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Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination. —Edward Abbey

Huckabee and the U.S. Constitution January 16, 2008

Posted by Rastaban in : State & Church , 14 comments

Mike Huckabee thinks the U. S. Constitution is a problem. What problem is that? Well, it doesn’t adhere to God’s standards. Sheesh, it doesn’t even mention God. Nor Christianity. What were the founders thinking?

So Huckabee wants to amend the Constitution to make it properly subservient to God and his divine standards. He doesn’t exactly say what standards he has in mind, at least it’s not reported here

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.

Perhaps he’d like us to imitate the current Iraq Constitution, with it’s long religious preamble and enshrinement of Sharia, in contrast to what Americans currently have. . . (more…)

IHEU corrects UN Human Rights Council November 4, 2007

Posted by Rastaban in : Atheist Culture, Bush Wars, Civil Unliberties, State & Church , 1 comment so far

The International Humanist and Ethical Union monthly news email just came. Among their recent activities they have endorsed a letter sent by Diana Brown of the World Population Foundation to the U.N. Human Rights Council objecting to their resolution (also brought to the UN General Assembly) against the “defamation of religion”.

The problem is that the U.N. Human Rights Council’s wording is so broad that it condemns not just biases against people of various religious traditions, but any “defamation” of the content of those religious traditions. Instead of defending, this betrays human rights. (more…)

Teach the Controversy June 6, 2007

Posted by Rastaban in : Evolution & ID, Naturalism , add a comment

One thing advocates of teaching Intelligent Design (ID) in school like to say is why not expose kids to both sides and “teach the controversy.” I’m actually very sympathetic to this approach. The goal of education is to learn how to reason and evaluate evidence on your own, not merely have your head loaded up dogmatically with “facts.”

However, there’s no scientific controversy between evolution and ID; therefore no appropriate way to present the controversy in science class. ID relies on abandoning the scientific method and declaring that despite all the scientific evidence, evolution (at least macro-evolution) does not occur.

There is a controversy, of course. But it’s not a scientific controversy. (more…)

Christian ‘BattleCry’ to save America’s Soul May 29, 2006

Posted by Rastaban in : Bush Wars, Christinsanity, State & Church , 2 comments

Sunsara Taylor reports on a recent BattleCry rally of 17,000 young people in Philadelphia. BattleCry is Ron Luce’s effort to engage young Christians in order to return the United States to “Christian” values. Taylor reports,

‘A featured speaker, Franklin Graham, who delivered George Bush’s first inaugural prayer, was introduced. . . .

The “heart” of Graham’s speech was a call for holy war. He preached about the “battle for souls of men and women from North to South, East to West, over the entire earth.” There is, he declared, “No way to God but through Jesus Christ.”‘

Franklin Graham and Ron Luce seem to be off the same religious block as Charles Stanley, head of the First Baptist Church in Atlanta and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, who declared in a sermon that “God is in favor of war” during the propaganda run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. (more…)

Doctors Complain about Health Lies May 25, 2006

Posted by Rastaban in : Bush Science, Christinsanity, State & Church , add a comment

Now that conservative Christians have gained control over the Federal and some State governments, doctors are complaining about “unreliable” and in some cases entirely false information showing up on government websites and in sex education programs. So reports an article in Glamour magazine titled “The new lies about women’s health” by Brian Alexander. Glamour’s own investigation found “blatantly false anticondom information” on both state & Federal websites. According to the article,

“radical conservative activists have used fudged and sometimes flatly false data to persuade the government to promote their agenda of abstinence until marriage. The fallout: Young women now read false data on government websites, learn bogus information in federally funded sex-education programs and struggle to get safe, legal contraceptives.”

Perhaps even more shocking are efforts by the anti-sex crowd to prevent release of Merck’s new vaccine Gardasil, which protects women from cervical cancer. Why? Because it would take away one of their (misleading) arguments against condoms: namely, that condom use doesn’t protect against HPV and that HPV causes cervical cancer.

“The public should be outraged at this misrepresentation of facts for political reasons,” says Dr. Holmes. “This really reveals the true agenda for those who have argued that the reason for not promoting condoms is to protect girls against HPV.” If you truly cared about HPV prevention, his reasoning goes, you’d be thrilled at the advent of a vaccine to save women’s lives. “It really illustrates that the opposition to condoms has nothing to do with protecting women and girls,” he says, “but everything to do with opposition to discussion of sexual health.”

“The new lies about women’s health” by Brian Alexander, Glamour, Apr 3, 2006

More Unintelligent Design May 2, 2006

Posted by Rastaban in : Evolution & ID, Non-Existence Arguments , add a comment

Intelligent Design advocates like to claim that evolution can’t explain the existence of “irreducible complexity” in humans and other species. But they would be much better served worrying about the far greater difficulty Intelligent Design faces: how to explain mistakes and flaws in the “design” of humans and their world — or to put it another way, how to explain “blunders” by the intelligent designer. (After all, the intelligent designer is God, and God is supposed to be infallible.)

The latest example of a design “oversight” in humans was reported yesterday by EurekAlert!. Researchers at the Univ. of Calif San Diego School of Medicine have discovered the existence of certain T-cell molecules called “Siglecs”, “immune-dampening proteins that bind to sialic acids” which (more…)

In Praise of Folly January 10, 2006

Posted by Rastaban in : Christinsanity, Prayer, State & Church , add a comment

Where is Erasmus when you need him? The Catholic divine might have thought he chased this sort of folly out of Christianity 500 years ago, but it appears not.

. . . three Christian ministers today blessed the doors of the hearing room where Senate Judiciary Committee members will begin considering the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito on Monday.

Capitol Hill police barred them from entering the room to continue what they called a consecration service. But in a bit of one-upsmanship, the three announced that they had let themselves in a day earlier, touching holy oil to the seats where Judge Alito, the senators, witnesses, Senate staffers and the press will sit, and praying for each of the 13 committee members by name.

“We did adequately apply oil to all the seats,” said the Rev. Rob Schenck, who identified himself as an evangelical Christian and as president of the National Clergy Council in Washington.
. . .
The two men, along with Grace Nwachukwu, general manager of a group called Faith and Action, read three Psalms outside the committee room, knelt to say the Lord’s Prayer and marked a cross in oil on the committee door before leaving. –Wall Street Journal, Jan 5, 2006

Intelligent Design Unveiled February 21, 2005

Posted by Rastaban in : Evolution & ID, Naturalism , add a comment

Natural History magazine (4/02) has a set of articles on intelligent design: three by intelligent design advocates Michael J. Behe, William A. Dembski, and Jonathan Wells, followed by three responses by Kenneth R. Miller, Robert T. Pennock, and Eugenie C. Scott. Then an interesting article about the history and strategy of intelligent design advocates by Barbara Forrest. And last, Ian Tattersall weighs in on science vs. religion and argues that they are not really in conflict!

At least, they would not be in conflict, he seems to say, if religionists would only stay in their place — which is to reveal timeless, absolute truths–and stay out of the scientific realm — which deals with knowledge that is provisional and anything but absolute. Tattersall writes:

“How can we make progress in science if what we believe today cannot be shown tomorrow to be somehow wrong or at least incomplete? Religious knowledge is in principle eternal, but scientific knowledge is by its very nature provisional.”

He goes on to say

“scientists are in pursuit of knowledge about mundane realities and are not in the business of revealing timeless truths.”

True enough. But has he succeeded in setting up “non-overlapping magisteria” (as I believe Stephen J. Gould described it) between science and religion?

He has not. The distinction between absolute and provisional truth is not a distinction of subject matter but rather a distinction of the nature of knowing. (more…)