The WBC goons plan to beg for attention, just like all the other religious parasites who will be leeching around the fringes of the Reason Rally. You know what to do.
Ignore them.
These guys are just litigious assholes. Don’t pay any attention to them at all.
Who needs rockets and space probes? We have Dr P. V. Vartak an MD who does experiments in his spare time. Here’s part of his list:
First experiment of Astral Travel in Samadhi to the planet Mars was performed on 10th August, 1975. A report of his 21 observations was published, out of which 20 observations were fully corroborated by the spaceship Viking 1, after 21st July, 1976, i.e. almost one year after his observations. The 21st observation about ancient water and moss on the Mars was established by another spaceship, the Pathfinder in 1987, 12 years later.
In his second experiment of Astral Travel on 12th August, 1976, he observed by Clairvoyance the docking of spaceships Viking-1 & Viking-2. Advance observation by him was subsequently confirmed by NASA on 7th Sept. 1976.
In yet another Astral Travel to the planet Jupiter on 27th August 1977 , he made 18 distinct observations on the Jupiter. Spaceship Voyager corroborated his 10 observations in 1979, while the remaining observations are yet to be tangibly proved, may be, through some future space program of humanity.
In 1980, during his Samadhi, he saw a man on a celestial body in another Solar System . He has published his findings through this transcendental feat in his book , ‘Scientific Explanation of the Katha Upanishad.’
USA had planned to launch a spaceship to the Saturn to reach & study the planet in 2004. He, through his transcendental visit to Saturn visualized that the Saturn is a ball of three types of revolving heavy gases, having purple, yellow and black shades. The famous ring of Saturn is made of some material like slurry or mud along with floating rocks. There are no land marks on the Saturn because there is no formation of land. In the third edition (2003) of his autobiography ‘ Brahmarashichi Samaranayatra’, he has published his observations about the planet Saturn.
Take that, Phil Plait! Astronomy has just become superfluous!
Unfortunately, Dr Vartak’s credibility isn’t perfect. He was a surgeon, would you believe…would you let this guy anywhere near you with a knife?
One thing he’s good for: he’s a Hindu theologian. Point some of those fanatical Christians to his publishings every time they start asserting the truth of the Bible — Vartak plays the same game of treating holy writ as scientific data, and comes to the conclusion that the Upanishads were literally true and accurate in every regard. Besides, that Jesus guy was a Tamil Hindu, don’t you know.
Six years ago, when I was about nine, my primary school class studied ancient Greece. We did the usual stuff- the scientific contributions, the art, the mythology. One afternoon we had a lesson on the gods, which I very much enjoyed. I was thinking about how cool and badass Zeus was with his lighting bolts and toga, and in came the local reverend to tell us a story from the Bible. (In retrospect, this should never have happened and I should have used my seat on the pupil council to prevent this and the Christian songs in assembly from ever happening ever again, but I didn’t really notice at the time.) I paid little attention to the reverend, thinking about Zeus and Hermes and Aphrodite and Hades and Poseidon and how much better they were than this capital-G ‘God’ that the reverend was talking about. But I still knew that they were the wrong gods and the one in the bible was the right one, the real one. After all, if he was just another story like Apollo and Ares, why would we sing his praises every Monday and pray to him every day before lunch? It was then that it hit me. The god that the Reverend was talking about was just another story. He was no different from Zeus and Poseidon: just as false, just as much a story. That is when I became an atheist.
Kyle
Scotland.
All the religious fanatics and Christian and Muslim weirdos who criticize atheists can take a flying leap — and when Bill Donohue rants and raves about atheist billboards, it’s a vindication and a triumph. But when one of our own, the black atheist Sikivu Hutchinson, speaks out in criticism, it’s a message that must be taken seriously and addressed.
But AA’s ahistorical paternalistic approach to “secular” public service messaging is one of the main reasons why New Atheism is still racially segregated and lily white. Clearly AA doesn’t give a damn about the reality of urban communities of color in the U.S. vis-à-vis the institutional role of organized religion in a white supremacist capitalist context.
David Silverman, are you listening? I know this is not the message you want to send, but it’s what people are hearing. Fix this. Don’t tell people of color what they want, listen when they tell you what they need.
