Agylen

Have a Gibbous Cephalodmas!

May your days be filled with terror and tentacles!

Don’t forget! Cephalopodmas falls on December 22nd by the human calendar! Get your special squamous someone something fetid!

Picture by Gwen

Technorati Tags: cephalopodmas.

Just in case you were thinking about going to church tomorrow (or the synagogue today), here are some stories to make you think again ;).

First we have an incredibly inane statement from one Vincent Cheung (”president of Reformation Ministries International […] author of more than twenty books and several hundred lectures on a wide range of topics in theology, philosophy, apologetics, and spirituality”):

Science has its place in a Christian philosophy, an important place. But science is never to be seen as a means of learning truth. Truth is found in the Scriptures alone; the Bible has a monopoly on truth. It is God’s Word that must be believed, not the experiments of men. As Robbins has said: “Science is false, and must always be false. Scripture is true and must always be true. The issue is as clear, and as simple, as that.”

So, I guess, Galileo was wrong after all, and the Earth stands still at the center of the Universe, amen.

This ties in well with the refusal of the Archbishop of Genoa, Angelo Bagnasco, to visit Geona’s Festival of Science, denouncing its program as too secular and one-sided. In other words, science is meaningless without the guidance of religion, as the Pope itself noted, which is just a more palatable way of stating what Vincent Cheung was writing above. Ratzi and his minions are not being so blatant just because they couldn’t get away with it.

Over at Kill the Afterlife we then have this interesting thought experiment, or challenge if you prefer, directed to believers of the religions of the book (that is Judaism, Christianity and Islam):

First, we acknowledge that you are an Abrahamic theist (Christian, Muslim, or Jew). Second we assume that you have a child (if you don’t have one in real life, let’s pretend that you do for the sake of argument). Third, let’s imagine that God came to you and told you to sacrifice your child on the peak of the nearest mountain, a la Abraham at Moriah.

Of course, in the story, God stopped Abraham at the last minute and allowed Abraham to kill a ram instead. But Abraham didn’t know that God would stop him. And more importantly, Abraham was about to carry out the infanticidal act with total faith and conviction.

So the question to you, dear theist, is: Would you do it?

Read the comments to see how the theists try to duck the question or, in some cases, assert that killing your child is the right thing to do.

Personally, if God came to me and made it perfectly clear that he is indeed God, I would just tell him to fuck off. Why give me free will if I can’t use it?

If you believe in God, I encourage you to leave a comment here describing what would you do and why.

Last but not the least, here’s a wonderful piece by Daniel Dennett, who had a very close brush with death, but didn’t come away from it with any sort of religious sentiment. Quite the contrary, he is asking his friends not to pray for him, but rather do something actually useful. Good reading.

PZ Myers: “I can see why Unwin might be motivated to respond to Dawkins’ book, but alas, I don’t see any reason why anyone should regard Unwin as anything but yet another goofy crank.”

Wishing to see whether Dr. Stephen D. Unwin Ph.D is really a goofy crank or not, I visited Amazon to read what other reviewers thought of his book. What I found is a handful of reviews that expose the silliness of his arguments and a relatively large number of reviews that give it 5 stars.

Given a previous experience of mine, I tend to look at books, particularly controversial ones, getting too many 5-star reviews with a certain amount of suspicion. So I did a bit of analysis on the 38 reviews that Unwin’s book currently has and found 13 of them to be somewhat suspect.

All these reviewers have something in common:

• They use pseudonyms, nicknames of only use the initial of their surname.
• They wrote exactly one review on Amazon, the one of Unwin’s book.
• They seem to have no other activity on Amazon besides their single review: no picture, no friends, no interesting people, no wishlists, no recent purchases.
• Their review is just one paragraph long.
• Their review was found “helpful” by a high percentage of people.

I have to admit this is not exactly overwhelming evidence of astroturfing on the part of Unwin or some of his fans, but if I were to compute its probability using Bayesan formulas and the same flawed logic that Unwin exhibits, I am pretty sure that I would come up with a number at least a bit higher than the 67% he derives for the probability of the existence of god.

In any case, you can judge for yourself. Here’s the list of reviewers I find highly suspicious:

• TheCopper
• Keller8
• Tom Rat
• Mandy P
• Buck
• DAsh
• Roger L
• Cart
• jguth5
• jgcarswell3
• pk9881
• claremcg14
• Ben O

Technorati Tags: unwin, dawkins, astroturfing, amazon.

