So why am I flying off to Los Angeles and leaving my hot date behind?
Oh, well. She can watch this instead.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
So why am I flying off to Los Angeles and leaving my hot date behind?
Oh, well. She can watch this instead.
Good morning, everyone! I’m in Fargo, and I need to go home, so I’m looking at a few hours on cold roads next. But I was in a debate with Dr Fazale Rana of Reasons to Believe last night, and I said I’d post my opening statement, so here it is.
In general, my strategy last night was to go meta on him. He’s trained as a biochemist, so I expected he’d try to slug it out toe-to-toe with lots of facts about biology, but I didn’t want to lose sight of the fact that he would be trying to use mundane, material evidence obtained by scientists who did not accept his creationist interpretations, and that his job was to provide evidence of the miracles that he would insist must have occurred in the history of life on earth. So I hammered him to give specifics about any divine intervention — to not just say we don’t know what happened in the Cambrian or at the beginning — and to explain how he knew it was definitely a supernatural transition rather than a natural one, like all the other examples he used. I think it worked and wrecked his rhythm and got him to stagger off of his planned script, which was enough.
I can’t declare victory though — as I predicted in the opening, the Christians didn’t abandon their beliefs, the atheists (there was a pretty good contingent of them there) weren’t going to join the church, and all we could hope to do is to get people to think.
ISIS is running rampant in Fallujah.
The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights announced Tuesday that a man identified as Abu Anas al-Libi had killed more than 150 women and girls in Iraq’s Fallujah, some of whom were pregnant.
OK, we all know you’re not a scientist. You might even be a college drop-out. You might have personal beliefs that are a little wacky. But when you’re running for office, any office, even the presidency, it is understood that you’re not going to micromanage every single detail, and one of the things we’re going to expect of you is that you’ll delegate responsibilities to qualified, intelligent underlings.
So when you’re asked a question like “Do you believe in evolution,” there is a good answer and a bad answer.
Just in case you can’t make it out to Fargo or LA this weekend, where I’ll be, I’m going to reciprocate by not showing up at the Creation Science Fair.
Twin Cities Creation Science Fair (Fair Guidelines)
University of Northwestern, Maranatha Hall
3003 North Snelling Ave. Roseville Minnesota
Oy, it’s an evening for a debate with a creationist. Hey, Matt Dillahunty, would you like to jump on a plane and zip up here to Fargo, North Dakota to take over for me? You’re so much better than I am at this stuff.
Probably not. I just have to brace myself up, I guess. Anyway, it’s going to be packed with Christians — I think the 7th Day Adventists are sponsoring this thing — so any friendly godless faces in the audience will be appreciated. It’s at 7pm, in the Ramada Inn (1635 42nd St S), and the topic is “Is there evidence for a creator or not?”. I’m “not.”
I enjoyed this video of one guy playing the same tune in the style of 10 different well-known guitarists, but at every change I was thinking Jimi Hendrix has got to be next. And he wasn’t.
Next October, the People of Color Beyond Faith Network, Black Skeptics Group, Houston Black Non-Believers, Black Freethinkers, the American Humanist Association and African Americans for Humanism are sponsoring the second Moving Social Justice conference, to be held in Houston, Texas. These are people who are as godless as it gets, and somehow they’re able to recognize that social justice issues can and ought to be front and center in a secular, rational, religion-free community.
I am perpetually baffled by other atheists who think it shouldn’t even be on the map.
