Monthly Archive for October, 2008

Hitchens On Sarah’s War

Published

on October 31, 2008

Chris Hitchens is pretty bloody scary. Also, that mud mask looks hideous.

Christopher Hitchens is not someone that I'd want to have gazing dourly in my direction. In his latest article for Slate, he takes the Republicans behind the proverbial woodshed:

This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just "people of faith" but theocratic bullies.

And then he goes on to detail how Palin's egregiously ignorant remark about fruit fly research (in Paris!) belies an abhorrent anti-science mentality that everyone should be disgusted is within reach of America's highest office.

I don't know how Palin's fortunes will fall come Tuesday, but I predict that her political future will continue to be (at some level) a national travesty.

Cringe with Cindy McCain

Published

PTET

on October 30, 2008

The horror... The horror...

Cringe with Cindy as her husband is publicly humiliated by Joe The Plumber, who fails to turn up on cue at a rally:

Palin is busy prepping for 2012. Joe, presumably, was on the phone to his agent about a possible run for congress in 2010. John tries to recover by pretending his date wasn't with Joe, it was with everyone else in the crowd... Who all happen to be called "Joe". Cindy... I feel for poor Cindy...

HT: America Blog.

F__k the Poor

Published

PTET

on October 30, 2008

Right wing "humour" , via Moonbattery.com:

I can see it now...
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, and fuck them." - Statue of Liberty

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and fucking the poor." - Deceleration of Independence

"I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for fucking the poor" - George Washington

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to fuck the poor" - Abraham Lincoln
And yeah, I "get it". "Welfare" breeds dependence. Which is why we're all having the bail out the millionaire bankers, right?

Atheists Get No Respect

Published

Stefan Monsaureus

on October 30, 2008

Responding to the frank anti-atheist bigotry exhibited by Elizabeth Dole’s campaign for re-election to the US Senate, Kay Hagan has accused Dole of making slanderous attacks on her faith. In a press conference to confront the accusations made against her, Hagan noted:

Let’s get right to it. Elizabeth Dole should absolutely be ashamed of herself. I don’t know what things were like when she grew up in North Carolina, but the North Carolina I was raised in would NEVER condone this kind of personal slander. I can’t begin to tell you how upset I am that she has attacked my Christian faith…

At their core, Americans aren’t Democrat or Republican, red or blue – they’re Americans, plain and simple. We ALL love our country, and we all value the role of faith in American life.

Heman Mehta at Friendly Atheist thinks Hagan’s choice of words was unfortunate.

Let’s be clear about this: It’s not slanderous or pathetic to be an atheist. Hagan’s just saying it’s slanderous and pathetic to lie about your opponent in order to win an election.

I’m not happy with her choice of words. She could have used the opportunity to say that, while atheists make up a vital segment of this country, she is a woman of faith. In the heat of the moment and the political stress she must be under, though, I can understand why she said what she did.

Alonzo Fyfe at Atheist Ethicist has a more critical view of Hagan’s response.

Hagan isn’t making the claim that atheists are Americans too and have a right to present their views to perspective political candidates. She is not saying that the fault of Dole’s advertisement is that Dole is lying and promoting bigotry and hatred. She, in effect, endorsed the hate and answered, “How dare you accuse me of not being just as bigoted against atheists as you are! You take that back!”

Kay Hagan had an opportunity to confront the bigotry her opponent has tried to wield for political gain, but chose, instead, to validate it. She should be ashamed of herself. Those in the secular community who have lent their support to Hagan as a result of Dole’s tactics must not become apologists for this more subtle form of bigotry, and must address it as forcefully as possible. Who knows – attacks on Hagan’s campaign by atheist groups might actually help her in the polls, too.

Similar Posts:

I vant to share my blood

Published

Tom

on October 29, 2008

It is easy to assume that sucking another creature's life's blood is the simplest way to obtain necessary nutrients. Problem is, most creatures don't like their blood being sucked, but moreover, as anyone doing mass spectrometry on serum will tell you, blood is around 95% water. The remaining 5% contains proteins and amino acids, electrolytes, and virtually no fat. The New York Times has this interesting piece on bloodsuckers. Because blood is really a poor diet and mostly water, bats quickly expel it through urination. If they do not feed within 60 hours, they will die. Since they pretty much feed at night, they must feed at least every other night. But what if they don't?

Vampire bats exhibit reciprocal altruism. The successful hunters will share some of their blood with the unsuccessful ones. There seems to be the recognition (at least behaviorally) that bats in need today may be the successful hunters tomorrow, when the successful ones today might become the needy.

