Sunday School SEPT 19, 2010
first of all, please stop by Neal's page and welcome him as TA's newest moderator. :)
lots going on... ready?
the pope is in the UK. turns out that besides the evidence seemingly pointing to his being the criminal head of a group the contains an incredible number of pedophiles and pederasts he's also a revisionist idiot.
reaction to his comments naturally has followed. Greg Fish. Robert at Making My Way. Barry Duke at The Freethinker. Unreasonable Faith. PZ Myers. Ophelia Benson.
Dawkins spoke at a rally protesting the pope's visit to Britain. PZ followed up his initial post with a list of Hitler quotes that show that it takes an idiot to suggest that he was an atheist. The Catholic League followed up on their idiot leader's statements to demand that atheists apologize for Hitler.
just before the visit Christopher Hitchens submitted this piece to Slate, A Call To Earthly Justice: Holding the Catholic Church accountable for its crimes.
meanwhile Catholic officials in Belgium are admitting that they didn't apologize for decades of endemic sex abuse by priests because they feared the flood of compensation claims that would have resulted.
Jerry Coyne responds to Karl Giberson's post at BioLogos excusing child indoctrination.
also from Coyne is his second part to the answer to the question "are we still evolving?"
Luke at Common Sense Atheism posted this excellent piece on why atheists lose debates and urges atheists to educate themselves or just don't enter into the debate. i couldn't agree with him more and it's this that led me (with Greg Corey) to put together our Skepticism of Religion informal bibliography.
synthetic ovaries bring eggs out of the womb and into the petri dish.
remember the good ol' days when you actually had to draw a picture of Muhammad to have people want to kill you? well now all you have to do is suggest that other people do so. Molly Norris, the woman who suggested the Everybody Draw Muhammad Day event has had a fatwa put on her and has changed her name and gone into hiding at the urging of the FBI.
after examining the results of a recent study Tom Rees had this thought: "Although we are frequently told that religions can co-exist peacefully, it's hard to see that happening when even messages of peace and tolerance from one religious group to another can actually serve to increase intolerance."
testing string theory: how real science progresses.
arachnophobes beware-- the largest spider web in the world is produced by the Darwin's bark spider and is 2.8 sq. meters in area, spans entire rivers, and is the strongest biological material known.
Sean B. Carroll has a piece in the New York Times on the importance of hybridization to speciation. Jerry Coyne disagrees with Carroll.
do yourself a favor and go through John Danaher's (of Philosophical Disquisitions) series of posts on Gregory Dawes' book Theism and Explanation. Danaher takes us through Dawes' demonstration showing that even if we
allow that theistic explanations might be potential explanations- as opposed to refusing to consider them in principle- these explanations fail utterly because they don't provide us with the kinds of things we expect from a successful explanation.
the irony is strong with this one... a Mexican religious rite has created super poison-tolerant cave fish.
thanks to Adriana for pointing me to Chris Mooney's most recent bit of nonsense. Jason Rosenhouse, Ophelia Benson, and Jerry Coyne respond.
following on the heels of some less than brilliant comments by President Obama PZ Myers tells readers to stop saying that Obama's an atheist.
a new study has interesting insights into why people don't accept the scientific consensus.
several scientists give their thoughts on where science is going in the next 30 years.
how faith prepares us for tyranny.
in the context of answering a Christian's email about irreducible complexity Jerry Coyne explains the evolution of the male/female sex differentiation.
a new Pew Research survey reveals that Jon Stewart will be the downfall of FOX News.
despite what creationists may think, Genesis does not depict creation from nothing.
the Phoenix Mars Lander finds surprises about Mars' watery past.
on the origin of complex cells.
kissing helps inoculate the female before and during pregnancy against bacteria the male carries.
kids raised by same sex parents are worse off than those raised under "traditional circumstances" so say conservatives. unfortunately for them a new study has shown not only that these children are just as well adjusted but that they seem to exhibit "better social and academic adjustment and a significantly lower incidence of social problems than their peers".
last week i linked to Luke Muehlhauser's piece "4 bad arguments for god" which was a response to an essay by Tawa Anderson. well, Anderson responded to Luke's critique so Luke sat down to explain why Anderson's response failed.
the CDC rules thimerosal doesn't cause autism.
societies without god are more benevolent.
lots going on... ready?
the pope is in the UK. turns out that besides the evidence seemingly pointing to his being the criminal head of a group the contains an incredible number of pedophiles and pederasts he's also a revisionist idiot.
reaction to his comments naturally has followed. Greg Fish. Robert at Making My Way. Barry Duke at The Freethinker. Unreasonable Faith. PZ Myers. Ophelia Benson.
Dawkins spoke at a rally protesting the pope's visit to Britain. PZ followed up his initial post with a list of Hitler quotes that show that it takes an idiot to suggest that he was an atheist. The Catholic League followed up on their idiot leader's statements to demand that atheists apologize for Hitler.
just before the visit Christopher Hitchens submitted this piece to Slate, A Call To Earthly Justice: Holding the Catholic Church accountable for its crimes.
meanwhile Catholic officials in Belgium are admitting that they didn't apologize for decades of endemic sex abuse by priests because they feared the flood of compensation claims that would have resulted.
Jerry Coyne responds to Karl Giberson's post at BioLogos excusing child indoctrination.
also from Coyne is his second part to the answer to the question "are we still evolving?"
