A Reasonable Atheist

My blog is moving! ReasonableSkepticism.wordpress.com

2009-06-05T23:49:00.001-05:00

I'm moving my blog to wordpress, because I've not been happy with Blogger. While I'm at it, I think a little name change is in order. Over the past year I've come to realize that the name "skeptic" describes me much more than "atheist" (Since atheist is a single response to a single claim). Anyway, please update your RSS feed links to the new feed.

http://reasonableskepticism.wordpress.com

Richard Carroll, Hero to Atheists in Arkansas.

2009-02-18T08:16:00.001-06:00

Lots of people don't realize this, but the Arkansas state constitution has specific wording in it to keep people who don't believe in God out of public office (and from testifying as a witness in court). In Article 19, Section 1 it states:

"No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any court."

Well, if Richard Carroll of North Little Rock, a member of the Green Party and a Catholic gets his way, the constitution will be amended. He has introduced house resolution 1009: AMENDING THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO REPEAL THE PROHIBITION AGAINST AN ATHEIST HOLDING ANY OFFICE IN THE CIVIL DEPARTMENTS OF THE STATE OF ARKANSAS OR TESTIFYING AS A WITNESS IN ANY COURT.

Of course, the U.S Supreme court ruled provisions such as the one in the 1874 Arkansas Constitution unconstitutional back in 1961 in a ruling in a Maryland case.

This Maryland religious test for public office unconstitutionally invades the appellant's freedom of belief and religion and therefore cannot be enforced against him.

And Arkansas apparently isn't alone in this, there are about a dozen other states with similar provisions lurking in the depths of their constitutions. Perhaps bringing to light these provisions might be a good tactic for atheists to let people know that we should be afforded the same religious protections as any other citizen.

My answers to Lee Strobel's recent questions

2009-01-30T20:22:00.001-06:00

Recently Lee Strobel sent a series of questions to the readers of friendlyatheist.com. Here are my answers to his recent round.

What argument is most convincing to plant the seeds of doubt (or, rather, faith) in an atheist’s mind?
Do you mind if I restate your question while retaining its original intent? It might be more interesting to phrase it this way: Atheists on this site have kindly submitted questions for me, but what questions would I ask an atheist? As I pondered that issue, I decided to send emails to some of my friends to get advice on what they would ask. Here are a few of their replies — all of which I agree would be excellent to ask a skeptic. If they’re considered fully with all of their implications, they might indeed plant some seeds:

Historian Gary Habermas: “Utilizing each of the historical facts conceded by virtually all contemporary scholars, please produce a comprehensive natural explanation of Jesus’ resurrection that makes better sense than the event itself.”
These historical facts are: (1) Jesus was killed by crucifixion; (2) Jesus’ disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them; (3) The conversion of the church persecutor Saul, who became the Apostle Paul; (4) the conversion of the skeptic James, Jesus’ half-brother; (5) The empty tomb of Jesus. These “minimal facts” are strongly evidenced and are regarded as historical by the vast majority of scholars, including skeptics, who have written about the resurrection in French, German, and English since 1975. While the fifth fact doesn’t have quite the same virtual universal consensus, it nevertheless is conceded by 75 percent of the scholars and is well supported by the historical data if assessed without preconceptions.

Let's take these so called "facts" in order shall we?

Assuming you can trust the accounts of Jesus existing and being crucified in the normal Roman way, I'll grant him this one. Be aware though that there are no ROMAN accounts of this. But the romans crucified lots of people, perhaps this one just didn't get recorded.
Hrm, this is interesting, okay, I'll even grant you that the disciples might have believed he rose and appeared to them. But just because people believe things, doesn't mean they are true. People believe lots of incorrect stuff.
Okay, so Paul believed to. I'm beginning to see a trend here.
Ah, and so does James. Geez, that's almost 14 people so far!
Okay, just for humor's sake I'll grant you an empty tomb. Of course, there are lots of explanations for that. Perhaps the tomb was looted? Perhaps these so called "believing" disciples believed so much that they faked the empty tomb. Both possibilities are more likely than any supernatural event... And that's just off the top of my head, there are probably dozens of more likely explanations that don't require magic.

Philosopher Paul Copan: “Given the commonly recognized and scientifically supported belief that the universe (all matter, energy, space, time) began to exist a finite time ago and that the universe is remarkably finely tuned for life, does this not (strongly) suggest that the universe is ontologically haunted and that this fact should require further exploration, given the metaphysically staggering implications?
“And, second, granted that the major objection to belief in God is the problem of evil, does the concept of evil itself not suggest a standard of goodness or a design plan from which things deviate, so that if things ought to be a certain way (rather than just happening to be the way they are in nature), don’t such ‘injustices’ or ‘evils’ seem to suggest a moral/design plan independent of nature?”

"ontologically haunted". LOL. (He means "there is a god", I think he just wants to sound smarter than he is, either that or he wants us to imagine god lurking in the shadows ready to jump out and go BOO.). Anyway, on to the point.

I don't know why people keep saying the universe is fine tuned for life. Have they looked around? There's a large portion of our planet that isn't very hospitable to life. Most of the solar system is downright hostile to life. Even probes sent to Venus MELT within a few minutes of landing. That's not to mention the vast miles of interstellar space, and all the stars, and black holes, and quasars, and pulsars and well, you get the point. The universe is pretty hostile to life.

As for his second point. I don't believe in the existence of objective morality in the same way I believe in the objective reality of say, a rock. Think about it this way. If there were no human beings. Would anything be EVIL? Good and Evil are concepts that humans use to describe actions and behaviors we like or don't like. That's it. I can't emphasize this enough. "Meaning" is something human beings assign to things. "Meaning" is not a thing like a rock is a thing.

Talk show host Frank Pastore: “Please explain how something can come from nothing, how life can come from non-life, how mind can come from brain, and how our moral senses developed from an amoral source.”

Let's take these in order as well.

Something from Nothing:
Well, as nobody is really claiming this, I'm not sure what you mean. At least SCIENCE doesn't claim this. If you've heard a physicist talking about something coming from nothing, they were probably paraphrasing. The Big Bang is all about all the matter, time and energy being created from a single thing, a "singularity".. That's sure as hell not "nothing". As for where the singularity came from? We don't know. But we certainly aren't claiming we do know. Only theists do that.

Life from non-Life:
This is called the theory of abiogenesis. Much is not known of the actual process.

Mind from brain:
Well, where pray-tell do you THINK that the mind is? Floating in a cartoon bubble outside our bodies? In another dimension? In a supernatural realm? If so, how does it communicate with our body? Through what mechanism? Ah, you don't know. Then why are you making the claim? Also, see Functional MRI studies.

Moral from aMoral:
I guess the best answer to this is to say that humans are not the only creatures to have a morality. The great apes definitely have morality, and as you look around the animals kingdom you see lots of animals with differing moral "codes". I will say that you only see these in the social animals ( like the apes ). This was probably an evolutionary advantage long ago.

Historian Mike Licona: “Irrespective of one’s worldview, many experience periods of doubt. Do you ever doubt your atheism and, if so, what is it about theism or Christianity that is most troubling to your atheism?”

Actually, this is funny. I rarely doubt my "atheism". Once I had run through all the logical problems with God existing, I was kind of done. I had far more doubt when I was a Christian and Deist.

Author Greg Koukl: “Why is something here rather than nothing here? Clearly, the physical universe is not eternal (Second Law of Thermodynamics, Big Bang cosmology). Either everything came from something outside the material universe, or everything came from nothing (Law of Excluded Middle). Which of those two is the most reasonable alternative? As an atheist, you seem to have opted for the latter. Why?”

I'm not going into the something from nothing thing again. I'll just say it this way.

There's no such thing as Nothing.

Also, quit using a false dichotomy. You forgot the choice that science actually shows.. Everything came from a singularity. The singularity BECAME all the matter and energy in the universe. In other words. Things that exist, exist. Things that don't, don't.

