godlessness
pharyngula | October 24, 2010You can find them in Asociación Paraguaya Racionalista, and you can even listen to them at Observatorio Racionalista.
pharyngula | October 23, 2010They're lurking in the Associação Ateísta Portuguesa. We're everywhere!
pharyngula | October 22, 2010This may be a trend — I mention that one country has a gang of organized atheists, and then someone else writes me to say I need to mention their country. I'm glad to do it, so here's a shout out to the Cyprus Freethinkers!
pharyngula | October 21, 2010
"La fe NO mueve montañas, la ciencia sí"
¡qui está! El evento ateo más esperado del año.
Con un importante
grupo de especialistas y expositores que no querrás perderte.
Asiste al Primer Coloquio de Ateísmo en México. Conoce
nuestra visión de este movimiento internacional que rebasa fronteras
culturales y políticas, uniendo a ateos, humanistas y otros
librepensadores en una comunidad definida por nuestro compromiso con la
libertad de expresión, libertad de conciencia, derechos humanos,
pensamiento crítico, razonamiento lógico y ciencia.
El acontecimiento tendrá lugar en la ciudad de México…
pharyngula | October 21, 2010…Uganda! Freethought Kampala is the voice of reason in that country.
We're going to take over everywhere, aren't we?
pharyngula | October 20, 2010They aren't all Greek Orthodox (nor are they Zeus worshippers any more), and they have a blog, Atheia. That's all Greek to me, but they've had mercy on the rest of the world and also offer an English translation. Well, unless you're looking for a Chinese translation…
pharyngula | October 18, 2010Oh, jebus. Josh Rosenau has another post where the whole point sails over his head. He's basically thrashing away again at the whole accommodationist/confrontationist conflict with more of his imaginary pragmatism and his weasely approach to the truth. If he had the slightest inkling of comprehension about the Gnu Atheist position, he simply wouldn't bother saying stupid things like this:
The point being, it's impossible to constantly be telling "the whole truth," and no audience really wants you to do that. You pick and choose which truths (as you see them) you want to expound. Part of the…
pharyngula | October 18, 2010I guess I have to continue this discussion, even though I felt like I hammered it to death last time, since the comment thread is getting so long I have to close it, and since Jerry Coyne still disagrees with me. I'll aim for brevity instead of exhaustion this time.
The disagreement is over whether we can find any evidence for a god. Here's a small part of Jerry's argument against my claim that we can't.
First, though, I find it curious that an atheist would assert, a priori, that nothing could make him believe in a god. While some atheists may assert simply that there is no god, most of us…
pharyngula | October 16, 2010The New York Times has what I consider a skewed but also personally flattering summary of the Secular Humanist convention. Skewed, because it focuses rather more on the disagreements on tactics that were on display, but weren't really the focus of most of the discussions — it was actually an amicable meeting. Personally flattering, because it dwelt more on that firebrand Myers (my full remarks are on the record) than was actually deserved. It read as if I were flailing among the dissenters, smiting the impure atheists with the jawbone of an ass, when I was really one among many in diverse…
pharyngula | October 13, 2010I have been challenged by Jerry Coyne, who is unconvinced by my argument that there is no evidence that could convince me of the existence of god. Fair enough, I shall repeat it and expand upon it.
The question "Is there a god?" is a bad question. It's incoherent and undefined; "god" is a perpetually plastic concept that promoters twist to evade evaluation. If the whole question is nebulous noise, how can any answer be acceptable? The only way to win is by not playing the game.
There's a certain unfairness in the evidence postulated for god. I used the example of a 900 foot tall Jesus…
pharyngula | October 13, 2010Christopher Hitchens was in another debate with his brother, Peter Hitchens. From the quoted material and the video clip at that link, Christopher was brilliant and lucid, and Peter…well, his argument was basically that things were better in the good old days when everyone had that old time religion, without noting that it was only better if you were white, heterosexual, and male.
