Topics pertaining to religions (yes, plural) and how they help and hinder people.
It’s so hard to find a good, credible, looming disaster to panic about, and then those pesky scientists keep destroying the few that we manage to find. Runaway global warming keeps getting kicked in the teeth by inconvenient facts. Nuclear power disasters persistently refuse to be anywhere near as disastrous as people hope. Scientific advancement …
Continue reading ‘“RIP: Peak Oil – we won’t be running out any time soon”’ »
This sounds like something directly out of science fiction, to me.
A “National Day of Prayer”? “One Nation Under God”? “In God We Trust”? I’ve heard people claim that they’re proof that America was founded on Christian principles. If the speaker acknowledges freedom of religion at all, he invariably means that everyone must be free to practice his religion. Thing is, all three of those were …
Continue reading ‘“Religious Expressions Are Rooted in Fear-Based Politics”’ »
The synopsis: Religion and brute force failed to quash the idea of Darwinian evolution. Creationists and their Bible verses just irritated nonbelievers. Now Intelligent Design (ID) tries to topple Darwin again, not by offering a viable alternative, but by trying to co-opt the same concepts that have raised science to its current strength. Unfortunately for …
Continue reading ‘“The Other Intelligent Design Theories”’ »
Just in case you were wondering. 😉 I don’t know the context of that quote, but I’m very concerned about the science deniers in the US. It seems that, despite mandatory science classes in high school, most people still don’t understand science. Conservatives seem to think that science is like religion: convince enough people of …
Continue reading ‘“Moon *Not* Made of Cheese, Physicist Explains”’ »
Ever get the impression that some assholes will do anything for a little publicity? And that those same assholes generally have far too much time on their hands? If the First Amendment were ever put on trial, these people — who I won’t explicitly name because it would give them the undeserved recognition they’re trying …
Continue reading ‘“Gay-bashing cult plans picket of Steve Jobs funeral”’ »
Ridiculous. The belief that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old is about on par with the heliocentric geocentric model of the solar system — the evidence is pretty damning against both. However, as I suggested recently to a voluble evolution denier, they’re welcome to try. The discipline of science is self-correcting, and will …
Continue reading ‘“Creationists are infiltrating US geology circles”’ »
Interesting article, but I especially love the “Mormon porn” at the bottom. (Don’t worry, Ploni, if it’s safe for Mormons, it’s safe for you too.)
A very long article, but the basic gist of it can be summed up by this paragraph from the middle: […] To put this in context: Out of more than 150,000 murders in the United States since 9/11 — currently more than 14,000 each year — Islamist terrorists accounted for fewer than three dozen deaths …
Continue reading ‘“Why Is It So Hard to Find a Suicide Bomber These Days?”’ »
This week, on the Colbert Report, I heard something that shocked me: some evangelical Christian scientists were beginning to publicly doubt that humanity could be descended from one man and one woman, as described in the book of Genesis. The reason it shocked me is that I couldn’t believe that someone who identified himself as …
Continue reading ‘“Are Some Evangelicals Beginning to Question the Existence of Adam and Eve?”’ »