Douglas Adams, who is one of my favorite authors, was also a “radical atheist,” and used a lot of his writings to poke fun at the idiocy of religion. The following quote is one of his better ones, and certainly very relevant in today’s world:

Religion (…) has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That’s an idea we’re so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it’s kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is ‘Here is an idea or a notion that you’re not allowed to say anything bad about; you’re just not. Why not? — because you’re not!’ If somebody votes for a party that you don’t agree with, you’re free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it, but on the other hand if somebody says ‘I mustn’t move a light switch on a Saturday’, you say, ‘Fine, I respect that’. The odd thing is, even as I am saying that I am thinking ‘Is there an Orthodox Jew here who is going to be offended by the fact that I just said that?’ but I wouldn’t have thought ‘Maybe there’s somebody from the left wing or somebody from the right wing or somebody who subscribes to this view or the other in economics’ when I was making the other points. I just think ‘Fine, we have different opinions’. But, the moment I say something that has something to do with somebody’s (I’m going to stick my neck out here and say irrational) beliefs, then we all become terribly protective and terribly defensive and say ‘No, we don’t attack that; that’s an irrational belief but no, we respect it’.

It’s rather like, if you think back in terms of animal evolution, an animal that’s grown an incredible carapace around it, such as a tortoise—that’s a great survival strategy because nothing can get through it; or maybe like a poisonous fish that nothing will come close to, which therefore thrives by keeping away any challenges to what it is it is. In the case of an idea, if we think ‘Here is an idea that is protected by holiness or sanctity’, what does it mean? Why should it be that it’s perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows, but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe, no, that’s holy? What does that mean? Why do we ring-fence that for any other reason other than that we’ve just got used to doing so? There’s no other reason at all, it’s just one of those things that crept into being and once that loop gets going it’s very, very powerful. So, we are used to not challenging religious ideas but it’s very interesting how much of a furore Richard creates when he does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you’re not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn’t be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn’t be.

–Douglas Adams September 1998

Apparently, our children aren’t scientifically ignorant enough for (un)Intellgent Design godbaggers. Not satisfied with peddling ignorance to adults, Joel from Uncommon Descent has decided to start a new blog entitled: Stop Lying To Us.
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It is somewhat ironic that a website dedicated to “Intelligent Design” is increasingly unable to have intelligent discussions. The site I’m talking about is “Uncommon Descent“, the blog of uber-ID proponents William Dembski and Denyse O’Leary. In recent posts, “Uncommon Descent” has brought Hitler into the discussion in an attempt to equivocate the reprehensible acts of Hitler with the theory of evolution.

It is true that Hitler believed in evolution, and was a big proponent of “social Darwinism”. It is also true that Hitler was a vegetarian and born in the month of April. Does this mean that anyone who has given up meat is as evil as Hitler? Do people born in April have a higher propensity to send Jews to the gas chamber?

To think that vegetarians and people born in April are anything like Hitler is absurd. It is just as absurd to link evolution to Hitler. In a recent post, O’Leary opines “My own view is that the reason for the controversy around films like the Coral Ridge special is precisely the fact that Darwinists have never really dealt with the implications of social Darwinism, so it keeps coming back to them like a bad penny.”

Actually, “social Darwinism” has been dead for over sixty years now, and in historical hindsight, it appears that “social Darwinism” was only co-opted by imperialist and racist movements to attempt to sound scientifically legitimate. Even today, the remaining “social Darwinists” are nothing more than a fringe movement.

O’Leary, of course, is completely wrong when she claims “Darwinists” haven’t dealt with the implications of “social Darwinism.” One just has to look at Secular Humanism to see just how much it has been dealt with . By bringing up Hitler, though, O’Leary hopes to paint “Darwinists” as cold, unfeeling, immoral hedonists with hearts like Adolf. It’s cheap at best, and repugnant at worst.

Why is O’Leary reduced to cheap Hitler attacks? I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with her own realization of how weak and sad the foundations of “Intelligent Design” are. That might be the most intelligent thing she’s ever thought.

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51760

I don’t normally laugh at someone’s death, but in this case, I just have to. This follows the story from a few months ago, where a man died trying to prove God would save him from lions. The lions seemed to be more powerful than God, as they ripped his neck open in about two seconds.

Message to godbaggers:

God isn’t saving you from lions, drowning, cancer, or losing football games. Best you get off your ass, and do something instead.

My wife Kelly pointed me to this:

http://www.twopercentco.com/rants/archives/2006/08/sylvia_browne_o_1.html

It’s basically one of the most disgusting videos I have ever seen from a psychic preying on the sorrow of someone who has lost someone dear. She is a horrible human being. The video made me visibly angry, and it’s been hard to type out this post because my hands are shaking.

I’m not letting Montell of the hook either. For his passive, uncaring behavior, I’m calling for him to be fired, stoned, and anally raped. It can’t happen soon enough.

I’m not sure why Dembski pointed to an article that points out how evolutionary genetics have weakened the dog species.  He comes up with another snarky title, I guess hoping that his readers don’t bother to read the full article.

I’d like to see how this stories disproves evolution.

http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/1326

I hate to give any recognition to any proponent of crackpot theories like Intelligent Design, however, one site really caught my eye.  William Dembski is one of the leaders of the Intelligent Design movement, and maintains a blog at Uncommon Descent.  Much like the actual Intelligent Design movement, the blog lacks anything of real substance, and spends most of it’s time making snarky comments about various stories that may or may not be related to evolution.  Very little serious discussion occurs.  I suppose that is fine, after all, it is just a blog, and I know Dembski spends time writing books. 

A couple headlines stand out to me:

"Natural selection builds bacteria that build nanowires — yeah, right"

I’m not sure where "yeah right" comes from, since he doesn’t present any arguments for "yeah right."  I guess we have to take his argument on faith.

