The Questioning Librarian

Over at Answers in Genesis, Buddy Davis has an idea. Well, it isn't necessarily his idea, but his article encapsulates creationist thinking on the topic; how can we  use dinosaurs to spread creationism ? He rightly points out that dinosaurs are used to teach evolution and millions of years...because they are a prime example of evolution in the fossil record and existed for millions of year. No humans, by the way, which I suppose is sadly necessary to mention. No humans until almost sixty million years after the dinosaurs died out. Never mind that many Christians are not creationists, Davis wants to speak for all of them. Because of course, we all know that the Christians who accept evolution are really just a bunch of liberal compromisers destined for hell, naturally. He asserts that Christians can use dinosaurs to explain the origin of death. Oh, that's right, creationists assert that there is no death before the Fall of Adam and Eve, so they have to explain away the fossil ...

Listening to NPR this morning while I was getting ready to leave, I was struck by the feature story that I was hearing over the airwaves, about the intersection of climate change and religion in Kiribati. In this little nation, where the overwhelming majority are deeply religious, many of the 33 islands are but six and a half feet above sea level while the most modest projections for sea level rise are around three feet according to IPCC estimates (which, according to the book I'm in the process of reading by Peter Ward, failed to take into account several factors which makes this estimate moot anyway; the actual rise in this century will be much higher, followed by endless centuries of rise). But even in this nation, surely a sign of the grim reality of climate change, as certain freshwater sources become increasingly saline and undrinkable, deniers exist. One interviewed man based his opposition on the Biblical Flood story of Noah in which, after the Ark landed on dry land, say...

It's no secret; I hate stupidity, and it doesn't matter whether it comes from the Left or the Right, whether it's religious or secular. I still hate it, and feel free to hold it up for public mockery. So it is with an article in yesterday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , noting that a number of religious authorities, including several clergymen, said that it was alright for locals to pray for a Steelers' victory in the Super Bowl. Completely disregarding the fact that they didn't win, am I the only person who finds this kind of talk simply ludicrous? Even if one believes that there is a God who answers prayer, I fail to see how such a Deity, who must surely be the most busy entity in existence, would care about a single game on one day that in reality is far less important than most people seem to think. This is a blatant sop by Western Pennsylvania religious figures to a public whose devotion to the Steelers approaches a quasi-religious level. While most may sim...

Good for this young man for standing up in the face of blind, willful ignorance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs5QdwSvhnM Unfortunately, wherever we find someone standing up for science and reason, in this case a sensible position on the environment and global warming in the church, there are plenty of those willing to push back for irrationality. Armed with straw man arguments, Tony Perkins takes aim at Johnathan Meritt for petitioning to have a greater acknowledgement about global warming within the faith. Signed by several prominent Southern Baptist leaders, the petition condemns the church as having been "too timid" on the issue. Perkins refuses to look seriously at the issue, throwing up the straw man that, concerned with population, environmentalism promotes abortion and homosexuality. Oh yes, I remember the last time I heard Al Gore or Bill McKibbon encourage their audiences to go have an abortion and become homosexuals; wasn't it just last week? They must ...

It is hard to say where to begin when dismantling something this irrational, so I suppose I should follow the advice of the king in Through the Looking Glass to Alice, to start at the beginning and keep going until I've reached the end. A common misconception that ran through media stories about Stephen Hawking's latest book,  The Grand Design , was that Hawking claimed that there is no God. Nonsense. In the book, Hawking claimed that modern physics has no need  of the idea of God to explain the world as we know it. He never claims that there is explicitly no God; there is a difference between the two, and it is clear that neither of the authors of the letter took the time to read it and find out for themselves (nor is it obvious that they would have the intelligence to finish it or comprehend any of it). The second false assertion is that "We have evidence that God exists." No, we do not. Belief or non-belief in a God or any Deity remains a matter of personal faith...

I was recently made aware of a letter that was written to The Clarion News , the local newspaper of the town in which I attend college. The authors of said letter purport that the Bible is a better source of information about the world than "science" (their air quotes, not mine). They then go on to make a series of false, unsupported and outright wrong claims about what the Bible says versus what "science" said. They are also extremely generous in their interpretation of Scripture to support their own case and careful to pick out old positions in science to make it seem ridiculous. Shooting them down is child's play. I wish that I could link the entire article, but one has to subscribe to The Clarion News  in order to view it and, even were I a subscriber any readers could not view it even by selecting the link. I was provided with the transcript which I reproduce here. No copyright infringement intended; naturally I don't lay claim to owning any of this n...

While I'm on the subject of email hoaxes, I thought I'd address another of these pernicious lies that seem to start with a randomly forwarded email. They then come to take on a life of their own where they become "true" because everyone agrees after having read the same email and failed to even take the most basic checks on it. This time, I'm talking about the persistent lie about the Presidential dollar coins. I've been forwarded this email twice, both times having been disappointed that the sender (same person) failed to fact check, and apparently forgot that I already replied as to the untruth of the email. The substance of the email claims that, first, the national motto "In God We Trust" has been removed from the new dollar coins, and it is such an outrage that everyone should refuse them if offered. Further, in the conspiracy-mindset of many in this country, they claim that this is yet another strike in the liberal-atheist "war" o...

Well, as I suppose most of us know, the 19th and 20th Centuries saw great advances in achieving equal rights not only for minorities but especially for women. Think of how far we've come (and also how far we have yet to go), from a state where women are essentially property of their fathers and then their husbands, their sole occupation (at least for women with husbands wealthy enough to support them) being to stay at home, tend to the house and bear as many children as possible. Few careers were open to them, and often jobs such as teaching were a temporary matter until a suitable marriage was possible. Now women are in the workplace in force, are theoretically equal under the law and many career paths are open to them. Marriage is not a complete necessity, and they can vote and own property under their own name. But, never fear, there are always people ready to take us back to the glorious past where men were men, women were in the kitchen and blacks were conveniently out of si...

Perhaps I'll start with this one. I shouldn't be surprised, I'm sure, but I still am regardless. At just the time we need to bring everyone in to address this issue, radicals from the "religious right" step in to act as corporate lackeys to cloud the issue. Watch this video. Yes, that's right. Environmentalism is a false god that will destroy your Christian faith, bring down God, indoctrinate your children, establish global governance, turn us all into pagans, and so on and so forth. It's hard to find a place to begin attacking the stupidity and wrong-headed assumptions about this video. Just when people start to grown concerned about the state of the environment, the useful idiots are sent in to assure us that, it's ok, don't recycle, keep driving your Hummer, dump oil in the Gulf, whatever. Just don't worry, because God gave us dominion over the earth and we can do whatever the heck we want because God will take care of us. Well, a person...