What a concept. Fact-based education. Why are we fighting for this in the 21st century? I have no idea, but the fact is, it’s a big issue here in the United States. I don’t often meddle in political issues unless there’s a positive action you can take. The Secular Coalition for America makes it easy to contact your state representatives on certain important issues.
By now, you’ve probably heard about the Texas State Board of Education’s moves to impose educational standards into its textbooks intended to indoctrinate Texas public school students with a telling of U.S. history that is based in extremist religious ideology. Read the rest of this entry »
I read a Terry Pratchett book recently called Reaper Man (it was great, of course). In it, he said, “In the Ramtop village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away – until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.”
In that sense, Carl Sagan is still very much alive.
Here is a clip of Christopher Hitchens in a debate with John Haldane. (~5 min)
I agree, the debate is over. Creationism has no validity. We are evolved creatures, and part of our evolution is a basic sense of morality. Not a moral absolute, of course, but even apes and dogs have been shown to have morals. We don’t need god to be good. In fact, I’d say god makes it harder to be good for the right reason, especially since the god of Abraham is so amoral.
