religion
pharyngula | August 6, 2010I have to call shenanigans on this cartoon:
It left out Mormonism. And since Mormonism is halfway between $cientology and Christianity, given the principle that the right answer is always the one in the middle, she would have found the Mormons just right.
I think that's right, anyway. People keep telling me that we have to flee from the extremes, i.e. Fundamentalism and that horrible rational evidence-based thinking, to find contentment in the median, i.e. soppy sloppy casual Jesusology. So how can the protagonist of this story actually find happiness in the flaming extremism of science-…
jrosenhouse | August 4, 2010The second good post comes from Frank Schaeffer, making an argument that usually gets you dismissed as a village atheist. Here's the set-up:
There is a verse in Timothy that says that all Scripture is for our edification. This verse, not the many Bible stories of the many killings “ordained by God,” is the scariest verse in the Bible.
In Timothy (3:16) we read; “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”
The “all Scripture” being spoken of is the Old Testament. The New Testament was just being…
Yes, folks, it isn't just the priests engaged in the whole child abuse in the name of religion thing
gregladen | August 4, 2010First, the horrific, over the top, original video:
Then, the funny version:
Thanks (I think) to Virgil Samms for the tip.
pharyngula | August 4, 2010I blame Barbara Bradley Hagerty — or at least, she is the face of religious inanity at NPR. She has a new piece up titled Christian Academics Cite Hostility On Campus, and does she have any evidence for this claim? None at all. Actually, she has evidence contradicting the claim.
There are two parts to the story. The first is someone who is fast becoming a usual suspect, Elaine Howard Ecklund, the person who studied faith among academics and was surprisingly surprised to discover that, golly gee whiz, nearly half go to church! This is a fact that is only news if you've bought into the biased…
pharyngula | August 4, 2010Am I the only one who sees "theidiocy" whenever I read or hear the term "theodicy"? Just curious.
Anyway, take a look at this lovely example of rationalizing the death of children.
The most merciful thing an omnicient God might do is end the life of a child whom he knows will never seek Him.
-Pastor Doug Humphrey
I'm going to have to remember that one. Since the death of seeming innocents is all for a cause visible to an omniscient deity, abortion must be God's way of purging the population of little potential Hitlers, then. Makes a fellow wonder how he missed the original Hitler, though.
pharyngula | August 4, 2010
I have no idea how this stuff gets published. I've been sent a new paper that tests the effect of prayer, and I was appalled: it's got such deep methodological problems that nothing can be concluded from it, but that doesn't stop the authors, who argue that they're seeing that Proximal Intercessory Prayer improves vision and hearing in people in Mozambique.Proximal Intercessory Prayer (PIP) is their very own term for what they do, to distinguish it from distant prayer. What is it, you may ask? Here is their protocol.
Western and Mozambican Iris and Global Awakening [two evangelical/…
pharyngula | August 3, 2010I have often been told that 1) very few people believe the weird faith I mock, and 2) I should be more respectful of religion. So I guess the stands at this Benny Hinn spectacle were mostly empty, and this coat-waving miracle cure stuff is something I ought to consider serious theology.
Huh. It's like he's got a weaponized jacket or something.
oracknows | July 31, 2010Two days ago, I posted my utter contempt for the idea of a science section in that cesspit of pseudsocience, New Age woo, and quackery, The Huffington Post. Part of the reason for my scoffing at the very idea that a science section in HuffPo would not rapidly degenerate into yet another outlet for more of the same.
Another aspect of the HuffPo culture that is utter anathema to good science blogging is its culture of deleting critical comments. There's even been a whole blog, Banned from HuffPo, dedicated to discussing and publicizing HuffPo's offenses against free speech. The blogger, Red Dog…
jrosenhouse | July 30, 2010Novelist Anne Rice, best known for her series of novels about vampires, has some choice words for institutional Christianity:
For those who care, and I understand if you don't. Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.
Later she added:
As I said below, I quit being a…
gregladen | July 30, 2010This one is very much worth the effort. Stop here first for some instructions on strategy, then go here to do this thing.
UPDATED!!!!!
Holy crap! The Kent Hovind poll started out looking like this:
What do you believe about evolution?
It's a religion.
* It's a fact!
* It's a reasonable scientific theory.
Then it changed to:
What do you believe about CREATION?
It's a religion.
* It's a fact!
* It's a reasonable scientific theory.
