Heaving Dead Cats » Ideas

Podcasts and Internet Radio Stations You May Enjoy

Neece — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:02:18 +0000

Want to expand your mind and be entertained at the same time? Here are a list of podcasts and radio shows you can listen to online or on your iPod through iTunes. Most of these are scientific/ skeptical in nature, but I’ve thrown in 2 religious ones because they are both excellent.

My Favorites:

SGU: The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe and a 5 minute weekly podcast at the same place; SGU 5×5: a weekly Science podcast produced by the New England Skeptical Society (NESS) in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) : discussing the latest news and topics from the world of the paranormal, fringe science, and controversial claims from a scientific point of view.
Scientific American’s Science Talk (they have other podcasts here): Join host Steve Mirsky each week as he explores the latest developments in science & technology through interviews.
Reasonable Doubts (Your Skeptical Guide to Religion): A special focus on counter-apologetics. They provide detailed counter-points to the fallacious logic and blatant misinformation used by religious apologists when attempting to discredit skepticism and provide rational arguments for their dogmas. They also defend the sufficiency of reason, science and naturalistic philosophies to provide a satisfactory and morally compelling understanding of the cosmos, human nature, art and culture. They try to do this all with fair-mindedness and humor. Winner of the Peoples Choice Podcast Award for best religious/inspirational podcast of 2009
The Naked Scientists and another podcast, Ask the Naked Scientists: The Naked Scientists are a group of physicians and researchers from Cambridge University who use radio, live lectures, and the Internet to strip science down to its bare essentials, and promote it to the general public. Each week, listeners of all ages and backgrounds tune in on a Sunday evening to hear creator Dr. Chris Smith, together with his entertaining scientist sidekicks, interview renowned scientists and researchers from all over the world and take science questions on any subject live from the listening public.
StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson: a radio show devoted to all things space and is hosted by renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Mr. Deity (video, not podcast, but you can subscribe through iTunes): a webshow that looks at the every-day life of the creator and everything he must endure as he attempts to manage his creation.

My friend and fellow science lover Brent sent me a list of his favorites as well, which is actually what sparked this post:

The Center for Inquiry’s Point of Inquiry: Point of Inquiry explores CFI’s three research areas:
- Pseudoscience and the paranormal (Bigfoot, UFOs, psychics, communication with the dead, cryptozoology, etc.)
- Alternative medicine (faith healing, homeopathy, “healing touch,” the efficacy of prayer, etc.)
- Religion, humanism, and secularism (church-state separation, the effects and proper role of religion in society, the future of secularism and nonbelief, etc.)
  Rotating hosts Chris Mooney, Karen Stollznow, and Robert Price bring engaging and thought-provoking interviews and commentary on a broad range of topics to each episode of Point of Inquiry.
NPR’s Science Friday: A weekly radio talk show on NPR from 2-4pm on Fridays. Each week, they focus on science topics that are in the news and try to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join Science Friday’s host, Ira Flatow, a veteran science journalist, to discuss science – and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program.
Groks Science Radio Show and Podcast: a weekly science radio program and podcast produced in Chicago, USA and Tokyo, Japan. The show broadcasts on radio stations across the country and can also be heard as a podcast. Each week, the hosts, Dr. Charles Lee and Dr. Frank Ling, take an in-depth look at recent events in the world of science and technology, and examine the effects of recent discoveries on our daily lives.
Each episode features an interview with a leading scientist, researcher, or industrialist discussing stimulating work in their field. The show often includes a humorous and entertaining segment; plus the world famous question of the week!
IEET: Changesurfer Radio: a weekly, syndicated public affairs radio show transmitting a sexy, high-tech vision of a radically democratic future
Fast Forward Radio: A convergence of emerging technologies and emerging possibilities is at the heart of this, the greatest period of transformation in human history. Our world is changing in ways that are hard to predict…sometimes even hard to imagine. FastForward Radio is your guide to an astounding future that lies ahead — and that will be here sooner than you think!

Feel free to contribute your favorites!

Evolution Before Darwin

Neece — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:42:24 +0000

Contrary to many assumptions, evolutionary theory did not begin in 1859 with Charles Darwin and The Origin Of Species" target="_blank">The Origin of Species. Rather, evolution-like ideas had existed since the times of the Greeks, and had been in and out of favor in the periods between ancient Greece and Victorian England. Indeed, by Darwin’s time the idea of evolution – called “descent with modification” – was not especially controversial, and several other evolutionary theories had already been proposed. Darwin may stand at the beginning of a modern tradition, but he is also the final culmination of an ancient speculation.

Evolution in Greece

While the Greeks did not specifically refer to their concepts as “evolution”, they did have a philosophical notion of descent with modification. Several different Greek philosophers subscribed to a concept of origination, arguing that all things originated from water or air. Another common concept was the idea that all things descended from one central, guiding principle.

Thales ( 624 – 546 BCE): asserted that all things originated from water.
Anaximander (610 – 546 BCE): With his assertion that physical forces, rather than supernatural means, create order in the universe, Anaximander can be considered the first scientist. He is known to have conducted the earliest recorded scientific experiment. He suggested that living beings gradually developed from moisture with warmth. He also thought that the first humans were born, fully formed, from the wombs of fish, since they needed care for a long time.
Anaximenes (585 – 528 BCE): Thought air was the principle of all things, and regarded the process as a thinning or thickening.
Empedocles (490 – 430 BCE): Thought that the first creatures were not fully formed but consisted of unconnected limbs. He established the concept of everything in the universe being made up of four elements: fire, air, water and earth, which was the standard for the next two thousand years.
Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE): The Great Chain of Being: He thought there was a transition between the living and the nonliving, and theorized that in all things there is a constant desire to move from the lower to the higher, finally becoming the divine.
Lucretius (99 – 55 BCE): He was the first to suggest extinctions and that the survivors survived by “cunning or speed”.

