Round Up

My schedule is finally getting back on track -- I might be able to go a night without working until 3 a.m. soon! It's been too long since I've posted though, so I want to do a round up of some good bits since my schedule has decimated my free time.

Religion, Politics, and the End of the World
A debate in four parts between Sam Harris and Chris Hedges. Unedited audio or edited video available here.

Creationism Bullsh!t
Atheist Perspective spotted the always-excellent Penn & Teller doing a Bullsh!t episode on Creationism. This pair is always worth watching and listening to!

The "Is God ... Great?" Debate
Christopher Hitchens and Chris Hedges, one on one. Zombie Time has a video and photo recap of the evening.

OK, let's be frank: Hitchens absolutely mopped the floor with Hedges. It was an embarrassment, really.

Hitchens tends to do that....

Anonymity: Shielf of the Atheist Blogger
vjack describes his struggle with anonymity -- one which I constantly reflect. The post got it's start with Hemant Mehta's criticism of anonymity. Which I also agree with. Hence my own struggle. Much of vjack's reasonings for maintaining anonymity are also my reasonings. In his #3 reason he states:

I believe that my ability to do my job would be jeopardized in many ways by professing my atheism. I would not be fired, but it would become much more difficult to do my job well. I would face increased alienation, a loss of credibility, greater hostility, etc. Because most of my co-workers and many more of my students are Southern Baptists who take their religion very seriously, I simply cannot expect that they would be tolerant of atheism.

This is my primary reason for anonymity -- except that since I work (more or less) as a freelancer, I have little faith (pun intented) that my clients would stick around. Some of my biggest clients are Nazarene. I consider it work politics.

Incidentally, why do you think it is that a large percentage of the atheist blogs that I read are written by teachers? I'm starting to feel left out....

The Sun Revolves Around the Earth
... or so 20% of Americans believe. This is a politically-minded post, but it says a lot about an atheist's position too.

For the democratic process to run properly it necessitates the voter to have some knowledge of what he is voting on. For it to work properly it requires voters to cast their votes based on an educated opinion.

...

There is a reason why people are fighting so hard to get creationism taught in the public schools along side evolution as a scientific alternative.Like I said, it hit me. And it hit me hard.Americans, on top of not having a clue what a cell is or what radiation is or even that the Earth revolves around the Sun are letting religious leaders dictate to them what to vote on issues that would take knowledge of basic scientific fundamentals, because I am assuming that they are assuming that since these religious leaders are supposedly moral and ethical “authorities” they should be qualified to figure out where we stand on these scientific issues, but who is to say that they even know these basic scientific concepts?

This speaks on many levels about how so many people are uneducated on what atheists even are, and why some people believe in creationism.

It's all about the easy answer. School tells them one thing. It's based on evidence. It makes you think. Some parts deal with math. Some even scarier parts deal with physics and chemistry and other sciences. There are a lot of unknowns. Then the church tells them another thing. It's simple and straightforward. You just have to believe a few things that are clearly stated. It's an absolute, too, if you have enough faith it will answer every single damn question you've got.

So if a person hasn't even been taught enough to know that the earth revolves around the sun, who do you think they're going to be more likely to believe? It's clear there is a bigger problem here, lying under the surface of religion.

WTF
Nice photo.