August 2008
“There are some even in this sceptical age who still believe that God is an old...”
– Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, from his article Genesis and the origin of the Origin of the species.
Despite what you might think from the quote this is not an attack on Darwin or Science, but more of an argument for putting boundaries on what science can and can’t tell us. I might not agree with all...
Mythbuster Adam Savage: 3 Ways to Fix US Science... →
Please note that teaching creationism in science classes is not one of Mr. Savage’s recommendations.
Palin wants creationism taught in science classes. →
McCain’s choice for VP, Sarah Palin, is a fun loving Northern USA gal. She’s an ex-beauty queen (not much competition in the north) who’s into killing polar bears, and wiping out wolves to increase moose and caribou numbers so she can shoot them as well, she’s also against abortion for any reason and now it turns out she wants creationism taught not in religion classes but...
Stormpulse: Hurricane Gustav tracker. →
The Stormpulse website has online software that tracks storms in the Atlantic basin. This page is tracking Hurricane Gustav.
Our thoughts are with the people of Cuba and Haiti and we hope that the people of New Orleans will spared another disaster.
“A Pakistani lawmaker defended a decision by southwestern tribesmen to bury five...”
– Pakistani lawmaker defends honor killings - Pakistan - msnbc.com
Presented without comment
(via jgh)
LSL! Yeah!
Finshed up work on Friday and now have nine, count them 9, weeks off for long service leave. Can’t stop smiling!
Heading to South Australia (Adelaide, Kangaroo Island, Flinders ranges, Coober Pedy) and The Centre (Yulara, the Rock, Kings Canyon, Alice Springs and the Oodnadatta track) on Saturday. Will try and post some pics but as I don’t have 3G for the laptop, I’m going to be...
America has lost its way →
Former Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, argues that since the neocons took power, America has made mistake after mistake in its foreign policy and has made the world a much more dangerous place.
Unless the US takes a less belligerent approach there can be no hope for a peaceful planet. It’s current dealings with Russia over Georgia would seem to demonstrate it still doesn’t...
Teachers pack guns in class →
The USA must be a very dangerous place. To “protect” the students at an isolated 110-student school in Texas teachers now pack hand-guns.
Superintendent David Thweatt of the Harrold Independent School District in Texas claims that without arming the teachers “it’s not going to take very long for it to be a total massacre”.
Now this is another example of poor risk...
Wind farms over inflate bats. →
Bats are dropping dead around a wind farm in Alberta, Canada, with the majority of them not coming into contact with the turbine blades. The cause of the problem seems to be that as the blades spin they create a low pressure zone, any bats in the vicinity run the risk of their lungs being over-inflated causing burst blood vessels and possibly death. Currently nobody has any ideas on how to keep...
Just think: it's important →
Australian schools are slowly catching up to European schools in the teaching of philosophy. However this isn’t the contemplate one’s navel type of philosophy, but the art of critical thinking and deductive logic. The question remains why is it that countries like Britain, USA, Canada and Australia have been so slow to introduce philosophy as a subject into their high school...
“Ultimately I think Sydney is one of the most spiritual towns I’ve ever seen in...”
– US Preacher Mark Driscoll in Sydney to set us straight
Apparently he sees this as a bad thing.
(via atheistramblings)
Yeah they are. Because ultimately they won’t fulfill you.
(via hesafriendofmine)
You have to be kidding!
Yoga pathway to Evil! →
According to the chief exorcist of the Roman Catholic diocese of Westminster, Fr. Jeremy Davies, yoga is the “thin edge of the wedge” and can act as a conduit to the evil spirit.
It’s interesting to note that the good Father considers the thin end of wedges to be more dangerous than the thick ends. Such is the complexity of wedges and exorcism.
Then Man made God →
In this piece Phillip Adams considers the modern idea that spreading intelligence/consciousness across the universe is a way for man to create god. He finds that not much is different between this idea and the thousands of gods mankind has created over the many thousands of years past. Our reasons for needing a god remain the same as does our vanity in thinking that either we could create a real...
Porn addicted Preacher admits he lied about having... →
Michael Guglielmucci faked having a terminal illness for two years while preaching in Melbourne and Adelaide (Australia).
It is believed he received a number of donations to help with his treatment for said faked illness. I’m just surprised that he didn’t claim that Jesus had cured him, like other preachers.
Apparently he is receiving psychiatric treatment but it is not stated if...