Luke at Common Sense Atheism posted this excellent piece on why atheists lose debates and urges atheists to educate themselves or just don't enter into the debate. i couldn't agree with him more and it's this that led me (with Greg Corey) to put together our Skepticism of Religion informal bibliography.
synthetic ovaries bring eggs out of the womb and into the petri dish.
remember the good ol' days when you actually had to draw a picture of Muhammad to have people want to kill you? well now all you have to do is suggest that other people do so. Molly Norris, the woman who suggested the Everybody Draw Muhammad Day event has had a fatwa put on her and has changed her name and gone into hiding at the urging of the FBI.
after examining the results of a recent study Tom Rees had this thought: "Although we are frequently told that religions can co-exist peacefully, it's hard to see that happening when even messages of peace and tolerance from one religious group to another can actually serve to increase intolerance."
testing string theory: how real science progresses.
arachnophobes beware-- the largest spider web in the world is produced by the Darwin's bark spider and is 2.8 sq. meters in area, spans entire rivers, and is the strongest biological material known.
Sean B. Carroll has a piece in the New York Times on the importance of hybridization to speciation. Jerry Coyne disagrees with Carroll.
do yourself a favor and go through John Danaher's (of Philosophical Disquisitions) series of posts on Gregory Dawes' book Theism and Explanation. Danaher takes us through Dawes' demonstration showing that even if we
allow that theistic explanations might be potential explanations- as opposed to refusing to consider them in principle- these explanations fail utterly because they don't provide us with the kinds of things we expect from a successful explanation.
the irony is strong with this one... a Mexican religious rite has created super poison-tolerant cave fish.
thanks to Adriana for pointing me to Chris Mooney's most recent bit of nonsense. Jason Rosenhouse, Ophelia Benson, and Jerry Coyne respond.
following on the heels of some less than brilliant comments by President Obama PZ Myers tells readers to stop saying that Obama's an atheist.
a new study has interesting insights into why people don't accept the scientific consensus.
several scientists give their thoughts on where science is going in the next 30 years.
how faith prepares us for tyranny.
in the context of answering a Christian's email about irreducible complexity Jerry Coyne explains the evolution of the male/female sex differentiation.
a new Pew Research survey reveals that Jon Stewart will be the downfall of FOX News.
despite what creationists may think, Genesis does not depict creation from nothing.
the Phoenix Mars Lander finds surprises about Mars' watery past.
on the origin of complex cells.
kissing helps inoculate the female before and during pregnancy against bacteria the male carries.
kids raised by same sex parents are worse off than those raised under "traditional circumstances" so say conservatives. unfortunately for them a new study has shown not only that these children are just as well adjusted but that they seem to exhibit "better social and academic adjustment and a significantly lower incidence of social problems than their peers".
last week i linked to Luke Muehlhauser's piece "4 bad arguments for god" which was a response to an essay by Tawa Anderson. well, Anderson responded to Luke's critique so Luke sat down to explain why Anderson's response failed.
the CDC rules thimerosal doesn't cause autism.
societies without god are more benevolent.
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Comment by Greg Gorey on September 19, 2010 at 11:03am -
thanks for the reads homeboy.
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Comment by Nelson on September 19, 2010 at 11:16am -
@Jeff: glad you enjoyed it! thanks for taking a moment to comment. :)
@Greg: lol. no problem mah bruthah!
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Comment by Nelson on September 19, 2010 at 11:51am
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@Adriana: incredible right? good thing it's a small harmless spider otherwise i'd be haunted in my dreams. lol.
as always, thanks for the comment! :)
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Comment by Dan Ellis on September 19, 2010 at 2:51pm -
Great post, Nelson! Congratulations on the new moderating post. I look forward to more!
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Comment by Nelson on September 19, 2010 at 3:43pm
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@Dan: thanks! glad you enjoyed the post. :) don't worry, more will come next week Sunday.
and congratulate Neal, he's the newest mod!
thanks for taking the time to comment Dan! i appreciate it.
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Comment by Gary Bergeron on September 19, 2010 at 6:08pm -
Thanks for the excellent lesson, Nelson. You da man!
Being an ex-catholic, I truly relished Dawkin's speech. Old Ratz probably took a dump in his hat when he saw it. Ha! Ha! Isn't it astounding to know people continue to support this gigantic ring of criminals?
Have a Happy Sunday!
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Comment by Nelson on September 19, 2010 at 6:11pm
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@Gary: thanks very much for the comment! glad you enjoyed. re: Dawkins' speech, turns out he had to cut what he had intended to deliver short due to time constraints. here's the text of the full speech.
again, i appreciate the comment. thanks!
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Comment by Nelson on September 19, 2010 at 8:09pm
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@Michel: i'm glad i could provide you with Cosmic fodder. :)
as for the notifications, talking to Morgan about it!
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Comment by Jon Heim on September 20, 2010 at 12:59am -
I esp. enjoyed the study about same sex parents.
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Comment by Nelson on September 20, 2010 at 1:02am
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@Jon: interesting stuff, no? on the basis of that study not only can you not say that children raised in same sex households would be worse off but you might even say that a person should want to raise their children in a same sex household if they want them to be better off! lol.
thanks for the comment Jon! :)
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