The Barack and Francis show

I think that pope Francis has picked up a few ideas from president Obama. Recall that Obama came into office as the agent of hope and change, who would reverse the course of the Bush administration and bring about transparency and a commitment to end the civil and human rights abuses. Many people who hated what the Bush/Cheney regime had wrought bought into that at least partially and supported him enthusiastically. [Read more…]

Kentucky rebuffs attempts to weaken teaching of evolution and climate change

The state of Kentucky is solidly in the Bible Belt. When it was finalizing the revision of its science standards in a document called the Next Generation Science Standards, there was the usual push from some quarters that the teaching of evolution and climate change should be removed or that at least criticisms of both and alternative theories (such as creationism and intelligent design) be included. [Read more…]

Trusting god almost leads to disaster

Trusting in god is almost always a sure recipe for disaster. Faith healing and snake handling are two examples where people decide that prayer and faith will cause their god to overturn the laws of nature and of course they don’t and people die needlessly.

We now have another case of near tragedy. A San Diego couple and their two children (one 3 years and the other 8 months) decided that the US was too sinful for their tastes, especially when it came to homosexuality and abortion and “the state-controlled church” (???) and they decided to take a “leap of faith” and set sail in a small boat for the tiny island of Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean. [Read more…]

There is only one Messiah?

According to this news report, a judge disagreed with a parent’s choice of name for their child and went ahead and changed it.

A judge in Tennessee changed a 7-month-old boy’s name to Martin from Messiah, saying the religious name was earned by one person and “that one person is Jesus Christ.”

Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew ordered the name change last week, according to WBIR-TV (http://on.wbir.com/1cDOeTY). The boy’s parents were in court because they could not agree on the child’s last name, but when the judge heard the boy’s first name, she ordered it changed, too. [Read more…]

Assemblies of God doing well

While there has been a general decline in religiosity in the US especially among young people, it has not been uniformly so across the board. The Pentecostal denomination known as the Assemblies of God are reporting quite brisk growth.

The Assemblies of God, a denomination rooted in rural and small town America, appears to have leaped into the 21st century with dramatic results.
….
The denomination reported a 1.8 percent increase in U.S. membership to 3 million adherents. Globally, the gain was 1.5 percent, to 66 million, making it the largest Pentecostal group in the world.

Pentecostals are those who claim to ‘speak in tongues’ and their religious services are something to see as people writhe on the floor and yell out and sway and dance as if in a trance. (The documentary Marjoe is available online and well worth seeing.) [Read more…]

Don’t judge an envelope by what it says

On Monday, there was left on our doorstep a small package in a white envelope. There was no address but on the top right there was a printed image of a cancelled stamp with the Star of David and Hebrew lettering on it, below which was written “Hand delivered by IRM”. On the top right where the return address would be was the same Hebrew word in larger lettering, below which was a logo of a menorah and “ISRAEL RESTORATION MINISTRIES: Hope and Gladness for the Jewish People”. [Read more…]

Obama administration supports prayers at government meetings

As I wrote before, the US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to the practice of the Town Board of Greece, NY opening its meetings with a prayer that was almost exclusively Christian. The court has put this case on its docket for the 2013-2014 session but a date for oral arguments has not yet been announced. Another federal judge in North Carolina also ordered a county government to stop having an opening prayer at its meetings. [Read more…]

Another failed attempt at reconciling science and religion

On Monday I received in my mailbox a hand-delivered notice informing me about a series of three evening lectures that were to be given at my local community center this week. The first one was yesterday and was on the topic “Science and Faith-What the universe can and cannot tell us about God”. Since it is a topic I am interested in and was nearby and I had nothing to do at that time, I decided to go and find out what it was about. The notice said that these events are organized by a group named Gospel Odyssey. [Read more…]