I didn’t email Alvin Plantinga, considered by many to be among the greatest philosophers of modern times. But based on his assertion that naturalism is self-defeating, we could formulate this question (thanks to William Lane Craig for some of the concise wording): If our cognitive faculties were selected for survival, not for truth, then how can we have any confidence, for example, that our beliefs about the reality of physical objects are true or that naturalism itself is true? (By contrast, theism says God has designed our cognitive faculties in such a way that, when functioning properly in an appropriate environment, they deliver true beliefs about the world.)

Ah, Plantinga. I recently finished reading his tome "Warranted Christian Belief". He sure can fill up pages with words. I'll have a long post soon on his work. So for now I'll just say this. Learn how science works. Do some actual science experiments. (They can be simple ones) Think about how you know what you know. If you do the work, you'll eventually understand. Here's the trick. Human perception was evolved for survival and not for truth. We use the methods of science precisely because our senses and brains are so bad at discerning what is true. This is why we have things like double-blind studies. You trust the data, not your senses.

Little Rock's Science Cafe to present woo as 'science'

2009-01-26T20:38:00.003-06:00

Tomorrow night at Little Rock's Science Cafe discussion group, the topic will be "Alternative Medicine: Eat, Sleep and Stick". Science Cafes are supposed to be an opportunity for the public to meet with scientists from different fields and ask them questions, and promote discussion.

However, it looks as though the Little Rock chapter is being invaded by the pseudo-scientific world of "Complementary and Alternative Medicine". The three 'scientists' who will be speaking Tuesday night are Wesley Pilcher, a team leader from Whole Foods Market, D.J. Lynch a hypnotist from Arkansas Hypnosis, and Martin Eisley from Evergreen Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Mr. Eisley will also be speaking on the local public radio station (KUAR 89.1FM) at 6:05pm tomorrow night about the Science Cafe.

Hopefully they will be taking callers, I'm going to attempt to call in to ask questions concerning their use of the term 'science' to describe what it is they do. I'll try to record the episode and post it somewhere if possible (if KUAR doesn't post it on their own).

Little Rock gets it's own "Beware of Dogma" sign.

2008-12-23T23:36:00.003-06:00

Earlier today I received an email from the Arkansas Freethinker's mailing list written by Lee Wood Thomas.
It looks like our little burg of Little Rock, Arkansas has gotten one of the FFRF's "Beware of Dogma" signs.

Reasons Greetings Everyone,
Lately I have not been emailing the group, but I thought this was worth the exception.
Earlier today I was interviewed by Fox 16 regarding our "Beware Of Dogma" billboard
that's up now next to the Main Street bridge traveling from Little Rock's River Market
heading into North Little Rock. The reporter told me that the story would run at 5:30 and
9pm tonight, Tuesday. I just saw the tail end of the 5:30 piece and it seemed as if
it was the lead story, which is great. I wanted to tip you all off in order that you may
tune in during the 9pm broadcast to catch it, or even set your DVR's.
The official press release from the FFRF was issued today, which is officially HumanLight
and Festivus, I also issued the local press our own release stating our intentions for
erecting this billboard.
If you were unable to attend this last weekend's HumanLight celebration but would like
to have your picture taken with others from this group, the FFRF has sent out postcards
announcing that we will gather (again) this coming Saturday at noon for another group
photo. We will gather in the US Bank parking lot at the foot of the main street bridge
in North Little Rock. It's right in between where Main Street forks apart it's north and
south bound traffic.

After a bit of searching, it looks like FOX16 has posted it on their website.

Story Here

Below are some links to other stories on the sign.

Arkansas News

Arkansas Times

Psychic Kids -- Update

2008-06-24T09:48:00.002-05:00

I found a copy of A&E's new show Psychic Kids.

Watch it and see if it disturbs you as much as it does me.

I see several possibilities for what's really going on here.

These kids have overactive imaginations and they show is promoting this.
These kids have some kind of mental disorder, if so they should be treated, not encouraged.
They are kids of parents who believe this stuff, and they are just parroting their parents, because hey, that's what kids do.

Psychic Kids

2008-06-20T12:28:00.004-05:00

A&E has a new show called "Psychic Kids". Woo on Television has reached a new low. I don't even have words.

You can check out the website for it here:

Also, the first episode is available for free on iTunes. Just follow this link.

License Plate Redux

2008-05-22T09:29:00.001-05:00

Oh no, more religious license plates.

This time it's South Carolina, but the plate is going to look just like Florida's old one.

Actually though, I don't have a problem with this cross plate... as long as you allow any group who can get 400 orders to get a plate. Which means atheists in South Carolina ( I wonder if there are 400 of them ) should band together and order a plate with the scarlett A on it.

What bother me worse is Arkansas's plate, which I've written about before.

It contains a picture of the Arkansas state capitol building with the slogan "In God We Trust" at the bottom. To me, this is more a violation of the first amendments establishment clause than one saying "I Believe". After all the "I Believe" obviously refers to the person driving the car, not the state. While "In God We Trust" implies the collective state government of the people.

Follow the link below to read the whole story about South Carolina's new license plates.

Cross could adorn state license plates

Creationism in the Classroom. This is what I was afraid of.

2008-05-22T09:11:00.001-05:00

I've been thinking for a while now that evolution isn't being taught in an appropriate manner in school classrooms. I based this on the fact that when I was in high school back in the late eighties, we got almost no coverage of the topic in biology class. Well, now we have evidence in the form of a survey funded by the NSF. Here's some choice quotes.

The research, funded by the National Science Foundation, also revealed that between 12 percent and 16 percent of the nation's biology teachers are creationists, and about one in six of them have a "young Earth" orientation, which means they believe that human beings were created by God in their present form within the past 10,000 years.

The majority of teachers spend no more than five hours on human evolution.

Only 23 percent of teachers strongly agreed that evolution is the unifying theme for their biology or life sciences courses, though the majority of teachers see evolution as essential to high school biology.

This seems to mirror my experience in my High School. Now, I wonder what is the solution to this problem? Should we be firing teachers who teach creationism or intelligent design in class? Even if we did that, that doesn't help promote the teaching of evolution, they could simply skip both evolution and creationism. I wonder if there's room for a public watchdog group? Could this group make surprise visits to biology classrooms to make sure evolution is being taught? Would that even be allowed?

I don't have the answer, but I would like to do something about this problem. I think the proper teaching of evolution would go a long way to removing fundamentalism from religion in the United States. It's also becoming very important for the financial well-being of the United States, as bio-tech becomes more and more important.

Follow the link for the full story from LiveScience.com

Creationism Creeps into U.S. Classrooms

New Skeptologists Trailer

2008-04-23T09:31:00.001-05:00

There's a new Skeptologists trailer, this one gives you more of a feel for the show.

I really hope this gets picked up in some way.

Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed (Parody)

2008-04-18T08:55:00.001-05:00

This thing has been making it's way around the web.

Even icanhascheezburger.com got in on the action in a way.

see more crazy cat pics

Expelled Exposed

2008-04-14T23:51:00.001-05:00

Linking to this because PZ Myers said it would help move this site up in the ranking of search engines. If you think Expelled should be exposed, I urge you to do the same.

Expelled

Some of that old time religion

2008-04-11T14:19:00.000-05:00

I found this to be completely hilarious. From Merlin Mann's blog.

That Mitchell and Webb Look - “Bad Vicar”

Love this character. See also, “Bad Waiter.”
[From That Mitchell and Webb Look - “Bad Vicar”Love this...]

First Freedom First Simulcast now online

2008-04-08T06:25:00.004-05:00

The First Freedom First simulcast, hosted by Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Interfaith Alliance, is now available online. I was lucky enough to see this in person in Little Rock, and we had a decent turnout, about 40 people. Now you can share this with other people and get the word out that we as Americans, regardless of our religion, or lack of religion are protected by the first amendment, and that this right is under attack by a certain segment of the religious population in this country. The program was interesting, the token atheist representative was author Susan Jacoby, also Kevin Bacon and his band "The Bacon Brothers" did a couple of really good songs.

