godlessness
pharyngula | September 2, 2007Check out the pulp edition of the Carnival of the Godless — it's got pulp superheroes narrating the action. I never quite imagined Occam as a ham-fisted bruiser, but OK…
If you prefer a softer approach than those scary godless atheists, there's also a Humanist Symposium available today.
As usual, Revere has a short, clear sermonette. He does make one mistake, though: he compares theology to a chess game in which there are many intricacies, but that the details don't mean anything about how you should govern your life. "Chess" is the wrong answer. It's more like Calvinball. That's right,…
pharyngula | September 1, 2007Mooney says that because polls show that Americans are so blinded by religion that they would choose the words of a bloody-handed Middle Eastern sky god over the evidence of science, Dawkins and all us uncompromising atheists are wrong in our tactics. We are henceforth to heed the words of Nisbet and stop confronting people on their religious biases.
Huh?
But that's exactly the problem that we're addressing — that people will foolishly prefer "white-beard-in-the-sky-guy" over reality. And the message he takes home from this is that we're wrong? This is nuts. I read that poll and it says we…
pharyngula | August 30, 2007We had our very first meeting of UMM Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists tonight. About two dozen people had expressed interest before, so we expected, optimistically, about 20 people to show up. We got there a little early, and people were waiting for us … and then our 20 were there, and then more, and then more, and then more. I had to keep going up to the counter to tell them we were going to have to order a few more pizzas.
Final tally: 60 students showed up. We basically took over the whole restaurant.
Skatje Myers and Collin Tierney are the co-chairs, and here they are addressing…
pharyngula | August 30, 2007I have survived the first week of classes (my schedule leaves Fridays free of lecturing), as have my students — one down, sixteen to go. I've got a fairly heavy load this term, with a brand new introductory biology course (with 84 freshman students!) and a neurobiology course for more advanced students, so it's going to be a long hard slog, I can tell. Pity those poor students, though — thrown right into the lion's den. Ask Billy Graham, he knows.
Q. I'm headed for college in a few weeks, and as a Christian I'm wondering what to expect. Some people say that my faith will be attacked there,…
pharyngula | August 29, 2007Ophelia makes note of a comment from Hitchens, about a revelation on his book tour:
At the end of the event I discover something that I am going to keep on discovering: half the people attending had thought that they were the only atheists in town.
I see that all the time, too. We atheists are a minority, still, but we're not as alone as some of us have thought: when we announce ourselves, we have a ready audience pleased to hear from us. I think that is liberating — you don't have to be afraid, you're not alone, we can all stand together against the deluded.
pharyngula | August 29, 2007Last night was the activities fair at UMM, where student groups try to catch the attention of the new students and persuade them to sign up. It was a mob scene with hundreds of milling people, and there in the middle of it … the brand new UMM chapter of the Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists. Here are most of the current officers — the missing one was me, behind the camera.
Viktor Berberi, Collin Tierney, and Skatje Myers (and Richard Dawkins playing on the computer)
I was impressed. I expected they'd go over there and get maybe half a dozen to a dozen people to sign up, but instead…
pharyngula | August 28, 2007…that you have to take a sharp poke at the godless or godly to try and trigger a response, and now it's Chris's turn. He's arguing with the usual faith/empiricism continuum, and adds a third axis to the debate, as illustrated here.
OK, it's an interesting try. I don't think it quite works, though. That "cranks" zone on the left needs to be expanded up towards the faith vertex, and actually ought to be indistinguishable from "theists".
The other deep flaw is the position of "agnostics" (I have a suspicion that Chris would place himself in that group). I can think of several agnostics around…
pharyngula | August 26, 2007It's Sunday morning! It's that time when we lounge about in robes and jammies and mock (or feel pity for) the faithful, trudging off to be lied to at church. Here are a few fun links for us atheists:
Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists of UMM has a preliminary web page, designed by Skatje, and also has a forum. Their first meeting is on Thursday at 7 (pizza party at the Pizza Hut in Morris!), but the big initial recruitment fair is tomorrow — so she is looking for suggestions. She needs stuff she can put together now, but she's also thinking longer term — ideas for tabling at the…
pharyngula | August 23, 2007Out of curiosity, I'd just like to know … how many recent instances are there of atheists using death threats, threats against family members, and various other kinds of intimidation to discourage Christians from openly professing their beliefs?
pharyngula | August 23, 2007Sam Harris has a letter in Nature today, urging scientists to unite against religion — even the moderate religion that so many are willing to support.
