religion
sastyk | February 4, 2010I've now been at scienceblogs for a couple of months, and it is fascinating to me - I went from a stand-alone blog to one with a whole lot of other people, and getting to know the local culture is a really interesting exercise. Overwhelmingly, it has been really wonderful and fascinating. Still, I have learned some new-to-me things about this culture. I thought I would do a series, seeing if I could sum up the lessons learned here as I adapt to this strange new world. So here is the first one.
#1 - The phrase "American Conservative Evangelical Protestantism" is spelled "R-E-L-I-G-I-O-N. In…
pharyngula | February 2, 2010Look: the Pope is a crank figure, the head of a weird religious cult who promotes weird ideas, such as that condoms promote the spread of AIDS or more lately, opposes legislation to promote equality. He's a nasty old bigot from an insignificant municipality who gets far more attention than he deserves.
Now he's going to be visiting the UK. That's fine; anyone, even irrelevant old coots, ought to be able to vacation where they please. However, this is being treated as a state visit and the British government is plunking down £20 million for the dubious privilege of having a weird geezer in a…
thusspakezuska | February 2, 2010Just finished listening to Rebecca Skloot talking about her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, on Fresh Air this afternoon. You can now listen on the web (transcript not yet available).
Around 25:10, Skloot tells Terry Gross about an experience she had with a faith-healing ceremony with members of Henrietta Lacks's family. Among other things, that was the point when Skloot realized that she had to write herself into her own book. It was also the turning point when Lacks's daughter became more trusting of Skloot the journalist. I recommend that you listen to the whole interview…
jrosenhouse | February 1, 2010Blogging will continue to be sporadic for a while, sorry about that. But having dragged myself down to Washington D.C. last weekend to see the new movie Creation, I figured I should at least get a blog post out of it.
Short review: Excellent! Completely engrossing, and historically accurate on the important things.
Longer review, and minor spoilers, below the fold.
Creation is a biography of Charles Darwin, focusing specifically on the years leading up to the publication of The Origin of Species. The emphasis is on the death of Darwin's ten-year-old daughter, and the subsequent family…
grrlscientist | January 31, 2010tags: christianity, religion, cults, mind control, social phenomenon, Harry Potter, witchcraft, beliefs, education, streaming video
This video is a report on the christian wingnuts' response to Harry Potter -- it seems this is another cult of mind-control that is unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Since today is my birthday, and I am a rabid Harry Potter fan, I will spend this entire day brushing up on my spells and wand-work by watching Harry Potter DVDs. Since alcohol will also be involved, I urge you all to watch out, lest I (accidentally?) change someone into a toad.…
grrlscientist | January 30, 2010tags: Mormonism, religion, cults, mind control, social phenomenon, moron, offbeat, beliefs, Proposition 8, education, streaming video
As a group, mormons are some of the passive-aggressive people I know. They are nice to everyone, but they are vicious and intolerant behind your back. This film trailer is one example of the double-face I've seen and experienced while growing up among mormons. This is a trailer from the documentary film, 8: The Mormon Proposition. This film investigates how the mormon cult was behind the banning of gay marriage in California. In short, mormons dumped millions…
razib | January 29, 2010A comment below prompted me to slap together a post quickly displaying some data which illustrates just how religious South Asians are compared to East Asians. Anyone with an interest in world history will not be surprised by this assertion. When reading surveys of East Asian history I would occasionally reach a chapter titled "Religion," and the author would offer a quick explanation and apologia for why the topic was not given pride of place. By contrast, some have argued to a first approximation South Asian history is a history of South Asian religion. (Though I do not focus on that issue…
grrlscientist | January 28, 2010tags: Rights and Privileges, ethics, social commentary, cultural observation, George Carlin, bible, humor, comedy, fucking hilarious, streaming video
Rights are cute ideas. Rights aren't rights at all if someone can take them away. 'God-given rights' are due to the god excuse: if god really gave you rights, he would have given you the right to have food every day and a roof over your head. But god is not (obviously!) taking care of you at all.
grrlscientist | January 27, 2010I was reading the words of my brilliant friend, Digital Cuttlefish, this morning (which is the middle of the night for my American friends), and ran across this gem;
They were starving; they were homeless; they were dying; they were dead.
There were bodies to be buried; there were children to be fed.
There were broken heaps of rubble where the houses used to stand
There was utter devastation; there was chaos in the land.
