{"id":7530,"date":"2006-05-27T10:19:01","date_gmt":"2006-05-27T14:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7530"},"modified":"2006-05-27T10:19:01","modified_gmt":"2006-05-27T14:19:01","slug":"this-week-in-god-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/this-week-in-god-19\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in God"},"content":{"rendered":"

First up from the [tag]God[\/tag] machine this week is evidence from my friends north of the border that Americans aren’t the only ones<\/a> who struggle with religious opposition to modern [tag]science[\/tag]. Just ask the folks in the small village of [tag]Salluit[\/tag], located along the northern coast of Quebec.<\/p>\n

The Quebec Ministry of Education is stepping in to find out whether Inuit students in northern Quebec can be taught the same science curriculum as students everywhere else — and that includes [tag]evolution[\/tag].<\/p>\n

The ministry is investigating a complaint made last week by high school science teacher Alexandre April, who said he was given a letter of reprimand for discussing [tag]Darwin[\/tag]’s theory in his biology class at Ikusik High School in Salluit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Kativik School Board’s official position is that students can read about modern biology after school at a library or online, but classroom instruction should be limited to the biblical story of creation.<\/p>\n

As the Chicago Sun-Times’ Zay N. Smith put it<\/a>, “So Canada has its Kansases, too.”<\/p>\n

Next up is a religious\/philosophical conflict that’s been around for a very<\/i> long time: birth control through the rhythm method. Because many religious institutions have rejected most [tag]contraceptives[\/tag], this system has long been believed to be the only morally acceptable approach to [tag]birth control[\/tag]. A new argument is emerging, however, that says even the [tag]rhythm method[\/tag] is wrong<\/a>. (warning: British spelling ahead)
\n<\/p>\n

The range of birth control choices may have become narrower for couples that believe the sanctity of life begins when sperm meets egg. The rhythm method, a philosopher claims, may compromise millions of [tag]embryos[\/tag].<\/p>\n

“Even a policy of practising condom usage and having an abortion in case of failure would cause less embryonic deaths than the rhythm method,” writes Luc Bovens, of the London School of Economics, in the Journal of Medical Ethics. […]<\/p>\n

In using the rhythm method, couples avoid pregnancy by refraining from sex during a woman’s fertile period. Perfect adherents claim it is over 90% effective \u2013 i.e. one couple in 10 will conceive in an average year. But, typically speaking, effectiveness is estimated at closer to 75%.<\/p>\n

Now Bovens suggests that for those concerned about embryo loss, the rhythm method may be a bad idea. He argues that, because couples are having sex on the fringes of the fertile period, they are more likely to conceive embryos that are incapable of surviving.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“If you’re concerned about embryonic death,” Bovens says, “you’ve got to be consistent here and give up the rhythm method.”<\/p>\n

And we get one step closer to “every sperm is sacred”….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First up from the [tag]God[\/tag] machine this week is evidence from my friends north of the border that Americans aren’t the only ones who struggle with religious opposition to modern [tag]science[\/tag]. Just ask the folks in the small village of [tag]Salluit[\/tag], located along the northern coast of Quebec. The Quebec Ministry of Education is stepping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}