godlessness
pharyngula | April 13, 2010Lots of people send me essays they've written, asking if I'd like to post it on Pharyngula. I usually don't, simply because I'd be inundated (so don't take this as an invitation!), and in most cases, those people ought to start their own blog and put it there. I thought I'd make an exception, though: this one is from Kelly Meagher, who is 14, and living in Florida, and writing this for a school essay.
Don't nit-pick over it, although I know there are pedants here who will anyway. Read it as representative of a growing attitude among our young people — an attitude I find very encouraging. It's…
pharyngula | April 11, 2010Atheists don't believe in God. We deny the Holy Spirit. Jesus was just a man, at best, as were Buddha, Mohammed, and every other prophet and religious figure in history. That much everyone seems to be able to pick up on, but I think there's something even more important that we reject.
We don't believe in souls.
Now that's a heresy, and should be even more distressing to people than our denial of gods. There is no immortal, constant part of any of us that will survive after death — our minds are the product of a material brain. We are literally soulless machines made of meat, honed by…
pharyngula | April 11, 2010I was a bit suspicious of this story that Dawkins and Hitchens were going to "ambush" and "arrest" the Pope when he showed up in England. It was just a little too sensationalistic, too out of character. I was right.
Needless to say, I did NOT say "I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI" or anything so personally grandiloquent. You have to remember that The Sunday Times is a Murdoch newspaper, and that all newspapers follow the odd custom of entrusting headlines to a sub-editor, not the author of the article itself.
What I DID say to Marc Horne when he telephoned me out of the blue, and I repeat it…
pharyngula | April 9, 2010Jen, in response to someone making a line of clerical Barbie dolls, has created her own contribution: Atheist Barbie. She's kickin'.
I like her…although if word gets out that pants are not part of the atheist outfit, we're going to have a surge of male membership and all the women will stay home. The pants are optional, OK?
Now, though, we're missing someone important: where's Gaytheist Ken?
And don't get me started on G.I. Joe. They were always just a little too butch.
Get on the job, Mattel! I want these by Christmas!
pharyngula | April 6, 2010For those of you in the Washington DC area, the Center for Inquiry has some events coming up. Jamie Kilstein will be performing on 21 April, and you should go — if you don't mind rude, loud atheists. He's also one of the heads of the Church of the Smiling Vagina (although Allison Kilkenny ought to be the Pope of the CSV, since she, like, has one).
Also coming up on the CFI slate for June 13th is Christopher Hitchens. I know I don't need to explain who he is.
pharyngula | April 6, 2010They're flaunting the blasphemy laws again, with another exhibit of blasphemous art at the Irish Museum of Contemporary Art (IMOCA) in Lad Lane, off Baggott Street, Dublin 2. Check out the video of some lovely weird religious obscenity.
pharyngula | March 29, 2010Whoa. Superman is a humanist!
Nice dig against Christianity in that last panel,too. Somebody needs to tell him about the Out Campaign, though.
pharyngula | March 28, 2010I've been following the news lately, and have at last unearthed the most horrible, awful, evil thing you can do to a religion, the one simple thing that will get the faithful to melt down.
Tattling.
Oh, no, don't you tell on the church! It ought to be the first commandment. Church leaders can engage in the most ghastly, demeaning, terrible crimes, like raping children, and the concern isn't for the young people who've been hurt — instead, it's a worry that the revelation of human imperfection among priests might diminish people's dedication to the faith, so it must be covered up. The guilty…
pharyngula | March 27, 2010We conquered Australia. The next step is the EU. The atheists are meeting in Copenhagen on 18-20 June, and I've been authorized to tell you that two special guests will be appearing there.
The first is the Amazing Randi. You have to go listen to a guy whose first name is Amazing! Besides all the other speakers, this guarantees that we will have a fabulous time.
