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What I'm reading now:
The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture
God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible by CJ Werleman
The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture by Darrel W Ray
Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life (this is excellent. Well written and fascinating. Highly recommended)
God Is Not Great (Hitchens is extremely erudite but I agree with him a lot here. Excellent so far)
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (Listening to the audio version. Excellent!)


What I just finished:
Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language
Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (Recommended. The first half is a great read. Thorough and detailed but easy to understand.)
Letting Go of God (I listened to the audio version. It was poignant and funny. Highly recommended!)
His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass) (best trilogy I've ever read!)

Series

Happy Atheist Love

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 [...]

The Greatest Destruction of Knowledge

DestructionCyril of Alexandria was born around 376CE and rose to power as the Pope of Alexandria during the peak of the Roman Empire’s rule there. He is credited with leading the charge against Nestorius in the First Council of Ephesus, where the divinity and caricature of Jesus Christ were debated. The Roman Catholic church eventually bestowed sainthood upon him, counting him among the ‘Church Fathers’ and ‘Doctors of the Church’, and also titling him as a Pillar of Faith and Seal of all the Fathers.

History might credit him with a much darker deed though, not surprisingly one the church usually fails to mention or attempts to brush under the rug. Although not official of course, some have referred to him as the patron saint of arsonists. His leadership possibly brought about what is probably the single most destructive annihilation of knowledge in human [...]

FREE Scanning Electron Micrographs of Just About Anything

An interesting offer from ASPEX
November 10, 2009 2:54 PM – by PZ Myers

I had my doubts about this; I got an offer from ASPEX corporation to let people get free scanning electron micrographs of just about anything. They make a desktop SEM (Scanning Electron Micrograph), and all you have to do is fill out a form and mail it in with your sample of a dead bug or a microchip or bacon, and presto, within a few weeks they’ll have it scanned in and the image available on their website.

I asked them if they knew how many readers I have, and they said no problem, they can handle it.

Huh.

Well, you heard them. Scavenge your trash cans, dig into your local sources of vermin and oddments, and send them in. I’m thinking this could be really fun for any school [...]

Random Thoughts On The Nature Of Things

funny-pictures-interesting-catHello 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 [...]

Should Religion Be Taught To Minors?

ruppy as canvasI don’t have children, but this issue is still very important to me because I care about kids being indoctrinated and screwed up by their parents and role models.

But as an atheist, freethinker, or skeptic, what do you teach kids about religion? Maybe because I’m removed from the issue it seems rather easy to me. Teach them the same thing about christianity, islam, judaism and all the other active religions that I was taught about Greek Mythology.

I think religion plays such a huge role in the world today, you can’t ignore it. But you don’t have to believe it to share it with young people any more than my teachers believed Zeus threw lightning bolts at people when he was mad at them. I don’t feel religion is helpful in any respect except as a cultural phenomenon. The big three certainly don’t have good moral values. So [...]

Objective Versus Subjective

I’m seeing this video being repeatedly posted on Facebook as it chains its way though the theist world. From what I’ve gathered from the YouTube mirroring, this is a TV commercial running in the Republic of Macedonia. The campaign is apparently something like “Knowledge Is Power.” And this part of the campaign is apparently sub-headlined “Religion is knowledge, too. Bringing religion back to [...]

Vaccines In The News Again

ScaryNeighborThe HPV vaccine has jumped into the news again as the UK reports their first death following a vaccination.

The US (and western world in general) has already been struggling with vaccines, and this could make things more difficult in the UK. With all the claims of vaccines linked to autism, Jenny McCarthy’s wild-ass claims, and Muslims stopping the distribution of the polio vaccination — there’s a lot of pseudoscience, superstition, and urban legends up against vaccines.

Then there is the religious angle against the HPV vaccine. Because the human papillomavirus is a sexually transmitted disease, the abstinence-only proponents think giving a girl this vaccine gives her the go-ahead to be promiscuous.

It will be interesting to see what kind of media attention resurfaces from this; but I can already see the email or Facebook posts flying [...]

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