Ignore the bluster below the fold; it’s another Catholic calling me out to the flagpole for a whuppin’.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Ignore the bluster below the fold; it’s another Catholic calling me out to the flagpole for a whuppin’.
The latest edition of the Tangled Bank is online at Evolved and Rational. Say hooray for collections of science posts, and go read!
You may have heard that YouTube blocked Pat Condell’s latest video — here’s an alternate source for that video.
I have to disagree with part of what Condell says in it, though. He is arguing against the promotion of “tolerance and diversity,” saying it has gone too far. I don’t think so. I think tolerance and diversity are great, I want a society with an interesting mix of weirdos and straights and strange cultural backgrounds, and I want no one to be afraid to express themselves, or worse, to be actively suppressed. What has gotten out of hand is the demand for outright respect, not just tolerance, and the de facto view that certain views, such as that religion is good and just and wonderful for you, must be held by everyone, or you are a bad person.
Condell is right that shari’a is ridiculous…but so are the ten commandments. The reason people are bending over backwards to respect Islam is that they know any open laughter at one form of religious authority opens the door disrespect of the principle that any religious authority can be the foundation of a rational society.
Tolerance is good. Intolerance is what Condell is experiencing when god-lovin’ dogmatists try to silence him. We should all have the right to point and laugh — we can laugh at Christians and Muslims, and if their faith is really that strong, they should be able to bear it; they can laugh at atheists, too, and I’m confident that we can cope, as long as they don’t censor instead of laugh. And I fear that they’d rather silence us.
And, by the way, legislating shari’a into power is not tolerance, nor is opposing it intolerance. Ancient bigotries and ignorance should not be granted any kind of legal authority.
Here are the details people wanted; there’s more in the Facebook announcement. I understand it’s scheduled for the same time as their homecoming football game, but you can always get the score to that later…come on around, we’ll have a good time.
I’m looking forward to meeting Carrier, finally, and of course, all the Missourians. We should plan a Pharyngufest for that evening (it’s a Saturday), so even if you do choose to go to a boring old football game, we can meet up later. Leave suggestions in the comments for good locations.
Today is the day we all dread, the day of the vice-presidential debates. We know Sarah Palin is incompetent and not fit for office, but the question is…will she manage to pull off the spunky/cute routine and win over the superficial morons of the country despite her Bush-like anti-intellectualism and lack of curiosity, even if she does execute a few major flubs? Will Biden throw away a victory by looking pretentious? We shall find out this evening.
Until then, warm up with these amusing links to the ongoing Chronicles of Palin.
Ron Numbers on Palin’s creationism
Palin can’t name a single newspaper or magazine she reads
Remember the mysterious bulge on Bush’s back during his debates? Do you think they’re frantically fitting Palin with an itty-bitty microphone right now?
They just keep popping up all over the place…is there a tally somewhere? We should calculate how much of Darwin’s genome is still floating about in the gene pool. Anyway, this several-times-great granddaughter of Darwin is Emma Darwin, and she writes well and of interesting things.
An internet poll, which we all know is always accurate, representative, and binding, was held this week to determine who would be president of the US. Voters selected between Obama, McCain, Hillary Clinton, and a fourth, unlikely, dark horse candidate…me.
I won.
I think I’ve heard this song before, by Spike Jones and his City Slickers, only my name was Feitlebaum then.
New Yorkers: you really don’t want to miss the upcoming appearance by James Randi on 10 October. He’ll be at Rockefeller University that evening, and he’s always entertaining and fun.
The rest of the country will be getting a small consolation prize. If you can’t make it to NY, you can all go to Springfield, Missouri instead, where Richard Carrier and PZ Myers will be rockin’ the house with their godless stylings at MSU that weekend. I’ll post more details on that, later.
Forgive me if this amazing tale of ego and inanity makes you recoil in disgust.
And O’Reilly cites himself as proof there is a God:
“Next time you meet an atheist, tell him or her that you know a bold, fresh guy, a barbarian who was raised in a working-class home and retains the lessons he learned there.
“Then mention to that atheist that this guy is now watched and listened to, on a daily basis, by millions of people all over the world and, to boot, sells millions of books.
“Then, while the non-believer is digesting all that, ask him or her if they still don’t believe there’s a God!”
Mmm-kay. Let’s see…do I still believe there is no god? Let me ponder on it.
I think…no. Definitely not.
Was that exercise in pomposity supposed to persuade me?
Just more eliminationist rhetoric from a good Catholic. Fortunately, this stuff is ebbing right now.