The second is not someone on the speaker list, and she won't be haranguing anyone from a lectern. I'll be going, and at long last, the awesome Trophy Wife™ will be in attendance with me. Just imagine…you'll be able to talk to her and…
pharyngula | March 27, 2010I can't complain much about this coverage: ABC plays big chunks of the talks by PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer. Natasha Mitchell, the host, just lets us talk. She also has the complete and unedited recordings of the talks by Dawkins and myself on her blog.
Although, apparently, I run a cult.
They're also going to run something tonight, with Gary Bryson and Margaret Coffey. I did give an interview to Bryson, we'll have to see what he does with it.
pharyngula | March 26, 2010The London Times has a piece on Ayala's Templeton prize, and it annoys me early:
Professor Francisco Ayala, who won the £1 million Templeton Prize for scientific thought,
Say what? There's no amount of science you can do that will win you a Templeton prize. It's a prize for religious apologetics, nothing more.
And then Ayala reveals why he won the prize. Not for science, but because he doesn't like those annoying atheists.
said that attacking religion and ridiculing believers provided ammunition for religious leaders who insisted that followers had to choose between God and Darwin. "Richard…
pharyngula | March 25, 2010How dare the Northeast Florida CoR put up such an evil sign!
I am totally unsurprised that half the people so far find it offensive. We wouldn't want unbelievers to be anything but alone, after all.
Are you offended by the message in this atheist billboard?
Yes (54.1%)
No (45.9%)
Hmm. Those numbers might change soon. Look quick!
pharyngula | March 25, 2010James Cameron was caught in an interview saying what he really thinks about Glenn Beck, Fox News, global warming denialists, and let's just say he uses a few terms that would send the Colgate Twins to their fainting couches. He also happens to be a vocal celebrity atheist.
I've sworn off agnosticism, which I now call cowardly atheism. I've come to the position that in the complete absence of any supporting data whatsover for the persistence of the individual in some spiritual form, it is necessary to operate under the provisional conclusion that there is no afterlife and then be ready to…
pharyngula | March 24, 2010Dear Friends and Freethinkers,
The Freethought Association of Canada, the charity that brought you the wildly successful Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign, is having its 2010 annual general meeting!
Everyone interested in the FAC and its future is welcome to attend the meeting and participate. We will be voting both on our 2010-2011 Board of Executives, and on a number of very exciting changes to the mandate and bylaws proposed throughout this past year. We will also have a Year in Review report from our current President, Kaiti Kish, as well as our yearly financial report. Finally, a…
pharyngula | March 23, 2010This is such a sweet story: a little boy willingly hands out cheerful notes and cookies to his neighbors, simply to make them feel good. It's such a feel-good story that a Christian inspirational site picks up on it and shares Logan Davis's good news.
"I wanted to do something to brighten our neighbors' day," the motivated youngster told the news source. "My parents have always taught me it's good to be nice to others."
What none of the stories seem to mention, though, is that it's a godless family.
Bwahahaahahaa! Our plans are working: we shall conquer the world with our niceness and our…
pharyngula | March 22, 2010Wait! I'm complaining in that last entry! Sure, I'm exhausted from all my wanderings, but I had a fabulous time in Australia. Allow me to include a few pictures to demonstrate.
Here's a nice video from the Sunshine Coast Atheists to give you an idea of the tone of the conference:
And really, I spent a lot of time laughing.
It's a rough life, being an out atheist.
Now I have to go crawl into the shower and then take a nap, just to recover from all the hilarity. And then back to writing, writing, writing, so I have an excuse to do it all again someday.
pharyngula | March 20, 2010John Wilkins has coined a new label for us: not new, not rabid, not militant, not stinky, but Affirmative Atheists. Yeah, I could live with that.
pharyngula | March 18, 2010Christ. It's yet another review of the Global Atheist Convention, this time by a long-winded Anglican priest. I'm being rude in my evaluation despite the fact that it is actually a generous review, because he repeats another of those oblivious stereotypes that always pisses me off. I've highlighted my triggers.
I know my atheist colleagues and friends think this way of recognising life is just a form of 'misfire', a delusion. They find support for their view from the natural processes like a tsunami or a congenital disease, which appear to be indifferent to the value of life. But these…