godlessness
pharyngula | February 24, 2008Hey, Minneapolitans — Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists have two big events coming up soon. This week, it's pizza and bowling on the UMTC campus. I'm probably not going to be able to make that one, but the week after, on 6 March, Austin Cline will be speaking on critical thinking and skepticism, and I may be able to get into town for that one. Let's all go say hello to another godless blogger!
pharyngula | February 23, 2008Remember — Sunday morning at 9am, you can tune in to the Minnesota Atheists' very own Atheist Talk radio program. This week, we're planning to have a bigger slice of time for the Moment of Science, and Kristine Harley and I will be talking about the idea of bad "design" — the observation that many features of evolved organism don't look at all like they are the product of intent.
(Oops, no — not this week. That'll be next week. This week, you'll get to hear from Lori Lipman Brown, and you'll hear a discussion of secular ethics. Tune in!)
Feel free to call in, but please do try to be crisp…
pharyngula | February 18, 2008Only even less tangible. John Allen Paulos tells the story of his vacation in Thailand.
No, it's not that kind of story.
pharyngula | February 18, 2008Greta Christina hosts the Carnival of the Godless this week, which means the atheism is laced with sex. This is an avenue for recruiting people to the atheist cause that has not been adequately pursued.
Although there is something to be said for goddesses: the Sunday Sermonette is a hymn from Janis. Whoa, but she could sing. We also learn that the Reveres were young doctors in 1969, had a chance to go to Woodstock, and skipped it because it was going to rain. I missed it, too, but my excuse is a little better: I was 12 years old and on the opposite side of the country. I was a fan of Janis at…
pharyngula | February 15, 2008Hemant thinks he has a shot of winning an online poll to determine the sexiest atheist blogger. No way! I'm going to send you, my minions, over there to … uh … wait. You people are probably still in shock from that time I exposed my chest, aren't you? Dang. I need to wait at least 20 or 30 years before those memories fade if I'm to stand a chance.
I voted for Greta Christina, anyway, and my second choice was C.L. Hanson.
People, what are you doing voting for me? That's insane. Unless, of course, you're one of those people who likes a bad boy with a hint of danger, even if he does look like…
pharyngula | February 10, 2008Apparently, Barack Obama did well in the recent primaries, increasing the chances that he'll be the Democratic candidate for president. Right away, we're seeing an old video of an Obama speech (transcript here) being refloated. This is the same speech that prompted me to say I would never vote for Obama. It really is a ghastly exercise in self-delusion and post hoc justification of religious bigotry; I'd say he was pandering to his audience, except that I think he really believes the nonsense he was spouting.
Just reading it again pisses me off, it's so full of stupidity. Look at this:
And…
pharyngula | February 9, 2008The American Atheists conference will be in Minneapolis on 21-23 March, and yes! The registration information is now online! I'll be there, let's see lots of others there, too.
If you want more details, besides the info on the web, Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, will be the featured guest on Atheist Talk on Air America Sunday at 9am. Tune in!
pharyngula | February 8, 2008Greg Laden has provided som lengthy commentary on the Rue-Myers debate.
They really didn't have to taser him. Just waving the weapon at him was enough to quiet him down.
pharyngula | February 8, 2008At some time, a recording of our 'debate' will be available online, so I won't try to do a play by play now. I will say that I found this one pretty much impossible to prepare for — there was no way this debate could be shoe-horned into a good vs. evil or smartness vs. ignorance conflict, making it a much more complicated discussion, rather than a television wrestling storyline. We'd had a few conversations in email and there were several points of disagreement, and in fact Dr Rue showed those points in a slide, but you know, he had good reasons for all the stuff he got wrong. I read his book…
pharyngula | February 4, 2008As promised, here are the details on my debate this week.
Debate: Are Science and Religion Compatible?
