While I was in Michigan last week, CFI kept me dancing with multiple talks and a couple of interviews. You can download one of them right now: the Brayton interview (mp3).
A horrible little cult in Baltimore committed an ugly crime.
…they denied a 16-month-old boy food and water because he did not say “Amen” at mealtimes. After he died, they prayed over his body for days, expecting a resurrection, then packed it into a suitcase with mothballs. They left it in a shed in Philadelphia, where it remained for a year before detectives found it last spring.
The child’s mother, Ria Ramkissoon, and others are on trial for murder, reasonably enough. Here’s the kicker, though:
Psychiatrists who evaluated Ramkissoon at the request of a judge concluded that she was not criminally insane. Her attorney, Steven Silverman, said the doctors found that her beliefs were indistinguishable from religious beliefs, in part because they were shared by those around her.
“She wasn’t delusional, because she was following a religion,” Silverman said, describing the findings of the doctors’ psychiatric evaluation.
Well. Why should the religion label excuse delusional beliefs?
You have to watch this loon making his case for how harmless global warming is in testimony with Lord Christopher Monckton (thanks, England…really, we have enough wacky ideologues without you sending yours over here). Monckton dismisses the problem of CO2 by claiming that CO2 levels were much higher in the pre-Cambrian, and that the stuff is just “plant food”.
It’s plant food … So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? … So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people who want to save the world are saying.
Yes, it is the material plants take up from the atmosphere to make sugar. It’s also a greenhouse gas. So? And what is this stuff about “saving the world”? It’s like the two of them are babbling about problems and arguments that no one is making — and we get more when Shimkus explain how he knows CO2 is not a problem. It’s because the Bible is the inerrant word of his god, and he knows god isn’t going to end the world with global warming.
The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood.
Could one of you voters out there in Illinois take Shimkus aside and explain to him with short, simple words and short, simple sentences that global warming isn’t going to destroy the world? It’s not an argument anyone is making. It could very well make the world more tropical, and it could be of some advantage to certain kinds of plants.
However, please note: human beings aren’t plants (well, most of us, anyway — John Shimkus does seem to share some similarities with root vegetables). The concern with global warming is change that will cause economic disruption and environmental disturbances and damage to places we like…like cities. Honestly, if nations collapse, we know that algae will still thrive. We just happen to generally take the side of humanity.
Oh, and you might let him know that the Bible is mostly wrong.
Oh, no. Richard Lynn, the fellow infamous for trying to link intelligence and race, is in the news again, this time trying to claim a causal relationship between atheism and intelligence.
“Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ,” Lynn told the Times Higher Education magazine. “Academics have higher IQs than the general population. Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQs tend not to believe in God.”
I am always so tempted to simply accept this kind of claim — it’s wonderfully self-serving, obviously — but I can’t. I’ve known lots of religious people who really are brilliant, and I also know lots of atheists who were sincerely religious once upon a time, and there was no sudden increase in their native intelligence when they abandoned faith. And yes, I also know a few knee-jerk atheists who aren’t unbelievers because they’ve reasoned their way to that position. We live in a world with a range of intellectual abilities in different people, but anyone can be religious or infidel.
The difference is not in intelligence. It’s on the foundation of their education. Intelligent people who are indoctrinated into a faith can build marvelously intricate palaces of rationalization atop the shoddy vapor of their beliefs about gods and the supernatural; what scientists and atheists must do is build their logic on top of a more solid basis of empirical evidence and relentless self-examination. The difference isn’t their ability to reason, it is what they are reasoning about.
This is one of the reasons we godless need to be militant in expressing our ideas: there are children out there right now who have the potential for genius, but their talents are being shunted into the futile wasteland of religiosity. Yes, there are a lot of atheists in the topmost ranks of successful scientists, but it’s not because they are intrinsically smarter than someone who believes in gods — it’s because they more easily embrace the mode of thinking that is most productive and successful in scientific fields, and are less burdened with absurd presuppositions. Let’s stop handicapping our kids.
The city of Hakodate in Japan has been producing promotional videos for the tourism trade for their city. Instead of the usual shots of local restaurants and famous landmarks, though, Hakodate features giant robots battling invading space squid, with explosions and smashed buildings and cars being kicked into the air.
Alright, I’m sold. That’s much better than Las Vegas.
Don’t miss this one! At 9am Sunday morning, Sean Carroll will be on Atheists Talk radio.
Your ornamental function must be your important asset — never mind those degrees and skills and various non-superficial attributes. I can imagine how Sheril must feel, but have never experienced it myself. Strangely, I’ve never met a distinguished stranger and had them compliment my looks or ask after my marriage status.
It’s the Western complement to the burka: women aren’t hidden away overtly, but instead every one is seen as if they’re wearing a beauty queen/cheerleader costume.
Who’s going to the American Humanist meeting in June? I know I am — I’m getting an award, and I felt quite cocky about it. Then I saw all the other people being recognized, and I’m suddenly having one of those “I am not worthy” moments. Yikes. At least it guarantees that we’ll have a really good meeting.
And if that isn’t enough to convince you to show up, I think I’ve talked my wife into going, too. And Skatje is going to be in town.
This is not one of those fake church signs: it’s the real thing, taken in Arkansas.
This looks like an irreconcilable difference to me.
The Florida anti-evolution bill I mentioned yesterday? It is an ex-bill.
