You Can't Trust Science

Just a very cool video from The Thinking Atheist comparing the accomplishments of science vs religion. This seems to be an appropriate follow-up to yesterday's Creationist propoganda video.



Quote of the Day:

"It often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again....I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion."

--Carl Sagan

Creationist Propoganda for Children Caught on Camera

This video shows just how far creationists will go to indoctrinate their children into a culture of ignorance and innoculate their children against the realities and promise of science.



My 9-year-old happened to be watching this with me and even he couldn't help offering condemnations of the ignorance of the adults and refutations to the poor kids demonstrating the effectiveness of their brainwashing session. In the end, he said he just felt sorry for them. I think I would too, except for the fact that these same children will one day vote.

Below, check out one company attempting to level the playing field a bit.



Quote of the Day:

"We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a higher answer--but none exists."

--Stephen Jay Gould

The Internet: Where Religions Come to Die

Here is an interesting video to which even Mr. Dawkins gives his personal seal of approval.

When Religious Sensitivity Trumps Freedom of Expression

After garnering a large number of hits on YouTube, this video was apparently removed due to 'inappropriate content.' I have chosen to post it here and allow you to decide for yourself. Click on the link below to view.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ca861703b8/religion-from-danny?rel=player

Similarly, Comedy Central recently censored the latest episode of South Park, which depicted the prophet Mohammed in a bear suit, due to not-so-veiled threats to the lives of the cartoon's creators from a U.S. based radical Islamic group called Revolution Muslim. What is going on here? Jon Stewart and The Daily Show address the issue in a more sober than usual, yet typically irreverant fashion.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-april-22-2010/south-park-death-threats

Quotes of the Day:

"You know, that's why our enemy is so frightening--they have no humor. This is a group of people who wandered the desert for thousands and thousands of years and never ran into a knock-knock joke."

--Lewis Black


"There is no room for play in Islam....It is deadly serious about everything."

--Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

A Godless Heathen's Guide to Morality: Introduction

Lately I've come across numerous arguments by theists in books, articles, blogs, forums, and videos stating the belief that one cannot be a moral person without a biblical foundation/grounding. In fact, it would seem that the world as we know it is going to hell in a handbasket thanks to the increasing number of freethinkers who reject not only Judeo-Christian biblical morality, but all standards of morality fundamentally based on religious dogma.

It really does make one wonder whether the people propogating this morality myth have ever actually read the "code" upon which their sense of morality is supposedly based. Even if they have read it and do possess more than a passing familiarity with it, I can't help wondering further exactly how they managed to come to the conclusion that the morality outlined in their particular holy book is not just the "best" standard, but should be the "universal" standard. Let's examine them here.

1. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself a graven image.
3. You shall not take the name of the LORD, your God, in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet your neightbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's.

Sam Harris, who is more eloquent by far than I, addressed this problem of considering the 10 Commandments as the best guide to morality in his Letter to to a Christian Nation (pp 20-22). He wrote:

The first four of these injunctions have nothing whatsoever to do with morality. As stated, they forbid the practice of any non-Judeo-Christian faith (like Hinduism), most religious art, utterances like 'God damn it!,' and any ordinary work on the Sabbath--all under penalty of death.

Commandments 5 through 9 do address morality, though it is questionable how many human beings ever honored their parents or abstained from committing murder, adultery, theft, or perjury because of them...And what are we to make of the fact that, in bringing his treatise to a close, the creator of our universe could think of no human concerns more pressing and durable than the coveting of servants and livestock?

Mr. Harris then goes on to issue a small challenge.

If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures.

Now, I am certainly no scholar when it comes to world religions, but a couple of weeks ago, I took a crack at creating my own set of "Atheist Commandments" (with a little help from Richard Dawkins). In future posts I will go into more detail with each one, and if anyone has suggestions for things I missed, feel free to let me know.

Quote of the Day:

(In a study involving hypothetical moral dilemmas)
"There were no statistically significant differences between subjects with or without religious backgrounds....Like other psychological faculties of the mind, including language and mathematics, [it appears that] we are endowed with a moral faculty that guides our intuitive judgments of right and wrong....It is our own nature, not God, that is the source of our morality."

--Peter Singer

American History Via Sarah Palin

Here is one of the latest episodes of Fundie Founding Father Hijacking with Sarah Palin in the lead. I really would like to suggest that Palin (and all her adoring fans) read one of the following:  Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, Doubt by Jennifer Michael Hecht, or any of the more recent biographies of the FFs (Thomas Jefferson, Author of America by Christopher Hitchens is a good one.).  However, given that self-education is an activity in which only the evil 'liberal elite' seem to engage, I don't hold out much hope that she would ever condescend to take me up on my suggestion.





Quote of the Day:

"The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy."

--George Washington

Atheist Pocket Debater

I do not own an iPhone, but if I did, this would be an application that I just might have to get. It's sort of like a pocket-sized Dawkins/Hitchens/Shermer, etc. at your beck and call...and what sincere atheist/skeptic/humanist couldn't use one of those?  :)