Take a look at the video and be sure to share it with others.

http://www.firstfreedomfirst.org/simulcast-event/watch/

Utility Belt!

2008-03-26T15:42:00.001-05:00

A while back on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast, the guys on the show went on and on about the awesomeness of a "Utility Belt" for guys to carry about all their gadgets. Skepchick Rebecca Watson decried them as being hideous. Check out this video from the 30's predicting clothing from 2000. Pay special attention to the male outfit at the end.

Utility Belt!

National Simulcast For Church-State Separation This Wednesday

2008-03-24T22:47:00.003-05:00

Hemant over at friendlyatheist.com writes:

All the details on this simulcast are here.
Actors, musicians and comedians will join church-state activists from across the country March 26 to put church-state separation on the national agenda during the 2008 election season.
In movie theatres in 25 cities across the nation, interested citizens will gather to learn about the threats to church-state separation and to demand that presidential hopefuls and candidates for other offices answer questions about key issues dealing with individual freedom. A list of 10 great questions to ask candidates will be featured.
It’s no longer 25 cities, either; several more venues have been added bringing the number up to 37.
Here’s the full list of those cities which will host the event:

State City Theatre Time

AR Little Rock Breckenridge Stadium 12 5:00pm

CA Sacramento Natomas Marketplace Stadium 16 6:00pm

CA San Diego Mira Mesa Stadium 18 6:00pm

CA Mountain View Century Cinemas 16 6:00pm

CA Woodland Hills Promenade 16 6:00pm

CO Denver Denver Pavilions 15 7:00pm

FL Tampa Citrus Park Stadium 20 6:00pm

FL Jacksonville Regency Jax 24 6:00pm

GA Atlanta RGL Perimeter Pointe 10 6:00pm

IL Savoy Savoy 5:00pm

IL Batavia Randall 5:00pm

IL Woodridge Cinemark @ Seven Bridges 5:00pm

IL Peoria Willow Knolls 5:00pm

IN Lafayette Eastside 6:00pm

IN Portage Portage 5:00pm

IN Indianapolis Galaxy Stadium 14 6:00pm

MA Boston Fenway 13 6:00pm

MI Canton Canton Cinema 6:00pm

MI Lansing Lansing Mall Cinema 6:00pm

MI Kalamazoo Kalamazoo 6:00pm

MI Ann Arbor Quality 6:00pm

MI Saginaw Saginaw/Quad 6:00pm

MO Springfield Springfield 5:00pm

MO Columbia Forum 5:00pm

NC Raleigh Movies @ North Hills 14 6:00pm

NY New York Union Square Stadium 14 6:00pm

OH Columbus Georgesville Square Stadium 16 6:00pm

OK Oklahoma City Tinseltown USA 5:00pm

OR Portland Lloyd Center 10 Cinema 6:00pm

PA Philadelphia Riverview Plaza 17 6:00pm

PA Harrisburg Regal Harrisburg 14 6:00pm

SC Columbia Sandhill Cinema 16 6:00pm

TN Nashville Opry Mills Stadium 20 Plus Imax 5:00pm

TX Houston Houston Marq*e Stadium 23 5:00pm

TX Austin Metropolitan Stadium 14 5:00pm

VA Glen Allen Virginia Center Stadium 20 6:00pm

WA Seattle Pacific Place 11 6:00pm

If you’re close to any of those cities and you can make it, consider coming out to support the event! All you need to do is reserve your free tickets.

If anyone is planning on going to the Cinemark @ Seven Bridges in Woodridge, IL, let me know!

Technorati Tags: atheist, atheism

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[From National Simulcast For Church-State Separation This Wednesday]

State	City	Theatre	Time
AR	Little Rock	Breckenridge Stadium 12	5:00pm
CA	Sacramento	Natomas Marketplace Stadium 16	6:00pm
CA	San Diego	Mira Mesa Stadium 18	6:00pm
CA	Mountain View	Century Cinemas 16	6:00pm
CA	Woodland Hills	Promenade 16	6:00pm
CO	Denver	Denver Pavilions 15	7:00pm
FL	Tampa	Citrus Park Stadium 20	6:00pm
FL	Jacksonville	Regency Jax 24	6:00pm
GA	Atlanta	RGL Perimeter Pointe 10	6:00pm
IL	Savoy	Savoy	5:00pm
IL	Batavia	Randall	5:00pm
IL	Woodridge	Cinemark @ Seven Bridges	5:00pm
IL	Peoria	Willow Knolls	5:00pm
IN	Lafayette	Eastside	6:00pm
IN	Portage	Portage	5:00pm
IN	Indianapolis	Galaxy Stadium 14	6:00pm
MA	Boston	Fenway 13	6:00pm
MI	Canton	Canton Cinema	6:00pm
MI	Lansing	Lansing Mall Cinema	6:00pm
MI	Kalamazoo	Kalamazoo	6:00pm
MI	Ann Arbor	Quality	6:00pm
MI	Saginaw	Saginaw/Quad	6:00pm
MO	Springfield	Springfield	5:00pm
MO	Columbia	Forum	5:00pm
NC	Raleigh	Movies @ North Hills 14	6:00pm
NY	New York	Union Square Stadium 14	6:00pm
OH	Columbus	Georgesville Square Stadium 16	6:00pm
OK	Oklahoma City	Tinseltown USA	5:00pm
OR	Portland	Lloyd Center 10 Cinema	6:00pm
PA	Philadelphia	Riverview Plaza 17	6:00pm
PA	Harrisburg	Regal Harrisburg 14	6:00pm
SC	Columbia	Sandhill Cinema 16	6:00pm
TN	Nashville	Opry Mills Stadium 20 Plus Imax	5:00pm
TX	Houston	Houston Marq*e Stadium 23	5:00pm
TX	Austin	Metropolitan Stadium 14	5:00pm
VA	Glen Allen	Virginia Center Stadium 20	6:00pm
WA	Seattle	Pacific Place 11	6:00pm

My wife and I will be at the Little Rock one. I'm going to take pictures and blog about it once it's over.

I CAN HAS TAM6?

2008-02-24T20:24:00.002-06:00

My wife and I really want to go to TAM6 this year, but funds are kind of tight. We found this cool contest on icanhascheezburger. They are doing a poker lolcat contest. My wife came up with the entry below. The Winner of the contest gets a trip to Vegas for 2 and spendin' monies! So help a fellow skepdude and skepchick get to TAM6. Click on the picture below to go to the voting page for our LOLCAT.

Thanks bunches!

More on the online Poker Cats Contest

Workplace Religious Freedom Act (HR 1431)

2008-02-21T07:28:00.001-06:00

HR Bill 1431 is called the "The Workplace Religious Freedom Act." Thomas.gov sums it up like this:

Workplace Religious Freedom Act of 2007 - Amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to modify the definition of "religion" for purposes of coverage under that Act by requiring employers to make an affirmative and bona fide effort to reasonably accommodate the religious practices of employees. Defines the term "perform the essential functions" to exclude practices having a temporary or tangential impact on an employee's ability to perform job functions, such as practices relating to clothing or taking time off work. Sets forth factors to consider in determining whether an accommodation causes undue hardship. Defines "employee" to require an ability to perform essential job functions with or without reasonable accommodation.

Requires removal of the conflict between employment requirements and the employee's religious practices in order for an accommodation to be considered reasonable.

Considers an employer's refusal to permit an employee's use of general leave to remove a religious conflict solely because the leave will be used to accommodate religious practices to be an unlawful employment practice.

Prohibits the amendments made by this Act from applying to conduct occurring prior to enactment.

So this means you could be fired or not hired in the first place based on your religious belief? I admit, I'm not good at parsing this kind of language.
[Via Friendly Atheist » Workplace Religious Freedom Act (HR 1431)]

Penn Jillette is doing what?

