The Koran hasn't copped it for a while

While I was looking at the previous stuff there was a link to the Sceptics Annotated Quran. Looks like it would be good for a giggle.

The Bible

The nice people at wikimedia have popped a bible online. Because it's online it can be searched! Yay! Facts and cross referencing. That should be handy.

The over the road fundies wandered by today. After some pro-porn banter I decided to claim that the bible allowed slavery so sexual slavery was probably permitted too. Anyway, having no idea I decided to look it up. Christians were holding the bible up saying it allowed the keeping of slaves before the American civil war... were they right? It, like so much of the Bible, is ambiguous. If you are ambiguous you are not infallible you just have never committed to a position.


Evil Bible runs through a few points:

Celebrity Atheists

Celebrity Atheists lists famous people with naturalistic world views - because what celebrities think is really important.

There are interviews with well know but still useful people like Linus Torvalds and Billy Connolly.

Hitchens again.

This is the first part of Christopher Hitchens' talk at the Freedom From Religion Foundation - 30th Annual Convention on October 13th 2007. Hitchens received the "Emperor Has No Clothes" Award.

I can't agree with Hitchens' call to war. I wont go to war. I wont go and kill people because they disagree with me. His ideas on this suprised me.



First of 7 videos.

Evil Atheist Conspiracy

The problem of theists and their porn hysteria.

Julie Amero, substitute teacher, was found guilty of endangering children and threatened with 40 years in gaol as a result of her laptop, which was riddled with spyware and trojans, displayed ads for porn sites to some kids.

Now, obviously it is preferable that kids aren't exposed to porn but we are talking about an accident. If computer end users were able to stop trojans and popups the porn industry would stop using them.

This is wowsering gone insane. Do Christians who accidently let their children read about Lot and his daughters get threatened with life in gaol?

Born without a brain!

This tele-vangelist claims that people had faith after being told that their "baby was born without a brain" and now she can count to five and cross her legs (not sure why crossing your legs is such an acheivement. Maybe that's something I'll ask the next inbred yokle I see, just to make conversation.)

Wikipedia

I reference wikipedia before the bible every time. At least when there is a disagreement over wikipedia's text it doesn't end in being burnt at the stake, a war, being stoned to death, or even so much as a fight.

An alternative Genesis explanation

Creationists want science to give equal time to Intelligent Design or to at least teach the controversy between Evolution Theory and Intelligent design. What about the creation story of Ngiyaampaa country, Australia. It strikes me as an equally valid creation story. It neatly explains our existence here without being too difficult to understand like nasty old Evolution Theory.

Censor the Bible

Christians are all for censorship of violent or adult materials. Maybe they should have a long hard look at their dusty old book before they start bashing others over the head with it. If you want violence, rape and porn look no further than the dusty old book.

The Australian Sex Party

A new political party in Australia. They need 500 members to form a party.

Now this is funny:

Hong Kong's anti-porn watchdog recieves 200 complaints about passages in the bible.

The Secular Party of Australia

The Secular Party of Australia want's to keep dusty old books out of our modern, secular society. There is a gap in Australian politics. Major parties are continuing to align with churches. The secular party wants to point out the flaws in allowing one group to have too much political power.

In the news:

Religion really improved family life for this family. The controlling husband wouldn't let the wife seek medical help for a sick child. The child died of pneumonia and a kidney infection. Fortunately the husband's continued faith that his god would heal all ills lead to his death from heart failure. I think a Darwin Award is in order.

To George W: He's been spruking on about people's right to change religion. Changing is OK but claiming no religion is less popular, I think.

Bad Religion's Atheist Peace

Vic Stenger appears in a debate on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Fora program.

This embed will play if you give it time to load up. If it doesn't work go here.

The topic of the debate is "We would be better off without religion".

Christian Kindness in the News.

Another article illustrating how weak excessive credulity can make people.

SMH

Emo Phillips:

When I was a kid I used to pray to God for a bike.
Then I realised God doesn't work that way.
So I stole a bike, and prayed to God for forgiveness.

Dawkins' letter to his (then) 10 year old daughter, Juliet

(I haven't confirmed the source on this.) This letter was published Dawkins' book "A Devil's Chaplain".

Dear Juliet,

Now that you are ten, I want to write to you about something that is important to me. Have you ever wondered how we know the things that we know? How do we know, for instance, that the stars, which look like tiny pinpricks in the sky, are really huge balls of fire like the sun and are very far away? And how do we know that Earth is a smaller ball whirling round one of those stars, the sun?

The answer to these questions is "evidence." Sometimes evidence means actually seeing ( or hearing, feeling, smelling..... ) that something is true. Astronauts have travelled far enough from earth to see with their own eyes that it is round. Sometimes our eyes need help. The "evening star" looks like a bright twinkle in the sky, but with a telescope, you can see that it is a beautiful ball - the planet we call Venus. Something that you learn by direct seeing ( or hearing or feeling..... ) is called an observation.

