religion
neurotopia | December 5, 2007Phil over at Bad Astronomy has it a bit backwards, but hey it's not his fault. He didn't have to sit through that nightmare of a press conference.
I still stick by my own conclusion too, that by trying to say that Gonzalez's religious freedom has been curtailed, they are admitting ID is religion and not science, which they vehemently denied with the Dover case. I think if this comes to court, that'll be a fun issue to grill them about.
From the press conference, the DI is clearly trying to distance religion from ID. The subject never really came up until a reporter asked about it. Even a…
gregladen | December 4, 2007The suicide of a young man and the murder he committed before he killed himself are being blamed on a cult led by his mother.
Also disturbing, former members who spoke to CNN say they witnessed Ricky Rodriguez having sex with his mother, Karen Zerby, the leader of the sect now known as "The Family International."
The sect's activities and history are detailed in a newly released book, "Jesus Freaks." The sect was founded in California in the 1960s by David Berg, who referred to himself as "Mo," short for Moses. Berg was a self-proclaimed prophet.
Former sect members tell CNN Berg encouraged…
neurotopia | December 4, 2007Yesterday the Discovery Institute held a press conference at the capitol building in Des Moines, to announce Guillermo Gonzalez's plans to sue Iowa State University over their decision to deny him tenure. Supposedly the lawsuit will be filed pending the rejection of an appeal to the Board of Regents, which is virtually guaranteed simply for the fact that the Regents typically uphold tenure decisions. Joining Casey Luskin, Rob Crowther, Gonzalez's attorneys, and a few other DI folk was state Senator David Hartsuch (R-District 41).
The core of the DI's assertion is that there were "secret…
pharyngula | December 4, 2007I swear, they're trying to see how stupid they can get before my head explodes. Read Isaiah 35:8:
And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.
Obviously, to any brain-dead literal-minded pismire of an evangelical Christian, that is a reference to I-35, the interstate that cuts through Minnesota and Texas. Obviously. Never mind that unclean PZ Myers has driven on it quite often, or that this is the road with the bridge that collapse,…
gregladen | December 4, 2007The yahoos at Yahoo report:
Donnie Register has a new reason to be thankful he's married ... his wedding band deflected a bullet and probably saved his life.
Police Sgt. Jeffrey Scott says two men walked into Register's shop at The Antique Market on Saturday and asked to see a coin collection.
When Register retrieved the collection, one of the men pulled a gun and demanded money.
A shot was fired as Register threw up his left hand, and his wedding ring deflected the bullet, police said.
...
[Fiancee Darlene Register] gives God all the credit.
Police were searching for the robbers, who Scott…
pharyngula | December 4, 2007After being imprisoned and facing a lynch mob, the teacher in Sudan whose class named a teddy bear "Mohammed" has finally been freed. She has a very positive attitude and says nothing but generous things about the people of Sudan, and thanks the Sudanese government for letting her have a bed while she was in prison.
I think she's a bit deranged, actually.
A bed is an exceptional gift to a prisoner? She was sentenced to prison for naming a teddy bear? Mobs were howling for her execution for that "crime"? And she says, "I wouldn't like to put anyone off going to Sudan."
Too late. I'm quite put…
tqa | December 3, 2007
The Discovery Institute is currently making hay (again) over Iowa State's decision to deny tenure to Discovery Institute Fellow Guillermo Gonzalez. They've held a press conference and issued a press release claiming to have proof that Intelligent Design was "the" issue that resulted in Gonzalez not receiving tenure. I've read the release, and I'm unconvinced.
For starters, their release relies heavily on fragmentary quotes taken from emails that they obtained through an open records inquiry. Given the notorious track record of the entire anti-evolution movement when it comes to quoting…
oracknows | December 3, 2007Depressing. One of the fakest faith-healers of all, Peter Popoff, who was so memorably exposed for a fraud by James Randi back in the 1980s when Randi caught him using a small radio receiver to be fed information on people he was "healing" from his wife, who was reading them off of prayer cards, is back:
And here's Randi's original takedown of Popoff from the 1980s:
Scum always rises again, I guess.
pharyngula | December 3, 2007We live in a world of lunatics. You want a baby? Then go sit in a chair owned by Saint Mary Frances of the Five Wounds. She was an 18th century weirdo who threw her life away in pointless self-flagellation, so it's only natural that 21st century deluded irrationalists would think her furniture carries magic powers that would potentiate fertility rites.
Hair shirts and a whip hanging from the walls remind pilgrims of the grim "voluntary penance" the saint adopted after joining the strict order of Saint Peter of Alcantara.
