F Rosa Rubicondior

Wednesday 30 September 2020

Brits Becoming Less Religious and More Scientific

British Social Attitudes | NatCen Social Research

The British Social Attitudes Survey 36, published by the National Centre for Social Research towards the end of last year, has some worrying figures for organised religions in the UK and some reassuring figures for rational humanists.

Brits are still rapidly becoming less religious and more tolerant with now well over 50% having no religion, and are much more trusting in science, with just 11% agreeing that science does more harm than good, compared to 24% in 1983. Trust that science does more good than harm is now at 55%, up from 46% in 1983.

On the subject of religious belief (a term which includes no religion and Atheism) The report states (pdf):

Monday 28 September 2020

God Delusion Caused by Subconscious Pattern-Recognition

Sun over Lake Hāwea, Otago, New Zealand
Credit: Michal Klajban (CC BY-SA 4.0) Source
Study Suggests Unconscious Learning Underlies Belief in God | Georgetown University Medical Center | Georgetown University

A study by researchers from Georgetown University Medical Centre, a Jesuit University based in Washington DC, USA, has found that religious people who learn to recognise patters in the natural world are more likely to ascribe those patterns to supernatural agency and therefore to believe in a god. The god in question is, of course, normally the locally popular god.

This holds true even when the pattern-recognition is a subconsciously learned ability.

Sunday 27 September 2020

Icelandic Church in a Tizzy

The ad shows Jesus with a beard, breasts and make-up.
Drawing: P Jóðkirkjan
Icelandic Church Under Fire for Depicting Jesus With Beard and Breasts | Val Wilde | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

In its eagerness to claw back some of its dwindling support amongst the increasingly secular, liberal and Atheist Icelandic population, a Christian church there had made a right fool of itself and ended up offending just about everyone in the process.

Firstly, it launched this ad showing a prancing 'Jesus' figure in front of a 'gay' rainbow with lots of children of different ethnicities looking on. Jesus had a beard and wore a long white dress and sandals, as usual, but sported a fine pair of breasts and had rosy cheeks suggestive of make-up. Presumably this was supposed to be trans-Jesus (or maybe a cis-Mary?).

Saturday 26 September 2020

Evolution News - Homo Sapiens May Have Saved Early Neanderthals From Extinction

Upper molar of a male Neandertal (Spy 94a) from Spy, Belgium.
© I. Crevecoeur
Y chromosomes of Neandertals and Denisovans now sequenced | Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

An international team led by Martin Petr and Janet Kelso of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has succeeded in sequencing the Y chromosomes of two Denisovans and three Neanderthals.

The surprising finding is that the Neanderthal Y chromosome appears to be closer to the Y chromosome of modern Homo sapiens than to Denisovans, although analysis of the autosomal DNA had shown Neanderthals and Denisovans were closer than either were to H. sapiens.

Friday 25 September 2020

Crooked Catholic News - Cardinal Becciu Resigns Amidst Financial Scandals

Cardinal Becciu, former Prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes and Chief of Staff for Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis and dodgey dealer, now stripped of his cardinals' priviledges.
Credit: Paul Haring/CNS.
Vatican cardinal linked to financial scandal resigns and loses rights.

The financial 'irregularities' that have long been a feature of Vatican life are continuing, it would seem, and have involved yet another senior cardinal who appears to have been unable to resist dipping his hand in the open, and largely unregulated coffers.

This time it is a former chief of staff under both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, who has 'resigned his rights as a cardinal', a euphemism for 'been sacked from his position but allowed to retain his title in name only'.

This sacking, which was announced in a terse statement that gave no reason, yesterday evening, follows a raid on the offices of the Vatican's banking regulator as part of an ongoing investigation into the $225 million purchase of the former Harrods store site in Chelsea, London, for conversion into luxury apartments.

Thursday 24 September 2020

Covidiots - Losing the Arguments, Mostly

New Study: Face-Covering Use Up, More People Are Taking COVID-19 Threats Seriously | University of Central Florida News.

