I hadn’t heard of Australian entertainer Tim Minchin until just recently, but he is well worth seeking out. He’s a skeptic with a quirky sense of humor. He has several videos on YouTube, but here’s one called “Storm,” which reminds me a bit of David Driscoll’s Eternal Quest for Bareknuckle Fisticuffs with Georgia Fundamentalists. Enjoy!
Archive for May, 2009
Storm
Sunday, May 31st, 2009
McLeroy out as TX BOE chair
Friday, May 29th, 2009The Texas Senate rejected Governor Rick “The Secessionist” Perry’s re-nomination of Don “The Dentist” McLeroy to chair the State Board of Education. McLeroy is a young-earth creationist whose views on the teaching of evolution have threatened to cripple the state’s biology curriculum. McLeroy will remain as a member of the BOE, but Perry will need to find a new nominee for the chair. (Rest assured Perry won’t find an actual science advocate; more likely he’ll put forward a McLeroy clone, or perhaps a closet creationist who’ll be harder to criticize.) But in the meantime, congratulations, Texas!
KY relies on God for Homeland Security
Friday, May 29th, 2009
A hearing is set for June 1st in the case of American Atheists et al v. The State of Kentucky. What’s it all about? In 2006 the legislature passed a Homeland Security bill which contained the following statement (virtually in the first sentence): “The executive director [of the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security] shall…publicize the findings of the General Assembly stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth.”
SuperSense
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
Review by John C. Snider
Is the tide changing in the struggle between science and religion? For the last four hundred years (give or take a few decades), science has been content to challenge the claims of religion (and it’s made a fair amount of progress in that regard), but in the last few years, science has begun to take a serious look at the basis of religion. Books like Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell and David Sloan Wilson’s Darwin’s Cathedral are just two examples from a wide and growing spectrum of literature that seeks to explain why we are religious. Is religion just a meme out of control, or is there something in our genetics that moves us in that direction?
The Creationists are getting desperate
Thursday, May 28th, 2009CA Supreme Court upholds Prop 8
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009Yesterday the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, the controversial referendum which amends the state constitution to declare marriage as only between a man and a woman. On the plus side, the Court ruled that same-sex marriages created during the time period when it was legal remain valid. Naturally, the whole idea of Prop 8 is repugnant; freethinkers and civil libertarians are greatly distressed at how such a thing could have happened in Califonia, of all places. What kind of weird, upside-down country is this where states like Iowa and Maine (no offense to those fine places) can get ahead of the Left Coast?
Sotomayor gives RC supermajority in SCOTUS
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009President Obama has just announced that his pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter is Sonia Sotomayor, who is currently a federal judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. We’ll learn lots more about her in coming weeks, but at first flush, she seems a pretty good pick, with solid academic and professional credentials. Plus, goodness knows the Supreme Court could use another female face and/or another ethnic minority (and since Sotomayor is Hispanic, she’ll be making history).
Freethinkers by Susan Jacoby
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
Review by John C. Snider
One of the most successful myth-memes of American history is that “America is a Christian nation;” that the Founding Fathers were, to a man, devout believers; and that every step of progress over the last 225 years–from the abolition of slavery, to women’s suffrage, to the civil rights breakthroughs of the 1960s–was the result of Christian charity combined with good ol’ common sense. This mythology has become so pervasive that it’s nearly impossible to have a conversation about US history without dealing with it head-on.
Dear Margo: Religious Fanatics on the Lunatic Fringe
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009Thanks to Kristin in Texas for the tip on this “Dear Margo” column by Margo Howard (daughter of “Ann Landers” and niece of “Dear Abby”). This letter illustrates a) how crazy anti-atheist bias can get and b) how NOT to deal with family differences on religion.
Podcast #54 – When Religion Kills Children
Saturday, May 30th, 2009We look at two tragic cases in the news in which religion and child welfare conflict (to say the least). First, a Minnesota court has ordered 13-year-old Daniel Hauser to undergo chemo to treat his cancer, but he and his parents object, preferring to use “natural” remedies based on supposed Native American teachings. Second, a Wisconsin jury has found Leilani Neumann guilty in the death of her 11-year-old daughter Madeline Kara; Neumann and her coreligionists decided, rather than seek medical attention, to pray that God cure Kara of diabetes. It didn’t work.
(more…)
Tags: daniel hauser, leilani neumann, prop 8, proposition 8
Posted in christianity, civil rights, commentary, ethics, news, podcast, politics, religion, religious rights, superstitions | 4 Comments »