godlessness
grrlscientist | March 28, 2008tags: Cheesus, humor, punny, satire, streaming video
According to this video, Cheesus was churned by a simple carpenter and his wife who was a virgin. Wow! [3:38].
oops. I meant to show you this video [0:51];
pharyngula | March 27, 2008I did not even know that Julia Sweeney had a blog, and it looks like a good one, too (she also knows Ben Stein personally, and does not have a high opinion of him).
I have to plug her CD, Letting Go of God — it's hilarious and insightful. I've got a lot of driving to do today…maybe that's what I'll play as I'm zooming down I94.
(via Stranger Fruit)
pharyngula | March 23, 2008I just got back from the American Atheists conference, so here's my summary of the weekend.
Best talk of the conference: Lawrence Krauss wins hands-down. It was a meaty, informative, and lively lecture that summarized what we know about dark matter and dark energy so that even a non-physicist could follow it. Just that one talk alone made the whole weekend worthwhile.
Dawkins gave a good talk, but to be honest, it got a little unfocused in a few places — he tried to include some of the recent events at the last minute, and it lost some of its coherence as a result. Still a good lecture,…
grrlscientist | March 21, 2008tags: atheism, atheist, godlessness, Expelled!, religion, fundamentalist christians
Last night, I was amused to learn that my friend and fellow SciBling, PZ Myers, was prevented from attending a free screening of the creationist film, presciently named Expelled! A film that thanked PZ in the credits for giving freely of his time by appearing in the film itself, no less (of course, the producers lied to him about the sort of film they were making; they claimed they were making a documentary about evolution). So much for free speech, as the fim's producer shrilly proclaims, eh?
So not only is…
pharyngula | March 20, 2008The family and I are about to head out to the 34th Annual National Conference of American Atheists — maybe we'll see you there.
If you can't make it, or you just don't like mobs of amoral atheists, you can join a few of us squid-lovin' science-worshipping Pharynguloids on Saturday night (here's the facebook invitation). People will be meeting at:
Date: Saturday, March 22, 2008
Time: 8:00pm - 11:00pm
Location: The Local
Street: Nicollet Mall and 10th Street
City/Town: Minneapolis, MN
I'm going to try to make it, violating the tradition that these PharynguFests lack me, but I can't make any…
pharyngula | March 19, 2008For everyone who complained that I didn't say anything nice about Arthur C. Clarke in yesterday's very brief note (I can't help it, I don't believe in burying my opinions along with the corpse), here's some information that made my opinion of Clarke shoot up a couple more notches:
The famed science fiction writer, who once denigrated religion as "a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species," left written instructions that his funeral be completely secular, according to his aides.
"Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated…
pharyngula | March 16, 2008It's almost time for Atheists Talk radio, at 9am central. This week, they're interviewing the marvelous Susan Jacoby, author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) and The Age of American Unreason(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Don't miss it!
pharyngula | March 15, 2008The critics of atheism seem, without exception, to be lacking in imagination. Over and over again, what we hear from them is desperate attempts to pigeonhole atheism as just another religion; they squat uncomprehendingly in their hovels built of faith and peer quizzically at the godless, seeking correspondence with their familiar theological nonsense, and crow in triumph when they find something that they can sort of line up with their experiences. "They want more people to think rationally — why, that's evangelism!" Never mind that you could, with the same legitimacy, argue that when one…
pharyngula | March 15, 2008The atheists are coming!
It's nice to see we're getting front page coverage on the Minneapolis Star Tribune, but it's also sending the wrong message. American Atheists are having their big conference in town next week, but we've been here all along and we aren't leaving after Easter. It's a somewhat muddled article, too — the writer seems a bit confused by this whole atheism business.
No one can say for sure how many atheists there are, partly because those within the movement can't agree on the definition of an atheist. Some count humanists, agnostics and practitioners of astrology as…
pharyngula | March 13, 2008Chris Hedges wrote a pretty good book on fundamentalism called American Fascists; at least, I thought it was pretty good, but now I have my doubts about his credibility. He has a new book, I Don't Believe in Atheists, and has an essay that summarizes his position. I could not believe how awful it is — it's basically a declaration that all atheists are exactly like Pat Robertson, and then it charges in with nothing but venom and accusations to defend his position.
