Hi, Richard.

I have a lot of Christian friends who ask me to read their religious books – some fiction and others (pseudo)scientific or evangelical in nature. I feel very pressured culturally to take these books as it would be quite rude to refuse.

The problem arises when it’s time to return the book and the lender says, “How did you like it?” The blunt truth would be to say, “I hated it – what a waste of time!” but I could never be so tacky. But neither could I lie and say, “Oh, it was great!”

Where’s the middle ground here? Is there a polite way to tell the truth without making a big deal of it and shoving my disbelief in their faces? Or should I resort to the old trick of saying “I’ll read yours if you’ll read mine?” Help!

Thanks,
Skepticat
Mississippi

Dear Skepticat,

I get the idea that you’d prefer that they stop offering you that stuff entirely. You’re right, lying with “Oh it was great! I loved it!” is bound to get you deeper into trouble, and the brutal truth, “Don’t waste my time with this crap!” will probably also cause you trouble.

A truthful middle ground would probably be the best path. “Middle ground” of course doesn’t mean a half truth, it means being truthful with a mid-range of confrontational tone, so the effect is that they stop offering the books without stopping the friendship.

So maybe a casual statement like, “Oh, thanks, but I’m just not into that,” or “Oh it’s ok, but I’m just not interested in that right now.” It’s truthful, expresses a disinterest, and most likely it will not the first time they’ve heard it. A kind of shallow disinterest will probably turn them away gently where a strong rejection might stir up their sense of challenge or their resentment. Hopefully, eventually they’ll shrug their shoulders and look for someone else with whom to share their books, without starting The Shunning.

Only consider your idea of the book exchange if you really want to start an on-going atheist-Christian dialogue with these friends. Some of them may be mature enough for that, but others may not handle it in a positive, respectful way. In Mississippi you’re greatly outnumbered, and how many “discussions” with the immature ones are you willing to have?

Richard

You may send your questions for Richard to .

There's also a poll with the story: Would you use your soul as collateral for a loan?. Unfortunately, you'll have to until tomorrow to get the results.

The statement is “Want a Better World? Prayer not required.”

It’s on the intersection of Highway 95 and Sweet Avenue and it’ll be there for another two months.

So far, there is no Florida-like protest. Maybe religious residents agree that the billboard message makes complete sense… or they just haven’t noticed. I’m fine with it either way.

TWISP, Wash.—In the foothills of the North Cascades, where the veil between dimensions is said to be thinnest, inhabitants of this world gather once a year to coexist with fairies in theirs.

About 250 people came to the Methow Valley June 26 through 28 from as far away as Europe and Hawaii to participate in the ninth annual Fairy and Human Relations Congress, an outdoor festival in a secluded mountain meadow called Skalitude.

[...] “The purpose of the congress is to encourage communication and cooperation of the fairy realm,” said Michael “Skeeter” Pilarski, the event’s founder and organizer.

The human world is in crisis and can use all the help it can get, Pilarski said, so why not form alliances with those in other realms?

The most obvious answer is because there’s no evidence said other realms and their supposed inhabitants actually exist. Not that that is likely to stop the wishful thinking taking place at the conference. It’s a veritable who’s who of woo-woo. You’ve got your there-are-more-things-in-heaven-and-earth Shakespearian philosopher:

Asked whether she believes in fairies or is merely sympathetic to those who do, Swope said, “I believe in it. Life is way more complicated than what we can see, hear and touch.”

You’ve got your it’s-just-like-crazy-concepts-in-other-religions guy:

“We might call (fairies) angels of nature,” said Pilarski, an herb farmer and writer who also founded the annual Okanogan Family Barter Faire in nearby Tonasket.

Many people of mainstream faiths believe angels watch over them, he said.

“God’s love does not just extend to humans, but to all of nature and to all the species on Earth,” he said, so why should these spirits not watch over all of creation?

You’ve got your reality-is-what-you-want-it-to-be lady:

“Like anything, whatever you look for is what you find in life,” Kathleen McKenty, a retired horticulturalist from Snohomish, of the congress.

“This is the way life should be. It’s healthy, it’s positive. The setting is gorgeous. It keeps alive the possibility of things unknown and larger than yourself, the sense of wonder and magic in your life,” said McKenty, who has attended four or five congresses, including the first one.

Because, darn it, there just isn’t anything else that could possibly inspire a sense of awe and wonder they way believing in mythical faeries can.

In “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Elves and Fairies,” author Sirona Knight wrote that the fairy realm is “somewhere between this world and the divine.”

Never before has a book been more aptly titled.

These themes were repeated by Fairy Congress presenters such as Orion Foxwood, author of “Tree of Enchantment” and a self-proclaimed witch who tends to speak in aphorisms.

“We are here to remove that distance between humanity and divinity,” Foxwood said. “We are not humans on the spiritual path, we are spirits on the human path.”

Wow, that’s deep. Good thing I brought my waders.

Remember Pilarski from a couple of quotes back? Here he is again pulling out the absence-of-proof card:

Pilarski said he has not actually seen a fairy, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Fairies manifest themselves differently to different people - and besides, he said, only about 10 percent of people have “the sight.”

How does he know the number is 10 percent? How does he know the people who claim to have “The Sight” aren’t lying or just batshit crazy? People like this wacko:

One who claims to have seen a rather large deva, much like the Jolly Green Giant only without the peas, is Mary J. Getten, of Olympia, who says she can communicate telepathically with animals and fairies.

It also is possible to communicate with the “unseen realm,” Getten said, but it’s important to know what you’re doing before trying.

“Seeing fairies changes your reality,” she said.

I’m sure it does. Preferably it should change your reality to a little rubber room with a comfortable jacket with really long arms that lets you hug yourself silly, but I hear they don’t have those places anymore.

Would it surprise you to learn that Getten teaches a class on how to be telepathic?

Telepathy is the universal language, Getten said, but like learning any language, it takes a little practice.

“We all have it. It’s just that in our society it’s not encouraged or supported.”

And, unlike Pilarski, she thinks anyone can learn to see faeries:

When encountering fairies and devas, Getten and others said, people tend to see what they expect to see. One workshop presenter said he once saw what looked like the Rice Krispies elves, Snap, Crackle and Pop.

Did she ask him if perhaps he was having cereal for breakfast at the time? It seems like it’d be a pertinent question.

One of the great things about conferences like this is that they don’t tend to limit themselves to one form of woo-woo. These guys are big into orbs as well:

As proof that the nature spirits are fascinated with human shenanigans, many at the Fairy Congress cited the existence of orbs, transparent balls of light that appear only in digital photographs taken at happy occasions such as festivals and weddings.

Critics say orbs are reflections of photographic flashes off dust particles in the air, but Hope and Randy Mead, who live north of Colville, say they know better.

Classic definition of delusional right there, folks. It’s just dust in the camera flash. That’s it. Dust. You can create orbs at whim with a handful of dust, a low-light situation, and any old digital camera.

But wait, there’s more! What goes great with orbs? Why the whole 2012 Mayan Calendar nonsense:

Their independent film, “Orbs: The Veil Is Lifting,” was shown at the congress.

Hope Mead, who has studied orbs for eight years, said they are beings from another dimension, perhaps from the fairy realm. Such phenomena are becoming more common as the year 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar, approaches, and the veil between the dimensions lifts, she said.

“What we believe is that it’s not the end of the world, but the end of time as we know it, and we are going through a dimensional shift,” Mead said.

Hey, you know what else orbs might be?

Spiritual adviser, author and recording artist Brooke Medicine Eagle believes fairies and orbs are just incarnations of the nature spirits of Native American animism.

But of course! You can’t have a woo-woo conference and not invite the Native American spiritualists to it! That would diminish the awesomeness of the woo by a factor of 10!

Nature spirits, fairies, devas whatever you want to call them Pilarski said more people believe in them than let on.

“Thirty years ago, we would have been called kooks or worse,” he said. Now people are more accommodating in their thinking.

No, you’re still kooks. There may be more people buying into your nonsense, but that doesn’t make you any less delusional. Though I have to give Pilarski credit for one thing: He’s still sane enough to charge these people $250 a head to attend his conference.

Perhaps he’s not quite as crazy as the rest of them.

Here's a video that makes the point better than I ever could.

The acknowledged worthy for the month of May is Kel. About time, too, his name keeps coming up month after month, and someone is always jumping in to wave their arms about and eclipse him.

So now you have to think back over the past month of voluminous commenting and pick out a name that stood out for you, and leave it in the comments right here.

Read the comments on this post...

They’re right when it comes to religion. But consider these situations:

• Would you not want to live in a house in which someone once got murdered?
• If you needed a heart transplant, would you not willingly receive the organ from a once-convicted rapist?
• Have you ever slept next to a teddy bear?
• Would you want to hold a pen that was once owned by Einstein?
• Do you wear a certain article of clothing on every “big” date?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, then there’s some sort of supernatural thinking going on in your mind — something author Bruce M. Hood calls a “SuperSense.”

Why does that sense exist in a world that prides itself on scientific progress? In his new book, Hood explains and elaborates on the answer. He is chair of the Cognitive Development Center in the Experimental Psychology Department at the University of Bristol, so he’s certainly had plenty of time and experience looking into this topic.

Among the explanations for this SuperSense is the idea of a human need for cohesion and community. Religion serves that purpose, via common rituals and places of worship, and that is one key reason why it persists.

Is it even possible to get rid of that SuperSense? Not really, argues Hood. It’s a by-product of our evolution and a better way to tackle it is to simply understand where it comes from and why it’s there. In fact, it could help us achieve a stronger sense of unity.

There are ramifications to this argument. Indeed, if even atheists can be accused of supernatural thinking, perhaps a science-based rebuttal to religion is not the way to go…

…

This is a fantastic and interesting book for religious and non-religious readers. It probes into our ways of thinking without necessarily offending either side, a tough feat to accomplish.

Any high-schooler can understand Hood’s arguments, and the Freakonomics-ish chapter titles (e.g. “Blooming, Buzzing Babies” and “Would You Let Your Wife Sleep with Robert Redford?”) definitely make you want to read each page. It manages to be both a quick read a thought-provoking book. I definitely enjoyed reading it.

From Description:

Suppose you are out with a group of friends gazing at the night sky and someone says, did you know that they just found a black hole at the center of our galaxy? Someone else mentions dark matter. Another says the whole universe was smaller then an atom the instant before the big bang. No your friends aren’t Astro Physicists, they probably just have a good cheat sheet. Now it’s your turn.

Brother Richard
(Props: Atheist Media)

Very often, when advocating for gay marriage and the equality of GLBTs, us heterosexuals have a tendency to point out how we don’t have a stake in the matter.

Keith Olbermann comes to mind.

While the point isn’t dishonest, I think that its just wrong.

Sure. I’m not gay. As Henry Rollins was known to comment of himself, and true for me, you’d never see the closet because I’d already have burnt the thing to the ground.

I don’t have that many gay friends and even less that I’m been particularly close to.

Heck, I don’t even have a stake in the marriage game – I’m not exactly prone to falling in love – platonic love, friendship, support and/or sex being all I have to offer in that department.

While I’ve not been prone to emphasise these points (the Rollins argument being my rebuttal of choice to allusions of closeted self-interest), I’ve assumed that they represent my minimal self-interest. Maybe because I have been disinterested or at least thought I’ve been, but upon reflection, that’s no longer a case I can make.

Despite all these points being true, it doesn’t negate my growing interest.

That gay marriage isn’t already accepted is a sign of a sick culture, and I want to live in a healthy culture.

The mental gymnastics being the best that the opponents have to offer, is at least a sign of diminished cognition. If you believe the fallacies, distortions and botched statistical analysis, then there is a lot more you can do to help make your culture and informed and thoughtful one.

I want to live in an informed and thoughtful culture! There’s my disinterest gone already!

If you think you can pass off hatred as critical, ethical thought, then not only are you a very silly person, but you have something wrong with your better nature. Maybe you don’t even have one. If you hate the sin and not the sinner, why would you go to such lengths to tell tales?

