danalwyn

And speaking of people making pacts "with the devil"...

Former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, speaking during his trial for war crimes at The Hague, decided he had nothing to lose, and threw Pat Robertson (as in, American televangelist, Haiti-made-a-deal-with-the-devil Pat Robertson) under a bus last week. Taylor, who is guilty as hell of having perpetrated a series of mass atrocities during the Sierra Leone war (not to mention at home), revealed the long-suspected details of his and Robertson's gold exploration venture in Liberia, indicating that as part of the original deal, Taylor would give Robertson's company a license in return for Robertson lobbying the new administration on his behalf.

Or course, by Robertson's own tortuous train of thought (which I won't dignify by calling logic), Liberia probably made a deal with the devil. If Liberia did, Robertson was one of the devil's agents, or possibly even the devil himself, and since he believes that prayer can defeat demons, one wonders if he prays for himself. He probably needs it.

So, I've been watching a bit of the History Channel, and right now they seem to be a bit attached to the idea of the end of the world (which is strange considering that you would think that the History Channel would be thinking about, well, you know, things that have already happened and stuff), of course completely independently of the way that ads for 2012 keep cropping up in between shows. The other day I caught a bit of them talking about the Christian end of the world, which involves the forces of Satan rising to bring anarchy, chaos, disaster, long lines at the checkout stand, boy bands, all that kind of stuff that normally comes with the end of the world.

According to the History Channel, Satan will be assisted by two men, the Antichrist, who will seize power and dominion over all nations, and the False Prophet, who will serve to turn men away from God. Now, the Antichrist is sort of a well-known factor, but it seems to me that Christians who believe that they are in the End Times should really be worrying about the False Prophet. After all, nobody trusts politicians anymore, but how do you find the False Prophet? He's not going to tell you he's false, he's going to preach like a good Christian preacher, building up a following with his charismatic sermons, while slowly and carefully twisting his teaching, confusing you until you no longer know which way is the right way. If biblical prophecy is the only way you can make it through the End Times safely, then the False Prophet is the most dangerous of them all, because he is the one who will be twisting the message of the Bible, who will be slowly darkening your path and poisoning your way. And he could be anywhere, he could be that young charismatic preacher whose sermons you watch on Sundays on TV, he could be the guest speaker who you went to see last summer, he could even be in your own church, and you will never know until you feel the tip of the knife in your back.

So how do you protect yourself from the False Prophet? Well, think of what we know about him; a man who is a great preacher, who can draw the attention and adoration of crowds, and even call down fire from heaven.

Obviously the solution is that you should only listen to churches and sermons delivered and written solely by women. After all, this excludes the False Prophet completely, if there are no men in positions of authority, he can't even begin to spread his diabolical teachings.

This solution is so obvious, yet so ignored that there must be something wrong with it. Can somebody tell me what that is?

So, I've been catching up on what my old pals at the Discovery Institute, the last bastion of Creationism, are up to these days. Apparently there is not one, but three major imbroglios on the Creationism-Evolution front, and I've missed all of them. For those of you who don't follow this stuff (or don't care), here's the thirty second version:


* Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, of the Astronomy faculty of Iowa State University, and a supporter of Intelligent Design, was denied tenure during his review, causing the Discover Institute to blame bias against Intelligent Design. Not so, claims the Chronicle of Higher Education, a claim discussed more in depth by others. The long and short of it is that while Dr. Gonzalez has a good publication record, almost all of his publications were done before he entered his current position, and thus are not applicable toward a tenure hearing. Furthermore, he has seemed incapable of securing telescope time or funding, both necessary pieces of the tenure race. And the fact that ISU has since been bombarded by a letter-writing campaign makes it unlikely that anybody else will hire him in the future.

* To make matters worse, the Discovery Institute has discovered that another professor, an atheist, has recently been promoted to full professor at ISU. Clearly seeing that if an atheist can be promoted, and in the Religious Studies department no less, while an ID supporter is denied tenure in the Astronomy department, the entire University must be prejudiced, the DI swings to the attack. Professor Hector Avalos, who has no connection to Dr. Gonzalez's tenure qualifications decides that he doesn't want to be a punching bag, and comes out swinging. Fighting continues below in the comments, as William Dembski of the DI attempts to compare apples and oranges by assuming that the requirements for promotion of an already tenured professor in the Religious Studies department must be the same as those for obtaining tenure as a Professor of Astronomy. Things get further muddled as various people accuse Prof. Avalos of clairvoyance (deliberately publishing something that would prejudice professors against Dr. Gonzalez several years before Gonzalez was hired), and of starting a "witch-hunt" by circulating a petition against Intelligent Design in the University. Critics point out that a petition to declare Intelligent Design as not-Science is perfectly reasonable, true, and, most importantly, totally irrelevant to Dr. Gonzalez's inability to get any telescope time.


* The case against the University of California has finally gone to court. The Association of Christian Schools, International, is suing, claiming the the UCs are discriminating against their students at admission time. The UCs respond by pointing out that the textbooks involved in the disputed science classes do not fulfill the requirements necessary to count as science classes that would prepare you for a UC (specifically, they are filled with hooey). The ASCI claims they have a constitutional right to teach bad science, and that the UCs should accommodate that. After all, the students learned something. The Regents aren't buying it. You can read more about that kerfluffle, and Behe's brief appearance in it, here.


* And the new Creation Museum in Kentucky opened its doors, resulting a wash of criticism, and people laughing too hard to breathe. Complete blog coverage can be found here.


It's been an interesting couple of weeks. We'll have to see how this pans out.

Been reading BBC again.

Much to the surprise of the Hindutva supporters here in California (after the textbook kerfuffle), apparently there are Dalits in India who feel a bit discriminated against from time to time. In the traditions of religions everywhere, some of the Dalits have been converting to other religions. This has been going on for some time. I also know that official steps to combat this exodus of people have been made by the Indian government.

What does amuse me is that, apparently to reduce the numbers involved in "Hindu Flight", the state of Gujarat has classified both Jainism and Buddhism as branches of the Hindu religion.

I know the intent deals with the Indian branches of Buddhism, but now I have the image in my head of some poor Indian guru climbing up a mountain in Japan to converse with his brother-in-religion, a Zen monk, and asking him:

"What is the essence of Hinduism?"

"Why, no essence whatsoever."

For some reason this cracks me up. Does this make me evil or just strange?

I think I've found religion.  I've always entertained some doubts about organized Christianity, but any religion that will give me an assault rifle and an armed helicopter, and then send me off to smite the ungodly in the streets of New York is OK in my book.

In other news, I think that the Left Behind: Eternal Forces Real Time Strategy game may suffer just a bit from mixed messages.

(Thanks to aphrodeia for reminding me of this, and for ABC for reporting on it.  You can see the ABC video of the demo here)