That’s the topic of this interview with an unruly mob of internet atheists, yours truly among them.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
That’s the topic of this interview with an unruly mob of internet atheists, yours truly among them.
(via Too Many Tribbles)
I can’t decide whether it’s superfluous or appropriate for a Swede to host the Carnival of the Godless — aren’t they all unchurched heathens in horned helmets over there?
The Catholic League is afraid parents might see The Golden Compass…and then buy the books for a Christmas gift. Horrors! You can’t give books by atheists on Christmas! Watch the video from Fox News to witness the outrage. Also, I have to love this quote from a Christian who opposes the movie fervently, despite never having seen it or even reading the books. But he has his reasons.
I don’t have to read the book, I’ve never been bitten by a snake either, but I, you know, it’s not something that I have to do to know that it’s not going to, that it’s not necessarily going to be a good thing for me.
In related news, snakebite victim’s family sues. Would you believe a religious snake-handler was bitten by the snake she was playing with to demonstrate her faith, and it bit her? And now her family is upset because she died at the hospital. Shouldn’t they be suing God instead, because he promised that those strong in their faith would be unharmed by poison? Or maybe they ought to find fault in the woman, who clearly was not faithful enough.
Hey, maybe the Bible was actually prophesying The Golden Compass — the snakes in Mark 16:17-18 are actually metaphors for Philip Pullman, promising that the faithful will be unharmed if they watch this movie.
Here’s another provocative article from the New Humanist titled “Holy Communion”, a critique of two of the “New Atheists”. It has an incredibly offensive illustration to go with it, but the article isn’t quite that bad. It’s not that good, either.
First, I have to confess: I’m not a humanist. I’m just not that keen on defining myself by my species, and I’m not going to join a group that willfully excludes squid. Still, I sympathize with the aims of secular humanism and I’m willing to work alongside them, just as I’m willing to work with reasonable Christians and Muslims — I’m just not ever going to be one of them, and I’m not going to hold fire and abstain from criticizing them.
Cool — Russell Blackford was noticed by the Dawkins site for this very nice article, “The New Atheism rocks”. Russell is a commenter here, too, you know — give him a gold star. The article begins,
The New Atheism deserves our cheers.
This is not a time for hyper-scrupulous
misgivings about how robustly religion
should be criticised, even leaving aside the
relative mildness that the New Atheists actually display. Books like The God Delusionand
God is Not Great should give confidence to
anyone who embraces secularism and
deplores the political influence of religion.
These books will convince at least some
intellectual opponents, or play a role in doing
so, expose the population to the idea (doubtless shocking for some) that there are alternatives to theism, and provide a rallying
point for opposition to religious influences
on public policy.
Exactly. This is not the time to moan and worry — let the other side do that. This is the time to exult and push a little harder, and I’m glad some people get it.
If you haven’t had enough of the Antony Flew story, Richard Carrier fills in the background. It looks worse than it did before — Flew is being obliging, and allowing some loony fundagelicals to put words in his mouth.
In my opinion the book’s arguments are so fallacious and cheaply composed I doubt Flew would have signed off on it in sound mind, and Oppenheimer comes to much the same conclusion. It seems Flew simply trusted Varghese and didn’t even read the book being published in his name.And even if he had, he is clearly incapable now of even remembering what it said. The book’s actual author turns out to be an evangelical preacher named Bob Hostetler (who has also written several books with Josh McDowell), with considerable assistance from this book’s co-author, evangelical promoter and businessman Roy Abraham Varghese.
It gets more scathing from there.
It’s too bad that this is for the Secular Party of Australia. I’d like to see the Democrats run an ad like this here. Can you imagine the meltdown in the media?
This is a darned good talk that addresses a lot of the bogus arguments against The God Delusion…and it’s pretty darned funny, too. Watch the whole thing. He’s very strident, shrill, and ranty. Right.
I thought Beyond Belief II was an excellent, stimulating, provocative meeting, but I’m somewhat discouraged about writing it up in detail because everything was taped and will be available on the web very soon … so I don’t want to be entirely superfluous. I’ve already described the first day, though, so I’ll continue with the second and third days, trying to cue you in to what I thought was most interesting and what to look for in the videos.
