Back in 2006, I speculated in a post titled Is the Pope an atheist? that it was possible that many religious clergy were atheists, with the probability increasing the higher they were in the religious hierarchy. I had no evidence that this was actually the case but was basing my argument on what I thought were plausible premises. [Read more…]
Some time ago, I commented favorably on an essay by philosopher Richard Rorty titled Religion as Conversation-stopper. In his essay, he responds to another essay by Stephen Carter in which the latter said, “One good way to end a conversation — or to start an argument — is to tell a group of well-educated professionals that you hold a political position (preferably a controversial one, such as being against abortion or pornography) because it is required by your understanding of God’s will.” [Read more…]
South Korea is one of the so-called ‘Asian tigers’, a modern, rapidly developing, and highly educated country with a large and still-growing role in the world’s economy. So it was a surprise to me to read that they are purging the teaching of evolution from the country’s textbooks. [Read more…]
Opponents of same sex marriage kept saying that if we allowed it, then it would open the floodgates to every possible combination of marriage, even involving turtles. We laughed at them but, astonishingly, they were right after all. And the new form of marriage that has been spawned is even worse than was imagined. [Read more…]
One result of the Vatican’s attack on Catholic nun and theologian Sister Margaret Farley and her 2006 book Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics that I wrote about yesterday is that her book shot up in Amazon rankings from #142,982 to #16 just one day after the attacks began.
Frankly, I think I am a much harsher critic of the Catholic Church and the pope than Farley so I am appealing to the pope: Please, please, attack me and my books, as harshly and loudly as you can.
More details on the sordid behavior of the Catholic Church hierarchy in covering up the sexual abuses cases by its clergy keep emerging. The latest is this revelation that the church paid priests accused of such abuse to leave. The church, of course, denies that this amounted to a secret payoff to keep the matter quiet by quietly getting rid of the priests rather than reporting them to the authorities. [Read more…]
McLeroy is a dentist who was on the Texas School Board. He was a creationist and was one of the key people pushing their agenda (as well as some other extreme right wing positions) on the schools and its textbooks. He was narrowly prevented from serving a second term. [Read more…]
… and for people like him who try to use quantum physics and cosmology to argue for the existence of god. [Read more…]
There is a small group of Christians who take the Bible literally and interpret a passage from the very last chapter of Mark (16:17-18) that reads: “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” as a test of faith and handled deadly snakes to show that they are indeed true believers. [Read more…]