Terry Pratchett - 'I'd Rather Be a Rising Ape Than a Fallen Angel'

Sam Harris

Slip The Dawk a few bucks. He's a champ!

Tim Minchin : 'Peace Anthem for Palestine'

Tim Minchin's "White Wine In The Sun"

Buy it via iTunes to make it a Christmas hit... that'd be funny.

Controversial Christmas Display, Jesus versus Santa

NIPOMO - One Nipomo man's holiday decorations has his neighbors banding together to get it removed.

The display is of Jesus and Santa, the two icons of Christmas. However, Jesus is holding a shotgun over the dead body of Santa Claus.

Neighbors want the display taken down citing that there are children in the neighborhood and they find it disturbing. "I know its freedom of speech, but it's pretty disturbing and there are lots of children, that's our main concern," says neighbor Susana Cruz.

Link:

Finally this Jesus dude is showing his true colours. It's obvious that he is a trouble maker with all of that cursing figs that he used to do.

Embiggen Books - Peter Ellerton Critical Thinking Talk

Embiggen Books

Mercy Ministries Australia Closes

It seems that the money and support have finally dried up. I wonder if Mercy had reviewed their treatment regime, produced something based in science and adequate research, as opposed to some extreme right biblical views they might have had a chance.

Link to SeanTheBlogonaut's post.

Old news but we were away when this happened. Good to see these scam artists finally closed down. People with eating disorders need careful, qualified, scientifically proven assistance, not bible studies and cruelty.

Well don't Sean. You've made the world a better place with your diligent pursuit of the truth of this matter.

Evangelical ministry facing 'demonically inspired financial attack'

So this is christianity doing more good work. A multi-millions dollar settlement because their woolly headed book says beating children is OK. How could a two year old benefit or learn from corporal punishment? They're too young to understand most anything.

I wonder if they'd have gotten as many donations if they'd been honest and said: "We need $3,000,000 so we can keep beating toddlers. Don't let the government stop good, moral christians from beating two year olds."

Link:

Great reaction from a Mum about a kid who comes out as an atheist.

glumbert - Don't tell Mom you're an atheist

That's it forever. This kid's never coming back to her church after this display of Christian love.

Google has MarJoe as one file

Britons are losing their faith

Further questions showed that 37 per cent of Britons either do not believe in God or are unable to say if a supreme being exists, while 35 per cent have a definite belief in God or belief with occasional doubts.

Link:

Climate Change -- Those hacked e-mails

Not atheism but the video is by thunderf00t and his videos are always excellent. The core of the climate change deniers are the core of the evolution deniers.

Thunderf00t on youtube

Thunderf00t has 78000 plus followers!!!

Link:

When Ray Comfort published...

When Ray Comfort published his own version of Darwin's Origin, he had to come up with some original content for the introduction. He couldn't. Instead, he stole the first three pages outright from an essay by University of Tennessee professor Stan Guffey - those are the only reasonable pages in his 50 page contribution - and the rest is a mish-mash of standard creationist arguments that you can find on the internet. It's actually kind of impressive that he reached so low on the stupid scale with this one; there isn't one creative thought in the whole sloppy, plagiarized piece of work.

Link to P Z Myers' blog

A Lesson for All Christians 13 Hitchens Breaks the Bible Down

Christopher Hitchens Owns the Christian Book Expo 2009

Atheist-mas

Atheist-mas comic:

Octopus using tools.

Footage of an octopus carrying a coconut shell around just in case it needs it for protection. This is illustrative of planning and tool use, things that theists have tried to claim is exclusive to humans.

Boing Boing post:



Boing Boing's funny comment:
Warning: This video contains footage of an octopus hiding under a coconut shell that it has carried around just in case it needed to hide from something. Watching this footage may contradict your previous assumptions about animal tool use, and may be too adorable for some viewers.

Turkey censors evolution

It has been the biggest crisis in Turkish academia since last year's lifting of the headscarf ban in universities. Last week a portrait of Charles Darwin was taken off the cover of the March issue of the government-backed science magazine Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology) just before it went to press. TÜBTAK, Turkey's national science funding agency, which publishes the magazine, then sacked its editor, Çidem Atakuman. Scientists, assuming censorship, are justifiably outraged and protests are ongoing.

Link:

Matt Dillahunty's things that he would call "sins"

Starting around 3 min.45 sec.

1) Credulity
2) Voluntary wilful ignorance
3) Letting fear prevent you from understanding reality
4) Limiting the rights and freedoms of others in order to make them abide by your standards.
5) Sacrificing the mental, emotional and physical well-being of a child in deference to your religion
6) Wasting the one and only life that you know you are going to have worrying about and working for an afterlife that someone told you might be there

Sam Harris at AAI 07

The problem of dualism

Public Funding of Muslim schools in Britain

BBC Newsnight on Public Funding of 'Muslim Extremist Schools' in Britain



This is an issue of public money being used to indoctrinate children into anti-democratic, xenophobic views.

"Are you a good person?"

If an apologist asks you "Are you a good person?" be ready to repel them with this:

A conversation with Dawkins

Richard Dawkins at Origins Symposium

Jim Wallace to attend Mayoral Prayer Breakfast in Gympie.

