The Morris Theater is having a special, one-time only, matinee showing of a special movie on Sunday at noon. It’s God’s Not Dead 2! If you saw the first one, you know it’s going to be nauseating experience, and I just can’t miss it. Anyone out there in the Stevens County area want to join me? Even if the movie sucks (and it will), you can at least enjoy the spectacle of watching me turn purple and splutter.

I think afterwards I’ll stroll over to the Old #1 bar and do my best to forget the movie.

No guarantees that we’ll get in, though. This is the only showing in town, so I kind of expect all the worst people in town — you know, the kind who wear homophobic t-shirts — will be packing the joint. If we can’t get in, though, we’ll consider it a shortcut to Old #1.

It’s an article in The Humanist titled “Why Science Is Not in Conflict with Religion”…but its whole point is that religion is completely wrong. It argues that the existence of an interventionist deity is a question of science; it mentions that religions make scientific claims all the time.

All religions, particularly the “big three” Abrahamic religions, make claims about the natural world that clearly fall under the purview of one or more fields of science.

I’m reading the whole thing and agreeing with it, and wondering how they’re going to argue themselves out of this discussion of major conflicts to deny the existence of a conflict, and they sort of do, at the end.

Science will continue to advance. Predictions will be made and conclusions drawn, many that are accurate but others that will be in need of revision as further evidence is compiled. Humans will continue to gather information about every aspect of the natural world, and if findings don’t correspond with or support religious beliefs, as has happened throughout history, then the theists do themselves and humankind a disservice by denying objective evidence. The scientific process is neutral; it is objective and seeks only to discover new information, and thus is not in conflict with any entity besides itself as it self-corrects and achieves greater accuracy over time. If there is indeed a conflict, that conflict was fabricated by those whose agenda is driven by subjective beliefs and who fight to preserve positions that are no longer tenable in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Oh. There’s the problem. Science is objective and neutral and just plain true, therefore it’s not in conflict with mere subjective beliefs.

I’m sorry, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to simply declare that your position is ultimately the correct one, that your authority is the universe itself, and therefore you aren’t really conflicting with anything that matters. This is a kind of bland scientism that obliviously steamrolls right over the issues in question.

There clearly is a conflict when a majority of Americans believe in a divine authority as the cause of the entire universe, and claim the authority of a supreme being greater than the universe as the source of their information. Waving that fundamental assumption aside as irrelevant because Science is not a valid way to address the question. The points the author brings up are valid, and they may refute the existence of a deity, but do not refute the existence of a conflict.

Anyone who is at all involved in science also knows that there isn’t simply a truth laid out in a clear path before us. We struggle within science to figure out what’s true, so it’s unfair to pretend it’s obvious what’s right in a conflict outside of science. Do the work. There is no shortcut.

It’s as if two fighters climb into a ring, and the referee looks them over and announces that A is 5 pounds heavier than B and has a longer reach, therefore this fight does not exist and A has won it. There are no victories by fiat, and you’d better realize that we really are in a battle here.

Another Christian has written a book to lie about Christopher Hitchens. This one is claiming that he and Hitchens were great good buddies, that Hitchens was sympathetic to Christianity, and that he may have converted on his deathbed (he doesn’t know for sure — he wasn’t there — but he’s going to sell a book with that claim).

He appeared with Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Monday night.

He read the book and he loved it, Taunton said of Matthews. He knew Hitchens, and he liked Hitchens. He thought it was a compassionate take on friendship. I don’t know if I can write anything ever again that gets universal praise from both the left and the right. This book is getting quite a reaction. The reception has been so kind, no nice. The atheist Michael Schermer loved the book.

Oh, now that’s a great recommendation.

[Read more…]

Joseph Mercola, the popular quack, has been selling tanning beds with a twist. He’s been claiming that exposing yourself to fairly high intensity ultraviolet light will prevent cancer. That’s right. An exposure that causes a low level of direct DNA damage prevents skin cancer, according to a quack.

The courts weren’t going to buy that nonsense, so Mercola settled a false advertising suit, promised to refund up to $5.3 million in tanning bed sales, and to never do it again. Of course he already has an explanation.

But speaking Thursday, Mercola said he only settled the case as “a business decision,” and stands by his claims that his tanning beds had cancer-fighting benefits and that Americans were suffering from what he called an “epidemic” of under-exposure to ultraviolet light, which he said could be treated by “moderate” sun bed use.

The duck says what?

He also swears he’s not selling these things for the money, but solely to help people.

While he acknowledged Thursday that he’d sold thousands of tanning beds between 2012 and last year, he said his business is not “a tool … to get me a bigger house and car” but rather a means of funding his mission to “inform consumers” about “natural health.”

He said he moved from the Chicago area to Florida, where he owns a waterfront mansion, four years ago because of his belief in the health benefits of the sun.

He’s not in it for the money, but he’s able to shrug off a $5 million judgment and has a waterfront mansion in Florida.

I have suddenly thought of one good consequence of global warming. One.

Since some Republicans want to criminalize masturbation, we’re going to have to come up with an alternative for lonely, frustrated people. Now there are lots of dead people around (and surprisingly, necrophilia is not illegal in some states), but I wouldn’t recommend sex with corpses — they are not at all responsive and tend not to be good partners — but what about spectrophilia? It turns out that some people think you can have sex with ghosts, and this has not been criminalized anywhere, yet.

Here’s how to do it.

1. Be in a great personal space — clean, happy, good mood. Be in your good senses.

2. Prepare your space: candles, incense, mood lighting, sexy music (just as if you were inviting in a living lover). Do NOT burn sage; that will keep spirits away.

3. Define your space and set its boundaries (i.e., bedroom only).

4. Protect your space in whatever way works with your belief system.

5. Start doing some slow deep breathing. Begin visualizing your ghostly lover — what it/he/she feels like, etc. ASK the universe (or whomever) to send you a ghostly lover. Be very clear that you want it to be positive, good, loving, and light — as well as hot, of course!

6. Softly add a chant to your deep breathing — something short that you can repeat easily, like “Come to me, loving spirits.”

7. Believe.

8. Hopefully you will start feeling sensations. You may hear something, smell something, notice orbs of light or shadow. Hopefully the physical sensations are coming — often a feeling of pressure on the body, the feel of a soft touch, and then different forms of sexual stimulation. Enjoy it!

9. Throughout your encounter, communicate with the spirit. Make sure there is mutual respect and that NOTHING is done or allowed that YOU are not happy or comfortable with.

10. When it is over, thank the spirit (you can decide it you want to invite it back or not) and CLOSE THE VEIL or portal that you opened. Consciously, verbally state that all entities must leave and you are closing the veil.

A couple of people tried it, and there’s only one small problem: ghosts don’t exist. But if they did, it’s nice to see that they expect consensual, respectful sexytimes.