Hitch isn’t done yet

Christopher Hitchens was granted the Richard Dawkins Award tonight at the Texas Freethought Convention. He was looking frail and thin, his voice was husky, but he was amazingly strong. He gave a wonderful, fiery, eloquent acceptance speech, and then he took questions for almost an hour — and he was willing to go on longer and seemed grateful for an opportunity to talk to the public again. He was fierce, courageous, and well-spoken as always, and kept the audience awed and inspired the whole time.

I’m actually optimistic that we’ll see him again in Melbourne for the Global Atheist Convention. I’ll put his talk up as soon as I see it appear on youtube, as I’m sure it will soon enough.

A question for libertarians

I’m listening to Nick Lee and Dale McGowan this morning, and they’re talking about the importance of expanding free thought movements to include the best of what religious organizations offer: community, giving, and social support networks. I like the ideas, but I’m bothered by one thing: I think government should be providing the social safety net, not atheist communities. But then I had an odd thought.

What about the libertarian contingent in atheism?

They take a different view. They generally want to gut government and get them out of the business of the public welfare. Shouldn’t that mean libertarian atheists should be most enthusiastic about seeing the atheist movement becoming more liberal and socially progressive? I’ve seen the opposite, though.

So this is the question for libertarians: do you endorse the liberalization of organized atheism?

Call for submissions

I’ve been reading this book of 100 year old letters from atheists that was published as Letters from an Atheist Nation, and I was thinking that heck, I could do what Charles Chilton Moore did, only here in the 21st century on a blog instead of a newspaper. Moore asked his readership to write short essays, anything from a short paragraph to a couple of pages, that answered the question, “Why I am an atheist”, and then he published one in each issue of his newspaper.

So, I’m requesting submissions from you readers: short pieces titled “Why I am an atheist” which I’ll post here. Be sure to specify what name you’d like associated with it (pseudonyms are acceptable!), and if you’re willing, your general geographic location. Send them along, preferably as plain text, and I’ll make them a regular feature here.

Crazier than Ken Ham?

It’s hard to believe, but yes, there are Christians who are even worse than Ken Ham, and even more ignorant. Here’s one: Pastor Don Elmore of Union, Kentucky. He’s written a revealing screed against Answers in Genesis.

It starts gently enough, chatting about their rapid growth and praising AiG for their work against those wicked evolutionists. And then it goes off the rails.

I am aware of the forces supporting “Answers in Genesis”, these being the same powers that are supporting similar multi-cultural anti-Christian organizations such as Alpha, Promise Keepers, The Full Gospel Businessmen’s Association, Billy Graham ministries, producers of many modern Bible versions, and a multitude of other ministries. These forces are the anti-Christian powers seeking One World Government under man, not God. The essence of my criticism is to show that “Answers in Genesis” supports the humanistic and unbiblical “Brotherhood of Man” doctrine (which also is a Hindu/Roman Catholic/Masonic/Jewish/Judeo-Christian and World-Church belief).

Dang. He kinda hates everyone.

But what really has him worked up is miscegenation! These guys are really still around? The rest of this article is all angry rants about race mixing.

For instance, less than 60 years ago, mixed racial unions were illegal in most of the states in the United States and other White nations. But now, they are tolerated as being supposedly within God’s plan. Under the influence and promotion of the Jewish-Masonic-Papal-Communist/Socialist controlled governments and media, Western Christianity has succumbed to the approval of race mixing, and we will be looking at what is behind this. The Bible abounds with evidence of God’s clear will that the races be separate in every way. “Answers in Genesis” mould all its answers around Judeo-Christian doctrines and traditions, and claims a different basis and definition of “race” from that which the Bible gives. Furthermore, there is evidence of Jewish Talmudic sources, or of what the Apostle Paul calls “Jewish fables”.

That’s about as far as I could get without gagging. It wasn’t just the anti-semitism and the racism…it was that I was actually sympathizing with Answers in Genesis.

(Also on Sb)

I was wondering how you could have a Creation Evidence Expo

There was one in Indianopolis, and snarky people attended. I would think that at best they’d have a succession of people standing up at a lectern, looking shamefaced and confused before shrugging and sitting down with nothing to say, but apparently it went on for days.