Medieval Theories

During medieval times, the idea of evolution was quite out of fashion, since the time was dominated by the christian theory of special creation. This idea, which argued that all living things came into existence in unchanging forms due to divine will, was notably in opposition to the concept of evolution.

Medieval thinking was also, oddly enough, confused by the idea of spontaneous generation, which stated that living things can appear fully formed from inorganic matter. In this view, maggots came from rotting meat, frogs came from slime, etc. This sort of a concept prevented both genetic thinking and speculation about evolution or descent with modification. Nevertheless, a few philosophers theorized about some sort of teleological principle by which species might derive from a divine form.

James Ussher – 1581-1656

The traditional Judeo-Christian version of creationism was strongly reinforced by James Ussher, a 17th century Anglican archbishop of Armagh in Northern Ireland. By counting the generations of the Bible and adding them to modern history, he fixed the date of creation at October 23, 4004 B.C. During Ussher’s lifetime, debate focused only on the details of his calculations rather than on the approach. Dr. Charles Lightfoot of Cambridge University in England had the last word. He proclaimed that the time of creation was 9:00 A.M. on October 23, 4004 B.C.

This belief that the earth and life on it are only about 6000 years old fit neatly with the then prevalent theory of the “Great Chain of Being.” This held that God created an infinite and continuous series of life forms, each one grading into the next, from simplest to most complex, and that all organisms, including humans, were created in their present form relatively recently and that they have remained unchanged since then. Given these strongly held beliefs, it is not surprising that 17th and 18th century European biology consisted mainly of the description of plants and animals as they are with virtually no attempt to explain how they got to be that way.

Immanuel Kant – 1724-1804

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant developed a concept of descent that is relatively close to modern thinking; he did in a way anticipate Darwinian thinking. Based on similarities between organisms, Kant speculated that they may have come from a single ancestral source. In a thoroughly modern speculation, he mused that “an orang-outang or a chimpanzee may develop the organs which serve for walking, grasping objects, and speaking-in short, that lie may evolve the structure of man, with an organ for the use of reason, which shall gradually develop itself by social culture”.

Biological Conceptions of Evolution

The preceding discussion has focused on the philosophical components of evolutionary theory, but precursors exist for its biological aspects as well. Indeed, as mentioned above, by Darwin’s time the concept of descent with modification was hardly controversial – it was only the mechanism, the rate of modification, and the ultimate origin of life that were being debated. Darwin’s major breakthrough consisted in providing a plausible mechanism to drive change in organisms.

Carolus Linnaeus – 1707-1778

Carolus Linnaeus, or Carl Linné, is considered the father of modern taxonomy for his work in hierarchical classification of various organisms. At first, he believed in the fixed nature of species, but he was later swayed by hybridization experiments in plants, which could produce new species. However, he maintained his belief in special creation in the Garden of Eden, consistent with the Christian doctrine to which he was quite devoted. He still saw the new species created by plant hybridization to have been part of God’s plan, and never considered the idea of open-ended, undirected evolution not mediated by the divine.

The concept of genus and species was actually developed in the late 1600’s by John Ray, 1627-1705, an English naturalist and ordained minister. However, it was Linnaeus who used this system to name us Homo sapiens (literally, “wise men”). He also placed us in the order Primates (a larger, more inclusive category than our genus) along with all of the apes, monkeys, and prosimians. This was very controversial at the time since it implied that people were part of nature, along with other animals and plants. In addition, it meant that we were biologically closer to the other primates than to all other animals.

Late in the 18th century, a small number of European scientists began to quietly suggest that life forms are not fixed. The French mathematician and naturalist, George Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, 1707-1788, actually said that living things do change through time. He speculated that this was somehow a result of influences from the environment or even chance. He believed that the earth must be much older than 6000 years. In 1774, in fact, he speculated that the earth must be at least 75,000 years old. He also suggested that humans and apes are related. Buffon was careful to hide his radical views in a limited edition 44 volume natural history book series called Histoire Naturelle (1749-1804). By doing this, he avoided broad public criticism.

Buffon was an early advocate of the Linnaean classification system. He was also a quiet pioneer in asserting that species can change over generations. However, he publicly rejected the idea that species could evolve into other species. One of his most significant contributions to the biological sciences was his insistence that natural phenomena must be explained by natural laws rather than theological doctrine.

Erasmus Darwin – 1731-1802

Charles Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus Darwin was also a distinguished naturalist with his own intriguing ideas about evolution. While he never thought of natural selection, he did argue that all life could a have a single common ancestor, though he struggled with the concepts of a mechanism for this descent. He also discussed the effects of competition and sexual selection on possible changes in species. Like Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin subscribed to a theory stating that the use or disuse of parts could in itself make them grow or shrink, and that unconscious striving by the organism was responsible for adaptation.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck – 1744-1829

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s theory of evolution was a good try for his time, but has now been discredited by experimental evidence and the much more plausible mechanism of modification proposed by Darwin. Lamarck saw species as not being fixed and immutable, but rather in a constantly changing state. He presented a multitude of different theories that he believed combined to explain descent with modification of these changing species.

Lamarck subscribed to a number of what we now know to be false beliefs about inheritance. First, like Erasmus Darwin, he argued for strong effects of the use and disuse of parts, which he thought would make the relevant parts change size or shape in accordance with their use. Second, Lamarck believed that all organisms fundamentally wanted to adapt themselves to their environment, and so they strove to become better adapted. The belief most commonly associated with Lamarck today is his idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. This theory stated that an organism could pass on to its offspring any characteristics it had acquired in its lifetime. For example, if a man exercised and thus developed strong muscles, his offspring would then have strong muscles at birth.

George Cuvier - 1769-1832

Lamarck did not invent the idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics but stated it clearly and publicly in an 1809 publication entitled Philosophie Zoologique. It was relatively easy for the French scientist, George Cuvier, and other critics of Lamarck to discredit his theory. If it was correct, the children of cowboys who have developed bowed legs as a result of a lifetime of riding horses would be born with bowed legs as well. That, of course, does not occur. Likewise, the children of professional weight lifters are not born with enlarged muscles.

