Sunday Digest, Part 3: Extremist Christianity

there is nothing, NOTHING, in the bible or any other religious creed for that matter that calls upon people to take leave of their senses in pursuit of outright ignorance... there is also nothing that urges people to engage in behavior that is staggering in its intolerance and sheer inhumanity... but, golly, we're seeing both in abundance...

i'm not a fan of rigid science... i happen to believe that adherence to pure scientific method and an undying loyalty to scientific orthodoxy has left a vast world of interesting phenomena unexplored... yet, with that said, over the years, particularly the past 200, science has revealed a world, indeed a universe, vastly more complex and wondrous and, yes, faith-inducing, than anything imagined in biblical times... we need to build on science, not destroy it...

Instead of spending more than $1 million a year on publishing books and articles for non-scientists and on other public relations efforts, the Discovery Institute should finance its own peer-reviewed electronic journal. This way, the organization could live up to its self-professed image: the doughty defenders of brave iconoclasts bucking the establishment.

For now, though, the theory they are promoting is exactly what George Gilder, a long-time affiliate of the Discovery Institute, has said it is: "Intelligent design itself does not have any content."

Since there is no content, there is no "controversy" to teach about in biology class. But here is a good topic for a high school course on current events and politics: Is intelligent design a hoax? And if so, how was it perpetrated?

and then there's "reverend" fred phelps (reverend is in quotes because, in ordinary circumstances, it's a term of respect) and the westboro baptist church of topeka who make pat robertson's behavior look positively saintly... the fact that this man is roaming the streets and traveling with his flock around the country perpetrating what can only be called terrorist acts is a sad comment on our times...

The Rev. Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist in Kansas, contends that American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays. The church, which is not affiliated with a larger denomination, is made up mostly of Phelps' children, grandchildren and in-laws.

[...]

[T]hey brought their anti-gay message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq.

[...]

About 10 church members protested near Smyrna United Methodist Church and nearly 20 stood outside the National Guard Armory in Ashland City. Members have demonstrated at other soldier funerals across the nation.

[...]

"If they were protesting the government, I might even join them," Danny Cotton, 56, said amid cries of "get out of our town" and "get out of our country."

"But for them to come during the worst time for this family — it's just wrong."

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