"If you live in America, the chances are good that your next door neighbours believe the following: the Inventor of the laws of physics and Programmer of the DNA code decided to enter the uterus of a Jewish virgin, got himself born, then deliberately had himself tortured and executed because he couldn't think of a better way to forgive the theft of an apple, committed at the instigation of a talking snake. As Creator of the majestically expanding universe, he not only understands relativistic gravity and quantum mechanics but actually designed them. Yet what he really cares about is "sin," abortion, how often you go to church, and whether gay people should marry."
-- Richard Dawkins
Liberal Christians
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Man vs.. God
Wall Street Journal
SEPTEMBER 12, 2009, 2:08 P.M. ET
ESSAYS
Man vs. God
Karen Armstrong says we need God to grasp the wonder of our existence
Richard Dawkins has been right all along, of course—at least in one important respect. Evolution has indeed dealt a blow to the idea of a benign creator, literally conceived. It tells us that there is no Intelligence controlling the cosmos, and that life itself is the result of a blind process of natural selection, in which innumerable species failed to survive. The fossil record reveals a natural history of pain, death and racial extinction, so if there was a divine plan, it was cruel, callously prodigal and wasteful. Human beings were not the pinnacle of a purposeful creation; like everything else, they evolved by trial and error and God had no direct hand in their making. No wonder so many fundamentalist Christians find their faith shaken to the core.
But Darwin may have done religion—and God—a favor by revealing a flaw in modern Western faith. Despite our scientific and technological brilliance, our understanding of God is often remarkably undeveloped—even primitive. In the past, many of the most influential Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers understood that what we call "God" is merely a symbol that points beyond itself to an indescribable transcendence, whose existence cannot be proved but is only intuited by means of spiritual exercises and a compassionate lifestyle that enable us to cultivate new capacities of mind and heart.
But by the end of the 17th century, instead of looking through the symbol to "the God beyond God," Christians were transforming it into hard fact. Sir Isaac Newton had claimed that his cosmic system proved beyond doubt the existence of an intelligent, omniscient and omnipotent creator, who was obviously "very well skilled in Mechanicks and Geometry." Enthralled by the prospect of such cast-iron certainty, churchmen started to develop a scientifically-based theology that eventually made Newton's Mechanick and, later, William Paley's Intelligent Designer essential to Western Christianity.
But the Great Mechanick was little more than an idol, the kind of human projection that theology, at its best, was supposed to avoid. God had been essential to Newtonian physics but it was not long before other scientists were able to dispense with the God-hypothesis and, finally, Darwin showed that there could be no proof for God's existence. This would not have been a disaster had not Christians become so dependent upon their scientific religion that they had lost the older habits of thought and were left without other resource.
Symbolism was essential to premodern religion, because it was only possible to speak about the ultimate reality—God, Tao, Brahman or Nirvana—analogically, since it lay beyond the reach of words. Jews and Christians both developed audaciously innovative and figurative methods of reading the Bible, and every statement of the Quran is called an ayah ("parable"). St Augustine (354-430), a major authority for both Catholics and Protestants, insisted that if a biblical text contradicted reputable science, it must be interpreted allegorically. This remained standard practice in the West until the 17th century, when in an effort to emulate the exact scientific method, Christians began to read scripture with a literalness that is without parallel in religious history.
Most cultures believed that there were two recognized ways of arriving at truth. The Greeks called them mythos and logos. Both were essential and neither was superior to the other; they were not in conflict but complementary, each with its own sphere of competence. Logos ("reason") was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled us to function effectively in the world and had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external reality. But it could not assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life's struggle. For that people turned to mythos, stories that made no pretensions to historical accuracy but should rather be seen as an early form of psychology; if translated into ritual or ethical action, a good myth showed you how to cope with mortality, discover an inner source of strength, and endure pain and sorrow with serenity.
In the ancient world, a cosmology was not regarded as factual but was primarily therapeutic; it was recited when people needed an infusion of that mysterious power that had—somehow—brought something out of primal nothingness: at a sickbed, a coronation or during a political crisis. Some cosmologies taught people how to unlock their own creativity, others made them aware of the struggle required to maintain social and political order. The Genesis creation hymn, written during the Israelites' exile in Babylonia in the 6th century BC, was a gentle polemic against Babylonian religion. Its vision of an ordered universe where everything had its place was probably consoling to a displaced people, though—as we can see in the Bible—some of the exiles preferred a more aggressive cosmology.
There can never be a definitive version of a myth, because it refers to the more imponderable aspects of life. To remain effective, it must respond to contemporary circumstance. In the 16th century, when Jews were being expelled from one region of Europe after another, the mystic Isaac Luria constructed an entirely new creation myth that bore no resemblance to the Genesis story. But instead of being reviled for contradicting the Bible, it inspired a mass-movement among Jews, because it was such a telling description of the arbitrary world they now lived in; backed up with special rituals, it also helped them face up to their pain and discover a source of strength.
Religion was not supposed to provide explanations that lay within the competence of reason but to help us live creatively with realities for which there are no easy solutions and find an interior haven of peace; today, however, many have opted for unsustainable certainty instead. But can we respond religiously to evolutionary theory? Can we use it to recover a more authentic notion of God?
Darwin made it clear once again that—as Maimonides, Avicenna, Aquinas and Eckhart had already pointed out—we cannot regard God simply as a divine personality, who single-handedly created the world. This could direct our attention away from the idols of certainty and back to the "God beyond God." The best theology is a spiritual exercise, akin to poetry. Religion is not an exact science but a kind of art form that, like music or painting, introduces us to a mode of knowledge that is different from the purely rational and which cannot easily be put into words. At its best, it holds us in an attitude of wonder, which is, perhaps, not unlike the awe that Mr. Dawkins experiences—and has helped me to appreciate —when he contemplates the marvels of natural selection.
But what of the pain and waste that Darwin unveiled? All the major traditions insist that the faithful meditate on the ubiquitous suffering that is an inescapable part of life; because, if we do not acknowledge this uncomfortable fact, the compassion that lies at the heart of faith is impossible. The almost unbearable spectacle of the myriad species passing painfully into oblivion is not unlike some classic Buddhist meditations on the First Noble Truth ("Existence is suffering"), the indispensable prerequisite for the transcendent enlightenment that some call Nirvana—and others call God.
—Ms. Armstrong is the author of numerous books on theology and religious affairs. Th e latest, "The Case for God," will be published by Knopf later this month.
