LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY idragosani)

After nearly a year following the landmark rulling by Judge Jones (a Bush-appointed, Republican conservative judge, mind you) who ruled in Dover, PA that the teaching of Intelligent Design is unconstitutional, The Discovery Institture is now "accusing" Jones of well-nigh plagairizing findings provided to him by the ACLU. They are just about lumping Jones in as an "activist" judge now (meaning to these IDiots anyone who opposes to their pathetic excuse for science and thinly veiled creationism).

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=1186

*sigh* Pure spin, of course, this completely follows precedent of how judges collect information and concatenate before making their final decision.

The Panda's Thumb responds:

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/12/weekend_at_behe.html

And Jason Rosenhouse from EvolutionBlog says:

http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2006/12/sandefur_and_brayton_on_fire.php

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY inguz)

On Tuesday, Dec. 12th, Philip Kitcher spoke at the University of Toronto. His lecture was called Darwin, Design and the Future of Faith. I think everyone in this community would enjoy seeing it and learn a lot about how to deal with proponents of Intelligent Design. You can watch it via the Information Commons of the University of Toronto web site.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY exotic_princess)

So James Dobson apparently twisted someone's research to claim that two mommies was 'one too many.'

TruthWinsOut article about it, including the researcher's cease and desist letter

Dobson's article

Counterpoint by Jennifer Chrisler of FamilyPride

btw, I just loooove "Focus on the Fallacies." :D

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kittynboi)

Okay, I'm sure everyone has heard somehing about this;

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/12/14/johnson.ill/index.html

Now, I KNOW what will happen if he dies or is unable to complete his term. I will bet anyone here $100 that if he is unable to serve out his term, then someone fom te Dominionist camp is going to write an editorial or make a statement saying it was "gods will" that he died or got sick, and their god did this so a republican can be appointed.

That was one of the first things I thought of when this story broke, and I'm kind of surprised no dominionists have already made this claim.

I just thought I would post this and get some thoughts on the matter; am I wrong? Or does everyone agree that some wackos on the far right are going to say just what I have speculated?

I would worry that if those statements come out and a big scandal over it erupts, then it would just reinforce to these people the idea that they have a divine mandate to govern/rule/take over, but I don't think they could possibly be more convinced if it than they already are.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY marciamarcia)

Pastor Ted, he believed, would marshal the shock waves. “I think Pastor Ted is Gandalf,” said Commander Tom. Tom had received a few mini-visions, just glimpses really, and in them he saw a pastor kneeling, praying, in spiritual battle.

“Who's the Balrog?” I asked, referring to a demon that nearly kills Gandalf, the Lord of the Rings's heroic wizard. I expected Commander Tom to reply with the usual enemies, “the culture” and the homosexuals and the humanists. But the Balrog, he said, is inside Pastor Ted, and inside every Christian. Before the church can condemn the world, it must cleanse itself, thought Tom; he believed that American evangelicals were filthy with pride.

“Pride's dangerous,” he said.

Snippet from Harper's 2005 profile of Ted Haggard and New Life Church, Soldiers of Christ.

Trust me, there are more creepily precient moments where that one came from. Keep an eye out for the mention of Pastor Haggard visiting gay bars for evangelization purposes.

Beyond the schadenfreude, this article lends a very interesting perspective to current events. It makes me wonder how the New Life congregation is dealing with this.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY shawnsmalley)

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/13/bakker.brown.commentary/index.html

Leave it to the son of Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Messner to bring out the soapbox on why Christianity's latest trends are the REAL poisoning of the faith. That's one apple that fell very far from the tree, and rightly so!
I only wish he had pitched harder in the direction of suggesting Christians concentrate more on helping the poor and unfortunates and championing environmental causes. Unfortunately, he only hinted at them. I would consider those to be far more important than attacking gay marriage and abortion. After all, the only ones who should be concerned about gay marriage are those same-sex couples who plan to marry and their potential families. It certainly doesn't seem to affect the sanctity of my heterosexual relationships.
But I degress. Back on topic.
Be sure and check out the exchange of comments CNN readers sent in. Far too many fall back upon the Dominionist knee-jerk swill-slinging, completely missing the point of the article - thick skulls and cold hearts, just as one would expect.