Salient

Fundamentalist Antihumanist Personality Disorder

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Sun, 17 Dec 2023 21:04:00 +0000

I might expound more fully on "Fundamentalist Antihumanist Personality Disorder" in the future. In the meantime, we have all encountered those who make their attitudes our problem.

I stumbled across an old post about The Need for Absurd Belief Among Fundamentalists on the Breaking Spells blog. It discusses, amongst other things, the fact that fundies are desperate to attack segments of scientific knowledge.

I read it with interest because I am fascinated — and dismayed — by what I regard as the Fundamentalist Cognitive Disorder*. This is often linked to the Fundamentalist Antihumanist Personality Disorder.**

The final line of the post reads:

""Eventually, perhaps, the spell of religion will be broken.""

I decided to convert my response into a post.

Let’s hope! Religion continues to support damaging and outright dangerous cognitive and behavioural disorders.

I completely agree that fundies are terrified of knowledge — whether it’s science or the expert conclusions of unbiased biblical scholars. I also agree that this rigid thinking is the result of childhood indoctrination. Why else would IDiots be fighting to insinuate creationism into secondary science curricula?
I think that the motivation is not merely habit — it is highly emotional. It is also deliberately anti-factual, and, most important, illogical. They are trained into illogic and this fallacious thinking is reinforced by Bible quotes.

Successful religions have set up clever reward and punishment systems. Community is the most mundane motivation, but is probably essential for many. An eternal afterlife with a loving SkyDaddy who punishes one’s enemies is an obvious incentive. The flip side is the prison door. They fear what they are instructed to fear.

However, based on long observation of how some fundies think, I conclude that much of the emotional appeal lies in certainty and the assurance that religious-rule-following renders one RIGHT and morally SUPERIOR. (Excuse the caps. They seemed appropriate.)

It always reminds me of prefects in a school playground. Not a highschool playground. Not a primary school playground in North America. No, a school playground for children up to age 11. That’s the moral level at which these authoritarianism-oriented folk function.

Ugh!

* and ** : not official terminology

* and ** Disclaimer: not all fundies, religionists other than fundies, the occasional atheist.

Fun and Games - Ye Ye Ye

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:18:00 +0000

Geoffrey Oryema's range. Both are best in HD (click on links).

Fun and Games - Ye Ye Ye

"While I was making this one I was struck by the fact that right-wing bigots would probably be tolerant of the native costumes, but prejudiced against the gay guys who are also playing at dress-up and face-paint."

Land of Anaka

Guiding in the Galapagos

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:28:00 +0000

Interesting:

IDiots and FUX News

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:06:00 +0000

Conservatives appear to believe in free speech only so long as it benefits them. Both FUX (or FAUX) News and the so-called Discovery Institute have recently filed DMCA claims against critical videos. In the case of DI – brought to you by IDiocy – these are false DMCA claims. In the videos made by DiscoveryInstituteID, NONE of the DI-like material is owned by the DI, and nor is the material owned by FUX News that appears in DonExodus2's video (critiquing Casey Luskin's lies). It is against the law to file false DMCA claims, as dprjones points out.

The IDiots at the so-called Discovery Institute would have been wise to know the difference between a tuber's photoshop creation and their own images. They would have been very wise to know the difference between DI and FUX.

The result of their control-freak stupidity is pages of mirrored videos, which are uploaded purely to support those exposing lies and to thwart the intended impact of false DMCA claims. So we risk losing a channel, so what! Tubers have repeatedly demonstrated that, like the mythical Jesusian event, users resurrect themselves within days. The only inconvenience is re-uploading videos and contacting subscribers.

Duh!

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Wed, 20 May 2009 22:02:00 +0000

Have you ever noticed that some people refuse to recognize that they are mistaken, or cannot even see where their faulty logic is flawed?

Part of the explanation for this prevalent phenomenon (described in the video) is that we need to understand some threshold amount in order to comprehend that our skills or knowledge are deficient.

Another interesting aspect of Dunning's and Kruger's research is that those individuals who are competent have a tendency to underestimate their comparative level of competence.

Justin Kruger & David Dunning.
Unskilled and unaware of It: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.

Journal of personality and social psychology
1999, vol.77, no.6, pp1121-1134
©1999 by American Psychological Association, Inc.

Dumping Poison down the Well

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Sun, 17 May 2009 21:29:00 +0000

The article dumps. I'm dumping back.

(Contrary to what the article contends about atheist bloggers, I'm busy with other things, so I shall have to dump in a series.)

You might need an antacid, but, for what it's worth, here's the link. It was written by Charlotte Allen who is author of "The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus". She's in for a long search, in my opinion. Still, I bet that she thinks that she's found incontrovertible evidence.

(Heck, there is no corroborating evidence for the omnipotent, omnipresent "Creator" of the universe, so why would she require the writings of independent, contemporaneous witnesses and physical evidence for Jesus? I have not read her book, and shall not read her book, so I admit that I am guessing about the contents. If any of you read it, please let me know if she actually found the guy.)

