godlessness
pharyngula | May 3, 2010…is to work on uprating this video:
You may recall that today the Mormons are trying to push up the rankings of a truly stupid video which argues that the fact that someone believes in something fervently means it must be true. Don't bother watching the Mormon video — in fact, avoid giving it any more traffic — and instead follow this link to the Thunderf00t video and click on the "Like" button to vote it up, and also leave a comment. The more input, the better. We don't quite have the numbers of the Mormon church, so spread the word and get more people to join in.
pharyngula | May 3, 2010Massimo Pigliucci has written a book, Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science From Bunk(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), that actually sounds very interesting — it takes a strong skeptic's approach to truth claims. What really makes it sound worth reading, though, is a review by Carlin Romano that pans it, Pigliucci, and a whole great legion of scientists irritated with the public endorsement of nonsense: Romano complains that we're on "ego trips." Why? Because Pigliucci expresses such strong certainty about the conclusions of science.
Here's the heart of the review. It's a lot of aggravating piss-…
pharyngula | May 1, 2010They're in big trouble now: the atheists chalked portraits of Mohammed on sidewalks all over campus. Allah will be offended, and there might even be nothing but a yawning chasm where Champaign and Urbana once stood. Any UI students should write in and let us know if there are any omens, portents, unusual flights of birds, widespread crankiness, etc.
As you can see, the images are detailed and explicit. That's obviously Mohammed — it even has a name and an arrow pointing to the figure.
(via Phil Ferguson)
pharyngula | April 29, 2010Tim Minchin has a new and utterly delightful little song about the Pope. Warning: it's catchy. You might end up singing it around the house.
Oh, and also…it's a teeny bit naughty. Maybe not safe for work, unless you work in a Catholic office — then you should turn it up loud.
Also, if you're one of those people who fret over "tone": insert your name where ever Tim says "Pope".
pharyngula | April 29, 2010This story about the desperation of the French priesthood to recruit new victims has some interesting statistics.
There are around 24,000 priests in France today, down from 42,000 in 1975. The number of Catholics entering the diocese has declined as well, from 116 ordainments in 1999 to 89 in 2009.
…
While 64 percent of the French population, or 41.6 million of the country's 65 million inhabitants, identifies itself as Catholic, only a little more than 2 million attend church each week, said Jacques Carton, a representative from the Bishops Conference in France.
How desperate are they?…
pharyngula | April 29, 2010I think Lord Justice Laws would be an excellent choice, even if he is British. He recently handed down a decision in the case of a therapist who refused to treat same-sex couples that was simply beautiful.
Lord Justice Laws said legislation for the protection of views held purely on religious grounds cannot be justified.
He said it was irrational and "also divisive, capricious and arbitrary".
Also: cool name for a judge.
pharyngula | April 28, 2010Why would the Pope dislike the internet? Why does Islam rebel at mockery? Why do religions demand unquestioning respect?
It's because open criticism kills them. Thunderf00t explains why.
(via RD.net)
pharyngula | April 26, 2010I've taken a swipe or two at John Gray in the past, and now he has a plodding review of AC Grayling's Ideas that Matter…a review that is of no account except for the fact that it motivated Grayling to write a delightful rebuttal. I groaned at the boring and predictable Gray, I laughed at the way Grayling punctured him.
pharyngula | April 26, 2010Lots of people sent me a link to this essay in which David Hart declares "New" Atheism a passing fad, expecting me to take it apart. I didn't have the heart, and I'm busy right now, sorry. It's a horribly written and excessively long piece — I'd almost call it purple prose if the periphrastic verbosity and passionless vacuity of the author hadn't leeched all the color out of it. It hurt my brain to start reading it, and after scrolling down a couple of pages with no end in sight, I set it aside. TL;DR, as the glib technorati like to say.
I did finally drag myself through it over a light lunch…
pharyngula | April 24, 2010The Reverend Barry Lynn was on Fox News with Megyn Kelly, and I am unsurprised that Kelly was astonishingly awful: talking over Lynn, pushing lies, etc. There are multiple face-palm moments here: Kelly telling a reverend that he "wants god out of everything," for instance, or when Lynn points out that the national day of prayer is not neutral on religion, but promotes it, she offers a 'secular' alternative: instead of praying, let people meditate and acknowledge the role that god has played in the founding of this country and its laws.
Lynn is good, though, and shows how to gracefully cope…
pharyngula | April 23, 2010It's weird what can suddenly go viral on the web. Jen is riding the tiger right now with her light-hearted 'boobquake' idea…and it's getting picked up all over the place. CNN has a decent article on it, good because they let her explain what it's about.
