This video, from 1947, is relevant today. The groups have changed, but the message is the same.No related posts. 
According to a press release sent to me by the American Atheists, an atheist advocacy group has encouraged gay priests to “resign from the church and reject the Vatican’s repressive teachings on homosexuality”. I have to say I agree.
The report also claims that as many as 60% of Catholic priests are gay.
This comes following an expose by the Italian weekly news magazine Panorama titled “Good Nights Out For Gay Priests.” Investigative journalist Carmelo Abbate who spent time undercover filming and interviewing gay clerics who often flaunted their lifestyle, and even hired male escorts for private parties. Panorama’s expose seems to confirm a 2000 study by Father Donald Cozzens whose book, The Changing Face of the Priesthood suggested that as many as 60% of American Catholic priests were gay.
The president of American Atheists, Ed Buckner agrees.
Dr. Ed Buckner, President of American Atheists, said, “In an institution where men and women are treated as equals–as human beings!–double lives (hypocrisy) aren’t necessary. These men should choose integrity, honest lives, not continuing support for unsupportable, irrational dogma that misleads millions and expands human suffering rather than easing it.”
That makes sense. I understand many priests are proud to be spreading the word of God and all, but they don’t need the Vatican to spout their nonsense. I’m not suggesting that they should leave their religion all together, but at least should distance themselves from this horrible organization.
“Boo!”
Scared ya!
Readers of this mornings ‘Press’ were greeted with the headlines ‘Christchurch – it’s a spooky town’ and a new re-hashed self proclaimed group of ‘paranormal investigators’ (photo above)
Their web site is http://www.ghosthunters.co.nz/ , which upon examination gives its mailing address as a post office box in Motueka (a town more renowned for its illicit drug trade rather than being a hotbed of living-dead)
This isn’t the first time our local newspaper has pandered to this motley-crew, comprised largely of what appears to be the over-imaginative, dateless and desperate.
Still everyone knows when creeping shadows, unidentifiable sounds combine with a journalist after a sensationalist story – it’s gotta be a ghost!
This is their head ghost-hunter, Anton Heyrick, pictured at the former Addington Prison, just a couple of months back.
Now one would suppose The Press may well have had the fortitude to ask Anton exactly what they had found in terms of evidence in their earlier search for apparitions at the Addington site, before their four-man team charged around other supposedly haunted sites in Canterbury.
But they didn’t need to ask a rational and logical question like that, now did they?
Along with the readers, of what was formerly was called a newspaper but is now little more than a tabloid - they already knew the answer to the million-dollar question “Hey fella, what have you found so far in terms of evidence?”
So far they found fucking nothing and they will find sweat fuck-all in terms of the after-life in any other places they care to stake-out – be it in Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand, Kazakhstan, Outer Mongolia or the back-blocks of The Amazon.
This is why: ghosts & spirits don’t exist.
Scared ya!
Readers of this mornings ‘Press’ were greeted with the headlines ‘Christchurch – it’s a spooky town’ and a new re-hashed self proclaimed group of ‘paranormal investigators’ (photo above)
Their web site is http://www.ghosthunters.co.nz/ , which upon examination gives its mailing address as a post office box in Motueka (a town more renowned for its illicit drug trade rather than being a hotbed of living-dead)
This isn’t the first time our local newspaper has pandered to this motley-crew, comprised largely of what appears to be the over-imaginative, dateless and desperate.
Still everyone knows when creeping shadows, unidentifiable sounds combine with a journalist after a sensationalist story – it’s gotta be a ghost!
This is their head ghost-hunter, Anton Heyrick, pictured at the former Addington Prison, just a couple of months back.
Now one would suppose The Press may well have had the fortitude to ask Anton exactly what they had found in terms of evidence in their earlier search for apparitions at the Addington site, before their four-man team charged around other supposedly haunted sites in Canterbury.
But they didn’t need to ask a rational and logical question like that, now did they?
Along with the readers, of what was formerly was called a newspaper but is now little more than a tabloid - they already knew the answer to the million-dollar question “Hey fella, what have you found so far in terms of evidence?”
