Archive for August, 2008
Obama answers Science Debate 2008 questions
It seems pretty clear that Barack Obama is at least interested in bringing science back to the White House. Despite declining the actual debate, Obama has answered the 14 questions put forth by the team behind the Science Debate 2008.
I felt really good reading through his answers. I mean, the man actually thinks the public’s understanding of science is important for the future of our nation. Imagine that. He addresses stem cell research, health, energy space exploration as well as the importance of a president’s team of science advisers.
Scientific and technological information is of growing importance to a range of issues. I believe such information must be expert and uncolored by ideology.
I will restore the basic principle that government decisions should be based on the best- available, scientifically-valid evidence and not on the ideological predispositions of agency officials or political appointees.
Sounds good to me.
Via: ERV
The 1st Carnival of Evolution
Minds more brilliant than my own bring you fascinating collections of fantastic evolution reading material in the 1st Carnival of Evolution. 3.7 billion years of molecular changes culminating in the emergence of matter inspecting its own origins and existence.
Do you care about the science behind evolution? Do you marvel at the tiny molecular machines spewing out coded messages to the microscopic inhabitants of your own bodied world? Do you grow irate at the ignorance pushers, the peddlers of relatively impotent gods, and the disintegration of science education in the modern world? Do you like to stay abreast of current topics and scientific findings in the study of the organismal existences surrounding us or those long gone?
If so, this is the blog carnival for you.
They’re currently asking for submissions for CoE #2, which will be hosted by EvolutionBlog.
Via: The Atheist Blogger
This religion has caused an error and will be closed
Via: FailBlog
Lori Lipman Brown on The Colbert Report
Don’t miss Lori Lipman Brown, director of the Secular Coalition for America, an alliance that includes the American Humanist Association on tonight’s Colbert Report.
From her office at AHA headquarters in Washington DC, Lori has worked tirelessly to defend the rights of nontheists and the separation of church and state. Now her message, and ours, will reach millions of mainstream Americans, particularly young people.
The show air at 11:30pm / 10:30c, but check your local listings just to be sure.
UPDATE: The Friendly Atheist reports that Lori Lipman Brown’s interview has sadly been postponed until tomorrow night for a first-ever Friday Night broadcast of The Colbert Report. Who knows why… Maybe the Report is planning something special for our nontheist crusader.
Via: American Humanist Association
Update Via: The Friendly Atheist
Christian Science Textbook
The sad part is, its not all that far from the truth. Clicky Image for full comic.
Found Via: Incredimazing
Those Vikings may have had a point
Beliefnet has a short but somewhat interesting article on the variety of loony belief systems represented on their site. The article, Five Religions You’ve Never Heard Of, focuses on the core beliefs of and a few choice quotes by some of the self-proclaimed believers in Asatru, Sant Mat, Eckankar, Ahmadiyya, and Maltheism.
While I was reading, a quote by the Asatruar Beliefnet member John_T_Mainer really hit me.
I will face my challenges with a grin, accept nothing less than victory until death, and face my gods and ancestors secure in the knowledge that I made the most of the life they gave to me, and that my children and neighbors will face less danger and strife for my efforts.”
Sure, he believes in Thor and Odin and that they gave him his life but at lease he’s not wasting it. And most of his declaration speaks true to humanists, atheists, and agnostics. Live life to the fullest and make the world a better place for everyone else. Or, as I like to put it: Be excellent to each other and party on, dudes!
You really have to feel for the Maltheists though. They believe God exists. They just think he’s a total ass. Although I’m pretty sure this is just what happens when devout belief is mixed with Bible reading/study. The ones that don’t identify as Maltheists probably spend the rest of their time at church, reaffirming their belief in their wonderful and just misery-maker.
Via: Reddit:Atheism
Lightning in slow motion
I think ‘wow’ is the word I’m looking for.
In the medical world we call it a miracle
Apparently God didn’t want this Israeli baby to be aborted and intervened 5 hours after the infant was placed inside the hospital’s cold storage.