Indeed, if there was something intrinsically wrong about being gay, wouldn’t that be enough? Why dig up any more dirt? Surely one wouldn’t need any more than that! So what motivates you?

I’d prefer to live in an Australia where the hateful didn’t pretend that they loved the sinner. I want to live in a happy, caring and honest Australia. Honesty is very important to me and aside from the merely muddle-headed, I’m yet to see a single, honest, hetero-marriage campaigner. The less people engaging in this pathetic sophistry, the less our culture has a propensity for it, the happier I’ll be. Again, dis-interest gone!

Then there is all the stupid suspicion that seems to travel with the homophobe circus. At the heart of paranoid moral panic as is the campaign against gay-marriage, next to a left-ventricle of prejudice, pulses a right ventricle of credulity. A propensity for type one errors – false positives.

This kind of epistemic failure constitutes a profound attack on many of the principles of natural justice that make up our collective better nature – innocent until proven guilty, for example.

While there is nothing wrong with being gay in my preference utilitarianism, attempts to out people as gay – or prosecute any of the often accompanying accusations (”pederasty” alleged against dead judges anyone?) – without regard for the truth, are more dangerous than mere defamation (I say “mere”, as I hardly find being called gay to be derogatory) as they inculcate said deficient epistemic virtues.

That’s something to be far more worried about that gay marriage. And I am worried about it! Again, so much for my dis-interest!

And what about being close with your mates? This suspicion has a spill-over into social interactions between heterosexuals as well!

How many friendships have seen people hold back because they didn’t want people to think they were “poofs”?

Why would you bother holding back telling your mates how you feel? Why would you want to? And why would you want some silly, paranoid puritan passing judgement on how you and your mates treat each other, all because they need someone to accuse of sin?

That handshake that lasts too long. That hug at the end of an epic footy match. There’s more than one sad git out there that feels the need to draw conclusions.

Esmay Watson is looking over your back fence. She thinks she knows something about you.

And what about if one of your mates are gay! You… may catch it! :O

The relationships of heterosexuals haven’t gone entirely unscathed. Homophobia damages us all, and the persistence of obstacles to gay marriage is testimony to something being deeply wrong.

So I think I have to come out about my interest in the matter. I don’t like my country being screwed up like this – it’s that simple. I think it’s about time other concerned, compassionate, thinking, heterosexual Australians came out about their interest in the matter.

There are fringe benefits for the rest of us in an Australia capable of accepting GLBTs as equals – such an Australia would be a better Australia to live in.

And for the rest of the heterosexuals who don’t value natural justice, honesty, compassion and thoughtfulness, those heterosexuals that are now in the minority*, grow the hell up.

~ Bruce

* How long do you think it’ll be before hypocritically, a meme of singing from the tyranny of the majority hymn sheet spreads through the ranks of the homophobe?

World’s oldest Bible published in full online

More than 800 surviving pages and fragments from the The Codex Sinaiticus, which was written in Greek on parchment leaves in the fourth century, have been reunited.

Last year The British Library put The Book of Psalms and St Mark’s Gospel online, and now the remaining pages have been made free for public use for the first time.

Along with the Codex Vaticanus, the Codex Sinaiticus is considered the oldest known Bible in the world. Originally more than 1,460 pages long and measuring 16in by 14in, it was written by a number of hands around the time of Constantine the Great.

It offers different versions of the Scriptures from later editions of the Bible, notably in St Mark’s Gospel which ends 12 verses before later versions, omitting the appearance of the resurrected Jesus Christ.

The reunification of the book is the culmination of a four-year collaboration between the British Library, Leipzig University Library in Germany, the Monastery of St Catherine in Mount Sinai, Egypt, and the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg, each of which hold different parts of the manuscript.

They hope that by bringing together the digitised pages online, the project will help scholars worldwide to research in depth the Greek text, which is fully transcribed and cross-referenced.

“The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world’s greatest written treasures,” said Dr Scot McKendrick, Head of Western Manuscripts at the British Library.

“This 1,600-year old manuscript offers a window into the development of early Christianity and first-hand evidence of how the text of the Bible was transmitted from generation to generation. The project has uncovered evidence that a fourth scribe – along with the three already recognised – worked on the text; the availability of the virtual manuscript for study by scholars around the world creates opportunities for collaborative research that would not have been possible just a few years ago.”

To mark the reunification, the British Library is also holding a new exhibition, open today that tells the story of the book.

Professor David Parker from the University of Birmingham’s Department of Theology, who directed the team which made the electronic transcription of the manuscript said the four-year process was a “huge challenge”.

“The transcription includes pages of the Codex which were found in a blocked-off room at the Monastery of St Catherine in 1975, some of which were in poor condition,” he said.

“This is the first time that they have been published. The digital images of the virtual manuscript show the beauty of the original and readers are even able to see the difference in handwriting between the different scribes who copied the text. We have even devised a unique alignment system which allows users to link the images with the transcription. This project has made a wonderful book accessible to a global audience.”

Check out this video:

Oh my Darwin! I could barely make it to the end. At first, I was convinced it had to be Poe. Unfortunately, I have found out that it is real.

I feel sorry for the kids whose parents forced them to watch this garbage. As a kid, I would rather have hung out at Michael Jackson’s house, then endure this torture.

Oh yeah, Mike is dead now, and we are supposed to pretend he was never accused of being bad. (Get it? Bad? As in, “He’s bad. He’s bad. Shamon!”).

Brother Richard
(Props: New Humanist)

In a book published last year, Dunbar argued the country's founding fathers created "an emphatically Christian government" and that government should be guided by a "biblical litmus test." She endorses a belief system that requires "any person desiring to govern have a sincere knowledge and appreciation for the Word of God in order to rightly govern."

Also in the book, she calls public education a "subtly deceptive tool of perversion."

The establishment of public schools is unconstitutional and even "tyrannical," she wrote, because it threatens the authority of families, granted by God through Scripture, to direct the instruction of their children.

The discussion in that article is bizarre. Crazy Dunbar is regarded as a likely choice because her selection would make far-right conservatives happy; they don't even want a moderate Republican to be considered for the job. And Dunbar claims that she is just the person to bring together the various factions on the current board!

"Funeral snub for buddy Bubbles"

I’ve been on the Net, but I’ve been too busy to blog at length on anything I’ve really wanted to. Still too busy IRL!

Iran

Again, more from Christopher Hitchens…

‘Persian Paranoia‘ – In which Hitchens dissects the conspiracy minded pap peddled by the Mullahs, and the sceptical way the public popularly receives it. I especially liked where he wrote…

“The tendency of outside media to check the temperature of the clerics, rather than consult the writers and poets of the country, shows our own cultural backwardness in regrettably sharp relief. Anyone who had been reading Pezeshkzad and Nafisi, or talking to their students and readers in Tabriz and Esfahan and Mashad, would have been able to avoid the awful embarrassment by which everything that has occurred on the streets of Iran during recent days has come as one surprise after another to most of our uncultured “experts.”"

(Christopher Hitchens, 2009)

Who’d be an expert with that kind of rebuke waiting for you? All in all though, if there is anything that is damning of much/most of the West’s take on the Middle East, provincialism ranks pretty high.

Farhad Manjoo weighs in (pessimistically) on the role of social media in the Iranian situation. ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Digitized‘.

It is true that there has been hyperbole coming out of Iran, and out of the mouths and TweetDecks of those with a Utopian vision for social media. But… Revolutionary processes have occurred in the past, all without the support of social media. If Hitchens is right about the mood of the public prior to the “elections” in Iran, is the crackdown on electronic media in Iran as significant as Manjoo would seem to imply?

Media

I know that SkepticLawyer thinks it’s a nasty place, but Scott of GrodsCorp has put up a nice post in response to the whining entitlement of the MSM. Specifically, the indignant address given by John Hartigan of News Ltd, lamenting the new media and bloggers in particular. ‘Not an either/or proposition.’

Politics/History

We may not have him to kick around anymore, but we do have his carcass. And tapes. Christopher Hitchens gives a run down of some examples of pure evil that the disgraced disgrace, Richard Nixon, left behind for us to hear. ‘Caught on Tape‘. It makes all the apologetics for the man, and his own victim card playing, all the more pathetic.

Science

Since 2007, the IPCC Report detailing projections for climate change has been facing a contrary barrage of evidence suggesting that the contributions to sea level rise from melting glacial ice (in addition to contribution from thermal expansion) was underestimated. Accumulating evidence seems to mostly point in the same direction (despite denialist canards to the contrary or even sillier denialist analogies about melting ice in glasses of water), although to what degree projections need to be changed, nobody seems to know exactly. Which would seem right considering that we are talking about projections, not predictions.

In a perhaps unfortunately named article (speculative title for a speculative article?), ‘Sea level rise: It’s worse than we thought‘, New Scientist takes a look at the increased ice flow from glaciers, and asks how soon and how much?

To be frank, I’m always a bit sceptical when journalists cite studies with narrow contexts to contradict, rather than to counter-speculate or qualify massive projects like that of the IPCC. Be they denialist or not. A greater volume and co-ordination of research on ice flow changes is needed.

Interesting, but also in the “bigger sample size thanks” basket is a New Scientist piece on the work of Han et. al. ‘Brain’s response muted when we see other races in pain.’ Who’s “we”? Well, 17 Chinese and 16 Caucasians. I’m not sure I feel adequately represented in such a sample size. A population study is in order!

The gist is, that in the sample group when witnessing footage of painful vs neutral stimuli, a stronger sympathetic pain response (similar to the kind guys get when seeing another kicked in the groin I suspect) was detected in people seeing others of their own race (grrr – “race” – essentialism) than those of another.

How widespread is this in Homo sapiens? It all seems very speculative, but really the stuff of thought experiments at this stage. At any rate, misanthropes with contorted views of the way physical determinism (as in physics and cause and effect) works in biological organisms, needn’t pop the champagne and celebrate our damnation yet. Nurture hasn’t been ruled out of the equation – let’s not bring up the genetic determinism straw-man, thanks.

Religion

John Micklethwait of The Economist has a new book coming out. God is Back. From what I can tell, its more of a neutral anthropology than a polemic such as McGrath’s triumphalist The Twilight of Atheism. Got the heads up from Father Bob the other day…

Found a couple of YouTube videos discussing the book. Good to see the host qualify his remark about Nietzsche… Irritating, when people get the point of the quote wrong.

God is Back interview – Part 1 – (6:26)

God is Back interview – Part 2 – (6:47)

I think that Micklethwait needs a wrap over the knuckles for treating pluralism and secularism as two poles of a dichotomy. Grrr… Religious pluralism is a product of secular Enlightenment values! Just take the intellectual thought behind the US Constitution, or S116 of Australia’s.

And on the topic of faith and tolerance, Vjack of Atheist Revolution discusses points of tolerance raised by the interfaith movement and their relevance to atheist-theist discussion, despite that even with inclusive intentions, “interfaith” is by definition exclusive of those without faith. ‘Can atheists participate in interfaith dialogue?‘

Music

I’m going to have to find a copy of A Small Deadly Space after cracking my CD of it. Will I have to go through eBay and thus PayPay? I don’t want to go through iTunes or any downloadable version. Want. CD.

Here’s one of the tracks (yeah I know, fan slideshows can be a bit much at times.)

Fight – In A World of My Own Making (7:11)

Halford’s Crucible would be good as well. The re-mastered version. Must check at The Muses.

~ Bruce

They are working on passing a Blasphemy Law. This law, if passed, would make "blasphemy" a crime. Where, according to the Irish Times:

"Blasphemous matter" is defined as matter "that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage."

(See: Irish Times: Crime of blasphemous libel proposed for Defamation Bill; The New Humanist Blog: Ireland moves closer to blasphemy law)

How does this undermine the work of this blog?