For more info, check
http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/vecase/Behavior/Spring2002/perry/altruism.html and http://courses.washington.edu/ccab/Wilkinson%20on%20vampire%20bats%20(small)%20-%20Sci%20Amer%201990.pdf

Jihlava Redux

Published

PTET

on October 29, 2008

My Czech adventure is over, for now. The Festival was great; Jihlava was amusingly sleepy; the filmmakers friendly; the audiences receptive; and the weather beautifully cold, crisp and clear. Pics and more blogging to follow, once I've caught up on my election news (;>).

For now, an extract of the worthy winner of the Opus Bonum section, Mauro Andrizzi's Iraqi Short Films...

Dám si jedno pivo prosím!

Movie Musicals

Published

Zennalathas

on October 29, 2008

The more I hear about crap like this: Fight Club Musical rumours, the more I have to ask myself:

Why the fuck would you want to a copy of a great piece of art by removing the good acting, the great budgets and the grotesque violence? WHY?!

Plays are dead. Deal with it and write for TV.

-Zennalathas

What evidence would it take for an atheist to believe in a god?

Published

on October 29, 2008

What evidence would it take for an atheist to believe in a god?

This question comes up often enough to be worth a lengthy response, and, in short, my reply is that such evidence is impossible. I claim that any event that should ever occur to be observed by man that could suggest the existence of a deity will always, in every case, and indefinitely never amount to sufficient evidence for such an existence through no obstinance or arrogance of the atheist, but through mere logic and reason. My argument is as follows.

First, I'd like to draw attention, yet again, to the heroic (arguable) David Hume. Concerning miracles, Hume stipulated that in order for a miracle to be accepted as having occurred, the falsehood of the testimony would have to be more miraculous than the miracle itself. After all, the lesser 'miracle' would be more likely to have occurred, just as it is more likely that I am typing this text rather than it just appearing without any direct or indirect user input. To quote Hume: "When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion." This fairly accurate worded phrasing puts the nail in the coffin concerning that which would be required for a testimony of a miracle to be accepted as factual. We then have to ask ourselves how such a falsehood of testimony could ever be more miraculous than the miracle itself.

*On a quick side note, I can foresee the argument that my terminology only suggests that I will accept the more probable event, and that while winning the lotto is less likely than not winning the lotto, both are possible outcomes, and thus I erroneously equivocate the less likely (or improbable) with impossible. However, before you can suggest something to be possible it has to have been given evidence to support the claim. Miracles have yet to be shown possible and thus I do not run into the obstacle just described. Winning the lottery is indeed possible and has been proven so. Moreover, the analogy is a descriptor of what happened before the lottery numbers were picked, not after. After the lottery numbers are known, it's either impossible that I've won if I haven't, or impossible that I haven't won if I did. One merely needs to look at the numbers and submit it to the lottery board to find out. The claimed miracles in question have already occurred and their validity of being called a miracle is in question, not the perception that it has occurred.*

When David Copperfield, the magician, made the statue of liberty disappear, no reasonable person thought that he actually made the statue disappear. To the viewer, however, the statue did indeed disappear. Similarly, we've probably all seen women cut in half with a saw and rabbits being pulled out of hats by many self-proclaimed

magicians. While we do enjoy these illusions greatly, very few, if any, people actually think that the event was anything more than an illusion. Ask yourself why you don't believe the magician actually suspended the laws of nature; why you believe it's a trick of mirrors or the likes; why the idea that what you just witnessed was a miracle does not enter your stockpile of possible explanations. You'd probably answer because we know that people can be deceived. We've seen these tricks before, and some guy wearing a mask explained how a lot of them were done on FOX. But magicians aren't the only people or objects which are capable of deceiving.

Lyre birds are capable of mimicking the most unusual sounds, including the sound of a chainsaw cutting through a trunk of a tree. We constantly deceive children into thinking there's a Santa Claus. Mirages occur to people travelling through a desert. Derren Brown can use his powers of deception to convert an entire room to believe there might be a deity, or to convince people that a losing race ticket is a winning one.

Hallucinations will form to those who are mentally ill or extremely physically sick.

People actually believe that Barak Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist, and the Saddam Hussein actually had WMD's. Hell, you've probably even thought that it was your left hand that was shaving your beard, looking in the mirror.

Pick up any psychology book and you're bound to find numerous instances defining some sort of mental disorder which creates illusions. Are aliens really infiltrating our minds? Is the government wire-tapping my phone line? Am I the next Messiah? Why do the pink elephants steal my pillow at night? When will Nessy wakeup? Who is Bigfoot? We are in constant reminder of the ability of people to be deceived, and yet we never give them any credit to their illusions/delusions.

On all levels, and in every corner of the globe, people are deceived, have been deceived, and will continue to be deceived. But what we have never witnessed anywhere near as much is the laws of nature to be suspended. Even if the miracles claimed by the various religions were indeed to have occurred, they are far outweighed by the instances of deception that is continually being put to use for bad and good intentions, and sometimes unintentionally.

