Angry Atheists

There has been a lot going on in literature these past 9 months or so in regards to god. If you've been living on the Galapagos, She's under attack! Sam Harris (Letter To A Christian Nation), Daniel Dennett (Breaking The Spell), Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) and, most recently, Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great) have all kind of piled on the poor 80% of American adult public that professes some sort of religious affiliation. It's kind of a tough position to be in. On the one hand they DO have the numbers on their side, on the other they have not one iota of evidence for what they believe. Of course, the meanies don't have any evidence AGAINST them, but that's hardly the point. It's really not up to anyone to disprove their cherished beliefs. It's up to THEM to prove it. And they can't.

Unfortunately for fundamentalists (those who believe in the literal truth of every word, as being the word of god, of whatever particular faith you hail from) there is plenty of evidence that this particular way of believing is false. And this is where the problem arises because the vast majority of believers claim that their holy books are indeed the literal word of their god. So instead of accepting indisputable facts, which completely contradict this "infallible word", they hang on the book - blindly.

This causes some rather interesting cases of cognitive dissonance. For instance, they have (mostly) come to grips with facts of nature such as "the world is not flat, it's spherical", "the earth is not the center of the solar system (let alone the universe)", "the sun came into existence before there was any light in our solar system, before there was a Planet Earth and before any plants could possibly have existed". They accept these scientific facts despite the Holy Bible indicating (from the mind of god) that none of these facts are true. They fully profess to believe the moral truth of the 10 Commandments, while totally rejecting the explicitly clear punishments, ordered by their god, for breaking any of the commandments. (Not many folks believe in capital punishment for adultry (Leviticus 20:10), dishonoring parents (Exodus 21:17), or failing to keep the sabbath holy (Exodus 31:15). These are not a handful of odd examples. They are typical of biblical texts. If you haven't read any of the bible recently, pick one up and read some Exodus, Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

Personally, I'm not particularly angry at believers. I'm actually amused with them for the most part. Many are otherwise quite intelligent people who completely check their intellectual garb at cloak room when they enter the cathedral of belief. I'm quick to admit that most believers I know are decent people and I imagine they think their faith helps them. The only thing that makes me angry is that when we give respect to faith, we give cover to those who take it a step further and, having no cognitive dissonance, simply assert that all of their holy words are indeed from god, including all of the more harmful parts of the dogma. Please go to this and if you only watch one clip watch "Part 2".

While there is no reasonable hope for an end of faith, there is much hope that a more enlightened populous will reject those who claim to know anything mystical as an absolute. So my suggestion is to simply snicker at anyone who makes any reference to a personal god. While I like a lot of these folks as individuals, they deserve mild ridicule for the superstitions and public mockery (at least of the brighter ones) is probably the best way of effecting some level of change. Polls have certainly shown a rise in the percentage of people who describe themselves as atheist or agnostic over the past 50 years. At some point this will either rise sharply or our country will become second-class in areas of science, medicine and technology.

So if you read all of this and happen to think that god loves you, listens to your prayers, does miracles and will give you a place to stay after you die, all I can do is this.

Richard Dawkins On O'Reilly Factor

Tonight (April 23, 8 & 11 PM, EDT) Richard will be on with O'Reilly. I'll try to include a link here to the video after it has aired. Richard will be hard-pressed to get though to O'Reilly, but it's a highly watched show and will give viewers who have never seen him a chance to hear the straight story for a change.

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Here's the video link (posted April 24)

Boriqua Jesus

Hallelujah! Jesus has returned - as a Puerto Rican! Who knew? What's next? The return of Buddha as a Canadian? I checked the Vegas odds, and it was 2500 to 1 against Puerto Rico. Israel was 5-2, which is where I would have put my money.

The Real Jesus Fish

And here's the story.

Surviving The Singularity

If you have not seen this short video, it's highly recommended.

Hangin' Out at the Wedge

Do any of you have a problem with an undocumented gay Mexican biologist, earning a living here doing stem-cell research while moonlighting as an atheist high school evolution teacher who mocks Intelligent Design, married to his life-mate and then protesting U.S. policies by refusing to say the words "under God" in the Pledge and then burning the flag?

I don't.

