Announcement: the World Ended Yesterday!

As you all know, it was predicted that the world would end on 21 October. I understand many of you are puzzled to note that you are still here. The purpose of this post is to inform any of you who have been engaged in wild, drunken orgies all night and are now blearily and confusedly turning on your computers and turning immediately to Pharyngula (as you all do, I know) that unfortunately, you are very late to work. Shower quickly, get to your car, and get coffee at the drive-through on your way — with any luck, though, your boss is in the same state and will forgive you.

However, I have to inform you that the world did end yesterday, exactly as predicted. Note please, that today is Thursday. The world is created anew every Thursday, with all the evidence of great age, including memories of last week, implanted freshly in the universe. So you actually did a) die horribly in chaos and flames or b) loft nakedly and rapturously in a beam of light to heaven last night, but you are now living in a background of false memories that do not include such trauma, because God is good…at dicking around with your head.

As a side bonus, the Deep Rift between the LastThursdayists and LastTuesdayists has now been healed with the positive affirmation of the truth of the former’s position. Any LastTuesdayists who persist in their error can now be dealt with in an entirely justifiable and dire way.

Fur good, feathers bad

Join me in feeling some taxonomic loyalty to our class in defiance of our ancient enemy, those feathered reptiles, the birds. The BBC has footage of eagles hunting and killing young reindeer — they swoop down and stab their talons into their lungs, and then wait for them to die. Ouch. Poor Bambi Rudolph.*

I will also note that this is yet another shot in the great War on Christmas. They’re killing Santa’s livestock! I suspect the Christian toy-god also has to fret over bird strikes in flight.

*Apologies. My prior secular metaphor was in error, and I have replaced it with the name of a true Christian saint who, now having been tortured and killed, may now be worshipped. Rudolph died for your sins in this video.

No more blasphemy laws, please

It’s very nice of Obama to have occasionally acknowledged the existence of freethinkers in his speeches, but it doesn’t mean much when his administration endorses blasphemy laws.

The public and private curtailment on religious criticism threatens religious and secular speakers alike. However, the fear is that, when speech becomes sacrilegious, only the religious will have true free speech. It is a danger that has become all the more real after the decision of the Obama administration to join in the effort to craft a new faith-based speech standard. It is now up to Congress and the public to be heard before the world leaves free speech with little more than a hope and a prayer.

Free speech doesn’t mean you only have the right to say things that the majority agrees upon — it is also the right of a minority to offend the majority. I don’t know why that is so hard to get across to some people.

CoR is everywhere

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Those rascals at the Coalition of Reason are stirring up mischief again — people are sending me all these news stories about ads going up in the NY subways, Boston, Chicago, and so forth. They are making trouble for atheists! Didn’t they get the word that we’re supposed to be as quiet as mice, laying low and avoiding antagonizing the elephantine majority that might just squish us? Any active response by a subset of atheists will also mean that some other subset will be doing something different, which will create Deep Rifts, and we can’t have that.

Nah, I’m just pulling your leg. Get out there and make some noise. CoR seems to be doing a fine job of coordinating national awareness campaigns.

Oprah may not have puked at the mention of atheism! It’s a breakthrough!

Greg Laden reports that Oprah actually had positive things to say about the quality of life in Denmark, and may even have been non-condemning in a brief comment about their godlessness. I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that Greg spends his afternoons watching Oprah. But after that, I’m mildly and pleasantly surprised. I doubt that much was said about it (parts of the program are online, but no, I simply can’t bear to watch it), but at least it’s one tiny step toward mainstreaming atheism.

Promising new developments

Scienceblogs grows a little more, with the addition of two new blogs.

We now have Pamela Ronald talking about food and farm science at Tomorrow’s Table. That should fill a gap in the coverage here!

The other entry might be of more interest to readers here, because of the topics covered. We’ve drawn David Sloan Wilson away from the awful Huffington Post, and he’ll be posting on Evolution for Everyone. He’s a very big name in evolution, and I’ve commented on his work before: I think he’s provocative and interesting, but disagree strongly with him on some parts of his ideas about religion. I’ll also be very interested in seeing him present his case for group selection.

Piling on Bill Donohue again

It’s cruel, but he is such a tempting target, so full of himself and so, so crazy. It seems The Simpsons tossed out some mild one-liner making fun of communion (“What kind of civilized people eat the body and blood of their savior?”), and Bill Donohue has fired off another angry fax (“mocking the heart of any religion always crosses the line, and mocking the Eucharist does it for Catholics.”)

Too bad, Bill. Silly superstitions will always be a magnet for mockery.

You can see the whole Simpsons episode and Donohue’s full complaint at The Friendly Atheist.

Homeopaths on a poll — redux

I already sent you off to vote on this German poll that would have awarded homeopaths a prize…and you all did good, giving the good guys, SOZIALHELDEN (Social Heroes), a solid lead over the dangerous crackpots, Homöopathen ohne Grenzen (Homeopaths without borders).

Unfortunately, the poll didn’t end then. It’s been going on all this time, and the quacks have been creeping up, and are actually getting close to winning. So I must send you off again: go vote, or “Stimme abgeben”!

Dawkins vs. Hewitt

Whoa. Richard Dawkins appeared on the Hugh Hewitt show. Hewitt, in case you didn’t know, is one of those far right radio wingnuts, a lawyer with a blog who defended George W. Bush, the Iraq war, and always sides with religious conservatives in the culture wars.

It’s a fairly long interview, and you can see Hewitt trying to make lawyerly probes to lead Dawkins away from the book, and he’s also good at making lawyerly innuendo for his already anti-Dawkins audience — he’s constantly trying to cast doubt on the evidence for evolution, for instance — and you can tell that Richard is getting increasingly exasperated with the silly line of interrogation…until he finally snaps.

RD: Okay, do you believe Jesus turned water into wine?

HH: Yes./p>

RD: You seriously do?

HH: Yes.

RD: You actually think that Jesus got water, and made all those molecules turn into wine?

HH: Yes.

RD: My God.

HH: Yes. My God, actually, not yours. But let me…

RD: I’ve realized the kind of person I’m dealing with now.

I’m sure he’s overwhelmed right now with his book tour, but somebody needs to warn him about exactly what he’s walking into before he gets in front of a microphone. Hewitt is a ridiculous puffed-up blowhard of very little brain, and a remarkably calm, polite discussion while he ducks and dodges and blows a dog-whistle for his crazy listeners doesn’t work very well.

If Dawkins is going on the Glenn Beck show, though, I want to know about it.

(via Instaputz)