Thus it is always vastly more probable should you witness or be told by a witness of a miracle to occur that you and/or said person was deceived, and your first

inclinations should be as such.

But let us assume, for the moment, that by some 'miracle' the likelihood of deception was actually outweighed by the miracle itself. That what we saw really did happen and what happened went against the grain or was unknown of our current knowledge of the natural laws of the universe.

Do we really attribute it to miraculous circumstances?

When scientists discovered that light bent around a planet, did we think it was a miracle that it went against Newton's law of gravity? When the animist of old witnessed lightning, something they certainly didn't understand the physics of, did it command miracle status? Is birth still considered a miracle after biologists have dissected the process of specie fertilization; that of sperm and egg, meiosis, and mitosis?

No.

In any instance in history where there has been a verifiable observed seeming suspension of natural laws, it is not the event that is deemed miraculous; it is our ignorance of the natural laws. Never do we (or ought we) assume that which we don't understand a miracle. Especially since the introduction of quantum mechanics, even some of the most improbable and counter-intuitive events could conceivably occur by no suspension of what is natural. It will always be more likely that we will yet discover what happened by the natural order of the universe than for such an event to actually have ignored the true natural order.

Lightning, medicine, gravity, stars, chemistry, etc were all once thought miraculous or magical and since then there has been substantial proof that deeming such things as miraculous is to admit our ignorance of natural laws, not of such events being actually miraculous. And since all of our current knowledge of the universe has been preceded by our ignorance of it, it will always undeniably be far, far more likely that we as of yet do not understand how such an event has occurred than for such an event to be truly miraculous.

That is why no evidence will ever suffice for the proof that miracles happen. That is why the falsehood of the testimony and our ignorance of the natural world will always be far less miraculous than the miracle itself, and thus not command our belief..

And that is why I, as a rational human being, will always be an atheist.

by Watts of AvC

When Apologists Go Boom

Published

Zachary Moore

on October 28, 2008

Your logic is impeccable, Captain. He is in grave danger.

I’m really starting to feel sorry for Paul Manata at this point; like the Rain Man, he has a single-minded fixation on revisiting the contrary paths his assertions have trodden. "Fetus is human. Definitely, definitely. Yeah. I'm an excellent apologist." Oh, but I should stop. Paul's not comfortable with humor, at least not at his expense. He'd like me to lighten up on the jokes, but he's all too quick to compare me with a stupid Star Trek robot. It's mildly clever, but I would have thought that a better comparison would be the robotic probe Nomad from "The Changeling," which was caught by Kirk in a logical contradiction and self-destructs; I can only guess that Paul in moments of perverse pleasure fantasizes about me experiencing a similar conclusion. Still, since the analogy was left unused, perhaps I can give it employ.

I must say I'm a bit surprised at Paul's lamentations about my light-heartedness, particularly because he has previously complained that "[he] just wish[ed] atheists had as good a sense of humor as Christians. Atheism is so boring and drab. Yawn." Hey, Paul, I'm just trying to "goose the antithesis" a bit here, but if you can't handle the sauce, I'll move on to the serious stuff.

First off, let's stop all this sillyness with Paul rewriting my arguments. I don't know whether he really thinks that he's doing me a favor by doing so, or whether he's actually devious enough to think that he can get away with tinkering with my arguments before he knocks them down. Where I come from, that's called a "strawman," but maybe they play by different rules in Grand Rapids. So if I may be indulged to take Paul's words out of my mouth: the conclusion "it is morally acceptable for women to have abortions at any time up to and until the unborn human fetus emerges from the woman's vagina" is not mine. I do so hate to be pedantic, but if Paul can't even get my argument’s conclusion right in the first 500 words of his post, what's the point in following along for the next 2500?

But I like Paul, and I have great hopes for him someday, so I'll try yet again to correct him. IF all human beings are sovereign over their bodies, and IF sovereignty entails the ability to remove anything one wants from one's body, THEN any human being may remove anything one wants from one's body. I do so hope that Paul can confine his further criticisms to these words alone.

Particularly astute readers (and hopefully Paul himself) may note that nowhere in the above argument do I make any mention of a fetus, or whether or not a fetus is equivalent to a human being. It's simply not relevant to my argument.

Now, what gets Paul chuckling hoarsely to himself and rubbing his hands back and forth is his certainty that I've caught myself in a logical contradiction, a la Kirk to Nomad. He thinks that all he needs to do is substitute "fetus" for "human being" in my argument, and suddenly my argument self-contradicts. But let's look at what happens to the conclusion of my actual argument if we play Paul's game: any fetus may remove anything it wants from its body.

