Two thirds of the Supreme Court is Catholic: six of the nine. And they’re not kidding. Joe Biden and five justices attended the “Red Mass” the day before the new term of the court.

The mass is a Catholic service, but power brokers of other faiths are asked to attend the invitation-only event. Critics have called the attendance of leading decision-makers, including members of the highest court in the land, inappropriate.

Oh, what’s the harm – it’s just a bit of incense and some pious mumbling.

A Vatican archbishop told the VP and 5 of the 9 justices

that laws are based upon certain principles: “the pursuit of the common good through respect for the natural law, the dignity

Jason Rosenhouse has done the perfect, brilliant reply to Josh Rosenau’s latest on Hau too Hellp and on howtohelping in general. I would love to have written it myself, but I’m not clever enough.

Turns out people tend to mistrust information that comes from people they don’t like. Who knew?

Heh. Yes, we knew, and we also knew that’s not quite all there is to it. We know for instance that there are not just two participants in every conversation. We know that liking or not liking are not the only two possibilities. We know that information is not the only product of discussion.

Atheist spirituality, such as it is, has almost nothing in common with traditional religion. So far

A bit of good news for once – the US Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal by the Association of Christian Schools International against the University of California for refusing to grant college-prep credit for courses with religious viewpoints. UC says the schools use textbooks that replace science with the Bible.

So…there’s a problem with that? But science and religion are supposed to be in harmony, aren’t they? So why is it a problem if schools use textbooks that replace science with the Bible?

Oh don’t be silly, the religion&science people snap; you know perfectly well we don’t mean, when we say religion&science go together like ham&eggs, that the Bible should be used as a biology textbook. We … Read the rest

A few more telling items from Science and Religion (Ferngren ed). Chapter 10, “Causation,” p 136 [“occasionalism” is the idea that god intervenes to keep the universe going from minute to minute as opposed to starting it and then leaving it alone]:

The fullest system of occasionalism was developed by Nicholas de Malebranche (1638-1715), who was driven by his own religious commitments to push Cartesianism in a theocentric direction.

Er…right. This is what we mean. This is the kind of thing. This is why there is an epistemic conflict. Those commitments that drive people to push things in a particular direction? That’s a problem.

A similar item on the next page. Al the great and Aquinas

undertook to interpret the

I’m offended. I’m offended by the sheer stupidity, the voluntary stupidity – the non-thought, the hostility to thought, the chosen crudity. It’s from a reporter called Cathy Lynn Grossman, who is responsible for the “Faith and Reason” blog at USA Today. She is also a Templeton Fellow 2010, which makes her a classmate of Chris Mooney’s. was also a Templeton fellow in 2005 – the inaugural class.

She was of course reacting to Jerry Coyne’s piece declaring that science and religion are not friends. “Reacting” is all she did.

Move over Richard Dawkins. Yet another scientist is weighing in on science vs. religion and wheeling out his most outrageous language for his point

She tells Dawkins to move over … Read the rest