The Reason for the Season

At the time of the winter solstice, let reason prevail.

There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell.

There is only our natural world.

Religion is just myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.

"...the midwinter seasonal holiday was created by people with the superstitious belief that supernatural transitions accompanied natural ones, and these few days are traditionally special because of a belief in their magical importance, and every religion attaches some godly event to the solstice season. It's why you'll get a day off on Christmas, which means it was good for something. So just pause, bow your head, and think about Jesus. And reject him.

Also consider God, the Holy Ghost, all the prophets and saints, the angels and demons, the Great Old Ones, any pantheon ever erected in heaven, all the ghosts and boojums, and deny them, every one. Think about all the pious, sanctimonious god-bothers who tell you to worship their dead gods on this day, and tell them, "No."

You're free.

Feels good, doesn't it? Remember the reason for the season, and be sure to go "Ho ho ho!" at it now and then, and let laughter fill your home."

Theodicy III: Primo Levi versus Francis Collins « Why Evolution Is True

Theodicy III: Primo Levi versus Francis Collins « Why Evolution Is True:
"Silence slowly prevails and then, from my bunk on the top row, I see and hear old Kuhn praying aloud, with his beret on his head, swaying backwards and forwards violently. Kuhn is thanking God because he has not been chosen.

Kuhn is out of his senses. Does he not see Beppo the Greek in the bunk next to him, Beppo who is twenty years old and is going to the gas-chamber the day after tomorrow and knows it and lies there looking fixedly at the light without saying anything and without even thinking anymore? Can Kuhn fail to realize that next time it will be his turn? Does Kuhn not understand that what has happened today is an abomination, which no propitiatory prayer, no pardon, no expiation by the guilty, which nothing at all in the power of man can ever clean again?

If I was God, I would spit at Kuhn’s prayer." - Primo Levi, Auschwitz survivor


“Frequent miraculous interventions would be at least as chaotic in the physical realm as they would be in interfering with human acts of free will.” - Francis Collins

And this same Collins shamelessly argues that God has fine-tuned the Universe, manufacturing, out of complete chaos, a Perfect Order of every molecule and every physical law in order to produce Mankind.

His God can shuffle galaxies at ease but is powerless to prevent cancer in children. And he worships this sh**head because he can make a frozen waterfall pretty.

He froze it in 3 strands as a special and personal “sign” that Christianity is true and delivered this sacred sign to the “humble” Collins himself. (Surely such signs take god’s time from the excision of cancerous cells in children.)"

I am finally understanding this free will crap. God gave us free will and won't interfere in the acts of men or of nature. Some such shit. God cares that I don't fly around the room but won't prevent me from killing a puppy? I have free will? Why can't I fly also? Killing a puppy is a physical act, why can't I fly? Francis Collins claims he found god when he came upon a waterfall one winter day frozen in three strands and is making these comments above quoted from his book. He was appointed by Obama to lead the NIH and was the director of the Human Genome Project which sequenced the human DNA. Incredible.

PZ gets email

"I do not concede an iota of respect to your stupidity, and will be spending the rest of my life opposing it."

PZ Myers in a comment about some mail he received from a creationist. The arrogant ignorance of the guy was infuriating.

Why Science is Important

Hey Religious Believers, Where's Your Evidence? | Belief | AlterNet

Hey Religious Believers, Where's Your Evidence? | Belief | AlterNet:

"So how is it, exactly, that atheists are the close-minded ones?
Having an open mind doesn't mean thinking all possibilities are equally likely. It means being willing to consider new ideas if the evidence supports them. And it means being willing to give up old ideas if the evidence is against them.

So to any believer who thinks atheists are close-minded, I want to ask you this:

What would convince you that you were mistaken?

Most atheists can answer that question."

EAA Calendar

The way to deal with superstition

Atheists have been “humble” for centuries (who was more humble than Spinoza?) and it hasn’t gotten us anywhere. It’s that crop of new atheist books that have finally created a climate in which atheists need not feel like pariahs. Like my confrères so maligned by Kristof, I think it’s time to try Mencken’s way:

The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame.

True enough, even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights. He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force. He has a right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season. He has a right to teach them to his children. But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge.

