We had another blog sneak in under the Tuesday blogroll deadline - well there is no Tuesday deadline really, but you get what I mean, it's late, I had a hard day at work, I've already loaded five blogs, and House is on...
Fox Valley Thinker is new, good, and worth a read.
Our blogroll community has increased by five members. Please take a minute to welcome our newest members.
1. Confessions of an Anonymous Coward - a very entertaining blog. Check out Mormon Missionary Methods for an intro.
2. A Whore in the Temple of Reason - blew me away. Metal Masturbation was interesting. I had never heard the term "Southern romance" before. It made me smile.
3. The Science Ethicist joined today - Pay no attention to his formatting problems. I am sure he is working out the bugs (just like I am).
4. Migrations - a wordpress blog, is outstanding and should appeal to the science geek in all of us. Evolutionary Medicine and Cancer is a good representative post.
5.Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refugee is a team based Science blog. Read We dare you to read it with the Notbelly Laughs. I found this post particularly interesting as I am heading off to China for work starting in May. My last trip was filled with stuff like this.
A plea for help: Please pass along dead links when you find them. I removed 17 dead blogs last week. Finding them was tedious process. I can use all the help I can get. Also - if anybody knows how to display a blogroll in wordpress, please pass it along.
The New York Time Magazine published Darwin’s God by Robin Marantz Henig over the weekend. It is a powerful exploration of the evolutionary basis for our collective religious tenancies.
The magic-box demonstration helped set Atran on a career studying why humans might have evolved to be religious, something few people were doing back in the ’80s. Today, the effort has gained momentum, as scientists search for an evolutionary explanation for why belief in God exists — not whether God exists, which is a matter for philosophers and theologians, but why the belief does.
At 12 pages, it takes a few minutes to read. I should have read this outstanding article instead of wasting my time with The Tomb of Jesus.
Ok - lets call this one an opinion and not a review. Because, when I watched The Lost Tomb of Jesus with my brain off, it was great fun. It told a story I wanted to believe, a plausible story about a normal guy, with a wife and child, who happened to have started a great religion. The story that the documentary presents is one that I think is likely to have happened from an occam's razor type of "best fit if you eliminate Jesus being divine" kind of approach. As an Atheist, I theorize that the hole divine aspect to the life of Jesus was made up after the fact as his religion gained power. The only reasonable explanation is that Jesus was just a normal man.
Back to the documentary - When the documentary ends, I smiled to myself ad my brain woke up from its two hour nap. I found myself frowning while pulling on my big red beard. I thought a very unscientific, "what a load of crap". They oversold a weak hypothesis.
Part of what I do for a living is tear apart weak hypothesizes. Every week, I examine faulty reasoning in my quest to figure out what is really going on in the fast paced world of manufacturing. I have a nose for it. My basic problem solving method is to assume everybody is leaving something out - and then finding the missing pieces. The Tomb of Jesus was full of missing pieces. Ted Koppel astutely focused on this point in the after show discussion. It made me squirm to watch.
In the case of The Lost Tomb of Jesus, the filmmaker, Simcha Jacobovici, builds a chain of reasoning where each link is dependent on the last. He does not mention the "alternative explanations" that would lead a critical mind in a different direction. instead, he pushes ahead with a faulty "follow the evidence" approach, building a house of cards on flimsy reasoning. I don't buy it.
I think that the most reasonable outcome of this documentary would be a scientific re-examination of all of the evidence. If that is what the Jacobovici intended, then the documentary has served its purpose. However, after watching closely, I can only assume that Jacobovici was trying to present his story as fact. In which case - I think he needs to go back to the drawing board.
The BBC is reporting on Islam's hostile take over bid for the Ancient Sabien Mandaeans religion. Muslims are using forced conversion techniques to wipe out the competition - after all, Sabien Mandaeans are polytheists, so any conversion technique is justified by Islam's barbaric interpretation of the Koran.
Mandaean elders use words like annihilation and genocide - they believe Islamic militants, both Sunni and Shia, offer them two choices - convert or die.
Sabien Mandaeans are asking for help. So far, the U.S. has offered to place 7,000, while the U.K. is taking a case-by-case approach. There are only about 13,000 Mandaeans left in Iraq now, the rest are dispersed around the region as refugees. How long can they last? I fear extinction looms for this odd old religion.
Islam does not consider Mandaeans Ahl al-Kitab (People of the Book). When chaos reigns, forced conversions, or murder, will follow.