2008-02-20T14:17:00.001-06:00

Penn Jillette, everyone's favorite Las Vegas Magician, Skeptic and Atheist is going to be on Dancing with the Stars next season. This should be interesting to say the least.

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20178686,00.html?iid=top25-20080220-''Dancing+With+the+Stars''+announces+lineup

Archbishop of Canterbury argues for Islamic law in Britain

2008-02-07T16:11:00.001-06:00

This story is just plain weird. Either that , or this is some post modern garbage. The idea of allowing religious laws for certain religious people, is obscene to me.

[Read Archbishop of Canterbury argues for Islamic law in Britain -Times Online ]

My Road to Skepticism

2008-02-07T14:18:00.001-06:00

I grew up in the Southern United States by Christian parents. We attended a tiny United Methodist Church. On a good day we might have 20 people. The first things I remember from Sunday school are learning Bible stories. Looking back now, I realize that these sanitized versions of Bible stories are one of the things that helped me hold on to my faith for so long.

One particular thing I remember from Sunday school is the felt board. If you haven't ever seen this, it's a board covered with felt on which you can place paper cutouts of characters from the Bible. It's used to tell children the stories, like Adam and Eve, Noah, Cain and Able, Jacob and the Coat of Many Colors, etc. Now-days, I think they probably use cartoons to teach these things. The sad thing is, most people I knew in the church never really got much past these simplified versions of the stories. I call this "Veggietale Christianity".

This continued until I was about 14, when I remember getting pressured to be "saved". And so one Sunday, when the preacher called for anyone who wanted to be saved to come forward, I stood up. I don't remember much emotion from it, except that I remember my mom crying. I remember thinking that she must really love me to cry because I was being saved. It's important to note, I didn't have a "religious experience". At the time, I was just thinking that the act of declaring my belief in Jesus was the point. That somehow God would see that, and that was just "how it worked". I didn't question how it worked, I just accepted it.

In High School my Christianity faded a bit. Honestly, it just wasn't something I thought about in depth. I became the piano player at my church, and called myself a Christian. My High School did NOT teach very much about Evolutionary Biology, and so I don't remember being challenged about that. However, starting in Junior High and going through High School, I became VERY interested in science , specifically astronomy and cosmology. So I ended up believing in the Big Bang, and how old the universe was. I never really went back and compared this to Genesis though.

Then College hit. In college I studied Computer Science. I also joined the "Wesley Foundation". This is where my "religious experiences" hit. I was part of a singing group that would go around to churches and perform contemporary Christian music. I enjoyed it very much. At the time I believed it was because of Jesus. But looking back at it, I think it was mostly because music was another of my passions. After all, I had the same emotional responses playing Trumpet in the College Band. At the same time, I was interested more and more in Science and Cosmology. So I ended up coming up with my own rationalizations to merge what the Bible said with what Cosmology told us about the origins of the universe. I still had not come across the theory of evolution in any detailed way. I mean I had seen the pictures of fish turning into land mammals, tuning in to apes, turning into humans, and I figured it must have happened that way, and then I looked at Genesis and pretended to match up the order the animals were created with the order they evolved.

I realize now that that was a mistake. Once I got out of College and started working, I got disillusioned with my Church. The numbers of people at the Church were dwindling, and I was growing bored of playing the piano at Church services that were exactly the same every week. So I stopped going, making up excuses to tell my parents. Eventually I stopped altogether and the church got another piano player. My parents would try to get me to go occasionally and it would usually annoy me, and I guess they could tell it was, because they eventually stopped.
During this time, I had a friend who always used to call himself an "agnostic". We had long discussions about the existence of God. I enjoyed the arguments, and out of these discussions, I moved closer and closer to what I now know is the "deist" position. I believed that God created the universe, like a Clock.. He wound it up and started it going, but didn't interfere much. I believed he might have interfered when Jesus came into the world, but for the most part, he didn't. I bought the "Free Will" arguments Christians so usually use. This helped explain how so many bad things could happen in the world. God had to take a "hands off" approach in order to preserve free will.

Then I met and married my wife. She had already come to the conclusion of "atheist". In addition, she was a huge fan of Sir David Attenborough and insisted I watch all of his nature specials. This was the beginning of the end for my deism. My deism was propped up on the "argument from design". The final death nell was when I read Richard Dawkin's book, "The Selfish Gene". Then I started learning everything I could about Evolution, having missed it in all my schooling.

Eventually I got into the philosophical arguments about what "atheism", "agnosticism", and other such terms are and what they mean. It was at this point that I didn't really identify as readily with "atheism" alone. And then I happened upon a podcast called "The Skeptics Guide to the Universe" and I realized, that's what I am. A Skeptic. I was ALWAYS a skeptic about UFOs, Ghosts, Psychics, and the "paranormal". But I realized that I'm now just as skeptical about religious claims. I don't give them any more credence than I do everything else.

I still haven't "come out" to my parents about my atheism though. I'm hoping that I can get the nerve to do this soon, as it's really starting to bother me when I go and visit.

Atheist Bible Study - A Few Thoughts So Far

2007-11-27T00:22:00.001-06:00

First of all, thank you guys very much for all your comments. Believe it or not, I am trying my best to learn something by doing all this.

One thing I have noticed people mentioning is a reference to "the truth" or "finding the truth". This is exactly what I'm after as well. However, when I say the word "truth", I can't help but thinking we are talking about something different. I can try to explain what I mean, maybe some of you can help explain what you mean.

To me, truth is what is true. What is real. For instance, I look around me at the physical world, I see rocks, trees, my computer, my hands, my house, all the real things. However, there are a ton of "unreal" things in the world, I'll list a few I don't believe in.

I don't believe in fairies, vampires, ghosts, dragons, gnomes, psychics, souls, magic (the real kind not the stage kind), Vishnu, Allah, Zeus, Spiderman, The Wizard of Oz... well, I could go on and on.

To me, these things are not "real" and are therefore, not "truth". This is the reason I cannot believe the literal stories in the Bible. However, if you are talking about something else when you say truth, if you can say something like, "In the Bible, you can find stories that teach you 'truths' that help you live your life", then I can almost buy that. However, I wouldn't use the word truth, I would most likely say "lessons", or "wisdom".

I am perfectly willing to concede that the Bible might have such things in it, that those things could be shown to be benefical to people, and that studying the Bible to learn these things is a worthwhile pursuit. However.. so far in my reading, I haven't gotten much of that. I also haven't heard any commenters bring up what the possible "lesson" to be learned from the two creation stories is.

As I move on into the stories of Cain and Able and Noah and the Ark, I have a feeling I'm going to have more questions about what "truths" these stories are supposed to be teaching. I'm hoping everyone can help me understand why people find these stories so compelling.

Again, thanks for the comments, keep the discussion going!

Atheist Bible Study - The Second Creation Story

2007-11-25T23:54:00.001-06:00

One of the things I found out in reading Genesis, was that there are actually two creation stories. The first thing I noticed about the second one is that it seems to be written in a completely different style. It is almost as if the two stories were written by different people, and were sort of "glued" together to form the beginning of Genesis.

The second story does not follow the "7 days" approach to creation of the world, but instead quickly goes through the creation of the earth and the heavens, the animals and plants, and creation of Adam from the "dust of the ground". He also does the trick of making Eve our of Adam's rib. No messing about here, as the point of this story seems to be what happens AFTER creation.

Once man and woman are created in the Garden (naked mind you, this will be important later), the "serpent" shows up. It also tells us that God made the serpent. The serpent tells us that God told Adam and Eve not to eat from a particular tree in the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So I'm going to assume that Adam and Eve do NOT know the difference between good and evil at this point. So the snake tempts Eve and she eats the fruit. So my first question is... how is Eve "tempted"? I mean, she has no idea what is 'good' or 'evil'. In fact, here we see something that seems to conflict.. The bible says...

