Americans love (nonexistent) miracles

Jerry Coyne quoted from a HuffPo article on his blog yesterday. It reported that:

. . . [A]s more people appear to be turning away from organized religion, a new study finds that the number of Americans who definitely believe in religious miracles increased 22 percent in the past two decades, with 55 percent now certain of this supernatural phenomenon.

Overall, some four in five Americans believe miracles definitely or probably occur, researcher Robert Martin of Pennsylvania State University reported at the recent meeting of the American Sociological Association in Denver.

... No one, Martin and other researchers point out, may have done more for this spiritual phenomenon than Oprah Winfrey, who with her extraordinarily popular television show and other ventures made accounts of the miraculous a regular part of the lives of millions of Americans.

Thanks for spreading idiocy, Oprah. That's just what our already illogical world needs: more nonsense. Something tells me Oprah doesn't include books like Xmas Carol in her recommendations. She should. It sounds like her audience needs a dose of reality.

PS: Though I generally loathe the internet obsession with cats, this is funny. It's also from Coyne's blog.

Religious death cults, up close

First, we visit dear, fat, sweet Timmy Dolan as he tours a nursing home and touches all the patients. Here's what he told the residents:

“Life is all about waiting, waiting, waiting,” Dolan said. “We wait for Jesus to come again for us at the moment of our death ... and in a way, you’re all doing that here at Ferncliff...”

And now we jump to Yemen:

Amnesty International says an al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen crucified the remains of an alleged spy and beheaded a woman for the crime of sorcery, then paraded her severed head through the streets. 

Religions are death cults. And those who push this brand of lunacy on innocent people are monsters.

The Russian church-state nightmare

Chills went up my spine as I read this NYT article about the collapsing line between church and state in Russia. That something like this can happen in the year 2012 is shocking. But humanity's nonsensical craving for an authoritarian god will always come to this -- unless rational people guard against it (ahem) religiously.

Alas, in Russia it seems two megalomaniacs have come together in a most unholy way: Putin and his "spiritual father". Seriously, read this and worry. It can happen anywhere, even here in the U.S. In fact, we have GOP loons aiming for this very thing: a communion between government and religion. Shudder.