Richard Dawkins must be gnashing his teeth

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From the LA Times:

Today, a century and a half after Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,” the overwhelming majority of scientists in the United States accept Darwinian evolution as the basis for understanding how life on Earth developed. But although evolutionary theory is often portrayed as antithetical to religion, it has not destroyed the religious faith of the scientific community.

According to a survey of members of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, conducted by the Pew Research Center in May and June this year, a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power, while 41% say they do not.

Furthermore, scientists today are no less likely to believe in God than they were almost 100 years ago, when the scientific community was first polled on this issue. In 1914, 11 years before the Scopes “monkey” trial and four decades before the discovery of the structure of DNA, psychologist James Leuba asked 1,000 U.S. scientists about their views on God. He found the scientific community evenly divided, with 42% saying that they believed in a personal God and the same number saying they did not. Scientists have unearthed many important fossils since then, but they are, if anything, more likely to believe in God today.

This isn’t particularly surprising since the ability to make rational deductions from evidence presupposes the reliability of mankind’s capacity to reason. Without the rationality of a Designer, human thought is nothing but the meaningless firing of a collection of neurons accidentally produced by the universe it is trying to make sense of; why trust it?

The politically correct Apple

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Although I use a PC, I like some of Apple’s gadgets – I have a 64Gb iPod touch that serves as an mp3 player and a PDA – because they exhibit an enviable flair for design and ease-of-use; unfortunately, when they break they are hard to fix because the price for ease-of-use is inaccessibility to the contraption’s inner workings. The really irritating thing about Apple, though, is its nauseating political correctness: type “wife” into an Apple word processor and it helpfully suggests using “spouse” instead.

And now we have this:

Apple may refuse to fix your computer if you’re a smoker.

It’s well known that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is a bit of a health nut, but this may be taking things too far.

If you’re a smoker and a Mac user, Apple may refuse to fix your computer.

Consumerist is reporting that two Apple customers from different parts of the United States have seen their Applecare warranty packages voided because the computers were used by smokers and contained tar and second hand smoke.

Apparently, Apple won’t let its technicians work on computers that come from smoking households due to risks associated with second hand smoke.

Churches in UK must lift ban on employing homosexuals

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From the Guardian:

Brussels says churches must lift ban on employing homosexuals.

EU decides British government was wrong to allow exemptions under equality law.

The government is being forced by the European commission to rip up controversial exemptions that allow church bodies to refuse to employ homosexual staff.

It has emerged that the commission wrote to the government last week raising concerns that the UK had incorrectly implemented an EU directive prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of a person’s sexual orientation.

The ruling follows a complaint from the National Secular Society, which argued that the opt-outs went further than was permitted under the directive and had created “illegal discrimination against homosexuals”.

It is interesting that it’s the National Secular Society that made the complaint. The NSS believes that Christian Churches are hotbeds of irrationality and superstition and – by NSS lights – anyone associated with or employed by a church would be constantly exposed to propaganda designed to lead them down the slippery slope to that most despicable of delusions – faith.  So what does the National Secular Society have against homosexuals?

Atheist campaign uses photos of Christian children

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An update to Atheist campaign targets children. It seems that the British Humanist Association used photos of brainwashed Christian children for Add an Imagetheir ads. God has a sense of humour.

The happy smiley children used by humanists in a don’t-label-me-as-religious billboard campaign actually come from an evangelical Christian family.

The images used by the British Humanist Association (BHA), as part of a nationwide advertising drive, were bought from a stock photo library and the BHA had no way of knowing the children’s background.

The children’s father, Brad Mason, said: “It is quite funny, because obviously they were searching for images of children that looked happy and free.

“They happened to choose children who are Christian. It is ironic. The humanists obviously did not know the background of these children.”

Mr Mason added: “Obviously there is something in their faces which is different. So they judged that they were happy and free without knowing that they are Christians.

Dirty and loving it

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One of my favourite pastimes when very young was digging up road tar with a lollipop stick, aided by my curly-haired friend Anne from across the Add an Imagestreet; we probably licked the tar. When not profitably occupied with this, I used to play “alleys” in the gutter – rolling marbles to hit an opponent’s marble, thereby acquiring it. As I recall, the streets were quite dirty by today’s standards: dogs wandered free, no-one stooped and scooped and the gutters were replete with assorted detritus discarded by the less than fastidious inhabitants of Canton, Cardiff. I enjoyed my childhood, including the dirt; now I look askance at my children as they scrub the germs off my grandchildren with smelly antiseptic “wipes”. “A little dirt won’t hurt them”, I say, thinking to myself that they are being deprived of one of childhood’s pleasures – filth.

