Don’t vote for Dole in North Carolina

Every time I see the disregard the Democratic party shows for secular values — which is painfully frequent — I wonder why the heck I’m even voting for these addled con artists. But then the Republicans remind me by showing up and being even worse. The latest is from the Elizabeth Dole campaign in North Carolina, which has decided to vilify her opponent, Kay Hagan, because she dares to actually meet with atheists. How horrid! Hagan has probably got godless cooties now. Here’s what a Dole press release says, expressing disgust that Hagan is actually going to meet with the Secular Coalition for America.

“Kay Hagan does not represent the values of this state; she is a Trojan Horse for a long list of wacky left-wing outside groups bent on policies that would horrify most North Carolinians if they knew about it,” [Communications Director Dan] McLagan said. “This latest revelation of support from anti-religion activists will not sit well with the 90% of state residents who identify with a specific religious faith.”

Fair enough, actually. It does represent a difference in values: that Hagan may not be an atheist but is willing to speak with them says one thing about her values, and that Elizabeth Dole thinks atheists are un-American says something else about her values. It also says a lot about Dole that she is willingly affiliated with the party of bigotry and incompetence, the Republicans. These are choices made by candidates that are legitimate issues to help voters decide who they should elect.

It says to me that people should vote for Hagan, or almost any other Democrat, over almost any other Republican.

On BBC radio…

I was interviewed by a rather baffled radio announcer about the destruction of crackers (I know! Who would have thought such a silly event would be the focus of so much attention?) on BBC Radio Ulster. Reader DaleP tells me that it will be available online only until Saturday, so if you want to hear another flat-voiced nasal American talking to the lovely lilting voice of an Irishman, here’s your chance.

Matthew Cobb and Jerry Coyne write a letter

It’s a very nice letter to Nature. I especially like the last line.

We were perplexed by your Editorial on the work of the Templeton Foundation (‘Templeton’s legacy’ Nature 454, 253-254; 2008). Surely science is about finding material explanations of the world — explanations that can inspire those spooky feelings of awe, wonder and reverence in the hyper-evolved human brain.

Religion, on the other hand, is about humans thinking that awe, wonder and reverence are the clue to understanding a God-built Universe. (The same is true of religion’s poor cousin, ‘spirituality’, which you slip into your Editorial rather as a creationist uses ‘intelligent design’.) There is a fundamental conflict here, one that can never be reconciled until all religions cease making claims about the nature of reality.

The scientific study of religion is indeed full of big questions that need to be addressed, such as why belief in religion is negatively correlated with an acceptance of evolution. One could consider psychological studies of why humans are superstitious and believe impossible things, and comparative sociological studies of religion using materialist explanations of the rise and fall of the world’s belief systems.

Perhaps the Templeton Foundation is thinking of funding such research. The outcome of such work, we predict, will not bring science and religion (or ‘spirituality’) any closer to one another. You suggest that science may bring about “advances in theological thinking”. In reality, the only contribution that science can make to the ideas of religion is atheism.

The latest student outrage

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Bless their sacrilegious little hearts, the students are trickling back onto campuses everywhere, and doing their part to stir up freethinking mischief. Skatje and Collin are going to be recruiting for the UMM Freethinkers tonight, offering the incoming freshman cookies for their souls and handing out pamphlets. They’re going to have to work harder to top the latest godless scandal at Lorain County Community College in Ohio, where students put up a provocative poster. People were very upset, for some reason, and the poster has since been taken down.

There are lots of comments from students who simply don’t get it.

“You can’t portray Jesus like that. He believes in matrimony, that relationships like that should be done inside matrimony,” sophomore Brianna Holland said.

She said she believes homosexuality is wrong because she is a Christian, but she also said she is proud that her religion teaches tolerance and acceptance.

Why can’t you portray Jesus like that? Were there no gay people in the Middle East in the first century? I’m neither Christian nor homosexual, but I think the poster actually flatters their diety, making him out to be both human and hot. The story behind this encounter is terribly apocryphal, and about as reliable as the stories of loaves and fishes, but it doesn’t say anything bad about Christianity.

The remarks from Ms Holland do, though. So she’s proud of her tolerance and acceptance, and she just thinks homosexuality is wrong, eh? It’s commendable that she doesn’t spout hellfire at them, but there’s something wrong here…

[Read more…]

Godless Coloradans, rise up!

Since the DNC has chosen to not only ignore but outright spurn and reject the significant bloc of voters in their ranks who are not irrational people of faith, a demonstration is planned for 24 August at the Colorado Convention Center — you can RSVP if you want, but I’m sure you won’t be turned away if you just show up. The Coalition of Secular Voters has also put together an open letter to the Democrats, and I’ve heard that the Boulder Atheists will be turning out, too.

