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POPSHello All You Godless Infidels And Happy Heathens Gaylor said this to start her show, Hello all you godless infidels, out-of-the-closet atheists and happy heathens. You can turn on the radio or TV 24/7 to be preached at. This is one hour a week of the public airwaves that offers an alternative. This program is an antidote to the domination of public airwaves by the religious right. Your humble correspondent eagerly await the nauseating and hypocritical outcry from Fox Noise and the religious right in this country which is sure to come. For to them, freedom of religion has never meant freedom from religion and certainly not from our own brand of home-grown Christianity which more and more Americans are viewing as blatantly hypocritical, judgmental and overbearing.
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POPSGod isn't the problem, it's the followers that kill me! Ross Douthat raises a very valid criticism of Christopher Htichens' book God is Not Great. Most people attacking religion in books are going after God. I think this is a waste of time, normally promoted by personal grudges and emotional baggage. As a general rule, scientists should never try to prove a negative statement. On the other hand, if Hitchens hasn't answered Douthat's question, allow me to offer my ten cents in the following response:
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POPSThe transformation of Andrew Sullivan Although it may well annoy people on both sides of the political spectrum, I have to say, with no small amount of admiration, I find it a promising sign that such people can change their minds, rather than lead a life locked in to a single ideology. In all fairness, this is also a quality I can also admire going the other way, as in the cases of Christopher Hitchens and Charlton Heston. Ideological stagnation seems to be a sign of decline in civilizations.
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POPSWhy Atheists are So Smart Thus when Christopher Hitchens and other atheists routinely dismiss religious claims on the grounds that "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence," they are making what philosophers like to call a category mistake. We learn from Kant that within the domain of experience, human reason is sovereign, but it is in no way unreasonable to believe things on faith that simply cannot be adjudicated by reason. When atheists summarily dismiss the immortality of the soul or the afterlife on the grounds that they have never found any empirical proofs for either, they are asking for experiential evidence in a domain which is entirely beyond the reach of experience. In this domain, Kant argues, the absence of evidence cannot be used as the evidence for absence. Notice that Kant's argument is entirely secular: It does not employ any religious vocabulary, nor does it rely on any kind of faith.
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POPSAngry Atheists Are Hot Authors These guys have many good points, but fundamentalist atheists are just as dangerous as fundamentalists of any other religion. And I always want to ask them, "Which particular god don't you believe in?" - because God is unimaginably more than we can imagine.
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POPSAtheists Stunned by Amazing Toast that Does Not Resemble Charles Darwin Whatsoever
The image, said nonbelievers, was further evidence that there is no God, and that the universe is what it is by chance, not the hand of a creator. But religious leaders were quick to say that the toast may still be significant . Details appeared on the Atheist News Service, based in Massachusetts, which specializes in irreligious broadcasts. They reported that the toast, served to Richard Dawkins at breakfast one Tuesday, did not reflect the image of the man who first advanced the concept of evolution. Noted atheist P.Z. Myers, a scientist and someone who did not ever meet Charles Darwin, said he was convinced the toast did not show Darwin. "As you can see from the photo, this toast doesn't look anything like Darwin. Just plain, ordinary toast. Maybe if you squint, you can see a squid...no, I'm just kidding. It just looks like toast." "I'm sure it's delicious with butter, but it doesn't even resemble Christopher Hitchens, much less the author of The Origin of Species."
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POPSMANDELA Arrives for 90th. Birthday Party Friday's concert coincides with the 20th anniversary of London's Free Mandela concert, which was held to demand his release from prison. He had been convicted as a TERRORIST by the APARTHEID regime. He was freed in 1990 after 27 years behind bars, and was elected South Africa's first black president in 1994. He will be 90 on July 18. He has visited London many times and has expressed gratitude for the constant vigil that was held outside the South African embassy in the city during the APARTHEID years. One GREAT MAN. What if ... .
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POPSAtheists Don't Deserve Freedom And as Joan Walsh added: But I wasn't reassured, I was alarmed. Romney blasted "the new religion of secularism," referring to those who continue to argue for strict separation of church and state, which apparently, like certain of the Geneva Conventions under the Bush administration, is becoming "quaint." I sometimes find the anti-God stridency of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens grating. Listening to Romney's speech I realized what a necessary corrective it is to corrosive political pandering. Calling secularism "religion" is a cheap shot worthy of Bill O'Reilly, not a major presidential candidate. I can't help hoping Romney's speech fails to soothe religious conservatives, because the sooner the Republican Party faces up to the destructive cost of its electoral dependence on religious extremists, the better off our country will be.
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POPSThe spirits behind the writers >>Intoxication, if not the source of literary creation, creates a cerebral aura congenial to it. It recasts the glare of life in a softer hue. It soothes anxiety and other stultifiers of reflection. It warms the mind and thaws thoughts frozen in timidity.The fruit of the vine does not give us insight but aids our discovery of it; it can allow you to eavesdrop on yourself. The trick is to find the golden mean between exhilarating and dulling the intellect. Cratinus' belief that only bad verses were written without wine seems too appealing to be untrue. But the best verses no doubt arise when, the wine low in the bottle, Dionysus is still steady enough to dance to the tune of Apollo's lyre.<<
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POPSWorld "Nut" Daily - Usual Tripe I literally laughed out loud after reading the above statement stating how D'Souza used "science" to refute Hitchens. The WND lives up to its reputation of dogma over intelligence by printing this drivel. The tired argument that D'Souza puts forth relies of the argument of improbability, the stock in trade of the ID/Creationist crowd. Although I expect some mouth breathers might find this so startlingly "scientific" cause it refers to numbers and other sciencey stuff that it'll go over big in the church pews. As far as people with even a rudimentary knowledge of science will discover that this is merely another pseudoscience attempt to refute evolution. It's been discredited in too many sources to list. But hey, it's the World Nut Daily. Enough said...
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POPSBlind Faith Christopher Hitchens: "Mark my words: This disappointment is only the first of many that are still to come."
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POPSThe Boogey Man is Gonna Get Ya! According to the review of this new book it seems the author is rehashing the same old discounted arguments over what he dubs the "New Atheism". Using fear and misdirection it seems once again to be a weak attempt to defend the indefensible by a christian apologist.
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POPSA Death in the Family The writer Christopher Hitchens was chilled to discover the implications of commenting on the war. Lieutenant Daily was a decent, honourable and sincere young man. We should remember his like and all those who perish under the cloud of violent words and ideas.
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POPSDawkins/McGrath conversation A splendid debate between Dawkins and McGrath. Although I found myself not agreeing with all of Dawkins comments by and large I throughly enjoyed the exchange.
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POPSIraq War Analogies - a list of articles A list of articles on Iraq war analogies (similarities/differences) with other wars (Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Germany, Lebanon, Civil war, Boer War, e.a) Some interesting reads here ...
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