Religion

A Question For pat

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Laurence Simon asks:

Gene Scott was, by all appearances, a deeply religious and faithful man, preaching the Gospel to millions, if not billions. I’ve been told he never had a harsh or bad words for anyone, and he was deeply respected for his scholarship and his faith by many of his peers.
What was Gene Scott’s stroke punishment for, Pat?

Yep. People, including robertson, will die and hurricanes will happen with no discernible evidence of devine intervention.
Update: Perhaps a case for evidence of devine interest can be made if said devinity is a figment of a lunatics imagination.

Turning Off the Cross

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PZ has discovered that the Skinner’s Butte cross has been off the Eugene, OR butte since 1997:

I learn that another Eugene landmark, the Skinner’s Butte cross, has been gone since 1997. I remember that obnoxious thing glowing up at the top of the butte during my entire stay there (we lived just west of the butte, and could look down the street to watch rock-climbers scale it), and I’m glad to hear it’s gone.

Neither PZ or his commenters note the time honored tradition of visiting high schoolers turning off the cross – reportedly a common occurrence when state basketball championships were held in Eugene.

Gosh, I’m surprised that PZ did not turn it off once or twice when he lived there.

More Competence in government

This entry was posted in Anarchism bush Constitution Democracy Federal Government Government Libertarianism Religion on by

Here is what USAID does:

USAID works in agriculture, democracy & governance, economic growth, the environment, education, health, global partnerships, and humanitarian assistance in more than 100 countries to provide a better future for all.

Here’s the qualifications of the new USAID director deputy assistant administrator:

More significant to the administration, perhaps, is the fact that Bonicelli is dean of academic affairs at tiny Patrick Henry College in rural Virginia. The fundamentalist institution’s motto is “For Christ and Liberty.” It requires that all of its 300 students sign a 10-part “statement of faith” declaring, among other things, that they believe “Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, is God come in the flesh;” that “Jesus Christ literally rose bodily from the dead”; and that hell is a place where “all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity.”
Faculty members, too, must sign a pledge stating they share a generally literalist belief in the Bible. Revealingly, only biology and theology teachers are required to hold a literal view specifically of the Bible’s six-day creation story. Bonicelli has stated, “I think the most important thing is our academic excellence, [and the fact that we] combine it with a serious statement about our faith and values … I believe in six literal days, but I remain open to someone persuading me otherwise.”

This is certainly consistent with this view of bush and is a perfectly good reason to toss out both bushies and government as we know it. It is simply too risky to have so powerful an institution susceptible to occupancy by bushies or, for that matter, the other 535 534(click through).
Via Columbia Libertarians.
Update: Kip noted in a comment that bonicelli was not appointed director. I fixed that. Kip also points out that bonicelli has a more extensive resume than implied above. You can read more here but I’m still not impressed.

My Answer Is C

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Here is the quiz:

Imagine yourself in the following scenario:
You’ve just returned home from a day at work. While you set your keys on the kitchen counter and remove your coat you can hear the familiar voices of your roommate and her/his S.O. in the other room.
You start to wonder about what you might make yourself for dinner when suddenly you are startled by a loud gunshot, followed by what sounds like a body falling to the floor. Rather than getting the hell out of there you somewhat foolishly run to the other room to see what happened. Once there, you see your roommate standing there, arm outstretched, holding a still-smoking pistol pointed at what is now, apparently, a corpse.
Your roommate looks at you and says “Santa Claus did it.”
Do you:
a) Sincerely believe that your roommate is telling the actual truth?
b) Decide that, because you didn’t actually see your roommate fire the gun, you just can’t know one way or another whether Santa did it?
c) Consider your roommate a murderer, and the claim to be the rationalization of a mind that has snapped?

Yes, I initially have to go with c and act accordingly. Subsequent evidence may validate an alternate conclusion but that is not relevant to the scenario as presented.
Read the rest and comment here.
Via Pharyngula.