religion
pharyngula | July 19, 2010Christopher Hitchens addresses the latest media meltdown by Mel Gibson. It's great stuff; people are making all these excuses for him, that he's not really a racist, he's not really violent, he's not really a misogynist, he's not really a loathsome wackjob…but Hitchens cuts through it all.
This is extraordinary. We live in a culture where the terms fascist and racist are thrown about, if anything, too easily and too frequently. Yet here is a man whose every word and deed is easily explicable once you know the single essential thing about him: He is a member of a fascist splinter group that…
grrlscientist | July 18, 2010tags: Mormonism, religion, cults, mind control, Magic Mormon Underwear, moron, offbeat, humor, funny, comedy, silly, beliefs, insanity, education, streaming video
I've lived among mormons for more years than I care to think about, and yes, the magic underwear was one of those mysteries that us kids speculated on when the adults weren't around. As if they were flies upon the walls of my childhood, the Thinking Atheist has made this video that discusses the the Mormon church's most famous "secret."
grrlscientist | July 17, 2010tags: Brother Sam Singleton Atheist Evangelist, Atheists at Prayer, prayer, atheism, agnosticism, humor, funny, comedy, fucking hilarious, satire, streaming video
This video features the colorful language and thoughts of my new boyfriend, Sam Singleton Atheist Evangelist as he discusses prayer-time etiquette for atheists.
pharyngula | July 17, 2010
If you do nothing else. Please take a moment and sign the Petition.http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/stop...http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/s...Contact information for e-mailing the White house.http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/And the President of Iranhttp://cp.president.ir/en/His e-mail (possibly)dr-ahmadinejad@president.irhttp://www.siawi.org/article882.htmlAnd some other details that might helphttp://www.gopetition.com/petitions/s...Currently there are only 427 signatures on this site. I am sure there are other Petitions out there. I think making people aware is the most important…
pharyngula | July 17, 2010It's just one of those freakish religious practices I cannot comprehend, this strange "anointing" of heads and objects with oil. Why? Does their god just like his targets greased up? It's especially inappropriate when a teacher regularly rubs magic lubricants onto her students.
A Norfolk teacher has resigned after it was discovered she was rubbing "holy oil" on students and their desks during school, a Norfolk Public Schools spokesperson said.
How stupid. Everyone knows that, in order to be effective, the proper way to bless the students is to decapitate a chicken at the lectern, and then…
gregladen | July 16, 2010.... because your proof of your god is falsified by science. But that is not a problem that science has. It is a problem that you have. It is also not a problem that the Secular Public School System in the US has. Unless you make it so.
This explored in a recent iNewp piece:
As many biblical literalists maintain, evolution says there is no plan (or Planner) for life; it's random, just one damned thing after another, everything passing and changing (except maybe things like sharks, horseshoe crabs and cockroaches). Nothing's permanent, nothing is special, including us. They contrast…
pharyngula | July 16, 2010They've done it again. They've declared that the ordination of women is as heinous a crime as raping children, simultaneously minimizing the trauma of child-rape and maximizing the insult to women. I don't know how they do it. The Catholic church is rich, they've got a lot of very smart people suckered into their dogma, and they've been the voice of religion in the West for one and half millennia. How can they be so godawful horrible at this?
And then I realized it's the 21st century, they've got lots of money, so they probably have communications experts all over the place. As we all know,…
jrosenhouse | July 15, 2010Any time I am looking for something to blog about, I know the HuffPo religion section will serve up something delicious. In this essay, Peter Enns of the BioLogos Foundation exposes the naivete some people bring to reading the Bible:
I've read enough of the New Atheists to see a pattern in their thinking about the Bible, and it is disturbingly similar to what you see in the Southern Baptist Convention or Bob Jones University. Conservative Christians and New Atheists share naïve views of what the Bible “ought” to be, namely the notion that if the Bible is really the “Word of God,” it will…
jrosenhouse | July 14, 2010Be sure to read this excellent post by Julian Sanchez addressing the old chestnut, “Why is there something instead of nothing?”
Sanchez was replying in particular to an appallingly bad essay by Ron Rosenbaum in Slate. How bad? Here's one sample:
Faith-based atheism? Yes, alas. Atheists display a credulous and childlike faith, worship a certainty as yet unsupported by evidence--the certainty that they can or will be able to explain how and why the universe came into existence. (And some of them can behave as intolerantly to heretics who deviate from their unproven orthodoxy as the most…
pharyngula | July 13, 2010Nope, I'm going to call this story debunked. A commenter has pointed out that Jhelum has several established Christian communities and is not the monolithic Islamic city the story implies, so it looks like this is a complete fabrication by Compass Direct News, a Christian propaganda outfit. The only stories here are that Christians lie to feed their martyr complex, and sometimes I'm fooled.