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

So wait. She doesn't know what is good, but she can see that it's "good" for food, and that it is a "delight" to the eyes? Isn't that seeing the difference between good and evil? Let's take an apple for instance. We KNOW that an apple is pleasing to the eyes, and tastes good. In fact, BECAUSE an apple tastes good, we find images of apples pleasing. If we had no idea if an apple was good for you, or poison, we would have no opinion about the "goodness" or "badness" of an apple, the exact same state that Adam and Eve find themselves. They have no idea if eating the apple is a good thing or a bad thing. They know that God told them not too.. but how do they know God is good? How do they know the snake is evil? The point I'm trying to make here is that Adam and Eve cannot be held responsible for eating the fruit. If God doesn't give them the knowledge of good and evil, then they would not know how to behave at all. They wouldn't know who to believe or not believe. So, whose fault is it? Sounds to me like God can take the blame here, or maybe the snake... but God created the snake... it says so right in the scripture:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal hat the Lord God had made.

I guess the question becomes, is "crafty" a good thing or a evil thing? Why would God make such a crafty creature? Why would God create beings that cannot know the difference between right and wrong and then tell them NOT to do something? It seems like entrapment to me.

So anyway, Eve eats the fruit, then gives it to Adam who eats it as well. Then God gets all pissed (did he not know this was going to happen?) and throws them out of the garden. He also curses the snake and tells it "upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat". This is plain weird, as I have no idea why snakes should eat "dust". As far as I know, they don't do that.

He also gives women pain in childbirth (could they have children painlessly before this?), and kicks them out of the garden otherwise they might now "eat from the tree of life and live forever".

Is God worried man will become as powerful as God if he lives forever? How can God be worried, isn't he all powerful and all knowing?

Another curious notion is that Adam and Eve now suddenly realize that they are "naked" and they are ashamed and hide from God. Why is nakedness so important?

Now, during all of this, I haven't even mentioned the biggest question I have about this story. I can sum it up like this; Do you really believe this happened? But this is really most atheist's biggest problem with the Bible in general. We just don't believe that this stuff happened the way it is described. I hope that all of posts don't devolve into this, but so far it's not looking good. The next stories I'll be writing about are the Cain and Able story and then it'll be on to Noah and the Flood.

So, Christians, do you REALLY believe this stuff actually happened? Is this a huge parable or metaphor for something else? If so, I'd sure like to know what, as it seems fairly obfuscated.

In God We Trust License Plate, but it's okay, because it's for old people.

2007-11-07T23:31:00.001-06:00

While at the Revenue Office (we don't have DMVs in Arkansas) renewing my driver's license, I noticed something interesting. Among the various custom license plates for sale (including the controversial "Choose Life" anti-abortion plate) was quite a nice plate depicting the State Capitol Building. We have a nice capitol building, it looks very much like the US Capitol Building. But, wait, what is this?

Wait. In God We Trust? Um. So.. my tax dollars paid for this? How did this ever make it through into a law without somebody calling out for separation of church and state? So, Google to the rescue.

Specialty license plate supporting senior citizens’ home-delivered meal program provided by Arkansas Senior Citizen’s Centers.

Oh, it makes perfect sense now. If it's to help senior citizens, then it can't be bad, right? I'm all for having a license plate to raise money to bring meals to older people, but this is pretty despicable. I don't know why the plate couldn't have said something like "Support the Elderly", "Meals for Seniors", or some other phrase that had something to do with the purpose of the plate.

Another interesting thing is that the records of this law have been removed from the link you get when googling for "Arkansas In God We Trust License Plate".

Here's the broken link.

But thanks to Google's cache, we can see the thing that's been removed:

Subchapter 49. In God We Trust License Plate.

§ 27-15-4904. In God We Trust License Plate Fund.

(a) There is created on the books of the Treasurer of State, the Auditor of State, and the Chief Fiscal Officer of the State a special revenue fund to be known as the "In God We Trust License Plate Fund".

(b)(1) All moneys collected as design-use contribution fees under § 27-15-4903 shall be deposited into the State Treasury as special revenues to the credit of the In God We Trust License Plate Fund.

(2) The fund shall also consist of any other revenues as may be authorized by law.

(c)(1)(A) The fund shall be used by the Division of Aging and Adult Services of the Department of Health and Human Services to provide quarterly cash grants to each senior citizen center in a similar method as is used in the State of Arkansas's current system for distributing United States Department of Agriculture money to the senior citizen centers to purchase raw food.

(B) All moneys in the fund shall be used exclusively by the division as provided in subdivisions (c)(2) and (3) of this section.

(C)(i) All moneys collected as design-use contribution fees under § 27-15-4903(a) shall be used exclusively by senior citizen centers for purchasing food for use in a home-delivered meal program.

(ii) No moneys collected as design-use contribution fees under § 27-15-4903(a) shall be used for administration expenses by a state agency, senior citizen center, or any other non-profit or for-profit organization.

(2)(A) The division shall distribute the moneys collected under this subchapter as cash grant awards to senior citizen centers in the State of Arkansas.

(B) The cash grant awards shall be based on the average number of meals served each day for the prior quarter within the senior citizen center's respective geographic area.

(3) Each senior citizen center that receives a cash grant award under this subchapter shall use the moneys exclusively for purchasing food for use in a home-delivered meal program.

Now, I'm not saying that this was removed on purpose, but I did find it odd.

In any case, I wonder why I haven't heard anything about this.

Highlights from my Trip to St Louis

2007-11-07T22:54:00.001-06:00

This last weekend, my wife and I spent the weekend in St. Louis for our anniversary. We couldn't afford a huge vacation, but this one turned out to be just right. While there, I noticed quite a few differences in St. Louis and Little Rock.

Churches. I didn't see very many. There was one old church right by the arch downtown. That's pretty much it. I was restricted to what I could see from trains and buses (more on that below)

Proselytizing. I didn't see any of this. I didn't see any "In God We Trust" signs, I didn't see any overt signs of religiosity. I didn't even see a single Christian fish on any cars, but it's possible I was just in the right place at the right time. Today however, I was reminded once again that I live in the south. While renewing my driver's license I noticed the state of Arkansas was selling "In God We Trust" license plates.

They have a SCIENCE CENTER in St. Louis. We went, it was incredibly cool. While we were there we saw an exhibit called BodyWorlds. Basically it's real human bodies that have been persevered using a process known as plastination. They basically take these real human bodies and take all the skin off, and in some cases remove bits of the body and then turn them into works of art. The goal is to teach people about their own anatomy, and I must say, I was expecting for it to turn my stomach a bit, but I was so fascinated by the science of it, my mind was able to overcome any sickness I might have felt. If you get a chance to see this show, definitely do it.

The St. Louis Zoo has an exhibit on Evolution. It's the first thing you see when you come into the building, right as part of the entrance hall. They have an animatronic Darwin, and a model of "Lucy". You can check out all the photos on my flickr page here.

Public Transportation. We basically flew in to the airport, and took a train within 3 blocks of our hotel. Then we went to the Zoo, the Science Center, the Missouri History Museum and lots of other places, just via Train and Bus. Being from a city that only has buses and some cable cars that don't actually go anywhere, this was a bit mind blowing. Why can't Little Rock have something like this?

There are two, count'em two, memorials to Thomas Jefferson. One of them is the old court house, and the other is now the home of the Missouri History Museum. I took the opportunity to pick up a pocket Constitution, and a copy of Christopher Hitchens' biography on Jefferson.

All in all it was a fun and interesting trip. I would suggest if you are stuck in the deep south of the bible belt, it is refreshing to step slightly outside the belt from time to time for a breath of fresh air. You might be surprised at what you find.

Note: I haven't forgotten about the Bible Study Project, in fact I have two more posts in the works, one on the second creation story and one on the Noah story. They should be coming in the next day or so.

Highlights from Hemant's talk at Harding University

2007-10-29T09:38:00.001-05:00

Last night at Harding University, my wife and I attended Hemant Mehta's talk. For those who don't know, Harding University is a Christian College sponsored by the Church of Christ.

