Religion & Law

Paradise by a Dashboard Light

Posted on June 13, 2008
If you are reading this, stop at once as you are dead.The House of Yahweh outside of Abilene Texas (no relation to the House of Blues or the International House of Pancakes) has announced that doomsday is to arrive on June 12, 2008.Yahweh leader Yisrayl Hawkins says a nuclear holocaust will come June 12th and only members of his group will be saved...

The Rule of Law Returns

Posted on June 12, 2008
The Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 ruling in Boumediene v. Bush, has delivered a resounding rebuke to the Administration's detainment program at Guantanamo.One basis for the Administration's claim that the Constitution does not apply to these detainees was that there were noncitizens being held in "foreign" territory...

Voting For a Change

Posted on June 12, 2008
James McGrath has a post at his blog, Exploring the Matrix that details the feeling among some apocalyptic-oriented Evangelicals that Barack Obama is the Antichrist. James, of course, insists on being rational about the whole thing, almost overlooking the potential humor involved...

Unwanted Suitors

Posted on June 11, 2008
Americans United for Separation of Church and State is promising a reprise of its successful suit against the injection of Intelligent Design Creationism into the Dover, Pennsylvania public schools, should Louisiana follow the same path.Louisiana's House of Representatives today approved the so-called "Science Education Act," which is generally expected to be signed by Gov...

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A Challenge, Part Deux

Posted on June 10, 2008
Uh, oh! Another challenge to atheists!And boy! Are you guys in trouble now! 'Cause this time it comes from a business planner!Anyway, Yomin Postelnik says he has simple proofs that no atheist has ever been able to counter effectively. Indeed, he says that "even after much debate on the issue I have yet to meet an atheist who can make even a feeble argument to counter any of these points...

Anxiety and Obloquy Enough

Posted on June 09, 2008
The ACLU has already raised $258 Million from various private sources and is now looking to increase that to $335 million in gifts from the public. The initiative, entitled "Leading Freedom Forward: The ACLU Campaign for the Future" is an effort to build the organization's infrastructure and secure the ACLU's financial funding for years to come...

Tales of Creation

Posted on June 08, 2008
Jim Chen, dean and professor of law at the University of Louisville, has an article entitled The greatest story ever told at Jurisdynamics, at one of the several excellent sites his has founded, including The Scientific Lawyer and Biolaw.Humanity, so it seems, demands a story of origins...

The Dark at Noon

Posted on June 08, 2008
The Houston Chronicle has a nice editorial about the clouds gathering like a 1930s dust storm over Texas education. After explaining that the battle will be fought over implementing already existing "strengths and weaknesses" language in the state standards, the editorial goes on:It sounds reasonable...

A Perfect Fit

Posted on June 07, 2008
.Sometimes people get it so right that you have to take your hat off ... even when what they're so right about is why they're wrong.Al Clemens of Springfield, Missouri, has had such a perfect insight:[T]he biggest problem for the evolutionist is the "supposedly spontaneous generation of life from nonlife...

B+

Posted on June 07, 2008
The New York Times has an editorial that almost nails it perfectly. Except for an unfortunate implication that only young-Earth creationists can be included in the term "creationists," a misnomer that the Discovery Institute endlessly attempts to exploit, the editorial expertly dissects the situation looming in Texas: When it comes to science, creationists tend to struggle with reality...

Improving Education

Posted on June 06, 2008
Here is some stuff on the latest entry in the Our State Is the Stupidest Sweepstakes: Michigan.First, the background:State Sen. Bill Hardiman (R., Grand Rapids) and State Rep. John Moolenaar (R., Midland) have introduced so-called "academic freedom" legislation that would require teachers and students to explore the "strengths and weakness" of evolutionary theory...

Flaming Assets

Posted on June 05, 2008
Sometimes it's nice to know there are some verities in life -- things that can be counted on to be rock steady when everything around you is spinning past at an accelerating rate.And sometimes not.An example of the latter is the way that the Discovery Institute has never seen a disingenuous spin they didn't like...

Not OK!

Posted on June 04, 2008
The execrable Sally Kerns' latest atrocity is now on the desk of the governor of Oklahoma.Dustin Hughes, Managing Editor of the Sand Springs Leader gets it right:Bell bottoms, big giant sunglasses, reality shows, the New Kids on the Block. Things you think you're finished with, for the better, and *BAM* they smack you in the face...

Box Office Hits

Posted on June 03, 2008
PZ Myearshertz got a nice write-up in Alan Boyle's MSNBC blog, Cosmic Log. As might be gathered from the title, "The Expelled Evolutionist," one focus of the article is a certain infamous incident. Boyle starts off:P.Z. Myers is the evolutionist creationists love to hate: They hate him so much that he was expelled from an advance screening of "Expelled," even though the anti-evolution movie includes an interview with him...

Thunk ... Ow ... Thunk ... Ow ...