I have no problem with the veracity of the statement, and it can stand as readily as my own conclusion above; however, we may wonder how the privilege of personal sovereignty claimed by a fetus overrides the personal sovereignty of the woman in whose uterus the fetus makes its residence. In fact, the very nature of human biology precludes the ability of a fetus (or anyone acting on its behalf) to act on any decision to exercise this ability until after parturation.

What's that, Paul? Oh, sorry. Sounded like steam whistling.

I want to work extra hard now to help Paul understand what I'm saying. Let's analogize from sovereignty over one's body to sovereignty over one's habitat. Paul and his wife just bought a lovely new house- they have sovereignty over it, and can decide who stays in the house, and who does not. Let's imagine that their friend Craig comes to stay with them, and they give him a room, over which he has sovereignty (ability to decide who comes in the room, and who does not). Although in real life, Paul and Craig are great friends, let's say that he and Craig have a falling-out, and Paul wants him to leave. Craig, although enjoying sovereignty over his room, does not have the right to force Paul to allow him to stay in the house against his will. Paul's sovereignty is complete throughout the house, including Craig's room, and therefore Craig must vacate. Whatever challenges and threats Craig may face outside of Paul's house may be something for Paul to consider, but they do not infringe Paul's sovereignty or remove his right to kick Craig out the door.

What's that I hear? - sounds like a tea kettle boiling. I guess that means it's time to take Paul's argument off the burner; it's done.

I should probably wrap this up before the poor guy's head bursts, but there are a few huckleberries that are too sweet to pass up before I go.

Desperate to shore up support for his sloppy reformulation of my arguments, he introduces the so-called "Preservation Principle." That is, "Generally, any living human that is not insane or suffering some other mental disorder would not want to end their life by means of saline solution and, if they could tell us, they would tell us that they do not want their life to end that way."

And yet in Paul’s own Good Book we find the character of Job, who, (presumably not insane) following a long string of torments commissioned by the omnibenevolent Yahweh, asks for just that:

Job 3: Why was I not still-born, or why did I not perish as I left the womb? ... or, put away like an abortive child, I should not have existed, like little ones that never see the light.

It would seem that even a "blameless" "God-fearer" like Job would rather have been snuffed out in the womb (by saline or otherwise) than have to experience profoundly adverse circumstances later in life.

And it should be pointed out that Yahweh is all too eager to put children to death after being born- for no other crime than being a member of the wrong ethnic group and religion. In Numbers 31, in fact, we find a particulary pernicious passage (on which I've commented previously) – Yahweh commands Moses to order the Israelites to kill all the baby boys belonging to the Midianite tribe… and leave their virgin sisters alive to be divided among the population and the priests as part of the “war booty.”

Numbers 31: ...kill all the male children and kill all the women who have ever slept with a man; but spare the lives of the young girls who have never slept with a man, and keep them for yourselves.

We also find blood-curdling exhortations to infanticide – where Yahweh through the Psalmist proclaims that killing tiny unbelieving babies is a blessed enterprise:

Psalm 137: Daughter of Babel, doomed to destruction, a blessing on anyone who treats you as you treated us, a blessing on anyone who seizes your babies and shatters them against a rock!

And while we’re perusing the Christian Scriptures for any information regarding abortion, it might be of interest to point out the passage where it is said that causing a woman to miscarry carries no more penalty than a few shekels:

Exodus 21: If people, while brawling, hurt a pregnant woman and she suffers a miscarriage but no further harm is done, the person responsible will pay compensation as fixed by the woman's master, paying as much as the judges decide.

While this is not abortion per se, nowhere else in the Bible gets closer to illustrating the true value of a fetus in Yahweh's law – a few coins, at most. Certainly not the death penalty, as advocated by good modern-day Christians like Craig Sowder. That horrific fate is quite explicitly spelled out elsewhere in Exodus, and clearly does not refer to anyone causing the termination of a pregnancy. So much for biblically-minded theology.

And I'll note that Triablogue commenter Marshall has pointed out what I've repeatedly argued is the gaping hole in Paul's argument - if we're to take his position seriously at all, he needs to deal with the science of reproduction and development. As Marshall observes:

[Paul is] stating that the personhood argument is irrelevant. I don't see how this is possible, since the claim is that the abortion destroys a human being. The question that is natural[sic] brought up is: is a baby fetus a human being?

Most people would argue that a human sperm is not a human being, nor is a human egg. If they did, they'd have to deal with the concept that ovulation, masturbation, nocturnal emissions, etc. are all murder. I think we can all agree that this is not the case.

Most people would also agree that a baby that comes out of the womb is a human being. It can breathe by itself, speak, think, and perform *most* of the functions that you and I can (enough that we call it human).