Often, evidence isn't just an observation on its own, but observation always lies at the back of it. If there's been a murder, often nobody (except the murderer and the victim!) actually observed it. But detectives can gather together lots or other observations which may all point toward a particular suspect. If a person's fingerprints match those found on a dagger, this is evidence that he touched it. It doesn't prove that he did the murder, but it can help when it's joined up with lots of other evidence. Sometimes a detective can think about a whole lot of observations and suddenly realise that they fall into place and make sense if so-and-so did the murder.

Scientists - the specialists in discovering what is true about the world and the universe - often work like detectives. They make a guess ( called a hypothesis ) about what might be true. They then say to themselves: If that were really true, we ought to see so-and-so. This is called a prediction. For example, if the world is really round, we can predict that a traveller, going on and on in the same direction, should eventually find himself back where he started.When a doctor says that you have the measles, he doesn't take one look at you and see measles. His first look gives him a hypothesis that you may have measles. Then he says to himself: If she has measles I ought to see...... Then he runs through the list of predictions and tests them with his eyes ( have you got spots? ); hands ( is your forehead hot? ); and ears ( does your chest wheeze in a measly way? ). Only then does he make his decision and say, " I diagnose that the child has measles. " Sometimes doctors need to do other tests like blood tests or X-Rays, which help their eyes, hands, and ears to make observations.

The way scientists use evidence to learn about the world is much cleverer and more complicated than I can say in a short letter. But now I want to move on from evidence, which is a good reason for believing something , and warn you against three bad reasons for believing anything. They are called "tradition," "authority," and "revelation."

First, tradition. A few months ago, I went on television to have a discussion with about fifty children. These children were invited because they had been brought up in lots of different religions. Some had been brought up as Christians, others as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or Sikhs. The man with the microphone went from child to child, asking them what they believed. What they said shows up exactly what I mean by "tradition." Their beliefs turned out to have no connection with evidence. They just trotted out the beliefs of their parents and grandparents which, in turn, were not based upon evidence either. They said things like: "We Hindus believe so and so"; "We Muslims believe such and such"; "We Christians believe something else."

Of course, since they all believed different things, they couldn't all be right. The man with the microphone seemed to think this quite right and proper, and he didn't even try to get them to argue out their differences with each other. But that isn't the point I want to make for the moment. I simply want to ask where their beliefs come from. They came from tradition. Tradition means beliefs handed down from grandparent to parent to child, and so on. Or from books handed down through the centuries. Traditional beliefs often start from almost nothing; perhaps somebody just makes them up originally, like the stories about Thor and Zeus. But after they've been handed down over some centuries, the mere fact that they are so old makes them seem special. People believe things simply because people have believed the same thing over the centuries. That's tradition.

The trouble with tradition is that, no matter how long ago a story was made up, it is still exactly as true or untrue as the original story was. If you make up a story that isn't true, handing it down over a number of centuries doesn't make it any truer!

Most people in England have been baptised into the Church of England, but this is only one of the branches of the Christian religion. There are other branches such as Russian Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, and the Methodist churches. They all believe different things. The Jewish religion and the Muslim religion are a bit more different still; and there are different kinds of Jews and of Muslims. People who believe even slightly different things from each other go to war over their disagreements. So you might think that they must have some pretty good reasons - evidence - for believing what they believe. But actually, their different beliefs are entirely due to different traditions.

Let's talk about one particular tradition. Roman Catholics believe that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was so special that she didn't die but was lifted bodily in to Heaven. Other Christian traditions disagree, saying that Mary did die like anybody else. These other religions don't talk about much and, unlike Roman Catholics, they don't call her the "Queen of Heaven." The tradition that Mary's body was lifted into Heaven is not an old one. The bible says nothing on how she died; in fact, the poor woman is scarcely mentioned in the Bible at all. The belief that her body was lifted into Heaven wasn't invented until about six centuries after Jesus' time. At first, it was just made up, in the same way as any story like "Snow White" was made up. But, over the centuries, it grew into a tradition and people started to take it seriously simply because the story had been handed down over so many generations. The older the tradition became, the more people took it seriously. It finally was written down as and official Roman Catholic belief only very recently, in 1950, when I was the age you are now. But the story was no more true in 1950 than it was when it was first invented six hundred years after Mary's death.

I'll come back to tradition at the end of my letter, and look at it in another way. But first, I must deal with the two other bad reasons for believing in anything: authority and revelation.

Authority, as a reason for believing something, means believing in it because you are told to believe it by somebody important. In the Roman Catholic Church, the pope is the most important person, and people believe he must be right just because he is the pope. In one branch of the Muslim religion, the important people are the old men with beards called ayatollahs. Lots of Muslims in this country are prepared to commit murder, purely because the ayatollahs in a faraway country tell them to.

When I say that it was only in 1950 that Roman Catholics were finally told that they had to believe that Mary's body shot off to Heaven, what I mean is that in 1950, the pope told people that they had to believe it. That was it. The pope said it was true, so it had to be true! Now, probably some of the things that that pope said in his life were true and some were not true. There is no good reason why, just because he was the pope, you should believe everything he said any more than you believe everything that other people say. The present pope ( 1995 ) has ordered his followers not to limit the number of babies they have. If people follow this authority as slavishly as he would wish, the results could be terrible famines, diseases, and wars, caused by overcrowding.

