ideas about science and the cosmos
Science and Belief conflicts
A true Scotsmen believes the world is flat
Sep 16th
If I told you the world was flat, there would be only one real conclusion you could make from it : I was crazy. But you have to take it a step further and ask how it’s even possible someone could believe the world is flat despite an enormous amount of evidence. One such example of this has surfaced lately.
There has been a bit of a buzz on the internet lately collectively asking “Are you serious?” at the news about the ‘First Annual Catholic Conference on Geocentrism’. It is titled “Galileo was wrong: The church was right.’.
What is geocentrism?
It’s pretty simple really, it’s the belief that the Earth is the immobile center of the universe. It quite literally dictates that everything revolves around us. It stems from the idea that we, as humans, are the most important thing in existence and therefore it is only natural that everything exists solely for the purpose of human beings (the universe included). As you might imagine, this is an idea only really subscribed to by biblical literalists and other fanatical religious sects.
Yes, these people exist.
Apr 14th
It may baffle you to learn that people like this… do exist. Albeit, not in great numbers, but it astonishes me that people like this can still function in the modern world.
The Flat Earth Society
Aim: To carefully observe, think freely, rediscover forgotten fact and oppose theoretical dogmatic assumptions. To help establish the United States…of the world on this flat earth. Replace the science religion…with SANITY.
http://theflatearthsociety.org/
Gosh just imagine if we had even 1 single piece of evidence , like a picture of some sort, we could show them to help bring them to their senses. I presume we’ll never know with the government cover-up!
The really interesting thing you can see here is the rhetoric of a fideist (one who believes faith is superior at arriving at particular truths). You’ll see some very similarly worded phrases and appeals to things such as anti-vax’ers, creationists / ID Proponents and others who insist they have the answers, and not vast bodies of verifiable science. I’ve tried to verify that this wasn’t one big joke, but as best I can deduct so far, there are still a few who seriously and wholeheartedly agree.
At least they used a readable font size unlike our friend at http://timecube.com/.
Arresting the Pope
Apr 13th
Even if you don’t follow much science news, you’ve probably heard the controversial headline “Richard Dawkins calls for arrest of Pope Benedict XVI“, found here : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7094310.ece?TheGodDelusion
My first thought was that this was “inappropriate sensationalism”, but after giving it some thought, I’ve realized that Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens do not really expect to successfully arrest the Pope. There’s more meaning in the process than visible at face value.