godlessness
pharyngula | May 24, 2011Rebecca Watson is stirring up trouble again. She points out the dire situation for women in this country.
In the first quarter of this year, 49 state legislatures introduced 916 bills that restricted reproductive rights. Here are a few that have passed, like in Texas, where women must have an invasive ultrasound that they either have to look at or have described to them in detail by a doctor before getting their abortion. Or South Dakota, where there’s now a 72-hour waiting period, and women must get counseling at an anti-choice pregnancy crisis center before obtaining an abortion. No centers…
pharyngula | May 23, 2011This just isn't right. Jen reports that women atheists are being described as "pretty" at conferences. This has got to stop. It's discriminatory and rude.
I am really annoyed that we guys are being left out. Jen even says that she wouldn't "stoop to suggesting we need to recruit hot guys to lure in the ladies to solve our gender problem", which is a disgraceful slap in the face to all of us hot guys. I'm going to have to insist that from now on, whenever anyone is tempted to discuss the virtue to the atheist movement of having pretty young women on our side, that they also mention ME as an…
pharyngula | May 22, 2011The World Atheist Conference in Dublin is now sold out. You'll have to plan on attending the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne instead.
It's interesting — these things are all selling out their tickets amazingly quickly. My event here in DC also sold out. I guess the market for the godless isn't saturated just yet.
pharyngula | May 18, 2011Man, I am so jealous. I say stuff like this all the time, but all Stephen Hawking has to do is plainly state the obvious that "There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," and it's NEWS. I think half the email I got this morning was all about people reacting to that one simple comment.
This one was promising: Michael Wenham objects, and one point he makes is fair enough. He says he isn't afraid of the dark, which I'm willing to accept — he would know best what scares him. But then, like all the critics, he announces that he…
pharyngula | May 17, 2011That long-winded charlatan, Deepak Chopra, has scribbled up a whiny criticism of Hitchens' address in absentia to the American Atheists. Hitchens wrote a wonderful, brave, and inspiring exposition on his mortality, and urged everyone to keep up the gallant fight; Chopra carps and squirms, trying to find an excuse to reject Hitchens' argument. He fails pathetically.
This was a tough one to address thoroughly, because every sentence, practically every phrase in Chopra's essay is foolish and wrong, so I've instead taken the path of annotating the central chunk of Chopra's chunder. My comments…
pharyngula | May 16, 2011I cannot allow this to stand. Look here at the state of our progress in raising money for Camp Quest:
The craven horde — I've lost track of how many little goblins they've now recruited to combat my awesome and singular majesty — has narrowed my lead to a mere $1890. This is intolerable. It means I achieve only a crushing humiliation of my foes rather than absolute annihilation. Feed more money to the Pharyngula fund-raising machine. It is our destiny.
pharyngula | May 14, 2011You're all going, right? They've just announced the next Global Atheist Convention for 13-15 April, in Melbourne, Australia, with Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens committing to attending. There are a few other noisy rude arrogant atheists that I've heard will be showing up, but they're going to dribble out the announcements to torment you.
By the way, the Australian government has been forced to recognize that the last GAC was pretty darned successful, and this time they've actually agreed to subsidize it to a small degree, like any other profitable convention that would help the local…
pharyngula | May 12, 2011Chris Mooney was on Point of Inquiry recently. I know, he's always on PoI anymore, which was the big reason I've tuned that podcast out, but in this case, he's in the hot seat with Ron Lindsay interviewing him on accommodationism. Lindsay is excellent, just calmly and quietly asking killer questions that Mooney flounders over. Ophelia Benson has a short summary of the highlights, if you'd rather not sit through it all.
Once again, the problem revolves around a central argument for the Mooneyites: that harsh criticism of cherished beliefs, like religion, leads to an immediate, emotion-based…
pharyngula | May 11, 2011So…the Washington Post asks Richard Dawkins about the goofy Harold Camping/End of the World nonsense, and he gives the perfect answer:
Why is a serious newspaper like the Washington Post giving space to a raving loon? I suppose the answer must be that, unlike the average loon, this one has managed to raise enough money to launch a radio station and pay for billboards. I don't know where he gets the money, but it would be no surprise to discover that it is contributed by gullible followers — gullible enough, we may guess, to go along with him when he will inevitably explain, on May 22nd, that…
pharyngula | May 10, 2011Bluefield College is looking for someone to teach general biology. They have a few requirements before hiring you, though. It always amazes me how they can get away with this.