Hemant's talk drew a fairly large crowd, I think it even surprised him. His talk was very engaging, and presented in Hemant's unique 'friendly' non-confrontational style, which is one of the things I admire about him.

After the talk, one of the professors from the university, Monte Cox, had a 'discussion' with Hemant, however it seemed more like an impromptu debate to me. He asked some good questions for the most part, but some of his questions seemed as though he was really grilling Hemant. He was asking some pretty heavy handed philosophy questions to Hemant. I felt this was a little out of line, since the professor had read Hemant's book and should have realized it isn't a heavy book on the philosophies surrounding the atheism/theism debate. I feel Hemant is more the "everyman" of the atheist world, He is not Dan Dennet, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris. Hemant is more down to earth and this professor should have realized that and asked some questions that were more on topic.

Then they opened up the floor to questions. Some of these were typical of what you would expect. There was an old man who asked him the "747 question". Some questions were much better questions, like a gentleman who works with kids in special education and asked about "purpose" and "meaning" in life. I think Hemant handled these questions well.

The best part of the night in my opinion was actually after the talk. Several students came up to talk with Hemant and ask him questions. Among these were a group of Harding students on the more "liberal" or "moderate" side of Christianity. These students were more interesting in having a dialogue. Most of these were already familiar with the basics of atheist thought. After the talk, these students, Hemant, my wife and I went across the street to a small coffee shop and sat in the cold drinking coffee and having some of the best dialogue I've ever had with Christians.

However, it was obvious to me that these students were the minority at Harding. One student, John, commented as the night came to a close that he was glad he got to talk about some of these issues because if he spoke about these things in school, he would probably get kicked out.

This made me realize something. We atheists have something in common with these moderate Christians. The fear we sometimes feel when in places where fundamentalist conservative Christians are in high numbers, is the exact same fear these students feel. The same fear of speaking up and speaking your mind. The fear of free thought and inquiry. In the U.S., especially in the southern United States, freethought, skepticism, doubts and other such "virtues" of the skeptic, humanists and atheists, is severely repressed. I respect and admire these students for what they were saying. I would proudly call them "freethinkers" a label I usually only reserve for atheists.

I'd like to thank my new friends, for a wonderfully engaging night of discussion. I hope we can do it again sometime.

Here's a link to Hemant's write up of the night:

Friendly Atheist » Highlights from Harding University

Friendly Atheist in my neck of the woods

2007-10-25T08:31:00.001-05:00

Hemant Mehta, known as the "friendly atheist" and author of the book "I sold my soul on ebay", will be speaking at Harding University in my home state of Arkansas. My wife and I plan to attend.

I’ll be speaking about the book at Harding University (a Christian college) in Searcy, Arkansas (about 50 miles north-east of Little Rock) this Sunday evening in the Heritage Building’s Cone Chapel at 7:00 p.m. (local time).

The event is free to the public!

More information can be found on Facebook.

Atheist Bible Study - In the Beginning...

2007-10-18T00:49:00.001-05:00

I've finally begun my reading of the Bible. So far the biggest problem has been finding time to actually sit down and read some. I've made it about half way through Genesis so far. Remember that I'm trying to read this critically, so this will probably be slow going. I'll be taking each "story" so to speak and posting my reactions to it. Trying to post something on an entire book probably won't work (except for maybe some of the shorter books).

So, on to the first post!

Genesis - The creation stories

Everyone knows this stuff right? Well, I thought I knew all about this, but I've discovered lots of stuff I never saw before in reading the accounts of creation this time through. Truthfully, in my church this stuff was only talked about when I was really little in Sunday school, and then it wasn't from the Bible directly. We used to have Bible study booklets we read out of. Also, since this happened when I was a child, there wasn't much questioning going on, after all at this age I still believed in Santa Claus too.

One thing I didn't realize, is that the Bible contains two accounts of creation. The first one is the one that starts with "In the beginning". Most people are tangentially familiar with this one. It's the one that takes place over seven days. So I'll talk a bit about each one, posting my impressions. At the end of this, I'll posit some questions I have.

Account #1

Right off the bat I've found something peculiar about this one. And it's not even the seven day thing, although that in itself is a can of worms. It's this bit in the 6th verse:

And God said, "Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the water from the waters. So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day

Okay. Dome? I've looked this up, and in some translations this is "expanse" or "gap" or "firmament". This sounds an awful lot to me like flat earth stuff, with a dome representing the sky. Which is what you would expect from a mythology this old. The thing that really threw me for a loop was this idea of waters ABOVE the dome. What the heck are they talking about? My best guess is this. I try to imagine what it would be like to not know about the earth being round, or that the sky isn't a dome. Well, it LOOKS like a dome. And it's blue during the day. Perhaps they thought the reason the sky was blue, was because there was water "up there". If you stand looking at a lake or ocean, the water appears blue, so perhaps this is where the idea comes from. Let's continue, there's another clue I found.

And God said, "Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night.

Wait, didn't I mention? God creates day and night on the first day, but waits until the fourth day to create the Sun and Moon. Now some people might say "First contradiction!". But I rather don't. What I see is this... Isn't it possible that these early people saw the day and the night being separate from the Sun and Moon? After all, if you've ever watched a sunrise you'll know that it starts getting light WAY before you ever see the sun. And the Moon isn't related to day and night at all, as it is up sometime in the daytime. This ties in with this "water above" business. The blue of the sky has NOTHING to do with the Sun in these people's minds, it's blue because in the daytime, the sky is blue, because of the water above it. At least that how it seems to me.

This account continues with more of the same strangeness, talking about creating all the beasts, etc. Then he creates Adam.

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them

So, there are some footnotes here.

The translators here have taken liberties. It says in Hebrew, that "humankind" is "adam" and "them" is "him". But of course, this wouldn't make much sense if it said it created him and then said he "male and female he created them". It just doesn't read well. But, if this is truly the translation of the Hebrew, why is the text being changed?

Since this post is a bit long, I'll stop here and post my thoughts on Account #2 later.

I'll skip right to questions I have. Christians and Atheists are welcome to chime in with comments and answers.

Questions

1. Do a majority of Christians believe in the seven days thing? If so, how do you explain that? If you are a Christian who believes in Evolution, how do you reconcile that with the seven days thing?

2. Does this account indeed show that these people believed in a flat earth? And if this is written from that point of view, what does that say about it being the "Word of God"?

3. Why does God have to "rest" on the seventh day? Can omnipotent beings get "tired"?

4. And finally, If you are a Christian and you take this story to be only figurative and not literal, then what is the point of this story? What is the point of it talking about details such as the water above and below? In essence, why is this even in your book?

Bible Quest - An atheist goes to the christian bookstore

2007-09-28T20:40:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm on my way to my project to read the whole bible from cover to cover. I'd first like to thank everyone for all the suggestions on what bible to get. After reading all the comments on my blog and over at Hemant's blog http://friendlyatheist.com, I've decided to pick the New Revised Standard Version. However, I will be using the excellent parallel bible online I found at http://bible.cc to cross reference translations when I have questions.

So, last night, my wife and I went to Mardel's Christian bookstore. Why did we go to a Christian bookstore, when we could have went to Barnes and Noble instead? I'm not sure actually, I think my wife thought it would be interesting, or, painful for me, or something. Anyway, once inside Mardel's, we were faced with an entire wall full of bibles. I would say 1/3 of the wall was KJV, and another third was NIV. Where was the NRSV you say? That's the interesting part.. the other third was "Other Bibles" . They had exactly 3, count 'em, 3 copies of the NRSV. I'm confused as to why this bookstore didn't have more copies of this translation, maybe a Christian can post in the comments and explain it. Anyway, I settled on a modestly priced ($12.99) NRSV by Hendrickson Bibles, (in conjunction with Oxford University Press). This copy also includes the Apocrypha which should be interesting.

