Gimme that Old-Time Irreligion

A book review by Norman Levitt.

The very first thing I did in drafting this review was to Google Chester Alan Arthur. I trust my readers will recall the name, if only after a bit of head-scratching, as that of one of the most obscure and unmemorable of American presidents, a run-of-the-mill New York politician who attained to the highest office in the land by virtue of the assassination of his almost equally obscure predecessor, James A. Garfield, who picked the party wheel-horse Arthur as his running mate for reasons now totally forgotten.
Continue reading Gimme that Old-Time Irreligion…

Why God’s in a Class by Himself

Intelligent Design (ID) creationism has resurfaced in the news again after President George W. Bush’s remarks were (mis)taken by IDers to be a solid endorsement by the president for the teaching of ID in public school science classrooms. (Bush’s science adviser, John H. Marburger 3rd, said in a telephone interview that “evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology” and “intelligent design is not a scientific concept.”)

There was considerable media hype over the story, and I did a number of interviews, including a query from a reporter who asked for my opinion about whether one can believe in God and the theory of evolution. I replied that, empirically speaking, yes you can, the proof being that 40 percent of American scientists profess belief in God and also accept the theory of evolution, not to mention the fact that most of the world’s one billion Catholics believe in God and accept the theory of evolution. But then this reporter wanted to know is if it is logically consistent to believe in God and the theory of evolution. That is, does the theory of evolution — if carried out to its logical conclusion — preclude belief in God? This is a different question. Here is my answer.

You can believe in God and evolution as long as you keep the two in separate logic-tight compartments. Belief in God depends on religious faith. Belief in evolution depends on empirical evidence. This is the fundamental difference between religion and science. If you attempt to reconcile religion and science on questions about nature and the universe, and if you push the science to its logical conclusion, you will end up naturalizing the deity because for any question about nature — the origins of the universe, life, humans, whatever — if your answer is “God did it,” a scientist will ask, “How did God do it?, What forces did God use? What forms of matter and energy were employed in the creation process?” and so forth. The end result of this inquiry can only be natural explanations for all natural phenomena. What place, then, for God?

One could argue that God is the laws and forces of nature, which is logically acceptable, but this is pantheism and not the type of personal God to which most people profess belief. One could also argue that God created the universe and life using the laws and forces of nature as his creation tools, which is also logically fine, but it leaves us with additional scientific questions: which laws and forces were used to create specific natural phenomena, and in what manner were they used? how did God create the laws and forces of nature? A scientist would be curious to know God’s recipe for, say, gravity, or for a universe or a cell. For that matter, it is a legitimate scientific question to ask: what made God, and how was God created? How do you make an omniscient and omnipotent being? Finally, one could argue that God is outside of nature — super nature, or supernatural — and therefore needs no explanation. This is also logically consistent, but by definition it means that the God question is outside of science and therefore religion and science are separate and incompatible.

Bottom line: teach science in science classes, teach religion in religion classes.

Source.

Penn & Teller; The Bible is Bullshit

I find it beyond depressing that in the 21 century we still have to debunk these absurd mythologies and legends of Middle Eastern sheep-herders that belong to humanity’s infancy.

IF YOU’RE NOT AN ATHEIST YOU ONLY HAVE MY CONTEMPT, AND YOU ONLY DESERVE CONTEMPT!

Christians = stupid & ignorant crackpots

Creationists ‘peddle lies about fossil record’ [they have a lot in common with holocau$t promoters, like a wilful disregard for truth for political reasons]

IF YOU’RE NOT AN ATHEIST, YOU’RE A DELUSIONAL, CHILD-LIKE CRETIN!

A leading scientist accuses creationists of peddling the lie that there is no fossil evidence of evolution.

See also Why faith and science will remain worlds apart.

Pew study confirms non-religious are significant bloc

Survey shows Those Choosing No Religion Outnumber Those of Every Single Faith (But One)

The most detailed estimates to date of Americans’ religious affiliations reports that a significant portion of U.S. citizens claim “none of the above,” placing the unaffiliated second only to Roman Catholics in number. Monday’s release of the 35,000-respondent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows that 16.1 percent of Americans have no particular religion at all, while 23.9 percent identify themselves as Catholic. The next largest “belief group” is Evangelical Baptist at 10.8 percent. All other denominational groupings show in the single digits or less.

The study also shows the number of Americans who identify as atheist or agnostic has risen from 3.2 percent to 4 percent, while a “remarkably high” 44 percent have rejected the religion placed on them in childhood.

