religion
stcynic | February 10, 2005Jon Rowe has stepped into the religious ring to ask a question. It's a question all of us have probably asked. It is:
If there is no "Creator" and only the material world is true, how did time-space, matter and energy come into existence? Would it not follow that if there is no Creator then nothing -- no reality -- would exist?
It's a reasonable question because of the absurdity of an infinitely old universe. Our minds can't really get around the idea that matter/time/existence has really existed for all eternity. Everything must have a starting point, right? If time extends infinitely into…
stcynic | February 9, 2005Jon Rowe has a brief post up about Robert Tilton, one of my favorite TV evangelist hucksters and one of his as well. Another of my favorites is Peter Popoff, whose mailing list I used to be on. Both Tilton and Popoff were exposed on national television as frauds, Tilton by Diane Sawyer on Prime Time Live and Popoff on the Tonight Show by James Randi. Both closed up shop in disgrace; both are now back on television with the money flowing in once again.
Anyone who has ever been on the mailing list of one of these con men will recognize the pleas detailed in this article from the direct mail…
stcynic | January 7, 2005My friend Henry Neufeld, director of the Pacesetter's Bible School, has posted a new essay on the Panda's Thumb that examines the theological underpinnings of creationism and Intelligent Design. In particular, he discusses the question of the different types of literature found in the bible and why the creationists are wrong to read Genesis and other parts of the bible as literal history rather than as other, less literal forms of literature. Very interesting read.
stcynic | December 22, 2004Continuing the Christian persecution theme, the Worldnutdaily is even taking President Bush to task for not being quite Christian enough in the White House. The top story on WND last night was Bush White House's Christ-less Christmas. The top story. On a day when 22 soldiers died in a rocket attack in Mosul, this is the biggest story for the Worldnutdaily:
The official White House site proclaims this as the "Season of Merriment and Melody" - not the birth of the Savior of the world...
Among the website's many photographs of secular decorations is a shot of a creche, or Nativity, displayed in…
stcynic | December 16, 2004As I said before, I don't have a stake in this one either way, since I'm not an atheist and don't much care what Flew believes. But I do think it's important not to misrepresent the views of others, and in light of the long and storied tradition of fundamentalist Christians distorting the views of their opponents, from the absurd "Darwin recanted on his deathbed" story to the more recent claims concerning Daniel Dennett, I think it's worth taking a closer look. Here is Flew in his own words, putting the lie to this enormous campaign of "ding dong the atheist is dead" that is sweeping the…
stcynic | December 5, 2004My thanks to David Wayne for stopping by last night and leaving a couple of comments. It gave me the chance to see his blog, Jollyblogger, which I'd heard references to but not previously seen. Mr. Wayne is pastor of an evangelical church in Maryland and his blog is really pretty interesting. One post that particularly caught my eye concerned an op-ed piece by David Brooks urging that John Stott be pushed to the front as the public face of evangelical Christianity rather than the likes of Jerry Falwell. Brooks' article has gotten a lot of attention from the left side of the blogosphere and…
mikethemadbiologist | November 20, 2004Granted, at this point, I'm not going to trust polls ever again, but Gallup released a poll that examined religious beliefs. Part of the poll dealt with evolution and creationism. I found two good articles on the topic (here and here). As an evolutionary biologist, it's nice to see others, especially non-scientists entering the fray. It can be really frustrating at times, when you feel like you're the only one fighting the battle; the support helps and is appreciated.
I think part of the problem stems from a complete misunderstanding of what science is, how is works, and what it can't tell us…
stcynic | September 27, 2004Since I'm in the mortgage business, the frequent spam emails I get promising the lowest rates ever regardless of credit just get deleted out. But a few minutes ago, I got one that caught my attention, from ChristianMortgageUSA.com.
Refinance Your Home with Christian Lending Partners says my "lending advisor with biblical values." I sure hope that doesn't mean that they'll be using the interest they charge me to smite an infidel or stone a homosexual. More and more, I am inclined to cheer Bill Hicks' suggestion that anyone in advertising or marketing should kill themselves because they are…
stcynic | August 22, 2004Jon Rowe has written an absolute must-read essay on our favorite intrepid campaigner, Alan Keyes, and our favorite nihilist-who-sounds-like-a-fundamentalist philosopher, Allan Bloom. I was not aware until I read it that Keyes was the person that Bloom was referring to in his book The Closing of the American Mind, when he told the story of a black student at Cornell who had been threatened by radical black students and the administration would do nothing about it. In fact, other than the fact that they both are social conservatives, I had no idea that Keyes was a student of Bloom at all. As…
stcynic | August 22, 2004The last few days were rather stressful because of the hurricanes in Florida. Hurricane Charley was projected to be heading right for the community that Lynn lives in and she evacuated along with her brother and his family. As the hurricane approached land, however, it took a turn to the east and ended up hitting about 100 miles south of where she lives and her house and community ended up sustaining very little damage. This was quite a relief to both of us, as you can well imagine. But there's another side to that. It was an unexpected blow to the folks in Polk County, who thought they were…
stcynic | August 16, 2004The last few days were rather stressful because of the hurricanes in Florida. Hurricane Charley was projected to be heading right for the community that Lynn lives in and she evacuated along with her brother and his family. As the hurricane approached land, however, it took a turn to the east and ended up hitting about 100 miles south of where she lives and her house and community ended up sustaining very little damage. This was quite a relief to both of us, as you can well imagine. But there's another side to that. It was an unexpected blow to the folks in Polk County, who thought they were…
stcynic | August 5, 2004In the comments in response to a post on New Covenant about whether scientists can objectively analyze creationist/ID positions , Matt Powell writes the following, in obvious reference to me and our recent discussion:
In some of the recent discussions on morality, religion and Biblical philosophy, the same crew was just as quick to mock, deride and question my education and knowledge, despite the fact that I am trained in those areas. That makes me instantly suspect similar statements they make regarding the expertise of people like Johnson, Behe and Ross.