Richard Dawkins argues that evolution leaves God with nothing to do
Before 1859 it would have seemed natural to agree with the Reverend William Paley, in "Natural Theology," that the creation of life was God's greatest work. Especially (vanity might add) human life. Today we'd amend the statement: Evolution is the universe's greatest work. Evolution is the creator of life, and life is arguably the most surprising and most beautiful production that the laws of physics have ever generated. Evolution, to quote a
T-shirt sent me by an anonymous well-wisher, is the greatest show on earth, the only game in town.
Indeed, evolution is probably the greatest show in the entire universe. Most scientists' hunch is that there are independently evolved life forms dotted around planetary islands throughout the universe—though sadly too thinly scattered to encounter one another. And if there is life elsewhere, it is something stronger than a hunch to say that it will turn out to be Darwinian life. The argument in favor of alien life's existing at all is weaker than the argument that—if it exists at all—it will be Darwinian life. But it is also possible that we really are alone in the universe, in which case Earth, with its greatest show, is the most remarkable planet in the universe.
What is so special about life? It never violates the laws of physics. Nothing does (if anything did, physicists would just have to formulate new laws—it's happened often enough in the history of science). But although life never violates the laws of physics, it pushes them into unexpected avenues that stagger the imagination. If we didn't know about life we wouldn't believe it was possible—except, of course, that there'd then be nobody around to do the disbelieving!
The laws of physics, before Darwinian evolution bursts out from their midst, can make rocks and sand, gas clouds and stars, whirlpools and waves, whirlpool-shaped galaxies and light that travels as waves while behaving like particles. It is an interesting, fascinating and, in many ways, deeply mysterious universe. But now, enter life. Look, through the eyes of a physicist, at a bounding kangaroo, a swooping bat, a leaping dolphin, a soaring Coast Redwood. There never was a rock that bounded like a kangaroo, never a pebble that crawled like a beetle seeking a mate, never a sand grain that swam like a water flea. Not once do any of these creatures disobey one jot or tittle of the laws of physics. Far from violating the laws of thermodynamics (as is often ignorantly alleged) they are relentlessly driven by them. Far from violating the laws of motion, animals exploit them to their advantage as they walk, run, dodge and jink, leap and fly, pounce on prey or spring to safety.
Never once are the laws of physics violated, yet life emerges into uncharted territory. And how is the trick done? The answer is a process that, although variable in its wondrous detail, is sufficiently uniform to deserve one single name: Darwinian evolution, the nonrandom survival of randomly varying coded information. We know, as certainly as we know anything in science, that this is the process that has generated life on our own planet. And my bet, as I said, is that the same process is in operation wherever life may be found, anywhere in the universe.
What if the greatest show on earth is not the greatest show in the universe? What if there are life forms on other planets that have evolved so far beyond our level of intelligence and creativity that we should regard them as gods, were we ever so fortunate (or unfortunate?) as to meet them? Would they indeed be gods? Wouldn't we be tempted to fall on our knees and worship them, as a medieval peasant might if suddenly confronted with such miracles as a Boeing 747, a mobile telephone or Google Earth? But, however god-like the aliens might seem, they would not be gods, and for one very important reason. They did not create the universe; it created them, just as it created us. Making the universe is the one thing no intelligence, however superhuman, could do, because an intelligence is complex—statistically improbable —and therefore had to emerge, by gradual degrees, from simpler beginnings: from a lifeless universe—the miracle-free zone that is physics.
To midwife such emergence is the singular achievement of Darwinian evolution. It starts with primeval simplicity and fosters, by slow, explicable degrees, the emergence of complexity: seemingly limitless complexity —certainly up to our human level of complexity and very probably way beyond. There may be worlds on which superhuman life thrives, superhuman to a level that our imaginations cannot grasp. But superhuman does not mean supernatural. Darwinian evolution is the only process we know that is ultimately capable of generating anything as complicated as creative intelligences. Once it has done so, of course, those intelligences can create other complex things: works of art and music, advanced technology, computers, the Internet and who knows what in the future? Darwinian evolution may not be the only such generative process in the universe. There may be other "cranes" (Daniel Dennett's term, which he opposes to "skyhooks") that we have not yet discovered or imagined. But, however wonderful and however different from Darwinian evolution those putative cranes may be, they cannot be magic. They will share with Darwinian evolution the facility to raise up complexity, as an emergent property, out of simplicity, while never violating natural law.
Where does that leave God? The kindest thing to say is that it leaves him with nothing to do, and no achievements that might attract our praise, our worship or our fear. Evolution is God's redundancy notice, his pink slip. But we have to go further. A complex creative intelligence with nothing to do is not just redundant. A divine designer is all but ruled out by the consideration that he must at least as complex as the entities he was wheeled out to explain. God is not dead. He was never alive in the first place.
Now, there is a certain class of sophisticated modern theologian who will say something like this: "Good heavens, of course we are not so naive or simplistic as to care whether God exists. Existence is such a 19th-century preoccupation! It doesn't matter whether God exists in a scientific sense. What matters is whether he exists for you or for me. If God is real for you, who cares whether science has made him redundant? Such arrogance! Such elitism."
Well, if that's what floats your canoe, you'll be paddling it up a very lonely creek. The mainstream belief of the world's peoples is very clear. They believe in God, and that means they believe he exists in objective reality, just as surely as the Rock of Gibraltar exists. If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of existence, they should think again. Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They'll be right.
—Mr. Dawkins is the author of "The Selfish Gene," "The Ancestor's Tale," "The God Delusion." His latest book, "The Greatest Show on Earth," will be published by Free Press on Sept. 22.
SEPTEMBER 12, 2009, 2:08 P.M. ET
ESSAYS
Man vs. God
Karen Armstrong says we need God to grasp the wonder of our existence
Richard Dawkins has been right all along, of course—at least in one important respect. Evolution has indeed dealt a blow to the idea of a benign creator, literally conceived. It tells us that there is no Intelligence controlling the cosmos, and that life itself is the result of a blind process of natural selection, in which innumerable species failed to survive. The fossil record reveals a natural history of pain, death and racial extinction, so if there was a divine plan, it was cruel, callously prodigal and wasteful. Human beings were not the pinnacle of a purposeful creation; like everything else, they evolved by trial and error and God had no direct hand in their making. No wonder so many fundamentalist Christians find their faith shaken to the core.
