Category Religion

WTF, Bill?

The governor of Colorado just signed into law a bill that expands Colorado’s antidiscrimination laws to cover transgendered people.

Bill Dembski says that this

points up the lunacy that ensues in a world without design

To which I can only say, WTF?

Is he saying that this is the sort of thing that happens in an undesigned world? If so, isn’t that an admission that this is an undesigned world?

Or is he saying that the Unspecified Intelligent Designer—who may or may not be the god of the Bible, or might be space aliens—hates teh TGs? (Psst, Bill: your fig leaf for right-wing fundie creationism isn’t working.)

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Religious Group Wants Special Rights for Churches

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit organization in Arizona, is unhappy about the IRS rules saying that churches can’t endorse political candidates. They’re asking preachers to engage in acts of civil disobedience by preaching about politics. Then, the plan is to get sued and have the IRS rule declared unconstitutional, on the grounds that churches have the right to free speech, and the government shouldn’t be telling them what they can and can’t say.

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Are All Southerners Superstitious Fools?

Last year, the governor of Georgia asked his citizens to perform a rain dance to alleviate the drought in that state.

Now the mayor of Birmingham, AL, Larry Langford, has decided that the crime rate in his city is way too high, and that it’s time to try to look as though he’s doing something about it.

I suppose if it were me, I’d start by sitting down with the police to find out what they’re doing and what support they could use from the mayor’s office. And since the University of Alabama’s Department of Justice Sciences is conveniently located in town, I’d call them up and see what works in crime prevention. I bet the FBI or DOJ might be helpful, too: maybe they can recommend a few speakers, or send some brochures, or something.

But obviously Langford isn’t me, because his innovative solution is to dress up in a burlap bag and shout.

That’s quite clever, actually: when the criminals hear about this, they’ll be too busy laughing their socks off to resist arrest.

Either that, or Langford and a large number of people around him really are credulous superstitious fools who believe in magic. And yet somehow manage to function in 21st century society.

Expelled: In Good Company

A certain movie was released in theaters today, and several critics have already weighed in on it. Rotten Tomatoes‘ tomatometer is a good tool for seeing at a glance how fresh (lots of good reviews) or rotten (lots of bad reviews) a movie is. But rather than jumping straight to the chase, allow me to place it in some sort of context:

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About the “Expelled” Animation

In case you missed the flap over the animation of cellular processes in the upcoming movie Expelled, here’s the nutshell version:

People at prerelease screenings said they saw footage from XVIVO/Harvard’s The Inner Life of the Cell. Bits of very similar animation appear in promotional clips for the movie such as this one. There’s a post at antievolution.org that shows stills from both films, side by side.

Now XVIVO, the makers of the original animation, are suing the makers of Expelled for copyright infringement.

My IANAL thoughts below the fold. Read More

Denyse O’Leary: Embarrassingly Ignorant?

Over at Dembski’s wankfest, Denyse O’Leary is having an outragegasm over her favorite PZ Myers quote. So nothing new to report in that respect.

But a few sentences caught my attention:

Myers, who teaches at a Minnesota liberal arts university that is proud of its status […]

But most Americans do not know even about it, let alone contemplate what it means that a teacher at a “liberal arts” university should express himself in this way.

Thus, a person who writes as Myers does is nonetheless viewed as a mild-mannered gentleman and scholar, worthy a place at a liberal arts university.

The only way I can imagine this making sense is if O’Leary thinks that a liberal arts college is a politically left-leaning school.

Denyse, if you happen to stumble upon this post, allow me to quote from a source you might trust: Conservapædia:

Liberal arts refers to the non-technical disciplines ordinarily taught as part of a baseline college education at American colleges. These include philosophy, history and English literature, and sometimes Latin, which lay the foundation for a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree. As such, many American colleges are referred to as “liberal arts institutions.” Technical fields of study are common, but not included under the aegis “liberal arts.” In Europe and Canada the Liberal arts are generally called the ‘Humanities’.

The term bears no connection with the modern political ideology of liberalism, save in the classic, historical sense.

Monique Davis Concedes Every Religious Argument

(Update, Apr. 10: Rep. Davis has apologized to Rob Sherman. Good on her. Oh, and the hearing described here wasn’t about the moment of silence thing.)

Eric Zorn reports an exchange in the Illinois General Assembly between State Rep. Monique Davis and Rob Sherman, an atheist who opposes Illinois’s law mandating a moment of silence:

Davis: I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children. […] What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous—

Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?

Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!

(Emphasis added. Oh, and the audio is also available.)

Stop right there. Reread what she said. She said it’s dangerous for kids to even know that there’s such a thing as atheism.

Davis conceded right there that religion has nothing going for it. If your viewpoint is so weak that it can’t tolerate so much as the existence of an opinion that you’re wrong, then you’ve lost; your viewpoint isn’t worth having.

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Fundamentalist Education

Over at Pharyngula, PZ presents this appalling video:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUeoem1gR3s&hl=en]

and points out

The really awful pedagogy. Over and over again, the creationist says some stock phrase and then pauses, waiting for his kids to fill in the missing word. This is simply demanding rote learning. Similarly, he leads the kids in asking a good question — “how do you know?” — while training them to ignore any answers. Right there on the wall is a description of radiometric dating methods, for instance, and they turn their back on it.

This seems to be of a piece with other fundamentalist traits. The oft-repeated assertion that morality and human rights come from God. Appeals to the Bible. Attempts to disprove evolution by discrediting Charles Darwin (or Richard Dawkins, or PZ Myers, or whoever’s the antichrist this week).

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Great Christina

Allow me to pimp Greta Christina’s Blog, for no other reason than that she’s worth reading, including a few articles that I wanted to write, but she beat me to it:

Why Religion Is Like Fanfic compares religious apologetics (why does the Bible say that Judas hanged himself in one passage, but that he exploded in another?) to fans coming up with explanations for incongruities in their favorite TV shows and book series.

On The Amazingness of Atheists… And Why It’s Doomed is about why the contemporary atheist movement will blow over, and why this is a good thing.

Go and show her some love.

What’s Up With “Expelled”?

On Saturday, I signed up for a screening of Expelled, and got a confirmation by email (two, actually, but that’s a different and altogether less interesting story) for the Apr. 1 showing in Owings Mills, MD.

Now, however, that show doesn’t appear on the RSVP web site. In fact, right now that site doesn’t list any upcoming shows, only past ones.

The confirmation message gave the address of a person at Motive Entertainment, so I wrote to her to ask what was going on. Owings Mills is a bit of a haul for me, so I’d rather not schlep out all the way to Baltimore if the screening’s been cancelled.

She wrote back saying that due to “scheduling changes”, the screening had been “postponed”.

I also can no longer find the link from the movie’s main site to the RSVP section. If I had to guess, I’d say it looks as though they’re trying to avoid a repeat of the PZ Myers/Richard Dawkins kerfuffle or something.