Category Archives: Religion

Cosmos Is Great So Far, but It’s Missing Something

Posted on Monday 10 March 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

The new Cosmos series seems to be just fine, so far. It celebrates science and our knowledge of the vastness of the known universe, and takes a legitimate stand against the religious resistance that would deny or trivialize this knowledge. … Continue reading →

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Agnotology, Science Denialism, and Joan Slonczewski

Posted on Sunday 9 March 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

A column in the business section of the LA Times this morning, by Michael Hiltzik, Cultural production of ignorance provides rich field for study [curiously the print edition that I read this morning has the title “Sowing doubt about science”] … Continue reading →

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From Bible Stories to Science Fiction

Posted on Saturday 8 March 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Following up Thursday’s post, San Francisco Chronicle’s Mark Morford (via Alternet) explains the motivations behind the latest Christian movie, Son of God. There is tremendous money to be made endlessly reinforcing what the masses have already been told to believe, … Continue reading →

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Hollywood, God, Stories, and Cosmos

Posted on Thursday 6 March 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Lawrence Krauss, physicist and cosmologist and author of The Physics of Star Trek and A Universe from Nothing, responds in The New Yorker about Matthew McConaughey’s reference to God in his Oscar award acceptance speech. Apparently there was a Twitter … Continue reading →

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Regnerus, Same-Sex Marriage, and False Witness

Posted on Tuesday 4 March 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Slate’s Nathaniel Frank has a long, impassioned article today about The Shamelessness of Professor Mark Regnerus. Regnerus is the guy whose study about gay parents, financed by anti-gay organizations and roundly rejected by sociological organizations as deeply flawed, is still … Continue reading →

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Coyne on Bryan’s Myth, vs Reality

Posted on Tuesday 4 March 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Jerry Coyne discusses the Bryan College issue. Bryan College forces its faculty to swear to historical existence of Adam and Eve Coyne is not only a *real scientist* but also a guy willing to address the arguments of those with … Continue reading →

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Anti-Vaxxers and Irrationality

Posted on Monday 3 March 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Slate: According to a New Study, Nothing Can Change an Anti-Vaxxer’s Mind Apparently you just can’t change anti-vaxxers’ minds. This reaction, where people become more assured of their stupid opinions when confronted with factual or scientific evidence proving them wrong, … Continue reading →

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Education vs. Indoctrination

Posted on Monday 3 March 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Friendly Atheist: If Faculty Members Don’t Accept Young Earth Creationism, This Christian College May Fire Them Bryan College in Tennessee — yes, named after William Jennings Bryan of the Scopes trial fame, or infamy — has a notion to force … Continue reading →

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Panic and Alarm, part two

Posted on Friday 28 February 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

In a thematic echo of yesterday’s post, CJ Werleman of Alternet (using language more blunt that I try to use) sees the right-to-discriminate-against-gays bills in Arizona and numerous other states as the desperate moves of a dwindling Christian right. Dwindling … Continue reading →

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Panic and Alarm (and Why This Is About Science Fiction)

Posted on Thursday 27 February 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Salon: I lost my dad to Fox News: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria Sad case study of a man whose father disappeared into the paranoid, outraged worldview of Fox News. Like certain kinds of religious extremists, Fox … Continue reading →

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