But Darwin may have done religion—and God—a favor by revealing a flaw in modern Western faith. Despite our scientific and technological brilliance, our understanding of God is often remarkably undeveloped—even primitive. In the past, many of the most influential Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers understood that what we call "God" is merely a symbol that points beyond itself to an indescribable transcendence, whose existence cannot be proved but is only intuited by means of spiritual exercises and a compassionate lifestyle that enable us to cultivate new capacities of mind and heart.
But by the end of the 17th century, instead of looking through the symbol to "the God beyond God," Christians were transforming it into hard fact. Sir Isaac Newton had claimed that his cosmic system proved beyond doubt the existence of an intelligent, omniscient and omnipotent creator, who was obviously "very well skilled in Mechanicks and Geometry." Enthralled by the prospect of such cast-iron certainty, churchmen started to develop a scientifically-based theology that eventually made Newton's Mechanick and, later, William Paley's Intelligent Designer essential to Western Christianity.
But the Great Mechanick was little more than an idol, the kind of human projection that theology, at its best, was supposed to avoid. God had been essential to Newtonian physics but it was not long before other scientists were able to dispense with the God-hypothesis and, finally, Darwin showed that there could be no proof for God's existence. This would not have been a disaster had not Christians become so dependent upon their scientific religion that they had lost the older habits of thought and were left without other resource.
Symbolism was essential to premodern religion, because it was only possible to speak about the ultimate reality—God, Tao, Brahman or Nirvana—analogically, since it lay beyond the reach of words. Jews and Christians both developed audaciously innovative and figurative methods of reading the Bible, and every statement of the Quran is called an ayah ("parable"). St Augustine (354-430), a major authority for both Catholics and Protestants, insisted that if a biblical text contradicted reputable science, it must be interpreted allegorically. This remained standard practice in the West until the 17th century, when in an effort to emulate the exact scientific method, Christians began to read scripture with a literalness that is without parallel in religious history.
Most cultures believed that there were two recognized ways of arriving at truth. The Greeks called them mythos and logos. Both were essential and neither was superior to the other; they were not in conflict but complementary, each with its own sphere of competence. Logos ("reason") was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled us to function effectively in the world and had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external reality. But it could not assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life's struggle. For that people turned to mythos, stories that made no pretensions to historical accuracy but should rather be seen as an early form of psychology; if translated into ritual or ethical action, a good myth showed you how to cope with mortality, discover an inner source of strength, and endure pain and sorrow with serenity.
In the ancient world, a cosmology was not regarded as factual but was primarily therapeutic; it was recited when people needed an infusion of that mysterious power that had—somehow—brought something out of primal nothingness: at a sickbed, a coronation or during a political crisis. Some cosmologies taught people how to unlock their own creativity, others made them aware of the struggle required to maintain social and political order. The Genesis creation hymn, written during the Israelites' exile in Babylonia in the 6th century BC, was a gentle polemic against Babylonian religion. Its vision of an ordered universe where everything had its place was probably consoling to a displaced people, though—as we can see in the Bible—some of the exiles preferred a more aggressive cosmology.
There can never be a definitive version of a myth, because it refers to the more imponderable aspects of life. To remain effective, it must respond to contemporary circumstance. In the 16th century, when Jews were being expelled from one region of Europe after another, the mystic Isaac Luria constructed an entirely new creation myth that bore no resemblance to the Genesis story. But instead of being reviled for contradicting the Bible, it inspired a mass-movement among Jews, because it was such a telling description of the arbitrary world they now lived in; backed up with special rituals, it also helped them face up to their pain and discover a source of strength.
Religion was not supposed to provide explanations that lay within the competence of reason but to help us live creatively with realities for which there are no easy solutions and find an interior haven of peace; today, however, many have opted for unsustainable certainty instead. But can we respond religiously to evolutionary theory? Can we use it to recover a more authentic notion of God?
Darwin made it clear once again that—as Maimonides, Avicenna, Aquinas and Eckhart had already pointed out—we cannot regard God simply as a divine personality, who single-handedly created the world. This could direct our attention away from the idols of certainty and back to the "God beyond God." The best theology is a spiritual exercise, akin to poetry. Religion is not an exact science but a kind of art form that, like music or painting, introduces us to a mode of knowledge that is different from the purely rational and which cannot easily be put into words. At its best, it holds us in an attitude of wonder, which is, perhaps, not unlike the awe that Mr. Dawkins experiences—and has helped me to appreciate —when he contemplates the marvels of natural selection.
But what of the pain and waste that Darwin unveiled? All the major traditions insist that the faithful meditate on the ubiquitous suffering that is an inescapable part of life; because, if we do not acknowledge this uncomfortable fact, the compassion that lies at the heart of faith is impossible. The almost unbearable spectacle of the myriad species passing painfully into oblivion is not unlike some classic Buddhist meditations on the First Noble Truth ("Existence is suffering"), the indispensable prerequisite for the transcendent enlightenment that some call Nirvana—and others call God.
—Ms. Armstrong is the author of numerous books on theology and religious affairs. Th e latest, "The Case for God," will be published by Knopf later this month.
Richard Dawkins argues that evolution leaves God with nothing to do
Before 1859 it would have seemed natural to agree with the Reverend William Paley, in "Natural Theology," that the creation of life was God's greatest work. Especially (vanity might add) human life. Today we'd amend the statement: Evolution is the universe's greatest work. Evolution is the creator of life, and life is arguably the most surprising and most beautiful production that the laws of physics have ever generated. Evolution, to quote a
T-shirt sent me by an anonymous well-wisher, is the greatest show on earth, the only game in town.
Indeed, evolution is probably the greatest show in the entire universe. Most scientists' hunch is that there are independently evolved life forms dotted around planetary islands throughout the universe—though sadly too thinly scattered to encounter one another. And if there is life elsewhere, it is something stronger than a hunch to say that it will turn out to be Darwinian life. The argument in favor of alien life's existing at all is weaker than the argument that—if it exists at all—it will be Darwinian life. But it is also possible that we really are alone in the universe, in which case Earth, with its greatest show, is the most remarkable planet in the universe.
What is so special about life? It never violates the laws of physics. Nothing does (if anything did, physicists would just have to formulate new laws—it's happened often enough in the history of science). But although life never violates the laws of physics, it pushes them into unexpected avenues that stagger the imagination. If we didn't know about life we wouldn't believe it was possible—except, of course, that there'd then be nobody around to do the disbelieving!