"Marsupials and Placentals: a case of front-loaded, pre-programmed, designed evolution?"

This is interesting.  Even though the ID movement is over ten years old, it’s failed to ever make a single scientific prediction, or lead to any advance in knowledge.  In fact, by definition, when things get hard for ID’ers to explain, they just end the investigation with "God did it."  It’s a very lazy way of being "scientific".

"For sheer smarminess, this one is hard to beat . . ."

In this post, Dembski responds to an email from a writer about Dembski’s own work.  Of course, Dembski couldn’t be bothered to respond,  and instread resorted to childishness, by belittling the emailer, without responding to any of the points in an email  This is typical of ID’ers.  When challenged by those outside of their group think, they crumble, just like in the Dover case.

I don’t know where Dembski gets the smugness from.  His theories have no acceptance, and worse, no accomplishments.  He’s not much different than a member of the Flat Earth Society, peddling old theories that have long been disproven.

While I’m am sure this will be a great disappointment to my legions of female fans, Kelly and I tied the knot on June 27th, 2006, at around 2:00 pm PDT.  I am now a married man. And let me tell you, life is exactly the same.  Nothing has changed between Kelly and I.  It was a fifteen minute ceremony that gave us new rights as a couple, but had no fundamental impact on our relationship.  We’re atheist and don’t plan to have a family, and none of that will change.  We’ve been together over six years now, so why did we choose to get married now?

Money.  That’s right, just money.  As cold as that sounds, let me assure you, that whatever legal status we have in the eyes of the law, we were always as real a couple as any married couple.  However, the laws in this country pretty much force you to get married.  Because she is officially my wife, I can take larger deductions from my taxes and she now has health insurance through my company.  Those are the biggest new rights, but there are scores of other rights we now have as a couple, and lots of unofficial ones too.  Just saying "oh, my wife wanted me to check into this" gets me through any sort of security related to her bank or credit card companies.   Marriage has an exalted status in this country, and after a while, you kind of just have to do it, or you’re throwing money away.

Of course, marriage is only available to heterosexual couples in this country.  For some reason, religious zealots in this country ranging from George Bush to John Kerry believe civilization would crumble to the ground if Adam and Steve were able to share health insurance.  That’s all anyone wants from the legal status of marriage.  The benefits, the insurance, the ability to make life decisions for a partner if the situation arises.  If godbaggers feel the need to disallow gay marriage inside their church, our constitution gives them that right.  However, it’s time to get with the times, and allow two consenting adults form the legal institution we call marriage.  Better yet, call it a civil union, and leave marriage to religions. 

Yeah, that’s a much better way to handle it.   I’m not longer married, I’m civilly unioned.

In January of 2006, Americans were glued to their televisions, watching the coverage of twelve miners trapped in a mine in Tallmansville, West Virginia. Family and friends of the miners, as well as the national news outlets, all camped out at the Sago Baptist Church to do what many Americans do during crises: pray. The phrase “thoughts and prayers” went out over the airwaves a number of times. Relatives, friends, newsman, mining officials, and government officials could all be heard mentioning prayer. It would be preposterous to think that most people praying weren’t praying for them to be found alive. After all, we all know what happened, and we all know the reaction of loved ones when the truth came out. The shock and disappointment on the faces of the affected were broadcast for all the country to see. People prayed, so what happened?

As an atheist of course, the idea that prayer would work is ludicrous. After all, my wishes can not possibly change the course of events in nature. However, for religious people, prayer is very important. For them, it’s a way to connect to God, to get closer to the answers they desire. And during the time of the Sago mining disaster, it was a way for them to ask God to save the miners. Were their prayers answered?

I recently took the time to talk to a small group of Catholics over IRC to get a better insight into how they perceived prayer. The fundamental question I asked the Catholics, was by what mechanism did they think prayer worked? Did God only act if someone prayed? Did it matter how many people prayed? How much did it matter what the actual prayer was? The answers to my questions only led me to more questions. For example, everyone agreed that God didn’t need a prayer to act, because it was his choice. The word “choice” brings up some interesting connotations. If God needs to make a choice, that implies God doesn’t know everything. If God did, there would be no choice, right?

The very idea that God has to make a choice, also made me wonder if that meant God could be swayed by the number of prayers. In fact, some of the Catholics I talked to even brought up the word “sway”. Again, this goes back God being omniscient, which all the Catholics I talked to believe God is. An omniscient God, though, can’t be swayed, because the answers are always already known. The idea of swaying also brings up another very interesting point. The act of swaying God, implies more than one side, more than one thing being prayed for. If God chooses, then he’s choosing against the prayers of someone. Not everyone can have their prayers answered. When I asked the Catholics this question, the only answer they had, was that any outcome means the prayer was answered, that there was no such thing as a wrong outcome. I do not accept this. In a religion, where there are firm distinctions between right and wrong, I believe it’s incompatible to interpret every prayer as the “right” question.

At the end of my discussion with the Catholics, it was clear to me, that none of them really knew the answers to any of my questions. The thought of prayer was too ingrained in their world view for them to even confront the litany of contradictions that prayer brings. I concluded, and told them, that it was clear they didn’t know if prayer worked, but they all felt better thinking it did.

In the end, I believe that the Sago mining disaster puts the whole idea of prayer being effective on its ear. It was one of those events, where the sentiment of the nation was obvious, and the outcome was so tragically the opposite. It’s clear that prayer didn’t save the miners. If you’re an atheist, you know why the prayers didn’t work. If you are religious, then you must wonder if your prayer ever has an effect, or if God does what God does, and if you happen to agree with God, then your prayer might be considered “answered”.