Archive for October, 2011

I love everything about this video. It’s a debate between a gang of godbotherers and, apparently, one sensible woman on British TV. First, the Christian minister announces that heaven is absolutely real, and that he believes every aborted child automatically goes straight to heaven (how does he know this? I guarantee you that he could not say). Then the smart woman points out that we should be all in favor of abortion, then, to which he replies indignantly that she’s trivializing a very serious issue…I think that claim was too late, since he’d already done that by inventing a simplistic solution, heaven, and declaring that he knew the entrance requirements. And then the ordure strikes the rotating blades, and she explains that she doesn’t believe in things on faith because she’s “not an idiot”. My favorite part: listen to the gasps of horror from the believers after she says that. It’s beautiful. Yes, you ninnies, you’ve been insulted…accurately! I also like how one pompous dufus then demonstrates that she had characterized them correctly by arguing that she believes in faith because she uses money, which isn’t real. I suppose he won’t mind giving me all of his imaginary money in exchange for my imaginary soul, then? The one thing I don’t like is the aftermath. She has been the recipient of some very nasty invective since, declaring that she’s going to hell, that she needs to be “gang reaped”…it’s bizarre and at this point totally unsurprising that the standard illiterate response to an uppity woman is to propose raping her.

I grew up in a nominally Christian home. My parents took us to a United church for a few years when I was very young. Every Sunday we were expected to put money in an envelope as a donation. I like to think that my parents stopped going to church because of the constant requirement for donations. After we stopped attending church we never really discussed religion. I never questioned it, I never knew there were other religions, and I never knew atheism was an option. I live in Canada and we don’t wear our religion on our sleeves for the most part, so I was never exposed to anything outside of that early childhood experience in church. I went to a Catholic highschool, mainly because it was close to my house and the uniform made dressing on a daily basis easy for me. I always felt silly attending the monthly masses and saying the lord’s prayer. It was like wearing an uncomfortable pair of pants. I felt awkward and ridiculous. Enter the internet. This was back in the day when blogs were scarce and websites were hosted on geocities. It was through the internet that I discovered paganism. I thought this was the coolest religion ever. Everything about it appealed to me, the connection with nature, the “magic”, and all of the accessories. I bought lots of books (which I still own if anyone wants to buy them off me!), printed off lots of spells from websites, and bought various knickknacks. But yet again I felt awkward and ridiculous performing the various rites. I was so disappointed, I tried and tried for years to make it all work. I thought believing in something was the default position. Everyone (or so I thought) believed in something. Why couldn’t I? Enter the internet yet again. Surprisingly I still believed that something was wrong with me up until quite recently. In my late 20s I joined a website called Ravelry. This website is mainly about knitting, but has forums for pretty much every topic. It was on this...
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This is a level of disgusting a cat can only dream of achieving. hagfish defend themselves and hunt with slime. How do they do that? They wrap themselves around their prey and strangle them in clouds of goo. Awesome! (Also on Sb)

Jen McCreight had a wake-up call. She wrote a draft of an NSF application that required a personal statement, she wrote about the poor attitude towards evolution she experienced in college, and sent it off to some local people for review. They criticized it, which is not a problem — a good shredding over is always helpful — but the reasons they objected were deplorable. Some of my reviewers, including a professor, insisted that I was “dogmatic,” and “wanted people to believe in evolution just because that’s what you happen to believe in.” That rejecting evolution isn’t a “terrible” attitude. That I shouldn’t be “shocked” that some biology majors don’t believe in evolution, because not everyone has to be like me. That wanting to help people learn about evolution means I thought they were stupid. That I came off as, I quote, “Dawkins-esque.” It was not a “destroy all Christians” essay. It didn’t declare creationists stupid. It described a real problem and Jen’s motivation for addressing it. The problem we often find in the higher levels of academe is that there are people who refuse to recognize anti-evolution as a real problem. It doesn’t affect them — I can assure you that within the community of scientists creationism is not ever a problem. The little dweebs show up at meetings and are ignored or laughed at over beer, and that’s about it. You can pretend, then, that it’s not a real concern as long as you never step outside the smart, rigorous environment of your colleagues, and don’t even bother to look at the activities of the students on your campus. You can do that, too; it’s even rewarded. Successful scientists are focused and disciplined and single-mindedly connected to their professional activities. The student outreach pastor on campus can be giving weekly showings of Kent Hovind videos, the local community can be hounding the high school science...
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Listen to Terence Mckenna. His well-mannered tirade is wonderful. Episode CCLXVI: The Pharyngula bump?