1. Texas Supreme Court rules church can't be sued in exorcism

Comment #201248 by ChicagoMolly on June 29, 2008 at 1:32 pm

Mike O Risal said:

... what the court has done is effectively made churches in Texas a legal entity above normal law. They now have the right to hold people against their will for indefinite periods, inflict corporal abuse and punishments, and generally to force American citizens to accept any sort of religious ritual " no matter how barbaric" if they happen to be in a church in Texas.

Hallelujah! This is the kind of decision the Busheviks have been waiting for. All they need do to get the heat off Guantánamo is turn the place into a religious retreat! If everything they do to the prisoners congregation is motivated by their sincerely held religious beliefs, they can do anything.

They could make waterboarding a sacrament. Arguably, it's a lot like baptism.

2. Darwin's Joyful Journey of Discovery

Comment #187834 by ChicagoMolly on June 2, 2008 at 7:54 pm

mordacious1 said:

Maybe one problem is, is that too many people find Origin "hard to read". Boy, that's sad.

Yup. With all the screaming the righties do about The Failure Of Education And All That Entails, they constantly miss the point. They're constantly yowping about evolution or naughty bits or political correctness (as if they didn't have their own version), but they don't even notice that we're losing our sense of prose style. And style counts a lot. I'm one of those odd Yanks who enjoys 19th century prose. When I read Dickens, Darwin, or Mark Twain, I fall into reading-out-loud-to-myself mode because their writing sounds so good! They wrote everything out longhand, and I think that had a lot to do with it. You have to take more time to think about what you're putting on paper than we usually do when we bang something out on the keyboard and hit Send so we can be first on the comments list.

When Dickens published his novels in serial form, people would buy a copy of the latest installment, gather with a group of friends, pass the magazine round the circle and read to each other. Maybe "Darwin Parties" would be a neat thing to try. Invite some friends together for a potluck, then circle up with Beagle or Origins and read out loud to the group. Finish up with some coffee & donuts and an episode of Planet Earth-- that could be fun.

3. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #160116 by ChicagoMolly on April 13, 2008 at 4:48 pm

Zamboro:

It seemed like they wrote themselves into a corner and then came up with some ridiculous "power of prayer" nonsense to pull the Doctor's ass out of the fire.

I haven't seen that episode yet, but your description makes it sound like Peter Pan begging the audience to save Tinkerbell's life by clapping as loudly as they can. And isn't that the origin of the term "claptrap"?

4. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #156558 by ChicagoMolly on April 7, 2008 at 9:40 pm

Dean

What we all would like to see is Richard introduce his wife to the Doctor!

Mmmmmmm, I dunno 'bout that. Even though we're dealing with a different Doctor, for anyone who is aware of the history of Tom Baker/Lalla Ward --> Lalla Ward/Richard Dawkins (by way of Douglas Adams) it would get a lot of timelines weirdly intertwingled!

5. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #155945 by ChicagoMolly on April 6, 2008 at 11:45 am

Well, of course the Doctor has a daughter; after all, he has a granddaughter, right? Speaking of which, since Russell likes to bring back Faces From The Past, why not have the Doctor visit London 40 years after the Dalek Invasion of Earth and see how Susan is doing? Carole Ann Ford is still around, and hardly anyone else from The First Doctor era is any more.

And what's the deal with vulgarity in British papers (not that there's anything wrong with that). Russell dropped an F-bomb in the middle of the interview and it got printed! In the States the papers still get in trouble with anything juicier than damn or hell. Even a nice healthy Goddamn brings down a hail of *st*r*sks.

6. EXPELLED!

Comment #147555 by ChicagoMolly on March 20, 2008 at 10:02 pm

You mean God didn't smite Richard down with a bolt of purple lightning from heaven?

Hmmmph. Maybe she was at a different movie.

7. Good people doing evil things

Comment #125075 by ChicagoMolly on February 10, 2008 at 10:26 pm

He quotes the Beethoven argument: imagine if an embryo you destroyed was a genius like Beethoven? But isn't it just as fair to ask, what if it had spared us a Hitler? A Stalin? An Idi Amin? You can't have it both ways!

And of course, if Beethoven had never been born, he would never have been missed. But the next step is to say: If I had never been born, I would never be missed. And if you had never been born, you would never be missed.

And that's the part they really don't want to face.

8. Conservative Rabbis to Vote on Resolution Criticizing Pope's Revision of Prayer

Comment #124967 by ChicagoMolly on February 10, 2008 at 2:13 pm

The Rev. James Massa, executive director of the secretariat of ecumenical and interreligious affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Friday that the prayer would be heard by "a tiny minority of Catholics and they will hear it in Latin."

"The publication of the prayer and its interpretation by some of our partners in the Jewish community does lower the temperature a bit," Father Massa said, "but we have persevered other controversies in the past and at the end of the day we are all at the table of dialogue."

You gotta love these guys! Hardly anybody goes to Latin Mass any more, and hardly anybody who does go to Latin Mass understands Latin, so we can put any sort of rubbish in the docs and it'll be OK!

