A firefighter talks about what he experienced while responding to the WTC site:
Tell me again why so many religious people think they stand upon some “moral high ground” because of their faith…?
(via Atheist Cartoons)
Please join me in welcoming one of the newest member of the Atheist Blogroll, This One Shall Be Called Woman.
My name is Nullefide and I am a feminist agnostic-theist (moving slowly towards atheist).
I have started a blog entitled "This One Shall Be Called Woman," a critical view of women in the Bible. During this project I will read the Bible cover to cover and make note of any woman (or female animal) mentioned and the context/story in which she is mentioned. This project came about mostly because of my born again father (much to his dismay, I'm sure) because I got tired of hearing him tell me how the Bible wasn't sexist. I decided I would go ahead and read the Bible so then I would know specific details and evidence for why exactly the Bible is sexist and why I refuse to follow it. And I figured there would be many people out there who didn't have the time it takes to read through the Bible and write down every mention of a woman, but who would still like to know the specific details of women in the Bible, how they were treated and how the Bible can still affect many women's lives today. So my blog was born.
So if you have an interest in sexism in the Bible, women in the Bible, general Bible synopses or you just like seeing someone get super pissed over Biblical rape laws please read more and feel free to leave comments on any post, old or new. :)
Are you interested in becoming a member? Visit the Atheist Blogroll resource blog for more information.
Technorati Tags: Atheism,The Atheist Blogroll
Some good news: the online 'debate' between Dawkins and the religion editors of the Times can be read for free. It's a terrible format: it's just a chat window with people throwing questions at Dawkins, which he deftly slices out of the air with a samurai sword of reason. Here's one of the more coherent questions the pro-faith gummi bears tossed at him, which will give you an idea of the quality of the interrogation.
I just interviewed David Wilkinson, principal of St John's Durham and astrophysicist, and this is what he said (full interview at my Times blog Articles of Faith): The science Stephen Hawking uses raises a number of questions which for many opens the door to the possibility of an existence of a creator and for many points to the existence of a creator.
'One would be the the purpose of the universe. Although science might discover the mechanism, we are still left with the question of what is the purpose.
'Second is where the laws of physics come from. Science subsumes the laws but we are still left with the question of where the laws come from.
'Third is the intelligibility of the universe. It strikes me as interesting that Stephen Hawking can make it intelligible. Albert Einstein once said that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. For many of us who are struck by the intelligibility of the physical laws, the explanation is that the creator is the force of rationality both for the universe and for our minds.
To summarize Dawkins' three answers: Why even propose a cosmic purpose? That question isn't answered by postulating a mysterious intelligent being, either. Why assume a godless universe would have to be unintelligible?
Stupid questions do not warrant our concern or need to answer. Questions that do not bring us closer to understanding are nothing but the posturings of people who substitute noise for reason.
Read the comments on this post...God did not create the universe, says Hawking
God did not create the universe and the “Big Bang” was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book.
In “The Grand Design,” co-authored with U.S. physicist Leonard Mlodinow, Hawking says a new series of theories made a creator of the universe redundant, according to the Times newspaper which published extracts on Thursday.
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist,” Hawking writes.
“It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”
Hawking, 68, who won global recognition with his 1988 book “A Brief History of Time,” an account of the origins of the universe, is renowned for his work on black holes, cosmology and quantum gravity.
Since 1974, the scientist has worked on marrying the two cornerstones of modern physics — Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, which concerns gravity and large-scale phenomena, and quantum theory, which covers subatomic particles.
His latest comments suggest he has broken away from previous views he has expressed on religion. Previously, he wrote that the laws of physics meant it was simply not necessary to believe that God had intervened in the Big Bang.
He wrote in A Brief History … “If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God.”
In his latest book, he said the 1992 discovery of a planet orbiting another star other than the Sun helped deconstruct the view of the father of physics Isaac Newton that the universe could not have arisen out of chaos but was created by God.
“That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions — the single Sun, the lucky combination of Earth-Sun distance and solar mass, far less remarkable, and far less compelling evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings,” he writes.
Hawking, who is only able to speak through a computer-generated voice synthesizer, has a neuro muscular dystrophy that has progressed over the years and left him almost completely paralyzed.
He began suffering the disease in his early 20s but went on to establish himself as one of the world’s leading scientific authorities, and has also made guest appearances in “Star Trek” and the cartoons “Futurama” and “The Simpsons.”
Last year he announced he was stepping down as Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a position once held by Newton and one he had held since 1979.
“The Grand Design” is due to go on sale next week.
