godlessness
grrlscientist | February 4, 2009tags: David Attenborough, nature, evolution, environment, streaming video
British broadcaster Sir David Attenborough presents his views on Charles Darwin, natural selection, and how the Bible has put the natural world in peril in an exclusive interview for Nature Video [4:27]
pharyngula | February 2, 2009Phil Zuckerman has written a book called Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll); I haven't read it yet, but it sounds like a good approach, looking at secular societies like Scandinavia and comparing them to religious societies, like the US. At this point, I don't know much more about it other than what I see in the reviews, and the Depth Deception blog finds an unwittingly hilarious review in Christianity Today. The final paragraph will leave you giggling.
Zuckerman sells humanity short. If people are content but no longer…
pharyngula | January 31, 2009They must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel — at 9am Central, Sunday morning, Atheist talk radio interviews some strange guy named Bora Zivkovic. Who?
pharyngula | January 30, 2009Buses must be militant atheists, because pretty soon they're all going to be sporting declarations of godlessness. The latest nation to jump on the bandwagon is Brazil. If you can read Portuguese, you can go direct to the source and read all about it. Otherwise, I've put a translation below the fold.
In the first week of this year was launched the first advertising campaign in the UK about atheism, promoted by the British Humanist Association. The campaign has its own website (where shirts can be purchased) and is attracting great attention from the media since its launch in October -…
pharyngula | January 27, 2009The traditional U of A convocation speech used to urge all graduates to go out and serve some god. Thanks to Ian Bushfield, it's been changed, and in a compromise it now has addition language to qualify it — now only students who are believers are asked to serve an invisible man in the sky. The unbelievers can go out and do good works and take actions that actually matter.
pharyngula | January 24, 20099am Central time: Atheists Talk radio interviews Todd Allen Gates, and we find out how to talk to a Christian proselytizer.
pharyngula | January 20, 2009The American Humanist Association is running an ad, congratulating Obama on his presidency…with a nice twist.
Let's all hope he lives up to those values.
pharyngula | January 19, 2009You never know what trivial incident will catalyze a strong reaction. Take the atheist bus campaign, for instance, which simply puts signs on buses that say "There is probably no god" — a few months ago, I would have said it was a good idea and that it should be done, to merely make the background existence of atheists a bit more apparent. I would not have predicted that it would so inflame many believers, or I would have been cheerleading even harder. Companies refused to run the ads in Australia, a smug Catholic cardinal squelches the ads in Italy, and an arrogant bus driver refuses to do…
pharyngula | January 18, 2009Since I was asked, I'll mention that we do have an interesting event coming up at the end of this month:
January 29, Minneapolis, Minnesota
DEBATE! Dan Barker and Dinesh D'Souza will debate "Can we be good without God?" at the University of Minnesota on Thursday, January 29. Sponsored by CASH (Campus Atheists, Skeptics and Humanists) and Campus Crusade for Christ, and the Mars Hill Forum, this promises to be a HUGE event! Details to follow...
I'll be sure to mention the details when they come up, since I think I'll actually be able to attend myself. I'm flying out to Edmonton/Calgary the day…
pharyngula | January 11, 2009This morning at 9am (in about an hour!), Atheist Talk radio will have an interview with Todd Allen Gates, to talk about this subject:
What if the Christian god really existed? That's the premise that author Todd Allen Gates takes in his book "Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer." What conclusions can we reach about this Christian god? One of the book's main themes is: "If you understand why you reject all the other religions, you'll understand why I reject yours."
Could be interesting. One of the infuriating things about arguing with believers is that they refuse to extend their…
pharyngula | January 8, 2009Some days, it's a little depressing to see all the ignorance running rampant in this country, so it's a bit of a relief to see people in other countries say something brain-bogglingly stupid. In this case, it's a reaction to the atheist bus advertising campaign in the United Kingdom — the signs that say, "There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." Now someone is making a legal claim, trying to suppress the signs, and his rationale is hilarious. Stephen Green, a known religious kook, is challenging the statement on its accuracy.
Mr Green has challenged the adverts on…
pharyngula | January 8, 2009Everyone's telling me about this ugly incident in Colorado, where a lunatic charged into a ski resort with a lot of guns, killed one person, then committed suicide. The relevant part of the story here is that the attack was partly religiously motivated: he shouted, "If you're not Christian, you're going to die".
He was either operating under the instructions of the Lord, or the burden of festering insanity, and the truth of the matter is that there isn't much difference between either condition. It obviously isn't typical religious behavior, but next time someone tries to tell you that but…
pharyngula | January 7, 2009This is an excerpt from HBO's Generation Kill, a series about the Iraq war. Warning: there is crude language and blasphemy in this clip!
pharyngula | January 6, 2009The atheist bus campaign has been a great success, and now it's about to expand, with godless signs going up all over. This is good news for reason — so many people are appalled at the blind faith of their neighbors, but since they don't know anyone who shares their views, they are reluctant to speak up. This is exactly the sort of thing that makes more rationalists aware that they are not alone, and that they can speak out.
pharyngula | January 3, 2009The latest news from those militant atheists is that Michael Newdow, and many others, are suing to block the religious element of the presidential swearing-in ceremony. And guess who will be interviewed on Atheists Talk radio at 9am Central time? Michael Newdow! Call in and egg him on, or moan about the futility of it all.
pharyngula | December 31, 2008I had a gentle and uncontroversial deconversion from a fairly liberal church, so I've never suffered for atheism — which is as it should be for everyone. Not all Christians are tolerant enough to let people have their own beliefs, though, as you can discover in these stories of ostracization (add to them if you've experienced it), and in particular, this nightmarish story of one man's abandonment of his faith.
pharyngula | December 30, 2008Rename the town "Peckerwood".1 It would be more fitting. Addition of the modifier "two-bit" is entirely optional.
Here's the story. Local citizen walks into the Public Library, and notices that it is displaying a Christian nativity scene. He asks to meet with the library director to complain. This, of course, violates the God-given right of Christians to use state resources to trumpet their piety in the public square exclusively, so stark raving hysteria erupts. The director makes counter-accusations, lies to the local media, and suggests that the nasty little atheist ought not to use the…
pharyngula | December 29, 2008Ho hum, it's Madeleine Bunting, who we've encountered before. Her essay starts out well enough, cheering on the coming Darwin celebrations, explaining how this is a great opportunity for the promotion of science, etc., etc., etc., but—there's always a but—oh, deary me, it's going to be hijacked by those dreadful atheists. We have to do something about all the baggage that has been piled on poor Darwin's deceased back.
So the first imperative for the anniversary is to strip away the accumulation of mythology that has made Darwin such a villain.
Wait…for an article that is supposedly praising…
pharyngula | December 29, 2008Well, it's nothing to be concerned about. Just more of the same ol', same ol', with nothing much of substance to grapple with. Let's tackle Andrew Brown's complaints first. Brown is not a stupid fellow, but I see here a hint of irrationally roused hackles, with little explanation of what exactly he is complaining about. First he names a few of the people he identifies as New Atheists, and then he lists what he considers to be defining characters of this group. Look who he names: I made the grade!
So, who are they? The ideas I claim are distinctive of the new atheists have been collected from…