While Lamarck’s explanation of evolution was incorrect, it is unfair to label him a bad scientist. In fact, he was at the cutting edge of biological research for his time. He and George Cuvier were largely responsible for making biology a distinct branch of science.

Despite his criticism of Lamarck, Cuvier did not reject the idea that there had been earlier life forms. In fact, he was the first scientist to document extinctions of ancient animals and was an internationally respected expert on dinosaurs. However, he rejected the idea that their existence implied that evolution had occurred — he dogmatically maintained the “fixity” of species.

Cuvier advocated the theory of catastrophism, as did most other leading scientists of his day. This held that there have been violent and sudden natural catastrophes such as great floods and the rapid formation of major mountain chains. Plants and animals living in those parts of the world where such events occurred were often killed off according to Cuvier. Then new life forms moved in from other areas. As a result, the fossil record for a region shows abrupt changes in species. Cuvier’s explanation relied solely on scientific evidence rather than biblical interpretation.

A careful examination of European geological deposits in the early 19th century led the English lawyer and geologist, Charles Lyell, 1797-1875, to conclude that Cuvier’s catastrophism theory was wrong. He believed that there primarily have been slower, progressive changes. In his three volume Principles of Geology (1830-1833), Lyell documented the fact that the earth must be very old and that it has been subject to the same sort of natural processes in the past that operate today in shaping the land. These forces include erosion, earthquakes, glacial movements, volcanoes, and even the decomposition of plants and animals.

Lyell provided conclusive evidence for the theory of uniformitarianism, which had been developed originally by the late 18th century Scottish geologist, James Hutton - 1726-1797. This held that the natural forces now changing the shape of the earth’s surface have been operating in the past much the same way. In other words, the present is the key to understanding the past.

This revolutionary idea was instrumental in leading Charles Darwin to his understanding of biological evolution in the 1830’s. However, it was not until the late 19th century that most educated people in the Western world finally rejected the theory of catastrophism in favor of uniformitarianism.

Today, we know that our planet has been shaped by occasional catastrophic events, such as bombardment of large meteors, in addition to the comparatively slower natural processes suggested by uniformitarianism. All of these events have potentially affected the rate and direction of biological evolution.

Thomas Malthus – 1766-1834

Thomas Malthus’ theory of population growth was in the end what inspired Darwin to develop the theory of natural selection. According to Malthus, populations produce many more offspring than can possibly survive on the limited resources generally available. According to Malthus, poverty, famine, and disease were natural outcomes that resulted from overpopulation. However, Malthus believed that divine forces were ultimately responsible for such outcomes, which, though natural, were designed by God.

Robert Grant – 1793-1874

He wrote Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. It argued not only for biological evolution, but chemical and cosmological as well. It was largely scorned and was more of a philosophical work than a scientific one. But it was still very influential on Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace.

Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace

Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace both independently developed the idea of the mechanism of natural selection after reading Thomas Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). However, Darwin had been turning the problem over in his mind for some twenty years before he first published The Origin of Species. Moreover, Darwin was much more willing to explore the implications of natural selection, particularly in relation to humans, than Wallace was. In addition, Wallace was a champion of rather radical social causes and later openly embraced spiritualism – all elements that resulted in the downplay of his role in the discovery of natural selection.

While George Cuvier and Charles Lyell strongly disagreed about how the earth got to be the way it is today, they both rejected the idea of biological evolution. However, neither man accepted a traditional biblical account of creation and a young earth. Cuvier did not live long enough to learn about Charles Darwin’s proof of evolution, but Lyell did. He came to accept this proof in the early 1860’s along with most leading scientists of that time. Lyell also became a friend of Charles Darwin.

Darwin’s Early Ideas

Darwin proposed a few ideas before he came up with natural selection. One was called the Pangenetic hypothesis. It attempted to explain how acquired characteristics worked. This hypothesis proposed that cells produce small particles called pangenes or gemmules which end up in sex cells. When passed on to the offspring, the pangenes are able to exactly reproduce the organ in which they originated.

Another hypothesis by Darwin was the evolution of monads. This hypothesis stated that species adapt and old species are replaced by new ones, so the overall number of species remains the same. Monads arose by spontaneous generation and would evolve to become an ancestral species.

A modification of the monad hypothesis was that if a monad stopped producing new species it would die out.

Sources:

Some Books:

The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin
Descent of Man by Charles Darwin
Darwiniana – Essays by Thomas Huxley
An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus
The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction by David Quammen

Websites:

Timeline of Modern Evolutionary Thought
A History of Evolutionary Thought
The Victorian Web: Evolution
The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online

25 Blasphemous Quotes From Atheist Ireland

Neece — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:09:51 +0000

From Michael Nugent in Ireland, I found the following and thought I’d spread the blasphemy around and share it with you. Here’s to hoping Ireland gets a bit of sense and repeals this dangerous and ridiculous law. It’s a giant step backwards for human progress, as is the UN blasphemy movement that’s been going on for awhile now. I’ve added some nice religious imagery for eye candy.

From January 1, 2010, the new Irish blasphemy law became operational, and those in Atheist Ireland began their campaign to have it repealed. Blasphemy is now a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine. The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted.

This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic States led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.

We believe in the golden rule: that we have a right to be treated justly, and that we have a responsibility to treat other people justly. Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.

Publication of 25 blasphemous quotes

In this context we now publish a list of 25 blasphemous quotes, which have previously been published by or uttered by or attributed to Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Mark Twain, Tom Lehrer, Randy Newman, James Kirkup, Monty Python, Rev Ian Paisley, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Frank Zappa, Salman Rushdie, Bjork, Amanda Donohoe, George Carlin, Paul Woodfull, Jerry Springer the Opera, Tim Minchin, Richard Dawkins, Pope Benedict XVI, Christopher Hitchens, PZ Myers, Ian O’Doherty, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Dermot Ahern.