Does Facebook discriminate against Atheists?
Facebook has disabled my account. Apparently I used a feature (they won’t tell me which one), too often (they won’t tell me the number of times) and I exceeded some limit (they won’t tell me what the the limit is). No right of appeal, no chance to argue my case.
I think they really got rid me me because I’m an Atheist. Spread the word, Facebook discriminates against...
“Ultimately I think Sydney is one of the most spiritual towns I’ve ever...”
– US Preacher Mark Driscoll in Sydney to set us straight
Apparently he sees this as a bad thing.
Which country is top of the Olympic medal table?
Well if you live in the US of A the answer would be the USA. But if you live anywhere in the rest of the world it would be China.
Apparently to protect Americans’ fragile sense of national pride a number of US media outlets order the table by the total of all medals won. However, in the rest of the world the table is ordered by number of gold medals, followed by the number of silver then...
Why do people believe weird things? →
According to sceptic Michael Shermer with “a friendly and confident patter punctuated with inquisitive looks and knowing nods - and no moral scruples - you too can be a psychic, astrologer, palm reader or tarot card diviner.”
And the reason is that a great number of people are just simply ready to believe.
Al-Qaeda declares war on the cucumber. →
Al-Qaeda is losing support among Sunnis in Iraq due to its brutal crackdown on activities that it considers un-Islamic.
Al-Qaeda has ruled that woman cannot buy cucumbers or any “suggestively-shaped” vegetable. Apparently they have even killed female goats because their private parts were not covered and their tails pointed upward, which Al-Qaeda said is haraam.
This would all be...
Where do Scientologists go when they die? →
Apparently if you are a Scientologist when you die your “soul” gets to inhabit another body; unless of course your really good in which case you get to float around body free.
But the Scientologists are keen to point out that they are not plagiarising from the Buddhists or other religions that teach reincarnation, since Scientologists aren’t reincarnated but are “simply...
A win for common sense. →
A US federal judge has ruled that the University of California can deny course credits to applicants from Christian high schools whose textbooks claim that the Bible is infallible and that reject evolution.
The judge made clear that this ruling was not that the high school courses contained religious viewpoints but that they omitted important topics in science and history and failed to teach...
“´In God We Trust.´ It is the choicest compliment that has ever been paid us, and...”
– Mark Twain, “Mark Twain’s Notebook”
Religious group starves 'demon' toddler →
The body of a toddler who was starved to death by an American religious group has been found in a suitcase.
Apparently the group viewed the boy as a demon and as he didn’t say “Amen” after eating food they stopped feeding him.
The police estimate that the child would have been 19-months old when the group stopped feeding him.
Would we be better off without religion?
On Tuesday this week the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper held a debate on the question “would the world better off without religion”. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make the event and the Herald didn’t really publish much of a summary of the debate, so it’s unclear how the the evening unfolded.
Leading up to the event two articles were published in the SMH, one in...
I love Canada.
claudia:
switchbladesusie:
Canadian border guards are under orders to prevent members of a fundamentalist American church from crossing into Canada to protest at the funeral Saturday of a Winnipeg man brutally killed on a Greyhound bus last week.
Westboro Baptist Church, a controversial Kansas-based sect, intends to picket the funeral of 22-year-old Tim McLean to tell Canadians his slaying on...
World to end next month. →
CERN has announced that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle collider will start operating next month. This 27 kilometre-long machine worries some people, they are concerned that the LHC could create a black hole that could swallow up the planet and put an end to global warming.
Specialists working in this area say that while there is the possibility of the LHC creating a black hole, they...
“Well, you don’t have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate.”
– US Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor
Who happens to believe that the Earth was created by his imaginary friend 5,200 years ago.
An Irish joke. →
A Northern Irish politician, DUP MLA Mervyn Storey, is demanding that creation science be taught in schools in Northern Ireland. Mr Storey said it would be “ideal” if evolution was not taught at all. He went on to say that “Evolution is a theory - it is not a proven fact”.
From Wikipedia: In science a theory is a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of...
Church groups pray for Murray-Darling →
The Murray-Darling river systems, and the areas and communities around them, have being greatly affected by the on-going drought in Australia. Many scientists are warning that the system is close to hitting a crisis point from which it will never truly recover.
There are many causes to the current crises besides the ongoing drought. Irrigation farming, land clearing, water capture, damming (via...