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
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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?