For the record, Matt, at no time in…
stcynic | August 3, 2004A few weeks ago, I reported on Falwell's blatant lie on TV that his ministry had never lost its tax exempt status in the past. When Barry Lynn brought it up, Falwell sputtered:
"Never. Never. Not one minute. Not one second. You are wrong. Never one second did we lose our tax exemption."
I posted the text of a NY Times article from April 7, 1993 showing that the IRS had revoked the tax exempt status of both the Old Time Gospel Hour and the Liberty Federation, both non-profits run by Falwell, and fined them $50,000 for violating tax laws for non-profit organizations. Turns out Falwell has…
stcynic | August 3, 2004Matt Powell, who has been commenting here for the last couple of weeks, writes on his own blog about the bible and slavery. His post includes the following statement:
And I reject a divine command theory of morality, which would teach that anything that God commanded is moral. Rather, I believe that the Bible teaches that morality flows from God's nature, and God cannot contradict his own nature. Therefore we avoid both saying that God could be absolutely capricious in His commands or decrees, and that God is subject to some prior or superior standard of morality. The first possibility could…
stcynic | July 30, 2004Jon Rowe has a post about the WorldNutDaily called Antistatism Makes for Strange Bedfellows. He says:
I think the strangest case of antistatist politicsin fact, libertarian politicsmaking for strange bedfellows is how the Christian Reconstructionists have managed to infiltrate libertarian circles, indeed calling themselves Christian libertarians. Like real libertarians, they too want to eliminate todays big-government.
And he goes on to note that the "christian libertarians" want to replace this big government with, of course, a biblical theocracy. I thought I'd add a little information to…
stcynic | July 26, 2004Rusty Lopez has written a more thorough response to my post on morality. I specifically brought up Numbers 31, and Rusty has taken up the cause to defend the biblical passage and the genocidal command allegedly given by God. Here is his defense:
There are several avenues of response available to the questions posed by Ed and Dark (very good questions, by the way). For one, I could discuss how the instances of God commanding the Israelites to slaughter their enemies varied in application. In other words, the commands were situation specific and had to do, among other things, with Gods judgment…
stcynic | July 25, 2004Matt Powell has continued the discussion that began here in a post on his blog. Here begins what is addressed to me:
You, like DarkSyde, keep switching the argument in the middle. If Moses simply claimed that God told Him to destroy the people of Canaan, but God did not tell him to, then Moses is just another bloodthirsty madman. Make that argument all you like. It won't convince anyone of anything. The whole difference comes down to whether or not you accept that God told him to. Half the time in your argument, youre trying to prove that the moral system of the Bible is repugnant, and…
stcynic | July 9, 2004With the recent controversy over the Bush administration's courting of churches in the 2004 presidential campaign going on, there was an interesting exchange between Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Jerry Falwell on CNBC's Capital Report on July 2nd. As the Americans United blog reports, here is how the exchange went:
Falwell agreed that the memo went too far and said he has been assured by the White House that it was written by an "underling" without "the blessing of anybody at the top." Then Falwell accused Lynn of trying to scare churches…
stcynic | July 8, 2004The Associated Press reports:
A religious fundamentalist was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison for plotting to blow up abortion clinics, churches he disagreed with and gay bars after a judge ruled he is not a terrorist under federal law.
Stephen John Jordi, who was turned in by relatives and church members, received the minimum sentence after U.S. District Judge James Cohn decided not to treat him as a terrorist as the prosecutors requested. They had wanted Jordi to receive a sentence of seven to 10 years...
Jordi corresponded with Paul Hill, who was executed last September for…
stcynic | June 15, 2004After writing that post about the Moonies and wondering how on earth there could be millions of people who believed something so monumentally absurd, I came across this poll from ABC News:
"I'm going to ask about a few stories in the Bible. Do you think that's literally true, meaning it happened that way word-for-word; or do you think it's meant as a lesson, but not to be taken literally?"
Literally True
Not Literally True
No Opinion
%
%
%
"The story of Noah and the ark in which it rained for 40 days and nights, the entire world was flooded, and only Noah, his family and the animals…