Anyway, I hope to start reading soon. I'm going to get a notebook so I can take notes as I go. Hopefully it won't be too long until my first post.

The Atheist Bible Study Project

2007-09-25T11:25:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were discussing religion, in particular Christianity. We were talking about our experiences in the church and how we became Atheists. We came to the realization that since I grew up in the Methodist church, a relatively liberal denomination, that I actually hadn't read as much of the Bible as my wife had. In all the bible study I had ever been in, the lessons were carefully chosen. So, she challenged me. I needed to read the whole thing. All the way through, cover to cover. So that's what I plan to do. I'm going to be reading the Bible all the way through and posting about it on my blog as I go. I'll be talking about my impressions, and the questions I have as I go. Feel welcome to respond in the comments, atheists and theists a-like are welcome.

Before I start however, I come to an important question. Which version of the Bible to read? There are lots of translations, so it might be difficult to choose. I could go with the most common one, the KJV. I asked an Episcopal friend of mine, and he suggested the New Revised Standard Version, but I'm wary of that, as the NRSV and some other newer translations contain "gender neutral" language, which I feel isn't a very good way to do a proper translation of the text.

So, what Bible should I read? I'd love to hear from Christians and Atheists about which one. I'll try to make a decision soon , because I'm kind of excited (and a little daunted) about starting this project.

"Brain Fart"

2007-09-19T23:22:00.001-05:00

So, it was bad enough that Sherri Shepard, new co-host of the view didn't know if the earth was flat or round, but now she's claiming "Brain Fart!" to explain it.

Video here

Churches holding meetings at public schools?

2007-09-15T10:13:00.001-05:00

The other day I opened my mailbox, and there was a card in it with a cute picture of a puppy dog on it. After reading it, I realized it was a postcard from a church. I dismissed it, however, my wife noticed something peculiar on it. It said the following:

Join Us for Worship!
Sunday, September 23 5:00 PM (You Don't Have To Get Up Early To Worship With Us) Meeting At: East End Intermediate School

Wait a sec. East End Intermediate School? That's a public school. My tax dollars pay for that facility.

So I have a few questions. Does this violate separation of church and state? Or is it okay as long as the church pays the school for us of the building? Is it wrong because it could very well look like the school is endorsing the religion of this church?

Full Size Version of the card

Group wants to place Jesus statue on Arkansas Capitol building grounds

2007-09-15T09:08:00.001-05:00

A group asked Secretary of State Charlie Daniels on Wednesday for permission to put a statue in the state Capitol to commemorate infant deaths, including abortions.

This already smells like something religious, let's see....

Lace described the statue as a man holding a baby while talking to a woman. The robewearing male figure wears sandals.

Daniels asked Lace, “Is that Jesus ?”

“It’s whoever you want to say it is,” Lace replied.

According to materials Lace handed out, the statue is called the Hope Monument. According to the Web site www.hopemonument.com, the male figure is Jesus.

Uh oh. Looks like it is religious. Do these people think they are being sneaky? Do they not believe in freedom of religion? I suppose not.

Link to article

TRUTH

2007-09-05T08:28:00.001-05:00

TRUTH. With a Captial T... and a capital R.. U.. T.. and H.. Well, maybe not, but it is a chance for me to win an iPod.

See the page here.

Truth

A Healthy Society is an Atheist Society?

2007-08-25T22:25:00.001-05:00

The Paper here has some interesting conclusions. In addition to a table of the Top 50 atheist countries, it also claims the following:

In sum, countries marked by high rates of organic atheism are among the most societally healthy on earth, while societies characterized by non-existent rates of organic atheism are among the most destitute. Nations marked by high degrees of organic atheism tend to have among the lowest homicide rates, infant mortality rates, poverty rates, and illiteracy rates, and among the highest levels of wealth, life expectancy, educational attainment, and gender equality in the world.

Of course, the next sentence is interesting as well.

The only indicator of societal health mentioned above in which religious countries fared better than irreligious countries was suicide.

Of course, quotes taken out of context can sometimes be bad. You should read the entire paper. Otherwise one might jump to a correlation equals causation fallacy. The paper even warns of this.

Of course, it is essential to clearly state that I am in no way arguing that high levels of organic atheism cause societal health or that low levels of organic atheism cause societal ills such as poverty or illiteracy. If anything, the opposite argument should be made: societal health causes widespread atheism, and societal insecurity causes widespread belief in God, as discussed by Norris and Inglehart (2004) above.

Also, here's the list of the top 50 atheist countries, in case you want to holiday somewhere a little less religious than your current locale.

	Country	Total Pop.(2004)	% Atheist/actual # Agnostic/Nonbeliever in God	(minimum - maximum)
1	Sweden	8,986,000	46-85%	4,133,560-7,638,100
2	Vietnam	82,690,000	81%	66,978,900
3	Denmark	5,413,000	43-80%	2,327,590-4,330,400
4	Norway	4,575,000	31-72%	1,418,250-3,294,000
5	Japan	127,333,000	64-65%	81,493,120-82,766,450
6	Czech Republic	10,246,100	54-61%	5,328,940-6,250,121
7	Finland	5,215,000	28-60%	1,460,200-3,129,000
8	France	60,424,000	43-54%	25,982,320-32,628,960
9	South Korea	48,598,000	30%-52%	14,579,400-25,270,960
10	Estonia	1,342,000	49%	657,580
11	Germany	82,425,000	41-49%	33,794,250-40,388,250
12	Russia	143,782,000	24-48%	34,507,680-69,015,360
13	Hungary	10,032,000	32-46%	3,210,240-4,614,720
14	Netherlands	16,318,000	39-44%	6,364,020-7,179,920
15	Britain	60,271,000	31-44%	18,684,010-26,519,240
16	Belgium	10,348,000	42-43%	4,346,160-4,449,640
17	Bulgaria	7,518,000	34-40%	2,556,120-3,007,200
18	Slovenia	2,011,000	35-38%	703,850-764,180
19	Israel	6,199,000	15-37%	929,850-2,293,630
20	Canada	32,508,000	19-30%	6,176,520-9,752,400
21	Latvia	2,306,000	20-29%	461,200-668,740
22	Slovakia	5,424,000	10-28%	542,400-1,518,720
23	Switzerland	7,451,000	17-27%	1,266,670-2,011,770
24	Austria	8,175,000	18-26%	1,471,500-2,125,500
25	Australia	19,913,000	24-25%	4,779,120-4,978,250
26	Taiwan	22,750,000	24%	5,460,000
27	Spain	40,281,000	15-24%	6,042,150-9,667,440
28	Iceland	294,000	16-23%	47,040-67,620
29	New Zealand	3,994,000	20-22%	798,800-878,680
30	Ukraine	47,732,000	20%	9,546,400
31	Belarus	10,311,000	17%	1,752,870
32	Greece	10,648,000	16%	1,703,680
33	North Korea	22,698,000	15% ( ? )	3,404,700
34	Italy	58,057,000	6-15%	3,483,420-8,708,550
35	Armenia	2,991,000	14%	418,740
36	China	1,298,848,000	8-14% ( ? )	103,907,840-181,838,720
37	Lithuania	3,608,000	13%	469,040
38	Singapore	4,354,000	13%	566,020
39	Uruguay	3,399,000	12%	407,880
40	Kazakhstan	15,144,000	11-12%	1,665,840-1,817,280
41	Estonia	1,342,000	11%	147,620
42	Mongolia	2,751,000	9%	247,590
43	Portugal	10,524,000	4-9%	420,960-947,160
44	United States	293,028,000	3-9%	8,790,840-26,822,520
45	Albania	3,545,000	8%	283,600
46	Argentina	39,145,000	4-8%	1,565,800-3,131,600
47	Kyrgyzstan	5,081,000	7%	355,670
48	Dominican Rep.	8,834,000	7%	618,380
49	Cuba	11,309,000	7% ( ? )	791,630
50	Croatia	4,497,000	7%	314,790

My Hero, Bill Nye

2007-08-12T11:40:00.001-05:00

I've long been a fan of Bill Nye. I've seen every single episode of 'Bill Nye, the science guy'. So when I heard that Bill made some creationist Christians in Texas leave the room, I was like "Good for you Bill!".

