The Shrinking Moose of Isle Royale | Michigan Tech News:
Moose on Isle Royale, Michigan, USA are evolving rapidly in response to environmental change, especially climate change.
Unlike nearby populations of moose which have halved in the past 12 years, the Isle Royale moose population has increased by more than twenty percent per year for the last six years - but they are getting smaller. Measurements of skulls collected over a forty year period show they have shrunk by about sixteen percent. Life-span is also reducing.
Religion, Creationism, evolution, science and politics from a centre-left atheist humanist. The blog religious frauds tell lies about.
Friday 22 December 2017
Sunday 10 December 2017
Suffer Little Children - At the Hands of Priests and Nuns
Smyllum Park Catholic Children Abuse Centre, Lanarkshire, Scotlanda |
When a nun caring for children at the Catholic-run Smyllum Park children's home in Lanarkshire, Scotland walked into the chapel and found a priest sexually abusing an eight year-old girl, she sprang immediately into action.
She grabbed the girl by one arm and flung her against the wall, breaking her arm, called her a 'whore' and shouted “get the f*** out of here” at her.
Labels:
Catholics
,
Christianity
,
Human Rights
,
Religious abuse
Friday 8 December 2017
Pope Francis Thinks the Bible is Wrong!
Lord's Prayer: Pope Francis calls for change - BBC News
Pope Francis has been thinking.
No, it's not about how the church can avoid taking responsibility for the child abuses carried out by it's priests and nuns and certainly not about how it can compensate and support their victims and avoid creating any more.
It's about how to resolve a curious contradiction in the Bible that has been taxing the brains of theologians and biblical scholars for close on 1700 years, ever since the Bible was compiled. The contradiction is between James 13:1 with:
Pope Francis has been thinking.
No, it's not about how the church can avoid taking responsibility for the child abuses carried out by it's priests and nuns and certainly not about how it can compensate and support their victims and avoid creating any more.
It's about how to resolve a curious contradiction in the Bible that has been taxing the brains of theologians and biblical scholars for close on 1700 years, ever since the Bible was compiled. The contradiction is between James 13:1 with:
Labels:
Atheism
,
Bible
,
Christianity
,
Pope
Human Evolution - Dispersal Out of Africa
On the origin of modern humans: Asian perspectives | Science
One of the exciting things about science is how knowledge is never fixed and unchanging. It grows and develops as new findings are incorporated into existing understanding, sometimes even needing quite fundamental revisions of what we thought we knew.
One such branch of science is that of human evolution and dispersal out of Africa which is in an exciting phase at the moment as new archaeological discoveries are made and new techniques of DNA recovery and analysis are revealing genetic evidence of relationships and interbreeding.
One of the exciting things about science is how knowledge is never fixed and unchanging. It grows and develops as new findings are incorporated into existing understanding, sometimes even needing quite fundamental revisions of what we thought we knew.
One such branch of science is that of human evolution and dispersal out of Africa which is in an exciting phase at the moment as new archaeological discoveries are made and new techniques of DNA recovery and analysis are revealing genetic evidence of relationships and interbreeding.
Labels:
Anthropology
,
Creationism
,
Evolution
,
Science
Saturday 2 December 2017
Plagiarists For Jesus
Willaim Lane Craig. Accused of plagiarism |
In an article published yesterday by David G. Mcafee in the Patheos blog, No Sacred Cows, Christian apologist and apologist for faith-based genocide, William Lane Craig has been accused of plagiarising his Masters Degree thesis.
This accusation is not new; it has been around for several years, but has been given another airing by atheist, author and former student of William Lane Craig's, John W Loftus. Loftus has written extensively about Lane Craig's cowardice in refusing to debate him publicly despite Lane Craig making an issue of Richard Dawkins' refusal to give him a platform following his repugnant apologetic for the Canaanite genocide in which he presented infanticide as morally justifiable.