Huh.
pharyngula | July 30, 2010The peculiarities of dietary restrictions by the religious are always entertaining. Catholics have their own weird practices: here's a bit of strange information from a Catholic agony aunt forum.
Do alligators count as fish?
As a Catholic who observes the custom of abstaining from meat on Fridays, I would like to know if alligator would be considered meat or fish. Recently, on a Friday, I was in a local restaurant where I was sharing a dinner of alligator. I thought upon this, and decided, as a reptile, alligator would fall into the fish category. I hope I'm not sounding too scrupulous, but…
gregladen | July 29, 2010Barbara Forrest, author of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, has a major blog post addressing the current maneno in Louisiana. A Parish school board there wants to place creationism on equal or higher footing than evolution. Read Barbara's piece here.
pharyngula | July 29, 2010They're Christian, so you can trust them to have your best interests at heart. The Modesty Survey is a bizarre instrument created by asking young Christian women to put together heartfelt questions about their clothing ("Are bikinis immodest?" "Are jeans immodest?"), and then teenaged Christian boys are surveyed to get their opinions. Because, of course, the girls need boys' advice.
Reading through the questions is weird: they're phrased in different ways, but one of the most common motifs is the "stumbling block". The boys are asked to judge whether an item of clothing is something that…
stoat | July 28, 2010As discussed by Viz in the August 2010 edition, #197:
Paul has more useful discussion, but Viz is funnier.
pharyngula | July 27, 2010This is a rather horrifying article about young girls reading Harry Potter one moment, and then dragged off to get their clitorises chopped off. It's got these nasty little details like, if you pay extra, you can get the butcher to use a clean knife.
But there's an odd disjoint here, too. It's the UK, a modern western nation. They have laws to prohibit mangling children.
The UK Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985 makes it an offence to carry out FGM or to aid, abet or procure the service of another person. The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, makes it against the law for FGM to be…
pharyngula | July 27, 2010Alayna Wyland is 7 months old, and she is suffering.
The area started swelling, and the fast-growing mass of blood vessels, known as a hemangioma, eventually caused her eye to swell shut and pushed the eyeball down and outward and started eroding the eye socket bone around the eye.
There are pictures at the link. It's not pretty. I know if my babies had a growth that was almost the size of a tennis ball that was destroying their face, I'd have been camped out at the hospital. But not Alayna's parents! They have a special treatment plan.
The Wylands and their church reject medical care in…
gregladen | July 27, 2010Or, more accurately, it is the rubber-meets the road part of the broader abuse known as religion.
OREGON CITY -- A Beavercreek couple who left their infant daughter's fate to God rather than seek medical treatment for a mass that grew over her left eye will face charges of first-degree criminal mistreatment.
Prosecutors revealed Thursday during a custody hearing that a grand jury has indicted Timothy and Rebecca Wyland, members of Oregon City's Followers of Christ church.
more, details
gregladen | July 26, 2010Unless they are stopped which, frankly, does not seem very likely.
The Livingston Parish School Board, in Louisiana, is poised to enthusiastically support the introduction of creationism into the school curriculum as a requirement, and possibly even toss out evolution. You people in Louisiana are truly a bunch of morans*. You do know that, right?
Barbara Forrest, author of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, has written a letter that you may want to read about the school board's intentions, and the NCSE has a detailed press report here.
Here's the thing that is so…
pharyngula | July 26, 2010There are now a few more details on the story of the dog given a communion wafer: the dog's name is Trapper, the majority of the congregation was happy to see him get a cracker, it's just one person who complained, and now dogs have been officially excommunicated from the church. And this is exactly why I despise the so-called "moderate" Christians.
Peggy Needham, the deputy people's warden at the church, said that no further action would be taken.
"The backlash is from just one person," she said.
"Something happened that won't happen again. Something our interim priest did spontaneously…
pharyngula | July 23, 2010This story is nice and sad at the same time. At an Anglican church in Canada, a parishioner attended with his dog, went up to take communion and his pet followed him, and after giving the man the magic cookie, the priest placed a communion wafer on the dog's tongue, too. Hey, he was just waiting there with his tongue hanging out, it was the most natural thing to do. Unfortunately, and entirely predictably, some prissy-pants whiner in the congregation didn't like it.
Days later, the church and diocese received a complaint from one parishioner, who felt the church offended the sacred ritual.…