The laws of physics, before Darwinian evolution bursts out from their midst, can make rocks and sand, gas clouds and stars, whirlpools and waves, whirlpool-shaped galaxies and light that travels as waves while behaving like particles. It is an interesting, fascinating and, in many ways, deeply mysterious universe. But now, enter life. Look, through the eyes of a physicist, at a bounding kangaroo, a swooping bat, a leaping dolphin, a soaring Coast Redwood. There never was a rock that bounded like a kangaroo, never a pebble that crawled like a beetle seeking a mate, never a sand grain that swam like a water flea. Not once do any of these creatures disobey one jot or tittle of the laws of physics. Far from violating the laws of thermodynamics (as is often ignorantly alleged) they are relentlessly driven by them. Far from violating the laws of motion, animals exploit them to their advantage as they walk, run, dodge and jink, leap and fly, pounce on prey or spring to safety.
Never once are the laws of physics violated, yet life emerges into uncharted territory. And how is the trick done? The answer is a process that, although variable in its wondrous detail, is sufficiently uniform to deserve one single name: Darwinian evolution, the nonrandom survival of randomly varying coded information. We know, as certainly as we know anything in science, that this is the process that has generated life on our own planet. And my bet, as I said, is that the same process is in operation wherever life may be found, anywhere in the universe.
What if the greatest show on earth is not the greatest show in the universe? What if there are life forms on other planets that have evolved so far beyond our level of intelligence and creativity that we should regard them as gods, were we ever so fortunate (or unfortunate?) as to meet them? Would they indeed be gods? Wouldn't we be tempted to fall on our knees and worship them, as a medieval peasant might if suddenly confronted with such miracles as a Boeing 747, a mobile telephone or Google Earth? But, however god-like the aliens might seem, they would not be gods, and for one very important reason. They did not create the universe; it created them, just as it created us. Making the universe is the one thing no intelligence, however superhuman, could do, because an intelligence is complex—statistically improbable —and therefore had to emerge, by gradual degrees, from simpler beginnings: from a lifeless universe—the miracle-free zone that is physics.
To midwife such emergence is the singular achievement of Darwinian evolution. It starts with primeval simplicity and fosters, by slow, explicable degrees, the emergence of complexity: seemingly limitless complexity —certainly up to our human level of complexity and very probably way beyond. There may be worlds on which superhuman life thrives, superhuman to a level that our imaginations cannot grasp. But superhuman does not mean supernatural. Darwinian evolution is the only process we know that is ultimately capable of generating anything as complicated as creative intelligences. Once it has done so, of course, those intelligences can create other complex things: works of art and music, advanced technology, computers, the Internet and who knows what in the future? Darwinian evolution may not be the only such generative process in the universe. There may be other "cranes" (Daniel Dennett's term, which he opposes to "skyhooks") that we have not yet discovered or imagined. But, however wonderful and however different from Darwinian evolution those putative cranes may be, they cannot be magic. They will share with Darwinian evolution the facility to raise up complexity, as an emergent property, out of simplicity, while never violating natural law.
Where does that leave God? The kindest thing to say is that it leaves him with nothing to do, and no achievements that might attract our praise, our worship or our fear. Evolution is God's redundancy notice, his pink slip. But we have to go further. A complex creative intelligence with nothing to do is not just redundant. A divine designer is all but ruled out by the consideration that he must at least as complex as the entities he was wheeled out to explain. God is not dead. He was never alive in the first place.
Now, there is a certain class of sophisticated modern theologian who will say something like this: "Good heavens, of course we are not so naive or simplistic as to care whether God exists. Existence is such a 19th-century preoccupation! It doesn't matter whether God exists in a scientific sense. What matters is whether he exists for you or for me. If God is real for you, who cares whether science has made him redundant? Such arrogance! Such elitism."
Well, if that's what floats your canoe, you'll be paddling it up a very lonely creek. The mainstream belief of the world's peoples is very clear. They believe in God, and that means they believe he exists in objective reality, just as surely as the Rock of Gibraltar exists. If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of existence, they should think again. Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They'll be right.
—Mr. Dawkins is the author of "The Selfish Gene," "The Ancestor's Tale," "The God Delusion." His latest book, "The Greatest Show on Earth," will be published by Free Press on Sept. 22.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Friday, September 04, 2009
Video lecture by Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky on schizotypal personality and "metamagical thinking"
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Levi Johnston Slams Bristol Palin's Crusade Against Teen Sex: "It's All A Show"
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Levi Johnston Slams Bristol Palin's Crusade Against Teen Sex: "It's All A Show"
Bristol Palin's baby daddy, Levi Johnston, is spilling the beans on what he feels is really behind her campaign for abstinence.
"Her mother has a big influence on her," Johnston, 19, told RadarOnline.com in an exclusive interview. "I don't buy it. The first time it [the subject of abstinence] came around, she said it wasn't realistic. Now she says it is. So I think she caught herself in a little thing there. I don't buy it. It's all a show."
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Sarah Palin Resigned Due To Marital Troubles, Says Levi Johnston
Strong words from Johnston, who despite revealing that his relationship with Sarah Palin's daughter is back on good terms for the sake of their young son Tripp, is planning to have a procedure done to remove a tattoo from his left ring finger which spells Bristol's name.
"It was a big mistake," He said of getting Bristol's name tattooed on his finger. "But you live, you learn, it's all good."
But don't expect Levi to turn his tattoo into something cool and creative. "I'm just going to have it lasered off," he said, before adding, "But I've actually heard bad things about that so, I'll maybe I'll cover it up, figure something out."
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW: Sarah Palin Resigned Due To Marital Troubles, Says Levi Johnston
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW: Sarah Palin Resigned Due To Marital Troubles, Says Levi Johnston
Sarah Palin's marriage has been in trouble from the beginning, says Levi Johnston, the father of their grandson Tripp and ex-fiance of daughter Bristol.
What's more Levi told RadarOnline.com in an exclusive video interview that he believes marital problems were behind Palin's decision to resign as governor of Alaska.
When we asked if the couple had marital problems, Levi responded: "Oh yeah. There have been from day one."
RadarOnline.com then asked if Levi thought marital problems were the reason she stepped down from political office. Levi answered, "Oh yeah I do."
He didn’t stop there. He also told RadarOnline.com that he thinks Palin will be chasing an even bigger paycheck now that she’s out of public office and on the speaker circuit. “She took the money,” he said. “That’s what she’s talked about, that’s what I’m gathering and I think that’s what she’s doing.”