Labels:
Christianity
,
Fraud
,
Intellectual Property Theft
Friday 1 December 2017
A Loving Nativity Scene That Christians Hate
Our neighbors’ two Joseph nativity is up & I’m beaming 🎄👬 pic.twitter.com/7OKbFLU7v1
— Cameron Esposito (@cameronesposito) 24 November 2017
Apparently, conservative Christians are queuing up to be outraged by a Christmas nativity scene in a Los Angeles front garden that shows Jesus with two fathers.
It's not the pretty pink matching costumes that they're wearing but the fact that there are two of them which is causing the great gnashings of teeth and calls for retribution on the grounds of 'blasphemy'.
It was this Twitter tweet by Twitter user Cameron Esposito which sent them into a frothing-mouthed, venom-spitting spectacle on the social media.
But how is this a blaphemy? Isn't this exactly what the Bible says when it claims Jesus was the son of God, even making great play of the claim and basing the entire Christian religion on that claim, and also claiming Jesus was the son of Joseph and thus of the 'House of David' in fulfilment of a prophecy?
Labels:
Christianity
,
Humanism
Thursday 30 November 2017
Bigots Kicked Down Under!
The Australian Senate Photo: Lukas Coch / AAPIMAGE |
Following the stunning victory for basic human decency and those campaigning for an inclusive Australia in the same-sex marriage referendum recently, the Australian Senate handed out another kicking to the Christian bigots still looking for victims and demanding the right to persecute people of their choice.
According to this report by Lane Sainty in Buzz News, the Senate voted down by a large majority a series of amendments by the conservative Christian right that would have given Christians an effective veto on same-sex marriages and provided them with a legal right to continue to persecute and victimise homosexuals by denial of goods and services.
Labels:
Christianity
,
Human Rights
,
Religion
Wednesday 29 November 2017
Still Not Yeti
Abominable Snowman? Nope. Study ties DNA samples from purported Yetis to Asian bears
Just like their religious myths, the myth of the Yeti is a central part of the folklore of Tibet and Nepal. In that respect if differs not at all from other mythologies, religious or otherwise from other parts of the world. Lots of anecdotes and stories of people who knew of someone who's acquaintance once met someone who saw a Yeti or accounts of people seeing a shadow in a blizzard.
In the case of the Yeti, however, there was maybe something a bit more substantial - a tuft of hair, some faeces, skin, teeth, even a bone or two.
The problem is, the people who purportedly found these bits of evidence and sold them to collectors and Yeti hunters never counted on modern forensics and especially nor on modern DNA recovery and analysis.
Just like their religious myths, the myth of the Yeti is a central part of the folklore of Tibet and Nepal. In that respect if differs not at all from other mythologies, religious or otherwise from other parts of the world. Lots of anecdotes and stories of people who knew of someone who's acquaintance once met someone who saw a Yeti or accounts of people seeing a shadow in a blizzard.
In the case of the Yeti, however, there was maybe something a bit more substantial - a tuft of hair, some faeces, skin, teeth, even a bone or two.
The problem is, the people who purportedly found these bits of evidence and sold them to collectors and Yeti hunters never counted on modern forensics and especially nor on modern DNA recovery and analysis.
Tuesday 28 November 2017
Muddling Through With 'Intelligently Designed' Mistakes!
What can zebrafish teach us about our survival in the face of mutations? | Carnegie Institution for Science
What would you do if you were an intelligent, omniscient, omnipotent designer and found that your perfect design kept going wrong in unexpected and unpredictable ways?
Well, if you were a creationist intelligent designer it seems, you would still regard yourself as an omniscience, omnipotent, perfect designer but you would wouldn't improve your design so it didn't keep going randomly wrong - because it's already perfect! Instead, you would set about designing a clunky workaround that went some way towards rectifying those omniscient mistakes and you would settle for near enough is good enough - apparently.
This is (leaving out the intelligent designer nonsense) what researchers Steven Farber, Jennifer Anderson and colleagues, of the Carnegie Institution have show happens in the zebrafish to cope with detrimental mutations. Rather than putting up with mutations resulting in individuals failing and being removed from the population gene pool, zebrafish, and maybe lots of other species, have evolved mechanisms for coping with them by either neutralising them or at least minimising their detrimental effects.
