religion
jrosenhouse | April 18, 2011The Guardian has an interesting dialogue between Sam Harris and Robert Winston on the subject of science and faith. I have some problems with both gentlemen, but, surprise!, I have bigger problems with Winston. Let's consider some excerpts. Harris first:
Religious language is, without question, unscientific in its claims for what is true. We have Christians believing in the holy ghost, the resurrection of Jesus and his possible return -- these are claims about biology and physics which, from a scientific point of view in the 21st century, should be unsustainable.
I certainly agree with…
pharyngula | April 17, 2011The American Journal of Surgery has published a transcript of a presidential address titled, "Can prayer help surgery?", and my first thought was that that was absolutely brilliant — some guy was roped into giving a big speech at a convention, and he picked a topic where he could stand up, say "NO," and sit back down again. If he wanted to wax eloquent, maybe he could add a "Don't be silly" to his one word address.
But a reader sent me a copy of this paper, and I was wrong. The author spent four pages saying "Yes". It flies off to cloud cuckoo land in the very first sentence, which compares…
pharyngula | April 16, 2011This one is nice and short, and for a change, I'm willing to be…accommodating.
Please respect ALL religions equally. You are being prejudiced if you continue this disrespect of the Catholic religion.
My correspondent has persuaded me. I will respect ALL religions equally from now on.
To poop on!
pharyngula | April 13, 2011This is a real mystery. Donohue is an angry guy with a fax machine who gets donations from affronted Catholics, which is nothing the church can do about, obviously…but he also pretends to be a defender of Catholicism while having no standing with the church and while making the most outrageous claims. You'd think someone in the hierarchy would take a moment to mention to journalists that the crazy ranting guy does not speak for them. I guess maybe the old guard thinks he does a good job representing their views, which makes him even worse.
Donohue is waxing indignant again about church…
pharyngula | April 10, 2011This afternoon, a couple of smiling, glassy-eyed young ladies stopped by my house to talk about Jesus. I was delighted, but I made the mistake of telling them up front that I was an atheist, and didn't believe in their religion…and they backed away slowly, said "goodbye!", and scurried away. It's so hard to bait the trap when you insist on using honesty.
Anyway, I did get a little online satisfaction reading this great ferocious rant about Seventh Day Adventists.
The Seventh-day Adventist cult's "prophet" and founder, the alcoholic, masturbation-obsessed habitual plagiarist Ellen G. White,…
pharyngula | April 7, 2011An unsavory fellow named Tommy Pitts is under arrest for child abuse in Oklahoma.
Police said Pitts was arrested on 15 counts of first-degree rape, 15 counts of rape by instrumentation, 20 counts of lewd or indecent acts with children under 16 and 20 counts of forcible sodomy. He is on suicide watch, police said.
Investigators said the abuse went on for months.
Now the lamest punchline in the world: Tommy Pitts is pastor of the Midway Assembly of God Church.
I know! You saw it coming from a mile away! Nowadays all you have to do is put some theological title in front of someone's name, and…
pharyngula | April 7, 2011There is a church in Romsey, Australia which is getting lots of attention because they offer a "Sci-Fi and Fantasy Friendly Church Service," where people dress up as fantasy characters and wave light-sabers around while quoting Buffy and Bilbo. It's a weird story, because every church service offered everywhere is fantasy friendly, so what's the big deal? Obi-Wan and Gandalf are both Jesus-figures, anyway.
Predictably, though, some stuffed shirts are outraged, which just fills me with more appreciation of irony. Says the Baptist minister who hears voices in his head and promises escape to an…
jrosenhouse | April 4, 2011Let's get clear on one thing. Terry Jones, the delightful Florida pastor who burned the Koran the other day, thereby setting in motion a sequence of events that has led to several days of violence and bloodshed, is a bigot, and a jerk, and many other unsavory things. But if he is made to suffer anything more than the severe disapprobation of every reasonable person it will be an offense far greater than his actions themselves.
It's been very depressing to find so many bloggers desperately longing for the law to catch up with the wicked pastor. Here's Laurie Essig expressing a common…
pharyngula | April 4, 2011R. Joseph Hoffmann really doesn't get it. He's written an article that is basically doing nothing but decrying blasphemy on some very strange grounds: that it's stupid and pointless and cowardly. He also compares me and the desecration of a cracker with Terry Jones and the burning of a Koran that led to riots in Afghanistan, differentiating between the two of us in that I was just a petty grandstander, while Terry Jones' intent was to purposely fire up Muslims into violence, and therefore Terry Jones "needs to be charged with and convicted of murder".
Well. I guess the trial would be only a…
jrosenhouse | April 3, 2011CNN's Fareed Zakaria has by far the most intelligent take that I've seen on the Quran burning by pastor Terry Jones of Florida:
Let's talk for a moment about the Quran burning in Florida and it's consequences. Most Americans are repulsed by the offensive actions of Pastor Terry Jones, a publicity-seeking extremist. But they must wonder how an isolated act like that could produce so much violence halfway across the world in Afghanistan.
So let's trace the event.