He did add that he did not believe cheating was a factor in Sarah and Todd's marriage.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
FREE GOOGLE VOICE APPLICATION FOR WINDOWS XP, WINDOWS VISTA AND WINDOWS7 PLUS MAC. BASED ON .NET. COMING SOON. CHECK BACK.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
FREE GOOGLE VOICE INVITATION
As you know, I am a very important person and I have a lot of pull in high places. As a result of my stature, I am pleased to offer my readers the following private link from which you may receive a highly coveted Google Voice Invite as a token of my sincere appreciation for your support of this blog. We are as you may know, the number 1 liberal Christian blog on the Internet.
Free Google Voice Invitation
Free Google Voice Invitation
Thursday, April 23, 2009
FDA eases access to morning-after pill
EXCELLENT NEWS FOR TEENAGE SEXUAL ENTHUSIASTS.
By Susan Heavey
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seventeen-year-olds will soon have access to emergency contraception without a prescription, U.S. health regulators said on Wednesday, complying with a court order to ease restrictions on over-the-counter sales of the so-called "morning-after" pill.
Last month, a U.S. court ruled the Food and Drug Administration under the Bush administration had allowed politics to cloud its decision-making process regarding availability of the Plan B drug which had been restricted to those 18 and older.
It ordered the agency to allow nonprescription sales to 17-year-olds, and to reconsider its decision regarding over-the-counter access to Plan B.
The FDA on Wednesday said it would allow nonprescription access to 17-year-olds as soon as it received necessary information from the drug's maker, Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc, now part of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.
"The government will not appeal this decision," the FDA said in a statement on its website.
Teva said it would comply with FDA's request but it could still take 10 months before the drug is available without a prescription for younger buyers.
"We will continue to work closely with FDA to ensure that all provisions of this decision are met," it said.
Women's health advocates cheered the FDA's decision, with some adding that access should be loosened even more, to allow shelf sales without age restrictions. They along with company officials argue it is critical for women to have quick access to the drug, which aims to prevent pregnancy when used within 24 hours of sexual intercourse.
"It's a good indication that the agency will move expeditiously to ensure its policy on Plan B is based solely on science," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which initiated the lawsuit in 2005.
National Women's Health Network policy director Amy Allina said FDA's move "gets us part way to where we believe the FDA should be." But she added, "Putting it behind the counter does not make it safer or more effective. In fact, because it creates another barrier it's likely to make it less effective."
Plan B is a set of two pills that contain higher doses of progestin than are used in prescription birth control pills.
Conservative groups have opposed any nonprescription access to the drug, saying among other things that it could lead to promiscuity.
"The FDA violated its standards when it made the high dose Plan B available nonprescription to adults. But now the FDA is making the drug available to minors without parental consent," Concerned Women for America President Wendy Wright said in a statement. "The FDA should have challenged the decision."
Barr had earlier sought over-the-counter access for those 16 and older.
The FDA under President George W. Bush delayed making any decision for three years. Then In 2006 it allowed behind-the-counter sales to those age 18 and older who showed proof of age while still requiring a prescription for girls 17 and younger.
Even with the new FDA decision, the company would have to submit additional data on the drug for 16-year-olds, said Diana Zuckerman, head of the National Research Center for Women & Families.
Despite the limitations, sales of Plan B "have more than doubled" since it became available for adults from pharmacists in 2006, Teva said.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Palin's Churches and the New Apostolic Reformation
Series of Documentary Videos and Supporting Articles in Palin's Churches and the Third Wave Series
The following are links to articles and videos that have been posted on Talk2action.org in an ongoing series, documenting the massive and radical shift in global Christianity propelled by the closely related New Apostolic Reformation and Third Wave movements. Some of the articles below focus on the relationship of Sarah Palin's Churches to those movements. Others features a broader treatment of the New Apostolic Reformation and the Third Wave [ for an overview, see, especially, the special report below ] : New Report Documents Activities of Spiritual Warfare Network Tied to Palin http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/10/29/23723/734/
Links to PDF of 36 page report:
Spiritual Mapping and Spiritual Warfare – Muthee and the “Transformations” Franchise http://www.talk2action.org.nyud.net/pages/docs/Transformation.pdf http://www.talk2action.org/pages/docs/Transformation.pdf
Stories are listed in chronological order with the latest articles first.
The Palin Scandal in the Living Room http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/11/5/13585/8320
Katherine Harris, Sarah Palin Linked to Same Prayer Warfare Network http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/11/2/115526/519
Palin’s Movement Urges Godly to Plunder Wealth of Godless http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/11/1/14522/8804/
Palin’s Spiritual Warfare Network Partners With Homeland Security http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/10/31/115724/94/
Palin Linked to Second Witch Hunter http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/10/24/125017/31
Killing Mother Theresa with their Prayers http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/10/20/195730/89/
Palin Anointer Muthee Fights Catholics, Witches and “Python Spirits”
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/10/20/13042/410/
Palin Put Religious War Advocate on Alaska Suicide Prevention Council
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/10/13/171018/17/
Seven Questions That US Media Have Neglected to Ask About Sarah Palin
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/10/10/19356/295/
Palin and the Apostles
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/10/7/54010/1830/
Fishers and Hunters - The Continuing Saga of Christian Zionism
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/10/2/115153/281/
A Heartbeat Away or Why Palin’s Churches Matter
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/25/93553/3296/
Buzzflash Interview with the Palin Churches Research Team
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/24/173435/219/
In Video, Pastor Annoints Palin, Urges “Infiltration” of Schools, Government, Business
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/24/13112/0816/
The “Lions in the Pews”
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/24/82239/9750/
Palin, Muthee, and the Witch- Journalists Miss the Major Story
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/20/171755/145/
YouTube Censors Viral Video Documentary on Palin's Churches
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/13/1538/09770/
Palin’s Churches and the Holy Laughter Anointing, Video, Documentation, and Article
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/11/113733/968/
Sarah Palin’s Demon Haunted Churches, Complete Edition With videos, documentation , and article
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/8/114332/7479/
Sarah Palin’s Churches and the Third Wave, Part Two
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/5/03830/11602/
Sarah Palin’s Churches and the Third Wave, Part One
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/5/0244/84583/
Direct video links:
Sarah Palin’s Churches and the Third Wave, also titled Palin’s Demon Haunted Churches
http://www.vimeo.com/1679097?pg=embed&sec=1679097
Sarah Palin, the Seven Mountains and retaking the Mountain of Business
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xges7mFi6iY
In the Land of Queen Esther: The Unauthorized Sarah Palin Video
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/10/18/211616/13 ( By Max Blumenthal, produced by Michael W. Wilson, also producer of Silhouette City )
Palin's Churches and the Holy Laughter Anointing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_CkZWTvKBc
Palin, Muthee and Killing Mother Theresa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eruPRS4V0SA
Palin Anointer Thomas Muthee Fights Catholics, Witches and Python Spirits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grrsRKP8L0s
| topic: All Topics |
The New Apostolic Reformation is a recently institutionalized Protestant sect that emerged from specific Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, sometimes referred to collectively as the Third Wave. These are revivals of a 1940s and 1950s movement named as a heresy by the Assemblies of God at that time. The New Apostolic Reformation can now be defined as a distinct movement with a unique theology. The central figure in the movement, C. Peter Wagner has organized the sect structure and defined its primary theology. He declared 2001 as the beginning of the new Apostolic Age. Wagner’s extensive Apostolic network includes 500 Apostles from the U.S. and 42 other countries, each with their own network of churches and ministries, some with hundreds or even thousands. This network is interconnected with other Apostolic networks around the world who share media, conferences, schools, and training, and revivals.
