Atheism

tags: cultural observations, Sam Harris, atheism, human behavior, humor, funny, streaming video This video is an interesting interview with Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason and Letter to a Christian Nation.
Traditional Islam is so cool because it really sticks with the old ways, and that's quaint. But it should be allowed to do this only in a museum where it might be safely kept away from actual people. Fathima Rifqa Bary is the 17-year-old girl who converted from Islam to Christianity. She packed up her things and ran away to Florida because she feared an honor killing -- her own family members killing her because of what she had done. Her parents say they just want her back safely, but reports say that her mother said Fathima was "dead to her". The girl also said her father threatened to…
There is a good argument here for closing down government programs for monitoring weather. And volcanoes. And stuff. Lou has all the wonderful amazing details here.
tags: cultural observations, Lewis Black, travel, health insurance, humor, funny, fucking hilarious, streaming video Bill Maher talks about the relationship between religion and political office, noting that most Americans would not vote for a political candidate who does not believe in a god of some sort.
Mehta's blog post in which he exposed Higgins' irresponsible and absurd claims has yielded a singularly incoherent babbling response. Is there any doubt that The Illinois Family In Italics Institute should be deeply embarrassed? Here's the "open letter." Ick.
CALLING ALL ALLIES: Hemant Mehta is the Friendly Atheist (that's a blog) and a math teacher. There are people who want him fired. This is not the first time he's been through this. Please visit his site and give him some support. Click Here. If you are a blogger please point to the above referenced post. It would be nice if there were several hundred supportive comments there.
A Des Moines bus driver has been suspended for refusing to drive a bus with a pro atheist ad on the outside. The story is here. There is also a poll at that location that you may want to answer. Hat tip Pharyngula. Angela Shiel was suspended on Monday after she refused to drive a bus with an Iowa Atheists & Freethinkers ad on its side. The ad reads "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." Shiel says the message is against her Christian faith. The transit authority removed the ads earlier this month after complaints from riders, then reversed course after meeting with the atheist…
Found: The secret map atheists use to find each other for ... meetups.
Over at Why Evolution Is True Greg Mayer wonders: I also recalled that the percentage of religiously unaffiliated had gone up noticeably from 1990 to 2008, and that another survey found the percentage was higher among young people. What could have happened so that younger people, growing up in the 90s and 00s, would be less religious? And then it occurred to me: 9/11. Something finally happened which gave religion a bad name. This was forcefully expressed at the time (here, here, and here) by Richard Dawkins. The the fact that the % of Americans who aver "No Religion" has increased…
As an anthropologists, I have a LOT of thoughts about this. I'd love to know your thoughts. (Sorry the embedding is so obnoxious. There was no obvious way to remove the ads.) Hat tip: This site
A group of scientists, students and secularists -- 304 in all -- visited Petersburg, Kentucky on Friday to tour exhibits on display at the Creation Museum. The visitors are in town attending a conference of the Secular Student Alliance, a group formed "to organize, unite, educate and serve students and student communities that promote the ideals of scientific and critical inquiry, democracy, secularism, and human based ethics." Read the rest at ABC News Hat Tip PZ
I wish I coulda been there ... by all accounts it sounds like the Creozerg visit to the Creation Museum went well. A couple of kids were thrown out because they said things or whatever, which is good because it shows that the whole point of the creation museum is to express, secure, and protect a particular point of view and to supress others. For your entertainment, I've collected a handful of links from the event. Please visit these links, and if you are a social neworking kinda person, digg-em-up or stumbleuponthem or whatever. It would be very nice, would it not, if over the next few…
I'd like to take a moment to address some of your remarks about how the tactics of "New Atheists" are just too uncivil.... Read the rest at Crowded Head, Cozy Bed
So, I have this friend who lives in the Midwest (nearest large city of consequence is Chicago1), who shall remain nameless (well, she has a name and all but I'm not telling you what it is) who brought up an interesting, not unusual, and sad dilemma. She has just moved into a new living situation, and has several roommates none of whom she knows very well. During a conversation not long after she moved in, one of the roommates made a god reference during a conversation. This was a comment that clearly indicated that this person is religious, probably Christian. It was also one of those…
..that even when you try diligently to separate the politics of religion vs. creationism and to say again and again that religion can go along its merry way as long as it stays out of the science classroom, people like Casey Luskin will still find the words in your rhetoric to accuse you of attacking religion. Back in May, Genie Scott appeared with me and Lynn Fellman on Atheist Talk Radio, where we discussed science education. Genie is the director of the National Center for Science Education. In a recent posting on the Discovery Institute web site, Casey Luskin makes the contrast between…
Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has annually presented the Richard Dawkins Award to "an outstanding atheist whose contributions raise public awareness of the nontheist life stance." Past recipients of the prize have included James Randi, magicians Penn Jillette and Raymond Teller, and comedian Julia Sweeney. When it was recently revealed that the 2009 Richard Dawkins Award winner will be Bill Maher—political satirist, television host, and director of the 2008 documentary Religulous—ScienceBloggers responded with widely varying views. Orac of Respectful Insolence argues that…
tags: philosophy, thinking the improbable, middle world, atoms, atheism, physics, Richard Dawkins, streaming video In this video, Biologist Richard Dawkins makes a case for "thinking the improbable" by looking at how the human frame of reference limits our understanding of the universe [22:42] TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.
Tyler Cowen gives a positive review of Your Religion is False: In addition to its humor, I prefer the content of this book to the better-known "new atheist" tracts. Grus yields many of the strongest arguments. For instance the biographical and sociological correlates with belief (most people choose the religion they grew up with, or encountered through a friend, etc.) suggest that, in this area, intuitions which feel "certain" simply cannot be trusted. Also see associated weblog.
Sheril Kirshenbaum and Chris Mooney are getting a lot of mileage out of their new book, Unscientific America. This week they pop up in Newsweek to argue that we should welcome the likely appointment of Francis Collins as head of NIH because in a time of polarization, he's a unifying figure, one that embraces both religion (Christianity in this case) and science. On first glance, their logic seems sounds. We know that many Americans are unwilling to accept science as a worthy pursuit, one that should figure strongly in the development of public policy. We know many of them do so because they…