On to the article, which constitutes half of what I have read of her predictable opinions. (Here's a synopsis of her "argument".) I should point out that I am not in the least insulted by any of her ad hominems. I am irritated by the rest of her fallacious argument against atheism, but that is because illogic irritates me. Her article will, however, convince the right wing types who read the LA Times.

I can't stand atheists -- but it's not because they don't believe in God. It's because they're crashing bores.

Funny thing. I could honestly say exactly the same thing in reverse. I can't stand religionists, but it's not because they believe in God. It's because they are worse than crashing bores.

By "religionist", I do not mean all believers. Rather, I mean those people who are aggressively obsessed about their delusions. This category includes fundamentalists of any religious persuasion and Boring Again Christians.

Worse than crashing bores? Religionists are illogical bores, which I find truly irritating. Worse than that, my experience has been many of them are quite unpleasant. Let's put it this way, "You are going to burn in HELL!" is not guaranteed to win friends and influence rational people.

Speaking of rationality, Charlotte is clearly offended by all the evidence that indicates that, as a group, atheists have more education and higher IQ scores than theists. Of course, as the numbers of atheists gradually swell, this discrepancy will ultimately diminish. Initially, of course, the decampers from religion usually abandon delusion because of rational examination of mythical claims. On the rationality-neutral side, some deconvert because of their emotional reaction to the predictable failure of religion to honour its promises in this lifetime. (It won't honour the after death promises either, but we cannot test this fact – beyond having falsified dualism.)

I'll get back to that later, but in the meantime, here's an article that Charlotte wrote decrying the "emotionality" of some women. Actually, the article is a thinly disguised attack on Democratic political candidates. Charlotte, if you really wished to examine the stupidity of some women, then you could have had a field day with Sarah Palin.

Here's a tidbit:

So I don't understand why more women don't relax, enjoy the innate abilities most of us possess (as well as the ones fewer of us possess) and revel in the things most important to life at which nearly all of us excel: tenderness toward children and men and the weak and the ability to make a house a home.

I think that by "the ones fewer of us possess" she was hinting at her own superior powers of insight and erudition. The final line should convince all women that they ought to be barefoot and pregnant while comparing fabric swatches in the kitchen.

Uh-huh!

She concludes by trying to dispell the impression that she is bragging about rising above giddy females:

Then we could shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts' content and not mind the fact that way down deep, we are . . . kind of dim.

Speak for yourself, honey! I could be kind of dim, but I don't shriek, or swoon, or gossip any more than the average gal or guy. (Social anthropologists have found that, in casual conversation, both males and females spend most of their time talking about other people. Let's face it, people are a more varied topic than the weather.)

Perhaps I do not need to write a series:

Sites Elsewhere: Charlotte Allen really is angry at us on Pharyngula (always worth reading, which is why it's so immensely popular) . even more scathing, The Unholy Wars and Flagrant Bigotry at the LA Times . some irony (not intended to criticise Jews) Jews: No Jesus, No Reason, Just Whining; They’re Motivated by Anger and Boohoo Victimhood . Sandwalk Charlotte Allen whines that Atheists exist . Charlotte Allen whines that Atheists exist . God botherer bothered . Sam Harris [Harris’ Note: This is, without a doubt, one of the most embarrassingly stupid attacks on the “new atheists” to be published in a major newspaper.] . Atheists: No God, no reason, just whining .

Too funny!

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:47:00 +0000

He actually seems like a sweet guy, but one expects him to pull out a banjo at any moment.

Disappointment at lack of banjos aside, I particuluarly loved his use of charts and schematics and his imaginative use of colour-coordinated props. Someone ought to tell him that ID's ridiculous argument from analogy relies upon unfounded comparisons between biological complexity and designed complexity (in materials that, unlike the chemicals of life, lack the capacity for self-replication).

Unfortunately, I was laughing so hard that I missed much of what he said. OminousVoice is, imo, hilarious, but this kid has him beat. The difference is that OminousVoice is consciously amusing.

I thought that the video above was the funniest, but the video below greatly tickled my beloved's fancy. It's a journey into pathos as he says goodbye to one of his props.

Ominous Voice mimics Creepy Voice

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:37:00 +0000

I have not checked to see whether this has already been posted elsewhere. Excuse me if I have duplicated it.

Anyway, for any of you who have had the misfortune of watching a video by a soporific* YECer who calls himself NephilimFree, then this video should amuse you. It is a brilliant take-off and the double entendres at the end are hilarious. It opens with something that the “Creepy Cretinous Creationist” actually said.

* I'm serious, if it were not that his videos would give me nightmares, Nephy would be perfect for curing insomnia.

David on Charlie

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:56:00 +0000

A BBC program in which David Attenborough discusses Charles Darwin and The Tree of Life. (available in HD)

. playlist url .

It boggles the mind that people should ignore all these wonders and prefer to live in fear of eternal retribution (except that they believe that we, and not they, will suffer thus).

