Darwin’s God

God has always been a puzzle for Scott Atran. When he was 10 years old, he scrawled a plaintive message on the wall of his bedroom in Baltimore. “God exists,” he wrote in black and orange paint, “or if he doesn’t, we’re in trouble.” Atran has been struggling with questions about religion ever since — why he himself no longer believes in God and why so many other people, everywhere in the world, apparently do.
Continue reading Darwin’s God…

Einstein thought religion was primitive and stupid [well of course he did!]

I am reminded of Albert Einstein’s objection to Neils Bohr’s quantum mechanics theory. Of that Einstein said, “God does not play dice.” Bohr replied, “Stop telling God what to do.”

LONDON - A letter in which Albert Einstein dismissed the idea of God as the product of human weakness and the Bible as “pretty childish” has sold at auction for more than $400,000.

Gimme that Old-Time Irreligion

A book review by Norman Levitt.

The very first thing I did in drafting this review was to Google Chester Alan Arthur. I trust my readers will recall the name, if only after a bit of head-scratching, as that of one of the most obscure and unmemorable of American presidents, a run-of-the-mill New York politician who attained to the highest office in the land by virtue of the assassination of his almost equally obscure predecessor, James A. Garfield, who picked the party wheel-horse Arthur as his running mate for reasons now totally forgotten.
Continue reading Gimme that Old-Time Irreligion…

Soldier Sues Army, Saying His Atheism Led to Threats

According to surveys, atheists in the Jewnited States are the most despised minority…even below queers (here). Is there a more psychologically primitive industrialized nation on earth?

“They don’t trust you because they think you are unreliable and might break, since you don’t have God to rely on,” Specialist Hall said of those who proselytize in the military. “The message is, ‘It’s a Christian nation, and you need to recognize that.’

If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?

It seems unlikely that many of the 850 or so people at the Society for Ethical Culture on a recent Saturday night believed that God was still extant. But evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and possibly the most famous atheist in the world, was not taking any chances. He gave a PowerPoint presentation driving home that religion does not meet any of the standards of basic scientific inquiry, before casually flicking away a few of His last crutches. Doesn’t God provide people some solace? asked an audience member. “Isn’t that a little childish?” Dawkins replied. “Just because something is comforting doesn’t mean it’s true.” Then someone asked about death, and Dawkins quoted Mark Twain: “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born.”

See also Reconsiderations: Richard Dawkins and His Selfish Meme.

The curse of faith

Why God’s in a Class by Himself

Intelligent Design (ID) creationism has resurfaced in the news again after President George W. Bush’s remarks were (mis)taken by IDers to be a solid endorsement by the president for the teaching of ID in public school science classrooms. (Bush’s science adviser, John H. Marburger 3rd, said in a telephone interview that “evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology” and “intelligent design is not a scientific concept.”)

There was considerable media hype over the story, and I did a number of interviews, including a query from a reporter who asked for my opinion about whether one can believe in God and the theory of evolution. I replied that, empirically speaking, yes you can, the proof being that 40 percent of American scientists profess belief in God and also accept the theory of evolution, not to mention the fact that most of the world’s one billion Catholics believe in God and accept the theory of evolution. But then this reporter wanted to know is if it is logically consistent to believe in God and the theory of evolution. That is, does the theory of evolution — if carried out to its logical conclusion — preclude belief in God? This is a different question. Here is my answer.

You can believe in God and evolution as long as you keep the two in separate logic-tight compartments. Belief in God depends on religious faith. Belief in evolution depends on empirical evidence. This is the fundamental difference between religion and science. If you attempt to reconcile religion and science on questions about nature and the universe, and if you push the science to its logical conclusion, you will end up naturalizing the deity because for any question about nature — the origins of the universe, life, humans, whatever — if your answer is “God did it,” a scientist will ask, “How did God do it?, What forces did God use? What forms of matter and energy were employed in the creation process?” and so forth. The end result of this inquiry can only be natural explanations for all natural phenomena. What place, then, for God?

One could argue that God is the laws and forces of nature, which is logically acceptable, but this is pantheism and not the type of personal God to which most people profess belief. One could also argue that God created the universe and life using the laws and forces of nature as his creation tools, which is also logically fine, but it leaves us with additional scientific questions: which laws and forces were used to create specific natural phenomena, and in what manner were they used? how did God create the laws and forces of nature? A scientist would be curious to know God’s recipe for, say, gravity, or for a universe or a cell. For that matter, it is a legitimate scientific question to ask: what made God, and how was God created? How do you make an omniscient and omnipotent being? Finally, one could argue that God is outside of nature — super nature, or supernatural — and therefore needs no explanation. This is also logically consistent, but by definition it means that the God question is outside of science and therefore religion and science are separate and incompatible.

Bottom line: teach science in science classes, teach religion in religion classes.

Source.

Bondage of the Mind: How Old Testament Fundamentalism Shackles the Mind and Enslaves the Spirit

Fundamental Truths
by Tim Callahan
Most of us involved with issues of critical thinking are accustomed to dealing with what we think of as fundamentalism, which implies specifically Christian fundamentalism. Bondage of the Mind deals, specifically, with Jewish fundamentalism. Just as evangelicalism, and particularly evangelical fundamentalism, is a potent force in Christianity, so too is modern Orthodox Judaism a potent force among Jews today.
Continue reading Bondage of the Mind: How Old Testament Fundamentalism Shackles the Mind and Enslaves the Spirit…

Atheists aren’t a bad lot

Dan Gardner
The Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Can we be good without God? That’s a very old question believers like to ask because, I suspect, the answer is very pleasing to them.
Continue reading Atheists aren’t a bad lot…

Atheist vs. Black Magic

Can someone tell me how this Hindu wack is in any different from a Pentecostal baboon “healer” or other money-hungry Christian charlatan?