You can read all about it here:
Bill Nye in Waco

Note: It's under the digg effect at the moment, hopefully it'll come back up soon.

The Emmy-winning scientist angered a few audience members when he criticized literal interpretation of the biblical verse Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”
He pointed out that the sun, the “greater light,” is but one of countless stars and that the “lesser light” is the moon, which really is not a light at all, rather a reflector of light.
A number of audience members left the room at that point, visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence.
“We believe in a God!” exclaimed one woman as she left the room with three young children.

IN UR BEACHZ

2007-08-06T22:49:00.001-05:00

My mom sent me an email containing these pictures of Jesus done by an artist on the beach in Maryland. My friend Jesse suggested the quote, and the LOLCat buildr on the web took care of the rest.

Critical thinking is like washing your hands

2007-07-31T08:24:00.001-05:00

My mom always used to tell me "Wash your hands before you eat", or "Wash your hands WITH SOAP after you use the bathroom". I'm sure your mom did too. This is of course good advice, washing your hands with soap and water reduces the chance that you will get a bacterial infection or catch a virus.

So I was surprised the other day to get this email from my Mom:

Subject: Fw: moons

*Two moons on 27th August*

*27th Aug the Whole World is waiting for.............*

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August.

It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultivate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of earth. Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the earth has 2 moons. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.

Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again .

This of course, is a viral email. A viral "meme" if you will. Anyone who knows anything about anything will read this, and if they think about it more than 2 seconds, they'll realize it's a load of hogwash. Mars is NEVER as big in the sky as the moon, it usually looks like a small red star it's so far away.

But I suspect, my Mom didn't even really read this email. Which means she fell right into it's trap. She skimmed it, and sent it to me, because "He likes astronomy and stuff". The virus had achieved it's goal, it reproduced one more time.

However, when it got to me, I read it skeptically, like I do everything. I washed my hands, and it killed it. This virus wouldn't spread past me.

Critical thinking is something you have to do always, and you have to practice it, because it doesn't come natural. Just like washing your hands, it should become a habit.

Richard Dawkins Social Networking Site

2007-06-23T13:32:00.001-05:00

Richard Dawkins, one of my favorite evolutionary biologists has set up a new social networking site.

http://www.richarddawkins.net/social/

I've registered as "echo". This is the first site of it's kind I've actually used, so we will see how this goes.

Blog Rating

2007-06-23T13:01:00.001-05:00

So I decided to jump on the bandwagon. Having only 6 posts on my blog so far I got pretty much what I expected to get.

I guess I should throw a few curse words into the mix. Which brings up an interesting point I may have to write about in the future. Do atheists tend to curse more or less than religious people?

Canada gets it's own 'museum'

2007-05-31T10:03:00.001-05:00

See, here I am thinking that Canada is a bastion of liberal secular values, and then I read this:

Taking on the Tyrrell

That's right, Canada has it's own "creation science" museum. The Tyrrell, apparently is a real museum they are comparing themselves with. Here is the real museums' website.

"We're not trying to push an agenda," he said Wednesday. "We just think that people should see both sides of everything."

Both sides. That's not useful, as there aren't two sides, there's the facts and then there's this fantasy. Why must scientists keep repeating this?

One video shows a bacterium and describes how it travels by rapidly moving its tail -- suggesting that even the most primitive creatures must have been intelligently designed. Children can push a button and activate a giant bacterium.

Looks like Behe was here.

Making the same point is a teddy bear treated with mineralized water to make it appear fossilized.

Oooo, can we do radiometric dating on the teddy bear? Someone should do this to refute these idiots.

Andy Neuman, acting director of the Tyrrell, said the Big Valley project won't have any effect on the way the Tyrrell presents its information.

That's too bad... I'd love to see anti-creationist displays in the real museum. But perhaps that's just giving them what they want. On the other hand, scientists mostly ignore bad science until it tries to creep into the school system. Perhaps scientists should be more aggressive on debunking this stuff?

His Physics Teacher is a Young Earth Creationist

2007-05-25T20:00:00.001-05:00

dakana on the Something Awful Forums posted an interesting thread about his high school physics teacher doing a presentation in class trying to show that the earth is not 4.5 billion years old.

The teacher used the following "evidence"

The sun is shrinking. Thus, it must have been bigger in the past, and it would have been so big ~200m years ago that it would have been touching the earth.

Carbon dating and radiometric dating methods are inaccurate. His 'proof' for this was a few examples of errors in the dating process leading to conflicting errors. He also claims that if one finds uranium and lead together, one cannot be certain that the lead is a byproduct of uranium's decay; it might have formed from another method in conjunction with the uranium.

The moon is receding, and the earth's spin is slowing. Thus, a few million years ago, the earth would have been spinning too fast, and the moon would have been too close to the earth.

The earth's magnetic field is weakening. Thus, it would have been too strong a few million years ago.

Some fossils and skeletons have been found hoaxes. He ignores that fact that faked fossils are an incredibly small percentage of fossils.

He makes the claim that there have been no transitional fossils found, such as "a half-sprouted wing," even though that's not how evolution works.

He claims that the amount of helium in the atmosphere is indicative of a young earth.

The amount of salt in the oceans proves a young earth

The population of the earth wouldn't take more than a few million years to grow to its current size.

Now, I'm not sure if this teacher is just trolling his students or if he really believes this. But it looks like danaka is going to write a paper rebutting all of the teachers points. I personally think he should do it, and give proper sources for the paper and everything. He should NOT mention religion. If the teacher should happen to mention religion he should probably not get into that discussion, but keep note of it. He should also be prepared in case there is some retaliation for his paper. I hope there isn't personally, but on the other hand, if this guy really believes this and intends to teach it to classes, that's not a good thing, as he's basically teaching junk science in a science classroom, and I don't think that's fair to the students.

You can read the whole thread here.

What kind of atheist am I?

2007-05-24T16:36:00.001-05:00

So I took the atheist quiz over here

You scored as Scientific Atheist, These guys rule. I'm not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future.

Scientific Atheist

92%

Apathetic Atheist

58%

Militant Atheist

50%

Agnostic

50%

Spiritual Atheist

33%

Angry Atheist

33%

Theist

17%

What kind of atheist are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

Do-nothing atheists and re-igniting the Enlightenment

2007-05-24T09:58:00.001-05:00

PZ Myers over at scienceblogs.com has written an interesting article about what he calls "do-nothing atheists". I'm not sure I agree with everything he says, but I do think that sometimes "moderate" theists and atheists are guilty of trying too hard to "just get along".

Of the "do nothing atheists" he says this.

Their goal is to avoid conflict, ignore differences, and just get along, and hope that by avoiding confrontation the great theistic mob will just generally drift into friendship with them and eventually align themselves more and more with that great bunch of guys and gals.

Read Article

Nicole Smalkowski interview on 20/20

2007-05-13T22:31:00.000-05:00

In case you missed this story when it aired on 20/20, this 16 year old girl was given quite a hard time at her school for not believing in God. Her parents took her out of school and are home schooling the rest of thier children. They also have a lawsuit against the school district.

Rational Response Squad vs Way of the Master

2007-05-11T09:13:00.000-05:00

After watching the Nightline Christians vs. Atheists special, I was struck by how purposedly nosided it was. This seems to be what media does best nowdays. In an effort to be impartial, they will actually edit what other people say to the point where both seem reasonable. If you watch the debate on abcnews.go.com/nightline you will get a completely different reaction to the debate. After watching the full debate you get the sense that Kirk and Ray were really stunned by some of the atheist arguments. Almost as though they hadn't come across them before.

Here's the "debate" as it aired on ABC.

Part 1

Part 2