Zeus smote some justice on a six-story statue of Jesus when he threw a lightning bolt down from Mount Olympus.  The statue — made of fiberglass and plastic foam over a steel frame — burned to the ground after being hit by lightning late on Monday.

True story.  Zeus did it.

Those who want to see a sign will see a sign.

It is a sign from Allah to not make caricatures of prophets.

It is a sign from Jesus they should have made him fireproof.

It is a sign from Zeus that it was not a touchdown.

It is a sign from nature that nothing is sacred.

Via Yahoo! News

In a shift from the Vatican’s initial claim that the church was the victim of a campaign by the media and abortion rights and pro-gay marriage groups, Benedict said: “The greatest persecution of the church doesn’t come from enemies on the outside but is born from the sins within the church.”

I’m not sure Benny knows the difference between persecution and prosecution.

I’m not sure how to take this admission.  I suppose it is a good thing but it just seems to me to be a “well duh” moment.

I suppose now would be as good a time as any to chime in on the child sex abuse scandals.

There is a huge difference between an individual crime and an institutional crime.  Anyone sexually abusing a child is an individual crime.  Its the individual that is at fault whether that person is a priest or a teacher, police officer or garbage man.  The profession isn’t guilty of sexually abusing children and neither is the organization.  We can’t blame the church or the priesthood for these terrible crimes because they were performed by individuals who just happened to be priests.  Priests are human and shouldn’t be given any special treatment (for good or bad) for their chosen profession.

Statistically, there is no significantly greater rate of sex abuse from priests than any other “profession of trust.”   There is nothing inherent about the priesthood that would lead priests to molest children.  Therefore it is not an institutional crime, but an individual one.    I suppose it plausible that if there is any measurably higher rate of abuse from priests that it might be that these people as young adults felt shame in being attracted to younger children and as penance entered the priesthood.   I’m not saying that is the case, I’m merely stating there is no definitive correlation between abuse and the institution of the priesthood.  In other words, the church did not molest these kids, individuals did.  Punish the individuals for the individuals’ crimes.

That is certainly not to say the Church is innocent in this.  It appears as though the institution also behaved poorly, if not illegally, in all of this.  It appears as though there were people in positions of power within the church who actively covered up these abuses.  The cover up is an institutional crime and it is the cover up that The Church should be held responsible for.

I’m not just nit-picking here.  When someone blames The Church for molesting children, it is very easy for The Church and its excusors to claim persecution and prejudice.  You know what, they’d be right.

Lets just be reasonable and put the blame where it belongs.  That’s the only way we’ll ever get any sort of justice.

Someone has taken down and removed a cross that had been erected on federally protected land in the Mojave desert.  Via Yahoo! News

This is a really good example of the sort of false controversies that come up in issues of church/state separation.

From what I can gather, someone put up a giant cross a few years back and bolted it to a rock in the desert.  Apparently the intention was to honour American soldiers who have died in conflict.

The first problem is that this land is a federally protected preserve.  I suppose this classification holds some meaning.  For example, don’t leave your garbage lying around or build structures would seem to be logical assumptions.  But, in the late 1990′s,  they built this cross anyway and I haven’t heard of anyone suggesting they had permission to do so.  So it seems building this cross was actually illegal and was a form of vandalism.

What would seem to be a simple issue got really murky when it became political.  This cross was supposedly  a memorial to US soldiers.   As American politics wont to go, wanting this cross taken down seemed paramount to high treason — an insult to the troops!  How trying to maintain rule of law is an insult to troops, I have no idea.

The idea that this cross  is ‘for the troops’ is rather absurd.  If it really was for the troops, how about a rifle or a poppy.  But a cross?  Wouldn’t that make it for Christian troops?  No, the symbol chosen was a Christian symbol for a reason.  This cross was there for one reason only, for promoting Christianity.

The real litmus test here is what people would do if a bunch of Wiccans put up a giant pentagram to pay homage  to the troops.  You can be sure this would be removed almost immediately and I doubt you’d here any debate about it.

(NB: Saving the comments from an old blog for posterity)

For Brett/Mike from FA

In dubious honour of Darwin’s birthday, Parade Magazine wrote a dreadful article with an equally ridiculous poll.

Obviously, that poll is just screaming to be crashed so go vote. Feel free to clear (or eat) your cookies and vote again.

The article irked me because it seemed to suggest that only “scientists and secularists” accept evolution while everyone else rejects it.

The poll itself is problematic because it seems to assume evolutionary theory begins and ends with Darwin, that evolution is something that happened in the past rather than something that is ongoing, and finally that the only nonscientific alternatives are related to God. If the superstitions of a bunch of bronze-age goat herders can be a valid response to a question of modern science, why not other superstitions too? At least Raelianism is modern.

Can we please do something about this nonsense? Poll crashing isn’t enough. I wrote them a letter. Can we do something to keep watch on publications like this and flood them with letters when they write so irresponsibly?

Here is a copy the letter I sent to Parade yesterday.

I am flabbergasted and deeply insulted by the article online about the legacy of Charles Darwin and its associated poll.

To begin with, the entire second paragraph is misleading and incorrect.  It reads:

“Just as scientists and secularists around the globe will celebrate “Darwin Day,” creationists and those of other beliefs will renew their argument against his work.”

This falsely identifies the sides of this “debate” being scientists and secularists against everyone else.  Apart from creationists, I can’t even think of who else has a problem with evolution.  Perhaps you are referring to Raelians who believe aliens genetically engineered every species on the planet?

The real debate is between those who accept that the scientific method is the best way to learn about the universe and those who would rather trust the superstitions of bronze-aged goat herders.

Evolution happens and that it happens isn’t in any doubt.  The only debate is how it happens.  For example, is the driving force of selection at the group, individual, or genetic level?

The poll question itself is extremely problematic.  As mentioned earlier, to suggest that evolution doesn’t happen is completely foolish.  Yet if unscientific responses are allowed, why not have an option for aliens creating us or the flying spaghetti monster?

The second problem with the poll question is that no one agrees with “Darwin’s” theory of evolution.  Evolutionary theory has changed a great deal since Darwin’s time.  Darwin’s pangene hypothesis, for example, has been long discarded, in part due to Gregor Mendel’s work on inheritance.  Mendel — a priest, by the way — is the one commonly referred to as the “father of modern genetics.”  Taking a poll on the acceptance of “Darwin’s theory” trivializes an entire field of science, one that has developed one of the most elegant and demonstrable theories in the history of science itself.  Would you similarly slight Einstein by polling readers on their acceptance of Newton’s theory of gravity?

The third big problem with the poll is one of tense.  “Humans evolved…?”  “Evolution required…?”  Evolution is an ongoing process, not something that happened to us once 150,000 years ago.  There is no end result of evolution.  There is no final goal or ideal.

All of these are serious misrepresentations of evolutionary theory and of Darwin’s significant contribution to science.  If you’re going to write an article about science, make an attempt to understand the science.  Your failure to report accurately on the issue only plays into the superstitions of Raelians, creationists and other tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists.

In the future, please report on the science of today instead of the mythologies of a bunch of bronze age goat herders.