Of course, even in science, sometimes we haven't seen the evidence ourselves and we have to take somebody else's word for it. I haven't, with my own eyes, seen the evidence that light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Instead, I believe books that tell me the speed of light. This looks like "authority." But actually, it is much better than authority, because the people who wrote the books have seen the evidence and anyone is free to look carefully at the evidence whenever they want. That is very comforting. But not even the priests claim that there is any evidence for their story about Mary's body zooming off to Heaven.

The third kind of bad reason for believing anything is called "revelation." If you had asked the pope in 1950 how he knew that Mary's body disappeared into Heaven, he would probably have said that it had been "revealed" to him. He shut himself in his room and prayed for guidance. He thought and thought, all by himself, and he became more and more sure inside himself. When religious people just have a feeling inside themselves that something must be true, even though there is no evidence that it is true, they call their feeling "revelation." It isn't only popes who claim to have revelations. Lots of religious people do. It is one of their main reasons for believing the things that they do believe. But is it a good reason?

Suppose I told you that your dog was dead. You'd be very upset, and you'd probably say, "Are you sure? How do you know? How did it happen?" Now suppose I answered: "I don't actually know that Pepe is dead. I have no evidence. I just have a funny feeling deep inside me that he is dead." You'd be pretty cross with me for scaring you, because you'd know that an inside "feeling" on its own is not a good reason for believing that a whippet is dead. You need evidence. We all have inside feelings from time to time, sometimes they turn out to be right and sometimes they don't. Anyway, different people have opposite feelings, so how are we to decide whose feeling is right? The only way to be sure that a dog is dead is to see him dead, or hear that his heart has stopped; or be told by somebody who has seen or heard some real evidence that he is dead.

People sometimes say that you must believe in feelings deep inside, otherwise, you' d never be confident of things like "My wife loves me." But this is a bad argument. There can be plenty of evidence that somebody loves you. All through the day when you are with somebody who loves you, you see and hear lots of little titbits of evidence, and they all add up. It isn't a purely inside feeling, like the feeling that priests call revelation. There are outside things to back up the inside feeling: looks in the eye, tender notes in the voice, little favors and kindnesses; this is all real evidence.

Sometimes people have a strong inside feeling that somebody loves them when it is not based upon any evidence, and then they are likely to be completely wrong. There are people with a strong inside feeling that a famous film star loves them, when really the film star hasn't even met them. People like that are ill in their minds. Inside feelings must be backed up by evidence, otherwise you just can't trust them.

Inside feelings are valuable in science, too, but only for giving you ideas that you later test by looking for evidence. A scientist can have a "hunch'" about an idea that just "feels" right. In itself, this is not a good reason for believing something. But it can be a good reason for spending some time doing a particular experiment, or looking in a particular way for evidence. Scientists use inside feelings all the time to get ideas. But they are not worth anything until they are supported by evidence.

I promised that I'd come back to tradition, and look at it in another way. I want to try to explain why tradition is so important to us. All animals are built (by the process called evolution) to survive in the normal place in which their kind live. Lions are built to be good at surviving on the plains of Africa. Crayfish to be good at surviving in fresh, water, while lobsters are built to be good at surviving in the salt sea. People are animals, too, and we are built to be good at surviving in a world full of ..... other people. Most of us don't hunt for our own food like lions or lobsters; we buy it from other people who have bought it from yet other people. We ''swim'' through a "sea of people." Just as a fish needs gills to survive in water, people need brains that make them able to deal with other people. Just as the sea is full of salt water, the sea of people is full of difficult things to learn. Like language.

You speak English, but your friend Ann-Kathrin speaks German. You each speak the language that fits you to '`swim about" in your own separate "people sea." Language is passed down by tradition. There is no other way . In England, Pepe is a dog. In Germany he is ein Hund. Neither of these words is more correct, or more true than the other. Both are simply handed down. In order to be good at "swimming about in their people sea," children have to learn the language of their own country, and lots of other things about their own people; and this means that they have to absorb, like blotting paper, an enormous amount of traditional information. (Remember that traditional information just means things that are handed down from grandparents to parents to children.) The child's brain has to be a sucker for traditional information. And the child can't be expected to sort out good and useful traditional information, like the words of a language, from bad or silly traditional information, like believing in witches and devils and ever-living virgins.

It's a pity, but it can't help being the case, that because children have to be suckers for traditional information, they are likely to believe anything the grown-ups tell them, whether true or false, right or wrong. Lots of what the grown-ups tell them is true and based on evidence, or at least sensible. But if some of it is false, silly, or even wicked, there is nothing to stop the children believing that, too. Now, when the children grow up, what do they do? Well, of course, they tell it to the next generation of children. So, once something gets itself strongly believed - even if it is completely untrue and there never was any reason to believe it in the first place - it can go on forever.

