religion
mikethemadbiologist | August 21, 2006This is a remarkable post, although it's not too surprising. Who needs Hizbollah when you have these assholes:
My parents raised my sisters and me in a small town in rural Wisconsin. Never mind exactly which one -- I have to maintain my anonymity here in order to keep my jobs for grad school. Suffice it to say it's a good distance away from Madison, and in terms of worldview, it might as well be on a different planet. You might recall the story of the Indian River School District in Delaware, which ran a Jewish family out of town with death threats and other harassment after the family…
mikethemadbiologist | August 21, 2006About a week ago, Sen. George Allen (R-VA) referred to an American of Indian descent as a "macaca" which is a racist slur (derived from the French word for monkey). I'm pleased to see that this act of bigotry has hurt George Wallace Allen:
In an election for the United States Senate in Virginia today, 8/21/06, incumbent Republican George Allen edges Democrat challenger James Webb 48% to 45%, according to an exclusive SurveyUSA poll conducted for W*USA-TV in Washington, DC.
Since an identical SurveyUSA poll released 6/28/06, Allen has lost 8 points and Webb has gained 8 points. Allen's lead…
clock | August 21, 2006Church Fires Teacher for Being Female:
The minister of a church that dismissed a female Sunday School teacher after adopting what it called a literal interpretation of the Bible says a woman can perform any job - outside of the church.
The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary Lambert on Aug. 9 with a letter explaining that the church had adopted an interpretation that prohibits women from teaching men. She had taught there for 54 years.
The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."
The Rev. Timothy LaBouf…
clock | August 21, 2006This is not a real review - I never got to writing it - but it is about a book I mention quite often in my blog posts and think is one of the most insightful about the conservative mindset. Written originally on October 21, 2004:
Whenever a big black SUV with a "W" bumper sticker passes me on I-40 going 90mph in the work zone, my first thought is: "What is this guy compensating for?"
While I argued strongly before that Nurturant Parent model is not feminine, and is only seens as such by people adhering to the Strict Father model to begin with, I have always felt that the childrearing process…
pharyngula | August 21, 2006While I'm sure it's personally difficult for Mary Lambert, this is a good sign: a fundamentalist, literalist church is getting fundamentalist and literal on its congregation.
The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary Lambert on August 9 with a letter explaining that the church had adopted an interpretation that prohibits women from teaching men. She had taught there for 54 years.
Consistency is a virtue the religious should pursue more. When they kick out the women, there goes over half their membership; when they start stoning the adulterers and liars and usurers, they'll be rid of 99% of the…
terrasig | August 21, 2006I try to not to be too much of a homer here, especially since moving to ScienceBlogs.com. Instead, I have been running a second blog called Bull City Bully Pulpit for items of local interest that our some of the Terra Sig audience might not care about so much.
But with the university academic year kicking back in and some other stuff happening here of national and even international interest, I may put up a few things from one of the South's most vibrant small cities and best places to live.
I'm also not too much of a political blogger, but the following was just simply too rich not to…
razib | August 20, 2006Steve at Right Reason offers up his reasons for how Christianity inculcates a Golden Rulesque altruism.
First, Steve is focused on textual evidence. References in the New Testament. The key issue is this: text can justify behavior, but can it bias it? I am agnostic on this issue at this point. All I would ask for textualists is this: if an alien had only religious texts of various cultures to assess the natures of said cultures, would they be able to make good predictions? I'm not so sure. In many ways textualism seems to me to be post facto abduction. Abduction is great, but it needs…
pharyngula | August 20, 2006Thousands of people heard that the sea water at a beach had turned sweet, and they swarmed the shore to bottle it and drink it.
One catch:
But this is not a healthy place. The sandy beach marks the point at which the Mithi River, an unofficial dump for the untreated sewage and industrial waste of Bombay, flows out of India's financial and entertainment capital into the Arabian sea.
Don't you suspect that the officials who warned the people of this problem were accused of being close-minded and lacking in faith in the supernatural?
oracknows | August 20, 2006Well, this might cause a fuss:
Newly reordained brand whore Kate Moss has landed herself another job, this time for a new ad campaign for Calvin Klein. One of the ads, located directly across the street from the Madina Masjid Mosque on east 11th street, features a topless Moss flirtingly touching a man from behind. This surely must not be a favorite for devout East Village Muslims especially since their rigorous prayer routine requires at least 5 viewings of the wide eyed infidel daily.
Here's the billboard:
I'm not sure this was such a good idea on the part of the advertising company. One…
mikethemadbiologist | August 20, 2006What's shocking is the utter silence from the White House about the immigration story unfolding in Chicago. Remember, this is the same administration that interrupted the president's vacation for the Terry Schiavo incident. So when it really matters politically the White House is willing to move. But they've remained mysteriously quiet on this.