An Evening of Stimulating Intellectual Discourse
with
Loyal Rue and PZ Myers
Sponsored by
Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists
Thursday, February 7, 2008
7:00pm - 10:00pm
West Bank Auditorium- Willey Hall
225 19th Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN 55455
I must say I like the tagline — "An Evening of Stimulating Intellectual Discourse" — since I don't think this will be the kind of ferocious bloody battle some of you might be hoping for. Rue is a religious moderate, so I don't anticipate any…
pharyngula | February 4, 2008I would be the first to admit that the readership of Pharyngula is not a representative slice of America. We've self-selected for cynics and skeptics and atheists and science-minded people, and that's all right … that's the way I like it.
The viewership of something like ABC News, on the other hand, is something different. There you are getting a wider segment of the citizenry, including a lot of people who would faint and have heart palpitations if they were exposed to what Pharynguloids consider routine. You've got to appreciate it when John Allen Paulos uses his ABCNews soapbox to…
pharyngula | February 4, 2008A budding new freethought group at Wilfrid Laurier University made a dreadful mistake in their application: they actually admitted that their goal was "to promote science, freedom of inquiry, skepticism, and a good life without the need for superstition or religious belief." I don't know about you, but I think that final clause is rather an essential one for a freethought group, and is an important premise to lay out clearly. On the other hand, when was the last time you saw one of the ubiquitous campus religious groups state that they want to promote science, reason, skepticism, and open…
pharyngula | February 3, 2008I forgot to remind you all to tune in to the Minnesota Atheists radio show…but you all know by now to turn on your radios/streaming connection on Sunday mornings, right?
If you forgot, you'll have to do penance by reading the Sunday Sermonette.
pharyngula | February 2, 2008This is not going to be an "all debate, all the time" blog, but readers have sent me a few accounts of recent skirmishes, so I'll toss 'em up here. This one is a description of a debate between the ferocious Mr Hitchens and that smooshy gooey feel-good rabbi, Shmuley Boteach. It's like pitting a knife against jello, I'm afraid.
I attended the debate between Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi Boteach in New York City. I unfortunately missed the openings but made it for the actual debate.
The technical content of the debate was fairly predictable. Hitchens focused on the logical lack of any…
pharyngula | February 1, 2008My God Delusion index is 0.
Perhaps your score is a little higher, and you're concerned about it. You, too, wish to achieve the perfection of a nice, uncluttered zero, with god delusions completely absent from your life. Here's help. Watch the video below multiple times; with each viewing your GDI should drop. Stop when it hits zero.
Now…does anyone have a similar way to reduce a cholesterol index?
pharyngula | January 31, 2008I have a MySpace page. It's not much, just a token entry on one of the big social networking sites.
Now here's a problem: MySpace is run by religious bigots. They selectively censor atheist groups wholesale; this makes me rather dislike the place. Yesterday was International Delete Your MySpace Account Day as a protest — I didn't participate because I didn't find out about it until this morning, and now I face a dilemma. Should I remove even my nominal participation in MySpace, or should I keep my page up? If it stays up, it will definitely have something protesting the managerial abuses that…
grrlscientist | January 27, 2008tags: Carnival of theGodless, blog carnivals
The peer-reviewed edition of the Carnival of the Godless is now available for your reading pleasure. I finally sent them something to include, too, yeah me!
pharyngula | January 26, 2008Remember: listen to the Minnesota Atheists radio program on Air America, tomorrow morning at 9am central time.
Topics tomorrow include Huckabee, an interview with Robert M. Price, and yours truly (with Kristine Harley) in a Moment of Science. We're going to be discussing useful references for evolution; the segment has been lengthened, so there may actually be time for you to call in.
Please, though, call in with sincere questions — time is limited, and comments, no matter how complimentary, eat up minutes, and whiny creationists who think it's clever to eat up time with tedious, self-…
pharyngula | January 24, 2008So Heath Ledger, the young actor, is dead of unknown causes. I don't know much about him, I did not have any kind of personal interaction with him so I don't need to know much about him — I liked some of his movies, he was young, it's tragic to see a life ended so early.
Those demented ghouls at Westboro Baptist Church have a different point of view, though.
It's just a lunatic ranting his hate, but that last paragraph is fascinating.
Heath Ledger is now in Hell, and has begun serving his eternal sentence there — beside which, nothing else about Heath Ledger is relevant or consequential.…