Chuck Norris, a man who should have no fame, pushes the bible on our public schools because he thinks it will save our nation. Christians will never stop pushing. We must push back. We must fight teaching the bible in public schools, even as an elective. Don’t compromise on allowing entry of the Christian message, our default position should be no teaching the bible in public schools. Our fall back should be teaching about Christianity in a comparative religion course.
Did he ever really learn to act? He was a punching bag for Bruce Lee and for some reason kept his career alive on pseudo heroics and macho bullshit. Now he prostitutes himself for the cause. I have no respect for the man. Some of this has to do with a visit he paid to my grandfather’s gas station in Lynwood back in the late 60s. The name Chuck Norris has been associated with wrongdoing since I was a child, so yes, some of this is personal.
The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) said that it wanted papal critics – who are voicing their opposition to this month’s state visit for a number of reasons, including the Vatican’s rejection of equal rights for homosexuals – to “disagree with respect”.
It said that it would hold a prayer vigil, not a protest, so the pope could see the faces of those he spoke against, and become aware that his “homophobic comments affect real people”.
It said: “The Protest the Pope coalition of secularist groups has opposed the trip and promised noisy protests, but progressive Christians believe that this is unhelpful and counterproductive.”
But its call for restraint went unheeded, with Protest the Pope refusing to change its strategy.
Andrew Copson, from the British Humanist Association, said that the LGCM statement failed to recognise that Protest the Pope objected to the state aspect of the visit, not the pastoral or religious one. “As a religious leader and a citizen of Europe, we have said he is obviously entitled to visit.
“As a head of a state which many see as enormously destructive of human rights and equality on the international stage it is legitimate and morally right to question him, and the idea that heads of states should receive automatic ‘respect’ because they also happen to be religious leaders we see as entirely mistaken.”
Full story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/sep/01/lesbian-gay-christian-pope-visit
The British Humanist Association is a founding member of the Protest the Pope campaign, demonstrating against the official nature of the Pope’s state visit later this month.
The whole problem with RE lessons is not that they exist but that they amount to religious instruction in some schools. There is no basis for allowing state-funded schools to indoctrinate their pupils, even if that is what their parents want. They can provide this in optional after-school (or lunchtime) classes or clubs. They could even have something on a Sunday where children are taught to be believers. They could call it Sunday School!
The recognition that RE lessons can be proselytising is reflected in the right that parents have to withdraw their children from these lessons. In contrast, they can’t withdraw their children from biology lessons even if they have profound religious objections to their being taught about sexual reproduction or evolution – these subjects are recognised as non-proselytising.
Secularists like me believe that RE is a valid subject for study in the curriculum but should be about what different religions (and other world views like humanism) believe; it should not be about what ought to be believed. So Catholic schools should be allowed to use RE lessons to teach that the Catholic church opposes contraception and believes that homosexuality is a sin, but not that the children ought to believe those things. The lessons should set out contrasting views on that subject.
Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/political-science/2010/aug/27/science-teaching-religious-education-re
Kin-selection is often used to describe how “moral” inclinations may evolve in social species, the idea being that relatives can share enough genetic code to warrant self-sacrifice, even if it is fatal to the martyr, if enough relatives are thereby helped to survive.
In the Aug. 26 Nature, [E. O.] Wilson and two Harvard colleagues argue that the concept of kin selection is “limited” and “unnecessary.” And they propose steps for the evolution of ants, honeybees and other highly social species with such altruistic behaviors by just the broad “survival of the fittest” forces of natural selection without specifically invoking the power of kinship.
In recent years, Wilson has argued that the close family ties in ant colonies and other highly social groups may be consequences, rather than causes, of the evolution of such extreme social forms. In the new paper he combines his perspective with two co-authors’ mathematical critique of the methods used to calculate kinship effects, arguing that the techniques are as unnecessarily complicated as Ptolemaic astronomy.
“Babylonian astronomers look up in the heavens, and they see the planets moving in ‘epicycles,’” says paper co-author and mathematical biologist Martin Nowak. “But if you put the sun in the center, there are no epicycles.”
Some kin selection adherents are firing back that, even with new math, the challenge itself is old-fashioned. “This is such a tired old debate,” says Ben Oldroyd of the University of Sydney, who studies social insects.
Full article: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/evolution-scrap/
Zack and Peterson work on mending their relationship after the Joe Gee debacle by discussing fundamentalist Christianity. Angela from Austria thinks that fundamentalist Christianity is a great way to absorb “non-thinkers” who might be recruited by more dangerous groups (like neo-Nazis). From the conversation that ensues, you almost wouldn’t know that Peterson’s a believer and Zack isn’t. ALSO, more lesbian movies coming your way!