Peter also makes an awesomely stupid series of arguments about morality: that if it were independent of god and religion, it would change (surprise! It does!), and that if it changes it wouldn't be what he calls…
pharyngula | October 13, 2010Doesn't he know he is sick? Christopher Hitchens will debate Tony Blair in Toronto, sometime. Tickets are going on sale, but the weird little article doesn't give any details on date and place.
pharyngula | October 10, 2010Jerry Coyne has been given a good bit of space in the cheesy but widely read newspaper USAToday, and he used it to pen a maniacally unapologetic Gnu Atheist screed. It's beautiful. I can't wait for the indignant reactions to pour in. Distracted businessmen will be reading their free copies over their hotel coffee tomorrow, and getting goosed when they open it to that page.
Also, the LA Times covered the secular humanism conference. It's a bit of a mixed bag; it claims that there was scorn heaped on believers, and that attendees were calling them ignorant and stupid. This was not the case.…
pharyngula | October 9, 2010We did an impromptu Point of Inquiry podcast this afternoon, which could appear at any time now. It's a little odd, because Jennifer Hecht was drafted to moderate, but she forgot her role, I think, and it turned into a 2-on-1 argument. I was the 1, I'm afraid.
I'm going to go listen to Sam Harris for a few hours, so I probably will be busy when it goes online. I wouldn't listen to it, anyway!
The podcast is now available.
pharyngula | October 9, 2010Steve Zara has a nice article at RD.net that is actually saying the same thing I've been arguing at recent talks: There is no possibility of evidence to convince us of the existence of a god.
I propose a new strident atheism. No playing the games of theists. No concessions. No talk of evidence that can change minds, when their beliefs are deliberately placed beyond logic, beyond evidence. Let's not get taken in by the fraud of religion. Let's not play their shell-game.
The nature of this god is always vague and undefined and most annoyingly, plastic — suggest a test and it is always…
pharyngula | October 9, 2010I was on a panel discussion of "Confrontation vs. Accommodation" yesterday at the Secular Humanism conference. It wasn't an entirely satisfactory format; there were four of us (Chris Mooney, Eugenie Scott, Victor Stenger, and me), and we each gave a short spiel and then answered questions. There wasn't much opportunity for long engagement with each other; the Q&A rolled around, I'd just heard Mooney and Scott talk for 40 minutes, and I had to say little more than 2 or 3 sentences in response to a question. We didn't even scratch the surface of our differences!
Anyway, here's a dump of my…
pharyngula | October 5, 2010Hey, don't miss this: Shermer will be speaking at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities next week, 14 October, at 7pm in Willey 175 (West Bank). There is a charge, but it's cheap: $1 CASH members (advance sale only), $2 advance tickets through CASH tabling or at general meetings, and $4 at the door. All this is through the UM's Campus Atheists, Skeptics, & Humanists.
I wish I could make it, but I'll be all tied up that night.
pharyngula | September 30, 2010Today is the official Blasphemy Day, and I hope you all had a good time. I'm afraid I didn't do anything in particular, because every day is Blasphemy Day for me, and I'm a walking talking affront to god.
CFI had a video contest and announced the winners today. Here's the top choice in their Protect Dissent campaign:
That's very nice, and an excellent message. I'm afraid, though, that it has been upstaged by a real champion: Carlos Celdran. Celdran went all out and disrupted a Catholic mass, holding up a sign that said "DAMASO" (a reference to a cruel priest in a novel well-known in the…
pharyngula | September 30, 2010The Pew Forum surveyed Americans on their knowledge of religion, and discovered that the group most generally knowledgeable about world religions was…those unshriven hellbound godless folk. This does not sit well with many believers, who have long preferred to relegate atheists to a hell of total unawareness of the gods, smugly assuming that if only we knew what they knew, we'd be True Believers in god in general and their specific, narrow sect in particular. That we might actually know what they believe and not only choose to not believe, but also to regard their superstitions as ridiculous…
pharyngula | September 28, 2010Larry Moran is as exasperated as I am with these so-called allies who accuse the Gnu Atheists of ignorance of the 'sophisticated' modern arguments for gods and the rationality of theists. We keep being told we're know-nothings who are simply unaware of the great stuff that believers actually believe, yet somehow, these defenders of the faithful never quite manage to continue their train of thought and tell us what those great ideas are. So he has issued a simple challenge:
I challenge all theists and all their accommodationist friends to post their very best 21st century, sophisticated (or…