One of the topics that I have written the most about is the right to freedom of speech. I have argued for principles such as:

• The only legitimate response to words are words and private actions. Private actions are based on decisions that require no justification, such as where to shop, what to buy, what to eat, what to wear, and the like.

• A right to freedom of speech is not a right to immunity from criticism. It is a right to immunity from violence, including state violence, for what a person may say or write.

For a government to even consider a law such as this – other than to reject it outright, denies both of these principles. The law itself gives an illusion of legitimacy to those who would react to words with violence by adding state violence to private violence. Instead of condemning those who would react with violence, it condemns the speaker, and empowers the violent.

Furthermore, it is an invitation on the part of the government to religions to harvest outrage. It is a propaganda weapon that says, "C'mon, followers, if you can muster enough outrage – if you can display enough anger and rage at whomever says this, then we get the government on our side. Then the government will attack our enemies. But if you do nothing, then the government will not act."

These are not absolutes, so it is no criticism of these principles that one can imagine exceptions. To offer criticism one must only only imagine an objection, but apply it to the case at hand.

Which is clearly something that Ireland is sorely in need of – a government subsidy for religious rage.

Almost as abusrd as the law itself are the reactions to it. According to the New Humanist, one reaction comes from Michael Nugent, who chairs Atheist Ireland.

It is silly because it revives a medieval religious law in a modern pluralist republic, and it makes Ireland seem like a backward country. People need protection. Ideas do not. Ideas should always be open to criticism and ridicule. If the law is passed, we will be immediately testing it by publishing a blasphemous statement.

Silly? This means it is trivial, a waste of time. In which case one would have to ask why Atheist Ireland is wasting its time on something that they themselves declare to be trivial.

It is not trivial, in fact. It is quite important, for the sake of maintaining civil order, to promote an cultural aversion to the habit of responding to words with violence. The people of Ireland should have no trouble recognizing the value of that lesson.

I applaud the fact that Atheist Ireland plans on challenging the law as soon as it is passed, if it is passed. However, it would be better if they did not do so because the law was 'silly'. It would be better if they did so for good reason.

We stand here in defense of the right to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not the right to immunity from criticism. It is a right to immunity from violence, including state violence, for what one says or does. It is the right to speak or write without fear, and it is a duty on the part of every citizen not to use fear as a weapon to silence one's critics. It is most important that the government, in a civilized country, raises its voice in defense of those who would speak freely, rather than give its encouragement to those who would harvest rage as a way to silence its critics.

"Silly?" Since when is the right to immunity from violence for speaking or writing "silly?"

Yeah, this one included my birth year. I believe the range was 1929 to 1969. I was born in 1967.

It’s a surprisingly eye opening event when the ads targeted at “old people” are now counting you as being old. I suppose at 41 I should be considering some form of life insurance outside of what I get through my employer, but I could do without being made to feel old in the process. In years past I could ignore those ads, but now they taunt me in the same insidious way my bathroom mirrors taunt me by reminding me of my continuing march towards the so-called golden years. I believe I exclaimed, upon realizing the ad was directed at me, the following: “Sonofabitch!” Said as one big word just like I wrote it there. My remote is going to have large finger sized holes in it from me crazily stabbing at the buttons every time one of those damnable ads comes on.

Oh, well. I learned about everything I missed from Greg Laden and bug_girl. Next year! Next year I must go!

Don't tell Jerry, but aren't pictures of baby kitties a cheap way to get some eyeballs? At least it's a nice story about a few animals coming back to the wilderness.

About 250 people came to the Methow Valley June 26 through 28 from as far away as Europe and Hawaii to participate in the ninth annual Fairy and Human Relations Congress, an outdoor festival in a secluded mountain meadow called Skalitude.

Hey, I know where that is — near Twisp (a wonderful name for a fairy congress), Washington, and very lovely place. And they were gathered for such a noble purpose!

"The purpose of the congress is to encourage communication and cooperation of the fairy realm," said Michael "Skeeter" Pilarski, the event's founder and organizer.

The human world is in crisis and can use all the help it can get, Pilarski said, so why not form alliances with those in other realms?

Why not, indeed. It sounds so reasonable. They're also right about something.

Skeptics might mock the participants or dismiss them as New Age hippies, but they say their belief system is not much different from Native American animists or even Christians who believe in angels.

You're exactly right, Skeeter. There's no difference at all between what you're doing and what's going on in churches every day, all across the world.

Last week was the Henley Royal Regatta, one of the world’s best known rowing events, that plays merry hell with my daily commute through Henley-on-Thames. So for “regatta week” I take a different route through the equally beautiful Sonning-on-Thames, home of the infamous Uri Geller, over its weak bridge crossing the Thames. This bottleneck causes a queue (i.e. what other countries call a traffic jam) of a mile or so for a couple of hours twice a day. While sitting in this queue and listening to my podcasts, I typically use such time to reflect and enjoy the natural environment in which I’m temporarily stuck, and that includes observing the antics of the cars in front and behind (in my mirror).

On Thursday I noticed the driver of the car behind had that distinctly fundagelical look about him: immaculate goatee and hair, short-sleeved buttoned shirt, oversized car, mirror shades, and gleaming teeth and plastic smile (I’ve been to the US and I’m from Australia, so I know the archetype). I saw his attention fix on my Atheist Bus Campaign sticker (available online):

He leaned forward to peer at the large text and said a few words, then lifted his sunglasses to read the smaller text and I watched as his face started to go purple and he began gesticulating and shouting to nobody, and I honestly thought that he was going to get out of his car and have a go at me. But for the traffic inching forward shortly after, he may well have done. That would have been interesting.

Last night I watched a show on Channel 4 called Revelations: Muslim School, part 2 of an 8 part series on religion’s impact on the UK, covering the lives of two young schoolgirls in a Muslim faith school. Knowing most of my friends are unaware of what happens in a non-Christian faith school, I sent out a notification on Twitter. I recommend anyone watches it — particularly if you don’t know a great deal about “everyday Islam” in the UK, as it’s remarkably neutral for a British TV documentary, and I felt the children and people portrayed in the show were representative of British Muslims with its heavy Asian influence (post-colonial immigration, etc).

My tweet was noticed by a PhD student in Sheffield, Ruth, who invited me to participate in a post-screening discussion on a website forum. Aside from Ruth and me, those present seemed to consist of a fellow humanist, a non-practising (”default”) Christian, a man who began with “Open disclosure here: I’m a Southern Baptist, proud and true” (or along those lines), and one or two others who lurked. The 60-90 minutes that followed were quite interesting, and I was happy to participate to assist in PhD research, most of which involved answering questions about what we thought of the show, concepts within it, how it was presented, any perceptions of bias or preferences for or against its approach, how we’d like to see it done differently, etc.

What I found amusing was how the Baptist kept trying to steer to conversation into opinions on Muslims, reverting to familiar cultural and religious ad hominems. Invariably we’d ignore the attempt and continue with the conversation, but he persisted for the better part of an hour. He did contribute to the discussion occasionally, but seemed more intent on getting everyone to agree with his opinions on things like the hijab: to him it was extremism — until I reminded him that mainstream Christianity required female head-covering in church until quite recently.

However, in some ways he’s right. The furore over wearing hijab is indicative of a dangerous fundamentalism in Islam, where strict adherence to the letter of the Book is of paramount importance. But he wouldn’t have been able to see that this is essentially no different to dangerous Christian fundamentalism, with some sects becoming ultra-patriarchal, women not speaking in church (1 Corinthians 14:34-35) or covering heads (1 Corinthians 11), or wars and foreign policy decisions when such people become national leaders, etc. Both lead to literal interpretations and cherry-picking of the worst parts of their respective Books, and actively discourage inquiry, investigation and understanding, and advocating Bronze Age knowledge and practises in favour of current knowledge. And in the case of those two religions in particular, they’re replete with awful, violent acts.

For the rest of us, we may not all have agreed with each others’ opinions, but we were able to play together nicely. And that’s what makes for great discussion and debate: differing opinion and the maturity to respect another’s position.

Both of these recent events reminded me of Bertrand Russell’s essay An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish, and this paragraph from it in particular (emphasis mine):

If, like most of mankind, you have passionate convictions on many such matters, there are ways in which you can make yourself aware of your own bias. If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If some one maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction. The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.

Lastly, one of my company’s salespeople is a Pakistani-British Muslim who, despite being raised Muslim, has chosen to live pragmatically. He may go to mosque some Fridays for Jumu’ah, but all other aspects of at least his professional life are almost indistinguishable from any secular person (I’m not sure if he drinks alcohol or eats pork, nor is it any of my business): he doesn’t let his religion interfere with what he’s paid to do. For that he has my respect.

That’s why it surprised me this morning when he walked into the office and asked if the Peugeot in the carpark was mine, and then commented on the Atheist Bus Campaign sticker. I was pleased that he was able to joke about it, laughing how he’d “never be able to get away with that at the mosque on Fridays” and was non-confrontational about it despite much of the anti-atheist publicity and rhetoric that has flowed from self-appointed “religious authorities” since the Campaign started.

Only one of my fellow team members seems to dislike my take on religion, but then he’s the one who thinks life on earth was deliberately seeded by aliens as an experiment. So I’m crushed by his disfavour, as you might well imagine…

What pseudo-scientific categories are discussed on the site? Astrology, Numerology, Tarot, Psychic, Reincarnation, etc. Just like his TV show, it targets people who are depressed and vulnerable, who would rather get false hope than reality, and who are ready to throw their money at the first con artist who shows up.

There’s free membership and paid membership. The “IQ Membership” is the one that requires you to pay money. (Ironically, one would think people with higher IQs would avoid joining the website altogether…)

Here’s all you need to know about the site. The Terms of Use has a disclaimer — a “limitation of liability” — that reads:

JECO PARTIES MAKE NO WARRANTY THAT… THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THE SITE WILL BE ACCURATE OR RELIABLE…

In other words, they can make up whatever bullshit they want, and if they’re wrong, you can’t do anything about it.

The entire second section of the Terms of Use is called “Not Healthcare Advice” and urges you not to take their recommendations seriously. Instead, you should ask your doctor before doing anything they say. Which they’re making up, anyway.

Edward appeared on Sean Hannity’s show (are you surprised?) to promote the site.

Check out some of Hannity’s hard-hitting journalism:

HANNITY: See, I actually think there’s — there could be a good side to what you’re doing in terms of entertainment. I think hypnosis is entertaining. I believe it’s real. I also think that you might be able to give comfort to people, to think that that loved one is sending a message. And whether real or not, it could be comforting.

What I worry about [are] the people that would take advantage of people that are psychologically, spiritually, emotionally vulnerable. [Hemant's note: Does Hannity have *any* idea who he's talking to at this point?]

EDWARD: And that’s why it’s important to raise your awareness, so that you understand what’s real and what’s not real. But you know, if you’re going to see a psychic, and the psychic is telling you what to do, not a good place. No psychics shouldn’t be telling you what to do. They should be providing you insights, and then you choose based upon your own God-given ability of free will as to what’s going to happen or what you’re going to choose to do.

…

HANNITY: … And I hope you use [your gift] for good. And not like some of these hucksters. These people in New York are nuts, you know, that supposedly do this for a living…

The other psychics are all hucksters, but the biggest one of all, the guy you’re interviewing, he gets off scot-free. Right…

You *know* Jon Stewart would have taken Edward down in an instant.

(via Portland Skepticism Examiner)

A week ago I gave a talk at a Secular Humanist group at a Unitarian Universalist church in Lynchburg, VA.   This brochure caught my eye, so I took it:  "Is Our Church Gay?"

I lol’d.

The inside offers sample questions regarding gay people and homophobia that children could ask their parents and suggestions for how Unitarians should answer.  Of course, I disagreed with the woo-woo, "God made us different," bullshit, so here are the questions in the brochure, along with the Unitarian parents’ answers, the Evangelical/Baptist parents’ answers, a Catholic priest’s answers and what I would say if asked by my future children.

Disclaimer:  I am not responsible for your fucked-up children if you follow my parenting advice.