The part about the prayer's 'interpretation by some of our partners in the Jewish community' is another nicely whipped up bowl of flummery. This is like those smarmy ersatz apologies you hear from celebrities who get caught saying something hopelessly bigoted and try to cover their arses by saying "I sincerely regret that some of you people think I said something wrong." I mean, how many ways can you interpret "May the Lord Our God enlighten their hearts so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men" without making it sound like "Please come along quietly or we just might fire up the ovens again"?

9. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116444 by ChicagoMolly on January 26, 2008 at 1:50 pm

Circumcising newborn baby boys wasn't a common practice among gentiles in the States until the early 20th Century (so much for progress). It was promoted as a "hygienic" measure to make it easier to keep the bits clean. Of course it also helped pad out the doc's bill -- you know, like the routine $300 rustproofing "option" that's added on when you buy a new car. But it really had more to do with the anti-sex mania that swept the country at that time. There was an endless stream of propaganda out concerning The Horrors of Self-Abuse and all that that entails. It seemed that all the moral failings of America were being blamed on masturbation, and any number of well-meaning religious crusaders and outright quacks were on the job concocting pseudoscientific diagnoses and cures -- circumcision, vigorous exercise, ice-cold baths, exposure to radium salts -- for boys and men who were destroying our nation's vigor by diddling (this was a male problem, of course -- girls are sweet, pure, angelic creatures who just don't do such things). That was Dr John Kellogg's motivation for inventing Corn Flakes. He believed a vegetarian diet, with lots of grain and regular purges, would cure you of the urge to masturbate. If you haven't read T C Boyle's novel The Road To Wellville, do. It's set in 1907 at Dr Kellogg's sanatarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, and while the plot is fiction, Boyle did his homework on the background of the place. It's really frightening to see the ways sexual obsessions express themselves.

10. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116425 by ChicagoMolly on January 26, 2008 at 1:08 pm

Some years ago a male friend of mine married a Jewish woman and joined their team. When he said he wanted to be circumcised the rabbi he consulted told him that the procedure wasn't necessary for a convert; it was really a matter of tribal identity and they didn't expect it of him. But I guess he wanted to show his bride the depth of his commitment, so he did it. At the age of 32. So be it. That was his choice to make as an adult. But for this guy simply to assume that his choice of religions automatically applies to his child at all is ludicrous. To try it without the agreement of his ex-wife (who clearly should have a say in how her child is raised) is presumptuous. To attempt to ritually cut off the foreskin of his son, who can at best be said to have converted by proxy, is outrageous.

At age 12 a child raised in a Jewish family is ready for bar/bat mitzvah; ready to stand up for oneself and state, "I am an adult, I can choose for myself, and I freely acknowledge that I am a Jew and accept all the responsibilities of my faith and my people." So at this point I should think the boy has the right to decide for himself what he's going to do, and if his father is serious about Judaism he should allow his son to make the decision for himself. Especially since his own personal naughty bits are at stake.

Speaking of naughty bits, there's nothing in the story about whether the Old Man got his own willy trimmed. One wonders.

11. Fish out of water: Your Inner Fish

Comment #111465 by ChicagoMolly on January 14, 2008 at 5:10 pm

Hmmmmm... a hot-rodded Beetle.

Can you say "Porsche 911S", boys and girls?

I knew you could.

Vroom, VROOOOOMMMMMM!!!!

12. Man and God

Comment #103488 by ChicagoMolly on December 25, 2007 at 8:26 pm

I've been leaving comments about the Bsphere as ChicagoMolly for a while now so I keep it for consistency; and since we write in from everywhere the geographical tag seems useful. Besides, "Chicago Molly" is a W C Fields reference, and one can't have too many of those, can one?

I have to say I'm quite tickled to be considered part of an onslaught. I don't think I've ever been in one before. But I suppose it must be one. After all, for thousands of years earthly rulers have propped themselves up with some sort of God Squad to keep the proles from asking embarrassing questions; the system's worked pretty well so far. But if four authors write four critical books in a couple of years that become best-sellers ... suddenly we're looking at The End Of Western Civilization As We Know It! Wow! That's impressive. It shows how massively insecure most religionists are. You can see it in the panic-stricken way the anonymous editorial writer slops all manner of disconnected arguments together into an indigestible mess. It also shows that the Religious Right aren't quite as conservative as they think they are. If they were, they'd acknowledge that there is a reason for the best-seller status of the books. Nobody was forced to buy any of them; there are just lots more atheists out here than they thought, and there are more people willing to entertain the idea of unbelief. It's all part of the free market. But they only accept the marketplace when it delivers the goods they want.

Siobhan Doran {aka ChicagoMolly}

13. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #101650 by ChicagoMolly on December 20, 2007 at 4:42 pm

Since BJohn brought up the legendary miracle at Fatima in 1917, I'll dig in with some of the questions I've entertained over the years (going into Agent Scully mode):

Hardly anything about the story was ever objectively verified, beyond the fact that three Portuguese children claimed to have seen a vision of the virgin (and even you use the word 'fantasies' to describe that). Every statement beyond that is hearsay. "70,000 people witnessed the sun "spin" for several minutes and then appear to "dive" towards the earth"? How were they counted; were there turnstiles and ticket-takers on site? "People in neighboring towns testified to the same happenings"; how was this information gathered? Did anyone from these towns tell reporters about this on their own without prompting, or did they perhaps hear about The Miracle That Just Happened In Fatima a day or so later from somebody else passing through town and say, 'You know, I felt something strange the other day -- that must have been it!' And then start spreading their own versions of the tale.