This 9 month point is rather arbitrary, as development is a nonstop process until death (the 9 month period happens to be where the fetus is no longer in the womb, but it develops along all the same). The question is, if the beginning--the sperm and the egg--are not a human, and the 9-month baby is, then at what point does this organism become a human being? This question, in the context of the apologist's argument, seems unavoidable.

Indeed. And yet I'll venture a guess that we'll be long in wait before we hear from Paul on this matter. I've asked nicely once already, and Paul turned tail and fled from the science. I suppose that if I had to deal with his level of cognitive dissonance, I might want to get as far away as possible too, just like the crew of the Enterprise when Nomad realizes that it made a logical error at the beginning of the episode. Because if he were to just sit there and take it for much longer, who knows what might happen...

Look out everyone! This huckleberry's about to blow!

Muslim Atheists

Published

Stew

on October 28, 2008

This story doesn't seem to have hit the mainstream media yet.

From Der Speigel in September

A number of Islamic associations have put a quick end to their collaboration with a professor -- and trainer of people who are supposed to teach Islam in German high schools -- who has expressed his doubt that Muhammad ever lived.

But now the shit is really starting to hit the fan. You know the moslem punishment for apostacy?

The university he is at is likely to cave in to the demands of the faithful.

My friend and co-conspitator germanmike has made things a bit clearer with this post at The Raytractors

Texas Freethought Convention

Published

Zachary Moore

on October 28, 2008

For the record, the slogan on my T-shirt does NOT say: "Life is short; drink hard." But that's not a half-bad idea.

The first-ever Texas Freethought Convention took place this past Sunday, October 26th, at the Saengerrunde Hall in Austin, Texas. As far as I've been able to determine, this is the first time in modern American history that a convention has been held specifically for the freethinkers and atheists of a single state to come together. There are, of course, many national groups that hold conventions: the Freedom From Religion Foundation, American Atheists and Atheist Alliance International are the primary sponsors of these. There was, back in the 19th century, a regular annual meeting of freethinkers in New York State that lasted for six years. However, it does not surprise me in the least that the great state of Texas would lead the way in this respect. There are certainly enough active secular groups here to make the prospect plausible, and the pervasive religiosity throughout the state makes the possibility a necessity.

Congregating in the Texan-German Saengerrunde Hall is oddly appropriate, given the German Freethinkers who settled in this part of the state in the nineteenth century.

I was proud to represent the North Texas Church of Freethought, and there were many other groups in attendance who were active in organizing and promoting the convention, including the Freethinkers Association of Central Texas, American Atheists - Texas, the Atheist Community of Austin, the Corpus Christi Atheists, and the Center for Inquiry - Austin. I was especially happy to meet some of the people with whom I've been corresponding by email for quite some time; there were also plenty of new people that I had opportunities to speak with. I'm hopeful that, if nothing else, this convention has propped open the doors of communication among the secular groups in Texas, and there will be a lot of cross-pollination between us all as a result.

Contrary to popular belief, atheists can apparently have children. We just lack the ability to love them.

The demographics were much more balanced than I thought they would be. Families were the overwhelming majority as far as I could see from my table in the back, and there were more children running around than you could shake a Bible at. The large hall made for a kid-friendly atmosphere, as they tended to dance around whenever the music acts came on stage, or regroup to the back of the hall for coloring or face-painting. I'm glad to see this being established as the rule right off the bat- I'm encouraged to think that future conventions will also have large numbers of atheist and freethinking children, and I hope that the organizers will be able to develop more content specifically for them.

I predict that my "de-baptism" (walking under a hair-dryer) will have precisely the same effect as my actual baptism.

The overall atmosphere of the convention was jovial and social. There were regular speakers on the schedule (including myself) and they captured the assembled crowd's attention throughout the day (substandard PA system notwithstanding), but between presentations, attendees routinely gathered in groups eating barbecue from the restaurant next door, or wandered back to the tables set up by the various participating groups. My own high visit rate had nothing to do with all the free bottles of Shiner and Blue Moon I was handing out (free beer for freethought). There were also some organized light-hearted moments, such as the "de-baptism," facilitated by walking underneath a hair dryer. At first I wasn't going to bother, but then I figured, "what the hell" and went up to join in. It's worthwhile to submit to a few seconds of embarrassment for the sake of demonstrating how silly rituals can be.

Terry McDonald from the Metroplex Atheists proposed the radical idea that we shouldn't avoid making friends with Christians. For shame, Terry.