Slightly reassuring news today that, in the USA at least, the covidiots appear to be losing the argument - well most of them, anyway.

The Risk and Policy Group of the University of Central Florida has published the second in their ongoing series of surveys into public attitudes towards the Covid-19 pandemic which shows an increase in mask-wearing and an increased perception of risk from the virus.

This survey, of the opinions of more than 2000 people across six states was conducted in August this year, as America was in the middle of a second spike of cases, much more severe than the initial peak in March and April.

Wednesday 23 September 2020

And the Good News is - Germany is Closing 90% of its Catholic Churches

The Bonn Münster
German Catholic Church is losing priests and parishes | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 22.09.2020

Like the Anglican Church in Britain, the German Catholic Church is facing the problem of empty and redundant churches and not enough priests to hold services in them anyway.

So toxic has the Catholic Christian brand become that young men are not coming forward to be trained for a role that includes being viewed as a potential paedophile child rapist and someone who you wouldn't dream of allowing to be alone with your children or vulnerable adult relatives, all for a life-long abstention from sex.

Monday 21 September 2020

Creationism News - 120,000 Year-Old Footprint Blunder

Researchers surveying the Alathar lake, situated within an interdunal depression in the western Nefud Desert, Saudi Arabia

© Palaeodeserts Project
Ancient Human Footprints in Saudi Arabia Provide Snapshot of Arabian Ecology 120,000 Years Ago | Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History

One of the way in which Creationist frauds explain the precise ordering of fossils in the sedimentary geological column - which they claim was all deposited during the biblical flood, is by the mysterious, magical process of 'hydrological sorting'.

In this magical process, global flood water somehow sorted all the fossils so they just looked like there has been an evolutionary progression even though they had all been created as is during a single week a few thousand years earlier, and before which nothing ever died.

The other way is with the, if anything, even more desperate and preposterous 'explanation', that the precise ordering was achieved by the more advanced animals running to higher ground to avoid the flood. None of them were ever sick, injured or lame in any way that would impede them and make them appear out of place un this advancing silt layer, apparently. How that translates to moving up the geological column and the fact of fossil shellfish being found at the top of mountains is never explained because the dupes never ask, and if they do, they are speedily condemned to Hell as blasphemers and removed from the website on which they asked it.

Sunday 20 September 2020

Loony Trumpanzees Get More Loopy as Defeat Looms

Mark Taylor: “Patriots” Will Revolt if Trump Doesn’t Arrest Some Democrats Soon | Beth Stoneburner | Friendly Atheist | Patheos.

A couple of news items today show how extreme and hysterical the loopy political right is becoming as the prospects for a Biden win in November increase due mostly to Trump's increasing incompetence and clear unfitness for office.

The first is a news item about how a swivel-eyed, full blown QAnon conspiracy nutjob, Mark Taylor, the self-styled "firefighterprophet", is demanding that Trump arrests thousands of leading Democrat and puts them on trial for being "high-level cannibalistic satanic pedophiles", including allegedly, Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton.

Saturday 19 September 2020

American Christians Becoming More Uncaring About Racism

No race problem here: Despite the summer of protests, many practicing Christians remain ambivalent.

Further confirmation today, if any were needed, of how low down their list of priorities the welfare of others is for American Christians.

After a summer of protests over the killing of black Americans by white police and increasing demands for social justice, equal treatment before the law for minorities and an end to institutionalized racism in the police, few people can be left thinking there is nothing wrong with American society and no grievances that need to be addressed; no wrongs needing to be righted and no evidence of the oppression of minority groups by the majority.

And yet the Christian polling organisation, Barna Group, has found that many more self-identified white Christians now say they are not motivated to address matters of racial injustice in American society than there were last year:
Thirty percent of practicing Christians — people who identify themselves as Christians, have attended worship in the past month and claim to strongly prioritize their faith — say they are not motivated to engage in matters of racial injustice (12% unmotivated, 18% not at all motivated). That's an increase from 2019, when 17% said they were not motivated (9% unmotivated, 8% not at all motivated).

