Update: Vyckie said this link is better: a little longer and more pics.

Hey lookit – The Herald Scotland talked to Vyckie Garrison and Libby Anne. The rebellion against Quiverfull is getting out there.

“There’s a lot of fear among evangelicals right now,” says Garrison. “The more fearful evangelicals become, the more they retreat and start home schooling, and that is where they’re going to encounter Quiverfull ideals.

“Families are taught that getting into powerful institutions is part of their dominion mandate. They get internships at state level, get involved in political campaigns and in the justice system. That’s the whole point of having all these sons: to have an influence on policy and reclaim the country for God.”

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Aha – just exactly what I said yesterday. It’s as if I’d stolen it from Jenny Diski, but I didn’t. (Nor she didn’t steal it from me, neither.)

As a rule people look for positive authority or referents to back up their
essential beliefs about themselves in relation to the world: the priest, imam,
Delia Smith, the politburo, gang leader, Milton Friedman, your mother, my
favourite novelist. It works well enough, and when it does, we call ourselves
and others like us sane. When it goes awry, when people lose and/or reject all
positive referents in the real world for the self inside, we call them
delusional, psychotic, mad. In order to count as sane, you don’t necessarily

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Libby Anne on father-daughter “purity balls.” You what? Yes that’s right: father-daughter big fancy parties (not testicles) to celebrate female virginity. Yes that’s right: Daddy takes Princess to a ball. Really. They’re on a date.

Dudes – get a room.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Andrew Brown can be such a goon. (I’m not going to say he is a goon – he’s had the eminent good sense to commission a few articles from me, after all.) I know this is not a news flash, and I know other people have said things about his creationism piece, but…too much is better than enough is as good as a feast, that’s what I say.

Yes yes, we’re all agreed that evolution is true, and that the biblical (or Qur’anic) accounts of creation are literally false and should not be taught any other way in science classes. This has been the case for at least the last 50 years. Yet studies show that the number of

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

One more thing about Colin Tudge, because it makes me angry.

He wrote in that non-review “review” (and I quoted him yesterday):

Thus he tells us that “reality is everything that exists” – and “exists”, he makes clear, means whatever we can see or stub our toes on, albeit with the aid of telescopes and seismographs. Everything else – including things we might think exist, like jealousy and love – derive from that material base and are to a large extent illusory. This, he implies, is what emerges from science, and science is true.

Dawkins pointed out what he actually wrote in the book Tudge was “reviewing”:

Does this mean that reality only contains things that can be detected,

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Sastra has a very illuminating comment* on PZ’s The magic of denying reality.

She quotes Colin Tudge’s bad-faith misreading of Dawkins:

Everything else – including things we might think exist, like jealousy and love – derive from that material base and are to a large extent illusory.

And comments

Supernaturalists seem to have a lot of trouble trying to make sense of abstractions and levels of experience: they want to take everything literally, as irreducible substances. Love is only real to them if it’s a thing, a sort of spiritual-substance which is made of neither matter nor energy because it is the immaterial essence of love. Ironically, that makes them super-materialists — spinning material into finer

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Libby Anne posted on this cartoon:

Shades of The Life of Brian -

I’m not

Brian, talking to a cheering crowd: You’re all individuals.

Crowd, in unison: Yes, we’re all individuals.

Brian: You’re all different.

Crowd, in unison: Yes, we’re all different.

Single voice in crowd: I’m not.

This business of being independent and thinking for yourself…Even for people who really do that to a smaller or greater extent, it’s such a small proportion of everything they do that in a way it’s absurd even to talk about it. The most eccentric of humans are only a tiny bit eccentric. Few humans resemble ants, or grey whales, or stones. Carl Sagan used to like to point out how human most … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

What happens.

Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14-year-old boy from Williamsville, NY, took his life Sunday after what his parents claim was years of bullying because of struggles with his sexuality.

His parents, Tracy and Tim Rodemeyer, say that Jamey faced bullies for years, though things intensified in middle school…

According to NBC, the Rodemeyers had gone to the school about the problem in the past. Jamey even sought counseling to learn to deal with the problem, but it seems it wasn’t enough.

While they say their son seemed happy in the days leading up to the tragedy, his “It Gets Better” YouTube posting from May includes details about how intense the bullying was.

The kind of thing that helps … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Really?

Richard Dawkins has no sense of irony. He rails endlessly against
fundamentalists yet he defends old-fashioned, Thomas Gradgrind-style materialism as zealously as the Mid-West Creationists defend the literal truth of Genesis.

Really? Does he, really?

Colin Tudge says he does, but I don’t believe it. That’s because I don’t believe Dawkins is as crude as Gradgrind or as ignorant as fundamentalists. I think Tudge is exaggerating.

He accuses others of misrepresentation yet he seriously misrepresents religion.
Also, which is irony writ large, he misrepresents science, in whose name he is
assumed to speak. He condemns the Catholics for filling the heads of children
with a particular view of life before they have had a chance to think for

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

As we saw, Jordan Sekulow complained that

Whether it’s Governor Rick Perry calling for prayer for our nation, Congresswoman Bachmann discussing her “calling” to run for elected office, or Governor Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, it is now acceptable for many in the media to ridicule the religious beliefs of one particular group of Americans – conservatives.

Let’s have a look at that first link. It’s Jordan Sekulow himself saying what a good thing prayer is.

Prayer is essential. Faith is powerful. Non-believers and skeptics cannot comprehend the concept of literally asking God for His guidance and blessing. This is not surprising nor is it, in itself, offensive. When the lack of understanding turns into sneers and insults, usually

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Massachusetts Republican party wants Harvard to stop paying Elizabeth Warren’s salary while she runs for the Senate. It doesn’t just want Harvard to do that, it’s trying to tell Harvard to do that.

“By restoring her to the faculty, even though she has now formed a federal
election committee and is actively campaigning, the university is establishing a
bad precedent for academic appointments,” Nate Little, executive director of the state GOP, wrote in a letter to Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust.

As if that’s their business. As if they’re the boss of Harvard. As if Harvard were taxpayer-funded.

The Globe adds later, drily,

During last year’s special election, [Republican Senator Scott] Brown continued to accept his taxpayer financed salary

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Archbish of C is annoyed because the perceived coolitude of atheism is making it “difficult for the Church to convey its message.”

Well jeez, Rowan, I’m annoyed because the perceived wonderfulness of theism makes it difficult for atheism to convey its message – and your message has had it all its own way for quite a long time, please note.

…the coolness of atheism is very much in evidence. The problem is it’s become a bit of a vicious circle. Atheism is cool, so books about atheism are cool.

They get a high profile, and books that say Richard Dawkins is wrong don’t get the same kind of publicity because atheism is the new cool thing.

It’s difficult to

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)