(via allmylaundry)

I love the Yoga one…

cardiacattack:

tachycardic-love:

Well… this is pretty fucking disturbing. 

Damn

I am… Disturbed. 

jtotheizzoe:

A New Gallup Poll On Americans’ Belief in Evolution Is Out Today …

… and it’s full of rather sad figures. A full 46% of those surveyed believe that God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years. The number has essentially remained unchanged for the past 30 years (44% in 1982).

You can check the Gallup report for the detailed results, but a few things jumped out at me:

• Among people who never attend church, a full 25% still subscribe to creationist views.
• There’s only a 17% difference (58% vs. 41%) between Republicans and Democrats
• Almost four out of five Americans believe God had a hand in creating humans in some way

Now, I’m not bothered by the existence or acceptance of religion, when used for good. Nor do I believe that accepting evolution means that you must deny all other religious beliefs. Sure, the more one learns about science and the universe the more one will experience the pangs of cognitive dissonance and questioned faith. But those feelings and questions are part of the human journey. They carve the unique facets of your identity that make you truly you. 

What bothers me is that evolution is at the core of so much of science, and to dismiss its truth is akin to a mathematician dismissing that 1 is half of 2 or a chemist refusing to acknowledge the existence of electrons. You simply can not fully immerse your brain in the workings of our living world without evolution. Medicine, biology, nature … any of it.

And in thirty years of bloody knuckled work to bring science into people’s lives, it feels like we still haven’t gotten anywhere.

(via Gallup)

oy. 

jtotheizzoe:

Dear Einstein, Do Scientists Pray?

A young girl named Phyllis wrote to Einstein in 1936 on behalf of her Sunday School class, asking if scientists pray. He wrote her back.

An excerpt from his response (read the whole letter here):

… everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is surely quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive. 

To me, he is capturing that intangible feeling of curiosity and discovery combined. That the awareness that our world is ruled by natural laws is a constant “spirit” in itself, and one that we can access at will. Maybe not traditional religion, but an idea that I think we can all agree is worth exploring.

(↬ Letters of Note)

Why is it that mormons can call themselves “mormon” have “mormon commercials” and publicize that as their religion, but if someone not in the church refers to the religion as “mormon” they are corrected, “No, I’m LDS”?

Is it like the N word for black people? I don’t get it. 

?

hilarious, goes right along with the religious commentary going on lately.