"It is silly because it revives a medieval religious law in a modern pluralist republic, and it makes Ireland seem like a backward country. People need protection. Ideas do not. Ideas should always be open to criticism and ridicule. If the law is passed, we will be immediately testing it by publishing a blasphemous statement."

"This is insanity. Please, Mr Ahern, define the things we can't say, please! Can we say, 'Jesus is gay'? Or can we ask, 'Is God in a biscuit?' Could he tell us what it means? It is just insanity. After all, there are things contained in the holy books of one religion that are blasphemy to another religion. The logic behind this comes from Alice in Wonderland.

"In Ted we kind of generally avoided central tenets of belief, because it was not what the show was about. It was about a very bad priest who didn't think about religion a lot. Writers should not be looking over their shoulders. If you are writing a satire today, the Irish government are making it harder to do that. Writers should not be looking over their shoulders. If you are writing a satire today, the Irish government are making it harder to do that."

Now these joyless twats have one more reason to detest HP: the revelation in Esquire today that Daniel Radcliffe, star of Harry Potter, is an ATHEIST.

In an interview in the August edition of the magazine, Radcliffe, 19, said he did not believe in God.

Two atheist stars of the latest Harry Potter movie: Jim Broadbent and Daniel Radcliffe

He also expressed his admiration for Professor Richard Dawkins, the prominent atheist and bete noir of Evangelical Christians.

According to this report, Radcliffe has been reticent on the subject of religion in the past, but in an interview to promote the latest instalment in the film franchise – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, due for release on July 15 – he said:

I’m an atheist, but I’m very relaxed about it. I don’t preach my atheism, but I have a huge amount of respect for people like Richard Dawkins who do. Anything he does on television, I will watch.

And he joked:

There we go … that’s half of America that’s not going to see the next Harry Potter film on the back of that comment.

J K Rowling’s stories of the schoolboy wizard are taken very seriously by some Evangelical Christians in the United States. One of the largest Christian groups in the country, Focus on the Family, denounced the books as “witchcraft”.

The Church of England, however, has been more relaxed about the series – and has even published a guide advising youth leaders to use Harry Potter to spread the Christian message, as the characters face:

Struggles and dilemmas that are familiar to us all.

Veteran British actor Jim Broadbent, who plays Professor Horace Slughorn in the new movie, is no believer either. In a Telegraph interview in 2007 he said:

If I was ever to go back to religion I would likely go to the Quakers first. I never did have it, really …

“So what does he think happens to you when you die?” he was asked:

Absolutely nothing. I’m with Arthur Morrison on that one.

(Arthur Morrison is the character he played in When Did You Last See Your Father?, the film adaptation of the 1993 Blake Morrison memoir.)

And then I actually hear some representatives say, and I’m brought back to reality. Oklahoma’s State Representative, Sally Kern, is the person this week. Pastor’s wife and homophobe, she is known for saying that homosexuality is “the biggest threat [America] has” and will “destroy our young people, it will destroy this nation.”

Most recently she has created “Oklahoma Citizen’s Proclamation for Morality” which blames “abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse and many other forms of debauchery” for the country’s economic woes.

The problem is, those things were just as prominent when things were going well. And they’ll still be around again when things turn around. But she’s a fundie, so it’s difficult to put that together.

What is their solution? Oh, they can’t WAIT to tell you, praise Jebus:

BE IT RESOLVED that we, the undersigned, believers in the One True God and His only Son, call upon all to join with us in recognizing that “Blessed is the Nation whose God is the Lord,” and humbly implore all who love Truth and Virtue to live above reproach in the sight of God and man with a firm reliance on the leadership and protection of Almighty God; and

BE IT RESOLVED that we, the undersigned, humbly call upon Holy God, our Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer, to have mercy on this nation, to stay His hand of judgment, and grant a national awakening of righteousness and Christian renewal as we repent of our great sin.

Well good luck, but I doubt God, if he exists, thinks much of their resolution. Our economic trouble has nothing to do with some kind of sadistic theistic punishment — it’s what happens when people overspend and get themselves into too much debt. We didn’t need a sky-fairy to manipulate our markets and cause people to default on their mortgages — we can do that just fine by ourselves.

But let’s just pretend for a minute that this is a judgement of God. Instead of hurting people who commit those horrendous “sins,” it’s the single mom with three kids who loses her job and can’t find work. It’s the Christian auto worker who is layed off. The financial crisis is hardest on the poor — those who are most religious. And here I am, a blasphemer and an atheist, and I have more work than I can handle.

How would there be any kind of justice in that judgement? If our trouble is a punishment from God, it would raise a lot of questions about whether he really is “holy” and someone to worship and plead for him to stop hurting people.

But it doesn’t have anything to do with God. It’s just economics. There is nothing that needs more than a natural explanation.

So let’s stop with all the superstitious crap and work on the problem, shall we?

(via)

Last Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill. As a contributor to Repower America, I was invited to be on a conference call the previous Monday afternoon with former Vice President Al Gore. He was incredibly inspirational in his delivery and message. He encouraged everyone to engage in whatever form of grass-roots activism they could. Following that call, I sent an email to my entire address book (about 1,500 people) urging them to call their congressman and demand passage of the bill.

As it turned out, the bill passed by only a razor-thin margin, and faces a very uncertain future in the Senate, because the fossil industry mounted a furious pressure campaign. Phones were running 9-1 against passage. So the congressmen who voted in favor had to buck tremendous political arm-twisting. I also received a fair amount of mail questioning the bill. It was largely based on the overwhelming attitude of Americans that the government should not be setting energy policy, but letting the “private sector work it out.”

Here’s a representative email:

It appears that you are on fire for the environmental cause. You continue to be an articulate and passionate spokesman for what you believe in. You’re certainly not the lukewarm type.

I agree with a number of the points you make. There is one major flaw that leads to other minor flaws in your argument, as I see it; and that is, your expectation that the Federal Government can and should legislate and execute our way to what should be free market solutions to our energy and our environment.

You seem to be ignoring that it’s Big Government Crony Capitalism that is to blame for the oil industry energy monopoly, corruption and the suppression of efficient technologies, such as Nikola Tesla’s, for example. I believe it is naïve to believe that the solution to this can be brought about by more Big Government actions, like this “climate change bill.”

Compared to life before fossil fuels, I don’t see how historians in the future will see mankind’s use of them as “disgraceful.” I struggle to see how using fossil fuels can be compared to slavery or the oppression of women, except that the free market has been abused by the energy monopolists and cronies of the banker-run Federal Government. But, you make no mention of these abuses in you email.

Thanks for including me in your email list on this issue. It’s a very important one for our time and we all have a responsibility in a self-governed society to be properly educated and to help properly educate our elected officials.

Hi _____,

It’s not environmentalism, per se, but sustainability that’s the key. The only reason we’ve been ruining the environment is that we take more from it than we put back. It’s like a bank account.
Prior to the wide use of fossil fuels, human population and food production was severely limited. Once coal, oil, natural gas were discovered, it wildly accelerated progress, living standards, and industry. We have received many benefits. But we have to consider where the fossil fuels came from. They are stored solar energy, having accumulated over 100-200 million years. We’ve burned them about a million times faster than they were formed. We’ve also released carbon stored over millions of years into the atmosphere all at once, leading to CO2 levels more than double as high as they’ve been for all of human history. This is rapidly warming the planet, which will set into motion a number of irreversible processes. As the planet warms, positive feedback ensues:

1. Polar ice reflects the sun much better than the ocean. Once the ice melts, the water absorbs more of the sun’s rays on an ongoing basis, leading to a further increase in warming.
2. Ocean acidification (CO2 mixed with water forms carbonic acid) kills corals which form the basis of the marine food chain. If the marine food chain collapses, it will have devastating effects on economies and populations. We also need to consider that the ocean is earth’s biggest carbon sink, (it now absorbs about half what humans produce every year).
3. Permafrost melting releases further carbon and methane, which will lead to further warming. It is estimated that 1.5 trillion tons of carbon are locked into the permafrost, an amount double all of the present atmospheric carbon. That figure does not include the methane, a greenhouse gas prevalent in decaying plant matter, and 20 times more potent than CO2 at trapping heat.

If all that runaway positive feedback occurs, it will melt the polar icecaps completely, and the Greenland ice sheet. No one knows precisely where the tipping points are in this system. But what’s important is that we are talking about our very life-support system on this planet. Not because of the animals, other species, nature, etc. It is vitally essential to human life. So it’s not an environmental issue, but a human one. The human race might survive 60 meter (200 foot) sea level rises by mass migrations, but the political order won’t. What new world wars would be in store under such a scenario? Half of humanity lives near coastlines, where expected sea level rises would devastate cities and agriculture. Long before cities were inundated, water tables would fill with brine and exacerbate the suffering of already strapped populations already living in incredibly difficult conditions.

So the comparison to slavery and oppression of women has to do with the old ways of thinking that make people believe it’s OK to live unsustainably, to take these kinds of risks. That it’s OK to benefit now, pay later. Slavery was profiting at the cost of dehumanizing a person’s labor. Oppression of women was dehumanizing women by using them for what men wanted without giving them a chance to be self-realized. Both were short-term strategies that were bound to backfire. Right now, the industrialized world has benefitted tremendously at other people’s expense. We deplete and pollute the world by our tremendous consumption while billions of people live at the subsistence level. Half the world has mighty industry and unbelievably productive mechanized farming, much of which goes toward meat and biofuel production–while billions are dehumanized by performing these same tasks with manual labor just to feed themselves. It’s resource slavery, to coin a phrase. Unlike American slaves, today’s impoverished are not likely to have the resources to become emancipated. That is, unless the world embraces sustainable practices.

Short term thinking is also what brought about the banking crisis you speak of: the failure to “pay as you go.” Nature doesn’t do bailouts. We are in control of the planetary ecosystem now, and we’re running a dangerous experiment with ourselves and our children in the test tube.

Please do not kid yourself that there is any controversy as to whether or not climate change is happening. Take a look at the positions of NASA, the AAAS, the NAS, the British Royal Society, insurance companies, people whose reputations and fortunes are on the line. The earth’s climate is the most extensively studied system in history.

The naysayers are in many cases on the payroll of the fossil energy companies, or contrarians who see an opportunity to gain publicity by being a “climate change skeptic.” But that doesn’t really matter. I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I want to see people look at the facts, independently of their wishes. Unfortunately, the climate change issue will affect everyone, and it will be challenging and difficult to address. So of course people want to deny it. People are grieving the loss of what they perceived as an infinite planet with infinite resources where we could just let the free market sort it out. That day is long past. And after all, denial is the first of the five stages of grief.

The earth has never been infinite. Man was just too insignificant to have much effect. Until he discovered fossil fuels. The atmosphere, like the ocean, is a commons. For example, Los Angeles cleaned up its air, but now receives 25% of its smog from China. We are all connected. Everything each one of us does affects everyone else on the planet. The US has lived in a privileged position for many decades, consuming a disproportionate share of planetary energy and resources. With 5% of the population, we consume 25-30% of the world’s energy and minerals. Long term, that is a prescription for war, instability, and ultimately collapse.

And that’s all before the threat of climate change, which many in the U.S. may perceive as “someone else’s problem.” But we cannot escape the fact that we in the first world have gotten all the benefits of industrialization that other countries now desire. We cannot lead and still remain hypocrites on this issue. If we want China to stop building coal plants, then we have to seriously embrace alternatives like wind and solar. We can do that by agreeing to restrain our carbon output and improving our clean and green technology. That would give us moral authority.

It is the opportunity of the century, and the U.S. should not miss out. If we deny, delay, and waffle, we will be left behind by other countries who see the writing on the wall and are already innovating. And if we act, we can move the world.

This subject can’t be understood quickly or briefly. It took me about 5 years of studying to wrap my head around it. The reason why most people misunderstand energy policy is because it is extremely complicated. Fossil fuels have been encouraged and subsidized to a huge extent by the world’s governments. They’ve been a way of life for so long people can’t envision a world without them. The vast subsidies they receive are in addition to the tremendous blood and treasure expended pursuing Middle East wars. These have only been necessary because of huge U.S. oil imports and the oil intensity of the U.S. economy.

