And if you’re like me and don’t actually look at the words on the covers, just the pretty pictures, then the Scientific American with the 3,300,000 year old skull jumps out as being the oddball out, until the Criminal Mind on the MIND magazine reminds you that it’s not another nebula/planet/thing-like-that (especially if you say the swirly stuff behind the hand is colorful, and therefore a nebula) …

grrr…

As for:

“I’m still waiting for someone to come out and say that these are myths and that myth has its own reality which is not provable by the scientific method.”

I’ve heard that in the Catholic church for years.

-cvj

Perhaps you’re not thinking hard enough. Kids in a classroom are a captive audience, and the teacher is a figure of authority. There isn’t much choice in the matter - where you send your kid to school is determined mostly by which school district you live in, unless you can afford private school or you are able to provide home schooling. And a child cannot skip classes without the State getting on your back.

There is no such coercion (it is not the most apt workd, but I can’t think of another) in a bookstore.

I cannot see the difference between teaching kids intelligent design in the science classroom in school and having pseudo-scientific magazines about the bible in the science section of a bookstore. It is all part of the same thing, differening only in degree perhaps. But I still consider it alarming. Perhaps this is because I consider bookstores (especially given the continuing and growing faliure of schools in many communities) to be a vital part of the list of places where people can come to get vital educational materials.

Your position suggests that you consider bookstores to be entirely places of entertainment, and not education. I don’t, but we can agree to disagree.

I’m not suggesting legislation or anything. Just that people be educated to the point where they can see that the picture in the post above simply does not make sense, and where the bookstore shelf-stacker (no matter how religious they may be -that is their right-) is educated enough to see that it it does not make sense.

Best,

-cvj

“This is the same beautiful logic that has store managers deciding whether to give someone their medical (or other) treatment or not - based on their personal religious beliefs.”

I think this is covered by what I was saying in that it is illegal. I think the magazine example stays within the limits of advocating a particular view (free speech) without having the goverment imposing a particular view (freedom of and from religion).

“It is also the same logic that leads to people pushing to teach intelligent design in science class.”

While my devotion to democracy finds me respecting that people might want to advocate teaching their religion in a class, separation of church and state makes this illegal in a public school but of course, this kind of teaching already happens in private schools.

Though, an overview class of global religion would probably do some people some good. It seems to me that it would at least help Americans interface better with people coming from other more traditional cultures. Also probably the cure to fanaticism is to let people know every culture has their own creation story and there are and have been thousands of cultures.

“However you should not inflict your religious beliefs on others.”

I am not sure how an odd placement of a magazine is inflicting the belief on others. Do you mean there should be no religious advocacy in places where people not of that religion might hear or see it? I am not really for this myself. But on that score, I do wish freedom from corporate propagandizing whether religious or otherwise but that’s not really been the standard in public spaces.

It is after all possible to have a religious book store isn’t it? And one can have a secular book store too. Is there a law against something in between? How about a ostensibly secular bookstore with a sometimes religious stacking policy? I suppose we tend to have an expectation of blandness in big brands like Borders. But why is this?

are devoutly religious people who think of their books as speaking the literal truth. They not only exist but they are part of society. They can be bookstore managers or shelf stackers or even bookstore customers. And they have their own beliefs about the nature of how we got here.

Oh, sure. This is the same beautiful logic that has store managers deciding whether to give someone their medical (or other) treatment or not - based on their personal religous beliefs. Lovely cultural choice that is.

It is also the same logic that leads to people pushing to teach intelligent design in science class. Where have you been the last few years?

Sorry, but what you say is utterly ridiculous.

That is not live and let live. I am very happy for the religious to exist and be part of society. However you should not inflict your religious beliefs on others. Plain and simple.

-cvj

(Sorry to seem harsh about this… but this is such a major and common misunderstanding of what democracy is.)

Ha! I got the joke in here.

I can only hope that this was written facetiously, because otherwise, a few thousand (world-wide) colleagues and peers have dedicated their academic careers to something that apparently doesn’t exist. On the other side of that coin, the academic discipline of the archaeology of the ancient middle east, has major competition from zealously funded biblical archaeological studies performed by laypersons whose sole objectives are to “prove” the literal textual referents of their King James and Revised Standard editions of their bibles. That, coupled with the ongoing efforts of the Israeli government to destroy research sites and artifacts that differ from their vision of their own historical record (bulldozers do amazing damage), and the interesting (and still not fully researched) attack on the great museum in Baghdad that housed the finest collections of Mesopotamian artifacts, documents, records, etc.–we, historians of religions are finding it more difficult to do our jobs well. The sort of pulp magazines, as exampled above, are fodder that further encourages people to do great harm to our human history. What was that thing that Marx said about controlling the future?

-cvj

I sort of say that, if you read some of the science/religion posts on my blog. I’ve never explicitly said that myths have their own reality, but I have said that certainly myths and fiction in generaly can be enlightening and valuable for people who think about them.

It is weird, though, to have that magazine in the middle of a whole bunch of science magazines. It is out of place.

-cvj

[Extremely long quote deleted in view of the fact that the reader can just follow the above link, (and the fact that this thread is not primarily about gun control.) Sigh. -cvj]

As for gun magazines, I live in hunting country in a town named, of all things, *Rifle* I occasionally gives lectures on being a vegetarian at the local schools, and the kids are mystified that anyone wouldn’t eat meat. I asked my dad why he kept his hunting rifle when he hadn’t hunted in years, and he said (this was the 1970s), “In case the Soviets invade.” I was surprised that he actually thought the Soviet Communists might make it all the way to Rifle, Colorado. I realize that I wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for a long line of meat-eaters and hunters, but the fondness for guns now seems beyond ridiculous.

p.s. Hey! I like New Scientist!

My understanding for the origin of gun rights in the US is that it started as a reaction against British practice. In Britain, one required a certain social rank to legally own a firearm. Since the US was to be a land of the free, all men were granted rights equal to the best of the British. As is well known, during the revolution and war of 1812, private US citizens owned many times more warships than were owned by the federal government.