Should I go or should I stay?

I have a MySpace page. It’s not much, just a token entry on one of the big social networking sites.

Now here’s a problem: MySpace is run by religious bigots. They selectively censor atheist groups wholesale; this makes me rather dislike the place. Yesterday was International Delete Your MySpace Account Day as a protest — I didn’t participate because I didn’t find out about it until this morning, and now I face a dilemma. Should I remove even my nominal participation in MySpace, or should I keep my page up? If it stays up, it will definitely have something protesting the managerial abuses that are going on.

There’s something to be said for either alternative, but I’m lazy (and also crazy busy today), so I’ll put it to the readers of Pharyngula: shall we say no to MySpace and torch the Pharyngula webpage thereon, or shall I leave it up? Scorn them by participating in the mass shunning, or leave a one-fingered salute waving at them?

The New Humanist is running a poll on this very same issue — how should atheists respond to organizations that discriminate against us?

Talk radio for the godless

Remember: listen to the Minnesota Atheists radio program on Air America, tomorrow morning at 9am central time.

Topics tomorrow include Huckabee, an interview with Robert M. Price, and yours truly (with Kristine Harley) in a Moment of Science. We’re going to be discussing useful references for evolution; the segment has been lengthened, so there may actually be time for you to call in.

Please, though, call in with sincere questions — time is limited, and comments, no matter how complimentary, eat up minutes, and whiny creationists who think it’s clever to eat up time with tedious, self-important fussing will be cut off.

Heath Ledger dead, and why it matters

So Heath Ledger, the young actor, is dead of unknown causes. I don’t know much about him, I did not have any kind of personal interaction with him so I don’t need to know much about him — I liked some of his movies, he was young, it’s tragic to see a life ended so early.

Those demented ghouls at Westboro Baptist Church have a different point of view, though.

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It’s just a lunatic ranting his hate, but that last paragraph is fascinating.

Heath Ledger is now in Hell, and has begun serving his eternal sentence there — beside which, nothing else about Heath Ledger is relevant or consequential.

That epitomizes the problem, I think. There is a kind of sliding scale of belief: most of us value our lives to some degree, and consider how we spend our three score and ten to be important; then there are people who attach some degree of importance on an afterlife they’ve imagined, and consider this hypothetical eternity to be a matter of concern. Atheists have the scale pegged way over to the left and see this little slice of time we have as all we have, and therefore the only thing we have to make work. Most religious people have the dial turned up a little to the right — they are clearly operationally secular, spending most of their time on work and family, and socking away a little Sunday prayer time for an anticipated and wholly delusional Heaven. We can all live with that.

But then there are these wackos like Fred Phelps who have the dial turned so far to the right that they place a higher priority in their fantasies about what they’ll be doing after they’re dead over what they’re doing with their life right now. That’s where religion becomes a great evil, where it destroys lives and compels people to commit acts that are materially insane, but make great logical sense to people infected with the idea that there is an eternity of consequence for trivial transgressions against a shared belief.

This is why we have to strike right at the root of religious belief. It’s an unfounded expectation of a magic post-mortem resuscitation in a new universe with different rules that has the potential to completely change the equation about how we live our lives in this brief span — and not for the better, as proponents pretend — and to those of us who care about our lives, our world, and our legacy rather than our imagined ghost-existence, that matters.

P.S. Note the inconsistency in Phelps’ position, too. If what Heath Ledger did in his life is such a tiny, irrelevant fragment of god’s great plan for his existence, why is his role in a movie Fred Phelps didn’t like so important that it dictates an eternity of pain?

Hitchens has big brass ones

It takes some confidence to charge into this: Hitchens will be debating Jay Richards (of the Discovery Institute), with Ben Stein as “moderator”, in an event sponsored by the Stanford IDEA club. The creationists are stacking the deck against him rather thoroughly.

I’m not enthused about the idea — the only people who have anything to gain from this are the loons on the side of ignorance. But if there’s anyone who can pull it off, it’s a master of fiery rhetoric … or a comedian. The topic is purportedly “Atheism vs. Theism and the Scientific Evidence of Intelligent Design,” and since the creationists have no evidence, it’s got to be a tedious bore without someone on hand to skewer the fools.

Let’s hope there’s a video.

Tune in Sunday morning

Remember—every Sunday at 9am, you Minnesotans (and clever others) can listen to the Minnesota Atheists radio program on Air America. Tune in tomorrow — it’s especially important since I’ve heard that Air America has actually already lost one advertiser because they had the gall to actually allow atheists to broadcast on their show. We’ll have to demonstrate that the program can get a strong audience, so listen in, call in, and if you have a business that you advertise on the radio, think about buying some time on the show. And if you’re in the area, patronize the businesses that are open-minded enough to advertise there (I noticed that the Q. Cumbers restaurant was one such advertiser — try it sometime).

By the way, we’re revamping the format a little. My “Moment of Science” got cut short last week, so the new idea is to give it a whole 10 minutes every two weeks, instead of 2-4 minutes every week. So I won’t be on tomorrow — listen anyway — but August Berkshire and I will have a more substantial conversation next week, on resources for people interested in learning about evolution.

Also, Minnesota Atheists will be meeting tomorrow afternoon at the Roseville Public Library, to hear Jen Tudor discuss Sex Across the Curriculum, where you’ll get to hear about “politics, pleasure, queer identity, lubrication, masturbation, and religion.” I wish I could go, but it’s -10°F right now and expected to drop down to -25°F tonight, so traveling is to be avoided…and there’s also this nagging nuisance of a new semester starting on Tuesday.

Atheist in need!

Hey, you all must know Possummomma (aka, Atheist in a mini van) — she’s got a great blog, she’s an outspoken, positive atheist, and she’s one of those excellent representatives of atheist family values. She’s not doing well right now, and is struggling with lupus. Berlzebub is organizing donations to help her out, so if you’ve got a little bit to spare, please do contribute to a member of our godless community.

Success!

The new Minnesota Atheists radio show was very good — they’re going to have a hard time topping getting a heavy-hitter like Richard Dawkins next week (well, maybe not: next week they’re talking about sex), but they’ve clearly got no shortage of material to talk about. My segment was cut a bit short, but it was my own fault — my usual wordy exposition needs refinement.

Dawkins was great, and give a clearer explanation of Sam Harris’s point about not calling ourselves atheists than Harris has; he also talked about his experience with the movie, Expelled.

If you missed it, it will be available as a podcast on the Minnesota Atheists site. I noticed a lot of foreigners, people from California, of all places, calling in — so presumably many of you can catch the program regularly.

Sunday is a big day for Minnesota Atheists

Minnesota Atheists will be having the first of many weekly radio programs on Air America, starting on Sunday, 13 January, at 9 AM. They’re getting off to a very strong start with an interview with Richard Dawkins, among many other features.

Minnesota Atheists will launch a weekly, one-hour program on Air America Minnesota (AM 950) beginning Sunday, January 13, 2008 from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. It will be broadcast live, streamed live on the internet, and made available later as a free podcast. The name of the program is Atheists Talk (the same as our cable television show). The show will feature news, interviews, live call-ins, and more. We are proud to announce that our special guest on the inaugural program will be Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, The Selfish Gene, and many other important and influential books.

If you are out of the listening area and want to hear the program live, go to www.airamericaminnesota.com/listen and enter a Minnesota zip code. If you would like to become involved with the program by volunteering your services, making a donation, or purchasing advertising, please call August Berkshire at (612) 338-4548 or e-mail him at [email protected].

Tune in! Call in!