I’m a regular reader of Planet Humanism and don’t wish to spam you all with updates about my music releases or other non-humanism related posts.

If you’re reading this and you haven’t checked out Planet Humanism, please visit, check out, and subscribe to the amazing service’s feed. You’ll be glad you did.. and more informed.

Background Musics, my latest ambient release is now available in most digital music stores. But even better than that, I’m running a Christmas special in 3 stores. From now until Christmas, you can pick up Background Musics for only $4.99 in the Android Market, Bandcamp and my own music store. Individual songs are priced at $0.49 each and I’m offering two songs for free at the Android Market and Bandcamp.

I’m also putting the finishing touches on my next release, Light 1, and have a preview, 8.extended, an hour long, extended version of one of the songs available at Bandcamp for whatever price you want to pay. You set your own price. It’s entirely up to you.

Light 1 has been an interesting experiment on musical modes to work on. It is a concept album on the properties of light and the various ways it impacts life on Earth and the human experience. The album features 8 new ambient songs that can be played by themselves or combined in any way to create even more music. More on that when I’m closer to releasing it.

Background Musics features a collection of 12 new musics for a variety of shared common themes, situations, and thoughts within the human experience. The album is on sale now for only $9 and all individual songs are available for $1 each.

I started writing songs for this album in 2007 as a short concept album called Moments. It was intended to be a short work of background theme music for common, human situations. The project slowly grew over time and eventually became the full-length album Background Musics.

Background Musics includes 12 new ambient songs of various tones and moods, some are generative, some are original compositions and some are experiments in repetition and timing structures.

Get the Full Album for only $9 now!

1. Drifting on the Sea
2. Future Events
3. Watching Clouds Form
4. Time Spent Waiting
5. Past the Sacred
6. Subterranea
7. Missing Someone
8. A Cold Day
9. Trying To Remember Something
10. Seeing Things Anew
11. Staring out a Window, Riding in a Car
12. Mistaken Lessons

Listen to some full-length songs below.

Staring Out A Window, Riding In A Car

Watching Clouds Form

Listen to more at the Background Musics Release Site.

As a special gift to subscribers & readers, here is a free download of Seeing Things Anew from the new album.

A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it.
– David Stephens

Check it out here.  — Video has been removed due to Viacom International Inc. not realizing how embedded clips help promote their shows –

Either Stephen (or one of his editors) is simply covering his own ass or he’s making a subtle but interesting statement. I’m not sure how this will be perceived by the populous at large but I, for one, call it down-right awesome.

Via: The Daily What

Faith is belief without, and against, evidence and reason; coincidentally that’s also the definition of delusion. – anonymous

Can omniscient God, who
Knows the future, find
The omnipotence to
Change his future mind?
– Karen Owens

Hey everyone. Well, after more than 1,000 downloads and a lot of great emails and feedback, I’ve finally updated the Dawkins Belief Scale Images Set.

The new set (Version 2) of the Dawkins Scale Images are 200 x 230 pixel PNG badges with rounded borders and a thin drop-shadow set on a transparent background. (As seen in the image to the right.)

The new set is available for download at the Dawkins Scale Images page. There are two new downloads, Ver. 2 for light backgrounds and Ver. 2 for dark backgrounds. Both downloads include the Photoshop template PSD file.

The original (Ver. 1) set will still be available for download as well. I really appreciate all the great feedback I’ve gotten and I hope everyone enjoys the new set.

Medical Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths: What We Think We Know May Be Hurting Us

“You can’t assume that what you’ve always heard must be true simply because many other people believe it and spread it around,” notes Dr. Steven Novella of the Yale School of Medicine, a medical doctor who has built his career educating patients, the public, students, and professionals about the highest standards in medical science and practice. “You should challenge all of your beliefs and, wherever possible, try to rely upon a consensus of authority or primary sources in order to check out everything that you think you know to be true.”

Popular and easily accessible sources such as websites, blogs, advocacy groups, marketing materials, and celebrity endorsements are where we often get quick medical information. But they’re also the most unreliable sources.

Dr. Novella also opens your eyes to myths about pregnancy, loss of consciousness, detoxification, and the placebo effect. In one lecture toward the end of the course, he even takes you on a brief tour of common medical myths from around the world to demonstrate that medical myths vary, but misinformation is universal.

I’m a huge fan of The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe and The Teaching Company.

Every week Dr. Novella and his crew of ‘Rogues’ tackle the serious and the hilarious with wit and steadfast sincerity and a passion for a skeptical and critical approach to understanding the universe. They truly are a weekly escape to reality.