Friday 18 September 2020

Covidiots - India's BJP Leaders

Covid-19 cases (18 Sep 2020)
Sitting in mud with conch shell: BJP leader says tactic will boost immunity against Covid-19 | IndiaToday

India is leading the world in the number of new SARS-CoV-2 infections a day, having overtaken Brazil in early August and USA a few days later. Yesterday, a total of 173,932 new cases were recorded, bringing the total to 5,020,359 with 82,066 deaths since the pandemic began.

India is a deeply religious society, like the USA, so it is not surprising that the population is easily duped by frauds who offer magical cures and preventions, especially when linked to religious nationalism.

Indias equivalent to the magic spells cast by America's Kenneth Copeland, is that of BJP MP Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria. According to this report in India Today:

Thursday 17 September 2020

Lying to Win. How Trump is Fooling Americans

Figure 3. Republicans are far more easily fooled than Democrats
Observatory on Social Media (OSoMe): Reports: Research: The Media School: Indiana University Bloomington

The results of an Indiana University poll, published today, show how successful the disinformation and fake news campaigns by the Trump camp have been in fooling Americans into believing falsehoods.

Indiana University have set up a media monitoring team to fact-check narratives widely-circulating in the social media. This report is Wave 1 conducted between 20th Aug- 7th Sep 2020.
Figure 2. A significan number of Americans believe the false stories

Narratives


For the first wave, we selected five narratives through a deliberative process of monitoring issues that were becoming relevant in the weeks leading up to data collection and using tools developed by OSoMe to look at the diffusion of narratives across social media.

We showed respondents a screenshot from social media that represented a trending narrative. We asked: “Have you encountered this, or similar stories about this issue, on social media or the internet?” In addition to asking whether respondents had seen the story, we asked, about each story: “To what extent do you believe the following statement is true?”

The statements were:
Joe Biden is not mentally fit to be President.1
Kamala Harris is not a natural-born US citizen.2
Dr. Anthony Fauci funded a lab in Wuhan to develop the coronavirus.3
Joe Biden’s family has illegal business ties with China.4
Mail-in ballots cause election fraud.5

Results


Our results show that large segments of the population have encountered these narratives through media exposure, and find them plausible. For example, 78.9% of participants in our survey were aware of at least one of these five stories, whereas only 21.1% had not heard about any of them. It is also worth noting that a majority (61.1%) believe at least one of the five narratives; 38.9% do not believe any of them

[...]

The five stories were not equally known or believed among the participants. Figure 2 shows that the Kamala Harris birther narrative was one of the two most widely known (54.7% aware), having been frequently covered during the survey period, but also the least believed (27.7%). Mail-in votes causing voter fraud was the most believed narrative (46.4%), and was as widely known as the Harris narrative. In two of the five narratives, the number of participants who believed the stories was more than the number who reported to have encountered them online. For example, 46.1% of participants believed that Joe Biden is cognitively compromised, whereas 43.1% reported that they had seen the story.

The report includes the following links to fact-checking sources which debunked these claims.
  1. Joe Biden's mental fitness:
  2. Kamala Haris' elegibility for VP/POTUS:
  3. Fouci funded the lab in Wuhan to make the virus:
  4. Joe Biden's family and "illegal business ties" with China
  5. Mail-in ballots and election fraud.
Having lied his way to power and lied about almost everything while in office, is it any surprise that this most dishonest of people will try the same again to get re-elected? With a large nunmber of predominantly white, evangelical Christians now unable to admit they backed a failure last time, there is a high probability that they will do all they can to spread Trump's lies and disinformation as widely and forcefully as possible this time.

The question is, will enough Americans be fooled by it this time?

Alliance with Trump Has Made 'Evangelical' a Toxic Brand

Jorge Alfonso waits to get into the El Rey Jesus church in Miami, where President Donald Trump held a rally for evangelical supporters on Jan. 3, 2020. The Trump campaign has been trying to woo Latino and Black Evangelicals to expand his base of support among religious conservatives.
Credit: Lynne Sladky/AP
Evangelicals for Social Action Leaves Behind ‘Evangelical’...... | News & Reporting | Christianity Today.