The major tenets of the adherents of this sect include the belief that we are living in the final years before the return of Christ. However, they differ from other Fundamentalist Protestants in their belief that they must defeat evil on the earth and purify the existing churches before Jesus can return. Furthermore, the building of this “Kingdom of God” is not to be delayed until after the Rapture, or to be built in a heavenly sphere. They believe that they have a mandate to build the Kingdom in the present and in the physical realm. In preparation for this task, this final generation is being “imparted” with special supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit that will allow them to wage spiritual warfare and take control of the earth from the devil and an array of demons. The mandate for building the Kingdom includes their current Seven Mountains strategy for the taking control over government, arts and entertainment, media, education, family, religion, and business.
This effort includes extensive mission work around the globe featuring their well developed spiritual warfare strategies which have been published in books and videos. The goal of these spiritual warfare tactics is to take cities and communities from the territorial demons that control theses geographic areas and that they believe prevent their efforts in planting their own Apostolic churches. Spiritual warfare around the globe includes the goal of taking control of cities through the expulsion of witches and demons, and the conversion of Roman Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and all other religions. They also believe that there must be a civil war in the Protestant church during this “Third Reformation” in order for them to purify that institution before Jesus can return. The movement has an extensive focus on youth, with several leaders specifically prophesying that those born after 1973 are to be the trainers and warriors for God’s army.
Link here to chronological list of the over 50 stories on Sarah Palin published at Talk To Action
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Bristol Palin mother of Trig and Tripp.
(Our friend, Syrin, posted this further explanation of her husband's quote in People Magazine regarding Bristol and Levi. Those who have spoken to her school mates in Wasilla and Anchorage have shared the same information about the two of them. - promoted by Celtic Diva)
From People Magazine... March
From People Magazine... March
Tom Whitstine Jr., a longtime co-worker of Todd's, believes the Palins have also opposed the Bristol-Levi romance, at least in the past. Last year her parents sent her to Anchorage to do her junior year of high school and live with Sarah's sister Heather Bruce. "Basically, they were trying to limit her contact with Levi, trying to be good parents," says Whitstine. "The method didn't work out.
Yep, that's my husband, he did give the Palin's credit for trying to do something for their strong-willed teenager Bristol. However, their method didn't work out.
Lorenzo Benet took what he wanted from the interview and presented it the way he wanted it to be perceived.
His book "Trail Blazer" is pro Palin and an intimate portrait. Heather Bruce, Sarah's sister, came to me in August because my name was out there on the blogs as the one to blame for this information being revealed.
By the time Heather showed up denying everything, I personally had seen a very pregnant Bristol a couple of times, so their denial was for naught.
It was common knowledge in Juneau that Bristol was in trouble.
The authors of this "People" story left out the main reasons why Bristol was sent away. Many issues on 'why' were discussed with Tom when he was interviewed by Benet. Like any teen being taken out of her community, Bristol wanted to be in Wasilla with friends and her boyfriend Levi Johnston. The established understanding was that Bristol Palin wasn't doing well in school. She was a party girl, was hanging out with the wrong crowd, was becoming increasingly out of conrol, and was becoming an embarrassment to her parents which was the last straw. She was sent to Anchorage to live with family, (they tried, I suppose).
Tom obviously had no intention to suggest it was to limit her contact from Levi Johnston exclusively, Levi didn't live in Juneau, perhaps they had contact by phone. However, it's clear he had little contact physically with Bristol except when she would be in Wasilla. That did occur more than we may have known. (FACT..Governor Palin was paid for 381 days of per diem. The Palins stayed and were paid to be in Wasilla, not Juneau)
What is fact now: Bristol became pregnant while living with Aunt Heather in Anchorage. We hear that when Bristol moved back to Wasilla, which was sometime just before she became pregnant, Bristol and Levi where given a room to share in the Palin home.
Levi Johnston/Baby Pics Shown On TV Are Actually Pics of Levi Holding Sarah Palin’s Supposed Baby Trig?
Now here we have some news!! Levi, Mercede and Sherry Johnston were on the Tyra Banks show. Several new photos were presented there, and here is an extremely interesting one. This is a NEVER SEEN BEFORE picture from the (old) "Triggybear" collection which Mercede Johnston had put on here myspace in April or May 2008. It shows Levi with Trig, very shortly after birth. What an interesting addition to the collection! Show us more!
