I am reposting this in response to the terror attacks in France last night, resulting in the deaths of over one hundred people. As ever, the internet is awash with right-wing shouts to “kill all Muslims” and refugees, to the left-wing shouts that it is the Imperial West to blame and not Islam or Muslims. Neither of these positions are correct. It is obviously thoroughly complex, indeed involving international politics. However, to deny the Qu’ran, Muhammad and the Hadith causal responsibility in these atrocities is to deny the self-determination of those very terrorists who claim that they are doing these actions in the name of Islam and their god.
Several months ago it was reported that the Manchester Museum had an oddity on its shelf. This wasn’t the sort of thing that was from an unknown yet gone civilization, its traces beyond the ability of archaeologists to explain or place into history, but what appeared to be the inexplicable motion of a very old statue. More recently it has become news because of the viral video of its motion using a time-lapse camera. What we see is that, slowly through the day the statue, which is from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom (~4000 years ago), slowly rotates about 180 degrees. And by slowly, I mean it takes hours or days.
The Australian Labor Party have ousted their PM ahead of the elections which they will probably lose. This upsets me. I have always admired Gillard. Forthright and a good leader, in my books. And an atheist, too.
When interviewed in 2010, she said:
“I think it would be inconceivable, if I were an American, for me to have turned up at the highest echelon of American politics being an atheist, single, and childless.”
I recently heard Susan Jacoby wax lyrical about Ingersoll on the Reasonable Doubts podcast and I must confess, I know very little about him. I feel, though, that I should as he appears to have been an iconoclast in his time.
I was recently sent a message by Julian Haydon alerting me to this link (thanks also to Haydon for letting me know he thought my free will book was the best that he’d ever read!):
For your edification and interest: Be there, or be square!
I was listening to a local radio station the other day. It is called Jack FM and is an interesting radio station in that it has a really large playlist compared to other stations and plays more music throughout the day as it only appears to have DJs for the breakfast show. The rest of the time it is just music and adverts.
I know some of you have read this before as I posted this some months back, but in light of…
As I reported the other day, the Girlguides have dropped the pledge to God from their vow. Now it appears that the Scouts are doing similarly, as the Telegraph reports:
The movement has bowed to pressure from atheists and, from later this year, will offer an alternative promise for those joining without a religious faith.
Currently, all Scouts are expected to promise to “do my duty to God” – with alternative wording for Muslims, Hindus and people of other faiths. Those who cannot do so as a matter of conscience are able to join only as associate members.
Here is another guest post. The last one by The Thinker has had a thread which has exploded. This one…
As grovels go, this is spectacular: the head of the American “ex-gay” ministry Exodus International has announced that it’s now an…
The Telegraph and Daily Mail are predictably up in arms about this great news (something I have reported before). The BBC reports:
Girls will no longer have to pledge their devotion to God when they join the Guides and Brownies in the UK.
It comes after a consultation found a new Girlguiding UK promise was needed to include “more explicitly” the non-religious and those of other faiths.
They currently vow to “to love my God, to serve my Queen and my country”.
As mentioned in my last post, I was graciously asked by Randal Rauser on his blog recently to provide a synopsis of a few paragraphs to run in his series “Why I am an atheist” (or not a Christian. The series has been interesting and has elicited testimonies from Justin Schieber, Counter Apologist, Jeff Lowder, Ed Babinski and others. I have since asked Randal to return the favour and he has gladly accepted, furnishing me with a much more lengthy expression of the reasons for his Christian belief.
I thought this might be topical, given new commenter Joseph’s (a JW) predilection for evolution illiteracy whilst simultaneously claiming intellectual victory over an evolutionary biologist and other’s complete pwnage of him. It is actually sad seeing psychology deny a person reality, because that is what is happening. Perseverance bias feeding confirmation bias, predicted by cognitive dissonance makes for pitiful reading. I wonder how his creationism both predicts these results and explains them?!
So I was graciously asked by Randal Rauser on his blog recently to provide a synopsis of a few paragraphs to run in his series “Why I am an atheist” (or not a Christian. The series has been interesting and has elicited testimonies from Justin Schieber, Counter Apologist, Jeff Lowder, Ed Babinski and others.
I have since asked Randal to return the favour and he gladly accepted, furnishing me with a much more lengthy expression of the reasons for his Christian belief. But before I create a post on that (probably tomorrow) I thought I would analyse a little what he said about my testimony. Here is what I provided:
Oh, the bigotry. Not allowed to hate the gayz via other organisations? Just make your own homophobic groups to indoctrinate children with intolerance. Well done Baptists. The Guardian:
Resolution asks churches to consider rivals to Boy Scouts of America after its lifting of ban on homosexual members
Having attended a fascinating talk by James Williams (a science educator) last night at Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub, I thought I would post about it. The talk was called Insidious Creationism and concerned Creationism within an educational context.
This was an article from The Spectator, a British conservative magazine. Thoughts? I love the remark made by one…
[This is a post I created last year, but I screwed up embedding the video. So viola un autre fois.]
Here is a video I did some time ago which I think sums up the Problem of Evil is one fell swoop. The question sidesteps free will theodicies, especially as it applies to the rest of the animal world. See what you think.
About two weeks ago I was contacted about participating in a conference next year at the University of Groningen. In 2014 they are celebrating their 400th anniversary so it seems appropriate it relate to something else from 1614. In that year, Johannes Kepler published his tome on chronology, arguing that Jesus was born several years earlier than was the tradition in his time (on Dec 25 in 1 BC). In that book, he also talked about the Star of Bethlehem, and this is the apparent link for this conference.
Aah, gun laws. How much money is spent on combating terrorism (and I know the comparison is far more complex…
Wow. So, thanks to Andrew Marburger who tweeted me the link to this absolute corker. People actually believe that dragons existed because they appear to be mentioned in a 2000 year-old holy book. Answers in Genesis (AiG), your one-stop link to ridiculousness and science denialism seems to posit the notion that “dragon accounts aren’t easy to dismiss as mere fantasy.” Yes they are. They are very easy to dismiss. They are fantasy. The article is terrible. Dragon fire-breathing, it concedes, could be an embellishment. It seems to overlook the idea of such a heavy animal flying with those wings would be ridiculous.