On Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize

When Norway's Nobel Committee awarded its Peace Prize to Barack Obama, they hit America's right-wing zealots with egg in the face. Here's how Steven Weber put it at Huffpo:

As the predictable mobs of crypto-racist/sexually repressed obstructionists coagulate around the recipient, the Norwegian Nobel committee has acted unilaterally and struck a blow for the rest of humanity. The big tent Republicon party, which shelters everyone from flat-earthers to Taitz birthers, from gun-toters to Swift Boaters, in other words every scrap of social flotsam which identifies with the right's disdain for All Things Other, is coming away from its stakes.

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Scandanavia’s non-believers

The NYT just published an article ("Scandanavian Nonbelievers, Which Is Not to Say Atheists") describing new research examining religious attitudes in Sweden and Denmark. Most of the people interviewed had been baptized and don't consider themselves to be "atheists." On the other hand, they aren't religious--they've simply moved on from religion:

[Researcher Phil] Zuckerman found what he terms “benign indifference” and even “utter obliviousness.” The key word in his description of their benign indifference is “nice.” Religion, in their view, is “nice.” Jesus “was a nice man who taught some nice things.” The Bible “is full of nice stories and good morals, isn’t it?”

Beyond niceness came utter obliviousness . . . “In Denmark,” a pastor told Mr. Zuckerman, “the word ‘God’ is one of the most embarrassing words you can say. You would rather go naked through the city than talk about God.”

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Discovery of world’s newest oldest tree means it’s time to revise the Bible.

In 1964, when a living bristlecone pine tree in California was determined to be almost 5,000 years old, it gave Bible literalists a big scare.  After all, literalists (young earthers) believe that the earth is only about 6,000 years old.  Was that bristlecone pine tree around for the "big flood?"   Not quite: young earth adherents argue…

Continue ReadingDiscovery of world’s newest oldest tree means it’s time to revise the Bible.