Not to be all Andrew Sullivan but WHAT THE HELL is Levi Johnston doing here, in May of last year, tenderly cradling supposed Sarah Palin child “Trig Palin” in this photograph taken in Sarah’s kitchen, days after Trig’s birth? And WHY was this photo shown on the Tyra Banks Program to illustrate teen father Levi Johnston holding his supposed son “Tripp Johnston,” supposedly birthed by Bristol Palin? And why is sister Mercede Johnston also photographed lovingly cradling this child she refers to as “baby brother,” (supposedly Sarah Palin’s supposed baby “Trigg Palin”) in the exact same Palin kitchen setting, on the same day? Look, we liked Twin Peaks, too, but this is just getting ridiculous.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Madonna Dating Levi Johnston
| Written by Abel Rodriguez |
 |
| WASILLA, Alaska - Madonna, fresh from dumping baseball superstar A-Rod and Brazilian super model Jesus Luz has reportedly been seen having dinner with none other than Levi Johnston, 18, the ex-future son-in-law of Gov. Sarah Palin. Johnston uncaringly dumped his fiancee Bristol Palin, 18, after she had their baby back in December. He told a neighbor that he does not think that he is ready to settle down with just one girl just yet. An aide to Gov. Palin stated off the record that the governor had commented to Levi that he had better not dare set foot on her property because as far as she is concerned he looks a hell of a lot like a moose. Levi replied that he has seen "Snowflake" Sarah shoot and she is not at all as good a shot as she thinks she is. He told of a hunting trip that just he and her took up around Prudhoe Bay. He said that they both snuck up on a caribou and Palin took careful aim, fired, and missed causing the caribou to scamper off into the frozen woods. Johnston said that when Palin fired her high-powered telescopic rifle that the end of the rifle was practically touching the caribou's butt. Levi was asked if he in fact has been seeing Madonna. And he asked "Who?" When told that there were reports circulating throughout Wasilla that he and the famous singer had both been seen at the local Jack-In-The-Box where he works he remarked, "Where?" When Levi was asked if he was born stupid, is stupid, or just acts stupid he answered, "What?" A reporter for The Wasilla Snowdrift Sentinel managed to talk to Madonna and she asked her point blank if she was dating the ex-boyfriend of Governor Sarah Palin's heartbroken daughter Bristol. Madonna replied that Bristol was not heartbroken because the little spoiled brat unfairly kept the entire $300,000 that the couple was paid for the first photos of their little baby Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, who grandma Sarah has nicknamed "Huntin' Tripp." Madonna then admitted that since the government of Malawi had denied her adoption request, she had decided to fly to Alaska and see about the possibility of adopting an Eskimo baby where all a prospective parent has to do is fill out a two question questionaire, pay a $3 adoption fee, and show at least one valid credit card. She said that she had stopped in at the local Jack-In-The-Box and that Levi had gone up to her as she was eating her Ultimate Cheeseburger and asked her for her autograph. Madonna said that she happened to know that he loved hockey and she offered to have him meet her in her Holiday Inn room so that he could tell her all about hockey related terms such as body checking, penalty box, biscuit in the basket, pole checking, and dangler. Madonna and Johnston were later seen together at the Greater Wasilla Unified Airport and Madonna confessed that her and Levi are in fact dating. She disclosed that they were both flying back to New York City and that she had hired him to be her personal ice hockey consultant and instructor on her new movie. (EDITOR'S NOTE: In May, Madonna will begin filming Puck Bunny - The Misadventures of An Ice Hockey Groupie. The motion picture will also star Brad Pitt, Carrie Underwood, Roger Clemens, Nadya Suleman, Miley Cyrus, Tony Bennett, and Pucky the Puck, mascot of The Saskatoon Snowplowers). |
Levi Your request is being processed...
Levi Johnston's Sister Mercede Tattoos His Name On Her Wrist...What Would You Do?
White trash hick Sarah Palin from Mat-Su thinks that Levi Johnston is white trash. Sarah Palin lies again. Levi Johnston calls Sarah Palin a liar.
WASHINGTON — The father of Bristol Palin's baby boy says he's been treated like an outcast since the end of Gov. Sarah Palin's run for vice president.
Appearing in an interview broadcast Wednesday on CBS's "The Early Show," Levi Johnston said he felt a need to "get my side of the story out there."
A worsening feud has developed between the 19-year-old Johnston and the governor's family in the wake of Johnston's complaints about not being able see his young son Tripp, often enough. Now there is a dispute about whether Johnston had actually lived with the Palins. Palin denies that he did; Johnston's family says the Palins are lying.
Johnston says that the biggest misconception about him is that his family is "probably that my family's white trash." He called the Palins "snobby."
Bristol Palin is Sarah Palin's daughter, and at one point she had agree to marry Johnston, but that is now off. Johnston said he was heartbroken by the split.
Johnston said he "wouldn't call any baby a mistake. I love him more than anything. I wouldn't trade him for the world." Tripp was born Dec. 27.
Lower class hick, Sarah Palin from Mat-Su fails again
Forget “Drill, baby, drill.” Sarah Palin says she’s building a $40 billion gas pipeline, which even President Obama wants. The only problem: It isn’t there. And it’s her fault.
Lower class hick, Sarah Palin from Mat-Su fails again.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Sarah Palin allowed Bristol to have sex in her home. Todd Palin's sister arrested for breaking into a house while her 4 year old kept a look out .
Bristol Palin’s ex-boyfriend and the father of her baby, Levi Johnston, 18, told Tyra Banks in a segment to air today that he was “pretty sure” Bristol’s mother knew that he and Bristol, 18, were having sex before she got pregnant. Alaskan governor and former Vice Presidental candidate Sarah Palin is an advocate of abstinence-only sex education and didn’t take kindly to Johnston blabbing to the media. She issued a scathing statement to People Magazine that said in no uncertain terms how she felt about Johnston’s claims:
After taking about sex on The Tyra Banks Show, Johnston – the 18-year-old father of Bristol Palin’s baby – was hit with a blistering response from Bristol’s family.
“Bristol did not even know Levi was going on the show. We’re disappointed that Levi and his family, in a quest for fame, attention, and fortune, are engaging in flat-out lies, gross exaggeration, and even distortion of their relationship,” says the statement from the Palin family rep, Meghan Stapleton.
“Bristol’s focus will remain on raising Tripp, completing her education, and advocating abstinence,” the statement continues. “It is unfortunate that Levi finds it more appealing to exploit his previous relationship with Bristol than to contribute to the well being of the child.”
The statement ends, saying, “Bristol realizes now that she made a mistake in her relationship and is the one taking responsibility for their actions.”
[From People.com]
Not only does Sarah Palin have this embarrassing incident to deal with, she may have another black sheep in her family. Palin’s sister-in-law, Diana Palin, was arrested on burglary charges in Wasilla, Alaska on Thursday and charged with two counts of felony burglary after she was caught breaking into a home for an alleged second time. Diana Palin’s four year old daughter is said to have been waiting in the car outside while her mom robbed the house, taking a reported $2,200 in her first attempt and $400 the next time. Her excuse was that she thought she was at a friend’s place.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Sarah Palin angry that Levi took advantage of Bristol and impregnated her
Bristol was absent from school Jan-May 2008, because she had an extreme case of mono. The Palins and the school confirms this fact. So she was sick in bed, at her family's home, when she got pregnant in March. Governor Palin says that she is extremely angry that Levi took advantage of Bristol under the Governor's roof when Bristol was too sick to leave the house.