One of the real highlights of the convention was Terry McDonald's speech. He began by taking Sam Harris to task over his 2007 Atheist Alliance International speech where he called for an end to the use of the term, "atheist." Terry made the point that most of us feel comfortable calling ourselves atheists because that accurately describes us, and that whatever we call ourselves, everyone else is going to refer to us as atheists anyway. He made a comparison to the term "non-smoker." If smoking had never been invented, it would be a ridiculous term, but since there are smokers, the designation "non-smokers" carries semantic weight. So although Sam Harris' post-religious aspiration is still nice to keep in mind, we also have to be mindful of what we're considered by society at large. And Terry also made the point, drawing on his own experiences with people like Derward Richardson, that atheists should not shirk from friendships and communication with Christians and other theists. This drew some strong criticism from Miguel and others of FACT, who felt that seeking egalitarian relationships with Christians and other theists was a tacit approval of their position. More debate followed, and Michael from Corpus Christi Atheists pointed out that a hard-line approach is reasonable when atheists' rights are threatened, but otherwise it's more profitable to reach out to theists, especially moderates. This exchange was electric, and I'd like to see some planned debates at future conventions- if we're going to do it anyway, it might as well be planned.

Anna De Luna, in her performance of "Chicana Atheist," reminded us all of the difficult cultural battles experienced by those who grow up in and reject religious traditions.

It was also a joy to see a performance by Anna De Luna, whose "Chicana Atheist" one-woman show is a celebration of the struggles faced by atheists who must emerge from stifling religious cultures; as an Hispanic, her stories about the slavish acquiescence to Roman Catholicism by her family were poignant, tragic, and instantly empathetic to the audience, who sat entranced during her performance. Even something as seemingly simple as finding friendship or falling in love can all-too-easily be complicated by contradictory views about one's spirituality and religious acceptance.

The capstone of the evening, a combined set with Safely Limitless and Riffsong, included this sing-a-long performance of John Lennon's "Imagine."

The penultimate event of the conference was a performance by some of the assembled musicians including Safely Limitless, Paul Mitchell's Riffsong, and Paul Martin's Aspiring Atheist. As promised, we were able to sing (more or less) along to John Lennon's "Imagine." It was a nice way to close out this history-making event, and only winning the autographed copy of Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell" in the final raffle could have made the day better. Which it did.

Note to Self: No matter how late the evening gets, don't throw away your raffle tickets. You might miss out on something really freaking cool.

My final thoughts are: 1) I'm glad this happened, 2) I'm glad that I was able to be a part of it, and 3) I'm especially glad that this is going to continue next year, and for years afterward. I hope that Texas can be a beacon to the other states as freethought and atheism continue to gain cultural ground in our great society.

Doubters Take Down Plantinga

Published

Zachary Moore

on October 28, 2008

Alvin is happy because he believes that El Tigre's punishing headlock is really an epiphenomenon of his willing defeat.

Don't let my tulip-loving associates fool you- Western Michigan has plenty of rationality to go around. The Center for Inquiry - Michigan not only brought you the infamous Hitchens vs. Hitchens debate, it also helps (in a roundabout way) to bring you the Reasonable Doubts Podcast, featuring the class-act trio of Jeremy Beahan, Luke Galen, and David Fletcher. It's no understatement to say that I'm nursing a wicked man-crush on these guys - not only is their in-show repartée amusing and engaging, they also know what the hell is going on.

Their latest outing has them grappling with Alvin Plantinga's "Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism," and slamming it down on the mat. Subscribe here to listen to Plantinga's epic fail.

The Political Perils of Narcissism

Published

salient

on October 27, 2008

Is it narcissism? Is it stupidity? Is it both?

A friend sent me this email. "Watch Sarah when she's on camera. She loves it, yet they're completely making fun of her. Stupid!!!"

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/update-palin-rap/773

She's an upper-case-R (for Redneck) Republican, and she has repeatedly displayed her cognitive challenges, so I suspect that it's both.

To recognize that SNL is repeatedly taking the mickey, she would have to have both a sense of humour (recognition of irony) and a more realistic opinion of her own capabilities.

Neither of these qualities seem to be prominent in upper-case-R (for Redneck) Republicans.

"Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the diagnostic classification system used in the United States, as "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy." [1]

The narcissist is described as . . . being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power and prestige.[2] Narcissistic personality disorder is closely linked to self-centeredness." [wiki]

(And, based on my professional observations, NPD is the form that sociopathy most often takes in females.)

What were the Republicans thinking when they chose this .... er....person as a candidate for VP????

I sincerely hope that their blatantly foolish decision will save the planet from another four years of what a friend termed "Republican rule".

More: Dotty and the Wizards of Odds . The Notoriety of Doofus and Dotty .