Some Muslims do not regard Mandaeans as People of the Book (Ahl al-Kitab, which includes Jews, Muslims and Christians), whom Islam protects, and some reports indicate that Mandaeans have been targeted for forced conversion.
Mandaeans have traditionally worked as jewelers and goldsmiths, making them a particularly inviting target; because of their lack of traditional tribal or religious protective shields, and because their religion espouses a strict pacifism, they can be kidnapped or robbed with minimal resistance and, because of endemic lawlessness, impunity.
Source: HRW - The Silent Treatment
To be balanced, I looked for evidence of forced conversions from the various Christian sects. I did not find any. Then again, I did not find many indications that Christians were offering help either. It is also interesting to note that Atheists are not "People of the Book". Muslims don't try to convert us, they kill us instead.
An Ordinary Everyday Christian is Losing Respect for James Dobson. His name is Bruce Armstrong. I suspect he is much like my friend Pastor Brad, a moderate and somewhat reasonable Christian. I say "I suspect" because I am in no mood to wade through the various religious themed posts on his blog. If he turns out to be a fundie - well... so what. He would still have a problem with Dobson, and that makes him alright in my book. Now, if only I could get Pastor Brad to speak out on the immoral rectitude that is James Dobson.
Dr. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, and two dozen other noted evangelicals, sent a letter to the chairman of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), seeking the muzzling or ouster of Rev. Richard Cizik as the organization's vice president. The letter, which can be viewed here, describes Rev. Cizik's comments on the danger of global warming as "divisive and dangerous," and questions his background to make such comments. The letter goes on to question Rev. Cizik's commitment to the sanctity of life and to the meaning of the word "evangelical.".
Read Dobson's letter - it is the very definition of smarmy.
Now that James Cameron has found the remains of Jesus. It was only a matter of time until somebody came up with a recommendation to clone Jesus. It is a good idea, I toyed with it for awhile. Instead, I developing an idea based on the obvious curative properties of a little ground up Jesus bone in a hot cop of tea. It would cure what ails you! (Come on, you know it will be on eBay next week)
The Atlantic's They Won’t Know What Hit Them profiles an interesting solution to our nations fundie driven anti-gay politicians - knock them out of politics at the local level. It works too.
When they are rising stars like Danny Carroll, the Republican speaker pro tempore of Iowa’s House of Representatives, and the loss is unexpected, the urge to blame unseen forces can be even stronger—and in Carroll’s case, it would have the additional distinction of being justified. Carroll was among the dozens of targets of a group of rich gay philanthropists who quietly joined forces last year, under the leadership of a reclusive Colorado technology mogul, to counter the tide of antigay politics in America that has generated, among other things, a succession of state ballot initiatives banning gay marriage.
Tim Gill's likes to punish the wicked.
Together, Gill and Trimpa decided to eschew national races in favor of state and local ones, which could be influenced in large batches and for much less money. Most antigay measures, they discovered, originate in state legislatures. Operating at that level gave them a chance to “punish the wicked,” as Gill puts it—to snuff out rising politicians who were building their careers on antigay policies, before they could achieve national influence. Their chief cautionary example of such a villain is Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who once compared homosexuality to “man on dog” sex (and was finally defeated last year, at a cost of more than $20 million)
I like the idea. The strategy appeals to me as an Atheist. If we could weed out the Christianist politicians before they hit the national stage - oh wait, it's the same people and the same principle. OK Tim, where do I send my checks?
Update: Michele Bachmann is still a fundie and still an idiot. (I keep hoping she will just resign or forget where Washington is located.)
Via After School Snack: Who is Rudy McRomney?
Why, he's the mash-up of the three GOP frontrunners for the 2008 presidential nomination, and he's an emblem of everything the conservative die-hards hate.
When I heard Rudy McRomney for the first time this morning, I burst out laughing. Fundies really don't have a candidate this political cycle. The top three republican candidates do not measure up to their mythical Ronald Reagan standard and they have no hope of finding a candidate that can legitimately challenge any of the current candidates.
Giuliani, the leader of the pack in polls, has dismayed some conservatives by supporting abortion rights, gay rights and gun control. McCain has championed campaign finance reform, opposed some tax cuts and attacked conservative religious leaders during his 2000 campaign.
Romney has shifted his positions on social issues like abortion and gay rights to become more conservative. Visitors to the convention exhibit hall were greeted by a man in a dolphin suit labeled "Flip Romney."
