religion
jrosenhouse | February 18, 2010Via Jerry Coyne I came across this essay regarding the interpretation of Genesis. (Click here for Part One of the essay.)
The article is by Kenton Sparks, a professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University. His argument will be entirely familiar to connoisseurs of this issue. The Bible, you see, was never intended to teach us science. Augustine and Calvin understood that if the Bible conflicts with well-established scientific truths, then it is our understanding of scripture that must yield. Modern creationists err in treating Genesis like a science textbook, and would do better to…
pharyngula | February 17, 2010I know from experience how hard it is to raise kids — they tend to be willful and are always trying to think for themselves, and you know we can't have that. But now there's an answer, a book titled To Train Up a Child, which provides all kinds of useful tips on how to bring up children respectful of the word of God, using "the same principles the Amish use to train their stubborn mules".
Doesn't that line right there sell the technique to you?
It worked for Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz, who applied "biblical discipline" to two of their children. Now one is very, very quiet and causes no…
pharyngula | February 17, 2010The Catholic Church is getting desperate. All this evidence is turning up of priests physically and sexually abusing young people in their care, and of the church administration being more concerned with protecting pedophile priests and the reputation of their organization than protecting children, so someone has to be blamed. How about the damn dirty hippies and those pesky reporters?
"The so-called sexual revolution, in which some especially progressive moral critics supported the legalisation of sexual contact between adults and children, is certainly not innocent," he said, adding that…
pharyngula | February 16, 2010It's just sad. The arguments the apologists for religion make seem to be getting more and more pathetic, and more and more unconvincing. There is going to be a lecture, announced in the Times Higher Education supplement, by someone trying to reconcile science and religion in the history of the Royal Society. How is he going to do it? By arguing that members of the society in 1663 were religious. Woo hoo. They also wore funny powdered wigs, treated syphilis with mercury, and argued that there had to be precisely seven planets because it was a number sacred to geometers, but I doubt that he'll…
stoat | February 16, 2010Wolf Hall is a now-immensely-well-known tale of a slice of Henry VIII's reign; a period I know little about: we skimped it at school and it gets throroughly mythologised anyway. The chief hero is Cromwell (not Oliver) who is portrayed (correctly,as I understand it) as a brilliant administrator and generally competent chap; as to whether he was really nice underneath, I neither know nor care.
What is chiefly interesting is the playing out of certain grand themes in the period. It was part of the development of civilisation, really, a time when people, under pressure of necessity, realised that…
pharyngula | February 16, 2010Hard to believe, but this medieval nonsense is still going on. Poland has more than 100 professional exorcists, and they recently met in a conference.
Congress participants argued that demonology lessons should be treated more seriously in seminaries and that ordinary people, too, would benefit from knowing more about exorcisms. During the congress, the priests discussed the main causes of possession by demons such as occult, esoteric beliefs like magic, eastern meditation and homeopathy.
Oooh, demonology lessons. Those should be good. Don't forget to take them seriously when some geezer…
pharyngula | February 15, 2010You all know that if you masturbate, you will become feeble, blind, and incontinent, right? Well, at least according to folk wisdom shouted at you by grandmas and grandpas (who, I will assure you, masturbated: it's a nearly universal practice.) As it turns out, a compendium of Islamic thought on masturbation agrees on all points, and adds a few other consequences of the practice I bet you never thought of.
Atta (Rahmatullahi alaihi) says: "Some people will be resurrected in such a condition that their hands will be pregnant, I think they are those who masturbate." (Tafsir Mazhari, vol 12, pg…
grrlscientist | February 13, 2010tags: Mormonism, religion, cults, mind control, magic underwear, moron, offbeat, beliefs, insanity, education, streaming video
In some denominations of the Latter Day Saint cult, the temple garment (also referred to as "garments", or "Mormon underwear") is worn beneath the clothing of those who have taken part in the Endowment ceremony. Mormon underwear are worn both day and night and are required for any previously endowed adult to enter a church temple.The undergarments are viewed as a symbolic reminder of the sacred covenants made in temple ceremonies, and are viewed as an either symbolic…
pharyngula | February 11, 2010I'm home again from Iowa, but there was a moment where I just about turned around. Coming up into Minnesota, there is a nice big billboard with the following message on it.