This is why: ghosts & spirits don’t exist.
The idea of ‘spirits’ or ‘gods’ stranded in a parallel existence, from which they communicate with those of the living with special abilities or can be detected by equipment purchased at Dick Smith Electronics, has in principal been about since time immemorial. The Delphic Oracle any one?
Life after death is a man-made invention.That’s why only dead humans communicate from an after-life, rattle chains in 13th century castles, and we don’t hear the barks from the deceased family Labrador coming from its old kennel.
If you believe in an afterlife and the ability for the 60 billion dead spirits to communicate (and seemingly so, only via psychics who charge for the privilege) with the 10 billion humans alive today and in some form survive-death, you must therefore believe that at some level:
*That every living minute of your life, is being snooped on by at least ten spirit beings, and they take an interest in you. Yes, that includes every time you have a piss, shag the wife, go to sleep etc. Why would these spirits be remotely interested in the mundane lives of you and me, when they can say voyeur the day to day activities of the drummer for Green Day? Following this logic is say Paris Hiltons shower room, the place to be in spooksville?
* What happens when the last living contact of these spirits dies? Who do they go around and watch then? Miss Hilton’s bed-room or the set of the next Porn Blockbuster - the living-world is your oyster. Why the fuck waste a single minute in a fucking re-converted Jail in Christchurch?
* All spirits apparently speak the same language, which fortunately means they avoid taking a crash Berlitz course in Serbo-Croation etc, the moment they pass-over.
* When you die you always prefer a crappy old building to live, the more derelict and unattractive the better. Ever heard of the ghost wandering the passages of the six-star Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai?
* What happens when the last living contact of these spirits dies? Who do they go around and watch then? Miss Hilton’s bed-room or the set of the next Porn Blockbuster - the living-world is your oyster. Why the fuck waste a single minute in a fucking re-converted Jail in Christchurch?
* All spirits apparently speak the same language, which fortunately means they avoid taking a crash Berlitz course in Serbo-Croation etc, the moment they pass-over.
* When you die you always prefer a crappy old building to live, the more derelict and unattractive the better. Ever heard of the ghost wandering the passages of the six-star Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai?
* In the after-life you retain the physical appearance and body at the moment of your death. With all those old people floating round it must be a fairly quite in the ‘after life’ and the zimmer-frame franchise-holder would be doing a roaring trade, along with sales in Viagra. Put it this way, I wouldn’t be opening a night-club in the next life. I pity the likes of Douglas Bader and invalids who must crawl their way through eternity - what a miserable existence it must be for these poor sods.
*If you are decapitated or placed in a vat of acid, you can still magically communicate and still keep your entire human-form when paranormal investigators open the cupboard you are hiding-in. Wow! Still on the positive, this leads to the conclusion that there's still hope for the ugly people in the after-life.
* The dead must take night classes. That’s so that when a bronze-aged peasant is called upon to communicate with a modern
Lets be frank - the whole idea of dead talking to the living, spirits wandering spooky old houses is a load of crap.Those who claim to talk to the dead are nothing but crude charlatans with over active imaginations and a gift for cold-reading.
Those that chase ghostly spirits in the hope of finding evidence that when they die they get a second shot at things, are delusional and should get down to the pub and engage in sex more often (masturbation doesn’t count either)
In other-words start enjoying their one & only shot at life!
Jennifer Keeton wants to be a school counselor when she graduates from her grad school program at Augusta State University in Georgia. If a student ever tells her he’s gay, though, she’s going to tell him he’s living a life of sin and needs to be “cured.”
At least that’s what I can gather from the lawsuit she plans to file against the college.
Keeton claims that she has voiced her Christian beliefs inside and outside the classroom on homosexuality and other biblical teachings. ASU faculty has ordered her to undergo a remediation plan, which would include diversity sensitivity workshops, she says.