Darwin's Influence on Modern Thought: Scientific American

Darwin's Influence on Modern Thought: Scientific American: "Darwinism rejects all supernatural phenomena and causations. The theory of evolution by natural selection explains the adaptedness and diversity of the world solely materialistically. It no longer requires God as creator or designer (although one is certainly still free to believe in God even if one accepts evolution). Darwin pointed out that creation, as described in the Bible and the origin accounts of other cultures, was contradicted by almost any aspect of the natural world. Every aspect of the “wonderful design” so admired by the natural theologians could be explained by natural selection. (A closer look also reveals that design is often not so wonderful—see “Evolution and the Origins of Disease,” by Randolph M. Nesse and George C. Williams; Scientific American, November 1998.) Eliminating God from science made room for strictly scientific explanations of all natural phenomena; it gave rise to positivism; it produced a powerful intellectual and spiritual revolution, the effects of which have lasted to this day."

License to Wonder

“But there’s one way in which we should not be limited: imagination. As Einstein put it, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.””

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/license-to-wonder/

CFI Announces Blasphemy Contest Winners | Center for Inquiry

CFI Announces Blasphemy Contest Winners | Center for Inquiry: "The Center for Inquiry is pleased to announce that Ken Peters of California is the Grand Prize winner of its Blasphemy Contest, which asked contestants to submit statements of no more than twenty words critical of religious beliefs. The entry Mr. Peters submitted was: “Faith is no reason.” Regarding Mr. Peters’ entry, CFI president and CEO Ronald A. Lindsay observes, “This entry, using only four words, summarizes nicely one of the key principles of post-Enlightenment thought. Beliefs should be based on evidence and reason. Faith is not a basis for logically sound belief.”"

Daughter makes me proud...

Allena examines a book she picked up… (click to em-biggen)

In “celebration” of Darwin’s 150^th anniversary of publication of “Origin of Species,” Ray Comfort (a Creationist), printed 100,000 copies of it to hand out at colleges. The kicker being it has a 50+ page introductory rant about how “Dawinism” is evil and wrong and what-not. He also didn’t print some key chapters.

The joker Comfort does his distribution a day earlier and at campuses that he didn't advertise where, one of them being San Jose State. Allena and I had talked about trying to get a copy of the book but it didn't look good. But then when I saw Comfort was executing a day early I sent her a message and after saying she hadn't seen any, she comes back with "I GOT ONE!" Pretty funny. She also was given a fake $1M bill with Obama on it called Jesus Money.

Allena posted her find at The Primate Diaries, I think she made the best picture of the bunch. Very clever and funny, unlike most of the boring head shots.

The Don't Diss Darwin Institute

The Don't Diss Darwin Institute: "Comfort's confused polemic, disguised as an informational Introduction but full of mistakes, half truths, untruths, muddled logic, old creationist arguments, misleadingly excerpted quotations, and ill-framed analogies — plus a good dose of fire and brimstone at the end — will do a severe disservice to anyone who takes it for an entryway to Darwin's great book."

Why Evolution Is True

Why Evolution Is True: "Creationists have a very fixed view of the world – literally and figuratively. They have The Truth – it’s written in a series of manuscripts that were produced by various tiny Middle Eastern sects 2-3 millennia ago, which were eventually sifted and sorted and mistranslated into a set of what were deemed to be acceptable views to a group of Church leaders around 1500 years ago. All they have to do is to read it, and The Truth is obvious – God created all species, so there can be no evolution.

Science, however, doesn’t claim to have The Truth. We simply have the best approach to reality that we can have, based on the available evidence. If we were to find fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian, then we would all have to backtrack on the phrase that forms the title of this blog. However, there comes a point at which the absence of contradictory evidence, and the overwhelming weight of supporting evidence, leads us to stop pussy-footing around. We abandon all that philosophical bet-hedging and simply state “evolution is true”. If the fossil rabbits ever turn up (don’t hold your breath), we’ll revisit the statement – as the French say, only imbeciles don’t change their minds."

Lawrence Krauss gives a talk

"The universe is huge and old and rare things happen all the time"

Lawrence Krauss gives a talk on our current picture of the universe, how it will end, and how it could have come from nothing.

This is an excellent talk and well worth the hour to watch.

Post Halloween Flight

Nice flying day today. Took Patrick and Justin from work for a ride and lunch at Half Moon Bay (HAF). Clear and little wind, it got crowded at HAF, good thing we got there when we did, parking got scarce. Patrick was funny when I pulled a few maneuvers, one stall and a couple of steep turns. Those big water polo studs can be pretty whimpy. :-)

I didn't take any picture flying or at HAF. Too busy herding the boys along.