David Barton exposed

David Barton is much beloved by the Christian right, his biggest fan being Mike Huckabee, who claims that contrary to established scholarship, historical records say that the founders of the United States envisaged a Christian nation. His way of operating is to drop citations left and right, giving him an air of authority. He claims to be in possession of over 100,000 original documents from the time of the Founding Fathers and he is fond of inserting copious citations to them, running into the hundreds. He and his followers then keep referring to these documents and the number of citations to them as conclusive proof of whatever assertion they make. Jon Stewart was one Barton’s victims last year, falling prey to this intellectual bullying in which Barton once again boasted about his documents and the number of citations. [Read more…]

Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand on religion and god

With Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate, we can expect some discussion of Ayn Rand. Her message that social programs are merely ways to siphon away the wealth produced by the productive members of society to benefit ‘moochers’ and ‘looters’ has gained traction in the current Republican party and Paul Ryan, darling of the Tea Party, was an outspoken and unabashed admirer of Rand as the source of his ideas and philosophy. [Read more…]

US nuns tell the Vatican to go to hell

Well, not explicitly, because nuns don’t use use that kind of language, at least in public. But that is how I read the subtext of the statement that was released yesterday following the annual national meeting of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious that represents 80% of the 57,000 US nuns. (Clarification thanks to Irreverend Bastard.) The assembly was attended by 900 of the 1500 nuns who make up the LCWR. [Read more…]

Infinities

The concept of infinity is hard to grasp because it is an abstraction. There are no tangible objects in our lives that are truly infinite in number so we really have nothing to compare it to. The only way to get an infinite number of anything is by invoking infinity elsewhere, which doesn’t really clarify matters much. [Read more…]

How the rich treat the poor

The blogger Tbogg, in his inimitable style, exposes the myth, propagated by some of the oligarchy’s media lackeys as part of their attempt to stave off the coming pitchfork revolt, that working class people admire the rich. They regale us with stories of how their own parents, though poor, were inspired by seeing ostentatious displays of wealth such as huge homes and multiple expensive cars. [Read more…]