New government policy is needed precisely to reverse decades of bad policy. It’s not a choice between the government and the free market. The government has been neck-deep in the energy market since the beginning, granting dirt cheap oil leases to companies who became fabulously wealthy by drilling a public resource and selling it back to the public. What the government should have done long ago is to establish an oil depletion trust fund, knowing that the supply would eventually run out. US oil production peaked in 1971. Once we realized that, we should have responded accordingly with taxes and fees to encourage conservation and to pay for the inevitable energy transition. We did at first, with the oil intensity (barrels per dollar of GDP) dropping by half between 1973 and 1985. Then, the Reagan administration failed to keep up conservation efforts and allowed U.S. imports to rise dramatically as we began to live off the last orgy of cheap imported oil. Cars got bigger as people switched from compacts to SUVs, which were exempt under CAFE regulations because they were built on truck chassis. That era came to a close last year with $148/barrel oil slamming the international economy into steep decline. We may have been overleveraged, but it was the oil shock that pushed us into insolvency.

Which brings us to where we are today. We are living entirely unsustainably. Meaning that if we wanted to keep our current levels of consumption, we would need 2-3 earths. If everyone lived like Americans, which is where many nations are headed, it would take 12-15 earths. It is something that goes way beyond the petty problems of the bankers. Their swindling ways are just a sideshow compared to the gross warfare that’s being waged on the biosphere. Don’t take my word for it. Please, do your own research.

We should be living in a way that allows humanity to grow and prosper indefinitely–not with the constant fear and anxiety that we will hit the proverbial wall. The train wreck will happen in our lifetime, and our children will be directly and deeply affected. They will not have the opportunities we did, and it will be our fault and the fault of previous generations who contributed to the global inertia we now face.

That is why I am passionate. We must reverse this situation, and that starts with confronting the problem squarely and courageously. It is possible to have growth and sustainability at the same time.

It’s not just fossil fuels, but deforestation and loss of biodiversity that are a major threat. A billion people also now lack adequate clean water, and that number is projected to double in the next 15 years due to deglaciation. Darfur was the first “climate genocide” (it was largely about access to water, not just a murderous Islamic regime) and there will be many more. Global fish stocks have been 75% to 90% depleted. Governments subsidize deep-sea overfishing and they need to stop. If we curtailed fishing right now, it’s conservatively estimated it would take 20-50 years for the marine ecosystem to rebound. And that’s if the coral doesn’t collapse. About 15% of the world’s population eats mostly fish and would die without it. It doesn’t take a genius to understand we can’t continue along this treacherous path.

We will add at least another 2 billion to the world’s population in the next 40 years–if some ecosystem-induced dieoff disaster doesn’t kick in before then. It’s hard to imagine gigadeaths, I know. It’s hard to believe that with all our technology we can’t save these people, many as yet unborn. The mind recoils and immediately enters the safety of denial. But that’s where we’re headed (which is not a matter of opinion, but fact) if something is not done. Most of us have been sleepwalking into this perilous future. Our daily decisions will affect the outcome.

The best solutions are those following the Bright Green model, meaning applying technological innovation to spur growth and transition to sustainability. Putting a price on carbon emissions is the surest way to spur universal economic interest in this vital innovation. It’s the best way to get to win-win, rather than seeing progress vs. the environment as a zero-sum game, or the other false dichotomy of free market vs. government control.

Further Reading:

WWF Living Planet Report (.pdf) 4.3 MB

Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman

Collapse, by Jared Diamond

Natural Capitalism, Amory Lovins et al

World Changing: A user’s guide to the 21st Century by Alex Steffen et al

Film:

The Home Project

She says:

“I think my parents had been mildly disappointed when I told them I didn’t believe in God anymore, but being an ‘atheist’ was another thing altogether!”

That’s the idea behind this cartoon:

(via Atheist Cartoons)

Joining A|N is free and I can attest to the great networking potential it has. I have a personal page and a Friendly Atheist page on it.

If you need any more convincing, there are nearly 500 groups for atheists with more specific interests — photography, Shakespeare, parenting, GLBT issues, etc. It’s a nice way to meet other atheists in your area, too.

So join up and wish A|N a happy birthday. It’ll only get bigger next year!

(via Ctrl-Alt-Del)

I really can't emphasize this enough: this meeting was a phenomenal experience for students.

I'm an atheist, but I'm very relaxed about it. I don't preach my atheism, but I have a huge amount of respect for people like Richard Dawkins who do. Anything he does on television, I will watch.

I understand that this same segment of society has also found a heightened interest in the works of playwrights like Peter Schaffer, so we know the Harry Potter effect can help. If only Radcliffe had an excuse to take his clothes off for atheism…

Of course there is also the complementary effect that the people who were convinced that both Harry Potter and atheism were the demon-spawned products of Hell have now had their suspicions confirmed.

Now we learn that the creators of the brilliant Father Ted television series have joined the clamour against the proposed new law, denouncing it as as “insanity” and pledging to support a campaign to stop it in its tracks.

A report in the Observer today says that Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan have backed moves by a group of Irish secularists to challenge the anti-blasphemy Bill introduced in the Dáil last week.

Atheist Ireland, in a calculated challenge to the law, said it will publish a statement blaspheming ALL the major religions in Ireland, including Christianity and Islam.

Under the Irish constitution, the state is obliged to have blasphemy laws. The bill going through the Dáil would amend the Defamation Act of 1961, which includes blasphemy as a crime. To abolish blasphemy laws, the government would have to hold a referendum to amend the constitution.

The duo, who wrote a host of other TV comedies such as Big Train, described the blasphemy law contained in the new Bill covering defamation in Ireland as “a return to the Middle Ages”.

Linehan said that Justice Minister Dermot Ahern, who introduced the Bill, should be challenged to define what he meant by blasphemy.

This is insanity. Please, Mr Ahern, define the things we can’t say, please! Can we say, ‘Jesus is gay’? Or can we ask, ‘Is God in a biscuit?’ Could he tell us what it means? It is just insanity. After all, there are things contained in the holy books of one religion that are blasphemy to another religion. The logic behind this comes from Alice in Wonderland.

Linehan added said the Irish blasphemy law was part of a trend in the west where freedom of expression was being attacked:

To placate the craziest people on earth.

Mathews said the Bill:

Hardly seems necessary in the Ireland of the 21st century … It’s a pity that law hadn’t been introduced when we were writing Father Ted, because it would have given us a great storyline. The best attitude to this nonsense is to laugh at it and send it up. There is no popular clamour for it in Ireland, so I wonder why Dermot Ahern has brought it in the first place.

Michael Nugent, of Atheist Ireland, who has also written comedy with Mathews, added that the Bill was silly and dangerous.

It is silly because it revives a medieval religious law in a modern pluralist republic, and it makes Ireland seem like a backward country. People need protection. Ideas do not. Ideas should always be open to criticism and ridicule. If the law is passed, we will be immediately testing it by publishing a blasphemous statement.

When news of the proposed law first broke, a blog called Marshmallow Ladyboy Jesus was set up to inform the public about it – and much more besides of interest to godless heathens, and anyone concerned with freedom of speech.

Meanwhile, Atheist Ireland is finalising plans for a blasphemous statement at its annual meeting, which is open to the public, in Wynns Hotel in Dublin next Saturday.

Under the new law, anyone found guilty of blasphemy in the wider Defamation Act can be fined up to €25,000 (£21,400).

HAT TIP: Adam Tjaavk

That thunderf00t will clean Ray's clock is irrelevant, because Ray is the most egregiously dishonest person alive. What will happen will be the same thing that happened when Ray and his pal Kirk Cameron debated the Rational Response Squad on ABC some time back. Ray will make inane points, thunderf00t will decisively and unequivocally refute them, and then Ray will simply ignore everything thunderf00t said and repeat the limp arguments that were just blasted to smithereens by his opponent. Of course, Ray and Kirk looked like the dumbasses they are coming out of the RRS debate. The point is, they didn't, and couldn't, notice.

Ray, apart from being The World's Stupidest Christian™, is, more succinctly, a narcissist and a liar. And as he himself, perhaps ironically, has pointed out, the only reason he has any prominence at all is due to atheists. The unplumbed depths to which he allows his fractal wrongness to sink have been red meat to us, and a lot of us have bitten. But the net result of that has been to give Ray the validation he wants. If atheists are so fierce about attacking every moronic utterance Ray spews, then, obviously, that means he's got us scared and circling the wagons! Right? Uh-huh.

So, frankly, any "debate" with this supreme idiot will be a farcical waste of time, because Ray isn't interested in truth (as in the "verifiable, objective facts" definition of the term), just his own brand of fundagelical truthiness. And these little charades simply pump up his ego by reinforcing his ego-gratifying need to believe that the simple fact atheists want to take him on proves he's right. The content of the debate is irrelevant. That it's happening at all is, to him, victory.

So can we just forget this cretin already? He ought to be relegated to the obscurity he richly deserves. Let him end up evangelizing at one of those non-denominational congregations that meet in half-empty strip malls in the dodgy part of town. It's where he deserves to be.

Dear Richard,

I recently found myself in an awkward, social situation. I was sitting in a public place with a small group of people who all knew each other, at least well enough to match names to faces. Some around the table were theists and some were not. One person mentioned a news story about suicide bombers, and another began to rant about how all the world’s ills were caused by religion. No one else at the table wanted to argue about religion, but this one individual needed no encouragement to continue in this vein for some minutes. Feelings began to run high. I tried to stop the rant short by pointing out the simple fact that not all ills are caused by religion, and not all that is done in the name of religion is an ill, but this just encouraged the ranter to get louder and start repeating himself. Two of my theistic friends started arguing back, forcefully. Afterwards, I took a few moments to try to speak to the ranting individual one on one, asking him why he felt so strongly that he had to override our conversation like that. He responded by repeating his rant a third time. What else should I have done?

Quester

Dear Quester,

Since it’s all over, this is one of those situations where all you can do is to find a lesson, and then try to apply it the next time. What else you should have done depends on what you wanted to accomplish. It sounds like you wanted the ranter to just stop talking, and I can understand that, because perhaps you felt embarrassed by his loud anti-religious rant in front of your theist friends as well as others outside your group, and perhaps you were uncomfortable with the tension as “feelings began to run high.” That is very understandable.

You said that no one else wanted to argue about religion, and so you tried to stop the rant short by… arguing with him. He simply repeated his rant which provoked others into arguing forcefully, and so your attempt backfired. We’ve all had the frustration of getting the opposite of what we intended.

Groups of friends, as they continue to meet over time, begin to have unspoken rules, expectations and boundaries called norms. For instance, the members begin to subconsciously sense what topics are welcome and what levels of tension are tolerable in the group. Each member tries to adjust as the norms become firmer, but if they cannot adjust, they leave the group. Sometimes certain individuals take on roles in response to those norms. Some are leaders, some are followers, some are provocateurs, and some are peacemakers, to name just a few. They are all important roles, and can be very positive.

I think you wanted to be the peacemaker, to protect the group’s overall mood from building up too much tension about a topic that might be divisive, delivered in a rant that might be too strident. Your group’s norms may not be firmly established yet, and with the mixture of theists and atheists, this subject might eventually become something they can comfortably discuss, or something everyone tacitly agrees to avoid. Which way it goes remains to be seen. The tension might have been created only by the tone and volume of the rant, or it might have been the topic itself, no matter how softly and politely it is ever discussed. Each group can have very different norms about such things.

Groups of friends talk about many things, but those few groups that can also occasionally talk about how they talk are the ones that can mature and become more satisfying, more tolerant of differences, and more beneficial to the members.