The Teaching Company provides very high quality, college level lecture courses on a variety of disciplines and specialized areas of education.

Combining these two elements into a single lecture series is a wonderful Christmas present for me and anyone else who happens to pick this up. Maybe there’s a God after all… or a great company recognized a great educator, got together and did what they do best. Which one do you think is more probable?

I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” – Stephen Jay Gould

At first, I had no idea what it was. Could a recent Amazon order have been shipped to the wrong address? I checked the label and it was definitely addressed to me. Then it hit me. No!? Surely not! I ran to the table, removed the plastic bag and gently cut into the first box.

YES! It is!

Google picked me. Out of thousands upon thousands of entries… they picked me to be a lucky recipient of a gorgeous CR-48 Chrome OS notebook.

I’ll be making a few posts in the coming weeks with my thoughts about living in a completely cloud-based computer. I’ll also be letting my Mother take it for a few nights. I’m very interested in whether or not she could use something this simple as her everyday computer. She already uses Gmail, Reader and Docs and rarely visits anything but those and Facebook. Below is a small Gallery of my humble unboxing. I know this is a little different than my usual post topics and I’m sorry but I’m really jazzed about this thing.

So I’ll just take this moment and say, “Thank You, Google!” from the bottom of my heart. Really. You’ve made someone’s Giftmas especially grand this year.

And they that make little or no inquiry into the natural causes of things, yet from the fear that proceeds from the ignorance itself of what it is that hath the power to do them much good or harm are inclined to suppose, and feign unto themselves, several kinds of powers invisible, and to stand in awe of their own imaginations, and in time of distress to invoke them; as also in the time of an expected good success, to give them thanks, making the creatures of their own fancy their gods. – Thomas Hobbes

Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider. – George Carlin

From the poster of Virgo on her wall to the copy of ‘Origin of Species’ on the deck of a Galapagos cruise-boat to her pair of ‘No God’ glasses, Julia bears her heart, mind, body and yes (dare I say it) soul to tell us the story of how she slowly came to realize there was no God.

Considering this is the second time I’ve posted about this amazing performance, I honestly can’t recommend this show enough. Julia is funny and inspiring, all the while, presenting deep and thought-provoking content.

Please, go out and grab the CD or DVD ASAP.

Source: Kyle Robertson - Dispatch

In one of those stories that just makes me smile, a group of strip-club dancers have turned the tides on church-goers bent on imposing their own morality on others.

For four years now, Pastor Bill Dunfee of New Beginnings Ministries and his congregation have been trying to shut down Ohio’s Foxhole strip-club by staging disruptive protests and generally harassing the establishment’s patrons.

Every weekend for the last four years, Dunfee and members of his ministry have stood watch over George’s joint, taking up residence in the right of way with signs, video cameras and bullhorns in hand. They videotape customers’ license plates and post them online, and they try to save the souls of anyone who comes and goes.

Now, fed up with the tactics of Dunfee and his flock, Foxhole employees are ready to accept the invitation to come to church… Dressed in their Sunday best skimpiness, the Foxhole dancers have started showing up every Sunday to do a little protesting themselves.

Via: Atheist Revolution

Now, I’ve been a Doctor Who fan for a while. I have fond memories of watching Tom Baker era episodes during family dinner & I quite like the Peter Davison era as well. I missed initially when the series returned but caught up pretty quickly a few of years ago and have been loving the ride ever since. I liked Christopher Eccleston fairly quickly with his big grinned humor just barely concealing a starch seriousness and pain of recent losses. When the first season came to a close and all we got from Tennant was,

“Hmm, new teeth. That’s weird. Now where was I? Oh yeah, Barcelona!”

… I wasn’t really sure. But then came four seasons of the absolute best television I’ve ever watched. Tennant’s Doctor immediately embodied every humanistic value and idea I hold dear. He approached every situation with compassion, curiosity and reason with a skeptical mind seeking for and usually finding the natural explanation. He engendered the best of humanity in those he met and left them all better people. (Even Jackie)

Tennant’s Doctor also had a dense pain hidden on his face that could come out at any moment in a way that made you realize he’d been holding it back for far too long. He carried a burden but never let it get in his way of doing what he thought had to be done for the good of the universe.

There’s always the possibility that Matt Smith or some future Doctor could swoop in and steal the crown… but I’m highly skeptical. Well, I say skeptical, I mean doubtful. Well, pretty impossible actually, now that I think about it…. anyways… Oh, look at that… That is beautiful!