"It's not supposed to be serious activism that is going to revolutionize women's rights, but just a bit of fun juvenile humor," she wrote. "I'm a firm believer that when someone says something so stupid and hateful, serious discourse isn't going to accomplish anything - sometimes light-hearted mockery is worthwhile."
Back on Boobquake's…
pharyngula | April 23, 2010I'll be going to the Atheist Alliance International 2010 Copenhagen Convention to listen to a fine group of godless speakers, but there's one who won't be there — there was going to be a surprise speaker, not mentioned for security reasons, and now he has decided it would be too dangerous. The meeting is being held in Denmark, so of course they were going to have Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist who infuriated so many Muslims, speak about his experience.
But not now. The threats and the risk are too great, and he has withdrawn.
That is genuinely disgraceful, that the idiots of Islam can rely…
pharyngula | April 20, 2010Wouldn't you know it: when advanced theo-scientists in Iran discover a dangerous principle, some godless American turns it into a Doomsday Weapon. The first test-firing is to occur on the 26th of April.
I plan to be cowering in my bed, afraid to step out. I recommend everyone stock up on vital supplies before the Apocaniptic Catitclysm. If we're really lucky, Minnesota will have a cold snap on the 26th, so we'll be spared.
pharyngula | April 20, 2010Adam Savage gave a talk at Harvard where he beautifully laid out the logic of a godless universe. Here's a short sample, but really, it's worth reading the whole thing:
The idea of an ordered and elegant universe is a lovely one. One worth clinging to. But you don't need religion to appreciate the ordered existence. It's not just an idea, it's reality. We're discovering the hidden orders of the universe every day. The inverse square law of gravitation is amazing. Fractals, the theory of relativity, the genome: these are magnificently beautiful constructs.
The nearly infinite set of dominoes…
pharyngula | April 20, 2010You've got to read this interview with Nawal El Saadawi. I like everything about her.
She still refuses to tone down her work. "I am very critical of all religions," she says. "We, as women, are oppressed by all these religions." It is religious extremism, she believes, that is the biggest threat to women's liberation today. "There is a backlash against feminism all over the world today because of the revival of religions," she says. "We have had a global and religious fundamentalist movement." She fears that the rise of religion is holding back progress regarding issues such as female…
pharyngula | April 18, 2010I have to join with my colleague Revere in saying that I am pro-abortion. Furthermore, I find the willingness of the devout anti-choice mob to distort the evidence so appalling that I would not join with them in anything.
When I gave a talk at UW Stevens Point last week, there were a few protesters outside the building — friendly, non-violent people who I invited in to listen. It's a shame, though, that I was giving a neuroscience talk, since I also have a talk that rips into the bogus developmental biology that 'pro-lifers' use — and the group picketing me were Catholic right-to-life weirdos…
pharyngula | April 17, 2010It's a month gone, but now ABC has a summary (and you can go straight to the MP3 here).
pharyngula | April 17, 2010The Huffington Post now has a post up from some guy named Rory Fitzgerald reacting to the suggestion that the Pope be arrested for crimes and conspiracies of his organization by urging that Richard Dawkins be arrested for "atheist crimes"…such as those committed by the Nazis and Stalinists. I had no idea that Adolf Hitler was a member of the Richard Dawkins Foundation! You learn something new every day.
But, you know, he's right. If RDF staffers were running a child-porn ring, and Dawkins was moaning "Oh, this will ruin the reputation of my foundation, I must do what I can to hide these…
pharyngula | April 17, 2010We had a fun evening on Friday—a crowd of a few hundred people sat down to consider the problem of a morality at the University of Chicago. At the front of the room we had Bob Bossie (a very liberal Catholic), Sunsara Taylor (a very articulate Communist) and me to make a few opening remarks and open the floodgates of questions from the audience. It was interesting and thoughtful, and nothing at all like this incredible session on Fox News.
Let me emphasize that Bob was not that crazy priest in the video, declaring that godlessness meant the death of hope and the decline of your money making…
pharyngula | April 15, 2010The Freedom From Religion Foundation has won a significant court case: the National Day of Prayer has been declared unconstitutional. The judge made a cautious and conservative judgment, but you know the right-wing is going to freak out.
Crabb wrote that her ruling was not a judgment on the value of prayer. She noted government involvement in prayer may be constitutional if the conduct serves a "significant secular purpose" and doesn't amount to a call for religious action. But the National Day of Prayer crosses that line, she wrote.
"It goes beyond mere 'acknowledgment' of religion because…