Loch Ness monster dumped from Creationist text books

http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scot...in-Nessie.html


As a sidenote, it's interesting to see them described as religious fanatics

Should the Catholic Church sell it's properties to compensate the numerous children they have abused?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...te?INTCMP=SRCH

Premise seems a bit **** tbh if they should be doing that they should be doing that not doing it because they did other stuff that they shouldn't have done

I read this sentence three times before I got any sense of what you were trying to say. This is first ballot Hall of Fame for tortured syntax.

No, imo. Of course, the displaying of pomp by the church is often quite sickening, but there are at least some sort of considerations that might lead to justifying it. However, if now other circumstances come into play such that we might end up deciding that these overrule the previous considerations, they would end up doing it not because they should do it but because they did other stuff that they shouldn't have done.

You could probably turn this into an interesting thread.

If the church has a responsibility to the poor it has a responsibility to the poor, it doesn't have that responsibility because of how the church dealt with child sex abuse and I think it's preferable to not conflate the two.

The suggestion wasn't to sell some of their properties and then spend the income on the poor. It was to sell them to compensate those who were abused by the curch.

At the top

Scotland's Catholic church must be contrite or cease to exist
Helping the poor by selling priests' homes and setting up credit unions would be a useful way to say sorry for sex abuse

at the bottom

The sum raised by the wholesale selling off of episcopal residences and parish houses would be a pretty one indeed, and could be used to support the establishment of viable credit unions, as proposed by the Anglicans and the Church of Scotland. In this way, the church would be helping to lift its poorest brothers and sisters out of the clutches of the evil payday loan firms. And it would be an appropriate and material act of contrition for the sins it has committed against its own. If the Catholic church in Scotland refuses to deal properly with this, then it does not deserve to exist.

It doesn't mention compensation for the crimes committed so where are you getting that from.

Apologies, I read the article a few hours ago and my terrible memory is failing me again

I actually think using the money to compensate the victims would be a better idea now that I bring it up though

No worries and I agree with that. I also agree that it's inappropriate for the church to have the wealth it has unless it is trying to reduce suffering with it I just don't know I'd be relating the two issues.

I'll just remind people that this thread is not a discussion thread. If you want to discuss an article feel free to start a new thread about it (same holds for the stickied video and image threads).

Just thinking about science triggers moral behavior

Seemed like an RGT-appropriate article

One for MB....

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/sc...s-cult-2254926

Controversy after a school allowed an American church group to give out creationist literature. Article is a bit sensationalist but that's the tabloids for ya. Also interesting comments below the article where it appears that members from the church have been sent along to argue their case and give out the usual lol argument about evolution only being a 'theory'

Comet Collisions In Solar System May Support Life By Creating Amino Acid

Ancient Confession Found: 'We Invented Jesus Christ'
Biblical scholars will be appearing at the 'Covert Messiah' Conference at Conway Hall in London on the 19th of October to present this controversial discovery to the British public.

http://uk.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11201273.htm

Kirsten Powers’ reluctant journey from atheism

http://blog.godreports.com/2013/11/k...-from-atheism/

Mutual Knowledge and Understanding as the Basis for Religious Harmony

http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en...s_harmony.html

Okay it's not an article but I was surprised to see who popped up offering strat advice on this post:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/96.../#post41429827

Local Church Full Of Brainwashed Idiots Feeds Town’s Poor Every Week

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/2...r-the-wealthy/

Afghan is first atheist granted protective asylum in Britain based on his non-belief

A Maryland mom has killed two of her children and wounded two others with a knife, claiming she and a companion were trying to exorcise demons from them.

Miraculously Healed Muslim Lays Down Life for Christ

A dialogue between Gary Gutting and Alvin Plantinga (NYTimes)

I thought it was interesting enough to be worth linking, although as a matter of fact I think most of Plantinga's arguments are pretty bad. The argument Plantinga makes about (strong; to use the RGT term) atheism and agnosticism is reminiscent of our threads here about strong and weak atheism.

I broadly agree with this (excerpted, see the article )

But, this to me was probably the most interesting thing, more about philosophy of mind and cognitive science then religion:

Gutting doesn't push back on this at all, but it seems to me that the kind of response Dennett would make is that it's impossible for the "belief" to have a different content but identical neurophysiological properties under materialism, or at least insofar as those properties are tied to an actual real instance of a human brain, i.e we're not treating them abstractly, like implementing alice's brain structure in bob. It seems like the distinction between content and structure is just begging the question. Materialism assumes the content is in the structure, the structure is a physical representation of the content and that changing the structure changes the content. Is that not right? I am assuming zumby might have a comment on this.

It sort of reminds me of the arguments about p-zombies.

If you want to start a thread I do have a lot to say... think discussion of articles is somewhat frowned upon ITT (as with the images, quotes, and videos threads).