religion
oracknows | February 10, 2011Let's face it. This week has just been one of those weeks, and it's not over yet. A little silly break is in order:
There, I fell better now.
Consider this a Thursday open thread. I haven't had an open thread in a while, and when things get busy enough it's a time-honored way of filling blog time...
oracknows | February 9, 2011It's been a crazy week that's reaching a crescendo today and tomorrow, so much so that, unlike yesterday, when I said I'd only be brief and ended up blathering on for close to 2,000 words (Mike Adams has that effect on me, particularly when he's at his most un-self-aware), today I really will be brief for once in my misbegotten logorrheic blogging career. I don't know why, but this warning by Jacob Bronowski about the danger of dogma and how absolute certainty can turn human beings into monsters popped up again, and I couldn't resist posting it*:
Science is uncertainty. That doesn't mean we…
pharyngula | February 8, 2011Once upon a time, everyone trembled in fear at the thought of antagonizing the Church of $cientology. Everyone knew their response to any criticism would be heavy-handed and unconscionable, and that they'd harrass you persistently if you ended up on their enemies list. That's changing, though, and the stupidity and viciousness of the cult is seeing more and more exposure. The latest is Lawrence Wright's big exposé in the New Yorker and upcoming book on the subject. The article is well worth reading, all 28 online pages of it.
I hope the book casts a wider net, though. The New Yorker article…
jrosenhouse | February 7, 2011Elaine Howard Ecklund has a confusing post up at HuffPo. It is confusing because it is very unclear what exactly she wants.
There is strong evidence that religion is resurging among students on America's top university campuses. Yet, a large number of academic scientists firmly feel that they should not discuss religion in their classrooms. I have spent the last five years surveying nearly 1,700 natural and social scientists working at elite U.S. universities -- talking with 275 of them in-depth -- in an effort to understand their religious beliefs and practices, or lack thereof. As I…
pharyngula | February 4, 2011What an odd news item: there is a rule that the Pope can't be an organ donor. My first thought was ick — he's rather decrepit, and if I ever require an organ transplant, I'd rather the source were a young, stupid motorcyclist who doesn't wear a helmet. The Catholics have other reasons, though.
Vatican officials say that after a pope dies, his body belongs to the entire Church and must be buried intact.
That's rather morbid and weird. Why bother? It's not going to be intact for long, and it's actually going to belong to the worms and bacteria.
But it's this part that blew my mind.
Furthermore…
pharyngula | February 3, 2011Thomas Euteneuer was an up-and-coming star of the Catholic priesthood: he was a charismatic fellow who appeared on radio and TV and other media to fight for the dogmatic Catholic position on just about everything. He was a crusader against homosexuality, against sex outside of marriage, against contraceptives, against abortion. He was also an official Catholic exorcist, which tells you right there that he was batty all the way through.
But then he was suddenly dismissed from his position on the board of an anti-abortion group, stepped down from one diocese and was transferred to another, and…
pharyngula | February 3, 2011The Pope must be wearing ratty, ragged underwear under those silk robes; all the fancy gold statues in the Vatican must be gilt over rotting wood; the famous paintings are all cheap reproductions. The place must be on the verge of economic collapse. At least, that's what I assume must be the case, since the UK government paid for the Pope's visit out of Department for International Development funds, a part of the budget that is normally earmarked for aid to "war-torn or fragile states" as part of a commitment to fight global poverty.
So the Vatican must be sort of like Somalia. I had no idea…
oracknows | February 1, 2011Yesterday, I concluded that Dr. Mehmet Oz's journey to the Dark Side was continuing apace. After all, he had pulled the classic "bait and switch" of "alternative" medicine by allowing a man who calls himself Yogi Cameron to use his television show to co-opt the perfectly science-based modalities of diet and exercise as being somehow "alternative." Like all good promoters of woo, whether you call it "alternative" medicine, "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), or "integrative medicine" (IM), Yogi Cameron used diet and exercise as the thin edge of the wedge, behind which followed…
pharyngula | January 31, 2011A trite phenomenon is taking place in a church in Bakersfield:
According to Tom Dorlis, the vice president of the parish council for St. George Greek Orthodox Church, back in 2007, around the time of the financial crisis, a portrait of the Virgin Mary, from Hawaii, started to cry an oily substance that smells like roses. Parishioners at the church, located at the intersection of Truxton Avenue and 'U' Street, said there's no doubt that the weeping icon is a gift from god, whether you're a believer or not.
I doubt it.
