Archive for December, 2008
Atheist Group Files Lawsuit Against Prayer at Presidential Inauguration
The head of an atheist group told FOX News Radio on Tuesday that by allowing a prayer at President-elect Obama’s inauguration, the government is subjecting atheists and agonostics to someone else’s religious beliefs.
The head of an atheist group that has filed a lawsuit against prayer at Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration says the government is picking a [...]
Religionists Try to Draft Darwin
However, he would not have been baffled at all by atheists celebrating his ideas. He well knew himself that evolution stripped the need for a creator as a guiding force in the history of life — it’s one of the reasons he hesitated to publish, and he knew that it would be detested by the [...]
30Dec2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Pushing Back Against the Push-Back
I was unaware that writing books, giving lectures and making tv appearances can now be defined as fanatical. Or by saying “fanatically intolerant atheism personified by Richard Dawkins” is he suggesting that Dawkins and Hitchens are known to be hoarding weapons and organising groups of martyrs in order to suicide bomb churches and the like, [...]
30Dec2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Breaking up With God
The most damaging relationship I ever had in my life, was the one with religion. Born into a fundamentalist christian family, I knew that being gay was bad, before I even had a chance to think about what being gay was. When I was in middle school, I began to question my sexuality, but I [...]
29Dec2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Omar Call Preaches Atheism on Tempe’s Mill Avenue
Usually, street preachers share the word of God. For the past several years on Mill, you haven’t been able to walk from one bar to another without tripping over someone sharing the love of Christ through an amplifier or a stack of Bible tracts.
But this blue velvet guy is a different kind of preacher. He’s [...]
An Atheist’s Thoughts At Christmas
As your atheist husband/son/friend/uncle (etc…), I promise to help you when you need help, love you when you need love, challenge you when you need to be challenged, forgive you when you ask for it, ask for forgiveness when I need to, and be there for you in any other way I possibly can.
I [...]
Study: Poverty dramatically affects children’s brains
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
A new study finds that certain brain functions of some low-income 9- and 10-year-olds pale in comparison with those of wealthy children and that the difference is almost equivalent to the damage from a stroke.
“It is a similar pattern to what’s seen in patients with strokes that have led to lesions [...]
Regenerating Tissue
ORLANDO, Florida (CNN) — Regrowing a fingertip cut off in an accident sounds like something from a futuristic movie. But with innovative technology developed by the U.S. Army, such regrowth is possible today.
This research project and a hundred others were on display this month at the 26th Army Science Convention. Some the greatest minds in [...]
U.N. assembly again votes against defaming religion
By Patrick Worsnip
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly condemned defamation of religion for the fourth year running on Thursday, ignoring critics who said the resolution threatens freedom of speech.
The non-binding resolution, championed by Islamic states and opposed by Western countries, passed by 86 votes to 53 with 42 abstentions. Opponents noted that support [...]
Kenneth Hutcherson: Let Them Sleep on the Streets & Starve
One of the positive aspects of Christianity is supposed to be its teachings about charity and providing for the less fortunate in society. Many Christian apologists regularly tout this as a reason why atheists are wrong to argue for an end to religion (as if charity wouldn’t exist without their religion) and, to be perfectly [...]
21Dec2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Kill the Buddha
Lin Chi Zen Master said, “If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet a Patriarch, kill the Patriarch.” Zen Master Seung Sahn says that in this life we must all kill three things: First we must kill our parents. Second, we must kill the Buddha. And lastly, we must kill him! This [...]
20Dec2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Disgraced Evangelical Leader Ted Haggard Says He Struggles With His Sexuality
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard says in a new documentary that he still struggles with his sexuality yet is committed to his marriage for the sake of his children.
Haggard, 52, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and was fired as senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado [...]
Bush Says Creation ‘Not Incompatible’ With Evolution
WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush said his belief that God created the world is not incompatible with the scientific theory of evolution.
In an interview with ABC’s “Nightline” on Monday, the president also said he probably is not a literalist when reading the Bible although an individual can learn [...]
Priest: Playboy cover resembling Mary ‘desperate,’ ‘blasphemous’
Playboy magazine issued an apology Monday for the cover of its Mexican edition, which features an Argentine model in what many observers say is meant to be a depiction of the Virgin Mary.