Increasingly Intolerable Islam

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:38:00 +0000

Islam gets more obnoxious. On one hand, I do understand their sensitivies, particularly since they personally identify with Islam, rather than merely accepting the better parts of the Quran. On the other hand, I think that this sort of proposal will backlash into increased resentment of fundamentalist Islam, or, by association, of Islam.

I do not for one second believe that Islamic nations will enact laws that prevent militant muslims from uttering hate-speech and threats against other religions and nations.

Religion is a menace! Theocracies are a bigger menace.

Just in case ...

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:42:00 +0000

Just in case this information from Epiphenom does not make it onto atheist blogs......

"The next wave of the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) will be released on March 9 2009 - but we've got a sneak preview of the non-religious data! . . . . The ARIS team last repeated the survey in 2008 and have been crunching the data since - the report will be available here in just over a week.

. . . . the number of self-declared atheists and agnostics . . . . went from 1.2 million in 1991 to 1.9 million in 2001, and then shot up to 3.5 million in 2008. Although there's only been a small growth in the numbers of people with 'no religion', there's been a doubling of people prepared to admit to an interviewer that they are atheist or agnostic. 3 million new non-religious, but 1.6 million new atheists / agnostics."

The same trend appears to be happening in other Western nations. Would that it should happen worldwide!

Clearly, these figures indicate that there is hope for the US! These statistics indicate that many people are moving towards rationality. This ought to impact the political scene as less and less people are conned by the Religion-Republicanism manipulation.

If nothing else should convince Americans of the dangers of the Republican Party, then the disaster wrought on the world economy by 8 years of Republican mismanagement really ought to drive the message home.

Losing Religion

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 05:25:00 +0000

Another pictorial trip through religion, from paleolithic cave art to fundamentalist restrictions.

I love the name of this song - such a lovely sentiment - eschew delusional sentiment, embrace rationality.

"Rapid Eye Movement"

Higher quality.

Gregorian

Higher quality.

This version of the song, by Gregorian, is my second choice. WMG, aka Warner Mega Greed has forced YT to strip all its music from already uploaded videos, or to prevent upload of WMG music. Not a particularly wise choice on their part - they are losing an enormous amount of advertising exposure. I'd like to see tubers make WMG pay for their greed by boycotting their products.