Could this be what has happened with religions ? Belief that there is a god or gods, belief in Heaven, belief that Mary never died, belief that Jesus never had a human father, belief that prayers are answered, belief that wine turns into blood - not one of these beliefs is backed up by any good evidence. Yet millions of people believe them. Perhaps this because they were told to believe them when they were told to believe them when they were young enough to believe anything.

Millions of other people believe quite different things, because they were told different things when they were children. Muslim children are told different things from Christian children, and both grow up utterly convinced that they are right and the others are wrong. Even within Christians, Roman Catholics believe different things from Church of England people or Episcopalians, Shakers or Quakers , Mormons or Holy Rollers, and are all utterly covinced that they are right and the others are wrong. They believe different things for exactly the same kind of reason as you speak English and Ann-Kathrin speaks German. Both languages are, in their own country, the right language to speak. But it can't be true that different religions are right in their own countries, because different religions claim that opposite things are true. Mary can't be alive in Catholic Southern Ireland but dead in Protestant Northern Ireland.

What can we do about all this ? It is not easy for you to do anything, because you are only ten. But you could try this. Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: "Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority, or revelation?" And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: "What kind of evidence is there for that?" And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.

Your loving

Daddy

Why science is important.

This lady would have been much happier knowing that her water was quite safe and there was not a vaste conspiracy to poison her. This sort of thing is why basic scientific knowledge is important.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali's video Submission. This is the video that Theo van Gogh was killed for making. The fundementalist theist killer left a death threat directed at Ayaan Hirsi Ali pinned to van Gogh's dead body.

Apostate Muslims

Another proposed timeline:
The punishment for giving up Islam is death by stoning.
Islam claims that all children are born Muslim.
Therefore anyone who is not a Muslim, whether they know it or not, can be accused of being a Muslim apostate.
When a religion is being peaceful it can claim to overlook such concepts but they readily become current when it suits the power brokers.

The problem of credulity.

The problem of credulity.

Fundamentalist Christians believe that witches are real and active in this world right now. I find the holding of such beliefs impossible to fathom.

So, what is the problem with this. This is their private belief, how does it harm me. The problem is one of credulity. If you will believe this, the next step is to denounce your neighbour as a witch because you have experienced some hardship.

This is my theoretical, good-christian time line:
1) You believe in witches because your preacher told you to. Belief without proof, evidence or any reference to reality is particularly pious thus your standing in the church community is enhanced.
Any outsider denouncing such beliefs is accused of intolerant hate crimes because christianity is inherently good and opposing good can only be bad.
2) The whole War on... WTF comes up. Because it is instigated by a christian nation (setting aside USA's strenuously secular establishing documents) it must be morally correct. Thus to oppose it is morally incorrect.
3) You've started now... surely Guantanamo Bay must be right too. Ego kicks in. You've started something and you don't want to look foolish so you are going to insist that you're right... all the way to the bitter end.
4) Deep down you know that Guantanamo Bay is mistreating people that were probably just going with the crowd and that military trials are unfair. You want to do unto others as you would have them do unto you but your hands are tied.
However, you are determined to be right and the whole thing has so much rhetoric attached that you can't give up now. Your minister said that Guantanamo Bay was necessary. He was holding the bible in his hand when he said it. If he was wrong about that... maybe he's wrong about other stuff

Now we come to the problem. This whole thing started with an excess of credulity. What will you believe next? Will you believe that legal looking trials aren't enough? Will you take that next leap of faith and let a Guantanamo-like system of indefinite detention and torture for witchcraft? Do you already hate homosexuality because you were told to? Are you OK with eating shellfish even though both indiscretions are mentioned together?

Why don't we have a couple of stonings... just to see what it's like. It is in the bible after all. Maybe it'll get you closer to god. Has the thrill gone?

H. L. Mencken

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.

Scientific Disciplines you must ignore to be a fundy.

Rational Wiki have made a list of sciences you must disregard to believe that the bible is the literal truth.

"If you are in possession of this revolutionary secret of science, why not prove it and be hailed as the new Newton? Of course, we know the answer. You can't do it. You are a fake." Richard Dawkins

Just unbelievable!

This is just unbelievable. Home schooled kids being told preposterous lies about science. Education is supposed to prepare kids for the world not disable their minds.

Hitchens on Islam

Hitchens explores the history of Islam.

You There! Young Earther!

Why weren't dinosaurs allowed on the ark and why was there not being allowed on the ark mentioned in your dusty book?
If dinosaurs were drowned and fossilised in 2 weeks, why aren't there bunny rabbit remains in the same area?
Why didn't the bunny rabbits drown before the tyrannosaurus rex? They are shorter and would drown first. If they drowned first, why aren't they lower in the fossil beds?
Why didn't teradactils survive? They could fly!

The young earth model is proposed by those wacky fundies. It's your theory, prove it!

Rise of Atheism

This is a good start. :)

Coming Out Godless

Coming Out Godless has real stories from atheists about how they gave up their faith, or how they came out to friends and families, what lead them to atheism or how they were never theists.

