(via Organized Ignorance)

Take a look at this new article over at Science Daily about morality and religion.

Here’s a link to the original article which appeared in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Citing several studies in moral psychology, the authors highlight the finding that despite differences in, or even an absence of, religious backgrounds, individuals show no difference in moral judgments for unfamiliar moral dilemmas. The research suggests that intuitive judgments of right and wrong seem to operate independently of explicit religious commitments.

This is obviously false. The fact that you can’t have morality without Jesus proves the morality doesn’t exist without Jesus which proves that this entire study is false.

Maybe you atheists should try using logic for once instead of blindly accepting whatever some scientist says just because he has “evidence”.

A friend of mine made a post on her facebook about a recent experience that she had on a religious forum. She was asking about interfaith relationships, specifically describing the case of a christian husband and an agnostic wife (her own situation). She got this response from one person:

“Remind her of the story of Jezebel. It clearly shows that a wife must adopt the religion of the husband. If she doesn’t do this, she is a horrible person.”

My wife, who is religious (though she doesn’t do the organized religion thing) had this response after hearing about it:

“Really? So I need to be an Atheist or I’m a bad person?”

It’s fun imagining the backpedaling and confused rationalizing that would follow this turn of events.

I really enjoy the show Mythbusters. The science isn’t always as rigorous as I’d like, but the engineering can be really fun to watch.

One show in particular stands out to me because of the audience response. If you go the Mythbusters forums on this topic you’ll see a thread with posts into the thousands. I am, of course, talking about the (in)famous Plane on a Conveyor Belt episode. Here’s Adam Savage describing the problem on the show:

Let me spell it out for you, normally a plane sits on the runway, spins up its engines, moves forwards gets enough air over its wings and takes off. But in this case, the plane is sitting not on the runway, but a huge conveyor belt that is matching the planes forward speed in reverse, and the grand question is can the plane take off? The myth is that it can’t

Just in case you haven’t seen the show I’ll continue below the fold so that I don’t spoil it for you. Read more »

Here’s a good way to end a war against religious zealots: simply quote bible verses at them. After all, our God (being, you know, actually real…unlike theirs) will surely smite them and end the war a lot quicker, right?

This must be the thinking behind stamping references to bible verses on US military rifle scopes.

This video is making the rounds on atheist blogs all over the blogofractal.

It’s meant to be funny, and of course it is. And yet, like a person with PTSD I find myself almost hating it because it gets it too perfect. I’ve wasted hours, even days in these kinds of circular arguments, where any point that I effectively rebut is dropped only to be restated later as though it were never addressed.

And it’s not just creationists for whom this problem exists. Anti-Vaxxers, AGW Deniers, Cdesign Proponentsists, Moon Hoaxers, 911 Truthers, UFOlogists, and pretty much any Conspiracy Theorists have this penchant for continually stating and restating their talking points without ever acknowledging that any attempt at rebuttal was ever even made.

Here’s a philosophical question for you. If you present evidence and I never look at it, does it actually exist?

The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission (CADC) published an end of the year list entitled “Top 10 Anti-Christian Acts of 2009“. According to the site it is a “list of the top ten incidents of anti-Christian defamation, bigotry and discrimination in the US from last year”. One notable feature of this list is the fact that they are all pretty much one liners with no links or references at all.

In spite of that, someone over at The Ethical Hedonist did the leg work and fact checked the list. I don’t want to give anything away, but it really is fun to see dishonesty so thoroughly exposed. Not that it’ll make a difference where it counts. Facts are a tool of the devil, designed only to confuse you and draw you further from God.

If you’ll allow me to paraphrase the interview a bit (BO = Bill O’Reilly, BH = Brit Hume):

BO: *shows clip of Brit Hume urging Tiger to become a Christian* Was that proselytizing?

BH: I don’t think so. All I was doing was pointing out that Tiger should seriously consider changing his religion from Buddhism to Christianity. That’s just trying to get him to convert to my religion, not proselytizing.

BO: But wouldn’t he just be accused of pretending to be Christian so that people would leave him alone like so many people before him?

BH: Praise be unto Jesus, most holy. His gaze does pierce through all deception. His light shines forth from all who bless his name, and the light is truth that we shall not be deceived. Praise Jesus!

BO: What kind of reaction have you gotten?

BH: I’ve gotten all kinds of email from good, kind, and gentle people who agree with me, to evil, hateful, violent people who said nothing but mean, spiteful things to me. I was just stating facts. I wasn’t belittling Buddhism.

BO: What do you think drives people to persecute you for being a Christian?

BH: I don’t know. All I know is that being Christian means being persecuted. All I did was make the simple statement of fact that Buddhism is a fart in the wind compared to Christianity, and instantly I’m persecuted just for being a Christian and nothing else.

According to father Tim Jones, a 41-year-old clergyman at St. Lawrence Church in York, England, “Thou Shalt Not Steal” is to be absolutely obeyed without exception. Unless of course you’re poor and can’t afford it. Then by all means…

To be fair he does add “I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither.” But apparently it’s okay to steal from the large corporations because “the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices.” In other words it’s not really stealing. It’s just making other people pay for it so you don’t have to. God never said anything about forcing other people to give charitably against their will, I guess.

A while back I told you about the Arkansas Winter Solstice Display. I didn’t really follow it like I should have (it got lost in the shuffle), but apparently quite a bit has happened since I first posted that story. The ACLU eventually did file a lawsuit about it (which they won, of course), and at least one interesting fact came up that I didn’t know about. Quoting now from the latest story in the Arkansas News:

During Monday’s hearing, it was revealed that the secretary of state’s office has a written policy that allows anyone to apply to put up a display at the Capitol. The policy was established by Daniels’ predecessor, Sharon Priest. The nativity scene was exempt from the application process because it has been a temporary holiday display on the Capitol grounds since the 1940s.

In other words every display except the nativity scene had to get permission. Way to be neutral, eh? Anyway, I just learned about this and haven’t really looked much deeper into it. I’ll dig a bit and let you know any other details that I find.