Despite these quotes being abusive and insulting in relation to matters held sacred by various religions, we unreservedly support the right of these people to have published or uttered them, and we unreservedly support the right of any Irish citizen to make comparable statements about matters held sacred by any religion without fear of being criminalised, and without having to prove to a court that a reasonable person would find any particular value in the statement.

Campaign begins to repeal the Irish blasphemy law

We ask Fianna Fail and the Green Party to repeal their anachronistic blasphemy law, as part of the revision of the Defamation Act that is included within the Act. We ask them to hold a referendum to remove the reference to blasphemy from the Irish Constitution.

We also ask all TDs and Senators to support a referendum to remove references to God from the Irish Constitution, including the clauses that prevent atheists from being appointed as President of Ireland or as a Judge without swearing a religious oath asking God to direct them in their work.

If you run a website, blog or other media publication, please feel free to republish this statement and the list of quotes yourself, in order to show your support for the campaign to repeal the Irish blasphemy law and to promote a rational, ethical, secular Ireland.

List of 25 Blasphemous Quotes Published by Atheist Ireland

1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” According to the Christian Bible, the Jewish chief priests and elders and council deemed this statement by Jesus to be blasphemous, and they sentenced Jesus to death for saying it.

2. Jesus Christ, talking to Jews about their God, in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” This is one of several chapters in the Christian Bible that can give a scriptural foundation to Christian anti-Semitism. The first part of John 8, the story of “whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.

3. Muhammad, quoted in Hadith of Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 8 Hadith 427: “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets.” This quote is attributed to Muhammad on his death-bed as a warning to Muslims not to copy this practice of the Jews and Christians. It is one of several passages in the Koran and in Hadith that can give a scriptural foundation to Islamic anti-Semitism, including the assertion in Sura 5:60 that Allah cursed Jews and turned some of them into apes and swine.

4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy – he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.” Twain’s book was published posthumously in 1939. His daughter, Clara Clemens, at first objected to it being published, but later changed her mind in 1960 when she believed that public opinion had grown more tolerant of the expression of such ideas. That was half a century before Fianna Fail and the Green Party imposed a new blasphemy law on the people of Ireland.

5. Tom Lehrer, The Vatican Rag, 1963: “Get in line in that processional, step into that small confessional. There, the guy who’s got religion’ll tell you if your sin’s original. If it is, try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!”

6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities – how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”

7. James Kirkup, The Love That Dares to Speak its Name, 1976: “While they prepared the tomb I kept guard over him. His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. I was alone with him… I laid my lips around the tip of that great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy. The shaft, still throbbed, anointed with death’s final ejaculation.” This extract is from a poem that led to the last successful blasphemy prosecution in Britain, when Denis Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence after he published it in the now-defunct magazine Gay News. In 2002, a public reading of the poem, on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, failed to lead to any prosecution. In 2008, the British Parliament abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.

8. Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979: “Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”

9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: “I denounce you as the Antichrist.” Paisley’s website describes the Antichrist as being “a liar, the true son of the father of lies, the original liar from the beginning… he will imitate Christ, a diabolical imitation, Satan transformed into an angel of light, which will deceive the world.”

10. Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1989: “In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.”

11. Frank Zappa, 1989: “If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”

12. Salman Rushdie, 1990: “The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.” In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of blasphemous passages in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.

13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”

14. Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”

15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”

16. Paul Woodfull as Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly, The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, 2000: “He said me ma’s a virgin and sure no one disagreed, Cause they knew a lad who walks on water’s handy with his feet… Jaysus oh Jaysus, as cool as bleedin’ ice, With all the scrubbers in Israel he could not be enticed, Jaysus oh Jaysus, it’s funny you never rode, Cause it’s you I do be shoutin’ for each time I shoot me load.”

17. Jesus Christ, in Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003: “Actually, I’m a bit gay.” In 2005, the Christian Institute tried to bring a prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer the Opera, but the UK courts refused to issue a summons.

18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: “So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”

19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that “it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”

20. Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, 2006: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim body, said it was a “character assassination of the prophet Muhammad”. The Malaysian Prime Minister said that “the Pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created.” Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The European Commission said that “reactions which are disproportionate and which are tantamount to rejecting freedom of speech are unacceptable.”

21. Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great, 2007: “There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require… It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing-absolutely nothing-in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”

22. PZ Myers, on the Roman Catholic communion host, 2008: “You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university… However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel.”

23. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”

24. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, 2009: “Whether a person is atheist or any other, there is in fact in my view something not totally human if they leave out the transcendent… we call it God… I think that if you leave that out you are not fully human.” Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection, we include the statement here to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.

25. Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Justice, introducing his blasphemy law at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, 2009, and referring to comments made about him personally: “They are blasphemous.” Deputy Pat Rabbitte replied: “Given the Minister’s self-image, it could very well be that we are blaspheming,” and Minister Ahern replied: “Deputy Rabbitte says that I am close to the baby Jesus, I am so pure.” So here we have an Irish Justice Minister joking about himself being blasphemed, at a parliamentary Justice Committee discussing his own blasphemy law, that could make his own jokes illegal.

Finally, as a bonus, Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.” Just months after Minister Martin made this comment, his colleague Dermot Ahern introduced Ireland’s new blasphemy law.

Arguments For God’s Existence Are Wrong – Teleological Argument

Neece — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 06:39:23 +0000

Recently, the Morgantown Atheists hosted a satirical night of (re)Conversion where our Brights friend Rachel tried all the arguments she could think of to convince us to turn back to god. No one took her up on her offer. But she did go through a bunch of classical arguments that I thought I might share with you. It’s good to hear what people use as excuses for believing in god, and it’s good to have sound arguments against those beliefs.

Let’s start out with the Teleological Argument.

Teleology: the philosophical study of design and purpose. The supposition that there is purpose or direction in the works and processes of nature.