A stillborn Israeli baby pronounced dead at birth by doctors spent at least 5 hours inside one of the hospital’s refrigerated storage units before her parent’s began noticing movement. The infant was pronounced dead after doctors were forced to abort the Mother’s pregnancy in its 23rd week due to internal bleeding.
I was reading this and just waiting for the “Thank you, God” or “Its a miracle from God” pleas spewing forth from the parents. But the most horrific quote comes courtesy of hospital deputy director Moshe Daniel, who surely spoke for the entire modern medical profession when he said,
We don’t know how to explain this, so when we don’t know how to explain things in the medical world we call it a miracle, and this is probably what happened,”
So say we all!
There you have it. In the medical world, when we don’t know how to explain something, the obvious fallback is, “It was a miracle.” At least the article includes a brief moment of reality from an actual doctor.
Motti Ravid, a professor of internal medicine, told Israel’s Channel 10 that the low temperature inside the cooler had slowed down the baby’s metabolism and likely helped her survive.
I’m pretty sure, if this child lives, it will most likely be praised as a miracle from god by all the faithful. However, if the child dies, then it will all turn out to have just been some little bit of science that helped keep her alive.
Via: Reuters
“This Book Doesn’t Work” – An honest review of the Bible
A UK Amazon.com user gives the Bible a fairly tough review.
This book doesn’t work. I’ve tried the “praying” method to get a new Porsche 996 delivered but to no avail. There’s nothing in the instructions about not wanting German sports cars but I tried praying for less ambitious things. I gave up when it didn’t even get me a Big Mac. In the early part there’s a bit about people crossing the desert and being sustained by manna from heaven, so you’d think that it would be able to manage at least a hamburger.
I’m disappointed and will contact the publisher. In the meantime I can’t recommend this book as it is clearly faulty.
Via: Reddit:Atheism
A beauty pageant for Catholic nuns
Rev. Antonio Rungi wants to run a nun beauty pageant to “give them more visibility within the Catholic Church and to fight the stereotype that they are all old and dour.”
The “Miss Sister 2008” contest will start in September on a blog run by the Rev. Antonio Rungi and will give nuns from around the world a chance to showcase their work and their image.
Rungi, a theologian and schoolteacher from the Naples area, said that visitors to his site will have a month to “vote for the nun they consider a model.”
Nuns will fill out a profile including information about their life and vocation as well as a photograph. It will be up to them to choose whether to pose with the traditional veil or with their heads uncovered.
Heads uncovered? Ah, they must be liberal nuns… the nerve. But Rungi makes it clear that this is not your average beauty pageant.
We are not going to parade nuns in bathing suits,” Rungi said by telephone from his town of Mondragone.
Awww, Shucks. I was so looking forward to the evening gown and talent portions.
But being ugly is not a requirement for becoming a nun. External beauty is gift from God, and we mustn’t hide it.”
OK, so God chooses to gift certain people with external beauty. And everyone else gets the gift of ugly? Anyway, so some of those externally beautiful people get called on to sacrifice a large percentage of their lives to meaningless prayer and devotion. Why not let them show off their bods on a blog for a while? A little jolt of ‘normal life’ might do them good.
Via: MSNBC
Image Credit: BrandsOnSale Halloween Costumes
What will Willis think of next?
Tom Willis, the creationist who was wondering whether evolutionists should be allowed to vote (and, of course decided ‘no’) has a new silly question (and insane answer) for us all. Should Evolutionists Be Allowed to Roam Free in the Land?
His conclusion, though predictable, still comes with some amazing highlights of insanity. After concluding that all evolutionists are incompetent warriors against Christianity (If we’re incompetent, why be scared in the first place?), he lists a few options for what could be done with us all.
- Labor camps. Their fellow believers were high on these. But, my position would be that most of them have lived their lives at, or near the public trough. So, after their own beliefs, their life should continue only as long as they can support themselves in the camps.
- Require them to wear placards around their neck, or perhaps large medallions which prominently announce “Warning: Evolutionist! Mentally Incompetent – Potentially Dangerous.” I consider this option too dangerous.