But what about the miracle itself? Well, BJohn, have you ever fainted? I have. Back when I was a kid, stuck out in the back yard on weeding duty. It didn't occur to me to bring a water jug with me, and after a few hours on my knees in the sun, my vision (!) went all sparkly and woogly and I threw up and keeled over. Picture a few hundred devout rural folk who have heard that miracles are happening in that field. Many were probably after going to mass and communion, which in the old days meant they fasted the day before, and might not have eaten properly all day. And it's a good bet they were dehydrating. So here they are, standing or kneeling stock still for hours in the sun praying their rosaries and expecting a miracle ... and some of them faint. And others, still conscious but definitely getting the sparkly woogly bits, shout out that the miracle is happening, and before long they gossip each other into a great heavenly panic and the story gets bigger at each pass.

So I don't see a hoax or conspiracy, just a misinterpretation of a normal occurrence. And of course there's nothing like a really good miracle tale to ramp up the tourist trade. Nothing wrong with that, eh?

14. Three wise men just legend: archbishop

Comment #101416 by ChicagoMolly on December 20, 2007 at 10:37 am

But Dr Williams said almost everyone agreed on two things - that Jesus's mother was named Mary and his father Joseph.

Ah yes, good solid Hebrew names, those -- like Reg, Stan (oops, sorry, Loretta!), and of course Brian and the nearly-virgin Mandy.

--I'm all right really. I've been looked at but not seen to.--

15. Letters: Theology has no place in a university

Comment #75051 by ChicagoMolly on October 1, 2007 at 1:10 pm

I'm just in the middle of a fine little book: "Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers" by Brooke Allen. She devotes a chapter each to Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton, along with a brief summary of the philosophical/religious menagerie that was the Eighteenth Century.

I have to share this quote with you. It's from the chapter on James Madison. The phrase in brackets is an insert by Ms Allen.

Madison, like Jefferson, devoted time during his years of retirement to planning and founding the University of Virginia. He shared Jefferson's determination to omit chairs of theology: as he wrote to Edward Everett, a Harvard professor, "A University with sectarian professorships, becomes, of course, a Sectarian Monopoly: with professorships of rival sects, it would be an Arena of Theological Gladiators. Without any such professorships it may incur for a time at least, the imputation of irreligious tendencies, if not designs. The last difficulty was thought [in setting up the University of Virginia] more manageable than either of the others."

The university was to be a state institution, endowed and supported at the common expense. Therefore any imposed theological program went by definition against the principles not only of the U.S. Constitution but of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which had by then been incorporated into the state's constitution.

16. The Gullible Age: Review of 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #61534 by ChicagoMolly on August 5, 2007 at 3:40 pm

Just keep an eye on YouTube for the next few weeks. I first saw "Root of All Evil?" as a download and I expect "Enemies of Reason" will make it too.

17. They let anybody onto the faculty at Oxford nowadays

Comment #61528 by ChicagoMolly on August 5, 2007 at 3:09 pm

I was raised to be a Good Irish Catholic -- South Side Irish we call ourselves -- and I went through the same drill PZ did. I think it's fascinating (and rather funny) how many of us were raised to be Good Whatevers, but couldn't stop asking impertinent questions once we'd learned how. The nuns did their best; they tried to give us an intellectual Garden of Eden where we could ask questions about anything we could find. Except for the Big Sacred God Tree in the middle of the garden. Don't even think about asking what that's doing there!! But there was no hope for me. By sixth grade I'd started reading mythology and looking at bible stories with the same attitude (yep, it's all Edith Hamilton's fault!). And, as with PZ, Confirmation class was the last straw. When they told me I was to become a Soldier of Christ and venture forth to convert the heathens, I deserted. The heathens never did anything to me that deserved that kind of treatment.

BTW, Flagellent asked (#60850) how McGrath rated inclusion in a Catholic organization. There is a term of art used by "High Church" Anglicans. They call themselves "The Anglican Communion of The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" to distinguish it from the Roman Communion (aka "filthy rotten Papists"). This is how they can get away with calling C.S. Lewis a Catholic theologian.

18. They let anybody onto the faculty at Oxford nowadays

Comment #61522 by ChicagoMolly on August 5, 2007 at 2:23 pm

McGrath left a little bit out of his piece. What he should have said is:

One of the most commonly encountered patterns in scientific development is seeing a pattern of observations and then saying, in order to explain these observations, we propose that there exists --> in this universe <-- something --> which obeys natural laws <-- that is as yet unobserved but we believe that one day will be observed because if it's there, it can explain everything that can be observed --> without recourse to ghoulies, ghosties, lang-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night<--.