godlessness
pharyngula | October 22, 2008We are so scary. Now the fact that godless Americans exist and that people actually talk to us is the subject of a political ad by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Watch this: it's got ominous music, it's got atheists saying there is no god, and Daylight Atheism gets another shout out…and that's about it. And it will effectively motivate the fundie base, I'm sure.
It also has various right wing blowhards huffing and puffing over the fact that atheists would like to remove god from the pledge of allegiance and our money. These guys have no imagination. Those are trivial,…
pharyngula | October 21, 2008Londoners might soon notice the slogan above on local buses: the Atheist Bus campaign starts today, with the purpose of raising money to promote atheism as a positive force in the culture and to encourage people to stop wasting time and effort in silly superstitions. Urban England seems like a strange place to start such a campaign; rural America needs it more, although the costs would be significantly greater, as they'd have to cover the replacement cost of all the buses that were set on fire.
You can donate, too. The campaign opened just today, and their goal was to raise £5500 — I'm amused…
pharyngula | October 19, 2008Don't miss this one! Today, Atheists Talk radiowill feature the physicist Lawrence Krauss for the whole hour, talking about the Origins initiative.
Follow the link to get streaming audio from Air America, as long as you know a Minnesota zip code (like, say, 56267) and catch it in time — 9am Central.
Honolulu
Sun 4:00 AM
Sao Paulo
Sun 11:00 AM
Addis Ababa
Sun 5:00 PM
Anchorage
Sun 6:00 AM
Rio de Janeiro
Sun 11:00 AM
Baghdad
Sun 5:00 PM
Vancouver
Sun 7:00 AM
St. John's
Sun 11:30 AM
Aden
Sun 5:00 PM
San Francisco
Sun 7:00 AM
Reykjavik
Sun 2:00 PM
Riyadh
Sun 5:00 PM
Seattle
Sun…
pharyngula | October 14, 2008I have to give gogreen18 a godless clenched fist salute for this passionate explanation for why atheists need to speak out.
(via Ovablastic)
pharyngula | October 13, 2008This is just the craziest thing I ever heard. Politics where you can actually have politicians who don't believe in god, and where you can talk about removing the privileged status of religion from the legislative body, and where all the major political parties have organized representation by freethinkers? Yeah, and they also have gumdrop trees and rivers of chocolate and beer volcanoes, too, I bet. Where is this magical place? Middle Earth, maybe? Nah, it's called England — which I could be persuaded is also a mythical fantasy land.
There is a great tradition of free thought in the…
pharyngula | October 12, 2008Many of us were fans of Possummomma and her blog, Atheist in a Mini-van. She was a passionate writer, struggling to make ends meet with her family, coping with lupus, and also having to deal with a lot of anti-atheist-bigotry in her community and online. Well, they finally got to her: she's gone offline and has put her blog under password protection, all because of some extreme harassment and accusations from, believe it or not, Christian fans of a dopey reality TV show. It's a long, sordid, complicated, ugly story which I'm not going to repeat here, sinc The Calladus Blog has covered it…
pharyngula | October 12, 2008This week on Atheists Talk radio, Hector Avalos is going to tell us how to fight ID and win, and Scott Lohman will be talking about secular humanism. Tune in at 9am Central, or if you're elsewhere…
Honolulu
Sun 4:00 AM
Sao Paulo
Sun 11:00 AM
Addis Ababa
Sun 5:00 PM
Anchorage
Sun 6:00 AM
Rio de Janeiro
Sun 11:00 AM
Baghdad
Sun 5:00 PM
Vancouver
Sun 7:00 AM
St. John's
Sun 11:30 AM
Aden
Sun 5:00 PM
San Francisco
Sun 7:00 AM
Reykjavik
Sun 2:00 PM
Riyadh
Sun 5:00 PM
Seattle
Sun 7:00 AM
Casablanca
Sun 2:00 PM
Antananarivo
Sun 5:00 PM
Los Angeles
Sun 7:00 AM
Lisbon
Sun 3:00 PM…
pharyngula | October 10, 2008It sounds like Michael Shermer's Origins conference was a great event in the morning, an amusing event in the evening, and an absurd sellout to theological thinking in the middle. What Templeton money touches is tainted, I'm afraid.
pharyngula | October 8, 2008Elizabeth Dole is continuing her campaign in North Carolina of smearing her opponent, Kay Hagan, for simply associating with atheists. We atheists are the "most vile, radical liberals in America," out to wage war on Christmas and stock boy scout troops with homosexuals, and we actively support political candidates who are atheists. I know … how dare we.
I have a personal reason to be offended, however. The Dole ads cite endorsements by two atheists, FriendlyAtheist.com and DaylightAtheism.org. Now hang on…what's so scary about the Friendly atheist? And Daylight Atheism sounds positively…
pharyngula | October 8, 2008Some guy named Quentin Letts made a list of the 50 people who wrecked Britain. I'm a bit handicapped in reading it, since I don't know who Quentin Letts is, and I have never heard of 9/10ths of the people being damned by him, but I did recognize a few, like Tony Blair and this guy:
Anti-religionist Dawkins, the best-known English dissenter since Darwin, is the merciless demander of provable fact.
He is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and tours the world lecturing the elites of the West that they are stupid to believe in any god.
He proselytises…
pharyngula | October 6, 2008And courage. And, in these precarious economic times, a little bit of the crazy.
