Just quickly--Rae at Subversive Muse has written a seriesofposts "from a critical left-wing perspective" on atheism, science and religion. I've expressed my objections to Rae's arguments--I think they basically misrepresent science (it is taken as axiomatic in this series of posts that science is "an ideology," whereas I think this needs to be argued for/demonstrated) and critique a strawman definition of atheism--and I know Bruce (who is more well-versed on this topic than I am) is preparing a response at his blog. Brian at Primordial Blog has written a thoughtful response as well.
Just to make it worth your while (and Rae, I'm not lumping you in with these guys!), here are some Youtube dispatches from the war on science:
A US man has been discovered dead in his girlfriend's cat door, leaving authorities confused about his exact manner of death.
The man, Charles Tucker Junior, was using the animal entry to gain access to his girlfriend's home on Sunday morning when he became stuck, News4Jax reported.
Officials said his girlfriend made the bizarre discovery only hours after she ordered him out of her house.
Worth listening to is a collection of audio clips from a range of scientists and philosophers explaining what does and does not count as science.Read more!
"The NOVA/PBS teaching guide encourages the injection of religion into classroom teaching about evolution in a way that likely would violate current Supreme Court precedents about the First Amendment's Establishment Clause," says Dr. John West, vice president for public policy and legal affairs with Discovery Institute.
"The teaching guide is riddled with factual errors that misrepresent both the standard definition of intelligent design and the beliefs of those scientists and scholars who support the theory," adds West.
The Institute has sent the PBS teaching guide out to 16 attorneys and legal scholars for review and analysis of its constitutionality.
I don't like their chances. Have a look at the packet in question: it talks about what science is, why biological evolution counts as science and why creationism/ID does not. It also discusses why teaching creationism/ID in the science classroom has been ruled unconstitutional time and time again. And--I suspect this is the real sticking point for the fundies who are the most vocal supporters of ID--it discusses how one can accept evolution without jettisoning one's religious beliefs.
None of this constitutes an injection of religion into the science classroom. Sorry.
BTW: How long will it be until this is blamed on us evilutionist atheists?Read more!
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The Red Mass: where Catholic archbishops have the annual opportunity to instruct the members of the US Supreme Court on how to vote on constitutional matters. (via TheocracyWatch)
God-fearing evangelical Christians--default moral exemplars to us all--gay-bash an Indian man to death in Sacramento. Apparently "God has 'made an injection' of high numbers of anti-gay Slavic evangelicals into traditionally liberal West Coast cities," according to the host of a Russian-language anti-gay radio show in Sacramento. "'In those places where the disease is progressing, God made a divine penicillin,'" he said. The murderers belong to a Latvian Pentecostal church linked to anti-gay activist Scott Lively, who in the 90s wrote a book comparing gay rights activists to Nazis. (Bartholomew's Notes on Religion)
An article in the Washington Post surveys McCarthyism across the Islamic world. In one example, three Saudi Arabian democracy activists were thrown into prison on charges of using such "unIslamic terminology" as 'democracy' and 'human rights'.
"But I think the number one issue people should make [in the] selection of the President of the United States is, 'Will this person carry on in the Judeo Christian principled tradition that has made this nation the greatest experiment in the history of mankind?'"
1. An atheist US soldier serving in Iraq organises the first ever meeting of that country's chapter of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, having dotted all the necessary 'i's and crossed all the necessary 't's. Of the four soldiers who attend this meeting, one turns out to be a Fundamentalist Christian army major, posing as a "freethinker." Said fundie proceeds to verbally harangue the other attendees--after he has ordered them to stand to attention--for "plotting against Christians" and "being disrespectful to other soldiers," and then shuts the meeting down. This actually happened.
2. A Muslim dentist in Britain has been accused of demanding that a female patient cover her head with a scarf in traditional Muslim fashion before he would treat her. (Austin Cline)
I don't know if there has been any coercion on the part of officers in the military. It may have occurred on occasion - I just don't know. However, if only one soul were saved as a result of the activities in the military, wouldn't it be worth it? All the wealth in the world isn't worth the value of a single soul. My point to Mr. Weinstein was this: Is he actually doing what God wants Him to do? Maybe the persons involved in the military are doing what God has asked them to do.
