(This was originally going to be part 4, but since today is Blasphemy Day, I figured I’d bump it up.)
Blasphemy and Heresy
If you think about it, the very notions of blasphemy and heresy are bizare.
Heresy means saying things that aren’t true, according to church authorities. Depending on which sect is in power, this might mean [...]
PZ has already pointed out BillDo’s bit of anticipatory apoplexy over Blasphemy Day.
But I want to draw attention to a specific bit of BillDo’s hypocrisy:
The Center for Inquiry is factually incorrect to say that “Free speech is the foundation on which other liberties rest.” Freedom of conscience is the first liberty, and it is inextricably [...]
September 30 is Blasphemy Day. This has a lot of people upset, including Bill Dembski, and I’m sure we can count on BillDo to splutter something incoherent about it when he hears about it.
Which raises the question, why blaspheme?
For one thing, it’s fun, even if it’s not very noble: it’s pushing people’s buttons for the [...]
Here are the notes (also in
org mode) for the talk I’m giving later today about the book of Judges.
BillDo has a post entitled “Is the Met’s Tosca Sacrilegious?” (except that he has it in all caps because it’s shoutier.)
He concludes with
So, no, “Tosca” is not sacrilegious. It’s just a bore.
Cats and dogs living together! BillDo and I agree on something!
Also noteworthy:
The only reason I went was because of reports that at the end [...]
The Center for Inquiry is holding a blasphemy contest on the occasion of blasphemy day. So put your thinking caps on and come up with something that fits on a T-shirt, and also, in another time or place, would also get you arrested or killed for wearing said T-shirt.
What’s more amusing is that this contest [...]
The AP reports that a Census worker was found hanged in Kentucky, with the word “Fed” written on his chest.
Should this be prosecutable as a hate crime?
I’ve written about them before, and as was pointed out to me, there are two components to a hate crime: the crime itself, and the effect on others. That [...]
Bill Dembski has announced that he has a couple of new books coming out.
One of them, cowritten by Michael Licona, is called Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science.
Fifty bucks says there nothing convincing in there; that Dembski is merely jumping on the gravy train of writing books [...]
Today’s Washington Post:
There are changes in how parents nag. In what they nag about. In frequency. Parents know more about flubbed tests and skipped homework because of online grading systems. They know more about social lives because of Facebook and MySpace pages.
The Onion Video, five days ago: Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged [...]
Just saw this in my RSS reader:
GOP Uses Job Data to Attack Stimulus
Wall Street Journal
Republicans are using data now? Did they decide that the old strategy
of yelling at town hall meetings and making shit up *cough*Michele*Bachmann*cough* wasn’t working
anymore?