godlessness
pharyngula | August 24, 2009A couple sent their child to Vacation Bible School (not recommended, not even for the most open-minded atheists — VBS is always an awful waste of time). I like this kid's reaction.
One couple who said they were atheists decided to give their son a chance to attend one year. On the first day of VBS, when the teacher was explaining the concept of creation, the boy stood and up announced to the other kids, "That's just a fairy tale."
Unfortunately, the teacher then shut him up by saying god did it, but it's a start.
A groundskeeper at a golf course recognized that a strange 10 pound lump of…
grrlscientist | August 22, 2009tags: The Evolution of God, atheism, religion, DNA, streaming video
This video below the jump is an interview with Robert Wright, the author of the book, The Evolution of God. Amazingly, the author is NOT an atheist!
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pharyngula | August 21, 2009The Illinois Family Institute — they actually italicize the word in their name to emphasize the hypocrisy — is out to get Hemant Mehta. He's an atheist, you know! And a school teacher! Shun him! You've got to appreciate the quality sliming while acknowledging his right (for now, until they get more power) to not believe in gods.
He absolutely has a First Amendment right to promote any feckless, destructive, offensive, and immoral ideas he wants via his blog, but, as I mentioned in my earlier article, parents have the right not to have him as a teacher and a role model for their children.…
pharyngula | August 19, 2009You know the bus signs in Iowas that read, "Don't believe in God? You are not alone"? One bus driver refused to do her job because "the message is against her Christian faith," and was then suspended.
Somebody tell me what precisely in that message is against anyone's faith? It simply asks whether one believes in a god (I know that is not forbidden, because Christians have asked me that), and then says that there are others with the same beliefs, which is simply a description of reality. Oh, I get it — reality is in conflict with Christianity. I can believe that.
Anyway, I think the…
pharyngula | August 19, 2009Come on, if Texas can open a Camp Quest, what's your state's excuse?
There's also a nice article with a poll on the new godless camp — it's mostly positive, but they do go out of their way to get a quote from a dissenter.
But Dr. Darrell Bock of the Dallas Theological Seminary doesn't believe that being more vocal will have much impact. "People pretty much have their minds made up on these kinds of matters. They're either going to be for or against," he said.
Hey, that's good news! Dr Darrell Bock of the Dallas Theological Seminary has just declared evangelism dead. Do you think the…
pharyngula | August 18, 2009I hear about freethought student groups popping up on college campuses everywhere — and that includes southern campuses, where the stereotypes are the fiercest. I haven't been hearing much out of the strange state of Utah, though, until now: students planning their school year in Logan, Utah really ought to look up the Utah State University Secular Humanists, Athiests, and Free Thinkers. They're working a tough room. If you want to see a part of our country where religion really is all-pervasive, visit Utah (of course, you can also visit Utah for the desert and the geology and avoid almost…
pharyngula | August 18, 2009Whoa. All a fella has to do is mention that they're going to Australia, and their mailbox fills up overnight with invitations to go drinking all over the Antipodes. Thanks, everyone, it looks like I'm going to have to work out some way to visit most of the corners of that continent when I get there. I'll put up more details later, when my travel plans are a little sharper.
Meanwhile, one group I'll have to meet with is the University of Melbourne Secular Society. They've got a nice video introducing themselves — they should get lots of members, I hope.
pharyngula | August 17, 2009Since several people were curious, the reason I'll be in Australia next year is that I've been invited to speak at The 2010 Atheist Global Convention in Melbourne, on 12-14 March 2010. All that way for 3 days? I'll probably arrange to spend some extra time on my own dime checking out the drop bears and venomous kittens and raucous Australians out there — suggestions are welcome. Invitations to sack out on a couch somewhere, also welcome. Generous offers of good Australian beer, especially welcome.
