Hey, gang! We’ve got a Tangled Bank coming up at Quintessence of Dust like, TOMORROW. Links to your science writing are needed — send ’em in today to me or host@tangledbank.net, or you’ll miss the party.
We’re also running low on scheduled hosts — if you’d like to volunteer, drop me a note.
This is my favorite Roy Zimmerman song (so far). It just portrays perfectly the contradictory, weird mess of a country we live in.
As promised, here are the details on my debate this week.
Debate: Are Science and Religion Compatible?
An Evening of Stimulating Intellectual Discourse
with
Loyal Rue and PZ Myers
Sponsored by
Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists
Thursday, February 7, 2008
7:00pm – 10:00pm
West Bank Auditorium- Willey Hall
225 19th Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN 55455
I must say I like the tagline — “An Evening of Stimulating Intellectual Discourse” — since I don’t think this will be the kind of ferocious bloody battle some of you might be hoping for. Rue is a religious moderate, so I don’t anticipate any opportunities to go on a rampage by either of us. Come prepared with thought provoking questions; I told Dr Rue that if we can’t initiate any gunfire between the two of us, we could always turn on the audience and get some spectacle that way.
There’s also the suggestion from Rick Schauer that this might be an excuse for Free Beer. Come to the Campus Club, on the fourth floor of the Coffman Union, around six and even if the beer isn’t free we can fortify ourselves. I think I’ll also invite Rue to join us. He’ll be drinking the hard stuff, keep his glass filled.
By the way, my answer to the question will be a solid “no,” if you were wondering.
Don’t answer that. But just in case you can at least tolerate listening to me, I’m interviewed on NSTA’s Lab Out Loud podcast.
I would be the first to admit that the readership of Pharyngula is not a representative slice of America. We’ve self-selected for cynics and skeptics and atheists and science-minded people, and that’s all right … that’s the way I like it.
The viewership of something like ABC News, on the other hand, is something different. There you are getting a wider segment of the citizenry, including a lot of people who would faint and have heart palpitations if they were exposed to what Pharynguloids consider routine. You’ve got to appreciate it when John Allen Paulos uses his ABCNews soapbox to criticize the religiosity of our politicians — apparently he’s gotten a few savage emails over it already.
The comments on the article are a good mix, too — some are looney-tunes outraged Christians, but there are a number of relieved atheist/agnostic/non-dogmatic types who are pleased to see someone speak out against the poisoning of politics with faith. Maybe it would be a good idea for more godless people to head over their and express support for a good and frank columnist…hint, hint.
I’m going to the DFL caucus tomorrow night, and after seeing this video I’m thinking I ought to throw my vote to Mike Huckabee.
Maybe I can convince a few others to join me if I dress sexy enough.
A budding new freethought group at Wilfrid Laurier University made a dreadful mistake in their application: they actually admitted that their goal was “to promote science, freedom of inquiry, skepticism, and a good life without the need for superstition or religious belief.” I don’t know about you, but I think that final clause is rather an essential one for a freethought group, and is an important premise to lay out clearly. On the other hand, when was the last time you saw one of the ubiquitous campus religious groups state that they want to promote science, reason, skepticism, and open inquiry? They generally seem to be dedicated to the opposite.
But anyway, campus student administrators dithered and fussed and fretted over it, and finally issued a denial with this bit of petty handwringing:
While the Campus Clubs department understands the goals and visions of your organization, they are not compatible with the guidelines of what may be approved and incorporated into our department. While the promotion of reason, science and freedom of inquiry are perfectly legitimate goals, what is most in question in regards to your club’s vision is the promotion of “a fulfilling life without religion and superstition”. While this university is indeed technically a secular institution, secular does not denote taking an active stance in opposition to the principles and status of religious beliefs and practices. To be clear, this is not meant to say that the promotion of science and reason are illegitimate goals. But due to the need to respect and tolerate the views of others, the Campus Clubs department is unable to approve a club of this nature at this time. If you wish to adjust and rethink your club’s application and vision, you may resubmit a revised proposal at any time.
What self-serving dishonest tripe. They’ve got a Campus Crusade for Christ group; did they send them a rejection telling them that Wilfrid Laurier is a secular institution and therefore cannot be seen as endorsing a sectarian religious club? Is there a contract incoming students must sign that says they must all forfeit any independent thoughts that might be perceived as reflecting something other than the university’s mission statement? Apparently, the group organizers are thinking about rephrasing their application more diplomatically, but I think they’d be better off scouting the Canadian forests for a nice, sharp, splintery stick that they could send in with the suggestion that the prim and persnickety pecksniff who rejected their original application should sit on it and spin.
I’d also urge them to gather their potential members and protest publicly and loudly. There’s nothing like a good fierce howl to get a group off with a bang, and who needs official recognition for your group when your first action is to rally in opposition to the sanctimonious fusspots of the administration? When the gatekeepers are the problem, don’t pander to them, storm them.
(This is news all over the godless blogosphere: hat tip to Larry, Ron, Hemant, and a cynic.)
This is awesome. A band set a Chick tract to music, and not just any Chick tract, but one of the sickest, creepiest Chick tracts ever.
Any google experts out there? ERV has been having some difficulties — she keeps getting delisted by google, and then coming back up. Strangely, if you search for ERV, this currently comes up:
Wha…? Go to the link, and that text isn’t there. It’s as if someone has been whining to google, and their complaint is what’s appearing in the search. Maybe someone can explain this to us.
By the way, that text sure sounds like poor pathetic Casey Luskin, the sad little mouse. He’s always getting picked on by all those people who are bigger and meaner and smarter than he is; he probably wears a football helmet when he goes on the internets to protect his delicate little brain.
We’re in a war, we’re looking at a looming mortgage crisis, and I can tell you that our educational system is getting flushed down the tubes, and what does our brave congress do? Why, it decides to make the words “In God We Trust” bigger on our coins.
Responding to complaints from the Religious Right, Congress has passed legislation mandating that the phrase “In God We Trust” be moved from the edge to the back or front of the new presidential dollar coins.
President George W. Bush signed the measure into law Dec. 26. It was tucked into a $555 billion domestic spending bill after having been pushed by U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.). Brownback and other Religious Right conservatives have been complaining about the new coins since the series started last year.
Oh, yeah. That’s a solution. Maybe God will like us better if put his name in bigger print on our money.
They’re all demented fuckwits.