So is AA on the frontlines of providing prisoner re-entry resources—the real regime of 21st century “enslavement” for millions of African Americans—to families and communities that are permanently locked out of the so-called American dream due to the legal disenfranchisement of former convicted felons in employment, housing, and voting? Did AA even deign to consult with local interfaith and secular, humanist or atheist people of color about the cultural and psychological impact of the legacy of slavery in a nation where black bodies are still the primary targets of violent police suppression, racist criminal sentencing and capital punishment?
Why, I do believe there’s a hint or two in there about what would win people over to our side…
Good news! The gorilla genome sequence was published in Nature last week, and adds to our body of knowledge about primate evolution. Here’s the abstract:
Gorillas are humans’ closest living relatives after chimpanzees, and are of comparable importance for the study of human origins and evolution. Here we present the assembly and analysis of a genome sequence for the western lowland gorilla, and compare the whole genomes of all extant great ape genera. We propose a synthesis of genetic and fossil evidence consistent with placing the human–chimpanzee and human–chimpanzee–gorilla speciation events at approximately 6 and 10 million years ago. In 30% of the genome, gorilla is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other; this is rarer around coding genes, indicating pervasive selection throughout great ape evolution, and has functional consequences in gene expression. A comparison of protein coding genes reveals approximately 500 genes showing accelerated evolution on each of the gorilla, human and chimpanzee lineages, and evidence for parallel acceleration, particularly of genes involved in hearing. We also compare the western and eastern gorilla species, estimating an average sequence divergence time 1.75 million years ago, but with evidence for more recent genetic exchange and a population bottleneck in the eastern species. The use of the genome sequence in these and future analyses will promote a deeper understanding of great ape biology and evolution.
I’ve highlighted one phrase in that abstract because, surprise surprise, creationists read the paper and that was the only thing they saw, and in either dumb incomprehension or malicious distortion, took an article titled “Insights into hominid evolution from the gorilla genome sequence” and twisted it into a bumbling mess of lies titled “Gorilla Genome Is Bad News for Evolution”. They treat a phenomenon called Incomplete Lineage Sorting (ILS) as an obstacle to evolution rather than an expected outcome.
To put it simply, the idea of a god or gods is preposterous; if there were any higher being which had sway over this world, we would see some measurable signs of it, which are markedly absent. Furthermore, had any such thing happened throughout history, there would be some form of consensus throughout historical record of this being or beings, but what we have from history instead is a large number of contradicting accounts. As a final note, the motivations of religious figures are transparent: They have everything to gain from perpetuating these stories, and we have seen their capability to control people through these religious teachings.
Chris Kwolek
United States
Hereby my reply, as requested, for why I am an atheist. My name is Maarten-Jan and I’m from the Netherlands.
Since I was a child, I was always interested in learning new things. I loved reading. Fiction was a big part in it, but I also had several science for kids books, about astronomy, insects, history and more. My upbringing was more or less catholic light, I went through all the steps of becoming a catholic, but me and my parents rarely attended church. I believed in god back then.
My first ‘rebellion’ against the church was when I was 11. I had to go through the process of confirmation: I hated every step of the way. From what I remember, this was not because of a crisis of faith or something, but mostly because the whole process was freaking boring. I never liked going to church, and in this confirmation period, I had to attend church-like meetings every week.
I remember fighting with my parents about it, and I believe in one of those fights I proclaimed disbelief in god. My parents only pressed the matter of my confirmation because of their view that if you start something, you have to finish it. They did not put my little sister later on through this terribly boring process. I can’t remember if my claimed disbelief was real, or just to upset my parents. I do remember it was not the big issue.
When I went to high school, religion faded into the background. I attended church once a year, with christmas, and that was mostly it. I never really thought about it, I just hated going to church because it was boring. Because I went to the Gymnasium, I got in contact with the old Greek and Latin language and mythology. I loved these old stories of gods and heroes.
In the second part of high school, literature became a huge part of the curriculum, with regards to the Dutch, English and German classes. I remember that my Dutch teacher discussed the relation of literature to the views of the people of the time, and the use of old themes in mythology is prevalent in literature. He labeled the Christian faith, with the side note that not everyone agreed with him on this, as a mythology as well. I immediately recognized this to be true. From this point onward, I consciously rejected christianity as a whole and the belief in a god.
Because I went to a secular school and my very mildly religious parents, I believed for a long time that the whole world believed more or less like I did. When I finished high school, I went on to the university. I educated myself on evolution (I dropped biology in the second year of high school, evolution was in it, but not a big part of it), and I got to read the God Delusion of Dawkins.