Perhaps you could experiment with talking to the whole group about this incident. Starting with yourself, encourage the others to be frank but still respectful about their feelings as it had played out. That way, your role as peacemaker will not just be about squelching discussions that might bring up tension, but instead can be about promoting good-natured honesty within the group. That will create a much more healthy atmosphere than simply avoiding or disallowing tension-provoking topics.

I hope your group of friends can continue to meet, even including the provocative ranter. It sounds like it has the potential of becoming a fulfilling and enjoyable resource for all the members if they can sometimes talk about how they talk, and how that affects them.

Richard

…

You may send your questions for Richard to .

In an interview with Esquire magazine, Radcliffe risked the US box office prospects of the new Harry Potter film by declaring himself to be an atheist.

In a pronouncement that will dismay America’s religious Right, which has long voiced suspicions about Potter’s “anti-Christian” message, the 19-year-old actor said he did not believe in God.

He also expressed his admiration for Professor Richard Dawkins, the prominent atheist and bete noir of Evangelical Christians.

Radcliffe has been reticent on the subject of religion in the past, but in an interview to promote the latest instalment in the film franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, released on July 15, he said: “I’m an atheist, but I’m very relaxed about it. I don’t preach my atheism, but I have a huge amount of respect for people like Richard Dawkins who do. Anything he does on television, I will watch.”

The trouble with that whole “anti-Christian” or devil theory is that its ceases to exist when you don’t believe it. If you don’t accept the story where one’s supposed to worship the protagonist, the opposing version that worships the antagonist isn’t going to be anymore believable. To be a devil-worshipper, you have to believe god exists. The idea that anything that leaves Christianity out of the picture momentarily is automatically anti- is taking it a bit overboard.

h/t

• What’s the point? (0)
• The Miracles of Nature (5)

When I think about family and friends, I will often think to myself, “God bless ’em” when I am worried about them. This is not said out loud; it is just a personal thought toward the person I am thinking of, a long ingrained habit.

As an atheist I certainly don’t think it actually does anything. But am I planning on stopping? No. Old thought patterns are hard to change. I have just been laughing lately when I catch myself doing this.

Do other atheists do the same thing? How do they deal with it? What are suggestions on other ways to phrase these thoughts?

Seems like I need to train myself to think “Be safe, I care about you” instead…

I don’t see any problem with thinking the way Bob does, since it’s more out of habit than belief. I’m hard-pressed to think of examples of God coming into my thoughts, even though I say “religious” phrases out loud all the time (”Dear Lord,” “Bless you” (after someone sneezes), and “Oh God” come to mind).

Does anyone else think religious thoughts as an atheist?

The picture may be Photoshopped, but the mobile does really exist.

And Rob did indeed drive it around.

The reaction wasn’t very pleasant. You can hear the boos…

Unless he was running over cute puppies with the RV, the boos aren’t his fault. All he’s doing is saying he’s “godless and proud.” He’s arrogant as hell about it, yes, but no more so than a Christian who truly believes people are going to Hell if they don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus.

(via wheresmybulldog — Thanks to William for the link!)

Dawkins sets up kids’ camp to groom atheists

Not only was Richard Dawkins not running the camp (he only made a small donation to it), it most certainly does not “groom atheists.” It encourages them to think for themselves and does not guide them toward a godless conclusion.

Anyway, today, they finally published a rebuttal letter from Dawkins himself:

Your article Dawkins Sets Up Kids’ Camp to Groom Atheists (News, last week) begins with the Jesuitical opening line: “Give Richard Dawkins a child for a week’s summer camp and he will try to give you an atheist for life.” Camp Quest, is not inspired by me or influenced by me. The British version, run by Samantha Stein, follows the American model founded by Edwin and Helen Kagin, of Kentucky.

I gave the following quote to Lois Rogers: “Camp Quest encourages children to think for themselves, sceptically and rationally. There is no indoctrination, just encouragement to be open-minded, while having fun.” Isn’t that about as far from Jesuitical grooming as you could imagine? One of my dominant motivations is an abhorrence of childhood indoctrination, of atheism just as much as of religion. It is in this spirit that the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science has made very modest contributions to Camp Quest.

Richard Dawkins
Oxford

Many of the other letters appear to have been written by people who took the articles at face value and assume Camp Quest is some sort of atheist-indoctrination camp.

At least Dawkins corrected the record. If the paper issued a public apology, that’d be even better.

Gird your loins fearless skeptics and the next time you pass Lady Fiona’s Fairy Castle Emporium of Crystalline Delight( either a shop of woo or a really weird theme brothel) pop in and cast your eye over the knick-knacks and posters.

What do you see?

Dolphin’s, that’s right fucking dolphins.  Dolphins, depending on who you talk and how strong their grip on reality is, are:

• angels of the sea
• beings of equal or superior intelligence hampered only by their inability to use tools
• extraterrestrials
• benevolent rescuers
• ancient atlanteans
• insert crazy idea here

These cute marine mammals come to symbolise grace, power and healing and for $99.95 some aspiring con artist new age healer can sell you a book, cd, weight loss program, etcetera.  How can we resist teaming flipper with aromatherapy – cute animals and products always go well together.  Quite frankly I think someone could sell dolphin crap as a facial tonic and it would fly off the shelves.

Facts about Dolphins

• that smile of theirs is a feature of their anatomy, not an indication of their intent
• they have been known to bite, ram and dunk people in the water
• known to abduct women and children
• known to confuse humans as sexual mates ( a male bottlenose has a foot long penis with a hook on the end)
• bite people who feed them or don’t
• they are also observed being extremely aggressive toward one another

Dolphins are animals, some wild, some captive, but they are animals not humans in fish suits.

Well okay I don’t believe that crazy stuff but dolphin therapy is kosher, right?

Dolphin Assisted Therapy has been suggested to cure:

• Autism
• Aids
• Brain injury
• cerebral palsy
• down’s syndrome
• cancer
• sounding familiar yet
• ….

oh and the cost- not in the hundreds, not in the thousands but in the tens of thousands.

Is there any evidence to suggest that swimming with dolphins is any better than swimming without them?

Not yet.

Many thanks to Dr Karl’s Science is Golden for much of the background in this post.

Related posts:

1. Kenja the New Age Cult

I was a bit confused about why I’d want talk to Jesus, I mean he’s dead, isn’t he? Apparently not, he died and got resurrected. Xena explained the resurrection to me, so here’s how it went; Jesus was a pretty cool guy, and God figured he’d kill him as some kind of sacrifice to… well… himself? I kid you not, Xena told me that God tricked Satan into killing Jesus as a sacrifice. Then Jesus rose from the dead!

“Like a zombie?”, I asked. Apparently not. Zombie’s come back from the dead with their bodies, but Jesus rose from the dead as a spirit. I figured that Jesus was therefore a spiritual zombie, which she explained is not right because Jesus is eternal. I thought we were just arguing semantics, so I conceded that Jesus was an eternal spiritual zombie, which she said was “disrespectful,” but not wrong.

Read the whole thing, it’s hilarious!

Its hard to believe its almost a year since Atheist Nexus began.  A social networking initiative for Atheists and Agnostics it was not without a rocky start.  But a year on its bigger than many of its detractors thought possible.  Atheist Nexus membership stands at 9,178 and the folks at Atheist Nexus would like to make that a nice round figure by the time it hits its 1st birthday.

What do they offer? 

Atheist Nexus includes:

• numerous forums,
• blogs,
• a chat room

Primarily, Nexus aims to provide social support for atheists and agnostics. It is not in competition with other atheist organizations. In fact, one of its aims is to support them.

There are currently 485 groups on Nexus covering subjects as wide-ranging as:

• parenting to Shakespeare
• evolution to photography
• There are groups for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex atheists.

Prominent atheists who are members of AN include:

• PZ Myers (Pharyngula),
• Tanya Levin (author of People in Glass Houses: An Insider’s Story of a Life In and Out of Hillsong), and
• Russell Blackford (Metamagician and the Hellfire Club blog; author of 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists to be published later this year).

 
AN has also attracted many academics:

• Oxford educated Dr Terence Meaden runs a highly successful group called "Origins: Universe, Life, Humankind and Darwin".
• Professor Tom Arcaro drew on AN members for his recent sociological study of over 8,000 atheists. A
• Atheist Nexus Member, Emeritus Professor Robert A M Gregson of the Australian National University provided invaluable support and advice in drafting the recent Atheist Nexus submission to the Australian Human Rights Commission on "Freedom of Religion and Belief".

In order for atheists to have a ‘voice’ we need to unite.  Encouraging your friends, contacts and readers to boost our membership to the 10,000 and beyond mark is a positive step in that direction.

What does it cost?

Nadda, zip, nothing

Want to join?

Click here

Related posts:

1. Atheist Showdown? – Think Atheist vs Atheist Nexus
2. New Atheist Social Networking Platform
3. Interview with Morgan Mathew of Think Atheist

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine. – R.E.M, It’s The End Of The World

I came home this morning, and found a pamphlet tucked into my doorsill, and that pamphlet was from the Jehovah’s Witless, trumpeting about the End Of The World. It’s not enough that these anachronisms fantasize about the EOTW, but they feel bound and obliged to share it with the rest of us.

Each group receives a plaque and a cash reward.

Here are this year’s winners:

Best Service Project: Students for Freethought at The Ohio State University.

… They took the idea to their own group and immediately started planning a similar, week-long trip to help rebuilding efforts in New Orleans. But they weren’t content to stop there! They organized their trip to line up with the [University of Illinois'] trip in the spring of 2009, and the groups met up in New Orleans!

Inspired by the success of their spring break trip, SFF leaders then organized a second service project: a three-day camping trip to help improve and maintain the Pine Mountain Trail: putting up trail markers, installing bear poles (to keep bears from eating campers’ food!), and generally cleaning and maintaining the trail through the Appalachians.

Best Website: Students for A Nonreligious Ethos (SANE) at Berkeley University.

… The overall design is simple and uncluttered, making it easy to zero in on the information you need and navigate the site at a glance. The blog-style main feed features upcoming events and reviews of recent activities, updated almost once a week. From the front page, it’s easy to find upcoming events, get information about meeting times and locations, and quickly navigate to other areas of the site. Contacting the group is handled by a spam-filtering webform, and there’s an easy link to subscribe to their mailing list. The FAQ handles common questions in a light-hearted, fun manner. The site features pictures of the group’s recent activities and links to other organizations, information about the group and more — all while maintaining organization and ease of use.

Best Media Coverage/Letter to the Editor: Pastafarians at the University of South Carolina.

The Pastafarians @ USC have received a wide range of media attention this year. They began with their school newspaper, which covered president Andrew Cederdahl’s Founder’s Scholarship from American Atheists, covered and praised the group’s Darwin Day debate (Dan Barker v. Kyle Butt), and included several opinion pieces regarding the group, its message and tactics, both supportive and critical.  Their media attention spread beyond campus when local news station WISTV featured the group’s sold-out Darwin Day debate.  Another local channel featured the group while discussing the recent ARIS survey results.  ABC Columbia focused on the group in a series called "Hidden Columbia," and group leader Andrew Cederdahl was interviewed on Freethought Radio.  Last — but certainly not least — the group was featured in a front page story in the New York Times, “More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops“…

Best New Affiliate: American University Rationalists & Atheists:

The American Univereity Rationalists & Atheists (AURA) kicked off its first year with a call-out meeting with over 30 students in attendance. They’ve taken a field trip to see Bill Maher’s Religulous, hosted a well-attended dialogue with a christian student organization, welcomed speakers Dan Barker and Ellery Schempp, fed students at a Flying Spaghetti Monster Dinner and hosted a free comedy show on their campus. They were featured in their school’s student newspaper when they challenged their university’s commencement invocation. These activities, combined with student-led presentations and discussion meetings, are the components of a great year for AURA!…

Best Overall Affiliate: Secular Alliance of Indiana University:

The Secular Alliance at Indiana University started just over a year ago, but you’d never guess it from their numbers. They started their semester with a visit from atheist author John Loftus. They then organized a group field trip to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY, and collaborated to make a video of their trip, which you can see on Vimeo. This semester they met with other freethought groups in Indiana and have spearheaded the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign, which already has “You can be good without God” ads on buses in several cities across the state. They have garnered 200 members in just one school year, have built an effective and eye-catching website, and have applied for office space for their group in the fall!

