religion
mikethemadbiologist | June 8, 2007When you do 'faith-based' science, you have problems when you don't follow the tenets of that 'faith.' From the AP:
The man who plays Adam in a video aired at a Bible-based creationist museum has led a different life outside the Garden of Eden, flaunting his sexual exploits online and modeling for a clothing line that promotes free love.
After learning about his activities Thursday, the Creation Museum in Kentucky pulled the 40-second video in which he appears.
"We are currently investigating the veracity of these serious claims of his participation in projects that don't align with the…
mikethemadbiologist | June 8, 2007And no, it's not faith. It's called religion. That aside, there's an interesting internet exchange among Eric Sapp, Rabbi Andy Bachman, and Jameson Foser about the role of religion in the Democratic Party. I found it interesting that the only ordained participant was the most skittish about the embrace of 'faith' (italics mine):
In watching the 3 leading Democratic candidates debate their views on religion, I had two conflicting impressions.
One, it's a good thing that, in response to the ascendancy of the Religious Right in American politics, the Progressive religious community is being…
grrlscientist | June 8, 2007tags: creation museum, humor, streaming video
This streaming video shows Jackie and Dunlap talking about Kentucky's new creation museum, the new Billy Graham library, and Murfreesboro's own bible park. Plus, it includes a sneak peek at the new Ben Stiller comedy "Night at the Creation Museum". [2:36]
evolvingthoughts | June 7, 2007
Schadenfreude , n. Pleasure found in the misfortunes of Answers in Genesis, who employed a pornography actor to play Adam. Well, at least it makes sense - didn't Adam and Eve fall because they had sex? I'm sure some Baptist told me that once...
razib | June 7, 2007I am a proponent of nominalism when it comes to religion. Or, to put it another way, instead of a religion being a Platonic category with precise and specific boundaries, I think a more accurate model is a distribution of ideas and sentiments in the minds of human beings which is always in flux. The many layers of cognitive operation, from reflective verbal commitment and elaboration, all the way down to reflexive and automatic conceptualization below the conscious surface, means that the shape of distribution the itself may change as a function of the level at which one is examining the…
omnibrain | June 7, 2007An oldie but goodie starring I Dream of Jeannie as god ... Enjoy!
Here's Ned Flanders dealing with an evolution exhibit.
And here's the evolution vs. creationism debate starring Lisa.
mikethemadbiologist | June 7, 2007I like much of Matt Yglesias' writing. But he still doesn't appreciate how science and evolution affect public policy issues. As many of you know, three out of ten Republican presidential candidates stated that they don't believe in evolution at one of the presidential debates. Yglesias comments on Huckabee's response:
I see that Jamie Kirchick didn't care for the reply at all: "Sorry, but if someone believes in fairy tales, I think that's pretty relevant to their qualifications as president." But why? The core of Huckabee's answer is here:
It's interesting that that question would even…
pharyngula | June 7, 2007On Edge, Jerry Coyne has a response to Sam Brownback's dissent from evolution. These are excellent questions, and I'd like to see them answered!
Senator Brownback, along with his two dissenting colleagues, really should be forced to answer a rather more embarrassing question: who is responsible for their being so misinformed? Where did they learn the so-called "problems" with evolution: at their mothers' knees, or in Sunday school? Or perhaps from reading books; and, if so, what books, and who recommended them? Doesn't a public servant have a responsibility to stay informed across a wide…
pharyngula | June 6, 2007I passed on listening to the Democratic debates, so you can sure as heck bet I skipped the recent Republican debate. Just as well, too; the candidates got pressed on that evolution question again, and wouldn't you know it, it simply triggered an avalanche of idiocy, with Mike Huckabee leading the way. Just look at these quotes.
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth," said Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister. "A person either believes that God created the process or believes that it was an accident and that it just happened all on its own."
An accident? That's the only…
evolvingthoughts | June 6, 2007
Clerical Catholic Imam, George Pell, has done it again. Proven why secularism is a necessity, that is.
He has threatened politicians who are Catholics with exclusion from communion, which is not quite excommunication but nevertheless still pretty drastic, if they vote in favour of a secular law permitting stem cell research. Note that these Catholic politicians, who are elected to represent all Australians and not just the Catholics, are not themselves undertaking stem cell research. They are merely voting, if they choose, to allow others to do it if their conscience permits.
But the…
evolvingthoughts | June 5, 2007
The Fall. What can we say about the Fall that hasn't been said many times before? Well, if all you read is the text, quite a lot.