Evangelical voters have taken to wearing Rudy McRomeny buttons with a red slash crossing out the mashed up name. I can hear the drone of Bonnie Tyler's I Need a Hero echoing in the ears of fundies across America.
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
Rick Santorum - are you listening?
The Uncredible Hallq: Backing away from the blog; and thoughts on the nature of blogging
Today, March 2, 2007, one year, seven months, and seven days after my first post, I've decided to largely call it quits. I've realized for some time that blogging has been cutting into the time I might otherwise spend on more substantial projects.
I've read every single post from this gifted young man. I will miss his unique sense of humor and insightful intelligence. Good luck with school, bring those grades up, and come back soon.
Via The Carpetbagger Report, James Dobson goes after Rev. Richard Cizik for caring about global warming at the expense of gay bashing and the party line on abortion.
Dobson and his cohorts have an odd approach, not just because they reject the scientific consensus and are unconcerned about the consequences of climate change, but because they need to silence a voice of dissent among their ranks. Cizik, they say, isn’t just wrong for taking global warming seriously, he’s also dangerous.
I support Cizik's position, and not just because he is challenging the all powerful fundie Dobson, he cares about the environment. Dobson's toe-the-line-or-else political execution are so transparent. His ego knows no bounds. Does he really think that focusing some energy on saving the planet will contribute to increased abortions or homosexuality? The notion is absurd.
Dobson lost influence with the National Association of Evangelicals when his gay protege, Ted Haggard, resigned over a public sexual identity crisis.
I picked this up on a radio news program yesterday. I apologize for not being able to point to the original link. I found the story again via Frameshop. Vice President Cheney would not let the press refer to him as the Vice President during an interview on his most recent trip abroad. What kind of rabbit hole does Cheney live in? This is one of the most bizarre things I've ever heard.
I hate to say it, but our Vice-President might just be a nutball.
Interview of a Senior Administration Official by the Traveling Press
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The reason the President wanted me to come, obviously, is because of the continuing threat that exists in this part of the world on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border -- a threat to Afghanistan, clearly, in our efforts there, the Taliban, cross-border operations; a threat to Musharraf and his government. There were something like seven or eight suicide bombings in the last week or two in Pakistan. And obviously also, the threat to the homeland from the standpoint of operations and activities of al Qaeda in this part of the world -- for example, you go back to the airliner plot last fall, second generation Pakistani militants living in the U.K., but with ties back in al Qaeda areas along the Pakistan-Afghan border. So we've all got an interest, obviously, in trying to address those issues.
Let me just make one editorial comment here. I've seen some press reporting says, "Cheney went in to beat up on them, threaten them." That's not the way I work. I don't know who writes that, or maybe somebody gets it from some source who doesn't know what I'm doing, or isn't involved in it. But the idea that I'd go in and threaten someone is an invalid misreading of the way I do business.
I would describe my sessions both in Pakistan and Afghanistan as very productive. We've had notable successes in both places. I've often said before and I believe it's still true that we've captured and killed more al Qaeda in Pakistan than anyplace else. And I think we're making progress in Afghanistan.
My sense of it was Karzai was more positive and optimistic than I'd seen in my recent visits. That doesn't mean that there's no threat. That doesn't mean -- no rosy scenario. There's a hell of a lot of work to be done. The point is a lot of work has been done. I was struck by the luncheon we had with Karzai, he started reciting all the things that had been accomplished since we moved into Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 -- in terms of economically, socially and so forth. He told a story to the group there about -- this was the immediate aftermath of 9/11 -- about meeting with a group of tribal elders in one of the remote parts of Afghanistan. He was trying to get them organized to participate in going after the Taliban and governing Afghanistan. And he said the only question they wanted to ask me was, is the United States with you.
Before we launched into Afghanistan, that was a big item with respect to the attitude of the Afghan people.
Does Cheney even have a right to do something like this? How does an elected public figure give a press conference without allowing his name to be referenced? What's the penalty for not complying? You get blackballed? What if Cheney had said - "Today, I want to be called papa bear?"
Two more years....
Let There Be Light, has joined the Atheist Blogroll. This blog is written by the mysterious letter Q from Amman, Jordan. I found Q's post on Bubbles an interesting first look at the latest Atheist blogger to join our network. Drop in an say hello.
Walter Cronkite endorses Campaign to Force Christianity out of U.S. Public Life. Watch out Bush, the jig is up.