Updated Atheist Blogroll

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:47:00 +0000

(((Billy))) The Atheist
1 2 3 Religious Comics
2000 Years of Deception
40 Year Old Atheist
A bordo del "Otto Neurath"
A Death In The Ballroom
A Division by Zer0
A geocentric view
A Goat Called Nebulous
A Hindu Atheist
A Hint of Neurosis
A Human Mind
A is for Atheist
A Man Said To The Universe
A place where laughter, sorrow, anger and disgust live.
A Positive view of Atheism
A Voice Crying in the Metropolis
A Whore in the Temple of Reason
A-Deistic
AA Aardvarchaeology
AASAUF
Abandoning Eden
About: Agnosticism / Atheism
Aces Full of Links
Action Skeptics
Addicted to Research
After Atheism
After Faith
Agni Setu
Agnisetu
Agnostic Atheism
Agnostic Universe Blog
Aidan Maconachy blog
Al-Kafir Akbar!
Alexander the Atheist
Alex's Heresies
All that is, and all that shall be.
Am I mad, or is the world?
Amused Muse
An Apostate's Chapel
An Atheist Woman's Point Of View
An Enlightened Observer
An Inevitable Conflict
An Insane Existence
Anal Iced Bible
Anatheist.net
And Say We Did
And That's How You Live With A Curse
anderebiste
Anders Rasmussen Blog
Andrew Clapper on...
Angels Depart
Angry Astronomer
Angry by Choice
Answers in Genesis BUSTED!
Anti Deity Militia
Antimattr
Apple of Doubt
Arcis Logos
Arizona Atheist
ars nesciendi
Ateistbloggen
Atheism and Coffee
Atheism Ascending
Atheism Examiner
Atheism Is Not Evil
Atheism Online
Atheism Sucks - sucks
Atheism simra.net
Atheism: Proving The Negative
Atheist A Go-Go!
Atheist Anonymous
Atheist Armaments
Atheist Bitch
Atheist Blogs Aggregated
Atheist Ethicist
Atheist Girls
Atheist Haven
Atheist Hussy
Atheist Jew in Germany
Atheist Liberty
Atheist Media Blog
Atheist Momma
Atheist Movies
Atheist Observer
Atheist Okie
Atheist Peace
Atheist Propaganda
Atheist Revolution
Atheist Think Tank
Atheist Tuesday
Atheist Wisdom
Atheista
Atheistkiwi's Weblog
Atheists And Christians Community Blog
Atheists at the Table
Atheists Rule!
AtheisTube
Atheoi.org
Atheology
Axis of Jared
Ayrshire Blog
Babble and Rants
Babble, bullshit, blasphemy and being.
Bad Thinking
Barrum Bright Blog
Bass
Bay of Fundie
Beaman's World
Because No One Asked
Being Human
Beliefs, Religion and Reason
Ben's Place
Berto: Philosophy Monkey
Bert's Blog
Beyond Belief
BHA Science Group
Bible Study for Atheists
biblioblography
BiddiesInMyBrain
Billion Dollar Baloney
bits of starstuff
Bjorn & Jeannette's Blog
Black Coffee
Black Sun Journal
Black Woman Thinks
Blasphemous Blogging
Bligbi
Blogesque
Bloggin' Off
bLogodaedaly
Blurp
Bob Kowalski
bore me to tears
Bracing Truth
brainstorms
Breaking Spells
British Atheists
Bruises Colours
BSAlert.com
Buridan's Ass
Burnt Sushi: From the mind of a libertarian atheist
By The Book Comics
cabhara's zeitgeist
Candy Coloured Frown
Canterbury Atheists
Can't make a difference
CaroLINES
CASE: The Center for Atheistic Secular Evangelism
CHADMAC Speaks
Chaos Maniac
chedstone.com
Chimaera Contemplations
Choosing Atheism
CHRISTIAN PWNAGE 101
ChristopherSisk.com
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Circular Reasoning
Cogita Tute - Think For Yourself
cognitive dissident
Coming Out Godless
Compendium of Religious Evil
Conclusions worth jumping to
Confessions of an Anonymous Coward
Conscious Zombie
Conversational Atheist
Cosmic Variance
Covert History
Create Cognitive Dissonance
Creationist Idiocy
Creative Century
Critical Mass
Crowded Head, Cozy Bed
Cubik's Rube
Cultural Naturalism Report
Culture for all
Cupcakes in Hell
Daily Atheist
DAILY BBG
Daily Rant
Dark Christianity
Dark Matter, USA
Dark Side of Mars
darwinian remiix
Darwin's Dagger
Day & Nite
Daylight Atheism
Debunking Christianity
Deconverts
Deep Thoughts
Deeply Blasphemous
Deranged Ramblings of an Angry Reptile Keeper
Desperately Seeking Ethics and Reason
Deutschland Uber Elvis
DEVOUT Atheist Godless Grief
Diaphanitas
Diary of a Teenage Atheist
Did a guy named Phil start Philosophy?
Dikkii's Diatribe
Dime a dozen
Disaffected and it Feels So Good
discernible chaos
DisComforting Ignorance
Disgusted Beyond Belief
Disillusioned Words
Dispatches from the Culture Wars
do not read this blog
do you feel loved?
Doazic's Weblog
DoctorE
Dorset Humanists blog
Doubting Even Thomas
DOUBTING FAITH?
Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge
Dragged From the Bottom
Drunk in Ontario
Dubiosity
Dubito Ergo Sum
Duplicitous Primates
Dwindling In Unbelief
Easy to be Entreated
eAtheists.com
Ecographica
Ecstathy
Edger
Edward T. Babinski
Eine Kleine Nattermusing
EK's blog
Elaine Vigneault
Elliptica
Emancipate Yourselves From Mental Slavery
EnoNomi
EonBlue
Escaping Christianity
Ethics Gradient
European Alliance for Rational Thought
evanescent
Everyday Humanist
Everything Is Pointless
Evolution
Evolutionary Middleman
EvolutionBlog
Evolved and Rational
exapologist
ExChristian.Net
Excursions into the mundane and the revealing...
Exercise in Futility
Expletive Deleted
Explicit Atheist
Exsisto Sane
Eyebrow Ascendant
f think
faith in honest doubt
Fed Up with Religion
Feersum Endjinn
Ferret's Cage
Fish Wars on Cars
Five Public Opinions
Fleeing Nergal, Seeking Stars
Flex Your Head
Flumadiddle
forms most beautiful...
Forte �tude
Fox Valley Thinker
Free Infidel
Freethinker Nation
Freethought
FreeThought by a FreeThinker
Freethought Weekly
FreThink
Friendly Atheist
Frodology
Fundamentalist Deceit
Gary William Murning Online
Geoff Arnold
Ghosts of Minnesota
God And State
God Be Gone - Atheist News
God is for Suckers!
God is Pretend
Godless Blogger
Godless in America
Godless on the Wasatch Front
Godless Sunday
Godless Woman
Goosing the Antithesis
Gospel of Reason
grattans.us
Gratuitous Common Sense
Green Atheist Blog
Greg Hartnett
Greg Laden's Blog
Greta Christina's Blog
Grey and White Matter
Gynocide
halls of macadamia
Happily Godless
Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes
HASSERS
Heathen Queer
Heathen.TV
heaving dead cats
Hellbound Alleee
hell's handmaiden
Heretic's Altar
heterodox
Heuristicism
Hokum-Balderdash Assay
Holy Freak
Homo economicus' Weblog
Homologous Legs
Honjii's Harangues
Hot Dogs, Pretzels, and Perplexing Questions
Howe's Life?
Human Psyche of J.D. Crow
Humans: The Other White Meat
Humbuggery
I Am An Atheist
i get pissed