S. palin / D. melanogaster

Published

Holy Prepuce

on October 27, 2008

The Holy Prepuce agrees with Sarah Palin that we should not fund any more fruit fly research. Fruit flies couldn’t possibly present a useful model for human biology unless both were descended from a common ancestor--maybe through some process by which species change over millions of years as a result of random mutations leading to traits more or less likely to result in successful reproduction. But since we know that God created humans and fruit flies in their present forms approximately 6000 years ago, it would be foolish to waste money on such nonsense. Especially if it's happening in France.

Killing Babies With Science

Published

Zachary Moore

on October 27, 2008

This cell is a human being. Or maybe it isn't. Only Paul Manata and his invisible friend know for sure.

Oh, Paul... I wish I knew how to quit you.

Like his namesake, Paul Manata continues to see through a glass darkly, and thus fails to realize that the person he rails against is a reflection of his own ego. I am similarly under no illusion that Paul will be persuaded by rational argumentation, and don't think anything I write will have an effect on him, so I primarily write for the 500-or so regular readers of this blog, and the thousands of visitors it receives each month. I'm especially happy to be welcoming the 50 or so visitors from Triablogue that have come over... you might actually learn something here.

It's a bit sad to see Paul thrashing about, appealing to his readers to vouch for the validity of his attacks on me. Apparently he thinks that simply by virtue of quoting me verbatim at length, he somehow can't be blamed for ignoring my statements and trying to put arguments in my mouth. For example, his clumsy assumption that my reference to "one organ among others" was the fetus, rather than the uterus. Without an effort at reading comprehension on his part it's no wonder there are so many blunders; I would spare myself the tedium of correcting him point by point unless I thought it would achieve anything useful. It's a bit like watching a wrestler in the ring trying to grapple with an invisible opponent, and looking up desperately to the audience to verify his victory. While the actual opponent has started to walk away out of sheer boredom and pity... and yet...

Even though Paul has failed to grasp the point that personal sovereignty is independent of the 'humanity' of a fetus, he has nonetheless insisted on it for his own arguments. Yes, he has hidden behind claims of irrelevancy, but even though I know how Reformed apologists loathe to argue for their own positions, I can't help feeling that it's a burden of which he needs to relieve himself.

As does his faithful reader, Craig Sowder, who posted this in the comments:

Paul,

I would be interested in seeing how you would defend the personhood of the fetus scientifically. I had said in one of my comments to Zach that I always considered "personhood" to be a metaphysical category rather than a scientific one. I mean, you can see cells, organs, limbs, etc. under a microscope, but you don't see "personhood", right? Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean when you say it's easy to prove it scientifically.

That makes two of us, Craig. Paul responds to this by saying:

I can use all the evidence of embryology and show that the fetus has it's own unique human DNA, it is a unified organism, it directs itself towards next stages of life, it is living, etc., etc., etc. So it is a human being. The offspring of humans. If not, what species is it?

And Paul steps into and even bigger scientific mess by invoking the concept of 'species,' which I've pointed out many times is rife with conceptual problems of its own. The things Paul mentions here (human DNA, unified organism, etc) are all necessary qualities that a human being has, but they are not sufficient in themselves. Now, I'll gladly grant for the sake of this issue that having human DNA can give something the characteristic of "human" (leaving the XenoMouse to the side for now), but grants no more special status to any cell by the virtue of that distinction. An adipocyte may be 'human,' but that does not make it 'a human.' Neither does a 'human' leukocyte, a 'human' chondrocyte, nor a 'human' pericyte.

This clone of a human's hematocyte is a human being. Or not. Theologians are scouring the Bible for the words "somatic" "clone," and "ethics." They'll get back to you never.

Never one to let the subtleties of scientific evidence get past him, Paul assures Craig that he can easily appeal to authority in this matter:

I think, as virtually all embryologists agree, it is undeniable that it is a human. That part of the debate is fairly a closed case.

"THUS SAITH MANATA!" Unfortunately, in my embryology course we never were lectured about the humanity of a fetus. Oh, I have no doubt that embryologists will agree that a "human fetus" is 'human,' but whether or not it is a 'human being' is the burden on Paul's back, isn't it? It's one thing to mind-numbingly assert that fertilization is that sufficient cause from which human beings arise, but even this does little to answer the question I asked (and still unanswered) two posts ago:

At what moment did I become a human being? When my father's sperm came in contact with my mother's egg? But when, precisely? When the sperm passed the corona radiata? When it entered, or after it had passed, the zona pellucida? Before or after the cell membranes fused? Before or after the second meiotic division of the egg? Before or after the first mitotic division? At what stage of mitosis: prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase?

Human development, if it is anything, is a temporal process. At one end of the process, there exist cells that are human, but not a 'human being.' On this we can nearly all agree. At the other end of the process, there is a 'human being.' The question I'd like to see answered by the all-knowing Manata, is when? When in the process of human development are there sufficient characteristics to call something a 'human being?' Please see the above quote for the level of precision I'm looking for.

