Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Burnee links for Tuesday (or ... July)

Here's a catch-up of recent and not-so-recent links. I've been busy not blogging.

Doing science: with Holiday Inn, Weber Shandwick PR, and any academic who'll sell a reputation. - bengoldacre - secondary blog
This is disgraceful.

The Dawkins Challenge…doesn’t even get out of the starting gate | Pharyngula
 PZ sums up what's wrong with theology as a whole:
You can’t say something is “real”, and then claim it exhibits none of the properties of any other real objects, and can’t ever be examined or analyzed empirically. That’s pretty much a good definition of “not real”.
A church fit only for bigots and hypocrites | Nick Cohen | Comment is free | The Observer
At this rate there won't be a church to disestablish.

Sex and Sharia: Muslim women punished for failed marriages | | Independent Editor's choice Blogs
Clearly unjust — how can this be permitted in Britain?
(Via Ophelia Benson.) 

Is Dawkins really hoisted by his own petard? « Choice in Dying
Eric MacDonald says no.

What kind of atheist are you? | Pharyngula
PZ's taxonomy of atheism.

Human Rights Petition: We call on the Catholic Archdiocese of Bombay to encourage the withdrawal of complaints against Indian Rationalist Sanal Edamaruku | Change.org
Sign this petition. A man's freedom is at risk because he pointed out that a so-called "miracle" is the result of a leaking pipe.

Stephen Law: Religious Experience and Karen Armstrong's God
Religion explained. Next question please.

The Fundamental Problem with Religious Belief « Choice in Dying
"Religions are closed systems. If they weren’t, all the religions of the world would be busy trying to discover the truth that underlies them all. But, because they are closed systems, all the efforts that are made by people like Francis Collins or John Polkinghorne, Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacock, Denis Alexander, Alister McGrath, and so many others, to show that science can be accommodated within the religious world view, are really efforts to fit an open process of exploration and discovery into a fixed system of ideas worked out long ago, and there is simply no way of doing that."