But here is Collins on how he, as a scientist, finally became convinced of the divinity of Jesus Christ: "On a beautiful fall day, as I was hiking in the Cascade Mountains... the majesty and beauty of God's creation overwhelmed my resistance. As I rounded a corner and saw a beautiful and unexpected frozen waterfall, hundreds of feet high, I knew the search was over. The next morning, I knelt in the dewy grass as the sun rose and surrendered to…
pharyngula | August 22, 2007Come February, we are going to be privileged to see a brand new movie that stars Ben Stein and portrays Intelligent Design creationism as the cool rebel oppressed by the stodgy old Darwinist bullies. Did you know that "scientists are not allowed to even think thoughts that involve an intelligent creator"? I didn't either. I think a lot of scientists have thought about it and noticed that there is no evidence for such a hypothesis, and have therefore rejected it.
This movie fits with the intelligent design strategy of declaring itself the victim of an unfair exclusion (which isn't true, of…
pharyngula | August 21, 2007It's a stupid internet poll, and it's very badly phrased, but you should vote anyway. Larry King wants to know "which religion do you associate with?" — and atheism is one of the choices.
(I know, I know, atheism isn't a religion. Argue about it later.)
Heh. The poll is currently registering 71% of the voters as atheists. They say you can't herd cats; if you point the pride at a slow, stupid, old gazelle, though, you can get them all to take a bite. Now we just have to work our way up to bigger and less gamey prey.
pharyngula | August 14, 2007It looks like my talk to the Minnesota Atheists (you know, the one Egnor viewed by remote sensing or something) is available on the Atheist Talk Podcast. I haven't seen it — I am constitutionally incapable of watching myself without curling up into a quivering ball and mewing piteously — so don't tell me if it's hideous or not. I really don't want to know.
pharyngula | August 12, 2007I'm in St Paul, about to give a talk on evolution, and in these few minutes before I get behind the lectern I thought I'd throw together a few links to entertain you all. Have fun, I have to babble!
Share your stories of abandoning faith at Coming Out Godless.
Revere's Sunday Sermonette is on Fred Phelps and our local ex-bridge.
Casual violence isn't a surprising event in the fundagelical community, as in this story of pastor dragging a girl behind a van for the sin of insufficient stamina. The amusing part? The name of the church group is "Love Demonstrated".
How about a few fine examples of…
pharyngula | August 11, 2007Richard Dawkins has a new television series, The Enemies of Reason, that will be broadcast in the UK. I have not heard if it will make it to the US; if it's anything like our experience with his last program, Root of all evil?, it will be buried in post-midnight showings on scattered PBS stations, with little information on when or where in any of the channel listings. The premise of discussing this new show is how Gordon Lynch begins a recent column, but then, somehow, it turns into a wild-eyed accusation in mannered language that this modern atheism stuff is a cult-like phenomenon, just…
pharyngula | August 10, 2007While it's nearly impossible to get a group of atheists to do anything together (the reaction to the Out campaign demonstrates that!), you've all got to agree* that at least the Secular Student Alliance is a good idea. Maybe you don't know what it's like for new students entering a university, but getting them involved in student organizations is an important step in getting them involved in the university — our administrations know that, and they push and we faculty advisors push, all to get these students who have left home and are facing a new and challenging and sometimes intimidating…
pharyngula | August 9, 2007Pat Condell wants to know why faith deserves respect.
Jesus and Mo explain why.
pharyngula | August 7, 2007Scott Adams makes his argument against atheism. Let's just say that Adams makes McGrath look like a brilliant, nuanced genius by comparison. All he's got is the cartoonist's version of Pascal's Wager, and his own profound misconceptions about what atheists are.
In order to be certain that God doesn't exist, you have to possess a godlike mental capacity — the ability to be 100% certain. A human can't be 100% certain about anything. Our brains aren't that reliable. Therefore, to be a true atheist, you have to believe you are the very thing that you argue doesn't exist: God.
Ummm, he forgot to…
pharyngula | August 6, 2007You've got to take it with a grain of salt — a politician's self-reporting of what books he is reading is more about image than a reflection of what they are actually reading — but it's revealing what British members of parliament think will impress the citizenry:
In the annual survey of MPs' holiday reading, released today by the bookshop chain Waterstone's, first place was taken by William Hague's biography of William Wilberforce, which was published to coincide with the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. It came well ahead of books that received more hype at the time of…