First, the story. An illegal immigrant whose son is a seven-year old U.S. citizen is to be deported back to Mexico. She refuses to leave and has sought sanctuary in a church. Right now, I'm sure Karl Rove is hoping this goes away quietly. On the…
razib | August 18, 2006In response to my post about Heather Mac Donald and her debate with others on the Right about the fundamental role of religion within "the movement" Steve Burton has offered his own thoughts. Roughly, I see Steve's points as being this:
The misery of the historical record does not exhibit man's natural goodness, simply, basal a morality.
Mac Donald's innate morality is not so innate after all, but is bathed in the sensibilities of a Christian culture. Take away that Christian culture, roughly, anything is permissible if there is no savior.
I think there are multiple ways to respond to…
pharyngula | August 18, 2006Schools teach people how to think. This abomination is about learning not to think. It's also an example of child abuse by smiling, cheerful parents, and a contemptible media outlet that blandly and merely reports the way religious fanatics poison kids' minds.
clock | August 16, 2006The third part of the series on authoritarian psychology by Sara Robinson is now up on Orcinus. It tackles the strategies for dealing with (and hopefully healing and converting) the victims of authoritarian upbringing who turned out authoritarian themselves. The whole series is a must-read.
jrosenhouse | August 15, 2006Prior to my break, there was some discussion, in the comments to this post, about the Day-Age Theory. This refers to the idea that the “Days” in the first chapter of Genesis actually refer to very long periods of time. This is a desperation move made by Biblical literalists who are uneasy rejecting the considerable evidence in support of an ancient Earth.
During my break I started reading The Challenge of Creation: Judaism's Encounter With Science, Cosmology, and Evolution, by Rabbi Natan Slifkin. I'm currently about half way through it, and I expect to have a great deal to say about it in…
scientificactivist | August 15, 2006Since I've been on the road so much lately, I haven't really had a chance to follow up on some of the more interesting links forwarded to me lately. Each probably deserves its own post... but I'm going to dump them all into this post anyway. Besides, there seems to be a common thread running through all of them.
First up is an interview with climate scientist Ben Santer in Environmental Science & Technology. Santer was a lead author on the president's recent Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) and has been a target of anti-environmental groups since he was a lead author on a 1995…
pharyngula | August 15, 2006Some people seem to be outraged at the idea of people stopping the killing in the Middle East. Those people are, curiously enough, some very prominent Christians.
A small minority of evangelical Christians have entered the Middle
East political arena with some of the most un-Christian statements I
have ever heard. The latest gems come from people like Pat
Robertson, the founder and chairman of the Christian Broadcasting
Network, and Rev. John Hagee of Christians United for Israel. Hagee,
a popular televangelist who leads the 18,000-member Cornerstone
Church in San Antonio, ratcheted up his…
pharyngula | August 14, 2006This is absolutely no surprise: a newspaper article reports that church-based scams are costing the country big bucks.
Between 1984 and 1989, about $450 million was stolen in religion-related scams, the association says. In its latest count — from 1998 to 2001 — the toll had risen to $2 billion. Rip-offs have only become more common since.
Small potatoes. They're only counting rip-offs like Ponzi schemes and other non-religious con games. I'm sure that what people willingly toss into collection plates adds up to a far larger act of wholesale robbery; a clerical collar is just a genteel…
stcynic | August 14, 2006According to this AP article, the incidence of religion-related fraud is on the increase.
Billions of dollars has been stolen in religion-related fraud in recent years, according to the North American Securities Administrators Association, a group of state officials who work to protect investors.
Between 1984 and 1989, about $450 million was stolen in religion-related scams, the association says. In its latest count -- from 1998 to 2001 -- the toll had risen to $2 billion. Rip-offs have only become more common since.
"The size and the scope of the fraud is getting larger," said Patricia…
clock | August 12, 2006Woman Finds 'God's Water' Gurgling in Tree and 33% of AOL readers agree that it is God's water, with another 28% not sure!
pharyngula | August 10, 2006In regional news, the Catholic church is getting sued. Two hundred bishops have been named in a lawsuit filed by a Wisconsin family. I suspect you won't even need to read the article to guess what it's about.
That's right: a conspiracy by the church hierarchy to protect a pedophile priest.
This priest committed suicide after the police homed in on him in a murder investigation, which makes it a little more sordid. Apparently, the priest, Ryan Erickson, argued with a local man about the accusations of child abuse, and shot him and an innocent bystander to shut him up. Erickson wasn't just a…