Teleological Argument: the Argument from Design: argues for the existence of god or a creator based on perceived evidence of order, purpose, design or direction in nature.

Here’s the basic argument:

The universe is too complex, orderly, adaptive, apparently purposeful or beautiful to have occurred randomly or accidentally.
Therefore the universe must have been created by a sentient, intelligent, wise or purposeful being.
god is a sentient, intelligent, wise or purposeful being.
Therefore god exists.

You can substitute just about anything in for the universe. The eye, humans, the fundamental constants of the universe, etc.

Many great men have used this argument over the centuries, but that doesn’t make it valid. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Cicero to name a few. Cicero started the Watchmaker Analogy:

“When you see a sundial or a water-clock, you see that it tells the time by design and not by chance. How then can you imagine that the universe as a whole is devoid of purpose and intelligence, when it embraces everything, including these artifacts themselves and their artificers?” (Cicero, De Natura Deorum, ii. 34)

Even Charles Darwin found the Watchmaker Analogy compelling, which he got from William Paley who wrote about it in his book titled Natural Theology in 1802. But his theory of evolution was an alternative explanation for the complexity of nature. In his autobiography, Darwin wrote,

Although I did not think much about the existence of a personal God until a considerably later period of my life, I will here give the vague conclusions to which I have been driven. The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws. (Charles Darwin’s Autobiography, page 87)

And of course, proponents of intelligent design find this idea compelling. They make up complicated sounding concepts like irreducible complexity (variation of the watchmaker analogy where you can’t have half an eye, you need it fully developed for it to be effective, etc) and other such nonsense.

Just Because It’s Complex Does Not Imply A Designer

There are systems in nature that are non-random or orderly simply because they follow natural physical processes. Diamonds and snowflakes are examples.

Just because it’s not understood (argument from ignorance) doesn’t mean god did it. In many cases its simply the ignorance of the person arguing that god did it. For instance, the eye is seen in many different stages of evolution throughout the animal kingdom today and throughout natural history. All are relevant, all show irreducible complexity to be completely nonsensical.

Listen to Richard Dawkins or Neil deGrasse Tyson and you’ll start to see the unsoundness of such arguments. In fact, Dr. Tyson did a 6 minute video about “bad design” which you can find here: By god He’s a Bad Designer. This is an interesting angle. If everything was designed by god, why are there so many screwy ways that nature does things? Why are there so many bad designs, like eating and breathing out of the same hole?

Evolution, as Darwin laid out and science has refined, is a better explanation with more supporting evidence than intelligent design could ever hope to be.

Does Not Prove The Existence Of God

Even if, by some twisted perversity everything is designed by a god, it doesn’t mean that it is the one god that the christians, jews or muslims follow. It doesn’t mean, by that logic that there is just one god at all, or that the designer(s) are omnipotent, benevolent, or even interested in earth.

Voltaire and David Hume came up with those ideas.

If Everything is Designed, Who Designed the Designer?

Or as Richard Dawkins suggests, the teleological argument would apply to the designer in question. So that designer would have to be at least as complex and purposeful as the designed objects. You would need many designers, all even more complex than the previous, to design the designers.

Some say that god is outside of the natural laws of the universe, so that he doesn’t need a designer. But this is nonsensical. If he was outside of nature, he would be unable to interact with nature. If you moved the goalposts again to say that he could magically mess with nature even though he is outside of the laws of nature, wouldn’t there be some trace of nature being messed with each time? (Just a thought.)

I’m no philosopher. I’m just trying to simply explain this theological argument that we all come across in our travels. Feel free to add to my explanations, give examples, and show counter arguments to help us all understand some of these philosophical concepts.

Interesting, Enlightening Evolution

Neece — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:50:20 +0000

Hey Everyone! About a week or so ago, I wrote about the Meaning of Life and also mentioned a set of videos by Richard Dawkins that my friend Rachel had told me about. I watched all 5 videos and thought they were interesting and enlightening so I am sharing them below.

I was on an evolution kick and also found a 3 part program on Nova called Becoming Human, all about the evolution of us. I can’t give you the videos here, but I’m providing the links so you can watch them on PBS’s site. They are very interesting, and were just aired on PBS in November, so they have some new ideas and research.

Becoming Human Part 1: First Steps: Six million years ago, what set our ancestors on the path from ape to human?
Becoming Human Part 2: Birth of Humanity: New discoveries reveal how early humans hunted and formed families.
Becoming Human Part 3: Last Human Standing: Many human species once shared the globe. Why do we alone remain?

Exploring a bit further, I found an interesting article about human evolution called Are We Still Evolving? This is a question that I have been pondering lately. Since we developed agriculture about 10,000 years ago, developed medicines, learned to cook our food, and developed technology, among some factors, more and more babies survive and grow up to reproduce. According to the article, about 98% of all babies born in the U.S., Europe or Japan survive long enough to reproduce and pass on their DNA, so survival doesn’t depend as much on genes.

But in third world countries, natural selection still favors mutations in dealing with deadly diseases. For instance, people with the sickle-cell mutation in the beta hemoglobin gene have a protection against malaria.

One example of more recent evolution in humans is lactose tolerance. This is evidence that we have evolved, even if it’s just in a small but significant way.

Take the gene that confers lactose tolerance. For most of our history, our ability to digest lactose, the chief sugar in milk, turned off after weaning; we only drank our mother’s milk. But after cattle were domesticated, cow’s milk became a nutritious addition to the diet. Natural selection would have favored individuals born with a mutation that kept the so-called lactase gene switched on throughout life, enabling them to digest milk.

Genetic evidence shows that such a mutation first occurred in northern Europe perhaps 8,000 years ago. Recently, a team led by Sarah Tishkoff identified three new mutations, each conferring lactose tolerance, that arose in three different populations in East Africa. All were independent of one another and of the original European mutation. Nature seems be solving the same problem in different ways.