This is old news, but still funny. Old Joe Ratzi managed to enrage a whole bunch of intolerant camel herders by not being careful in his utterances about Islam. Then he had to backpedal a bit, but still not enough to calm the rage. This was not helpful, of course, since all of those who pretend to be outraged were just looking for a pretext. And if I were a Catholic I’d be supremely pissed off that my shepherd had to bow to stupid intolerance from a miscreant crowd. So in the end, no one is happy.

Personally, I could be happy, were it not for the fact that said camel herders might decide to react a bit too harshly towards us who are unfortunate enough to live in the same country where Ratzi resides. Possibly they already have.

I could be happy, I was about to say, because this episode just goes to show how much better we’d be without any kind of religion. But I’m afraid this lesson is falling on dead ears.

Meanwhile, an atheist writer who wasted no occasion to lay shame on those same camel herders, just died. Many thought she was a xenophobic racist, but that’s not my opinion.

Going back to the bozo in a funny hat and a white dress (can’t you at least wear a decent clergyman and stop looking like the bozo you are?), in the same occasion he also managed to say something incredibly ignorant and stupid on the subject of evolution, and science in general:

Text Homily, Mass in Regensburg 12 September, 2006: “So we end up with two alternatives. What came first? Creative Reason, the Spirit who makes all things and gives them growth, or Unreason, which, lacking any meaning, yet somehow brings forth a mathematically ordered cosmos, as well as man and his reason. The latter, however, would then be nothing more than a chance result of evolution and thus, in the end, equally meaningless.”

Talk about a false dichotomy! And a straw man, all in the same sentence. For one thing, many things are the result of chance, not the least of which our genetic makeup, which determines much of our individuality, without them being meaningless. So why pick on evolution specifically? And let’s not even begin talking about the mischaracterization of evolution as pure chance. You’d think a learned, old man would know better, but maybe he has an axe to grind.

Second, even if ascribing our existence to mere natural processes made it meaningless (according to which definition of “meaning”, by the way?), why should we prefer this conclusion to a lie? The fact that we don’t like an option does not automatically make the other option true.

(Via Evolving Thoughts.)

Technorati Tags: pope, ratzinger, evolution, islam, regensburg.

Do you want to take advantage of a bunch of gay-hating, creationist fundies? Then follow the advice outlined below and spread the news to all your atheist, heathen or simply liberal friends.

Noel Black, The Stranger: “When I’m feeling despondent over the state of gay rights in America—or the concurrent assaults on reproductive freedom, science, and rational thought—there’s just one thing that helps me overcome my feelings of despair: getting free shit from Focus on the Family!

Few people know that Focus on the Family—the powerful evangelical Christian para-church based in Colorado Springs—will give you, absolutely free of charge, books, CDs, and DVDs. Usually people pay for these products, and the millions of dollars raised helps Focus on the Family produce yet more books and CDs featuring Dr. James Dobson and other Focus ‘experts.’ (Focus on the Family’s experts, when they’re not chatting on the phone with Karl Rove, run around the country teaching people how to stop being so gay and when it’s appropriate to kick their kids’ asses.)”

[…] Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to www.family.org and you will see their home page.

2. Once you’re at the home page, look for the “Resources” link in the blue bar on the left-hand side, right above the “Search” box, and click it.

3. Under the “Resource Category”

menu on the left-hand side, you’ll notice categories such as “Homosexuality.” Go ahead and click that for shits and giggles.

4. It’s time to start shopping! Scroll down a little bit and feel the homophobia flow. How about a nice copy of A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality? Go ahead and click the “Add to Cart”
button.

5. Now comes a tough decision: Do you have the book sent to yourself so you can sell it on eBay for cash

(my personal favorite) or do you keep it on your mantel as a high-larious conversation piece to point at and laugh when your friends and family come over? Or do you send it to a jerk? I always opt for sending it to myself. Yes, you may end up on the Focus on the Family mailing list (though I’ve been doing this for some time and have never received anything beyond what I ordered), but reading Focus on the Family’s junk mail is a good way to keep tabs on their activities and it will cost them even more money in postage.

Please note:
Focus on the Family won’t send you more than $100
worth of materials for free in any given shopping trip, so be sure to keep it reasonable and return often.

6. Select “Add New Shipping Address” and click “Proceed to Checkout.” Or, hell, continue to shop and pick up a box set of The Chronicles of Narnia on CD.

7. The next screen will ask you to sign up for an account and give your information. Don’t worry, they don’t ask for your credit-card number.
Enter whatever name and address you like, because you won’t be paying.

8. Once you’ve filled out all the required fields (you can also create a fake e-mail account if you’re super paranoid), click “Proceed to Checkout” one more time. You’ll now find yourself at the “Here Is Your Cart” field. Annoying thing alert: You may have to reenter your info again after this field to actually set up your account. But just keep going until you get to the “How Much Would You Like to Donate?” page.