The Quran burning took place two weeks ago - to not much publicity. It was not highlighted by the international media and was not a…
pharyngula | April 3, 2011Sometimes, issues demand nuance. This is a complicated world and there are a great many subjects that simply aren't reducible to binaries — we do a disservice to the subtleties when we discard them in favor of absolutes. And often I can agree that we need depth and breadth of understanding if we're to navigate a difficult situation.
But sometimes the issues are black and white. Sometimes the answers are clear and absolute. And in those cases, attempts to bring out the watercolors and soften the story by blurring the edges do a disservice to reality. There are places where there are no…
oracknows | April 1, 2011
Ah, April Fools' Day!
I had thought of trying to do a typical April Fools' Day post, you know, something like trying to write something but the last time I tried to do that it fell really flat, so flat that I'm not even going to link to it. It's better not to remind my readers of my jokes that fell completely flat. Better to move on to a more appropriate April Fools' Day topic, a topic like the James Randi Educational Foundation's annual Pigasus Awards. The basic idea is to give recognition where recognition is due for the five worst promoters of nonsense from the previous year.
For 2011,…
jrosenhouse | March 28, 2011I get it that some people do not like the New Atheists. But surely when you're writing things like this:
And this is why I think the New Atheists are a disaster, a danger to the wellbeing of America comparable to the Tea Party.
you have simply placed yourself outside the community of people who care about civil discourse or calm argumentation.
That quote comes from Michael Ruse. Really ponder it for a moment. Marvel at its sheer obliviousness, its absurdity, its complete trivialization of important issues. Let's place the NA's and the Tea Party side by side shall we?
The Tea Party,…
oracknows | March 28, 2011Grant time again! Since today--yes, today!--is the deadline for a rather big grant I'm writing (not quite R01 level, but a respectable three year project if I can get it), I was up until the wee hours of the morning trying to put this sucker to bed. Being the ever-benevolent blogger, though, far be it from me to deny you some Insolence. It'll just have to be recycled Insolence. Not just recycled Insolence, either. Old recycled Insolence, four years old, to be precise! Unbelievable! In fact, it's so old that the links don't even work anymore; so you'll have to take my word for it that I quoted…
oracknows | March 27, 2011Grant time again! Since today--yes, today!--is the deadline for a rather big grant I'm writing (not quite R01 level, but a respectable three year project if I can get it), I was up until the wee hours of the morning trying to put this sucker to bed. Being the ever-benevolent blogger, though, far be it from me to deny you some Insolence. It's just recycled Insolence. Of course, given that this is nearly four years old, if you've been reading less than four years, it's new to you! I'll be back tomorrow; that is, assuming I've recovered. As I look at this post, it occurs to me that I haven't…
pharyngula | March 27, 2011I had never heard of these before:
Papal knighthoods are awarded to lay men and women for conspicuous service to the church and society. They are among the highest honours the Pope can bestow.
Surprise, surprise, though…the "highest honours the Pope can bestow" can be purchased for £50,000. Somehow, the venality of the church is no surprise at all to me.
I also had to roll my eyes at this fact about the priest intermediary who has been selling knighthoods:
Fr Seed is honorary chaplain to the International Committee on Human Dignity
That an "International Committee on Human Dignity" has a…
jrosenhouse | March 24, 2011Permit me an amusing juxtaposition.
Here's Mira Sucharov, a political scientist at Carleton University in Canada, explaining why atheists and religious folks often talk past each other:
Put simply, believers are asking the question, “Can a commitment to contemplating the sacred help us better appreciate the everyday?” (They reply yes.) And atheists are asking the question, “Is the existence of God plausible from the standpoint of reason?” (They reply no.)
And here's what happened to a pastor in North Carolina for suggesting that hell was not a place of eternal torment:
When Chad Holtz…
oracknows | March 23, 2011I don't like quackery.
I know, I know. Big surprise, right? After all, I've only spent the last six years laying down a nearly daily dose of Insolence, Respectful and not-so-Respectful, on the anti-vaccine movement, alternative medicine practitioners, quacks, and pseudoscientists of many different stripes. Seeing my fellow human beings fall for unproven or even dangerous remedies leads me to want to try to convince them to pull back and stick with science-based medical therapies. When quackery causes harm, I become even more motivated. Yet there is an area of quackery that I rarely write…
pharyngula | March 22, 2011The BBC is reporting the imminent extinction of religion. This is an end result to be hoped for, which just makes me all the more critical, and I have to say up front that this is the work of mathematicians, engineers, and physicists modeling sociology. It's interesting stuff that looks at the very biggest picture without addressing the details, and it could very well be entirely true, but I'm always going to be a little bit suspicious of academics crossing boundaries that much. Sociologists are not stupid people; I'd like to see more of them pick up on this mode of analysis, and then I'll…
oracknows | March 21, 2011I graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in the late 1980s. Back then, U. of M. was really hardcore about science back then, so much so that it was viewed as seriously old-school. No new (at the time) organ system approach for us! During the first two years, ever four weeks, like clockwork, we'd have what was called a concurrent examination, which basically meant that we were tested (with multiple choice tests, of course!) on every subject on the same morning. At the time I was there, the medical curriculum for the first two years had been fairly constant for quite some time…