AC Grayling makes a very sensible suggestion

We should do away with Religious Studies.

Those who have written to you in defence of religious studies, and in opposition to the philosophy GCSE proposals that I and Dr John Taylor have put forward, do it not on intellectual and pedagogical grounds, but because they have a vested interest in keeping RS going.

They only do it for the big money from Big Theology! I am quite happy to see that argument turned around — we get so many accusations that science is propped up by Big Science or Big Pharma or whatever, and that we’re only in it for the cash. I don’t think theologians are actually in it to get rich (like scientists, there isn’t that much money in our philosophies), but religion would die a little faster if there weren’t so much interest in paying people for affirming silly beliefs.

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Delusional defenders of Kent Hovind

There isn’t much news yet out of Pensacola and the trial of Kent Hovind. There are a few protesters with signs marching around, and there are plenty of opinions, like this one by Kathleen Green: The real victim is Kent Hovind.

People hate Brother Hovind not for who he is but for whom he testifies to: Jesus Christ. He preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ and points people to the truth of the Holy Bible and the lies of the culture, the educational system, and the media. He is not a tax evader; he is not a tax protester. He is a patriot who loves America, loves freedom, loves Jesus Christ and is unashamedly about his purpose to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. He cares for the souls of people.

Um, actually…

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Mike Adams thinks he’s just like a poor black gay child

Jimmy Kimmel put together a nicely scathing PSA on those damned stupid anti-vaxxers. Here it is:

Guess who got upset about it?

Mike Adams, the demented Natural Health Ranger. It’s an amazing rant. He announces that he, and all the other people who refuse to prevent terrible diseases in their children, are just like gay and black people, because they’re hated by bigots.

Really. He goes there.

Then he claims that the PSA is making fun of sick children, and shows photos of disfigured and dreadfully ill children, claiming they’re all of kids damaged by vaccines.

I think it’s obvious how fallacious his nonsense is, so I don’t need to say more…especially since you can go read Orac, who definitely says more.

As pointed out in the comments, the RationalWiki has a good summary of Mike Adams’ lunacy.

Weasely words

The Mountain Express, a newspaper in the liberal bastion of North Carolina, Asheville, ran an article on one of those alt-med quackeries, “medical intuitives”. These are people who claim to be able to see inside you and diagnose diseases, and the newspaper article was completely unquestioning. A reader, Robert J. Woolley, wrote in to complain, and listed some of the claims made.

Specifically, Teresa Eidt claims, “I was shown a cancerous ulcer on the internal wall of [a massage client’s] abdomen,” and “I scan the body system by system.” Kimberly Crowe is said to claim “that when she placed her hands on people, she could see things in their bodies.” Rachel Frezza claims that her ability in this regard was objectively tested: “Frezza was given no information about [10 patients] or their conditions. Only by accurately reporting the conditions did she pass the course.” Tammy Coffee is quoted as saying, “I see the physical body like an X-ray machine, like I have a camera and I am going inside the body … I will look through, for example, the entire small and large intestine.”

The editor’s reply reveals the problem.

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It’s truth and justice

Jonny Scaramanga wrote a good post explaining why creationism matters.

We should be worrying about creationism. But everyone is worried about it for the wrong reasons. Yes, creationism is false, and young-Earth creationism is particularly ridiculous. But with thousands of false beliefs in circulation, why should we particularly care about creationism? It doesn’t make much difference to my daily life whether or not I accept that all life on Earth shares a single common ancestor, or that the planet is 4.54 billion years old. Even in science, there are limited areas where the fact of common descent is immediately relevant.

The trouble is that the areas of fundamentalism which are truly oppressive— the denial of women’s rights and bigotry against LGBTQ people, for example—are intimately bound up with creationism. You’ll notice that, amid its busy schedule of producing pseudoscience, Answers in Genesis has found time to oppose gay marriage. There aren’t a lot of copies of The Selfish Gene in Quiverfull homes, either. These facts are not coincidences.

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EMPs. Amish cure. $37. That’s the gist.

I get a lot of crap in my email, especially since trolls love to sign me up for weird mailing lists. This morning I got something from “Christian Reader Alerts”, and this is what it said:

It’s a weird little weapon that could kickstart WWIII.

A weapon so easy to produce…that fifth graders make a small version of it for their science projects.

A weapon so powerful, that it could cause a global economic crash, mass pandemics and vicious food riots…at the same time!

And latest reports from DHS reveal that majority of our enemies are preparing to use THIS against us.

>>Click Here To Find Out More>>

So I clicked There to Find Out More.

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