9. So, how much would you like to donate? Zero dollars, obviously. Don’t be fooled by the field in the lower-right-hand corner that shows you the suggested donation amounts. Simply select “Enter other total amount” and enter 0.00 as the amount you would like to pay. (Don’t put in a dollar sign or it will ask you for credit-card information!) Proceed to checkout.

10. You’ll now be led to a screen that will try to make you feel guilty about the amount you haven’t donated. But don’t feel bad! Just proceed to checkout again.

11. Jesus! Here you are on the twelfth step and you still don’t have your self-hatred materials! And you thought preventing homosexuality was supposed to be easy! Click “Checkout Now” and you’re done.

I just did it and got an order confirmation email. I am now waiting to receive the stuff. It will make for nice fuel, or I might try selling it on eBay.

(Via PZ Myers.)

Technorati Tags: dobson, focus on the family, free stuff.

Via God is for Suckers I just found this wonderful talk by Steven Weinberg, 1979 Nobel Laureate in Physics.

Besides producing a cogent argument for why the idea of a designer of the Universe is totally unsupported by what we know, it also a good mine of quotes that you can use to upset your religious friends, like:

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion.

And:

I am all in favor of a dialogue between science and religion, but not a constructive dialogue. One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.

The latter quote is, at least in part, derived from Dawkins:

I can’t help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

So Isaac Hayes quits South Park? Big deal. I never really dug South Park and I don’t much care who plays Chef and who doesn’t:

Hayes, who has played the ladies’ man/school cook in the animated Comedy Central satire since 1997, said in a statement Monday that he feels a line has been crossed.

‘There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins,’ the 63-year-old soul singer and outspoken Scientologist said.

‘Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times should be respected and honored,’ he continued. ‘As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices.’

In all honesty, however, I had written an entirely different post yesterday about this. In it I wrote that I thought Hayes was probably a hypocrite, at least according to these people:

‘South Park’ co-creator Matt Stone responded sharply in an interview with The Associated Press Monday, saying, ‘This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology… He has no problem - and he’s cashed plenty of checks - with our show making fun of Christians.’

Last November, ‘South Park’ targeted the Church of Scientology and its celebrity followers, including actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta, in a top-rated episode called ‘Trapped in the Closet.’ In the episode, Stan, one of the show’s four mischievous fourth graders, is hailed as a reluctant savior by Scientology leaders, while a cartoon Cruise locks himself in a closet and won’t come out.

Stone told The AP he and co-creator Trey Parker ‘never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin.’

I also wrote that he is almost certainly a moron, just like everybody who believes in the kind of stuff that scientologists believe in. But then I started wondering: Is there any difference between believing that we are inhabited by the souls of billions of aliens who were murdered 75 millions of years ago and believing that Jesus’s mother was a virgin when she gave birth to him?

Both are clearly made up stories, the only difference being that one is recent and the other one is 2000 years old, not that this lends any more credibility to it.

So, if Isaac Hayes is a moron for believing in ancient galactic ruler Xenu, what should we say of the millions of Catholics who believe in the virgin birth, to say nothing of the idea of Mary giving birth to God. Are you kidding me, right?

Obviously, all religions are based on unproven statements that must be believed on faith alone, suspending all rational discussions. It’s not that Christianity is special in this regard.

In the end, the question in the subject of this post is largely rethorical: All religion is indeed moronic and I couldn’t agree more with PZ Myers when he writes:

Theology is sophomoric, attempts to rationalize the absurd with reality, the glorification of foolish beliefs that will be dignified by pretending they are serious. Nice team-building, too; it’s the usual cluelessness of the majority that doesn’t realize that their assumptions hold no validity and that they are relying on the mutual gladhanding of their fellows to hold up their illusions.

Technorati Tags: religion, hayes, south park, christianity, scientology.

I’m almost giggling while reading the accounts of the Dover trial sentence. PZ Myers has some of the best commentary here, here, here and here. What really made my day was the following quote from the sentence:

After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980’s; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.

Oh, sweet words!

Now I’m not familiar with the American judicial system, so I don’t know how much of a precedent this sentence will constitute. It’s even entirely possible that there will be an appeal and that the appeal court will overturn this decision.

However, I think that this sentence pretty much nails the coffin on ID. The ID-iots have been thoroughly and finally discredited and I foresee that they will abandon this avenue of attack. After all, ID was just an instrument that they used to try to “wedge” creationism in the classroom.

This is not to say that I think creationism is dead. We’ve had “scientific creationism” and we’ve had “Intelligent Design”. Both are dead, but creationism will find another disguise to try to make itself more acceptable and hide its religious motives.