.Origins will recognize the name) has posted an article, Theistic Evolution: The Fallacy of the Middle Ground.
There is no continuum between science and non-science. You can't practice methodological naturalism 99% of the time and still claim to be a scientist. It's all or nothing. Either your explanations of the natural world are scientific or they are not.
It's too bad his site isn't set up like a blog—you can't make comments there, so you'll have to settle…
pharyngula | July 13, 2006Andy says the Washington Post is asking for personal "spiritual stories". They want it under 400 words, and they're looking for "a time of crisis that tested your faith, the person who most influenced your beliefs, a life-changing event that shaped your spiritual identity, or a religious teaching or ritual that you find especially moving." Awww, how heart-warming.
I sent mine in. I doubt that they'll accept it, so I've put a copy below the fold.
My story of faith
When I was a young man, I was a regular member of the Lutheran church. I attended Sunday services, I went to Sunday school, I was…
pharyngula | July 12, 2006Ho hum, I'm quoted in Nature again this week (do I sound convincingly blasé?) It's a short news article on Francis Collins' new book, The Language of God, which I find dreadfully dreary and unconvincing, and I find his argument that "The moral law is a signpost to a God who cares about us as individuals. God used a mechanism of evolution to create human beings with whom he could have that kind of fellowship" to be ridiculously unscientific garbage.
Many scientists disagree strongly with such arguments. Some suggest that science is on the defensive today — not just in the United States — and…
pharyngula | July 11, 2006Unbelievable. Whenever I read about these End Times kooks, I wonder what is wrong with people.
For some Christians this means laying the groundwork for Armageddon.
With that goal in mind, mega-church pastors recently met in Inglewood to polish strategies for using global communications and aircraft to transport missionaries to fulfill the Great Commission: to make every person on Earth aware of Jesus' message. Doing so, they believe, will bring about the end, perhaps within two decades.
The article is full of red heifers and rebuilt temples and urgent conversions to satisfy prophecy and…
pharyngula | July 10, 2006Mark Isaak has opened a discussion on The Panda's Thumb about The Larger Issue of Bad Religion. It's good to discuss the problem of religion, but my main complaint is the attempt to separate 'good religion' from 'bad religion', and suggesting that we should be lauding those 'good religionists' to win them over to our side. Unfortunately, we don't have a criterion to distinguish the two, and I fear that if we did define them, those practitioners of 'good religion' would be vanishingly small, and not particularly strongly associated with any particular sect.
I'd suggest that 'good religion' is…