The Serpent is interesting, for a start. He talks, and so he's a magical creature. He has a human-like personality, for he is "crafty" (although I really prefer the old term "subtle", for it makes him sound like a lawyer). He talks about YHWH Elohim only as "Elohim", for a start - I don't know what meaning there is in that. It's not that the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) had become sacred, for it is spread through Genesis and you'd expect it to be elided by the Redactor…
mikethemadbiologist | June 5, 2007Inspired by this Jeffrey Feldman post, I'm putting together a post about abortion, evolution, and the dislike by some scientists of framing. Feldman argues that reframing abortion is necessary to deal with anti-abortionists like Rev. Joel C. Hunter:
Abortion continues to be one of the most hurtful and divisive facts of our nation. I come from the part of the faith community that is very strongly pro-life. I know you're pro-choice, but you have indicated that you would like to reduce the number of abortions. Could you see yourself, with millions of voters in a pro-life camp, creating a common…
evolvingthoughts | June 5, 2007
It is also likely that if God re-issued Genesis 2, he'd do it as a comic strip like this.
Oops I forgot to link it... fixed now.
jrosenhouse | June 4, 2007Let us end the day's blogging by noting this happy story from The Australian:
AN unholy war has erupted between a star of the US evangelical movement and his Australian flock, with claims of bullying and unbiblical behaviour.
Former NSW chief magistrate Clarrie Briese, who nearly brought down former High Court judge Lionel Murphy, has led a confidential investigation into the international dispute being fought out among the international arms of "creationist" ministries.
Break out the popcorn, folks.
The article has quite a lot of choice nuggets, but I especially liked the ending:
The…
mikethemadbiologist | June 4, 2007Recently, I took pious gasbag Senator Brownback to task for, among other things, arguing that 'faith' plays a role in scientific inquiry. In a NY Times article about 'ethically-challenged' doctors who take part in clinical trials, I found this little gem:
Dr. Ronald Hardrict, a psychiatrist from Minneapolis who pleaded guilty in 2003 to Medicaid fraud. In 2004 and 2005, he collected more than $63,000 in marketing payments from seven drug makers. In an interview, Dr. Hardrict said it was "insulting" and "ridiculous" to suggest that income from drug makers might influence doctors' prescribing…
pharyngula | June 4, 2007Egnor, the smug creationist neurosurgeon, is babbling again, but this time, it's on a subject that he might be expected to have some credibility: the brain (he has one, and operates on them) and the mind (this might be a problem for him). It's an interesting example of the religious pathology that's going to be afflicting us for probably the next century — you see, creationism is only one symptom. We're seeing an ongoing acceleration in scientific understanding that challenge the traditional truisms of the right wing religious culture warriors, and represent three fronts in our future battles…
pharyngula | June 3, 2007Hey, I've got this wonderful forum that's read around the world, so I'm going to use it to unload on one of our local idiots, Ted Storck. Storck is one of those insufferable self-important Christians who makes the whole religion look like a lobotomy ward. His wonderful contribution to the cultural life of Morris is that he donated a set of ghastly electronic chimes to the nearby cemetery. And he writes letters to the Morris Sun Tribune.
This Memorial Day weekend, the chimes will play more hymns and patriotic songs at the cemeteries here in Morris.
We hope the few who dislike chimes will…
pharyngula | June 3, 2007Oh, come on. This is no surprise. Public schools mostly take religion for granted—it's rife in athletics, in particular, but many of the ceremonies have prayers and ministers involved—so when a valedictorian speech damns her godless classmates to hell, it's just a reflection of the culture.
The valedictorian's speech was about Jesus Christ and suggested those who don't believe would go to hell.
"I want to tell you that Jesus Christ can give you eternal life in heaven," Spaulding said before the crowd. "If we die with that sin on our souls, we will immediately be pulled down to hell to pay…
grrlscientist | June 2, 2007tags: evangelical christians, religion, brainwashing children, streaming video
Do you want to see something truly frightening? This streaming video is a trailer from a documentary that shows how evangelical christians are brainwashing children into becoming an army for jesus. This is simply outrageous, not only because of the blatant brainwashing, but also because it is just what muslim extremists are doing with their kids. When will the world wake up and realize that religion is the cause of most of the world's problems? When will we wake up and realize that religion is nothing more than…
evolvingthoughts | June 1, 2007
So in chapter 2, we shift stories. Now we have a story that is far older than the first chapter, and is regarded by scholars as the "Yahwist" creation story, and it focuses primarily on humans. The story is far more familiar than the first chapter is (the first few sentences notwithstanding), so we can be pretty brief.
Here, the deity is referred to as "YHWH Elohim", and is translated in English as "LORD God". YHWH is the ancient name for a Phoenician deity of the inhabitants of Canaan. We don't know exactly how it was pronounced, but problably it is said as "Yahweh". In the Canaanite…