Last night in Dublin…

I am off to a fun start here in Ireland, with a busy day yesterday. I was on the Tom McGurk radio show, which is summarized by a listener. Basically, it was the cracker incident compressed into less than 10 minutes, with McGurk barking at me and an amazingly clueless and pompous senator, Ronan Mullen, brought in to wax indignant at my affront to Catholicism. It was not a good format to actually address the issues — Mullen actually dared me to blaspheme against Muslims, for instance, and all I had time to do was laugh at the hilarity of yet another instance of fatwah envy before they both went gallumphing over me with outrage — but that was OK, the point was to stir up some argument and maybe get a few more people to show up at my talks where I can actually make a reasonable case.

Last night I also shared a table with Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland to discuss the blasphemy laws with an overfull room. Michael was the real star there — he’s very knowledgeable about Irish politics, much more so than me, obviously. One of the great points he made was that Mullen’s indignation about an atheist committing blasphemy was profoundly hypocritical. Apparently, Mullen voted against the blasphemy law at first, for an interesting reason: it didn’t provide for allowing religious people to blaspheme against other religions than their own.

Dublin and Cork and Galway and Belfast coming up

It’s a busy few days coming up. This afternoon I’m going to record an interview for a show called Culture Shock on Newstalk Radio, which is broadcast on Thursdays at 10pm on 106-108fm. I’ll be at UCD tonight at 6:30, in Theatre B in the Science Hub.

Tomorrow I hop on a train for Cork, 7pm in Council Chambers Room, 1st floor, North Wing of Main Quadrangle, UCC. I’ll be sharing the stage with a representative from Educate Together, and the subject will be on the importance of a secular education.

On Thursday, I’ll be in Galway, speaking in the O’Flaherty Theatre, NUI Galway, at 6:30 pm. I see they’ve listed a couple of potential topics…maybe I’ll just poll the audience to see which they want to hear.

On Friday, I’ll be talking about Creationism and Complexity in Belfast, 6pm in the Peter Froggatt centre, room G06, at Queens University. We’d also talked about doing a second lecture in Belfast, on evo-devo for general audiences, probably on Saturday, but I haven’t heard any details on that just yet.

Sunday I fly home to collapse in the arms of the Trophy Wife™.

And now you all know where to find me. If I could just get over the jet lag, which hit me something fierce this morning, it should be a fun week.

Atheist convention sold out

The Global Atheist Convention is now officially sold out. If you want to get in, you’ll have to find a scalper.

I am still surprised at how oblivious some commentary on the convention can be. Some people can’t imagine what we could have to talk about without any gods in the room.

But, if the atheists who post on this blog are to be believed, they have nothing in common with each other except a lack of belief in “imaginary friends”. They stand for nothing together, hold no ethical precepts in common, hold no ambitions in common (except, perhaps, a desire to see a religionless world). So what on earth (given that heaven is ruled out) will they talk about?

We stand for nothing together…except for the importance of reason, evidence, and science in understanding the world. You know, scientists routinely hold conventions much larger than this, and somehow we find lots to say. For that matter, car salesmen have bigger conventions, and I’m pretty sure their conversations don’t center around religion much, either.

We have no ethical precepts together…does he expect that this will be a meeting of axe-murderers, father-rapers, and church-burners? We hold a common morality that ties society together, and as the more gregarious subset of the freethought community (the less gregarious are staying home) we also believe in the importance of coordinated communal activity.

We have no ambitions in common…except that we’d all like to live in a more rational world, where our leaders made political decisions based on evidence rather than faith, where secular education was paramount, where we recognized the common humanity of everyone on the planet and worked to make this world a better one, free of the illusion of another world beyond.

As we’ve come to expect, that’s another hoodwinked, naively pro-religion commentator whose imagination is in a state of critical failure.

Catching up with Molly again

Hey, look, I’m not too late with the Molly awards! The Molly for the month of December is split between John Morales, who seems to turn up in the list of candidates every month, and Leigh Williams, who stirred up some controversy in the voting because she is a Christian and we are, after all, a godless horde. I figure hanging out with us at least makes her an honorary atheist, since so many of her fellow co-religionists will damn her to hell anyway.

Now think back to January 2010. Which commenter should get the award for that month? Leave a comment here.

Numbers herein are used to demonstrate the irrelevance of the numbers herein

I’m not going to get into the ongoing civility wars. They were prompted by the announcement that the Nature Network has passed the landmark of 50,000 comments — congratulations, and that’s very good — and various comments within that thread, combined with Greg Laden’s helpful addition of more incindiary agents, has blown up nicely into an interesting and sometimes acrimonious discussion.