Well, science moves forward, and our ability to study genes in different populations around the world is improving and deepening. So hopefully we’ll have more answers in the future about if we’re still evolving. Here’s the conclusion of the article:

In the end, the answer to the question of whether we’re still evolving seems to come down to a matter of degree. And when you look at it that way, most scientists seem to be in basic agreement. That is, few would claim we’re not evolving at all. The genetic evidence for natural selection—at least for mutations of single or at most a few genes that confer some benefit and thereby spread through a population over time—is just too strong, and it’s getting stronger all the time.

By the same token, few would say we’re evolving enough to become, say, the bulbous-headed superhumans of sci-fi anytime soon. Or, for that matter, enough to differentiate into one or more new species of human. Even saying unequivocally whether any or all of us are getting smarter is impossible say. As Pinker put it to me, “We’re looking at a snapshot of ourselves, and we’d really have to run the movie for another few thousand years.”

Still, it’s a fascinating question that deserves attention.

Going further, 5 researchers speak a bit about Evolution in Your Life. The evolution of wolves to dogs, how humans became good runners, how the flu mutates so rapidly, how we use evolution to make better food, and how evolution helps solve crimes, is explored briefly in audio.

Now, here are the 5 videos I promised:

Growing Up In The Universe is a series of lectures by Dr. Richard Dawkins, Oxford professor. He presents five lectures on life, the universe, and our place in it. With brilliance and clarity, Dawkins unravels an educational gem that will mesmerize young and old alike. Illuminating demonstrations, wildlife, virtual reality, and special guests (including Douglas Adams) all combine to make this collection a timeless classic.

This is from 1991 but besides the antiquated computer technology, it’s interesting and enlightening for young and old alike. You can buy all 5 hour long episodes on DVD from Dawkin’s store.

Episode 1: Waking Up In The Universe

Episode 2: Designed and Designoid Objects

Episode 3: Climbing Mount Improbable

Episode 4: The Ultraviolet Garden

Episode 5: The Genesis of Purpose

Answering Paul’s Questions

Neece — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 02:34:55 +0000

A person named Paul commented on HDC on GMNightmare’s deconversion story and I thought they were interesting questions. Both Johnny and GMNightmare already gave long answers, also worth noting, instead of letting it get lost in comments. And I added my 2 cents on at the bottom.

Here is Paul’s comment:

I have a couple of questions that I would like answered, and you seem like the type to answer questions. First of all, what are your thoughts on supernatural phenomena (weird stuff people claim happens, i.e., someone’s ear being cut off, and growing back on)? Is it all just a big hoax?

Secondly, I know that evolution details how the earth came to it’s present state, and the big bang, (do they still call it that?) started all that, but what could have caused the big bang? And how did whatever caused the big bang come into existence? As far as I know, science clearly states that nothing can be infinite, and all things have an end and a beginning. So, if nothing is infinite, than how did the universe get started? Wouldn’t something had to have caused time to exist first, something that wasn’t governed by time, and so couldn’t even be described by adjectives like infinite?

I just have these questions, and no one can really answer them, except with some lame thing like “It just goes on and on”. And what does happen when we die? I know our bodies clearly decompose, we can see that much easily.

But what about our consciousness? It seems to me that consciousness is somewhat of a mystery in and of itself. Scientists can make a body, and they can put blood and oxygen in it, but yet they can’t make it live? So, if a consciousness isn’t something like a body, something that decomposes, what happens when the consciousness dies? Does it really just cease to exist? I can’t even imagine not existing. It just seems so foreign, to not exist.

Lastly, I don’t really get the term “gnostic atheist”. From what I’ve read, gnostics claim to “know” something, that other people don’t. So, if you’re a gnostic atheist, does that just mean that you “know” hands down, that there is not, and has never been, any kind of god?

First, here is Johnny’s reply:

I’m sure GMN will have a response; but I just feel the desire to chime in.

First of all, what are your thoughts on supernatural phenomena (weird stuff people claim happens, i.e., someone’s ear being cut off, and growing back on)? Is it all just a big hoax?

Do you have an actual documented example of something you would consider supernatural phenomena? Unless there is documented studies, physical evidence, or repeatable through scientific testing – its pretty much a big hoax.

Secondly, I know that evolution details how the earth came to it’s present state, and the big bang, (do they still call it that?) started all that, but what could have caused the big bang?

Huge misconception here. Evolution DOES NOT explain the Big Bang and/or Abiogenesis — here’s a post with three short videos to help understand the difference.

And how did whatever caused the big bang come into existence? As far as I know, science clearly states that nothing can be infinite, and all things have an end and a beginning. So, if nothing is infinite, than how did the universe get started? Wouldn’t something had to have caused time to exist first, something that wasn’t governed by time, and so couldn’t even be described by adjectives like infinite?

Science does not know all the details of the Big Bang and the singularity; but we know more and more all the time. Instead of assigning supernatural properties to it, science continues to seek answers; science knows it doesn’t have all the answers, but is doing everything possible to answer as many questions as it can.

And what does happen when we die? I know our bodies clearly decompose, we can see that much easily. But what about our consciousness?

We don’t know. But all evidence indicates that nothing happens. Consciousness ceases to exist when the brain dies. We have no evidence of something ‘on the other side’ – no one has come back to tell us or prove to us that ‘the other side’ exists. Thus the easiest, and most logical explanation is that there is no ‘other side.’

And here is GMNightmare’s reply:

Ah, now that is a respectful post. Thank you. I’ve actually been meaning to rewrite my article to make it a little less aggressive and explain some more, so answering your questions will help guide that.

Q.1) Supernatural phenomena

I’ll cover aspects of ghosts and such first. Most of these, mysterious circumstances are just that, mysterious. People are quick to jump to conclusions, that this weird thing they couldn’t explain must be a ghost. Quite often than not, it’s just their mind jumping to conclusions, natural instincts (*mind speak* hey hey, I heard a noise, something might be there that could eat us and it’s dark and I can’t see very well, run!) If you don’t know what caused it, you can’t then claim it to be a ghost did it. I mean, it was just claimed you don’t know!

