religion
pharyngula | July 10, 2010In North Carolina, Christians defaced an atheist billboard. These things happen; there are always a few jerks in any movement who'll go out and vandalize private property because they're so sure they're in the right that the laws don't apply to them. Normally, the organizations and the sane people behind the movement will repudiate such actions — if it had been a Christian billboard (and there are many of those, I can tell you) that had been defaced (which I have never seen happen), I'd be deploring the action myself.
Unfortunately, sane people are in short supply on the side of Christianity…
pharyngula | July 9, 2010Kenneth Howell was an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois. He is not being rehired at the end of his contract, apparently because he has been accused of hate speech against gays by a student. He had written an email to his students defending the Catholic position on homosexuality, and a friend of one of the students wrote to the university and the media accusing the professor of "hate speech", of "indoctrinating students", and "limiting the marketplace of ideas".
I hate to say it, but I think the student was wrong. I read the professor's email, and I don't think it is hate speech…
gregladen | July 9, 2010And we're talking about bigots and creationists in Alberta, which I figure is more or less the Canadian equivalent of Texas .... the dumbest province in the Great White North.
Starting this coming school year, parents will be able to "opt" their children "out" of certain lessons, such as those that deal in any way with Teh Gay, or with religion. Apparently, it is thought that science that conflicts with religion will be counted as religion, so that means kids can get out of science classes.
And I would not assume that this applies only to evolution. Math, physics, all of it conflicts with…
pharyngula | July 8, 2010It's easy. Bait your hook with stupid.
It's true, we're a sucker for that stuff, although it does have a downside. We'll come up, swallow the bait, follow the line to its source, devour the poor fool holding the pole, and then waddle off, all fat and smug. It's our nature, we can't help it.
So, for instance, an Indiana politician who is considered a potential presidential candidate, Mitch Daniels, talks about atheism.
People who reject the idea of a God — who think that we're just accidental protoplasm — have always been with us. What bothers me is the implications — which not all such folks…
gregladen | July 6, 2010Although I quickly add that I've not been reading much on the Internet this morning, but stilll ..... There is this item in HuffPo ... Jesus and the Evolution of the Species by Stanley Knick, PhD:
This is not about whether you believe in God, or whether you believe in evolution. It is not about whether you believe that Jesus is the Son of God. If you believe in God, fine. If not, fine. If you believe evolution is real, fine. If not, fine. This is not about what you believe, or what I believe. It is about the idea of Jesus, and the idea of evolution, and what these two ideas might have to say…
emjohnson | July 6, 2010My response to David Klinghoffer's piece in the Huffington Post has just been published:
Creationists are fond of laying the blame for Nazi eugenics on Charles Darwin. They insist that his materialist argument that humans evolved from animals and his conception of natural selection inspired the Nazis to implement a widespread policy of artificial selection within the Fatherland. However, these claims are as baseless as was the so-called "science" that the Nazis employed.
The latest example of this ignorance disguised as revelation was recently published on The Huffington Post by a Senior…
emjohnson | July 6, 2010Image: via PZ Myers
PZ Myers has a new post condemning Discovery Institute ideologue David Klinghoffer's recent post connecting Darwin to the eugenic policies of Hitler. He trots out some of the same points that have been refuted time and again.
Darwin elaborated a picture of how the world works, how creatures war with each other for survival thus selecting out the fittest specimens and advancing the species. In this portrait of animal life, man is no exception. Any animal that strives to preserve the weak, as man does, is committing racial suicide. "Thus the weak members of civilized…
pharyngula | July 5, 2010This is a horrific story out of India, and the weird thing is that everyone is condemning the bloody, violent end of the story, but treating the preliminaries as a matter of course. Here's the outline, as near as I can extract from a scattering of stories, often in poor English.
In March, TJ Joseph, a professor at a private Catholic college in Kerala, gave an exam that apparently offended Muslim students. Here's the only description of the awful exam question I could find:
The indicted questionnaire however did not include anything that could be construed as against the Muslim religion. The…
pharyngula | July 5, 2010The last time I got a glimpse of the wretched new book from Marilynne Robinson, the review was sufficient to dissuade me from bothering to ever read it. Now we have a positive review from Karen Armstrong, and I am now convinced that if ever I am confronted with this work, the only appropriate response would be to unzip my fly and piss on it, on the spot. Only my deeply ingrained social conditioning would hinder me. Dammit, why can't I live freely and express my primal impulses without these nagging voices in my head?
