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Interesting, Enlightening Evolution

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Answering Paul’s Questions

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Atheists, It’s Time to Stand Up to Jesus

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Random Thoughts On The Nature Of Things

Hello everyone,

First, I am now a Google Waver! Find me at zeneece@googlewave.com. I started my first public wave for atheists: Atheists Unite!

Secondly, I must confess my ignorance on a certain matter that has been bouncing around my brain for some time. I have asked my genius husband Butch and he didn’t have an answer, which made me feel better.

I’ll start with an example:

I always thought aspirin was found in the bark of white willows, and then was made in the lab. But the history seems to be entirely in the laboratory, according to Wikipedia. Also there does seem to be a connection between white willow bark and eventually aspirin.

Needless to say these days, aspirin is made strictly in the lab/factory. My question is, if things are made strictly from chemicals, where do the chemicals themselves come from? And a followup question would be, wouldn’t that make everything natural, at some point? Doesn’t everything eventually lead back to nature?

Another example:

Black Gold, petroleum, crude oil. It’s considered this unnatural thing. But didn’t it come from rotting vegetation and other natural organic matter?

When does something natural become something synthetic?

Why are natural things considered superior to synthetic things nowadays? Is there some proof that it’s true? Or is it marketing/propaganda?

I’m not trying to start anything, or as the Brits would say, I’m not trying to have a go at synthetics. I really just want to understand. If the red food dye and flavoring in my drink stick mix is synthetic, where did the chemicals that make it up come from?

I would love your feedback and thoughts on this. But please, I took chemistry in high school which was over 20 years ago (egads, that made me feel old), so keep it simple.

Thanks friends!

Neece’s Principles

Remember awhile ago I asked you to think about a list of your personal 10 commandments? For atheists, we certainly aren’t going to look to the bible for our moral guidance, so we have to put in a bit more thought. What rules, morals or virtues do we choose to live by? I decided to call my list principles because it’s a better word than commandments.

Principles: a personal or specific basis of conduct or management

Neece’s Principles

Treat others as you would like to be treated. (Golden Rule)
Do not treat others as you would not like to be treated. (Silver Rule)
Treat others as they want to be treated, in their best interest. (Platinum Rule, modified by Neece)
Learn from your mistakes, and when possible, learn from the mistakes of others.
Choose your battles.
Be pragmatic
If it harms no one, do what you like. (do no harm) (Wiccan Rede)
Think critically. Think for yourself. Be skeptical. Question everything.
Learn as much as you can. Never stop learning.
Strive to be your best, and to improve yourself whenever possible.

The last 3 might seem a bit wordy or weak. I haven’t really decided. So I thought I’d show you what I have so far and see if you have any ideas for what you’d do to the list. I need to have it in perfect working order by Saturday evening, so please let me know what you think soon.

Its Time For Some New Currency

Oh what a mistake it was adding ‘In God We Trust’ to the United States currency.

It started with coins in 1864, gained new legs with the motto in 1956, then made its debut on paper currency in 1957. Read the rest of this entry »

100 Questions for christians

A fellow blogger, Angie the Anti-Theist is doing something very cool I want to share with you. She wants to come up with 100 great questions for christians that are creative, hypothetical and unique. They should make christians really have to think about their beliefs. Everyone knows the stale, tired old questions that have been done to death. These should be new, fresh and thoughtful.

So Angie would like us to come up with creative stump-the-fundie questions to add to her list.

You can see the first 10 questions to get you started on her blog post: Questions for christians.In her list are 2 videos you simply must watch. The first one is gay dolphin sex. I mean, come on, you really don’t want to pass that up, do you? The second one is a music video that is just awesome. I hate country AND western music, but this was so good I watched the whole thing. Highly recommended.

Here is a quick list of her questions so far (but go to her post to see more detail)

If homosexuality is a sin, are gay dolphins sinning when they have gay sex in a public aquarium? (really, go watch the video. I’ll wait. The kids watching are priceless, as is the dad recording)
Will there be jello molds with marshmallows in them in heaven? Explain.
Which is a bigger sin? (compare Noah’s naked drunkenness to Lot’s naked drunkenness plus sex with his daughters) Note: Noah and Lot were the best and holiest men in their communities and both got dead drunk and were naked in front of their kids. Lot had sex with his daughters too. Great role models, eh?
What Would Jesus Do? (go watch the video. It will crack you up. I’ll wait for you.)
If god is better than we are, how come we can think up unicorns but he can’t make them?
Same with mermaids. Read the rest of this entry »

Interesting, Enlightening Evolution

Answering Paul’s Questions

Atheists, It’s Time to Stand Up to Jesus

Random Thoughts On The Nature Of Things

Neece’s Principles

Neece’s Principles

Its Time For Some New Currency

100 Questions for christians

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