People who aren't out yet will be able to take heart knowing that you wont be alone in this and that everyone will probably survive. :)

A survey

I did this survey. It takes a while to complete but any scientist who wants to study atheists is worth supporting.

Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience. What is it and how to recognise it?

Talk Origins' index of arguements against creationism and its mutant spawn, intelligent design.

The "Richard Dawkins Stumped" video exposed as a hoax.



And he provides an answer to the question. The tinyurl link in the video doesn't work but this is where it should have gone according to the youtuber who added the video.

Atheists by country

Have you wondered if you were alone? Adherents.com has put up a handy list.

Hitchens at the University of Toronto

Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

A discussion between Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss - first of twelve.



There is no need for me to introduce this. It is just a nice place to rest your mind away from all those hate filled theists. If you double click on the youtube image/window you will end up at youtube and, thus, the next video.

The moral necessity of atheism - Hitchens

The first video of eight - just follow your nose from there.

Kristy's Poem

An extract from Kristy's poem.

Dawkins calls for militant atheism.

Long but excellent. :)

Christian kindness in action.

I expect that PZ Meyers never thought he would be popular with fundies.
Now he is receiving daily death threats from the faithful. Is this the morality that the bible is teaching? Theists accuse me of not knowing how to be good because I don't pray to their special brand of superfriend. Somehow, without the threat of eternal damnation I know that sending death threats to science lecturers over a difference of opinion is not good behaviour.

Now, I can hear all the fundies out there thinking: 'But we would never do that! Jesus blah blah blah!' (Wait, would there be uppercase and spelling errors in their thoughts... 'But WE wood NEVER DO that!!!!!!! JESUS SED,.j blah blah blah!!!!!!!1!' because knowing how to spell or express yourself logically is definately not in the bible and, thus, is against god.)

Anyway, PZ Meyers has come up with an excellent solution. He has posted all the details of the emails including the IP information, full name, email address and the full text of the email in his blog. Given that these emails contain death threats, I would imagine that the police would be taking an interest.

For example:

From: mkroll@1800FLOWERS.com
Subject: your short life
Date: July 13, 2008 8:07:31 AM CDT
To: myersp@morris.umn.edu
Delivered-To: pzmyers@gmail.com
Received: by 10.100.126.5 with SMTP id y5cs262374anc; Sun, 13 Jul 2008 06:08:03 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.65.237.15 with SMTP id o15mr14501258qbr.56.1215954482483; Sun, 13 Jul 2008 06:08:02 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from mtain-a.tc.umn.edu (mtain-a.tc.umn.edu [134.84.119.205]) by mx.google.com with ESMTP id u2si9779510pyb.16.2008.07.13.06.08.01; Sun, 13 Jul 2008 06:08:02 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from 1800flowers.int (mail2.800-flowers.net [205.153.87.31]) by mtain-a.tc.umn.edu (UMN smtpd) with ESMTP for ; Sun, 13 Jul 2008 08:08:01 -0500 (CDT)
Received: from ([10.180.1.74]) by CPNYMAIL02.1800flowers.int with ESMTP id 5202711.34123806; Sun, 13 Jul 2008 09:07:31 -0400
Return-Path:
Return-Path:
Received-Spf: neutral (google.com: 134.84.119.205 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of mkroll@1800flowers.com) client-ip=134.84.119.205;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: 134.84.119.205 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of mkroll@1800flowers.com) smtp.mail=mkroll@1800flowers.com
X-Umn-Remote-Mta: [N] mail2.800-flowers.net [205.153.87.31] #+HN+NR+OF (I,-)
X-Umn-Report-As-Spam:
X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5
Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message
Mime-Version: 1.0
Message-Id: <900E52131BA0F248B0CB176E84D0A26E06DE335A@18f-exch01.1800flowers.int>
X-Ms-Has-Attach:
X-Ms-Tnef-Correlator:
Thread-Topic: your short life
Thread-Index: AcjkaTBIDzgwGOqkTNCCBD35Hlh9EA==
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C8E4E9.68CD4469"

Paul,

what I would like to know is how did you even
get a job at a collage.

when you are obviously a moron.
How would you feel if nice folks starting ranting against
Fags, and atheist like yourself.

well sir, you don't get to blaspheme and walk away from this.
You have two choices my fucked up friend, first you can quit your job for the good of the
children. Or you can get your brains beat in.

I give you till the first of the month, get that resignation in cunt



This e-mail, including attachments, may include confidential and/or
proprietary information, and may be used only by the person or
entity to which it is addressed. If the reader of this e-mail is
not the intended recipient or his or her authorized agent, the
reader is hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or
copying of this e-mail is prohibited. If you have received this
e-mail in error, please notify the sender by replying to this
message and delete this e-mail immediately.

Anonomous Videos

I started watching some videos by "Anonomous". ToryMagoo44's video came up on the related video lists.

Hitchens Illustrated

Hitchens never pulls his punches. This is another fantastic arguement against religion. Illustrated by 43Alley.