I Never Shut Up
I traded my soul for happiness
Ian's Brain
Ice Station Tango
IDiosyntocracy
In Defence Of Reason
In the grip of hysteria
Incessant Expressions
indoctriNATION
Infidel boy in Blabber mode
INFIDELIS MAXIMUS
Infinite monkeys, infinite keyboards
Infophilia
Inkblot Icon
Inside the mind of a Born Again Atheist
intelligent or silly design ?
Interested
Interesting
INTJ Mom
Intrepidon
Ionian Enchantment
Is it just me?
it's about time
izzworld dot org
jdc325's Weblog
Jeber's
Jeebus Freaks
Jewelisms
Jewish Atheist
Joe's Big Blog
Judith's thought-provoking hard-hitting journal
Just a whisper in the wind
Just Another Atheist
Just Another Atheist
Jyunri Kankei
K H A L A S !
KafirGirl
Kapanalig Sa Wala
Kelosophy
Kergillian
Kieran Bennett
Kill The Afterlife
King Aardvark
Lab Kat
Laytheism
le tiers monde
leaping rabbit/lapin sauteur
Leicester Secularist
Les non-sens de Jean Staune
Let Go - Forget God
Let There Be Light
Letras Nocturnas
Letters from a broad
Liberal Debutante
Library Grape:
Life & Otherwise
Life According to Mike White
Life before death
Life is an adventure
Life Without Faith
Life, the Universe and Everything
Lifecruiser Live From Beer Can Hill
Live From Beer Can Hill
Living the Scientific Life
Living with Missy and other thoughts
Logic's Last Stand
LOL god
Lolkoran
Lone Wolfs Den
Look at the Bright's Side
Lord of the atheists
Lori Stephens
Love the Nimbu
Lubab No More
lynn's daughter, thinking
Madman's Paradise
Making My Way
Masala Skeptic
Matt's Notepad
Matt's Truthonomics
Maximum Likelihood
mcgees.org
Means & Ends
Mechanical Crowds
mediawatchwatch.org.uk
Meet An Atheist
Memoirs of a (G)a(y)theist
Memoirs of an ex-Christian
Men: Leave Church
Mere Skepticism
Merit-bound Alley
Mickipedia
Midwest Atheist
Migrations
Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant
mindcore
MINISTER OF RANTS
Mirth, Musings, & More
Misc. Musing
Mississippi Atheists
Missives from the Frontal Lobe
mister jebs blog
Modern Agnostic
Moiz Khan - The godless Liberal
Mothrust
Much ado about nothing
mushinronsha
My Case Against God
My Dirty Little Secret . . .
My Elemental Muse
My Goddless Drama
My Life Thinly Disguised as Groove
My Long Apostasy
My Single Mom Life
My Solitude Of Space
Mystery of Mysteries
Naastika
Nanovirus
Nathan Bond
Natural Reckonings
Naturalistic Atheism
Near Earth Object
Neural Gourmet
New Humanist Blog
New National Reformer
New York Philosopher
News From the Front - Fair and Balanced
Nice Marmot
Nicest Girl and Destroyer of Planets
Nick Harding
Nihilist Future
Nirmukta
No Double Standards
No Gods Allowed
No More Fake Gods
No More Hornets
No more Mr. Nice Guy!
Nobody's There...
NoBS Radio Show
NoGodBlog.com
Non Credo Deus
Non-Prophet
North Alabama Rant
Not really, Alice.
Notes from an Evil Burnee
Nothing Is Sacred
Null Session
Nullifidian
Nut Watch
N^4
Obscene Desserts
Obsessed with reality
Odder Stories
Of Microbes and Men
Oh The Stupidity!
ohm sweet ohm
oldcola
olio
Oliver Benen
OMG!
on the street and in my head
One Fewer God
onegoodmove
Onwards and Forwards
Open Parachute
Oracle and Atheism
Order of St. Nick
Oriented x4
Our Freedom of Espresso
Outchurched
Oz Atheist's Weblog
P!
PA Nonbelievers
parenthetical remarks
Persephone's Box
Pharyngula
Philippine Atheists
Philosophers' Playground
Phoesune - My DeConversion
phreedom.us
physicshead
Pink Prozac
Pink Triangle
Pinoy Atheist
Pinoy Freethinker
Pinoy-Korean Atheist
Plain Perspectives
Planet Atheism
Planet Humanism
Plonka's Blog
Podblack Blog
Polypyloctomy
PONZO
Pooflingers Anonymous
Post Thought
Primordial Blog
Principia Atheologica
Principles of Parsimony
Prose Justice
Protium the Heathen
Psycho Dave's Commentary
Psychodiva's Mutterings
PTET - godless culture
PURPOSE OF LIFE
QuarkScrew
Quintessential Rambling
quird
R A V E N M O O N
Radical Atheist
RagingRev
Ragnarok Finis
Raising Kids without Religion
Ramblings
Ramblings of an Atheist Undergrad
Random Intelligence
Rank Atheism
Rarus vir
Rational Expression
Rational Mom
Rational Russian
RationalEyes
Ravings of an Angry Leftist
Re-imagine Ritual
Real Virtuality
Reality Heroes
Reason & Society
Reason Makes Sense... Right?
Reason Must Triumph
Reason TV
Reasonable Doubts
Recalcitrance
Reduce to Common Sense
Reeding and Writing
Refuting Christianity
RejectMoses.com
Religion is Bullshit !
Religion is Man-Made
Replace the lies with truth
Resurrecting Reason
REV. ART'S ATHEIST PIN-UPS!
Rev. BigDumbChimp
reVAMPed
Richard Carrier Blogs
Rideo ergo sum
Rip Post
Robert's Thought's
Rodibidably
Ron's Rants
Rupture the Rapture
Russell's Teapot
RWANDAN ATHEIST
S.P. Greenlaw's Caprichos
Sacred Celtic exiled in Bruxelles
Saint Brian's Chronicles
Saint Gasoline
Salad Is Slaughter
Salient
SAMIZDAT
Sans God
Sarahnomics
Scary Reasoner
Science, Reason and Rationality
Scientia Militans
Scripture For Skeptics
SDARI
Sean the Blogonaut
Secular Humanism with a human face
Secular Philosophy
Secular Sunday Sermon
See For Yourself
Seeing Beauty
Sense and Goodness
Separate Spectrum
Shared Difference
Shayna Unaltered
SHUFFL
Silly Humans
Singapore Atheists
Singaporean Atheists
Situation normal
Skepfeeds
Skeptic Journal
Skeptic Rant
Skeptical Eye
Skeptical Monkey
skepticisme
Skeptico
Skepticology
Skepticum
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Skeptigator
Small Town Skepticism
So long, and thanks for all the guilt!
Socially Acceptable Insanity
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SocraticGadfly
Something From Nothing
Something to Say
Son Shines Zee 365
Soup's Soapbox
Southern Atheist
Spanish Inquisitor
Specter of Reason
Spectrum of Beliefs
Spewing Truth in the face of Lies
Splendid Elles
Spoliarium
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stacy, interrupted
Stardust Musings and Thoughts for the Freethinker
Stargazer
Staring At Empty Pages
State of Protest
stereoroid.com
Steven Carr's Blog
Stochastic Scribbles
Stonecasting
Strange Land
Strappado
Strawmen Cometh
Stupid Evil Bastard
Stupid, Lazy, Fat & Crazy
Suburban Panic!
Success lies within us all
Summer Squirrel
Synapostasy
Tabula rasa
tales of an ordinary girl
Tangled Up In Blue Guy
Tarpan's Blog
Tea Fuelled Madness
Terahertz - From Physics to Life
Terminal Atheist
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Test