Here’s some more information about what we talked about this week:
» Click here to listen to Marvin Bloom on Dan Savage’s Podcast!
» Check out New Left Media’s videos from Tea Party events.
» Read more about the Pew Research Center study we discussed.
Here are more lesbian movie recommendations, courtesy of The Lesbian Mafia:
» Watching You (Short Films)
» The 10 Rules (Short)
» If These Walls Could Talk 2
» D.E.B.S.
» High Art
» The L Word (First Season)
» Imagine Me and You
» Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love
» My Summer of Love
» Girl Play
» Loving Anabelle
» Lost and Delirious
» We Have To Stop Now (Seasons 1 & 2)
» Girl/Girl Scene (Web Series)
» Bound
» But I’m a Cheerleader
» Itty Bitty Titty Committee
» Lovers and Friends (Urban Web Series)
» I Can’t Think Straight
» The Ultimate Lesbian Short Film Festival
» Lesbian Nation
» Lesbian Sex & Sexuality
» Fingersmith
» Desert Hearts
» Amy and Jaguar
A NASA astronaut on the Space Shuttle Endeavor brought space back down to Earth. Astronaut Don Pettit took over 85 time-lapsed videos of Earth from his stint on the International Space Station to highlight features of the changing planet.
“There is phenomenology that happens on a timescale that you can’t see in real time,” he said. “It occurred to me that making time-lapse movies on the space station would bring out things that you normally don’t observe.”
More at http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/astronaut-time-lapse-videos/
It appears that a some nutball atheist has committed an act of terrorism.
It is easy to imagine what would have appeared on atheist blogs if James Lee, who took hostages in the Discovery Channel headquarters, had issued demands that the station change its programming to provide more "creationist" or other fundamentalist religious programming.
A substantial number of atheist blogs would have then written posts saying, "See how evil religion is that it is responsible for stuff like this."
However, it seems that James Lee was an atheist - somebody quite convinced that, on Darwinian and Malthusian terms, we are sewing the seeds of our own destruction and who wanted to put an end to it. So, without any promise of an afterlife or a heavenly reward, he took matters into his own hands and performed a terrorist act.
So, instead of atheist sites blaming "religion" for this crime, we have theist sites blaming "Darwinism".
And how are the atheists going to respond to this accusation?
They are probably going to accuse those who want to blame all of atheism for this crime that the theists are guilty of making bigoted, derogatory overgenearlizations - that many atheists would never endorse and certainly never commit this type of act. Many would, in fact, use these derogatory overgeneralizations as proof of the immoral nature of religious people in general, that they cannot think straight about these issues and cast blame only on those who are guilty.
None of them will think of taking their response and holding it up as a mirrir where it reflects on their own writings on similar issues where somebody performs some act while ranting about "God".
As atheism becomes more and more common, more and more acts such as this will be put in atheist terms and fewer will be put into religious terms, simply because these types of people with these types of problems must borrow from the ideas that permeate their society.
If that society is substantially religious, then these type of people will wrap their acts in religious terms. If their society is mostly atheist, they will wrap their acts in atheist terms. At least, this is a quite plausible interpretation unless and until somebody can come up with proof that there is an actual cause-and-effect to be had.
But people are not waiting around for scientific proof of an established causes and effects. They are rushing past that step and going straight to, "Person performed acts of violence mentioned God/Darwin. This just proves the moral bankruptcy of all of religion/atheism."
So, let's say we give up this practice of blaming all of religion for every crime committed by somebody who mentions "God", and save our criticism for those people who blame all of atheism or Darwin for every crime committed by somebody who does not mention God?
From the Guardian:
Is physicist Stephen Hawking right that physics, not God, created the universe?
81.3% Yes. I believe in gravity, not divinity
18.7% No. God: Hawking 'not necessary'
Somebody show me the units of divinity, please, as well as a few measurements that show the goodness of fit to theory.
Oh, and show the formula, too.
Read the comments on this post...The case against pastor Matthew Brown is heading to trial. He is accused of inappropriately touching a student and sending lewd messages on Facebook. His attorney plans to question the credibility of the witness.
Brown's attorney says he's not confident that the testimony of the 16 year old will hold up well in court because the girl couldn't pinpoint the exact date when the incidents occurred and adds that she was never alone with the minister for the incidents to have happened in the first place.
Of course, the jury will see the Facebook evidence too, which means I expect Brown will plead out. He has no way of explaining his lewd messages.
Technorati Tags: Clergy Sexual Abuse,Baptists
The new Las Vegas City Center complex is full of art. This living sculpture is just one example. I think I had more fun walking from exhibit to exhibit on this trip than almost anything else I did.
