A godless potpourri

I’m in St Paul, about to give a talk on evolution, and in these few minutes before I get behind the lectern I thought I’d throw together a few links to entertain you all. Have fun, I have to babble!

Share your stories of abandoning faith at Coming Out Godless.

Revere’s Sunday Sermonette is on Fred Phelps and our local ex-bridge.

Casual violence isn’t a surprising event in the fundagelical community, as in this story of pastor dragging a girl behind a van for the sin of insufficient stamina. The amusing part? The name of the church group is “Love Demonstrated”.

How about a few fine examples of theistic hypocrisy? Mitt Romney, who thinks atheists shouldn’t run for office, doesn’t like the idea of someone saying Mormons shouldn’t be in office.

Dr Carlin thinks the proper order of things is that Christians get to criticize atheism, while well-mannered atheists will sit back and take it. Turnabout is definitely not fair play.

Not all Christians are such mindless bigots. Thomas Robey thinks it is just fine for non-Christians to express themselves. That’s refreshing, and that’s the way it should be — I also think theists should be speaking out openly (if only to make their arguments clearer targets.)

Ken MacLeod (yes, that Ken MacLeod) summarizes 21st Century Atheism. You knew he wouldn’t bat an eye at a gang of revolutionaries.

It’s about the principle

Christian charity and love has clear limits.

A megachurch canceled a memorial service for a Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start because the deceased was gay.

Officials at the nondenominational High Point Church knew that Cecil Howard Sinclair was gay when they offered to host his service, said his sister, Kathleen Wright. But after his obituary listed his life partner as one of his survivors, she said, it was called off.

Yeah, a 5,000 member megachurch spurned a dead man because they didn’t care for who he chose to love. The pastor’s excuse is terrific:

“We did decline to host the service — not based on hatred, not based on discrimination, but based on principle,” Simons told The Associated Press. “Had we known it on the day they first spoke about it — yes, we would have declined then. It’s not that we didn’t love the family.”

Part of that is wrong: it’s based on hatred of gays and on discrimination against gay people. Part is right: that is clearly the basic operating principle of this church.

People of Arlington, Texas, Rejoice! This church has exposed its hateful foundations, and you can now boycott it in good conscience … on principle.

Speaking out is the new zealotry

Richard Dawkins has a new television series, The Enemies of Reason, that will be broadcast in the UK. I have not heard if it will make it to the US; if it’s anything like our experience with his last program, Root of all evil?, it will be buried in post-midnight showings on scattered PBS stations, with little information on when or where in any of the channel listings. The premise of discussing this new show is how Gordon Lynch begins a recent column, but then, somehow, it turns into a wild-eyed accusation in mannered language that this modern atheism stuff is a cult-like phenomenon, just like those crazy evangelical Christians.

[Read more…]

Donate to the Secular Student Alliance

While it’s nearly impossible to get a group of atheists to do anything together (the reaction to the Out campaign demonstrates that!), you’ve all got to agree* that at least the Secular Student Alliance is a good idea. Maybe you don’t know what it’s like for new students entering a university, but getting them involved in student organizations is an important step in getting them involved in the university — our administrations know that, and they push and we faculty advisors push, all to get these students who have left home and are facing a new and challenging and sometimes intimidating environment to make these informal connections with their peers. And what student organizations are waiting for them, licking their chops and looking forward to recruiting new bodies for their cause? A huge part of the collection are religious: we have Campus Crusade for Christ, Chi Alpha- FUSION, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Catholic Campus Ministry, Free Church Campus Ministries, Lutheran Campus Ministry, Lutheran Student Fellowship, Morris Community Church Campus Ministries, the Dungeons and Dragons Club, you get the idea. This is fertile recruiting ground for the cults.

The SSA tries to foster groups to give students a secular alternative. At the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus, for instance, we have Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists working to keep a lively freethought community going; we’re starting a chapter here at UMM (web page is under construction, sorry). Universities are one of the best places we’ve got to build secular leadership.

So what we need, though, is support. Maybe you hated the idea of buying a scarlet “A” t-shirt with Richard Dawkins’ name on it — but are you also going to refuse to donate to the Secular Student Alliance? It’s a great cause. Do what you can to help out.

*It’s like throwing a bone to a dog … you people are all going to rush to disagree now, aren’t you?

The apologists will now explain to us that these people don’t actually exist

The wingnuts are still outraged that there is a Muslim in congress and that a Hindu delivered an opening prayer (which was pretty dang lame, anyway). Now look at this silly little man (R-Idaho) ranting about the death of America:

Last month, the U.S. Senate was opened for the first time ever with a Hindu prayer. Although the event generated little outrage on Capitol Hill, Representative Bill Sali (R-Idaho) is one member of Congress who believes the prayer should have never been allowed.

“We have not only a Hindu prayer being offered in the Senate, we have a Muslim member of the House of Representatives now, Keith Ellison from Minnesota. Those are changes — and they are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers,” asserts Sali.

Sali says America was built on Christian principles that were derived from scripture. He also says the only way the United States has been allowed to exist in a world that is so hostile to Christian principles is through “the protective hand of God.”

“You know, the Lord can cause the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike,” says the Idaho Republican.

According to Congressman Sali, the only way the U.S. can continue to survive is under that protective hand of God. He states when a Hindu prayer is offered, “that’s a different god” and that it “creates problems for the longevity of this country.”

We’ve been having a little discussion in the comments here about the insensibility of satire and parody in this age of Christian lunacy. Take a look at the comments on that article — they are almost all effusive in their praise for Sali and are howling about how America must be ruled by the One True God™. These recent parodies of various Republican presidential candidates are amusing, but there’s a reality out there that’s far crazier and far scarier.

But these people don’t exist, I have often been told. The religious are thoughtful, progressive, inoffensive types.

Assaults on creationism scheduled for Sunday and Monday

It’s a busy weekend coming up. On Sunday, 12 August, I’ll be speaking at the St. Paul Critical Thinking Club, at The Kelly Inn (off I-94 at the Marion St exit) from 10:00 AM to noon. Well, it’s scheduled for two hours, but I promise not to babble on for that length of time. There is a $10 fee to cover the buffet breakfast, and you need to rsvp to Lee Salisbury if you want to attend.

Progress and Opportunities in Evolution
Scientists are a pragmatic bunch who typically don’t worry too much about the deeper philosophical meanings of their vocation: the important property of a good theory is that it allows them to formulate experimentally testable hypotheses and leads them on to intellectually fruitful pursuits. I’ll summarize some of the reasons good scientists have found and are still finding evolutionary theory eminently useful, to the point that many of them take evolutionary conclusions for granted. There is almost no argument about the major ideas of evolution within biology because of its utility — the argument is entirely between a few representative members of the scientific community and scientifically ignorant and religiously motivated leaders of backwards ideology.

And then I talk to the Stillwater Critical Thinking Club on Monday, 13 August, from 7:00-9:00 pm at The Family Means Building on 1875 Northwestern Ave.

Complexity and Order in Evolution
One of the most common arguments for Intelligent Design creationism is that organisms are “too complex” to have evolved. This is fallacious: complexity is a natural consequence of evolutionary processes. It reflects a fundamental confusion in creationist thinking — they use complexity where they mean order, and order when they mean intent. I’ll be discussing these three different words, complexity, order, and intent, and their relevance to evolutionary biology.

And then I get to come home for a few days before my next out-of-state trip.