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 07:59:00 +0000

This is a test. My last post shows up in the "view post" setting, but not in the "View Blog" setting.

Weird.

Community Activism

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 07:18:00 +0000

Poor old YouTube – driven by profit, presumably hiring expensive software engineers, but the cheapest administrative staff that they can find.

The result of this is that some of the YT user community is brighter than the YT staff. (Not I – the video makers on the big science channels.) These tubers are much, much brighter than the majority of creationists and religionists who are using YT as a forum for their illogic, misinformation, and dirty tactics.

In lieu of good arguments, creationists and religionists have been forced to resort to cheating. The votebot is their latest tactic in the war on anyone with the temerity to disagree with them. Honest voting does not interest them. Oh no, they need to use computers to cheat down the ratings of those who are armed with knowledge and logic.

One of the interesting aspects of this ongoing battle between rationality (evolution, atheism) and petty-minded delusion (creationism, bigotry, hate-speech, religionism) has evolved (I love that word) since the attack of the bot-slaves. (Forgive the machines, Lord, they know not what they do).

Creationist and religionist foolishness and malevolence – and now YouTube ineptitude – has forced grass roots activism and community organization.

It's like watching a sociology experiment.

Atheists and scientists tend to be an independent-minded lot, who have naively assumed that providing factual information would be sufficient to help the ignorant to learn the truth. Belatedly, atheists and scientist are realizing that they must co-ordinate their efforts and take a political stand against the Forces of Darkness and Ignorance.

Acting rather like the Bush administration, YouTube has turned a blind eye to hate speech, while acting as dupes to petty-minded, religionist flagging of mild content, and to malicious, false DMCA claims.

YouTube apparently regards tubers as pests, who are best ignored and avoided. This is particularly so when tubers have complaints about YouTube’s failures to provide service in accord with their own guidelines.

Like any greed-bloated corporation, YouTube has focussed on advertising revenues while ignoring the fact that its very survival actually depends upon uploaded videos. Our uploaded videos. Our creations. Videos, which remain on our computers. Videos that we can delete from YouTube and upload onto an alternative site. In other words, we are both the fans and the producers. Boycotts work well, emigration would be even more effective.

