Against the backdrop of the religious mis-education of the nation, evangelical Christians must embrace (once and for all) that they must let their voices be heard in politics, the arts, and every arena of our culture. Although Catholics are well represented on the Supreme Court, there will likely be important cases that will need the insight of unbiased evangelicals to create an atmosphere for true justice. Failure of the faith community to engage in the world of politics and processes like the selection of judges could hurt the Christian community decades from now.

Protestants must take action today! We should return to the foundations that have made the US great. Further, we must not just act on behalf of our needs, alone. We must lead the country back to the safety of its guiding principles. At the same time, despite our personal views, we must act on behalf of the entire American family – religious and secular alike. Further, we must continue to encourage religious diversity and even atheists to remain true to their beliefs as it relates to the political process. The repression of minority points of view is un-American and petty.

Harry R. Jackson, Jr.  thinks that Catholics are biased and we need the unbiased protestants on the Court to keep those evil Catholics in check.  If the Religious Right gets their way in this country they will turn back the clock on human rights.

PARIS (AFP) – Evidence for global warming has mounted but public awareness of the threat has shrunk, due to a cold northern winter and finger-pointing at the UN’s climate experts, a top scientist warned Wednesday.

“That gap has increased substantially in the last year,” Hansen told a press conference during a visit to Paris.

“While the science was becoming clearer, the public’s perception became less clear, in part because of the unusually cold winter in both North America and Europe, and in part because of the inappropriate over-emphasis on small minor errors in IPCC documents and because of the so-called Climategate.”

Full article here:

Mass. Catholic school won’t admit lesbians’ son

BOSTON – A Roman Catholic school in Massachusetts has withdrawn its acceptance of an 8-year-old boy with lesbian parents, saying their relationship was “in discord” with church teachings, according to one of the boys’ mothers.

It’s at least the second time in recent months that students have not been allowed to attend a U.S. Catholic school because of their parents’ sexual orientation, with the other instance occurring in Colorado.

Let Freedom Ring!

Inquisition In Jacksonville: Religious Right Grills Muslim Nominee For Rights Commission

Council Member Clay Yarborough, for example, sent a questionnaire – inquisition might be a better term — to Ahmed, demanding to know his views on everything from gay rights to the appropriateness of “under God” in the Pledge and on U.S. currency. No other nominee had been subjected to such probing in the past, but Yarborough apparently thought it was time to do so.

At a subsequent council session, Council Member and First Baptist congregant Don Redman, who serves as the council’s “chaplain,” led the audience in a Christian prayer, then demanded that Ahmed come forward for questions.

Redman said to Ahmed, “I would like you to pray to your god for us.” The implication was clear to many in the audience: Redman had just offered a prayer to the real God on behalf of the council and the assembled throng. Now he was inviting Ahmed to offer one to his Islamic deity.

Audience members, many of who came from a progressive group called OneJax, were appalled at the temerity of the demand and noisily burst into discussion and derision. The uproar finally settled down when Council President Richard Clark threatened to clear the room.

This is deplorable.  Christianity is anything but a tolerant religion.  One needs only a cursory reading of the Bible to understand that.  A truly Christian nation would be a very ugly place.

Protein analysis rules out multiple sources

By Tina Hesman Saey

Web edition : 2:57 pm

A new study uses statistics to test whether life on Earth can be traced back to a common ancestor (example shown in a) or multiple primordial life forms (b). Dotted lines indicate gene swapping between species. M. Steel and D. Penny/Nature 2010

One isn’t such a lonely number. All life on Earth shares a single common ancestor, a new statistical analysis confirms.

Science continues its march forward, while the creationists/IDer’s will fall over themselves trying to explain this away.

First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly_and I myself was unaware of it_will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know…

…Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them the fact that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them…

…Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. For they have justly forfeited the right to such an office by holding the poor Jews captive with the saying of Moses (Deuteronomy 17:10) in which he commands them to obey their teachers on penalty of death, although Moses clearly adds: “what they teach you in accord with the law of the Lord.” Those villains ignore that. They wantonly employ the poor people’s obedience contrary to the law of the Lord and infuse them with this poison, cursing, and blasphemy. In the same way the pope also held us captive with the declaration in Matthew 16:18, “You are Peter,” etc., inducing us to believe all the lies and deceptions that issued from his devilish mind. He did not teach in accord with the word of God, and therefore he forfeited the right to teach.

Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let them stay at home. I have heard it said that a rich Jew is now traveling across the country with twelve horses his ambition is to become a Kokhba devouring princes, lords, lands, and people with his usury, so that the great lords view it with jealous eyes. If you great lords and princes will not forbid such usurers the highway legally, some day a troop may gather against them, having learned from this booklet the true nature of the Jews and how one should deal with them and not protect their activities. For you, too, must not and cannot protect them unless you wish to become participants in an their abominations in the sight of God. Consider carefully what good could come from this, and prevent it.

Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us an they possess. Such money should now be used in no other way than the following: Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest. With this he could set himself up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and children, and the maintenance of the old or feeble. For such evil gains are cursed if they are not put to use with God’s blessing in a good and worthy cause…

…Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen. 3 [:19]). For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting., and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.

It was none other than that god fearing reformer, Martin Luther.  Read the rest of his anti-semitic rantings here.  A favorite argument of religionists against atheism/agnosticism/freethought and primarily evolution is that kind of godless worldview led to the holocaust, Stalinism and Maoism and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of millions of people.  It is a ridiculous argument on many levels.  It almost always is an argument about whose fanatics killed more people.  Secondly, the argument isn’t even valid, particularly for Nazism.  I’m going to post more on this in future posts.  Here is something to think about next time though.  Did Darwin ever write anything as anti-semitic in either On the Origin of Species or The Descent of Man as did Martin Luther?

BP Spent Millions to Evade Safety Rules

Posted on: May 7, 2010 9:09 AM, by Ed Brayton

I’m sure this will come as an enormous shock to those who are completely oblivious to reality. British Petroleum, while posting record profits, also spent record amounts of its own money on lobbying to weaken environmental and safety regulations and keep the taxpayer subsidy spigot open over the last couple years. Antonia Juhasz reports some of the astonishing figures in The Guardian:

BP is one of the most powerful corporations operating in the United States. Its 2009 revenues of $327bn are enough to rank BP as the third-largest corporation in the country. It spends aggressively to influence US policy and regulatory oversight.In 2009, the company spent nearly $16m on lobbying the federal government, ranking it among the 20 highest spenders that year, and shattering its own previous record of $10.4m set in 2008. In 2008, it also spent more than $530,000 on federal elections, placing it among the oil industry’s top 10 political spenders.

Sometimes its possible to have a little too much faith in the private sector.  Read the rest of the post here on Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science

A letter Climate Change and the Integrity of Science has been published in the journal Science. It’s written by 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences, including 11 Nobel laureates (here’s the complete list plus their university affiliations). I recommend reading the entire letter but here is an excerpt:

There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet…

… The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific assessments of climate change, which involve thousands of scientists producing massive and comprehensive reports, have, quite expectedly and normally, made some mistakes. When errors are pointed out, they are corrected. But there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change:

1. The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.
2. Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
3. Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth’s climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.
4. Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.
5. The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.

Much more can be, and has been, said by the world’s scientific societies, national academies, and individuals, but these conclusions should be enough to indicate why scientists are concerned about what future generations will face from business-as-usual practices. We urge our policy-makers and the public to move forward immediately to address the causes of climate change, including the un restrained burning of fossil fuels.

The scientists are the members of the NAS most familiar with climate science, as explained by lead signer Peter Gleick:

It is hard to get 255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences to agree on pretty much anything, making the import of this letter even more substantial. Moreover, only a small fraction of National Academy members were asked to sign (the signatories are all members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences but were not speaking on its behalf). Because of a desire to produce a statement quickly, the coordinators of the letter focused on those sections of the NAS most familiar with climate science and the ongoing debate. But the NAS (and Academies of Sciences and other professional scientific societies from dozens of other nations) has previously published a long set of assessments and reviews of the science of climate change, which support the conclusions laid out in the Science essay.

Lastly, here is a link to the National Academy of Science’s Policy advice, based on science, to guide the nation’s response to climate change.