It’s not too late to support the SSA; your donations will be matched by the Vital Spark Foundation!

Earlier today, I came across a post by Captain Army Barmy that made me laugh out loud. As I investigated his claim, however, I discovered that a story which I had taken as pretty simple is not nearly as straightforward as I believed it was. My initial thought was that Captain Army Barmy was making up shit. As it stands now, I don’t think he’s made up shit, but I do think he may have swallowed some, spit it out and spread it around. To be honest, though, I can’t say for sure which side of this story is true.

I’ll begin with Captain Army Barmy’s post:

The relevant text reads,

Happy Dominion Day in Canada. The ‘dominion’ refers to God’s dominion. Canada is properly called the Dominion of Canada, based on Psalm 72:8:

“He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.”

The background to the captain’s post is that July 1 was Canada Day (formerly called Dominion Day, until it was renamed in 1982), which is roughly equivalent to the July 4 Independence Day celebrated in the USA. When I read the captain’s post, I initially thought that he was rewriting Canadian history in order to imply a Christian nation claim similar to those frequently made by American Dominionists. According to this Wikipedia article, however, the captain’s claim may have some merit. Here’s what it says:

The 20th century usage of the term “Dominion” can be traced to a suggestion by Samuel Leonard Tilley at the London Conference of December 1866 discussing the confederation of four of the British North American colonies, Canada (subsequently the provinces of Ontario and Quebec), New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, into “One Dominion under the Name of Canada”, the first federation in the British Empire. Tilley’s suggestion was taken from Psalm 72:8, “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth” which is echoed in the national motto “A Mari Usque Ad Mare”.[18] The new Canadian government subsequently used “Dominion of Canada” to designate the new, larger colony.

If I had stopped reading there, I would have had to eat crow and give Captain Army Barmy the full benefit of the doubt. But, there’s a bit more to the story of Dominion Day’s meaning. A Wikipedia entry about Samuel Leonard Tilley says this:

A common tale states that Tilley was the originator of the word “Dominion” in Canada’s name. The Fathers of Confederation had been discussing what to prefix Canada with, Kingdom of Canada being Macdonald’s preference. During morning devotions, Tilley read Psalm 72:8, which states “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth”, and presented his inspiration to the others, being as their ambition was to stretch the new nation to the Pacific Ocean and from the St Lawrence River to the North Pole. The legitimacy of this story has been questioned, however, as “dominion” had already been used in a colonial context to describe other British territories, for example the Dominion of New England, and was thus hardly an innovative idea.

So, is the Tilley story apocryphal or not? I suspect it is, because, as noted in the Wiki entry cited immediately above, the term “dominion” has been used to designate other British territories. As far as I can tell, it’s usage did not usually have a biblical connotation, except, perhaps, in regard to Canada. Is the story of Tilley’s inspiration completely fabricated? Or, did he take a secular term, fill it with a spiritual meaning and sell it to Canada’s other Founding Fathers? I don’t know. It may be a mystery of history to which we’ll never know the answer.

– the chaplain

Yes, it’s (kinda) official now. Ray Comfort phoned up Thunderf00t and accepted his proposal for a discussion. This can only be good news, as it means we actually get to see Ray try to make up some arguments without appealing to emotion. It will be one room, with only a camera and the two men.

Of course, what Comfort did originally (attempting to get Thunderf00t to pay the fee for Richard Dawkins) is utterly reprehensible; it was a cowardly attempt to use Thunderf00t (who was the person offering the discussion in the first place) to get a debate with Richard Dawkins.

So maybe Ray is slightly less cowardly now, but to be honest, knowing Ray, I have my doubts. I predict he will still try to pull someone on this one. Whether it involves having an actual audience (so he can use appeals to emotion) or just being dishonest concerning the actual discussion plan. I hope he doesn’t, but over a year of reading Ray Comfort’s blog has left me with a distinct level of distrust surrounding the man; everything he does seems to have an ulterior motive.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Ray Comfort Is A Coward
• Going On Christian Radio
• Creationism Caption Competition #1
• YouTube Thursday -- Thunderf00t, Jesse Ventura, & Steven Fry
• (Almost) Daily Dose Of Comfort -- Hilter & Evolution

Here’s what this is all about: A whole bunch of us bloggers will be getting up early on Saturday July 25, 2009 and staying up for the next 24 hours blogging a new entry every 30 minutes or so. Some of us, like ***Dave and his comic books, will have a specific topic they’ll be focusing on and others, like me, will court disaster by relying on our ADD afflicted attention spans to find topics to blog about. ***Dave’s approach is more practical, but mine is more exciting. OK, not really, but there is a certain level of drama involved. The Blogathon will start at 0600 PDT/1300 UTC which translates roughly to 9AM local time for me. That is a bit later than in year’s past, but I’m not complaining. At that time I’ll sit down at my computer and try to be entertaining and/or informative for the next 24 hours straight.

What I’m hoping you will do is to sponsor my attempt at marathon blogging. To do that you just need to click here and register an account with the Blogathon folks and tell them how much you’re sponsoring me for. This registration is strictly so they can keep track of who’s sponsoring me and to be able to send out a reminder to donate after the event is over. While you’re there you can also sponsor other bloggers if you wish. There are a number of them already blogging for many worthwhile charities. If you’re a blogger yourself you can also sign up to participate for your favorite charity as well. Keep in mind that no money is sent to me or to the Blogathon folks! You’ll be donating directly to the Humane Society of Huron Valley. They are a 501(c) 3 not-for-profit organization and as such donations to HSHV are tax-deductible.

Now you may be asking yourself why should you go through all that trouble if you’re just going to donate directly to the HSHV anyway. Why not just donate to them directly and eliminate the middle man? Sure you could do that and if you’re more comfortable that way then please do so, but by doing this through the Blogathon you motivate me to try and blog coherently at 3 o’clock in the morning. Plus I’ll be on Twitter and Facebook this year and I’m looking at ways to stream a live feed from my webcam while I’m at it. No doubt I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you guys as I blog and I’ll be encouraging you to participate by sending me Burning Questions or topics you’d like to hear from me on. In short I’ll become a virtual puppet dancing for your entertainment all in hopes you’ll toss a few bucks towards a very worthy cause. You can check out past performances from 2003 and 2006 to get an idea of what’s in store. In 2003 I raised $193.25 for the Association for International Cancer Research and in 2006 it was $474.00 for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It would be really cool if we could break the $500 mark this year.

We’ve got three weeks before the main event, but don’t let that stop you getting an early start. Go sign up and make your pledge and I’ll dig out my dancing shoes.

They can now expect to serve a sentence of TWO years!

Justice Minister Ahmad Hamoud Younis said the change was made by the decree of President Bashar al-Assad, following a recent increase in “wife-killings … on the pretext of adultery”.

President Bashar Al-Assad: the man's all heart

According to the BBC, the new law says a man can still plead extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour,  but will have to serve a prison term of no fewer  than two years in the case of a killing.

Activists say some 200 women are murdered each year in Syrian “honour” cases by men who had come to expect lenient treatment under the law.

The legislation covers any man who “unintentionally” kills his wife, sister, daughter or mother after catching her committing adultery or having “unlawful” sex. It also covers cases where the woman’s lover is killed.

Reports say women’s rights activists have given a cautious welcome to the change, with one group calling it a “small contribution to solving the problem”.

Their objection remains, however, that the new law still apparently invites men to murder women if they catch them having sex or suspect them of doing so.

My American readers are familiar that disgusting phenomenon known as Dominionism, a movement that has been active in the USA for several decades. Dominionists are people who want to establish a theocracy, or something close to it, in the USA. A favorite tactic of theirs is to claim that the USA is and always has been a Christian nation. It seems that Captain Army Barmy wants to follow in the footsteps of his American peers.

Canadians celebrated Canada Day on July 1. On that date in 1867, the British North America Act united Canada as an independent country composed, at that time, of four provinces. The holiday used to be known as Dominion Day, but was renamed Canada Day in 1982. Captain Army Barmy, apparently not content to celebrate Canada Day as a civic, secular holiday, posted the following blurb on his July 1 blog entry:

The relevant text reads,

Happy Dominion Day in Canada. The ‘dominion’ refers to God’s dominion. Canada is properly called the Dominion of Canada, based on Psalm 72:8:

“He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.”

What a truckload of bullshit. Canada Day, even during its tenure as Dominion Day, never had anything to do with God’s dominion over the earth. Oh, I forgot – it’s okay to rewrite history for Jesus. Captain Army Barmy is simply following in the footsteps of Christians who have been doing it for 2,000 years.

– the chaplain

I don’t know how much expertise you have when it comes to Islam and the Middle East, but here goes. I’m in the very beginning stages of what I suspect will develop into a relationship with a guy from Saudi Arabia. He spent some time in the U.S. as a child, seems pretty westernized, isn’t super-religious, and is aware of my stance on religion, my feminism, and my Jewish heritage. I’m not going to lie, though. The whole thing still seems like dangerous ground. Am I being insanely naïve by even considering a relationship with this man? And, given how intertwined culture and religion are, even if he professes to be fairly non-religious, am I in for a nasty shock?

-Feminist Jewish Atheist with an irresistible attraction to Middle Eastern men

Dear Feminist Jewish atheist, etc.,

It’s also dangerous ground for me to characterize all people in a category from the few examples with whom I am familiar, because that would be bigotry. So I’ll have to speak about general precautions and the virtue of being circumspect and slow.

There are many scary stories about the outcomes of some cross-cultural relationships. It may be unfair to assume that those stories are typical, but we should not ignore them either. Most of us have heard the story portrayed in the book and movie, Not Without My Daughter, written by Betty Mahmoody, where the American wife of an “Americanized” Iranian traveled with him to Iran for a family celebration, only to find that she would be required to adhere to the dress and customs of the country, and that neither she nor her daughter would be allowed to leave Iran. After an extremely arduous and dangerous journey of many months, she eventually escaped to the West with her daughter.

Almost the exact same thing happened to a friend of mine, who met a man from Saudi Arabia and married him in the United States. Shortly after giving birth to their son, she accompanied him to Saudi Arabia to meet his family. Once there, her husband, who seemed suddenly changed, told her that neither she nor her young son would be allowed to return to the U.S. She immediately fled with her son to the American Embassy, and after some difficulties, returned to the States. She spent the next several years hiding from her husband, who, being from a wealthy family, might have been able to gain custody of their son, one way or another.

Ok, enough of the scary stories, whether they are typical or not. The point is that all new relationships, even those within a single culture, have the potential for disappointment, danger and even disaster. Most of those hazards would be avoidable if the people involved would go into them slowly, with their eyes open, talking and talking and talking about all the issues that will affect their lives as they become more established and committed to each other. They should know well ahead of time their partner’s attitudes and habits around money, sex, religion, children, in-laws, cultural customs, expected roles within a marriage, where they are going to live, diet issues, drug and alcohol issues, their past relationships, how and why those ended and many other things. And they should watch the behaviors, not just listen to the reassurances. There’s nothing wrong with a discreet background check.

Unfortunately, most new couples, their eyes glazed over in their infatuation for each other, make little or no effort to check such matters out early, and only discover the serious problems after they are deeply stuck in the middle of things. Newlyweds often know far more about the personal details of celebrities than their own partners. Many states require “conciliation counseling” before granting a divorce, seeing if there is any way the marriage can be repaired. It would save a lot of money and heartbreak if those states required PRE-marital counseling before granting the marriage in the first place.

