godlessness
pharyngula | January 21, 2008It takes some confidence to charge into this: Hitchens will be debating Jay Richards (of the Discovery Institute), with Ben Stein as "moderator", in an event sponsored by the Stanford IDEA club. The creationists are stacking the deck against him rather thoroughly.
I'm not enthused about the idea — the only people who have anything to gain from this are the loons on the side of ignorance. But if there's anyone who can pull it off, it's a master of fiery rhetoric … or a comedian. The topic is purportedly "Atheism vs. Theism and the Scientific Evidence of Intelligent Design," and since the…
grrlscientist | January 20, 2008tags: blog carnivals, Carnival of the Godless, godlessness, atheist, agnostic, humanist
Just in time for church, the Carnival of the Godless has been published for everyone to read and enjoy!
pharyngula | January 19, 2008Remember—every Sunday at 9am, you Minnesotans (and clever others) can listen to the Minnesota Atheists radio program on Air America. Tune in tomorrow — it's especially important since I've heard that Air America has actually already lost one advertiser because they had the gall to actually allow atheists to broadcast on their show. We'll have to demonstrate that the program can get a strong audience, so listen in, call in, and if you have a business that you advertise on the radio, think about buying some time on the show. And if you're in the area, patronize the businesses that are open-…
pharyngula | January 14, 2008Hey, you all must know Possummomma (aka, Atheist in a mini van) — she's got a great blog, she's an outspoken, positive atheist, and she's one of those excellent representatives of atheist family values. She's not doing well right now, and is struggling with lupus. Berlzebub is organizing donations to help her out, so if you've got a little bit to spare, please do contribute to a member of our godless community.
pharyngula | January 13, 2008The new Minnesota Atheists radio show was very good — they're going to have a hard time topping getting a heavy-hitter like Richard Dawkins next week (well, maybe not: next week they're talking about sex), but they've clearly got no shortage of material to talk about. My segment was cut a bit short, but it was my own fault — my usual wordy exposition needs refinement.
Dawkins was great, and give a clearer explanation of Sam Harris's point about not calling ourselves atheists than Harris has; he also talked about his experience with the movie, Expelled.
If you missed it, it will be available…
pharyngula | January 12, 2008Minnesota Atheists will be having the first of many weekly radio programs on Air America, starting on Sunday, 13 January, at 9 AM. They're getting off to a very strong start with an interview with Richard Dawkins, among many other features.
Minnesota Atheists will launch a weekly, one-hour program on Air America Minnesota (AM 950) beginning Sunday, January 13, 2008 from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. It will be broadcast live, streamed live on the internet, and made available later as a free podcast. The name of the program is Atheists Talk (the same as our cable television show). The show will feature…
pharyngula | January 8, 2008The City Pages, the arts and entertainment newsweekly in Minneapolis, had an article on the best artists of the year. One of the entries is jarring in its strange conclusions, the award to Christopher Hitchens:
Fueled by cigarettes, alcohol, ego, and, most importantly, intellect, Hitchens employs his excoriating eye in his Vanity Fair column, television appearances, and what's quickly becoming his very own nonfiction canon. The only thing more surprising than the abundance of his output is his sheer audacity. After alienating pretty much every leftist in the country with his vociferous…
pharyngula | January 6, 2008Cool — John Allen Paulos has a roundup of the events at the Beyond Belief conference this year. It really was a stellar meeting, in part because there was such a variety of talks (almost all in attendance were atheists, but there were some deep disagreements). Paulos had one of the talks I found copacetic rather than irritating…and, by the way, he has a new book out: Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don't Add Up(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). It's a slim little thing that comes right to the point—and this is a reminder that I ought to pull it down off the stack and…
pharyngula | January 6, 2008I saw the new Will Smith movie, I Am Legend, last night. In short, it was far worse than I expected, with a drawn out and rather boring beginning (Smith is lonely, everyone is dead except for his dog. Got it), and the ending felt like a stapled-on feel-good absurdity that didn't follow from the premise—and is only a happy ending if your dream of paradise is an armed camp of Christians. The only virtue I'd heard about the story is that the hero is openly atheist … but that was a disappointment, too, because I discovered he was the wrong kind of atheist.
