There’s been a lot of controversy over ice extent and thickness, and most of the controversy has been generated from the traditional denialist camps and outlets and they are bent on distorting and devaluing what is reported. With the new NASA measures underway, and new ESA satellite measurements outlined below the evidence will become incontrovertible.
Please also take note of this video from Peter Sinclair outlining some of the ploys used to attack the data.
It’s not a secret that hate churches are on the rise in the US, the prototypical one being the Phelps clan; Westboro Baptist tends to castigate Homosexuals and other religions, such as Judaism.
The P
helps hate church is really just the tip of the iceberg however, and a convenient focus for media and others who would define hate churches – those who would point at the Westboro Baptist Church and say “See? We’re not as bad as them…”
However the reality belies that argument — from the Churches that pray for our President’s death to those that hate Islam and want to hurry a Civilizational apocalyptic war with all of Islam, to those that hate gays, to those fed by foreign lobbies with arcane goals, these hate churches are on the rise.
The two themes you find constant among these groups are hate for other religions (Judaism, Islam, etc.) and hate for Gays. Occasionally you will find racial prejudice fed as well, but that’s inconstant.
So why does religion sometimes foster hate? More importantly: why does a minority of church goers in the US pick a church that extolls hate? This is something I will be discussing and speculating upon over the next few weeks, since most people who are religious cannot begin to fathom where these fringers are coming from.
In the Baylor study, college students recruited from introductory psychology classes were primed with either religious-word letter strings like “Bible,” “faith,” “Christ” and “church” or neutral words like “shirt,” “butter,” “switch” and “hammer.” Researchers found that religiously primed students demonstrated “a slight but significant” increase in racial prejudice.
Previous studies show a complex relationship between religiosity and racial prejudice. Some dimensions of religion have been shown to increase levels of prejudice, while others reduce it. Those studies all rely on self-reporting, however, and are therefore skewed by the phenomenon of “social desirability,” meaning that some people report more positive racial attitudes than they actually hold.
The Baylor study is thought to be the first to test whether exposure to religious concepts may contribute to racial prejudice.
I’m sure this fellow wouldn’t see anything wrong with re-instituting segregation either if he were asked by someone he thought sympathetic in a private setting…
You can bet that Fox news will cover it since it continues their “Culture Wars” theme and keeps their bile-fed elderly market share pumped up and angered enough to watch. Christians are being persecuted daily after all and there are lions waiting around the corner for every one of them… (ok — so I’m not practiced at snarkasm and that didn’t work well but let’s continue anyway…) I have to have some humor here because otherwise I might cry in frustration at how some humans misuse their time by trying to get books banned.
At the intersection of science and superstition
In the latest incident you find a fundamentalist creationist Christian upset because a biology text had the temerity to state that 7 literal day creation is “Myth.” Since only fundamentalist creationists believe the bible to be “inerrant” and the majority of Christians view the Bible as inexact, or allegorical, or subject to interpretation and translations errors by humans over the past 20 centuries, you have to wonder why Fox pimps such a minority view of Christianity.
On the other hand if you’ve been following the infamous Discovery Institute created culture wars for a while then you know exactly what’s going on. In Discovery Institute’s view if you are a tolerant, non fundamentalist sort then you aren’t really a true Christian, and not a true Culture warrior — and you certainly aren’t feeling persecuted enough yet. You are “CINO”. Christian in name only. Leave it to Fox news to further the fundamentalist’s faux outrage.
Looking at the Text book in question you see that it gets pretty rave reviews and even seems modern and up to date with the latest real discoveries and controveries.
“Asking About Life” Allan Tobin and Jennie Dusheck
[remaining question: do angsty panties come in red and are they hair lined?]
Update: More at Little Green Footballs and Video of Fox and Friends
Nasa’s program to measure glacier and sea ice extent and depth returns much better data than just satellite measurements.
Charles has a link to an interesting slide show up. The average birther is well educated…
I’m a life long Republican — I really wish I could counter any of Rachel’s points here with some hard hitting reality – but I can’t because what she is stating is true. That’s a sad statement about the creeps running the right at present.