Anticipating failure at this task, Paul runs from the scientific evidence he once championed:

...if pro-choicers want to add to the limits of science and argue that the findings of science are not enough to show t's[sic] full humanity, that we need to run to the philosophers to determine these questions, so be it.

Ah, yes. Smelling the stink of his own defeat, Paul throws clods of dirt at the evil scientists, who thrive perversely at the limits of science, and retreats back to the realm of philosophy, where curious notions like 'evidence' matter so much less than 'QED.' I certainly hope he enjoys the respite, and I'll keep a frosty mug waiting in case he ventures back into the fray.

Twilight of the GOP

Published

No More Mr. Nice Guy!

on October 27, 2008

With mere days to go (thank Jaysus, it's nearly over) and Obama pulling ahead in the polls by double digits, the wheels are coming off the Hate Talk Express. Already, the post mortems are being conducted and the finger pointing has begun, with the McCain and Palin entourages each blaming the other for losing the election in a landslide. Schadenfreude is such fun!

John McCain (or more likely, Karl Rove) made a desperate and reckless gamble in picking the Ice Queen of Wasilla as his running mate. A vapid, vacuous but vicious attack Barbie, Palin shored up McCain's support among the racist right but was a huge net negative once the novelty factor wore off and people saw that she had no ideas of her own, no substance, no experience, and no talent except memorizing other people's talking points and spewing them out on cue regardless of context. That, and living high on the hog at the expense of both taxpayers and the RNC. No wonder even the Anchorage newspaper is endorsing Barack Obama.

Of course it's dangerous to celebrate prematurely. There is nothing so sleazy, vile and despicable that the 'thugs can't pull it off in the next few days. And they have already illegally tried to disenfranchise over 200,000 voters, mostly African-American, in Ohio alone. This is why they keep banging on over the non-issue of ACORN - they want to throw out the votes of anyone who was registered by any progressive or ethnic minority-oriented organization. And of course they still control the voting machines in key states.

That's why, as I've said all along, it's not enough for Obama to win. We have to overcome systematic disenfranchisement and voter suppression by the rethugs. We have to overcome the black box voting machines. We have to overcome election-rigging, racism, corruption and criminality by the extreme right on a nationwide scale. We need a landslide!

In a rational country, considering that the rethug party caters exclusively to the interests of the wealthiest 1%, the polls should be 99 to 1 for Obama. But while we won't get that kind of result, it can be a landslide if we work hard enough. We must fight like hell and not take a single vote for granted.

Victory is in sight! Keep up the good fight!

(Comment on this post)

Dear Editor…

Published

No More Mr. Nice Guy!

on October 26, 2008

Predictably, the Arizona Repulsive has endorsed the "hometown boy" (i.e. the carpetbagger with no real connection to the state and nothing but contempt for its "little people.") Here's my letter to the editor in response, which I guarantee will not be printed, so I will reproduce it here, with links added. I could have gone on a lot longer about their dishonest fearmongering and ignorant tossing around of the word "socialism", but I was limited to 200 words - not that they will print it of course, so it's a moot point. Anyway, here goes:

Your endorsement of John McCain for president, while 100% predictable, is disappointing.

I'm disappointed that you didn't take him to task for waging the most dishonest, divisive and despicable election campaign in modern US history, after promising to run a campaign of honor and dignity which focused on real issues.

I'm even more disappointed that you chose to stoke the fires of right-wing resentment against lower-income "lucky duckies" by repeating the lie that 44% of workers pay zero taxes. The Wall Street Journal, the source of this figure, stated that 44% of workers "owe" no taxes on April 15, meaning that all of their tax liability is withheld from their paychecks.

As you know very well, Barack Obama will not impose socialism - he will simply return the tax system to something like that which prevailed under the Clinton administration, when the US last enjoyed stability and prosperity. The Bush administration has sharply skewed the tax code to benefit the ultra-rich, who pay tax at much lower rates than workers. Many large corporations pay no tax at all and are showered with billions in subsidies!

Your hysteria over "wild leftists" Pelosi and Reid does not deserve a response.

(Comment on this post)

Atheist Bus Campaign Launches

Published

Kristi Collins

on October 26, 2008

You can read more here.

From the website:

Atheism [/aythi-iz’m/] is defined as “the belief that God doesn’t exist”.

But atheism is much more than that. It’s about making sense of the world, thinking freely, and feeling liberated from unnecessary guilt and fear. It’s about using your intellect and sense of reason to see through the inconsistencies and intolerance of religion, and having the courage to think for yourself. It’s about relying on evidence rather than giving into irrational insistence, and being brave enough to speak the truth.