Their craven whoring of basic principles for the sniff of political influence that support for Donald Trump promised, is beginning to backfire on the Evangelical Christian right.

The 'Evangelical' brand name has become toxic - and deservedly so. Now the 50 year-old Christian organization, "Evangelicals for Social Action' a moderate, apolitical organisation that advocates for social justice, has changed its name to "Christians for Social Action" in order to distance themselves from Donald Trump and those 'Christians' who associate with him.

Wednesday 16 September 2020

Covitiots - How the Far Right Fruitloops Think

Selfish anti-mask protesters harangue a counter-protester for advocating compassion
Insane Anti-Mask Protester’s Defense: “Most Child Molesters Love ‘Em!” | Beth Stoneburner | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

A far-right bunch of paranoid ftuitloop American conspiracy nuts, calling themselves the “Liberty Action Coalition”, put their ignorant, self-centred covidiocy on display in the town of St. George, Utah for all to see the other day, and I am more than happy to help them in this endeavour.

Amongst the more insane reasons for allowing people to die rather than them be be slightly inconvenience, in true white evangelical Christian style, were:

Monday 14 September 2020

Terrible News for Creationists - Signs of Life on Another Planet

Venus in real colors, processed from Mariner 10 images.
Image credit: Mattias Malmer / NASA.
Phosphine gas in the cloud decks of Venus | Nature Astronomy

Creationists have been putting all their eggs in one basket and telling their credulous dupes that the possibility of living organisms arising by natural processes on Earth are so low as to be impossible - so they should conclude that it must have been created by the Christian god exactly as the Bible says.

Now it seems their egg basket may have been kicked over by science. Leaving aside the false dichotomy fallacy in their non sequitur of an argument, the discovery that there may be life in the atmosphere of Venus blows their big scary number tactic out of the water. If it could have happened on Venus it could happen on Earth.

And they still face the prospect of signs of life, either now or in the past, in the soil of Mars and maybe in the waters on some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn!

Sunday 13 September 2020

Covidiots - Missouri GOP Fruitloop Candidate

Sandra McDowell, Covidiot Christian fundamentalist and GOP candidate for governorship of Missouri.
Missouri GOP Candidate Rejects “Demonic Ritual” of Wearing Masks During Pandemic | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Hemant Mehta (if you're not following his Friendly Atheist blog, you should be!) brings us news of a fundamentalist Christian Covidiot GOP candidate from Missouri who is standing for the State governorship and is now campaigning against the wearing of facemasks as an anti-Covid-19 measure on the grounds that they are part of a "demonic ritual"!

She is Sandra McDowell, who actually posted this on her Facebook page and which Facebook have not yet taken down:
I’m not afraid to take a stand!! Are you?? I walked in Walmart tonight without a mask ... and I refuse to wear a mask anywhere I go from NOW ON unless I choose to! That’s my right... as it is yours!! But really.... this is not about masks... masks are just a symbol of deception and oppression. Its compliance training for what’s to come. It’s about control and instilling fear in America. Fear is not of the Lord, but of the enemy. Despair is the absence of faith! This is all part of a demonic ritual to get rid of our individual God-given rights. BLM just said it... it’s a spiritual battle... they are chanting to dead spirits practicing witchcraft. Our bodies... our faces... are created in the image of God. We shall not veil our faces spiritually or practically. 2 Corinthians 3:13-16 Our country was founded on freedom and liberty for all... and God was the author of our nation and that freedom and liberty. Not people! God! Their faith in God!! Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty!! 2 Corinthians 3:17 #takeastand #spiritualbattle #warriorforchrist #unmaskmo #mogov #bibleverse #missouri #moreformissouri — at Walmart O Fallon - Highway K.

Silly Cults, Trumpanzees and Abdication Syndrome

Donald Trump, Big Daddy cult leader for childish people.
The Abdication Syndrome | Psychology Today

The reason so many people are attracted to cults, and not just wackadoodle religious cults but also political cults like neo-Fascist white supremacist cults and fanatical supporters of Donald Trump, is explained by psychologist Steve Taylor, Ph.D., writing in Psychology Today.