As the religious name she took suggests, she was believed to carry the "…
oracknows | December 3, 2007I've been spending a bit of time discussing the sad case of Dennis Lindberg, a 14-year-old youth with leukemia who died because of his refusal to accept a blood transfusion when his hematocrit fell to life-threateningly low levels apparently during chemotherapy. My position is that, while competent adults have the right to refuse transfusion for whatever reason they wish, children are not able to understand the implications of their actions and therefore must be protected from such beliefs. I do point out that I understand that the situation may not be as clear-cut in the case of an…
gregladen | December 2, 2007The Courier Journal is a regular normal every-day newspaper out of Louisville, Kentucky. James K. Willmot is a normal every-day former science teacher at a Goshen Kentucky school. He works in a lab now in Britain, but he's from Louisville. The following Op Ed in the Courier-Journal by James Willmot should be sobering for anyone living in the readership zone of that paper, or anyone with kids in the area:
There is a great educational injustice being inflicted upon thousands of children in this country, a large percentage of whom come from the Kentucky, Ohio and, Indiana areas. The source…
gregladen | December 2, 2007Here we have another example of the link between Christian religion, Creationism, and Dishonesty. This time, it is in the post-game analysis of John West's talk at the University of Minnesota, posted on the Discovery Institutes's Web Site.
The post by Bruce Chapman, who was not at the talk, is based on "two calls" Bruce got about the talk. It is full of lies and misinformation, which are pretty much obliterated in this post by PZ Myers, which appeared on the Internet only moments ago.
What I find most amazing is this: West was asked explicitly if he was making a link between the early…
oracknows | December 1, 2007Yesterday, I wrote about the overwhelmingly sad case of Dennis Lindberg, the 14-year old Jehovah's Witness who died because of his misguided adherence to the twisted interpretation of a 3,000 year old Biblical text and the court's acquiescence to this lunacy. So did P. Z. Myers. In response to the post on Pharyngula, I saw a comment that disturbed me greatly:
At the hospital where I work we have a procedure in place just for JW's. We have a stack of court orders waiting. When the patient loses consciousness a doctor fills out a form declaring them no longer capable of making their own…
gregladen | November 30, 2007In Genesis 4, we see specific reference to herdsmen and farmers as distinct groups, represented by Abel and Cain, respectively. God indicates a preference for the results of herding over planting, and the sibling troubles that ensue result in the world becoming a difficult place to farm, and humans becoming more nomadic, as herders. This is interesting, because it seems like a dramatic shift from reference to irrigation agriculture to herding. Given the usual role of origin stories, we may be seeing a layering of blame in this case. If this is the origin story of cattle keeping nomadic…
gregladen | November 30, 2007Headline: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin
DALLAS (Reuters Life!) - More Americans believe in a literal hell and the devil than Darwin's theory of evolution, according to a new Harris poll released on Thursday.
It is the latest survey to highlight America's deep level of religiosity, a cultural trait that sets it apart from much of the developed world.
It also helps explain many of its political battles which Europeans find bewildering, such as efforts to have "Intelligent Design" theory -- which holds life is too complex to have evolved by chance -- taught in schools…
pharyngula | November 30, 2007Let's ruin a perfectly pleasant Friday with a poll full of ugly reality.
The poll of 2,455 U.S. adults from Nov 7 to 13 found that 82 percent of those surveyed believed in God, a figure unchanged since the question was asked in 2005.
It further found that 79 percent believed in miracles, 75 percent in heaven, while 72 percent believed that Jesus is God or the Son of God. Belief in hell and the devil was expressed by 62 percent.
Darwin's theory of evolution met a far more skeptical audience which might surprise some outsiders as the United States is renowned for its excellence in scientific…
gregladen | November 30, 2007PZ Myers at Pharyngula examines this question in an entirely different case. This is the case of 14 year old Jehovah Witness Dennis Linberg. Dennis died on Wednesday night at a Seattle area hospital because he refused to accept a life saving transfusion on religious grounds.
This is, indeed, a parent's worse nightmare. Your child finds religion, in this case from some crazy religious aunt, and that religion leads the child to his death.
[ADDED: Go see this commentary by Orac]
Doctors diagnosed the boy's leukemia in early November. They began chemotherapy at Children's Hospital, but…
gregladen | November 30, 2007This is the tag line for an article in yesterday's Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Where punishment drifts into abuse is the issue in the case of a father who hit his son 36 times.
In this case, the "drifting" occurred because...
When Shawn Fraser's discipline failed to rein in his 12-year-old son, he turned to his religion...
Fraser use a wooden implement, apparently designed for spanking, to strike his 12 year old child several times. He also posted Bible verses on the refrigerator.
after 36 blows, delivered in 12-blow increments, the 195-pound boy called authorities. Now the state Supreme…