…
“While I want to stay in the school counseling program, I know that I can’t honestly complete the remediation plan knowing that I would have to alter my beliefs,” Keeton said in a video produced by the defense fund. “I’m not willing to, and I know I can’t change my biblical views.”
No one’s asking her to alter her beliefs. She just has to damn well keep them to herself if she’s counseling a student.
Just like Creationists could theoretically get jobs as public school science teachers as long as they taught evolution properly and didn’t bring up their faith.
Just like Christians could get jobs as pharmacists as long as they didn’t prevent a woman from obtaining her birth control.
If she can’t help but evangelize, she’s in the wrong line of work. She’s basically admitting she can’t counsel an atheist or Muslim or Hindu or gay or transgendered student properly. If she’s really desperate, then she can go to a Christian college and work at a Christian school.
Public schools need counselors who have the ability to help all students, not proselytize to them during their toughest hour. Who knows, it’s possible that Keeton could graduate without comprising her beliefs — you can be an effective counselor without agreeing with what your students do or believe — but she’s chosen to fight a losing battle.
If she can’t keep her beliefs to herself, I don’t know why any public school would want to hire her. She’s a walking lawsuit waiting to happen. She’s only shooting herself in the foot by threatening the university with this unnecessary lawsuit of her own.
***Update***: If you’re in a betting mood, YouWager “is allowing people to wage money and opinions on possible outcomes of the federal lawsuit Keeton filed against Augusta State last week.”
(Thanks to Meg for the link)
…
***Update***: There was a similar case going on at Eastern Michigan University with student Julea Ward.:
Last year Ward refused to treat a suicidal gay student, telling fellow counselors that her religious views prevented her from helping him feel better about himself.
Today, thankfully, a judge dismissed her case.
bottomless wonders spring from simple rules... repeated without end.
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I finally added a new page dedicated to my steadily growing quote collection. Topics covered include:
- Atheism!
- Religion!
- Ethics & Morality!
- Politics!
- Inspirational Whatnot!
- Science!
- God!
- Feminism!
- And more! Only $19.95 plus tax!
I tried to avoid clichés and other over-cooked wordaphernalia. Use my contact form if you have some favorites you think are worthy of that sort of list. In other words, don’t tell me “Atheism is a non-prophet organization” thinking I’ll find it original and witty. It’s not.
Enjoy!
ANSWERING questions from MPs on the Commons education select committee today, Michael Gove said:
One of the most striking things that I read recently was a thought from Richard Dawkins that he might want to take advantage of our education legislation to open a new school, which was set up on an explicitly atheist basis.
Education Secretary Michael Gove
Prof Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, did not, in fact, say he wanted a specifically atheist school.
In June, Prof Dawkins said in a conversation on the Mumsnet website:
I like the idea very much, although I would prefer to call it a free-thinking free school. I would never want to indoctrinate children in atheism, any more than in religion. Instead, children should be taught to ask for evidence, to be sceptical, critical, open-minded.
Under Mr Gove’s “free schools” plan, parents, teachers and others will be able to set up their own schools.
According to the BBC, Gove said he would not choose such a school for his children, but:
One of the principles behind our education reforms is to give people the maximum amount of choice so that those people, and they may not themselves necessarily have a very strong religious faith, but who believe that the ethos and values of faith-based education are right for their child, have that choice but others who want a different approach can take it as well.
Coincidentally, we have just been contacted by Bwambale Robert, founder and Director of the Kasese United Humanist Association in Uganda, which last year established the Kilembe Valley Humanist Nursery & Primary School, the first secular school in the Kasese district.
With a curriculum based on humanism and science, the fledging school is being run alongside a public library, also set up by the association, and Bwambale Robert is appealing to freethinkers across the globe to donate books, magazines, periodicals, scientific journals etc to support both projects.
Books needed for the school should suit young people aged below 13 years on subjects such as English, science, arts & crafts, geography, mathematics, and free thought.
Atheist Alliance International is supporting the school by providing volunteer teachers for a period of three months, beginning in September.