The first thing for you to see is if he is even open to such frank discussion. If not, then I would not predict much satisfaction coming from the relationship. Even if you and he are able to talk exhaustively about all those things, there are still at least two possible snags: One, could he be lying, shining you on, telling you whatever you want to hear because he wants something from you? For instance, is immigration status or citizenship a motive that might be behind his pursuing a relationship? Two, even if all that is worked out and he is genuinely sincere about his motives and expectations, and if perchance you end up marrying him, be extremely cautious about going to his native country with him. Even if he is very “Americanized” while in America, the culture and family expectations when he is back in his native land are very powerful. All that westernization can suddenly evaporate. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Arabia…

As Shakespeare wrote in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
“Love and reason keep little company together.”

Somehow, somehow, try to keep some blood flowing to your brain when most of it is flowing to your loins. Men are most notorious for their foolishness in this way, but women do it too. Somehow, somehow, keep your eyes and ears open even when your heart is full. Women are most notorious for their foolishness in this way, but men do it too.

I hope your life goes well.

Richard

…

You may send your questions for Richard to .

I dunno, but I think I’ll stick with the old-fashioned hospitals were they use real medicine.

Found via Bad Astronomy who notes that sometimes simple mockery makes the strongest point.

Update: Apparently That Mitchell and Webb Look is a series that takes on all sorts of topics that appeal to me. The Friendly Atheist found another clip by them takes on something we’ve discussed here many times before:

I think I may need to track down a few full episodes of this series!

If you deserve a greeting for a recent birthday, you can speak up here, too.

“Bob” finds a wallet on the ground. He looks at the license and finds the address.

“Bob” returns the wallet to its rightful owner. No money is missing.

The owner is stunned… and thankful.

The owner tells his wife. Now, both are thankful. Praise God they say.

A child comes in the room. Both parents point to the man, telling their child there are still kind, decent, honest people in the world.

Praise God they all say.

“Bob” doesn’t praise God. The family doesn’t understand. “Bob” tells them he’s an atheist.

Everything gets weird and silent and awkward.

(via WhyWontGodHealAmputees)

The story begins in chapter 13 where Moses sends out 12 scouts (one from each of the tribes of Israel) to check out the land of Canaan.

Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan ... And see the land, what it is, and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many. Numbers 13:17-18

So the twelve spies go and do that.

When they get back, Caleb says

Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. Numbers 13:30

But the other ten (the Bible doesn't say what Joshua said) disagree.

The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. Numbers 13:32-33

So Caleb (and Joshua?) say it would be easy to take over the land of Canaan, while the other ten say it would be hard, since the people that live there are giants. (The scouts were like grasshoppers in comparison to them.)

When the people heard the reports, they believed the giant story and were a bit discouraged. So they decided to elect a new leader and go back to Egypt.

And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! ... And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt. Numbers 14:1-4

Joshua and Caleb try to talk them out of it.

And Joshua ... and Caleb ... rent their clothes ... saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. Numbers 14:6-8

But the people weren't buying it. They didn't want to fight any damned giants. So they decide to stone Joshua and Caleb (with stones).

All the congregation bade stone them with stones. Numbers 14:10

And then God gets involved. He tells Moses that he's sick of their whining, so he's going to kill them all. He'll smite them with the pestilence and then make some better people to replace them. People who wouldn't whine so God damned much.

And the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? ... I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they. Numbers 14:11-12

But Moses talks him out of it. He says the Egyptians will hear about it and say that God couldn't get the people to obey him so he had to kill them all. How would that look to the neighbors?

And Moses said unto the LORD, Then the Egyptians shall hear it ... And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land ... Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness. Numbers 14:13-16

So God decided not to kill everyone. Not yet, anyway. But he says that he'll make sure that all their carcasses rot in the wilderness (at least all those that are over 20 years old).

Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward which have murmured against me ... But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years ... the LORD have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die. Numbers 14:29-35

And that would have been the end of the story, except that God was still pissed off about those ten scouts, even though they were just doing their jobs ("To spy out the land of Canaan ... And see the land, what it is, and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many."). So he killed them in a plague.

And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land, Even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the LORD. Numbers 14:36-37

Pastor Lunceford has been a serial youth pastor for a long time. Moving from church to church and job to job as the years rolled by. The current charges stem early 1990s. How many other victims are there? I hope zero, but something tells me this story is just beginning.

I love the way his latest church distanced themselves from Lunceford.

The Rev. Bill Fort, pastor of First Baptist Church on the Eastern Bypass in Richmond, said Lunceford was interim youth director “for a very short time” about two years ago.

Nope, nothing happened here. No need to question our kids. Nope, we’re Baptists. Nothing like this could ever happen at a Baptist church.

Take pride in your accomplishments, be happy you’re American.

Note, however, that it reiterates that odd theme of one-eyed squid that we see all over the place.

(via Michael Barton)

The day began with a walk down to the harbor to board the Sonnenkönigin, a very impressive ship that can only be inadequately be called a ferry. We were welcomed aboard with a glass of wine or a glass of juice if you felt 8 am was a little early to begin, and tables heaped with food. One thing I'm going to miss a great deal when I get back to Minnesota is good bread — the stuff that is chewy and substantial and has all this flavor. Bread back home is a kind of glorified aerogel, a pale and puffy spongy substance.

We also got some musical entertainment, and a lot of hard sell for the German province of Baden-Württemburg. They can do everything, except speak proper German (really, it's their motto: "Wir können alles. Außer Hoch-Deutsch.") They put on a good show with lots of exhibits touting their support for basic research and industry — if nothing else, I'm convinced they value the practical benefits of science enough to heavily recruit mobs of graduate students.

Mainau is a lovely island in Lake Constance, topped with an old baroque Schloss and filled with gardens and walking paths. We were there for a final panel on sustainability. The panel consisted of four nobelists, Pachauri, Molina, Schrock, and Stocker, one government minister, whose name I've probably misspelled since her tag was turned away from me — Quellen-Thielen, I believe — and one annoying crackpot, Bjorn Lomborg, who really didn't belong up on the stage. Even as insubstantial as he was, though, Lomborg did agree, along with every one else, that climate change and global warming are real phenomena. Here's a short summary of what they said.

Pachauri: Our big problem is unsustainable growth. It's inevitable and desirable that third-world economies expand, but the old strategies of exploiting fossil fuels aren't going to work.

Lomborg: While global warming is real, it's not a crucial problem, since it will only cost 0.5% of world GDP to cope with it. He's pro-development, and thinks, for example, that while global warming may increase the incidence of malaria by 3% more, we ought to be focusing on the 100% of malaria cases occurring now rather than trying to reduce the 3%. We need to invest in better technology, but imposing limitations on CO₂ emissions now is fruitless.

Molina: We aren't taking the right path in growing economies — we need to convince the world that building sustainable energy supplies and limiting environmental damage now is the best viable long-term strategy. He had to take a poke at Lomborg, too: putting a dollar value on irreversible changes is inappropriate and misleading. Focusing on one aspect of the problem and calling the cost increases and human losses manageable hides the risks of passing a tipping point. He favors, as an important early step, incorporating the costs of externalities such as CO₂ emission into the economy.

Quellen-Thielen (sp?): Germany takes climate change seriously, and the government sets policies and targets for emissions. They also materially support new technologies, like photovoltaics. These actions have not harmed the economy but instead have created new jobs and positioned Germany as a global leader.

This prompted one of the more obnoxious jabs from Lomborg, who literally sneered at German environmental efforts, pointing out that all the photocells Germany has built are already obsolete, and that it was just money thrown down the drain. Throughout, Lomborg took the attitude that direct action now is inefficient, and that we're better off waiting for new technologies to emerge, at which time the magic of the market will kick in and our problems will go away. Quellen-Thielen reasonably pointed out that their development now means they've got a leg up, that they're obtaining a reasonable fraction of their energy directly from the sun right now, and they are also building the industrial infrastructure to build on new ideas quickly.

Schrock: He was a bit out of place here; I think the presence of Lomborg effectively derailed the whole panel away from a discussion of a diversity of solutions to the global warming and into a wasted defense of the rightness of taking any policy action at all. Schrock clearly wanted to talk about catalysis and the importance of chemistry in generating technical solutions, and advocated more investment in basic as well as applied research — he fears that we could lose the potential for long-term improvements in a frantic search for solutions we can implement right now.

Stocker: he also spoke against the bean-counter on the panel, pointing out that the 2003 heat wave killed thousands, and within 30 years, that kind of event will likely have a frequency of every other year. He thinks global warming is a misnomer: it's more than just a temperature shift, but it's going to lead to a sea level rise, changes in the availability of water resources in some of the most heavily populated areas of the world, and is going to trigger resource wars that will be devastating. He pointed out that this really is an anomalous event in our history, that CO₂ is 29% higher than at any time in the last 850,000 years. He believes we need a globally binding emissions target set right away.

So it was a mildly interesting discussion, but it could have been so much better — I suspect someone noticed it was hard to find a strong contrarian among Nobel prize winners, and decided to bring in a last-minute alternative view. Unfortunately, Lomborg's basically an advocate for do-nothingness and did nothing but distract the others from wrestling with more substantial ideas.

After sitting in the sun for this outdoor panel, I got a sunburn and a strong desire to escape, so I spent the time afterwards wandering about in the gardens. Then the best part, getting back on the Sonnenkönigin and being handed a big mug of cold beer as I boarded. I'm beginning to get the impression that all bier in Deutschland ist frei. That can't be true, but empirically it seems to be the case. Or maybe it's just Baden-Württemburg's cunning plan to persuade us that southwestern Germany is paradise.

We had more entertainment on the trip back — Stuart Pivar was aboard, doing tricks with balloons! No, actually it was some other guy who made balloon molecules, as well as strange hats. I guess the guy just looked at me and decided I needed more tentacles.

Do you want this to be the dominant image of atheism?

He also made a buckyball out of balloons, and guess who ended up wearing that on his head?

Sir Harold Kroto

And that's all there was. A great meeting overall, lots of fun, and lots of networking. The majority of the attendees are graduate students who are brought over to hob-nob with the biggest of the big-wigs of science, and most importantly, make international connections with their peers. Any graduate student readers of this post: ask around in your department if anyone knows about nominations for the Lindau meetings. They are definitely worth attending for young people wanting to get involved in this global enterprise called science.

One evening after the talks, when we were hanging about in a gasthof enjoying some good food and beer, the Countess Bettina Bernadotte stopped by our table (Yes! You also get to meet European nobility!), and we all talked a bit about the meetings. She's the president of the council for the meetings, and puts a tremendous amount of effort and fund-raising to get them off the ground. When asked why she was doing it, the answer was simple: that while she gets no direct personal or material gain from the meetings, as a citizen of the world she feels an obligation to make a contribution to bettering the world's knowledge, and this is an opportunity to foster a positive benefit to science. The whole meeting is built around giving young investigators connections.

Now I'm on my long, slow way home. It was worth it, and hope I can go again.

Tonight I'm in the city of Friedrichshafen, home of the zeppelin (I asked if there were any connecting flights by zeppelin, but I'm out of luck and will have to take an Airbus tomorrow, instead.) Then I'm off to Frankfurt, Philadelphia, and finally, Minneapolis. All should be smooth this time — I don't have any too-short layovers on this trip.

Now I'm going to stroll about and use the Fourth of July to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the first transatlantic zeppelin flight — I noticed that there was a big brass band down by the harbor, with fellows in bright green uniforms and tall hats with tassels. It should be fun!

Then again, if he did we might not have this wonderful video!

Depending on who is doing the asking, and what their motivation might be, you may end up giving 10 different stories to 10 different people. You’re never lying, but you may focus on different elements of the story for each person.

SarahH mentioned the one common thread that she tells during each “Testimonial”:

… The only thing I always share, for sure, is my “breaking point” that essentially made the different between “theist” and “atheist” for me… which was finding out about all the different world religions that other people believe so fervently and realizing that I didn’t have any more proof for my own religion than I did for the ones I’d never heard of.

If someone asks you why you’re an atheist — a stranger, a close friend, a family member — what parts of your story would you tell everyone?

(via Friendly Atheist Forums)