And now we’ll cover medical miracles. I have never seen evidence of one. Many people like to claim, oh, they survived a deadly disease it’s a miracle, but that makes no sense. Some people do make it past deadly diseases, by coincidence or luck. There are always survivors, people do survive cancer naturally to a small percentage. Being in that small percentage is nothing magical.

And what about all the people who didn’t? Does god just choose who he wants to save from illness if this is what really happened? Here’s the real question in regard to this: why won’t god heal amputees? There has never been a case of an amputee being healed, now that would be a real miracle. There is a whole website completely devoted to that question, just type it into google.

Q.2) Evolution

I want to quickly say something over this, just in case we have a misconception here. Evolution only says what is happening to life, it doesn’t explain how life originated. Abiogenesis and other theories like that cover how life originated from chemical cocktails.

Now I’m going to jumble up your questions a bit to make them easier to answer, they build upon one another.

Q.3) “Science cleary states that nothing can be infinite, and all things have a beginning”

I’m sorry to say, but science does not say that. Okay, I’m not really sorry, but nowhere does science actually say that. Now I’m going to cover some advanced thinking here, so try to stay with me here:

Space is infinite? No. Although it’s commonly said to, what is space? Nothing. Space = nothing, you can’t have infinite of something that doesn’t exist. And this brings us to what is really said:
There is a finite amount of energy in the universe. There is a finite amount of stuff, in an unbound container. god breaks this, as god isn’t nothing, he must be stuff, and it’s claimed he is everywhere in the unbound container.

Yeah, that unbound container can be a tricky concept. But truthfully, we really don’t know if it’s unbound or not, because we haven’t been there… Does space somehow bend back into itself? We really don’t know. Yeah, it can be hard to fathom that space can just continue on forever, but it’s ridiculous to say that some magical being exists everywhere (doesn’t that just make it worse?)

And, energy does not have a beginning. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. This is one of the primary laws of the universe. It may change forms, but it’ll always be there and can be assumed following all evidence always has. Now we’re going to use this in the following questions…

Q.4) Causer of the Big Bang

The cause of the Big Bang was a bunch of energy, compressed greatly. The energy then went kabooie and expanded out. That’s what caused it, the energy that as I had said, is naturally believed to have always existed and always will.

Beyond that, we do not really know. Using the above knowledge, we could say it has just always liked to repeat the course, but can we ever be 100% sure? Not really.

But remember what I said about supernatural occurrences with ghosts? Claiming we don’t know, then saying god did it… it was just claimed you don’t know!

Q.5) Time

Time doesn’t actually exist how you think of it. Time is only a measurement, an illusion because you remember what actions you’ve previously taken. It measures decay… and it’s completely arbitrary (IE, you could consider 2.5 seconds to be 1 second). It’s relative, due to decay being affected by the speed of particles.

There was no start of time, time doesn’t really exist. Just like a gallon doesn’t really exist, it’s nothing more than a tool to help manage our life and share information.

So we may like to measure our lives in our notion of time. And for us, yes, we have a beginning and end. But as I said earlier, pure energy does not have those constraints. So if you were looking for something not constrained by “time” as it where, energy is it.

Q.6) Consciousness

Very much controlled by physical reactions in the brain. I give you diseases like alzheimers. Physical damage damages our consciousness, it is very much tied down. And yes, we’ve as a species developed some marvelous consciousnesses, and we still have very much to learn about.

But as I like to keep saying, claiming knowledge because we lack knowledge… is baseless. Creating life took billions upon billions of years, it’s completely understandable that we can’t replicate it in a lab over an incredibly short period of time when we don’t even know that much about it!

Q.7) Existing

Of course you can’t imagine not existing, your existing. It’s rather a little silly, not that I haven’t tried mind you. Just think about before you were born. Boom, there you go. You know you didn’t exist before you were born, no pain or hardships right? Besides, existing forever would get really boring after a trillion years or so. Hell, some can’t even last 100 without killing themselves off.

Q.8) Gnostic atheism

“So, if you’re a gnostic atheist, does that just mean that you “know” hands down, that there is not, and has never been, any kind of god?”

Yes. And I quote from my article:

This brings us to the question, what is knowledge? Knowing does not mean truth; it means you regard it as true. Knowing is paradoxical in its nature, how can anything be known with exact certainty? It can’t, but for the sake of progress we have to start at some point.

I’ve argued against countless excuses for god. I’ve found fundamental flaws against any kind of omni-ability. I’ve argued against not only the existence but the uselessness of a creator. Essentially, I’ve argued if god cannot be known in this reality then god has no basis in this reality. I’ve even argued the word classification of the word god even.

All and all, perhaps it’s just more honest. I have found flaws and argued against all types of gods, how much more must it take to know? I’ve argued against the whole notion, reason, and existence of god… why can I not be certain there is no god?

The moment you define the term god, is the moment I’ll pick it apart.

And then there was little ol’ Neece. I think I want to say a few words on these questions too:

1. Supernatural phenomena: There is zero evidence of any kind of supernatural of any sort in the known universe. Everything that we have observed scientifically in this world is completely natural. That’s not to say that people don’t have weird experiences that they can’t explain given the little bit of data they’ve got from an event. But no one has ever grown back an ear that has been cut off, or a limb. As GMN says, go to the website Why Won’t God Heal Amputees? God doesn’t because he doesn’t exist and humans have never evolved the ability to regenerate limbs. It’s usually safe to rule out anecdotal evidence as simply a story; even if the person telling it believes it, it doesn’t make it factual. It’s also the case that the human mind fills in the gaps as it processes huge amounts of data at any given instant. This leads to pareidolia which can lead to thinking you’ve seen or heard something that really wasn’t there.