If you are able to help, please send your donations to the Kasese United Humanist Association Plot 31, Matebere Road, Kiteso Upper, PO Box 58
Kasese, Uganda, East Africa.
Hat tip BarrieJohn (BBC report)
Mark your calendars! The end of the world is nigh, and we've got a specific date: the Rapture will occur on 21 May, 2011, and the world ends on 21 October 2011. How do we know this? As near as I can tell, it's pure numerology, diddling dates to create a pretense of pattern that are then used to draw conclusions.
I wouldn't worry about it. But now you've got an excuse to plan a party for next spring.
Read the comments on this post...
I guess I have to write the same story twice today!
Another counseling student is challenging a university’s graduate counseling program, suggesting that her personal beliefs against homosexuality should be exempted despite contradicting the teachings of the program.
This time, it’s Jennifer Keeton at Augusta State University, and AFA and the ADF are not pleased!
“It’s in essence [telling her] ‘you do not have the correct beliefs, we are going to re-educate you into the correct beliefs,’” explains David French, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund. “And unless she completes this — quote — ‘remediation plan’ to their satisfaction, then she can be thrown out of [the school's counseling program].”
That’s exactly right.
This is religious privilege in its purest form, folks. The university teaches one idea. Keeton holds another. The two are in conflict. If Keeton wants the university degree, she has to learn why the university’s is right and hers is wrong. It just so happens that hers is religious, so suddenly she gets a free ride? No.
This OneNewsNow story is rife with spin. The program wanted Keeton to go to a pride parade and then reflect on what she saw. That’s a perfectly valid exercise, one—I might add—I did in my own counseling class! In order to be good practitioners, we folks in the social sciences have to reflect on our own perspectives in order to better appreciate and nurture the folks we work with. THAT’S HOW IT WORKS.
“Jennifer is not interested in being indoctrinated, she wants to be educated,” states the attorney. “She wants to learn about the counseling profession, she wants to be a good counselor — but being a good counselor does not require that one surrender their most fundamental religious beliefs.”
Well, let’s see… if she did not abandon her beliefs, she’d be a bad counselor. So, yeah, actually, it does.
She’s already been indoctrinated. Now she needs to be educated. There’s something seriously wrong with people who want to be taken seriously in the academy but don’t want to be exposed to new knowledge.
Given the precedent set by Julea Ward’s suit in Michigan, I doubt Keeton will get very far. Still, I’m sure the religious right will hem and haw about what a big deal this is, because they don’t care about the integrity of knowledge, intellect, or the academy.
One of these days, university folks are going to realize the importance of being proactive instead of just playing defense to all this stupid religious nonsense.
…
Oh, and by the way, if you want to “take action,” the AFA suggests you pray for Jennifer and the ADF staff, give a donation for her legal efforts, and email President Willian Bloodworth and the Georgia Board of Regents. I suggest you email the President yourself and encourage him not to submit to the foolishness of religious privilege.
In Louisiana, the Livingston Parish School Board wants to teach Creationism in the public schools and unanimously voted in favor of continuing discussion on this.
This type of thing only happens when a school board is taken over by people who don’t know the law and don’t care about the education students receive. Who needs
Take a look at the statements made by the board:
Board Member David Tate quickly responded: “We let them teach evolution to our children, but I think all of us sitting up here on this School Board believe in creationism. Why can’t we get someone with religious beliefs to teach creationism?”
If Creationism was based in science, why would a religious teacher be needed…?
Fellow board member Clint Mitchell responded, “I agree … you don’t have to be afraid to point out some of the fallacies with the theory of evolution. Teachers should have the freedom to look at creationism and find a way to get it into the classroom.”
Who wants to bet that Mitchell can’t name one legitimate “fallacy” of evolution?
[Board President Keith] Martin, noting that discipline of young people is constantly becoming more of a challenge for parents and teachers, agreed: “Maybe it’s time that we look at this.”
Right… teaching Creationism will simultaneously get students to turn off their cell phones in class and shut the hell up. I’m sure every teacher would agree to that one. Spoken like a man who’s never set foot in a classroom.