"BRIGADIER Jim Wallace served with distinction in the Australian Army for many years after graduating from Duntroon, the British Army Staff College and the Australian College of Defence and Strategic Studies."

Link:

The Gympie Times article fails to mention that Jim Wallace is not just some lovable ex-army Brigadier but is also a raving evangelical and the head of the ACL.

I corrected them with a letter to the editor thus:

The Gympie Times article discussing the 2010 Gympie Mayoral Prayer Breakfast promised "unity" and made regular use of the word "values." In inviting president of the Australian Christian Lobby, Jim Wallace, to address this council-sanctioned religious event, exactly what "values" are being endorsed?

A look at the ACL website reveals that Mr Wallace opposes gay marriage, euthanasia and reproductive choice for women. He is a strong supporter of government censorship in the form of the mandatory internet filter and has led a campaign against a charter of human rights being introduced into Australia. The ACL questions the scientific reality of climate change.

These "values" weren't mentioned in the article, which overlooked Mr Wallace's political affiliations. It seems to me that this "unifying" meeting is espousing "values" that many Gympie ratepayers would not support. Why, then, does it have Mayoral and council endorsement?

Hitchens: Moral Superiority of Atheism

Heaven's Gate

Hilarious!

American Vice: Mapping the 7 Deadly Sins

We're gluttons for infographics, and a team at Kansas State just served up a feast: maps of sin created by plotting per-capita stats on things like theft (envy) and STDs (lust). Christian clergy, likely noting the Bible Belt's status as Wrath Central, question the "science." Valid point-or maybe it's just the pride talking.

Link:

Attenborough

Hitchens in Collision

Christopher Hitchens in Collision
by Xrunner17

Rowan Atkinson in 'We are most amused'

Dan Dennett: Ants, terrorism, and the awesome power of memes

I dismiss theists out of hand.

Atheists are accused of dismissing religious people out of hand. It is true that I do this if they are trying to explain their position from a religious point of view. What it comes down to, for me, is the same as maths and science. You might have the correct answer but if your method is wrong or you can't show your workings then you don't get full marks.

In any situation if you are going to introduce magical thought you haven't been able to show your workings so you are wrong.

Further to this, this is a thought pattern that I can't access. I can't say that god/s will give me the strength to get through some hardship. I need something that I can access without magical thought.

How "Christmas-Friendly" Are Retailers?

Instead of doing something constructive or socially useful, these theists are analysing retail employees to see which retailers are parroting xmas cheer.

Link:

Gay student recounts painful conversion therapy, abuse

This is part one of a five - part series addressing the gay community and its relationship to organized religion. Parts one and two are a profile of a K-State student, whose name was changed for anonymity, who underwent a conversion therapy program as a child. The reference to LGBTQI stands for lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, questioning and inter-sex.

Link:

side hugs and sex education

Anti-gay school bus incident renews calls for anti-bullying legislation

Chinea Larkin, the 10th grade student of the district, told the station: "When I got off the bus, I stood up and was about to get off the bus, she was like, 'now you can get your gay self off my bus.' Well, she said 'get your gay tail off my bus.'"

In the video, the unidentified woman bus driver can be heard saying to Larkin: "Hopefully you and your little girlfriend don't get lost in your unsaved lives."

Link:

Transcript of "The Four Horsemen"

Including:
"[CH] What I say to these people is this, you're sending your e-mail or your letter to the wrong address. Everyone says let's not judge religion by its fundamentalists. Alright. Take the church of England, two of whose senior leaders recently said that the floods in north Yorkshire were the result of homosexual behavior, not in north Yorkshire presumably, probably in London, I think they're thinking …

[DD] God's aim is a little off!

[CH] One of these, the Bishop of Carlisle, is apparently about to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Now, this is extraordinary. This is supposed to be the mild and reflective and thoughtful and rather troubled church making fanatical pronouncements! Well, I want to hear what Allister McGrath is gonna to write to the Bishop of Carlisle, not to me. Is he going to say, my Lord Bishop, do you not realise what a complete idiot you're making of yourself and of our church? Did he do this? If he did it in private I am not impressed. He has to say it in public."

Link:

Sam Harris

MARJOE the movie.

Hitchens and Boteach Debate on God

The Dawk on 'the arrogance of religious persons'

Dredg - I Don't Know ( music video )

redg - I Don't Know ( music video )

redg - I Don't Know ( music video )

redg - I Don't Know ( music video )

redg - I Don't Know ( music video )

Kiva

The Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious group has made 41,000 plus loans for USD1,254,350. Yay!

Link:

'Creationism: Still Crazy After All These Years' - Eugenie Scott, AAI 2009

(1/14) Intelligence Squared - Atheism is the new fundamentalism

14 might seem like a lot but with The Dawk in it the time will fly. :)

Science Jokes

This is what happens when you start making laws based on religion.

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has failed in his bid to stop his sodomy trial from going ahead in another blow to his fluctuating fortunes.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court today rejected Anwar's application to have the case thrown out before it is heard in court.

Link:

Forget Christmas! Shakehands Midwinter!

Shakehands Midwinter, the perfect secular celebration.

Wikipedia are denying the very existence of Shakehands Midwinter

Uncyclopedia are a little more open minded.