Hank Fox has quit his job at a newspaper. Why? Because they ran an article, in spite of his protests, that was plain, simple, taken-for-granted bigotry against atheists.
If you're looking for godless heroes, there's one; it takes guts to make these personal sacrifices for a principle. If you want to help him out, take advantage of his editorial services sometime. He's also got a book in the works which will deserve your attention when it is published.
pharyngula | October 6, 2008Look, Texas is supposed to be all about the Gablers and Don McLeroy and the dwarf from Pampa and George W. Bush, and then the darned atheist Texans have to show up and ruin the image. The Texas Freethought Convention is happening on Sunday, 26 October in Austin — check out the infomercial. I wish I could go — it's a state that hasn't worked its way onto my itinerary yet, and I keep hearing about the good people working hard against rampant idiocy down there.
pharyngula | October 5, 2008This new movie, Religulous, is doing reasonably well on its opening weekend, bringing in about $3.5 million. This is comparable to what Expelled brought in (about $3.7 million). There are a few differences, though.
Religulous hasn't had much of an advertising campaign. Remember all the Expelled commercials everywhere, including The Daily Show? Maher's movie has only relatively recently been getting plugged. It's ads are more intelligently targeted, though.
Religulous only opened on 500 screens, compared to Expelled's 1000.
Religulous is coming off its opening weekend with great word of…
pharyngula | October 5, 2008My colleague at UMM, Michael Lackey, is interviewed by DJ Grothe on Point of Inquiry. He's written a book on freethought in the American black community, and the interesting point is that black atheists embraced unbelief as a refuge from the Christian rationalizations for oppression — they saw religion as fundamentally anti-democratic, coming as it did from a closed system of knowledge.
You'll also hear a discussion of post-modernism; hang out with enough English professors, and you'll begin to realize it's not as crazy as the caricatures make it out to be.
grrlscientist | October 5, 2008tags: Holy Bible fiction, religion, religious fundamentalism, religious wingnuttery, religious fascism
I've often said that the bible needs a warning on the front cover, so I am pleased to see that someone has finally heard me and done this.
Image: Orphaned [larger view].
WARNING: This is a work of fiction. Do NOT take it literally.
CONTENT ADVISORY: Contains verses descriptive or advocating suicide, incest, bestiality, sadomasochism, sexjual activity in a violent context, murder, morbid violence, use of drugs or alcohol, homosexuality, voyeurism, revenge, undermining of authority figures…
pharyngula | October 5, 2008Listen to Atheists Talk radio on Sunday morning — it could be an interesting one. First up is Stephen Matheson to talk about his position, theistic evolution. I hope that Mike Haubrich applies a little pressure there…otherwise, you guys better be prepared to call in with tough questions. The second half will be on the Islamic threat to secularism.
As usual, here is when it is on in your part of the world:
Honolulu
Sun 4:00 AM
Sao Paulo
Sun 11:00 AM
Addis Ababa
Sun 5:00 PM
Anchorage
Sun 6:00 AM
Rio de Janeiro
Sun 11:00 AM
Baghdad
Sun 5:00 PM
Vancouver
Sun 7:00 AM
St. John's
Sun…
pharyngula | October 4, 2008If you've been curious about what's been going on at Michael Shermer's Origins conference, here's someone who has been live-blogging it. It sounds like most of the morning talks were somewhat interesting, but the afternoon panel session (sponsored by the Templeton Foundation) sounds like it suffered from a shortage of militant atheists, and an excess of apologists, as expected.
pharyngula | October 2, 2008You may have heard that YouTube blocked Pat Condell's latest video — here's an alternate source for that video.
I have to disagree with part of what Condell says in it, though. He is arguing against the promotion of "tolerance and diversity," saying it has gone too far. I don't think so. I think tolerance and diversity are great, I want a society with an interesting mix of weirdos and straights and strange cultural backgrounds, and I want no one to be afraid to express themselves, or worse, to be actively suppressed. What has gotten out of hand is the demand for outright respect, not just…
pharyngula | September 28, 2008There is a big rally for separation of church and state going on today at 3:30, beginning at the west steps of the Colorado Capitol building. Get out there and make your voice heard!
This is the information I've received about it:
Goals: To show support for a wall of separation between religion and government. To provide individuals and groups an opportunity to speak out against erosion of our legal rights on this front. To remind people of some of these issues one month before the elections.
The event is about separation of church and state in general, but we'll also have some highlight…
pharyngula | September 28, 2008It's the physicists' turn on Atheists Talk radio today. Tune in at
Honolulu
Sun 4:00 AM
Sao Paulo
Sun 11:00 AM
Addis Ababa
Sun 5:00 PM
Anchorage
Sun 6:00 AM
Rio de Janeiro
Sun 11:00 AM
Baghdad
Sun 5:00 PM
Vancouver
Sun 7:00 AM
St. John's
Sun 11:30 AM
Aden
Sun 5:00 PM
San Francisco
Sun 7:00 AM
Reykjavik
Sun 2:00 PM
Riyadh
Sun 5:00 PM
Seattle
Sun 7:00 AM
Casablanca
Sun 2:00 PM
Antananarivo
Sun 5:00 PM
Los Angeles
Sun 7:00 AM
Lisbon
Sun 3:00 PM
Kuwait City
Sun 5:00 PM
Phoenix
Sun 7:00 AM
Dublin
Sun 3:00 PM
Moscow
Sun 6:00 PM
Edmonton
Sun 8:00 AM
London
Sun 3:00 PM
Dubai…