Saturday, May 23, 2009

Genesis as Read by a Creationist

"To convey the logical absurdity of trying to squeeze the round peg of science into the square hole of religion, I penned the following scientific revision of the Genesis creation story. It is not intended as a sacrilege of the poetic beauty of Genesis; rather, it is a mere extension of what the creationists have already done to Genesis in their insistence that it be read not as mythic saga but as scientific prose. If Genesis were written in the language of modern science, it would read something like this."

- Michael Shermer


... or catch the video on YouTube after the click.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Bible Quotes on "World Intelligence Updates?"

Since the time of the February 1979 revolution in Iran that swept Ayatollah Khomeini into power Americans have grown accustomed to looking down their noses at "Islamic fundamentalists." Many of us see these religious fanatics who call America "the Great Satan" and promise to "avenge the Crusades" as backward people susceptible to extremism and the influence of radical clerics. But what are we to make of Robert Draper's reporting in GQ magazine that during the initial stages of launching the war in Iraq senior intelligence officials in the Pentagon affixed Bible quotations on eleven different cover sheets of President George W. Bush's "Worldwide Intelligence Updates?"

... more from Joseph Palermo after the click.

My comment: So ... our religious fundamentalists are different from their religious fundamentalists because .... ??

Monday, May 18, 2009

A Prince of Tolerance Offers Lessons for the Future of Race Relations

Another piece of American history you never heard about ...

from a piece by Alex Storozynski
Author, "The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution"

"Jefferson said of Kosciuszko: "He is as pure a son of liberty, as I have ever known, and of that liberty which is to go to all, and not to the few or rich alone."

"After the revolution, Kosciuszko made Jefferson the administrator of his last will and testament, in which he instructed the founding father to use his money to buy slaves and free them, and to give them each 100 acres of land, farming tools and cattle, so that they could earn a living as free citizens of the United States. But Jefferson never carried out that will, and a lawsuit wound its way through the courts for decades, until the will was thrown out by the United States Supreme Court in 1852."

... read the rest after the click.