Part of me wants them to go forward with this. Let them teach Creationism, get sued, lose the case, and lose money. They deserve it.
But the students in the Livingston Parish schools deserve better. They need teachers who know the difference between science and faith — in other words, teachers who are more concerned about reality than the Bible.
They’re not going to get it, though. And they’re the ones who’ll suffer in college because of it.
Zeno catches something amusing: a right-wing radio host ranting about professors.
Sussman:I get a kick out of— You go to UC Berkeley, you go to Stanford, you go to these various campuses and these students are out there protesting, "We need more money for our schools!" And standing next to them are the professors. "We need more money for our schools!" Hey, have you ever asked that professor how much money they're making every year? These professors are all millionaires. They're millionaires with big, big salaries and big, big retirement packages. And yet they dress like little schmoes, you know, with their crummy jackets [Officer Vic: Patches on the elbow.] that are twenty years old, yeah, and patches on the elbow. And their ties are askew and their hair's kinda crappy and they drive crummy little cars and they're millionaires. They're all millionaires! And they actually have the gall to stand next to the kids who are protesting because their fees are too high. "We need more money for our schools!" So you can pay these millionaires!
Reality doesn't matter to these guys, does it? We wear the crummy jackets and drive the crummy little cars because that's what we can afford: professors are proud members of the middle class, not even the upper middle class. It isn't pretense.
I'm also not really getting a pay raise. In Minnesota, we're getting a pay cut this year.
Read the comments on this post... This pretty much describes how my boardroom would work:
'Pacifically' - I hear that almost daily and it grinds my teeth!
'Pacifically' - I hear that almost daily and it grinds my teeth!
Back in mid 2009 I wrote out a formal challenge to anyone who would care to argue against the many facts and evidence I’ve written about on my blog dealing with religion, god, anarchism, the supernatural, etc. Very few have taken up my challenge, and I believe firmly that all have failed. A blogger at Brennon’s Thoughts has sort of answered the challenge. He failed to present any evidence for his
JL Vernon is lobbying to have Huffpo dedicate a section of their undeservedly popular, cheesy website to science. He makes a superficially reasonable argument: to work within the belly of the beast to promote good science, in opposition to the tripe they usually publish. I'm sympathetic, really I am, but I see the Huffpo as a dead cause.
I also think Vernon fails to grasp the problem here. For instance, he complains about the refusal of anti-creationists to debate the opposition.
The most resounding message emerging from the opposition is the idea that having "real science" share a platform with "bad science" will ultimately tarnish the reputation of the legitimate scientists and science communicators who choose to participate. This is essentially the same argument Richard Dawkins, PZ Meyers and others take when refusing to debate evolutionists. The concept here being that by sharing the stage with creationists, scientists lend credibility to the creationist arguments. In some ways, I think this is a cowardly response. If you have a sound argument, the opposition should not win the debate.
That's wrong on multiple levels. First, a debate is not won by sound argument; it's by persuasive rhetoric. Many creationists have that skill (I have to repeat a mantra I've got: creationists are not stupid, just ignorant and misled by ignorant arguments), so it is a serious tactical error to think that because all the facts and science are on your side, you're going to win debates. That's a recipe for consistent failure.
The other problem here is that I've "won" most of my debates…because the other side is just nuts. Jerry Bergman and Geoff Simmons, to name two, were raving loonies who made me embarrassed to be sharing a spotlight with them. There was no gain for me, and plenty for them. You get two possibilities: you'll face an eloquent rhetorician who will run rings around you despite your command of the facts, or you'll get a nutcase who makes you feel like you're sharing the podium with a brain-damaged hobo. Neither are great options.
The final big problem is that creationist debaters willingly lie and distract to win their arguments. The Gish Gallop is just one of the tools they use; they sputter out dozens of claims that are false and falsifiable, if you had an hour to address each one. And then, of course, if you do "win", they'll cheerfully lie to their little closeted evangelical audiences that they not only defeated you, but that you were a big abusive meanie who was rude and accused the creationists of making stuff up.
