religion
oracknows | June 13, 2006Ed over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars has been on a tear lately defending the ACLU against spurious attacks from right wingers and religious. Now I see that that dreaded atheistic, America-hating organization has invaded a little too close to home, coming into my area of the country.Clearly any real God-fearing American can't let this be tolerated. Look at how the ACLU has managed to provoke a fawning editorial is doing yesterday:
Awesome God is a wildly popular signature song of religious praise music. The lyrics refer to crucifixion, to God's mighty power, to his imminent return to…
stcynic | June 12, 2006I received an invitation today to attend the Progressive Faith Blog Conference. I will not be able to attend, but thought that one or two of my readers might be interested in doing so. I am not a religious man myself, nor do I really consider myself a progressive, but I think that religious progressives are important allies on many important issues. I also think that it's very valuable to have their voices heard, especially in a nation where the dominant religious voices tend to belong to reactionaries. If anyone is interested in attending, click the link above. And please give us a report…
mikethemadbiologist | June 10, 2006No, I'm not kidding. By way of Shakespeare's Sister, I found out that in 2000, Little Lord Pontchartrain proclaimed June 10 to be "Jesus Day." I'm not making this up. Gov. Bush's proclamation states:
Throughout the world, people of all religions recognize Jesus Christ as an example of love, compassion, sacrifice and service. Reaching out to the poor, the suffering and the marginalized, he provided moral leadership that continues to inspire countless men, women and children today.
I guess Bush isn't one of those "countless men"...
mikethemadbiologist | June 10, 2006Ed Brayton fills us in on the ridiculous Ten Commandments legislation in Louisiana, where they are actually editing the Ten Commandments. Whenever I hear about this kind of nuttiness, I always want to ask: which version of the Ten Commandments?
In the Hebrew Bible (the 'Old Testament'), there are three versions of the Ten Commandments: Exodus 20:2-17, Deuteronomy 5:6-21, and Exodus 34:10-27. (note: I've linked to the original Hebrew version and the English translation, as opposed to versions translated from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English. It was written in a language that we can…
neurotopia | June 9, 2006...you might not know what to do
you might have to think of
how you got started
sittin' in your little room
--The White Stripes
Welcome to the second incarnation of Neurotopia! The old incarnation can be found here, although lately it has just been a collection of posts where I complain about how Blogger stinks. But no more! Now I'm here on this slick new platform! The SEED overlords pulled a mean trick on me: they set up the new blog launch mere hours before I'm supposed to hit the road and celebrate my 8th anniversary by accompanying Mrs. Evil Monkey to Fallingwater for the weekend.…
oracknows | June 6, 2006Hell, Michigan, that is. The "Hellions" are planning one hell of a party today, 6/6/06, a.k.a. the Day of the Beast:
HELL, Mich. - They're planning a hot time in Hell on Tuesday. The day bears the date of 6-6-06, or abbreviated as 666 - a number that carries hellish significance. And there's not a snowball's chance in Hell that the day will go unnoticed in the unincorporated hamlet 60 miles west of Detroit.
Nobody is more fired up than John Colone, the town's self-styled mayor and owner of a souvenir shop.
"I've got `666' T-shirts and mugs. I'm only ordering 666 (of the items) so once they're…
stcynic | June 5, 2006Am I the only one who has heard more than enough about tomorrow being 6-6-6 on the calendar? They're releasing the new Omen movie tomorrow to take advantage of that date. Ann Coulter is releasing her new book tomorrow as well, which only goes to prove that she really is the devil (I've had my suspicions for years). And there are reports of pregnant women who are supposed to deliver soon demanding c-sections to be done today to avoid giving birth on this allegedly important date. For crying out loud, how freaking stupid are people? Even if you believe that hallucinatory nonsense about the anti…
oracknows | June 3, 2006A very unique date in history is fast approaching. Indeed, if you're Christian and religious, you probably already know what it is.
6/6/06.
The Date of the Beast. (OK, you have to ignore the "0" to get "666," the Number of the Beast, but everyone seems to be paying little attention to that little detail).
Not surprisingly, Hollywood is having a little fun with the date, releasing a remake of The Omen, a cheesy but nonetheless scary movie from the 1970's about the birth of the Antichrist (named Damien in the movie) and the havoc he wreaks. (I still recall being disturbed by two scenes from…
oracknows | June 2, 2006The time: last week, Friday evening.The place: Borders Books.
As my wife and I wandered around our local Borders Books browsing, I came across something you don't see every day.
In the Christian Books section of the store, there was a prominent display. In the display, not unexpectedly, were a number of books about faith, Jesus, prayer, and Christian spirituality. Then, something incongruous caught my eye.
On the second shelf of the display, surrounded by all these books purporting to tell people how to be a better Christian or how to live a more spiritual life, I saw this: Breaking the Spell…
stcynic | June 1, 2006From the same loonies that brought us the Left Behind series comes the Left Behind video game. In this game, you roam the streets of New York with heavy weaponry and to score points you must either kill the infidels or make them convert. And no, I'm not making this up.
