Skeptical Science – Page 618 – Promoting Science and Critical Thinking

Westboro Baptist plan to fly to Norway and protest at the funerals

August 22, 2014August 6, 2011 by Dave

Just when you think they could not get any whacker, up they pop to prove you wrong.

Westboro have posted a press release to their website (click here for a PDF of the actual press release) announcing plans to picket the funerals of those who lost their lives when Anders Breivik set off a bomb in Oslo that killed eight and then traveled to the island of Utoya to execute 69 at a youth camp. Its the usual yada-yada insanity that we all expect from them these days, I need not repeat what we are all so familiar with already (if you are indeed not familiar then lets just say that they are so extreme, they make all other kooks look quite acceptable)

What do you need to do to live to be 95 and beyond?

August 2, 2021August 6, 2011 by Dave

We all know the guidance: exercise, eat well, don’t smoke, etc… but is that really all it takes to live to be 95 and beyond? Apparently not. There is a new study that throws some interesting light on all this.

It was conducted by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and was published, August 3, 2011 in the online edition of Journal of American Geriatrics Society entitled “Lifestyle Factors of People with Exceptional Longevity“.

Atheist Pastors in Holland

June 17, 2018August 5, 2011 by Dave

The BBC reports today about a cleric who is actually an atheist …

The Rev Klaas Hendrikse can offer his congregation little hope of life after death, and he’s not the sort of man to sugar the pill.

An imposing figure in black robes and white clerical collar, Mr Hendrikse presides over the Sunday service at the Exodus Church in Gorinchem, central Holland.

It is part of the mainstream Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN), and the service is conventional enough, with hymns, readings from the Bible, and the Lord’s Prayer. But the message from Mr Hendrikse’s sermon seems bleak – “Make the most of life on earth, because it will probably be the only one you get”.

Read more

NEWS: Celebrate Science coming soon – they have a cool movie

September 22, 2019August 4, 2011 by Dave

Celebrate Science is launching later this month to “promote the importance of keeping creationism” out of the classrooms.

The campaign has the support of the National Centre for Science Education and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. There will also be screenings of No Dinosaurs in Heaven a film that “examines the hijacking of science education by religious fundamentalists”.

Nice quote from PZ at TAM9 during panel discussion

September 18, 2015August 4, 2011 by Dave

While at TAM9 in Vegas a couple of weeks ago, one of the many panels I listened to was one in which they discussed “communicating skepticism”. It included Phil Plait, Eugenie Scott, Jamy Ian Swiss, Sadie Crabtree, Carol Tavris, and of course PZ Myers. During this PZ came out with what I believe is a … Read more

Struggling to Leave Catholicism? – There can be Freedom From Fear

January 13, 2018August 3, 2011 by Dave

What faced with the revelation of case after case of abuse and cover up, how do sane logical individuals react? When looking in from the outside, you would expect that most would perhaps rapidly embrace it all as a wakeup call, reassess their stance and free themselves from the clutches of an organization that has proven itself to be both highly immoral and utterly corrupt. Some have indeed done exactly that, yet to my complete astonishment, many do not, so I’d like to address one of the reasons that might perhaps explain why this is the case.