Culture

This morning, I ran across a news item on the “undiscovery” of Sandy Island off Australia: Most explorers dream of discovering uncharted territory, but a team of Australian scientists have done the exact opposite. They have found an island that doesn’t exist. (vid at the linked) This led me to think about the institution of an award for exposing scientific fraud and a NewScientist interview with Shi-min Fang, its first recipient: What prompted you to start challenging dubious pseudoscientific claims in China? In 1998, after eight years studying in the US, I returned to China and was shocked to see it was deluged with pseudosciences, superstitions and scientific misconduct. . . . (This one is disturbing, NS even speaks of Read More ›

  In an interview with Playboy, September just past, Dr Dawkins made some dismissive remarks  on the historicity of Jesus, in the context of having made similarly dismissive talking points about Intelligent Design.  As UD News noted: PLAYBOY: What is your view of Jesus? DAWKINS: The evidence he existed is surprisingly shaky. The earliest books in the New Testament to be written were the Epistles, not the Gospels. It’s almost as though Saint Paul and others who wrote the Epistles weren’t that interested in whether Jesus was real. Even if he’s fictional, whoever wrote his lines was ahead of his time in terms of moral philosophy. PLAYBOY: You’ve read the Bible. DAWKINS: I haven’t read it all, but my knowledge Read More ›

Okay, the thread of discussion needs to pick up from here on. To motivate discussion, let me clip here comment no 795 in the continuation thread, which I have marked up: _________ >> 795Jerad October 23, 2012 at 1:18 am KF (783): At this point, with all due respect, you look like someone making stuff up to fit your predetermined conclusion. I know you think so. [a –> Jerad, I will pause to mark up. I would further with all due respect suggest that I have some warrant for my remark, especially given how glaringly you mishandled the design inference framework in your remark I responded to earlier.] {Let me add a diagram of the per aspect explanatory filter, using Read More ›

I thought you all might be interested in an article I wrote titled Mathematics and Theology: Seeing to Infinity. The basic purpose of the article is to show how the “limit” concept from mathematics can be incorporated into theological reasoning. The larger purpose is to get theologians thinking more deeply about mathematics as a tool in theological reasoning. One of the disheartening things about modern theology is how disconnected it is from the rest of human knowledge. It doesn’t need to be disconnected — it’s just that there is a habit of thought that has developed over the past two centuries that separated out theology as “other” (perhaps as a euphemism for “fictitious”) and math and science as “real”. This Read More ›

There is never ending drama over at Darwinist Ed Brayton’s “Free” Thought Blogs (FTB). We have the example of Greg Laden (affectionately known as Greg bin Laden by some), describing how he intends to terrorize a US Army soldier: Think about that. You f–king sh-t. Now, get forever out of my life. Do not turn back. You do not deserve to even know the people you’ve insulted in that idiotic post you wrote. Don’t ever, ever find yourself in my presence or think you deserve to breath the air that I, and Jen, and Stephanie, and Gret and Ophelia and PZ and the rest of us breath, because you do not. If you do make that apology it better be Read More ›

First man on moon Neil Armstrong dead at 82

Radical feminists are attempting to seize leadership of the New Atheist movement (aka GNU atheist movement). With big fanfare, we hear: Atheism Plus: New New Atheists Let me introduce you to Atheism+, the nascent movement that might be the most exciting thing to hit the world of unbelief since Richard Dawkins ….. there have been suggestions that atheism and scepticism are philosophies disproportionately attractive to men. Indeed, the stereotype of the atheist as white, intellectually overconfident male – as Richard Dawkins – has long been a favourite among religious apologists. …. To remember that not all atheists look like Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is an “A” Atheist. We know what he looks like. So what does an “A+” Athiest look like? Read More ›

Many felt disgust with former vice presidential candidate John Edwards for cheating on his terminally ill wife Elizabeth Edwards. In the process of his affair, Edwards fathered a child with his mistress, Rielle Hunter. Rielle is now one of the most hated women in America. But according to evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, men having mistresses is not what is immoral, but the rather the notion of monogamy (rooted in our evolved desire for faithfulness) is what is immoral. From Banishing the Green Eyed Monster by Richard Dawkins I want to raise another question that interests me. Why are we so obsessed with monogamous fidelity in the first place? …. The underlying presumption — that a human being has some kind Read More ›

ID proponents have a hard enough time getting their message across without the “help” of creationists like Kent Hovind and Venom Fang X. Not only have Darwinists impeded the advance of ID, but so also have some creationists.

For example the creationist Venom Fang X has harmed the ID movement by his less-than-scholarly videos. RationalWiki says of Venom Fang X:

VenomFangX (often shortened to VFX or Venom) is a creationist Internet vlogger who makes YouTube videos mostly about religion, God, Christianity and creationism, particularly young earth creationism. To this date, he holds the highest subscribers amongst Christian channels (even more than the Vatican YouTube channel),