Browbeating and threatening non-theists: it is what Jesus would do!Read more!
As Sam Gamgee famously puts it in the closing lines of Lord of the Rings, "Well, I'm back." How's Japan, I hear you ask? Japan is a wonderful country: friendly, sophisticated, and so much more "alive" than Australia (or at least the Ben Cousins-obsessed corner of Australia from which you humble servant hails). Who would have thought it in a country full of heathens? But Japan is also hot: insufferably hot. I really should have done my homework on that one: I was expecting to arrive in a mild European-style clime and wound up landing in a steam bath. The heat wave, which has continued pretty-much unabated since the beginning of August, has claimed more than 50 lives, apparently. But not me--my apartment has an air conditioner.
I've been away for quite a few weeks now, and evidently I have a lot of catching up to do regarding the topics of magical thinking and church-state separation, which as you know I like to write about from time to time. I have running internet in my home now, so I should be back in the swing of things soon enough, if not as frequently as when I was back in Australia. After all, I'm living in Japan, and I have touristy-stuff to do.
So this morning I would simply like to plug a magnificent post by Balneus--a critique of a Quadrant article by Cardinal George Pell in which he mounts an apologia for theocracy by way of a hagiography of Emperor Constantine.
If you peeked over the fold, I wanted to post more episodes of the "Search for a Scapegoat" series, but no more seem to have been made. A pity.
So here's Daniel Dennett on ants, terrorism and memes: Read more!
Homophobic street preacher whines about hypocrisy because he has been refused permission to march in a gay pride parade. (Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars. Incidentally, the WorldNetDaily article detailing the poor oppressed anti-gay activist's plight refers to said gay pride parade as a "gay" pride parade. Why the scare quotes? Are the participants not gay? Are they only pretending to be gay? Why do wingnuts do this? Are they stupid or something?)
And if you happen to be gay--or even if you're accused of being gay--in post-Saddam Iraq, it significantly increases your chances of being shot, burned and/or beheaded by Shi'a fundamentalist death squads. (Via uruknet) (Warning: follow the links at your own risk--they contain images that are definitely NSFW.) Isn't faith a wonderful thing?
Confused by "NOMA?" US Republican Presidential candidate Sam Brownback unpacks it for you in an op-ed for the New York Times. The way to balance science and faith is to cherry-pick those elements of science which are consonant with your religious ideology (or could be interpreted to be so); if it doesn't agree with your religious presuppositions, you simply write it off as "atheistic theology posing as science." Simple, no? (Richard Dawkins.net) (More info. on the science-friendly Brownback campaign in this post)
Kelly Tripplehorn, president of the i53 Network (which describes itself as an evangelical (though not Christian) network whose mission is "to produce quality media content, all to the glory of God’s Word"), has thrown down the gauntlet to us heathens. His organisation will pay $1000 to anyone who can offer a non-theistic justification for their belief that the Sun will rise tomorrow.
All you need to do in order to collect your $1,000 is get your non-theistic answer published (concerning your epistemological warrant for your inductive inference) in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, under its heading The Problem of Induction.
The point I am interested in is to show that all the knowledge non-Christians have, whether as simple folk by common sense, or as scientists exploring the hidden depths of the created universe- they have because Christianity is true. It is because the world is not what the non-Christians assume that it is, a world of Chance, and is what the Christian says that it is, a world run by the council of God, that even non-Christians have knowledge… Now the question is not whether the non-Christian can weigh, measure, or do a thousand other things. No one denies that he can. But the question is whether on his principle the non-Christian can account for his own or any knowledge.
Tripplehorn elaborates in the video below:
Tripplehorn maintains that the problem of induction is not a problem for Christians like him, because "the first two passages of Genesis inform me that God created the world with order and uniformity, and I as a Christian can assume that the past laws of nature will be the same as the future laws of nature, because God has implicitly told me so, in his Word." This, my friends, is your standard Argument from Biblical Authority, with a twist of Argument from Design.