Playboy Mexico has said the cover was not meant to portray the Virgin Mary, despite being printed just days before the Feast of [...]
Quadrantids meteor shower should be stellar
Rates could range from 60 to 120 per hour for parts of North America
For meteor observers, the presence of an almost-full Moon cast a bright pall on this month’s performance of the Geminid Meteor Shower, normally one of the best meteor displays of the year. But for a wild card, another very good meteor shower [...]
The Brand Loyalty of Religion is Unsurpassed.
For most brand managers, brand loyalty is a crucial metric of success. One way to measure brand loyalty is by gauging the extent of repeat purchases. Suppose that we were to keep track of the next ten purchases of soft drinks for consumers A and B. If consumer A buys Pepsi on each of the [...]
19Dec2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Scientists seek ways to ward off killer asteroids
WASHINGTON — A blue-ribbon panel of scientists is trying to determine the best way to detect and ward off any wandering space rocks that might be on a collision course with Earth.
“We’re looking for the killer asteroid,” James Heasley , of the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy , last week told the committee that [...]
Amish Homeowners Argue Religion Trumps Building Codes
TOWN OF FRANKLIN, Wis. — Daniel Borntreger’s home looks like hundreds of other Wisconsin farmhouses: two-story A-frame, porch, clothes on the line.
But his home could cost him thousands of dollars in fines. Borntreger, an Amish farmer, built the house himself according to Amish tradition — but without a building permit.
His case is among at least 18 [...]
Are the Odds Against the Origin of Life Too Great to Accept?
The following material examines arguments officially and formally refuted in Richard Carrier, “The Argument from Biogenesis: Probabilities against a Natural Origin of Life,” Biology & Philosophy 19.5 (November, 2004), pp. 739-64. Note the clarification added to Addendum C regarding the definition of self-replication. In addition, new and important breakthroughs are continuing. For example, see: Graciela [...]
Microsoft issues patch to fix IE
Microsoft has issued a security patch to fix a critical vulnerability in its Internet Explorer browser which it said has attacked over 2m Windows users.
The flaw is believed to have already infected as many as 10,000 websites.
The “zero day” exploit let criminals take over victims’ computers by steering them to infected websites.
Microsoft’s Christopher Budd said [...]
Pastor who doesn’t believe in evolution to give invocation at Obama inauguration
He’s the “absolute worst” pick, according to The Nation magazine’s Sarah Posner, who said that his selection is nothing more than a “slap in the face”.
“Warren vocally opposes gay marriage, does not believe in evolution, has compared abortion to the Holocaust and backed the assassination of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,” she writes.
Read the entire story…
Reality and Its Rivals: Putting Epistemology First
Being epistemically responsible – not taking appearances at face value and seeking external confirmation for belief – inevitably pushes us toward intersubjectivity and science. This in turn increases the plausibility of the claim that there’s nothing over and above the natural world, what science shows to exist.
About the most crucial distinction we can make as [...]
18Dec2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Couple Accused of Beating Baby With Hammer to Rid Her of ‘Demons’
HENDERSON, Texas — A young East Texas couple was arraigned Wednesday on capital murder charges accusing them of beating the woman’s 1-year-old daughter to get rid of “the demons.”
Authorities said that the child was also bitten more than 20 times.
Blaine Milam, 19, and Jessica Carson, 18, remained jailed Wednesday in lieu of a $2 million bond [...]
Evolution in Scientific American
“The Evolution of Evolution: How Darwin’s Theory Survives, Thrives and Reshapes the World” is the theme of the latest issue of Scientific American (January 2009), commemorating the bicentennial of Darwin’s birth and the sesquicentennial of the publication of the Origin of Species — and NCSE is represented, with Glenn Branch and Eugenie C. Scott’s discussion [...]
17Dec2008 | Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedTranslate
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Earl and Fiona
This image from the GOES-13 satellite, taken at 10:32 a.m. EDT on Sept. 3, shows a huge Hurricane Earl northeast of North Carolina with cloud cover stretching over the northeastern U.S. A disorganized Tropical Storm Fiona is located in the bottom right of this image. Image Credit: NASA/NOAA Goes Project
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