The game is set in New York City, where the Tribulation Force clashes with the Antichrist's Global Community Peacekeepers in a tale that makes the United Nations a tool for Satan. Each side attempts to recruit lost souls in the battle for the city. "Eternal Forces" is a so-called real-time strategy game -- players act as…
oracknows | May 25, 2006I've commented before on some of Pat Robertson's loonier statements. Given the sheer fundie religious nuttery that he regularly spouts, it takes something related to my regular blogging interests for him to catch my attention.
I know it's amazing, but somehow he managed to do just that. First, a little anti-Semitism:
When you think of Jewish people, you think of successful businessmen. You think of people that are very wise in finance and who are prosperous. And when you think of poor countries around the world, you'd never would consider the nation of Israel. But in parts of the Jewish…
razib | May 23, 2006I'm an atheist. Just like some people who are Christians but weren't always tell me that they "always believed in Christ," myself, I've never believed in God. Before the age of 7 I did avow a belief in God, but in hindsight I see only the most minimal of deisms in my conception of the world aside from the times when I was at the mosque with my family. Religion wasn't talked about in my family much aside from major festivals, and it wasn't something I ever really thought about. When I was 7 I was in the library, reading some books on astronomy, and it struck me that there was no reason for…
razib | May 22, 2006Below GrrlScientist asks why The Da Vinci Code is "bad history." I believe it is bad history because someone whose work I respect and have enjoyed has pointed out manifold errors, incluing in a book which covered this ground. His name is Bart Ehrman, and he is the head of Relgious Studies at UNC. I've read two of his books, Lost Christianities and Misquoting Jesus. Erhman went through a phase of fudamentalist Christianity, but his need to know the New Testament in the original led him to learning Latin and Greek, and a Ph.D. In the process, he became an agnostic.
Here are some errors…
razib | May 21, 2006I talk about religion a lot on this weblog....but to some extent, I think I talk past many of the readers here. Many of my ideas over the past few years in regards to religion have been shaped by the naturalistic program in evolutionary cultural anthropology. The key workers in this area are Dan Sperber, Scott Atran, Pascal Boyer and Lawrence Hirschfeld. In any case, I know I sound gibberishy sometimes. When I first read Scott Atran's In Gods We Trust, I laughed it was so incomprehensible. Nevertheless, after a period of reflection I realized that common sense introspection on questions…
oracknows | May 21, 2006First bad science fiction leads to a cult (Scientology), and now bad epic fantasy follows suit.
Back when I was high school and college, like many that age, I was very fond of epic fantasy. But even I didn't like the Gor novels. How anyone could emulate them so seriously is beyond me.
oracknows | May 17, 2006This has to be one of the most idiotic laws I've ever heard of. It's so mind-bogglingly unjust that no further comment is really necessary other than that it would have been a minor matter indeed to fix the law so it could achieve its intended purpose (to prevent overcrowding) while not tearing families apart. The City Council had a chance to do just that that and explicitly voted not to.
Afarensis has more.
I tell ya, I have to stop with the political blogging and get back to something medicine-, science-, or skepticism-related. First the atheist Holocaust denier and white supremacist, Fred…
stcynic | May 16, 2006Are you confused over all the different types of Christian groups there are out there? It's easy to lose track of them all. Your eyes can glaze over trying to distinguish between fundamentalists and evangelicals, and don't even get me started on the difference between infralapsarian Calvinists and supralapsarian Calvinists. Sometimes you can't tell the players without a program. Thankfully, Zach Wendling over at In the Agora has linked to just such a scorecard, and it's pretty funny stuff. A few examples:
Premillenialism
This is the belief among some Christians that, ever since Jan. 1, 2000,…
oracknows | May 16, 2006While I'm being more political than usual, how about one more...
I normally detest Sean Hannity. Basically, he's Rush Limbaugh without the flashes of cleverness or humor. However, this time, he's got it right on. I may be around three or four weeks behind the curve on this, but it's worth looking at the video below of Hannity & Colmes interviewing Shirley Phelps Roper, of the Westboro Baptist Church, a group of religious loonies of God Hates Fags infamy. This is the first time I encountered this video, and, given that none of my fellow SB'ers seems to have mentioned it, I don't feel so…
oracknows | May 15, 2006The other day, I mentioned an atheist named Larry Darby who happened to be an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. I was perturbed because this clown was coming far too close to my neck of the woods for comfort, and the stench of his vileness offended me. Because Darby is an atheist, not surprisingly fellow ScienceBloggers PZ and Ed both noticed his making news lately, although Razib had the far more interesting take on this clown when he pointed out that the racialist radical right actually has more atheists in it than one might expect. He's quite correct. Having waded into the cesspools that…