I did a double-take and thought about going back around to get a photo of it, but decided it wasn't worth it, as there really wasn't any place to pull over safely. That was a rather vile message, but then, this is Christianity we're talking about, and this was on I-35, which seems to be a focus for religious insanity.
razib | February 10, 2010The Spiritual Brain: Selective Cortical Lesions Modulate Human Self-Transcendence:
The predisposition of human beings toward spiritual feeling, thinking, and behaviors is measured by a supposedly stable personality trait called self-transcendence. Although a few neuroimaging studies suggest that neural activation of a large fronto-parieto-temporal network may underpin a variety of spiritual experiences, information on the causative link between such a network and spirituality is lacking. Combining pre- and post-neurosurgery personality assessment with advanced brain-lesion mapping techniques…
pharyngula | February 10, 2010For years, whenever someone asks me about the evolution of religion, I explain that there are two broad categories of explanation: that religion has conferred a selective advantage to people who possessed it, or that it was a byproduct of other cognitive processes that were advantageous. I'm a proponent of the byproduct explanation, myself; I tend to go a little further, too, and suggest that religion is a deleterious virus that is piggy-backing on some very useful elements of our minds.
Now look at this: there is a wonderful paper by Pyysläinen and Hauser, The origins of religion : evolved…
pharyngula | February 9, 2010It's yet another Catholic sex scandal, this time a chronic pattern of sexual abuse by a few priests in Berlin that was known and tolerated by church leaders for almost 20 years. They've got a nice phrase for what was going on: "intimate, fatherly behavior."
Catholic church: you don't know what fatherly means, and none of you deserve the respectable title of "father" at all. I'm a dad, please don't taint me with your skeevy, repellent attitude towards men who actually care for their children.
gregladen | February 8, 2010Perhaps not what you'd think.
This is not about appeasement. It is about not being a racist slob.
Imagine a firing squad run by a relatively benevolent government (that happens to have not yet gotten rid of the death penalty). The squad consist of a dozen soldiers assigned to the duty. While most soldiers accept the assignment to the firing squad out of a sense of duty and a general cultural belief that it is appropriate, it is possible but unusual to object and get out of it. So there is a modicum of personal reflection involved. A soldier asked to join the firing squad considers the…
pharyngula | February 8, 2010Here's a thoughtful video about one person's deconversion process: the interesting thing about it is that he was a believer who reasoned himself out of religion.
Although I was brought up in a religion, I've discovered that there is a large difference between those who were seriously immersed in a faith, like this fellow, and people who just got a fairly brief and not very deep exposure, like myself. I was rather easily disabused of religion — when I first was taught the tenets of the faith, my reaction was more like, "You believe what? And you expect me to believe it too? That's batty!" I…
grrlscientist | February 7, 2010tags: gay adoption, United States, equality, religion, children, religion, hypocrisy, Dan+Savage, streaming video
Unlike straight parents, gay parents cannot go out one night, get drunk and adopt. Unlike straight parents, gay parents have children because they are wanted and planned for. Certainly this was the situation for my (straight) so-called parents, who not only didn't plan for me and didn't want me, but they were horribly abusive and neglectful after I was born, and after they'd finished trying to destroy me, they gave me up to the state when I was a teen-ager. I would love to have…
jrosenhouse | February 7, 2010I am currently reading the book Believers: A Journey into Evangelical America by Jeffery Sheler, published in 2006. There is a chapter about Wheaton College in Illinois, which is generally considered one of the best, if not the best, evangelical college in the nation. Sheler recounts part of a conversation he had with Dorothy Chappell, dean of natural and social sciences.
“Our students are recognized as among the best,” she said. “That must say something about our program. We don't teach Christian science here. We teach science, period. It's the same science as the University of…
gregladen | February 7, 2010A federal appellate court has ruled against a Christian school in Murrieta which had sued the University of California over its refusal to accept high school courses that rely on the Bible as the unerring source of truth.
Details here.
Next step: Homeschoolers!
(Hat tip: August Berkshire)
grrlscientist | February 7, 2010tags: religion, cults, humor, funny, silly, hypocrisy, Edward Current, streaming video
"I just found out that my favorite YouTuber for Christ is actually a godless atheist God-mocker. Blocked!"
grrlscientist | February 6, 2010tags: religion, cults, humor, funny, silly, weird, Ali G, streaming video
Ali G talks to religious wingnuts about their beliefs .. oddly, religious wingnuts don't like talking about aspects of their own religion that offend them .. if their religion and its real-life applications are so offensive, why believe all that wingnuttery in the first place?
jrosenhouse | February 4, 2010In a couple of recent posts I have mentioned the book Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion edited by Ronald Numbers. Since I have now finished reading it, I figure it is time for a proper review.
Short review: Mixed. As a compendium of interesting facts about the history of science and religion the book works rather well. The myth/reality format, however, is not always successful.
Longer review below the fold.
Galileo Goes to Jail consists of twenty-five short essays, each centered around some “myth” related to science and religion. Some of the myths are of the…