religion
pharyngula | March 25, 2010…a politically brilliant choice, Francisco Ayala. He's a former priest who has argued for respect for religion while not going quite as far as some of the other possibilities in endorsing it, he's been fairly circumspect about not presenting ridiculous rationales for religion, but he's also an excellent and reputable scientist.
It's definitely an astute decision. The foundation went for someone whose primary claim to renown is as a scientist, not as an apologist. They are a canny bunch, those rascals — they avoided the obvious targets and picked someone who isn't quite as easily mocked.
pharyngula | March 25, 2010Imagine that a well-funded astrology organization were to establish a prize awarding a good chunk of money to a scientist who best affirmed the validity of astrology, all as part of a campaign to bestow a whiff of credibility to the belief that the position of the stars at the time you were born influenced your fate. Astrologers certainly want to pretend that they are scientific, so it's exactly the kind of thing many of them would love to do; their only problem is that real scientists would laugh them away, and they certainly wouldn't get the support of any of the major scientific…
pharyngula | March 25, 2010Greece is rapidly heading towards economic collapse, and this has finally motivated tho do something that should have been done long ago:
The Greek government has announced it will start taxing churches as part of its efforts to get out of its financial crisis. A new draft bill to be tabled in parliament next week imposes a 20 per cent tax on the Orthodox church's real estate income, reportedly worth over 10 million Euros (US $14.8 million) a year, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Greek Orthodox church is squealing like a stuck pig, of course.
However, the Greek government has a debt of…
pharyngula | March 24, 2010The Templeton Prize is going to be awarded soon, and they've found a venue for it: the National Academy of Sciences. Please note that last word, science — the Templeton Prize has no connection to that subject. Previous winners include Mother Theresa, Chuck Colson, and Billy Graham — professional frauds. Richard Dawkins has an excellent piece on the subject.
The US National Academy of Sciences has brought ignominy on itself by agreeing to host the announcement of the 2010 Templeton Prize (see below). This is exactly the kind of thing Templeton is ceaselessly angling for - recognition among…
pharyngula | March 24, 2010A Lutheran church in Wisconsin runs a school (unfortunately). The school council has 'doctrinal issues' with the fellow they hired as principal — he seems to think that the idea that men have authority over women is invalid. So they had a meeting to fire John Hartwig, and something at the meeting shocked the audience.
Supporters of Hartwig said they were shocked to learn that women church members would not be permitted to speak during a meeting to decide Hartwig's fate.
I'd be shocked, too. Except that I'd also be shocked by this, which everyone there seemed to take for granted.
Females do…
pharyngula | March 24, 2010Wow, I thought Cardinal George Pell was thick…but his second-in-command, Bishop Porteous, sounds like he could be even crazier. They're hiring an exorcist for Australia, and he's full of ominous warnings about evil things.
The appointment of a new exorcist by Sydney's Catholic Church precedes a warning by a senior clergyman that generation Y risks a dangerous fascination with the occult fuelled by the Twilight and Harry Potter series.
Julian Porteous, the auxiliary bishop of Sydney, warns that pursuing such ''alternative'' relaxation techniques as yoga, reiki massages and tai chi may…
pharyngula | March 23, 2010The Pope is planning to visit the UK. He shouldn't be welcomed; he should be turned away at the border as an undesirable fraud. There is a petition to sign to let the government know what people think. They make a good case:
That the Pope, as a citizen of Europe and the leader of a religion with many adherents in the UK, is of course free to enter and tour our country.
However, as well as a religious leader, the Pope is a head of state and the state and organisation of which he is head has been responsible for:
opposing the distribution of condoms and so increasing large families in poor…
grrlscientist | March 23, 2010tags: Science CAN Answer Moral Questions, philosophy, morality, ethics, behavior, brain, neurobiology, religion, culture, well-being, human rights, human values, Sam Harris, TEDTalks, streaming video
Questions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. But Sam Harris argues that science can -- and should -- be an authority on moral issues, shaping human values and setting out what constitutes a good life.
Adored by secularists, feared by the pious, Sam Harris' best-selling books argue that religion is ruinous and, worse, stupid -- and that questioning…
emjohnson | March 21, 2010
Taken word for word from online fundamentalist forums(contains some graphic language).
grrlscientist | March 21, 2010tags: Tommy Davis, scientology, religion, cults, mind control, Thetan, silly, offbeat, beliefs, Xenu, L Ron Hubbard, television, Life after Scientology, ABC1, streaming video
ABC Australia's "Four Corners" investigate the realities and impact on members and ex members, of Scientology's overtly retributive doctrine. Includes rationale from Tommy Davis.
As more ex members reveal the inside workings of a cult once banned [1960's] in three Australian states, authorities again prepare to re-examine Scientology's tax exempt religious status, granted in 1983.
