Besides spending some time with the good people of Americans United, I’ll be giving a talk at George Mason University at 7pm on Saturday night. Here’s the flyer:

If you can’t quite read that tiny print, the information is also online at the Beltway Atheists Meetup Group and on Facebook.

Say, does anyone want to invite Obama to show up?

By the way, you should read AU’s post-election analysis of the state of the religious right. You will be disappointed to learn that they did not simply evaporate after the election.

I’m going to be in Toronto this weekend, and everyone wants a piece of me. I’ll tell you right now that I’m letting Larry Moran referee some of my time. I’m getting into Toronto in the early afternoon, checking into my hotel, and going off with Larry and a few other people for dinner before my talk. And then there’s a catered reception at 6, the talk, and then free time afterwards — go ahead, drag me off somewhere nearby and force me to drink that dangerous Canadian beer.

On Saturday afternoon, I’ll be at the University of Guelph for an informal discussion, so you can ask me questions there. Once again, afterwards I believe is fairly wide open, although I do want to spend some time with the Gregory lab…but I’m sure we can arrange something for the evening.

By the way, Skatje will be with me, and will be there at Guelph for the Q&A. I think the students at those universities might have plans for her, but you can also meet up with the godless daughter at these events.

Stuff is accumulating in my mailbox far faster than I can put it out here with commentary, so I’m just going to dump the recent pile of links here rather than my usual tactic of simply letting them disappear by neglect.

• John McCain may not be the biggest jerk in his family.

• The McCain campaign is handing out Christian voter guides. Vote for McCain because he’s not immoral!

• Chuck Norris’s nephew got an F in fifth grade because he wrote an essay on evolution that instead said god created the earth…and the teacher had a degree from the “University of Berkeley”.

• Christopher Hitchens denounces Palin. No surprise, but the man can turn a phrase.

• At least one time when a Democratic president was accused of treason, it did not end well.

• Scott Bloch was too radically conservative for even the Bush White House. Things could be worse.

• In the annals of crazy Catholicism: “Judgment Day for us is on its way. Those 47 million children our nation destroyed are still living. We have destroyed their bodies, but their souls are still alive. When our Lord comes again, they may very well be there to judge us.”

• Did you know there was a Creation Festival Tour, a planned nationwide Christian rock tour celebrating Genesis? Neither did I. Neither did anyone, apparently: it was cancelled for lack of interest.

• In the ongoing saga of Webster Cook and the forces of Catholic darkness at UCF, his impeachment from the student senate has been overturned.

• Where did Palin come from? Ambition and gullible conservative pundits.

That’s what Greg Laden says, and he wouldn’t lie. If you’re wondering what you can get her for her birthday, I’m sure she’d love it if you’d join the National Center for Science Education. It’s much better than diamonds, and cheaper, too.

Jesse Bering has an interesting article on why many people have so much difficulty holding a realistic view of death — why they imagine immortal souls wafting off to heaven, and why they can’t imagine their consciousness ceasing to exist. He’s trying to argue that these kinds of beliefs are more than just the result of secondary indoctrination into a body of myth, but are actually a normal consequence of the nature of consciousness. We never personally experience the extinction of our consciousness, of course, except for the limited loss of sleep — and we always wake up from that (at least, until the last time), so we at least have personal evidence that would inductively imply immortality.

It’s also a set of beliefs that are remarkably pervasive. Our language and culture and habits of thought make the idea of survival after death continually crop up.

[Read more…]

The University of Oklahoma joins the ranks of the many universities that are offering a year of Darwin celebrations. I hope the Oklahoma community takes advantage of the opportunity — the calendar has plenty of public lectures and tours and exhibits.

It’s snowing on Mars.

A recent survey in New Zealand reveals that only 40% of the people believe in a god, and 10% do but have doubts. Only 52% believe in an immortal soul, and 80% accept evolution. I marvel at that — a country where I would not be a member of a rare minority, where I could start a conversation with a stranger and reliably encounter someone who wasn’t barking mad, where the populace doesn’t believe in angels? Next you’ll be telling me the streets are paved with gold.

It’s not perfect. There are still lots of conspiracy theorists and UFO buffs and lucky number innumerates, but man, it’s just that the background looks so much less cluttered with nonsense (they also found a positive correlation between god-belief and belief in the paranormal, unlike a recent deeply flawed survey in the US, which tried to get around this problem by redefining belief in angels and miracles as not paranormal.) You must take a look at the full summary to believe it.

And then…they have a museum where they carry out public dissections of giant squid.

I’m having a hard time imagining such a place. Paradise doesn’t really exist, you know.

The cracker incident has had yet more fallout.

I just learned that one of you generous readers did more than send a letter of support — they actually sent a nice sum of money to the university that is being transferred to the biology discipline, and which we will be using to support biology instruction. Thanks very much, whoever you are!

Larry has briefly floated the idea of organizing a trip to London, visiting Down House, the Natural History Museum, etc. There isn’t much of a response — if you’re interested, let him know.