The individual must be a committed Christian and have ability to integrate faith and learning, ability to foster critical and creative thinking, ability to work cooperatively within the campus community to advance the mission of the college and demonstrated excellence in undergraduate teaching.
Bluefield College is a private, four-year liberal arts college located in the scenic Virginia highlands. The college is…
pharyngula | May 8, 2011
Since my opposition is dragging in loads of riff-raff to try and raise money for Camp Quest, I've decided to bring in some firepower of my own. The beard is willing to make the great sacrifice if Team PZ wins this competition at the end of this month. Even better, at the request of my daughter Skatje, I will recreate the look of 1980s PZ:
In fact, since Skatje and I will both be at Convergence at the end of June, I will coerce her into helping me re-enact this very photo, and will post it to the web. It can't be a perfect replica — I've grown a little wider, and she's gotten a wee bit…
pharyngula | May 8, 2011
Sadly, I must report that the Digital Cuttlefish has joined the flock of negligible pests who seek to raise more money for Camp Quest than me. It's sad and pathetic — the forces of Team Awful seem to be spending more effort recruiting allies to give them some sense of personal worth than they do actually fundraising. If you're able to give to a good cause, wouldn't you rather give it through the agency with less overhead, more efficiency, and a ruthless determination to crush its enemies? Then you must make the obvious choice: give to Team PZ.
As for treacherous cephalopods…the rhyme for…
pharyngula | May 5, 2011Another atheist exits with grace and dignity.
Here it is. I'm dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote--the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive.
If you knew me at all in real life, you probably heard the news already from another source, but however you found out, consider this a confirmation: I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died in Burnaby on May 3, 2011, age 41, of…
pharyngula | May 5, 2011The gentleman squid gazes at you with an appraising eye. Do you have what it takes to stand up for the right and the truth and a civilized way of life, or do you side with the barbarian rabble?
Sadly, I must report that Greta Christina, Hemant Mehta, Jen McCreight, and JT Eberhard have recruited another conspirator, Adam Lee, to their goal of defeating me as we strive to raise money for Camp Quest. They have narrowed the gap to approximately $1100 now and…
Wait, no, that's ridiculous. They are so far behind and their vain struggling so comical that I have no fear at all that they will…
pharyngula | May 5, 2011Tomorrow, I'll be in Kamloops, British Columbia. The godless have been rampaging across that province, what with this evil conference where atheists will be actually encouraged to speak, and a bus campaign in Kelowna and Kamloops and Victoria, where innocent eyes will be assaulted with vile atheist propaganda, with slogans like "There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life". Then, of course, I'll be descending from the skies like a wrathful angel, striding across the landscape with my eyes afire, crushing the pious with my righteous fury, while occasionally being mistaken…
pharyngula | May 2, 2011
Would you believe that Greta Christina of Greta Christina's Blog, Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist, Jen McCreight of Blag Hag, and JT Eberhard of Zerowing21, after the severe beat-down I gave them and even before they had belatedly dragged themselves over the finish line in our race to raise money for Camp Quest, are now changing the terms of our competition and saying that the winner is whoever raises the most money by the end of this month?
No fair, I say! Moving the goalposts, I complain! Just like a bunch of dastardly atheists, I declare. Well, I will just have to lazily raise another…
pharyngula | April 30, 2011Read the latest from Gregory Paul and Phil Zuckerman. Are we smug and arrogant? Damned right, and with good reason.
A growing body of social science research reveals that atheists, and non-religious people in general, are far from the unsavory beings many assume them to be. On basic questions of morality and human decency — issues such as governmental use of torture, the death penalty, punitive hitting of children, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, environmental degradation or human rights — the irreligious tend to be more ethical than their religious peers, particularly compared…
pharyngula | April 29, 2011I've been asked to compete in a fundraising contest for Camp Quest. But look what they did to me!
Five awesome atheist bloggers are competing to see who can raise the most money to support Camp Quest!
Since one of those bloggers is the indomitable PZ Myers of Pharyngula, we have made two teams in order to make this competition more fair.
Team 1: Greta Christina of Greta Christina's Blog, Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist, Jen McCreight of Blag Hag, and JT Eberhard of Zerowing21.
Team 2: PZ Myers of Pharyngula.
The first team to raise $5,000 for Camp Quest, or the team that has raised the…