State religion

A bill floating around congress (it has passed the house and is waiting in the Senate) would change the way that attorney's fees are granted involving the Establishment clause of the first amendement. So in cases where a city chooses to flaunt the First Amendment by, say, putting a cross on a public park, this bill will make it harder for organizations to bring a lawsuit against them and it would make it possible only for deep pockets to access the courts. The hypocrisy of all this is WE DON'T TAX CHURCHES and they are the deep pockets that would benefit from this bill.
Supporters of the bill say that it removes financial incentives as motivation for filing First Amendment lawsuits. But currently it is the case that if an attorney wins an Establishment Clause case asking a city government to remove a religious idol, the city may be required to pay for the removal and the legal fees for both sides of the case.

A cure for being Baptist

The president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Albert Mohler has written in a personal blog that
(a) it might be possible for scientists to prove a biological basis for homosexuality (indeed, there is evidence which suggests that a link might exist) and develop a genetic test for it
(b) that it would be ok for parents to choose to "cure" their children of homosexuality if such a treatment became possible
(c) that it would be immoral to abort a fetus simply because it tests positive for being gay

Science has also suggested that there may be a genetic reason that causes people to believe in God. Indeed, there is scientific evidence which indicates that there is some genetic component which causes people to believe that (conveniently selected passages of) the Bible is the word of God. I think that we should try to find a genetic cure for being Baptist first.

In a more recent blog entry he states that "Other articles and reports claimed that I suggested that homosexuality may be genetic in origin and that genetic therapies should be used to create customized and corrected babies." But in the first blog entry he states (what I see is one of many statements which contradict his denial blog entry) "If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin."

Gotta love Gingrich (God does, ya know)

Newt Gingrich (one of the most popular almost-runners-for-president) has come clean about an extra-marital affair that he had at around the same time he was attacking President Clinton during the Lewinsky affair. We were all relieved to hear that this is OK with christian voters because at least he didn't commit perjury in front of a sitting fedral judge (BTW, the way he states this in the interview makes me think that one could catch him commiting perjury in front of a standing divorce court judge). Don't worry Newt, I'm sure that if someone had asked you back then to publically admit that you were having an affair you would have shouted it to the world.

Lies, damn lies and James Cameron

A Jesus tomb was discovered in Jerusalem and James Cameron has "proved" that there is only a 1 in 600 chance that this is not the tomb of the real Jesus and he waited until Lent to hold a news conference to announce this. This statistical argument is sketchy at best. The statistical calculation may be correct, it is just that the probability that the assumptions that went into that calculation are correct is probably close to 1 in 10,000. Mathematics alone cannot prove that one has found the tomb of Jesus. It is kind of like those documentaries that "found" Noah's ark in the '70s where fuzzy satelite images proved that location has been uncovered. There is an hour of my life which I still regret giving up. This is why I will not watch television and cringe while listening to the director of Titanic argue using statistics.

Christian groups are angry (the film was apparently censored in India), conservatives are angry, scientists and scholars are angry, all at James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici, the two responsible for making this documentary.