Did you like this cartoon from the other day?
Good news! Now you can buy it on t-shirts and totebags, and the profits go to the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology. It’s a must-have for every biologist feeling oppressed by the vertebrate hegemony.
He was given the opportunity to suckle at the teat of the Templeton Foundation, and he turned them down.
A few weeks ago I got an email from my book agent. She had been approached by an editor at a well known academic publishing house with a project she thought I would be interested in. Sometime later I met with the editor in question, a genial person with whom I clearly had quite a few interests in common. Nonetheless, a few days later I decided to turn down the offer and pursue other projects. The reason: the book, which would have been part of a series, was going to be produced as a joint venture by the academic press in question and the John Templeton Foundation.
In short, my reason for declining the book project is that I simply don’t like having my name associated with right wing and/or libertarian organizations like the JTF, the American Enterprise Institute or the Institute for American Values.
More scientists ought to join him in refusing to prop up the Templeton’s mystical agenda.
Charlie Hebdo, the French magazine whose offices were firebombed last week because they satirized Mohammed, has turned the other cheek and is trying to kiss and make up with their enemies. Damn those accommodationists! They’ve come out with a new issue, and the cover is a love-letter to the Islamic community.
Love will bring us together.
That odious initiative to declare fertilized zygotes as ‘persons’ in Mississippi? FAILED. In fact, it looks like a lot of conservative craziness got slapped down all around the country. Maybe we’re starting to turn around and go in the right — that is, left — direction, at least a little bit.
Also, while we’re feeling politically ebullient, #OCCUPYMORRIS is marching again tonight. Meet at 4:30 on the UMM mall.
I became a Christian in fifth grade at ten years of age. I had been attending a Christian school for a few weeks by that point, but I wasn’t exactly a practicing Christian. I was sitting in my “science” class as the teacher gave a lecture on the age of the universe, the Bible and its correlation with science, etc. Her misinformation eventually got to me. I became a Christian right then and there, believing fully in the many pseudoscientific claims that my teacher had made.
I am now very relieved to say that I am, in fact, an atheist – due in part to Prof. Myers. But we’ll get to that in a bit.
As a new believer in Christ, and a frequent internet user, I began to come across challenges to the veracity of the Christian faith online. It was inevitable that I would soon find some sort of weird Biblical explanation to this “dogma” that scientists were proclaiming. Indeed, one day I discovered the lectures of one Kent E. Hovind. My mind was easily indoctrinated by Hovind’s BS, and it remained that way for years.
During this time my religion troubled me very deeply. I didn’t want the rapture to occur – I wanted to stay here on Earth, to live, to grow. My search for truth was shrouded by religious presuppositions, which undoubtedly led to many sleepless nights as I wondered how certain facets of Christianity could be true in light of reality. I was being internally tortured by the ideas that had been planted in my head, and I lived in fear of the wrath of God.
Thankfully, everything changed. One day, I discovered a collection songs on Youtube – the Symphony of Science. Each song was composed of remixed snippets of audio and video from various shows, presentations, and talks relating to science. One of these songs was entitled “A Wave of Reason,” based on a talk given by Dr. Richard Dawkins. The musical piece was essentially about skepticism and reason.
My discovery of this song was the spark that led me to investigate further into science and the natural world. I watched the entirety of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos during this time. My search pressed on as I came across lectures and discussions by Dawkins, Sam Harris, Prof. Myers, and many others.
As I became more and more educated, I saw more and more flaws in religion. And eventually, thankfully, relievedly, I shed the childish concept of religion that had held me captive. I am a much happier individual because of it.
Thank you, Prof. Myers, for playing a vital role in my leaving religion. I cannot thank you enough.
Anonymous
It’s his birthday. If you were hoping to celebrate by making an apple pie from scratch, as is customary, I hope you remembered to start your universe preheating well ahead of time. It takes over 13 billion years, you know.
If you forgot, that’s OK. Watch him on youtube or read one of his books, instead.
(Also on Sb)
It’s his birthday. If you were hoping to celebrate by making an apple pie from scratch, as is customary, I hope you remembered to start your universe preheating well ahead of time. It takes over 13 billion years, you know.
If you forgot, that’s OK. Watch him on youtube or read one of his books, instead.
(Also on FtB)
The The Crommunist Manifesto has a very unexciting banner, and he’s looking for help fixing it. If you’ve got any artistic talent at all, get on over there and put something better together.
Also the quote from Christopher Hitchens that he wants to display is fabulous and wonderfully appropriate:
The stubborn persistence of chauvinism in our life and letters is or ought to be the proper subject for critical study, not the occasion for displays of shock.
Freethoughtblogs will be down for a few hours on Friday night, after 10pm Central. With all the booming traffic and these top-notch new bloggers joining us, we’re going to upgrade the server to the fastest, bestest, most powerful monster machine available.
I’m afraid it’s mostly over: the trees around me are mostly skeletal, and we’ve just got boring piles of dead brown leaves on our lawn. But you can browse through photographic travelogue of Autumn in the US, at least, and pretend you got out to see the fall colors.
(Also on Sb)
