pharyngula

The Pope is planning to visit the UK. He shouldn't be welcomed; he should be turned away at the border as an undesirable fraud. There is a petition to sign to let the government know what people think. They make a good case: That the Pope, as a citizen of Europe and the leader of a religion with…

Don't watch this debate on "Does God have a future?" (video here) if your temper runs a bit hot. Sam Harris was excellent, Michael Shermer was pretty good, but their opponents, Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston, were blithering morons. Harris's early point was spot on: that there is the kind of…

Man, I must have smacked Michael Ruse really hard. Over and over, he repeats one simple, common phrase that I applied to him — it must have been painfully memorable. I have been called many things in my time, but I truly believe that "clueless gobshite" is a first. In a way, I am almost proud of…

I don't understand how Texans can bear it, myself — their board of education has made them a laughingstock. I always thought they had some pride down there. That one panel captures creationist logic perfectly. They've battened on global warming as an issue that they believe helps their cause. "…

For some reason, the Trophy Wife™ said I needed to share this video today. Since the enormous thread has grown again, I figure this is as good a place as any. It's not often you hear about testes weighing a ton and pumping out gallons of sperm from David Attenborough.

This is such a sweet story: a little boy willingly hands out cheerful notes and cookies to his neighbors, simply to make them feel good. It's such a feel-good story that a Christian inspirational site picks up on it and shares Logan Davis's good news. "I wanted to do something to brighten our…

There is a video game called Gods of War in which you guide your ultraviolent hero, Kratos, through a series of missions that lead to an assault on the Greek gods. You get to kill Zeus! There has been a whole series of these games, apparently, and Penny Arcade hints at a new direction they could…

Some days, I feel like the whole issue of the mention of God on our currency is trivial and stupid, and I really don't care anymore. And then I see an 'argument' like the one in this argument defending keeping "God" on our money, and I realize that…YES, I DO CARE. I care very much that people are…

Everyone knows already why I was off in Melbourne this past week — it was the Global Atheist Conference — but why did I hare off to Canberra for the weekend? It was another conspiracy. Many years ago, the locus of all things evolutionist on the interwebs was found on Usenet, in a group called talk.…

Wait! I'm complaining in that last entry! Sure, I'm exhausted from all my wanderings, but I had a fabulous time in Australia. Allow me to include a few pictures to demonstrate. Here's a nice video from the Sunshine Coast Atheists to give you an idea of the tone of the conference: And really, I…

I'm home at last, after about 48 hours of airports and airplanes and long drives. I haven't slept at all except for these peculiar intermittent blackouts, I'm flat-out exhausted, I've got this +5 Flaming Rod of Lancing Agony in place of a spine, and the Trophy Wife™ (who is at work, so I haven't…

John Wilkins has coined a new label for us: not new, not rabid, not militant, not stinky, but Affirmative Atheists. Yeah, I could live with that.

Answers in Genesis has begun a goofy little campaign called I AM NOT ASHAMED — they're apparently collecting videos of people declaring their shameless adoration of Jesus. Ho hum. All I can say is that they should be deeply embarrassed to endorse something so absurd. They use a little unfortunate…

Oh, save me. I'm trying to escape Australia, but apparently a nation of convicts knows how to keep a fella locked up. I'm sitting in an airport in Melbourne, waiting and waiting and waiting for my flight, so that I can sit trapped in a can for hours and hours, with the prospect of a 6 hour layover…

So maybe you need a fix of the real thing? Hapalochlaena lunulata

All right, I know, it's a fake cephalopod and the picture is mostly taken up with some chordate…but I couldn't resist.

Dan Dennett has been studying the phenomenon of preachers who don't believe what they preach, and the paper and commentary are available at the Washington post. Strangely, the newspaper has headlined it as "Skeptical clergy a silent majority?", which is odd — the work doesn't attempt to quantify…

Christ. It's yet another review of the Global Atheist Convention, this time by a long-winded Anglican priest. I'm being rude in my evaluation despite the fact that it is actually a generous review, because he repeats another of those oblivious stereotypes that always pisses me off. I've highlighted…

You can now listen to the recent debate between Cardinal George Pell and Dan Barker. It will convince you that the Catholic church is totally lacking in any intellectual criterion for appointing cardinals. Practically the first words out of Pell's mouth are "God as creator and chance or the only…

Emancipated from the rigor of science, we are free to propose any fanciful idea and exercise our imaginations to the fullest — all that matters is that you have a cool story with T-rexes biting the heads off people. Get right on this one, Discovery Institute!

That prior clarification was not intended to exculpate the current pope: Hitchens rips into the guilty monster occupying the Vatican. Good stuff.

The undying thread needs a rejuvenation. Here's a pornographic video to get you excited. As I mentioned, I'm away from my wife during our 30th anniversary, but she doesn't have to worry — after seeing Australian courtship rituals, I cannot be tempted at all.

The comment that has stirred up the most condemnation from the press is Richard Dawkins' mention of "Pope…Nazi," which everyone assumes was about the current Pope. Wrong. Everyone knows the current Pope is most properly addressed as "Pope Palpatine". No, Pope Palpatine is not currently up for…

Kent Hovind's infamous alma mater has put together a collection of responses because they are "under attack!" Only they aren't—they're being laughed at. And whoa, these pages are even more hilarious. (Warning: all of the links below go to pages that fire up some tedious piano music on autoplay…that…

First, you start with a lizard. Really, I'm not joking. Snakes didn't just appear out of nowhere, nor was there simply some massive cosmic zot of a mutation in some primordial legged ancestor that turned their progeny into slithery limbless serpents. One of the tougher lessons to get across to…

I have a prior engagement so I'll be missing this one, fortunately: it's a rally in Minnesota on 7 April featuring Michele Bachman and Sarah Palin. In the same place and the same time. It will be like an intellectual black hole.

I'm holed up in a hotel room, writing, writing, and writing some more, only emerging sporadically to see a little Australian sun and get a little exercise, and also to exercise my brain a bit. A few things are going on here in Melbourne. I wish I could attend this panel discussion on the "Science…

The media are lashing back. The post-convention media (with the exception of one article in the Australian) has been abysmally bad, relying on tried-and-true excuse-making from religious apologists. It would be nice if they actually had conversations with atheists rather than immediately running to…