The unseen

Some more on Bart Ehrman and places where he seems too definite.

Backing up from where I started yesterday (which was p 82), on p 78 he says that mythicists fail to appreciate

that our surviving accounts, which began to be written some forty years after the traditional date of Jesus’s death, were based on earlier written sources that no longer survive. But they obviously did exist at one time, and they just as obviously had to predate the Gospels that we now have.

Obviously? Well it’s not obvious to me, for one. Plausible, but not obvious. [Read more…]

Packing the courts

This is familiar – there’s a new book out, The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity, and guess what – it’s packed to the rafters with Templeton-connected people, and with the other kind of people not so much. The evolution section, for instance –

Denis Alexander is director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, which was originally funded (and still gets funds from) the Templeton Foundation. He’s also on the Board of Trustees of the Templeton Foundation.

We already know Michael Ruse, who is sympathetic to religion and, in fact, despite his atheism is very generous (and ingenious) in offering the faithful arguments for reconciling religion and science. I would hope his piece would highlight the incompatibility between Darwinism and religion, but I’d bet heavily against that. [Read more…]

Reason Rally Marks Turning Point for Secular Movement, American Politics

Just in case you didn’t know –

———–

(Washington, DC) Atheists are coming out of the closet – and coming together. At a press conference held this morning at the National Press Club, Reason Rally organizers and speakers hailed the upcoming event as an unprecedented display of numbers and unity. The Reason Rally, a national gathering of nonreligious Americans to celebrate secular values, will take place from 10AM-6PM on March 24th and is estimated to draw thousands. It is being sponsored by all the major organizations in the Secular movement.

“The Reason Rally proves to all of us that we can unite, cooperate and succeed to achieve our common goals of advancing secularism in America,” said David Silverman, chair of the Reason Rally and President of American Atheists. “This unity is a major victory in and of itself, and will prove to be the first step toward a long-term, movement-wide effort to raise the profile of the atheist.”

Journalist Jamila Bey, one of the Reason Rally speakers, said the event would be a “wake up call” to the nation. “The country is evolving. We are women, we are men, we are children and we are parents. We live here, we vote, we buy things. We matter.”

Politicians in particular will need to take notice of the growing unity of the secular movement, said speaker Sean Faircloth, representative from the Richard Dawkins Foundtion.

“There needs to be a place in politics for voices like famous conservative Barry Goldwater, who had no respect for the Religious Right,” said Faircloth, who served 10 years in the Maine state government. “But the reality is that right now, the Religious Right has veto power over one of the two major political parties.”

The Reason Rally will help change that, said comedian Paul Provenza, who will emcee the event. “Part of what this rally is about is to show that there is an audience and a base for those willing to stand up against the Religious Right forcing their beliefs on everyone.”

The Rally, a free event on the National Mall, features prominent nonreligious speakers and entertainers including scientist and author Richard Dawkins, comedian Eddie Izzard, “Mythbusters” co-star Adam Savage, comedian and musician Tim Minchin and the band Bad Religion.

More information about the Reason Raly can be found at http://reasonrally.org

###

For more information contact:

Jesse Galef

Publicity Director

Reason Rally Coalition

cell: 614-654-0772

office: 614-441-9588 x101

Jesse@secularstudents.org

The Reason Rally is sponsored by American Atheists, American Humanist Association, Atheist Alliance of America, The Brights, Camp Quest, Center for Inquiry, Freethought Society, The James Randi Educational Foundation, Military Atheists and Freethinkers, The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, Secular Student Alliance, Secular Coalition for America, Society for Humanistic Judaism, Stiefel Freethought Foundation, United Coalition of Reason and Washington Area Secular Humanists.

Have you ever seen Brendan O’Neill and Bill O’Reilly in the same place?

Brendan O’Neill is tearing his hair out in frustration at the mystifying way gay marriage has suddenly puffed up huge and taken over all the things!!11 He just doesn’t understand. He’s baffled. He can’t figure it out. He’s amazed.

As I say, nothing in this debate makes sense. This is such a relatively overnight concern, and is so unrooted in political campaigning or historical substance, that it would make as much sense if, tomorrow, every politician and commentator in the land suddenly started talking about how important it is to give women the right to live in treehouses. After all, there are probably some women who want to live in treehouses, and the public might well support their right to do so while also arguing that making it happen should not be a parliamentary priority, so why don’t Cameron and the commentariat make a big deal of that?

Good point! Super super super good point! Or why don’t they make a big deal of giving dogs the right to wear orange Crocs? Because obviously the right to marry is every bit as wack and trivial and random as the right to live in treehouses or wear orange Crocs. So funny of Brendan O’Neill to spot that and say it. [Read more…]

It is our duty to refuse

A doctor on transvaginal ultrasounds: where is the physician outrage?

Fellow physicians, once again we are being used as tools to screw people over. This time, it’s the politicians who want to use us to implement their morally reprehensible legislation. They want to use our ultrasound machines to invade women’s bodies, and they want our hands to be at the controls. Coerced and invaded women, you have a problem with that? Blame us evil doctors. We are such deliciously silent scapegoats.

It is our responsibility, as always, to protect our patients from things that would harm them. Therefore, as physicians, it is our duty to refuse to perform a medical procedure that is not medically indicated. Any medical procedure. Whatever the pseudo-justification.

It’s time for a little old-fashioned civil disobedience.

Second that.

What Ehrman actually says

Richard Carrier takes a look at Bart Ehrman’s article at the Huffington Post on the did-Jesus-exist question. One point Richard makes jumped out at me, because the same thing jumped out at me in Ehrman’s book.

Mistake #2: Ehrman actually says (and I can’t believe it, but these are his exact words):

With respect to Jesus, we have numerous, independent accounts of his life in the sources lying behind the Gospels (and the writings of Paul) — sources that originated in Jesus’ native tongue Aramaic and that can be dated to within just a year or two of his life (before the religion moved to convert pagans in droves). Historical sources like that are pretty astounding for an ancient figure of any kind.

He actually says we have such sources. We do not. That is simply a plain, straight-up falsehood. I can only suppose he means Q or some hypothesized sources behind the creedal statements in Paul or the sermons in Acts, but none of those sources exist, and are purely hypothetical. In fact, barely more than conjectural. There is serious debate in the academic community as to whether Q even existed; and even among those who believe it did, there is serious debate about whether it comes from Aramaic or in fact Greek sources or whether it’s one source or several or whether it even goes back to Jesus at all. [Read more…]

The Observatory on Theocracy

Sigmund keeps an eye on the Iona Institute, and he alerted me to its report on a report by a Christian panic-group about “attacks on Christians.” The report on the report is indeed risible.

Christians are the victims in 85pc of ‘hate crimes’ in Europe according to a new report published yesterday.

The report, published by the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe, a European body established to record instances of anti-Christian bias, provides a series of examples of attacks on Christians in 2011.

Spoiler alert: the “attacks” are not “attacks.” [Read more…]

Equinox

Daffodils are starting to bloom, but slowly. I want more.

I didn’t see many in Manchester, either, doubtless because I was in the heart of the city except for that one walk I took to the University. I want more.

Global warming . . . dress rehearsal