Forcing churches not to lie

According to a BBC story, Great Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority concluded that a certain downloadable leaflet was misleading. Healing on the Streets (HOTS), the group distributing the misleading message, was banned from spreading it.

The claim?

God can heal you.

Need Healing? God can heal today! Do you suffer from Back Pain, Arthritis, MS, Addiction … Ulcers, Depression, Allergies, Fibromyalgia, Asthma, Paralysis, Crippling Disease, Phobias, Sleeping disorders or any other sickness?

Such fairly standard religious adverts, according to the government office, “could encourage false hope and were irresponsible.”

Oh, papa, how far we have come. Now they’re actually forcing perfectly respectable churches not to lie.

Hey, any God *I* might be willing to believe in would have to be able to heal stupidity, flatulence, baldness, 98-pound-weakling syndrome, pork belly, Cambrian explosion, pulled mussel, open sowers, French cuffs, the Oxford comma, rusted quarter panels, Rin-Tin-Tin-itis, and the tendency to become a Republican presidential candidate.

My rewrite from http://freethoughtblogs.com

Movies You May Have Missed

One of our fans on the BB Comedy Channel came up with some video suggestions for a rainy day: 

The population of atheists...is going through the roof http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP9JWdJs55Q

 Retired Episcopal Bishop says Hell is an invention of the Church.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF6I5VSZVqc

Atheist Calls Religious People 'Idiots' On British Debate Show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyA9f-rs1-M

Is the Bible still relevant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfDJbi5gfC0

Christianity Harms Society.  http://www.youtube.com/user/CultOfDusty?feature=watch#p/search/0/IlXkjrluq_4

I Am Proud To Be An Atheist http://www.youtube.com/user/CultOfDusty#p/search/0/VAro-d4y2Mw

Who Wrote the Bible? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2061773048178434620#

Lamp In The Dark: Untold History of the Biblehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNZ-sOzXWEk

The Secret Files of the Inquisition - Part 1http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4457635096048290491#

Salem Witch Trials http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqjX-9UNB7s

Low I.Q. and Conservatives

Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To 

Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism

Too important not to reprint straight out of the Huffington Post:

Dr. Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology at the university and the study's lead author, said the finding represented evidence of a vicious cycle: People of low intelligence gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, which stress resistance to change and, in turn, prejudice, he told LiveScience.

Why might less intelligent people be drawn to conservative ideologies? Because such ideologies feature "structure and order" that make it easier to comprehend a complicated world, Dodson said. "Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice," he added.

Dr. Brian Nosek, a University of Virginia psychologist, echoed those sentiments.

"Reality is complicated and messy," he told The Huffington Post in an email. "Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simpler solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies."

But Nosek said less intelligent types might be attracted to liberal "simplifying ideologies" as well as conservative ones.

In any case, the study has taken the Internet by storm, with some outspoken liberals saying that it validates their suspicions about conservatives and conservatives arguing thatthe research has been misinterpreted.

What do you think? Do conservatives tend to be less intelligent? Or is this just political opinion masquerading as science?

Read the entire article.