This is a fascinating investigative…
grrlscientist | March 21, 2010tags: trololololo man, eduard khill, youtube meme, scientology, religion, cults, mind control, philosophy, parody, offbeat, beliefs, insanity, russian rickroll, streaming video
OMG, the evil cult of Scientology has been the victim of a Russian Rickroll!
pharyngula | March 20, 2010Answers in Genesis has begun a goofy little campaign called I AM NOT ASHAMED — they're apparently collecting videos of people declaring their shameless adoration of Jesus. Ho hum. All I can say is that they should be deeply embarrassed to endorse something so absurd.
They use a little unfortunate language, though.
WE WANTED A MESSAGE THAT WOULD OFFER A CLEAR CALL TO CHRISTIANS AROUND THE WORLD TO STAND UNASHAMEDLY AND UNCOMPROMISINGLY ON THE BIBLE.
Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes is willing to oblige. You too can send in photos of yourself standing unashamedly on a Bible -- you don't even…
pharyngula | March 18, 2010Dan Dennett has been studying the phenomenon of preachers who don't believe what they preach, and the paper and commentary are available at the Washington post. Strangely, the newspaper has headlined it as "Skeptical clergy a silent majority?", which is odd — the work doesn't attempt to quantify how many unbelievers there are in the ministry, but is more of a case study of those they've found…and since they are only describing the in-depth interviews of five people, it's absurd to try and draw conclusions about proportions.
It's interesting stuff, but utterly unsurprising to atheists. These…
pharyngula | March 17, 2010That prior clarification was not intended to exculpate the current pope: Hitchens rips into the guilty monster occupying the Vatican. Good stuff.
emjohnson | March 16, 2010 Looking nonhumans in the eye. Image: Elephant Man by Chris GallucciIn 1927 Bertrand Russell wrote his now famous essay "Why I Am Not A Christian" and outlined the general reasons for why he rejected such an ideology. This approach has been followed by other writers such as Ibn Warraq in Why I Am Not A Muslim, Ramendra Nath in his essay "Why I Am Not A Hindu" and David Dvorkin in his "Why I Am Not A Jew." My own choice of title is not in the same tradition as these other writers (since I agree with much of what humanism has to offer), but I do share with them a concern over…
emjohnson | March 16, 2010My essay The Unseen and Unknowable Has No Place in Science has just gone up this morning in the Religion section of The Huffington Post:
Yes, religion is incompatible with science. This doesn't mean, of course, that religious people are incapable of doing science. Far from it. There are certain questions that don't probe too deeply into the foundations of a person's faith and they have no problem employing their reason to its fullest in those cases. But when reason starts to get uncomfortably close (as it has for Francis Collins, Deepak Chopra and Michael Behe) well, that's when the…
pharyngula | March 15, 2010
After all, some Muslims fall apart into frightened hysterics when someone draws a cartoon. It's happened again; a couple of Muslim kooks have been arrested for threatening to murder a cartoonist. Lars Vilks' crime was drawing Mohammed as a dog.
Although it could have been greed that motivated them.
In 2007, a group linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq offered a $100,000 (£66,000) reward for killing Mr Vilks, and a 50% bonus if he was "slaughtered like a lamb" by having his throat cut.
Either way, they're pathetic criminals.
pharyngula | March 15, 2010
I have something in common with these guys. That's the Polish death metal band Behemoth, and you can see that they look like real atheists: cadaverous, lots of black leather and spikes, with nice metal jewelry in odd places on their clothing.
Uh, none of that is at all like me.
Here they are in performance. I rather like it, but be warned: it's loud and harsh. See if you can spot the resemblance now:
Get it?
OK, I'll explain, since I guess it isn' quite so obvious. At the beginning of that clip, the lead singer, Nergal, is tearing up a Bible and throwing the pages out to the audience. Hey…
razib | March 15, 2010And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning is a litany of how the mapping from Hebrew to other languages has resulted in a distortion of the precise idiom of the original. I actually thought the best example of this given was a non-Biblical one, the fact that English-speakers are totally clueless as to the implication of the title of the Mexican film Like Water for Chocolate, which sends a rather clear message only intelligible in a Spanish speaking context. English speakers have tended to generate novel meanings from the cryptic title at total variance with the…
pharyngula | March 14, 2010It's more of the same; the deeper they dig into the Irish Catholic Church, the filthier it gets. The latest news is a revelation from the senior cleric in Ireland.
Cardinal Sean Brady, primate of all-Ireland, admitted he was present at meetings where two abused teenagers were made to sign vows of silence.
He was part of a cover-up. In a case of known sex-offender priest, Brady helped conceal the truth about this monster by compelling the victims to silence. And now he shows no guilt, saying "Frankly I don't believe that this is a resigning matter." Why? Because he was only following orders.…