But somehow when it comes to the Bible, the creationist story in there are taken as fact? What stops the other cultures from claiming that their myths are historical fact?

It just seems to me that Christians had a better publicity and marketing campaign to ‘spread the word’ back in the day. Kinda like Coca Cola.

And just FYI – I was brought up in a very strict (and still very strict) Roman Catholic environment. Eventually, I just couldn’t ignore the huge inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible. But don’t tell my mother…

It’s the Penn & Teller Syndrome. I’ve railed against it myself in favor of a kindler, gentler approach. For example, I’d wager a month’s salary that I have turned more people away from Sylvia Browne then P&T have with all their media exposure and TV shows.

Currently, I’m trying to convince my parents that the NAFTA Superhighway does not exist, will not exist, and not to send money to the “anti-highway” group that keeps sending them requests in the mail.

The problem is that there is a huge difference between a culture with a long tradition of arranged marriages and the concept of “selling women”. You are lumping together very dissimilar things and being quite bigoted in this case, my gringo. I almost expeced a Homer Simpson comment like, “They’re funny because they dress differently!”

And to be blunt: The USA has about a 50% divorce rate. Who the f*** are we to deride anyone on that front?

Here is one woman’s view:

http://www.courses.psu.edu/hd_fs/hd_fs315_rxj9/proposal.htm

>>> I will say this out loud and squarely: any institution —
>>> government, religion, or otherwise — that treats women
>>> as anything less than men should be derided and
>>> humiliated publicly,

Well, Islam is a huge offender on that front, so have at it:

http://www.islam-watch.org/IW/WomenInIslam.htm

I expect a blog entry on this within a week.

The target of the ridicule has to be better focused than on simply “religious fundamentalism”. That’s a relatively small contributor to the overall problem. For example– how much worse is it to treat women like property than to treat them like sex symbols whose sole value to society comes between the ages of 16 and 25? But which culture could I possibly be talking about there?

But I must confess I don’t have enough information about mormons to say for sure what should be done.

The question is, how do we battle this kind of thing? How do we help girls like that escape such a fate?

It is cases like this where blowing off steam like Dr.Plait did might not be the proper thing to do. These sects will just keep burying themselves more and more in secrecy, and the more derision they get from us the more power they will gain over their followers. Shutting them out will actually make things worse.

These are very difficult, painful problems and to solve them we need strategy and patience. I’d like to be able to reach into these people’s brains and take away all the crap, but sadly I know it doesn’t work like that…

I do realise that the claim is usually made in a weaker form, namely that there is a statistical difference (eg. more women do well at verbal tasks than men), and that is more difficult to refute. But to draw conclusions about a whole group of people based on a majority is dangerous and stupid and racist

continued testimony.

Elwood – I don’t know what you read, but it’s inaccurate. The minutes of the First Council of Nicea [the correct name] were recorded in so much detail, I can’t figure out why there’s so much misunderstanding about what went on. The First Council debated the *type* of divinity of Jesus. e.g. Was he a human who was used by God? Was he a vision of God that looked human? There was no question that Jesus was divine, just what form this divinity took. There was no vote regarding the souls or status of women. Constantine I was present – but only as an observer and did not vote on any issues.

The New Testament (NT) does not supersede (correct spelling) the Old, but completes it.

Both testaments are books of their time. The OT is written for a patriarchal race of nomads and not for 21st century people of fixed abode.

There is much cherry picking of quotes on both sides – Daffy’s observation of the 2 cloths is one, and I can’t begin to tell you the problems Deut 22:5 cause.

The point is, it is Dr. (please, can we at least agree on politeness here – he did earn it after all) Phil’s blog. He is entitled to his opinion and is entitled to write about it.

And, he is, in the main, correct. The Bible is NOT an instruction manual as to how to build a universe. It does contains rules(laws) that have been “overwritten”. It has a moral “backbone” that underpins it all – love.

Oh, and as an Anglican priest, I can categorically state, the universe is about 14 billion years old.

The Great Pyramid (and presumably the rest of the 107) was not made in the time frame historians claim, but was magically put together after the flood, and were built by God and not the Egyptians.

That the sons of Noah seperated and each founded entirely new versions of the cultures that had been wiped out by the floods and picked up where the prior ones had left off (presumably, the Summerians and the Chinese among them).

That humans lived extremely long lives at one time, despite the archaeological and genetic evidence.

That despite the fact that multiple, independent dating methods generate the same results, all of the dating methods must be wrong.

That the quality of a person’s physical health is an indicator of their degree of religious faith.

That feminism is “Satanic”.

That the reason there is no evidence for Creationism is that :Jesus took the evidence back to Heaven with him.”

That (fill in the disease/disaster/accident/war) is a punishment from God for (fill in the arbitrary pet peeve).

I thought the Rapture Ready forum was a parody when I first came across it. It took a little bit before it sank in that those people were absolutely serious.

Last year in highschool (I was like 17), I heard of a special “advanced” course for highschool mathematics in town and I took it (it was aside from school). They didn’t offer a degree or anything; they didn’t keep a list of the students; you’d just show up there on time and sit down for class. It was really fun, I had such a great time! ^_^ Everyone in there was keenly interested, and gifted at math, as one would expect from students who would happily travel across the city every week to catch a completely unnecessary and informal math class at 8:30 in the morning.

Let me note that the majority of my classmates there were boys.

Thing is, while I was more or less on the same level as the others, I displayed an extraordinary ability on the field of stereometry. I was the only one who could solve most stereometrical problems under a minute, [i]without drawing anything on paper[/i]. I do that in geometry too; I can solve many geometrical problems in my mind without pen and paper, as long as there aren’t any long mathematical formulas or operations involved. But it was the stereometry thing that made an impression.

“Spatial abilities”? Hah! I still haven’t found the man to best me.

I’m not buying it. No matter how you slice it, Fundamentalists want to both interpret the Bible literally and cherry pick the parts they want to believe in. That is a basic — I might say fundamental — contradiction in logic. It’s yet another reason Fundamentalism is wrong.

Please institute some method of limiting responses to those who have something interesting to say, and censoring those who take offense. After all, it is a Constitutional right to be free from offensiveness, so kindly delete those who annoy me.

And while we’re at it, no more talk about man-crushes, it’s kinda creepy, and I really think you should have more pictures of baby kittens and duckies.

Thank you

Feel free to write whatever you like but I, for one, would rather read something a little more substantive and will not be reading this blog any further.

Plus, it’s not by ignoring these annoying fundamentalists that wreck the world that things will get better. Heck, I think they deserve to be “mocked” myself, or at least have their faces rubbed in their nonsense. We need to make them know that they will NOT enslave the minds of our children in schools, that we will NOT let them continue further the destruction of science.

And frankly I think everyone should know what someone thinks of them for real. Yea, fundamentalists are idiots to me. I can’t tolerate ‘em.

In both of these issues the majority vote was “yes” – but only by ONE vote in each case! The Emperor Constantine was present, and voted in the affirmative each time, but wasn’t really bothered about the outcome as he just wanted the whole debate settled. Now – imagine how history might have progressed had he not voted? (It also makes me wonder how women were treated before AD 325)

If I take as a basic assumption that you believe fundamentalism is ignorant and wrong and damaging, I can’t imagine how you think mocking will help. You won’t improve the state of fundamentalists because no one will listen to someone calling them an idiot and you don’t need to convince the people who agree with you since they already agree with you.

I get the sense that what you really want is to be congratulated for being so clever to see through the ignorance of fundamentalism. Well, congratulations. Can we please get back to astronomy now?