“People are finding out that what they’ve been handed in youth doesn’t work, or isn’t important enough to defend when confronted with marriage or some other life situation that forces them to examine it,” said Paul Kurtz, founder of the Council for Secular Humanism. “But when the shuffling is done, this study shows that three people are dropping religion altogether for each one gaining a faith.”

The study also confirms the previous 2004 Pew Forum-University of Akron study findings that those who identify as strictly secular comprise more than 10 percent of the population, only on a much larger scale.

“The breakdown is interesting, in that it distinguishes between the vaguely religious and those who fall squarely in the secular camp,” Kurtz said. “But I would venture to say that there is a significant number of Americans who sympathize with secularism, but who may still be nominal members of religious organizations. It’s apparent that a significant percentage of the population identifies with secularism, and I trust politicians will bear this in mind.”

Susan Jacoby on American Unreason

Susan Jacoby, author and program director of the Center for Inquiry/New York City, has recently been seen making the rounds in the national media promoting her new book “The Age of American Unreason” (published by Pantheon). Jacoby’s trenchant analysis of America’s banal and disintegrative culture (and public sphere) is at once both arresting and troubling.

From the publisher:

This impassioned, tough-minded work of contemporary history paints a disturbing portrait of a mutant strain of public ignorance, anti-rationalism, and anti-intellectualism that has developed over the past four decades and now threatens the future of American democracy. Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a culture at odds with America’s heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern knowledge and science. With mordant wit, the author offers an unsparing indictment of the ways in which dumbness has been defined downward throughout American society—on the political right and the left. America’s endemic anti-intellectual tendencies have been exacerbated by a new species of semiconscious anti-rationalism, feeding on and fed by a popular culture of video images and unremitting noise that leaves no room for contemplation or logic.

Hear Susan Jacoby:

Interviewed on Bill Moyers Journal
NPR’s “Book Tour”
US News & World Report interview

The Evolution Wars [creationism will be with us as long as idiots exist]

Creationism, in some form, will probably be with us as long as biblical fundamentalists continue their misguided efforts to squeeze the square peg of religion into the round hole of science. But the debate over whether evolution happened was played out over a century ago; the evolution wars today are over how evolution happened. Of course, outside of professionals in the field no one cares one whit about how cockroaches or coelacanths evolved. The evolution wars are being fought over how one particular species evolved — Homo sapiens — and the social, political, and ideological implications of the competing theories.

It Matters What We Think About Evolution

Religious believer = a psychologically primitive ignoramus.

…we cannot trust our future to anyone who believes that the world is only a few thousand years old and who interprets ancient, apocalyptic writings as revealing God’s perfect will.

Religious Believer = Featherbrained Simpleton

[W]hat Article VI does not do, and was never intended to do, is deny me the right to say, as loudly as I may choose, that I will on no account vote for a smirking hick like Mike Huckabee, who is an unusually stupid primate but who does not have the elementary intelligence to recognize the fact that this is what he is. My right to say and believe that is already guaranteed to me by the First Amendment. And the right of Huckabee to win the election and fill the White House with morons like himself is unaffected by my expression of an opinion…

Isn’t it amazing how self-pitying and self-aggrandizing the religious freaks in this country are? It’s not enough that they can make straight-faced professions of “faith” at election times and impose their language on everything from the Pledge of Allegiance to the currency. It’s not enough that they can claim tax exemption and even subsidy for anything “faith-based.” It’s that when they are even slightly criticized for their absurd opinions, they can squeal as if being martyred and act as if they are truly being persecuted.

Another reason why I’m not a supporter of libertarian kook Ron Paul

He doesn’t believe in evolution.

“Well, at first I thought it was a very inappropriate question, you know, for the presidency to be decided on a scientific matter, and I think it’s a theory, a theory of evolution, and I don’t accept it, you know, as a theory, but I think [ it probably doesn’t bother me. It’s not the most important issue for me to make the difference in my life to understand the exact origin. I think ] the creator that I know created us, everyone of us, and created the universe, and the precise time and manner, I just don’t think we’re at the point where anybody has absolute proof on either side. [So I just don’t . . . if that were the only issue, quite frankly, I would think it’s an interesting discussion, I think it’s a theological discussion, and I think it’s fine, and we can have our . . . if that were the issue of the day, I wouldn’t be running for public office.”]

Creationist kooks object to evolution exhibit

An unprecedented exhibit of early human fossils at a Kenyan museum has pitted religious creationists against scientists.

Root and Branch

Anti-Darwinism is dead science. It chews over ideas long abandoned, painting itself into smaller and smaller corners, skirting problems it wants not to face…

Did Humans and Dinosaurs Live at the Same Time?