Part One:



Part Two:

FightingAtheist's excellent Youtube presentation.

"Creationists are the ultimate skeptics. They will believe in men being raised from the dead and talking ghosts that can impregnate virgins without even a shred of evidence, but when confronted with the evidence for biological evolution they transform into staunch critics upholding the highest burdens of proof ever constructed." FightingAtheist

All the fun of thinking like a fundy.

Adrian Barnett has taken the time to help everyone check their brain at the door by thinking like a fundy. With our thoughts we make the world so let's make the world fundy dumb fun.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

A leader guide was issued by the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. RationalWiki has (without invitation) taken up a right of reply.

If the next world matters more than this world why don't they just leave me alone? If they babble on to their magic friends they will go to heaven. Just do it an leave me alone. If boring, dark-age know-it-alls like the theists I know will be there, it'll make it as shit house as you made this world during the dark ages.

Fuckoff

Debating Creationists

This is difficult because rational debate is not on the menu. What is on the menu is bullying and one-up-manship. For me, essentially, this is a pointless exercise. I would have to care enough to even start. However, when I am labelled as bad because I don't beleive in a theist's magic friend I am pleased to rise to the challenge. I've never made any progress but I will not be brow beaten by a dark age level mind.

Talking Origins and Discord give some hints.

The Freethinker

The Freethinker is doing the same job as BARF but in the UK. Holding a mirror up to theist nonsense.

BARF

Biblical America Resistance Front are helping to keep the United States of America secular. It would be very worrying if the greatest military machine the world has ever seen fell into the hands of a death cult... that just couldn't end well.

Retrofitting the Ark

These fruit loop fundies have really put a lot of imagination into explaining how Kangaroos got from Australia to get onto the ark then got all the way back without a trace. Amazing... stupid but amazing. This is typical of fundies. Their fairy tale just has to be right. Why can't they just say, "We don't have a fucking clue, we just want to believe this shit" like any normal person who knows they are talking absolute crap.

Secular Humanism

Secular Humanism offers an alternative moral code without supernatural threat.
1. Free Inquiry
2. Separation Of Church And State
3. The Ideal Of Freedom
4. Ethics Based On Critical Intelligence
5. Moral Education
6. Religious Skepticism
7. Reason
8. Science And Technology
9. Evolution
10. Education

Wikipedia

Helena Cronin's

"Science doesn't have ideological implications; it simply tells you how the world is — not how it ought to be."

From: Getting Human Nature Right - Helena Cronin

Fun Videos from Eddie Izzard

Some links

http://exchristian.net/
http://christianityisbullshit.com/
http://universist.org/

A rave!

The thing that makes Intelligent Design pseudo-science is the lack of peer review. When they allow peer review most scientists reject their claims out of hand. In particular they want the supernatural intervention to be accepted by science. Supernatural intervention is the opposite of science. Intelligent design cannot be tested, it cannot predict anything and it doesn't try to prove anything. It just is and doesn't want to answer questions.

So, lets draw an parallel. Say the ID proponents get this concept on its feet. In this world all science has to accept that supernatural intervention is equally valid as established scientific theory. Now, we sent our friendly local fundamental christian to the doctor because he is bleeding out of his arse.

Does the fundy ask the doctor to pray in tongue for god to reveal the illness to the doctor or does the fundy want some scientifically valid tests done? Does he want to be admitted to hospital or sent to a church to be prayed for? Say we have a diagnosis of acute bowel cancer. Would the fundy want a six month course of intensive prayer or an operation and chemo.

What am I trying to say here? Do I have a point? Can I get to my point?

My point is that your bog-standard fundy talks the talk about supernatural intervention being equally as valid as scientific theory but they would not accept the doctor's prescription of 'medical prayer' that would be scientifically proven under ID.

Say the fundy died while being treated by prescribed prayer. Do you suppose that their family would seek compensation from the doctor's malpractice?

Why are they at the doctor's surgery at all? Isn't cancer a shortcut to heaven! When you're life is on the line you are talking the talk but definately not walking the walk.

Now I don't want fundies to all go and die. I just want seperation of faith and science. The last time faith had precident over scientific endeavour it was called a dark age. I don't want another dark age. The last one cost us 600 years of developement.

J.E.T.

The Journal of Evolution and Technology is a peer reviewed journal.

Friendly Sceptics

The Sceptic's Annotated Bible points out the indefensible flaws in the bible. If the bible was wrong on these points and the bible is the word of god then perhaps his knowledge falls short of omniscience.

Science to the Rescue!

Science to the Rescue have been debunking biblical nonsense again. More power to them. This wouldn't be an issue except that this is the same creation nonsense that is being held up as a valid scientific alternative explaning life on earth, Intelligent Design.

Thunderf00t's Videos

Thunderf00t puts a lot of thought, study and effort into his videos... also he picks creationist pseudoscience to bits. What a guy!



There are dozens of videos. The above is the first in a series of 24 called "Why do people laugh at creationists". That's my idea of a good time, baby.

Artificial selection.

