My wife the psychologist struggled a lot with her survey, which was part of her thesis on parenting attitudes. It took months to get it together, and it was reviewed multiple times by multiple people who were evaluating her experimental design, and it was also reviewed for ethics by the human studies review board. I acquired a healthy respect for the skills required!
Gosh, I guess Eric Hovind issued a challenge to all atheists. I didn’t even notice! The only reason I know about it now is that Rebecca Watson answered it:
Y’all remember the Freedom from Atheism Foundation, right? Hokey copycat organization that parrots the Freedom from Religion Foundation badly, trying to shut down atheism in the public sphere? I wrote a post with a tepid endorsement of their right to exist, while also pointing out that they were stupid and silly.
Well, now they’re selectively citing that post to claim that atheists support their group. I don’t “support” them — I think they’re a gang of idiots. The True Pooka has been digging into their organization and has found a lot of examples of their fudging the amount of support they get.
Ken Ham makes a morality argument. He’s perturbed by a study that showed religious people are no more moral than non-religious people.
It’s important to understand that even though atheists and agnostics can be “moral,” they have no ultimate authoritative basis for their morality. When an atheist or agnostic calls something “right”or “wrong”or “good”or “evil,” they are borrowing from a biblical worldview in order to make that statement. Think about it: If we are simply the by-product of evolution and no better than animals, then why should anyone behave morally? In that case, what or who defines right from wrong? Ultimately, this kind of thinking leads to “everyone doing what is right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25), which is exactly where our culture is rapidly sliding.
I normally don’t read or watch blogs or youtube videos with titles along the lines of “PZ Myers is a …”; there are so many of them! And they’re so boring and repetitive and vacuous! But I was stranded in an airport all day yesterday, I was boreed, so I did read Luciano’s “P.Z. Myers Is a Dishonest Social Justice Warrior Who Doesn’t Know What ‘Atheism’ Means”. One small part was so funny it inspired me to create art.
She’s an author with a book almost ready to go. He’s an editor who can bring her book to completion. It’s a match made in…errm, not heaven, but some place real, like the internet. Anyway, it would be nice if editors could get paid for their work, so there’s a fundraiser to pay an English major what he is worth. I approve of this goal.
It’s where Ken Ham comes from, you know, and apparently the region has a bit of a reputation. Not everyone from Queensland can be bog-ignorant, of course, so it’s perfectly reasonable that someone from Queensland would be appointed head of the Australian national science organization, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). So good on their latest head.
And it’s really unfortunate — politically, we’re probably more alike than different, and we need more outspoken liberal voices in atheism. But he has done the unforgivable: serial plagiarism, and when caught out, has apologized, but simultaneously belittled the seriousness of the offense and blamed it on a campaign by our little neo-conservative atheist cabal of Harris and Boghossian.
I agree that they are wrong about so much else, but when they’re right, they’re right, galling as it is. This is a situation that requires much more reflection and far greater amends than Werleman has given it. He has also effectively written himself out of any of the debates, internal or external, about atheism.
Atheists, be ashamed.
I find it ironic that self-described “atheist” men are far more hateful and awful towards me online than conservative Christians are.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 17, 2014
I find it ironic that self-described “atheist” men are far more hateful and awful towards me online than conservative Christians are.
No, I’m not annoyed with Sarkeesian: I’m annoyed that the atheist movement has gotten this bad.
Here’s a lovely representative response:
@noelplum @pzmyers I'm annoyed that anyone is still asserting the atheist labels implies anything other than a lack of belief in gods.
— Miles Grimes (@TheDecentTech) October 17, 2014
I’m annoyed that anyone is still asserting the atheist labels implies anything other than a lack of belief in gods.
Right. ‘The dictionary doesn’t say atheists have to be decent human beings, therefore I’m going to be more annoyed that you have this expectation than at the fact that some atheists are hateful numpties.’
Whatever happened to the rational idea that we should look at our failings honestly and strive to correct them? You know, when Francis Bacon set out to tell the world about how science should be done, he didn’t just pull a sentence out of a dictionary and be done with it. “Inductive reasoning is best, rah rah rah!” No — he wrote at length about the pitfalls, and spelled out the preconceptions to which we are prone.
The idols and false notions which have already preoccupied the human understanding, and are deeply rooted in it, not only to beset man’s minds, that they become difficult of access, but, even when access is obtained, will again meet and trouble us in the instauration of the sciences, unless mankind, when forewarned, guard themselves with all possible care against them.
The idols of the tribe are inherent in human nature, and the very tribe or race of man. For man’s sense is falsely asserted to be the standard of things. On the contrary, all the perceptions, both of the senses and the mind, bear reference to man, and not to the universe, and the human mind resembles those uneven mirrors, which impart their own properties to different objects, from which rays are emitted, and distort and disfigure them.
But I guess atheists have moved so far beyond mere scientists that self-awareness and recognition of their own errors of perception no longer matter — “There is no god!” is the great All of their philosophy, and no other consideration need be made.
Well, at least we’re better than the theists in one thing: our dogma is shorter and easier to memorize.
He tells everyone that if you question anything in the Bible, it puts you on a slippery slope to apostasy — you must believe every word is literally true or doubts will creep in, and then you are damned. He’s right, sort of. I’ll qualify that a bit, though.
Here’s a beautiful example: the story of Sandra Edwards, a serious, dedicated Christian and young earth creationist, so serious that she published a children’s book promoting creationism, who one day find herself thoughtfully reading material on the internet…and next thing you know, GODLESS.
