Look in your own backyard for the religious crazies. Here’s a letter that was published in the St Cloud Times which I found simply unbelievable—it’s a plea to people to obey the bloodthirsty skygod of the Bible, and it makes an awful argument.
Researchers compared levels of aggression (measured in a test where participants get to blast each other with loud noises) between students at Brigham Young University (99% True Believers) and Vrije University in Amsterdam (50% God-Wallopers). They also compared aggression after reading a quotation that enjoined them to “take arms against their brothers and chasten them before the LORD”. The results: getting God’s permission increases levels of aggression.
The research sheds light on the possible origins of violent religious fundamentalism and falls in line with theories proposed by scholars of religious terrorism, who hypothesize that exposure to violent scriptures may induce extremists to engage in aggressive actions. “To the extent religious extremists engage in prolonged, selective reading of the scriptures, focusing on violent retribution toward unbelievers instead of the overall message of acceptance and understanding,” writes Bushman “one might expect to see increased brutality.”
Well, OK, but I’ve read substantial parts of the bible, and there is no overall message of acceptance and understanding. The overall message is that you will be rewarded for obedience and the Other will be tormented brutally. And at least in American religion, the poetry and bits about tolerance are downplayed to give more time to the hellfire and worldly imperialism bits.
The other day, the Time magazine blog strongly criticized the DI’s list of irrelevant, unqualified scientists who “dissent from Darwin”, and singled out a surgeon, Michael Egnor, as an example of the foolishness of the people who support the DI. I took apart some of Egnor’s claims, that evolutionary processes can’t generate new information. In particular, I showed that there are lots of publications that show new information emerging in organisms.
Egnor replied in a comment. He’s still completely wrong. The Discovery Institute has posted his vapid comment, too, as if it says something, so let’s briefly show where he has gone wrong.
The early word is that he didn’t say a word about Intelligent Design creationism or evolution, which is fine with me…but instead gave the standard Rethuglican “rah-rah for the war!” speech, which is even worse. He’s all in favor of the “surge”, and is predicting we’ll know how it’s all going to work out in a matter of months.
McCain, a decorated Vietnam veteran who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war, said he hopes Americans will be patient and give the new Iraq strategy, led by Gen. David Petraeus, an opportunity to succeed. He said it should be clear within “some months” whether the plan is working.
For how many years have the Republican lickspittles been telling us we’ll have some kind of resolution within six months? It’s an eternally receding window of time, I think, and it’s about time to call these people on it. People on both sides are dying while Republicans dither.
Sometimes it’s the little things that are the most revealing, that expose the bankruptcy of an idea. For instance, this story from a Florida school where the principal and teachers cast a magic spell.
We knew this was going to happen. Our Crazy Jesus Lady now claims to have the inside scoop on the Iranian secret plan to take over the northern half of Iraq, name it the Iraq State of Islam, and use it for a terrorist training ground. She didn’t say how she knows this. My money is on some god whispering it in her ear one night, along with the gay secret plan to put spy cameras in her bathroom.
Greg Laden reminds me that today’s Science Friday will feature Ed Humes and Randy Olson talking about educating people about evolution—tune in!
Another week, another collection of carnivals, and important calls for submissions to more carnivals.
Send me links! The Circus of the Spineless #18 is going to be right here next week, and I only have a handful of submissions so far. Need…invertebrate…fix — gimme more.
We also have another edition of the Tangled Bank coming up at Neurotopia. Send me or host@tangledbank.net links to your more general science articles by Tuesday.
Tsk, tsk, Zeno…you’ve got a lot to learn about blackmail. First of all, you threaten to release the photos to the press and family and then ask for the money to prevent that from happening; you don’t get the pictures published everywhere first.
Secondly, the photos have to look something like me. OK, there is a dim resemblance in the one on the left, but I have an alibi—I was nowhere near New Zealand at the time. The one on the right is clearly very old from the costume, which is from my days in our band* back in the 1970s, before I married my wife. And she knows about the relationship. And it was just a fling. And I was hopped up on molluscan pheromones anyway, and didn’t know what I was doing. Besides, as you can see, that squid was something of a tramp.
Anyway, if anyone ought to be blackmailed, it’s that guy Steve O’Shea. Here’s a photo from the Tongarewa Massage Parlor in Wellington—look how relaxed that squid is!
*I have no musical talent; the band was called Evo Devo, and we specialized in highly complex music that was built up from randomly generated and contingent processes, shaped by constraints on their interactions and functions. Well, actually, we were more interested in the interconnections between the instruments than any sound that might come out—our concerts consisted of several hours of finding objects on the stage and stringing and tracing cables between them, culminating in the sound check. We were never very popular with the audiences, but the roadies loved us.
You all remember Violet, the jar-opening octopus, I’m sure—well, Violet is also quite the fierce predator. I would suggest that keeping a pet octopus is not a wise decision if you happen to be an arthropod.
