OK, if you’re familiar with the usual PowerPoint bashing, you might be entertained by this explanation of why PowerPoint is not Satan’s pull toy. I can distill it down a bit:
Basic common sense, I think—PP is just a tool that is very easily abused. There are also many more specific detailed suggestions at that link, though, so don’t just go by my suggestions.
Brock at Stupid Evil Bastard finds a fascinating map of US hate groups at the Southern Poverty Law Center. If you’re wondering what nastiness can be found in your neighborhood, it’s a handy reference. Minnesota has more Neo-Nazis and Christian Identity groups than I like to see, but you’ll have to look at the maps of California and Texas to see more scary stuff than this.
This is a slightly weird map—the Christian Identity group that looks like it is close to Morris is actually in Burnsville, south of Minneapolis, and should be way over to the east, near the cluster of swastikas. More accurate information can be found in the text accompanying the maps at the SPLC.
Here’s the weekly collection of submitted art (and other) featuring cephalopods.
I just got this email, addressed to “Dear Blog Author”. This must be the internet equivalent of evangelical door-knocking.
Invitation to Join Christian Bloggers
A small group of us have started a new site called Christian Bloggers. Our prayer and intent is to bring Christians closer together, and make a positive contribution to the Internet community. While many of us have different “theologies”, we all share one true saviour.
Would you be interested in joining Christian Bloggers? Please take a few minutes to have a look at what we are trying to do, and if you are interested, there is a sign up page to get the ball rolling. We would greatly appreciate your support in this endeavour.
May God Bless you and your blogging efforts. We look forward to hearing from you.
Wow, did they ever pick on the wrong guy.
Although, I don’t know…should I take them up on their offer? They don’t ask me to sign any loyalty oaths to Jesus, and all they do is ask for my denomination (“none”). My presence certainly would help bring them all together, I would think.
Some light reading:
Everyone is so reluctant to say what they think in the other threads, so fire away here.
You know how we great clumsy gallumphing unsophisticated atheists are always comparing belief in gods to belief in fairies at the bottom of the garden or tooth fairies or whatever? We may have to revise those arguments.
Now we really have to worry. If some space probe snaps a picture of an orbiting teapot, we’ll have nothin’.
Crap. Sean knocks the props out from under my godlessness. Now I’m going to have to convert to something…what does everyone recommend? Catholicism, LDS, Scientology, etc., or should I just go all the way primitive, erect a phallus-shaped rock in my backyard, and start worshipping that?
If you want to see how the other side thinks, and I mean more than just the vocal leaders at the top of the creationist movement, there’s an excellent example at The Friendly Atheist. It’s written by a fellow who visited his local church, Parkview Christian Church, and reviewed a 25 page pamphlet on creationism put out by the pastor, Tim Harlow.
I have to be blunter than the Friendly Atheist (he’s friendly, after all; I have no such qualifier): Reverend Tim Harlow is sincere, caring, literate, and open to conversation, but his pamphlet is 199 proof distilled stupid, aged in oaken casks and decanted with love. It’s a collection of “scientific” creationism’s greatest hits, from “evolution is just a theory” to “evolution causes sexual deviancy and Naziism”, by way of quote mining, tornadoes in junkyards, Piltdown man, the Loch Ness monster, and every logical fallacy trotted out by the parade of fools we’ve heard from between Henry Morris and Phillip Johnson. This thing is a hotbed of quote mining. He’s quoting Richard Dawkins in support of Intelligent Design creationism; he quotes Carl Sagan to say evolution is impossible; he’s even got the infamous dishonest partial quote of Darwin on the evolution of the eye.
This pamphlet is written as a letter to his children’s teacher, and it’s presented as the work of a well-meaning parent begging a teacher to be fair. I’ve had students who ask me to be fair, before—it usually means they’ve thoroughly bombed on some test, and want some special consideration for their errors. That attitude holds true here, too.
So, as a teacher, you are bound to teach evolution. That is not your fault: it is simply the reality and I do understand that fact. I just want to try to keep you open to the idea that my child, and probably most children in your classroom, do not believe that “theory.” I am asking you to teach (or continue to teach) evolution as just that — a “theory,” and keep your classroom open to other theories of the origin of the world. The essential issue of the famous Scopes trial that started all of this was the fundamental right in a free country to study any theories of origin. At that point, the courts decided that evolution could be taught with creationism. Somehow the pendulum swing went way over to the other side. I would suggest that many people — some scientists included — would like to see it swing back.
Right there in his opening entreaty he demonstrates that he doesn’t know what the scientific meaning of the word “theory” is; I am not kindly disposed. The rest of the pamphlet is even worse, and there wasn’t a single paragraph I could find that was untainted by error. Sorry, Harlow, but it’s only fair that I flunk you.
I hope no teachers are taken in by his phony plea, either. Yes, you are free to learn any old stuff and nonsense you want—does anyone doubt that Harlow’s children are getting thoroughly and repeatedly indoctrinated into the baloney in his pamphlet? —but the job of the public schools should be to teach the best, established, superstition-free ideas, not echo the unscientific myths of ill-informed parents in the community, of whom Harlow is an excellent representative.
Harlow is also representative of the kind of authority figures standing at church pulpits all across the country, trading in fellowship and community good works, and handing out lies, nonsense, and ignorance with a happy glint in his eye. And people believe him—after all, would a preacher lie to you?
Now the scary part: there are pastors like Harlow in your town, right now. And they have congregations that listen to them, and vote, and harass your public school teachers. You should be afraid.
It’s our very own Thanksgiving carol: Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant.
That guy, Larry Moran…he seems to have been the final straw to tip a whole lot of people into twitterpated consternation. In particular, Ed Brayton, that sad panjandrum of the self-satisfied mean, medium, middle, moderate, and mediocre, has declared Moran (and all those who dare to profess their atheism without compromise) to be anathema, and John Lynch, Pat Hayes, and Nick Matzke have drawn up sides to put themselves clearly against wicked “evangelical atheists” like Dawkins and Moran and even PZ Maiieghrs.
What could have prompted such vociferous contempt? What awful thing could Moran have said, on top of the usual pile of criminal sins of overt atheists so numerous they don’t need explanation, that would justify calling us “disturbing and dangerous” and “appalling and vile”? You will be shocked. UCSD is requiring their biology majors to take a course in evolution to remediate the failings of their freshmen, and is making all of their incoming freshmen attend an anti-ID lecture. This infuriated the usual gang of IDists. Larry took it a step further.