According to the Carnegie Institution press release:
What would you do if you were an intelligent, omniscient, omnipotent designer and found that your perfect design kept going wrong in unexpected and unpredictable ways?
Well, if you were a creationist intelligent designer it seems, you would still regard yourself as an omniscience, omnipotent, perfect designer but you would wouldn't improve your design so it didn't keep going randomly wrong - because it's already perfect! Instead, you would set about designing a clunky workaround that went some way towards rectifying those omniscient mistakes and you would settle for near enough is good enough - apparently.
This is (leaving out the intelligent designer nonsense) what researchers Steven Farber, Jennifer Anderson and colleagues, of the Carnegie Institution have show happens in the zebrafish to cope with detrimental mutations. Rather than putting up with mutations resulting in individuals failing and being removed from the population gene pool, zebrafish, and maybe lots of other species, have evolved mechanisms for coping with them by either neutralising them or at least minimising their detrimental effects.
According to the Carnegie Institution press release:
Labels:
Biology
,
Creationism
,
Evolution
,
Science
Saturday 25 November 2017
Another Faith-Based Massacre
The al-Rawda Sufi mosque, Bir al-Abed, Sinai, Egypt Photo credit: EAP |
Islamic jihadists believed to be affiliated to Islamic State (IS) have attacked a Sufi mosque in Sinai, killing at least 300 people, now revised upwards from the BBC News report.
The reason? Because the Islamic tradition of Sufism is considered heretical by fundamentalist Sunni Muslims, so obviously those who believe they know the mind of Allah believe Allah wants heretics killed and needs their help to kill them.
Thursday 23 November 2017
Malaria - Good News for Creationists as Trump Helps God!
World-wide incidence of malaria (Note: the USA is mamaria-free) |
At last something for creationists of the ID persuasion to celebrate!
Remember, creationists believe that their intelligent (sic) designer is the god they claim is the maximally good giver of morals who always acts to maximise the good in a world which runs perfectly according to his omni-benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient plan.
Labels:
Creationism
,
Evolution
,
Morality
,
Religion
,
Science
The Brutal Despot and the Catholic Priest
Robert Mugabe. "God has saved his life" - Fr. Mukonori Photo credit: AP |
As we say goodbye to the tyrannical psychopath who has run Zimbabwe for the last 30 years and the Zimbabwean people celebrate, let's look at the role of the Catholic Church and in particular the Catholic priest who was his confidante and most loyal supporter - Fr. Fidelis Mukonori.
Fr. Mukonori is a Jesuit priest and has been a friend of Robert Mugabe since before he came to power. During the independence struggle as ZANU-PF led by Mugabe and ZAPU led by Joshua Nkomo waged a guerilla war against the illegal white supremacist government under Ian Smith, Fr. Mukonori travelled around Zimbabwe - then called Rhodesia - under the cover of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Rhodesia, gathering information about the progress of the liberation struggle and passing it on to Mugabe.
Labels:
Catholics
,
Human Rights
,
Politics
,
Religion
Wednesday 22 November 2017
Another Victory for Humanism Over Faith-Based Barbarity
Ratko Mladić, mass murdering war criminal |
Ratko Mladić, devout Orthodox Christian, the Butcher of Bosnia, has been found guilty by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague of crime against humanity for his part in the Bosnian Genocide in the early 1990's.
He has been on trial since 2012 since when he has been held at the Scheveningen prison in The Hague where he spends his days playing chess against his compatriot, coreligionist and fellow genocidist, Radovan Karadžić, former president of Serbia, who was convicted of genocide in 2016. The third member of the murderous regime that took over Serbia following the break up of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milošević, escaped conviction by dying during his trial.
Mladić, aged 74, has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
The crimes were committed in the series of wars which followed the break-up of former Yugoslavia when Orthodox Christian Serbia tried to exert control over neighbouring Bosnia and Croatia to create a 'Greater Serbia', maintaining the traditional Serbian domination of Yugoslavian politics.
Labels:
Christianity
,
Genocide
,
Humanism
,
Religion
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)