The world is explicable by purely natural means!
This is encouraging, although it’s still way down the scale. But it’s good to see that free thinking and common sense have not been completely wiped out in the USA. More power to the godless of America.
BTW: Faith is in quotes in the title as atheism isn’t a faith.
There is a good review of Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell, and also Lewis Wolport’s Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast. I like this section:
But what really troubles us, and what is not really tackled by either author, is the fact that a belief in the existence of deities invariably comes with an intense urge to shove that conviction down everyone else’s throats and to proselytise. This can lead to tensions, to put it mildly, a point succinctly made by my old friend, Katharine Whitehorn, the former Observer columnist. As she once wrote: ‘Why do born-again people so often make you wish they’d never been born the first time?’
There is a good interview with Daniel Dennett it today’s Observer. It’s based around his new book, Breaking the Spell. I like this quote:
“Of course I’m going to hurt people’s feelings,’ he says, ‘but I don’t want to offend people casually. I really want to do it on purpose.”
Yep. If people are believing idiotic ideas, then call them idiots.
With apologies to Alfred Bester for the title. Saw this on the Bad Astronomy blog. New Hubble picture of M101. It’s 170.000 light years across and contains a trillion stars. And that’s just 1 galaxy out of trillions.
If that doesn’t make you stop and gawk at the sheer splendour of the Universe then I suggest you check in to the nearest hospital, as you’re obviously very ill. And some people try to explain the Universe with Poof! God did it! Yeah, right. Giggle.
Linda Smith has died. A sad loss. But hey, chin up. She was very, very funny whilst she was alive. Obituary here.
Classic line from today’s Doonesbury. Damn those pesky facts getting in the way of faith. Reason most certainly is a bully when it comes to pointing out falsehoods.
Today is Darwin Day. We celebrate the life and works of one of humanities greatest thinkers on this day, the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth in 1809. This should be a public holiday. Let’s lobby our MP’s.
Some other Darwin Day links:
Just what we need. Another religious person with an influence over our politicians. WTF do the interpretations of 3000 year old ramblings have to do with our actions in the 21st Century. Nothing in my opinion. Humanity needs to let go of all this religious nonsense and move on. I fear it might be too late however. The world is slipping back into silly dogma. It wasn’t meant to be like this. 🙁
I’m off to read this again. That’s the kind of future we need.
One of my reflex actions in the morning is to turn the radio from BBC Radio 4 over to Classic FM as soon as I hear The Today Programme presenters start to say “it’s 13 minutes to 8, and time for Thought for the day”. I don’t need to listen to 2 minutes of puerile drivel from some religious twerp at the start of the day.
A side benefit of this, in addition to the fact I don’t have to listen to Thought for the Day, which is benefit enough, is that occasionally there is a really good piece of music on Classic FM when I switch over. A few days ago they were playing one of the pieces from Dvorák’s Slavonic Dance suite [Op. 46: No. 8 in G Minor (presto)]. Excellent stuff. Available from the iTMS.
The Edge website asks many scientists and philosophers a question for the new year and publishes their responses. In 2005 the question was What do you believe is true even though you can’t prove it?. This generated a lot of interesting responses and arguments 🙂
The 2006 question is What is your dangerous idea? Responses are now available. Should make interesting reading. Think I’ll start with Richard Dawkins.