As an aside, it’s hard not to notice that as we become more obsessively hygienic physically, so we are becoming more polluted spiritually. Hand sanitisers are in every doorway, yet we live in a culture pervaded by pornography, one that holds up homosexual copulation as an exemplary pastime and one which actively suppresses any expression of Christianity in its civil institutions.

It seems that today’s children are deprived in two ways: they are physically too clean for their own good:

Children should be allowed to play in the dirt, research suggests

Scientists have discovered that bacteria on the surface of the skin play an important role in combating inflammation when we get hurt.

The bugs dampen down overactive immune responses, which can lead to rashes or cause cuts and bruises to become swollen and painful.

The findings support previous research which suggests that exposure to germs during early childhood can prime the immune system to prevent allergies.

The so-called “hygiene hypothesis” has previously been used to explain why increasing numbers of children suffer allergies such as eczema and hay fever in more developed countries.

And are being exposed to pollution that won’t come off in the bath:

Children as young as five are simulating sex acts at school because they are exposed to pornography on satellite television and the internet, a senior MP has warned.

The dialectical Barbie

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The burkha Barbie:

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One of the world’s most famous children’s toys, Barbie, has been given a makeover – wearing a burkha.

Wearing the traditional Islamic dress, the iconic doll is going undercover for a charity auction in connection with Sotheby’s for Save The Children.

More than 500 Barbies went on show yesterday at the Salone dei Cinquecento, in Florence, Italy.

‘I know Barbie was something seen as bad before as an image for girls, but in actual fact the message with Barbie for women is you can be whatever you want to be.

The last sentence is missing a few words word: it should read, “the message with Barbie for women is you can be whatever your husband wants you to be.”

The question is, is this an attempt at an Hegelian dialectical syncretism between Western decadence and the Islamic ritual oppression of women, or is it just some nut in Mattel trying to sell more dolls?

Diocese of Niagara: budget meltdown

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The Diocese of Niagara had its synod on Friday and Saturday; the budget was contentious – so contentious that it was not passed and is no longer on the diocesan web site.

The budget called for a 32% cut to St. Matthews House and a 33% cut to campus ministry. Apparently, “there is no money in the budget beyond salaries. In 6 weeks a third of our total revenue will disappear. We will not be able to pay salaries in 6 weeks.” Note: I have had some clarification of this statement from someone who was at synod and the “salaries” that are being referred to are those of the people working on the university campus, not of people working for the diocese itself; I am cancelling the party and putting the champagne away – for the moment.

The budget was sent back to the budget finance subcommittee and a synod will be held no later than March 31st 2010 to vote on the new budget; assuming the budget finance committee is still employed at that point. I am reassured to see that Michael Bird has not volunteered a cut to his $105k per year salary; after all, you have to pay if you want the best.

As Bishop Michael Bird pointed out, this is called “Living the Vision” (he really did – look near the bottom here).

Diocese of Niagara: Michael Bird’s Charge to Synod

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Contains this:

On September 1st of this year we took one of those important steps on the long road that we have travelled in dealing with issues of human sexuality and I am grateful to all those who have seen that journey through to this important moment in the life of our Diocese. At the same time, I am grateful to those among us who are in disagreement over the issue of same-sex blessings but continue to honour our communion in the Lord Jesus Christ and remain within the diocesan household.

Which would be somewhat more accurate if the last sentence read:

At the same time, I am grateful to those among us who are in disagreement over the issue of same-sex blessings, keep quiet about it and continue to honour our communion in the Lord Jesus Christ and remain within the diocesan household.

As it is, a priest who audibly voices objections to Michael Bird’s schemes for elevating homosexual activity to the status of something that can be blessed in an Anglican Church, is first made to feel persona non grata and is eventually driven out of the diocese.

And then we have:

During my first week in the role as your Bishop, in the midst of court proceedings, media scrums and intense and momentous decisions that needed to be made, my one regret was that I hadn’t had more experience in the job before we were faced with these challenges.

This tears at the heartstrings – or it would if it hadn’t been Bird that instigated the court proceedings by suing ANiC parishes to “share” their buildings so as to house diocesan congregations that don’t exist.

J. I. Packer on blogging

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From here:

To web devotees: I’m amazed at the amount of time people spend on the internet. I’m not against technology, but all tools should be used to their best advantage. We should be spending our time on things that have staying power, instead of on the latest thought of the latest blogger—and then moving on quickly to the next blogger. That makes us more superficial, not more thoughtful.

He said much the same thing to me when I spoke to him in 2008. He also said a few things about bloggers and their egos; I didn’t tell him I was going to put our chat on a blog.

http://anglicansamizdat.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/chatting-with-j-i-packer/