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Reason Rally 2012: AronRa chats up some young creationists
March 25, 2012 — xanthippaThe videos from this weekend’s Reason Rally 2012 in Washington D.C. are only just beginning to pop up.
While the lineup is studded with stars like Richard Dawkins (whose message I detest because of his inaccurate use of language which leads to more confusion than it clears up) who came to stand up for science and logic and reality. Great.
But these are not really the most interesting or fun of the videos. I prefer dialogue to speeches, so it is perhaps natural that I find videos like the one below much more interesting. And, I do like AronRa!
Reason TV: An Atheist Billboard in Brooklyn
March 23, 2012 — xanthippaThis reminds me…
Five or six years ago, when we were checking out the high-schools in our area for the right one to send our older son to, we visited a number of the ‘best’ schools in our area. All the schools were trying to get as many of the ‘gifted’ kids to go there as possible, so on these visits, we were given the red carpet treatment…
I always checked out the library: the natural environment for an Aspie…
In one of these schools (the one whose formal presentation was most adamant that they are inclusive and do not tolerate any ‘cliques’), in the ‘religion’ section of the library, I found a surprisingly wide range of Christian literature. Not only did they have the books on the most common Christian denominations, they even had books representing Gnostic Christianity and even saw one on the Russian Orthodox faith. I was impressed.
Soon, however, I was struck by the fact that though the variety of Christianity represented in the ‘theology’ section was commendable, there were absolutely no books on other faiths. Not one!
I did what any other person would do: I asked the librarian where books on Islam, Judaism, Shintoism, Buddhism, Hinduism and so on were. With a smile, she directed me to the ‘mythology’ section…
Yes, ‘mythology’.
I could not stop laughing!
This just goes to show you: even theists are perfectly capable of seeing that ‘religious beliefs’ are nothing more than a collection of myths. It is perfectly obvious to them – all of them…
…with the tiny exception of their own religion…
Thunderf00t: a ‘moderate’ Muslim speaks out
March 8, 2012 — xanthippaPerhaps you have been following the free speech debate which has been happening on YouTube – or, at least, oe of them: the one involving Thunderf00t.
Thunderf00t is a scientist who became famous on YouTube because of a series of videos he made ‘Why do people laugh at creationists’. It took some of the more outrageous statements made/published on YouTube by Christian young-Earth creationists, contrasted their statements with reality and closed with the catch-phrase: ‘Why do people laugh at creationists? Only the creationists don’t know!’ (I am working from memory, so my wording may not be 100% on, but the gest is there.)
Soon, some of these young-Earth creationists took notice and began to react. Different ones reacted differently. Some invited him to debate them – even live. And he did – and thesedebates are published on YouTube.
Others, however, sought to shut him up – to get his videos flagged and banned. When they could not censor his content as ‘inappropriate’, some sought to use the copyright laws to censor him – claiming infringement where none existed.
Thunderf00t continued his videos, highlighting religious non-science nonsense as well as religious bigotry and intolerance.
Because he criticized not just Christian intolerance bur religious bigotry from all the directions he saw and experienced it, he soon came under attack from the Islamist corner. This time, there was no invitation to debade the worth of ideas: instead, he was doc-dropped, he and his family were publicly threatened with violence and the Univesrity where he works was bullied in an attempt to have him fired. Oh, and his videos were flagged and accused of copyright infringment in an attempt to censor him.
So, now that you have a sketch of the background: here is his latest video documenting his fight for free speech on the internet:
Ezra Levant and Pamela Geller on the ‘Zombie Mohammad judge’ scandal
February 28, 2012 — xanthippaThis is truly scandalous: for a judge in the USA to brandish a holy book of any kind inside the courtroom and apply religious lawinstead of upholding the laws of the land is beyond the pale.
Note: more has been written about Mark Martin, the ‘Zombie Mohammad judge’ and, apparently, he is indeed a convert to Islam. This in itself is irrelevant: it is his actions which count, not his religious convictions. I raise the point only because in the video, Pamela Geller asserts that he is not a Muslim. Therefore, I include this link so people can judge for themselves what to think.
Thunderf00t: The BEST emotional PORN
February 14, 2012 — xanthippaHe is right, of course!
In a similar vein…
People often justify ‘religion’ by saying that ‘it brings people comfort’. Quite aside from the validity of the justification, I am begining to doubt the truth of the statement.
Let me explain…
Many of my friends are religious – and yes, they do claim that their religious beliefs bring them ‘comfort’ and make them ‘feel better’. Not being religious myself, I have simply accepted this assertion at face value. While I never bought in to the claim that it is ‘good’ to promote/accept things simply because they make you ‘feel good’, I had never questioned the assertion itself.
Until, that is…
A friend of mine got hit by a truck while riding her motorcycle. She was really lucky – not only did she survive, thanks to medical advances, she did not loose the leg that was so badly injured in the crash.
This friend also happens to be deeply Catholic.
One day, her (then very pregnant) daughter and I visited her in the hospital. My friend had already had one surgery to screw the bones of her leg back together, but was still waiting for more surgeries, including the one that would use a skin graft to try to close some of the biggest wounds. (Sorry to go into this much detail – it goes to ‘state of mind’… My friend was hurting, afraid, and had almost died in a crash before her first grandchild was to be born.)
While we were putting on a brave pretense of lighearted banter to relieve my friend’s discomfort, a volunteer had come into her room. This woman offered to pray with us – which my friend and her daughter gladly accepted. At the end of the prayer, whe did some sort of a blessing and handed each of them a consecrated host. Both my friend and her daughter said they were greatly comforted, we thanked the woman, and she left.
The thing is – I don’t think that it did make them feel better!
No, I am not accusing them of lying – I think they truly believed they ‘felt better’. But their behaviour betrayed their actual state of mind.
Both their demeanours changed – for the worse. Instead of talking about how lucky my friend was, that she survived the crash, she was tearful, saying things like that since her soul has been cleansed, it would be OK for her to die now…which brought hysterical crying from her daughter, and then it spiralled downwards from there.
They were certainly not ‘feeling better’!
There was a disconnect between how they believed religion made them feel and how it actually did make them feel. Sure, it can make some people feel better at some times – but, we need to treat self-reporting in this area in the same way as we treat self-reporting in other fields…with a very healthy dose of skepticism.
By constantly focusing the mind on physical death and ‘fear of God’, ‘religion’ brings terror, not comfort, to the people who fall for it. And they don’t even realize it themselves…
Thunderf00t compares ‘religion’ to ‘spiritual masturbation’ – and I can certainly understand his point. But, having thought about it, I am wondering if it would not be more accurate to see ‘religion’ as ‘picking on a spiritual scab’: it is hard to stop doing it, even when you know it is bad for you!
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 