Gore's Movie

"An Inconvenient Truth" is apparently doing surprisingly well at the theatres. Although currently showing in just 77 theatres nationwide, it came in 9th last weekend, taking in over a million bucks and was, in terms of dollars per screening, well ahead of the number 1 movie. It did over $17,000 per screen vs. about $12,000 for "The Break-Up".

My wife and I, along with a couple of friends, went to see it on Sunday. I give it a strong recommend regardless of your political background or your thoughts on global warming. He isn't hysterical at all and simply points out the inescapable truth that there is a problem. He doesn't wildly predict the "end of the world", although he certainly points out some of the possibilities while pointing out that these are highly unpredictable. He concludes by providing a number of solutions, so it isn't just a bunch of hand-wringing.

The most clear scientific evidence is presented and I'll just touch briefly on three of the points that I found most interesting.

First, he talks about the much discussed historical temperature variations. Going back and graphing it over the past millennium, it is clear that what has transpired in the past 2 centuries is totally beyond in normal fluctuation that has been seen previously. We are actually in a warming trend that goes nearly quadruple anything in the past 1,000 years.

Next was an independent study of the science, and of media reports in connection to the topic. Of over 900 climate studies on global warming that were peer reviewed, not a single one disagreed with the fact of global warming. However, the media coverage shows an approximate 50/50 split of opinion on the subject.

Finally there was a chart of the United States showing various states that had independently enacted various statutes that reflect the heart and soul of the Kyoto Accords that our country has not ratified (by the way, we and Australia are the only two to have so failed). Gore didn't mention it in the movie, but I can't resist pointing out to you how similar the map was to the famous Blue/Red States map following the last presidential election.

Unexpected, but Welcome

It seems from this article and other recent developments that the Bush Administration may be getting the message from the American people that we want diplomacy FIRST. I'll will be cautiously optimistic for now. More interesting to me will be what goes on after November.

Entomologist?

Or just have a little insect knowledge? I was curious about this one. My friend, Bob The Bug Guy, was doing a little work in his yard today in Palm Desert, CA. He is a bit of an insect expert himself, as he is the owner of a pest control service out in the desert here in Southern California. He saw a red dragonfly and asked his daughter to come outside and photograph it for him. I think it's a very cool photo and worth sharing. He mentioned that he had never come across one before and I was wondering if anyone can give us any insights about it. Click on the picture to enlarge and look a the face. It's just incredible.

The Problems of Life...

Sorry for not posting lately. That Da Vinci Code story must be getting pretty stale if you've been stopping by. We've had a load of problems here in West L.A. My 90 year old mother (who lives with my wife, daughter, son and self - along with my 92 year old aunt who lives out in one of our back houses, and a nephew living in another) had a bowel obstruction last week due to a herniated large intestine. We rushed her to UCLA emergency and they operated early on Tuesday morning last.

The operation was entirely successful. The next day she was having some problems with an irregular heartbeat. They followed the standard protocol for it, but she had a really bad reaction to the medication. Her heart suddenly started getting slower and slower and slower. While they scrambled the ICU staff, she was calmly giving me all of her final words - how to handle the funeral ("don't spend too much money"), who to tell that she loved and appreciated, etc. She was totally tranquil and ready to depart. In fact, she was entirely convinced that she was going. They had the pads on her and were ready to jolt her if she flat-lined. She didn't and her heartbeat slowly returned to normal. Unfortunately, her mind has not recovered nearly as well as her body in the last few days. It's partly a case of mom already being a little neurotic to begin with, combined with the surgery, the psychosis producing effects of being in ICU for 3 days and then her not "going" when she fully expected to. Now she thinks she was either in Madera, CA or Palm Springs, thinks they operated on the wrong person, believed that the morticians were standing by her bedside, etc.

Never the less, they released her to us this evening since physically she is doing as well as can be hoped for and there is no reason for her to remain hospitalized. Anyway, I'm kind of tied up with everything that is going on and I hope you'll understand that I may not be posting much in the next week or so.

As long as I'm here though, I'd like you to take a look at this story and explain to me how in the HELL this can happen. I just read it and shook my head. There is just so many reasons why this story is wrong and why we should never have to read something like it.