When will we finally outgrow all these absurd mythologies that belong to humanity’s infancy?

India’s top tantrik tries to kill an atheist on live TV using the “ultimate destruction ceremony”. Millions of superstitious people witnessed this epic failure and the world became just a little bit more rational.

Christians = stupid & ignorant crackpots

It’s a real toss up: what has been a greater disaster for the White man, Jews or Christianity?

Bid To Clear ‘Witches’ Fails.

Time has run out on a resolution to absolve residents accused of witchcraft in the 17th century.

Another Nail In The Unique Human Trait’s Coffin

If you’re not an atheist, you’re a gullible simpleton, a psychological primitive, and a delusional yokel! You only have my comtempt, and you only deserve contempt!

An African rat. Rats can learn rules and apply them to new situations, an ability which is thought to be a keystone of human thought, according to a study released Thursday.
Continue reading Another Nail In The Unique Human Trait’s Coffin…

Alan Watts - Atheist Spirituality

Once you realize that all religions are man-made fictions and that intelligence has no special status in the universe you can ask some truly deep spiritual questions and our only hope of finding real answers is with science, math and philosophy.

It is the moral duty of every decent man to oppose the poison that is religion

‘Opposition to religion occupies the high ground, intellectually and morally,’ wrote Martin Amis recently.

Thought du Jour

Question for godidiots: do you really believe in a deity that can be manipulated through prayer and in a sky-god who cares about you and loves you? Have you ever reflected on the utter childishness and stupidity of religion?

Creationists ‘peddle lies about fossil record’ [they have a lot in common with holocau$t promoters, like a wilful disregard for truth for political reasons]

IF YOU’RE NOT AN ATHEIST, YOU’RE A DELUSIONAL, CHILD-LIKE CRETIN!

A leading scientist accuses creationists of peddling the lie that there is no fossil evidence of evolution.

See also Why faith and science will remain worlds apart.

Pew study confirms non-religious are significant bloc

Survey shows Those Choosing No Religion Outnumber Those of Every Single Faith (But One)

The most detailed estimates to date of Americans’ religious affiliations reports that a significant portion of U.S. citizens claim “none of the above,” placing the unaffiliated second only to Roman Catholics in number. Monday’s release of the 35,000-respondent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows that 16.1 percent of Americans have no particular religion at all, while 23.9 percent identify themselves as Catholic. The next largest “belief group” is Evangelical Baptist at 10.8 percent. All other denominational groupings show in the single digits or less.

The study also shows the number of Americans who identify as atheist or agnostic has risen from 3.2 percent to 4 percent, while a “remarkably high” 44 percent have rejected the religion placed on them in childhood.

“People are finding out that what they’ve been handed in youth doesn’t work, or isn’t important enough to defend when confronted with marriage or some other life situation that forces them to examine it,” said Paul Kurtz, founder of the Council for Secular Humanism. “But when the shuffling is done, this study shows that three people are dropping religion altogether for each one gaining a faith.”

The study also confirms the previous 2004 Pew Forum-University of Akron study findings that those who identify as strictly secular comprise more than 10 percent of the population, only on a much larger scale.

“The breakdown is interesting, in that it distinguishes between the vaguely religious and those who fall squarely in the secular camp,” Kurtz said. “But I would venture to say that there is a significant number of Americans who sympathize with secularism, but who may still be nominal members of religious organizations. It’s apparent that a significant percentage of the population identifies with secularism, and I trust politicians will bear this in mind.”

Susan Jacoby on American Unreason

Susan Jacoby, author and program director of the Center for Inquiry/New York City, has recently been seen making the rounds in the national media promoting her new book “The Age of American Unreason” (published by Pantheon). Jacoby’s trenchant analysis of America’s banal and disintegrative culture (and public sphere) is at once both arresting and troubling.

From the publisher:

This impassioned, tough-minded work of contemporary history paints a disturbing portrait of a mutant strain of public ignorance, anti-rationalism, and anti-intellectualism that has developed over the past four decades and now threatens the future of American democracy. Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a culture at odds with America’s heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern knowledge and science. With mordant wit, the author offers an unsparing indictment of the ways in which dumbness has been defined downward throughout American society—on the political right and the left. America’s endemic anti-intellectual tendencies have been exacerbated by a new species of semiconscious anti-rationalism, feeding on and fed by a popular culture of video images and unremitting noise that leaves no room for contemplation or logic.

Hear Susan Jacoby:

Interviewed on Bill Moyers Journal
NPR’s “Book Tour”
US News & World Report interview

Atheist soldier says Army punished him [only in Amerikwa, the most backward Western nation!]

TOPEKA, Kan. - A soldier claimed Wednesday that his promotion was blocked because he had claimed in a lawsuit that the Army was violating his right to be an atheist.

My war against credulousness and stupidity continues

Baby Bible Bashers (Part 1 of 5).

BAFTA award-winning director Amelia Hann uncovers the unsettling and often disturbing world of child evangelism, following pint-sized preachers Samuel Boutwell from Mississippi, crowd-pleasing Terry Durham from Florida and Brazilian sensation Ana Carolina Dias who began preaching at just three years old and regularly commands TV audiences of millions.

More here.

God is a sex maniac

Check out the Reverand, what a disgusting pervert. He looks like a creep, too.