The organizers also want to get an estimate of attendance, so they're asking likely attendees to…
pharyngula | August 17, 2009My talk at the Secular Student Alliance (given the day after the Creation "Museum" trip) is now available online. I think this video was put together by Ashley Paramore, whose smiling face appears near the end of the video — she was also one of several mischievous people who disobeyed a certain sign.
pharyngula | August 16, 2009Do you need a nice calm godless hymn for a mellow Sunday morning? Here you go.
pharyngula | August 12, 2009Our trip to the Creation "Museum" was sponsored and organized by the Secular Student Alliance, a wonderful organization that helps build and support freethought on college campuses all across the country. The meeting this past weekend, for instance, was for training student representatives in how to grow and maintain their campus groups.
I have good news and bad news, though.
Here's the good news, and it is exceptional, wonderful, excellent news: secular student groups are booming, popping up all over the place, and there's no end in sight. Look how SSA has grown:
The bad news, though, is a…
pharyngula | August 9, 2009I'll be departing the Secular Student Alliance conference shortly, to spend most of my day traveling back home. I have to say a few things about it, though:
This was a good meeting! What the student attendees get is some excellent training in how to organize and maintain an active student group, and it's worth it to go. If you want to fire up a gang of campus freethinkers, you should think about coming next time.
It was exceptionally well-organized: talks were paced well, everything was kept moving at a good clip, and plenty of time was left between talks for schmoozing. And the talks all…
pharyngula | August 6, 2009Against my advice, the Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers ran an incredibly offensive ad on city buses in De Moines featuring naked lesbians masturbating with Bibles.
No, wait, that wasn't it. It was an ad announcing that god hated Christians and they were all going to burn in hell.
No, I don't think that was it. It was an ad offering free bacon to anyone willing to deny the Holy Spirit, and the Iowa vegans were outraged.
Nah, don't think so. Actually, the horrible, awful, evil ad they were running was this one:
That's it? "Don't believe in God? You aren't alone"? That's the ad that some people…
pharyngula | July 31, 2009Cobb County, Georgia is infamous for its efforts a few years ago to slap a warning sticker on biology textbooks, which might have given the impression that it's full of southern yahoos. However, intelligent people and godless people are everywhere, including Cobb County, and they now have another claim to fame: a local atheist, Edward Buckner, used the opening invocation of a county board meeting to deliver a godless homily. It's not bad; you can hear it online. He spoke for all the people who do not attend church, and who do not want their government interfering in religion, and decried the…
pharyngula | July 30, 2009Remember, docility and deference is what they want, a little stiffening of the backbone is what we need.
He has an excellent ending line, too: "I'm about to get angry at everyone who isn't angry."
pharyngula | July 27, 2009Sam Harris has published a piece in the New York Times decrying the appointment of Francis Collins to head the NIH. It's strong stuff; he points out that Collins isn't just a Christian, he's an active science-denier who has set aside whole blocks of scientific inquiry as inaccessible to study because they are a product of a divine being. As he asks at the end, "Must we really entrust the future of biomedical research in the United States to a man who sincerely believes that a scientific understanding of human nature is impossible?"
The strongest part of the essay, in my opinion, was that…
pharyngula | July 26, 2009I have been abandoned. My wife has left me. The kids have all moved out. I'm stuck home alone with nothing to do but work and take care of the annoying cats for a whole week, and I may just go insane.
The Trophy Wife has gone to summer camp! She's working for a week as a camp counselor at Minnesota's Camp Quest, the secular place for smart kids to be. I'm thinking I should probably demand, as a price for forcing me to bach it for all this time, some kind of direct report from her at the end of the week that I could post here and get everyone excited about sending their kids (or spouses) away…
pharyngula | July 25, 2009Number one on my list of dead-giveaways that I'm dealing with a moron of the first order: when they start whining about "atheist fundamentalists", comparing a Richard Dawkins to a Pat Robertson, or babbling about how those atheists are just as fanatical and wicked as the fundagelical zealots. When people start in on that line of unreason, all they're doing is trying to tar atheists with the taint of the wretched works of the Taliban or the American theocrats, without actually addressing any comparisons of substance.
At least one writer at The Economist recognizes the absurdity of the false…