1. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #168693 by knutsondc on April 25, 2008 at 9:45 am

Frankus1122: The German in the picture you linked is "My God, help me to survive this deadly love."

2. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #143861 by knutsondc on March 14, 2008 at 2:14 pm

The lady who was "offended" by RD's comment didn't listen very well. RD said that studies showed a correlation between education and lack of religious belief. He also said that he suspected that Barack Obama, as an intelligent, modern, sophisticated person probably did not believe in the personal God of the church Obama attends. That's not the same as saying that people who attend church or synagogue cannot possibly be educated or intelligent, which is what the "offended" caller seemed to think RD was saying.

3. Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts

Comment #134970 by knutsondc on February 28, 2008 at 12:15 pm

It's about time! It seems that the Turkish theologians can get away with reinterpreting admittedly genuine hadiths because, unlike the Qu'ran itself, orthodox Islam does not consider the hadith to be the literal "Word of God," valid and binding at all times and in all places.

It'd be better if people could just give up so-called "revealed" religions outright, but an effort to bring Islamic religious and social doctrines out of their 7th Century Arabian rut is at least modest progress.

4. Missing link found in Sydney Harbour

Comment #130873 by knutsondc on February 21, 2008 at 12:19 pm

I have a small nit to pick here. Granted, it's a loose comment made for publication in a popular medium not meant to be taken literally, but I wish Prof. Carter hadn't said "At some stage [the algae] said: 'Let's stop making our own food. Let's take it from our host.'" This feeds into the common misconception exploited by creationists that evolution teaches that organisms "chose" the manner in which they adapted to their environments. It also smacks of Lysenkoism.

5. The New Atheist Movement

Comment #123089 by knutsondc on February 6, 2008 at 12:54 pm

It is too bad that the alleged "good reasons" to believe in Christianity aren't mentioned in the video, but I can't fault its producers for that. After all, this was a video directed towards believers, not apologetics intended for a skeptical audience. Although the tone of the piece was okay, I'm really getting tired of the false, misleading charge that Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Dennett, et al., are angry without cause and intolerant of people rather than their ideas.

6. Questions Delay Creationist Master's Degrees

Comment #112655 by knutsondc on January 17, 2008 at 5:01 pm

Seems to me that any organization that requires anyone affiliated with it to subscribe to a statement of faith that includes biblical inerrency on questions of scientific fact has, ipso facto, disqualified itself from acceptance as an organization teaching science. If you insist on the factual truth of anything a priori, regardless of what the evidence says, you're not using the scientific method and you're not doing science.

7. Mitt the Mormon

Comment #91199 by knutsondc on November 27, 2007 at 2:50 pm

Back in February, Mitt rather famously stated that we needed a "person of faith" to lead the country. Obviously, he believes that a candidate's faith is relevant to his qualifications for the Presidency. If that's so, then why shouldn't the content of Mitt's faith be "fair game?" What about it makes him better qualified to be President than a candidate who isn't a "person of faith?"

8. Romney's Mormonism is fair game

Comment #89444 by knutsondc on November 20, 2007 at 6:51 pm

It's too late to do a path-breaking expose documentary on Mormonism and the carnival hucksterism of Joseph Smith -- South Park already did it in one of its most hilarious and informative episodes ever.

9. God's honest truth?

Comment #79819 by knutsondc on October 18, 2007 at 3:53 pm

Here in the USA, it would be very difficult to forbid private schools from teaching religious doctrine as "true" without tripping over the First Amendment to our Constitution.

Attendance at an accredited school (or the equivalent) is mandatory for children in every state, however, and it is perfectly legal for a state to establish accreditation standards and minimum school graduation requirements for all schools, public or private. The state could require minimum amounts of education in science, history, etc., and deny credit against those requirements to courses that teach religious doctrines as "true." The state couldn't constitutionally forbid a private school from offering courses that are purely religious indoctrination, but those classes would necessarily have to be in addition to those needed to meet graduation standards.

In a similar vein, colleges and universities can make their contribution. The University of California, for example, has minimum admission requirements for undergraduates that include prescribed amounts of high school science. UC has refused to recognize as "science" classes offered in some fundamentalist Christian high schools.

10. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #60632 by knutsondc on August 2, 2007 at 2:23 pm

I looked at Wee Flea's YouTube video promoting his book on the off chance it might actually contain some suggestion that he has something new to say. If there had been even a hint, I might have tried to find a copy of his book, but there was none -- just another rehash of the same arguments I've heard my entire life:

1) my invisible friend isn't a sign of my delusion, it's evidence of your blindness (poor, poor you!);

2) the "artistic" "creation" requires the existence of a divine "artist" who created the "creation;"

3) reliable witnesses testify to Jesus' resurrection, so he must have been divine;

4) the widespread feeling that death "just can't be" the end of it all means there must be an immortal soul and a god;

5) it's unfair and unsound to limit the admissible types of evidence for the existence of god to sensory input and rational inferences and deductions based upon them;

6) without god, there's no basis for morality; and

7) consciousness, which is unique to human beings, means that men and women must have been "created in the image of god."

Did I miss any? Anyway, I've argued these points innumerable times with too many Christian apologists over the past 40 years to want to do again with someone as rude, condescending, and arrogant as Wee Flea. Been there, done that, but I'm not the sort to buy the T-shirt. I really would like to hear something new -- but I won't hold my breath waiting for Wee Flea to post something new here, let alone waste my time and money tracking down and buying his book.