Bottom line: insofar as the problem of induction is a problem for non-theists, it is a problem for theists like Tripplehorn also. The only difference is that Tripplehorn has given his non-solution to the problem of induction a label: "God." As PZ Myers points out, in the process of tearing Tripplehorn a new one:
It's a cheat. He has absolutely no logical, philosophical justification for this divine precondition he has pulled out of his butt, but then he turns around and thinks that he's got atheists over a barrel and demands that they justify the use of induction without Jesus. What? Why can't I just invent an accidentally linear seam in the fabric of the 18th dimension that imposes regularity in our dimension by subspace resonance? It's total nonsense, but it's a justification that's on a par with waving your hands over an ancient Hebrew sky-god. How about if I pretend there is a subatomic particle (or maybe a sub-quantum force; does it matter?) called the Regulon that compels lawful behavior in other particles/forces. Again, it's pseudoscientific magical BS, but it's as good as Snottypunk's excuse.
Another YouTuber, responding to Snottypunk's--erm--I mean Tripplehorn's video, suggests that miracles pose a whole other set of problems for his supposedly neat Christian solution to the problem of induction.
*It turns out that Perth Catholic Archbishop Barry Hickey has articulated his support for teaching ID in schools on a previous occasion. In October 2005 he declared: "Intelligent design is a far more elegant description of historical changes than an entirely evolutionary approach, and it therefore should not be ignored in the classroom. "Intelligent design, while it does not demand belief in a creator, sits very comfortably with Catholics who believe that whatever came first came from God who has a clear design for the universe and for each human being in it." (AD2000)
Santamaria's attitude to so many of these issues was perhaps summed up in his statement in 1952 that one of the great evils of modern history was the birth of the "modern, liberal, democratic, secular state" in Europe in the years between 1750 and 1848. Think of the notions that are rejected in this statement: modern, liberal, democratic, secular.
Courtesy of Perth old-earth creationist blogger Stephen Jones, here is the full text of the original Sunday Times article:
Paul Lampathakis. (April 8, 2007). "New role call for religion in schools." The Sunday Times. p 12.
MORE religion, including the intelligent design theory, should be taught in public and private schools, church leaders say.
Perth's Catholic and Anglican archbishops said during Easter, that children needed more focus on things like the meaning of life in school subjects as well as religion. Otherwise schools risked producing children who were "robots" suffering from a "deep emptiness". Catholic Archbishop Barry Hickey said intelligent design theory would give students a chance to question the mysteries of life that science couldn't explain.
The theory, which suggests some parts of the universe and nature are so complex they must have been designed by a higher intelligence, has sparked debate and court battles in the US. "I would like the notion of intelligent design to be examined, also in government schools, without necessarily becoming a proof of the existence of God," Archbishop Hickey said.
"Because I think that if it is not (examined), then science is not being entirely honest. I think science has to show us what is there. And if it comes up with a very intricate marvellous design, let's call it intelligent design." Under such teaching, children with faith would say, "yes that's the result of the creator", and those without would say, "it's there by chance and we have no explanation", Archbishop Hickey said. "(those) with faith will make the next step to God," he said. "The school can't do that. But it can say, `yes, look at the human eye, look at all the things we find in nature. There seems to be an ... intelligent design in what we discover'."
Anglican Archbishop Roger Herft said children did think about "deeper questions". "If our classrooms do not allow for the exploration of the spirit, the exploration of the questions of meaning, then we're going to produce, ultimately, human beings who have deep emptiness in them," he said. "They will seek to fill that emptiness in a number of ways, whether it's drugs, or violence, or gang life or other groups that ultimately tend to be antisocial."
WA Education Minister Mark McGowan said he would not introduce intelligent design into the school curriculum and it was not part of school science programs because it was not evidence-based. He said questions like "where do we come from?" and "who made us?" were often discussed in class and children were able to make their own decisions.
Unfortunately, it doesn't clear up the question of whether Herft actually supports the teaching of ID in schools, and perhaps is misrepresenting him. (However, what he is quoted as saying--that without religion, our kids will turn to crime/drugs/gangs--is silly enough.) Hickey, however, is clearly in the ID camp, placing him at odds with his own church, including Pope John Paul II.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge . . .
-- Charles Darwin
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