Through youtube, I got into contact with Thunderf00t (and the WDPLAC) and AronRa videos and eventually the atheist experience. I realized there were a whole lot of people that disagreed with me (and held really idiotic beliefs). Furthermore, I got the words to define my belief as a secular humanist, atheist, antitheist, rationalist and free thinker.
Ironically, I only learned of the dogmas of catholicism when I was already an atheist. I was surprised and frankly horrified that so many people actually believed that stuff, and that no-one ever told me about this when I was in the church (although that may not be too surprising, considering their goal of keeping people in the church). The only thing I got back then was the happy story about Jesus, forgiveness, et cetera.
From that point forward, I became an active atheist, I argued a lot with my parents and online, I read several books on the subject, watch hundreds of youtube videos, and got to read Pharyngula. I am continuing to argue, test my beliefs, and learn new things until this day. My search for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth will hopefully continue throughout my life.
Best regards,
Maarten-Jan
Netherlands
Those vigorous Irish atheists have won another victory: they’ve slapped down a set of bigoted and stupid statements that were part of teacher training in Ireland, and are going to be contributing some accuracy to the training.
Hibernia College, the online teacher-training institution, has removed slides from its religion module for primary teachers at the request of Atheist Ireland.
Dr Nicholas Breakwell, vice-president for academic affairs and knowledge management, said yesterday that “some offending slides identified by Atheist Ireland have been removed pending the annual review process” to which all courses at the college are subject.
He also said Atheist Ireland had been asked to prepare a module for the college “on atheism, what it believes and does not”.
That’s progress! What’s appalling, though, are the original statements, composed by an ignorant Catholic priest, and recited at the students.
Atheism seems to be fashionable in Ireland at present. It is seen as rational, progressive and compassionate. But above all, it is ‘in’, not to mention convenient since, as Dostoevsky said in 19th century Russia, where it was likewise ‘in’, that if there is no God then anything can be justified.
What bothers very few of its latter-day exponents is the fact that atheist humanism produced the worst horrors history has ever witnessed, namely Nazism, fascism and Marxism, the latter alone responsible for some 100 million lives, according to The Black Book written by French ex-Marxists. Atheism is not a benign force in history.
It’s not that it’s offensive so much as it is stupid, wrong, and misleading. I haven’t met a single atheist who thinks that way because it excuses ‘anythng goes’ behavior — not one, and I know a lot of atheists. And then, of course, there are the obvious lies: Nazis were mostly Catholic and Lutheran, not atheists, and Marxism is an ideology that insisted on atheism, not the other way around. I have never before seen Marxists labeled as humanists — the author of that bit of propaganda clearly had no idea what a humanist is, so why was he writing the module on atheism?
In Orlando last week, I was on a panel to talk about what the objectives of secularism ought to be, and it was eerie: Vic Stenger and I talked about almost exactly the same things, except he came at it from a physicist’s perspective, talking about energy and nuclear power, while I came at it from a biologist’s perspective, talking about diversity and preservation of habitats…but we were both all science-driven and promoting the necessity of secular reasoning to recognize important problems and develop rational solutions.
Now Vic has put his talk on the FluffPo (unfortunate venue, but a good talk).
I’d put mine here, but I’m using it as the foundation for a talk I’ll be giving at the University of Utah on 7 April. So you’ll just have to wait.
When I was a child indoctrinated into the catholic church I said my prayers. I prayed for the starving to be fed. And I prayed for the end of all wars. Realizing that as hard as I prayed, thousands of people were still starving to death and war continued, they weren’t being answered. That or it was a resounding it’s part of gods plan.
This was the beginning of my ascent into the enlightenment. Then there was the hypocrisy of idol worship. I couldn’t understand the priests telling me not to worship idols while they prayed to the various saints. And then the all completely unbelievable; we are the right religion, every other religion is wrong.
Following my catholicism I tried other religions because I was still sold on the god thing. But I soon realized that none of these religions could produce a valid miracle or an answered prayer that wasn’t just as easily answered by praying to a milk carton And of course, god himself could not be produced.
I found myself thanking science for seeing reality as it really is. I have to say the final straw for me was watching Carl Sagans “Cosmos.” Telling the story of the emperor crab opened up a door to a whole new world for me. And from then on it was Atheism for me. No more guilt, no more sin, no more fear of hell.
Sam Salerno
United States