Yes, say gullibe Christians! Christianity makes you stupid, White man!

Question:

I go to a public school and we talk about dinosaurs. There are bones found on the earth so they are here. Where in the bible does it mention dinosaurs and when did they exsist. Did Noah have them on the ark? Did they die in the flood but I thought they were to collect one of each animal. Can you claify? Thanks Miah

Answer:

Hi Miah, Thanks for your question about dinosaurs. Here is a web link that will fully explain what we know about dinosaurs through the Bible: http://lutheranscience.org/2000-DinosaursInBible1.html www.lutheranscience.org may address other questions you might have related to science. I encourage you to browse the site when you have a chance. God bless you!

Evolutionists claim that dinosaurs lived and became extinct millions of years before mankind set foot on the planet. This, ofcourse, cannot be. According to Genesis, all land-dwelling animals were created on the same day as Adam. This means, less than 24 hours separated the creation of the land-dwelling dinosaurs and the creation of Adam. Any extinct water-dwelling creature may have been created on the 5th day, or less than 48 hours before Adam’s arrival. Thus, Adam and Eve lived at the same time as the dinosaurs, and there is no reason to doubt that at least their direct descendants also lived among these creatures.

United States of Jesus

Inferior Design

I had expected to be as irritated by Michael Behe’s second book as by his first. I had not expected to feel sorry for him. The first — “Darwin’s Black Box” (1996), which purported to make the scientific case for “intelligent design” — was enlivened by a spark of conviction, however misguided. The second is the book of a man who has given up. Trapped along a false path of his own rather unintelligent design, Behe has left himself no escape. Poster boy of creationists everywhere, he has cut himself adrift from the world of real science. And real science, in the shape of his own department of biological sciences at Lehigh University, has publicly disowned him, via a remarkable disclaimer on its Web site: “While we respect Prof. Behe’s right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally and should not be regarded as scientific.” As the Chicago geneticist Jerry Coyne wrote recently, in a devastating review of Behe’s work in The New Republic, it would be hard to find a precedent.

In another blow to creationist kooks: origins of nervous system found in genes of sea sponge

Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara have discovered significant clues to the evolutionary origins of the nervous system by studying the genome of a sea sponge, a member of a group considered to be among the most ancient of all animals.
Continue reading In another blow to creationist kooks: origins of nervous system found in genes of sea sponge…

DON’T KNOW MUCH BIOLOGY

Supernatural ideas have never helped human beings to understand the natural world. Alchemy, faith healing, astrology, creationism: none has advanced our grasp of nature one iota…

CFI ISSUES NEW POSITION PAPER ON THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN MOVEMENT

By Ronald A. Lindsay

As readers are aware, the Center for Inquiry, through its Washington, D.C. office, produces and releases position papers on various public policy issues. CFI has already released papers on federal funding for stem cell research, global climate change, the proper interpretation of the Establishment Clause, and legislation to protect scientific integrity in the work performed by government scientists. This past month, CFI released a new paper by Dr. Barbara Forrest that provides an in-depth analysis of the history and tactics of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement. Through her insightful analysis, Dr. Forrest demonstrates convincingly that the ID movement is simply a continuation of creationism. In fact, the whole concept of ID is largely a product of efforts by creationists to circumvent court rulings that prohibited the teaching of creationism in public schools on the ground that it is a religious doctrine.

Proponents of ID have tried to obscure this connection by use of fig leafs, dressing up their religious beliefs with a few bits of strategically placed scientific clothing. However, their “science” possesses none of the criteria associated with scientific work. ID does not generate any testable hypotheses nor, to date, has it had anything resembling an authentic scientific research program. In a critical court decision issued in December, 2005, a federal court in the case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board determined that teaching ID in the public schools is unconstitutional because it constitutes an effort to promote a religious belief, not science.

Forrest describes in detail the ID movement’s plans to obtain public and political support for its agenda. Despite the setback in Kitzmiller, the ID movement remains a potent force. It is well funded, has significant support among some segments of the public, and has had some success in obtaining support from various politicians. Readers will recall that three of the current Republican candidates for president recently confirmed their rejection of evolution. It is risky to ignore or dismiss the threat posed by the ID movement.

Dr. Barbara Forrest is a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University. She is a recognized expert on the intelligent design creationist movement, having published numerous articles and a book on this topic. She testified as an expert witness in Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board.

CFI plans to release four more position papers this summer. In the near future, CFI plans to issue a set of two papers on contraception and sexuality education. A paper on the ethics of bioengineering should be released by mid-summer, and then in August CFI plans to release a paper on legalizing assistance in dying.

Read it here:

forrest_paper.pdf