blacksundae

Well-known pro-science blogger PZ Myers of Pharyngula tried to attend a screening of Intelligent Design Creationist documentary, Expelled. He didn’t make it in. His buddy did, though:

They singled me out and evicted me, but they didn’t notice my guest. They let him go in escorted by my wife and daughter. I guess they didn’t recognize him. My guest was …

Richard Dawkins.

He’s in the theater right now, watching their movie.

Tell me, are you laughing as hard as I am?

Read on.

THE ATHEIST APOCALYPSE! [via Pharyngula]

Charles Barkley:

Well, I think they — they want to be judge and jury. Like, I’m for gay marriage. It’s none of my business if gay people want to get married. I’m pro-choice. And I think these Christians — first of all, they’re supposed to be — they’re not supposed to judge other people. But they’re the most hypocritical judge of people we have in this country. And it bugs the hell out of me. They act like their Christians. And they’re not forgiving at all.

Christian Anti-Defamation Commission:

We respect Barkley as an expert on basketball, but he is obviously not an expert on Christian moral theology. The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission calls on Barkley to apologize for his hateful remarks. We are hopeful that he will do the right thing.”

Barkley: 1, CADC: 0. Read on. [via Skepchick]

AP:

A Roman Catholic school board in Ontario ordered the popular fantasy book “The Golden Compass” taken off library shelves at dozens of schools Thursday after receiving a complaint about the author referring to himself as an atheist.

Similar concerns prompted a Catholic organization in the U.S. to urge parents to boycott a movie version of the book starring Nicole Kidman.

The board for Catholic schools in Ontario’s Halton region said a complaint was lodged after British author Philip Pullman stated in an interview that he is an atheist.

Read on. Notice the book, which is at the very least dismissive of Christianity, doesn’t seem to be an issue here. Publically saying that you are an atheist is enough to get your book pulled from shelves. I expect better from the Canadians.

In the U.S., the Catholic League has criticized Pullman’s trilogy for bashing Christianity and promoting atheism.

Shocking! Disgusting! How dare a book advocate a philosphical position! Next I bet Pullman will invade foreign lands and force the people there to “convert” to atheism at the end of a sword.

These are impolite questions. Nobody asks them here by the cool pond tucked into a gentle hillside. Increasingly, nobody asks them outside the gates, either. It is impolite to wonder why our parents sent us all to college, and why generations of immigrants sweated and bled so their children could be educated, if it wasn’t so that we would all one day feel confident enough to look at a museum filled with dinosaurs rigged to run six furlongs at Belmont and make the not unreasonable point that it is all batshit crazy and that anyone who believes this righteous hooey should be kept away from sharp objects and his own money.

Read on.

It is important, however, to note the difference between the strong and weak atheist positions. “Weak atheism” is simple scepticism; disbelief in the existence of God. “Strong atheism” is an explicitly held belief that God does not exist. Please do not fall into the trap of assuming that all atheists are “strong atheists.” There is a qualitative difference in the “strong” and “weak” positions; it’s not just a matter of degree.

Some atheists believe in the nonexistence of all Gods; others limit their atheism to specific Gods, such as the Christian God, rather than making flat-out denials.

“But isn’t disbelieving in God the same thing as believing he doesn’t exist?”

Definitely not. Disbelief in a proposition means that one does not believe it to be true. Not believing that something is true is not equivalent to believing that it is false; one may simply have no idea whether it is true or not. Which brings us to agnosticism.

“What is agnosticism then?”

The term ‘agnosticism’ was coined by Professor T.H. Huxley at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1876. He defined an agnostic as someone who disclaimed both (”strong”) atheism and theism, and who believed that the question of whether a higher power existed was unsolved and insoluble. Another way of putting it is that an agnostic is someone who believes that we do not know for sure whether God exists. Some agnostics believe that we can never know.

In recent years, however, the term agnostic has also been used to describe those who simply believe that the evidence for or against God is inconclusive, and therefore are undecided about the issue.

To reduce the amount of confusion over the use of term agnosticism, it is recommended that usage based on a belief that we cannot know whether God exists be qualified as “strict agnosticism” and usage based on the belief that we merely do not know yet be qualified as “empirical agnosticism.”

Read on. [via Digg]

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan today announced an out-of-court settlement between the Utica Community School District and a local student over the censorship of her 2001 yearbook entry. The student’s entry had been deleted from the yearbook because it contained a passage from the Bible.

“While it is true that the Constitution forbids public schools to promote religion, schools must be careful not to suppress the private religious expression of students,” said ACLU of Michigan Legal Director Michael J. Steinberg, who represented the student. “In this case, a high school purported to create an open forum for student expression, yet censored a student’s speech because it was religious in nature.”

But… but… I thought the ACLU hated Christmas and the Baby Jesus (not to mention puppies)! What are they up to…? [via Reddit]

Daily Kos:

We atheists do not believe in gods, or angels, or demons, or souls that endure, or a meeting place after all is said and done where more can be said and done and the point of it all revealed. We don’t believe in the possibility of redemption after our lives, but the necessity of compassion in our lives. We believe in people, in their joys and pains, in their good ideas and their wit and wisdom. We believe in human rights and dignity, and we know what it is for those to be trampled on by brutes and vandals. We may believe that the universe is pitilessly indifferent but we know that friends and strangers alike most certainly are not. We despise atrocity, not because a god tells us that it is wrong, but because if not massacre then nothing could be wrong.

Hee hee! [via]

Sam Harris and Dennis Prager are exchanging letters as part of Jewcy’s “Big Question” series. A sample from the kickoff:

While Muslim extremists now fly planes into our buildings, saw the heads off journalists and aid-workers, and riot by the tens of thousands over cartoons, several recent polls reveal that atheists are now the most reviled minority in the United States. A majority of Americans say they would refuse to vote for an atheist even if he were a “well-qualified candidate” from their own political party. Atheism, therefore, is a perfect impediment to holding elected office in this country (while being a woman, black, Muslim, Jewish, or gay is not). Most Americans also say that of all the unsavory alternatives on offer, they would be least likely to allow their child to marry an atheist. These declarations of prejudice might be enough to make some atheists angry. But they are not what makes me angry.

As an atheist, I am angry that we live in a society in which the plain truth cannot be spoken without offending 90% of the population. The plain truth is this: There is no good reason to believe in a personal God; there is no good reason to believe that the Bible, the Koran, or any other book was dictated by an omniscient being; we do not, in any important sense, get our morality from religion; the Bible and the Koran are not, even remotely, the best sources of guidance we have for living in the 21st century; and the belief in God and in the divine provenance of scripture is getting a lot of people killed unnecessarily.

Against these plain truths religious people have erected a grotesque edifice of myths, obfuscations, half-truths, and wishful thinking.

I’m still reading the rest of it. Fun stuff. [via]