Category Religion

God in the Texas Pledge

Did you know that Texas has a pledge, much like the pledge of allegiance? I didn’t, until I ran across this article in the Houston Chronicle saying that the Texas legislature has added to it the words “one state under God”.

Why? Debbie Riddle (R-Gilead) says:

“Personally, I felt like the Texas pledge had a big old hole in it, and it occurred to me, ‘You know what? We need to fix that,’ “

Perhaps the good citizens of Texas would have been better served if their state legislators had looked to Iraq and taken the month off.

I don’t see how this can possibly pass constitutional muster. According to the article, saying the Texas pledge has been mandatory since 2003. If there’s a more clear-cut case of violation of separation of church and state, I haven’t seen one yet. Then again, if and when someone sues (the article quotes Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State), they’ll be able to whip people up into a frenzy over those damlibruls who “want to take God out of our schools”.

What would Jesus think of this sort of all-god, all the time mentality?

Matthew 6: 5“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

But I don’t suppose one can expect True Christians to listen to some 2000-year-old long-haired hippie Jew.

Fundamentalist Math

(Update, Aug. 6, 2007: Hey, this post appears in the 51st Philosophers’ Carnival. And I didn’t even submit it. How cool is that?)

I didn’t think it was possible to write a Christian math textbook. I mean, math is math, right? But this comment at Pharyngula pointed to an article in Harpers that purports to give excerpts from just such a book, Precalculus for Christian Schools, published by Bob Jones University Press.

I don’t normally read Harpers, so I don’t know whether they publish humor. And the excerpts they quoted seemed just too wacky to be true. Or would be, if it weren’t for Poe’s Law.

So I decided to be a good skeptic and check it out. One Amazon reviewer quoted the Harpers excerpts, which most likely meant he was copying from them. Then I found that BJU Press has a sample chapter online.

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The Long D’oh! Man

If you’ve read Terry Pratchett’s Lords and Ladies, you may remember the Long Man, a figure cut into a hillside, inspired by the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset, in England.

To promote the new Simpsons movie, a new figure, of Homer Simpson in tighty-whities and holding a doughnut, has been painted on a neighboring field (in water-soluble paint, so it should wash off when it rains).

What’s funnier, though, is the reaction of the local Pagan community:

Ann Bryn-Evans, joint Wessex district manager for The Pagan Federation, said: “It’s very disrespectful and not at all aesthetically pleasing.

“We were hoping for some dry weather but I think I have changed my mind. We’ll be doing some rain magic to bring the rain and wash it away.”

Point 1: Lighten up, dudes. Bitching about this being “disrespectful” makes you look as wacky and unhinged as the Christian nutjobs protesting The Life of Brian and The Last Temptation of Christ.

Point 2: Rain magic? Rain magic?! In case you hadn’t noticed, this is the 21st century. We know what causes rain, and it ain’t rain fairies or however you think it works.

Point 3: The oldest written references to the Cerne Abbas Giant only date back to the 17th century. In a country that’s been continuously inhabited since long before there was even such a thing as the English language, this is the equivalent of last week’s graffiti in the subway. So either this “symbol of ancient spirituality” went unnoticed for thousands of years (including by medieval Christians, not known for their tolerance of pagan symbols), or else this is really an 18th century farmer’s way of telling his neighbor, “I’m gonna beat your skull in, then make you squeal like a pig.”

So please cut out the drama. And next time you’re at Marks & Spencer, pick up a sense of humor.

Some ID Research Projects

TR Gregory at Genomicron has a list of ten research projects for ID proponents, all having to do with non-coding DNA. An excellent list, and any ID researcher should jump on it, if only to demonstrate that ID is science.

(HT Freshbrainz)

Kent Hovind Tribute

Definitely NSFW. And about as subtle as a hammer to the ‘nads.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEGEl4uHQAU]

(HT PZ)

(Update: Bonus video. The Upright Citizens Brigade have filmed a live-action version of Jack Chick’s classic tract, Big Daddy.)

Jo Hovind Gets Time

The Pensacola News Journal has the news about Jo Hovind’s sentencing:

Jo Hovind, the wife of creationist theme-park owner Kent Hovind, stood solemnly beside her attorney Friday as U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers handed down a sentence of one year and one day in federal prison.

Jo Hovind, 51, also was ordered to pay $8,000 in fines and three years supervision when she is released from prison.

Which I guess brings closure to the Hovind saga. Now, when are we going to see similar indictments against Ken Ham, Pat Robertson, etc?

I Slept Through the Nuclear War… Again

Long-time readers may remember Yisrayl Hawkins, who predicted that a nuclear war would start on Sep. 12, 2006.

Some of you may be wondering why CNN didn’t mention this rather newsworthy event. Simply put, on that day, Paris Hilton’s parents visited her in prison, so the media couldn’t take time out to report on anything as trivial as millions of people dying at once.

Nuclear Baby

No, really, Hawkins’s excuse is that on that day, the Nuclear Baby™ was conceived.

This nuclear baby was conceived September 12, 2006 and just as with a woman with child, nine months later the delivery is due, which will bring us to June 12, 2007. This nuclear baby will actually kill one-third of man over a fourth part of the earth in and around the great River Euphrates.

(emphasis added)

So far, this baby is over two weeks late, which seems rather impolite.

For whatever reason, his site now says

16 days remaining before the due date for the birth of the Nuclear Baby!

107 days remaining before 4/5 of the Earth’s population is dead because of nuclear war, famine, disease, and other curses of sin.

(for those who don’t do mental time_t arithmetic, that’s Jul. 14 and Oct.13, respectively, so mark your calendars. Or don’t) from which I gather that he found some clarifying passages in the Bible, perhaps in the Book of Excuses. But as far as I can tell, everything on his site still has the old Jun. 12 date.

Now, can I add this to the list of Umpteen Successful Bible Prophecies that fundies like to pass around?

Jo Hovind Update

Kent Hovind’s site reports that his wife Jo will be sentenced tomorrow, Jun. 29, at 9:00 a.m. I guess we’ll see what happens.

AIG’s Creation Museum

I’ve finally written up my visit to the Creation Museum.

Is This Really What Passes for Thinking Among Theologians?

dlighe pointed me at an article in Christianity Today by Alvin Plantinga, The Dawkins Confusion. He seemed to find it interesting, and there are a lot of links to it from the blogosphere, and they seem to agree that it’s a good, solid refutation of Dawkins’s The God Delusion.

To which I can only say, WTF?

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