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Post by lonelocust on Jun 24, 2009 0:54:55 GMT -5
There are a couple of firms using bible-based "science" to drill for oil in Israel. Unfortunately, Moses went looking for milk and honey instead of oil and turned left instead of right, otherwise, geopolitics would be vastly different today. Wonder why the god in the bible gave oil to today's arabs/muslims/persians/russians/venezualans and whoever...perhaps he wanted to avoid really, really, really bad anti-semitism? Wonder what the fundies think of THAT! The Biblically-claimed Israel encompasses a MUCH bigger piece of land than the current state of Israel, including some oil-rich areas. I believe actual historians have no evidence to suggest that the original united Kingdom of Israel that encompassed this territory actually existed historically.
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 24, 2009 0:52:26 GMT -5
Not all evangelical protestants are fundamentalists. No but most of them are, I was pretty careful about splitting up the numbers on that chart by denomination/belief. The ones that aren't are more than made up for by mainline protestants, catholics, historically black, mormon, and jewish worshippers who are fundie. Anyway you slice it around 25% of the U.S. populations beliefs would easily fall into the fundie category. I'm not sure if it's the same definition used in statistical references (Wikipedia seems to indicate there's a lot of controversy over exactly what "evangelical" means), but theologically the term generally means that they believe that their religion needs to be proselytized. I believe at least the official beliefs of all the denominations considered in "evangelical protestant" are fundamentalist. It would be hard to accurately gauge how closely what percentage of adherents really stuck to that. I'd say a BIG chunk of the evangelical protestant piece, a considerably smaller chunk of the catholic piece, and a chunk of the traditional black slice would be fundamentalists.
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 24, 2009 0:36:40 GMT -5
The majority of Christians that I know are anti-fundie, believe in evolution, are theologically universalist (that is, don't believe in hell) and are for gay rights. Of course, the type of person I am dictates that I'm more likely to meet those sorts of people, Christian or not. Also a lot of Christians I know are Unitarians, since I am also a Unitarian (an atheist one). However, the many liberal Christians I know are unlikely to be political about their religion, as they believe in separation of church and state.
I think a meaningful way to gauge religious people's political messages would be to survey the religious preferences of non-religious political organizations. What percentage of planned parenthood or gay rights groups identify as what religions? Are they overwhelmingly atheist/agnostic, or are they only slightly lower percentages Christian than the nation at large? I don't have specific statistics on this, but will search for them.
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 23, 2009 2:58:00 GMT -5
Did I read that right? Oil prospecting based on Creation "Science"? They really do keep getting dumber! I finished watching the video after posting the article, and they actually still assume a correct geological model for where to look for the oil as far as depth goes. They're just relying directly on Biblical prophecy as to where geographically they are looking. I'm not sure if that is more or less stupid. Probably about the same.
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 23, 2009 0:38:22 GMT -5
It's either a khimār or shaylah. Hijab is more the concept of being veiled/dressed modestly. I always thought hijab meant headscarf. This seems to back me up.The term "hijab" has come to mean the headscarf often, specifically when used in English. The origin is, as stated, the concept of modest dress. Using it either way is acceptably correct. No specific type of headscarf is "a hijab" while any other specific headscarf is not "a hijab", but we again most commonly in English call the sort of headscarf that covers all of the hair hijab. I have weird blue hair and feel really upset when I don't keep my hair that way. I have previously had jobs where that was not allowable by the dresscode, and I wore a headscarf to cover it. I have referred to this as "wearing a hijab to work" which fits with the use of the term to refer to a headscarf that covers all of the hair, but it wouldn't really be hijab as the term is used religiously in Islam, because I did not do it to effect modesty.
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 23, 2009 0:22:26 GMT -5
tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/john_hempton/2009/06/creation-science-oil-drilling.php"However I had what was – in my view – a market test of whether creation science was garbage. And that was that there were plenty of oil companies spending cumulatively billions of dollars on oil exploration using methods of finding oil (eg fossils of seeds and weeds) that were consistent with evolution and inconsistent with creation science. However I could find nobody who spent even a few million drilling for oil based on creation science. "This blog however corrects its mistakes. There is a serious oil company that does drill based on biblical texts and creation science. I was plain wrong." The link contains a video. Oh man. Edit: Actually, it's more that it's just Bible-based oil prospecting more than "creation-science" per se. It's not extrapolated from some sort of predictions based on a young earth and a global flood, but based directly on other Bible passages.
