Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
September 21, 2010
People are always asking me for the source of those nice t-shirts that illustrate how long we've diverged from a given species. I think the name must be hard to remember: they're at evogeneao.com. Now there's a little software widget that will be just as neat-o.
Look up TimeTree, and remember to…
September 21, 2010
All you have to do is look at their official state party platforms. The platforms are typically wish lists forged at multiple levels: I've been involved a little bit with our local Minnesota DFL, and anyone can show up and propose an addition to the party platform, which means you've usually got a…
September 20, 2010
We shall prolong the great swirling time-suck of comments with a cute and adorable parable.
(Current totals: 11,031 entries with 1,128,959 comments.)
September 20, 2010
Lobster eggs
(via Waiting for October)
September 20, 2010
This is what the Pope's astronomer says:
Any entity — no matter how many tentacles it has — has a soul.
Guy Consolmagno
Here's what I say.
No entity — no matter how many tentacles it has — has a soul.
PZ Myers
I can count tentacles. I can't count souls, and neither can anyone else.
September 20, 2010
Since Rabbi Lapin has identified godless folk as "parasites", we need a field guide to atheist parasites, just so you can avoid them. They're horrible little creatures with filthy habits, like writing or teaching math.
September 20, 2010
Oh, look: a network of Canadian atheists. Now in addition to saying hello to your neighbor to uncover an atheist, you can log in and track them down that way.
September 20, 2010
The answer to that little logic question is Catholics. We've got a little buzz going on in Minnesota to legalize gay marriage — one of our gubernatorial candidates is for it, for instance, while the other is against it (guess which party he's from) — and already the Catholic Church is gearing up to…
September 19, 2010
Oy, what a cringeworthy production. It's Christmas with a Capital C, a ghastly little movie to pander to the Christian persecution complex at Christmas time.
I've seen enough — I think I'll skip it. Not that I'm likely to have much chance of seeing it: I don't frequent church basements, and I don…
September 19, 2010
I just noticed — today is Talk Like a Pirate Day, and I haven't said a single "Yarrrrr."
So here it is, belatedly: Yarrrrrr.
September 19, 2010
That Irish crank who had a technology minister on his side had his book launch, and the Irish Atheists were there. It sounds like May was laughable.
While being filmed for a documentary about his book, the author says he was asked about Lucy and whether this discovery did not provide evidence for…
September 19, 2010
That's a line from Richard Dawkins' fire-breathing speech at the papal protest, and it's a good one, except for the fact that the way the church is run, it might actually be the case.
Listen to the whole thing. It's excellent.
(via RDF)
September 19, 2010
Since the pope has declared that the source of the Nazi evil was their atheism, we ought to be able to see that in their laws. Here are the guidelines for banned books in Nazi Germany. A few of them stand out.
Recall that many creationists claim that the horrors of the Holocaust were inspired by…
September 19, 2010
The Fargo newspaper has a reasonable, impartial article on the freethought convention this weekend. It's too bad: inflammatory ranty articles get more attention, and it would have been good to have a few picketers here at the hotel. As it is, we just had a good time.
September 18, 2010
A reader, who apparently did some work for Iran some years ago, now regularly gets missives from the Iranian embassy, and he forwarded this one to me. It's about Iran's official response to the proposed Koran burning in Florida.
I've checked out the email headers and can verify that at least it…
September 18, 2010
The pope has crawled out of his cave in the Vatican and is offending his way across the UK, so how can I not extend the thread of a thousand voices with this lovely and entirely not-safe-for-work masterpiece by Tim Minchin?
(Current totals: 11,018 entries with 1,127,018 comments.)
September 17, 2010
I had dinner with Mr Deity tonight (he's here in Fargo), and he mentioned his new video. You may recall that in the last episode, he failed his psych exam, and now he's going to have to work some shady angles to get his creation.
September 17, 2010
The Mississippi is a mess. I live in the agricultural, rural upper midwest, and one of the nasty surprises lurking beneath the rich green fields is that the rivers are ugly stews of fertilizers and herbicides and pesticides from agricultural runoff. We have data that it hurts people, too: premature…
September 17, 2010
You all recall that Project 42 kicks off today with some free events this evening, and a day-long convention tomorrow, right? I expect all the godless in North Dakota to converge on the Fargo Radisson this weekend.
September 17, 2010
(I thought this was a perfect time to repost this list.)
Douglas Theobald passed along an interesting collection of quotes from that atheist evolutionist, Adolf Hitler. It's particularly interesting that he outlawed atheist and freethought groups in 1933.
It's a long list of quotes, so I'll tuck…
September 16, 2010
Most Christians are merely misguided and lazy thinkers; I don't have any particular animus against them, and just wish they'd grow up. However, there's one kind of Christian that makes me furious and fills me with an angry contempt. I have been known to make the most militant atheist response in my…
September 16, 2010
The web community man is making the leap to a position at Scientific American. Congratulations!
Wait, though…he's leaving PLoS? That's kind of a lateral transfer…but maybe the commercial world is more profitable.
September 16, 2010
David Penberthy is, presumably, an atheist…but a terribly angry, ranty, sanctimonious one. He has written an amazing article damning his nemeses—other atheists.
My faith in atheism is being tested by born-agains. Not of the Christian variety, but the obnoxious, pushy, ram-it-down-your-throat, born-…
September 16, 2010
I'm going to be participating in an internet show this weekend to raise money for charity — Doctors without Borders. It's going to be going on on BlogTV Saturday and Sunday (I'll only be on for an hour early Sunday morning), with a lot of interesting people like James Randi and Matt Dillahunty in…
September 16, 2010
The cartoonist who created the idea of a "Draw Mohammed Day" (and then retracted it after receiving many death threats) has had to drop out of sight because of continued threats to her life.
The gifted artist is alive and well, thankfully. But on the insistence of top security specialists at the…
September 16, 2010
Well, what can we say? I thought Catholics were supposed to be scholarly, but Pope Ratzi babbled out a lot of ahistorical nonsense in his first speech on his UK tour.
Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from…
September 15, 2010
That thread. That incessantly babbling thread. Here you go, more space.
Nice pea video, too. Although it is curiously arousing in spite of the plummy British narration.
(Current totals: 11,004 entries with 1,124,492 comments.)