religion

What is astounding about the Gallup poll of belief in evolution is not that, as they conclude in the headline: “Third of Americans Say Evidence Has Supported Darwin’s Evolution Theory” it is that two thirds think that it has not or don’t know. Suppose the same poll were run about a theory that has a similar amount of evidence supporting it, namely that the earth revolves around the sun, and the results were the same. A news headline reporting a Gallup poll on the ‘theory’ of solar orbiting would reflect what would be strange and newsworthy – namely that educating people about a fact (not a theory) has been so manipulated by religious fascists, that a terrifying situation has been created where in an otherwise developed country, the majority of people still hold Bronze Age beliefs. via Kottke

Letter From America, The pledge of allegiance “…such was the fear of the time that from Moscow to Asia “godless Communism” might prevail. President Eisenhower, many public men and women, used that phrase over and over. And it was by executive order on Flag Day 1954 that President Eisenhower ordered the pledge now to read ‘I pledge allegiance to the flag’ and so on, ‘and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God indivisible.’”

I am an atheist, and pro-choice, but unlike Hitchens, Mother Theresa is a personal heroine of mine and her views on abortion had integrity. Despite being a non-Christian, I voyeuristically attended a church service in the Tenderloin this Sunday where the sermon was on the subject of making actions out of your convictions. This church spends $25,000 feeding poor people each week. I don’t think I need to believe in god for this to make sense. The singing was also a whole lot better than other places of worship I’ve been to. Because I don’t believe that there is a spiritual moment of conception I think you have to choose at what point a life is a life and until birth the interests of the person carrying a child are paramount. The necessity to let women choose seems sensible to me. Two weeks ago the House approved a partial anti-abortion…

Michael Savage: “… whether people accept it or not, I am in touch with God all day long.” FOXNews.com – The O’Reilly Factor – Interview – Radio Talk Show Host Michael Savage

Via Boingboing: The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus from Al Franken’s latest broadside. I wonder how Bill O’Reilly would treat Jesus if he showed up on Fox: Modern Jesus: “I you are rich you won’t get into heaven.” Bill O’Reilly: “You are an insult to Christianity” Modern Jesus: “I will turn the other cheek to that remark” Bill O’Reilly: “Turn the other cheek? Fight like a man you tree-hugger” Modern Jesus: “I forgive you” Bill O’Reilly: “Yeah, well I don’t forgive you, with a name like Jesus you must be a wetback, go home” Modern Jesus: “I will return from whence I came” Bill O’Reilly: “Well you won’t be coming on my show again” Sound of microphone being ripped off….

As an atheist who believes that religion, on balance, creates more evil than good, I was interested in ‘The Brights’. A Bright is defined as someone whose “worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements”, and the word is designed to sound more positive than atheist. I signed up, but now I am having second thoughts. Being an atheist who rejects supernatural religious belief does not answer the fact that the principal crimes of the twentieth century, Stalinism, the Khmer Rouge and Nazism, were secular. What they all have in common with religion is a code based upon belief – ideology. A ‘ brights’ naturalist worldview would reject God and the Tooth Fairy. An anti-ideological, ‘adaptivist’, worldview would reject religious doctrine and Stalinism. I still think a naturalist wordview is also healthy, but I can live with the Tooth Fairy.

Today’s Guardian runs an apologist piece on science and religion. Why is it that people pick a few scientists who are religious and draw the conclusion that this is the norm and that because some scientists are religious this helps the case for religion? 1. Most scientists are not religious. Those that are not “constitute 60% of American scientists, and a stunning 93% of those scientists good enough to be elected to the elite National Academy of Sciences“. 2. This Guardian article argues that the religiousness of scientists adds credibility to religious belief. Therefore, if you buy the article’s premise and look at the facts, the proven lack of religious belief amongst the majority of scientists actually reduces its credibility. 3. An alternative premise is that scientists who are religious don’t help the case for religion one way or another. People are irrational beings with an innate susceptibility to superstition….

Mr. quite contrary, Hitchens, has a go at the 10 commandments: “I wonder what would happen if secularists were now to insist that the verses of the Bible that actually recommend enslavement, mutilation, stoning, and mass murder of civilians be incised on the walls of, say, public libraries?” Anil Dash’s quip about the Talabamaban is more economical: ‘protestors decry removal of golden calf monument’. There goes commandment number 2. Oh, and now that some (toothless, banjo-playing?) politicians in Mississipi want the two tons of bad art, I guess that’ll be breaking the last commandment. The Commandments and immorality

A new Report warns of political interference in science to justify conservative views on abortion, genetic research, energy and the environment. Distortion of science requires ongoing effort, is a hallmark of inflexible political ideology and should ring alarm bells in a democratic society because there is empirical evidence that it is very dangerous. The mistake made by Stalinists of associating similarity with equality created an ideological preference to scientific findings which proved that traits were acquired and not inherited. In order to tackle massive food shortages, Lysencho, who’s rejection of genetics in favor of acquired traits fitted Soviet ideology, was recruited to provide a solution. The result of this single example, amongst many similar, is that several hundred thousand people died. The separation of church and state is an idea founded on the realization that and inflexible belief system does not gel with sound politics. According to opinion polls, it…

Conservative Anglican activist, David Virtue, has caused an investigation into gay bishop-elect Gene Robinson because he was “affiliated with a youth Web site that had a link to pornography”. However, applying David Virtue’s criteria to his own site shows that he also links to porn. Read the small print: “The link is on an unaffiliated site that had resources for gay youth. That page provided resources for bisexuals that, a few links away, provided access to porn.” A ‘few links away’. OK lets look at the accusers website: http://www.orthodoxanglican.org/Virtuosity/headlines.html links to: http://pppp.net/links/news/ click: http://pppp.net/links/news/NA.html then: http://pppp.net/links/news/NA.CurrentIssues-Gay_Lesbian.html which links to: http://www.multicom.org/gerbil/gerbil.htm – a hardcore porn site (a straight one).

“So confident is he that God is all in the mind, or the brain at least, that Dr Persinger claims he can induce mystical feelings in a majority of those willing to don his Transcranial Magnetic Stimulator. So the BBC Science series Horizon took up the challenge by putting his hat to the ultimate test: could he get arch-sceptic and militant atheist Prof Richard Dawkins to start believing in God by electrically massaging his temporal lobes?” Telegraph | Connected | Holy visions elude scientists

Here is an experiment to do at home. 1. Take 150 words either written by or about Derrida. 2. Using AltaVista’s Babel fish, Translate them from English to French, then from French to German, then back to English. 3. What comes back is no more or less complete gibberish than what you started with. Clearly the translation service is better than it used to be. Before: “Derrida seeks to destabilize these inherited assumptions. We think, therefore we question, he counters. Even Plato’s own thinking contains such challenges to it’s own theses.” After: “The research work of Derrida d