Once again, her thesis is that her own twisted version of science, which is…
pharyngula | July 5, 2010Atheist Ireland is handing out a monthly award to the Really, Really True Believer™, and this month it goes to the anti-boobquake gang of Iran. Some Iranian clerics have sicced the vice police on department store mannequins, where they saw off the breasts of the shameless but inert hussies.
Muslim men do have a serious problem (as the clerics tell us) of sinful animal desires that they cannot control, since the purpose of the shapeless trash bag fashions imposed on women is justified as an anti-lust measure. How much more effective it will be if we're led to think the trash bag is wrapped…
gregladen | July 4, 2010... OK, I think we can arrange that ...
This is YA crazy web site extolling the wonders of Young Earth creationism. Nothing new.
Which is why it is interesting. How can the following possibly still be part of the YEC rhetoric?
There are dating methods like Carbon 14 dating convincing many people that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Carbon 14 dating assumes that the rate of change and decay has been relatively constant through time. This assumes the present is the key to the past. Creationists believe that Noah's flood was a literal, cataclysmic world-wide event. The scale of this event…
pharyngula | July 4, 2010After their recent raid to expose information about child-raping priests, the Belgian police are facing another problem.
Officials say that police are also looking into threats to the lives of some witnesses and magistrates connected to the case.
Jean Marc Meillure, a spokesman for the public prosecutors office, confirmed that an investigation was under way.
"There are some threats against certain people around the case, and the prosecutors office is investigating that," he told the BBC.
He said the threats had been made against people who gave the authorities information or made a…
grrlscientist | July 4, 2010tags: The Invention of Religion, humor, comedy, satire, funny, silly, fucking hilarious, interview, religion, Ricky Gervais, streaming video
This amusing video features Ricky Gervais explaining how everything you need to know about religion can be found on a Pizza Hut pizza box.
The Invention of Religion.
grrlscientist | July 3, 2010tags: Stephen Hawking on Religion: Science Will Win, Diane Sawyer, Stephen Hawking, interview, science, religion, streaming video
World News Anchor, Diane Sawyer, asks physicist Stephen Hawking about the biggest mystery he'd like solved. He said, "I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something rather than nothing".
pharyngula | July 2, 2010Why, oh why do I despise Christianity so much? Look to George Berkin to understand why. And if you can't understand, you're probably one of those Christians.
He's got a long article up arguing that God is being good to Christopher Hitchens by afflicting him with a lingering disease, because it will give him a chance to repent. And then it suggests that everyone pray for a deathbed conversion. Hallelujah.
First, Hitchens is not dead. He has cancer. There's a difference. Learn it, or next time I see you I'm going to point out that you're aging and start talking about you in the past tense, with…
pharyngula | June 29, 2010It's strange how the people who most advocate sympathy and rapprochement with religion are blind to what religious people really think. Here's another case where Josh Rosenau complains that I misunderstand what the faithful were trying to do with their prayers for the Gulf…and then goes on to do exactly as I said the apologists should stop doing. He ignores the religious part of these prayer events. He says, as if it is refuting anything I say, that prayer reduces stress, has positive physiological effects, brings communities together, etc., etc., etc. It's utterly clueless, and in a bizarre…
pharyngula | June 27, 2010Ol' Ratzi is quite upset at the Belgian raids on Catholic church offices — he's calling them "deplorable", a "moment of sadness", and is calling in the Belgian ambassador to the Vatican for an angry dressing-down.
He's doing everything all wrong. Here's what he should be doing: he should be calling the actions of priestly sex abusers deplorable and wrong, and insisting that the church will do everything in its power to correct the deep problems that have led to these awful acts. Then he should announce that the church will cooperate fully with all legal secular actions — and the Belgian raids…
gregladen | June 27, 2010I'm not going to say anything about the methods the Belgian authorities have used, because I don't know anything about due process in that country. (Though I did notice that that Belgian police carry big machine guns, at least when I've been there.)
Anyway, the Vatican has it's shorts in a twist because civilian police have, apparently, treated church property and priests as non-sacred.
Police in Leuven seized nearly 500 files and a computer from the offices of a Church commission investigating allegations of sex abuse.
They also searched the Church's headquarters, the Brussels…
grrlscientist | June 27, 2010tags: The Stork Is Real!, religion, sex, sexuality, funny, humor, comedy, satire, fucking hilarious, social commentary, Edward Current, streaming video
Do you really believe that precious life comes from disgusting body fluids? The Truth is, babies are brought into the world by a pure white angel, the Stork.