- Since evolutionists are liars and most do not really believe evolution we could employ truth serum or water-boarding to obtain confessions of evolution rejection. But, this should, at most, result in parole, because, like Muslims, evolutionist religion permits them to lie if there is any benefit to them.
- An Evolutionist Colony in Antarctica could be a promising option. Of course inspections would be required to prevent too much progress. They might invent gunpowder. A colony on Mars would prevent gunpowder from harming anyone but their own kind, in the unlikely event they turned out to be intelligent enough to invent it.
- All options should include 24-hour sound system playing Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris reading Darwin’s Origin of Species, or the preservation of Favored Races by Means of Natural Selection. Of course some will consider this cruel & unusual, especially since they will undoubtedly have that treatment for eternity.
I’m just… yeah.
Via: Pharyngula
How does the Bible explain suffering?
Bart Ehrman has done extensive research into the historical roots of Christianity as well as written several books on the subject. His latest book is ‘God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question–Why We Suffer‘ dealing with, as you might guess, how the Bible tries to explain suffering in a world ruled by an all-loving and all-powerful benefactor. He recently gave this lecture at UC Berkley on the same subject and I think its worth watching.
Although I agree with pretty much everything Ehrman has to say regarding the lecture’s topic, one of his answers at the end struck me as odd. Ehrman seems to think Sam Harris blames religion for ‘all’ the evils in the world. I think he may have mixed up some of the ‘New Atheist’ authors since Harris, if any of them, pleas for more scientific study of all things spiritual. Christopher Hitchens’s book ‘God is not Great’ carries the subtitle ‘How Religion Poisons Everything’ and Richard Dawkins created the BBC series ‘Root of all Evils’ (though he disagreed with the BBC’s title choice) but Sam Harris’s main argument is that an evidence-based reality trumps a faith-based one.
My other main problem is Ehrman’s apologetic claim of a fundemental divide between science and religion. He belives in a point where the questions must be handed off to theologians to answer. But the supernatural beliefs at the core’s of religions are scientific claims. The question of the existence of a supernatural creator being in the universe is a scientific question with a yes or no answer. There is no philosophical, historical or theological way around that statement. The supernatural being that a large percentage of the world believes in either exists within reality or it doesn’t.
Aside from those small observations I highly recommend Ehrman’s previous books and his Teaching Company lectures. I’ll be picking up God’s Problem soon.
You’re entitled to your own opinion
You’re entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts. – Joe Biden
A little Saturday morning nostalgia [Things I Miss]
30 mins. of 80’s cartoon intros
30 mins. of 90’s cartoon intros
Denyse O’Leary and the creationist’s problem
Denyse O’Leary, the creationist evangelist whose rhetoric has been best described by ERV as ‘word salad’ just can’t conceive of ideas moving forward or even beyond their originators. In a short post on the Post-Darwinist blog (no linkage for you) she shows every so clearly just why creationists can’t grasp modern scientific concepts.
Actually, never mind human life, I don’t think even animal life can be fully explained – or even reasonably explained – in Darwinian terms. And plant life – definitely not! Lamarck and Mendel could tell you far more about plants than Darwin ever did.
All stupidity aside, what O’Leary fails to note is that any modern geneticist would most likely have Mendel’s jaw on the floor and his head spinning simultaneously. Mendel did great work in the first days of genetics but his research was very incomplete. Mendel got lucky in that all the traits he was looking for in his plants were all on separate chromesomes. It took Thomas Hunt Morgan to discover that when two genes controlling two different characteristics were on the same chromesome, they were usually inherited together. Research that won him the 1933 Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology.
Science doesn’t stop with a theory’s discoverer. New scientists take over the reigns and carry the torch on through the next generation making new discoveries and adding to or editing the previous theories. Creationists problem is that they seem to want everything in life to work just like their precious little Bible. Once something is written down by the creator, never shall it be changed. A pretty absurd assumption on their part. Especially considering the scrapbook origins of said precious book.
Via: Post Darwinist
