Yes, it’s another. This one is of my speech at the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Yes, it’s another. This one is of my speech at the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne.
I really enjoyed this. Your dual nature, firebrand blogger and mild-mannered professor, was tilted toward the firebrand in this talk.
Watching right now! Thanks heaps Professor! <3
You so smooth.
“The ones who didn’t aren’t my ancestors.”
Ha!
Brilliant! I’ll have to watch that one again.
“Stocking up on timber and nails.”
(I never say this but, ROTFLMAO)
Great. One of my kids missed this. Confusions and angries resulted.
This’ll fix it.
Who the hell is Martin Pribble? He sounds like a real jerkbag.
Actually this is even better the second time. Thanks PZ!
Why the long delay in getting a video of this up?
I guess posting the transcript early indicates you knew the video was going to take a good while but I can’t quite work through this without more information (or a sudden epiphany of relevant search terms.)
Starts to listen
Ooooooh please, tell me this is just me having a hangover.
Listens again:
Starts well…
Keeps listening
Nope: that’s not an hangover: the owner of this blog is still polanskiing Ser Can’t-fucking-hide-his-despotic-fetichism.
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Bioware just called: they want their plot back
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Yes, please do so
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Ahem… NO: they’re “defending Israel” (more like cheering for wathever bullshit the Likud & associates pull out of their asses) because one of the result of WW2 was to force them to open the doors of the White Dudes Country Club to the fair skinned Jews of Eastern European descent who actually rule Israel, while the oh-so-slightly-less-fairly-skinned Muslims of Palestinian descent who’d love to have a piece of this place once called Palestine where they’re neither serfs nor fodder for the next ethnic cleansing are not (yet) part of the Hallowed White Dudes Country Club.
One thing which always annoys me when it comes to talks about religions is how excuses and justifications and pretenses meant to hide the often unavowable real intent behind them are presented as the Big Primary Cause Of Everything That’s Wrong.
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Why oh why is such a low number still presented as a triumph? 20.000 people: in the capital of a 300 million strong Secular Republic: astroturfing condottieri must still be laughting about that one.
Of coure, reusing the “You’re either an atheist or a closeted atheist liar or a psychopath” canard promoted by Dawkins during said rally may explain why there’s so much satisfaction in such a small number:
After all, if one starts to endorse the most basic, the “Everyone outside is either contemptible or despicable” tribalistic rejection mecanism, one should be satisfied to be a member of a small tribe.
So a speech which started with, “In the begnning was the tribe”, ended up with “In the end, there’s still the tribe”. Well, kudos for the unexpected conclusion, I guess.
My main complaint is that PZ is wearing contact lenses to hide the red glow of his eyes (everyone knows that ehvil (TM) creatures have red glowing eyes).
“… our hunter’s eyes in the front of our head”
No, no – these are brachiator’s eyes, to give us depth perception so we can accurately grab the next branch and not plummet to our deaths.
Ok, ok, so we do more hunting than brachiating these days, but I’m just sayin’.
It’s still a triumph. Don’t see many wolves brachiating as a result of their forward facing eyes, do you? Yay for adaptable hunting monkeys!
Ahem, NO!
You gave the reason that, perhaps, some Republican legislators have for defending Israel, but PZ’s got it exactly right.
Go into some fundagelical megamall church in Colorado Springs or, well, anywhere south of the Mason Dixon, and ask about Israel. Just ask “Hey, why should the US support Israel?”
I guarantee you that the first sentence coming out of any believers mouth will contain the word “prophecy”.
A thing of beauty! Posted it on FaceBook for the benefit of all my Mormon relatives. Labeled it, “Read it if you dare.”
The thing most people don’t get about Joseph Smith is that he was a con artist alright, but a brilliant one. He took the things like the concept of hell that had always been a deal breaker for thinking Christians and re-invented it, substituting the three kingdoms of heaven for the vicious heaven-hell binary. He did that with lots of Christian dogma. In fact one of the tenets of the Mormon 13 Articles of Faith is: We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. As a Mormon atheist I have a hard time knocking sense into Mormon’s because they have a zillion Get Out of Jail Free cards like that. I would love, love, love for there to be a Mormon Atheist site here on Freethoughts for militants like me. I need better ammo than lame jokes about magic underwear.
Further to what I said above. We should think of the war on reason as having many fronts with Mormonism being an important one. Do not dismiss Mormonism as merely ridiculous. It is one of the most, if not the most, durable resistance forces out there. In fact, nothing could be better proof of its durability than the very fact that one of the two major political parties in the US has a believing Mormon as its standard bearer. Mormons believe that end times commence when the US Constitution, hanging “by a thread”, is saved by a Mormon president. Ridicule and discount Mormons at your peril.
That’s what they will tell you, sure.
But you’d have to be blind not to see that they see Israel as a proxy for white American and Palestinians as a proxy for dark skinned immigrants and members of the underclass.
Freaking Epic! PZ has an under-appreciated talent with words. I loved the overall sense of optimism.
laurentweppe @15: But you’d have to be blind not to see that they see Israel as a proxy for white American and Palestinians as a proxy for dark skinned immigrants and members of the underclass.
You’d be wrong and extremely uncharitable for the majority of lay Christians. I grew up in the Evangelical world and most of the people I knew pretty much took the entire thing at face value. The End Times need Israel, ergo Christians should support the Israeli state.
There really is no second-tier thought behind that for most Christians, at least not the ones I knew.
Great Lecture.
I enjoyed watching it.
I would have loved to attend, But Australia is more than a 24 hr flight from here… And costs a couple of months wages…
Bring on the suborbital shuttles that can do the journey in 50 minutes and I’ll be there.
Bravo PZ! That’s what I want to hear, militant, fearless, superstition bashing. None of that, oh a little faith is OK crap.
Sharon, search Pharyngula for anything by “Lynna”, she’s an ex Mormon as well and always weighs in with really good info.
I saw this presentation on the day, and it was easily the most stirring of the entire weekend.
Loved this talk when I heard it in Melbourne. Atheist hoard arise!
“Suborbital shuttles”, I lie awake nights dreaming about suborbital shuttles. I spent over 24 hours getting to the US in May and in August I have to spend even longer getting to Sweden. Australia is wonderful, travelling by plane isn’t.
Spot on PZ, particularly your points on liberal or moderate Christians. I’ve never understood how they could say things like, “I’m not a biblical literalist; I accept evolution and other scientific discoveries, and understand that most of the bible is mythology, but I still believe Jesus is the Son of God.” How is that not being a literalist Christian?? Cafeteria realists indeed.