“The National Center for Science Education is antichrist.”

Just about anything that is said afterwards can be discredited by this first sentence alone.  This is a debate about whether or not religion should be taught in public schools under the guise of Intelligent Design.  Intelligent Design has been proven time and again to be a slapdash repackaging of creationism in secular sounding terms in a feeble attempt to get it into science curriculum.  The National Center for Science Education isn’t antichrist, they’re simply asking that science curriculum reflects the separation of church and state that was established with the founding of this country.  To call the NCSE antichrist is to call America and most of the founding fathers antichrist while at the same time revealing your true religious motives right from the get go.

“Text taken from The Quest for Right, a 7-book series on origins based on physical science, the old science of cause and effect:”

As far as I know science is still operating under the same old system of theorize, test, modify, and test again until you get it right or get as close to right as is possible with current technology and methodology.  It’s the same system that has been in use since the beginning of the Enlightenment, and it’s the same system that has consistently validated ideas like evolution that have gotten your panties in such a twist.  Could it be that you’re hearkening back to the pure science of the dark ages that served humanity so well for so long?

“Special note on obstructionism: In 1916, one thousand scientists were polled as to their belief in a deity (i.e., God). Of the ones responding, 60 percent had no religious belief. A follow-up study 80 years later revealed that the percentage of atheists, someone who does not believe in or denies the existence of God, among scientists remains shockingly high: 78 percent of physicists, 58 percent of biologists, and 55 percent of mathematicians are atheists.”

This is one of the biggest gripes that I have with modern religions.  Why is it shocking that scientists don’t believe in God?  Why is this such a scandal?  Why do the religious have this impulse to convert everyone around them to their particular belief system?  In short, who cares if they don’t believe in God?  It doesn’t surprise me that a good deal of scientists don’t hold a religious belief one way or the other.  Their whole life revolves around coming up with a suitable cosmology that is based on observable evidence and rigorous testing, which is something that no religion in the world can stand up to.  There is no case for God other than taking it on faith, and you’ll forgive me if I prefer scientists who question the world around me rather than taking it at face value based on ancient and outdated tribal morality.

 ”Sixty percent of those polled by the University of Georgia historian Edward Larson snubbed Judaism, Islam, and Christianity by equating “belief in a deity and an afterlife with superstition based on fear and wishful thinking.” Nature, 4-09-1997″

At the risk of sounding pedantic, here is the dictionary.com definition of superstition:

1.	a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like.

2.	a system or collection of such beliefs.

3.	a custom or act based on such a belief.

4.	irrational fear of what is unknown or mysterious, esp. in connection with religion.

5.	any blindly accepted belief or notion.

Sounds like religion fits the definition of superstition perfectly!  Moving on.

“Even more disturbing, only 10 percent of those polled “expressed an intense desire for immortality” (that is, going to heaven), thus, signifying that on the average only 10 percent of physicists, biologists, and mathematicians are under covenant.”

Again you’re showing your ass by revealing your true motives.  Basing an argument against science on the fact that scientists aren’t “under covenent” is ridiculous.  Freedom of religion means they have the freedom to no religion, but that shouldn’t affect how they do their job either way.  Ethical scientists have their own system, the scientific method, that has done pretty well so far.

“The great majority (90 percent) have little or no regard for God but, rather, oppose Him, promoting the error that the earth and all that is in existence happened by chance. The mystical tenet governs every aspect of academic science”

There is a subtle but very distinct difference between actively opposing God and teaching a cosmology that has no room for God, though that’s a distinction lost on the religious.  If an experiment was carried out tomorrow that proved once and for all that God did exist then that would be put into the science textbooks, but so far the almighty creator of the universe has been strangely silent for the past five thousand years.  Science teachers aren’t actively trying to convert their classrooms to radical atheism, they are simply teaching the sum total of centuries of scientific inquiry.  It’s not the scientists’ fault that God hasn’t shown any evidence of his existence once in all that time, and it isn’t the teacher’s job to teach religion to students.  Religion and schools are separate, and that’s how it should be.  If you’re interested in theocracy then you can move to Iran where they’re more welcoming to that brand of close-minded thinking.

“To the point, obstructionists: scientists, biologists, mathematicians, and the NEA, teach the innocents within the classroom that there is no God.”

Again, God and religion shouldn’t be taught in the classroom.  We are a secular society that has the basis for that secularism written into the Constitution.  I for one am glad that I live in a society where freedom of inquiry and freedom of thought is considered a basic human right that is part of the highest law in the land.  Otherwise we might live in a world where creationist theocrats such as C. David Parsons got their way and stifled true understanding of the universe with a tragically limited cosmology written by primitive nomads six-thousand years ago.

Technorati Tags: C. David Parsons, secularism, religion, creationism, intelligent design, The Quest For Right, theocracy

And as we all know by now, Islamic extremists tend to react to things they find offensive by blowing them up or otherwise sending whoever is responsible for the offense on a one way trip to meet Allah personally.

So because an illiterate merchant from Mecca who lived and died fourteen centuries ago was evidently a little camera shy and banned any images depicting him these five men have taken it upon themselves to try and kill a perfectly innocent cartoonist who was exercising the freedom of speech that he enjoys under the secular democratic government of Denmark.

The ban against depicting Mohammed has only been sporadically enforced throughout history anyways.  The ban, when it is enforced, is in place largely so that Muslims don’t run afoul of the second commandment and start worshipping “graven images” rather than Allah.  I’m probably arguing a subtle point here that will be lost on a violent radical fundamentalist offshoot of a religion that believes all other religions should be converted or subjugated, but I seriously doubt that any Muslim is going to be bowing down and worshipping a caricature of a vaguely middle-eastern man with a bomb strapped to his head.

Then again, if Islam keeps getting publicity like this then it could well be that the vaguely middle-eastern man with a bomb strapped to his body will become the universal symbol for their religion no matter how loudly moderate elements protest the peaceful intentions of their religion.

Technorati Tags: Islam, Danish cartoonist, Mohammed, Danish cartoon riots, Muslim extremists, Mohammed cartoons

The self-righteous protests against using Jesus on something as worldly and frivolous as cosmetics are by far the best part of the whole ordeal:

“Why would anyone use religious figures to promote vanity products? It’s very disrespectful and distasteful.”

Sit back for a moment and enjoy the delicious irony of that statement.  This is coming from a religious organization that has gotten rich over the years by demanding 10% of parishioners income to get in good with Jesus, regularly charged credulous believers to see holy “artifacts” on display in the church, and that famously caused the greatest schism in Christian history, the protestant reformation, because they were selling plenary indulgences to families that were terrified their dead loved ones were rotting in limbo or hell.

Putting Jesus’ face on some lip stick and body cream really doesn’t seem so bad when it’s compared to a worldwide extortion racket where they sent dead loved ones to hell for all eternity if the family didn’t pay up.

Technorati Tags: Catholics, Singapore, Topshop, religious commercialism, Jesus, indulgences, exploiting religion