Sarah Palin allowed Bristol to have sex in her home
Sarah Palin blasts Levi Johnston for talking about relationship with her daughter Bristol
Levi Johnston -- Bristol Palin's former boyfriend and the father of her baby -- has made her lipstick-wearing pit bull mother biting mad.
Johnston tells Tyra Banks on her show (that airs on April 6) that he believes Gov. Sarah Palin knew darn well he and her daughter were having sex when they lived in her house. "I'm pretty sure she probably knew. Moms are pretty smart," Johnston says.
News of his sex chat with Tyra has hit the ears of the Alaska governor.
And you betcha her camp has released an angry hornet’s nest of a statement.
"Bristol did not even know Levi was going on the show. We're disappointed that Levi and his family, in a quest for fame, attention, and fortune, are engaging in flat-out lies, gross exaggeration and even distortion of their relationship," says the statement from the Palin family rep.
"It is unfortunate that Levi finds it more appealing to exploit his previous relationship with Bristol than to contribute to the well-being of the child."
The statement ends: "Bristol realizes now that she made a mistake in her relationship and is the one taking responsibility for their actions."
It's kinda funny that she's mad at him for talking about having sex with her daughter. We would have been madder about the actual act of impregnation.
As if poor Sarah doesn’t have enough family problems. Now comes word this week from the Associated Press that her husband Todd Palin’s half-sister was accused of breaking into the same Wasilla, Alaska, house twice to steal money.
Yes, you read that right. The same house. Twice.
Diana Palin, 35, was charged with felony burglary and misdemeanor criminal trespass and theft stemming from two break-ins this week. And don't forget that Levi's mom, Sarah, was arrested in December on drug-related charges.
What is going on with these people? They make The Osbournes seem positively sane and normal.
We know. Let's move out the "Desperate Housewives" and have the Osbournes, the Palins and Nadya Suleman all live on Wisteria Lane and just let the cameras roll. The writers could all take a break because these folks come up with such wacky stuff all on their own.
Now that would be a TV show to watch. Would you tune in? Or are you over these people?
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Texas hicks against evolution
Texas Opens Classroom Door for Evolution Doubts
By STEPHANIE SIMON
The Texas Board of Education approved a science curriculum that opens the door for teachers and textbooks to raise doubts about evolution.
Critics of evolution said they were thrilled with Friday's move. "Texas has sent a clear message that evolution should be taught as a scientific theory open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can't be questioned," said Dr. John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think tank that argues an intelligent designer created life.
Kathy Miller, president of the pro-evolution Texas Freedom Network, said, "The board crafted a road map that creationists will use to pressure publishers into putting phony arguments attacking established science into textbooks."
Science standards in Texas resonate across the U.S., since it approves one set of books for the entire state. That makes Texas the nation's single largest market for high-school textbooks.
In the past, publishers often have written texts to its curriculum and marketed them nationally rather than spend time and money reworking them for different states and districts.
That influence has diminished, said Jay Diskey, executive director of the Association of American Publishers' school division, as districts and statewide boards of education have become more likely to scrutinize texts approved in other states. Desktop publishing also has made it easier for companies to amend textbooks to suit different markets.
"It's not necessarily the case" that the Texas curriculum will pop up in other states, Mr. Diskey said. But within Texas, what the board says, goes. Several years ago, the board expressed concern that a description of the Ice Age occurring "millions of years ago" conflicted with biblical timelines. The publisher changed it to "in the distant past." Another publisher sought to satisfy the board by inserting a heading about "strengths and weaknesses of evolution" in a biology text, drawing condemnation from science organizations.
The board will use the new standards to choose new textbooks in 2011.
Friday's meeting started with a victory for backers of evolution. The board voted to remove a longstanding requirement that students analyze the "strengths and weaknesses" of the theory. Mainstream scientists resoundingly reject that language, saying there are no weak links in the theory of evolution, which has been corroborated by discoveries in fields ranging from genetics to geology.
Through the afternoon, board members offered up a series of amendments and counter-amendments designed to shape presentations in biology classes across the state. The board voted down curriculum standards questioning the evolutionary principle that all life on Earth is descended from common ancestry.
Yet the board approved standards that require students to analyze and evaluate the fossil record and the complexity of the cell. Social conservatives on the board, led by chairman Don McLeroy, have made clear they expect books to address those topics by raising questions about the validity of evolutionary theory.
For instance, they want textbooks to suggest the theory of evolution is undercut by fossils that show some organisms -- such as ferns -- haven't changed much over millions of years. They also want texts to discuss the explosion of life forms during the Cambrian Era as inconsistent with the incremental march of evolution.
Scientists respond that the fossil record clearly traces the roots of Cambrian Era creatures back as far as 100 million years.
It isn't just evolution at issue: The board also approved an earth-science curriculum that challenges the widely accepted Big Bang Theory. Students are expected to learn that there are "differing theories" on the "origin and history of the universe."
Board members also deleted a reference to the scientific consensus that the universe is nearly 14 billion years old. The board's chairman has said he believes God created the universe fewer than 10,000 years ago.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Bristo Palin to sell baby on eBay
We have just learned that Bristol Palin plans to auction off her baby on eBay and attend Harvard in the fall.
White trash whore Bristol Palin breaks up with Levi Johnston. Plans to open a whore house in Alaska
Bristol Palin & Levi Johnston Break Off Engagement
(Photo: ZUMA Press)
But in a new interview with Star Magazine, Levi's sister Mercede Johnston says Bristol actually broke up with Levi more than a month ago, is not attending school and rarely lets her baby daddy see their young son. Mercede also says Bristol even told him that she hates him and, when she learned she was pregnant, wished the baby wasn't his.
Mercede told Star: "Bristol's just crazy. That's the nicest way I can put it. She and Levi actually broke up a while ago!"
Apparently, Levi is also far from being a hands-on dad. Said Mercede: "Levi tries to visit Tripp every single day, but Bristol makes it nearly impossible for him. She tells him he can't take the baby to our house because she doesn't want him around 'white trash.' She treats him so badly!"
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