religion
grrlscientist | April 30, 2007This is a rather civilized conversation between Bill O'Reilly and Richard Dawkins, a self-professed christian and an atheist, respectively, although O'Reilly is rather absurd at times.
pharyngula | April 30, 200790% of teenage girls believe they are overweight, according to a recent survey. That's something to worry about — there's the reality, that a lot of us are overweight, but there's also the perception problem, that many girls are convinced that they must lose weight when they really don't. There's an article that speculates on the cause of this problem, whether it is an obsession with celebrity, peer pressure, or pressure from the diet industry, but it comes up with a strange explanation:
It is, in truth, all of the above. But there is another profoundly important yet little noticed dynamic…
scientificactivist | April 29, 2007In a recent interview published in New York Magazine, writer Christopher Hitchens is asked "Has anyone in the Bush administration confided in you about being an atheist?". His answer:
Well, I don't talk that much to them--maybe people think I do. I know something which is known to few but is not a secret. Karl Rove is not a believer, and he doesn't shout it from the rooftops, but when asked, he answers quite honestly. I think the way he puts it is, "I'm not fortunate enough to be a person of faith."
To be completely honest, I don't find the idea that Karl Rove is an atheist all that…
pharyngula | April 28, 2007Read Ophelia's take on the Israeli 'modesty buses'. Would you believe certain buses in Jerusalem are set aside to make special accommodation for orthodox Jews?
Women are compelled to sit in the back of the bus.
In the back of the bus. I think they need a Jewish Rosa Parks.
The most disingenuous argument in favor of this discriminatory policy is the excuse that not all the buses are 'modesty buses' — that all you have to do is wait a little longer at the bus stop and take a different bus that doesn't enforce the idea that women must be segregated. As a former commuter on an overcrowded bus and…
pharyngula | April 28, 2007This interview with a Rabbi Sacks is rather hard for me to wrap my brain around. The first part is about something Sacks is very concerned about: Jewish continuity. He seems strangely concerned about Jewish young people marrying outside their group, and has run ad campaigns to convince young Jews to raise their children in their faith. It's all very weird; I know my grandmother was concerned that her grandchildren marry good Scandinavians, and I even got admonished about what ethnic groups I could date when I went off to college. I'm afraid that when my Norwegian/Swedish grandmother did that…
oracknows | April 26, 2007On May 5 New York City will witness what will perhaps be the most unintentionally hilarious spectacle of two fundamentalists making utter fools of themselves:
MEDIA ADVISORY, April 26 /Christian Newswire/ -- After ABC ran a story in January about hundreds of atheists videotaping themselves blaspheming the Holy Spirit, best-selling author Ray Comfort contacted the network and offered to prove God's existence, absolutely, scientifically, without mentioning the Bible or faith. He and Kirk Cameron (co-hosts of an award-winning Christian TV program) challenged the two originators of the "…
jrosenhouse | April 26, 2007Bill Maher showed up on Scarborough Country yesterday to explain his problems with organized religion. Since I can't improve on his eloquent and spot-on comments, I will simply reproduce them beneath the fold. Enjoy!
BILL MAHER, HOST, "REAL TIME": I've always had it out for religion, for very good reasons. It's mostly destructive. I don't know what happens after you die, but to believe what another person tells me just makes me want to say to that person, "How do you know?" So that's what I would ask you. How do you know what happens after you die?
It's only, Joe, because somebody…
purepedantry | April 26, 2007The Economist has a great article summarizing all the ways in which the debate between evolution and religion has gone global. It also does a good job of analyzing the different strains within the American debate, depicting it as much less monolithic:
Even in the United States, defenders of evolution teaching do not see their battle as won. There was widespread dismay in their ranks in February when John McCain, a Republican presidential candidate, accepted an invitation (albeit to talk about geopolitics, not science) from the Discovery Institute. And some opponents of intelligent design…
jrosenhouse | April 25, 2007Commenting on the recommendation of the Vatican International Theological Commission to eliminate the concept of limbo, Michelle Tsai, writing for Slate, offers some interesting thoughts on past efforts by church leaders to resolve the final destination of baby souls in the afterlife. It's nice that today there is a growing theological awareness of God's mercy, because just a few centuries ago St. Augustine was offering this:
The fate of unbaptized babies has confounded Catholic scholars for centuries. According to church catechisms, or teachings, babies that haven't been splashed with holy…
jrosenhouse | April 25, 2007From the Catholic News Service:
After several years of study, the Vatican's International Theological Commission said there are good reasons to hope that babies who die without being baptized go to heaven.