It all comes from a desire to return to the 'safe' authoritarianism of childhood, where decisions were made for you by authority figures who provided you with a safe and secure environment and catered for all your needs. It's for these reasons that we remember our childhood with affection. As Steve Taylor puts it:

Covidiots - Ukrainian Orthodox Church Leader Who Blamed Gays for Coronavirus Pandemic Gets COVID-19

Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kiev's Patriarchy.
Picture: Genya SavilovAFP
Source:AFP
Ukrainian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Filaret gets coronavirus after blaming gay people for COVID-19.

Sometimes, you just can't help wondering if there is something in this karma stuff after all, especially when you hear news like this.

The Ukrainian Orthodox priest, Patriarch Filaret, who blamed the coronavirus pandemic on same-sex marriage, has contracted Covid-19.

According to this report:
The 91-year-old, who is the Patriarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Kiev Patriarchate, is currently in a stable condition being treated in hospital, with Ukrainian website 11.2 international also reporting he has pneumonia. Filaret’s church, which is said to have more than 15 million followers among Ukraine’s 42 million population, confirmed the COVID-19 diagnosis in a Facebook post.
We inform that during planned testing, His Holiness Patriarch Filaret of Kiev and All Rus-Ukraine tested positive for COVID-19. Now His Holiness Bishop is undergoing treatment at a hospital.
” Filaret caused controversy earlier this year after he made comments about the coronavirus being a result of gay marriage.

Saturday 12 September 2020

Secularism Winning In Iran!

Source
Iran's secular shift: new survey reveals huge changes in religious beliefs

Until the moment of the Iranian revolution, the overthrow of the Shah, the installation of Ayatollah Khomeini and the establishment of a Shia Islamic theocracy in Iran in 1979, largely by young people, who then formed the fanatical backbone of the Revolutionary Guard, it had looked from the West as though post-war history was one of relentless retreat of religion and the inevitable advance of scientific secularism.

The Iranian revolution changed all that. Suddenly, the Islamic world had a new confidence and a new leadership and seemed to be embracing a regression to medieval religious fundamentalism. Something had gone wrong!

Or was this just a temporary reversal? How long would young people tolerate the state micromanaging their lives? How long would women tolerate the prohibition on their independence and their former right to dress in fashionable cloths, to date boys of their choice and the requirement, under pain of punishment by male 'modesty police' to cover themselves in dull, black, unflattering jijabs in public?

Incredibly, this Islamic fundamentalism was spreading and an increasing number of women were allowing themselves to be the possession of their husbands or the 'wards' of their father and brothers! Increasingly, especially in the West, an Islamic cultural identity required wearing the uniform of a Moslem at least in public in an assertive rejection of Western, materialist liberalism. So, how has resurgent fundamentalist Islam fared in its homeland in Iran? To find out, a group known as the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in IRAN (GAMAAN) conducted an online survey with the collaboration of Ladan Boroumand, co-founder of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran.

The result may be surprising!

Christian Fruitloops For Trump and Fascism

Former GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann,
Trumpanzee Fruitloop conspiracist and pro-Fascist, black lives don't matter advocate.
Michele Bachmann: The Bible warned that ‘transgender Black Marxists’ would try to elect Biden – DeadState

Paranoid conspiracists and pro-Fascist, Christian fundamentalist fruitloop, Michele Bachmann, former GOP Representative for Minnesota, has become even more shrill and hysterical as Trump's re-election campaign falters.

Appearing on mega-rich televangelist fraud, Kenneth Copeland’s television show, Bachmann claimed the Black Lives Matter campaign is a plot to overthrow the USA, install Jo Biden as POTUS and bring about a world-wide Communist dictatorship. Furthermore, so she claims, this plot was prophesied in the Bible. And all this will be brought about by "Transgender, Black Marxists", just like the Bible says!

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