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You can support this site by making your Amazon purchases via the links below even if you don't buy these books! (it costs you nothing extra)

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
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

Liquid Glass Is Groovy!

Happy Darwin Day everyone! Today is Darwin’s birthday and in honor of him, I thought I’d post this article about Liquid Glass, which could possibly be the coolest nanotech material I’ve seen in some time. I think it’s so cool mainly because of its versatility and the fact that it’s already in use in Germany, the UK and Turkey.

Why am I talking about nanotech on Darwin’s birthday? If you think about it, without evolution, we wouldn’t be able to manipulate our world so deftly and with such finesse. About 195,000 years ago homo sapiens first appeared in the fossil record. We started leaving Africa about 70,000 years ago, and migrated as far as the Americas 14,500 years ago.

A mere 10,000 years ago, we were mostly hunter-gatherers in nomadic groups. The first proto-states were developed only 6,000 years ago. Think of that! Look how far we’ve come in [...]

A Wild Ride With Robert Sapolsky

My friend Brent sent me a link to a page on the web. It’s a conversation with Robert Sapolsky, a quiet, funny, apparently brilliant professor of biological sciences at Stanford University and of neurology at Stanford’s School of Medicine. Professor Sapolsky has written several books such as:

The link Brent sent me was called TOXO and he suggested it to me because our book club is reading The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture, by Daniel W Ray. Now the video on that page was Robert Sapolsky talking about a most interesting parasite called

A Symphony of Science

phdcatdebates128524600461723750I have some videos to share with you today. All three are created by John Boswell and are different, interesting, inspiring and thought provoking. You can find the videos with the lyrics and downloads of the songs in different formats at his site: The Symphony of Science. Here’s what the site says:

“The Symphony of Science is a musical project by John Boswell designed to deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form. Here you can watch music videos, download songs, read lyrics and find links relating to the messages conveyed by the music.”

The first time I heard A Glorious Dawn was on the Reasonable Doubts podcast. I didn’t care for it for the first few seconds but it grew on me very quickly. When I watched the videos I was inspired. Basically Carl Sagan and other awesome scientists are [...]

Dumb As A Stump!

dumb-as-a-stumpOh for christ’s sake! Some people in Sacramento have seen an image of Whacko Jacko show up in a stump in their front yard the day he died. It’s a miracle! I wonder if it heals people and molests little boys? I wonder if it does the moon walk?

Now, you’ve got to feel for the local reporter doing this stupid story. Unless he asked them leading questions which were beyond stupid. Because if you watch the related video of the magical stump story, the people are exceedingly moronic.

When asked why MJ would show up, specifically to these people, and not some other celebrity or religious figure, this is what one idiot said: “Because Michael Jackson was an icon to us,” said one neighbor. “To Stockton, Michael Jackson meant more to us than Jesus, to some people. I think they’re both about even.”

So

Oh Lordy, Kill My Oppressors, Please!

fairy tales are for childrenWiley Drake, a southern baptist preacher in California went on Fox News Radio’s Alan Colmes show on June 2nd and said he’s praying for god to kill President Obama. Drake used to be the 2nd vice president of the southern baptist convention.

Apparently there’s a special kind of prayer from psalms where you ask god to kill people for you, to vindicate your innocence and relieve you of your oppressors. It’s called imprecatory prayer.

Imprecate: To call down by prayer, as something hurtful or calamitous. To invoke evil upon; curse.

Drake prayed to his god for the death of Dr. George Tiller, who was murdered in his church on May 31st. Drake called his death an answer to prayer.

(emphasis of the following quotes are mine, with my comments interspersed)

“Imprecatory prayer is agreeing with God, and if people don’t like that, they need to talk [...]

Life Is Good. Cinnamon Life Is Better!

Great Spangled Frittillary by ZeNeeceCYou probably have to be American to get the joke in the title. Do other countries have Life cereal? I have no idea. That’s a phrase of my husband Butch’s anyway. I personally think the original Life cereal is the best, not the fancy versions that they also make, like cinnamon, chocolate oat crunch, etc.

Anyhoo, this is a roundup post in which I cover several topics that are tenuously connected at best. Here’s what I’m rambling on about:

  • I’m a citizen scientist now! WOOT!
    • Encyclopedia of Life!
    • My Flickr :)
  • Moving the body affects how we think – a study
  • Prayer and meditation may reshape the brain – a study

First, I want to talk about a ScienceDaily report: Massive Online ‘Macroscopic Observatory’ Of Earth’s Biodiversity To Be Created. “Wanted (soon): observations from environment-minded citizens [...]

Young Earth Invasion

funny-pictures-kitten-is-disappointed-with-baby-foodRecently, a friend of mine went to the Center For Inquiry in his hometown. There was a book discussion about “50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a god“. This is part of his email to me about it:

The guy who leads the Scientific Evaluation of Religion things for this location has done a pretty good job the two times I have gone. I really have to give him credit and say I was impressed at how he handled this meeting since IT GOT HIJACKED BY A GROUP OF YOUNG EARTH CREATIONISTS! That’s right, you heard me. It was pretty interesting for me to see first hand their pulling out all the old cliché arguments for Christianity. They got started when there was a chapter summary that mentioned that most religious people are skeptical of other peoples faiths but not their own, they took issue with [...]

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