Posted on June 03, 2008
Ed Brayton has uncovered a truly crazed ... "rant" would give it too much dignity ... fetid swamp emanation ... attributed to the Deputy Minister of Religious Endowment for Hamas.I won't try (much) to steal Ed's thunder so you'll have to go there to learn about the Israeli guided missile especially designed to take out politicians...

Imagine That

Posted on June 02, 2008
The temporary injunction granted to Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Julian Lennon and EMI Blackwood Music to prevent further distribution of Expelled has been lifted by Federal Judge Sidney Stein on the grounds that the movie's producers have established that they are likely to prevail on their fair use defense if the case goes to trial...

Stuck in the Door

Posted on June 01, 2008
Wes Elsberry at The Austringer points to an article by Francis Beckwith, Professor of Philosophy & Church-State Studies at Baylor University and one of the smartest and most rational of the Intelligent Design supporters or, perhaps more accurately in Beckwith's case, "fellow travelers...

Carnivàle!

Posted on May 31, 2008
The very first Carnival of the Elitist Bastards is now up and running at En Tequila Es Verdad.Go give it a look...

Religious Studies

Posted on May 31, 2008
A thought: Skeptics continue to nourish the belief that science and learning will banish religion, which they consider to be no more than a tissue of illusions. The noblest among them are sure that humanity migrates toward knowledge by logotaxis, an automatic orientation toward information, so that organized religion must continue its retreat as darkness before enlightenment's brightening dawn...

Under the Radar

Posted on May 30, 2008
CNSNews, the media outlet of the Media Research Center, both of which were founded by L. Brent Bozell III, a nephew of William F. Buckley and a member of the board of Bill Donohue's Catholic League, has an interesting article on the recent spate of so-called "academic freedom" bills being bandied about by various state legislatures...

Be All the Bastard You Can Be

Posted on May 29, 2008
But all you have to do is knock on any door and say, "If you let me in, I'll live the way you want me to live, and I'll think the way you want me to think," and all the blinds'll go up and all the windows will open, and you'll never be lonely, ever again...

Finding Faith

Posted on May 29, 2008
A thought:I had no desire to purge religious feelings. They were bred in me; they suffused the wellsprings of my creative life. I also retained a small measure of common sense. To wit, people must belong to a tribe; they yearn to have a purpose larger than themselves...

There's Philosophers and Then There's ...

Posted on May 28, 2008
Due to overwhelming public demand,* here is my take on Pastor Paul Dean's attempt to demonstrate the superiority of Christian "philosophy" over that of non-believers, particularly atheists and agnostics. For reasons which should become obvious, your mileage may vary...

A Challenge

Posted on May 27, 2008
Paul Dean, pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Greer, South Carolina, has an article at Crosswalk that throws down a gauntlet:One of the basic dynamics that attends any worldview that is contrary to the Christian worldview is a lack of philosophical justification for it...

The Game's Afoot!

Posted on May 26, 2008
Sigh!Michael Moriarty, a moderately talented actor perhaps best known as the original prosecutor in the television series "Law and Order," is holding forth in the confines of something called Enter Stage Right, which declares itself as a bastion of laissez-faire capitalism but also declares that "religion and conservatism generally do not mix...

Phoenix Reborn

Posted on May 25, 2008
It appears that NASA's Phoenix Mars spacecraft has made a safe landing on Mars.Because the signal was relayed via the Mars Odyssey orbiter, the controllers would have to wait another couple of hours, until Odyssey's next pass over the landing site, for additional word of the Phoenix's condition, including whether it had successfully unfolded its solar panels and possibly the first photographs...

Remembrance of Things Not Past

Posted on May 25, 2008
On May 25, 1925, John Scopes was indicted for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution.As this 1961 article by G.G. Simpson makes clear, not much has changed over the years since the trial:We are all familiar with the Scopes trial, if only from being reminded by the stage and movie success, Inherit the Wind...

Mooning About

Posted on May 24, 2008
Ya know, maybe the Intelligent Design advocates have a point.Maybe critically thinking human beings should at least be prepared to consider if there is any critical body of evidence for scenarios that establishment scientists, who are linked with a consortium of elites, call farfetched...

Missed It by That Much ...

Posted on May 23, 2008
The United Methodist Church -- Dubya's own church and the second largest protestant denomination in the US -- almost had a clean sweep.During the church?s recent General Conference, held in Fort Worth from April 22 to May 2, not just one but three resolutions passed expressing the church's support for evolutionary science...

Birds of a Feather ...

Posted on May 23, 2008
Christ Community Church has it about right. According to the Alamogordo Daily News, it:... offers a Christian education hour each Sunday beginning at 9:15 a.m. Children and youth classes are offered, as well as different classes for the adults to attend such as "Creation Science and Intelligent Design Theory"; "Discipline: Despise Not Chastening," a study in Galatians by Pastor Jack Brock; "Who I am in Christ" and "Learn the Bible in 24 Hours...

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