This description of one speaker illuminates the process.

I have to say he did not disappoint. It really seemed to be two halves of non-related speeches spliced together. The first half of the speech was talking about how terrible American Society has become since 1963 when the Supreme Court ruled to take God out of schools. He began rambling statistics like unwed pregnancy in 10-14 year olds has gone up 553% since 1963 and violent crime up 998% or something like that. My jaw was on the floor and he didn’t bother to cite a source. The next half of his speech was about the Great Flood and how Pangaea split with the tower of Babel. He went on about how God gave all nations some sort of specialty and that’s why great scientist and geniuses come out of Europe. He was tracking the lineage of Peleg and Ham. Turns out Peleg isn’t related to Pele nor did he have a peg leg. Also, Ham’s offspring were not called bacon. He did let us know that AIDS came from having sex with monkeys and baboons. At least this year he didn’t blame AIDS on the gays.

Now I understand. When you don’t have evidence, make some up.

I do like the image of plate tectonics explained by god smiting a tower in Mesopotamia and sending North America skittering westward to create the Atlantic Ocean. And the idea that Pangaea could be found on earth roughly, according to YEC chronology, in 600BCE is hilarious.

(Also on Sb)

Dear Emma B

This post from Scienceblogs has been nominated for The Open Laboratory 2011, so I thought I’d repost it here on the new site, just in case it gets accepted.

Ken Ham is crowing over fooling a child. A young girl visited a moon rock display from NASA, and bravely went up to the docent and asked the standard question Ham coaches kids to ask — and she’s quite proud of herself.

I went to a NASA display of a moon rock and a lady said, “This Moon-rock is 3.75 billion years old!” Guess what I asked for the first time ever?

“Um, may I ask a question?”

And she said, “Of course.”

I said, in my most polite voice, “Were you there?”

Love, Emma B

Ken Ham is also quite proud of himself. He’s also pleased with the fact that many people will be dismayed at the miseducation he delivers.

Each time I give examples in my blog posts of children who have been influenced by AiG, the atheists go ballistic on their blogs. They hate to read of instances like this. They want to teach these children there is no God and they are just animals in this hopeless and meaningless struggle of this purposeless existence.

I am angry at Ken Ham, but in this case, I mainly feel sad for Emma B, who is being manipulated and harmed by a delusion. So I thought what I would do is write a letter to her — a letter which I wouldn’t send, because I’m not going to intrude on a family with the actual science, but because this is what I would say if Emma actually asked me.

[Read more…]

You talkin’ to me?

No. No you are not, and I’m not talkin’ to you, either, ’cause we aim to push the magic button on the electronic submission form and get this grant out of my life and the lives of my long-suffering collaborators in the grants office this afternoon, and everything else is hanging in the ether until that is done.

If you really want to bother me, go here:

Look at that lineup: you might not want to talk to me because you’re too busy talkin’ to everyone else. That’s OK, though, because this time I’m bringing my wife with me to keep me out of trouble.

But until then, I’ll just go quietly insane all by myself over here.

I am so out of touch

Seriously, half the time I don’t know where I am. I got a call last night from this madman, Scooter of KPFT, asking if I’d be available to do a radio show in Houston on Thursday, and I said, “Thursday? I’m not going to be in Texas this week, am I?” and he says, “Yes, you are” and I go “Huh? Whuh? I thought that was later this month!” But yes, he’s right, a hard-partying wildman of a radio DJ knows better where I’m going than I do.

This week, it’s time for the Texas Freethought Convention!

I’ll be there, I promise. I had my plane reservations and everything. Well, everything except my talk, which isn’t done, but last night after Scooter’s phone call, when I went to bed, my brain did nothing but dream about “Mutants!“, which is the title, and I laid out the entire thing in my sleep. I just have to slap it down in Keynote now, and I’ll be ready. Easy peasy. I think I have three minutes free in my schedule Tuesday night.

I just looked at the schedule, and woo-hoo, I’m the first talk on the opening day of the conference! I hope people are ready for a science-heavy talk to start the day. I also notice that Richard Dawkins has the last slot of the weekend — so it’s going to be like a great big science sandwich.

(Also on Sb)