Jamshed Masih is a police officer in Pakistan who also happens to be a Christian. He transferred to a town dominated by the local Muslim cleric, Maulana Mahfooz Khan. In a story that sounds like the…
gregladen | July 13, 2010Speaking of Accommodationism and New Atheism and stuff, check out this 10 year old discussion:
gregladen | July 13, 2010The French have moved one step closer to banning purdah and other veil-wearing in public. In France, this intolerance of religious freedom /slash/ protection of vulnerable populations from the patriarchy is a feminist issue. Would this be the final paragraph of the final chapter of the recession of Islam (from France) following its high water mark in 1492?
Details:
France's lower house of parliament has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would ban wearing the Islamic full veil in public.
There were 335 votes for the bill and only one against in the 557-seat National Assembly.
It must…
pharyngula | July 13, 2010Enough. David Berkowitz, the "Son of Sam" killer who wandered the streets of New York in the 1970s, killing people in their cars, has a lot of new friends now: born again Christians. And he has turned into a shill for Jesus.
I think I'm feeling ill.
pharyngula | July 13, 2010Molly Norris, the cartoonist who launched "Draw Mohammed Day" (and who later withdrew herself from the event, citing her fear of persecution) has just been put on a hit list, calling for Muslims to murder her.
The man calling for her death is this Yemeni cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, a pleasant looking fellow who also cheerfully encouraged the Fort Hood massacre. You wouldn't know it to look at him, but behind that smiling face is the mind of a hateful monster.
He's from the US. He claims to have served as an imam in California, Colorado, and Virginia. And now he's holed up in Yemen, advocating…
jrosenhouse | July 12, 2010Karl Giberson has a new column up at the Huffington Post.
Jerry Coyne and I had an interesting exchange yesterday that will appear in a brief video on USA Today's website at some point. The question related to the compatibility of science and religion. Can one accept the modern scientific view of the world and still hold to anything resembling a traditional belief in God?
My answer to this question is “yes, of course,” for I cannot see my way to clear to embrace either of the two alternatives -- a fundamentalist religion prepared to reject science, or a pure scientism that denies the reality…
pharyngula | July 12, 2010That's some houseguest. The Pope invited himself to visit England, and asked the British government to pay for it — that takes some gall right there — and is now revealing that the bill for his visit will be at least £20 million. They're dropping all that cash to fête a ringleader for child rapists…it makes no sense. What are people doing over there?
There ought to be a flat declaration that if he wants to visit England, he's doing so as a private citizen — all costs to be paid by the Catholic church — and that there will also be no protection against being served any legal papers. He's head…
pharyngula | July 11, 2010The Supreme Court recently decided that campus student groups do not have to be subsidized by the university if they discriminate — so, for instance, the campus Christian club can't refuse to admit gays and also collect university money. Perfectly reasonable, to my mind.
It's driving flitterbrained conservatives mad, though. They can't discriminate? Injustice! Perhaps one of the craziest is Mike Adams, who has announced his intention to abuse the ruling at UNC Wilmington.
...when I get back to the secular university in August, I plan to round up the students I know who are most hostile to…
pharyngula | July 11, 2010…it's books about how our pets go to heaven.
Author Ptolemy Tompkins tracks the history of the relationship between humans and animals in the new book, "The Divine Life of Animals." Prompted to write by the death of his pet rabbit, Angus, Tompkins looks to the ancient past for the best models of animal-human interaction.
Och, Angus, ye cain't be daid!
What of Mr McGregor? Burnin' in hell where no wee bunny goes, no doubt.
grrlscientist | July 11, 2010tags: Top Catholic Priest Accused of Sexually Abusing His Own Sons, ethics, religion, catholicism, Catholic Church, television, criminal activity, news, pedophilia, child rape, Pope John Paul, Marcial Maciel Degollado, streaming video
This video explores the question; "how much money would you want in exchange to be raped and sodomized throughout your childhood years?" This is a question that I also would like answers to. Any thoughts?
On one hand, I am completely sympathetic to this guy's situation, but on the other hand, I cannot help but wonder how a man who was raped as a child by his…
grrlscientist | July 10, 2010tags: Stephen Fry on Catholicism, Intelligence Squared Debate, religion, catholicism, Catholic Church, poverty, sexuality,homosexuality, AIDS, HIV, condoms, pedophilia, child rape, culture, Stephen Fry, streaming video
Stephen Fry provides his very articulate and thoughtful opinion on Catholicism and the Catholic Church at the Intelligence Squared Debate.