Let your displeasure be known. The DNC has to be shown that they’ve made a great mistake by alienating an important part of their base.

Edger, and a warning for Toronto

The Center for Inquiry has sponsored a new student-run initiative, Edger, a kind of group blog for young secularists.

Edger presents hard-hitting and reasoned news, views, and event promotion on issues pertaining to secularism, atheism, science, humanism, and the cosmos, and actively promotes and celebrates international freethought activism. Written in a youthful tone, but mature in content, Edger is sure to be a driving force in the new intellectual enlightenment.

MISSION
To create an outlet for prominent young freethought leaders to express their views and get them heard. Blogs are becoming very commonplace, and alone many blogs fail, but together, with the proper direction and an engaging and professional site, these blogging leaders can come together to make an impact far beyond what they could have achieved on their own.

It sounds interesting, check it out.

By the way, the Center for Inquiry is also sponsoring me for a talk. I’ll be in Toronto on Halloween this year, speaking on “Science Education: Caught in the Middle in the War Between Science and Religion” (you can guess which side I take). Nobody will want to hear that, though — the real treat is that they also invited Skatje to speak at a panel discussion the day afterwards. I’ve already told her that if she wants to use her time to critique my talk, that’s OK, so there is a potential for fireworks.

An ‘atheist rock’ genre?

I got a request from a reader that I’ll just pass on directly to any musically-inclined readers here…

Any chance Pharyngula readers can help? I have been writing and posting songs under the band name Natural Wastage on Soundclick.com (a sort of music version of myspace/facebook, I guess) for a while, and whilst re-installing some songs last month, I was struck by the number of Christian related genres available. Therefore, in mid July I emailed Soundclick and asked

“Looking through the categories I note that while there is Christian Rock, Country and Rap, Contemporary Christian pop and Pop and Urban Gospel, there is no category for atheist music. Can I ask you, initially, to create ‘Atheist Rock’ as a sub-genre of Rock. This is the category that most of my recent and current music writing falls into”. The reply was I got was

“At this time there has not been enough requests for this genre to be added, so we will not be adding it. Thank you for your suggestion though.”
Best Regards,
Ally Byrd
SoundClick Staff
[email protected]

What I’d like to ask is whether there are any song writers or performers reading Pharyngula who feel as I do, and if so, would they be prepared to contact Soundclick with a request that they add an Atheist Rock, or Atheist Folk, or whatever, to their list of genres. Please note that I would NOT suggest a blanket, mass emailing by large numbers of people UNLESS, AND ONLY IF they are genuinely prompted by an individual unfulfilled, unrequited need to listen to, or write for, these particular genres. There is absolutely NO reason to suppose Sounclick’s response is anything but honest. So let’s be honest ourselves.

Hmmm. I can think of a few bands with an atheist sensibility (maybe readers can name more here!), but most of their music, with some exceptions, simply doesn’t say anything about gods or jebus or magic spirits dwelling in the trees or whatever. There probably is a dearth of explicitly atheist songs because most are about real subjects, rather than not-real subjects…and you can’t just say that any song that doesn’t mention a god is an atheist song, or you’d have to call the Beach Boys an atheist band.

But hey, maybe there’s a thriving genre out there that I’m missing. If so, let us know about it and try to show Soundclick the light.

AAI Convention

Sastra here, with a quick reminder to those who are going to Long Beach, California to hear PZ Myers speak at the upcoming Atheist Alliance International Convention that’s coming up for the weekend of September 25th – 28th : the discounted convention rate for the Queen Mary expires August 26th, and the rooms are starting to sell out. It looks like this will be another great big fat rollicking atheist-fest.

According to the flyer, Professor PZ Myers will be speaking on the topic “Science as an Instrument of Change:”

Atheism is a natural consequence of the scientific way of looking at the world; furthermore, the scientific perspective is ascendant. Myers will explain why the new atheism is a reasonable and predictable product of our culture, and why that should give us hope for a more secular future.

Yeah, right. Militant atheist. Let’s all go and heckle him.

In addition to PZ, Michael Newdow (the plaintiff in the suit against “under God” in the pledge) and Jeremy Hall (the plaintiff in the suit against atheist discrimination in the army) will be there, along with other luminaries such as Michael Shermer, Julia Sweeney, and a special surprise awardee for the 2008 Richard Dawkins Award.

There will, of course, be a Pharyngula meet-up at some point, wedged in among all the rest of the partying. If anyone knows of any other upcoming meetups elsewhere, or just wants to whine that PZ never comes to their ship, mention them.