That phrase, "around the time of the financial crisis", tells me everything…
pharyngula | January 31, 2011Lots of people are sending me this news story about Stephen Green, the British evangelical Christian fanatic. In case you've never heard of him:
Green, 60, is founder and director of Christian Voice, a fundamentalist group he set up in 1994, whose website thunders against the vices — family breakdown, crime, Âimmorality and drink among them — that are ruining the lives of 'real people'. Green's Âpronouncements are often outrageous. For example, after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005 and killed more than 1,600 people, he claimed it was a result of God's wrath and had purified…
pharyngula | January 29, 2011The Vatican claims to want to talk with atheists, so they're having a conference. How nice.
The Vatican announced a new initiative aimed at promoting dialogue between theists and atheists to be launched with a two-day event this March in Paris.
The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture will sponsor a series of seminars on the theme of "Religion, Light and Common Reason," at various locations in the city, including Paris-Sorbonne University.
The odd thing is that I don't know of any atheists who've been invited, nor has the Vatican made any mention of who will be there. So who is this…
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…
pharyngula | January 27, 2011Uganda is currently undergoing conflict over civil rights: a number of influential Christians in the country, under the influence of American evangelicals like Scott Lively and Rick Warren, have been pushing to have homosexuality condemned and people who love other people of the same sex arrested or executed. It's an ugly place where the dreams of the Christian right are actually being realized, but of course our evangelical leaders are denying their responsibility. Just last night on CNN I caught a bit of a nauseating interview with Joel Osteen, the smirking prosperity gospel pitchman, and…
pharyngula | January 25, 2011Boo hoo, Fox News is reporting a new wave of disastrous economic news: the churches are going bankrupt and closing up shop. Future headlines I'm also looking forward to: "Meth lab economy collapses!" "Pedophile rings go out of business!" "Homeopathy peddlers file chapter 11, citing high cost of raw materials!"
pharyngula | January 24, 2011It's shocking. How dare they. The Australian writes about our puritanical television viewers and how British television has to be stripped of religious criticism before it's aired here, or our citizens get all Muslim-cartoon-rioter over it.
It's not as if those real Americans are pretending to be thin-skinned. This is not faux outrage. They are genuinely shocked that outsiders do not take Christianity as seriously as they do.
Oh, yeah? We're thin-skinned zealots from the land where "God can't take a joke"? We'll teach you what's funny. The cruise missiles and predator drones are standing by…
pharyngula | January 24, 2011Don't send the kiddies to Sunday School, just have them watch this video and they'll master the whole of the Bible (Old and New Testaments!) in 2½ minutes.
(via SMBC, of course)
pharyngula | January 23, 2011A few Christians are indignant over this video mocking Pollyannaish theology.
Unfortunately for them, and to our increased mirth, their excuses are just as ridiculous as Suzie.
Dr. Normal L. Geisler, author of If God, Why Evil?, said the video contains a lot of misconceptions.
"You look at all of that [and] you sympathize with Susie because you think they (disasters, illnesses, etc.) are evil," he said. "But if it's evil, then there must be a standard for good. If there is a crooked line in this world then there must be a straight line. If there is a straight line then there must be God…
pharyngula | January 20, 2011Stand in awe of the loving grace and harmony that church brings to the community! Here's a letter one evangelical church sent to a congregant because she'd committed a sin.
They are handing her over to Satan! Worst collection agency ever.
Oh, and her sin was…getting divorced. How dare she break the sacred bond to her lord and master, a man?
pharyngula | January 20, 2011Robert Bentley must have been feeling some political heat. After openly announcing his sectarian bias in a MLK Day speech, Bentley has offered a not-pology.
If anyone from other religions felt disenfranchised by the language, I want to say I am sorry. I am sorry if I offended anyone in any way.
Jebus, but I hate that poor excuse for an apology. It happens all the time; someone says something stupid and wrong, and instead of saying, "I was wrong, I'm sorry and will try to change," they say, "I'm sorry you were offended by my remarks" — suddenly, the problem lies not in the error of the…
mikethemadbiologist | January 19, 2011From, Robert Bentley, the Republican governor of Alabama:
"I was elected as a Republican candidate. But once I became governor ... I became the governor of all the people. I intend to live up to that. I am color blind," Bentley said in a short speech given about an hour after he took the oath of office as governor.
Then Bentley, who for years has been a deacon at First Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, gave what sounded like an altar call.
"There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit," Bentley said. ''But if you have been adopted in God's family like I…