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 20, 2009 5:51:26 GMT -5
I notice anytime a seemingly-serious flat earther comment gets to the main page, a chorus of people declare that all the flat-earthers are Poes. While I've posted a diatribe about it several times, the end of this video (which is a collection of nominees for a most ridiculous creationist claim award) is a video of a flat-earther on (Iraqi) TV. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztejNZIZdsU
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 20, 2009 1:01:49 GMT -5
Here's a pile of baby rats in my ex's lap. This was the biggest single litter we ever had. I wish I had a picture of the incredibly pregnant mommy rat. In fact, I seem to be incredibly low on rat pictures considering I lived with 50-100 in my house for a year. So here's some cute mice:
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 20, 2009 0:32:34 GMT -5
Right, of course. Out of everyone in this so called "Christian nation" it's the Atheists who need to shut up. Makes perfect sense. Also, I think the card thing is a great idea. Expect a "Happy Atheist Day" card in the mail, everyone. I dunno about an atheist greeting card but I really want to give someone this Valentine's Day card with a picture of Charles Darwin that says "I select you naturally."
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 20, 2009 0:26:31 GMT -5
I think it's more like "You had not heard of this sensational discovery? We can tell you why. You avoid any science-related items like the plague and/or don't like to read in general. There have been like 50 Discovery Channel specials mentioning it, or explicitly about it, and it's a fairly popular subject of pop-science magazines. READ A BOOK!" I believe the most popular theory at this time - by the archaologists who STUDY IT AND CONSIDER IT AN INTERESTING DISCOVERY - is that it was used for something like electroplating, given the lack of wires, etc.
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 19, 2009 6:35:56 GMT -5
I actually find this really offensive. I hope it gets taken down, or there is an atheist billboard across the road..... I dont think this could be a hate crime, since, there was no crime was actually committed, but maybe false advertising? There is nothing illegal about this billboard. It completely falls under freedom of speech. However, fundies should remember that freedom of speech does not mean freedom of social consequences, nor does someone else criticizing what they do with their freedom of speech mean that that person is infringing on their freedom of speech.
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 19, 2009 6:33:29 GMT -5
Zachski havn't you seen "Jesus Camp" ? I don't see how anyone could watch that and then question whether or not it is wrong to raise a child to have strong religious beliefs of that kind. They are too young to make informed decision, but are being literally brainwashed into holding strong beliefs anyway. [edit: Coming from a stong fundie background I can also say the stuff in Jesus Camp isn't all that uncommon, my own "youth ministry" indoctrination wasn't much different. Ours was called Camp Keystone but it was pretty similar in a lot of ways and that was 30+ years ago.] While I never went to any sort of real "camp" of that nature, the things in Jesus Camp are completely in line with the various "revivals" and single-session propaganda sessions I attended as a child and young teenager.
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 19, 2009 6:08:07 GMT -5
The connection they are drawing is one of the following:
1) Without the fear of god/hell, people would go around killing people for no reason. This of course is old had and leads all of us to wonder if (and perhaps be frightened by the possibility that) these people saying so themselves have the desire to kill and rape and pillage, because we don't.
2) Without the belief that a magical being has ordained that you were put here to worship him to make him feel better, one will become despondent and think that life has no meaning. This will lead to suicide, and combined with 1) will lead to murder/suicide sprees.
Neither of these is of course backed up by evidence, but as usual that's not much of a motivating factor for the fundies. (Edit: except for the Finnish shooting Ausidor mentioned.)
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 19, 2009 6:01:36 GMT -5
I drink very little, probably an average of about a drink a month (well, mode anyway; mean may be up to one and a half or two). I enjoy wine, red more than white on average, but am completely unable to understand the descriptive terms that wine connoisseurs use to describe the tastes of specific wines. Beyond "fruity" and "dry", I do not experience them. Nothing tastes like an apple, or like a certain wood to me in wine, though I hear people describe wines in that fashion. I seem to like even very cheap champagne, but good champagne is more delicious than I can even begin to express.
I overall find beer to be nasty (though after sipping tens of beers, I once had a sip of one that I liked, but I don't know what it was) and don't really like the taste of candy so don't like mixed drinks. I also don't really like the taste of Sprite, so am also not big on the taste of alcoholic sprite a la Smirnoff Ice. I will do Patron shots if I feel like getting drunk, but delicious Patron has ruined all other tequila for me in perpetuity, though I've been told there is better tequila out there.
In the past year, I ceased being able to count the number of times I have been drunk on one hand.
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 19, 2009 1:08:54 GMT -5
Except if you view yourself as God incarnate and don't believe in God, you're viewing yourself as a faceless nothing with worth only to those who would abuse and mutilate you for their profit... Kinky.
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