YouTube would be well advised to remember not to cut off the hands that grow the food.

fassunglos sein

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:10:00 +0000

Incidentally, the title is German for losing faith - Losing My Religion.

I will never really understand why those of moderate intelligence, who have the advantages of a modern education cannot see that they have been thoroughly conned.

_________

Of course, many individuals in the Western world do not get the advantages of a modern education. Instead, they are brainwashed into delusion, often through religiosity-protecting, anti-knowledge homeschooling.

The original music was stripped from the video below because of WMG's greed.

If you want to see a slightly longer version with the song that I originally intended (by a different group) click here.

By the way: BOYCOTT WMG products. Other music companies are not so petty as WMG, so make WMG suffer for its greed. Make its meanness backfire!

Morin Huur is a Mongolian folk dance.

Book Meme and Reading

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:12:00 +0000

I have met people who brag of never having read a book. How sad!

This comes via igetpissed, via Nullifidian, via the BBC

Instructions:
1. Look at the list and put an ‘x’ after those you have read ENTIRELY
2. Add a ‘+’ to the ones you LOVE.
3. Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4. Tally your total at the bottom.

5. I added a '-' for those that I ploughed through (mostly as a teen), but HATED (probably because literature is wasted on the young).

My reading list:
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X+
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X+
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X+
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (quit at ¾ - boringly aimless book, but I'll probably finish it when I run out of reading matter.)
6. The Bible (God no! Bad fiction: ridiculous moralistics; inconsistent, unbelievable plot)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X+
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X+
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X+
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X+
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X- (I also disliked Vonnegut's books)
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier *
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X+
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot X (I preferred Silas Marner and Mill on the Floss)
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (Started, but quit. Blah and Bore, more like)
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh * (enjoyed The Loved One)
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky * X-
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X+
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens X
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34. Emma - Jane Austen *
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen *
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini *
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres *
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell X+
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X+ (fast and fun)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy X+
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding X+
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert X
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen *
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X+
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X+
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov X
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy X+
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X+
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker X
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce (I survived Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man. Ulysses is not a work of creative genius, it’s the stream of consciousness of a person with DID - it's simply that the critics do not know this.)
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray X----
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker X+
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry X+ (preferred Family Matters)
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X-
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams X+
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute X+
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

What is not on the list that ought to be?
1984 by George Orwell.
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy is beautifully written.
Anything by Patrick White, Anita Rau Badami.

Apropos to the topic of reading books, I stumbled across an article about how the Internet is influencing the way that we process information. Ironically, I found the full article excessively wordy, but it was interesting, nonetheless.

“Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet.”

Full article: Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains, by Nicholas Carr. Atlantic, July/August 2008

The Tragedy of Adarwinists

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 04:27:00 +0000

Celebrating 200 Anno Darwini

link

Nice Idea, But .........

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:48:00 +0000

Karen Armstrong talks of her journey from and back to religion. Here, receiving her 2008 TED prize, she outlines a nice idea that I consider impractical and overly optimistic.

The Golden Rule is simple – I learned the principle before age 8 – and it does not require the institution of religion. We learn compassion through socialization and experience. Those with a personal inclination towards compassion do not need religious nonsense in order to behave morally. If humans need anything, it is not religion but rather connectedness.

I think that Armstrong's personal inclination towards (good) religiosity has lead to her failing to see that religious edifices are, and will continue to be, a cognitive, social and political problem.

Why? The religious have largely failed to see the message that Armstrong sees as the basic theme of religions, and some individuals will always take advantage of any power structure. Religious institutions are particularly well suited to usurpation by power mongers. Call any stupid idea "a religion" and sheep will be willing to flock and be fleeced.

In my opinion, Armstrong ought to have paid more attention to her own words:

"Like it or not, fundamentalism is not going to disappear soon. In some places it is going from strength to strength, becoming more extreme."

Links: Books by Karen Armstrong.

Liberal plasticity, Conservative rigidity

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:39:00 +0000

I have been thinking about right-wing cognition, and have developed a theory based on the fact that the moderately clear dichotomy between conservative and liberal (moral) thinking probably has a fairly simple genetic-developmental explanation. That is, relatively few genes predisposing to one or the other cognitive style.

1. It has been demonstrated that willingness to obey authority is genetically inherited. Such willingness would have conferred a survival value after city states had arisen – disobey at your own peril.

2. It is has also been repeatedly demonstrated that conservatives are more likely to be less educated and to be staunchly religious church-goers.

3. It is also known that the brain is plastic in that it can recover many functions after head injury. However, people do not recover equally well after head injury.

4. Personality disorders are notoriously difficult to treat (modify) and dogmatic thinkers typically fare poorly in talk-therapy. Liberal thinkers fare comparatively well. Some dogmatic thinkers are extreme left-wingers because that was their parents’ political affiliation. However, dogmatic thinkers are more likely to be right-wingers.

