American Atheists, in an article posted on their site on Saturday March 25th, discussed a report that will be published in American Sociological Review, by researchers at the University of Minnesota. The research is part of the American Mosaic Project which monitors attitudes of the population in respect to minority groups. Researchers concluded: “Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in ‘sharing their vision of American society.’ Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.” Very interesting reading if it proves some of the points I made in my last post about the myth of Christian persecution in the US.
Category: Myths
While cruising the Internet the other day, I came across a post by Adam Graham on his blog titled “Why You Can’t Trust the Left on Religious Freedom”. In the post he talks about the recent case of a man in Afghanistan who is under threat of execution for converting to Christianity. Afghanistan, although free of the mega-zelots, the Taliban, still bases their laws on sharia, or Islamic law. Graham takes another blogger to task for complaining about some religious conservatives from the US who complained about the persecution of the man. At one point he makes the statement: “Wow, and like I said, that’s why you can’t trust the left with religious liberty. First of all, do I think Russ would ever do violence against religious people? No. But what it shows is that Russ takes a flippant attitude towards it.” I had to respond to the post.
Blogger Rob Hood claims that Dr. James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, is leading a boycott against Madeline O’Hare, a vowed atheist who alone is responsible for the discontinuation of the CBS show “Touched by an Angel” because it mentioned God too much?
I’m assuming he is writing about Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the prime litigant in the famous Murray V. Curlett (1963) US Supreme Court case and founder of American Atheists.
Find out if it is true…..
Mayor Ray Nagin suggested Monday that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and other storms were a sign that “God is mad at America” and at black communities, too, for tearing themselves apart with violence and political infighting. He also claimed that God wanted New Orleans to be a “chocolate” city again. Meanwhile a group of religious clergy have filed a complaint with the IRS against televangelist Rev. Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church in Columbus and the Rev. Russell Johnson of Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster improperly used their churches and affiliated entities for partisan politics.
Unless people have followed the Ohio science standards adventure since the beginning, you might be thinking “What’s the big deal?”
The standards and lesson plan adopted in 2004 was a compromise between science supporters and those who support Intelligent Design (ID).
While the standards include a disclaimer that ID would not be required to be taught, the standards left open the door to non-science ideas to be presented.
The simple fact, reinforced by the Kitzmiller decision in Dover, PA this past December, shows that there is no legitimate alternative to Evolution. ID is just creationism with a different label and all the attempts to hide it has failed.
At the Ohio State Board of Education (OBE) meeting on January 10th, a vote was taken to reverse their 2004 decision and remove the lesson plan that reeks of ID. The vote failed by one vote.
A group of Ohio scientists and friends of science, Ohio Citizens for Science, who have been fighting the standards since day one now have a PDF document that notes the 23 links between the Ohio standards process and the court decision in Kitzmiller.