I have little hope for Vernon's endeavor if he doesn't grasp these basic realities of dealing with kooks.
As for Huffpo, he has a couple of hurdles. He has openly announced his intent to expose the "bad science" on HuffPo — while I like that idea, does he really think Ariana Huffington is going to look kindly on that proposal?
Also, we know that Huffpo editors censor articles. There isn't going to be any criticism of the site's major goals, the promulgation of Newage garbage, getting through unbutchered.
But let's assume Vernon succeeds, and gets a good science section with reputable contributors writing about good solid science and criticizing the pseudoscience and quackery otherwise rife on Huffpo. If it acquires even a scrap of prestige and respect, I can predict exactly what will happen: Deepak Chopra and Robert Lanza will ask Huffington to include their raving madness in that section. They write about "science" and "medicine", after all. And a credible science section on Huffpo will be quickly subverted to promote quackery.
Convergent Revolution agrees that Huffpo Science would be a bad idea. Huffpo is tainted fruit — stay away from it altogether.
Read the comments on this post...I’m not a scientist and I don’t claim to be one. At least I can admit that. Dr. Jason Lisle of Answers in Genesis can’t seem to do the same.
He claims to have solved the “distant starlight problem“:
This is the issue of how starlight from the most distant galaxies is able to reach earth within the biblical timescale. Although light is incredibly fast, the most distant galaxies are incredibly far away. So, under normal circumstances we would be inclined to think that it should take billions of years for their starlight to reach us. Yet, the Bible teaches that the universe is only thousands of years old. Solutions have been proposed by creationists, but we haven’t had a definitive answer… until now.
Like I said, I’m not a science expert. But I know that science is about looking at the evidence and drawing conclusions from it. Lisle is starting with the conclusion (the earth is thousands of years old) and trying to match the evidence to it.
Bad scientist. Bad.
It gets better, though.
He hasn’t produced the paper yet and one critic faulted him for not submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal. But Lisle was ready with a comeback:
The same critic made the following comment, which I found amusing: “Jason isn’t submitting his paper to a prestigious science journal, the editors of which will send it out to be reviewed by experts of their own choosing”… But the really embarrassing thing for this critic is that, actually, I have already submitted the paper to the Answers Research Journal, and the senior editor has already sent it out to experts for peer-review. How embarrassing for the critic!
Yeah! Take that, you godless critic! He’s sending it to a journal run by Creationists. I wonder if they’ll accept it… (I also wonder: How bad would a paper have to be for that journal to reject it?)
This is even funnier when you read PZ Myers‘ post about this “discovery” from a couple weeks ago when Lisle made his initial announcement:
If he’s really made this amazing breakthrough, he ought to be sending his technical paper to more prestigious journals, like Nature and Science and Physics Review Letters and Cosmopolitan. Publishing in Answers Research Journal is an admission of failure.
I hope they do accept it. And publish it. Only because then it’ll be online for real scientists to pick apart and amuse themselves with.
For some reason, I don’t think physicists are shaking in their boots.
Some things just make you want to cringe under a table somewhere, they're so awful and embarrassing. And sometimes they're so bad I don't want to cringe down there alone, so I'm going to creep you all out, too. Behold, Andrew Cohen. His ex-girlfriend, who turned down his proposal of marriage for what rapidly become obvious reasons, was getting married to someone else — so he wrote her a 'wedding gift', a publicly published, soppy opinion piece on how wonderful she is and how much she's hurting him by spurning his deep, stalkerish obsession with her. For her wedding, he tries to hand her a long guilt trip; I'm hoping that if she saw it at all, she's just had the rightness of her refusal amply confirmed.
It's an amazing example of inappropriate obliviousness, so painful that I thought Cohen had to be uniquely blind and self-centered…but no, the comments contain several people praising him for his fantasies about marrying and impregnating her. Gah. I need a shower now.
If you can't stomach the whole mess, read this distillation of the worst of Andrew Cohen.
(via Amanda.)
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