5. Conservative church-goers are more likely to exhibit emotional, black-and-white thinking, and to be bigoted. They are more likely to be ESJ than NP. They are notoriously closed-minded and strongly resist reconsidering any of their early beliefs and assumptions. It’s as though they are not even able to modify their early pathways. (This is the reason that right-wingers are fighting to corrupt early school education.) Conservative fundamentalists react very emotionally and personally to any questioning of their beliefs – either by taking offence, or by personal attacks on the questioner.

6. Liberal thinkers tend to move from facts to theory (induction). New facts lead to a logical re-evaluation of theories, particularly for scientists. Conservative thinkers tend to move from emotionally satisfying dogma to distortion of facts.

So, here’s my theory about a genetic predisposition to right-wing thinking. It’s basically a matter of generally lesser brain plasticity. Conservative brains are genetically predisposed to be less able to readjust (be plastic) than are the brains of liberal thinkers. It’s also likely that higher education trains the brain to be more plastic.

It's no accident that mythical Eve's mythical fruit was plucked from the mythical Tree of Knowledge.

I’d be fascinated to see a comparison between cognitive styles in those who recover well or poorly from similar head injuries, or between cognitive styles and other measures of plasticity.

When is thinking not Thinking?

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:42:00 +0000

Research has confirmed my suspicion that church attendees are more likely to be ESJ on the MBTI.

Self-report that an individual makes decisions on the basis of thinking does not necessarily indicate that the individual's thought processes are logical or effective. Since people are aware that intelligence is socially valued, they are probably more likely to exhibit a bias for overreporting themselves as Ts. Most people are likely to overestimate the effectiveness of their thinking, in some areas at the least. One presumes that Sarah Palin fondly imagines that her thought processes are logical. An ill-informed, illogical, or magic-thinking thought is still a thought. So, S combined with T may be selectively ineffectual in promoting critical thinking. Data suggests that superficial, illogical, and emotional thinking are prevalent problems.

more .....

Dotty and the Wizards of Odds

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:03:00 +0000

This photo, posted by Honji, begged for the video. Get out there and save the world, USians!

More: The Notoriety of Doofus and Dotty . The Political Perils of Narcissism .

The Notoriety of Doofus and Dotty

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 20:08:00 +0000

_________________________________________________________________________

I stumbled across a blog in Australia in which the blogger decries the potential lunatic, fear-filled reactions of American Christians to the projected Obama/Biden victory. See: The anti-Obama Christian bloggers.

"Moreover, I have to say that I am starting to get concerned about where this will lead. Polls suggest a much greater chance of an Obama win than a McCain win, which means that a situation might arise in which a great number of angry, terrified Christians are faced with an Obama White House and a Pelosi/Reid Congress.

What will these Christians do? Hopefully they will settle down, look back at what they believed in the lead up to his victory and then begin to exmaine [sic] their beliefs more objectively. Unfortunately, given the propensity of American Christians to be convinced that fiction is fact (eg Harry Potter and Satanism) I don't think this is going to happen. I'm worried, though, that violence may occur in response to an Obama/Reid/Pelosi victory as Christians take up the arms guaranteed by the constitution, refuse to pay taxes and begin overt resistance to the world of evil that they believe exists in the form of Obama and the Democrats."

Dream on, buddy, "objective examination of beliefs" and fundamentalist Christianity are diametrically opposed.

Fundamentalist American Christians are "angry and terrified" because, in their ill-intentioned bid for power, Doofus (top left) and Dotty (right) have been telling lies and whipping up hatred against Obama, presumably because they read the unthinking emotionality of their "congregation" well.

(I probably did not need to clarify whom I am calling Doofus and Dotty.)

How else could Brat Maverick hope to win with a platform that can be summarized as: "Let's cut down on Washington waste while continuing to spend billions on a war that we will not admit cannot be won."?

In essence:

"He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it,and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections."

The writer is clear and fair, yet is an "evangelical" (what is Australia coming to?). I take this to indicate that he is familiar with the emotional reactivity that passes for thinking in fellow fundamentalists.

"That means I do believe in the spirit world, including the existence of Satan."

What an interesting example of philosophical tension!. He recognizes the disconnection between Harry Potter and the mythical "fallen angel", Mormon brother to Jesus, and yet he believes in equally ridiculous notions. Proof positive that otherwise intelligent people can entertain indoctrinated stupidities that are utterly without evidence. They call if Faith, I call it something completely different.

More : Dotty and the Wizards of Odds . The Political Perils of Narcissism .

The Political Perils of Narcissism

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:37:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spem in Alium - Thomas Tallis

noreply@blogger.com (Anna) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:55:00 +0000

To illustrate my contention that religious works are the only good thing to come of religion, I coupled images with Thomas Tallis' Spem in Alium. Unfortunately, this version does not show the images to best advantage.

Below is the larger image on YouTube. In order to do justice to the photographs, it is much better to watch this in high quality.