blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

The discussion thread in the Philippine Association of Marine Science Yahoo group has become interesting. It first started when Professor Flor Lacanilao started about a few years back on what ails Philippine Science. While we may think that it is largely the lack of resources, Prof Lacanilao says it's more than that. It is political. The politics is from the university committee level (like the one the decides who gets academic tenure or not), to the department level (which allocates scarce resources and recommends promotions), the college (which confirms the recommendations), the university administration (which approves the promotion), to the Department of Science and Technology (which gives the grants), the National Academy of Science and Technology or NAST (which advises the President in conferring national awards) and ultimately ends on the President (who approves the awards). Professor Lacanilao contends that "non-scientists" get recognized in this he means the sc...

I would agree that atheism may not be a religion since it has none of the usual stuff theists consider such as eschatology for instance. But I also would agree that atheism is a religion for it posits a belief taken not on empirical evidence that God doesn't exist. To accept that principle on a matter of faith is a key element in subscribing to a religion. Conversely the same principle can be used to characterize theists except that they remove the "doesn't" from the earlier statement. Also both theists and atheists would support their position on their experiences. And lately we can see "religious" organization on the part of atheists, with them preaching from Dawkins' "Delusion" and Hitchen's "Not Great". Is this some sort of selective forces that is needed for coexistence in a human population whose majority are theists? But as an atheist complains to folks that lump his worldview with that of the theists "if atheism is a...