Call Me Father
I am now a minister. Whee!
I just got a certificate from
Universal Life Church
saying that I have been ordained and “[have] all rights and privileges
to perform all duties of the Ministry.”
Another ID Argument Doesn’t Stand Up to Scrutiny
Over at casa de Dembski,
DaveScot tries to debunk a debunking of an ID argument. It goes
something like this:
Michael Behe: The bacterial flagellum is irreducibly
complex, that is, all of its components need to be in place before
it’ll work. It can’t have evolved by gradual addition and improvement,
because none of the subparts do anything until they’re all put
together.
Nick Matzke: Ah, but the Type Three Secretory System (TTSS), a
sort of bacterial syringe, is made up of proteins that look an awful
lot like ones used in the flagellum. That is, you can build
something useful using just some of the parts requied for a
flagellum, and that gives natural selection something to work with.
For instance, the flagellum could have evolved by adding parts to a TTSS.
DaveScot:
Ah, but I have here a paper about a species of bacterium that started
out with a flagellum, but lost most of its parts through natural
selection, leaving only the parts needed to construct a TTSS.
To which I reply below the fold.
Webster Cook Won’t Be Expelled
Since PZ’s on vacation, I might actually get a chance to scoop
Pharyngula with the
news
that a panel at the University of Central Florida voted unanimously to
dismiss all charges against Webster Cook and his friend Ben Collard in
the Crackergate matter. Good.
HT
Bill Donohue.
I’m the Literal-Minded, Intellectually Cramped, Irrational One
Crackergate (yes, if you’re tired of hearing about it, you can stop
reading now) seems to have exposed an unbelievable amount of
wackaloonery.
The Effectiveness of Prayer
Last month, the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy wrote a press release urging Catholics to do nothing in order to ensure that no one ever stick a nail through baby Jesus again.
This was scheduled for Aug. 1. And since PZ seems be his usual cheerful godless self, I was going to chalk another mark in the “prayer doesn’t work” column.
But then I noticed the NB at the bottom of the announcement:
Read More
A Couple More Quickies From BillDo
In case you woke up this morning thinking, “Gee, I wonder what Bill
Donohue is waxing wroth over today?”, there are a couple more items at
the
Catholic League website:
First of all, he’s
predictably pissed
that the
University of Minnesota Morris
code of employee conduct can’t be used to fire PZ Myers for being rude
to a piece of bread on his own time.
Apparently in Billy’s world, if you have a beer after work, you can be
fired because your employer has a rule against drinking on the job.
I was more intrigued by the other headline,
Eucharist Mocked in R.I. Play,
about the play
You’re Eating God
that just completed its run in Providence, RI.
According to
one review,
The title of the piece by Rachel Caris comes from one
of its lines, which one character delivers after seeing another
character ravenously eat a pile of Eucharistic hosts. People do
strange things when they’re hungry. And that’s inevitable after living
four months in a 1960s backyard bomb shelter.Caris’ play mocks the mentality of the Cold War, and
satirically questions the conventions of Catholicism. And while there
is social, political and religious commentary, at heart Eating serves
up a character study, where the characters — mother, father, son,
daughter, grandmother and grandfather — are all quirky from the start.
And they get quirkier with every passing captive and stir-crazy day in
the bomb shelter.
Sounds like fun. I wonder if Caris will be touring within play-going
distance of here.
But according to BillDo,
Catholic schoolboy traditions are fair game for a play
that pokes gentle fun at Catholicism. But that is not what this play
is about: There is nothing gentle about mocking the Eucharist. This
should be known even to those who are not Catholic.
So now it’s not even okay to eat prop hosts to make fun of catholic
superstitions? I can’t express my feelings properly because I can’t
find the Unicode code point for “world’s smallest violin”.
I’ll leave the last word to Christopher Hitchens, from his
introduction to
The Portable Atheist:
A terrible thing has now happened to religion. Except in the places
where it can still enforce itself by fear superimposed on ignorance,
it has become one opinion among many. It is forced to compete in the
free market of ideas and, even when it strives to retain the old
advantage of inculcating its teachings into children (for reasons that
are too obvious to need underlining), it has to stand up in open
debate and submit to free inquiry.
Miraculous Apparition
Miraculous apparitions are all the rage these days, and I finally got one of my own. Some people get Jesus, others the Virgin Mary or the name of Allah. Phil Plait got Vladimir Lenin. I got…
Two-Bit Git Pitches Shit-Fit
BillD has recovered from the vapors, and posted the expected press release about PZ being mean to a piece of bread and a couple of books.
Of course, being a devout follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ, Donohue turned the other cheek and blessed PZ.
Ha! Whom am I kidding? Apparently the worst he could do, since it’s no longer legal to burn people alive for stabbing bits of bread, was to contact the University of Minnesota and demand that they investigate “a bias incident” that he committed on his own time, and not while on university business.
Ecce douchebag.
Poe’s Law Strikes Again
I’m going to perform a magic trick for you. Think of a card, any card. Got it? Okay, now click on the awesome magic hat of awesome magic stupendousness:
Ta-da! I told you I was going to do a magic trick, but I gave you two for the price of one: not only did the hat turn into your card, I also made your card look just like the hat! Isn’t that amazing?!
“No,” I hear you mutter, “what would be amazing would be if someone with a double-digit age actually fell for that.”
Plucky Documentary Plans Comeback
According to Fox News
and
Variety,
(… ← help yourself to a grain of salt) Yoko Ono has lost
her suit against the makers of
Expelled: No Intelligence Involved Allowed
for the unauthorized use of John Lennon’s Imagine. The
movie will be rereleased in theaters.
In related news, Expelled has gone from 9% on the
tomatometer
to 8%, which puts it in the same Outback as
Kangaroo Jack.