Laplace, Hawking, same difference. In a completely unsurprising move, Stephen Hawking has made it clear that we have no need for the god hypothesis.
Modern physics leaves no place for God in the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded. Just as Darwinism removed the need for a creator in the sphere of biology, Britain's most eminent scientist argues that a new series of theories have rendered redundant the role of a creator for the Universe. In his forthcoming book, an extract from which is published exclusively in Eureka, published today with The Times, Professor Hawking sets out to answer the question: "Did the Universe need a creator?" The answer he gives is a resounding "no". Far from being a once-in-a-million event that could only be accounted for by extraordinary serendipity or a divine hand, the Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, Hawking says. "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.
Cue condemnations and histrionics, stage left. Fulminations and denial, stage right.
Like it says, this is from an upcoming book, so I haven't read it yet, and The Times seems to have moved everything behind a paywall, so I can't even read the full article or any of the associated content, but the story itself sounds a bit banal. The theists have never offered a single credible, logical reason to incorporate a cosmic intelligence into the history of the universe, and it's about time they were flatly rebuffed and told their contributions are unnecessary.
Besides the annoying paywall, though, I have to point out another nasty element of the reporting — they must really hate Richard Dawkins at The Times.
When it comes to religion, Stephen Hawking is the voice of reason. Not for him the polemical style that has propelled Richard Dawkins to the fore of national consciousness in the God debates. His argument is likely in the long term to be more dangerous to religion because it is more measured than The God Delusion.
The God Delusion was a calm and measured book, and Richard Dawkins' talks are polite, rational events. Have these people even read the book? It looks to me as if they are trying to mollify their readers by setting up a Saint Hawking while reassuring everyone that they can still beat up on Devil Dawkins.
Read the comments on this post.... . . is how long I’ve been blogging! I completely missed my 2 year anniversary yesterday. Here is my very first post! I started out wanting to blog about my thoughts on religion and parenthood and life in general, and this blog used to be known as My Life in the Blender (it was mylifeintheblender.wordpress.com, but I deleted it after moving over here). When I decided liked this blogging thing in February 2009, I changed to redheadedskeptic.wordpress.com. It’s only been since last December that I’ve had my own domain. If you read my earliest (mostly boring!) posts, you can see that I wrote about a conglomeration of things, hence the title “My Life in the Blender.” Which is kind of dumb. 
Anyways, I started noticing that I liked writing about religion the most, and started writing more about religion. Then I started reading other atheist blogs and saw that everyone else had already come to the same conclusions, and had expressed them even better! It was a difficult time for me, and I started scouring those atheist blogs for support in leaving religion. However, they all primarily focused on the reasons why they left. So I decided to write about how it impacted me personally. It’s been hard, and it’s a little creepy to meet someone who reads my blog, and therefore knows a lot about me when I don’t even know their name, but it’s worth it. I definitely express myself through writing, and it’s great to receive emails and comments about how helpful it is. My theory is that many people go through the same things, but nobody wants to admit it because it’s very personal, and it can be very hard to talk about feelings. But if you do take that risk and open up, then you usually find support from somewhere. Not everyone will support you, but lots of people will. Of course, you do need dissent occasionally, too, and some good honest feedback whether you like it or not! So constructively critical comments have never bothered me–I may respond further with my side, but I actually appreciate them. I’m kind of without a “grown up” support system to tell me where I’m wrong, so it leaves me flying in the wind sometimes.
Anyways, it’s been fun, rocky, crazy, and I still have a ways to go, but I’ve come a long way, too. Where will it go from here? Who knows?! Maybe there’s a happily ever after in there for me somewhere yet!
Yesterday, I received an e-mail from someone who works at a state agency in the Bible Belt. The head of the agency often uses working lunches and meetings to conduct a short prayer session. According to the e-mail, this happens often and most people just go along with it rather than risk their jobs. Most may even be religious and have no objections to it.
First, this is illegal and anyone who experiences anything similar to this should contact their local ACLU right away. These types of religious people have no problem forcing their beliefs on everyone else and they are not afraid to break the law to do it. In their view, they are obeying God’s Law.
In addition to the ACLU, there is someone else that should be contacted. I am a member and former board member of the Freethought Society. At the time that I was a board member, we were mainly just a Philadelphia organization, but now the organization is becoming more of a national group. This organization has been trying to document discrimination against atheists. This information might be used in larger national cases down the road, but for now it is just important to document them and make sure they are on the record. Find out more about the Freethought Society’s Anti-Discrimination Network HERE and if you are a victim of discrimination due to your lack of belief, please download this PDF form and send it to Margaret Downey of the Freethought Society.
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