Tero's Atheist Ramblings

[Cormac]

...
In the rest of Europe all schools may offer religion but they are public schools so you do not need to take the religion class. You may need to take an ethics class.

Of course, here in Ireland, most of the primary schools are still controlled (effectively) by the Catholic Church, which leads to all sorts of nonsense even though the level of religious interference is nowhere near as great as it could be.

Yep. But thank goodness we have an "Educate Together" school near me. Both of my boys have been enrolled in it since the week each of them was born.

[Brian Peacock]

Capture of the day:

"... Obama. God will stop you! ....

Then why did He allow him to be elected? Is that apparently all powerful God kind of powerless after all?

[Tero]

It's getting mean. How unchristian!
[img]Posters to various message boards tell stories of seeing bumper stickers with the message "Pray for Obama - Psalm 109:8" on the highway, only to look up the verse and find, "Let his days be few; and let another take his office." ...

Anyway, now it's a real thing: CafePress is selling T-shirts and bumper stickers, the Christian Science Monitor is wondering whether it's "funny or sinister" to pray for Obama's death, and Rachel Maddow referenced it last night on her show.

However, as a number of commentators have noted, the wording that follows this bumper-sticker appeal is somewhat more disturbing:

Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor.
Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children.
Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.[/img]

http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11 ... ys-be-few/

[Tero]

Brights forum discussion of Finnish church tax, which is 1% on imcome.
http://www.the-brights.net/forums/forum ... topic=1818

[Ronja]

Brights forum discussion of Finnish church tax, which is 1% on imcome.
http://www.the-brights.net/forums/forum ... topic=1818

I have LOTS more years by now outside the church (= without that tax) than as a tax-paying member

[Tero]

Nice smiley Ronja.

Meanwhile Beck waits for miracle:

On the "Raw Story" website, Glenn Beck was holding forth with faux-historian David Barton:

Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck says that GOP hopeful Mitt Romney's poll numbers have fallen as a part of a plan from God to make it obvious to the American people that divine intervention was responsible when Republicans take the White House in November.

"I know Mitt Romney wasn't your first choice, nor was he mine," Beck recently told controversial "historian" David Barton in a video clip highlighted by Right Wing Watch on Monday. "I am to the point that - A - God is trying to make this so clear to us that if it happens, it's his finger. Because nothing looks good."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/01/b ... n-he-wins/

A video of Beck's interview with Barton is here: http://www.video.theblaze.com/media/vid ... d=25152263

[Tero]

Randi site Matt Lowry on agency
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swi ... xists.html

[Tero]

Catch of the day:

And getting back to the title (stupid things fundies say) of this thread:
Truck Driver/Landscaper/Lab Tech/Lawyer Fuqua (maybe he's related to Orly Taitz?) has a website, with a helpful list of questions he wants interviewers to ask him.
http://www.godslawforamerica.com/press-kit/
You really have to read the parts about money, including some "revelations" I never heard in a half-dozen economics classes. And the part about how we need to get back to the Christianity of the Founders (who were mostly Deists, but whatever) - and, and - that Muslims are Marxists (no, really!) and Socialists, and ..
Really, the whole website is a paean to Really Stupid Statements by Theists.

The founding fathers invented free market because it's Biblical!

“I recommend “God’s Law – The Only Political Solution” for anyone who is interested in understanding the dynamics of how moral codes of conduct, when embraced in the heart of the Church, will create an ideal society. Charlie lays out, fundamentally, an argument based on Biblical truth, the nature of man and history. His position substantiates the concept of returning our nation to its moral compass based on the written word of God. Some may consider this position “radical”; however, when the hearts of the governors are unregenerate, lacking internal controls, a radical solution needs to be presented, God’s solution. Our nation needs a spiritual awakening if she’s going to survive and thrive in the future.”
~ Pastor Tony V. Hammack

[Tero]

Charismatic dude snares 12 000 people in 10 years.

Elevation's story started in the heart of Pastor Steven Furtick when he was just 16 years old. While reading Jim Cymbala's book, "Fresh Wind Fresh Fire", he came across a statement on page 23 that would change his life forever: "I despaired at the thought of my life passing me by without seeing God move greatly on my behalf." That sentence proved to be the catalyst for a life mission of seeing people far from God raised to life in Christ through the local church. It was over the next nine years that everything started to come together.

http://www.elevationchurch.org/history

[Tero]

"William Lane Craig Defends Genocide and Infanticide."
from Craig's own website:

"God had morally sufficient reasons for His judgement upon Canaan, and Israel was merely the instrument of His justice, just as centuries later God would use the pagan nations of Assyria and Babylon to judge Israel."

and:

"Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God's grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven's incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives."

and:

"So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgement. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life."

[Tero]

[Tero]

Tea party dude and abortions
More at http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -rape.html

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Calling evolutionary science "Darwinism" is like calling aeronautical engineering "Wrightism".

[Tero]

I like Darwin, Darwinian should stay as an adjective.

Meanwhile, Hovind gets around:

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), Kent Hovind, BOP Register number 06452-017, is scheduled for release from prison on August 11, 2015.

Following his sentencing in January 2007, Hovind was incarcerated at the Federal Prison Camp, Pensacola (minimum security), at Saufley Field, Pensacola, Florida, and was later moved to the Federal Correctional Institution, Marianna (medium security), at Marianna, Florida.[175] In May 2007, he was listed as being an "administrative security level" inmate at Federal Correctional Institution, Tallahassee, in Tallahassee, Florida, and the United States Penitentiary (USP) in Atlanta, Georgia, until being placed at Federal Correctional Institution, Edgefield, in South Carolina.[175] In August 2010, he was placed at United States Penitentiary, Atlanta;[176] in September he was moved to Federal Correctional Institution, Jesup.[177] In June 2011, he was moved back to Federal Correctional Institution, Tallahassee[178] then to the FPC Satellite Camp[179] (minimum security) under the administration of ADX Florence in Florence, Colorado.[180] In October 2012, he was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution, Berlin in New Hampshire.

wiki

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Darwinian, yes, "Darwinism", no. Darwinism is severely outdated.