Atheists in the movies aren't that…
pharyngula | January 2, 2008John and Cynthia Burke have adopted two children. By all accounts so far, they were a decent couple of an appropriate age and financially able to take care of the kids. The first was from the Children's Aid and Adoption Society in East Orange, New Jersey. They recently adopted a second child from the same agency — strangely, the article says their first son is now 31, which would put them in their mid-50s at the earliest, and I might see some grounds for objecting to the adoption on the basis of age…but no, a judge has ruled that they may not adopt on the basis of a rather interesting legal…
pharyngula | December 23, 2007We're going to have to start calling ourselves the Three Wise Atheists of of Scienceblogs: as Revere reveals in his Sunday Sermonette, he, Greg, and I don't seem to have much difficulty with this Christmas stuff, and contrary to the Fox propaganda channel, most atheists and cheerful holidays with our families and friends, just like Christians, only without the boring superstitious part. I really don't understand how people can so consistently fail to get it — our atheist Christmas is so much better than anyone else's, because we get the presents and feasts and fun without the tedious ritual…
pharyngula | December 23, 2007…since Richard Dawkins is making a grand tour of the US, and he might just show up in your town.
Don't worry, though, I don't think he's planning to go door knocking and handing out atheist tracts.
pharyngula | December 22, 2007Everyone ought to mark their calendars: on the weekend of 21-23 March, the 34th Annual National Conference of American Atheists will be held in lovely Minneapolis, Minnesota — my backyard. Well, my distant backyard. I'll be going, of course. If you read the Minnesota Atheists newsletter, you also know who a few of the speakers will be.
Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, will be everywhere.
Lois Utley will be speaking on the consolidation of public and religious hospitals.
Robert Lanham will be talking about the dangers of the religious right.
Some guy named Richard Dawkins…
pharyngula | December 20, 2007You've turned your back on him. Racine, Wisconsin has joined the heathen ranks of communities that have erected godless holiday displays in the public square. It's cute and simple, a pyramid with atheist/secular quotations written on it.
The blog entry describing it is amusing in its feeble attempts to distance itself from the vulgar monument to unbelief. It reassures us that there are many, many churches in Racine, and the atheists are few in number, less than a dozen. We are too a devout and faithful community, please don't smite us because of the evil minority, God!
The pitiful excuses…
pharyngula | December 18, 2007Damon Linker doesn't like the New Atheism because it is "illiberal", and so he writes a screed in the New Republic — one that is poorly thought out and guilty of the crimes he accuses atheists of, while exercising his distaste for the godless, and nothing more.
The problems begin with his opening gambit: he's outraged that Richard Dawkins dares to regard religious indoctrination as a form of child abuse. As has been typical for complaints of this sort, Linker doesn't bother to address the substance of the argument, since that is apparently too difficult for him — is, for instance, telling a…
pharyngula | December 17, 2007A recent poll of bigotry among religious groups managed to expose another level of bigotry in a certain unthinking tool, one David Briggs, who reported on it. It's fine that they're examining the problem of prejudice, but the last sentence at the end of this quote makes it clear that the virtue isn't seen in terms of ending prejudice, but in promoting religious adherence.
A new study by Michigan State sociologist Ralph Pyle presented at this month's joint meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Religious Research Association in Tampa, Fla., shows how all sides in…
pharyngula | December 17, 2007And it's a good one, too.
I was dismayed to read that MIT has decided, after a hundred years without, that it needs a chaplain.
MIT is about science and engineering and mathematics. There is no place for belief in those disciplines. Only doubt: we accept evidence but constantly test it.
Our students, especially the ones from America, have grown up in cultures saturated with religiosity. We should give them a little break from it while they're here.
MIT needs religion like a bull needs mammaries.
Sincerely,
(Professor) Joe Haldeman
I have to take exception to that last line, though. I can…
pharyngula | December 16, 2007Revere makes a bunch of good points in his Sunday Sermonette. One is the sheer insanity of current American politics:
Enlightenment thinking is taken for granted by modern Europeans, so it's no surprise they are aghast when the leaders of a 21st century power think Divine Guidance is a good reason for exercising overwhelming power over its own and other peoples.
And another is the importance of secularism and reason in any Democratic nation.
Democracy without rationality -- or in my terms, Enlightenment values -- is a hollow promise, or worse, mob rule.
Religious values are intrinsically…