There were frantic cries for rescue; there were howls of fear and pain
There were heroes risking life and limb, with much to lose or gain.
There were millions in donations--…
oracknows | January 24, 2010Mike Adams is confused.
I know, I know. Such a statement is akin to saying that water is wet (and that it doesn't have memory, at least not the mystical magical memories ascribed to it by homeopaths), that the sun rises in the East, or that writing an NIH R01 grant is hard, but there you go. Speaking of writing an NIH R01, that's exactly what I'm doing now, hence the decreased blogorrhea over the last few days, but sometimes trying to cram a five year project into the 13 pages (one page for specific aims and twelve to describe the project) makes my head hurt so much that reading and…
razib | January 24, 2010As a follow up to the previous post, here's some of the raw data for the ARIS. I sorted by "Nones" for 2008.
None '90 None '08 Christian '90 Christian '08 Δ Christian Δ None VT 13 34 84 55 -29 21 NH 9 29 85 62 -23 20 WY 14 28 74 67 -7 14 ME 11 25 85 69 -16 14 WA 15 25 79 64 -15 10 NV 14 24 80 64 -16…
razib | January 24, 2010Barry Kosmin at CUNY has published the results of three surveys of American religion since 1990. These "American Religious Identification Surveys" (ARIS) were done in 1990, another in 2001, and finally in 2008. One of the major findings of the ARIS has been the rise of those who avow "No Religion". Looking through the data it is also clear that aggregating nationally understates some of the local changes. In 1990 47% Vermonters were non-Catholic Christians (i.e., Protestants). In 2008 29% were. In 1990 13% of Vermonters had No Religion. In 2008 34% of Vermonters had No Religion! In fact, No…
emjohnson | January 24, 2010Image: Idiot Box / Matt Bors
And now, of course, Robertson and his Christian Broadcasting Network can interpret geological events as well. On January 13, just a day after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the reigning televangelist explained why God hates Haitians:
And, you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you if you will get us free from the French." True story.…
grrlscientist | January 24, 2010tags: Mormonism, religion, cults, mind control, social phenomenon, moron, offbeat, beliefs, cartoon, education, streaming video
Just in case you think I think that christians comprise the only wingnut cult in the world, think again. Thanks to the aggressive policing policy of the mormon cult, it's not so easy to find videos that describe what they are about, but I finally managed to get to one video before the mormon thought police did, so you should watch this before it disappears (as its predecessors have);
If that cult doesn't read like badly written science fiction fanfic by pimply-faced…
grrlscientist | January 23, 2010tags: The Ten Commandments, religion, social commentary, cultural observation, George Carlin, humor, comedy, fucking hilarious, satire, parody, streaming video
There's no LOGICAL argument against anything George Carlin says in this routine. Obviously Christians will argue but then as George says LOGIC is something religion has a big problem with.
George Carlin (1937-2008) was a champion of free speech. Some (like me) think he was the greatest comedian who had ever lived. Here's one of his classic skits where he comments about the ten commandments.
jrosenhouse | January 22, 2010Here's a quote from the book Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion:
In Augustine's influential view, then, knowledge of the things of this world is not a legitimate end in itself, but as a means to other ends it is indispensable. The classical sciences must accept a subordinate position as the handmaiden of theology and religion -- the temporal serving the eternal. The knowledge contained in classical sciences is not to be loved, but it may legitimately be used. This attitude toward scientific knowledge cam to prevail throughout the Middle Ages and survived well…
gregladen | January 22, 2010The general told them to stop. The manufacturer agreed. Fox news is now calling the US Armed Forces unpatriotic. Or something.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
pharyngula | January 21, 2010Times are tight. It's tough getting grants from NIH and NSF, but the government has heard your plight and has responded by opening up new avenues to request support: apply for an NCMHD Innovative Faith-Based Approaches to Health Disparities Research grant!
Purpose. The purpose of the NCMHD Innovative Faith-Based Approaches to Health Disparities Research (R21) is to solicit applications that propose translational and transdisciplinary interventions on health disparities, social determinants of health, health behavior and promotion and disease prevention, especially those jointly conducted with…
emjohnson | January 21, 2010
OK, so this wasn't really part of ScienceOnline2010, but it really should've been. Perhaps there could be a special session next year on comedy in scientific communication. Any nominations on who the panelists should be?
While you think about that, here's something that actually was at the conference.