In a document published April 20, the commission said the traditional concept of limbo -- as a place where unbaptized infants spend eternity but without communion with God -- seemed to reflect an “unduly restrictive view of salvation.”
The church continues to teach that, because of original sin, baptism is the ordinary way of salvation for all people and urges parents to baptize infants,…
jrosenhouse | April 24, 2007Via P.Z. Myers, I came across this post, from George Shollenberger. He is the author of a book entitled The First Scientific Proof of God, which tells you pretty much everything you need to know about him.
He seems vexed by the number of atheists here at ScienceBlogs. He writes:
I am a retired electrical engineer and the author of “The First Scientific Proof of God.” Last summer, Mark Chu-Carroll, the blogger of the Good Math, Bad Math website, began to attack me and my book. He continued to attack the book this spring and continued to assassinate my character. He never evaluated this…
jrosenhouse | April 23, 2007Well, Richard Dawkins had his little run-in with Bill O'Reilly tonight. No doubt surprised to have an A-list guest on his show, O'Reilly managed to keep the stupidity to a minimum (though, as we shall see, he certainly did not manage to eliminate it entirely). He was also on his best behavior. Since Fox News, unlke MSNBC, does not make transcripts of its shows freely available, I have taken the liberty of providing one for you. Should tide you over until the video turns up. There were places where the two were talking over each other and other places where words were garbled, but I will…
clock | April 23, 2007I never thought that I would link to Razib approvingly, but his recent series of posts about evolution of religion are right on the mark. You can start with today's post and follow the links back to his older posts. A good start for a discussion on the topic.
mikethemadbiologist | April 22, 2007Yesterday, PZ and Amanda both argued that a model for the acceptance of atheists should be the suffragist movement. I think that's the wrong model: the appropriate model is the mainstreaming of Jews into American society.
Overall, despite an incident in Delaware, Jews have entered mainstream society quite well: if polls are to be believed, we are less likely to be discriminated against electorally than evangelicals (although maybe that's just a respect for our innate business acumen). But around sixty to seventy years ago, that wasn't the case. Jews were routinely discriminated against,…
pharyngula | April 22, 2007David Barash tries to review 11 recent books on the religion/science conflict, all in one essay of middling length. It's not entirely satisfying, nor could it be with that excess of books in so little space, but it does have a convenient short list of what's been published lately.
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel C. Dennett (Viking Press, 2006)
The Creation: An Appealto Save Life on Earth, by Edward O. Wilson (W.W. Norton, 2006)
Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society, by David Sloan Wilson (University of Chicago Press, 2002)
Evolution…
oracknows | April 19, 2007Richard Dawkins will be interviewed by Bill O'Reilly on the O'Reilly Factor on Monday, April 23.
Talk about walking into the lion's den! I'm not sure this is such a good idea on Richard Dawkins' part. The problem, of course, is that Bill O'Reilly blusters and yells and doesn't let guests that he doesn't like talk. I have to wonder if Dawkins knows what he's in for. Even though he's almost certainly capable of handling a bully when both are on equal terms, O'Reilly controls the microphone and the show; he won't tolerate being slapped down the way he deserves. Being on The Colbert Report (…
pharyngula | April 18, 2007You're bored with it? I'm bored with it. All bored now. But since the discussion is still going on everywhere, and I'm frothing rabid (as everyone knows) and always ready to snarl and bite even when (especially when?) I'm beset with ennui, I'll call your attention to Greg Laden again. He's pointing out that Nesbit/Mooney have poorly framed — I swear, I never want to use that word ever again — their argument for the evolution-creation conflict, which might explain why they are being so poorly received by some of us who are focused on that ugly mess. That, and the fact that parts of their…
pharyngula | April 18, 2007You recall that nice scarlet letter "A" for atheism t-shirt? I like it so much that I've decided to get it tattooed on my forehead. And this is so important to me that I'm also dragging my kids into the tattoo parlor to have it done to them. After all, my beliefs are important and this minor procedure will make my children more attractive, so they shouldn't object — it'll also make it easier to find partners with a similar cultural background. This is a win all around; I really don't understand why Skatje is hiring a lawyer to oppose me.
I'm lying (the kids will be relieved). I think everyone…
jrosenhouse | April 17, 2007Here's Franklin Graham, from last night's Scarborough Country, reminding us of what's important about the VA Tech shooting:
First of all, we know that God loves us and God cares for us. And there is a devil in this world. There is evil, and we have seen this manifest itself today in the life of one individual who took the lives of these students. It's a tragedy. But God loves us very much, and I don't think we should ever forget his love for us that he has provided a way for us to be with him in heaven and that's through his son Jesus Christ.
And later:
Well, I don't blame God for it,…