Religion

Atheist Rob Sherman was at the Illinois General Assembly to argue against Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s unconstitutional grant of $1,000,000 to the Pilgrim Baptist Church when this exchange took place between him and Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago): Davis: I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy — it’s tragic — when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school. ...

Movies.go.com is another site that now lists “Expelled” with an April 18 release date, and includes a poll on how good you think the movie is likely to be. With 474 votes, the ratings are: A - Sizzlin’: 11% B - Cool: 1% C - Decent: 1% D - DVD-only: 2% F - Vile: 85% Gridman (2008-04-05): I didn't vote until after you posted the link to the vote and it saids there were only 467 votes after I voted...More expelled trickery? :-)Still 85% vile, though... ...

Felix Salmon at Portfolio.com offers an interesting review of “Expelled” from a non-scientist. Robert McHenry at the Encyclopedia Brittanica looks at some of the arguments of “Expelled." And you can find more information at the NCSE’s “Expelled Exposed” web page.

Science Blogger (and 2007 Arizona Professor of the Year) John Lynch signed up for the Tempe screening of “Expelled” which was supposed to occur at 7 p.m. last night. He received an email on April 2 telling him that it had been cancelled. But it wasn’t cancelled–it was just moved to 6 p.m. (as Lynch had been informed in an earlier email), and went on at Arizona Mills Mall as planned. Apparently the producers just decided to screen out some of the prospective attendees by lying to them, and professors who win awards for the excellence of their teaching are considered undesirables. Lynch noted that others were cc’d on both of the notices he received, and that while those with email addresses containing names like “boughtbythecross,” “homeschoolma,” and “covenant-dad” apparently didn’t receive the bogus cancellation notice. Lynch’s post has links to some comments containing reports of the event from those who still managed to attend. UPDATE: In Louisville, Kentucky, they also claimed that a screening was cancelled, but a screening for students and staff at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary did take place on the appointed date, and the schedule of events shows the screening as having taken place. Again, “undesirables” were screened out and not informed of the change in venue.

P.Z. Myers recently offered a critique of a biology paper published on the Institute for Creation Research website that was presented at the 1998 International Conference on Creationism in Pittsburgh, by Mark H. Armitage, M.S., then of the ICR Graduate School and now with the Van Andel Creation Research Center of the Creation Research Society (which is right here in Arizona, just north of Chino Valley, named after a deceased co-founder of Amway). Myers observed: ...

Intelligent design advocate Michael Behe scored another “own goal” like he did in the Dover trial, this time in the law suit by the Association of Christian Schools International and Calvary Chapel Christian School against the University of California. ACSI and Calvary were arguing that the UC system was unfairly refusing to accept transfer credits from certain courses taught at Christian schools which used inadequate materials in their curriculum. Behe testified in court on behalf of the plaintiffs that “it is personally abusive and pedagogically damaging to de facto require students to subscribe to an idea . . . . Requiring a student to, effectively, consent to an idea violates [her] personal integrity. Such a wrenching violation [may cause] a terrible educational outcome." The judge cited this reasoning in his decision in favor of the University of California: Yet, the two Christian biology texts at issue commit this “wrenching violation.” For example, Biology for Christian Schools declares on the very first page that: (1) “‘Whatever the Bible says is so; whatever man says may or may not be so,’ is the only [position] a Christian can take . . . ." ...

At least for Shirley Dobson (wife of James Dobson of Focus on the Family) and the National Day of Prayer Task Force, that is. On an application to be a coordinator for the Task Force, it claims: The National Day of Prayer Task Force was a creation of the National Prayer Committee for the expressed purpose of organizing and promoting prayer observances conforming to a Judeo-Christian system of values.Sounds open to Jews and Christians, but not Muslims, right? But when you look further at the application, you see that you must be willing to sign the following statement of belief in order to be a coordinator: I believe that the Holy Bible is the inerrant Word of The Living God. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only One by which I can obtain salvation and have an ongoing relationship with God. I believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, his sinless life, his miracles, the atoning work of his shed blood, his resurrection and ascension, his intercession and his coming return to power and glory. I believe that those who follow Jesus are family and there should be unity among all who claim his name.(Via Ed Brayton’s Dispatches from the Culture Wars blog, where one commenter points out that they are probably open-minded enough to be willing to accept anyone of any religion or even an atheist, so long as they’re willing to sign that statement of belief, and another commenter suggests the alternate term “Christeo-Mormon.”) ...

A very nice sculpture of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has joined other monuments outside a Cumberland County, Tennessee courthouse which is acting in good compliance with the First Amendment. (Apparently NOT an April Fool’s joke–although Wired’s blog posted on April 1, it was announced a day earlier at the official FSM website.)

I’ve put up a post at the Secular Outpost about Dutch MP Geert Wilders’ new film criticizing the Koran, “Fitna,” which has, unsurprisingly, resulted in governmental demands for YouTube to remove the video and calls for boycotts of Dutch goods. Read it at the Secular Outpost. Also see P.Z. Myers’ commentary on it at Pharyngula.

I previously noted that none of the cases of alleged persecution of intelligent design advocates in the film “Expelled” come close to the case of political persecution of an advocate of evolution, Chris Comer, who lost her job at the Texas Education Association for sending an email announcing an academic talk by a critic of intelligent design. Troy Britain now lists some additional cases where intelligent design advocates are the persecutors: Nancey Murphy of the Fuller Theological Seminary, who said she faced a campaign to get her fired because she expressed the view that intelligent design was not only poor theology, but “so stupid, I don’t want to give them my time.” Murphy, who believes in evolution, said she had to fight to keep her job after one of the founding members of the intelligent design movement, legal theorist Phillip Johnson, called a trustee at the seminary and tried to get her fired. ...