I’ll just point out, though, that it’s silly to use comment numbers as an indicator of success of social networking. The endless thread alone, which is almost entirely free-form chit-chat and unabashed social glue for the community here, has somewhere north of 20,000 comments; maybe Sven can extrapolate to when that one thread will exceed Nature Network’s accomplishment. I can also tell you that Pharyngula currently has a grand total of 897,837 comments. I haven’t been paying attention to that parameter, but we should hit a million comments at this one blog sometime this year.

I don’t give a damn about civility. I let people say whatever; my primary criterion for cutting people off is whether they’re boring/obsessive/persistently stupid. If you want to fire up lots of lively discussion and encourage expression of multiple viewpoints, the rule should be hands off — not fussing over ‘tone’ (a word becoming about as distasteful as ‘framing’), not worrying about whether manners should dictate what is allowed to be posted. It does make for a rather Darwinian commenting environment, and some people are harshly self-culled…but the failures here are largely the fragile flowers who need their self-esteem propped up before they can express their opinions, and I don’t miss them at all. All you regulars can take pride in the fact that you are the strong survivors, possessing robust egos and good solid voices, who can handle the challenge of an ungentle tone.

Which ain’t much of an accomplishment, so don’t get too cocky.

There is lots of good stuff at Nature Network, but it’s a little weird to regard comment numbers as one of them. Or to try to correlate a good commenting environment with civility, whatever the hell that means to someone.

Teach both sides!

I’d recommend that every school board member who proposes that we teach both sides of the evolution “controversy” view this movie, except they’re usually such delicate prudes who get outraged at tone that they’d probably have a heart attack at the profanity in this clip.

Wait…maybe that’s an additional reason they should watch it!

Aren’t they cute when they unashamedly reveal their plans?

Bryan Fischer, a host on Christian Hate Radio sponsored by the American Patriarchy Association, recently received mail from a listener appalled at his suggestion that homosexuals ought to be imprisoned. Fischer was quick to reassure his listener that yes, he really does believe that, he will happily repeat the claim multiple times, and that you aren’t a True Christian™ if you don’t agree that homosexuals ought to be treated like murderers or slavers.

Hi!

Thanks for writing me about my comments on my program regarding homosexuality.

It might be worth noting that what I actually suggested is that we impose the same sanctions on those who engage in homosexual behavior as we do on those who engage in intravenous drug abuse, since both pose the same kind of risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. I’d be curious to know what you think should be done with IV drug abusers, because whatever it is, I think the same response should be made to those who engage in homosexual behavior.

If you believe that what drug abusers need is to go into an effective detox program, then we should likewise put active homosexuals through an effective reparative therapy program.

Secondly, I’m afraid you’re simply wrong about the Bible’s perspective on the law and homosexuality.

Paul lists quite explicitly in 1 Timothy 1:8-11 the actions and behaviors that are the proper concern of the law:

“Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine…”

The bottom line here is that, biblically, those “who practice homosexuality” should come under the purview of the law just as much as those who take people captive in order to sell them into slavery.

You express a belief in the Scriptures, and I trust your confidence in Scripture is not selective. If you believe all Scripture is inspired, then you are compelled to accept that legal sanctions may appropriately be applied to those who engage in homosexual behavior.

Thank you for contacting us, and I hope this response will help you think in a thorough and biblical way about this important social issue.

Bryan Fischer
Host, “Focal Point” radio program on AFR Talk, a division of the American Family Association

Well, gosh. His analogy is so powerful that I think we ought to take all the heterosexuals who carry sexually transmitted diseases and subject them to sex aversion therapy (I think it involves a car battery, a couple of cables with clamps, and a porn video) and prolonged jail time. The ones who have the diseases should be made to suffer even more, and while they may be in the minority, the disgust we feel at these infected pariahs should be extended to all who practice the sloppy, fluid sharing, slimy business of male/female sex.

I’ve got some old Biblical misogynist to back me up, too. Paul, in 1 Corinthians, says “It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.” That’s clear: you should be celibate. The only reason to marry is if you can’t contain your own lustful urges, which are wicked, so that you aren’t fornicating. Sex is dirty, so perhaps an even better solution would be to jail everyone who practices it. That will keep them even purer than marriage.

Ouch. I need to stop trying to think like these guys—it hurts my brain. I think I need to lie down for a bit now to recover.

If you masturbate an elephant wrong, you might get a black eye

The things one learns on the internet — now I know the proper way to stimulate a bull elephant, in case the opportunity ever comes up. It looks strenuous and hazardous.

I’m also amazed at the way the elephant just stands there and accepts servicing by the team of creepy bipeds. If some small species of mammal tried to massage my prostate, I’d be on a rampage of squealing disgust trying to get the icky creatures out of my butt.