2. I think the guys covered the Big Bang pretty well. I think at this point the main theory is that the Big Bang started as a Singularity where all matter was compressed into a teeny little speck and then expanded rapidly outward. Of course, they are still studying and gathering more data in the cosmos to verify this theory. But no one knows what happened before the Big Bang. Still, that doesn’t mean that someday we might not know. And it certainly doesn’t mean that anything supernatural caused it. That would be falling on the fallacy of the god of the gaps. The great thing about science is that they keep asking questions and looking for answers. It is a never-ending quest. Scientists don’t just throw up their hands and give up when things get tough and say well, then god did it. So far all the answers are completely natural. I can’t stress that enough.

And no, science never said that nothing is infinite. In fact, I would remind you that matter can never be destroyed. It just gets converted to energy. And time is just a concept that we use to make our lives easier. It’s very real to us, but don’t forget the theory of relativity.

3. What happens when we die? We die. Our consciousness dies with the death of our brain. There is no evidence of life after death. It’s all completely anecdotal. While it may seem frightening, you didn’t exist for billions of years before you were born. So when you die, you will again cease to exist. It’s really not much of a mystery. It just seems strange because we have so many myths that cling to the idea of life or lives after death. Again, there is no evidence that our consciousness is eternal. You’ve got one precious life. Make the most of it here and now!

4. I would also call myself a gnostic atheist. I think it’s pretty clear that we live in a completely natural universe. I am confident that there are no gods or supernatural beings or phenomena in the world.

Atheists, It’s Time to Stand Up to Jesus

Neece — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:30:40 +0000

By Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk, Comment Is Free.

Civility has its uses, but atheists should not be afraid to mock faith to undermine religious power.

Religious teachings promise us much — eternal life, spiritual salvation, moral direction, and a deeper understanding of reality. It all sounds good, but these teachings are also onerous in their demands. If they can’t deliver on what they promise, it would be well to clear that up. Put bluntly, are the teachings of any religion actually true or not? Do they have any rational support? It’s hard to see what questions could be more important.

Surely the claims of religion — of all religions — merit scrutiny from every angle, whether historical, philosophical, scientific, or any other.
Contrary to many expectations in the 1970s, or even the 1990s, religion has not faded away, even in the Western democracies, and we still see intense activism from religious lobbies. Even now, one religion or another opposes abortion rights, most contraceptive technologies, and therapeutic cloning research. Various churches and sects condemn many harmless, pleasurable sexual activities that adults can reasonably enjoy.

As a result, these are frowned upon, if not prohibited outright, in many parts of the world, indeed people lose their lives because of them. Most religious organisations reject dying patients’ requests to end their lives as they see fit. Even in relatively secular countries, such as the UK, Canada, and Australia, governments pander blatantly to Christian moral concerns as the protection of religiously motivated refusals to provide medical professional services demonstrates.

In a different world, the merits, or otherwise, of religious teachings might be discussed more dispassionately. In that world, some of us who criticise religion itself might be content to argue that the church (and the mosque, and all the other religious architecture that sprouts across the landscape) should be kept separate from the state. Unfortunately, however, we don’t live in that world.
When religion claims authority in the political sphere, it is unsurprising — and totally justifiable — that atheists and skeptics question the source of this authority. If religious organisations or their leaders claim to speak on behalf of a god, it is fair to ask whether the god concerned really makes the claims that are communicated on its behalf. Does this god even exist? Where is the evidence? And even if this being does exist, why, exactly, should its wishes be translated into law?

In many situations, it is better to be civil, as Paul Kurtz has pointed out, but satire and mockery have traditionally had a legitimate place whenever absurd ideas are joined to power and privilege. Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire often used mockery to show the absurdity of ideological stances — including religious ones — that were considered sacrosanct. Mockery is one way of saying that a view does not deserve to be taken seriously. Religious views are fair game if one can also show, on a more serious level, why the view in question does indeed not deserve serious respect.

Perhaps some rationalist or humanist organisations, such as Kurtz’s venerable Center for Inquiry, do have good reason to maintain a scholarly and dignified brand image. But there is also room for the younger, brasher atheists whom Kurtz inaccurately brands as “fundamentalists”, and, in any event, there is a world of difference between appropriate civility and keeping quiet.

In the US, unfortunately, some atheists appear to have concluded that even civil and thoughtful criticism of supposedly “moderate” religion (i.e., almost anything that does not dispute evolutionary theory) should be discouraged.

These “accommodationist” atheists tend to be focused on science advocacy, particularly the teaching of evolution in public schools. In seeking public support for their positions, they think it prudent to take the various American demographics as they are. Since they want to sell evolutionary science to very large numbers of pious Americans, the last thing they want is to see it linked with atheism.
Once you think in that way, from a kind of marketing perspective, it can take over your approach to what you think you ought to say. Sincerity goes out the window, and everything must be “framed” to please the audience. We doubt that this strategy can work.

Religion cannot be eradicated — that is not a realistic goal — but the many problems with religious dogma can and should be highlighted. As atheists, we should state clearly that no religion has any rational warrant, and that many churches and sects promote cruelty, ignorance, and civil rights abuses.

There are harmful consequences to real people in the real world if the views of churches and sects are enshrined in law or given undue social deference – the acceptance even in liberal secular societies of conscientious objection as a legitimate reason for health care professionals and even civil servants to refuse to provide professional services to certain citizens is a case in point. For these reasons it is important that we should speak out and publicly contest the special authority that is accorded, all too often, to pontiffs, imams, priests, and presbyters. Religious leaders are not our moral leaders, much as they clamour to be, and however much the politicians flatter them. These spiritual emperors have no clothes, and we shouldn’t flinch from saying so.

Found at AlterNet.

Thanks to Bill for sending this to my Morgantown Atheists group. While I’ve been guilty of being overly accommodating regarding religion, I find myself agreeing with this argument. Sure, there’s a place and time for civility, but in general, I think this article, and my awesome husband Butch, are right. Religion should be heartily mocked for its unfulfilled, ridiculous promises and stories that people eat up like candy.

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