A number of you wrote in to me to let me know that Hong Kong was considering labeling the Christian bible as indecent—it is full of violence and kinky-freaky sexual behavior, after all. It was also amusing how some people rationalized it.
That recent D’Souza article is a rich vein of lunacy that I have to tap once more. D’Souza has additional tools to woo conservatives in his toolbox: how about the naturalistic fallacy?
So…is Benny Hinn like a Kiai Master? This video is disturbingly nuts, with ol’ Hinn waving his hands at the True Believers and knocking them over. We need to smuggle some godless people in to one of his shows to just stand there and give him a quizzical look.
I’d been kinda hoping to be Inara, but this is good enough.
Your results:
You are Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)
Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 75% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 75% Wash (Ship Pilot) 70% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 55% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 30% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 25% River (Stowaway) 20% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 15% A Reaver (Cannibal) 5% Alliance 5% Inara Serra (Companion) 0% Honest and a defender of the innocent. You sometimes make mistakes in judgment but you are generally good and would protect your crew from harm.
Click here to take the “Which Serenity character are you?” quiz…
(via Evil Bobby)
The residents of Fargo have had to put up with one of those Ten Commandments monuments for a long time (well, “put up with” may be the wrong phrase—it’s North Dakota, after all). Now in a smart move, the Red River Freethinkers, who have to be especially canny to live in the Dakotas, are proposing a fair alternative to getting rid of the dodgy nonsense of the Ten Commandments: they’re proposing to put up their own monument to secularism.
Once it goes up, we ought to start a betting pool on which one gets vandalized first, and how long it will be.
Every once in a while, a reader sends me a link to something I’ve already dealt with (and that’s OK, I don’t expect everyone to have committed the entirety of the Pharyngula database to memory), but it’s a link to something so dang weird it’s worth reposting. In this case, I was sent a link to a page that purports to describe the beliefs of some Jehovah’s Witnesses about cats, where among many other jaw-dropping arguments, it gives us this jewel:
Indeed, modern studies of classification of cats, while not necessarily being reliable as they may be based on the discredited ‘theory’ of evolution, strongly associate felines with serpents (despite some external differences in physiology and morphology, which confuse those who do not study these matters deeply).
The consensus of the previous discussion was that the site is probably a satire, although it hews so close to the insanity of the actual religion that it’s hard to tell. It’s still funny either way, though. It’s also a good excuse to quote one of my favorite fantasy authors, Tanith Lee.
I guess Phillip Johnson stepped down from on high to deliver a thunderbolt of a defense of Intelligent Design creationism. At least that’s the impression you get from the IDists.
Ho hum. To me, it sounds more like an old man farted.
You can get an assessment from the rational people on the side of evolution, like Shalini, John Pieret, and Joe Meert. I think Larry Moran summarized it most succinctly.
Like most IDiot arguments, this one relies on two main points: (1) evolution is wrong, (2) the bad guys are picking on us. There isn’t one single scientific argument in favor of intelligent design.
Johnson whines and whines and whines, and is disappointed that “influential scientific organizations formed a solid bloc of opposition to the consideration of whether evidence points to the possible involvement of intelligent causes in the history of life.” There’s a reason they’ve opposed ID; the proponents never get around to offering any of that evidence we’re supposed to consider, and Johnson’s latest emission is no exception. Instead, we get a lot of nonsense about how Anthony Flew converted, sorta, and how we shouldn’t be afraid to let God into our science.
The gasbag of ID is slowly deflating, and the intellectual flabbiness is becoming apparent. Rather than rejoicing, the IDists ought to be dismayed that this is the best they can do, after years of phony triumphalism.
Am I supposed to believe religion is a force for morality, when I see so many examples of it more being a force for mindless obedience to arbitrary rules? This story out of Pakistan is disturbing in many ways.
Zilla Huma Usman, the minister for social welfare in Punjab province and an ally of President Pervez Musharraf, was killed as she was about to deliver a speech to dozens of party activists, by a “fanatic”, who believed that she was dressed inappropriately and that women should not be involved in politics, officials said today.
Ms Usman, 35, was wearing the shalwar kameez worn by many professional women in Pakistan, but did not cover her head.
Executed for not having a piece of cloth on top of her head; what god looks down on our world from his cosmic perspective and thinks that is an important concern for humanity? Allah, apparently; I can find commandments in the Bible that make similar demands.
Mr Sarwar appeared relaxed and calm when he told a television channel that he had carried out God’s order to kill women who sinned. “I have no regrets. I just obeyed Allah’s commandment,” he said, adding that Islam did not allow women to hold positions of leadership. “I will kill all those women who do not follow the right path, if I am freed again,” he said.
I’m sure religion’s defenders will shout long and loud that this guy Sarwar is simply an isolated lunatic, and that if he’d been an atheist he would still have been a monster. True enough; one asshole might be an exception, and godlessness is no guarantee of goodness, but a series of incidents is a pattern, and we have to look at who is inciting it.
General Musharraf, whose support for the US-led war on terror has caused consternation among Pakistan’s hardline elements, has promised to address women’s rights as part of his more moderate agenda.
But analysts said that the murder of the female minister highlighted the failure of his government in curbing Islamic extremism. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a recent report said that violence against women had increased alarmingly, with some of the incidents incited by Mullahs opposed to women’s emancipation.
Face it, everyone. Religion is not a source of moral behavior. It’s a source of tribalism and obedience to authority, which sometimes coincides with respectable morality, but isn’t necessarily associated with it. We have to find our virtue in one true thing, our common humanity, and these ancient superstitions actually interfere with instruction in how to be good by encrusting it with nonsense.
(via Pro-Science)
I earlier accused Vox Day of arguing that “murdering toddlers in the name of Jesus is defensible.”
He has since informed me that I have misinterpreted him.
Vox answers that offing two-year olds at the direct and 100-percent confirmed command of the Almighty is the moral act. Jesus never entered into it one way or another, let alone a self-motivated or (presumably) delusional act justified post facto by an exculpatory invocation of Jesus Christ’s name.
I had no idea that Vox was an adherent of the Arian heresy, but OK. It makes, of course, a huge difference in the moral status of the butchery of toddlers if it is done at God’s command (thumbs up!) vs. Jesus’s orders (no, no, no…although it does rather put a sinister twist on his command to “suffer the little children to come to me,” doesn’t it?). And getting an order to murder small children from God would never be a delusional or self-motivated act.
All clear on that, everyone? You have to get a note from God (not Jesus, that wimp) first, and then you can go on your killing spree.
And it’s a dud. They’ve got two complaints against Randy Olson’s Flock of Dodos posted, neither of which are particularly stunning.