The salt of the earth, the good christian dairy farmer understands that artificial selection will make lasting changes to livestock. A different variety or breed is not a new species but, again, this is because we can only see things in our timeframes. If we can see small changes why can't we extrapolate dramatic changes? Artificial selection shows natural selection in progress. Evolution is exploiting man's desire for more milk.

Evolution

The theist objects to evolution in many ways. The wikipedia offers a list. :)

More creationist pseudo-science, lies and nonsense from the religious right.

Richard Dawkins' gives us a quick rundown on PZ Myers' expulsion from a screening Expelled to which he was invited and a review of the film.

After the screening he talks to PZ Myers about the incident:


This talk refers to this Xvido Video.

Belief-O-Matic

I filled out the Belief-O-Matic questionaire. It returned a result I expected with being 100% Secular Humanist. Some of the other results strike me as quite odd. However, that said, the good thing about these odd results is that it reveals that they are not that far off the mark. They only need a little shove to be unsaved. I know they want to be set free from their nonsense beliefs into a realistic view of the world. It's nice here in the real world. There's no fear of supernatural punishments.

1. Secular Humanism (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (91%)
3. Nontheist (77%)
4. Liberal Quakers (75%)
5. Theravada Buddhism (69%)
6. Neo-Pagan (64%)
7. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (57%)
8. Taoism (50%)
9. New Age (48%)
10. Orthodox Quaker (38%)
11. Reform Judaism (38%)
12. Mahayana Buddhism (37%)
13. Bahá'í Faith (25%)
14. Sikhism (25%)
15. Scientology (24%)
16. Jainism (24%)
17. New Thought (22%)
18. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (19%)
19. Seventh Day Adventist (17%)
20. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (16%)
21. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (14%)
22. Hinduism (12%)
23. Eastern Orthodox (10%)
24. Islam (10%)
25. Orthodox Judaism (10%)
26. Roman Catholic (10%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (6%)

Neo-Darwinism lecture by Richard Dawkins

Kiva. Don't tithe when you can help directly.

When you tithe to your church you are paying for all of the facilities and staff of the church and, if it's a centrally controlled church, there is probably a percentage gobbled up by the church hierarchy. After these deductions, the money might be used for something of social benefit... although it will probably be wasted on a billboard critisizing people who don't attend their church.

This is on 'Luke the Atheist' because being an atheist doesn't mean you just want to keep all of your wage. True generousity isn't giving because some supernatural bully is twisting your arm and threatening a toasty end.

So, why not cut out the middle man. Kiva allows you to pool money online and lend money to a business person in a poor country where their financial systems are not able to help small business.

Small businesses offer communities goods and services that they lack. These small business people now have an income to purchase goods and services from other local small businesses. These little businesses grow and employ people. The whole thing snowballs and the communities economy strengthens. You perhaps have read about people worried about a business withdrawing from a town and how this will have knockon effects. The opposite happens when small Kiva businesses are up and running.

The local lending group educates the borrower. This makes their small business and the whole community smarter and stronger. You can take a look at the local lender to see their interest rate and default rates (if any).

My latest Kiva loan went to Margarita. I re-lent some money that was repaid to me today by another Kiva borrower. Its only USD25 so out it went again. Margarita looks like a hard worker who needs a break in life. The local lending practices look atrocious with interest rates of 120%. Hopefully Kiva and the local partners will be able to drive these interest rates down.

I generally lend to mothers. They will take every cent I lend and make their business work so that their children can eat. The men will take some of the money to the pub to big not themselves first and then go and get on with the business. This is a baseless bias on my part and I know it but I'm happy lending to women. It is positive discrimination at least.

Ferdinand Magellan:

"The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church."

Someone actually visited!

Neuroartist dropped in for a visit.

An Atheist Manifesto

An Atheist Manifesto

The Book of Creation, but funnier.

The Book of Creation covers creation just as it happened with gems such as: "And the species competeth amongst themselves, the cattle and the creeping things; and some madeth it and some didn't; and the dogs ate the dinosaurs and God was pleased."

No Comments. No Readers. No Fans.

I see that I have no comments. I have nothing new to say on this topic. I know that I am talking to no-one here. At least I know this. You pray and think you are talking to someone... who's sillier?

Pat Condell

Pat has lots of videos on youtube. I like the cool logic of them. I can't find cool, patient logic for theists who want to ram it down my throat.

A stolen pic:

A flow chart from atheists.net.

A quote:

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Stephen Roberts

20 Reasons To Abandon Christianity

"20 Reasons To Abandon Christianity" discusses, as you may well be able to guess, reasons to abandon christianity. The site speaks for itself. I particularly like the arguement against faith in scientific theory being the same faith as faith in religion.

muppetmadness

Videos discussing atheism.

If god is dead, who gets his house?

If god is dead, who gets his house?

This is an interesting article about whether atheists need to establish a church like structure. This, I think, would be more for the benefit of theists. This would let them categorise atheists. Theism is about division.