Here's a perfect example.
These atheists share a naïve belief with these fundamentalists in our innate goodness and decency. They…
pharyngula | March 13, 2008That venerable institution among internet atheists, Reggie Finley, will be interviewing me tonight for Infidel Guy radio. We're going to talk about this strange propaganda film, Expelled, that's supposed to come out next month, and I suppose we'll also discuss creationism in a more generic context as well, and maybe we'll even talk about real science. Tune in at 8ET.
grrlscientist | March 8, 2008tags: posters, atheism, godlessness, Atheist's Golden Rule, ethics
Image: orphan [larger size].
The Atheist's Golden Rule: Don't do the dumb shit that religious people do to each other.
pharyngula | March 7, 2008Richard Dawkins' tour of the US has begun — you can read an account of his talk in Arizona. Next stops are Berkeley and Stanford, then Madison (I think my boy Connlann is going to try to see that one), then Columbia and NYU, and UT Austin … then it's up my way to Minneapolis for the American Atheists conference.
If you're planning to go to one of his talks, though, don't go just for Dawkins — I hope everyone turns to their neighbors and introduces themselves, and that everyone realizes that there are many of us here, and that we can build a community of reason that will last long after the…
pharyngula | March 7, 2008One of the reasons we atheists have to be loud and assertive is that we are floating alone in a vast sea of ignorance. Case in point: here is an artist who has obviously never met an atheist.
I am expressing my feeling towards the very Idea of Atheism. I almost pity those who have such beliefs. I'm not saying they are wrong or right. I'm just saying that what they believe in is more depressing than any other possibility.
So I made this simple picture to express my feelings for somebody who believes in nothing.
here we see a person sitting in a blank room without any doors or windows. What is…
pharyngula | March 2, 2008You should read John Allen Paulos's latest column on complexity — it's a central concept in the various debates that go on around here, and no one on the other side evinces any sign of actually understanding the subject. It's always "complexity implies design" this, and "complexity only arises by intent" that. I'll also second his recommendation of Stuart Kauffman's At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) — it's a very good book full of interesting ideas and empirical demonstrations of order arising out of randomness.
Another…
pharyngula | March 1, 2008Sunday morning at 9am, on Air America, you'll want to catch Atheists Talk. This week, half the show will be Hemant Mehta, talking about being a friendly atheist or some such nonsense antithetical to the whole atheist enterprise, which revolves around dour nihilism, of course.
The second half will be Kristine Harley and me talking about bad design. Tune in and call in!
pharyngula | February 26, 2008Yesterday, I asked if anyone caught the offensive description of the results of the Pew study on religion on CBS. Crooks and Liars did. Here's Wyatt Andrews' comment on the results:
The unprecedented survey of religion answers many concerns about a secular, morally void America.
I don't even know what that means. He seems to be linking "secular" with "morally void", but I don't understand what concerns it answered for him — I found the results reassuring, but I want more secularism and and don't see it as moral problem at all.
pharyngula | February 25, 2008
So…have you all read the latest Pew report on American religion? It's been reported in the NY Times, too, and I heard that it was the lead story on CBS News (which, unfortunately, said something about a "secular, morally empty America" — did anyone catch it, or better yet, record it?).
It's mostly good news. We've got a fragmented, shrinking Protestant population, Catholics are abandoning ship in droves and what's keeping it afloat is Catholic immigration from the south, and the "unaffiliateds" are growing fast, especially among young adults.
The survey finds that the number of people who…
pharyngula | February 24, 2008Ricky Gervais has published his deconversion story — I feel a little inferior because he made up his mind about it very quickly, while it took me years to ease my way out of the nonsense.
I like his answer, though, especially the last paragraph below.
…within an hour, I was an atheist.
Wow. No God. If Mum had lied to me about God, had she also lied to me about Santa? yes, but who cares? The gifts kep coming. And so did the gifts of my newfound atheism. The gifts of truth, science, nature. The real beauty of this world. Not a world by design, but one by chance. I learned of evolution—a theory…