The time and resources required to create an atheist church (sic) are better spent. Sponsor a third world child and volunteer at meals on wheels. This would take a similar amount of time and money and would make the world a better place. Sitting around in church patting each other on the back because you're all off to heaven might make you feel better but it does nothing.

The comments talks about atheist hostility towards theists. I don't really care what others beleive unless it affects me. It starts to affect me when religious groups want others to conform to their moral code. For example, if someone wants an abortion, that's up to them. It doesn't affect my world. This is other people's problems and has nothing to do with me.

When people start stopping valid scientific research because of their nonsence beliefs, this affects me. When religions want to ban books or videos because of their nonsense beliefs they have to expect a reaction.

I don't want to see the world fall back into another dark age. Countries are falling one by one under the control of religious nut bags directed by their imaginary friends.

Turkey is the latest to fall. Turkey was a secular democracy now the Queen of England is greated by the President's wife wearing a head scarf, the simbol of religious oppression of women by men (not by a god - man created god).

They say fight fire with fire. Fight islam with fundamentalist christianity. That's like fucking for virginity!

Do good things in the world because the world is better and it's all we've got.

The Good Atheist

The Good Atheist isn't trying to attack people's beliefs (no matter how odd). They are trying to keep faith out of areas where it has no knowledge.

http://www.thegoodatheist.net/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2462785863

Atheist Dating Site

Wow. Damn! I wish I'd thought of this! LOL

And theists say that atheists never create art...

A poem from:

I thought I saw an atheist, once, walking down the street.
I checked for horns, I checked for tail, I checked for cloven feet;
Began to tremble frightfully—my heart was in my throat—
Then sighed in happy recognition, for ‘twas but a goat.

I thought I saw an atheist, down near a swollen stream
With scaly skin, and blood so cold, I couldn’t breathe to scream!
I looked into his bulging eyes, and prayed “God, grant my wish”
Then laughed in my embarrassment—it only was a fish.

I thought I saw an atheist, with fur and pointed claws,
And wicked teeth for chewing up Judeo-Christian laws,
I ran, and tripped, and fell to earth, then hid behind a log—
It caught me, though, and licked my face—of course, it was a dog.

I thought I saw an atheist, though cleverly disguised
Not giant and reptilian, but human, normal sized,
It looked to be engaging in productive, useful labor;
But no, this was no atheist—this person was my neighbor!

I thought I saw an atheist; in fact, I saw a few!
My neighbor, and the grocer, and the cop, and maybe you!
I even found some in the church, right there beneath the steeple;
It turns out, to my great surprise… that atheists are people.

No Atheists in Foxholes

What does this mean? Are theists trying to say that atheists are cowards? I suspect that this is their point. Upon first hearing this saying I assumed that this meant that atheists were too smart to fall for the theist war cry... I guess my glass was half full on this one.

Anywho, the former is the backhanded insult directed at atheists.

The "Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers" are, understandably, not happy about being labelled cowards. It appears that serving country is not enough for the army. Army personelle report being discriminated against as a result of their atheist views.

There are lots of atheist T-shirts at Cafepress.

Cafepress

Was Galileo a theist?

This shirt says it all:

Galileo was no idiot. Only an idiot could believe that science requires martyrdom - that may be necessary in religion, but in time a scientific result will establish itself. - David Hilbert

Religion in action.

A couple have been stoned to death for eloping near the border between Afganistan and Pakistan. This is what happens when common law is discarded in favour of religious law. This woman was the property of her husband. How can a religion be called loving if love isn't allowed?

This video ends with typical christian kindness...

Videos from The Atheist Experience

Discussing Christianity with a Christian.

It just isn't possible to have a reasonable discussion with a person so completely devoid of education and logic.

194 Contradictions in the Bible

Theists can't see these errors in their perfect word from their god. The fundamentalist seem particularly unable to grasp that documents that are self contradictory are rarely sound: say Mein Kampf for example. If something is so self defeating and flawed why follow it at all.

194 contradictions in the bible lays direct and clear contradictions in front on theists. Don't bother pointing this out to theists, they just don't care about technicalities like this. Religions do not value learning unless it is rote learning the bible. They can tell you what it says and where it is in the bible but they've never looked at it and said: 'What does this mean?'

Innvista goes further further illustrating contradictions between new and old testaments and internal errors in the old testament.

Theists can claim that none of this matters because they have faith in the whole show. I used to accept this idea. It was OK for them to love their god and want to go to heaven. When religion started to put their psuedo-scientific creationist theory up as a competing theory to evolution theory they lost my neutrality.

Countering the run of the mill theist arguements.

Good smart arse one liners to counter theists:
http://www.iamanatheist.com/arguments.html

Morality is the domain of the theist.

I am getting tired of hearing this arguement. Because I don't beleive in your god I can't know not to kill people? This arguement fails with the term 'Holy War'.

Religion just gives a different regret process, it doesn't guarantee that you wont do bad things. Some examples or immoral stuff both theists and atheists are guilty of:
. child abuse
. cheating on spouse
. stealing
. tax evasion
. ... this list is pointless.

Both sides do bad things. Same god does not equal good.